Dirty Laundry

As we adjust to summer vacation - all 3 kids home all day - a lot of running and late nights - we are having issues with attitudes and listening.  Since I am a stay-at-home mom I am with my children 24 hours a day and they are also stuck with each other for the majority of the day.  Lately I have found myself yelling and losing my temper by 10 a.m.  I don't like yelling at my kids - it doesn't make me feel good about myself, it doesn't make my kids feel loved, and it very often has no impact on the situation besides making it louder.  Our particular issues are LISTENING, MINDING OUR OWN BUSINESS, and COMPLAINING.  Our children are each loving and wonderful creatures but they have their difficult sides, too, which have been showing up much to frequently.  I refuse to spend the next 3 months angry and frustrated instead of enjoying my time with all the kids home.  Scott and I have discussed at length how to "fix" our kids and continued to come up empty handed.

Scott deals with enough stress at work everyday and when he comes home he doesn't need to come home to an unhappy house with a frustrated wife and disobedient children.  I am not saying that the kids are never well behaved - thankfully they are usually quite well behaved when we are in public and the good moments at home far outweigh the bad - it is just that I know WE can do better - especially under our own roof.  Scott brings me the driver paperwork that comes in the mail each morning so I can review it for him.  Thursday morning things were already difficult with the kids by the time he stopped and he knew I was getting frustrated.  I happened to hop on Facebook for a bit when he left and I'm convinced it was God's will that one of the first things that popped up was an entry from The Better Mom.  It was about using God's word to correct in your family.  I sent the link to Scott right away so that we would both be on the same page - it is impossible to have a loving, peaceful, obedient household if both parents aren't united and consistently have the other's back.

Since it was raining our extra-curricular running was considerably lighter and it gave me the perfect opportunity to have a long conversation with the kids about truly listening, helping with a happy heart, and treating everyone with love and respect no matter what.  We opened up a couple different Bibles and read the verses cited in the article.  We learned that obedience is not optional, it is commanded by God.  My favorite verse that we read was Philippians 2:14, "Do everything without complaining or arguing."  We have revisited these passages daily since then - as a matter of fact, several times a day I will say "Do everything..." and they will finish the passage - it makes them think twice before saying they don't want to or dragging their feet.  It's easier to insist that they take care of their belongings or help clean the house not because Dad or Mom says so, but because God says so.  I hope you will take the opportunity to read the full article - The Bette Mom - Using Gods Word to Correct in Your Family.  It's not easy to put your short-comings out there, but if it can help someone out in a similar situation, then it's all worth it!

To encourage helping and cooperating I put them to work yesterday afternoon baking a couple loaves of banana bread - they did pretty well and kept the squabbling to a minimum!

Enjoying the fruits of their labor!

Since we're airing our "dirty laundry" today, I thought I'd share the recipe we use for homemade laundry detergent.  I have sensitive skin and even break out from All Free and Clear - this is a SUPER CHEAP, easy alternative.

LAUNDRY DETERGENT

1 bar Fels-Naptha

1 lb. 9.3 oz. Borax

1 lb. 2.3 oz. Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

1 lb. 5.3 oz. Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

1 lb. 2.6 oz. Oxiclean

Only 5 ingredients that can all be found at your grocery store or Fleet and Farm.

Start by grating the bar of Fels-Naptha (or whatever soap you would like - Ivory, Dove...)  After the entire bar is grated, blend it up as fine as you can get it.

Use a kitchen scale to weight the rest of the ingredients.  Add in the measured amount of Borax and blend again - this helps break the bar soap down even more.

Empty the blended ingredients into a container with a lid (we use old ice cream buckets).  Then add in the Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda, baking soda, and Oxiclean.  Put the cover on tight and shake it until it's all mixed.  We use about 2 tablespoons per average load.  A bucket lasts several months!

Note:  I broke down a larger scale recipe hence the random amounts - You don't need to be super particular for it to work!

Family Business...With Kids

Working in a family business is challenging enough most days, but when you add in the fact that it's a trucking business, well, that raises the challenges to a whole new level.  Ya see, the thing about trucks is that they are always coming and going to haul you what you need.  Want Gatorade for your ball game?  We haul it.  Your kid wants a LunchMaker for a snack?  We haul it.  You want strawberries, lettuce, bacon, even beer or wine?  We haul it.  With 14 trucks coming and going days, nights, weekends, holidays - that doesn't give the dispatchers/mechanic/bookkeepers much time off - especially when it's all handled in-house by Scott and his parents, Glenn and Mary.

Add to that for the past 5 years Scott has also been the Transportation Manager for one of our local farmer cooperatives, WFS.  WFS is based out of Truman, MN, about 20 minutes from St. James.  Scott is responsible for hiring, firing, dispatching and managing 22 grain trucks. Of course he doesn't leave it as that and is involved in everything from purchasing to maintenance.

It is probably a good thing that this is the only life I've known with Scott as it's not the easiest, but it has become OUR life.  Scott and I have been together since we were 17 - that's A LONG TIME AGO!  When we started dating he was learning his way around the shop.  During college Scott was a grain hauler - often leaving late at night to sleep in line to be one of the first to dump his load in the morning so he could get in the most loads possible each day.  After we completed college at SCC in Mankato he started hauling livestock.  Livestock haulers don't have an easy gig - they have to deal with a live load - and the smell of it and smelling LIKE it!  Not to mention often loading and driving through the night or early morning hours to provide the livestock with the safest, most comfortable ride possible - and having to continue on even if the weather gets nasty, as their load is exposed to the elements and can't wait.  When we were newlyweds cellphones were still up and coming.  We started out using prepaid phone cards on pay phones!  Boy would I wait for that call to come at night!  There wasn't really time off when our kids were born, either.  Scott was back at work 48 hours after Keeley was born - although she was induced at 10 days overdue, she was an easy baby... for Mom at least...

Anyhow, here we are almost 13 years of marriage and 3 kids later and this is what happens when Grandpa and Grandma take a few well-deserved days off of work...  Although I am a stay-at-home mom, I'm also a work-at-home mom.  I take care of the paperwork for the WFS drivers, among miscellaneous things.  When Scott is alone at the shop he gets desperate enough to call in the back up - ME - to answer phones and take messages!  The kids are almost 11, 8, and 5, but still too young to spend the whole day home alone - so we bring them to work with us as we have done, when needed, since they were born...

They were lucky it was National Donut Day and started their morning with Schmidt's Bakery!  Feeling pretty BOSS with milk in their coffee cups!

Keeley - the dog walker when she visits the shop - above is Buster and below is Sophie...she was distracted by picking clover at the moment!

For lunch we took the easy road and ordered Jake's Pizza!

While the girls spent some time on "technology" as we call it at our house, Jake went out to do his job - mowing all the flat land at the shop.  He doesn't enjoy it at all ;)!

The kids do their best to "self entertain"...

Keeley's "Welcome" for the day!

After 5 o'clock we spent a little time on target practice with BB guns.

Dad found it to be a good stress reliever before heading to his shop work.

Mom didn't do too shabby...always enjoyed shooting guns!

Win-win when even Keeley enjoys it!

My boys!

Added bonus to their patience for the day - Mom finally cashed in all our Pampers Rewards points we've been accumulating for 10 years and we got a free Plasma Car that arrived on Friday!