Sunday Sound Out

Several new readers have asked me how to access Julian's carepages. Go to carepages.com and create an account. It doesn't cost anything and I believe they only ask you for your email address, but you can't access the carepages unless you set up an account. Then to get to Julian's page, type in "juliansworld" with no spaces. That should do it.
Julian is still hanging on and fighting. He amazes me. Even more so, his mother amazes me. Although her little boy is dying before her eyes, she exhibits such strong faith. It's really inspiring.

I'm meeting a fellow blogger for lunch tomorrow! Any guesses as to who it is? I may or may not eat lunch, but I'm definitely getting some Tirimisu for dessert! I'll have pictures tomorrow night because whether my blogger friend likes it or not, I'm having our waiter take pictures of us! :D

Now for your questions...

(In regards to the video Clay made when he swiped Austin's camera...) But the real question...how did the mess on the floor get there? Was it Clay or Austin??!!?!?
I think it came with the house because it's been there as long as I can remember.

HEEELPP!! I can't see the videos you post!
You have to open your eyes.

(In regards to the video Clay made while swiping Austin's camera...) thanks for the video - who would have thought that your house was to quiet with 6 kids??? I was thinking for some reason that it would be a noisy house, but the video proved me wrong!
HA! The baby was sleeping, the other kids were at school and Clay was quiet because he was being sneaky. If I ever made a video of dinnertime at my house, I'd scare you guys silly.

Did you scream at him for wasting a fish?
Oh heck no! You couldn't pay me to eat fish, Kool aid or not. Besides, according to hubby and kids, the fish had freezer burn which really doesn't surprise me. It had probably been in the freezer for 4 1/2 years because when I'm at the grocery store I buy the healthy stuff. I buy fish, and lettuce, and tomatoes, and all sorts of wonderful produce. Then I get home, put it away, and promptly forget about it until it has positively liquefied at which point I throw it away. Very economical, no?

Just curious if your husband reads your blog. It drives me crazy when my wife tells our friends/families about the stupid things I do, you multiply that by thousands. Maybe it helps that you also blog about the crazy things you do.
Yeah, he reads it. It doesn't bother him. And yeah, you're right - I do almost as many stupid things as he does. Almost. He's a good guy though. He puts up with my mood swings. I mean, he would put up with my mood swings if I had them. Which I don't. Why are you yelling at me?!!!

The only thing I have to add is -
Good thing it wasn't that lady's $60 roast that he marinated in Koolaid!
Baaaaa! My poor reader and her $60 roast! You're never going to hear the end of it, huh? :)

(In regards to the Kool Aid fish...) What in the world was he thinking?
He tries not to.

I love Dr. Seuss. My favorite is Go Dog Go! (Do you like my hat?)
I do! What a hat! I like it! I like that party hat!

Why can't they just follow a recipe?
Because men think that following a recipe, reading the instructions, or stopping for directions is cheating.

Is there a due date for our part of the assignment?
It's an ongoing assignment that will run until May. And for those who asked if it mattered where you're from - not at all. You send a card/letter from anywhere. We're all looking forward to seeing where all the cards come from.

Maybe I have missed it somewhere, but what does Etsy mean????
I'm not sure if Etsy stands for anything, but it's kinda like an online craft show. People can sell their homemade items on Etsy (kinda like eBay or Amazon, but for handcrafted items.) We've done several reviews for Etsy shops on Mamaslike.

I don't really understand the UFO thing, though. I wish I could pause the slide show to see it better. It just looks like part of a stadium to me. Is there a story?
Soldier Field used to look like the first picture - a great building with very cool, Greco-Roman architecture. In 2003, they remodeled Soldier Field by plopping a big, stupid looking spaceship on top of it (in the second picture). Because of that, it's no longer a national landmark.




Dawn--you HAVE to be kidding that he used green lemon/lime KoolAid! Please tell me you are not serious???
I couldn't make this stuff up!

Just reading todays blog and Ive had an immediate picture in my mind of the poor lad Harry Potter when the owls delivered all of the mail in one day.
Haaaaa!!! I'm watching Harry Potter right now! That's pretty funny!

I can't wait because I get to send Austin a letter from Austin, TX! Man, is he going to get a ton of mail!
Very cool! He just said, "I wonder if I'll get something from Austin, TX?"

How do you manage to have a water/ice dispenser on your fridge? My floor would be littered with ice and water.
When our fridge died a couple years ago, we looked and looked for one without the dispenser, but they were really hard to come by. Apparently they don't make many like that anymore. And I frequently have a puddle around the water dispenser.

Ack!!! the top of the fridge is my spot too!!! Where will we keep the knives?!?!?!?!?!
I don't know!!! I thought and thought about this, but I can't think of a better spot for the knives. Instead, I just took the bowl of goodies down so he doesn't have a reason to climb up there anymore.

Nice job with the video editing--it looked like you used Microsoft Movie Maker, is that right?
Hee hee, um yeah. I did a great job, huh? I'm just talented that way. My son had nothing to do with it. He didn't help me one little bit. No sirree. I figured all that out on my own, I did.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one with my vacuum sitting out when not in use.
Why put it away when I'll just have to drag it back out in 5 minutes...

Maybe you should decorate a cardboard box with pictures of veggies and stick the cookies in there. THAT would turn the kids away for sure.
LOL! Nope, actually I'm blessed with really good eaters. My kids love veggies.

How do you keep the kids from playing on the video games 24/7?
Are you supposed to do that?

And plus, YOU BUY YOUR KIDS COOKIES? WAY COOL! Hee hee hee!
I got them for Jax (who's obsessed with those cookies) because he'd had a really bad day and because we're going to be putting him (well, all of us really) back on the Feingold diet. His behavior has been really off lately and the diet (which eliminates artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives) helped with his behavior and self control tremendously when we were on it before. The main reason we stopped the diet is because we simply couldn't afford it. Why is it that healthy food costs so much more than junk? Anyway, we're going back to that next week, so it was a treat for him.

By name...How many ER visits, due to injuries, have there been for each child?
:::Snort::: Like I can remember all those???
Put it this way, we're on a first name basis with the doctors at the ER.

so do you have any good advice on how to have a girl? :)
Just give away all your saved girl clothes.

A question for next week... see, I am helping you out and it's only Monday!...where did you go to college and what did you major in (other than grammar, HA)?
Actually, I didn't go to college.

When you put up the questions for the Sunday Shout Out, do you cull them over the course of the week, picking out your favorites to save, or do you wait until Sunday and then go through all the comments to choose what to answer?
I go through all of them again on Sunday.

It seems like large families are prone to receiving negative comments. How do you deal and cope with these comments? From your blog, it seems you are able to find humor in them. Or at least deal with them in a humerous way. Do they secretly offend you or are you really that lighthearted? Will there be a chapter in your book about dealing with comments and defending one's family in a positive manner?
Negative comments absolutely do not bother me. I generally ignore them because they're from ignorant people who don't know what they're talking about. I don't have the time or the inclination to defend myself to a stranger who thinks they know everything based on the little bits I write on my blog. Or sometimes I publish them because they're just so darn stupid they're funny. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but this is MY blog and I won't be publishing stupid or mean comments that are intended to judge or insult me or my awesome readers.

Alright...last Sunday someone asked the question about how you do the line crossed through certain words with blogger. I was EXCITED! Not so excited for your answer! Share your secret :)! Pretty please with sugar on top, and whipped cream and a cherry....{see know I probably sounded like one of your children :)!}
OK, since you said, "please". You can either use < "s" > word you want to cross out < / s > or you can use < "del" > word you want to cross out < / del >. Just don't put the quotations marks or spaces between each character.

And I have a Sunday Shout Out question I have been dying to ask, and not sure if you've ever addressed it on the blog, and maybe it's even worthy of a complete post? How on earth do you feed a family of 8 dinner every night? I would love to know how you organize that, and what do you feed them??
Good question. Brooklyn had a late nap and is still awake, climbing on my lap right now. I'm having a hard time typing, so I'll pull together some tips and address this later this week.