Recycled Clothes?!

Joey has taken recycling a little too far tonight! I did laundry today so there are clean baskets of laundry waiting to be folded and Joey has taken ALL the clothes out and scattered them everywhere! Most were in the recycling bins and garbage! Some were in the high chair, couch and all over the family room! Where was I when all of this was happening? I was right here in the room with him but I thought he was playing "nicely" with the laundry, he was being so happy I didn't want to disturb him! Well, I dug the clothes out of the recycling bin (thank goodness I wash the garbage in there) and then dug the clothes out of the garbage can, unfortunately those did not survive the slimy garbage from today--they will have to be re-washed! I think I will get Joey a box to play with! :)

Homestead Farms

Yesterday we went apple picking with our new friends, The Morgans. They are so nice to include us! We had lots of fun! There was apple picking, playing in the haystack, and lots of animals! There were goats, chickens, pigs (very stinky), white sheep, black sheep, cows and chickens! The hit of the day was the "apple stick" that the boys created and Johnny used it to feed the goats! The rest of the kids loved the idea and soon everyone was spearing apples to feed the goats with! Joey loved running around and kept trying to get back to the hay pile but we just had to re-route him to our group. They had a goat ramp that went from the goat pen really high up in the air to a platform with a cage around it. It was so cool to see the goats climb the ramp up to the pen and hang out up there! Julia said they were in "time-out"! It's always fun to see things from the children's perspective!

Apple Picking!

"My arms aren't tall enough!"

Well, the kids just went to school and John to work and that is always a grand feat at our house to get everyone out on time! Oh, and it's garbage morning. There are 4 lunches to make everyday and we are starting to get our system down! For the first two weeks, that was most of my morning, making sure people were eating breakfast and then starting the lunch assembly line! Of course the night before it's always helpful if the lunchbox is cleaned out and the reusable ice cubes put back in the freezer! One day that didn't happen and there were no ice cubes for the sandwiches so everyone had to have peanut butter and honey sandwiches! Rodney has those everyday but Johnny and Julia don't really care for them. But we have no extra ice cubes yet so that's just what happened! Now they are very good at getting their ice cubes back in the freezer! :) Last week I had the kids start packing most of their own lunches. I would make sandwiches and they would pack the rest, so we had to set up rules of making sure they had at least one fruit and vegetable and one sweet snack (not 5) and then the instructions to eat their "good food" first before all the snacks and sweet things. Rodney was thrilled to pack his own lunch and had enough in there for several days! But I don't care, as long as he likes packing his lunch and eats his sandwich I think we're doing good! Most of the containers came home full still, there was pretzels, animal crackers, goldfish, fruit snacks, pudding, applesauce, celery, grapes,choclate granola bar, juice box and a sandwich! He said everyone at lunch thought is was so cool he got to pack his own lunch! Who wouldn't like to have a lunch with every imaginable thing out of the cupboard?! He doesn't pack quite as much as last week, and his leftovers work great for after school snacks! Julia is our ultra healthy eater, which is awesome! She hardly ever has sweet stuff in her lunch and several veggies and one fruit (because it has more sugar!) Johnny's lunch is pretty normal, he just has to make sure he packs enough because he eats more food now, that kid is growing like crazy! Today Rodney decided to make his own sandwich too, if the kids get ready early in the morning they get to play a computer game before school so Johnny and Rodney were rushing around this morning to finish quickly (bribery works wonders!). I must have been taking too long on breakfast because Rodney gets out the bread, peanut butter and honey and makes two sandwiches, one for breakfast and one for lunch! (He really would eat those all day!) When it came time to clean up the kitchen after the morning whirlwind, I was having each child come put away their own mess, and Rodney didn't ever put away the peanut butter and honey so I had to ask him several times. Finally he said, "my arms aren't tall enough!" and just threw the peanut butter at the open cupboard, hoping to make a basket I'm sure! I was grateful the lid was on! After that I just put it away, who knew he couldn't reach the cupboard to put the stuff away? How did he get it out?! Hm.... Oh well, when my kindergartner packs his own lunch and fixes his own breakfast, it's not a problem to put away the mess later! :) Oh, and eventually the kids had omelets for breakfast!

Blueberry Picking in NY

Disaster Driving

This is a little of a back-track time wise but worth telling! For those of you new to a blog, the entries at the bottom of the page are the first ones I wrote and the ones at the top are the most recent ones. Since I have done so many entries today :) You might want to start at the bottom to get the story in it's right order. This was our first day of driving when we left Richland, we left in the afternoon after a full morning of packing and goodbyes. We were traveling to Coeur d'Alene to stop for dinner at my brother's restaurant and wanted to make it into Montana that night. On the way to CDA we discovered that our walkie talkies wouldn't hold a charge, I had charged them but the batteries were dead. That was going to be our form of communication between the two cars on our trip, so that was our first problem. Then Joey threw up and we didn't know why but it happened nonetheless! The low coolant light came on in the van and since our van is old that was a major concern. Then we get to the restaurant and Joey throws up again in the bathroom and then again in the sitting area of the restaurant in front of everyone! That was quite distressing, we hadn't even ordered yet! So I clean him up and John gets our food ordered and we eat. Joey seems to be fine but doesn't eat a whole lot. After eating we go to the KMart and get a prepaid cell phone for John, some coolant and water for the car and start off again! We do make it into Montana that night but it was a rough first day! Oh, and I lost most of my pretty hub-caps that week in our cross-country drive! John was traveling behind me and they would call me and say "we just watched another one of your hub caps roll down the hill!" So now I only have one left, I think I might need to get wheels for my van eventually because I don't have good luck with hub caps! :)

Blow drying my lipstick

Humidity. There's a subject for you! The weekend we got here was horribly humid from the tropical storms moving through the area. We were dripping most of the time! We found out that nobody waters their lawn around here, they don't even have sprinklers! Quite the change from our desert climate where life almost revolves around not losing your lawn to heat in the summer! All of our cereal and crackers go soft if left out an hour or more, which of course happens a lot because those are the things my children eat and it takes a bionic brain to remember to put away things you get out! :) So now all of our crunchy dry foods are in tupperware containers and they are very happy there! I have lipstick that stays on most of the day, it is my favorite brand of lipstick because I only want to put make-up on once a day and have it stay there all day. Well, that is wishful thinking with make-up, but I try! So this lipstick that lasts like 16 hours works well but when you first put it on, it needs to dry for a minute or two to set and then it's good to go. Well, I have discovered that the air is so moist around here that my lipstick doesn't dry! So I improvised and got out my blowdryer and now I blowdry my lipstick dry after I put it on! (so sad) Some days are sunny enough that I don't have to do it but at least now I have a system for my lipstick! :)

How far can your groceries go?!

I have been introduced to the locking shopping cart! I was at the grocery store and it is in a strip mall with several other stores. Before I went grocery shopping I went to the Radio Shack which was 2 stores down from the grocery. When I was in the grocery store I realized I had left something in Radio Shack. So after grocery shopping I was walking down towards the Radio Shack and all of a sudden my cart freezes up and I can't push it! I look to see if I've run over anything and I haven't and then I see this metal bar on the wheel and the sign inside the cart that informs me that if I take my shopping cart past the huge yellow line, it will lock up. Well, the problem with that, is that there was no yellow line! I looked all over for it and never found it! The carts must be new and maybe they haven't painted the yellow line yet?! So here I am 20 feet from Radio Shack and I can't move my cart, I even try dragging it by force and that of course doesn't work either. This is an anti-theft device so they don't make it easy to move the cart! So I walk over to the Radio Shack door and open it and sort of holler to the cashier guy and tell him I left something on the counter and can he bring it to me at the door? He looks at me strangely but brings me my bag. Joey is in the cart and it is full of groceries so now I have to figure out how to get my cart out to my car, which is a good ways away in the parking lot in front of the grocery store! I'm a little nervous to leave my cart full of food on the sidewalk because if they have anti-theft devices on their carts there are probably people around who like to take things! So I take Joey out of the cart and my purse and diaper bag and leave the cart on the sidewalk, walk to my car and drive it over to my cart. Then I load my groceries into my car and go home. I wonder what happens to people that are going to the grocery store that park too far out in the parking lot.....I still never found the yellow line!

Chocolate--secret to happiness

I love chocolate and it makes me happy! :) So during our drive out here I had to have a good supply of chocolate in the car, because you know, it makes me happy! Well, one day after we were here I was being nice and shared some of my chocolate with my kids and told them "you know, one of the secrets of being happy is chocolate" and Julia pipes in with her two-cents worth and says "and if you're a lady, chocolate makes you calm" I laughed so hard! It sounds like I have demonstrated this principle quite nicely for my children! :) My favorite chocolate right now is Bliss by Hershey, you can find it in the grocery store so that is why it's my favorite--it's not expensive and I can get it almost anywhere! Try the raspberry or melt-away center. (we went through 4 bags of chocolate the week of my sister's wedding!) As long as I'm discussing chocolate, there is a Godiva store in one of the mall's here, (I don't remember where the mall is but I can ask my friend) and so one of these days I'm going to have to go get a piece of REALLY good chocolate there. Okay, here is my secret to good chocolate: Macy's carries Godiva chocolate as christmas gifts, soooo when christmas is over and things go 50% off and lower, we go to Macy's around the middle of January and buy us a box of Godiva chocolate for a really good price. ( we usually don't share this chocolate with our kids! )So once a year in January we get our Godiva chocolate!!

Recycling like crazy!!

Well, today seems like a good day to write a ton! It's rainy and I cleaned the house all day yesterday, did the laundry and decorated Julia's room so today is a "down" day! Plus it's friday! We get to sleep in tomorrow! I"m not a morning person, it would be nice if I got up before my kids, but we actually get up at the same time! On Saturday if they sleep in, we are very happy! Out here they recycle a lot! Back in Richland I attempted to recycle but I just couldn't find a good place for my garbage that wouldn't stink or bring mice! I even washed all my containers out but they still started stinking up the garage! So in coming out here we are learning a new way of life. Garbage day is monday and thursday (yes, two days) and recycle day is friday. Which means I have to remember three days throughout the week to get things out to the curb! For recycling we have a huge blue garbage can for paper and cardboard and a blue tub for plastic, glass and cans. Lawn clippings go in these huge paper bags you have to buy from Lowe's or Home Depot and they are such a pain to get the grass into! John mowed our lawn two days ago and said it was horrible trying to get the grass clippings into the bag! So today for recycle day I hauled out the garbage can and tub and then remembered the grass bags in the backyard and had to drag two of those heavy things out to the curb! John or Johnny would have done it but they were gone for the day already and in the morning when everyone is getting ready we didn't remember recycle day! So I feel very accomplished that I got our trash out twice this week and recycled! I am doing sooo good recycling in the house! I bought two recycle bins at IKEA and have them sitting right next to the garbage can in the kitchen so when I'm cooking in the kitchen I can just throw stuff away into the right bin. It's working out quite well, in addition to washing my dishes I am now washing my garbage too! :) Joey is doing his own part in our recycling lifestyle in that he empties the recycle bins into the garbage can several times a day! He also just empties the recycle bin right onto the floor. He is our little tornado, you would never know that I pick up this house at least 10 times a day! I just bought some fisher-price toys off of craigslist for Joey so that maybe he will play with those instead of the garbage! We just went and got the toys and after he dumped out the box of toys and looked at them, he is playing with the nice box they came in! I should just go out to the garage and get boxes next time he is bored! Christmas shopping for him will be a breeze this year! We'll give the toys to the big kids and label the boxes for Joey! :)

Natural History Museum

Our first trip to DC and we went to the Natural History Museum. It seemed like a good place to start! We spent 5 hours there and only got through part of the building! We had a great time and it is very kid friendly. Lots of hands on exhibits and things are so well protected that even Joey couldn't destroy things! We let him out of his stroller occasionally and just had to follow him around to keep up with him. WE have found that the best way to do museums is to let our kids be the tour guides! That way we aren't telling them where to go and they get to pick our destination and everyone is happy! It's even better if there is a map and they can plan out where they want to go. They are great map readers and tour guides! We saw the National Gem collection which was my favorite, lots of shiny things! :) The mineral and gemstone section was great, our kids are really into rocks and fossils and gemstones so this was a dream come true to see lots of cool things in that part of the musuem. One of the pictures I'm going to post is called "Dum Dum want Gum Gum" and you'll have to wath the movie Night at the Museum to get the joke! :) Our next adventure this weekend is the National Zoo!

Mt Rushmore

Well, on our trip across country we stopped at Mt. Rushmore! It was really fascinating and we had a great time! In the gift shop the day we were there, they had a man there that is one of the few remaining workers of Mt. Rushmore. It was great to talk to him and ask him questions, he worked on the mountain for 3 years and knew the sculptor and they even had a Mt. Rushmore baseball team and he gave us one of his baseball cards! The kids loved it! They have some caves in the area too so we took the kids down into some really neat caves. John carried Joey most of the way but towards the end the passageway was getting too narrow and steep so I took Joey out the alternate route and John finished the tour with the older kids.

I'm Blogging!!!

Hello! I have taken the plunge and am learning how to blog! My sister Kim and my friend Dana are on here so I thought this would be a good way to keep people up to date and maybe I'll write enough to count it as a journal entry! :) I discovered I usually need to multitask to get everything done! So, to start our blog we are in Germantown, Maryland which is about 40 minutes from Washington D.C. and we are liking it here! People at church and in the neighborhood have been really nice and welcoming. I met a lady from our cul de sac at the bus stop the first day and later that day her daughter brought us over a hot homemade loaf of bread! So nice! Anyone that knows me, knows that I don't make bread but my family loves it! I have been taught how to make bread several times but I still can't handle doing it on my own. I even ruined the frozen bread dough from the store that is supposed to be fool-proof! My mom gave me a bread machine and that has worked out great, but I left it home! Our drive out here was pretty hard, we brought two vehicles so John and I were both driving all day and it was very tiring, no switching off drivers! I was in the van with 3 kids in the back, including Joey and it was very interesting! No one could sit in the passenger seat of the van because of the air-bags and so I got kind of lonely sometimes ( hard to do in a van with 3 kids! ). I had a CD of the Mama Mia movie and that was awesome! My sisters and I went to see that movie the weekend of my youngest sister's wedding and we had a great bonding time! So that was fun to listen to the music and have those memories. It took us 8 days to get here and it was amazing to drive across the whole country and see the different parts. We drove through South Dakota for a whole day! And then Iowa seemed to take another day! We also got the tail end of those tropical storms so we drove in the hard pounding rain for 8 hours, that was rough. When we showed up here a lady from church had our house key and they invited us over to dinner for the next two nights and they have kids the exact ages of ours so it was wonderful! They have been such a blessing, it's amazing that you can move across the country and have the church be exactly the same and people take care of you immediately! We are truly blessed to be part of a worldwide church! Allison is the name of the lady that is my new friend and she has taken me shopping and shown me the shortest route to schoool, the best grocery store and parks among many other things abour town! Well, I should probably not make this super long or else it might be boring?! I"ll go see if I can figure out pictures and all those other cool things! :) bye for now!