My hero baseball Manager

I'm a planner. It's ridiculous sometimes. 

I LOVE thinking of Christmas presents starting in January for example.

Well, when I found I was pregnant with #9 all I could think of was "Now it's the same number as a baseball team! Next year we are totally going as a baseball team for Halloween."

Then came January and I found out I was having twins.

SO many thoughts went through my head that first day and admittedly one of them was, "Now I can't have my baseball team costumes!"

A few weeks later it dawned on me, the costume could be even BETTER because now #10 can be a "Sub". Fast forward to fall and moving to one of the biggest baseball towns in the country and I was ready to do it. I told the kids for the church Halloween party we are going as a baseball team with a Cardinals twist. 

Oh, the moans and groans.

After our "nice" chat I decided I wasn't going to do it. Not.worth.the.battle. Not only did I have to listen to their whinings I also had to order shirts and iron on stuff, collect pants, find hats, etc. I told Brooks that we were going to forget about it.

Then my costume-hating husband said, "Um no. Melissa, you've been thinking of this for way to long. I'm just going to tell them we are doing it. They can dress up with what they want to Trick or Treat." No one moans to Dad. #myhero

We had all these great plans to go to a ballfield but we got back too late from Camden's wrestling tournament. So I quickly called up a friend here and said, can you come take a picture of us. We drove around town in the dark to find some bright light and we found it......at a car dealership. Ghetto?

So here we are, in the middle of the night, standing by a car dealership wall.

I'm so mad Brooks deleted some of the pictures off his phone from October because a lot of the out-takes are pretty funny. A few mumbling children were definitely in tow that night along with kids thinking it was funny to stick out their tongues, pick their noses and cry. 

Speaking of crying Everly started losing it. I mean LOSING it. In fact when we got the picture of our backs Everly happened to be sobbing during it. We probably only took 10 pictures total because there was going to be an uprising, but RIGHT as we were getting ready to go, my friend said, "How about you all put your arms on each other?" You should've seen some of their faces. BWHAHAHA.

But they did it.

 And I love it.

I couldn't get enough of seeing these two babies in their outfits either so I kept snapping pictures of them at home.

It's like Iley timed her puke just right for the picture.

Way back on October my husband pulled the hero-move on me again.....in TWO WAYS. 

1) It's not secret I have a lot to do and quite honestly can't stay on top of everything. There's one thing that even when I'm caught up on (on a miracle day) it STILL lingers in the back of my mind.....nagging......pointing it's finger and laughing at me......

you guessed it. 

Laundry.

I'm learning that it's not he babies and little kids giving me the most laundry (unless pee and bedding is involved).....it's the BIGGER kids with all their outfit changes, sporting events that require showering and more outfit changes, etc.

But even when the laundry is DONE, it STILL stays out on the piles before the kids come get it and put it away, etc. It feels like it's constantly out.

Enter my knight in shining armor....... Brooks told the older 5 that each week he will pay one of them to do the kids' laundry. They only have to do it on Wednesdays and Saturdays and it has to be washed, dryed, sorted and put in everyone's room by that night. For those two days he pays them $10. Then the next week, another kid gets a chance. They were so excited to do it. I was hesitant at first thinking they wouldn't do a very good job. But let's be honest, I have ruined so many clothes in the laundry that I'm not any better.

I can't TELL you how it feels similar to a weight loss for me. ALL I worry about is mine/Brooks' laundry basket....which is like two loads per week. Seriously, before it was EASILY a two loads per day thing for me. I love that he just saw that need and ran with it for me. #myhero

2) Another thing that I HATE is meal planning. 

It's not the cooking that bothers me. I thought it was the cooking over the years (since I cook breakfast and dinner every day)....but it's not. It's the THINKING of what to make....again....and again. And then making the grocery list. And feeling like we eat the SAME things over and over again just because I'm tired of searching or even looking for anything else to make. NOR do I want to hear it when I branch out and try other things.

I'm on a twin-mom group online and one mom was talking about a company that sends her recipes every week WITH the grocery list on what to buy and all ready to print off. I thought that sounded dreamy but I wasn't going to PAY for someone to do MY job. 

Oh wait..... it dawned on me, that's EXACTLY what Brooks just did to the kids for the laundry. Plus, I had reached the point that I NEEDED the mental stress to lift. I looked into the website and they were running a 50% off code. 

I wasn't sure if we would LIKE the meals but the samples I saw looked fine. We're not huge healthy freaks or have allergies. Just a regular family where most meals there is one or two that doesn't like what I make. So why not make someone ELSE'S recipes and still have one or two not like it. Brooks told me to do it. So for $18 I have a whole year of meals emailed to me every week. Best $18 spent this whole year!

haha

I'm so frugal that I never thought I would do something like that, but we've been doing it for 10 weeks now and I love it. The website sends me 6 dinner recipes, two side recipes and 2 desserts. The kids like that I'm making more desserts now. They are all usually under 30 minutes to prep and each week there's a crock pot or two recipes for crazy afernoon days for me. We have tried so many recipes I wouldn't normally pick and used spices I really wasn't used to using. My husband for one is SO glad for the new variety in our eating. 😀 There's been some major winners and some that were kind of "eh" to the kids. But all of them have been fine to me. None of have gross. None are too fancy or anything, but they've been life-saving....or shall I say mental-saving. And the kids stop saying, "Why are you making that?!" Because they know the answer is, "I'm just cooking what the recipe says." I don't hear any complaints either because it's like Mom isn't trying to torture them anymore, it's some random website that is to blame. :) Plus they are REALLY starting to like things they hated before. Who knew my family loved broccoli and cauliflower so much? Guess I never cooked it like this before.

I've printed them off and keep them in a binder and we rate them after we eat them so I can remember if I like them to keep for next year. 

Anyway, it has really lightened my load. And I'm SO grateful for my husband for telling me to do it.

Six Sisters Website it what I've used and I got an email saying they are doing a 50% off code for a gift card for Christmas....if anyone is interested. I don't get any kickback or anything but if it helps someone else then great.

Use the coupon code GIFTY50 from now until Christmas day and enjoy 50% off a $5, $24, or $36 gift certificate. 

Oh, and how about another heroic move from my husband that happened this week actually......

we paid off all our medical school loans!!!!!

18 months out of residency and we did it. Throughout the past 8 years I can't say how many dreaming-talks we've had about this moment and strategic planning meetings with the two of us to make this happen. He has worked his hiney off and looked for so many other ways to make this happen, all while making sure I had "my wings to fly" and he eases my load. 

I seriously can't express how excited Brooks and I were this week. We don't have any car or home loans so for the meantime, we can say we are 100% debtfree........until we buy a house in the next year or two. ;)