Survivor - Outwit, Outlast, Outplay

Last night Avrie and I had our own version of Survivor, it was a close call but in the end I won. It started innocently enough at bedtime 8:30 -time to brush teeth and read stories and then Scott comes in and lays down with them until they fall asleep that usually only take 5-10 minutes each night. That went fine until about 9:15 when Destina came downstairs complaining that Avrie woke her up and she is trying to sleep. So we took Destina back up and she fell asleep again right away but Avrie laid there and played for awhile. At 10:30 I was tired and ready to go to bed and guess who came bounding out of her room ready to play? Yep, Avrie so I thought if I let her lay down in my bed surely she would be asleep by the time I got all ready for bed. Nope she just started bugging Scott who was already asleep because he was up really late the night before. He got mad at her so she came into the bathroom with me and started her "whatch you doin, mommy?" with everything I was doing, um brushing my teeth, washing my face....this is where the outplaying came in she was definitely outplaying me she was ready to go!
So now that I am already for bed I thought "well I will have her lay here next to me while I read" she will for sure fall asleep now it is almost 11:00 pm she never stays up this late! Nope she was still outplaying me...she would get into bed fix the covers cuddle up next to me be still for about 30 seconds then whip the covers off, get out of bed, go into the bathroom turn on all the lights, hang out in there for a few minutes, turn out the lights, get back into bed, adjust all the covers just right and cuddle back up to me, my game plan was to just let it run its course because she had to be getting tired. Nope she did this over and over again adjusting her tactics only slightly. Finally at 11:30 and I clearly see that she is not going to settle down and fall asleep I come up with my next move I turn out all the lights and pretend that I am sleeping. This did not work at all she is now starting to outwit me as well, she is wearing down my defenses, I am really tired and I have to be careful in my pretending that I actually don't fall asleep I don't want a 3 year old wandering around the house left to her own devises. This time she is wandering out into the hall turning on and off lights as she makes her way around down to the kitchen. This goes on for about 20 minutes and I am ready to end the game - now normally I would have just put her in her room and said "don't come out or ELSE!!" and she would cry for a little bit and then go to sleep but I didn't want to wake up Destina or any of the other 6 people in the house that were sleeping!
So thinking I would "outwit her" now keep in mind it is almost midnight and I have been playing this game very nicely up until now! I get out of bed pick her up - I found her in the hall outside of our bedroom trying to open the Costco size box of Capri Sun - and in my mean voice I tell her as I am carrying her towards the front door that she can either go sleep quietly in her bed or - as I open the front door and point to the porch - she can sleep outside!!! She looked at me and was still not making the right decision so I set her out on the porch and her reply was "Mommy can I have my pillow!!! My game plan to outwit her backfired and I was clearly outwitted by a 3 year old! I brought her back inside and started locking the front door and she was actually fighting me trying to unlock the door and started crying because she wanted to sleep outside!
This little trick has always worked with my other kids, for Mckenzie it was the "dungeon" our laundry room that was in the scary basement she NEVER wanted to sleep down there and would quickly obey! Um not so much for Avire I did not factor in the fact that this child has spent many a night sleeping in worse conditions than my front porch!
So I resorted to my original parenting technique and I picked her up carried her to her room and in my meanest voice I told her to lay down, be quiet and GO TO SLEEP OR ELSE!! This did the trick in about 5 minutes she was asleep! I finally beat her by being the sole survivor and outlasting her, it was a close call I had to go to bed laughing because I was outwitted by a 3 year old!

As I was reading one of my favorite blogs tonight, she posted this quote that she received from a friend named Wendy so thank you Lila and Wendy for this amazing quote you can check out the original posting over at Casa de King! Just want to make sure I give credit where credit is due!

"By adopting a child and helping them reach their potential, they help us reach ours. An adopted child is not an unwanted child; to the contrary. They are a child who was searched for, prayed for, cried for, begged for; received by our arms that ached, making empty hearts full. Love is meant to be shared."
Author Unknown

I love you too Kenzie, Katie, Kelsie and Ryan!

The Children's Museum

Today I took Avrie to the Children's Museum down in Burlington about 25 minutes away it was their free community day and she loves going there. I met up with a few friends I came late and we chatted for about an hour and then they left but I stayed a little longer. As I was following Avrie around to the different stations we seemed to end up at the same stations as a little Hispanic boy and his dad, or maybe it was them that ended up where we were at. Now I am a nice person but I really am not that friendly and outgoing by nature I am ok being by myself and don't really find the need for idle chit chat with total strangers. Now the dad of the little boy was a different story he kept asking me questions innocent at first like "Is it ok to play here too?" and basically general stuff. But then the more he followed me around the more personal the questions became, I actually started to think that this guy was hitting on me...you know dude I am about 4 inches taller, I am following a little girl around...are you really hitting on me?
Then he asked me if Avrie was my only child and when I said no he asked the question that I sometimes dread just because of the response I get from people that question is "How many children do you have" this time I had no qualms about answering I proudly said I have 7 children, surely thinking that it would do the trick and send this guy running....nope he continued to follow me around asking questions and being super friendly, telling me what a strong woman I must be. Ha if he only knew!!

When it was time to leave I packed up Avrie and headed out to the car glad that I had not seen my new friend for about 5 minutes. But low and behold as I am walking out to the car here is my guy loading his boy into the car and I have to walk right past him. He stops me and asks how old my kids are and I replied that my oldest is in college, I love to say that because I usually get some kind of response like I don't look old enough to have a child in college etc. and that makes me feel pretty good. But instead this guy starts talking about how important it is to get an education and how he did not have that opportunity and then he stuck out his hand to introduce himself to me, his name was Alex just in case you were interested, and then he asked me if I was married? Dude didn't the 7 kids give that away, or the ring on my finger? Anyway, I did leave with a smile on my face knowing that there is a guy out there that, if I was single which I hope to never be, wasn't scared off by 7 kids!

And She is Off

We woke up at the crack of dawn to drive McKenzie to the airport she is back at her second home in Hawaii. It was bittersweet for her to go this time, she has become pretty attached to 2 little people and she will miss them terribly! We have had a fun summer with Kenzie home and we will all miss her. She has one more semester left then her internship and she graduates in April if all goes well. The time goes by so fast and before we know it these darn kids grow up and start acting like adults, making life decisions, choosing their path, and we stand back anticipating the journey and remembering when we sent them to their first day of kindergarten, it really does seem like yesterday.

Good Luck Kenzie we love you and we miss you already, and we can't wait until Christmas to see you again!

She Had a Birthday Shout Hooray!!

Destina turned 7 on September 3rd and we had 2 birthday parties for her, we figured that since she has never celebrated a birthday that she should have 2 parties every year for the next 3 years to make up for it! On Friday we took her to Chucky Cheese and she had so much fun playing all the games and eating pizza and cupcakes and opening presents she did not want to leave and is already trying to make plans to go back!

On Sunday we had our family birthday dinner and our friends decided that it would be a good idea to have a pinata so that they could spoil all the kids with too much sugar. All of the kids were excited to be able to hit the donkey but Destina didn't quite know what to think when the kids started whacking on the donkey that she just got!

Soon enough she was catching on to the whole thing and having fun trying to hit the donkey until all the candy came out! Then my older children divided up the candy equally because heaven forbid that one child get an extra tootsie roll...


Even Avrie had a good time whacking the donkey! She is always up to trying new things if the older kids are doing it she thinks she should be able to do it to!
She said it was the best birthday ever.....guess that wasn't too hard to beat but I will have to come up with something even more fun next year!

First Day of School.....for most of the kids!

Summer is gone and most of my kids are in school, they were excited to get back to school, see friends and meet new teachers. My high schoolers are out the door by 6:15 and the elementary kids leave at 9:15 that makes for a long morning but I got quite a bit done, laundry started, reading, with the kids, done kitchen cleaned all before 9 am. Now I am ready for a nap! Avrie kept asking where Tia was they are pretty good friends and play so good together that Avrie will be a little lonely. We had a fun morning doing her school work and playing hide and go seek and now she is down for a nap and I have an hour or so all to myself!

We had a fun busy summer with lots of company and we loved it! We love having people come and stay with us. Last week we had some very long time friends come for the week and we had so much fun with them sight seeing and just hanging out cooking together, or rather I watched her cook for me, and talking. You know the kind of people that you haven't seen for a while and when you get together the conversation comes so easy and you can talk about everything under the sun.....that was my last week even after 5 days of non stop talking we stayed up way too late Sunday night talking and then they left first thing Monday morning and I miss them already!