Marley and Me

I am totally procrastinating. I need to exercise. I need to clean up. I need to make a grocery list. Instead, I am goofing on here...

Typical rainy day Saturday here. The kids woke up before I was ready for them to. The youngest was raring to go at 8. Of course, he thinks he is starving when he wakes up while the rest of us would much rather eat a late breakfast and just lounge. Child 2 has such strong maternal instincts. She jumped in and took charge, getting little brother some breakfast with only a few questions for me. (Of course, when everyone else had pancakes later, he ate again...)

From the moment we woke up, we could hear the rain pounding the window. Cabin fever began immediately. Child 2, who always wants to be doing something, started in right away. "I am bored. I want to do something. Let's go bowling." After last night's excursion, I wasn't going anywhere! Thankfully, she realized that her hopes were dashed and started inventing games to play with Child 4 who is sometimes a willing participant. Depends on his mood.

Later in the morning, Mark moved the vehicles outside, and we tackled the garage. Unfortunately, the garage becomes a dumping ground. When I need to clean out the car, I throw it in the garage. When we have things that need to go up in the attic, they go to the garage. And when it is winter, it gets worse because it is so cold, I don't want to be IN the garage. Well, today was a good day. The kids love the empty (well, no vehicles) garage and have a ball riding scooters, riding bikes, etc. We tackled the mess and did a pretty good job cleaning up. I wish I had taken before/after pictures except I would be too embarrassed to show anyone the before pics I think. We still need to get a small storage unit for the backyard to store a few of the big items. But for now, it is nice and neat. I hope we will be inspired to keep it that way!

Lunch, then naps. I did get a good nap today (compared to last week). A well rested mom is a happy mom!

Since we were stuck inside, we had a family movie night. We picked up Shake's, popped some popcorn in the air popper (with butter and cheese seasoning of course), and had a "picnic" in the living room. We watched "Marley and Me". I had been warned it had some rough parts. There were a few words I think the movie would have been fine without. Thankfully those go over the kids' heads for the most part. Out of all the words, the one Child 1 did pick up on was "he..", as in "not heaven". Other than that, it was a good movie.

There was something ironic about watching this movie about an unruly dog. As I am watching it, our own "Marley" was dumping out the basket of books, running around the house with a flashlight (giggling all the way), climbing on and over me about fifty times, and throwing napkins around the room. I didn't have to watch "Marley and Me". I live it. Daily! He is a sweet "Marley" but so very busy. He sure wasn't happy about picking up all of those books he dumped out though! However, no books picked up, no bath and bed. He loves those too much. :)

I do have a quick prayer request. I don't really want to go into details. I will just say that one of the kids has been a bit extra challenging recently. We need wisdom and patience in handling that situation and child. It isn't all day or every day. But it is still fairly frequent and emotionally draining. Thanks!

Okay, I am getting sleepy. Oh, I did get up and exercise. I am trying to get back into that routine. I haven't done so well with it the last few weeks. This week I did a little better...I think I got four days of exercise in. I have high school reunions this summer. I have to keep at it!

Really going now.
Reba