Sunday, May 31, 2009
Sunday Sound Out
Today, Austin had his confirmation. I think it's cool that confirmation Sunday fell on Pentecost.
I can't believe my baby is getting so old! He's far surpassed me in height (which isn't saying much, I know). I'm wearing high heels in this picture! And he'll be graduating 8th grade this month. I don't know how that happened. I swear I was just pregnant with him yesterday.
And now for your questions...
Uhhh got a ticket [to BlogHer] this weekend for free? How? And why didn't you tell me? I'm one of those procrastinators on the mile long list and it's in my own backyard!
I never said it was free! Oh no, I had to pay a premium for waiting so long to register. I just lucked out when they got to my number on the waiting list. Anyone going to BlogHer, look me up and say "hi"!
So does a Nintendo game survive being washed?
Surprisingly, yes, it did survive. It might have just been a fluke though. I don't recommend washing your DS game cartridges.
What I think is the most precious is that you could tell which kid it is [Brooklyn with the blue mask/wig/mummy getup] ....mine did stuff like this and I had to identify the kid on the old camera by the furniture and color of the walls....sigh
I'll let you in on a little secret. I didn't know it was Brooklyn until I saw this picture with Clay in the background...
And I always have to look at background clues to tell pictures of my kids (when they were little) apart. See what I mean...
Happy Birthday to your girls! How did you cut the lip gloss cake?
With a knife
How hard is the lipgloss cake?
Like you said - it's cake. Cake is generally pretty soft.
How did you get all that gunk [Desitin, Vaseline & bubble juice] off your floor?
Gasoline and a match
I've got three with a birthday all within two days of each other (two are twins) and I was debating if we do two celebrations or one. Making two separate cakes seems like a good idea to make the day special for both of them without getting birthday overload. DId you invite friends to this double celebration or was it just family?
This was just family and family friends. I usually double up for Savannah and Lexi and do one party for them because their birthdays are 7 days apart. It saves me time and effort and money, and this way, our guests don't have to block off 2 weekends and drive out for a party 2 weeks in a row. And so far, the girls have never minded sharing a party. I let them each pick out a theme and we decorate and use cups and napkins and such from both themes.
SSO question: Where do you get all your cake ideas? And do you just put them together out of your own brilliant mind? Or do you find directions somewhere? And just how would you go about making fondant foil?
I get a lot of my ideas from the Wilton books or from watching cake contests and Ace of Cakes on Food Network. I find some ideas online too. Austin suggested I make a big Hershey bar for Savannah. I liked his idea, but decided to do a kiss instead. The lipgloss idea just came to me because Lexi loves lip gloss!
Did they actually try their indoor slip-n-slide? Did it work? It's kind of ingenious really, for a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old. :)
Oh yeah they tried it! No, it didn't so much work. And "ingenious" was not quite the word I'd use.
So, um, what flavor was the Hershey kiss one?!
You'd think chocolate, right? For a girl who loves her chocolate, it's surprising that she doesn't like chocolate cake. Go figure. It was "funfetti".
What kind of punishment did you give Clay and Brooklyn for the mess they made with the bubbles, rash creme and vaseline? Do you bother anymore? I'm wondering because I don't know if they do things like this because they know they can get away with it or because they don't care if they get punished? I don't have six kids, but sweet Jesus, my boys would never think of doing some of the stuff you write about because they would be in so much trouble! Plus I'd make them clean it up and that's almost worse than the punishment!
I threw Brooklyn in the tub because she was covered head to toe with diaper cream. Then I put Clay to work helping me clean up the mess. Unfortunately, he just kinda smeared it around and made more work for me so I sent him to his room. After Brooklyn was bathed, she had time out too. The thing is - the kids didn't do this to be bad. I think sometimes kids get into stuff because they want to explore and experiment and learn and they don't always think things through. That's a learning process that takes time. (Some people never get it!) When they do stuff like this, it's irritating but I don't get too mad.
On the other hand, a couple days ago, Clay brought a ball in the house and was tossing it up in the air. I told him twice to take it outside, but before he went out, he managed to hit and shatter a picture frame on the wall. I was mad because it wouldn't have happened if he'd listened to me and taken the ball outside where it belonged. For punishment, I couldn't make him clean up the glass because that would be dangerous. Instead I took a few dollars out of the birthday money he'd been saving for a toy and told him he had to buy a new frame.
I think there's a difference in deliberately disobeying and kids just doing goofy kid stuff. I try to separate the two and respond accordingly. I like when there are natural consequences to their actions. I try to apply logical consequences when there aren't. Do I do it consistently and perfectly? Heck no. Do I sometimes say, "Are you bleeding? No? Then I don't want to hear about it! Work it out!"?Heck yes. Do I sometimes tell Joe I simply must run some errands and then make a speedy getaway so he can deal with it? Heck yes. I never claimed to be perfect.
If it weren't for Clayton you wouldn't have half of the material that you use to write about. Aren't you glad God gave you the wealth of material in the form of Clay?
Honestly? YES! The funny thing is - my friends remember when I used to tell "Jackson stories" all the time. Jackson grew out of that stage and I know Clay will too. Sooner than I can imagine, I'm sure.
Do you own a steam carpet cleaner??
I probably should, shouldn't I? It would sure come in handy.
And has your website always been "the official site of ..." or is this new? Are people trying to create fake Dawn sites?
"fake Dawn sites" LOL! Not that I know of and yeah, it has said "the official site of author Dawn Meehan" since my website was designed in October.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Share a Little Comfort
We can all help share a little comfort through the national hunger relief organization, * Feeding America. Simply visit ShareALittleComfort.com to contribute a box of "The Cheesiest" to Feeding America. For every click, Kraft will donate a box of mac-n-cheese - up to a million boxes! Kraft will also be donating $100,000 to the organization.
Anyone use Twitter? If so, you can help out that way too. Every tweet that uses the Share a Little Comfort hash tag (#BlueBox) will count toward the million boxes. How easy is that?
And while you're at ShareALittleComfort.com, you can check out Kraft's recipe ideas, money-saving tips, and you can download coupons for savings on your favorite mac-n-cheese products.
* About Feeding America
Feeding America, formerly America’s Second Harvest, is the nation’s leading domestic hunger relief charity. Each year, the Feeding America network provides food assistance to more than 25 million low-income people facing hunger in the United States, securing and distributing more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually.
Achoo!
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Happy Birthday Savannah & Lexington!
After Brooklyn's conversation about going to the "Duck Store", I took the kids to Target (the Duck Store) and when we came home, these guys were in our front yard.
Later in the week (at least I think it was later. My days are all kinda running together right now) I was cleaning the bathroom while talking on the phone to my friend, Jen. I heard Clay and Brooklyn giggling in the kitchen, but just thought there were playing. I was wrong. I emerged to find 4 empty bottles of bubbles, 2 empty tubes of Desitin, and 1 empty tube of Vaseline. They had tried to make an indoor slip-n-slide by pouring the bubbles on the floor and lubing themselves up with diaper cream, then sliding across the mess. Yeah, the fun never ends around here.
And because we spend such a large amount of time at the baseball fields, here's Austin. He's on the Diamondbacks this year.
And Savannah...
Then, on Wednesday, Clay graduated from preschool. On Thursday, he awoke bright and early and got ready for kindergarten. I had to explain to him that he won't start kindergarten until the fall. He is NOT happy about that and lets me know every day. The reason he wants to go to kindergarten so badly? According to him, it's because he'll get to do experiments every day in kindergarten.
Clay with his awesome teachers...
Then on Friday, as I was cooking up a storm for the girls' birthday party, Brooklyn and Clay walked in the house from where they were playing right outside the kitchen and Brooklyn said, "That bird scared me."
"A bird scared you?"
"Yeah, I thought he was going to fly into me!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide.
I had a combined birthday party for the girls yesterday. Lexi will be 8 on the first. She was being so goofy here! LOL!
And Savannah will be 13 tomorrow. Eek! I officially have 2 teenagers now!!!
Lexi's lip gloss cake...
Savannah's Hershey's kiss cake. I meant to save some white fondant for the paper strip, but forgot, so I cheated and used paper. I was going to make fondant foil too, but ran out of time and cheated on that as well. She liked it anyway. I mean, her motto is "Give me chocolate or give me death"! Actually, I'd still be trying to get ready for the party now if it weren't for all Savannah's help in the kitchen, and Joe's help cleaning the house too.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Sick
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Crazy Googlers!
let's do lunch diet program
YES! Now, that's MY kind of diet program. Let's do lunch!
what to pack for kids when you go out of town
If you're going out of town, you should probably pack for yourself, not the kids. Remember pants!
teeth marks soap
You mean like this?
flour sack babies really a relevant way to teach children how to be parents
No, but you can make some delicious chocolate chip cookies with them.
212 year old not interested in potty training
Yeah, once you hit 212 years, I think it's perfectly acceptable to wear diapers again.
i have a wet pullup on any one wants to respond
I really want to respond, but alas I'm speechless.
jeff foxworthy anal seepage
Poor Jeff. Sounds like a personal problem.
perforated eardrum still hurts
What?
suffocating dinosaur costume
Yes, this mom doesn't want to make any ordinary dinosaur costume for her son. She's looking up patterns for a "suffocating" dinosaur costume.
why would a cat attack a person holding a crying baby?
to get the baby to shut up?
hr huff n puff carton
OK, this person is probably referring to the warped old cartoon, H. R. Pufnstuf. Unless it's a new brand of cigarettes, perhaps? "I'll just take a carton of huff n puffs please."
stay at home mom gets nothing for mother's day, should i be angry
It depends. Is the stay-at-home-mom you?
if i got stung by a bee and i'm 6 months from having a baby
Yes? What's your question?
mom love girls old 3 and short com
Huh?
love mom baby old 3 girls short com.
Ohhh, that's better. Wait, no it's not. Huh?
lego indiana jones tips how get thru the darkness
I don't really think you want THESE tips...
6 kids family large blog
I have 6 kids, but just an average sized blog.
dawn meehan i don't have an accent Sunday sound out because i said so \
Hey, I don't have an accent either!
hippotomushrooms
Uh???
what do you do when you find the blue thing after having dinner? indy
Ummm, just where exactly did you find this blue thing?
my three year old stuck clay up her nose
Hey, my three year old stuck a Tic Tac up her nose!
math riddles 100 smurfs purple hair midnight
Those of you who have read my blog for any amount of time, know I'm not mathy, but seriously, does this make any sense???
riddle midnight smurf hair purple
Uhhh, still not getting it.
jax parrow
It's the new creative spelling for Captain Jack.
can i pick my 11 year old friends
If you're 11, sure you can! If you're an adult, maybe you'd better find a little older friends.
hairball looking spider
I don't know, but I have seen a spider-looking hairball.
nephew forced to wear poodle petticoats
Poodles have petticoats?
how to make cheap light sabers from pool noodles
Step 1. Buy a pool noodle
Step 2. Give it to your kids
Step 3. Pay ER bill when your child is injured with pool noodle light saber
Step 4. Realize they aren't so cheap afterall
what is a good comeback for that is not what your mom said last night?
"Oh yeah, Reilly? Well, the jerk store called, and they're running out of you."
Monday, May 18, 2009
In My Washing Machine are Many Things
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Sunday Sound Out
And now, it's time for viewer mail...
Just curious -- why would your parents, grandma and sister makes plans to get together that didn't include YOU?
I know right?! It's either A: they figured I'd be doing something with my family and didn't bother to ask. Or B: they didn't want me and my loony kids running all around their house. I'm going with "B".
Are you going to BlogHer??
Yes! Procrastination pays off again! I put off registering for BlogHer and missed out on tickets and was put on a 50 mile long waiting list. This weekend I was one of the lucky ones who was able to get a ticket though. Yipee!
Do you think this is where Austin learned all about procrastination? He put off his social studies project until the night before and managed to get an A on the thing! Ugh! How are we ever going to learn our lesson about procrastination when things keep working out for us?
I'm so craving a Chicago hotdog! I know Portillo's delivers via mail but it is too freaking expensive!
I was just thinking about Portillos earlier today because I wrote a post about fun hairdos from Suave and I mentioned celebrity stylist Luke O'Connor in the post. He was telling me how much he loves Portillos as he did my hair in Beverly Hills. LOL! You can stop by my review blog to enter the giveaway for a set of Suave haircare products HERE. And you have one more day to enter to win a case of V-8 V-Fusion HERE.
Any particular reason you changed the RSS settings so that the full text of the entry doesn't show up in feed readers?
Just to make you crazy. Oops sorry, that's the answer I reserve for my kids. Actually, it was an experiment to see if it affected traffic to my blog. I think it'll be changing back this week though so hang on a couple more days.
So what made your friends think any of this [amount of junk in my van] was hilarious? They obviously don't have kids.
Bingo! You hit the nail right on the head.
But since we are in the van as much as in the house, don't we need extra toys, food and clothes in there?
Yes! In fact, I say car manufacturers should take this into consideration and install toilets and fridges standard on all minivans.
Exactly how big is your car Dawn?
It's just your standard 43 passenger van. Why?
Wait, how many cars participated in that photo shoot? Wow, that's a lot of stuff! Aren't you glad it's not all on your living room floor?
Uh yeah, not on my living room floor, uh huh. Yeah, because that would be bad. Excuse me while I kick the piles of toys and junk under the couch.... ahem.
How ever do you fit the kids in the car?
I'm supposed to put them in there too???
Took more time to take photos and write this post than it would have to clean all that stuff up - at least with the car to trash can method.
Yeah, but taking pictures was more fun than cleaning it. Duh.
Out of curiosity, after the pics, did you ummm clean out any of the detrius?
Ummm yeah, sure, sure I did.
I just went to my library website and typed in "dawn meehan" to see if they have your book, and the search results came back with "Did you mean 'dawn elephant'?" That just cracked me up, so I had to share!
Have you seen the size of my butt? I completely understand why "elephant" came up while googling my name!
Do you know what books stores will carry it [Because I Said So]?
Family Christian book stores and some Barnes & Noble stores carry it. You can also get it online HERE or HERE. Or, if you'd like an autographed copy, you can get one HERE.
very cute of Brooklyn, so Dawn, did you get her that after she had spent so much time telling you what she wanted?
Ugh, you know what I got her? I got the kids some sidewalk chalk and a 6 pack of bubbles for them to play with at the older kids' sporting events. Know what Clay & Brooklyn did with the bubbles while I was on the phone? They poured 4 bottles out on my kitchen floor and then stripped down and lubed themselves up with Desitin and Vaseline and made a kind of indoor slip-n-slide. I had to video blog that one. Seriously, where do they come up with this stuff??? I never would have dreamed of doing something like that when I was a kid. Savannah never did crazy stuff like that. :::sigh::: It took me over an hour to clean the floor even with Clay's "help"!
I finally ordered your book today, from the Christian Book Distributor on line. Am I a fan, or what? How many of your males readers have said the same? (s.s.o.)
I think you're one of three male readers, Rick. You're an elite group. Congratulations!
*lol* -- I've seen worse, when it comes to dinner time, ;-)
So have I. Almost every single night, in fact. I really should've shot some more footage before that video blog was put together.
I see Mom sits at the head of the table ;0
Actually, no, Brooklyn sits there (which is somehow fitting). We just rearranged a bit to try and fit everyone in the shot.
And should I even ask what came flying [across the table during dinner]?
Probably not. I try not to ask. Sometimes the answer is just scary.
And put your hands together for our musical guests, The Proclaimers (just because they have fun Scottish accents.)
Friday, May 15, 2009
Dinnertime
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Make sure to stop by my review blog for a chance to win a $100 Lands' End gift card HERE
and a case of V-8 V-Fusion juice and an LLBean tote bag HERE!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Foreign Language Lessons
Monday, May 11, 2009
A Look Into the Depths
...of my van, that is.
Thursday night after my book signing, my friends helped me carry a heavy box of books and my video camera and tripod and such out to my car. As they put the things in the back, this is what they saw...
In all honesty, I didn't think twice about it. My van is actually fairly clean right now. These guys, however (or the ones who don't have kids anyway) thought it was hilarious that I had so much stuff in there. So, I decided to take pictures.
The view from the back - 2 baseball bags, a hockey bag, a case of water and a box of books...
Here's a close-up of a wad of chewed gum. What? Where else would you put nasty, old chewed-up gum?
Clay's bat bag, Jax's water bottle, and a bag with a little Video Now player (minus batteries) in it...
Jax's hockey bag...
Lexi's Nintendo DS. So THAT'S where it is!
a naked Strawberry Shortcake doll (for some reason, all the dolls in my house and car are naked. Should I be concerned?), Matchbox car, stuffed doll, and a lawn chair...
an Oreo cookie wrapper and a snow scraper... Yes, I'm aware it's May, but you just never know...
Water bottle, softball, and a used straw just because...
a naked mini Bratz doll with no feet Yes, I know my kids are probably disturbed. But check out that cool hairdo!
a couple of Brooklyn's glamorous jewels...
some of my reusable grocery bags and more jewelry...
a broken hockey stick, another doll, and a cloth bag full of toys under the seats...
a broken lid from a fast food soft drink cup...
a pile of garbage...
a pair of pants... I have no idea!
an elbow length glove and a doll hairbrush...
an empty bag from Disney World...
a swim vest still in my car from when we went to The Dells in January...
a pirate argh!
a year book, baseball cap, sweatshirt, and poncho...
Barbie keys...
straw wrapper, cookie wrapper, and smashed dandelion...
Brooklyn's sweatshirt, crumbs, and dandelion parts from the bouquet Brooklyn gave me the other day...
Belle and the tray from the stroller that broke last month...
another swim vest that's been in here since January...
Moto Moto who repeatedly says, "Grrrr, I'm every hippo's dream" until we're all shouting, "Shut up Moto Moto!"
a magnet that we made in Sunday school...
another Sunday school project. The kids in my class kept asking Austin to draw them sharks to add to their fish.
My area is fairly clean - 3 week old water bottle, coconut lip gloss, change and some misc. papers and CDs.
Sleeping Beauty...
a paper that Lexi drew on. It says, "I love you Mom!" Awww...
The only problem I see here is that there is a serious lack of fruit snacks, fries, and Goldfish crackers. What's up with that???