Boy, Kids are Work!

Well, it's 12:42 am, and I'm about to fall over, so no long blog tonight. We basically just took care of kids all day. There are two adults, why does it seem like more work? But I shot some great pics at the playground today. I'll post them tomorrow. But here's a pic of dinner. I made pizza for everyone, taking requests for various toppings. We had cheese pizza, pepperoni, hawaiian, and barbeque chicken. It was so good, so good, I feel tempted for a midnight snack. But no! I must refrain!

Goofballs!

Sue was right, we were the bedtime nazis tonight. In fact, I was cracking the whip so hard, sounding like a drill seargant as we made the kids clean up their messes before bed, that Susie whacked me in the butt with a wooden spoon she found on the floor as we were cleaning up. She told me to chill, that I was stressing her out. It's that military upbringing, the inner Patton or Great Santini. "Get with it, people, no lollygagging!!!"

But then we got to chill out by about 9:45 pm. We breathed a deep sigh of relief, stuck an old 80's flick, Can't Buy Me Love, into the dvd player, and Sue ate ice cream while I worked on a beading project. More pics tomorrow!

End Post #64, 2009

Let the Good Times Roll!

Susie came a day early, so here we are! Apparently, Lily decided she'd rather skip her Friday swim lesson and just come play with the cousins. Yep, should be fun!

Sorry, no time log today. There's not much to report. I pretty much got up, did the Mom stuff (kids & house), started cleaning/organizing/filing so I can do my taxes, exercised, spent an hour drooling over beads again, then I planned meals for five days, did the shopping, cooking (I am soooo sick of cooking chicken, which I bought on sale at Smith's, I've got enough for three months of chicken meals I bet), cleaning, and then Sue got here. We had dinner, rounded up totally rowdy kids, and got everyone settled down for bed. Oh, and I did a lot of emailing today about an eBay auction I had. So, there you go. But I've got some cute pics of Emma and Mackay:

Emma was very interested in this new little person in her house.

But maybe it was just about his cool binky! Binky Thief Alert!

Poking his face was also interesting to her.

Boy, the kids were rowdy tonight! We'll see if Sue and I actually get anything done over the next three days, or if we spend most of our time herding children...

Also, thanks for the response on my request for advice. I knew I needed a kick in the butt of some kind, just to solidify the rambling thoughts in my head. So, thanks! And I have a new, and better, plan for everything else, which pleases me very much. Good job, ladies!

End Post #63, 2009

Can't Wait to Play Beading!

I spent hours today pouring over my beading books, and finally got around to placing my order. It was pathetic! But Sue and I will have fun this weekend being a bunch of slackers watching movies, eating food, and doing a fun craft. It's like a Mini Girls' Weekend! When will there be another official Girls' Weekend? Ummm, Mother's Day weekend? That soon? Who wants to scrapbook, and who wants to bead? And do we all want to gather in one place, or sit tight at our own houses with just our own little kids? Just some things to think about. And could I get some comments here?!!!! Sheesh!!! Maybe I should put the Mother's Day question in an email...

Time Log -

7am to 2 pm - doing the Mom thing and plotting the beading stuff, and barely got my order in on time, to arrive Friday. I know, because I called the company, Fire Mountain Gems and Beads www.firemountaingems.com just to make sure. Whew!
2 pm to 7pm - blew off some mental steam for a little bit, then started studying my web programming again. Yes, I thought I had it all figured out, but then I found I am very limited by the programming eBay allows, and what I had planned to do won't work, so I've got to dig around some more. Sigh...

Then, I found the kids, who are home this week on Spring Break, horsing around in Dani's room:

Attack! It's amazing how much they are NOT killing each other this week. They got pretty rowdy today playing Mario Part 8 on the Wii, and just horsing around a lot, but it was mostly in fun, instead of the usual "I hate you" "Well, I hate you more" flavor of sibling love we get between the older two. Good time, good times.

Then, I made cookies and grilled up a big batch of the chicken breasts I got on sale at Smiths' this week so I could freeze it for future meals. I tried to read my programming book inbetween, but I didn't get very far.

7:30 pm - went to Gerri Allen's house, and we poured over her bead collection. I think I may start up a beading group in my ward. It could be fun!
8:45 pm - stopped at Smith's on the way home. I was dying for a soda pop. Got a call from Zen, "You've been gone too long!" Sheesh, these people just can't live without me. Annoying and gratifying all at the same time. We read from the first half of Jacob 5, the Olive Trees allegory, one of my favorite sections of scripture. Prophesies are mental candy. We discussed the allegory with the kids, lots of interrruptions, mostly from a bored Connor, but it was good to read again.

10 pm - My blog posts, and much distraction looking at the bead website again. Big sigh... So many luscious beads, so little time and money.

Okay help me solve a dilemma, if you can, of what I should do with myself over the next three days. Here are the things that need to get done, and I can't do them all. Which ones should I postpone until Monday, or just abandon all together:

1. Taxes - Yes, people, I'm running out of time, and I really should get them done by Sunday, because Zen probably won't physically be here on the deadline, so he can sign them and I can mail them. Yes, I will efile, but I still have to mail the physical copies, don't I?. I could get an extension (is that hard to file for?), but procrastinating is bad, and besides, I'm pretty sure we're getting a big refund, and we could use the dough NOW.
2. eBay Store Programming and Listing - Darn it! If I could just get the store form programmed like I want it, I could zip along, list things, and really start bringing the dough with a bunch of auctions of the old stuff, to help cross-promote the new stuff, and bring traffic to my store. I know the long-term plan is good, but I've just have this ONE huge boulder in my path, and I need to clear it out of the way, so the money can flow, and the clutter can leave.
3. Mother's Day Albums - I really, really, really want to do a Mother's Day album with the sisters in my ward, somthing simple like Katie, Chris, and I saw at Pebbles. But I've got to design the sample and get the sign-up sheets going. Yes, as Sue pointed out to me, NO ONE signed up for my card class at Christmas, but even if I don't get a lot of interest, either that tells me my design sucks, or if I do get some good response, I've got a good idea that it will sell well in my eBay store, too. And this can't be delayed, because I've only got this Sunday, the 12th, and Sunday, the 19th for sign-ups, so I have two weeks to order in the supplies, if needed, before the class on May second, time enough for people to make an album, and still have a week to mail it to someone. Ordering supplies less than one week before class isn't going to cut it with some of the companies I order from. It takes some of them four business days to get stuff in, and I just don't want to cut it that close. So, either I do it, or forget it.
4. Hangin' with my Sis this weekend - Now, I KNOW this is going to happen, not negotiable.

Sue, I'm asking for your cut-the-monkey-foo opinion, you know you want to give it! See, girls, you think Sue's verbose lecturing tendency on her blog came from one of our parents, but no, it was her SISTER who warped her brain. Yes, it's true, I was the one who nagged her when we were kids. I guess it's a big sister thing. So, I guess the blame rests on me.

End Post #62, 2009

I Spit at You Two!

You know I wouldn't be able to resist a photo op, so here goes:

Yep, she did better if she could hold a spoon while I fed her, but she still ran out of interest and started spitting it out.



Joy - is it the spitting or posing for Mommy?

This is my favorite. I just love the spunky spirit!

End Post #61, 2009

I Spit At You!

That darn Foofie! I think she's decided she doesn't eat baby food anymore. I noticed her spitting her food out a few times over the last few days when she decided she didn't want anymore. But today, she would do that EVERY TIME I fed her just a few bites of baby food. The only things she would eat willingly were things she could put in her mouth herself, like baby cracker puffs, bread crusts, chips, etc., and of course, her bottle. Little Miss Independent! Zen and I have gone on and on for years about how once Dani got mobile, she was a sassy girl. Emma is doing it too, darn her! I'm just raising more Cox Independent Women. Sheesh! Wish I had pics, but spit-out baby food is kind of gross, and besides, I have to work fast to clean up the food before she spreads it everywhere. But maybe...

End Post #60, 2009

Too Much Beading and Too Much Grubs

Time Log -

Morning - exercised, showered, dressed, did all the Mom-taking-care-of-house-and-kids-stuff, and double-checked an order for brads.
Afternoon - fed kids lunch, did kid and house stuff I don't even remember, then got COMPLETELY distracted by ordering some bead stuff for the Mother's Day albums I'm working on, then it occurred to me that Sue and I could make some cute bracelets for the girls when they are here this weekend for Easter. That was the end of my productivity, as there were so many choices online I couldn't make up my mind. Then, Dani and Emma got into my bead stuff:

Destructo Baby. She loves tearing it all apart!

"Mu-ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!! It's mine, all mine!"

Dani made this ankle bracelet, which looked so big, that she tried it on Emma for a necklace, and it fit! I completed the anklet with a magnetic clasp, and the amazing thing, is that Emma didn't yank it right off. I see more necklaces in her future...

Foofie, stylin' in the tub right before bed.

Perfect for flip-flops and sandals. Summer is a-comin'!

Then, Gil needed me to run him to Taco Time to check on his job application, and to run him to the college. After 30 minutes of Gil's frustration trying to get us all out of the house he said, "I wish Dad was here! He could drive me right now!" I said, "Well, I'm the mother of four children." I know he's counting the days until he can drive himself places. Ughh. Then I suggested we all get a Taco at Taco Time while we waited for Gil. It wound up being an impulse-trip to a local burger joint called Grubs:


The Shamrock is their specialty - a double cheeseburger with the works. We also got shakes. It was good, but expensive. My $5 taco concept turned into $35. I got chewed out later by Zen when he got home from the Field. Add that to my frustration over wasting my day, and I was cranky by the end of the night when we read scriptures. Backtrack a little - after coming home from Grubs, I spent some time cleaning up all the bead mess, and finishing Dani's ankle bracelet. Then, it was kid and house stuff the rest of the night, with some occasional slobbering over beading projects. After putting the kids in bed, some time alone on my laptop soothed the troubled beast. Sometimes you just have enough of fifty people wanting a piece of you. But now I'll go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day, and I hope to get more done. Zen will be home for two days. I hope he can field some of the more mundane things and basic kid stuff for me. A girl can dream...

Oh, Blog Commentors, Where Art Thou?

End Post #59, 2009

I Was a Good Girl Today

This will be super-brief, because today was simple. Besides the usual mom stuff like changing diapers, feeding Emma, helping Connor, exercising, doing laundry, making dinner, etc., I spent EVERY extra minute from the moment I got up at 6am, until right now, 12:05 am, doing stuff for my business. (Unless you count the mega-long conversation Sue and I had on the phone this afternoon about children, namely unmotivated little girls, and Easter weekend.) I planned out cardstock colors for my Mother's Day album kits, I checked out some brad stuff online, I started editing the selling form for my eBay store, and I listed an auction for a Christmas gift, that was long overdue.

Sorry, not much info, but it was a productive day, if not very descriptive.