Sunday, January 13, 2013

Moments of the Day

-Smooshed between two kids and a third on my lap even though there is plenty of room in the pew, I know they love me.
-Clean house thanks to the effort of the whole family, Christmas is put away and the house looks fantastic, all is in order.
-A giggling two year old downstairs because his sister is playing him while I finish up dinner.
-6 little hands pouring in mix, milk, and eggs and stirring, minor mess.
-reading outloud to all four but only one at a time.
-brothers sharing a snack on the couch both with grins that say "we got caught"
-Hearing the saw run, knowing Ben is happy doing projects.
-the swing squeaks and the boy swings, worth every penny of that $10 for the new earbuds yesterday because his old ones got caught in the swing jumping out to give his baby brother a push.
-Luke and Anna playing their made up bionicle game for over an hour.
-Owen going to bed and when he wanted water yelling down but keeping one foot in his room because he's following the rules and staying in his room, then right back in bed he went with his water cupped filled.
-Anna asking to read for a little longer
-Beau's last request of the night, "mom my laundry is almost finished, can you please switch it over for me?" You bet buddy do your own laundry without me asking, and I can do a favor for you.
-Silence, it's only 10 pm but the house is quiet...a little time for me.
Thank you Lord for this day.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Pizza Genius

That's what I feel like tonight. I've been making pizza for over 15 years. I've made it to make friends, as a get together staple, to say good-bye to friends, to feed lots of people and to feed my family regularly. However, Ben eats only meat pizza and each of the kids have a different preference and regular pizza slices were always too much. So I had some mini cake pans and turned them into mini personal pizza pans. The kids love it and there is much less waste. I love it because now I can make myself whatever I want and it doesn't touch anyone else's because I happen to enjoy mushrooms and other veggies. Now that we are making smaller pizzas I have a surplus of dough, and I hadn't come up with a good solution until tonight. I took a cupcake pan and made bite size pizzas the kids are excited to eat them for snacks or take them to lunch for school. I could also freeze them and just serve them for dinner on a night Ben is out of town. I think this idea is pin worthy so if I can figure out how to create a pin on Pinterest and if some repins it I will feel famous (hint hint).
I love great ideas especially when my kids think its a great idea too.





Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Busy Beau

I've always encouraged Beau to go outside his comfort zone and apply for clubs and different things at school. I'm really glad he does but right now all his things are overlapping and he is one busy kid. On Monday he has martial arts and basketball, Tuesday yearbook committee, Wednesday science Olympiad, reading quiz bowl team, Thursday martial arts, and Friday free. He always has at least an hour of homework and daily chores. He takes out the trash, takes care of the animals and empties his part of the dishwasher.
Beau is a home body his favorite thing is to just stay home all day, so watching him apply for and make clubs and teams and follow through and do a great job is amazing. He has his own methods of handling his life, you can regularly look out the back door and see I'm swinging with his ear buds in, sometimes he listens to the same song over and over. It works for him. He loves to swing in the rain and knows its fine if there is no thunder.
Beau is growing up I find us having different conversations slightly more mature, but only slightly he still makes me laugh his sister is still great at zinging him now and then for something dumb he says and he still drives me crazy by not knowing when homework or projects are, but he's working on it. He even brought home his math notes today so he could do his homework without help. I love watching this boy become a man.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Some Things Came Together

And some things fell apart or out, like Luke's tooth and his behavior must of seeped out through the whole in his head. Luke was disobedient and defiant all evening a very rare thing for him thankfully. A week with no computer and probably no TV should fix that.
I did get all the laundry folded and the kids put it away after school. The main dining room is all put back together and the kitchen is half way there. Still working on reorganizing pantries.
Two hours of basketball practice ate up our evening but Luke and Owen went to bed awesome at 8:30 and I got lots of great study time with the older two.
They are studying hard because there is a promise on the table if they really work hard this week I will take them out to dinner and they can order dessert after the reading bowl, just the three of us (maybe 4) not sure yet if Ben will stay home with the other two or if we will get a sitter. I am really proud of the effort they are putting in so far. I love no TV on in the house. Brains are working including mine.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Another Day

Back to normal life, or something like it. Ben headed out of town, kids went back to school, I went back to working out, and Owen jumped, sang, cut paper, cried, peed in the potty, disagreed with everything I suggested, and was oh so helpful grocery shopping.
I have heaps of laundry to fold, a kitchen still getting put back together, a pile of cut up paper (but at least he knows how to use scissors), and lots of corners to clean. Instead of doing all that, welI i did some of it, I spent over an hour preparing quiz bowl questions for Beau and Anna because the competition is next week, then we had martial arts and basketball practice. Bed time already but thankfully Owen and Luke went down without a peep at 8:30. That gave me an hour spent reading and quizzing Anna, just getting ready to put her to bed I found a website that had over a hundred questions for each of the books on the quiz bowl reading list. Bad news is I wasted a lot of my time earlier in the day good news is I won't waste anymore time and I have a great resource to help the kids prepare.
Now I'll kill the lights and get some sleep before it all starts over again tomorrow, but tomorrow, I will get all the laundry folded and put away, the kitchen squared away (Ben made me a second pantry on Sunday, he's amazing like that), and the pile of cut up papers will get bigger.
And I will count it all joy!

Friday, January 4, 2013

Anna's Artwork

Anna also got water colors because she loves to paint. This was one of her first paintings. Trees and dolphins are her favorite things to paint right now.

Anna's Activity Today

Anna loves to accessorize with scarves so for Christmas Santa brought a scarf making kit. It requires a lot of work to weave/knit it together and she isn't done yet but she's doing a great job.



New Year's Resolutions



This year I have a few...

1. Pray more...
     - Listen harder...
2. Blog more...
     -Keep a journal
3. Cook better dinners...
    -Plan ahead, weekly menu

Okay I guess that's only three, but I think I'm going to have to work hard to stay on top of them. We'll see how it goes.