So much on my mind

I've been neglecting my blog lately. Seems like every time I sit to write a post I get distracted by something else, or one of the kids needs me. But there are so many things I want to write about, so I am setting a goal to write at least 4 posts a week for the next few weeks. I've gotta write about how grown up Isaac has become and how much trouble he gets into during the day. And about how similar he and Rae are and how different Blaise is from the two of them. And I'm way behind on pictures. So, yeah, keep checking back and bug me if I'm not posting! :)

Why I'm glad my firstborn is a girl

Sometimes Rae is a little smothering with her mothering instincts - but most of the time I'm glad I have someone around to help me out and keep an eye on the boys! Just now I realized things were a little too quiet (Rae was still asleep) and then I heard Blaise say "we are cutting the banana". I had been using a knife to slice some banana into my cereal and left it on the table. (I forgot that Isaac can now climb onto the chairs to reach things on the table - ergh!) Isaac retrieved the knife and banana and was helping himself to a snack. Instead of informing me that his little brother had a SHARP KNIFE, Blaise decided to get a knife of his own (just a plastic one) and help mush banana into the carpet. I'm so glad that no one got hurt. Most of the time Blaise is just totally oblivious to what Isaac is doing. Even at age 3 Rae was a mini-mommy and now at almost 6 I can trust her to keep an eye on the boys while I run into the house to do a quick chore, or I can close them up in the playroom while I shower. I know that some boys, especially firstborns, can be as attentive, but Rae has the desire and love of caring for others (and tattling!)

Oh, and don't worry, it's safe for me to be at the computer writing this, because Rae is awake now! :)

Getting creative

Since our nice big house is gonna be an extra $200 a month in rent, we are trying to find ways to save money. I decided that our grocery bill has been way too high, and that we shop way too often. We've been going to either Walmart or Aldi at least 4-5 days a week. It's easy to do because they are so close by. But in Fayette our shopping will be 25 miles away - so either we need to learn to shop once a week or we'll be wasting a lot of money on gas!

So this week I gave Roy $20 and told him that was his Walmart allowance for the week! He is pretty much on his own for his food - he does his own weird thing. But for me and the kids I decided that I was going to go as long as I could this week without going to the store. I usually try to go on Mondays and stock up on food for the week, but I always end up making more trips. So this time I'm trying to use up all the stuff in our cupboards, fridge and freezer. I probably won't go to the store until we run out of milk!

Yesterday, since we were low on our basic staples, I had to get a little creative. Oh, and another part of my goal is to make sure I use all of my produce before it goes bad. So I thawed some salmon that I had in the freezer and grilled it on my foreman grill. Then I flaked it and mixed it with Wacky Mac, raw broccoli, red onion and baby carrots and some parmesan italian dressing. TASTY! It was even better today after sitting the fridge overnight. The kids didn't like it, but I put some of the wacky mac aside and mixed it with butter and parm. cheese and they ate that along with a little bit of salmon.

I've been trying to get my kids to eat cooked carrots, but they hate them, so today I blended them up into a puree and mixed it with their mac and cheese. Hahaha :)

For dinner we are having homemade pizza. It feels good to use up the mozzarella cheese and pepperoni that has been in the freezer. And it's always fun to use my bread machine :)

Anyway, I know it is only Tuesday, but I'm feeling good about this new goal. I've been relying heavily on prepared foods for the kids (like chicken nuggets and tater tots) so it's good for me to learn a few new recipes and cook from scratch. I'm hoping that when I do go to the store all I'll need to buy is milk, eggs and some fresh produce. I'll let ya know how it goes :)

Movin' on up! *Edited to add picture*

Ladies and gentleman .... for the first time in the 8 years of Wright family history....we will be living in a house! Still renting, but at least a house that doesn't share walls with any other houses!!!! I am beyond excited. When we first found out we were moving to Fayette we looked for places for rent and just couldn't find anything. So we considered living in Columbia but really felt like we should give Fayette a try. So we started looking at houses for sale, but really didn't feel like we could make that commitment. We finally found a few things up for rent, but two of them were disgusting. So we settled on a 4 bedroom house that is way bigger than we need and is at the top of our rent budget, but it is really our only option. We first saw it a few weeks ago and signed the lease agreement last week, but yesterday I was feeling like I needed to see it again so I could get a better idea of where we'll put things. I forgot my camera, but we took down measurements (I forgot the measuring tape too, but we bought one) and Roy put together this floor plan.



I am a little overwhelmed with the amount of space! I know that we can't get enough furniture to make it the way I want it, because we'll probably only stay in this house for a year or two, and our next place is not likely to be as big. But here are some ideas I have for it:

-The kitchen is huge and has a nice little corner nook and I want to put one of those nook tables there. We'd probably eat most of our meals there. And then in the dining room we can put our current table, but with the leaves in it so that there's actually room for all of us! Then there is still room in the dining room for a computer desk or something.

-Front room 2 will be a playroom I think. I wanted to make front room 1 a playroom, but it has a better layout for the couch and tv. So I think front room 2 will have a futon couch and a few toys and maybe a table for school work.

-Front room 1 will have our couch and our entertainment center, and maybe a bookshelf. The window sill is awesome and we will put some cushions there for extra seating when we have company.

-Unfortunately the only shower is downstairs, so Roy and I will probably keep most of our clothes hanging in the laundry room. But fortunately the laundry room is nice and big and has shelves and hanging rods.

-The basement is icky and really scares me, but we'll be able to store a few things down there - like our camping equipment or something. Most of our other outdoor stuff we will probably store on the HUGE front porch. We will probably do most of our playing out front. There's a nice big tree that gives great shade, and maybe sometime we'll be able to get a porch swing. The back yard is nice too, but the front yard and front porch are just so HUGE.

-Upstairs, the first bedroom is pretty small, so that will be our spare room. We might just use it for storage or we might end up putting the computer and school work table up there. We haven't decided yet. The other bedrooms are nice and big and the master bedroom is bigger than we'll ever need. I'm giddy about the fact that we'll able to walk around our bed without bumping into things.

-The attic has lots of room for storage and isn't as creepy as the basement :)

-Oh, and upstairs the hallway goes all the way down past the bedroom doors and it's just this huge empty space - practically big enough for another bedroom! If we were buying this house I'd probably make it into a huge storage closet.

So, yeah, I'm totally excited. It's not a super nice house - it's pretty dingy and has a few structure problems, but it's totally great for renting for a year or two. And I think that after 8 years of married and move number 6, we've definitely earned ourselves a nice big house!! I can't wait to move in and get some pictures of the "finished" product!

Here's a picture of the outside - from Google Maps


View Larger Map

Isaac's birthday

Isaac had a pretty uneventful first birthday. Actually, we celebrated his birthday on the 9th - Mother's Day, because we knew that on his actual birthday (the 12th) we'd be busy packing and getting ready for our trip. Plus, I wanted a cake for Mother's Day and I didn't want to make another one for his birthday :) Here are some pictures:


Isaac had no interest in opening his presents


Rae got him some mini-bath toys. Perfectly bite sized!

Blaise got him a shark stuffed animal. Hmmm, sharks just happened
to be Blaise's favorite animal that week.

Isaac was pretty sick and grumpy.


But some chocolate cake makes it all better!

On the 11th we took the kids to the circus for Isaac's birthday. I thought Isaac would enjoy the different animals, but he wasn't very interested. Rae's friend Sarah came with us. It was a pretty ghetto circus.

Our Charlotte visit

Here are some pictures to look at until Ashley gets around to blogging again.

Rae's dance recital

I know the video is long, but Rae is in the front row in the very beginning, so you can just watch that part. Rae did so much better during rehearsal...I wish I had that on video. I think she was a little more nervous this time around. I like the fact that their teacher actually taught them a lot of real ballet moves. I think they are pretty good for a beginners ballet class - they are all 5 and 6 (well, some of them have probably turned 7 this year - and Rae is the youngest) Her kindergarten teacher came to watch her and she sat with us. That was a lot of fun for Rae. I hope we can find a nice dance studio when we move.

Buried treasure

Today I turned on my cellphone, which I haven't used in a year, and noticed that there are a bunch of pictures on it from around the time Isaac was born:

Uhhh, I dunno

Not sure why I haven't been blogging. Part of it is the fact that there's no job news to share and it's a frustrating time of year. Sigh.

Another reason is that every time I sit down at the computer Isaac ends up trashing the house. That boy is crazy. I'd like to attach a camera to his head so you could see the world from his level. He wanders into the kitchen several times a day and gets food out of the cupboard (stupid rotating cupboard that I can't lock, but it's the only decent place to put food) then he takes that food and puts it random places in the house. Then he wanders into the bathroom and gets his favorite hairbrush and puts that somewhere random. He's always so busy. I can't clean up fast enough!

Last week at church I had several people comment that they can't believe how big Isaac is and that he's not a baby anymore! He is such a toddler now - he's learning how to communicate, he has opinions about everything, he's learning how to run and he loves to play! Last week we got him an early birthday present.



Aldi had these for a good price and I thought the kids would all enjoy it. I wanted to get it now since the weather has been so nice and they are outside so often. I put water and sand in it the first time we used it, but it immediately became mud, so I emptied out the water and just put sand. When it gets hot I'll put water in both sides.

This afternoon we made grahmn cracker houses. I wanted to get rid of some frosting that I had in the fridge and we have way too much Easter candy, so we did these. The kids had a blast.






I threw away the leftover candy, so now we just have a few Peeps around here somewhere, and a bunch of Valentine's Day candy still - ugh!

If I don't blog again for a while it's just because I'm waiting for some news to share. When we know where we are going (or staying) we'll let ya know!

Extra Lucky Charms

At our primary activity yesterday the primary president had a bunch of different items for the kids to make their own "trail-mix". One of these items was a container of marshmallows - ya know, the type found in Lucky Charms? I was like "uh, did you pick these all out??" She told me she got them from an Amish bulk food store in Iowa and someone else chimed in that you could also get them at the bulk food store right outside of Kirksville. I had passed this store a few times and always wanted to stop but never had, so on our way home from Nauvoo we stopped by. We found a lot of yummy stuff! But the best thing of all was this bag of tasty marshmallows!


I've had about three bowls of cereal today with extra marshmallows! (Of course, we don't buy Lucky Charms, I think ours are called Marshmallow Stars or something)

How am I ever going to lose weight? Maybe I'll add some to my Fiber One :)

Easter, Conference and Spring

Saturday night we colored eggs. Roy did some abstract ones. Blaise put happy faces on all of his. Isaac was mad that he couldn't help.





Easter morning I let Roy sleep in (since we didn't have 9am church!) but I let the kids have their baskets when they woke up and then we did a egg hunt later in the day.

(Filled with mostly clearanced items from last Easter!)

Watching General Conference and playing tootsie roll BINGO!
While we were watching conference, Isaac was trashing the playroom.

Emptying their eggs. I didn't post the video of them doing the egg hunt because there were too many shots of my fat behind.

Tuesday was a lovely spring day. I just love this picture of the kids!


A chalky footprint
From a happy baby (who is really more like a toddler!) Here's a video that shows how quickly he can get around!

10 minutes of waiting, 1 minute of hunting

The city does an annual Easter egg hunt and they have it on Truman's campus. They divide the groups up ages 1-3, 4-5, 6,7,8 and maybe 9,10 - not sure about that one. Anyway, you have to get there fairly early to get a good parking spot and find a spot on the quad. Roy took Rae and the camera to her area and I stayed with the boys in their area. It's tough to keep a huge crowd of kids waiting on the edge of the grass! A siren goes off and it's a rush to get as many eggs as you can. Blaise took a while to get into it, but there were plenty of eggs and lots of other kids who didn't really know what they were doing. Isaac was happy to hold two eggs. All of the eggs had tootsie rolls - so that was kinda lame, but the kids love them. It was a gorgeous day on Saturday! There were some beautiful daffidols growing all over campus. You can see some in the first picture.

Gotta get this tip out there!

When you are coloring eggs this year, give your kid a wire whisk to put their egg in. Then dip the whisk into the dye! No more cracked eggs! Genius huh? I saw this idea in Family Fun. Also, make sure you pick up some some Paas Color Snaps! We used them last year and loved them! I got a bunch on clearance last year after Easter and I am excited to have plenty to go around this year.

I'm gonna boil up 2 dozen eggs, because Roy and I enjoy coloring them as much as the kids do! We probably won't be able to eat them all but it's cheap entertainment!

Things I've been lovin'....

These guys play great along side each other. It's nice in the morning while Rae is at school, because they both have a chance to do their own thing without her interfering.

Our neighbors put this huge box out at the dumpster and we grabbed it right away, planning to use it when we move, but decided it would be more fun for the kids to use! They played in it constantly for about a week. They loved being able to draw on it -
just like Pinky Dinky Doo!

We have had awesome weather the past week!
Rae and Isaac like to explore out in the grass.
Do you see Isaac ? He's in an orange shirt.

Blaise prefers to play in the rocks and use the chalk.

Disney on Ice

We had a fantastic time at Disney on Ice in St Louis. I enjoyed it as much, if not more, than the kids did. I love ice skating on its own, and when you add the talent of Disney it is even better! Disney just does such a good job. I was imaging the characters out there on the ice doing their thing, but I didn't even except so many special effects and little extras. The actors were so good at staying in character and they all looked liked they were having a great time. Those kinds of things are important to me.

We were sitting in Row Q. When I got the tickets I thought "aw man, Row Q is gonna be so high up", but I always forget that Q isn't one of the last letters of the alphabet! We could see everything perfectly. I think that sitting on the ice and being able to reach out and touch the characters would have been fun, but it would have been hard to see everything that was going on. There was just so much going on at all times. At one point Rae said "my brain is confused, it doesn't know what to watch". So I liked being high up and being able to see it all from above.

This show was called "Let's Celebrate" so they did a bunch of holidays and vacation themes. They did birthdays (Alice in Wonderland's "un-birthday") Halloween (with a bunch of villains from different movies - Blaise was a little scared during this one) I can't remember everything. Valentine's Day was my favorite because Minnie talked about finding her prince charming, so they had all the different princesses come out and do a dance with their prince. I think it was Rae's favorite too. This is the finale of that scene.




After the "un-birthday" party Mickey was cleaning up and it turned into the scene from Fantasia with all of the brooms. That part was pretty cool too.



I wish I had a video of the very end. They did Christmas and all of the characters came out and it snowed - it was really cool. Another part that was cool was when they were in Hawaii and a guy made a ring of fire around himself. So many cool special effects.

Anyway, it was really great and if it is ever in your area I recommend seeing it. We got 4 tickets for $44, plus all the stupid fees and stuff. It was probably a little more than twice as expensive as taking your kids to a movie in the theater, but more than twice as cool!

Sunday Best

St. Louis

Ashley has given me the task of blogging about the trip to St. Louis last week, but I'm just as lazy as her, so here are some pictures: LINK.

BONUS:
Here are some insanely cute pictures of Isaac eating stuff.

Another of Rae

I know, I need to blog about our trip to St Louis - and I will, I just don't feel like it today. So here's an old video of Rae.

I declare it to be springtime

Handsome Boy

Isaac would not cooperate for a picture, so here's one of just Blaise in his new church outfit. So grown up! I think he is the biggest Sunbeam in his class and he is also the youngest.