Doing the LOAD

I signed up to do LOAD May '09. You are probably wonder what the heck is LOAD? LOAD stands for LayOut A Day. So I plan on making on scrapbook layout every day in May. It costs $10 and I figured if I paid I would stick with it. You can't work ahead and if you get behind, then you're out of the running for some prize but I just want to do it, to do it. Keely signed up too even though she's working a ton, taking an online photography class and I think she was signing up for another online scrapbook design class . . . talk about overload. I was planning on kicking off LOAD by going to the store Keely works at this weekend and doing their crop. It's National Scrapbook Day on Saturday. I was really looking forward to it until the kids got sick then everything went to hell here and I didn't see how I was going to get myself pulled together in time to go this weekend and funds are low in the bank account so I backed out (sorry, Keel). Now Reese has Croup so it's better if I stay home anyway. But I did schedule some time to have my own crop at home which sounds stupid I know but the kids are going to Grammy's all afternoon tomorrow and then on Saturday Aaron is going to take them somewhere, not sure exactly where but that's his thing not mine. I'm excited I haven't scrapbooked for almost 2 weeks now since the kids were sick it threw a wrench into all that creativity I had going on for a few weeks but I'm ready to jump back in so wish me luck we'll see how my LOAD goes.

The Road to Recovery

Boy this sickness has wiped out the kids completely. I believe the fevers are gone and the are eating some but not much. Ethan has requested pizza and Donalds so far today which means he's somewhat hungry. But this is pretty much the scene here.

Not much playing at all, lots of napping, and some crying.

She wanted to play with our box of beans. She wanted to do a project. She wanted to color. I tried to join her in coloring but with Reese being up it is hard for me to sit and do those things with her. I soon found her asleep on my bed where she took a 4 hour nap! It's in the 80's today and Caden even wanted to go outside so he got on his shoes walked around the yard for about 2 minutes and came in. That did him in for a while.

Now I think it's Reese's turn. She has diarrhea now. Oh joy!

Let the whining begin

The kids are starting to feel better. Aaron went back to work. Addison is the only one who still has a fever. Even the baby was very whiny today, screaming "mine" when someone sat on the quilt I was using which I hope doesn't mean she is now getting sick.

Ethan's uttered a few words today, "no hat" noticing one of the hatless snowmen on my jammies, "stuck" when he couldn't pick up his blanket, and a classic "I want to watch SpongeBob". The only words I heard him say since Monday were "NO" every time I went to give him medicine and "back to sleep" when I had to wake him. The requests have already started today:

• I want more drink
• I want to watch something different on TV
• I need a pillow
• This pillow is too big
• This blanket smells
• I need my yellow blanket
• I want to go upstairs
• I need you to wipe my bottom
• Dink, Cakrs! (drink, crackers)

I kind of got spoiled the last couple days since all they did was sleep, so I propped myself on the couch and watched whatever TV shows I wanted to watch now they are slowly coming back to life my day may not be so easy . . .

I'm still not getting out of my jammies though.

Right Now

Here's the scene at my house:

Yep, everybody sick, everybody but me (Thank God!) even Aaron has stayed home from work the last two days. Ethan started it all at 1am on Tuesday with vomit and diarrhea like every hour. He wore 5 pairs of jammies that night alone. In the morning I had to cancel everything: the cleaning lady, muffins with mom activity at preschool, preschool, and babysitting the neighbor girl after school. Even though Addison and Caden weren't sick yet, I figured it was to come.

Then the little by little someone would get sick every hour or so, by 6pm everyone had thrown up at least once. Mostly the day was quiet as everyone slept and slept. I don't think Ethan has ever slept so much in his life combined. He pops awake every few hours in search of liquid and a person to help him drink it. Yesterday he snuck downstairs found a cup of milk on the table and drank it, of course you know I saw that milk again later.

I put him in beds or on the couch then later I find him laying on the floor someplace . . .not sure why that's his choice but we just leave him. Nothing seems to phase Reese and even though she threw up once, still is going strong, I couldn't get her to be still long enough to get an unblurry photo. She is constantly screaming "eat, eat" but I'm trying to not to feed her a lot since I don't know if her tummy is ready yet.

Despite the fact that there's a lot of sickies here, I've kind of had a "stay cation".

I decided yesterday that I wasn't going to try to do one thing while this was going on. So basically in between washing my EIGHT loads of laundry yesterday, cleaning up body fluids, and tending to giving drinks and medicine and back rubs, I just sat on the couch and did nothing. I cooked no meals and took two naps yesterday, held kids a lot of the day. It was quite the change of pace for me and I did relax a lot.

This afternoon, Aaron's perking up and Ethan's actually been awake for a couple hours now so I think they are on the mend although the kids still all have fevers of about 101-103. So we'll have another day at home tomorrow and maybe I'll sneak in a nap or two.

Rainy Stroll

I've been so busy creating with my heap of scrapbook stuff. I just can't stop sometimes I'm making two layouts a night! I'm back to burning the midnight (or later) oil. I'm using a lot of my stash and not worrying and fussing about every single detail which I think makes it even more fun and creative.

I'm not going to bore everyone with all the layouts I am making, plus it would take more time away from scrapbooking to show all these layouts I 've made in the last week (about 10). So I'll just show my latest. I'm getting so fast too -- I think this took about 40 minutes from picking out the paper to writing the journaling. And to top it off I like it!

Easter Memories

The kids woke up early (6:30) of course. We had the baby gate up at the bottom of the stairs so no one sneaked down ahead to peak. Their filled baskets were on the couch. They were excited!
Then the egg hunt began. The bunny doesn't make things too hard at our house and he goes a little overboard.

Pretty sure there were over a hundred eggs. He needs to cut back next year.

Reese was a good egg finder.


There was lots of unsupervised candy eating.


This one had her moments because she ate A LOT of candy including jelly beans.

I didn't think she could open the eggs, I was wrong.

She had moments of extreme happiness followed by major meltdowns, not like her at all.

I spent a lot of time finding our 4 bunny ears from last year and I wanted a group photo. This is the best one.

I was not amused but settled for individual shots outside.



The only way I could get Ethan to wear bunny ears was for him to pretend he was a bunny, but it worked.

We headed to Aaron's sister's house. The drums are a HUGE hit with Ethan.

They are very loud and he demands an audience, so fun! I bet this will continue to be a theme in my future. We had a really great meal then the kids headed to the trampolene.

Then a baseball game was played. We finally gave Blaine his month old birthday gift of a bat and helmet.


Even I tried the trampolene but those things are dangerous and Reese hit her mouth on my knee and there was some blood. We had a nice time and our visit ended by a pile on Papa game.

We headed home to our sea of plastic eggs. It was a fun day but I hate plastic eggs!

Getting Real: My Threads and My Voice

I'm willing to admit I have rough time being a stay-at-home mommy at times, with the last few months being more rough than others but I'm on the upswing now . . . someday I may go into all that . . . someday. During my "rough patch", I considered a lot of things like giving up scrapbooking, quitting my blog, getting a second washer and dryer, running away forever (just kidding). But I now see that blogging and scrapbooking are sometimes the only threads I have of me. I need to create, I just do, I love artsy-fartsy stuff like gluing paper and sewing scraps of fabric together. I know some people don't get it, just like I don't get shopping as a hobby or just sitting and watching TV. Something I created from nothing into something that means something to me. I guess the kids are the same as scrapbook layouts and quilts since we created them too but I can't put them in neatly away and just look at them when I want.

Blogging seems to be my voice. I like to voice my opinion, my thoughts, my ideas. I know like 5 people read it (Thanks, if you do but I don't do it for you) I do it for me. It's fun to go back and look at my posts last year, it helps me remember that there's good times and bad times, and life just goes in cycles like that all the time. I feel like I am out in the world and that my thoughts are being heard because God knows there are many times here when you can't even hear your own thoughts over all the yelling and crying and laughing and giggling in this house. My blog is like me yelling out the window at the world (at the 5 people in my world). I really have a great life and consider myself lucky to be a mom and get to stay at home although that also seems it will be the death of me sometimes too.

I really am real on here -- this is me. My sis and I have been discussing how some blogs are getting on our nerves lately with their perfectly decorated homes and all the time spent on decorating (gag!) and people who ask for prayers every 5 seconds for everything under the sun and then quote Bible verses right and left (no offense, but moderation is the key in all things including religion), and my biggest pet peeve is the fake blog where all their children are delightful and wonderful and every project and activity, fun and enjoyable. Pluh ----eeeeeese! I think I've hit a new chapter in blogging and will be deleting many of 130+ blogs I read. Instead I'm on the search for the real-deal moms and here's my new favorite one. This post got me hooked and I sticking with her. She says she has 458 kids but I think it's 4, so she knows me, and I know her. She might be my new BFF and she cusses some on her blog which is not a bother to me, hell I may start cussing more here too. Check her out for some laughs and see how she holds on to her life everyday too. I'm off to go get creative for more threads to hang on to.

A Hunting We Went

Last weekend we took the kids to an Easter Egg Hunt at the elementary school. It's an annual thing but we've never gone before. I was a little apprehensive because I figured it would be everyone standing in one large group where "Go!" would be yelled and 200 kids would scramble for 50 eggs, big kids would be pushy little kids, and there would be crying, and more than likely my husband would be yelling at a non-family members. Fortunately it was nothing like that at all, they had separate ares for groups. Reesey could have hunted in the 0-3 year old group but that meant one of us had to stay in the 4-5 year old group with kids, so Reese just joined in with her brothers and sister.


It was so fun at this age they are just getting it so there was no pushing and my kids didn't even run.



There was tons of eggs and toys. Everyone (except Reese) got a WHOLE full of stuff.



They all took there time and enjoyed the hunt, no rushing, what's the hurry? There was even time in the middle of the hunt to hug the Easter Bunny.





Reesey found a bunny face whistle that took her back to the good old Paci days. She was happy with it!



More hugs for the Bunny after all the eggs were found!



Ethan played a quick game of Ethan Says with the Bunny.



Reesey wanted nothing to do with the Rabbit, I should have gotten a photo of the tears but didn't.



It was a great day!

Back to My Life

Getting back into the swing of things around here (even though it snowed here last night again and I had to walk the kids to school in 32 degree temperatures, my hate for the truck now = a flat tire). Anyway, I've been back to painting the kids' room as I'm really wanting to get it done and things hung up and a little more organization so they can play upstairs. Addison is dying for her dress up clothes and they all want to read books again.



This weekend I stayed up late on Saturday (1:30 am!) and scrapped I made two layouts and 2 cards. I make myself make a card with the scraps of paper almost every layout -- that way I have a stash of cards ready to go instead of making them at the last minute, like I normally do. Anyway I was glad to get back to doing that -- it's been way too long since I've been able to consistently scrapbook. Saturday I also realized for the hundred millionth time I have WAY TOO MUCH scrapbooking supplies and I really don't want one more thing until I work for a while (got it, Keely, don't show me one thing!). Anyway here's one that I started Saturday and finished Sunday -- It's got a lot of stuff on it but I have had these photos printed since last March and wanted to use them together but never could come up with anything.



Hope you're having a great Monday too!