Monday Musings

Timothy, my 7 year old dear son, is one of a kind. One morning after getting out of bed, he complained that there were "eye crumbs" in his eyes.
When Timothy was about 2 or 3, he was looking at the case of one of my husband's computer games. It had a skull with wings (It was an ad for another game) He didn't know the word skull, but he knew "bone" and he knew that the skull was a bone. So he said, "Mom, what is that flying bonehead?"
Once when he was about 2, we went into a sandwich shop. I let go of his hand for a minute and he had walked over to someone else's table to sit down with them and try and eat their food. He's always been my friendliest child. :)

Yard Sales

Today my 12 y.o. daughter and I went out to the yardsales-one of our favorite things to do. I was really pleased with what I found. i spent about $30 and bought the following
3 jeans and 2 shirts for the boys, 5 playstation games (we do video games, but I'm very particular), 4 books on tape, The Real Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes book, Collection of Beatrix Potter stories with her original drawings, 4 baby board books, 3 books for homeschool, a baseball glove, a Melissa & Doug solar system puzzle, 3 preschool puzzles and a Fisher Price musical chair for the baby.
My daugher found the cutest tea set with china doll in a white wicker basket for $4 (her most exciting find!), an almost unused scrapbook kit for $1, some well-kept barbies and clothes, and some slip-on Keds for $1.
We usually only do the big neighborhood sales in the spring and fall. The other sale we went to this fall was a few weeks ago. I found some Amazing Animals vidoes, a presidential Fandex and some homeschool books for $1 apiece. Most of the kids clothes, toys and homeschool/educational stuff comes from yard sales. You have to be selective and most people are ready to bargain if you ask.
I think that this was the last biggest sale for the fall. We'll have to wait til spring. :( but, we have been very excited with all our good finds. :)

Grocery Shopping

Okay, how much does it cost to feed a family of 9? Well, Kroger had to get special permission to accept the amount of the check I wrote out today! I had 2 BIG carts full of stuff. My dh only gets paid once a month, so I like to shop for everythinig intially then I only have to go back for stuff like milk and fruit later on. I am a bargain shopper, we eat fairly simply and I am known to clip a mean coupon, but it is quite costly these days. We belong to a fruit and veg. co-op, where we and some other families buy from the farmer's market for quite a bit cheaper than the store. I make homemade stuff-a lot.
So........for breakfast this month we'll be rotating pancakes, granola bars, cheerio bars, and french toast & bacon. For lunch we usually do sandwiches with veggies or fruit. Sometimes for a treat I'll buy some inexpensive chips. And this month I splurged and actually bought yogurt! And frozen chicken fingers and fries. (One can only eat so much PB&J). And for dinners, my dh loves beans and tortillas -pintos with cheese and ground beef-it must be a mexican thing :) And he is a very much meat-and-potatoes-no-thanks-for-the-salad-kind of guy. So for dinners we'll be rotating beans and tortillas, grilling out burgers and brats (another dh fave), chicken and rice, homemade pizza and baked mac and cheese. I'll whip up a jello salad and some corn on the cob to go with the grilled stuff and maybe some fresh green beans with the mac and cheese.
Last month Bi-Lo had their pork roast on sale, so I bought 6 of them. We are kind of tired of pork now..........
I keep it fairly simple (I don't really enjoy cooking, but I do enjoy eating) and fairly healthy. I do buy some boxed cookies or crackers to have once a week or so. They can eat an entire box in just one sitting, so I try to make it a special treat. I found it also makes them finish their meals because they haven't filled up on snacks in the meantime. And sometimes on the weekends my dh likes to make rootbeer floats for the kids, so I went ahead and got some ice cream and soda.
And okay, I did buy M&M's to reward my 2 and half year old ds for going potty. Which is going fairly well actually. :)

Monday Musings

Brooke, my 4 year old little redhead, was such a delight when she went to bed and when she woke up. Whenever we would hear her wake up we'd go get her and she always wanted us to bring every single stuffed animal with us to go downstairs. We called it her luggage.
This is the same sweet little redhead, who when she was around 18 months old or so, would spit when she got mad. She would be sweet one minute and the next spitting mad. It was pretty funny.

Monday Musings

Well actually I am a few hours late on this post. It's actually Tues. morning ( but I won't tell if you won't.) I was busy last night trying to reorganize and "weed out" some kids stuff upstairs. Again. I feel like that's all I do is go through and reorganize to try and make it work so that everything doesn't get to be such a mess all the time. You can only do so much with what the space you have. We are 9 in a 1750 sq. ft. home. with no garage. Last night dh suggested "just get rid of stuff" and the kids don't want to clean it up anyway. Okay. I'm not a pack rat by any means but it is hard for me to "get rid" of perfectly good stuff just because we don't have room. So I get a little down about it and think we need a bigger home. However, I am choosing to be grateful for what we do have, and I just went up there and got rid of stuff. Seven winter outfits, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of jammies, 1 coat and 1 jacket per child. That's it. I went through all the toys and for every 5 they kept, they had to get rid of 5. Well, that' s just the way it'll have to be.
Anyway, on to the musings part. Timothy, my 3rd child, is well, he's just Timothy. He's very easy going, social and friendly, and also very sensitive. When he was around 2, he was a handful. If there was a situation to get in, he was sure to get in it. So, one day (while I was pregnant with #5 and dh was deployed) I took the kids to the state museum. We were looking at an exhibit that had a railing around it. Timothy couldn't see so he asked me to hold him, which I couldn't because he was very heavy and I was pregnant and already holding Bethany who was a baby at the time. So, I told him to just look through the railing. Well, he stuck his whole head through the railing, and we couldn't get it out. After visions of museum staff hack sawing the exhibit to free my child, we kneeled and I told the kids to pray. After much manipulating, praise God, his head came free with no damage to him or the exhibit, and without drawing much attention. (When you are pregnant with your 5th, and have four other kids under the age of 7, trust me, you don't need any extra attention!)

Monday Musings

Tyler, my dear 10 year old, always keeps me laughing. He does these funny karate moves and sounds with the babies, like they're doing the moves. It's hysterical. Anyway, some years back, Tyler said we need to get ourselves a "housecar" (translation: an RV). So we all have been calling RV's housecars since then. He even says now that when he grows up he thinks he'll just buy a housecar because it'll be easier and he can park it in the McDonad's parking lot and he can work there. And, when he gets hungry he'll just eat there, too. Ahhh. The simple life.

Monday Musings

Okay, now that my homeschool planning is actually done (yah!) and today I will be cleaning my house, I might actually get to post on my blog more than once a week. Amazing! Okay I still have to come up with another schedule since we will start our tae kwon do class in the afternoons instead of the evenings. I was reluctant to give up two afternoons of prime homeschooing time, but if I didn't, we would have been at tae kwon do from Brooke's class at 5pm til mine ended at 8:30pm. So.........I still have a month to work on that since we don't start that class til October 2nd.
And now for Monday musings.....
When Brittany was 5, I was pregnant with Timothy. She asked me why he was in my tummy. I gave the usual anwers about how he needed to be in there to grow, etc. and how she used to be in my tummy before, too. I thought that was sufficient. She thought for a moment and said with a puzzled face, "Mommy, why did you eat me?"