This is how I feel today...

This made me laugh...does anyone else feel like they spend a large part of each week cleaning their house, only to have their house almost instantaneously unclean itself?

{image from here}

Ode to President's Day

Well, more of a picture ode than anything else...

Inspired by this fun powdered wig craft, we decided to celebrate President's Day in between heated rounds of Indiana Jones Wii, by dressing up like two of our favorite presidents, namely George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (and I think they are the ones whom the holiday is for...)  Although we only got as far as the head gear.  Abe's bushy eyebrows and beard are pretty horrible replicas, and while the wig looked cute on the Bubs, it didn't really fit the oldest child and it looks more like a big marshmallow hat than anything else ...I will gladly admit that craftiness is not my strong point.  But the kids did have fun wearing the hats for a grand total of 25 seconds - and thats what really matters, right.

And the Last Valentine's Day post of 2010

I got some roses from BigP - the night before the actual day!  Very impressive - he got them early becasue he wanted to get me pink roses (my favs) but they only had red ones left.  Still very beautiful and I have since rearranged them in a much nicer fashion!!!

Our dinner of mini heart-shaped pizzas and a salad was a huge success.  I have the easiest pizza dough recipe -it takes about 5 minutes to make and the kids loved having their own little pizzas.  Needless to say, they were all devoured.  We just used ingredients we had in the kitchen - cheese, hotdog slices and pineapple for the kids (!) and cheese, pineapple and bacon for BigP and cheese and pineapple for me.  Very, very tasty.

For dessert, we went with the Toblerone chocolate pots (see previous posts for recipe link).  It is the easiest dessert on earth to make - it took 2 whole minutes plus cooling time in the fridge - and was out of this world delicious.  Very, very rich though.  (When I mentioned how rich they were to the boys, one of them replied:  "Thanks so much for making us such an expensive dessert, how much exactly did it cost?!")

Lastly, the boys going through their Valentine's Day stash from their classmates...they spent hours reading each note and made up all kinds of games and goodness knows what entertained them for so long, but any peace and quiet a mother can get, she will gladly accept...that is until the sugar buzz kicked in....

Happy Heart's Day!

Happy Heart's Day!

We will be having a lazy day at home, probably in our PJs, with the boys playing some version of a Star Wars game and me playing some version of "Go find the ....." (pig, horse, cow) etc. with the Bubs.  He spreads his plastic dollar store animals all over the living room and runs off with much excitement to find each requested animal.  It keeps him entertained for quite a while, which is always a good thing =)

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) bigP has to work today, or else we would be enjoying some kind of family outing, but when he returns, we plan on making mini heart-shaped pizzas for dinner, followed by reading our little love notes to each other over either this dessert, or this one.

And to end this post, a quote from Euripedes to remind us that love isn't just about smooches and soul mates, it's about loving each other...

" Love is all we have,

the only way that each can help the other."

One

Recently I came across the following quote from a book called 1 (How many people does it take to make a difference?) by Dan Zadra, Kobi Yamada via Deb_S Photographs on Flickr.

image via Amazon

"one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself or anyone else is inspiration. inspiration to get in touch with your dreams. inspiration to see out your deepest passions. inspiration to make a difference in the world, a difference that only you can make. this is not a book about success; it's a book about significance. it's not a book about making a living; it's a book about making a life. it's not about fame or acclaim; it's about contribution and service. instead of asking, 'what can i get from life?'. watch what happens when you ask, 'what can i give?'"

It sounds intriguing and a good one to start the year off with.  While others may have a few books under their belt by now, my grand total of books read this year is a big nada...need to get back to my Book Club - its the only way I make time to read these days, although last year my track record of actually reading the books was terrible.  So I shall add to my list of resolutions:  read more! And this book is on my list... as well as the first book, called 5 (Where will you be 5 years from now?)  by Dan Zadra, Kristel Will.

image via Amazon

Valentine's Day School Gifts

On Valentine's Day each year, the kids always make a home-made Valentine for each child in their class.  This year I showed the kids some pictures I found online and each child immediately chose the Valentine that they wanted me to make.  The oldest child chose to make a paper airplane carrying a message, inspired by the one from While She Naps. 

We weren't so ambitious as to make an origami plane, we just made the standard paper plane, which he decorated with markers and rubber stamps.  I thought it would be a bit much for him to write the message (U R plane awesome!) over twenty times (one for each child in his class), so I had him write it once and then I scanned and copied it, so all he had to do was write the name of each child, which was much more manageable.  He was thrilled with the finished planes, and wanted to make an extra one for himself to play with. 

It's always the simplest things that kids love playing with...I must remind myself of this at Christmas time and Birthday time....  And I liked how it didn't have any candy attached to it, since they end up with so much candy anyway.

His brother chose a downloadable guitar valentine from Zakka Life.  This wasn't much of a surprise as he really really really wants to learn the guitar. But not just any guitar - a rock ‘n roll guitar “and if I can’t learn on a real rock ‘n roll guitar, then I don’t want to learn to play at all.”   Okay, you might be waiting a while then, little buddy....Anyhoo, he was very excited to assemble the "guitars", and totally stoked that his valentine involved a lollipop.

Then we made the boxes that they take into school to put all the Valentine's Cards that they get from their classmates into.  We decided on robot/monsters and I spray painted the boxes for a rustic, recycled look.  For a more polished look, covering the box in construction paper, or scrapbook paper, or gift wrap, would be better, but we were going for the beaten up look, so the spray paint worked fine.  I only put on two coats because it was in the teens, temperature wise, outside...so the robots were lucky they even got two coats.

We made cardboard heart feet and cardboard tubes for the arms.  The eyes were styrofoam balls attached to the box with craft wire that was twisted to make the googly eye effect.  The kids were kind of worn out at the end of this project and so they weren't really interested in adding heart stickers or stamping etc. but they might do this between now and Valentine's Day.
 

And this sets an all time record in the Household - a project complete with five days to spare...amaaaazing.

Love Notes

Each year our family begins the month of February by decorating the living room with cardboard and cardstock glitter hearts and after dinner each night, we write little love notes to each other. Last year we each wrote a love note to each member of the family every evening, but this year we decided to change it up a bit and we have made it more into a game. One person gets to start and they write a note to someone and when they're finished, everyone closes their eyes and they pop their note into the recipients mail box and then we all check to see who the lucky recipient is. Then that person chooses someone to write a love note to, and so the game continues until everyone has a love note. The kids are still young enough to be filled with anticipation as they wait to see who will receive a love note next…

Then, on Valentine’s Day, we each have a mailbox filled with heartfelt, handwritten love notes. It’s just a fun way for the family to interact as well as a way of trying to take the commercialization out of Valentine’s Day for the most part. I’m not saying that if a certain person wanted to buy his wife some diamond earrings as an expression of love, that that would not be totally okay, but otherwise (and since that will not be happening any time soon), its all about the “gifts from the heart” theme around here.

For dinner I made stew in the crock pot and my husband could not believe his eyes and (his nose) when he arrived home last night to discover that dinner had already been made. Over dinner we realized that we have owned the crock pot for well over 10 years and have never used it and we were wondering what on earth had possessed us to buy one in the first place. This was followed by my husband wondering what on earth had possessed me to suddenly bring the thing out and made a stew with it! But that’s just my style…total randomness and always some element of surprise…

I served the stew in bread bowls and the dinner was a huge hit. For dessert, I made Bakerella’s Peach Crunch Cake. Let me say, it was as if she concocted this recipe just for me – it is totally foolproof which is exactly what I need, judging from my near disasters here and here. My photos do not do the dessert justice, see hers here.

The First Day of the Second Month of the New Decade...

Yesterday, when I started to write this post, it was titled: The last Day of the First Month of the New Decade – which sounded much more catchy. Anyhoo, since I started writing it just before midnight, I wasn’t able to finish it and so today demands a different title.

And now we are one month into the year and the brand new decade brings with it a fresh perspective. We are naturally moved to think in terms of a wider time frame - the next ten years – and life seems fresh with possibilities and hope.

Looking back, the last decade (for us) was about creating a family. The years when the children are young are so rich in love and joy, but they also require a tremendous amount of energy and patience…especially once the third child comes along…and especially if he is the type of child that shows absolutely no signs of caution or fear and will dive head first off a couch without a second thought, or could climb out of a pack n play before he turned one, or had mastered every milestone that took his older brother’s at least another year to master (except for walking and talking) before the age of one… So energy and patience (along with the love and joy that children always bring) was the name of the game for the 00 decade.

And now a bright, shiny new decade looms before us…and with the kids a little older, I’m hoping that it gives us (the Hubster and I) a bit more breathing room to enable us to follow our dreams. In the meantime, it looks like I have some tidying up to do ;)

Just like his Dad, it takes a whole lotta mess in order to cook up something good!

Super Bowl Sunday

With the Super Bowl about a week away, I can't say that it's exactly Super Bowl Mania around here since we do not have TV.  We go to a Super Bowl party every year but the kids just run around like hooligans and so are pretty much oblivious to this great American tradition.  So in order to instill some true American spirit - we decided to make Super Bowl Bobbleheads.  Because, really, what shouts Super Bowl more than homemade bobbleheads?! 

We decided on the Colts, since that is their father's pick (I had to ask who was playing....) and after some googling to see what the Colt's uniform looks like, we followed the instructions from Family Fun. 

The craft was pretty simple and straight forward, although some of the bits were a little tricky for little hands.  The kids opted to paint the helmets (white styrofoam balls) instead of using tissue paper and a glue mixture to cover them.  After dilligently painting the helmets the perfect shade of blue, I happened to look at a picture of the uniform again, only to discover that the Colt's helmets are actually white with a blue stripe.  So all that painting turned out to be in vain but thank goodness for washable paint, because after much scrubbing at the kitchen sink by yours truly, the helmets were almost restored to their original glory. 

Other than that little hiccup, it went pretty smoothly and they were pleased with the end result.  After that, we headed to the kitchen to whip up some Super Bowl cupcakes (from Family Fun).  Since we didn't have any black liquorice for the helmets, I had to substitute using black strips of paper!  The boys didn't mind a bit, they are very used to all my shortcomings when it comes to crafting and baking and a whole lot of other things...they were just thrilled to have cupcakes for afternoon tea.  Boys are so easy to please!

Here are a few ideas for kid friendly football shaped snacks and yummies for next Sunday...

1.  Super Bowl Mini Football Subs - Family Fun

2.  Super Bowl Football Turnovers - Family Fun

3.  Super Bowl Football Grilled Cheese Sandwiches - Family Fun

4.  Super Bowl Football Brownies - Betty Crocker

5.  Super Bowl Football Candies - Amazing Moms

6.  Super Bowl Frosted Peanut Butter Football Cookies - Betty Crocker

Valentine's Day Photos

Since I've started this blog, I have really been trying to think ahead and plan ahead, which is the only reason that I am even beginning to think about Valentine's Day in the month of January.  Usually I wait until a few days before and then turn into a frantic mess, trying to help the kids write Valentine's Day notes to every.child.in.their.class, and quickly trying to come up with an idea for the Valentine's Day photo I take of the kids holding up red hearts each year; and then designing the photo card to send out to friends and family. 

But not this year.  This year I am ahead of the game - instead of the kids making hearts out of card stock for their classmates, we discussed a special project we could do and I ordered the supplies a few days ago.  Will post about it when it arrives and the kids start working on it.  As for the photo, I am thinking about a few options, which is always the first step... will post after its done. 

In the meantime, here are some pictures of past Valentine's Day cards of the kids.  I'm pleased to see some improvements in my photoshopping ... although I still have a looooooooong way to go - it's definitely a never ending process when it comes to that program.  The third photo was my first foray into scrapbooking and my friend Andrea told me how to do it - I basically just copied hers, but it got me started!

I have no idea how to get these pictures any bigger... they are at s640!?

...Blogger has the tendancy to baffle me ALOT.

For some cute Valentine's Day photo ideas for kids - see Jolieanne Photography on Flickr and Daily Relish.

Making Photos Look Better

Today was one of those days - the kind that just follows their own course entirely without any regard to what one was hoping to accomplish or the items on one's never ending To Do List.  It started when the Bubs went down for a nap and I had a few free moments to myself.  Instead of sticking to the schedule I had planned the night before, I decided to 'quickly' hop onto Google to find a few ideas for Valentine's Day.  And just as the internet has a habit of doing to a person, before I knew it, one thing led to another, and I didn't get to anything related to Valentine's Day at all.  Rather, I found myself in a hundred different places and ended up reading a very helpful post that contained some great tips on how to make photographs look better. 

It must be noted that one of my guilty pleasures is reading Photography Blogs.  The common theme with the particular blogs I read is that the photographers are all, for the most part, mothers, who have chosen photography as a career path.  I am in awe of the photography they produce and wish that my photographs would come out looking anywhere in the vaguest region of that good.  I realize that photography is a career for them, and that they have mastered the fine art of it, but oh, how I wish I could make my photographs come even just a little bit close to the superbness that they are creating. 

But, alas, I just do not have any particular interest in learning photography.  I just want the seemingly countless photographs that I take of the children to look great.  At least some of them.  I know that is like saying: "I want my meals to look and taste like Julia Child's, but I don't want to follow a recipe."  My husband has tried to show me how to shoot on manuel and adjust the ISO and some other things, the names of which I can never remember, but I admit that I am just a lost cause.  And so whenever I pick up the camera I just flip the switch to Program Mode and hope for the best. 

So I was excited when I came across this post on the "new to me" blog - Beyond Snapshots.  While I understand that you have to start with a technically correct and basically good photograph in order to get to an even better photograph in post production, and that it is pretty impossible to transform a bad photograph into anything other than possibly a minimally less bad photograph - I decided to snap a quick pic of my Bub and go through the steps listed in the post to see if I could at least add the slightest of improvements.

Although it is far from anything I see on my favorite photo blogs, I was happy with the results and I think it is as much as I can hope for unless I step it up a notch and actually listen to my husband's words of wisdom. 

Hopefully this will help out some other moms out there that like to snap a hundred photos of their kids every second and are hoping to be able to tweak some of their fav's before printing and framing. 

As a side note:  it must be noted that my computer is quite old (as is my version of photoshop) - so this might actually look quite terrible on anyone else's computer screen (!) but I hope it provides you with the same inspiration I got from reading the post over at Beyond Snapshots and that you have fun playing around with different settings until you find something you are happy with!

Whenever I whip out the camera, Bubs always goes into super ham mode and pulls the funniest of faces - usually he scrunched up his nose, squeezes his eyes shut and lifts up his chin!  Here I caught him in the middle of doing all three...

So my day turned out to be just perfect, even if I didn't accomplish anything I was hoping to, and learning some new things is always a good thing.  My next step might even be ACTIONS!

Mini Snowmen on a Snowy Saturday

This morning we awoke to fresh snow on the ground and the kids were very eager to get outside and play. They wanted to take their little red sleds to play with in the snow and before long I found myself outside helping them to make tiny little snowmen to ride on the sleds...

After they had been outside for quite some time (it's amazing how long they can stay out in the cold...) they came back inside requesting hot cocoa...and we ended up making some skiing mini marshmallow snowmen.

It's at times like these, when you find yourself unexpectantly celebrating the small things in life, like a fresh dusting of snow on the ground with the ones you love, and you feel your heart burst open with joy and gratitude for everything around you, that you find yourself knee deep in the heart of life. Recognizing that joyfulness is a gift that sometimes comes from being fully immersed in the moment...a gift that allows you to forget all about your silly frustrations about how you can "never get anything done" and instead of viewing certain things as distractions, you realize that, if you allow them to be happy moments, they are really the marrow of life. And when you look back, these moments will all string together to become the great garland of what you remember, for you certainly won't be remembering what it was you were distracted from...

Dreaming of Paris

I am just not in the mood to do much of anything today, least of all start that Christmas Album (!) although this morning I did manage to cross off a large number of items off my To Do List....
Now that lunch has been served (the children like to ask for a meal by asking when I will be serving it)...I happened across this lovely Paris Loft at Cookie Mag and I am dreaming of Paris...I wish I could spend the afternoon here...

this master bedroom looks a little like ours...I think I might try to copy the heart shape polaroid ideas above the bed - perfect in time for Valentine's Day...

i also heart the hot air balloon in the child's bedroom...

Tiny Things

Right now I have a huge To Do List that I am avoiding.  One of the items on the list is the task of making a December Daily Christmas Album.  Last year I was inspired by Ali Edwards and her annual December Daily Project and really wanted to make an album of my own, since we do so much fun Christmas related stuff in December, but I never did get around to doing it.  So this past December, I resolved that I would do it for sure this year, but now it is almost mid January and it is still just an item on my To Do List. 

I know the point of it is to try and complete a page a day in December, but I knew that I would never accomplish this before Christmas, so I gave myself some leeway and felt for sure that I would begin the project right after the mayhem of Christmas had subsided.  Uh-huh.  I imagine it is one of those projects that you just have to start, and then the creativity will flow from there...and I imagine that having some kind of album would probably be a very good starting point.  I'm sure if I just read the "instructions" on her blog, all this would be layed out very clearly...  but when I popped over there a short while ago to find out about the Album details, I got sidetracked by a great post about what she does with all the photo Christmas cards she receives from family and friends.  She cuts them into squares (using a square punch) and makes a scrapbook page out of them all.  Very clever, although I don't know if I could be as fearless as she is, when faced with having to choose which part of the card makes it into the perameters of the square punch.  I might try it, but I will only allow myself to do so after I have completed my Christmas Album.  The Album which is now causing me guilt and anxiety and dread, and is forcing me to look around the web for Valentine's Day ideas, in an effort to rid  my mind of anything at all Christmas related...

And so I was delighted when I came across The World's Smallest Postal Service from Leafcutter Designs. How tiny and adorable are these little letters?  They would make for some very cute Valentine's Day notes...

Happy New Year Mini Banner

While i am still procrastinating like crazy over sitting down to actually think about my resolutions and goals and plans for the year, someone else has been diligently working on his....

I just love how he dragged a chair over to the wall, then found his brother's booster seat and placed it on the chair and then climbed up, found a pen, and started to "write." 

And while he was busy working on his project, I decided to make a Happy New Year mini flag banner for my computer - because that is what you do when you are avoiding a 356 item To Do List.  (Inspiration via Paper Source)

Resolutions and a whole lot of rambling

Happy New Year!
2010 has a great ring to it, and since it wouldn’t take a lot to beat 2009, let’s hope the year is a good one for everyone. We had a lovely evening at home saying goodbye to ‘09 and welcoming the New Year. Big P came home with some party hats and noise makers, so all I ended up having to make was the 2010 eye glasses, which the kids decorated. They also filled in a 2009 Favorite Things Worksheet – which basically consisted of a blank piece of printer paper, with a spot to write their name and the year on top, and then I wrote out a list of their Favorites Things of the Year, such as friends, sports, games, video games, colors, animals, candy, food etc. and they filled them in. They actually quite enjoyed thinking about all their "favorites" and so we shall do this every year, and re-read the lists every New Year’s Eve.

Last New Year’s Eve, we had family in town and after dinner we discussed each person’s Funniest, Happiest, Worst, Best etc. Moments of The Year. I had taken down notes, so we could look at the list again the following New Year’s Eve (which would be this one…) but I could not find where I had put them. Surely with the Christmas stuff, but apparently not…. I do this all the time, so it’s not surprising to anyone…and of course I will find the list sometime in January…

Anyhoo, on that note, the year is off to a good, but disorganized start. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and really think about my goals and hopes for the year, but there are some very obvious Resolutions, such as Get Organized, that seem to have a permanent place on the top of any list of Resolutions I will ever make for myself. Specifically, Household Organization.  My husband and I like things neat, tidy and organized, however, to walk into our house, you would never imagine that we are actually like this.  Unless, of course, you let us know ahead of time that you will be coming over, then I will go into a frenzy, picking up, tidying up, neatening and straightening and not allowing the children to touch Anything In The House.  Not Even Their Toys - Especially Not Their Toys.  After all, that is the cause of most of the chaos to begin with....
But since most of my friends are always popping in uninvited unexpectantly, they know to expect a well lived in house...

I find it is next to impossible to keep an organized house living in a small space, but I know that I am full of excuses and that it can be done…with a lot of consistency and effort. But for someone who is not a big fan of domesticity, it is a bit of a challenge. I love my family and family life, I am just Not A Fan of the constant cleaning and tidying up and laundry and cooking and general menial household work. I know some Mother’s live for that stuff, or maybe some Mother’s just do it gladly without complaining, but I am a bit of a dud in that area. I mean, I do it, I just do not enjoy doing it.

I wouldn’t mind so much if it was every now and then, but it seems like every second of the day there is something to pick up, something to put away, dishes to wash, laundry that piles up, floors needing to be swept or mopped... It makes me wonder if living in a small house is a good or bad thing. Good, because there is less of it to keep tidy and organized or Bad, because within 5 seconds of the kids walking through the door, every single square foot of space in the house is covered in an explosion of hats, gloves, boots, toys, art work and everything else under the sun.

I know I should not complain – I should be more American and resolve to become super proactive about my shortcomings, but I blame the British in me…the truth is that I do like a good bitch and a moan. Did Lily Allen sing that? (Must get one of her CD’s this year…) But in all seriousness, I need to shift my focus away from the drudgery and focus more on the bright side and be thankful for every single thing I have.

And I do try – I do stuff like put up little signs, like the one that used to be above my kitchen sink that says:

“Thank God for dirty dishes, they have a tale to tell.
While others are going hungry, we are eating very well.
With health and home and happiness, I shouldn’t want to fuss.
For by this stack of evidence, God’s been very good to us.”

Author Unknown

I know, I am such a nerd, but that leads me directly to New Year’s Resolution Numbah 2, which is...Shifting My Perceptions. To shift my focus away from disliking the menial stuff to being thankful that I have a house to clean; a husband and kids to pick up after, clothes to wash; food to cook and dishes to wash. Not to mention a dishwasher and clothes washer and dryer to help.
And, in the words of Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance), I must strive to “find the sacred in the ordinary.”

I will sign off with a quote from A Course in Miracles:

“A Miracle is a shift in perception.”

May 2010 be a year filled with Love, Gratitude and Miracles…

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

...but a little thing like below zero temps isn't stopping the kids from playing up a storm outside.  (At least it feels like below 0 temps - our temperature gauge is broken ...and there's no fresh snow - it's just frightfully cold.) 
Inside, however, its warm and cozy and after whipping up a batch of Peppermint Bark...

image via Williams-Sonoma

...the boys read books on the couch while I got started on our Christmas Card Thank You list.  The boy's did their Thank You cards yesterday, so they are one step ahead of me...

I guess I am not feeling so "last minute" today...

A Tale of a Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas – it was very quiet and relaxing and we didn’t leave the house at all. And after the total craziness of the month and all the activities and parties, we were absolutely fine with that. The day got off to an early start with the kids waking us up at 6.30 am, which was quite a bonus considering that I had given JJ my alarm clock with strict instructions that they were not allowed to wake us up until 6.00 am. I was hoping that they would sleep in a little since we had gone to a Christmas Eve party the night before and had arrived home around 10.30 pm. By the time the kids were in bed, it was after 11.00 pm and so the thought of them waking up at 5.00 am and being tired and cranky all day was not very appealing.

So our Christmas day began at 6.30 am with two very excited little boys chomping at the bit to start opening the presents that Santa had left for them. Bubs was quite oblivious to the whole thing, but once he got into the swing of ripping open presents, he got quite excited, too. After all the present un-wrapping, while the boys were completely immersed in playing with their new toys, Big P and I made a big Fry Up for breakfast. We fried up diced apples and sliced bananas, a mini Christmas Pudding given to us by my parents after a trip to Ireland in the late Fall, eggs, bacon and toast. The boys drank OJ while the adults got to sip on Mimosa’s.

After the huge feast, I decided to take a nap as my Christmas present to myself. I never ever nap during the day, and so it was quite the treat to sneak off and catch a few z’s while the boys began a Wii marathon which lasted until I woke up four hours later! I thought for sure that I would only sleep for an hour or so tops, but it ended up working out well...I spend so much time with the kids and Big P works such long hours that it was a great Christmas treat for him to spend the entire day just hanging with the kids and doing whatever they wanted to.

So we ended up spending the entire day just chilling at the homestead, which was perfect. With the kids in school full time, they are always so happy when they get the chance to just stay home and play with their toys. We had vaguely planned to take the kids either sledding or ice skating or even a little day trip to a ski area, but the day played itself out in its own perfect way.

We ate a very early dinner – Australian style – thanks to Big P. Every year, friends of ours who live in Australia, send us a different Australian Christmas book along with a few gifts. So this year, as Big P was reading one of the Australian books to the kids one evening, he decided that this was the year that we would celebrate Christmas Australian Style! Since we didn’t have any family fly in for the holidays, and we had celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents with a huge Turkey dinner, we thought that the more informal Aussie style dinner would be perfect. Initially we had planned to sit outside around our outdoor fire pit and pretend the knee deep snow covering our yard was actually the Pacific Ocean…but the temps were so cold – below 0F – that we nixed that idea pretty quickly. So we stayed indoors, cranked up the heat and pretended to be in Australia while we ate a tasty meal of BBQed ribs, mashed potato and a big salad. ( I substituted the ribs for veggie bacon). It was delicious and the boys almost polished off the entire rack of ribs!

Then it was off to bed for the boys since an early night was very much in order. I think they were fast asleep by 7.00 pm...woop-woop! Then Big P and I had a date night, bowling. Well, it was in our house, playing Wii, but it was still really fun just to have the evening to ourselves and have some good laughs.

So all in all it was a fabulous Christmas. We are so blessed to have a loving family, a roof over our heads, presents under the tree and so many wonderful and caring friends. Although the month of December sped by like the speed of light, I tried to savor the moments, and to fill my heart with love and gratitude – not always successfully, but I at least felt like I was on the right track.

We managed to squeeze a lot of fun activities into the month:

• The chocolate Advent Calendars and the unwrapping of a different Christmas story each evening were a huge success.
• The Elf on the Shelf was the source of much excitement each morning as the kids rushed downstairs to see where the little Elf had decided to perch. (Even if it caused much anxiety for the parents to try and remember to move the bladdy thing each night…)
• Anyway, keeping with the spirit of Christmas…we also squeezed in three visits to Santa,
• we drove around looking at Christmas decorations in the evenings;
• and we decorated sugar cookies (well, technically we started to decorate cookies until the Mother realized that we were out of red food coloring – which was essential for the present shaped cookies, the santa shaped cookies, the candy cane cookies and the stocking cookies…) and we ran out of time, so maybe we shall bake some more cookies and decorate them before the New Year.
• The Family Secret Santa went off well – and will definitely become a new family tradition from now on. On Christmas morning, we each revealed who we were Secret Santa for (although everyone had figured it out…) and each person announced all the good deeds they had done for that person during the month. It was mainly a way to be mindful of the true Spirit of the Season – for the kids to get their minds off their Christmas Lists and be conscious of being kind and giving and loving to those around them. I must admit, I had to remind one particular child to try really hard to be a good Secret Santa on numerous occasions throughout the month…but it was always a good opportunity to reiterate the ‘reason for the season.’
• We also went to various holiday parties and I hosted an impromptu Ornament Exchange Party at the house one evening, which was a lot of fun. On Christmas Eve, we went to a delightful party, with lots of caroling by the piano and delicious food and wine. Towards the end of the evening, we did a Gift Exchange which is always a good laugh, especially when one of your children is brutally honest with the gift he picked and then proceeds to critique all the other gifts that were opened from a standpoint of whether they would be totally awesome for a young boy or not…good times!

Now there is that seeming lull between Christmas and the excitement of New Year’s Eve. A time to recuperate and relax and reflect on another year that’s passed, before another year begins in earnest…

Christmas Crafts Fun Stuff

One of the things on our Family Advent Calendar this year was Family Movie Night.  The boys were very excited about it, probably because as a *very special treat*, we made Coke Floats for the occasion. So we had an early dinner, and then, with Coke Floats in hand, we all watched the Polar Express.

I came across these really cute printable trains from Family Fun a week or so ago and so printed out two copies for the boys.  Since they are still a bit young to assemble the trains themselves, I glued them together and gave them to the boys the next morning.  They were thrilled with them, and I got a good hour and a half worth of train play out of them until the Bubs woke up from his nap and started sabotaging the trains attempts to pick up children to take to the North Pole...

Here are some more fun crafts and printables to keep the kids busy (or to do yourself):

1. Buildable Bird from Family Fun

2. Jolly Elves from parents.com

3. Snowball Soap Surprise from Family Fun

4. Glittered Santa Treat Boxes from Martha Stewart

5. Felt Tree Bottle Covers from Martha Stewart

6. Jellybean Christmas Tree from Family Fun

7. Dipped Candy Sticks from Martha Stewart

8. Sparkling Snowman Treat Boxes from Martha Stewart

9. Christmas Papercrafts from Mibo Studio

8 more days...

more days until christmas...

…and our Household is in a frenzied state of excitement. The kids are dutifully counting down the days on our kitchen chalkboard and just as dutifully, eating their chocolates from their Advent Calendars every morning after breakfast. That reason alone would make Christmas awesome for them – being allowed to eat chocolate for breakfast totally rocks!

As for me, I am trying really hard to savor the moments of the season as much as possible this year. I try to every year, but then it seems like Christmas is over before I know it and the Holiday Season seemed like it was more rushed than savored. So this year I really want to make the effort to just slow down every once in a while and fill my heart with the true Spirit of the Season. I’m trying to be more present in the moment and let my heart be opened by the love and blessings that are all around me – on a more consistent basis.

The past few years have been such a whirlwind and I have had a really hard time adjusting to life with three children. I always wanted three kids and I love them all more than anything – I’m not complaining – I know I am incredibly blessed - it’s just that the arrival of the third child was an adjustment that somehow just threw me for such a loop. I didn’t anticipate that life would become such pure and utter craziness and I feel like life is passing by in a blur.

So I constantly need to try and remind myself to slow down – smell the roses – appreciate these moments – in all their sweet and sometimes flawed glory, because they are so fleeting when the children are young. I must try to love it all, even after I repeat myself over ten times in the morning for every request I make: Put on your shoes; Brush your hair; Put on your coat; Where has your backpack disappeared to? Did you not have a sweatshirt on a minute ago? Where on earth could it have gone to in 60 seconds? For the 11th time- PLEASE Put On Your Shoes….by 7.45am I feel like its around midnight already and the day is still a puppy…

So, in this vein, I am trying to be more mindful and organized so that I do not leave all the Christmas stuff to the last minute, leaving me stressed out and overwhelmed. I want my heart to be full of the Spirit of Christmas – so that my real gift this holiday season can be the gift of my time and attention and love. Especially to my family and friends, but to every one whose path I cross this month. I can at least try.

So in the afternoons once the kids are home from school, I have been making the effort to really give them my full attention when we spend time together – be it reading a book, playing a game or completing homework etc. I know that is something that I should do everyday, but the reality is that there are times while I am reading them a story, that I am also thinking of my 1000 item To Do List, or thinking about what to prepare for dinner, or any one of the countless other things that are constantly swirling around ‘upstairs’.

And so this afternoon, after I asked them each to choose a Christmas book that they wanted to re-read and we were all snuggled up on the couch reading the books and chatting and laughing, my heart felt full and happy. Just the simplest act of giving them my full, undivided attention was very rejuvenating. It recharged my batteries and I could tell that they really appreciated the time together as much as I did. It is such a cheesy cliché, but just being present with whoever you are with, is truly the greatest gift. One that I must strive to do more often.

So, on that note, I am feeling good about things so far this Season. I am trying to give the gift of a loving presence to my family each day and my Christmas To Do List is in good shape. I have crossed off the big things on the list, and the latest item to get a strike through was Christmas Cards – which is a lengthy and time consuming process involving multiple steps. The first of which is going out and taking our Annual Family Christmas Card Photo. So on the weekend we went out to a very snowy spot and took some family portraits, and then got some fun shots of the snowball fight that followed. I then designed the Christmas Card, printed them out and they are mostly signed, sealed and out the door, with a Christmas poem written by yours truly included.

Admittedly, I didn’t have much time to spend on the design or on the Christmas poem – *mental note: November is a good time to start thinking about such things* – not so much mid-December, especially when many of our Christmas card recipients are based around the globe and time is of the essence if the card is to actually be received by Christmas. But I am not focusing on what I coulda shoulda done this year – rather, I am reveling in a To Do list that is slowly but surely being completed.

Another huge relief is that I think I have all the Christmas presents on my list taken care of – there are just one or two still left to finish, but that is completely do-able. Of course, I still need to wrap the gifts for the kids from Santa – we don’t give the kids Christmas Presents from ourselves – they only get presents from Santa (and of course they get some gifts from family and friends) so there are less than a handful of gifts per child to wrap, so that will not be too time consuming - but I must avoid the temptation to do it at the last minute. 11.55pm on Christmas Eve usually sees me in a frenzied state of Christmas present wrapping, with a tired and weary wrapping assistant husband trying to add some humor to my last minute chaotic-ness.)

So here’s to 8 more days of Christmas Spirit, days that are hopefully filled with love and joyful giving from the heart…my husband would especially appreciate that right now…and hopefully it will become a mindful habit to bring into the New Year.