Of Course!!

Remember how yesterday I just let Gabe throw flour everywhere?  Well, last night I was really tired, from grinding wheat, working out, grinding wheat again, making bread, making dinner, chasing after a 18 month old, helping kids with homework, making dinner for a friend, etc.  I cleaned up the bare minimum and went to bed.  This morning I got up and thought- well, I have time to clean up or work out before Gabe's Dr. appointment at 9:30.  So I worked out.   I figured I would clean up during Gabe's nap.  I ran a couple errands after his doctors appointment and right when I got home the Rental Inspector was at my door!  NO joking!!  AHHHHH.  My ENTIRE house was a wreck!  Well, I apologized profusely.  He was nice, but took pictures of everything.   Hopefully no evictions notices turn up on our door step.  Just keep us in your prayers.

A Day With An 18 Month Old

You know, it's a good thing I posted what I did yesterday, cause today I needed it.  Besides raising my kids- I got practically nothing done. 
Thanks to Gabe throwing a handful of wheat in my fresh ground whole wheat flour.  You see, I make bread and sell it.  I do this to help living on a very meager student loan income.  Typically I make bread Tuesdays and Fridays.  I have regulars that I sell too.  I also make the kids traipse through the neighborhood selling door to door.  They love it or hate it depending on who opens the door.
Grinding the wheat it kind of a pain, it gets flour everywhere and is noisy.  I was so happy today when I was almost all done grinding the wheat.  It was just as I was about to dump some freshly ground flour into the bucket that Gabe got a handful of unground wheat kernels and threw them in my flour.  AHHHH!!  There were instantly little crunchy bits of wheat in the flour.  I tried getting them out, sorting them out, I even tried grinding the flour again.  After 45 min of this and trying to keep Gabe out of the flour I gave up.  I let Gabe and the kids play in the flour and I worked out to a Jillian Michaels video.  I didn't care.  I just walked with my flour coated shoes to the living room and worked out.  By the time I was 1/2 way done- the kids looked like this.

The flour throwing got worse.  By the time I was all done it was everywhere. I.mean.everywhere.   My kitchen and I have still not recovered. 

Sometimes I Wonder

why I never get anything on my To Do list done... 

But then I think about one of my favorite quotes
“Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. You do not collect children because you find them cuter than stamps. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. It is what God gave you time for."  -Neil Andersen 

 and I realize I get more done than I realize.  I am raising children, every second, every minute of everyday.

More time at the beach

Here are some more videos-
the first one is really cool- more sand dollars!

http://youtu.be/zQ0qMa89wuQ

This second one is of a starfish I found

http://youtu.be/uVoP1eicb_c

Sand Dollar Videos

Ok folks, we went to the beach today and it was amazing!  Here are some videos of us finding sand dollars- it's pretty cool- I think.

http://youtu.be/zfXu_cJMey4

 http://youtu.be/aQvWj9NhS_A

 http://youtu.be/pu7-lwM4KJw

  http://youtu.be/GCROTYN1M9g

Skink

While I am posting about reptiles, I may as well post pictures of this "Skink" since Paul took about 70 of them.  Paul freaked out when he saw this guy, which looked just like any other lizard to me.  But apparently, it's NOT an ordinary lizard.  It's a Skink! I don't know what that means except they are rare and really cool.  Paul has only seen 2 of them since we moved here!  And considering I've seen over 7 million lizards- that's saying something.  He was ecstatic to see this rare Skink- and to catch him was... well, there are no words to describe the joy.  

I wish 1 of the 70 pictures had Paul's face in it.  Oh well.  Youll just have to settle for pictures of the skink.

That's The Way Life Goes

This past spring Paul moved into the Blazer Scouts.  His really has not had a "proper" scout uniform since we moved here and I have lacked the motivation to get him one. 

So since he turned 11 this spring I rededicated myself to the Scout program and decided to get him a real uniform! I bought a shirt off ebay- it was just the right size, but I needed all the patches to go on it. 
 By chance, the next week, I was at Goodwill and saw a scout shirt just like the one I had bought Paul with all the exact patches he needed!  It must have been someone in his group cause the pack numbers, scout symbol and District were the ones I needed.  Perfect! Just my luck!  The shirt was too small, but I bought it anyways for all the patches- those things can be expensive new! 

So I took it home and took all the patches off the too small shirt to sew them on the correct size shirt.

 Well, summer came and they didn't have Scouts, so i put off sewing the patches on.  Last week I was doing some sewing and I figured I had better get those patches sewed on before scouts started back up.
      
I got all the patches sewed on in the right places, not to crooked and looking great!  Then I held  up the shirt and noticed it looked a little bit small for Paul.  I then realized... yea, I had sewn all the patches back on the original "too small" shirt that the patches originally came on! Ughhh.  Needless to say Paul did not wear his uniform to scouts this week.