Mommy of Many®

I’m feeling a little blue today. It was a super busy day. We had several people come by this evening. Kateri is so loved. It’s been nice for her to have all of these send offs. I feel like we still have unfinished stuff. There is still paperwork that I have to send with her. I just never kicked it into high gear and got it all in a nice neat package and sent off. Ugh! We’ll settle into a routine (of sorts) in September. Kateri and JJ will be at their schools, the other kids will have started and Clay will hopefully be around for a while. He has a school to attend the first week of September! Anyway, I’m very tired from being up early to get Mariah to cross country and it’s the same tomorrow, so I better get to bed. Tomorrow is going to be such a whirlwind! A few prayers are requested; That Clay and Kateri have a safe flight (Clay to and from). That all Kateri’s paperwork/$ stuff is in order and fine! That we all settle in ok and quickly to our new household. And that Mariah’s ride schedule to and from school falls neatly into place.
Thanks! Love to all from the Lang Clan. Good night~

What a weekend! We-celebrated Clay’s bday at Mr. Mike’s house, the kids were invited over to Mr. Mike’s for the premier of High School Musical 2, Auntie Peggie flew down, Mariah had an audition (went well), We had people over to say good bye to Kateri, went to Mass at the church Kateri sings, visited with family and friends, had all the cousins together for the very first time and even lit fireworks (ok, only sparklers). Busy and fun! I put up a photo page of everyone at our house yesterday. It was fun to see all the kids together. Our busy weekend leads into a busy week. Mariah has her orientation for school this week, and then starts next Monday. We are already at school time! I guess I better get on those supply lists and finish up. I hope everyone else had a nice weekend.
Have a great day~

The babies wasted no time in finding their Daddy-O at home. Gabi’s words early this morning (before falling back asleep) were, “I get you a strawberry one”. (She wants to get him a strawberry bday cake). So, later this morning Gabs and I will go to Baskin Robbins and buy her daddy’s cake. Whoo! This man knows how to surprise me! Instead of 24 hours, he gave me 40 minutes. I haven’t felt like a kid on Christmas in a LONG time. But that did it.
Have a great day~

Writing in “eggplant” can you guess why? This is Phil. We found him at Henry’s last night while shopping for our fruits and veggies. We appreciated his “Beatles” hairstyle and his prominent nose. He’s a quiet house guest, doesn’t eat much and can’t spy on us (poor guy, no eyes). We all like Phil but aren’t too sure how long he’ll stay around. We are thinking of inviting him to Parmesan for dinner in the next few days.
OK! WAIT A MINUTE!!!!! While writing about Phil, Clay called (coming home tomorrow night) and said he wanted to talk for a minute. He seemed evasive when I was asking about his day. HE’S ON HIS WAY TO THE HOUSE!!!!!! Good night~

So much, so much! My head is full, my heart is heavy and my hands are always busy. Today was; Dr.s, groceries, kids, messes, laundry, pool-play, friends, pizza and wine, the computer, the phone and carpooling, Maddi making peach cobbler, Mariah trying out for cross-country and volleyball and Lex meeting a chicken, chasing a dog and playing the piano. Long, long day! Kateri leaves soon. So soon. JJ follows right behind. Clay returns in mere days. Peg comes to visit and friends and some family are coming to say good-bye and wish Kateri well. Clay’s bday is tomorrow. So many years of celebrating birthdays together! Gabi insists on a strawberry cake for her,”Daddy-O”. We’ll get it for Sunday. Tomorrow is full. So I will say good night~

Today has started early. I had to get Kateri to work at 5am. She’s not driving until Clay gets back because she put oil in the 4-runner and forgot to put the cap back on. YIKES! It’s a mess, but Dad will help. Mariah has to be at a friend’s house by 8am to catch a ride up to the school for try outs today. Thanks goodness for the ride! It’ makes my day a little easier. I have to admit that it was nice to get up really early again. Since summer started, I’ve been getting up closer to 7 and there’s just something that you miss out on by then. Yesterday was a good day. We had some running around with getting Mariah to volleyball try outs. But we took advantage of free sundae coupons and killed the time that way. Gabi and Luke-Xavier were funny yesterday. Lex crawled too quickly across my bed and hit his head on the wall. I promptly went to him and kissed his head. Gabi watched the whole thing, climbed up on my bed and bashed her head into the wall, looking for kisses. Sibling rivalry at it’s best! It was also a day that I found out that our storage issue is even graver than I had previously thought. Not only do the sleeping bags go in the 4-runner, but apparently the used motor oil goes in the gas can! I found this out the hard way when mowing the lawn. Silly me! I figured it was safe to fill the lawn mower from the gas can. Not so! Another thing that Clay will have to deal with when he returns. Luckily a neighbor was kind enough to let me borrow their lawn mower to finish up. Well, off to start the day. Hope it’s great for each of you~

JJ got back from a Boy Scout camp yesterday. One of the things he brought with him was Clay’s fly fishing rod and the whole set up. Today, it was still lying on the floor behind the love seat and I asked him to put it away. Max overheard me and promptly asked if he could go fly fishing. I told him that you had to have a river or stream and that he’d have to wait for “someday”. He looked very disappointed and said,”but there are lots of flies in the backyard”.
Love that Maxi boy!

“Hey Jen! Why are you a lucky girl”?
Because I won $1 !
“How did you win $1”?
On a lottery ticket!
“And what can you do with $1”?
NOTHING!

Sorry it’s been a few days. So much busy work to take care of. 2 days ago I got the van back and it’s looking beautiful. As a matter of fact, I’ve drug my feet on putting the car seats back in etc. I don’t want it all messed up inside! But today, I will take Casey’s mini-van and get it washed etc. and put all of our stuff back in our van. I realized that I have to make a trip to North Island for a new sticker since I have a new windshield. More stuff to do. Yesterday I managed to take the kids to MCRD for a little bit of play time before I buried myself under mounds of paperwork. I had to go out and buy more manila envelopes to be able to mail all of the things I found to mail. Several of you will be receiving manila envelopes with odds and ends in them. Kateri took Tristan with her yesterday, so he had a play day with the Hilton kids. He also got his “back to school” haircut. Very nice. Anna and Maddi were lucky enough to tag along with the Gillcrist family to see Nancy Drew last night. Thanks for taking them! Mariah had her JRP class last night and we finally turned in her pics with her resume and work permit. She has an audition on the 18th and will finally have everything ready to go. After I got back from Mariah’s class (10 pm) I started all the searching for tickets for Clay and JJ to head out to Scranton at the end of the month. It turned into a 2 hour project! I totally messed up the whole thing while trying the get the best deal! I booked Clay’s ticket and car by itself because the site I was using wouldn’t let me choose 1 round trip and 1 one way ticket. So, I thought, “no problem. I will go back and book JJ on the same flights”. No dice! They don’t book 1 way flights, no exceptions! I frantically started searching the internet for the same flights (by this time not caring the cost), but could not find the same combination. I was finally able to go through the first airline and they hooked me up. Thank you Javier! He was one man doing his job! However, during the whole process, I started thinking about Clay and Kateri’s trip (which is before his and JJ’s) and that while they had plane tickets, no car or room for Clay. So I started searching for a room for Clay. There’s no room at the inn! There are literally no rooms around the college for his dates. Fortunately we have a couple of contacts who have contacts out there. Let’s hope someone can come up with a suggestion. That’s it from here. Just lots of busy work. Today’s more of the same with a trip to the library thrown in (gotta return those books from 3 weeks ago so as not to owe). Maybe something exciting will happen to write about. ~ 


It really was a nice day today. We stayed home until after dinner and got many things accomplished. Tristan has been working very hard to put together some Bionicle sets that he received way back at Christmas. He’s really great at all those little pieces and following the directions. I’m not sure I would have the patience for it. Kids were outside and in the pool today. We borrowed some movies from the housing office and I finally washed the carpet in the living room. All in all it was nice to be home. The weekend passed without too much flair. Today was Ted’s last day of living in S. Cal (for now anyway). He’s been here since about 6 weeks before Gabi was born. So, needless to say, he’s become a regular face at our house and at our table. It will take a little adjusting to not have him around to pick up the slack, if I need it. Thanks Ted, for all the distasteful jobs you’ve done over the last 3 years and all the times you picked kids up or dropped them off. I hope all good things happen from this point! We all love you and will miss you!
Good night~

So, it’s come to my attention recently that I need to spend the time to make button holes on several of my shirts smaller. I need to do this soon. Luke-Xavier is now 16 months old and in that time he has managed to pull on my shirts enough to make the button holes too big. I have now come home from 3 different things to find myself unbuttoned to a point that is embarrassing. HELLO people! Why did I have to find this out on my own?! Did everyone REALLY think I was trying to catch a little action? “Whoo Whoo, look at me, I think I’ll leave my shirt unbuttoned”? Tell me, please, that all you other mamas have had this lovely experience. I’m pretty sure the guy at the UPS store was amused. So, I will sit down and tighten the button holes, but PLEASE, if you see me with one or two too buttons undone, say something!
Good night~

We are 11 people in about 14oo sq. ft. of house. Because of this, we have a couple of sheds and are creative about our storage and also try to keep things cleaned out as not to keep clutter around. But sometimes, I think it’s all gone too far! Today, I washed and dried a sleeping bag, rolled it up and then promptly walked out to the 4-runner to store it with the others!

I love the above picture of Max from today. It just looks like summer to me. A little boy riding, as fast as he can, on his bike, that he loves! (thanks Joe and Casey). I think it may be time to take the training wheels off. JJ first rode a 2-wheel bike around this age, so did Arianna. We did have to run around a bit, but we also did some summertime things like eat lunch in the yard and swim with friends. Yes, our pool is full of children again. They are so happy! Summary of today; 1) kids fed and dressed 2) trip to Boy Scout store 3) Take new boy scout pants to MCRD for hemming that MUST be done by tomorrow (they said yes) 4)replace missing sunglasses, while at MCRD. I couldn’t believe how much my eyes were hurting without sunglasses. 5)Drive through Chik Fil-A to claim free lunch (awesome deal that I ran across last week). 6) Go home, set up kids at their picnic table to eat. 7) Play in pool with friends 8)PAPERWORK! There are so many loose ends for Kateri and JJ leaving for school. Somedays, I can’t even think straight about what I need to find and where to send it. 9) Get ready for soccer and errands 10) Socceer 11) Errands 12) Picking various kids up from different places.
Ok, wait a minute! The title of this blog is a fairly simple summer day. I’m not sure why I felt that it was simple! Reading this list makes me think it was a CRAZY summer day. I guess because we did get to enjoy being at home (even for a little while), makes me feel better. Or maybe it’s just the great picture of Max riding his bike during Tristan’s soccer practice. Whatever! I’m having one of those reality moments, where it grabs me by the head and makes me look it in the eyes. I swear I’m in la la land most of the time. Oh well, it works! Good night~

A few days ago my one of nieces came to visit/play with the kids. The babies are getting older, so they are becoming more vocal about what they want and don’t want. It was interesting to watch Luke-Xavier with her and how he problem solves (sometimes with a quick hit to the head or a swiftly thrown block). It was nice to visit (maybe not so much for Sophia). Today I took Mariah for her sports physical and then to the exchange to pick up a few items. Toward the end, Luke-Xavier was getting restless and noisy , so Mariah took him to the car (mind you this is still not MY car). I left the store and was greeted by Mariah without the baby. HUH?! He was locked in the car! Luckily an MP (is this still what they are called?) saw what had happened and quickly came to ask if the baby was locked in the car. We had 2 fire trucks, several policeman and paramedics at the vehicle in mere minutes. Luckily they got him out without breaking the window (which is what they originally said they would have to do). He was sweaty and hot, but enjoyed the show and the attention. Whew! I cancelled the rest of my errands at that point and headed home…….to finish fixing the pool problem. Thanks to everyone who had suggestions! I am sure this would not have gotten out of control if Clay were around, but I was completely clueless. It looks like the kids will be back to swimming tomorrow and I now have a chemical routine (for the pool) to follow. Thanks also to Ted for lending a hand. Maggie left this evening. We all REALLY enjoyed having her here. She and Ted went to the American Idol tryouts. No luck! She was with us for 6 days and was invaluable in lending a hand with the kids! Max and Gabi were especially sad to see her go. Come back soon Mag! However, Peggie will be down for a visit soon. Hooray! She will be here for Kateri’s last weekend at home. It’s coming up SO quickly! If anyone would like to say good bye to Kateri and wish her well on her journey, we are planning a pot luck at noon on Sunday, August 19th at our house. She will be leaving at 4pm to sing at the 5:30pm Mass at Sacred Heart parish in OB. We will be going to the mass as well. All are welcome! Tomorrow it’s off to the Boy Scout store for items needed for the next camp. JJ is leaving for a week long camp, in a few days. Tristan gets to have soccer practice and a sleep over at a friend’s house (he’s very excited) and Mariah has JRP. Arianna and Maddi, who are still on their N. Cal adventure, will be meeting up with Auntie Katie tomorrow and heading to her place for a few days. I think they will have fun. Ok, off to bed…….Good night~

Today, I did something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I sent in a little quip to Reader’s Digest in hopes that they find it print worthy. Here’s the little story that I sent;
Sunday morning I called my sister because the kids wanted to know if she was going to church with us. She said, “no, I went last night”. “Ah, you’re a vigil Auntie”, I said.
What do you think?