Being Better

Today at Walmart, Cael ran away and I had to get on him. I was very patient and kind, but also very stern with him. He apologized, asked me politely if he could go to the bathroom, and then went. The cashier was like holy cow, can you come teach my kid. Then the lady behind me was saying how wonderful I handled him and how respectful and adorable my kids were. It really made me feel really good. Then when I got into the car I got thinking about it. I never got worked up, I did it very calm and quiet (surprised that either woman even heard it) and I was never stressed about it. Quite different than the feeling I have at home when disciplining. Why can't I always remain so calm? I would never act in public the way I do at home. I would not give them 1 or 2 chances and then yell like a little child at them and throw my "authority" around. It really is much more effective to love them into it. Duh, just like the prophets have been telling us all along! After today I hope to make a REALLY good effort to not yell. Carter has started this new MAJOR attitude and he's just killin me I tell ya! I have started just hugging him when I get so mad I want to yell. It's amazing how well it diffuses the situation. That's all I want Chet to do with me is hug me when I get really mad. Then I just melt and everything comes back into perspective. This is the great thing about being a parent. You can always be better the next day than you were the last!!! There's always something you can do better. I hope to be a better mom than I have been. It really is the most important thing I do. Everything else is just time fillers! 

Lazy Days!

My neighbor and I just decided to car pool. She is heading to work every morning so she is taking the kids, and I will pick them up so she doesn't have to leave work to come get and drop off her kids. It's quite fabulous.  Cael just realized today that this was a new thing for EVERY morning. He looked at me all wide eyed, and said, "Oh yeah Baby! It's Thursday! Lazy day! And we don't have to leave our house!" He then gives me a big high five and leaves to find a movie to watch. On Thursday I have tried really hard to make NOOOOO plans. I try to leave my schedule open. I do all the laundry in the house and snuggle my kids most of the day. The babies have come to love this day. More than I ever thought they would. Cael knows that we watch movies, mom reads any book they want as many times as they want, sometimes we go get dad for lunch, but mostly we just lay around doing nothing, but yet the most important thing ever. Just taking the time to snuggle and love on them with no other concern or pull or guilt to do anything else

(They are the best of friends! Love them!!!)

. They know they are the COMPLETE priority, and we can stay in jammies and just relax. I LOVE THURSDAYS!!! One of my best ideas ever!!!

Did you cut your hair?

Our newest weekly activity is Colby cutting his hair. It seems that about once a week, we see a chunk out of the front of Colby's hair. We have gotten mad at him, progressively so. With 4 older brothers (and not really a problem like this before) its hard to keep scissors away from him. Caden uses them ALL the time. Well Chet was hugging on Colby and noticed a fresh cut. He asked Colbs about it and Colby denied, denied, denied! He was ADAMANT that he didn't cut it. About 5 min later Colby was running around showing off for Chet, and Chet says, "Colby, what scissors did you use to cut your hair?" Colby stops and you can see him think for half a second and then says, "The blue ones over there!" and keeps on running. Chet and I looked at each and got a good laugh. We asked him 10 times if he had and told him we knew that he had, but no. Just catch him off guard a couple minutes later and he just fesses right up! Good thing we have all boys!

Shopping

Our ward emergency specialist stood up in church and asked us to go one month without going to the store. He gave us a week to prepare. I knew that even having a week to prepare it was going to be hard. I made a list of the 31 meals that I would make, and then made my shopping list. I divided the list into the 5 weeks, making the meals with the most fresh stuff first. I bought lots of celery, carrots, potatoes, spinach, apples and oranges. I used to have LOTS of snacks in my food storage room, but the kids would just sneak in and eat them all, so I thought it was a waste of money, so I haven't stocked as many. I have went to once a week shopping because the kids just devour all the food and I was sick of having lots for 3 days, and none for the next 11. I told the boys a MILLION times at least that I was sick of being the food police, and if they ate all the snacks it would get really bad later. They didn't listen and I, being the awesome mom I am, just threw my arms in the air and let them eat, knowing that they would learn a tough lesson. Chet and I did amazing with the meals. We had plenty of "meal" food to make dinner every night. We just marked off the meal we had already made and kept going down the list. Snacks were all gone within one week. Luckily I had hid some fruit from Colby (in the garage fridge) so the boys had apples to take to school most of the week.) We did however, run out of a few other things. I did not have any extra dishsoap. And we ran out of body soap. We had some we COULD HAVE used, but we like our normal stuff (Lever 2000) so we went to the half store (WalGreens) and bought some. Somehow we were also short 6 Valentines. I must not be able to do math when I bought them all for them. We still went out on date night and picked up the boys pizza on the way home twice. I never miss my date night, and we made a deal with the boys that they get pizza every other Friday (Don't mess with Friday night traditions!). The boys were rockstars! They were whiny sometimes, and they learned the lesson, but they were so creative. They started making baked potatoes. They were making green smoothies with the spinach and frozen fruit. Carson started cooking. Like cakes and rolls and yummy homemade snacks. They asked for banana bread. They never asked to just go to the store and buy things. I was SOOOOOOO proud of them. After 24 days, I broke. I needed some produce! I went to Walmart, and had the funniest shopping trip ever! I never knew how much my kids love fresh fruits and veggies. They were hillarious!!! I looked like mom of the year! I had a friend tell me once to "Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear (gossip form)!" It was true this day. As I walked up and down our 3 produce isles, my kids were pointing and screaming in delight for everything they saw. They were yelling, "Mom look!!! Watermelon, and oranges, and apples, and peaches!!!" Then we would go to the next isle and they were yelling, "Mom! Peppers! Brocolli, where is the brocolli (Colby is IN LOVE with brocolli! He wants to eat it all day every day and it doesn't stay good very long in the fridge so he had been a little while) Wheres the br... MOM it's lettuce! MOM LOOK!" They were just pointing to everything! I was laughing and all the people around were laughing and telling me what great kids I had. Little did they know, they hadn't had all this fresh stuff for WAY TOO LONG, and that was why they were so excited. I was laughing sooooo hard inside! It has now been 4 days, and my boys are being REALLY careful with the snacks. They portion them out, and eat left overs in the fridge (a new thing they started during this too!) and ask me 1/4 as much as they used to. I am SOOO happy with the results. It was hard at times, but I liked having my meal list, I liked seeing the boys get creative, and I loved learning new things (like did you know you can freeze milk, and it takes at least 3 days for it to defrost in your fridge?) What I disliked the most? That cut out almost all of my socializing! I didn't realize how many people I saw at the store and how much I got to socialize in a month while out and about! As Chet would say, "Kimber was not meeting her quota for words a day!" I am wanting to be much more organized and prepared! It was a fun experiment! 

Family Pics 2014

So excited for my family pics. We decided that we would only get them every other year, so it has been 2.5 yrs since we got them! I love them!

(I love, love, LOVE when he smiles with his nose crinkeled!!!)

These are pictures that show their personalities really well. I love my boys! All 6 of them!!! What would life even be like without them. Quieter... but much more boring. I'll take the noise and chaos any day!!!

And the cherry on top:

(it was FREEZING outside!!! You can see Chet is trying to act "not cold")

I love him to pieces!!!

How to Spell

Cael is starting to sound out words. He loves when anyone will play along and give him a word to spell and then he will sound it out. Carson asked how to spell "We" Just then Caden walked into the room and said, "That's easy, w.i.i." and asked me his question and walked away. Oh my goodness, not exactly the "we" we were looking for. They are too funny!

Black and White

Today I was telling my kids all excited that Aunt Randi sent me a list of a ton of movies that her and I watched as kids, and that we should go to the library and get some of them. Cars looks at me and says, "Not if they are black and white. I am not watching black and white! Sorry mom, I'm just not." I asked him how old he thought I was and he just said, "I won't do it mom. No black and white movies!" What a little turd. I think that I asked my parents that once too. CrAzY!!!

I'm going to trust you!

Last night Colby wanted to jump in a bath with Cars. Cars loves to take baths at night. I don't know why, he doesn't get that from mom or dad. Well, I told Cars that he wasn't allowed to leave Colbs for one second in the bath. Colbs promised he would get out when Cars was done. Cars came downstairs frustrated a little later and said that he had to pull Colby out kicking and screaming. He was NOT happy to get out and tried to get back in. Well tonight Caden wanted to bathe and I told Colby that he could not get in with him because he didn't get out like promised last night. After trying every trick in the book, whining with the best of them, and still not getting us to change our stance, he grabs my face with a palm on both cheeks and says while looking me straight in the eye, "Mom, I'm going to trust you! Let me take a bath and I will trust you that I need to get out." He is just way too smart! He didn't trust that I would stick to my guns about it. Now he's paying for it! Wish I was more consistent with almost everything. But I don't mess around with water. That's one area I am ALWAYS a stickler.

Hot!!!

Today when Carson got into the car, he says, "Whoa, you have to roll down my window, it is waaaaaaaaay too hot!" I rolled it down thinking that the sun beating down on me was feeling really nice, but a little hot. Then Colby wanted his rolled down, and then Caden. So we drove home from school with the windows down thinking it was so warm outside, enjoying the sunshine. The temperature was 28 degrees according to my car. Only in Wyoming would you think that 28 degrees was wonderful. The cul-de-sac was full of happily playing kids within minutes of arriving home from school. Too funny how -22 changes your perspective on "warm". (Carson also told me that he had to take his coat off during recess because it was way too hot to play with it on. He shed it the minute he got into the car too.)

Oh My!

This morning while cleaning the ENDLESS SUPPLY of paperwork from the kids school, I was standing over the trash, looking, and dumping (the normal morning routine!) Colby comes up next to me and says, "Let me see. Oh my! That is very special! Wow!" Let me tell you, it was nothing special. It was a picture Caden had colored very poorly, so he could go straight to socializing I am sure. It was too cute how he was praising it!

Plain 'ol Toys

Today is a snow day. Snow days suck!! Weekends are good because I have a plan. I don't like when my plans are interupted. I have to be organized, even in my head. Caden just came in totally bummed by his complete boredom!!! He said, "Mom, there is nothing to do! I cannot find my ipod, you won't let me play the wii, dad wont let me play the kindle. All that leaves is plain ol toys, and I DO NOT want to play with just plain ol toys. They are boring!" Oh my... needless to say, he is now writing a story. If you don't want to play with something that isn't electronic, then sit your butt down and write a story. He was happy with that. Weirdo! But I love that weirdo!