Hi, I'm Heather and I Have a Lack of Cleaning Problem. Hi Heather!

I can admit it, I am not the most fastidious person about keeping the house clean. Honestly, Craig is the one that does most of the cleaning. I'm lazy I suppose. I take the poem about "rocking my baby and babies don't keep" a little too seriously.

There are things that need to be done. And I do try. I try to get the things done that need to be done. I do the laundry. Let's face it, actually washing and drying the clothes are about the easiest chore there is. I mean honestly. The machines do all the work. It's the putting away the laundry that gets me. There is a full laundry basket of clothes sitting in Miss M's room that I ran out of ambition to put away last weekend. On the plus side, I had put away K's (okay so Craig helped with that too) and Ms. D's clothes so it wasn't a total wash. (ha ha. me funny with the pun)

Dusting? Fuggedaboudit. Maybe three times a year whether it needs it or not.

I used to have a weekly schedule where I'd change the sheets one day, vaccuum another day, laundry another day. I wonder what happened to that?


Oh yeah. I had a third child.


And did I mention I'm lazy?


I'm going to start that cleaning schedule again. I promise. Honey? Honey? He totally believes me.

I do try to make things as easy as possible on myself. I have laundry sorters. One each for towels, socks and underwear, darks, whites and reds. I have several laundry baskets. One for each of the kids. One for Craig and I. One for the towels and such.

Last weekend I talked Craig into buying two of these pantries for our utility room. We usually have cases of pop and water laying on the floor, plus cat food, and a million other things.

Our utility room looks much better already. Now to tackle the huge pile of shoes. Any suggestions how to tame that mess?

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PBN and Pledge Multi-Surface Cleaner are rounding up posts on how we clean. Get in on the action by writing your own post and submitting it to PBN. They're giving away one $250 VISA gift card to one lucky blogger who participates.

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Aweigh post below.

Questioning Haikus

Why does the baby
scream like I am killing her
when I cut her nails?

And for that matter
why do my older children
act much the same way?


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I have a review for the Parent Blogger’s Network on a new milk storage and feeding solution called MilkBank over at the Zoo Review. I'm even giving a starter set away so if you're pregnant or have a new little one at home you'll want to check it out!

It's Got To Be Up Hill From Here

I was beginning to feel all smug, listening to all these people talk about how they were so sick and blah blah blah. I haven't been sick in quite a while, not since, well. The last time I was really sick I was pregnant and needed an inhaler and pretty much thought I was going to cough up a lung.

While I am most definitely NOT pregnant, last night after tucking in a feverish Miss M in anticipation of yet another at home sickie day today, I started feeling that vaguely familiar ache. It starts in the back and travels up behind my ears and into my eyes. It radiates down the arms. It messes with my ability to correctly place punctuation.

Miss M had the day off from school on Monday and felt mostly fine other than the usual choking feeling of her enlarged tonsils. Monday night brought the beginning of the cough which rolled into Tuesday and the start of a mild fever. Tuesday night she was awake and moaning/screaming for much of the night. Last night her temp spiked to 101.4 which bought her a pass to stay home again and a trip to the doctor's office later today.

I'd already called the ENT department and moved her surgery closer. We can't keep going on like this. She's drained physically and emotionally and obviously it's starting to take its toll on me as well. They said she needs to be pretty much healthy in order for them to do the surgery so they scheduled it 2 weeks out to give her time to get over this latest bug. So March 4th it is.

I'm scared for her, but also hopeful. I'm hopeful that she will recover from the surgery and be so much better--sleep better, feel better, live better. I think she's been miserable for some time now, and just thought it was normal to feel how she did.

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On the positive side, I have a review of a new kids' math learning website called Dreambox over at the Zoo Review today. (Brought to you by PBN.) Come see what it's all about!

A Little Bit Nuts

Cozy evenings sipping hot chocolate by the crackling fire, with the children looking like models in their comfy fuzzy sleepers and everyone smiling at one another while listening to carols on the hi-fi. That's what the evenings leading up to Christmas should be, but never are.

I try to cram everything in that I think would create a warm Christmas memory for my children, but what usually results is I make myself a little bit more nuts because I don't have enough hours in the day to accomplish it all.

We decorated the tree, and this year I let the two older kids take charge of most of the ornament placement. And it was good. They actually did a phenomenal job of spacing the ornaments out instead of clustering them like they did last year.

We posed for photos and sent out our Christmas cards. M and K helped stick labels and stamps on and lick envelopes. K would stick out his tongue and I'd run the envelope glue along his tongue. It's good that someone likes to lick those envelopes.

We went for a pajama-clad drive, complete with popcorn, to see the holiday lights in several neighborhoods. We may have completed this ritual a little early in the season since it was still early December, but we did it nonetheless.

We have watched The Grinch, A Charlie Brown Christmas (twice!), Frosty and a few new offerings (that I don't know what they were called) and let M stay up later to watch even though she had school in the morning. This resulted in tired, cranky kids, but we did it anyway because that's what you're supposed to do.

But we have not made and decorated sugar cookies this year. The kids had a blast decorating them last year, but I do not have it in me to do them this year. Also, we are running out of time. The kids do not have school on Monday or Tuesday so we'll probably make cookies for Santa then. They will be chocolate chip cookies this year. They may even be a pan cookie variety.

This is how I am cutting back a little bit this year. Maybe not much of a cut back, but really, have you ever made those sugar cookies from scratch? It's such a long process, the rolling out, the cutting, the rolling out again, more cutting. Phew! I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Besides, I've heard Santa likes chocolate chip cookies just as much.

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If you're feeling overwhelmed now, or any time during the year, check out FFDA for support groups and resources that can help! Read about how other bloggers are reducing their stress-load this week at PBN.

An Unhealthy Love

We, and by we I mean I, like to play games at our house. When we were dating, Craig indulged my love of games because, well you can probably guess why. He and I would imbibe a few cocktails and inevitably I'd begin to pester him to play a game of Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit or a host of other games. Sometimes we'd stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning playing video games.

It doesn't matter to me if the games are board games, card games, drinking games, dice games or video games. It's not the format of the game that matters. It's all for the love of games.

I'm the one that is asking the rest of the relatives at family gatherings to play a game. Occasionally I can sucker my family into playing one with me. Last Christmas Day we played Trivial Pursuit DVD Pop Culture for something like three hours. My mom, my brother and my sister-in-law kept asking me when we could stop playing. They'd drop hints of their impending demise from malnutrition and offer me bribes of chocolate cake to try to distract me. I simply offered to pause the game while they each went to use the bathroom. I'm not totally heartless. Besides, I was pregnant at the time and enjoyed my chocolate cake while playing the game. My dad and my husband were the only smart ones in the bunch, saying they would watch the kids so the rest of us could play. I'm willing to bet there will be a lot more people available to watch the children this year.

My kids seem to have inherited the game bug from me though. A few weeks ago we instituted Family Game Night. It is held every Friday unless we have other exciting plans on a Friday night (which is almost never and if you think that sounds like a complaint you are so very wrong). The kids pick the game or games. So far we've played Wheels on the Bus, Yahtzee Junior, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders and a PC version of LIFE. The kids' favorite by far is LIFE and we play it most often of all of our games.

Last night we even attended a family game night at my oldest child's school. Of course she abandoned us to go play games with her friends, then our son tried to ditch us to join her so it might have been just Craig and I (with Baby D in the sling) sitting around the elementary school cafeteria playing a heated game of Candyland. But K was denied entry into the girls' game so he and his dad tried out the stacking cups instead. Sometimes it's hard being the little brother.

So tonight we will once again play games. I will attempt to let one of my children win even though I am not always successful. Sometimes they trounce me even without my cheating in their favor. Those are the best games.

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Pssst. Write about the games you play and you could win some cool video games from Electronic Arts. Check out the deets at PBN.

One Step Back

I have come to the conclusion that Baby D has a mild food allergy to the rice cereal that she's tried this week.

I first noticed some redness in her diaper area last Monday morning (the day after she had her first taste of cereal). I didn't think much about it but did think "wow, she's getting her first diaper rash." Yes. She's 6 months old and had never had a diaper rash. This is notable since my other two had it off and on from about 2 months through 18 months or so.

Anyway, Monday was tree set-up day for the Festival of Trees, so I didn't have time to give her cereal and I just skipped it. Tuesday I tried to give her cereal and she didn't eat much of it. She nursed and took a nap, then ate the rest of the cereal. Same story on Wednesday.

Thanksgiving day I brought the cereal with us to Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's house. D ate it up and wanted more but I didn't have any more to give her.

I noticed her girlie parts and rear end were getting redder instead of better despite the fact that I'd been applying Boudreaux's Butt Paste and changing her immediately when she pooped (which I try to do anyway, obviously).

However, I'm slow and didn't connect the cereal to the diaper rash. She's also been fussier than normal (which normally isn't that fussy) and she's had a runny nose. I bet it's all connected to the cereal.

So, my plan, after conferring with my followers on Twitter, is to discontinue the rice cereal and nurse exclusively until D's butt and girlie parts heal. Then I'm going to try oatmeal cereal and see if she tolerates that better. If she breaks out again, then we'll re-assess.

Poor little peanut.

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I have a PBN review of Eebies Adventures over at the Zoo Review today. Come on by!

Christmas in November and I've Been GOOD

Have I mentioned that I have the best husband? If I haven't it's only because I don't want a bunch of women trying to snatch him away. But that wouldn't be possible anyway because he loves me. Me, me, me!

And because he loves me and he knows how much I love to take 6382 photos a day, he bought me my Christmas present and gave it to me last night.

It's a fancy pants new camera that I have to dig into my sort of distant photography classes to understand how to use, but given a little time I will figure out. And just in time for Ms. D's 6 month photo session!

And because I don't have enough irons in the fire, I may just start doing portrait sessions for friends and family. Yes, the camera is that good.

So book your sessions!

And thank you Craig! I love you!

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I'm reviewing Hot Wheels Trick Tracks for PBN at the Zoo Review today.

Smiles are Contagious

Wordless Wednesday.

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Psst. I'm also over reviewing Amazing Baby for PBN at the Zoo Review. Come on over and read!

We Forgot the Cranberries!

My family gathers every Thanksgiving at my Aunt and Uncle's house. My Aunt and Uncle cook a turkey and potatoes and everyone else is supposed to bring something to add to the feast. My mom brings the green bean casserole since she knows her sisters love it so much. I sometimes bring the dinner rolls, other times pickles and olives, or whatever my Aunt suggests that I should bring. I'm basically a robot following orders. Must. bring. rolls. Mmmm. rolls.

Along with the tradition of gathering and eating too much food, we tend to repeat the same catch-phrases and jokes each year. And we laugh every year.

Inevitably, someone will stand up in the middle of the meal and exclaim "We forgot the cranberries!"



This will unleash a barrage of Louie Anderson sketches that include phrases like "the Johnson's are home. They're rich you know." Or "Somebody get the bat!" We'll always circle back around to a Thanksgiving-themed sketch: "want some sweet potatoes? We've got sweet potatoes. There's some in the oven. There's more in the refrigerator. There's some in the garage. The Johnsons have some." We used to have that whole comedy routine on VHS. I wonder if my dad still has it somewhere. That show was the best.

Since my mom accidentally brought creamed corn instead of regular corn for a recipe she wanted to make on vacation a couple of years ago we've added an exchange between my mother and I from when she learns of her mistake. It involves my mother swearing a little and saying "that's not what I wanted!" It's hysterical. Can't you tell?

After the meal we sometimes play games, sometimes sit and peruse the sale flyers for shopping the next day and sometimes go see our beautifully decorated trees at the Festival of Trees.

There is always a lot of laughing. And eating. And maybe a little noise-making. But you didn't hear it from me.


This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Butterball.

New Stuff

Last week I launched a new line of cards in my Etsy shop featuring original photography by moi.

I think the cards look pretty and I love the photos that I've made the cards from. I'm hoping others will love them as much.

And today is the last day for donating to the Mission Soldier Support Christmas card drive. Please consider donating a card for our troops. If you've been away from your family for any length of time you know how precious a card with a letter can be.

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I'm also reviewing My Baby A to Z – Come Explore Shapes With Me, over at The Zoo Review for PBN. Visit for a chance to win!

First Halloween

I've been torturing my babies with their first Halloween since, well, since I had my first baby.

Miss M was not as happy to be a Pooh-flower as this photo would have you think. She was really slightly too long for the costume and her poor legs were sort of jammed in the bunting. But hey, she was warm!

(Pooh-flower entered as funniest costume.)

Then, when K was born, we needed a Peter Pan for our Tinkerbell. K was starting his saga of endless ear infections about this time so he was definitely not a happy camper.

(Peter Pan entered as Best Handmade Costume.)

Now, we have Ms. D the Bumblebee. She thinks the tulle is pretty yummy to stick in her mouth.

(Bumblebee entered as Cutest Costume age 2 and under.)

Enter your kids' costumes in the costume contest this weekend held by PBN and Blurb and you could win gift certificates to make your own book from Blurb!

I Think to Myself What a Wonderful World

Do you remember in high school when someone in the “popular crowd” would say hi to you or ask you to be in their group in a class so they could copy off your work and you felt all special like a really important person had acknowledged your existence?

{crickets}

Uh, yeah. Me either ‘cuz I was totally one of those popular girls.

{whistling}

Anywho…

Last weekend was pretty exciting for my little old blog and me.

First, I got my very first award from Holly at Tropic of Mom. (Now if I could only figure out how to put the button in my sidebar!) Thanks Holly! You’re the best! Mwah!

Then, I got my little old blog added to the moms topic on Alltop. Seriously. Alltop! Thanks Guy! You’re the best! Mwah!

Then, Gunfighter asked me to write a guest post for his blog. I’ve never been asked to write a guest post before! And me, sitting there in my pajamas all unprepared for the love! Thanks Bill! You’re the best! Mwah!

And finally, to top it off (huh, I should have left the Alltop for this one…get it?) I got an email from Julie saying that I am now a blogger for the Parent Bloggers Network! Thanks Julie! You’re the best! Mwah!

{pushing up my taped glasses and pulling up my trousers}

So, how was your weekend?

Tomorrow I'm answering one of those questions you asked...

...I'm also here today!