Twinkle Toe's winter dance recital......she performed tap and ballet this year.

 after a fight to try to get her down for a nap, I gave up and we ate lunch instead, after she ate her hot dogs, this is what I found...................

 Twinkle Toes at her school's Christmas program

somebody is standing up now and she is awfully proud of herself when she does

Halloween 2012/Fall Fun

 We had another pumpkin this year.....it was easy.  I think all my kids have been this their first year.  Firefly just got her first tooth and she is standing up a lot now.

 Today was the last day before the cold front is supposed to hit.  The kids and I spent the afternoon hiking in the woods and playing in the leaves at the park.  This picture cracks me up.....Twinkle Toes was having trouble keeping her eyes open because of the sun (hence the crazy look) and Grace was giving me her "normal" smile.  Caleb lost his first tooth today!

 Love this picture of Grace!

 This year Twinkle Toes was a cowgirl, Grace was Ariel the Little Mermaid, and Sweet Boy was a firefighter.  We had an unseasonably warm Halloween night.  It was wonderfulQ!@  rare, but wonderful. 

Charlotte's Tea Party

Grace got invited to a birthday tea party at Charlotte's house so that's how we spent our Friday while the kids were at school.

Keeping their Hearts.....

My husband will tell you that he has tried and tried to get me to pack his lunch our whole marriage and put little love notes in them.  Apparently that's what his mom did for his dad every day for like 30 years.  Don't get me wrong, it's sweet, but I told him if he wanted that he should have married his mom!  lol.  Okay, so school started and for the first time ever Sweet Boy is packing a lunch, I mean, I am packng his lunch of course.  So I took the opportunity to leave little notes for my kids each day.  As Sally Clarkson would say, I'm taking the opportunity to breath words of life into them.  Sweet Boy's on the first day of school said something about having a good day, that sort of thing.  Twinkle Toes doesn't mention her note at all.  I'm not even sure she read it, but Sweet Boy comes home from school and tells me that it was the best lunch ever and would I pack him another one just like it?  And then he tells me that he really liked the note I put in there.  He said he "liked it so much he had to read it twice."  And then he hugs my neck and kisses my cheek.  Okay, THAT's why I call him Sweet Boy. 

Today in Twinkle Toe's lunch I told her, "Don't be somebody you're not just to be cool.  Be yourself!  You're great just the way you are.  Love, Mom"  She's having the whole friend issues that normal kids have.  It's hard when you haven't been at a school and most of the other people already know one another and have established friendships.  So she is sort of dealing with all of that.   Caleb is too, but he told me he just went up to this one boy (he wants to be friends with), asked him if he wanted to be friends, and he said, "yes!"  Problem solved! 

Anyways, a couple of girls in her class have been harassing her on the playground chasing her around telling her they are half vampire/half werewolf.  We had the discussion about it and I told her those things don't exist.  So today after school she tells me, "Mom, I didn't even run when those girls came up to me.  I told them vampires and werewolves don't exist and I was done running.  And besides, there is a duty teacher on the playground and if they try to bite me I will go tell."  I love that girl.  Her sass comes in handy sometimes.

To School or Not to School....that is the question?

 This is my 3rd grader, otherwise known as Twinkle Toes.  We are back in public school this year so I thought I would do a post on that, since I am a big supporter of homeschooling as well.  I was really divided on the issue, trying to decide whether or not to homeschool again this year or do public school.  In the end, I really came to no good conclusions so we are still evaluating and considering this year and trying out public school again.  I'm not 100% sold on either end so I'm still sitting on the fence about the whole thing!  [my kids will surely be as neurotic as me :)]  No, they got their say in it and Twinkle Toes was excited to go back and see friends.  We had a great year last year and really accomplished our goals, which most of all was working on attitude and having a helpful spirit and she did so well.  The thing I will miss the most is being able to incorporate the spiritual aspects of our faith into daily study - reading the Scriptures as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic alongside that.  Last year we attended a Creation Science class and it was wonderful!  I'm considering letting her do that again this year even though she will be in school.  And we miss the 10 a.m. swimming lessons with the other homeschoolers.  I love the community of Christians I met who are dedicated to teaching their children and taking that responsibility upon their shoulders rather than delegating it to someone else.  So even though I am kind of enjoying the extra quiet time in my house right now, I miss my kids!  My goal for this year is to leave them every day with a prayer and have our "morning" experience be the best possible as I get them up and out the door.  And of course, try to "keep their hearts" as much as possible with gentle instruction and training in the few hours I get with them!  So Twinkle Toes is attending Central this year and she has an amazing teacher!  I'll post more on that later.......

 She's not in school, but she is just too darn cute not to post a picture.  This is "Firefly."  Grace is my other and I can't find a picture with her right now but she and I are doing preschool this year.

This is my 1st grader.  Isn't he handsome? 

Mama Gecko

Twinkle Toes got to perform in the Tortoise and the Hare production this weekend.  It's put on by the Missoula Children's Theatre which comes to town for 1 week during the summer.  I have to say I was very impressed with the production crew.  She learned a lot this week and rehearsed 4 hours every day AND she never complained once!  I wasn't sure if she would like it or not but I think she did and in the end she did very well with her part.  I was surprised.  She did better than I expected. 

here she comes........

I knew I was cursing myself last time I blogged about the Firefly NOT crawling, because she figured it out right after that.  She was close.  Now she is crawling around, slowly exploring the house, pulling out papers, pulling everything out of my purse, leaving a little firefly trail as she goes.  Hopefully she doesn't reach the stairs yet because I don't have a baby gate.  She should have tough knees on our wood floor!

It starts young.....

A quick story about this girl.....wanted to get it down.   We were at the ward garden the other day and a couple was there with their grandson.  I could hear the dead silence as these two kind of looked at each other.  Anyways, after they left Twinkle Toes goes, "Yeah, mom, he's a possibility.  I'm going to put him on my list."  [Me, trying not to laugh]  "Okay."  [I didn't know there was a list, but I DO know who is at the top].  Anyways, just proof it starts early and I'm afraid she is just like me.  She likes to be prepared, plan ahead.

Kern's Apricot Nectar

Do you love this stuff?  I do!  My neighbor gave me the idea the other day to can this stuff.  I don't know why I didn't think about it before.  I was trying to dry the gazillions of apricots we had and it just wasn't working out.  They kept getting too dry and burning up.  And there's jam, but there's only so much jam you need and apricot isn't my favorite.  So I seeded my apricots and put them in a pot with some water, sugar, and lemon juice.  I boiled them and then strained them and voila!  Apricot nectar.  It was DELISH!

Thrift Store Find #1

 before

 scuffs on the tabletop

 sanded down

 after

This is the summer of yard sale furniture finds.  I have several projects I am working on but here is my first finished one.  I found these two matching end tables at a thrift store for $15.  I couldn't believe my luck when I opened up the drawer and saw it was Kincaid brand solid wood.  There were some scuffs and dents on the tabletop but nothing a little sanding wouldn't fix.  The after pictures don't look too terribly different but they went from a honey stain to a darker walnut and look so much nicer in the end.  I could see myself getting addicted to refinishing although the sanding is not so fun.