Sunday evenings

We make popcorn. We slice cheese. We slice apples. We slice sausage sometimes.

We watch a show. This particular Sunday we watched an episode of Grizzly Adams.

Rhythm in life is important for all of us, especially the littles.

We love our Sunday evenings for snuggling, relaxing, enjoying some yummy snacks and cohesively being before another week begins. It signals something, our "popcorn, cheese and apples" evenings. It's something they can count on, a ritual, a tradition, a rhythm.

What's a weekly or daily rhythm you enjoy?

Made

I love crafting blogs and tutorials. I am eternally thankful for the people who take time to make them. Because...look what I am capable of, with a little guidance!

  I used the tutorial at Ruffles and Roses.

The math only looks complicated, but if I can figure it out, you certainly can! I didn't want to take the time to hem a circle so I made a ruffle and attached it which I think went a lot faster.

The girls loved them, especially the twirliness!

If you try it, I'd love to see--Happy Twirls to You!

Ahhh

Yesterday started out a major grump fest...tears galore and Mama was not handling it well.

I was trying to hustle the kids out the door. They would not be hustled. I wanted to make our hour-ish drive to the milk farm for our co-op early so we could meet some friends at the zoo. It was supposed to be for them, but then I realized that my snippiness and their tears were not a good match and it wasn't really about them. It was about me and what I wanted to do. They wanted to relax into their morning and I wanted them to just. get. going. I was being selfish, crabby, far too stern, and frankly, ridiculous.

Then the sun came out.

I took a deep breath. I called my friend and told her there was n o w a y we were going to be back in time to meet up with her. Then I remembered to pray. (why I can't remember to do that before I start getting peevish I'll never know!

We got our milk and I had a nice chat with one of my favorite farmers. We called our cousin to see if she wanted to go to the Children's Discovery Center with us. We had a very nice time.

The change in my attitude was not the deciding factor. But it was a major one.

 Mamas, we have a lot of power over what goes on in our house.  One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies:
Toula Portokalos: Ma, Dad is so stubborn. What he says goes. "Ah, the man is the head of the house!" 
Maria Portokalos: Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.

That's true for our families too. The end of the day ended with tears and tantrums too, but my attitude made all the difference; in how I felt about my children, how they felt about one another, how they felt about me, and how they felt about themselves, and probably, even how they felt about God. Children are so intuitive and they thrive off the adults around them, good or bad. How I act impacts them a lot.

 Am I going to be selfish and  rude to these precious, little people or am I going to handle myself in the way I'm trying to train my children to act?

boys with sisters

Everyone, Cadrian included, thought it would be hilarious to dress him up in his sister's clothes and call him Maggie. This lasted, for oh, about five minutes duration after this picture was taken,

and then the take down began.

Even in pink tights, he is all boy.

I'm not sure he got much assistance from Super Baby, but they sure had a good time.

The Toy Situation

I've been reading a lot of Imperfect Homemaking lately.  I find her completely inspirational. Kelly is the mom of 5, 5 and under; the youngest two are twins! She crafts, organizes and loves Jesus. She says she keeps her house about 70% clean  about 70% of the time--I love that, and can relate to her on so many levels. Did I mention she's inspiring?

Look what I made time to do today: 

 I've been meaning to make toy bin labels for oh, about a year. Or longer. I had labels on some stuff in the form of jotted notes on scratch paper jammed haphazardly in the pocket of some of the toy bins, or a sample of the contents in the pocket; but didn't never made time to make it pretty. Plus, not everything had a label, and as Kelly says, "A basket without a label will soon be a catch all for anything and everything." (even though I used quotes, that's just an approximation of what she says, but the concept is there.)

Aviana asked me what I was doing.
 I asked her what it looked like I was doing.
She replied, "Making labels to organize the toy bins."
I told her, "Exactly."
She responded, "I don't think that's going to help."

Well, I hope it does. A mama can dream, right?

Besides making the labels, I emptied out the "toy box" in the living room, finding an amazing amount of missing pieces to many many different sets of toys. Including a single dart for Cadrian's dart gun. I love making that boy happy!  

The  toy box is just supposed to be for a few large trucks and Magnadoodles and a few of Denton's big toys that don't fit on the shelves, but it doesn't have a label :-) so it quickly becomes a catchall for everything that gets picked up from the living room floor.

 I'd rather have them in the toy box than on the living room floor. Or under the couch. Or behind the couch.

The black and white labels are a free printable from Lily Jane Stationary and the color ones I just made by finding a picture of what I needed from Google images and using Publisher. You can make the photos bigger by clicking on them.

And because I'm always curious about things like this, here are a  few details:
 The first picture is in the kitchen, where I supervised Aviana making cookies (which I didn't do very well apparently, since she misread 2 1/3 cups of flour as 2/3 of a cup--that first batch  of cookies was rather flat), and frequently interacting with the boys.

The next two pictures are the toys. This is basically all the toys we own. I didn't take pictures of the train table, or the dress up area, or the aforementioned toy box. We also have a tote of wooden blocks and another of Duplos. The girls each have a couple of dolls and some clothes for them.

The middle picture is in Cadrian's room. His room is on the first floor, off the living room so it is also a convenient play area. In the cabinet below is the Animal Train, some big wooden cars and trucks, and the Wedgits.

The last picture is in the family room upstairs. The top drawer locks (and in fact won't stay shut unless it's locked) and holds DVDs and VHS. Yes, we still have VHS. They' re only $.25 at library sales :-D.

The bottom drawer has a shape sorter and a bunch of upcycled water bottles with colored and/or glitter water (lids glued on) that I made for Toddler Bowling when Aviana was about 18 months. I can't believe how those things have lasted, and how they remain a favorite toy, and how they are never, ever used for Toddler Bowling.

Our toy philosophy is open ended, imagination based play. We like wood and God made materials whenever possible.  We like the idea of less is more. If a toy isn't being played with or asked for, or it's just dumped on the floor repeatedly and walked away from, we donate it. I have a hard time with this especially if the toy was a gift or I bought it new. Toys should be an asset to children's play, not play for them or direct their play. Play is the work of the child. We believe our home should enhance the imagination and fantasy of the child. (This is essentially the Waldorf philosophy of education.)

It's sad to me how children aren't playing any more--evidence to me of this is the example of Tinker Toys. We have a new set and a vintage set. The new set is marketed to preschoolers. They've changed the diameter of the 'sticks' and of course, lessened the complexity of the projects. Our vintage set was marketed to 'tweens'. My guess is that most tweens aren't playing with Tinker Toys anymore, but are playing with electronics. I think this is a grave disservice we're doing to our children. Tweens are still very much CHILDREN and should be PLAYING.

Play nourishes children, and the toy situation should keep their imagination flourishing so they can grow to be healthy, creative, well rounded adults.

Things that made me laugh yesterday

*Denton's belly laugh when Cadrian walked around outside kicking leaves into the air.

*Aviana came downstairs singing: Beethoven, Bach, don't forget bronze fleas!

 I was pretty sure that wasn't how the song went...If you're not familiar with the Beethoven's Wig CDs, check them out. They are a delightful way to introduce children to classical music.

 *Brielle told me they needed to wear my make-up for their upcoming dance recital. When I asked why, she told me, "So we don't look like we're all pale and diseased on stage."

* Kevin got tired of playing "Bad Guy" with Cadrian, and told him, "Go shoot your brother."

*Denton almost fell off my lap laughing when he was feeding me grapes.

*Aviana wanted a 'new challenge' for her Super Summer Challenge, I said (jokingly), "You could learn to drive a tractor." She looked at me, shocked, and replied, "At eight years old! Mama, I don't think so!"

*I chalked the kids' hair the other day. The girls washed theirs out before bed, but Cadrian wanted to leave his green. Funny, everyone who  saw him assumed that his sisters had something to do with it.

*Cadrian's joy and exuberance about everything, especially if there's a chance it will deteriorate to rough housing. He always asks if Uncle Corydon is going to come visit, because "I wike him! He always wants to pway wuff house!"

15 weeks

photo by five year old...
wish I would have been up for doing this at 5 and 10 weeks like I did with the others--but I wasn't and I'm working on being ok with that.