How NOT to Load a Dishwasher

Look, I know it's called WORDLESS Wednesday, but I'm seeing a lot of bloggers writing little stories to go along with their picture. I don't think that's WORDLESS, but if you can't beat them, join them ... at least for a post.

This would be how my kids load the dishwashwer. Note the sideways cups and the bowls right-side-up. So cute! Time to give a little lesson on Dishwasher Loading. P.S. If you have a 711 store near you, from 11-7 today you can get a free Slurpee! And then go back for more like we do!

Tackle-It Tuesday: Callie's Closet and the Magic Cleaning Fairy (me)

Every Tuesday, I tackle a different project around my home that's been bugging all of us!

This is my 7-year-old daughter's closet BEFORE! Actually, she will tell you it's also her 4-year-old sister's closet, too, when she's trying to get out of picking it up! Eva sleeps in our bedroom, but plays hard in "the girls' room."

The right-hand side of the closet on the floor.

The left-hand side of the closet floor.

The right-hand side. Note how I use her top shelf as scrapbook storage. I have like a zillion of them before I stopped having time to scrapbook because I'm too busy entertaining YOU. Yes, you're welcome.

  
AFTER!!!!! Sue me, I did this by myself. I find it easier to get rid of stuff when the girls are not standing over me picking through the trash! Don't worry, they have more hanging clothes than this, which live on the LEFT side of the closet. They are pretty much in order because I purge that stuff regularly.

Holy Guacamole, I can see the floor! I am magical! The Magic Cleaning Fairy!

The left-hand side on the floor is still a challenge. I at least got the shoes in a box and some toys in a little basket. Stuffed animals are in another box. Barbies are in a drawer in her dresser. Dolls go in the 1950s vintage baby crib.

I can't stand empty space and had to sneak her desk in there since it fit. It's how I roll. She can drag it out when she wants to play.

I had to give some props to my amazingly talented husband, who found this wasted space when we were redoing the girls' room in early 2011 (when he was NOT traveling). There was just a wall here, and he knocked it out and put in shelves. There's room for so much here, as well as her dress-up basket down below!

I hope I have inspired you to clean up your own nasty house. Now get on it, write about it and share the link with me here!

If you like giveaways, check out my friend Kelly's blog, where she is giving away Brave, the video game, Fit Moms for Life DVD, What to Expect When You're Expecting book set and more!

Moshi Monster Monday: Coolio Cupcakes

This was Michael's find, so we had to make it: Coolio Cupcakes. Coolio is a Moshi Monster who looks like a cupcake so these are PERFECT!

Make a white or yellow cake mix according to the directions on the box. Fill ice cream cones 3/4 full (no more or you'll have a mess, trust me), then stand them up in a baking tin and bake according to cupcake directions on the cake mix box.

Mix up 3 batches of colored frosting (using natural food coloring if you are rich and healthy): pink, orange and yellow.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost the top part of the ice cream cone yellow, then above that is orange, then the top is pink (see photos below).

The almost finished product, with a baby brother hanging around behind!

The girls got in on the action, too!

To make the bottom, wrap some orange paper (or color white paper) around a cone and tape it. Then cut out some little arms with hands and tape them on as well. For the eyes, use sliced almonds and black frosting that comes in a tube. (We didn't have any, so Michael colored some white frosting dark gray and applied it with a toothpick).

By the way, if you get blogs posts via email and sometimes can't see videos I post, you should be able to click on the blog title in your email message and come directly to the blog so you can then click on the video.

Porn Music in the Fisher Price Loving Family Minivan!!!!!!

Holy inappropriateness, Batman! Sorry to post this on a Sunday, but I don't have a theme for this day and finally got my butt on the new-fangled YouTube to upload this gem taken by me! Hope you enjoy it.

We Are Moving! We Love Fireworks!

*UPDATED September 2, 2019 and we found our dream house in Peculiar, MO two years ago today. See blog post here!

My county is so uptight (ahem, Johnson County, Kansas)! Heck, my CITY is so uptight (naming more names: Overland Park, Kansas). It thinks it's like the hottest thing going and is so beautiful and fabulous and smart and witty. It doesn't want to do anything to dirty its reputation.

Reason #1 to move: So someone who lives in my city can't keep hens. In all the surrounding counties where I live, THEY get to keep hens. They get to have fresh eggs every day. It's not the houses are completely on top of each other and hens would bug the neighbors. I would personally keep mine under our deck, which is a lot of feet (like my measurements?) from either neighbor. I'm not saying I will keep hens. I'm just saying I want the OPTION. I want the FREEDOM to do so.

Reason #2 to move: We live on a corner which doubles as a racing strip at times. Trust me, I know. When Aron and I were dating, his brothers went over 100 mph up our street (before we lived here) on motorcycles. Aron and I also went pretty fast up our street. These days people still speed up and down our street and don't know the meaning of a crosswalk. Someone once honked at my kid for trying to cross!

Reason #3 to move: Fireworks. We love fireworks. I just found out that SPARKLERS and SNAKES are not allowed in my city!!!!! There is a neighboring county where the big assumption about them is that they are all backwoods, poor and dumb, and yet they somehow get through the 4th of July every year without too much trouble. My city is supposed to be all smart and rich and we can't have SNAKES! Like we are too stupid to water down our grass before doing fireworks or we will do snakes on wooden decks or house roofs.

So we go to the backwoods county where my family lives and we shoot fireworks and we have never had a problems. We've also in the past gone to my Mom's backwoods county in another state and have never had problems.

Joel likes to put fireworks under a cup and light them.

I'm sure it shocks you that I am all into blowing things up.

The booty! My cousin went with us to do the only shopping I truly enjoy.

This year I was like, "Kids, your dad is out of town so we'd better not do any fun, illegal fireworks while he's gone because if the cops show up and want to take me away for doing illegal fireworks, you need someone at home to care for you." 

Every other year I'm like, "Aron, I will volunteer to go to the Pokey while you stay home with the kids. Can I just real quick grab my laptop and a book? Maybe get a coffee on the way? I'll be back in a few days!"

50 Shades of Grey Half-Serious Book Discussion

Dad, this one is not for you. No soup for you today, Dad. This is what you get for having only one child and having it be a FEMALE. Let this be a lesson for you. Now go sit in the basement corner.

Is he gone? Okay, here we go with our scintillating book discussion, ladies.

1. So my friend who borrowed one of my zillion copies of "50 Shades of Grey" said it's not as bad as some of the older Anne Rice stuff, written under a pseudonym. I've never read Anne Rice, so you have to tell me. Otherwise, I have some questions ...
2. Why was Anastasia prescribed the "mini pill"????? Isn't that the one with less hormones in it, like they give to nursing women? And then the nursing women get knocked up? Why would the bazillion-dollar doctor do that?
   
3. Why does Christian act like he knows all about a woman's cycle but did not understand that when she was a week from her period she was pretty much totally "safe" fertile-wise?
   
4. Then when she was on Day 4 of her period (and not bleeding anymore???? at all? give me a break) he's all like "game on" ... when everyone who does natural family planning knows Day 4 is not necessarily "safe" pregnancy-wise. And, REALLY? He couldn't have done what he did on Day 4 of her cycle EARLIER? Gross. I am, however, okay with what they did on Day 2, which makes me some sort of nastycakes.
   
5. My copy of "50 Shades of Darker" should arrive any day now. I fully expect to open it up and find Anastasia pregnant. She was on the mini pill having all sorts of sex ... Don't ruin it for me if you have read it.
6. Regarding the ending, I was seriously in tears. What does that say about me? Anyway, I realized later that he could have stopped anytime doing what he did at the end. He did not have to count all the way up to whatever. He could have stopped when she was crying. But then we would not have books 2 and 3.
7. If you are squeamish sexually, DON'T READ THIS BOOK! I'm not saying I'm a freak or anything, but I did find the romance in it, and liked especially the semi-humorous emails that went back and forth between the characters. The book left me with many questions about the characters, and a cousin of mine says Book 2 is her favorite, so you know you can meet me back here soon :-)

EEEE ... just checked the mail and it is here. Catch you soon!

Freaking Friday: Freezing Frappes

Yes, I am aware that my kitchen counter makes it look like I live in a crackhouse. I can assure you I do not and that I am just not a great remodeler and will be getting on that task someday in the next 30 years.

I've blown through the Scooter's and Starbuck's gift cards I got for my birthday and now have to resort to making them at home. And it rocks. There are probably better ways to do this, but here is how I do it on the cheap at home:

1. Put a Starbuck's Columbia Via packet in a cup (they average out at about a buck a packet, so in the end I'm probably making a double batch of frappe that we can all share and it comes out to less than 2 bucks), add about 4 ounces hot water. Stir it up in the cup a bit.
2. Pour that mixture into the blender. Toss in some ice and some milk (sorry I don't have exact measurements here for you but that's just how I roll in cooking and baking and stuff).
3. I toss in some half and half also. I also like to put in some chocolate syrup to taste and have this yummy flavored creamer I like to use (chocolate toffee or something like that).
4. Dump in a bunch of ice and set the blender on FRAPPE!
5. There you go! Cheaper than McDonald's and better! You can use skim milk, sugar-free syrups, whatever you want.

Here is my friend, who made me these twice while I was at her place. Maybe in the comments section she can clue you in on how SHE does it ... (look, she even re-used my Starbuck's cup!)

The Pregnant Minnow Babysitter Mystery

Man, we got punchy at bedtime on the 4th of July.

Before bedtime Michael noticed that our single minnow was looking slimmer. She had gotten chunky when we were in Wyoming and looked like in her clear belly she had extra poop or something. I kept joking for weeks that she was pregnant. We know nothing about minnows ... do they lay eggs, do they carry babies like in a womb, what the heck?

Anyway, then Michael notices a teeny weeny minnow swimming around. We found two more after that. Okay, so she is a single mother minnow because her man died BEFORE we went to Wyoming, like in early May. We had my mom look after the minnow while we were gone.

So as we are trying to go to sleep, their friend called my mom Nanny Pregs because she looked after a pregnant minnow.

Then we called her the Pregnant Minnow Babysitter. I said, "But that sounds like my MOM is pregnant."

Callie says, "What if Tutu was pregnant and the minnow is babysitting HER?"

Then we got into the logistics of them having an uncle who is a tiny baby by my 62-year-old mother.

This is how we homeschool, folks ... all day and all night and at the oddest moments they learn stuff by joking around. So today we are hitting the internet to find out about minnows and how they reproduce. Maybe we'll also find out how old the oldest woman was when she delivered a baby.

So thanks, Mom, for babysitting our minnow. Who knew she was pregnant or you might have been able to throw her a baby shower?!

Wait, according to this, eggs would need to be laid, then the male would fertilize them. So why did the female lose her darker belly once the babies were born? And if the eggs hatch in 3-10 days, what the hell? I mean, is she like boy and girl minnow all in one? How did this happen? Am I just being dumb and can't figure this out? Was it Immaculate Fishception?

Thankful Thursday: Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It by Alan H. Cohen

This is funny. My BFF loaned me Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It by Alan H. Cohen and I read it a while back. I realized the other day that I need to (1) get the book back to her and (2) get the book out of my house since I’m trying to reduce clutter. So I open it up to any random page in preparing to type up this post. Of course it is the part on page 143 that says “You Identify Yourself as a Savior”.

Yep. That about sums up why I was meant to read this book. It says, “If you have been a mother, therapist, doctor, minister, or teacher for a long time, you may become so immersed in your role as a helper that you don’t know who you are without it.” Yes, this is why I try to “rescue” my kids from situations they don’t need rescuing from. This is why I try to mother everyone I meet and always have, even before I had kids. This is why I see someone kinda getting picked on in a homeschool group and I feel like I have to be the one to step up, to fix it. After all, if I don’t do it, who will? I’m HELPING someone who is being BULLIED, right? Not always, not really.


[Let me stop here and insert something my mom has made me think about. She wants to know, basically, about standing up for others who might not do it themselves. How long do you stand by? I liken it to America helping out in WWII ... if we had not, how many would have died? And yet you can't save everyone. Keep in mind the author is not married and does not have children, so he can afford to let it go and be a little selfish. Let's see how he behaves when he has children or a wife who is getting crapped on verbally or emotionally by someone ...]

There are a lot of good things about this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with anything. It’s like a cheap dose of mini-therapy. This book will speak to you in a different way than it spoke to me, I’m sure, but here are some other things in the book that really hit home for me:

Stop trying to please everyone. Just be yourself because you will never get 100% of people you know (or don’t know, if you blog!), to like you.

“Honesty builds strong and reliable relationships. You win more by standing in your truth than by saying what is expected.” How can someone trust your YES if they never hear your NO?

“Rote facts stimulate the mind, but leave the soul wanting. Skills go a longer way.” Like how I took typing at the urging of my dad in 8^th grade. That skill has always kept me employed and helped me with my being able to write quickly. Memorizing dates of battles and the Pythagorean Theorum, not so much.

Chapter titles include:

You Give Your Power Away

You Expect It To Suck

You Get Fooled by Appearances

You Waste Your Energy on Things That Suck

You Keep Trying to Prove Yourself

You Say Yes When You Mean No {guilty!}

You Think You Have to do It All Yourself

You Try to Fix Other People

You Starve Your Soul

You Forgot To Enjoy the Ride


I give this book 3.5 Dove chocolate hearts because much of it is common sense that we just need to hear again and again!

Wordless Wednesday: Happy 4th of July!!!

Moshi Monster Monday: Clay Creations

Sometimes my boys get creative and like to make things out of clay. Here are a couple of their favorite Moshi Monsters made in Claymation ... :-0

General Fazuki

Diavlo

Joel Turns 11 and Aron Goes Back to Wyoming

HAPPY JULY!

I'd love to know what you think about the weekly themes I've been trying out. I'm really doing it for some discipline on my part.

For instance, Wordless Wednesday is easy ... I have so many cute kid pictures that I wish Wednesday was like 3 times a week so I could post them all. Maybe I'll also make it Workout Wednesday.

I like doing reviews of stuff I have around the house, so there's Thankful Thursday.

Tackle-it Tuesday is to hold me accountable to doing SOME task I've been putting off ... weekly!

Monday will probably evolve from Moshi Monsters to something else depending on when the kids get tired of them.

Am hoping to get back into the Aron and Kerrie Love Story, and you'll see why below. Here's the weekly wrap-up:

Sunday Joel turned ELEVEN, we went to church and Aron left for Wyoming. We had a friend over, and later my niece/goddaughter, 2 nephews and SIL came over. The littles had some zipline fun while my SIL and I hung out talking. It was really nice.

Avengers Legos!

A Thor hammer! I'm so glad he still likes this kind of stuff!

Me and the boy who made me a mommy 11 years ago this day, the best 30th birthday present ever (5 days late).

A hug before Daddy has to leave. I can't look at this without crying.

Monday found us at the movie BRAVE with 2 extra kids. Yes, I am a little crazy, but it is a GOOD crazy (there is a diff!). So me and 7 kids went to the movies. Do you take food in? People still hop my butt about my McDonald's sock thing, and I wonder if they shower before they get in a public pool, if they never take food into a movie, NEVER break any dumb/expensive rule. Good for them. I wish I had a picture of the kids in their 3D glasses!

Tuesday was Belton Water Park, Tutu's Valentine's present for the kids in lieu of junk and candy! We hadn't been to her place for a while and it was nice to chill there.

You gotta have nachos at the pool!

A great woman from church gave Michael this shirt for his birthday ... My Life Rocks.

Wednesday found us at my friend's house, and another friend came over. There were 15 kids there! I splurged on California rolls and a big watermelon fruit boat. We stayed until late at night, and the kids had a blast. I have found a friend I can be with all day and we can watch kids and cook and clean and I can work on the laptop while she reads a book and the kids watch a movie. We are like Sister Wives (!!!).

Big Eva (Beva) likes to wear Little Eva's (Leva) clothes. The problem is that Leva is at least a year younger than Beva.

This is my friend NOT freaking out when the kids spilled soapy water all over the floor. She threw towels down and soon had a clean floor!

We have a friend who used to have a Facebook profile picture of herself  with a book covering most of her face, so we did a photo shoot so we could have pix like that, too. It turned goofy.

Thursday ... ugh. Dentist for 2 deep fillings (don't put off dental work, people!) and a cleaning. Jordan, thank God for her, watched the kids and nobody cried when I left. On my way home I stopped by the apartments where Aron's friend lived in 1995 ... where we met! It made me very nostalgic and made me miss Aron so much and want to dive into writing more of the Aron + Kerrie = Love Story! Later we picked up a friend and went to the pool.

Friday meant cleaning for Joel's birthday party, going to the party store and grocery store, baking banana bread. Later our friends came over to play for a few hours.

Saturday was Joel's birthday party. We sure do have some great friends and family. Tutu and Dave came later and sprung for pizza. UPDATE ON KITCHEN: I actually picked up the sanding tool thingie and USED IT for a few minutes! Yes, I am sanding the wall a little before I spackle it and then sand it again 100 more times. I've decided to tackle that project since I'm just shuffling writing papers around anyway and accomplishing NOTHING.

We sang Happy Birthday to Joel before my friend came with the gluten-free (don't ask!) cake. I gave him this cupcake and told him we could not afford an entire cake. Haha.

Here's the gluten-free cake (actually very tasty!) because a friend of mine eats this way with her family and offered to bring it, which was super sweet. I am freaking out that he is 11.

I'm thinking about doing this kind of stuff as a video for you to watch. What do you think? I have a camera on my laptop and it might be faster (and super funny with kids running around behind me in various states of undress since it's summer) to do posts that way once a week. If Aron keeps traveling, he might really dig it ... to see us as we are in daily life.

Twins (Gemelos)

How cool am I that I know the Spanish word for "twin"? Okay, so, you probably already know that my dear husband is an identical twin. Yes, it's weird sometimes. Yes, I get them mixed up on the phone sometimes. Yes, I am married to the cuter twin. When Aron realized he and Sam had matchy-matchy shirts and could look like little twins, he got them dressed all by hisself and had me take this picture. I miss him so much when he's gone! Okay, they may DRESS alike, but I like to think that Samuel (our 5th child) looks like me. I FINALLY got me a child that looks like me! My mom says Aron and I look like brother and sister anyway (creepy!), so our kids look like both of us, but whatever. I think they should have sewed a little blue/white checked shirt for the baby doll Sam is holding, too, but they must have been feeling lazy that day :-)

Thankful Thursday: My Top 3 Beauty Products

Today I'm gonna share my top 3 beauty products with you. That is to say, if my house were on fire and I could only take 3 things from my bathroom, these would be it.

Voluminous mascara ROCKS MY WORLD. If you love my lashes, this is why.

Looks like I'm a L'oreal nut because their day/night Youth Code is great for summer or winter, day or night.

Their Youth Code eye cream is why I look 21 :-)

Most days these 3 things are all I wear out of the house, and I'm good to go!

What are your favorite things?

Don't forget to enter the SUMMER SIZZLE GIVEAWAY ... this is a rockin' blog hop with 70 bloggers participating. And these aren't just kid-and-mommy prizes ... there are also things like an iTunes gift card, Amazon.com gift card, PayPal cash and one year of RedBox (twice a week). And that's just the first dozen entries I've gotten through! If you enter 10 per day, you've entered them all by the end of the hop! 

Oh, Yeah. I Went There. 50 Shades of Grey

Yes, I finally dove into this gem, Fifty Shades of Grey. Can't resist a banned book, you know. Ordered the second and third books of the series for my mom today. I'm on page 68 right now and feel like I'm just about at the top of the roller coaster and then will be on quite the ride until the book is over. Do like my red devil eyes? If you've read this, let me know what you think.

Updated July 2: now I'm somewhere in the 200s and am still going strong. Interesting read and not for everyone, that's for sure, but it doesn't bug me.

Baby Falls Asleep on Floor Clutching Drumstick

Tackle-It Tuesday: Puzzles

Every Tuesday, I tackle a different project around my home that's been bugging all of us!

If your kids' puzzles are all organized perfectly, then this post is not for you because you will judge me harshly. You see, I used to have mine all organized. I would take them from their cardboard box and put them in a plastic sandwich baggie. I would cut out the small picture of the completed puzzle and include it in the baggie. I even used to write on the back of each puzzle piece so I knew which puzzles went together if they were ever, say, all tossed up in the air at once.

What a mess!

Fast forward a few years and a few kids and the puzzle pieces DID end up everywhere. And I finally just tossed every piece I could find into a box like you see below (used commonly for scrapbooking or holding fabric in my family). For Tackle-It Tuesday I decided to tackle this project and trash all the puzzles that were not complete. This was hard because I am a very nostalgic person and tossing incomplete Dora puzzles was like tossing one of my children into the trash. I got over it when my daughter reminded me they are only puzzles and we have a few left that are complete AND we can always get more if someone gets a puzzle hankering. Here's my progress:

Putting puzzles together with my kids.

This is the kind of box I use for such things.

This is how they look now. Only a few puzzles, but they have all the pieces at least. Kids 3, 4 and 5 weren't as into puzzles as my first two kids.

What are your household projects you want to tackle? I have lots to come during upcoming Tackle-It Tuesday posts ... painting a kitchen wall, tackling a junk drawer in my bathroom, tackling a file cabinet full of paper ideas for writing, my bedroom closet.

Moshi Monster Monday: Cards

At a recent staff meeting with my kids in the mommyvan, we brainstormed some Moshi Monster Monday ideas for the blog. Today we'll start you out simple with the cards. Other Mondays will find us talking about the figures, the other collectibles, the books, the online game, Moshi Monsters made out of food and/or Legos and more.

Rather than bore you to death with MY explanation of this fun new kid fad (like Pokemon only cuter and much faster to play), head to the Moshi Monsters Wikia for anything you ever wanted to know. It's an online game (we'll talk about that another time), but is also cards and more. Some of my faves are above: Groanas Brothers, Peppy, Honey, Liberty, Cali, Katsuma, Poppet and Hansel, but there are tons more. I also like Broccoli Spears and Dustbin Beaver (can you guess the celebrities?!). I like that Moshi Monsters make a play on all kinds of monster-ish words ... like how they have a Gross-ery Store in the game.

Summer Sizzle Giveaway Hop!!! (June 24-30)

This giveaway is over. Please check the left side of the blog for more!

Welcome to the Summer Sizzle Giveaway Hop hosted by Mom With a Dot Com! Over 65 bloggers have gotten together to give you a chance to win some amazing prizes to keep you entertained throughout your summer!

Summer Sizzle will begin on June 24 and end on June 30. As you are hopping around, I hope you will find some prizes that you love - maybe you will even win one! Each giveaway will have a prize valued at $25 or more!

Tip: I plan to enter 10 giveaways per day for 7 days, which will hit all 70 (minus one, which is my own!!!) Good luck! May the odds be ever in your favor!

I am giving away two books: "A House United: Changing Children's Hearts and Behaviors by Teaching Self-Government" by Nicholeen Peck and "Intimacy: A 100-Day Guide to Lasting Relationships" by Douglas Weiss, a total value of $33.94.

Please enter below and don't forget to check out my other bloggy peeps below that for some awesome giveaways from some awesome bloggers! Good luck! Oh, and please share this link with everyone you know as a favor to me, who became a mommy for the first time on this day in 2001!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Attachment Parenting Debate: Mom of Five Weighs In

This picture was taken 2 years ago, and since then I've gotten a lot of new blog readers who may not know exactly what I'm about. Well, I'm about THIS. I'm about attachment parenting. I fell into it accidentally because my husband and I are big babies who couldn't stand to hear our son cry it out in his crib and just wanted some dang sleep. (no judgments from me if you did things differently; you leave my parenting alone and I will leave yours alone)

Okay, so I just wanted some dang sleep. And nursing Joel in bed helped with that a lot (well, after the first month, anyway ... that first month was hell ... getting up every two hours to nurse for an hour while I tried not to fall asleep sitting up). So we kept it up and 5 kids later we are still going strong. Only two kids in the bed now, though, with one who sometimes even leaves!

I love this picture because there's a photo of me off to the left watching over them. Since they are all 3 in the queen bed (Joel and Callie must have already been awake), I can only assume Aron was out of town.

So if you are doing this and feel bad about it or people are giving you crap about it, it's okay! Time will prove that you did your parenting the way you saw fit and that it all worked out. The day my oldest son was born (tomorrow, 11 years ago!), I prayed fervently to God that He would make me the kind of mother HE wanted me to be. Not the kind someone else wanted me to be or the mom society thought I should be. The kind of mother that a Higher Power wanted me to be, knew I could be.

Other forms of parenting work for other people. This one has worked well for us. It's not a parenting competition, trust me. None of that crap matters. It's about the kind of parent you are supposed to be. We are all different people, extremely different sometimes. Why would we all parent the exact same way based on a book or a fad or a TV show or advice from whoever?

Update: I posted this longer version of our attachment-parenting lifestyle here on the blog many years later. It's now mid-2021, and the kids are 11, 13, 16, 18, and 20. Four teenagers who are an actual pleasure to parent, as well as an energetic 11-year-old. I credit attachment parenting!

Is It Okay to Leave Your Kid(s) In the Car???

When I was a kid and too young to stay home alone, I would go along with my parents on errands. Sometimes I would stay in the car, either because it was just easier for my parents or because I preferred to sit in the car and read or listen to music. It never crossed my mind to attempt to drive away. It never crossed my mind that someone might get into the car, hotwire it and then drive us both away, resulting in a carjacking and a kidnapping all in one.

I'm an only child, so it's not like my parents were just too lazy to drag all their kids inside. I wasn't sick or sleeping. I just stayed in the car. It's how things were done, and it was not a big deal. And it wasn't so long ago, even though my kids think I ran with the dinosaurs.

I know so many parents who do this these days, including myself. They are not gone long, they usually park up close to where they are going inside, they didn't know until now that there was even a law about this. One mom went to jail over this in another state. I of course have to include this link about Jake's Law, which is partly why we are all so freaked out. 

Remember my opinions are ILL-FORMED, people, but you know those people who drive their kid to daycare? Oops, I mean, who were supposed to take their kid to daycare and instead drive to work and the kid sits in the car all day and dies? They are not in jail. And I wonder about the people they work with ... I mean, the cops come in seconds flat in a grocery store parking lot, but you often have hundreds of employees walking by a car or looking out their window, and nobody sees that there is a kid asleep in a car, dying or maybe even screaming and crying, over the course of a DAY? Are we paying attention to the wrong things?

Click HERE to go to my pal's blog post about what happened to her, called "Is Leaving Your Kids in the Car a Right?". Check out the part where the cops think it's fine (and there is no law) for kids to watch kids AT HOME for hours but not in a CAR for 5 minutes.


I think if a citizen is that concerned, they could have gone in the store and had a page done or waited by the car for the parent to come back and then let them know it wasn't cool or whatever. But we are all too busy to get to know an entire person or situation and jump to horrible conclusions about parents, especially. It's making me think twice about things I think are "wrong" ... I'm happy to call the cops but not talk to the person directly or handle it another way?


I'm not saying this is right or wrong or good or bad. I am saying I sure as hell won't be doing it anymore now that I know the deal. I still don't feel comfortable leaving them at home, which according to the law is okay since there is no age limit for THAT, so  I will carefully plan my errands and make sure all of my kids understand they will be going inside with me everywhere we go. Joel will be 11 on Sunday, so in the city where I live he can stay in the car by himself. However, we live and drive in a huge metropolitan area, and the laws are different in every single city. I'd better educate myself on those laws. You should, too.

Freaking Frugal Friday: Living Simply With Children: Clothing

We are in massive Garage Sale Mode. We came home from living 5 weeks on the bare minimum clothing-wise and entertainment-wise and found that there is so much we can do without. Just because we have a 1500-square-foot home does not mean we have to FILL IT UP!

I hate having garage sales, but if I have much to get rid of and can do it with a friend and really make some money to go toward, say, a truck payment and our dream of moving out of the city, then let's do it. Every penny ends up counting, I suppose.

Here's what I packed for myself for Wyoming and packed similar for the kids:
1 swimsuit
5 T-shirts
1 jacket
1 pair jeans
1 pair shorts
1 pair boxer shorts for sleeping
1 pair workout pants for sleeping
4 pair socks
4 pair underwear
1 beach towel
1 pair tennis shoes
1 pair flip flops

Obviously I didn't have to schlep a winter coat or boots or total winter garb for all. As far as other stuff, the kids took Pillow Pets and little stuffed animals, Legos, coloring books and crayons, craft supplies, a few books. Callie took her picture of my cousin Cayla and some other stuff in her messenger bag.

A friend of mine does something like has 3 of each clothing item for her kids (except for undies and socks) because she also has 5 kids and the clothes overrun the house. Even with one kid, why would you need 100 outfits for that kid?

Do you have too many clothes? I have fat clothes and skinny clothes and maternity clothes and everything in between but have slowly been weeding things out. Why do we hold on to so many clothes when they just go out of style anyway and are so easily and cheaply acquired at thrift stores and consignment stores and through friends giving us more and sales, etc.?

Thankful Thursday: McCormick Italian Herb Seasoning Grinder

You know when you're at a restaurant and the server asks if you'd like fresh cracked pepper on your salad or other dish? I LOVE that! We have a pepper grinder at home that we got for our wedding, and it's gotten a ton of use. We've tried the sea salt grinders but the one from Aldi kept breaking (cheap plastic).

So when Aron found this McCormick Italian Herb Seasoning Grinder at the grocery store in Wyoming, I was excited to use it. Ingredients are: rosemary, black pepper, red pepper, garlic, onion, sea salt, tomato and parsley.

I used it in some store-bought spaghetti sauce and it really jazzed it up and gave it more flavor, kinda like what I'm used to with Aron's home-made spaghetti sauce. I also ground it up in some sauce for lasagna, and it rocked.

There's something about fresh-ground herbs and spices that makes me happy! Did I mention you can set it at  coarse, medium or fine?! Check out their other varieties here!

P.S. Had to add that I just got back from Aldi, where I see they have the knockoff version of all the McCormick spice grinders. I was commenting on how easily the grinders break and another woman there agreed and said she won't buy them there and buys McCormick instead for quality of grinder and spices/herbs!

Charging Me to Give You More Money

This week I find myself in the position of Secretary of Aron. I have to call Avis because of a $150 charge that showed up 2 weeks after he turned in his rental car. I also have to call Budget because of a $101 charge that showed up. Both charges have no explanation, so I have to sleuth out the deal.

Avis has sent me all over the place ... some pretend person named Michelle who won't call me back, and to Claims. The Claims lady and I had a good laugh when she said I did NOT need Claims and I told her the office is smoking crack and she said EXACTLY! We're thinking the charge is a cleaning charge because in Wyoming Aron works on a muddy mountain and often doesn't have time to clean the car inside and out before he returns it. That's fine. What I love is that Avis does not have the software to be able to have the space to enter what the charge is for. An employee actually told me this. So we all have to waste our time tracking this down when they just need a programmer to add more space in their software.

Budget actually made me laugh out loud. They still aren't quite sure, but they think the extra money is because at the last minute we needed the car 2 extra days. They got over $1,000 from Aron's company for almost 5 weeks of renting the car (returned clean!!!), but because he needed it TWO MORE DAYS, they charge an $80 fee OVERSTAY fee. I asked very politely, "You guys are charging us to give you more money?" Yep. You would think they would be happy renting the car out two more days.

What do you think about airlines and car rental companies? I just have to laugh because there is no fighting them.