What's a mom to do?

So I survived my week of appointments last week. Yippee! And we get about twice as much money from energy assistance this year! Double Yippee!! The lady scared me, just before she told me how much we would receive she said that this year was going to be less than last year because more people had applied and there was less money available... But we have an additional child and I was working part time last year. We're getting the same small amount for electric, but double for LP Gas. Which is the real killer in the winter. I hate dealing with the LP tank. It's expensive! I think more so than gas from a city. This year hasn't been quite as bad as last year. Last year it was about $400 for 200 gallons (which is less than half a tank). The last time I got LP this year it was a little over $300. We keep the thermostat at 60! And close off two of the back bedrooms in the winter. And we still go through too much LP. Last winter we went through a little over a thousand gallons! We really need to get a wood burning stove, but those are pretty pricey. Some year at tax time we will. But this year we need to fix the roof. And hopefully have enough left over for a cheap minivan.

Well, I didn't intend to talk finances...

I wanted to talk destruction.

But I also wanted to story before that ;) 'cause really I'm a storyteller.

It's a long, involved story, with digressions and everything. I can't just tell one simple story.

So, Little Man has been tearing his socks apart. He's down to about one pair of socks. He likes pulling strings. He will pull strings out of his socks until there's nothing left but a ring around his ankle.

They were cheap socks. I wonder if that makes a difference in string accessibility? I struggled last night at Wal-Mart. Do I buy him another bag of cheap socks? Or do I spend an extra dollar for two fewer pair? Not completely convinced that more pricey socks were more durable, I went for the cheaper pack with more socks. But they were a different brand than the last bag I bought him. So we shall see what happens.

I was seriously considering knitting him a nice pair of socks. I went and tracked down some nice blue and tan sock yarn. I bought a book on knitting socks from EBay. I want to try to knit some socks anyway. Since I finally figured out how to use those horrendous double pointed needles. I like a challenge.

I have a new passion for knitting. I've been a crocheter for a few years and love it. But knitting is a little different. I love them both. The sucky thing is that I am pretty limited to getting my supplies at Wal-Mart. Which is pretty limited. I really wanted to try those fancy circular needles for hats. Wal-Mart only had one size in 24" and then a couple sizes in 29". I bought the 24" and attempted a 22" hat. And it worked OK - you aren't supposed to be able to make something smaller than your circular needle size. So making a 22" hat on a 24" needle was a bit of a stretch.

I really wanted to knit some hats for my babies ;) which have 16-18" heads.

So for Christmas I asked my mom for 16" circular needles in a variety of sizes to match which double pointed needle sets I had. ('cause the really sucky thing is that you have to end up using the horrendous double pointed needles anyway - when you have to decrease beyond the 16").

So Christmas came and I was really excited to start making little hats!! But the typical mom thing happened.

When I was like 12 or 13 or so the song "Jesse's Girl" had me head over heels with Rick Springfield. The only thing on my Christmas list that year was the Rick Springfield album (yes, I know I am totally dating myself here)... My mom ended up forgetting her list and buying me a Bruce Springsteen album instead. I was devastated. I've only recently been able to stomach listening to the Boss (and only because that album is one of my husband's all time favorites).

So, I opened up my gift from my mother. Mind you, I was very specific with my list for her. She got half of it right - I got the right needle sizes, but the length? She got all 29" cables! Typical mom fashion. So I won't be able to knit anthing less than probably 27" projects with those. I'll just have to make Baby Sister some dresses, ponchos or something...

I ended up just buying my 16" needles from EBay after Christmas. I got them last week, so I've been busy trying out hats. I'm getting better ;) The first one I did ended up being a little short. The last one I did ended up looking a little funky ;)

I made a cute little purple hat for Baby Sister. I purled some butterflies on it, which turned out really nice! Then I decided to dress it up a little by putting a pom-pon on top! And the stupid pom-pon took almost as long as the hat. I bought a little set of pom-pon makers and it just takes forever - I should have just made it the old fashioned way of wrapping yarn around a piece of cardboard... but the ending part went a lot smoother than it would have on a piece of cardboard...

So I finished the hat and Baby Sister wore it for about 5 minutes.

Then Little Man picked up the abandoned hat and would not take it off for anything! I decided that I should make him one sans butterflies and with a more masculine color... I barely got him to take the hat off for his bath. Then at nap time? As he had his quiet time on the couch, he pulled strings.


He came to the gate between the living room and kitchen and said "sorry mom" and handed me the hat. Which now had a string with a loop sticking out of the top, and one strand of yarn kind of hanging out from the side... he had pulled that pom-pon apart piece by piece until there was nothing left of it. His shirt was covered with itty bitty pieces of purple yarn. There were itty bitty pieces of purple yarn littering the couch and the entire living room.

He is still finding little pieces of yarn today.

I don't think I will be knitting him a hat any time soon.

And I definitely will not be knitting him any socks.

New Year, What's New?

Nothing! :)

Except for starting the New Year with a bunch of appointments!

And of course my idiotic brain set up appointments for energy assistance and 6 mos well child for Lazy Baby within an hour of each other on the same day! Grrr. I set up the energy assistance appointment back at the beginning of Oct. Jan 5th was the earliest appointment they had. I probably set up Lazy Baby's appointment around the same time - after his 4 mos well child in October! Earliest reschedules for both were March. Ended up having to take an appointment with a different Dr for Lazy Baby on the 6th... So 2 days in a row where I have to bundle all 3 little ones up at 7am to take the hubs to work so I can have the car. We are so getting a minivan with our tax refund.

Anyway...new year, same old complaints ;)

Trying to finish off all the kids' stocking candy.

Trying to get my house back in order from the holiday chaos. Managed to get all my dishes done on Saturday, but now back to a overflowing counter full of dirty dishes...Almost had all the laundry done, but then added another day of clothes to it...

Had a bunch of phone calls to make, documents to hunt up and all sorts of good stuff planned for today, but everyone seems to want to be crabby and not sleep today... one of those days. Not a damn thing is getting done, so we're back to the same ol same ol around here.

As much as I hate to admit it, things are a little easier when the hubs and tweenie are home. First day of them back to work and school has been a little beyond chaotic.

Holy In-Santa-ty

Things have been way crazy around here ;)

But we all had a wonderful Christmas! The kids were so thrilled and so excited. Funny, Baby Girl totally got it this year, a year sooner than Little Man. But he was way into it this year too.

Anyway, the kids have been running around hopped up on stocking candy for the past couple of days.

Lazy Baby has had a fever since Christmas...

My house looks like it barfed up a bunch of dishes and laundry...

and toys...

So, just popping in to say I will return after these messages... ;)

In the Thick of It

I'm insane, I freely admit that ;) Every year, for the past 3 or 4 years I have crocheted gifts for all of our nieces and nephews. We just can't afford to buy them all gifts, there are just too many of them! And this year there are 3 new ones, so that makes the number in the higher 20s. I usually start in October. This year, October came and went. And I realized that I was just not going to have the time this year. Last year I was madly crocheting up until I had to get the stuff out in the mail! So, I was trying to think of some minor crafty thing that would be super cheap and not too lame. I was struggling with this until my husband said we just can't buy for them this year. And truth be told, I was fine with that. On his family end anyway. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but all his brothers and sisters quit buying for our kids when we moved up here. I continued to make things for their kids, but probably only because I was still making things for my side... Anyway, my brothers and sisters have gotten gifts for my kids every year, and I know they have this year, so... this week (and probably next week too) I am speed crafting my butt off in the sly... so that's where I've been and where I will be until I'm done ;)
So far I have knitted 2 wrist purses for 2 of my nieces, knitted 1/4 of a scarf for one of my nephews... I will be crocheting a scarf for 1 niece, sewing 3 dora purses for 2 nieces and my own little dora fan ;), crocheting a hat for a nephew, and making a pair of moccasins (and putting a little beadwork on them) for my mom. And I'm thinking about crocheting hats for my brother's girlfriend's two kids? I probably should, but I guess I will if I still have time!
I will be catching up with y'all in a week or so! Until then, happy X-mas shopping!

Best of the Worst

So every year I have a horrible time thinking about what to get my mom for her birthday (Dec. 21st) and X-Mas.

I noticed while we were visiting in August that she has like NO pictures of my kids around her house. She has tons of all the other grandkids. Why? Duh. I don't send her any pictures! I can't fault her for that.

So this year I decided that I was going to take a picture of all my kids and buy a nice frame. Genius. Except for the photo part. Here's how the photo shoot went down: (notice I did actually get all the kids dressed yesterday, specifically to get a picture!).

Shot One: Baby girl covers her face

Shot Two: Have Tweenie hold her arms and Say Cheese - someone got a little too cheesy!
Shot Three: Hmmm. Not bad, but neither of the boys are looking anywhere near the camera...

Shot Four: I Tell them to look at the camera...then Tweenie does, which gets their focus ;) and I get her pointing.Shot Five: Lazy Baby = Done

Shot Five: Lazy Baby Out! ;)Now which one of those do I put in a frame for grandma? ;) I guess I'm going to keep trying until I get one that's somewhat passable...

Though after your comments about the photo for my Christmas Card, I totally see the genius in taking all their pictures separately!! So now I'm thinking multiple collage photo frame. Hopefully I can find one that says Grandma... or maybe I could craft one up? How hard could that be? It would probably take much less time than trying to get 4 kids to look and smile at the camera at the same time. Plus, we would still have the step-tweenie issue - she needs to be in the photo too... so I just managed to take most of the pressure off myself in two little sentences ;) So glad I have smart bloggy buddies!! ;)

For the Dogs

So Tweenie says to me the other day that a puppy would be a great Christmas gift. So I asked her who was going to take care of it and potty train it? Of course she said that she would. Her 2 jobs around the house are taking out the garbage and feeding the 2 dogs we already have. Does she remember to do either without having to be reminded? Nope. I told her she couldn't even remember to feed the dogs we have and she bet me that she could remember. Guess how long she remembered to feed the dogs without having to be told? That's right, not even one day. I gave her until after dinner to remind her. Good thing she didn't bet any money.

My husband has been after another dog for a while too.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love dogs, and love the 2 dogs that we have. Even though the mini-wiener dog rubs her stank all over everything in the house.

But, aside from the fact that I will be the one having to do all the training and taking care of while Tweenie is at school all day and the hubs is at work all day... the hair is driving me to the edge.

Years ago, before I was even close to having children, a lady I worked with told me that once she had kids she ended up getting rid of her cats ~ because of all the hair.

Back then I thought so what's a little hair? Of course at that point in my life I was well on my way to becoming a crazy cat lady. And thought that there was nothing in the world that would ever force me to get rid of my beautiful cats. Then I became horribly allergic... so adios beloved cats, and hello dogs.

And now, I totally see her point. Last Thursday or Friday I swiffered up all the dog hair in prep for actual sweeping of the kitchen floor. Kid you not, I used at least 8 swiffer pads. And then, after a good sweeping of about 1/4 of the kitchen, the baby woke up. It did't get finished. I noticed the gradual building up of dog hair around the edges of everything in the kitchen, and decided last night that I just had to sweep up the hair! Sure I can dodge tufts of dog hair all day, but now that it is footie sleeper time and little man seems to have some kind of paranoia about pulling his jammies up in the bathroom - he ends up sweeping the floor with the arms of his fleece sleepers on his run from the bathroom to the middle of the kitchen. So...

I swept it all into the middle of the room, instead of wasting a bazillion swiffers...

I'll spare you the photo I took.

I called Tweenie in to see it and said "I can make you guys another dog with all this hair!" Seriously, it was at least a jack russel terrier's worth of hair! And that was a mere 5 or 6 days worth.

Next time I think she's going to be sweeping it up.

Oh The Christmas Cards

I have a conundrum this year having to do with the Christmas cards.

For like the past 5 years or so I've done pictures of the kids for the card. It's nice for friends and family who don't get to see the kids very often.

So, this year we haven't and won't have an opportunity to get a picture with ALL the kids, as we won't see Step-Tweenie until the day after X-mas. We haven't seen her since our trip in August. She has not wanted to come up to visit. She is being a bratty little shit. We have many issues with her - and the biggest thing is that #1 she is an only child at her mom's house, so is used to being the big cheese and does not appreciate being one of many and having to share attention. #2 she gets absolutely NO discipline at her mom's house. She is horribly spoiled and she is mean and nasty to her brothers and sisters when she's here. She clearly does not see herself as part of our family.

I still want to do the picture of the kids x-mas card, but even though step-tweenie is a brat I don't want her to feel left out. That would probably only encourage her belief that she's not a part of our family.

I'm just wondering what I should do and how I should handle it? Do I ask her mom to take a picture of her in red or green and email it and make it a 2 picture card? Do I just scan and include her school picture (even though she's 13 and has a cleavage bearing school pic!). Or do I call and ask her how she feels about not being part of the x-mas pic? I just don't know what the best thing to do would be.