Day in K

Friday, April 30, AJ went to Day in K at Thomas Elementary. The pre-kindergarteners get to visit their new school, meet the Kindergarten teachers, take a tour of the building, ride on a school bus, & eat lunch in the cafeteria. (He was bummed about not getting to try out the new playground, but it was raining.) He was super excited and looked forward to the big day all week! He was pretty nervous at first, and I think it was because there were a ton of kids & all their parents there. We broke up into groups, and after a while he really warmed up. He loved the fact that there are both stairs and ramps in his new school, and he is really excited about getting to try some of the specials classes. They rotate between 5 specials: P.E., Art, Music, Computers & Library. AJ says he is really excited about going to the gym and learning more about computers. Go figure... :)

Marshmallow Creations

This is what happens when you give a bag of marshmallows and a box of toothpicks to my son.....

He built a house, a horse, a person, and some other creative contraptions!

Birthday Bandit

Sunday, February 1st -- Hunter's 2nd Birthday!! Yea! Oh, yeah, and then there's the Super Bowl too... Every year for the last 7 years or so, we have had a super bowl party, except one -- the year Hunter was born, we brought him home from the hospital on Super Bowl Sunday. So I guess that every few years his birthday will probably land on the same day as the Big Game. Oh well -- two parties in one day never killed anybody, right??

So I was baking the cake & cupcakes for the birthday party -- Veggie Tales of course -- the boy is obsessed! (If you are not familiar with Veggie Tales, get educated: www.bigidea.com) I baked the cupcakes & had them cooling on the kitchen counter. I left the room for just a minute or two, and come back to this...
Now, being a semi-intelligent mother of two boys, you would think I would realize that this was not going to be an isolated incident. However, I was trying to prepare for two rather large parties at the same time, so I told him to leave the cupcakes alone, moved the step stool to another room, and went off to do something else. When I came back, he had brought the step stool back into the kitchen and...yep... two cupcakes -- one from each pan -- slightly molested by the Birthday Bandit. Thank goodness they were the cupcakes and not the big cake! After a few pictures (that I think will make a great scrapbook page) the Birthday Bandit was ousted from the kitchen, along with his trusty step stool. Once again, Mom prevails, and the party must go on. I turned the cupcakes into French Peas, and the 9" round cake into Bob. I think they turned out pretty well!

Both parties were a success. Congratulations to the Steelers & their fans. Personally, being a Chiefs fan, I didn't care so much about the game this year. Oh well... maybe next year, or in thirty years, or something... but I'm not holding my breath.

Snow Much Fun!!!

Monday, January 26th we started getting sleet, freezing rain, etc. I was SO not looking forward to another ice storm like we have had the last 2 years. We just kept praying that the power would not go out! Tuesday, everybody stayed home from work and school. The nasty stuff was still coming down. Then Tuesday afternoon it started snowing... and actually accumulating! Wednesday James went ahead & went to work, but still no school, so the boys and I decided it was time to play! AJ had an absolute blast! Hunter on the other hand, was not quite as thrilled. He cried the whole time I was putting his snow pants on, he cried when I zipped up his coat, cried while I put his hat & gloves on... I kept telling him "Just bear with me...you are going to have so much fun!" We got outside & he was only slightly impressed with the white stuff for a very few minutes. Then he started crying again, trying to take off his snow suit & gloves. He managed to get the gloves off, threw them in the snow, and then stuck his little bare hands in it, which only prompted louder, harder crying. He did NOT like it! So I took him back inside and stripped him down to dry clothes. He was fine until he realized AJ was still outside -- then he started crying and pointing out the door saying "outside! outside!" It is not easy to explain to a not-quite-two-year-old that you can't go outside and play in the snow with no coat.

Thursday (this time while Hunter was taking his nap) AJ and I went outside to build a snowman. I realized that I have never in my life build a traditional looking 3-balls-stacked-on-top-of-each-other type snowman. I was halfheartedly shoveling the driveway, throwing all the snow & ice in a pile, and AJ was forming into a snowmound that evolved into Mr. Snowy. Mr. Snowy has green food coloring for eyes, a chocolate chip nose (we didn't have any carrots) and red hots for a mouth. AJ wanted to put clothes on him, so we settled on gloves & a scarf. I learned 2 things about my son during this adventure. #1 - AJ likes making snow angels more than he likes making snow men. #2 - AJ likes throwing snowballs at Mommy even more than he likes making snow angels. He is such a boy...

Welcome to 2009

Ugh. Resolutions. I hate the idea of new year's "resolutions". I think it is a dumb tradition where we set ourselves up for failure. "this year I resolve to do such and such every single day...blah blah blah blah." What in the world? Is this everyone's chance to be a politician for a day and fill people's ears with our empty promises? Even worse, an excuse to lie to ourselves and set standards that we know are unattainable or make promises to ourselves that we have no honest expectation of keeping? sad sad sad. On the flip side of that coin however, I do like the idea of a fresh beginning. I take it as a chance to freshen things up a bit, to re-evaluate, re-prioritize, and re-focus. In that self-evaluation we all find things that we need to work on, things we need to work at changing. However, I think that change needs to come through baby-steps, not by trying to make drastic changes all at once. You can't say "I need to lose weight, so starting Jan 1 I am going to work out for an hour every day". It doesn't happen that way. If you try it, you will burn out and quit. You have to start slow, and establish new habits that help you reach your final goal. It takes a month or so to really establish a new habit. It won't happen overnight.

I like to look at last year, see what needs to be worked on in my personal life, and use those observations to set personal goals for the new year. Instead of taking the "I will do x every day..." approach, I like to use a more-or-less approach. For example, you could say to yourself, "Last year, I did X about once a week. This year my goal is to do X more times a week." or "last year I did X 4 times a week, this year my goal is to do X fewer times a week." I am a type-A perfectionist. If I say to myself I will do x every day, and it doesn't happen on January 5th, then in my mind, the whole year is already shot. I have failed. I didn't make, so I might as well stop trying. (harsh, perhaps, and yes, my poor husband absolutely hates that about me.) Using the more-or-less approach allows me some room to miss a day or two, or "goof" without failing.

All that being said, a few personal goals for 2009 in no particular order:

• eat out less, cook at home more
• spend more time doing fun activities together as a family
• spend more time in bible study (actual study vs. simply reading)
  
• spend less money on personal hobbies (nobody ever said scrapbooking was cheap!)

So there it is, out there in the open for the whole world to see. Confession is good for the soul, they say (who are "they" anyway???). Friends with information are good for accountability, I say.

In the kitchen.....

A friend of mine posted a rather random note on his facebook page about his mother's Kitchenaid mixer. He was thinking about how silly it was that throughout his life he always remembers that mixer as being a constant, and it got me thinking.

A Kitchenaid mixer has been a part of my life since I was born. My mother had one, my grandmother had one, my aunt had one, and now, my sister and I both have one in our homes, both of which were wedding presents. It is almost like the mixer itself is a family tradition.

I remember my mom used hers so much that she burned out the first gear on it. I remember many many hours helping my mom in the kitchen as a kid, standing on a stool using that mixer. I remember several years of baking Christmas cookies where you had to be careful not to throw the flour everywhere because when you turned it on, it came on in 2nd gear! We have pictures of me using my mom's Kitchenaid mixer when I was less than 2, now I have similar pictures of both of my kids!

The heart of the home was once, and in my humble opinion, should still be, the kitchen. It was mentioned the other day that kitchens are now simply "warming stations". A generation or two ago, things were created in the kitchen. You started with flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and created a meal or a dessert or whatever. Now, you take some pre-packaged, pre-processed, pre-cooked meat substitute, and warm it. I remember when all of life's problems were solved in the kitchen. Dinners were made in the kitchen, desserts and cookies were made in the kitchen, and the kids were messy enough afterwards to prove it. Memories were made in the kitchen.

No, I have decided that there is nothing silly about the memories in a mixer. I have several stirring around in there myself. And with the holidays coming, I plan on adding a few more. :)

Babies Babies Babies!!!!

WOW -- Everybody seems to be having babies all of a sudden!! Two of my very good friends, Julie and Jenny, both had girls in the last 8 days! Congratulations to your growing families!!!


Allyson Paige



Olivia Jane (with her Grandma Jane)