Help Me I'm Melting

I would like to apologize to the East Coast.  Apparently Mother Nature did not appreciate my post about perfect New England summers.  Between writing and publishing my last post, I have simultaneously melted, roasted, and had my hair expand to the size of Pluto's moon.  New England has disguised itself temporarily (I hope) as North Carolina.

Only in North Carolina I had central air conditioning.  Here I have a teeny tiny window unit that I've never turned on and looks weak enough to only cool off a closet.

I had been bragging about not using air conditioning for my third straight summer, but that streak is over!  Today we hung sheets up in the house to limit the square footage that poor air conditioner must cool off and flipped it on.  It has dropped the temperature in the living room from "I've died and ended up in hell" to "I've died and been reincarnated as a turkey in the oven."  We're hoping to hit "Maybe I still do want to live" by the end of the night.

Now we are all sitting in the living room wearing various degrees of clothing.  That is all you need, or should want, to know on that matter.  But, because I never know when to stop, at least 7/8 of us are in underwear only. 

So if you're looking for a good sweat lodge, come on over.  Just bring a towel to mop up the 8 puddles of family members you'll find inside.

If it doesn't drop down away from 100 degrees soon (that is 37 degrees for you Celsius people) I'm might consider moving to Antarctica.  Or trying to fit my bed inside our stand up freezer.  Or consider an all popsicle diet.  Or try to stop rambling (but I can't because it is too HOT to think coherently).

A Summer Evening at our House

New England may freeze you in the winter and procrastinate spring longer than necessary, but every summer I realize why people live here.

Oh, the summers!

One evening last week all eight of us seemed unwilling to abandon the late afternoon sunlight for its artificial replacement. After dining on Dad grilled burgers on our picnic table and inaugurating our new fire pit appropriately with s’mores, we all lingered in the backyard. Sitting in the rocking chair enjoying a book, I paused to check on the family.

My oldest daughter relaxed in the hammock, her teenage limbs stretching comfortably, and my youngest child snuggled next to her as they giggling their way through a picture book. My other daughter practiced her golf swing with occasional direction from her father. He watched her as he sat in my neighboring rocking chair, the three other boys piled on his lap showing him the intricacies of their newest favorite game on my phone.

The weather hovered in the mid seventies, the lingering smell of slowly dying fire permeated the yard, and the ever faithful ocean breeze, carrying the gentle sounds of waves, left a slight taste of salt as I breathed it. As the light waned, I flipped on the balcony lights to augment the light of bug-preventing candles distributed through the yard, and continued listening to the joyful murmur of my family as I read my book.

Content.

Peaceful.

Happy.

Oh, the summers!

When I think of my happy place, it's filled with memories like these. There is swimming in North Carolina and catching fire flies in Missouri; summer evenings spread over the years. The situations change and the children grow, but the feeling builds on itself. The joy now mixes with the joy of yesteryear and I keep them all to ponder in my heart.

Oh, the summers!

If you don’t see much of me in the next couple months, I’d like for you to think of me experiencing memories like these. But, if it makes you feel better, you can picture me taking all the kids grocery shopping and then hiding in the closet with a jumbo sized bag of chocolate candy (because that is also a part of my summer experience)!

Plan to Distract Kids as Chronicled by my Phone's Camera

Back in the depths of winter when I was wracking my brain for the perfect Christmas present for my husband, the greatest idea came to me.  Every summer a PGA golf tournament plays not far from us; why not buy tickets for it?  In the process of buying tickets, I found out children under 15 are free.

So finally the weekend arrived and Peter had to choose who was going.  Would it be the whole family?  One choice child?  After explaining that I wouldn't chose for him, he made the wise (and brave) choice of taking the oldest 4 kids, who all happen to currently be taking golf lessons.  That was great, but left me with the job of making sure the two little ones didn't feel left out.    How, you may ask, does one distract an almost 6 and 4 year old from noticing their siblings aren't around? Project Fun Day with Just Mom was born.  I present to you the PLAN as chronicled by my iPhone.

#1- Breakfast out.
Include donuts and hot chocolate in neighboring tourist town.  Also include son pointing out loudly and excitedly that the family the next table over has TWO DADDIES, which must not have been too offensive as one of the daddies later helped out when other son spilled his hot chocolate on way out the door.

#2- Stop at small theater while strolling between donut store and book store to get picture with their favorite local whale.

#3- Spend way too much time at the Best Used Book Store on the Planet.
Seriously, you should be so lucky as to have this book store near you (which is big enough to actually be several buildings on an old farm outside of town AND two satellite stores in already mentioned touristy town)

#4- Leave first tourist town for other tourist town to visit other favorite store, a.k.a. Consignment-store-where-people-who-have-one-child-while-in-their-late-thirties-bring-their-barely-used-name-brand-clothing Store.  Now THAT is some name, huh?

Spend under $150 to outfit all the kids for summer.

Wonder why you would think driving to the two biggest tourist towns on a Saturday in the summer was a good idea.

#5- Have compassion on kids and let them take a break for lunch.  With only the smallest kids with me, there was no Playland angst involved.

#6- Drive home.  Enjoy naps, reading, and Netflix streaming of Karate Kid on laptop.

#7- Head back out and let the kids spend their allowance money for the toy they've been saving up a month for.

#8- Just as day is ending, get call from husband's counselor in Youth Program (Young Mens) asking why Peter isn't answering his phone as there was a glitch in rides home from Youth Conference and 4 kids need ride from drop off spot over an hour away.  Need someone there in 45 minutes.  Hop in car and enjoy 3 hour detour in plan.

Joseph asked only once where the other kids where.  When I explained they were (quietly) watching other people play golf all day, he was completely satisfied with our alternate choice of entertainment. So was I.

Peter and the kids, however, had a blast and it was totally a fantastic Christmas present for him.

Meet my friend Karen

Karen is a friend I met on twitter (@Karinaink) whom I just adore.  She was one of the first people I met, actually.  A few months ago I found out she has a delightful blog where she writes about her family and her creativity.  She shows the world how to be graceful and thrive, even when struggling with MS and 4 little boys under the age of 6- a couple of whom are autistic.  Instead of wallowing in difficulty, she embraces life.  It is truly inspirational.  You should totally check her out!

So when she had a giveaway on her blog with one of her creations, I knew I had to participate.  Even if I'm too late writing this post to even get what she offers, I still love helping out my friends, especially the really cool ones.  She makes lovely letter banners that look something like this:

She sells the banners in her Etsy shop (Karina, Ink) for $2.50 a letter.  Really, they are gorgeous, aren't they?  You could go for the entire alphabet (she gives you a deal for it!):

P.S. Did you notice I used "whom" twice in this post? I know, totally geeky, right?

I might have to break up with playlands

Well it finally happened for me.  About 100 days after everyone else in the country finishes their school year, my kids finally started summer vacation.  I was trying to find the best way to celebrate, but couldn't chose between hiding in my closet or curling in the fetal position on my bed.  So instead, I took my elementary kids out of class early and brought them to McDonald's for lunch.  Yeah, I really was that tired of packing lunches and that ready to not send in more lunch money.

Now McDonald's and I have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship for many years.  They not only provide me with extra padding around the middle and backside, they are also my sanity keeper on days when I need a break (especially rain days).  I think McDonald's Playlands may be the greatest invention since earplugs or duct tape.  It may qualify for the single greatest reason all my children and sanity survive summers.

In return for these lovely benefits, I provide them with astronomical sums of money.

Our relationship was so strong, it survived the my childen's discovery that McD's sells more than dollar sandwiches and even has options with cheap toys included.  It later survived half the kids graduating from Happy Meals to Arm-and-Leg-Costing Meals.  It (barely) survived fries cooked in non-hydrogenated fat. It even made it through that rough patch where they got my order wrong every single time I went for an entire six months.   But it may not survive my children's discovery of a height limit sign for the Playland.

How can I get a moment alone in the middle of a chaotic summer day when half my kids no longer fit on the Playland?  "Can I have your iPhone? " asked in triplicate is not my idea of fun.  Neither is a chanted rendition of "When are we going home, I'm bored."  I can't very well pretend the kids aren't mine when they are draped all over me, feigning death from lack of sliding.

I just paid tens of dollars for a moment's peace and now I get nothing.  Well, I still get the extra padding, but I could get that in the drive through without unnecessarily burning calories by walking inside!

So my summer plans have been dashed.  I'm going to go with my original plan of alternating between the closet and the fetal position with short breaks for chocolate.  Better make sure I've stocked up on extra earplugs and duct tape.  If some kids don't survive the summer, I'm blaming McDonalds.

A jungle birthday party and my idea of slightly overboard.

So Kirsti's party was today and was a huge hit.  I had 12 kids (plus my 6 for 18).  I thought I would give you an overview of what I consider "a slight bit overboard" on birthday parties.  If you look closely at the background, you can also see what happens to a house when mom is busy planning a birthday party for two weeks.

First of all, the cake.  She wanted a 3D monkey cake and she got it!  I had extra cake mix so she had some cupcakes, too.  Good thing, because I had to write happy birthday somewhere!
This cake was made from a 3D Wilton Teddy Bear cake pan with the ears cut off and reattached lower and hand molded Rice Crispie Treats for the hands, feet, and tail.  I came close to just adopting it and making it part of the family; I loved the outcome that much. Also, it took nearly as long as my labors to get it here.  Especially since the first go around fell apart.  When in doubt, use this recipe for 3D cakes, I guess, because that is what made it  work.

Next came the goodie bags.

• I designed and made the actual bags myself.  Fabric stores now sell gorcery bag material and mine carried it in zebra stripes.  Awesome!!  
• I also designed and made all the monkey masks.  This site has great blank templates for masks.  I'll be coming back later in the summer for crafts.   
• The foam puppets were bought in bulk and separated out.  
• The monkey keychains were the craft.   I judge age appropriate craft by my kids' ability to do it, forgetting they have extra practice in crafts, but it turned out okay and the kids liked them. You can make your own with this pattern.  Due to a lack of brown beads in all three local craft stores, I special ordered the beads. Kwik crafts had a fantastic deal and they arrived 2 days after the order was made.

Then there were the decorations.

• I printed out coloring pages of animals and enlarged them onto poster board with my tracer.  What?  You don't own a tracer projector?  I'm on my second already.  Then I traced over the lines with a sharpie, colored them all, and cut them out.  
• I filled 23 balloons with helium, 5 of which survived till the end of the party.  
• I also bought animal birthday hats, animal shaped paper plates with matching cups, some table covers.  
• God provided the rest of the decor, it was lovely.  I wrapped all our presents to her in brown paper with animal print ribbon and thought it looked fantastic!

And finally, the party itself, where I forgot to take pictures until lunch time).

• We began with coloring bookmarks backed with animal print that I laminated during the party, added a hole and some hemp rope.  
• Then we played pin the tail of the Zebra (I was particularly proud of the zebra I made, almost wanted to adopt her, too).  Then onto the beach for an elephant race. Basically you reach between your legs and take the hand of the person behind you who does the same until there is a long chain and then race.  
• We settled down for the keychain craft and then headed onto the beach/sandbar for several minutes of play.  
• Then pizza, pinata, cake, & presents.  (Sadly I could not think of a word for cake that started with "P".) 

Was that as exhausting for you as it was for me?  Probably not.

Too many hours to admit to prepare, 2 hours set up in the morning, 3 hour party, 1 hour clean up.  Four more years till her next friend party.

Here is a picture of the birthday girl opening our family presents because we ran out of time before the party ended.  Happy birthday Kirsti!!

I Run So You Can Fly

I remember now why I only do friend parties every four years.  I tend to go a slight bit overboard.  The last week filled itself with googling ideas, running to 5000 stores to see if they have what I need, sewing, cutting, glue gunning, and (truth be told) a whole lot of talking to myself out loud as I figure out how to do what I want.

On top of that, there is the normal end of school year activities, preschool, extra trips to school to drop off forgotten items and various other regular-life-with-six-children running around.


In short, I've been running myself exhausted for the last week.

One day, after getting home from several errands, I found myself with an entire spare half hour before the school bus started dropping off children.  I settled onto the couch to relax, but it wasn't long before Matthew climbed on my lap and asked me to let him play on the beach.  Now "let me play on the beach" is code for "play with me on the beach."  Being ever so tired, I at first refused.  Then I remembered that running all these errands is doubly tiring and boring for a (almost) 4 year old.  Thinking of the little jellyfish we'd made in preschool the day before, I suggested we take it for a walk.


In absolute glee, he accepted my offer and we headed outside.

 The slight wind took hold of the streamers as Matthew ran and the fish flew with abandon behind him.  "Mom, my jellyfish is flying!  I'm going to let go so it can fly into the sky." 

I explained to him that it could only fly because he was running so hard.  Without his work, the jellyfish would be a crumpled mess on the sand.

At that moment, I realized my running around was worth it.  I run so my kids can fly.

Magical childhoods don't just happen.  There is a lot of work that goes into making all those memories.  The kids remember highlights and enjoy the safety of their bubble. I maintain the bubble.  They don't see the effort behind taking them to the zoo, making dinner every night, providing the environment that allows them to flourish. 

But that is okay.  One day they will gain their own feet.  Then they must run to feel the wind on their face.  Right now I'm content to run for them, giving them time to fly.

My Mind is Fixated on Making Birthday Cakes

My kids get a friend birthday party every 4 years, but my timing of children means every other year half the kids get a party.  This year two of those kids get them in a row, starting next week.  So I have birthday party planning on my brain.  So anyway, I thought I would post something relevant.

My birthday cake making skills didn't really start until midway through my husband's medical school.  That is when I took a class the taught how to turn any coloring page into a cake.  It is so EASY!! {I found a link to a tutorial}  This is how I did cakes for years.  Then last year I found a website with video of step by step instructions for easy dimensional cakes.  So I made a train cake for Matthew's birthday and then a pirate for Joseph's.  Suddenly all the kids wanted 3D cakes, culminating in the disaster of Elise's 13th birthday.  Still, we've recovered and I will be making a  monkey cake next week.  Hopefully it doesn't explode!

It does take time to figure out how to make the shapes and a bit of time to decorate, but my kids put their plans in months ahead and look forward to my creations.  I'm not perfect, but I'm good enough to make happy memories for the kids.

Below are some of my favorite cakes from years past.  You'll notice even Peter asks for special designs.

If you're interested in stepping up your cake making skills, but are not ready for fondant or Cake Boss, these are some sites with (easy-ish) but fun ideas:

Betty Crocker  (with videos and great tips!)
Coolest Homemade Birthday Cakes
Family Fun
Parenting

Sometimes the kids are quite specific with their wishes, but google has yet to not give me at least a starting place for how to do it!

Again, I found someone who already did a tutorial for the coloring page technique and it turns out I had forgotten some steps over time, so I'm glad I found it!

They've taken over my bathroom

I must confess, I have a few idiosyncrasies.  Which is the nice way to say I'm on the path toward being the eccentric lady at church.  Which is itself the nice way of saying I'm borderline nuts.  One of these little, slightly odd behaviors involves using the bathroom.  In our house we have 4.5 bathrooms.  I use only one.  The one true bathroom is connected to my bedroom; I pass 3 other options every time I go there to use it.

But it is mine!!  I know it is cleaner, it has my Sudoku puzzle book in it, and it is in the far corner of the house so it takes longer for the kids to find me.  The other day, though, in the middle of my shower, I noticed something that disturbed me greatly.  I took a picture to disturb you, too.

See those name brand shower gels?  That was our (unsuccessful) attempt to trick our preteen boys into thinking it's cool to use soap.  Don't laugh too hard, it worked with deodorant.  Well it sort of worked with the deodorant, anyway.  The shampoo is the kids', too.  The point is that is MY shower and those are MY BOYS' toiletries. 

To make matters worse, I noticed this pile of clothes when I got out.  It includes clothes from at least 4 of my 6 children.  FOUR kids have undressed and thrown their clothes in MY BATHROOM in the last day.*

See the brush peeking out from under the cabinet, my DAUGHTER's brush?  In fact, looking around the sink, I notice 1/3 of the mess is hers.  Why no picture?  Because of the other 2/3 of the mess, duh.  Although I can guarantee you a mere 1/3 of it was still sizable.

So anyway, my kids have caught onto the one true bathroom and have decided to join me.  That sort of defeats the point.  It does explain, however, why the toilet seat is sometimes wet: even the three-year-old, whose bathroom experience can be summed up with "What's the point of lifting the seat, anyway?", has been venturing upstairs for bathroom visits.

My sanctuary has been invaded, time to buy a padlock.  Maybe I really should just go with my long considered plan for outhouses?






* Honesty guilt is telling me I should mention that the red striped thing on the end is actually my swimsuit.  As for the plastic bag?  I have no idea, but it wasn't easily photoshopped out, so it stays.  Um, not that I'm prone to photoshop out unsightly messes or anything.  Not even honesty guilt is enough to admit that...

You Can't Go Home Again. Not Without Directions.

You know that saying, "You can't go home again"?  I always thought it was a statement about the difficulty of returning to a place of strong memories when you are not the same person you were when the memories were made.  But it turns out that in my case I can't go home again because I wouldn't be able to find it.

The conference I went to last weekend was held about three (four?) blocks from the house I lived in during high school.  The hotel I stayed in was on my old street.  Sure my street used to end only a 1/2 block from my house, but how hard could it be?  It's still the same road, just extended, right?

(Um, also the road technically isn't the same name as when I lived there, but I knew it was the same street.)

Of course, my old high school is now a movie theater, the new high school is where the local polygamous house once stood, and the rarely used train tracks down the street are now a major monorail.  But, all this happened while my parents still lived there, so I was okay with the changes. Or so I thought.

Silly me. I really thought I could find my way without much effort. 


I got lost. I somehow ended up pretty far east in the valley and when I finally thought I was headed west on my old street, I was a mere four turns away from actually being on the right street.  While aimlessly finding my way , I remembered I'd accidentally picked up travel sized mousse instead of travel sized hairspray.  The local Walmart was just around the corner from my old house, so I could just stop and pick up the right stuff. 

Unfortunately, the local Walmart is now a strip mall full of trendy eating places.

It took me 45 minutes to find another Walmart (Is that even possible?  I thought there was a law that there must be one within 5 minutes of every spot in the USA.)  I ended up at one on a street that didn't exist when I lived there.  In fact it might have been in a town that didn't exist when I lived there.  I later learned my problem was going the wrong way out of the parking lot.  The nearest store was actually where the old sand dunes once existed.

Why didn't I think of that?

I then got lost trying to find my hometown street again so I could check into the hotel.  Like 30-minutes-trying-to-get-to-the-right-road-again lost.

The next morning I woke up craving nothing more than a donut and hot chocolate. So I called my mom and asked her for the nearest Krispy Kreme.  After getting lost AGAIN, I found the spot.  It's now a Sweet Tomato.  Turns out the nearest KK is now 45 minutes away.  So I decided to go to Panera.  Or would have if the closest wasn't in Colorado.

Declaring defeat and calling my mother AGAIN for directions to Albertsons (I knew where it used to be, but this town likes to move things around), I passed a Starbucks.  At the old sand dunes by Walmart. 

With my drink and pastry in hand, I only got lost one more time trying to get to the convention center.  Oh, and once more the next day trying to get there again.  Oh, and one more time trying to get to the freeway after it was over.  That one took me a while to get out of.

So yes, I really can't go home again.  Or maybe I'll take my GPS with me next time.