December Daily 2014 - Day 10 & 11 - Candy Cane Hunt + Giving!

This is where we left off with Day 9 - Now, however, you can see the photo for Day 11 peaking through and we're ready to play a little catch up with Days 10 & 11 in one post!

 Day 10 featured the annual Candy Cane Hunt.  This is possibly our kids' most beloved December tradition.  I am not sure why, but they adore it, ask for it, and daily hope that today is the day.  It finally was.  We picked B up from school and came home for the big hunt.  E is still not sure what it is all about, but does love the candy canes and finding things.  He did not make the connection that the bag he was holding was for putting the candy canes in and got kind of frustrated at trying to hold all of them...  The big kids did a good job of making sure he found some easy ones.  This evening, I noticed that they missed one of the higher ones so perhaps the hunt continues.

Crafting note - I belatedly realized this page lacked a number so I added the glittery 10 (the red heart was moved to the lower corner).  I had some trouble getting the cut out shape out of the pocket that necessitated a bit of repair work, but all is well.  On the journaling card, I used the "Love this tradition" stamp, which was a perfect fit for this occasion.  I wanted a bit more visual interest and enamel dots would have been perfect fore this.  However, a small girl here seems to have used most of mine, so more Stickles to the rescue!  Also, still loving gold washi and layered chipboard.

 Here are the two days together.  Stars abound and I like having the photos on opposite halves of the page.

Day 11 was about the importance of giving back as part of our Christmas celebrations. I like to document our giving traditions each year and in the past it has been more about Brent and I donating money to our universities, the Food Bank, the Myriad Gardens, Doctors Without Borders, NPR, Child's Play, Project Night Night, and the Oklahoma Bar Foundation. We do still donate to all those, but that is a hard thing for our kids to "see."  As they get older we're making a conscious effort to involve them in more tangible giving.  For Christmas this year, that began with the Project Christmas Box filling with the Wainrights in December.  We've been donating food items at church, toys, books, and clothes to school Christmas drives, and this year are supporting two kids from the giving tree at church.

The kids and I went to Target on the 11th and bought clothes, shoes, toys, and (at Barnes & Noble) books for our giving tree kids.  We wrapped most of the items and added them to bigger boxes to take to church on Sunday.  M & B really began to identify with "their" child and I kept them involved through all phases of the shopping, wrapping, etc... I worry about if it is enough or fun enough for the recipients as there are a lot of "necessities" in there, but keep telling myself we're doing the best we can with what we have and new shoes are important even if not as fun :)  A fun moment was when B picked out the same new shoes for himself (his had big holes in them) as he picked out for his giving tree boy.

For me, the whole experience makes me so thankful that we are able to help like this even in such a small way.  I am also so grateful that we can buy our kids gifts for Christmas and not have to worry about if they have good shoes.  We are so very blessed. I hope our children come to appreciate that too and develop habits of giving to others.

Crafting Notes: I borrowed the idea of decorating this card from Ali's Day 4.  I added a little title at the bottom and some random red star sequins at the top for extra fun. I love having a smiling picture of all three of them together. 

Miscellaneous Monday

I sometimes have these random things I want to share that aren't really about my family per se, but are of interest.  Usually these go in my "five on friday" posts full of random favorites.  It has been awhile since I've done one of those and have a few things I want to share that are somewhat time limited.  Take a look!

1.  Scary Mommy Thanksgiving Project -- You probably know that food insecurity is one of our ongoing chairities.  We donate monthly to the OK Regional Food Bank, but do try to make an extra effort near the holidays.  This year, we sponsored a family through the Scary Mommy Thanksgiving Project.  They then sent me the background of the family we sponsored.  So heartbreaking, sweet, and I feel so blessed to be able to help.  I hope that some of you can join me or find a similar charity near you.  Yes $50 might be a stretch so give $5 and feed one person.

2. Week in the Life - I've been doing Week in the Life for several years. This is an annual memory keeping exercise with Ali Edwards.  For one week, we closely document the days of our life in all their ordinary every day nature.  This year it is Oct. 27-Nov. 2.  I think it will be extra fun to have it cover our week of Halloween as we're always very busy during this season. I will be using Ali's kit to make a physical book of our week in words and photos, but many people just play along by blogging it as we go.  I invite you to join me in either approach and I'll be sharing here too!

3. We love Pumpkinville at the Myriad Children's Garden.  It is so beautifully done and so very much fun.  I encourage you to check it out now through Oct. 31!  There will be more about our recent visit on the blog soon, but in the meantime, week days are a great time as it is a little less crowded.  They also have pumpkins for sale this year, which we happily took advantage of.

4. Storybook Village -  In other Halloween fun, we are thinking of trying out Arcadia Lake's Storybook Forrest this year.  Have any of you tried it/liked it? Let me know!

5.  30 Days of Thankful - Cathy Z has an annual 30 days of Thankful project to keep gratitude at the forefront of November.  I have sometimes participated and may again this year. Unlike Week in the Life and December Daily, I don't usually do the minibook, but do find different ways to keep daily gratitude in my family's days for November and hopefully make a habit of it.  My plan is just a Scrapbook page with 30 lines to list one thing every day and maybe a facing page with some images.  Who knows, I may just do a blog list or set of impressions, but I do hope to use this or something similar to keep our gratitude project going.  How do you focus on gratitude throughout the year and especially in November?

DD 2013: Day 3 - Give

In response to so much "buying" between Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, they have now created "Giving Tuesday."  While I didn't participate in the other "events." Giving is always part of our Christmas celebrations so I used this nudge to focus on giving yesterday.  Above is the full spread.  The right page is about giving and the left is about missing my Dad.  Yeah, so my one photo, one story plan is falling slightly off the rails, but I'm fine with that.  I'll explain more below.

Here is the right hand page with the pages behind it removed.  The upper corner is the word "GIVE" again adhered on a smudge of gold glitter stickles that are hard to see here, but neat in person.  Then, on both sides of the transparency I added these bursts, stars, and dots from the SC Kit. 

 Below is a collage of the charities we gave to yesterday.  I talked through the concept of charitable giving with my kids and told them what groups Brent and I donate to regularly (Oklahoma Regional Food Bank, Myriad Gardens, Child's Play, Project Night Night, Heifer International, OU, GW, NPR, St. John's Catholic Church, Wiggle Out Loud, etc...)  

Then we talked about why we give money to these groups.  I liked that B asked interesting questions like why do we give money to the Myriad Gardens as he didn't see a tie to how that was helping people.  I explained that we support them because they create beauty in our city and hold events that enrich our community. I think they are growing and building the city of OKC with their plantings, educational outreach, but also by community building. (Yes, I'm a new donor to the Myriad Gardens this year, because I'm so impressed with its evolution lately). 

At the end, B chose to donate to Child's Play (also Brent's Christmas choice).  M chose to donate toys and warm clothes to her school as part of its clothing and toy drive. I donated to Project Night Night on behalf of E.  We also did a few other small donations based on our conversations and I encourage you to think about giving this season too and talk about it with your kids. I'm not going to say it was an easy concept, but it is important so I took the time and several approaches to try getting them to think about it more. 

This other story needed a place too. It might fit well in my "more magic" section at the back, but it is also sort of part of the giving story as my parents were definitely the ones who instilled in me the need to give back and help others.  Yesterday, Audra's crew visited for awhile and we went to the cow calf hay-- a small restaurant that I think my dad would have liked.  The little grandsons he never met both had on their overalls and were looking very cute.  My kids and Zane took turns riding on these saddles and I just know he would have loved it.  I miss my Dad and am trying to carry on the lessons he taught us with our kids.  That twinge of sadness is a real part of my holiday season so this seemed like a good space to fit it in with a picture of our very cute overalls boy. 

Crafting note - the card here came with one of my SC kits. I just added the zig zag washi for a bit more color and visual interest. 

Ten on Tuesday

1.  I've posted this basically everywhere already, but it still makes me smile.  As E was playing with this hat he stops and says: "Take picture, Mama"  Love it!

2.  The bigs decided to measure themselves by how tall they are compared to the mantel.  Random much?

3.  It is cold here.  Not Arctic cold or anything, but just much colder.  I asked B if he could walk to the bus stop alone for the first time so I didn't have to wake the sleeping baby and take him out in to the cold and he just ran right down the street like there was never an issue.  He rocks.  

4.  I attended the Thanksgiving Feast at B's school again this year.  They are blessed with lots of parent volunteers and lots of food. I was able to help, but also snuggle my guy a bit. I admittedly had a little food too as I realized after PT at 2pm that all I'd had to eat so far was coffee.  I found a granola bar in my emergency minivan stash, but the mashed potatoes were much more delicious. 

5.  E & M went back to Tulsa with me to help pack our annual Operation Christmas Child boxes with friends. The party was smaller this year, but I think perfectly so and everyone had a great time.  Brent and B stayed home for his good buddy Sam's bday party at Laser Quest and a big afternoon of Thanskgiving shopping!  (Yes, I made them a detailed spreadsheet before I left).

6.  The girls had the best time playing dress up and making up their own plays!

7.  E is increasingly convinced that all of our electronic devices are his and that he knows just what to do.  With the laptop, he mostly knows how to turn off and on the mouse....which isn't annoying at all to the next person to pic it up (ummm, right). 

8.  The Jones boys and Aunt Jamie came over for a play date and dinner yesterday.  The kids had a wild time playing before settling in to some quieter legos.  It was only maybe the third or fourth time they've come to our house and the kids loved it!

 

9.  Today I helped out with the Thanksgiving Feast at Mother's Day Out.  This may have been a less good idea as it totally stressed E out for me to be there, but to not be "with" him.  He cried basically any time I went off to help so I mostly carried him around.  M was a little disappointed that I wasn't more focused on her, but did fine.  Overall, it was a very lovely feast and the kids did very well.  I picked them up a bit early to take E to get his flu shot so lots of back and forth from school today.  

10. I attempted to upload the video the kids made with their cousins dancing to "What Does the Fox Say? "  I don't think it worked, but perhaps you can find it at this link instead.  Enjoy!

Ten on Tuesday

1.  Day two of Healing Scraps was a rousing success helped along in large measure by local TV news coverage.  We gave away so many things, but there is much more there.  Starting tomorrow it is open to public school teachers for classroom use as well.  

 

2.  Sunday Brent had to work all afternoon and into the evening.  I took the kids on an outing to the Science Museum.  This was really our first outing like this with E mobile and on the go (not in the stroller for the most part).  It went really well for the first 1.5 hours and then it was a huge debacle.  Clearly I know that 1.5 hours is how long we should stay and really should have left then.  Lesson learned and one six year old went to bed very early.

3.  We're basically set for back to school and diligently not talking about it too much as we think that anxiety may be part of B's behavior issues of late.  We did get the excellent news that he will once again be a member of the Dragonflies soccer team come September.  It will be great to reunite with the old crew and hopefully he loves being back on the soccer field.  We bought yet another pair of cleats and a soccer ball... I really should be keeping count of how many soccer balls we purchase over time.  It is astonishing. 

3. Last year, I was on maternity leave during the summer and instituted what I hope will be a new tradition of visiting the Wainrights in Tulsa just before school starts.  Today was our second annual back to school play day. This time we began with a visit to the Tulsa discovery lab.  It was very popular, hands on, and lots of fun. Above, M is in the toddler area learning about color. 

4.  They also have a make and take room. The theme this month is "fiber arts."  There were maybe 10 different projects to choose from in the general topic.  Both bigs chose to make pillows and diligently sewed around the edges with yarn and a plastic needle before stuffing them full of scraps.  Clearly we need to go get some plastic needles and yarn for more of this fun as I literally had to tear them away as E ran out of patience.

4.  The big play feature right now at the discovery lab is this awesome tape tunnel that runs through a few tree house type areas ending in a hug slide (See B going down like a penguin in the first photo).  B loved going through it and it made for some awesome photos (all iphone btw as not enough hands for the real deal).  There was also this smaller version that lil'E enjoyed. 

 

5.  After lunch, we went back and spent all afternoon playing and chatting with our friends. It was such a fun day.  I did miss the daddies and remembered that driving makes me sleepy.  I am so excited to do it again next year!

6. My mom is off in the wilds of New Mexico somewhere beyond cell service, but if you see this mom, we miss you and be safe!

7. There is a lot of hair experimenting going on here.  M has started sucking on her hair so we're experimenting with ways to keep it away from her face until she can get a hair cut from cousin Janna.  B, meanwhile, is trying out spiking up some of his hair with gel.  M, of course, then wanted some in her hair and could not comprehend how it wasn't going to work the same way.  We put some in anyway...

8.  For almost all of the summer B & M have gotten along so well.  They have had these imaginary adventures and been quite the team.  Strangely, that is falling apart right now. The over analyzing person in me suspects it is also tied to back to school and mostly B's doing as he keeps telling her she isn't a big girl, etc... but whatever the cause it is so sad.  He oddly seemed to be the most this way with our most recent babysitter who was also a 1st grade teacher (not at his school).  I've so loved their togetherness this summer and have high hopes for a bit more peace again when our routines settle in. 

9.  Brent's school has already started and is full of the usual back to school excitement.  This semester he is teaching Vertebrate Zoology.  It is his second pass at teaching this course and he's feeling much more comfortable than he was last fall at this time.

10.  One week from today B will start 1st grade.  The next day, M and E will begin their year at MDO.  The summer has passed so crazily fast, slow, and everywhere in between.  Back to school preparations have gone on in fits and spurts for a week.  I think I'll outline somewhere all the things that entails to remember later, but for now.  I'm going to rest and savor every moment I can playing in summer's waning days. 

Scrappy Sunday {+ Giveaway!}

How fun is this? These pictures go way back to the fall of 2010 (a period where I was not scrapping much). I love that B just randomly wore his Spiderman costume to his grandparents (and that we let him). He knew his cousin would love it and had a great day.  Believe it or not six pictures on one page!  (Supply Notes: Amy Tangerine AC paper, SC hearts, AC thickers, and random tags, washi, and glassine bags, easy!)

Of late, I've been trying to curb my scrapbook purchases to mostly just my monthly kit.  However, I had to buy E a baby album and to reach the $50 free shipping bought a few more things on the promise to myself that I would use them immediately.  Here is the first of those pages with a few very new things and a few much older ones.  It is part of a series I have to include pages of our kids with each Grandparent, Aunt, Uncle, Sibling, and Parent (maybe cousins too?).  This is with Granddaddy on her 1st birthday. (Supply Note: BG Soleil Paper, Dear Lizzy Card, tag, and vellum, SC butterflie and AC Glitter tape)

As noted, I'm trying to get Brent and I in the albums too.  The above is a picture I took on the road as we drove to STL.  I rather liked it (after some editing, I admit).  This is a little bit about this day and a little bit about me.  (Supply Note: SC Neverland Kit, Tim Holtz tickets, SC hearts, AC Thickers, Pebbles "today" sticker from earlier SC kit, and various Mr. Huey mists and MME scraps).

Last week, I promised a page about Brent and here it is!  This picture is also from my phone on my road trip.  He'd been driving more than six hours at this point.  The journaling is about how he does all the driving on our road trips -- both of our preference.  (Supply Note - mostly SC Neverland kit mask, cardstock & mist, Dear Lizzy & Elle's Studio tags, Freckled Fawn heart, assorted washi).

This page features a photo by Heather Warren & is B's 4.5 year old page. (Remember, I scrap 8x10s of each kid for each six month interval--- which happens to line up with our family photo shoots. I do not stress about when I get around to it. I just print the 8x10s and do them as inspiration strikes.)  I love the joy and enthusiasm in this picture. I love that he has relaxed with Heather over time resulting in great pictures, particularly here where she was playing with him on the playground. (Supply Note - Misc SC Kit left overs, SC wood veneer, Maggie Holmes Gold Thickers, MME paper, lots of washi). 

Still with me? It is time for the give away!  I love washi tape and many of the pages above include it.  A month or two ago I won a huge package of washi tape from Stephanie Howell and promised her I'd take a few out, add a few of my own, and pass the rest on to one lucky person.  Do you want to be that person? What would you do with a bunch of fun washi tape?  Beyond scrapbooking we use them to tape things up all over our house, seal Easter Eggs, Decorate Egg cartons, do craft projects, tape signs or art to doors and walls (it comes off easily), seal letters, and really anything else in need of taping. Leave a comment below and I will draw a winner next Sunday in time for my Scrappy Sunday post. 

Ten on Tuesday

 

1.  This guy is having a tough week, as is our entire family.  Brent's dad, Bill suffered a stroke on Sunday evening.  He is OK, but experiencing some muscle weakness and blood pressure problems.  He remains in the hospital and surrounded by people that love him and are preparing to help with the steps back to strength.  He is in good spirits.  Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated. 

 

2.  As you likely know my husband and I met via Alpha Phi Omega (APO), a co-ed community service fraternity, while at OU.  Many of our friends joined as well and we spent hundreds of hours in college doing community service  We are trying to pass that tradition on to our own kids.  This weekend, the Wainrights hosted a party to collect and pact boxes for Operation Christmas Child.  The kids helped sort, make capes, and write little notes to the ten recipients and now we'll get to track where our boxes end up.  We also snacked, played, talked, and had a wonderful time!

 

3.  This guy is not feeling so hot.  He has a little cold and is having trouble breathing and sleeping.  Thus we are all having trouble sleeping.  We took him to the Doctor and confirmed he doesn't have an ear infection  he is just miserable. 

 

4.  M and I went to Ashtyn's pony party this weekend and had a grand time. M was a little nervous of all the strangers and to my great surprise was scared to ride the actual ponies in attendance.  She did eat a HUGE number of carrot sticks though and enjoyed playing and helping with the presents.

 

5.  Soccer Season is over.  We will miss our Dragonfly buddies and look forward to playing in the spring. I think we will miss the Tigers a bit less and do not anticipate M playing again any time soon.  B is now back to happily to swimming and M is taking dance once a week. 

 

6.  Last week, Brent and I went to the installation of the new OSSM President - Frank Y. H. Wang, Ph.D.  Meanwhile, the kids stayed home with Grammie and Granddaddy doing fun things like building this LEGO Mater.  I am so glad for all the time they get with their Grandparents.

 

7.  So, with the stroke and sickness here I completely missed our 12 on the 12th and E's 5 month post and pictures.  They will happen sometime this week, maybe when there is less snot on his nose every minute.  Able took some pictures for me so we'll see what we can cobble together.  More to come on our cutie.

8. This Thursday evening there is a GW Alumni Event at Put a Cork in it Winery in OKC. I plan to attend and if there are any local alums you can find more information here.  There will be events like this all over the country so if you aren't in OK you can likely find one near you as well on the calender here. 

9.  For those following the story of my sister's little family.  I wanted to let you know that they had an in utero ECHO done this week on the new little baby they are expecting in February and it looked good!  Hooray for happy news in a tough week.

10.  You may recall that for the last two years Beef Wellington has become our family's Thanksgiving Tradition after my Grandfather found a recipe in the Wall Street Journal.  This Sunday at 5:30, I will be teaching a class at Savory Spice Shop in OKC that will teach participants how to make this delicious and fancy dish.  The class costs $20 paid in advance and is limited to 20 participants.  We will be working off our family's adapted version of the original Wall Street Journal recipe, using Savory Spice products and sharing a taste of our family's new tradition.  If you'd like to join in, they are doing sign ups at the shop (4400 N. Western Ave. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73118) or you can sign up by phone during business hours 405-525-9119 or via email to okc@savoryspiceshop.com.  Of course you can also contact me, my Mom, or brother to sign up. 

I hope to see some of you this weekend and pray that all your families have a safe and healthy week and holiday season.