My kids are AWESOME!!

We've had a good weekend, and I must say, we've been due for one! The kids didn't have school on Friday, but I did, so Doug took half a day off to spend with the kids which allowed me to attend my afternoon classes. Earlier in the week the kids had been begging me to build a fire and roast hotdogs because the weather has been so nice. However, it has snowed like crazy but the kids were insistent that we still do the fire. So while I was at school, the boys cleared off the deck so we could do the hotdog roast! Eric and his kids came over, and Chase and Garrett each invited a friend and we had our 6th child over, Mr. Brayden, so all in all I think we had like 11 kids total. We roasted hotdogs and drank kool-aide and listened to Garrett's friend, Braden Oler tell hilarious stories.

After it started to get a little dark, we took the kids to Orchard where there's a little hill by their track. We all went night sledding and had so much fun. The kids were hilarious, orchestrating "wrecks" and doing all kinds of crazy stuff.

On the way home, I had the car full of boys. I introduced them to "Chinese fire drills", not anywhere dangerous, and it was absolutely the funniest thing I've ever seen. All these crazy boys running around my car, giggling like crazy people. I loved it.

Saturday was spent doing chores. I've introduced a "check system." The kids earn a check every day for keeping their rooms clean. They can earn extra checks for doing extra chores, like helping with household chores or extra big chores like cleaning out the garage or things like that. At the end of the week, they're rewarded with a prize. It's been working fairly well. Of course, Chase is the most motivated because he's my pleaser. Mckenzie and Carter are pretty motivated because they want stuff. Ethan is somewhat motivated, but not really. And Garrett is completely oblivious. He just does what Chase tells him to do because they share a room. However, everyone at least got a check per day and were able to go to the store and buy something. They were pretty creative in what they bought. The boys are collecting Pokemon and Mckenzie is collecting Littlest Pet Shop. We had Carter's little friend with us who bought lots of gum and a soda... I apologize to his mother.

Today was our relaxing day, Mckenzie and Carter slept with me last night so we ended up just staying in bed this morning watching TV. I like to watch whatever the kids are watching so I know if it's appropriate or not. I've gotten a kick out of shows like Spongebob and a iCarley. They make me laugh out loud. I don't know if that's because I have a simple mind or because I'm exhausted 99.9% of the time. The scripts are actually pretty witty and quick. But I'm actually surprised at how many inappropriate shows are out there aimed at young kids. WOW! Anyway... the kids have been raving about this show called Big Time Rush and apparently the son of one of our ward members is in the cast. So I watched a couple episodes with the kids and it is actually pretty funny. Garrett can pretty much repeat the script verbatim, which is kinda funny. As a trade off, since I had to watch their shows, I made them watch one of my shows.... Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. We spent a good part of the day laughing our heads off.

I was reminded at how fun my kids are, how much we laugh together. The last few months have been so stressful that I've just been in survival mode. It's been nice to just hang out and relax and enjoy everything again.