One Little Word

I am the super duper loser of keeping resolutions of any kind. 

I have the very best of intentions every night as I try to fall asleep. The next day I am going to be superwoman. I am motivated. I am amazing.

The dawn comes and the children start screaming at each other and life is the worst because we can't find a shoe/hairbrush/bra/you name it, we can't find it. Nobody likes breakfast/lunch/upcoming dinner and we have to complain loudly about it. Nobody likes touching when they sit in the car so the kids scream about it all the way down to school every morning (We have a SUBURBAN FOR PETE'S SAKE... THERE IS PLENTY OF ROOM!!!). When the kids get done with school they either walk into the quilt store whining about how jerky their sibling was on the walk from school, or if they get off the bus I get stopped by the bus driver and told how so and so was breaking all the rules on the bus. Then there is at least 2 hours of homework and whining about it. Then the dog poops all over the floor and the cats are insane. And to top it off we have to whine and scream about bedtime.

I. Am. EXHAUSTED. It is every day.

We've talked ourselves blue in the face, tried to lead by example, and let's not forget the spankings.

Any motivations of amazing feelings of the night before of any resolutions I may be working on go away. I am too tired to work on bettering myself when all I want to do is crawl under the scalding hot water of a shower that will take the stress off of my overloaded shoulders..... or immerse myself in my latest binge watching show on Netflix (currently it is ONCE, Parks and Rec, or my all time favorite-that I have probably watched at least 7 times through- 30 Rock)

Around the middle of December I heard of a movement called One Little Word. You pick one word to work on throughout the year. Just one.  I thought about it and decided that I could probably commit to one word. ...... and then I had to figure out what it was. Heath? Love? Listen? Embrace? Read? and then it dawned on me....... DOCUMENT.

My word for the year is document.

I looked back on the past 2 or so years and I realize that there is a huge part of me missing. Documenting.  Blogging, picture taking, scrapbooking, the proof I am there. I am alive. It was all missing.

I thought about why it was missing. It was something that brought me great joy and a feeling of being complete. And I realize it disappeared after getting my heart broken and "dumped" by my best friend of 10 years. The friend that we called each other 30X a day just to say a funny thing then hang up. The friend who was my go-to person. The friend who I considered family. I loved her children so much and had the thought that if something ever happened to her and her husband I wouldn't hesitate to adopt them all. The friend who shared in all the parenting milestones because she was going through them too. All our kids were the same ages practically.
And just like all families go through ups and downs- so did we. There were times we got at each other. There were quarrels. There were discontented times. But they always blew over.
... until the last time.

One thing happened. I needed a day to calm down. During that day I got cut off and blocked from EVERYTHING. A piece of me died that day.

I have never been let back into that friendship. It still hurts me. 2 years later it hurts.

I stopped scrapbooking because every single picture of all of the outings with my children had her family in them. It hurt to look. It hurt to remember. So I stopped.

A few weeks ago I decided- I wasn't going to be hurt anymore. Those pictures were of a joyful time. They are wonderful memories- even though the friendship is gone now, it doesn't mean it wasn't super fun while it happened. I decided I was going to look at those pictures, and see those memories with joy from now on. Joy that I had that friend in my life. Joy that my children had best friends. Joy in the memories.

I started scrapbooking again two weeks ago.  I started taking pictures of the mundane things that happen in life so they can be documented. I sledded with Alli and Miles (I hate the cold with a passion... if you really know me, you know this is a huge thing).  Basically... I started to live a little bit more and documenting along the way.

I think this is One Little Word I can stick with.

And even if I don't blog as often as I hope and wish to from now on, I will still be documenting in other ways.

Grandma

My grandma has been on my mind a lot lately.

She's pretty funny.

And she'll tell you the same story about 10000 times in a row, or switch topics at a drop of a hat and wonder why you weren't on the same page.

She thinks those fancy crosses you see on those bling bling cowboy purses/wallets/hats are 'Devil's crosses'. She also thinks my nephew looks like white Obama, but is mortified to admit it.

She gets her hair done every Thursday morning at 8am like clockwork.

But the one thing I really admire about her is that even though she is 86 years old, lonely as heck and just wants to be with her sweetheart in the eternities, she still loves to learn.

This woman has been making the same deviled eggs for 100 years. She makes them for every family get together. She has the recipe down pat. BUT- she still researches ways to make them BETTER.
She gets tips and tricks on different dressings, how to boil eggs without making the yolks green, how to peel them so they are perfect, etc. She takes time to clip every article she comes across on how to make her dishes better. She shares her newfound knowledge to anyone within ear shot.

That is certainly an admirable quality.



I like that about her. 

Illness, babysitting, and bonfires.

 This has been an extra LONG week. On Tuesday I worked and when I came home I felt like I was getting the flu. I was immediately HOT and COLD and shivering and achy and dizzy- and everything except for the vomiting thing.  Wednesday I felt like I had a severe cold.. and slowly it has moved it's way into my chest- so last night I was up all night coughing like a smoker.  It was the worst.

Ever since we have moved to Idaho we have been the sickest we have ever been. I find this incredibly weird- especially since our townhouse was full of black mold and other delightful things.- but I guess it's just different strains of whatever virus is going around so our bodies haven't had a chance to get immune to it.  I have been using Young Living's lavender and thieves essential oils like it is going out of style. Fo' shizzle.

During all of this time, my daddio has been working extra long hours/days and has been gone for 3-4 days at a time, comes home, showers and leaves again. We have been in charge of feeding Sprinkles the horse, as well as our neighbor's 7 horses. Sprinkles is not very fond of me, but I think she tolerates me because I give her oats.

I love how thick and full her coat is. She really is such a pretty horse. I like how whenever we leave the drive way Maggie shouts "Bye Sprinks!"

 This week was also fun because my dad put out a few game blocks right out side of the window. At one point we had 15 deer and over 50 turkeys fighting for them.

The boys and I got to watch annoyed deer slap turkeys. i have never in my life seen a deer slap a turkey before, but there ya go. It was HILARIOUS. Pure entertainment.

 This week was also the week of KIDS.

Every single day this week we had someone's kids. Every day. It was exhausting when it was added to my illness.

While I love that the boys (and girls too) are getting some awesome play dates in, I am learning that this is the town of bold people- people who just invite their kids. I'm not used to that. For example we invited one kiddo over and she showed up with 3 siblings as well- and put me on the spot. Kinda unnerving.  Also, nobody ever asks for OUR kids to go over to THEIR house for a playdate... everyone just wants to come here.

I am trying to see the silver lining about this- like "yay we're the cool fun house" and "at least I get to supervise what is going on".... but the other part of me just things "wow... I am really tired of making so much food when I feel like crap". And that was the other thing... none of the parents even noticed my complete fatigue- or if I said yeah, we've had kids every day,  they just say "fun!" not "maybe we should have the kids at our place".

Silver lining. silver lining. silver lining.

Although 2 of those days of kids were completely pre scheduled and were not rubbing me the wrong way. The other 3 days were iffy.  The pictures of the kiddos in the snow was one of the 'good' days...hehe

But they do make for a cute rag-tag group of kids, huh?
(This little girl is Scarlett- our boys LOVE her. She is rough and tumble and is a little mother to them. It's so cute!) Those sweet little boys are two of Miles and Dexter's best friends, David and Tucker.  We got to go out to David and Tucker's house for a big bon fire on Friday night.  So super fun!

Poor Dex one one of those fun friend days was in a snowball fight... and unknowingly the friend threw an iceball chunk and whacked Dex right in the cheek and eye. It was just a sad situation- tears for a while. (Young Living Lavender to the rescue!)

 The swelling is gone, now Dex just has a lovely set of scabs on his cheeks.

I was taking some pictures of the boys for Nunnums, and this was my favorite of all the super silly poses. Aren't they cute?

I need to take more pictures of the girls.

Ohh, while we were out at the Farmer's house for dinner/bonfire- we played this super HILARIOUS game. It is totally a Kohrman Family style game. We also played it on New Year's Eve when we went out there for a big party. Anyway, the gist is: You roll a dice and whatever # is on the dice that is the thing you have to draw on your dry erase board.  So say your word is "Mayonaise" or "Blast off" or "Jelly Beans".. you write that word on your secret part of your notepad. You draw a picture of it, turn it over, and pass it to the next player. That person then looks at only your drawing, tries to figure out what the heck you are meaning to draw, They flip over the spiral notepad, write what they think it is, turns it over and then passes it to the next person- who then looks at the word, flips over the page and draws what the word is. repeat up to 8 times (depending on the # of players). Keep in mind, that since there are up to 8 players, you are constantly either guessing a drawing or drawing a word.  It is SO FUNNY! We saw words like 'forarm' turn into 'a corpse's waving hand'  or a 'chihuahua' turn into 'rabies' or all number of stupid things.

Go out and get this game. Now.
 I hear it's cheapest on Amazon. You're welcome.

... until next time.

Fishing FHE

 Back in April (Ohh how I love Ohio's warm Aprils.) We decided that we'd take the family fishing for FHE. We went up to the Hoover Dam to fish in Big Walnut Creek.

The kids were so excited! They spent the whole Saturday before learning how to cast, minus hooks, in the yard.

 My kids get bored easily, so before we even started fishing the shell hunting began. I think we came home with an entire bucket full of shells.

 Alli won the award for the biggest catch- a tree.

 The boys love doing any activity outdoors, as it usually means they can pee on trees- which is their world's most favorite activity. hands down.

 Dexter wanted to sit and fish. Not the technique used by most... but whatever makes him happy.

 We did catch a crawdad or two. They were pretty big and snappy.

 Miles is the real fisherman of the family. He doesn't get bored of it. He'll just sit and cast and reel it in- repeat 10000X

 Maggie found a fun clear shell.

 This pup provided at least 30 solid minutes of entertainment. This really elderly gentleman brought this dog down and let the kids take turns tossing the tennis ball into the creek- each time, no matter how far the ball went down stream, that dog found it. It was pretty impressive.

 I like that it looks like the boys were sharing in this picture.
I'll pretend like that was the memory.

 My Alli girl.

The grand Hoover Dam of Ohio.

I love doing family home evenings like this. Sometimes you just have to break up the normal and do something new. :)

Alli's 11th Bday Party

 I always feel really sorry for Alli when it comes to her Birthday. Two days after Christmas isn't exactly the best time to have a friend party. Let's face it- everyone is either out of town or totally broke after Christmas.

Alli begged and begged me to let her have a skating party- and I kept putting it off all through January... and then I kinda forgot about it... until she started bugging me again about it.

So, exactly 4 months after she turned 11, she finally got a friend skating party.

 Caroline, Kate, and Jacob were the only ones who were able to attend (I think we did it sometime around spring break... but because well, I totally didn't BLOG last year, I can't remember. This people is why I vow not to get behind again.)

 Skate Zone 71 sent the kids home with an amazing coupon- so that's where we chose to have her party... and let's face it, we wanted to party like a rock star.

 Alli was given Dr. Who decorative lights by Caroline, a super cute SMASH! journal and accessories by Kate, and her favorite thing ever- a fun MineCraft tshirt from Jacob.

Poor Jacob was feeling totally outnumbered. I feel bad, Alli invited like 3 other boys, and Jacob was the only one to show up. It's a bit intimidating to be surrounded by giggly girls when you're a tween boy. True story.

 We had our moments of crash and burn.....

 but over all, the girls were smooth sailing!

I'm happy to say, that this year, Alli's 12th bday party was actually a week BEFORE her birthday. I feel like I should get bonus points for that. At the very least a gold star.

April Fools 2014

 Alli has never been a fan of April fools. It probably started when I kept tricking her with food.... and now it has just become a Kohrman tradition.

This past year I made a gorgeous florecent blue mashed potato frosted meatloaf cake- and yes every stitch of frosting is mashed potatoes. I made rice crispy treat "meatloaf". I took out all of the Cheetos in the bag and replaced them with carrots... and then glued the bags shut again. And of course we had Jello juice.

 Maggie LOVES April Fool's day... and I think Alli is starting to catch on that this is a permanent 'thing'- so she tries to be a good sport.

Miles and Dexter were a bit confused this year too. I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures of them... that makes me sad.

Here's to April Fool's.

Now to figure out this year's menu.

I'm thinking kitty litter cake.

National Museum United States Air Force

 This past spring break, I remember calling Amy in tears. Alli got invited to go up to Kirtland,Ohio by her surrogate Ohio Grandma- and Maggie was just beside herself that Alli always got to do the fun stuff and she didn't.  I always feel so bad for Maggie. It's true- that kid is 100% on the scale. She is either 100% totally into it... or 100% totally not... and it kinda freaks people out how much oomph she has within her.

Amy just calmly said we needed to do our own adventure- so she suggested to go to the National Museum of the United States Air Force down in Dayton. Amy is great for adventures!

So we  loaded up our crews (her Jacob was busy camping, I think)- and drove down together (while listening to Frozen's Let it Go in 3000 languages...lol).

As soon as we got there the boys hopped out of the car and started running towards the planes. They were the coolest! We went to the out buildings first-

 I must say that this was my favorite nosed plane. Don't you just want to honk it?

 Me and my three kidlets.

 There were so many neat things in the outbuildings. It was all done very well and according to the time period. I think being a museum curator would be a cool job.

 (Miles, Maggie, Amelia, Sophia and Dexter- in order of closest to the door on back)

 So this was the start of the inside of the museum. the HUGE museum. Seriously.. it was ginormous! I highly recommend going- and it's free too- which is a nice little bonus.

I love on this first picture you see the little planes... and a huge blimp hanging over it.

 Miles was very unsure of getting into any planes. So was Dex. I think it was Miles who flat out refused to go and tour the NASA space ship.- so I sat outside with him and Amy took the rest of the bunch.

 The view of the rockets from laying on the floor. These were mammoth.

There is something about these huge things that make you feel so small in the scheme of things.

It was a super fun trip!! We'll have to do it again some day....