Happy New Year and a Happy Birthday too!

 

 

Happy 2014! Last year wasn't too bad, but I'm hoping for even more good things to come in this new year.
To start with, we'll be welcoming our new baby to the Bunch in April. We decided not to find out the gender. So that will be an exciting surprise to look forward to!
Half of the family thinks baby will be another boy, but a few of us think girl as well (myself included!)
We shall see!!

No other super excited updates to post. However, every time I come to my blog and see how many wonderful visits I get on average each day - it makes me feel so guilty for not posting more!
SO...faithful visitors...what do YOU want to see on this blog? How can I make it better (with the number one choice being posting more obviously)?

Classes are starting back up again for me in a few days, however it will be my last quarter before the new baby comes. Then I will get a break until the Fall quarter. Yay!!

Some possible new posts to look forward to in the new year, however, includes another attempt at trying to change the way we eat. Specifically I'm looking at the Feingold diet to help with ADHD-like behaviors. I'm being more and more suspicious that many of my boys are just sensitive to artificial dyes and certain foods. We are an allergy-prone family after all.
Also, I'm in an organization kick and hope to post some ideas I've found that works for me and my Bunch as well as before and after pictures.
THEN after April, I will start working on getting into shape and losing weight again. Yahoo!
Oh, of course there is the ever-losing battle of getting my family whipped into a routine and working on behavior. I'd love to post more about that - what works, what doesn't work, and maybe even bounce some ideas off you all.
Of course, photos are always appreciated I'm sure. So I hope to post more photo updates here. I've not been good at even taking pictures lately!

So...now that's out of the way. Let's move on to the BIRTHDAY GIRL!!

Little Miss Abigail is TWO! Two years have gone by. I don't know how that's even possible.

Here is a fun little collage I made of her first two years...



And now.. TODAY starting her Terrific Two's! She's two sweet to be in her terrible two's. I refuse to call them that. :)



Until next time!

~Bethany

My new morning routine...

School season. I couldn't wait for it to come, and now I look forward to weekends. There just is no pleasing me, is there?

Here is the reason that school season is not so fun.

On a typical school day I wake up at 5:30am to wake the teenager up. He has to go to seminary classes, which is something our church does for high school aged kids. Its scripture study, for the most part.  Since the teenager isn't really a morning person and doesn't yet see the merit in seminary class, I have to bribe him out of bed. I promise him breakfast, made by me, if he gets out of bed in a timely manner. I'm happy to make him breakfast if he "happily" goes to seminary classes every morning. Now, I never said what kind of breakfast. Sometimes he gets pancakes, or sometimes just cold cereal. It works.

Then I drive him to seminary class by 6:30am and get back home to wake up the rest of the kids. For some reason none of them can dress themselves without me standing there handing them each article of clothing.
 
Boys.

They'd be content with just going in yesterday's shorts and mustard-stained t-shirt if I let them. Some mornings I have to practically drag them into the shower and threaten that I will wash their hair myself if they won't! (always works).

So, after the dragging out of bed, making sure there is breakfast and washing out bowls (because for some reason we can't keep dishes in this house and only have four cereal  bowls at the moment), handing out clothes and making sure no one has sneaked off to play video games...I take the 11 yr old to middle school first.
For some reason the schools around here can't start on the same, or near same, schedule. The middle school, junior high, and high school all start at 7:45 but the elementary schools start at 8:25. Big difference since I can't drop off my elementary kids until 8am at the earliest. So I make another trip. I drop off the 11 yr old and come back home, hoping and crossing my fingers that the younger kids have finished getting ready as I instructed them to.
Usually that is not the case.
 Usually no one has shoes on yet, and no one knows where their shoes even are. Often we finally get everyone clean, dressed, shoes and all, and into the car only to find out that someone left their back pack inside. Sometimes I don't even realize this until we get to school and someone is missing a backpack, so I have to mad dash back home to grab it and get it to them before the school bell rings.

Finally, finally. 8:10am is my happy time. The house is quiet. Everyone but the 4 yr old and baby girl are in school. This is when school season is really worth it. But, of course the quiet doesn't last long and in seven hours I have to do the rat race all over again, figuring out where my big kids are and how they are getting home and waiting in the car line to pick up the younger kids, hoping and crossing my fingers that they are on time getting to me today because the 4 yr old has to use the bathroom, my morning sickness is getting the best of me, and the baby girl is tired of waiting in her car seat.

School season - its a love/hate relationship.

Big Announcement...as promised.

Last week I hinted that I had an update to post very soon.

Well, I am happy to say that I can post that announcement now.

In April of next year the Bunches O'  Boys and One Little Girl will be getting a new sibling! I may have to change the blog name to "Bunches O' Boys and Two Little Girls"...you never know! ;)

Baby makes 9 (including mom and dad). Wow!

No, I never imagined I'd have such a big family.

No, I don't know when we'll be done having children...that is kind of up to my husband and I.

Yes, we are happy even though it's a bit of a surprise.

Yes, we know what causes it (obviously).

There is so much negativity out there about large families, I have found. I'm not sure why everyone likes to make it their business on how many kids people choose to have. One kid or ten, its no one's business to judge. Yet, judge they do.

I've yet to hear (too many) negative comments, but I am sure its coming. LOL! I will just put on a happy face and throw positive things right back to the naysayers.

Here  is a close-up of baby #7:

Back to school confessions

So...summer is over. It went by way too fast. Don't take that to mean that I was sad to see the boys go back to school, because I wasn't. I was excited. And I am not ashamed to admit it!  I tried to keep the boys busy this summer with trips to grandparents' houses, zoo trips, amusement parks, bowling, beaches, and regular city parks. Its exhausting, however. Not to mention how much my house suffered. I wish I had boundless energy and ten arms, but I don't (or not, that would be weird).
The simple truth is that I can't entertain the kids, make them all happy, serve them three healthy meals a day, and keep the house clean. Nope. Can't do it. It was either one or the other... The house suffered.

Now the boys are back in school and I have quiet afternoons with just the 4 yr old, baby sister, and me. :) I can pick up a room and it STAYS that way.

As a bonus, the boys LOVE school. They prefer to be at school anyway, because at home they have to compete with their brothers and help me clean. So its a win-win as I see it!

Next confession, I am a big dreamer but not a great do-er. Before summer started I was making Pinterest lists of cool summer things to do - fun summer crafts, outside activities, summer fun to-do lists, and so on. I even made up laminated summer schedules for us. Yep, I even laminated them. Did we use them? No. Did I do anything I pinned on Pinterest? No. I am ashamed to admit that we didn't even make it to the library once, *gasp*.  I just lack the patience to bring all the kids into a quiet library. My kids don't have volume control. And toys in a library are just begging to be played with, and played with loudly. So we avoid the library. Still, we could have done SOME reading. So yeah...I slacked off there. The school sent out a comparison sheet of the kids who read every day compared to those that don't. Big time guilt trip. I thought about it every day, but it was just easier to give in to the kids then fight about reading. Oops. Next summer will be better, I promise!

Now school has started and we are trying to start new, better, habits right away. I have found that suddenly changing the boys' normal routine can cause major drama. SO, we are trying to start the year off right. That means no video games before school, homework and go through backpacks, sign any paperwork, etc. as soon as they get home from school and get their snack. No computers, video games, etc. until homework is done. This may mean a later dinner, but I've found that leaving homework until evening quite often means homework is done too fast and sloppy or just all-together forgotten. Oops.

Here is to a successful year and good routines!! :)

Psst....Check back next week for an exciting update. ;)

(Don't forget the non-school kiddos too! Enjoying home time with mommy)

Summer Madness

Summer time is crazy...trying to keep up with these boys exhausts me!

The key to keeping the kiddos out of trouble is keeping them BUSY.  I've been trying to run them around like crazy, but I'm running out of ideas (and energy!)
So far there has been taking turns at Grandmas' houses a week at a time. That has probably been the most fun for them. Nothing compares to Grandmas' spoiling! ;) Also, I've been taking them to the "beach" a few times. However, the kids were pretty disappointed in our local river beach that is all pebbly. So instead they played in the volleyball sand pit.
Also our local bowling alley is part of the free kids bowling in the summer! We have been doing a game of bowling at least once a week. Its fun...but Gabe (4 years old) doesn't have quite enough patience for a whole game of bowling. There is a lot of waiting for turns with all those siblings!
Next has been a few of the local parks, but those get boring as well. Its tough with Abby since she's so little and can't run and play like the others. Usually it ends up me holding Abby in the hot sun and hoping the time goes faster...
I think our next adventure for the week will be geocaching! That sounds like a lot of fun, and right up the boys' alley. I will update on those adventures soon.
Oh! And we had a zoo trip, but I haven't downloaded those pictures yet. It was fun, and we only lost Billy Jr twice. ;)

In other news, Abby is walking! All the time she walks, rarely does she crawl. She still is working on her talking but I know she'll get there in her own time.

As for the adults - we are busy with kids, work, and school. I have signed up for my classes in the fall. I'm super excited to be attending Central WA University and getting my bachelor's degree in two years. YAY! I will be pursuing the social sciences area, perhaps focusing more on psychology.

Okay - a few pix to entertain you until  next time! :)

Alex when staying the week with his Auntie :)

How the boys entertain themselves if I don't find ways to keep them busy...

Fun kids fishing day! We got three huge 8+ lb Rainbow Trout. Yummy!

And a recent picture of cutie Abby, always the little princess :)

Shame on me...

I don't know how mommy bloggers do it. I can't keep up this blog for the life of me!
I love that I still have daily visits to this blog, even if I haven't updated in a few months. Shame shame on me!
To my dedicated visitors - thank you!

Now, moving on my from guilt trip and onto other things...

Soccer season and school has sucked the time right out of my days. Yeah, I do have time to check Facebook. Sorry. However, there is a difference between checking Facebook from my iPad, while lunch is cooking on the stove, while I keep one eye on the baby, one eye on the 4 yr old pestering the dog, and another eye on the screen. Wait... Anyway, my point is that Facebook updates do not take any certain level of skill or brain activity really. I can check Facebook in my sleep. Literally.  Blogging, however, takes a quiet house, kids all in bed, hubby too, and a spark of energy to ignite my brain waves again.

In other updates,
Boys' soccer season is over for now. yay.  Owen and Brayden had a good time and Alex enjoyed his first year of reffing games for money. (First job, yeah!) Its been a pretty good year, and I think public school is suiting them well. They are all excited to start their summer break!

Abby has started walking finally - my latest of the kids at 17 months. She still is often carried around and passed from brother to brother, however, so that may have something to do with it. She also finally started to say some words - mostly "eye", "hi" (they sound the same but the context is different, this is important), and "this", Everything else is "ooooh!" The world is fascinating to her right now. Every color, every sound, every object is super cool to her.

Now the school year is almost over and the boys are looking forward to summer. I have great things lined up for us this year. No laying around wasting the days away. We have trips planned to grandparents' and aunt's houses, zoos, amusement parks, scouting camps and hikes, free bowling (Sign up for Kids Bowl Free if you haven't already!) and summer reading contests. My goal is to keep them as busy as possible. This will hopefully lessen the odds of a cranky, stressed out mom. Bored kids find other ways to entertain themselves, which may or may not be a good thing.

My article this month in the Kid's Connect magazine is on creative toys kids can make. My boys LOVE to scrounge up random junk and tape them together to make something from their imagination. They don't get to do it often enough, however. I was inspired while watching the Youtube video on Caine's Arcade to get the boys' imagination churning this summer again. Here are the links to Caine's Arcade (make sure to watch part 2 as well!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U
Kids NEED to use their imagination more. Too much focus is spent on toys that do everything for you these days. How will our future generations ever learn to invent, create, and imagine if they are never given the chance?

Journaling Every Day Moments

Tonight I was at my book club (yes I have a social life too, surprisingly! It's a rare and elusive creature however) and I was talking about journaling. It struck me how every day little moments pass that I often wish I could capture forever. If I could find a way to print out and publish my facebook comments, then I'm sure I'd nearly capture them all!

When I became pregnant with my first child I kept a detailed journal of my pregnancy with him and most of his first year. I wanted to keep writing in it and give it to him when he turned 18. Then baby two came along, and I started a journal for him too and wrote in for a few months. When number three came a long I only found myself writing a few entries in it. By the time numbers 4 and 5 came along, I barely had time to write their birth story in it after they were born. Abby, number 6, doesn't even have a journal.

I still think that journaling the kids' childhood is a great thing. There are so many things they say and do that I wish I could treasure forever.

So instead of feeling guilty about not writing pages upon pages in each child's journal (that he, or she, may not even want to about all my ramblings some day), I love the idea of just writing little tidbits. One friend even suggested writing one sentence every day - just a sentence to sum up the day or whatever. I think that this is a nice, guilt free, and easy way to remember those special moments or funny stories.