Easter 2011

A rare picture ofthe whole family.

Spencer's 1st Easter

Caleb was being super careful while doing it all by himself.

My sweet little Abby.

Lauren and me.

The kids made these pics for the Easter bunny and placed them ever so neatly by the door while I was upstairs with Spencer.

Reading the Resurrection Eggs.

My beautiful girls.

A picture with our friends Kayla and Bethany.

Making Empty Tomb Rolls.

After much reservation, I went ahead and made Paula Deen's Almost Fat-Free Lemon Cheesecake. It was a little more work than the usual cheesecake, but it turned out to be a fabulous dessert.

More Great Easter Ideas

If you are looking for a simple story to explain Holy Week to your kids, go to this site. There is a 12 page printable.

Holy Week coloring sheets here. This is Catholic Icing's blog which has quickly become one of my favorites.

Catholic Icing has many wonderful activities you can do with your kids. There are too many to list, but she has a countdown to Easter as well as the Resurrection Story napkin rings pictured above.

For more craft ideas, visit Oriental Trading.

Print Easter Egg compliment slips here. You write a compliment on them and place them inside the eggs that your kids are going to hunt.

Easter Game/Lesson

I receive a quick email from iMOM every day. Today I received a cute Easter game that I can't wait to try. Check it out here.

Bouncing off my idea from St. Patrick's Day, I might even hide the eggs in the midst of my kids' mess in the playroom and tell them they have to put away their toys to find the eggs. I always try to make clean-up fun, otherwise, I lose it and start raising my voice and it just doesn't make for a fun bedtime at all.

Visit my other Easter posts here.

Be sure to check out my Easter "fun for kids" recipes on my cooking blog. There are about 5 I am going to do with my kids between now and Easter, such as lamb cupcakes, chick cupcakes, basket cupcakes, and cheesy Easter shaped bread (all found on Betty Crocker's website). I'll post those recipes in a few weeks. You can find meatless recipes as well.

What We've Been Up To

I was passing a few extra minutes reading my friends' blogs and I realized I haven't even been to my own blog in such a long time. I have an announcement to make. I get to be a stay-at-home-mom starting this fall. I am thrilled! I have always wanted to be a SAHM. Some moms ask me why, even some of my friends who stay home. Well....the most important reason is that we can be a family. Stephen will be able to work 8-5 and be home at night for the first time in 3 years. He will be able to help me get the kids to scouts, sports, and dance. With Caleb starting Kindergarten and Lauren starting 2nd grade in the Fall, I can only imagine how much time will be spent on helping the kids with their reading and other homework. Maybe we can get outside and teach the kids how to ride their bikes. Another benefit of being home is that I can get more housework done. My friends always ask me how on earth I do "it". My answer is always the same, "my house is a wreck." So I, being the listmaker that I am, have a plan for geting my house in order and keeping it that way. Notice I didn't say PERFECT? I don't expect perfection. Just controlled chaos! I plan on finding time throughout the day to cook more meals instead of giving in and eating out. I hope to do more scrapbooking and I definitely want to have phone time to catch up with friends. The possibilities are endless! So with school coming to an end, our calendar is filling up fast. On top of the scouts, sports, and dance, we have field trips coming up plus The George Bush Library annual Easter Exstravaganza, Spencer's first birthday, Lauren's dance recital, Aubrei's graduation (our Mommy's Helper), and more.

Prayer Wall

I started a prayer wall yesterday. I've been thinking about it for some time, but yesterday I found some fabulous printable Stations of the Cross with amazing art, and I wanted to make sure I was introducing them to my family as I should. Lauren, Caleb, and Abby were infatuated with the pictures. It took me awhile to get them to sit down so I could begin prayers.

My plans are to keep pictures on the prayer wall for those we are praying for. We always pray for "our Godparents, our grandparents, our aunts, uncles, and cousins.............new babies in their mommy's tummy, our soldiers who are protecting us, and the leaders of our church and our country." I just think it will be nice to see their faces while we are praying for them.

As soon as I get more pictures on the wall, I will post a picture.

Making "Clean Up" Fun

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, I die-cut some shamrocks at the school where I teach. I was trying to think of a fun game to play with them and then it came to me: I will write bead amounts (if you don't know about my bead system for doing chores, read here) on some shamrocks and hide them under the kids' toys in the playroom. The kids will have to pick up toys to find the shamrocks and they can not have their beads until the toys are put away.

Naughty Leprechaun

For instructions on how to make this cute St. Patrick puppet, visit the author here.

Oh my goodness I love the holidays! I have such fond memories of my mom decorating the house for each holiday. I don't know that she did much more than that, but the teacher in me looks for as many ideas as I can find to make holidays memorable in our home. Yesterday, I found this idea on "Many Little Blessings" on Facebook and today, Family Fun posted about the shenanigans that a little Leprechaun tries in homes everywhere.

"Green milk? Green toilet water? Green footprints? Trails of shamrock confetti? "One year the kids woke up with green kiss marks on their foreheads," recalls mom Monique, still clearly shaken. "

Despite powerful bait (Lucky Charms cereal!), their traps have caught only chocolate gold coins and candy bars, accompanied by notes taunting them with "Good try," or "Can't catch me!" As everyone knows, leprechauns hoard pots of gold, and if caught, must reveal the treasure's location to their captor. But that's not the payback Jacob seeks. Because the elusive elves are always leaving him chocolate, he figures they must have even more of that than gold!

"It's for the sake of Jacob, Elise, and all the other St. Patrick's Day mischief fighters that we offer here three state-of-the-art leprechaun traps. Each is easily made from ordinary household materials and uses lures and baits drawn from the latest research in leprechaun psychology. But please take our designs and customize them to make something unique: leprechauns, as we all know, won't be fooled by the same trap twice!"

More ideas:
green bath water

For fun St. Patrick's Day food ideas, check out my cooking blog.

What it's Like With 4 Kids 6 and Under (and a Half-Time Job)

Just when you think you REALLY can't handle any more, God proves you wrong.

Things were already overwhelming before with me working 7:30-11:30 and Stephen working 12-9 plus some weekends PLUS taking classes online. Monday nights were crazy with having dinner on the table by 5 so we could get Lauren to dance AND Caleb to soccer, both at 5:45. Hmmm... Every other Thursday night Lauren has Girl Scouts.

My dad moved in with us on December 29. Even though there are many things we are working through right now, this really is a GOOD thing. Dad was not taking care of himself and I was sending people to check on him, only to call me and tell me they had to put him in the hospital. I was a wreck always wondering about his health.

So now we are adding my father's MANY doctor's appointments to our schedule plus some other issues we were dealing with that really were taking hours out of our weeks.

My fabulous friends from church heard my cries and got together to make meals to stock our freezer. What a blessing! Think about doing this for any friend in need. It not only saved me the time of making dinner, it saved time of going to the store to buy the ingredients, putting the ingredients away when I got home, and cleaning dishes, etc... Even with that help, my husband had to take a break from classes.

This week has been particularly stressful for me. Caleb turned 5 yesterday which means a party tomorrow. Stephen took off of work last night so we could have our little family party. We had not bought Caleb any presents so here is how yesterday looked after work:

-home/lunch/naptime
-2:45 woke all the kids and went to pick up Lauren from school
straight to Wal-Mart to get a cake for the evening plus order a cake for Saturday (this hurt because I had to admit I did not have enough time to make his cake this time), bought presents with Caleb in the shopping cart
-rushed home to feed starving baby
-got everything ready for Caleb's soccer and evening out (thank goodness Girls Scouts was cancelled)
-took Caleb to soccer and wrapped his presents in the van
-party at Chuck E Cheese
-8:45 home and prayers/bedtime only an hour late
-fed starving baby again
-tried to clean a little for housekeeper

Today will prove to be just as crazy:
-pick up Lauren and straight across town to the party store to get more goody bags
-home to get Lauren ready for her first sleepover
-church for Mardi Gras celebration...Lauren to sleepover late
-home to get the kids bathed and in bed

Saturday will be tricky as well:
-Caleb's game is at 9
-We are supposed to pick Lauren up in the next town at 9
-Pick up the cake and buy the food for the party
-Home to decorate and stuff the goody bags
-3:00 PARTY TIME

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!

Mardi Gras and Lent

The Valentine's decorations have come down and the Mardi Gras decorations have gone up-well, all we have right now is garland, but it's up! I plan on making a trip to the party store soon to see if they have anything to add to my collection.

Catholic Icing blog/Facebook just posted a cool "Countdown to Lent" calendar. Please check out her blog for many wonderful ideas. In the meantime, I am trying to prep some Mardi Gras crafts for my kids. I'll be sharing those here as we complete them.

Prayer Cube

My daughter brought home a prayer cube from RE that has made it easier to teach our young kids a variety of prayers. It is a box with a different prayer typed and glued on each side. After we say our prayers for others, we roll the cube and say the prayer that lands face up. The kids LOVE it! We had to make a spreadsheet to keep track of whose turn it is to roll the cube.

PICTURE coming soon....

Valentine's Day Crafts

Most of these ideas are from Oriental Trading Company, you can go to their website and order the kits.

From the Catholic Icing website.

These recipes can be found on my cooking blog.

I love, Love, LOVE to gather craft and recipe ideas for each holiday. As a matter of fact, I am a little OCD about it. I save all the pictures I find in a folder on my computer, and then I print out the page of pictures and keep it in my family planner. I figured why not keep them here on the blog as well? For my recipe ideas (so far), click here. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below, but remember to leave an email address for me to answer you.

Lunchbox Love Notes

I just started looking into putting "love notes" in Lauren's lunchbox. Since my fabulous husband makes her lunch, I figured he and I had better make a lot of them in advance and he can put one in each morning. So while I am gathering everyone else's ideas, I am going to put them here...so they are all in one place.

Here is a new one (found 10/7/11) on TipJunkie.
Here is a site where you can print a few cute cards.
Here is another.
Attach these to your fruit.
Lunch box bible verses.
Lunch box notes.
Lunch box jokes.
Disney character notes.
Dora printables.
Little Bill notes.
Blue's Clues notes.
Heart of a Mother notes.
iMim Valentine notes.
Fruity jokes.
Some Thanksgiving and Christmas love notes from iMOM.

And here are a few phrases so far:

• You are special.
• I love you.
• I'm glad you are my child.
• You are important to me.
• I love the way you smile.
• You are the sunshine in my life.
• I am very proud of you.
• You are a wonderful kid.
• Thank you for helping me clean up after supper. I can always count on you.
• You have the best manners. Thank you for being such a gentleman.
• I look forward to seeing you after school.
• I can't wait for you to come home so we can have snack together.
• You studied very hard last night. I am proud of you.
• You are smart and pretty/handsome. I am the luckiest mom/dad on this earth.

Advent Song

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing"
Advent Song found on Little Flower Bugs website.


1. Light the Advent candle one
Now the waiting has begun
We have started on our way
Time to think of Christmas day.

Chorus:
Candle, candle burning bright
Shining in the cold winter night
Candle, candle burning bright
Fill our hearts with Christmas light.

2. Light the Advent candle two
Think of humble shepherds who
Filled with wonder at the sight
Of the child on Christmas night.

3. Light the Advent candle three
Think of heavenly harmony
Angels singing "Peace on Earth"
At the Blessed Savior's birth.

4. Light the Advent candle four
Think of Joy forever more
Christ child in a stable born
Gift of love that Christmas morn.

5. Light the Christmas candles now
Sing of Donkey, Sheep and cow
Birthday candles for the king
Let the Alleluias ring.

Christmas Bucket List

A few years ago, a dear friend and co-worker, Sandy F., told me how she would sit down with her calendar over Thanksgiving break and write a family activity on each date. Then she would cover each square (with foil I think) and each day one of her four children would uncover that day's activity with great anticipation.

She inspired me to make a similar list and I have added to it each year. I am in the process of adding recipes to this list as well as pictures of each of the crafts. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to elaborate. Please share your family traditions.

1. Bake cookies: Candy Cane Twists, Holiday Wreaths, Meringue Snowflakes, Red and Green Holiday Pinwheels, Stained Glass Cookies, Raspberry Poinsettia Blossoms, Reindeer Cookies , Jingle Bell Cookie Pizza
2. Go to Santa’s Wonderland December 23rd or before (you don’t know how weather will be)
3. Visit Nursing Home-caroling
4. Take treats to priest/doctors
5. Go to a Movie
6. St. Nicholas Day-read story about St. Nicholas and watch Veggie Tales
7. Games Night
8. Puzzle Night
9. Christmas Parade (1st weekend)
10. Make Gingerbread house/cookies
11. Make Jesus’ birthday cake
12. Make a clay dough ornament with cookie cutters.
13. Make choc dipped reindeer pretzels14. Make countdown chain
15. Make & decorate Advent cookie bouquet
16. Movie night- (Charlie Brown, It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas Vacation, Miracle on 34th Street, Polar Express, A Christmas Story, Elf, etc....) with hot chocolate, Wassail, or hot cider.
17. 24th read story of Christmas-Luke
18. Make reindeer food
19. Bake candy cane twist cookies & read legend of candy cane
20. Make Advent wreath beads/bracelet
21. Ice Skating
22. Crafts with popsicle sticks (See Oriental trading.com for ideas)
23. Make reindeer Krispie Treats, Santa Claus Krispie Treats, or “holiday” Krispie Treats ,
24. Shop in Calvert?
25. Christmas in the Park26. Legend of the Christmas Tree
27. Make S’Mores
28. Gatti Town
29. Horseshoe Junction (go carts, mini golf, etc… in Brenham)
30. Elf on the Shelf ($30 @ Hallmark)
31. Paper plate crafts (see Oriental Trading’s website) . Gingerbread plate.
32. Tissue paper crafts (candy cane, wreath, tree, stocking)
33. “Stained glass” crafts (on transparency or laminating film). Print one of the coloring pages. Place a clear transparency page or laminating film on top. Tape them well. Let the kids color with Sharpies. Saran Wrap works, too. Hang the finished product in the window, or place on top of foil and cover a paper plate for a different look.
34. You and your kids enter a baking contest (College Station’s @ Christmas in the Park)
35. Ice Sculpting (click here).
36. Make an Advent Activity Chain. Here is one I found online. It is not the same as Lauren brought home from church. Here is another one. Here is the Nativity Story on a chain.
37. Santa pom-pom countdown to Christmas.
38. Let your child(ren) pick from the giving tree at church (or Salvation Army tree at the mall) and buy a gift for the less fortunate.
39. (Do this Thanksgiving weekend)- Wrap all your Christmas storybooks and let the kids take turns opening one each night. That's the bedtime story! Thanks, Jennie F!
40. (Again, print this Thanksgiving weekend)-Print this Santa Advent countdown on cardstock. make sure you have plenty of cotton!
41. Here is the link to the Advent Chain my daughter brought home from Religous Education this year. The teacher copied the links on purple and pink to correspond with the candles. Lauren ABSOLUTELY loved doing this and got upset if she couldn't do each one right away!
42. Handprint crafts: Help the kids paint their hands green and paint into a wreath, Santa, reindeer, Poinsettia, or Christmas tree pattern.

43. Make these adorable Melted Snowman Oreo Cookies by Idea Room Blog. Scroll down below the "pops".
44. Make homemade Candy Cane Marshmallows.
45. Make Mint Thins
46. Pringles can Nutcracker, Santa, Elf, or many others.
47. Print these Nativity stick puppets and recreate the Nativity Story.

48. Bake cookies and send to troops overseas.

49. Make these "Pretty Plastic Light Catchers."
50. Make these Advent Boxes. There is a box for each day in the month of December (up to Christmas Day). Each box holds a small item and a scripture (or Biblical principal) to go along with each day.

51. Make this Advent mantle display from Shower of Roses.

Here are posts from previous years. I hope to consolidate the lists soon.

My Favorite Season

Every now and then people ask me what my favorite season is, and after years of thinking about it, I always used to say the beginning of every season is my favorite. Today I realized that fall into winter is my favorite season for so many reasons. First of all, I love baking, and this season brings so many wonderful baking opportunties with a variety of flavors such as apple and pumpkin. We also go through about 20 boxes of Chex making our Spicy Chex Mix. Second, it is finally cool enough in Texas for my family to spend time outside...the kids playing so beautifully together while Stephen and I can relax with an adult beverage and watch (or join in). I love LOVE football and that is only played in the fall. Also, this is the time our church begins the praparation for the birth of Christ and there are so many wonderful family traditions to practice and pass along. So I've finally made up my mind- fall is my favorite season of all!