Better Late Than Never?

I wanted to post something sappy about Thanksgiving and about all the things I am thankful for ON Thanksgiving  but I was too busy getting ready to host Thanksgiving Dinner for thirteen that I was unable to tear myself from Pinterest the kitchen to write a post. The truth is I have a lot to be thankful for. Wonderful husband, kids, extended family, friends and….well I can go on and on but I mentioned the most important things.  Sadly I did not get any pictures of our wonderful Thanksgiving feast and the wonderful family that joined us. It does get difficult to cook and take pictures at the same time. I did get some pictures of my helpers the day before.

Handy little helper.

Handsy helper.

This year we tried a couple things to make this year’s dinner a little less stressful and share more with family.

First, we made a separate turkey the evening before so that I could package it up and have leftovers ready to go for all of our guests. I even labeled everyone’s bag with their name. Really wishing I took pictures.

Second I made mashed potatoes ahead of time. They were fabulous! You make them the night before and put them in a crock-pot (thank you Pinterest!) the day of. It allows them to stay warm during serving AND our entire house kitchen didn’t get all steamed up while company was over, SCORE!

Overall our dinner was wonderful and it was great to have everyone over. After all the hard work I had this to look forward to

Decadent Peanut Butter Pie, it is deliriously good (supposing you like peanut butter) and worth not busting into it the night before. It is making me drool just thinking about it.

We have so much to be thankful for but the best things are the little things, like leftover olives on your fingers! Oh, and the kids attached to them!

 

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving with loved ones! Christmas here we come!!!!

If You Could Turn Back the Hands of Time…

You’d get no sleep. One week into daylight savings and we are all a little cranky.  Such a difference an hour can make. I remember that once upon a time (pre children) Zippercow and I would relish the extra hour of sleep (and then some) on Sunday when we’d “fall back”. It was fabulous! Even now we are foolish and think with a little excitement “yay, and extra hour of sleep!” and we (again foolishly) assume the children will be peaceful in slumber because they too would want to enjoy some glorious extra sleep (see, I said foolish).

 

Instead the scene looks a little more like this

 

 

5:30 am and our whole house is awake. And lets be honest, not horribly happy about it. We even kept them up a later the night before assuming they might have issue with the time adjustment. Keeping them up later is a little trick we do because we hate ourselves. You see we think “smart parents, we don’t want to wake up at 7:00am on a Saturday morning so we’ll just keep them up 45 minutes to an hour later and they will sleep later!!!”

Never in the history of our children has this worked.

In fact in those cases they often go to bed later, wake up a half hour earlier than usual then are uber cranky the next day. Nailed it!

Sadly though this continued on through the week. We tried to adjust their bedtimes to get them back on schedule, but man they are persistent.  No sleep makes us cranky, them cranky and we count the minutes until bedtime so we can do it again tomorrow. We have hope that this week will be better. You see, despite our sarcastic, jaded, pessimistic attitudes, when it comes to our children we are hopeful and optimistic…

that they’ll sleep.

*even as I write this I am making some terrible spelling and grammatical errors (more than usual)  due to sleep deprivation. I’m sure there are still some there, but if you could only see what I fixed! I’m just as eloquent in person these days!

Fabulous Fall!

 

Green Bluff

Pumpkins of the orange variety and small child variety

We love fall and hope you are enjoying yours!

*So I was totally feeling guilty about not posting recently. I have multiple unfinished posts but I mostly wanted to share that we are keeping busy with wonderful fall traditions!*

Happy Fall!

Must Clean All the Things!!!

Alright, so maybe not ALL the things. Some of the things? Instead of going to Green Bluff and frolicking through pumpkins I convinced myself (and Zippercow)  that there were more important things we needed to do here.  I may have been right, but kind of wish I wasn’t. So after cleaning the house, garage and doing some fall planting I decided to tackle the puzzle cupboard.

Ugh.

The puzzle cupboard is a a small cupboard in our entertainment stand that has all of Little Moo’s puzzles. In all I think he has more than ten puzzles and I believe almost all the pieces (of the 25 piece puzzles) were in a giant pile mixed on the bottom shelf.  Just thinking about it makes me itch and he wasn’t ever putting any of them together because I think he too was overwhelmed by the chaos of it all. To top it off any time the cupboard was opened most of its contents would  spill onto the floor, much to Littlest Moos delight. So I decided to remedy that.

Thanks to one of my favorite blogs Thrifty Decor Chick  I think I have a great way to keep all the pieces off the floor and organized enough that Little Moo will actually find them useful.

I started with cutting out the picture from the front of the box.

Then I wrote the name of the puzzle, how many pieces it had (because on some of them the piece count got cut off) and then numbered it.

Then I put that number on all the pieces that belonged to that puzzle.

Lastly I put each puzzle with the front of its box  in its own quart size Ziploc and put them all in a plastic shoe box bin.

Tada!!!! No more hives for Mommy! The best part? Little Moo has already used the puzzles more in the last three days than he has in the last 6 months! Success!

I love the occasional productive day!

La LA la!

Little Moo asked me to put on some music, so I tore myself away from America’s Next Top Model (a very embarrassing addiction) and turned on some awesome 90’s music tunes. While the kids were eating lunch I was putting away the dishes and busting out in song. About a minute later Little Moo interrupted my dream of being a moody pop star with

“Mom, I don’t want you to sing”

everyone’s a critic.

I personally think I have a unique voice like Melanie Safka. You know, delightfully terrible! Sorry kiddos, that is a direct consequence of listening to music in our home, and I can promise it will only get worse as you get older. I learned from the best (your grandpa) and plan on carrying on the tradition of getting into the music and embarrassing  you to your very core. Good luck! We’ll laugh about it on the other side. Promise.

Winning!!!!

How do you measure success day-to-day? It is different each day. Some days getting everyone dressed and out the door is all I need, others having the house clean, pleasant children, folded laundry and dinner ready when my husband gets home is a successful day. Those days are pretty rare…okay so mostly nonexistent. My bar is pretty low actually, I will settle for children still alive.

 

Today I measured success in brushing the teeth of 15 rambunctious children 4 and under in less than 20 minutes at work then later in the evening (despite being hella tired) playing Candy Land with Little Moo.

Oh, then I brushed the teeth of Littlest Moo!

Cast of Characters

So it has been some time and to my followers (should I have any left) I appreciate you sticking with me! I know that for many who know me personally you certainly don’t need to be introduced to everyone but I thought it would be a good idea to put a faces to online aliases. What’s with the aliases you ask? Well since the blog is public I just want to do the best I can to protect my family. Sure my name might be somewhere else but I certainly am not going to make it easy for those up to no good! So lets begin!

Zippercow: So his alias is totally strange I know, but it is a name he is known by online and is our family domain, so I think we should stay true to that. Ask me about the story behind the name sometime and maybe I’ll tell you!  He is a fabulous Daddy and Husband. There are SOOOO many pictures of him with the kids so there are many to choose from. But he can be pretty kooky too, which the kids will totally be embarrassed by someday. He works hard for our family and is absolutely sarcastic (and hillarious!).

Mama Moo: There are very few pictures of me. And most of the ones I have are pretty terrible. Mostly because Zippercow just snaps the shot without saying, “Uh Hun, your muffin top spilleth out” or “your fourth chin is showing”. I suppose I know why, but seriously!

Yes please!!!  I need all the caffeine I can get to take care of the children, take care of the house and in my spare minutes learn more about photography.

Little Moo: Our spunky and delightful (most days) oldest son. He challenges us daily but we will persevere and so will he!

Have I mentioned that we love Phineas and Ferb in this house? Maybe? Once? Twice? Well it is still a current favorite around here! He’s a smart boy who continues to make us proud (even through the challenges!).

Littlest Moo: Our youngest of the herd. He is smiley and friendly and definitely his own little character! He is walking now, which he thinks is the absolute coolest thing ever! Who wouldn’t enjoy a new way to wreak havoc?!?!

Niecey-poo: Can’t forget her! She is our niece who spends lots of time with us so she frequently makes appearances on our blog. She definitely adds even more dynamic to our day. Both the boys love playing with her, you know as long as any two related children play nicely together!

Such cutie patooties, all three of them!