Crunched Time (Part Two)

So, the receipts were finally entered, columns tallied, and reports printed.

I survived the prep work of yet another tax season. 

I do dread the process, but I always end up in the spot when I see there's more to the Cash Flow report than credits and creditors.  The "Crunch time" that is tax preparation produces a two-page end product that condenses the life of this BigFamily into a small snapshot... Time, crunched. 

Funny thing:  that little report gives me a bigger perspective.

Right off that Income/Expense report, I get to appreciate that a new camera is a wonderful business expense at any price.  Not one "thing" gives me more joy than that single piece of equipment;  perhaps surprisingly, it gives me much more joy than even a washing machine, dish washer, or very large vehicle... combined.  And now that the tax work has been submitted, I have learned I absolutely must budget more funds for scrapbooking and photo finishing.  Afterall, I don't want my babies to end up as jpegs.

The new Nikon is small change compared to the one glaring humongous umbrella expense entitled "Medical".  This includes insurance premiums, doctor visits, and buckets of antibiotics.  But there's no subcategory in that report that documents the awe of watching your daughter, while her arm is in the unnatural shape of the letter "S",  pray her way calmly through the pain until an ambulance could get her to an emergency room.  Or the joy of scheduling a "Well Child" visit for a three year old when you realize your child is perfectly healthy.  I'll pay double for that.

We also spend a small fortune on gasoline...waaaaaaaay more money than we do even our mortgage. (Okay, it's true we have a pretty cheap mortgage, however gas got outrageously expensive!).   But you know what?  I won't apologize for this carbon footprint.  That expense represents time spent with grandparents, or watching my kids play in ball games, visits with friends, and day trip experiences for my children.  Last Fall when my nephew called at 5 pm to invite me to share his birthday cake 90 miles away, we jumped in the car and went.  (And I've got GREAT pictures from that gathering too!)

I will add that the 2009 Gasoline expense was actually less than in previous years, which I attribute to our dumping 19 sets of seatbelts for a sardine can with five. The fuel efficient Ford Focus racks up 34 mpg, but I still call it The GoCart.  I tolerate it only because it gets me to my destination. 

We seemed to have cut back on recreational expenses in 2009.  But one of them, a family swimming pool pass, is worth any amount of money spent.  In the scorching heat of summer, we put off running our air conditioners for as long as possible, and the local pool is one reason I can get away with it.  While it's true that having a family pass means kids need fewer baths at home during the summer, the financial savings is zilch when factoring in the garden hose that gets left running under the trampoline overnight. 

It's a wash... but it's also perspective.

Somewhat misleading, it also looks like we spent more money on clothing last year, especially around Eastertime.  However, the Quickbooks "Income/Expense Comparison" report does not have room for a parenthetical "Sears Gift Cards from Grammy, Thank God" notation.  But it should, as well as all the other instances of kindness generously shared with us.  And there's no spot on the report for "Priceless", which is the value of friends who share the bounty of their gardens, their outgrown clothing, or giant sized jars of peanut butter from Sams Club.

There are economic lessons to be learned, but we're hanging in there.  Oh, we're still going to work hard to reduce our debt, increase our savings, and stay healthy and cast-free.  But some expenses just can't be avoided,
like replacement windows....
or the stories that go with them.

Crunch Time (Part One)

Tomorrow morning we have our rendezvous with Ned. 

He's our accountant, and we've been with him for many years.    He's the one who genuinely thrills over all our dependents, who has watched our vehicular size grow with our family, and who has helped us make sense of each year's crumpled Wal-mart receipts and Aldi lists.

Correction:  piles and piles of receipts.  And checkbook registers.  And calendar notations of daycare income and attendance.  And proofs of purchase, valid vouchers, sales slips and stubs.  Yep.  It's all there.  Our 2009 lives, in one big box.

Ned likes seeing us because he gets the "Annual Big Picture" of our lives.  He also gets the paper thin computer report that summarizes it.
I'm left preparing that report from the quagmire of "proof" of how we lived it.

I really struggle with all this.  In fact, I mostly dread it.

It's not that I fear looking at the reality of the Sieve of my Checkbook, or how much we don't put into savings, or how our emergency fund is drained every month, usually via the plumbers, or mechanics, or doctors.  (Kel can do a lot of things like build and lead and cook and clean... if only he could prescribe!  Sigh.)

The struggle is that I'm the one who sorts, organizes, and enters all this data into the computer.  That's a Big Ugh.

Because of my daycare, I use a Quickbooks program that allows me to take each receipt and catagorize it by various line items... like "Paper Goods", "Cleaning Products", or "Lawn and Garden", all of which are relevant to the "bottom line" of our taxable income status.  This takes a lot of time!

Forgive my sour mood, but what I really need are categories like "Stuff", "Crap", and "Things We Impulsively Bought But Never Should Have Left the Store With".  Surely the IRS would understand these universal designations!

So now you know; the only reason I even blog is so I don't have to deal with the data entry of receipts. 

Wanna  see a cute picture of my kid????

Eye Blinks

I noticed by chance today that I need to flip my calendar month to February... and I am still a long way away from not misprinting 2-0-1-0 on my checks.  And in the blink of an eye, I've lost blogging about the end of 2009 and the whole start of 2010. 

I've missed sharing a really great story about getting a professional family portrait taken the week of Christmas.  It was a HUGE accomplishment, but I'll definitely save that story, and the photo, for another time. 

I could have written several blogs about families and Christmas... like what it takes to get our family to Christmas Eve Mass, the dinner we share when we get home, and the gift-giving afterwards. 

Many people think that with all these kids our house must be madness during present time.  But on Christmas Eve, the children get a gift from a sibling who drew their name weeks before, and a gift from their parents.  That's it... really!  And their gift from us?  Well, if we can pull it off, it's their hearts' desire (within reason!).  Birthdays might be a Shell gas card and a case of favorite pop.  But Christmas.... well, Christmas is truly special (and truthfully, it doesn't happen without a sprinkle of "magic" that even I can't explain.  "Blessings", pure and simple).

Go ahead and call us selfish, but many years ago, Kel and I decided that WE wanted to give them "the big gift".  We got tired of the guy in the red suit getting credit for all that good stuff.  Afterall, he never needs to fight for parking spots and stand in long lines!  

When the kids open the gift that says, "Love, Mom and Dad", they know it's not Santa doing the scrimping and saving and sacrificing.  (And it works wonderfully in our favor when we've told them "No" to something; we don't hear "Well, I'll just ask Santa for it!") 

Pictures speak for themselves in explaining their joy when big kids get their hearts' desire, and babies get babies, which is their hearts' desire. 

So, it's a good thing we have these pictures, because after months of preparing, it's over in a blink of an eye.

But there's more... there's always more.  Afterall, Christmas truly is not about the gifts and the stuff.

Since December 22nd and my last blog entry, we created faces for Mimi's poor faceless yard decorations. (We also gave her a whole stack of other angelic grandkids so she can switch them out anytime!)

We got to spend time with Big cousins and Little Cousins.

And we said Goodbye to cousins who moved far far away.

And with them, my sister and our fun-loving brother-in-law.  We already miss them.

We rang in the New Year and a new decade with friends we have known for ages, who have joined us year after year despite the fact that there is increasingly less room at the game table.  Our kids invite friends of their own and it ends up being a raucously good time.  We love their playfulness, and we love watching them grow up.  It happens in the blink of an eye. 

It doesn't go unnoticed that we end one year feeling immensely blessed, and start the next one feeling even more so. 

 Since my last blog, the extended Krenz Family said goodbye to our snowbird grandparents and sent them off with a new GPS and enough peanut M&Ms to get to Florida.  First, however, we were treated to newly found home movies of camping trips and early attempts at cinematography.  Who knew Kel could, at such a young age, produce-direct-and star in such a dramatic tale of dog attacks and severed limbs?  We laughed at the hilarious "fashions" too.  You know, filming those home movies just didn't seem that long ago.  Blink of an eye. 

We united the Big Sky of Montana and East coast New Jersey with a gathering of college friends in suburban Chicago.  We shared sorrow and loss, and celebrated engagement and hope.  That we can all see each other once in a few years and literally pick up where we left off is a testament to... well, I don't know what it's a testament to.  All I know is these people will always have a significant place in my heart because they've always been there... for decades.  

A blink of an eye. 

We helped observe the first birthday of a dear Goddaughter, went sledding on the closest hill in Chenoa (the overpass), built an ice rink, and hosted a "Slide on the Ice" party in subzero weather under a big moon and oudoor lighting.  8 adults, 25 children.  No one complained about the cold.  Afterwards we had to have rootbeer floats because it was also Report Card Day, and we always have rootbeer floats on Report Card Day.  We do this just 4 times a year, but it seems like just yesterday when were were last slurpin' suds. 

A blink of an eye.

   

Since the last blog, we clowned around at home, made batches and batches of chocolate chip cookies, and limbo-ed at a family dance celebrating Catholic Schools Week.  One daughter legitimately took second place!  Could you guess which one?

We also clowned around with some real clowns at the Illinois Association of Agricultural Fairs held at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Springfield.  We've never attended this before... never had a reason to.  But this year we did (with a whole posse of support), because Kieran was chosen last summer to represent Fairbury in the Junior Division of the talent competition.  Was that already 6 months ago?  Blink of an eye.  I must add, from a tremendously subjective point of view, not only was Kieran stunning, but her voice was simply radiant.  I won't ever hear "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera, without thinking of her.

I must note that it has not even been 6 weeks since my last blog, and in that time we have lived a lot of life.  Do we look tired?  Even so, we are not without perspective.  Just recently we received a letter translated from Spanish from a special Guatemalan boy named Juan. This little first grader is included in the salutation of our bed-time prayers every night ("God Bless momdadbrennancamdenallykieranmaddiemerrynandyfinanrosieand juan..."), and we keep his picture on a wall in the hub of our house.  Right next to his photo is a special cross from Mexico, given to us years ago by a dear friend, Fr. Terry.  We haven't seen him in forever, but it feels like just yesterday he was helping us in the wee hours of Christmas morning, assembling toys and filling stockings... and when his dogs, Angel and Jude, ate all the chocolate out of those stockings.  His out-of-the-blue phone call just a few weeks ago brought back a flood of love.  And next to that cross, and that picture, is a little heart embossed with the words, "The most important things in life... aren't things."

Now, this is what we are really trying to live...

in the blink of an eye. 

 

Christmas Break- Day 1

It's the time of year when people talk about the ways the Holidays delight their senses.  Wafting holly candles, pine garland, cinnamon.... twinkling lights, tumbling snowflakes, decorative wreaths... festive carols and traditional hymns...

Those people don't have kids.

Basically, the familiar sensory experience in OUR home is, well, to put it simply, Stimulating.

No one else ever mentions the sound of ornaments crashing together when a ball goes flying through the living room, but it regularly happens here.  The Monkey in the Middle is just not tall enough to screen drop kicks from the 3 year old.  He doesn't mean to be destructive... he just has awesome aim. Even from 2 rooms away, I am quite adept at knowing when it's just brass ornaments, or when I have to jump up and grab the vacuum cleaner.

There are traditional Holiday tastes and smells, but here there is also the constant "stick" that is gnawed on candy canes, still in wrappers. Or globs of glitter glue that won't fully dry.  Or the rejected fancy candy with the gooey centers that taste like "yuck" ("Well, then stay out of your father's Ghirardelli!").   I want to scream when asked for the 15th time, "Mom, where's MY candy?"  It's only 9 am.  I should spare myself the agony and just eat the stuff myself.  But how then should I handle the situation when I hear "Why is the baby carrying around a bottle of ketchup?" 

Our one-horse open sleigh is real enough.  The circle loop that links the sitting room-living room-dining room-computer room is a first class obstacle course for the new Radio Flyer wagon.  I've been told not to overreact:  Speeding is of little concern since the thing actually has seatbelts.  Doesn't candy count as an accelerant?

I don't hear other households lament that, now that it's Christmas break, they are the loudest family on the planet. Well, maybe other families do have such complaints, but I certainly wouldn't be able to hear about them.  The din here can be deafening.

Am I the only person who drinks a beer to STOP my head from spinning?

My poor husband. 
The man is a professional who runs a building with nearly 400 children in it, aged 7 and under.  SEVEN AND UNDER.  It's a RESPITE compared to here.  I'd ask him what his thoughts are about this apparent juxtaposition of his life's work, but I think he went to have a beer.

Elfin Magic

For the third year in a row, The Elves have arrived.

While I suppose they could arrive anytime, they hitch a ride to our house with St. Nicholas on the eve of December 6th.  This is when the empty shoes that make up a huge array surrounding the Christmas tree skirt are filled the next morning with gold chocolate coins, favorite candies, and old-fashioned bottles of Coca-Cola.  Merryn and Andy squealed aloud this year when they spied the 12 inch NorthPoleans nestled in their own stockings hanging by the Christmas tree.

Brownie and Charlie supposedly were sent to make sure the Krenz kids are good and kind in the days leading up to Christmas.  However, even though we have never actually seen them move, these elves have been known to cause mischief and commotion all over our house!

Last year they baked brownies, and made good use of the abundance of powdered sugar strewn everywhere by also making snow angels on the kitchen table.  Somehow, one snow-filled night, they snuck outside and had a blast in the snow, which they smartly preserved inside.  Merryn eventually found them in the freezer with a mound of snowballs and a stuffed polar bear too.  We've also found them in the refrigerator with fresh sugar cookie dough for the kids, and they even provided a cookie cutter shaped like an elf!

If the snow was not in the forecast, they made their own winter wonderland by TP-ing the livingroom or having marshmallow wars.  Other mornings we found them watching a big stack of Christmas movies and eating microwave popcorn, or playing the Wii.  They had even figured out how to make their own Wii Mii profiles!

They've played Scrabble (the whole board was a criss-cross of Christmas and winter words), decorated the children's bedrooms with lights and sparkly ornaments, switched out all the drawers in every dresser of the house (imagine the difficulties of getting to school on time THAT morning), and actually ordered themselves a Pizza Hut pizza.  (The empty pizza box and the car parked crooked in the driveway were proof of it!). 

I won't soon forget, however, the night they spent cutting huge letters out of colored pieces of paper, using every one of our decorative craft scissors with scalloped and sharp-toothed edges.  Nearly 30 letters!  It was a jaw-dropping sight to first see the scissors and rolls of messed up tape and residual scraps that literally covered the entire floor of the sitting room, the room into which everyone enters our home.  But on a single wall, the fruit of their labor:  "JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON".

I left that pile of stuff on the floor there all day, and the graffiti until The Epiphany.

The elves come during a busy and often stress-filled time of year.  The calendar is jam-packed with meetings and programs and practices and games and shopping and commitments and festive parties.  We're often rushed and hurried and heavily burdened.  On tired, wintery nights, those elves add to the list.

However, I'm sincerely grateful for the opportunity to host them.  They bring joy and expectation every morning to our children, and they provide these weary parents an opportunity to remember how to just be PLAYFUL.  Afterall, we're anticipating the arrival of Jesus who truly brings Joy to the World.

And that, for me, is really a gift.

Decorating with a Purpose

Last night we finally accomplished some real Christmas decorating.  We assembled and fluffed 14 artificial Christmas trees, hung 15 wreaths topped by red velvet bows, strung 30 feet of garland,  and fashioned a rather large, 20 piece nativity scene with camels big enough for Finan to mount.

Now, before anyone starts organizing charter buses to visit our embellished holiday home, I have to correct any misconceptions that our house actually looks this festive.  However, St. Joseph Church looks terrific!

For the last several years, the parish priest here has asked our family to set up the Giving Tree.  We make about 75 paper ornaments in various shapes, and on each one write a suggested item for needy people in our community.  Winter clothing such as gloves and scarves, hats and socks are listed, and parishioners take the ornaments and return gifts, all of which are donated to the local food pantry.  On the first Wednesday of Advent, we decorate the Giving Tree when the rest of the church is being adorned too.

The children love this evening.  They enjoy the small group of older church members who have been doing this every year since... well, forever.  They thrill at the opportunity to pull out boxes from the eerie church basement, as well as peek around the pipe organ in the huge choir loft.  They get to scale ladders and crawl under pews, and even use loud voices IN CHURCH. 

They also get to experience what it feels like to really contribute to something meaningful.

So, even though our own Christmas tree is ornamentless and may stay that way until Valentine's Day (when we get around to taking it down), I don't mind at all.  We've already got a jump on fostering the holiday spirit, and we've been blessed with the gift of anticipation and the magic that is Christmas. 

And I have not had to vaccuum up a single shattered ornament....
yet.

Project Runway

I first realized she could do it when she emerged from the living room with a squished stick of butter in her hands and a big smile on her face.  Unless she was able to manuever the huge hose on the Dyson vaccuum, the butter stunt meant she could scale the kitchen counter.  And I was right.

The next time (or, what I THINK is the "next time"), I was able to catch her with the element of surprise.  The bar stool had already been pushed across the room, and the baby was standing ON the counter talking to the birds outside the kitchen window.  I didn't want to startle her into falling, so I clamped my lips shut and gulped down my scream. 

Over the years I have learned you can kind of expect this sort of dare devil behavior from small children, because at this age they are formulating thoughts and exercising preferences.  Still, it's a shocker when you realize your baby can actually implement a plan.

The most recent exploit, though, really had me wondering about personalities that accompany these behaviors.  I understand that if the child is hungry, she'll find a way to get into the secured cereal cabinet and dump 3 pounds of Cheerios on the floor, and a few in the bowl too.  I can see how if she wants to make dessert  like the big sisters she'll pull out the vegetable oil which is loosely capped from the last set of Brownie Bakers (who also did not secure the cereal cabinet).  Babies mimic the people around them, which is why in this house no one can ever find their own toothbrush.

But what do you make of a baby who is pleased as punch to have you enter the Hub of the Household to see her prancing up and down the dining room table as if it were Project Runway?