Spring is Coming

We have been enjoying spring-like weather around here the last few days.
We had an appointment downtown and had a few hours to spend before AWANA so we went to the park. The boys had a great time practicing on their roller blades and then they went back to the familiarity of their bikes.

Little Lady did a few laps on her bike.

We had the park mostly to ourselves. The boys were racing around the playground. Here's Crazy Fox coming around the turn.

And Digging Badger right on his tail.

One GREAT Great Aunt

Little Lady happens to have a Great Aunt who is a fantastic seamstress. She has always amazed me with the things she can create with her sewing machine. She is very talented in so many ways, but today we'll just focus on her sewing abilities. She is the one I call when I have a question about a pattern. Everything she makes looks like it comes from a pricey boutique.So when there was talk of making Little Lady a dress a few weeks ago I was very excited. I measured Little Lady and sent the measurements to Great Aunt D. One week later I heard it was done and in the mail. Yesterday there was a box delivered to our door.

Little Lady opened it and said, "Can I wear it?"

Me: "Of course, let's try it on".

L L: "I am never going to take this off. I am going to wear it forever!"

I think Little Lady was feeling like a little princess with her head tilted just so and her hands on her lap.

There is just something about a tulle lined full skirt that makes a little girl feel good. I think it is similar to the way little boys feel when they see a puddle of mud.

Thank you Great Aunt D. for thinking of Little Lady and making her a dress she will love for a long time to come.

I had a dress like this when I was about her age. It was a gold floral print (hey it was the 70's) and it was long and it had lace around all the edges. I think it was a hand made hand-me-down but I didn't care where it had come from. I called it my Hundred Dollar Dress. I felt so fancy in that dress that I was sure it must have cost $100. And way back then that was a lot of money. Now that I think about it, that would still be a lot of money to spend on a little girl's dress. Anyway, I just loved that dress. I loved to twirl around in the kitchen while my mom was getting dinner ready. I wore it to my Great Grandma's birthday party and when she commented on how pretty it was I'm sure I told her it was my $100 dress. She must have thought my parents had gone off the deep end. I'm sure they cleared that up in a hurry. This of course is all how it seemed to a 4 year old girl in a long full dress that was dizzy from twirling through her life while wearing golden floral.

I'm sure Little Lady will have wonderful memories in this dress too!

Through the Eye of a Child

Through the eye of my child the new layer of powdery white snow is exciting.

It means a few more days of winter fun, sledding and snowball fights.

And the promise of more mud.

Oh Shoot

We went out to the hills this afternoon to shoot some clays with some friends.

Nothing says redneck like taking the kids out for target practice.

Here's Crazy Fox taking aim.

Digging Badger taking his shot.

Little Lady and her friend G enjoying some snacks.

The boys went sledding down this hill last week. When they were telling me all about it and how fast they were going I thought they were exaggerating. It is really steep. Today, the snow was mostly melted, so they just pushed their big cars down it with their friend C while they waited to shoot.

My Scrap Book Nook

When we moved into this house, we were so happy to have an extra bedroom. We still are, but it's not as extra as we thought it would be. It has turned out to be our home school room, office, computer room, craft room, scrapbook room, library, and movie room. It has one small oddly shaped closet, that happens to perfectly fit a card table. So a while back, I decided to make it a scrap book nook, thinking to myself, I will just keep everything in there and then I can close the door until the next time I get a chance to work on it. But it turns out that I have been more of a collector of scrapbooking things than an actual scrapbooker as of late. I have been making an occasional card or small project here and there, but I get discouraged when I open the door to my scrapbook nook and can't even find a pair of scissors or glue. So I took everything off the table and under the table and off the shelf and then I remembered all my blogging friends. So here is the sort of before picture.

See why I was discouraged?
I'm embarrassed to say that I actually had done some sorting before I took this picture.
In my defense, I was a Creative Memories consultant for 7 years and accumulated a lot of tools and extra stuff during that time that is really very useful.

A while back, I bought this over the door shoe organizer to hang over the door so I could easily access all my smaller tools and punches and embellishments. It works really good, except for one minor thing . . . the door won't close. But, I have decided that until the Zookeeper gets a chance to screw it to the door, I will live with the door being slightly ajar.

See how cool it is. I can find all the things I have been looking for in my pile of stuff.

I also had a paper problem. I had all the paper from my Creative Memories days, which is 10x10 and my older Creative Memories days which is 8 1/2x11. Most of my scrapbooks are 12x12 and I have collected a lot of that size too. So I had to decide if I wanted to keep all the sizes separated, or put them together? What about the scraps? I decided to put it all together grouped nicely by colors, solid and patterned. I even put some of my bigger scraps in with the full sheets, so I will know what I have to work with when I sit down to scrapbook again. This was really hard for me to do. I don't know why. I had to consult my very organized cousin. (Thanks for the help Michelle.) This is how she has her paper organized and she is all up to date with her scrapbooks, so it must be working. I should be all caught up with the last 5 years by the end of the week now that I have my paper organized.

Once I realized how much paper I actually have, I decided to put it in one big file box and then I set it on it’s side so I can thumb through it easily. I kept the smaller scraps in another file, also separated by color.

So here is my newly organized desktop. I ran an extesion cord for my lamp. I have all my trimmers together. All the pages that are currently in the works are in the vertical storage. All my pens and scissors and whatever else I could possibly need are all within arms reach. I have all my stamps and ribbons and Quickutz right outside the closet in a set of plastic drawers, so everything is together.

Now I just need two more things.

1. 
   
   To stay away from the scrapbook store and use what I have.


2. 
   
   Time. If you have any extra would you send it my way?

Spring Fever

They can feel it in their bones. . . spring is coming.

Crazy Fox and Digging Badger could not control themselves anymore.

They had to go outside . . . barefoot.

It was a beautiful day, but still cold.

The snow is melting, revealing again, a thick muddy mess, were one day soon grass will be planted. But they could not be stopped. Boys can sense warmer days coming. They went out back and emptied out the toy chest, one by one, reliving all the fun they had with each toy last summer. Then came out the golf clubs and the golf balls. There was a different course than last time they played golf. Instead of weed divots flying, yesterday there were small chunks of slushy ice. Where they once had to dig a small pond and fill it with a hose there were natural water hazards waiting in the form of melted snow puddles.

This one is blurry, because the poor boy could not stand still long enough for me to snap a picture.

Little Lady decided to watch from what she thought was a safe distance. But even from the doorway, she got mud splattered on her dress up princess dress.

Valentine's Day

This was intended for yesterday, but I ran out of day before I got a chance to post it.

Here is a fun fact for the day. This information was passed on to me by a friend.
Valentine was a third century pastor who was imprisoned for his faith. He wrote small pastoral notes to members of his congregation on leaves he was able to pluck from a maple tree just outside his cell. These little "Valentine's cards" expressed his love for his flock, and his desire that they demonstrate like love toward one another. Gradually this tradition grew up for Christians to exchange notes of love and encouragement to one another on this, his birthday. (The Christian Almanac)

I thought that was very interesting. I checked around briefly and there are differing opinions concerning February 14th. Was it his birthday or the day he died? I also read that he was in love with his jailer's daughter and left her a note signed "from your Valentine". But either way, did I really go through 13 years of Christian school and never once hear this? Or was I just not paying attention?

We joined a home school co-op and it started yesterday. The boys chose German and games. Little Lady's only choice was pre-school, so she was in there for both hours. I stayed with her the first hour and she did great. When I went to pick her up, she cried because she didn't want to leave. She loves to be around other kids. The boys learned a few words and phrases in German and then learned a few new games. They are looking forward to being able to talk in "code" to each other. (I'll have to keep up with them or I could be in trouble.)

Happy Valentine's Day

Spend the day doing little extra things to make your husband and kids feel special and loved.

Here are a few fun and frugal ways to do just that.

Cut everything in heart shapes with cookie cutters. Sandwiches, brownies, toast, eggs, whatever.

Use your brightest red lipstick and kiss the edge of white plates for a fun border, or use two thumb prints to make a heart border.

I put these up last Valentine’s Day and it is the last thing the Zoo Keeper sees before he closes his eyes at the end of the day. This would be great for the kids too.

Ah yes . . . the message in a bottle.
This obviously would work in the bath tub or spa, but who wouldn’t love to find this amidst a sink of dirty dishes? The way our snow has been melting, I could find a small pond in the yard to float a message in.

1 pack of glow in the dark stars . . . $1.59
1 glass bottle with a cork . . . . . . . . $.99
Making someone feel special . . . . . Priceless

The Mall is Scary

Yesterday we went to the mall to have Little Lady's pictures taken. When we didn't have a mall I always wished we did, but seriously, I have been there maybe three times since we moved here. And yesterday I realized why.

After we had her pictures taken, we walked around for a while. We saw a woman who appeared to be getting ready to go to her second job. She was working at one of the kiosks in the mall, except she was preparing to go to her waitress job at HOOTERS. She had her "uniform" on and her shirt was short and her shorts were shorter and she had both her hands up over her head working on her hair. She glowed from a recent trip to the tanning salon. I had to turn my son's head for him as we walked by her. And then I closed his mouth for him. Seven . . .he is seven.

Then waiting for us just around the corner was a man? dressed in a bright red suit with a silky, pink, ruffled shirt underneath. He had lots of bling and a white curly wig, or really wiggy looking hair. He looked as though he just walked out of the pages of Alice in Wonderland, only freakier. I actually looked around to see if the mall had some sort of play, or valentine photo spot set up that he was taking a break from. There was nothing.

We went up and down the escalator way more than we needed to, we had ice cream, (thanks Grandma and Grandpa) and walked through the pet shop. Then we went and picked up the pictures. They turned out cute, but I’m not sure if they were worth a trip to the mall.

Thank you Grandma

On our way out yesterday we checked our mailbox and there was a surprise from White Grandma and White Grandpa. (Another story for another post). The kids where so delighted to find Baskin-Robbins bucks in their Valentine cards. So, while we were at the mall yesterday, after the pictures, they spent their Baskin-Robbins bucks. Sorry the pictures are so grainy, I took them with my phone.

Digging Badger went with his favorite, cookies 'n' cream or in Badger talk "Oreo".

Crazy fox had his regular, chocolate chip cookie dough.

And Little Lady wanted chocolate. Just plain chocolate. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

It was great timing, because just Monday I was day dreaming about chocolate-peanut-butter ice cream while I should have been concentrating on teaching the boys math. You may have saved their educations!

It's a Sun-Shiny Day

The sun came out yesterday. It is back this morning too. Last week we were out shoveling the driveway and I remembered back to when we were living in the sun belt of Arizona. Someone told me one day when I was wishing out loud for even a slight change in the weather, "You don't have to shovel sunshine". On that day I would have done anything for a wintry snow storm. Or just about anything besides sunny and warm. I didn't take the comment well. I wanted to tell that person to stick it where the sun don't shine. But I didn't, because I knew my frustration was not really at the person who pointed out the obvious, but at the bright shining ball in the sky.

Well, Mr. Sun, I'm glad your back and I'm sorry I said those things about you. I have missed you. We all have. I guess it's true absence makes the heart grow fonder. We had a sun-shiny day snow cone out back to celebrate your return.

Budding Artists?

We have been finding all sorts of un-done projects in our craft supplies during these last few cold, windy days. The kids always want to paint and I have put them off for quite a while. It is usually a pretty messy project. The boys are at an age where they have a good concept of mixing colors and the effects that has on the finished product.Notice the three separate puddles of paint. But when little Lady paints . . .This still colorful, bright, sparkly, purple, pink, yellow cat. . . .quickly turns into this.

And dries in a nice drab shade of brown.

25 Ways

I have a confession to make. I am sort of a publishing junkie. Not anything that has ever made me any money, just geeky things. I was on the yearbook staff for three years in high school finishing off as editor in my senior year. Then I started scrap booking with all the same techniques I had used on the yearbook, things like clean lines and catchy captions. After the boys were born, I joined a local mom's club and was so excited when they announced they needed a newsletter editor. I did the newsletter for several years, and saved a few of my favorite ones. I remembered one that I did for a February issue, and when I went to look for it, there it was waiting in it's file (if only everything around here was that organized!).

I compiled a list of ways to SHOW your kids how much you love them, because for kids, actions definitely speak louder than words. While I was at it I threw in a list for husbands too. I know as a mom there are times when the kids can consume me. All my energy goes into them. We need to keep our marriages a priority to keep them strong, because our kids need to know that we will be together through it all. I don't remember exactly where all the ideas came from. Some of them came from my own memories with my parents, some came from magazines or online searches. Some of the romantic ones came from here. So, since we are focusing on loving each other better around here, I thought I would share these ideas with you. There's one for every day this month. So without further ado:

25 Ways to Love Your Husband

1. Complain less, compliment more.
   


2. Always look into his eyes when he is talking to you.
   


3. Catch his eye in a crowd and wink.
   


4. Turn the A/C up and enjoy a fire in the summer.
   


5. Celebrate his 1/2 birthday.
   


6. Sit downs and write your goals out together.
   


7. Wash his car.
   


8. Make a list of 100 reasons why you love him
   


9. Learn to have the last words in arguments, "I'm sorry".
   


10. Pray together.
    


11. Foster an atmosphere of laughter in your home.
    


12. Compliment him often.
    


13. Don't over commit yourself. Leave time for him.
    


14. Surprise him with a 15 second kiss when he gets home from work.
    


15. Plan regular dates together.
    


16. Express how much you appreciate him for working to support the family.
    


17. Unplug the TV and leave a card on top that says, "Turn me on instead".
    


18. Put love notes in his pockets.
    


19. Take the time to notice what he has done for you and your family.
    


20. Brag about him to other people both in front of him and even when he's not there.
    


21. Work to get rid of habits that annoy him.
    


22. Don't argue with him in front of the kids.
    


23. Be his best cheerleader.
    


24. Don't ask him to read your mind.
    


25. Say "I love you" three times a day for the rest of your life.

25 Ways to Love Your Kids

1. Celebrate everyday accomplishments. Make a special dinner with your child as the guest of honor to toast loosing a tooth, making the soccer team, doing great on their school work and more.

2. Read "just one more book" even if it's late

3. Get messy with your kids. Make snow angels, put your hands in finger paint and mush up clay.

4. Stop washing the dishes and talking on the phone and get to their level and really listen when they are talking to you.

5. Let your children overhear you complimenting them to someone else.

6. Read the comics together.

7. Send your child a card in the mail, with stickers, a coupon for something fun or a treat inside.

8. Play hide and seek together.

9. Help them wash their bike or tricycle with as much effort as you put into washing your vehicle . . . Maybe even wax it.

10. Plant a tree. Watch them grow up together.

11. Love their Daddy!

12. Take them on a one-on-one date.

13. Praise good effort not just good results.

14. Get out their scrapbooks and tell your children stories about their beginnings.

15. Bend the rules occasionally.

16. Cut their sandwiches into fun shapes with cookie cutters.

17. Cook something together.

18. Do a jigsaw puzzle together.

19. Take them camping. . .even if it's just in the back yard or living room.

20. Have a family game night.

21. Go on a treasure hunt. . .shells, rocks, whatever.

22. Frame their artwork.

23. Smile. . . even when you're tired.

24. Build lots of blanket forts. . . Big ones.

25. Delight in silliness.

26. Tell them they are amazing.

27. Say "I love you", hug them.

28. Say it again. Hug them again.

True Love

As we were running around town yesterday, doing our errands I noticed something. It appears, that retailers believe, Valentine's Day is as important as Christmas. There are as many aisles of red, sparkly hearts, singing monkeys, and heart shaped boxes of chocolate as there were nativity scenes, Christmas trees and wreaths just a few months ago. How do we teach our children to differentiate between the feelings of "love" the world throws at them and the true love that God has for us?
We decided to start where we should always start. Even though we sometimes forget. In God's Word. We know, "Love is patient, love is kind......", but to truly have those words hidden in the hearts of our children, so that they have a solid foundation on which to compare the world's flimsy attempts of love versus God's true definition of love, is what we want most for our children. We are going to be memorizing 1 Corinthians 13 together. I pray that I can truly love my husband and my children even on those days when they seem "unlovable". Because I know, that my Savior loved me when I was.
Would you like to join us?

1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Our Winter Wonderland

Here's some of our favorite pictures from yesterday's storm.
(You can click on the collage to see bigger pictures.)

Snow Much Fun

It snowed all night and into the afternoon. We woke up to about 6 inches of snow! It was great.

We made a bull's eye target for a snowball throwing contest. The kids had a great time "coloring" the snow.

Then they all lined up and fired away. The snowballs were flying in every direction.

We made some stairs so Little Lady could get to the top of our "hill" and then went sledding and snowboarding down. We went in for a snow cone to cool off. We didn't even have to shave the ice! After some nourishment, we went out front and made a small snow fort. It got demolished before I got a chance to take a picture.

We made an igloo and started working on a penguin to live in it, but we were too worn out from all of our fun. We had a great day being together and playing in the fresh snow.

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” John Ruskin

Hot What?

Our sunshine has subsided to another snow storm. The rodent was right. So far anyway.

The kids and I enjoyed a relaxing day doing some minor projects while the Zookeeper was working. I actually had a chance to sit down and look through a magazine that has been sitting on my counter for about a week. Around 4:00 we looked outside and it was snowing again. The boys waited until 5 minutes before sunset to go out and play in the snow. When I couldn't see them from the house I called them in. "Can we have hot chocolate, pleeease". Well, we are just about out of hot chocolate, but thanks to that magazine I read earlier I had a new recipe to try. Everyone has had hot chocolate, but have you ever had hot vanilla? I thought it might be a nice change of pace. We had all the ingredients on hand, so we made a pot. I think it would have been really good, except for the new brand of vanilla I just bought. I neglected to read the ingredient label and it has way more alcohol in it than the kind we usually use. Why is there alcohol in vanilla? It does not taste good. The chocolate-cinnamon whipped cream was delightful though. I guess we'll just stick with the good old stand-by for now . . . hot chocolate.

Little Lady entertained herself for quite a while with all her bow and barrettes this afternoon. Isn't she lovely?

Crazy Fox tasted the hot vanilla, but decided he doesn't like my new concoction. Too much alcohol.

Digging Badger would not even try it. He is completely a creature of habit. He likes about 3 things and one of them is hot chocolate. He decided to just have orange juice.

I think it may me affecting his vision.