I feel a bad moon rising...

something weird happened tonight.  So weird I don't know how to process it.

Dinner.  dinner was so unusually successful tonight.  Well.  It was an hour late.  and Spencer wasn't even home (scouts) so you would expect this to be the beginning of a story of food-tragedy and madhouse-ness.  No.  no.  The kids were smiling, and speaking politely.

 Campbell only spilled her drink once. 

And the weirdest part was that they ATE. 

 Not one word (!) was uttered in complaint against the unfairness of having to eat the worst food on the planet. 

 No veggies were hidden under plates in a most obvious of fashions.  Carrots, peppers, peas, hummus, all happily ingested.

 Are you feeling freaked out yet?  Because this is not just exceptionally rare. 

It has NEVER happened before. 

 The home-made noodles were too wide and conspicuously wheat. 

The sauce was a little burned. 

 But rather than hearing "mom, you make the grossest food of all moms!"  I heard, "You are the best mom.  in the world.  no, the best PERSON!"  and "I'll never forget you, mom!"

Yes, it was an incredible night.  As in, I still can't believe it. 

And now I just have to sit and wait for the Universe to do something unexpectedly bad to return to balance.  It's the only thing that makes sense.

waiting..... waiting.... waiting....

(pictures are unrelated but cute.)

Are you asking for a CHALLENGE!?!

Oh, strongbad...

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So, I've decided this year to do a 30-day challenge every month.  It's fun.  wanna try?

The month of January was the financial Ramadan, and by that I mean that the challenge was to spend NO money (except the absolute necessities: food, limited gas, bills).  It was harder than I thought it was going to be. 

I chose this challenge for a few reasons:
-there are only so many ways I can contribute to the family finances.
-I thought it would be a good reminder to me of how easy it is to slip into a habit of spendiocity (yes, I did.)
-I wanted to get a good idea of my wants vs. needs spending.

I have to say it was harder than I thought.  By a lot!  I did fail a few times, like the week I had all my kids home with Strep throat and didn't have much by way of crafting supplies stocked up.  So I jumped the gun on a craft-closet revamp I'd been planning.

And we might of gone on a few more dates than was neccessary last month, but Spencer paid for those :)

But groceries, that is where I excelled.  I wrote out a detailed menu plan, wrote shopping lists for those, and stood my grounds on my list.  NO IMPULSE BUYS!  And that felt good.

So in the end, did it benefit me?  Well, yes, even though I failed a little here and there and I hated it most of the time, I'm really glad I did it. 

It DID open my eyes to how my spending habits have gotten more lax than they need to be.  It did make me grateful that we are no longer starving students.  It did get me in the habit of menu planning and it did get me out of the habit of impulse buys.

It did NOT get me new boots.  It did NOT get me new red pencil pants (although February is a new month!).  It did NOT get me the new photos and frames I wanted.

But I think it was worth it.  A good reminder of what things are worth waiting for, how spendiocious I'd become, and all that good stuff. 

So yeah, it was worth it. :)

and February's challenge...bum bum bum....get up and at 'em before the kids 6 days a week. 

This is a particulary hard one for me.  I sleep better in the morning so Spencer has been doing the morning shift.  But I know my day will go more smoothly if I start earlier.  So here goes.  I've been doing it since Thursday and so far have been really grateful for this challenge.  But we'll see what happens when the kids keep me up all hours of the night.

because I'm a good mom

 I want to nap.  And/or go eat raw cookie dough.  Or plan a big project that I'm not going to start soon. 

But, it's Sunday afternoon, I'm fasting, my brain is strangely "on" (in spite of my body being slumped over), so I'm going to blog.  It's for fun.

Did you know Campbell got stitches?  Probably, since "you" is probably one of 3 people who are also my facebook friends.  Let's say "you" is posterity instead.

The week before Christmas, a lovely but slow Sunday afternoon, Spencer headed off to do hometeaching.  The girls and I planned on playing together until Daddy came home and then we would go to the Christmas open house at the Chandler's.

Because I'm a cool mom, I let them jump on the beds.  You know, why not?  It's not like anybody ever got seriously maimed from jumping on soft mattresses.  I went downstairs for who-knows-what-reason and was followed by Cadence, leaving Campbell and Layla in the bedroom. 

That cry.  It's the unmistakeable "something is REALLY wrong" cry.  You know it when you hear it.  and I heard it.  I ran to the staircase and there was Campbell at the top, hand on her head.  I saw the blood pouring down her face only seconds later.  At that moment, Layla and Cadence also noticed the blood, and you should have seen their faces.  Shock, horror.  I ran up and put her on the sink to take a look.  The sisters were wigging out so I put Cadence in charge of keeping Layla out of my face--as soon as Cadence had a job to do, she had her wits back.  Campbell was staying pretty calm.  Or I should say, was easily calmed.  After rinsing a little to see what was going on I could see a big gash in her head.  I carried her down stairs to find my phone.  I took a picture of it to send to Spencer's mom to ask if she needed stitches.  As soon as I saw the picture I realized, uh, yeah, no question.  So I called Spencer, he came back, along with the sister he home teaches, Gail, so we could go together.  And we were off to the urgent care clinic.  

"Campbell, what happened?"
"I was jumping to the bed and Way-yah (Layla) got in my way."  She fell between the two beds and smacked her head on the wooden bedframe.  Hard.

She was very brave for her stitches.  The doctor was good with her and I held her while Spencer distracted her/took pictures/looked on curiously.

Then we went to the party. 

Sigh.  Campbell, you are going to cost us much in medical bills, aren't you?
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Campbell.... that kid.  She is too much sometimes!  Like how every time she goes "#2" she runs out of the bathroom and yells, "Mom, come see my poop!"  And then she drags me in there, with instructions to "cwose wew eyes---SEE!?!"  Only then will she flush.

the other day this happened and as she grabbed my hand to lead me to her poop, I noticed they were moist.  "Campbell!  You washed, I'm so proud of you!"  This was greeted with a guilty look and so I watched her for a few minutes.  I left the bathroom as she flushed and then watched her walk out licking her hands--big, comprehensive licks.  "Campbell, what are you doing!?!" 

"Washing my hands."

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

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So my other kids are hilarious, too.  But she's just at that age.  Let's see...

Cadence gave a talk in primary today about Noah's ark.  What she had rehearsed was almost exactly what the first speaker said!  She got up and without help from us, she gave her talk.  She was timid and slow, but didn't stop to ask for help.  She forgot the end but instead of stammering she just gave her own little ending and sat down.  I was really proud of her!

Layla is crazy.  She loves to do whatever her sisters are doing.  She is exactly like spencer in every way.  So excitable! 

Okay, I'm tired.  that's all I've got at the moment.  Really good post, I know.