Thursday, September 10, 2009

Sunday Sound Out

After slacking off being really busy for 3 weeks, I'm back to answer viewer mail. This is the part of the show when I answer YOUR questions. Now, without further ado...
live from Chicago, the city made entirely out of Play-Doh, it's Dawn Meehan with the ever-awesome Sunday Sound Out!

You may have been asked this before and I missed it, but... I have 4 children and we are trying for another. When I am out with my kids I almost always get some sort of negative remark from someone, like " they have ways of preventing that". It makes me so mad...do you ever get those comments and how do you respond?
Oh yeah! I get those every time I leave the house with my kids. I guess my response depends on my mood and how many times I've heard the question that day.
HERE's an awesome list of responses! Check it out!

Well I, too, was going to give you MAJOR crap for not knowing who Tim Gunn was but I'm still laughing from the idea of you homeschooling so it will have to wait another day. Sorry, not trying to be judgemental but from reading your blog I'm thinking that would be like me homeschooling my kids. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hey now! I could totally homeschool! I'd be good at it. I'm sure I could teach my kids all kinds of...oh who am I kidding? I can't even pretend I'd be good at it. The mere thought is ridiculous.

You have GOT to share how you make that cookie. I have always wanted to make giant cookies but can't figure it out properly.
OK, here's how I do it. One time when Savannah was making cookies, she didn't follow a recipe correctly and her mistake turned out better than the original so this is what we use now.

THICK & CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

5 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. butter
1 c. vegetable shortening
3 c. brown sugar
4 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
1 bag chocolate chips

Cream butter and shortening together. Add brown sugar. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and add to bowl. Finally, add chocolate chips. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes.

When I make a giant cookie, I press approximately half the dough (or a little less) into a 15 inch round cake pan. If you don't own such a pan, you can probably get a disposable foil one about that size. I bake it at 325 until it looks done. Sorry, I'm not good with a timer.

You're *SO* close to having everyone out of the house for at least part of the day. What would you do with yourself?
I'll probably pay bills, clean, do laundry, go to the grocery store, write, cook meals... you know, the usual. Only I'll spend my time wondering how on earth I was ever able to accomplish anything with 6 kids at home.

This is kinda school related, maybe a SSO question. What books do your boys recommend for someone that is 6, but already reading at a 2nd-3rd grade reading level (he just got Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but I am still concerned it's not age appropriate)
Ummm, let me put on my librarian hat... when Jackson was in 1st-2nd grade, he loved The Magic Tree House books. The cool thing is that it's a series of more than 30 books, so if he likes them, there are plenty to read. They're fiction books, but they're filled with non-fiction material about different places and time periods. My non-fiction loving son really liked these.

I wouldn't be impressed with the school either for that...but I think the real question here is why did it take your son A WEEK AND A HALF to tell you he was in the wrong classes, and in such a roundabout way?? :)
I know! He thought that they had made a mistake when they assigned the honors classes to him and that they had corrected it by moving him into regular classes. Oh well. It's fixed now and he's about caught up.

question for sunday shout out....where do you guys go camping..looks like one of the 'jellystone parks'..maybe? just curious...
We did actually camp at a Jellystone over Labor Day weekend. We almost never camp at Jellystones ordinarily though. We have a few favorite places we like to visit every year, but we also like to try out new ones now and then. I don't know if we'll be returning to this Jellystone in Millbrook, IL though. The bathrooms were always dirty, locks on bathroom doors were missing, sinks didn't work, the air smelled alternately like horse manure and raw sewage, and check out the light fixture in the pool...


Yeah, that looks safe. @@ Every time we told employees about the light, they totally brushed it off. It's probably been like that all summer.

Hidden Valley in Wisconsin is probably the nicest campground we've ever been to. It's super-clean, well-maintained, quiet, and wooded. They have nice firepits, a beautiful pool, hayrides, nice sites, laundry, etc. And they don't charge you extra to use their pool, or if you have more than 2.5 kids.

What's Brooklyn going to do when she outgrows those pink boots??
I think I'm going to have to find ones in a larger size! Maybe I could take a trip to Texas on a pink boot quest and visit Mimi while I'm there.

Shouldn't that be, "to the pain?" [my kids fighting "to the seriously injured"]
I love anyone who can quote The Princess Bride!

I was just looking at Disney backdrops for parites. Now if I can find an icerink Dawn, I could throw my own little Disney on Ice hehe.
Just do what my kids did. Pour water all over the kitchen floor and leave the freezer door hanging open to freeze the water. Voila! Big water mess than makes you scream Ice rink!

Question for SSO, is Brooklyn still sleeping in your bed or are you still trying to get her to stay in her own "big girl bed"? Just curious if your ever going to get your own bed back!
About that... Actually, we're redoing both the boys' room and the girls' room right now. Soon, very soon, Brooklyn will finally have a bed of her own! Savannah and Lexi had bunk beds in their room. They weren't your typical bunks. The bottom bunk sat upon some dresser drawers and the top one was bolted into the wall. It's hard to explain. I wish I had a before picture. Anyway, because of the way the bunks were configured, I haven't been able to move them away from the wall for years. About a year or so ago, I tore up the carpet in the girls' room because it was gross. I couldn't move the bunks so I just cut the carpet around where the beds sat. Joe dismantled the beds today in preparation of painting and laying a new floor. This is what we found behind them...


pens, papers, dust galore, and 50,000 Cheezit crackers


a candy bar wrapper from Brooklyn's first birthday party - yeah, she's 3 1/2 now


total disgustingness on the wall - in fact, it's so disgusting that a plastic ring actually STUCK to it!


a patch of carpet that was left


Yep, that's a baby sock stuck to the mold on the wall. Nice, huh?


another missing sock and a princess bracelet


the lovely (and by lovely, I mean completely NOT lovely) floor in the boys' room


Joe told Clay this was a bucket of mayonnaise. I'm surprised Clay didn't try to eat the glue.


half done


new tile - yeah, I know it looks like a hospital floor. That's the point. Indestructible. Or as indestructible as can be with my boys.


I found this darling artwork on the boys' dresser. I wonder who could have drawn this?

12 comments:

Jennifer in Wisconsin said...

White flooring for a boys room? Really?? Are that optimistic that it can stay that way? Of course it is way better than the wood-like flooring. Reminds me of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster

Tamra in Denver said...

I have that exact sock in my unmated sock collection! Too bad it would cost more to ship to you than it would cost to buy a new one...and I bet none of your daughters can wear them anymore.

Michelle said...

I like your cookie recipe. That means every time you make a giant cookie, you have to make two! I love it :)

And the room? That's ummm special. I make the wee ones climb under their beds every month or so, and it's always amazing to me what they find under there. Ahhh, kids. What would we do without 'em?

Magic Treehouse! GREAT suggestion. Mister Man read all those this summer and loved them (there are 42 right now with #43 coming out in January). Geronimo Stilton is the series he's into right now, and he also read the Andrew Lost books which he enjoyed a ton and is going through the Encyclopedia Brown series.

Kila said...

Haha, you did what I've always to do to our floors--use commercial grade! Yesterday while at a doctor's office, I was again looking around at the industrial strength flooring, doors, door trim, etc. and thinking, "This is what I need at home".

Anonymous said...

Dawn I love your blog! I think of your boys everytime my son does something he shouldn't. Tonight he dumped dry cat food into the downstairs bathroom sink and turned the faucet on. I was upstairs and didn't discover it until the water had been running for a half hour and was gushing through the entryway, kitchen and into the heat registers. I honestly had the thought that it was something your Clayton could have done.

Heather said...

I love your honesty, Dawn. And of course your humour.

(I've taken a day off work today to tidy the house. And even after 8 solid hours it won't look as tidy as most of my friends' houses!

LaDawn said...

I love Clayton's stick figure picture. Is that a penis I see hanging down between the legs?!

Jayne V. said...

Now you know where all your missing socks are--they're stuck tour walls behind furniture :)

Michelle said...

at least that "artwork" is anatomically correct.

Anonymous said...

When I see that floor, I just see a head cracking against it. I hope you get a big rug to go over it!

Jen said...

I love the anatomically correct stick person!! That is terrific!!

Anonymous said...

Dawn,
I made those cookies last night with my kids and they were yummy!! My kitchen looked like hell afterward but our tummies were happy!!
Kim Bridges

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