I’ve been going to physical therapy for almost a year now for my back….once a week since the beginning of June. This month the boys have been spending every Wednesday morning with Ms Kristen and her daughter. They have an amazing backyard to play in and an amazing covered back porch filled with play structures and other therapy contraptions the boys love!
Finn was chosen as the Core Value Student of the Month for his Kindergarten class!!!! The Core Value for the month of December was Compassion, (Helps Others In Need, Is Forgiving and Shows Care and Concern For All) absolutely perfect for our Finn!!! We are SO proud! They had a little recognition ceremony at the school where they presented him this award certificate….and then we had cake! :)
It has been difficult to do service projects with the boys at young ages, like Kellen’s age and since Finn was born, we have always had a child at Kellen’s age.
I have had the idea for us to do “Blessing Bags” for quite a while but just haven’t pulled it off yet. When it came to the end of the year and squaring away all of our charitable donations we had set aside some money to get the boys involved so they could start to get an understanding for giving of our time and money to those in need. The first thing we did was to purchase a goat through Heifer International, which the boys chose and has made a HUGE impression on them.
The second idea was to do the Blessing Bags which we did on MLK!
First we went to target and acquired our supplies. The boys helped pick out every single item, counted them out, put them in the cart and up on the belt. They were very helpful, worked together as a team and were very proud! We brought everything home to assemble the bags!
Then we drove downtown to a park and handed out our bags! The boys were so excited and proud and just so happy to be helping! This gentleman asked for a hug and then asked if we had a camera, which I did though I wasn’t planning on taking pictures I had just left it in my pocket from the house, but he was just so nice and lovely and then he held our hands and said a lovely prayer. One man took a few items from a bag and then shared the remainder of the bag with another man. It was a really great project and I am so happy and proud! This was the perfect project for all ages!
And don’t you come back, no more, no more, no more, no more!!!
I could not be more happy to see this piece of baby gear leave my house!!!
buh-bye impossible to clean space sucker!!!!!
Kellen sits at the table like a big boy now and he loves it! Sorry, no picture to capture his very happy face, but trust me, he loves it….he can now reach Riley and grab him and his cup/food and all around torture him. He’s very happy. :)
Yesterday was the 100th Day of School for Finn! They had a FUN celebration, got to dress down and had a special project to complete. They had to make a collage of 100 things. Finn originally chose grains of rice. Unfortunately grains of rice do not easily glue to poster board. Thankfully they gave us some hints/ideas because at the 11th hour, finding out your idea doesn’t work is no bueno. So, stickers it was! Thankfully we have a lifetime supply of stickers!
He grouped them in sets of 20 and by sports, cars, dogs, smiley faces and stars. And he did it all by himself (even an attempt at spelling twenty)!
Yeah, TODD and Finn are both so ridiculously excited that Finn has finally started playing basketball!!! Finn chose #4, just like Robbie Hummel!
And of course there is video!!! They don’t let them do break-aways, so if there is a turn-over, the play stops until everyone gets situated on the other end. They don’t have to dribble, but they can if they want and then they can stop when they want. It is pretty cute. Even though most of them don’t completely understand the game yet, they are all paying attention and aren’t just staring off in to space. We do have a couple of kids on our team that are really good though! Finn has had two games so far and a handful of practices and he keeps getting better and better with each passing week. He almost got his first game-time basket last week, he got 10 baskets at practice last night. Definitely looking forward to watching his progress!
Finn’s first attempt during warm-up.
Every now and then I come up with an idea and feel like a genius!
Like this…..one boy wanted to play with the loop car ramp thing. Then next thing you know they all do and there is fighting. So I say, hey, we’ve got MILES of car tracks and other loop things….so off I go to set up three different car tracks for the boys!! One for each boy! But once I got one of the loops set up each boy wanted one specifically. So then I say, OK, let me set up the timer, each boy gets 5 minutes at each station and then we switch. It was AMAZING.
It was AMAZING. For about 15 minutes…which I know has actually got to be a record breaking time, right? And then it all went downhill in a ball of flames. One of those ball of flame moments that keeps spiraling and spiraling and spiraling until every single person in the house is crying, including me. What is actually AMAZING is how you can go from feeling like a complete genius to feeling like the worst mother in the entire world.
But, I’m going to look at these pictures and just focus on the genius part. :)
If you have not read this book, you should! “Not A Box” is cute and perfect for the boys. It is all about a box, that isn’t really a box.
My Christmas presents came in the mail and the boys went crazy with the giant boxes!
Then Finn sat down, pulled out the scissors and some glue and said he wanted to make an airplane with his box. I gave him some packing tape because to be honest a glue stick was not going to work. And then I had to help a very distraught Riley who did not understand how to make an airplane with his box.
Kellen stomping on something and Riley dancing to his beat!
And I don’t even know what to say about this….
My dear sweet baby Kellen….oh how I love this boy! When I sneeze now he will say “Bless You, Momma”. Ohhhh it just melts my heart. He will also say it for everyone else and it is just too sweet!
Last year for NYE, an idea was born to rent a cabin in the north GA mountains for NYE for the following year….and we actually followed through and made it happen! I have to say, we owe it all to Kathleen for actually getting on the ball and organizing and finding the house!!!
We went up on Saturday and came home on New Years Day, 3 nights, 4 families, it was PERFECT!!!
When we arrived on Saturday we spent a lot of time figuring out sleeping arrangements, getting groceries and then drinking. We had a dance party. We all awoke on Sunday with massive hangovers. And I was in charge of breakfast. Rough. But damn we had a lot of FUN!
To help ease our aching heads (and bodies, damn we are not in our 20’s anymore and a 4 hour dance party was a killer!) we headed into the mountains for a hike! As we drove up, the temperature dropped and there was frost and snow!
We managed to get this group photo before setting off for the hike!
But then Riley had a complete and total meltdown. It was FREEZING cold and he was not having it. So Riley and I went back to the car and hung out with the heat BLAZING. I really took one for the team, lol! But on they hiked!
Everyone was FROZEN when they got back to the cars. On the way back down we stopped at this gorgeous overlook to take some pics!
And then it was time to hit the hot tub….or as it was very quickly renamed “the luke warm tub”.
So in to the real hot tub they went!
Our house was situated on a creek and we decided it was time to cross to the other side! :)
Lots of smores around the awesome fire pit!
For New Year’s Eve, we made the kids dinner, and planned an early countdown with the kids with sparkling cider and sparklers!!!
Kellen cheersing with Todd in the background followed by a huge happy smiley Kellen!
Sparkler time!
Then we put the kids to bed and grilled up some steaks and had a delicious grown up dinner!!! And we even all made it to midnight! Happy New Years!
