Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 82)

Sometimes my job can be a little…slow.  It will sometimes feel I have read everything online that I can absorb in an evening.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the downtime in my evening in contrast to my buys, loud days spent with the kids.  So when I ran across “The 25 Best Articles that should be Required Reading for Women” I eagerly clicked to see how many, if any I had already read.  Many of them I had seen recommended by friends via facebook.  While others I had run across on my own.  And a few I had not read or no interest in reading.  Maybe you’ve got a spare minute or two (and maybe it’s evena paid minute or two!) to check out a few of the articles listed, they really are nice reads.

Right before Christmas, the girls had gotten into the habit of not going to sleep until 9-9:30pm and then would be grumpy when I woke them at 8-8:30am.  They would fight sleep at night, fight waking in the morning and then just be generally cranky throughout the day.  While it was nice for me to sleep a bit longer in the morning, it really was getting in the way of getting school work done and we would end up rushing to get out of the house for our morning activities.  And it was frustrating for Jeff to have kids getting out of bed continually.  Jeff & I decided it was time for a bedtime re-boot.  So we started on a Sunday morning but waking them at 6:30am….after an evening they had gone to bed at 9:30pm.  We had breakfast and then went for a morning hike.  In the rain.  It was 37 degree’s.  The entire family ended up walking 1.5 miles (yes, including Lavender) to the YMCA.  I stayed at the Y with Scarlett and Lavender while October & Jeff walked the 1.5 miles back to the van to drive to the Y to pick us up.  When we got home and had lunch, we gave them hot cocoa (sugar!!) to keep them awake.  Lavender was allowed to take a nap but we kept the other girls up and busy.  By dinner, there were no less than 2 kids crying at any one time.  It was a bit rough.  But they went to bed by 8pm and never once got out of bed.  The next day, I woke them at 6:45am and we went for an hour & a half swim with October swimming 50 yards.  Again, they went to sleep by 8pm and stayed put!  By the third day, October was waking on her own at 7am and by the fourth day they were all waking on their own at 7am and going to bed easily at 8pm.  However, on day five, Lavender went down for a nap at 3pm and didn’t wake until 7am the next morning.  I guess a week of bedtime re-boot tired her out!  Operation bedtime re-boot was a success!

Walking the Coal Creek trail very near our house the first morning of Operation Bedtime Re-boot.

Taking a snack break.  While it was raining, Scarlett refused to wear a hat and the only raincoat that I could find that fit October was one of my old ones.  It may also be time to get them some actual hiking boots as well.

I came out of the shower one morning awhile ago and both girls were reading at the breakfast table.  It was SO cute.

One of the girls favorite things at the Imagine Children’s Museum is to have me build them into a tower in the construction zone.  Since it was the holiday season, the “snow” blocks were out.  Once I build them into the tower they then come crashing out of it.  See how much fun it can be?!?  I get to build a tower no less than three times (baring any outside influence from other children) and they get to knock it down. 

I took the girls ice skating again and again, they loved it.  October was getting rather good at…so good she HAD to stop and tell others HOW to skate as well.  Mind you, it’s only her third time skating…ever.  Scarlett was getting more confident and would do fairly well whenever she didn’t have a walker to help her.  And I didn’t fall or break anything either!

This year we made Christmas ornaments for our family.  I have to say they came out WAY better than I expected.  I bought empty glass round ornaments, we coated the inside with floor polish, put glitter inside, shook them up and had wonderful glitter ornaments.  The girls then stuck on christmas stickers and I wrote in silver paint pen on them.  Much better than the salt dough ornaments that ended up pretty much a disaster last year! We made about 30 ornaments in about an hour and a half.

We had a nice Christmas at home.  The girls woke early, emptied their stockings and then we had breakfast.  We opened the rest of the gifts after breakfast and had appetizers for lunch.  Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Stocking’s opened

We got a baby doll out of the toys we have in storage, got it a new outfit and wrapped it in a blanket.  Lavender liked the baby doll and I’m pretty sure that neither October or Scarlett knew it was a recycled Christmas present.

Using her new headlamp to read her new book from Aunt Alisha

Using the Crayola Airbursh marker set.  It’s pretty neat.

Dressed for dinner!

We went to see Santa on December 22nd.  It’s a pretty low-key, low-stress, low-volume Santa where you take your own pictures and at most there are 5 other people in line.  It’s nice. 

While Lavender was a bit hesitant at first, she climbed right up with her sisters!

I made my own Christmas wreath again this year.  Last year, we had a wind storm and I collected blown down branches from the school parking lot.  This year, I got the branches from the tossed trimmings at Lowes when we bought our Christmas tree.  It could’ve been trimmed up a bit more but I was tired and just wanted to get it done.  Here’s the finished product:

Yup….it’s been awhile since I’ve posted.  Anywho….Scarlett had her first dance recital in December.  She did really well.  I wasn’t even sure she would go up on the stage.  But she went up, smiled and had a great time.  She been taking classes through the Parks & Recreation department at the community center for the last year & a half.