Keeping my sanity...barely

This is a crazy week! There is a lot going on this week, but as I watched TV for a little while on Monday evening, I was very thankful for my crazy life. Have any of you seen "Jon and Kate plus 8" on TLC? Oh my goodness! I watch it every now and then and I have to say...I'm so glad I only have 2 kids!

Jon and Kate, as their intro goes, wanted to have a baby, so they went through infertility treatments. They had twin girls. They then wanted to have just 1 more child and ended up with 6 (!!!!) more. Three more girls and three boys. Cara and Mady, the twins, are 7. The sextuplets are 3, almost 4. Talk about chaos! Kate is very organized, but still. Eight kids is chaos anyway you look at it!

My friends know that I don't always do so well when there are a lot of kids running around, chasing each other, making lots of noise. I guess that probably comes from the fact that there were only 2 kids in my family and now we only have 2 kids. I am usually the one telling kids to slow down, use inside voices, no jumping on the couch, etc.

What really amazes me is how this family, the Gosselins, are able to go on these elaborate trips and with all 8 kids! I'm guessing that TLC must pay for them to go. Because in the past year they've gone to Disney World and stayed for a week at a huge house in the mountains in Utah. They also do a lot of smaller visits to places out East, where they live. They always bring along friends that help them watch the kids too. How does Jon, the Dad, get that much vacation and how can they afford to fly everyone there? The meltdowns of kids with too little sleep sure look familiar!

Another thing that blows my mind is that they always eat off of paper plates. Maybe if I had that many kids I would not want to wash all those dishes all the time, but I'm thinking they could at least use plastic plates and just throw them in the dishwasher!

Before any of you post that I would handle 3 kids just fine and think we should do it...that is not in the plans :-) (Because I can think of 3 off the top of my head that think that!!)

All right, this was a different post, but that was what I was thinking about :-) I have some catching up to do on my recorded American idol shows...maybe we'll have to have an American Idol marathon while scrapbooking on Friday night!

Tomorrow I hope to post some pictures of Elianna in the school talent show this afternoon jumping rope!

And as the into to "Jon and Kate Plus 8" says,"It may be a crazy life, but it's OUR life!"

State Gymnastics Meet

For the last 8 or 9 years I've been going down to St. Paul to watch the state gymnastics meet by myself. Several years the Apple Valley team or individuals were competing, so I usually had someone to sit with, and usually can find someone now to sit with too, but this year I had some company :-) Connor and Elianna have been doing gymnastics at TAGS and Elianna absolutely loves it! (Connor likes it too...but is not as passionate about it as Elianna.)

I figured Elianna was probably old enough now that she wouldn't get totally bored and ask 20 minutes after we got there when we were going to leave. I also asked if Emma and Abby Gorter wanted to come with us. They've both done gymnastics too and like to watch! Plus, two of the girls from Rosemount that have helped coach them were in the individual competition on Sat. night.

So we had a girl's night out to the state individual championships! It's a lot more fun to go with someone...and especially when the others are having a blast!
Emma, Elianna and Abby

A view of the competition floor.



We were able to go down on the competition floor after the meet. Apple Valley High School had brought their floor to the state meet for the last several years. They have to take it apart after competition, so I wear my AV fleece and get to go down and "help". I figured the girls would get a kick out of it...and they did! This is the last year I'll be able to do that, though, because the meet is moving next year to the U of M.

Clothes Horse

Elianna LOVES clothes! It's sure a good thing her Grandma House loves to buy her clothes! And Grandma gets as giddy as Elianna when Elianna's eyes light up at the new purchases. Of course the bigger thrill for Grandma is getting the clothes at a really cheap price! Well, on this day, Grandma came with 2 outfits for Elianna and she absolutely loved both of them! She wanted to try them on right away and do a little runway show for us :-)


Elianna had to go over to the french doors that lead out to the 3 season porch so she could see herself in a full length mirror :-) Grandma had told her this outfit was for spring, but she had to wear it to church the next Sunday. She just couldn't wait! :-)

Both my Dad and Jon thought this next dress was very 1920's, flapperish. It's very cute!

What a priceless look :-)

President's Day Reports

Connor and the rest of the 2nd graders at TLO had to write a report on a president. They also did group skits of Washington, Lincoln, and George W. Bush. All the parents that were there had to laugh. You could tell that the class is mostly boys...all of the skits had some reference to war/guns. They love to act out those scenes the best!
Connor and Jackson acting out part of their Washington skit.

Libby and Connor in their skit

Connor was the narrator for the skit

Connor giving his report on Harry S. Truman. They had to make a puppet of their president also and they had to be holding some item of significance. Connor's Truman is holding a newspaper with the incorrect headline of "Dewey defeats Truman."

Here's his class and their puppets. One of the girls did her report on Warren G. Harding. Jon wondered how she picked him, the most widely accepted worst president in history! She did talk about his drinking (favorite booze was whiskey) and that he often had girlfriends in the White House, even though he was married. She did end with the fact that he was NOT a good president and he did bad things :-)

We're still here :-)

I was told this morning that I had not updated in a while...so I'll do a quick post now and then update some more recent pics after I get the kids in bed :-)

Elianna at her Valentine's party at school

Connor at his Valentine's party at school

Tante Kirsten cutting Elianna's bangs, which were hanging in her eyes!