What I learned from a GSN marathon

What else can you do when you are down for several days other than a non-stop marathon of Game Show Network? I don't know.

I have enjoyed the classics and grown to enjoy some new ones as well. I have cracked up at the outfits and hairdos of the 70's and 80's and wondered how being a contestant on Lingo effects your "chick magnetism." From Lets Make a Deal, to Press your Luck, to Card Sharks, Who Wants to be a Millionaire (original Regis version), How Much is Enough?, and many others there has definitely been a progression of what is considered a "Grand Prize" over the years. In 1963 on Lets Make a Deal, a GRAND prize was a 22 inch console tv valued at $400. People went nuts over this. Also entire electric kitchens ( in avocado green, I might add) worth a whopping $2000. Even a brand new car, a 1964 Pontiac Tempest, was valued at $3,927.

Then it was on the the 70's and 80's when I enjoyed Card Sharks and Press your Luck. Nothing like a bunch of middle aged men in one piece leisure suits with bad comb-over's screaming NO WHAMMY to brighten spirits. Big bucks was $1000 ( and a spin:) and the host of the show was a quick wit with his poetry about the whammy. The trivia portion of the show was ridiculous and has anybody else noticed that the whammy bears quite a resemblance to hmmm Satan??
Card Sharks was one of exceptional difficulty. Not only did you have to answer a mind boggling trivia question such as," we asked 100 Catholics are you offended by football commentators using the term hail Mary to describe a last-second desperation pass. How many said yes?" then you had to determine if the next card was higher or lower than the top card. The skill involved in making the high low determination really impressed me. What also impressed me was the incredibly intelligent women they found for that show. These poor ladies didn't even seem to know that every one was laughing at them. And while on the subject, the level of sexual harassment dished out to all women on these shows would certainly have put Wink Martindale behind bars now a days.
All in all though these shows seemed to be so innocent, you know other than a vacuuming satan erasing your $1400 cash and wicker furniture. People got genuinely excited over what seems to me to be small amounts of stuff. Their grand prize was what most people make in only a week or 2. Flash forward to the shows of today. Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Greed, How much is Enough?, Deal or No Deal. Enough is never enough. So many contestants leave these shows with NOTHING because it was never enough. How sad I say. Or how spoiled I say. Our idea of a blessing has changed from anything to anything significant. Are we blessed with a dollar even though we already have 10? Or is it only the $100 that blesses us? Or more than that? I want to jump for joy over an avocado green electric kitchen and not always be so willing to trade it in for what might be better. I want to be a grateful person, content in any and every situation.
That my friends is what I learned from GSN!

My kids learned to share this week!

I guess at this point I have about one reader left ( thanks mom) and the rest of you have probably given up on me. I really do mean to keep up with this blog, my intentions are good, but like everything else in my life, good intentions don't seem to get the job done.

I survived my week of 9 kids. Really it wasn't as bad as I expected. They were all really well behaved and the best part of all is that they all slept well at night. I can handle anything before 10pm and after 7am, but in between those times I cannot be held responsible of anything! Thankfully they are all great sleepers! Which is a good thing because they will all be back for a few days this month when their mom has her baby.

On Sunday of last week, Tyler got a fever. No other symptoms really, just a fever. He missed school on Monday and Tuesday and went back finally on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Samuel got a fever. Again no other symptoms, just fever. His lasted until Friday or so. Wednesday night I was playing cards with my girls. This is an event I look so forward to each month. We play twice a month, hopefully if nothing else gets in the way. It is so much fun to just play and hang out taking with me only the child whose meals are served from my body. On these card nights I am usually out pretty late. Well 10:30pm is pretty late for me anyway. This week by 8pm I was yawning so much that before 9pm I had to quit and head home. I was just so tired I could not keep my eyes open. I awoke on Thursday morning with.... A FEVER!!!! After all the moments of teaching my kids to share, now they decide to:) Now when my kids get fevers the might slow down a bit, but a little tylenol and they are good to go. I felt like I had been run over by a truck. Thankfully my mom was off work on Thursday so she came over to help me so I could take a nap. On Friday I woke up feeling a bit better so I went on about my business as though Thursday never happened. Bad idea. Better only lasted so long before I was down for the count with a high fever again. This flu is no little cold. It is "knock you on your butt and don't even think about getting up" bad. Fever lasted all day Saturday and Sunday and I woke up with it again this morning. I think Jay was probably pretty excited to get in the car and drive to work this morning after spending the weekend caring for all five kids alone and his big baby wife! He did wonderful though. Never complaining just getting my drinks, medicine, doing laundry, feeding everyone, changing everyone. I am so blessed to have him!!!!!

Well I am starting to have a headache again and I am feeling my fever going back up. I better find my way back into my bed. Hopefully I will be back with you before April!!!!!

Help I'm drowning in kids!!!!!

Due to an unexpected surgery of a friend, I have 5 extra kids staying with us this week. Yes that makes 9 kids under the age of 10!!! I have a 10 year old, two 8 year olds, a 7 year old, a 6 year old, two 4 year olds, a 2 year old, and a 6 month old! Things are going surprisingly well. I suppose the more kids you have the more organized you have to be. And organization is NOT my gift. I was able to get 4 kids ready for school and waiting for the bus with 20 minutes to spare!! Funny thing is that just last week my 2 kids missed school because we didn't make it in time for the bus! All of the kids have been very well behaved, that is a gift from God! Well I must go now due to my brood of hungry youngins'. I'm sure I will return next week with some stories about our adventures. I already have those posts brewing in my brain. Hopefully I will be able to remember!

Who are you going to vote for???

With all of the voting going on in other states and ours just around the corner, I thought I would share this cool website with you. Do you know who you would vote for? Does the one you have in mind really share your views or have we been swayed by "political spin?" Thought it was really informative. Check it out!

Click here

I had a dream

It is no secret that my kids love to eat. They eat obscene amounts of food and they eat all foods. They love herring, avocado, eggs, broccoli, and just about every other food that makes most kids squirm. For this I am blessed! The first questions my kids have when we do anything is what are we going to eat and whenever they go anywhere the first story we hear upon returning is what they ate. That being said, this obsession with food has now infiltrated the dreams of my 4 year old. He woke up this morning and was telling me he had a bad dream....

Sam: Mommy, I had a bad dream.
Me: Oh boy do you want to tell me about it?
Sam: Ok We were being chased by hot dogs.
Me: Oh my
Sam: They were trying to attack us and the only way to stop them was to eat them.
(insert Sam's tears)
Sam: Mommy I tried my best, but the chili dog got Tyler.
Me: (doing my best not to laugh) What is important is that you tried your best, right buddy!

Sometimes I really wish that I had the gift of dream interpretation!!!

Christmas 2007

Well it is the day after Christmas and I can't believe it is over. What a busy and exciting few days. On Sunday we went to Jay's mom and dads house to celebrate with the Jeeninga's. A great time was had by all. Here is the best picture we have ever gotten of all 5 kids!!
And this is a shot of the kids enjoying the awesome gift from Grandma and Grandpa Jeeninga
Oh yes it is a full size air hockey table. The kids love it. Jay and I like it too. On Sunday night Jay and I stayed up quite late playing.
On Monday we went to my Grandma's house for our Christmas celebration with my family. This is always the greatest day of the year. All of my cousins and their families are there as well as all aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents. It is a full house but so much fun. This is the only time of the year we are all together with our children. Here is a picture of the boys before we left the house

Here they are waiting patiently to open presents

This is the only time I will ever put a picture of me on the blog. Here is me with my cousin Lisa. She has been my best friend since birth and now I love to see our children playing together. She has 2 boys and then she went and had a girl in October. Not too sure what to do with her:) I am the one in purple for those of you who have never actually seen me.




On Christmas morning we actually slept in a bit. Jay, Jacob, Tyler, Camden and I were all up by 8am waiting for Sam who strolled out of bed about 8:30. After opening our stockings, each of the kids had one present under the tree. Jacob and Sam opened theirs but Tyler didn't have one. He looked a bit concerned for a moment, even fought back the tears, when Jay ran down stairs to get the video camera ready. Once ready he called Tyler down. Ty found a large blob covered by a blanket with a large bow on top. We told him to open his present and this is what he found....




I can't believe I actually bought drums to keep in my LOUD house of boys, but there is something about finding that perfect Christmas present that tends to send all reason out the window. He was ECSTATIC to say the least.
Here is the baby on his first Christmas....



I had 3 different baby's first Christmas outfits for him to wear for each day of our Christmas's but apparently I never took any pictures of him while he was wearing them. Since he pukes a gallon every 3 minutes, none of the overpriced outfits lasted too long. At least I got him in the bib.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas, and if you didn't, at least it is over:)


I know you are all proud of me finally adding pictures to my blog. I FIGURED IT OUT!!!!! Now I need to learn how to upload videos, but don't hold your breath-it took me almost a year to get a handle on the picture situation.

Questions

I know, I know, its been a while. Seriously, I mean to keep up with this blog and then before I know it, it's been a month. I am having a bit of writers block lately or maybe it is the children induced brain drain, either way I haven't been able to come up with much to write about. So today I pose to you, the reader, some questions. Some of these are my questions, others have been asked by my kids and I do not have an answer.
1. Mel, can you send me the recipe for that dip you made for mops? I am still dreaming about it!! Any other appetizer recipes would be appreciated. I have lots of "events" coming up in the next few weeks that require my bringing something and you can only bring spinach dip so many years in a row before everyone gets sick of it.
2. What's sex? This question was, of course, presented by my children. But it was delivered with such a shock effect, that I had no answer for them. I fell back, by default, on the "go ask your dad" answer, but I am not sure his answer was much better than mine. All I kept thinking was, "why do you need to know, your 6" but I figured Dr. Dobson taught me better than that, I just couldn't think of anything in that moment!!
3. Why is it that when boys play anything it includes sound effects accompanied by obsessive amounts of spit? The better the move, the more spit. Seriously, I don't get this one. Every time I play whatever it is we are playing, even uno, I end up covered in spit!!! And while we are on this one, why do I always have to be the bad guy?? And how come when you do the jump, kick, spit move, you kill me, when I do it, you magically put up a force field at the perfect time which sends it back to me and again I am down?????
Ok that is enough questions for today!


An update on the kiddos:
Today is the last day of school for 2.5 weeks and honestly I can't wait!! I love having my boys home with me. Sam will be SO excited to have his brothers home which means less spit activities for me:) Camden is 5 months today and he is doing great!! He is such a good baby. He NEVER cries unless he is hungry. He is rolling over and trying very hard to be a thumb sucker. I just keep pulling it out and giving a Binky. Gives me a feeling of more control.


Well that is all I have for you. Merry Christmas to all of you!!!!!