Magazine Gift Bows

Although it's a little early to be thinking of resolutions, I am on a mission to begin a new way of thinking. As I'm sure many of you stay-at-home moms out there can relate, there are many days when I go to bed and wonder what in the world I actually ACCOMPLISHED that day. Sure I do what feels like an overwhelming amount of laundry, picking up, dishes, teaching, cooking, bill paying, and on and on and on. You know, the usual mom stuff. But those things tend to feel like they never end. Dishes done in the morning, sink is shiny....only to be full and needing redone by afternoon. Floors vacuumed, maybe even scrubbed, soon to be spilled on and sticky momentarily with little ones around. Dust....oh the dust.....and laundry....there is never really a "done" moment with some of those things.

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After some contimplating and friendly motivation, I have decided that perhaps what I need is to make an effort to complete SOMETHING from start to finish each day, whenever possible. Obviously there will be days when something new just isn't possible, but on those days I will look at small home projects in a new light. I will then make an effort to start and finish a looming cleaning/organizing project so that I can at least say, "It is done." There is just something satisfying in even the smallest accomplishments.

I recently completed the bean bag games for the kids and yesterday I came across an idea to make recycled gift bows from magazine pages. Typically my wrapping is pretty lame but I have lots of free magazine subscriptions and this was a great way to reuse some of the pages to turn them into something too cute! Such a simple little project, although a tad bit addictive, and I could sit and do it while the kids painted so that I too could have something to complete from start to finish all in one day!

SNOW DAY!

It's been a long time since the midwest has been hit this hard but it started out innocent enough. Monday the kids had a great time sledding on the back hill, sliding on the playground and making snow angels...all while I watched from the warm, cozy house and stepped out occasionally to snap some pictures. Yea, I'm a wimp like that, and in my defense I really need to get some head-to-toe snow gear.

However, by today it was hard to tell if it was still snowing or if the wind was just blowing it into drifts higher and higher. Nevertheless, there was no stopping these crazy ones. L was determined to get out there in it and M and T were just as anxious. I volunteered to warm the hot chocolate!
I think she lasted all of 15 minutes! It was so hard for her to walk because the snow was just too deep! The guys stayed out and got to work on the shoveling and gathering wood for a fire.

Since we have the honor of schooling in our home, we did not take any days off due to snow, but we did do lessons in our pjs and lighten the load a little bit. We played lots of games, had great quality time with Daddy--which was much needed, caught up on all sorts of odds and ends and overall just had a great time hanging out.

Of course with snow, one must have hot chocolate and marshmallows. It had been a while since we had created with marshmallows and toothpicks and it's always interesting to see how much more creative the kids become over time.

I let T have the camera while I prepped the drinks.

"Snowman guy"(above)

"Jacob's Ladder"

"Some sort of chair and a goat eating grass"

We also passed some time getting messy with glue, paint and glitter. We have a lot of misc. lids saved for craft projects and this weeks Kids Craft Weekly newsletter had the idea of using them to make ornaments. They do look really great on the tree.

Personally, I sewed 10 beanbags for the kids to each have the very own beanbag toss games! They have both been asking me for their own since I have made them for gifts for some nieces and nephews this year. I was also able to catch up on laundry, address Christmas cards, and several other things that I've been putting off for lack of time. Having a day with M home during the Christmas season was a huge blessing and I feel like I accomplished more in one day than I have in the past 2 weeks!

St. Nicholas

Today is the feast day of St. Nicholas and the kids were surprised with a little chocolate treat in their stockings this morning. I couldn't resist this idea from Catholic Cuisine and knew they would love them too, they did! There are some fun ideas and information at the St. Nicholas Center too that we may have to incorporate next year.

We are off to check out the nativities at No Room at the Inn today! I have wanted to go to this for years but it always falls the same weekend as the store open house, which I have always worked. Now that we are down to one store I was off today and we are heading downtown!

Preparation and Tradition

Last weekend we cleaned and decorated for Christmas and in keeping with many of our usual traditions we are also starting a few new ones this year. We always decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving with background music and all. M received ornaments each year while growing up and when I came into the family I started to acquire my own collection as well. Our kids have their collection started now too. My sister, Tina, gave me the wonderful idea of making their ornament extra meaningful by finding something that ties in with an event/occasion that took place during that year. I'm hoping to find helicopter ornaments this year to remember the year they took their first ride!

As usual, the kids have their own nativity and magi set that they love to see brought out of their boxes to interact with throughout the season.

We have had our Advent wreath and used it in the past but this year we finally decorated it. The kids helped me pick out the greenery and purple ribbon to make it just right. I'm glad we waited until this year to decorate it so that they could be a part of that and understand the meaning behind it all. Dinner seems extra special with candlelight and an extra special prayer to begin.

Something new we started this year is a sacrifice manger which is a simple plastic shoe box with a blanket in it for now. Every time someone makes a sacrifice or does something nice for someone else, they will put a piece of yarn(straw) into the manger in hopes that by Christmas morning the manger will be soft and full for baby Jesus(one of L's baby dolls) to lay in.

We are also decorating a Jesse Tree this year which will definitely become an Advent tradition. We are doing the Advent Adventure from Holy Heroes which has been very engaging and has really drawn the kids into it so far.

After our Advent message and Jesse Tree reading we are even praying a decade of the rosary together. What an awesome way to start our day!

We have also been spending some time reading about St. Nicholas and watching the new Veggie Tales St. Nicholas movie. In a couple of weeks we will celebrate with my cousin and her family our traditional birthday party for Jesus. These are just a few of the main traditions and things that we do but there are too many little ones to list.

All of these ideas are in an effort to keep the true meaning and reason for this wonderful season in the forefront. We are preparing our hearts....not for Santa and gifts....but for the one true thing that gives the holiday meaning, the reason we have CHRISTmas.

Numbers

This is what he does sometimes, when left to his own devices.....just for fun. 1-110 in case you were wondering.

Did I mention he's a numbers kid?

Thanksgiving Fun

Time is marching right along and we are having a load of fun learning and making messes lately.

We are toward the end of Math U See Primer and T is close to mastering telling time but I had this little turkey file folder game put away just for fun so it's a nice little practice for him. He is such a math kind of kid. I don't know if it's just the Math U See program or that he is going to be a numbers guy like his dad but math is so easy and just clicks with him right away. He certainly does NOT get that from me.... The messy part of our fun has been painting, and lots of it....we painted their hands to make these turkeys and they loved them so much that we made several of them into Thanksgiving cards too using the poem on this link!

The painting continued with bubble wrap to make Indian corn with torn brown paper bag husks. Simple and very cute decorations for this time of year. Right up my alley and fits the budget!

We came home from a birthday party for a special grandpa last weekend with the two little foam pilgrims and the cornucopia here so we made our own Indians and a Thanksgiving book to learn more about the first Thanksgiving and hopefully just exactly why we celebrate this holiday. I'm not sure they're quite getting the meaning yet but the stick puppets are sure fun to play with!

Works for us~Part 1

I think I mentioned before that we scrapped the work boxes after a couple of weeks. I have asked the kids if they would like to go back to them a couple of times and so far, no go. Fine by me, I think they are a great concept, just not for us. Here is what we are doing now though, which is working much better:

I was given this file box as a gift from a mentor/teacher/friend of mine during my first teaching job and it has served many purposes since then. Now it has become our daily lesson organizer and it is just right. T's lessons in front and activities for L in back.

T has been learning consonant blends ch/th/sh, etc. and since he sometimes mixes up sh and ch I was thrilled to come across this digraph game on Teach Mama whose blog I happen to follow already and LOVE (she happens to be a Reading Specialist/Literacy Consultant and has wonderful ideas on her blog!). Anyway, T loved this game and Papa Smurf and Dora raced to the playground by moving to pictures that started with the sound of the card we drew(the gameboard actually ends at the school but as T pointed out he is HOMEschooled so he wanted to go to the PARK-so we drew in a park!).

Finally, this week just for fun, we took the kids to see their very first ever movie....in a theatre! We are not big movie goers so this was a pretty big thing for all of us really and it was a great time! We went all out with popcorn and all! We saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs since they get such a kick out of that book. It was a cute movie, pretty clean humor and they both loved "the HUGE TV!" Yeah, we don't get out much. :)