Love it

Great video about advocating for midwifery. Just check out the stats for the Boston hospitals with midwives compared to those without. Scary.

I have actually referenced Dr Gene DeClerq's work in my research papers. Small world.

Up to no good

Meet the Mess Maker.It is more fun to climb in the toybox.
And throw everything out of it.

Than it is to throw things into it.

Friday update

Working tonight, having a pj party on Monday with my girls for my bday, and have a couple assignments to work on, so you may not be hearing from me over the weekend.

That said, thought I'd update a few goings on.

The spending freeze: Melted, or at least, thawing.

A big part of the reason is my dear husband's Suburban. AKA The money pit.
As if spending $2000+ in November for a new engine wasn't enough, we put another $150 into it in December for some kind of sensor or something because it wouldn't start (with a brand new engine). That $150 part did not get it to start, because even though Bobby thought that was what was wrong with it, uh it obviously wasn't.
Moving into January, we have put another $200 into the darn thing and it does run, at least until the next thing breaks on it. Thank goodness it is paid for or I might be birthing a cow right now.

Needless to say, by the time we replace every. single. part. on it, it will be brand new.

And paid for. I have to keep telling myself that part of it. There is no car payment, there is no car payment, there is no car payment.......

We took the kids to Toys r US to spend their Christmas gift cards, and while we didn't spend any cash there, manuevering five kids through a toy store can take up a chunk of your evening. By the time we left, everyone had the hunger whines going, we were 30 minutes away from home and I hadn't thawed anything out for dinner. Considering it would take at least an hour to get dinner on the table, their favorite buffet restaurant won out. Still only $47 for a family of 7 for dinner out is not that bad of a deal.

Tate has been growing up and out of her jeans so I made a run for the kids resale store. $25 for 5 pairs of pants and a pair of gym shoes. Not too shabby.

So, I've kind of given up on the spending freeze this month. I think I'm going to postpone it a few months. February is not good because it's a big birthday month for us. Then Teag's bday is in March, so maybe we'll try again in April.

The diet: haven't weighed myself yet this week, but have been pretty good about sticking to my points.

School: Only two exams to take in reproductive A&P and I'll actually be done with that class. Pretty impressive, eh?
Now just to get busy with the other two courses.

House: I need to decrapify a la The Thrifty Decor Chick. Now I'm not going to go all "it's a new year, I need to totally decluter my entire house this weekend". Although I do. Baby steps, people. I figure if I can commit to decluttering one area of my house per month, I might actually get something accomplished. I'm not going to announce it or set any schedule, because it depends on what I feel like doing. I might share some before pictures or I might not. They might be too scary. But I think Sarah hit the nail on the head. When my house is out of control, I feel out of control. And with five little mess contributors I feel out of control enough as it is. So just keep your eye out for that.

Maybe you can declutter right along with me. You too can be a decrapper.

Snowy

It snowed quite a bit last week. The little peeps thought they should check it out, you know, for about 10 minutes. When your kids ask to play in the snow, do you feel like whining when you consider the amount of time it takes to get them dressed to go out is inversely proportional to the amount of time they spend outside in the cold? They did have a good time, playing out there, in the snow, for about 10 minutes.....

I'm pretty sure that when I was a kid, once I was dressed for the snow, I stayed out for HOURS at a time. I think. It felt like it anyway. Probably because my parents locked the back door and wouldn't let us back in.

Hehehe, just kidding. They'd lock all the doors. :op

I thought about sneaking closer to get better pics, but then my slippered, coatless body decided against it.

Ah, to be young again and actually like snow. Well, that's not true. I do like snow. From the inner side of the window. For about a week.

Still missing

It's been a week and still no Chewie. :o(

At this point, I hope we don't find him.

That way I can assume someone found him and took him inside

and he's snuggled up nice and warm in front of their fireplace.

The alternative is too bleak for me to consider.

What the....

Who's the guilty party?

Someone with pretty small hands.

I wonder.....

See what happens when you leave chocolate lying around?

First week

Looking back on the first week of January, I have to say, how is it already January 9th? Didn't we just have Christmas????

Anyway, school started for me on Monday. Not only did I check in to all my classes online, I touched base with my learning team partners for my research class and finished two tests in my reproductive A&P class. Starting off well, we'll see if I finish early like I always plan. :op

The kids had a snow day on Friday. By dinner time, they were completely on each others' nerves. The roads weren't terribly bad but since we have so many country kids and a limited number of snowplows for this small town, they usually cancel if there are several inches of snow or if it is icy.

Speaking of icy, I cheated a little bit on the spending freeze. Just in the first weekend of January, I spent $5 at work because the girls wanted to order pizza, I bought about $5 worth of 75% Xmas ornaments (how could I resist), and I bought two pairs of clearance gym shoes for two of the peeps who are going to be needing them soon. As any Mom of many can tell you, if you find shoes for cheap, you buy them then. That was up to Jan 3rd. This week, I've done pretty good. Just bought a capucinno on the way to work one day, that's it. And it was only a buck! Now the hubster? Well, I'll have to reiterate the requirements of the spending freeze.

I finally stepped on the scale last weekend. I pretty much avoided it for the month of December because I knew with eating everything in sight, it couldn't be good. I was up 5-6 pounds depending on which scale you believe and depending on how accurate it is to weigh yourself 10 hours into a 12 hour shift and after eating dinner, two desserts, and a grape pop. Yes, two desserts. I couldn't make up my mind and I knew it was my last weekend to indulge.

Anyway, one week back into point counting and I'm only one pound above my ticker weight. Not too bad. Now to incorporate exercise...... trying to decide about a gym membership vs the YMCA vs home DVD's. Any suggestions?

The proof is in the sauce

or is it in the pudding? Whatever.... I made some more spaghetti sauce which was sooooo much easier in my pretty new crockpot. I have to use up my freezer full of frozen tomatoes.

From this to this
If you'd like to give it a go, this is the recipe I always use.

The little baker 2

Tatum baked some cake and actually divvied it up for her sibs without any prompting.

These were over Christmas break. My tree is actually down now, in case you were wondering. I'm not that much of a slacker.

Another one gone

She accidently pulled it out while trying to open a plastic bag with her teeth, probably a good reason not to use your teeth to open things. Good timing though as I was starting to wonder if a trip to the dentist was in order since the new tooth was coming in behind it.

We forgot it in the truck the first night, which made it much easier to explain why the tooth fairy didn't leave any money. She couldn't find the tooth so she passed on by.

Catching a snooze

Have you seen me?

Our orange Tabby is missing.I noticed yesterday afternoon that I hadn't seen Chewie all day. Not too unusual because he usually hides under the Christmas tree when the dog is in the house. We checked all the closets and the basement, and the bench that he was stowed away in last time he went missing. All with no luck. We can't find him anywhere. Once I thought a little more on it, I realized that he didn't snuggle up with me the night before when I was folding socks, which is unusal for him because as you see above, if you sit on the couch, you will be laid on.

I'm afraid he got out the other night when we were carrying groceries in. Although that would be unusual for him, it's the only solution I can think of. He doesn't like to go outside and will generally only make it to the porch if he does, plus we kept pulling the door shut when we went out so I'm sure we would have noticed him. But I just can't think of anywhere else he might be. It's really, really cold at night right now, so I can only hope he found his way into someone's garage or barn. Of course, he's not an outside cat, so if he did he would have gotten beaten up by the more experienced outsiders. I hope, hope, hope he turns up soon.

Where, oh where is my kitty?

Penguin pics

Last Saturday we made time for the annual penguin pj picture with Aunt Penelope.

Just kidding. Really she's Aunt Krista, but I wanted to roll with the P's.
Technically, it was after Christmas, even after New Year's, but hey, I've got five kids and a busy schedule. Props to Grandma for making the penguin pj pants. Ahhh, I crack myself up.

Would you believe the first two pics were the best? It went downhill after that.

This is the winner.

Although, I must say, this reflects their personalities soooo much better. Click to make it bigger and you'll see what I mean.

One smirky teen, one moody 9 yr old, one half crazed 4 yr old, and 2 sweet girls.

Just a couple things

So Teagan comes to me this morning and says "My tummy is growling..... for coffee!" Unfortunately, while he was waiting for coffee, someone ate his turkey sandwich.

I'll give you a hint who......

And yes, my 4 yr old does drink coffee, but he's almost 5. :op

No seriously, he drinks coffee tinted creamer before ya'll go all " What?!?! You give coffee to a 4 yr old?" It's not any worse than high fructose corn syrup and I give him that all the time. I mean, it is all natural, right?

On another note, I got this comment this morning:

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as your newer ones you have alot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

Uh, thanks for half a compliment? I'm glad some anonymous person thinks my blog is getting better. Most of my posts are about my family though, so I'm left to assume that a family of five isn't all that original or creative.

I'm ready!

School starts today!

Building houses

This is one of the things we accomplished over Christmas break. Yeah, it was technically after Christmas, but we were still on vacation so it counts right? Would you believe it if I told you they didn't fight at all while decorating it? Yeah, I wouldn't believe it either, and I'd be a liar.

Oops, I was going to hide the box and make you think I really baked all the sheets of gingerbread for the walls and roof. Darn, now you know my secret.

And the finished product.

I think the candy lasted approximately 586 seconds before little fingers started swiping it.

Out to eat

A couple weeks ago after our visit to Santa, the 4 yr old peep decided he wanted to eat at Big Bob Happy Fish. And if you can't figure out where that is, you don't have children.

The big freeze

Spending freeze, that is. Although, it's pretty darn cold outside too. Last year, I implemented a spending freeze in January (I think). January seems like a good time because it is freezing, in general, and I feel like I need to fast after the gluttonous month of December.

The purpose of the spending freeze is just that, to freeze all unnecessary spending paying particular attention to where the money goes for the entire month. Hopefully, it will teach us that we can stick to a budget, and that alot of the frivolous things we think we need are really just wants.

I remember at the end of the month last year, we had cheated a little, but I still felt like we accomplished something by saving a little and paying a little more towards debt. It actually felt good to not spend money. Not quite like the euphoric feeling I get when I walk into Tar*get but close. :op