First day of schools!

Today is/was the first day of school! I can't believe how much they've all grown. I know I always say that, but I mean it! They grow like crazy! All of Tobyn's pants that I set aside for him (2 months ago) hardly fit now, and Tanner has grown an inch or so this summer also.

It was Tanner's first day of preschool. He is doing Pre-k at the elementary school. I have dreamed of this day! I was going to do a happy dance, love having 3 hours a day to myself a few times a week, get long over-due projects done, and enjoy the next stage of life. oh-how lovely! Then....reality kicked in.

 It is no secret how flip-floppy we've been as far as home schooling the boys. We've thought about it so much and gone back and forth so many times. Needless to say we've been very indecisive with the whole thing. I've always considered it an all or nothing thing, all of the boys home or none. Then I was speaking to a good friend and she said something that totally made me think. "Why all of them? Why not just the one or two I'm really concerned about?" The younger three I feel good about where they're going and what they're doing but the other two were another matter. That's when I made up my mind. TC and Titus are now home schooled.

I'm, happy, nervous, excited, overwhelmed, empowered, guilty, full of new idea's and can't wait for new beginnings all wrapped into one big mess of my brain. Right now we are in a position where I am SO sick of all the crap being thrown at my kids. They are CONSTANTLY defending what they believe in. Middle school is SO hard. I hated it, TC hated the first year, everyone I talk to says how miserable it is. I know I can't rescue my children from everything, I know they need to work out their problems and I know I can't solve everything. I'm not trying to shelter them, I'm trying to bring them home. Trying to get the values instilled in them now so the path they go down is a good one once they get to high school. I NEED that for them.

AND to top it all off...I cried like a little baby dropping my baby off for school today. *sigh* so much for the first day of school being the joyous thing I thought it would be. Oh-man. someone just let me know I'm normal...or not :-) I just might be going crazy. lol!

Tid-Bit Tuesday

Well it's my birthday...I'm 30. It's a little weird. Not that I feel old, I don't think 30's old. Just a few thoughts going through my head today. I'm no longer in my 20's, I'm 30 and have a (almost) 13 year old, my youngest is 4, I'm in college, and I my husband is in a career he loves. Crazy! I wonder what the next decade will bring...do I dare wonder?

Now that we've flip-flopped back to having the kids go to public school I am pretty dang excited about it! Not that I didn't really want my kids home, I still think in a year or so we'll reevaluate the situation and see what to do. But I am REALLY looking forward to the 2 or 3 days a week that I have 3 hours to myself. Quiet time. No kids at home. Me time. I should be sad my baby is growing up and I am...however, bring on the new stage off life! I'll take it for now.

Things I want to do with my couple of day and hours of freedom...

-pick some awesome paint colors to redo some furniture
-go do some garage sailing and pick up so good deals
-read?
-CLEAN! I am spending a full day cleaning my house from ceiling to floor. I'm done with the messy house! Love the kids...hate the constant mess of summer.

Things I will miss with school...
-lazy mornings
-late nights playing
- no homework
- no alarms
- no schedule
-no homework
-no alarms


Life is good. Things are going at a break-neck pace. We've got 3 in soccer, I'm still involved in scouts, still in the Primary presidency, in school, babysitting 3 x's a week, school activities for the kids + you know all the mom stuff to do. I sure hope I can keep up!

I'm along for the ride.....

1 Week....

It has been one week since we took away the electronics. Some days they compensate by watching a little too much TV, but mostly they have been really good. The TV days have really only been 1 or two when it has just been too hot to play out side and they have down time in the afternoon.  I would say the fights have dropped by more than half. We have found other fun things to do. They play on the tramp, board games, build a ton of forts in the front room, soccer practice, soccer games (2 on 2) with each other and playing more with friends.

I'm actually loving this idea. I don't know what we will do when the month is over....maybe nothing? Maybe just let the electronics stay away except for special occasions? I don't know. But I do know things are going SO much better than expected. I have been happier and, I would like to think, a nicer mom. We have more time and energy to be doing things we should be doing.

So far I'd say this has been a huge success. YAY!

Utah Vacation pics!

I finally got all of the UT pictures out of my computer. Oh-man there are a lot! I guess there could have been a lot more considering we were there for 2 weeks, but still makes for a ton of pictures to post on here. I tried to get them in order of events....but we'll see :-)

The day after we got there we were able to meet up with some awesome game-night friends! Oh- how I've missed these guys! It was so fun to see them all! We met at a park and let the kids play and play while we talked. Unfortunately Todd and Jed were the only men to be able to make it. Also, just as unfortunately I did not get any picts of Jenni.....

First attempt at getting all 16? kids in the picture...

10th attempt...and I am pretty sure we are missing a few cute kidos. It's hard to believe when we started we had 6 kids total now we have 16 and 3/4 (Nichole is due in Nov.) CRAZY!

The 4 (Jenni rushed out too fast... :-) No really I was sad we didn't get her in the picture!) of us game-night girls. 6 years and counting!

The boys had a blast playing some fun games at Grandma B's. They had to suck M&M's out of a bowl with a straw and move an Oreo from their foreheads to their mouth with no hands. Good times!

Another fun day was spent at the Biesinger family reunion. I didn't get many pictures, but I did manage to catch the boys on the pony ride. It is always fun to visit with this side of the family. 

One of the mornings, before it got too hot, we took Grandpa C's 4-wheelers out for a ride. The boys had a BLAST! And Todd is ready to go buy his own. lol. All the kids including Tanner took turns driving. They loved the freedom!

3 big kids...Kady, TC and Titus. 

Tanner taking a turn cruisin'

Man oh Man our days were packed. A super fun day out on the lake with Brandon and Debi! The kids had so much fun and yet another toy on Todd's list of toys to buy. Tanner and I taking a turn on the tube. 

What a handsome group of boys!! Whoot-woo! All five of our boys plus the ultra cute Logan. 

This was actually the second time for the boys out on the water and Todd had a chance to perfect his barrel-roll on the tube. It was pretty sweet! Just call him Super-Awesome-Dad!

A few other fun random pictures from the events of the weeks. These three cute kids were all born with-in 3 months of each other. Skyler (middle) born in April, Sage (right) born in May, and Tate (left) born in June. 

The boys loved playing with, and holding, cousins. Tanner love Scarlet. He is so fascinated with babies. I love it. He is so sweet!

Traditional we hold the camera and take a picture of ourselves of Todd and I.

The boys climbed a tree and needed their picture taken. Such buddies! (Left to right) Tate, Masen, Jaxen, and Tanner. 

Kady Jo and I. I can't believe how fast she and CJ are growing up! She's taller than me...sniff,sniff.

The last night we were there we got to celebrate cute Amber's bday! We went up into the canyon (I sure do miss those mountains) and played games and ate dessert. We played fun lawn games. We miss being so close to family at times like this. 

I can't believe these two are 7 this year!

Few! A ton of pictures and we did SO much more! Including swimming, family pictures, splash pad with friends, sleeping in, staying up late, decorating rooms, sisters- night out...the list keeps going. It was SO worth the drive there and back! We are so glad we went. Next summer I'm hoping to make it a little longer. 

But for now it's back to the grind. Soccer has started for 3 of the kids, I'm back into classes, school for the boys starts the 27th. Guess summer is officially winding down. Just time to enjoy the last bit of freedom before the wonderful routine sets back in. 

Day 1.

So far the day is not so bad. The kids cried for 10 mins this morning. There might have been some gnashing of teeth, but not too out of control. 2 of them just lied down on the couch and cried tears of morning.

It is now 1:00 pm and things for the most part are good. I'm thankful for tender mercies. The kids played soccer this morning after breakfast and then came in to cool off and watched about 45 mins of TV while I did hair. Just as the fighting started a good friend called to see if we wanted to go swimming! I jumped all over that!

So far I have only broken up 3 fights and that's saying something...

The experiment...the begining

 Everyone talks about being addicted to media; video games, computer games, Facebook, Youtube, twitter, etc. Our family probably,well... definitely, falls into that category. We are CONSTANTLY on the computer, game consoles and phones. I am embarrassed to say how many hours a day the kids and I are on these things. It really is sad. But in a way I feel justified. It's HOT! There isn't a lot to do around here and there aren't many friends to hang out with.

Over the past several weeks things have been escalating...big time! My kids hang out with friends but you guessed it, it's playing video games or watching video's on the computer. They fight constantly! I knew I  hit my limit when I lost my voice yelling at the kids to stop yelling....I know I know....that's what I am talking (typing) about. It is beyond pathetic.

The solution? Get rid of it all! I can't completely be rid of the computer because it is a major need. My schooling is all online. BUT I have hidden all of games and two of the game consoles. The desk top is no longer in working condition. I won't say how in case one of my children read this, and my computer time is completely limited to updating this blog (and a quick post on FB, the app is going to be removed from my phone so I can only update FB when I update the blog on this computer). I kept the Playstation plugged in so that we can watch an occasional movie, but that will be limited to 2 movies per day or = to two hours of movie time per day.

Honestly...I feel guilty! I just barley unplugged everything and I already feel like a mean mother. My goal is to be fairly electronic free for 1 month starting tonight...or tomorrow morning when they wake up and realize it's gone. I am sure there will be detoxing and withdrawals, sad but true.

It's not worth is though! I am sick and tired of the fighting going on in this home and 80% of it due to one electronic or another. So here is goes. I suppose the experiment in it all is to see if we can stay this way for one month and see if it truly makes a difference in the fighting and contention. Check in for my updates and reports :-) Lets see if this mom of 5 Nintendo addicted boys can survive this!

What the... It's August already?!

Holy moly...where did July go?!! I can't believe I went a whole month with no posts!

July 8th we left for UT. It's such a LONG drive. We all like it much better when we fly...but we needed the car and we always come back with so much stuff it's a necessary evil, it must be done. This time we went up through OK and KS and over through CO. It is a much prettier drive then up through NM. Todd and I make a pretty good tag team and we just plow through. Over-all the drive was livable and fairly pleasant.

We did SO much while visiting. We played, played and played some more. I took lots of pictures, and speaking of which, we had family pictures done. Among other things we BBQ'd, went swimming, 4-wheeling, boating, played up in the canyon, played at the park with friends, redecorated my MIL front room, went to a baby blessing and a baby funeral, we stayed up late, and slept in. I came home really feeling refreshed! It was just what I needed! I loved that the kids could play with who they wanted and I didn't have to worry.

As I said I took lots of pictures. The internet on my computer isn't working so I edited all of the pictures on my computer, but left the CD in the computer Todd took to work. So the pictures will have to come later. :( I'll get them up though! I NEED to!

It was super nice to visit with the family! I really needed the time with them. I miss hanging out with them. I'm back into the swing of the busy life now. Todd's back to work, the boys are getting ready for school (yes we're flip-floppers. We decided to go a head and send them to school. I just don't feel like I have everything ready to home school them yet) I've got a schedule full of hair clients, and last but not least....I'm coaching Tobyn's team for soccer.

I've NO idea what I am doing :-) But I'll learn fast enough...Soccer for Dummies anyone? I think it will be fun. This fall is sure to be full of absolute craziness!! It will all work out and as long as I stick to my calender we'll survive. LOL hahahahaha hmmmm....yeah, well, we'll make it work right?!

Pictures to come soon. I'm off for now to enjoy a little piece and quiet while I can!