That time we brought 4 small kids to a bar party...

Jason and I are still really new to this small town. We only know a small handful of people here. We haven't been invited to dinner (shocker!), we haven't been invited to anything really. But the interesting thing about moving to a small town is that everyone is super friendly, but they don't need new friends. So you have to work a lot harder to get to know people.

Add to the mix that it is super hard to get to know people when you have small humans running around your feet? Some of you are thinking, "No it's not!"And for my extroverted friends, it is a piece of cake to chat people up. But it really difficult for me. I'm a little socially awkward if I don't know people or if we don't have something in common that can drive the conversation forward. And conversations that can't go more than 2 minutes without interruption or distraction adds an extra really cute, but really loud hurdle.

Small kids + Introverted couple = A lot of nights in.

And that's okay with us. Jason and I like hanging out together!

It takes work to make new friends and I am ready and willing to make the effort as often as I can. This past week, I had just attended 2 class field trips where I was the only parent wrangling small children. I tried to meet a couple other parents but always was tugged away from the conversation by something or other. You know, like stopping toddler from running up to a predatory owl to give him a hug.

Or feeding hungry pigs and teaching the baby how to oink (important life skill that it is)

So when we were invited to a party here in town by a coworker of Jason (actually, the professor who told Jason about our small town which we fell in love with!) we were super pumped. We were told to bring the whole family and come out to their house for a fun fall party. And I was going to have another chance to meet some people!

The hosts have an 8 year old son who goes to school with the kids so this is going to be great. We will meet a bunch of people. Our kids can find some friends in town. I can scope out the other frazzled, multitasking, kickass moms of small kids and find a friend!

We dress the kids up a little for the party. It's all about the mind-games. A poorly behaved child who looks like he is presentable will be excused. "He's just tired" or "Oh poor thing, he's probably hungry." A sloppy child who is behaving poorly is a heathen. "That child was a mess! Did you see him!" You have to trick people into accepting your kids.

We arrive at the party, walk into a beautiful home in the woods, and look around for people. No one. We are told to check the bar downstairs...

*blink blink*

What? I shoot Jason a look of fear mixed with confusion.

We walk around the house to the newly renovated basement the hosts were so excited for everyone to see. It is a beautiful large basement with a full bar, a stage for a band, and adults. Lots of them. No one under 5 feet to be seen ANYWHERE.

But where is their son? Not here! It's a bar party...

Kill me.

The rest of the night was a bit of a blur. I drank a little wine. Cleaned up 400 spills on their newly installed flooring. Policed my children who ran up and down the newly carpeted stairs like they were wild apes on cocaine. Fed my children a few snacks from their fancy cheese tray table and refilled their water bottle a hundred times. Broke up 10 fights over the kettle corn dish. (Sorry about that - I hope no one else wanted any kettle corn?) And attempted 10 stunted conversations with really sweet adults. They really were the nicest group of people. So gracious to our tiny hoard of locusts.

---

My favorite conversation of the evening:

- Now, that little guy reminds me of my 5-year-old. He was crazy at that age too.

- Oh good, you survived! I like seeing people who make it through alive.

- They are so cute. *Kids thumping down stairs and shrieking*

- WHAT?

- OH! I JUST SAID THEY ARE SO CUTE!

- Oh thanks

- Do you know who that little girl with the curls belongs to?

- Oh she's mine too!

- WHAT? You have FOUR?!

---

At this point, one of the four required immediate assistance to get out of the way of 3 adults trying to get to the bottom of the stairs. I looked away from the conversation for 1 second, and when I looked back, the lady had already run away. I don't blame her. It was a bar party after all. Everyone had hired babysitters so they could enjoy their evening. I wanted to yell, "WE DIDN'T KNOW?!?!" but I thought that would just scare everyone. They didn't even notice my inner turmoil. And thought my kids were sweet and cute. And that I was a nice mom. But the struggle was real.

There was a fight over a large toy truck. We put Netflix on my phone and gave it to Roman. The phone died shortly after. The band started. We got the hell out of there. 

Look, it was super nice to extend an invitation to a family with young children and make them feel welcome by inviting all of them to your party. This is the beginning of us getting to know people in town! Unless they run away from us if they ever see us in public again. 

But had we known, we would not have brought our 4 small children to a bar party...

Our sincere apologies

Weekend Sleepovers and bedtime routines

Ever since the kids started going to a real school, our bedtime routine has crawled its way to the top of the priority list.  We used to put the kids to bed at an "aboutish" hour. It wasn't law. Merely a general suggestion. And it wasn't a big deal because our mornings were on our schedule (I really do miss some things about homeschooling). Now, with the amount of stimulation they have in a day, they absolutely need their beauty sleep and, more importantly, I'm just not into torturing teachers.

So our routine during the week starts with jammies, brushing teeth at 6:45 and by 7:00 we usually have the big kids settled so they can get to sleep by 7:30. The baby goes to sleep whenever she wants to because...

Leo, Elena and Roman all used to share a room. Leo and Elena had the bunk beds and Roman had his toddler bed. It was a great fit for the last year, but the downside was that Bridget was relegated to the pack-n-play for a year! She loved it, it didn't hurt her. And she ends up in my bed most nights anyway.

She sleeps anywhere:



But it really was time to move on. She's practically a grown-up!!

Wouldn't it be awesome if our favorite thing hung from our neck at all times so we could always have it within arms length??  Like chocolate. A glass of wine. Oooo, or a flask. Yes - get on that inventors!!

I told Jason that I wanted to have an option for guests when they come visit as opposed to getting another set of bunk-beds for the girls room. And omigosh did he DELIVER!!!

Look at what Jason made for me!!! Now we have a big bed for guests. I feel so grown up! Air beds no more for visitors! Unless you have a million kids... #askandyoushallreceive #ornaguntiltheydoit

A photo posted by Lisa (@lisagale_va) on Jul 28, 2015 at 6:36am PDT

He put it all together in 2 days and picked up a gallon of antique white paint. I gave it two good coats and was done the next morning. It turned out so beautiful. Our biggest problem was that we don't have the money to buy a plush, big full-size mattress.


Enter Amazon: This is the Signature Sleep 8-Inch Memory Foam Mattress. It came delivered to our door in a big box. It was vacuum wrapped and rolled up. We unrolled it and 2 days later, we had a fully-inflated mattress.  Sweet huh?

So now our favorite new weekend routine is a sleepover in Elena's room. Personally, I don't think kids need their own room. We split them up so there is a boys' room and a girls' room. They get major life skills from learning how to share a space with a sibling. And we could never afford a 6 bedroom house so isn't that convenient ;)

We also decided to upgrade the bedding for the kids. Up until we had to stage the bedrooms to sell our old home, the kids were using our old college comforters. Long overdue my friends. The gift of "home decor" and "making things pretty" is so far removed from my skill-set that it is a bit of a joke among people who know me. I'm in on the joke though and do my part to perpetuate it! When our realtor came in to see our home ready to sell, she gave me a pity-smile and asked if I had any friends who liked to decorate. I was not surprised at all... I am "decorationally-challenged". New phrase

The Before (my handiwork)

The After: My friend came over to bail us out!!

(If you look closely, you'll see that I didn't even put the quilt on in the right direction. But I guess that just shows you how much I don't know about these things?!

I wanted to find something that was pretty for Elena's new bed though and stumbled on these funky and fun quilts on Amazon!

Greenland Quilt - Bohemian

I agonized over my decision on a quilt for entirely too long. But only because there are SO many other pretty ones!! My other three favorites were Nirvana, Clearwater, and Blooming Prairie. But since it was for Elena, I went with bold, colorful and funky!!

 

   

So in the end, we paid:

$179 for the mattress
$71 for the quilt set
$60 for the paint
$50 for the wood
Total: $360 - not too shabby!

And got a beautiful new bed. Now we just need all of you to come visit us!!  I hear Tennessee is beautiful this time of year...*wink*

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Camping with kids (Also filed under "Parenting on Display")

No but seriously, camping with kids is the best thing since sliced bread.

I had to push aside my fears of "inconveniencing others" and parenting on display for the world to scrutinize and judge. But hey, I'm willing to be fodder for your sinful conversation if it means I get to do this all weekend!! (I know I look like I'm in pain. I'm not. The flash BLINDED me!!)

Jason and I have wanted to camp since before we got married. We had all the awesome stuff for camping on our wedding registry, but I guess when people saw that we didn't even have cutlery, a pot, or a vacuum, the camping stuff was less urgent. Looking back, it is better that we were gifted this stuff or we would still be washing and reusing plastic forks because we are both money hoarders so frugal.

Anyway, we were gifted a tent by a large family looking to upgrade. And FINALLY were able to plan ahead for camping. Jason's Christmas stash looked like an outdoors store threw up under our tree. And he was itching to get a chance to use it all. Backyard camping is fun, but you don't really need your propane stove and mini axe.

But you know where a mini axe comes in handy? In the wild!! NATURE!!!!

I think it was right about this time that an older couple pulled into the campsite next door to us. While they were scoping out the perfect location to put their tent, I jokingly said, "You should put it as far away from us as possible!"

HAHA. Right?

Our ever-so-tactful neighbor replied with, "Yeah, when we pulled in, I said to my husband, 'Oh no, a baby.'"

She was met with an icy cold stare and awkward silence. Because what do you even say to that? Once I recovered, I told her she didn't need to worry about the baby. It was the loud 3 year old that might drive them insane. Cue awkward laughter...

And I told Bridget to go wake them up bright and early each morning.

KIDDING!!!!

Aside from the stress of parenting my children in front of 200 strangers (it was packed!), our first camping weekend as a family was amazing. I'm antsy to go back. Without the rain ending our trip early next time! I sat outside reading, sipping coffee, watching my kids play, and talking to my husband. And when I got cold at night, I grabbed a couple kids and sandwiched myself in between them. What is better than that???

Okay so let's talk real quick about the awesome camping gear we had and what we wished we had!

We brought my beloved cast iron skillets for cooking over the fire, but there wasn't enough room over the fire for the entire meal, and it just got too smoky and hot. This outdoor kitchen is awesome for the extras! We put our Propane Stove on top and were able to make pancakes, sauteed veggies, and campfire coffee (which is all you really need, amiright?!).

Okay there were only a couple other things we had that were ESSENTIAL!

A basic kitchen utensil kit. This little kit has all the cooking essentials. Except garlic. Never leave the garlic behind!

God bless this portable fan.

We won't need it for fall or spring camping, but it was 95 all weekend and we would have been too uncomfortable to sleep without this fan!!

We actually don't need a ton of stuff when we go camping. Our kids were so well occupied all weekend with activities and meeting other campground friends that any other stuff we brought was ignored. Most of our activities centered around cooking.

Fact: Bacon cooked over a fire tastes better.

The kids spent a ton of time in the stream catching crawfish, reading books, canoeing, learning from the Park Rangers, hiking, and catching (and naming) crickets.  It makes me wish we had gone camping SO much sooner!! 

And the only thing that would have made this camping trip more perfect (aside from a large tarp so we didn't get rained out...newbie mistake):

A camping hammock! Or 3. We are going to try to buy at least one of these before we head out camping again in October. They were all OVER the campsite! I assumed they were too expensive for us, but they are actually affordable!

I have 1 month of prep time before we go camping again. What am I missing? What are your camping must-haves?

{this post contains Amazon affiliate links}

Making the decision to put the kids in "real" school

Leo and Elena started school last week!!!

We were so fortunate to find a small school where three Dominican sisters, in addition to a crew of amazing teachers, party with the kids all day. After coming off 2 years of homeschooling, I am so happy to have found a school that focuses on a well-rounded child, not test scores. The school is affordable because they make purchases based on need instead of keeping up with the latest trends in other schools. We don't have smart boards in the classrooms but we do have TONS of happy teachers and happy children.

Making the decision to put them in school was tough for me. Jason was very excited about this school because he works at Aquinas College with the Dominican Sisters. I was much less excited because I had agonized over the decision to homeschool the kids for so many reasons and I wasn't sure that a brick and mortar school would help me to achieve the goals I had.

At the time that I was trying to launch my business earlier this year, I realized that I just couldn't do it. I could either homeschool or earn money. Not both. And we needed to make a hard decision about where to place our priorities. At the same time that I was worrying non-stop about this big decision and figuring out whether or not to push my business to the next level, I was stressing myself to the max and I was not reaching any decision that gave me even one ounce of peace.

I finally made a bargain with God that I would do whatever he wanted me to do, just give me a sign large enough for me to read. Because I'm just not smart enough to spot the subtle hints.

Within 2 hours (TWO HOURS Y'ALL!!) I received a business telephone call from the ideal client looking to hire me!!!

Credit

Needless to say, I didn't need a whole lot more prodding. I felt immediate peace with the decision to move to Nashville, put the kids in a FANTASTIC school, start all over in a new town (soooo not my favorite thing to do) and grow my business.

It is time to hand a couple of the kids over to the professionals, trust in God and move forward.