Favorite things

One of my favorite things is to watch my kids explore their environment. I love seeing the excitement in their eyes and the smiles on their faces as they discover something that I see as ordinary for the first time. Or when they understand something that I've known for years. each day bring a little bit of magic. Today Shiloh said, "Side! Mama!" Which always means that she wants to go outside. So, I took her out on the front porch where she saw one of her favorite things. Mr. Fluffybottoms. She LOVES Ashton's cat. And my favorite thing is to watch her with the cat. And take endless photos of the whole ordeal, of course!

Brownie Points

So, today has been a very successful day! I went shopping and got a weeks worth of groceries and got a good deal on hamburger meat. Came home and put up everything--including making the ground beef into 33 patties! So, I was feeling like I earned super brownie points today. While I was in the kitchen, I asked Ashton to take some cream cheese down to Debbie's house. It was taking him awhile and just as I was going to check out the door, he came back. He looked absolutely beat. (I can't blame him...I can't stand the heat, especially while running) So, he comes in and says, "Hey mom, I ran around Grammy's house and I tried all the windows and doors and nobody is home and I couldn't reach the spare key, so I just left it sitting on her porch." To which I say, "Ashton your so awesome for doing that for me, but we can't leave it out there in the heat, could you go back and get it?" So, he jumps up and runs down there and brings it back to me. He flops in the chair like he was just worn slap out. Then sits up and says, "So, what do I get for it?" "You get brownie points!"
So, then he wanted to know what brownie points were and I explained it to him and then followed a battery of questions in which he wanted to know what he could trade his brownie points for. Today, I let him trade them for a handful of toffee bits. But, then of course it was how many he had and then how could Jenna earn brownie points. (At that point I got her to do a load of laundry....) But, the whole thing got me thinking... I could really use this to teach them responsibility and initiative. So, I made another chart for the fridge:

On each of theirs, I put their name on it in the center and I made it transparent, but this one I just left blank so you could personalize it for your young-uns. And I'm going to put them in sheet protectors. I was thinking that I could track each of their points for the day and the week. Then, they could be turned in for something personal, ie: time with mom/dad, special reading time, and extra board game...

P.S.- You can download this one, too!

That's intrinsting...

Ashton has this quirk. He likes to ask me questions, but then frequently will answer them before I get the chance to do it. Today, I was in the kitchen and feeling kinda sluggish when he started pummeling me with all kinds of questions. He asked me about what I was making and my mouth opened and all that came out was a mumbled grunt. He then answered his own question using his classic, "you mean..." and then he says, "Mom, I just took the words out of your lips!" (BTW: intrinsting is how he pronounces interesting) I love that boy! He can always brighten my day which I totally needed.

Jenna is 4 years older than Shiloh. So, I had completely gotten out of the habit of living with a toddler and I think Shiloh knows it! Today, she climbed on the dinning table, where Ashton was painting glow-in-the-dark fangs on his latest sock creature. She grabbed the little fella and stuffs him face first in her mouth, freshly painted fangs and all. She spit him out and threw him down and bawls and spits and coughs and chokes. I run. I get her cleaned up and give her some love and send her on her way. I turn my attention to the sock creature. While I perform surgery to repair the fangs....SHILOH runs into the living room and standing on tip toes, reaches up and gets the acrylic paint that I had just poured out to paint my latest art piece. Grabs the brush dips it in the cobalt blue paint and begins painting the front of the fireplace! ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!?

I'm glad Randall came home a few minutes ago. I need some sort of distraction...some adult conversation.

Tee Shirt Refashion

I've finished all the shirts that I got from the put-n-take for Shiloh. But, my daughter has turned into an elusive nudist and I could only photograph 1 of the dresses on her. She's at that stage when she fully believes that running naked is the only way to go. I can't say that I blame her, if I could I'd be doing the same thing... The other day she pooped in her diaper and took it off sat on the floor and started playing in it and Randall caught her just before she got to lick it off her hands. AUGHHH! Any who, here she is in her new purple dress.
I'm totally digging the flower. It completely makes is sing for me! It's hard to get a non blurry picture of this child! I think I need to fiddle with the settings on my camera. I thought the picture of Ash and Shi was so cute I couldn't resist taking like fifty! Shiloh hero-worships Ashton (Ahhh in Shiloh speak) and Jenna (Ya-ya in Shiloh speak).

Redress

There have been tons of posts lately of t-shirt remixes. Well, I was inspired by a recent put-n-take at church where I received several tween t-shirts, which Jenna would never wear, but Shiloh would be ages before fitting. And I had an Ah-ha moment and thought, ya know, Shi really could use some more dresses for church this summer. And then the cutest things were created. I've done two so far and I have two more to remix. But, so far I could only get one pic of her wearing any of them. What do you think?

Cow Apperication Day

Okay, I'm dong a little back blogging. July 9 is always Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. That happened to be Friday. Every July 9, if you visit a Chick-Fil-A dressed as a cow, then you get a free meal, whatever you want, free. I love it! So, we dressed as cows. Can you believe it? Yes, I'm starting to really enjoy the whole embarrass your kids aspect of parenthood... And I love that our new business affords us the luxury of doing this in a Friday afternoon with our kids.


















After this we went to the movies, sans cows, and saw Despicable Me in 3D. Which was really cute! All in all, life is a blast and I'm looking forward to more embarrassing photos like this in the future!

Oh! Nature! Get it off me!

Okay. I just spent 4 days camping in the woods with a bunch of teenage girls. Not one, not ONE, bug bite, sting or crawling thing did I encounter while I was there. And the bugs were thinck as thieves, too! Many other people came out looking like they had chicken pox they had so many bites. But me? Not one! But today, home, rested, cleaned and repacked to start another trip, I must have had a giant target attatched to me! I got what we can only assume to be a scorpion sting. While I was loading the van with our bags, I felt the most intense searing pain in my foot. My whole foot is swollen now and the pain is still crazy. Now, I've got to come up with a creative shoe source for church tomorrow. Grannie slippers anyone? Maybe I can use this tutorial and create something fabulous in the face of this sour lemon...

In the kitchen...

Jenna: "What's for dinner?"

Me (shoving brownie in my mouth): "Broccoli Caffowo"

Jenna: "What?!? Broccoli Cat fart?"

Me (trying not to choke while laughing and swallowing): "No! Broccoli Cassarole!"

Jenna: "Oh. So, leftovers?"

Oi! I live with a tiny comedienne!

Bubbles!

This is what Jenna and Shiloh were doing on the front porch this morning and my hubby was sweet enough to tape it for me!

Summer time...

Every Tuesday, the most wonderful lady does an awesome job doing the story time at the library in Freeport. After that we get together with our Homeschool group and go to the park with the kids for lunch and play. The kids have loved every minute of it. But, today was the last day of story time for the summer. My kids are definitely going to miss it. But, we have other things going on this summer. And we're still going to be getting together with our homeschooling buddies. Thanks Missy for a great time!

On the home front, I finally got a camera. It still can't touch the awesomeness of the previous one, but it takes pictures and they're decent and it's easy to use. I spent the day using it, getting to know all the features and how to get the thing to take pictures continuously. (which it doesn't actually do, by the way...) Any way here are some pictures from our day at the library and the park.

















I used the photo ShaZAM technique I found here to make them look better than straight from the camera. What do you think?

Daddy, guess what we did today...

The zoo was fun, but the kids were done looking at everything in about 20 minutes. (It was tiny, maybe 20 exhibits.) Some of the highlights were the Lemurs, White Bengal Tigers, and the Kodiak bear. But I think the cutest was the baby zebra. All in all, I think it was a bit over priced for what it was.

In less than a week our time on vacation will be done and we'll be home again with you! Tomorrow, we'll be going on the The Great Pumpkin Patch Express. It's a train ride trough the mountains and at the end we get to meet Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy! We'll post another video again tomorrow all about the train ride!