This weekend we watched our friends 4 girls. So just for the record, the kid count was SIX. We had two one year olds, a three year old, a four year old, a twelve year old and a fourteen year old. My only saving grace was that the older girls helped out a ton! So on top of watching six children, I was crazy enough to take them all shopping. Really, I had no choice, we were out of food and that doesn’t go over well with six kids.

So, in truly crazy woman fashion, we ventured to Walmart at 11, Friday morning. We filled two kidfight carts and formed a screaming and kicking train that slowly moved through Walmart. The worst thing about shopping with a whole caravan is that when you’re at the Oranges and you realize that you forgot yogurt ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE STORE, you can’t really go back. Our poor fellow shoppers could only handle so much of us.

Speaking of fellow shoppers, when we were at the Vitamin Cottage (yes we couldn’t just go one place) this guy just cut in line in front of us. Yeah, right, he couldn’t see (and hear) all SEVEN of us. He totally ignored me when I said something to him. I fought back the urge to let him have it. I knew that we needed to get home in a timely fashion as I had some hungry kiddos on my hands.

Aside from the rain trapping us in our house (which is WAY too small for six children, by the way) the weekend was going pretty well. Until the one and only toilet broke. At this point I was convinced that it was Honor’s fault. I was sure that he flushed some toy down it or something, but it seems that the last time the wax seal was installed, the installer (ahem, JIM) did not install it correctly. So every time the toilet was flushed, it rained in the basement. I was going to be mad if we had to spend all the rest of our tax return on a plumber.

Anyway, Jim got another four dollar seal and the toilet was out of commission for about an hour while he fixed it. Yeah, with eight people in the house, it’s not a good idea to have the one and only toilet out of commission. Honor couldn’t quite understand why it was OK for daddy to be playing in the toilet. Jim had to totally empty the toilet to affix the seal to the bottom of it, so I had to sacrifice my turkey baster to the cause. We also had to blow dry the base of the toilet to ensure a good seal, which was the strangest thing I did all weekend.

So, the toilet works, the basement is not full of toilet water and we survived the weekend full of girls.

monday
tandoori chicken kebabs

tuesday
salmon with citrus sauce and rice

wednesday
wendys

thursday
anti pasto salad

weekend options
steak
pizza
bbq chicken

Saturday is date night!! We’re going to Johnny Carinos, yum!

Eden is so freaking hilarious. It’s amazing how much she loves her little brother. My mom always said how much my little sister and I loved each other when we were little. I never believed her because we were enemies when we got older (we get along now). But I can see now how that could be.

[pause to go get Honor more milk in his bottle, the little addict! He says, “some muk, some muk”]

Eden is such a mirror of phrases we use. I guess we call Honor, “little buddy” frequently, because she always calls him “wittle buddy.” They’re playing together really well now. Eden always asks him, “Honor want to go outside and play? Would that be fun?” He shakes his head and says “side, side, side.”

But what I hear all day long is, “Mommieeee, mommieeee, mommieeee.” or “mine, mine, mine, mine.” Over and over again. Someone tell me why I wanted him to talk?

Last night Jim and I went on a DATE! Our friend Josh and his fiance Heather (who lives with us) watched the kids for us while we went to dinner and a movie. I remembered why we never go to Chilis. The food is good but the service is AWFUL. I don’t think I’ve been there once and ordered chips and had them bring them out to me with out me reminding them that I ordered chips! geeze!

We saw Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy. All I have to say is that I fell asleep. I want my $7.75 (each) back! The kid who sold us our $2.40 (small) box of gummy bears told us that the reason concessions are so expensive is that they don’t make any money on the ticket sales, only on the food. Isn’t that unbelievable?

Anyway, bad movie or not, it was nice to have some time alone.

So, you know, as if things couldn’t get more stressful around the office, Jim has Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. In the last few weeks his hands suddenly started getting numb and and now he can hardly do anything. He’s been wearing braces on both hands and taking huge amounts of an anti inflammatory, but it just isn’t better and maybe a little worse.

He’s so angry. I don’t blame him. Yesterday his frustration level totally exploded. He can’t even hold the kids.

When it rains it pours. When you don’t think things could get worse, they do.

But this is the time when you really prove what kind of person you are. The time of life when you look to what matters in your life, when your reliance on God really shows you where you stand with Him. I just keep thinking this:

The superchic[k] show was pretty rockin. It was SO much more relaxed than the last show and I really enjoyed myself. My friends, five face down, opened. The show was just in time for the release of their new CD. Also LA Symphony played. They’re a rap group. Usually I’m not really into rap, but they were great, just their energy alone was enough to appreciate.

We did pretty good on ticket sales, enough to break even, so that’s a plus. I also learned an important catering lesson. For this show, rather than going with a regular caterer, I just ordered food from Olive Garden. It’s amazing how reasonable take out food is! We fed 36 people and it was only $200. There’s no way we all could have eaten at Olive Garden for that. Too bad I didn’t know that for the last show…

Anyway, one cool thing about my day yesterday was that I was running Melissa of Superchic[k] to Starbucks. She was asking about my super cool new coat that I got at Old Navy (of course) and asked how recently I bought it. It was just a few days ago, so we swung by and she bought one too. All I have to say to that is HA! Jim, see, my coat IS cool!