Julie’s Journal

OK…so this year, I am doing a December Daily album.  It’s small…nothing fantastic.  But I am hoping to record our holiday memories from now until the end of the month.  It’s really supposed to be for the 25 days till Christmas, but our Christmas vacation (from school) is always filled with all kinds of fun, so that has to be included too!  I got the idea for the December Daily album from Ali Edward’s site. Her albums are amazing…I have low expectations for myself on this project (maybe, then, I will actually complete it).

Anyway, the other day I compiled a list of ideas or activities to do with the kids each day leading up to Christmas.  I’ve seen all kinds of super cute homemade advent calendars to use with activities like the ones on my list.  Problem is I just don’t have the time (or the $) to make one…so I still just have the list.  And today, well, we didn’t really have a chance to do one anyway with our crazy schedule.

The special thing about today was it was our first snow…ok, maybe we’ve had snowflakes before now, but this snow has stuck and it has been snowing all day.  It’s not even an inch, but the kids are excited and Max made a snowball tonight when we got home from church.

I also made the kids hot chocolate in our Christmas mugs…OK, they aren’t really mugs.  They are like expresso cups or something, but they are perfect for kids and they have little Christmas reindeer and Holiday messages on them.  They loved it!  I made a big pitcher of hot chocolate and I think the boys each had like 5 refills!  Savannah missed out on the fun.  She was with her dad all night at Magic Club.  We missed her!

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.  

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. 

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.

Karson On Rainbow Rock

Karson absolutely loves the Rainbow Rock – it is his favorite ride in the entire world – he went on it like 10 times yesterday and all he could say was “I wuv wainbo wock”

Yesterday we slept in and when we got up, we were tossing around the idea of going over to Muskegon for the day to the Muskegon Summer Celebration. We went to that fair last summer with the Octopus Show. Sam’s Aunt and Uncle and cousins work that fair with their food concessions and it’s always fun to see them. So we decided to head over there around noon. Sam has a GPS unit that we tried to use. Only it doesn’t always take you the most convenient route. We ended up putting it away and going our own way. Anyway, we ended up getting over there around 3:30. We stopped up at the fairgrounds to get passes and the campground pass and key from Aunt Suzy so we could go let out Betsy’s dog, Oreo at the campground. We drove over there and did that first and then we went back over to the fairgrounds. The great thing about being carnys is that we can usually get into the fair without having to pay. We actually were at the fair all day and never paid anything! Joyce gave us armbands for the rides and Aunt Suzy hooked us up with food. We really appreciate that…because going to the fair can be so expensive! The kids went on lots of rides. They have a lot of kids rides at that fair and they had such a great time. They were all the same rides as they had last year. Savannah got me to go on the Cliffhanger with her. It was a little faster than I was expecting, and we screamed a lot. I also went on the bumper cars with the kids…I loved that. Later, I took Karson down the big slide…we went so fast. We ended our adventure with a ride on the carousel, it was baby Jasmin’s first carnival ride. She so loved it! It was really cute. We left around 8:00 and decided to go get something to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings near Grand Rapids on the way home. When we got done eating it was just about dark and as we drove home we saw fireworks everywhere from the highway. It was kind of fun looking for them as we were riding in the car. Anyway, we got home about 12:30. It was a late night especially for the kids, but we had a great time.

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.

Karson woke me up at 6:45 this morning…I was planning on sleeping in…but most likely I would have been up anyway because I feel a little sick this morning.  I am sure it was probably something I ate that is bothering me.  I haven’t actually been eating very well the past few days.

Last  night I helped out at the 5th grade girls lock in.  It was fun.  There were four other teachers.  The girls were  crazy, like 5th graders can be, and they were getting each other freaked out about someone dressed in black outside…something I am sure was made up by one of them to scare the others.  Anyway, we ate, made crafts…the girls did a scavenger hunt and we played dodge-ball.  I seriously have not played that since I was in elementary school!  It was fun.  I wasn’t very good at it…but I had a great time.  We had some kind of vinyl or leather covered foam balls…they didn’t hurt.  When I was a kid we played with those red gym balls…you know what kind of balls I am talking about, don’t you?  Those babies hurt!

While I was at the lock in, Sam took Karson and Jasmin to his sister, Shelly’s house to hang out.  Almost every time I go away, he ends up going over there with the kids.  I am sure Shelly helps out with the baby, so that probably makes it easier for  him.  Savannah and Max went with their Aunt Sherry for the weekend.  I guess they are going to a dog show today.  Anyway, while Karson was at Aunt Bean’s (Shelly), she gave him a McFlurry maker.  Apparently it had gotten picked up by Sam’s dad at a garage sale or something…she didn’t want it, so Karson brought it home.  Only it’s missing the directions – and the mix.  Karson assures me that when he was a baby he saw the McFlurry mix at Walmart, though.  So we may head over there later to see what we can find.  I googled it and found this hilarious review on the McFlurry maker. I probably can reproduce the mix…since it’s most likely just sugar or something.  And if I can figure out how to put it together, I might be able to do it…it’s just a mini (and I mean mini) ice cream maker.  So anyway, apparently even though Karson went to sleep after 11:00 last night, he was up early because he was thinking about his “new” McFlurry maker.  He doesn’t even want breakfast.  He’s a strange kid.  So I told him I’d go up and take my shower and the two of us plus baby Jasmin would go up to Walmart and see what we could find.  Then we’d go over to my friend’s neighborhood garage sales and then  come back home and we’ll see about making the ice cream.

Later on today, we have a graduation open house to go to, and then Jasmin (Mimi) is coming over to be with the kids while we go to the Lugnuts game.  One of my pricipals is retiring and wanted an event not a party, so we chartered a bus with Jackson Trippers and we are all going up to hang out at the Lugnuts game.  It will be fun, I am sure.  It looks like it will turn out to be a pretty nice day too.  Plus, there are fireworks after the game!