Category Archives: Children

Why I can never get the dishes done…..

Ok, so my husband wonders why I can’t keep the house clean. Well, tonight was a perfect example of my plight to wash dishes. Here’s the rundown….

First off, I don’t have a dishwasher, so I have to wash dishes by hand, put them in the dish rack thingy and then if I have a whole sink full of dishes I have to dry the ones I put in the dish rack and put them away so I can wash more dishes.

So tonight was a perfect example of why it’s hard for me to get anything done with a 6 year old, 3 year old and 11 month old around all day.  I get the boys to bed after brushing thier teeth, reading a book, singing a song, getting drinks, going potty and prayer time. The hubby is in our bedroom doing some song recording with a friend so I can’t put Baby to bed in there. Baby falls asleep while I’m nursing him in the boys room so I lay a blanket on the floor and put him down in there. He stays asleep.  Then after praying and saying good night to the boys I go into the kitchen and start on dishes. Pretty soon I’m having to go back in and give Ekid a tums because his “tummy hurts” sure, whatever, it hurts every night lately. I don’t always give him tums because it’s usually that he wants a drink so he says his tummy hurts(don’t know what that has to do with needing a drink of water…). But tonight instead of another drink I gave him a tums and told him to “Go to sleep!”.  Then I try washing some more dishes.

Baby wakes up crying.

I go into the room and Ekid(3.5) is on the top bunk bed saying that Nboy(6.5) touched Baby and woke him up. I ask if this was so and Nboy sheepishly nods his head. Nboy got in trouble…….

Now I’m really mad because now Baby is awake and won’t go back to sleep and I can’t put him in our bedroom because the guys are recording in there! So the dishes are put on hold until I can get Baby occupied with something. I finally did get the dishes done, but it was probably like 2 hours from the time I first started on them.

Ooops, actually I didn’t get them all done, but it was close…..(sorry, I was trying to romanticize this shot. How do you make dirty dishes in a sink look good?)

Is it pathetic that it’s after 1am and I’m taking pictures of my sink? And that I have edited this several times since I published it……. I think the blogging is getting to me….

This is pretty much my whole day.  It almost feels useless to start something knowing that I’m just going to get interrupted shortly after. I know doing something is better than nothing though, so I must trudge on (:

Anyway, so, to my husband, that is why it’s so hard for me to get things done and keep the house clean!

And, we really need to get your recording studio out of our bedroom! (;

Oh, yes, and by the way if you’d like to hear some of my husbands songs, we just got them uploaded here: http://www.indiependencemusic.com/chris-hall You can listen, rate them, join his fan club and buy songs too! It’s pretty cool and we’re really excited about finally getting his music out there!

Unforgiveable Sin-Forgetting the Camera…..

So I guess I still need have a ways to go with this whole blogging thing. I mean, how do other bloggers do it? Do they have the camera strapped to thier head or something? Always snapping those perfect shots with which to revolve a very interesting, touching, funny, witty, blog post around.  I don’t know… there must be a trick to it. I guess I just need to stick the thing in my person or something and never take it out! :)

So I had gone to the State Horse Fair to watch my former riding instructor’s granddaughter ride and guess what? I brought the camera…..BUT….I had left the memory card in the computer at home!!! I was so looking forward to getting some great horse shots to post and also to use as reference photos for paintings. Oh, well, there’s always next year…

Then…

We got free passes to the Clackamas County Fair and so we went on Saturday with my mom. Guess what? I forgot to bring the camera altogether that time!!! I was so mad at myself! I was going to write a post about our fun time at the fair, but, you know what? It’s just not the same without pictures! But we did have a great time! The last time my husband and I went to a fair was 2 years ago and we had to pay(which was outrageous for the little podunk fair we went to…).  But this time a friend gave us some free passes, so we drove the hour+ to get there and took my mom with us since she lives up there and we had an extra ticket because we found out Nboy was still free to get in…Whoohoo!  So many memories…. I grew up in Clackamas County, and showed my horses in 4-H there. I miss those days and I wish I was giving riding lessons again and going and watching my students at fair and helping them get ready for thier classes…..Ahhh, it can be hard growing up!  Maybe someday….

So anyway, other than the fact that I forgot my camera, we had a great time! Both Nboy and Ekid went on a few rides and had…a….blast! Nboy had been on rides once before, and this was Ekids very first time. Baby, of course, was content just walking while pushing the stroller or sitting and playing with the grass :)

Oh, yes, and both the older boys got to buy thier own wooden Yo-Yo for only $1 each. Awesome Yo-yo’s! Much better than the plastic one they had that my mom bought for $3…

I Love the Clackamas County Fair!

The beautiful Oregon Coast…..

My mom took me and the boys to the beach yesterday. It was absolutely PERFECT! Fairly warm, and not too windy. The water was cold (when is the water not cold on the Oregon coast?), but we still had lots of fun playing in it. I think this is the first time my kids have actually played in the water when we’ve gone to the beach!

They…had…a…blast!  And so did I! So without further ado I present to you the Oregon coast at Newport, Oregon……

Love the light on the waves…

Waves at Newport Oregon Beach

Nboy and Ekid running through the water…

Baby LOVEs the sand..and the water…

Mooma (grandma) looking for sea creatures with boys…(I had the vivd color setting on for this shot…I think I like the normal color better)

Ekid building a…..sand castle?

A Night Out…..Aaalooooone

Well, we dropped off the kids at a friends house last night and paid their daughter to babysit for our 10 year anniversary. This is the first time we’ve ever paid someone to babysit our kids! She’s trying to get some work experience for her resume so I thought we’d go ahead and splurge this time. Plus, she loves our kids and they love her(and her younger sister…she helped). You should have seen them when we went to pick them up! They were bouncing off the walls(made me wonder what they put in their juice :) Just kiddin!). Even Baby looked like he had a great time, and I was relieved to hear that he did really well and wasn’t crying the whole time.

So back to our night out. No kids. This happens in, like, once in a blue moon! After dropping the kids off at a little after 5:30 (I was a little late, as always), I went back home to pick Chris up. We decided to go to Applebees, but by the time I got back to the house and then both of us got back in the car it was 6:05. Now the movie was at 7:00, but we went to Applebees anyway, since it was Thursday night and it shouldn’t be that busy there…….Wrong! There wasn’t a line at the door, but they were quite busy inside. We got seated quickly, but ended up waiting for our order to be taken for about 20 min. So by the time the waiter got to us, we had to ask him what time it was and it was 6:30. Well, that’s not enough time for them to cook our food, especially with how busy they were, and for us to eat before the movie!

Well, we decided to just leave and after both of us being a bit bummed and talking about what to do, cause we didn’t want to go to a fast food restaurant for our anniversary, Chris says ” I know what to do, and you’ll love it” . I didn’t get what he meant at first, but then as we crossed the street to where some other restaurants are, I knew, and , I smiled :)  Love Love Teriyaki. I LOVE, LOVE it! AND… I never get to go there, unless I want to go by myself, which I don’t do, so it was perfect!  We got in there, ordered, and got our food by 6:45, pretty fast service if you ask me :)  Plus it was a little less expensive and we tried thier Bento that was on special, and even though it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, it was still great! Usually when I try something new at a restaurant, I end up regretting it.

So then we headed over to the movie theater and watched Inception. Awesome movie! It was a very intense movie, but it was definitely a perfect movie for last night! I don’t get to sit and watch those kinds of movies at home because you can bet I’ll get interrupted several times during the movie. LOL

So we picked the kids up at 10:00 , got home put them to bed, except for Baby, who always stays up late, and I think with all of the excitement that night he had even more trouble going to sleep! :\

But we had a wonderful evening! Probably the most fun I’ve had in quite awhile. We talked, made jokes and laughed, and enjoyed each other. Definitely going to have to start doing that on more of a regular basis. It’s so easy to get lost in kid land and not connect as adults(although I think we acted more like a couple of kids…haha)

Learning to Swing x 2…..

This is supposed to be Wordless Wednesday, but I just had to write some words to this picture :)

My two older boys can now swing on their own! Nboy who is 6.5 just figured it out about a month ago, and now Ekid who is 3.5 just figured it out last week! So now I don’t have any kids running into the house when I’m in the middle of something saying “Mommy, can you push me?”  It’s a good feeling. At the same time it means my boys are growing more and more independent. Well, at least I’ve got one more little munchkin that will be asking me that very question once he’s of swinging age!

Out of hiding…

Well, I don’t know what to say. That’s been the problem lately, and why I haven’t posted anything. I just feel like I don’t have anything interesting to say, or like I’m wasting my time sitting here at this computer. I really hate that. I go along really good for awhile and then…BAM…. I’ve lost interest, or I’ve lost the motivation and I quit altogether, at least for awhile. I mean, how hard is it to just make a point to write even just 1 or 2 days a week?

So I’m blaming it on the fact that, well, yes, I am just an unorganized wreck, BUT,, It is really tough with 3 kids. Much tougher than with just two. 3’s a crowd? Yes,,, Yes it is. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my baby. He’s been a very good baby, it’s just I feel like I’ve been in a kind of survival mode ever since he was about 4 months old and started staying awake for longer periods during the day. The first few months were GREAT. He slept much of the time and so there were many times that it was like I only had two kids again :)  Now I feel like I just want to stop and not do anything until he is walking, sleeping all night in his own room and going to bed at least by 10pm!

Anyway, I know I could avoid at least feeling depressed by all this if I’d just prioritize and organize.  I’ve gotten a bit motivated by Allison O’s Tuesday post for her organization week at O My Family.

So Anyway, here I am again. I’ll give it another go….(but I’m not making any promises! :)

"Road of Life"