Here is my public service announcement for the day:

It is SHARK WEEK 2013 on Discovery!

::Post from last summer, but SHARK WEEK starts TONIGHT!::

My children will be crowded around the TV each night, sitting in the dark, freaking themselves out on the AWESOMENESS that shark week is! We look forward to this like people look forward to The Super Bowl, or The Olympics,  or new season of The Kardashians 🙂

I knew that shark week had to be coming up again as I had only a month before, finally gotten my 5 year old out of my bed and back into hers every night. That same irrational fear that I have about loosing my coupon binder, she has about sharks coming into her room at night. Go figure.

Tonight is the BIG night, we are watching the great whites at seal island. I thought we would make it even more fun and frugal to make up for last weeks disastrous non-frugal family night. I thought about having Sushi for dinner so we could get the real “shark” experience, but the kids voted me down.

We are having fish sticks instead and Pink Lemonade Pie because it is Shark Week Tradition around here!

And shark punch, I froze shark gummies in ice cube trays. Then made blue Kool-Aid and mixed with Ginger Ale. I added the shark ice cubes and the kids were thrilled!

Total cost for dinner and entertainment: $7

Total saved from last week: $104

Total satisfaction that “money bags” had fish sticks for dinner (she hates them): Priceless!

Oh I don’t feel that bad for her, I hate fish sticks and had to eat them also!

Do you watch Shark Week?

I should totally work for Discovery… they need to pay me to advertise for them! 🙂 

Paul was gone for just over 2 weeks last month with my oldest on a backpacking trip. While he was gone I thought it would be *fun* to enter a contest where we had the chance to win a trip to Italy.

Well, every day it got harder and harder to try and find the energy to make my video and finally I thought, “Hey, have the kids help me!”

Brilliant? No. Fairly stupid quite honestly.

They were really not in the mood. It was late and everyone should have been in bed. I really didn’t want to get mad and start yelling as that never ends up working and so I just kept trying to nicely work with them.

Wasn’t happening.

I stayed up until 3am trying to edit it into a remotely interesting video when I came to the realization that it just wasn’t going to happen. I thought about re-filming, but knew I didn’t have time. Instead of my beautiful Italian recipe I was going to showcase, I just put together basically the outtakes and called it good. It was all I had!

We didn’t win, we didn’t even make it to the final 5. But, if you want to feel better about your kids, and parenting, this video is for you!

Many of you that have been reading for a while, a long while, might remember the announcement of my pregnancy with this baby ^^^.

If you never had a chance to read that, it is worth reading HERE.

With this little girl, our family was complete. It just felt right. She was the one we were waiting for, and when she got here we knew it right away.

Her siblings knew it also. They loved her right from the very start. There has never been a 7th child who has had more attention and quality time with family than Andie.

She has 8 people who jump at her every command. Good and bad!

I had to fight to hold her since she was born. Everyone was able to hold her and rock her to sleep she had no idea what it was like to fall asleep on her own, she was always in someones arms.

She makes us laugh. She is bossy, a princess, funny, kind, caring, SMART, goofy and knows what she wants.

Much to her mothers dismay, her middle finger is her favorite. It is her favorite finger to point with, and the one that always needs a kiss when she gets hurt. It also happens to make other children snort milk out of their noses when she wants to show you something.

But she is always your best friend. “Who is your best friend?” you can ask her. “You are!” she always says!

Happy Birthday little girl! Thank you for being the piece that made our family complete!

I never really introduced our new “baby” Eleanor.

One day in January our 7 year old looked at Paul and I in the kitchen and asked, “why don’t we have a baby?” we looked at each other and asked her “what do you mean?” She sweetly explained that Andie was 2, and we always have another baby when the little one is 2.

I almost bawled.

Not because I want a baby really, but because sometimes you don’t realize how observant they really are. We just explained to her, that we think our family is perfect the way that it is, and that we probably wouldn’t be having a baby.

The very next day, my husband (who hates dogs) came home with Eleanor. I think he wanted a baby as well!

Eleanor is bossy.

Our big dog, is about 85lbs. He is my jogging buddy, and my foot warmer. He protects us and watches the kids. This puppy is going to make him nuts! 🙂

She jumps all over him, nibbles at his ears and eats his food. He looks at her like he could squash her in a second but tolerates her.

Our littlest 2 and this puppy are best friends. They lay on the floor with her, play dress up, and attempt to take her for walks…

There is nothing funnier then a 5lb dog dragging a bossy 2 1/2 year old princess around the duck pond.

They take her swimming and laugh when she dries off in the dirt. Then do it all over again. It is so funny to look at this bearded, big eyebrow bog, that looks more like a Muppet then a dog, and call her such a proper name as Eleanor. I think it makes me love her more!

But pretty much Eleanor fits right in… The Blue Bell addiction made her part of the family!

P.S. What is it with her bringing dead mice and moles to my back door?????? What is up with that?! My big dog has never, ever, done that. I am scared the kids will see them first, and so I have to check everyday to see what she has found. Ewwww!

This morning when I got up, stumbled into the bathroom half awake, did my business and then looked for the TP, I could not find it.

WHY?

Because it was ON THE FLOOR where it had been sitting 1/2 used because no one but me in the ENTIRE house knows how to put it where it goes when the old roll is done! I have gone into the bathroom to find the roll on the counter, one done in the holder and 3 empty ones on the floor.

Then it occurred to me. Maybe I never showed them how to do it? Maybe my husbands mother never showed him how to do it?

I decided at 6am that I would make an instructional video that YES we will actually be watching as a family tonight. Which I am sure will go over well with the 5 and up crowd. Sarcasm and snarkyness usually get the point across.

Is this a problem at your house? Am I the only lucky one?

P.S. Please excuse my appearance, I went to bed at 1:30am as each of my kids had a friend spend the night along with much of my daughters softball team, and got up at 5:30am to work.