In Ohio at Grandma's for New Years

We had such a great visit. It was the first time in a while that we could get this big group together, and so much fun.

Can't you just tell by the look on her face? Good morning!
What were we thinking going to the playground in late December in Ohio? Grandma and Keeks cuddled up instead of playing.
Keelyn and Caddis, the closest little bit they have to a cousin, enjoying some floor time. I believe they are both sitting in "W's"...or as Keelyn once told me, "I call this my double." Must be genetic.
Hailey taking care of the little ones.
Cheese.
More Christmas presents!

Grandma and her three girls, plus an extra generation thrown in for good measure.
Our entire family, wearing our Emergency Clown Noses, and also decorated in many small stickers provided by the many small kiddos. We got so caught up in getting this picture, it never occurred to us to take a photo of the whole clan without the joke.






By New Year's Eve, everyone had left except for us. We enjoyed our traditional fondue dinner with Grandma and Nana.
The girls thought it would be fun to get a photo with everyone wearing head bands. So, officially, the best two group shots of the week include tacky accessories.
Except this one...taken at about 11pm. The kids managed to stay awake until 11:45, but didn't quite catch the ball drop. Maybe next year.
Still, it was an awesome, quiet, family time and I just love them.

Loving our Home

In an interest of sticking to my guns on making 2012 the Year of Organization, I decided to get a little more formal about all the things we each do around the house. The kids are very helpful, and usually good about tidying up when we ask, or helping with laundry and such if they are around as it happens. They know to make their beds each morning and bring their dishes to the counter after meals. But they are old enough (especially Hailey) where it has become obvious that it would be beneficial to have these things be their own responsibility...to take them on without having to be nagged about it, and to see the benefits of doing so regularly.

Now I know it's just semantics, but I have always had an issue with the word "chore." It sounds like something no one wants to do. Like it's a difficult task and a pain in the you-know-what. So when we decided it was finally time to get about organizing the jobs we take on in our home, it was really important to me to come up with a fun way to keep track of things, and a loving way to talk about what's to be done. I know it's a grown-up concept and the girls don't fully grasp it now, but I want them to understand they are making contributions to our family not for allowance, or because I said so, but because it is a way to show love for one another, and to give thanks for all the blessings we have.

I realize that might sound too pretty and unrealistic. Obviously we can't do this every day. Most of the time, the laundry keeps coming, and I keep wondering if it will ever stop. And most of the time, I am so rushed to clean a bathroom smeared with sparkly blue toothpaste in between carpool lines that I barely take a breath. But some days, I am able to focus on how much I am blessed with this place to clean, a family to clean it for, and a body to do it with, and that is what I want to emphasize for them. Or try anyway.

That, and I want it to be fun. So the kids helped think of some jobs they enjoy doing. For instance, Keelyn loves to swiffer the floors. Hailey loves to dust (and is oh-so precise about it). And they both love to just be helpful with projects around the house as Mommy's helper or Daddy's helper. Then, I got to work, starting with some ideas from Pinterest and a trip to the craft store. I didn't follow any one concept to a tee, but I took a few ideas that worked for our needs, and combined and tweaked them a bit. This was a low-cost project, using a lot of supplies from our own stash, plus a few magnetic dry-erase boards.
I made door hangers for their morning routines. Keelyn can't read most of this yet, but she's beginning to recognize what each step says, and of course she has Hailey to help her. As they complete a step, they can move the clothes pin down to the next. These items seem obvious, but my girls get so easily distracted in the mornings. What should take 15 minutes, stretches easily into an hour, and this just helps keep them focused. They think it's really fun, though we may still need to take it a step further and make it a timed game. I'm thinking of selecting a few good morning songs and playing them with the idea that all items have to be completed before the music ends.
Then, the family contributions. Though I love that term so much more than chores, it still seemed too sterile to me, so I came up with the words Love our Family Home. I feel like that captures the act for me the way I want to portray it...and we've talked about how that is what we are doing when we help out around the house. The kids can make that connection...we take care of our things, because we love our family and our home. So I added a family calendar to the wall here as well. I am already guilty of forgetting to send in Guess and Tell items with Hailey on Fridays, and we needed a central place to mark things going on with the kids. This way they can see what's going on too.
This is in our mud room, by the way. Not sure I ever posted this project. When we bought our house, there was this odd room that had been added into the garage space. If I were going to the trouble to add a room, I'd have made it slightly larger, and run electricity to it, but we found some furniture that works, and rigged up a lamp, and it's the perfect place for the kids to dump their things and take off their shoes. And now, to track what's going on in their days.
I made each girl her own board with daily to-do's, and created a magnet for each job item...two magnets for jobs they would share on a given day, like clean the play room. I also made a few magnets with items like Game Night, and Movie Day, just to give them a surprise once in a while. As they complete a job, they move the magnet across to the "done" column. I can assign as needed to compliment my own cleaning schedule (which is posted at the bottom of the family calendar by day) and to reflect what else they may have going on in a particular week.
And while I'm sharing projects, why not the fireplace? This was the "one remaining item" that had to be completed once we moved in. As Andrew says, our house is still being built, and the "remaining items" are endless. The fireplace was a mess, and so was the adventure we had finding someone to repair it properly for less than a small fortune. But it all worked out, and we managed to find the perfect screen to compliment it. So we now enjoy a safe, warm fireplace, any time we want. I guess we can't take any real credit for the work in this project, except for the hours upon hours of time we spent researching and talking on the phone about this before getting it taken care of. I know way more than any person ever needs to know about fireplaces!
And, my favorite recent project, family pictures. Some of these were displayed in some fashion at some point in our old house, although not all. And I just hadn't figured out where to put anything or how to get it together since we moved. There are still tons of pictures that need walls to call home. It's a slow process for me...one thing at a time. Seriously, I left the linen closets a mess all the way until one day last week, when I finally decided to devote the better part of a day to organizing them. I just can't seem to get this moving in thing together any faster. Anyway, I finally did this, including even some shots from our most recent family portraits. The family room finally feels like it should. And a tip. They kept shifting and it was driving me crazy to not have them perfectly plum and lined up. I found a new product made by Scotch that is double-stick and removable. Cut a little square for the bottom corners of each frame, and voila! Nothing moves.
Oh, and across from that picture wall, curtains! I can't believe it, but I actually found curtains in a store and bought them already made and hung them on the window all in one day. I had all kinds of fabric swatches sitting on the counter for a good month before, and when I saw these, I realized how much I'd been hoping to find something I didn't have to add to my project list for once. Up and done, no sewing required.
We also finally got the kitchen walls painted. Remember all the drywall and peeling wallpaper? This project required a nice heavy steamer in the end, but we got it all down, sanded the walls, primed them, spackled the entire surface, re-caulked, sanded again, and painted. It was a huge ordeal, and quite messy, but we love it. Some day I might notice how badly the shoe moulding needs to be painted, but for now, my eyes go up.
And across the room from that lovely finished wall? A call for the sewing machine, after all. Tell me, what do you think of this fabric remnant I found? I'm still undecided. Also, stripes better vertical or horizontal? I dunno. Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse for another trip to the fabric store.
And we'll end here. I have no idea what they are talking about, but it must be very surprising. Or gossipy. Or frightful. Love them.

Catching up to 2012 in a hodge podge kind of way.

First, some pictures I want to share:

I found this while we were visiting my grandma in Ohio for New Year's. Even if you know Keelyn well, or perhaps moreso if you do, you might have to look twice at this photo of ME from childhood. Everywhere we go, ever since she was about a year old, people tell me how much she looks like me. It's like people are so shocked by the likeness, that they will mention it just in passing at the grocery store. Her personality and mannerisms are completely mine too, which means I have a small version of me at my side at all times. Sometimes it's weird. Anyway, some photos of her to compare just for fun. She makes this expression all the time, but I can't find a photo of it exactly.

And big news in Hailey's world. I told her last week she really needed a trim. Her hair was getting so tangled and the ends were tattered...it had been a year, after all. So, she didn't want a trim, she wanted a cut. A drastic one, especially for a kiddo who's always had long hair, ever since it grew that way. I was surprised, because she's complimented on it all the time, and she loves having it braided and such. So she went with me to my girl at the real salon, and we both got a cut. In the past, I've always cut her hair, so this was her first "real" hair cut. It's just gotten too thick for me to cut it nicely, especially if we're going to keep it short. Anyway, I guess she actually got her first, and second hair cut simultaneously. Stephanie and I were convinced she wasn't realizing how dramatic "above the shoulders" would be, so we talked her into keeping it past them by a couple inches. The whole mop was cut, it looked great, and Hailey said that no, this was not short enough. So, round two left her with much shorter hair. I have no idea how much was cut in the end, but it was a lot, and she looks absolutely precious. Andrew thinks she looks two years older. I think she looks like her baby self, like she was meant to look, because I see all those cute little expressions she's had since she first became animated as a tiny tot. I love it. So does she.



So, after that, a few words. First, Happy New Year!

Today's kind of the first day we've had a chance to breathe in about a month, and it's cold and rainy and just about as perfect a day for breathing as I could have asked for. I am washing clothes, cleaning closets, loading wonderful holiday photos, and spending time on the floor in a tent with Keelyn, imagining what Hailey might be doing right at this moment in school. And then in this moment. And then, what about this moment? What do you think she could be doing right now, Mommy?

So, while pictures are loading and life is carrying on, I thought I'd take a moment to recognize that yet another whole entire year full of life has passed by. It was a great year, in which we sold our house, moved to a new one, started new school journeys for both of the little bits, and found many new ways to take on responsibilities and keep ourselves busy beyond the obvious running a home and a business. It's been great, and if we have another year just like it (all in one house this time of course), I will be thrilled. There were so many moments of joy, and I just adore my family of four.

Thoughts for 2012 include a whole huge totally unrealistic list of things we need to get done (or do ourselves) to the house. Organizing closets that have been all caddywhompus since we moved in (whoo-hoo, already on it), organizing life...as in new household contributions among all...as in cubbies in places where they are needed...as in keeping better calendars and not losing track of the to-do's. Andrew and I both got iphone's which is already helping with this immensely. I have completely forgotten in a matter of a few weeks, how I lived my life before this gadget was in my pocket.

But the biggest, most realistic, and most important goal for me in 2012 is to read with my kids more. I know it sounds simple, but it's slipped away some as we ventured into new territory with busy school schedules and running around, and I'm just gonna have to set it straight. It's one of our favorite things to do together. In fact, Hailey can sit right down and read to us these days, which means there's no excuse for skipping a book, even if Mama is exhausted. Anyway, it's important, and it's been pushed aside even at bed time lately...so we're fixing that. I mean, it's not like we go days without reading, but I have high expectations for how much time gets put into the words on a page in our house, and we have fallen short. Of course, things like more snuggles and quiet time with family come with it, and those are great things to add more of to a new year as well.

And now, just for fun, a few little tidbits from the tidbits. It's quite possible no one else will appreciate these stories, but they were adorable, and I don't want to forget.

First of all, let me explain that Keelyn has absolutely no control over the volume of her voice whatsoever. She is always excited, and she is always loud. So we went to see a live nativity a few weeks before Christmas at a nearby church. We stood there, both of the kids kind of in awe. It was peaceful and sweet and they loved it. And as we were walking away from the crowd, Keelyn shouted at the top of her lungs to me, "Mommy, so is that really Jesus, or what?" We were laughing so hard, I'm not sure she ever got an answer.

And in Hailey's case, the kid never does anything wrong. Well, not at school anyway. She follows every rule like her life depends on it. So apparently the first day after break, a lot of the kids were saying "mean words and bad things" and her teacher decided they should all sit in a circle, say one bad thing and get it out of their systems so they could go on with the day. So we asked Hailey, as she's telling the story, what friends were saying. It was things like "potty words" and the "Batman smells" version of Jingle Bells. And I asked, "So, what was your bad thing on your turn?" To which she gave me a funny look, paused for a moment, and said, "Well I didn't have any bad words. I just couldn't think of one when I tried. So Ms. Ellis helped me think of one, but I didn't say it. My other friends just did theirs."

I love both of those stories because they completely illustrate the girls' personalities right now. Can't wait to see how they grow this year!

Christmas 2011

So I left off a few days ago with sleeping babes on Christmas Eve, and then we back tracked a bit through the month. Now, here we are, Christmas morning! Believe it or not, the kids made it until 8:00am. Kind of. Technically Keelyn woke up at 6ish, but when told she could not wake Hailey up yet, she fell back asleep for a while. What a treat for the rest of us. The night before, Keelyn had been awake, staring at Andrew and me, and asking us to play from 12:30am until 4:30am, not sleeping a wink. She just couldn't handle all the excitement. She was bursting. Anyway, 8:00am, heading down to see if Santa found our new house.
Just as they'd asked, a ballerina doll and a basket of books from the Big Man.
Hailey's basket even included a hand-written note from Santa, which she is treasuring, but I like how not only did she ask for a basket of books, but when making a selection for this photo, she chose the one entitled, I Love School. The kid just can't get enough of the learning stuff.
Santa brought the animals gifts this year as well. See the proud puppy after two-minute destruction.
Once we opened stockings and marveled at Santa's gifts, we ate breakfast, cleaned up, and headed to a great church service. The kids were even invited to each bring one toy for a blessing. It was a quiet service, so they each got a turn to share their toy and tell why they liked it. The kids loved this.
Then we ate some lunch, and sat down to open family presents.
The girls first opened their gifts to each other. It is so heart-warming to see them jumping up and down to give a gift. Hailey picked out a robe for Keelyn just like hers, which Keeks has asked to borrow on a number of occasions. A few days before Christmas, Keelyn asked to borrow it, and Hailey responded, "Well Keelyn, I can't really talk to you about this because it's a surprise, but why don't you just wait and see what I got you for Christmas, and then you might not need to borrow it any more." You know, she was being sneaky. Of course, this went right over Keelyn's head, and she squealed with delighted surprise when she opened her gift. I love how they don't presume anything, so each new thing that comes along brings with it truly innocent glee. Keelyn got Hailey a ceramic painting kit, and a book she knew Hailey had admired in her classroom at school. Hailey thought it was so cool that Keelyn had noticed...as did I.
Then other gifting ensued. Keelyn's reaction to the Clifford book was priceless. You'd have thought she'd won the lottery as she literally jumped up and down screaming at the top of her lungs.
And Hailey swears that every gift she got is her favorite, as she smiled on through the whole thing.

You can see who was getting in on the action though. Keelyn helped open nearly every gift.



Then the girls enjoyed some time to play, first up, with Legos from Grammi.
Before long, they were snuggled in their matching robes.
And after dinner and a bath, a bit more gaming before bed.
The next morning, my dad and crew came over for breakfast, snuggle time, and our Christmas celebration.



Lots more fun to be had, and ropes to destroy.
What a wonderful Christmas, as it seems every year. It really does come and go faster each year, and I'm just trying to enjoy these few more days of having all of us together at a slow pace before real life kicks in again next week. The girls are spending most hours of the day in their pajamas, and all things normal are on hold for a bit.

I hope you had a fabulous holiday as well, and that 2012 holds bright times ahead for us all. Thanks for reading, and see you next year!