This morning was a wee bit rough. The kids seemed to all be grumpy. Urgh! It’s wearing on me. It’s so weird, because, when the kids were munchkins, I was so good at detaching myself from it. I didn’t take it personally, it didn’t hurt my feelings, I didn’t get sad, etc., etc. My husband, though – it really would bug him – it would totally get under his skin.

And now it is like it is the exact opposite. He’s okay with it, knows they’re teenagers and their angst and frustrations often have little to nothing to do with us. And he doesn’t get his feelings hurt or get overly upset. I, on the other hand, completely crumble. It is so weird.

Now neither time, the kids being munchkins – or the kids being teenagers, is completely black and white. Nothing really is totally black and white though, right? Every now and they when they were little, I would get upset, and every now and then nowadays, my hubby gets upset. For the most part, though, it is/was as I described.

And you know teens hate mornings. They are just often quite miserable for no more reason than that. There are some kind of studies about it. I know, I just can’t bring them to mind right now. So, often – I try to have a protective wall up and not let my attitude/day be ruined, because the kids were grumpy. That is so hard to do, though.

This morning, I wound up all upset and sad and mad and all that. And that is when I decided to pour my freshly-poured HOT cup of coffee out of my sweet, groovy, happy Hippie cup and into this giant cup of ATTITUDE!!!

That’s right! I decided to just TAKE BACK my attitude and not let moods of others so strongly influence the outcome of my own day!

And you know what?

IT WORKED!! WOOHOO!!!

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Here are some ideas of some Valentine’s that you and your child(ren) can make together!

Make Valentine’s With Your Kids
By Nicole Dean

Homemade Valentine’s are great for your kids to give to the really special people in their lives like Grandma’s and Grandpa’s, Aunt’s and Uncle’s, brothers and sisters, best friends and of course, Daddy! But unless you start them at Halloween, we suggest you stick to boxed cards for all their friends at school! Here are some fun and easy ideas to make Valentine’s Day cards with your kids…

Hearts and Hands Valentine

Here’s what you need:

Construction paper (two different colors)

A pencil

Markers

Scissors

Glue

Here’s what to do:

1. Trace your child’s hand on a piece of construction paper with a pencil and then cut it out.

2. Draw a heart small enough to fit on the hand with a pencil and cut it out.

3. Glue the heart to the front of the hand.

4. Have your child write a special message inside the heart. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Grandma! I love you with all my heart!”

This is a great card to make for Daddy.

Prim Valentine

Here’s what you need:

Brown paper bag

Pencil

Markers

Scissors

Hole punch

Red or pink ribbon or yarn (about 1/4 in. works best)

Here’s what to do:

1. Use a pencil to trace a large heart on a brown paper bag. Cut out the heart. You can use fancy scalloped scissors (like the ones used for scrapbooking) to jazz up the heart!

2. Make a series of holes around the edge of the heart using a hole punch. The number of holes isn’t important, but be sure to make it an even number.

3. String the ribbon or yarn through the holes starting at the bottom of the heart working your way up. Tie the end pieces (which meet at the top of the heart) into a bow.

4. Have your child write a message on the inside of the heart or use stickers to decorate it and write the To: and From: on the back.

This card makes a great Valentine for Grandma.

You’ve probably had your child make special cards for a loved ones birthday. Why not for other special days, like Valentine’s Day? Nothing says “I love you” like a homemade card, especially from a child. Be sure to remember special people to have your child make Valentine’s for, like elderly neighbors and friends that have moved away.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Nicole Dean welcomes you to http://www.ShowKidstheFun.com – a free website filled with activities to make memories with your children and http://www.ShowMomtheMoney.com a fun and informative resource for moms who want to make money from home.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nicole_Dean

To this very day, with my children being TALL teenagers – I cannot brush my teeth without this damn song playing in my head!! I just cannot do it. Especially if I’m rather tired or lazy one day, and actually do start to “let the water run” ….sheesh! Then the frickin frackin song blares at FULL BLAST in my head!!!!!

This is terrible video quality, but, at least you can have this lovely little song tattooed into your brain and be just like me – tormented and stalked by Barney songs!!!!

Summer is finally here! I’m so excited – I love summer! Even though I totally, completely bitch about the heat – I just love it! And even though I totally, completely bitch about the kids being underfoot, I love having them here!

We got off to a bit of a rocky start, with the boys fighting like mad the first ‘official’ day of summer – last Friday. And they were both, of course, mad at me all day – because, I never handle their fighting and whining and complaining to their liking. Well, guess what? TOO BAD! Ha! How’s that? I’m so sick of their being mortal enemies. I actually had the thought the other day that it would be cool to send them to a Outward Bound type of thing, so they could LEARN to rely on each other – maybe even experience a few dangerous moments, and realize how much they each mean to each other. Maybe if your brother is about to fall off a cliff – just maybe – you might realize you love him! Gah!!

Well, then we had a nice enough weekend together. We went to Music at McClellan on Saturday night to help the boys earn money for their band expenses. That’s a really fun event, and even though the kids are working their butts off – they have a blast! So that was cool.

On Sunday, we hung out together, playing games and such, then went to the park, and then went out to dinner. When we came home from dinner and got out of the car – I heard THEM! Woohoo! “Sammie! Listen!!!” I was so excited – it was my first time this year hearing them – the ‘summer bugs’!! Locusts, crickets, tree frogs – whatever else is up there in those HUGE trees around our house. Love, love, love that sound.

Yesterday was kinda rotten, as I was feeling horrible – woke up with a TERRIBLE crick in my neck, shoulder, AND back – it hurt so badly! And my tummy was acting up, to boot! So yesterday was a bummer.

Then today, I woke up feeling the pain in my shoulder again – totally bummed, because, I’d thought it was getting so much better. I took some medicine for it and got to work, going through emails, taking care of blogs, etc. And then suddenly, an hour ago – I realized – it’s gone. The pain is gone. Woohoo! It’s not completely gone – but, enough to make me feel normal – and for me to skip around (figuratively – don’t wanna set the migraine off…) happily celebrating, “It’s summer, it’s summer – the kids are home!”

That would be our house! Yep, yep, yep! Hubby went crazy for Christmas and now we have the COOLEST basement in town! All the kids will want to be here, at our house! Which is exactly our goal! Make our house the ‘cool house’ and keep the kids close by, during those tumultuous teenage years!

‘Santa’ brought Sammie a new set of drums – yes, real ones. And they are sweet! And he brought Shawn a keyboard, and he brought Patrick an electric guitar. Oh yeah, and he brought Sammie a much better karaoke machine than her little Barbie one! Now we can totally ROCK OUT down there! Mark thinks he and I should learn to play an instrument, too, then we can all play together.

It’s not just a concert hall down there, though. We also are set up for movie/TV-watching, game-playing heaven! We have a regular TV and a large flat-screen TV, an Xbox, and Xbox 360, and some other game system. Darn – I can never get those names straight. I usually call that other one a ‘gamebox’. I know that’s not right, though. Oh, I know – it’s a Gamecube, yeah, that’s it! And we have movies and games out the whazzoo – for endless hours of enjoyment!

And we, of course, have the Mack Daddy modern furniture down there, so you can get supremely comfortable while you’re hanging out at the Rockin’ Roberson house! Ha! Really – it is this uber comfortable, green leather couch, loveseat, and chair. And let me tell you – when you put the footstool in front of the chair – well, that there is a slice of heaven! It feels like you’re in a chair made just for you, it just wraps around you perfectly. It’s like sitting on a cloud. Anyone who sits in that chair does NOT want to get up out of it!

Yeah – we’re gonna have all the kids at our house, that’s for sure!

Oh my goodness – is it ever loud in our basement! We’ve got a couple of extra kids tonight and the whole crew of them are downstairs doing gosh knows what, but, it sure is loud! We do have several gaming systems down there…and it gets really loud when they play Dance Dance Revolution, that is for sure. It doesn’t sound like that is what they are up to right now, though. Who knows – they could be killing each other on some other lovely video game…ugh! We have so much equipment down there, including two different TV’s, that some HDMI splitters could probably really help us out, to keep everything organized. It’s strange how we went from a family with no gaming consoles to a family with too many! Thank goodness our kids are all still major bookworms, or we’d really have to rethink this whole setup!

Shawn tried out for the school play yesterday – and today he found out that he made it! The play they are doing is:

The Hobbit

I’m so excited! And he seems really excited about it, too! I love – no, I absolutely love, the theater. And none of my children have been involved with the theater as of yet. I would never push them, but, I sure would love it if one of them really got a taste for it, like I have! I would love that so much! We’ll see – Shawn is going to get a taste of it, that’s for sure. And we’ll see how much, or even if, he likes it. He is very happy about it right now.

I was telling some of my friends that he was so shy about having made it, that when I told him, “Congratulations!” when he got home, he couldn’t even say, “Thank you!” He just grinned sheepishly.

He got the part of a goblin, and he is understudy to Bopher. I’m not sure if I got that name right or not. Or, I’m not sure if I got the spelling right, actually. I know I got the name right, because, I kept saying to him, “Gopher? Who? Gopher?” Haha! And then he corrected me, so I think from here on out, when trying to remember it, I’ll have this conversation in my head, “Gopher? No, it sounds like Gopher. Oh yeah! Bopher!”

My boy, the thespian. Ahhh, mama’s happy tonight.

These dirty, rotten, no good roustabout children have messed with my poinsettia! How dare they! I have this lovely (well, that’s subjective, of course) poinsettia that Granny bought me for Thanksgiving last year – like, 2006! And I have nursed and nurtured it all year long – and it is still a fairly thriving, growing, beautiful (subjective, again) plant!

Yesterday afternoon, I go to water it and as I’m gently lifting the branches up – what do I see? Yep – a pretzel! A pretzel? A pretzel in my poinsettia?

What the heck is all that about? Would you like to see the evidence? I just knew you would, that’s why I took this photo for you:

Do you see it there? Do you? Isn’t it just awful? The desecration of my beautiful poinsettia. My innocent poinsettia. Such a shame. (Yes, I’m a hippie – I know it’s good, organic material. But I enjoy railing on about this stuff, so don’t rain on my railing parade, okay?)

Now, lots of children come through this house, so there’s really no telling which of the little hellions is the guilty party. I do know that on Thanksgiving day, two of our older guys were sitting next to it eating their big meals. (We’ve got a pack of four older boys – ranging from 17-21, they are adorable, I just love them – the rascals! They are cousins, cousin’s kids, and the like. Mark has so much family around here, we just wind up calling everybody ‘cousin’ – it’s easier that way. After a few rounds of “This is Mary’s sister’s cousin’s brother’s uncle.” You begin to realize that ‘cousin’ works just fine!) But they were eating their Thanksgiving dinner, and I know for a fact that we didn’t have pretzels on the menu.

The kids have lots of friends that traipse in and out most days, too. So there’s really no telling which one needs to pay for this heinous crime.

Quite the little ‘poinsettia-pretzel mystery‘ we have here, isn’t it? I’ll have to keep an eye on the little buggers when they’re around my oxygen-giving buddies from now on!

Ok, so Sammie’s birthday was November 15th, and she had a lot of stuff going on that day!

When she got up in the morning, we gave her a few small presents to start the day off right, and then she had to get ready for school. Here she is in the kitchen eating her breakfast:

Then we had to go outside to wait for the bus. I drove her crazy out there taking pics, I won’t subject you to all of them, but, how about one of her disgust?

Would you quit it, Mother?!!

No, actually, I won’t. Bwahahaha! I mean, just look how darn cute she is!!

She has those straight-legged, skinny pants with the flared bottoms – I just love that look! She is so totally cute! I did carry her in my womb for nine months, though, so that could just be me! Haha!

And because I’m such a dork, and just can’t get over the fact that the bus actually comes to our house to pick up the kids – and because I think it’s so adorable and cute and sweet that the bus actually comes the house to pick up the kids (I know, I’m a dork, I got that!) :

Isn’t that just cute?

Ok, so we need to move on from the morning. The school had two big things happening on that day – one was the mini-production of Grease, followed by each grade level doing some dances to the songs from Grease. And the other big thing was their Thanksgiving lunch, to which the parents were invited. And then, of course, we had birthday cupcakes to hand out! I only have pictures of the Grease event. (Aren’t you lucky? Haha!)

Here she is laughing and doing The Hand Jive:

And here she is outside with the sign that I thought was very impressive for an elementary, during the school day production:

That night, Mark came home and we gave her the rest of her presents – she got a very cool stereo, that’s kind of space-age-y! And one of those music player-thingymabobs. And the game Cats for her DSPSQR, whatever the hell that gameboy is called!! Haha! These kids are draining our checking accounts!!

Then Mark cooked spaghetti for her and then we had birthday cake! Yumm!

And, of course, all throughout the day we fielded phone calls from one family member and then the next, who wanted to wish Sammie ‘Happy Birthday’!! All in all, it was a great day!