It is FREEZING here in Colorado. We are talking -5 degrees outside. SO I decided we needed a hot chocolate FHE tonight. I had Rebecca grab eight very different hot chocolate mugs, and let me tell you we have quite the variety. We filled them with hot chocolate and then sat around our table sipping and discussing the following poem.
I made this little reminder to hang on our fridge. Below the reminder I kind of outlined our discussion for anyone interested.
And that was our FHE for the night!
CSN stores ROCK! We ended up choosing the Ticket to Ride game....
It was here on my doorstep in no time at all. The kids are dying to play, but I told them we are saving it for our next snow day so that they have something fun to look forward to, .
CSN Stores carry SOOOO many products. You really should check out their site.
Thanks again CSN! You are so kind to think us!
Wanted to post some of Rebecca's latest projects and activities. She had to do a puppet and report on an animal. She chose the elephant. I couldn't find any gray felt so we ended up cutting up an old gray turtle neck shirt to cover her cardboard cut out. We used the sleeve of the shirt to be the trunk. It was stapled and glued, but seemed to hold up for the presentation.
Then Rebecca's class was able to dissect buffalo eyes. I love this dissection because they are so big and you are able to see all the parts of the eye, from the optic nerve to the retina. BTW I think the retina is such a beautiful aqua color.
The other fun event for Rebecca was having lunch with her teacher Mrs. White. One morning she found a card on her desk that invited her and a friend to have lunch in the classroom with Mrs White, AND that Mrs. White would have a dessert. She was thrilled and told us every detail of their conversation.
ALSO, Mrs. White had all of the kids in class write one positive sentence about everyone in the classroom. She then made a sheet for each student that had all of these positive comments about themselves. Rebecca came home grinning ear to ear with her paper. She said, "Mom, you aren't the only one that thinks I'm pretty and smart." Sure love that Mrs. White and all she does!
I love Becky Higgins blog filled with inspiration. She just released another Project Life Kit for 2011, and has been sharing comments on Facebook for photo ideas. She talks about how the everyday things will bring back so many memories years from now. She has shared photo ideas like- shoes, favorite games, books, decorations, school projects, food....
That's when the light bulb went on today as the girls ate their Ramen Noodles for lunch. They LOVE Ramen Noodles and squeal with delight when they get it for lunch. I on the other hand, have NEVER liked Ramen Noodles. I can't even stand the smell of it, BUT I know that someday I'm going to miss the smell of it because that will mean my little girls are now big girls.
ANYWAY, captured what my little girls LOVE to eat for lunch!
"Mom, are you taking pictures of me?"
"Yes I am"
"Well, there's noodles in my smile!"
That last picture makes me want to barf!
It all started with a doctor kit for Christmas. The little girls can't stop playing with it and dragging other family members in to be patients.
The little cardboard badge broke the first day, SO I made little badges for the kids....
Jacob drew some cute cartoon patients for me. We have a Pregnant Polly, Coughing Cathy, Stan Stitches, Heart Attack Henry....They are hung on a little ring so that we as patients have different "ideas" of characters we can be. I also made a simple sheet for them to do their documentation. I just laminated it and attached it to a clip board so they can use it over and over. In the medical profession there is A LOT of documenting so they better learn that now....
Then we use a couple white karate jackets. You could take a men's white t-shirt and cut it up the middle to make an oversize doctor jacket. I grabbed a few masks the last time I was at the doctor's office.
I also added some real wrap bandages for them to fix each other up. I had a bottle of M&M pills, but for some reason the doctors feel like they need them more than the patient. The pills NEVER last.
Oh pretend play is fun.... 
I was talking with my sister Kristy and she was telling me how her girls made badges to play office with typing, filing and all that being busy little secretary stuff. I think my next badges will be a set for office pretend play. I even have "The Office" font.....
A few weeks ago I set a can of Pringles on Jacob's desk with a note that I wrote on the can with a Sharpie. Well, all the other kids kept asking why Jacob got something special and they didn't. I told them that he needed a little something because he was having a hard week. We talked about how life doesn't always give EVERYONE something special at the same time. AND how we need to be aware of those that do need a little something special to help them when life gets hard. It was amazing then how the attitudes changed and sweet notes were given to Jacob that night.
I did realize that I needed to do sweet treats or notes more often than I do. SOOO, today I grabbed Kaylee's favorite candy bar and stuck it in her PJ drawer to find tonight. I'm excited to see her smile after she finds it.
She sooo deserves it. She is always so good to everyone. She practices soccer with Nathan. Lugs Jerrica around playing with her. I don't think a night goes by without her setting a glass of ice water by my nightstand for me. Rebecca shares a room with Kaylee and usually falls asleep reading. Kaylee then marks and closes her book, and turns off the light. Well, I guess the other night Kaylee stayed awake making a fancy bookmark for Becca and slipped it into her book to surprise her.
She sooo deserves a special treat, and I'm soooo excited for her to find it!
On New Year's Eve Day I had printed up five different pictures of activities that we had done as a family. I numbered them and passed them around having each family member write their memory of the event. Here is one of the pictures that I used for this-
And here are some of their comments from this picture:
Kaylee: "Ashley and Jerrica kept throwing an armrest cover out of the stroller and dad kept making Nathan pick it up"
Jacob: "It was one of our best bike rides"
Nathan: "A bird pooped on me and it pooped a ton! And the poop was green."
Rebecca: "We stopped halfway and walked up the back of Costco and got pizza for lunch and I didn't know we were going to do that but I was very hungry and so I was glad that we did that"
Jerrica: "Dad pulling me on his bike under the trees"
Ashley: "I wanted to ride my own bike and not have dad pull me"
I LOVE how different everyone's thoughts on the same memory are. I could never capture all the little details from each one. In fact I had forgotten a lot of the details that the kids brought out as we were doing these pictures. I am definitely going to keep doing this at the end of the year to include in the back of my blog book.
Story time at the library on Thursday mornings is part of our schedule. Jerrica LOVES books and the library. Last week during story time, the librarian was very interactive with the kids. She started a story about a penguin called, "Straight to the Pole". She asked the kids if they thought the penguin was going to the North Pole or the South Pole. Ashley blurted out, "I don't think he wants to go to either, I think he wants to go to the SWIMMING POLE". Of course all the adults laughed and the librarian went on to explain where the North Pole and South Pole were and what they were like.
I sat there analyzing how she was teaching and how many questions she was asking the children. I know that lecturing is less effective when teaching. You must ask questions to find out if your students are understanding you, and to have them reinforce to themselves what you are teaching by answering questions. Actually, YOU, yourself can learn FROM your student as you discuss, because you are giving them an opportunity to teach. Hands on is even more effective because they are actually doing rather than "hopefully" listening to your lecture. There have been a lot of studies done on this concept. The conclusions are that there is a "deeper understanding" when a discussion or hands on activity is done versus a lecture.
Well, Ash LOVED story time and kept talking about the theme the librarian taught. She enjoyed it because she was allowed to participate both by answering questions and then by doing a simple flannel story.
As I drove home I started thinking about my parenting/teaching to my children. I have a tendency to lecture sometimes, whereas I could step back and discuss, which would be more effective. I need to learn from this librarian - ask more questions when I am teaching AND I need to make it a hands on learning experience when I can. Lecturing can be "blah blah blah" as they start to daydream, it is discussing that enlightens understanding.
Everyone has different talents that they enjoy ... I enjoy watching, listening and being inspired by them...
Loved this Tina!
Thanks for sharing!
Right afterschool Nathan takes his soccer ball and heads out to his goal to practice. It was 21 degrees outside! He usually stays out there until well past dark. I remember as a kid playing basketball until dark and my fingers being numb from the cold.
Tonight Stephen went out to play with him a little. I watched from the window as Stephen approached Nathan. Nathan came toward him with a serious look to see what his dad was telling him. Then a smile stretched across his face as he learned that Stephen was playing with him. I smiled to myself as I watched the interaction. I then enjoyed seeing them smile and talk as they tried to play in that FREEZING cold weather.
I ran out to take a picture, but Stephen was on his way inside. (He's not as tough as Nathan) I did go on out and take a picture of Nathan because that sunset was just too pretty.
Oh how that boy LOVES soccer!
So in the past I always get emails from people wanting me to email a recipe, craft or lesson because it appears blurry to them when they save my picture to their computer and try to print it. I think it is something that happens when I blog in LiveWriter. Anyway, I've just gotten used to telling people that I will email the file to them so that they don't lose the resolution. However, it would be so much easier to have it set up that they can just download the link or be able to save it to their computer without losing the resolution.
SO how do I do that? How do I post something that everyone can just download if they wanted to? Do you have a problem printing something that is off my blog?
I had a few phone calls from dear ones wanting "my" bookmark version. I had originally seen it on Sugardoodle HERE. I'm not aware of an archery range nearby AND my family LOVES Olive Garden, so I had to tweak our activities a little AND I tweaked the fonts AND I added a header AND I tweaked some of the clipart....
Anything to keep us reading along....
(If you want a copy I can email you a jpeg version that has 3 bookmarks on a page, just let me know)
The original version can be found in that above link.
SO as I was getting all my pictures organized from last year, I realized that I could count on one hand how many pictures I was in.
SO I decided that this year I was going to make sure that I was in MORE pictures.
SO today Stephen didn't have early morning meetings before church, SO I sat HIM down and my photographer (AKA Kaylee) shot some pictures of us.
Yes we look like dorks, but I'm glad we got a few pictures of us.
I sure love my Stever! He is ALWAYS so good to me!
Friday was out of control running kids around to practices, jazz class and scout campouts.
Nathan started his outdoor practices with Copa. When I picked him up he was talking about how fast this one boy was and then what a huge kick this other one had. I told him that it was good to have all these boys on his team with their strengths to make up for weaknesses that other boys may have. He then turned to me and said, "They probably wanted me because of my footwork. I'm glad they needed me." I smiled to myself as I heard HIM say that they WANTED and they NEEDED him. I feel that it is so important to feel wanted and needed, but even more important to KNOW that.
Saturday we had a "clean the entire house morning" that ended in an afternoon movie of ....
The buttery popcorn, giggles from the kids and snuggles from Jerrica made it the perfect afternoon. ESPECIALLY, when Stephen said that we should just pick up Papa Johns so that we didn't have to worry about dinner.
The only bad part was not having Jacob with us. He was on a scout overnighter. He LOVES camping and I'm sure was having a blast with his friends, but I was just sad that he wasn't with us! I don't know how I'm going to do it when my kids start leaving home.
Well, on to a new week.....
I do have Blurb slurp my blog and then go in and tweak it. If I see small posts close together, I go into photoshop and make an 8 x 10 page with the posts together on a page. It is a lot more user friendly and quicker if I do it in photoshop and then drag the page into Blurb as a photo page. I don't do this for every post. Just the ones that I want to tweak. Then delete the small Blurb slurped posts. You could do this in Blurb, it just takes a little longer.
My pictures just seem to look better on that premium paper to me. It also seems a little heavier to withstand all the hands turning the pages.
The stitching is actually a free digital scrapbook element from one of Shabby Princess collection. It is under the Harvest file. If you haven't tried any of their papers, you really should they are so fun and FREE!
Yes I was frustrated too when I first used Blurb. They slurped all my pictures and pages so fast and I thought that it would all be fast, BUT it took a little time to familiarize myself with the program and what would work for me. I do like photoshop for quick page arrangements when I'm combining posts though.
Hope that answers your questions! Good luck, the books sure are worth it. Going from full on scrapbooking with all the supplies and expense to Blurb books saves so much time and money!
Remember how I have a little girl obsessed with making snowflakes? Well, as soon as I saw this treat on my Family Fun email I knew we would have to try it out. You fold your tortilla into quarters and cut a shape on each side with kitchen shears....
Unfold your snowflake and admire it.... 
Brush melted butter onto your tortilla flake and then sprinkle some yummy cinnamon sugar on it....
Then we stuck them in the oven on a low broil to heat it up. We admired the pretty sugar crystals when they came out of the oven. They look like snow crystals, and oh they are YUMMY! Perfect project for a snowflake maker!
I think that projects involving treats are always the BEST!
Isn't it fun how a costume can transform you?!?! Jerrica FELT that she was a super hero ALL day long. She found the cape in dress up in the morning and refused to take it off. She FLEW (jumped) from chair to chair. RAN at super speed (at least as fast as her little legs could go). The villan she fought all day long was Lord Licorice (from the CandyLand DVD game) Ash and I took turns being Lord Licorice for her.
I think that I might wear her cape so that I can conquer the world tomorrow!
I just received one of my blog books. I say one because I have two volumes for this year, and the first one hasn't come yet but I can't wait to share... (In fact theses pictures are terrible but I still just had to post them anyway because I was too excited. I was having a VERY hard time trying to hold the book open to take pictures. I grabbed something to help hold the page down but it wasn't heavy enough to hold the page from slipping, YET I kept trying to use it...)
I have them printed on the premium paper. The limit per book using premium paper is 160 pages, so that's exactly what I have in each of my blog books. I choose the standard portrait books. I feel that the bigger sized books just make it too easy to have pages torn because the page is larger and a little more awkward. (Just my preference). I also do the hardcover image wrap because dust covers just rip and fall off with all the looking at the books. The image wrap is like a permanent dust cover.
I have my own system to keep continuity to the book. I use stitching in between different posts on the same page. I use the same font for all of the dates. I try to keep a full page "favorite" picture every few pages. I really like having the full page pictures to give your eye a chance to rest from all the posts and reading...
Some pages have multiple posts. When I first did a Blurb book and had them place all the posts I didn't like how a small post would use an entire page. OR how some of my favorite pictures weren't given a big space.
I really should've taken more pictures because these just don't do my book justice. I needed a little helper to hold it open.
For my kids' books that I give them for Valentine's -(found HERE), I do all pictures with no text in the book except for the entry page. I slurp their folder into a photo layout Blurb book and just arrange them in Blurb's layouts. I also put full page pictures every few pages as well. On the entry page is where I try to do a little write up about them for the year.
In the blog book I have this written on the copyright page ...
The cover page I put "Lived, Blogged, and Loved every moment!"
Anyway, just thought I would share with all of you. I have had quite a few questions about Blurb, if this didn't answer it just email me again.
