Industrial Arts

I went and picked up my classroom keys today. My classroom is very industrial, but it's really big. It's actually in the industrial arts building. I'm right across from the welding shop and wood shop. I'm hoping if I make friends with those teachers, they might let me use their tools. I could make some awesome Christmas presents. Or maybe I'll make friends with some students and just have them make my ping pong ball guns for me! Hmmmm, I wonder if schools are allowed to let their students make weapons nowadays?

Entertaining the Masses...

Since we had some extra playmates this week, (and we have no internet, cable, or video games) one might wonder how we entertained ourselves.

This week we... Played Games,

Learned to sew,

Played in the clubhouse,

had a tea party,

Made a massive blanket/cardboard box fort,

worked in the kitchen,

Read and studied,

went for a walk,

played with the cats,

enjoyed homemade playdough,

ate,

and found numerous other ways to keep busy.

Midnight Muffins

I'm up late baking pumpkin muffins for breakfast. I am realistic enough to know that there is no WAY that I can possibly wake up before all these kids and make a batch of muffins from scratch in time to feed the starving hoard. But cold muffins and canned fruit salad will still be a delicious and kid satisfying breakfast.

I also sorted a batch of beans and put them on to soak. That, and a few loaves of Rhodes Bread, will be a great dinner when I get home late from my class. And just in case you're wondering the rest of the week's menu: corn dog muffins with chili, spaghetti & meat sauce, and creamy ranch chicken over fetuccini.

I'm feeling very on-top-of-things. I even put outfits for the littles in their weekly clothes thingy! (There is a spot for every day of the week. Everyone had one when I was teaching before, then I gave all but one to my little sis when she went to work. But obviously I'm feeling the need to get organized again, since I'm going back to teaching.)

Also, I have to mention a couple of miracles that have happened to us recently - huge tender mercies from the Lord, and people who are paying attention to promptings:

Our washer broke. During the spin cycle it started wheezing, whining, and smelling like burned rubber. Then it died. I asked my hubby to look on Craig's List and he found a 3 year old washer, that had been listed just 3 minutes before, for FREE! It just needed a little duct tape to fix the switch and we were back in business!

Wahhoooooooo!!!

About the same time that happened, the starter on my vehicle crapped out. It's been dying a slow death. However, my sister (the one I'm babysitting for) found out and asked her hubby to take a look at it. He came to my rescue and put a new starter in it the very night she asked him, even though they were both preparing to leave for camp. I love having family we can count on!

10 kids this week - all week.

These cuites, plus one, are spending the week.

Hello. This will probably be my only post for the week. (I've only been on the computer once a week. All of my posts last week were scheduled ;D) My sister and her hubby are going to girl's camp, and since she watched my littles while I was at camp, I'm watching her 5 while she's gone. Yup. 10 kids from Tuesday through Saturday.





My other sister, Crazymama, had them for a sleepover the other night. She blogged about it. I quote:

"I swear, it's like I gave them all No Doze and Redbull for dinner."

I don't anticipate that kind of craziness though.

For one thing, I'm not that nice.

For another, since it's not a fun spend-the-night and it's for several nights, I'm going with a "let's start our back to school early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine" theme. Those poor kids will be so scheduled that they won't know what hit them. As a matter of fact, they will think their mother is still home (she is the most organized/routined/anal of my sisters).

I will get a couple of breaks from the herd. Three afternoons I have classes. For two of those days, my sis scheduled subs, and another day one of her friends is going to watch them for most of the day. But yeah, I guess I'll get to see what my life would be like if the Lord didn't have more sense than I do, and had granted my wish for a dozen kids.

crap.

I have been known to let a lesser expletive fly once in a while.

By that I mean crap, dang, etc.

Ok, I'll admit it, once in a while even something worse.

I'm working on it.

But the other day, I got frustrated within the hearing of little ears.

Little ears that are learning to talk and thus, using every word they hear.

BittE heard me and instantly repeated it. But I haven't heard it since that day.

Until this morning. This morning she tried it out on her own when things didn't go her way.

"Crap."

"CRAP."

"CRAP!!!!"

crap.

Around here we reward honesty,

by not freaking out.

Yesterday BittE and Wolfman both had Caprisun drinks. I was silly enough to leave them unsupervised for a moment and soon heard...screams, spatters,and giggles! I hollered, "Are you guys making a mess?" Wolfman came to me and admitted, "BittE and I are just having a juice fight." He showed evidence of the few drops that were on his shirt. I went to view the damage and found splatters down the hallway, and BittE, still slurping her drink, with juice all over her face, head, arms, and stomach.

Wolfman is usually quite honest. The other day I asked him, "What are you doing?"

His answer, "I was just doing something naughty."

another time he answered, "I am just making a mess."

and yesterday it was, "I am getting out a lot of toys."

He usually has to fix whatever he's done, but at least he's still willing to admit it when he's doing something he knows he shouldn't.

Learning Ugandan from Enoch and Moses & The Secret Reactivation of Anya

Our oldest son, Elder S., has been on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints since December. He's been in the field for 17 weeks now. He is serving in the Ukraine, Donetsk mission. Here's an update from his latest letter (All of his letters are on my private blog thinkhappythawts - holler if you'd like an invite!)

Saturday! we did Sister Mark a favor and helped her with her childrens english class in the morning, i was the big bad wolf. huff puff. then we headed out and contacted for a while, then planned and shopped a bit. afterwhich we went and worked some more. then in the evening i had one of the greatest evenings of my mission. the Crittendons have made a lot of friends, all of whom are from Africa, these 19 that were there on saturday all speak decent english and 18 are from Uganda. 4 of them are from our area which is why we were there. i talked with two great guys. enoch and moses. they taught me a few words in ugandan, i love languages. enoch is actually a double major in engineering and sign language. moses only has one more year before he goes home. he is a physics major. but it was a pleasant evening with a truly humble and god seeking people, the evening proceeded with a gospel study with questions posed such as, what is the purpose of life, how can God be both just and merciful. our specialities. the discussion went late and we had to leave early. but they kept going with the senior couple. the whole time i had the thought in my mind alma 32:6-8. alma 32:6-8. he is preaching to the people but then a group comes to him who have been ridiculed and cast out and are truly humbled, ready for the gospel. Alma turns around right then and begins teaching them, because they are ready. thats what we are going to do. these people are ready so we are going to help them. our main focus will be on Michael and Gilbert.

Elder Shipp & Elder Eckersly - July 8, 2009

Photos courtesy of Sister Mark!

oh and a side note, we left right in the middle of a kharkiv typhoon as the missionaries call them. 10-20 minutes of havoc, the streets flow like rivers that i could easily take a kyak down. then its over and gone. but since it was in the evening the sun wasn't around to disperse the clouds, so this was a couple hours of rain. it was great. i had the little umbrela Uncle Aaron gave me. which did the job till i made it under ground in the subway. and it wasn't to bad when we came out on our side and were walking home. hoorah for always keeping an umbrella in my backpack.

Sunday. Church is in an old institute called the institute of extreme cold tempuratures. it had a massive mural of lenin on the side too. its great but we use the first floor. it has been renovated really well and looks really nice, i really like the sacrament hall. the branch was nice enough, they accepted us well and i was quickly fellowshiped by an African from Tunsinia. he is very cool and is the young mens president. church went well, after church we went and taught a lesson to an older sister named svetlana who has a daughter that is inactive, she told us to go and visit her but pretend that we were just tracting and ran into her. we went straight there and she let us in! she speaks amazing english, so everything but her most complex thoughts were in english, it was odd, it felt really good to be there with her, like she really needed us to be there right then and the Spirit just kind of settled into the room and said, "Ah... thank you for listening" we just talked for a while and then she ASKED for a spiritual thought, so we whipped out 2 Nephi 32 and talked about studying the scriptures and prayer, which is something i know she hasn't done in a long while. she accepted our commitment to read from mosiah 15 and she said that she would like us to come back some time, but not to tell her mother. so thus begins the secret reactivation of anya sergeov velikovisk. after our impromptu lesson with her we went to the crittendons to have a lesson with michael on the plan of salvation and we ended by inviting him to be prepared for baptism for the 1st of august. he excepted to begin preparing. the main obstacle is that he has class right when church is and he MUST attend at least two meetings before we can baptize him he can miss class this next week because he asked his instructor but every week is going to be tough for him until august. so we shall see.

until next week my dear brothers and sisters.
goodnight and good luck
elder s

(some names have been changed to protect people from Googling themselves and finding out there's a conspiracy to reactivate them, LOL!)

Funky Eggrolls for Dinner!

Tonight we had a fabulous dinner - Funky Eggrolls!

Big Hits were:

Chili Cheese Dog Eggrolls

Sausage Pizza Eggrolls

Sausage & Green Chile Eggrolls

and even some traditional eggrolls with sweet & sour sauce

Rejected proposals:

Peanut Butter & Jelly (we didn't have any bananas)

Tuna

Mashed Potato & Gravy

Corn

Another time we're going to do some dessert eggrolls. Calvin is dying to try Marshmallow.

These fabulous recipes and MORE available on my recipe blog SupercoolMomsRecipes.blogspot.com! (I know, You just can't wait to check it out ;D)

If you give a Mom some cardboard...

She'll help you make a reflector for your dashboard solar oven.

While she's cutting the cardboard, someone will ask her to make a sword and shield,

Then, when they see the sword and shield,

they'll ask for some paint to paint it with.

When everyone else see's the wonder,

they'll ask her to cut something to decorate their rooms.

That is the point when Mom says,

"Enough! I am not making anymore crap out of cardboard!"

No system here.

Me: "Hey Arthur, please fold those dishtowels."

A: Folding for a while, then "Oops, I was folding them like Sis. So&So does it."

Me: "Well, people who have systems get upset if you don't use their system. Since I don't have a system, I don't care how you fold them, as long as they get folded."

A: "Then I'm going to use her system."

Me: "fine."

A: Folding for a while more. "I think I'll make up my own system."

Me: "fine." but thinking, "Just fold the flippin' towels!"

So, do YOU have a specific way you fold towels?

Confession: Sometimes, in the interest of time, I just toss all the dishtowels in the drawer, because really, who cares!?!

Random stuff

BittE just showed up at my side (in the kitchen) carrying her padded Diego potty seat and stool. I'm not sure what her plan is.

Throughout the day the three most frequently heard phrases around here are: "Check out my moves!", "Poopy. Poopy. Potty!" and "Mom, can I have some (fill in the food item)?"

BittE has been wearing two different earrings for about 4 months. She lost one from a pair. Then I replaced them and she lost one from that pair. Not a problem really, except that one is red and the other is crystal.

For the Fourth we went to the Ward pancake breakfast and Kiddy parking lot parade, then that evening we went to the drive-in and saw Ice Age 3, Night at the Museum 2, and fireworks from a distance. It was a really fun time and we even gave away one of our kittens. (The kids took the three kittens we have left and tired to give them away before the movie.)

I may upload the pics later.

I really dislike my little Nikon. It is a pain in the rear to upload the pics. My little Kodak Easy Share was a much easier camera to use and upload from.

Yesterday the news said that it was supposed to be "dangerously hot." So we tried baking cookies in the car again. I added a mirror into the experiment this time, started at noon, and forgot about them so they ended up cooking for about 3 hours. They were actually about half cooked. The candy thermometer got up to 175 too! I may take up solar cooking as a hobby.

Ahhhhh, Nature...