Lance had surgery yesterday to wipe out his acid reflux.  He’s been pretty miserable with the whole thing so I’m hoping this works.  It does make menu planning pretty easy for the next six weeks.  Can you say cheap and easy for the kids?  Sandwiches for me.  Maybe we’ll lose some weight around here.

I finally came up with a plan for Baby Z’s first birthday party.  SO. FREAKING. EXCITED.  Now to figure out a time and invitations and something for the kids to do.  Plus, I need a way to make this affordable considering that Christmas is a week after her birthday.  Am I really going to be able to have people at my house with all of my nativity scenes out?!

Goose has a project due on November 1st.  He’s known about it for three weeks.  He is supposed to read a book and summarize it by making a mask and diorama of a scene from the book.  Thus far, he has drawn a circle on a green piece of card-stock.  As for me, I  have spent $60 at Michael’s on this project.  I admit I got really angry about his lack of progress tonight.  And last night.  Then I read something about words lifting your kids up.

Insert a lot of guilt my way.  So while it still pains me to no end, I am going to back off.  This is his project.  He knows when it is due.  He knows there is football to watch this weekend and that there is trick or treating on Monday night.  If the work isn’t done, he will miss out on a lot.  And I won’t yell.  I will assist IF asked, but will not intrude unless he shows me a really bad project.  In that case, he does it over, but I feel like I’m making progress.  I’ve been doing this same routine with Squirt for years with no change.  I always assumed Goose would be different once he was at school.  And he is, in many ways, but it appears he isn’t a worker bee when it comes to projects either.  My goal is to teach him logical consequences now rather than later in life and keep my sanity at the same time.   Who thinks I can really back off?

Oh Nutella.  I have fallen in love again.  I used to eat this by the spoonfuls in college and law school.  But then I stopped buying it.  I figured it couldn’t be that good for me.  Then I started finding all these recipes on Pinterest and found myself buying a nice two-pack from Costco.  Forget the recipes, I am back to eating this stuff by the spoon.  The best part of Lance’s surgery is that I don’t even have to share.

It’s that time again..I need to start shopping and coming up with ideas for people to buy gifts for my kids.  But before I do that, I have to get this off my chest, tacky or not.  First, I’m all about SIMPLICITY this year.  (Simplicity needs to become a way of life for me, not just in gifts, but in everything I do.)  Last year was totally and completely out of control.  No other way to put it.  As recently as this month, we brought out gifts we had put away from last Christmas.  And that doesn’t include the stuff I had already donated that was never opened.  Personally I would love to go the “Jesus got 3 gifts” route, but I know that won’t happen just yet.  Until then, I am begging for moderation this year, in fact a family gift is a great option.

And with that statement, I get tacky.  Lance is all “we need to tell people not to get our children gifts because we have too many.  And definitely don’t buy us gifts.”  I’m fine with not getting gifts, I’m not a fan of gift baskets which seems to be the gift of choice for a married couple.  But that said, I don’t have any interest in telling someone not to get me or my kids gifts just because there are a lot of us.  I figure at this point in time, people can decide on their own whether they want to buy gifts or not.  Why make things awkward by telling them not to buy gifts.  And really, nobody cares, not even the kids, they don’t notice.  (I’m also a fan of birthday gifts rather than Christmas gifts for extended family, but again nobody seems to agree with me…)  Anyway, I don’t see why I’m left to come up with gifts for people that I think they will enjoy only to have my husband tell others not to buy my kids gifts.

I know, it’s pretty tacky for me to say that, but my blog, my thoughts.  And to make up for me being me, I’ll post some really cute pictures of Baby Z later today.