“Spring Forward” is Way Better than “Fall Back”

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Amy

Before I had kids, I loved the “fall back” time change, and hated “spring forward.” I don’t know why really. People always talk about “getting another hour of sleep” in the fall and “losing an hour” in the spring. Which I guess is true if you have to get up for some reason on the Sunday morning following the change, but I rarely did. Actually, the time change hardly ever affected my sleep. Sure, I might have thought, on Saturday night in the spring, “Ugh, it was 1:59 and now it’s 3 am. I guess I’d better get to bed.” It might have been a bummer to wake up at 11, only to find that it was actually noon. But since I pretty much never had anywhere to be on Sunday mornings, I didn’t ever give up an hour of sleep. Oh heck no. I just lost an hour of day. But, I still preferred “fall back,” when I could wake up at 11am and find that it was actually 10!! I had another whole hour to watch Golden Girls and work on my dissertation, or whatever I used to do on weekends.

Now that I have kids, I’d really rather that we never had to go through this silly time change thing. Really.

But, since we must still change the clocks twice a year, I’ve learned that now I much prefer to “spring forward.” Now that I do have a reason to get up on Sunday mornings (three cute little reasons, in fact, who insist on waking up early in spite of my attempts to get them to understand that Mommy really loves to sleep in). In the fall, on that Sunday after the time change, my little darlings still wake up at 6am or so. Only it’s actually 5. And that Sunday after the “fall back” time change? It is the longest. day. ever.

But yesterday was a breeze. When Sis woke me up at 6, it was actually 7. And by the time her sisters were up and breakfast was done, the morning was half over. The day flew by! And a little extra bonus? All of my children slept past 7am today. Even this little one:

At some point, I’m sure they’ll adjust to this change in the clock and go back to waking at 6. But 7 was nice this morning.

And “springing forward” comes with all sorts of other nice things. Like above freezing temperatures and three days of rain that have begun to (barely) melt the mountains of snow we have.

Like St. Patricks Day fun. We made our annual yogurt covered pretzels shaped like shamrocks the other day. They were for a play date with our friends, and Miss worked really hard on them, making special ones for each of her friends who were coming over. Unfortunately our friends were sick, so we didn’t get to share with them. I was sad that we couldn’t have our play date, but on the bright side, that meant more treats for me. I mean us.

I bought some green peppers to do what I thought would be a totally awesome St. Patty’s Day craft with the girls. I made sure each of the peppers had three lobes, cut off the tops, put out green and white paint and green and white paper, and showed the girls how to make shamrocks using the peppers as stamps. They started to do the stamps, but as soon as I got out the little paintbrushes so they could paint stems, the stamping idea went right out the window. So they just painted.

Lass painted the peppers…

Oh well. We do have several lovely green and white paintings.

Before the rain came we got some time playing in the snow in the relatively warm weather on Friday.

At least we started out playing in the snow. The girls thought the snow was great at first, but as soon as they found the puddles on the driveway, they didn’t care one bit about the snow anymore.

I am so ready for spring.

Lost My Religion, Finding My Faith

Posted on March 7, 2013September 18, 2020 by Amy

Disclaimer: This post is very personal and is about religion. I have no desire to offend anyone, but this is about my thoughts, experiences, and beliefs. If you don’t want to read about my personal beliefs and efforts to define my faith, go ahead and stop reading now. I won’t be offended 🙂

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Almost two months ago, I said a prayer. I dropped down on my knees and said a desperate, clumsy, poorly executed prayer. It was the first prayer I had said in a looong time, probably eight, nine years or so (yes, years). I prayed for something I wanted very badly. Unfortunately, in this particular case, things didn’t turn out the way I hoped. My prayer wasn’t answered.

But um, hello? I prayed.

It felt kind of weird. I was awkward and totally out of practice. But I didn’t really care. I felt a need to pray, and I did it.

This is kind of strange. Sort of monumental even, because for the past eight years or so, I haven’t really been sure that I even believe in God. I know. Hold the presses. I’ve never gone here before.

I used to believe in God. I was raised Christian. I didn’t go to church a lot, but I believed in God, and that Jesus was his son who was born in a manger to a virgin, and all that. I believed it all.

Until I didn’t.

I don’t know exactly when I stopped believing. As I mentioned, it was around eight or nine years ago. As I think about it, it probably began during the time leading up to the 2004 election. Around the time that I began noticing so much hatred flowing from people who supposedly were acting in the name of God and Christianity. I saw and heard so much that didn’t sit well with me. So much ugliness. People who were trying to hurt and control and limit other people in the name of Christianity. Trying to control other people’s bodies, families, marriages. Saying, “You can’t have what I have because you’re different, and God doesn’t approve of you, and the Bible says you’re wrong, and by the way, you’re going to Hell too.” I could not get on board with that. I could not find a way to reconcile my beliefs and my sense of what is right and decent with this sort of Christianity. I started thinking hard and really questioning.

At some point I started reading atheist books and listening to atheist recordings. I never outwardly identified myself as an atheist, but for a while, I probably was. I was bitter. I scorned Christianity. I felt I was above that hateful, holier-than-thou way of being.

This didn’t really last too long, and then I realized I was kind of being “holier-than-thou” myself. I remembered that not all people who are of the Christian faith are bigoted and hateful. In fact, most are the opposite.

However, I found that once I had started down the road to questioning and disbelieving, it was hard to go back. I spent several years not really thinking too much about religion except to be a bit annoyed whenever I felt someone was trying to “push” theirs on me. I truly no longer scorn Christian beliefs and haven’t for a long time, but I’m not sure I believe in them anymore either.

The past year has brought some experiences that have shaken me, while at the same time bringing me a bit of clarity. A few particular instances stand out as relevant to my faith, or lack thereof, or attempts to figure out my stance on all this…

First was my husband’s Grandmother’s funeral (you can read more about that here). It was sort of a game changer for me. I will never forget standing in that small-town Catholic church, looking around as everyone sang the songs and went through the motions of the service, and seeing so much unity in their experience and reverence for the ritual. Probably the entire front half of the church was filled with my husband’s family, all Catholics, who were totally in sync with each other as they went through the mass. At one point, I looked back during the “Hallelujah” song (I don’t know what it’s called) and I was captivated by the uplifted faces, closed eyes, and peaceful looks I saw on every face of the members of my husband’s family. It really struck a chord in me. I felt something in my Mama Heart longing for that sense of ritual and community for my girls. I wanted that for them. And maybe a little bit for myself too.

After that, I really considered starting to take my girls to church. I’ve thought about it a lot since then in fact. But I felt like it wouldn’t be right to take them when I wasn’t even sure of my belief in God. How could I take them to a Catholic church with such doubt and disbelief in my own mind? It felt dishonest.

Then, the second event occurred. In January, I prayed. And though my prayer was not answered the way I wanted it to be, it felt good to do it.

Then something else shook my world and Tuesday, Wednesday, and today, I prayed some more. I prayed harder than I have ever prayed for anything in my life. And at least part of my prayer was answered. (BTW, I’m sorry if I’m kind of committing a “Vague-booking”-like offense here, I’m just not ready to go there and write what the prayers have been about. So again, let me just stress, I Prayed, y’all!).

I’m not saying that I think prayers have to be answered in order to “prove” that there is a God. There is no way to prove God’s existence, that’s why they call belief in Him faith. Lately, there’s this little voice deep, deep down in my soul telling me that maybe I ought to have some. Faith, I mean. And really, since becoming a mother, it is harder for me to not have faith. How can I not believe in something higher when I look at the beauty and perfection of my children?

And come to think of it, how can I not believe in God when I think about how I met my husband, four months after experiencing a devastating break up, which at the time I thought was the worst thing that could ever happen to me and I now see as a true blessing?

Or how about this: How can I not believe in Him when two days ago Baby Sis pulled my entire full mug of coffee over into this situation in our playroom (the coffee was on the wooden crate next to the box of tissues)?

And because that white lid was there in the green tub (in the wrong place I might add, and since I’m so compulsive about putting toys where they belong, if I had noticed this during clean up the night before, I would have put it in its place), hardly any of the coffee spilled into this tub of blocks (many of which are cardboard):

If it had, it would have been an ugly clean up. As it was, I mostly just had to dump coffee out of the lid and wipe up the floor. AND, though the lid was not on all the way on the tin of my husband’s Grandmother’s hats (white tin in pic above) and there was coffee spilled on the lid, not a drop went into the tin. That’s right. Not one of my girls’ Great-Grandmother’s hats was ruined. Not one even got a drop of coffee on it. How’s that for Divine intervention? Maybe that was God’s way of saying, “C’mon. Are you still not sure about me?? Really? Look how much work I just saved you here.” Just kidding about this one. I think.

Really, I’m not sure what to think of all this. The fact is, I’m still not sure what I believe.

I do know that I don’t believe that people don’t get to Heaven if they don’t believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Heck, a few months ago I didn’t even believe in Heaven. Now? I’m not sure.

I know that I don’t believe that people shouldn’t be allowed to get married just because they are gay. (And saying that gay people should be able to have civil unions but just not call them marriages is B.S. too. That’s like the whole “separate but equal” argument back in the days of racial segregation. And what if a gay person has strong religious beliefs and wants to get married in a church? Any given church can say that they will not marry gay people, but the government should not be making laws to say this is illegal because of some people’s religious beliefs, in my humble opinion.)

I think I do believe in God. The rest of it? I can’t really say at this point.

As I continue to try to figure out my beliefs, I don’t know where the road will lead me.

I’m gradually finding my faith. At some point, maybe I’ll just have to take a leap of faith and see where I land.

Edit 2020: It’s been over 7 and a half years since this post was written. If you are coming to my blog for the first time now, I’d like to point out that after writing this post I did a great deal of studying, praying, and reflecting, and I ended up converting to Catholicism. I no longer believe some of the things stated in this post, which I wrote when I was very uncertain and just beginning to understand Christianity. You can read about the start of that conversion here.

Two Sentences I Try to Never Say

Posted on March 6, 2013March 6, 2013 by Amy

“I don’t have time.”

“I’m so busy.”

I try hard to never utter these sentences.

Having three children so young and so close in age means that yes, my days are sometimes a bit hectic. I can’t tell you how many times someone has looked at me with my three girls and said something like, “Whoa! You’ve got your hands full! You must be so busy!”

But I’m not any more busy than most people. In fact, it seems to me I’m actually less busy than many people I know. When you have little kids, you have a different kind of busy. Or maybe busy isn’t even quite the right word for it. Maybe “frazzled” would be better, or “scatterbrained.” I might look busy when I’m running and/or wandering around like a crazy lady, because I can’t quite wrap my head around what I was supposed to be doing just now, due to the fact that my brain has not had a moment of quiet for the past seven hours. Between the sibling squabbles and top-of-the-lungs singing, throwing fits (mostly them) and reading out loud, “Mama, can you be Prince Charming?” and “I have to go potty!!!”, “I’m so hungry!” and “Mama, Mama, Mama, MAMA!,” I often have difficulty forming coherent sentences or remembering where I am, which might make me appear a bit harried at times, which might be mistaken for busy.

Moms have lots of stuff to do, but I can’t say that I’m super busy.

But that’s not why I try not to say, “I’m so busy” and “I don’t have time for ____.”

A few months ago I was busier. Miss was in preschool twice per week and I had to drive 25 minutes each way to take her to school. Both older girls were in gymnastics and Miss was taking swimming lessons. We had a weekly playdate with good friends. Add in grocery shopping, cleaning house, cooking, yadda, yadda. There was lots to do.

I made a choice to take Miss out of preschool and life began to feel much less busy.

I. Made. A. Choice.

I chose to take Miss out of school for many reasons, which didn’t necessarily include becoming less busy. But the reduction in rushing and running was a welcome result. I realize that taking kids out of school or other activities isn’t something that others would want or be able to do. But my point is this:

We have time for that which we make time.

If something is a priority, we make the time to do it.

Sometimes I’m very tempted to say, “I’m don’t have time to exercise.” But I do. I really do. The truth is, sometimes I’m just too tired. Or too lazy. Or I prefer to sit on my rear and read a book during the brief and precious time that my kids are napping. “I prefer,” not “I don’t have time.” Yes, it would feel better to say, “I don’t have time,” because then it could feel more like I wasn’t responsible for my lack of exercise. But I want to take responsibility for, and thus control of, the choices I make for my life.

Here’s another example. I’m in three book clubs. I don’t go to all of them monthly, but frequently do attend two, and one I never miss. Very often when other members and I have invited friends to join a book club, we get a response of something like, “I’d love to, but I don’t have time to read.”

I try not to get offended by this, because I’m pretty sure the people who make these statements aren’t trying to say, “I am way more busy than you if you have time to sit around and read books! Loser!” No. I’m sure no one means that.

But the thing is, I have time to read books because I love to read books. Reading is a huge priority to me. The book club I never miss? Priority. Same thing with this blog. Priority.

I make time to do the things that are important to me.

Reading, blogging, cooking, playing with and teaching my kids, quality time with my husband. Exercise. Yeah, I’m working on that last one.

Sometimes my life can feel busy. Sometimes I feel rushed, especially when trying to get three kids into winter gear and out the door in time to make it to a swimming class. Sometimes I get so focused on the end goal – lunch on the table, kids in bed, or whatever, that I forget to have fun with my girls in the process. I’m working on slowing down. Feeling less pressed. Being more mindful. Enjoying small moments.

Avoiding the “I’m so busy”/”I don’t have time” temptation is one of the ways I’m trying to accomplish this. If I don’t say and believe “I’m soooo busy,” I think I’m less likely to feel that way.

Snow White Birthday Party on the Cheap

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Amy

You might remember, about a year and a half ago I wrote a post about my “Princess Issue.” I used to have a little bit of an anti-princess attitude. However, I’ve really lightened up on this, and over the past year, the princesses have really been a popular toy/play theme in our house. We even had lunch with the princesses at Disney for Miss’s birthday. My girls love playing with, reading about, and dressing up as all the Disney Princess gals. Snow White is typically the favorite, though recently they’ve really been into Ariel, and Cinderella and Rapunzel are always popular here too.

But I must admit, as much as I’ve lightened up on my anti-princess campaign and have come to enjoy, perhaps even embrace, the princesses these days, I still sometimes tend towards encouraging other toys, games, and books over the princess stuff. I guess I just want to make sure they’re getting variety.

So when it came time to start planning Miss’s birthday party, and I asked her what type of party she would like, I gave some non-princess examples.

Me: “You could have a cowgirl party, or an archery party (sounds odd, but this would be right up her alley, remember this?), or a fairy party…”

Her: “I want a princess party.”

Me: “Okay. Well. Any particular princess or just all the princesses in general?”

Her: “A particular princess.”

Me: “Which one?”

Her: “Snow White.”

Indecision is not a problem with this girl.

From that point, the challenge was on for me to come up with Snow-White-themed birthday decor that wasn’t cheesy, canned, or mass-produced by Disney. I knew I could give her a Snow White party, but I couldn’t make myself go to the princess aisle at the local Party Bomb store and buy up a bunch of their Disney Princess stuff. First of all, it’s ridiculous how much they charge for it. Secondly, they always sell it with several of the princesses together, and often Snow White is not even included. Third, well, I just didn’t want to. So I tried to get creative.

Where did I start? Why, Pinterest of course. From there I had to take the ideas and turn them into something I could do considering our particular situation.

I knew that we would be traveling for Miss’s birthday, and I wouldn’t be able to do a ton because we’d be having the party at my sister-in-law’s house. I wanted to do things that I thought Miss would enjoy that wouldn’t cost a lot of money. Also, I didn’t want to be too over the top with the princess-y stuff because the majority of the kid guests at the party would be Miss’s older and male cousins.

So I decided to go with the blue, yellow, and red color scheme (from her dress) and focus a little bit more on the Evil Queen and the poisoned apples. I really wanted to use some of the ideas from this post like the seven dwarfs ring toss, wishing well, and pass the poisoned apple game, but with the party being squeezed between sessions of the Iowa High School State Wrestling Tournament, I knew we wouldn’t have time for games. Plus most of the kids coming to the party were a bit old for these anyway. So I kept things more simple.

Anyway, focusing on poisoned apples and magic mirrors and keeping things cheap, I went to the dollar section at Target and the Dollar Tree store to see what I could find.

I found these packs of 10 (5 red and 5 green) apples at Target for $1. I didn’t immediately know what I would do with them, but knew I could use them for something.

I never did come up with anything really clever, but I decided to make a few little signs. I wasn’t going to purchase a special font, so I just used the Blackmoor LET font in Word, on the largest size available, to make them. I thought they looked close enough.

At the Dollar Tree I found this silver-colored platter.

I knew I wanted to make the Evil Queen’s mirror, and though it obviously wasn’t a mirror, it was the right size and shape and it was reflective. And oh yeah, it was $1.

Referring to a picture I found online of the queen’s mirror, I used craft foam to frame it (package of foam crown shapes also from the Dollar Tree, I had to cut one down to size).

I found some gold acrylic paint in my crafting stash in the basement,

some glitter glue, a few big rhinestones (the most expensive part of the whole project because I had to buy a whole big package, but I’m sure they will get used around here), some Elmer’s glue to fasten it to the platter, and voila! A Magic Mirror.

I took a Command Adhesive Strip with me so I could hang it on my sister-in-law’s banister.

Miss and Lass got a kick out of it, and so did some of our littler guests.

* Note – the glue didn’t hold very well after traveling with it. I had to re-glue it and add some tape to get it to stay. It still worked well enough though.

We had poisoned apple cupcakes.

I had seen a small stand-up doll Cinderella cake at our local grocery store bakery (like the kind my aunt used to make for my and my cousins’ birthdays!) and asked them if they could do Snow White. They said yes, so I ordered one. I didn’t want the whole party to seem more about the Evil Queen than Snow White, and I thought Miss would really like the doll cake. Unfortunately they called me three days before the party (one day before we left for Iowa!) and told me that they did not, in fact, have Snow White. After a bit of a scramble to try to find someone in Iowa who could do one at the last minute with no luck, I hurriedly photocopied a couple pictures from the girl’s Snow White book and laminated them to set on the table to add a little bit of actual Snow White to the scene. A little cheesy, but it worked in a pinch and it was free.

I did take one party idea from the blog post mentioned above, and that was to have some little bird whistles available as party favors. The ones used at the party in that post got reviews on Amazon that said they were very hard for kids to blow and actually make them whistle, so I got these instead (bonus: they were cheaper).

They were mostly a hit with the Under-18-Months Crowd.

So there you have it. Some homemade apple signs, laminated copies of book pages, a homemade Magic Mirror from a $1 platter, poisoned apple cupcakes, and some bird whistles. It wasn’t fancy, and not nearly as elaborate as most of the parties I saw in my Pinteresting. But it worked well considering we had to take the party on the road and were hosting it at someone else’s home. And it was CHEAP. All the decor (not counting food, cups, plate, etc.) was under $20.

Most importantly, Miss enjoyed it.

Presidents and Perfectionism

Posted on February 28, 2013February 28, 2013 by Amy

Since we were out of town last week, we’re talking about presidents and President’s Day in our homeschool this week. Miss is very fascinated by the stories of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I think she especially likes President Lincoln, because we have read a few books that mentioned how much he loved to read. I suspect she views him as sort of a kindred spirit. Plus she thinks it’s really cool that he’s on the penny.

We made George Washingtons yesterday.

I love them.

I had planned to do the old standby “Lincoln’s log cabin”craft using popsicle sticks today. However, Miss specifically asked to make a President Lincoln instead of making his house. Kindred spirits, I say.

So I quickly pulled up this printable from DLTK and they started working on it. I left the room for a few mintues and came back to find that Miss had looked through one of our library books to find a picture of President Lincoln to refer to while she made her craft. “So I know what he looks like,” she said.

She was quite pleased with her finished presidents, though we had a bit of a rough time getting there with the Lincoln craft.

See, my eldest girl is something of a perfectionist. She is very particular when creating her masterpieces. The jacket she pasted onto the Lincoln picture was a bit tricky to get lined up right. I didn’t care if she had it placed perfectly, but she sure did. And she was very upset that, when placed correctly, it covered his hands a little bit. It was quite difficult for me to keep from helping her with this. She was having a complete meltdown, but I knew she could figure it out herself, and that she would feel much more satisfaction than if I fixed it for her. I ended up giving her some suggestions about how she could get the jacket the way she wanted but keep it from covering his hands, such as cutting the ends of the sleeves. She came up with her own solution though, as she usually does. She folded the sleeves back and pasted them in place, to make cuffs. Problem solved. And she did it herself. I love that “Aha!” moment.

I also love Lass’s accomplishments (she wouldn’t pose for a picture holding up her presidents).

I must admit, it takes a bit of effort on my part to sit back and let them do their craft projects on their own. I have a tendency to want to “help” them place the pieces in the right general area. I guess I’m a bit of a perfectionist myself. Lately I have been extra mindful of backing off. Of letting them shine in their own ways. I show them how the pieces are “supposed” to go together and then hand them the glue sticks and sit back. It’s actually much more fun this way. And naturally they got so much more out of the process and enjoy the end product more when they do it themselves.

They are teaching me every day.

The Rest of the Story

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Amy

It was a wonderful vacation.

After the first few whirlwind days cram-packed with traveling and activity, we settled down for the rest of the week to a slower pace. A pace that felt a bit more vacation-like.

I like a slower pace.

We spent lots of time in the pool (I have hardly any photos of this, because we all went in and played in the water together).

Wednesday morning we took a nice long walk around the marina looking for manatees. We didn’t see any this trip. But when we got home, the girls were very curious about manatees. Lass was asking all about the sounds they make. I actually wasn’t sure what they sound like, so we pulled up some You Tube videos to find out. We watched this one several times and then checked out this one. The girls asked to watch the second one over and over and cracked up laughing each time.

Thursday was one of my favorite days of the trip. We had a lazy morning and then went out to a nearby bird sanctuary. It’s a place where they house injured birds that cannot be returned to the wild. I loved seeing the birds up close, especially these two majestic bald eagles.

There was a playground right outside the sanctuary on the waterfront.

It doesn’t get much more “vacation” than this. The girls played in the sand a bit and then we went to a local restaurant for lunch and a little ice cream shop for dessert. And, Sis stayed awake during the ride home (with a little help from me) so we even had good naps afterward.

Friday was the real beach day. We got going fairly early in the morning for the drive up to this lovely beach on the gulf. It was a beautiful day, though a bit on the windy side.

I have a love-hate relationship with the beach. I love the air and the sounds and the smell. I love the sun and how it sparkles on the water. I love the endless blue of the water and watching the sea birds swooping and gliding looking for food (I’m talking about pelicans here mostly, I am not a huge fan of the seagull). Unfortunately, I really, really don’t love the sand. Oh, how I loathe sand. In my younger days of going to the beach to “lay out,” I didn’t mind the sand too much. I could always manage to keep it contained and minimize the annoyance of it when it was just me, a few friends, and a huge towel or blanket.

With kids not so much. This stuff gets everywhere.

But oh how my girls love to dig and play in the sand. As much as I despise the it, I love watching them in it. So I just had to get over myself.

The finished castle that Miss made with her Papa:

I love dipping my toes in the water at the beach. There’s something about the pull of the surf on my feet and the swirling of sand around them that makes me smile. Even if the water was frigid this time of year. Miss really loved standing in the water. Lass didn’t want her feet in it at all, but she liked to look at it.

Baby Sis had her first experience of the beach and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

She seemed to like the look and sound of the waves and the feel of the sand, though she freaked out when the water washed over her feet.

It was a lovely vacation.

Once it was over though, we. were. done. It’s amazing how, no matter how fun the vacation, when it’s time to get home, I want to be home.

We traveled all day Saturday to get here. Literally. “All day” as in we left at 8 am to drive nearly 2 hours to the airport for a two-and-a-half hour flight. Then we got our vehicle from my husband’s sister’s house and drove another five-and-a-half hours. We got here a little after 8:30 pm, so it was a very long day, but so worth it to get here and just be home.

Back to the grind today. Grocery shopping. Snowy weather. Homeschooling. We are recharged from our trip, so it was good.

A Wrestling Meet, a Birthday, Some Great-Grandparents, and Disney World

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Amy

Warning: This post has a lot of photos in it.

I can’t help it. We are on vacation, and in the past week we’ve watched a cousin compete (and win 5th place!) in his HS State Wrestling tournament, had a birthday (and multiple parties), taken a plane ride, visited a great-grandpa and then a great-grandma (in different cities), and gone to Disney World. We’ve been in Iowa and all over the state of Florida. These events and their corresponding photos should have been put into several different posts, but we’ve been adventuring, and I haven’t wanted to stop to take the time to post before now. Here’s a little glimpse of the first half of our vacation.

Last Friday we got to watch part of the Iowa High School State wrestling tournament from a box. It was great for the girls to be able to watch their cousin’s semi-final qualifying match and then play cards or read or color at a table in the box the rest of the time. They really got into the excitement of cheering for their cousin, whose match was very exciting, and the other wrestlers from his team.

On the day we went to the tournament I asked Miss at bedtime, as I do every night, what her favorite part of the day was. She said it was watching her cousin wrestle.

On Saturday we had a Snow White themed birthday party for this girl who turned four.

It was a great party, with lots of family and fun, though I kind of spoiled the opening of her one present she has been asking for for weeks. She really wanted a Merida doll and I was so excited to give it to her. I kind of get into the present opening part of a birthday for my little ones, and I love watching their little faces light up and taking pictures as they exclaim over opening just what they wanted. Well, Miss went over and started opening her gifts while I was still feeding her baby sister and tending to Lass after her cupcake. When I realized it, mid-open, I hollered, “Honey, wait! Wait! WAIT!!” She didn’t wait. I didn’t get a photo of her opening the gift. I made an annoyed face at her when she didn’t listen to me. Though I recovered myself and told her “I was sorry for yelling but had wanted to be with her and take her picture while she opened her gift,” the moment was already spoiled. This is the photo I did get of her and her much-anticipated Merida doll. I felt like a total jerk.

We regrouped though, and she has been enjoying her doll.

Note to self – a photo is never that important.

On Sunday we flew to Florida.

I got headphones for the girls and packed their backpacks with their Leap Pads and Tag readers, books, puzzle books, coloring books, and crayons in a travel soap box. Lass thought the head phones were quite cool, though she wasn’t exactly sure how (or what) to plug them in.

The flight was fairly painless. The girls did a great job.

After we landed we got in our rental minivan and drove.

First we drove two hours for a quick visit with Great-Grandpa C who lives in a veteran’s home. It was wonderful to see him, as well as my uncle and his wife, though sad to only be able to stay a short time.

Next we got back in the minivan and drove two more hours to Great- Grandma B’s house. We spent the night and got up Monday morning (Miss’s birthday) to play with all sorts of fun stuff that my Gram had gathered and put out for the girls. Golf balls, plastic food container lids, baskets, and empty egg cartons were only a few of the things she pulled out to entertain my lovies for hours.

They were in heaven with all the toys, and then she whipped up a “country breakfast” for us, complete with eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy, and a huge bowl of cut fruit. Yum.

She had tons of balloons that she blew up for the girls to play with and for Miss’s birthday celebration.

Great-Grandma had a big to-do for Miss’s actual birthday with pizza and cake and ice cream.

Baby sis got her first taste of ice cream.

We really had a wonderful time with my Grandma and my aunt and uncle (who live next door to her). My Gram really went above and beyond for my girls, which meant so much to me.

We had a too-short visit with her before hitting the road again for two more hours to head to Disney World.

We checked into our hotel and played for a while before dinner. The “playground” at our resort was pathetic. It consisted of lots of fake rocks and coral and three small slides. The girls had fun sliding and running anyway.

Then we headed out for a birthday dinner,

and back in for an early bedtime.

Miss got this “nighttime gown” like Wendy’s from Peter Pan for her birthday. She loves it. I got it from Esty (I love Etsy) here.

The girls watched the Disney bedtime story on the TV and we went to bed early to get ready for our big day at the Magic Kingdom.

On Tuesday:

We did the Magic Kingdom.

Tea Cups (one of my favorites):

Casey Jones splash pad area, which was clearly the favorite of the girls:

As an aside, I love these dresses, and so do the girls. They’re another Etsy find. You can get them here. They were perfect for wearing to Disney, and the girls also wore them to Miss’s party on Saturday. They were cool and comfy (I saw lots of little girls in big puffy dress-up dresses who looked hot and uncomfortable), washed up very easily, and my girls can wear them any day. The girls got drenched in them twice and they dried quickly and were no worse for wear.

It’s a Small World:

A few other rides, and then it was time for lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table.

We had a nice lunch, with excellent food and service. The girls liked seeing the princesses. Each of them said Snow White was her favorite.

My favorite was Ariel. She really tried to talked to them (though they were a bit shy), rather than just signing her autograph and posing for photos.

She was even attentive to Sis.

The girls got magic wands and made wishes during the “Wishing Ceremony.”

And we had another little birthday celebration (she always plugs her ears during the Happy Birthday song!).

Afterwards, all they really wanted to do was to go back to the splash pad. So we did that for a while, got a few souvenirs, and hit the road.

It was only 3 when we took the ferry back to the parking lot, but the girls were totally worn out.

I have to say, I was pitifully unprepared for all the little tricks of the Disney park experience. I had done a bit of Pinning, read up on a few things, and gotten a couple of apps on my phone, but was totally crushed by the huge crowds and immensity that is the Magic Kingdom. It was extremely crowded, which made it all the more overwhelming. In about five and a half hours we went on four rides (Prince Charming’s Magic Carousel, Dumbo, Mad Hatter, and Small World), played in the water, had lunch with the princesses, and picked out a few souvenirs. The rest of the time was spent wandering around trying to figure out where to get fast passes (most of them were not located right outside their rides, which seemed quite stupid to me), trying to find the rides that we wanted, or waiting in line. We got one fast pass for the Little Mermaid ride but then just missed our window to ride it while we were having lunch with the princesses. We never even made it out of Fantasyland! I learned a lot though and will be much better prepared next time.

One of the highlights of the Disney day for me was that we ran into some friends of ours from when we lived in North Carolina. We haven’t seen them in almost five years, and yet there they were, shuffling along next to us in the crush to get through the entrance to the park. I’m still marveling that we saw them at Disney World, of all places. How likely is it to “run into” someone on a busy day at the Magic Kingdom? Amazing, but we did. And it was so fun to see them, even if it was only for a few minutes as we were herded through security.

For the past two days we’ve been relaxing at my in law’s house. Lass, Sis, and I all have yucky colds (which means unfortunately we can’t visit some of my friends we had planned to see while we’re here, because one of them can’t be around sick people). We’re still enjoying the warmth and soaking in the Vitamin D. Eventually I’ll post about the rest of our adventures. Tomorrow we’re going to the beach. Saturday we’re going home.

“Vacation” isn’t relaxing anymore since having little ones. But it is so much more fun.

I Might be a Horrible Mom for Saying This…

Posted on February 13, 2013February 13, 2013 by Amy

I love to cook. Love it.

I love creating something to feed my family that is healthy and tastes delicious. This makes me happy.

However, I don’t love cooking dinner most nights. Really, I rather loathe it in fact.

Largely this is my own fault, because inevitably the days I dread the approach of the dinner hour are the days when I’ve hardly given a thought to what I’m going to cook that night and have no protein thawed and panic begins to set in right about the time my husband asks, “So, what’s the dinner plan?”

Ugh. I cringe just writing about that moment. Note to self: Get better at meal planning.

*****

I really, truly, absolutely love the artistic mind of my oldest girl. I love that she wants to create things and that she has a clear vision of how she wants her masterpieces to turn out. I love that, when she asks for something and I tell her we don’t have one, her mind will often go directly to, “But we can make one!”

I don’t so much love when said girl determines that she, oh say, wants a Cinderella Dress “sewn” out of a single piece of blue yarn,

or a Rapunzel made from some purple and gold pom poms, or a Goony Bird drawn just so, or a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer made out of a bunch of random wrapping paper scraps.

Because heaven forbid the adult who helps her attain her creative goal is not totally in sync with her vision. She is very particular, that girl is.

Just today she went through at least three pieces of construction paper to “practice” drawing a snow man. Love.

*****

Finally, I love the stage that sweet Baby Sis is in right now. Love. It.

She is becoming so much more interactive and her sweet little personality is starting to shine.

She is doing some signs (“more” and “all done”), she plays little games, she responds to her name, she does this crazy, adorable I-just-want-to-eat-her-up head nodding thing that totally melts me every time, and she’s crawling everywhere.

And, oh yeah, she’s crawling everywhere.

You may think I’m a horrible mom for saying this, but I as much as I L-O-V-E this baby phase, I really don’t love this baby phase.

I do not love that I can’t set her on the floor for five minutes to make a coffee in the morning without her crawling away while my back is turned and me realizing it and panicking, “Crap! I don’t think I vacuumed under the table after dinner last night!” and running to get her just in time to save her from aspirating some petrified chunk of the previous night’s dinner that was dropped on the floor by one of her sisters (just one of many reasons I miss having a dog, by the way).

Repeat a variation of this scenario in any room of the house, any time I set her on the floor, all. day. long.

She wants to move. She wants to be where her sisters are and do what they’re doing.

She wants to explore.

I know, I know. Of course she wants to explore. I just wish exploring in this phase didn’t have to include putting every darn thing she sees into her mouth. As you probably know if you’ve read many of my previous posts, I have a wee bit of a choking phobia.

And it doesn’t help that we recently had a bit of a choking scare with her and now I am pretty much afraid to put her on the floor at all if I can’t be watching her like a hawk the whole time. I’m developing tendonitis or something in my elbow from carrying her 22 pounds of adorable around all day long. I’m serious. Neurotic much?

So far with all three of my kids, this time between 9 and 18-ish months, when mobility is advanced so much more than reasoning, has been my least favorite phase. Perhaps I shouldn’t admit it, but oh it is so true!

I suppose that’s just the nature of motherhood though. Even though there are some things about it that I really don’t love, don’t like, can’t stand, etc., in the grand scheme of things, I love it. I don’t love everything about it. But oh, how I do love it.

Valentine’s Day Science

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Amy

Pinterest success was mine today.

Last night I pinned a link to this blog post about using Valentine’s Day candy conversation hearts for science experiments. I watched the video in the above link, and then checked out this post and this for more information.

Basically, the post was about using the conversation hearts to experiment with what would happen if putting them into different liquids/solutions.

I knew my girls would love this, even if only to have the opportunity to eat more of the hearts while doing the experiments (we ate some a few days ago when using them for counting, graphing, sorting, and they loved them).

So today, we had science class.

We started with placing the hearts in water of different temperatures. I did this slightly differently than the Mom at Inspiration Laboratory. I didn’t measure the water temperature. I just used cold, warm, and hot tap water. We dropped hearts in, stirred with spoons a bit, and watched to see what would happen. You can see the hot water on the left below. We talked about what “dissolve” means. They made the observation that the hot water was dissolving the heart fastest. They poked at the hearts, lifted them out of the water to see if the writing was still on them, and so forth. I liked using the clear glass containers and putting them against the white wall so the girls could see how the dissolving candy changed the color of the water.

Next we talked about the concept of “chemical reactions” and moved on to putting the heart in a glass of vinegar. They started by smelling the vinegar and exclaiming over its stinkiness. Lass dropped the heart in, and we observed that nothing happened. It dissolved even less than the heart in cold water. During all the time it was in the vinegar (about an hour) it never changed much at all. Bummer.

Then came the more exciting stuff. I brought out the baking soda to see what would happen if we put a heart in water that had baking soda dissolved in it. I didn’t watch the video for this particular experiment on Inspiration Laboratory, so I wasn’t sure what they found. When we put the heart in the baking soda water it almost immediately turned the water from very foggy to clear again. Interesting.

I didn’t know that that wasn’t what was supposed to happen until I was looking at this post about the experiment they did to determine which ingredient in the candy hearts caused the bubbling reaction. Bubbling reaction? Oops. After reading through her post, I quickly realized that the reason our hearts didn’t bubble in the baking soda water is that they don’t have citric acid in them. So, if you do this and you want the bubbling reaction, get hearts with citric acid. Ours are the old school Brach’s Conversation Hearts in “Classic Flavors” (I chose this particular type to match the printouts I had for the math activities mentioned above).

Anyway. All this is building up to the best parts of our experimenting. Of course I mean the combination of baking soda water and vinegar.

I have never done this trick with the girls before, so we started out just combining the two to see the reaction, without adding any hearts.

I really didn’t know just how much it would bubble up. I thought it might go over the edge of the glass a little bit. I was cool with that, since I figured that would be part of the fun. I put down a paper towel folded in half just in case.

The girls thought this was hilarious.

For the next phase of our experimenting, I got a bigger container.

We started out by mixing the baking soda in the water again. One cup of water with half of a Tablespoon of baking soda. Then we added in a couple of hearts.

Then came the vinegar (I used a half cup).

After the initial reaction, the solution continued to fizz, causing the hearts to “dance” all around in the water. They spun, they moved up and down.

It was like magic and the girls just kept watching them move. They added lots more hearts, and they all continued to spin and bob. We talked a little bit about how the bubbles were lifting them up and then popping so the hearts sank back down.

*Note – In the video I watched here of the experiment, the Mom added the vinegar before the candy hearts and hardly anything happened, at least not for a while. In her post about it here where she also has a video, she says to mix the water and baking soda, then add the candy hearts, then the vinegar. So that’s how we did it and it worked perfectly. It seems to work both ways, but I think the effect is more dramatic and interesting to add the hearts before the vinegar.

The hearts danced for quite a while. Long enough for the girls to eventually get tired of watching.

Here’s a look at our finished solutions. Left to right, hot water, warm water, cold water, vinegar, baking soda water, and baking soda/vinegar water. This was a while after the experiments were completed, and the hearts had stopped moving.

I made the mistake of dumping these out once the girls lost interest in them.

Miss was very upset when she realized I had done so.

So we’re going to do it all again tomorrow. She wants to show her Daddy anyway.

There are a few things I’ll do differently:

1. I’ll use hot, room temp, and chilled water for the temperature experiment. I’ll also use the same color heart in each of the glasses and make sure it’s one of the more vibrantly colored hearts, like pink or purple. The yellow didn’t let them see the difference in saturation of the water very well. Maybe we’ll even use a thermometer and timer this time.

2. I noticed that the one white heart we used in the experiments (I think it was in the dancing experiment) had dissolved almost completely, while the others had hardly dissolved at all, so we’ll explore this a bit more to see how the white and colored hearts might react differently.

3. I also noticed, just when posting these photos, that the hearts were all floating at the top of the baking soda/vinegar solution, even after the bubbles had stopped forming, though sitting at the bottom of the other glasses, so we’ll check this out too.

4. I’ll probably find another container so each girl can do her own baking soda/vinegar/dancing heart experiment.

I love Pinterest. And I love my new find for fun activities, Inspiration Laboratory.

Dear Daughters – The First in a Series of Letters: Your Dad

Posted on February 6, 2013February 7, 2013 by Amy

Something that I have set as a goal for myself to do this year is to take photos of all the family heirloom pieces I have in my possession and write captions for them, including available information about to whom they belonged, how they came to me, and memories I may have of them. I want to create a photo album with this information so that my girls will always know the stories behind the priceless family items we have in our home.

In thinking about this goal, it occurred to me that, while I want my girls to know about the family heirlooms they see on a daily basis in our house so that they will always appreciate them and feel some connection to the past, more important is for them to know about the people from whom these items came. I want them to know about their family members. I want them to have some understanding of the people who helped to make me who I am today. The people who have been important to their Dad. The people whose blood they share whom they may never have a chance to meet or may not remember. I want them to know the stories behind people they see and interact with frequently as well.

So the idea for this series of posts was born.

My plan is to write letters to my children about their family members, and maybe even a few important events. I intend to make this a family history in letters. I don’t necessarily think I’ll get this done in the next year. It may take several years, in fact. And that’s okay. I’m in no rush.

I know these letters will be somewhat flawed in that they will primarily tell stories from my perspective. I will ask for input often. It will be a work in progress. I’ll just see how it goes.

The natural starting point for this project, to my mind, is to tell my girls about their Dad. So here goes.

****

Dear Daughters,

I want to tell you some things about your Dad.

I certainly don’t know everything about him, as he lived for 27 years before even meeting me, but after 11 years I think I’ve got a pretty good understanding of who he is and what makes him tick.

I know that he’s funny and silly and confident.

I know that he’s loving and devoted.

I know that he’s wicked smart and incredibly handy. If he sets his mind to do something, he does it. If he doesn’t know how, he teaches himself.

Truly, he’s the smartest person I know.

(The photo above is of him building your swing set, by the way. It was about six thousand degrees that day. Handy, yes. Devoted, yes.)

I know that he works hard. He does not know how to quit.

His senior year of high school, he won a state wrestling title. He was just the second person from his high school to do so, and the first in 19 years. He worked excruciatingly hard to achieve this goal, because failure just was not considered a possibility.

The first time he applied to graduate school he didn’t get in. Instead of accepting rejection and changing his path, he worked harder to make a second try of it. He spent a year taking additional classes in order to obtain a second bachelor’s degree. He walked on to the University of Iowa’s wrestling team, and got a varsity letter in wrestling. He didn’t take “No” for an answer.

He does not back down from a challenge.

He is a natural leader. During the course of his training his peers voted for him to hold a leadership position. He gets things done. He treats people with respect and dignity.

He works hard and plays hard.

He loves to fish and hunt and golf.

He loves to spend time with his girls.

He is a good teacher. You will learn so much from him.

You have so many wonderful qualities that you get from him. Determination. Strength. Intelligence. Loyalty. Perseverance.

Your Dad will protect you, and he will push you to be the very best you can be. You will see him pushing himself right along with you.

You will succeed at whatever goals you set for yourself in life, in part because you have his smarts and his wit and his bull-headed refusal to accept “No.” Be thankful for these.

More importantly, you have his love and his support. And he is rock solid. I know this very well, as he is my foundation too. In him you will always have a strong base from which to build and a soft place to land when necessary.

Truly, the best decision I ever made was in choosing him to be my partner for life and the father to my children. He is my best friend. And he gave me you, for which I am thankful every day. Your Dad loves you fiercely, and I hope you never forget that or take it for granted.

You come from strength.

All my love,

Mom

Motherhood and Miscellany

Author: Amy