If you read the title of this post and thought that you were going to be offered a great recipe or technique for creating a great homemade bubble machine … you were wrong .

I have always loved those little battery powered bubble machine.  They kick out tons of bubbles with little effort and it amuses the children to no end (well, almost)!  Bubbles are messy and when I’m blowing them the little ones want to have the wand … and the bottle … and it just gets messier and messier, you get the idea.

Today was a beautiful day!  I took the twins outside to play in the sand with all the older boys, and suddenly I was amazed to see a steady and heavy stream of bubbles floating by me.  Like a bubble machine!

I looked to my right and there was CJ, our 12 year old, just blowing away like a Bubble Machine!  Yup, I finally got one, a Bubble Machine all my own.  Though I think in reality he’s far more expensive than one of those little battery powered machines, after all he’s powered by food … and lots of it! 

But, I have to say it was a fun treat for the little ones and for me, since I wasn’t the one blowing them and having the littler ones hang all over me begging to do it too.  So, I’ll take the Homemade Bubble Machine I can call my oldest son over a store bought one any day! 

Do you have anything in your life that is a little off kilter?  I know I have plenty of things I could mention, but tonight CJ and I went shopping after he was done with Youth Group.  We went merrily along our way picking out a couple of things for his 6th Grade Recognition assembly tomorrow (major deal for them, dress code and everything, but I’ll save that for tomorrow) and some groceries to get us through the end of the week.  Toward the end of the grocery store adventure I decided to grab each of us a quick drink from the milk section (CJ wanted strawberry milk and I wanted orange juice).

I know I don’t usually walk you through my grocery store wanderings, but I have a point …

I don’t hesitate to frequently pay over $4 for a gourmet coffee, but it nearly KILLED me to pay $1.43 for an orange juice.  Seriously. 

Perspective changed somewhere along the way.  The not-at-all-healthy coffee that takes me a whole minute to order (not really LOL) and costs a small fortune (but ironically now less than the price of one gallon of gas) is considered just a part of life.  While the healthy single serving of nutritious orange juice that costs less than half the price of the coffee (and aforementioned gallon of gas) seems outrageous.

How many other things in life are twisted that way?  How often do I not notice where the perspective has gone off balance.  Far more often than I like to admit.  So I dared to take that thought to my spiritual life and I came to a challenging conclusion …

If I can take the time to write or read a blog post why can’t I seem to squeeze in reading that one little chapter from the Bible a day?  If I can read over 50 emails a day why can’t I spend some time alone talking with my Savior? 

Ooooooh! Ouch!  Reality of the price I’m willing to pay spiritually kind of works in a rather backward way!  I’m the one who pays big time if I don’t take a moment to be filled and refreshed each day.  And since when did all those other things somehow become more important?  Sure, I don’t logically think they are actually more important than my spiritual well being, but my behavior is saying that they are. 

Actions speak louder than words.  So I’m announcing here and now that I am in need of a priority recheck.   Feel free to hold me accountable.  Really.  Ask me next week if I’ve been regularly feeding my soul not just my outbox.  See if I’ve been spending as much time with the Lord as I have writing blog posts.  After all, sometimes all any of us needs is a little nudge here and there to keep us accountable and on track. 

What exactly does a “Dude” look like????  Well, if you are anything like me and never had that image clearly defined in your mind, I’m here to settle that now once and for all .

Today I gave the three younger boys Summer haircuts.  I don’t usually do this by myself with this particular half of my children, but since I was doing the cut on the twinkies using only the trimmer I knew it would move quick enough to avoid too many issues!

In the middle of Monkey’s Haircut, Sir Lion declared that “he looks like a dude now mom”.  “Reeeaaaaly?”  I said, “Who knew?”.   So, without further ado, here’s a few “DUDE” pictures :).  (Bug was NOT a happy camper during the post-haircut photo shoot, so here are a couple of Monkey.)

Do you ever find yourself making a To-Do list that never ends?  I was an avid list maker all through my teen years and even into adulthood.  My mom was always commenting on my lists and my family all knew I kept them.  To this day if I sound like I’m out of sorts or confused my mom tells me to “make a list” LOL!

I still have many of the lists I made when planning my wedding.  Amazingly there are even small shopping lists from before the wedding that my sister and I were laughing about when we stumbled upon them as we were cleaning one day. 

Let me share one with you:

To Do

*Get marriage license stuff from apartment and take to church.
*Go to bank & deposit money.
*Go to drug store for eyeliner.
*Purchase shoes.
*Fix wedding program at work.
*Be at work for a meeting at noon.

We seriously laugh at that list now.  Oh, to be that organized again … that would be amazing and miraculous.  The details I kept as I made the list - I’m surprised I didn’t schedule in potty breaks as well LOL.  And for Heaven’s sake WHO ON EARTH ONLY GOES TO THE DRUG STORE FOR EYELINER?????????????

Good grief!  This was my life.  Even after we were married I kept lists, the house was always tidy, there was fresh baked bread in my hubby’s lunch every single day!  Seriously! Wow!  To be in that place again!  But the craziest part of all is that the list above is so super short even though it was made DAYS before my wedding day!!!!!

Now my To Do list would look a bit like this:

To Do AM

*Make Granola, Get kids up, rush them through showers, make their lunches, get them out the door for school.
*Find something to entertain the twins so they don’t kill themselves, all morning long.
*Do 3 loads of laundry.
*Feed little three lunch
*Get little three down for naps

To Do PM

*Clean kitchen, fill and run dishwasher, wipe down table, chairs, windows and sweep floor.
*Do three loads of laundry
*wipe down bathroom (boys miss … need I say more?)
*Get little three up from naps to cuddle for a bit.
*Big boys get home, start dinner.
*Prepare dinner, while filling the dishwasher again and folding another load of laundry.
*Create menu for following week and shopping list.
*Serve dinner to family and make sure no one has an event that evening
*Check all homework, clean up dinner, run dishwasher again, do another load of laundry
*Get kids to bed, work, blog and answer 50 emails.
*11:30pm - get to bed!

Sadly that doesn’t completely cover everything I really do.  Throw in there that I check email in the morning and work on design and blogging projects during naptime while I do several loads of laundry and then you’re getting a little closer to the reality of ONE DAY in the life of this mom.  Each day that list could change, but instead of getting shorter I forever seem to be adding more and more tasks to it. 

I am in the process of getting a more organized cleaning schedule under control.  I have it printed out, just haven’t posted it yet, and as we all know if it isn’t posted somewhere very visible … it doesn’t exist!  So onward I trod, not looking back … except for today when all of you hopefully got a good laugh at the carefree To-Do list of a young woman.

*I’m updating this post to add a little note that my sis left in the comments - I think it should go here to round out the story LOL.  Scroll down to the bottom of the story for her little note!*

Not just any old mattress either … nope … a KING SIZE MATTRESS.  But I should start at the beginning ………

As many of you know we are trying to get the house organized, clean and otherwise prepared for the possibility of putting it on the market.  The problem is that in order to do that we have to overhaul our little house.  It was so bad I knew I had to enlist some serious help.  That help came in the form of my next younger sister who really is great at organizing and purging.

She’s been here many times, but one of the biggest projects was to switch our bedroom and the other front bedroom that housed 4 of our boys.  We had put this mammoth task off, and finally had to face it.  So we began, moving cribs, a dresser and a set of bunkbeds (plus all of the various oddities contained within and underneath) out into the living room - completely blocking off access to the kitchen and bathroom in the process, but oh well (LOL). 

Then we headed into the “Master” bedroom - oh BOY!  The fact that our bed never did fit in the room right and was crammed up against a wall with the door barely able to open on the other side was just something I had gotten used to.  Also knowing that 3 years of “stuff” had accumulated under and around the bed in unreachable areas was also something I knew existed.  I warned Sis … “remember, I cannot guarantee what we’ll find under here.”  She just looked at me and smiled.

We had to begin with the mattress … 2 women with 1 king size mattress that was truly almost bigger than the room.  Not only was it nearly impossible to get it off the bed, but how on earth were we to contort it to the point where we could squeeze it out of the door????  Well, with much craziness we did.

OK, Now what do we do with it.  Originally Sis had decided that we simply needed to find a place to stash it until Hubby got home.  Making sure that it was located where he would have to get it out of the house, but that we were still able to function for the rest of the day.  Apparently she had decided this was no longer an option - that we must get the mattress to the garage ourselves. 

Our garage is detatched … many feet from the house … down a grassy hill.  Do any of you have a clue how much a King size mattress weighs?????  Two women absolutely cannot lift one, we could push it but NOT lift it.  So how on earth did she plan to get it down to the garage?  Well, as we had been hauling other things down to the garage, she had spotted two of the children’s plastic sleds. 

Being a very original and creative thinker (she didn’t want to learn to drive because she was afraid she’d be driving down the freeway and see a bug on the guardrail and wonder if she could hit it … yup), she had decided that these two sleds were exactly what we needed to accomplish the monster of moving this mattress.

She entered the house with those two sleds in tow and I asked her “what on earth?” and laughed when she told me why.  I didn’t think she was serious.  Honestly.  This would NEVER have occured to me - too creative.

So, we drug the mammoth mattress over to her nicely placed sleds and heaved it onto them.  It was a little crooked and very cumbersome, so I began to have my doubts.  We slid it out the door - I was in front and Sis was in back.  I began to heave it down onto the grass from the front porch and suddenly it wasn’t moving anymore.  That’s when we ran into our first “glitch”. 

The mattress was stuck between the porch flooring and the roof covering it.  So we began zigzagging this lovely mattress to try and un-stick it :) .  Finally out it came and almost went down too!  With Sis hanging on for dear life to one side and me hanging on for dear life on the other, suddenly we were losing it.  The mattress was sooooo very heavy, it kept sliding off of the sleds and we still had at least 100 feet to go - OH BOY! 

We pushed and we pulled and we lost one sled along the way and were laughing so hard half way there I thought we’d never make it.  I mean the doubled over-laughing so hard you’re crying kind of laughing.  I can’t imagine the thoughts of the few people who drove by - “Oh my word those crazy women …” LOL!

Finally, still laughing we made it down to the garage.  We had one last tricky little maneuver to make though since the garage is about a foot lower than the grassy area (don’t ask ).  So we skipped it over the edge and onto the concrete floor of the garage.  Thankfully once it was there it was a breeze to slide into place. 

Shortly after we got the Beast into the garage, my sister made the comment (as we’re still laughing and crying), “Why do I get the feeling I’ll end up as tomorrow’s blog post?”.  I stopped short, looked at her and said “Sure, I actually hadn’t thought about that”. 

Now, the problem here is that my sister and her ultra-creative-I-thought-of-the-sled mind would have been the perfect person to re-tell this story.  But since she isn’t a blogger and didn’t take me up on my suggestion to be the one to write about it, she will now have to read this post and think of all the funny and interesting things I left out.  Well, I did my best

Just a word of warning though:  If you are a down-to-earth, logical type woman and happen to have a creative-thinking-off-the-beaten-path sister, DO NOT ASK HER TO HELP YOU MOVE A MATTRESS!  You could wind up in a pickle!

*A Note From Sis*

You did, as always, an amazing job retelling the story but you missed one little point. As the cars were driving by you actually said “maybe someone will stop and help us” and you sounded HOPEFUL!

I was mortified hoping and praying that we somehow blended into the landscape, or came across as 2 perfectly normal women doing a little moving. Not you, you were ready to flag down a innocent passing motorist. Have you no PRIDE?!

This experience has taught me two things; first, a kingsize matress has no backbone to keep it standing up straight on two sleds (the one flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan). Second, there is no one I laugh harder with than my sister! love you!

Although this would be a very appropriate title as my boys play outside most of the time hunting creatures and seeking adventure and imaginary enemies (LOL), I am actually talking about the show on the Discovery Channel. Survival shows are all the rage in our home.  The Discovery Channel has plenty of them throughout their family of channels (mainly on The Discovery Channel and Discovery Kids), primarily on Friday and Saturday nights.

We only get sattelite service where we live and that means we have to watch many shows 3 hours early or 3 hours late - even though we’re pacific time, we get many channels on EST.  Believe it or not, this can actually be a good thing in our boys’ opinion since it gives them more opportunities to catch up on the latest episodes.

Man vs. Wild is always the favorite around here though they have just discovered another show called The Alaska Experiment.  It is funny to me how some of these “similar” survival shows can be so different.  Man vs. Wild is all about the adventure and shock factor whereas Sirwhinerman Survivorman is more about the endless days and nights and all the drama. 

For Heaven’s sake, how many crazy things can one man (ie: Bear Grylls) do, eat and see in one episode?  For instance, Friday night there was a new episode of him in Zambia and here’s a run down of the “adventure”:

Things He Did:
~ Dropped off into raging river from a helicopter (on a body board no less), climbed at least two slippery sheer cliffs (called one of them “irresistible” LOL)
~ Poor man, I’ll list the things he ate in a moment, but the last “lovelies” that he consumed apparently sent his body over the proverbial edge because he spent much of the rest of the show miserable with diarrhea.
~ Built a pyramid fire to signal the helicopter that was picking him up
~ Exited the area by hopping onto the landing gear of the helicopter and hanging on as it carried him out heehee.

What He Ate:
~ Catfish (caught amidst Hippos and Crocodiles)
~ Grubs - not just any grubs either one of them was ginormous, but I’ll spare you the GORY details.
~ A Bullfrog - can I just say EWWWW!  It truly was nasty!
~ “Chargrilled brightly colored worms” - he got sick after eating these so they obviously should have been avoided.
~ Because of his poor stomach he filtered some of the local water and made a charcoal tea to soothe it.

Things He Saw:
~ Hippos
~ Crocodiles
~ Elephants - this was TRULY AMAZING there was a herd of over 80 elephants right in front of him!
~ Leopard prints and kill
~ Hyena prints
~ Many Many Critters ‘n such

There you have the show (can I emphasize here again this was ONE EPISODE) in a nutshell.  Sometimes I just feel like saying “holy cow man you are a little nuts” even if he DOES have a fully equipped camera crew with him.  But I love his truly genuine regard, appreciation and amazement at the beauty around him throughout his “adventures”.  But I’m also always hanging on to the edge of my seat and covering my eyes. 

For the boys it’s all about the gross things he eats.  Believe it or not they actually do have their limits, on one episode he ate a tree frog and that was completely over the top in The Salesman’s opinion, but they love seeing him do crazy things and truly enjoy getting grossed out by his “food”.  If you’re looking for enough drama for even a teenage girl, watch Sir-whiner-man Survivorman.  I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate some of the information and tips that he shares, but he stays in the same place night after night, monologuing about each and every detail about everything around him and what he’s doing and the show is a little like this sentence, going on and on instead of really getting anything done.

I have to say though that these men are probably living the dream of every (almost) little boy.  Life is full of reality each and every day even for children, so it is truly amazing that “reality” shows (we all know that much of what happens on them is edited and staged for entertainment value, but still …) can put a whole new twist on said “reality”. 

What if we looked at our lives through the eyes of a reality show?  We’d see the adventure and take it - we’d notice the incredibly amazing beauty around us and be so thankful for the opportunity - we’d try new things that may not turn out very well, but we tried them anyway and lived to tell the tale.  I think we’d appreciate everyday life and the blessings we’ve been given just a little bit more. 

So today I’m wishing you all a little adventure, maybe even a little drama.  A renewed outlook and amazement at the beauty around you - blog about it, turn your life into a reality show for one day and see if your perspective changes just a little. 

Today is my birthday.  I am … hang on I’m thinking … 36 … whew - I had to do the math.  Honestly, and sadly that took a while.  Mom brain - blame everything on mom brain.  The day hasn’t really even technically begun, so I’ll have to tell you all if it was exciting or not (don’t plan on it) later.  Just thought I’d share though.

After our crazy weekend away I have decided that I like the idea of a boring birthday LOL (remember if you want to read the “Our Life is Never Boring” Post just email me for the password).  So in honor of keeping it boring I plan to lay a little low today, so there won’t be grand fanfare or a multi-gifty-giveaway (though I reserve the right to do something like that next year), just peace and quiet and rest - I HOPE!

But in honor of the fact that this is Mommy Realities Monday I will offer up a little reality for you:

Life is short - so make the most of it.  It is NOT a cliche, it is reality.  Even when you don’t feel like it (not even a little bit), even when things are difficult and you just want to run away and hide.  Stick it out, pray, rebel against that feeling and best of all, pray and ask for help.  

If I sound like I’m speaking from experience it might be because I am.  I’ve been there - sadly I still go there sometimes, and I’ve learned a thing or two from it.  So, on my birthday, this is my wish for all of you … that you see the little things in life and value them for what they are … the vital part of our existence.  Your child wanting to hold your hand, Your tween still always giving you a hug before bed, A 4 year old singing a little song as they play, your spouse giving you a wink or a peck on the cheek - just because.  This is the sweetest part of life, don’t miss it!

More than a weekend away, this little mini-vacation we’re taking as a family starting today is steeped in tradition.  A tradition that my husband has been participating in for … well … basically his whole life.  This tradition takes place the exact same weekend of every year, in the exact same town, to fish in the exact same lake. 

We will be staying in a rental that is larger than our home and as I mentioned earlier I am SUPER excited.  But more than that I am happy to finally be back, celebrating this wonderful tradition with all of my boys again.  You see, we have taken three years off. 

Three years ago we moved into this house after having lived with 4 sons in a 30 foot RV for 3 months … I was DONE with camping or even the remote idea of spending any time in a campground!   Then the following February 1st we had our Twinkies … 6 weeks early … 2 weeks in the NICU … major risk for RSV.  There was NO WAY I was taking those little ones that far away from home, but no way I wanted to be left alone for even a weekend either.  So we didn’t go.  Things weren’t a whole lot better the following year with the variety of ages, so here we are - seriously needing to redeem ourselves.

Traditions are something that I strongly encourage other families to make and keep!  We have been so blessed by the traditions we have and the wonderful security and passion our children have toward them.  You hear it often, but the years truly are fleeting.  I am amazed as watch our 12 year old young man now.  Thankful that we have instilled what we have in him, but wishing I could have done more.  A normal reaction I know, but I don’t want to wait until it’s too late to recover our lost traditions. 

So I’ll be away for the weekend, busy with our excited half-dozen sons as they get to go fishin’ - some for the very first time in their young lives.  This ought to be fun :)  Wish me luck … or better yet, pray hard for me!  And remember to take advantage of the little opportunities to create a tradition with your children.  We only have them for a few short years and we have to make the most of it!  Be blessed this weekend ladies

Snow . . . in April . . . crazy!  I thought it was seriously nuts that we had snow over my hubby’s birthday the end of March, but now here we are a week and a half from my birthday and we have snow again!  Crazy weather!

But it definitely affords young men the opportunity to stretch some seriously creative muscles .  Here’s a few examples of that in two snowmen that CJ constructed.  He calls the one with the sunglasses “New Guy”, the first photo is the one he created first and it’s name isn’t nearly as creative - First Guy LOL! 

We joined the local “Y” over the weekend.  My poor self is in desperate need of a “routine”.  We debated and discussed whether it was a good idea or not, and I was very excited about joining since it is a brand new facility and has tons (and I mean TONS) of great things to offer (HELLO - free childcare - need I say more?). 

But there’s just one thing that I didn’t think about until later - you actually have to go there, decked out in “work out” apparrel (aka - yucky clothes) in order to use the facility.  Who Knew?  Might I remind you of my relative LOVE for - obscurity and going into a public place to work out is definitely outside of my comfort zone. 

My neighbors are members too and she goes to a class Tuesday and Thursday morning and invited me to go with her.  I was excited about this new prospect - for about an hour, then reality set in.  I still didn’t know if the twins would go into the childcare and getting them out of the house with socks on under their shoes can sometimes be akin to climbing a mountain.  Today was the day, I tried giving myself a pep talk this morning in case my neighbor wasn’t going to be able to go, but it wasn’t working.

Finally my neighbor called and asked if I was going to go - “YES” I answered anxiously.  I realize that I am a big wimp-o-la!  BIG!  Can’t do it without my neighbor WIMP!  Off we went - my three youngest and the youngest of her three boys. 

The babies actually went into childcare - not quickly, not completely fuss free (apparently they took turns being unhappy during my hour or so away from them), but enough for me to get my feet wet with this whole going to the gym thing.  I enjoyed going to the class and turns out that a couple of ladies I know from church were there too - yippee!   This is a very good thing for this girl!

So I just HAD to announce that I DID IT!  To all the world - for posterity’s sake if nothing else.  My neighbor will be calling me every Tues/Thurs morning so that we can stay consistent.  

The big question is, now that the twins know what happens when they are taken to the “Adventure Zone” - WILL THEY GO AGAIN? *sob* Call me a pessimist, but the next visit may not be quite so pleasant.  As adorable, sweet, outgoing and crazy as my little Twink’s are they are very attached to their mommy and the familiar, isolated life they live.   So, I’m hopeful {not convinced} and will give you an update next week .