City Planner

Charlie posing with one of his creations

Charlie has spent a lot of time lately setting up and drawing cities. It is so cute to watch his imagination at its finest. He uses blocks, igloos, barns, recycled materials, paper, bricks, cars, trucks, books, really whatever he can get his hands on. Sometimes he will spend all of rest time building a city in his room. I'll come to get him and every bit of his floor and bed is meticulously laid out. Cars in parking spots, trains at the depot, trees in the forest. He really goes into detail and I just love seeing what he creates.

Isn't every chair a train being driven by an engineer?

First Hike 2010

Tommy smiling without being prompted

The boys having a drink after their hike

We went on our first hike of the year today. We took Bo. I forgot my camera in the car. That was ok because I needed all my hands for Bo and the boys. The path was mostly clear, except for on the hill. The boys had fun walking and climbing on the snow drifts on the side of the path. Trent had fun walking Bo. Bo had fun on the choker...yeah not so much. I had fun trying to find a bathroom, you know, in the middle of the woods with a surprising amount of pedestrians in it....no tree break for me! It was a beautiful day. Cold, but oh so sunny. We have had a lot of sun lately...THANK YOU GOD!!
The spaghetti trail as Charlie would call it, weaves in and out of bunches of trees. At the top of the hill is a little grove with a bubbling brook. It is magical. We love it there. Even covered in snow it is just beautiful. In warmer weather we have sat on large stones and eaten our lunch. I can't wait. Spring is not far off, I can feel it!

See the sun...oh the lovely sun


Daddy and Bo

Wii have fun

Gym memberships are too pricey, there is 10 feet of snow on the ground (at least it seems like it) and the temperature can't seem to break 30 degrees. So, in order to try and slim our waistlines, we have a Wii.
And boy do Wii have fun, even the kids do!

Daddy helping Tommy on the balance board.

Nothing like spending the late afternoon together as a family having fun and actually exercising.
I am not a video game person, but this is not your typical video game.
Wii yoga, here I come!!

Little Helpers

Friday was cleaning and getting the house in order day. I had many little helpers. The boys actually ask to clean, their wives will love them for it!! I love them for it! It is not only cut to see them walk around looking for dust and dog hair on the carpet, but it is truly helpful. Charlie vacuumed the entire first floor, under supervision of course. But none the less, it gave me the opportunity to do another task and we all worked together to get the house in order before Daddy came home from work. My kind of teamwork!

Bring on spring cleaning! My crew is ready for it!!

Cake anyone?

Juice

For Christmas Nie Nie, Papa and Honey Trent got me a Kitchenaid. I have LOVED using it to make everything from icing to mashed potatoes!! LOVE IT!!

For my birthday, Grandma Candace sent me a juice attachment for my lovely new Kitchenaid. Immediately Charlie wanted to make Lemonade and Oj. So off to the market we went.
Charlie was really into making juice, he couldn't do it enough!

Neither of the boys liked the Oj...neither did I. I think the oranges were not fresh.

But eating lemons, now that they loved! They take after Aunt Jacque on that one!

And of course we had to do a smell test. Here Charlie is asking Tommy what he smells, a lemon or an orange.

We will definetly be making juice again! The boys and I had a great time and it put a little sunshine in a cold winter day!

Goals

Goal 1.
The last few weeks have been a blur. So much going on, sickies, feeling out of sorts, lots of making cakes, birthdays, celebrations, the good and the bad.

2 weeks ago I started, I don't know what to call it, a challenge?, a new way of life? a commitement? . We don't necessarily practice Lent, however, both Trent and I do something significant for us during this time.

For me it has been giving up dessert, candy, chocolate, you know, the yummy sugary stuff! Even though this is my goal, I did allow 2 times of indulgence, both for Trent's birthday. But that is it until Easter.

But more then giving it up, my goal is to rely on God when I am tempted to eat the forbidden. It is so easy to think, oh, I'll just have a piece of candy with the kids, or a piece of birthday cake would really be nice with decaf while watching tv with Trent, etc. Any other time I have tried to limit or cut out the dessert stuff, I have failed. Even being threatened with diabetes when pregnant with Thomas, I tried and I failed. Today, and the past 2 weeks, I have not failed and I am indeed thriving. The difference between then and now, my reliance on God. There have been plenty of thoughts that have sneaked into mind, lying to myself that I can partake. And I could, I know that I could. But I have made a commitement, and I am not going to break it, not today anyways.

Goal 2.
Spring Cleaning
I think I am going to start this next week. I need to make my plan of attack and map out when I can get it all done. This year the kids are helping. They love to clean and I might even work the actual cleaning times into our school day. I am also going to do a deep clean of all our stuff.

Goal 3.
Curriculum
I have most of Charlie's Kindergarten curriculum picked out. I just need to find materials for a few subjects and order what I have picked out. We plan on starting Kindergarten in May and going year round, 8 weeks of school, 3 weeks off, with some exceptions. My bloggy friend Susanna has been a great source of inspiration and help in pointing me in the many directions to make this process much less overwhelming...thanks Susanna!!

Goal 4.
Plan Tommy's bday party. This year it falls on Easter and we are thinking of doing a family party on Easter/Easter Dinner and a friend party the day before. Yesterday he wanted a "Mimi" party (Mimi stands for anything rescue related, fire truck, ambulance etc. even though he can say those words now, we all seem to fall back on the Mimi) and today he wants a tow truck party...sigh! We will see what he wants tomorrow and stick with that :)

Goal 5
Get back on track with household organization.
* I enjoyed doing the once a month cooking and have even been cooking in bulk lately. However, I want to set up a rotating meal plan for the year. I know, crazy, but I think I will feel so accomplished if I can do this and it will make shopping/preparing meals even that much easier.
* I also need to do a freshen up of our budget as we have new goals and plans that we want to implament...such as putting up our house for sale in the spring of 2011!! But in order to do that we need to have a significant downpayment savings first.
*Besides the spring cleaning that will start next week, I need to come up with a better cleaning/laundry plan. Before Tommy was born I had a plan down and it worked really well...umm that was 3 years ago. Needless to say it has been a little haphazard and now with our furry friend Bo, we need a cleaning plan and we needed it yesturday!!

Goal 5
Giving to others.
Finalize plans for giving to Amazima. Get involved with food pantry at church. This includes have kids pick out food items to take each week. The plans for all this will be completed once the budget is redone.

Goal 6
Relax and enjoy this season of life.