Painting my Home

I have wanted to paint my home since about the time we moved in 6 years ago. We have white, flat paint walls and 6 children. Need I say more? Flat paint does not wipe clean. As much as I try to keep the walls clean, I have 7 people working against me. 

Evan likes white walls. He didn't see anything wrong with the white walls. And Evan gets what he wants. Once I tried to paint one of the walls in the playroom. As soon as he saw it, he painted over it within days back to a boring, white color. He says it is green, but it looked white to me. 

I'm not sure what convinced Evan to allow a change to the white walls. Probably Taneal. She has been begging for years relentlessly. Evan finally gave in.

The day I got the go, I started painting. It was beautiful, fun, but best of all, it felt clean.  Here is a process of the painting.

 

And here is the finished product of 1 wall. See what I get when I don't pay attention to my children? Nathan played on the computer and Gavin lost his clothes. And I painted.

After I got all I could paint of the downstairs, I pretty much begged Evan to please help me paint the entry way. He brought home the scaffolding and climbed up and painted. It took him 2 days, but it is done. The way high up stuff that I was too scared to climb and paint is done. I have a lot more to do, but I can easily reach it with a ladder. 

This is a picture from the 2nd floor looking downstairs in the entry way. Super high ceiling. I am glad that Evan was willing to climb and paint because I seriously could not get myself to do it. I think I am afraid of heights because I literally start to shake.

I still have scaffolding up in my entry way and on my front porch and I still have days worth of painting to do. But I can do it. And I am so excited to get rid of the flat paint, the drawings, and fingerprints all over my walls!. And if the drawings and fingerprints come back, it will wipe clean!

Ellie our Elf

In one of my last posts, I told you about an elf that showed up at our house. This Elf was all sorts of fun and also very mischievous  The kids were out of bed early every morning trying to find Ellie, our Elf, to see what she had been up to during the night. Here are some of the things Ellie did:

she blocked the entrance tot he bedrooms with crepe paper

Wrote on the morror with lipstick how many days until Christmas

Zip lined from the top of the stairs to the living room ceiling fan

 Went fishing for gold fish at the computer desk

Took pictures of all the family and put them on elf bodies

Drew faces on all the family pictures

Peed green in the toilet (not sure why it looks blue)

Toilet papered the Christmas tree

The first night she replaced the stockings with the kids underware. I guess I should be thankful that Evan and I don't have stockings!

Put red dots on everyone's noses during the night

Left peppermint Rice Krispy treats

And Ellie was found in the printer copying pictures of herself!

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we had all the local family over for dinner, games, and the Christmas story. I made soup and rolls and there was a lot of people. A whole lot of people and it was wonderful to have them all over.

My niece, Chloe, sang a beautiful Christmas song for all of us.

We played a Chinese Exchange game. Somebody, name Katie, put a pocket knife as one of the gifts. Spencer got his hands on that knife. He has been wanting one of those for years and I told him absolutely no until he was at least 8 and fully trained on how to use and care for and be responsible for such an item.

Someone took that knife from Spencer and he about cried. He ended up getting the knife back. That child was probably more excited then I have ever seen him. Of course Spencer doesn't like to show his excitement. And he tried to hold in in. But he was excited.

Here we are in our new pajamas. 

Gingerbread Houses

How cool is it to have so much family living close? I think it is the best. When we were trying to decide who to invite over to decorate gingerbread houses with us, my kids absolutely wanted their cousins to come. So we invited all the cousins. Oh, and their parents. And we decorated, designed, and had so much fun making gingerbread houses.

This year we decided to make, in addition to the real gingerbread houses that I spent 3 days creating, graham cracker houses for the little kids to decorate. Of course that was a hit also.

Ice Cutter's Cottage

We went as a family one evening to the Ice Cutter's Cottage. We got to see this guy take his chain saw to a block of ice and carve it into a very cool snowman. We also got to go into his seriously cold freezer and see some of his other creations. We went on jingle bell hayrides.

What the kids liked the most was the snow ball fight. My kids complain all the time how we never get snow and how they wished we lived or could visit a place when there was snow. Well they brought out bins full of snow. Probably 20 or so bins full of snow. And and the blow of the whistle, a snowball battle broke loose that lasted about 10 minutes. My kids had so much fun! Nathan came over crying because his hands were burning.

 I don't think my kids realized snow was cold!

Crazy Hair Day

Taneal's school had a crazy hair day. Why they chose to do it on the day school got out for Christmas Day is unknown to me. But nonetheless, it was crazy hair day and so Taneal had crazy hair.

Taneal loves Pinterest about like most people like Facebook  She can hardly sit down on the computer without visiting Pinterest. And when she saw this crazy hair idea, she said as soon as she had the opportunity to do it at school, she would.

She said students were even turning around to look at her as she walked through the halls. She had laughs all day. And Taneal has the confidence that things like that don't bother her. Go Taneal!

Nathan get sick

Nathan started running a fever, low, but still a fever. I had that feeling that even though it was a low fever, we needed to stay clear of others. This was going to be something we didn't want to share.

My kids like to sleep on my bedroom floor when they are sick and I really like that they want to do this. It gives me a chance to make sure they are doing okay and still be able to sleep in my bed.

Nathan is one of my children that sleeps in a little later than the rest. He need a little more sleep. Danielle is that way, but she has to get up and get going before school, so I don't let her sleep in. Nathan doesn't have anywhere to go, so if he is sleeping, I let him stay that way.

He had been sick and when we all got up for school, he stayed sleeping. I took Camie, Danielle, and Spencer to school. I biked them actually, with Gavin in the trailer.

I returned home and was out front talking to a friend when Taneal came out and got me and said Nathan was sick and he really needed me. 

I came in and Nathan had a horrible croupe cough. He was burning hot. The worst part was his labored breathing. He was really having a hard time. We have had a lot of experience with Nathan and trouble breathing. I knew this was serious. I also knew that a doctor's office was much better than an ER because the ER would have me follow-up with a doctor anyways. So, I called my pediatrician and asked if I could bring Nathan right in. Otherwise I was headed to the ER. They said if I could be there in 5 minutes they had a spot for me.

I was already dressed. Nathan was in a t-shirt and a stinky, wet pull-up. We had to hurry. I pulled Nathan's pull-up off, hurried and put underwear on him, and he refused to put his pants on. I didn't have time to fight him, nor did I want to fight a 4 year-old who was struggling to get air. I picked him up and put him in the car, buckled the car seat and yelled to Taneal that I would take her to school as soon as I got home. So sorry, but I had to take care of Nathan right then, I didn't have time to get Taneal to school. Plus I needed someone to watch Gavin. Thankfully Taneal was still home. There was no way I could have managed the next 30 minutes with Gavin.

I pulled up to the doctor 5 minutes later and unloaded Nathan. He was only in his underwear and pajama top. I carried him in because he was too sick to walk. As I was getting him out of the car, he starts screaming that he was going to pee all over me! My first thought was he had better not, that would be totally uncalled for! Then he screamed how bad he had to go and that he couldn't hold it any more. He wasn't mad at me like I had thought, he just really had to go. I looked around for a tree or some kind of privacy for him to just be able to pee (darn it! I should have left that nasty pull-up on him!). The doctor's office shares a parking lot with McDonalds. It was busy and no trees or privacy anywhere. So, I ran inside with that little boy, praying he wouldn't pee on me, apologized for his lack of pants, and said I needed a bathroom immediately. They quickly let me back and I rushed to the bathroom.

Whew! He made it! I didn't  get peed on! Of course he was so sick. He was crying. He was miserable.And he had a horrible croupy cough and could hardly breathe. Several nurses stood outside the bathroom door and asked if everything was okay. We finished and they didn't have us go out to the waiting room, they took us to our own room. 

Nathan's temperature was 103.9. The doctor came right in and ordered a steroid shot. She said his cough was bad enough that oral medication wouldn't be fast enough. He needed his airway to open up right away.

The shot worked beautifully. I gave him Motrin as soon as I could and that brought his fever down pretty good. The doctor prescribed breathing treatments. She also said I most likely would be in the ER tonight because of how bad this was and because Croup is the worst at night.

That shot must have done the trick because he was fine that night. Slept soundly. His fever stayed for a few more days.

Fortunately we didn't spread the sickness to anyone else. But that poor little boy. This isn't the first time he has had breathing problems. I remember so well when he was 3 months old and I took him to the doctors office because he was breathing raspy and wouldn't eat. They put us in an ambulance and sent us downtown. And then when he was about 15 months he got Croup and I took him into the ER in the middle of the night and he had to get a steroid shot to help open back up his airway. Makes my heart break to see my children get so sick!

Elf on the Shelf

This year an elf showed up at my house. It came with a book telling about the elf and all the rules associated with her. 

We had to quickly name her, the kids decided on Ellie. 

They love Ellie.

Each morning Spencer and Danielle wake up at the crack of dawn looking for Ellie and seeing if she has been into any mischief. 

Look what Ellie did:

She added herself to our family picture!

I promise is was only egg nog!

I was out of milk for lunch today and I had a carton of egg nog. So, I poured my little boys egg nog in their cups for lunch and didn't tell them. I figured they would enjoy the sweet surprise.

Nathan took a big swig and asked me, "What kind of milk is that?"

My reply, "what kind of milk do you think it is?"

He walked over to Gavin and asked him, "Gavin, does this milk taste like breast milk?"

Gavin gave his normal 2-year-old reply, "yes"

I was standing at the kitchen sink with my jaw dropped open. There hasn't been any nursing or breast milk of any kind going on in this house for almost a year!

Nathan then returned to me to report, "Mom, why did you give us breast milk to drink form our lunch?"

I asked him why he thought it was breast milk and he said because Gavin said it was.

Oh, my.

Star Cookie Christmas Tree Tradition

Years ago my mom bought a cookie cutter set to make a Christmas Tree out of different size star cookies. She had this set of cookie cutter that was never used, although she really wanted to do it. Year after year, Christmas slipped past and she never made the tree. 

Last year she gave up and gave me the cookie cutter set and asked to me have fun with it. We made the cookies last year and decorated the tree with my parents. My mom loved it and was happy to see the cookie cutter set finally put to use.

So this year when my parents said they were coming into town near Christmas, I decided to make the cookies again and decorate the tree with my mom. 

My parents brought their ornaments for the kids with them and my kids were so excited to get them and put them on the tree.

So to tell the rest of the story. My parents didn't plan for traffic and detours and things like that. They planned to get to my house around supper time. Then we would decorate the cookie Christmas Tree. Well, they didn't leave home as soon as they planned, so they showed up at Bonnie's house later than planned, They got lost on the way to Eric's house. They showed up at my house around 9:30, way too late for the kids to stay up and enjoy decorating the cookie Christmas Tree. The mornings is way too hectic to find the time to decorate. And my parents had to leave by noon to make it to my other sister's house on time.

So, I sent the kids to school, waited until the magical time of 9:45 when they wouldn't be counted absent, check them out of school, and we decorated the cookie Christmas Tree. At noon I took them back to school and my parents headed out to visit my other sister. It was a whirlwind trip, way too short. But we had a great time visiting with them and hopefully my mom enjoyed the decorating. 

I know my kids thought it was pretty cool to ditch 2 hours of school to come home.