Life without Mom (Shanda) -- DAY 2

Today was considerably harder. Despite no alarms being set, the kids woke up like clock work right around 6:00 AM.

6:15 AM: Cooper asked me what was for breakfast and I gave him the "It's-gonna-be-a-long-six-days-for-you-kid-if-you- still- can't-pour-your-own-bowl-of-cereal-and-you-are-turning-9-this-month-speech." He then spilled the milk, while pouring.

9:00 Shanda calls. Wow - 6:00 AM her time. Apparently she has not adjusted yet. I find this mind boggling since she is always tired. But while I had her on the phone, I tapped her for a few of her ideas. She gave me like 50, and after like 10 I was like ok, now you are just rubbing it in. You have far superior kind watching time killing ideas than me. Point taken. You don't have to rub my face in it.

10 - Noon -- One amazing idea was to take them to the local YMCA. The kids enjoy going there and they have something for all ages and 2 hours of watching your kids daily is included in the membership. Yeah Haw -- Chester's Dead! (top gun reference for those who follow). We milked that until lunch. Coop went to kid zone for kids 7 and over. This is clearly the big ticket item at the Y and the dream of envy of every six year old in the surrounding area. Will is 6 but I felt no remorse in sending him to the kid zone. I told Coop not to blow his cover. No questions were asked -- clearly this is a tactic Mom has used as well in the past. Coop was playing Michigan Football on the EA Sports College football and destroyed Ohio State. That is as close to a big time victory as Michigan has had in recent years. Will and I played foosball. I worked out for an hour. We then picked up Paris. Genius, Shanda, Genius!

12 - 2 : We went to subway for lunch. Then off to the batting cages, Then off redeem our gift cards at Cold Stone - despite it still being unseasonable cold for Charlotte.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY -- No nap today but caught a break -- Cooper's friend asked him to spend the night. Let me think about that for a second, "um, yeah -- I think we can accommodate. Would you like Will and Paris as well. No sleepover is complete without them? "

4:00 - 6:00 Baseball Practice -- Now this is usually the highlight of my day. I love watching the kids play baseball. But with three kids and no help, It was decidedly different. Paris says she has to go potty and is holding her croutch with both hands. I was helping out playing first base at the time and said -- Looks like someone will have to take over for me. I pick her up and run to nearest bathroom. Since we haven't had the first game yet, it appears the facilities are locked. Checked my back up -- the port-a-potty in front of field 10. It is no where to be found. Newman!

I have no choice but to take her in the woods. Can I just say this process is SO MUCH EASIER FOR BOYS? Here i am in sub 40 temperature pulling Paris pants, shoes, socks and underwear off so she can pee. And then, and I thought this only happened to boys, but not being in her natural comfort zone, she gets stage fright. Nothing comes out. She turns to me -- All done Daddy.

You gotta be kidding me, For the love of all things, "Pee Paris" "Pee like the wind."

" I no have to pee Daddy." So I put it all back on.

20 minutes later she says she has to go Poo-Poo. Now I am really in trouble. I find out there is a facility about 300 yards away. I run to the car -- Don't bother buckling her and drive as fast I can. I keep encouraging her to hold it. She is doing it valiantly. We get to the bathroom and I choke under the pressure and am admittedly slow getting everything off. Right as I am pulling down her pull up, she let's it fly. So close and yet so far away. Needless to say, Paris went commando the rest of practice.

Practice finished. We rented Harry Potter and got treats. Then I realized Harry Potter is like 2 and half hours and called it at the half way point. I am exhausted. But they are in bed and I am soon to follow.

Hoping today will be better and it will get warmer soon.

Life without Mom (Shanda) -- DAY 1

So in a moment of weakness, I offered to send Shanda out to see her brother and his family and watch our three kids for six days. I am used to watching the kids for a few hours at a time, but needless to say, this will be quite an adventure. So for kicks, and for the 5-6 of you listening, I am deciding to chronicle the highlights of each day. By the way, it is only day one, but I already have mad respect for all the stay at home spouses out there.

6:00 AM -- Wake the kids up and get them ready for the bus. Had 30 minutes to get them dressed, fed and lunches ready. It is bad enough that our kids are supposed to be picked up at 6:35 AM for school, but the bus driver got to our house at 6:24 AM today. D&*% that bus driver! Oh well, got them off safe and back to bed I go.

6:37 AM -- Paris wakes up. So much for the back to bed plan.

9:15 AM -- I can not believe it is only 9:15 AM. I read stories, watched a cartoon, made breakfast, played basketball and went on a walk with Paris. I got nothing left in the tank or pool of ideas. About 2.5 hours into this I am hitting my typical time period that I watch the kids. No wonder Shanda takes these kids to the YMCA everyday. I am in trouble.

10:15 -- The kids asked if I could meet them for lunch at school since I am not home very often. So I said sure all flattered and then they left their orders of the food they wanted me to bring them. WIll wants hamburger and chicken nuggets and Cooper wants Sushi. But we needed something to kill the time so I accommodated.

10:55 -- I ran into the gas station for 1 minute with Paris in the car and the doors locked. I could see the car the entire time, but thought to myself, moms must be tempted to lock their kids up all the time when they run errands. I feel bad about it.

11:15 -- Met Will for lunch. Waiting in the cafeteria, one of the neighbor girls sees me and quickly takes me under her wing and explains that I am in the wrong table and how the lunch process works. It was appreciated and cute all at the same time.

You can learn a lot at a lunch table with 6 year olds. Let's start with I thought I was the starring attraction, but I wasn't. It was all Paris. They ate her up. Repeatedly asking her questions and laughing at whatever she said. Paris loved it too. Will held his sisters hand most of lunch and all the way back to his class. It was pretty cute.

By the way, I think Will is officially the class clown, but he did not really want me to know. The kids kept asking Will -- "Hey Will, tell us a joke. Come on Will, just one joke." He kind of gave them the look like, not now guys, my Dad is here.

12:15 -- Lunch with Cooper and his friends. Sushi definitely got Cooper the attention he was looking for. About 5 minutes into lunch Cooper announced "Who wants a Wasabe Sushi Bomb?" It had shades of the playground on Christmas Story and a double dog dare. His good friend Ecam rose to the occasion. " I am African," he declared. "Africans eat all sorts of spicy things. It does not bother me at all. I am an African American. "

Ecam had thrown down the gauntlet. Cooper took the entire side of wasabe meant for 12 pieces of sushi to share and pasted all on one "Wasabe Sushi Bomb." I was nervous. This could seriously do some damage I thought. I was the only adult at the table. Ecam ate it up without hesitation. Not even a blink. No water. "I am African American," he declared again in victory. Impressive stuff.

We also started beating our hands to rhythm of "We Will Rock you" on the table. The two tables next to us started joining in and then I realized, oh no, I started this ruckus. Good to know I can still hang with the 8 year olds at lunch. Good Times. I think I was cooler than Paris with the 8 year olds, but it was still debateable.

1:15 -- Paris down for a nap. Will and Coop still at school. I had a nap. This is the only perk that I found in staying at home today.

2:45 -- Kids home from School. We played baseball. Coop practiced pitching to me. We all played a little hoops. Paris dunked. Made a snack.

5:00 -- Went to the dollar movies. Snuck in drinks and suckers. I had a can of Fresca for each of the kids. Dad's don't do wussy juice boxes. I think this might have been the first time Paris ever got an entire can of pop. oops. Luckily there were only about 7 people in the theater and we were 4 of them. She was bouncing off the walls. It has no calories -- I thought it would be ok. oops.

7:00 -- late dinner. Made left overs -- Thanks Shanda. 8:30 -- Kids in bed. No school tomorrow. It is going to be even harder. And I think I used some of my best stuff today. We'll see.

Paris

I've been waiting for whole life for a little baby girl who would do this. Who would also love it when I make necklaces and rings for her and then wear them on her chubby fingers. Who would pronounce the word "wolf" as "woof" as in The Boy Who Cried Woof. Who would enthusiastically clap and sing and listen at reading time. Who tells me to chew my food before talking to her. Who asked Heavenly Father to help us in this cold "feather" in her prayers. Who will sit for hours with an open book reading loudly to herself. Who loves to go shopping and say, "Ohhh, Cute" when I show her something. Who always tells me I look pretty after I get dressed even if it is sweats to go running. Who wants to snuggle face to face with her little arms wrapped tight around my neck.

Love you Paris! Thank you for making me smile!

Pinewood Derby 2010

This is our first year that we had a son old enough for the Pinewood Derby. Cooper and Austin worked hard on Cooper's car (with the help of many friends -- Thanks Bro. Coombs) - a camouflage "Humvee". He managed to win a few races and come in fourth place out of 15 participants. But the most adorable event of the night was seeing Will watch the races intently and then cheer like crazy when Cooper won.

Thank Goodness for Good Samaritans

It's been a pretty rotten day. I took a boot camp class at the YMCA two days ago that has left me hammered - I have never been this tremble-when-you-see-a-set-of-stairs-sore in my life - and I have taken the opportunity to let anyone I talk to know about it. So just getting around the house, cleaning and dealing with whiny children that want to be held has not been great. Add to that PMS and school off today and I think you can imagine what a monster mom I have been.

So to top it off, tonight at 9:30 Cooper and I went to Target to get him a pair of water sandals to take with him to the beach this weekend with a friend. As we were casually inspecting the sandals and perusing the 75 percent off aisle, I hear over the loud speaker, "Will the owner of the black BMW with the license plate #1UMFan come to the customer service desk?" My heart sunk, but I thought it was just because I left the lights on again - this is Austin's car and I don't drive it very often and tend to leave lights on and run the battery down and then need a jump and such. Well, it was a bit worse than that. Apparently I left the car, a standard, in neutral and forgot to engage the emergency brake. So while we were nonchalantly shopping, our car started to roll across the parking lot, scraping the cart corral on its way to Panera Bread - not real close to Target by the way. Then a stranger saw the problem, jumped into the car while it was rolling, pulled the E-brake and then pushed it into a new parking spot. Then he left.

He didn't steal the car or anything in it, or laugh as it rolled into a building or another car. A complete stranger put himself in danger by running after the car, stopping it and then pushing it to a new spot. Probably not what he was planning when he set out for Target tonight. And the car was nowhere close to where I originally parked it, it moved nearly half the parking lot away. The car isn't wrecked, there is a scrape along the side from the cart corral but nothing like what could have happened.

I feel so much gratitude for this person who did this. I never got to meet him, he was gone before I found out what happened. So all I could do is thank my Heavenly Father for putting someone in place to help me avoid a major catastrophe. It just shows how much he loves me, this could have been significantly worse and instead it was minor.

Black Friday and my buddy Cooper

For some reason Cooper was really excited about Black Friday shopping this year. I am not sure whether it was the thought of quality time together or because he thought he could finagle me into buying him a lego set on sale (which he did, but won't get it until he pays me back). Anyway, this was my second year shopping, we never did this growing up. My parents were more of the philosophy that you didn't go anywhere near stores on Black Friday, with good reason.

Cooper set his alarm clock for 4 am after suggesting that I set out my clothes for the next day and sleeping in his. Then he woke me at 4:21 am and started helping me get dressed and ready. He got a stool out and stood by my closet and asked me what I wanted to wear, "Maybe a blouse, mom?" No thanks, more like a t-shirt and sweater. I didn't even know he knew the word "blouse". Then he got out other choices: a denim skirt, some brown dress pants before he finally found my jeans and we settled on a green sweater, pink shirt and jeans. He told me that my sweater and shirt would look good together because they are close together on the color wheel.

After Cooper hustled me out the door and we made our way to Walmart, he insisted that we RUN into the store at 4:55 am. Run? I was barely stumbling. But we ran in and got everything on our list. It was fun to have a little shopping buddy though I think he was expecting to find a couple of Wii games and Guitar Hero for $5. We didn't find that but I did treat him to a delectable breakfast at McDonald's when we were done.

Paris and Austin . . . Vampires?

It's my own little Edward and Reneesme!

Little Girls Are Cute

If I only knew how fun having a little girl was going to be, I wonder if I would have wished for boys so much initially. My favorite is her in the blanket.

Although she is all snuggled up next to the Anthropologie shopping bag -- that could make me wish for boys again.

Austin

Deliverance

This week at my bible study class our lecture was on Psalm 125 and specifically deliverance from the Lord. The lecturer spoke about a concept I have forgotten along the way. We have the mistaken belief that deliverance means that our trials will end or we will somehow have relief. I like how the lecturer described deliverance:

"it means living confidently as one who is protected, impenetrable like Mount Zion . . . rest in the powerful surrounding presence of God . . . living in the storm of trials and having peace."

Lately I've been very frustrated with my life, my kids, how my brain seems to have evaporated and the constant fatigue that comes with being a mom. This lecture brought me back to what we are doing here. I am here to be tested and tried and polished through the fire of difficulty. But the silver lining is that I will be able to do it, I will be able to get through it with Christ and come out better for it.

This morning something happened that perfectly illustrated this point to me. A friend and I drove 1 1/2 hours away to attend the Columbia, South Carolina temple. Don't even get me started on the fact that I had to leave at 6:30 am and had been up since 2 am with a bout of insomnia. Anyway, after the session I was definitely ready to go home quick and rest and felt weepy and nauseated from lack of sleep.

When I tried to start my car it wouldn't turn over, and the battery seemed to be dead. This was the trial and then came the deliverance. We found a man in the parking lot who was a mechanic who gave us a jump and even more importantly helped us find the battery. I'm not completely stupid, but have you ever looked for the battery under the hood of a BMW? It is in a weird spot and doesn't look anything like any other battery in a car. So anyway, this wonderful man was able to correctly hook our jumper cables up and jump us and even point out the fact that I had left my lights on, and that is why the battery was dead. By the way, I was driving Austin's car so I wasn't familiar with all these BMW quirks.

I was frustrated but just so grateful for how this played out, it could have been much different. It could have been pouring rain, we could have been boxed in by other cars in the parking lot with no way to reach the engine with the cables, there could have been no other cars there. We could have hooked the cables to the wrong spot and blown up the car! I felt like Mount Zion - we got through it with all the extra helpful things from Heavenly Father. AND I learned from my trial to always make sure to turn my lights off!

24 Hour Readathon

Many people were confused or simply thought I was ridiculous when I told them about participating in my first 24 hour readathon. It was lots of fun with my friend Tricia. We spent most of the day at her house reading on her comfy couches and being served by her smiley husband, then spent the night at a Southpark hotel with yummy food from Maggianos and Cheesecake factory. (Meanwhile Austin was at home feeding the kids Cici's pizza for under $10 for the whole family).

Despite the lack of snacks to shovel into our mouths the whole time -Tricia doesn't believe in snacking while reading, or ever - we still had a great time.

I read for about 14 hours of the 24, completed 3.3 books and 823 pages, had lots of laughs and even stayed up past 9 pm for my first time!

By the way, despite what this picture looks like, we had our own beds and didn't snuggle on the same pillow the whole night.

"Punkin" House with Paris

A couple years ago, I bought a few of these kits that I thought would be fun to make with the kids. I think last time Will and I tried one there was wailing and gnashing of teeth, so Paris and I tried one again together and had a great time. Here is the finished project with my cute little baby next to it.

Lucky to be a Boy

Today I inadvertently stumbled upon a talk about periods (as in, once a month) with Cooper. I was trying to explain why girls have them and I got a bit tongue-tied.

Me: Uh, when the egg is released and there is no sperm to make a baby, then, um, everything has to come out to clean out the uterus.

Cooper: Uterus, what the crap is a uterus?

Exactly.

U2 Concert

We traveled several hours on Saturday to see the U2 concert in Raleigh. Enduring tons of traffic and a round trip drive of 5 hours was TOTALLY WORTH IT! I haven't seen many concerts in my life and this was amazing. I would definitely go see them again.

U of M Game Day!

Cub Scout Campout

Austin recently took Coop and Will on the Cub Scout campout and thanks to my lovely friend Heather we have these fun pictures.

I love this one of Cooper and his buddy Tyler - they've known each other since they were little chubby 3-year-olds. I love seeing them together still.

This is what happens when mom decides not to go to the campout and Cooper decides to run in the ashes of the fire - Great idea Coop! Was it still burning?

Will is just happy to be there and by the way, notice his new glasses?

Thank you Austin for taking them!!! I really was happy to stay home snug in my own warm bed.

Always a great start to the day . . .

When I have to sign my tardy kids in to school wearing my not-so-loose hand me down from my sister red reindeer pajamas with no bra and crazy hair. Good thing I brushed my teeth at least.

Yo-Yo Necklace Tutorial

It's my first tutorial! I found this cute yo-yo necklace idea and thought I would try my hand at my own tutorial. Basically it's a bunch of yo-yos that you combine and anchor to your neck with a chain or ribbon. And to give credit where credit is due, I found this idea online and wanted to link to it but couldn't find the link, so this is definitely not my original creation.

I'll show you my steps but if you want a more detailed and really great tutorial just to make the yo-yos, check here.

So first I gathered my materials. Basically you need some fabric scraps, round shapes to use for a cutout, scissors, needles, thread, glue gun, base fabric piece if desired, chain or ribbon for making the necklace and I think that's about it.

Here's the stuff:

Next use several different size circular items to trace your circle shape. Keep in mind that the yo-yo will turn out about half the size of the item you use to trace originally.

Cut out your circles. I am showing just one of mine, but you will need several. I used a total of 8.

Next you will thread your needle and make a knot at the end. Then fold over the edge of the circle and use long basting stitches all around the edge of the circle.

When you have finished stitching around the edge of the circle, start pulling up the stitches so that the circle starts to close in on itself, like this:

This is what it will look like when you have gathered the stitches completely. Go up and down through the middle a few times with the needle and thread and secure with a knot on the bottom of the yo-yo.

Arrange the yo-yos in any order that you like.

Then take a piece of scrap fabric or felt to use as a base for your necklace. Just cut it in something close to what your shape looks like. You will trim it later.

You can stitch your yo-yos together if you like but I chose the faster and lazier way of using the glue gun. I just started with the biggest yo-yo and started securing them to the base fabric and each other with a little bit of glue around the yo-yo edges.

Then turn it over and trim around the glue to make a base that you won't see from the other side.

Next decide what you would like to use for the necklace attachment. I decided to use chain but I have also seen ribbon or even different trims used for this. This is a horrible picture of me sewing my chain to the back of the yo-yo base.

I'm not going to go into detail about the clasp of the chain, crimp beads, etc. But just know that you will need those if you use chain, if you use ribbon, just glue it onto the back and tie it on. Fray-check is always helpful to make sure the ribbon ends don't get all stringy.

Wa-la! Here it is! Wear, give away for gifts and have lots of fun. I love these because you don't need lots of fabric and can probably even use up some of those scraps you may have hanging around.

A GREAT Crockpot Cooking website

I love this new crockpot website! I can't say enough about it. I love my crock-pot, makes dinner so yummy and easy and this blog has TONS of great new recipes to try.

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com

Just thought I would share! It changed my life.

We Need your Help, suggestions and votes

My sweet, vivacious wife reads about 5 books a week or something crazy like that. She has another blog where she writes reviews of all these books she reads (In comparison, I have read about 3 books in the last year, but about 1,500 - 2,000 sports related articles).

But anyway, her blog is called "Book Thoughts."

So I came home one night and made a less sensitive crack about the blog name. I mean "Book Thoughts" -- I guess that is what it is, thoughts about books, but what a boring name. This coming from my wife who has the email Stitchdiva, who is known for her style, is called a cool hipster by my colleagues at work, and just oozes with spunk and personality.

"Book Thoughts? That seems kind of unoriginal," I say.

Well it turns out it was not a good time or day to say this. This led hurt feelings which led to her changing her blog name which was "inadvertently stolen" from another book blog, which she later posted an apology for on her blog.

So let's get Shanda a name that marries her love of books with her spunky, fun personality. Book Thoughts -- That will just not do.

If you have any ideas -- please post a comment or tell me. I have listed a few ideas and if you like any of the ones I have listed, feel free to comment, but I know nothing about books or blogs, but here goes.

Sassy Synopses -- (Showing her sassy but educated side)

Book Banter -- (Showing her liveliness and spunk)

Bad Ass Book Reviews -- (Just sounds cool and she is a bad-ass)

Babes, Boobs and Books -- (Well at least books, but now that I have your attention...)

StitchDiva Diaries -- Book Reviews of a stay at home Mom

For the love of the Library -- (showing her love of the library and books)

Bedtime Stories -- (She always reads to put herself to sleep, but could be misinterpreted...)

3 men and a Baby and me -- What I do when my family actually leaves me alone

Raw Reads -- Sassy, Spunky, straight from the heart book reviews

Thats all I got -- Post your thoughts, ideas, etc. -- Not for me, but for Shanda.

Book Thoughts -- It is just a tragedy.

The Anchor

I've been wanting to take a bible study class for some years now. This year I finally found one at one of the local churches and decided to take the plunge. Today was my first day, we are studying Psalms. The focus is going to be improving our prayers, instead of just saying the same rote words every time. The leader talked about how selfish our prayers have become, we don't seem to try so hard to develop a relationship with God so much as just rattle off a list of demands. We are going to learn why we pray, who we are praying to, and how to pray more effectively.

I was inspired by this teacher who is not a member of my church, but is teaching things that are helpful to me and in fact timely. I have been trying to work on more thoughtful prayers lately and feel grateful that I have this chance to learn more about prayer from the Bible.

Though it is a little weird to me in a way. Somehow part of me wonders is this o.k? To learn these truths from a different church than mine? It's a little tiny bit uncomfortable but I also like it. I like the people I have met there and everyone has welcomed me in, even knowing that I am a Mormon. I think it will be a good thing.