take a sick day? moms don't get sick days!

Yesterday, I crashed!  I had a super fun weekend.  We went on a cruise with all my siblings and parents.  I spent the weeks beforehand rushing to get everything ready and praying I don't get sick like everyone around me seemed to be.  It was a wonderful cruise and I am so thankful for my time with my family.  We got home Sunday night, and the kids had cleaned the house to surprise us!  It was so awesome to come home to happy kids and a clean house. I felt a little iffy but kept pushing through, laundry needed to be done, backpacks packed, homework checked, kids fed.  I went to bed at 9:30 which is way early for me.  Monday morning I felt like I had been run over by a truck!!  Hannah came upstairs and asked if she could stay home, she described feeling exactly what I felt.  So, she went back to bed and I started my day.  I had to drive carpool for the elementary kids.  I helped Becca get ready and loaded her and Lucy in the car.  I even stopped at Sonic for my vanilla diet coke with limes on my way home as usual.  I got home and set my diet coke on the counter, checked on my still sleeping 13-year-old and put on a show for Lucy.  I told myself I would just lay down for a bit.  Thank goodness for disney junior- I slept for 2 hours before lucy woke me up saying she wanted a snack.  Kerry came home at lunchtime and made Lucy lunch and let me sleep some more.  I put Lucy down for a nap when Kerry went back to work, and planned to get something accomplished, but ended up sleeping until I had to go get Becca from school.  I drove the afternoon carpool and took Becca to piano lessons.  My sweet husband took over when he got home and I went back to bed.  I woke up around 7 to Kerry trying to bathe the little girls before he realized he had to go pick up Zach from basketball practice.  I finished baths and put fresh-smelling girls into PJ's, which is when I smelled myself! hahahaha As i headed towards my bedroom, determined to take a shower no matter how crappy i felt, I passed my diet coke from the morning still sitting untouched on the counter.  I laughed.
AND here is my point:  It's ok to give ourselves a little slack.  As moms we tend to expect way more out of ourselves than we should.  I felt so guilty for sleeping when I could have been catching up on things that needed to be done.  BUT my body NEEDED that sleep!  And, now since I rested- though not fully recovered- I can accomplish things today.  So, give yourself a break.  It's ok to not be supermom all the time!  And now I get to go put back together the house that somehow exploded in the short time I was out of commission.  Why can't the people who live here clean up after themselves? lol
Anyway, hope you all are having a lovely day

Fun Snack mixes

I have been trying to be more productive during nap time. My normal nap time routine consists of  pinterest and netflix and if I'm being honest naps of my own.  Of course I could clean or fold laundry during nap time, but lets face it- that's not going to happen anytime soon.  So the last couple of days nap time has been pretty productive (which means I did little projects that I have been wanting to do).  Yesterday I made a coffee filter pumpkin.  Today, I made up these snack mixes.  

Snack time at our house is a source of contention.  Usually because there is nothing to make snacks with because I hate grocery shopping.  Anyway, I saw an idea on pinterest to make minion snack mix, but then I thought "Hey you could make anything into a snack mix."  I have always thought that trail mix had to include raisins and I am not a fan of raisins.  So here is what I came up with today:

Festive Fall Mix:
It's my pretend-its-autumn-even-though-its-still-100-degrees-outside mix The ingredients are:

-honey nut cheerios
-baby goldfish
-Brach's autumn mix
-Butter snap pretzels (have you had these? seriously amazing)

Princess Leia's pretty snack mix:

Because of these super cute princess leias that came in this box of Star Wars graham crackers, and because it's pretty!  The igredients are:

-Star Wars graham crackers
-Froot Loops
-princess goldfish
-mini marshmallows

And finally my favorite!  Mostly because I love the Lorax and I love these guys!

Barbaloot mix!  The ingredients are:

-teddy grahams
-mini marshmallows

You basically just dump the ingredients in a bowl and mix them up (I used my hands) until they look like you want it to look.  Super technical I know.  My kids were way excited to have these new snack options when they came home from school today.

My nap time productivity got me thinking:  I'm going to try to do something fun (or that I've wanted to do) and then I'm going to blog about it.  If you guys do something awesome during nap time I would love to see it!

Best mom ever!!

Becca: mom I know a secret that nobody else knows...can I tell you?

Me: sure!

Becca: you're the best mom ever!!

Me: awe thanks sweetie.

Jared: (with cheesy grin) mom, you're the best mom I ever had.

Becca: no- she's the best mom ever!!

Me: that's right!

Then after a few minutes of feeling pretty awesome:

Becca: of course, she IS the only mom I've ever had so...

Thanks Becca 😕 but I guess I will take it. My goal truly is to be the best mom of Zach, Hannah, Jared, Becca and Lucy ever!! 

Defeated or Not

Today I sat in my recliner battling Hudson to drink his bottle while Roddy cried while Emma held him and Kaitlyn ran around yelling at me that she wasn't wearing shorts under her skirt even though her PE teacher said she had to. She was in a cranky mood because she woke up with cold sores inside her mouth. After getting the girls ready and attempting breakfast even though Kaitlyn couldn't eat anything. I looked up and realized there were five mins left before the bus came. I had been attempting to get Kaitlyn to out shoes and socks on meanwhile she stomped up and down the stairs complaining and Emma followed after her telling her she was mean for not getting ready fast so they could play. Thankfully at this point the boys were happily anhialating their pancakes in their high chairs. I stripped Hudson down (he was covered in everything) brushed Roddy off and herded everyone outside. I was madly dashing to the bus stop with Kaitlyn in tow on her scooter when I look back at my sweet six year old trying to grab her scooter out of our garage right as the bus pulls up. I got them on the bus, came back in and as I was changing diapers I realized I needed to load up the twins and go to the social security office again with twins in tow to get a ss card for Kaitlin's whose was lost in the move. I sat back and thought, "that's it, last nights 1am with Kaitlyn, 3am,4am and 5am with the twins has defeated me. After this morning I am going to lay in a puddle on the floor with the babies."

And then......I remembered my Savior. How somehow when he should have been the most defeated he managed to carry his heavy cross up the hill and after being nailed up there he still found strength of courage to forgive the people who had wronged him. I was given a talk to speak on in two weeks from Elder Uchtdorffs conference talk, "Grateful in any circumstance" since I got the assignment Monday night I have been trying to keep my mind in that direction. It made me stop and think when I was at Kmart yesterday and the lady really wanted to sign me up for their rewards program. Now normally with the twins I am not the most patient shopper but for some reason it didn't bother me and when she gave me a five dollar gift card and turned to the lady she was training behind her and said, " now see how I did that? I can choose to give those away because she was so sweet. If she had been hateful I wouldn't have done it." Now five dollar card aside it made me realize, how many times am I in such a hurry that I am that hateful shopper, annoyed to death with the slow checkout lady who keeps freezing her computer?

It made me want to be so much more Christlike and charitable everyday. So that is my challenge and goal and I hope you will take it with me. Let us be more charitable to those around us. Not just our family but anyone we see. Let us be grateful in any circumstance and when we are frustrated with others stupidity:) let us be charitable just as our father in heaven is of us. I love you all and am sorry for the rant but I felt really impressed to share my thoughts today even though I am still sitting in yoga pants with no laundry done. Ps listen to Hilary Weeks "who you are" this week if you get the chance!

Things I find on my phone

Decided to make a to do list and found this: 

Seems legit! And bonus points for flossing being on the list :) 

What is KAKAK and why the blog?

    My sister is my best friend.  We were raised by a strong, independent mother.  She taught my sister and I to be brave, tough, and confident women.  She taught the importance and satisfaction of hard work. She taught (or in my case tried to teach) homemaking skills.  She taught the importance of books, good food, and fantastic music.  She taught that God knows us and loves us. She taught that girls can do anything.  She taught us that family is everything!  That no matter what, you can count on family.
     We have a great family.  My brothers picked some pretty fantastic women to wed :) I count my sisters-in-law as my sisters, and love them fiercely.  My brothers happened to choose (or more accurately were chosen by) amazing girls whose names start with K. Mom's name starts with K and my sister and I have names that start with A.  So together we make KAKAK.  And when my baby brother chooses a wife we will embrace her and make her fit in there somewhere ;)

     We started this blog to keep a record and to support each other.  We are all striving daily to be the best Mom, wife, sister, daughter, aunt, etc we can be.  There are things that some of us are better at than others. There are things that we disagree on.  Oh are there things we disagree on!! BUT we are all trying to get our families through this life and back to live with our Heavenly Father. We believe in the importance of Motherhood, Sisterhood, and Womanhood.  In this world that seems to value those sacred callings less and less, we hope to celebrate and elevate them.  Or at least lean on each other as we try! :) This blog will have recipes, FHE lesson ideas, fitness and beauty tips, stories from the front lines of motherhood, real life successes and failures, lessons learned, and traditions shared.  And it will have more than 4 posts- I promise! :)