Sorry!! I got busy with life and I also had a full post written and it disappeared. UGH!! Hate that! I have one more day of the cleanse before I start the next phase. I feel pretty good…. Not incredibly awesome but I feel better than I did 10 days go.  Haven’t had horror stories happen and it;’s actually been pretty easy. Drinking water is a breeze now and I’m even finding myself drinking more than I HAVE to drink. One day I did get a stomach ache after not eating such a great choice for lunch ( greasy food) but that was short lived and now I don’t even want to eat greasy food 🙂 . I plan on weighing and measuring myself sunday morning…. day 11.

I haven’t posted in a few days. Some days I just don’t feel like what we have been doing is worth blogging about or that no one wants to hear me ramble on about my kids….again. I read other people’s blogs and I think how interesting their life is… I see status updates on FB from former High School friends and I wonder why their lives are so different than mine. We use to be so similar. But I chose to be a Mom.. I LOVE being a mom… Being a mom is MY job! I always knew I wanted to be a mom. When I was little I KNEW I wanted lots of kids. But I also thought I’d be a teacher or an occupational therapist or maybe a nurse. I went to college and took some classes. But I became a mom. Just a mom… uh no. Not just a mom!!! Becoming a mom I also became a teacher, a therapist and a nurse. I get paid in smiles, hugs and I love yous. I get to see my children accomplish things I at one time thought might not be possible. My kids  drive me insane.. are amazing!  I stole this post http://www.myspecialks.com/2011/02/motherhood.html from my friend Renee’s blog. When I read it this morning I thought.. “YES!!!! That’s how I feel!!!” and so I had to share it 🙂

It’s taking me literally forever to make my 101 list. I didn’t realize it would be so hard! I’m trying to keep it realistic yet challenging. This is all I have so far!

 

The Challenge:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on your part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past – frequently simple challenges such as New Year’s resolutions or a ‘Bucket List’. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips, study semesters, or outdoor activities.

Underlined items link to other posts.

Items in italics are in progress.

Hatched items are complete. (Completion date in parenthesis following.)

Started: January 6th, 2010

Ending: October 4th, 2013

My list in no particular order (because that’s how I do things!)

1. Make a blog

2. Blog on it!

3. Pick a book to read out loud with the 2 middle kids each month. 1/30

4. Switch the whole family over to http://www.shetlermilk.com/.  1-14-11

5. Knit hats for 3 friends and actually give the hat to them! 1/3

6. Clean out the junk drawer 1-10-11

7. Use the spaetzle maker

8. Go to a playgroup

9. Take the kids to Great Wolf Lodge 1-19-11 and 1-26-11

10. Take the kids camping with the pop-up atleast 5 times. 0/5

11. Make a geocache

12. Help each child make their own geocache 0/4

13. Throughly clean out the van once a month 0/30

14. Throughly clean out the car once a month 0/30

15. Visit the Sand Dunes

16. Visit Mackinaw Island

17. Make halloween costumes for the kids 0/4

18. Learn to knit socks on the loom

19. Make socks for 3 friends. 0/3

20. Put pictures in my new picture collage frame

21. Find a way to organize each child’s outdoor gear.

22. Plan a big party for Chase turning 13

23. Holiday pictures taken each winter 0/2

24. Teach Coben to swim

25. Teach Coben to ride a bike with out training wheels

26. Sign Kylie up for Gymnastics 1-11-11

27. Sign Coben up for Gymnastics 1-11-11

28. Sign Avery up for Gymnastics

29. Sign Chase up for College for Kids 0/2

30. Sign Kylie up for College for Kids 0/2

31. Sign Coben up for College for Kids 0/2

32. Teach Avery to ride a tricycle

33. Buy a baby bike seat or trailer

34. Blog about being a Foster Parent

35. Make a slide show with music for grandparents christmas present

36. Take the kids to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

37. Read Parenting with Love and Logic

38. Read Parenting Teen with Love and Logic

39. Visit Alaska

40. Donate $20 per child to http://reecesrainbow.org/ each year 0/8

41. Knit 20 hats for the nicu 0/20

42. Sign Chase up for Snowboard club each year 1/2

43. Organize Avery’s toys so that she will be capable of choosing and putting it away on her own by 18 mos.

44. Learn how to can.

45. Take a photography class.

46. Buy a nice digital camera.

I’ll add on as I think of more…..

Here’s their answers….Chase bio 12 yrs old, Kylie bio 9 yr old, Coben foster 6 yrs old (has lived with us for 14 mos) …

1. What is something mom always says to you? Coby-Clean up your room, Kylie-quit shouting, Chase-do your homework

2. What makes mom happy? Coby-When I  listening , Kylie-chocolate, Chase-When we all behave

3. What makes mom sad? Coby- kids who steal, Kylie-kids who steal, Chase-when we are all acting crazy

4. How does your mom make you laugh?  Coby & Kylie & Chase- tickle me

5. What did your mom like to do as a child? Kylie-snowboarding, Coby-listen (I’m guessing he means that i was “a good listener” LOL), Chase-Snowboard

6. How old is your mom?  Kylie, Chase &Coby-35

7. How tall is your mom? Kylie- 5ft 2 inch, Coby-5ft , Chase-5ft 4

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Kylie-play with us, Coby-teach kids, Chase-facebook

9. What does your mom do when you’re not around? Kylie-chores, Coby-do the dishes, Chase-I don’t know

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Coby-being a mom, Kylie-reality tv show, Chase-acting (huh??)

11. What is your mom really good at? Coby-teaching, Kylie-cooking, Chase-snowboarding (atleast someone thinks i am!)

12. What is your mom not very good at? Kylie- scaring me, Coby- farting (huh?!?), Chase-nothing

13. What does your mom do for her job? Kylie-chores, Coby-taking care of everybody, Chase- stay at home mom
14. What is your mom’s favorite food?  Kylie-corn beef, Coby-speghetti (yuck!!!), Chase-chocolate

15. What makes you proud of your mom? Kylie-being my mom, Coby-being awesome, Chase-that she can handle 3 kids with ADHD and still hasnt killed herself

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Coby-spongebob, Kylie-Tinkerbell, Chase-Sandy the squirrel

17. What do you and your mom do together? Kylie-knit hats, Coby-eat dinner, Chase-go to the movies

18. How are you and your mom the same? Kylie-we have the same hair and we were both picky eaters, Coby-nothing, Chase- we are both blonde

19. How are you and your mom different? Kylie-I like Pizza Hut pizza and you don’t, Coby- nothing , Chase-i’m a boy and you’re a girl (LOL)

20. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go? Kylie-Florida, Coby-Cedar point, Chase- Aroma’s coffee shop

21.How do you know your mom loves you? Kylie-Because she says it every day, Coby- Because she says it every minute, Chase- because I’m still alive (nice.. LOL)

I wonder what they were thinking when I was taking this picture?!

What do your kids think of you?

I love do nothing days… and today was one! We (well my husband did.. he had a class he had to go to) didn’t have anywhere to be and I wasn’t feeling overly motivated to take the kids anywhere. So we stayed home and did NOTHING. Well, not exactly nothing. We watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ( the old one, of course!) and munched on air-popped popcorn with real melted butter on it.. Mmmmmm.

 Kylie and I started knitting new hats on the Knifty Knitter looms that she got for Christmas. She is making a hat for a friend at school, out of some pretty blue and green yarn and I’m making a baby hat for my friend Alicia who just had a baby girl in Dec. I’m using a green, purple and blue mix made from Alpaca wool. I finished it today, but I’m worried that I made it too small….It’s amazing how fast you forget what the size of a newborn looks like.  So, tomorrow I’m going to make one a little bigger and let her choose which one fits best.

Chase spent the day lying around, playing video games and lying around. He has that cold that’s going around and wasn’t feeling real great.

Coben played with cars for a while and then took the rest of the day “cleaning his room” ….well, he was supposed to be cleaning his room but I don’t really see that he made much progress. I think he did more playing than cleaning.

Avery decided that today was a good day to drop her morning nap. She ended up taking a 31/2 hour nap at 1:00 though.. so maybe one nap isn’t so bad!

I’ve been working on my 101-1001 list and I have only 23 things on it. I’m not sure why it is so hard for me to make. I know that I am voiding putting anything that requires much money to complete on it.. I don’t want money to be a reason why I didn’t complete it. I did add to my list that I want to read a book a month out loud to my two middle kids… we started Peter Pan last night. Reading Peter Pan out loud is a lot harder than it sounds…..The way it is written just isn’t flowing off my tongue easily… I hope I get better at it quickly!

Well, I need to get to bed. I’m going to try to get the kids up and make it to church in the morning!

 

There has been a lot of negativity in our house lately. With a 12 yr old who sometimes forgets that he was a 6 yr old who didn’t know everything already and a 9 yr old who wants to be “in charge” and a 6 yr old still learning what being a member of a functional family means…and learning A LOT of things that he should have learned when he was 2 yrs old….there is A LOT of mean, bossy, mean, rude and mean comments going on! I was dreading picking them up from school. The fights would start as soon as they got in the car… “I saw Coben running in the halls at school!” “No I wasn’t, liar!!” “God, why did you do that you don’t know anything” “She’s touching me!!” …you get the picture.. it was AWFUL and the more I tried to discipline the worse it got. It was like they loved getting each other in trouble.  I did a quick google search for “behavior modification”…. what did we do before google?! And read about Token Economy. It’s suppose to work kind of like getting paid for your job… and their job is do make good choices. They get a token (marble, laminated card,penny, what ever you decide) when they are making good choices… such as riding nicely in the car with out me yelling at anyone because they chose to sit QUIETLY with OUT touching each other 🙂 . On the pages I read the tokens are used like money to be exchanged later for items or special activities. In the pages that I read Tokens could be taken away for bad choices. I changed it up to make it easier for me and easier for the 6 yr old who has a hard time with long-term planning etc. Here is what I did….

Items Needed:

1. Container to hold tokens – We used 3 large holiday glasses because I had 3 that were the same size and we never actually use them.

2. Tokens- We are using different sized marbles.

3. Paper

4.Tape

That’s all!

This is what we did-

1. Explained the rules.

The rules are that when I see that you are making good choices and being nice to each other I’ll put a marble in your glass. If you do something amazing without being asked such as loading and unloading the dishwasher then you get a BIG marble which makes your glass fill up faster. If you tell me that one of your siblings is doing something good such as playing nicely with you or is cleaning up their room then you and that sibling both get a marble! Marbles can not be taken away for bad behavior or choices BUT no marbles will be earned if you choose to act that way. NO one may tell me that they need a marble for what they have done.

2. Made goals

Each child decided on what they were working towards for their goal. We decided that this first time the goal could not cost more than 5 dollars seeing this is sort of a practice round. We wrote their names and goal on the paper and taped it to the glass. They would receive their goal item once the glass was full, and only I could decide if the glass was full.

3. Ready, Set , GO!

It’s been 3 days and it actually working so far. The first day the car ride was QUIET and I wanted to make a big deal out of it and so they each got a big marble. Kylie has been saying nice things about her brothers and Chase is trying to remember that he did not fall off the perfect tree and is helping Coben instead of criticizing him. Coben is well… trying, he tends to have to learn things the hard way and I’m suspecting it will sink in when the other two kids each their goals and he still has a ways to go… I’m positive he will cry about it. But that seems to be what it takes to get him to realize that we mean what we say. The only thing I have to say about the Marbles is an occassional ” You aren’t earning any Marbles right now” and the negative behavior stops 🙂 YAY… No more threatening, forcing time outs, taking things away. It’s been really nice…

The 3 glasses for Marbles.

The marbles. The HUGE one in the middle is for something VERY amazing... 🙂

 

Their goals are …

Chase- $5 dollars on his Lucky Jack’s Arcade card

Kylie- $5 towards new Earrings

Coben- $5 in Gum

I wonder how long it will take them and who will get there first!!

We use cloth diapers for Avery. Usually people are shocked by that or gasp “YUCK! WHAT! WHY!”.  I only know a few people personally who also use cloth diapers and I think that I influenced their decision to try it. I love it. It’s kind of an addiction as strange as that sounds to non-cloth diapering people… let alone people who don’t even have kids! It makes me feel like I’m doing my part with the whole reduce,reuse, recycle thing. Plus, All those icky chemicals in disposables aren’t touching her skin or leaching into our ground water!  Cloth diapers are super cute too. There are all kinds of colors and patterns and they are squishy soft…. They are so easy to use… believe me if *I* can handle it, I’m pretty sure anyone can handle it.

Avery in a basket of clean RagaBabe AIOs

Finally, I did it! It’s day one! I’ll spare you the long boring details and just give you the short story.

I’m Stephanie, wife to Drew, Mom to 4, Chase age 12, Kylie age 9, Coben age 6 (not his legal name/Foster son), Avery age 11 mos (soon to be adopted daughter from Foster care).

I’m warning you right now…If you are a grammar police then STOP READING NOW!!! I’m not perfect, I spell things wrong, I am the queen of run on sentences, I sometimes forget what my point was and I use a lot of “…..”s . And I don’t care! We all have our strengths and weaknesses and well, WRITING ISN’T MY STRENGTH!! But I do have stuff to say and pictures to share and I’ll try to not make it too painful. 🙂

I’m still trying to figure out this blogging thing so bare with me. But I want to participate in the 101 in 1001 Challenge. I’ll find a link later to share. But my understanding is that you make a list of 101 things you want to accomplish in 1001 days. Doesn’t sound too hard right?!  #1 on my list was create a blog… and BLOG ON IT!  I’m still putting my list together but I’ll post it when it’s done!

Gnomes I made for Kylie for Christmas.

Avery being silly.

Coben while out geocaching this Fall.

Kylie at her Regional Cheer Competition.

A rare picture of Chase while out geocaching this Fall. He doesn't really like to have his picture taken.

 

Tomorrow I will be driving 2 hours south to Grand Rapids to take Avery to the Torticollis Program that they have. She will be getting a full Physical Therapy Eval and then walk over to the Orthotics department to have her head scanned. I hope to take some pictures and blog about it later tomorrow night.