Old-fashioned fun

This afternoon we took a family field trip to a recently remodeled 1868 farmhouse to get ideas for our next remodeling project.  They had a cool old-fashioned telephone that Lincoln thought was lots of fun and a box full of classic books.

NASCAR Nap...

...a tradition and coping mechanism that gets you through until football season starts again.

St. Patrick's Day

Growing up 100% Dutch in a Dutch community, St. Patrick's Day was usually nothing more than a blip on the calendar where you might think about wearing green--if you happened to remember.  I knew very little about the traditions of St. Patrick's Day (other than green shamrocks and an excuse to drink a lot of beer).  Not much has changed for me over the years.

Emily, however, was much more excited.  She put together a costume and wrapped up a big, green gift to be opened on St. Patrick's Day.  Both she & Lincoln had been eagerly anticipating this event.  Lincoln did the honors and discovered a fun collection of stuff including a card, pipe-cleaner shamrock and other random stuff.

It was all innocent fun fueled by Emily's creativity.  It also didn't involve buying anything or extensive planning and execution by me.  I saw this article shared on Facebook concerning the over-kill on holidays these days.  I couldn't agree more.  I feel like I have become a holiday scrooge, and I think this is one of the reasons why.  At least Emily wasn't expecting chocolate gold coins! (Although she might have mentioned something about looking for leprechauns.)

P.S. I must also admit that I didn't even know the true story of St. Patrick until just recently when the kids were watching a VeggieTales video called "Sumo of the Opera".  I'm glad Emily at least knows the real meaning behind the holiday.

The Great Lego Sort

Emily acquired quite a collection of Lego Friends kits over her birthday and Christmas.  While she enjoyed assembling and disassembling them for quite a while, they have been languishing on the train table in increasingly broken states (thanks to Lincoln & friends).  It was impossible to find missing pieces and too daunting to bother with, so they have pretty much been ignored for the last month.






Our MOPS program this week featured Becky Esker from Get Organized! in Cedar Rapids.  Although I already knew and have put into practice most of what she talked about, it was a good pep talk with some good reminders and tips.  It certainly made me want to go home and set a timer!   The Lego project was not necessarily on my list of things to do today, but the opportunity came up, so I ran with it. 





The first hour was super teamwork with me doing most of the disassembling (completely trashing my nails in the process) and Emily sorting by color as fast as I could keep up. 

Next came the task of sorting and organizing within the colors.  I had received a really nice compartment case from my mom last weekend after she had purged her own office closet.  Emily & I used it to sort and contain the smallest specialty Lego pieces.

The rest of the Legos were put into wide, flat, pull-out drawers.  This is where I usually fall short in the organizing process.  I have a weakness for organizer containers and have often purchased things without knowing exactly what I'm going to put in them.  Becky pointed out the correct method is to sort and categorize, THEN find the right containers based on what your actual needs are.  I had some containers I thought would be good for Legos, but after sorting and seeing what we actually had, I found out the need was quite different.  I made a trip to Wal-mart while Emily was at a birthday party.  When she came home she was jumping up and down screaming with excitement over the new organization system.  She immediately got to work rebuilding two of the biggest sets.

The third step in Becky's process is to label.  I'm all about labeling--especially with my new Cricut.  However, Emily beat me to it and taped little paper labels on the drawers.  I'll make something more permanent when I get a chance.  I actually expect Emily to keep things quite organized because we have some similar personality characteristics.  The true test will be when it comes time to disassemble again.  However, if Lincoln ever gets a wild notion, it's all over. :op

Food fight

Battles over food are common with Emily.  She is going through the picky-eater stage and uses it as an opportunity to occasionally test boundaries.  Sometimes you have to pick your battles, and boy did we (I) pick one this time. 

I make salmon (or some other type of fish), rice and vegetables on a fairly regular basis (probably every other week).  The salmon is cooked and flavored in a variety of ways.  Emily always has to try some, but usually ends up mostly filling up on rice.  Friday night was no exception.  I had purposely given each kid only four tiny bites of salmon (that would really equal one large bite) and a few vegetables (Normandy blend tonight).  Emily was in a fiesty mood, though, with a bad attitude and a prolific mouth.  She quickly earned herself the task of eating ALL her salmon and ALL her vegetables before being allowed to leave.  She continued on and on until she found herself sitting alone at her art table in the toy room while the rest of us finished eating and cleaning up supper.  When Lincoln & I moved on to family game night and she was still at the table, this note was composed:

It was extremely difficult to keep a straight face while reading it.  I casually offered her two options: a) sit back down and finish the last two bites of food on her plate so she could join our game or b) go upstairs and wait in her room until bath time plus the remaining two bites would be waiting in the fridge first thing for breakfast in the morning.  She initially went back to her plate, but soon ran upstairs to wait for 20 min.

I was bracing for another big scene in the morning, but after adding a little more rice and warming up the bowl, Emily calmly ate everything without a word of complaint--even commenting that if you take a drink of milk as soon as you take a bite you can hardly taste anything. 

Score another one for mom.  I don't enjoy these battles, but I want her to be secure in knowing that I'm still the one in charge when she chooses to test the waters.  It's not about the food.  However, I'm starting to question the theory that if a child tries a food so many times they'll learn to like it...

Looking for spring

It has been a long winter, and spring is slow in coming. (Is it too much to ask for 40 degrees at any point in March?!?)  There are hopeful signs, though.  We have daffodils, crocuses and even some tulips poking through.  All the snowman decorations are packed away and the spring decor is out.  The sun has shone enough to start melting the snow.  Lincoln had fun "scooping" the water today. 

Extended family weekend

The kids & I headed to NW Iowa this weekend to visit my family.  We had fun playing at my sister's house with Cousin Ryan and holding baby Cohen.

We also visited Great-Grandpa Vander Kooi twice in the nursing home.  Lincoln got silly with a stuffed frog.

Yet another snow storm turned out to be bigger than expected.  After agonizing about when to drive home, I decided to wait it out and didn't leave until Monday afternoon.  The roads still weren't great for half the trip, and Emily missed a day of school, but it was nice to spend extended time with family we hadn't seen since Christmas.

**Massive blog update--scroll down and click "Older Posts" to see everything**

Snow with Andjelka

With the newest 5" of snow, we invited our international college student, Andjelka, over to play.  She took the kids sledding on the hospital hill, and they built a little snowmound man.

Top 10 (11) Trains

I often lay down with Lincoln for nap time and sleep an hour myself.  On the latest snow day (we're up to #7 now), Emily entertained herself during nap time by making a poster of the Thomas engines #1-10 plus Emily.  Lincoln was impressed!

Sleepy sucker

Lincoln had refused to take a nap earlier in the day.  Then he crawled up onto my lap in the office at 4:00pm and proved he still needs an afternoon nap.