Julie’s Journal

I was hoping I would have something important to blog about.  It’s just not coming to me.  The last 2 days have not been real eventful.  The kids have been having a great time at Kidz Kamp.   It’s been nice having a quiet house for a good chunk of the day.  Jasmin is really fun when it’s just me and her.  Monday, we hung out and I cleaned during her nap.  Today we actually dropped her off at the babysitters and Sam and I went out for our anniversary (which was Saturday).  We went to Gaucho…it was a delicious lunch.  We didn’t eat anything the rest of the day…except till about a half hour ago when I made an egg sandwich.  By the time we got home, it was just about time to go get the kids from Kidz Kamp, so I didn’t get much done today except some laundry and the dishes.  We’ve been making plans for this weekend and thinking about getting ready for Family Camp. I am so excited about that.  We missed it last year.  So…anyway, not much news to tell, maybe tomorrow will be different.

The other day when we went to the library, I found out about this Breakfast on the Farm event.  I thought it would be fun, so I invited my friend, Stacey and her son, Evan (whom Jasmin really likes) to go along. Then I told my sister and so she brought her kids too.  I had no idea it would be such a huge event!  They had SO many volunteers and it seemed to me that farms from all over the county participated in it and they had a ton of sponsors.  When we arrived, they shuttled us from the parking field on a hay wagon to the huge pole barn where they had tables and chairs.  We had a “breakfast” of breakfast pizza and sausage, apple and milk or juice.

After that, we went on the tour of 15 stations around the farm where we could learn about all kinds of things that happen there.  We had to wear special booties on our shoes!  They were pretty funny looking.  One of the first places we visited we found out about what kind of food they feed the cows.  The farm was a dairy farm, so we also got to see the cows getting milked – with machines.  We also got some ice cream, which was a welcome treat after standing in lines in the sun for almost an hour!  Needless to say – I have a nice farmers “tan” from the farm!  Luckily Cyndi had just enough sunscreen for the kids.  Jasmin was having a hard time by the time we got to the station where the ice cream was.  She was so tired.  Her ice cream was melting everywhere, so I tried to fix up her cone and she threw a huge fit.  Cyndi finally picked her up and held her and helped her eat her cone, and she was practically falling asleep!  So cute!

The little girls loved the cows and wanted to pet them.  These cows however were not used to so many people and wouldn’t let you get near them.  It was fun to watch them.  The boys just wanted out of the cow barn because of the smell.The other thing the kids enjoyed most about the farm was climbing up on the farm equipment.  I thought it was great that they had all this equipment opened up so the kids could go up and explore.  We left with all kinds of free goodies.  The kids had fun.  It was definitely an adventure and it was totally FREE!  You can’t beat that!

We came home and crashed, then got up and went over to Archer’s pool for an evening swim.  The water felt awesome and it was a perfect end to the day.  

Yesterday, we spent most of the day preparing for Max’s birthday party.  My main focus in the morning was getting the cake done.  Then we had to

go and run some errands while it cooled. When we got back I started working on frosting the cake.  I think it turned out pretty cool.  The frosting part was a challenge for me, but then I’m no cake decorator and definitely need improvement in spreading frosting.  It took a long time to frost the cake.  But I was glad when I was done, and everyone seemed to love it…even Sam.

The party was fun, but I was glad it was over. ( I didn’t blog yesterday because I was so exhausted – so I am writing two posts tonight).  The boys built some great LEGO containers for the silverware and crayons and filled all the loot bags.  I was grateful for their help with that and they did a good job.  Savannah helped me clean and set stuff up for the party after she got home.

When the guests arrived, we had LEGO coloring sheets for the kids to color, bubbles to blow and a variety of LEGO pieces so they could build something.  They came up with some pretty neat creations.  I tried to do a couple of organized games, but they wanted to play on the trampoline and the girls all had their American Girl dolls…so the games did not go over so well.

It was a great party with a fun theme.  Max had a great 8th birthday and we were so thankful for everyone that could join and celebrate with us.

After two days of serious frustration with my 3 oldest kids, Sam and I decided to have a family meeting and present a schedule for the summer.  It’s pretty funny, because we didn’t really discuss the schedule before our meeting…and maybe it’s just the way my personality is, but I just love that he made it up and that was that.  It seemed great to me…so today is our first day on the schedule.  Of course, I have to be a little flexible with it, and it does allow for some flexibility, which is good.  I am telling you that this is the way to go.  Today I had so much less complaining and much better attitudes.  There was no argueing when it was time for rest time, and I love this 45 minutes I get all to myself.

So here it is:

So here is our tentative schedule…
Up and dressed at 8:00.
Breakfast, 8:15
Clean up and then play outside.
Snack, 10:15
Homework, Journal, Reading and Chores
Lunch, 1 kid assigned to help prepare & clean up each day on rotating schedule, 12:00 – taking Kate Gosselin’s idea of a picnic lunch when we can…LESS CLEAN UP
1:15 Rest time – ON BEDS, sleeping or reading or listening to music
2:00-4:00 Free time which may include playing, art projects, extra jobs, DS. – Quiet Zones in effect while baby is napping.

4:00 – clean up from playing, get the house ready for Sam to come home
6:00ish – Dinner
7:30 – Baths and bedtime routine
9:00 bed (8:00 for baby)

I love that there is a lot of play time, so we could go do something fun or run errands, like this morning, after we were cleaned up from breakfast, all they had to do was get their shoes on and we were out the door to go to the credit union and got there even before they opened.  It wasn’t so fun sitting there for almost an hour in one of the offices while we opened accounts for each of the kids.  We gave them money for their grades on their report cards, and their school participates in a program with the CU where they will be able to deposit $ into savings at school.  It wasn’t much fun, but they weren’t too bad, and afterwards we went to Target and got popcorn combos or slushies and everyone got a pair of flip flops for the summer.  When we got home everyone wrote in their journals and then we got lunch ready.  I thought it was a good morning (even though I was a little stressed at the CU).

I have printed up the schedule and posted it on the refrigerator so they can keep me on it, too.

I probably should mention that we have used the stoplight discipline system all year.  This is something that they do at school, and we continue it at home.  Bad choices mean consequences and it goes like this, 1 warning, then yellow light, another warning, then red light, The kids try to stay on Green light all day.  Red light gets spankings, Green lights all week earn rewards.  This goes for anywhere we are.  So I made each kid an envelope with a hole cut out, and papers inside (red, green and yellow) to change accordingly if needed.

So that’s about it, oh and I am having the kids track on a calendar their days and which light they are on.  They will color in the square appropriately for how they end the day.  That’s how we will track for the rewards.

And I am also going to try making up some clothespins to clip on the bottom of their envelopes for positive behaviors they accomplish each day.  It should be a nice visual reminder of their responsibilities…I am hoping.  And these are easy enough to take down and take along with us when we go to the fairs and camp this summer.  I will try to post a picture later for you.

Rest time is over…see ya

We woke up to snow this morning…7 inches!  What!?  It WAS nice to have our Spring Break extended by one more day…and I’m looking at only 3 days of teaching this week.  That’s a nice way to ease back into the routine.

Today wasn’t such a great day.  I don’t know what it is, but my kids were like trying to eat all day.  By about 4 I decided it had to be because they were bored.  They were also fighting a lot.  Well, he have been spending a lot more time together this last week, I guess.  Anyway…after they have consumed half of the snacks and stuff I bought for lunches this week, I closed the kitchen…no more food till Dinner.  And I started giving them jobs to do. They were kind of motivated since we got back on track with the Dave Ramsey way of working for money to GIVE, SAVE & SPEND.  But it was hard to make them do a good job.

We did dye our Easter Eggs today.  I actually did half of them.  It just isn’t the same.  They don’t care about decorating them, they just want to eat them.  I suppose it will just get less important to them.  It’s kind of sad.

I also got paint out today for them to do a painting.  Savannah did a cute fairy picture…Karson painted something about firemen or robbers or something…Max just played and made designs and stuff.  It was really funny.  Karson wanted to PAINT his egg with watercolors.  It is actually really cute.   I thought it was funny that he wanted to be different.

I told you I’d post my pages from the Scrapbook Weekend I went to last weekend, so here they are.  They are from Jasmin’s album.

I know…7 pages isn’t much…but I spent Friday evening and some of Sat. morning preparing for the workshops that I taught in the afternoon on saturday.  And after I taught them, I slept until dinner…so really…I only worked on MY scrapbook for about 8 hours all together ( I’m guessing.)

The last page I really love.  I made 3 pockets, with notes that slip out.  The first one tells about how Jasmin was named after our babysitter Jasmin (aka MIMI), the last one is about her and how she is important to our family, and on the middle one I have asked Jasmin to write a note to baby Jasmin about her.  I actually would like to make a page like this for each of our kid’s albums and have her do the same for them. I asked her to think about what she might like to write.  I think it would be so special for them.  She has been so much a part of their lives the past 5 years.  I know they will enjoy looking back at something like that when they grow older and perhaps won’t see her as often.

…I think I’ve kind of developed a theme with color, embellishments and techniques in this scrapbook of Jasmin’s.  I really like the unified way it looks compared to my other album…where the pages are designed around the event.  You should see some of my old albums.  Too funny, yet, I love to look through them.  They are so different than what I do now.  You can see how I went through phases of materials and design.  Interesting (to me) to compare all the albums.  I have finished 1 wedding album, 1 album of a trip to Florida, 2 baby albums of Savannah’s, a college album (me) and 2 Sam and Julie scrapbooks (1990-2000).  UNFINISHED:  Karson’s (left off at 3 wks), Max’s (left off at 6 mos.), Jasmin’s (about 3 weeks done), & Savannah’s from age 3-9!, a super cute ABC album I started when Savannah was 3, and another Durocher family album that ends at 2002 and only has about 17 pages in it.  I really do like to scrapbook.  I should do it more often.  I have a friend that does 30 pages in one day!!!  That’s not me.  We approach scrapbooking from two totally different views.  I really think mine out.  Envision it in my mind, sometimes sketch the design.  I have a lot of layering.  I coordinate colors.  I often add embellishments and draw/doodle on my pages to enhance the design of the page.   It’s more of a work of art by the time I am through, I’m afraid.  Which doesn’t work well for me in getting anywhere with these unfinished albums.  But I enjoy it when I get the chance to work on them (over the past few years it has only been 1-4 times a year).  What I really should do is instead of blogging about it, get up and go clean up my room so I can set up my scrapbook stuff to do some more pages.  Yeah.  But it’s now midnight, so maybe tomorrow.

My father-in-law had an auction today up in Okemos.  We wanted to get together for Savannah’s birthday, so we drove up there to meet him.  When we got there, I waited a while in the car with Jasmin and Karson.  Savannah and Max were in Uncle Kevin’s car.  We had to wait because the auction hadn’t quite ended yet.  I sat and drew this picture while Karson played his DS and Jasmin ate Cheerios. She started getting fussy after a while, so I got her out of her carseat and she sat next to me and added her own personal touch to my journal page…her side didn’t make it into the picture, but you can see she contributed to my drawing, too.  After a while, we went inside.  We had brought our camera and a tripod to take a family picture since Sam’s sisters’ families were there too.  After that we headed over to Cracker Barrel for dinner.  We stopped and got the boys some DS cases and also so Savannah could spend her gift card from Grandpa…and then we headed home.  It was really bad weather and took us a while.  The snow kept freezing on the windshield.  I am glad I didn’t have to be the one driving!

It’s been crazy around here the past two weeks.  Here’s a recap of our life lately.

We pulled Karson out of Young Fives and moved him to Kindergarten at Max and Savannah’s school.  Now we have both the boys in Kindergarten right next door to each other.  Anyway, he’s happy and we are happy and it solved our day care issue with him, since it’s all day K.  Now we only have to pay for Jasmin…it cuts our childcare costs in half.

Kindergarten is going better.  The first day was awful, but each day it gets easier.  I’m figuring stuff out and enjoying it more.  The afternoon goes by so fast, it’s crazy.  One thing about half day kindergarten…I don’t know how you are supposed to fit everything in!  I really like my class.  They are a good group of kids.  We have fun, and I think maybe most of them love me.  One little boy gives me a hug and tells me he loves me everyday.  So cute!

Here’s a picture of my class and their flags that they made last week.

Our camper is still sitting in our driveway after four weeks!  I have barely touched it except to get things we needed out.  Though tonight, I did clean out the refrigerator because we unplugged it for a while this afternoon.

I totally forgot until Thursday that today is Karson’s birthday.  What kind of mom forgets to plan a party for their kid’s 5th birthday!?  I feel terrible.  It is going to be very hard to have a party now anytime close to his birthday because our family has so much going on this week.  Luckily he doesn’t really care that much.  I was going to plan a party at Fun For all Kids.  We did Max’s party there and it was so easy.  But he just wants it at home.  Last year we had a big party with an army theme, so I guess this year would be his year for just a family party anyway.  I think we are kind of planning for Thursday night.

Tuesday is Penny’s memorial service.  I am kind of looking forward to it, but then kind of anxious to get past it.  It’s been kind of strange having so much time pass between her death and her memorial service.  Sam has been working on putting together a slideshow of her, but we wish we had more pictures of her…we don’t even have enough for a whole song.  That was the thing about Penny.  She was always helping behind the scenes, serving people and ministering to them…it seems that she avoided the camera at most of our family celebrations because of that.

This weekend we took Pirate Island out to flavor fruit farms.  My nephew Josiah wanted it for his birthday and so we had the party out there.  Because we came out there for free, Meckley’s gave us all the perks of a party…free hayride, doughnuts and cider, walk through the corn maze and free tickets for the inflatable.  The kids had a blast and our shows were really fun.  It was a beautiful day and the kids were all great.  We were tired though and Sam is sick this weekend, so it was a lot more work for me tearing down.  We pulled out right as Laura the elephant was pulling in to our spot.  Perfect timing.

I’m writing this at 2 in the morning.  When we got home I took the kids upstairs and gave them all baths/showers…but trying to get them in bed was challenging. You know how kids love to stall…and I just had no patience…so I came down and asked Sam to finish putting them to bed and Jaz and I layed on the couch with a bottle and fell asleep for a few hours.  So now I am wide awake.  I put the roast in the crockpot and got it cooking for lunch and did some laundry, wrote some emails and updated my school’s website.  Now I think I am ready to go back to sleep.  I don’t know if we’ll go to church tomorrow…it’s always weird going without Sam.  He’s staying home and hoping to get some extra rest.

Tonight we took the kids over to Cascades Park to see the fireworks. They were awesome! It was perfect weather…no bugs! Mimi even met us there and joined the kids on our blanket. Sam got us all treats from the concessions trailers…caramel apples, cotton candy and popcorn. It was baby Jasmin’s first fireworks show. She actually watched them, the noise didn’t even bother her. Karson spent most of the fireworks show under his blanket with his ears covered.