10 on the 10th :: February 2014

A few smattering of photos from our Monday. Mondays tend to be a favorite day around here. Although it's generally quite busy because we are finishing up work for CC on Tuesday or playing catch-up on the weekend's laundry, we are typically home all day. Those are my favorite.



Monday breakfast. Cinnamon roll waffles for the kids + a smoothie for me. (I haven't been making it out to run at all lately ergo no sweets for me).



Piano practice for this one. She has switched from violin to piano (same teacher) and we are thinking this is a much better fit for her right now. And she's loving it.



A fun Valentine's-y coloring page during our morning read-aloud time. We usually do read-aloud after lunch, but we switched the schedule around some today.



Exploding the Code. : )



Putting together the final touches on her IEW paper for Tuesday.



Labeling and typing. (Note: I ended up doing the bulk of the typing in for her though she usually does it. We were pressed for time today).



Mama needs refueling.



And on to math after lunch.



A few snuggles with the boy.



Pulling our next read-aloud off the shelf. Reading along with the Reading to Know February bookclub; technically they are reading Little House on the Prairie, but we are jumping ahead to the book in the series that we are on.

Monday in a nutshell. On Tuesday's agenda? We are home (unexpectedly) today from CC with a round of pink-eye so our afternoon will include an outing for some antibiotics. B had it over the weekend, and I had hopes that we caught it before it spread but no such luck! Ah, well. Thankful everyone is in good spirits although disappointed we are missing friends today and that it's not something worse!

Ten on Tuesday: A Post-Thanksgiving Edition

1. We are in full charge for the holidays now that our wonderfully relaxing Thanksgiving get-away is over. We alternate families at Thanksgiving and this year we spent it with my side at a cabin in Townsend, Tennessee. There was hiking, Uno, playing with cousins, and a lot of relaxing. I came back ready to hit the ground running for December which is a good thing.

2. This little guy is having the most fun with re-entry into regular life as he is having to adjust to not being held 24/7 by his grandma, aunt, 13-year old cousin, etc. See evidence below:

Exhibit A: Grandpa holding Ethan.

Exhibit B: Grandma holding Ethan.



Exhibit C: Uncle Boo holding Ethan and making him laugh. : )

3. The biggest girl got to go on a horseback trail ride and loved it! The little girls have already calculated that they will be old enough to go when we go back in two years and I'm just waiting for them to ask me how many days that will be. They were most envious.

4. In other current events, I had my gallbladder surgery the Friday before Thanksgiving and am SO glad to have that behind me. I won't go in to too many details on the old blog, but I was most uncomfortable for most of the weekend and Monday. I was so thankful that my sister took the 3 & 4 year old for the weekend and Travis and Noelle were home to tend to me and the baby for several days as I was on bedrest. By Wednesday I was on the upswing and thankful that I was feeling well enough to head out of town with my family.

5. My copy of Emily of Deep Valley did arrive yesterday. I am engrossed in it.

6. I am very thankful that we don't have a Trader Joe's near us. The kids and I made a trip there today and in one fell swoop we knocked out all our teacher gifts for the year (tutorial teacher for Noelle, Sunday School & Awana for all kids). However, all these other little goodies (holiday and not) fell in to my basket as well. A batch of peppermint coffee is brewing right now and I am looking forward to trying it as soon as I finish this post. : )

7. Pondering a year long project next year a la Project 365 like I did this year. I don't think I want to tackle an every-day-photo project again - I already take a ton of photos and have really been enjoying getting back to more traditional scrapbooking of late as I have found time. Thinking something along the lines of a simple gratitude album. Monika has a super cute and simple one on her blog that I love (scroll down this post to see it), but I may just go the route of a cute decorated notebook.

8. Also, courtesy of Monika and a free download, our family made a gratitude album while away on our Thanksgiving trip. I'll try to photograph and share soon. I love how it turned out!

9. December is big month here (for many reasons) but my best friend and I - who share a birthday coincidently, and who's birthday just happens to be New Year's Eve, and who both happen to be turning 40 this year - are working on a super fun family-friendly New Year's Eve birthday party. I'm starting to get a little excited! The invitations are done and in my hot little hands and I have some addressing to do! (No evites for me, thankyouverymuch!) I'm in serious list making mode for the event ... our husbands are throwing the party for us, but since invitations are kinda my thing, I went ahead and took care of it. : )

10. And, with that I've reach 10 and am off to have my cup of coffee and work on my lists. The little girls are watching Mickey's Christmas Carol and after they head to bed I have a date with Emily. It's a good evening.

Ten on Tuesday / 10 on the 10th

Just in case you were wondering (you probably weren't and that's okay : )) one of my favorite weekly bloggy reads are Elizabeth's Ten on Tuesday posts. That's one of the reasons that I started doing them here although she is a much better (and much funnier) writer than I. Anyway, yesterday she did a post with 10 different photos marking her first month as a digital photographer and I loved the idea. I'm going to post 10 recent ones from my 365:2010 project. : )

1. 3.08.2010: We went to the zoo on Monday - it was beautiful outside (75*!) and stopped to eat our lunch right by the giraffes. This one was hanging out at the fence and it was so cool to see it up close. I just thing giraffes are amazing (and a little bit freaky!)



2. 3.05.2010: Travis had a work lunch on Friday (the end of a long work week and lots of yummy work lunches) and he invited us to join him on Friday at the Greek Cafe. We jumped at the chance! My favorite place to eat with him ... the food is so good! (These two are look eerily alike in these pictures - just a big and small version!)





3. 3.06.2010: A chilly but sunny Saturday for N1's first soccer game. There are some girls on her team that have played before so there is a little learning curve for her. And, man, did she fall asleep fast when it was time for bed!



4. 3.07.2010: We had some time with just Grandma on Sunday afternoon while Grandpa was down at the church taking directory photos. Natalie caught the opportunity to snuggle with Grandma under a blanket and Grandma will never turn down a snuggle.



5. 2.23.2010: A little horseplay with Daddy. Love the blurry action shot of this picture that one of the girls took.



6. 3.04.2010: This is how I found Betsy this morning when I went in to check on them - just her little feet peeking out. (This also can document her new-found love of socks and how she likes to have them on all the time!)



7. 3.02.2010: I made these bars on Monday - something sweet sounded good to me. They were so good - with the coconut on top they tasted like an Almond Joy bar.



8. 3.03.2010: $1 from the Dollar Spot at Target. Well worth it. : )



9. 2.22.2010: Busy, busy, dreadfully busy. The calendar the last two weeks has just been nuts. Good stuff, but busy none the less. This week (with the exception of Monday) I was out every night. That NEVER happens.



10. 3.09.2010: Yesterday we hit 9 weeks pregnant and the baby is now the size of a grape. : )



Linking up to Mer's 10 on the 10th post as well ... because I can't come up with two lists of ten in two days. Just do not have the brain cell's for that right now. : )

Ten on Tuesday

1. Thanks for all the congratulations for our coming addition. We are super excited ... the girls can hardly contain themselves! I can already say that it is going to be a much different go-round this time with a 6 1/2 year old in the house. She has lots and lots of questions. (None of the major ones, yet, thankfully!)

2. The girls have been throwing out plenty of name suggestions as well. N1's top pick right now? Peter Pan. Um, no. :) She told a friend at church her idea, and this other mother (who really was old enough to know better) said, "You could shorten that to P.P.!" I about died trying not to laugh. N1 looked at her very seriously and said, "We can't call him that - it's a bathroom word!" Ha!

3. Yes, we will be finding out what the baby is. N1 is rooting for a boy. She is the queen of fairness and justice in our home, and she really wants this baby to be a boy for her Daddy. (So sweet). N2 and BBoo are rooting for a girl. They are going through a insanely huge mommy/baby play phase. Sometimes they use dolls, sometimes one of them is the mommy and the other is the baby. This baby doesn't stand a chance.

4. I'm feeling fairly good right now ... there are moments of extreme exhaustion and moments of food funkiness, but I can't complain at all.

5. We woke up to snow AGAIN this morning. This time is was very wet and didn't stick at all, but still. We have had a crazy amount for us this winter. The weather says that it's supposed to get up to 60 by this weekend, and as N1 has her first soccer game on Saturday, I'm really hoping it does.

6. I can't remember if I mentioned it here on the blog, but we have been debating (again) whether or not to put N1 into a two-day a week school tutorial for next year. Throwing a baby in the mix added a little pressure to that decision. I have thoroughly enjoyed having her home all of this year, and after talking with Travis, I didn't have any qualms about taking on 1st grade. However, with a new baby, we also could see the benifit of giving me a few days a week grace from school. The long and the short of it, we've decided to go ahead and apply for the school and just see what comes of it. We have no idea what the waiting list for 1st graders is, but we're going to just head this direction and see what God makes of it. :) Truthfully, I'm just glad a decision is made and we're heading in a direction!

7. I was at a homeschool seminar on Saturday and was taking with another Mom. We were talking about our extremely active children that we each have and I mentioned my theory that our BBoo has the energy of two people trapped inside her little body. She mentioned that her son is the same way and they call him "concentrate." I loved that and stole the title for a scrapbook page about our BBoo. Fits her perfectly!

8. This week (and next) we are all about spring and gardening for our school work. I pre-ordered this book months ago on Amazon and am still waiting for my copy (backordered!). I can't wait to dive into it with N1.

9. This book is another gem we stumbled upon at the library: How Does a Seed Grow. The whole book is a narrative of a little garden experiment you can do with your child. They walk you through planting some beans into egg shells and then watching them over the course of several days and see how they sprout. Very, very cool.

10. I leave you with a recipe I made today ... Coffee Toffee Bars. My two-cent tip: sprinkle sweetened coconut over the top before baking. In my opinion, it makes them taste like an Almond Joy candy bar and that's never a bad thing. : )

Ten on Tuesday...ish

1. Yesterday the new Family Fun magazine arrived in the mail ... some really cute Spring ideas in there this month. The new issue of Everyday Food also arrived and it is FULL of spring recipe ideas ... my mouth was watering as I read it. The first recipe that I came to was a roast pork with squash and onions that sounded so delicious ... it's probably going on my grocery list for March.


2. Speaking of Everyday Food, they have a new book out and it's going in my Amazon cart until the time comes and I can get it. : ) I received their first book, Great Food Fast, several years ago and love using it. My favorite thing about the first book is that the recipes are organized seasonally and it helps me get seasonal produce in our rotation. (Note to self: get that book off the shelf and look at it again.)


3. Other items in my Amazon cart at the moment: Brady Bunch Season 4, Bringing Up Girls by James Dobson, and Betsy and the Great World/Betsy's Wedding.

4. Back to cooking talk ... I still have not made a recipe from the Julia Child cookbook my husband got me for my birthday. Safe to say, I am very intimidated by them!

5. Even though the weather has dropped back down into the 30's and 40's for the rest of this week, and the calendar is still on February, it's obvious that spring activites are starting or gearing up to start when you look at my calendar. N1 had her first soccer practice on Friday night and it was chilly as we stood out there and watched her practice.

6. N1 and I have been reading fiends lately ... last week we finished up our Betsy-Tacy read, and this week we have wrapped up Peter Pan, and are flying through Beezus and Ramona. It has been years since I've read any stories about that rascally Ramona. The girls love them, but now that I'm a mama, I am realized that Ramona is a little pill. A funny one, but still a pill. : )

7. I made this corn chowder for lunch today, with numerous modifications because I didn't have fresh sweet corn on the cob. (Who does in February?) But still. Delicious. I some how managed to over-buy milk the last few weeks so I made a double batch of the soup to use some up and made a quadruple batch of waffles this morning to finish up the rest.

8. Tonight is Wednesday. That means big girls go to Awana and I go run errands with BBoo. (Tonight: the library). Then we come home to put tired girls to bed and T and I curl up and watch last night's Lost. Wednesday nights are good nights.

9. This Saturday, my husband is being super gracious and letting me spend the day at a homeschool seminar. I'm stuck on a few decisions for next year, and am looking forward to spending the day hopefully getting some inspiration and illumination. : ) Well, that and getting some ideas of good books to add to my ever growing Amazon list.

10. And with that, it's time to start getting us ready to head out the door for the evening. (Our standard pre-Awana dinner is cheese quesadillas for easy, easy prep). : )

Hope everyone has a good evening! : )

Ten on Tuesday

1. I have been reading through the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace, both by myself and with the girls. Last night I finished Heaven to Betsy, and N1 and I wrapped up Betsy, Tacy & Tib Go Over the Big Hill yesterday. Where have these books been all my life? They are delightful!! Seriously. If you have girls and they have NOT read the Betsy-Tacy books, then you need to get to a library or a bookstore and find them a copy.

2. We are enjoying more snow (which could probably be said by so many people right now). : ) We are also enjoying a terrific head cold which has been passed around. We had a slow day yesterday - N1 and I managed to get about a 1/2 day of school done in spite of how puny she felt and when she was resting, I got several things done around the house (those things that I never seem to like purging stuffed animals for Goodwill and cleaning out the bathroom closet).

3. With this snow, we also enjoyed a huge pot of homemade potato soup last night. It's my Mom's recipe and I have finally figured out the knack of making it consistently. We also made and ate cherry cobbler in honor of President's Day. This post at the Bonny Glen is worth reading not just for the cobbler recipe. It's also pretty funny. : )

4. Tanya asked me, after viewing this post, if I played any musical instruments. While my husband is the true musician in the family, I took piano lessons from about first grade through my freshman year in college. I also learned how to play the guitar after I got out of college and played for about 6 years or so with my church's music team. I really did enjoy playing guitar ... not sure exactly why I quit. I think something about three babies coming within three years might have had something to do with that. : ) My husband, however, has a degree in jazz and classical guitar and knows his stuff. I'm happy to let him take the musical reins in this house!

5. I'm puttering around with our school plans for this spring. Taking a look at those Five-in-a-Row books that we haven't gotten to yet, and planning out a few weekly themes. It's hard to believe that we have only 60 days of school left for the year! Now, that will take us well into May because of miscillaneous activities and spring break, but still ... 60 days left. Not a whole lot and then my girl will have finished kindergarten. So hard to believe.

6. Olympics, Olympics, Olympics. : )

7. It's been so cold the last few weeks that I've been pulling out all our comfort food recipes to keep us warm. Potato soup, tater tot casserole, etc. (Notice I said comforting, not low fat.) What are your favorite comfort foods for cold weather?

8. I'm thinking through what I want to do with the girls for Easter this year. I don't want to overplan and overwhelm, but I also don't want to underplan and let it slide. I think I'm going to do bits and pieces from this Easter study and we're probably going to do some lapbook elements to The Legend of the Easter Egg. This year, I also really want to make resurrection cookies with the girls. I've missed doing that the last few years because it always snuck up on me, but this year it is a priority.

9. These are in my house. They need to leave fairly soon. : )



10. The next few weekend are super-duper busy around here. I've been doing such a good job protecting our weekends from too many activities and the next two have caught up with me. This weekend has two birthday parties for two different girls on Saturday, a music rehearsal for T, and a girl scout event on Sunday afternoon. Oh, and I have a girls' night out on Friday night. I'm looking forward to all the events, but it's making thankful that the snow has kept us in so far this week. It's helping me build up my stamina for the weekend! : )

Ten on Tuesday

1. I wish I could get a good picture of the snow coming down this morning. So beautiful. I know I have mentioned how much I love winter before, but I do. Yes, I occasionally get very stir-crazy when we can't (or don't want to) get out but generally, I can be very happy to be homebound in this snow.



2. Also very glad for the huge pot of vegetable soup that I made yesterday and is waiting in fridge and freezer. I had set out some hamburger to thaw for spaghetti last night, but when the time came to cook it, it just didn't sound good. So, it went into a pot for soup and the girls and I made eggs and pancakes instead.

3. We finally celebrated N2's birthday this weekend with friends and family after the great snow storm the weekend before.

4. We've had some sort of stomach bug rolling through our family. Travis had it last weekend and he thought it was something he ate. Twenty-four hours later, N2 had it. Then a couple days later, BBoo. You see the pattern? This weekend was my turn. We're all hoping that N1 is spared. I've been doing lots of laundry.

5. We've also managed to pass on our germs to cousin Bubby. I don't know how. It's not like he gets close the the girls or anything.

6. This weekend, we also managed to get to our gingerbread house. No matter that it was almost 2 months overdue. The girls and T still had loads of fun putting to together, and then breaking it apart. I just tried not to wince when the girls bit in to some of the rock-hard candy.

7. I finally broke down and ordered N2 some "school" for her to do. I was going to wait until this fall to really try any kind of pre-K stuff with her, but she kept asking and asking. She's been doing a few pages in her Explode the Code: Get Ready for the Code book and thinks she is pretty big stuff. : )

8. I have been in a massive reading rut. Nothing has sounded good at all to read which is most unusual. I have been spending more time working on some scrapbook type projects and reading (looking at the pictures) in some of my favorite scrapbooking books for some inspiration. I feel sure my reading groove will come back ... it's just unusual to not have a book with me at all times!

9. Did you all watch the Superbowl this weekend? We had my family over to hang out and watch it together. I had a definite shift this year. I used to love the Superbowl, Superbowl parties, watching the commercials, but this year I just couldn't get into it. I thought a lot of the ads were very demeaning to men (and it sure seems like there were lots where the guys were walking around with out pants on.) Our guests left at half-time, and the girls and I abandoned the Superbowl in favor of an episode of the Brady Bunch.

10. And with that, we have reached #10 and the snow from the first pictures of the post has already melted outside my window. So sad! The rest of the week looks to just be COLD but hopefully some sunshine will peek through ... and the Olympics start this weekend! (What is your favorite event to watch? N1 really wants to watch the skiing ... at least that is her pick today, I believe). : )

Ten on Tuesday

1. We are going on day 4 of being home all day due to the winter storm of twenty-ten. Truthfully, I haven't yet wanted to get out of the house, however, I think we're going to brave it today and hit the library. N2 was ready to get out yesterday ... she wanted to know if we were going anywhere because she got a new booster seat for her big 4-year-old birthday and was dying to go for a ride in it! Daddy rescued her on that one as he needed a computer cable for something and she went with him to get it.

2. We spent most of Saturday very "buggled" up as N1 puts it. (Translation: bundled.) That morning we took the girls sledding for the first time and it was hiliarious. I wish I had pictures to show you, but I was trying to keep girls from sliding off the hill (it was slick!) and juggle our video camera. Travis has put a video of the girls sledding on Facebook, and if I can get him to put it on an external site like youtube or something, I'll post it here. N1 was so excited about sledding, however, she ran into a pole on her first run down and that pretty much ruined the experience for her. Hopefully, that event will have faded from her memory by the next snowfall. But, our little BBoo! She LOVED the sledding. She kept wanting to go on bigger and bigger hills and would have stayed out there a lot longer, but her very cold (and slightly crabby) bigger sisters were ready to go back to the van. We also went for a long walk that afternoon and slid around the neighborhood.





This was a MASSIVE patch of ice on our church parking lot that the girls decided was a personal ice skating rink for them.

3. Yesterday N1 discovered that she has another REALLY loose tooth, this one on the bottom. Her first tooth-loosing experience has not been on her list of favorite things, so when I told her that she was about to loose another one, she burst out "not again!!" and was quite distraught. (I tried not to laugh). She asked if we could pray that her teeth wouldn't fall out anymore, so we had to have a little talk about how it was all part of getting bigger and it wasn't anything that we could stop. That and we would rather have her teeth do a great job of falling out on their own instead of having to get the stubborn ones pulled out at the dentist like cousin J.



Really. I can hardly stand how cute she is with her tooth missing. : )

4. FYI from the taste testers in our house: Baked Lays Parmsesan and Tuscan Herb. Not good. PepperJack Cheese-Its. Good.

5. My current to-do list in my journal (of the running things that I need to get to sooner rather than later) has 20 things on it. Pleasantly surprised.

6. Lost is on tonight! (Which means we will actually watch it tomorrow night, but still...) : )

7. This weekend is take-2 for our birthday celebrations for N2. Friend party on Friday night and family birthday lunch on Sunday after church. I think I've said it already, but again, I am amazed at how well this little munchkin has done with having all her birthday stuff postponed. She's a trooper.



8. She also had her 4yo check-up on Friday, before the winter weather hit. No surprise to us, she is in the 15th percentile for her height. Yup. She's going to be the short one of the three girls. BBoo is already a little taller than the other girls were when they turned three (and she has 4 months to go!) She may be our basketball star.



9. T and I are going on a school visit for N1 this Friday. You might remember from last year that we explored the option of putting her in a two-day per week homeschool coop. We put that on hold for kindergarten - it was a brand new school on it's first year, and we decided to let them get a year under their belt and then visit again. It's not a question of whether or not N1 would love it. She absolutely would. And, now that I've done a year of kindergarten, I know I *can* do first grade if we choose not to join. That takes off a load of pressure on the decision making, you know what I mean? Neither choice is wrong/right and we'll enjoy 1st grade either way.

10. One last onus snow pic starring T. The girls were most impressed with this large chunk of ice he pulled off the van's windshield ... and even more excited when he smashed it on the ground. : )