Doggone dilemmas

O the dog!

I really like our dog and I have to keep reminding myself that she has already made great strides in the 3 months we've had her.

She sleeps with the boys at night. She is on an eating and sleep schedule that matches ours.

She can stay outside or in a kennel for a long period of time without causing mayhem.

She can sit and stay.

But it's very hard to remember these things as I am chasing her around th neighborhood in my pajamas without shoes shouting and looking like a crazy lady trying to break into peoples yards.

She currently embarrasses me in a similar manner to this at least twice daily. My sons constantly open the door without paying attention and she loves to bolt. She will come to any stranger that calls her but she knows if she comes when I call it means she has to go home so she ignores me. My current method is to bring food or a treat and sit in a strangers yard and wait for her to come get the food from me. This method tends to take at least 10 minutes and as much as 45 minutes. It sucks!

She really is a good dog. I like that she chews up my kids toys, I think it will teach them to put their toys away. I like that she gets excited when they run and yell, I think it will help them stay calm in the house.

All that being said, if this bolting problem isn't fixed by spring break I am not sure she will stay with us.

I can handle a lot of things and I fully accept that I'm a tiny bit on the looney bin side of life. But I am not in a place where I want all my neighbors to know. I like to pretend I have it all together, especially when it comes to strangers judgments.

So either she learns to come when called, I start wearing makeup and running shoes at all times night and day or she goes to somewhere that has more room to run.

We'll see.

Rain=murky water=sharks=no beach

Still overcast and randomly rainy which means the beach was a no go yesterday. We had a friend over for the morning and then ran errands in the afternoon and had a star wars themed dinner at home.

I think I am cancelling activity week.

The train set came out which has been a source of immense joy and foot pain. First time we've set it up upstairs, so far so good but we'll see.

It was a Lego Christmas so I am now on a mission to reorganize the lego collection. thinking it's time to give them their own built in area of our house as I don't see the boys lego habit going away anytime soon. I'm sure you'll hear more on this project.

Halfway through this post I just remembered what I was going to blog about, my dog. Guess I'll save it for tomorrow.

I'll finish this post off with more random info.

I missed a work meeting today, I am on vacation and left my planner at work on accident so I did not remember. I was going to check work email on break but the info for how to log in was in my planner too. Now I am left horribly embarrassed and behind, it put a big damper in my day :(

We went to $5 movie Tuesdays in Lahaina today and saw Gullivers Travels. It was funny. It did not stick close to the book or tv mini series. It was inappropriate for my children to watch and we had to discuss this afterwards since I took them without checking the reviews first.

Tonight the twins best friend is spending the night for the first time. They have been ecstatic since yesterday. The old twin checked his watch at least 40 times today to see if it was time for the friend to arrive yet. They schemed and planned and scheduled out the entire event. It started with trains, moved into lego building, then kung zhu and tent building, quick dinner, pj's and into the tent. They brought books and flashlights into the tent and managed to stay awake for 2.5 hours reading and talking about everything imaginable. they are asleep now with the plan to play lego rockband on the wii as soon as they awake in the morning until the friends dad arrives to pick him up.

I need to go to bed now because I have to get up every hour during the night to check and make sure they are all ok outside in the tent. I get a little paranoid but I try to be the cool parent so I hide the crazy til they sleep....

Activity Week

We have 2 weeks of Winter Break this year. The plan was to spend one week at home and one week being tourists on our own island.

The plan never works out.

We did spend a lot of time at home last week but we also ran to stores, in-laws and playdates a lot during the week so it was slightly less relaxing and missing some of the crafty zen we could have achieved. Still a really good week though :)

This week everyone gets to pick an island activity and then I scream, yell, stomp my feet and push people out the door to make it happen. (It's not always this dramatic but that's the dread creeping in of what I fear will happen when I make my family do anything.)

It's always fun once we get to our activities but getting there almost kills us. Packing to be gone for more than an hour and where stores and fast food aren't accessible is next to impossible and almost requires a full luggage set these days.

Whatever time I choose for the activities will not be the right time. Someone falls asleep in the car, someone has to pee as soon as we leave all the places where that's possible, someone is going to miss a football or video game opportunity, someone just wanted to stay home, someone gets sick while we are in the worst place for that to happen or someone pushed everyone out of the house, left the luggage set of supplies at home made everyone stay out and miss two meals and now the whole family is crying.

Or it could go well. That's always a possibility.

Todays island activity is from the oldest sons list. We are heading out to baby beach this afternoon. I have yet to really think through this activity and I am not ashamed to admit that I don't plan to til the last possible moment which will mean I get stressed out and forget something. But on the bright side I will have a calm morning where I am not thinking about how to make 5 people bend to my will so I can make them have fun.

Tune in tomorrow to hear how it went.

We had a moment.

My son stood on a chair with his arm around my shoulders and sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" with me as loud as he could at the Christmas Eve Service tonight.

I am not ashamed to say I shed a tear.

Or ten.

He and I rarely see eye to eye and I often misunderstand him and don't give him enough credit. He is an amazing boy, a leader who is full of adventure, spunk and grand ideas. He is also full of mischief, likes to test his boundaries and was never one for rules.

He challenges me.

Tonight he gave me one of the most precious moments I can remember as of yet in my adventures in motherhood. When the song was done he sat in my lap and snuggled with me while he listened to the story of Jesus birth and it's importance.

He is 6, our oldest son, and has always been very independent. I am not sure if he will ever know the present he gave me tonight.

p.s. The other twin snuggled his daddy and sang the songs occasionally. He really enjoyed the coloring book they provided :) Our young one fell asleep on the way to church and slept the whole service. They both gave me many precious moments too.

I love Christmas, I love Jesus and I love my family!

I just made these. Matching mallo stockings!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

We are christmastastic over here at Mallo Manor! The house is filled with merriment, baking, yummy smells, christmas songs, pretty lights, wrapped presents, stories of Jesus, movie watching, lego building and time with friends and family.

:)

There is also mess, odd smells, broken toys, whining voices and a whole lotta rain but I'll focus on that later.

For today I say yea!

Also, if you are my friend on Facebook check out the coolest rainboots in the world that my adorable 4 year old got me so we could puddle jump together and gave me early considering the lotta rain and all.

It's a hard knock life

I won't waste your time pointing out that I didn't post again, well I just did, but everyone is home and my days are chock full of making memories so I do no make it on the computer at all and I have decided I do not like posting from my phone even though I can. End disclaimer.

I started this week getting up early, before my sons and the sun, and was able to recall the amazing peace that comes with that. It is ridiculously hard to get out of bed when my alarm goes off but it does wonders for my psyche, it dials down my crazy like 6 notches!

I know this, and yet I rarely do it.

So, I have been doing it for about 3 days and having all these magical moments blah, blah, blah. But I forgot about one thing.

Early to rise means early to bed.

Oops.

I went late night shopping with the husband last night, we got a lot accomplished but I was tired and cranky by the time we got home, I should not have stayed up past my bedtime! So this morning my miraculous early rise great day attitude thing did not happen. I arose bleary eyed, confused, tired and I sent one son straight back to bed because I cannot handle the lack of volume control in the morning!

Now, I sit and blog, refocus, and am determined to walk away from this computer smiling and singing "Tomorrow, tomorrow" as my theme song for the day instead of "It's a hard knock life."

Someday they will write my life as a musical.