6 Hour Battle Of Wills

On Saturday I had a 6 hour long battle of wills with my most stubborn child, 3 year old Sadie.  I asked her to please start cleaning her room, but she refused. I told her that if she put some of her shoes away, I would come in and help her, but she still refused. I then told her if she didn't start cleaning up her shoes, she would have to lay on her bed. Guess what she chose:

For 6 hours! Seriously. She chose to lay on her bed for 6 hours! She seriously flat-out refused to get off her bed. After about 3 hours I went in to talk with her. She sat up on her bed, stared at me, and said, "Are you here to apologize?" I almost died of laughter on the spot. I just love her. But look who ended up winning:

Mom: 1 Sadie: 0

For the record: The job I was asking her to do (putting her shoes away), involved putting her shoes, which were already in a big pile on her floor, into a pink bin, approximately 1 foot away from said shoes. A job that took her less than a minute once she started. I have to admit that if I had realized it was going to turn into such an ordeal I probably wouldn't have asked her to clean up at all. But I couldn't give up, or next time I might have been in for 8 hours!

Summer - Week 4

With the 4th of July on Monday, and then Megan's birthday on Thursday, we didn't do too many other activities this past week. However, we did attend our first book club meeting:

Our first selection was, "James and The Giant Peach." The kids and I read it out loud together, and all enjoyed it.

Shhhh... don't tell, but the kids and I finished it just 15 minutes before leaving the house for the meeting! All of the kids were pretty good about discussing the book, except Jackson and Carson who were much more interested in playing.

Friday brought swimming! Again. Truly, a heart felt thank you to all of our friends that invite us over.

Friday also brought Eric's soccer game. This picture illustrates what die-hard fans Brittney and I are:

Not only did we keep watching the game while it rained on us, we also kept watching throughout a hail storm! Now that is dedication.

The kids lacked our blanket covering and ended up soaked!

Megan's 11th Birthday Celebration!

We were pretty busy all day on Megan's birthday. The kids had swimming lessons in the morning, and then we were invited over to swim some more at a friends house.

By the time we arrived home and all showered, Eric was home and Megan was able to open her presents!

This pic of Sade cracks me up:

This year she didn't help Megan open her presents, but was in charge of deciding what order she would open them.

Megan received an ipod, money, clothes, shoes, nail polish, a wallet, suspenders, hats, jewelry, and sewing materials. She also received many phone calls and texts from people wishing her a Happy Birthday! I know she loved getting each and every one.

Megan chose Cici's Pizza for dinner (gag me with a spoon). But it was her birthday, so I being the wonderful, generous mother that I am, did not voice my distaste.

It was actually pretty good. They had a few new pizza choices I have never tried before. And I have to admit the cinnamon rolls are excellent.

After dinner, Megan chose to go bowling:

I will have you know that this throw ended up being a strike. One of three I threw during the game!

Sade waiting for her ball to come out:

It surprised her quite a bit:

After bowling we stopped by the arcade:

Then it was back home to blow out candles. Megan didn't want a traditional cake this year, and instead chose the chocolate lava cakes from Fresh & Easy. If you have not had them, you should go buy them now! They are in the freezer section.  And make sure you have fresh strawberries or raspberries to go with them. However, because we were all so stuffed from Cici's, we decided to save the cakes and just have some ice cream.

Happy 11th Birthday Megan!!!!!!!!!!!

At 11

11! I totally remember being 11, and now I have an 11 year old! Surreal.....

At 11.....

She's so smart, and has such an amazing memory. The other day we saw a license plate from Massachusetts, and Megan remarked, "Do you know that the State bird of Massachusetts is the Chickadee, and the state animal is the Morgan Horse?" Say what? Who knows that?

She has an amazing ability to remember song lyrics.

She is terrible at remembering peoples names. She gets that from her Dad.

She has a definite and original sense of style. Scarves, hats, and suspenders are her current accessories of choice.

She has bazaar sleep habits. Last night she woke for the day at 2 am!

She loves to bike ride.

She has just as many boys that are her friends, as she does girls, and relates to both well.

She loves T.V.

She is very orally fixated, and puts EVERYTHING in her mouth.

She has mastered the ability to clean her room quickly.

She has developed some willingness to try different kinds of food.

She can be argumentative.

She is great a math. It is often her highest grade.

She doesn't love to read. It saddens me!

She is not a snacker, but can eat quite a lot at meal times. Especially if it is something she enjoys, like pizza.

Her current favorite color is aquamarine. Her favorite food is pineapple. And her favorite singer is Taylor Swift.

She is still the smallest kid in class.

She is not afraid to voice her opinion.

She is funny, and has a sense of humor that is heavy on sarcasm.

She's 11! And I hope she has a wonderful birthday!!!

4th Of July - 2011

Oh 4th of July. I don't really love you. Manily because of my dislike of crowds. But also because July is such a busy month for me that the 4th of July just seems like one too many checkmarks of things I have to do. But this year, I did love you a little bit, because you brought family into town to celebrate it with us.

We had Eric's brother Dustin's family here with us for the weekend.

Luckily their kids like to dance just as much as my kids, so we had nightly dance offs.

Ate tons of food. Seriously. When you have 7 kids in the house, there is at least one of them that is always hungry. We busted out the smores maker one night.

Of course there was plenty of time spent playing. Really, pretty much all the time was spent playing.

I spent a significant amount of my time watching these two playing Just Dance on the Wii. Oh my! It was beyond cute.

Did anyone get the facebook message about Flip-n-Out being free on the 4th of July? Because I did. Woot-Woot! I signed all 11 of us up, and we had a blast! I was a bit worried (due to my fear of large crowds), but was more than ecstatic when we arrived and were practically the only ones there. Woot-Woot-Again!

We barbecued:

And then finished off the evening with fireworks:

 We lit off ground based fireworks:

And all of us admired our neighbors air-borne kind:

Well, all of us, except Jackson, who overheard that air-borne fireworks were illegal, which greatly concerned him and his cautious nature.

Next year I must devise a way to get family to come into town again. And also devise a way to get my kids to get more sleep when family is in town. Oh my goodness, Sadie was ornery!