Anna's Antics

For my brother Evan:

Lunch

Every week, I have to eat
Tuna. It is Gross!
I want lots of big pizzas!

How's that for a haiku? No hidden meanings here! Other reader's please reference Evan's comments on previous post this week.

Anna's Antics

On Saturday I went ice skating for my friend's birthday. It was fun!!!!!! We went to Baytowne Wharf.

It is de-lurking week. If you read my blog EVER just comment and say Hi or more!

Anna's Antics

Today my mom wouldn't stop
putting her hands up my shirt.
Her hands are cold!

So, I have been asked more than one time how come things always seem to move smoothly and fun at my house. Seriously, this is not a newspaper. We don't want to just report BAD news and crabby kids. It's kind of like a Christmas newsletter that never ends. Who wants to read a list of woes? I actually received one once in which the writer STARTED by saying she had spent the whole past year in tears and even now was unable to break the cycle. The letter did not get any more encouraging. It was hard to read, especially since I was not able to physically do anything about it. Of course, we can pray for that family, and we did, but my point of this blog is to share interesting things about our family that hopefully do not depress you!

So, I have been mulling over a sort of stream of consciousness this is my day theme.

My alarm went off at 5:45, so I automatically hit the snooze, just to give me time to wake up. When it went off at 5:52, I did it again. But, I was restless, so I got up, and lo and behold, it was 6:36! What happened? Who knows. Now I had to race around in the dark and throw on some clothes and hope they did not clash. I went ahead and put on my flip flops, no slippers in this house, too many shoes already to keep up with! Besides, that would mean I would have to go change if I wanted to go somewhere.

Ok, next, I make up my side of the bed, dh is till sleeping, and go down to wake up Trinity , followed by the boys(Ben and Joel ) and the three girls. and then the boys and then the girls. Only Trinity has actually gotten up, and only Jeanette replies to my calls.
I temporarily forgot what tense I was writing in. I set out the bowls and cereals that are already open, make orange juice that , for once, I remembered to thaw in the fridge overnight. I hate trying to make orange juice when it is frozen. I turned on the water for tea and decided to test out my theory that I am not just partial to British tea mentally. I made tow cups, PG tips and Lipton special black pearl or something. I was right the whole time. PG tips are SO much better.

Jeanette showed up first. She has decided to dress herself in her GA camp out fit and is very proud of herself. for some reason, Trinity came down in a blanket(at least she had something on, one time she came running out naked when we were being visited by people from our church for the first time. ) and insisted that she had NO clothes upstairs. I told her that I had NO laundry for her,"Just pick a shirt and some jeans!" This distracted me into folding some of the laundry I did yesterday. i don't remember the rest of the order of who came down , but I do know that Joel was wearing PJs and this is not really allowed. Some chose the leftover grape juice from yesterday, I made OJ for Grant, because he loves all things orange. but he never showed up. I filled Trinity's water bottle and put it in her lunch. Some time I told people to brush their teeth and come to Bible study. Today we studied Genesis 28. Seriously, HOW old was Esau? How silly. And glad Jacob decides that the awesome God IS awesome. Trinity read MOST of a verse and Jeanette got carried away three times, so read much more than her share. We prayed for Jason and Cindy and their new Baby and some other friends.

During =Bible study I did the girls' hair and dressed Liberty. I forgot that a little earlier, Ben found out his car was iced up and so I told him to go shave while it was thawing and then went out to see if I could find a scraper and help him along, but it was already thawed so I just rolled the trash can to the street lest I forget later and our trash does not get picked up! So, anyway, Trinity and Jeanette found out the neighbor boy was not riding his bike today so they did not need to wait for him. Savannah came out to run with them on their way.

Now I remembered that I had not brushed my hair or teeth myself, so I went to do that. Liberty came up to find out where I went and something about her looked suspicious. Not only was she wearing cereal from Grant's bowl and his OJ all over the front of her, but she had exploded through her clothes. oh, joy. Joel starts with Science, Biology, Ivy starts with typing, but can't find it. Anna starts with math, but she is still on last week's lesson, so I do do not have to explain it. WHERE is Grant? still in bed?
finally he shows up and one out of 100, he wet his bed. I KNOW he got up in the night to go. Change of laundry plans. Am I on my 3rd of fourth load today?

Time for Geography. studying Canada , today we talk about Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island. I get distracted and talk about my friend Jill who named her child Anne "with an e" just like "Anne of Green Gables" on P.E. I. She writes books. My children are impressed. Savannah is friends with Anne. Now we write Thank you letters for Christmas. I have to call the school and see if and where Ivy has a soccer game tonight. I do not have it on my master calendar, but she insists. The school's website has it here in town, but Ivy says it is in another town. The school ends up saying it IS in another town, but no one knows what time. I just remembered to call the dentist and change Ivy's appt. time because she is taking high school Algebra, she has a final during the time I made the appt. Joel has decided to try to shoot the squirrel that keeps invading our bird feeder with his pistol BB gun.

Ivy does Spanish, Joel does Algebra, Anna and I learn about precoccial birds. Liberty keeps getting into things. Grant is playing with legos. uh-oh. it is a project the older boys were working on this weekend! Anyway, I went to make grilled cheese for lunch but we only had 3 slices of cheese. hmm. I got out the velveeta we were going to use for dip we call "liquid cheese" with rotel tomatoes for supper with our tacos. Actually we were going to have it on Sat. night at Savannah's "Whose line is it anyway?"party, but I forgot to make it! I sliced some of it and made sandwiches with it. The kids are not impressed and asked why I did not put ham or turkey on the sandwiches. I had to take Joel to school early because of this exam week. He takes"XC/Track" . Then I came back and folded more laundry, made sure some dishes and the table were done, but found out that Ivy did not put away the velveeta or the grapes. I took Liberty with me so she would fall asleep. Grant stayed with the girls. Ivy had to gather all her soccer gear and then "do her hair" until we left late for her algebra class! This time I took Grant. he is excited about getting his hair cut. When I came back, I told him to go up and take a nap. 20 minutes later, I figured out that I never put a new sheet on his bed! Anna and I finished up her math. Oh, I also checked my email, tried to help Joel log on to his site so he can get his permit and chatted with my s-i-l on facebook for a couple of minutes. Anna read her chapter book, no wait, her reading book while I typed this up but she does not want to rewrite her thank you letters right now. What she wants is to play the Wii. but is we start that , I will never get the two school girls onto their home work and on to swimming, oh yeah, and have supper some where. It is 3:11 pm. this is not everything, but most of it. I talked to my mother and she said she wanted to order senior portraits of Ben, so I sent her the link. Savannah called about 12:25 to say the school she was subbing at did not have salads today and mull over whether she should eat stew and string cheese or just wait. this morning she had a crisis when she accidentally doublebooked herself.

when Liberty woke up from her nap she had wet through her clothes. I had to change her clothes GAIN! then I fed her some grapes, in retrospect,not such a good choice. At the moment I suspect she has wandered outside without shoes and it is in the 50s. She apparently put her new socks in a cup of water that was on the table. So, we took them off her. Now the girls are here so I have to go help them find snack. Jeanette says it is so cold her skin turned gray. when she showed me, I asked her where her jacket was, in her back pack!

I must go and sort out the rest of the day, make tacos, go to the game OR swimming, bathe kids, etc. someday I will post pictures from Christmas/birthdays/new year/Liberty covered in peanut butter!


Posted the next day:

First a disclaimer, by now you will have realized that I skipped the second semester of typing(yes, NOT keyboarding) in high school in favor of lab for AP Biology. I tried to use spellcheck, but apparently failed. It is too much work for me to go back and fix all my typos. Please overlook them.

Anyhow. As the afternoon got longer, I had to help Ben fill in his "volunteer hours" that he was supposed to turn in long ago. We had to figure out a motive for his volunteer work and a conclusion. then he had to return it to the school. which was locked. So, he waited until someone came out, then the office was locked, but someone showed him a back way in. hope it works! Trinity must be absolutely coached into doing her homework. We made popcorn in the air popper Nancy gave Anna years ago. It looks carnival-like and always amazes the kids. Trinity decorated it with TONS of popcorn flavoring/popping oil. Liberty dumped lots of it on the floor. Grant left with Michael to get his hair cut. Ben and Joel went to check on a church member who needs help with his yard. Mind you they did not go without much coercing. They will do the actual work later this week. Ben says his first day back in a shoe after having a broken toe went great. I am relieved to hear it.

As we finally got ready for swimming, Trinity decided to camp out in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Joel is locked out of his driver's license course. We cannot figure out what his password was, or why they will not email it to us. Hey, I have already paid for this! Anna began honking the horn at me and Liberty grabbed her jacket. I was able to leave Liberty with Savannah who is trying to write three newspaper stories for the paper that are due tomorrow. One about the circus that is coming in two weeks, that she took the kids to last year, one about a mission to Peru and one about the memorial for Floridians who have passed in war.

As I approached the base, with 10 minutes to spare, we figured out that Liberty must have absconded with my ID. It is no where to be found. I pulled over and Anna, Jeanette and Trinity started throwing things all over the car. I called Savannah, who, ironically, though she does not have an Id, HAS a swim pass in order to be able to take the kids on base. She did offer to come, but I was about ready to give up. I called Michael and he suggested I drive around to the front of the base and just get a pass. SO, I sighed and tried. At the gate, the people in the booth were stumped. Eventually, one of them "sponsored" me and we showed up almost 20 minutes late for swimming!

I went in to explain, then took a deep breath. Normally, I run to the BX for diapers, or , on Thursdays try to fit in ALL the grocery shopping while they are swimming. However, I usually have the little one. today I asked Savannah to keep Liberty and brought my shoes. I intended to bring an entire out fir and go to the gym for the first time, but that did not happen. I DID get my shoes. Just as well, I have no ID. So, I checked the time. Now I only had an hour. I figured I might be slower coming back, so wherever I went, I better start heading back in 20 minutes. At first I was really cold. After ten minutes, my legs started feeling it. I'm not sure how far I went, down to the beach and back. I only saw people at the skate park. So it was kind of lonely. While I was walking, Michael called. I forgot to give him the game location. Whoops. He has Grant with him. They made it in time, you will be glad to know.

I actually walked for 40 minutes. Then I was a little spacy and had jelly legs. but I cleaned out my car. hoping I would find that my Id had been dumped out by accident. but no, it is GONE. however, I am proud to say that I only found one shriveled up french fry, the skin of a clementine and a half a pretzel in the way of food in my car. I DID clean out three little trashcans full. I found Ivy's long lost calculator, and of course, I bought her a new one last Thursday! I found some clothes and a swimsuit, a shoe and lots of books, two card games and many pencils, four reusable water bottles and two Bibles. NO ID.

I overheard the instructor fussing at the girls. I guess they had bumped in the lane and one was refusing the other's apology. guess who? Afterward, I told them that if that happened again, I was giving the coach permission to have them stand on the deck for 5 minutes. Did I mention the pool is out doors, though the water is heated?

The heater in my car refused to work, so we drove home shivering. Savannah and the boys had thoughtfully left all the taco fixings on the table. The boys, however had neglected to complete their laundry and, instead were playing Wii. After some encouraging growls and shouts from me , they reluctantly retreated upstairs. Where they played legos! Trinity sat down to play leap pad, but I insisted they shower. Of course, now Jeanette hogged the bathroom. I decided it would be a good time to make Grant's bed. now Jeanette randomly started clipping her toenails while sitting you know where. Eventually, I came in to start the shower and Liberty ran in to investigate. She promptly threw Jeanette's sock in the toilet. Amazingly, Jeanette only giggled and said, "I'm glad I flushed already!" When the girls were clean, I corralled Liberty, now only in a diaper since she kept sticking her feet in the shower; grabbed Grant who was trying to pilfer the legos from my room where I had "hidden" them.

Read a bedtime story,
Sang a bedtime song,
Kissed and hugged.
Nursed the baby
Made lunch for tomorrow
Printed out lesson plans and packets for school tomorrow
put away the laundry on my bed
took a shower
tried to read my book
Read my Bible, not well, mind you
turned off the light.....
and the baby began to fuss, this lasted a couple of hours.

You get the idea.

And that is how the day REALLY goes. I'm sure you did not enjoy ALL that info, so from here on out please accept the random tidbits!