74 and Sunny

It's beautiful here in TN, the kids are having fun playing in the dirt.

What to do on a rainy day

Get wet of course! They were painting mud on their faces and running around doing an army scene. My other pics turned out blurry, it rained quite a bit today.
We just made peanut butter cookies and the house smells nice and the kids are full of smiles and praise. They said I'm the best cookie baker :)

My own worst critic

Do you have high expectations that you will probably never live up to? Well I do... I know this is a challenge that I have always had, I don't know where it came from. I'm not really a perfectionist but how I want to be and how I am are two different things. People tell me that I'm too hard on myself and they don't see the issues that I see.

For example, my parenting skills, to outsiders I'm patient and kind, my friend thinks I beat myself up too much. Last night I lost it with Cassandra, I was just plain pissed off, then I felt terrible and starting criticizing myself for getting mad. Now she had been acting this way all day with several outbursts and it was 1:45 am and I couldn't take anymore. Does that make me a terrible mother, in my eyes it does. I notice a hormonal pattern because I just realized that I'm getting irritated and going off about everything all of a sudden. Gotta love those hormones, while it's a valid reason it's still no excuse.

I hate getting mad at my child and I hate yelling but sometimes I do rant and rave...

Since my goal is mindful, respectful parenting this really ticks me off when it happens. I'm not perfect so what is wrong with making a mistake? I am aware and I try to do better in the next moment and apologize if I'm way out of line.

At least my kids and husband don't share in my *terrible mother* mode, they think I'm a great mother. It's just in my own perception, I just need to get it out of my head.

I will continue to strive to do better and be proactive not reactive but hormonal tirades just take over my good sense sometimes.

We have 2 neighbor kids that always come over and last night the boy went home to eat and his sister stayed here. When he came back and knocked on the door she opened it and said *come on in to the fun place* she is about 4 1/2 and he is 7. So I guess I need to get over myself, that's my advice...

Ok... I admit it

I am a person who likes things clean and free from clutter. Clutter bogs me down and weighs on me, it drives me nuts. Recently there were discussions on a couple unschooling groups I am on about clean houses, I didn't write in because I never seem to have a chance at the right time. I am apparantly on the other end, many people were talking about cleaning as it needed to be done but not worrying about it.

Someone wrote that they have sayings between friends like * if you don't clean for me I won't clean for you* or * If you want to see my house make an appointment but if you want to see me come anytime* Those are two I remember off the top of my head, I just giggled quietly...
I don't care how anyone else keeps their house but I seriously need to clean, not every day it does go in spurts.

I do the usual stuff every day but right now my house is a mess of course my friend doesn't believe me she thinks my house is never a mess
Well it's a mess to me, today we spent the day at the park so when I came home I did the dishes and laundry but that's all.

The bedrooms are a mess now I admit that lots of times I just pick up the kids rooms as I go and sometimes I ask them to pick up their rooms.
I let the mail pile up for a short while and stuff piles up then I have to declutter and get rid of it.

We have been playing lots of boardgames lately so those are out in the dining room along with papers, folders, books, crayons, legos, army men etc...

Jared always has something exploding, usually legos, they are everywhere :)

But... I need to get rid of the clutter, I'm not talking spotless just picked up and neat, well I do like to vacuum, I know I'm deranged, LOL!

Being an unschooling family of six plus two chocolate labs you can imagine that the house is nowhere near the way *I* would like it. I do try and keep it liveable for all of us though so it works.
I actually told my hsband the other day that if I could I would have the house not looked lived in, how crazy is that? I'm just compulsive seriously I want it to be warm and inviting but also clean and decluttered, I'm looking for the balance.

Star Wars

We have recently watched the original Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back and have been playing the lego Star Wars game on Game Cube. The kids just love it, they have been dressing up and acting out scenes, Jared is crazy about R2-D2, he has been building R2-D2 and pods and C-3PO with legos.

We haven't seen the newest Star Wars movies yet but we plan to. I think getting the original trilogy for Christmas would be nice and some action figures, Jared asked me if we could get an R2-D2. It's funny because when I was a kid that little robot was my favorite too :)

Clue

The last couple days we have been playing Clue, Cassie and Brenny are not reading yet but they wanted to play. I showed them how the cards match the rooms and weapons and suspects and they did really well. They are marking their own cards and recognizing the words on the sheet and matching them to the words on the cards. They are really getting the hang of it and doing quite well for just starting out.

Last week we were playing Rummy a lot and they did very well and they also wanted to keep score. This was new as I realized they weren't used to adding 2 and 3 digit numbers, I showed them how to line it up and carry over.

Tonight we just started a Monopoly game, we are taking a break from it but hope to finish before Jared starts throwing the pieces around.

So we have been playing lots of games lately and having a good time together.