Do It Yourself Photo Shoot

I had every intention of taking Maggie and Ellie to have their pictures taken by a professional, but I haven't forgotten the last time we did that. After thinking about what I liked and what I wanted I just decided to do it myself with my cheap point and shoot camera...not my phone.

Ellie wore the Valentine shirt that Maggie wore once upon a time. Maggie wore a plain white t-shirt that she already had. I made both girls red hairbows and they both wore jeans. I wanted some sort of cute Valentine-y prop, but couldn't come up with anything and I was in the mood to take the pictures right then.

I like white backgrounds, so I grabbed the white comforter off of Ellie's bed and put it in the middle of the living room floor. Then I positioned Maggie (Ellie had ran to her room and locked the door) where I wanted her and I stood up and had her look at me.

Ellie wasn't as easy. I had to offer her a Tootsie Pop. Luckily, I had a red one and it looked appropriate for the "holiday". I was thrilled that she left her hairbow in and her clothes on long enough for me to snap a couple of pictures.

I cropped the pictures and then went to Picnik (so sad that they are closing) and did some changes with the color.

All three of us girls have colds, so I'm not sure what we will be doing to celebrate Valentine's Day. Big Daddy is out of town, so we may just have a little movie night.

You Are Amazing

We started out our week with a trip to IKEA on Monday. It's a two hour drive, so we talked about leaving you girls with Nana, but we wanted family time. Your dad had phone meetings, but we were able to have some nice family time.

We went to Bass Pro Shops first and you two loved playing on the boats that they had inside. You can make anywhere into your personal playground.

And Maggie, you wore one of my favorite dresses. Forget that you had slept in it from when you wore it to church on Sunday. You decided to change it up a bit and paired it with dark brown leggings and your brown cowboy boots. You looked beautiful and I wish I had taken a picture of the complete outfit. I let you pick out your clothes and I can't help but smile even when you embarrass me.

We walked just inside of the big mall and after one store, I decided that I couldn't do the big mall and IKEA with you two! Of course, we walked right by a chocolate shop and someone wanted a candy apple. That would be you, Maggie.

$10 later, we walked away with a nice dessert (caramel, covered in chocolate with a strawberry drizzle)for after lunch. And Ellie, you met a new friend.

We had Mexican food for lunch and then pulled into IKEA around 12:45. The two of you could totally live on the second floor. You jump from "room" to "room" and are just do excited to look at everything. It wasn't crowded like last time, so you had lots of space to roam.

Since we knew what we were going for, we picked out the two pieces of furniture for your rooms and I picked up a few other things. Your dad and I have looked at furniture for your rooms for so long and finally decided that this was what we want and we really couldn't be any happier. I want to get some cute antique headboards or something, but I like to look until I find exactly what I want. We were back on the road a couple of hours later.

You were both thrilled when Daddy started putting the new furniture together on Tuesday. Both of you are quite handy with a hammer and a screwdriver. You treated your dad like a king and were quick to give him any tool that he needed. The best part was that you were able to help again on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Daddy quit the work at home stuff and went back to the office. Both of you were sad, but we needed to do a little school work, go the library and get the house in order. "We" worked on Valentine stuff and were excited about our homeschool group's party in Friday.

Some of our friends from church are part of the big group now, so Ellie, you played in the toddler area with Kamrynn. The two of you had lots of fun and were so funny trying to sneak off and get into trouble with the big kids. Maggie, you loved decorating cookies, playing games and doing a cake walk. We ended the party with snacks and a puppet show.

Daddy decided that it was time for a certain five year old to get her first gun. A rifle, to be exact. I was (hoping) for something child-sized and pink, but got this instead.

A big, black Ruger.

When I asked you about it, Maggie, you said that you really like black anyway. Then you asked if we could go out and shoot at trees. Your Daddy has already taught you a lot about gun safety and you are anxious to learn how to shoot.

Now, it is Sunday. We are finally getting our first colds of the season. It started with me and I think it's moving to you Ellie. Maggie, you tucked your sister into bed, read her a story and prayed with her tonight. You two can be SO sweet and then sometimes, you're not.

But every single day, you are amazing.

These are the days

To say that things are not easy right now would be an understatement.

I homeschool.

My husband is working out of town nearly every week.

I'm with the kids all the time.

I don't have time for myself.

I can't get enough sleep.

But, these are the days.

Big Daddy was home for 36 hours. He arrived at 10pm on Friday night and left while I was at church with the girls. He slept in a little on Saturday morning and then we all just hung out in, on and around the bed for a few hours. It was nice. He did two days worth of Bible study with Maggie. (She's doing the children's challenge for reading your Bible everyday for 2012) He watched Betsy's Kindergarten Adventure with Ellie. (She LOVES Betsy!)

These are the days of mostly single parenting.

Maggie and I picked Ellie up from her class and I carried her until we were in the parking lot. Then I just couldn't carry her another step. Of course, I was carrying my purse, her bag and her art. Ellie took two steps and then she grabbed onto my leg. I dragged her a couple of steps before she let go. She would NOT get up. I put our bags in the car and went back to get her. She cried the entire 20 minute drive home and then for another 30 minutes on top of that.

These are the days of two year old tantrums.

Since Big Daddy was only home for a short time. I only completed his laundry. I washed, dried, folded or put it on hangers and then packed his bag. After that, we went out to dinner. That left three loads of laundry that had been washed and dried, but not folded or put away. I've had a headache for the past 8 days and wasn't feeling very well, but decided to force myself to fold the laundry before bed on Sunday night. As I was folding, I found that Maggie had taken it upon herself to fold all of the towels, washcloths, cloth napkins and cleaning cloths. that left me with only two loads of laundry to fold! She was already asleep, so I wrote her a thank you card and left it in her bathroom. She should get it first thing in the morning.

These are the days.

I had such a highly productive day today!!

I cleaned bathrooms, washed two loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen counter tops with granite cleaner (Method) and purged the THREE cabinets that had Maggie & Ellie stuff in them.

Our kitchen has plenty of cabinets, so there's plenty of room for extra stuff. I have one area where most of my actual cooking supplies are and then there's an area where all of the plates and glasses are. Then there's a whole lotta other stuff every where else!

We have a counter where our laptops sit while they are charging and underneath there is what we call the "Art Cabinet". There's a large canvas bin where we put "important" art that will get thrown away when the bin is full. Maggie and Ellie also have their wooden train track and the plastic train track in that cabinet. They love to take everything out so that they can both get in there. And then they whisper!

This is now my homeschool cabinet!!! I had a drawer in my desk that was full of math manipulatives and a wooden bin next to my desk that housed homeschool curriculum that I use weekly to make our lesson plans, as well as a big binder for record-keeping and past lesson plans. Maggie and I each have a binder that we use as we do school work and then there are three or four (depending on the day) books that we use daily.

On the other side of the kitchen...

We have always called this upper cabinet the "Art Supply Cabinet". It houses puzzles, art supplies, and things that need permission before they can be taken out (pop beads, lacing beads, gluepaint). The lower cabinet had our tea set, cups and containers full of seashells and marbles that the girls love to play with. I moved all of that to the upper cabinet and put the art bin and train set in the lower cabinet.

We also had a container in the foyer coat closet with drawers that had boxes of crayons, markers, colored pencils, construction paper, plain paper and magazines for collages. I was able to move all of that to the storage bins connected to the new easel. (For me.) I'm going to put the container with drawers back into the closet with our two toy bins. I'm going to try to sort some of the smaller things (like those darn Little People) into the drawers and then label them.

Quite exciting! Things like this make me feel so accomplished and happy! And I managed to homeschool Maggie, play quite a bit of "Pet Shop" and get the cleaning taken care of. Unfortunately, there's four loads of laundry waiting to be folded and put away.

And one last look at the refrigerator:

This is only a season and one day it will be nice and clean!!

Week 2

• This is week 2 of having Big Daddy home! I think this is the first time that he has been home for two consecutive weeks since the end of July or the first part of August.
• Maggie and Ellie have already gotten used to having Daddy at home every night.
• Cousin Callie is out of school (again) on Friday, so I'm taking her and Maggie to see Beauty and the Beast. Ellie loves the movie, but we don't think that she would enjoy it in 3D since she will not wear the glasses. She'll be having a "Nana Day" and is already excited about it.
• I haven't weighed myself lately, but the diet is still going along. Today is day 18.
  
• I have felt like I was getting sick and had lots of asthma issues the past week or so.
• Maggie is thrilled that sign language classes have started back. I already miss having free Tuesdays.
• I still want a sewing machine. Bad.
• I have lots of crafty ideas in my head (and on pinterest) but really don't want to spend the money on project supplies.
• We *need* a new rug for the living room. The one I found that would be perfect is quite expensive. Big Daddy's eyes almost popped out of his head.
  
• I feel like the living, dining, kitchen and hallways of our house need to be painted. I repainted everything in our old house except for the bathroom and master bedroom when Maggie was about 2.5. Now I know why. Even though our kids are not what I would call "rough", our walls have quite a few marks at Maggie & Ellie height. I think I'll wait a couple of years since our house is not even three years old yet.
  

The Year So Far

I feel like the first week of the new year was so busy, yet so lazy. Big Daddy was out of town, so the girls and I watched a few movies in the middle of the day...while wearing our pajamas. We jumped back into schoolwork and I would say that it took most of last week to get our groove back.

My diet efforts resulted in a loss of five pounds. I am beyond thrilled! It comes from finding a plan that is restrictive, but easy to follow, I think. I sort of feel good when I deprive myself of things. At the end of the day it feels nice to know that I've stuck with my plan for another day. I still have a lot that I'd like to lose, but I am on the way.

I have started planning for Maggie's second grade year. I must say that we are moving a little faster through first grade than I want to. I want to follow Maggie's lead, but we're not moving into second grade until I'm ready too. Homeschooling is not about getting ahead for us. We only did a month of kindergarten work (which is satisfactory for our state) and that was due to the fact that she could read well, write, was very good at phonics and had completed an entire year of kindergarten math. I get excited, nervous and worried when looking at new curriculum, so we'll be sticking with what we have liked for another year.

We are slowly saying goodbye to so many "baby" things. Diapers, sippy cups and all that stuff. I thought I would be sad and while I am just a little, I am more excited about where we are and where we are going. Maggie & Ellie are at ages where they have so much fun with each other and they want to be together most of the time. It won't be this way forever, so I think we are really enjoying it.

I'm feeling the need to do some sort of family album starting with this year. I feel overwhelmed if I think about trying to dig through thousands of pictures from the past. If I start something now, I think it's still early enough in the girls' lives that it would be very special to look at as they grow up.

Happy New Year!

We have had such a happy New Year's Eve today! We had a somewhat lazy Saturday morning. I did Big Daddy's laundry and packed his bags for next week (he'll be gone again). I cooked mini burgers for lunch, we did some fun shopping and then ate Japanese food and went to red mango for frozen yogurt. We ended our day of family fun by watching Toy Story 3.

Maggie and Ellie had a hard time this week after having Big Daddy home for six whole days. They have soaked up every bit of time with him today. We had a very happy day and I can only hope that 2012 holds many more days like this.

Tomorrow will start another attempt at a better lifestyle for me. Eating better, moving more, trying to be more patient and present with the kids, being a better wife and trying to make a little more time for me. I'm going to try to take everything day by day and just try to make it through the day at hand knowing that it will make all of the tomorrows that are coming, a little bit sweeter.

For the past couple of years there has been lots of talk about choosing "one word" for the coming year. I couldn't even come up with one word last year, but it was so easy for me this year.
Patience.
I want to be more patient with Maggie, Ellie, Big Daddy and myself. Doing this will help a lot of other things fall into place.

Monday we will start a few new things in our home school and I'm really excited about that. We took a little Christmas break last week and I feel like I haven't had school in months! Of course, teachable moments are found each and every day.

Happy 2012!

Christmas Recap

The past few weeks have felt like a bit of a roller coaster with all sorts of "exciting" things going on, but I'm going to skip right over to our Christmas.

For the past several years we have visited Big Daddy's family on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas Day with my mom, dad and my sister and her family. My extended family (mom's side) gets together on Christmas Eve, so we miss that. I don't mind too much because we see them all on Thanksgiving and throughout the year as well. It's fair to say that I do not enjoy spending Christmas Eve at the in-laws house for a variety of reasons, but this works best for us. (It would no doubt blow your mind if I told you just a few of the things that she "attacked" us with this year, from homeschooling to church all the way to what I do and do not eat.)

Every single year, my mother-in-law waits until a day or two before Christmas and asks what the girls would like. She always waits until my mom, my sister and I have done all of our shopping and most of the Christmas lists have been checked off. This year, I ordered a present for each girl (Disney Princess baby dolls) and gave it to her so that she could give it to them. Therefore, our "Santa" gifts were scaled back by quite a bit.

My mom and dad bought both of the girls "horses on a stick". I had ordered boots for both girls and my mom needed one more gift to give them, so she took the boots. Maggie & Ellie both have new horses, new boots and a new cowgirl hat, as well as a few other things from Nana & Poppy.

After we had opened Christmas gifts on Christmas morning and were getting ready for church, Maggie asked if she had received everything on her (very long) list. I reminded her that we never get everything on our list and as if she wanted to prove my point, she said, "You're right. I really wanted a horse on a stick and I didn't get that." She was very happy to open that gift from my parents.

I wrapped the Santa gifts a day or two before Christmas Eve and realized how little we had purchased for the girls. Big Daddy and I both had the same reaction: go buy more gifts. We didn't and everyone was still happy. While we know and celebrate the true meaning of the Christmas holiday, it's hard not to go all out for the kids. On Christmas morning, Maggie & Ellie each had four gifts and a stocking full of fun things. They also received a (giant) easel to share. They have enjoyed the easel SO much already and we are looking forward to using it when school resumes on January 2!

Our church was only offering one worship service on Christmas morning and there are normally three. They were offering childcare for preschoolers, but the older children were not having children's church or Sunday school. We made it to church plenty early, but it was a full house! We chose to take Ellie into the service with us. She did okay and managed to make it an hour. We missed the last fifteen minutes, so we were pleased.

Now, the pictures!

Maggie & Ellie's stockings and gifts.

Maggie with her new Barbie and her Barbie "styling head", as she calls it.

Ellie loved her new "buggy" and was excited to push around the Snow White that Grandma & Grandpa gave her.

This is the extra large easel. I was reminded that objects inToysRUs appear smaller in that big store. When Ellie starts more homeschooling, we will be turning the bonus room (currently Big Daddy's man cave) into a school room and the easel will live there. Until then, it's happily residing between the living and dining area. Ellie is quite obsessed with Toy Story, so she likes to pretend to be Cowboy Woody or Cowgirl Jessie. The girls love that movie and received several (7) Toy Story books and a couple of Woody and Buzz Lightyear figures too.

Merry Christmas!

We are having a busy and fun-filled week so Merry Christmas! (Just in case I don't make it back for a while!)

Sort of like a dream come true

Monday mornings are usually pretty nice around here. I try not to have anywhere to go and just concentrate on doing housework and then homeschooling and then more housework. By the afternoon, we are finished with school and housework and ready for dinner and dance class. Yesterday was a different Monday. It sort of felt like my Christmas morning.

Big Daddy left to go out of town again, but he didn't leave for work until sometime after lunch. I loaded up lots of Christmas gifts and the girls and left around 10:00 to go to Sanford to visit our friends.

We started with a great lunch at Cracker Barrel with my friends A, her little girl and K. We had a nice, two hour lunch ans the kids were very well-behaved. We missed having the little boys (they are in school)there, but girls only lunches are fun too. We exchanged gifts and all walked out with big bags of fun goodies. A gave us monogrammed cups and Bath & Body Works goodies. K gave us Bath & Body Works soap and candles and my birthday gift- you guessed it, Bath & Body Works stuff. I gave scarves, candies and my new favorite lip balm.

A, me and K (photography by Maggie)

We drove across town to tell A that yes, she should get that pair of shoes that she's had her eye on and then we tried on hats and scarves. A's hair has started to shed and she is worried that she'll lose all of it when she starts the next kind of chemo.

We said our goodbyes and I took the girls back across town to visit our friends from my old office. We visited, the girls received more treats and then we drove back across town to visit Gammy Gladys. Maggie & Ellie left with a bag full of goodies and new mini Pillow Pets. Gladys gave me something really pretty that I may share a little later. Since we were just a mile or so from my old real estate partner's house, we dropped by there too. We had a nice visit with him and his wife and then hit the road for home around 5:00.

We arrived home at 6:00, the girls had mini-breakdowns and we left at 7:00 for Maggie's parent observation and Christmas party at dance. Ellie went to the potty three times in 20 minutes, but we saw most of the displays of mad dance skills.

We pulled in the driveway a little after 8:30 and were happily in bed by 9:00. I went to bed a little after 10:00 because a day full of fun, wears The Mommy out!

Last week was lots of fun too! Big Daddy arrived home on Tuesday evening just in time to get into the car with us for Maggie's sign language Christmas concert. She did a great job and we really enjoyed all of the performances.

Maggie is the fourth little person from the right.

On Friday night, I took Ellie to the Preschool Birthday Party for Jesus at a local children's museum. She had a blast and they were having a special Curious George exhibit. (Maggie has a bounce birthday party for Jesus this weekend)