Fake Family

Have you ever met my Fake family? No? Really? They are pretty amazing. If I do say so myself :)

Let me tell you something about them..

My Fake children ALWAYS wash their hands, and sing the abc song while doing so, after each and every trip to the bathroom. They always rinse out the sink and leave no traces of toothpaste in the sink after brushing their teeth. Which they do after every meal. They have the prettiest pearly whites one ever did see :)

They never fight, or squabble. No yelling and screaming is ever heard from the upstairs bedroom where all 4 girls share a room. There is never any hair pulling or scratching or biting. Never.

They don't swing from the rafters and use the couch as their landing pad. They would never do that. The couch would break. And they would have to prop up the corner of the couch with leftover hardwood flooring boards. And that would just never work with my Fake family. Swinging from the rafters is unheard of in my Fake family.

My Fake daughters always wear skirts and their hairs are always braided. My Fake daughters would never have a problem with, ahem, acne. NEVER! Because everyone knows a fake family has NO blemishes...

My Fake son always wears a button down shirts and has his hair trimmed weekly to give him that clean cut look that all Fake families have. And my Fake son would never make himself and his baby sister a homemade bow and arrows. Because my Fake son cherishes life and abhors violence. ( And yes, in my Fake family we use words like 'abhor'.)

My Fake children would never think it is funny to terrorize the dog and make him bark and bug their big sisters while doing school. My fake children always sit quietly, with their feet on the floor and in absolute silence while doing their schoolwork. And did you get the memo? They are all 5 entered into the National spelling bee? I know. Amazing isn't it??? That Fake family of mine are AMAZING spellers!!!

My Fake children never EVER go mattress surfing down the stairs. Or jump off the roof into the snow. And Fake Shanan would never remind them to "make sure you are jumping where the snow is deep enough". My Fake children never leave their chores undone. And when visitors stop by? They always sit quietly and do not interrupt the conversation. They sit quietly and do embroidery and study geography in their spare time.

And on Sunday mornings my fake family is up early and we have a nice breakfast together and I do the girls' hair in fancy braids or the latest fashionable trendy hair do and Little Brothers hair is always combed and presentable with no cowlicks. The girls all wear long skirts and matching blouses. Little Brothers shirts are always neatly pressed with not a wrinkle in sight. And we make it to church without a hair out of place. My Fake family would never be seen scrambling around on a Sunday morning trying to find a shirt without missing buttons, and Fake Shanan would never be heard yelling at the children that they all overslept and they only have 15 minutes to be up and in the truck for church. No. Not my fake family.

Fake Handsome Hubby leads the family in devotions every morning before leaving for work and Fake Shanan always has a hot breakfast ready for her family when they wake up at 0' dark thirty to start their day.

Did you know Fake Shanan is a size 6? Yes. She is. Because she only makes right choices. And she wakes up b4 her family so she can start her day with her hr workout and devotional time. And Fake Shanan ALWAYS has her hair styled and tastefully applied makeup on her face b4 her family wakes up. And Fake Shanan makes her bread from scratch and only serves homemade, wholesome dishes to her family. Oh!! And its all organic! She is truly amazing, that Fake Shanan is.

Doesn't my Fake family sound absolutely

... boring? and not real at all? Yeah. I think so too.

I think every mom has a fake family somewhere lurking in the back of their minds. I know I do. And sometimes I get frustrated and angry with my Pack for not living up to my Fake family standards. Don't we all wish we could be, well, perfect, sometimes? I think perfect is probably over rated. How boring would life be if we were all perfect?

We wouldn't have to need to be forgiven. We wouldn't need to trust in our Heavenly Father for eternal salvation, or just to get thru the day. Perfect is just not how God intended us to be. I am His, flaws and blemishes and wretchedness all included. I guess He gave me my Pack to show me how He can love us, complete with flaws and blemishes and wretchedness. I love my Real family. Even their flaws and blemishes and wretchedness. It makes them who they are. And I wouldn't trade them in for anything!

What are your fake families like? Do you have a Fake family? Or is that just me?? hmmmm...

Bring on 2012!!

It was great to get up this morning and get back to the "normal" routine around here :) Christmas stuff is all put away. Still trying to find pictures that belong on the walls and my slippers. Where in the world would they have disappeared to??? Its not like we have a big house with lots of hiding spots. Cuz we don't. School is in session. House is (somewhat) clean.

Christmas was great here. The Brat Pack are amazing kids. They want so little and are so thankful for what little they get :) HH and The Pack spoiled me this yr! I got a Kindle. yep. A Kindle Fire to be exact. And now I get to eat my words of saying , "I don't think I would ever want one. I love the feel of a book in my hands. I love to curl up with a good book, how can you 'curl up with a Kindle'? it doesn't even sound right..."

Ok. I LOVE my Kindle! I love that there are exactly 45,783 free, yes FREE, Kindle books that I can download. Some of them are trash. but there are alot of great ones on there too :) I love that I can read in bed with HH and not have to have the light on. I love the fact that I no longer need to worry about space for books (no, I'm not getting rid of my favorites). I have the Fire, so I can go online whenever I want. Blog from it. Check email. Oh, and it has this funny thing called 'auto correct'.... hmm, some funny things pop up on that. Cracks me up every time ;)

The Pack gave me a picture frame collage thing :) it has space for 9 pictures... now to wait till we get a nice blanket of snow so we can do a mini photo shoot so I can fill those 9 slots.

I have decided that I will (should??) use the elliptical whenever I go on my Kindle to read. I figure it will either cause me to get in amazing shape!!! or cause me to hate my Kindle... ;) I guess I'm gonna find out.

Nothing much else going on around here. The kids are great. Healthy, happy, well adjusted as ever. HH is working. ALL the time. which is a good thing. And I will be thankful :) The hot water heater is working again. It feels SO good to be able to take hot showers again!! Still waiting to get shelves on the walls so I can get my craft stuff out of storage. :) Itching to scrap the house remodel and make invites to the little party we plan on throwing in January :)

December = too busy to blog!!!

wow! Its been quiet a month! floors are done. We moved in and decorated for Christmas at the same time... how confusing is that?!?! I LOVE my house :) I love having everything done...ok, not quiet everything. one lonesome closet door has yet to go in, and 2 doors need to be trimmed out. but other than that EVERYTHING is done!!!

Christmas shopping is DONE! Have I ever mentioned the fact that I love the fact (redundant much?) that The Pack don't ask for much? Should I say "doesn't"? I go back and forth with the plural tense to follow THE PACK.... they don't... she doesn't... hmmm, confusing :P

Anywho, they don't ask for much. Actually the older 3 don't ask for anything. And when I ask them to give me something for ideas, they try to come up something... anything, that they would like. They usually don't give me much to choose from. Of course the younger 2 add something else to their "got to have" list, seemingly everyday.

I'm thinking "doesn't" is the correct plural tense to follow "The Pack". The Pack DOESN'T ask for much. yeah. ok.

Did you know that December is the worst month to have major appliances go out on ya? Well, now ya do. And did you know that it really really sucks to not have hot water? Well, now ya do. On the bright side, I think our water bill will be much lower this month. You tend to take the quickest showers in the world when you don't have hot water ;) and there is a lot of jumping around and screeching and shivering and then cuddling up by the wood stove to warm up after one takes a shower ;) I love having a wood stove.

I took Blue Eyes and Mouth to the little town next door to get a few things from the store for supper... as we are going super fast thru the aisles, Mouth is looking around and skipping, jumping, being loud, generally just being herself, she noticed that most of the people were looking kinda grumpy. Of course she can't stand it when people are looking grumpy.

I've been grumpy the last few days, (Christmas is always so stressful for me. Why do bills seem to pile up in Dec???) so Mouth taped a sign on the windshield of my van... it said, "SMILE MOM!!!!!!!! :D"
I kinda love that girl.

Anywho... she can't stand it when people are grumpy. So she came up with the idea that next time we go to the BIG TOWN, she will walk around and say, "HI!!!! My name is LILY!!!" then the next time she sees that same person, she will say, "HI!!! My name is GRACE!!!" and just change up the name every time she talks to someone. Of course all of this will happen with a manic grin plastered to her face... she's crazy like that.
And I kinda sorta love that about her.

We had the in laws over for supper tonight. My loverly sister in law made scalloped potatoes with ham and a yummy chocolate cake :) I kinda sorta love her. As we are going thru the line, Mouth walks up to my loverly mother in law, also known as Grandma K, Mouth wraps her arms around her and exclaims, "Grandma! I FRICKEN LOVE YA!!!" and she turns and looks at Mouth and exclaims, "******, I FRICKEN LOVE YOU TOO!!!" Mouth busted a gut laughing! Then she goes on to say she loves seeing the A family, "cuz usually I can't say darn it, dang it, or shoot. Its always, "Watch your mouth, ******". "Be Quiet, ******". Blah Blah Blah... " ;) I kinda sorta love that girl. And her MOUTH!!!

It did make me realize how much we try to stifle her when we are around certain family members or people we know. Which is really too bad. Mouth is Mouth. I love her for who she is. I never want her to think that who she is isn't acceptable to us. If we wanted her to be mellow, low-key and robot-like, we would drug her like over every other kid in the U.S. who has a love for life, a smart mouth and so much energy that I wish I could bottle it up and sell it!

We have a 16 yr old in the house!!! it still scares me. she starts working next week, she goes in for her drivers license test soon. it scares me. By the time Baby Sister is 16 I will probably throw her the keys and say "have fun!! Check in!!" and off she will go. Not quiet ready for that. Poor Beans is our, "try everything out on her" kid. We find ourselves tweaking rules and responsibilities and expectations as the younger 2 get older. Is that absolutely horrible??? hmmmm.

Well, I am off to bed. Hopefully I will find time to get back on here b4 Christmas, but if not....

I want to wish everyone a "Merry Christmas", and remind everyone to not lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas. Celebrating the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. So that, thru His death, we could have eternal life. He truly was born to die. A gift that I will be forever thankful for.

A Family Event

We got SO much accomplished this weekend!!! Doors are trimmed. Base trim in the addition. freshened up the pine walls in the livingroom (sanded and polyurethaned), floors sanded AND POLYURETHANED!!!!! yay!!!


Saturday evening I made a call to my mom and begged her if we could camp out on the floor at their place ~ HH informed me that there was NO way we could stay in the house while finishing the floors. (I had planned on spending the time in a hotel, but that gets expensive). Of course she said "yes!" and we got there at 11 o'clock Saturday night. the Pack sacked out in one bedroom and HH and I got my parents room, I guess they didn't want to give up the basement ;)

~REWIND~


Saturday we sanded sanded and sanded some more. Got it done by 2! then got doors and trim done and polyed the wall boards and the trim. Then it was to throw some clothes, blankets and pillows into the van, drop the girls off at CBs house and run back to get the first coat on the floor!

Its BEAUTIFUL!!!! I absolutely love it!!! :)

Sunday morning, HH, Beans, Little Brother and Blue Eyes and I got the second coat on b4 church. but we knew we were gonna be a 1/2 gallon short to finish the floors, so we ran to the store b4 church and they were OUT of the stuff.... urgh!!! so after church it was back to mom and dads for dinner then off to the big big city for some more polyurethane. 3rd coat was on by 630 Sunday night!

Back to mom and dads to crash for the night.

Monday morning we came back home :) we are living in my bedroom right now, as we can't have furniture or anything on the new floors for at least 72 hrs.

My uncle has mentioned that he loved the fact that we turned a house remodel into a family event. That pretty much sums it up :) we have made so many awesome memories in the process of this "little" house remodel :)

The Brat Pack has learned so much. not only how to set rafters and shingle a roof and side a house, and sheet rock walls, and mud and tape, and install hardwood flooring, but how to be flexible and to be understanding of each others moods and how to lend a hand when needed. They were able to see and experience first hand how hard their dad works to support our little family. And how much he sacrificed this summer to get this done. They learned what it means to work hard and accomplish much. How to work thru pain and exhaustion. They learned that having a nice house is work, and that it deserves respect. Hopefully these lessons will get them far in their lives.

Livin at the Funny Farm!

Its one of those days! The Pack is in a great mood! The sun is shining (our HAPPY DRUG!!!), the house is toasty warm (woodstove :), things are getting done, everyone is goofy, silly, crazy, loud. :D

Love days like today! Don't you?

Days like today, things seem to just go, well, smoother.

Mouth flooded the sink and we got bubbles everywhere, which of course called for a bubble fight between the Pack.

I didn't even get mad. Just took out my camera and started to take pics :)

There has been alot of laughing, giggling, screaming, running, sliding, jumping on my bed, which is STILL in the middle of the living room, barking (Remi), crashing, music blaring, singing off key, going on here today.

Its been great :) And now I must go and join in on the craziness :D hopefully we will get the floors sanded and sealed this weekend. And then we can decorate for Christmas!!!! Updating soon!!!

A post of Pics :)

 Beans ~ HH informed her and Little Brother and Country Boy, if he ever needs anyone to help install flooring, he knows who to hire :)

                                   

                                                 

 maybe Blue Eyes wasn't so happy about me taking a picture? lol!!! she's painting the master bedroom

  Mouth. with a HANDSANDER, sanding the bedroom floor (saturday night)

           H, doing what she does best ~ look A.DOR.ABLE!!!!

               Little Brother helping with the living room floor :)

       HH~ exhausted but happy!!! Master bedroom floor is in! (Friday night)

                    K, wielding that hammer tacker like a pro!!!

                     Master bedroom floor!!! beautiful!!!

                    looking thru to the addition

                    Little Brother using the table saw

               Little Brother showing Baby Sister how to do it

Did You Know.....

Did you know that it IS possible to get 1600 sq ft of hardwood flooring laid in 1 weekend??
Well. It is. When you have a Pack of amazing kids and an out-of-this-world amazing husband. :)

Did you know that getting woken up early, 6:30 on the Thanksgiving morning, to HH bugging you, "wake up. wake up. SHHanNan! wake up!" is not fun? well its not. especially when I am not the one making the turkey and cleaning the house and getting ready to host (that was my wonderful mother's job ;). When I asked him why he was waking me up so early, his answer was, "wanna lay some flooring?!?!?" urgh.... not really. but he was so excited. so we started laying hardwood flooring at 7:30. Thanksgiving morning...

Did you know that when you have 5 kids and one amazingly willing boyfriend (Country Boy), helping install flooring, it goes amazingly well? Well now ya do :)

And that working on said floors till 11:30 at night and then getting up in the morning and digging right in again, is exhausting, back-breaking, sore feet inducing work? Well. It is. :P

Did you know... that when the grandparents stop by to see how its going and they see Little Brother using a table saw to rip down boards and Beans and Baby Sister using the miter saw to cut boards to length and they see Little Brother using the hardwood flooring nail gun to install the floors, that Grandpa gets worried and can't watch it any longer cuz he is sure that he is going to witness one of his grand kids lose a finger or a hand or an arm. So he decides its time to go. And he is sure they will be getting a phone call at some time letting them know that they have an armless, fingerless or handless grandchild by morning. ;)

* there were NO injuries this weekend!!! PTL!

Did you know that it is possible to get 1600 sq ft of hardwood flooring installed in one weekend. AND get one bedroom primed, painted, floors installed, and sanded AND sealed in ONE weekend?? Well it is. When you have Mouth and Blue Eyes on the job :)

OH!!! And all of this is possible while having 2 extra LITTLE kidlets present (and helping out!) Blue Eyes babysat all day Friday, and K was a great little helper. She can handle a hammer tacker amazingly well for a 6 yr old. And little H's job was to look as adorable as possible, which she is a pro at as, as most 2 yr olds are :)

Did you know that when you use polyurethane on floors, then start the stove in the other room, that you can smell kerosene? Well now you do :)

Did you know that the smell of kerosene brings back memories of winter evenings when I was a little girl? When dad would get home from work, b4 he took his boots off, he would grab the tank from the little kerosene heater, go out to the shop and fill up the tank and I would hope the heater would go out because then dad would have to restart the heater and I loved the smell of the kerosene when he would get it started.... hmmmm, yep. still love that smell :)

Did you know that when trying to upload pictures to my blog and it not working, that I get very annoyed and decide that it will have to wait for another day? Urgh :P well now ya do!!!