Productive

Wow! I feel like I've had a very productive day! School went great, we were done by 10 o'clock! Then a friend came over and we made cards all day. What a great day! The kids had so much fun, they had plenty of babies to play with, and Jewels and I were able to sit and talk and get allot of cards made! Yeah!

I'm trying out a new recipe tonight, pork chops, stuffing, apples and onions... smells wonderful, I hope it tastes as good as it smells! I am trying out 2 new recipes a week, I am sick of the same old stuff, and I crave new tastes and smells!

School has been going really well the last few weeks! The kids have been "getting" their math without any meltdowns, Isabelle is soaking up all the new phonics concepts, she walks around the house telling me what sounds are in different words and singing her phonics songs! I love the fact that she wants to learn, it makes is so much easier for me! Joseph learned how to borrow and subtract last week, a hard concept to grasp, but once grasped, it is a breeze! He is determined to be done with school in 2 weeks so he can go to Red Wing with Dennis for work! Maybe not on weekly basis, but he may be able to go with for a week or two. We will have to wait and see.

I feel like I am on top of things lately. I look forward to starting school every morning. I love looking for new recipes ( I am blessed with children who will try everything at least once!). The woodstove is working great. I feel at peace being home at this moment. I am looking forward to Ladies Retreat in March.

We had a friendship banquet at church Saturday, and a potluck at church on Sunday. It was great spending time with our church family! I forget how much I enjoy all of the people from church!

Life is really good for me right now. My head is in the right place, and I am at peace with everything going on in my life! I am learning to give everything to God, the good, the bad and the ugly!! A hard concept for me, I tend to be somewhat of a control freak!! ha ha! I know some of you are laughing! "wow Shanan, you are the master of understatements!!"

yum yum, supper is ready!! I'll let you know how it turned out!!

Simplicity

I desire a simple life.

I have enjoyed today so much! Isabelle, Brooke and I made oatmeal raisin cookies, and chocolate chip cookies this morning. We had zesty mac and cheese for lunch, and all 7 of us spent an hour playing UNO. It has been a great day of enjoying our children without having to go anywhere or do anything.

Sometimes I imagine life at a simpler time. None of the "Quick" microwave meals, speed limits of 70 mph, rush-hour traffic, 1 hour commutes, "fast-food", chauffering children from one activity to another! The interstate is a wonderful invention, but you can travel cross-country, and never see anything! Don't get me wrong, I love my washing machine, and my microwave, (although, truth be told, I mainly use it for the timer!) I love having the convenience of indoor plumbing, and my bread machine and crockpot! Can I imagine life without my Dell? I would hate to give them up! But I would love to have the time to spend on learning to sew, to make a quilt with my daughters, to have only homemade bread in the house, to have a huge garden every summer, and every jelly and jam in our home to be canned in my own kitchen! I would love to learn how to crochet and knit (which is entirely my own fault that I don't, with such a talented mom who could teach me!)

I look at what my children are learning in school, I don't remember learning those things in 5th and 6th grade!! Our children are so micro-managed these days! Between sports, music, jobs, and church, how do families spend any quality time together? And thats not to mention time they want to spend with their friends. I enjoy homeschooling my children. I am able to spend quality time with them everyday! To watch Isabelle master her phonics,and to hear Alexis help all the other kids with their math, and to see Joseph drawing in his art book, how can I put a price on these things? To know that Isabelle and Joseph are learning history from the Bible, to see the older girls learn Christian character throughout all of their school subjects is priceless for me. It is a huge undertaking, and there are some days I am not sure if I am crazy to even attempt this!! I can rest in the Lord through all of this, knowing that He will not give me anything that is too big for me!!!

I try to keep life as simple as I can for me. My children are not invloved in sports, at least not organized sports! They get all the excercise they need sledding, and snowboarding down our hills, riding bikes in the summer, swimming(a favorite past time in our family), and then you always have the loading the woodbox twice a day, doing laundry, and cleaning house! Some may say they are missing out. Are they truly missing out on anything? I don't think they are. They have 5 of their closest friends just a room away, they know that their mother will always be there for them, and their dad is just a phone call away. They will grow up with the security of knowing that they are loved above all else.

Life does not need to be this huge dramatic ordeal. Life can be simple. And you know what? I think you will find it can be immensly rewarding.

I am going to learn to crochet this year, I just decided that it is something I must learn. I plan on making most of next years Christmas presents this summer, something else I have decided!! And I would love to have my Grandma help me and my girls put together a quilt this year. I must ask her.

Is this keeping life simple? I believe my children will be forever grateful to learn some of these forgotten arts. These are things that can be rewarding for a life time. They will know how to make bread from scratch, how to mend their own clothing, how to crochet a blanket for the newest addition in their lives. They will learn that enjoying a good cup of tea and a good book is far more rewarding than watching the newsest reality show on TV.

Life at its simplest can be a life most rewarding!!

Monday blues

Okay, I definantly have the Monday blues. Mondays are the hardest around here, Dennis goes back to work, of course there is the ever present school, and I have a whole week of meals to plan, laundry to do, and no adult to talk to! Alexis was sick last night, so I was also dreading the thought that all the kids will get sick at some point this week. So far so good, Lex is feeling better and no other tummy aches to report as of yet!

We are looking forward to spending the weekend in Moorhead in a couple weeks. It will be great to see my aunts and uncles again! It has been too long since I have seen them! The only thing I wonder about is... is 1 day really going to be enough time to catch up with everyone??? I have arranged a kennel for Tramp so we won't have to worry about him on top of everything else!! Yeah!

Winter time is SO expensive! We heat the house mainly with wood, but it seems like the little bit that we do heat with gas sure affects the heating bill every month! Not to mention the holidays, birthdays, and everything else that seems to happen during the winter! Oh, and the ever joyful tax season is looming on the horizon! I wish the powers that be could spread these things out more! Ha Ha Ha Wishful thinking!!

Our life is so boring as of late! Nothing to really report. I haven't been doing any scrapbooking lately, I'm holding out until I get my new scrapping toy, but I may cave in and get our summer pics finished up this week. I am more in the mood to curl up with a good book and a cup of tea than to drag out all my scrapping stuff, but we shall see I guess!

Here is a quick update on the Brat Pack...

Michelle is 12 now, almost a teenager! She loves it when she can stay home and I take the rest of the kids with me, she enjoys the quiet, and she calls it her "alone time", wish I could get some of that!! She is doing good in school, she loves to read, and she loves to babysit. She is becoming her own person with every passing day. She has her own style in music and clothes. She is looking forward to getting her gun safety certificate in March so she can go hunting in the fall! She loves to shoot the guns with Dennis,and she is a pretty good shot if I do say so myself!

Alexis is 10, almost 11. She is still our sweet girl. But she is showing her spunky side more and more. She is also our emotional child. She is contamplating being a vegetarian, but she "can't seem to get over meat"! Funny girl! She loves animals, and she has a very tender heart for others. She plays with Joseph the most, and has the most in common with him when it comes to video games. She has gotten tall in the last few months, and she has really thinned out. Is it mean to say that she is our "pretty child"?? Because she is, with her huge blue eyes and perfect lips, and peaches and cream complexion, not to mention her gorgeous long curly hair, I think Dennis may have his work cut out for him when these girls get to be teenagers!! YIKES!

Brooke, she's 9. She has her own sense of style that no one else quite understands, but for some reason she seems to be able to pull it off as looking normal! She is our smart mouth child, she always has to have the last word in any argument, and she has a remark for every situation. She still views school as a necessary evil that one must complete before one can go on to bigger and better things. She is also my biggest helper, she "gets" my way of organizing so I am able to tell her to do something and 9 times out of 10 she will do it according to my way of thinking! Helps not to have to go back and redo it, I know, I'm anal about some things!!

Joseph, awww, the only boy in this house of girls!! I know a lot of you may view him as the "poor boy" who has to put up with all of us emotional basketcases, but just to put your mind at ease, he is a very well-loved, well-adjusted young man. The girls do tend to gang up on him at times, but he handles it exceptionally well. And he is very gentle with his sisters, even when they are being unreasonable. He will be quite a catch some day!! A perfect blend of gentleness and toughness! He is doing great in school, he loves playing video games(which mom is trying to put a rope on!), and he is becoming quite an artist! He finally has his own room, (which he keeps very organized)!! After sharing a room with 4 sisters for so many years, he is loving having his own space, where he has the control, and he can kick them out!

Okay, last but definantly NOT least is Isabelle, our drama queen! She will be 6 in March, she loves school, and she is our most stubborn child! The older kids have been used to being able to push her around to some point, in the past, but that has changed in the last year!! She has a mind of her own and she WILL use it! She shares a room with Michelle now, much to Michelles disappointment. She is like a mini toranado, twirling thru the house and leaving chaos in her wake! She is my girl, she loves to cuddle up with me in bed and read a good book together. She loves to help make meals and she is PRETTY good about cleaning up after herself, I think Michelle may disagree, but what can you expect when there are 2 girls crammed in a very small bedroom! *I have come to the firm conclusion that girls are packrats,and just seem to accumulate things while breathing.* There is a touch of drama wherever our Belle goes!

Life is good here at the Andersons. Even when I have the "Monday Blues"!!

hello!

Wow, has it really been almost a month since I've been on? Where does the time go??? I guess I've been keeping busy with my busy life. Nothing new going on, just the same old usual chaos at the Anderson house.

Christmas was wonderful! It was great spending the 21st with the Anderson side of the family. Marie was able to be there, it was a nice realing day spent talking and snacking on yummy goodies. All the kids got along great, it is amazing how many little girls there are! Christina and Travis and their 2 little girls were there, so we had Jess, Autumn, and Belle playing together, and Anessa and Chloe are the same age, so they played very nicely together too! Of course we have the older 3 girls, and Joseph was the only boy!! It got to be a long day for him.

Christmas Eve was spent with my family at mom and dads house. The cousins always have so much fun together! Joseph and Cody play so well together, and of course the girls can find someone to play with, usually! We didn't leave until 10:45! It was nice to spend time with family, being away from everyone sure makes you appreciate them alot more when you are able to see them again!

Christmas Day was spent at home, just the 7 of us in our jammies! We had pizza for Christmas dinner, and spent the whole day doing nothing but playing with the kids and relaxing! Dennis didn't have to leave until Thursday AM, so we spent Wed. being lazy too!

We finally were able to purchase a newer van!! Yeah!! It is great having a vehicle that is dependable. If you would ask the kids they would say its great having a vehicle with MORE ROOM!! They were so scrunched in that old caravan, now they have space to stretch out and we have room for Tramp and Snowball when we travel! Yes, you heard right, from now on Tramp and Snowball wil be travelling with us. That should be interesting!

SO that is pretty much all that is going on around here! I'll be back on when I have more time to share my contemplations of late!

tired??

Have you ever had one of those days when you are absolutely exhausted, but for the life of you, you cannot figure out why? That has been my day today.

Started out great this morning, we were on the ball with school, done by 1 o'clock. But I was on the phone most of the morning with business stuff. Then we loaded into the van and went to the library. We got there and found out that they were closing the library on the 1st, and they would be closed for 3 weeks, due to the expansion and moving and organizing and everything. So Sheila wanted us to check out as many books as possible so she woudln't have to move them all!! Well we walked(staggered) out of there with over 100 books in our backpacks, bags, and 3 grocery bags!! Wow, we have allot of reading ahead of us, no TV in the Anderson house any time soon!! Ahhh, you know what that means?? Blessed quietness!

Michelle turns 12 tomorrow! (Maybe that's another part of my exhaustion?) It is an emotional time for me! #1- it makes me realize I'm getting old! #2- one more year until she's a teenager #3- she's our first born, so as she grows up, we realize how quickly they are all growing up #4- IT MAKES ME REALIZE I AM GETTING OLD!!!!!

I am also very excited for Michelle though! She loves to babysit, and now she is able to do that, without mom watching over her shoulder. She is turning into her own person. Does that make any sense? For 11 years I was able to somewhat control how she perceived things. Now she has her own eclectic style about her that is all her own, she loves different types of music, she likes to try different hairstyles, different styles of clothing. She is turning into a minature adult!!

It is so weird, and not at all what I expected! It makes me understand my parents a little more, and what they went thru when my brothers and I all moved out, just months apart. What they must have felt when they allowed me to marry so young. And then they were grandparents when they were so young! Me growing up so fast must have made them feel robbed. Robbed of their youth. To go from a household bussleing with teenagers, arguing over the phone. To a household of silence, with the kids all gone, it must have been lonely. To watch your child get married must feel like saying goodbye. Of closing a chapter in your life.

Of course another chapter begins, and before you know it, you have a house bussleing with grandkids!! We ahve a few years before all of that!!

It just makes me wonder where the time has gone.... Do you realize in 4 years we will have 3 teenage girls in the house!! It makes me tired just thinking about it!

To look back at the last 12 years, it becomes so clear to see God's working in our lives. I can look back (now) and see that God has always blessed us. Even when, at the time, we didn't understand, it is clear to me now that He has always done what was best for us. What a humbleing thought.

Well I must go, I have birthday presents to wrap!!

To be Content

Have you ever really thought of that verse.... in everything, be content.

Not always an easy thing to do. It doesn't mean to find something easy to be content with, it means in EVERYTHING be content. So when I'm having an awful day, the kids are running around like little lunatics, I am to be content. When I am bored and lonely, I am to be content. It means whatever God has for me I am to be content with. Even when I don't understand what He wants for me, or from me, and I am questioning every little thing going on in my life, I am to trust Him and be content with whatever He wants for me and my life.

This is a hard concept for me. To some it may be simple, but it is a struggle for me. I am not a content person. To sit still and to be quiet is not easy for me, ask anyone who knows me!! I want to see the world, I want to travel.

I have a nomad's heart. I read about people who are able to travel, to go to Africa, to see Spain, Brazil. I had a dream last night that we were able to spend 9 months in France.

Is it wrong for me to dream of this? Does this mean that I am not content in my simple life here in MN? I am fighting against these roots that are deep in the rich MN soil. I dream of exploring.

I've been thinking....

I've been thinking about the most inane things lately

I think kids should come with an off button

I think I should have a robot to clean my house

I think my husband should have an airfreshener in his pants

I think Elvis is dead

I think snow is over-rated

I think we should be driving flying cars by now

I think we should have voice activated microwaves

I think OJ Simpson is guilty

I think Sundays should be sleep in days every week

I think seafood is gross

I think marriage is the leading reason for divorce

I think the 4 out of 5 dentists are lying

I think I'd rather live with being sick than the 17 sideaffects of one little pill

I think having alone time is a myth