Loving Life

For those of you who don't know, Santa does not visit our house at Christmas time.  Instead we have a Christmas Mouse.  Click here  to read the story of how the Christmas Mouse came into being.  It's a fun one.  So anyway, the kids always leave out some cookies every Christmas Eve for the Christmas Mouse.  This year was no exception (Aaron always tries to suggest that the Mouse would prefer something like pizza).  Here is remainder of the plate of cookies of bowl of milk (we upgraded from water to milk this year) we left out for the mouse. The Mouse was pretty messy this year and left a trail of crumbs leading to the basement.  That is where most mice come from in our house.  Apparently the Christmas Mouse is no exception. The Christmas Mouse delivered all presents that night and seemed satisfied by the cookies and milk.  Until next year, Christmas Mouse!  May you stay safe, warm, and away from all mouse traps.

This year for Christmas, I went with a homemade room improvements theme.  As mentioned in a previous post, David has more legos than is possible to play with or keep tidy in a small room.  So this year's present for him was a lego organization system.  I found a sweet 2-for-1 deal on these towers and then my dad and I (okay, mostly my dad) made the table top to go over the towers to provide a work station for his legos.  David loved it as he tries very hard to keep his legos organized, so this helps him greatly, not to mention frees up a lot of floor space.  He immediately set to work on getting things in their proper drawers when he saw it. For the girls, I decided to turn the dormer in their room into a playhouse.  So while they were gone over Thanksgiving, I did my one and only time of Black Friday shopping when I could get some fabric very cheaply.  I hope to never go Black Friday shopping again.  Here is a picture of the outside of the playhouse.  The door opens and closes, t

A friend of mine gave me this idea a couple of years ago of making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.  So easy and so little preparation!  The kids LOVE doing this every year.  Here is the process of this year's houses. David's finished product below. Abby's finished product.  I think she ate the candy instead of sticking it on her house. Ana's hotel below.  She put a false store front on it, though it's hard to see it on the picture. It's a fun tradition for us now that I'm sure will grow more elaborate over time.  What is a Christmas tradition you do?

I saw a fun idea in a magazine awhile ago and thought I would give it a try with the kids.  Artist Trading Cards.  The idea is to make small cards on plain white cardstock.  They suggested baseball card size, but I happened to have sleeves for business card size, so that's what we went with.  Once you get that, get busy decorating!  You can design cards however you want using whatever medium you want.  Once you get a base of cards, you can start trading them with each other so you have a large variety of cards - just sign your name on the back so you can keep track of your various cards and who designed them.  I have to say that this idea was a HIT!  The kids absolutely loved it and spent many, many hours creating various cards.  They sent out cards to distant relatives in hopes that they'll get some back from them.  We haven't gotten any yet (if you are a relative reading this who received your cards, ahem, the kids are waiting...).  They are getting some of their friends

My neighbor's home is a haven for stray cats.  I tell her that there must be some hobo stray cat sign on her doorpost letting other cats know that this is a place where they will be loved and cared for.  Two strays recently showed up on her door step.  Since they haven't had their shots yet, she is keeping them separate from her other cats.  She is gone for the week and asked if I could take care of them while she is gone.  One is this one - a pregnant mama cat.  She's in her cage right now since we don't know when she will have her kittens and I don't want a surprise somewhere in my house.  The kids are hoping she has her kittens while she is here.  We do let her out of her cage so she can move around freely - just not at night.  She doesn't have a name, but while she is here, we're calling her Pauline. Boarder #2 is another stray that looks almost like Joey did, except this one has a white face.  We named him Lester. I'm still not used to seeing cats

Aaron's birthday is right in the middle of December.  Every one else in our family has summer birthdays and don't have to share our birthday with any major holidays.  So Aaron logically concluded that the best way to celebrate his birthday is to declare a "birthday season".  His birthday season usually starts at the beginning of December and doesn't end until he sees his "boy movie" with his buddies sometime after his birthday.  Wow, I just realized that "boy movie" may not sound totally appropriate.  Let me clarify.  A "boy movie" is any movie that involves lots of action and adventure with plenty of guns, chase scenes, explosions, and enough tension in the plot to tie my muscles up in knots for a week.  He knows that he has to watch movies that like with other boys and not his wife.  There is usually a movie of this nature out in the theatres about this time of the year. Back to birthday seasons.  Aaron officially kick started his

You have no idea how many posts I've posted in my head in the last few weeks.  Unfortunately, none of them made it onto here.  I thought I'd share a few pictures of the kids' hard work.  They, David especially, have a ginormous affection for anything Lego.  It doesn't matter that they already have piles of legos that they play with nearly every day.  The quest for more is always present.  If you've shopped for anything made by Lego in the past 10 years, you'll know that everything they sell is ridiculously overpriced.  The kids know that, but it doesn't stop them from still wanting them.  They also know that there is no way I am paying a pile of money for yet more Legos to enter our house.  So about a year ago, they highly coveted a lego set that was way out of the price range of anyone I know, so they decided to pool their money together and start saving for it together.  Every bit of birthday money, money the received from chores, odd jobs, pop can recycli

I spent the day at my parents house for Thanksgiving and my mother reminded me that it had been awhile since my last update.  I agreed.  Rather than overwhelm you with the various tidbits of my life since I last blogged, I'll try to keep it short.  I have included two pictures of various writings that occurred this past week.  The first is from Abby.  She has inherited my small mouth (as did Ana), and had to have two teeth pulled this past week to make room for her two grown up teeth that were trying to squeeze in.  There was considerable anxiety about the whole procedure going in to it.  That evening, she dictated a note to Ana to write to the tooth fairy. It reads: (and I'll use the correct spelling - as Ana still spells pretty phonetically) "Dear Tooth Fairy (which ever one you are), Can you please give me a little extra money because I was scared at the dentist office?  Abby."  Those are her two teeth laying there on the note, in case you were wondering what thos

If you think of it, I'd appreciate a prayer or two on behalf of Ana tomorrow (Monday) as she is having a minor little surgery done in the late morning.  This will hopefully help with her recurrent UTIs and help her get past getting so sick when she gets them.  She's pretty frightened by the whole surgery aspect, but it's just a day thing and we'll be home by late afternoon, should everything go as planned.  We're bringing along all sorts of comfort things from home to help ease the anxiety.  So any and all prayers for her are greatly appreciated!  Thanks!

The kids LOVE raking up the leaves into a huge pile every year.  Our biggest tree is a beautiful red maple that looses its leaves a little later than other trees.  So it is often freezing cold by the time they have dropped and it's time to mulch them up.  I spent Monday afternoon cleaning up the yard and getting it ready for winter since the weather was gorgeous (and on November 1!).  There are still leaves to fall yet, but at least I got most of them up.  Here are the kids in their pile. I use these to cover my garden during the winter and then till them into the ground in spring.  Extras go on the compost pile and around the flower gardens.  It's nice to have most of that big chore done for the year.  We'll see how big of a pile the remainder makes (or how many blow into our yard from next door).  I may have to mow them up again, and hopefully when it's not too cold.  Mowing while wearing a hat and mittens just feels wrong. Question for you:  Are you a cold weather

This year I planted some fall lettuce again.  It took awhile for it to grow because I forgot to water it and we had a very dry end of the summer.  But it eventually rained a few times and my lettuce grew!  I love having fresh lettuce from the garden.  Unfortunately, I didn't plant enough of it.  I am sad about that.  I may get one more cutting from it, but it is mostly done for the year. I am happy to report that my tomatoes are done.  I probably could have gotten a few more, but I have a small pile to still work with and have canned all I am able to can.  I don't know where my final count is for what I canned with tomato products this year.  I wish I could find it.  Perhaps if I clean off my desk I will.  All I know is that I reached my goal of having enough tomatoes.  I haven't had enough in the past few years since my tomato plants all died after the first round of production.  Not this year.  Plus I planted about three times as many tomato plants as usual to make sure

The kids and I enjoyed going out trick or treating last night.  Aaron was busy at work, so he wasn't able to join us.  This year, Ana decided she wanted to be a zebra.  This zebra shirt is in our dress up box of clothes that we scored when Aaron's step-grandma passed away 6 years ago.  She was a very flamboyant dresser and we have gotten some great mileage from some of her more wild clothing.  I painted Ana's face to match her shirt and we put her hair back for a mane and sprayed it black.  Ana made these cute little ears and a tail to go with her outfit.  It was quite adorable. She was very nervous about going out like that because she looked so different than she was used to seeing.  I tried to assure her that she looked great and that she would more than likely get many compliments on her outfit.  After about three compliments directed only to her and not her siblings, she let me know that I was right and people did like it.  After that, she was one very happy and confi

Last Friday, the kids and I took a day off from school to have a field trip day to Bloomsbury Farms.  We had gone there last year and the kids kept begging to go back there again this year.  The day was a beautiful warm fall day (once the morning chill was gone).  We had a great time.  I took my camera, but got tired of lugging it around with me and dumped it in the van after a few pictures were taken here and there. We had fun playing in the giant rocking chair. This next picture does not at all do this thing justice.  It's part of a little maze you go through and you enter the end of this tunnel with a walkway through the middle of it.  The tube around the walkway is covered with lights and is spinning around so that when you enter, you feel as though you are about to fall over.  If you notice David leaning to the side and Ana hanging on for dear life to the railing, that is how you walk through the tunnel.  It's such a fun sensory overload and the kids and I thought it w

Life can sometimes get a little busy at times.  I just went through a longer spell of too much busyness (hence the lack of posting most recently).  It wasn't that I had any huge projects going on, but just a number of little things all piled up into one time period.  I could have forced the blogging in the midst of it, but I decided my own sanity was more important.  I won't give you the rundown of all I've done (and I didn't take many pictures at all these past two weeks, of course).  So here are a few things I have taken pictures of because they give me pleasure.  Picture #1 - Pear Butter.  Aaron's mom owns a lovely pear tree and every year I get pears from her tree.  One of the things I did with them this year was to make pear butter.  It pleased me greatly and we very much enjoy digging into it on freshly made bread.  Yum! Picture #2 - Fish!  We finally were all out of our summer tadpoles.  Many of them made it into froghood.  I cleaned out the aquarium and set

So it turns out that I am a great decorative gourd farmer.  All you need to grow your own decorative gourd is three old decorative gourds that were given to you last year and you didn't know what to do with them after having them sit on your kitchen counter for two months.  Just throw those into your compost pile in the middle of winter and forget about them.  In the spring when you see some squash plants growing in your compost pile, do not cover it up as you anticipate lovely useful squash like you've gotten in previous years of compost squash.  Allow the squash to grow up on the nearby lilac "bush" (though tree is more appropriate term).  The gourds look like Christmas tree ornaments as they dangle far above your head from the lilac tree.  Feel free to be disappointed that your compost squash are not useful because you are completely decorationally challenged and don't know the basic human skill of making things look pretty.  Pick an entire bushel of them.  Ask

We haven't seen Joey, our cat, for over three weeks now.  He got outside the first day that I was gone with the kids for our trip out to Indiana.  Since Aaron was not home very much that week, he was not around to see Joey to let him back in.  Apparently, Joey gave up hope of getting let back in the house and wandered away.  The kids have taken it surprisingly well, though they occasionally express some sadness about being cat-less.  I am pretty okay with it.  While I miss having a warm fuzzy body to sit on me when I'm reading, I don't miss cleaning up cat litter, cat hair, the occasional hairball, and dealing with Joey's nerosis.  He hated all cats.  If you own a different cat and smell like that cat, Joey would then hate you.  That hatred apparently applied to himself as well, as he could go through spells of licking himself until he was raw and bloody.  He was going through a particularly bad spell of that when he disappeared.  It was quite a disturbing thing to see