Our Big Three Year Old

On Christmas, we celebrated Nate's third birthday. Nathanael is such a good-loving little boy. He is pretty laid back and so happy. He goes off and plays by himself in the basement for hours. He also makes it his goal, while he is down there, to dump each and every box of toys. The next time I head downstairs, it looks like a tornado went through. The other kids don't like that he does this very much, because they are the ones who we make clean it all up.

His birthday and Christmas gifts pretty much consisted of trucks, tractors and cars. It made this little boy VERY happy.

Here, one of the boys put dish cloths in his shirt to be like football pads. This is the face and the growl he thinks football players do.

One of the funniest things he does lately is tell everyone how old he is. For example, someone will ask him how old he is and he will respond, "ten." We then tell him, "no, three." Just the other day, we asked him and he responded, "ten!" We said, "ten?" He then said, "no, probably eweven." He cracks us up more than we can count everyday and we are blessed by him.

One Of the, I'm Sure, Many Things...

(this photo is from back in the Spring when the entire family minus Steve and Z were treated for Strep Throat)

...no one ever told me about having a large family.

Sickness

You see in a large family when one person gets sick with something contagious, like let's say Strep Throat, a cold, or the stomach flu, it gets passed from one person, to the next person, to the next, and so on. By the time everyone has had the sickness and been treated for it, the cycle begins once again. It then makes its way back through the family again. Sometimes, it changes from Strep, to the stomach flu, and then on to Pink Eye. It is even conceivable to think that we could have everyone sick with a different kind of bug all at once. God, have MERCY, please!

We had Strep throat go through just before Christmas. All of the boys were treated and the girls made it out safely. This week already, I have had one daughter in to the doctors for a nasty ear infection on Saturday. The other daughter had a fever last Thursday and Friday and stayed home from school. She was fine over the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, morning she kept saying she was cold. I thought she was just trying to get out of going to school. After I helped get her dressed, I took her temperature...101.4 degrees F. She got to stay home. After a while of her laying on the couch, she threw up. It was then that I knew she had Strep Throat. I called the doctors and got her in later that morning. She tested positive for Strep. If my doctor had not been a man, I probably would have cried. All I could think is here we go again. My mind then begins to fill with the steps we have to take to keep this from spreading and to get rid of this bug.

Number 1 - Stop at Walmart on the way home from doctors. Pick up prescription, Tylenol, Ibuprofen (lots of it). Recently I decided that when I buy Tylenol to always buy at least two bottles at a time. We go through it rather quickly.

Number 2 - We have to make sure no one shares cups. Everyone uses their designated color.

Number 3- New tooth brushes all around, but we can't open them for 24 hours.

Number 4 - No sharing chap stick.

All of these are hard when you have a three year old running around drinking from everyone's cups and chewing on everyone's tooth brushes.

When they/we get sick, I have to switch into survival mode. I need to do what comes next. I need to love on my sickies and show them I care. I can't be worried about tomorrow or who will or won't get sick. Heaven forbid it be me, although, secretly I do sometimes wish I would be the sick one so I can hibernate to my bedroom for a whole day. Not sick enough to be paralyzed, but just enough to nap and read ALL DAY LONG.

I do have to say that I love Winter, but due to the fact that our family is sick ALL winter long, I'm having second thoughts. Everyday, I need to remind myself that my God is Healer and my God is Protector. My prayers are filled with those cries this winter.

Everyone's bottle labeled with their initial so we can keep them straight

A New Year Daybook

Outside My Window - its cloudy as we await the coming snow storm. Dare I say "Snow Day" tomorrow?

I am Listening to - the dryer with a load of towels in it and little girls drawing and cutting.

I am Wearing - my uniform (black yoga pants and a grey longsleeve t-shirt) and purple slippers - my all-time favorite thing to be wearing.

I am so Grateful for - the opportunity to be a home with my kids, taking the time to paint my little girl's finger nails, napping babies, and quiet.

I'm Pondering -

“God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible.

What a pity when we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.” -A.W. Tozer

I am Reading - The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns ( a life changing book and oh, so good, so good that I don't want to finish it as I feel like I will forget about all the meat therein).

Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider (also, so good and very practical)

I am Thinking - five minutes will have the boys bursting through the door and it will be homework time, I'm not really ready for this today. Lord, help me get through it!

I am Creating - a fleece and flannel baby blanket for Z.

I am Hoping and Praying - for my two children who are really disliking school right now.

Around the House - everything is pretty tidy as we have a man coming to take appraisal pictures (for our refinancing) in a few minutes. A thorough cleaning needs to be done, though.

From the Kitchen - I planned our menu today, now just to get to the store.

Monday - Poppyseed Chicken, veggies

Tuesday - Taco soup with corn bread

Wednesday - Spaghetti with homemade sauce, garlic bread, peas and salad

Thrusday - Cheeseburgers on the grill, cheesy potatoes, veg

Friday - Quesidillas and chips and salsa

Saturday - Pizza night

also Peanut Butter Swirls sometime soon to fix my craving :)

One of My Favorite Things - cloudy, dreary days with nowhere to go.

A Few Plans for the Rest of the Week - groceries, cleaning, making a baby blanket, working on my blog by getting a new template and working family goals and vision for the new year.

Picture thoughts:

Things We've Created This Break

With the kids off school for Christmas and lots of company, we tried to keep our hands busy. Following are some of the things we've created over the break.

Lethal Peppermint Chocolate Cake

for a very SPECIAL BOY'S SECOND BIRTHDAY on Christmas!

Felt Tic-Tac-Toe game, thanks to my sister, Laura, for the great idea, the help and the motivation to actually get it done.

Lace Snow Flakes (the kids made these)

Knitted hats (again thanks to my sister for the idea and the use of her nifty looms). We now have our own looms and I'm sure there will be plenty of hats going around.

Cason just finished his today and he is so proud.

And last, but not least...

***MEMORIES***

My Englishisms

We've been back in the US for one year now. I find it quite funny that I still use some proper English terms. I have had two incidents recently where I have used the English term for something, and the person I was talking to didn't know what I meant. The funny thing is that when I used the words, I couldn't even think of the American word for what I was trying to say.

A couple weeks ago, I was talking to a friend about an issue my mom has with her foot. I said that she was taking physio for it. As I said it, I realized it was the English term as my friend looked at me with questioning look. I continued to try to explain what I meant, but I couldn't think of the American word for the life of me. Finally, she said, "physical therapy"? "Yes, that's it!"

The other incident happened yesterday as I was driving through Starbucks for a coffee. I asked for cream on my mocha. It just came out that way and I assumed everyone knew what cream was. The person who took my order said, "whipped cream?" And, once again I was like, "yes, yes, whipped cream." I didn't even think that, to Americans, cream is thick milk for coffee.

It is good to know that I am not completely Americanized again!

My Laundry Philosophy

I've never been one who likes to do laundry every day. Doing a load or two a day would kill me. It wouldn't be from the washing part, or even folding for that matter. I feel like I would always have baskets or piles of clothes lying around that need to be put away. That would drive me mad. Because of this, I have days planned out for each set of laundry. This way I am not doing laundry every day of the week. Now mind you, as my family has grown, so have the number of days it takes to get the laundry done.

I guess you could say that my laundry schedule starts on Sunday night after the kids are in bed. I grab the towels, as well as the garbage, since Monday morning is garbage day, out of the kids bathroom. I bring them down and throw them in the washer. They take a couple of hours since I wash them on sanitary wash with extremely hot water. Monday then leaves me to the rest of the towels in the house and sometimes a set or two of sheets.

On Monday night, I sort all the kids clothes. This ranges from 4 to 6 loads depending on the season. In the winter it is more, I have a whole load and sometimes two of just jeans. I love the summer loads...shorts, dresses...a lot less clothes to wash, fold and put away. After the kids clothes are sorted, I bring them down and throw in the first load. This is usually jeans, because I know they are easy and quick to fold first thing in the morning when so much is going on. On Monday night, I sometimes have time to switch loads too. This really helps to stay on top of it all on Tuesday.

These photos are of my laundry room on Tuesday, toward the end of the day. I just have the girls load left to fold.

Tuesday I continue to work on the kids clothes. The order of the laundry goes from jeans, to dark, to medium, to whites and then finally on to the girls clothes. I leave theirs for last so I have all the boys done and put into baskets by that point. This way I have room to fold theirs. After the clothes are in the baskets are done, they placed at the bottom of the stairs for Steve to carry up for me. The older three boys all put their own laundry away on Wednesday. I am working on the girls putting their own away. I put the younger one's away on Wednesday morning.

A side-note on the laundry, when each load is done, I stand and fold it right then and there. I don't save it until later, having 6 loads to fold in the evening would stress me out. I used to do it that way, but that has changed as our family and our laundry has grown.

Wednesday and Thursday are my off days, unless it is sheet week. I hope you are not too surprised or grossed out, but I only wash sheets every two weeks. I do ours a bit more often than the kids. I just don't have the time to keep up on it more regularly. Getting two cribs, three twins and one double and one queen made again in the evening takes a good bit of time.

On Friday morning, I sort Steve and my clothes. We usually have two loads, one dark and one medium. I wash our whites with the kids whites on Tuesday. We put our clothes away sometime over the weekend.

And once again, I take the weekends off from laundry unless something like towels, rags or rugs needs to be washed.

You may be wondering about ironing. Well, I iron about once a month or so. I just hang whatever needs to be ironed in the laundry room closet and wait until there is enough in there to make it worth the effort. I buy wrinkle free shirts and pants/trousers for Steve and pull them right out of the dryer when they are done. It is very rare that they need to be ironed.

Well, I think that is my laundry schedule in a nutshell. I hope this is helpful to someone out there.

Our Weekly Schedule

Well, this is at least my schedule for keeping house. I've pretty much run on the same schedule for years. Running a household of a large family is a lot of work, therefore for my sanity I need to have a plan. Some weeks don't go as planned and wrenches are thrown into them (ex. sick kids, doctors appointments, long weekends, etc.) These weeks tend to throw me off, and I get a bit frazzled and stressed. Life does happen and wrenches are thrown in quite often, so I need to remember that the plan is a tool and not my master. God is my master and He will give me the strength and motivation to face whatever challenges the weeks bring. What helps me to get back into the groove is knowing the plan for the rest of the week and catching back up. As soon as I am back to the plan, I am a much calmer momma.

Monday - laundry (I'll post my laundry story in the next blog.), cleaning main floor of the house for small group on Monday night (vacuuming, dusting, mopping, and cleaning the main floor bathroom, also a quick pick up of the basement if time is allowed), sorting the kids clothes (This happens after small group and after the kids are in bed. I throw in the first load too!)

Tuesday - Kids laundry (more next post), this takes up most of my day

Wednesday - upstairs cleaning, bathrooms, vacuuming (main floor again too)

Thursday - things that didn't get done earlier in the week

Friday - Laundry (mine and Steve's clothes), vacuuming main floor and a quick wet mop to be ready for the weekend

Saturday - the weekends are for projects around the house and the yard (mowing, weeding, organizing, cleaning kids bedrooms, etc.) and for running errands (For the most part, during the week I am at home. I do run out and get groceries, but don't do any other shopping. There just isn't time in the day.)

Sunday - Day of REST (nap for momma)

I think I could probably do a couple more posts on dinner and on getting groceries. I think I'll save those for another day. Next up, I'll work on our laundry routine.