"Chickens in the Headlights"

I have been listening to this audio book, and so far it has been pretty close to what its like at my house. Its about a big family of all boys that had chickens, and goats. Sound familiar to anyone (for those who don't know we have chickens, turkeys, and have dabbled with goats, and cows). Its pretty entertaining.
Also I have been reading 123 Magic (parenting book). I like it a lot! So far its been working out nicely. Even Sam is taking to it (Sam is my out of the box thinker). What you do is give the child three strikes before timeout. The key is to show no emotion when dealing with them, and absolutely no arguing with the child, then when the time has been served let them out with no lecturing. That's it! Well gotta go, Have a great New years eve! Heidi

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I hope everyone's Christmas was full of holiday spirit. We had an interesting morning.....just as we were going to bed (at 3:30 this morning) Aaron woke up to go to the bathroom, and saw Santa indeed had come to town. Well then you can imagine the chain reaction. Aaron woke Evan to tell him, then they woke up Cody, and Sam. I fell asleep for about a half an hour till I hear Tarzan yelling his jungle call through the house. The boys were in the living room with their stockings (I'm sure they thought it was the only safe item to touch, they know to wait for Mom & Dad), eating candy, and watching their new movie Tarzan. I'm surprised they didn't sniff out the popcorn Eric, and I had had out. They got so loud in the next hour that I had to send them down stairs with the Nintendo. I knew better than to send them back to bed, besides that would have been tortuous for a child to have to lay in bed and think about the mounds of presents they just witnessed. Finally Whyett woke up, so I pushed, and kicked at Eric to go get him. Of course he was almost oblivious to what had been going on all morning. I wanted to sleep but didn't want to make the boys wait to long so I dragged myself to the couch nearest to the tree to try and delegate things. We talked about the real meaning of Christmas and such, but there attentions were definitely elsewhere so I quit putting off the inevitable. I am soooo tired! I think I'll try for a nap later....

The Mom song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMhuAtyFCrw
This is hilarious! I enjoyed every second of it. I'm afraid until I figure out how to put the site page on here you will have to paste it to your search bar.
Also I tried the clear gel recipe for bottling apple pie filling, and its sooo beautiful, and equally as tasty.

Kid Survival Tips 7,469 & 7,469.5

I posted this on my personal blog, but thought I'd post here too in case y'all don't read my blog --you totally should, but just in case :)

Tip # 7,469
If you are going to write on your sister's bedroom door, please do not write your name and school number. Even with a dry erase marker. Choose something a bit more clever, like say, her name and school number. While we all agree that your parents are complete and total morons, there are some things that even they don't miss.

Tip # 7,496.5
Your Mom is a total spaz- remove the sticker before she sees it.

Favorite Toys

We actually have a small handful of toys the boys, and I really like to play with. Lego's are a must! The train set with the magnetic trains (we got ours from Target, and Ikea) we have enjoyed on an almost daily basis, and the pieces fit together perfectly even though they are from different companies. The kids have even discovered that if they try to push the magnetic trains together with the wrong polarities the train will move by itself, they thought it was pretty good magic till I explained how it worked. Lastly bikes, scooters or anything of that nature is big when the weather permits. Besides those most toys popularity come, and go frequently around here. Heidi

? Why do I buy so many Christmas presents?

Kids are so creative. Do they really don't need a bunch of toys, and nick knacks at Christmas? Most everything gets forgotten in the toy boxes anyway. In fact I really tried to get my hands on a refrigerator box, so I could give that to my kids for Christmas. My children could log soooo many hour on playing with card board, hmmm....there's sliding down the stairs on it, or racing with a brother down the stairs on two cardboard slabs, (which is their personal favorite, to my torment of course), shutting themselves in, and getting pushed around the house at top speeds, (which can get scary when you have an 80 pound-er pushing a 35 pound younger sibling, I think a lot of the time the younger ones put up with the torment just to be apart of the older brother crowd), of course there's always turning them upside down punching air holes, and playing some alien game, oh and this ones the loudest of them all, we have this cardboard barrel that they love to get inside and be violently pushed around in. The more crazy, and violent the better I think. There are so many more things they think of, this is just off the top of my head.
Last year they used cardboard as sleds! It was very funny, lets just say it wasn't always smooth sailing!! lol. We don't have a steep driveway, in fact its pretty flat, but with the packed snow on it they figured out last year that if they get a running start they can get pretty good momentum down the drive on just about anything. Cody found out the hard way that sliding on his knees was not a good idea, because the next day he was so sore he could barely walk. Later this week there wasn't enough sleds for everyone to play on so they grabbed shovels, and tried doing sort of a snowboarding thing down the driveway. So I am left to wonder whats the point of all the expensive presents?????