Dreams Come True

Its 7:04 am and there is a panicked child standing in my kitchen. His hair is standing on end and his little bare feet are poking out from under his jammie bottoms. "Mommy! The tooth fairy didn't come AGAIN!"

20 minutes later there is another child refusing to get out of bed, a baby feeding his pop tart to the dog and lunches in the wrong backpacks, which is kind of a big deal since the kid whose allergic to peanut butter is holding the lunch with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

The dog runs off into the woods. A kid chases him. There are now muddy footprints from the back door through the kitchen. We are dangerously close to lateish for school. I will later realize that the clean underwear that was laid out for the oldest is still sitting on his bed, his body already sitting at school.

Its 9:20 am and my arms are full of groceries. There is a three year old with his pants around his ankles writing his name on the drive way in pee, waving at the poor elderly neighbor lady who looks like she's just seen a ghost. The only emotion I can muster is relief that he is finally not wetting his pants, so I just turn and lug my 5 gallons of milk into the house.

2 hours later I am making lunch. My towheaded toddler is scarfing down cookies and the older one is eating a sucker. I'm questioning why I even need to make lunch at this point. Around his sucker I'm asked if I have a baby in my tummy. "NO!" I exclaim. "Well it looks like it!" he smiles and red sucker drool drips onto my freshly scrubbed floor.

I require them both to eat their hotdogs before they get any more suckers. Caleb proclaims his hot dog is gone. Indeed it is, but there is an entire wiener sticking out of the dachshunds mouth! Oh well, nap time comes after lunch, I let it go. 

My living room is filled with teeny little and overwhelmingly contagious peals of giggles as my one year old tries to escape my tickling fingers. There are blocks everywhere that I will pick up probably another 6 times before the end of the day. I wouldn't trade it for anything!!

Later I will hear the story about the kid who peed his shorts at school and the math test that had almost all 11's for answers, and there will be a belching contest in my mini-van that has goldfish ground into the carpet and the dvd player that works only half the time before we get home. I will proudly display A+ math tests on my fridge, and gently remind that "of" does not have a "v" in it.

There will be countless "I love you's" a few "your the meanest mommy in the world" and at least a dozen, "Somebody wipe me's!!" by the end of my day.

Supper will be one kids favorite meal and another will refuse to eat it. Bath time may or may not happen.Wet towels will probably have mold on them by the time I discover them in a pile at the back of the closet. Hopefully the spiders won't be hiding in it too.

9:30 pm will probably find at least half of my offspring still giggling in their beds, dirty socks on bedroom floors, and a pile of dishes in the sink. I'll be tired, I'll probably feel frustrated, and I will climb in bed knowing that I have everything I have always wanted!!

School Shopping Secrets

I was recently asked what my secrets are to shopping for school for my boys and if I could share a few. Well here is my secret: SURVIVE IT! That's it! A good bottle of wine will definitely help!

It did get me thinking about my strategies and lessons learned and if I even had any! I decided I might have a few tricks up my sleeve that I could regale you all with, though I am sure that half of you are saying, "you didn't already know that??"

Kids clothes are some sort of conspiracy I am convinced! You wear them for two months before they grow out of them IF they last that long, and a pair of jeans for little legs is not that much less than what I pay for mine, though I assure you that there is about 5 times the amount of material on mine as there is on theirs!

My kids have to wear uniforms. There are several places that I have found that carry the specific colors my boys needed and I always sign up for their emails. Every one of them had a 30% family and friends sale, though it usually happened after school started, but if I you sign up for the emails, you will be sure to know when that is happening. You also will usually get coupons emailed to you from them. I am not a fan of credit cards AT ALL, but I must confess that I do have a Kohl's card. This is where I do the bulk of my shopping for clothes. With the card, you get a coupon for 15%, 20%, or 30% off every 6 weeks or so. You can only use the coupon with your card. Here is the secret, however. Take your check book along and after checking out whip that bad boy out and pay off your account. You have to do it with your checkbook though if you want to pay right there at the register. Check out your favorite store for perks of having a card, but make sure its one you don't have to carry a balance on or pay a fee for.

Perhaps one of my biggest lessons learned is one concerning those uniform pants; particularly for boys! My boys had to wear the Khaki dress pants, but those knees could only handle so many trips of crawling though the rocks of the playground and the gym floor and over cafeteria tables before they went belly up. I was buying new pants every month on average, for each boy! So I heard from someone that Lands End/Sears will replace the pants for the entire lifetime of the pant! I ordered some for each boy. I ordered during a 30% off sale and ordered enough to get free shipping. My boys went four months before little knobby knees started poking out through the reinforced patches. Sure enough, they replaced them for me free of charge, and they replaced those again 3 more times. They do know my name and we do swap weather reports every time I call, but their customer service is excellent! I am promised that they do this with all of their clothes!!

My number one secret on shopping for clothes has to be shopping at the end of the season! You can get name brand clothes for a fraction of what you would normally pay! Just make sure your not going to be moving across the country to a school where the uniform will change just enough so that you can't use all of the polo shirts you bought last year!

Then come the actual school supplies. School supplies when I was a kid was a package of crayons and some construction paper. Now, though, if your lists were anything like mine, there were the typical crayons and markers and also very specific white board pens and paper towels and enough hand sanitizer to fill a swimming pool! Here in Florida, I found out that there is a tax free weekend on all school supplies! However I researched that, and decided that the $5 I would be saving wasn't worth trying to brave the throng of other school shoppers and risk having the glue sticks run out before I got my own required 48! So I went a few weeks before.

However if you are shopping for a big item such as a computer, this weekend is totally when you want to shop for it!!

I have incredible friends who are very savvy in finding the best deals for their school supplies. I even have a friend who, when all was said and done, was paid $5 for doing all of her school shopping!! So please, if you are one of those people, we all want to hear your secrets!! Comment on this post so we all can join you in your school shopping heaven!

If you can get your school list early on, then you can be watching the circulars for the stores you usually shop at, and can snatch up the items on your lists whenever they go on sale, especially those Clorox wipes and Ziploc baggies! Find out if the store you shop at has a loyalty card. For example in Colorado you wanted to have the King Soopers (Kroger) card if you were shopping there (its free). Target now has a debit card that is linked to your checking account. You save 5% every time you use it, and you get free shipping when you order online. And clip those coupons!!

Amazon is also amazing when you get to those last few days before school and still haven't found illusive Learn-to-Letter notepads! Amazon doesn't charge tax, and if you sign up for an Amazon Prime Membership, you will get free two day shipping. You can also sign up for a trial of this if you know you are going to be buying a bunch of things and want to give it a try.  For those of you with kids in diapers, you can also save a ton on them if you have the Amazon Prime membership (and last time I checked they took coupons for those diapers)!

Backpacks are always a frustration for me. They are expensive! My plan is to always make them reuse their backpacks for a few years, but so far they haven't made them to the end of the year! If you watch Groupon, sometimes you can get good deals, but make sure they are quality backpacks and not ones where the zipper is going to fall out after a week! I tend to love Amazon for backpacks as well, but again you can't "feel" it before you buy it. Amazon, however, has reviews and I love reading what other moms have to say about the product before I incorporate it into my crazy life! Outlet stores are a great place to buy backpacks. I love shopping those outlets stores! Again sign up for the emails from the outlet stores, because you will know of sales and get coupons!

I have to admit that most of what I have learned has been through other moms who have gone before me. True some things you have to learn from experience, like the subtle noise of a diaper filling with a substance that doesn't have a chance of being contained in its thin elastic plastic, and how that noise can wake you from a dead sleep from clear across the room while your husband who is awake never even hears it, but in most "mommy moment" cases, I have learned so much from other moms! We would all love to learn from you who have more secrets so again, please comment below so we can all learn from you!
Check out this link for more tips! http://www.creditcardinsider.com/insider/top-5-ways-to-save-on-back-to-school-shopping/

HAVE ANOTHER GREAT SCHOOL YEAR!!

Girl Power

I love being a mom! I have to admit that I even enjoy the chaos! The crazy shocking things my kids do, the ER memories, even the embarrassing moments. I love being a mom!! I have always wanted to be a mom. I know people think I'm crazy for having as many kids as I do, and insane for wanting more, but every kid is so incredible and unique and adds so much to our family! People comment on how busy and hard it must be to go anywhere or do anything with all 4 of my boys, but I don't really think its that big of a deal. Sure I have my moments that I want to scream and shake a child until his brains rattle. Shopping with just one is faster, and having to get all four out just to mail a package sometimes gets annoying, but as far as I can tell from my mommy friends of one or two, this is true even for them!

I have been struggling lately with guilt. Pressure from other people to do, think, or believe something just because they do. Pressure from people to not want anymore children, because that's "stupid". Pressure to home school, because not to is "unchristian". Pressure to bake with all natural and no sugar and only vegetables, because not to is "unhealthy". Pressure to read a certain number of hours from the Bible to my children, pressure to shop at certain stores, pressure to have certain traditions, pressure to read certain books, pressure to speak a certain "language", pressure pressure pressure.

When I announced my pregnancy with Liam, someone actually told me, that they didn't know why anyone would have more than two children. In fact I was made fun of regularly, and the butt of many jokes because I was having a 4th child. I did not realize that there was a rule on how many kids a family should have before they were considered "idiots". I have had so many people freely share their opinion that I should not consider having anymore, even if I do want a little girl. Why? 

Why is "different" bad? When did we stop rejoicing in our diversity and differences and instead "shoot to kill" if someone has a different belief, different lifestyle, different view than our own?  The woman that chooses to have two children because that is all she can handle is an incredibly wise and generous woman! The woman who chooses to have 6 children because that's how many she can handle and delights in being a mom is an incredibly wise and generous woman. Why do we think that one is right and one is wrong?Why do we think it is our job to inform them that we are right and they are wrong?

Is it because we are worried that somehow we got it wrong? Is it because to gain some of the confidence that was shattered and lost along our life road, we have to have everyone doing the same thing we are, to somehow prove that we are in fact doing ok? Do we have to shatter the beautiful confidence of another woman to make ourselves feel less broken? 

I am so amazed lately at the epidemic I see among women, especially Christian women. Its like we have some how adopted the belief that a woman who holds any confidence or beauty or uniqueness or talent is a threat, an obstacle in our search for self worth and she must be annihilated at all costs. There are so many hurting and broken women who have been devoured by their own kind! Any time I hear a woman, even "jokingly" putting another woman or another type of woman down, I can't help but view her as insecure and weak. And that is exactly what we are when we choose to tear another precious female companion down.

What if we delighted in our differences. Instead of being threatened that she has more children, what if I recognize her strength in mothering and use her to learn more about becoming a better mom myself? Instead of being threatened that she has nicer clothes and cuter hair, what if I used her to teach me about style? What if instead of hating her for keeping a better house than mine, I used her to learn some secrets in improving in that area myself. Chances are huge that there is an area that she might eventually come to me on recognizing that I am stronger than her in that area.

Can you imagine a world in which every single woman was different and cheered on in her differences? Some worked out of the home, some stayed at home, some home-schooled, some didn't, some cooked, some didn't, some had 10 kids, some had 1 and we all started delighting in and encouraging each other on what we were doing well. Can you imagine the strength we would have together? Can you imagine how powerful we would be as a community of women knowing we were building up other women, and that there were dozens of other strong confident women building us up? The resources we would have because other women were growing in areas we had weaknesses in?

The other day I noticed a woman in line waiting to order her food. She was a little older and overweight, but she had this bright colorful dress on and I liked it. I mentioned to her that I liked her dress, and she stared at me for a few seconds with distrust all over her face. I smiled at her, and she tentatively said thank you to me and walked to her table. Several times through my meal she caught my eye and every time she did her smile got wider until it nearly stretched off of her face. I left wanting to cry that she wasn't celebrated every day for her unique beauty. The only reason for the strong emotion I felt was that God has been speaking to my own tattered heart about this so strongly lately.

As women we have such incredibly potent power. Power to build something strong and beautiful with surprisingly little effort, and power to completely demolish it. Why in the world would we choose not to build something of incredible lasting value?

I saw this on someones Facebook the other day. "Don't compare your life to others and don't judge them. You have no idea what their journey is all about."

School Daze

Well it is that time of year again. Back to school!! I have read some really inspirational blogs on school shopping, and helping your kids get ready to go back to the classroom, and how to have a good attitude while looking for illusive school supplies and emptying your bank account on them. I do love those blogs and will continue to read them! However my school shopping experience was sorely disappointing in the inspiration departement.

Every year I dream of making school shopping an exciting and bonding adventure for the child getting ready to head to the classroom. I picture happy skipping children trying on uniform pants which are on sale of course, and new crayons going in the cart with looks of rapture on innocent faces. I picture browsing through stores and finding deals on new backpacks that leave me feeling proud of my good stewardship, and ice cream cones after finding every item on the school supply list, telling stories of my own school days to captivated little boys.

WHY DOES THIS NEVER HAPPEN??

My babysitter couldn't watch the two little ones, so all four boys accompanied me on our school shopping trip. I had school supply lists that, rolled out, could have wound their way through the store and out the front door! I had a baby who had green snot crusted all over his face and kept trying to climb out of the cart. I had a three year old that ate the first package of washable markers that I put in the cart. A fist fight broke out over a backpack. A argument started over who got the blue scissors, and an entire bin of glue ended up on the floor!

Each child required 3 packages of 500 count computer paper! If there are 25 kids in a classroom that's 37,500 pieces of paper!! Per classroom!! If Al Gore is looking for someone to blame for environmental issues, call the schools, not the SUV owners! What in the world are they going to do with all of that paper??

Of course they didn't have every item on the list. No way that would be way too easy and stress free! I find myself every single year missing a handful of items from the list. I hate that feeling when walking out after having been in the store for well over an hour, kids with black eyes, other kids crying, bank account in the negative, pushing three carts and knowing your not finished yet!

Every year I do the same thing too. I walk through the aisle that has all of the notebooks, hoping that the learn to letter one will be there this time. So what if it wasn't there the last 35 times you looked, so what if the manager has assured you that yes he did check in the back every time you asked and they really didn't get any in the 5 minutes since then. They have to have one somewhere right??

So we bought the crayons and the glue and the paper towels. We didn't have ice cream, we didn't swap stories, because even Mama was under a no talking order by the time we left the store.

Thank God for Amazon! I ordered the few items, and felt relieved that I was finally done; until I realilzed I had them shipped to my old house in Colorado.

And then Kevin called. I couldn't really understand his hysterical voice, but I got the impression that he had looked at the bank account and was sure my bank card had been stolen. I assured him that I had been school shopping. He insisted that that wasn't school shopping, it was a student loan payment for college! He grumbled about not needing ziploc baggies or kleenex when he went to school for the next several days. He insisted that the only reason any child needed 24 glue sticks, was because they were going to be eating half of them. I kept the wall of computer paper hidden in the back of my closet. I don't think I even want to know his opinion on that!

Meetups and Kitchen Tables

It might come as a shock to some, but I am a very outgoing person and I will use any excuse as a reason to get a bunch of people together! 

In Colorado, the fact that there was going to be a 2 hour window where it wasn't snowing in May was definitely call for a backyard barbecue! A good grade from one of my boys warranted a play date, and if anyone wanted to borrow a cup of sugar from me, they only did if they had time to spend the afternoon hanging out in my kitchen with me swapping recipes! I love loud chaotic bonding times perfect for creating memories!!

My dear husband would fall into bed exhausted after a birthday party where I invited every one I knew within a 100 mile radius. I on the other hand, had so much energy I cleaned the house from top to bottom afterwards!

And then we moved to Florida where I knew no one, and it never snowed, therefore every night was barbecue worthy!! I started to go a little stir crazy after about 45 minutes. 

Two weeks after we got here, Kevin and I went into a furniture store to buy a kitchen table. The young salesman who helped us seemed about our age. I found out he had a wife and two young kids. He seemed perfect! 

Kevin and I sat at a table in a corner and had a whispered conversation something like this.

"Lets ask him if he and his wife want to go to dinner!"

"Shelly, I promise I will never go out in public again with you, if you do."

"Why??"

"You don't ask your salesman that you have known for 5 minutes out on a date! That's weird!"

"Why is it weird? You have to meet people somehow."

"Well you don't pick up your furniture salesguy! I'm pretty sure its not in their job description! Oh hi, yes we are ready to check out. My wife just has to go to the bathroom. NOW!"

After we got in the car, I proudly held up the business card I swiped on the way out and threatened to call him later. Kevin told me if I did, I would have to find the other half of my double date, because he wouldn't be it!

I joined a mommy group I found online. It was a group specifically designed for mom's of boys and encouraged boys to be as energetic as boys are. I was thrilled, it sounded perfect!

It turned out this mom felt that telling her child no in any shape or form was developmentally harmful and detracted from the beauty of the immense energy contained in a boys body!

The 8 year old kept taking his clothes off, The 4 year old broke 3 separate toys in under 10 minutes, all over other children's head, and the mother was glowing! "Isn't it great that we can let our boys be boys together!!"

Liam climbed under the kitchen table soon after we got there and refused to come out! Micah hid behind me whispering in my ear that he would do all of the laundry if we would just leave immediately, and Kyler found it to be the greatest  joy in the world that the mother of these boys opened several boxes of cookies and encouraged him to continue eating them even after he had already consumed a whopping 10! This mom was also a fan of "boys' appetites". 

We decided not to do the online dating for friends anymore.

I have been banned from Kevin,s workplace, because I go around asking people if they have wives and kids and if they want to come over for dinner.

Thankfully, my amazing Colorado friends have used some of their new found free time upon my leaving the state to call and chat with me for an allotted amount of time ;-) I love getting the texts and Facebook messages letting me know I'm not forgotten! 

Here's hoping the mailman got my little invitation to dinner I stuck in the mailbox. Who knows, he could be our next lifelong friend!!

10 Years!

10 years ago today two tiny little kids got married. Despite my dad saying "absolutely not" the first time Kevin asked to marry his little girl, Kevin said I do and gave me his name. Despite his mother not approving of how I treated her baby boy, and wishing her son would marry anyone else in the world, I said I do and gave Kevin my forever.

On that day I stood at the alter in my white dress, makeup done and hair piled in curls with a little tiara, and felt immensely excited at the fairy tale I was living. I had my own tiny apartment waiting to be decorated, a honeymoon in Florida waiting to be experienced, and happily ever after wrapped with dozens of other gifts in the lobby. I was completely and totally in love!

 A few months later we argued about whose family we would spent 4th of July with, and then we argued over which house to buy, and then we argued over which family to be with at Christmas, and then we argued over which families advice to take or ignore, and then we got pregnant before we planned, and then we realized our already small income got smaller when half of it was used to buy diapers, and that tires didn't last forever. We realized Friday nights would now be spent watching Barney instead of going to the movies.

We watched a few incredibly hard years go by, and at the end of every one we were pleasantly surprised that we had lasted through! Our friends lost bets on when it would end, and the neighbors braced for another year.

Then one day we woke up and realized that forever was here even if it didn't hold tiaras and happily ever after every day. Even if we had more poopy diapers than money and some raised eyebrows at our unconventional life.

 Dear Kevin in a tux standing at the alter 10 years ago: joking about PMS is not funny after 3500 jokes. Yes, different shoes for every outfit is absolutely necessary. Buying tampons is most certainly part of your job description.Christmas music in July is not weird. A 5 hour shopping trip where nothing but socks was purchased, is indeed a successful trip! If she says nothings wrong, you have totally screwed something up! Drinking the apple pie instead of eating it when it wouldn't thicken and then complimenting her, is exactly why she married you! Holding her hand while she cried because even your pants wouldn't fit over her pregnant belly, is one of the most honorable things you will do. Laughing until tears run down your face with her is going to be one of her favorite memories. Listening to the things that get on her nerves even though you don't have the slightest idea why such silly things even matter, makes you prince charming. Sticking through the hardest years of your life by her side is the best form of commitment you could have. Being yours is what she wants to be the more than anything else!

 Dear Shelly in a white dress and tiara: It doesn't matter what anyone thinks about you! If you keep trying to be what everyone wants you to be, you will most definitely go crazy, and he married you for who you are, so be that! Fishing is a serious thing and asking him to go home an hour before planned is like leaving before the kissing part of the chick flick! Jokes about the record setting losses by the Colorado Rockies is not even close to funny. He will never ever shut the closet door! He really will always figure out the percentage of milk left, the percentage of the road trip left, and the percentage of diapers he's changed. If he says nothings wrong, nothings actually wrong. He loves you with his whole heart, and even if he didn't hold your hand in the car today, it doesn't mean he loves you any less. No matter what you will face in life, he will face it with you! If you laugh at the frustrating inconveniences of life, he'll laugh with you and you'll have a memory instead of a fight. He's proud to call you his!

 Life doesn't look anything like I imagined it would ten years ago at the alter. I couldn't have imagined this kind of adventure and love and loyalty! I couldn't have imagined how incredibly hard the hard days would be and how they would shape us into an even better couple than I had originally planned. I couldn't imagine the surprises along the way, or the change in plans being the best things to ever happen, but they are.

I can only imagine where the next 10 years will take us, and I am sure I will look back at this day and laugh about how little I knew of what all we would become. I can't wait!

On the Road Again

People ask us all the time how we make so many road trips with all 4 of our kids. Well we recently decided to move to Florida, America's vacation destination, and live in a house big enough fo company; apparently we aren't as fond of the road trips as we appear to be.

Yesterday we were driving back from visiting my family in NC. It was a great weekend and we are so thankful for the 8 hour trip after driving 24+ hours one way over the last 7 years to see my family.

Everyone must have been suffering from PMS, because there was a lot of grouchy little faces in that van!

We made a pee stop because Caleb couldn't hold it a second longer. We got back on the interstate and literally 5 minutes down the road he was crying that he had to go number 2 now! (From the tears squeezing out his eyes and his panicked expression, we knew this was not a drill)

Someone, not going to name names here as that would just be rude, (NOT ME) suggested just putting him in a pull-up in the interest of saving a little time. We were hoping to stop in the next hour or so for supper and  it didn't seem economical to stop before that just use the bathroom AGAIN.

I helped him into a pull-up and settled back in my seat pleading with my oldest to stop asking me questions about how many planets there were, and what quantum physics was, and
how many presidents there were.

Finally we got off at the supper exit. We decided on Taco Bell. We pulled up to the drive thru order microphone and after arguing and changing minds and realizing we needed to also order Liam food, we placed our order. The lady came on and informed us that they were out of cheese, tomatoes and flat bread. Well at Taco Bell that pretty much limits your options to, well, a drink! We sat there for another 20 minutes discussing everything that had tomatoes and cheese in it, explaining that Taco Bell didn't make corn dogs, saying no to requests of 30 orders of cinnamon twists, ordering and reordering before I realized when I looked back at Caleb, that his seat was full of what he had filled his diaper with. I started gagging and reminded Kevin one more time to ask them to keep the re-fried beans OFF my burrito.
After we got our food we pulled into a parking spot to try and clean up the horrendous mess in the backseat with half of a package of wet wipes. We did rock paper scissors to decide who got the seat and who got Caleb, glared at each other as the stress level rose with the smell, and then got out of the van. We were viciously attacked by loud buzzing weird fly things, dive bombing at our heads!
Of course we were parked in a spot smack in front of the wall of windows of the restaurant and in front of a very busy street!
I started screaming and swatting at the flies. I lost my balance and to regain it without pummeling into the hard asphalt, I started taking awkward hops across the parking lot. I am terrified that a fuzzy cell phone video staring me and my little dance could surface on youtube! My older boys stared horrified at their screaming momma, ducking in their seats hoping that no one would see them. I don't think Kevin knew whether to hide too or throw poopy wipes at me, and poor stark naked Caleb started wailing that the flies were going to get him next. We were pretty impossible to miss in that moment.
It took a little while but eventually we were all in our seats again, nasty, cold, fast food handed out and headed down the interstate.
I took a huge bite of my burrito and started gagging. I had beans and orange sauce dripping onto my white T-shirt. I started motioning to Kevin to unlock the windows so I could roll mine down! he was very sympathetic, "No! No! Not on the van!!"
70 miles cruising through Georgia hanging out the window, I might surface on youtube yet again only this time I was trying to rid my body of every single bit of re-fried mush that had the same consistency and color of the mess I had just cleaned up!!
It was deathly quiet in the van for a little while, each of us traumatized by all that we had witnessed. I was eating my third little bag of fruit snacks that was now my supper, when I was suddenly struck with how crazy I must have looked flapping all over that parking lot with flies swarming me and I started laughing so hard we had to make another pee stop!
And that s how we do road trips! Anyone wanna come along???