I grew these. Superwoman beware, there's a new chick in town.

I know the tomatoes are green but a little princess got too excited and picked them.

I finally have a semi green thumb and it matches my green tomatoes!


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The Fine Line

There's a fine line between motherhood and housewife.  I know that it might seem to be the same thing but in truth there is a huge difference between the two.

First of all, motherhood is exactly how it sounds... being a mom. But it's more than just tying shoes, wiping butts, and kissing boo boo's. It's truly knowing your kids and spending time with them. I see moms early in the morning at the store with their children all in perfect matching outfits, perfect bows, perfectly clean shoes holding their perfectly tanned, trimmed, and made up mom's hands. I used to long to be like that and it took a few months years to realize that it's not perfection. I desire to be the type of mom that may not appear to be put together but at least I really truly know my children. When someone asks me about Princess Goofy I don't want to be able to just list off her name and age.. I want to be able to tell them who she truly is. She is a dinosaur loving, tinkerbelle wanna be, who has two left feet and truly longs for her daddy's approval. I don't want to spend the hours in a tanning bed or the hair salon that I could spend with her discussing the difference between chocolate ice cream and chocolate shakes. It's like discussing politics but only with more common sense thrown in.

Being a housewife is part of being a mom but more so it's running the show behind the house. Mopping floors, cooking, mending, washing the ever mounting pile of laundry, are just a few of the housewife details. It also means making all dental appointments, calling contractors for working on the house, scheduling the lawn guy (also known as Damion), or being a proffesional landscaper in the spare time.  It's a job that can totally consume you especially when you have four other people in your house to care for. There is always and I mean ALWAYS something that needs to be cleaned or folded. The lists are never ending and there are days that I break my back to try and whittle a few more things off those lists.

So how do you balance the two? That is something that I've been chasing ever since I became a mom. Honestly I don't have the answer. The one thing that I have learned is that I will never get this one day back. It's gone and my kids are another day older. Soon they'll be another year older and not much longer after that we'll be sending them off to an affordable college (right?).  Maybe it means that I have to stay up later or get up earlier (don't count on that) to get housework done so I'll be available for them.  Or maybe it means that if you show up unannounced there will be huge piles of laundry on the couch and dirty dishes crowding the sink.

I'm choosing for now to put motherhood before being a housewife. I plan for a fun summer of pools, nature walks, cuddling on the couch, playdoh, and spending time together. I'll still clean and do what I need to do but consider it a fair warning not to show up unannounced.

The Joys of Painting

Remember this Post about painting my kitchen cabinets? Take a look in case you've forgotten.. I'll wait for you......

Ok ready for the rest of the story now?

Today I decided to clean them with multi purpose windex. I've cleaned them tons of times with an all natural cleanser I use but never with Windex. The paint had never dried extremely hard as little scratches and things such as that would always show but when I tried to wipe the windex off, entire sheets of paint came off the front of the cabinets.  Huge huge pieces of paint peeled right off the cabinet fronts and now you can easily tell the old paint from the new paint.

It looks like I get to sand them down and paint again.... UGH!

Piles

Have you ever felt like you will never climb out from under a pile of something? Lately my house just keeps getting out of control. I have no idea why this keeps happening but I just can't keep it clean.  Today I had planned to get out of the house early this morning before anyone could make a mess and then stay out until closer to dinner and then take the girls swimming after dinner. It would be mess free and let me have some enjoyment. Then something happened this morning that I had to take care of and so the girls pulled out some art supplies to work with that ended up spilling all over the place. Then they decided to wash the dishes which led to water all over the place. Finally somehow.. I'm still not sure how... a little tornado went through the downstairs and destroyed everything.

I got home from my errand in time to make a thousand phone calls looking for an oral surgeon to take out my wisdom teeth and then pick up a few things before Damion walked in the door. There is still a pile of laundry taller than I am waiting to be folded on the couch and an even bigger pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I've mopped the floor downstairs twice this week but it's dirty again. My room is a mess, the girls room is a mess even though they are grounded from all their toys in there (so how the heck did the room get messy again?) The office is a mess and downstairs needs an intervention. This has been my life this past week. To top it all off, I'm still messing with this bad wisdom tooth that is making me feel bad and very very sleepy. Why is that I wonder? I know it's infected but can that really make you sleepy?

I have so many projects waiting for me that I want to do but I just can't get caught up on the housework to do it.

This weekend I think I might have to let the house go if I want to get any projects done but if I do that then it will just be waiting for me on monday. UGH.

The joys of motherhood.. and wifehood... and craziness.

Just FYI.. if I do get to work on anything this weekend.. I'm making this for the Princesses Room...

image from LandofNod.com

Hot Pink Ruffle Curtain Panes from The Land Of Nod. They charge $29 per curtain panel. I'm thinking I can make two panels for under $10. Let's just see....

Wise as an Owl

Last week I was so busy, I barely had time to post anything on here. Then we made a quick over night trip this weekend and I came back feeling bad. That bad feeling led to an emergency trip to the dentist where I learned that I have an infected wisdon tooth.

I know that I griped a lot awhile back about our horrible insurance after Damion's car wreck. However after the past 24 hours trying to figure out the cost for removing wisdom teeth, I realize how extremely blessed we are by our insurance.

Dental work really freaks me out. I've had three kids at home with no drugs and I would much rather go through another natural labor than go to the dentist.  Our dentist is able to pull wisdom teeth and he was telling me about the procedure on monday while I was there. It would be long, about an hour and a half, and he said that I would be comfortable but that I would be aware of what was happening. Ugh.. not my cup of tea.

I scheduled an appointment with him for next thursday to have them pulled but decided to do some research on going to an Oral Surgeon so that I could be knocked out and not know what was going on. A simple call to our insurance company today told me that it will be CHEAPER for me to go to an oral surgeon.

I still have to schedule a consultation with an oral sugeon and go through all those steps but I do have antibiotics right now to fight this infection so I should be feeling better soon. I'm not looking forward to having my wisdom teeth out but I think I'm wise enough to loose them now.

I'm still here, I promise. We took a quick trip out of town this weekend and I came home a little under the weather. I'm just going to lay in bed and read for the rest of the night and hopefully I'll be good as new in the morning.

Remember not to let your kids drive until they are at least nine months old.



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Homemade Laundry Detergent

I am frugal to the core. One of the things that I hate most is just giving away our money to big corporations for life's necessities. I really hate it when I hear that a large portion of that product is just water. If you use liquid detergent, like we do, than the large majority of it is just water. It's kinda like bathing in Evian water.

Here's where the good news comes in. You can make your own laundry detergent (liquid) and save money. We used to buy Gain liquid detergent which costs between 10$-15$ per bottle depending on if it's on sale or not. Being a large family of five with a larger amount of clumsiness thrown in, we go through 2-3 bottles of detergent a month. I'm not joking. I spill everything on my shirt imaginable and our kids change clothes everytime a dew drop hits them (can you tell I watched Tinker Bell today? Dew Drop fairies....). Based on those numbers, I figured that we were spending $300 a year on laundry detergent, at least.  That is $300 a year for some fancy water that happens to wash clothes in it's spare time.

Someone told me this week that they are just too lazy to make their own but if you really think about  it, you probably spend more time dragging kids to the store just for detergent when you run out.  I've made two batches now. The first batch lasted three months and cost about $3 to make. The entire recipe takes about ten minutes to make. Go try it and save money!  I have a cute idea for gifting the homemade detergent but I'll have  to work on that first.

Homemade Laudry Detergent (liquid) :

1 Fels Naptha Bar or other laundry bar such as Zote
Borax
Super Washing Soda by Arm and Hammer
five gallon bucket or large plastic tote

Grate the Fels Naptha Bar. I just use a regular knife since it breaks up easily. I also use a cutting board that I use only for crafts. I do not use it for food at all but since it is only soap, it should wash off if you want to use one that you use with food.  Melt the soap bar into four cups of hot water on the stove top while stirring continuously. When the soap is melted (this part takes the longest), add the melted soap to the bucket with 1 cup of Super Washing Soda and 3/4 cup Borax. Fill the bucket half way with hot tap water and stir well until everything is dissolved (approx. 36 cups of water if you are not using a five gal. bucket) When everything is dissolved, fill the bucket the rest of the way with hot tap water (approx. 40 cups) and  let sit overnight with the lid on. Make sure the lid is on to prevent children or pets from falling into the warm detergent.

Your detergent will be ready to use the next day after you stir it well (it gels).  Fill a used jug half full of the laundry detergent and fill the other half with hot tap water. Shake well before each use.  I use an old gain laundry detergent jug but some people use old milk jugs or vinegar jugs. You can also add several drops of a scented oil such as lavendar oil if you wish. I really like the smell of the Fels Naptha bar so I do not add any scents to mine (most days).

Absolutely Delightful

So I'm working on a tutorial for making your own laundry detergent that will save you a TON of money. I mean, a ton. Right now we're on track to save about $300 this year alone. But I'm not going to finish that post tonight so you'll just have to wait. Someone wandered onto my blog the other day (not sure how but I still love it!) and left a comment on another post. Of course since I'm nosy... I followed it back to their blog and then their Etsy shop. Still following me here? Some of her products are just so stinkin' cute that I have to share...

#1 - this one is my ultimate favorite....

You are loved notecards

I love it. It's the perfect message and one of my favorite things to personally be told.

#2. Cheerful Heart

This is one of my favorite scriptures and a great reminder to stay positive.. even on the hard days. It's gorgeous.

#3. You are Beautiful

These would be the best cards to give to another woman/ friend when they are down or have just had a baby. (Not many women feel beautiful the first few weeks after birth.. You only feel tired and smelly) It's a great simple message that needs to be said, especially after childbirth!

So go visit Absolutely Delightful by Amy J.  and pick out a few of your favorite projects. You can share here or just order two of everything.... one for me.. one for you.

The Clean Team

Every year I move everything off of our patio and scrub the entire thing down. I was working on it yesterday when it started pouring rain and made me stop before I could really get it clean. So this morning when the girls wanted to go play outside in a light drizzle, I put my thinking cap on. We know that kids love to play in water but when you add soap and bubbles to the mix, their little excitement meters go into overdrive.  I gave them some brooms, squirted soap all over the patio, and told them to get to work!

Considering that Annie is one of their favorite movies, they love to scrub things.

Don't worry, I put Princess Newbie to work too. She was project manager.

and this guy... he was chief of all pitifulness. It's a hard job but someone has to do it.

Instead of coffee breaks, they chose bike breaks.

Look, they do get along! It's proof. I'm going to blow this up to poster size to show them when they're teenagers.

"GET BACK TO WORK YOU SLACKERS!"  Man, that project manager is one tough cookie.

I love rainy days.

Snakes on a gate.

This post WILL NOT contain a picture of the subject matter because then I would wet my pants. I already clean up enough body fluids every day from my three kids.

The subject is: Snakes. Ugh. I literally shutter at the word. It is a fear rooted deep within me that I really wish would go away. My fear of snakes is the #2 thing that I would change about myself if I could.  The number one thing is the size of my butt but we won't go there tonight.

This weekend I wrote about finding a brown snake in our flower bed. Today we had some men here removing an old sidewalk and they found another brown snake under it. I had already told them not to tell me if they find a snake because I'm scared of them. So when I asked, "did you find any snakes", they said no. But then they left the dead snake in the grass right by where I get out of my van. Long story short, Damion was telling the girls tonight not to let mommy see the snake because I'm afraid of them when Princess Girly Girl thought it would be funny to chase me with it. I hate with every bone in my body the feeling that I get when something like that happens. It was so fearful and yet the snake was dead and only about a foot long. Honestly I cried about it. One of our biggest fights right after we were married was because I locked Damion in the backyard when he chased me with a little garden snake.  He did not understand how afraid of them I was and he thought it would be funny. I didn't lock him back there to get back at him, it was just my reaction to run and lock or block any entrance between me and the snake.

So not long after I had that lovely experience outside this evening, I came in and opened to email to find a funny email. It was about a snake experience and it was funny because I can relate. Really it's a very well written and funny email anyway but if you have any type of snake phobia... it just gets funnier. I laughed so hard I almost cried again. Below is a copy of the email but I can't tell you who wrote it and dog names have been changed to protect the innocent.  Enjoy and beware of snakes!

Bobbie, I had a snake encounter last night and I thought about you. It was right at dark and it was storming here. I walked thru the back yard to open the side gate to let Fido in. I had my hand out to open the gate when I saw something really long draped around the top of the gate and the remainder of it was dangling down. I was trying to figure out if it was a rope or possibly the hose.......... Suddenly I realized I was looking at a snake. I seriously think I left a trail of turds on the sidwalk. I ran back in the house and locked the door. Seriously, what good is locking the door going to do but I was panicked. I've been too afraid to go in the back yard ever since. I won't even open the patio door. Fido's dog food is out there but she's been getting cat food because I'm too scared to go out there to get the stupid dog food.

hmmm... hope they don't expect me to come visit anytime soon.

Celebrating Mom

Celebrating Mom by emulating mom.

I love this girl.

This post is for the I Heart Faces Challenge

http://www.iheartfaces.com/

A few quirks about me...

I'm really tired today after setting in the sun at swim lessons and trying to catch up on housework so I'm just going to post some weird tidbits about myself that you might not know. Trust me, I am a weird tidbit.

1. Those new 3D ultrasounds really freak me out. It's like a little alien looking at you. I never had them done with any of my pregnancies. What would happen if you noticed in the ultrasound that your kid was missing something big like a nose? You would spend the rest of your pregnancy wondering about your noseless child. No joke. This seriously freaks me out. I would stay away from those things if I were you.

2. I have a serious fear of snakes and I really don't know why. I saw one saturday in our flower bed and I was shaking and really wanting to move to another house. Then when I tried to go back over to that area of the yard to finish working, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Truthfully it was just a little brown snake that couldn't hurt me but mentally I just loose it. My dad  brought home a garden snake from the feed store when I was little in hopes of getting me to get over my fear. I thought it was a horrible idea but slowly warmed up to the snake and even played with it one day. Then it escaped out of the tank and we never found it. hmmm.... I think that made the fear worse.  It could have been hiding in my underwear drawer for all I know. Don't try to help your children get over their fears by bringing home the Houdini of snakes.

3.  I can do a great Grinch impression

Goodnight. There's nothing more to say.

Mother's Day

Tomorrow is Mother's Day but we celebrated it tonight so that Damion can go see Iron Man 2 tomorrow afternoon.

Earlier today I was digging through some old boxes and found some high school memories. Inside the box was a survey I took my senior year that asked what my 5 and 10 year goals were. It was amazing to see that my life's goals then have all been met or achieved with the exception of one, which is college graduation. Darn you College Algebra! One question asked, "What do you want to be in 10 years" and I answered, "be  a mother."  Another question asked how many children I would have and I answered that I would have at least 3. Here it is 11 years later and I am a mother of three kids. I always knew that I wanted to be a mom and I'm so thankful that I was blessed enough to become one.

I know that this weekend we're supposed to be celebrating myself and the women in my life but I'm choosing tonight to celebrate my husband. Odd, I know.

However the truth is that I wouldn't be a mother without him. I might have had a baby some other way but he is what makes me a mother. He is the one that gives up things so that I can stay home and raise our kids. He is the one that encourrages me when I'm having a bad day with the kids. We share many many smiles across our children's heads when we them behaving in a way that makes us proud. Together we laugh at them and dance with them. I couldn't do it by myself and I wouldn't wany to.  It may be Mother's day but I only get to celebrate with chocolate cake and Starbucks because he loves me and desires to make me happy.

Thanks sweetie for helping me be the best mom I can be.

By the way, he is also the one that understands my terrible fear of snakes and offered to plant the rest of my flowers for me today after I saw a snake in the flower bed. Now that is love.

Mother's Day Gifts

I saw this idea on someone else's blog but I cannot remember where! So this is not my original idea... but I'm still going to share it with you because I love how it came out. This is the PERFECT quick and easy mother's day gift.  To do this craft all you will need is a flat ceramic tile, scrapbooking paper, ribbon, embellishments (found on scrapbooking aisle),  Mod Podge and a photo. Note that you need a photo printed at a photo center or a laser printer. Ink Jet printers will not work Mod Podge, the picture will bleed. 

First cut your paper to cover the surface of the tile but not overhang the edge. Next paint the top of the tile with Mod Podge and place paper on top of the tile, let dry for at least an hour.. more would be best. When the paper is dry paint the back of the picture and place where you want on the tile. Again you need to let this dry for at least an hour... do the dishes, laundry, clean out your car... or sit on your couch and eat bon bons, it's up to you. When the picture is firmly attached paint the entire top of the tile with mod podge and let dry. This only took about 30 minutes before it was dry enough to add a second coat. I let the second coat dry and then hot glued ribbons on to cover the edges of the photos. Add embellishments such as buttons, letter, etc... anything that you like. Place on a plate stand and you are done.

It's a great project that I plan to make for myself soon. These two already have a home... the grandma's in Louisiana loved them. I plan on doing a few more for my side of the family and for myself really soon.

If you have any questions about it, leave a comment and I'll answer it ASAP.

Oh and I forgot to mention what a great bargain this project is. We already had the tile and the rest of the supplies were under $10 for both of these. Looks like a million bucks! but it's not!

Happy pre Mother's day crafting!

protection

Princess Goofy asleep in the car

Saturday as I was laying in bed, pretty much wide awake at the craziest hour, I felt drawn to pray for protection of our kids. I don't know why but I really felt like I should pray for them so I did. Simple. It's simple because I do have faith that God hears my prayers and will do what is best with those prayers whether it is to answer them or not.

I was almost back to sleep when I heard a loud crack and looked over just in time to see Princess Goofy land between the night stand and the floor and she immediately started screaming. It woke Damion up and as I told him what happened, I scooped her up and went running to the bathroom so she wouldn't wake the other two girls up.

As soon as I put her on the counter I saw the huge deep gash on her chin and my mind started swirling with how we were going to get her to the ER for stitches. Damion is...hm... let's just say.. he gets a little woozy at the sight of needles. Yes, he is an insulin dependent diabetic that takes shots..... He always tells people that he's like the donkey on shrek when he says, "Is that blood?" and then faints. He does a great donkey impression. So I knew Damion couldn't take her in case they had to use a needle.  I didn't think that I could take her because I would get lost and then I would have to wake up the baby and take her (traveling food source).  It was about this point that I also noticed her lip was punctured all the way through to the inside of her mouth. Great. So then I thought we could just call my Mother In Law to come over and take her but it was 2am and I didn't want to wake her.

Good thing that I don't have to go by my plans in life because God had different plans.

The gash was really deep and gross but it was barely bleeding. I really have had a scratch before that bled more than this huge gash on her chin. After just a second of holding her close to me the bleeding had pretty much stopped.

Damion and I were discussing what to do when she asked me to put her down (she was on the bathroom counter) and she simply walked right past us without saying another word, got back into bed, and was back asleep in seconds. Damion said that was his cue and also disappeared back into bed. I stayed up for awhile longer just to make sure it wouldn't start bleeding again and checked it a few times before I was convinced it was ok to go to sleep.

As I crawled into bed and thought about how extremely little it had bled and how quickly she had gone back to sleep, I asked God, "why is she not hurt more? why was she so protected from this?"

God's reply was simple. "because you asked me too."

That is love.

Home

We are back home in Texas and soo soo tired. Something about traveling with three small kids really wears you out. Something about day to day life with three small kids also wears you out but that's a story for another time.

It was an eventful trip since my life really is meant to be a made for TV movie. I'm convinced these things only happen to me.

First the hotel messed up our rooms and we spent four days in the smallest room possible for a family of five.  Friday night we were up almost the entire night, Princess Newbie just couldn't sleep in a weird place. Saturday I finally was able to go to this restaraunt that I've always heard about but I had never been to named La Fonda. I don't know if it was the food or something else but I got sick. I put on a huge smile and fought through the wedding. I was actually feeling halfway decent until I ate some food and cake at the wedding and then it was back downhill. I looked in the mirror right before we left the reception and my eyes were red and bloodshot. I looked rough. Lack of sleep mixed with sickness isn't a very becoming look on most people.

Not to mention that Friday night Princess Goofy rolled off of the bed at about 2am and split her chin wide open on the night stand and actually punctured a hole right through her lip. I'm going to post that story tomorrow.

Saturday night was another sleepless night since Princess Goofy decided that sleeping was for suckers.

Overally it was a fantastic weekend. I really enjoyed the trip this time since my Mother in Law met us there and helped out with the girls. We saw a lot of family and friends and went to a beautiful wedding.

In the same week that we have had so much sadness over something we also experienced extreme joy at Keith and Misty's wedding. It's weird but I like weird.. It suits me.

Oh... and Princess Newbie started walking. Next stop is Harvard.