Family LOVE Month.

**I get SO much encouragement from other mom-blogs!  I'm thrilled when I get ideas from them and they work in our home.  I hope that when I share ideas from our home, you feel the same way!**

When I saw this post on Family LOVE at POM I loved it!  I figured that with our Family Motto, February should be one of our favorite months!

Since I'm on a budget (more on that later) we have gotten creative.  

With nothing more than construction paper, painters tape, Dollar Tree items (including our class Valentines...Can I just say that I LOVE the Dollar Tree?!) and $1 Whitman Samplers from Target, we have really been spreading some love.

An English Muffin and a cookie cutter:  Instant "Love Muffin"!

A sharpie and a napkin:  Instant lunchbox love note!

We shopped our closet today for red and "heart" items to wear.  Jay picked a red collared shirt, Bet picked heart tights and Lucy had this adorable hand-me-down sweater (Thanks April!).

We did a Heart Attack one night:  Write one thing you love about everyone in the family (including Stoney and yourself).

Jay's compliment to himself.

Sweet message from Bet for me.  This one is definitely a keeper for me to look at when we are butting heads!

Love Messages (on our wall, in the mail, to our classmates):

 

 

 A few LOVE movies (Tonight we are watching Charlotte's Web.) and LOVE books off our bookshelves (Giving Tree, Love You Forever, etc.).  ...Pretty much any movie/book that makes you cry/FEEL something...

Snoopy Whitman's and suckers for pretty much everyone we see today.  My grandpa used to always give us Snoopy Whitman's...they always make me think of him.  Jay insisted that I go back and get more when I didn't have enough for all his related arts teachers and the bus driver...I did because I was SO thankful he was thinking of others.  After just a month and a half of "Be Kind" I feel like I'm getting somewhere with him...he can be SO selfish.

Father/Daughter Date.

LOVE verses.

Tonight we are going to have a special Love Feast and get all dressed up for a dinner of our favorite foods.  It's a meal we have often (minus the cookies), but now that I've talked it up, it has really become special.

JB-Bacon wrapped sirloins
Jay-Balsalmic asparagus
Betsy-Noodles with Parmesan Cheese and sprinkles
Mommy-Iced sugar cookies with Red Hot icing (I'm using icing from a jar.)

Why stop with Valentines Day when we can keep this lovin' going on all month...school lunch dates, random acts of kindness, etc.  I showed the kids this video from LBB and they loved it!  Thought I'd pass it on.

Rub 'n Buff Reveal

Part 1 HERE.

So I just realized that I gave a little Rub 'n Buff tease, but never showed the finished product. (Pretty typical since I have a zillion unfinished things going on around here...but since I DID finish it, I thought I might as well share!)

I love how she turned out.  With WAY more patience than me to do it right with a zillion coats...my mom is my go-to for paint projects.  She painted this with a spackle paint.  The intention was for the wood to show through, but I initially picked a color way too light, so the light color is coming through the final color.

I had the hardest time getting the green just right (I used samples and went through three samples...three trips to HD. Ugh!)

I am ALL about a paint color name.  My house has LOTS of color and I can go room by room and remember my paint color names.  My friend Tara will appreciate this one since she shares our LOVE for a good pickle...when I picked up "Dill Pickle" I KNEW I'd finally gotten it right. 

Another finished Rub 'n Buff reveal post soon!  A thrifted mirror!

#thirdchild

You could buy a fancy teether

...OR...

give her a cake topper from a past birthday to chew on.

Choose Your Own Adventure.

I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. -Robert Frost

Your mom is coming to pick you up from school/preschool/bus-stop.  You have been apart all morning and you missed her terribly.  All the other kids moms have been showing up and you are so excited for YOURS to get there...You have so MUCH to tell her about your day!  When you see her, she is:

A.  On her phone, texting or chatting with another parent.
B.  NOT on her phone, texting or chatting with other parent.

A.  Your mom doesn't even meet your eyes.  Doesn't she miss you like you have missed her?  You are hugging her leg and trying to talk to her about your day and she is just giving you one word answers and telling you to be quiet.  It makes you feel sad.  You want her to just LOOK at you and you want it BAD.  You start to do something REALLY loud and annoying so she will notice you.  Now you are in trouble and she is scolding you.  You feel MAD.  You decide you will spend the afternoon trying to get her to NOTICE you, whether it gets you into trouble or not!

B.  Your mom meets your eyes and she smiles like she hasn't seen you in a MONTH.  She bends down to your level with her arms WIDE open.  She says "Hey!  I MISSED you today!"  You run into her arms and she gives you a BIG bear hug and kisses you on your cheeks.  You feel so loved.  You hold her hand on the way home and you tell her ALL about your day.  Your afternoon continues to run smoothly because it got off to a GREAT start!

Choose to Love.

The Violet...

Etsy: Sue Davis Studio

Down in a green and shady bed, 
A modest violet grew;
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its colour bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,
Instead of hiding there.

Yet thus it was content to bloom,
In modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused a sweet perfume,
Within the silent shade.

Then let me to the valley go
This pretty flower to see;
That I may also learn to grow
In sweet humility. 

Jane Taylor 
(From the book:  Poems Every Child Should Know)

Let Me Hold You Longer...

Etsy:  Sarah Jane Studios

This past weekend I went to a baby shower where the host read "Let Me Hold You Longer", a sweet book about encouraging parents to savor not only their children's "firsts", but the "lasts" as well.  It was incredibly moving.  With Lucy I feel like I'm gripping to her "lasts" like a mad-woman;  Her last feeding in the middle of the night, her last 1 diaper, her last bottle I hold (before her tiny hands pry it away from me), etc.

In my attention to Lucy, I realized a "last" for Jay had happened right under my nose.  

My friend Shannon had warned me about it.  Like Jay, her boys love to read and she was telling me one day months ago how strange and bittersweet it is when they start reading in their heads...another step closer to their world and yours separating.  Since then I have asked him several times..."Can you read in your head?"...His reply, "No.  I can't do that."

Jay had early release on Wednesday.  He and I LOVE these days...it is just the two of us for a few precious hours before we have to get the girls.  Sweet one-on-one time with my little.  Before we ate lunch together, I was finishing up some work while he did his homework and the house was SO quiet.  Without all the other distractions, I noticed that I was missing a little voice coming from Jay's room.

I spun around...my eyes open wide.  I burst in his room.  "Are you reading in your head?!"...He replies like it is no big deal...like it has been happening for quite some time..."Yes.  I can do that now."

In a house with loads of commotion a "last" happened for my first born...and, as it is so easy to do with the "lasts", I missed it.

Be Ye Kind.

**I get SO much encouragement from other mom-blogs!  I'm thrilled when I get ideas from them and they work in our home.  I hope that when I share ideas from our home, you feel the same way!**

Many of the blogs I read take a "word" or a "phrase" for the year.  I love the simplicity of it, so for 2013 our "phrase" is "BE KIND".  It goes along well with our "Family Motto".  During Christmas I had gotten SO fed up with the "Green-eyed Gimmies" I was completely disgusted and felt like I was failing to teach my children to think of others.

As I have written before, kids just love things when you get all fancy-pants and make a big deal about them.  A jacket with butterflies on it is transformed when a certain little girl is called "Our Lady of the Butterflies" when she wears it.  A double-wide where we spend a week each summer is a bit more magical when called "Our Summer Home".  So in the spirit of it all, I have really taken "Be Kind" and run with it.

I had a big "Family Meeting" about the phrase and

The Wheatfield

...ordered this print for the living room.

I know the Bible says that if you tell others about kind deeds then they don't really "count", but I like to think that he gives us a little wiggle room when we are teaching children.  Children are NOT born kind...they need lots of help!  They need examples of what it means to be kind.  They need confessions from us about times when we have not been kind and we are sorry. 

We are ALL born so selfish and we have to suppress selfishness our whole lives.  Sharing out loud is teaching them so much about what kind "looks like".  We have had some great discussions about what kindness is.  Basically something that you don't HAVE to do, and something you have not been ASKED to do, but you do because you know it would make someone feel loved.

So in the month of January we began sharing each night at supper one kind thing we did each day...Outside The Home.  We talked about how we do our best recognize and practice kind acts within our home so we can take kindness out into the world!  The incentive was candy (A Hershey Kiss...and now two Skittles), of course - I always find candy to be a fabulous incentive.

I want to share with y'all how amazing this "phrase" business has been after just one month!  What I love is that once I got the ball rolling, they have run with it.

-The second we are all at the table, after the blessing, they are SO excited to share what they have done kind that day...and hear our examples.  It has really changed our whole dinner focus.

-Betsy suggested a couple weeks in.  "How about we do two things kind for a Kiss?...Sure!

-Jay suggested that we write our kindness acts down and see if we can get to 100 and when we get to 100 we can do a fun family activity...Sure!

So already our goals have grown and right before my eyes my children...actually all of us...are changing our "mirrors" to "windows" and seeing the world differently.