When the house is a mess and the kids are driving you crazy what else is there to do but build a fort?!

You know those days when nothing is going the way it's supposed to? Yeah this was one of those days! My house was in such a disastrous state that I could not do anything because of the mess. As I was attempting to get things done the kids were so not cooperating. They would fight with each other or give me the I have nothing to do whine.
I tried several times to redirect them to activities they enjoy but it was not working. At least not collectively. I put the TV on, suggested toys, games and books to occupy them. Nada! I'd no sooner get one kid engaged with something when the other would come at me with, I want to do... or I have nothing to do. Argh! When they would all miraculously be occupied the baby would wake up and cry or need to be fed or changed. You know how it is.

Dinner time was approaching and I mean I was in break down mode. Things were spirawling out of control and I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. Come to think of it I did cry .

So what do you do when things are this crazy?

I was trying to think of something I could do, anything! Then I remembered that we had 2 large boxes, that could be fun and keep the kids busy for a while. Alright, now I need to come up with something fun and exciting to do. I started to scroll through the idea's I had pinned on pinterest (thank you pinterest!!!!) and voila! My inspiration!

So 3 kids and 2 boxes, I had to get creative. I ordered pizza and got to work.  We took the boxes apart (the kids protested saying I was ruining them, just hold on mommy know's what she's doing, hopefully, lol)and attached them together with masking tape, making it a large octagonal shape. Is octagonal really a word, I have no idea I make things up as I go. While the kids are their pizza I started poking holes with a pen and sticking the Christmas lights through. They were so excited as they watched me at work, it was amazing! I was really getting into this now!

This is what I came up with and let me tell you it is one of the coolest things we've done with boxes before!

Abby was the first one done her dinner and the first to enter the new fort!

She was shortly joined by Mason and Madelyn who were super excited!



Next came the decorating. We grabbed the markers, pencil crayons and stickers and they got to work. Now it was time for me to get my stuff done but... I didn't! We were all so happy and excited with our plans for the fort that it didn't matter. They were decorating and I was taking pictures as best as I could peeking over the top or through the door. They did this till it was time for bed.

I think that day all I needed to do was take the time to spend a REAL moment with my kids. Not the ones where I'm so preoccupied with everything else that's going on that I'm not entirely there with them. It's embarrassing to think how many times I've forgotten this and how many times I've had to remind myself to just stop and enjoy this moment with my kids. This won't last forever and I had better get to enjoying it now!








Connor was now cooperating too! He jumped in his jumper and enjoyed looking at the lights. He was not allowed to help with the decorating because he still eats everything!

Madelyn had a friend over while Mason and Abby were at school the next day because forts are more fun with friends and frosty's!

And of course we had to do some more decorating!




All in all this day ended up being a great day! It started out very rough. At the end of the day the house was still a disaster but as for myself and the kids we were all much better off. I doubt that any of us will remember what a mess the house was that day, well I might but only due to the outcome of the day. But we will all likely keep our fond memories of building and decorating a fort together.

I've said before that when the kids are bored or acting a bit crazy that we should just stop and take a moment with them. Because they're really just trying to tell us that they want and need some time with us. When life gets crazy busy it's often hard to remember to stop and enjoy the small moments with your kids.

My son walked into the room as I was previewing this post and he said if you put that on the internet people will want you to make them one too! lol Love him!!!

January Monthly Goal

I have decided that this is the year to seriously start knocking things off of my to do list. One of the MAJOR things on my to do list is decluttering and organizing things. Making sure everything has a home and everyone knows where it's home is.
Now when I say my house is a mess I don't mean it's filthy, it can definitely get filthy which is why the clutter makes it's so flippin' difficult to clean! It is seriously cluttered though. I'd post pics but it's really embarrassing. When people say my house is lived in I think yeah right my house is abused! I can sometimes maintain the main floor so at least it looks decent but if you go upstairs, in the basement or garage it's loaded with a ton of things that need to find a new home, preferably not mine! So I'm going to tackle a specific area or job at a time.
 
I think for January I will work on the upstairs hallway. Right now you could walk through it but you'd be walking on a layer or two of laundry. There's 6 of us here and we can pile the laundry like it's no ones business! Ideally there is to be a laundry basket in the hall and everyone's supposed to put their dirty clothes there and when it's full Jonny will take it to the laundry room for me. That was the deal when I was pregnant but I think it's a great idea so we stuck with it! lol

But this whole laundry idea is not working out like I had originally hoped. There is rarely an empty basket in the house. They're either already full of dirty laundry or full of clean laundry waiting to be put away. So then the laundry just gets thrown on the hall floor where the basket should have been and spreads from there to all the bedrooms and bathroom. Not a good idea. Some how last week there was a pee diaper that didn't make it to the garbage and it got squished under a pile of clothes. You know those little crystal thingies in a diaper that's wayyyy too wet? Yeah all over the floor and clothes and then in my washing machine. Cause I need more things to add to my to do list! I'm hoping that some inspiration will come to me to rectify the laundry piles in the hallway before I'm done clearing that space. Or maybe something will come to me on pinterest. There was one idea and I love love love it but it will take me some time to get to it. Just checked to make sure I put the proper link to give credit where credit's due and it's gone. Hmmm hope I can find it. Otherwise I'll have to do my best to recreate it.

Our upstairs hallway has several purposes, we have a shelf there that has DVDs, books and games and various other things that Jonny likes to throw willy nilly (it's a condition he has that I've named willy nilly, he will put things wherever! It's pretty annoying and part of my wish to have everyone know where things belong not just where they fit for now) and in the hallway we also have things that at the moment do not have a home. There is a table that used to be in Mason's room and several bins and baskets full of toys that need to find a home. There are some things that will be going to my sister and her husband for their next baby.

My goal is to get rid of the stuff that does not belong in the hall.  We will find a new home for the table, give the toys and games a new resting spot, other than the floor in front of the shelf, and see if my sister and her husband are ready for the bouncy chair and some of the other things going to them.

If you're reading this please take a moment and make a suggestion in the comment section below and weigh in as to what my punishment should be if I don't complete this task by the end of the month. Maybe I'll let the kids do my hair and makeup and post a pic or something like that! I don't know get creative but please be kind! Maybe I'll offer myself a reward if I get it all done. Rewards are fun, maybe I'll let the family members who voluntarily participate have a reward too. I'm thinking bowling, but I'm open to suggestions on that too but it should be kid friendly.

So wish me luck and leave your suggested punishment!

What is a Monker and a Rutabaga?

Do you have a special nick name for your little ones? My kids each have their own nicknames but when herding children I need something to address them as a group. So I fondly refer to my kids as monkers, a combination of monkeys and monsters (we have several monsters in our house, tickling monsters, kissing monsters and so on...). Until recently all 4 of my children were monkers.

That is until the night we had turnip (AGAIN!) and I told my kids they're not turnips, they're rutabagas. No mommy they look like turnips. Well yes they are turnips (crap they're onto me!) but they're also rutabaga's. I told them with a isn't that super cool smile and nod.  They seemed impressed and ate them, except Madelyn, no surprise there though. 

Abby asked why I don't call them rutabaga's. Umm would you like me to call you rutabaga? Apparently yes.

So it came down to this, the girls will be rutabagas and the boys will be monkers.

I can live with that, although sometimes I do slip but the girls have not seemed to notice that I've called them monkers, not yet anyway!

Monker

Rutabaga



Rutabaga



Monker

What nicknames do you use for your children ?

And so it begins! Finally I'm motivated to loose weight!

A  bit of a background on my weight issues

I've always been a little thick but never considered myself to be fat. My mom suggested I go and check out this diet she was trying. I thought why not I could probably shed a pound or two. Was I ever shocked when the scale read 180lbs! I had a flat stomach, no love handles, I was FLOORED! So I lost about 30lbs and when I was engaged I gained the 30 back I had lost. On our honeymoon I got pregnant so no more dieting for me! After the birth of my son I weighted less than when I got pregnant, SCORE! Then I got pregnant again and again I weighted less after the birth of my daughter than I did before getting pregnant. Sweet this whole pregnancy thing is working out very nicely for me.  Then I went back on my diet because I was determined to loose all that weight. And I did, I was down to about 130lbs, things were great, I was skinnier and healthier than I had ever been.

Then I went back to school and started to gain weight again. Towards the end of my course I found out I was pregnant. Nice! I was back up to almost 180 at that point. This pregnancy did not go like the other 2 did and I was gaining weight like never before. Once I hit the 200lb mark I told my Dr and her nurse that I did not wish to know how much I weighed. During this pregnancy I had depression and I'm a big time stress eater so...... It continued on past the delivery of my daughter and I just did not have the motivation to loose weight. You'd think the chicken wing delivery person commenting that we might as well have a stock in the company because we order so much would have motivated me. Well it made me stop and think. But we ordered again anyway. And I got pregnant for the 4th time and didn't want to know my weight because I was well over 200lbs, I'm sure.

Now baby number four is 9 months and I'm finally feeling motivated. There's nothing like doing a diet and not feeling like you can accomplish your goal. Well I am finally ready.  I started my diet the end of November 2011 and right off the bat I started to loose weight. It felt great! In two weeks I had lost 10lbs, but made it clear to the ladies at the centre that I did not want to know how much I weighed.  Into my 3rd week I hadn't lost anything. CRAP. I maintained that weight for 3 weeks. In all honesty I was not sticking entirely to my diet. It was Christmas and I was cheating. Cookies, gravy and we ordered wings a few times over the Christmas break. Now that the new year is on us I buckled down and am back on track. Went in for my first weigh in after the new year and was very disapointed to find that I was up 3lbs. CRAP! But I will keep at it. I decided that I need to see how much I weighed to keep my motivation strong.

This is me at Christmas at 202lbs

Amanda's Weight Loss Statistics
The beginning of my diet I weighed 215lbs.
My weigh in today I am proud to announce is 202lbs. 
My goal for the end of this month is to be under 200lbs. 
Currently I am wearing a size 18 bottom and 1x or xl top (truthfully they are getting big on me!)
My ideal weight is 125lbs.

For the longest time I didn't care to do anything about how much I weighed. No one was overly successful at convinving me that I should do this now. I had to come to that realization entirely on my own. But it is more than just loosing the weight, that's just the beginning of the weight loss battle for me. After this I will have to keep it off. It's a complete life style change. I have to make an honest effort to eat better, get more exercise and be healthy.

 If you are loosing weight or know you should please check back with me again. I will be posting often about my weight loss over this coming year and maybe my journey can inspire you to do something good for yourself.

Join me on this blogging adventure!

I contacted some of the bloggers I read and asked for some advise. Actually I asked them if they would answer some questions for me to help me figure out where to start from. I have a ton of ideas that I want to share and felt overwhelmed at where I should start.

The main point that I got from Cheri at I am Momma hear me ROAR and Toni at The Happy Housewife was blog about what you are passionate about. OK there are a few things that I love and my world centres around so.... do I narrow it down to just one? do I have different blogs for each passion? And while I've been mulling it over I decided that no I don't narrow it down and I should blog it all in one place. I read a book a while ago called Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti and in the book it talks about how women's lives are like a plate of spaghetti, every piece of spaghetti on the plate touches several others. So, like in my life, every part is somehow involved with something else. So for me it makes sense to blog about all that is important to me, together, as it is all intertwined in my life.

So I will write about things that I do, intend to do and things I'm hoping to learn about.
I would love some feed back as to what anyone reading my blog would like to know or hear about, from my perspective. I don't claim to be an expert on anything but hopefully through my efforts and many mistakes there will be something of value to share.
In the future you can expect to read about:

• the crazy things my kids say. I'm often blown away by how they perceive things
• being a woman of God
• crafty things we do, whether it's something I've guided the kids through or if they've raided the recycling bin and found some treasures
• the crafty things I do when the kids are in bed or at school
• I'm hoping to take pictures of my family and things happening on a daily basis. I realized after everyone had opened their gifts and gone home that we didn't take a single picture of this past Christmas. I was so upset about this. So I plan to rectify it! I was inspired by this pin I found on pinterest  I've always wanted to learn how to sew and hopefully I will this year
• lunches are sometimes a struggle when we get into a rut so I'll be exploring different ways to solve that
• this blog about goal setting ideas by Bobbi at  how does she? is one that I love love love.  It's a dear daughter diary or communication journal and it is one of the things I want to do this coming year with my 2 oldest.I started to make a household managament binder, I think they're great, but a little overwhelming too. So I decided to take it slowly as far as implementing it.
• ADD and ADHD, one of my kids has been diagnosed and we think I may have it also, explains a lot!
• trying to work out the best daily routines for my family. There's 6 of us so it's not the easiest IMO to get everyone together at the same time, peacefully
• I want to bring back date night!!!
• I love to read and thanks to my new kobo I rediscovered my love!
• how things have changed in my parenting from when I had my first child
• I'm finally motivated to loose weight and have decided to share my progress along the way, what I like to eat, how much I actually weigh (I only found out myself last week)
• all things pregnancy and baby related. I have had a fairly wide experience with things and always enjoy sharing with anyone who would like to know what's what. I've had a Cesarean, VBAC, epidural, natural, great pregnancies, tough pregnancies, postpartum and prenatal depression...
• I also want to start random acts of kindness, I was inspired to do this when I read about Cheri and her little super hero's good deed advent on I am momma hear me roar.
•  So please comment or email me about what you would like to read about.

I look forward to joining the blogging world and hope to hearing from you soon!