More January fun

We added some more activities into our routine. I love activities that can be adapted for Lydia easily. There are so many fun creative learning ideas out there. Last night I was planning some Valentine ones and am looking forward to all the fun we will have. I am always so excited September through April because there are so many holidays to help spice up our daily routine especially if you are a holiday nut like me and celebrate them all. I love how I can use the same basic game and adapt it year round.  I think my kids may be a little disappointed when they go to school because teachers sadly don't seem to have the time or resources to do learning things in the most fun ways. I know I don't really want to home school my kids.  There are so many fabulous teachers out there but we sure make learning fun at our house. I definitely plan on holding some kind of "after school learning time" so I can keep learning with Jared and Lydia and find fun ways to supplement what they have learned at school.  Fortunately I have over a year before school will be added to our life and things get a little crazier.

Last week we made a snow volcano.  It was the basic baking soda + vinegar + food coloring trick only so much cooler with snow.  Jared and Lydia had fun pouring in the vinegar than trying to back away fast enough to not get any on them.

We have learned with marshmallows and hot chocolate and made a snowman with M & M's.

Jared rolled the dice then added the two number together and filled in that many M & M's. Lydia filled in the circles, working on 1:1 correspondence. And we may have eaten one, two or five as we worked.

I have been trying to think of what to make for Lydia's cake next week. It's crazy how fast this past year went by. She has learned so much and is so fun to be around.  I was planning on making a Cinderella cake with a pair of dress up shoes on it for her (the whole glass slipper idea and she does love shoes) but last week we watched "Beauty and the Beast" for our family movie night and she seems to have moved on to Belle. I always liked Belle because she liked reading, had brown hair and a yellow dress which was my favorite color for a good long while. (I have now moved on to aqua) Maybe it will be a cake with lots of princess's on top. Or I may just attempt the castle cake with ice cream cones. We will see. It's fun to think about them but hard too because I am not skilled at frosting cakes and think fondant cakes look amazing but don't want to go down that street. I read the tricks online and talk to people but I always get crumbs in my frosting. I know she will love it though and it will taste good. I am thinking it may have lots of sprinkles to take the eye way from the crumbs. I'll figure it out.

New month, new fun.

SNOW!  We had a great snowstorm yesterday. It started snowing around 7:30 AM and didn't stop until around 2:00 PM.  It was such nice snow. Big flakes and not windy at all a rare combination here.  We went to the church in the morning to help clean the building and as we walked out to the car Jared and Lydia jumped up and down and tried to catch snowflakes on their tongues. They were so excited. Lydia was extra excited as she hasn't spent a lot of time in the snow. It was super cute. Lydia kept saying "Yucky Yucky!" Apparently her snowflakes did not taste good. Jared was excited to help clean so he could be a garbageman and dump the trash into the large rolling trash can and carry the trash cans around. We were glad to help out. It always makes me feel good, like I am contributing.
When we got home from cleaning Jared and Lydia went into the backyard and played far awhile.  They spent a lot of time trying to catch snowflakes. Jared has this unfortunate habit of copying what Lydia says. Since Lydia is just learning to really talk (I swear she adds new words every day) she does not speak in full sentences so when she says "Water" or "Shoes" or "Yucky" Jared does the same and it is just not as cute from a 4 year old who speaks quite well as it is from an almost 2 year old. They had a lot of fun in the snow but didn't last very long playing in it. It was just right.  I think it was even more fun as snow was falling why they were out there.

We had fun playing our new learning games and I made a cute little hot chocolates "shop" or sensory tub for them. (Idea HERE.) We also played a lot of find the mittens. I made these miniature paper mittens and we hide them all over the front room and then search for them. It is one of Jared's favorite games and we play it all the time with different seasonal items. 

Memory Mittens

Find the Snowflake

Hot Chocolate "Shop"

I also put together a fun Frosty the Snowman bath. Jared and Lydia made miniature snowmen, played with their snowflake glowsticks, and "painted" themselves like Frosty with their snow paint. which was their favorite part. Shaving cream is so much fun. 

It was extra fun to do these winter activities as it was snowing outside. I checked out over 20 library books (again I LOVE Public Libraries) about winter/snow.snowman etc. so we spent a nice warm day reading and playing. I have a great life. I really do. So far 2014 has been great!

Muffin Monday and coping mechanisms.

We have muffins for breakfast every Monday. (I do enjoy alliteration) About 6 months ago I decided I wanted to pick one breakfast item to have each day of the week. Such as: Pancakes each Sunday, Muffins every Mondays, Waffles on Wednesday (Friday and Saturday are free days to have whatever I can be flexible). I felt like we were eating the same two or three things and it was boring and then if I did want something that took more time to make we ate really late because it was unlikely I would get up earlier to make it. So I remembered that my super smart sister in law Cecily (they are all super smart) did this. She has a set menu for each day of the week.  I loved this idea and have loved doing it with my family which is not surprising since I LOVE having my dinners planned each week. The dilemma I ran into was that I was getting tired of the muffins we were having. Jared loves the Costco Pumpkin Streusel muffins so we have been eating them each week since October. I am a big fan of pumpkin flavors but we needed something else so I looked up tons of recipes online and found three to try and then I baked them all yesterday.

Lemon Raspberry - French Toast - Banana Chocolate chip.  

Mark likes the lemon raspberry the most and Jared, Lydia and I liked the banana ones. The french toast ones were good but I think a french toast muffin is forever ruined for me because Costco used to make them and they were Amazing! I so wish they would make them again. But these did turn out well. I also love making mini muffins they are so cute! 

We tired them all yesterday and liked them all. This was very exciting for a number of reasons. 

1. If they were not tasty that would be a lot of wasted food. 

2. I am really bad at picking recipes online. About 2 months ago I went to town looking up dinner recipes on Pinterest and out of about 10 recipes we liked 1 and would tolerate 1 other.  Not very good odds. 

3. It will be great to have more variety and I now have like 6 weeks worth of muffins ready to go.  

Since we had to find space in our freezer for this muffin collection I also organized our freezer yesterday. There are few things I find more satisfying and relaxing then organizing spaces and throwing stuff out. I love it. It makes me feel great. And that brings me to the second half of this blog title, coping mechanisms.

On Sunday our Bishop taught part of the lesson for third hour. He talked about towing capacities. He related it to believing/knowing that the Lord would not give us more then we could "tow" or handle. That the Lord knows us so well he knows our capabilities. He also mentioned the importance of having coping mechanisms in place. He said if you know what helps you cope then do those things. Go running, read a book, organize a closet. (He didn't mention that one) Don't just give up and stop doing everything. He said that it seems people either give up and do nothing, just drift along or just choose one thing to do and not do anything else such as cleaning door knobs and nothing else in the house. I really enjoyed this lesson. I think it is super important to know what helps you cope and get through tough times or even just a day.  It was just really nice to enjoy a lesson.  It was such a fresh (to me) lesson topic. December was kind of a weird month. I am over the teachers in RS and had to fill in for 2 teachers on short notice and then the President and I taught the other half of the lesson this past Sunday so I taught for 3 weeks in a row. I am not a real short notice kind of girl so that was hard but not too hard. I knew I could do it with some help.  I hope you all know your coping mechanisms and put them in place. 

And just for fun, here are Jared and Lydia doing two of their favorite things: 

 Blanket Burritos

Spinning in the office chair. Cute kids! 

Poor Jared came down with a nasty stomach bug yesterday.  About 4 hours after this picture was taken as a matter of fact. He was playing and happy and then we were reading books before bed and he asked to go upstairs after only 2 books. He said his tummy hurt so we grabbed a bowl on the way up.  I put him to bed and then came downstairs only to rush back upstairs when I heard him throwing up. He threw up at 7:40, 8:20 and 8:55. After the second time I stayed in his room and sang some (A LOT) of primary songs to him.  He was just so sad. I was very proud of him (and thankful) for using his bowl so well.  We still had yucky messes  and a good amount of laundry but he helped a lot. It could have been so much worse. It's truly fantastic when kids are old enough to know what to do. He seems tired and a little sensitive today and is currently taking a nap but is so much better than he was so hopefully it was just a quick thing. 

Electric Safari

We finally made it to the zoo to see the lights. We went on Monday for FHE. On our way we stopped at Wendy's for a free frosty (with coupons we got at Boo at the Zoo this year) for our FHE treat. I was glad we got them on the way so we could eat it in the warm car. As we drove over to the zoo we had fun looking at the lights still up on houses.  Mark and I would typically see them first from the front seat and say "There are some out Lydia's/Jared's window!" to help make sure they saw the lights. Then Jared would ask:  "will they be out mine next time?" which of course we had no idea.  Lydia would say one of her favorite phrases "More! More!" (she has started saying even more words now then from the post I wrote earlier this week!! ) She really loved all the lights this year.  We kept telling her there would be thousands at the zoo and she was not disappointed. I love all the purple lights they put up. It was not terribly cold like 36 and felt like 28 or close to that and there was no wind so it was a nice night out.  Lydia looked cute all bundled up with her gloves and hat. After awhile Jared really wanted to ride in the stroller so we gave him a chance and Lydia was happy to run/walk around. Mark and I both thought there were even more lights this year which was great.

 Jared of course loved all the blue lights like this tree. 

He was also really excited because on the drive up we passed a large building (the Broadmoor Hotel a super famous/ nice hotel with amazing Christmas lights) having some work done so there were 3 large cranes in the parking lot. He may have liked seeing them more then all the zoo lights…

It was a great FHE outing, better late then never! 

Happy New Year!

We spent a quiet New Years Eve at home. When we lived in Egypt our two favorite restaurants were Gaya, a Korean restaurant and Abu Al Sid.  Most often we took visitors to Abu Al Sid for a more Egyptian experience yet whenever we ate there we pretty much always ordered Circassian Chicken which is Turkish and so good.  A few weeks ago Mark decided he really wanted to try to make it himself so we decided to try it out for New Years Eve.  Jared and Lydia were less then impressed but were strongly motivated to eat it so the could have some chocolate fondue later. They did enjoy their sparkling cider of course. Mark did a nice job but it was lacking that distinct flavor.  We don't know what we would need to add to find that flavor so while it lacked that spice it looked very similar to what we were served there. We will have to keep trying out different meals to see if we can find a "New Years Eve" meal.

After dinner we played some board games with Jared and Lydia which will most likely become a yearly tradition. Then we had our traditional fondue.  We all agree that the strawberries are the best. There are not many combinations as amazing as strawberries and this chocolate sauce.

 Lydia was particularly adorable tonight. Typically she is not thrilled to have her picture taken but earlier I was taking some pictures and she kept saying "More! More!" 

We put Jared and Lydia to bed at 8:00 and then Mark and I played some games and enjoyed a delicious peppermint chocolate chip milkshake because clearly chocolate fondue was not enough. It has been quite a few years since we stayed up until midnight. Our neighbors had mentioned the fireworks being set off of Pikes Peak at midnight so I decided I better stay up for that.  It had been cancelled the last 2 years because of high winds.  It was not a super impressive display but pretty amazing that they do it.  It  is done by a highly advanced hiking group called AdAmAn (add a man they only add one member each year) "club". Every year since 1922 this group of hikers or mountaineers (it started with 5 men) hikes up to the top of Pikes Peak and sets off fireworks when the weather permits.  While we were outside waiting it was 31 degrees and felt like 23 so I can't even imagine what it felt like up there.

 It was fun to stay up and ring in the New Year. We are looking forward to 2014. I read this really great article today and would like to implement a lot of their ideas.  Just good common sense.