Tales of a Fulltime Mom: If You Ever Feel Like Your Kids Are Driving You Nuts...

....just think, you could have triplets! Last Sunday we went to a birthday party for our friends, the Whitaker's, triplet's first birthdays. Wow, say that sentence three times fast. I think I could have worded that a little better. Anyway, the triplets are Price, Will, and Mollie. I can't imagine having three babies at once along with two other kids to boot. Clearly, David and Ashley are amazing parents and they've made it through the first year. Woowho! We had a splendid time at the party and it was neat watching the babies, rather toddlers, run the gamut on their reactions to their birthday cake from one not touching it at all to one smearing it all over himself.

Bruce and Jennifer hamming it up.

Ashley with Price

Yes, that's my daughter unknowingly flipping me off as she attempts to keep her glasses on.

It was just me and the kids at this party as Duncan took an afternoon flight to Kansas City to attend a conference for work. He got back on Wednesday afternoon so it wasn't a terribly long time. Good thing he came back when he did because I found myself staying up WAY too late without him here.

Monday morning we were expecting a gentleman to come and give us a quote on painting a good portion of our house. We are in the process of getting a bunch of quotes. He was supposed to come at 9:00. I've mentioned it before but I'll say again that one of my biggest pet peeves, not that I have many (okay, I sort of do), is lateness...myself and sometimes others. Well, I decided that the opposite is also rather annoying. At 8:25, he shows up on my doorstep. "Hi, hope you don't mind but I'm a little early." You think? And yes, I did mind since we were eating breakfast and still in our pajamas. Nonetheless, I was gracious. On Wednesday we got another appraisal and we're waiting to hear back on that one and then I'm hoping we can get started. I feel like we're in limbo because we can't hang anything up, decorate, etc until we get the walls painted. And I can't stand looking at white walls! Also, just another observation on painters. Do people with tattoos gravitate to being painters or do painters all just decide to get tattoos? It's uncanny but they all have them.

On Tuesday we visited a new park. Technically it's called Magnolia Park but it appears to have taken on the name of "Peacock Park" for the obvious reason that there are peacocks there. Many peacocks. Strangely enough, I have never seen a peacock in a tree, so this was definitely a first. You probably already knew this but peacocks are not quiet birds. It makes for a very interesting experience. Anyway, Allen and the kids joined us and I had already pre-planned to meet my friend Jenny and her daughter Lexie there whom we had't seen in a good while. When we walked out the door to go to the park, around 10:30, I felt it. You know, it's that feeling like "Finally, I think summer may be over." Yup, it was in fact, almost coolish out. It did eventually make it to the 80's but hope had been born!

Watching the peacocks from afar.

Jenny and Lexie (one month older than Brady)

Tuesday evening with Duncan gone, what better opportunity to go to Chik-fil-A and take advantage of the kids eat free special. Of course, it's only two kids per adult so I have to get Jennifer to order one of our meals. There was a really good face painter there, who also did balloons creations, and it didn't take us long to figure out that Brady was scared of it all. Blake and Evan, whom he LOVES, had their faces painted and Brady was completely freaked out. He didn't even want to be near them. By the end of the night, he would finally let them get close to him, I think because he heard their voices, but he wasn't completely sold on it. It was so traumatizing that he barely ate a single bit of his supper. Thank goodness it was free.

Butterflies as usual.

Wednesday morning we went to story time and the theme this week was "monsters." Yay, what a wonderfully exciting topic for 3 - 5 year olds! Geesh. I really don't understand why people would want to write or read a book about monsters to small children. I guess we can thank Halloween for that.

Wednesday evening was Adventurers. Tangie is in her busy season at work right now so Allen volunteered to take Calleigh to Adventurers if I would take care of the twins. We had a fun time with them especially when I went for a stroll with all four kids. The twins and Aubree started off hand in hand with Brady in the Sit N Stand but eventually they tired out and the three of them jammed into the stroller and Brady switched to the Bjorn. I think I can handle four kids. Ha! Please don't read anything into that. Anywho, there is one house that just finished being built and I have loved the paint scheme on it. A guy happened to be out front of it and I asked him if it was his house. It was indeed. It turns out he and his wife are moving from Maitland but moved there from Beverly, Massachusetts last year. So we have some fellow Bostonians for neighbors. It was funny though because he looked at the kids and then me incredulously and said "Are those all yours?"

Thursday we made a Costco run. The interesting thing about that is that we've had a Costco membership for almost a year and we've been like twice. We got it because of the deal we had with DirecTV. I haven't been the biggest fan of Costco only because with couponing, I seem to get better deals with buying large quantities of smaller packages (using a coupon on each one). Well, that changed this week. I have become addicted to these lentils called Madras Lentils. We call it Indian food so not only does it taste good, but it makes me feel like I'm widening my base of Ethnic foods that I like (because, let's be honest, my base has been pretty small.) They're so convenient because you just microwave them for 90 seconds. If you buy them at Publix and Target, the packages range from $3.34 - $3.65 each. Costco has them as a set of four for $7.59. But for the next four weeks, they are on sale for $4.59. Yup, just over $1 a package! There is a limit of three or else I would buy many, many packages. The funny thing is that you always think you can get a deal on Amazon but when I went to see if they had them there, they are $15.03 for four of them. Clearly, Amazon is not always the way to go! All I can say is that if you love lentils, you have to try these. I eat them just about every day for lunch with some Basmati rice. Okay, this now officially ends the free advertising...

Friday morning I was in yard sale heaven. October is usually a great for yard sales because many communities do a community wide sale. In fact, yesterday was the first time I've ever been to a community and stayed there the entire time I was out at sales. So nice because you don't have to keep buckling and unbuckling the kids. I found a bunch of stuff for my guest room which I'm doing as a beach/ocean theme. But, the highlight of the day was at one of the last places we stopped. Calleigh found this funny pink headband that she tried on that had some antennas sticking out the top. I've seen plenty of headbands like that and didn't pay very close attention. Then she signaled me over and showed me a funny box of candies...which I quickly noted had a depiction of a lady with the candy attached to her nipples! Then she says, "Mom! Look at this huge lollipop. How could someone eat one this big?" OH MY WORD. It was a pink lollipop in the shape of a giant male piece of anatomy and she was holding it up in the air for every other person to see. And that innocent looking headband? Yup, you guessed it. Those strange antennas were in fact, two males penises. Thank goodness she didn't have a clue. Now, you must be thinking these people were perverts or something but it was a completely normal yard sale other than that so I guess it must have been some props from a bachelorette party or something. Duncan asked me if I got a picture but I was like "Yeah, just what I wanted. People seeing me photograph all this stuff after seeing my five year old fondling it all."

Friday evening we made it to our first festival which took place at the aforementioned "Peacock Park." Ron and Elaine met us there along with the Isidros and Bergherms. They had a bunch of games for the kids, bouncy houses, and a hay ride. Little did we know that the hay ride would make random stops in order for people to give out candy to the kids. It was the girls' lucky day! They were thrilled with their goodie bags. Of course, I told Ron and Elaine that I would be throwing 95% of the candy away after a few days when they forget all about it! So far, they haven't forgotten but they also haven't asked to eat any of it. They seem to be happy just playing with the unopened packages.

Hay Ride. Brady is so confused.

This morning was church as normal. It was cute, though, picking Calleigh up from her Sabbath School class. Calleigh and her teacher, Ms. Deanna, seem to have a mutual fondness for each other. Ms. Deanna told me today that Calleigh told her that she was NEVER going to leave her class and that maybe when she was around seven, she would become Ms. Deanna's assistant. Ms. Deanna said that Calleigh is practically doing that now because she knows everything Ms. Deanna is going to say before she even says it. I'm glad she's enjoying her class and her teacher but I think she is supposed to be moving on next year and Ms. Deanna will be taking on the next Grodack sibling. I'm pretty sure she will find her to be a bit different!

This afternoon and evening we had the Zbaraschuks over for fellowship, a meal, and to get our old moving boxes. They may or may not be moving in the next month. We've almost gotten rid of all the boxes a couple of times but somehow, apparently providentially, never actually did it. I'm glad they could be used again instead of thrown out! The girls, as usual, had a wonderful time playing with Zachary and Kaleb, and we had a nice time catching up with Karis and Amy and getting to really see baby Addison for more than a few minutes. She's a cutie! I'm just so happy to have a house where I can have people over and not worry about where the kids are going to play. They spent a good amount of time in our back yard which is happening more and more now that the weather is cooling down.

So that's that. I can't think of too much else going on. My mom and Aunt Lori will be arriving on Thursday evening so the household is greatly anticipating their arrival although I'm sure our guest room will not be put together by then.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Other various pictures...

When I put pants on him for the hay ride, he kept looking down like he couldn't quite figure out what these things were that were covering up his legs.

Oh, he loves the big boys.

This week we got out the pool and sprinkler. Look at Brady WAY over by the fence. The sprinkler freaked him out..or maybe it was that giant shadow. Who knows.