The Hardest Gift I Ever Made!

This Christmas is super hard for us, we have almost no money to spend on Christmas gifts for each other. Jason and I decided we would make each other gifts instead. It's funny that we thought of this because neither of us are very artistic, but we're going with it! I decided for part of his gift I would list 365 reasons why I love him. Sounds easy right? Well apparently it's not. I needed 365 DIFFERENT reasons of why I love this guy. I easily made it up to 100 with no problems and then all of the ones I tried using were pretty much the same, so I had to get creative. I was literally texting everyone who knows us asking them why they love Jason hoping that it would help me get my list to be longer. Unfortunately, most of them love him for the same reasons-shout of to Taylor for saying his smell so I could add something! Now here we are three days away from Christmas and I still don't have anything more to write. I searched for other lists people have done and realized most of them totally cheated and listed the same thing several times just phrased a little differently. Those sneaky people trying to pull a fast one over on us. I refuse to cave to such a low level as to list the same thing multiple times so I will continue to wrack my brain until I finally reach 365. I am glad to know I'm not the only person who has trouble with coming up with this many reasons, because when Jason heard what I was doing he said "That's easy! I could do 1,000 for you!". We shall see on Christmas if it's true that he was able to come up with that many reasons and if he was and they are all different I will be very impressed. I applaud anyone who makes their significant other a gift every year without wanting to murder them. This process has been long, hard, and emotional. Although it has been the hardest thing I've ever made, it's kind of the coolest. I feel like when you're with someone for a long time you sometimes forget all the little reasons you fell in love to began with. This has served as a nice reminder that I fell in love with a really amazing guy. So, at least if nothing else I have that to run with. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and have an easier time listing reasons you love someone if you ever try to do so.

Our Four Gift Christmas

Before I get started, if you haven't already go check out of Youtube video "What I got my kids for Christmas 2017" to see their entire lot of Christmas gifts this year. If you follow me on any social media site, you already know every year I have an overflowing Christmas tree that flows from our dining room into our living room. After buying all those toys last year and then buying storage for those toys, I decided we were done. I no longer wanted to spend days upon days getting upset about where we would put everything when Christmas day was done. This year we decided to adopt the four gift Christmas method, I'm not sure if that's what it's called but we're going with it. We did one want, one need, one thing to wear, and one thing to read. The want is their Santa gift, this gift could be just about any price and it is the big sought after gift they've mostly wanted all year. This varies depending on the child, but for the most part their gifts ranged around $20. Their need gift was kept the same across the board because they all needed the same thing-a tooth brush-I know it sounds lame, but when you're on a budget as tight as we are week to week you need to cut costs where you can. We tried to make their need gift as exciting as possible, but with tooth brushes it is a little hard. Hopefully we somewhat succeed in this. As for the one thing to wear, we barely need clothes. When our kids need clothes we buy them, so there wasn't a huge need for us to purchase all new clothes for them. If they didn't need clothes we got them something else instead that they did need. The one thing to read was the most exciting part for me, my kids-with the exception of Tyson-LOVE reading. We were able to find a lot of good deals on books and I bought up as many as I could. This was the least stressful our Christmas shopping has ever been and I'm so happy about that. Instead of trying to get the best deals on various things my time has been spent at home with my kids, playing, crafting, eating, watching movies-whatever they want. I have been told by a few people that my kids will be disappointed on Christmas day from only getting four gifts, but I don't think that's true. We have talked to our kids about spending less and they looked under the tree today which doesn't even include Santa gifts. When they looked under there I heard Estella say "Wow! We are getting a lot on a budget! There's already a lot under here!" I am so glad they feel that way it just goes to show it's all about expectations and how you raise them. I have a feeling, our four gift Christmas is going to be the best one yet.

Why we celebrate Hanukkah

For those of you who do not know this, Jason and I are not Jewish. With that being said, we celebrate Hanukkah. Not because we want to be disrespectful, but because of Jason's first wife. She was Jewish until the day she passed away. His kids used to go over to her parents every year and celebrate with them, but after we petitioned for me to be allowed to adopt them they stopped all contact with the kids. It was honestly more heartbreaking for us than anything, especially considering I was just doing what their daughter had asked. That's a whole other story though! The point is when we heard they didn't want them for Hanukkah this year we told the kids we would celebrate it! Now, how do two Christian people celebrate something like this? We googled it. Seriously I was up until around 2 am trying to figure out what is socially acceptable to do for Hanukkah and it turns out it's a lot like Christmas. By that I mean, no two traditions were the same, but they all had the same intent. Since this is our first year celebrating we wanted to make sure all nine children knew the history behind this holiday, much like Christmas we were able to find several Hanukkah books targeted at children. We have been reading one everyday and enjoying the knowledge we are gain. Even though only half of our nine children are part Jewish we felt it was important to celebrate as a family, but didn't want to get gifts every single night. We decided to just have eight nines of family nights and to incorporate what their mom had always done-bake a different cookie every single night. My intent when marrying Jason was not to replace their mom and I don't want to take away any of the few memories they have with her so it was important to me to know what her traditions were. She never once bought her kids gifts for Hanukkah, instead she had no phone nights where she spent the time instead with her children doing crafts, playing games, watching family movies, or doing anything else her children wanted to do. We adopted that tradition and the family favorite tradition of having a party on the last night. This may be my first year doing this, but I wanted to do it right. This is a very special holiday especially for our four children who think of it as one of the only things they have left of their mom. Overtime some of the traditions may change, but I know they will remember how hard their dad and I worked to make sure they had these memories. To all of my Jewish followers, happy Hanukkah.

Thank you Jimmy Kimmel!

Jimmy Kimmel, you may never seen this blog post, but I want to thank you. Thank you for speaking up for all the parents like myself who are worrying if their kids insurance will be cut off. My daughter Brooke was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes two years ago and her coverage has been under CHIP since then. When we got the news that Brooke could very well lose her coverage we were devastated, were and still are wondering how we will pay for the medication that she must have in order to survive. I know first hand how hard it is to see your kid go through so many different surgeries, injections, and medical tests, but Jimmy your son Billy was born for a reason. I think it's safe to say you already realized this, but you are in such an amazing position where you are able to advocate for the thousands of children who are affected by this terrible decision. I am so thankful that you have used your position to do good. You realize that you are able to afford health care, but know many are not. This is a hard thing to grasp and I'm glad you speak so openly about this. I also know you have received a lot of backlash from people telling you to stay out of it, I am so proud of the fact you ignore them and continue to speak out about this pressing issue. The people hating on you have been very lucky and clearly have never had to choose between paying their bills or paying for a life saving medication for their child. Thank you Jimmy from the bottom of my heart for doing what you do. I pray that one day we live in a country where I don't have to make this decision and because of people like you, that dream may one day be a reality. Please continue to speak out, give updates on Billy, and be the amazing advocate for affordable health care that you are.

Am I going crazy?!

Have you ever had a dream that seemed so real you had a hard time realizing it's not real? That was me this morning. I had a dream about a missionary we had come to know and love a few years ago when I was less active than I am now. This missionary's name however escaped our minds completely and we only remembered what he looked like and when he was here. In my dream I vividly remember finding him after checking my son, Tyson's phone(yes he has a phone not the point). So I was like "well that's a cool idea since it is my old phone it might have his name on it." So, I went ahead and checked with no such luck. I tried to go back to bed and this little voice kept saying "Look on Tyson's phone" I told the voice I'd check it again in the morning and I felt like I lost control of my body because I got up and looked at his phone again. Still, I found nothing, but decided at this point God was trying to tell me something so I went online to see if I could find him on the Alumni site. Keep in mind all I'm going off of was what he looked like. I didn't find him on any of the sites, there weren't even any Elders on the alumni lists from the times we needed. So, I took it to Mormon moms group on Facebook. My sister in law posted for me since I don't use Facebook, but she explained the situation and told them what he looked like. I will say, I was a little shocked when she texted me not even 15 minutes later and said "His name is Tyson ***"(I'm not saying the last name for privacy). When she said Tyson I realized that God telling me to check Tyson's phone was probably his way of answering my prayer of asking what this missionaries name was. After nearly three years of wondering what this kid's name was, I finally got my answer. I feel pretty accomplished today since I was able to check this off my list and I now know to listen carefully when God is talking. He often times masks his signs in something and that's what I was struggling with, but finally am starting to understand how this all works.

It's a pain in the foot!(literally!)

Months ago I posted about killing my ankle, apparently that was the right term for it. Despite the fact it has been several months now and I have done PT, taken the medicine prescribed, and everything else I was told to do-it is still injured. We went to the doctors today and he told me I need surgery, which is fine I expected that. What I did not expect was for him to add "but you have too many medical issues so I'm not going to do it. If you want surgery you need a second opinion." What. The. Heck. Who tells someone they can't walk until they get surgery then adds they can't do the surgery? On one hand, I understand where he's coming from there is a risk because of having a compromised immune system, but at the same time I can't walk. If I can't walk, I am not able to work in my current job. Needless to say, we are getting a second opinion-tomorrow afternoon-we did not waste time getting that! I am hoping and praying that this doctor is a little braver and realizes that I don't actually want the surgery, I need it. Every single year without fail I tear my ligament the same one every year, the doctor even said that it's not healthy to do. I can't live with just tearing it every single time I walk which is the point we have reached. So please, say a little prayer tonight that the doctor I see tomorrow is understanding and willing to take a risk.

Is She Starting Puberty Blockers?!

You all know, or should know, that the main reason we started this blog is because of our daughter Callie. Callie was diagnosed(for lack of a better word), as being transgender and ever since we have been trying to raise awareness about raising a child who is transgender. When she was originally diagnosed we were searching for answers of what the heck we were supposed to do and at the time there was hardly any answers! It is crazy to think in just two years the transgender community has exploded and we have had so much research and advocacy done for us. Anyway, back to my point, between the ages of 8 and 12 doctors like to start puberty blockers in transgender patients. My ex and I honestly forgot that this was even on our radar until the doctor called to set up an appointment to start talking about how we want to go about it. We went to the appointment last week and we talked about all the different options, by all I mean two. We could either inject her or get an implant. Callie was with us as this will really be her decision and she knows she has two years to decide. I know it's crazy to put this on our six year old, but she actually knows more about what's going on then I feel like I do. We were able to talk to a few different transgender people who have already gone through this, so she feels pretty confident in her choice. She told us both she really wants the implant because "Injections sound terrible". I'm not going to argue with that, it's pretty solid reasoning in my opinion. After we started talking about everything we decided to talk about the money part of it, Callie was not included in this conversation. Jason, my ex, my ex's girlfriend, and myself decided this is obviously something that needs to be done. Let's face it, if we forced this little girl to go through male puberty and expect her to be ok with it. This is not something that insurance covers(Thanks Trump for voting that down!), so we have to pay 100% out of pocket. Regardless of the price, it will be beyond worth it to know she is one step closer to becoming a girl. She actually left the doctors appointment very happy and told me she was so excited to "officially be a girl!". That little comment alone made me know we were doing the right thing, this is the right step for our child. I don't know how we will be paying for it, but we will find away and make her dreams come true.

Happy 3rd Birthday Ryker!

Ryker will be three tomorrow, I can not believe it. This little boy has grown so much in the past two years of being in our family. Honestly sometimes when I think about it I can barely believe he is the same child. I feel like keeping this more positive so I'm not going to post all the negative things that went on through his life. Ryker is such an easy going child, he will pretty much just go with whatever is going on. When the other kids are excited, he is too. His favorite things right now are Paw Patrol, PJ Masks, Ninja Turtles, and yes he is still obsessed with garbage trucks. Every Thursday he runs out and waits for the garbage men to come visit, it's gotten to the point that the garbage men give him high fives when they see him. He honestly feels like the coolest kid ever when this happens and I think garbage men deserve major props for that. This child has become a bit of a social butterfly, we have actually gotten reports from preschool that say he talks when he's not supposed to, but honestly a few years ago we thought he would never talk so even though I don't want him talking all the time it's ok. I honestly think he might be his siblings favorite because anytime I ask them to help out with the little ones, they all volunteer to help him! I think part of that goes along with him being so easy going and willing to just wear whatever they hand him and eat whatever they tell him to eat. Right now his goal in life is to be a garbage truck, yup not the man who drives it, but the truck! As a parent, I support that as I always have and always will. Ryker Lucas, we all love you so much and are so proud of you and I hope three is the best year yet!

How Does This Keep Happening?!

If you've read our blog for any amount of time you've been there for our whole minimalist journey. When we started this journey every inch of our four bedroom two bathroom house was packed full with random stuff we didn't need! Flash forward to now, it seems to be a little bit better until entering a bedroom. Our kids seem to still be getting so much regardless of how hard we have tried to purge of items and buy less. It just seems never ending. Today our kidness elf asked us to clean out some old clothes, so we did. We started with the older girls because every time I opened their closet clothes fell out and it was getting a little crazy. So I sat down and went through all five million pieces and threw some up on Craigslist because face it, we need money. It doesn't look much better to be honest, but I know how much better it is. It was kind of an eye opening moment because I realized how much wasted money was in there, a lot of their clothes were only worn once some not at all. I am hoping this little moment will keep me from buying things because I can. This was just further proof that minimalism isn't just something you do over night, it is a life long journey that will never actually be over. This is something I truly want for our family so this long journey is well worth it. Here's to just another page in our amazing story to getting to life we really want.

Our Favorite Christmas Movies!(Netflix and Amazon Video addition)

Let me warn you before reading this, I love Christmas and if I was allowed I would watch Christmas movies all year round. With that being said, they never let me do that. So when it comes time to watch them I go a little crazy and want to watch as many as possible in the short amount of time my family finds appropriate for Christmas movies. I was a little surprised with just how many options Netflix had online for Christmas movies and some are my favorites. I know it can be a little overwhelming trying to find a movie online so I thought I'd take a few moments to tell you what our family favorite movies are. The first movie we knew we HAD to watch the moment we saw it on Netflix was "Santa Paws" this is honestly one of the cutest Christmas movies out there. My kids really love the whole concept of this movie, I mean it's Santa and a puppy and there is singing along with a bunch of kids. It is perfect for the entire family, our two years old love it as well as our seven year olds. Another favorite is a classic, "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas". All of the versions of this are on there, but my kids aren't really interested in any of them other than the original. Again, this was a no brainer because it's Disney and there is very little Disney can do for me not to like. One movie that our kids are still a little too young for, but Jason LOVES is Jim Carrey's version of "The Grinch". We attempted this one with our kids, our seven years old liked it but most were too young for it and found it scary. Looking back I can see how this movie is scary, but if you have older children this one is amazing. After watching several movies on Netflix we decided to switch over to Amazon, you do need an AmazonPrime account for this, but I will tell you it is worth it. They have so many more classics on there and some that I had never seen. One that was so sweet and I had never seen before is "I want a dog for Christmas Charlie Brown". Let's face it no Charlie Brown movie will ever not be good, it's just not possible for the Peanuts gang. But, the number one Christmas movie in this house(voted by everyone but me!) is to just watch all of the "Doctor Who Christmas Specials" which is apparently included in our membership, but I have yet to see it. My favorite movie is no longer on Amazon but if you get the chance to watch it-you should "Arthur's Perfect Christmas". This movie taught me so much about different holidays at such a young age and also taught me it's ok to make your own version of a perfect Christmas. Regardless of what movie is your favorite, both of these services have helped our Christmas so much already! If you have a favorite Christmas movie let us know in the comments!

Christmas Traditions on a Budget!

This Christmas is definitely different from ones in the past. Normally both Jason and I are working and we can afford all kinds of fun things, this year however we are down to one income. That means the gifts are scaled back and some of our traditions need adjusted a little. It's kind of funny, when people hear we are on a $100 budget for nine kids they are shocked and say how much our kids are going to hate their Christmas. So far however, they seem perfectly fine knowing Santa is only going to bring ONE gift per kid and mom and dad are getting some modestly priced gifts. I do want to say, if you ever want your kids to be quiet for a while tell them Santa can only bring one gift they will spend a lot of time thinking about what they truly want. There are so many traditions we had to adjust because of money issues, the first being ornaments. When Jason and I got engaged we made a decision to make a different ornament with the kids every year, normally we buy an entire set and go from there. This year we decided to adjust that and use only what we have around the house. Our kids have two modes when it comes to crafts, they either get super creative or hate it and just do it to please me so we will see what they come up with this year! The second tradition we decided to start this year was reading a Christmas book everyday until Christmas. I will be honest, this one is more for me than the kids. Our library has a lot of Christmas books, so many that I thought my backpack might burst while I stuffed them in there. This little tradition was found on Pinterest, it was suggested to wrap them, but that seemed like a lot of wasted wrapping paper and I don't have money to replace it. So far we have loved the books we've read, we may or may not have started this one before Thanksgiving. Another tradition that we wanted to start because it's free and fun is look at Christmas lights. I know it's stupid we haven't done this before, but we don't normally have time-this year we do and I want to enjoy it. There is actually a house in our area that does a really cool light show that I went to once with my younger cousin and want to send Jason with the kids, it has strobe lights this year so I can't go sadly. Regardless it sounds like a fun thing for them to do and I'm hoping they enjoy it. The last tradition that we actually ended up getting rid of is matching Christmas pajamas. I almost cried when we made this decision, but in the end their just pajamas. On Black Friday I tried very hard to find ones that were in budget so hopefully I could convince Jason we needed them, I had no such luck. Because our kids didn't NEED pajamas we agreed that spending money on them wouldn't be a good idea. So, I'm hoping none of our children were waiting patiently for new pajamas. Our traditions may change over time, but the reason we celebrate will always be the same. At the end of the day Christmas is about Jesus and nothing else.

Our Kindness Elf is back!

Every Christmas season parents all over the world bring out their "Elf on the Shelf", we didn't like the idea of a crazy little elf making a mess so in true Butler fashion we put our own spin on it. We started this I believe two years ago where we take a cheap little elf I found at dollar tree and assign different acts of kindness for the kids to do throughout the month. Much like the Elf on the Shelf, he moves nightly and is always in a different spot when our kids wake up. It's honestly a fun little hunt to find him every morning and I'm really glad they're enjoying it. This month we of course have 25 different acts for our kids to do and I'll be sharing them more on Instagram, but because I know I had to use Pinterest for my ideas I'm going to post the entire list here.

These aren't all going to happen on the exact days listed, the first one was actually switched with the second one when I realized we had no cookie fixings. Regardless of the order they happen, it's about the purpose. We wanted, especially this year, to keep the focus on Christ and have fun while doing it. I know it can be hard sometimes to be in the holiday spirit when you don't have money, but in the end that's not what Christmas is about. Christmas can be magical even if you only have $5 to spend or if you have $5,000 to spend. There's no minimum required to celebrate Christmas and that's the bet part of this holiday. The same applies for doing good deeds, it doesn't have to cost a lot, a lot of the things on this list are free or could be done for very little.

We're back for Blogmas!

Hello friends, I have missed you all so much! I have been so busy with school, work, kids, cleaning, and my new church calling. It has been crazy, but I love it. As I was watching Youtube I realized everyone is doing "Vlogmas" and I thought to myself "I should do a blogging version of that". Because I haven't posted in over a month I have a lot to say and am excited to finally type up all I possibly can. We will be doing several different kinds of posts this month that relate to everything going on, so be ready for a lot of Christmas on a budget posts! A lot has happened in the last few months and it's time we tell our blog family about the craziness that has been happening around here. I hope you're ready, because it's going to be awesome.

Minimalist Update- Konmari Method

As you all know, this year has been a year of trying to live with less. We have learned a lot about what minimalism is and what it means to me a minimalist. We also learned about the methods people use to become minimalists and to get stuff out of their house, one of them is the Konmari Method. This method is used to focus on a group of things you want to clear out instead of one room. We tried that method and quickly realized it was not going to work for us. Going through everyone's clothes at once was not easy, especially with using hand me downs-it got way too confusing and I felt overwhelmed. It resulted in almost everyone crying and a lot of fighting between my children. We decided to go back to how we were already doing it and focus on one room at a time, it was so much easier this way. I am in no way saying we are nearly as minimal as I want to be, we are still far from it, but I now look at things a lot differently. We were actually in our favorite thrift store recently and we only went for clothes for Ryker and Skyler and I am very proud to say we left with clothes for only those two. No toys, no knick knacks, no random purchases that we didn't need! It was so refreshing, oh and the fact we donated five bags full of random stuff from our house in the same day helped too! We are to the point that I think the thrift store should sponsor us! I am finally starting to feel like our house might actually become a house instead of a storage unit like it has felt like for the passed year. The fact all our bedrooms are finally done being worked on also helps with this journey, as I put things back into the correct bedrooms I will be looking at them closely and making sure we actually need the item! If we ever finish cleaning out everything I will proudly either do a house tour on our Youtube channel or post pictures here, maybe both who knows I have a lot of time on my hands!

I Started College!

Because our lives aren't crazy enough, I decided to make life even crazier. I started college classes online! My church runs a program that allows us to attend BYU-Idaho classes online for an amazing deal all we have to do is complete a course that honestly resembles a community college. The deal was so amazing that I couldn't pass it up! I started my classes on September 11th, what a day to start an exciting part of your life. So far my college experience has been insane, but so fun. I love learning and I also love teaching and with the school I go to they feel that the best way to learn is to teach so it's combining two of my biggest loves and it's amazing. It is a lot more work than I expected, just because most of my friends who are in college seem like they never have homework where as mine is mostly all on me! Luckily my parents never made me do homework when I reached a certain age it was all on me to get it done so if I didn't do it, it was my fault. I'm actually very glad they gave me that mentality because it's helped me so much-so shout out to my mom and dad! I do have to say, my ankle injury may be helping me with my work ethic. When I wake up I have two choices, watch a TV show I've seen a million times or work towards my degree that I've already paid for. I'm poor, so my answer is very clear. As for having school aged children while in school, it's weird but kind of awesome. We can all just sit down and do homework together, it's a very calm and surreal moment. I want to just capture and keep this moment in my heart forever. I think for my kids it's a really good example to have their mom want something and work for it, even if it did take awhile. I want my kids to take what they see and apply it to their lives one day. I am also really hoping that this all pays off and we all get something amazing out of it.

Kindness of Children

Sometimes my kids drive me crazy, but a lot of the time they are so sweet that it makes my heart hurt. So just a little back story first; we have been having the youngest twos bedroom renovated for about three months now due to mold and leaking issues. Because of those issues we had to get rid of a lot of their toys and other belongings, the ones we kept we put in boxes and pushed aside while the people were working. Apparently boxing them up and out of their way wasn't enough because a lot of the toys still got broken. I'm not huge on putting emphasis on NEEDING toys because tons of kids grow up perfectly fine without any, but if it's a toy that my kid plays with every single day I get just as attached as they do. With that being said, Skyler's favorite toy was the toy they broke during this occasion. It was nothing too fancy, just a little My Little Pony caste that Santa brought. But, to my little toddler it was the world. She played with princesses on it, her ponies, cars-you name it she played with it! So when I told my older kids about this accident they were just as heart broken! Estella was especially heart broken because she loves My Little Pony just as much if not more than Skyler does. Though she was upset, it still shocked me when she came down with her own castle in her hands and said "Mama, I want Sky to have this." She did this without us telling her to, without Skyler asking, and just honestly out of the kindness in her heart. I made sure Stella was very clear that she wasn't going to be paid for this and wouldn't get a replacement toy until Christmas, she said she knew that but Skyler needed it more than she did. So, we told her to go right ahead and give it to her, but Stella has a better idea. When the renovation of our youngest kids is done Stella told me she wants to help us put the room back together and put the castle in the room with some of her old ponies as a surprise. Part of me wants to hug Stella and buy her a new castle and new ponies, but a large part of me wants to just sit and watch her enjoy giving to her younger sister. This is just the beginning of seeing what I've been trying to teach them take effect, I am so proud of this little girl.

Jason is back!

If you have read our last few posts you already know this, but here is the official update-JASON IS HOME!! We are so excited to all be back together. It was a very long three months without him, filled with every emotion we could come up with. His homecoming wasn't exactly what we planned-but it was still just as perfect. We wanted the house renovations done by the time he got back-didn't happen, I wanted to not be injured when he got home-didn't happen, but he was home and at the end of the day that's all that matters. Adjusting to this huge change has been very weird to say the least. There have been many days of me realizing I actually have another person to lean on and I don't have to do this all by myself. I kind of love the fact that I now wake up to breakfast again-I am not known for my breakfast making skills! The kids were all super excited and couldn't wait to tell dad about all the things he missed. It was such an amazing moment to witness. I'm so excited to have this guy back especially now that I'm injured not able to do pretty much anything. He has already been such a great help and hopefully he can figure out how to make other foods other than pancakes in the next few weeks! Welcome home Jason, we missed you!

I Killed My Ankle!

Oy. This passed week was insane, if you know us in person you know why! To catch everyone else up, Labor Day was not fun in our house. Because Jason was coming home last Tuesday I was rushing to get the house cleaned, right now our five bedroom house is a two bedroom house(don't get me started). A good portion of our stuff is in the living room because where the heck else am I supposed to put it?! Well I decided to go through clothes and get rid of what we weren't using and basically just clean out most of our stuff since it was all in one spot. It was going great! Our house still looked crazy, but I knew what was going on and that's all that mattered to me. I was able to find a nice little drop off spot right around the corner of our house! How convenient is that?! So I was taking one of the bags to the drop off location and everything was going fine. That was until I stepped on what apparently was a broken sidewalk. I heard a HUGE popping noise! It honestly sounded like someone used a popping toy next to me, I didn't know what it was and put my foot down and realized I couldn't stand on my foot. That caused me to fall and I scrapped my left knee and held my right leg to my chest while screaming for help-shout out to my neighbors for straight up ignoring me! I realized I had a choice, sit there and pray someone finds me or try walking home, so I tried walking home. I wasn't able to walk, so I hopped across the street and fell down when I got to the other side. Thank God, my one neighbor saw me and asked if I was ok. Poor guy probably thought I was insane, I couldn't come up with words and almost threw up on him. So, he carried me home and then went back for the bag I was carrying-I couldn't get the words "I'm donating this bag" to come out so I hope he doesn't think I was running away and failed miserably. Anyway, he took me home, I screamed until someone came downstairs in my house. We went to the ER and I cried for every single person I could imagine-of course starting with my sister and ending with a baby(just any baby I want to cuddle a baby!). Life hack, if you need emergency care and don't like paperwork scream REALLY loudly and they just skip over the paperwork and give you drugs right away! The ER was pretty helpful, except for the fact when we asked if it could be a ligament their response was "Go to a specialist.". So, I went to a specialist and my leg was too hurt to tell so he's treating it like a torn ligament and I need four weeks off my leg and then we'll figure out if I need surgery or anything. So to sum up, no good deed goes unpunished! My first week off my foot has been so boring and I've realized that stores aren't wheelchair friendly. Hopefully someone gets the hint that I need some good movies to watch and will bring some over! Please keep us in your prayers right now as we are now an one income family for who knows how long! Love you guys!

HUGE FAMILY UPDATE!

We finally have a reliable Internet provider so I can make blog posts again! Yay! Since the last time we talked two kids turned 7, four turned 6, Jason came home, I tore a few ligaments, and we almost finished our home remodel!! It's been a crazy month and a half in this house and I'm so excited about almost everything that's happening. The kids are all in school now, Zayden and Tyson are in second grade, Callie, Hunter, Brooke, and Stella are in first grade, Savannah is in four year old preschool, and Ryker and Skyler are in the "older toddler" class at preschool! That alone was exhausting! Getting everyone to school on time was a little challenging at first, but we finally have a system down. All of our birthdays shockingly went over very well, despite the "no gift" rule I made for family and friends invited to parties, they still made out with tons of gift cards and candy(because apparently those don't count as gifts?). Jason finally came home to us after a very long three months away, but not before I could injure my ankle beyond belief(there will be another blog post for that!)Our home remodel is FINALLY almost done after three months of work(yup! Jason's entire time gone!)That means we finally get our bedroom back and the youngest two can have their bedroom back as well as our downstairs bathroom-thank God cause I need that right now! I can promise you guys over the next 4-6 weeks you will be hearing a lot more from me. I will see you guys later this week!

School Shopping For Nine!

It's that beautiful time of the year that parents either love or hate-I have a little bit of both. I love that my kids have the opportunity to get an education considering so many countries don't. A lot of parents have complained about how long the supply lists have become, but honestly they aren't that bad. I'm not going to lie, some stuff I did question if they really needed it, but I figured teachers know what they're doing and probably need the items. I don't expect teachers to provide for every student considering they barely make enough to live and their budgets aren't that large so they're going to be buying a lot of stuff for their classrooms on their own as it is. With that being said, buying nine kids worth of school supplies was a huge chore. I mean there were nine backpacks, nine lunch boxes, I don't even know how many pencils, 18 boxes of crayons(cause two per kid!), and the list goes on and on. It was fine though, we were able to score some great deals-shout out to Toys R Us, Amazon, Target, and Walmart! Seriously if you haven't done your shopping yet go to Toys R Us for your backpacks, I know weird concept not very natural feeling but you'll thank me later. Their backpacks are buy one and get the lunch box free! I saved hundreds of dollars with this deal over the years, love it. As for supplies, if you need bulk supplies I suggest Amazon-they had some great deals especially with the super specific things we needed(paper folders, number two wooden pencils, rulers, and so on). The only thing that killed my bank account was clothes. Every. Single. Child. Grew over the summer, so we needed a massive clothing shopping spree. Luckily, we do hand me downs so the younger(or shorter in Brooke's case) got clothes for free. However, Tyson and Estella don't have anyone taller than them so we had to go shopping for clothes. We couldn't find their sizes at the thrift store, so they got NEW clothes which never happens! Shout out to H&M for having such awesome deals because Target clothing has gotten less cute and more expensive! So, long story short we are done school shopping. Everyone has some kind of new clothing item, I probably bought more than I should have-but you know what it's not the end of the world! I hope everyone enjoys their first day of school and that this year is good for everyone.

Summer Wrap Up

This summer has been beyond crazy, between sports, work, and trying not to lose my mind juggling nine kids by myself I feel like school can't start soon enough. I feel so bad because I promised Jason I would blog while he was gone so he could easily catch up on everything, but sadly my laptop decided it only wants to be used for Netflix and refuses to do ANYTHING else! So I've been using my phone or the library's computer to post everything and the library isn't always open so it gets a little hard when you're super busy. That's why you're getting a large blog post and we will be back with a new schedule soon enough. Where should I even start with wrapping up our insane summer? It started without Jason and is ending without him as well. We are all very proud of him and the amount of work it took to get him where he is today, he has a lot to be proud of. With that being said, my kids have made big strides in forgiving their dad. When he left they were heartbroken, obviously, and over time they have been able to mend their hearts a little bit. Tyson was the most heartbroken by his dad's sudden leave, I asked him recently how he felt and I got a shrug and "We'll see when he's home". It might not sound like an improvement, but considering when Jason left Tyson told me he wasn't allowed back in this house-I say it's huge! I think the one looking forward to their daddy's return the most is Skyler. She is so excited to see her daddy and asks about him everyday "How many days!?" is normally how she wakes up, it's adorable and their reunion is something I'm looking forward to. I want to take this moment with this blog post and tell my kids how proud I am of them, Jason is the morning bird and the one to have breakfast ready everyday so when he left we had to shift a little. They all took on different jobs, yes at their young ages they are able to do various jobs. Tyson normally took responsibility of getting cereal for everyone while I got everyone dressed, Hunter took control of the dishes, Callie the pets, Brooke and Estella split the laundry chore, and my youngest three did their best not to fight-they're little I take what I can get. Now, I'm not saying this all went smoothly, it took awhile for us to figure out HOW to do this. We already decided how chores will be split during the school year, my kids had to grow up fast and I'm sorry for them, but also so so proud. I promise, my kids did have fun this summer as well-we went swimming A LOT, went to the park, went to "the beach"(it's not a real beach but my kids think it is), we went to fairs, carnivals, you name it we probably did it. I made sure they had stories to tell on the first day of school and I think it's safe to say we are all ready for school to start. Summer, you will be missed we'll see you next year!

Family Reading Time!- Our Favorite Books

Good morning! I can't believe it's almost August! I feel like summer just started, yet it feels like it's been the longest summer ever-very odd summer for us. At the beginning of this summer our kids were given reading lists, which honestly when your kids are in first and second grade it's more like homework for you than anything. Luckily I love reading, especially kids books they're always so light hearted and fun. I normally read to my kids everyday, but this time it was a little different the books they picked this time were more fun and ones that we would love reading again. So for this post I asked each of my kids their favorite book and why it is their favorite, I was a little surprised about some of the answers. Let's start with my oldest, Zayden, his favorite didn't surprise me at all- Magic Treehouse-any of the books in the series are okay with him! He said "They're my favorite because it's really cool because books take you somewhere and thats what really happens when you read its a free vacation!"(he got that from Matilda). Magic Treehouse is actually a series I read as a kid so I love that my kids are reading them now I get to relive these moments over and over again. Tyson is our next oldest and until this summer HATED reading, it was like pulling teeth-actually that's easier because you can drug the person and yank them out, he wouldn't read for anything. It was tough finding a book he actually wanted to read so I let him watch movies based on books and when he wanted more information I told him it was from a book, that's how he got hooked on Wonder. If you haven't read Wonder you need to go get it. Obviously he hasn't seen the movie yet, just the preview but it was good enough to get him interested. To sum up why he likes it, he sees Auggie as a cool kid that he'd be friends with in real life. He really liked how brave Auggie was and was so happy with the book, I was really happy to read it with him and see him so interested in it. Hunter, much like Tyson, doesn't really enjoy reading-except the Captain Underpants series-those he'll read again and again! I don't think I really need to explain why a five year old boy likes these books, which is good because his reason was "They're good". Man of few words. Callie is actually rereading her favorite book with me now, Matilda. Matilda is a family favorite in this house, but near Callie's birthday every year she always wants to read it not a clue why. She said Matilda is her favorite book "Because she's just so funny and makes trouble!". I think almost all of you have at least seen the movie "Matilda" so I probably don't need to explain how awesome it is. Brooke takes after me in her favorites and I'm sure everyone has heard of this series before Junie B Jones. Junie B Jones was my favorite when I was my girls' age and I remember reading it with my step mom and feeling like I was Junie B Jones sometimes! I loved them. Anyway, this is about my kids- Brooke loves the series because she's so funny. Now onto my nerd, Estella, Stella loves reading and reads at a higher level with some help she's actually reading the first Harry Potter book right now. I was the same age as her when I started reading Harry Potter so I don't think it's inappropriate at all, though I can see why people would think that. Again, Harry Potter is one that I'm sure everyone already knows about and probably doesn't need much explaining. Stella likes the books because it's always a surprise. I'm so glad my kids are enjoying reading and I can't wait to read even more books with them because honestly this is one of my favorite parts of parenthood. I'm going to do a separate post for "Toddler Favorite" books in the future because some of these aren't suitable for my younger kids but most can be read as a family.

Our favorite gluten free food

Good morning! I am up way too early today, my kids are super mad about it-they can blame the neighbors for this awesomeness. Since I'm up I figured I might as well get my blog post up. The first thing people normally learn about me is that I have celiac's disease-not the most exciting fact but it's the truth. The conversations after that range from "Oh, I'm so sorry" to "Me too! What do you enjoy eating?" Which brings us into this lovely topic, what our family's favorite gluten free foods are. Now, there's the obvious meat products, fruits, veggies, you know the boring things that everyone knows are gluten free and don't really help people who were diagnosed with celiac's or just choose to eat gluten free. I'll start with our first meal, if we aren't eating eggs for breakfast we normally have pancakes or cereal- for pancakes we LOVE Hungry Jack Gluten Free Funfetti Pancake Mix- it doesn't HAVE to be funfetti, but I honestly haven't found a non-funfetti one since before Christmas time so we just kind of deal with it. Now onto cereal- Lucky Charms are my kids favorite(we eat healthy around here) and granola is another favorite-almost any granola is gluten free but we like Udi's the most. Now onto lunch! I like lunch more, mainly because I'm more awake at this point and I actually enjoy eating by this point-our lunch foods very so I'm going to name a couple if it's a sandwich day like today we use the Canyon Bakehouse bread-ok if you have celiac's go to your nearest Target or go on Amazon and order this bread it is the only gluten free bread I like-shout out to my cousin Mark for suggesting it! The other super popular item in our house for lunch is Mac and Cheese-I have kids-we like the Walmart brand which costs around two dollars per box as opposed to the normal price of gluten free Mac and Cheese it's a steal! In the winter we have soup, a lot, like more than I should admit to because it's probably not healthy but we love it and our favorite is New England Clam Chowder. Moving onto dinner, I work at dinner time so normally I'm lame and have a salad, but when I'm home I make pasta very often, again the Walmart brand-great price and seems like it's the only brand we found that doesn't stick together in the pot and on Pizza nights we have Udi's pizza. The big issue I've seem to run into is deserts so even though we don't eat these often I figured I'd add them-if you are gluten free for whatever reason or you want to make me brownies the BEST brownie mix ever is Kruestez. They taste like a bit of heaven and people don't even realize they're gluten free until I tell them(or eat one in front of them). Now that I made myself super hungry, I'm going to go-I hope you enjoyed this lovely blog post and I will see you guys again soon!

"Mom she said I was a girl!"

Hello my lovely friends, I'm sorry I don't post as much. Summer is a crazy time, it's starting to calm down now since school is starting up again soon. We have been spending a lot of time at the pool which brings me into the post I have for you today. Recently we were at the pool which use to be Callie's least favorite place for all the obvious reasons. She has since started to accept the fact she just has to wear shorts over her bathing suit and be good to go-which by the way this seems to be popular in our area right now so that's a win! However she is always afraid for whatever reason someone will find out she's transgender this is always a worry Jason and I have because of what jerks people can be. That's why when my sweet little one came running over to me screaming I was a little worried. After getting her to calm down she excitedly told me that the lady at the concession stand told her she liked her bathing suit and she was a beautiful girl. Yup! A stranger told my transgender daughter that she looked beautiful and I didn't think it was weird, I thought it was amazing. I thought "wow she really is a girl!" which out of context would be super weird. My daughter was so happy for DAYS after the event and will still randomly bring up the nice lady who didn't even realize she was transgender. So to you, the stranger at the pool-THANK YOU! Thank you for being so kind just because, you didn't have to say anything to Callie, but you did. You told her something she needed to hear from someone who didn't know our situation and I will never be able to repay you in anyway. You changed my daughter, summer isn't a fun time for a transgender child-at least for ours it isn't. She doesn't like wearing shorts-people notice things, she doesn't like swimming suits-same reason, and she isn't comfortable with herself yet-or she wasn't until you commented on how she looked. You verified what she knew, that she is a girl. I pray that one day everyone sees her the way you did.

Homeschooling while working full time?!

So often when people hear we homeschool they follow it up with "So, you're a stay at home mom?" and they are shocked when I respond with a "no". Until I started homeschooling I never realized most people think you can only be a stay at home parent and do it. Little do they know over half of the homeschoolers I've ran into work full time while homeschooling their children. I will admit, it would be much easier if I just stayed home and did all of this, but we simply could not afford to do that so here's what works for us. I do have some kids that mainstream so those kids get up around 6:30-6:45, I obviously get up with them and get breakfast ready while they do their morning chores/dress. My homeschoolers typically wake up around 6:45-7, breakfast is normally ready so they knock out their chores quickly and start on school work. I don't have an exact schedule of the order they do their school work in, but they start at 7:30. I also have two toddlers at home with me most days so on the days they don't have preschool I put on Paw Patrol or set them up with a toy in the living room so I can hear/see them and help my school aged kids when needed. Brooke normally takes about 3-4 hours to do her work because she works without breaks, this isn't something I force them to do, she's just always been this way and it's one of the reasons we homeschool her. Zayden however, takes about 6-7 hours because of breaks and the fact he's a perfectionist and will keep doing work until he gets it perfect. Because Brooke normally finishes her work earlier than I would like I have a stack of worksheets relating to the work she did, if she finishes those quickly-which she will-I just let her read or play an educational game on her tablet. Regardless of how long they take their almost always done by the time I head out to work and if they aren't then the babysitter taking over helps them out with whatever is left. By homeschooling my kids I am able to spend time with them that normally I wouldn't have, I work in evenings so it is a little easier to do this for my kids than if I worked during the day. I'm sure over the years our schedule will change, but right now this is what works for us and hopefully is of some help for people out there who are wanting to homeschool, but work full time. It's not easiest thing in the world, but just like parenting in general it is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.

Stuck in a minimalist rut!

If you've been following our blog for awhile you know we are on a minimalist journey. This journey started in January, but really got in gear in April/May. We were taking truck loads of bags to Goodwill, it was amazing! It felt so great to truly clean out everything. Fast forward to July, it's been months and we still have more stuff than I am comfortable with. Our buying habits have changed drastically, we no longer buy things just because and we think more about purchases. It's crazy because even though we have gotten rid of so many different things it just isn't enough. We are stuck in this never ending cycle of "Get rid of, clean the room, enjoy" but they never really seem to stay clean and there's really no reason for it. The amount of time it takes me to clean the house is getting insane, especially since we have like no items! After watching tons of minimalist videos I've realized I'm not the only one starting this process who feels like they get stuck in a rut from time to time. It actually seemed like everyone has experienced this at least once, the best advice I found was from a minimalist Youtuber(I can't think of their name or find their video sorry!). She talked about thinking about your house catching on fire(I know morbid but stay with me). If your house was on fire what would you save? Obviously for me it would first be my kids and animals. Okay now that the living things, that don't even count in minimalism, are safe-now what? As bad as it sounds I would want my laptop, phone, and honestly that's probably it. I'm not longer the super sentimental person I used to be-I used to hold onto ANYTHING that reminded me of someone especially if they had passed away. Now I realize that's not what keeps their memory with me. For example, my nephew passed away and a year ago I probably would have NEVER let go of anything of his. Today when we were cleaning out the "Harry Potter Room" we found a shirt that was his and I almost got rid of it, then I realized Ryker is going to need that size soon so I held onto it(or at least that was my reasoning). I no longer live with the "what ifs" for small things like baskets or trinkets "What if so and so wants this in the future?", they can buy it most likely, it's not a huge deal to get rid of these things. The main issue I am now running into is my mom just doesn't see a benefit to being a minimalist, she keeps telling people I'm not really becoming a minimalist and hearing that kind of kills me. This is a journey, it's not just something you wake up and do and people-family included-don't realize that. I'm hoping once this insane pre journey is over people realize how serious I am about this, because it's getting really hard having to defend my choices even though this choice isn't dangerous people still seem worried about it. Anyway! I have hungry children glaring at me, so I'm going to make lunch now.

Bunch O Balloons-Bunch O Fun!

Happy belated fourth guys! I hope everyone had an amazing time with family and friends, my bunch sure did. Because I worked later in the evening and the pool was packed(it was 90 degrees), we decided to pick up some water balloons and test them out. We had heard so many good things about "Bunch O Balloons" and since I don't have the time or patience to fill and tie 100+ water balloons, it sounded like a dream come true. The downside to this is, we don't own a hose and all the videos we had seen of people using them used hoses to fill them up, so that was a little worrisome. Luckily, we were able to find one that had a water gun with it that you used to fill it up and it was a bonus toy. I'm going to be super honest, I was hoping the water gun would be easier than it truly was, but that's why I was blessed with a son who loves to do things like this. Tyson sat in the tub pumping that sucker until all the balloons were filled, or Ryker popped them whichever happened first. It took him about ten minutes to fill them all up, which for being six didn't seem too bad to me in the long run. They truly do tie themselves and that was the best thing in the world, whoever invented these is my best friend right now. I remember as a kid going to tie the water balloons and having them burst in my face as I tied them, it was never a fun moment and I'm glad that's a thing of the passed now. Kudos to you Bunch O Balloons for making these! We had hours of fun throwing balloons at each other and getting soaked and cooled off-so well needed on a day like this. I know for a fact if it wasn't for this product we wouldn't have had a successful water balloon fight, because in all honesty I wouldn't have even bought balloons I hate them that much. This is one product I would be okay with my kids getting for their birthdays(for all you gift givers out there reading this blog). I hope I can find more fun, easy, family oriented products like this out there because right now it's exactly what we need.

We missed you!

I am so sorry that you guys have been neglected so much this passed month, but I have just been so busy. Working full time, raising kids, and trying to clean our house consumed my life and I put posting on the back burner. But, I really wanted to start blogging on because I love it and honestly missed it during my break, but my kids come first. That's why you're getting this lovely post after I got four hours of sleep and my kids are currently playing with Ryker's car track and not fighting(I'm going to regret saying that). I honestly just wanted to do a bit of a wrap up for the month of June so Jason can read this when he gets home and know what exactly went down. So, let's go back to the beginning of June-school got out all our kids moved up in their classes. We had pretty awesome graduation ceremonies and the kids got "awards", our school gives awards to all the kids Tyson is the only one who got one(only child at the school) and honestly I can't think of what his award was and he's not home for me to ask. He was very very proud of his award, he marched into our favorite locally owned restaurant and showed it to his favorite waitress, she seemed happy for him-may have been faking it but that's ok he was pleased with her reaction. We did our traditional ice cream party(ok we really just went to an ice cream place and got ice cream) to kick off the summer, we got our pool passes and put them to good use already. Most of our kids learned to swim, Brooke was the most surprising seeing as she has a fear of water or at least she did last year. As of now the only kids using floaties are Ryker and Skyler, for the obvious reasons of my pure fear of them drowning and them being two. The older kids have all now gone down the water slide at the pool-yay! Baseball is officially over in our house and that took so much stress off of me, as much as I love my kids are their sports it was so hard to juggle all of that. The summer sessions of gymnastics have started and are starting to consume our lives just as much as regular season practices, luckily there are less of these and you can miss some without too many issues. All in all we had a great month of June, we miss Jason so much but are so proud that he took this step in his recovery. It's now a new month and we are one month closer to being able to hug him again and can't wait. I promise I will be posting more now that my life is a little less hectic than it was this passed month, we have a lot happening this month and you guys are coming along for the ride!

He's Scared of the Potty!

A few days Ryker told me he had to go potty, I was so excited and took him to the potty. I was pretty proud of him until I saw his little fact go bright red and his bottom lip quiver and he started screaming. He was terrified of the big potty! This lasted all day when his older siblings used the bathroom, I'm convinced he thought the toilet was going to eat them. So, as much as I didn't want one I caved and allowed my sister in law to send us a tiny potty. It came last night and it was in a huge box, so he was beyond excited to open it. I let him open it and he was so happy with it that he wanted to try it out right away. Needless to say, his older siblings were so excited! They sang the potty song, gave him stickers, and high fives-he felt like a super star(or maybe he didn't he didn't say). Regardless, I'm very proud of my little man! He has improved so much since we got custody of him, he didn't even know how to roll over at one year old! Now he runs, rides his bike, talks up a storm, and uses the potty! His early intervention specialist was also very impressed with all of his improvement and said he might be able to stop the program soon. This is huge guys! This little man has been through so much in his two and a half years and he deserves some easiness for once. I'm excited to see what happens now that he's caught up to Skyler developmentally, now it's actually like I have two toddlers! Good job Rye guy, we are all so proud of you!

I can't do this

Single mom life has officially killed me. I seriously can not do anything right, I don't make enough to support my own family, I have barely any outside help and the people who live with me aren't helping at all. I emotionally, physically, and mentally feel defeated. Just once I want people to do what I ask of them, to have the dishes and laundry done when I get home from work-or at least started I'm not picky! I can't take the stress of raising kids, working, trying to keep my house clean, and everything else when I don't have any back up. When Jason was here he would make the kids do their chores and he would do a few himself, because we were a team and that's what we did! Now it's me against the world. I will admit, some people have stepped up to help with things like meals and I appreciate that so much! But, that doesn't help with the fact my laundry isn't done, I have a pile of dishes, the trash isn't taken out until I get home at 11, and all the rooms are a mess. Yes, I realize I have nine kids-six of which are perfectly capable of helping around the house and they do. They do so well for being six and five, but they are kids! They still don't do everything perfectly and that's okay, because adults can help them but no one is. I just honestly can't keep doing this, our living situation is not working anymore and I realize that and it's time for a change. I'm not sure how it'll change, like I said before I'm not making enough to support our family let alone move, but if it means living in a super small apartment until we can afford a bigger place I will do it. This current situation is making me cry every single night and my kids are realizing how stressed I am. I'm sorry this post is so depressing, but this is my life currently. My life is a huge mess and just seems to be getting worse. I am hoping tomorrow is better, but I highly doubt it at this point.

It's officially summer break!

I just picked my kids up from school-for their last day! I am so excited that we finally are on break, I need this. My kids had very successful years at school and I am so proud of every single one of them. This passed year has been super hard for them, yet they all did so well in school! I truly think part of it was because of their amazing teachers being so understanding about everything. Teachers are truly underpaid heroes and we owe them so much, so to all the teachers out there-Thank you! Thank you for making our kids smarter, braver, and kinder. Our summer is going to be filled with so many different activities that I don't even know which one to start with. I hope nine kids can agree on something fun to do, because I'm not up for dealing with fights about every little thing(I know-they will fight!) So, tomorrow we are going to sit down and make our summer bucket list, we did it last year and it was so fun and kept them busy so I know it'll be exciting for them to do it again. I'm sorry this post is so short, it's passed midnight here and I just worked all night, but really wanted to get this post up before going to bed. I love you guys and I'm so thankful for you, here's to an awesome summer and awesome memories!

Be Your Own Hero

My kids are seriously little versions of Jason and I when it comes to their taste in entertainment. They love all things nerdy, especially super heroes. If you know us, you know we have tons of super hero related stuff and it's spilling over into our kids, trust me my boys have tons of Batman toys and the girls are now getting their own collection going with the DC Super Hero Girls. I'm not sure where their sudden obsession came from, but they really love Harley Quinn and I wouldn't let them see Suicide Squad, so we compromised. We allowed them to see the "Hero of the Year" movie because it was a much more appropriate version of a Harley Quinn movie. While watching the movie we had a pretty awesome discussion about how we can all be our own heroes somehow. I feel like when you have a "different" child-transgender, diabetic, has cancer-you try to look for characters like them and they never seem to be represented, so sometimes they have to do it themselves. Callie of course took this mission to a whole new level and decided she is truly going to be a hero for kids who are different and feel left out. When I asked her how she was planning on doing this she said"I'm going to make one friend a day!", when you're five making friends is much easier than it is at my age! This conversation happened almost three weeks ago, so at breakfast this morning I decided to revisit it and see how she was doing. She told me she befriended several kids, but didn't make a new friend everyday like she had planned. Apparently some of the kids took more convincing then others, but I was proud to hear the kids she befriended were lonely and had no one to play with. This small action may seem silly to us adults, but I remember being the kid at the playground who didn't have friends. I remember my heart breaking when I would get picked last on every team, ever. To have my five year old daughter tell me she marched right up to a girl who was sitting alone at the park and looked sad to ask her to play on the swings-that shows me that heroes really do exist. Heroes are everywhere, they are in all different shapes and sizes, sometimes they're even living in your house. My five year old showed me what it means to be an everyday hero, a simple hero-and she didn't even need a cape! So thank you Callie, thank you for showing me that kids are the best kinds of heroes ever-maybe one day DC will write a comic book about you.

THERE IS A BIRD IN MY WALL!

I swear the moment Jason left my life was like "so everything is going to go wrong!". So let's rewind to a few nights ago, our boys sleep in the attic and pretty much stay up there all day playing Lego's and probably beating each other up with play weapons and what not-look I'm not up there all I know is their room is always a mess. So anyway, like a lot of people who want to air out their rooms they opened their window to let some air in. Yup! They really did let air in AND A BIRD! I'm not going to lie, I didn't think it was really in there and assumed if a bird did get in it would be afraid of them and leave, but it sure was. It then flew in the unfinished part of their wall and decided that was a nice nest. Let me just say, it is really creepy to be alone, in an attic, with some creepy noise coming from INSIDE THE WALL! Yea, needless to say I packed up most of their room and called my landlord basically crying like a crazy person. I'm slightly positive that the bird has since passed away, still in my wall, so now I wait for my landlord to come remove it and my brother in law to come finish the walls and maybe put a screen in the window to avoid these things. For now the boys aren't allowed up there because birds honestly are the scariest things to me and I don't want any of my kids near birds. Well, now that you all have that to make fun of me with, go ahead! If you aren't scared of birds I suggest watching "Birds" or "Psycho" and then coming back and you'll truly understand why this is so scary.

Love the Little Things

Yesterday was one of the most relaxing days I've had in awhile, because Saturdays are a moms best friend. I mean my day did start way earlier than I wanted-seriously people please don't text me before 9 am! But, it was okay because one of my toddlers was up and playing already, yea I know I'm a terrible mom tried to sleep in a left a two year unattended! To be fair, it was 7 am and most of the time they're all still sleeping. Anyway! I got up with her and we played "tea party" for a bit, it was nice to finally spend some time with my kids and not feel rushed. Most of my morning was just so peaceful and playful, because well honestly I didn't feel like doing anything other than being with my kids. I realized at that moment, it was exactly what I needed. I needed to play tea party, I needed to show my daughter how to braid her princess's hair(even if I didn't really know what I was doing). I need those moments of peace, don't get me wrong I did actual work too. I got laundry done, I cleaned some of our bedroom, and went through some of the kids clothes, but it doesn't compare to how complete I felt after playing with my kids. It was then that I decided Saturdays are officially not going to be super structured to keep my sanity. It probably sounds weird and the opposite of what you should do to keep your sanity, but that unstructured playtime made my mood like 100 times better, plus my kids were happy to have me play with them and at the end of the day they are the most important part of my life. So thank you Skyler, for being awake early and showing me that sometimes I just have to play with you guys to fix my mood.

Mom life-1 Me-0

I think it's safe to say I am not made for this single parent life. It is so exhausting and I am running on Red Bull and Dr. Pepper, I know super healthy! The first two days I thought I might actually be able to survive this, but now almost a week later I'm seeing that it's emotionally, physically, and mentally draining. Obviously, I am not throwing in the towel because I'm a mom and moms don't quit, but I think it'a time for mommy to have a super long nap. Here's a little recap of everything we've done this week, Skyler and Ryker graduated preschool. That was pretty emotional, especially since people kept coming up to me asking where Jason was and I didn't want to answer that, which actually causes more questions. Savannah graduated preschool as well, a little less sad-I guess the parents in her class either don't care as much or they didn't want to be rude by asking. So officially three of my kids are summer vacation-yay! That means my mornings are slightly less hectic. I also learned a new skill, don't make fun of it, making grilled cheese. Yup! I seriously had no idea how to make it until recently when Jason saw me making it and was like "That's not how you make grilled cheese" and he was kind enough to show me and make a really good grilled cheese for me. Anyway, my kids love grilled cheese so I made them some and I did it correctly! Thanks Jason for teaching me that important life skill, not sure how I made it 22 years without it. My kids were shocked because normally Jason makes the grilled cheese, because you know I couldn't, and they gave me some pointers for my next attempt. I was also able to get all kids to school on time, get my homeschoolers homework done, walk the dog, do dishes, do laundry, get rid of old clothes/toys, and somehow I haven't broken down in tears-yet. Everyone kept telling me that as the days go by it'll be easier, but honestly it seems harder now than it did the first day. I truly believe that once summer officially hits and they're all done with school I will be able to handle it or cry whichever happens first.

One Day at a Time

We are on to our second with me being a single mom and we aren't sure if I'm winning at this lifestyle or not. Yesterday was pretty easy because two of my helpers were off work, but they both went back today so it was me against nine kids this morning. Did I mention I worked until 1am last night? I feel like that's an important part of this story. When my alarm went off this morning I was pretty upset, normally Jason gets up with the kids and does all the morning things so I can sleep. I know, I sound super lazy, but I work more than 40 hours most weeks-so mama sleeps when she can! Anyway, the alarm went off and I got up still sleeping for the most part and yelled to each kid to get ready. There's a reason Jason does this and not me, he's so chipper in the morning and loves breakfast foods. I'm impressed when I get cereal and toast ready successfully. Once they were all dressed and ate their super healthy breakfast I realized we had like twenty minutes to get everyone to school, which start all at the same time but our no where near each other. Luckily, Tyson has a few friends he can walk to school with and was able to do that this morning and get to school on time. I was actually shocked that they all made it to all their activities and what not and I was able to do some of my chores today. We'll just pretend that I had energy when doing all of this and that I wasn't fighting back the urge to throw a fit over all the little things in life. I do want to warn all of you now, this blog might turn into a bit of a diary so Jason can read it when he gets the chance and catch up on all of the things he's missed in life. Just the thought of all the things he's going to be missing kills me inside, our wedding anniversary, six of our kids birthdays, Fathers' Day, kindergarten graduation, baseball games, Brooke's moving up meet, teaching our kids to swim, and so much more! I am so not looking forward to being the only one experiencing these fun activities, but I know if he doesn't do this now he'll permanently miss everything in their lives and I'm not okay with that. I can't wait till he gets home and I have my best friend and number one supporter back, because I need him like crazy.

Temporally a Single Mom!

Let's get down to business(I hope you all got Mulan stuck in your head now). If you know us in real life you already know this, but for those of you in the dark, Jason has decided to go to rehab. I don't want to get into details, because honestly it's his story and if he decides to tell everyone he can. Anyway, with him being in rehab for at least three months I get to attempt being a single mom for a bit! I'm already exhausted at the thought of doing this, but know it's what has to be done. I'm not sure if school ending soon is going to make it easier or not, but I will quickly find out and figure out how to make it all work. I am so grateful that we have so many awesome friends and family members that are able to help when needed, because I know this won't be easy to do without them. My goal for this first week of being alone is to figure out a schedule that works well for us, between working full time and having kids who do pretty much every activity under the sun I know without a schedule I will lose my mind quickly. I am terrified of the thought of failing at this single mom life and really hope I can figure it out and that Jason gets the help he needs and can come back to us. I really want to take this moment to thank all of the people who have sent us so many prayers during the passed few months, we wouldn't have made it this far without you. I hope you still have our backs as we go through this next chapter in this wonderful thing we call life.

30 Day Minimalist Challenge!

I really just want to take this moment and apologize to all the people who follow me on Pinterest. You have probably seen me pin tons of different challenges, most of which I never actually do, but this one is different. I found a fairly easy 30 day minimalist challenge. See, the biggest struggle I have with cleaning in general is I always try to do everything at once. Which then leads to me getting angry and deciding to give up and just let our house be a mess. However, this "challenge" split it up so well that even I could do it. Plus, it's called a challenge which makes it even more fun in my overly competitive mind. Anyway back to my point, we started this yesterday and it already seems to be going super well. Zayden and I decided we were going to work together on it since he is really the only kid okay with becoming a minimalist and he's super excited about the thought of getting rid of things that we don't use. Yesterday the challenge was to get rid of five things, we decided to get rid of stuff from the boxes that have been sitting in the hallway for about seven months now. Once we decided what we wanted to get rid of and bagged it up we were quite proud of our accomplishment(Jason made fun of this because it was so easy). Todays challenge was a little harder for us because it required cleaning my least favorite room-the kitchen. I don't know why, but our kitchen never seems to get a deep cleaning. Maybe it's because no one sees the point because we mess it up ten seconds later? I'm not sure, but the challenge today was to clean the counters. For us to do that we had to actually decide what needed to stay and what served no purpose. If you know me, you know I love candles, probably more than a human should and my collection from Yankee Candle is quite large. While cleaning the counters I had to decide what to do with them and sadly that meant getting rid of some. I will admit, the ones I got rid of didn't have much wax or I didn't enjoy the smell, but that's not the point! I love having a sweet smelling home and it pains me to get rid of things like this. I keep reminding myself, things don't make you happy memories do. I think I will survive without a few candles and I am very proud that I'm making such large leaps with the minimalist journey. It's hard at times because so many people say I can never do it, but I know what being a minimalist truly means and I'm okay with not being the perfect one. My main goal is to make sure I don't end up on hoarders one day to be honest, because sometimes I feel like we have so much stuff that we're headed that way. I can't wait to see what our house looks like at the end of our challenge and I really hope I can stick to it!

Minimalist Mother's Day

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday and that all you mommies got super spoiled. My kids were amazing with all the little things they did for me, especially with them not getting me anything that would take up too much space. If you have been following this blog, you know that we are on a journey to becoming minimalists. That journey is quite long, but it's becoming easier everyday. I explained to my kids that I really didn't want much for Mother's Day and all I really wanted was a clean house-which I didn't get but that's not the point. The point is they listened, they realized I really wasn't interested in jewelry that I would never be able to wear or little nick-nacks. They knew what things I actually enjoy and what drives me crazy. This year was probably the best Mother's Day I ever had and it was probably also the simplest one ever. I mean really, my kids just made me breakfast and CLEANED IT UP!(moms know what I'm talking about here!). That alone was more than enough present wise, but just having a relaxing day with my family was the best gift ever and I'm so glad we did it. I am beginning to realize that no amount of stuff will ever be able to replace the feeling I get when I am with my family. That feeling is the most amazing thing in the world and I am so blessed to have gotten to spend an amazing and beautiful day with them. I am not going to lie, the fact they each got rid of two toys helped a lot, but even if they didn't do that and we just hung out all day it would have been just as perfect. So, to my kids and my amazing husband-thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so amazing and understanding what I truly wanted and needed yesterday. Now, to figure out what to do for my husband for Father's Day, because he is not nearly as easily pleased as I am about holidays. Wish me luck! Happy Mother's Day yet again!

Kidbox vs Kidpik

As you all know we recently did a review on Kidpik, today we received a "Kidbox" box from a very similar company. I was a little worried that it would be exactly like Kidpik, but since it also offered boy clothes I went ahead and ordered one for Zayden. Zayden is very good at fashion and makes me feel bad about myself when he's able to match all his siblings clothes in a matter of seconds and I'm still trying to find matching socks. He is not as picky as Brooke is when it comes to clothes because he feels like he can make anything work. With that being said, I knew he would be the perfect kid to test this product on. Much like Kidpik they ask you what styles, size, and products your kids like to wear. Zayden prefers higher end things vs the sporty things Tyson wears, so I knew this was going to be expensive. As I was filling everything out I read that they donate an outfit to a child in need when you keep the whole box. That was pretty awesome to me! It's a good way to encourage people to buy the whole box that's for sure. So after about three weeks of waiting for his box it arrived-yay! He was so happy that he ripped into, made up his mind on what to keep, and had it all packed in the prepaid return package before I could take any pictures. He was pretty excited to show me what he had picked out and I was glad he made good choices without any adults present. He choose to keep a cute penguin shirt and really nice dark blue shorts that match it, and honestly probably match most of his other clothes as well. He told me the reason he chose not to keep the other products was just because he had similar items already. They sent a polo shirt, khakis, a nice button up shirt, a plain grey shirt(as if Zayden would wear a PLAIN shirt), and khaki shorts. I was pretty impressed with how nice everything was and really liked that if he had kept the whole box- it would have cost less that $100 and they would have donated to a child in need. Now to the part you all want to know-which do I prefer? Part of me wishes I got Brooke both boxes so I could truly compare, however from what I've seen I kind of like Kidbox more. I think it's amazing that they donate to a child in need and the prices are pretty good. However, we got more with the Kidpik box, Brooke got accessories and shoes and she gets a box every month vs Zayden only getting one every season. I think in the end it will balance itself out for our kids and maybe one day Zayden will have enough clothes for his liking(probably not seeing as I purge clothes often). All in all, both boxes are great and I would suggest either one for you and your kids. If you decide to get a box(or two) let us know! We'd love to hear your experience with our favorite products. Here's a link to get $25 off your first Kidbox! http://refer.kidbox.com/fwyw7

Happy 2nd Birthday Skyler!

Oh my word, how are we already to this point? I remember this moment like it was yesterday, we got the phone call that the little girl we would be adopting was born about two weeks early. Jason was just the boyfriend at this point and didn't actually have to come with me, but I needed a ride-thanks babe! So we went to the hospital where he was the second person to hold our little bundle of joy. I knew from that moment she had broke him, the guy who was afraid to get close to a child who wasn't biologically his was falling in love. From that moment on she was his girl and he was her daddy. This little girl is truly the glue that holds our family together, she makes us smile in the darkest times and always has a smart remark to say even if she doesn't realize it. For being only two years old she seems like she is so much older than that half the time, she speaks so clearly and plays well with her siblings(sometimes). This little girl is obsessed with everything "girly", if it's pink and sparkly she wants it! She loves "nernaids"(mermaids) and loves "fishies". I am so glad that we have her in our lives, even though terrible twos seem to be hitting her full force. I honestly couldn't imagine going through life without her. Skyler Ro, you are so beautiful, so funny, so outgoing, so smart. I could go on and on about how much I love you, you are one of my favorite people in the world. I love you to the moon and back, happy 2nd birthday Skyler!!!

School Wrap Up!

Our first year of homeschool has officially come to an end(well almost, they have tests but that's it). A lot of people have asked about our opinions on homeschooling and what we're planning on doing next year in regards to schooling. This first year of homeschooling has made me realize I love teaching my kids, I love being with them when they learn how to do new skills and am so glad that I have had this opportunity to do so this year. So of course, our kids who were homeschooled will for sure be homeschooled again next school year. As for our kids who went to regular school this passed year, for the most part they will remain the same. Callie, Estella, and Tyson all love being in school, as much as I would love to have them home with me I know that isn't best for them. Those three need constant interaction with different kids and they get that at school, so I will swallow my pride and let them do their thing. Now onto Hunter, if you didn't know this our son Hunter has Aspergers and we tried mainstreaming him this passed year, it was not a good fit for him. He was biting kids, he was hitting kids, he was having a hard time. We realized that he needs a different kind of schooling, so we went ahead and found a special needs school in our area. Since switching him to this school he has made incredible strides, he went from being an angry child who couldn't channel his anger back to the sweet kid we know and love. He has only bit a few children since then, seeing as it was a daily occurrence I saw this as a win, and hasn't hurt himself since. As for our homechooled kids, we learned a lot about learning styles and my teaching style. I learned that following the books perfectly isn't needed, we don't need every single homeschool book on the market, and most importantly I learned that it really is okay if you have a day where you just don't do work. Working full time and homeschooling is a hard task, I'm sometimes exhausted in the morning and more than once I have taught my kids while holding back tears and being physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. Just recently I decided to put on an educational show and let them learn from that instead, obviously I don't do this often, but I learned it is more than okay to let them double up some days and relax on some. I am so excited that this school year is coming to an end and summer is upon us, I miss being able to sleep in and to see my kids for more than just a couple hours. I just hope I can muster up some energy to get through these next few weeks(4 to be exact). Here's to summer!

Kidpik Review

For about a year now I have gotten tons of emails from various stores and such, one that stuck out to me was "Kidpik". If you don't know what Kidpik is, to quote my child "It's like getting your kid a stylist" literally I basically did that. I am the worst at planning outfits, literally one of the reasons we became minimalists was so I was forced to make sure things matched. So anyway, Kidpik is pretty awesome. It lets you select what your kids enjoy wearing, what size they wear, and everything in between. Brooke was beyond excited to get a box and once I found out that it's free shipping, free returns, and the stylist fee is also free I was hooked. I went ahead and ordered her a box, you can sign up for any amount of boxes per year we chose once a month because Brooke is picky about her clothes and I knew she wouldn't keep a lot. As a person who doesn't drive, it's nice to have door delivery for things like this, I'm always afraid to order clothes online in case they don't fit or don't look as nice as they did online. Luckily we didn't have those issues with these and they worked out perfectly. It was actually a little hard for me to have her pick out just one or two items to keep because everything was so cute. Luckily my child did that for me and chose a really nice flowing shirt that is perfect for summer, a pair of black sandals, and a blue bracelet. It was a perfect amount of things and the prices weren't terrible. My biggest fear was the clothes would be super expensive, luckily the prices were around the same price as Target or Children's Place. The return process is super easy as well, they send you a prepaid package and all you have to do is put the items inside that you want to return and send it on out. You have seven days to pick what you want to keep, so don't feel too rushed, but you only pay for the items you keep. I am a tad in love with this company right now and really hope that they continue to be so amazing. I've included some pictures of the box, I tried to get to it before she ripped into it, but failed! She was too excited.

Our Rules on Clothing

For some reason my one coworker and I got on the topic of raising modest kids and how to go about it. It got my thinking, how do Jason and I tackle the clothing rules in our family. We try our hardest to make sure every child is dressed modestly, but also comfortably because honestly that's my biggest concern. Right now with them being so young I feel like it's most important to teach them what you expect and what others expect, we obviously don't allow our children to wear anything inappropriate, but unlike the Duggars we don't make them wear things down to their knees at all times. The biggest issue we've run into recently is shorts, if you have a girl or have ever even seen a girl you know shorts are SHORT! Like I said before, I want my girls to be comfortable so obviously during the hot months they need shorts, but dang! We settled on the "finger tip" rule that most schools have-shorts much reach the persons finger tips to be deemed appropriate. So far it's working and I pray they never learn the "slight shrug" thing I did in high school to make my arms shorter. Besides our very lenient rules about modest clothing, we do have rules about how much clothes they can own. Because I'm crazy and want to become a minimalist-I know a lot of people think I'm kidding but I have donated more stuff than I have kept-we have made some rules about how much clothing they can keep, we aren't super strict about it because that's just insane, but we try to keep things extremely limited. Right now every kid has ten shirts, ten pairs of paints(five shorts, five long pants), the girls have five dresses each, and the boys have a handful of dress clothes. I know, it sounds crazy and we sound like terrible parents, but it has helped us get ready easier in the mornings. There are no longer hours of yelling "MOM I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WEAR!" now it's just grab the shirt, grab the pants-GO! Also, shockingly there is less fighting between our girls on who gets to wear what! I was expecting them to fight more because of having less to choose from, but they are actually taking turns wearing certain items. I think it helped that they were involved in the process of picking what stays and what goes. I hope the toy purge goes as well as this did!

Mom needs a break!

Oh my goodness, I seriously feel like last week never happened. I feel like I slept through an entire week(or rather worked through an entire week). I don't know how it's the end of April, I don't know how my youngest baby is almost two! I really don't know how we got here, it was just April 10th a few days ago in my mind. It was then that I realized, it's time to take a step back and just be a mom(no I'm not quitting the blog) but I do think I stress too much about getting it up on time. Lately it seems like my kids have taken the back seat so I could get the blog up and I'm not okay with that. I don't want to be the mom who tells them "one second mom has to finish this post" and I don't want to miss anymore time with them than I'm already missing due to work. At the end of the day it's about these kids here, I don't want to sit down on Sunday night again and ask my husband how Easter was a week ago and have to ask him if I gave our kids their baskets! I've never in my life felt like a worst mom than I do right now, I feel like I failed at being a mom. Our kids have been troopers lately, with Jason losing his job, me picking up extra shifts to make up for lost money, the struggle with addiction, they have literally witnessed more than most six year olds have. The deserve some special activities going on in their lives, activities mom and dad can actually participate in. I'm really hoping that a bit of a "mommy break" does the trick to this whole little funk I've been in for the passed week(or more my memory is SHOT!) Please forgive me for this terrible blog post, but I really just want to get back to playing "trucks" with my toddler. I will see you guys later!

Mom, do dogs go to Heaven?

It's official, April 20th is the worst day ever. Seriously, a year ago my grandma passed away and then yesterday my other grandma's dog passed away. I know what you're thinking, they aren't comparable but seriously that dog has been in my family longer than my daughter has. She had him for 15 years and he was without a doubt her best friend, dogs seriously take up a big part of our hearts and it's so clear that he did. I always told the dog I hated him, he was very yippy and really only liked my grandma(and occasionally other people if they had food). For whatever reason though, his last few months I began liking him, probably because he lost the will to bark but I really loved watching him waddle and felt so bad when he would limp. He was seriously like any other member of the family, we bought him gifts on holidays, got cards signed from him for my grandma he was truly her baby. It wasn't until I told my five year old daughter he had passed that I realized his life affected us all, she said with tears in her eyes "What happens now?" and I told her he would always be with us, since we are religious I did say God had him now. Then the questions I think all kids ask at one point was asked "Mama, do dogs go to Heaven?". I had to think on that one, there is no proof in the Bible or Book of Mormon that they go to Heaven, but I feel like they do. I told my very upset child, that yes dogs go to Heaven and he was running around up there pain free. Right now we are just hoping and praying that my grandma is okay with out her buddy, our dog has been super sad since the whole thing happened. I know, you are all probably thinking I'm crazy but he really is sad! Dogs pick up on a lot and I think he knows his buddy is gone. So, here's to attempting a new day! A new no death day and please, no one else die on April 20th again!