Yesterday I had the torture pleasure of grocery shopping with my 3 little snarling, sniveling darlings. It was such a hellish great trip, replenishing my pantry while displaying my obvious lack of control parenting prowess.
Oh we dragged, pushed, pulled traipsed round the store, blindly grabbing merrily & efficiently gathering the items on my list, my obnoxious precious little ones sitting in the previous isle throwing a fit following obediently behind me like a line of ducklings.
I tell you I was the nightmare come true example of what every mother fears knows her kids will be like with her pathetic superior mothering abilities.
Oh yes, yesterday I truly was THAT mom.

Posted by AlaneM at 9:10 AM 3 comments Labels: kids, parenting, shopping

I hope we don't get fined for this!

I started this post back in October...procrastinate much? Anyway, it's a follow up on our friends memorial service & the excitement that followed.

Well, despite our reason for traveling we had a really great weekend catching up with friends.

The drive was awesome, sunny & clear the whole way. When it's that nice you can see the top of Mt Rainer from the Moses Lake area - a simply stunning sight even from that far away!

The memorial service was beautiful, we worshiped together & praised God for Dave's life. Pastor Greg did a great job speaking on dealing with grief as a Christian & we heard memories of Dave & hope for the future from his family. There was a great video Cascade Productions put together from pics of Dave's spanning the years. And of course, a TON of great food! The kids did very well through the service, it was about an hour long & they are not used to sitting that long. We stayed in the back & other than excessive wiggling from Eli & having to take Adah out 2 times, they did great. Once it was over they could run around & get their energy out - but more about that in a minute.

I got my love-tank filled by my friends, oh I miss those crazy ladies sometimes! There's a group of gals I got to know very well during a prayer group & they are like sisters to me. They are the people I can bare the ugly parts of myself to & they still love me & accept me for who I am, icky parts & all. Becky, Dave's wife was a part of that & it was good to just hug her, tell her I love her & I'm praying for her & the boys. She was quite surprised to see us there - as were a lot of others. Chris enjoyed seeing everyone too. He hasn't been back for over a year so it was great for him to connect with the guys again. We were just starting to think about leaving when this hideous noise began sounding throughout the building - the fire alarm. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on & then I had one thought 'where the heck is Eli?'

You see, Eli has been notorious for turning lights on or off & touching things he oughtn't. In fact he did this numerous times at our old church in Cle Elum - the lights would go out & immediately Chris & I would holler 'ELI!' And it was always him, the little stinker.

We found Eli & the other kids. They were all scared & holding their ears. Sam & Eli in particular have sensitive ears & the noise was hurting them quite a bit. Chris questioned Eli & after lots of reassurance he was not in trouble he admitted that he did it.

He felt so bad the poor guy, I asked him about it later & discovered that he knew it would make a noise but he had no idea it would be that loud (did I mention this building has all wood floors?) or that it would be throughout the whole building.

We were very lucky it happened at the very end of the evening, a lot of people had already left & clean up had begun. Everyone was very understanding, especially as many of them already know Eli & his talent of getting into everything. I just felt bad Becky had such a turbulent ending to her husband's memorial. The police arrived about 10 minutes later to shut the thing off & they were nice as well. Chris was worried that we would get fined or something but I think they know that accident's (& 5 year olds named Eli) happen & were glad it was nothing.

He got a big lecture about not touching things etc & we decided that his 10 minutes of pain & shame was punishment enough. Every time we mentioned the subject he was so embarrassed he hid his face. He wouldn't look at anyone other than us for anything! We still refer to it occasionally, it serves as a good reminder for him & has been useful to Chris & I as a deterrent.
Posted by AlaneM at 9:00 AM 1 comments Labels: Eli, friends

The psycology of bed's and umbrella's

The Umbrella Test

What Does Your Bed Say About You?
I resemble these both very much...my poor husband!
Posted by AlaneM at 8:20 AM 0 comments Labels: quiz

For unto us a Child is born

Merry CHRISTmas everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful day filled with family, laughter, fun & waaaaay too much to eat :)
We will be eating a leisurely breakfast of eggs & cinnamon rolls after the who-can-fling-the-most-paper-around-the-room contest. And them I shall run around like the proverbial chicken while I get us ready to head down to my sisters for 2 days. And all this on about 4 hours of sleep.
And now a gift for my bloggy friends courtesy of my pal Rick over at Organized Doodles...enjoy! Let us all remember...He is the reason for the season!
Posted by AlaneM at 2:41 AM 3 comments Labels: Christmas

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I've got a wonderful feeling, everything's going my...oh wait, I forgot this is my life!

So far this morning...

Got up late. (no shower)
Dog saw cat while taking his morning pee & ran off. (maybe he'll get cold & come back)
Welcomed an extra kid. (babysitting all day)
Played pioneer. (chopped wood for fire)
Took a call from the city. (about dog, what a surprise)
Bundled kids for a trek to the garage. (to find dog)
Dug out drift in front of garage. (about 2 ft deep)
Wrestled van onto driveway. (took a few tries)
Found dog. (who did NOT want to get in the van)
Took 5 tries to get up driveway. (and actually made it into garage)
Un-bundled kids. (me first, I have ice in my boot, mom help)
Fixed 2 boo-boos. (band aids go fast in this house)
Rescued extra kid from my kids. (she's 3 & they play very rough)
Discovered daughter cutting up my brush. (took the bristles right off)
Scolded boys for riding old crib mattress down stairs. (miraculously nobody was hurt)

And all this before 9:30!

Interesting Sam pronunciation:

Sam "hey mom, a question mark means a question & a es-qu-ash-kon (exclamation) mark means a question too!"
Mom "gotta work on that buddy."

I had to have him repeat that a bunch of times before I could figure out how to spell it. And I'm so not correcting him...it's just too cute for that!

I have recently learned to be grateful that Chris is working in Ellensburg. At first I was very resentful & angry. I mean, we just moved away from there to be closer to work & now he's working right back where we came from! But the general contractor at this particular job is tarping & heating the job which means they can work all winter, even in extreme temperatures. Chris found out last week that they are the only crew working right now. All the other jobs are shut down due to nasty weather. So once again, God knows what He's doing & I haven't a clue.
Go figure :)

Yesterday I finally finished decorating the house for Christmas. Now I just have to finish the gifts I'm making & wrap everything. Every year I plan on getting it all done early & every year I go right down to the wire. Nothing like a little added stress to spice up my everyday life.
We are getting up early on Christmas morning to open our gifts & have breakfast together. Then we will make the trek to my sister's house in Richland & spend 2 days with the rest of my family. Should be a blast & a little deja-vu, to see all our kids playing together, just like we did with our cousins when we were kids. You see, my sister bought my Grandparents old house & we spent many-a Christmas playing in the basement. Now it's come full circle & we're the boring adults talking upstairs.

I introduced my kids to the movie Rudolph yesterday & naturally they loved it. It was so much fun to see them enjoying what I've loved for so long. Today I'm going to see if I can find A Charlie Brown Christmas online for them. I just love sharing all the old traditions with them & knowing they will pass them on to their kids someday. The best part though is sharing the real reason for the season, our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. We've always told them a bible story every night before bed but at this time of year we linger on the story of His birth. I want them to understand from an early age that Christmas has nothing to do with santa & getting lots of stuff. It's about celebrating the King of Kings & what He came here to do for us.
So we talk a lot about how santa is a character & it's fun to pretend he's real but he's not really real. And when you see santa at the store or he comes to your school party he's just a man dressed up in a costume like at Halloween. But I also make sure to tell them not to ruin it for other kids who might think santa is real.

We took our annual trek to see the Christmas lights Saturday night. As usual we got started too late & didn't get to finish our list. But we did see some beautiful houses in parts of Spokane we hadn't been to before & it was magical for the kids. We can't afford to put up much by the way of lights so it's fun to check out the families who can keep the power companies happy.

Random recipe:
I made some yummy waffles for breakfast the other day. I use the recipe from the better homes and gardens cookbook (aka red & white book) but I use half whole wheat flour & I add a scoop or 2 of wheat germ so I can pretend it's good for us. I also make my own syrup which tastes so much better than that crap from the store...well, unless you buy the real thing which of course, is fabulously yummy. To make syrup you just boil 2 parts sugar & 1 part water with a little vanilla & maple flavoring until it's slightly thickened (emphasis on the slightly, if you boil it too long you'll end up with sugar-crystal'y syrup.) What made these waffles so great was that his time I didn't know I had run out of maple flavoring. I improvised & threw a couple of cinnamon sticks in & it turned out so good I don't know if I'll make it any other way.
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