My Crazy Life

I have had a crazy past couple of weeks. It has just been one of those times in my life where everything happens at once and nothing goes right. My sister had a post the other day about her day and she got into how she had read a blog that wondered how us "stay at home moms do it....they would go out of their mind". Well news flash, sometimes we do go out of our mind. I do it at least once a day. That way I stay sane. People think I am joking when I say this. But have you ever tried to just let your logical and never stopping mind go for a little while and just enjoy life. I try everyday to let go for at least an hour. I spend that hour playing with my kids or reading a book to them or teaching them something....Kylie wants to learn to sew. I know without a doubt that that is going to require me to go out of my mind for a little while. Otherwise I couldnt be patient enough to teach her.

Now if you are still reading this post you probably think that I am crazy. On the contrary. I am manic depressive. Which means that my mind never stops. It is always going and always thinking of probably 20 0r 30 things at once. It is really hard to shut my mind down for any period of time. So instead of trying to do it for no reason...I "go out of my mind" while playing with my babies. Do you know how easy it is to get lost in Laura Ingalls Wilder? Or in coloring scarecrows all green because that is the color of the day for a two year old...but the next day it is blue or red or something....

I love my life, I love my kids and I wouldnt trade it for anything in the world. I have had people tell me that they admire me for staying at home or that they couldnt do that because they would be ready to kill their kids before the first day was over. I feel pity for these people. I really do. All you have really go to do is stop and enjoy your kids smiles or the silly things they say or do. See go out of your mind......stop thinking for a little while about what you have to do....or what needs done that you probably will never accomplish because there is just not enough time to do that and enjoy your kids....Enjoy your kids first. Then do everything else.

I also admire the Mothers out there who work and come home to a happy family. I admire the ones who go to work everyday (or part time ) and still run a household and take care of their kids with a smile. I personally dont think that I could go to work everyday and come home with a smile on my face for my kids. I would probably be too irritated and grouchy.

Julie also talked about what parts of housework that she liked and disliked. I have to say. I dont like to cook. I have never been that great at it although my husband keeps trying to convince me that I am. I dont like to eat my own cooking. I dont know there is just something about knowing what it looked like before you cooked it...lol. I do love the laudry part of keeping a home. I wish I had a clothesline so I could hang them out to dry and maybe next year i will. I like my sister though love the sound of the snaps in the dryer. I love the feel of the warm clothes when you pull them out of the dryer (you have to pull them out right when it is done to feel this, not wait for a while :) ) I love handwashing dishes, although i use my dishwasher alot, I love hot hot water on my hands and the accomplishment that I got my dishes clean. It seems to take some of the aggrivation out of my day. I love to wake up to a clean kitchen, wake up to a dirty one and my day is gone. I love to vacuum and see the clean floors that it leaves. I love to reorganize and rearrange. The fresh new feel that is there when you get that accomplished.

Things I dont like...dusting. I cant stand the little dust balls that go everywhere nor the gritty feel on my fingers after I get done (no i dont wear gloves to clean house, never have and really dont like the things.) I dont like having a huge couch taking up my living room space. It bugs me. My husband and I have seriously considered taking it out and just having a couple of chairs to sit in. (that is another post though) I dont like mopping...I dont know why, I just dont. I love sweeping however. I dont like cleaning toilets or tubs. Toilets are just nasty and tubs are too hard to clean (see I am a really tall person and to really clean my tub, I have to get way down on my knees and it kills my back and knees and by the time i am through i usually have a headache.) I dont like the fact that no matter how often you sweepdown the cobwebs, they always seem to come back. I dont like that at all. ( I think it has something to do with living in a trailor...People I know that live in real houses dont have this problem.)

I love the outside part of housework. I love to mow the yard even though i usually end up with a constant sinus infection every year from it (this didnt happen before I married my husband. I now live four hours away from where I grew up and I guess the weeds are just different. ) I love digging in the dirt to plant flowers. I love to rake leaves (although I have no trees where I live) I love making my yard look pretty.

I guess in all of my crazy life, I dont have any thing to complain about. But like I said the past couple of weeks have been crazy. So now my house is a wreck, my yard does not have lots of pretty flowers planted for next spring as planned, it needs mowed, and my mind had left me more than once in the past couple of days. But that is okay. I enjoy my crazy life and I enjoy going out of my mind, especially if it includes doing something fun with my kids.

So to all of you that dont see how we do it, it is really easy. We do go out of our mind but in a good way and we enjoy it. As my sister said, " Yes, it is hard. Extremely hard some days. It is both the most exhausting, the most demanding and the most rewarding thing that I have ever done. It's my home and these are my children and I am solely responsible for that and there are times when I need a break. But I always miss my husband (if he's not with me) and our girls."

Prayers and Blessings
Crystal

Love for our kids and my sis

Julie http://accordingtohispower2.blogspot.com has been posting alot about songs and how they relate to life. I found this you tube vido over on http://royalbness.blogspot.com/. It is very sad but something that most women can relate to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqfGqOx2iDQ

It makes me very grateful for the three wonderful little blessings that I have. There is nothing more precious than hearing your child say they love you. To think that at one time I did not think I would ever hear it makes me even more grateful.

To my sister, I love you and Iam so thankful for you and your prayers. I am so thankful that you are able to experience and enjoy all the precious little things they do. I do wish tht you had been able to experience it first but i am so glad that you were there to share Kylies with me.

Love and Prayers

Alaina

Alaina had her doctor appointment today. He was a very nice pediatrician. He is foreign I am not sure what nationality, (maybe afgan or something like that.) Anyway, he said her lymph node is probably a symptamatic lymph node. It probably swelled because of her ear infections or because she may have had tosilitis and we did not know it. He does not think it is cancerous or anything to be worried about at this time. He does want to do a TB Skin test to make sure she hasnt contracted that. He is also doing another blood work and a blood virus scan to make sure she does not have a virus in her blood. We will do the skin test next week and the blood work at the end of July and then go back to see him at the first of august to check and make sure that the lymph node is not swollen any more and to make sure her labs are okay. If there is anything wrong then we will go from there.

Anyway, I have got to go get my kids in bed and get some school stuff done. No homeschooling is not just a joy ride. It takes patience (something I am lacking), knowledge (something I am gaining), and love (something I have a lot of) and oh yeah planning which takes time. Time, I dont have a lot of because I have kids. I am sitting here tired as can be typing this but I like to keep up on here. It is my journal and I like to keep up with what is going on. I will keep you updated on Alaina.

Love and Prayers

Catch Up

I know I have not been posting as I should. I have been taking more time to study the Bible and to play with the kids. I have also been busy with Alaina's doctors appointments. I dont know if anything is wrong yet but they want her to be evaluated by another pediatrican (sp). So we get to do that tuesday. What fun.... Anyway, I have been doing that and reading alot. Today I am making bread and will be rearranging furniture. Plus we got the girls a new puppy and so we are busy with him today. It is a beagle and he is so cute. Kylie named him Robin Hood. lol We have been reading that book and she just loves it. I asked her why she named him that and she told me because he is going to be a hunter. I told her that Robin Hood wasnt a hunter he was a thief. She said he was also a hunter because he has a bow and arrow. lol....Kids logic is so funny sometimes.

Jason is doing better. He is only waking up once a night again. If only I could go to sleep at 8:30 like he does then maybe I could get more sleep.

Anyway, I have to go check my bread, it is probably through rising. Yummmm Homemade Bread. I dont think I will buy store bought again if I can keep this made up. Next I am going to try to make whole wheat or sourdough. We will see how that goes.

Love and Prayers.

Can a 4 month old spell "sleep"?

I think I officially have sleep deprivation. Jason has hit a growth spurt and so the past two nights, I have been up most of the night and am completely ready to crash but as I type this, He is laying beside me playing and laughing. (I think I will be up again tonight.) He doesnt sleep much during the day either though so I dont know what it is. And yes I am feeding him his rice cereal and we have even started eating applesauce and bananas.

I had to take Alaina back to the doctor for fasting bloodwork last tuesday. Her cholesterol level in her first round was 400 and something, in her fasting it was 42, which is normal. We still have to take her back in 4 to 6 weeks to get it retested just to make sure.

paul passed his State Real Estate test!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On the first try. He drove to OKC last Monday morning and took it and passed it. Everyone said it was really really hard to pass so we were prepared for him to have to take it 3 or 4 times. But he did really good and passed it on the first attempt. Now he gets to be a REAL ESTATE SALES ASSOCIATE....lol

I guess I need to go I am so tired, I am misspelling everything and having to go back and retype it.

Love and Prayers.

Stay at home Moms

I had to post this on my blog. I found it on Deanaland's blog. It explains to a T what a stay at home moms life is like all the time......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201554.html

Break Week

I am taking a break this week. I have all kinds of stuff to do here at the house and I really need to get Jason on a schedule and Paul starts Real Estate School this week plus working late at work to make up for having to take off early on school days and they have a lot of stuff starting to happen on the jobs at work.. Som tenant spaces that are ready to finish out and paul is the one to do that so....I really need this week to get the kids adjusted to him not being here as much right now. Plus I really need to catch up on some sewing and do some decluttering in places that got cluttered last week when I had no energy to do anything. I was so tired I just couldnt do anything. So now my house is a mess and I have got to get it back on track before I scream.

So I will probably be back on here this weekend or Monday. If not You will know that I am still cleaning and sewing. Today I have to take Kylie to the library. i promised her I would. Can you imagine me in the library with a 3 yr old , 2 yr old, and a baby? They will probably kick us out.

For those of you that would like an update on Julie, She still has not had her baby. she is so ready for it to get here. She goes to the doctor today so maybe we will know something then. If I get time after I find out about her, I might put a little post on here to update. Keep her in your prayers though. She really needs them right now at this point in the pregnancy.

Love and Prayers.

Friday......

Yes it is Friday and usually I am excited about it but just not getting there today. I have been pretty much blah all week. I am guessing it is because it has been cold and yucky and I havent been able to get out. And now today it is RAINING........Why does it have to rain on the weekends. Cant it just rain during the week when my husband is working and we arent interested in going anywhere. But no it has to rain on the weekends so that we have to drag the kids out in it if we want or have to go somewhere. Ughhhhh.... Anyway enough about the rain.

I had to take Jason to the doctor Wednesday. He was really congested and couldnt even eat without choking trying to breathe. Plus he has been really gassy and fussy. I assumed it was colic but wasn't sure. So.....He has allergies but there is not anything to give him until he is 6 mths old. He also has colic and is probably not getting full enough on just formula and then overeating because he is gassy and thinks he is hungry so then he gets more gassy. If you have had a kid with colic you know the drill. She gave me some stuff called gripe water. It is herbal stuff and seems to be working so far. We also started him on rice cereal. He actually slept last night. He went to sleep around 10:30 which is a little earlier than he has been and he woke up around 3:30 and ate and then didnt wake up until 6:00 but he wasnt hungry then just dirty.

So now we have got to work on getting him to sleep earlier.
Pauls mom has been sick but she is feeling much better now. My Dads brother was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. He is very special to all of us nieces and nephews so it will be hard watching him go through this and even harder when he finally passes. My Dad also just lost one of his best friends. (they grew up together. )

I have had a sinus infection and now i have a tooth infected. I am so tired of living with alergies. They drive me nuts. I have kinda been throwing the idea around of moving to Colorado. My husband used to live there and he says he never felt better in his life. I wouldnt care if it was just my allergies but my kids stay stuffed up and feeling bad most of the time and I dont want them to grow up feeling yucky all the time. I dont' know we probably never will but it is something to think about.

I dont really have much else to say. Pray for my sister Julie. She is getting closer to having her baby and has really been hurting alot. Hopefully she will have and easy labor and no problems this time.

Love and Prayers

Monday happenings.

Lots of stuff going on this week. I decided this morning that since I got all my laundry caught up over the weekend, that I will not do laundry every day this week like I have been doing the past couple of weeks. See usually on Monday's I do all the laundry except for the Kitchen stuff like towels and dishrags and potholders. I do those on Wednesday when I clean my kitchen and then on Friday i do sheets and quilts. But since Jason was born, I have not been caught up on laundry so I have been doing it everyday. Now I can get back to my schedule with the exception of Jason's clothes and cloth baby wipes. They will need to be washed every day. And Paul is down to two pair of work jeans so I will need to keep them washed this week until we can buy more this weekend after he gets paid. So I have today to catch up on other stuff like paying some bills that did not get paid Saturday because we were too busy cleaning house and getting this weeks lesson together for the girls and taking a nap.

Hopefully tommorow I will get to sew on me some dresses and maybe some outfits for the girls.
I have been looking at something on other blogs called Menu plan monday. I need to go check out the website and see what it is all about. But if it is something that is interesting I will see about doing it on here. For today though, I need to work on my budget and My menus for the next two weeks. I am trying to find some new Crockpot dishes to try but am not having any luck finding ones that my husband might like. If yall have any suggestions please let me know.

Paul killed a turkey saturday. Yippee!!!! Congratulations. I love seeing him having fun and enjoying himself. He so enjoys hunting and being in the woods. Plus now we can have deep fried turkey breast and turkey breast rubbed with some great seasonings that we aquired and baked like a pork tenderloin. I love trying new stuff. The only downside to him killing the bird was that I had to clean the meat after he had cut it off. YUCK!!!!!! All I can say is I am glad I am not pregnant this time. Last time he killed a turkey, I was pregnant with Kylie and could not even look at it raw. He had to clean it. Funny cause when I killed my deer, I was pregnant with Alaina and it did not even bother me. Even Funnier, kylie is our finnicky eater, she wont hardly eat meat and Alaina wont hardly eat vegetables but she devours meat. Isn't that weird.

anyway, my goal was to list two things fun to do with my kids every day. today, i am going to snuggle with them during nap time if jason will take his nap at the same time. They love for me to take naps with them. second, I am going to play barbies with kylie. She so enjoys this. And I will find something to do with alaina. she isnt' really into anything right now. If It warms up any at all and the wind isn't blowing, I will try and take them out side. I dont want to go if the wind is blowing though because I already have a sinus infection and kylie's allergies are really acting up.

I am going to try to get some new books to read with this next paycheck. I want a new cookbook and a new cd to so we will see.. If I get them and start reading them I willpost them.

Love and Prayers

Busy Days

We have had some busy days lately. I have been trying to clean my house which means catching up on what I did not get done monday because Jason was fussy all day, and Tuesday because we had to go to town and wednesday because I was just too tired to do anything. Yesterday, we started cleaning and finally got to a point that I could start sewing on the girls dresses. I have almost got them finished. I need to put the finishing touches on Alaina's and kylie wants a bow on the front of hers. I have never put bows on stuff before so I dont know if i can do this or not.

anyway.. Julie I appreciate your comments and also that you helped Sarah leave one. I am humbled by the fact that I inspire you. I didn't figure I could inspire anyone much less my older sister. I am inspired by you also. I am striving to be more like you in the areas of Bible studying and patience with our kids.

In case anyone who reads mine and Julies blogs are wondering where she is at, She is having a hard time right now. The further along she gets the more she hurts. Please pray that she safely continues to carry this baby until it's due and that she may find some comfort and relief from the aches and pains. I know she would appreciate it.

I know every one of my pregnancies were different. I only had three but they were all different. Kylie layed on my back and had my sciatic nerve pinched. my legs were constantly numb and hurting. Alaina was great except for ligaments stretching and her fingernails scratched. Jason was the worst. I hurt everywhere all the time. There was no comfortable position and no relief.

I had fun with the girls yesterday. We had dance class. We put in a CD and danced to oldies rock. It was hilarious. But it got Kylie interested in school again. So I have decided that we are going to have a dance class in our homeschool. It may not be the best class in the world but It is fun and it is exercise for me. lol

I am going to finish the girls dresses and work on my house some more today. What are you going to do?

Love and Prayers
Crystal

Figured it out......haha

I have figured out how to fix my blog so that anyone can leave a comment. I think. I invite someone to try it so i will know if it works. anyone..... I have been busy today. I still dont have pauls office arranged or organized. but i have to wait on him to move stuff. I also dont have my budget or grocery list done( paul gets paid today and i usually am 2 to 3 weeks ahead on this but got behind when the baby was born. I have the girls down for naps and hopefully i will get to sew when they get up. I promised kylie i would try to sew her a dress today if Jason will cooperate. He has been extremely fussy the last couple of days. I cant figure it out. He slept better last night, he finished a bottle about 11 and did not wake up till 4:45. What a relief. But then he woke back up about 5:30 and wanted another couple of ounces and then was through until 7:30 when he ate a couple more and then slept until his sister woke him up at 9:00.

anyway, I still have lots of stuff i want to post about but computer time (one handed usually ) is not very often now days. I think i will get a notebook and start writing things down and then when i get more time i can post them. One of the things is I am trying a new budgeting experiment so that i can save more of my grocery money to buy things like a bread machine, a big stand up mixer, a new dishwasher (paul complains that you literally have to wash the dishes before the dishwasher washes them. and it is not very energy efficient.) So I will have to post about that and see how it works.

But anyway someone please try to leave a comment. I hope it works so i can hear from yall.

Love And Prayers.

I'm Back (kinda)

Hello everyone,

I am back when I have time. I have been busy though. I now have my house clean except for Pauls office. We still have to reaarange it and organize it. That will take a couple of days. I have not spring cleaned yet but am working on little things that will get me to that point. I was all geared up and ready to start and we have not had time with all the laundry we have been doing.

Monday was not a good day either. Started out we got up late (which isn't unusual right now.) About 10:30, I had my kitchen clean and all the laundry washed and dried and was getting the final load out of the dryer which is right by our furnace/fan. I smelled gas fumes....(yikes) so I turned the airconditioner off (our airconditioner fan is in the same unit as the furnace. and the fumes were coming through the vents into the house) Opened windows, started getting the girls ready to go outside(thank God it was pretty and not raining) and called Paul. He headed home and called his dad to come over and turn the gas off( i could not turn the valve and had no wrenches) dad came over, turned the gas off made sure we were okay and left to go back home, paul got home found out we had a leak in one of the connections. He tightened it and turned the gas off to the furnace. (we dont need it anyway) and was going to go back to work when his dad pulled up with a brand new push lawnmower for me :) !!!!! (Thanks DAD) He noticed that our yard needed mowed and when we were going to turn the gas off we found a baby snake in the yard. His grandbabies do not need to step on snakes because they cant see them, and I had said something about working off pregnancy weight by mowing the yard. and our mower isn't running.

so we put it together and paul left to go back to work. not the end of our bad day. I was going to give the girls an icecream bar for their snack and went to get them out of the freezer and they were melted. Now we are talking about our upright deep freeze. I turned the temperature down so it would get colder if it was just that the door had been left ajar and i didn't notice. but about an hour later, they were even softer and you could tell it wasn't as cold as it was earlier. I pulled the stuff out of it and put what i could in our little freezer (the one with the fridge.) and the rest in an ice chest. turns out that after supper was over with and everything, we were headed out to get some groceries and checked the freezer and the compressor had completly quit. so we took the ice chest full of meat to pauls mom and dads and put in their already full freezer.

anyway, Things to thank God for. Thankfully I smelled the gas and we got out and got it fixed before it was too late. Thank God our meat did not ruin. And Thank God (and Dad ) for our new lawn mower. Thank God also that the girls have not gotten snake bit yet. although either one of them could I think Alaina would be the one if Kylie did not accidentally step on it. Kylie is scared to death of them but Alaina is curious, she would have to find out why it was there.

We are not completely back on our supposed schedule. We get up about an hour later every morning but we still get stuff accomplished. Kylie is back to schooling. We only made it through week 1 of our curriculum before Jason got here. I just could not muster the energy to make her do it when she did not want to . But now we have to. So we are working our way back up to it. I will post more on that later.
I am also working on figuring out how to link my schedules to my blog. I will see what I can figure out. I would like to post some pictures of the kids too.

I redid my master/daily schedule and my routines for the days . The previous ones werent working with a new baby and the new one is more flexible and allows more fun time with the kids but still gets my house clean. We also found that we cant do laundry on mondays and not the rest of the week right now. so we are doing at least 2 loads a day.
I guess that is all for now. Think it is enough? lol.

Love and Prayers