thanks

thank you for all of the comments and email about my parenting issues! i realized after that i was going about things completely wrong! really, what does it matter if she is up late and checking in on us every 1 minute? no really, i should just not let it bother me. so tonight, i tried this approach. no getting mad, no closing her door to keep her in her room, no crying from either hallie or me, and we hooked up the baby monitor as a couple of you suggested. (for her to hear us) it worked well, although it's now 10:30pm and i believe she just now fell asleep. i'm EXHAUSTED after being out most of the day, so i'm heading to bed after this. that means i got no ME time tonight. but i have faith that it WILL get better. let's hope!!

so as for my goals, i didn't do very well today with the staying home one. this morning we went to old navy to get the kids "canada day" shirts. i'm not normally one to buy into the holiday themed clothing, due to minimal opportunity to wear the clothes, however hallie was mentioning how they are supposed to wear red and white on the last day of school and i knew this was important and special to her, so i got each kid (minus mylo) a shirt.

on our way home, we stopped at the playground and spent an hour there until hallie's bus came. we then got ready to meet my mom at the mall for lunch. yes, i took my 4 kids + my 2 extras to the mall to eat. KRAZY!!! it actually went quite well, i was proud of the kids to behaving well there. i even managed to duck into gap kids to peek around, and of course piacked up a couple new things for the kids. (i still get my discount for working there, even though i'm on leave, which is AWESOME - however my paychecks were what allowed me to actually shop... so i'm planning to go back this fall/winter sometime.)

finally got home around 3:30pm, and would have loved to sit down, but this is "clean up the house" time. kipp gets home at 4:20pm and likes to come home to a clean house. so i did the dishes, tidying, etc. while the kids played in the yard. hallie had stayed at the mall with my mom and went to my mom's for supper.

anyway after cleaning up, i made supper and we then rushed out the door to pick up hallie and then off to t-ball. i had all of the kids because kipp had promised my mom that he would cut her grass. (my dad is away this week for work) so t-ball was fun, it was hallie's last game. they had team photos. it made for an extra long evening, done at 8:30pm. yikes! home and into bed by 9pm for the kids, which is WAY late. oops!

so yes, i'm pooped. no energy left here. i'm going to aim for a less busy day tomorrow. so far we have morning plans, but nothing else. i hope to keep it that way !!!

i'll leave you with some photos :) (including some of ME!)

hallie at t-ball tonight

emerson and mylo at t-ball tonight, it was a beautiful night at least!
kai at t-ball tonight. man he needs haircut !!
kai took this pic of us
hallie took this pic of us