Here I Am!

Hello to the one or two readers I have left!  :)

Sorry I haven't blogged since OCTOBER.  I got a little burnt out on all things techy and took a break from most of it.  I will be pondering about what direction I want to take this blog. 

So here are a few updates, since October was awhile ago!

- We are having another baby!  SHE is due May 22.  My babies like to come late though, so she could very well be a June baby.  Pregnancy has gone very well with no problems, thankfully!

- My oldest two girls started t-ball.  We got them gloves a little over a week ago, and they're doing awesome!  Games should start sometime in April.  Now I begin the life of Chauffeur Mom!

- Kids are still saying super funny stuff.  Unfortunately I've only been posting it on Facebook.  I need to post here so I can have a better place to store their funny comments!


Well not too much has happened, LOL.  Sorry I'm so boring!  I'll try to update more often, promise! :)  Just had to start somewhere!

Big Events This Past Week

There were a couple big events over at my house this past week.  On Monday, my sweet little man Royce turned three!  He had a great day.  He got to choose his birthday dinner... and the smart boy chose steaks, his daddy's baked BBQ beans, and macaroni and cheese!  He chose chocolate gooey butter cake for his birthday cake.  He got some cool toys too.  What better present for a future first round NFL draft pick than a football?  ;)

The girls this week started dance class for the 2010-2011 year.  Kaydence and Laila both take a combo tap/ballet class, and Kaydence was old enough to start pom this year!  Here are the girls making their usual funny poses before we headed to Kaydence's first pom class:

That was the happenings around our house this week!  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

JUST stay at home?

I catch myself saying it all the time. 

"So do you work?"
"No, I just stay at home."

I say it without thinking.  It's an easy answer for the small talk that I normally take part in with people I just meet. 

Do I work?  YESSSS!  I'm on call 24/7 and I hardly get to sit down at all until after 9 pm.  I have a SUPER rewarding job that will affect generations to come!

"I JUST stay at home" should really never come out of my mouth.  It gives a feeling of inadequacy and of no worth.  Like I do nothing.

The fact is I LOVE my job.  I would never want another job.  I make huge sacrifices for my job.  I get paid nothing for my job of choice, LOL.  But "they" always say to do something you love doing, and this is what I love doing.  I must make an effort to convey that next time I get to tell someone what I do for a living!  :)

"I get to stay with my kids and take care of them, and it's the greatest job ever!"

Revamp

Hey guys! A few of you may be surprised to see my blog back... I took it down for a little while as I wasn't in much of a blogging mood. :) I'm tinkering around with a few things on my blog right now, like backgrounds and new gadgets, so bare with me! I should be up and running again soon. :)

Lazy Day!

Today I took an official "Lazy Day" that I really needed. The past 2 1/2 weeks I've been working out hard, and still trying to do everything at home that needs to be done. After bootcamp on Monday, I was the most sore I've EVER been! So today I took a healing day, haha. No running, not much housework, minimal cooking. I'll be back at the craziness tomorrow!

During my lazy minutes spent at the computer, I've been contemplating how to get my house in decent order. I'll definitely be spending the summer teaching the kids new chores. Until then, I need to make some cleaning rules and STICK TO THEM. Because if just one day is skipped, the house is in disaster mode again. Over the next few weeks I'll be teaching my kids some new HABITS:

-Cleaning up living room before nap and bedtime
-Cleaning up their bedrooms before bedtime
-Put things in their place when you're done with it! (They're so bad at just throwing trash on the floor instead of the trash can, throwing dirty clothes in the floor rather than the laundry basket... pretty much everything goes to the floor! Haha)
-No leaving the table until everyone is done eating. (I have roaming eaters, and a subsequent very dirty kitchen floor. I admit this is my own fault for not making the rule sooner!)
-Take plates/cups to the counter when you're done eating.

That's what we'll be starting with.

For myself, I need to de-clutter! There is A LOT that needs to go.

And I still definitely need wood floors, and I need to repaint the walls with a more glossy paint that doesn't attract fingerprints so well. Oh but I know someday I'll miss those fingerprints...

Not Crafty

God did not bless me with any creativity AT ALL.

So since I have not spent my life making cute little arts and crafts, I was afraid when I found out I had to decorate Kaydence's dance recital bag. And rightly so!


I tried to iron on her intials, and the bag just completely melted. Now I must go buy a new bag, initials, and a new iron, and try again on LOW heat.

My goodness.

Peace of Mind

I did a bunch of soul searching today. :)

I had been really stressing out about going back to college!! I was going to major in Health and Exercise Science, and pursue chiropractic school. The more I thought about it, the more worried I got. I read all the crazy science classes I would have to take to just get in to chiropractic school, and I didn't know how I'd do it! SOMETHING would have to suffer... and it'd either be my family or my schoolwork. I was also not okay with the fact that we would have to move to Dallas for 3 years for chiropractic school! So as cool as it would have been to be a chiropractor, that isn't going to be for me.

So I thought about what I'd like to do. Something that wouldn't make my family life come second. And I found it! Early childhood education. Of course! I LOVE little kids... I love teaching kids! AND if I were a teacher I'd get summers off. Maybe I could get really lucky and teach at my kids' school! How awesome would that be!???

Now that I've made this decision, it feels like a heavy load has been lifted from my heart. Maybe because this is the decision God really wants me to make. I'm happy this is what I'm going to do, and now I'm actually EXCITED for this fall!! :)

Bad Me

Blah I'm such a bad blogger... I don't have much time to update this thing! LOL

I put Maleah in the bouncy toy today and I'm happy to say she LIKES it! I can set her down for more than 5 minutes now! That is great news for my dirty house. :)


I went to advisement yesterday for COLLEGE- yes I'm going back- and that was interesting. I'm tired of having to go 500 different places to get things in order. First I had to go to 3 different buildings to change my major, then had to go another few places to figure out WHERE to get advised... then I get advised and the lady tells me I need to go to another building to take the Spanish placement test, and another building to meet with the pre-chiropractic advisor (which I didn't know they had!). My GOODNESS! Why can't there just be ONE person there that can get everything done for me at once!?? I have no idea how the freshman 15 exists when you have to walk 50 miles to get things in order to enroll!

Speaking of school, we also have a family interview at Kaydence's school tomorrow morning. I think it's mainly to make sure both parents are on board with the school's university model... meaning they only go to class 2 days a week. ;) I have NO interview clothes though. I don't want to show up in jeans, but I don't really want to wear a nice church dress either. LOL

Also tomorrow we'll be meeting my friend for lunch, and then that afternoon we'll be taking another giant 2-week grocery shopping trip... using coupons and finding the sales!! ;)

That's the happenings around here for this week!

Coupon Extraordinaire

In my attempts to be more frugal, I am learning to become a coupon master!!

Last night, for the first time in my life, I CUT OUT COUPONS!! My hubby kept getting annoyed at me, because I kept shouting out "YES! $3.00 off diapers!!", "YAY! We buy THIS sour cream!", and "OOO! I need buy one get one free on toothbrushes!!" I was getting very excited, LOL.

I am ready to see exactly how much I save this Thursday on my grocery trip. I hear the real experts match sales with coupons, and get things so cheap and even for free sometimes! I'm working on getting there. Ideally I'd like to cut our grocery spending in HALF. ;)


I also finished one thing off my spring cleaning list; the storage closet. I figured that would need to be cleaned first, so I can put stuff from other rooms in there!

Here is the closet before:

And after!

Necessary Evil.

Spring cleaning.

I took a look at the chaos of my house today, and remembered it was spring... put the two together, and I realized it's spring cleaning time.

I haven't done much regular cleaning, so I guess I'll include that in my spring cleaning too. :) I currently have TWO very clingy babies, so the bulk of my work must get done when they happen to sleep at the same time.

I must start with rearranging two of the kids' rooms, because Maleah will be 4 months old in a little over a week, and that's when I make my babies MOVE OUT! LOL It's about the age where my babies get too big for the bassinett, and need a giant crib to roam around.

Maleah has been living out of the 0-6 month clothes tub. I guess I'll start packing those back up and actually put the 6-12 month clothes in the closet in her new room. ;)

The rest of this weekend I'll be making the giant list of things that need to be done... and probably take the rest of this month to get it done!!

Goodwill will be getting lots of goodies from us in the next couple of weeks. I'll be getting rid of lots of unused stuff, and getting organized! There is a point, at a certain number of children, where you HAVE to get organized, or you'll drown!! It's four for me, but I've been really slow at getting organized. The time is now!!

Maybe I'll post some before and after pics of my cleaning, so you can know just how far I've gotten behind. But I gotta make sure I have some pretty 'after' pics to show too! :)

WOO HOO #1!!

Welcome to my very first ever blog post!! I really never thought I'd do this whole blogging thing. I never thought I'd have anything interesting or constructive to say!

Over the past few years of this blogging era, I know I have been encouraged and uplifted by many blogs. I have laughed at the silly things and cried at the sad things. I want to be able to encourage and uplift people, give them a good laugh, and also let them know there are bad times too. But we as mothers can get through them!

I have learned that having four children under four means there is NEVER a dull moment. So I very well should have something interesting to say every day!! The title of this blog is "Be REAL Mom!" because my goal is to be REAL with you! I will share the random happenings of my day (however normal or crazy they may be!), and whatever else that may come to my mind (and we all know mothers have MANY random things that cross their minds!!).

So bare with me while I get this blog up and running, and hopefully I can add a little smile to your day! :)