Boo!

Josie had a last minute wardrobe change for our Friday Night festival.

Batman was too scary for the babies that might be there so Snow White it was.

I'm not the least biased person to weigh in, but she made a pretty stinking cute Snow White.

I'm convinced that whoever wrote Snow White fashioned the dwarfs after a nearly two year old.

He has a cold, so he was Sneezy.

He skipped his nap, which covered Grumpy and Sleepy.

He turned away from anyone who talked to him, making him a bit Bashful.

Getting candy wrapped up Happy.

And let's face it, the kid's always a bit Dopey.

Josie qualified as Doc since she seems to think she knows it all.

Three years ago, I would have sewn him a stellar hat.

This year, I safety pinned a piece of felt into a relatively dwarf shaped hat.

Where has my sense of perfectionism gone?!?!

Speaking of my little dwarf...

In the midst of all our tricking and treating, we are signing adoption papers for him.

One of the very last steps before he will be subject to my crazy costume ideas forever!

Now we have to drop these off with our lawyer and he will have 45 days to file the Petition To Adopt with the courts and get us a court date.

I'm still praying and claiming that we will get worked in before Christmas.

I want to start 2012 as a legally official family of 4!

Happy Halloween!

Pearly Whites

Tonight is our first Trick or Treating event of the weekend.

We have one every night.

Josie's opens her eyes as wide as she can and yells about how much candy she is going to get.

I'm hoping she racks up on Twix Bars and Reeses.  

They were seriously lacking last year.

So to counteract all that sugar, we spent this week learning about teeth and dental health.

I could not believe all the fun ideas I found on Pinterest for this theme!

Here's what we did!

This book was AWESOME!

It was very 5 year old friendly without being a baby book.  It talks about the parts of teeth, what the different kinds of teeth are for, the timeline from newborns to adults teeth, and how to take care of your teeth.  It also told us about real life people from History (George Washington & Queen Elisabeth) and how they lost their teeth.

We also read George Washington's Teeth.  We loved this one too.  It is an account of his life told in rhyme and focusing on him losing his teeth one by one.  It was funny and lead to a fun talk about what a President is.

We played a counting game.  

Just roll a die and put that many marshmallow "teeth" on the board.  First one to fill their side wins.

Josie loved the idea of this, but cried when I wouldn't let her eat the marshmallows.  

After many tears and bargaining, she ended up playing and really liking it.

And don't worry, I gave her the marshmallows at snack time.

We did a few worksheets from 1+1+1=1.  

Josie breezes through the easier sheets and then really struggles with the ones related to phonics so I've backed off using those as much.  She's just not ready for reading lessons just yet.

We learned about cavities and did an experiment with an apple.

We looked at an apple with no holes and then poked a deep hole in it.  We observed it turning brown and mushy around the hole for the rest of the week and related that to a hole (cavity) in a tooth.  

It was a great illustration.

After our cavity talk, we discussed ways to keep those holes out of our teeth.

Which lead nicely into our flossing activity.  

Another slam dunk in Josie's book.

I found these "Me Books" at The Schoolbox.

We do a page or two a week.  I think these will be really great keepsakes as she's growing up!

Gabriel has officially become a pest during school.

He wants so bad to be a part of it but he still tries to eat crayons and glue.

I thought about schooling during his nap but I'm selfish and not willing to break apart when they nap. 

I need my quiet time!

What Gabriel does love is our Special Snack Day!

This week we made these teeth snacks.  Kinda creepy but really yummy!

Apples, peanut butter, marshmallows.

We didn't really have a science lesson planned this week but Josie found this crazy looking caterpillar outside so we spent a lot of time finding out what he was, learning about what they eat, and watching him crawl around!

It's an American Dugger Caterpillar.

Pretty awesome school week!

Next week we start our Community Helpers Unit and I've got some fun stuff planned!

Whole Wheat Stir Fry

I shared on Tuesday how I'm trying to take better care of myself.

A byproduct of that is taking better care of my family too.

I want us to eat more fruits and veggies and whole grains, but I also don't want to be trashing a ton of food that my picky kids (and husband!) won't eat.

So I've given myself the task of finding ways to make some of our favorite things to eat a little bit healthier.

I love a good challenge and really like being in the kitchen so I'm pretty excited about it.

Last night I made stir fry.

I decided to bypass the premixed frozen veggies in sauce and ditch the asian noodles I usually use.

I wasn't sure how this healthier version would go over, but it was a slam dunk.

Everyone had seconds.  And at my house, that almost never happens.

Ready for the easiest healthy recipe ever?

Chop up whatever veggies you're using.  

My pepper plant is going crazy so I used red peppers, green peppers, broccoli, carrots, and frozen peas.

Toss some onions and chicken in a pan to cook. 

While the chicken is cooking, start your noodles.

This was our first time trying Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Noodles and they are the best we've ever had.  They don't have that wheat-y taste at all.

Add a little oil in with the chicken (olive oil is better for you then vegetable oil) and toss your veggies in with the chicken.  Let them cook on high heat for about 5 minutes.

Drain your noodles and mix it all together.

I tossed ours in Teriyaki Sauce.

Seriously easy and we all got an awesome variety of veggies plus a hearty helping of whole grains!

I may or may not have celebrated my healthy dinner with an absurdly huge slice of Bruster's Ice Cream Cake after the kids were in bed.

Baby steps people.

My Pumpkins

Friday night, we loaded up and headed to Yule Farms to meet up with some sweet friends for a field trip!

I love going to the pumpkin patch!

Yule Farms was a ton of fun.  The kids got to jump and run on the inflatables, learn about creepy crawlies in the Reptile House, go on a fun hayride, meet some great farm animals, learn all about the pumpkin life cycle, and pick out a cute little pumpkin to take home.

It was a great field trip!

Take Care

There's something about the onset of Fall that makes me reflect on the past year.

I could be the changing leaves reminding me of new beginnings and the old making way for the new.

Or it could be the rainy days that leave me cooped up inside with two rowdy midgets.

Either way, I've spent the last couple weeks pulling back and evaluating where I am as a wife, mother, and friend to see what kind of goals I want to make to improve.

I'm quick to be overly critical of myself every time I do these little self report cards so I've also spent a lot of time asking God to point out the areas that He wants me to work on.

He is usually kind to me and only points out one or two at a time and this year was no different.

The first one I knew was coming before I even started praying about it.

And it was confirmed last Tuesday when I had an entire day to myself.

I have got to start taking better care of myself.

I'm sure, based on this blog, that you probably assume I'm a pretty healthy person.

I'm not.

I've always tried to make sure my kids are eating healthy and exercising and getting enough rest (which we've seriously slacked off on this Summer), but I rarely put any consideration into what I'm doing to make sure I'm healthy.

I tracked what I ate the other day and it was a serious wake up call for me.

Coffee in bed at 8
Starbucks at 10:30
Cookie at 3
Fries and a small piece of chicken at 7
Ice cream at 9:30

Eww!

No wonder I'm tired and cranky and feeling bad about myself!

I wish I could say this is rare, but I hardly ever eat real food before 3 and by then I'm so hungry I can't wait to cook something so I just grab something quick.  And since we don't really let the kids snack, the only quick stuff in our house is dessert stuff.  We do eat dinner as a family almost every night, but one meal a day doesn't cut it.

And lets not even start on the topic of exercise.

I'm a naturally thin person so healthy eating and exercise are easy for me to ignore.

What's not easy to ignore is my energy crashes and how tired I fell all the time.

So I'm trying really hard to fix this.

As much as I hate eating breakfast, I'm making myself sit at the table with the kids and eat something before I start my day.

I'm cutting back on sugary treats and slowly weeding out all the caffeine I consume.

Yea, that last one is gonna hurt.

I'm on day 5 of only 1 cup of coffee a day and as sleepy as I was the first couple days, I'm feeling pretty good now.

My beloved Starbucks will be a rare treat now.

I'm having to train myself that I do not have to pull in every time I pass a Starbucks and a trip to the grocery store doesn't warrant a $4 cup of sugar.

Andrew and I decided about a month ago that we weren't going to eat out with the kids unless it was a planned family date and somewhere kid friendly.  Now I've added that fast food will be cut way back too.  Which means I have to plan ahead and bring them (and me) food now.

I failed multiple times last week on this.  Like we ate at Chickfila on the way to church the day after my new declaration.  And while I could've picked a salad, you know I didn't.

My actual words were, "if I'm gonna eat fast food, I ain't getting a salad!"

Probably need to change that attitude.

I'm also exercising for at least 10 minutes.  I know that's puny, but it's a start.

So this post is more for me, but I wanted to get it down in writing.

God pointed out one other area that I need to work on, but I'll save that one for another day!

I'm off to cherish the last of my sole cup of coffee.

I'll try not to lick the bottom of the cup!

Happy Birthday Mae Mae!

Today my awesome Mama turns 23 again!

I love this woman with every fiber of my being.

She's taught me about grace and being humble and hospitality.

From her I learned forgiveness, how to be a mom, and the importance of slowing down.

I'm still working on that last one.

We weren't always close.

There were years in there that I rarely spoke to her and that, as she says, she loved me but didn't like me.

But like any relationship that's been tried by fire, our bond is stronger then ever.

My best friend.

She came to spend the weekend with us this past weekend and I'm sure she is still recovering from my kids.

They were bouncing off the walls the entire time she was here.

She met Josie 4 years ago on her birthday.

It's hard to top giving her a grandchild as a birthday gift (although I did try to give her a grandchild to take home this year.  She didn't go for it!).


We had a little birthday celebration with Andrew's parents and some ice cream cake.

I set Gabriel's cake in front of him and, I kid you not, this was him 10 seconds later:

Bruster's should hire him for any advertising they may be needing!

She was here for about 72 hours and we crammed in her birthday dinner, a field trip to the pumpkin patch, dinner at Olive Garden, a soccer game, shopping, spray painting, sanding, tea parties, and lots of late night card games.

Like I said, I'm sure she's having a nice nap right about now.

We love you Mae Mae!

Happy Birthday!

Scarecrows!

This past week's theme was inspired by my Sister Wife, Amy.

SCARECROWS!

Amy's got herself a little obsession with the things so, in her honor, I tried to instill the same level of love in Josie for the straw filled buggers.

We aren't farmers by any stretch of the imaginations.  

Our garden didn't even survive one month this year.  

So Josie had no clue what scarecrows were actually for.

We talked about that and why farmers would use them then did a whole bunch of crafts!

Scarecrow Poem 

I ran out of room for the last couple lines, but she still had a blast acting this out everyday.  It drove me nuts that the last line doesn't rhyme!

Popsicle Stick Scarecrows

Fall Favorites Accordion Book

Our pumpkin patch page is waiting for us to actually go to the pumpkin patch tonight!

We took a field trip with a group of friends to the UGA Scarecrow In The Gardens Display.

I made a special lunch bag for our field trip.

Josie thought it was the coolest!

Our verse for the week was Proverbs 15:1.

I think this was more for me then her.  I'm working on being softer when I speak to the kids.  Even when they're driving me nuts.

We role played giving harsh and soft answers and talked about how each one made us feel inside.

We wrote another Pen Pal letter and spent a couple of rainy days sprawled out surrounded by crayons or play dough.

Both of which thrilled Gabriel to no end.

Larry The Pumpkin is still hanging in there too.

He is starting to stink and is covered in nasty little bugs when we open the box.  

Mold is just starting to grow too.

I think the cracks have more to do with Gabriel's attempt to get in the box then actual decomposition.

Next week is all about candy and dental health!

Gotta get those in before the big Trick or Treat Weekend!

*Scarecrow ideas shamelessly stolen and copied from Kathrine Marie Photography Blog*