7 Quick Takes

Sadly, I have no pictures so this is the boring seven quick takes.

1. BRENDAN IS POTTY TRAINED! Thank you, Lord! Like his older siblings it was a matter of turning three and one day being willing to go with it.  We went to Target, picked out some new underpants and a huge bag of candy for incentive.  We only had one bad day, the 2nd day, and the rest has been pretty smooth sailing with the very rare accidents here or there.  Next challenge is to get him to stop talking about his boy parts.  He is very proud of it and wants everyone to know about it.  ugh.

2. Meg has been hitting milestones, but not ones Momma is excited about.  She can now climb onto the couch without the aid of step (usually, a toy, pile of books, ottoman, blanket..etc). My days of getting anything done out of sight of her are over.  Boy doe she loves to climb onto the couch just to bounce around and run back and forth.  She has no idea how many times we've saved her from serious head injury.

3. School is out for the Summer!! Woohoo! Bored has already set in...blah! Sadly, it hasn't been pool weather since they got out, hopefully by next week we can get into a routine.

4. I finally have a dresser that fits all my clothes and then some.  It's a little big for our tiny bedroom but it was becoming very necessary.  If all my clothes were washed, I wasn't able to them all away, they literally did not fit into my dresser.  I don't have a lot of clothes.

5. We're getting new hardwood floors!! Omg! You have no idea how excited I am to get new hardwood floors on the first floor of our home.  We fell in love with the old unique floors that came with the house. So much character! BOO! Turns out the scratch like no body's business, The wood is splintering between the planks, and there are chunks missing.  You can't just sweep the floors because the food just gets stuck in between the plants, you have to vacuum it every time (or get a dog).  The new hardwood floors brings me to...

6. CONSTRUCTION! Right before the floors go in, I'm having Tim widen the kitchen doorway by about a foot, and take off the ugly and useless metal door frame. Opening it up a little bit, and we're going to bring the new floors into the kitchen.  Bye-bye old stained linoleum floors!

7.Starting next week I am starting Bob Harper's "The Skinny Rules" menu..to the letter. It's four weeks of menus, and I happen to like everything on it. I'm getting a bit desperate.

Now off you go to check out everyone else's 7 Quick Takes over at Jen's.

Changes....A Hint

Wow. I think I have a lot of you stumped as to what the new change in our house is going to be. I think some of your are dying to ask a certain question....

Well, I'm not ready to spill the beans yet so here are some hints:

Changes...

This room has been the nursery for the past five years and three of my sweet babes slept here. Now it's time for another babe to call this her room...more news coming soon.

Last twenty minutes brought a very happy Meg playing in the rain and then a sad diaperless Meg devastated that her attempts to scale the gate using a pillow were futile. 

Nothing like getting a phone call from school asking if you had forgotten today was a half day.  Obviously I had, otherwise, my kid wouldn't be standing next to you still. It also was a great motivator to get all four us at home into clean clothes since I couldn't leave them in the car like I do during regular pick up.  So, there you go. I'm in clean clothes....finally.

I did come home to find my sister's magazine, Verily, in my mailbox!  Things are finally looking up!

7 Quick Takes of a Craptastic 24 Hrs

Sooo, yesterday I posted about how ggrreeeaaat (not!) my day was going, and let me tell you, the day did not improve, and to my amazement it got unbelievably worse.  So today I will dedicate my 7 Quick Takes to the day in the life of a stay at home mom who is losing her marbles.

1. For some reason I cannot keep clothes on my boys.  I can't even count how many times a day I tell them to put their clothes back on.  Yesterday was no different and somehow pickup time snuck up on me and I didn't have time to search the neighborhood for my boys cloths so this how we picked up Lucy.  Another reason I wish our darn minivan has tinted windows.

2. Meg and I have been sporting the same nasty clothes for going on three days now.  In my there-isn't-enough-coffee-in-the-world mind  I cannot come up with a good enough reason to muster the energy to change the two of us out of our clothes. Reasons to keep the clothes on: 1. Saves on laundry  2. It will be just as dirty as the last outfit in less than ten minutes.  This is a fact.

I don't even know what is on my skirt or when it got there, although it's probably PBJ...from yesterday.

update: Nothing like getting a phone call from school asking if you had forgotten today was a half day.  Obviously I had, otherwise, my kid wouldn't be standing next to you still. It also was a great motivator to get all four us at home into clean clothes since I couldn't leave them in the car like I do during regular pick up.  So, there you go. I'm in clean clothes....finally.

3. I finally gave up for the day on potty training Brendan because I really wasn't in the mood to clean up one more accidents and I truly believe there is a limit to how many times one should change their underwear in one day.  I picked up Lucy and told my mostly naked children that after Meg goes down for a nap, they could watch TV while I laid on the couch.  I begged them to not come to with my with any fights or complaining.  That did not work.  They sensed I was weak and knew they could break me.  I gave in and we all went outside to enjoy the weather before the rain started.  I was lying in the hammock, thinking "wow, this is nice" when Charlie grabbed my cell phone, put it in a bucket of water and when I chased after him he threw it off the play set. $#^$#^#$^^!!!!  At that very moment Tim appeared in the backyard so I stormed off into the house.  And here is where it got really fun.  I stormed into the kitchen and tripped over the step stool.  In my rage and frustration I tossed it out of my way.  SHATTER!  MOTHER FATHER! I had accidentally tossed it into my oven, and the outer glass shattered into literally millions of tiny shards.

This is in the middle of the clean up. I started on one end of the kitchen and worked towards the oven cleaning it up.

So now I do not have a working oven.  The oven is so old and parts of it already don't work that even though it's cheaper to have the glass replaced, it might make more sense getting a new one. Le sigh.

4. After a really good cry, announcing I was going to bed, I locked myself in my room and watched reruns of "Law & Order: SVU" because I was really in the mood to watch something uplifting.

5. 10pm rolled around and I was starving so I hit up McDonald's because what else makes you feel better than a ton of salt?

6. I've gained back all of the weight I have been working on losing the past few months. My goal to lose 30 lbs before my sister's wedding are not looking so great.  I would have to lose 10 lbs a month, which I realize is doable for someone with self control. And yes, this is a plea for suggestions from anyone who has ideas on how to not eat everything in sight.  I really need to do a meal plan, snack plan, and how to say no to all sweets plan.  And I didn't run yesterday and I feel bad about that.

7.  Ok, that was a rough synopsis of my day yesterday.  And on a lighter note, I didn't realize Tim had decided to make the last few cups of milk in our almost empty gallon into chocolate milk until I gave Meg a sippy cup full of it and poured Charlie's cereal.  He was very pleased to have chocolate milk with his cereal.

Now if you'll excuse me Brendan is naked and has already had another accident....this day looking great!  Go check out Jen for more, and hopefully more cheerful 7 Quick Takes.

Right Now

There isn't a dry eye in our house, including mine, right now.  Meg, my sweet little drama queen is in the midst of major meltdown so I've tossed her into her crib so she can wail and not smack or bite me at the same time.  Charlie is upset because I won't give him cereal...he didn't finish his sandwich.  Brendan is mad that I made him help me clean up his huge accident, and now I won't give him a piece of candy.  I feel bad but I can't reward him for not peeing in the potty, plus he didn't finish his lunch either.

It's one of those days where I dream of the day when all of my kids use to take naps, really epic long ones.

Only Scout hasn't made me pull my hair today and that's because she's been outside all morning and I haven't checked to see what she has destroyed.

I'm really looking forward to Weight Watchers meeting tonight, running, and grocery shopping.  Precious mommy time.

 Update: I posted this Monday, and low and behold Cari does a "Girls" theme Thursday. 

We had great plans for yesterday.  Mass, cleaning, cooking, family over for a cook out and end the day with a 5 mile run with my neighbor.  The only thing that ended up happening was mass, thank God. Lucy ended mass by puking all over the place.  I have to say, kind of glad I wasn't there.  I had stayed home with Meg and poor Tim had to manage Lucy's puke and the boys, but I'm sothankful for good friends who helped out.  I love our parish.  I went off to noon mass and came home and promptly started barfing too.  So everything else got cancelled.  My run was going to get cancelled anyway since we ended up with a terrific thunderstorm yesterday evening.

So far the boys and Meg have not caught this little stomach bug but I'm just waiting for something to happened today.

Glorious rainy Monday!

Saying Goodbye To May

Inspired by Grace, I decided to end May on a lighter note than how I started it. Alas, no one was sending me free stuff to review so I went old school and headed over to Whole Foods last night after Weight Watchers.  With my running schedule I really only have one or two days a week when I can just drink juice. Mama needs her protein and carbs to pumped out the miles. Since today is the last day of May, and I'm planning on owning June, I decided today would be the perfect day.  Flush out my system a bit so I can start a new month right.

Don't I look positively divine first thing in the morning?

But without my coffee this is hard to deal with:

I was thinking about doing some more cleaning, now that the little were not needing my full attention, but than I was forced into a snuggle:

Darn dog.  She loves sleeping between my legs...it's kind of weird but sadly I am becoming one of those dog owners that will indulge when it comes to affection.

It will never cease to amaze me the speed in which my children lose things. Take this morning, for instance, Brendan was wearing his crocs outside while we were all enjoying the morning shade of the front yard.  We went inside, and I'm not over exaggerating here, within three minutes we couldn't find his crocs.  No joke.  I know he wore them in because as he we was walking in I shouted at the boys to put their shoes into their baskets.  Neither one of them did. His crocs are no where to be found.

This happens all  the time and when we finally do find the missing item it is in weird places like the shower or the dog food bin.  Or places I know for a fact the child was no where near in the two minutes it took to lose a toy.  How did your dinosaur end up in my underwear drawer, which you can neither reach or access since you were tied to the front door while holding the dinosaur for the past 10 minutes??? How???

It's clearly an inherited trait.  My fabulous husband looses his wallet or keys at least five times a week.  We spend almost every morning looking for one of those two things.


I, on the other hand, am perfect and never looses anything, ever.

I have come up with some goals for the month of June that I'm hoping with change my life but I have to wait a day or two to share them.

I'm photographing a wedding tomorrow that I'm excited about, one because I'm doing it with a friend and I've never done that before, but also I'm excited about the couple getting married.  Downside, can't share the photos.  But I'm excited none the less. I haven't photographed a wedding in a long time.

I need to go to sleep but I'm to tired to get up off the couch...

When I had Lucy everything she wore had to be girly, down to her onesie. Ask Tim, I had major heart attacks if anyone suggested putting my precious baby girl in boys' clothing. Flash forward six and half years, four kids, two boys in between...sorry Megs, I will put you in anything that is mostly clean, including your older brother's pajamas.  It helps that her booty is bigger than both her brothers, baby got back.

yup, my sweet pea is wearing 2T jammies, and her favorite nightly routine is climbing into Brendan's bed until I chase her into the nursery.

I would like this to continue for the next few hours but I have wake her up so I can pick up Lucy from school. Breaks my heart.