Shopping Adventures

Going to the grocery store with three kids 5 and under: INSANE

NOT getting the car cart because they were bad last time: EVEN CRAZIER

Letting them take in their McDonald's Happy Meal toys to keep them occupied: DELUSIONAL

Buying cupcakes and telling them they could have them when we get home if they're good: INSPIRED

All the kids being too tired to remember that we had cupcakes and all ended up taking naps: HEAVENLY

Six cupcakes that are now hidden for mommy's secret enjoyment: PRICELESS!

Echoes

Littlest Monkey (age 16.5 months) has decided that she wants the world to hear her. She also has found that if you go into a partially furnished room that has high ceilings, you might be able to hear something cool if you yell "Ahhhhhh!" Today in the entryway at school she looked up at the ceiling and I could literally hear the gears grinding in her head saying, "This might work out to my advantage... Let's give it a try." All of a sudden, "Ahhhh!!!!" Yes, the echo was very cool. The other parents looking at me thinking my children are nuts, not so much.

I've Given Up...

At least for today. I have a migraine and don't feel like keeping up with the resolutions... Although we did go for an hour and a half long walk this morning because we had some beautiful weather. The kids are starting to get used to being in a neighborhood that we can actually walk around in.

But the eating well thing is out the window since I don't feel like eating anything. I just had ramen noodles for lunch... That's healthy... And there will be no projects on my list for completion today because I think I will take a nap... Depending on whether or not I can finish this post...

Out.

New Year's Resolutions?

Okay, so I haven't really written out a New Year's resolution since the 10th grade. I think back then it was something along the lines of "Don't put up with stupid friends that want to walk all over you. Put your foot down and get a spine." It still took a few years for that one to take hold, but oh well.....

This year I have decided that I'm going to have 2 resolutions. The first one is the same as about 98% of the female population of this country: lose weight. My goal is somewhere around my high school weight, but I will make due with my pre-baby weight. (That would be my FIRST baby.) I'm going to save the numbers for when I actually get there. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up. :) I also decided that the best way to accomplish this goal is to not eat so much. I don't listen to when I'm full. I completely ignore it until I clean my plate. (Bad habit from when I was younger...) Also, I'm not going to deprive myself of stuff I like. Like right now, we just had a birthday for Monkey #2 yesterday and I have Devil's Food Chocolate cake in the kitchen. I'm not going to NOT eat it. I will just eat a little. And then stop. Also, if I have the cake, I won't eat as much dinner or have an afternoon snack. These are all simple things, yet I have ignored them for the last 6 years or so.

Number 2 resolution is that I will, in the morning, come up with one thing that I want to accomplish for the day and it WILL be finished by the time I go to bed. I know that doesn't sound like that big a deal, but when you are a complete procrastinator like me and have three little kids that you use as an excuse for getting any and every thing done, it's a big deal.

I think that's it. I'll let you know how it goes. I figure if I write them down, them I'm accountable and someone may come back in a few months and say, "How's that New Year's resolution thing going?" I would hate to say, "Duh, I forgot about them..." :)

Moving

Funny thing... I have all my stuff that I need on a daily basis, but all the other stuff that I need once a month, once a year, once a life... is all at the old house. You look at the new house and see everything one would need. And not much space to put anything else... Where on earth am I going to put everything else that isn't here yet? I'm getting together a list of things that won't make the cut to the new house. I call it the new way to spring clean. Just move to a smaller house. It's amazing what junk I kept. Don't tell my mom it's junk though. She tried to pack it all in her suitcase with her when she came to visit. :) Love you Mom!

Where Has All My Patience Gone?

I swear when I had just two, I could handle anything. I remember people telling me all the time that they were just amazed at how well I handle it all. I think they could also see how #2 cried all the time when he was little and knew it would just break them down.

Well, I think it must have along the way, broken me down. I don't know when it happened. It might have been over a period of a few months, 1/2 a year... I don't know. But I have a fuse about 3 minutes long. You know in the life of a toddler, it takes them 3 minutes just to get going.

Remember that thing about "counting to 10" and then you can calmly take care of things? That doesn't work. Try counting to 101. Sometimes the magic number is 137. Try it. By the time you get there, the problem is either over and they have moved on to something else or it has gone from one crying to all of them crying. At that point, I just send them all to their rooms.

Problem solved.

Ice Cream Wars

I love ice cream. My fondest memories from childhood are going to Thrifty drug store over by Williams Brothers grocery store and getting a cone with two scoops. Depending on my mood, I would sometimes get mint chocolate chip or cookies and cream or chocolate malted crunch. (Of course there was the cool ice cream shop downtown that we would very rarely go to that had that bubble gum ice cream that was just to die for!)

Anyway... we always had ice cream at home too. I still remember at least 5 nights a week we would get a bowl of ice cream after dinner when we were just relaxing watching tv or playing a game or whatever. It wasn't a huge bowl, but it was definitely not on the skimpy side. I would fill that thing up.

You would think that I would have been hugely overweight or something... I really wasn't. Thank goodness for my 5'10" frame. Then, enter ice cream after children. I'm afraid of it. I keep it very far away. I know that I have no self control. Growing up in a house full of 6 people, if you finished off a carton of ice cream, everyone knew who did it and how long the carton had been open (ie: how many days it had been open.) Here at my house, I can finish off a carton by myself and no one will even know it was there to begin with. I can't be accountable to myself. I'm not programmed that way.

Enter my loving husband. He knows I can't stand anything to do with coffee. The smell, the taste, the thought.... Yuck! He will go out and periodically want an ice cream treat and since he knows I won't go near coffee with a 10 foot pole, he gets Hagen Daaz coffee flavored ice cream.

Lord bless him!