Fun with Faces

These were taken at some friends’ house last week. The adults were playing cards and the kids were playing with the web cam and totally cracking me up. They remind me of a series of photo booth pictures.

Aside from getting a good laugh, it was also one of those mothering moments where your child seems so grown up and you just can’t figure out how it happened so fast.

Time and Discipline

It was hard to restrain laughter when I read a comment someone anonymously left on my blog post about my hot cross bun project, stating that I must have extra time on my hands.

One of the reasons I was amused by this comment is that I’m currently reading a book called Shopping for Time: How to Do It All and Not Be Overwhelmed. This, by the way, is a very excellent book.

I’m the type of person who likes to extract all of the good things that life has to offer. I want to take advantage of the opportunities available in every season of life. I like to make holidays special. I also need space and time to reflect.

The current phase of life I’m in is a really busy one. My young children depend on me for everything (some days I just want to scream, “Meredith, could you please learn to wipe your own bottom!”). My husband works a lot of hours. When I go to bed I’m exhausted. Like all other moms of young children I have very little time for myself.

Unfortunately I was becoming a frustrated mom. I don’t want to be a frustrated mom. I want to be a happy mom, with space in my life to enjoy the precious time I have with my children.

Rather being depressed and pining away for more hours in my day, I recently (March 1) decided to take matters into my own hands and make an extra hour in my day. In other words, instead of getting 7.5 hours of sleep on average, I now get 6.5 hours of sleep on average.

Getting up an extra hour early has been really painful for me. I hate it for about 20 minutes. But then after I’m finally awake and have sat still and read my bible, started writing out my to-do list, taken a shower, made the kids’ breakfast, and maybe even gotten in 15 minutes of yoga, I realize that if I hadn’t gotten up early, I’d just then be waking up with nothing accomplished, feeling like I was playing catch-up all day long.

We all ultimately do what we really want to do. We all have the same 24 hours in a day to work with.

Recently I’ve decided to do what I don’t like to do (get up early), to do what I ultimately want more (be a happy mom).

My lucky day ...

Today is gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. On the way home from the library a friend called and invited me to do a spontaneous park play date. We swung through the McDonald's drive-thru and made a u-turn to go to the park, instead of going home and putting Clara down for a nap. All sensibility goes out the window on a beautiful weather day, right?!

When I pulled up to the drive-thru to pay, the manager told me that lunch was free because their cash register just broke and would be down for at least five minutes!

Not only did I get the chance to spend a few hours out in the beautiful sunshine with a friend, I also got a free lunch! Nice! It's totally my lucky day.

 

 

 

Last Class

Today was Meredith's last library story time and the teachers had a party for the kids.

 

Everyone got a kick out of M&M bingo. Meredith won!

 

Clara, who tagged along, loved it too. But why would you want to actually play bingo if you can just eat the candy?

 

 

Discovering Symphony

This week we took Meredith to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra downtown to participate in a Discovery Concert for students. Five composers were featured and there was a talk for children between each piece. We brought along a book about the various instruments and how an orchestra works. We ended up getting our own box seat (maybe because we were the smallest “group” there—just three of us, as our own “homeschool” group). The Discovery Concert is something Kevin did as a child and enjoyed. Meredith loved it. She loved the music and she loved having mom and dad all to herself.


Afterward we walked to The Market—gyros for the old folks, and a hamburger and orange soda pop for Meredith.




The last stop was to daddy’s office. Meredith loved sitting in Kevin's chair and doing sign language with one of the secretaries.

All in all ... a fun, memorable, and educational day!

Easter

At a neighborhood egg hunt, the day before Easter. Let’s just say we live in a male dominated neighborhood. Meredith was the only girl, with nine boys, in her age group. The kids had fun with the hunt and playing that egg/spoon relay race and a potato sack race.

This is the first time I tried curlers on Meredith’s hair. She is smiling here because they were fun for ten seconds. But the next morning she said, “Mom, promise me you won’t do that to me again next Easter.”

Oh, and YES, Meredith cut her own hair again!! This time just her bangs. Just in time for Easter. :-P

Our two sweet girls.




Clara really got into the egg hunt this year. She would pick up an egg and look for another one saying, “Mo’ egg!”

Cousins

Resurrection Rolls

A friend of mine sent an e-mail around that had a recipe for Resurrection Rolls. It seemed like a fun object lesson to do with the kids so I bought the ingredients. Basically, you take a marshmallow (representing Jesus’ body), dip it in melted butter (representing embalming oils), dip it in cinnamon sugar (representing spices at burial), and then wrap it in a crescent roll dough triangle (representing the burial cloth). Then you put Jesus in the tomb (the oven) and close the door. You bake the rolls at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. The kids then open the rolls and all they get is a hallow roll. The marshmallow is gone. Jesus is Risen!

So, I did this with my kids. I got really serious when we opened the rolls up. I said to Meredith, “Where is Jesus? What happened?”

She clapped her hands to her cheeks and gasped, “Oh no! He’s melted!”

Ha! So much for that object lesson!

 

 

Good Friday Project

I decided to pull all the stops and make enough hot cross buns on Good Friday to take to a bunch of neighbors—including the new Chinese neighbors, whom I haven’t officially met yet but I see them doing tai chi on their front porch nearly every morning.

I doubled the recipe and it made 60 buns. It was kind of crazy with two kids underfoot but they were soooooo delicious (hint of nutmeg with dried cherries). And the best part was that I got a really great reaction from the neighbors, especially my two British friends. I wasn’t really thinking of it when I decided to do this baking project but it must have been a nice reminder of home.

 

 

 

A Story, by Clara

My parents say that I am a dare devil and that I will surely be their Emergency Room Child. I love to jump and run around and am always on the lookout for adventures and good times. Here is what happened yesterday after one of my adventures, wherein I did a faceplant on the wood floor:

 

Here is how I look now, after a trip to the dentist, wherein I was a good girl, sat in mom's lap, let the Dr. Man file my tooth, and got a nice Pooh sticker afterward:

 

Who says you need to have perfect teeth to be gorgeous, huh?

 

Daddy says that I will still be as pretty as ever even though I will look like a hockey player until my big teeth come in.

April Fools?

A fun April Fool's joke:

 

A not-so-fun April Fool's joke (a mouse must have sneaked into one of our boxes during the move--these are old shoes Kev uses for working in the mud and they were stored in a box in our garage):

 

Daffodils at the Zoo