Saturday, August 14, 2010

Family Fun

The last five days have been a whirl wind of kids, chaos, and my attempting to control it all. Now, by no means do we have a large house, and this week it felt smaller than ever. With family from out of town, family in town, and friends visiting all at the same time space becomes very important. We had our usual 7, plus my brother and his family (6), plus our our of town guest (3), plus a few friends (3) and my Mom who is a regular around here.

Chaos is what I called it, especially since the majority of those 19 were children. Children that when together in a group can tear down Mount Rushmore in mere minutes and fill the Grand Canyon with their laundry. I struggled to stay afloat of the dishes and laundry each morning. Mid way through the week I gave up on washing our houses clothes and instead focused on towels, sheets, and our guest laundry. This still meant 2 - 3 loads daily.

We went bowling up at Country Club lanes since my nephew said that he wanted to go. Four vehicles, 6 car seats, extra socks for everyone, four bowling lanes, 19 pairs of shoes and a bunch of bowling balls - we were set.

The kids had a great time, they all of course had to choose their own ball. The younger kids used a ramp to get the ball down the lane, along with bumpers to block the gutters. They were so excited to see the balls knocking over the pins. Ayden was especially impressed with them falling, he would throw his hands in the air every time and shout "YAY!".

Each kid bowled at least one strike, most of them more than that. The men all bowled together, which was great for us, less competition! :) All in all everyone had a great time bowling together.

Afterwards we took over the Del Taco across the street. They have 39 cent tacos, and we needed LOTS of them to feed everyone. We started off with 50 tacos, and ended up grabbing a dozen more. The staff there was great, they were super fast getting our food to us, which when you have that many kids you really appreciate that! Quick, easy and filling! Plus it made everyone happy, including the adults who managed to feed everyone for less than $60. A perfect wrap up to the day!

A little juggling

Sometimes the best laid plans have a way of going hay wire. Case in point last week, we planned to return to schooling. I was armed and ready with lessons, even though I didn't have all of our books, I was prepared with filler worksheets. Then I got the call that changed all that.

My sister in law called to say that she was in fact going to let the kids come down from Idaho to visit for a week. Great news, right? Oh they'd be there in 2 days!! WHOA NELLY! I didn't dare tell her that I had other plans for the week, or even remotely imply that I didn't want them to come down, so I smiled and enthusiastically asked her to call when they were leaving.

Of course I wanted them to visit, we talked about it several times, but I thought I would have a few weeks to prepare --- AKA stockpile excessive teen friendly groceries, give the house a full once over cleaning, and get a little school work done ahead of time.

The call came as we were enjoying ourselves at a River Cats baseball game, so I had to hold off on starting the to do list that I was building in my head. I tried my best to enjoy the rest of the game (despite paying a ridiculous sum for stadium food).

It was already late when we got home so I sent the girls to bed and got to work. After mass cleaning had occurred, and the kitchen cabinets were once again picture worthy (yes, I realize that few people actually look at the inside of the cabinets, but it makes me feel better), I allowed myself sleep. The day had been long, and I needed some. I still had more to do in the morning!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

A lil bit of us Giveaway...

Don't you just love charm bracelets? They remind me of when I was a kid, I had a bunch of plastic charms that hung on this plastic chain. I absolutly loved them! My grandmother still has them (along with a ton of other childhood things of ours) and she refuses to give them to me because she's afraid I'll toss them out.

Well if you were like me as a kid, walking around with a ton a plastic hanging off your neck and wrists, you'll want to head over to lil bit of us and check out the Charm Factory review and giveaway going on there for your chance to win your very own grown up version of that wondrful charm bracelet you had way back when. Adorable, yep! Fun, gotcha! So check it out today (contest ends soon!) and enter for your chance to win a charm bracelet that describes you.