If you are reading this, yes I am here! If you leave you should be able to come back…. See, there are things called servers, nodes, and mother boards, stuff that I turn over to professionals to take care of because I have a bunch of other stuff to do all day long. Occasionally, no matter what you are paying them, they send you emails using words and phrases like, “emergency, catastrophic, and total data loss” and you have to just back away and let them take care of things.

While waiting for my site and a few others to come back from website purgatory, I was able to spend some quality time with my husband at a blogging conference. I learned a lot of really cool new things and met some AWESOME people.

These are a few of my take a way’s that I want to share with you:

• If you eat non-stop on vacation you WILL gain weight. Let’s get that insight out of the way.
• If you watch “The Help” on the plane in the dark with lots of dark eye makeup on and start crying. The cute male flight attendant will ask you if you are O.K. and proceed to hold your hand and find you something to clean mascara off your checks.
• EVERYONE else on the planet owns a black wheeled suitcase.
• Your husband can sing “Baby Got Back” to karaoke with 2 other frugal blogger back up “dancers” on stage and you don’t have to change your last name. Don’t ask.
• My sister is a ROCK STAR for watching my kids and only lost 1 of them, but found them an hour later. Everyone is fine.
• I seriously love my blog, and my little space here on the web so much that I get physically sick when my site doesn’t come up.
• If the nice people at the airport say your plane leaves from gate C16 and you sit at C17, you will miss your plane.

It’s good to be home, both on the web and physically!! I missed you guys!

I just thought I would give you a FREE public service announcement for the day…

First, on a side note, have you ever noticed that it is impossible for a blogger when typing the word “FREE” to not CAPITALIZE it?! I don’t think that it is physically possible for me to not type FREE in caps. It is like I do it in my sleep.

Back to the FREE information.

My daughter who is darling and sweet at 20 months old, would like you all to know that 1. Dove Ultimate Deodorant does NOT and I repeat NOT, taste as good as it looks. 2. She did not eat enough to hurt her, and probably won’t think it is a push up popsicle again. But always call if your child eats something strange.  If you perhaps had a 20 month old that wanted to eat Dove deodorant for some reason. Not that we would know or anything….

If you have an exposure, you should call your local emergency number (such as 911) or the National Poison Control Center at 1-800-222-1222.

There is NO ONE online tonight!

I looked, a few times. Apparently everyone but me has a hot date or at least something else to do besides sit on the computer. 

I cruised by my favorite blogs and about shot ice water through my nose when I read my sisters (the Kitchen Aid Killer) account of what it was like watching my kids this past weekend.

This past weekend Paul and I went to a conference and had my sister fly in to watch the kids.

This is her account of how it went….. It is titled “At Least They Are Alive.”

By Anna.

When Jeff and I first got married we both thought we wanted six kids. I know. Sounds like a lot. But we both came from a family of six and we loved the constant party. Then Jeff spent a weekend babysitting my sister’s kids when they only had six. After that, he said let’s just have the dog and squirrels.

Obviously he’s warmed up a little since then. Anyway, my sister and her husband had to leave for a few days for work. They flew the baby and I in to make sure the house didn’t burn down. We were barely successful. It was a pretty busy trip and most of the pictures I took came from my cell phone.

I also took this photo to send to my nephew, he was wondering where I was and when I was going to be there because he needed a ride to Scouts.

It was super fun to be at my sisters again. I forget what a daily party life is with seven kids. There is never a dull moment. My baby was in hog heaven with all the kids carrying him around, although he didn’t sleep well at all that first night. He kept waking up in the pack and play and screaming bloody murder. He has never slept with us, so I thought maybe I’d give it a shot and he’d be happier if he was right next to me. Um. No. It was awful. He couldn’t get comfortable. He slept on my neck, stomach, chest, arm, and leg until I finally moved. Then it was time to get up, anyway and I’d only had about three hours of sleep. Ugh. But, I woke up and enjoyed riding bikes with one of the kids to school. It was soooo beautiful out!

Later that day Tiffany sent me to get my hair done. I think she was embarrassed to be seen with someone who had such bad roots. Then the hair dresser cut my hair and told me in her little accented voice that my dead ends were “unnecessary” so she was going to cut them all off. “Theez, theeez are unnecessary. I cut dem off.” I love it though. Went with the full bang this time instead of side ones. I think I like it.

From there it wasn’t too bad. I picked up the three littlest ones from preschool. We played for an hour and then went to pick up the three from elementary school. I met a friend at the park, when we got there I counted kids, and between the two of us we had eight. Seven of which “belonged” to me. My baby met up with a friend he knew from way back when and she showed him how fun it was to eat mulch.

She lost a tooth! And a fish. But we won’t talk about that.

Miller lost a lot of blood. I don’t know how, because this happened during the time when the microwave caught fire. I heard when it happened though, because I locked half the kids outside and said they couldn’t come in until they picked up the driveway. Three minutes later they were screaming that Miller was bleeding everywhere. I thought it was a joke, but no.. he really was trying to bleed to death on the driveway. That picture doesn’t even do it justice. That was me holding him still for two seconds to take a picture and that’s how much he bled.

Thankfully, he eventually quit bleeding, I asked the oldest kid hose the driveway off,  he yelled at a younger kid til she did it for him and we ate dinner. With all the windows open so we could try to breath through the smoke from the microwave incident. Then I left the little kids with the oldest kid so I could drop a couple other kids off at softball. When I came home the bigger baby had a pen and had drawn on herself and their brand new sofa. I couldn’t get the pen to come off. Awesome. Microwave-broken. Dog-bleeding. Sofa-ruined.

Morning rolled around and it wasn’t as rough as I thought it would be trying to get all seven kids to school. The oldest took care of himself, and the next five just needed a little help before they caught rides. Then I was just left with four little ones. They played so dang well together I almost didn’t want to take them to preschool. Until one started crying and they all followed. I dropped them off at school a few minutes later.

Feeding nine people isn’t as easy as it looks. For dinner I asked the kids what they wanted. Most of them said pancakes. We ended up with German pancakes. Three batches. And two pots of Cream of Wheat and a small batch of the best scrambled eggs I have ever made. All of this took three hours and one trip to the store. I asked if they could find brown sugar and syrup, and of course, they couldn’t. So we went and bought some only to have another kid say, “Oh, wait, here it is!”

Saturday morning rolled around and was a balmy 37 degrees with a lovely wind. I took the four older girls to softball for three hours – I am so glad I left all the babies at home with a babysitter! It was miserably cold and all I wanted to do was hide in the truck. In between we went to HEB and caught the tail end of what they’re hoping is the largest flash mob ever. Seventy six thousand employees singing at the same time at every HEB.

Then we went home and picked up the little guy for baseball. I am not sure he had a clue what was going on, neither did any of the other kids, but they sure were cute. I could’ve just died watching them. My little baseball star and some other kid kept calling each other “eye balls” and laughing. I had to separate them.

That night for dinner we decided to ride our bikes to McDonald’s. Miller dog decided he was going to come with us. Then he changed his mind and ran home. Then he changed his mind and ran back. Then he changed his mind and tried to get hit by a car three separate times while I tried to catch him. Then I gave up and yelled at a kid.

Church on Sunday started at 8:30am. We got there at 9:30. I was tired. The fourteen year old was tired, too. But not too tired to scream “Hallooooo” out the window at every passing car.

Also…. this is him as he tried to take his hoody off. You can’t tell, but instead of unzipping it like a normal person he tried to pull it over his head. He pulled off both shirts he was wearing and got stuck. I almost peed my pants laughing. This is also what my sisters kitchen looks like after she has been gone for a few days…. No one tell her!

And that was the end of my stay. Sonia came and drove me to the airport-we had to convince Miller he wouldn’t fit in my carry on and that yes, they would notice him.

I feel bad the house was trashed when I left – but at least the kids were alive when their parents got home. That has to count for something right? I think that is pretty good, since three of them were taking turns throwing knives at each other when I left.

I wanted to say a quick HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! This is the day without looking silly you can tell anyone and everyone that you love them! I want to let you all know how much I love you guys, thank you for coming by each day to see what is up, for kindly reading my stories and for helping me find all the best deals. You have no idea how much you feel like family to me, and I really love everyone of you!

I also want to encourage you to write a love letter today. It sounds goofy I know, but there is something about getting a “real” letter and not typed that is so special. Here are some tips from “Larry” and you can go HERE to get some help if you need it.

• recall when you fell in love with him/her
• explain how your life has changed for the better
• describe how much you miss your love when you’re apart
• explain that you can’t imagine life without him/her
• list some of the many things you have in common
• tell how wonderful and complete he/she makes you feel
• recall some special moments you’ve shared together
• mention times you’ve picked him/her out of a crowd
• list qualities that set him/her apart from everyone else

Seriously, I am going to sit down today and write my husband and each one of my kids a real LOVE LETTER telling them what I think is so special about them and why I love them. In my own handwriting and not typed…. they will be shocked!

If I could write you guys one I would add; that I appreciate how you are encouraging to each other, how I get the nicest comments and sweetest emails more than any other blogger I know and how you are always willing to help each other out!

Photo Credit Studio Remy 

My kids have played ball for a very long time. Our spring and fall is happily filled with days and nights at the ball park. I love it! My husbands usually manages a team or 2 or even 3 and I help coach. This season my sweet 4 year old wanted to play. We usually have them start later as we just have too much going on. However, he is very convincing and you have to admit 4 year old with bats and gloves is fun to watch.

At some point in my sleep deprived stupor, I signed myself up to manage his team. This is really fun for me, I am always in the background and helping. But now I get to make the decisions and quite honestly, I am better with the the under 6 crowd as far as behavior goes.

We had practice the other night and one of the first things you teach the kids is “baseball ready.” Basically, you want them to pay attention and not get hit in the face with a ball, but also to be able to catch or stop the ball. In this position you spread your legs apart about shoulder width and get your hands down ready to get a ball.

I went to practice with my 6 year old softball player and they practiced “softball ready.” I helped her and was showing my 4 year old what we would be doing at his practice. A little later we had the 4 year olds practice, and for a while taught them “baseball ready.”

The next morning….

Alarm goes off at 4:50am. I roll over to turn it off, except that I could NOT roll over!

“OMG! Paul!! I can’t move!” I yell. “I think I have the flu or something, my whole body hurts.”

“Oh no, do you have a fever?” He feels my head, no fever.

“I just hurt so bad.”

“Well, stay here, I’ll get Tuck going.” He goes to get my Tylenol also.

“I don’t think I am sick, it’s just my legs and thighs that hurt. It is so weird.” As I try and get out of bed.

Then it occurs to me. I am sore from BASEBALL READY! Pathetic. Just Pathetic.

I am sure the 4 year olds in baseball and the 6 year olds in softball aren’t sore! I am getting old!

Today my kids hysterically announced they had seen an animal in a hole in the yard. Putting their heads together and drawing from all the wildlife animal experience they have had, plus the movie G-Force, they decided that it was a mole.

Now they must formulate a plan. Using what resources they have available, or what resources any couponing Mom might have…

100 bags of S’mores Goldfish (my personal favorite right behind the cupcake ones!). After 15 minutes of work or AGES in the attention span of a 4 year old, this is the plan.

The mole will smell the Goldfish… he will then come out of the hole and follow the trail of Goldfish to the empty pot. Thank goodness I have not been motivated to actually get a plant in there, I would have ruined their plan. Sheesh!

Once at the pot, he will want the YUMMIEST Goldfish at the top of the pot, jump up to get them, and FALL into the planter. Where he is now stuck and they have caught him.

“What will you do with him when you have him?” I ask.

Blank stares. They have obviously have not gotten this far into the plan.

“Call the police.” They say matter of fact.

“Well, lets not call the police and wait until we have him, then we can figure out what to do.” I suggest.

I am not worried, as I walked away, the 18month old was eating the Goldfish trail!