Merry Christmas 2011

Christmas Cookies

It's good to know people who bake and people who will take you and your three kids and bake with you. These are brave, loving people. We were blessed to have a cookie fest at our friends house this week-end. She had prepared the dough already and all the kids had to do was sprinkle, roll, squish, and stamp. With a lot of energy and patience from all of us we got the cookies done and even were sent home with a box. Thanks friend!

Fort Tamra

I have a very creative friend who gave the girls one of the best gifts. A fort pack. Included were self charging flashlight, clamps, one large sheet and a fun book. The girls made a fort immediately and are constantly looking out for new places to make forts in our home. This was a sleeping fort, shelter for the night.

Caged

Before anyone freaks out at this photo, this was completely voluntary on Walker's part and as soon as I took this photo, I made him get out. So I think it's pretty safe to say Walker and Robin best friends. Best friends in destruction and rough and tumble play. I recently discovered that Walker has been encouraging a nasty destructive streak in Robin. He'll provide the material for destruction and she'll provide the teeth. I think we could make some real money in the shredding business seriously. Most recently Robin has destroyed:

Her bed
Our packet of songs to practice for the Church sing
Walkers instruction pack for his new building set
A tree ornament
Carys' calendar from highlights (this was was salvageable with teeth marks)
My winter gloves
Cullen's winter gloves
Carys' gloves currently have a hole in them (she has a thing for gloves)

This is only in the last week and I'm sure there's more I could list if I had a great memory.

Robin is really lucky the kids love her.

Rag Tie Curls

We had some fun last night and tied the girls hair in rags last night. I knew we would get curly hair but I forgot how curly it would be. The girls were a bit shocked and we did have some tears but once we got past the fact that it was temporary they enjoyed their new look.

Helen's First Loose Tooth

Helen has a loose tooth AND a new tooth coming in quickly behind it. The new tooth, thankfully is normal shaped and appears healthy. Now, we've been encouraging Helen to wiggle her loose tooth!

Hot Lunch Failures

Turkey crescent rolls and zucchini chips, carrot sticks and grapes. Sounds yummy right? WRONG, if you're under 10. So that in addition to yesterday's homemade macaroni fiasco (yes, I did use velveeta and no I did not have a recipe), I'm hurting for quick hot lunch ideas. Tomorrow, I may do Ramen, that'll probably be a hit but I'm not doing so well in the forecasting department.

Biscuit Pizza

I'm bringing Helen home for lunch to be sure she takes the time to eat and give her a little support since lunchtime supervision at the school is minimal and she's a little immature for her age. So far we are having a great time visiting and eating a good lunch. I'm trying to have lunch prepared for her so this time Walker was able to do lunch prep with me and the mini pizzas were a super hit with them both.

Change Purse

Thankful Tree

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year I saw this tree idea at a friends and it was so easy, we had to do it. We made leaves and the idea is to write something down when it comes to you that you are thankful for and you'll see your tree with more and more leaves on it. You can read the leaves on Thanksgiving and recall your thankfulness later. I admit I had a hard time stopping myself from the busyness of life to put leaves on the trees (I've got to get better at that!) but the kids enjoyed it and stopped to write on them. I'm going to re-purpose this as a Jesse Tree for our lead up to Christmas.

Happy Birthday Walker

Our Dear Boy turned 3 today. Easiest birthday ever. Bacon and eggs, cake and gifts. Thanks to our family for everything. Time is short, these moments are so precious.

Wild Woods

This week-end we went to the forest preserve by our house Sat and Sun. The dog and kids had a blast and we adults enjoyed it too. It was warm enough to enjoy the outside tromp through the woods. The kids even had a splash day in the puddle left from overnight rain. No one complained afterward and they were all smiles about getting super muddy. Poppy had to talk me into letting them but I'm glad he did.

Pumpkins

Poppy helped out with the pumpkin carving this year. Actually he basically did it all so I was free to help with kids clean out their pumpkins and harvest the seeds. The kids made their own designs, I think they did an excellent job! We soaked our seeds and Poppy made a delicious sugar and spice coated roasted pumpkin seed recipe. Next year we may do a few more pumpkins just to make the seeds!

Treats!

This year we did a different kind of Halloween. We stayed in our neighborhood and went early before dark. The kids still had a great time running from house to house and were polite. Since we were in our neighborhood, they were able to meet their friends all dressed up and meet some of our other neighbors we don't normally see. We were back home in time to catch trick or treaters and Carys stayed outside with Poppy to hand out candy. It was very relaxing and fun for all.

Ice Skating

Carys is learning to ice skate. Actually the entire first lesson the kids practiced learning how to fall on their bottom. They did pretty well with that. This has caused a bit of an issue with Helen. We have removed all activities except piano and AWANA. Not to punish but to give us more time to concentrate on her reading. Next year I anticipate I'll be able to post a picture of Helen ice skating, then we can go as a family, I'm so excited!

Veggies

We have struggled to find veggies Walker will eat. He's pretty strong willed and will not eat them, even if a treat is promised afterward (reminds me of someone I know:). But these last few zucchinis of the season were a hit. Probably a bit because of their small size and the ranch dip. I tasted them and approve. Don't mistake this look for disapproval. He actually ate all of these, this is just a new face he's learned to make.

Alphabet and Spelling

Walker has moved past letter recognition to letter sounds and I'm trying to introduce sounds put together as words. Right now, we are mostly focusing on sounds.

Leaf Rubbing

Leaf rubbing, an OLD kids activity has been revived in our house. It's something simple I've not done in a long time, even when the girls were little. I love finding simple activities for us at home, I just have not found enough!

Fall Days

We have had some beautiful days right before the COLD, COLD, COLD weather hits us. I thank God for that. We were able to get out and enjoy the outside in near perfect temperatures with God's beauty surrounding us.

Lunchtime

Helen requested onigiri as her first school lunch. Poppy is an onigiri master but I was on my own since I'm the lunch-lady here. So I managed to cook up our sushi rice and using an awesome bento website, I found soboro recipe which is basically Japanese ground beef. I prepared these onigiri myself. While they are not the most beautiful things, they were super yummy. Even Carys, whose becoming quite picky, enjoyed these in her bento.

Back to School

Back to school! Lots of new activities plus homework for two. The kids have tons of energy and are excited about being back in school.

Hatty Summer

We're off to a pretty crazy summer. I've booked only swimming lessons and gymnastics and the rest of the "summer program" is up to moi. So we are doing printable math and writing exercises, Carys' online math program and book reports. Helen will focus on reading, math and coins. We'll see how far we get, I'd like to add some science into the mix. Plus we are taking care of our animals and cooking. We still have free play and after swim lessons are over, we'll probably go to the pool.

Happy Fathers Day

It's been a busy June. We celebrated Fathers Day in low key fashion with a SUPER homemade wall hanging and favorite photos, church fellowship and Cullen fried oysters for himself. It was full day and reminded me how thankful I am for my heavenly Father, and our earthly fathers. I have been provided for abundantly and probably this year, I realize it the most.

Graduation Project

Helen worked hard on her graduation presentation which was about hamsters. She wrote and colored a six page presentation in Japanese and English and created this great hamster cage diorama. At her graduation, she read her reports and introduced Hammy, our stuffed hamster. She did excellent work on the written pages, her public speaking needs work but she's only six!

Helen Kindergarten Graduation

Helen was the only girl graduating this year. She worked hard and really improved her skills this year. For a good deal of time I was in the other room entertaining Walker and a few other kids who did not want to sit through the whole ceremony. I did get to see a bit of the slide show presentation which of course was the kids over the years set to music. I was a little teary. These are moments we never get back.