Monday Musings

Remember those fun little crafts from long, long ago called Shrinky Dinks? You color a design on a piece of plastic, cut out the design and place it in a warm oven. Then a magical transformation takes place and the plastic design becomes a small hard plastic design that you can wear as jewelry, or even fancier, a keychain.

Someone must've been deep cleaning in their craft closet, because I found two packs of them for fifty cents at Goodwill. I think the kids enjoyed them. It kept them busy for a full forty five minutes. They will remember them fondly, Brooke as "shrinkie dinkies", Tristan as "Shrinkie Winkies" and Thomas as "weensie dinkie pinkies".



In other news, Bailey has her first tooth! It is on the bottom right. She has been forewarned not to use any new tooth skills during nursing. She appears to have taken that warning very seriously.

She had her first solid food a week and a half ago. She did not have bananas because I definately started her off with rice cereal so not to develop any food allergies, and proceeded carefully onto vegetables and then fruits at two week intervals, because I always do things the way you are supposed to. Perhaps this should have been a Not Me Monday post. (Just for the record, I definately did not give her a small bite of ice cream either.)

She also learned how to roll over, both ways. So now she rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls.........

Thomas apparently thinks corn tastes much better when you are sitting on the table.

Thomas also asked me if I was "going to drive that lawnmower" the other day when I went out to do yardwork. This is funny because we don't have a riding lawnmower. It's a push mower. He also talks about "driving" the vacuum cleaner.

It was Timothy's birthday on August 11th. He turned nine. I was going to try to have a friend party for him, but we just couldn't work it out. Sorry, R and C. :(

Happy Birthday, Timothy!!

Show us Your Life Baby Showers!

If you're coming over from Kelly's blog today to see the baby showers, I had already done two posts on them, so here they are..........

Baby Shower: Kim's and Mine for Bailey Caroline

Brittany and I made the diaper cake for Kim, and Brittany, Bethany and Brooke made the pink diaper cake for Bailey and me.

Yes, we are still here.

No, we have not fallen off the face of the earth, or spontaneously combusted, nor has the rapture occurred. I am just trying to get my school planning done because the kids are dying to start school by the first week in September. Which is in less than two weeks.

So, I am trying to get everything finished and planned because you all know, because I've said it a million times, that I like to get my planning done over the summer. No more planning gets done by me during the school year. So, if we are doing it, I have to plan it now.

Yes, I did say the kids are "dying to" start school, not "dying at the thought of" starting school. I try to make it interesting to me fun for them and they also enjoy the structure our day has when we are doing school. I do have to occasionally remind them of this when they are complaining about their math lesson. Or the occasional spelling lesson.

Not Me Monday....

I realized I had not posted a Not Me Monday in a long while, and there have certainly been lots of things that we certainly have not been doing lately.



Thomas definately did not get into the girls' craft paint and and make a trail of non-washable green paint through the living room carpet, because green is not his favorite color. Now, his favorite color is obviously red.




Thomas also has not taken over protecting the family, instead of running around calling everyone names with various forms of "potty" language.



Brittany has not been practicing cake decorating lately, and of course, nobody is willing to eat the experiments.



Lastly, the children have totally not roasted marshmellows with a skewer over a Party Lite candle because what kind of mother would promote such dangerous and irresponsible behavior?

Guess who's five months old?

Asleep.



Awake.



Asleep.



Awake.



Asleep.



Awake.



Asleep.



Awake.




I bring my family joy at every waking (and not so waking) moment.



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Death by Chocolate

I bribed the children when we went grocery shopping that if they cleaned the house, we would bring them home a treat. I meant some cookies or something simple. So, as I was choosing through the frozen vegetables I sent David to go get something for them, and what does he come out with? A double chocolate satin frosted cake with chocolate piped fluted icing, adorned with chopped pecans.

I said, "Sweet mercy! Now what are you getting for the children?" And, he said, "This is for the children, it's cheaper than the cupcakes."

Hmmm.


We left Kroger, only after answering three different people, "No, we aren't having a party, we just have eight children", hence the two carts overflowing with various food items. Note, I have been tempted on various occassions to reply, "No, I just eat alot." Which, is actually somewhat true.

We did come home to a mostly clean house, deserving, I guess, of the double chocolate, satin cake. So, after cutting them all a piece, there was one piece left. It had two, yes two, chocolate piped fluted mounds on top. I know.

So, I did what any doting mother would do to her deserving children, and shoved that baby behind the bread so no one would see it. Don't judge me.

Did I enjoy my little chocolate, satin slice of pure heaven coated with with chopped pecans?

I give you Exhibit A.