Sydney's Selfie & Other Things To Be Thankful For

Today I'm thankful for . . .

1. Handprint Art.  This afternoon, Sydney and Liam made some pretty awesome works of art for Father's Day.  I would post pictures of their work, but it would spoil the surprise for you-know-who.  I'm under strict orders to keep it confidential.  So stay posted until June 15th...

2. Picnic lunches in the yard.  Sydney and I had lovely picnic lunch in the sunshine this afternoon.  Sydney laid out a big yellow beach towel all by herself, which she was very proud of accomplishing.  It started to get pretty hot in the sunlight, so we fetched our giant umbrella and ate under its shade.  We enjoyed star noodles, cold pizza, grapes, strawberries, cucumbers, and goldfish crackers.  It was quite a feast.

3. Big umbrellas.  Our big umbrella is good for more than keeping us dry during a monsoon or providing shade during a sunny afternoon picnic.  It can also be a big boat, as Sydney showed me.  She sang "Row, row, your boat" as she rocked back and forth inside of it.  She also twirled it around like a baton, and she even stood up on a chair and stretched up high to make the umbrella touch the ceiling.  It kept her quite entertained for a good while.  I just hope that the old superstition isn't true of having bad luck when you open an umbrella indoors- if it is, we're totally doomed.

4.  Sydney's Selfie.  She got a hold of my phone this morning and took about 50 photos around the house- mostly of her toes, the inside of our bedroom closets, and the view looking over the balcony and down the stairs (I don't want to think about how she had to dangle my phone over the edge of the balcony for those photos...)  Of all of them, this one is my favorite.

5. Lots of time with Sydney.  I just realized how much I'm writing about Sydney.  I'm so glad I got to have some one-on-one time with her today.  Liam has been sick with a fever and a cough over the past few days.  Today his fever seemed to hit a peek and he took a very long nap in the morning.  That gave Sydney and me some extra time to spend together.  We had a lot of fun, but I hope Liam hit the worst of it today so he'll be feeling better soon.

6. Drawing with Lillian.  Lillian wants to learn how to draw a horse, so we looked up some easy step-by-step instructions online.  We sketched, erased, and resketched together.  We discussed where to draw our lines and we asked each other, "How would Unlce Alan do it?"  In the end, our horses didn't turn out nearly as well as the teacher-illustrator's, and we decided that her instructions weren't ideal (although our ability level is probably some of the blame...at least a little bit). :)  I did a quick search on our library's online catalog and found some books by a guy named Dan Green.  He has a bunch of different books on how to do simple line drawings, geared toward kids- "How to Draw....101 Animals; 101 Monsters; 101 Silly People; 404 Things for Girls; 404 Things for Boys; Dinosaurs and Other Cool Things, 101 Ocean Animals," etc.  I'm hoping we can get our hands on some of these books soon.  Lillian suggested getting them for her birthday...hmmm, good idea!

I love how Lilly drew her horse's mane, and the sun with the squiggly rays coming off of it.  Like it's right out of My Little Pony! 

7. The way Liam says, "I want you" and "I want to hold you!" when he wants me to pick him up and hold him.  If he's talking to someone else and I mistakenly think he's talking to me he'll say, "I'm not talking at you, Mom." His little brain is working so hard trying to master the grammar of the English language!  I love it!

June Joys

Today I'm thankful for...

1. Lillian falling asleep next to me with her head on my shoulder and my arm wrapped around her.

2. Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, and antibiotics to treat Sydney and Liam's fevers and ear ache.

3. Freeze pops.

4. Paul Cardall's piano music.

5. Warm sunshine. So nice after a long, cold, snowy winter.

6. June! This is the month of the last day of school and the first day of summer! I'm so excited for all the things I'll get to do with the kids, with Bobby, and with other family and friends over the next few months. Can't wait!

Tigers and Kitties and Native American Princesses...Oh My!

Today I'm thankful for...

1. The view out of my bathroom window.

2. When my kids call me "Mama."

3. Face painting!  One of my neighbors painted the kids' faces today.  She is always painting her two little girls' faces and she offered it to Lillian, Sydney, and Liam.  They jumped at the offer and sat completely still while she worked.  Liam was a tiger, Sydney was a pink kitty cat, and Lillian was a Native American Princess.  So cute!

4. Bobby sitting next to me on the couch.  He's been on call today and other than a few hours at the hospital to take care of some things, he's been able to be with us.  We had a great BBQ dinner and he helped get the kids to bed.  He's been able to dodge a few bullets by taking care of phone calls that did not require him to go to the hospital.  I really hope he'll be able to get a good night's rest to start the week off well tomorrow.

Life and Gardening

Today I'm thankful for...

1. The ten dollar bill I found in the dryer this morning.  It's nice to get "paid" for the work I do around the house. :)

2. Lillian's prayer when she said she's grateful for the rain because it helps all the flowers and trees grow.

3. The way Liam holds onto the corner of his pillow as he's falling asleep.

4. Sydney's big, blue eyes with long eyelashes and the freckles on her nose.

5. Flower seeds and gardening.  It's amazing how many parallels and metaphors can be made between planting/growing seeds and life.  Four young women from church came to my house tonight and we planted flower seeds in little clay pots together.  We talked about how growing flowers is like growing faith- they both need specific things in order to grow (flowers need soil, sun and water; faith needs desire, prayer and opportunities to be taught by the Holy Spirit)- they also both need to be nurtured and cared for on a consistent basis.  It's amazing how a seed the size of a pin head can grow into a tall, beautiful, blooming flower- and then that flower can produce lots more teeny tiny seeds that will grow into even more flowers and more seeds....and the cycle goes on forever.  This process of creation reminds me of a quote I heard from a talk a few years ago:

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.

Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty..." -President Uchtdorf; "Happiness, Your Heritage"

Cilantro, Dinosaurs, Dogs, & Dinner

Today I'm thankful for...

1. Two little cilantro sprouts!  I'm trying to grow herbs.  My green thumb isn't quite so sure about this endeavor.  A couple of weeks ago, I bought oregano, mint, and basil as little starter plants and transplanted them into cute, colorful pots.  The basil has already died.  The mint looks like it's holding on as best it can, and the oregano is pretty good...I think.  Cilantro is my favorite herb to cook with, but I couldn't get a starter plant so I bought some seeds and started from scratch.  I noticed today that two little sprouts just poked up out of the dirt.  Wish them luck!

2. Dinosaurs.  Sydney wanted to do a "preschool lesson" this morning.  The kitchen sink was piled high with dirty dishes, but I suppressed the urge to go into Crazy-Cleaning-Mama-Mode and instead threw together some activities for the kids.  Liam requested dinosaurs.  We recited poems with hand motions about dinosaurs; pretended to stomp, fly, and run like dinosaurs; learned about herbivores and carnivores; compared Liam's dinosaur toys by color, size, how many legs they walked on, etc; and we looked at pictures of dinosaurs.  The best thing the kids got to do was play with little plastic dinosaurs in play-dough.  I buried them in balls of play dough so they could excavate them like paleontologists.  Then they made fossil footprints in the play dough and Liam pretended that his dinosaurs got stuck in sticky mud and hot lava.  They entertained themselves for almost an hour; it was amazing!

We also read a book called "Chalk" by Bill Thomson...actually, the book has no words so we make up the story every time.  The illustrations are amazing and the kids really like it when I name the three characters in the book after them.  It's basically about three kids who go for a walk in the rain and find a mysterious bag of sidewalk chalk at the park.  The chalk proves to turn a boring rainy afternoon into quite an adventure!  We've gotten this book from the library so many times that I've considered buying it.

Since dinosaur starts with the letter D, I couldn't resist incorporating some Teacher's Creatures in our mini preschool lesson.  I introduced Donald the Dog to the kids. Liam now knows what sound the letter D makes, even though he can't always identify what the letter looks like. :)  At least it's a start....

To go along with our dog and letter D, we read a book about Donald the Dog's friend Marley.  "Bad Dog Marley" is one of Lillian's favorite books.  Her Aunt Sharon gave it to her when she was about 2, along with a stuffed Marley dog from the book/movie "Marley & Me."  Marley is her most beloved stuffed animal.  It is her first choice of snuggle item when she is tired, not feeling well, gets hurt, or needs comfort.  If she can only bring one stuffed animal on a trip, Marley is always the one that gets to come along.  I think her other stuffed animals all have Marley Envy.  Anyways, Marley happens to be a good friend of Donald the Dog, so we read his story today too.  It's a fun story about a family dog who causes lots of trouble but in the end proves that he's right where he belongs.

It was fun, and rewarding, to see the kids learning...and the dishes eventually got cleaned in the afternoon. :)

3. Bobby getting home before we were done eating dinner.  It's such a change from the first three months of the year when he was gone all week long.  I like being able to ask him when he thinks he'll be home and if he'll make it in time for dinner.  He isn't always able to join us at the dinner table, but at least there's a chance he will.