Oh, Baby.

  In February, Daylon started to whine and complain about anything we were doing that was holding him back from being like the older four. One of which, was his booster seat. He couldn't be without it because he's just too dang short, so we opted for removing the tray and pushing him up to the table. A couple of days later, I left Daylon at the table while I ran upstairs to get the wipes. I came down to this....

He's a crazy boy, but we love him!

A magician, a comedian and a miner rolled into one

   I have five kids. That's common knowledge I know, but my point is that I have enough kids to know that although I think my kids are strikingly beautiful,  future Nobel Prize winners (yes, all five of them) and Olympians, with such wonderful comedic timing we're considering a move to Vegas, I also know that EVERY parent thinks this of their kid, thus making my kids appear ordinary to them.
    
   Soooo, basically I'm saying this is our blog and I'm about to bore you with a story. Haha

   So that this kid can show his/her face again in public, I won't identify which kid I'm talking about. Anyway, last night this kid was putting on a magic show for us and the particular trick this kid had mastered was making little tile shapes disappear. The "re-appearing" sometimes took a minute but tiles always reappeared. From my seat it looked like she (okay, okay. It's one of the girls. Geesh you guys are good) put them behind her back, I assumed putting them on the table she stood up against. OK, so each kid took a turn showing off their talent ( I use this word loosely) of magic.

  Well, this girl told her siblings that they weren't very good at magic like her because she could always see where the object they made "disappear" was.
   I whispered to her, "You need to be nice. Don't think I didn't see you put the tiles behind you." (yes, I'm that kind of mom)
   To which she replied, "Yeah, I know, but I REALLY DID make one disappear!!"
    I laughed, "Oh, you think so?"
    "Yeah, Mom! I really did! I reached in my butt crack to get it and I couldn't find it! I had to say the magic words again until I finally found it!"


  OH. MY. GOSH.

  I'm so proud. A magician, a comedian and a miner rolled into one.
 
  

Not to be rude but...

   Dear Summer,
  
   Thanks to you I have enjoyed many Bar-B-Ques, refreshing dips in a pool, bon fires, sunburn tans and water fights. "Beach" goes hand in hand with "Summer" and tell me, how could that possibly be a bad thing? But the thing is... it's mid-October. It's not supposed to be over 100 degrees... well, really ever but especially not on October 13th. Don't take this the wrong way, but go away.  Please don't come back until July...at the earliest.


                                                    

Welcome to my life...

• 6:45am- Get up, wake four older kids
• Go downstairs to wear I laid out their pressed, complete outfits on the couch the night before
• Remind them to get dressed why I get their hair stuff out
• Start breakfast
• Remind them to get dressed again
• Go in the living room and start doing hair
• Finish dressing the slackers
• Do the last of the hair
• Serve breakfast while I run up to get showered and dressed
• Load 4 kids in the car and then run up to get the baby.
• Change his diaper and dress him while he screams
• Carry screaming baby and IV pole to the car
• Find a place to park which is A. NIIIIIIGHT. MARE.
• Pull out the stroller, pull out kids
• push double stroller with IV pole a block or two to the school
• wait for it to be 8:50 so the Kindergarten teacher will open the gate (no recess before school. I know.    
•      Dumb, right!?)
• Walk Keira to the elementary school gate (she starts later)
• Walk the twins down the block to preschool
• Hike back to the car
• Target with Daylon and his IV pole
• Drive home
• Load of dishes. Load of laundry
• Pick up twins from school
• Go home, give twins lunch
• Drive to school, park, unload stroller
• Walk to get Caleb
• Walk back
• Go home
• Unhook Daylon's machine and put him down for a nap
• Help Caleb with homework.
• Drive back to school to get Keira
• stroller, walking, waiting in the chaos for my turn to get my kid (all kids stay with their teacher until they are released. They have this hand off program at their school. Good on cutting down chances of kidnapping, but I tend to have claustrophobic issues by the time we leave from all the pushing and shoving...by the parents! The 100+ degree temps lately don't help the cranky factor)
• Sit in traffic to leave the parking lot. School gets out at 3:12, we're in the car by 3:25 but not out of the parking lot until around 3:45. Crazy.
• Get Keira going on homework
• Start get Caleb moving in soccer clothes
• Throw something...anything in a crockpot or stove for dinner
• Pack up blankets and kids and drive to practice
• Sit at practice for 2 hours trying to keep the 3 younger kids entertained and Keira from getting distracted from her homework
• Have Keira start on homework again (she has about 3 hours of homework every night! Pages and pages and pages)
• Finish dinner
• Serve dinner and by this time it's 8:30 at night
• PJs
• Brian's home! FINALLY!!!!!!!!
• Scripture time

As we are starting to kneel for family prayer....at almost 10pm on a school night...

Violet- Is that it? Is our day over?
Me - Yeah.
Violet pouting- Hmp! That's not fair! We didn't even do anything today!

Really? Really??

Ah. Kids. You gotta love 'em!....You do don't you?

                 

The jellybean game

Fourth of July weekend was the "Gallo Family Reunion" (my mom's side). We have a disgusting game that we play whenever we all get together. It's pretty funny to play, my tummy can never handle it well. Basically, we play "Knock" aka "31" with a few slight changes. If you knock and you are the lowest at the table, you eat two jellybeans. If you're just the lowest at the table, then you eat one jellybean. So I know what you're thinking...What kind of punishment is eating a jellybean, right? Well, these jellybeans aren't just any jellybeans. They're a equally mixed jelly belly beans and Harry Potter jelly bellies. The Harry Potter beans have lovely flavors like vomit, boogers, dog food, soap, pencil shavings, rotten eggs and moldy cheese--just to name a FEW!!  I have to admit that it is pretty enjoyable to watch someone reach in and blindly grab out a jellybean and then watch their facial expression to see if it was cherry or centipede. I enjoyed taking pictures all week by pictures are some of the funniest (in my opinion, anyway) of the reunion.  Believe it or not, there were 15 or so of us playing, but it seemed like the same few people kept having to eat beans! Enjoy!

He blew dog food in her face

She threw up after this picture

That would be me trying not to vomit while eating rotten egg. Yup. Good times.

"PEACH!"

T.G.I.F.

 Like most wives, I can say that my husbands driving makes me nervous at times. To be honest though, he's either getting better and maturing with age or I'm getting used to it, because he rarely scares me. In the last eight years that I've known him, Brian has not had a single moving violation or accident. Not too shabby, right?
    
Tuesday- he backed into an illegally parked car trying to avoid my brother's illegally parked car. Go figure. Oh, and it was in my beautiful van! (sniff, sniff) :) It had to happen eventually, so whatchagonna do?

Wednesday came and went on and everything was peach keen.

Thursday you ask? Well, he decided to top himself and rear end a PORSCHE on the way to work. The good news? No one was hurt. The better news (totally kidding) is that we can FINALLY get a new car. I've been begging Brian for an upgrade (it's his car) for the last several years but he wanted to drive that old clunker until it stopped. Boo! That thing is as ugly as they get. I'll I'm asking is for a car that has been made in the last 15 years. ;)

Thursday night, on his way home from Walmart he was pulled over in the van and given a ticket for having a broken head light. Luckily, he was at Walmart to buy a new head light so it was written up as a warning.

What a week!

Good-bye Wawanesa. We will miss your ultra affordable insurance rates.

What in the world!?!?

Do you ever clean your house and find something that you never even knew you had? You kind of look at it and wonder, "Where in the world did this come from?". For me, this happens from time to time. It's typically some small Happy Meal type toy or other junk that the kids have welcomed into the house to join the things I need to clean.

The other day I asked the kids to pick up all the toys they had out so we could get going. Ten minutes later I come back in the room to see that while they are clean, they are taking their sweet time doing it and since we're in a rush to get out the door, I decide to start helping. I grabbed the bucket and began throwing action figures and other small odd ball characters into it. Two handfuls in and I find this toy

Okay, this is new.  So weird, creepy baby lost in thought doll. Am I right? I'm thinkin', "Man, he's ugly. Who actually thought he was cute enough to buy?" and then throw him in the bucket. As he falls, face first, I notice something else about him...

it gets better...

Why? Oh, why! Is this disgusting doll in our house?! No one knows where he came from and now my kids think he's too cool to keep him from where I want him to go. Ah. The joys of being a mother.