Remembering to Be Thankful

With Thanksgiving upon us, we are trying to be more intentional about the way we celebrate the holiday. There are lots of ideas on how to get your kids thinking about thankfulness, and good ones too. This year I decided to just cut strips of paper that we can write our thoughts of thankfulness on. The strips will go into a jar, and then we can pull strips out to share at dinner each night.

I thought that after Thanksgiving, we can make the strips into paper chains. I always like to do paper chains for our Christmas decor, and this way, the cutting paper part is already done, and we can go on thinking about our thankfulness throughout the Christmas season.

This is just a simple way to turn our hearts towards being grateful.

Remembering What Makes a Good Day

This week I've found myself very far behind in the laundry and housework. Home projects and time in the garden have taken priority.
Having so many little ones sometimes means waiting until nap time to even try to do housework.

I had a few moments of desperation this morning, but as the afternoon wore on, I began to think about what I had accomplished.

I made play-dough, read two stories to the babies, and marveled at a sleeping kitty in the doll stroller. You would think that with as many kids as I have I would understand what qualifies as a good day, but I am still trying to learn that one.

A successful day lies in being available to the little ones, not how many things I checked off my list. People are more important than things.

Making Summer Memories

My newest challenge is making time to make summer memories and traditions with my kids while still having some focused learning (and you know, clean, cook, fetch the baby who has escaped out the door...again). I'm going to try to continue in a bit of our studies, maybe changing things up a bit...a unit study on space, weather journals, and my daughter wants to master cursive writing.

My friend Gina's post about summer got me to thinking about making a summer list. We are still working on it, but it has been a fun topic of conversation. We are excited about going to the farmer's market to sell eggs, our weekly pool date with friends, and staying up a little later to catch lightning bugs.

Like all kids, mine love water fun! I recently got out the water balloons. We had a blast with them, but then I remembered these sponge balls. These would be better than water balloons for little ones. So many of the water balloons we spent time filling just bounced off of little bodies and rolled away.

I will share with you a little tradition we have as a family. Occasionally, when everyone's tired but we just need a little relaxing time together, we go out for a little drive. Sometimes we stop at Starbucks first, and we just play music and talk. The last time we did this, we added a twist to it. We quickly came up with a list of things to look for, just easy things- a yellow car, two people walking, a yard with a swimming pool. Some were easy to find, and others (a three-legged dog) were just silly and nearly impossible. We just had the best time that evening.

Well, I feel like summer is slipping away too quickly already! I've always been an occasional blogger, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. There is just too much fun to be had right now!

Ta-da! Girls' Room Before and Afters Part Two

I can finally show you our girls' room! We really wrapped up this project quickly, but I had just a couple things left that I needed my husband's help with. My vision for this room was inspired by my oldest daughter's love for horses. I didn't want a manufactured horse-themed room, however. I was hoping to achieve a sweet room that would make you think of riding horses in a meadow. The colors were inspired by the quilt (used on the top bunk) that my husband found in some of his old stuff: pale green, yellow, and touches of red.

In case you missed it, here is the before.

After!

For the curtains, I used a king size sheet cut down the center to make two panels. Years ago, I spotted some curtains in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog trimmed in ric-rac. I always wanted to copy the design, and I really like the way these turned out. The ric-rac is red, yellow, and pale blue. The beauty of making your own curtains is you can get a grand look for not a lot of money. These curtains are ultra long and full.

The desk was a sewing cabinet collecting dust in the garage. It was cheap brown wood with outdated knobs. New paint, new knobs, new look! It has lots of drawer space for art supplies. The chair is a favorite of mine from long ago.

Instead of spelling the girls' names out on the wall like we did in the old room, I just used their first initial tied onto each girls' bed. There's a touch of red in the ribbons.

The lantern above the top bunk was in the old room, paired with a pink one. My husband changed the switch on it, moving it from the bottom of the cord closer to the top. Then we swapped out the bulb for a 15 watt one. Now she uses it as a reading light, and it's not so bright that it will wake baby sister below! Cool, huh?

Here's a pic of the lantern after I finished the sleeve for the cord. Also something I saw in Pottery Barn.

Fun banner made from wool and fabric scraps. It's hung with twine and 70 cent knobs from Hobby Lobby.
The peg hanger was in the old room, and was painted white. There's the red I wanted.

Fabric swatches in embroidery hoops. The toile fabric has horses in it.

We love this room! I love that I was able to use so much of what we already had on hand. And, I am now a believer in bunk beds. I didn't think I liked them so much before, but they sure free up lots of floor space! So glad to have this project done.

Royal Wedding

In celebration of today's royal wedding, we got out the fancy china, and had tea and scones for breakfast. I read aloud to the kids about queens and kings in London, Big Ben and Parliament. And we may have practiced our British accents just a bit.
One of the many things I love about homeschooling is scrapping your regular curriculum once in awhile and learning about something related to what's going on in the world.

And we get to do it all in our pajamas and fancy hats.

Super Easy Craft for Your Little Reader

I came across this awhile back in an issue of Highlights. I thought it was a great way to show Isabelle's progress in reading. She has a big stack of second grade chapter books to go through and this lets her see how far she's come.



It's a bookworm! I wrote the titles of her finished books on the circles before gluing. She helped cut out the circles and added the legs and smiley. Isn't he cute? We left lots of space for more circles to add as she finishes more books.
Now if we can just find a project to help encourage her progress in math...

Jonah

Meet Jonah Timothy Paice, born September 15, 2009.
God is great. I'm so thankful that me and this little gift were safe after the delivery. I approached Jonah's arrival with a lot of fear. Fear for myself and the baby during the delivery, and lots of concern about how I was going to manage another little one in the home. Having been unplanned, the thought of another baby so soon took all of the nine months to get used to. While I was excited to have another baby, I still felt unprepared for this unexpected gift. I say all that to say that God's grace is so amazing. I'm so glad that God is in control and gave me this blessing in my life even though I don't deserve it. I didn't plan for this, but God did, and if He didn't, I wouldn't have Jonah.