Car troubles and troubles!

A week ago yesterday I took our Buick Rendezvous into the mechanic, the transmission as been leaking (do to bolts), sometimes it wouldn't shift, the speedometer didn't work and the check engine light has been on and with all these things wrong we can't register it. The mechanic was backed up with work so it took him a couple of days before he could look at it once he did he let me know that the speed sensor will most likely fix all the other issues, and they put new bolts on the transmission so that should stop the leaking. They ordered the part on Wednesday and got it by Friday but quickly discovered it was the wrong part! They had to re-order the part on Friday, they received it yesterday evening so hopefully(keep your fingers crossed) we will have our car later today because....

Yesterday Dane called me from the freeway his car decided to crap out on him! YUP that's right both cars are in the shop, and it really sucks cause we are running out of groceries(we were gonna go yesterday once Dane was home from work). At the same time I can think of some blessings like:

1. Ryne and I didn't end of stranded on the freeway in the rain on Saturday

2. The expenses for the other car are really low so we will be able to afford to fix Dane's car.

3. Dane's car waited to crap out once Dane was safely pulled off the freeway, other wise he would have been in trouble.

4. We have GREAT neighbor that is willing to pick Ryne up from school today.

5. Dane has a friend at work that is willing to take him to and from work.

So even though this SUCKS all around good things are coming from it, and I think maybe we can learn a lesson in patience and also in not procrastinating that seems to be our down fall at times. Anyway today we take a deep breath, say a pray and have faith everything will work out(like getting at least 1 car back today).

Ok onto other issues not car related. We have been struggling with keepin the peace with the kids lately, it seems we have a hug yell fest every day, and yesterday I had had enough (and it was only 9a.m.)! I talked to Dane and we decided a huge thing that has brought contention into the the home is the Wii it's all Kaleb wants to do, in fact he has been waking up in the middle of the night just to play, which has been causing him to act poorly in school AND at home. When Ryne tries to play with Kaleb he yells at her and she yells back then Ellie gets into it cause she's too little to play and the kids scream that in her face! LOVELY right!? I know a lot of you are askin why didn't you take it away or limit the time? Trust me we have tried, limiting the time is what has cause Kaleb to get up in the night and play, we have tried disconnecting the wii and we have even hidden the remotes but Kaleb still manages to find them and he figured out very quickly how to connect everything again. So yesterday we made the decision to take the wii away and hide the entire thing, one child(Ryne) was elated that it was gone, the other 2 sat and cried (it was like someone had died there was some serious hyperventilation goin on.)

We sat down and had a family meeting and discussed all the issues EVERYONE was having (yes even the parents)and what we could all do to fix them. We talked about the wii and decided that everyone has to earn time to play it by completing all their chores without complaints. We also put locks on the toy boxes so that once the house is picked up for the evenings things can't be dragged back out and we can spend more time together as a family. We all decided mom and dad are going to have more patience and think before we yell and in return the kids are going to be better at listening and obeying, we figure if we all give a little the yelling will stop and we won't be so irritated all the time. Now the biggest question Ryne and Kaleb had was "what about Ellie", Ellie has been screaming like crazy lately and boy does that girl have a temper! We explained that she has learned that behavior from EVERYONE else and that if we change the way we act she will follow, but that it's not going to be easy and we are all going to need to be patient with Ellie and ourselves.

I'm also going to try other things to help easing the tension like playing more feel good church music, whenever I put a primary cd in it's like night and day moods all around change so we are going to use this method more when tension is high. One thing I told the kids that helps me a lot is before you react ask yourself if you want to be treated the way you are about to treat that person if the answer is no the re-think how you are going to react, they seemed to like this idea. I think the biggest thing that will help start with Dane and I if we can show the kids we are making a huge effort into bein better that they will all follow. So we shall see, wish us luck!