Dinnertime

At the urging of my father, I am making an effort to revive this blog. He was at our house the other night, helping me through our evening routine (folks, it takes a village and this guy is ALWAYS willing to lend a hand) when I showed him this video. We both laughed out loud. Hair unwashed, bra-less, and exhaused I made dinner for my brood. And by “made dinner” I mean reheated taco meat while refilling drinks and microwaving sides while recording myself in selfie mode.

He said that the world needed to see what motherhood really looks like. He says I’m doing a great job. He says my kids will cherish these memories one day. My dad is a smart guy, some say he’s the smartest they know, so I’m taking his advice.

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Firsts

Yesterday was a first for my little-big-thing, Isabella.

She will turn three in just a few short weeks and has been taking mommy-and -me gymnastics at the same center where her big brother has been for years. With her birthday fast approaching we made the decision (with her) to try out the 3-year old class where she would have to participate independently of us.

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Eggs

We don’t celebrate Easter in the traditional sense but I do have fond memories of dying eggs (and eating Peeps) as a child and decided I wanted to share the experience of the eggs with my children.

One of our favorite Spring books is Millie’s Chickens and at the end there is information about how to care for chickens and different ways to cook eggs. Today, of course we hard boiled them. We read the story and talked about the different ways eggs can be prepared then we got to work with ours!

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Kid’s Garden

Mother nature is begging us to join her as the first signs of spring are showing themselves. The tulip bulbs are exploding through the earth, the sun is warming our skin, and the birds are flocking to our feeders.

Yesterday we got outside and exploring with our Kid’s Garden Cards. These sturdy, colorful, double-sided cards contain 40 different activities in 5 color-coded categories!

We selected a scavenger hunt card and the children worked together to discover animal prints, leaves that had been chewed by insects, and worms!

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Go Barefoot 

I decided to go Barefoot. Over Thanksgiving I was riding in the car to my folks house and paging through the fall/ winter Barefoot Books catalog. I was finding so many books I wanted to buy for my kiddos (we’ve been a fan of Barefoot since Grayson was just a baby) and then when I got to the end, the last page had a blurb about becoming an Ambassador. Oohhh. That sounds nice! $300 in books for $140- no strings attached and I could sell these books and earn free books and maybe some cash! By the time I reached my parent’s house I had joined.

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To believe in magic 

Grayson has totally jumped on board with the kindness elves project! He loved opening up and reading the books this morning… Even though they have been on our shelf all along.

Without prompting he wrote them a thank you note (and even peeled up a corner of the envelope since he noticed they lacked thumbs)

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The kindness elves

So when we were unpacking the Christmas decorations tonight we came across the “Elf on the Shelf.” This was gifted to us years ago, but we have never gotten on the bandwagon of the Elf spying on you and reporting to Santa, etc. But this year Grayson said he wanted to read the book and name his Elf and go through the motions.

When I sat down and read the book I really didn’t like the message it was sending- “be good so we can tell Santa and you will get toys” so we talked about a way that we could play with and enjoy our elves (we have a few more I got as ornaments!) that was more positive and fun for the whole season.

After all the kids were in bed I got to work creating the elves first act of kindness.

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Snow dough

So despite the fact that it’s a week before Thanksgiving and it’s raining… Today we made snow dough!

It was so quick and easy to make. And I love it more than play dough!

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Did I love you enough today?

It’s 8:55 and I just tucked the last of the kids into bed. He didn’t want me to go… He clutched my hand asking for just a few moments longer. I squeezed him tight, told him how proud I was of him and how much I loved him, kissed his sweet lips, and bid him good night. Should I have stayed? Did I love him enough today?

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