Melinda Beth - Melinda Beth

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I love being a mom! This is a blogumentary of me and my family of 8. There's me, my husband, and our 6 kids. We plan to live together a long time (forever!) These are the ages of our kids: Emily (7 1/2), Bradley (6), Sarah (4 1/2), Wendy (3), Jason (2), Rachel (10 months).

Monday, January 05, 2009

Name the States

Today David gave Emily an impromtu assignment to write as many US states that she could think of. This is her list:

1. Texas
2. Ideo
3. South Carelinena
4. North Carelinena
5. Nevada
6. Calefornya
7. Mane
8. Aleabama
9. Looeeeseana
10. Gorga
11. Vrgina
12. West Vrgina
13. New York
14. Codthrodo
15. Howhyye
16. Washington
17. Orgen
18. Floorda
19. Alsca
20. New Hamcer
21. Montanna
22. Ohio
23. Areizona
24. illinowy
25. New Mexio
26. Okelahomema

Now can you guess the state?

What did Santa Bring?

Is it totally lame to blog about Christmas on January 5th? I have to do it. It's one of my New Year's resolution. Here it is:

Santa must have thought is was lame to eat popcorn out of cookie dough containers. He gave us some real deal popcorn containers and some Goldfish for Bradley because Bradley doesn't like popcorn. And check out that giant candy cane! We hung it on our tree.

An ironing board for Emily.

The box doesn't tell the height of the toy. It goes up to Emily's knees, but she still liked it and now Mommy and Daddy don't have to watch her drool over it every week at Walmart.

Bradley got his well-wished for Zero Gravity Micro.

I was a little leary of him asking Santa for it, afraid that it might mark up my walls and ceiling. However, the thing is pretty cool. Good job, Santa! Bradley told me later that he wanted a red one, but I guess he didn't specify color to Santa. A lesson learned by a six year old - Santa needs details!

A Barbie head for Sarah.

When I see the thing out of the corner of my eye, I think it's a seventh kid. Her head is huge! (Barbie's head is huge, not Sarah's.)

Do you think she was excited?

A Royal Princes coach for Wendy.

I guess Santa couldn't find the Barbie Dream House that the other kids requested from Santa on behalf of Wendy on our December 23rd trip to see him. Santa must know you can never go wrong with Little People, especially princess Little People.

Stacking cups for Rachel.
It's a good thing Mommy and Daddy gave her a walking toy to help walk off that cheek chub.

A big bouncy ball for Jason.

Santa must have seen Jason play with Daddy's big exercise ball and thought he needed one of his own in toddler size. Jason liked his present, but I think he was more excited about the unregulated chocolate eating on Christmas morning. His goal was to eat as much chocolate as possible during the chaos before Mommy and Daddy set any limits.

One of the best gifts ever!

My parents gave me a removable shower head per my request. I can't believe I've been living without one of these things for the past 7 years! Bathtime is so much more enjoyable now. It sure beats rinsing kids with an old red plastic Pizza Hut cup.

The kids also got a bag of Marshmallows in their stocking. It was a hit with Rachel. You can see Jason in the background enjoying his chocolate.

It was a good Christmas! I was exhausted the whole day. I can't even imagine how exhausted Santa must be after a season like this!

Sunday, January 04, 2009

More Christmas Eve Pictures

Often when we meet strangers and they see all our kids and they'll make a comment such as, "Christmas must be fun at your house!"

Indeed it is!

This year, Mommy and Daddy did much of their Christmas shopping in the master bedroom closet. During our more prosperous times I've taken advantage of clearance and sale items and stashed them away for future gifts. This was the perfect year to clean out and gain some cubic square footage in the closet. I think the kids probably have even seen many of the toys that they received from us, but they didn't care. They were just happy to be able to get their hands on them. My sister thought it was tacky that I left the orange Target clearance price tags on them. But I don't think children ages 7 and under really care how much you spend on a gift.

Tradition in our house is that we open all gifts from each other on Christmas Eve. This year we also opened presents from David's parents that they left when they came for Thanksgiving.

My Little Pony ice cream truck for Wendy. That's actually Sarah, but you can pretend it's Wendy. They look similar.

Mega Block Truck from David's parents.

The four oldest kids got fishing poles from David's parents.

A mainstays clock for Mommy. I get a clock every year because I love clocks. The only rule is that it can't have roman numerals. I like American numbers.

A new toy for Rachel. Well...it's actually 7 years old and been used by 5 kids already, but it's new to Rachel. I cleaned it up.

Every girl needs new boots to go with her new pajamas. Total = $8.
Gotta love Walmart clearance sales!
(Clarification: You don't have to love Walmart, just its clearance sales.)

Sky Dancer Castle for Sarah.

I could've wrapped up trash for Rachel and she would've been happy.

David's annual uncirculated US coin collection.

Jason found a candy cane.

Santa's litte helper found a candy cane.

A family gift to Auntie - silhouette plaques of the kids that we made using a digital camera, Adobe photoshop, black paper, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, a little paint and some ribbon.

Family Photo before the festivities.

I didn't get very good pictures of Emily, Bradley, and Jason's gifts, but Emily got an easel and art supplies, Jason got a Little People boat and Bradley got a glockenspiel (we did buy that one this year because he wants to learn how to play it.) Music is big in our house.

The Gifts - December 24th

Here are the gifts that the kids gave each other:

To: Rachel

From: Sarah

A blanket. The fabric and ribbons were selected by Sarah.

To: Emily

From: Bradley

A Cat's Cradle and Other String Games manual and DVD and set of various sized strings. Daddy helped with this gift.

To: Bradley

From: Wendy

Walking stilts made from sand castle molds and clothesline string.

To: Sarah

From: Jason

A family of pet rocks.

Up close.

To: Wendy

From: Emily

12 Dancing Princess clothespin dolls.

I believe this is "Jennafee."

To: Jason

From: Rachel

An ABC mat. It also came with a bag of 26 small toys that each begin with a letter of the alphabet. Jason has the "w"histle around his neck.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

One of the best parts of motherhood.

I walk in the room.
I find this.
I grab my camera.

I love that Sarah. I also love Jason's little jig at about 1 minute 03 seconds.

(And I will admit I was the one playing Milli Vanilli. I've been experiencing some 80's nostalgia.)

He gets credit for trying

Tonight when we got home from the grocery store Bradley walked into the house without any shopping bags. I said, "Really, Bradley? You're not going to be a contributing member of the family and help bring groceries inside?" Then he went outside to the van and I checked my email. I knew there were some plastic grocery bags with potato chips or bread that I knew he could carry.

According to his testimony, a bag with a gallon of milk fell out when the door of the van opened. I think I should've let him carry out his plan to barge inside and be a useless 6 six year old. But then I wouldn't have gotten to take this picture of $3.68 and Rachel's breakfast spilling down the driveway. It's a good thing Santa brought Rachel a can of formula for Christmas.

Friday, January 02, 2009

New Year Resolutions

1. Finish blogging about Christmas, New Years, and the days in between.
2. Read my scriptures every day and don't forget to say a morning prayer. (...and I wonder why some of my days fall apart so quickly.)
3. Read the entire Friend Magazine to my children each month.
4. Get a new bath rug for outside the master bathroom shower. (I would post a picture of why I want a new one, but I'm too lazy to go upstairs and snap a picture.)
5. Clean my shower on a monthly basis instead of a semi-annual basis.
6. Hold fast to the saying, "Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without." (Except regarding #4 because if I "do without" it will wreck my floors.)
7. Have a baby. (Or get pregnant.)
8. Reluctantly read Twilight.
9. Sew more.
10. 100% Visiting Teaching
11. Potty train Jason.
12. Buy some good razors.
13. Fix my bedroom dimmer switch that I overloaded and melted by running a hair dryer in the light plug to dry my quilt that I spot cleaned today.
14. Be a better neighbor.
15. Learn 2 more hymns on the piano.
16. Find joy in the journey.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year!

I know I have a lot of catching up to do with holiday blogging. I've had company since December 21st and I'm not very good at multi tasking. The company is now gone and I am going to work on it tonight. But for now here is a good song to bring in the new year:

Friday, December 26, 2008

Catching up on the past week

Ok. Time to get busy with some catching up.

Sunday
My parents and sister arrived. Kids went crazy. We took naps. We cracked pecans. David and I spent 2 hours wrapping presents while my parents and sister watched the kids.

Monday
I am 8 weeks pregnant and noticed some bleeding. Went to the doctor and ultrasound showed a yolk sac, but no baby. It measured me at 4 weeks pregnant. Apparently the pregnancy stopped progressing which explains why I wasn't having morning sickness the past two weeks. (I thought I was going to get lucky for once and be one of those pregnant ladies that says, "I love being pregnant!") It's been my second early pregnancy loss in the past couple of months. Here are my theories:

Theory 1) Stress - either from unemployment, or the holidays, or both? Anyway, I was sad about not being pregnant anymore at first, but I am totally ok with it now because I've got six kids and this may be mother nature's way of telling me, "You've got your hands full, GIRL!" I read about a study on mice that were exposed to noise in early pregnancy. It found that high levels of noise affected their hormone balance and they were more likely to miscarry. If that is true for humans, then it looks as if six kids is our stopping point, unless my husband sends me away on a quiet vacation during the first trimester until the placenta takes over the whole hormone thing - because our house is ALWAYS noisy!

Theory 2) My husband is shooting blanks.

Theory 3) The angels in heaven can't seem to find a premortal spirit willing to volunteer to be a seventh child in our family for whatever reason. So just in case heaven reads blogs - "Don't you worry spirit babies! You're Daddy will get a job soon. I promise we can feed you. Come on babies... Come to Mommy! Don't let the noise bother you."

On the bright side, I get to spend the next 3 months as I let a couple cycles run their course to get my house in order, do a little feng shui -ing, have a yard sale, and get ready for baby #7. We are going to shoot for a December baby so we can get another tax deduction for 2009. AND if I conceive in March to produce a December baby, the Chinese lunar calendar says there's a 99% chance it will be a boy which is good because we need some more testosterone in this house. This spontaneously aborted yolk sac was scheduled to be a girl.

Later that day we baked cookies. It was a very cold day!

Tuesday
My brother and his family came to visit. We ate. We exchanged gifts. We went to the Festival of Lights. Talk about STRESS!!! This is an event where we kill three birds with one stone. We get to see the lights, ride the train and talk to Santa. It avoids a whole trip over to the mall across town to stand in line to talk to Santa and be pressured to buy a low quality picture for way too much money. You're allowed to take your own pictures at the Festival of Lights. I don't stress about what the kids wear because it's outdoors and it's an authentic visit for the kids to tell Santa what they want. Well, this year, we bought tickets to ride the train as soon as we arrived at the park. They give you a train time when you purchase your tickets. Ours was 9:30 PM and we were supposed to be there 10 minutes early. We went to stand in line to see Santa at 8:50 PM. The timing seemed to be perfect. But then Santa had to go pee at 9:05. Come on Santa! Can't you just hold it for just 10 more minutes??? I saw his Santa suit and could tell this was not going to be a quick trip to the bathroom. We stood there debating whether we should stay or head over to the train. We decided to stay. Finally he finished his potty break and on his way back he dawdled and talked to kids in line. Come on Santa!!! We are in a hurry!!! I told my kids to shout to him what they wanted in case we didn't make it to his lap. Of course they didn't and we continued to wait in line. Everyone in front of us seemed to take their merry 'ole time talking to him. I even asked the lady in front of me if they would kindly let us go ahead of them, but when she took a look at all of our kids, she said. "No. Sorry." Finally at 9:25 we made it to his lap. I told the kids to hurry. I snapped this picture:

It looks like daytime, but it's actually night. There were just really bright lights.

Then we booked it over to the train station. I ran with Emily while holding Rachel, David pushed the double stroller with Wendy in it, my sister ran holding Sarah, and Bradley ran while pushing Jason in the umbrella stroller. We made it in the nick of time. I had forgotten that my watch was 2 minutes fast.The conductor didn't look too happy that we arrived last minute, but it all worked out and we got to see Santa and ride the train. It was a lot of fun. It got the adrenaline going.

Wednesday - Christmas Eve
5:30 AM - Our great idea of putting a Christmas tree on a sturdy black table, turned out to be not such a great idea. My sister was sleeping in the room that the tree was in and witnessed the event half asleep. I heard a soft voice at my bedroom door say, "Melinda, your tree just fell." I don't think my sister's voice represented how her heart felt at the moment. I am disappointed in myself that I didn't get a picture of the lifeless tree lying on the floor of the family room still in its stand securely bungeed strapped to the black table. I couldn't find my camera at the moment and I was worried about the gallon of rusty, dirty water that was surely soaking my carpet. I was also worried about my favorite chocolate chip cookie ornament that my grandmother gave us a few years ago. But these pictures I did get:

All the adults in the house worked hard to get the tree back upright, unwrap and dry the soaked presents. Luckily only 3 ornaments broke. My chocolate chip cookie ornament survived. We got rid of the table and now have a squatty tree and we have revealed to the neighbors that we have been deceiving them the past three weeks. I still don't know what caused it to fall. I have my theories, but whatever, it's fixed and all is well. We finished the ordeal at sunrise and went back to bed. I'm just glad it didn't happen Christmas morning.

Later that day David and I got to wrap about 20 presents all over again. Yippeee!!! Later that day we also got to redecorate the Christmas tree. I've always wanted to trim a tree on Christmas Eve.

We opened presents from each other. Pictures coming soon...

Thursday - Christmas Day
I think I'll write about that tomorrow. All of this reliving the past is making me tired.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!

Just so you know, it's not my fault that I haven't blogged since Saturday. Blogger hasn't been working for me and now I am WAY TOO TIRED to blog. Updates later....

Hope y'all had a very Merry Christmas!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

It clicked with Bradley the other day. He said, "Mommy, I get it! He's dreaming of a white Christmas because he wants it to snow."

"That's right, Bradley." Then I realized my son has never seen snow before.

Then he asked, "But, Mommy, what's a blue Christmas?"

He's also still trying to figure out why people get a Santa metal feeling when they hear voices singing. "Let's be jolly; deck the halls with balls of holly."

Friday, December 19, 2008

It's Crunch Time

I know. I know. I know. I'm a lame-o blogger. It's crunch time before Christmas. I realized today that I forgot to buy a present for Emily. I have homemade hot chocolate mix all over my kitchen floor and counter, we ate Taco Bell for dinner, I still have to help Wendy and Jason make presents for their chosen sibling (who's idea was it to make gifts for each other?) Anyway, I didn't take a single picture today. I have one more day before my family arrives for the holidays. I have toilets to clean, groceries to shop for, presents to wrap, cold weather to hope for (it's supposed to be in the 40's on Monday. Woo hoo!) I love the hustle and bustle of Christmas. Although, I do look foward to sitting and relaxing and looking at my tree.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Jingle Bells

The ward talent show was a success. Emily played Silent Night on the piano. Bradley played Joy to the World on the piano without shouting at anyone, and Emily, Bradley and Sarah played Jingle Bells on what else but the bells. Here's a clip. It would've been a perfect performance, but Bradley put the bells in the wrong hands. I was proud of his swift recovery.

Christmas decoration of the day:

I love my candles in the windows. I began the tradition a few years ago. I went on a hunt to find electric candles and found some at AC Moore. At the time they weren't selling them at Walmart or Target. I was super happy. We live on a corner so we have two sides of a house to cover which includes 11 candles. I put them on timers so I wouldn't have to unplug them all each night. The past couple of years I've bought some spares on clearance after Christmas so this year I gave my next door neighbor the pleasure of looking at some on that side of the house.

However, this has happened 4 too many times this season as a result of curious hands and clumsiness. So now I'm out of spare bulbs.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Talent show rehearsals.

Tomorrow night is our ward Christmas party/talent show. Tonight Bradley was practicing Joy to the World on the piano. He was getting very angry at Sarah for singing along.

Bradley: SARAH, STOP SINGING!!!!

He dramatically throws himself to the ground in frustration. I enter the room to help mediate.

Me: Bradley, don't get so angry. Sarah, sometimes when people sing while you're playing the piano it can be distracting.

She understands and obeys. Bradley resumes. Emily begins singing while sitting on the toilet in the nearby bathroom. Sarah predicts that Bradley will get angry and walks toward the bathroom.

Sarah: Emily, you shouldn't sing while somebody is playing the com-piano because it can be distracting.

Me: Sarah, when are you going to start calling it a piano?

I thought yesterday Jason was irresistably cute. Today is a better representation of what he normally looks like. Today he wanted everybody to know that he's wearing Sprockets clothing. He pulled his shirt out of the dirty clothes hamper this morning. I never bothered to change him into a clean shirt, but I like the idea of wearing a shirt two days in row - one day right side out, the other day inside out. Less laundry! (Don't worry, I would've put a clean shirt on him if we went out today, but we didn't go out.)

Monday, December 15, 2008

Santa's SWEETshop

We made some Christmas treats today. We made 80 chocolate covered Ritz Cracker peanut butter sandwiches.

Notice Jason observing his older sister.

Notice Jason mimicking his older sister.

1.5 lbs. of Almond Bark Chocolate covers 40 sandwiches. We had 26 naked sandwiches left and another package of Almond Bark Chocolate. Emily's word problem of the day: If we have 26 naked peanut butter sandwiches and need a total of 40 to dress in chocolate, how many more naked peanut butter sandwiches do we need to make? Answer: 14. So we did and of course the kids argued over who who got to sprinkle the sprinkles, that it wasn't fair that so and so sprinkled more cookies, that Bradley wasn't sprinkling them right, and whether or not these are actually considered "cookies."

He didn't sneeze on them. He didn't even touch them. He just looked. My original plan did not include Jason in the treat making process. However, he woke up early from his nap. I think he probably thought he died and went to heaven when I let him lick the chocolate covered fork (after we were finished making the treats.) I think Super Nanny would maybe consider that a reward for waking up early. Whoops!

But I couldn't resist. I'm a sucker at Christmastime.

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