Four Little Monkeys

Whenever I hear the word monkey I think of the song "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" and no other child in our family, or quite possibly the world, is more suited to this song than our Bella. She is always finding a place to jump onto or off of and no matter how many times we tell her no, she simply smiles her sweet Bella smile and waits until you walk out of the room. So with her birthday right around the corner, we decided to take her to Monkey Joe's (a Chuck E. Cheese type place except switch all of the token operated games with giant inflatable jumping stations). It turns out that this was the greatest birthday gift ever. Bella jumped for hours in perfect bliss. She went to the top of places we didn't think she could climb, although it is a well known fact in our household that you never underestimate Bella. The smile never left her face and her sister and brothers certainly enjoyed the morning as well. Our friend Nikki and her kids met up with us also. And after a few hours of jumping we headed to Chick-Fil-A for Bella's favorite meal, chicken nuggets and waffle fries and ended our morning with Mommy and Daddy's favorite, nap time.

Procrastination

Procrastination is a dirty little word that no one likes to admit to, but more often than not I am sure we all deal with it on a daily basis (hourly in my case). Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow? Well as I have learned through our recent class on "The Hurried Life", procrastination is one of those little evils that creeps into our lives to distract us from what is really important. I know, how can keeping up with laundry and washing endless sinkfuls of dishes be that important. But it is and it really does bring a certain peace to our household when chores are finished and projects accomplished. A glaring example of this in our lives is the swingset we got for the kids. Last APRIL, we bought a wooden playset with a fort for the kids to play in during the summer. However, due to hot weather, life, excuses we never got around to putting it together. We toyed with the idea of hiring someone just to get it out of the garage. After several long months, it became somewhat of a joke in our family that the playset sits in our garage (labeled and ready to assemble) while children desperately want to play on it. Well, after only 10 1/2 months we have finally started to put it together. Although it takes a long time to get through even one phase of assembly, even with our little helpers (or maybe that is why it takes so long :) we have made progress and progress feels good. So now that we are motivated to get this done and move on to our next daunting project (cleaning out the garage) the weather has turned cold and rainy. So much for making headway. Will I ever learn that it is better to get things done now and bask in the contentment of a job well done? Well, that sounds like a great goal for 2010!!! Phase One FramePhase Two FloorPhase Three Fort (or at least part of it)

AWANA Grand Prix

Our family has been looking forward to the AWANA Grand Prix for weeks if not months. While race day is certainly one of the highlights of our year, it is the planning, creating, and customizing that make the cars so special. This year Calla entered "Star Racer" in the pinewood derby and got third in the first heat and second in the second heat. This year Noah was able to stay and watch the race, which he loved. I could almost see him planning his strategy for next year. Noah also made a car this year, but since he is not in AWANA yet he was not able to race it...officially. We have a date at my mother's church to race the car she created against Noah's "Spiderman Car" and "Star Racer". It should be a real nail biter. Here are some pictures of the race, Calla and Noah's cars, Calla with her participation ribbon and some of the other cars that raced this year.

Make a Smilebox postcard

Snow Day...Again!?!?

Wow, two snow days in one year, that is quite a feat in Charlotte. We all went to sleep early Tuesday night thinking about our growing to-do list on Wednesday. Our Wednesday is always an extra special day in our week because it is "Grandma Day". Wednesday is the day my Mom comes over and we take Bella to speech therapy, run errands, window shop, go out to lunch and just have fun. But this Wednesday was far from routine. We woke up to snow!!! Shortly after that, school was cancelled and the fun began. We ate pancakes shaped like snowmen for breakfast and decorated them with chocolate chips. Then when Grandma got here,we all bundled up and headed out into the elements. After a competitive snowball fight and some precious snow angels, we took a long walk through the woods enjoying the beautiful snow. Once the kids got cold, we headed in for, what else, hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. We finally made it out of the house and on to our list of errands, which turned out to be severely limited. Some of the places we had planned to go, like Bella's therapy, were closed. So instead we did a little shopping and had an early lunch and then headed back. The day may not have turned out as I planned it, but when you make special memories it always turns out so much better.