Moved

Well, I've made the jump to Word Press. I'm still trying to figure it all out and get things up and running, so please bear with me. You can find me here: www.kristinsfourkids.wordpress.com.
Please change your readers to reflect the new blog address and come visit.

Stream of Consciousness

Two of my four kids do not eat cereal with milk. It boggles the mind, as Doug and I both grew up eating cereal with milk. Granted, we didn't grow up eating the SAME kinds of cereal. I ate Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran~you know, the "good for you" cereals, while Doug ate things like Froot Loops, Sugar Smacks, etc. Annie and Izzie love their bowls of Cheerios or Kix with milk. The other two, well they're content to eat dry cereal. Weird.

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My kids call me Moomie (or Moomers). I really have no idea why, but it's stuck. Izzie is currently standing next to me singing "Moomie" to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle". Kids. They're strange.

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Did you know that Thanksgiving is two weeks from today? My kids have no school for the entire Thanksgiving week. I'm pretty sure that someone's head will roll for that scheduling plan. I keep saying that I'm going to start writing down my Thanksgiving meal plan so I can start purchasing what I need, but as of today that hasn't happened. I'm not even sure how many people are coming to my house Thanksgiving Day for dinner.  I do know that I may be trying The Pioneer Woman's Green Bean Casserole though because that is MY favorite dish and her modern version looks delish. Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving dish?

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I tend to pick an author and read every single thing that he or she has written. Case in point-Kathy Reichs. She created Temperance Brennan, which the tv series Bones is based upon. I purchased the first 10 books and plowed through them in record time (obsess much?) before I reigned in my spending and got the other books via inter-library loan. The latest book is waiting for me to pick up tomorrow and I'm
ridiculously excited. Sometimes I pick an author to read and then get stuck with my choices. Take Isabel Allende for instance. I found her in college by shelving one of her books while I was working at the library, checked it out and fell in love. But then a couple of her books were really slow moving and I lost interest. Those books sit on my bookshelf, taunting me because they were the books I just couldn't finish.

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Current debate in our house~what to get the kids for Christmas when they already have so much stuff that they don't appreciate/play with/take care of. Of course since all four of them have birthdays in the 30 or so days following Christmas (yes, I know, I didn't plan that well AT ALL) we need to consider that when we purchase Christmas gifts. We are leaning toward giving a "family gift" plus their stockings and calling it good. They have grandparents and aunts/uncles who give them awesome gifts too so maybe the less-is-more approach is the way to do it. We've always gone a bit overboard I think with our gift giving for the kids, so taming it will be a) good and b) difficult. How do you handle things in your house? Do you give lots of gifts, or a big gift and some smaller items?

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I spent the day a couple of Saturdays ago with two really great friends, laughing, eating, scrapbooking. The day flew by, as good days always do. I realized when I headed home that night that I need more days like that~more days with friends who make me laugh, more days to just sit and be ME, more days to relax and have fun instead of running here and there. We realized that it had been almost a year since the three of us sat down together and vowed that we wouldn't let it go that long again. That's a vow I intend to keep.

November

Where the heck did October go? It's November 5th already! Yikes. I thought I'd just do some photos of what we've been up to in the last few weeks.