Weapon of Choice? French Toast Sticks, of Course!

Barely room for groceries!

WOW! The past few weeks have been a total blur for me. It can all be summed up in the phrase, “So much to do, so little time”! Haven’t we all felt that way from time to time? It seems my house has had a revolving door on it over the past 2 weeks. All in the same week, I had two new girls move in and one girl move out! Hard times and sad times. It’s always difficult when one leaves, especially this last one. She had been with us the longest. Just like your own children, they can drive you absolutely bonkers, but all of the sudden when they are no longer here to do that anymore, you just feel like you’re missing something; and it’s never a good feeling to feel like you’re missing a child. You probably know the feeling; the "I’m-standing-in-the-middle-of –a-huge-crowd-but-can’t-find-my-child" feeling! PANIC! It’s taken me a whole week at least to assure myself that she’s not escaped my care, but that she is gone altogether. On the other end of the spectrum though, we are going through the “adjustment period” with our two new ones. It’s a rewarding feeling almost when you have new ones come into your care; however, it just gets a bit insane at times. Adapting them to my family and their new surroundings can be downright difficult. I will say that they are doing well, but just as any child, they have had x amount of years living life a certain way, and I always feel like the “bad guy” when I tell them to live and do things in a different way. Nevertheless, we make it work and I’m constantly in a state of LEARNING!
The Halloween weekend seems to have gone just as quickly as it came. We had a lot of fun with the girls. All dressed up, we had a huge variety show! One Whoopee cushion, Cleopatra, 3 baseball players, a mermaid, a star trek girl with blue hair, Wonder Woman, a bat, and a Hershey kiss (which then later transformed into Yoda due to the warmth of the outfit!) A SITE, for sure! (I would post more pictures, but sadly my camera was MIA when I needed it most! - I say MIA, but that happens to be my lingo for "burried under stacks of paperwork and Christmas list on the office desk!) Though a very fun weekend with family and the girls, it did not go at all as I had planned, and if any of you know me, you know I live strictly by my day planner! So, after I got over the initial frustration of things not going as intended (or should I say MY WAY – lol), I just enjoyed the ride. I endured the overbearing classroom moms at Bella’s preschool as I helped at her fall festival, the baking of too many cupcakes for birthdays and other events, the headache of 7 kids pumped full of sugar, and the horror of the vicious cycle of cleaning then destroying that goes on in my house daily! We actually DID end up with a couple hours of family time (just the 5 of us) on Friday night due to a kid’s event at the church. YIPEE! We got to eat at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and watch Nate enjoy chips and salsa for the first time! He loved it so much; he took his passy for a swim in the salsa! We also finished up some shopping for the events to come, and I don’t think I’ve had so much fun with my family as I did on Friday night just strolling around and hanging out. We also enjoyed a bowling birthday party, allowing Bella her first experience with bowling! Although the weekend proved to be tons of fun, I literally rejoiced when Monday rolled around and the kids were out the door for school.

Taking the Passy for a Salsa Swim!


Not quite sure which dropped first, the price or the pumpkin!



Bella, granny-bowling!


The fake eyelashes she wanted SOOO desperately lasted all of one hour!

Couldn't believe she wanted this costume! LOL

Then yesterday, Election day, I was elected to be queen babysitter! Ha-ha Much to the girls’ surprise, they were elected to be “the cleaning crew” today! My day started well, with an hour of extra sleep, but boy did I need it! These children were absolutely CRAZY! And I suppose I shot myself in the foot a couple weeks back when three of five girls were given the consequence of not enjoying outside playtime, due to misbehavior. I’ll rethink that consequence the next time it comes to mind! I think they enjoyed a nice break from school though, even if they were stuck inside with the “cleaning Nazi”! They also enjoyed the fact that we caught a possum the previous night in one of our traps! Many may know that we have a death warrant out for all chipmunks, so Wesley has a vast size range of traps set for the little critters. So far we have managed to catch a whole bunch of nothing, until yesterday. The girls looked out the window and saw the fur of an animal blowing in the wind. They had all manner of assumptions as to what it was. None guessed correctly! When they finally got outside to see the ugly thing, they all thought it was the cutest little creature ever and wanted to keep it! (We’ve watched Over the Hedge a few too many times!) All it took was one hiss, and they were over it! Nate, our expert animal noise maker, has now added the possum hiss to his animal noise library. HILARIOUS!! Speaking of little man, I now refer to him as Nate, the sailor man! He sounds like he is absolutely cussing you out when he jibber jabbers. Also, HILARIOUS! I’m sure he’s saying something important, but right now, his words are pure entertainment! This leads me to my last fun story of the day! In our house we have a nighttime ritual with the girls called “Take 10”, which means when the phrase is stated, the girls then have 10 minutes on the clock to get their teeth brushed, an extra swipe of deodorant(just for good measure), clothes laid out for the next day, and be in bed when the timer goes off! I also give them the option of reading a bible verse to me when I come around at the end of those 10 minutes to say goodnight. Most of them delight in this time to read a verse. Sometimes they try to charm me with their memorization of a verse, other times; they are down right smart alec when they read some of the longest/shortest verses of the bible. However, the opportunity just to have the word of God in their hands gives me more of a thrill than they will ever know! Working with them, and many other children over the years, it always gives me a giggle (inside) at how children will attempt to tackle words they do not know! And don’t we know the Bible is full of them! Most children will pause forever, and finally look at you with bewilderment, waiting on you give assistance. So, when one of my girls picked up her King James Version bible with super-small print the other night, and flipped to the Old Testament, I knew I could be headed toward one of those moments. To tell you the truth I can’t even tell you where the verse is, because we all got a bit distracted with the meaning. All I can tell you is it had to do with a fight of the Amalekites. However, when she got to the word Amalekites, she gave no awkward pause. She just went for it! And with her wording, instead of the Amalekites fighting, it was the omelets fighting! Enjoying quite a hearty laugh from it all, Wesley came down the hallway to see what had me tickled, and of course he had to add his thoughts. “What were they fighting with? French Toast sticks?” We all lost it from there! It took the girls another good 10 minutes just to get their giggles out! Needless to say, I’m anxious for their comments and reaction the next time we have French toast sticks for breakfast! Oh my fun life! Wouldn’t trade it for anyone else’s! It’s a mess! One big, beautiful mess!