For My Boys….

20 Aug

Today Ben and I made a very tough decision.  One that means our boys are growing up….  We decided to send Shaeffer to all day Kindergarten vs. half day.  This means that both he and Sutton will be at school all day.  It was a decision we did not take lightly.  His schooling has been a topic of discussion for quite some time around our house.  We debated Montessori, private school, public school and then now half day vs. full day.  We realized that each of our boys is different and although half day was PERFECT for Sutton, Shaeffer is a different guy.  He will thrive all day and wants nothing more than to “eat lunch with his friends”.  So come Friday I will be shedding a tear as my two babies head off to full day school…  It won’t be easy for me, but I know it’s the best thing for them.  In dealing with my “grief” I decided to write them a little letter.  I actually have been writing this letter to them for about 6 months, but today is the day it is published :).  I am going to try to write them a letter each year before they start school.  Here goes Letter #1…

For My Boys

Ages 6, 5, and 1

I wish all three of you all the innocence of your childhood, the ability to giggle until it hurts, a desire to see the world, and the grace that only God can grant.  I love watching you sleep at night and dream by day.  I love the sparkle in your eyes and the shimmer in your step.  I love your blind faith and your trust in Jesus. I thank God for you every single morning and pray blessings over you every single night!  I am amazed by who you are!  I am the luckiest Mommy in the world!

*  You had my heart long before WHAAAAA….  I never imagined I had this much love to give until I had a baby. You have taught me that my heart and my capacity to love are not fixed, they grow and grow and grow.

*  Keep making art!  Creating art should be a something you do every day! It encourages individuality and expression and fosters your brain to do things it only imagined!

*  Take your time in all you do.  There is a pressure to learn more, faster, quicker, and better than those around you. Please overlook that… Learning takes time and everyone does it differently.  You will be successful in your own time!

*  Play outside as much as possible. Take big breaths! Ride bikes, run, chase, roll down hills, slide, swing, and climb!  Explore the outdoors… Bring home creatures (but keep them in the garage), build forts, climb trees, catch fireflies, make s’mores, sleep under the stars–  Adore God’s Creation!

*  Homemade cards are the best… Continue to leave notes under pillows, pictures on the fridge, and send letters in the mail! I love your creativity!

*  It doesn’t matter to me that you love fairies and princesses- of course you do they are sparkly and glittery and mysterious.  Pink is a beautiful color and to you it is just that- a color.  It makes no difference to me whether you want a pink balloon or a pink birthday cake or a Mary Poppins birthday party.

*  It’s OK to cry…  God created crying as a natural response to our emotions.  Everyone cries-EVERYONE!

*  Books are a gift for your brain, your heart, your intellect.  Read often.  Find books that you love and read them.  Hide under your covers and read books, stay up late reading books, check out books from the library, write books!  Books are an amazing blessing…

*  You were made to be courageous.  Being courageous means you always try to make the right choices, not the easiest ones. Have the courage to lead, not follow. DREAM BIG and then go after it!  You can do anything you put your mind to!   You were made to be courageous!

*   I will always be here for you.  I will not judge you or think less of you.  I will love you unconditionally- that means no matter what!  I may not always love your behavior or your choices, but I will always love you-ALWAYS.  Your home will forever be where we are-you can always come home.  I will always be here for you, no matter what!   I love you S brothers… Today-Tomorrow-and Always!

 LOVE, MOMMY

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Watermelon Cupcakes

19 Aug

Have I ever told you about one of my favorite experiences while growing up on the lake?  Well we used to have “cocktail hour”…  To most people when they hear this it means drinks by the lake, soaking up the sun.  To me, this means APPETIZERS…  Every Saturday around 4:00 my family and all the neighbors would say “Cocktail Hour” and before you knew it the picnic table was full of the best “cocktails” a 6 year old girl could dream of.  Chips and dip, cracker spreads, mini hot dogs, stuffed mushrooms, salsa, mozzarella sticks, chocolate chip cookies, ritz crackers- I mean COME ON- this was the best hour of the day!   Really for much of my young life I thought “cocktails” were snacks…  The adults must have found this belief to be “too cute” or something because I really don’t remember any one correcting me when I asked if it was time for cocktails yet.

Last night we invited our neighbors and their children over for “cocktail hour”.  We had everyone bring a “cocktail” AKA “appetizer” to share.  We had some YUMMY food let me tell ya!  The boys and I made these for the gathering and they were a big hit among the kiddos (and husband’s too).  They were a breeze to make- Here’s the Scoop…

OH ONE MORE THING… SO these don’t actually taste like watermelon, just kinda look like one…  For some reason I can’t get my head around the idea of a watermelon flavored cake, so I went with chocolate chip cake made to look like a watermelon :).

Basically you just make your favorite white cake (mix or homemade) add pink food coloring (I used Wilton, but if you can’t do red dye you could make your own with beets – recipe here).  We also added mini chocolate chips to the batter for the “seeds”.  When cooled and ready to frost we did so with our favorite buttercream icing recipe (Wilton again) with a little green food coloring added to the mix…  Yummy, easy and fun!  Great for an end of summer BBQ!

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Jolly Rancher Lollipops {2012 Version}

18 Aug

Last week I reposted a project that the boys and I did for back to school last year.  We had so much fun making the lollipops we thought we’d revisit the idea and change it up a little…  Last year we made free formed apple suckers… Here are the directions if you need a refresher:  Jolly Rancher Lollipop Directions  The boys tried some other free formed shapes this year all on their own…  They both made and apple and then together they tried to make a watermelon…  You know how I feel about little kids drawings and little kids spelling, right?  Well I feel the same way about little kids lollipops!  ALL ON THEIR OWN = TOO CUTE!

Shaeffer and I then remembered that last year Aunt Hannie suggested we use cookie cutters for more of a molded shape…  We thought that was a fun idea so I had him pick out some of his favorite cookie cutters…  His words, “I chose Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Minnesota!”  Three very special things in his heart :).  These were super easy and would be a lot of fun for any holiday or school event.  What if you were learning the states or a specific state, you could purchase that cookie cutter and make a bunch of them…  You could even put a little spot where the capitals are 🙂  using a different color rancher.

Of course then Sutton wanted in on the action so he chose three of his favorite cookie cutters (two are only pictured because the poor shamrock fell during it’s photo shoot and landed smack on the deck crumbling it to pieces)…  They were the biggest version in the house and to be honest they were much harder to work with…  The smaller parts broke off pretty easy…  The nice thing is, however, you can just reattach and remelt :)…  Which I did not do with the dirty deck one, obviously :).

 

Have a great weekend!

 

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Rain for Roots

15 Aug

One of the many joys of being a Young Life family is that you have the opportunity to meet some pretty amazing musicians.  One couple we’ve had the privilege of spending some time with is Drew and Ellie Holcomb.  They are an amazing couple with extraordinary gifts.  If you have not heard them play, I suggest you check them out at http://www.drewholcomb.com/

Ellie (well and Drew too) recently teamed up with some other amazing artists to put some familiar Bible stories to music.  This CD is awesome because it’s a little different, pretty hip, and lots of fun! The songs are a little folky and totally geared towards children, truly awesome!   I highly recommend it – not only will your kiddos love it, but you will too!

Thanks for sharing your talents with us….  XOXO

You can get it on amazon or at http://rainforroots.com/

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Homemade Lollipops for Back to School

11 Aug

OK, last fall the boys and I made these as back to school gifts for our teachers.  They were so fun to make that we are going to do it again this year.  The boys would like to make all sorts of different shapes this year, so we’ll see what we can come up with.  For now, I think last years apple lollipops will be just fine :).  Your kids will love making these!  Post your pics on our Facebook page once yours are done, I’d love to see what you come up with!

These SUCKERS would be a great way for you to “suck up” to your teacher….  HEE HEE…

Apple Lolli’s

What You’ll Need:

Red and Green Jolly Ranchers (I used 4 reds and 1 green for ONE sucker)

Craft Stick/Popsicle Stick/Lollipop Stick

Tin Foil

Gallon Size Bag

Cookie Sheet

Oven 🙂

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat your oven to 250F and sort through all those colorful Jolly Ranchers!

2. Put your red jolly ranchers in a plastic baggie and crush them with a hammer to form smaller pieces (don’t crush too much because you don’t want super small pieces). Repeat this process with your green jolly ranchers.  I’ll be honest, I had my kids do this and they LOVED it….  I thought maybe we should do it outside, but after experimenting myself I found it doesn’t take much to smoosh the jolly’s so we did it inside!

3. Place a lollipop stick on your baking sheet lined with tinfoil.

4. Arrange all your broken red pieces in a circle at the top of your lollipop stick making an apple shape. Make sure all pieces are touching so it melts properly. I sprinkled any “dust” my kids made over the entire apple shape just to make sure it would all stick.  Add the green pieces to the top of the red to form a “stem”…

5. Slide your cookie sheet  in the oven and cook for 10-12 minutes, or until completely melted…  At the end it melts quickly so it’s fun to watch!

6. Remove your  apple from the oven and allow it to cool before peeling it off the foil.  One thing to note is that these are “free formed” lollipops.  If you prefer your lollipops to be perfect you could use an apple shaped metal cookie cutter to help you out…

7.  Wrap it up for your favorite teacher OR eat it yourself!  YUM…

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Caprese Salad + Cucumbers (using up my garden veggies)

9 Aug

 

Do you have a garden?  If so this post is for you… If not, this post is for you too because I know you have a grocery store or farmers market…. And really you’ll need a grocery store any ways unless Mozzarella grows in your garden :).

We were heading out on little picnic with some good friends of ours right before we left on vacation.  I wanted to make sure I used up our veggies so they wouldn’t go to waste while we were away.  Basically I just made a Caprese Salad and added cucumbers.  Nothing fancy, but it was really yummy!

 

Here’s the Scoop:

INGREDIENTS

Tomatoes

Basil

Mozzarella (I used Mozzarella Fresca)

Cucumbers (optional)

**  You really can add what ever you want

Balsamic Vinegar

Sugar

Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Mix everything together in a big bowl.  I did end up cutting my cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.  In a separate bowl mix up a balsamic vinegar dressing (I use 1/4 cup Olive Oil, 3 Tablespoons Vinegar, a dash of sugar and salt and pepper).  Poor it over your salad and TADA…  Yummy!

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If you were to look in our windows tonight…

30 Jul

This is what you’d see…

 

Dinner Before:

 

Dinner After:

 

Dance Party:

Click here to see our post dinner dance party:  Dance Party

Olympic Activity Round-Up…

27 Jul

We have had our very dear friends visiting this week… We just said good-bye a few minutes ago and of course I shed a fair amount of tears :(.  Needless to say we have been busy having fun with them.  Today the boys got out their model magic clay and made some Olympic rings…  I then decided to look into some other fun activities/crafts that we can do the next couple of weeks while the Olympics are on..  Here are some fun ideas I found…

Model Magic (any clay would work) Olympic Rings by Mommyapolis:

 

Olympic Collage by Jennifer’s Little World:

Salt Dough Medals by The Imagination Tree:

How cute are these torches from Ms. Candiquik?

M&M Cake, by Flossie Crums= adorable…

And what about a good old fashioned Beef Wellington for dinner… This one is from Tyler Florence…

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A Little Montessori at Home…

19 Jul

Shaeffer attended an amazing preschool this past year, Mountain Montessori.  I love that what he has learned comes home on a daily basis.  WAY WAY back in May we had a little party with some neighbors.  Our playroom was completely turned upside down after having so many kids in it.  We were thankful that they had fun, but it was a bummer to clean up.  We literally took two days (about a month later) to reorganize and clean up all of our toys.  I asked the boys if they had any ideas on how to keep the playroom clean and Shaeffer suggested we use “rugs” like in Montessori.  So he’s been doing “demonstrations” for any of our friends who come over to play on how to play with the toys.  We have some rugs that they get out and play with one item at a time (or one theme of items (farm stuff etc..)) at a time.  It’s been working so far and it helps with the clean up and organization of the playroom.  Thanks to Montessori we’ve had a bit more of a peaceful playroom the past few weeks!

The other thing that I have loved about Shaeffer attending Montessori is that he has really learned some independence when it comes to life skills.  He is super proud when he helps out around the house, teaches his brothers things, and makes work, play!  Today we came home from swimming lessons and he and Sutton decided they wanted to make their own Sandwiches for lunch.  Sutton made a turkey sammy and Shaeffer PB & J.  They did a great job and saved mommy a little time… They even cleaned up their mess!  Thank you Mountain Montessori for inspiring our family…

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Popsicle Stick Boats….

18 Jul

If only I could take credit for this one, I can’t… Nope, my little neighbor, Jackson-11, taught my boys how to make popsicle stick boats today.  They spent a good amount of time designing and gluing their boats and are beyond excited to try them out in the creek by our house…  I loved watching the three of them work out on our porch true BOY STYLE…  Here’s an example of one of their creations.  I’ll post some pics once we take them to the creek too…  Thanks JAX…

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