Snow Time

We've had a little snow in the 'ville over the weekend and the kiddos have really enjoyed getting out in it to play. Even better, Ryan has been the sweetest big brother to take them out and let me stay in where it's warm! I just love watching them play from the window and they are not aware that I am.

Ryan and Emma spent most of their time in the sleds while Rebecca spent her time just playing with the snow. Ryan and Emma are all about action packed adventure while Rebecca is just happy to be doing her little thing!

Not Your Typical Yard Decor

This is what we found out by our driveway this morning when we got up. Not your typical yard decor! Poor kid, a wrecker came later this a.m. and pulled it out. Thankfully no one was hurt and his pickup was at least driveable once it had been extracted. He's coming back tomorrow to cut down the tree but Brian had to cut a few limbs off so we could get out of the driveway.

The odd thing is, we've lived here for almost 9 years now and this is the second car this week that has ended up in that same spot. And this little winter storm was nothing compared to some others we have endured here.

Visions of Fancy Cakes

Little Miss Emma, she's so my child. I love to cook and specifically would love to be able to make fancy cakes, cookies, cupcakes aka something along the lines of Bakerella but the emphasis is on the desire. Unfortunately the actual product never quite works out like the pictures. I know my limits and just know the cute little snowmen cake pops on her site would NEVER turn out that cute in my kitchen. But I digress. Emma has those same exact desires I do and it tickled the absolute daylights out of me when she asked for a 'Girl Gourmet Bakery' for Christmas. Even better, Santa was kind enough to oblige.

We finally got around to trying it out the other day and it took us what seemed like an hour to make one little bitty cake that was eaten in about 2.3 seconds. But the main thing, we had a blast working on it together! Can't wait to try it again!

Memories, Oh Sweet Memories

Have I ever mentioned how much I love surprises? And friendships? And sweet memories? All three of those came together yesterday in an email that popped up in my inbox. A very sweet friend who I met online, yes I know - it seems I meet a lot of friends online - through the adoption process of waiting for Rebecca sent me this sweet picture.

It absolutely made my day and sent my mind flying back a year ago to our trip to China. Brian and I climbed quite a bit of the area of the Great Wall we visited on our first trip to China but on the second trip it was so cold and poor little Emma, her little short legs just didn't work well on those steps because they are so uneven so we stayed pretty close to where we were all to meet back up. Ryan was 7 on our first trip and he did climb higher than us but he went higher with another couple that was in our group. This time though, he was just about to turn 11 and well, an 11 year old just doesn't think he needs to be with his parents as much as a 7 year old does. He took off with some of the other kids from our group. It seemed like they were gone absolutely forever but I'm sure that's because I just wasn't sure about him being so far away from us - especially since we were so far from home! But he was in good hands, Kathie's son (the one on the left) was with them. The other young man in the picture (in the middle) lives very close to us, probably less than 10 miles yet we met in Beijing, China.

Thank you Kathie for pictures you sent me - they made my day! All of the pictures I have of them climbing are taken from far away!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was absolutely delightful, the kiddos were so sweet. Sweet to us, sweet to one another. Just couldn't have asked for them to act any better. Rebecca woke up first but didn't realize there were all kinds of goodies for her but boy did her eyes light up when she discovered them. Santa brings 3 gifts each in our home and then of course we add some things to that too. Last year he bought some really cool "sacks" on clearance from Lands End and even had them personalized. Santa rocks! :-) He even knew to get one for Rebecca, now isn't that just something! Wonderful, wonderful Christmas. It was such a treat to be able to share in that with little Bex this year. She was certainly on our mind and in our hearts this time last year. We were so disappointed that we weren't able to travel to get her before Christmas, or even right after but it just didn't work out as we wanted. What a blessing though to have her home for this Christmas!

For Today

Doing this little exercise a day early this week as tomorrow is packed, plus - it's really quiet around here right now :-)

Outside my window: It's COLD and the sky is a beautiful bright blue. I read in the paper earlier that it's not supposed to get above freezing this week. BRRRR.

I Am Thinking: About how much I enjoy the Christmas season, the reason for the season, all the decorations, the fun in buying presents for Brian and the kiddos and the overall just happy time of the year. It's probably rather of odd of me to then add that after it's all over though, I'm ready to get everything down and put away. Which is what we did over the long weekend. While I was at it, I went ahead and went through the Christmas storage boxes and threw away broken/chipped ornaments that weren't of any sentimental value and then also cleaned out a lot of other little things I've picked up over the years but never really used. That's been needing to be done for quite a while!

I Am Thankful For: A sweet hubby who was with me every step of the way of putting up and organizing the decorations and then cleaning up the rooms. What a blessing to have a hubby who is more than happy to help me with these kinds of things.

From The Kitchen: Chicken and Dumplings tonight ... simple food always tastes so good after the holidays.

I Am Wearing: Gray pajama pants ... I changed into comfy right after church because I am NOT planning on getting back out tonight.

I Am Creating: Not really creating this week, but I am organizing. I've never really been one for New Year's resolutions but I've just had it with our house. I think I've mentioned before that we really didn't start out on an organized foot here, things just pretty much stayed wherever the movers put them when we moved here. Then add 2 more children, 2 deaths in the family and 8 1/2 years of accumulating new things and well, our house just seems to be busting at the seams. A booked called "Go Organize" caught my eye at Lowe's a few weeks ago and I picked it up. Instead of just finding ways to organize your things, it really talks about purging and not living with the guilt of feeling like you have to keep things. Brian laughed when he saw me reading it but I tell you, we used the approach from the book on just our hall closet and I'm a believer. I've drank the kool-aid. Just from one regular size coat closet we were able to take two big black trash bags of coats, good coats at that as well as some matching hat/glove sets and various other things that I've held on to for years. It wasn't easy parting with a a nice 35mm camera that Brian bought me after we were first married but it hasn't been used since we went to China in 2005. We can now see the floor of the closet, we can easily hang up our coats and the gloves and hats are in labled bins on the top shelf. Not bad for a few hours of work. But it does make me wonder ... if I can haul off two big bags from ONE closet, oh dear - how much am I going to get rid of from the rest of the house?! GO - ORGANIZE!

I Am Going: To start working on the dining room next. It has somehow turned in my "office" for lack of a better word with stacks of things to do, paperwork to go through, bills to pay, pictures to frame, coupons to cut ... the list goes on and on.

I Am Reading: Finished the tear jerker that Santa brought me, "Where the River Ends". If anyone would like to read it, I'd happily mail it to you. Now catching up on some magazines that have come in over the last couple of weeks: Bon Appetite & my favorite Southern Living. Finishing up "Go Organize" too.

I Am Hoping: That I do not grow weary in this organizing/purging process.

I Am Praying For: The same young lady and her family that I mentioned last week as well as a friend of ours who is dealing with some health issues while her husband is serving our country overseas.

I Am Hearing: Silence for now, Ryan is at a friends, the girls are asleep and thankfully the TV is off. Oh, and the dryer just buzzed so I probably should start wrapping this up.

Around The House: Enjoying the downstairs being cleaned after getting the trees and decorations put away. Bills to pay. Laundry to finish since I didn't get it done last week. Back packs and sleep bags to pack for daycare and school starting back up tomorrow.

One Of My Favorite Things: An hour of silence. Any less than that really doesn't make a difference and more than that, well - that's just too much silence.

A Few Plans For The Rest of The Week: Ryan has basketball practice on Monday night and I guess I'm on duty since Brian has a deacon meeting. Gymnastics on Thursday night. Looks like a pretty easy week so far, goodness - at this point I think even next weekend is open. That doesn't happen often with us!

We're also trying something new this week, a financial fast. It starts tomorrow and runs through next Monday. The idea comes from another blogger buddy of mine, who also happens to be one of the volunteers who worked in the Starfish Home and is the one who named Rebecca. Basically, we're going to set aside a certain amount of money - this time we're trying $50, and this money has to last us all week for both groceries and eating out. The latter of which is by far where we spend way more money that we should. With that said, the freezer is full so we're probably allocating too much money this time around but this is just a trial run. We'll see how it goes but this will mean that there will not be any trips to Target or Wal-Mart just to get out and about which also always means buying things we really do not need. No lunches out with girlfriends this week. No running to the mall at noon and picking up just a shirt or pair of jeans for the girls, none of that! Hopefully I'll have good things to share about this test next week! The idea I'm copying from is modified drastically, their family went on a 30 Day Financial Fast. But I think we'll be doing good to make it a week. After going back and re-reading her post about it I'm feeling somewhat of a slacker in the fast department, but - we're still going to do this and have already talked to the kiddos about it too.

Have a great week everyone!

Princess Stories - What Was I Thinking?

Okay, true confession time. I've never been a princess type of girl and subsequently not a princess type of mama. We have a few princess types of things such as some games and few other things but that's about it. We purchased the Mulan DVD several years ago but it scared the bejabbers out of Emma and I don't think she's ever watched it since. Not sure why but animated movies in general seem to scare her, which is odd since she's not really the type to get scared of anything but nevertheless, animated movies are pretty much out for us.

While out Christmas shopping I bought the girls a Snow White CD, not quite sure what I was thinking! We watched it last night and Emma pretty much clung to Brian the entire movie but we did make it through without her crying. What I wasn't prepared for was the onslaught of questions that came afterwards nor the fact that Rebecca then didn't want to go upstairs by herself to change clothes to get ready for bed. The questions started the minute the movie was over and lasted all through their bath time and getting ready for bed. It would be impossible to recall all of of them but most of the questions revolved around the Queen/Witch, how did she change, what is a spell, why did she change, why did she not like Snow White, did Snow White die or was she just asleep. Peppered with questions I was. But the single question that tickled me the absolute most came from Rebecca, who as I've mentioned before has been pretending she is Mary and she carries baby Jesus around. She asked me about the end of the story and "why she is riding a horse and not a donkey?". You just gotta love that question!