Talk About Tuesday Home Tour

Welcome to Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting.

This is the once a month Home Tour edition of TAT where everyone posts photos of a spot or feature inside or outside their home. I hope you'll join us!

What's so cool about our ceilings? Fans! Did anyone guess it?

We have fans in almost every room of our house. There are two in the living room. I voted for one but Stranger had to have two. If Stranger had has his way we would have also had one on the front porch and a couple in our garage. I'm thinking now that I should have let him have his way. Maybe outside fans directly over the front door and garage door would help keep the flies from coming in the house. What do you think?

There are two fans in the the unfinshed sun room. There is one in my little studio that is fabulous because it can get really hot in there when I'm sewing.

There are even two little fans in our two full baths. I love those fans!!! They are wonderful to turn on as I'm getting ready to go somewhere. When the shower, my blow dryer and straightening iron are all heating me up, it's great to have a way to stay cool so I'm not a sweaty mess before I even leave the house.

There are also fans in each bedroom for a grand total of twelve. The only fan we never use is the one in the kitchen. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because we don't hang out in there as much as we do the other rooms and when we're cooking we don't want the fan cooling off the food.

We do have air conditioning but we didn't start using it until just a few days ago because the fans were enough to keep us cool. It is a lot cheaper to run the fans than the air conditioner. When we were building our house we looked at fans at the lighting store and they were all over $300 a piece! We ended up getting ours at Home Depot for around $60. Very cool.

Ceiling fans are also excellent entertainment for six week old babies. I try not to get my feelings hurt when I'm trying to play with Sweetness but she can't take her eyes off the ceiling fan.

BTW, everyone should post photos of their ceiling fans on the internet at least once a year. I had no idea they were so dirty! As I was standing on a stool to vacuum them off I got a whole new perspective on the dust in all the other corners of my house. What started off as taking a couple blog photos turned into an hour long cleaning session but I can feel good about the fact that all the places in my house that are too high for you to see are now clean. (Well, most of them.) Doesn't that make you feel better too?

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Teaching Kids With Systems

I've been reading The E Myth Revisited – Why most small businesses don't work and what to do about it, by Michael E. Gerber. It has a lot of great ideas in it although I don't like the format of the book. It's written as sort of a parable the same way The Peace Giver and The Gift and other such books are written. I find it very annoying but I try to look past it and learn what I can from them in spite of it.

One concept that really hit me while reading this book was using systems in business. McDonald's makes their hamburgers exactly the same way every time. No matter what McDonald's you go to you never have to wonder what you'll get. The food, the staff, everything is the same because of the great systems they have in place.

I started thinking how this applied outside of business. You know how much I love using systems in my home and family. I have my baby sleeping system, my potty training system and my teaching kids to work system, etc. They make my life easier and are especially useful in creating habits.

Never create a game for your people you're unwilling to play yourself. They'll
find you out and never let you forget it.

I thought that we could be utilizing systems even more in our home but we also need to create systems that everyone follows, even Mom and Dad. United we stand! First, Stranger and I sat down and discussed how we were going to implement this and then we had a meeting with the kids to teach it to them. Instead of Stranger and I creating the systems ourselves we decided to design them as a family so the kids would have as much a stake in them as we do.

The systems will be on a laminated card for everyone to check off as each item is completed. Everyone will know exactly what is expected of them and what to expect of everyone else. The systems are the same for everyone in the family and will be performed in the same order every time.

Does this whole thing sound too contrived? Does it sound like we are trying to raise little robots that can't think for themselves? I was concerned about that at first but now I think that instead of enslaving us, systems will give us more freedom. I'm having a difficult time articulating my feelings about it so I will write more another day. These are the systems we finished tonight.

The Going to Bed System

1. Pick up belongings around the house
2. Pick up bedroom
3. Potty
4. Wash hands
5. Brush and floss teeth
6. Throw clothes in the dirty clothes basket or hang them up if they're clean
7. Put on pajamas
8. Open window (to cool the house down at night)
9. Personal prayer
10. Read
11. Lights out

The Wake Up System

1. Wake up
2. Make bed
3. Personal prayer
4. Close window
5. Hang up pajamas
6. Get dressed
7. Comb hair
8. Personal scripture study

Every item on these lists was discussed extensively (trust me on this) and put in the order we all agreed on. If we didn't agree we voted and/or flipped a coin. We are going to try them for a few days before we make more systems for things like, feeding the animals, going to town, coming home, etc.

I will let you know how our new systems work out for us. Hopefully they will make things easier and less stressful for both the parents and the children. Who wouldn't want that?

If you want to try our systems or make your own I would love to hear about it. Maybe we could share ideas to make them work even better. If I never write about this again it will be because we were compete failures and too lazy to follow through which is highly likely.

"On a scale of 1-10 I'd give this vacation a 4."

In the words of a ten year old that's how our vacation went. If you ask him why it was so disappointing he will site the vacation of 2006. The vacation of all Gallagher vacations where we spent two weeks driving the coast of California visiting theme parks and beaches. The vacation where we didn't have babies and conferences and mosquitoes getting in the way of our fun.

If you can believe it we are all unpacked from our trip. The car is cleaned out and the laundry is started. Normally I like to leave the suitcase sitting in the middle of my bathroom for a few weeks and pile things on it because anything that is standing still in my house has a 100% chance of getting piles. It sounds like a disease doesn't it? It is and it is highly contagious if you don't keep it contained. Before you know it one case of piles will spread to other parts of the house and then it will require extensive treatment to get rid of. This time I decided to try something new to ward off the infection. We cleaned the suitcase out and put it away.

Sorry I missed SHS today. I think I need to take a break from it for a while. I have so much going on right now that I need to free up some of my brain power for other things. I'll still be working on my habits of course and you are all welcome to keep posting about your SMART habits if you'd like. I don't want to discourage anyone from SMART habit making!

So what am I doing that so important? I'm still trying to get my business organized in Quickbooks and with the help of a friend I'm working on getting a new website up and running. Some of you have noticed that my archives weren't working for a while but they are back up now.

Plus there is that whole parenting thing that I neglect far too often. I'm working on a new schedule to help us stay focused and get more done every day. Not that we need to get MORE done. We just need to get the RIGHT things done in a more efficient way.

Don't forget about about Talk About Tuesday Home Tour next week. I think I'm going to talk about my ceilings. It sounds exciting doesn't it? There is something about my ceilings that make them very cool and I will tell you all about them and how they came to be

I hope you're having a great weekend. Back to work!

Iceberg Overdose

Stranger was finally done with his meetings and we were driving around Sun Valley looking for a good place to have dinner. The kids were starting to complain from all the driving and and no eating that was going on so we fell back to our normal routine. We stopped to ask someone on the street for a recommendation. We always try to look for someone local because they would obviously know the best place to eat in town. Who we found was Ricky. Ricky was obviously local. He had a ponytail. Ponytails are always local. Turns out Ricky owned the small BBQ place we had pulled up in front of but it wasn't open for dinner so he told us about the next best thing.

You could tell by looking at this place that the food was going to be good. Look at the outside dining. The pretty flowers. The trendy decor. The locals. We had to catch our breath when we saw the prices on the menu but it was too late to turn back now and besides Ricky had promised it would be great. Ricky wouldn't let us down, right?

When our food was served one phrase of Ricky's stuck out in our minds. "They have great beer." Apparently when you're drinking great beer you don't care about the food. Do you see that side salad up there? That wasn't a side salad. That was the dinner salad that I ordered. It was a (small) pile of iceberg lettuce. It cost $9. I could have bought a year's supply of ice burg lettuce for $9.

Persistence ordered the kids chicken fingers that came with fries and applesauce. $6. She got two tiny pieces of chicken, not even a hand full of fries and when she showed me her applesauce I snorted. It was in a tiny little condiment cup, almost too small for her to fit her spoon in.

Stranger got to pick two sides with his beef brisket. $20. There were three sides to choose from. Two of them were coleslaw. He also ordered a soda. Refills cost extra.

We never order anything for Lovely. She only eats about four bites so we share. Except this time there wasn't enough to share. After spending $50 on dinner we all went home hungry. If it hadn't been so hysterical we probably would have been crying.

I reasoned that we had paid for the entertainment. The hula hoops that they had for the kids to play with were the most fun we've had all week. Besides, that's what convenience stores are for. You always know what you're getting with microwave popcorn and licorice.

We Should Do This More Often

I'm not a person who has a great desire to travel. I have always been a home body. Traveling just seems like too much work. And it's expensive. And we eat too much junk food. And I am just too serious and boring for my own good.

But when Stranger can finally get me out of the house, I do have fun. It's a bonus that I have developed a new method of torturing the children when they fight. Funny but everyone is getting along much better these days.

Talk About A Vacation In Sun Valley

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Not really but close enough. We're here for a Rail Road Union conference. Stranger gets to go to meetings all week while the rest of us play. If you can call hanging out with three kids and an infant by myself playing. With a pool and a skate park next door we may manage just fine.

More later...

What fun things do you have to talk about this week?

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

June Habit: Meal Plans Again!

Finally! We did a good job with meal plans this week!!! We learned something though. It's much too hot for meals that have to go in the oven.

Next week we will be eating more salads and stir fry. I finally made it to town today so we are stocked up on fresh fruits and vegetables for a while. Tomorrow we will be dusting off the green drink machine. It's time to start eating healthy again and it should also help me with my low iron problems.

Have a great week!

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Teach Your Baby to Sleep, Part III

Sweetness is 5 weeks old tomorrow and she's sleeping through the night!!! Not every night but she has done it a few times and I'm hopeful that it will happen more and more often. Last week she slept one 9 hour stretch and this week she has slept 6-8 hours straight almost every night. I call anything over 6 hours, sleeping through the night.

I have a few more reader's tips and questions to share.

Mrs. Organic said: "I let my babies get used to sleeping when the house was all noisy - no tiptoeing for us. It makes for better sleepers (in my experience)."

I agree. I actually keep my babies in the living room for the first month or so. I just moved Sweetness into the playroom (she doesn't have a room of her own yet, poor thing) a few days ago and it is right next to the living room. I leave the door open and let Lovely run in and out with her toys. I will be moving her into one of the kid's rooms pretty soon but I haven't decided which one yet.

Main Mom said: My newborns are hard to wake up, so do you have any suggestions on how to wake a baby enough to nurse?

Newborns are such sleepyheads that it is hard to keep them awake long enough to fill them up. I always nurse on one side until they fall asleep. Then I change their diaper to wake them up enough to nurse on the other side. I unwrap their warm blankets too. If that doesn't work I rub their feet or ears or do any annoying thing I can to keep them awake. It sounds like baby abuse but it's for their own good right? If all of that fails then I let them sleep for another 30 minutes and try again or I just hope they got enough to eat and wait till the next feeding. They do better after the first week or so.

Laura said: Does that mean you don't put her to bed with her pacifier at all?

*No I don't. Usually the only time Sweetness gets a pacifier is if Persistence is watching her while I shower or have a nap. (Persistence is my 8 year old, not the three year old in the photos!) She is a great babysitter and can usually get her to sleep without one but when all else fails she gives her a pacifier. We also use one at Church and other times when we're away from home.

If you let your baby use a pacifier at night you will probably be getting up all night long to put it back in their mouth. I tried that with my first and it was not fun!

Some women like to be human pacifiers. If I have just nursed my baby and she starts getting fussy she is tired. I have never had a baby that hung out on the breast. They nursed when they were hungry and stopped when they were full. If I try to nurse them when they are tired they turn their heads and scream so off to bed they go! And I cannot fall asleep while my baby is nursing. I wish I could but I can't so I feed her and and then she goes back to bed.

Kim said: One thing I like to suggest to people (if asked) is if your baby is going to be sharing a room with an older sibling don't be afraid to start it early and even before they are sleeping through the night. I move my kids out of my room at about 6-8 weeks old and right into a shared room. The older siblings get used to the middle of the night feedings and usually sleep through it by night three. Also, it gets them (baby and sibling) used to sleeping through sounds of movement, coughing, sleep talking, getting up for a drink or to go potty, diaper changes...or anything else. My kids that shared rooms as infants are my best sleepers.

I think it's good for kids to share rooms for many reasons but it definitely makes better sleepers. When my oldest were little they each had their own rooms. We slept out of town in a hotel room once for three days and no one got ANY sleep. They were both up all night long every single night. It was a nightmare! As soon as we got home I moved them into the same room and they have been good sleepers ever since.

*There have been a couple times when I was so deliriously tired and Sweetness refused to go to sleep so I put her next to me in bed with a pacifier. That's only happened a couple times. The moral of the story is do what works for you and your baby. You can make any plan you want but in the end you do whatever you have to do to save your precious post partum sanity.

Disclaimer - I have to say this in every post so no one misunderstands me.

If my baby is fussy and I KNOW FOR A FACT that she is tired and not hungry I always try to nurse her JUST IN CASE she might be hungry. Then I put her to bed. If my baby wakes up at night I ALWAYS FEED HER. I never try to get her to go back to sleep without nursing her. If your baby is hungry, FEED HER, FEED HER, FEED HER!!! And then put her to bed because she's probably tired from all that eating.

M by Staples Winner

Congratulations Miss Jen from The Life and Times of Miss Jen!! You are the winner of a sample bag of M by Staples products. Please send me your address. Thanks to all of you who entered! I have more giveaways coming up so stay tuned.

While we're talking about give aways, I need your help. I owe someone some free Organizing Bags but because I'm lazy I don't want to try to figure out who it is. You know who you are so could you email me your address again? Thank you!!!

Don't Believe Everything You Think

When you read my blog sometimes do you get the idea that everything is easy for me and I have some sort of perfect life? I have people tell me that all the time. I don't know how anyone could think that because I post often enough about my struggles. My house is a mess, my kids are difficult, and I have pimples. Actually now that I mention it my life doesn't sound that difficult. Hey you're right! I do have a perfect life! Not!!! I don't tell you everything you know. There are a few details that I keep to myself.

Like today. I don't even want to talk about what happened today with the kids but they will both be grounded for the rest of their lives. Right after Stranger takes them water skiing tomorrow. Yes, after that they are in so much trouble!

Seriously though. We were about ready to turn in our parenting cards today because we realized we can't teach our kids anything and there is no hope for any of us. At least that's what it feels like sometimes. How are we supposed to be raising kids to become competent adults when we can't even get our own lives in order?

Deep down I know that none of us is perfect and life is one big learning opportunity but some days it seems too much to face. We are having a hard time with one child in particular. I was so frustrated that I went into his room and starting cleaning. I thought that his life was hard enough and he didn't need all the clutter and junk in his room making it even more difficult. I boxed everything up and hauled it out of there. Then I scrubbed and vacuumed every corner from top to bottom.

I didn't do it to be mean. I really wanted to help him but I knew it wouldn't come across that way. I knew he would look at it like a punishment. When I was done he came in and sat on his bed and looked around. He got a big smile on his face and said, "It sure looks great in here! Thanks Mom!"

Imagine that. I said, "It does look good. I wish someone would do this for me. Just come and take away all the clutter so I don't have to think about it or deal with it anymore." Any volunteers? Does next Thursday work for you?

Organize Your Breakfast

Have you ever wondered what the difference was between a farm fresh egg and an egg from the store? Now you know. Guess which one is more nutritious?

My project this year is centered in the kitchen. I've been working on food storage and learning how to cook and grow new foods. The garden didn't happen like I had hoped but I still want to try my hand at canning this fall with whatever produce I can scrounge up from friends and neighbors. I ran into a neighbor at the store today who offered to share her garden with me. I swear I didn't chase her down and invite myself over to pick green beans and apples. She really did offer.

My kids are already a great help to me in the kitchen and we will eventually figure out the meal planning thing. Just so you know we made a meal plan this week and we are diligently following it. Two days down. Impressive, I know.

In addition to that we are implementing a breakfast schedule. We eat the same menu every week and we take turns cooking. We tried this before I had the baby but failed miserably because I couldn't get my butt out of bed to implement it. We actually resorted to cold cereal during those final days of misery.

We have weaned ourselves off the cold cereal now and are back on the schedule. Hopefully it works better this time around. (add fruit to all of the following)

• Sunday - eggs and toast, Victor


• Monday - hot cereal, Persistence


• Tuesday - muffins, Mom


• Wednesday - pancakes, Victor


• Thursday - eggs and toast, Persistence


• Friday - bagels, Mom


• Saturday - German pancakes, Mom

We set a goal of having breakfast ready by 9:30. Aren't we so ambitious? Today was my day and we didn't eat until 11:00. Clearly I have a lot of room for improvement. The kids think I need to set my alarm and get up before ten because they are hungry. I think carrots sticks make a great morning snack.

My kids seriously love this schedule though. They can see exactly what they will be eating (it's written on the white board in the pantry) and who will be making it. It assures their little minds that they will not starve to death. Eventually someone will be feeding them even if it happens later rather than sooner. It's funny how the person in charge of cooking breakfast is never as hungry as the people that are waiting for it.

Talk About A Giveaway

Welcome to Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting. Thanks for joining us!

Are you interested in getting organized with style?

I was invited to a fun workshop by Donna Smallin that Staples hosted last month. Donna shared organizing tips and demonstrated how the new M by Staples products can help people get organized with style.

I loved her idea for people who can't bare to file their papers away. She said if you have stacks of papers on your desk and you intend to keep them there, add a labeled file folder to the pile so you can keep them organized. Who would want to hide folders as pretty as these in a cabinet anyway?

Aren't these push pins adorable???

Staples also sent me some fun things to try. If you would like to win a bag full of M by Staples products take a look at their site and then leave a comment in this post. I will pick a random winner on Thursday. This giveaway is open to US residents. Please don't forget that I need to be able to contact you through email or your blog if you are chosen.

What fun things do you have to talk about this week?

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Confession Time

Remember when I cleaned my washing machine and dryer off a couple weeks ago? We regressed again. How does that happen?

I have had boxes of baby clothes out and didn't have the engergy to keep Lovely out of them. Because picking up baby clothes from every corner of the house is a lot easier than getting them organized and put away right? Ok, maybe not.

I got all the baby clothes gathered up and went through the girls' closet to weed out all the outgrown clothes. Then Persistence and I finally got them organized. What a mess it was! Can you see why I didn't want to do it before? There is fun organizing and then their is organizing that just gives you a headache. This was the headache kind.

I feel so much better now that it's done and the house looks better. We had one pile for charity, one box for 0-12 month clothes, one for 12-24 month and one for 3's. There is no organizing of Persistence's clothes because most of them go right into the garbage when she is done with them. She is very hard on clothes. I just took all her long jeans and cut them off into shorts for the summer because they all have huge holes in the knees. It's not like it was a long winter and they eventually wore out. She puts holes in her knees the first week she owns them. All her shirts have holes too. Why???? She doesn't know and I certainly can't figure it out.

My obsessive working out has begun. If you're interested you can find me at Eatopia. I'm going to be posting my daily workouts and would love to hear about yours as well. I didn't make it out this morning which is probably a good thing so I won't be tired all day. We'll head out this evening instead, blisters and all.

Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

June Habit: Meal Plans Again!

I don't know what my problem is but I cannot get back into a cooking routine. It's not because I don't want to cook. It's because I have no idea what to cook and nothing sounds good to me. One of my favorite meals is black bean burritos with homemade wheat tortillas. I put lots of fresh cilantro and lime on them and I could eat them every day. My kids will eat them but if I make them more than once a month they call the authorities and report me for child abuse. Stranger came home with cup 'o noodles for them to eat tonight. I think THAT is child abuse. (Stranger and I did make a great dinner tonight but we took it to book club so the kids didn't get any!)

The moral of the story is that I need to start making what I want to eat and let everyone else deal with it. (Where have I heard that before?) Having beans for dinner every night is better than no dinner right? You would think. But as my kids like to say when I tell them they can eat what I made or they can starve, "I'd rather starve."

Go for it!

Good luck with your habits this week!

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Teach Your Baby to Sleep, Part II

I can't tell you the number of emails I've gotten about my post, Teach Your Baby to Sleep. None of them were hate mail either. Isn't that shocking! They were either in support of teaching babies to sleep or from women wanting to know more about how to do it. I don't really know enough to be handing out advice (not that that has ever stopped me before). All I can do is tell you what has worked for me. If you want more information I suggest you start reading every book you can find on the subject and then do something completely different than everything you've read because that's basically how I do things. I read and then make up a system that works for me and my family.

In my post Teach Your Baby to Sleep I talked about waking your baby up during the day to feed her so she gets enough to eat and she doesn't need to wake up at night to eat. I can only add a few more things to that.

One is what I've heard people call Cluster Feeding. Babies tend to get fussy in the everning and they want to nurse more. Sweetness for example will nurse every hour from six or seven o'clock on until she finally goes to sleep for the night. I think this helps her stock up for the night and I think it also helps with my milk production.

Here is another trick you can try. Sneak your baby out of bed and nurse her one last time before you go to bed. Last night Sweetness nursed at 9:00 and then went to bed. Instead of wisely going to bed myself I stayed up to eat popcorn with my older kids. Sleep or popcorn? It was a difficult choice. At midnight, before I went to bed, I got Sweetness up to nurse her. I opened her mouth and put her on my breast without waking her up. If you're lucky your baby will nurse instead of turning her head and scrunching her eyebrows in sleepy disgust. What can I say? Sometimes it works and sometimes you just plain get rejected. I try not to take it personally! When it works though it's great because they get an extra feeding while you're still up.

Another key to a well rested baby is that they learn to put themselves to sleep themselves (As my three year old would say, "Mommy, I buckled myself myself!). That means I don't nurse my babies to sleep or use a pacifier or even rock them to sleep. I will rock my baby till she is calm enough to fall asleep on her own but I find that if I put her down after she is already asleep then she doesn't stay asleep. If she falls asleep on her own then she stays asleep and sleeps longer.

So how do I teach her to fall asleep on her own? I am not a fan of any kind of CIO (cry it out) method with babies. I used CIO with my second baby because things went so horribly wrong with my first and I didn't know what else to do but I didn't like it. The third time around I discovered a method that didn't involve any crying and I didn't feel like I was heartlessly abandoning my baby.

What I do is put my baby to bed warm and sleepy and happy. When she starts to fuss I pick her up and hold or rock her until she is happy and then put her down again. She fusses, I pick her up, calm her and put her down. Rinse, lather, repeat. In the beginning I might do this several times. Eventually she gives up and goes to sleep. She is four weeks old now and most of the time she goes to sleep the first time I put her down. She might even "play" in her crib for several minutes but then eventually she falls asleep. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. My older kids still like time to read or relax in bed and so do I! I can always hear my three year old in her bed after I tuck her in, talking and playing until she falls asleep.

One thing to rememeber is that tiny babies can only stay awake for an hour or so at a time. If I have fed and changed my baby and she if fussy then it is time for her to go back to bed. If I wait too long she will get overtired and have a very difficult time going to sleep.

Please never make a hungry baby wait to eat according to a clock or schedule. I don't let my baby snack and nurse all day long but if my baby is hungry I feed her. The only reason I look at the clock is so I can make sure she hasn't gone too long between feedings. I never use the clock to make her wait when she is hungry.

Stranger thinks I'm a wimp for closing the comments on my last post so I'm going to keep them open this time. Just remember that I'm posting MY OPINIONS, take them or leave them.

I may be editing this post if you have any questions that I forgot to answer.

Bundled Up For A Walk

We made it out for our walk tonight. Sweetness tends to get a little fussy in the evenings before she settles down to sleep but she loved the stroller so it was a nice, if chilly, time to get out. The last time we tried to take a walk we made it two houses away before I had to turn around and go home but we did a lot better than that this time. This time we made it all the way down to see the deer. Yes we have a neighbor who raises deer. I wanted to take a picture of them for you but it was getting dark so we'll have to venture out again tomorrow.

You misunderstood me when you thought I said I only had twelve pounds to lose. I have twelve PREGNANCY pounds to lose. Add about 30 more to that and you will have the correct amount of fatness that needs to come off of my body. Don't tell me "no you couldn't possibly lose that much weight" either because I know how much I weigh, how much I need to weigh, and what I look like naked. You don't need (or want) to know any of those things so just take my word for it.

I have big plans for the gym this summer. Not only am I going to get my butt whipped back into shape but I am going to get lots of work done under the guise of having fun with my kids. It's called multitasking ok?

One day I was thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if there was a swimming pool that had wireless internet so I could take the kids swimming and work on my laptop at the same time? Hello, there is!!! My gym has internet AND a swimming pool AND a nursery for my two little ones. We are going to be spending a lot of time getting skin cancer at the pool this summer. Aren't I such a fun Mom!

Thank You, Oh Wise Blog Readers

Slowly the house is getting back in order. Cinderella Lovely and I cleaned and vacuumed the master bedroom this morning. The dust bunnies were getting ferocious but they are back under control now.

Sweetness had a doctor's appointment this week. She weighed 8.8 at birth and at three weeks she was 9.12 so she's gaining weight at a good rate. She was 100% in her height and 77% in her weight. Despite her wimpy birth weight I guess there is still hope for her to fit into our tall family. I don't know how most people feel about it but I can't wait to find out how tall my kids are going to be when they are grown. Being 6-1" myself I have to wonder if my daughters are going to be as tall as me or even taller. I just hope we can afford to keep everyone dressed when we get to that point. Buying tall clothes is expensive!

I took the opportunity to weigh myself while we were at the doctor's office. I gained about 30 pounds with the pregnancy and I have 12 pounds of it left to lose. Apparently all those cookies and ice cream I ate the last month of my pregnancy didn't do me any favors. At this point I only have one pair of jeans and a couple pair of sweat pants that I can fit into. Now that I am feeling better (thanks to all of you) I am going to start walking. Today was supposed to be the day but it was too cold and windy outside to take the kids out and Heaven forbid I get to go by myself.

Really, thank you for your advice when I wasn't feeling well. I started taking iron like you all suggested and was feeling much better after just two days. Now that I think of it that was probably one of the reasons why the end of my pregnancy was so hard. I stopped working out three weeks before my due date because I didn't have the energy to keep up with it anymore. I was able to workout right to the end with my others so I couldn't figure out what my problem was this time. I should have gotten your advice back then!

Talk About More Babies

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We're having babies left and right around here and its so exciting!!!

For an update on the babies scroll to the bottom.

Ever since we bought our farm and our first three baby chicks from the feed store two years ago the kids and I have been dreaming about hatching our own babies. We finally gave up on the idea since none of our hens looked interested in being mothers. Several weeks ago we got rid of our rooster because roosters are just about the most annoying creatures ever and I was sick to death of him. Good riddance!

Except that two weeks later one of our hens got broody. My son was dying to have her hatch some eggs so like any good neighbor would he went next door and stole 8 fertilized eggs to put under her.

Everything was going great until last week when Lovely went out to collect eggs by herself. She took four of the fertilized eggs, brought them in and put them away in the fridge! I had no idea she could even get in the hen house by herself so it didn't occur to me to check the eggs before she put them away. Maybe my mothering instincts are running a little high these days but I was very upset when my son came in several hours later to tell me that four of his eggs were missing. Later when the kids broke them open to see what was inside two had deceased baby chicks in them and two didn't. Poor things!

The kids were so excited this morning when they saw that two of the remaining eggs were starting to hatch. We've been watching them in anticipation all day. Look at that sweet little wet head!

One of them has finally made his way out and we have some more bad news. No matter how many times I told my kids to leave the eggs and chicks alone they just could not control themselves. The Mother hen finally got fed up with them and abandoned her babies! Our neighbor came over to help us figure out what to do. She broke the second one out of it's shell before it suffocated and now they are both under lights in the house. One of the eggs didn't have a chick in it and the fourth one never started hatching and probably won't now that it's mother isn't sitting on it.

I'm mad because although I wanted baby chicks I didn't want to babysit them! We are going to sneak them back under their mother tonight and see if she will take care of them but if she doesn't then it looks like I will have two more noisy mouths to feed. For such tiny things they sure are loud!

It's been an exciting day around here for us countrified city slickers! What do you have to talk about?

Update

I can't believe it! That third egg hatched last night so we have three surviving chicks!!

This was the chick that wasn't strong enough to peck it's way out of its shell yesterday and after being abandoned by its mother none of us thought it would make it through the night. Look at it now! Its a healthy little chick!

The last of the good news is that the mother hen came back to its nest last night and she's taking care of her chicks again. Go Momma!

We've had baby chicks before and they are fun but it is nothing like watching our hen with her own babies. It warms my heart! You know I will posting videos of them together. You might as well get used to it. This is going to be a chicken blog for a while whether you like it or not!

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Smart Habit Saturday

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June Habit: Meal Plans Again!

I made two dinners this week. I guess that's better than none! I also make sour dough pancakes this morning which was pretty amazing since I have to start them the night before. I planned ahead! Tonight I'm starting sour dough pizza dough.

We did some organizing this week but somehow the house doesn't look any better. How does that happen? Oh ya, kids happen!

Good luck with your habits this week!

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.