Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Posing...



Isn't She Pretty?



Happy Kids...




This is great!

Catching up on a little blog-reading this morning...found this great list of how to reduce stress related to "trying to get everything done" on Because I Said So!

1. Delegate - This is where you tell the kids, "You WILL clean up your rooms, vacuum the family room, and set the table, or I will lose it and run away from home, leaving you to eat nothing but Fruit Loops and Kool-Aid fish for the rest of your lives.

2. Say no to non-essential things - "Hey Mom, can you go to the grocery store? There's nothing to eat in the house.""Sure there is! Look in the couch cushions. Those Cheerios can hold you over for at least another week."Or "Hey honey, are you going to do laundry sometime soon? I don't have any clean clothes.""Eh, I've got your old boy scout uniform packed away in the attic. Just pull that out and wear it."

3. Make a list - I find this especially helpful. Make a list of everything you want to get done during the day, then cross off tasks as you complete them. If you do something that isn't on the list, write it down and then cross it off. Trust me, it'll make you feel like you're really accomplishing stuff. Make sure to add all ordinary things like brushing your teeth, going to the bathroom, and drinking a cup of coffee to the list.

4. Baby steps - Break tasks up into smaller chunks that are easier to handle. Like cleaning one room instead of worrying about cleaning the whole house at once. Or like eating just one piece of pizza at a time instead of trying to devour the entire thing at once.

4. Take a deep breath and relax. Remember what's important and things will fall into place. If they don't, just take some time out and escape the stress for a little while by going shopping for bowties at your local mall.


What great advice! I was already able to apply one of these handy tips. While copy/pasting this blog post, my children found and administered enough handsoap to their bodies and clothing for me to write "Bathe children for the next year" on my list and cross it off! (See, Honey -- I've already been VERY productive today! ;)

PS -- Sonia (David's mom) recently took some cute pictures of the kids and emailed them to me, so I'll be posting them as soon as I figure out how to crop myself out of the background!

Monday, February 18, 2008

How horrible!!

Okay -- so this post isn't full of pictures of our, admittedly, very adorable children. (Sorry, Nora!) That would require me taking pictures of them, which would probably require me putting non-drooled over clothing on them and snapping quick pictures within the next 30 seconds. After 30 seconds, it is most likely that Mikey's clothing will look exactly like he did before I changed his clothing and Eliana will have already requested Peanut Butter and Jelly and more "nook" (milk) and I will have discovered that the camera batteries are dead and there will be at least one child that needs his/her diaper changed. There! That's my list of excuses for not posting pics this morning...we'll see about later.

---

However, I was rather horrified by a blog post I saw by Al Mohler this morning (please, nobody point out the fact that I had time to read a blog post but not post pics... I have a whole other list of excuses for that one). I had heard of "suicide" websites and thought the whole notion was rather sad and, yeah... sad. But this was rather horrifying:
"One of the most notorious figures on the internet suicide scene is Nagasiva Yronwode, a self-confessed satanist who runs a shop selling occult books and charms in the small Californian town of Forestville, north of San Francisco.

Yronwode, 46, describes himself as the "outreach director" for an extremist cult called the Church of Euthanasia, which advocates suicide as a means of saving the world from the effects of overpopulation."


I'm at a loss for words.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Hey, Mamas...

Anyone heard about the studies out there connecting SIDS to fumes given off by crib mattresses? There's an interesting article here and we're wondering if anyone else knows anything about it...

In the meantime, we'll probably be ordering a mattress cover.