Journal: almost spring. really. maybe.

TODAY

Out my window: Sunny and lovely.  You should see the 15 day forecast.  I know I shouldn't call it yet, but I'm saying early Spring.  Time will tell.  Because obviously I shouldn't count on the groundhog.  But I did move some plants back outdoors to the deck...

Around the house: Let's see, several things.  Gemma had this little shelf in her closet -- which I have dubbed "the traveling bookshelf" because it has spent time in nearly every closet/storage area of our house -- but it was too small to house her books and other items so it was just kind of a disorganized mess and nothing ever got used because it was either lost or too difficult to wedge from the bottom of the pile.  I should have taken a before picture.  I was all set to buy her a nine-cube for her room (which is the smallest bedroom in the house but has an amazing capacity for holding a large amount of furniture, really good door and window placement is all I can figure) when I realized that the kids have grown out of many of the toys on the nine-cube in the basement and it is more storage than we need.  So I hauled it upstairs to her room and we got it all organized (I wasn't too big a control freak about this, maybe, well sort of, um, nevermind...), but we're both really pleased with the results and the traveling bookshelf went to the basement to house the games and toys that actually get played with.  Win win and I didn't spend a thing.  AND the dog's box STILL fits in her room at the foot of her bed.  

I made a little Valentine's bunting for over the fireplace with all the Valentines the kides made us.  I kind of love it and will probably leave it up awhile even though Valentine's Day is over.

Starting to think about Spring wardrobes for kids.  We have most of the stuff we need, just a few holes to fill in.  Speaking of holes, I have thrown away three pair of Clement's pants and one pair of shoes in the past several weeks because they were literally threadbare.  Apparently little boy clothes can make it through exactly 1.75 little boys.

Trying to figure out my negotiating tactics for AT&T because we are paying too.friggin.much. for phone/cable/internet.  #firstworldproblems 

The kiddos:

Gemma started piano lessons last week.  I think it's going to be a really good fit and her teacher lives FIVE MINUTES from our house.

Kolbe started spelling words (as in, taking spelling tests) at school this week!  He is doing so many things I never dreamed he'd be able to accomplish.  That sounds lame and sappy.  I am just so pleased with how far he has come this year.

Letter H this week for Clem.  He has decided he doesn't want to do school, but if I call it "letter H (or whatever) things" he is good and will gladly work on activities.  Just rolling with it, I'm not here to force anything.

Starting to think about Summer activities.  VBS is a sure thing, and swim lessons at some point.  Art Camp maybe? Now that we are members at the Y, I think we will take a little more advantage of some of the things they have to offer...looking at baseball for Kolbe and a tumbling class for Gemma.  I don't want to be insanely busy, or turn myself into a taxi service, but it will be nice to have some things to keep us out of trouble (HA!) while school is not in session.

In the kitchen: This week hamburgers, beef stroganoff, hot dogs (see below) lime chicken tacos, salads (maybe) and veggie and shrimp tortellini. I have chili and Dijon chicken on the menu for next week which is really planning ahead for me.  Now to make a grocery list. And finish meal-planning the week....  I have made a couple batches of pumpkin and banana bread.

Learning:  The school had their annual Read Night this week!  Hot dog dinner, storytime in the library and games and crafts in the classroom.  It's such a good time.  I remember, as a teacher, going back for an evening activity after teaching all day wasn't always the most appealing thing in the world, yet just about every teacher was there last night, and they went out of their way to make it a "groovy" (that was the theme) good time for the kids.  So grateful for our school/Church community (and that they are one in the same).

Working the past week on establishing our Lenten routines and rhythms.  Simple and meaningful.  Doing the Lenten Cross readings (think Jesse Tree for Lent) again which I love, I think we will almost exclusively use the "real" Bible this year (vs. Children's versions).  The  Prayer from Morning Prayer is always a nice daily reminder/refocus for the season.  I was all excited to use this book but then as Ash Wednesday neared I just wasn't feeling it, and we're not doing the prayer garden this year either but have some neat activities for alms that involve helping other school kids and Kolbe has a little daily calendar of kind acts from school.  We are saying a decade of the Rosary at bedtime for a priest friend of ours and his new endeavors and I will tell you...the family rosary has always terrified me.  So much so that I've never even tried it.  We will do decades in the van along with a CD occasionally, but seriously, the kids are STRAPPED INTO ONE SPOT AND LISTENING TO THE PRAYERS ON A CD so how hard is that?  I mean, it's still meaningful, but it doesn't take heroic effort or anything.  Bedtime prayers are a huge source of angst for me so this was a dicey move, but it's going fairly marginally well. We've only broken one Rosary and as long as no one puts his Rosary in the wrong spot in the prayer corner we have mostly avoided knock-down drag-out fights.  Clem even beaded his own Rosary late last week (just a loop of beads, we leave off the anchor part when we make kid rosaries) and he and Kolbe have both been pretty diligent about wanting to follow along with the Hail Mary's.  I will report back post-Easter if I really live through this. 

Reading: Finally (long story) finishing The Moffat Museum with the kids.  I am totally nerding out over checking out great books each week for Clem's Letter of the Week.  This week my fave was Cactus Hotel which I really would like to own some day.  Making good then not good then good progress with Fire Within.  It's so rich.

Watching: usuals.  Aaron has gotten into this show about people who make knives.  It is mildly interesting but sometimes TV just seems like such a waste of time.  Bleh.

Bringing me joy: Prayer and carving out daily time for meditation.  Read Night with the kids.  Watching the kids' play that Gemma wrote (Mary Had a Little Lamb) this weekend, they were so adorable (see picture of the baa-baa lamb).  I love them.  Even when they push me to the edge of my sanity.

Thinking about: Blah.  I should just take this category out because either a.) by the time I get to the bottom I don't feel like hashing out more of my random brain-dumps, or b.) whatever I am thinking about I don't particularly feel like sharing for any random person on the interwebs to peruse.  So yeah.

Pictures to share: See above. I have tried for far too long to figure out how to embed the Mary Had a Little Lamb play and I'm not getting it.  Peace out my friends!!!

January birthdays 2016 part II

With the kids' birthdays being so close together, and thus always celebrating (with grandparents) together, we try to be sure and do some things to make their individual days special.  For whatever reason, "Birthday Brownies for Breakfast" has become the tradition.  This year Gemma also took brownies as her school treat, so I made THREE pans for her birthday!!!  She requested M&M's on top.  Kolbe had been talking about brownies with frosting and sprinkles since last Summer, so we pulled that one off too, even found some dye-free sprinkles for him to go on the cream-cheese frosting I made!

Kolbe was very kind to let Gemma help him decorate his brownies before breakfast.  He is such an empathetic kid.

Gemma got some hair bows and a water bottle for school (that I later destroyed in the dishwasher...oops) for her birthday.  I had noticed how silly all her bows were looking in her hair lately, and it dawned on me that it was because they were intended for toddlers.  HA! The new bows are great, she likes them a lot!  She also got a coupon for a date with mama to pick out some new tennies, and her own copy of Happy Birthday Jamela. And yes, the kids get to open their presents first thing in the morning!  Gemma wanted me to hide hers around the living room this year because apparently I did that several years ago and she thought that was super cool.

Gemma wanted me to take a picture of her at her "birth  moment". Officially an 8 year old!!

 I had lunch at school with both kids on/near their individual birthdays.

Kolbe has had a "4" shirt and a "5" shirt and he was reallllllly hoping for a "6" one, so he was pretty excited to open that first thing on his birthday morning.  He also got the book "Swimmy".  And, he got a "big kid" bike and we took a shopping trip to Academy (a fun winter-afternoon activity) so he could pick out a new helmet (complete with a spike mohawk across the top).  Pictures of bike and helmet forthcoming, I didn't take any.  :-/  Kolbe has gotten really into legos again (he can now follow the directions by himself with VERY little assistance) and he got a cool submarine set from Gemma's godmother (so sweet) for his birthday and a helicopter set for his Baptism anniversary.

We had burgers and fries and ice cream sundaes out for dinner on Kolbe's birthday, and now we are back to eating clean! Happy Birthday to our BIG kids!!!

Christmas 2015

This year our Christmas celebrations started on Wednesday when we had donuts delivered by a couple of Aaron's brothers.  Somehow this has become a tradition and the kids just love it, since clearly we don't get enough donuts every Sunday after Mass.  

Later that day we visited our friend Jean at the care home.  We stayed a little longer than usual, and she took us on a little tour around the place to show us all "her" Christmas decos.  That was fun.  I am so glad that we have built this relationship, it is such a blessing to our family and especially the kids.

When we got home the kids went over to our dear neighbor's for cookies and she had made them each a little pencil pouch.  Clem loved his so much he has slept with it every night with his little kitten zipped up inside.

That evening we went on our annual light-look.  We'd never waited until that late in the year to go.  Suffice it to say that the eve of Christmas eve is a VERY popular night to go out and look at lights.  But we had a really good time. Just don't check the gas mileage on our van.

Earlier in the week we worked on our annual ornaments for grandparents and godparents.  We decided to take a break from the salt-dough ones and did photo ornaments this year instead, I had picked up a pack at Aldi at the end of the season last year for super cheap.  This was a nice change in pace (read: sooooooooooo much easier and wayyyyyyyyy less messy). 

Christmas eve was a really quiet day this year (plans/obligations outside the house-wise that is).  Normally we celebrate with my inlaws that day, but apparently there were some scheduling conflicts so we had the day to ourselves.  We did some shopping in the morning (groceries and some last minute Christmas gifts the kids needed to pick up for me).  I'd be a liar if I said it was a great day.  It was actually a really long day and by evening the kids about had me to my breaking point.  Merry Christmas.  But we survived, we always do.  And the rest of the weekend was pretty good.

We finished up our Jesse tree!  This is such a great tradition, I just love it.  So, so much.  I am glad I finally got my act together and made something we can use year after year.  I like it a bunch.

Christmas morning we took our annual pictures in front of the tree.

The kids were particularly cooperative this year, so that was nice!  We did have one good outtake though.

Then we headed to Mass to celebrate the birth of Christ.  We grabbed a family pic afterwards.  Always amusing.  Here are the two we ended up with. Always amusing. Did I mention that?  Clem is clutching the aforementioned pencil pouch.

Then we arrived home and St. Nick had come!  How does he do that?!  (With a locked garage door and a mama who forgot to write the check for church.  Again.  Every year, same story.  Bahahaha.)

Opening gifts was really fun this year.  We were excited about the things we Santa found for the kids.

Gemma got:

1. a new backpack for school

2. an owl pillow that matches her bedding

3. a sticker book and the Violet books which she has gotten multiple times from the library and loved.

Kolbe got:

1. the much longed-for walkie talkies (I got cold feet on the motorola ones and went with a kids set, they seem to be a good fit)

2. a space puzzle and a similar sticker book to Gemma's (which he had also been pining for)

3. a hooded bath towel (our homemade ones are getting to be on their last legs, they have graduated to pool-use now) 

Clement got:

1. Ten Apples Up On Top (about which he was positively ecstatic, see picture below) and Tops and Bottoms (I only wish I had gotten the CD version, oh well)

2. a Thomas the Train 35 piece puzzle

3. Hi-Ho Cherry-O (I sprung for the vintage version and that was a good call)

All three kids got fleece Old Navy gloves in their stockings.  Gemma got the Chime Traveler chapter books, Kolbe got Blink (game) and Clem got a Poky Little Puppy Christmas ornament for the tree.

The kids both had homemade gifts for us from school (how did their teachers know that hand-print art is my absolute FAVE!), and this was the first year they had strong feelings about shopping for Aaron and me, so Aaron got some Royals swag and I got some kitchen items, including some new glasses as we have broken almost half of ours.  Would you believe Bed Bath and Beyond still carries the exact ones we got for our wedding?!  Now we have lots more to break.... The kids also worked really hard on homemade gifts for each other (completely their idea) and it was really sweet to watch them exchange those gifts.  Lots of perler beads and paper-made creations.  And a library book (bahahaha).  It was a fun morning opening gifts together and then playing some games.  

We had an enjoyable time with both extended families on Christmas afternoon/evening (my family) and the evening after Christmas (Aaron's family) and are actually having a quiet day at home today since the weather was too iffy to travel to see extended-extended family.  This post is too long to detail those with pictures and commentary, so I think it's time to wrap this up!  Merry Christmas to all!!