March LDS Blog Train: The 6 B's

Howdy girls. And Howdy LDS Blog Train-ers! Usually, for a blog train, I post at the top, and let the blog hoppers off easy. Well, not today - hehe. You're gonna have to work for your freebie! And read all about my crazy day as a stay at home mom to 5 kids and army wife (to a deployed soldier). Oh yeah, I know you're ALL just so excited about that one :)

I woke up a little before 7am, and, of course, hit snooze a few times. I said my prayers, and hurried out to get the kids dressed and fed and ready and out the door by 7:35am. We even remember family prayer! I think. We did, right? Crap. Now I can't remember - hehe.

I totally tried to go back to sleep for about 20 minutes after the kids left, but yeah, I kept getting interrupted by Jim and Jake, so I figured that it was time to bit the bullet and get up. Hmpf! I was sleepy!

I printed out my shopping list, went through it and decided what I needed/what I had, and got ready to go and grocery shop. And while I was as the commissary, I picked up a baby shower gift for my friend Karin. Some of the girls and I were taking her to lunch today, since we'd missed her baby shower.

See, groceries. Cause it takes a lot of food to feed a family of 6.

And after the commissary, I drove over to the Dollar Tree, and chatted with my mom on my Blue Tooth the whole way. And she shopped with me at the Dollar Tree. And Sonic. I went to Sonic first. Cause my friend Paige had told me that it was $0.99 Rt 44 day at Sonic! Sa-weet! I went through the drive thru, and was like, Um, are your Rt 44's on sale today??? hehe. Luckily, they were! Hello DDP!!!
I grabbed some yummy bread from Dollar Tree, and a baby shower gift bag and tissue, and headed home. And unloaded the truck, and got the present all together, and by the time that was all done, I didn't have time to shower. But I did have time to fix my hair and put on new make up!

And got Jim all ready for the bus, and headed out. I already needed a refill of my soda - LOL! He finished off the rest of my can for me. How helpful, huh? hehe.

Yummy Banana bread for his teacher and his bus drive :)

And then I came back home, and was all ready for the baby shower. I made sure that Jake was good to go (I told him if he just did Social Studies and one other class, I'd reset his schedule tomorrow. He needed part of a sick day, at least...), primped a little bit more, and off I went with Laurie and the girls!


We drove over to pick up Karin. And Rowan and I had fun taking pictures in the car while Laurie helped Karin :)
He was gonna stay with Jake (since he's not contagious anymore), but Rowan had a bit of an upset tummy, and Laurie didn't want Jake to have to deal with that, so he came to lunch with us :)
It was a lot of fun at lunch. Kari and Karin and Maggie and Laurie and I. At Applebees. Here's Kari and Karin.
And my yummy Shrimp and Spinach salad like I like to get. I forgot to order the dressing on the side. Oops :)

We stayed chatting for quite a while, then all headed back home. I got home around 1:45pm, I think. And Jake and I were gonna watch a show together, but he expressed interest in re-arranging the dining room to move the computers around. So we did that instead. And yeah, it took FOREVER! But it looks better in there.

Where the bookshelves used to be, there's now 3 computer desks. And the bookshelves are where the computer desks used to be. hehe. Kinda flip flopped. Now I just have to hang the pictures up again, because my walls look naked - ROFL!

The hardest part was moving the bookshelves. Because I had to take down ALL the books before I moved it. Because they're not made out of real wood. Cheap bookshelves. Jake said that I needed to invest in solid wood bookshelves. Maybe so, my dear. But not this year. hehe. I did pop a few more nails into the back of one of the bookshelves that was tipping. You know the one, Captain America. It looks a lot better now.

And I took a break to go and pick up Jim from the bus, then back to work. We got all the books put away, and all the stuff on the floor swept into 3 piles. Living room pile (for Tom to clean), Dining room pile (for Jake to clean), and Kitchen pile (for Eme to clean).

And then Joe got home from the bus, and I had to leave to go and pick up Tom and Eme. I left Jake in charge, and out I went. I grabbed Tom and Eme from AQ, and they said that they wanted to quit. So I asked them why. Because "I need more play time after school" or "I'm tired of exercising" isn't a good enough answer - LOL.

They said that all of the people they think are fun joined Spring Soccer, and the only people left are rude and NOT nice at all. OK, I can handle that reason. I don't like hanging out with lame and rude people either. You can quit. We're gonna try and get the kids in Spring Baseball here real soon, anyway.

AND, as a special treat, I decided to go and buy the kids Happy Hour drinks. Mostly because I'd ran out, and needed more - ha! But we can go with the "I'm a nice mom" story. It sounds better :)

So off to Sonic we headed. And pulled into the little car slot, and pushed the button, and waited. And waited. And pushed the button. And waited. And waited. Yeah, I'm thinking that one didn't work. So we backed out, and did the drive thru. Oh well, at least we finally got it right. We got a Rt 44, Diet Dr Pepper, easy ice, and 5 small watermelon slushies for $3.76. Not too bad, huh?




And then off to home. I had the kids try and do as much of their chores as they could. But we had short time to work with. I had top pack a sack dinner for Babysitting class (last one of the course, and on Monday instead of Tuesday), and had the other kids change for the pool. It was kind of a whirl wind at the house.

At 5:50pm, we headed out. Jake was gonna stay home, since he was still feeling a little weak. And we drove by Laurie's house to pick up her daughter, Elise. But they weren't ready yet, so off Tom and I and the little kids headed. I dropped off Tom, then the rest of us headed to the pool. And Kari was there to chat with, for about 15 minutes. Then she had to go take Leo to soccer practice.

So I pulled out my Laptop, and got one pack designed, and some more friends came. Karin was there, and so was Laurie. So I visited with the girls, and then Kari came back too. It really was a fun evening at the pool.

Laurie's daughter, Katya, wanted me to take a picture of her jumping in the water. Yeah, I was a little slow - ha!


We headed home a few minutes before 7pm. And got some dinner going. I was totally gonna cook spaghetti for dinner. I even had the meat defrosted. And the kids begged for Ramen. Yeah, I'm SO not gonna argue with a dinner that they can theoretically cook themselves.... So it was Ramen night :) hehe.

I had my cheese sandwich, cucumber, and apple, and got ready for Family Home Evening. At around 7:45pm, we turned on the Video Phone, and had it with my parents. We learned about prayer, and when was good to pray. Although it's good to pray always, and always have a prayer in our hearts, there's some decisions that Heavenly Father expects us to make for our own. Like what to eat for dinner. Or what movie to pick to watch that night. Or what's the fastest route across town. Those kinds of things. He gave us intelligence to use.

So we talked about situations that it would be good to pray about. Like a big family decision. Or about a problem at home or school. Or after finishing reading the Book of Mormon. Or if a friend had a question about what we believed, and we needed help with an answer. Those kinds of things. I think it was well received.

I wanted them to know that they COULD go to Heavenly Father for any question or concern that they had, no matter how big or small, but that Heavenly Father trusted them enough to make the little decision by themselves. Does that even make sense? hehe. It flowed SO much better during Family Home Evening.

We had a song, and a prayer, and a scripture, and were done. My mom said that she'd made refreshments, and that it was air. And blew into the camera. Ha! Good one, mom! Luckily, I had ice cream in the freezer, and dished it up for the kids. And I had a frozen chocolate sugar free pudding. SO tasty. Then I put the kids to bed, made Jake and Tom clean for a bit, then we watched an episode of Chuck.

And I started on a project for Scrapbookgraphics, and then my blog. And here it is, 11:09pm. I think I may have gotten distracted by Facebook a bit. Oops. Oh well. I'm done now. And sleepy. I have another big day tomorrow. Swimming in the morning, then counseling session, then babysitting Charlotte's little kids, then library after school, then Girls Night Out! Yeah, I love my life. hehe :) Aside from the fact that my hubby is deployed to a foreign country and I'm here with 5 kids by myself. Except for THAT part, I'm LOVING life - hehe :)

Oh yeah, and one last thing..... Laundy man is BACK!

OK, and now, as your reward for re-living every moment of my day (ha!), the freebie :) AND, you can click HERE to go to Dora's site for the next stop in the LDS Blog Train!

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG files (zip), and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Awe, she's SO sweet! Love the layout, Sharon!