April Fools Fun

The kids have already been victims recipients of some fun pranks this morning. I've been slammed with work this week but managed to do a few easy things.

Spencer - For my oldest, I snuck in his room last night and painted his toenails red. Lucky for me, he didn't notice until I was awake. We took it off immediately but I thought it was hilarious.

Ella - I found this idea on Family Fun. I put food coloring at the bottom of her cereal bowl and then poured the dry cereal on top of it. She watched as I poured milk on and was amazed when the milk turned blue. Both kids checked the milk carton to see if there was blue milk in there and were surprised when it was white. I would have done the same to Spencer but he eats WAY before I'm awake in the morning.

If I get enough work done today, I plan on making an April Fool's meal. There are so many cute ideas out there. I'm leaning towards these grilled cheese sandwiches (really pound cake and frosting) with meatloaf cupcakes for desert :)



HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY!

Valentine's Traditions

Yay! Valentine's Day is almost here. One thing we do to celebrate with the kids is we have what we call "The Jar of Loooove!" (Imagine me saying this in a groovy 1970's gameshow announcer voice so as to mortify Spencer and delight Ella). The week before Valentine's Day we place the empty jar in the middle of our table. Whenever somebody does an act of service or something loving for another member of the family, they get to put a marble in. If we get all the marbles in by Valentine's Day then we all go to Coldstone for some ice cream. Yay!! Coldstone is always a huge motivator over here. Some years we start this on Valentine's and do it the week after instead of before - basically whenever I remember to get the marbles down.

I had to take a picture outside today because I was losing light quickly in the house. If you look behind the marbles, you can see Spencer and his friend having a light saber fight in the woods. This is moments before an accidental bloody lip.

The other main tradition we do is a "Curtain of Hearts" for each kid. I hang dozens of hearts in their doorway that they have to walk through the morning of Valentine's Day. This is so easy and they love it so much. I don't have a picture of it completed so I'll try and describe it well. You just cut up a ton of hearts out of construction paper in all different sizes and colors and write love notes on some of them. Then you attach them to long pieces of curling ribbon (see picture below). Each piece of ribbon should be the length of the door. Then, hang about 10 of these strands in the doorway so it is full of hearts. I do this at night when they are asleep so it is something fun to wake up to.

I try to make the messages on the hearts pertain to each child. Ella's will probably have easy words and some pictures so she can read them herself. On Spencer's I usually put some Spanish phrases on for him to try and translate.



On a totally unrelated note, I didn't kill myself working out today - but I did walk 2.2 miles. Something I had to talk my tired, sore self into. Spencer's school is exactly 1.1 miles from our house. I have really been feeling lately that he needs some one on one time so I decided to surprise him and walk him home. I am so sore now but I am hoping it will get better soon!

New Year's Eve Traditions

I'm still here - I just caught a horrible case of bronchitis. I hope to be able to update my blog more regularly again by next week but I wanted to quickly share some of our New Year's Eve traditions, it's one of my kids favorite nights of the year.

New Years Eve for us is a family night. We stay up until midnight playing all the different games the kids (and adults) got for Christmas. My parents did this when I was a kid and I remember loving that we had their complete attention for a good 5 hours. We start the night with pizza and soda - this year I making double stuffed crust pizza at the request of Spencer. I try to have pictures out at the table of the past year and we talk about our year and the year ahead. We try and make at least one family resolution for the new year. Then we break out the games!

Some other things we do to make the night more special -

- We set all the alarm clocks in the house to go off at midnight.

- We each eat 12 grapes as the clock strikes midnight to bring 12 months of good luck.

- We watch the countdown together and then go bang pots and pans. I think this year we are going to have everyone leap off the couch and chairs (i.e. leaping into the New Year).

- I try to make (or buy) different fun snack food that the kids don't usually have.

There have been years where we have done nothing but play games and eat pizza, and years where I have gone all out with extra stuff - but what the kids remember most is the time spent with them.

This year if I feel up to it, we are heading down to Old Town in the evening to participate in some of the First Night Family Activities but we will be home in plenty of time for family game night.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We have so enjoyed the family time this past week (even with bronchitis and all). I would love to hear your New Year's Eve plans. What do you do to ring in the New Year?

12 Days of Christmas - Nativity

I am so in love with this idea of counting down the 12 days of Christmas with the Nativity. Every day you add a piece to the Nativity and read the poem or story that goes along with it. We started tonight and will end on Christmas Eve but if you want to do it there is still time to start tomorrow and end on Christmas Day. It couldn't be easier - all you need is the nativity. And if you don't have that, I would find pictures on the internet, print them up, and add them that way.

My MIL gave us this nativity a couple of years ago and it is one of my favorite things to get out every year at Christmas time. The kids can play with it nonstop without fear of damaging it. Ella has been moving the pieces around for days as she tells the story of Jesus's birth in her own words. She also has been adding her own version of the story as she goes along, I think once I even heard mention of McDonald's somewhere in there.

Tonight we took all the pieces away except the trees and put them in a box. This really got her attention. We told both kids that we are celebrating Christ's birth in 12 days and we are going to learn each night a little more about the event. Tonight we started with Mary. Along with the poem found on the link above, I included a scripture and talked about the different things thatMary did as a mother. We then placed just Mary on the nativity. Ella loved hearing about Mary because she is playing her in her preschool's Christmas program.

This whole thing lasted approx. 5 minutes. We did it right after dinner while everyone was still in one spot. I'm hoping that by focusing on one character each night, it will give the kids a greater understanding of the significance of Christ's birth.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions

Every year around Thanksgiving I buy myself some free time by handing the kids some toy catalogues and having them circle what they want out of them. BIG MISTAKE! This year it has totally backfired! Ella circled every. single. thing. The girl literally wants everything. And if she doesn't want it for herself, she wants it for her friend Josh. She is constantly talking about EVERYTHING she is getting for Christmas. Spencer is more selective in his desires but has taken to reminding me 10 million times a day about what he should be getting for Christmas. Ugh. We definitely will not be doing the catalogue thing anymore. I realized last week that we need an intervention over here fast. I started to think about ways to make this year's Christmas season more meaningful when I remembered one of the Christmas traditions my mom always did with us which is absolutely perfect.

At the beginning of December, my mom would set out an empty manger sitting on top of a bed of hay. She would explain to us that the manger was empty and it was up to us to fill it with hay for baby Jesus before Christmas. She would put all of our names in a hat and we would each draw a name. Every time you did a secret act of service for your person, you got to place a piece of straw in the manger. The service had to be secret - if you got caught it didn't count. Every week we would draw new names.

I remember loving this as a kid. I'm not sure how many years we actually did it, but it left a strong impression on me. I remember the first year thinking the manger would never get filled and then excitedly trying to do my part to fill it. I remember how much love I felt when I realized someone in my family had made my bed for me or did one of my chores. One time I drew one of my siblings names who had particularly been getting on my nerves. I remember not wanting to do any thing at all for them. But as I looked for things I could do to make their life easier, I was granted a new perspective and was able to see that person in a completely different light.

We will be setting up an empty manger tomorrow night with the kids. My hope is that this Christmas instead of focusing on "what can I get," they will be more focused on "what can I give." I have high hopes that it will make the same impact here in our home. We have several other traditions we do every year, but this one will be new to us.

I would love to hear some of the things you do in your home to make the season more meaningful!

Christmas Kickoff

We took the kids tonight to see the annual tree lighting at Fairfax Corner. It is such a fun community celebration with free horse and carriage rides, Santa, hot chocolate and cookies, carolers, and entertainment. This soldier on stilts definitely stole the show. Any question he asked, Ella took very very seriously. I think she believes he works for Santa. The little boy bundled up in the back of the picture is my nephew Logan (visiting from Arizona). It was a great way to begin the Christmas season.

One more Advent idea

I am seriously in love with Christmas Advents. I would have one in every room in the house if I could get away with it. I'm trying to remind myself that having a lot would take away from the specialness of each one. In this case I think it definitely is quantity over quality.

But I just can't resist this Christmas Book and Activity Advent from The Crafty Crow. Every day for the month of December they will be listing one children's Christmas book to read to your kids plus a craft that goes along with it. How much fun is that? They have the list of books up right now so that you have time to go to the library or purchase them.

I don't know if this is one we will do every day of December but it will be fun to at least do some of them.

Anybody get any good deals shopping today? I ended up in my doctor's office all day with a migraine. Yucky for me - but happy for my bank account. :)

Speaking of traditions . . .

Every family vacation we go on, we buy a cookie cutter as our main souvenir. It is a lot of fun to hunt with the kids for the perfect cookie cutter to represent the trip (plus it keeps the kids from buying a lot of junk - you know the stuff that seems cool when you're on the vacation but just becomes clutter once you get home). The best part about the cookie cutters though, are the memories they inspire whenever we make cookies. The kids love pulling out each one and talking about different parts of our trip. So easy and fun!

More Cox Farms Pics

Climbing up to get to the rope swings:

Can you spot Ella?

The "BIG slide." You go down this one on a potato sack:

One of several other slides:

Ella jumping down the haystack:

WFMW - Fall Traditions

"Wholesome family recreation is important in building successful families"

I watched a show this past Sunday that focused on the value that traditions have to our families. Professor William Doherty (director of marriage and family therapy at the University of Minnesota) shared four reasons why our traditions are so important:


1. Family traditions help make family life predictable. In a world where life is often unpredictable having a family ritual helps make life more secure for both parents and children.

2. Creating new family traditions gives families a chance to reconnect and share their lives. Traditions cultivate connections between immediate family members and between generations.


3. A family identity is formed through rituals. By establishing family traditions & rituals we give children an identity, a group to belong to, and a sense of who they are.

4. Family rituals teach children values. Children learn what their parents value by the rituals that are observed such as attending church, giving service, and visiting elderly relatives. Rituals give children a set of values that they can take into adulthood and use in their own families.




Family traditions are the "we always" of family life. For example, "we always go out to lunch on the last day of school," "We always go to Cox Farms every fall." Traditions are meaningful time spent together as a family.

The show focused not only on yearly traditions, but weekly ones as well (attending church together, etc.). An idea I am going to try and incorporate is taking a family walk on Sundays. It is the one day of the week I know we all will be together - cheap, fun, easy - LOVE IT!

OUR FALL TRADITIONS:

The pictures above are from our yearly Cox Farms trip. We surprised the kids by taking them yesterday. In addition to Cox farms we have a couple of fall traditions - Friday Night Fright Flicks, Trunk or Treat at the church and trick or treating, baking Halloween cookies and pumpkin bread, and of course Halloween parties.

I would LOVE to hear your family's fall traditions. Please share!

Cox Farms - October 2008

Creating meaningful family traditions is what is working for me this week. For more fun tips, visit Works for me Wednesday hosted by Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer.