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!