One is a cow and one is a chicken

So, I realized something. At this season in my life, the kids need me less, but my body has started to need my attention more. It's so high maintenance. I have 20 pairs of readers all over the house so that I can see anything at a moments notice. I have to eat healthy, exercise, lay off the caffeine, limit my wine intake, and go to sleep at a decent hour just to avoid it getting mad. I used to just get up in the morning. Now I slowly sit up so I don't injure myself. And that's after lying there for a few minutes to prepare myself mentally to sit up.

I still do have kids though. And it's not like they are a cake walk. They are just a lot easier than they used to be. 

Life is just going from one busy season to the next. When it calms down, you prepare for the next busy one. And I think I like it that way. It keeps me on my toes.

Threats and bribes are pretty much how I parent these days. 

For instance, "Your ungrateful attitude tells me that I don't think you need that phone anymore." or "If this is the way you act when we ask you to do something, maybe you shouldn't be on your ipad so much. I've heard that screentime makes kids cranky. Would you agree?" or "Who wants to put away the laundry for $2? No one? Okay how about $5?" 

Mya often tells me that I'm doing this mom thing all wrong. I'm sure she's right but I find that it's effective. Also, I'm tired.

Mya wants to have a bunch of kids. She loves babies. I keep telling her that babies grow up, and every time I say that she say's, "That's why I'll just keep having them." So we worked out a plan the other night. She will try to find a husband earlier than later, start having kids and have them until she can't physically have them anymore. And by then, her oldest will be old enough to get married and they'll start having babies. So Mya will always have babies to hold. I think that's brilliant. 😂 Now to find her a husband who doesn't mind having 10 kids.

Heard around here lately:

Angus: How many siblings do we have that we don’t know about? 😆

Me: Angus, can you take these flowers out to the car please? 

Angus: I can’t be trusted with those! 

The kids will never let Dan forget this one. =)

Addie - The beef is good, Dad

Dan - It's turkey

Addie - Whatever, same thing

Dan - No its not. One is COW and one is a CHICKEN. 😂

(Dan is tired too haha)

Addie's friend - I took a shower against my will last night and now my hair is SO soft. 😂

Angus - If I was a girl, I would be a really girly one.

Dan - But you’re not a girl, Son... 😆

And this is something funny and kind of embarrassing that happened last year:

Mya's show choir had a concert at a church in Glendora. They were scheduled to practice for said concert at 3:00, which I thought was cutting it kind of close since 3:00 is usually the time I pick her up from school. But I didn't complain. I'm used to driving all over town for my kids. It's just part of the season we're in. So I told Dan he'd have to get the other kids and I would take Mya to her practice right after school. I'd try to get there early when she got out at 2:40 so we'd have plenty of time to get there. 

(I do not live near the High School. We're in North Azusa. Glendora High is all the way across town in East Glendora. It's kind of a pain because there is no easy way to get there without hitting a bunch of elementary or middle schools all getting out at the same time. Believe me. I've tried all the possible routes.)

So, back to the story. I had never been to this church before and I didn't have time to look up the address before I picked Mya up. I figured it couldn't be too far since I knew it was in Glendora. So I picked Mya up right in front of the High-School which is never where I get her because it is way too congested, but it was necessary to save time this once. So she got in the car at 2:43, I typed the address into my maps app and we were on our way. 

We made a left near the south side of the school, past the football field and then discovered that at 2:44, we had arrived at our destination. The church was literally across the street from the High School. "We're here!" I laughed out loud. Mya was mortified and squeeked, "Oh my gosh mom do not stop here! If people see me they're gonna think I'm so crazy." 

So I dropped her off down the street by the other side of the school and she walked to the church like all the other show choir kids.

It has been months since I posted a life update and I have about 1000 pics so I decided that I'd just include a few that amuse me. (I'll try to post life updates more frequently but I make no promises)

Here are a few mamas excited to send their younger ones to Junior High for the first time. All 3 of us have done this before so we just dropped them off on the side of the road and they walked across the street to school together. I love this stage of life. 

Addie's foolproof way to cure hiccups. She swears by it.

This is Dan's favorite sweatshirt. Zoom in. Not even a homeless person would choose to wear this. I've tried to throw it away more than once but it keeps finding its way back into his closet. He knows that it embarrasses me so he only wears it camping. And maybe at home if there is no chance of the neighbors seeing him.

Dan often comes back from work exhausted because he's 50 now. 

From the back, it looks like Dan is cooking in his red bikini again 😄

That's it for now! Wishing you all a wonderful September. 💖

Until next time, when I find a moment to sit down with the thoughts that have miraculously remained in my head, and share them =)

May - I used to love you

I found this in my drafts and it made me laugh. I really was mad. I'm better now. I feel like enough time has passed that I can post this with a calm, level head. But before you know it it'll be May again. So maybe it's not late, it's really early. 

Here's my favorite May pic to lighten the mood before I start venting.

Here's how past Amie feels:

Okay, not to sound negative, but if you are a mom with kids in school, May is dumb. I'm sure that if we got together on this, those who are in charge of school activities could eliminate a lot of it. End of the year ceremonies like graduations are acceptable but lets take out the rest of it. Concerts? Extremely unnecessary. Talent shows? No. Put those in March. Teacher appreciation week? Teachers do not want a flower from my garden or a granola bar from my pantry, I guarantee it. Let us do our own thing at the end of the year (a gift card) when we choose to do so. Fundraisers? We are out of money. Camps took it all in April. Again, March would be a great idea for that. In March I had more money. Award ceremonies? I didn't have those when I was a kid and I turned out just fine. Send a certificate or trophy home with my kid. Sports banquets? Why? Choir banquets? Whattt? No one cares. They say it's tradition. I'd like to start a new tradition. It's called Chill May.

We already have 5th grade, 8th grade, high-school and college graduations AND Mother's Day. Let's not forget about the people who want to get married in May. (Don't get married in May please) And then maybe your fourth baby goes over his due date and he's born in May. 

For the love of Pete, calm down PTA or school administrators or whoever thinks we need any of this. Feel free to forward this to the powers that be.

Sincerely, 

-A mom of four who has lost her mind

Komandoo has my heart

This is an overdue post. Life always takes my time and speeds it up.

If you missed my FB videos, Dan and I went to Komandoo. We are not fancy people. I shop at thrift stores. For this trip, we saved up for years. Dan worked his credit card points magic and used points for a lot of it. We narrowed it down and finally settled on the Maldives. Dan researched his little heart out and found the island of Komandoo.

I had to post a blog about it so I'd remember it all. My brain impressively forgets most things pretty quickly. It's why I had 4 kids. I forgot labor and childbirth like it didn't even happen. Haha I'm kidding. But yeah, I am extremely forgetful. I read through my blogs from time to time and laugh at my own jokes like it's the first time I've heard them.

So, I don't expect you to read through this and look at all the pics if you've already seen them. They are for me and Dan to look back on one day. And for anyone who is curious about the Maldives, here's a peak. I only have one island to write about but I'm pretty sure it's the best one.

We were one of the few first-time visitors. Most of the guests had been there multiple times and come back every year. Since our budget doesn't permit that, we soaked up as much of it as we could.

Let's begin. Where are the Maldives located? The Maldives are a chain of islands located in the Indian Ocean a bit South/Southwest of India. How long did it take to get to the Maldives? 17 hours to Singapore, 5 hours to Male (Maldives capital) and a 45-min seaplane to Komandoo.

I will never get on a flight that lasts 17 hours again. It is more than I think I could handle twice in my life. The first-class passengers looked quite comfy though I must say, with recliners that turned into beds. I was able to catch up on all the latest movies so that was a plus. And Singapore Airlines is very nice. The flight attendants dress like movie starts and they fold the little toilet paper ends into points when there's no one in the bathrooms. Also, the food was really good. I was impressed. They even had vegetarian options. I would definitely fly with them again.

Flying makes me nervous. It didn't used to. After I had kids, I went from fearless to very nervous to do anything that may take me from my kids before they get married and have kids. They're going to need me when they have babies. Babies are hard and you need a village. So yeah, I'm a nervous flyer. The bigger planes are okay but that seaplane about did me in. I prayed the whole 45 minutes there and the whole 45 minutes back. 

Once we arrived on the island, it was magical from the start. It rained a bit on the first couple of days off and on but we didn't really mind because we were going to have a week of straight sun beating down on our white, tanless, coming straight from winter bodies. 

Immediately I was so excited to see everything swimming by. Right off of our back deck, we could see so clearly because the water was like a pool. We saw reef sharks, sting rays, turtles, tons of fish and even a manta ray swam by one day. I would have been happy just sitting there watching the sea life the whole time. It was a little slice of heaven.

But we did venture out daily. We snorkeled, paddle boarded, kayaked, went on a sunset cruise with dolphins swimming alongside the boat, went on a successful manta ray hunt where we got to swim with majestic manta rays AND were surprised to see 3 giant nurse sharks swimming under us with their entourage of cleaner fish. I was pretty nervous to see them and may have climbed on top of Dan in the water. 

The snorkeling was the best I've ever seen. The water was so clear that you could see all of the amazing fish from really far away. People from other islands came to our island because it had the best snorkeling around. So we were pretty spoiled to jump off of our back deck and see the most amazing sea life.

One of our top highlights was paddle boarding at sunrise. It was magical.

We ate at the most amazing buffet every day for breakfast, lunch and some dinners. We sat on the deck where we could see baby reef sharks swimming by. They pretty much lived there right outside the buffet restaurant. So cute. There was also a restaurant that overlooked the water where we ate most nights.

We met the most delightful people who came from all over. Most of them were British. One of my favorite things about the whole trip was sitting there with a smile on my face, talking to people with British accents and learning their fun phrases like, "Put the kettle on, I'm comin' over." And instead of saying "I'll catch up with you" they say "I'll catch you up." And they call vaccinations "jabs."  =) I wish I could remember them all. Debbie if you're reading this, feel free to comment with a few new ones ;)

The beauty of the Maldives is undescribable and the pics don't do it justice. If you ever get a chance to go, do it. And if you are looking for the perfect island, Komandoo is it. Here are a few pics in no order at all.

It's going to be really hard to top this vacay.

Fisher, camps & love

Look at me posting again so soon. I apologize ahead of time for all the Fisher photos. He's just so photogenic =)

I think Fisher knows he's ours now. He's definitely getting more comfortable. He still does puppy things like nibble on everything. He bit me in the butt this morning but I forgave him quickly. I can't stay mad at him. He follows me everywhere except upstairs because he's nervous about the unknown land that the stairs lead to. We're okay with that for now. He's pretty much potty trained. He hasn't had an accident for several weeks now. He does pee when he's scared though so we try not to scare him. I put him in his kennel so I could run the roomba. That was before I knew about his scared pee reaction to loud moving robots. He peed in his kennel. So the next time I ran it, I sat by his kennel and we talked about how the Roomba is helpful and although noisy, it's not mean. He did okay that time. 

He gets separation anxiety when I leave the house but we're working through that too. My neighbor told me she could hear him whining while I was at Costco so I try not to leave him unless I have to. I take him with me to run errands. 

He walks pretty well on a leash. Not perfectly, but he's improving.

He's addicted to woodchips which are all over our front and backyard, so that's fun. I talked Dan into clearing them all out of the back which he graciously agreed to. I haven't mentioned the front yard but I think that's next. 

He's learning not to chew on people or furniture or the car. We give him his bone every time he chews on something he's not supposed to. We very much love him already.

Our friends took Angus with them to a Monster Jam Rally. I think that's what it's called. I'm not really a truck rally kind of gal. Angus on the other hand was in heaven. Best day ever.

We had the pleasure of seeing two awesome people get married. The venue was so lovely and fun. I love weddings. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good pic of the happy couple but I got a few of some of the guests =)

Dan and I took this in the hotel room for Winter who asked to see our "fits." One of these days we'll take a good pic of us in nice clothes.

All the kids went to different Winter camps with the church last month. We're broke now but they all had a blast.

We celebrated our annual Valentine's Day fancy dinner at home. Dan made a lovely spread as usual.

And Mya made cake pops for her friends for Valentine's Day. I thought it was a bit ambitious since she'd never made them before but they actually turned out amazing.

If you don't know Dan well, he is type A. One of the things that bothers him the most is when I buy more of something like cereal when we have 2 or 3 half-eaten boxes of cereal. So he forbids the kids from opening the new cereal until the old cereal is finished. Even if that means that the old cereal and new cereal get old and moldy, as long as no one opens the new cereal before the old one is eaten. This is him explaining that the right side of the drawer is off limits until the right side of the drawer has been eaten. =) 

Happy almost March!