Sabbatical Mom

Disney. Without the kids.

2012-01-29T11:17:00.007-06:00

As I mentioned during my 1st half of January photo challenge, Mike and I just returned from a long weekend in Florida. In Orlando. At a Disney resort.

Insert dramatic pause

Without the children.

I know.

After all thee job craziness during the second half of 2011, I was desperate for a getaway. We had airline vouchers that were set to expire from a couples trip that we planned in February of last year that got cancelled at the last minute due to a family crisis of sorts. I wanted to go somewhere EASY, and Disney fits that definition: no car is needed, excellent food options (I love to eat!) and excellent customer service.

The kids were not thrilled. ("Well, that doesn't seem very fair!" said K.) However, once we explained that we weren't going to any of the parks and would not be riding Splash Mountain or Soarin' they decided they'd have almost as much fun at Grandpa and Grandma's anyway.

On our previous Disney trips (OK, there have only been two...) we've always stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in Kidani Village. I love it there! Nothing beats waking up and being able to see giraffes grazing right outside your window. I was tempted to stay there again since we know we love the rooms and the food options are excellent. However, I recognized that this was a perfect time to try out another location.

We ended up staying at Saratoga Springs resort, which had a cute horse theme that my daughter would have loved.

I found myself taking lots of pictures of the horse statues and other details. This photo is from the pool closest to our room, which was definitely all about the racing theme. Note the little horse head water cannons.

Our room looked over the golf course. We weren't there to play golf, but we did enjoy all the nice trails that wandered throughout the resort along the golf course and wooded areas. This was a big selling point for me on this particular resort. I could better justify all the unhealthy eating if I was regularly walking!

Aside from the walking trails, the location was especially handy because it was close to Downtown Disney. To get the Downtown Disney, we could take a bus, a boat ride or walk. Most of the time, we walked because of my already mentioned need to burn some calories, but we did enjoy the boat ride once.

We could also walk to the Key West resort from Saratoga Springs, which we checked out as a possible future vacation stay location.

We ate several meals at The Artist's Palette, which was a counter-service restaurant at Saratoga Springs. It is suppose to have the feel of an artist's loft, and I loved some of those touches. (K would have adored drawing as she waited for her meal.)

What I really loved, though, was their brownies. We discovered these during one of our first meals at The Artist's Palette, and I think Mike got the chocolate cupcake while I got the brownie at every future trip there. (And no, I was not doing nearly enough walking to cancel that out...but it was so good!)

I have no idea how to make it happen, given their popularity, but I'd love to stay in the treehouses at Saratoga Springs on a future trip. Perhaps with extended family? Everything about them (well, I could only see it from the outside, obviously) looked like fun. Nestled in a heavily treed area, they felt more secluded, and I'd love to enjoy coffee or breakfast on the deck of one of these.

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Not a Winter Cat

2012-01-28T08:49:00.005-06:00

After several weeks of fabulous weather (being able to ride your bike on Christmas break? Wow!) capped off with temps getting close to 70 degrees, we were all a bit spoiled. Of course, it didn't last. Winter returned soon enough, and we were back to heavy coats, gloves and wishing that the car heated up just a tad bit faster.

It is January in Nebraska, after all. No one could really pretend to be surprised.

At least, the adults and children in the house were not surprised. Our cat, Marmalade, seemed to be caught off guard by this return to cold weather. Since she can't exactly hop a plane to Florida, she is working on alternative means to make it until spring arrives. For example, she now hangs out on top of the heat vents. Never mind the rest of us who might actually be wanting some of that heat to make it into the rest of the room.

There was also one day last week when I was completely convinced that she'd gotten herself stuck somewhere in the house, or even worse than that, had gotten out when we were unloading girl scout cookies from the car. She didn't show up for meal time when we went to feed the cats before bedtime, and let me be clear...this cat never misses mealtime.

Her absence got us thinking...we had not seen her in hours. Normally, the cats chase each other around the house or curl up along side us when we watch TV at night. Manny was there, but the other furball had definitely been missing.

We spent the next 45 minutes, running through the house, opening doors and looking under furniture. She wasn't in the kids' bedrooms or in her usual sleeping spots. We even ran around shaking the kitty treat bag, which normally gets the cats running to us to get treats. (Poor Manny kept following me around, "Hey, Lady. I'm right here. Gimme a treat!")

Finally, we made one last check through G's room. On this last search, he heard us and woke up. We explained that we couldn't find Marmalade and told him to go back to sleep. He looked at us like we'd lost our minds and calmly told us that Marmalade was right there.

She had crawled UNDER his comforter and blankets and was curled up next to him, nice and toasty warm.

For Old Times Sake

2012-01-27T06:07:00.005-06:00

Going all the way back to G's 1st birthday, my mom has made bath towels for the kids. I loved the hooded animal towels that we used when G was a baby, but they were pretty flimsy and weren't going to grow with him. Grandma to the rescue - she sewed together a red towel and washcloth, added animal details and we had ourselves a pretty cute (and sturdy!) Clifford towel. Can't picture it? No worries. I will happily share one of my favorite photos of Baby G in his clifford towel.

Each year, she churned out new towels for the Grandkids. As they got older, the "hood" went from being an animal to just being a hood, but she added borders in prints of their favorite characters: Dora, Thomas the Train, etc. Then she transitioned from TV characters to favorite sports or other cute borders.

Alas, we decided it was time to finally throw out the old towels. I had N throw Blue from Blues Clues on overtop his clothes so I could snap a few photos for sentimental purposes. This one was his favorite, and I loved snuggling up with my little blue puppy.

At this point, I was feeling VERY sentimental. I dug out an old Clifford towel (not the original, mind you. It had been replaced at least once due to excessive use!) and begged my oldest child to put it on for a quick picture. Luckily, he was feeling charitable towards his mom and granted me just one photo.

As his reward (or punishment, depending on how you look at it) he may have had to listen to a few stories about Baby G and bath time.

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

Going all the way back

2012-01-26T06:36:00.005-06:00

Four years ago today, I started my blog.

This was my very first post, which, as you can tell, didn't consist of much more than "hey, this is my blog!" I was one week into my sabbatical when I started the blog, and I was anxious. After years (decades?) of following a clear path, of doing exactly what everyone expected me to do, I had done something crazy. I'd asked for time off from a fabulous career path. Without a plan. Without a detailed pros and cons list. It felt like I was risking everything I had spent my entire life working so hard for, and I was scared.

I knew exactly why I was doing it - G had just turned six and N and K were three. They were amazing and adorable and it felt like I was too exhausted to appreciate any of that. I wanted to be with them. I wanted to take some time to breathe, to slow down. I was sure that taking time off was the right thing to do, yet I was terrified that it wasn't.

I started the blog is document my sabbatical, to "record" all the cool stuff we were doing. I suppose this was done partly to prove to myself (and anyone that I felt might be judging me) that I was doing stuff, that we were having fun, that the sabbatical was a good idea. (For the record, it was. Those 4-5 months were some of the most fun times I ever had. I absolutely loved doing Mommy School with the kids, and G even talks about it sometime. N and K do, too, but I'm not sure if they actually remember it or if they just are repeating from the photos they've seen and stories I've told them. Despite everything that happened after that with work, I'd do it again in a second.)

Then my sabbatical ended, and I went back to work. I kept blogging, though, because I found that I loved documenting our time this way. It was an easy way for friends and family to keep up with our lives, and it also served as our little "scrapbook" of our family. I also found that it met this little need that I didn't even realize that I had: I love to write. I met all kinds of new friends from all across the country, and I enjoyed catching up on their blogs each week.

Times are changing, though, and I wonder about the future of this blog. Lately, it hasn't felt quite the same. I'm working full-time, and our free time is consumed by sports, school and other activities. Finding an hour or two to sort through pictures and type out stories is harder than it used to be. Blogging was always a fun thing that I looked forward to, but there have been times in the last six months where it felt like a burden. Which is silly, of course, since no one has any expectations about this blog other than me.

As the kids get older, I also find myself viewing these posts differently. All my friends in KC knew about this blog - coworkers, soccer moms, families from our neighborhood, etc. When we moved, though, I was very careful to not share it with our new friends here. When N and K were spending their days watching Dora, it felt like their stories were MY stories. Now that they are in elementary school, it is clear that their stories are not necessarily mine to tell. As badly as I want to document a funny story or post a picture (this is, after all, still my family "scrapbook") I sometimes find myself holding back for exactly that reason. Would they want that shared? Is it my place to share it? Instead of posting that stuff, I end up writing about "safe" topics like soccer and holidays.

It feels that as they grow older, this blog will become less about them and more perhaps about me. I'm not sure exactly what that means or how I feel about it, but for now, I'm going to keep writing and see where this takes me.

Photo challenge

2012-01-25T13:30:00.005-06:00

I've seen a few bloggers doing a project to take a photo each day in 2012, and I've decided to join in. Similar to the 52 weeks challenge a few years ago, which helped promote getting mothers out from behind the camera and into the photos, I'm hoping this challenge will encourage me to take more casual photos of our day-to-day lives. I'm great about vacation photos, holidays and special events, but I don't have many pictures of the family just doing what we normally do...hanging out.

Now, as you will about to see, I am promising a photo every day. Not a GOOD photo.

And this "every day" thing is a pretty high goal. We'll see how that goes.

Jan 1 - the cat and the Christmas Tree skirt, pathetically begging me to leave it alone. Why, mean lady, did you take down our tree? I loved our tree. I loved this soft blanket under the tree. You aren't going to take this, too, are you?
Jan 2 - lazy day of football and games:

Jan 3 - mom and dad are back to work so the kids are with their grandparents. K and Grandma were busy sewing. K got this little project along with a sewing machine for Christmas, and she was so excited to make Ivy a dress:

Jan 4 - Mike and I had a no-kids night out at my favorite Omaha restaurant, and I completely forgot to take a picture. So I took a picture of the cookies that they give you as you leave. Only I dropped the bag as we left the restaurant and I broke the cookies. So like I said, I didn't promise GOOD pictures:

Jan 5 - making sandwiches:

Jan 6 - Movie Night:

Jan 7 - Chef G with his fancy tuna melts and orange burping cow:

Jan 8 - Happy 1/2 birthday, N!

Jan 9 - Chef G at work. It is really hard to flip those eggs without breaking the yolk is what he learned on this day.

Jan 10 - Chef G with his fondue dessert meal:

Jan 11 - we won a Nestle prize pack with my favorite Paul Frank monkey. Yay!

Jan 12 - Marmalade

Jan 13 - all ready for school, waffle in hand:

Jan 14 - um, we may have gone somewhere fun. Without the kids.

Jan 15 - SUNSHINE!

Cookie Time!

2012-01-24T05:48:00.004-06:00

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

OK, maybe not THAT Wonderful Time...but we have some girl scout cookie fans out there, right?

I've been a fan of Girl Scout Cookies since I was a Brownie back in elementary school. Each year, my parents would end up buying a large quantity of cookies so I could earn a badge. Most of them went in the freezer so we ended up enjoying girl scout cookies all year long.

Now that I have a 1st grader of my own? Yep, we inevitably end up with a freezer full of cookies each winter, too. So glad I can continue this family tradition.

Guess what I discovered when this year's cookies arrived at our house?

We still had 5-6 boxes of LAST YEAR's cookies in our freezer. Ugh. That is never a good sign. Apparently, I will need to contain my own personal love of cookie baking this year and instead make our way through boxes of cookies before we need to invest in another freezer for storage purposes. That would be bad.

K was quite eager (and looking oh-so-cute) as she sorted through boxes to fill orders for our friends and family.

She was a little less eager to work her hour and a half shift of cookie booth sales. Why? Because it was a whopping 18 degrees outside and we'd been assigned to the booth OUTSIDE of the local Walmart.

At first, I thought surely they meant outside-but-inside. You know, like in that area between the front door and the actual store where they keep all the carts. At least, we'd be out of the wind.

Nope. Outside at Walmart means outside. (Boo!) So we bundled K up in a few million layers of clothing (and then put the Daisy Scout vest on over top of everything. I wasn't sure it would even fit at that point!) She whined. She complained. She may have pushed her luck by stomping her feet. (K is NOT a fan of winter and cold weather. I would not be surprised if my little one moves south as soon as she reaches adulthood.)

We had a quick by serious talk about attitude. About how *she* was the actual Daisy Scout, not Mike or me. About how cookie sales fund the FUN stuff that she loves like the campouts and other outings. Of course, as I'm giving this lecture, I'm secretly whining and complaining in my head because, as it turns out, I'm not much of a fan of cold weather either. Fortunately, my girl's attitude improved as soon as she saw her friends and she happily greeted Walmart shoppers and sold cookies with some breaks inside.

All of this makes me wonder why exactly Nebraska does cookie sales in January? One of K's friends in New York did cookie sales in October. Why are we out there in one of the coldest months of the year? Not to mention that I always think the timing is a little suspect...I mean, let's hit people up for cookies right after they made resolutions about being healthy in the new year or while they are still feeling bad about all their holiday unhealthy eating? Seems crazy to me...

I'm sure someone could explain the logic to me, but I'm not going to worry about it. I have bigger problems. Like how to fit 12 more boxes of cookies in my freezer.

Chef G Returns

2012-01-23T05:47:00.004-06:00

One of G's assignments for scouts was to do menu planning for the family for a week. This is right up his alley...remember Chef G? He had fun with this task, cookbooks spread all over the living room floor while I gave him tips as he planned out each day. (And he quickly learned the challenges I face with weekday meals: not home from work until a certain time but need to have everyone done eating quickly to get to meetings/practices. So with each item he wanted to make, we had to talk about my schedule, whether I had late meetings, when I'd be home to cook and when our evening activities started...vs. how long the item took to prepare and cook.)

Technically, the assignment was only to plan the meals, but since G loves cooking, we added the task of having him make or help with each menu item. He got his hands dirty, coating chicken in breadcrumbs and learning how to flip eggs to make them over-easy.

Of course, I had final menu approval. For example, G really wanted to recreate a bison burger with a fried egg on top that he'd had at a local restaurant on New Year's Eve. He ended up making a hamburger with an egg instead once I explained that I didn't exactly have bison meat in the house.

Here are his meals:
Cheesy Tuna Burger, Salad, Orange Burping Cow for dessert

Salmon with dill sauce, steamed broccoli and cauliflower

Gingerbread Waffles (we substituted vanilla instead)

Ranch Chicken Strips with sweet potato fries and leftover cake

Bison Burger with egg on top, cooked carrots and fruit

Baked Eggs, bacon and fondue dip with bananas and vanilla wafers

Scalloped Potatoes and tuna, salad

Bean and Cheese Quesadillas, pudding, carrots and peanut butter bananas

I was stunned when my kids not only ate their salmon with dill sauce but also said how much they liked it. I love salmon so we have it regularly, but the kids usually complain about it. G put in on the menu when I explained that we always had fish each week (and no, his "tuna burger" aka Fancy Tuna Melt did not count.) I had him cut the dill sauce recipe in half assuming his siblings wouldn't go near it. In fact, they loved it and told him so. We will be adding that to our regular rotation!

Movie Night Agenda

2012-01-22T10:34:00.007-06:00

Family Movie Night is a favorite around here. Once or twice a month, we all gather in the basement family room for movie time.

The kids have a routine that is predictable. N always asks to sit by me on the loveseat while K grabs a warm blanket and stretches out on the couch.

G has claimed the recliner as his preferred movie-watching-spot. He has also been known to bring along a book or magazine, just in case he doesn't like the movie selection. More often than not, he starts out insisting he will just read..."I don't want to watch this. It is for babies," he will complain. Of course, I generally catch him enjoying the movie just as much as his younger brother and sister - not that I'd ever point that out to him.

There will be popcorn. Mike mans the microwave. Between Boy Scout popcorn sales and his job with a company that manufactures popcorn, we are never short on the stuff.

At some point during the evening, a cat will appear, recognizing that this is a good time to get some attention. Children not running around or yelling? Seated comfortably on a couch for an extended period of time? With a free hand? Yep, the cats are big fans of Family Movie Night.

When the movie is over, the kids give it a review. (We used to keep track of the movies we watched and each person's rating of it in a Family Movie Night notebook, but apparently that was too much effort for Family Movie Night.) Then it is time for bed.

Except on this particular night, when Gnomeo & Juliet apparently brainwashed them into a maniac state. N put on a little "Crazy Man Dance" at the end.

And they finished off Family Movie Night with a dogpile.

Definitely not part of the regular movie night agenda!

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

In case you need a good haunted house right about now

2012-01-21T09:00:00.002-06:00

Wow. Weeks have passed, and I have pretty much not blogged about much of anything lately.

Not that I don't have plenty to say. I do. I always have plenty to say.

My "busy season" (which stretches from August to mid-January, causing my husband to object to the word "season") is officially over. In theory, reasonable hours are ahead, and I may even start getting a decent amount of sleep. I'm trying to settle back into a routine, which will hopefully involve making my way back to the computer to blog.

This morning, I was eager to get back into the routine. Got the kids up and breakfast started so Mike could sleep in. Then I settled on to the couch to read the newspaper. Despite the fact that I get all the news I need online, I still love reading the newspaper.

It was 6:30, though, so I was not all that eager to head outside to retrieve today's paper. No worries since I had a handy stack of papers from the last few weeks all piled up near the couch in the living room. I happily caught up on news stories and new movies. Until I got to the story about fun family halloween activities.

Um, halloween?

Yep. The newspaper was from October.

This could be interpreted as a sign of exactly how not-relaxing my fall was. Or perhaps even a commentary on my housekeeping skills.

Instead, I prefer to see it as me getting a head start on my 2012 halloween planning.

Snooze!

2012-01-11T05:45:00.000-06:00

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Gotta love winter break...nowhere to be, nothing you have to do, might as well take a quick nap.

Basketball

2012-01-09T06:13:00.003-06:00

I started to type "I tend to take a lot of pictures" and then realized that was almost laugh-out-loud funny. Anyone who sees me on a regular basis can attest that I do in fact take MANY pictures. No need to put "tend to" around it. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. It is a good thing because I can almost always find a photo on our computer for whatever the need - I want to blog about some random topic? I probably have a picture that fits the theme. The kids make an off-the-wall request (such as N wanting to know when Henry's birthday was...) well, let me check the computer because I can probably figure out when the stuffed animal first entered our lives. The bad? We are forever running out of space on our computer. My poor husband gets to deal with that.

And what exactly does any of that have to do with basketball? Well, mostly I'm spinning this tail to set you up for the fact that I apparently have no post-worthy photos of N's basketball season. Shocked? Yeah, so am I. To be clear, I get lazy with indoor sports photos. My "nice" camera is a pain to haul to weekly sporting events, but my small cheap camera does not take the greatest indoor action shots. I did manage to attend some of N's basketball games in November and December, despite my crazy work schedule. I even managed to take a few photos at one of the games. However, they were bad. Very bad. Out of focus, grainy, icky bad. Not even my usual photoshop solutions could save these photos. This is the only decent one, which was taken after the game was over.

So you will have to take my word for it that N played basketball and had a great season. My little point guard expanded beyond dribbling and passing the ball to his tall friend Grace (pretty much all he did last season) and even started making baskets on a fairly regular basis. Now, we did joke with the coach that he only has one move that he uses over and over and over again to get open for those shots, but his coach pointed out that you only need one move as long as it is effective. And for 2nd grade basketball, his one move appears to be working fine.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-08T08:51:00.008-06:00

Normally, we don't do much for New Year's Eve. I have to work during the time between Christmas and New Year's (the joys of being an accountant at year end!) so trying to host a party is out of the question. This year, though, New Year's Eve fell on a Saturday, and while I still needed to work, I was able to schedule my work and meetings around a few key events.

We attended the New Year's eve celebration at a local museum. The museum had a band performing for the kids and crafts set up.

As the clock approached noon, the kids armed themselves with the noisemakers and bubble wrap that the museum staff handed out as we entered the event.

Then it was just time to watch for the ball to drop...

...and make a lot of noise when it finally did. My kids are good at making noise.

Afterwards, we headed out for lunch at a local burger restaurant, which was fabulous until I saw the bill. How can you spend $60 on hamburgers and fries? (Thankfully, we had a gift certificate - thanks, Mom and Dad!) The gourmet burgers and truffle fries were great, but let's be honest...my kids would have been equally thrilled to go to Red Robin. Next time, I will remember that!

N headed out to a party at a local bowling alley, which left G and K home to play the Wii. K had fun trying out a few dance game:

Once N got home, we settled in to play games and watch TV until midnight. Marmalade was very interested in K's root beer float.

This is the first year that the kids have stayed up late enough to ring in the new year. Mike and I really value our sleep so we went through a long debate on this one, but I'm glad we decided to stay up for the ball drop in New York. The kids were excited to see the Times Square celebration (although they didn't really "get" Lady Gaga..LOL.) Insert more noisemakers along with party hats that N brought back for his siblings from the party he went to earlier in the evening.

G stayed up the extra hour to ring in the new year in our time zone, while everyone else happily got some sleep.
I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Seasick Santa

2012-01-07T09:31:00.002-06:00

Last Christmas post, I promise.

Check out this jolly green guy decorated by one of my kids.

"Um, why is Santa green?" I innocently asked.

"He is seasick! Don't get too close!" laughed G. "It is Seasick Santa!"

G wanted to leave Seasick Santa out for Santa on the tray of cookies on Christmas Eve. His little sister was mortified. She felt Santa would be really offended by Seasick Santa. (And she also said she was worried that this would place G in the "Naughty" camp.) Fortunately, I was able to convince G he'd have more fun eating Seasick Santa himself.

Crisis averted.

Holiday visits

2012-01-06T05:46:00.006-06:00

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is the time spent with family and friends. Although we could see many of these people nearly any time as our immediate family and close friends are all located within 5-6 hours of our home, the reality is that life often gets in the way of that. Sometimes, weeks or months pass between visits despite the best of intents to see each other often.

Christmas (and then the time afterwards when kids are home from school and family is often in town) often enables us to catch up and spend time with the people who matter most in our lives. We spent Christmas day with my parents and my brother's family. We were also blessed with other visitors throughout the holiday season.

For the second straight year, Mike's brother stopped by our home for an overnight visit on his drive between Minneapolis and Denver. He helped the kids put together their gingerbread houses and challenged all of them to games of chess. (All three kids are part of their school's chess club. They love it!)

We have very good friends who live just a half hour away, and yet we struggle to get together as often as we'd like. (Mike and I have known them for a very long time. Jenny and I met in grade school and became good friends in junior high while Mike met Brian in college. Mike and I actually met at their wedding!) In December, we were able to get together twice.

First Mike and the boys went to dinner and a Creighton basketball game with them right before Christmas. (K and I had to back out at the last minute because she got sick.)

Then we had them over for dinner one night after Christmas.

One of my favorite visits during Christmas was getting to see my grandpa's brother. Jerry recently moved back to Iowa following the death of his wife, and he was able to come over for a meal at my mom's house the day after Christmas. I was very close to my grandpa, who passed away when I was a senior in college. I've always been sad that Mike and the kids were not able to know him at all. Jerry reminds me so much of him, and it was a great treat to be able to talk to him and have the kids meet him this year.

My favorite photo from the holidays is this picture of my family on Christmas morning:

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. ~Burton Hillis

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

The Big Day Part 2

2012-01-05T05:42:00.008-06:00

We always enjoy spending part of Christmas Day at my parents, where it is inevitable that there will be good food, fun times with the cousins and lots of fun.

My brother and his family were driving up on Christmas from their home in Kansas. We made it to my parents a little bit before them, which proved to be the perfect time for us to squeeze in a photo of the kids and their grandparents before the holiday hoopla started.

Soon enough, Jack and Grace had arrived. We're so lucky that all the cousins are close (close enough) in age and get along so well. I didn't grow up with many cousins that I regularly saw, and I'm so glad that my kids instead see them and consider their cousins such good friends.

Grandma & Grandpa gave the kids many great presents. They know them so well, and sometimes I think they do a better job of finding "perfect gifts" than we do. (I make myself feel better by reminding myself that we both work fulltime and spend every free minute shuffling kids around to activities, etc. When I'm retired, I'm sure I'll be a better shopper!) G loved his new Lego sets and magic kit, but he was especially excited to see this book. He loves this series and couldn't wait to read the latest book!

K got new boots, cute clothes, books and even a little sewing machine that she is eager to try out (Grandma is going to help her sew a dress for Ivy!) She was very happy to get Argos, who is Marie-Grace's dog in the American Girl book set that K and I are reading. She is really on her way to collecting a little American girl pet store.

Grandma made N a Yankees blanket for his bed, which was in addition to the Yankees pillow pet that he got. His bed is now officially decking out in his favorite team's gear.

My parents also continued the tradition of getting the kids new Yankees shirts for Christmas and then taking a photo of them with my dad. My dad is a huge Yankees fan, and I always love this annual photo of the kids with t-shirts over their "fancy" holiday clothes:

I was glad that we remembered to take a picture of my brother and me with my parents this year. Again, very thankful that he was home for the holidays this year.

Beautiful weather (the kids were bummed that there was no white Christmas this year, but I was thankful for clear roads that made travel so easy for all.) and a wonderful day.

The Big Day Part 1

2012-01-04T05:22:00.005-06:00

I'm happy to report that we were able to persaude G and K to return to bed at 4 AM and allow the rest of us a few more hours of sleep before we started the Christmas festivities. N was still sound asleep, and he is not a morning person! Thankfully, he made an exception for Christmas morning and woke up early so his brother and sister didn't have to wait too long before heading downstairs.

The tree looked beautiful with all the gifts under it, and the kids could not wait to check out their stockings and gifts from Santa.

Santa brought G a Star Wars lego set, although not the insanely expensive one he wanted, which I suspect may have been a test on his part with this whole "Santa" thing. He still happily put it together, although it was a little hard for me to see his initial disappointment. N and K both got DSs, which means no more watching over their brother's shoulder when he plays. Santa was very crafty, too, using a special DS "skin" to decorate the on-sale blue DS with horses to fit K's personality and distract her from any comments about blue being a "boy-color."

N surprised us just before his visit with Santa by deciding that he wasn't going to ask for a DS and instead wanted to get Henry a pee-wee pillow pet that matched his. Luckily, Santa was able to bring that for Henry and still bring a DS for N.

This remote controlled helicopter was one of G's favorite gifts. He had fun flying it all over the entry way with several dramatic crash landings. Mike assured me that he had researched these and spoken with some guys at work who owned them and they were "quite durable." Of course, that means that the remote controlled helicopter lasted less than one week in our house.

The theme for this year seemed to be Legos and DS games.

One new thing we did this year was to take the kids shopping to get each other gifts. We did this back when they were toddlers by going to the Dollar Store, but we haven't done it in a few years. K really wanted to buy her brothers a gift, though, and even went so far as to send Santa a letter asking for him to bring her gifts to give to them. (Unfortunately, K was $9 short of being able to buy G what she wanted to give him...so we also had a nice little talk about budgets.) So, we decided to take the kids shopping and provide a little money that they could spend on each other. N picked out Burt's Bees chapstick and some new nail polish for K. She was so excited that she gave him a big hug.

This is my favorite gift - an artist was visiting our Children's Museum, and Mike signed up for a session to have these made. They are so beautiful.

We also had a special breakfast - homemade donuts, chocolate milk with whipped cream and sprinkles and a wonderful coffee cake.

Christmas Eve

2012-01-03T05:19:00.001-06:00

I love Christmas Eve. It is like the calm before the storm. For us, Christmas Eve day is a quiet day at home as a family of five. Nowhere to be, nothing much to do, no decorations to put up and none to take down.

The last few years, we've done a Pajama Day on Christmas Eve, which is exactly what it sounds like. We stay in our PJs all day. We track Santa on NORAD. We watch Miracle on 34th Street, which is my favorite Christmas movie. We are basically lazy bums until the final few hours of the day when we kick it into high gear to complete some Christmas Eve traditions.

Our Favorite Foods meal is one of those traditions. I've blogged about it before so won't get into the history this year, but it is also exactly what it sounds like. We have a big "feast" as N likes to say comprised of everyone's favorite foods. This year, we had pumpin pasta, pizza, chinese noodles, hot dogs, skyline cheese coneys, roast, potato soup, salad, carrots, potatos, cranberry sauce and a wide variety of unhealthy goodies. I'm always slightly worried that someone is going to get sick following this meal, but amazingly, the kids do a good job of pacing themselves and eating reasonable quantities of all their favorites.

After that, we hand out new pajamas for the holidays. This year, we changed it up and got pajamas for everyone, adults included. I love these little monkeys that they sell at Target...couldn't resist!

Then the kids open the gift bags that contain their ornaments. We try to always select an ornament that represents a special memory from the year. G got a baseball trophy ornament to remember his team's league championship. N's racing ornament was to celebrate his big Pinewood Derby win. K got a cowboy boot to remember her first trip to the rodeo from our Wyoming trip since she loved it so much.

G added a new twist to this tradition this year by handing out two packages for Mike and me. He made ornaments for us at school - a holiday wreath for me made out of Wheat Thins and a cinnamon stick reindeer for Mike.

Then it was time to leave cookies and milk for Santa (and carrots for Rudolph) before settling in to read Twas the Night Before Christmas with Mike:

Off to bed with promises to not wake us up too early.

(We heard G and K in the hallway at 4 AM, trying to figure out how to go back to sleep since they knew it was too early to get us up.)

Holiday Ornaments

2012-01-02T05:17:00.003-06:00

Once G hit toddler age, we started the tradition of making ornaments each year for the holidays. The kids make one for us, and then we usually send some off to the grandparents as well. I know I will cherish these "homemade" decorations for the tree when the kids are grown.

This year's ornament was a thumbprint ornament, which I saw on Meet the Dubiens blog. Jill has many versions posted so I let the kids look through them and pick which one they wanted to do. N went with the holiday penguin, G opted for Santa while K created Rudolph.

First we did thumbprints in the appropriate colors and let them dry.

Then the kids used paint and Sharpie markers to add the appropriate details to their thumbprints to turn them into penguins, Santas and Rudolph.

The final product turned out great!

Gingerbread House

2012-01-01T15:15:00.007-06:00

I've been blogging for so long that it has become a habit for me. We do something as a family, and then I blog about it to document it and share it with friends and family. Even when life is crazy, I still do it - just like I grab a can of pop to drink with breakfast every day, check the cats' food bowl after dinner and absentmindedly turn on Friends to watch right before I fall asleep. Of course, the bad thing about habits is once you break them, it can be hard to get back on track. Having not blogged in over a week, I'm struggling to sit down at the computer today to sort through photos and get some posts written up. So, sorry for the fact that my Christmas posts are going to fall well into the start of 2012 when everyone else has moved on to new things!

But come on, you can never view too many pictures of smiling kids opening gifts, can you? Kidding, of course! So here I go...backing up to BEFORE Christmas...

One of our 25 Days of Christmas activities this year was to make a Gingerbread House. Mike and the kids love doing this. It really isn't my thing. I'd probably want to make a very orderly house with all the candy in nice straight (and boring) lines, which isn't much fun for the kiddos so I long ago handed this particular activity off to Mike to manage. (He is also less likely to tell them to stop eating the candy that is suppose to go on the house!)

K got a little practice at making gingerbread houses because she went to a Gingerbread House party at a friend's house. The table was lined with little houses made out of graham crackers, one for each girl. Each guest brought a bag of candy, which was placed in a bowl in the center of the table for decorating. The girls had a great time making gingerbread houses and then enjoying cocoa and a holiday movie.

A few days later, it was time for us to drag out the Gingerbread House kit. (Yes, we totally cheat and buy a kit at Costco each year. I highly recommend it.)

Yes, G is wearing glasses in this picture. This is a very new thing for us. I think this day might have been his first or second day with the glasses. I'm spending a lot of time saying "G, where are your glasses? Please put them ON." I think this will take some getting used to, but they were definitely needed.

Here they are with the finished house, which was the perfect centerpiece for our Christmas morning breakfast.

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T06:10:00.001-06:00

A little more Santa time

2011-12-24T11:06:00.005-06:00

Our next 25 Days of Christmas activity was Santa Day. In addition to seeing the big guy in red, we celebrate this day by having a special Santa meal, watching Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and making santa beards.

This year's meal was Santa pancakes - cherries in sauce as Santa's hat and whipped cream beard.

We continued our annual tradition of making Santa beards out of bubbles at bath time:

Polar Express Party

2011-12-23T10:25:00.000-06:00

Time for our 3rd annual Polar Express party! The concept is the same each year. The kids invite friends over to watch The Polar Express one evening before Christmas. The first year we included parents and had dinner first, the second year was a hot chocolate bar with lots of holiday cookies. The kids love that, but we didn't have many of our cookies made in time for this year's party so we opted for a simple pizza, salad and dessert meal instead. G made the salad and was pretty proud of his use of tomatos:

I didn't get a good group shot of the kids with their friends all dressed in their PJs, but my favorite picture from the evening was of the kids while they were happily waiting for their friends to arrive:

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

Grinch Time!

2011-12-22T08:17:00.003-06:00

Up next for 25 Days of Christmas: The Grinch Day!

This day is exactly what it sounds like...a celebration of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (and his little dog, Max.) We watch the old cartoon, read the book, and enjoy a Who-feast, complete with Who-Hash, Who-Pudding and Who-Roast Beast.

As soon as G came down for breakfast and saw the roast sitting on the counter ready to go into the crockpot, he announced that it was Grinch Day before the kids even opened the red envelope. So, our 25 Days of Christmas activities have become a bit predictable. I'm OK with that as long as everyone is having fun.

And trust me, there is no way to not have fun while watching little Max get dressed up like a reindeer.

We saw lights...I just can't prove it.

2011-12-21T15:33:00.005-06:00

So today's 25 Days of Christmas activity was to drive around to see holiday lights. A house near us even made a article in the local paper for Must-See-Light-Displays. It was one of those where you could tune your radio to a particular station to see the lights flicker on and off to the music. It was great.

But did I remember to take any photos to document this little outing? (Normally, I manage at least one!) Nope! So you'll just have to take my word for it that there were lights. And music. And a funny house next door to the Must-See-House where the nighbor just had a sign that said "Ditto."

Instead, I thought I'd share one of my favorite little displays that we do to decorate our house. Each year, we frame one photo of the family from the holidays. I have them all displayed on shelves in the kitchen.

There are photos going all the way back to when Mike and I first met...we'd barely known each other for 5 months, but we still have a holiday photo...and every year after that. This one was taken the year when Mike moved to Cincinnati. It was our first Christmas where we lived in the same state!

Of course, the photos from when the kids are little make me smile. Early on, we'd try to grab the cats for the "family photo" as well, although that stopped once the kids outnumbered the adults. Those photos from when the kids were little - you can tell the whole goal was to get one picture where everyone was looking at the camera and looking marginally happy. OK, at least not crying. I remember we'd just randomly take a few each week leading up to Christmas in the hopes of increasing our odds that we'd have one good picture.

These days we are more likely to take the official holiday photo on Christmas Day when everyone is all dressed up, but the end result is the same...a picture to remember each year. I love seeing them all lined up next to each other!

Cookies!

2011-12-20T05:35:00.007-06:00

It was cookie madness. I'm not sure that I'd recommend a marathon holiday baking day where 7 dozen sugar cookies, 5 dozen mint chocolate cookies, 2 dozen cranberry shortbread, 3 dozen peanut butter blossoms, 2 dozen chocolate peppermint sandwich cookies, 2 large pans of rocky road fudge, 1 pan of 7 layer bars and a batch of candy cane ice cream are all made in one day...but you gotta do what you gotta do. I couldn't seem to find the time to spread out the baking this year, so we crammed it all into one day. Lucky for me, I had four great helpers!

All the kids helped with the sugar cookie cutouts:

K kept us organized with the seven layer bars:

G had entirely too much fun crushing candy canes for the ice cream:

And Mike was a great sport about stirring all the rocky road fudge since I hurt my wrist and couldn't do it...

Chocolate Krinkle Cookies:

My personal favorite - cranberry shortbread cookies:

Peppermint chocolate sandwich cookies:

G made these himself from start to finish. Belly button cookies, as they are called in our house...named by a toddler years ago. Peanut butter blossoms to the rest of the world:

Chocolate mint cookies:

Cookie decorating:

And finally the sugar cookies:

Before we knew it (OK, like ten hours later...) we were done!

The Magic Bow

2011-12-19T05:20:00.000-06:00

Christmas Day is approaching- time to get gifts wrapped and packages in the mail to extended family across the country!

Normally, I have quite a line of eager helpers for Wrapping Day.

This year was less exciting for them because I mostly opted for gifts bags except for the cousins. Any disappointment that they had about not being in charge of cutting paper and handing out tape was somewhat alleviated when I found this old bows in a drawer in our storage room. These are the ones where you pull on the ends of the ribbon and a bow forms like magic. (I think I bought this from a co-worker when her child was fundraising a long time ago, like before I had kids!) They were amused. They made more bows that we actually needed for the gifts being wrapped, but it was cheap entertainment.

...and certainly more exciting than wrapping gifts up in tissue paper...

...and stuffing them in bags.

We made quick work of the gift pile, and packages were soon on their way to Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri and Washington.

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Frosty & Rudolph visit 25 Days

2011-12-18T11:51:00.007-06:00

I'm actually blogging about two 25 Days of Christmas Days today. Given that Christmas is right around the corner, I decided I need to double up or I'm still going to be documenting our 25 Days of Christmas adventures well into January.

But these two days kind of go together...following the classic holiday specials theme...not to mention the fact that we've been doing them for years.

First, we had Frosty day. Frosty day is a celebration of all things snowman-related. We read our favorite snowman books, watch some snowman shows (Frosty the Snowman, of course!) and settle in for our annual snowman meal.

Now, we're tried different things over the years on Frosty day. We've made snowman pancakes. We helped the kids build snowman sundaes. Then, we found our favorite, and we've stuck with it for the last few years: Melted Snowman Soup. We whip up a batch of our favorite potato soup and then let the kids add chocolate chips eyes and mouth, carrot nose and pretzel arms to complete the snowman.

New this year was this snowman dessert. I was going to make cupcakes, but then a friend posted a photo of donut hole snowmen, and I quickly came to the conclusion that these would be so much easier. And would probably delight the kids more since we have cupcakes regularly, but we almost never have donuts.

They were happy!

A few days later, we celebrated our annual Rudolph Day with...you guessed it...a showing of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and a special Rudolph meal.

Last year, I made tomato soup for Rudolph day in honor of his red nose. When I saw these cute reindeer sandwiches on another blog, though I couldn't wait to try them out. Hot dog antlers, two pieces of bread (regular plus a crust/end piece) stuck together with peanut butter for the face, and a candy red Dot for his nose. As soon as we opened the 25 Days of Christmas envelope in the morning, N got very excited. He spent the whole morning talking about how we were going to have tomato soup, just like last year. So even though tomato soup was not on this year's menu for Rudolph Day, I went ahead and added it as well.

As cute as these sandwiches are, I already have a better idea for next year. I'm thinking the same concept only with bacon for the antlers and pancakes instead of bread!

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

A Christmas Carol

2011-12-17T09:10:00.003-06:00

When I was in junior high, I was the Ghost of Christmas Past in our school's production of A Christmas Carol. It has been one of my favorite shows ever since, and yet somehow we'd never taken the kids to see it. Well, if you don't count the Disney Channel's showing of Mickey's Christmas Carol or our old videotape of Muppets Christmas Carol.

Which I don't.

We finally made it this year, braving a winter storm to get to the community playhouse.

The kids loved every part of the evening. Dinner out. Listening to carolers performing in the lobby before the show. The story. The songs. The bread that was handed out at the end of the show for us to take home to enjoy.

During intermission, K told me she really liked this A Christmas Carol.

"It is much better than the Muppets one."

Um, yes, I would hope so. I was curious how she came to this carefully thought out rating of A Christmas Carol. Would it be the costumes? The dancing?

"This Scrooge screams a lot louder when the ghosts show up. I like that!"

Snow Day

2011-12-16T18:40:00.004-06:00

This day's 25 Days of Christmas activity was suppose to be Salvation Army Bell Ringing. The kids enjoyed it last year, so we signed up again this year.

Except apparently Mother Nature had other plans.

Namely snow and really messy roads.

I would've been OK with the snow...we're tough and the shifts aren't very long. But after sliding around the roads, we decided it wasn't worth hauling the family out and risking it. So "bell ringing" became "playing in the snow."

Not that my kids were complaining.

They were all about building two snow forts. And yes, the shovels are set up in front of the fort. I can't decide if it is like a flag or added protection from a snow attack. Either way, they seem to be mandatory whenever we build snow forts.

This little snow battle was two against one.

Not that the "one" minded at all...

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

Cookies for Heroes

2011-12-15T05:25:00.001-06:00

I'll be honest. I almost passed on this 25 Days of Christmas activity. Each year, K's girl scout troop does a cookie exchange party. You know the drill...everyone makes a few million of one kind of cookie and then you trade them out and leave with a tray of goodies filled with lots of different kinds of cookies. The scout exchange has a different twist, though. The trays of cookies that are created during the party are then delivered to "hometown heroes" as a thank you for all that they've done for the community. This includes taking trays of cookies to the local air force base, the fire station, police station, school, and several businesses that have gone above and beyond to help the scouts out during the year. I love the concept.

However, I struggle with the execution. The number of cookies due seems to grow each year. It was 90 this year! This is my busy season at work so finding time to make all those cookies at the beginning of December is an issue. Each time the sign up sheet went around, I passed on it, reminding myself that sometimes I have to say no to things. There are only so many hours in the day...and during my busy season, there are never enough hours!

But I felt so guilty. It is a good cause, and K loves it. I hated the idea of her not getting to participate with her friends. So you can imagine my relief when Mike volunteered to make 90 cookies with K. He had fun, she had fun...and I felt better.

At the party, they line long tables with all the cookies, and the girls go up one side and down the other to complete the trays.

After all the cookies are on the tray, we wrap them up and add the candy cane, tag and ribbon.

The best part of all was that there were many trays delivered across our community the next week!

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Holiday Movie Night

2011-12-14T05:25:00.001-06:00

Our next 25 Days of Christmas activity was a holiday movie night.

Pajamas? Popcorn? Ready to go!

This year's holiday movie? A Christmas Story. I'm going to make an unpopular statement here. I actually can't stand this holiday movie. I don't think I ever liked it...but the cult like following that it has, not to mention that a certain cable channel shows the movie constantly during the holiday season certainly has not helped it grow on me. But my husband likes it. And it seems like one of those movies that every child has seen...so we decided to finally introduce the kids to it this year.

They thought it was hilarious.

Me? After watching it with the kids and listening to them giggle about it, well...I still don't like it. Sorry!

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Putting the kids to work

2011-12-13T05:25:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite 25 Days of Christmas activities each year is doing our family Christmas cards. We set up a little assembly line, and the cards are in the mail in no time!

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Holiday Donations

2011-12-12T05:24:00.001-06:00

Two of our 25 Days of Christmas activities this year involved shopping for others. K's daisy scout troop was involved in a community service activity. Each girl had to fill two stockings with small gifts for residents of a nursing home. K enjoyed running through Target looking for goodies, including gloves, candy, chapstick, travel packs of kleenex, and other small treats.

We also participated in our church's holiday drive. Each one of the kids was responsible for selecting an ornament off the giving tree and shopping for their item. (We also picked a few extra from our family.)

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Skating!

2011-12-11T11:25:00.006-06:00

Up next for the 25 Days of Christmas: ice skating at an outdoor rink The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

The kids love this annual tradition - and adults, too, although I will confess that I love it a lot more when temperatures are in the 40s or 50s. This year, it wasn't exactly beautiful out, but after a week of temps in the low teens, it was definitely better than I had feared! We opted for a Saturday afternoon trip to increase the odds of not freezing!

I documented the different skating styles of my three kids during our first outing two years ago...and the pattern continues.

First, we have K:

I love to skate! I like to go fast! Look at me go!

G is my calm skater:

Nice and easy...

And finally we have N. To be clear, he is a much better skater than in 2009...but he is still a slower starter.

Dad, stay right here!

OK, maybe I can do this by myself. Maybe.

Whew! I survived!

Everyone had a great time!

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Christmas Project

2011-12-09T06:46:00.003-06:00

Remember our big window above the door that we decorate for Halloween, thanks to the great idea we found in Family Fun magazine? We decided it also needed to be decked out for Christmas. This became one of our 25 Days of Christmas activities.

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

This was a whole family effort. Grandma worked with Garrett to get the shapes cut out...

...while the youngest two helped arrange the tissue paper and provide the tape. (At our house, we always have plenty of volunteers to be in charge of tape!)

Here is the finished product, hanging above our front door. It looks great at night when the lights are on in the entryway.

Definitely one of my favorite photos this week!

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

An odd day

2011-12-08T05:38:00.005-06:00

What do you get when you mix Lego Robotics and caroling? A very strange day, that is what!

G was one of only two fourth graders selected for his school's Robotics Club. The team has been meeting regularly for the last two months in preparation for a tournament last weekend.

This was a new experience for all of us. We spent most of Saturday in a big gym watching a scene like this:

The teams are given a challenge and they must design and program LEGO robots to complete tasks or missions. I'm a beginner, for sure, so I spent the first two rounds just trying to figure out exactly what the robots were suppose to be doing. Here is a close up of the table:

In addition to the robot missions, the teams also complete a teamwork task, do a technical presentation and do a research project. G's team did well at the event. They advanced to the state competition in February and won an award for the teamwork portion of the competition. G was super excited!

Meanwhile (yes, it seems there is always a "meanwhile" in this world of three-school-aged children...we are often double-booked!) K was with her girl scout troop singing Christmas carols at a local nursing home.

Although we were sorry we missed it, K had a great time. Thanks to my mom for pinch-hitting and getting her to scouts so Mike and I could attend G's event instead.

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Winner!

2011-12-07T20:37:00.005-06:00

Congrats to The Mama Monkey who is the winner of the Campbell-Lawson book giveaway. I'll have Terra get in touch with you shortly so you can select your autographed book!

For those of you who did not win, remember that the books will be available on Amazon in January, but you can order them now at this website: www.campbelllawson.com

The Nutcracker

2011-12-07T05:23:00.005-06:00

Time for a Girls' Night Out - 25 Days of Christmas style. Two of K's friends were chosen for to be Angels in a local performance of The Nutcracker. Given K's love for ballet, I knew she'd enjoy it. Mike and the boys were less excited so we opted to include Grandma in our ballet evening, while the guys headed to a Drive-Thru Bethlehem scene sponsored by a local church. (I know how that sounds...but they said it was fun.)

We were right up front with a great view of the stage, and K even spotted one of her friends before the show so she got to say hi.

About 10 minutes in, K leans over to me and said "Why aren't they talking?!!?"

I quickly realized that all the ballets we'd attended previously were either geared towards kids or were more modern/contemporary where there were introductions of the pieces or other elements with words. I had to break the news to her that this was not going to be that way.

"OK," she said. "But it would be better if they were talking!"

Her face lit up when she saw her friends on stage. She pointed and whispered to me in the most excited little voice to make sure I saw them. Which I did.

K insists that she had a very good time at the Nutcracker, although she may have fallen asleep briefly in the second act. (Hey, that Sugar Plum Fairy dances for a long time, people, and it was way past her bedtime...)
The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Lucky for us it was a big tree

2011-12-06T05:43:00.001-06:00

Our next 25 Days of Christmas activity was to attend the kickoff event for Christmas at Union Station at a museum in our city. My friend bought us a membership to this museum when we first moved here two years ago, and we try to attend their events whenever possible.

It was a record setting crowd for the tree lighting this year, which meant the place was packed. Thankfully, we arrived plenty early. The kids enjoyed decorating (and eating) cookies before the big event.

Because of the crowd, we secured our spot to view the tree early. Because of the crowd, it still wasn't very close to the tree. There may have been some whining about the view and the wait. There may have also been some reminders that we could head for the exit and leave if attitudes did not improve. Luckily, there was a woman singing Christmas carols for the crowd while we waited.

Then this guy arrives and stands right in front of us. Check out how tall he is compared to the other adults around him, and you can imagine exactly how well the kids could see. Cue more grumbles from the younger members of the family. Sigh.

Of course, it didn't matter where we were standing or who was standing in front of us because the tree was huge. The kids were delighted with the light show that the museum did before officially lighting the tree (I think this was new this year? At least, I don't remember it from the last two years!) and they had fun attempting to catch the "snow" that fell from the ceiling at the end.

When the crowd started heading for the exits, I grabbed this photo of them with the tree:

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

Starting the countdown

2011-12-05T05:38:00.005-06:00

An oldie but a goodie...one of our favorite 25 Days of Christmas traditions has been around since the kids were tiny, but it remains a family favorite: doing our advent calendar each day in December.

The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

City Tree Lighting

2011-12-04T11:56:00.000-06:00

Up next for the 25 Days of Christmas: a community tree lighting ceremony! The 25 Days of Christmas is a family tradition - we celebrate the holiday season with a special holiday activity every day in December leading up to Christmas. Read about our other outings here.

OK, really, this was more than just a "tree lighting ceremony" - there were all kinds of activities planned by the city for residents to enjoy while waiting for the lights. We decided to make a quick stop on our way to church last Saturday evening.

While we'd been blessed with gorgeous weather around Thanksgiving, things turned quite cold for the weekend. So it was time to drag out the hats, winter coats and gloves for this outside event.

Our original plan was to take a horse and carriage ride through the downtown area. Unfortunately, many other people had the same idea. After standing in line for ten minutes, we quickly did the math and realized that we'd spend all the time we had between the start of the event and church in this one line and there would only be a small chance that we'd get to the front of the line before church started. We quickly held a family meeting (while standing in line) and decided we'd rather enjoy the other activities being offered for the event. So this was as close as we got to the carriage ride:

The other benefit of not being in line? It was warmer if you were actually moving around! Of course, the cocoa also helped.

With cocoa in hand, we settled onto the lawn area in front of the city library and enjoyed the musical performers.

There was also a story-telling in the library, popcorn, and visits with Santa and Mrs. Claus. The line to see Santa was nearly as long as the carriage rides so again we opted out. We did have time to see the reindeer, though.

Promptly at 6 PM, the mayor flipped the switch and the city hall area lit up in holiday lights.

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Sugar, please!

2011-12-03T09:36:00.003-06:00

There is one Trader Joe's in the city we live in, and like everything else in this city, it is located way on the other end of town. Like 30 minutes away. (Let me tell you, going from having a Costco 5 minutes from our house to having one 30+ minutes away was a BIG adjustment for this Mom.) So trying to go to Trader Joe's becomes a major time investment...and when both parents work full time and have kids in lots of activities, well, there are not many days when we can actually commit to that time investment.

So we love Trader Joe's...but we only go there once every 3 or 4 months. When we do go, we have a little tradition of picking out one "treat" that we eat as soon as we get to the parking lot. (Highly recommend the chocolate covered frozen banana slices...yum!) On this particular visit, we grabbed these cookies to try:

K was hesitant to take a bite, which surprised me. Cookie? Hello? What's the problem? She said, "Well, this is such a pretty cookie, Mom. Um, but I wish..um..well, why did they have to put all that big salt on top of it? I don't think that will taste good!"

She was quite relieved when I explained that it was sugar, not salt.

This actually reminds me of a very funny 7th grade Home Ec story where my team and I accidently confused the salt with the sugar in our holiday cookies recipe. Let's just say that was a Christmas surprise that you didn't want to be involved with - but hey, lessons were learned. Valuable lessons.

25 Days of Christmas!

2011-12-02T05:46:00.006-06:00

First, a little reminder about the Campbell Lawson giveaway - visit this post and leave a comment to win an autographed children's book. Fewer than 10 people have commented so far, so the odds are good for winning a new book!

OK, we've moved into December and that means it is officially the start of our 25 Days of Christmas tradition!!!

If you are new to reading my blog, here is the scoop on this family tradition, which we started in 2008. I have always loved the time of year between Thanksgiving and Christmas – time for friends, family and festivities – what is not to love? Until a few years ago…when I went from “this is so much fun” to feeling completely overwhelmed with all the obligations and how to juggle them all. I decided to tackle the season with a well thought out plan to ensure we were spending our time wisely and enjoying ourselves more - the idea was to do one special holiday activity every day in December.

I started with a list of all the things I felt we needed to do (this would include school events, neighborhood gatherings, work celebrations) and to that I added things that had become annual traditions for us (Christmas Eve Favorite Foods meal, surprising the kids by waking them up one night to go see Christmas lights in the city) and also fun things that I had heard about or read about on other blogs that I wanted to do as well (like Steph’s bubble bath Santa beard idea.) The next step was to take the list and assign one task to each of the days on a calendar leading up to Christmas. For me, this was the hard part. It required me to be selective and also prevented me from overscheduling us, which is what typically happens and what usually leads to me feeling burned out or disappointed about having to skip things. By focusing on one activity a day, this allows me to ensure we aren't overscheduling ourselves with too much stuff and that we focus on the things we really want to do as a family.

Each morning, the kids open an envelope that announces our activity for the day - “On the 14th Day of Christmas…we are making Christmas cookies.” Up first this year was decorating the Christmas tree.

Definitely my favorite photos of the week!

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

First Snow

2011-11-30T20:35:00.003-06:00

First snow of the year means cocoa and our snowman book. Love this tradition!

This year, it also meant a quick game of tic-tac-toe...

Don't forget to enter the Campbell Lawson giveaway - visit this post and leave a comment to win this! There have not been many comments so far so stop by!

Thanksgiving Charlie Brown style

2011-11-28T05:30:00.004-06:00

We have a lot of family traditions. Most of them are pretty silly...eating on the ground on Groundhog's Day, half of a birthday cake on half birthdays, etc...but I love them. If you asked my kids, they would definitely name this Thanksgiving tradtion as one of their favorites. We've been doing this for years, and I don't worry about forgetting it - the kids start asking me if it is on the calendar as soon as November hits.

It is our annual viewing of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with our Charlie Brown meal: pretzels, popcorn, toast and jellybeans.

Easy family fun!
Don't forget to enter the Campbell Lawson giveaway - visit this post and leave a comment to win an autographed children's book. I haven't seen many comments yet, so you've got good odds on winning!

All We Could Want

2011-11-27T09:49:00.010-06:00

Before I get started on the Thanksgiving wrap-up, I wanted to remind you about the Campbell Lawson giveaway - visit this post and leave a comment to win an autographed children's book. Less than 5 people have commented so far, so the odds are good that you could be a winner!

OK, on to the main topic...Thanksgiving! My favorite holiday was more than we could ask for this year. Sure, there was plenty of good food...but there is always plenty of good food. G was my big helper again this year. He helped with the cranberry chutney, sweet potato casserole and pumpkin pie mousse. And he also made the salad and pumpkin bread for our guests to take home with them.

Mostly, though, what made the day outstanding was that we had the whole family together for our dinner. My brother was actually suppose to be in Afghanistan for a deployment during the holidays this year. His deployment was delayed, and having him here to share turkey and pie was an extra item to be thankful for this year.

We snuck in some family photos after the food:

Adding to the great day? The weather! Oh, my...it was unbelieveable. We've had a mild fall, I'll admit. But in the weeks before Thanksgiving, it had turned quite cold. It seemed clear that we'd made the transition from the gorgeous sunny days to heavy coats and gloves. Yet, somehow, we were blessed with 60+ degree weather on Thanksgiving Day. How could we not spend the afternoon outside?

Perfect for playing with the cousins:

Jack and N invented a little game where Jack launched the rocket and N attempted to hit it with his z-curve bow. It may have taken a few, um, tries, but they were eventually successful. You should have heard the cheers from the family when they finally hit the target.

G even convinced Grandpa to play a little tennis with him:

Yes, they are playing tennis in the street. Not normally allowed, but we figured with 6 adults in the yard, we could handle watching for cars.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Thankful Schoolwork

2011-11-26T14:25:00.005-06:00

The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving usually involve some creative turkey projects for school. The second graders had to decorate a turkey in whatever career they wanted to have when they grew up. (For this same assignment, G made a Lego designer turkey.) N spent considerable time debating this. Did he want to be a baseball player? A soccer player? A teacher? He settled on a PE teacher, which seems to be a good combination of all his ideas. Here is the PE teacher turkey, appropriately called Mr. Turkey:

K was tasked with designing a good disguise for a turkey who did not want to be eaten for Thanksgiving this year. She decided the turkey's best defense against being dinner was to wear a Santa costume:

K also brought home a "Thankful" book that she made in class. I always love these so I had a big smile on my face as I started flipping through the book. K is thankful for her friends, Bree and Jai:

She is thankful for her family. Oh, wait a second. I noticed that she only drew her two brother and me so I teased her about leaving Daddy out of the picture.

"Oh, I didn't draw you or Daddy." Apparently, the "girl" that I assumed was ME was actually K. "I didn't have room for you," she said with a big grin on her face.

I bought this response until I went back to look at the picture again.

Um, no room for Mom or Dad, but there was room for both cats?? Nice!

On the final page, K announced that she was thankful for bats.

Why? you might ask. "Because they eat insects," she told me.

Apparently, I rank below the lazy cats and insect-eating-bats.

Book giveaway

2011-11-23T06:03:00.002-06:00

One of my favorite bloggy friends, Terra from Sitting on an Oak, has some exciting news! She is the author of three new books, and I can't wait to share them with you.

Whereditgo? is the story of little girl on a mission to find some of her favorite possessions, which are missing. Anyone who has a child who tends to lose things (ahem, like my K...) can relate to this little girl and her search. My kids liked the fact that the "lost" item was actually pictured on each page with the girl. They had fun seeing who could find it in the illustration the fastest. This would be a great book for those preschoolers who love "I Spy" - in fact, K said it reminder her of "I Spy" so she liked it.

Rock 'N' Friend is a special story about how two friends come together. One of these friends is a little girl...and the other? A rock! (Hey, I had a Pet Rock as a child...I can relate!) You can read the story of their friendship from the point of view of the child, and when you finish, you can flip the book over and read the same story told from the point of view of the rock. K and G liked the artwork, and N said it was a good story because it told that it is good to have a friend so you won't be lonely. They also liked that it was a 2-for-1 book, which they said was "cool." However, there was one strong opinion that the book should have been called Rock 'n' Friend on one side and Friend 'n' Rock on the other. (Yes, I told them that we had to do a review for my blog and the kids took the role as "critic" very seriously!)

The third book, Somebody, was my favorite. This is the story of a girl who is a very good helper in her family, but she starts to resent it, wondering why she always has to be the one to help out. K especially loved the song that the girl sang in the book "Somebody always means me, somebody always means me..." and I heard her singing this around the house after we read this book. All the kids liked the message that the girl realized at the end of the book: that she was somebody...somebody special!

We were lucky enough to get a preview of these books, and guess what? One Sabbatical Mom reader is going to be lucky as well...the author will be providing an autographed copy of one of these books! Just leave a comment on this blog post, letting me know which book you'd like if you win...and make sure I have a way to contact you if you are randomly selected. The giveaway ends on December 4th...I'll select the winner on the 5th.

For those of you who do not win, the books will be available on Amazon in January, but you can order them now at this website: www.campbelllawson.com Please check it out - I'm so excited for Terra!!

Ten Part 2

2011-11-21T06:17:00.003-06:00

Time for the birthday wrap-up! Ten is a pretty big deal so we were all about making the move to double digits special for G.

His day started with a chocolate chip birthday cake for breakfast:

For dinner, G requested Skyline Cheese Coneys, a nod to his Cincinnati roots. For dessert, the 4-layer Oreo cake, of course! He always requests it, and I always gladly make it!

After dinner, we opened presents. A few shirts, a DS game, and Legos. So time for what has become an annual tradition - the photo of G intently studying the Lego box.

For G's party, we took a group of his friends to play Laser Tag:

I wasn't inside the laser tag area, but based on the level of excitement as they got set in their gear and the grins when they excited, I think they had a good time:

After three games of laser tag, they played in the arcade area for another 1/2 hour or so:

We eventually tore them away from the games and survived the ordeal involved in counting and cashing out your "tickets" for prizes. I hardly think the junk prizes they ended up with were worth the time and energy spent trying to redeem their tickets. Sigh. That was officially my least favorite part of the party!

But the boys had a blast, and G loved the place, which is what really matters.

Ten

2011-11-20T11:01:00.010-06:00

Someone turned ten last week. Ten!

How did he go from a cute little toddler with chubby cheeks to ten so quickly? ( I won't, ahem, comment on the type of transformation I've made during that same time frame...)

The thing is...I remember turning ten....not like I see photos taken from my party that year and I remember it. No, I remember the feeling. The pride I felt at being so grown up. (Well, it seemed grown up to me!) I remember handing out my birthday treats to my class (yes, back in the days when you were actually allowed to bring treats from home to celebrate things like birthdays...I wish we could do that now!) and then taking some extras down to the office. I remember everyone in the office (OK, three people...I went to a very small school) making a very big deal about me turning 10. Double digits, they said, how does that feel? It felt great, I remember that.

And now my baby is ten?

Impossible...yet possible.

I wonder if he feels different, if he feels as "old" and "grown up" as I felt on my tenth birthday. I hope he does. And I hope he doesn't because I'm not ready for him to be "grown up." I'd go back to the toddler days in a second...just to savor the cuddling, hand holding and Mommy-G time a little bit longer.

Ten seems so much closer to the dreaded teenage years...I see what a few of my friends are going through with their teenage boys, and I know I am not ready for that...the bad moods, the defiance, the arguing. Ugh. I'll take The Wiggles and "Fruit Salad...yummy yummy" over that any day of the week.

I can't complain, though. So far, ten isn't any different than nine, which wasn't that different than eight. There have been some changes, of course. Phone calls from friends. The request to play a video game online with a few friends. More activities that require less and less parental involvement. The girl who rode her bike along side him when he was walking home from school the other day. (Double ugh...) Baby steps, Mom....you can do this.

He still has the same relaxed attitude, the same goofiness that he had as a little boy. And as an added bonus, now his jokes actually make sense! Sometimes, he shows a more serious side...

...but his normal trademark grin is never too far away.

True, some things change...we've gone from board books and "the cooking show" to Harry Potter, Legos and magic shows.

Maybe the cheeks aren't as chubby as they were when he was two, but his grin still melts my heart. Some things haven't changed, and I hope they never do.

Happy birthday, G!

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

More soccer

2011-11-16T05:33:00.003-06:00

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Another soccer season for G = more time as goalie:

Number 11 did play other positions, though:

He really liked his coach this year - he is a soccer player for a local university:

Girl Power

2011-11-15T05:30:00.002-06:00

At age seven, this was K's first time ever playing on an all-girl team. The first few years of soccer and t-ball were boys and girls. Then we put her on her brother's team, just to simplify our lives. This year we learned how different girls soccer can be...I mean, yes, the game is the same. But the experience was quite different.

Pink balls, purple balls, sideline cheers, team t-shirts (RUBIES ROCK!) and plenty of sideline chatter. Sometimes the sideline chatter appeared to be about the game...but more often than not, K was just chatting up a storm about completely unrelated topics.

When she was on the field, though, she was quite intense - running hard, scoring goals, playing good defense.

Um, K...I don't think you are suppose to smile for the camera when you are playing goalie.

Oh. OK, I can do a serious pose instead.

The highs and lows

2011-11-14T05:32:00.003-06:00

Pardon me...I've been a bit deliquent in blogging about our biggest fall extra-curricular activity. All three kids played soccer again. Six practices a week, 4-5 games a week...yep, it keeps us pretty busy.

For N, this was a season of ups and downs.

He loves to play soccer. He celebrates with the best of 'em.

But he takes us through quite the emotional roller coaster to get there.

So serious.

We're working on remembering that things won't always go your way, that you won't always get to play the position that you want to play, that being a good sport is the most important thing. That this is really about having fun with your friends...and it should be fun.

In the end, these are important lessons to learn...and I'm proud of the progress that N made this season.

Fall Photos

2011-11-13T09:20:00.009-06:00

No offense to those who love the snow or live for beach fun-in-the-sun...but those have never been my things. Right now...this September to November timeframe...it is without a doubt my favorite time of the year.

I love the cool weather - sweater and sweatshirt season...

...homemade soup, pumpkin, cinnamon, apples...

football games, hayrack rides, roasting marshmellows over the firepit...I could go on and on.

The autumn colors - browns, oranges, golds - falling leaves from the trees, harvest decorations in our homes are daily reminders to me to be thankful.

And so I am continuing to savor this time while it lasts.

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Veterans' Day

2011-11-11T05:39:00.001-06:00

Neither my husband nor I served in the military, but we are living in a military town. Our neighborhood is located just minutes from an air force base, and many of our neighbors are currently serving or have served in the military. Whether it is the close proximity to the base or the general midwestern values, this city is very patriotic. My eyes filled up with tears recently when I was at the airport and everyone in the terminal put down their bags to stand and clap as soldiers departed from a Delta flight. Not just the immediate gate area...you could hear the applause continuing as they made their way by the security area and towards baggage claim. I saw people who were waiting in line to buy meals put down their trays of food. I want my kids to grow up around that. I want them to grow up learning that we stand when the flag passes us in a parade...at a Veterans' Day parade that means you spend most of the parade on your feet!

Each year, we attend the community Veterans' Day parade. The kids march with the other boy and girl scouts. The parade is filled with flags, servicemen and women, veterans and people from the community who just want to say "thank you." The parade always start with a flyover...and I never have enough air force knowledge to be able to tell you what this is a picture of - however, the last time I posted one, a blog reader was able to identify the plane for me so perhaps I will luck out again!

Freedom is never free. ~Author Unknown

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. ~Elmer Davis
We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude. ~Cynthia Ozick

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. ~M. Grundler

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

The Skating Party

2011-11-10T05:50:00.001-06:00

Miss K celebrated her 7th birthday with a roller skating party. K loves to skate, and a party at the local skating rink seemed like an easy one.

However, I dramatically underestimated the range of skating abilities that we'd have at the party. K and a few friends were flying around the rink, but most were shuffling along...and a few were not even that lucky. I had to walk (without skates! The DJ was NOT happy with me!) out on the skating rink to rescue one crying child just 10 minutes into the party. Lucky for me, it was Mike to the rescue. Not only did my husband have roller blades in the car, but he volunteered to escort girls around the skating rink over and over and over again. And being that they were 1st grade girls, they pretty much talked his ear off while skating around and around and around. This seemed to solve the problem - no more tears for the rest of the party.

Cake, friends and music...really what more could a girl want?

I found that the roller rink is really not the best place to take photos...so I don't have many.

But I did grab a few of K skating around with a big smile on her face...and this one was after she beat her dad in a race. I suspect he might have let her win...but don't tell her that.

Love this one - she is a sweaty mess...but a HAPPY sweaty mess!

Happy birthday, K!

Seven

2011-11-09T05:18:00.007-06:00

Someone had another birthday. I've given up pleading with her to just stay little forever. She is too determined to grow up, and frankly, watching her grow up is so much fun that I've stopped being sad about it and instead am just thankful that I'm along for the ride.

Her smile is nearly constant, and it takes a lot to get her down. Even when she is down, though, it does not last long. This girl has an energy, a positive attitude, a fearlessness that amazes me...I wish I could capture it for myself. She'll try anything and she doesn't seem to care what anyone thinks about her - this is a gift that I hope stays with her always. Too many girls (too many women, too?) spend too much time worrying about what everyone else thinks. Not K. I'll never tire of her giggles, her smiles and her "Mommy, guess what?"s...fortunately, I'm treated to many each day.

We celebrated her birthday first thing in the morning with our traditional breakfast birthday cake. Unlike most of my kids who enjoy their breakfast birthday cakes in pajamas, K was already dressed. It was her BIRTHDAY after all...she'd been up since before 6, ready to get the celebrating started!

I had to laugh when I went past her bedroom that morning. I had decorated her door with streamers to celebrate the big day. She woke up early and added her own "Happy birthday, K!" sign to the door. So apparently, the streamers, the early morning birthday song and the breakfast cake weren't enough? We also needed a sign? Point taken. Next year, I'll remember a sign as well!

She also happily announced that she had a new motto. (I didn't realize she had an old motto? This girl talks a lot so I'm surprised I missed something like a motto!) She said it was "K is seven!" I may not totally "get" her motto, but I have no doubt that she is going to make the most of being seven.

For dinner, we had Skyline (Cincinnati chili over spaghetti) at the birthday girl's request and triple decker strawberry cake. She surprised me with a last minute request to have red licorice on her cake...so I used it to form a "7" on top:

After dinner, we opened presents. Another American Girl pet...just what she didn't need. This is Chocolate Chip.

And new roller blades. More speed...probably also something she doesn't need!

She was also treated to a little "Happy Birthday" serenade from her brother...yep, using the Soap.com box as a drum.

Here I am with my K:

Check out more Black & White Wednesday posts at the Long Road to China.

A visit from Grandma

2011-11-08T10:22:00.002-06:00

Mike's mom came for a weekend visit in October. It was her first trip to see us since we moved here in 2009 so the kids were eager to show her the house and city. Of course, part of having an "authentic" weekend with this family is attending soccer games for three kids and fitting in a quick meal in between games:

Once soccer was done, though, there was time to take Grandma Marilyn to our favorite zoo:

The kids had a great time...and can't wait for her to visit us again soon!

Thankful

2011-11-07T05:52:00.002-06:00

Thankful for a little girl who bring so much joy to our family.

Thankful for a little boy who tries so hard at everything he does.

Thankful for a big boy who blesses us with his great humor.

So very thankful.

Check out more Monday Mugs at Oswald Cuties.

Halloween Wrap-up

2011-11-06T10:31:00.006-06:00

I had the best of intentions, honest. We go all out in our Halloween celebrating, and I fully intended to blog once a day for the last 2 weeks of October about our silly traditions and little adventures. Somehow, though, we were a bit too busy with the Halloween celebrating and the actual blogging didn't happen. So consider this a super-duper-extreme-Halloween-summary for the month:

1. First up? Decorating! I love to decorate for Halloween, although my decorating would never make it into the Halloween Hall of Fame. We don't do cool outside haunted house displays or string cobwebs around the dining room. I'd like to be the mom who does those things, but I am definitely not the mom who manages to find the time to do those things. Instead, I'm happy if I just managed to get the tubs of Halloween decorations all the way from the basement storage area up to the living room and somewhat unpacked and put up. (Let's note that I only manage to do this 2 out of 3 years...this year, we had company visiting a few weeks before Halloween and that helped fuel me to get my act together!) My favorite decorations are of the homemade variety...and my absolute favorites are the ones the kids made when they were little. You'll find my house decked out with "scribble pumpkins" and handprint spiders.

I also love to dig out old Halloween photos of the kids. This one was done at G's preschool and it is a favorite.

2. The food! We had our annual Papa Murphy's Jack-O-Lantern pizza:

Mummy bagels:

And a new family favorite - the Orange Meal: mac-n-cheese, oranges, sweet potatoes, carrots, orange M&Ms and orange soda:

3. Treat making - I swear, I gain 5 pounds at Halloween and that is even before the actual Halloween candy shows up. This year, we made pumpkin cookies:

We also made Monster Munch (popcorn, peanuts, Reese's Pieces all covered in melted white chocolate) to deliver to our neighborhood friends:

4. We Boo-ed 9 families in our neighborhood:

5. I read "Bunnicula" to the kids. My 4th grade teacher read this to our class for Halloween, and I knew the kids would love it as much as I did.

6. We attended the zoo's Haunted Safari with friends. Hot dogs, cocoa, and roasted marshmellows for dinner. Animals to see. Halloween games to play. It was a good time!

7. We visited two pumpkin patches. One for pure entertainment purposes...and one to get pumpkins(much cheaper than the other place!)

8. We made Halloween Shrinky Dinks!

9. A Halloween tradition for our family: our annual E.T. movie night. No pictures, though, I forgot!

10. Three classroom parties...this time it was less hectic than in years past. I managed to see all of them in their parades, grab some photos of them with their friends, watch them play games in their classroom and even enjoy a recorder-playing-penguin, which is something you don't see every day!

11. We hosted a Pumpkin Carving Party for neighbors:

Finally, it was Halloween! As a child, we always had chili for dinner before we went out to trick-or-treat so I've continued that family tradition with my kids, adding cinnamon rolls for dessert. (Chili with cinnamon rolls is a Nebraska-Iowa thing...I can't really explain it.) We then lined the kids up in the costumes that my mom made for them and headed out!

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Pumpkin Carving Party

2011-11-03T05:29:00.001-05:00

After a two year hiatus, our pumpkin carving party returned! This was an annual tradition in Kansas City, but the last two years, we've carved pumpkins alone first because we were new to the city and didn't know our neighbors yet and last year because I was in the middle of my busy season at work.

This year? Well, it is my busy time of year at work, but I planned ahead! We invited several families from our street, and we lucked out with gorgeous weather...so nice that we were able to set up tables for the carving outside.

The kids helped Mike decorate, hanging pumpkin lanterns from the deck outside and streamers around the snack area:

We created all kinds of special Halloween treats - Monster Munch, cookies, pumpkin dip with apples and graham crackers, and candy corn cookie bark, which was really good despite looking kinda scary in this photo.

The pumpkins were, of course, the main event. N was a much better sport about cleaning out his pumpkin this year. He even did it with a smile on his face! And a few hilarious dances as he tried to shake all the pumpkin guts off of his fingers...

G is an old pro at carving his pumpkin:

G and K opted to carve jack-o'-lantern faces while N and Mike used a template to carve out a Chiefs logo for him.

Actually, all the kids did a great job on their pumpkins:

It was definitely our best pumpkin carving party yet - great weather, fun friends, and excellent creations!

Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-30T17:42:00.004-05:00

Sometimes our plans don't exactly work out. For example, one might think that a 3:30 doctor appointment would allow plenty of time to visit the local pumpkin patch before a 7 PM Boy Scout meeting. However, if you wait an hour and a half before you actually get to SPEAK to the doctor...well, that means you'll be spending far longer in the doctor's office than originally planned. Oh, well. We were still determined to fit in our annual trip to get pumpkins so we opted for a much shorter visit.

There was still time to do a quick hayrack ride out to the pumpkin patch:

And pose for a few photos with the selected pumpkins:

And even a little bit of time to climb around on the pirate ship:

On the other hand, there was not enough time to do much else, but we had fun on the abbreviated visit. Added bonus - the place was empty by the time we arrived, which meant the kids had the pirate ship to themselves. I even snuck on board to check it out myself!

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Costumes ready!

2011-10-26T06:06:00.004-05:00

Grandma has been busy sewing and creating! Three Halloween costumes ordered...three Halloween costumes made!

A Lego for G:

A penguin for N:

And Dorothy for K:

I lack the sewing gene...so glad that my mom is willing and able to make costumes for the kids. They were all thrilled with their costumes!

Boo!

2011-10-25T05:39:00.005-05:00

This is my "busy season" at work. Last year, that translated into about 70 hours a week spent working, which is not my idea of fun. Especially when you consider that it is not only my "busy season" at work but it is also my favorite season...I love fall! Leaves changing colors, football, sweatshirt-wearing, birthdays, Thanksgiving...and yes, Halloween.

This year, I am determined to not let my "busy season" get in the way of the favorite season (although it has successfully gotten in the way of my blogging...I've missed a few days, OK, weeks lately!) I pledged to bring back some of our favorite Halloween traditions, and we started with this one. The kids are a bit older than they were the first year we BOO-ed the neighborhood, but they had just as much fun this time around.

G helped me print the BOO! signs and poem on the computer, and then he got them cut out for our friends.

Each kid selected three friends to Boo! plus we added bags for siblings. We filled each bag with candy, halloween bookmarks, erasers and pencils.

Under the cover of almost-darkness (hey, we have bedtimes!) we crept through the neighborhood delivering the bags, ringing the doorbells and running away!

Each friend then gets to BOO! 2 or 3 more people, hopefully helping the whole neighborhood get into the spirit!

And there may have been some pumpkins, too...

2011-10-23T18:03:00.007-05:00

One thing that we quickly learned when we prepared to move to Omaha two years ago was that Omaha has a famous pumpkin patch. Well, it is more than a pumpkin patch. It is a whole pumpkin-halloween experience.

Friends in KC were quick to tell us about it when we announced our move. "You'll spend the whole day there," they would say. "It is amazing!"

This left me a bit perplexed. After all, I had grown up in Omaha. How was it that I had never been to this "famous pumpkin patch" if it was so famous? In fact, I'd never even heard of it. Apparently, I grew up under a rock or something.

I was determined to make things right for my kids and allow them to experience Vala's in all its halloween glory. I checked out the website and discovered that everyone was correct...we were going to need a whole day for this. So one Sunday morning, we got everyone up very early, hit 7:30 AM mass, did a quick breakfast out and hit the road, determined to beat the crowd.

There were pig races:

And go-carts:

And dog shows:

And a big bounce area:

And a pumpkin eating dragon:

We even got to hear Nebraska's only astronaut speak. Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that at the pumpkin patch!

There was a corn maze where we may or may not have gotten slightly lost. I'm fairly certain that at least two of my kids were not actually trying to get us out of the corn maze as they yelled out "Left!" or "Right!" Obviously, we should have been more clear about the goal.

I can confirm that there were, in fact, pumpkins there, although we didn't spend much time with them since we were too busy playing mini-golf, watching the magic show and stuffing ourselves with food. But I was able to find one photo confirming the pumpkins:

I made each kid pose with this sign, since I'm fairly certain we'll be visiting the famous pumpkin patch again next year!

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

A Stop at the Orchard

2011-10-16T19:30:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, we made our annual visit to Nebraska City to the apple orchards. It is one of my favorite ways to celebrate my favorite season.

First we grabbed a meal at Kimmel Orchards...brats, chips, and cider. Let's be honest, though...it was really all about the apple pie. The kids had "The Works" - pie with ice cream and caramel sauce. I tried to be healthier...just plain pie. Plain yummy pie. Yes, this was me being "healthy":

After filling our bellies, we did some shopping. Apples, pies and jelly. Each year, the kids select jellies and jams for us to take home. Apple Butter was the clear favorite this year, but we also picked up red raspberry and apple jelly.

With our bellies full and our car stocked with goodies, it was time for the main event.

The guys checked out the map, planning a strategy of where we should head to pick the family favorites.

And while the guys were working on the masterplan for apple picking, what was K doing? Dancing, of course!

Only a few minutes into our apple picking journey, we noticed something that concerned us. Note the not-so-friendly sky...

Before we knew it, it was pouring. We made a mad dash back to a covered picnic area and waited for the downpour to stop. Unfortunately, a quick weather map check on our iphone revealed that more rain was on the way. We took advantage of a brief window and headed back for the world's fastest apple picking effort.

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Friday Favorites

2011-10-14T05:35:00.002-05:00

Time for Friday Favorites!

My favorite quote of the week arrived in my inbox on Tuesday (I have little quotes emailed to me each day) and it made me smile.

"A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it." -George Moore

My favorite photo is of my youngest two at the apple orchard last week:

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

Birthday Wrap-up

2011-10-13T06:30:00.005-05:00

Believe it or not, there was more to my birthday than the big surprise at the end. (Although I am super excited about my ipad!)

I took the day off from work. That was a given. With my jobs in KC and Cincinnati, I had many good friends in the office with me so it was fun to celebrate with them, but the office in Omaha is very small and just doesn't have that type of "fun" culture. Since my #1 rule for my birthday is I want to only do things that are fun, I decided I was entitled to a day of vacation!

Goal #2 was to sleep late. Unfortunately, I did not preapprove Goal #2 with the kiddos. I tried hard to ignore the normal morning hustle-and-bustle, but Mike finally crept back into the bedroom and told me the kids really wanted to see me before they went to school....so I got up. Somewhat reluctantly. It was worth it. First the kids sang "happy birthday" to me, then they "helped" the cats sing "happy birthday" to me, and then they served me the cinnamon breakfast birthday cake that they had made with Mike. (I always make the kids a birthday cake for breakfast on their birthdays...it was sweet to see them continue this tradition.) After they headed out the door with Mike, I sat outside on the deck watching the sunrise.

Up next: a quiet house. That certainly almost never happens! I got some scrapbooking done, headed out for a massage appointment and met Mike for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. Before I knew it, it was time to pick up the kids from school.

After dinner, there was cake! N decided that they should decorate my cake with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, since they are my favorite candy, so the kids actually put them all around the outside of the birthday cake. Now, keep in mind that I was sitting at the table with my eyes closed as they did this...I had to pretend to be completely surprised as if I had not been hearing them unwrap all those peanut butter cups while I waited! Of course, these are the little things that I want to remember - the peanut butter cup cake, the cats "singing" and the fact that K spent a good hour or so trying to convince me that there was not even going to be a cake for my birthday this year!

Mike and the kids wrapped the little ipad box in a much larger box to fool me. My parents used to do the same thing. Such funny, funny people. Of course, the box also provided the added benefit of becoming the post-present-opening entertainment since the kids were less excited about the ipad than I was...gee, let's see who can fit in the box? It reminded me of the time when N tried to mail K via UPS when they were little. Memories....

Happy 37th!

A Little Birthday Surprise - woo hoo!

2011-10-12T06:42:00.001-05:00

Butterfly release

2011-10-11T06:13:00.001-05:00

As a follow up to the Caterpillar-to-Butterfly Scout Camp last month, the Daisy Scouts have been learning about the butterfly metamorphosis process. A woman from a local nature center came to one of their meetings to teach them about the process, and she led them through several great activities. Then the big surprise - the girls also got take home some caterpillars so they could see the transition to butterfly up close.

For a few weeks, the caterpullar-to-butterfly transition took place in my daughter's bedroom. For what its worth, I avoided the bedroom and up-close-and-personal-transformation as much as possible. (Remember my spider lesson? I try to respect nature, and I have no problem with bugs when they are outside. But in my house? Not a fan!) This was easier said than done since my daughter was DELIGHTED by the whole experience. She rushed home to check on the progress every night and kept me fully updated. I actually did fine with it, taking photos of her little cage and its inhabitants during each stage...until the butterflies actually arrived.

I like butterflies. I really do. Once they started flying around in the little cage in her room, though, I really wanted to be "liking" them outside. I was thrilled when the day arrived that the butterflies were old enough to be set free!

Despite my squeamish response, this was a fun activity that all 3 kids really enjoyed!

Mooncakes Saga

2011-10-09T19:10:00.003-05:00

Mooncakes and I....we don't have a good history. I've tried hard to maintain this little piece of K's heritage, but we have not had much luck.

Early on, we had real mooncakes shipped from a bakery in New York. Unfortunately the authentic flavors were not exactly a hit with the kids. The first year, they did alright until they got to the egg yolk in the middle of one.

Later we opted for a much less authentic version - the packaged dessert called moon pies. They were a much bigger hit...but I had a sneaky feeling that our social worker would be less than impressed with this take of the holiday.

So, I kept working on it, The last few years we've made our moon cakes, using a recipe from "Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragon Boats." They tasted great but didn't really look like moon cakes.

Then my friend Molly brought us a mooncake mold from Hong Kong. Last year, we used our old mooncake recipe with the new mooncake mold. They looked great going into the oven...but they didn't look at all like that coming out of the oven.

So this year I was determined to fnd a mooncake recipe that would 1) taste good and2) hold the shape of the mooncake mold. Someone from our old FCC group sent me a recipe. It tasted more like a biscuit than a cookie. K and I had fun making them...

Again, the mooncakes looked great coming out of the mold and going into the oven, but the finished product looked like a blob.

New plan: make moon shaped sugar cookies and go back to buying the mooncakes. Any help on flavors to order next year?

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Friday Favorites

2011-09-30T06:22:00.002-05:00

I thought Friday would be a good day to post a favorite photo from the week as well as a favorite saying. Don't look for any connection (or hidden meaning) in the quote that I selected and the photo - there isn't one. Just a quote I like and a photo I like - simple enough.

I love inspirational quotes. When I was a teenager, I had a little journal where I recorded cool sayings and special quotes. I had forgotten about it until recently when I noticed one of my friends on facebook was regularly posting quotes. Each day, I'd read the quote she selected and smile. Hope my Friday quotes make you smile as well.

"If you do not have hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes."
- St. Clement of Alexandria

Visit The Long Road to China for Favorite Photo Friday.

Date Night

2011-09-29T05:28:00.004-05:00

Five or six years ago, Mike and I started buying tickets to the Broadway Across America series as a way to ensure we managed a few date nights each year. Date nights are a struggle for us. Initially, when we lived in Kansas City, I assumed this was because we didn't have family in town to babysit for us. At the time, we had three young kids, and I wasn't comfortable leaving them with a teenager so our "babysitter" was usually a teacher from their preschool. The school handed out lists of teachers who were willing to sit, and I felt much more comfortable leaving them with someone they knew and someone that I knew would be well suited to handle any "child crisis" that came up. Of course, this wasn't cheap...a certified teacher charges a bit more per hour than a teenager! So our "date nights" were fairly infrequent occasions.

When we moved from Kansas City to Omaha two years ago, I assumed we'd be heading out much more frequently. After all, we had eager grandparents who were willing to watch the kids living just 20 minutes away!

Surprise, surprise...that most certainly didn't happen. With Mike on the road Monday through Friday each week, it didn't seem right to be constantly scheduling "date nights" that took him away from the kids even more. They needed their dad...and if the weekend was the only time they could get him, I wasn't going to insist on a date night at their expense.

Now, we are six months in to our "new start" - Mike and I are both working out of the same city and maybe only have one business trip a month. Family time isn't quite so rare anymore. Surely now we can do the whole "date night" thing, right?

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't still a struggle. With three active kids, it is a challenge to find an evening when we aren't booked solid - and when we do find one, there is a natural tendency to want to curl up on the couch, not answer the phone and just veg out to old episodes of Mad Men (thanks to Netflix, we are finally watching this!) As a result, I've lowered my expectations. Perhaps we just aren't a "date night" kind of couple. I suppose there will be plenty of time for evenings out and quiet dinners when the kids are grown. Until then, I have a simple goal: one night a month where we actually go out to dinner, a movie, a play, or sporting event.

This month, we managed not one but two date nights - a dinner out for my birthday and a brunch (banana bread french toast...wow!) plus an afternoon showing of Jersey Boys, which was in town for the Broadway Series.

Jersey Boys was great. If it is in your area, I highly recommend it!

Daddy-Daughter Boot Camp

2011-09-27T06:02:00.002-05:00

Time for Boot Camp?

Oh, not for me. I'm not the let's-get-up-early-and-exercise-in-public type.

No, it is time for the 2nd Annual Daddy & Daughter Boot Camp for the local girl scounts. Mike and K had a blast at the one last year, despite the bad weather. This year it was more of the same:

Plenty of events:

Good friends:

And the best part of all? Some special one-on-one time with Daddy!

Three

2011-09-26T05:33:00.002-05:00

Today's Monday Mugs theme is 3.

As in, three little soccer plays, all looking pretty cute working on their soccer drills in the front yard.

This story doesn't end with 3, though. 3 is just the beginning.

3 kids in soccer = 6 practices each week plus 3-5 games per week. It is pure madness, I tell you.

This photo has nothing to do with the "3" theme but I think it is hilarious that a soccer ball got stuck in a tree during soccer drills and that my son decided to use a lacrosse stick to rescue it. Only at my house.

Check out more Monday Mugs at Oswald Cuties.

Camp Caterpillar...or something like that

2011-09-25T09:17:00.004-05:00

K recently attended her second Daisy Scout camp. This year's camp had a Caterpillar and Butterfly theme. There were all kinds of butterfly crafts. We made Butterflies with our names on them for the lodge bedroom doors.

After we finished all the crafts, there was still plenty of time for the usual camp favorites: cooking over a campfire, playing games, marshmellow roasting, hiking, and hanging out with favorite friends.

For the final activity of the weekend, the moms wrapped up their girls with paper streamers, creating a "cocoon" for each Daisy Scout:
Then we gently laid the girls down on the floor, stepped out of the way, and told them to break out of their cocoons. You can see the madness that followed in this photo - just imagine a dozen little girls laughing hysterically and you'll get the complete experience:

I'm happy to report that K earned her butterfly wings at the end of camp:

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Unwanted guest

2011-09-24T13:24:00.007-05:00

I try. I mean, I really try to be friends with nature.

I love sitting on our deck and watching the deer run in the field behind our house. I love hiking. Geez, remember how excited I was about seeing all the wildlife and the three bears when we were in Wyoming this summer?

At the same time, it is well documented that I'd prefer some aspects of nature to please please please remain outside of my home. And garage - beware spider, I am armed with a giant spray bottle of Lysol and I'm not afraid to use it. I've always had the theory that nature is fabulous as along as it stays where it is suppose to stay - in that case, I swear I will do my best to protect and preserve.

Where does one draw that line, though? This little...ok, big guy...was clearly pushing his luck when he decided to hang out on the window next to our front door for over three weeks. I'm sorry - but this is not a face I want to see each day.

For while, I reminded myself of my "I will do no harm as long as you stay out of my house" policy. Technically, the spider was not in my house. It was hanging on the side of my house. Technically, he was not in the way. We had a nest of baby birds living just under the roof of our covered porch so we'd been avoiding the front door anyway since Mommy and Daddy bird didn't seem to like it when we came anywhere near the nest. (Hello? This is my house. May I remind you that we live right next to a whole little forest full of trees that would have been a great choice for your little bird nursery??)

I kept hoping that the spider would just go away already. I kept reminding myself that the spider was outside. He was playing by the rules so I really should not go after him with a big can of bug spray or Lysol or whatever I had handy. But when the delivery man who comes to our house every two weeks actually said "Hey, the huge spider is still here - I remember it from last month!" I knew it was time to force an eviction.

Of course, I had no plans of actually assisting with the eviction. Instead, I begged my husband to help the spider relocate to friendly surroundings. Sadly, I can not say for sure whether the spider survived the relocation process. My husband claims that he nearly had the spider all the way from our house to the field when the spider decided to fight back. Faced with the threat of the spider barrelling down the piece of wood towards him, he chose to fling the piece of wood that the spider was on into the field rather than gently putting it down.

I'm sure he is fine, though, right?

Look at those twinklin' toes!

2011-09-22T07:12:00.000-05:00

My daugher was obsessed. OBSESSED with these shoes.

Me, I'm not the type to obsess about shoes. Most definitely, I don't get excited about $50 tennis shoes for a child. A child who is more than a little rough on her shoes. I figured those cute little sparkles would last, oh, about a week on this child's feet.

And then I felt bad. Because she never asks for things like this. And she didn't whine or carry on or beg or throw a fit when I said no MONTHS ago. So when I saw a pair on clearance for $25...and I had a coupon on top of that? I totally caved.

She was completely surprised, and her smile lit up the whole room when she saw them.

I'm still not convinced the shoes will last long or that they were worth their price tag...but the smile was definitely worth every penny paid.

Freedom Walk

2011-09-18T16:35:00.006-05:00

Every year our community holds a Freedom Walk at around the same time as the anniversary of 9-11 as a way to support the men and women serving our country. This year, nearly 1,000 walkers participated, and four of them were from our family.

A colonel from the local air force base as well as the mayor and various politicians spoke before the walk. The kids were ready, although I confess that they were more interested in watching the high school bands and cheerleaders than listening to the politicians. (I confess I might have felt the same way!)

There were also several Nebraska flags on site for walkers to sign. The flags would be sent to military personnel stationed abroad who are from Nebraska.

The JROTC lined the walk route with 50 flags representing the 50 states.

It was a fun event, and we were glad to attend to show our support for the troops stationed around the world.

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Movie Night

2011-09-17T09:40:00.003-05:00

Been on a little business trip...but now I'm back and ready to catch up on blogging!

What happens when Mom goes to book club and Dad is in charge of the kids for the evening? An insane amount of junk food is consumed!

Mike's company hosted a family movie night on the lawn of their downtown campus.
In addition to the showing of Despicable Me, they were treated to a bunch of free food. So what exactly did they eat? I think I'll just copy my husband's Facebook post so he won't accuse me of exaggerating:
"NOBODY had more fun at movie night on the lawn than my kids. Despicable Me is a very funny movie. Plus among the three of them: 3 Hebrew National hot dogs, 1 bag Andy Capp Cheddar Fries, 2 boxes Crunch n Munch, 3 Healthy Choice fudge bars, 1 bag of David's sunflower seeds and 3 sprites. Who says Dad doesn't feed us dinner?"

Then he adds "And K says her stomach hurts now. Maybe the entire bag of cheddar fries wasn't the best move."

Maybe??? Ah, dads...luckily, I only make it to book club about once every 6 months...

Remembering 9-11

2011-09-11T20:18:00.004-05:00

Many people will write about 9-11 today, and they will do it better. To say nothing, though, doesn't seem right.

When I was a teenager and young adult, I occasionally thought about the generations before me - those who could tell you where they were when Pearl Harbor was attacked or JFK was shot. I tried to decide what my children and grandchildren would ask me about one day, and I thought it would be the Challenger explosion. To me, that was the big moment of my childhoood. I could remember so much about that day, coming back from music class, seeing the teachers huddled in the hallway whispering. I remembered going to piano lessons with my friends after school, but no one wanting to practice. I was sure that was the moment, the big event for my generation.

Until 9/11/01. Then I knew without a doubt - this is it. This is the day my children and grandchildren will ask me about, the day that I suspect I will struggle to put into words no matter how much time has passed.

On September 11, 2001, I was in downtown Cincinnati, working in that city's twin towers for P&G. We heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, but our first reaction was not that there had been a terror attack. Can you imagine that? A time when your first assumption was ACCIDENT not ATTACK? That just wasn't where anyone's mind went at first - until the second plane hit. I remember huddling around the TV downstairs by the coffee bar and then later around another TV that had appeared out of nowhere on our floor. I remember calling my husband, my parents, my brother who was a cadet at West Point. Suddenly, it seemed I was living too far from my family. I remember such naive thoughts - I had no comprehension of how many people were in those buildings, how long it would take to evacuate them, that the buildings would come down. In the days and weeks that followed, I remember the nonstop news coverage. You didn't want to watch, but you couldn't not watch. Each person's story, each family member carrying a photo, their pain, their suffering...it didn't feel right to turn it off. It felt like all you could do was listen and cry with them. The firefighters, the pentagon, the passengers on the planes. American flags everywhere. Patriotic songs filled the airwaves. To this day, just thinking about it all can make me tear up.

For my kids, this is not the case. How could it be? When we went to the Freedom Walk a few days ago, which is held in our town every year near 9-11, the kids see the bands, the patriotic colors, their friends. To them, it is fun. For every adult present, it is more.

My kids don't know much about 9-11. At some point, G learned about it at school because this summer when we drove past a building in Omaha called the twin towers, he spoke up from the backseat about how he had learned about the twin towers at school one year. He described it to me, and he got it all right - yet it felt completely wrong.

He was reciting facts.

I can't talk about 9-11 without emotions.

A newspaper article I read recently summed it up perfectly...for us, 9-11 is a memory. For our kids, it is history. Such a big difference.

On 9-11-01, I was in my third trimester of my first pregnancy. There were times immediately following the attack where I felt tremendous guilt about bringing a child into a world that was full of such hatred. Then a friend, who was also pregnant, said something that helped. She said being pregnant made her feel better - that she knew she'd do her best to raise her child to feel love and compassion for others and that she would do her part to counteract some of this hate.

So on this 10th anniversary of 9-11, I offer up this picture of my oldest child, the son I was carrying on 9-11-01 who was born exactly two months later on 11-11-01. He is kind, gentle, caring and compassionate. Without a doubt, he has brought all kinds of love into the world for the last ten years.

Sometimes in the face of tremendous hate, all you can give back to the world is love. And a promise to never forget.

Weekend with old friends

2011-09-08T05:08:00.005-05:00

Whenever I type "old friends" I pause and wonder if that is the best description to use. These friends aren't "old" age-wise (well, unless I am also old. Perhaps this is the real reason I pause and ponder!) But they have been our friends for the longest time. I met Jenny in kindergarten briefly - and then became good friends when we were in 8th grade. Mike and Brian met in college. Mike and I actually met at their wedding where we walked down the aisle together as members of their wedding party. And a few years later, they did the same for us as our Best Man and Matron of Honor. Somehow "old friends" is the best I can come up with so we'll go with that for now!

On Friday night, their family joined us for dinner and an outdoor music concert at a shopping center near our house. One of our other friends from high school was in the band that was performing that night. Unfortunately, we arrived a bit late and couldn't find anywhere to sit...so after a few songs and a hi to the person we knew, we headed back to our house to chat and let the kids run around in the backyard.

The next day, we headed to the zoo. My daughter is roaring and growling in this photo at the lion statue. I did try to get a normal picture but she was pretty set on the lion imitation.

Their kids are the same age as our kids, which always works out well for get together. They even hosted the kids for a sleepover earlier this year, which my kids described as incredibly fun.

For some reason, 90% of the photos I took that day were on the Skyfari (see yesterday) or the zoo train. There were other parts of the zoo. Honest.

To ensure that his sister wasn't the only one making crazy faces in our photos that day, N did his part:

My Shoot Me photo this week is of the girls on the train:

View of the zoo from above

2011-09-07T06:02:00.002-05:00

Quick Trip to New York

2011-09-06T06:12:00.007-05:00

As I was sorting through pictures from the summer to upload to facebook, I realized I completely forgot to blog about K's little trip to New York to see her friend Zoe. I suspect that this was completely intentional on my part due largely to the fact that I was/am incredibly jealous that she got to spend the week with our friends there while I got to spend the week at work. Alas, sometimes life is not fair!

Zoe is one of K's oldest friends. They actually lived together at her orphanage in China, and both girls were adopted on the same day. We became good friends with this family during our trip - they also had two older boys - and have kept in touch over the years. We try to get together every year or every other year, but it is getting harder and harder as the kids grow older. So when Mike had a business trip to the town that Zoe lives in, we purchased a plane ticket for K to join him and crossed our fingers that the trip would not get cancelled at the last minute (this seems to happen often with business trips...our plan to go see them in 2010 was called off in such a fashion.)

The girls had no trouble at all reconnecting. In fact, they may have stayed up a bit too late talking and giggling. Sometimes it is hard to go to sleep when good friends are around.

In addition to visiting them at their house, K spent one day at the lake. It was no surprise to me when my friend told me my daughter was quite the water bug! She was definitely in her element!

This would have been a cute picture of the girls if my daughter was not quite so obsessed with her ice cream cone. Well, it does look quite delicious so I guess I can understand the obsession.

K had a great time visiting her friend - and thanks a bunch to this family for hosting her while Mike was off in meetings at a supplier. Next time, we'll have to figure out a way to get all of us out there for a few days!

The Yard Project

2011-09-05T08:55:00.006-05:00

When we purchased our house in Cincinnati, it was our very first house. We did nothing to it. OK, technically, we built some shelves for storage in the basement (and by "we" I mean Mike, of course...) and I guess we also replaced the carpet before we moved in (it was hot pink, people!) but that was it. We didn't even paint any of the rooms. It was just exciting to have a house. We felt like we were playing grown-ups. It never would have entered my mind to think of PROJECTS for the house.

Then we moved to Kansas City. We painted. We replaced the carpet. As we added kids to the family, the project list grew. We had to finish the basement since our office in the extra bedroom was needed for additional kids. We had playroom needs. We needed more shade in the backyard so we put a pergola (is that the right word? The lattice roof thingee) on the deck. Then there was the patio we added to the backyard so the little two could ride their little cars on something. We added a bathroom to the basement so there would be one close to the playroom when both N and K were potty-training. Every month, it seemed that there was a new project.

My goal when we looked for a house in Nebraska? No projects! I wanted to find something that was done so we could spend our time together rather than working on projects. I seriously considered this as we were making final house decisions, concluding that this house got the final bonus points because the basement was finished and the yard was landscaped.

I'm sure you can imagine where this is going. What are we currently working on in our free time? A house project. OK, a yard project to be more exact. When we had to have the landscaping redone last year (long story, problems with drainage...I'm still bitter!) we had these cool landscape stones placed as border around a few of the flower beds. The guy doing the project initally wrote us a quote for putting the stones around all the flowers beds in our yard, but the sticker shock caused us to cut the project down to the bare minimum and this certainly didn't make the cut. Roll the clock forward a year, though, and we were wishing we had gone forward with the project. So now it has become a do-it-yourself yard project.

Fortunately, my parents are helping us with this major effort, and the kids do their best to help us out as well.

Some help a bit more than others. K prefers to be in charge of getting water for everyone and sitting in the driveway playing with any worms that have been dug up during the yard project. (She very nicely brought a pile of dirt over to the driveway so the worms would have dirt.) N was a bit more willing to dig in to help - and to show off his hard-working dirty hands.

Right now, the front is done as well as one half of one side of the house. At this pace, we'll be done by the time the kids head off to college!

The arrival of football

2011-09-04T10:17:00.006-05:00

The weather is starting to cool off, school is back in session, and the calendar has turned from August to September. Around these parts, that can only mean one thing:

GO

BIG

RED!

(Note the arms flung above the head in dramatic touchdown position...which Mom, of course, missed fully capturing with her camera.)

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Family Day

2011-09-01T05:40:00.003-05:00

Every year, we celebrate Family Day, which is our celebration of the anniversary of the day that all five members of our family were together for the first time. (This is also the day we returned home from China with K.) We started the day off with homemade pumpkin pancakes - my favorite! Mike added chocolate chips, which makes the kids very happy.

After breakfast, we headed to Trader Joe's. I know that does not sound like much of a Family Day adventure, but we rarely make it across town to Trader Joe's so it is a bit of a treat for us. Somehow the kids manage to convince me to let them pick out a special treat every time we go there. This time it was gummy penguins. (I rate them below the frozen chocolate banana slices we had last time...yum!)

After that, we headed home for some quality time together. Last year, we put together a large puzzle on Family Day so we decided to make that part of our yearly tradition. This year's puzzle is of the space shuttle taking off in honor of its final mission this year.

I finally finished the kids' scrapbooks from 2009 (I know) and we all enjoyed looking through each one.

Armed with homemade pizza, we settled in for a movie night.

My Shoot Me photo is of the family on Family Day:

Painting with my oldest

2011-08-31T09:14:00.005-05:00

Continuing with our effort to get back into the Special Day habit, G and I participated in Brush Up Nebraska. My co-workers and I agreed to spend the day painting a house for this community service effort sponsored by Union Pacific, and when some of the people in the office mentioned that they were bringing their kids, I knew this would be a great way for G and I to spend some time together.

We were assigned to a house in Carter Lake, Iowa (yes, my son did quickly point out to me that this was actually in Iowa...so it was weird that they called it Brush Up Nebraska.) We spent the day painting this house. The older woman who lived there was very thankful. She kept telling us over and over how much she appreciated this and that the house had not been painted since she was first married many years ago. G did a great job. Even though it was hard to be crouched down low for an extended period of time, he did lots of the low painting that was harder for the adults to do.

A few days before the event was scheduled, the area was hit with a powerful storm with heavy softball sized hail that caused all kinds of damage to the homes in the area. There were lots of tree limbs down in her yard as a result. After they finished painting, G and a few other kids helped collect the tree limbs and rake the lawn for her as well. I was so proud of him! We celebrated all of his hard work with a meal out at Jimmy John's afterwards.

And yes, he has paint on his face...I told you it was hard work. Hard and messy!

Special day

2011-08-30T19:45:00.005-05:00

We are trying to get back in the habit of scheduling Special Days with the kids. Special Days was something we started years ago as a way to ensure we were getting some one-on-one time with each child since our normal habit was to do everything together as a family all the time. Unfortunately, after we moved to Nebraska, Mike ended up in a job that required him to be on the road every week day. Since he was only home with us on the weekends, it didn't seem right to further divide his time with the kids by doing Special Days. Thankfully, the nonstop travel is over (and I'm sooo much happier) so we are working our way back into this tradition.

N had a Special Day with Mike just last week. They headed to a Stormchasers game. While all three kids have fun at the ballpark, N loves baseball in a way that the other two do not. He can sit and watch games for hours - on TV, on the computer or in person. Mike is the same way so this was a great way for them to spend some time together. During the game, Mike sent me this photo of N, relaxin' on the grass:

N even got a special treat at the game - a sundae in the little mini-baseball cap. I always thought this was the best baseball game treat when I was a kid:

However, I did not realize that the souvenir cap was also the perfect size for Henry. An added bonus!

Scouts Kickoff

2011-08-28T14:19:00.005-05:00

With summer ending and the new school year in full swing, our schedule is starting to fill up with after-school activities. K's daisy scout troop recently held its first kickoff event.

Officially, it was a summar luau hosted by the troop leader. For the girls, though, it was all about this monster water slide that was rented for the occasion:

K had a very, very, very good time:

The older scouts were eventually able to lure the girls away from the massive water slide with bunch of games - water relay races, a water balloon toss, and (of course!) a water balloon fight.

I'm participating in Sunday Snapshot over at Ni Hao Y'all. Come join in the fun!

Back to School

2011-08-25T05:34:00.009-05:00

The kids are officially back in school for the new year! You already know that we have quite a few back-to-school traditions since that was a post earlier this week, but I realized that I hadn't share the photos of the kids on the big day yet! So here they are:

G started 4th grade this year!

N was very excited to have G's old 2nd grade teacher.

And K is in 1st grade. She has a different teacher this year than N had last year. We're all still adjusting to that.

My Shoot Me photo this week is of me with the kids on the first day. This would be right before I headed out for MY first day of school tradition - coffee with some other moms followed by a massage. I highly recommend it! I plan on continuing THAT tradition well into my kids college years!

Birthday Game Round 2

2011-08-24T05:27:00.010-05:00

Remember N's birthday party that kinda wasn't? The fun of spending several hours at a ballpark with a group of kids waiting for a game to start that ultimately got rained out? Yeah, not my most favorite day ever! However, since the game was rained out, we could redeem our ticket stubs for another game. We elected to NOT haul six of N's friends back to the ballpark and instead enjoyed a quiet night at the stadium with my parents.

N got to throw out the first pitch at the game since it was part of the Birthday Party package and take a photo with the mascots:

The weather was amazing - it was a nice cool summer evening. We enjoyed all kinds of concession stand food...you know, the kind of thing you'd never eat at home because it is awful for you, but that somehow seems acceptable at a ball game. K did her best to talk off her dad's ear for the entire game:

N even got up on the big screen when everyone sang "happy birthday" to him - he is a little hard to see so I added the box around him:

League Champs

2011-08-23T05:40:00.003-05:00

G's baseball team was crowned League Champs in July. The boys were actually undefeated going into the final game of the season; however, the extreme heat (temperatures were well above 100 degrees...) seemed to get the best of them. It was not one of their better games of the season, and they ended up losing their final game. The undefeated season was gone - but they still won their league and League Champions shirts were handed out after the game.

The team got together for an end-of-the-season party a few weeks later. The boys all signed each other's League Champion shirts and got trophies:

Back to School Traditions

2011-08-22T05:23:00.001-05:00

This week's Monday Mugs topic is Back to School so I thought I'd share our favorite Back-to-School traditions.

We always have a special breakfast on the first day of school - homemade donuts, muffins, waffles or monkey bread:

As expected, we take a first day of school photo with the kids before they head off to school. We take a few basic ones and then also have them hold up fingers corresponding to the grade they are entering:

A few years ago, I got a great tip from another blogger and started having the kids do a Back-to-School drawing - they usually draw a picture of their classroom or teacher or friends in their class. Then we have them write their name and grade. At the end of the year, they will do a last-day-of-school drawing. It is fun to compare how their writing and/or drawing has improved during the school year.

When the kids return home after school has ended, they each get a school cone. The tradition of the Schultuete started in Germany, and we've done it for the last 2 or 3 years. I place a special gift for each child at the bottom of the cone (nail polish, a shirt, baseball cards, etc.) and then fill the cone with school supplies, popcorn and candy. This year, I made the cone out of a large puzzle sheet so when the kids were done with the treats inside, we undid the cone and they got to do the puzzle.

My favorite Back-to-School tradition is our first day of school cake. We've done this every year since my oldest started kindergarten: pencil cake, crayon cake, blackboard cake, etc. This year it was an apple cake:

Check out more Monday Mugs at Oswald Cuties.