were did the week go?

wow cant believe it is already Wednesday. My last two weeks have flown bye so quickly I feel like I have not accomplished anything. Today I need to get the house clean from top to bottom. I have a ton of family coming to town. My dad, who I have not seen in about 6 years is coming to visit. He is in Wainwright right now teaching a bunch of military guys how to be better soldiers. He is only about 7 hours away instead of 20. He has not met my husband or his 2 youngest grand babies plus he will be meeting Tyler's family too. Tyler's mom and step-dad are coming to visit and camp for the July 1 holiday too. They are bring their trailer so I don't have to worry about where they will be staying but my dad has not called or email me back yet to let me know if he will be staying here and for how long. Then on Sunday Cara gets blessed so mom and Bill are coming in from Taber with my sister's 3 kids for that. Bill will be doing the blessing. Still need to call people about that. UUUGGGG to much to do. Have to call Service Canada today and find out about Michaela's passport so she can go to Cuba in February 2011, and need to find out what needles she needs. Also need to call my up line at Avon to find out how to reactivate someone and to get my order released on time. Well I guess I will be busy on the phone because if dad doesn't email me back today I will have to call him tonight. I love having family around and I love being busy but I actually have other things I need to be doing this week. Oh well will have to push them aside until next week and then mail everything out. LOL Have a wonderful July holiday everyone!

Friday already.

Were did the week go? Very busy week was not on my computer very much at all that's why there are no new post. LOL told you I was a bad journal writer. Lets see if I can summarize my week. Ended up babysitting 3 days instead of 4, called all my Avon customers and delivered most of the orders. Had to find utilities bills that were a year old for the landlord. Found out I was paying utilities for 2 months at my old place after I had moved. Journal about 10 pages in Veronica's baby/photo album. Altered a storage container that looks like a book to hold my Cuttle Bug embossing folders. Downloaded a ton of pics to the computer then uploaded all my scrappy work to my scrapbook.com page. Cara has taken up a lot of time and right now will not let me do anything if she is awake. Once 9:30pm hits if she falls asleep while being held we can't even put her down. She tends to cry on and off from 10 until midnight most nights so lack of sleep right now is an issue. Love the little squirt no matter how much of a pain she can be. Veronica goes to bed fine but then gets up and plays or read on the floor. She has been pulling her pillows and blanket down too so if we have not checked on her and put back into bed she wakes up there too, stinker.

The Big Cook

So I don't know how many of you have hear of the The Big Cook cook book but I am planning on doing one. Basically the idea is you prepare a bunch of meals and freeze them for cooking later on. They have each recipe set up 1, 4, 6, or 8 meals and gives you the option to cook it in the oven, microwave, or slow cooker and some of them you can BBQ. Each meal feeds 4-6 people. Perfect for my family but would be perfect for anyone as you would have left overs for the next day. The idea is to get several people together to share to cost and prepare a ton of meals. I plan on doing this myself unless I end up finding someone who wants to participate in it with me. In the Appendix of the book it has 2 sample cooks. Each sample consists of 14 different recipes and a shopping list with exact amounts of ingredients to buy. The recipes are a mix of chicken, beef and pork so you get a good range of flavors. The plan is to purchase the all the spices and non perishable foods over the summer and then in the fall get all the meats, produce and dairy need to make the meals. Each cook listed makes enough suppers for 3 full months. Now for me with a large family to feed which includes hubby and 2 teenagers, one of which is a boy who will eat everything in site, plus trying to look after my other 2 children under the age of 2 and run my day home and Avon business I don't always have time to make a great meal. I plan on buying as much as I can at the dollar store to help save money on the cost. Then once I have the cook done I have 3 months to buy the ingredients for the next 14 recipe cook listed. By January of 2011 I will know out of the 28 recipes which ones to make again and I will try more of the recipes. I think this will be a cost and time saving thing to do. I will keep you up to date on it and how much it all ends up costing me. I think the most expensive things will be all the meat.

UUUGGGGG

So I didn't write anything on Friday because I was still trying to process everything. Now that I have had the weekend to think about things I can calmly write it down.

Friday morning I get a call from Fred's vice principle. I was expecting this as Fred told us there was a problem at the assembly Thursday with another boy. Fred did not tell us everything. So Fred did not start things which is good but he was excessive in his response to the boy. He understands now that he should of gone to a teacher and let them handle it in stead of kicking the boy so hard. Fred got suspended for 2 days from school and is only allowed back to take his exams. I wont go into all the details, lets just say it was a very serious transgression because he was the only one suspended. Of course as parents, Tyler and I had to be very harsh with him to make sure there is no repeat of this. All his privileges have been suspended, which he can earn back based on good behaviour. All media and electronic games and devices have been suspended for at least 4 months. This last is extremely hard for him because he is not a reader so he is bored ALL the time. Just means I will send him outside to entertain himself. Also wil not buy him a new DS like he wants, he doesnt need one.

I though long and hard about this next point. Warned him that if he hurts Veronica or Cara that he will be sent to live with his Dad. Not the best solution but I have to think of their safety first. They cant defend themselves so it is up to me to protect them even if that means protecting them from their brother. I dont know what else to do with him. He has gone to angry managment, had counselling etc. But he continues to act out violently. If any of you have some ideas I am open to hearing and trying them.

What???

Life got in the way yesterday so still cleaning up my scrappy mess. This evenings project my work desk. The computer desk and most of the containers are organized and put away. Found someone to donate my unwanted scrappy stuff to. They will be using it at a kids camp for crafts. Hopefully will finish up my scrappy area tonight so I can start working on LOs and a swap that is due at the end of July. I have learned that when sending to the states I have to allow at least 2 weeks for it to get there on time. Canada's postal system sucks even when pay extra to expedite it.
Made a double batch of Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies today and then found out the little boy I watch might be diabetic so he cant eat them. UUGGG I would not be able to live with dietary restrictions, I put enough of those on myself. Michaela is pretty much finished school, she has one exam on Friday then that is it for the year. She is starting work next week and will be mowing lawns and general labour again this year. She is saving everything to go on a trip to Cuba in February. My job is to get her a pass port.
Cara slept for 5 hours last night so went to bed at midnight then up at 5 am for a feeding. Hope she continues this. It would be nice if I could get her to bed earlier. Must remember she is only 2 months and it takes time so I need to be patient.
Well time to get off of here and get to work, night all.

Now were to start

Yesterday I started to reorganize my scrappy area. Well it never got finished yesterday and today I have move more of my album and all the stuff I had upstairs that I was working on into my room. I am feeling a little overwhelmed, I have no idea where to start. I have to big baskets full on my bed, organizers all over my floor in front of my desk and my desk piled high. The only clear space is my computer desk. I think I will start with the baskets on my bed because most of that goes in the large wall unit I move and organized yesterday, then on to the stuff on the floor and last my working desk. During all this reorganizing I have been going through everything and trashing things I have held on to for one reason or another. The scrappy stuff I don't use is going into a container and then donated. I have a friend on scrapbooks.com that needs it for kids crafts at a summer camp she volunteers at every year. That way there is no waste of some perfectly good things that are just not my style.
Well before I get to continue with the organizing, I just got a call from the parent that I babysit for and they are bring him by now since he seems much better then he did this morning. Puts all plans on hold because I also have a interview with another parent but place their child here so I need to do some cleaning upstairs while the kids sleep. Once that is done hopefully I will be able to spend a few hours on my scrappy area until they wake up and my appointment. gets here. Well got to go and feed the kidlits then nap, sweep and mop floors then back downstairs. LOL what a busy day this is turning into.

Crazy I know!

So have no children to watch other then my own so I decide to organize my scrapbook/craft area in my master bedroom. Right now I don't have much space because we turned the office into Cara's room. Every time I want to do any scrappy stuff I have to choose everything I want and move it upstairs to the kitchen and take over the kitchen table. I hate doing this because then the table has to be cleared off everyday and things stacked on my floor. Then while I am scraping and want other embellishments or paper have to go downstairs to our bedroom and pull more stuff upstairs. UGGGG what a bother.
Next year if we are still in this place Veronica and Cara will share the master bedroom upstairs and Michaela will be move into Veronica's old room. It is about half the size of the master bedroom and she won't have her own bathroom anymore. She is sad about the bathroom part and she needs to down size all the "stuff" she has.
Anyway back to the reorganizing. I pulled everything off my shelving unit and moved it closer to the door so that I could move my plastic draw shelves closer to my desk. Everything got piled onto the bed and now trying to decide how I want it all stored again. At this time bed is still half covered but I had to take a break. Next need to clean off my computer desk, work desk and reorganize the filing cabinet so that I have a place for my Avon info, books, and orders. I can't wait for next year because if we are still here I will have my own space and our master bedroom downstairs will be just that a bedroom.
Now I keep saying "if we are still here". What I am referring to is our lease is up and as long as our landlord doesn't increase our rent we will resign and continue to live here. If he wants to up the rent then we will be looking for a new place. Which can be hard to find as we need at least a 4 bedroom if the rooms are large, if not then a 5 bedroom. Now if that happens then we are planing on talking to someone in our ward that does "Rent to Own" properties so we can move into our own place. If we have to move then please let it be into something we can call ours.

My day

Welcome, I am a terrible journal writer but I know it is important to keep one. I am more aware of that now then when I was growing up. I think that keeping this blog will help me be more committed to journal writing as I spend a lot of time on the computer once my children are in bed.
My days start at about 6:00am and go until about midnight. Plus I am up at least once in the night. This is due to the ages of my children. Michaela is 16 and she needs to be up early for seminary every day, then there is Frederick, 12, he has an alarm but refuses to get up when it goes off. Next I have Veronica, 1 1/2, will wake up early if the older two make too much noise, and last Cara who at this time is 1 1/2 months. She is the reason for the late nights and, if I am lucky, 4 hours I get to sleep before she wakes for her feeding at 3:30am. Then back to sleep until 6:00 or 6:30. Now this would not be to bad if I got to nap in the day with my two little girls but I run a day home and I am an Avon consultant/team leader. So during the day I watch other people's children along with my own and when they have quiet/nap time in the afternoon I tend to be on the phone taking orders or helping out my team members with Avon. The older two have school and are normally home by 4pm. They do their homework or if they have none, read for an hour, while I am preparing supper. Supper time can be hectic as Cara nurses at the same time we sit to eat. 7pm and it is time for Veronica to have her bottle of milk before bed. 8pm Fred goes to bed and then 10pm for Michaela and me if I want Cara to settle for the night, otherwise I am up until midnight with her.