Tattletale

Has time out lost its effectiveness if this happens?

Ezra: "I did it, Mommy!  I did it!"
Me: "What did you do, Ezra?"
Ezra: "I stand on table!  I time out."

He then walks into the kitchen, pushes a chair up against the wall, and climbs on up.

Hmm...

Holiday Baking!

I've been trying to include E in some productive projects lately.  Here are photos of the Christmas treat we made together and brought to Grandma's Christmas Eve party.  It's amazing how quickly a bag of Rolos disappears as compared to a bag of pretzels...

And for Love Day, we tried homemade graham crackers.  It was my idea to make hearts, and his idea to make letters.  Brilliant!

 

So far, this is what I've learned about baking with a toddler:

1.  Add a little extra flour.  You'll be vacuuming some off the floor, counter, chairs, etc.

2.  It's totally okay to run the dishwasher twice on baking day.  

3.  Get used to repeating yourself 100 times about hot ovens and the tears they can cause.

4.  It won't be fun if you try to stop the mess.  Messes are fun (and mostly 

     accidental) when you're two!

5.  Baby sisters might expand their "I only eat foods that are orange" diet if you shove a 

     tiny piece of some yummy baked thing into their tightly clamped jaws.

Lent 2012

Last year, my lent fast was facebook.  I waste way too much time stalking my friends and acquaintances.  And I don't spend enough time actually connecting with them.  Still true.  I have, however, set some rules for myself, and I'm pretty good at following rules.  Therefore, I believe last year's fast had a good outcome.

This year, I decided my most prized possession is my sleep.  I do whatever I can to get to bed by 9, I growl when the alarm goes off in the morning, and I've begun grumbling at my precious baby girl when she wakes me up before my alarm does.  It's really not worth all the fretting it causes me!  :)

This lenten season, I will give up sleeping until the last possible second.  I am going to set my alarm for 5:30 every day but Sunday, and I am going to get out of bed without snoozing.  I will spend the time drinking a cup of coffee (yep....I'm making the rules, and that's still allowed!), reading, praying, waiting for the sun to come up, and doing whatever else I can think of to greet the new day with a good attitude.  I'm actually trusting that the time alone will be restful.  (Which is quite contrary to the unrest of hitting snooze 5 times in a row.)

Always blogging

...in my head that is.  I wanted to take a nap today, but I'm also impatient, and it took longer than 10 minutes to fall asleep on the couch; so I'm blogging instead.

So here's to a whirlwind of posts that have been simmering on the back burner of my brain today!

Since this blog is mainly for family & friends who we don't get to see regularly, it ends up being a lot of pictures and stories about the kiddies.  That's totally fine with me, but as part of our yearly update, I think I'll attempt to let you in on the secrets of the mama bear.

Twelve dreams for 2012:

• To live abundantly; to thrive.  I want to get the most out of each day I have.
• To grow in grace, in prayer, and in thankfulness.
• To have a better garden this year than I did last year.
• To recognize beauty.
• To run.  More than once every three months.  (That should be easy, right?  Maybe twice every three months.)
• To make Sabbath a regular part of my family's routine.
• To run through the sprinklers with the little people.  (But not yet.)
• To be a better friend.
• To find 5 new ways to serve my husband.
• To read 10 books.
• To do something with each of my siblings.
• To have our neighbors over for dinner.

And I really want to shop at the farmer's market, so I guess it's a baker's dozen.

Although I do want to put some effort into accomplishing my goals, I like this haphazard approach.  With so many to choose from, I ought to succeed somewhere.  I'll keep you posted.

Happy Friday! 

Is 'better late than never' true?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

So, I finally got the Christmas cards in the mail today!  Oh happy day.  I think next year I will just stick to the Valentine's Day cards I once thought would be such a great idea...

We hope you had a joyful time celebrating Jesus anyway!

Here are some photos of us celebrating and some snippets about how we are growing into our family of four status.

Ezra's HUGE stocking.  Noella's tiny tights.  We'll have to work on that for next year.

Ez hugging the tree he got in the mail.  Thanks Uncle Jesse!

Baby N eating her Christmas dress.

Andrew & Ezra having a ski date.  We love the Chariot!

It has been such an amazing year!  And as we enter the next, we are honestly just excited about living life.  We look forward to each new day and the adventure that awaits.  Blessings to you all!

a great date....

I got to go on a date with my hubby, and it was spectacular!  The occasion: we got tickets to see The Screwtape Letters at the University of Utah with another couple..  And we traded puppy sitting for baby sitting a while back, so we cashed in on that deal...what nice friends we have!  Since the ticket price was out of the "typical date" price range, we opted to eat in.  BUT I had nine bucks in my wallet that I had been hoarding all week, so we did get a large mocha to share while driving through The Avenues and scouting out event parking.  Delicioso!  

After eating yummy turkey burgers with our babysitting friends, we left the kiddos and headed to our gem of a parking spot.  (It definitely pays to do a pre-show drive!)  Not that I have a lot of theatre experience, but the play was the best live performance I've seen.  There were only two actors; Screwtape and a minion of sorts.  The scene: Screwtape's office.  The minion took dictation and acted here and there to expand on what was being written.  It was so engaging that an hour and a half flew by.  We loved it!  For such a simple set-up and plot line, it was profound.  It is one of very few books that has kept me up long into the night because I just had to finish it, and the play similarly captured my attention.  C.S. Lewis said the book was one of the easiest to write because as he was writing, he knew the characters.  I felt the same way reading the book and watching this play.  Satan is easy to recognize when you are looking for him.  His tricks are all too familiar.  He's such a lame-o.

In summary, I love Andrew!  And I love going on dates.