The Girls Sing and a Snippet of the Christmas Program

We're so excited here at our house that Christmas is only 7 days away! After school today, Julia decided to throw a birthday party for Jesus with Aulora since Aulora didn't get to have a school party. They put stuffed animals in all the chairs and set out treats and decorations. They even had a goody bag ready in the corner. I heard them from upstairs and Julia was leading Aulora in singing the birthday song. Too cute! I had them do it again for the camera. You'll see in the video that Aulora was a little busy enjoying her treat to sing again.

The school program was last night. It was very sweet and the kids were pumped about the night. I tried to take more video but I had a little too much help from Mr. Joshua. Enjoy. =)

Man in the Making

My boy, "Little", is morphing into a man and I'm not so sure how I feel about this. One of his classmates (of the girl variety) got him Bath and Body Works cologne for his birthday. He was not at all impressed about it at first, but he changed his tune pretty quick. Multiple times a day he goes into his room to spray that man stuff all over him. Once he's gone to school and I go into his room to pick things up, his bigness lingers. And I don't like it.

He's been practicing the piano a lot lately. He was on the verge of complaining about it one day until I mentioned that girls really liked it when a boy could play the piano. Well yeehaw, that little bit of information seems to have launched his musical career. When, exactly, did he start to care what girls thought? Last time I looked he was totally into whatever creeped or grossed them out. (Perhaps I should tell him that girls also like it when a boy takes a shower.)

Then yesterday was an "un-uniform" day for his class because they won the box top challenge. (If you would like to donate box tops please send them our way! Our school has raised well over $500 already this year and that's with just 30 students!) He took a little longer than normal getting dressed and when he came down he had on his cologne (of course) along with a very well thought out outfit, complete with pearlized snaps and a really cool hemp necklace. He was extra tall somehow and I'm pretty sure his legs looked hairer. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. And for some reason, on this particular day, I didn't mind his bigness quite as much.

It made my heart feel full.

And proud.

And a little old.......

No Apologies

There were great plans for major updates yesterday but I ended up spending about four hours playing Monopoly with John David instead. Oh yes. Monopoly.

(And I loved it! Shhhhh!!!)

We made special memories and laughed and loved. It was fun. When Daddy finally came home at 1:00 am after studying and taking practice tests all day at school we were still playing!

John David was sad that I couldn't play again this morning so he's been teaching Julia how to play and they've been doing great.

We had to skip church today because Julia was sick all yesterday and was still throwing up through the night. She woke up at about 11:30 and seems to feel good again. She's always been funny that way with quick little bugs.

It's so weird that here we are in December, in Northern Indiana (only a few minutes from Michigan actually!) and we've only had a couple of snow flurries so far. Nothing that has even stuck. The kids are sad but we keep telling them that we'll be tired of lots of snow soon enough. Meanwhile, all our friends and family in Texas enjoyed snow and even built some snowmen! Now that's strange!

I slightly panicked a couple of days ago when I realized there were things we needed to do to get our house ready for the winter that I hadn't even considered. For instance, cleaning out gutters is a very important thing. One company wanted $250 for the job. Uh, no thank you. I found a 20 year old guy from Craigslist who did the job for $25. I had to give him multiple bowls of hot water since the gutters were already a little frozen but it's done.

We still have to get all our storm windows back on and get the snow blower serviced. I'm getting a little nervous! Like, should I be stockpiling a month's worth of food in the basement in case we get snowed in? Seriously?

Another winter problem is Joshua. The child does NOT like to wear a coat. At all. He screams! It doesn't matter which coat either. Not sure what to do about that. So far I've mostly just dressed him warm and then thrown a big blanket over him but that can't continue.

Gotta run now before Aulora puts another roll (as in whole roll) in the toilet.

I should seriously consider having some circus music play on my blog.......




PS. Thanksgiving went great. I cooked a whole holiday meal on my own! (Until my mom got here about 30 minutes before we ate anyway. Does it still count?) It certainly wasn't the fanciest and prettiest feast our family has ever had (sorry, I don't own a gravy boat and we didn't bring out the fine china) but we were together. And black Friday shopping? Nope. I slept in. It was great.....

Going Well.....I Think

The house is still standing and the smoke alarm hasn't gone off yet. I'm impressed. (Especially since we started our first fire here and there was quite a bit of smoke. These Southerners are only familiar with Duraflame logs and we're now using wood from the rank we had delivered.)

I've made the pies and the homemade cranberry sauce. The sweet potatoes are baked and ready to be glorified tomorrow and the gigantic pan of cornbread is in the oven for the dressing. I even made some fudge! Sadly, it's on the gooey side so I won't have pretty little fudge squares.

At this point, I mostly worried about cooking the turkey, and also trying to have everything hot and ready at the same time. I should probably do a little cleaning at some point too. Children have been having their way with my house as I've been in the kitchen. I'm kind of scared to go down to the basement.......

My First

I think I'm officially growing up this week.

That's right. I'm married. I've got four kids. A mini van. A mortgage.

But I'll finally grow up this week.

Because I'm cooking all of the Thanksgiving dinner. By myself. All of it. Alone. No help. (Breathe!)

I'll start the cooking today, because I think that's what I'm supposed to do in order to eat before midnight tomorrow.

My parents are flying in and driving over from Chicago tomorrow afternoon to join us. And my lovely husband invited a friend from school to come too. I hope nobody has very high expectations!

Today I have errands to run, a little one that probably has to go see a doctor, and for sure a library trip is in order to borrow plenty of movies to entertain all the monkeys while I try to not ruin our Thanksgiving! This should be fun! (I think I may add to my to do list: "Compile list of restaurants open on 11-26")

My mom gave me a wonderful mixer for an early Christmas present so I'm pretty excited about using that. All I've ever had is the little $5 hand mixer from Walmart. I told you - I'm growing up!

Is anyone else cooking for the first time?

Happy Thanksgiving to all.....

My Leaf Pile is Bigger Than Your Leaf Pile.....Guaranteed

Do you see the kids at the top of the hill?

That's John David and Julia, but that's not a hill.
It's a leaf pile!

The whole thing is just leaves. For real!
There was a big group of volunteers that raked leaves all over town on Saturday.

This was the pile they raked at the park right down the street from our house. I've never seen anything like it! I guess the big leaf trucks will have to come suck it up now!

Kid Lovin' Healthy Foods

We've been working to make our household more healthy and while this has been a frustrating thing a lot of times, I've been excited to find some great alternatives for the kids. I'd love to hear what you've found for your own families too!

I do most of our grocery shopping at Walmart (you can't beat their prices!), and although they've started carrying more healthy choices, there are still some things I have to buy elsewhere.

Our kids have always loved yogurt. I never really payed much attention to what all was in there though. Yogurt just seemed to equal nutritious.

WRONG.
Read the labels! Not all yogurt is created equal!

I'm no expert, but here are some things I've found and that all or some of our kids like:

• Horizon's "Little Blends" is an organic yogurt that mixes a veggie with a fruit. It sounds gross but it's actually pretty good. It's made specifically for babies and toddlers.
• Stonyfield's "Yo Baby 3 in 1 Meals" is another organic yogurt that combines veggie and fruit. It's bigger and the flavors are different. They are sold individually for about $1 apiece. Joshua scarfed it down the first time I gave it to him!
  
• Stonyfield's "O'Soy" soy yogurt is surprisingly good if you're trying to do the vegan thing. It's just a fruit and isn't marketed to kids but my younger two like it. (The older two have had the sugary kinds too long and are taking longer to win over.)
• Stonyfield's "Yokids" organic fruit yogurt. The packaging is obviously trying to appeal to kids. It's good! (It still has a hard time competing with the stupid Trix Rabbit.)
  

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to find these next things!!!

• We use the twisted fruit (which is like a twizzler candy but is all fruit!) as a reward for eating dinner good without complaining. What a difference these have made in our home! You'll find them right with all the "fruit" snacks and granola bars.
• Fruit Roll-Ups now has "simply fruit" roll-ups that are 90% fruit. The big kids were opposed to these at first since they knew there were a healthy kind, but once they ate one they loved them! So far I've only found these at Target.
  

• Kashi cereal bars are like Nutri-grain bars but so much better for you. Nutrigrain bars was another thing that just seemed healthy and I didn't think much about. But then I read the label.....
• These Kashi "Dark Chocolate Coconut" bars are absolutely delicious! If you have a sweet tooth and you're fighting cravings you should check these out. Trust me - I should know!
  

• Another Stonyfield product we buy is "Yokids squeezers". These are just like the "'gogurts" (the tubes of yogurt with ScoobyDoo on them) but they are organic and don't have the corn syrups and other junk in them. Walmart doesn't carry them - not ours anyway. =(

• Cascadian Farm Organic "Dark Chocolate Almond Granola" is my favorite breakfast cereal now. I eat is everyday and it doesn't get old. At less than $3 a box I really like this one.
  

• Yea for Capri Sun who finally made 100% juice drinks! Again, my older two don't think these are near as good as normal Capri Suns, but I won't buy them those so they may as well learn to like the new kind!
  

• These all natural fruit strips by Stretch Island Fruit Co. are kind of like fruit roll-ups just a different shape. They come in several different flavors and they've been a bit hit too.

These are some of the new food that work for me! I'd love to hear what's working for you......

Joshua Melts Me

As a mother there are certain moments that give you some great highs.

The first time they hold your finger.
The first smile (even though everyone says it's probably gas!).
First steps.
First time to use the potty.
First time they read.
First crush.

The list goes on and on.

You know what my favorite is?

When they learn to say I love you!

Joshua said it for the first time last week. "Love you, Mommy!" And then a sweet little slobbery kiss.

Sigh. Can I freeze time please?

In an effort to come back to reality from my super "Love you, Mommy" induced high, here are some other Joshua moments.

The child adores rolling around and digging in the cleared out vegetable garden.

I guess the soil is good too since he keeps trying to eat it.

And then there are markers. Oh the markers. Where do they come from??? Where does he get them??? Why does he lick them???

More importantly, why does he write on our floor with them???

(This would be just one of the many areas he "made his mark"......)

Sweet Julia

My precious six year old offered to carry the very full and heavy laundry basket from the basement up two floors to the bedroom for me.

I thought that was all she did (which would have been just wonderful as my legs don't always appreciate the stairs!), but later when I went in my room I found this:

She had done her best to fold two of the towels from the basket and then left a card for me on the pillow.

On the inside she had drawn a "sculpture" she said.

Each day she becomes more and more helpful. She delights in doing things for me and being a little mommy. I love having her help me with dinner and it brings to mind memories of helping in my own mom's kitchen. I can hardly wait for the day when cooking dinner means spending time with both of my girls - talking, laughing, sharing our lives.

For now I'll enjoy showing her how to do simple things like set the table and make the bread. These are the things that make my life sweet.......

Craigslist Funny

This isn't a "roll on the floor" kind of funny, but it certainly amused me this morning. When you post an ad on Craigslist you are supposed to fill in a blank that tells people the location of your item. Like "Chicago" or "Southeast Houston". Look at the location someone entered for their piano they listed.

Some people are so helpful......

Leaf Trucks

Well, here it is - the coolest fall thing ever! (remember, I'm easily impressed.) The city sends big trucks through a few times in November and they suck up all your leaves! All you have to do is rake them (or use a leaf blower - woohoo!) to the curb.

It was so mezmerizing to stand at the window and watch!

I will point out that there was still a lot of work involved on my part. It was no easy task getting all the leaves from the backyard to the front curb! I'm so thankful we didn't have to bag all those leaves though......

Teacher Treat & Bible Character Day

A couple of weeks ago I made a double batch of my mother-in-law's yummy walnut muffins for the school teachers. I sprinkled them with a tiny bit of powdered sugar to make them pretty and then I bagged them in sets of 6.

I tied them up with raffia and added a twig and some leaves from the yard. The kids took them to the teachers' lounge and they didn't last long, I was told. If we had a working printer I would have printed out some fallish looking tags that had some meaningful words on them.

Here's John David dressed like Lazarus for Bible character day at school. The kids were told to dress up like someone of something from the Bible. We talked about a number of options.

Daddy suggested perhaps one of them could be the "still small voice" that spoke to Elijah.

We quickly realized the impossibility of any of our children being something "still" and "small".

Then I (we both claim we had the idea first, but this is my blog so I say "I") had the idea to be Lazarus after Jesus called him back to life. "I" thought we could just wrap him up like a mummy and it would be clever, cheap, and easy.

Yeah, not so much. Thinking back, I don't know why this was so hard, but it was. I should have been able to find cheaper fabric but I used cheesecloth which was $1.75 a yard. I didn't want to spend a fortune so I bought 5 yards and even though I cut it into long strips, it still didn't go far enough. Of course we didn't try all of this until the morning of. Because that's how we roll.

Julia just wanted to be an angel so I just dressed her in one of her plain white dresses and bought her wings and a halo. Easy peasy and she was happy.

He did NOT want the strips around his legs. He's posing with a girl who was representing the verse, "And Jesus wept." An appropriate picture since the reason Jesus wept was because Lazarus had died.

(Oh man, it just hit me! I should have bought a couple of white flat sheets from walmart and just cut it up in strips. Arghhhh. Cheaper AND better. I'm so annoyed with myself now....)

The Costume Boxes

Before moving from West Texas, we kept all the kids' costumes in big trunks in the house. They loved dressing up all the time and if any friends came ever, I knew the content of the trunks would be completely emptied out. Every time. Which meant massive amounts of beaded necklaces and lots of loose feathers that had fallen off the feather boas.

Of course when we moved so much of our stuff had to go to storage for a good while, including the costumes. I've since found better uses for the trunks and now the costumes reside in the garage in boxes.

Until the week of Halloween. I brought them in and put them in the den. I think those kids had them emptied in 2 minutes flat. They tried everything on multiple times and had the best evening.

This is only part of it!

Julia was Bullseye (yea Toy Story!!!) and Aulora was some sort of poodle ballerina princess, I think.

Then they decided to put on a show in the living room. They set out chairs for the audience and had rehearsals. It was adorable.

Of course, they had to curtsy at the end. (Check out those pink cowgirl boots!)

I'm happy to report that the costume boxes are back in the garage now and my den can breathe again......

Here's to the Pile-Up

I don't know about other bloggers, but if I don't blog for a couple of days it is really hard to get going again. I get overwhelmed thinking about all that I need to post about. It starts to pile up and then it's just tiring.

What is also tiring, though, is my husband who will casually wonder if my blog is dead. If I'm ever going to post again. He apparently checks for updates regularly throughout the day while "studying" at school. (Hi, Baby!)

So, this post is my way of easing back in and thinking about what I'll be posting about soon - with no pressure. (pressure makes it worse.) Here's my blogging to do list for the next week or so:

• Costume fun (four kids in costumes - that has to equal fun right?)
• John David's birthday
• Julia's birthday
• Aulora's unending jealously of everyone else's birthday (probably not actual post material but it's definitely been quite the reality)
• visit from the grandparents
• possibly some ND football game pictures
• basement pictures (not because it's magazine worthy, but just because it went from being cement walls and floors to our favorite place in the house!)
• some of my new favorite things in the kitchen
  
• my favorite new cleaning thingie (why in the world is "thingie" not a recognized word?)
• pictures of the coolest fall contraption (don't lose sleep over this one - I'm just easily impressed)
• what Julia did that made me cry
• what Joshua did that made me swoon with love
• what John David did that made me a super proud Momma
• what Aulora does that makes me laugh
• Oh, oh, and what Julia made at church that is so very amusing

I'm thinking that's enough for now. Remember, no pressure.......

Happy 30th!

We have some ultra great memories, you and me. Wish I could be there today to make some more of them! Have fun! =)

Fall Has Fallen.....And There's A Lot of It!

John David's newest outdoor activity is raking leaves. He used to ask every day if he could ride his bike, but now he asks to rake the leaves. And that's all right with me because the amount of leaves in our yard is crazy.

I couldn't capture with my camera just how crazy so you'll have to trust me. Last weekend we had a few leaves scattered here and there but throughout the course of the week fall arrived in full force at our house! One tree went from being beautifully green to yellowish orange to almost completely bare in the last few days.

One cool thing about this city is that in the fall they come through with big trucks that have big sucking hoses (or so it's been described to me) and all you have to do is have your leaves raked to the curb. "All you have to do." Ha!

We've (and when I say "we've" I mostly mean "I") spent hours this week raking and my arms hate me right now. It's such a hard thing for a perfectionist to do though because once you've started you just want to get every single last leaf....which is impossible because even as you're raking it's "snowing" leaves.

You know what else I've realized? Our home's main source of privacy comes from the abundant landscaping - trees, bushes, and vines. Let's just say I saw the house behind us for the first time today - and I think we're about to be seeing a whole lot more of them. Which means they're about to be seeing a whole lot more of us!