My Christmas Present

Ever since I was a little girl I always wanted a window seat.  Our house had the perfect window for a window seat but it was never the priority project.  Lucky me, my dad and Ben built one over the Christmas break!  I love how it turned out!  The guys spent two days from start to finish, paint and all.  While they were building, my mom and I shopped for fabric and made the cushion and pillows.   Under the window seat is storage that we put books from an entire bookshelf in.  The front doors hide the books for a cleaner look.

Our living room used to be a bit of this and that with zero seating.  Now two bookshelves are removed, the computer desk is gone and it is a bit more like a living room.

I painted this rocking chair we had in the basement and hung family pictures where the bookshelf used to be.

 

I was really excited about the pillows.  Pillow forms range from $8-$20 so it would get pretty expensive to make 8 pillows.  I had the idea to buy the $2.50 standard bed pillows and push the stuffing tighter and sew across the top to make a square pillow instead of a standard bed pillow.  It didn't take much time and made a great and inexpensive pillow form. 

 

Thanks mom and dad for all your work and money!  Thanks Kevin and Laurel for the curtains!

Christmas Time!

For the past couple of years I have wanted to make picture ornaments of our family from past Christmas's.  I finally did it this year.  I made 8 ornaments for the past 8 years and also made 10 more so that as the years go by I can just add the picture and not have to re-make ornaments every year.  Here are two done and hanging on the tree.

 

I copied the idea from here.  I LOVE this blog and read it all the time.  She has great ideas and opinions.  I followed the tutorial except I used foam board instead of wood.  For $6 I was able to cut out 18 ornaments.

Just for fun, here are some cute photos of Santa baby and his siblings

Lullaby and Goodnight

I was switching a load of laundry today and set Tanner down on the dryer.  He was hungry so the next item on the agenda was to feed him.  However, after I switched the laundry he was sound asleep comforted but the soft vibration of the dryer.  I Love it!

Race Day

Jacob and David ran their first race on Thanksgiving this year.  They had a lot of fun participating and being a part of race day.  Our plan was to have one of us at the start line and one at the finish, unfortunately the race was a bit disorganized.  By the time I had ran all over trying to locate their race numbers we only had one minute to pin them on and then they were off.  Ben and I were left at the start line with two extra coats, a car seat with a baby inside(heavy), a diaper bag and a two year old.  We really tried to run to the finish line to see them cross, but we missed the big moment.  The boys still had fun and got running bags with a bunch of free stuff(garbage), snacks after, and a race day shirt.  The race this year was just .25 miles but Jacob says next year he wants to run the 5K.  We are proud of our little runners!

Sugar Anyone?

On Friday we were babysitting some of our friends kids and decided to make cookies with everyone.  When we asked one of the boys to put the sugar away, this is what happened.  When the sugar spilled I was grateful I laughed instead of getting angry.  There are times when I get really angry about things kids do but I find they are getting less often, and I am laughing more.

E-mail from my 1st Grader's Teacher

I want to bring to your attention something that happened yesterday during our indoor lunch recess.   The children could not go out because of the wind chill. If you are receiving this email, your son or daughter was involved in this situation.  I was having my lunch when this happened and the children were being supervised by two very competent teaching assistants.  

From what I understand about what happened, after a day long investigation, a group of six students were experimenting by eating hand sanitizer.  The idea I believe originated with one of my girls, when she suggested the other people in the group eat the hand sanitizer. I have spoken to all the people involved and they all tried the sanitizer and confirmed no one was forced to eat it.  They all just made a really bad choice.  The ladies watching the children realized something was not quit right when the children kept requesting to go to the bathroom in pairs or small groups.  They definitely were hiding the hand sanitizer from the teachers and after they asked the two different teachers to go to the bathroom, or go get a drink, the teachers caught on to the fact that something wasn't right, especially since they all looked guilty of something, and did not allow them to go out any more. We had used hand sanitizer to clean our hands before lunch instead of soap and water because we were running late getting to lunch. I have since put the hand sanitizer away in my cabinet.  You have my promise I will not leave it on the back counter any more.

I sent the group to the principal's office, but unfortunately he was in meetings with classroom teachers all day and wasn't able to talk with the group.  I am sure he will be talking with them tomorrow.  Some of the children were almost bragging they were going to see the principal.  I need your help to stress the seriousness of the situation.  I spoke with the entire class about the seriousness of eating the hand sanitizer. I also stressed making good choices for ourselves and not doing something because someone suggested it or told you to do it.  I told the children they needed to think before they did something to make sure it was safe, no one would be hurt and no one would be in trouble.  They all knew it was wrong,  because they were being secretive when they were doing it. I appreciate you talking with your child and helping drive home the point they need to make decisions for themselves.  All the children involved were blaming someone else and saying they did it because someone had told them to do it. No one seemed to realize they could have said no and walked away.  I asked them several times if anyone made them do it and everyone said no, that they were just all trying it. I think this can be a great opportunity to help your son or daughter learn how important it is to learn to say no to friends.  I know you all can think of a situation that might happen in a few years where your son or daughter will be tempted by friends to make a wrong decision. I think it would also be helpful if you could tell your child he/she has the power to protect others by letting a teacher or adult know when something like this happens in the future. They were more afraid of getting in trouble than of getting very sick from what they were doing. Thank you so much for your help with this and I appreciate your support. 

Houston Trip

It has been three months since I posted and a lot has happened in the past three months. I am going to attempt to blog a bit more often and keep my posts up to date.

Last week I went on a trip to Houston to visit my brother and sis-in-law, Kevin and Laurel. They wanted some help organizing their house and I love to organize so they bought me a ticket and we went to work. We worked on their office/craft room and took it from cluttered and unorganized to clean and pretty. I had a great time with them and I am excited about the way the room turned out. I wish I had remembered to take some before pictures but I didn't. Here are some after pictures.  My camera was on the wrong setting and some of the pictures are a little blurry, but you can still see the room.