When outside looks like this…
We hang out at home and do this…
Then we go out to do this…
When our fingers and noses freeze, we come back in and take this…
And contain it all into this…
Busy day, huh? It’s not often we get this much snow here. When it does happen, everyone is homebound.
Tell me… What do you do when you’re homebound?
I can brag about my husband right? Valentine’s Day is approaching. I have more than 5 reasons why I am in love with Nathan. Maybe 7. OK, 10. Since you’re probably not into PDA (public display of affection), I’ll keep it at 5.
See why I am in love with this man? Love him to a million pieces times 10. Happy Valentine’s Day!
It was a cloudy and rainy Saturday last week. My cabin fever temperature was around 105 degrees. Time for an excursion. Leonardo da Vinci was at the art museum. That sounded interesting. No photography was allowed in the da Vinci exhibit. Understandable.
Leonardo da Vinci was a genius. More than just in art. He said…
I want to plaster that phrase all over my house. He had such great insights into life having lived an eventful life himself. He also said…
“Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
As da Vinci attempted to create the world’s largest bronze horse statue, he had this on his mind…
“He who lets time pass does not grow in virtue: the more I think of it the more I grieve. No man has it in him to be virtuous who will give up honor for gain. Good fortune is of no avail to he who does not toil.”
“Gluttony, sleep and idleness in bed have banished every virtue from the world. So that our bewildered nature is almost overcome by debauchery. Henceforth, it would be well to rouse yourself from sleep, the Master said, because lying down will not bring thee to Fame; nor staying beneath the covers. He who, without Fame, burns his life to waste, leaves no more vestige of himself on earth than wind-blown smoke or the foam upon the sea.”
Is that great or what? What do you think about the quotes?
It really turned out well. After all the back and forth on whether or not I should do a party, I’m glad we did one but kept it small. Her birthday was actually on Thursday. But since Nathan had school that evening, we took her out to McDonalds (or Kaye calls it Ol’ McDonalds) for lunch. Elle is like her mommy. We love French fries.
We saved her Chinese birthday party for Friday evening. Thanks to all those who paid her birthday wishes. Here’s my big girl at her birthday party…
standoff between Elle and gifts.
Elle eating frosting.
I’m getting personal today. I hope you don’t mind. My youngest, Elle, just turned 1 yesterday. Nathan and I turned our room into a mini studio to snap a few pictures of her. OK, a few as in over 300, but that is because she doesn’t sit still and I knew most pictures would turn out blurry. Good thing for digital, right?
This is for my little Elle who just turned 1 yesterday. All moms say it. So I’ll say it too. It’s hard to believe that a year ago, she was so tiny with a cute little yawn. Now she is the spunk in our lives. Full of energy and spirit. Never a dull moment with her around.
I love her…
I am looking forward to 2010. There will be some exciting things happening to our little family of four this year.
The picture is Nathan helping the girls get ready to go out and check the mail. They both wanted to go with dad to check the mail. I am in love with those three.
I live in the South. On purpose. I am not a snowy winter type. Give me 70 degrees with sunshine and I’ll be happy. However, my 3-year-old Kaye had been hoping and praying for snow. She desperately wanted to build a snowman this winter. I finally gave in. I also hoped and prayed that Kaye’s snow wish would come true. I guess with the power of both of our wishes, it came true.
Last Thursday around 1 p.m. the snow started coming down. Oh, the face on that little girl’s face. It was priceless. I took the girls out for a little catch-the-snow fun. And by the evening, there were enough snow to make a mini snowman. A dream come true.
The next morning, the snowman looked like he got mugged by a bigger snowman. But the morning view with snow was breath taking.
Can I just say… I am excited about 2010. I love the fresh feeling of a new year. We didn’t party hardy for New Year’s. Rather, we stayed home and spent the night relaxing with the kids. It was much needed around here. It would have been impossible for us to party with our friends on New Year’s Eve.
First, Elle came down with pink eyes, ear infection that caused her ear drum to rupture AND strep in the affected ear Christmas Eve. She was also extremely irritable from lack of sleep. Would only allow me to hold her all day long. It also meant I didn’t get much sleep or much done around the house one handed (Elle in the other arm). I tried to get her into pediatric urgent care over Christmas weekend but the wait was over 4 hours long. So she suffered through it like a trooper until I could get her to the pediatrician first thing Monday morning. She is doing much better since she has been on antibiotics for a week now.
Second, it was too cold outside. It is still cold. I am freezing to death here in the South. It’s supposed to be warm. But it’s not. It’s around 12 degrees at night. Brrr.
Third, we couldn’t keep a 3-year-old and a sick 11-month-old up until midnight. My children value their sleep. And I value their sleep too. It’s the only way I get things done around here.
Last, our power went out that night. Yup. Pitch black around 10 p.m. It came back on just before the stroke of midnight. But by then, we were all ready for bed. So no ball drop for us.
We still had fun. We can use more relaxing night around here.
Happy 2010 to you!
Overall our Christmas we a delight. It was a surprisingly relaxing Christmas. We weren’t able to make it out to Washington (state) to visit my husband’s family. Rather, we spent Christmas with my family here in the South where it was rainy and windy. All went well with the exception of all of us getting a little cold. But our poor little Elle had ear infects the night before Christmas. Our pediatrician’s office was closed over the holiday and weekend. The pediatric urgent care had a wait of over 4 hours. So she suffered through until Monday morning when I could finally get her to a doctor.
Christmas Eve, Santa made an appearance at our home. We must have been good this year.
Christmas morning the gift opening began around 8:30 for us. Not too bad. The gift opening took quite a while because the kids wanted to play with each new toy as soon as it is opened.
The sketchbook caddy was a hit. She almost forgot about her other presents.
Kaye wrapped some of Elle’s toys in tape and construction paper as my Christmas gift. She was so excited. I loved every bit of it.
Kaye’s royal coach from Santa.
Elle looked and felt the worst on Christmas Day. But she was such a trooper making it to all the family gatherings.
This and another princess dress up clothes was the cause of all the glitter in the house. It’s on every one of us, all the furniture, carpets, floors, toys and everything else in the house.
Nathan got me a charm gold necklace. Love it!
I got him a fire pit. This one fit better in our backyard. It was too big to wrap without him noticing. So I hid it in the trunk of his car.
We had such a memorable Christmas. Hope your family did too. If you have a post on your blog of your Christmas, leave a link in the comments. I would love to see how your Christmas went.
Merry Christmas! I hope you are out enjoying the day with those you love. For those of you who wished for a white Christmas, I hope your wish came true. For me, I always wish against a white Christmas. And now, 5 reasons why I love Christmas…
Hope you have a lovely Christmas from my family to yours.
My mom was away on her birthday in November. She recently returned from her 2-month long trip to Taiwan. Then my dad had his birthday last week. We decided to combine both their birthdays and celebrated it together. On my mother’s request, I baked her a cake from scratch. What we have here is a apple spiced cake with cream cheese frosting. I have to say, it was my first time baking a cake entirely from scratch, frosting included. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and I was able to control the amount of sugar that went into that cake. We are a family without a sweet tooth. It was delicious, if I do say so myself.
Our family holiday tradition, building gingerbread houses. It’s a contest although none of us actually declare a winner. We all trash talk each other houses and declare ourselves the winner. Enjoy our parade of homes gingerbread style. I built the one pictured above and the back of the house is pictured below. It has a pond in the front of the house and French back doors. That Twizzler sticking out of the ground was supposed to be a fountain. Didn’t work out the way I expected it to, so now I call it a small tree.
A tradition Nathan and I started when we were dating was add a new ornament to our tree each year. Something that reminds us of that particular year. Last year, we couldn’t find any store ornaments that represented our year, so I decided we would make our own microwaveable salt dough ornament. It was quick and easy with only THREE ingredients for the dough.
Supplies:
1. In a bowl, mix together the three ingredients – flour, salt, and water. Mix well, then roll flat on a flat surface (counter or table top). You will want the ornaments to be less than 1/2″ thick.
2. Using cookie cutters, cut out the ornaments.
3. Use the toothpick to make a whole at the top of the ornament to string ribbons through for hanging.
4. Place similar sized ornaments onto a microwavable glass plate. Heat in microwave until water has evaporated from the mixture. And since all microwaves are different, I would start out heating 2 minutes, check it, then continue in 30-second or 1-minute increments. If you heat too long, the top and bottom of the ornaments may start to brown. A little browning may be OK if you use a darker paint color over it. And most ornaments will crinkle a bit at the top. There is not much you can do about that except sand it down later. The ornaments will be extremely hot.
5. Allow the ornaments to cool on the cooling rack. Then paint. Once the paint is dry, you will want to seal it with a couple layers of Mod Podge.
6. String a ribbon through the hole and hang on tree.
Our 2nd annual gingerbread house contest with my parents and brother.
There are so many great ideas for family traditions out there floating around the blogosphere. One of our family traditions at Christmas is our annual gingerbread house building contest. It was a tradition that Nathan and I started our first Christmas together as a married couple where we spent it with my family. Every year, the houses get more and more elaborate. And every year, we find numerous creative ways of using graham crackers, frosting and candy decorations. My little brother is notorious for building the craziest stuff.
Here are some other ideas for family traditions you may want to try…
What are some of your most cherished family traditions?
I love this time of year when we reflect on the many things we are grateful for in our lives. The last couple of years, I wanted to teach my 3-year-old Kaye to express gratitude for the many blessings in her life. Thus began the tradition of our Thanksgiving countdown. A little tradition that began with construction paper chain links a few years ago. The main idea: Write down one thing we are grateful for each day in November. Each member in the family participate in writing down things they count as blessings. Then we display it somewhere visible as a daily reminder of the things appreciate in our blessed lives.
This year, I upgraded the construction paper chain links to a leafy garland. Here is a simple tutorial for you to count your blessings in November with a garland.
Supplies:
1. Draw your leaf pattern. If you need inspiration, collect some fallen leaves outside then trace. You will want to make the stem about 1″ long. Then cut out the pattern.
2. Trace the leaf pattern on various different types of paper. Trace 30 leaves for each day in November.
3. Crumble the paper with the tracing on it. Then smooth out and cut.
4. Give each family members a few leaves and have them write their blessings.
5. This is an optional step, but it makes the garland look fuller. Cut out smaller size leaves to put in between the large leaves. Luckily, I had a large leaf punch.
6. Gather about 6 or 9 strands of raffia then tie a knot on one end.
7. Begin braiding. Braid about 3-4″ before adding leaves into your braid, sticking the stem of the leaf into your braid.
8. If you are using the small leaves for a fuller garland, insert the small ones into some of the braids between the larger leaves. Keep going until all the leaves are gone or you have reached your desired length. Make sure to do 3-4″ of plain braids before ending the raffia with a knot. If you need a longer length, add more raffia into the braid.
A back and finished view of the garland.
If you make this garland this Thanksgiving, please leave a link to a picture of it so I can check it out!
{image by BHG}
If you are a traveling guest in someone’s home this holiday, please keep this in mind…
What are your tips for guests?
I was sick all day yesterday. It actually began Tuesday night. After feeling all the stress and pressure of my numerous projects and things going on in my life, it finally caught up to me. A little break down. A few tears. A slight fever. And aching of the body. Luckily, I married one of the most wonderful man in the world. He listened to all my concerns, complaints, and whining. He pampered me while laid in bed sick. He forced me to do nothing but rest. He even brought breakfast in bed. And took time off work to take care of the kids. Amazing.
The Tylenol kicked in long enough for us to take a few Christmas family photos (me and my girls above). Then it was back to the chills and fever and aching body for me.
I did have time to read this article from the New York Times, “Guardians of Their Smiles.” It’s an article about the great debate of whether parents should post pictures of their children on the web and on social networking sites such as Facebook. In the article, some moms shared their experience of discovering other people reusing their children’s photos as their own or creating fake accounts.
Some parents are opposed to posting any pictures of their children on the web. Others don’t mind at all. From the article, “Some parents want to protect their children from what is unlikely but still tragically possible. Others say children will do best when learning to live with the realities of the Web.” Other parents come up with their own rules for posting. Making their blogs private. No bath photos of the kiddos. Changing the names of their children. So on and so forth.
This has always been a concern of mine. I am protective of my children and images of my children. I would like people to respect the privacy of my family. I like to feel like I am in control of what I post about my family and my photos. My biggest thing is people reusing my photos from my sites without my knowledge. But I am not totally against posting pictures of my family. It is similar to if a picture of my family came up in the newspaper or magazines. Or if I put my kids in modeling and they were in ads or something.
What do you think? What’s your opinion and view on this great debate?
Happy 09-09-09 at 9:00 a.m.! We had a busy Labor Day weekend. Here’s a glimpse…
Painting our room.
$4 fix to a boring hallway.
Nathan and Kaye made a bean bag toss game.
Elle's first time on the swings.
A tour of the botanical garden.
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