The Reason for You to Stay(UP)

Have you noticed there have been so many pretty dresses out there for summer? I always loved dresses, to me they are comfortable, easy (you don't have to coordinate the top and the bottom) and instantly make you look feminine.

I guess one of the trends is the tube top maxi dress. I have seen many pretty prints so far. Although, I have a love and hate relationship with "tube" tops or dresses. The problem?

They don't stay up.

I don't know if it's just because I don't have enough volume around the area where it is needed. After having three kids and going through breast feeding for each child, they simply disappeared... that's ok, I am not bitter. I think my three munchkins are totally worth it.

Those of you who have no idea what I am talking about when I say "they don't stay up", here is the example.

I was at Wal-Mart one day happily shopping (wearing my tube top dress) I thought, "Boy, I keep stepping on my dress. It is hard to walk!"

I looked down, and the tube part was becoming a "tummy warmer".
Are you in shock? Well, don't worry, I always wear stuff like that with something underneath. There wasn’t a "Shocking" costume malfunction episode, but it was still embarrassing to pull the dress up and fix it. Rather annoying too!

I bought the dress you saw in the picture at the end of last summer at Old Navy for around $7. As I expected it was kept sliding down.

When there is a problem, there is a solution (hopefully most of the times). I decided to cut off a couple inches from the hem, and made shoulder straps for the dress. No more looking down to check if the dress is still in the right place, I love it!

Now, there is a reason for the dress to stay up. :)

Time to Celebrate ~ A Year Later~

About this time a year ago, just before school ended, my oldest boy came home with an award saying this: (you can read about this post here).

Yes, all my kids are very active with high energy, the award was perfect for him, and it made me laugh.


He received a new award for this year. He took his energy and focused on one thing. Please celebrate this with us. He was awarded for...


This cracks me up! Way to go buddy, I love you!

Way to Make Money--Six Year Old Style--

This happened a few weeks ago, I wanted to share this with you all before I forget.

One day, I picked the boys up from school as usual. I could hear Christpher and Michael in the back of the mini-van whispering to each other. Usually they are loud kids, they can't keep whispering for too long. Eventually, it got to a point that I could hear what they were talking about. I pretended that I couldn't hear anything.
Here is a part of thier conversation:

Michael: I want a Ferret and sword for Christmas.

I was thinking to myself (What? No living thing for Christmas, and no parent in their right mind would give a weapon as a present to a six year old!)

Christopher: But, remember? Mom said, you don't get living things for Christmas.

M: But I want them.

C: Maybe you can save up your allowance and buy a ferret.

Then, they started talking about how they could increase their income. They were thinking about doing a lemonade stand at a park or the parking lot at Walmart. They asked me if I could help them. I said that I would think about it.

After their homework, Michael was quietly drawing something. I got close and looked at a couple pictures, and said, "Wow, Michael, they are nice!"

Picture One:


M:Thanks, I am going to sell them.

Me: Well, who're you gonna sell them too?

He shrugged and said "I don't know. but I need the money to buy a ferret, so I am going to sell them."

The second one was a picture of a bird with no color. I asked him if he is going to color it. He said, "No, this is a swan, so I don't need to color it." He told me he was going to sell it for six dollars. Wow! What a rip off!

After a while, he showed me the new and improved bird picture:


He said it is a duck now.

Then the starving artist needed a snack and was off to play.

---

I have been working on a furniture makeover since last week, it is almost done!! I am so excited how it is turning out and I am going to post about it in my next post. Make sure to come back! See you soon everyone!

The Red

Do you ever have a day where one color seems to stand out? Today is the day for Red to me.... Just Check these out,

I found this food cover (or "roof" maybe? Does anyone know the real name? My kids thought it was an umbrella.) at the dollar store. My grandparents had something like this and I felt a little nostalgic.



Look at these beauties! Right from our garden.



There are some projects I am working on and I can't share with you all yet. This red DMC floss is a hint...



This little ball rolled out from behind the quilt rack.



Also, a magazine came today that had red flowers on the cover. Well... maybe I am pushing it a little, they are more like burgandyish color...



but, one of my blogger friends e-mailed me today that she recived some red fabric in the mail today!!

Isn't that something? No, I don't live my everyday life with themes. Although I must admit that, today was a day of red.

Cold Blooded Killer

I was planning to post about my project, but something happened today and I really wanted to share it with you all, so here goes.

I have been very annoyed by four flies flying around in my house the past couple of days. I was cooking dinner when I spoted a giant fly in front of me, turned out it was two flyes stuck together. They were mating.

I was thinking to myself, "oh no you don't! You do not multiply in my house! Wait a minute, maybe they are distracted, I might be able to kill them easliy. One fly swatter and two flies!" :)

So, I tried to kill them and I missed them by a little bit, but they were definately slower than usual. The kids were watching me with enthusiasm and amusement, then they shouted "Wow! mom those flies are stuck together! I have never seen such a thing!"

After several attempts, I finally got them and was very pleased with myself. Two down, two to go.

I went back to cooking and almost forgot about the incident. Then, Michael (who is known for his Michalisms) came to me and said, "Mom, I know why thoes flies were stuck together!"

My heart was pounding. I was in middle of cooking dinner and I was not ready to have "The talk" with my 6 year old son. I kept my cool and said, "Oh, you do? Why Michael?"

"You know, the fly on the back had broken wings and the other fly was carrying him. He was a nice fly and you killed him."

You have to picture his innocent face and he was dead serious while he was saying this.

Thank goodness, my back was facing him, I tried so hard not to laugh out loud, but my shoulders were shaking. I simply said "Oh, maybe so, you have a very good imagination honey."

I would gladly take the title "Cold blooded killer who killed the nice fly" than to tell him the real story. Like I said earlier, I was not ready, not today.

A boy is made out of......

Many interesting conversations happen during the drive to our house. This is one of those stories.

Few days ago, I picked the boys up from school. In the back seat Michael was making disturbing noise with the spit in his mouth (Sorry if you are turned off by this imagery. If you are ok, please keep on reading).

me: Michael, that's disgusting, stop doing that.
M: But, mom, I have venom in my spit.

I was cought off gard by this and though, "what!? This boy is always something to say... oh boy.."

me: What do you mean?
M: It's true, the other day, I killed an ant with my venom at grandma's house!
me: You spit on an ant?
M: uh-huh
me: Well, Michael, I don't think the ant died from your venom. He drowned.
After a moment of silence.
M: NO, really, I have venom!!
me: Oh, OK let's tell daddy later.

I was trying not to laugh so hard! I wonder for how long he is going to believe that he is a venom boy. He is stubbern, so no matter what I say, he won't change his mind. I will just let him be. It's harmless.

After that I remembered the saying "Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made out of." I think they forgot to add venom.

House of Discipline

I was out running some errands. Aaron was home with the children. We were talking on the phone and as Aaron was walking down the stairs he noticed someone was in timeout.



Aaron called Rachel, and she came from the TV room and replied, "What Daddy?"
Aaron then said, "Did you put your baby here?"
"Yes!"
"Why"
"She's in timeout." (Rachel was put into timeout this morning and was probably "reliving" the experience through her baby doll.)
Aaron asked, "Why?"
Rachel smiled and said, "'cause, she hit me"

Michaelisms times three

Michaelism [mahy-kuhl-iz-uhm]-noun. A saying or idea from Michael that totally catches everyone off guard.

I have several Michaelisms, in fact it is hard to go through a day without at least one or two.

Human Right's Day

Sunday the 11th of January, we were driving up to Grandma's and Grandpa's house for a dinner, when Christopher, out of the blue stated that there was no school on the 19th.
Michael asked, "Why?"
Christopher responed, "I don't know".
Then Aaron chimed in, "It's human rights day or civil right's day."
Michael innocently asked, "What's human right's day?"
Aaron responded, "It's the day we celebrate all things right. We can only go right, turn right, or talk to the people on our right."
There was silence as the gears inside Michael's head started turning. I call it the ticking moment. He's thinking.
On our way home several hours later, Michael suddenly spoke up and said, "I don't like human rights day!"
Aaron, chuckled and said, "But, Michael, you get the day off from school."
Michael responed, "I don't like it."
Then Aaron asked, "Why?"
We were totally unprepared for the response. "Sometimes I want to go left or straight."

Question Asked

Aaron and I were in different rooms. I heard a commotion; the boys were fighting. And we heard, "Christopher you loser!" That is totally unacceptable in our house. We called the boys to us and gave them a chance to tell us what was going on.
Christopher said, "Michael called me a loser."
Aaron then asked, "Michael, did you call Christopher a loser?"
Michael thought for a moment and then finally responded, "Well... Daddy, that is a hard question."
It was so hard for us to keep a straight face.

Fatherly Advice

This again, happened while we were driving. Christopher tattled on Michael, "Dad, Michael is picking his nose!" (Oh come on, all kids his age do that!)
So Aaron said, "Michael! You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose!"
Michael, quiet for a moment (tick tick tick), then asked very innocently, "They can pick their own nose?"


Sometimes parenting is hard, but moments like these make us laugh and keep us going.

My New Title

I already told this story to several of my friends. It was a good parenting experience and a funny story, so I decided to share this on my blog.

One day, I had brought up the clean clothes from the laundry room and sorted them out. One pile for my clothes, one pile for Aaron's, another for the boys', and one for Rachel. I took the boys' pile to their room. It is their job to put them away in the closet. On a whim, I opened their sock drawer to throw some clean socks in...

There were no socks!!! I mean none, nada, zip, zilch, zero, it was empty. I do the laundry just about every other day; there should be some there. This is not the first time that this has happened. I was so upset! The boys don't like to wear socks so they take them off and throw them or leave them everywhere. I bought lots of socks just before school started and they are not cheap. I have to put an end to this!

I called the boys and sent them out to hunt for their missing socks. They were everywhere, underneath the couch, behind doors, around the toilet, in the lego bin, in the car, and so on. They found several and we put them together, but there was still 10 socks missing.


As a mom, I always try to find the most effective way to teach and discipline them, whether it works or not. This time, I said, "I am going to take out $3 each from your allowance and replace the socks you've lost!" I was being generous, $6 is not enough to replace 10 pairs of socks. I figured $3 was a lot of money for them too. Since they could see how upset I was they did not argue but said, "OK".

A couple of days later, I took the $6 and bought socks. It was $1.25 each so I had 5 pairs of socks. When the kids came home, I showed them the price tag and explained what I had done. When they saw the socks and price, I could see their shoulders and heads slump and they let out a small sigh like they were thinking, "Oh, this crazy lady really did it."

I guess the discipline worked, they don't leave the socks all over the place anymore. I am many things, a wife, a mother, a quilter, a friend, and now my loving supportive husband gave me the title "Sock Nazi".

Oh, so haunted

On the way home from school, Michael said," I can make more Halloween decorations you know."

I guess he doesn't think we have enough decorations for this occasion. So I said, "Oh, O.K. that would be nice why don't you make some."

After we got home he immediately started drawing. I love asking random questions to the children to see what they would say, so I sat down with him.

First, he cut a piece of paper into the shape of a house and said, "Mommy, this is a haunted house.". Than, he drew one window and looked at me and said," Mommy this is a haunted window." His eyes were wide open when he said it and the expression he used was so funny.

I tried so hard not to laugh and said, "Oh, really, that is horrible!". Then he added more haunted windows. When he started drawing the ghost I said, "Michael, that is such a cute ghost!"

He looked at me and said, "Mom, he looks cute, but he is really a haunted ghost. Really."

As you can see he drew some more haunted stuff if you look closely, it is little disturbing. He was pleased with his art work.



We carved pumpkins, tried on costumes for tommorrow, and they talked on and on about how much fun they are going to have on Halloween day. It is fun to see them being kids and enjoying the season.
Everyone, have a happy haunted Halloween!!

A little chat in the car.

After I picked Christopher up from school, Christopher was telling Michael how he misses his best friend who moved away. So I asked my two boys, "Who do you think my best friend is?"

Michael said, "Aunt Toyomi?" (She's my sister.)
I said, "She's one of my best friends, but she's not the one I'm thinking of."
After a few guesses between the boys, they gave up and demanded to know the answer. So I said, "It's daddy."
They both said, "Huh?" and Michael said, "He can't be your best friend, he's your husband!"
So I tried to explain that it always best when mommy and daddy are best friends. They still didn't quite get it and went on with their joking around.

Someday when they are older they will understand how I enjoy Aaron's company and how grateful I am that we get along so well.