Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my mom's birthday. She has to work.  Its NOT fun to work on your birthday.  But she will be working hard as a nurse all day.  My mom is pretty special to me.  We talk on the phone atleast once a day and occasionally more than once on the weekends or her day off.  We go shopping together and sometimes get groceries together.  And the last 5 years or so we have made a special point to go Christmas Shopping together w/out kids.  She is pretty special to me and my family.  Garrett, Maddison, & Owen LOVE her because she lets them cook w/her.  (did I mention she has patience???) Mom is so willing to babysit too whenever and wherever.  She has sewed her fare share of Halloween costurmes for her kids and grandkids.  She has given up a lot to give us kids what we needed. I thank God for her everyday when I call her to ask about the kids snotty noses and fevers.  Or how to not strangle one of the kids after a day gone bad.  Or just to talk about nothing. 

When dad and her got married they moved away from her family (in South Dakota) and moved closer to dad's family.  I know it was hard, especially after having kids.  She was more than just a 30 minute drive away from her mom.  Yes, she could phone, but its not the same. 

I am so thankful that my mom is close and that we are close.  I LOVE YOU MOM.  Hope your day is a good one!

TWO WORDS

Mother's Intuition........

I'm writing this now and I don't really have time, but my "mother's intuition" tells me I need to share this and do it now, or I will put it off and I won't share.  Surely someone out there in blog world needs to hear this!!!!

I think that Mother's Intuition is HIGHLY UNDER-RATED.  Some say over protective, OCD, etc...I think its called being a mom.  And right now "this" mom is kinda mad. 

Mad at two people: my youngest and MYSELF.

My Motherly Intution kept telling me for 15 minutes. Here is the conversation

Owen do you need to go the bathroom?  NO

Owen do you need to go potty?  NO

Owen do you need to go poop? NO

Owen why are you dancing? DANCE, DANCE

Owen why don't you go potty for me?  You can get stickers?  NO

This is where I repeat ALL about 2 more times.  AND I KNOW BETTER THAN TO EVEN DO THIS!  I KNOW YOU SHOULD JUST TAKE THE KID...But oh no, I just kept doing my thing.  Which I'm embarrassed to say was my new wii fit plus game I purchased this weekend.  I know, I know, that is a totally different post.

Anyway....my mothers intution said I think he has to go.  But I didn't listen.  So I hop in shower.  I kid you not..not more than 30 seconds later, right in the middle of my shampoo and soaping, do I smell something like you would not believe and a SCREAMING child in the bathroom telling me he went "POOOOOOOP".  

I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT...

So here is my advice:

#1-A mothers intutition is right about 99.999%  of the time.  So follow it.

#2-Take the 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minutes, 5 minutes or even 10 minutes or even longer to set your child on the pot w/a book, toy or something and let the kid do his thing.

3.  Doing number one and two while listening to the child scream over and over that they don't have to go is waaaaay better than:

a.-Cleaning poop out of underwear

b.  Wiping toliet seat, side and ring after you put them on it, only to find out its worse than you thought.

c.  Cleaning them in the shower

d. Listen to them scream again becuase they couldn't "play" in the shower longer

e.  Washing the underwear, towels, clothes and bath mat.

WHILE GAGGING THE ENTIRE TIME. 

Trust me when I say that GOD gave us a children for a reason and the intution to go with it.  So

 7 minutes of singing, playing, and disinfecting one toy or book is A MILLION TIMES BETTER than ANY of the above.

ok..so I feel better now, plus the washing machine just "dinged" at me. Time to put another load in!  I told you it was bad!!!!!

Not so much

So things have been fairly relaxed this week.  Or maybe I should say I have been making them very relaxed.  That's code for I haven't done a DARN thing.  Oh well..there is always tomorrow. 

On Sunday it finally warmed up enough that we could go sledding for more than 5 minutes w/out freezing. 

Garrett break dancing on the pond.  I think it was more he couldn't stand up for more than 2 seconds w/out falling down.

Garrett pushing maddie on the ice.  She was a little nervous on the pond..

I will say I was a litle nervous as well.  I knew it was not going to break, but STILL.  Where there big cracks in the pond, we could see it was atleast a foot thick, but STILL.  So we didn't stay too long  out there.

and THAT is what we have been doing.  Not a whole lot.  Today its warmer and feels so good to have sun shining on my face. 

I should clean the mudroom, BUT its a muddy lake outside, and it will just get dirty again, so think I will wait.  (nice excuse huh?)

Sale Barn Day

Yesterday (Tues) we sold our spring calves. Owen loves the sale barn.  He actually sat on Brent's lap for about 2 hours and then wandered between Grandpa Derald, Grandma Debbie and myself.  Our calves sold about an hour earlier than I thought, so that was good.  He didn't have to sit too long.  We have sat longer.  He was enthralled w/the BIG BLACK BULLS! That kept him guessing about what would come into the ring next!

MMMMM. Wonder which calves look best to buy?

mmmm.  I think THAT one!

I am always a little nervous about any hand gestures-don't want to end up buying something...

Doing a little diggin' -Hey we were at the sale barn. I've seen worse!

He had to write down the number, weight, and price just like Grandpa and Daddy!

Yep...they sold Good!

Wind Again

I like living in the country.  Really I do.  I LOVE where we live.  Pretty central location even for the country.  I love my house...but really!  Wind blowing 30 miles w/snow blowing again.  UGHGGGGHHHHHH.  To be honest, layed down to take a quick little cat nap. Things were calm.  Not so much when I woke up.  Must have slept a bit longer than planned!!!

I'm really fighting the urge to repost AGAIN Mexico Trip Pics.  Why make myself suffer?

Christmas Present

I got my Christmas Present FINALLY in the mail yesterday.  Its NOT the red hot mixer.  My mixer is the industrial gray/black.  Quite cool too, if you ask me.  No the gift is the handy little white thing.  The thing slices and shredds in 4 different sizes.  I used the coarse shredder size last night for cheese.  I shredded 2 blocks of cheese in about 30 seconds.  COOL.  I got a little "high" off of that.  Oh the things that I can do.  I MIGHT try potatoes tonight.  Altough my family is not a real big fried potatoe or hasbrown family.  Its not the potatoes its the fact that I don't drowned them in oil! Or all the zuchini from the garden this summer?  Oh this so beats the hand greater..I got my present.. yah,yah, yah!  Thank you to my hubby for thinking of me.( even if you did order Dec. 23!)

Update

Well....its been almost a week since we were promised a "credit" at NFM.  I also told you I wasn't going to get my hopes until I receieved the letter.  I've been holding my breath. 

TAAA-DAAAAA - IT came in the mail today!  All said and true we have our credit. Woo Hoooooo.  Now I can do some serious research and thinking on what it is that we need...

I forgot to mention in the last post, we were able to "buy" back our "old" furniture from Guardsman.  Meaning that when NFM delivers our new stuff they don't take the "old" away...so on top of all of this we get to keep our orginial pieces for a small price.  Going to try and get the stain out myself.  I was hesitant to try anything before we had all paperwork, in case they decided to try to clean it after all.

So if I can get the stain out, not sure where the credit will go.  But so excited of the possibilities!