Do You...

1) Ration your child(ren)'s holiday candy?  (I do!  We just finished last year's Easter chocolate!  I kept them in the refrigerator!  Time to start on Halloween's!)

2) "Pretend" to be asleep when you put your children to sleep... but REALLY do fall asleep?  (I do -- ALL the time!  Many times I find myself awkwardly stretching in their bed to finally realize it's NOT my bed and then wake up... at 2 AM or not at all!)

3) Cook one meal for dinner in hopes that your child(ren) eat something from it or they go to bed hungry?  (That's what I do... hasn't failed me yet!  If they don't want it, they pick around it!  I only make one meal because I am NOT a short order cook!)

4)  Pray the little one does NOT nap during the day so they are ALL in bed at the same time at night?  (I tell ya, it's pure bliss around here at 8PM... because they are all asleep by 7:30 and I finally wake up by 8PM -hee hee) 

5)  Lay out the next day's outfit?  (Yes, I do!  In the morning no one argues over what to wear because I can't function sometimes in the morning.  It's all routine!)

6)  Make and pack the next day's lunch the night before?  (Especially if the boys and I are going on an outing after we drop off MG at school!  Everything is packed and ready to go!  Morning time is no time to argue or think, it's GO, GO, GO!  Sometimes I leave the house at 8AM and do not return home again until after we pick up MG from school.)

7)  Stay up waaaay too late working on projects?  (I am sooo guilty of this because it's my only down and quiet time.)  This is what I've been working on:
A few birthday shirts for our friend, Theordore.  One word of advice -- white fabric paint on a dark blue shirt is not a good idea!  It was so hard to paint!  And the details on this R2D2.. .oh, man!  I thought it turned out nice enough.  And he was happy to wear it, so that made me even happier!

Hey, Marailee -- I tried the same picture you used but in a different way, what do you think?  I didn't have the same patience as when we worked on Nikash's.

A shirt for MD -- and since this one, we made a TIE fighter plane too.

E is so in love with one!  "I Yoda!"  he proclaims.  

And my favorite was working on Morgan's "outfit" for an upcoming birthday party.  Anita had given me some awesome fabric when she last visited.  It's been sitting in the closet waiting for me to experiment.  So, experimented I did!  I made her a skirt (similar to this but only 2 tier for now) and a baby doll mei tai carrier (I didn't really use a tutorial.  I looked at this one and adapted based on my ability or lack thereof!) I made MG's so it is similar to Olivia's since they play together often.:

And I also made a matching flower pin to add onto her shirt to match her skirt:

And now I am VERY addicted to making these flowers (same as above just without button) but now I am making them into hair ties!  She has a new one every couple of days when I need a break from editing.

8)  Check out library books in themes?  (So when the children ask numerous questions, you have back up references?!  I can only name so many Star Wars, Transformers, and Pokemon characters before they realize that I do not know them all by heart!  It's shameful, I know!)

9)  Make them listen to a variety of music?  (I may not enjoy them all but I try to expose them to whatever is at the library and beyond.  It's such a shame that radio stations have so much commercial.  That's why I don't listen to the radio with my children.  I check out a lot of CDs from the library and we go through them one by one until they find something they like and we talk about it.  Recently, they have been listening to see what instruments they can identify!  We're working on classical music right now.  They LOVE Mozart!)

10)  Read a lot to your child(ren)? (I love to read to them and they love to listen to me read.  I randomly pick up books off the library shelf and bring them home.  Sometimes we read books by the same author and discuss similarities and differences.  Sometimes we read books from authors we know and authors we do NOT know.  We read chapter books until we run out of the next sequence -- Magic Tree House for example!  Oh, we are waiting patiently for the next book!  We read books that are sometimes above and beyond our comprehension! I read some Greek mythology to them that they liked but when I went into detail, they were done with me!  Too much information could be a bad thing I guess!  They did not want to know about cannibalism -- and it was scary explaining it!)

It's been busy around here...and I am loving it!  Although I could use a few more hours of sleep here and there...