Child Talk

Kids say the funniest things, here are a from our home:

  Watching the black smith work with metal using his hammer to shape a piece of metal. Child tells the blacksmith "I think its dead now"

 Hiking down the mountain when we got caught in the dark. One child says, I can't see. The other says, watch mommies jacket. (that was black)

Who doesn't like Christmas?!  Child quickly responds  "Jewish people"

Love to reflect on the humor to brighten a dull moment in any day.


 

Thank You

We had such a nice Christmas, from cards, to visits and gifts.  Part of our holiday season is to show our gratefulness by our thank you notes. I try to make this is a fun event. The kids pick out the note cards, we sit at the table together and share a snack and decide how best to express our thanks. 
One child will often write a thank you for a family gift for all of us to sign. Then they write their individual cards too. Its great practice on so many levels: the basic writing skills, the expression of gratitude and appreciation.  Clinically writing a thank you note has been shown to:  give people energy, improve student grades and makes both the giver and receiver happier.
Seriously, have you ever been unhappy when you receive a thank you note? 

Thank you :) 
 

Holidays are full swing! I hope you are having fun and enjoying them.  Our computer died, hence the lack of post, but we are all plugged in :)

Last night we had a fun night with our Tiara club the topic was being grateful, the venue was a PJ party.  After our brief lesson and game on being grateful, the night was filled with minute to Win-It games but in lieu of prizes the girls were able to choose a cause to give their winnings to!

The grateful discussion was followed by a laughter filled gift exchange of random objects: tp, potato, toothbrush, can of green beans....in which the recipient had to look at their gift giver and thank them and finding one nice thing to say about the gift they received.  They couldn't wait to then go pick random gifts and do it again. 

The games:

1.  Stringing cranberries

2.  Trimming the tree

3.  Snowball fight

4.  Cranberry cup toss

5.  Snowball toss into the wreath

6.  Putting in order the tins filled with different number of bells.

7.  Jingle bells rumpus, we put bells into paper plates with holes cut out, taped to their rumps and

     they giggled and jiggled trying to get them out.

8.  Ornament sorting.

 



1st place goes to team Penguins and they chose to give their winnings to help families in need.
2nd place goes to the Reindeer who chose to give their winnings to help feed orphans in Africa.
 

Family Field Trips

Corn mazes, pumpkins, flashlights whats not to love about fall! We do a lot of things with just the family. Partly because of the size of my family, what I've found is the girls become each others BFF's when they are each others playmates.

Corn maze at night

Most museums have free days, so we try to take advantage of the free days, this month we went to the Mesa Art Museum for Youth, and enjoyed their Show Me The Money exhibit.

Friends come and go, but family is always there.

Tiara's Learn about Respect

We've had a couple of great play dates with all the girls who are learning how to be real life princesses. I love seeing the fellowship and friendships forming, my girls are so happy.  If you are interested in setting up your own Real Life Princess group, follow along as we learn, stumble and grow together.

Our brief guideline to set this up:
  We meet 2x a month, one fun event and another with a "Real Life Lesson".   Each mom commits to creating and hosting one lesson and then we rotate thru.   Ideally we want mom's to stay to help with Princess activities and give lesson input.
Todays Lessons was on Respect.
Our memory verse for discussion was "Show proper respect to everyone." 1 Peter 2:17. NIV
Our Bible Story was Taming of the Tongue James 3:9-12 followed by a discussion. Part of this discussion flowed into the magic of the words we choose to use.

To make it fun, I wrote out in invisible ink manner words and the girls guessed what word the blank paper held and we discussed how, when and why we would use these words.
The invisible ink was equal parts of water and baking soda.  Then heated up with an iron when ready to turn the invisible into visible.  The stumble: don't put the iron on a low heat, it takes to long for the words to show up, higher heat worked best.

To help the girls remember our discussion and the magic of using kind words they created:

Now it was time for a treat and practice some basic manners. We played a game, inspired by a friend of mine, Ginamarie Cornielius, in which the girls were given a menu of eight choices. Here is a sample:

1.   Cinderella Ballroom Dance
2.    Pippi Longstocking Smiles
3.   Prayer Changes Things

Their goal was to end up with a tea cup and plate to eat the finger foods on the table. Each menu item corresponded with different foods, or actions. If the girls didn't want was ordered they then had to politely ask the waitress to take the item back and ordered another item

1.  Cinderella Ballroom Dance =  a radish
2.  Pippli Longstocking Smiles =  a tea cup
3.  Prayer Changes Things = changing items with the person sitting across from them.

Tons of fun, when plastic bugs were given and tea cups swapped.  They got real good with their manner words at the table and how to properly send food back.

Since we are growing real life princesses,they all had a laugh adding the bugs to their "tea".  Lovely!



 

Happy Birthday Chloe

Introducing 4 yr old Chloe! 

Celebrating Chloe's Birthday at Build A Bear

Chloe specifically asked to have her picture taken
with her best friend and big brother Brendan

Chloe's birthday fell on a busy week! Hence energy and time were running low, but not desire to celebrate our littlest jellybean.  A trip to Build A Bear, Dairy Queen and opening gifts with siblings made for a nice celebration.  Cake with Grandparents this weekend as we celebrate both our love for Chloe and Grandma!

Happy Birthday Chloe, we love you!

 

Sugar Baby

Introducing Teagan's Sugar Baby, Liam!  She waited so many years to do this 6th grade project. I can't believe it is now just a memory and a pending plate of sugar cookies.  Savor the moments, life goes by so fast.  That is the lesson I learned from Liam today.

Childhood is the most beautiful of all life's seasons.  ~Author Unknown