How We Do Birthdays

Birthdays are REALLY important in our family!! Quite honestly we love any opportunity to celebrate!! When my younger siblings were little I would hang colorful little signs all over the house on the eve of their birthdays. They woke to signs that said, "happy birthday" "you're awesome" "we love, Jessie" ...stuff like that!! When I had kids of my own I continued the tradition but when I met my husband, the tradition was perfected!! He LOVES "making notes" and draws some pretty elaborate ones!!
Our family always celebrates every members birthday on the actual day. Birthday parties with friends also happen but usually at a later date.  The birthday boy or girl in our family also gets to choose what we eat for all the meals on their special day. Sometimes it requires planning, sometimes it's last minute but its always fun!! Also all of the things we do are always on a budget....so yes, we do a lot but we always work around a budget and try to make sure it doesn't hurt us financially (we do have 5 kids)!!
This year, our youngest daughter turned 15!! FIFTEEN!! WTH!?!
Freak out aside, I wanted to do something a little different for her this year. I got the idea to put goodies (gum and cash--one dollar bills) in balloons and blow them up. I was going to dump all of the balloons on her floor while she slept but the husband liked the idea of hanging them so we did that instead!!
The next morning she ran around the house popping balloons and gathering up treats!! She tends to be a little more of a typical grumpy teenager so anytime I can make her smile feels like an amazing gift!!

TOTALLY POPPIN' BIRTHDAY BALLOONS
1...Buy some packs of balloons (about 10' or so)...as many as you want!! We got them at the dollar store!!
2...Get some goodies to put in the balloons (ideas: makeup, money, lottery tix, gum, candy, scavenger hunt clues....I could go on and on but you see where I'm going with this) We did gum and 1 dollar bills!!
3...Put one thing in each balloon and blow it up!
4...tie a ribbon to the balloon!!
5...hang them all over the house the night before the birthday date!!

6...do a little happy dance cuz your house is crazy festive and you can't help but being in a "do a little happy dance" kind of mood!!
7...when the birthday boy or girl wakes up give them a pin and let'em get to poppin'!!

It was so fun to watch her run around the house popping balloons and collecting goodies!! She was smiling so big and that always makes my heart happy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEAUTIFUL GIRL!!

The Story of Us

Yesterday, our family celebrated its 8th anniversary! Eight years of being a family!  Every year around this time I get to thinking about how things were before I met my husband and I get an itch to tell the story of how we came to be.  I know that everyone has a love story but (for obvious reasons) ours is my favorite.
Once upon a time I was single mother of 3 small children and I was happy.  I had accepted that my children were my life and I had everything I needed.  A few months later, while listening to K-LOVE I was encouraged to pray for love.  So out of the blue I found myself behind the locked door of a bathroom praying to God and telling Him that if he had someone for me, I was ready and would love to meet him. (Yes, in the bathroom! The kids and I were living with my parents at the time and there were few places in the house I could hear myself think!) 
While using my computer later that day, match.com ads kept popping up and I kept ignoring them.  For the next week every time I would use my computer match.com adds would pop up. Ok, so maybe it was a sign, maybe I had just never noticed them before but seriously the ads were relentless! After about a week and a half of this I said to myself, "Why the heck not?!" and gave myself one month. Everyday, I checked in on the 29-35 year old dating scene and was disappointed.  Then one day, this super cute dad of one popped up on my screen as I checked in.  His name "Happy Beach Dad"! His priority was his son and I was compelled to send him an email. I clicked send and watched as his profile popped back up stating that he was actually 28 (I had typed in the wrong age). He quickly responded and it was quickly established that he thought I was someone else that he had been hoping to match up with.  Long story short, we ended up emailing back and forth for a couple of weeks before meeting for breakfast at an IHOP (within 3 weeks of signing up on match.com).  We sat in a booth across from each other, I ordered a veggie omelet that had cauliflower (yuck!) in it and he ordered pancakes.  We laughed at my omelet and talked about our kids.  I would be lying if I said that I didn't know then.  There was this moment, while we were talking when I actually heard in my head, "That's him".  I knew that he was the one, like I had never known anything else in my entire life. We went thrift store window shopping after breakfast, before I headed home and got ready for work.  I remember walking into work and the first co-worker I saw asked me, "How was the date?" and before I could really think about it, I answered, "I met the guy I'm gonna marry." Less than a year later, we were engaged!

Everything was so simple as far as our little family went.  Our 4 kids were siblings from the start; They clicked and we were just happy! We all had so much fun and simply enjoyed being together.  By the time we got married in January of 2007, we could not wait to add another kid to all the craziness.  It took us a bit and a heart-breaking miscarriage but we finally met our youngest child in 2010.  
I'm not saying that our relationship is perfect but I will say this: I married my best friend.  He is always there for me and always believes in me.  Best of all he sees the good in me, even when I cannot.  He makes me laugh and listens.  He brings flowers for no reason at all.  He washes dishes!! Oh, and he does laundry!! (Now do you understand why I think he is SO awesome?!) 

Every now and then my mind wanders to the what-ifs...what if I had continued to type in 29 instead of making a mistake that day? What if I had completely closed my heart to the idea of the existence of someone out there falling in love with me AND my children? The what-ifs don't keep me up at night though because there is no doubt in my mind that this family was meant to be. I often find myself praying and thanking God for this life!  I am beyond grateful that my husband and son stepped into our lives when they did and I am so thankful that I have such an amazing someone with whom to share life's storms and blessings.
So, here's to another year of crazy chaos! This family is my world and as much as I love all of the memories that we have created, I am also looking forward to what the future holds!!
Happy Anniversary to Us!!

Our New Year's Traditions

Happy New Year!! I know that it's cliche but didn't 2014 just FLY BY!?! I remember when I was a kid, it seemed that time went by so slowly and the adults around me were always saying the exact opposite! Now, I'm the grown up and I find myself trying to come up with ways to make sure that my kids hold on to as many sweet moments as possible.  I pray that those are the moments that make them smile when things don't go their way or when they need something to look forward to.  
Over the past couple of years our family has been doing a couple of fun things that really ends up being a fun activity and gives them a chance to see themselves grow and change.

THE  MEMORY JAR
I keep a square jar on our mantel.  It is filled with little squares of paper and a couple of pens. At the moment it isn't decorated because for some reason I never got around to it. (I will within the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!!) Anyone in the house can add a memory to the jar, even visitors! The only rules are that whoever writes a memory has to write the date and sign their name.  We read all of these memories on New Year's Day and laughed and talked! It was such a fun way to start the year!!

Our undecorated "Memory Jar".

Taking the memories out of the jar and reading each one was so fun!!
It inspired a lot of "I remember that" and "that was so much fun!" 

SOME OF MY PERSONAL FAVORITE MEMORY JAR MEMORIES:
1) The time Lincoln had to be rescued by the life guards at the beach because he had gotten himself in a pickle. He was fine! AND it wasn't funny at the time (I was MAD!!! lol) but, of course, it's funny now!
2) When Megan came home after she had been asked to homecoming!! (Milestone!)
3) Sebastian's 8th grade graduation!
4) The night we had a homemade Crab Feed! (So MUCH fun!!)
5) When we met Cimorelli!
Really, trying to write out my favorite ones is tough because there were so many great moments this last year!! 2013 had been a rough one for us so 2014 was a very welcome change! 

Sebastian gave me permission to post this picture.  I love how he started his letter to himself.  He spent most of the time giggling at what he wrote.

LETTERS
Last year on New Year's Day, I had each of the kids write a letter to themselves. At first they weren't too excited about it but in the end three of them did wrote their letters. Our 2 younger ones didn't write one; one because he was only 3 at the time and the other because he adamantly refused and I had to choose my battles. I put the letters in a safe place and saved them there until this New Year's Day.
It was kind of fun to see that the kids that had written them were actually looking forward to reading them.  It was even more fun to watch them read and comment on how silly or funny they were or how much their writing had changed. 

I gathered everything together and decided to simply fold a piece of card
stock in half, tuck everything inside and save it.  I don't really know when or if we'll look at last year's
memories again but I couldn't get rid of them!

These are just a couple of our traditions! Actually, I find that our traditions evolve a bit as the children get older.  Watching them grow and change is one of the things I live for!! 
Do any of you have any New Year's traditions? If you do, I'd love to hear them!
Until, next time!!
Love from:
The Crazy, Chaotic, Happiness that is our Family

Welcome to our world of creative, Chaotic Happiness (part 2)

Apparently, there are all kinds of rules to writing a blog. Really? Yeah! I read a bit about the dos and don'ts but quite honestly I'm much more comfortable doing my own thing and I just had  to tell y'all the rest of the story!! So here I am again...2 times in a week with what will most likely be more than 300-400 words. Sorry but...
When you last saw our little (haha) family, we had wrapped up some presents for The Homeless Present Project. We decided that we wanted to make the gifts a bit more personalized so I used my Cricut to make some easy to assemble Christmas images.  I set the kids up with some scrap paper and folded some card stock into cards and we were good to go!! All of our children participated and created 12 unique cards!! Each card had a special message in it and was signed by whichever child made it. 

The older kids in our family took charge of attaching a card to each gift. (It was awesome to see them making this their own!!)

 

This bin was supposed to hang out in our car during the Christmas season. 

The plan WAS to give the gifts to homeless people that we ran into during the day, but since it was a Sunday and we were all home we decided to put the whole bin in ONE car and go out looking for people to give our presents to. We ended up driving to our downtown area and found a few people napping and hanging out in the plaza. We quickly realized as we made made our way toward them that 12 presents wasn't going to be enough.  
Now, I have to be honest, there are times that I have hesitated to want to help people who are homeless.  I have doubted, judged and been less than Christian in my thoughts.  I am not proud of this and I know that I am a work in progress but what happened that afternoon as we passed out the few presents we had, touched me...deeply. 
As we approached the first gentleman with our small offering, I let him know that we only had a few, he smiled and said, "Give them to the ladies first! A blessing is a blessing no matter how small." Another lady said to me, "Oh no, you don't apologize! It's such a blessing just to be able to see you all doing this." 

I'm sad to say that I didn't get any pictures of us actually passing out the presents. Truthfully, I didn't even think about it.  All 7 of us chatted with the people we met and enjoyed our interactions so much that it didn't even occur to me to photograph it. A picture would not have captured the tenderness, humility or the generosity of the sweet souls that we met that day, anyway, I suppose.

It wasn't until we were getting ready to leave that I snapped a couple of pictures.  The gentleman that first spoke to us when we arrived was quick to ask, "Can you get one with all of us?" as he hurried over to his friends.

As I drove my family home, my eyes welled up with tears.  I suddenly felt that I hadn't done enough.  I could have done more, couldn't I have? I could have eaten a little lighter this week, not splurged on the extras that we take for granted, made more packages...I guess I suddenly felt a little guilty.  Why do I have so much while others have so little? Why so I behave so ungratefully while others with less are happy because a "blessing is a blessing no matter how small"? 

My family and I don't know why any of those people are homeless, we only know that they are.  Quite frankly, it isn't any of our business. We only know that something happened in their lives that for whatever reason led them here. It is OUR business to take care of each other. As human beings...one soul to another. 

We made a promise to each other on that car ride home that we would not let this stop here.  We WOULD do this again...and soon because that day was a blessing to us. And a blessing is a blessing no matter how small...or how big!

Love,

From the creative, chaotic happiness that is our family  

Welcome to our World of Creative, Chaotic Happiness (part 1)

Our family is what you might call a big one. There are 7 of us total (5 kids, 2 grownups) not to mention 3 small dogs.  To say that it is never boring in our home is an understatement!  There is always something going on and sometimes the chaos is a lot but more often than not, I find myself steering into the skid, so to speak. 

We currently have 3 teenagers (15, 14 and 13) in our home, which makes for a great starting point for our story...

Our family has dinner to together at the dining room table (nearly) every night.  There is the occasional carpet picnic but for the most part you would find us at our kitchen table at 6:30 pm(pst)every night.  On one particular night we were discussing selflessness during dinner.  We were talking about how some of the teenagers had become a bit more full of themselves than we thought was acceptable and we were trying to come up with ways that each of us could practice thinking of others before ourselves.  Never did it occur to me that the conversation we had that night would lead to such a great idea for a family project. There was a lot said, a lot of ideas thrown around but in the end it was decided that our family had some shopping to do...The Homeless Present Project was born!

So, what is the Homeless Present Project? Well, it started out as us buying some socks or something like that, wrapping them up and giving them to homeless people that we would see while we were out and about.  The idea was to give presents to people who often are forgotten at Christmas time.  There are a lot of programs for children and families with children and they are all wonderful!! We decided that we wanted to focus on the homeless...the man we see everyday at the park not far from our house and the people that nap at the plaza. By the end of dinner we had decided that this did not just have to be a "Christmas thing".  Everyone was super excited!! I personally felt like I had scored major awesome parenting points with the Man upstairs!

A couple of nights later, we went to the Dollar Store and Big Lots to collect our supplies.  We bought gallon sized zip up bags, applesauces, cheddar cheese snacks, yoohoos, fruit snacks, toothbrushes, hand sanitizers, gum, combs,candy canes and reusable spoons. (It ended up costing us about $50 give or take a couple of bucks.) 

Phase 1: Sorting....The kids put all of the items into stacks.  This is the first time we had done this so we set our goal this round at 12 presents.  

Micah on the assembly line, loading his bag with lots of goodies!

Phase 1 Complete!

Phase 2: Wrapping! We all wrapped up the little bundles in fun paper.  The kids really liked this part!!

All of the goodies ready for Phase 3!!

I think that it's important to point out that we are not rich by any stretch of the imagination! We are basically a single income family of 7 (and the 3 dogs!). I have an etsy shop that is not even close to where I want it to be! We do budget our money though, and the money for this project came out of our monthly "Target" allowance.  This meant that this month we spent less on our beauty and cleaning supplies...we bought cheaper brands and skipped some things all together and we were happy to do it!!

Thank you for checking out our first post!! Come back soon so that we can tell you all about Phase 3 and 4! 

Love,

from the Chaotic Crafty Happiness of our home