A fun giveaway

I entered my name on a fun giveaway post with the stipulation that I would in turn host the same giveaway on my blog.



Here are the rules.
"I will make a handmade gift for the first 3 interested people who comment on this post and I have 365 days (ample time) to do it in. I can assure you, it won’t take that long to receive your gift…but it will be a surprise when you do…one of those “when you least expect it” moments. You must have a blog to join in and be willing to do the same for three other people."

So, I'm looking for the first three comments! You need to have a way for me to contact you in your comment so I can get your snail mail address so I can send your present! Yes, those who I know in real life are eligible as well!

EDITED TO NOTE: And, just to shake things up a bit, I've set the comments to "hide" so leave a comment, you never know if you're one of the first three...until I email you asking you for your address!! Also, you must be able and willing to keep the ball rolling with the Pay It Forward giveaway on your own blog!

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming

Hi, it's not Tara. It's Jim hijacking Tara's blog.

We would like you to know that 33 continues to be a disaster for the usual author of this blog. At about 12:20 a.m. she made her first of several offerings to the porcelain deity. I took the opportunity to head for the basement and sleep on the couch, insulated from the reality of what else is going on in my house.

So let's hear the menu for Thanksgiving:

Breakfast: cereal and pop-tarts as usual.

Lunch: Pancakes for those who can; saltines for those who can't. I make outstanding pancakes. You should try them.

Dinner: Pizza and green beans for those who can; oyster crackers for those who can't.

Thank God we did not try to drive to South Dakota yesterday. Avery's still hurling frequently and Tara's in rough shape as well. I have done most of the everything today including almost finished painting the boys' room.

Did someone say this was a vacation??

Jim, not...

33? So far, not so good!

Last Friday I turned 33. Birthday wishes came in and a couple of fun gifts were had. (Hats off to Aunt Teresa! Love the bag and fun goodies inside! Kudos to everyone else also, fun stuff!!) Last Friday Mel and I took the five kids we have between us to our indoor playground. Last Friday Mel and Emily arranged for Emily to drive about 1 1/2 hours down to surprise me for my birthday! Yeah, Mel! Last Friday was opening night for the play Jim directed, so we postponed any celebrations so that Jim could, well, do the play. I rented a RedBox movie that was the girliest girly movie I could find, put the three littles to bed early, made buffalo popcorn chicken from the frozen department at Walmart and watched my movie. Alone. And ate my buffalo popcorn chicken alone without having to share even one little nibble. It was lovely.

Then something terrible happened. Saturday. I woke up on Saturday morning with the worst back pain I have ever had in my life. I said multiple times that I'd rather be having a baby than this pain. I was not able to stand up and breathe at the same time. Literally. I could not brush my own hair and could barely stand to have Jim do it for me. And Saturday was the matinee for the play. And we had already arranged for a sitter (and I wouldn't have missed it even if I WAS having a baby!). So, I hauled my sorry little self to the school with Aidan and watched the play. It was great, full of fun and mystery and comedy and even a few written in one liners about today's economy! :)

Sunday I could at least walk and breathe at the same time, though lifting the kidlets was pretty much out of the question. Sunday night Jim and I took the fam out to Applebee's for a high falutin' kind o' evening. We had a gift card of course, so the feeding of the five thousand only cost us $16. Woo hoo!

Monday Toby woke up with a swollen cheek. Weird. So I gave him some ibuprofen and benedryl and watched it. Nothing happened. Mommy instinct wasn't too terribly concerned since there wasn't a fever, no decrease in appetite or activity and his immunizations were up to date (and he probably hadn't been exposed to mumps anyway). Jim and I told ourselves that if it wasn't better in the morning then someone would take him in.

Tuesday...bump still there, seems to have more of a purple tinge than it used to. I go to MOPS and call the doc from there. We make an appointment for 2:45. Avery's MOPPETs worker tells me that she may not be feeling well because she was a little clingy today. Okay, duly noted, thankyouverymuch.

Tuesday after lunch. Begin the long afternoon of washing crib sheets, blankets, pillows, hair, and making sure that the beloved pink blanket is clean at all times. Call Jim and see if he can swing taking Toby to the doctor because dang it I cannot possibly take three kids to the doctor the littlest of whom happens to be a veritable fountain of yuck. Jim can manage. He doesn't do fountains of yuck well.

Tuesday afternoon passes with more yuck from Avery. This on top of a diagnosis for Toby. He has an infection in the submandibular gland. What the? That means he has to have a shot of a mega big antibiotic in his leg, a blood draw and a round of mega antibiotics for 10 days to culminate in another blood draw on Friday to see if the antibiotics are winning or if the infection is winning.

Tuesday night we decide that between the yuck fountain and the jaw infection we should maybe ought to consider canceling our trip to South Dakota to visit the relatives. Boo. :(

And Wednesday? Well, my back is still tender, not up to 100%. Avery has been napping for over four hours which is marvelous. Aidan and Toby are trying to slowly drive me to the loony bin. Jim and Evan are out somewhere in town cleaning some old guy's gutters.

If this is a preview of 33, I'll skip it thankyouverymuch!

WFMW

Yeseterday morning I was talking with my friend, Mel, and asked her what her plan was for the day. She said she was going to go to Walmart. I had a couple of things to get/return to Walmart and other errands in that area of town, so I offered her a trade. She would return my movie, sell my kid's too small winter coat, pick up my milk and chicken and return my light bulbs. I would watch her two kids. That's a total of three stops she could make speedy quick because she didn't have her two kids with her and three errands I wouldn't have to do with three kids in full winter gear. It took her approximately half a nanosecond to agree to the deal and she brought over her kidlets a little while later.

Remember how sometimes it is actually less work to have extra kids? Well, yesterday that was mostly the case. I got a bunch of housework done and also got the ugly 80s country blue floral wallpaper removed from my kitchen! With FIVE kids in the house ages 5 and under! Woo Hoo!

So, what works for me? Swapping errand running for child care! Shannon has lots of other ideas linked up at her place. Zip on over there and see if there is something for you today!

Adventures in moving

Why I haven't blogged...

Hummm, I fell of the moving truck and have been in a coma for the past week? Nope. My computer has been in storage for a week and a half and I'm just now getting back online? Sadly, no, the computer was up and running within the first 24 hours. The truth? Moving has pooped me right on down to nothing. At the end of the evening when I would usually write my arms hurt too much from lifting of both kids and boxes that I simply cannot do more than move the mouse around clicking aimlessly on other peoples' blogs. :) Pathetic, I know.

The house is great. I love it. Jim has come around and loves it, too. We joke that we must be the only 30 somethings in America who are downsizing. Square foot for square foot the house IS actually bigger than our last house. It has more individual rooms, the rooms are just smaller than most of the other rooms so things that used to fit together no longer fit together! I've got junk flying out of the house on freecycle deals. Right now I'm trying to figure out a creative way to have a desk on the main level. There is a mini desk type area in the dining room. My computer monitor takes up half of it. The keyboard takes up a quarter of it. Various dumping ground junk takes up the rest. Not very conducive to work I tell you! Hello, Mac or Dell people? Send me a laptop. I'll love you forever. :) And while you're at it? Send me some high speed internet. I was on slow dial up before. Looking at my numbers I'm half the speed I was at the old house. Oh well. Money is earmarked for other things like groceries and other household stuff right now!

The kids have done phenomenally well with the move. Everyone is getting settled into their rooms. Evan has decided he's into football, specifically the Vikings, so he's going to have a football themed room. Aidan and Toby currently have a hot pink and black room with a SpongeBob lightswitch plate (teenaged girl here before). They'll end up with a camo decor. Avery has a white room with white trim, mostly white carpet and a white door. She's getting pink or purple on the bottom with a fun girly buggy butterfly border and white or yellow above it. Thank you goes to Lowes for having their in-stock wallpaper and borders on clearance for $5 and $3 a piece! I'm all stocked up. Now to get painting...

Well, Toby's the only one I have to take care of right now. Aidan and Evan went with Dad to go pick up the last remnants of our life in the country. Avery's asleep. I think Toby and I will go swap out some lightswitch covers. Knowing Toby all I'll have to do is make sure he doesn't stick the screwdriver in the sockets! :)

Bye bye guineas

We move tomorrow. That fact was pretty real last night as we, and by we I mean Scam and Jim, moved out my washing machine and dryer and loaded them on the truck. Today I finish boxing up (and tossing out) more junk. The kids have been abducted by aliens. I hope after the move to unpack a box and find my real, nice, well behaved children again.

The two guinea hens we have left are on the deck. They're huge, ugly and I think they're saying goodbye. Every now and then one pecks on the window. And every now and then one poops on the deck. Sorry, Em!

So, I'm off to finish packing up the stuff we won't be using in the next 20 hours. Yikes! Just twenty short hours until we close on this chapter on our lives and open a new book. And part of those hours will be spent sleeping (hopefully).

Okay, I'm shutting down now. I'll see you from our new house in a few days!

November 5, 2008

To my conservative readers: With the turn of the election, please remember to pray for our nation, our leaders, and yes, even our president-elect Obama. Pray that God will soften his heart and turn him towards Himself. Pray for the safety of our troops, pray for discernment for our president and his advisors. We still live in one nation, under God, indivisible.

And to my liberal readers: Don't blame me, I voted for McCain. :)

Edited to add a hilarious moment from my morning. Avery was toddling around the parlor/office area. She made a mad dash for the stairs, climbed up a few, turned around and hollered at the top of her little toddler voice, "bye bye, see ya!"

GO VOTE!!!

Just a quick reminder to go vote today! And if you live near me, let me know if you want me to come watch your kidlets for you while you go take care of your duty as an American citizen!

I won something!!!

A week or so ago I found a link to a link to a link to a website with a giveaway! There were several prizes available one of which was a free blog header design. Well, you're looking at that winner!

Melissa in the land down under (again with Australia!) worked tirelessly while I slept the night away. This morning I woke up to this beautiful design! I absolutely love it, but it is posing a bit of a problem. My good friend Mel also has the same problem. You see, whenever Mel gets a new pretty notebook (not the plain spiral ones, but the pretty journal-type ones) she hesitates to write in it for fear of messing it up! In trying to find just the right topic for my first "pretty" post, I couldn't figure something out to justify using up some of my pretty new blog!

Okay, so that doesn't make much sense. But, between the packing and the laundry and the packing and the wiping and the packing and the other myriad of things that this mamma has to get done in a day it was the best I could come up with! So, thanks again, Melissa. I love my new pretty blog and promise to write in it much more frequently once we move!