More Green

As I do these messy activities I'm learning things that will help make them better. The first activity we did inside, mistake. The second activity I didn't observe the entire time, mistake. This activity...I used normal house paint that we had laying around, MISTAKE. Always use washable paint people! These small things will make it so we can continue to have fun and I won't be stressed by them mess.

Color of the Week: GREEN

I figured it was about time that Will could recognize more than blue and pink, so we started our first color of the week. Here he's playing in a sensory bin filled with split green peas (dried) and all the green toys I could find.

 This is vanilla pudding with lots of green food coloring, we were "finger painting"

 I was extremely grateful for warm weather so we could do this outside, because I didn't want a repeat of our first green activity (see previous post). This was the result:

And this was an activity to help fine motor skills so Will's fingers will be better prepared to control a pen. It was a bit of a history lesson too.

We also listened to the St. Patrick's Day Martin and Sylvia Sparkle Story. Sparkle Stories are awesome, check them out here.

What we've been up to

Eating finger foods (never pureed foods)!

Sick, super sick, for a week

Landscaping the front yard

Learning to write our name!

While Ruth was at a birthday party, Will asked to go to the airport

Making delicious food (that's sausage inside)

Making forts and sleeping in them

Experimenting with chemical reactions:

I told them they could use their fingers to play with the green goo (baking soda mixed with green Kool-Aid, then pour vinegar on top). When I suggested this they were both unsure. Slowly they started getting into it and by the time we were done I was wishing we had done this outside in swim suits.

Love

14 Things I Love:

1: When Claire first wakes up and I pull her out of the crib she smothers me with love and hugs. It's my favorite, she's so warm and chubby and happy to see me!

2: Ruth is reading and it's so fun to watch her realize that there are words all over the place. The other day she sounded out the stop sign and was so excited and surprised that the word STOP was on the stop sign!

3: William is a tender and crazy boy. He is so loving. He loves to cuddle. But he also loves to fight and pretend to be Buzz Lightyear or Spiderman. Whenever it's just me and him he always requests to play a game, usually Don't Spill the Beans...or he asks to watch How to Train Your Dragon.

4: I love Hop 2 It. Brad has been working 14 hour days, so the kids literally don't ever see him. It was getting stressful for me, and then I remembered that the bounce house place is around the corner and I can pay for an entire month for only $35. We've all been having a blast.

5: Vegetables. This new year I've been trying to eat better and I seriously have a new found love for veggies. I always liked salad, but I find myself craving veggies now.

6: Owning both of our vehicles.

7: Tax Returns, this year was awesome because we had Claire (also, see #6)

8: Brad. (This list isn't really in order of appreciation, just in the order of what I'm thinking about.) He has been working so hard at the Red Lion. His pay check is super appreciated, but more so, the fact that he's been willing to stick it out through 6 years of crappy, low-end jobs to finally get to where he is now. And it's all so that we can be comfortable and I can stay home with the kiddos.

9: Being a stay-at-home mom. Although there are days I want to scream (and usually do) I know it's where I belong. And most of the time we have so much fun learning and growing together.

10: Sleep. Claire has been sleeping so much better at night and Will quit wetting the bed, which means I've been getting to sleep through the night. It's so refreshing.

11: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is such a blessing to have this as the center of our lives and the anchor of our actions. And primary. I love that the kids can get supplemental teaching outside of the home. I love hearing what they've talked about in their classes. And I love being the secretary so I get to hear singing time. I also love that Brad is the pianist in there now too. During sharing time we get to sit together in the back!

12: Hand-me-downs. I LOVE hand-me-downs. I haven't ever HAD to buy Ruth any clothing. How awesome is that?! We have cousins and friends who have given us all their old stuff. And Ruth loves knowing that her big cousin Lydia once wore that jacket or dress. I also love having all of Claire's stuff ready to go...once she hits 18 months (I had gotten rid of Ruth's old stuff since we had a boy next).

13: Dates. Since Claire was born we've been on more dates than the rest of our entire marriage, no joking. It has been so fun to be together, alone, and get to be goofy and fall in love with each other again. It's also been extremely necessary because of the amount of time Brad spends at work with this job.


14: Crafting/holidays. I have loved being the mom of kids who can do crafts. This past year in holidays has been so much more fun because they get what's going on and we can prepare for the holiday by doing crafts and write cards and letters. It's so hard to have an infant that just wants attention but can't participate in any activities. I think this is the main reason we've had kids so close together.

My Kids

In the following picture please note the ginormous hunks of ice that are laying around on the ground that used to be on top of the mud puddle they are now playing in!

Pretty girls

 Sushi is not one of my children, but if I had to pick one food to be part of my family it would definitely be sushi. I made this the other night and other than the lame soy sauce and ridiculously hot wasabi it was good.

It was cucumber, shrimp and cream cheese and I made real sushi rice that turned out perfectly!

Proud Mommy Moment

I've been working on reading with Ruth. The last few days she has been reading everything. Today while we were at the library she was doing her thing and sounding stuff out by herself. Another lady there was super impressed and asked how old she was (she thought Ruth was 5). Then she asked me if Ruth was in preschool. I just said no, but I was thinking, "No, I did all the work to help her learn to read!" I'm so proud of how hard Ruth is working to learn to read and glad that I've put in the time and patience the last two years to teach her letters and sounds.

Christmas

I found some Christmas crafts to work on while Brad was home to keep us all busy and happy. We made these super cool "stained glass" things. All you need is clear contact paper and tissue paper cut into small pieces. The kids stuck their tissues all over the contact paper and then we stuck it onto the glass door. They were very artsy and pretty once the sun was shining through. We also made personalized placements for Christmas dinner with holiday stickers, markers and contact paper.

Claire loved trying to grab ornaments off of the tree.

Unwrapping presents 

Ruth got lots of dress up, she was particularly excited about her wedding dress and veil (thank you used kids store).

We didn't have a white Christmas...but the day AFTER it dumped 6 inches on us and has been snowing off and on for a week now! Will LOVES the snow. I'll get him all bundled up and he'll play by himself for 30 minutes out there in the 20 degree weather.

Funnies

Being a mom has lots of funny moments. Today Ruth asked when her "five birthday" was going to be. I told her November 18th, to which she replied, "Again! How about January 15?"

Last night Claire was laughing in her sleep, so adorable!

The other night when Will saw a play sword he was in awe. He spoke in reverential tones and said, "Me want fight with it." Can't wait for Christmas, he's gonna love his sword! Ever since then he's been using my spatulas as swords. He's such a boy!

Fully Mobile Baby and Secret Santa

Claire has become a fully operational baby! She (usually) eats food well, can sit up and can go and get whatever she wants. I wouldn't say that she's crawling, it's more of a combination of rolling and squirming, but it's definitely time to re-baby proof the house. Dang she's cute! 

We have been secret Santa'd. Someone has been doing a 12 days of Christmas thing for us. It's been super fun. Last nights gift was a mini Mr. Potato Head which the kids love! We can't wait to do this for someone else next year.

Bad Day, Happy Ending

Today just started out rough for us. The kids were just driving me crazy! By my breaking point I looked up at the clock and almost cried because it was only 11:30! I texted Brad and he suggested getting a friend to watch the kids. Everyone was busy and babysitters are all still in school. So I took a deep breath and instead of thinking of packing all the kids in and out of the car as a chore I decided to be grateful that I have that as an option! That really helped. 

So then we ran to Smith's and got: prunes for Claire so she'll hopefully poop today and quit being cranky; bubble bath to keep the big kids busy while I'm trying to feed Claire said prunes; a frozen pepperoni pizza to provide sustenance for the rest of us; cookie dough, shredded coconut, and m&m's to make cookie pizzas; super sparkly nail polish to make me feel pretty.

 Frozen pizza was fine, but the cookie pizzas were awesome! We used red raspberry jam as the "sauce" and chocolate sprinkles for seasoning and they were DELICIOUS. I love how much the coconut actually looks like mozzarella. I found this idea somewhere on the internet because I am constantly looking for activities to keep us busy, hooray!

In other recent events I made this beauties stuffed with peppermint marshmallow cream for the ward Christmas party. The recipe is from Food Network, they're called hot chocolate cookies. yum.

 Here the kids are helping me bash up the candy canes to put in the marshmallow cream.

And it finally snowed half an inch here, so of course the kids were desperate to get bundled up and play

Pics

I've been trying to come up with lots of cheap indoor activities to keep the kids busy and me sane. We fell back on the good old fruit loops on a string trick and they loved it. It was also really good for Will to get the practice using fine motor skills.

We have also been watching a decent amount of Christmas shows, particularly Charlie Brown Christmas and How The Grinch stole Christmas.

And I was going through old pictures and found this amazing picture of my adorable husband in England. Yowza! Ruth asked me who this was and then told me this picture kinda looks like her daddy.

Thanksgiving and Ruth's B-day

Ruth's kitty cupcakes, as requested. They turned out pretty well.

Megan was also born on November 18th! It was a big party at my parents house

 We were so happy to spend tons of time at Meg and Joe's house, we haven't seen them in years. The kids had lots of fun together.

 turkey marshmallow craft

 These are our adobe style graham cracker houses. It was lots of fun to make and the kids loved eating all that candy!

Here is myself and dad at Claim Jumper with the largest "slice" of cake you'll ever see. It was way bigger than my hand and fed all 7 adults.

Multnomah Falls

And here are family pics by my dad: