Show and Tell

 I've been laying with my girls at night and I've found that that leaves me feeling like I have a lot less time to myself in the evening. That means I blog the "big things" which sort of defeats my purpose of this blog. So here's a conglomeration of some "little things" that are going on around here.

In a recent weather themed phonics unit, Aliza learned to make snowflakes. Her teacher showed them how to fold and cut coffee filters, then for every correct answer they got to make a cut in their snowflake. Mrs. Walker was making fancy snowflakes! She had trees and hats and other fancy shapes cut in them--I never learned to do that! Aliza LOVED cutting out snowflakes. She cut an entire winter wonderland. Every snowflake was named and was lovingly hung in her room. I believe the snowflake on the left is an attempt at cutting trees.

These two may fight at times, but they are the best of friends and play mates.

 Anna cutting her fingernails--just like Daddy.

 Only a short time ago I could not wrap my head around fitting recycling into my life. It was just one more thing and I just couldn't manage it. I started with recycling only the apple juice bottles and now I recycle all of the our plastic, cardboard, tin and glass. I'm quite proud of myself. About once a month we load up the recycling and take it to the transfer station. I have some good helpers.

I'm not sure that ring toss with the plastic is the most efficient help, but it's help nonetheless.

This is birthday week and it happened that I had to take all 3 kiddos grocery shopping with me. I told them they could pick out a toy since it's birthday week. They totally scored. Their Mother was a complete pushover. Yes, I felt guilty afterwards. Josiah picked out a Lego set. (He still needs help to follow the directions.) We got home. I unloaded a large shopping trip. He opened the legos. Janell dropped off her girls for the afternoon. I put Josiah up on the counter to protect his legos from small girls. I made lunch. I helped Josiah with the first part. I served lunch. I helped Josiah with the 2nd part. I told him to eat lunch. He couldn't. Too excited. I put the girls down for naps. I came back and Aliza and I helped Josiah with the 3rd part. Renee came down and I put her back in bed. Soon after Renee and Anna got out of bed. No nap. I turned Dora on. I thought I was Super Mom. Then it was after supper and there was school to get done. I lost my temper. Severely. I realized that I wasn't Super Mom. I gave myself a time out.

Cleaning up today I found this gem. American Girl doll napping in a tool box. Bed complete with blanket and pillow. Best of play mates for sure. It's great how they integrate boy and girl concepts into their play.

Renee brought this toy with her today. Aliza got hold of it and learned that you can write messages to one of the princesses and they "respond". She was "texting" all day. I was about to get annoyed when I realized that she was working on spelling all by herself--something she has not initiated very often. So I let it go. She thought we were horribly unfair when we told her that the thing was staying downstairs tonight.