Happy Halloween Week

My 5 year old is COUNTING down the days to Halloween...you would almost think he likes it more than Christmas!

Have a safe and Happy Halloween week!

Happy Valentines Day

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Cor. 13:13

Take a BITE out of Valentine's Day!

I found this blog post over at Skip To My Lou where she made an Alligator Pillow Box Valentine. She shared the template and instructions on how to make this ridiculously adorable, yet boyish, Valentine...I had to make it.

Jason was with me when we made a quick trip to the craft store and while I was looking for the "right" green card stock for the little gators, he spotted this fabulous green croc skin paper...oh, how I love him!

Anyhow, I am so excited to send Lawyer to school with these lil bewt-ees (name that man that would say that!) and I'm sure that the parent's there will think "Good Lord, this parent has WAY to much time on her hands" but I don't and I'm okay with that.

*Sigh* I wish I was getting a valentine like this! I'll take a picture of the whole crew once they have been assembled and filled with delicious treats!

Christmas Gifts: Hit or Miss

Christmas is in full swing and we are full of holiday cheer in my house. From decorating a tree just for Lawyer upstairs to Lawyer break-dancing to Frank Sinatra Christmas classics, the fun keeps going on and on. I thought it would be fun to show how and why I choose the items (I truly dislike the word "toys" - or at least today's toy-makers perversion of the word) I do for Lawyer, the 4-year-old boy in our household.

Lawyer definitely doesn't NEED anything and I'm not a toy person, per se, so I put plenty of thought into what I would declare as old-fashioned, classic or multi-sensory for Lawyer. I love the classic toys that Lawyer does have since they allow for an imagination, thought-provocation, hands-on manipulation and fun of all kinds. One such "classic" are Lincoln Logs. Oh, how I love this construction toy. Did you know that the son of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect of both the Arts and Crafts period and in our American history, created the logs after being inspired by a building in Tokyo? They have been around for almost 100 years and there is something to be said about a toy that can last a century in the fickle world of toy-making and toy-selling.

Anyhow, my point is this: I like sensorial, imaginative, battery-less, educational "toys" for Lawyer to both play with and learn from. I plan on doing posts on the different items I purchased for him and explaining the analytical reasoning for the purchase. Wait, did that even make any sense? Never mind, don't listen to me, I know not what I say.

This bug discovery kit has real bugs encased in clear, acrylic blocks. I think it will be a real winner with Lawyer, especially since you can look at both the tops, bottoms, sides, heads, rears, etc. of each and every bug. The few things I'm not fond of are the cheap, plastic magnifying glass (I plan on purchasing a real one for Lawyer's stocking) and the ridiculous storage container the bug blocks came in (a plastic bag, or better yet, a reusable canvas bag would have sufficed for me). I'm sure most of my money for this item went to pay for the container and the colorful packaging but seeing as I have yet to catch bugs in my yard, put them to their death in a gas chamber of bits of cardboard doused with rubbing alcohol (that's how I used to kill bugs for my biology bug projects anyway) and then put them in a plastic-y, see-through grave of acrylic, I doled out my money for this item.

You can see the detail of the bugs here a bit better but my picture is a tad on the dark side so you can't get the full-effect of seeing the hairs on the wasp's thorax. What? Don't know what a thorax is? Look it up and be enlightened by the wonderful world of entomology. Huh? You don't know what entomology is? Good grief people, get a set of encyclopedias and look it up...and I don't want to hear the excuse that nobody even owns physical sets of encyclopedias anymore. Although, Santa Claus did bring me a fabulous set for my 6th Christmas (it was at the top of my Christmas list) and they were a beautiful shade of 80's maroon tinged with gold. Anyhow, I digress.

These blocks could be used for bug identification (Montessori is very big into this), a matching game or even to learn about the different parts of an insect.

Kids LOVE "real" things to play with, thus the reason I'm purchasing a real magnifying glass for him to use and the real bug blocks. And seeing as I'm originally from Arkansas, I know that "my people" LOVE to have the real deal stuffed and placed oh-so-carefully on their mantle to display the one that "didn't get away". This particular item is right up my Arkansas-roots alley. Plus I'm a science nerd - that probably explains more than enough about me.

If you are interested in this bug discovery kit, you can purchase it here.

Ooh, and if you REALLY are into science, this online store is AWESOME! I can't wait to buy a few experiments from there for Lawyer.

Happiness...

is waking up to a beautiful sunrise, even if I do live in the 'burbs.


is making homemade Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberry Jelly on the side and taking my served-up dish outside to photograph it and my husband opens the back door to see where I am and then sees me taking pictures of my food on the ground and says "Oh, you're taking pictures...I didn't know where you went." and then shuts the door to go eat. And he is not EVEN surprised at what I'm doing.


is my 4 year old break-dancing to Frank Sinatra's "J-I-N-G-L-E Bells", which has been his favorite Christmas song for 2 Christmases running. (I love how '70's this picture looks - all faded and blown-out with Lawyer in his athletic attire)


is my family sharing dinner, even if it's Chik-fil-a, sharing conversation and sharing laughs at the dinner table.


is being happy even though you have triple chins and necks and the world's plumpest cheeks.




It's good to be happy!

Fun on the 4th of July

What a great day to be an American, a day in which all of us come together to honor those who have fought and died for us to be free. Think about how blessed we are that God has allowed you to be raised in a free country, to be wealthier than probably 99% of the world (even the destitute in this country is considered rich) and to be able to openly pray and worship to the One and Only God above. As Lee Greenwood sang it best "God Bless the USA".

Enjoy!

Check out the light Jason put behind our star! I love it!
Jason also spot-lighted our palm tree.