Redneck Date Night!

Well, I thought of acting like this was totally out of character for us, but as I sit here typing while wearing my bath-robe when I should be doing a million other things, I'm realizing that this is more typical than I may want to admit! In fairness to Shane, the really red-neck dates we have are usually my idea! He seems to think of a lot more classy ideas than I do! He aims a bit higher regarding our dates, but that means we don't get to go often enough because it's hard to pull them off. I'm more of the "Get me the heck out of here before I lose my marbles!" attitude. So here's a brief re-cap of our most recent "red-neck date-night". I must preface the things I'm typing by saying that I hadn't eaten real food for almost 3 days when this occurred. Don't worry, I'm not anorexic. No way do I have the will-power for that! :)I was doing the Isagenix cleanse and you take some supplements, drink some shakes etc. It was time for my first REAL meal and I couldn't wait, but I was committed to eat healthy.

I called Shane on his way home after I had a horrific day with the kids and I said, "Hey let's go out to dinner at Applebees because they have low-fat items and then we can go to Home Depot and buy the paint for Josh's room. It can be our date.". He's quite easy-going so he said, "sure". When he got home at 5:30, I went to pick up pizza and movies for the kids. Our cute, little small town movie store/variety store/drugstore was PACKED! We were all crammed around the little movie section and these kids next to me kept knocking stuff off the shelf behind us. I was patient, but though it was annoying as stuff would hit the floor. At least they were good-sports and kept picking it up! Well, I was sure surprised when they left the area and stuff kept falling off the shelf behind me....It was ME the whole time! My purse knocked things over whenever I moved and those kids were cleaning up after ME!!! Anyway, to make a long story short, it took me an hour to get back home to pick up Shane. Once I got home, the kids thought it was funny to not let me in the house and to threaten to, "call the cops" if I didn't go away when I rang the doorbell to get in. They were all peering out the little window laughing as I yelled things like, "Let me in or I'll eat your pizza!! Where the heck is your dad!?". They thought I was playing along and joking, but I was so hungry that I was about to start eating their pizza! Finally Shane let me in and I reluctantly left the pizza behind. (I swear, once I turn 80, that's ALL I'm eating until I die!). As we proceeded to the van, the two littlest kids chased us wanting to hug us good-bye as if they'd never see us again. The older kids chased them down while we shouted, "get in the house before you get run over!" and "Lock the top child-lock so your brother doesn't escape!". By the time we started driving, I was so hungry that I couldn't think straight. We got to Applebees, but found out the wait was way long. Shane was cool with it, but I couldn't wait. I decided that we needed to order Car Side To Go and eat in the VAN!!! We ordered and there was a 20 minute wait so I suggested that we go next door to the local thrift store so that I could look at cookbooks. Seriously, at this point, I was delirious from hunger! We wandered around there and I read cookbooks until our food was done. We picked it up and made sure we had our plastic forks and knives. Then I decided to drive to Home Depot so we could eat in their parking lot where we wouldn't be as noticed. On the way, Shane started talking about finding the Auto Body shop so I'd know where to take the van to get looked at. I exclaimed, "If you don't just feed me, I'm going to smack you! Don't even tell me anything responsible until I've had some food!". He laughed and said, "It wouldn't be a red-neck date-night if you didn't get rough!". Seriously, I love that guy and he cracks me up! He can put up with me at my worst so he certainly deserves me at my best! Another FYI is that we had Lilyanna with us because we would have been totally negligent to leave her behind with the other hoodlums. She was yelling at us to feed her by now (It was 8:00!) so we both climbed in the BACK OF OUR VAN on each side of her car seat in the PARKING LOT OF HOME DEPOT and ate our meals while she smacked us around between bites to make sure we didn't forget to feed her too!!!! It was awesome and so red-neck. The highlight of the night though was when we were in Home Depot shopping for carpet and paint and the carpet guy suggested we buy Joshua that fake green-grass out-door carpet to put in his room because we were trying to get the cheapest carpet we could and he heard us talking about how Joshua keeps doing science experiments in his room!!! We refrained from buying some, but just the suggestion was red-neck!!!
Shane decided at the end of the night that he's going to start planning ahead for our dates and that eating in the van in the Home Depot parking lot was too red-neck for him to call a "date-night!". I completely agree! That surpassed the level of red-neck that even I'm comfortable with!
At least it makes for a somewhat entertaining blog entry! I would LOVE hear some non-red-neck date ideas people!!!!

I might as well learn to like myself since I take myself everywhere I go!

Lately I've been realizing how important it is not to compare myself to everyone else and just look at all the ways I don't measure up.  Admittedly, that's a fault I have! I live around some incredible women! I always look at women who look perfect all the time, have perfect houses, their children behave perfectly, they always seem to do and say the right thing, blah, blah, blah...... You know who you are and you also know I love you, but when I try to be just like you, I don't end up very happy! I've decided that I'm TIRED OF IT! That's why I'm blogging my flaws and admitting them with a smile!  I'll just let you be you and I'll be the quirky me who tries to improve at a sane pace for me. I joke about being ADHD/OCD, but there's a lot of truth to that. I have all of these perfectionist characteristics, but I'm ALL OVER THE PLACE in trying to achieve my high ideals. Here's a little glimpse of what it feels like to be me.... I decide to clean my room. I pick up some dirty clothes and it reminds me that I should start some laundry. I do that, but while I'm in the laundry room, I see that the kids shoes need cleaned so I start that. Then I go in my room to get the shoe polish and remember that I'm supposed to be cleaning my room so I start with my desk. I go to put something in the closet and realize that the closet REALLY needs cleaned out so I stand in my closet and  immediately pull ALL of the contents of my walk in closet out into the little walkway. I'm on the inside of the closet and begin the sorting/cleaning process. Stuff is piled all around me. I see some old photos and think, "Oh, I remember this! How fun! I wonder how so in so is doing? I need to call her." Then I begin looking for her phone number in my papers and come across an article that I've saved and meant to read. I think, "I'm not saving this forever! I better read it right now so I can throw it away!". I read the article and find out that it's good to put eye cream on twice a day so I dig for my eye cream and put some on. Feeling appropriately beautiful now, I continue cleaning. Wait! I realize that I don't have any bags or boxes to sort stuff in, but I'm actually buried inside my closet and can't climb over the piles I've made around me so I yell for my kids to bring me what I need. That starts a converstation with my kids where I remember to ask them something about homework which they bring me so I can sign it off. Finally I remember to tell them to get my bags and I kill time looking at interesting things until they remember to come back with them. In order to even have a place to sort, I end up having to hand books out of the closet for the kids to go and put on a shelf for me because, remember? I'm buried in the closet.....This could go on for a LONG time so I'll spare you the rest of the crazy details.  Just know that by the end of the day, not much is accomplished and if I compare myself to super mom down the street, I'm feeling pretty worthless.  So, even though I'm still working on  these things about myself that drive me crazy, I'm done comparing. 

I had a realization on Sunday that has changed the way I look at my personality and what REALLY matters. You'll never guess who the star of this story is.....SHANE! Is he an important person in my life or what!  I sent Shane grocery shopping at Whole Foods Market in Salt Lake on Saturday. I told him to buy me two bags of organic shortgrain brown rice. Being the obedient husband and GUY that he is, he did it and didn't question. $60 and 25 pounds of rice later, we didn't have much left in the budget for other things I wanted him to buy. I was mad at him even though it was my fault for not communicating better.   My woman's logic said he should have known that just because 25 pounds of organic brown rice can fit in two of those Whole Foods bags that I told him to fill, I didn't REALLY mean to buy 25 pounds! LOL! So after he told me how much he spent at Whole Foods, I told him to just buy the BARE minimuin that we needed at the other store and let me shop from now on. (you can bet he was thinking..."GOOD!!!!! You crazy woman!!!Shop all you want from now on!"). On Sunday, as I went to prepare dinner for his brother who was coming to stay with us, I didn't have anything that I needed and I was frustrated. I had no idea what to make.  My perfectionist side was getting really frustrated. I LOVE to cook for guests! I had to make something perfect! I had a really crappy attitude and was feeling all grumpy. Shane took the kids for a drive so that I could figure out what to do. I had a talk with myself and basically told myself to knock it off, appreciate how amazing Shane is, how lucky we are to have the blessings we do (we're certainly not going to starve anytime soon!), and to just enjoy time with Travis even if the food didn't end up being good. When I shut the comparing, perfectionistic woman up, I actually LOVE to laugh and have fun. I decided to chill out and let the "real" me out for the rest of the night and just have fun. When Shane and the kids came home, I was almost done making homemade noodles for chicken noodle soup, but my soup pot was sitting in my fridge with old spaghetti in it (Yes, I did just admit that! I do have an obsession with bleach though, and clean with it all the time to make up for my lack of cleaning out my fridge.) To clean out the pot, I dumped a TON of spaghetti down the disposal and promptly clogged it so bad that water was spurting up in the air whenever we turned it on! It was like a geiser!  It also ended up flooding filthy water into our dishwasher (along with spaghetti noodles) and was about to run onto the floor.  I decided that it was a good time to express to Shane what a stud he is as he fished out water, dumped it down the toilet, took apart the sink, fixed the disposal, and cleaned out the dishwasher. (Even though I was appreciative, I wasn't much help because I'm a nervous cook. I had all of this nervous energy since company was coming and our kitchen was a battle zone, so I decided to make cookies and homemade rolls. So Emma was on the table helping make cookies, Shane was doing all the disgusting disposal cleaning, and I was in the corner whipping up homemade rolls and cheering Shane on, telling him he's the hero, etc....) He could have been really mad at me for causing such a mess, but my appreciation for him went  a long way and he was so great about the whole thing! I realized what power my attitude has over my family.  He even told me that I'm "every woman" for making such a great meal without the right ingredients. We laughed and joked and flirted. When Travis came our kitchen was COVERED in dirty dishes and I didn't feel like dinner was great (I burned the rolls while flirting with Shane, making cookies with 3 kids, and cooking homemade soup, and watching my disposal flood) but we had a great time! The kids put on a show for Travis and we laughed at them until we had tears in our eyes.  This was a great night for me to remember because I've done the opposite where I've been so frustrated about my short comings and not appearing to "have it all together" that I've been grumpy to my family, especially in those kind of stressful situations.  I LOVED the feeling in our house on Sunday. That's why I'm done comparing and trying to be "PERFECT".  I'm embracing the crazy me who clogs the disposal, gets stuck in the closet, uses bleach to make up for not cleaning out my fridge, and accidentally tells Shane to buy 25 pounds of organic short-grain brown rice! Shane and my kids love me and love me to be the silly, imperfect woman I am. They like that much better than the miserable perfectionist, who tries to be like someone else. I LOVE to make them smile and if my being happy,even with all my imperfections does that, then here's to the happy, imperfect me!

Why Everyone Should Have a Chance to be our Hometeacher!

In our church, we have Hometeachers. These are a couple of guys from our congregation (we call it our ward) who basically just check in with us once a month, see how we're doing, share a quick spiritual thought, and are there for us if we need anything throughout the month. Our kids LOVE blabbing their ears off. One of our current hometeacher's, who's a great guy, was here last night and what happened is a typical hometeaching visit to the Walker family. (They've been crazier, but this is the one I haven't had time to block out from my memory yet!!!)....I started rambling because I'm a nervous talker. (If I don't know what to say, I just talk more! My dad used to say, "you're just talking to hear yourself! I don't even think YOU know what you're talking about!".  Shane can be so quiet, it drives me crazy because I feel like I have to keep the conversation going when people are over.) Then I went to have the kids come up from downstairs and Alivia (5 yr. old) started throwing a REALLY LOUD yelling fit. I had to pick her up and carry her up the stairs as she was shouting, "I want to stay down here and play! I NEVER get to play with Emma!, I don't care if the hometeacher is here!". He totally heard all of that. As I was sternly correcting her, I kept calling her the baby's name and everyone would look at the baby like, "what is she doing wrong?". I totally sounded crazy! I took Alivia to her room and told her she could come out when she was ready to apologize for being rude. Lilyanna (13 month old) started demanding that the hometeacher hold her, which he did. So he was holding our baby, and Daniel was going on and on about a dead squashed skunk on the road,  Emma started talking about how bad her school stinks, and Josh tried to gross Emma out by doing weird things with his eyeball. Then I let Alivia come out and she apologized and said she'd be nice.  Then she told him that her mom never cleans at night, takes naps every day, and that her and Emma's bedroom is a MESS.  When he tried to give us back Lilyanna she told him off in her baby voice and demanded that he keep holding her. Emma said that Lilyanna must want to go home with him so Daniel started crying and saying, "HE ALREADY HAS A BABY!". Finally, the poor guy escaped out the door back to his own family who I'm sure seemed like ANGELS. That's why everyone should have the chance the to be our hometeacher!

Positive Motivation

I'm living proof that the reverse psychology mumbo jumbo REALLY works! I'm not sure why every story I share has to have a really pathetic beginning before I can get to the good stuff, but this one is no different.  I mentioned in another post that I've been lacking in the "hot mamma" department. In my defense, it's not that I don't care. I used to be quite prissy, but these 5 munchkins have been wearing me out! On Fridays Shane and I like to have dates and this Friday I decided to not allow myself the usual pony-tail and just slopped on mascera for our date. Unfortunately though, I woke up to one crisis after another and Lilyanna was fussy and clingy ALL day. I ran out the door at noon wearing flannel pajama bottoms, an un-matching shirt, flip-flops, hair not combed.... (you get the idea) with just enough time to get Alivia to the bus. The whole way to the bus I was thinking, "Who is this pathetic haggard woman running down the street?". Even Alivia who's FIVE did her hair! By the time I got back home, I was fed-up with myself, but I couldn't get in the bath until the older kids got home from school. Then with everything they needed, it took Herculian effort to make the time. Finally, I fixed my hair, put on an out-fit I felt great in, and took time to do my make-up the way I like it. I was a bit late to meet Shane, but it was worth it because I felt so great! However, right as I was running out the door,  Lilyanna had a VERY MESSY diaper. I mean the kind men who have changed diapers have nightmares over. Right as I began to change her, another child started yanking my arm to tell me something, the phone rang (Shane wondering where I was), and Lilyanna decided it was a good time to explore the contents of her diaper. Somehow in all of the craziness, what was INSIDE her diaper ended up on my shirt!!!! True story, you can vomit.  I was in tears and thought, "WHY do I even bother!!!!". I let Shane know that I would be REALLY late now and I changed, doing the best I could to still feel like someone's date and not just a mom who gets dumped on. When I got to where Shane was, he made it all worth it.  He told me how amazing I looked. Then he told me again. Then he told me AGAIN (I think he added a WOW that time or something).  I could tell he really meant it and the first time it was so sweet. The second time, I thought, "okay, he has noticed how I've let myself go most of the time". The third time it was like rubbing salt in my wound. Finally I said, "That's it! Don't you dare tell me ONE more time how AMAZING I look!!!! I'm aware that I don't usually look like this!" Thank goodness he's a patient man!   I have to admit though that what he did worked. I've decided to beat the kids at their own game... I get up before they do and get ready before them! I've fixed my hair and make-up for three days in a row.  I know that it was Shane's reaction that finally motivated me to make drastic changes. I love that guy, of course I want him to be happy! Infact,  it worked so well on me, so I've tried this "positve motivation" on my most "strong-willed" child. I tell her non-stop how wonderful she is. I compliment everything she does and guess what? She's been running around helping before I ask and being a really great kid so that I'll keep it up. Shane is an amazing guy for setting the example for me. He never has mentioned that I would look better in something other than flannel pjs or sweats. He still told me I was beautiful on those days, but Friday was different. He could write an article or something about how to motivate an over-whelmed wife, but the crazy thing is, he doesn't even know he's doing it! He would be so embarrassed if he knew I wrote all of this stuff, but I just have to share it. It's so good for me to look at the bright side of some of my crazy times!

Shane (I wonder if I really will keep this post on here?)

This is a cheesy post and I'm admitting it right now, but I have Shane on the brain and just want to write about some of the things that I appreciate about him. Marrying him is the best decision I ever made.  I admit that having honest kids recently about my physical state COULD be hard on my self-esteem, but I really do feel motivated instead of devastated and the reason is....Shane. This guy is amazing.  Keeping up with 5 kids is tough for me and I don't feel like a "hot mamma" on most days (however, hopefully that will change!). I got a phone call the other day from Shane and he told me to hurry up and turn on the radio because a song was on that reminds him of me and I HAD to hear it. This is what I heard.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhCEhWiKXk

I'm not sure how that will post so I'll put the name of the song....Just the Way You are by Bruno Mars.
He's done that before with songs and it always is so sweet to me, but this time I cried when I heard this one.  I know he means what the song says. It makes me want to be the way he sees me.  His love and his ability to see the best in everyone is just one thing I admire about him. I could go on in this post forever about his character, fun personality, the way he's an amazing dad, his faith, work ethic, etc., but I'll make myself stop. And just so you don't think I'm trying to act like we're a perfect couple, we definitely fight at times. Sometimes he pushes all my buttons and I know he gets tired of me being a control freak, but we can't go to bed angry, it's just not possible for us. We have to reconcile at least somewhat, even if that means we agree to disagree. The other day I told him in a heated discussion, "You know what!? There's not another man on this planet I'd rather fight with than you!". That had us both laughing. Let's just say that our marriage is never boring and Shane is just the perfect man to handle me and my high-strung ways! (An old boyfriend actually said before I married Shane that he was just concerned that Shane couldn't "handle" me! What the heck is that supposed to mean? LOL! Well guess what So In So, he not only "handles" me, he plays me love songs  and tells me he's grateful for the opportunity! No wonder I'm crazy about this guy!)

Kids = Motivation! (and just a gross tooth story)

Wellllllll I've REALLY been enjoying the Holidays and all of the food that goes with it since about St. Patricks day of last year! I had a few spurts of motivation here and there, but nothing REALLY lasted. After all, I sort of just had a baby. However, that baby has now turned a year old and even my kids aren't buying my excuses anymore. A couple of days ago while I was doing laundry, Daniel (3) held up a pair of my grey exercise pants and excitedly shouted to the other kids that he had found "Santa's pants" in our living room! They almost fell over laughing as they explained to him that those are "mommy's pants". Then last night he started patting my belly and talking about the baby in there. I replied, "Yeah, well mommy is going to exercise and eat healthy and then that "baby" is going to disappear!". Alivia promptly started yelling, "No don't do it" and crying about losing our "baby". Sometimes as a mom I'm just not that bright! I had to spell out in black and white that there is no baby, just FAT. Daniel wanted to know why so I had to explain that it's there because I eat too much candy and junk. Daniel didn't even let me off easy after that embarrassing explanation. He kept gawking at my stomach and saying, "so you're fat, huh? You eat too much, huh? Too much candy, huh?". OKAY!!!! I got it! I can't hide anymore. It's time to do something or be happy about it and move on. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do something about it, but sheeesh, how do I get the 3 year old to be quiet about it in the mean time? I hope to be grateful to that loud little kid one day when I'm trimmer, but for now, I better buy a girdle!

I think this next story is motivation to Emma to keep her teeth up high when leaving them out for the Tooth Fairy. First of all, can I just say that our Tooth Fairy has about had it with this inquisitive child? Emma writes letters to the Tooth Fairy with EACH tooth she yanks out (and it seems like she'll never run out either!). She expects the Tooth Fairy to write back and the first time, the Tooth Fairy thought this would just be one simple little letter to write to "prove" her existance. She typed out a letter in tiny, tiny print, put a cartoon picture of herself and sprinkled the letter with gold "fairy dust".  The next letter and tooth had specific questions about where the Tooth Fairy lives, if she celebrates Christmas, what kind of gifts she likes, etc. The next letter asked for a return letter in the Tooth Fairy's OWN handwriting with even more questions, like "what do you do with all of the teeth?". Good grief, I need to buy a book about the Tooth Fairy or  something. This always  happens when I'm too tired to think straight and we're not sure where our glitter is, not to mention that I'm not sure what the Tooth Fairy's REAL handwriting should look like. Emma put her tooth out last night on the bathroom counter, but when she went to check on it before bed, it was gone. She was very distraught, but we explained that her tooth fairy knows her so well now and is probably over the time she tried to trick her, so she would just believe her about the tooth. (Emma left the white part of candy corn out for the Tooth Fairy one time, but the Tooth Fairy just left her play money for her "pretend" tooth.)   She didn't have to fret for long because we noticed Lilyanna chewing on something and when we pulled it out, it was Emma's tooth! Gross, I know! It had been knocked on the floor and so it was fair game for our little muncher.