February Fun

Random catch up:

Life has been busy!!!  Every day I breathe a deep sigh of thanks for nap time so that I can have time to work on projects and recharge myself a bit.  WR is on the move and then some.  I honestly don't ever remember my older two being half as busy as this kid.  He keeps me running.  Thankfully he has yet to discover much to climb upstairs so we are spending a lot more time up there lately ;)

 JA is my sweet little mystery.  We are in the midst of assessments to make sure we have tools in our back pockets to set him up with loads of success in the next coming years.  There are moments, days or even weeks though when I just am not sure what to do or how to effectively parent.  I do however know that positive attention and praise is golden.  A few weeks ago, after lots of thought and prayer it occured to me to set up a jar with dry beans for positive behavior.  Everytime he says something positive about other family members, had a happy attitude, helped, etc I tossed in beans.  He is working towards dates with his parents.  A week ago he hit the first mark and got a date with his Daddy and he loved it.  The change we have seen has been amazing!

 He was cute the other day and insisted that he could drag his brother to the school.  This sled is great because it blocks the wind but it is so heavy and doesn't glide well.  I was more then impressed.

 AL had "Winter Walk" day this week.  It was a balmy -33.  I was determined to drive but at the last minute felt bad when I saw her disappointment  (and because we had a tiff over breakfast) so I bundled us up and we walked as fast as we could.  Made it to school and back in 12 mins but I am certain I got frost bite on one of my finger tips (it hurt for days).  Oh the things we do for our kids!

 Last Sunday I had my parents for dinner and made some cherry tarts and chocolate tarts.  My Dad is a huge cherry fan and was so excited until he bit into them.  Gahhhh.  Now I know that they sell sugar free pie filling ;) Guess I will look closer at the can next time.

 After 5 months of watching this guy every day after school for 1-2 hrs we are done!  His Mom got a full time teaching job to replace her part time one and wanted child care from 7am-6pm which I wasn't willing to provide.  I felt so bad for him and JA but we have been loving having a couple days a week free of child care (We still have our gr 2 girl 3 days/wk)

 For FHE this week I finally broke out the cookie cutters and made sugar cookies with the kids.  They LOVE it but I swear I hardly ever do it anymore for all the work.  I had envisioned making valentine cookies but with over 100 cutters to pick from we ended up with some mega variety!  So fun and so tasty.