Enu turned SEVEN years old today. She is over the moon with her birthday finally arriving! She woke up mommy at SIX this morning…talk about excited. We had a nice breakfast of cinnamon rolls and fruit and she opened up all the cards that had come in the mail this week. She is rolling in the $$$ and cannot wait to hit a store. I think she will spend all day at Game-Stop trying to figure out what new game to buy for her shiny, new Nintendo DS.

Grammy bought her a new PURPLE bike and Hubby took her riding on Friday. She did over eight miles without complaining. That is amazing and we are sooooooo proud of her.

Grandma got her a PURPLE sleeping bag just perfect for her upcoming camping trip.

Apparently PURPLE is the new PINK.

Please wish Enu a Happy Birthday as she will feel very famous!

Tomorrow is the last day of school for my three older daughters. Elle’s last day at pre-school was today. She took everyone stickers and claimed to be excited about going to “Kiddie Kollege” in the fall. Of course that is what she says today, I’m sure she will change her mind when she remembers she has to actually wear clothes when she goes to school!

Meg is pleased with the thought of summer. Camps, summer reading programs, long days with nothing to do are happy memories to her. Plus she is going to horse camp again this summer, which is her FAVORITE THING ON EARTH!

Mita and Enu are a bit upset over the end of the school year. They loved their teachers and made such great friends, I think they are worried about yet another change in their life. I have let them know of all the fun ahead in the summer months and the schools have done a great job of them getting to know their teacher next year. Plus, they all have class with close friends next year.

Tomorrow the day will be full of games, food and lots of fun. I have goodie buckets filled with the tools of summer: bubbles, sidewalk chalk, kites, books and water shooters. I think they will have fun finding the buckets and playing with their new trinkets.

I will be busy putting away school supplies that we can still use in the fall and storing away back packs. Piles and piles of papers will be sorted, tossed and recycled. I love this time of year!

I also know that towards the end of August I will be ready to get out the backpacks, crayons and lunch boxes. The kids will be ready to hit the books, study spelling words and see friends everyday again. I really love the cycles of life right now.

Happy summer everyone!

I taught Children’s Church this past Sunday.  Several moms take turns teaching our kids and I usually teach every four weeks or so. Our topic lately has been forgiveness and Grace.

Two of the exercises in our lesson plan worked so well at illustrating Christ’s grace that I wanted to share them with everyone.

First we shared verse :

 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 

We then talked about sin, and how Jesus’ grace wipes our sin clean.

I had each child write a sin that they may struggle with on a coffee filter with a yellow highlighter.  We kept things private and some kids just wrote down a letter to represent what they were thinking instead of words.   I then squirted lemon juice over the words/letters and the writing disappeared immediately.  The color slid right off the filter.

Fun, simple and very clear for the kids to understand.

After this experiment we got in a circle and crossed our arms, then joined hands with other kids who were not right beside us.  Once we were all tangled up I gave out instructions like :   Touch your nose (not letting go of the hands!), jump up and down on one foot, turn in a circle, etc.  These actions were possible, but difficult because of the confusion of all the kids so close and connected.  This shows how sin can complicate our lives and make things difficult.  When confess our sins, our sins are gone and life is not so “tangled up”.

These two very simple lessons made God’s Grace much more clear for all of the kids, and helped me as a mom simplify a message that sometimes we tend to complicate.

What are some ways you teach your kiddos about God’s Grace?

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I want to get a new cell phone.  Notice I said WANT.  I don’t need one.  I have a perfectly good pay as you go phone that is very cheap ($10-15) a month and is perfect for what I need it for.  I don’t use a lot of minutes. I always have it with me, but it’s just to keep track of the family.  

I WANT a phone I can take pictures with, check my email, text easily (keyboard), and yes, Twitter a bit with as well.  This is a pure, selfish want and I realize this so please don’t flame me.  I work, I will not go into debt over it and I may even stimulate the economy a bit

So what I want you guys to tell me is:

1) what kind of phone do you have and what do you like best about it?

2) Is it fun?  What color did  you get?

Thank you all for supporting my bit of shallownessness (I know that is not a word) today and please don’t think less of me for it!

 

 

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For fun I thought I would do a Question of the week.  Some weeks it may be horribly important.  I may ask your opinion on the worlds AIDS orphan situation.  And some weeks it could be quite shallow.  For example, I may ask what color are your toenails are.   I won’t ask you all about the American Idol Finale last night because I am soooooo mad about it, that I will not admit that I watched it.  I will not watch it again though.  My kids may have it on in the other room, but I will never vote again….

Sorry about that.  So please answer the question of the week as honestly or as sarcastic as you can.

Let’s have fun with this!

 

 

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Hubby and I took the kids to see Monsters vs.  Aliens since it was a rainy afternoon.  This was the first 3-D experience for all of the girls.   The first thing  I noticed was the increased ticket price we had to pay.  I guess the glasses do cost money.  They are nerdy-looking black glassess that are an improvement over the old cardboard red and green glasses.

I must admit that the movie was forgettable, even the kids said it wasn’t the best, but the 3-D was amazing.  When hubby first suggested the movie, I thought “Oh no, I’ll get car sick”.  But I had no motion sickness at all. 

The beginning scene is a meteorite  flying through space.  It was coming right at us and Enu kept yelling, “Owe, that hurts!”.  She finally settled down, but  I still don’t think she liked it really well.

While this movie wasn’t the best, we did see a preview for UP  that should be coming out soon. It looks like a fun one and the girls laughed a lot at the trailer.

Of course Meg and I are anxiously awaiting for July when the new Harry Potter movie comes out.  It may not be in 3D but, we are sooooooooooooo excited!

Have you seen any good movies lately?

 

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I may have mentioned before that I hate making bagged lunches.  Sandwiches make me feel icky (I think it is a texture thing), but maybe it’s just a lazy thing.  I would be happy if I never had to  pack another lunch box in my life.   Buying school lunches should be the solution for my not-so-important dislike.  The giant flaw in this stratagy is very obvious…have you seen the lunches they offer to our kids?  It makes me want to gag.  I have added a picture of Meg’s lunch last Friday when I went to school to  eat with her. I let the girls buy lunches on Fridays (Pizza Day).  While I’m doleing out the truth here I admit I let them buy  more often than I should.  It is so easy to send them off to school and let them buy.

My goal next year is to not them them buy except on their beloved pizza days.  Please keep me accountable.

Here are my arguments for improving school lunches (I have offered to help the schools revamp their lunches numerous times to no avail so I don’t feel bad venting today.)

1)  Our population’s obesity rates are through the roof.  This is leading to young kids getting diagnosed with diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.  Those are just the physical problems.  Think about obese kids self-esteem problems, depression, behavior problems/disorders and lack to social support.

2)  Healthy kids learn better because they feel better.  Blood sugar highs are not good for young minds trying to learn.  I don’t just mean refined sugar or fructose corn syrup.  I’m talking blood glucose level elevation due to refined breads (white bread).

The popular counter arguments to my logic are the following:

1)  The kids won’t eat healthy foods if they are served as they are not used to eating them at home.  They will be hungry, and being hungry doesn’t help with learning.

2)  For many children the school meal is the only meal of the day they have.  If we do not offer what they are used to, they will not eat at all.

3)  Parents will just start packing the unhealthy foods for the kids, and the schools will lose money by not have good lunch “numbers”, and may not have the money to run a lunch program.

4)  The kids need to take responsibility for themselves and make better choices.

I have two words to say to these arguments “Tough Love“.  If kids are hungry, they will learn to eat.  It may take days, weeks or months, but it will happen.  This may sound harsh, but it is our own faults.  That last one really gets me, if they kids have nothing good to choose from how can they make good choices?

If we as a society didn’t fall pray to unhealthy, processed foods our kids would not be suffering now.  I am at fault as much as anyone else.  My pantry has processed foods in it, I run through the drive through at times.  This is how we are used to living.

Okay, I have more than just two words.  Think of the money.  That’s the bottom line for everything isn’t it?  How much money does it cost us to pay for poor-nutrition related health problems?  How much money is thrown away by serving foods the kids don’t eat?  Watch the trash can during a school lunch, I have.  The canned mix veggies are not touched at all.  They might as well poor the can in the trash.  The kids don’t eat it!  They eat the white bread and butter and the tater tots, and the sugar filled chocolate milks.  

I’m not asking for the schools to serve gourmet organic meals.  I’m just saying put carrot sticks on the trays instead of mixed vegetables or tater tots. Sliced cucumbers, oranges, bunches of grapes would be wonderful and the kids will eat them.  Switch the white bread to whole wheat.   Offer soy milk for the kids that are lactose intolerant or have milk allergies.  Offer chocolate milk only on Fridays, so the kids are over doing the sugars.  Don’t offer extras like cookies and ice cream every day, save those items for special occasions only.

So what can we do?  Offer our suggestions, even if it is anonymous on the end of the school year survey.  Eat lunch with your child and look around you at what the kids actually eat.  Encourage your schools to look into healthier foods.

Here are some links to look into the issue of school lunches more.

• Ideas on how to help your child make healthier choices while away from you.
• How you can help get your child better lunch offerings at school.

How are your kid’s school lunches? Do you always pack for them or let them buy?   Have you tried to improve the nutrition offerings?

 

I just finished reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I must be honest, I neglected my house cleaning and eating lunch to get it finished.  It is so real and raw that you feel as if you are in the deep south during the 1960’s.

I won’t give away anything, but you can read a full review at SeOhioMoms.com, written by my friend Teachermom!

Have you read this book? Did you like it?

I want to say thank you to my mommy and my mother-in-law (Hubby’s Mommy of course)!  I hope you have  restful day and are showered with gifts and gratitudes!  (Oh by the way could you watch my kids on…..kidding, kidding!)  

 

My mommy-in-law is the maker of amazing birthday cakes, the feeder of fishes and the buyer of pajamas (she can even find the ones with feet in them for a long little Elle).  She has mastered the art of not getting her picture taken and I had to go back to May of 2008 to find a photo.  Hopefully someday  I can be this accomplished at hiding from the camera.  She is very loved and appreciated.  Thank  you Hubby’s Mommy!

 

 

Happy moms day to my mommy.  The master of gardening, planter of all things hosta, and lover of gazing balls in the garden (yuck-o), maker of cup-cakes and giver of popsicles..  My mom has also become a master of not getting photographed, so I am re-using a picture from a few posts ago… how do they do it?

Seriously though.  I love you both and appreciate all that you do for me, Hubby and all the girls.  Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we are coming to the end of the school year the field trips have been abundant, which keeps us all very busy.  Mita went to the zoo yesterday and Enu went today.  As I could not go two days in a row, I volunteered to go with Enu today as Mita didn’t really seem to care if I went or not.  This really shows how things change from first to second grade!  

We had a great time and the rain held off for us. Mita wasn’t so lucky and she was soaked to the bone when she got home and her shoes are still wet (note to self..get those shoes dried soon!).  Both Mita and Enu got to take the digital camera’s they got for Christmas with them.  This is the first time ever taking them on a trip and was very cool!  Mita took all of her pictures in the first two hours, most of them are of the back of the bus seats.  Enu actually made it longer and had pictures of animals and people.  I have added some of these to this post and give them all the credit!  I also added a picture with me in it to prove I was actually there. Have you noticed that mom’s tend to not be in many pictures?  I know we do this on purpose, but it really does not help our case when we try to prove to our kids how involved we are!

Meg is going on her field trip to the Wild’s soon and I don’t think I made the “drawing of names” to get to go with her.  I will have to see her trip through her pictures.  Hopefully they will have some actually meaning to them!  She did have baby chicks hatch in her class this week and I ‘m going tomorrow to see them with Elle.

And what has little Elle been up to while her sissy’s  have been so busy?  She  wore her pajamas all day at her grandma’s house and played in the mud.  She also told on her grandma.  Apparently she had two cupcakes and a Popsicle.  I am shocked!