Why are you arguing?

Yesterday after schoolwork was done, I sent Bradley to clean his room. A little while later Calvin and Bradley come into the kitchen in the middle of an argument. I'm not paying close attention but it sounds like they are arguing about cleaning their room. After a few minutes it becomes semi-clear what they're arguing about. I think Calvin went in and offered to help clean the room and Bradley got mad and told him he had to help clean the room. (Pause for effect). Yes, they were arguing the same point to each other. I figured I'd let them work it out themselves. After about five minutes I got sick of listening to them and said, "That's enough, both of you go clean your room and work together!" (I may have yelled it). I'm not sure which one of them, but one said "Finally!" Which was quickly followed by "Thank you, Mom, " from both of them. It was like they were just waiting for me to solve their non-problem for them. Weird.

She's unstoppable!

The five year old is officially the family Tekken champion. She has kicked all of our butts multiple times, giggling as she does it. What's really funny is when Calvin (who is almost 13 and plays way more video games than Emma) asks her to please pick a different person so he can beat her. She giggles and says my person's stronger than yours, hehehehe.

Hooray!!

Hooray! Hooray! He comes home today!!

Not an exciting post.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my sister's house. The food was fabulous - as always - but mostly I enjoyed seeing all my sisters. I really miss how often I got to see them when we all lived within 15 minutes of each other. I even got to go shopping with some of them. Loved it!!

With Thanksgiving came some very cold weather. We all froze our fannies off. I even went a bought a new wool coat after that frosty weekend. I've not worn it yet. A warm front came through the day after I bought it. I've been wearing short sleeves ever since. It's ok though because it's only a matter of time before it gets cold here again and then I will be so happy in my new warm coat.

My days all run together lately. We get up, hopefully not too late, get the children started on school. Keep the children going on school. Feed the children. Try to stay ahead of the laundry and dishes. Remind the children to do school. Remind the children they can't do their school clubs if they have overdue lessons. Try not to let the little ones watch too much TV/video games - it's really hard when I'm trying to help the older kids with their school. Make dinner - try not to eat too much of dinner (for me eating too much has nothing to do with feeling hungry and has everything to do with just wanting to eat.) Get the children into bed. And then I'm too tired to do all the things I had planned to do once the children were in bed.

I keep thinking I want to get the children into piano lessons. I've even found a couple teachers in the area. Then I start thinking about how much we're already doing and I wonder why I would want to add something else into my schedule. I also want to get some of the kids into sports. Football and cheer were really great for Bradley and Dana but it was such a pain taking them to practice all the time. My gas bill dropped by over $200 a month when the season ended. Amazing. There are so many things out there that are really awesome for the children to be involved in and are so much fun for the children. They are all rather inconvenient and costly for me. I think there's a fine line between me being selfish and not wanting to drive the children to all their activities and my thinking honestly about what we as a family can and cannot accomplish. I need Calvin to learn to drive - oh and also age three more years. It's amazing to me how my parents managed to get all seven of us children to everywhere we needed to be.

I'm almost done Christmas shopping. We are getting our tree this weekend and I got out all the decorations today. Two weeks ago I got out my Christmas dishes and put away most of my everyday dishes. I love having Christmas dishes. I also love having paper plates. I went to Costco with my sister a couple weeks ago and stocked up on paper plates, cups, and bowls. Love it!! Especially since my dishwasher is completely unpredictable. Sometimes it takes two cycles and yes the dishes are completely rinsed before I put them in.

I need some house guests.

I think I'm done rambling for the evening.