Priceless Christmas 2012

Better late then never: Christmas post. So why and I posting this now? We just finished hosting our first Safe Families child and it brought to the forefront of my mind how nourishing to a child's development it is to be in an environment marked by peace and joy. And cuz I've been busy, aiight, and this was mostly written.
...

Bo and I challenged ourselves this year to have a priceless Christmas. We wanted it to be filled with happy family memories, but didn't think that needed to cost anything. It's not because we can't afford to, but because we didn't want to participate in a lot of the commercialism, consumerism and stress that can surround the holidays that are supposed to be characterized by peace and joy.

We are blessed to have extended family who give gifts to our children for Christmas. In fact, there generally is an abundance and outpouring of generosity throughout the year but especially for Christmas, birthdays and Chinese New Year. We truly appreciate this demonstration of love. It gives our children something tangible to enjoy while remembering a loved one who cares so much about them that they spent their hard-earned money on presents our children would like. So it's not like our children are lacking in what has become the traditional gifts of Christmas.

So how did we come to this practice of giving gifts at Christmas anyway? From a Christian perspective, I wrestled this past season with the tradition of gift giving at Christmas. Is it because the wisemen gave gifts to Jesus? But, they were scholars and from a distant land who did not know Jesus personally nor did they interact with him ever again. They gave him extravagant gifts mostly for symbolism of who he was. Is it because God gave us the gift of Jesus? That was the most perfect gift! There's no competing with that. This year, I was more reflective on what Mary's gift was to Jesus, as she was his mother. Mary is a rockstar. Her life gets completely turned upside down, and still she maintains her cool. Peaceful. Joyful. You can't buy that. You can't wrap that.

Being their mom and the #1 person around them the most, I'm in a very unique position to give my children the three priceless gifts that no one else can give as much as I can: attention, affection and appreciation (thanks, Facebook, for the inspiration). Isn't that what all kids want from their parents the most?

Starting in the month of December, I laid the attention, affection, and appreciation on thick for my kids and we experience more peace and joy in this house than ever before. People feel listened to, loved and like they have a special and unique contribution to our family and the world, so there's a whole lot more getting along and fun. It's like magic, but it does take a lot of intentionality and patience...at least for me. It was a change I wanted to make to our home life not just for Christmas, but for our lifetimes because I want my children to remember that kind of mom and that kind of home and not just what I put under the tree.

So yes, we did put gifts under the tree too, but they were few and from the heart. They had minimal cost, but lots of love went into making them.

You can kinda get an idea of the sparseness of the gifts under the three here. This includes our family gifts as well as what my side of the family gave to the children (more on that later).

Bean and I made dough for cinnamon rolls and Tey a I baked them for Christmas breakfast. He learned how to make orange icing. The secret is in the zest! 

I made Mae a button monogram. Look how cute she is saying "M."
I got the buttons cheap from  the I.D.E.A. store and some from a generous friend.

Bo drew a snowy owl for Tey. I love their expressions of awe. 

A couple months ago Bean asked me to draw him a tiger. I took 5 seconds and drew him a cartoon one in markers.  I didn't know until later that he also asked Jon to do one and the result for Christmas was this. My husband never ceases to amaze me with his talents and his dedication to our kids. 

Tey learned to read this year, so I made some  bookmarks of some of his favorite books with the scrap paper from their book jackets.  This will be a encouragement to me too to keep reading to him a bunch. 

For Bo, the younger two and I made carmel corn from Bean's Boy Scout popcorn that were just popping kernels. 

Jon helped the kids make me marshmallows

Mae is the official taste-tester. Yum...soft, pillowy, sweetness, and the marshmallows aren't bad either!!

I also made Bean a shadowbox that holds his Tae Kwon Do belts that he's earned so far (white, yellow, orange and green. I wanted him to know how proud of him I am of his hard work with that and before this they just laid in his closet. Bo made me the most delicious brownies in the world and though I've been sharing, I think I've eaten half the pan just myself. A chocolate treat is a great motivator during the day :) I think Bean spent the most money this Christmas. He bought got everyone but me used books from the Urbana Free Library Book sale.

Mae loved her new book, which was in the style of some others she has. Tey immediately started reading his book. For Bo he picked out an AWESOME vintage edition of all of John James Audobon's paintings. It was perfect because just last week as Bo was finishing his animal drawings for the kids he was contemplating what it was like for JJA to draw all those birds. 

...
Months later, looking back, I'm so glad we challenged ourselves to do this. We can see the HUGE positive results for our family dynamic, which has helped prepare us to be available to share our peace and joy with another child, if only for a couple weeks. Hosting a Safe Families child reminded me the importance of loving and secure relationships in the lives of children, regardless of amount of their possessions or toys. 

Shaggy Sleepover

Tey brought a friend home from co-op that we got to take care of and have adventures with so that Tey could make an oral presentation to his class. Shaggy the Bear enjoyed a nature walk with us in the back yard. First we found some evidence of beavers. We have a couple of these old stumps on our yard near the creek. They are all old, so we don't plan on seeing any beavers anytime soon. :(

That day we also spread some seeds. I collected them off some asters growing along the side of the road near us. Earlier in the summer, we removed some invasive brush and this is our first attempts to restore that area with some native plants. We'll see how they grow. A couple days later we had some pretty strong winds. 

That Sunday we have some special pancakes with craisins and chocolate chips. How funny is it that Tey is concerned about getting Shaggy dirty from food, but was just dancing him around in dirt a couple days before? Silly old bear!

First Family Camping Trip

What's the best way to top off a week of the husband being away on a men's retreat then a business trip? Another night away from home, of course!

So this past weekend our whole family went on a camping trip the day after Bo got back from New York City (praise the Lord that he got home safe before Sandy hit). He was such a rockstar buying us a new 6-person tent to fit our family and getting the kids' stuff all packed while I attended a friend's virtual babyshower for her twins. 

We arrived at the camp site in early afternoon, which gave us plenty of time to set up our tent. It was quiet a family affair.

Up until sundown, the boys went for a hike while the older sister of a fellow Boy Scout and I got a fire going stronger. When everyone got back, we made foil packs of burgers for dinner. 

Thankfully the kids fell sleep really easily at bedtime. I couldn't believe how easily it went. I was then free to gaze at the beautiful almost full moon in quiet. Then I headed back to camp and had a really great, long conversation with another Boy Scout mom. It was awesome. And that marked the end of awesomeness for the evening.

I snuggled up close to Mei to try to sleep and that was fun for a little while, but then she keep inching into my space, cramping my style. I was out of a sleeping bag and cold and almost freezing (the temps got into the mid 30s). Then I was up all night worrying about the kids being warm enough, because I wasn't. I kept checking on Mei and she was fine...and cute. Tey told me before he went to bed that he was warm and toasty, plus he was wearing like 4 layers, so I wasn't as worried about him. Plus we was lost inside a thick sleeping bag. There was no finding him even if I wanted. Bean, on the other hand was only wearing one layer, and he only had one blanket. I woke up Bo to wake up Bean to ask him how he was. Both were fine. I felt bad for waking them up. Kinda. Why weren't they as miserable as I was?

They'd be up and at 'em in the morning and I'd be dragging. I decided that it would be best to slide Mei back to her side of the sleeping bag, reclaim my space, and get control of my warmth. I needed to shift focus to myself and my night's rest because everyone else was just fine and dandy and keeping myself awake worrying about them was doing no one any good. From then on I enjoyed a mediocre night's sleep, but at least I was not freezing and getting a stiff neck. Oh I forgot to mention that I also began to steal a corner of Mei's pillow pet because Bo and I forgot to pack our pillows.

Anyway, I'm stoked about camping with the fam and can't wait to do it again. We learned a lot from this first attempt at camping. Apparently there's a winter camping trip with the Boy Scouts in January-ish. Do we dare?

Mei's First Nature Exploration

You know those vacation days where you spend all day outside on a hike, at the beach, at the zoo, not paying attention to the time or the temperature? We had one of those days today and it was blissful. We headed out to explore the backyard right after we were done with breakfast and morning chores. At first we were going to collect nature treasures in a little wheelbarrow that the previous owners left for our kids, but that proved to be futile with a little Miss Mei dumping things out regularly. So, instead, we took pictures and the boys ran the most interest treasures to the patio to leave for later investigations.

I took other pictures including some of the boys, but this post focuses on our Mei and her day. She copied everything that her older brothers did today, so you can guess what they were up to. She's a little naturalist in the making.

The first tree you encounter just beyond our patio is this Boxedler Maple Acer negundo. I learned that after discovering that it was host to a bunch of red boxelder bugs. The boys enjoyed finding them all over and soon Mei was wanting to poke them and have them crawl on her. Yay for a dry summer, which these insects love. Hopefully they don't decide to winter with us.

The oldest and largest tree we have in our yard is a beautiful oak. I asked Bean to pose in front of it and she just followed along. Maybe I'll take their pictures each year in front of it or something. I do really hope this tree lives forever. It gives a great vibe to the backyard.

Next we found acorns from our oak tree. I think it's a bur oak, just like the small one we had at our former home. Mei was calling it a "ball." You can see her beginning to make a "b" sound. 

Then onto nature journalling. I was surprised that Bean just whipped his materials from our backpack and started drawing our oak tree without my prompting. Tey followed suit. Mei felt left out as she didn't have a nature journal nor a roll of these colored pencils made from branches (Bo and I made the former and bought the latter for the boys for Christmas). Note to self: colored pencils that look like sticks are going to be hard to find at clean-up time after journalling. The boys shared their materials with her and she was in her own world for a while.

I didn't realize that it was after one when we got back into the house. We did quietly observe a fawn explore our back yard for a long time. We also picked up a bunch sticks to toss on the burn pile (maybe S'mores tonight?). And had a nice chat with our neighbor. Anyway, it was later than usual for lunch, and Mei never quite made it all the way through her meal. 

I have never seen her fall asleep at the table before. I'll take that as a sign that she had a good time on her first nature exploration in our yard.

New Nest - Humbleness in Extravagance

Sorry for being quiet for so long, but I have a good excuse.

As you know Bo and I are not ones to make hasty decisions, but we decided to move. Within a matter of a week in mid June we contacted a realtor, visited the house, made an offer and had it accepted.

Then there was 6 weeks of me packing, decluttering and staging our house to sell. Bo took care of a lot of logistics with ordering carpets cleaned and other services, taking care of all the lender stuff and details with our realtor. He also repainted our whole house and did a ton of yard work and house repairs. He was amazing.

Last Saturday we moved in with the help of friends and Bo's brothers and then celebrated with sushi and sake, then frozen yogurt or bubble tea. I can't believe how fast it went.

We are currently in our new home and today was the first day we have internet access!  Huzzah! NOW this place has everything.

Honestly, this new home is unreal. It blows my mind that this is even ours. We are so blessed. I am overwhelmed with a feeling of unworthiness to live in such a beautiful home with beautiful land.

We're on almost 2 acres with mature trees and a stream that runs along the length of the property. We share this place with several lovely wild animals, including 3 feral cats, whom we feed everyday. I call them "The Beggers."

And here's a clueless fawn that we saw yesterday. Where's its mama?

The boys went crawdad fishing in the stream last Sunday with Uncle Joel and caught these little critters.

Our new home is like a little bit of heaven on earth. All these daily glimpses into God's glory, reminds me of His magnificence. And though I feel completely at home here and we plan to live here until retirement, I also know that this is NOT my home; it's His home for His glory. There is so much potential here to serve God. It's starts with our own family and with homeschooling, but extends to opening our home to others in ways we hadn't been able to before. We also have a greater responsibility now in protecting a larger piece of God's earth and the wildlife that live here. I am keenly aware that by worldly standards our new home can seem extravagant, but it is my hope that we can be use it to humbly serve our creator.

3 Crafts in 3 Days

I don't know what has gotten into me, but I've all of a sudden embraced the idea of crafting.

It's justified, though, because instead of buying over-priced, mass-produced pieces of junk, I can make my own one-of-a-kind piece of junk reusing stuff that would generally end up in a landfill. Plus, it's an outlet for me and I desperately need of that.

The I.D.E.A. store in indispensable for getting crafty stuff really inexpensively. I especially love them because all of their items are donated, which is super green, and the money raised supports our local schools. This weekend they had a frame sale and I got a black lacquer frame for 50 cents. This quickly and easily became my to-do list dry erase board for the kitchen, just by adding a piece of scrapbook paper and some letters.

At The I.D.E.A. store I also spotted these vases for a quarter a piece and a bunch of silk daffodils (I can't remember the cost of those, but probably 50 cents too). So Tey, Mei and I filled the vases with rice and stuck in the flowers and now we have a spring-theme mantle. I'm not sure if I will add more to this. I kinda like its simplicity.

Tonight I made a moss monogram. I had to borrow a glue gun from a friend because I didn't even have one. Truthfully, I don't think I've ever even used one before. I told you I wasn't crafty! Anyway, I cut an "E" from recycled cardboard, which surprisingly took me almost 10 minutes to do. Then I spent another 20 minutes hot gluing moss to it. Lastly I glued magnets to the back, so it would stick to our front door.

I'd much prefer to have spring-y ribbon to hold it up but because I'm not generally crafty, I don't just have some lying around. This will have to do. Our front door is our magnetic letter door anyway, so I may just run with this idea and keep making seasonal monograms.

Thanks to dear lillie blog for the monogram idea, and to makeandtakes.com for the wipe off board idea.

The Candy Mom Can

Tey gave a gift of experience to Bean this Christmas instead of buying another thing to add to the clutter of the house and to our Chrismas carbon footprint. We had just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so when I saw that Champaign Park District was putting it on at the Virginia Theater, I suggested it as a gift he could give Bean. I gave him some other ideas too but I don't remember what they are. So, after almost 3 months of anxiously waiting until March, tonight was Willy Wonka day!

You could taste the excitement!

The boys outside Virginia Theater

Their review during intermission. Sorry for the darkness. 

An usher teaching Bean about the orchestra pit

Me and my Tey exchanging words of love. Fact: intermission is always the perfect time to tell your date how much you love them.

A twitter friend of mine has a daughter (the Candy Man, er, Woman) in the show and seriously, she was the best. I don't think I am biased. Both the boys also thought she had the best voice and best costume. We met her after the show to tell her good job and went around to several other cast members as well.

Want to know that the kids told me in their own words?

Tey's narration of the event:

"We sat, of course. We watched the show. The candy man was singing. The candy man was singing the best at the show. Willy Wonka gave all his stuff to someone else."

Bean's original narration of the event while I typed:

"I remember that lights turned on and off and curtains opened and closed. Charlie got a golden ticket. Veruca Salt a golden ticket. Augusta Gloop got a golden ticket. Mike got a golden ticket. Violet got a golden ticket. And Veruca Salt, Agusta Gloop, Mike, got in trouble. But, Charlie got Willy Wonka’s hat and walking stick. We sat the whole time. We watched the whole time. And Charlie also got Willy Wonka’s whole chocolate factory. The end."

After I showed it to him we went through an editing process where I tried to teach him about removing repetition and grouping similar thoughts. Here is his finished report:

"I remember that lights turned on and off and curtains opened and closed. We sat the whole time and we watched until the very end. Veruca, Agusta, Charlie, Violet and Mike each got their very own golden ticket. Everyone got in trouble, except Charlie got rewarded with Willy Wonka’s hat, walking stick and his whole chocolate factory. The end. Do you ever think you’ll be going to Willy Wonka?"

I loved the creativity as he added more detail and flair the second time around. His improvements were better than I expected too. For example, for "We sat the whole time. We watched the whole time," I encouraged him to combine the sentences and remove the repetition. I thought he might say "We sat and watched the whole time," which is how I remember learning in school. He came up with an even better sentence that has his own Bean flavor, "We sat the whole time and we watched until the very end." 

The candy mom can cuz she mixes it with love and makes the world taste good!

She's a Vegetarian

For Lent, I'm giving up meat. It was kind of a spur of the moment idea. Lent crept up on me and I hadn't given it much thought. I had been thinking however about the need for our family to be more conscious of the food that enters our body and the bigger reasons about why.

I have a growing guilty feeling of eating meat and the toll that it takes on this Earth that God created for us to live on and to protect. I feel worse if our meat's not local and instead factory farmed somewhere miles from here. I feel horrible for people who have to labor in risky conditions to provide me that meat. There are many other reason, but basically I want to reduce my family's consumption of meat.

The kids haven't noticed yet. I expected Bean to first realize it because he has recently been proclaiming his love of meat. I think it makes him feel ferocious. Anyway, I've been experimenting with some new recipes with mixed results. The most well received so far has been a curry egg salad with sunflower seeds. I used greek yogurt instead of mayo because I despise cooking with mayo. So mom, no need to worry about our protein intake. We had 1) eggs, 2) sunflower seeds, 3) Greek yogurt on 4) a whole grain tortilla. I felt even better about it cuz we had a three veggies too, choppd celery in the egg salad, wrapped in romaine lettuce leaves (then in the tortilla) and a size of raw carrot. All those were organic too, which addresses many of the reasons to go meatless too. It tasted great and was visually appetizing. I'll have to get a picture sometime.

This week we also tried these salmon bites. Tey nibbled about it, but the rest of us devoured them. Bo wasn't home for lunch so he didn't get to try. But, the day before he made this curry rice sans potatoes because no one in our house like those. Bean picked at this dish, but the rest of us really liked it. Bean generally doesn't like rice, nor Tey, but it is growing on Tey. In general Bean licks his plate clean, literally, if I let him.

This coming week, new recipes I'm planning on making homemade are black bean soup and also some sort of veggie pancakes. If anyone has favorite meatless recipes to share, I'd love to hear recommendations.

For lent, I'm also randomly reading some of Paul's letters in my quiet time. I've always admired Paul's writing. Really, he's a fantastic writer as was Luke. So I've been thinking: it's crazy how he can be so full of praise even when in jail. He's doing God's will and can see God's hand at work even in the greatest of hardships. I'm so very humbled because at times I feel like I deserve something from God because I am following his calling on my life. I feel like I'm making sacrifices, so should earn something in return, right? Those thoughts of entitlement quickly get swept away when I reflect on the challenges Paul faced in his ministry and his worshipful heart in all of it. Oh if I could have an attitude of gratitude instead of entitlement.

Unconditional Love

Are you on Pinterest? I am. It's an obsession. I'm an ideas kinda gal with sometimes little follow through, so like Johnnie 5, I want "more input!" and Pinterest delivers. I don't have a single creative bone in me and Pinterest lets me steal be inspired by others creativity.  For me, it's extremely cathartic to mindlessly pin, pin, pin after a long, tiring day of homeschooling. 

Speaking of long and tiring days, have I mentioned that homeschooling is long and tiring? Well let me tell you. It's long. And tiring. Maybe not for people who have been planning to stay at home or to homeschool, maybe not for people who have been doing it for a couple years, maybe not for people who have experience working with numerous children of multiple ages at the same time. But for me and especially as we are transitioning...my days are long. And tiring.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. But sometimes they drive me nuts!!! Late this afternoon was one such time when I took them to The I.D.E.A. Store to pick out some arts and crafts materials for Valentine's Day and for our homeschooling. That part was awesome. The I.D.E.A. Store is awesome. My kids were being awesome. It was in the parking lot when one of them made a very disappointing choice. Grrr! It took every ounce of my being to keep my cool, to not freak out and to try to make it a teaching moment. 

That moment was not made. I just had to bite my tongue because it was the end of a long, tiring day. I had used up the rest of my patience reserves 2 minutes prior when I attempted to keep them from messing around with the check out counter. I knew that nothing that would come out of my mouth at that point could be positive. So I kept it shut. We drove in silence. 

When we got home Bo took over and I disappeared upstairs to make this.

I'm gaining an appreciation for arts and crafts when before I thought they were pointless and just created something that would eventually end up in the garbage. If for nothing else this it calmed me. I channeled my frustration into bending the wire hanger. I loved the scratchy, natural feel of the burlap and knew that it would allow me to cut imprecisely and not worry about it having to look perfect. I just wanted to make something beautiful. It turned out better than I expected. Thank you Naptime Decorator for the inspiration.

I hung it on the offenders door. I want my kids to know that I love them unconditionally. Even after a long and tiring day. Even after they have committed an offense. We are all rough and all imperfect, just like this burlap heart. I need to remember that more about myself and about my kids.

Night Owls

No study is complete without field trips. This week is chuck full of them, kicking off with a guided night hike at the Middle Fork River Forest Preserve. I was hesitant to go given that it was cold (and I don't like cold), it's in the middle of nowhere (country roads after dark still sometimes creep me out despite living out here for over a decade), and I had a slight fear that we'd be attacked by a wild animal (but I didn't tell Bean that). Despite my initial hesitation, it was a night I don't think we'll soon forget.

Screech Owl
Photo by Angela Bartels

From our family, it was just Bean and I and he was totally in his element: skipping around in excitement, asking a lot of questions and rattling off his knowledge of all kinds of owls that he's been learning about. It wasn't long into our hike that the guide called a screech owl with a recording. It sounds like a UFO, then like a horse whinnying. Off in the distance, we heard it reply . Then the call got closer and closer. When the guide turned on her light, there it was right beside us up in the closest tree! So amazing and beautiful! Bean got to see it too. I think that was the best part of the night.

For the rest of our hike, she also attempted to call a barred owl, which sounds like someone asking, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?" but nothing ever responded. Still, we got to see an animal's burrow, some coyote's poop, and a deers' path. We also got to hear the rushing water of the Middle Fork River which was pretty high due to all the monsoon-like torrential rains we've gotten in the past couple days. There was something so peaceful about being out there in nature, yet also so sad that even though we were 45 minutes away from Champaign, you could still see it's light pollution in the southwestern sky.

Right before we left, the guide attempted a couple times to call the great horned owl, the largest owl in Illinois. She called the owls in order of smallest to largest, to better coax them out. The great horned owl responded very, very far off with a deep hoot, but only once and it never came close. Only she and I heard it. Then the wind soon picked up and it was difficult to hear anything. Bean didn't seem too bummed about not hearing it. He had a great time and we picked up more info to do more night hikes again.

On the way home, we were only 10 minutes into the drive when Bean fell asleep. It was only 8 o'clock. I guess the only night owls here are the ones at the forest preserve. :)

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

As is our family tradition, every birthday is celebrated with a special birthday breakfast, usually picnic style in the bedroom of the birthday person. This Christmas we extended it to a celebrate the birth of Christ...all warm and cozy in front our fireplace. And today, you guess it, our family enjoyed a special breakfast (for dinner) in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. around the dinner table. In addition to the delicious food pictured below, we enjoyed some fun conversation inspired by the food, which was inspired by this important holiday.

It has come to be expected by our kids that birthday breakfasts include cinnamon rolls (we usually for the Pillsbury kind with orange glaze). Because this is now a staple celebratory pastry and I really want to reduce the amount of processed foods we eat, it was on of my bucket list of recipes to learn for this year. I followed this recipe and love the use of orange juice and orange zest. Buh-bye Pillsbury.

With some of the leftover juice, I sprinkled it on our fruit salad. We usually do one very "fun" fruit for birthday breakfast (like mango), but a fruit salad teaches us a lot about appreciation of diversity. The different shapes, colors, textures, and tastes of all the fruit are what makes fruit salad so great! I didn't  mention this to the kids, but it makes me cringe to hear the US referred to as "the melting pot." It sounds like we're all supposed to be exactly the same...kinda like if you pureed my fruit salad. Then you can't appreciate all the unique things that each fruit contributes!

Next going clockwise is a fried egg. You've probably heard of the children's activity where you show them a brown egg and a white egg and talk about how we make look different on the outside, but inside we're all the same.  I can see this going wrong...another "We're-all-the-same" "Our-differences-don't-matter" type-thing. In my opinion, differences do matter, and we should recognize them and appreciate them. So we did. Quite simply, different hens make different eggs, as do ducks, geese, etc. Then Bo transitioned to the more complex issue of judging by first appearances and also brought in MLK's famous quote, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." We couldn't tell much difference between the two hen eggs based on what was on the inside. The colors and sizes were slightly different, but both kinds were good enough to eat. Once we cooked them, we couldn't tell which was which too, but everyone gladly ate what they were served.

Lastly, we had bacon. We made no significant connection there. It's just another special treat for a special day!

In a future posts, I'll review what we have been doing for the past week or so to teach about Dr. Martin Luther King and also emphasize of the importance of this national holiday. I hope you had a great day off, if you did! If you didn't do something meaningful to you or to your family in honor of MLK yet, I encourage you to do it. It's not too late! It doesn't need to be grand either. Let's just somehow recognize the impact Dr. King has had on this country and the civil rights movement. Let me know how you celebrated too! I like getting new ideas.

Good Enough

As much as possible I tried not to freak out over Christmas planning and execution this year. It's supposed to be joyous, right, not draining? So, there were several things that fell through the cracks or didn't go as planned and I tried to just let it go.

I did finally ordered our personalized matching repurposed wool stockings that I had my eye on since last year. Don't they look adorable?!

Well, I never got a chance to look for an additional coordinating stocking holder since Mei-Mei has been born. Nor did Bo or I fill each other's stockings. So we left ours off this year. The kids might help us fill next year cuz they were concerned that the grown ups didn't have any. My sweeties.

We're trying to encourage a love of nature in the kids, so I was able to order these awesome tree colored pencils, and these crayon holders also from Etsy so they could draw in their field journals. I was glad that I was able to find so many homemade gifts for the kids (better for the environment!). They loved them so much these were the things the chose to bring to grandma and grandpa's later. We also got them thermal underwear to brave the cold in nature this winter. 

BUT....NO FIELD JOURNALS. Despite it being my first idea as a gift to them, and the inspiration for all the other aforementioned gifts that we got them, my homemade field journals didn't get done. I got the paper and the covers from the I.D.E.A Store. Bo punched holes in the paper, but the covers were too thick. Because other stuff came up, we didn't have enough time to solve that problem so we didn't finish them yet. Hopefully later this week we'll have the field journals ready. 

Later this week, we might also put up our nativity too. The kids have just been playing with their magnetic one in the meantime. We might also put ornaments on the tree. If anything, maybe we'll just do the ones that tell important stories of our family cuz our tree is B-A-R-E!

And my kids NEVER all looked at the camera this Christmas. I probably shouldn't hold my breath that this is something we can accomplish next year either, huh?

Spicy Mudpie

As much as I would like my kids to play outside everyday, it just doesn't happen. Today was just too gorgeous not to push them out the door despite them being deep in collaborative play indoors. Thankfully, they continued outside and together they made the most creative mudpie with mud, grass, and cardboard that we were using to choke some grass. They played for quite a while before they asked for ingredients from the pantry.

What? Are you serious?! Real food? Then I remembered it. 

It was probably two years ago when someone on Freecycle posted that they were getting rid of jars of old spices. At the time we were going to start buying our spices in bulk, so these jars were exactly what I needed. And for FREE! Not surprisingly they have sat on a shelf in our basement since then. I guess I felt bad just tossing the spices out to use the jars but had no idea what to do with it. Never would I have imagined that it would be perfect for this:

The kids were thrilled to be using real ingredients. This was the final product. 

It's baking in a oven made from a shopping basket inside a cardboard box. I think it's hilarious that just after yesterday's post about them playing with String, they spent most of the morning playing with Dirt and a cardboard Box.

Strings Attached

Have you seen this funny post on Greek Dad? I have to agree that the best toys are ones that are simple, have multiple uses and stretch kids' imaginations. Of the five on the list of best toys, String (I love that Jonathan Liu capitalizes "string") is by far my kids' favorite, especially for Bean. To document this, I just went around the house and snapped these 5 photos to support my claim:

Exhibit A: String from a yo-yo  is used to tie the barn door shut.

Exhibit B: Ribbon is used to tie a bandanna to Mei Mei's walker toy and inside are two baby animals. For a stork? I dunno.

Exhibit C: Lanyard is tied to a bracelet around a dog's neck to make a leash.

Exhibit D: This is my personal fav. 

The yellow String is holding penguin's jet pack on. Why? Obviously because penguins are birds, but can't fly. Poor penguin :( The green bracelet around the jet pack keeps water from coming in when she goes underwater and the goggles keep water out of her eyes. I love Bean's creativity with this one and that he considers some of this animals and other playthings to be girls when nothing suggests that they should be.

Exhibit E: I have no idea what this is except that it needed to be controlled by computer (a computer keyboard was added later).

The best part about String is that it doesn't even need to be bought. In the above pic, the dark Strings at the top came from hoodies of mine, the green and yellow Strings came wrapped around bath towels my mom got the kids last Christmas, the green bracelet (around the white canister) came from an old key chain, the blue lanyard came from my previous job and the orange spiky bracelet (dog collar in Exhibit C) was a handout from a company cookout of my husband's a couple years ago. Each has its own history, kinda like ornaments on a Christmas tree, though DH and I joke about buying the kids a bunch of brand new String for Christmas becuase they love it so much. It's better for the environment to play with repurposed string anyway. That original post could just have easily been posted on Green Dad rather than Geek Dad.