~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Kids~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Quite disturbing.

Last night we were resting in bed before actual bedtime. Silas was in between me and Todd and we were talking. Here's part of the conversation:

Silas:    Mom, I was gonna play a trick on you but I decided not to.

Me:      Really?  What was the trick?

Silas:    Well, I found this dried up lizard.

            Dried up lizard??!! 

Me:     Yes. And?

Silas:    I took it and squeezed it with my pliars. It was so cool! I squeezed all its guts up to its head.  Then they all squirted out.

          Ewwww!

Me:     Where did you do that?

Silas:    In the bathroom.

          At this point I recall cleaning some type of gooey substance off of the toilet lid. I thought it was a worm.

Me:     Okay. Well, let's do stuff like that outside okay?

Silas:   Okay mom. So I was gonna put the lizard on your pillow. I thought it would be funny, but then I decided it probably wasn't a good idea.

             My pillow?

Me:     Very good job!  Great decision buddy. You are right, that would not have been a good thing to do.

Silas:    What would have happened?

Me:      Mommy would have screamed and then you would have been in trouble. It would not have been worth it. Believe me.

Silas:    Oh. So I made a good choice then?

Me:      Yes.

Oh my!  I am so thankful he had second thoughts. 

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Fun out of the Sun

Our first couple days in Florida were colder than we wanted for the beach. We took advantage of some other great places though.

On Sunday we went to the Floating Chapel. While it wasn't what we would call a real church service it was a fun novelty.

You can see that it was quite windy. So windy in fact that we didn't get to leave the dock! Oh well, it was still fun.




The inside was lovely.



We went for a quick walk at a local park before it closed. The kids got to mess a little in the water. Silas was so excited to collect shells. Once we had been on a few more outings he figured out that they were abundant down there and stopped hoarding them all.



This concludes Part 5 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Groceries!

We needed to head to the grocery store before we could do much else. It's funny, we ended up going to the grocery (several groceries to be exact) at least once a day for the duration of our trip.

As a side note, none of the grocery stores in the area were open past 10:00 p.m.     Crazy.  I guess it's because most everyone around there is retired and they are all in bed. LOL

We somehow didn't take any pictures of those trips. We probably should have as much as we went!

Great grandma couldn't believe how much food we went through each meal. One day we came home with 28 bananas. We know because she had us count them.  They were gone within a couple days. :)  She also took pictures of some of our dinners. She could not believe that all that food was for one meal.

I'm hoping to have great pictures in the next post, don't worry.

That concludes part 4 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Vacation at last!

One of the items that we shipped ahead of time was our queen air mattress. We put Silas, Avrie and Evelyn on the air mattress (They can all be sideways on it and still stretch out.) and Ellie got the twin bed right next to it. 



Grandma had found a nice pack-n-play at a consignment shop for Sadie. It fit perfectly in a closet right next to the bed Todd and I slept in.



They had us all set up and ready for a good night's sleep and boy were we ready for one!

When I had packed the box to ship I wasn't as organized as I should have been. (Imagine that!)   I somehow messed up the pajamas and Evelyn ended up in jammies that were a bit small for her. She didn't seem to mind though.  See her little belly sticking out?



Sometime during the night I heard Evelyn crying. She came in and said her ear was hurting. She cried and cried for quite a while. I have used some natural remedies before when her ears have hurt, one of which is onion. She usually doesn't like me to do it, but she marched into Grandma's room, woke her up and asked if she had any onions for her ear. She didn't have onions but there was some garlic. I got a bit of juice from the garlic on a q-tip and lightly dabbed her ear. That seemed to help. Here is where Evelyn and I spent our first night on vacation.


 At some point Evelyn felt better, so she left me sleeping here.

That concludes part 3 of our Florida trip.



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

The flight.

So we left off after we had boarded the plane for the first time.

Even though Evelyn doesn't use a sippy cup anymore, I brought one for the plane. I thought it might help with take-off and landing.  She had been a bit congested for a few days and I was concerned about her ears hurting her.

We were buckled and ready to go. Evelyn leaned over and fell asleep on with her head on my lap. Just as we were taking off she jumped up and screamed!  Then she proceeded to cry quietly.  She said her ear had popped and it was hurting. Poor thing.  I tried to calm her down and rub it. She fell back asleep.

The rest of the light was uneventful except for the occasional trip to the bathroom. Evelyn was scared to death to use that toilet. I think she thought she would fall out of the plane.  Then of course the flush was horribly loud, so that didn't help much.

At the end of the flight we waited until everyone had gotten off the plane before we attempted to leave. It was funny when we got to where all the gate checked items were the attendant couldn't figure out why all that stuff was still left when most everyone was gone. It was all ours! Todd again loaded up the car seat mobile and we were on our way.

We called the rental company and they picked us up and took us to our chariot (aka 12 passenger van).

We pulled into Grandpa and Grandma's driveway a little after 10:00 p.m.

Now it was time for the vacation to begin....right?

That concludes part 2 of our trip to Florida.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

What is it about scissors?

What is it about scissors that make children want to cut their hair?   I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I'm pretty sure Ellie and Silas both cut their hair at an earlier age.  I was thinking maybe Avrie was learning from their mistakes. Apparently my soon-to-be six year old girlie would rather learn first-hand why it's not such a great idea.

Sweet Avrie found a small pair of scissors from a sewing kit and lopped off a 6 inch long hunk of her hair in the front. Of course not exactly in the front where we could incorporate some bangs. Nope. Sort of in the middle/side/ish part of her head.  I admit it could have been worse.   Like when Ellie cut her bangs down to about 1/2 inch long. I really should look those pictures up.

Here she is in all her glory.











Thankfully you can't really tell when it's down. Sadly I can't pull it back in the constantly-asked-for-all-up-pony-tail that she loves. Her bangs had just gotten long enough to make it work.  Poor thing. As soon as she did it she knew it wasn't too smart.

Live and learn. 



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Friday, March 9, 2012

Have children. Will travel.

Can you find the stroller in this picture?


 
Believe it or not, there is in fact a stroller there.  It is buried under 2 car seats, 1 booster seat, diaper bag, insulated cooler bag, computer bag and duffle bag.

This, my friends, is how we made through the airport.  Also pictured are 4 kid-size suitcases and a backpack.

We had also shipped a box of Summer season clothes a week or so before the trip. That helped a lot and cost about the same amount of money it would have cost for another checked bag on the plane.





Saturday 2/18/12
1:15 p.m.
We packed  shoved everything and everyone into our minivan and headed for the airport.

2:00 p.m.
Potty break at a McDonald's near the airport.

2:30 p.m.
Arrived at the airport. Todd dropped me and the kids off with the stack of luggage you saw earlier. We checked our one very large suitcase and the rest were carry on bags.

3:15 p.m.
Todd had parked the van and took a shuttle back to find us. Here's a picture of the kids while we were waiting.



 3:20 p.m.
We started on our trek to security and stopped for another potty break.

3:30 p.m.
Loaded back up and ready to go. Todd carried the large duffle bag. Silas had the backpack and a pull-behind suitcase. Ellie, Avrie and Evelyn each had a pull-behind suitcase. It was slow going but it worked out really well to keep them busy lugging their suitcases around. No one ever thought to run off. I stayed at the end of our little train to make sure they were all heading in the right direction.

3:40 p.m.
We made it to security. They saw us coming and actually opened up a separate area so we didn't hold up the line. (Why would they ever think it would take us longer to get through? LOL)

I had the children dress in easy on/easy off shoes but it turns out that anyone under 12yo doesn't have to remove their shoes. woot!

They let all of our food go through, but had to rub something on each baby food jar to check it for possible explosives. On the other side of security we had to re-assemble our makeshift car seat holder. (We used bungi cords to keep everything on the stroller.) Each child was responsible for their own suitcase, so again they were quite busy. They sat and waited for us to get situated.

3:50 p.m.
We made it to the gate!  Everyone found a spot and watched planes take off and land. The kids were super excited!  I had made up snacks so we had "dinner" here. 

Our menu:
Turkey meatballs
clementines
cheese sticks
celery sticks
red bell pepper slices
bananas
grapes

We purchased a bottle of water to share.

4:15 p.m.
BEEP!  My cell phone alarm rang to remind me of our last scheduled potty break before boarding the plane.

4:30 p.m.
Once first class boarded they let us go since we had small children.  We traveled toward the plane in the same order we had been in. Todd stopped off to take the car seats and stroller apart to gate check them. So that meant that Evelyn ended up boarding the plane first. ummm  Let me just say that it's probably not the best idea to have the three year old go first.

The first seat she came to, Evelyn jumped in and said, "We're going at Florida!".

We finally made to it our rows of seats. We took up 2 rows of 3 seats each. Todd got one row with Silas and Avrie. I got the next row with Evelyn and Ellie. We passed Sadie back and forth.

That concludes part 1 of our trip to Florida. The fun was just beginning.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Monday, March 5, 2012

Have your cake and eat it too

I used to love chocolate cake (Still do in fact.). Not just any chocolate cake either.  A yummy triple layer, triple chocolate cake that was made with love, from scratch and with extra special care. Each ingredient added to its unique flavor. Every time I would partake of it I knew just what to expect. How it would melt in my mouth.  How I would savor each and every bite. It was a love/hate relationship. That's how chocolate is you know.  It was a special relationship though, one like no other.

There are things in life that you don't expect to change. Things that should always be there for you. No matter what. Through thick and thin. All too often it's taken for granted. 

Once you eat prepackaged food more often than homemade treats made especially for you, your taste buds change. They are desensitized to the chemicals and additives that trick your mind into believing you are nourishing your body. It's amazing how your tastes can change for the better as well. That's for an entirely different post though. This post is about cake.

Or is it?

One day I noticed that the cake wasn't around much anymore. I guess everyone gets busy at times. A quick store-bought treat isn't so bad every once in a great while. I justified in my mind why there was no cake. Secretly I would cling to the fond memories of this scrumptious dessert. Oh the lovely times we had sitting and chatting while eating that fabulous cake. Fun times playing games, visiting, building relationships. Wow. It had been a long time hadn't it?  Was it really even the cake I was missing? 

Now it seems no one makes their own cake. Most are too busy to do things from scratch anymore. Too busy to live from their heart. Everything seems hurried and generic. We read facebook, blog posts, texts and mass emails and we think we have relationships.

What happened to one on one communication? What happened to knowing whether or not someone had a good day by looking into their eyes or hearing their voice?  What happened to sipping tea, playing games, going for a walk, having a cup of coffee or a nice piece of homemade chocolate cake warm from the oven?   Aaahhhhh   Warm from the oven both inside and out.  Now it seems most everything is hard and cold ~ both inside and out.

Why can't we just stop this business we call life and live?  Really, truly live.


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Thursday, March 1, 2012

I'm still here!

The blog has been a little quiet lately. I have tons of things to share but no time to share them. I'm hoping to catch everyone up very soon. Here are a few possible titles for upcoming posts I have in mind.


-Sun, Sand and Bugs....not the kind of bugs you think
-Our journey into ND Therapy
-Never say Never
-Navigating the airport
-Packing for a small crowd




Have a blessed day! ~Tammy