Congrats, Em!

Emily was spotlighted as student of the month a few weeks ago. Thankfully, the program is quick--it has to be--it's done 20 times a year. I had Hannah and Lizzie with me and it felt like church--everyone turning around to see who the loud child was, then everyone turning around to see the mom chase and entertain the child in attempts to keep her quiet. Liz was frustrated she couldn't go sit by Emily, who is always so proud to show off her sisters.

Good Reads

Not too often do I blog about books I've read. But every once in awhile I find a book that is blog worthy.
I like to read books like I watch most movies--in fast forward. If it's a good book I read it quickly, usually in one night. Last week I read Austenland by Shannon Hale. It was entertaining, it made me laugh, it was fun to think about, so I gobbled it up in a couple of hours. I also quickly read through a couple of other books last week. Fun, fun, fun!
But, rarely does a book come along that I read slowly! At first it almost annoyed me that I felt I had absorbed so much only to find that I was only a few chapters in. Is my reading pace slowing in my old age? I wondered. No, it's just a different kind of read. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral is my latest project to help me ignore the laundry, the sweeping, the dishes and all those other things that have not yet made it to my list of hobbies. The book is about a family who devotes a year to eating foods that are found within a hundred miles of their home. It's inspiring and a bit romantic to read about their garden (it's huge), the amount of tomatoes canned (over 300 lbs.) and the good lives their animals (or their neighbors' animals) lived before being 'harvested'. When I read the book I feel a sense of reverence towards plants and animals. It makes me feel even more excited about my garden and ways I can better my family's eating habits. Books are a great source of entertainment for me, but books that help me to change my life for the better get to be placed on a pedestal for awhile.

Hobbies

I had a great chat with a friend a few weeks ago that reminded me once again how overly blessed I am in the friend department. This wise friend was talking about how she has shifted her thinking of hobbies since becoming a mom. Now she gets excited about finding great deals when shopping, trying out new hairstyles on her oldest daughter and cooking for her family. Not a bad list, but it made me laugh. Certainly my hobbies have transformed as well and have broadened to include things like yardwork and organizing preschool curriculum. I also like to refinish furniture and paint walls. I get satisfaction out of big projects and feel empowered when I see things change in a drastic way (which is why I like cutting down trees). I also like simpler hobbies--making things for the girls, baking and reading.
I don't know that I have a favorite because the way I do projects (throwing my whole self into it) burns me out and so I just move onto something else.
Currently my free time is invested in yardwork and reading. At night I dream about 2 dressers I want to make over for the girls. During the day the girls and I bake whenever we can. Emily has even started to take over some of the baking, which is very exciting.
What are your current hobbies? Maybe I can add a new one to my list of things to try!

What a great day!

On Saturday we enjoyed a lovely day of enjoying the wonders of California. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to a forest that has huge, 1,000 year old redwoods. I love being in relaxed settings like this with the girls. It's peaceful, it's interesting, we learn a few things about trees and plants and animals. Rachel was even taking studious notes while we listened to a park ranger talk about the root infrastructure of redwoods!

Being outside means happy kids. We did have one sad occurence: a very loved stuffed animal made it into the forest but unfortunately did not leave with us. Licorice the Cat decided she was happiest in a nature setting and went for a river run. We'll miss you Licorice, but your replacement arrived a few days ago.

When we left the forest we were satisfied and thought we were done for the day. One minute on the road to home we saw a sign for a beach. What a great way to end our lovely day! We weren't prepared to go to the beach, but not much is needed, right? Just let the kids loose and they discover all kinds of things to do. There was a great hill to climb with great views, a horse out for a stroll and tons of entertaining dogs to watch. Another perfect day in sunny California. A person could really get used to this! :)

Science Fair Projects

Em and Ray entered the science fair with projects about things they liked. Ray's was counting the different colors in fun size m&m bags to see which color came up the most. Any guesses as to which one won? She hypothesized orange would win. Was her hypothesis correct?

Em measured grease in different potato chips. She hypothesized Ruffles had the most grease. She also tested Lay's, Pringles, Corozano's, and Tim's. Was her hypothesis correct? We crushed potato chips on graph paper, then counted the number of squares filled in by grease. A good project if you'd like to be turned off from eating potato chips!

I think they learned a lot and so did I.

Shopping Spree!

I saw a site that had a blurb about getting rewards for searching the internet using their toolbar. I checked it out and thought it might be worth a try. Swagbucks is the site. Heard of it? Usually I google everything, but using the Swagbucks tool bar has turned web searching into a game. Every once in awhile I get a pop up saying I just got a swagbuck and then I can see my total. I just started Saturday night and I'm only up to 7. I'm not going for the big prizes (10.1 megapixel camera worth 4350 'bucks'). I'm just aiming for a $20 Target gift card (220 swagbucks). I figure after doing all the searches I do for school projects, preschool activities and just general stuff, in a few months I can reward myself for all my hard work and go on a small shopping spree. This is the first time I've seen an opportunity for a shopping spree for doing what I normally do, so I'm going to give this a try.
Anyone else tried this?

Things that make me...

Here's just a random list to show how I'm feeling (which is all over the place lately!):

Things that make me laugh: Rachel thought the song "Little Purple Pansies" was really "Little Purple Panties". Now the girls crack up as they sing it for our Family Home Evening opening song. They don't even really know the tune, they just like to sing very loudly "Little purple panties."

Things that make me sad: I'm showing signs of carpal tunnel syndrome (burning and tingling in my hands, weakened grip strength and periodic numbness throughout the day). Random and unwelcome.

Things that make me lonely: Jon traveling.

Things that make me excited: Getting things ready for preschool next year. I dream about activities I am going to do with the kids. Who knew that you could get so excited about letter games?!

Things that make me tired: Lizzie, not sleeping through the night, housework and trying to keep up with, well, everything!

Things that make me happy: Listening to the girls play happily together.

Things that frustrate me: Listening to the girls be unkind to each other. To help with that we dubbed this week 'Nice Week' where we leave kind notes to each other and play games with each other. Their favorite so far is similar to the Baby Shower pin game. I clip clothespins on the girls after school and whenever they hear someone saying something unkind they can take a pin from that person. So far, I'm winning.

Things that make me laugh: The other favorite game we played this week is Sticker Tag. I set the timer for 5 minutes and then with a sheet of stickers we run around trying to tag each other with stickers. Timer goes off and then we count how many stickers we have on us. We played it before bed time and they went to bed really well that night!

Things that make me feel old: Thinking about my list of things to do compared to the girls' list of things to do.

Things that make me feel younger: Jumping on the trampoline with the girls at night. There's something about being out at night--like we've all snuck out of the house--maybe because everyone is inside being quiet and we're outside being pretty loud.