Where's my free time?

So with school starting, I had plans of what I would do with my free time. The name of the game was basically productivity. A clean closet, a master bath that I would not be ashamed of for the first time in years, laundry caught up, cute stuff sewn, a clean house, daily blogging -I would finally have T-I-M-E TIME.

Then I realized school is only 2 and half hours a day. What?

Less than two hours after you count in the driving time.

So two hours. Hmm, well that is still more time than I had when I had ZERO and stuck in the car because preschool was too far to drive home from.

But you know what I find myself doing most days that the kids are in kindergarten? Catching up. Catching up on all the "stuff" that I fall behind on because of SCHOOL.

I have extra laundry now. The morning jobs I used to do don't get done in the morning because of homework time. And homework time is not my favorite time because it takes most of my strength to not bite their head off because seriously, haven't we already had this talk about writing the lowercase letter "a"? Remember, a circle? With a line next to it. Almost, yes. But let's make the circle start at the dotted line and go to the bottom line. and then make the line next to it. Great, now let's make your t's.

And that was just Wyatt, and only the letter a.

I figured they are just learning and will make mistakes and I was really cool with that. Then their teacher (who I love by the way) went and said to help correct their mistakes because "practice makes permanent". And damn, my practice makes perfect flew out the door and put the job of teaching at home right back into my lap.

So where was I? Oh, talking about my extra time now that the boys are in school. So mornings are shot because of homework time. When they go to school I get home and start to lean up the kitchen. Then get a bit hungry and make a lunch, which I can't sew with food around, so I end up "unwinding" for an hour in front of the computer which sucks the time out of my day. Maybe I will make our bed and then herd the dog up so I can trick her into her cage and pick up the boys on time.

Speaking of, I must go. My free time is over.

While I sew...

Last week I was trying to finish an order of capes, and the boys were determined not to let me. Emptying out the bank (loudly and slowly) was an all day event for Wyatt. He would empty some out, go find something else to do, and then come back and empty some more. Lucas would come in and check out my work and play with whatever scraps and pins he could find. Jaxon comes in and plays with his superheros, usually putting pins through their capes or finding another adventure for his heroes to endure.

Last weekend Don found a couple new things for the boys to do while Mommy sews so Mommy doesn't turn into a crazy woman.



Enter PBS.org
(btw, picture taken by Jaxon. I would have at least had the decency to move the box of Milk Duds, hah!)

Aside from the kids asking every other minute "Is it my turn yet?" or turning off the computer all together, it is a great plan. The kids learn on a kid safe website and they love learning the games.


State Quarters
Wyatt has a strange fascination with money. I am sure it is because everything he wants (toys, ice cream, and trips to Target) costs money. And since we don't have an endless supply of money, he gets told no a lot.

Generally Wyatt takes this giant water jug and empties out the spare change little by little. All over the floor. For hours on end. He examines each quarter, nickle, dime and occasional Chuckie Cheese coin. While I was sewing, he would bring me a newly discovered state quarter. All one hundred million of them. Don had heard Wyatt and decided to show him the correlation between the state quarters and where the states are on the map. GENIOUS!


Not only did Wyatt actually CARE (I had my doubts in the beginning, he also got the other kids involved for a bit -and gave me about 30 minutes of uninterrupted sewing time.

Fleece Fun /Puppy Love

While I sew, the boys suddenly find my personal space more exciting. They have a million questions, things they want to show me and arguments I need to settle. To get them to stay out of my head and out of trouble, I took a bunch of fleece and cut it into shapes. Circles, rectangle, squares, hearts, etc. As Wyatt played with the shapes I made some more obvious shapes like grass, a tree top, fish, sun, and such.


The picture above is both Jaxon and Luke's creation. Luke did the one at the top and he said it was him and his friend Jessica. But then Jaxon did the picture at the bottom (also him and Jessica). Jessica is a girl at school and she was all they talked about for the first two weeks. They still gasp when we drive by her and her babysitter on their way to school, but she has almost dropped out of most of home conversations.


So obviously they felt Jessica couldn't be in two pictures at once and Wyatt came and put all four of them in one picture.

I just asked them who was who in the picture and they are arguing over who is standing next to Jessica. I have to italicize her name, because that is exactly how they say it. Like her name is equal to their most prized possession. Not Jessica. It is Jessica.

And, just in case you are wondering, Jessica is the red one. According to Jaxon and Wyatt (who are standing next to me talking about who is who), Jaxon has the blue spiky hair (he just said, "I am next to Jessica because there is my spiky hair!") and Wyatt determined he is in green so he can be next to her, too..

And Wyatt just realized green person looks sad. And the heart is upside down. Wyatt is now sad because his dude is sad.

Aww, puppy love all drawn out in fleece shapes.

To the Dentist

For YEARS Don and I have been thinking it is time to take the boys to the dentist, but a few things have been holding us back. Mostly, all the horror stories we have heard. Teeth being pulled, cavities, scam centers where they diagnose more problems than necessary are just the tip of the ice burg. Even our last dentist (who we haven't seen since before the boys were born!) always seemed to come up with more charges for us each time we went in for a visit. Luckily a person on Don's route works at a dental office and told us to come try them out, and the timing was perfect since our dental insurance is about to dramatically change and cover less.


All three boys did a pretty great job. None were fans of the x-ray in the mouth stuff, but really gave it a try. I was with Lucas while Jaxon was getting his teeth cleaned, but I could hear Jax giggling while the hygienist was cleaning his mouth -he thought the cleaning tickled.


When the Dentist came in to exam, he gave all three boys thumbs up. No cavities or any other issues -which was a huge ($$$$) relief for us. Hopefully the next visit goes so well too, since I am sure by then the boys will be a bit more responsible for their own oral health.

Little boy-isms

The boys with their buddy Austin


There are so many times that the boys say things that make Don and I chuckle. Here are a few from just this weekend.

On our way to the dog swim Saturday, Lucas asked "Is there going to be people lifeguards or doggie lifeguards?

Yesterday we drove by aunt Leigha's house and saw her outside. As she ran in to get Alan out of the house, Jaxon watched her run and said, "Aunt Leigha runs just like Wonder Woman!"

Leigha is pretty newly expecting. Very exciting news for us all, and makes topic of conversation daily. One day after Lucas got the news, he walked up to Leigha, tapped her belly, and said, "Hey, I didn't know you were growing a baby in there!"

Wyatt and Don were cuddled up on the couch Sunday morning. Don was trying to keep the noise level down since everyone was not awake. Wyatt cuddled into Don and let out a duck sized fart -and without missing a beat- turned to Don and said, "You did that!"

Wyatt has a tendency for falling asleep in the car, and one evening it was too late for him to catch a cat nap. About 2 weeks ago on our way to grab dinner, we could tell he was nodding off. Trying to think of anything to say to keep him awake, we asked him about ordering monkey poo for dinner. Obviously, it worked and turned into a crazy car ride with all three saying such colorful ideas about what to order.

A few nights ago we went back to the same place to order dinner. As we pulled into the parking lot, the monkey poo conversation started again.

Of course of all the things they forget, monkey poo is not one of them.


And last, I have a picture that needs no words.

Saturday morning

Picture taken by Wyatt


We had quite the morning!

On Friday Don and I were talking about all the fun stuff we could do on Saturday, and our list got longer and longer. Thanks to a freak early morning wake up (pretty sure it had something to do with Roxy barking at Don at 6:30 in the am) we were able to accomplish most of what we set out to do.


First thing was a run to Gilcrease Orchard. Gilcrease Orchard is Las Vegas' only place we can get fresh produce -straight from the trees and ground. The boys loved picking their own apples off the trees and cantaloupes from the ground. Each boy got to pick their own cantaloupe, I wish we would have known before hand they cost $2 each, because they were not the greatest looking cantaloupes I had even seen.


Almost $40 in produce and fresh apple cider later we drove away from the orchard -and it was barely past 10!

On the way home, we decided to pick up Roxy and go to a "Dog Daze" swim at one of the community pools. Some of the outdoor seasonal pools are closing for the summer and allow dogs to have a couple hours at the pool before they drain the water out.


Roxy loved it! She was jumping all over the place -in the pool and out- chasing other dogs and amazingly, hanging out around dogs she had met a couple times before at the dog park and such. The boys thought it was fun until their clothes got soaked from all the wet dogs running by. Even soaked through, all of us agreed Roxy had so much fun.

On our way home from the pool, I had the craving for donuts (which is really odd). Dunking Donuts was there, so we went for something new and had some donuts for lunch.

Next was a few hours of hanging out at the house before our evening plans were to kick in.

Speaking of kicking in... On our way home the boys saw a jump house set up for some one's birthday party. They asked about their jump house and "why didn't we ever set it up anymore?" Thinking we had such a fun morning, why not add to it, I moved the island out of the kitchen and grabbed their jump house out of the garage.

About 15 or 20 minutes of jumping and we heard a crack of sorts and Wyatt came running around saying "it was really important we see this now!"

Our stove got hit by something or the other and cracked all the way around the front. Hundreds of pieces of tempered glass were on the ground, and the ones still on the door were cracking even as Don and I were surveying the damage.



My usually so happy to accept responsibility boys were clueless about what happened. All we can understand is that Jaxon's toy (Flash) hit the door and broke it. I am not sure how a little quarter pound 4 inch tall toys could do that sort of damage, but he is in time out indefinitely.


We are just accepting that this is the first of many things to break around the house.

You know, three boys and all...



Thank goodness the Lord blessed these boys with sweet faces. No telling how much trouble they would have been in if they weren't all so cute.