Julie’s Journal

Well…today was a day.  I kept Max home (he’s been fighting a cold the last couple of days…and just needed a day of rest) and I took the day off.  I got up at the regular time and got the rest of the kids off to school, then I worked like crazy getting the porch cleaned up and then totally emptied out 3 rooms - except for the large furniture.  We had a guy coming to clean our carpets today.  I am glad I worked so hard, because he showed up earlier than I expected.  Our carpets look much better…though not perfect.  Cream is a crazy color for dining room carpet…seriously…who ever thought of that… (actually I know who thought of it - and they never ate in the dining room).  It’s just not a good idea when you have 4 little kids.  Some day we will get it replaced or refinish the nice hard wood floor underneath…someday.  Anyway…after the carpet guy left, Sam came and got our Kirby and took it to get fixed.  There is definitely something seriously wrong with it.  I am hoping it will be an easy fix and we can get it back quick…because not having a vacuum…well let’s just say, the Durocher household requires a good vacuum.  I was worn out…Max played the Wii for a bit and I think I dozed off.  I made him go take a nap and then we went and picked up Karson and Savannah.  Jasmin got dropped off, and we hung out for a while and then went to church.  Max and I also tore down all the wallpaper in our entry way…we call it the “red room” (because it has red/burgandy carpet) Sam and I have been talking about redoing it, because all the wallpaper is peeling…or being peeled…off.  There isn’t a lot of wall space in this room, because it is full of doors…it opens to the living room, there’s a door to the mud room, french doors to the dining room, has a closet and french doors to the stairs.  I feel like it’s something I can tackle and finish in a week.  I had an idea for painting it with flat paint and then using a satin paint to freehand paint a swirl pattern all over it.  I think it will look awesome if it turns out anything like I imagine.  Anyway, tonight after church, the kids and I went to Walmart to get the paint.  On our way out we saw this display that stopped the kids in their tracks.  They thought it was awesome.  So I had them pose for a picture…taken with my iphone so it’s a little blurry…but so cute…thinking I could use this in my Christmas letter.

My 3 oldest kids decided to build the Mayflower after lunch today. Not really sure when it turned from the Mayflower into a fort, but here is an account of the ten minutes they spent working together on building their fort:

2:02
Max: Karson can we have your tiny pillow.
Karson: Yep
Max:  Go get it.  Get mine too.
Max:  Baby, come here.
Savannah:  Ok.
Max: We’re supposed to have a few more pillows. Karson went up to get them.
Savannah:  Baby, you can’t come in, so sorry.
Karson:  I’ll hold the pillow
Max:  No you don’t need to.
Savannah: No, no no no no no
Karson:  Share, share
Max: How does that look?
Savannah:  Going to get more blankets.
Max:  There’s only room for one person.
Savannah:  No Baby no!
Savannah:  No Jasmin!
Max:  Come here
Max:  Sasa, baby’s goin in the fort
Savannah:  No, no jaz.
Karson:  She just wanted a little spot to get in.
Karson:  Will you keep this little spot for the baby.
Karson:  Here max.
Max:  No!
Karson:  Why?
Max: We don’t need it.
Max: Where is your sleeping pillow?
Karson:  This is my pillow
Max:  Stop Karson!
Savannah:  Fine if you don’t want a fort
2:04
Max:  This is the DS port.  I will go get all 3 DSs.
Savannah:  Are you sure?
Max:  It will be awesome.  Even more awesomer with the DSs
Karson:  This fort is awesome.
Max:  Karson, let her go.
Max:  Go bye-bye.
Savannah:  Go see momma,
Savannah:  Momma’s got a surprise for you.
(Jasmin crying)
Savannah:  Come here (to Jasmin)
Me to Max: What’s wrong?
Max:  Karson smacked her head.  Max walks back into living room.
Max to Karson:  You’re weak.
Karson: (yelling)
Max:  Get out, get out!
Karson:  Don’t ruin our fort.
Savannah: Go bye-bye Jasmin.
Jasmin: Max
Max:  Ok now why are you lying to me?
<Talking that I can’t quite make out.>
2:09
Max:  Oh my gosh!  I can’t find my darn DS. (screaming) How come it’s not where it’s supposed to be?
Max:  I’m going to ruin the fort!
Savannah:  No max don’t!  Mom!
Savannah:  Max
(Max begins to count)…1…
Savannah: Max
2…
Savannah: Max!
3…
Savannah: Max!!
4…
5…
Savannah: Max!!!
6…
Savannah: Shut up!
Savannah: Max!
7…
8…
9…
10…
Max:  Destroy!
2:12
Max: Destroy the fort!
Savannah: you destroyed it!  You’re so mean!
Savannah to Karson:  He destroyed it!
Karson:  (Screaming)

A few more minutes after this account, Max and Savannah came to me slapping each other.  After some mediation from me, they decided to work together and make the fort better so they could all fit.  And now they are “taking their rests” in the fort.  I guess it all turned out all right. 

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!

Yes, that is what  you should probably call what I am doing right now…because what I have to do, I don’t really want to do.  And besides, it’s been so long since I have posted a drawing I simply could not keep you waiting anymore.

I drew this on Sunday actually, on our way back from my nephew’s 5th birthday party at Jumpin’ Jax in Lansing.  It was fun…the kids loved it.  It’s basically a big building filled with inflatables.  We have one here called Fun 4 All Kids.  We stopped at the Halloween store on the way home to check out costumes.  We bought Savannah’s wig for her Princess Leia costume (that I will probably be making tomorrow night - because she has a party to go to with her friend on Saturday!).  Jasmin was sleeping after missing her nap, so I stayed in the car…and only had my McDonald’s cup to draw on.  This was all I could get done of my drawing in the 15 minutes they were in the store.  It doesn’t look like much, does it.  Anyway…at least I drew SOMETHING.  I was telling Sam the other day how frustrated I am with work.  Not that it’s bad…it’s just difficult and so demanding.  He said I should make it a point to draw every day.  It would be theraputic.  The thing is, he is probably right.  It does relax me, allow me to have a creative outlet…but seriously, I am so tired when I get home, sometimes it’s a challenge just to stay up to pack the lunches, do the laundry and the dishes and if I get time work on plans or checking papers for school (not a difficult task, really…it’s actually fun putting stickers on the kids’ papers and writing little comments on them - it’s just time consuming).  He does have a good point and I am actually considering it…maybe I will make myself a personal goal.  I don’t think I have drawn in my journal since July or August!  And unfortunately I can’t put my McDonald’s cup in my journal either.  OK enough of that, I HAVE to go get the trailer cleaned out.  There was frost on the ground this morning, and we have to get it winterized soon. Sam is taking it over to BJs tomorrow so we can get it taken care of.  Here I go, even though I really don’t want to.

…when your kids have the camera and the baby in another room!

photo by Savannah (who also happens to be the one squeezing Jasmin’s cheeks)!

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.

Today was a tough day. I went out to the show to touch up some outlining that had to wait till the two parts came together and found that the paint on the bottom edge of the marquee was peeling. You can see from the picture how the marquee has a strip of aluminum all around the edge framing it. I just painted directly on it. The enamel paint should have no problem bonding to it. I painted it 2 weeks ago! So I get there and the paint just on the bottom of the marquee all along that strip of aluminum was peeling. There was actually moisture under the paint…which of course caused it to peel. I don’t really understand how the moisture got there. Last night was the first night it was exposed to the elements…and it had to be from the dew I guess. The only thing I can think of is where the edge of the aluminum strip and the panel come together there may have been spots that didn’t get filled in with the paint allowing a spot for the moisture to collect and seep in under the paint. I am not really all that smart about how paint works but that can be the only way I see that this could have happened. I was really frustrated because we have a bit of a time crunch now…and I have to clear coat it tomorrow. I am praying that it will be fine and I won’t have another situation like that to deal with tomorrow. So what did I do about it…well, I decided to scrape the entire strip (about 1 inch) and then paint kilz primer on it. I wasn’t really sure that it would fix it for good…but that’s what I did. Then I painted over it and fixed up all the touch ups and now it’s done. It looks pretty good. I was pretty happy about how it came together. I had to paint the two pieces separately and so I used a tape measure to measure the points when one part of the ship or tree would end on the trailer so I would know where it would be on the marquee, but then I had to measure 15 inches in, because as you can see the marquee is shorter than the trailer. It will be fine, because we are going to mount some jolly roger flags on either side of the marquee and then all along the top as well. I think it will look pretty cool. The thing that made today frustrating was that I had taken the kids with me. I didn’t really think this would be a problem because it should have only taken me about 20 minutes to touch it up. But it turned into more like 2 hours. I hadn’t brought any snacks and the boys were fighting (irritating each other) which they rarely do. Jasmin was actually less maintenance than those two. And I don’t know what was wrong with Karson today, but it was bad. He whined and screamed and complained SO much today. I had had it by this evening and after dinner put all the kids right to bed. They were all asleep by 8:30. I think he was mostly just really tired, but there wasn’t an opportunity for a nap today. Tonight Sam left to go be with his mom and sisters. His mom is not doing any better. It’s hard. I was sad that he had to go tonight.

I have to get the show finished by Friday. Jasmin can only watch the kids for me during the day today…the rest of the week she is hoping to spend finishing painting the outside of her house. But I told her if the weather is bad, call me and she can come over and work while I go paint. I really don’t have much more to do. The biggest challenge ahead of me is the lettering. It’s really important that it looks professional for something like this.

Today I painted in the scroll…I think it looks pretty sweet (check it out in my flickr pictures)…exactly how I imagined it would. Then I put another coat of paint in the sky on the marquee and painted the clouds and then high-lighted them with white. They look pretty cool. I spilled paint on the floor 3 times today. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but seriously it seemed like every time I turned around I was knocking over a cup of paint. See, I mix a lot of colors. The colors I have to use a large amount of get their own paint can…the others just sit in a cup, and usually by the time I get done using that color, it’s dried up or gone anyway. I also use the cups because they are easy to hold on to…I can even hold two at a time if I need to. And when I am doing stuff like the clouds and the scroll that has a lot of blending…I have one cup of the main color and usually white and a darker shade. It’s maybe not the way the professional painters do things…but it works for me, unless I have an accident prone day like today! I got it all cleaned up, though, it just was a pain…and I think my toenails are still golden-yellow.

Anyway…I felt like I got a lot accomplished today. After painting I went to Economy to pick up some One Shot (sign paint). I decided I will use it to outline because I know it works and it will cover the paint…I will not have the issue I have been having with the latex enamel. But when I got there, they were out of black. But I found some in my old paint stash that might work. I am not sure if it will be enough, but I can use it till it’s gone anyway. So I will work on that tomorrow and hopefully the fact that the paint was sitting in my garage for a couple of years will not have affected the way the paint works. It looks fine to me…but I will have to test it out.

I have to finish by Friday because Saturday I am taking the kids and our (new) camper out to Somerset Beach for a week of Family Camp. (Sam has to work, but it’s close by and he will be able to join us some of the evenings). We are all so looking forward to it. It is really a lot of fun. We have gone for 4 or 5 years. We don’t have that great of a spot. It’s way in the back and no shade…but it’s not that big of a deal. And they have tram rides before and after the services. The kids have a program like VBS in the morning and they also get to go to the kid’s church during the evening services. We spend the afternoons at the beach…though I am not very excited about getting in a swimsuit these days. My friend Cary camps with us with her two kids, Jake and Abby. I love it because Cary is really organized…and it works out good for us. I am really excited this year about the camper. There is so much more room in it, and I think the kids will really enjoy it. Last year we were pretty crowded with our other camper…but it was our own so I didn’t really mind it. The biggest challenge is probably going to be baby Jasmin. She still cries when she goes to sleep, so I am hoping that she doesn’t keep the kids awake and stuff. She is almost ready to crawl…but I am kind of hoping that she holds off on that till summer is over, because having her crawling around and putting everything in her mouth could be difficult to patrol in a camping setting. Right now we basically clear out a 3 foot circle around her and then set her down…and she never leaves that spot. I plan to take the pack-n-play and the super saucer and a booster seat with a tray for feeding her…and I think I should be good with that.

Tonight after dinner, we all went out to the camper. It was really the first time we had spent any time in there. Sam turned on the air. We played with the slide. We checked out all the storage areas and cupboards and we cleaned some stuff. After the kids went to bed, I ran up to Walmart and picked up a few things…some groceries we needed and some 3M hooks, and a couple of other things for the camper. I am thinking I still need to get one of these though. There isn’t a lot of storage area for food in there. I will also miss my tall closet. We have a shorter one in the wardrobe in the kid’s room. I remember that Sandy & BJ (our friends who camped in it last year) said that she would probably have bought a drawer unit like that if they were going to keep it. I can see why, because as I was spending time in there, I could see there just wasn’t many places for storing food. Our old camper had storage all around the ceiling in the whole kitchen and dinette area, plus above the refrigerator. That was one thing I really loved about that camper. This one has more storage underneath though, so that could be a good thing if I can figure out how to best utilize it.

Anyway, it was a good bonding time for me. It sounds weird to you probably, but I just need to spend some time out there getting to know it and love it. I miss the old camper, only because I knew everything about it and we spent like 6 weeks in it or more last summer…and made a lot of great memories. This one I am sure I will love too…it is just going to take some time to get to know it. (Sounds like I am talking about a person…