Julie’s Journal

I just found a great tutorial on making reusable snack & sandwich bags.  Last school year, I did great with packing lunches for the kids.  We hardly ever had to have them buy their lunch.  The thing is, we go through those Ziploc baggies so fast, that it seems like we are always running out.  And, how much money am I spending on them?  I did go to purchasing the Walmart brand of zipper close baggies, but I have been thinking about how we could save some money here.  Plus, just the thought of all that plastic going in the trash…  So I did some searching and found a great tutorial online.  It is so simple, plus it reuses the mylar bags that our chips come in, perfect!  So today, we ran out to get some Wonder Under and some elastic and Savannah and I sat down to make them.  I have never taught her to sew before, but she sat there with me and I think eventually I will have her make her own.  I just think this could be so cute…we could even make them holiday themed…how fun!  I am hoping the kids will take some pride in their bags and take good care of them.  And if and when they get dirty, they are easily washable or they can be wiped out.  I love that!

Here are a couple of views of our first two snack bags.  The dog one was the first one we made…lots of mistakes.  I was learning.  The second one is much neater.  We used some old jeans to make it.  These little bags were so quick to make, and would be easy to do a bunch of them at once I think.  There is also a larger size for a sandwich, which we haven’t made…mostly because we are out of the mylar material.  I only had one bag that I could use.  So if you could save them for me that would be great!

I also found another tutorial for reusable lunch sacks that I haven’t tried yet, but plan too.  I would love to be able to toss our lunch bags in the wash when they get dirty.  Ours were so gross by the end of the year, wiping them clean just didn’t work anymore.  I was even thinking of having the kids paint their own.  I have some good canvas that we can make them out of.  Maybe they will take a little more pride in them, if they have the opportunity to contribute to them!

I figure that I will be saving about 70.00 this school year if I don’t have to buy ziploc sandwich bags, and about 40.00 if we don’t buy lunch bags…plus we are being GREEN!

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.

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.