Our Christmas in four sentences.

Lots of Imaginext.

Lots of American Girl

Lots of Doctor Who.

So much love and happiness.

When friendships fail.

I feel incredibly blessed in that a majority of the friends I have, have been my friends for over 10-15 years. I have noticed in this internet world how easy it is to form a fast, and strong connection with someone. And I especially think this is true when you join a group of people who are pregnant at the same time as you are. You are pregnant together, you have babies together, you worry about walking and talking together.. and then your kids hit an age where they no longer are doing enough that you don't discover who that person really is.

And then you wake up one day 5 years down the line and realize all you had in common with this person was babies born close in age. And although you have been friends through so much you really are not the friends that you thought you were. And you are ok with it. Then you realize from Facebook posts or things they say, or do that you don't even like this person  And you are ok with it. And then you wake up one day and think.. beyond babies there is nothing so you remove them from all of your internet life and you are ok with it.

It is ok to be ok with it. I was thinking today, should I feel bad? Should I try and make amends? I always try to put everyone ahead of me and sometimes I keep toxic people far longer than I should have. And I thought, I have people in my life that have been in my life and the lives of my children since I was a child. Friends that I have chosen as family. 

I am slowly learning that it is ok to walk away. It is ok to say goodbye to people who are toxic in your life and it is ok to say goodbye to people who you do not mesh with, it is ok to say goodbye when a friendship grows apart or fails. Everyone will move on and be ok.

How I saved Imaginext toys with a tooth brush and Rockin Green Laundry Soap

I am frugal. Sometimes obnoxiously frugal. Liam at the moment is in love with all things Imaginext.. cool right? Well, not when one building is over 50.00!

Recently, we were thrifting and found the Imaginext Adventures Castle

When new this thing was awesome! Ours? Not so much.

Pretty sure there is enough dust and cobwebs for a spooky village.

Well, a little cleaner, a little bowl of water, a rag and a tooth brush and this is how it ended up

 

And well, no befores of the Imagnext Dragon World Fortress but the same applies.. a little scrubbing and we ended up with:

Pictures by our 10 year old.

So for 4.99 and a little scrubbing our four year old has two more buildings to add to his collection. What we saved in buildings we are using to buy figures on ebay and craigslist.

All total I think we have spent about 40.00 on all of this. The rescue garage was a gift, the pirate ship 10.00 on clearance and the rest at goodwill or various other thrift stores.

Please vote for Liam!

The chaos of 4 has kept me from blogging!

That is right.. I said 4. Not because I am having another baby but because one of my older girls came home to live. Having four in the house is insanity. She isnt used to the little ones and they are not used to what is almost like having another Mom in the house.

This summer has been fun.. and instead of listing everything I am just going to do a photo dump. Hopefully I will remember to post more often. Oh yeah, I am still fat. But I did manage to dump my soda habit (go me!) and cut down eating out almost completely. (almost)

We did the toys frozen in an ice block thing (win!)

They played Mindcraft until Mom banned it.

We went to the opening of a Whataburger.

We painted.

 We celebrated the 4th of July

We went to the park. A lot.

We went portal hacking with Dad.

And now it is time for school to start, for me to start blogging all the things we have done around here and to get back to early mornings and early bedtimes.

Toddler/Baby Circus Strongman Costume

I got an email asking me to reblog about this costume and seeing as people keep repining on pintrest its a good idea to have it link to the right blog.

Halloween 2011

Here is what I used to make it.

1. Flesh tone long sleeved unitard

2.Striped socks (baby legs would work too)

3. 2 squares of black felt

4. 1 rod and 2 foam balls

5. Black embroidery thread

6. Black eyeliner pencil

7. Women's small black tank top

8. 4 wash cloths (muscles!)

I measured his wrists for the bands and just cut them out of the felt and sewed onto the leotard. Simple. The tank top I slit up the middle and just stitched it. Nothing fancy. And the barbell was just put together and spray painted. The chest hair was my favorite part, I put the thread on a needle and knotted it at the end each hair was done one by one and it looked so much better that way. The muscles were hard and a wash cloth worked best rolled and shoved in the sleeve.

Halloween 2011 chest hair close up

Halloween 2012 (notice no striped leggings this time)

Everyone loved his costume he ended up with way too much candy! LOL

When he was younger we covered his wagon to look like a stage. We special ordered the lettering but I would think you can get that anywhere. It is covered in felt. People stopped us all the time asking to take pictures ;) Although, the costume would still fit this year he has his heart set on being WONDERBOY the superhero. Stay turned for that costume!

So I slack at blogging.

I have a perfectly good excuse for not blogging lately: I just didn't want to. We had vacation time together as a family, Easter blah blah blah and because I live on the most amazing block in town lots of things like this happen:

Now shit gets serious. I have to get my house in order, and being that we are 

1. Slobs
2. Slobs
3. Slobs
4. Did nothing on vacation
5. Slobs

Our house is bordering on Hoarderville. We did accomplish cleaning the garage which in our world is pretty amazing. We discovered that we moved shit from Iowa that was trash. That was awesome.

My goal this week is to do my room and my bathroom. If I get more than that done, I am calling it a win/win.

I am woman.. hear me google search what I need

The other day I noticed my bike in the back yard. No big deal except I had asked G to put it in the garage more than once and my brand new bike had rust on it. RUST.

G went to the store and bought special rust stuff but I was far too miffed that 1. My brand new bike had rust on it. 2. He expected me to fix my bike. 3. That my poor bike was in such a state.

So yesterday I googled and was quite shocked to hear that tin foil and wd-40 would remove rust. I took it as one of those home remedies thing but figured what the hell?

By the way, I am totally pinning this shit because it worked and it was cheap.

Yep, I did that all by my self. Rawr.

Instagram phone dump

Happy Birthday Big Guy!

Tomorrow my other half has his birthday. We will celebrate with breakfast in bed and letting him sleep in. 

We love you old man!

How I saved my carpet with cloth diaper soap.

Yes, this grossness was my carpet. This is exactly where all the kids sit to watch movies or play xbox so you know this poor carpet was just foul. I got it in my head that I was going to try and salvage the carpet but all I had on hand was a little bit of Folex and Rockin Green laundry soap. I thought I had heard people say they used Rocking Green so I gave it a shot. Now, I am not going to lie and say our carpets look new. But they did look 100% better than they did before the process. So until the hardwood floor faeries come and grand me the wish of hardwood floors, I am stuck with off white carpet (seriously, who thought offwhite would be good for anyone?)

I only used the Folex on the big stains.. like the ground in PB&J (thanks jerktoddler) and a chocolate milk spot.  I am going to update this post again in a few days because I am going to tackle my dining room next. Yes,some fucking moron put offwhite carpet in a DINING room. And two other morons didnt buy an area rug *looks at G* That will be the true test of Rockin Green!

Our temporary mail man hates me.

We have a substitute mail man right now and he actually complained to me how many packages we are getting. Uh, dude... Christmas is in two weeks?! And I do most of my shopping online. If I can find an amazing deal, with free shipping- you can bet I am not going out to the stores to shop around people. When I shop online they don't care how I am dressed, my hair can be a mess and my kids can be total nightmares and the only person they are pissing off is me. So if my new mailman for the moment is mad about the packages, he just might be in the wrong line of work. What I don't get is how they can hire someone like my friend S or our regular mailman who is awesome and then hire this dipshit. We always know when our guy is gone too because we get no mail for a day or two then BAM my mailbox is full and I have a strange mail man complaining about the packages he has to deliver to me.

In my defense most of my packages have looked like this:

(not my photo, I stole this off of tinypic)

I have had one HUGE box and one kinda big box delivered,the rest were like this. I don't even think he had to deliver the biggest one because I am pretty sure it came UPS. Sadly, my packages are coming to an end the closer we get to Christmas. My shopping is done except stuff I HAVE to go to the store for.  I wish I had more coming so this dude could tell me over and over I have too many packages. And I am totally going to whine to my regular mailman. Luckily, lazymailman told me he is just her temporarily and we will get our good mailman back soon.. pretty sure between all my packages and my sigh of relief when he said he was only temporary made me the top of his most hated list.

Childproof scissors are not hair proof

I think it has happened to most parents.. that dreaded "quiet" where you know something is up. As a parent of 6 I should know better than to think its nothing. Today I learned that childproof scissors are not hair proof. You would think I would have learned that previously in my 23 years as a Mom but nope.. I knew they would cut the hood off a hoodie, I knew that they would cut a book up in the blink of an eye.. but I had no idea they would cut huge chunks of hair off my little dudes head.

When the horrible " Look Mom I cut my hair" happens and it is a girl you can usually trim it or use clips to hide the offending cut until it grows out. No such luck today when my son cut down to the scalp in three spots. I would have let him walk around like that except well, we all know the side eye looks I would have gotten for that.

Come on, we all know it. I would totally do it to another Mom. So instead I just shaved his head. The kid has the biggest head I have ever seen. Worse than the huge ass foreheads my girls have.. this kid NEEDS hair to cover the size of his head.

So instead of looking like a Mom who does not pay attention to what her almost three year old does, he looks like a three year old who had to be de-liced or something equally as horrid. He also has cradle cap STILL so that looks super awesome.

Today I have had a parent fail and I want everyone to know that if you have been a Mom 1 month or 23 years its ok to fail sometimes. Besides when MelonHead is a teenager and tells me he wants to shave his head, I have this picture to show him that isn't a good idea. Seriously, that head is huge.

So yeah.. I am fat

And honestly, it isn't something I just discovered.

I am fat. Not a little fat, not pleasantly plump, I am fat. If I can say it why can't anyone else? I know it isnt my outfit making me look fat, it is my fat that makes me look fat. I know it's the hamburger and fries I stuffed in my mouth today that make me fat, not some unseen force that while I sleep says " BAM 10 more pounds on her ass!"

And although, I am completely on the omg fat scale, I have done a 5k. I want to do more. I am for the most part healthy, I have not killed any chairs and I still can wear clothes from the fat lady store.

So, why am I typing this all now? Because I think I need to break up with food. Don't get me wrong, food and I have a long love/hate relationship behind us and I think its just that time where I say " enough is enough" Do I continue to eat all my yummy foods and die so fat I need two coffins? My family can't afford that shit. And I need to break up with my addictions. (at least the unhealthy ones!)

So here I am, setting goals for myself, each goal has a different time frame and no expectations to omg do it NOW.

1. Break up with soda completely. Back to 100% water.

2. Walk at least three times a week.

3. Weight Watchers? Low carb? Starvation? I must decide, play with my options and decide which works the best for my body.

3. Take my damn vitamins!

4. Healthy breakfast this means no more cookies. (RIP White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies in my belly)

5. Get on the scale ONCE for a starting weight then not again for 3 months.

6. Measure body inches lost NOT POUNDS.

7. Get to a healthy BMI

8. Treat myself but don't go overboard once every few weeks.

9. Make my own salsa more. Yum.

10. Shop in the skinny bitch section.

11. Remember that I am human and I have had this fat a long time. It isnt going to fall off in a day.

12. Wish the fat would fall off in a day.

13. It is ok to eat different on holidays. It is not a failure.

14.Take picture progress.

15. WALK.. you like it remember? Maybe you can talk G into a Nike+

16. Dance more with the kids.. they love it and it is good for you.

17. No more eating at the laptop.

18. Put some damn makeup on, you are not as old and frumpy as you look.

19. Love life this is it!

20. Moar goals. You needz them.

21. MOVE MY ASS. The internet will still be there when I get back.

22. Buy myself a cute cup again since Liam broke mine :(

23. Run a 5k

I hope G will come with me on my journey, but I am ok if his fat ass wants to stay fat. ;)

My reward if I can do this all? Life. Running, walking, living. Dirty things that I will not mention here because I am convinced my mom is the only one who reads this. Tattoos. Hiking. Yes, I want to go on a hike. Camping, I want to camp with my kids in the backyard.

I can and will do this.

Updating my list..

• Christmas cards arrived SENT
  
• Christmas pictures done
  
• Make a wreath done
  
• Buy lights done
  
• Make stockings
• Girls big gift done
• Decide how to decorate the house
• Find Christmas stuff done
  
• Order big girls present done
• Figure something out for boys
• Sell train table
• Liam's gift done
• Christmas Pajamas done 
  
  
   I am thrilled that most of my Christmas hoobaloo is done and it isn't even December yet. I need a few more stocking stuffers for all involved and the kids books and BAM. I am done. There are a few things I want to do before Christmas that really were not on my TO DO list but now are on their own special " I finished everything else so now I get to do fun shit" List.
  • Make decorations with the kids
  • make garland with the kids
  • Make present tags with the kids
  • Hang pictures that need to be hung
  • FINISH STOCKINGS

I did it.

I have had the same phone number for at least 7 years, but today I changed all that and got a local phone number. This means no more whining from the school that my number is long distance, this means no more texts from Red Box and JC Penney trying to get me to use them. This means a lot of people do not have my number anymore.

                                              I actually have this very phone in my kitchen.

It feels weird having a new number, and I need to text/call people to update them. And I need to update my other things that have to have my phone number. (like the GBF etc) My in-laws will maybe stop saying now I was intentionally keeping a long distance number to annoy them (mayyybe)

Thanksgiving is this week and I thought it would be cool to ask the kids what they are thankful for:

Eleanor: I am thankful for my family, tigers and my e-reader (at least we were first!)

Lola: My pets, my friends and I guess my family (thanks kid, glad we made the list)

Liam: THE CAR ONE, SCOOBY DOO , What you want Mom? I am hiding from you. I drink alll the sodas.

Um.. ok kid.

G and I are thankful for our health, the health of our kids and that we have great friends and family. We hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving except you weird Canadians who already had your Thanksgiving. 

<3

Step is an ugly word

I am going to get on my soap box and complain about the word step. Step Brother, step Dad, step Sister.. step step step. Family is family in our house.

If you want to be technical my brother is my "step" brother. In my heart he is my Brother. no step involved. He loves me like a brother loves his sister so why should he have "step" in front of brother? Just because only half of his blood is my blood does not make us any less as siblings.
edited to add:
He reminded me today he is my HALF brother not my step. I let him know.. SAME THING. Oh and he is an asshat. :D

 

I don't feel like any less of an Aunt because those boys are my "step" nephews. I am Titi to those boys.. not their STEP Titi.

Why does our society place such importance in naming family?

To be technical again my husband is my older girls step Father. He hasnt loved them any less than a real Father in fact he has loved them more than their biological Dad. I watched this man with such pride in his eyes as OUR daughter walked down the aisle that I probably would have kicked anyone who said that was just her "step" Father.

Tell me that isn't a man with pride and love on his face.

 Maybe I am sensitive because I grew up in a home where we were all kinds of people, adopted, step, etc etc all we knew was love. But wouldnt it be a nicer world if everyone dropped the descriptions? Why does anyone need to know if my brother is my STEP brother or G is their STEP Dad? Why can't they just be my Brother and their Dad?

And while I am on my soap box:

IT IS NOT THEIR ADOPTED DAUGHTER/SON. Just because they went through adoption does not mean you get to put adopted in front of the kids name. Seriously, can you imagine how it feels when someone introduces you as " X and Y's ADOPTED child"? STOP WITH THE LABELS!

end rant

Oops on the Friday Photodump.

I deleted the pictures off my phone so instead of a phone dump you get an Instagram dump which cannot be fun for anyone who has already seen those pictures.

There was booze. ( I did not partake)

I took a 3 dollar wreath from Goodwill and made it pretty again.

My girl turned 17.

And I bought fabric to get all crafty and make new stockings for everyone.

I am so ready to decorate for Christmas.

This week while I flipped out my daughter was getting married, I also flipped out thinking " holy shit Christmas is in a month"

So, I got busy. But I still have a very long to do list.

• Christmas cards arrived
  
• Christmas pictures
• Make a wreath done
  
• Buy lights
• Make stockings
• Girls big gift done
• Decide how to decorate the house
• Find Christmas stuff
• Order big girls present done
• Figure something out for boys
• Sell train table
• Liam's gift done
• Christmas Pajamas

I am hoping my cards get here by Thanksgiving. I had them made by the cardstore and they are supposed to ship by the 16th but who knows. Littles presents are all here and the big girls presents should be here this week. I am on the BALL! Lets just hope my stockings come out as I hope they will and that I can find a wreath to make in the next week or so that I really like.

Friday phone dump.

Insane week that ended with our oldest getting married.