Dream with me for a moment

I'm cooking dinner...yah I know I shouldn't be blogging but I have to wait until my timer goes off and I could be and should be probably putting away the dishes but I'm dreaming instead.  I was just thinking about Thanksgiving dinner and how nice it would be to have a double oven when I'm cooking.  So in my dream kitchen there will be:

A double oven
A brick oven for our friday night pizza's!
A center island with bar stools at it so I can talk to the kids
A bread cupboard
One of those baker walk in closets
Granite Countertops
Crown molding on the cabinets

Oh, that's all I have time to dream about my timer's up.  What's for dinner you ask?  Trying out a new method for Chicken and Dumplings.

Tickets, Please!

I have been kind of down lately because my kids...well to put it plainly they are running over me with a Monster Truck and not even looking back in the rear view mirror.  I've been stuck in the tread of the tire not able to pry myself loose and I keep getting run over and over and over again.  Okay joking aside it hasn't been to pleasant here.  My sweet husband even though every day he's very hesitant to ask, how was your day honey, he has patiently listened.  I was at a loss on what to do.  He kind of bounced some ideas with a guy at work and he gave some suggestions to what might help.  They are things that we have tried before but with a twist so we decided to try it out.  We started a ticket system for good behavior and finishing their choirs and responsibilities.  So far so good.  The girls have a routine in the morning and a routine at nighttime.  Usually they are given 15 minutes at night to do their routine and if they finish they get story time.  This worked for a while then they got relaxed and didn't care resulting in constant badgering from me for them to get things done and them pushing back as hard as they could.  After we implemented the ticket system they were done in 10 minutes flat and I found them actually helping each other instead of fighting.  UGH I HATE FIGHTING!!!  This morning before I even had breakfast finished I looked down stairs to see if the girls were up and they already had their beds made and they were dressed with their hair brushed and working on brushing their teeth.  It was so refreshing not having to repeat 50 times please get dressed, get your shoes on, where are your socks?

Tickets are worth equivalent about 10 cents each.  That's just for us to determine what things cost in the prize basket.  I didn't want worthless knick knacks all over the house so we have things in there that they can work towards like movie night with Dad, coloring books, overpriced popsicles, popcorn, bright pink nail polish, chapstick...ya know things that kids love.  So each of these things are worth a certain amount of tickets.  They can either save up their tickets to get the higher priced items or redeem them every family night where we assess where they are at and to see what we can improve on.  I'm hoping if they want the more expensive ones they can learn to save up.  I'm crossing my fingers.  My 7 year old blows every penny she gets.  So every Monday we'll see where the kids are and hopefully the fighting, bickering, bad attitudes and me being a M.O.M (mean old Mom) will lessen dramatically.  Matt made a little jar holder for each of the kids.  Wish us luck! 

Memorial Day Pictures

I wrote a little about our Memorial Day Weekend and here are the pics.  We did get to visit Mom's gravesite.  It was a beautiful day and a lot of people honoring their loved ones that have passed.  One thing that made me smile was Matt's Uncle is also buried near by, his name was Papa Jay.  He owned the little convenience store in town that makes the best jerky hands down.  One of his family members put a piece of jerky, pepsi and a shell casing near his headstone.  This is the same Uncle that told Matt when he got home from his mission first he needed to grab himself a pepsi then grab himself a girl and make out like crazy until your lips are numb.  Papa Jay was one of a kind.

The kittens also got a lot of love.  Grandpa called and said that the momma cat had moved all of her kittens up to the deck into the barbecue and was teaching them how to eat real food and lap up milk.  Dad pretends to not like cats but he spoils those kitties.

C is for Cookie, That's Good Enough For Me

C is also for CAKE!  We had Buddy's birthday party a few Sundays back and I wanted to post the pics.  We did it a little backwards because Daddy was excited for Buddy to open his presents.  So in the morning we had Buddy open his presents.  He thought it was more fun at first to dance on them.  It took us about 3 minutes to convince him that he needed to open them.  Daddy got him a set of Matchbox cars.  He was so excited he was running back and forth from Matt to the rest of the presents.  You could see he was torn but the excitement of the cars won out and he had Matt open them before he could even think about the other presents.  He's been "borrowing" his sister's cars...yeah I know their girls but why not?!?!  All the kids gathered around Buddy wanting to try out his new toys.  I guess boy toys are much cooler than girl toys.

After we got back from church we had dinner, cake and ice cream.  I made him a Cookie Monster Cake holding a real bakery type cookie.  And yes I baked a whole batch of cookies only to use one.  I like to make things hard on myself.  But, he loved it!!!  Buddy talked in his best monster voice when he saw the cake and it was too cute watching him blow out the candles.  After that he has been blowing on everything.  All of a sudden you'll feel a little breeze on your arm and he'll be down there blowing on your arm.  I guess if you learn something new you got to try it out on everything.  I wonder if he was disappointed I didn't disappear like the fire did.