Mommy of Many®

I not only have a big family, but I also come from a big family. I have 7 sisters, 1 brother and about a million aunts, uncles and cousins. Many of my extended family members live close enough to each other that they see each other and interact with each other’s families on a regular basis. Being a military family, we have, mostly, lived far from any family and have only in the last few years, been able to say that there was any family nearby.

There’s something about Sunday that makes me really miss having everyone near. I wish we could come home from church and know that family was gonna roll in throughout the day, cooking, visiting, even disagreeing.

~sigh~
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On another note-

We had a great time at Oma’s Pumpkin Patch (as always!). I was surprised at how crowded it was. We’ve been visiting for the last 7 years and apparently the word has gotten out about what a great deal ($7 for each child, includes a water bottle, hayride, small pumpkin and all the fun around the play area and each adult is free with a paying child) and how much fun it is! We stayed for about 2 hours, saw a newborn calf, petted some goats, sheep and calves, played in the hay maze, enjoyed the hay ride, had fun on the cotton seed slide and took a ton of pictures. We brought 4 friends along and had a great time!

everyone on the hayride

Tristan petting a goat

Max and a calf

Tristan maneuvering down the cotton seed slide

Me with all the kiddos after they had picked their pumpkins

My favorite picture of the day! Leave it to Lex to turn a rocking cow into a motorcycle!

Now, to tackle this Sunday, 2 soccer games, grocery shopping, church and all!

Doing the Dance of the Children on a Sunday~

For the last 7 or so years, I’ve been gathering up the kiddos and taking them to Oma’s Pumpkin Patch on the Van Ommering Dairy Farm. We are particularly partial to this pumpkin patch because it was introduced to us by a neighbor who knows the Van Ommering family. Every year the kids look forward to the cotton seed slide, the baby animal petting area and the hay ride.

I love Fall and I love little traditions! You can bet there will be plenty of pictures to share!

Doing the Dance of the Children and Looking Forward to a Day of Fall Fun~

Burn the Floor!

From beginning to end, this was a great, fast paced, smooth flowing show! The dancers were fantastic! Watching their energy and incredible dancing had me wanting to leave the show and find the first place I could sign up for swing dancing lessons. Admittedly, my 2 favorite parts of the show were the jive, swing, boogie portion and when they performed to Proud Mary. Let me say here, that Vonzell (you may remember her as the 2nd runner up in the 4th season of American Idol) rocked Proud Mary in a way that would make Tina Turner proud! Her rich, soulful voice was a pleasure to hear throughout the show.

I suppose I need to admit that Proud Mary was my favorite portion. I was stunned by Mary Murphy’s high-energy, booty-shakin’ part in the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, she came out and gracefully showed off her ballroom talents on several occassions, but she brought a smile to my face with the way she pulled it out for Proud Mary!

The whole show was fantastic! Music, vocals, dancing, costumes, choreography-all made for a fun evening! If you get the chance to go, DO!  The Show is in San Diego through Oct. 17th!  I took my 16 yr old with me and she enjoyed it just as much as I did. As a matter-of-fact, she was on YouTube looking up all the dancers and clips from the show. I think that speaks volumes!

Doing the Dance of the Children and Humming Proud Mary While I Have Visions of Swing Dancing to All That Great Music~

Here are 3 reasons I think I should buy a Lottery ticket-

1) Last week my business card was pulled from a large glass container that sits on the counter at Champagne, in the Del Mar Highlands, as the winner of a pastry basket. Today it was delivered to my door by Janel, their Catering Coordinator.

All 12 of those yummy pastries were promptly gobbled up by my family. I tried a bit of 2 of them and they were GOOD!

Thanks Champagne and Janel! We will be sure to visit you again soon!

2) Last week I ALSO won a gift basket from Popcornopolis! It should be arriving in the next day or two and I can’t wait to share it! (ok, that’s a lie. I’d rather hide it and eat the entire thing myself, but I know I will enjoy watching my family and coworkers enjoy all the delicious popcorn that will be in there and have DECIDED that I will share). Since several people were helpful in my winning of this contest, I am looking forward to letting some of them enjoy the spoils too . If you’re not *Lucky* enough to win a gift basket from them, you can still try their delicious popcorn by visiting their website, being adventurous with the flavors and ordering some!

I don’t know exactly what my gift basket will include, but I know it’s going to be good!

3) Tomorrow night I get to attend the San Diego opening night of Burn the Floor! I’m taking my 16 yr old, Mariah, with me and looking forward to the evening with her! Not only have I been invited to see the show and write a review, but I was able to share the fun with YOU and now one of my readers and her daughter also get to enjoy the evening! Good Stuff!

If those 3 reasons aren’t enough to be feelin’ lucky, I’m not sure what are!

Doing the Dance of the Children and Thinking of Buying a Quick Pick~

Susanne of Pine Valley!

Congratulations! You are the winner of a pair of tickets to see Burn the Floor on their opening night, Oct 12th in San Diego!

I will email you with info.

See you there~

I am so excited to have the chance to see and review this show! And I’m even more excited that I get the chance to share it with you! One lucky reader will win a pair of tickets to Burn The Floor opening night, Oct 12th. at the San Diego Civic Theater.

Enter to win by reposting this post and emailing me at Jen@MommyofMany.com to let me know. You MUST email me to be entered! The winner will be chosen at random tomorrow evening. I’ll post the winner’s name before bed tomorrow.

Whoo Hoo! Let’s go Burn the Floor! (if you haven’t seen the video and wanna see what all the excitement is about, check it out here).

Good luck!

I can’t remember a time when I simply put up a link to another person’s blog as my post, but this one is TOTALLY worth sharing! I think you’ll agree.

Stark. Raving. Mad. Mommy.-Top 10 reasons basic training prepared me for motherhood

Doing the Dance of the Children and Wondering if I Should have Enlisted~

I have a few days of catching up to do!

I finally got over the stomach bug that kept me in bed for most of 2 days and so far, none of the kiddos have gotten it (uttering another silent prayer that they don’t). I headed back to work on Wednesday. I don’t know where I got the bug or exactly what it was, but I haven’t been that sick, that I can remember. It’s probably just that it hit me in my decaying, aging state

Yesterday I celebrated my 39th birthday. A week ago I jokingly said to Mariah that the very last birthday that I would ever celebrate was coming up. She ran with it

What a great day! I was treated to lunch by a good friend, who later, showed up at my door with a homemade chocolate cake!

My girls bought dinner for themselves and the lil kiddos so that I didn’t have to cook

And my brother took me to sushi for dinner.

When I got home, we cut into those cakes and there were some thoughtful gifts waiting for me.

Sylvester Stallone AND Rod Stewart! Now THAT’S good stuff!

I can’t forget to mention how nice it was to open the mailbox and find an unexpected bday card from a friend and M.O.M. follower that held my favorite, local chocolate!

Unexpected surprises are the best!

So, today, it’s back to reality. But it sure was nice to be treated so royally!

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Today is the second day of celebrating the Teddy Bear Picnic with the preschoolers. They each bring in their favorite teddy bear or stuffed animal and we have a lil picnic at snack time. They’re so adorable and it passes so quickly! I can easily remember when Tristan (now in 5th grade) was having his Teddy Bear Picnic! Now it’s Lex’s turn

We do most of our preschool celebrations twice, once for the M-W-F kiddos and once for the T-Th kiddos. That means that the lil ones who come everyday get 2 celebrations. This was Lex, yesterday.

Adorable!

Ok, on with the regular routine. Many thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday a lil step out of the normal Dance. Now it’s back to Doing the Dance of the Children and hoping to keep up with the music~

Yesterday I loaded up the kiddos and headed over to Balboa Park to take advantage of the beautiful weather and the Free Tuesdays. I actually found parking quiet easily (talk about a surprise!) and we started across the grass toward the Air and Space Museum, which was our destination.

But surely a lil stop at this fun park, first, wouldn’t hurt!

Max tried this fun spinner…a lot!

Tristan mastered this, great, piece of equipment.

Lex couldn’t wait to try the fun spinner, like Max.

Tristan dug his way under the turtle.

Ok! Enough park fun! Let’s start walking toward the museum. We headed over a bridge and into…

The Butterfly Garden. Surely a few minutes of enjoying the flowers and the butterflies wouldn’t hurt! Look! Pretty! Ohhhhhhh!

Ok, ok, everyone was getting hungry, so we walked toward the Big Pond, found a shady spot and enjoyed our lunch, while watching kids from a day camp play games. Time to head toward the museum. We really only had about an hour and a half left before we needed to leave.

But on the way, we might as well walk through the Botanical Garden. Heck, it was RIGHT THERE!. We made our way through and I reminded them NOT TO TOUCH. Then it was out of the garden and, really, who can resist a stop at the Big Pond, to look for koi and turtles?

Not us! Lex enjoyed getting REALLY close to the edge of the pond and making me believe I was going to have to fish him out. Who can blame him?! Look how pretty it is!

The kiddos gathered together to watch this big one. See him?

Ok guys, seriously, if we’re gonna make it to the museum, we have to get going. So we kept walking across the park, past the Japanese Friendship Garden, past the Organ Pavilion and into the International cottages, where a few were open for looking through. Well, we might as well take a minute to see what the cottage from China has to offer.

Mmmm…tea and a fortune cookie!

Hey! Look! The cottage from Iran is open too. Wonder what’s in there.

Oh! And England too. Look, it’s pictures of Princess Diana. Yep, she really was a REAL princess.

Hey guys, we really, really better start moving along.

Wait, you know what? We better start making our way back to the car. There really isn’t time to even enjoy anything at the museum. But, didn’t we enjoy a ton of other things?! Come on, let’s go.

There was enough time to try climbing this bamboo, walk all the way back to the car and get to the school to pick the girls up on time.

What a great afternoon, museum or not!

We’ll have to try again. Maybe next Tuesday~

Yesterday marked the beginning of Arianna and Maddi’s High School careers and the first day of Mariah’s Senior year. I liked listening to them get ready and offer each other make-up, hair and uniform tips.

Everyone was dressed and loaded into the van to get them to school. It meant starting the day earlier than what the little kids have gotten used to over their summer break, but it’s good to get the schedule broken into. We have 2 more weeks of summer vacation for the 4 youngest kiddos and before I go back to work. So once we were back from the school, we got to decide what to do with our day.

We chose the beach!

So, onto Day 2 of the school routine. It’s 5:30 am, the lunches are packed, 2 of the 3 morning showers have been taken, the coffee is being enjoyed, bagels are waiting to be handed to the lil kiddos when they get into the van, and it’s time for M.O.M. to get put together for this day.

I think the lil kiddos and I will check out what’s happening at Balboa Park today. Do all you locals know about Free Tuesday’s at Balboa Park? Each Tuesday a different grouping of museums offers free admission. Maybe we’ll see you there.

Doing the Dance of the Children and Trying to Keep up with the Rhythm~

It’s Thursday of another summer’s week gone by. There are only a few weeks left and I have a mountain of housework/school prep/paperwork to get through. There are kid’s physicals, sports tryouts, school shopping and the last of the summer house guests to keep me Doing the Dance. But I wanna play! The beach is RIGHT THERE and it’s screaming to me and the kids. The pools are sending out invites and wondering why we’re not lying in the San Diego sunshine in lounge chairs by their clear, blue sides. The parks are whispering of shady trees and picnics. I’m so torn!

For today I’m working in the house for a little while longer and then packing up my bickering brood and heading for the pool, book in hand. But I know I’ll come home this afternoon, look around at all that’s waiting and wonder what magical thing is going to happen to make it possible for me to get it all done.

Why, oh why are there only 24 hours in each day? This M.O.M. needs more. More of everything! More time. More help. More solutions to my inner tugging between work and play!

Grab some time on these fleeting, summer days and try to enjoy it before it’s gone. The work, well, it’ll still be there. I promise

Doing the Dance of the Children and trying to keep my balance~

Yesterday afternoon we packed up and headed over to the New Children’s Museum. We decided to take advantage of the Target Free Second Sundays.  Every second Sunday is sponsored by Target and admission is free.  What a great place!  7 of the kids came along, ages 4 yrs.-16 yrs. and everyone had a great time.  There was truly something for everyone to enjoy!

Max had fun trying on silly appendages.

Luke-Xavier tried riding the chariots (he had more success going backward than forward!)

Tristan making a clay creation

Mariah and Maddi didn’t hesitate to get into the paint.

After we’d spent awhile exploring the museum, we decided to go across the parking lot to the playground.

Gabi trying out the climber.

Mariah, Maddi and Gabi used team work to have fun on these pieces of equipment.

Even I got into the fun. Mariah and I had fun trying this one out. It’s not often M.O.M. gets to play too!

It was a beautiful San Diego, summer’s day and thanks to Target and their dedication to supporting the arts and to the New Children’s Museum and all the wonderful things they have to do and explore, we had a great afternoon! If you haven’t had the chance to explore the museum yet take a few hours and go have some creative fun! If you’re on the lookout for inexpensive or free family fun, head over there on the Second Sunday of the month!

Doing the Dance of the Children and trying to keep summertime affordable~

The last weeks of summer are upon us and I’m trying to keep everyone busy. We live in such a great area with so many fun things to do, but the really challenging part is to stay within a budget and not have the summer drive us into the poorhouse. With a little time and effort, I continue to find great things for us to do and explore that are either free or inexpensive.

A few days ago I had to drive one of my older girls out to Santee to visit a friend that had moved from our area. I’d never been out there before. We passed a large park area when we were driving and decided to check it out on the way home. We had accidentally found Santee Lakes, a great, outdoor area with fishing, water play, movies in the park, play areas and much more. We spent a couple hours at the water and playground and decided we’d make a plan, in the near future, to spend a day there.

Today, I was searching for directions to the New Children’s Museum for Kateri because a friend of hers is having her wedding reception there. I’d never looked into the Children’s Museum before. Once I was on their website I roamed around and found that they have Target Free Second Sundays. That’s tomorrow! Thanks to Target for making it possible for every family to get a chance to visit the museum without it being a financial issue. So tomorrow afternoon I’ll be packing up the kiddos and exploring the museum. If your in the San Diego area, join us!

I hope everyone is enjoying their last weeks of summer. We’ll all be knee-deep in school and homework before we know it!

Doing the Dance of the Children and Trying to Keep them Moving~

Congratulations to Dawn from California! She is the winner of the Jump Start-Get Moving™ Family Fitness Wii game!

Thanks for entering. I hope you and the kids enjoy the game!

If you’ve read my review, you know that this is a fun way to get the family moving when you can’t be outside. Now you have the chance to win a free copy for yourself!

Just repost this blog post to your facebook page and send an email with a link to the posting. Send email to Jen@MommyofMany.com. My 7 year old will pick a winner at random before bedtime tonight. Winner will be posted this evening (and don’t worry, I picked my 7 year old b/c he’s the MOST concerned with fairness in the whole house!).

Good luck!

And by-the-way…if we’re not already fb friends, be sure to send a friend request!