April 2009

Easter is almost here. Posted Friday, April 10, 2009, 9:25 AM, CDT by Dawn There is a cold moving through our family. It isn’t too bad for a cold. The girls and I are about done with it. Poor hank is just getting sick. It doesn’t seem to last to long. The kids have the day off from school today. I am going to try to get some housework done before Easter weekend. I will take them to the park later this morning to get the wiggles out. It was in the low 90’s yesterday afternoon. It is supposed to be a little cooler today. I forgot to mention that Jordan shaved for the first time a couple weeks ago. He was getting that little bit of scruffy fuzz on his upper lip. I AM GETTING OLD! It is odd to have a highschooler and be expecting a new baby. We are planning a nice quiet Easter. The girls didn’t get NEW Easter dresses this year. I bought some on sale after Easter last year even the baby has a couple puffy dresses with tags on them. I may do that after Easter again this year. I keep telling Hank we should celebrate all of the Holidays a week late and pay a lot less for them. Believe me when I say, I have seriously considered it. LOL. I realized a lot of the stress I am feeling is coming from having to micromanage my family. I told Hank that him and the kids act like SIMS. I don’t know if you are all familiar with the game. In the game you have people that you have to control completely down to telling them to go to the bathroom. Hank said “You made us this way.” I know he is right. I know it takes work to reverse the issue. It was ok to micromanage my family when I only had a couple of kids but now it can be life consuming. I need to teach them to be a lot more self sufficient. I am all caught up on my labs now. I got my sugar test and blood work done this week. Amiyah figured out how to drive the dog bonkers with her toy flashlight. She figured it out by accident and thought it was hilarious. She was laughing that deep belly laugh. Hank got some of it on video. She plays flashlight with Ginger everyday now. The dog seems to love it. By the way you all need to see the movie “Marley & Me”. It was a good movie and made most of us cry. It is about a family dog. I know you will all love it. We watched it together last night. Well I am off to the races. We have breakfast out of the way. I need to get the meat for dinner in the marinade. I am making Carne Assada. Love you all.

Saving my sanity one marshmallow at a time. Posted Sunday, April 5, 2009, 9:47 PM, CDT by Dawn I had a long frustrating night. After getting home from my MOPS team meeting, I was really late getting dinner on the table. I had decided to make shish kabobs and didn’t take into consideration how late I would be getting home. Of coarse Amiyah was cranky. When I put the kabobs on the grill I realized that this was not an efficient dinner for a family of our size. Hank managed to cook them all and everyone had dinner. I had to then get Amiyah bathed and ready for bed. I managed to pick up the upstairs and Amiyah’s room. I also had to light a fire under Ashlyn to clean up the mess she had made of her and Alyssa’s room. I went downstairs and quickly cleaned up the dinner dishes. I am now really annoyed. I then sent the girls to bed, and then put in a load of laundry. It then occurred to me that the coals out in the grill were still hot. I grabbed a bag of marshmallows and went outside on the back patio. I pulled up a chair and began to quietly and patiently roast marshmallows. It was cool outside so the hot grill was nice to sit next to. Usually when I roast marshmallows I have to hand them over to eager little hands. This time it was just me and my little wire roaster. (Hank fashioned 4 marshmallow roasters out of coat hangers when we lived in Italy. I have kept them for some reason and we have used them in the years since to roast over hot coals on occasion.) Though my patience had run out with my family, I was able to roast each marshmallow to a golden brown. My mini vacation only lasted about 20 minutes but I felt much more relaxed returning to the real world. Sometimes when daily life feels like it is about to swallow you up, you just need to go sit in the night air and roast a few marshmallows.

Hello all. Posted Saturday, April 4, 2009, 10:08 PM, CDT by Dawn I have been taking a financial course by Dave Ramsey online the last few weeks. I have finished it for the most part this week. It was very eye opening. We are making some changes in our budget. I took the girls to the Youth Center for their spring event. They had free food and arts and crafts. I think the girls did every craft they had. Yesterday the school PTO had a Sock Hop. We took the girls. There were games and free food. We love FREE! Ashlyn and Alyssa had parent teacher conferences this last week. Alyssa got straight B’s. She is doing GREAT! Ashlyn is also doing great but needs a little help with counting to 100. I think she has the concept down but gets lost on the long journey to 100. Jordan actually passed all of his classes this quarter. I use the term loosely he did get 3 D’s but compared to the quarter before that it is an improvement. Keep in mind a D is 70% to 74%. This used to be a C in Guam. We told him He has to keep all of his grades at a 75% or higher to get back his electronics. He does have some privileges but they are limited. He was blowing off his grounding to some degree. He would run off in the neighborhood with his friends. We were not sure what to do. He is not getting into trouble but still being disrespectful. Hank and I racked our brains one night on what else to take away. Hank and I were on the way upstairs to get Amiyah ready for bed and I said jokingly to him “You know what sucks? Amiyah has the little walk in closet room and Jordan, who is doing poorly in school and blowing off punishment, gets a big room all to himself.” Hank looked at me and said “that’s genius.” We Switched rooms the next day. We figure Amiyah and the new baby can share it eventually. Jordan has a small room now but it does have electricity and a window. We decorated it for him the way it was and put everything away for him. We did it while he was at school. Hank said it was like a really crappy version of While You Were Out. Jordan did know that we were going to do it. We talked to him about respecting our authority and working harder in school. We told him that we realized we only owed him the bare minimum. Brand name clothes, a decorated room and gifts on holidays were all privileges not needs. We don’t expect perfection but we do expect effort. His attitude has improved quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. He asks before he leaves the house and is back on time for the most part. His grades have come up some. Hank and I stopped looking at what we could take away and started looking at what we actually owed him. This outlook has spilled over into how we view what we do for our other kids. We have made budget changes so Easter this year is much more conservative than past Easters. We will spend on all 4 kids what we used to spend on 1 or 2 of them. We realized gifts and holidays are bonuses not a right. We had to work for the extras as kids. We thought we were being good parents by giving them all that we didn’t have. Well we realized that they need to appreciate what they have and us giving them everything won’t make that happen. Not to say that we won’t still give them plenty but I can say we are surely going to tone it down. I know the older and wiser generation has been trying to tell us this for years. The older wiser generation who actually saved their money. Hank is on leave this week. He is taking some tests he needs to finish by June. He puts on MSgt in 2 months. A boy was bugging Alyssa in her reading class. He wanted to be her reading partner every day. Alyssa said he is annoying and she doesn’t like to read with him. She said “I think he is in love with me or something.” She finally told him she wants to read by herself and for him to find someone else to read with. She said “I think I only hurt his feelings a little bit.” I told her that sometimes you have to hurt peoples feelings if they don’t listen to polite. We were proud that she handled it so well. Alyssa is a nice person and a bit of a people pleaser. I wish Alyssa could have about half of Ashlyn’s attitude than they would both be about right. Ashlyn would have probably punched the poor boy. Baby no name is doing well. I have my blood sugar test that I really hate next week. I am 27 weeks and have gained 20 lbs. I have to pee all of the time and feel like my guts are being rearranged regularly, so things are as they should be. I usually gain around 40 lbs, so I am actually doing better than usual so far. I may catch up later so who knows. Well I have to go Amiyah stinks. Hank posted pictures of Jordan and Amiyah's new rooms. I love you all.