Locks of Love

About 2 years ago there was a girl in our primary that had gorgeous, long hair. One Sunday she showed up to church with all of it chopped off. When she shared that she had donated it all to Locks of Love, McKenzie decided, right then and there, she wanted to do the same thing. Since then she has been diligently growing her hair, only getting the occasional trim. About once a month, we'd measure her hair to see if it was long enough. She was so excited when it finally had grown out past the required 10 inches.
I was trying to get a picture here of how thick her ponytail was. This picture doesn't do it justice, but the kid has crazy thick hair. The stylist just kept cutting and cutting to get through that ponytail. She said she felt like she was cutting with dull scissors. The longest piece ended up being 13 inches long.
McKenzie with her new hair cut. She looks so different with her hair short. I can't remember the last time she had it this short. Its a pretty adorable cut, and she's so proud of herself. She plans on growing it out again to donate. She has such a generous heart, and says if she has lots of pretty hair, and some kids don't she'll just give it to them.

Confessions of the Tragically Unorganzied

I have been a hopelessly unorganized and scatter brained person for as long as I can remember. I can never finish cleaning a room because the second I leave the room or see something else that needs done (or I want to do), I'm gone. My brain has leaped ahead to the next thing. I have a to do list that will never be completed. I'm late to everything, no matter how hard I try. It doesn't matter how much time I give myself to get ready, kids ready, and get there, I will be late. Inevitably something will go wrong or I will get sidetracked. My house is always a mess. I will dig down in one room, get it nice and clean, but every other room in the house is trashed. Within 30 minutes the room I just cleaned will be trashed too. (Don't worry I haven't food poisoned anyone. Underneath all of the clutter its all bleached.) I'd like to say this is all the kids, but dang it, I cannot get myself to put everything away every time. To a super clean, organized person, I am a tragic case. I'm like the druggie that people think sending to rehab a waste of time.

Now don't get me wrong, I want to be more organized, on time, etc. I am constantly buying new things to organize myself, the house, or the kids. Every other week I have some new plan that will help me remember what needs done and keep myself organized. Everyday is a new day of "today I will not be late." AA would have kicked me out long ago. So, awhile ago I subscribed to this Real Simple email called "If you just do one thing." Everyday they send you an email with one thing you can do to get ahead of the game so to speak. Today's was, wait for it it's a good one, Make a Laundry Schedule. That's right a laundry schedule, as in on Monday I wash sheets, Tuesday towels, Wednesday whites, and so on. Supposedly this will magically give me time to spare and more energy too! I nearly peed my pants laughing. Are they kidding me? Is my laundry going to take any less time because I did all of the sheets on Monday? Are the kids going to magically start changing their clothes less frequently? Stop wetting their beds? Really?

Now I know somewhere out there some woman read that today and immediately whipped up a cute, embellished laundry schedule and posted it promptly for all to see. She probably even made a family home evening about organization to showcase her new chart. Tomorrow she will drive to the Hobby Lobby and buy the wood to make some sort of handy dandy Family Laundry Schedule. And it will look cute enough to be a decoration in her home, her family will follow it to a T and everyone's laundry will not be shoved under their beds. Next fall she will lead a super Saturday activity on how to make one. So lovely.

I am clearly not this person. At my house if you find your pants drawer empty, first you cry to your mother, as this is clearly a tragedy. Then I instruct you to dig in "the laundry mountain" as it is known in our house. If all else fails, you have to dump out the hamper and find the cleanest pair. This usually involves more crying, imagine a lot of sobbing here, "Mom, why didn't you do the laundry yesterday? You said you would. Why aren't my pleather leggings clean? My sparkly one's are dirty too! What am I going to wear?!" Umm regular pants?

For years I have felt rather guilty and bad about myself. I know it's dumb, but I do get really down on myself about the clutter, unfinished projects, lack of clean clothes, lateness, lost papers, lost checkbooks, lack of real groceries (sometimes), overdue everything, the list really goes on and on. Also, add a lot of self depreciating talk about why can't I be on time, EVER?! Every time I start one of my new "I'm going to be organized now" kicks, I dive in all or nothing. And then I obsess about it. If its not done perfect, I stress. The first day of being too busy to adhere to the laundry schedule will result in, well, making it worse.

Now for those of you who haven't chucked your computers across the room by now, or unfriended me on Facebook (because I'm clearly crazy), let me assure you first, that I have a point, and second, I'm medicated so no worries. So here's my grand revelation. I am giving up. We are going to aim for good enough. As long as the basics are covered it's all good. The house will never be immaculate, or very clean for that matter, and tomorrow I am going to give my laundry the same minimal attention I always do. But who cares? Your favorite outfit might not be clean right away, but I'll get to it, eventually. And in the meantime I will aim to make sure you always have clean pants, food to eat, a cleanish home and maybe a few more chores. The kids papers will continue to pile up on my desk, but rest assured, the permission slips are signed and the reusable stuff has been reused for printing coupons, (which we can pretend I will organize with the new organizer I bought last week), and I will dig out the bills at least. As long as I get to everything eventually its all good.

So if you happen to swing by before I have a chance to make it look like I cleaned, don't worry, I'll get to it.

Christmas part 2

It was pretty cool to be able to celebrate Christmas in OUR OWN HOME for the first time in 12 years of marriage. Its nice to be able to staple a ridiculous amount of decorations to the ceiling and walls without having to worry about patching them up when we move out. Nope we're leaving them all for the next owners. Dave read the kids "Twas the night before Christmas" before we began the hours long task of getting 4 kids to bed on Christmas Eve.

Hailey and Greg eagerly waiting to come in the living room and see all of their presents. I really like to see the kids faces when they come out on Christmas morning, so they are under no circumstances to leave their rooms until we are up. This year we told the girls they could run across the hall to the boys' room and yell into the baby monitor until we woke up. Nothing like waking up to 4 children screaming "WAKE UP MOM AND DAD! WAKE UP NOW!"
McKenzie, the world's most subdued 9 year old waiting for her presents.
Hailey has great aspirations of being a famous rock star, she has some pretty interesting Beyonce moves she definately did not learn from us. Santa brought her a guitar this year. Yes we are that stupid.
The boys have become completely obsessed with Star Wars. Their $5 day after Thanksgiving light sabers were the big hit of the day. I could have saved myself a lot of money and just got them that. Connor stomps around all day singing the Imperial March to himself in da da da dums.
No Christmas would be complete without the gift with 1000 pieces. What better gift for a wild 3 year old could there possibly be? Thanks mom and dad.

Playing Apples to Apples with Maddy and Sadie.
Even though we all live across from the country from each other now, the kids still get back together like they were never apart each time. Hailey and Maddy have such a special relationship, I hope and think they will always be friends.
Connor and Jack became fast friends.

The Campbell and Huisman kiddos, minus Sadie who decided she didn't want to be photographed today. Hard to believe that Nik and I now have 8 kids between the two of us. Its a long way from the old days when we could just run around town in our clunker cars, doing whatever we want, guzzling Mt. Dew. Now its more like hanging out in a daycare, we've traded our clunkers for mini vans, and now have to do what the kids want. Except for the fact that its now diet, the Mt. Dew is the one hold over. Maybe when our kids all move out, we can be neighbors again and hang out all day doing absolutely nothing.

Christmas part 1

I, of course managed to somehow post these out of order so bear with me.
We went up to 4th of July Pass to cut down our tree, just like good Paulitz's do. And in true Paulitz tradition, got a tree at least 2 sizes too big for our house, so in other words, perfect. It was a little like the old days of my Dad's ginormous trees when you sat on our couch and had tree limbs in your face. And you pretty much couldn't use the living room for anything besides tree watching. In an amazing display of helpfulness, Carl decided to help Dave haul our tree down the hill. He was probably angling for a Pepsi.

We stole a tradition from our friends, Nik and Da, and let the kids sleep out under the tree one night during Christmas. The first year we made the mistake of sleeping on the floor with the kids. Never again. This year we did it a couple of days after Christmas, and our kids had the added treat of having Maddie and Sadie sleep over.

Sometimes there just aren't words. My child went to school like this because it was cold.

My boys enjoying some hot cocoa and cookies after our trek into the woods for a tree.
As we were coming down the hill with our tree, we saw these people unloading a sled and dogs. Not something you see everyday, at least here. We all stood around watching these poor women wrangle their dogs into harnesses before taking off.

In order to haul the huge tree back to the car, we had to chop off some of the branches. We wanted to take them all home so we could make a wreath and a bough so we told all the kids they each had to carry some. True to form, Greg threw himself down like we were killing him, and announced it was too hard. Connor grabbed some branches and took off. He fell a few times, but he got right back up and kept on trucking.
We climbed up a very steep hill, searching for a tree. Hailey followed us the whole way. Finally something that tires the kid out.


The kids were pretending to be penguins, sliding down this hill on their bellies. Poor Connor just couldn't get back up. Kenzie had to drag him back up each time by his hood.

We made our yearly trip to the Christmas parade, fireworks, and tree lighting in Coeur d Alene. It had been bitterly cold, and we had a ton of snow, so all the kids are bundled up to the hilt. The parking lot snow piles by the car made for great climbing and butt sledding.

What Goes Around Comes Around

It's a pretty well known fact that I was not the easiest child for my parents to raise. I also have a reputation of being a bit of a spazzy mistake maker. For example, car care. Not so much with the parking skills, making right turns without driving over the curb, every single time, not checking the oil (that's a whole other story) and so on.

So about 8 years ago when Hailey was a baby, the girls and I came up to go to my brother's college graduation in Moscow. My Dad and I drove down in his Honda. I, of course left the lights on in the parking lot and killed the battery. We got the car jumped and all that, but apparently Honda's have an anti-theft feature that requires you to enter a special code after the stereo has been detached from battery power. Seems as how he bought a used Honda, he didn't have the magic code and drove around with no stereo for 6 years until he finally broke down and paid the dealership guys 50 bucks to find it.

Here we are, years later, and I have more little monsters and my own used Honda. Needless to say my own charming children left a light on and killed my battery. It caused some mayhem getting to church yesterday, but no biggie. Imagine my surprise when I hopped in my car today, and my stereo kept flashing "code". At first I was thinking "that's strange" but then I made the connection. My kids had done to me the exact thing I'd done to my Dad's car! The horror! The irony! I of course called my Dad right off, knowing that hearing that the exact same thing has happened to me would just make his day. I'm sure I've painted a picture in his mind of the gloriousness of my kids doing to me all that I did to them. As Dave said paybacks a "B"

Random Fall

Connor falls in with his sister as being one of those totally random kids that just do weird stuff. For reasons unknown he decided to open a new package of wipes and stick it to his head before getting back in his bed to take a nap. We just never know what we're going to find when that kid is left alone.

I really slacked off on picture taking at Halloween for some reason. Sometimes walking an extra 10 feet to grab the camera or plug into the printer is just more than I can do apparently. The girls dressed as 50's girls together. It's hard to tell, but Hailey has a really cute pink poodle skirt, I found at a thrift store with a matching sweater set. The girls did have high, 50's style pony tails with ribbons earlier, but their hair is so dang slippery things just fall out, and about 1 brushing a day is all they can take. Notice Connor's lack of a costume? No I am not too lazy to get the kid a costume. Just as Hailey needs sensory input from everything, Connor gets overwhelmed. His dinosaur costume had a hat and elastic at the wrists and ankles and he was having none of it. We consider the fact that he is wearing shoes (albeit without socks) an accomplishment.

I love taking pictures of my kids in the fall leaves. Nik and I started trekking to the University of Idaho campus a couple of years ago when we lived in Pullman, and I've kept it going around here. Usually I take the kiddos up to Manito Park, but now that we have this huge maple in our front yard, I can save myself a trip. While the maple is beautiful, I never knew a tree could drop so many leaves a day. I think we went out and raked everyday and still didn't get them all up before it snowed.

Connor is the world's best helper. He is better than any of the other kids about helping out. He just jumps right in. We bought a kid sized rake and snow shovel, its just too darn cute. Sometimes I want to freeze that kid in time so he never grows up.
Greg's preschool co-op took a field trip up to Green Bluff. I wish I could remember the name of the farm. We paid a flat fee per kid and got a train ride, corn maze, and a pumpkin. Having spent several years living in southern Idaho and Utah, we've been through a lot of corn mazes. Those things seem like they are the hot entertainment ticket around there in the fall. The one up in Green Bluff had a new twist on it we liked. As you wind your way through the corn, you get to a lawn in the center, with a series of hedges you have to navigate through to get to the rest of the corn maze. Rising high above the mazes in the middle is a huge castle (well in comparison to the general scheme of things.) It was 3 stories high and all painted up inside to look like a medieval castle. At the end of the maze is a playground with a pirate ship as the main structure. Oh and a "zoo", which is actually a cage full of giant stuffed animals, that the kids all found strangely intriguing.

My boys on the farm's train.



Celeste and her kids came over one afternoon to make fall sugar cookies. It was a lot of fun and a huge mess, as only 7 children can make in a small kitchen. We really miss living next door to their family and being able to run back and forth every day.
We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year, seems as how it was our first Thanksgiving in our own house. However, I also failed to take pictures of that, so I have no proof that I did not ruin turkey dinner. On the contrary we brined our turkey and it was one of the best we've ever had. No really, you can ask people.

Hailey's Baptism

Our sweet miss Hailey was baptized on Saturday, February 5. She still seems like such a little girl to me, I can hardly believe she's 8. It seems like McKenzie was so much older when she was baptized, but then she's always been a little adult trapped in a kid's body. But Ha's Ha, she's all cheese and grins. She came out of the water grinning, just like how she swims (think of a baleen whale). I think I freaked her out a little beforehand. We'd been talking about accountability before and after you're baptized. I think the idea that there was now this responsibility for her actions was a little unnerving. Not to worry though, after a day she seemed to have forgotten all about that concern.

Dave's mom, Katherine, and two of his sisters, Amy and Cheryl flew out for the baptism. My parents and our friend Celeste came too. We had invited more people, but the week before the baptism, we got hit with the plague. It started with Connor getting a cold, then kindly passing it along. Friday night, it was clear that Greg had something different, and we were told he had influenza. The kid was just miserable. And Connor and I were just fountains of grossness. So I swung by the ER and stole some masks for the boys to wear to the baptism and muscled through. Greg hacked his way through the baptism and Connor was his usual wild self. The other kid getting baptism was unfortunately named Cooper. Nothing wrong with the name, but it gave Connor the opportunity to yell "pooper!" every time the kid's name was said. That's my boy. Needless to say no one wanted to sit near us, and I have a lot of leftover food.
Greg with his missionary Little People we found at the church bookstore. You can tell he's really enjoying the face mask. He was pretty good about it despite his annoyance with us.
As you can see from our family picture, it went delightfully smooth. There was 3 different cameras taking pictures, so we are all looking in different directions. Connor really wanted to continue destroying the church, rather than take a picture. Greg really just wanted to go home. It's not a pretty picture, and the only one we got. Of the entire baptism. I felt bad, because Kenzie's was such a big deal. But things just fell apart this time. I guess that's life when you're one of the middle kids, lost in the foray of madness. We love our Hailey and are very proud of her choice. And we are grateful for our families that came to share this day with us.