Family Craft Night...Kiss Boxes

Last week, we check The Kiss Box out of the library.  It was the perfect book for the time.  E was having difficulty with Jut being gone for a few days at a conference, and with another (and longer) trip looming on the horizon, it was the perfect read for us.

The story follows Mama Bear preparing to leave Little Bear.  They ended up making Kiss boxes to hold kisses so that they could get one whenever they were feeling lonely when they were apart.

Of course, E had to make one right away.  Well, I didn't have the supplies to create kiss boxes until a few days ago.  But, I bought some wooden boxes and paint from the craft store and we were set.  On Wednesday evening, we set up our 'craft' table outside and got to work decorating our kiss boxes.


I'm not a great photo journalist.  I forgot the 'before' shots.  But here is the first step:  Glitter.  The kids and I started out with a little glitter on the top.  What says "kiss" more than glitter?

Next we got out the paints...between the glitter and the paints...I am so thankful I had the foresight to do this craft outside!  The kids had a great time painting their boxes.  They painted the outside and did a pretty good job.  I was shocked how well X's turned out.  He's quite the painter.

C had a great time relaxing in his swing and 'supervising' the commotion...as long as we remembered to walk over and push the swing every few minutes.

The kids were so focused for so long.  It was impressive.

All went well until the boxes were finished.  Then things got a bit messy in the 'free form' art that occurred.  Notice X's 'splatter mat' in the background. He used up several colors and got himself very painted in his 'free' stage.  But, he had fun and we had some good family time and that was what was important anyway. 

The finished products.  They were all very colorful.  We painted and glittered the insides since kisses should be sparkly.  Inside the boxes, we put 4 artificial flowers to represent kisses and 4 'jewels' to represent the hugs from each member of the family. 

Now, we have something just like Little Bear to go and get when we are feeling lonely when we are apart from each other.  The kids really liked it.  They played with their boxes all the next day. 

E's 'free form' art painting was very unique.  She had a whole story to go with her painting about a girl in the rain and something, something, something.  Her imagination is terrific.  I love listening to it even if I don't always follow all of it.

Of course, we had to end our painting extravaganza with three little ones in the tub.  Two of them were a bit painty and the other just needed a general cleaning.  Fun times in the neighborhood.

8 month old C

Month 8 has come and gone.  It has been a busy month for my little guy.  He traveled to Northport for his first family vacation, managed to pop 4 teeth the week following vacation, began sitting himself up, and finally figured out how to make his arms move so that he can crawl with forward motion.  Busy, busy.

On vacation, C met his new friend J.  J is six weeks younger than C.  So, they were pretty much on the same page.  They shared their toys.  Screeched together and enjoyed having someone their own size and ability level to study.  They entertained each other very well.  In future years, they might give us a run for our money but this year, they were just fun to observe. 

On vacation, C did not sleep well.  Everything else went smoothly but sleeping did not.  Well, on Sunday, June 17th we woke up to find C's top right tooth popping through.  That made his lack of sleeping make sense.  His sleeping seemed to get better with that tooth through.  Well, then on Sunday, June 24th, C slept all night.  I got my first night of consecutive 6 hours of sleep in months...(maybe even closing in on a year).  I was so excited.  We also found that what we thought was tooth #4 had popped through.  However, upon closer inspection on Monday morning.  I figured out that it wasn't actually tooth #4...it was tooth #5.  The second top right one had come in a few days after the first on the right AND tooth #6 popped on Monday morning.  Starting month 7, C had no teeth.  At the end of month 8, my little trooper has 6.  Makes my mouth just hurt thinking about it.  No wonder he wasn't sleeping for awhile.

 C started sitting up this month just before we went to Northport.  It still makes me do a double take when I see him sitting up in a different area of the room than where I left him.  (Of course, do I have any pictorial evidence???  No...I need to remedy that!)

On Wednesday, C finally took his first 'steps' of crawling.  He moved one hand and shifted his leg forward and then the other.  He was very excited about it.

The kids however aren't so excited about it.  X is getting very upset that C keeps getting into his things and wants me to move C all the time.  I keep trying to explain that he's only going to get faster and cause more havoc...that doesn't go over so well with the 2.5 year old.

He is keeping me on my toes but it is fun.  He still likes his food...he even started feeding himself this week.  He gets tired of waiting for me to get him food...so he loves being able to munch himself.  He loves to chew, chew, chew.  Choking hazards are a constant concern...everything goes into his mouth.  Crazy boy.  It has been a very busy, fun month. 

"Just playing, Mom"

Later this evening, I was in the kitchen getting some supper ready for C.  I hadn't heard X in awhile.  So, I called out, "X, what are you doing?"

I hear this faint reply, "Just playing, Mom.  Just playing."  I look in the next room and there is X laying face down on the floor half asleep. The picture doesn't do justice for how extremely pathetic he looked.  He was one tired little guy but he wasn't about to admit it.  Maybe he was playing possum.

The Flower Girl

E got to be a flower girl right before her birthday.  On May 19th, she had the privileged of scattering petals to make the aisle pretty for the bride, Sarah.

Rehearsal on Friday went wonderfully.  She did perfect.  She dropped the petals at beautiful intervals and did wonderful.  The event was at our church and she was calm, cool and ready.


The real deal was a bit more scary.  The music changed.  A church full of people turned to stare at the entrance to the church.  It was her turn and she refused to walk.  She had been so looking forward to this...I tried to reason with her...X started walking down the aisle instead...I grabbed him, gave E once more chance and then was moving her out of the way to let the rest of the wedding party continue. 

At that moment, her knight in shining armor came to her rescue.  Her dad, who was at the front of the church because he was officiating the wedding, walked down the aisle and escorted E to the front.  With her daddy by her side, fear was no longer an issue.  She stood proud and leisurely dropped her petals as she floated down the aisle.  It was precious.  There's a spiritual lesson in there about allowing God to walk with us through fear and how He'll alleviate it if we let Him, but I won't dwell on that right now.

At the front of the church, she waited for me to come collect her and we sat together and watched the rest of the wedding.  It was a wonderful ceremony uniting two lives.  I'm so glad that we got to be part of it.

Later I asked Jut how it was walking his daughter down the aisle...and he admitted it was pretty special, but he hopes he doesn't have to do it again for a long, long, long time!

Just some ramblings...

Today would have been my grandparents 69th anniversary.  I'm thankful that they won't have to celebrate an anniversary apart.  I'm sure Grandpa had a hard time turning 97 without Grandma breaking the way for him the day before.  An anniversary apart would have probably been even harder.  We celebrate that they'll be dancing together tomorrow as they will be for the rest of eternity.

On Wednesday, the kids and I were looking through some pictures.  We came across a picture of E and my grandparents.  X looked excitedly at the picture and exclaimed, "There's Grandpa and Sissy!"  I asked him who Grandma was and he didn't know.  That hit me hard.  I know that he was just over a year and a half when she passed away but it hasn't even been a year that she's been gone.  It was the first time that X vocalized that he didn't know who she was.  It didn't surprise me but the reality saddens me.

The extension of that thought makes me even sadder.  I wonder how long he'll remember his Grandpa Daron.  It has been 3 months today since he passed.  Does he have any memories of his grandpa?  At the funeral, he didn't understand where Grandpa was...he'd get excited to see him in pictures or look for him out the window at the house, but we've seen Jut's mom several times recently and X never mentions his grandpa.  Part of me thinks I need to do better with plastering pictures around the house, but pictures won't give X memories.  They might help E retain her memories but it won't create memories for a little guy that was just over 2 the last time he saw his grandpa.  He's just so little to have any memories that are his own.  On Thursday, E pulled out a coloring book and showed me a picture that Grandpa Daron colored with her.  She may not have tons of memories that are her own but she does have some.  Poor X and C won't have any.  We talk about Grandpa Daron and try to keep memories of him alive for the kids but do we do enough?  Are we keeping the legacy alive?  All these questions arise just because of one picture...the weight of the responsibility is hard to carry at times.

Little House Birthday

E desperately wanted a 'Little House' birthday party this year.  As I'm not much on elaborate birthday parties, I decided we'd make her actual birthday special by having a 'Little House' Day.

We started the day with some Almanzo Pancakes and Fried Salt Pork.  Almanzo Pancakes are buckwheat pancakes.  I forgot to buy buckwheat from the store the week before so Jut had to run to two different grocery stores in the morning to find buckwheat.  If you've read the Little House series, you know how often they eat fried salt pork.  I was really excited to find it in the local grocery store this fall and had been waiting for a good opportunity to try it.

If you've never had salt pork before, think of a huge hunk of bacon that you slice up.  It is preserved with salt instead of whatever they use for bacon.  So, we sliced it up and threw it in a pan and fried it because that is what they did in the books.  E was the first to try it and she spit it right out.  Jut and I tried it and decided it had enough salt in a tiny bit to suffice you for a week.  Then, we googled how you were suppose to prepare it.  Most sites suggested boiling it a couple of times before frying it to get rid of most of the salt.  Oops.  I boiled it twice and it was mostly edible afterwards.  However, we didn't eat it plain.  I used it in the baked beans that I made for E's party the following weekend (and they were the best baked beans I've ever made...go figure).

The pancakes were okay.  E really liked them and ate several.  Jut and I weren't the biggest fans of the buckwheat but we smiled and ate them up.  We should have used molasses instead of syrup but the birthday girl wanted syrup, so we all happily ate our pancakes with syrup.

After breakfast, we set up to make some butter.  We poured our heavy cream into two jars and started shaking.  After a while, the cream wasn't moving anymore (and the kids were done shaking/rolling the jars) so we scooped it out of our jars and called it butter.  But, it was really more like stiff whipping cream...(shh, don't tell E.  She thinks we still made butter and insists on having it on her toast in the mornings.)  Maybe we'll try it again sometime and actually make butter.


For lunch, we had a pretty traditional lunch for our house except that we made Town Party Lemonade.  The kids had fun helping me squeeze the lemons for our fresh lemonade.  It was delicious.  E decided that it had to be the beverage for her birthday party.

We played Little House after lunch.  We pulled in the large stove box inside to be the 'claim shanty'.  It was fun.

For supper, E requested venison because that's what the Ingalls ate.  So, I found a recipe using venison and cooked it up with some fried Johnny cakes (and I can't find the recipe again), broccoli and more town lemonade.  For E's birthday 'cake', we had Heart Shaped Christmas Cakes, which are sugar cookies.

After dinner, we went to E's favorite place for ice cream and went out to visit with G'ma.  No more 'Laura' activities.

It wasn't an action packed day.  E is still waiting for her sewing lessons that were suppose to happen on her birthday, and I'd love to find a wash board and have her wash her clothes like 'Laura' did.  But, overall I think she had a great day and enjoyed her special "Little House" day.

 

Happy Birthday, E! 

Note:  I'm not much of a photo journalist...there are many things that didn't get documented in our special day...but there were a few shots of the activities that accompanied our 'Little House' day.  

E is 5!

E's birthday was suppose to be yesterday...the day after Memorial Day in 2007.  She was breech and her 'papers' were signed for Tuesday, May 29th...that however was not her in her schedule.  Our little 'Sri', as we called her prior to her birth, decided to surprise us all and come the Monday before Memorial Day.  She has kept us on our toes ever since!

Her current fascination is with all things Little House.  She wants to get a cow so that we can milk it.  She can't wait to help G'ma plant her garden like they did in the Little House books.  She got a 'Mary' dress for Christmas and wears it at least once a week for the entire day.  She doesn't want to wear shoes outside because Laura didn't have to in the summer.  She's my Little House girl, and I love it.  I love being able to share my love of the pioneer days with her.  We've read all 8 of the 'Rose' books this winter and are now on book number 2 of the 'Caroline' series.  Plus we've reread the first couple Little House books since January.  It is fun.

E has wanted to read so badly this year.  Her two 'best' friends started kindergarten this fall and tell her stories of school.  She wanted to be in school desperately and learn to read like they do.  So, at the end of April, I finally formally started teaching her reading.  She's currently on 'lesson 4' (I would consider it a 'unit' not a lesson because each 'lesson' takes a bit more than a week...but that's just my opinion) and can read about 55 words.  She's doing really well.  I love her excitement for learning.  I hope that she can continue it as she grows and learning becomes expected and more difficult.

Helping around the house is one of her favorite activities...when she has the desire.  She loves to help mix ingredients and stir or knead dough.  She always wants to help wash dishes.  She's a great helper with the boys.  "Mother hen" is a good nickname.  If one of the boys is doing something against the rules, I can count on E to let me know.  She's a first-born through and through.

As much as she 'mothers' the boys, she also aggravates them.  She and X pick and pick and pick on each other.  They only want to play with what the other person is playing with.  She can get X to scream faster than anything.  She loves stealing his trains.  She knows just want he's going to want to play with and goes for it first.  She's getting aggressive with X and we keep telling her that both the boys are going to out-mass her soon and she'll be in trouble. 

Age 4 was rough in some aspects.  E lost her Great Grandma and Grandpa Flegel, Grandpa Daron and "Grandma Red".  Most four year old don't have to attend four funerals in a year.  But, she is excited for heaven and for the party that we'll have when we all get there and are reunited.  How much she understands I don't really know but she's seemed to do well with it all.  She'll tell you she loves Jesus and wants to follow Him in life.  She can sing several praise songs...our favorite to belt out is "Where I belong" by Building 452.  I love our times singing together.  It is fun. (However, she probably knows more Thomas songs due to the number of Thomas videos we watch)

Our days are fun.  Our evenings enjoyable.  For the most part, E plays well with X.  They go on all sorts of adventures together.  Today they were searching for 'Thomas'.  We went all over the block looking for 'Thomas' and singing "Where oh where is Thomas".  The adventures we have I would never have imagined 5 years ago...but *most* of them I wouldn't trade for the world.