Multi-tasker

I've had a lot on my mind the past couple days, so I've got to catch up from the past week. If you get bored with my ramblings, I apologize. Last night I was thinking about all the multi-tasking that only a Mom can do or understand. This is really my daily routine... all day, just with different stuff. It's pretty amazing when you look at it written down. Here's my story from last night starting about 7:40 pm:

I started to cook pancakes for supper, the baby pooped... pour pancake...change diaper...put baby back in high chair... wash hands... flip pancake... feed baby pears... plate pancake... pour another...cut up pancake into bite size pieces, pour syrup, serve kid #1... flip pancake... "mom, I need some drink"(kid #1)... get milk out of fridge... flip pancake... "no, I don't want milk...gimmie water..hurry I'm really thirsty!"(kid #1)... get water bottle out of fridge... plate pancake... pour another...serve another pancake to kid #2... flip pancake, serve almost empty glass of milk to kid #2... "i'm done mom (kid #1)...."okay, go brush your teeth & put on PJ's (me)"... plate pancake... "I want another pancake"(kid #2)... pour another pancake... serve more pears to baby banging sippy cup on highchair... flip pancake... make more batter... plate pancake #2 to kid #2... pour another pancake... go down hall to check on kid #1 who is running around in his underwear wanting to wear long-sleeve, long pants to bed... explain why you don't wear long pj's to bed in summer... try to find pj's that he won't fuss about, but unsuccessful... go back to kitchen to flip pancake... "mom, i want another pancake (kid #2)"... go to laundry room in search of clean pj's... plate pancake, cut into pieces, pour syrup, serve pancake #3 to kid #2...pour another pancake... serve more pears to baby... back to boys room to search for shorts to match pj top... back to kitchen to flip pancake... "mom, i need some drink"... pour OJ to serve kid #2, plate pancake... pour another pancake... give baby a toy to play with until bath time... yell at kid #1 to "have you done what i've asked you to do"... kid #1 still running around in underwear chasing kid #2... flip pancake... chase both kids to their bedroom... "get ready for bed... it's in 10 min (me)"... pour another pancake... (grrr... kid #2 is back in the kitchen & is getting baby out of highchair... I'm not ready for her to be out yet)...yell to husband, "can you help out for a minute"... husband reply "to do what?"... my reply "get the boys in bed"...hear the yells of kid #1 "high school musical is on!" (thinking...they've seen it 3 times already)...hear boys running through the house to leap onto my bed to watch the show... hear sounds of husband playing with kids on the bed & thinking, it's past their bedtime & we are trying to get on a schedule for school...flip pancake... go to bathroom to run baby's bath water... yell to husband to get baby ready for bath...back to kitchen to plate last pancake & cover in hopes they will still be warm when I eventually get to eat... give baby a bath...sidetrack with wet baby to boys bedroom in another attempt to get them in bed....dry off, lotion & pj's on baby...yell at kids one more time to get in bed & be quiet...pick up baby...back in boys bedroom for goodnight kisses...to living room to nurse spastic baby who's ate too many pears & would rather play...baby nurses while climbing me & stretching me in way's I shouldn't be stretched...baby to bed... back to boys room because i hear lots of giggles... looking in bottom bunk for kid #1 who's missing... still hear giggles...kid #1 & kid #2 are both in top bunk begging to sleep together & promising to be good (yeah, right... this adds at least another 30 min before they go to sleep)... at this point, I say "sure I don't care" because I'm hungry for pancakes...back to kitchen to fix & eat my pancakes...which were really good by the way... end time, 9pm

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Catching up...

Okay, I know it's been a while since I've posted. It's been busy, so I'll have to catch you up on what's happening here. Sunday night Chandler was baptized! Yay! He was so excited all day & he did great. I didn't get any pictures (they took some at church & will mail to us) but I took a couple clips from the video I filmed.


Last night at church was our grand finale of VBS. We had a 7 week program on Wednesday nights... the theme for the summer was Wild Man Will's 7 World Wonders. Corby was "Wild Man Will"... the main character. He did great & I finally got to see a performance last night (I was behind the scenes taking care of registration all the other weeks). Here's a pic from the performance (that's him in the middle with the vest & hat on). You can check out a video clip the Shelby Star did on it.


Also last night we had an exotic animal trainer come & do a show. His name was Dan Breeding & he was great talking about the animals he brought, but he also talked about how God makes & uses the animals and put a Christian emphasis on the whole program. He brought a huge owl, some kind of sloth/monkey, a porcupine and an alligator. All the kids had a chance at the end of the program to pet the alligator.




Kensley has been a spaz all week. She yells all of the time & does this claw thing with her hand and growls. She is SO loud! (she doesn't get it honest... ya think?) She's also got a new "look" this week if she is remotely displeased with something. It's very funny. I've tried to capture with a picture, but it just doesn't do it justice. Here's a few pictures of it.


The boys had school orientation tonight. They went to their classes & met their teachers. Chandler has no clue who his teacher is despite the fact that I've told him at least 50 times. I really don't think he cares. He's still in summer vacation mode. She seems really nice & I've heard great things about her. He doesn't have any of his buddies from the past 2 years in there, but he's a social butterfly & will do fine. Carter really likes his teacher. We actually went to church with her for several years when we were at Zion. He knows about 5 kids in his class, so he should feel really comfortable in there. He's ready to go to kindergarten. I really don't think we've made as big of a deal with him like we did with Chandler. I guess because he's the second & we've "been there, done that". They both start on Monday.

My daughter is hilarious! The older she gets, the funnier she is. Tonight she was very spastic for some reason. She pretty loud in general (runs in the family I must say) but tonight she kicked it up a notch. She took a late nap & maybe that was the culprit, but she was hollering & carrying on... growling, screaming, laughing, doing this thing where she put her fists out, tightened her body like she was really mad & got really red in the face... and then laughed. The more we laughed at her, the more she put on. The whole night she was all over the place... up & down, down the hall & back, crawling over everything, burying her face in pillows & stuffed animals. She didn't go to bed until 10pm! She was having lots of fun with her brothers today too. She's really going to miss them when school starts. She has accomplished another word... the Oh in "Uh-oh"... for the longest time she's always said "uh-uh". She has also started saying "bee-bee" which I think is baby. I'll be able to tell better in couple days. Kensley had her first popsicle today... she loved it!

The boys had their first sleep-over last night... somewhere other than family. They had a kids lock-in at the church. They had a lot of fun & were really tired when they got home. They both took a 3 hour nap this afternoon. They've had quite the imagination this week. Here's some pictures of them dressing up & playing various roles.

Corby came home the other day & the boys were outside playing. I just happened to walk outside when he pulled up & saw this at the end of our driveway. The boys were sitting in the wagon which was attached to the mailbox post & a sign on the mailbox that said "2 kids for..._____ fire or sall" ... it's been a while, but I guess they've heard me say more than one time when they are being bad that I'm going to sit them on the side of the road & put a For Sale sign on them if they don't behave. Thing was, it wasn't a bad day that day. When I asked Chandler what was going on, he said they were just playing pretend and they knew they had not been bad that day. But it was really funny. I wonder what our neighbors were thinking?!

My fruit of the summer & Summer

Okay, this is totally irrelevant to anything and something most of you don't really care about but I'm telling it any way... after all this is my blog & I can write what I want to. I went to Gaffney last Saturday & purchased some white nectarines at one of those produce stands. They are SOOOOOO good!!!! Did I say they were good? There was probably 15 or so in the bag & I've ate them all but one... Corby said they were too mushy. Oh my goodness, the juiciness dripping off them... YUM-O. That is my favorite fruit this summer... nectarines. Last summer it was watermelon. I would eat a whole one... all by myself... not in one sitting, but in a rather short amount of time. I just love summer produce & all their yummy-ness. I would love to have a garden & grow all the stuff I love, but I don't have the money, patience or time for it. Maybe one day when I get old & don't have anything else to do, I'll grow a garden. By then my taste buds will probably be dead & I won't care what anything tastes like.

Okay, off that subject and on to another. Let me just say that I can't wait until school starts...10 days and counting. I guess the combination of heat and not being able to go outside, having a small house and boredom is getting to all of us. My boys are fighting constantly and they are so freakin loud... sorry I had to emphasize that word to stress what I really mean. I will miss sleeping in and the freedom to come & go without worrying about getting home for early bedtime, but I'm ready to get back into a routine. More so, I'm ready for my kids to have some time away from each other. They really need more than I do. Don't get me wrong, I love my children... A LOT... but some space is always good. In a way, I kind of wish we did the year round school thing. Then, instead of having 3 months off at one time and going to school for what seems like forever, there would be more shorter school times and frequent breaks, but not long enough for them to get bored. I will probably be blogging around January that I wish it was summer & my kids were home because they are tired of school & I'm tired of all the busyness. It's a never ending circle for me. I will be anxious to see how much I get done with only having Kensley at home. I'm going to have to buy some heavy duty velcro & attach it to my hip... that's where she wants to stay most of the time.

A Child of the Kingdom

We have great news... Chandler became a Christian about a month ago. He ran up to me in the van after church & said "mommy, mommy, I asked Jesus to come live in my heart!" He was so excited. (I must admit though, I was a little surprised. We've been talking about for about a year now, but he's never really seemed serious about it. I guess that was the Lord working on him & paving the way for it now.) We asked him how it happened & what he did and he told us he prayed in Sunday School. So, when we got home from church we talked to him more & Corby prayed with him to make sure he understood what he was doing. HOW EXCITING!!

Anyway, that happened the week before we went to the beach so we missed a Sunday while on vacation, so we talked to him Saturday night and explained what it meant to "walk the aisle"... as we Baptists call it...and that he would need to go up in church and tell the pastor. He was a little nervous about it, but very excited at the same time. He went up front this Sunday and Corby & I walked with him. The first thing he told the pastor was "I felt like I was going to puke walking up here!" The pastor laughed pretty good & joked back that he felt the same way sometimes when he gets up to preach. At the end of service when the pastor introduced Chandler to the congregation, he said, "well, he had a little Corby moment when he came up here and said he felt like he was going to puke"... of course everyone laughed.

Chandler is very excited to get "bab-i-tized" as he calls it... that's coming up Sunday night. I asked him tonight why he's so excited and he said "because I'm glad that Jesus is living in my heart". How filling to hear those words uttered from your child's mouth. To know that his life is given to Christ. Now, it's our job as parents to nurture & grow that new faith.

We melted....

...I'm tired of the heat. I don't mind summer temps in general, but when it's 100 degrees everyday for a week and you can't send the kids outside to release some energy, I'm a little peeved. Finding activities for kids to do in the house is hard. I must admit that this week, we've watched a lot of TV for lack of anything else to do or energy to do it. They've asked to go outside to play & I've had to say no several times... "no, it's too hot to play outside". I never thought that I Mom could say that, but we've had heat advisories most every afternoon and there is no shade in our backyard. Can we say "heat stroke!"

Kensley cut another tooth yesterday (you can barely see them in this picture). So we have a grand total of 2 teeth now. Hopefully she'll have a resting period before we start working on the top two. I remember those being really hard for the boys. She's crusin all over the house. I was in the bathroom yesterday and flipped my hair down for a few seconds to dry it and she was sitting in the hall. When I flipped it back up, she was gone... already in the living room. Considering how slow she crawls, that was pretty good movement in the time she got there.

I went shopping this morning at the outlet malls in Gaffney... (by the way, if you need kid clothes, you should visit there). They have some great back to school sales going on and even better sales on summer clearance. If only I had the money..... I could spend so much. I used to go in stores and just visit the boys section (for obvious reasons), but now I have to do double duty and I must say it's a little overwhelming. I get confused for who I need to buy for & what season, then I have to think about the sizes, then I think, "do I have that tucked away in some hand-me-downs"... etc, etc. I also find myself getting lost in the midst of all the cute girl clothes, buy something, come out & think "I didn't even look at the boys stuff". So then the next store I'll start to look at the boys stuff, see something in the girls section that catches my eye and head that way, then the same process happens again. They need stores for boys and separate stores for girls. That way, I can shop and not get distracted.