chicken parmesan for 16.....

Ooh, it was good. I cut flattened the chicken breasts with the rolling pin, dipped them in flour and cajun spice, and browned them in olive oil, before covering them with sauce and mozzarella cheese and baking them....served over pasta bowties, yum.

Today was an interesting day. We stayed up way too late last night, and subsequently slept too late this morning. Add in the time change, and there was no chance we were going to all make it to church. Paul and Mirielle and Aaron and Samuel went. I decided to get the kids ready and go to Walmart because,

1. I am crazy.

2. I always forget how exasperated I am by the time I get to the checkout.

3. I actually BELIEVE Camille when she says that this time she will sit nicely in the cart and not take her boots off and throw them and not reach for everything her long grabby arms can reach.

4. I really wanted to waste a lot of money.

5. It actually sounded adventurous!

6. There were only eight kids to take, it didn't seem like that many.

But we actually accomplished some things:

1. We bought paint, and my kids only took like twenty extra paint samples. Our cashier, Tommy, was confused by this when they put them on the conveyor belt, he seemed to think we should have to pay for them.

2. I let Margaret, 13, Kathryn, almost 12, Evelyn, 10, and Suzanne, 8, have their own cart and stay in the woman's clothes section picking out some MileyMax clothes, three bucks each. I didn't give them any limits, just told them to pick out something they liked and come find me....but to all stay together and watch each other. Margaret, the fashion statement child of the family, found three things, Kathryn only one thing, Evelyn two things, and Suzanne one thing. .

3. I got lots and lots of treasure in heaven because Jonathan was HORRIBLE today. I don't know if he is just tired, or he wanted to torture me. "Mom, we should find the girls. Mom, we should go look at the toys, but YOU don't want to because you never listen to me." And after we looked at the toys, "You went too fast, I didn't get to look at anything." He was putting his foot in front of the cart wheels and bugging Camille, who was reluctantly sitting in the front of the cart like a good girl. Then he said, "I want to apologize to you mom, but I know you won't accept it because you just won't listen to me." Oh no, Mr. Jon, I will certainly listen to your apology! And no, I am not mad at you. I just don't like it when you act like that in the store. rrr.

4. I bought some new fake flowers for the bathroom counter, I have had the others in there for years and years. Dusty fake flowers are gross.

5. I bought a new bulletin board to put on the wall near the door. I want to put lots and lots of pictures of our friends on it.

6. I bought a bag of fried chicken, and found it useful to use to bribe Joseph and Aaron with, to clean up the yard....when the snow melts, lots of things show up.

7. I price matched lots and lots of Easter candy! I got the yummy stuff, like Cadbury eggs and Hershey chocolate eggs, and some Reese's eggs (pricematched 39 cents from Walgreens, but I could only get six....what good will that do? So I bit the bullet and bought some six packs from BigLots for $2.50, ouch)



And when i got home with all those kids, I sanded the spackling and painted the downstairs hallway. Evelyn did the edging, and I praised her for her help, but....she got a lot of paint on the wood. I told her that was okay, just wipe it off before it dries. Well, her and I are a good team, we had lots of paint on us and lots of drips on the carpet and she even made herself a blue mustache.

It needs another coat tomorrow.

After painting, I felt like sitting down, but I made myself make dinner. Abigail is here for a visit, and she helped me by doing the dishwasher and cleaning off the counters. There is always so much to do. And it wasn't so properly cleaned up after dinner, and I don't care right now. I will hate myself for this attitude come morning, but right now I am tired.

Well, it is late late late and the kids are supposed to be brushing and getting in to bed, and here I am......but I will get up and I will be okay. I think.

4.