Memory Boxes

These are my Favorite! I just had to share.

These took me alot longer than the Recipe ones below, but definelty worth it!

Inside it has Month dividers and blank 4x6 cards.

I made one for each of my kids. Basically it keeps their memories recorded for that whole year. So I put the date, a title, and their name on the top and I write whatever so they can have record of that year.SOme things to write about are: Milestones, Special Occasions, An Event, Sickness, Just Journaling. These are the things that I write on the bottom of the card. (just to keep things organized and easy to find)

I Love these Cute Little Boxes. I have mine right by my bed so I can remember to reflect on the day and write down anything interesting. I also have put little notes or invitations or trinkets they have recieved or made in their box.

Teigan loves his little box. He knows that its his special box and we put special things in it. :)

Recipe Boxes

I turned one of those little black empty boxes into this:I needed to organize and do something with my recipes, so this is what I did.
I painted the outside and modgepod my paper on.
I used my CRICUT (which I LOVE!) to cut out Recipes for the lid.

And I used the plastic dividers and sticky tabs to separate the different recipes. I love it! Thought you might love it too!

Letter B

This week: Letter B

We made a Bee out of a paper plate. Teigan really enjoyed that. He got to paint the paper plate yellow and he painted the stripes "Black" a B word. He also glued the eyes and drew the mouth. And then we traced his feet on Wax paper for the Wings. It turned out pretty cute.

I also taught him the "Baby Bumblebee" song. Skylee liked this part more than Teigan did. but by the end Teigan was singing it with me and Skylee was saying a few words too, but mostly just doing the actions.

I have found it really hard to keep this fun and entertaining for Teigan. I literally have to drag him away, from whatever he is doing, to come spend time with me. I'm not going to let this stop us, but it is challenging some days. Onward we go. If you do have any ideas on how to keep things fun and exciting, please let me know.

Plans Don't Always Work Out

My plan was to teach Teigan two songs about letter A and make an Apple Man. He didn't want to do that. All he wanted to do was play the playstation. Go figure. Well we ate Dinosaur chicken nuggets today and instead we had a great conversation about Dinosaurs. I also found two storybooks that we had about dinosaurs and read them. The one is "Oh say can you say Di-no-saur?" by Bonnie Worth. Its a book from Cat in the Hat's Learning Library. It sounds out the different dinosaur names for you and tells a little about each one. It's a pretty good book. So even though my plans didn't work out as planned. Which I'm learning is OK. We still got to spend our time, without pulling teeth :)

I found these two songs which I thought were pretty cute, so here they are:

Do You Know the Apple Man?

(tune of: the muffin man)

Do you know the apple man,

the apple man,

the apple man?

Do you know the apple man

who likes to sing with me?

Oh, he loves the letter A,

the letter A,

the letter A,

Oh, he loves the letter A

and likes to sing with me.

Letter A Song

(tune of: John, Jacob, Jingleheimer Schmidt)

Aunt Angie's Alligator-pie

It has some apples, too

For words that start with A

The people shout, Hurray!

Words like Aunt Angie's Alligator-pie

A A A A A A A

Wii Wii Wii

Yah! We got a Wii! Nate wanted to get one for christmas, but instead we got our little miniture schnauzer, Dixie. Which we Love :) I told him we could get the Wii later, (which I was thinking like next Christmas). Obviously he wasn't. Cuz he brought one home today. We invited some friends over last night for our so called "FHE" and played it. It sure was fun. Teigan loves the bowling game. We might never have to go to a bowling alley again :) I can't wait to get the Wii Fit!

MOMME TIME

Learning Letter A

We painted an Apple for A and used it as a stamp. We also ate some apples for a snack and learned about them.

Skylee is learning to Say and Recognize her shapes.

I have made a goal this year to be a better mom.

Each day I am going to spend at least an hour with each of my kids seperatly so they get their own time with me. We are going to call it "MOMME TIME". Each day will be different. We will have Learning, Crafts, Activities, Cooking and what ever else comes our way.

If you have any Suggestions or Tips for me, feel free. I would love to have some Input and Feedback. All I know is I need to spend more time with my kids, whether it be one on one time, or something. Sometimes I feel like I'm failing as a mother and I need to do better. So please Leave a Comment, even if I don't know you, I would love to hear what you have to say.

The Simplest Things

Who knew the Simplest Things could be so Great?

Pouring water into one cup, and then into another. Wow! That could entertain kids for hours and it doesn't even cost anything! And then just adding ICE to the mix, adds another level of excitement to it. Skylee did this for I don't know how long but she loved it.

And then earlier this morning, she pulled out all her swimsuits and wanted to put all of them one. We only got two on at a time and then it was to bunchy. She entertained herself for quite awhile, putting them on and then off. Playing with her own clothes, who knew it could be so much Fun?

Battle For the Bed

New for Skylee? or the Dog?

I recently bought this little doggie bed for Dixie, but somehow someone else thinks its hers. Since Skylee is bigger than the dog, she definetly has taken over! She will push Dixie out of the way or just lay on her for that matter, until Dixie moves. Skylee lays on Dixie's bed every day right before nap time. She probably would take a Nap there if I let her! Its more her Size and Softer, Why Not?

Where, oh Where?

Skylee has an anwser . . . if you ask her Where something is. I ask her where her mimi is? Where are your shoes? Where is your jacket? and everytime, her answer is "Pickup". She thinks everything is in the Pickup. I don't know?

Snow Time

I am Not a Big Fan of the Snow. Getting all bundled up and looking like a big snowman yourself and then to top it off your get to FREEZE your butt off. It's just not my Cup of Tea. SO . . . my kids have not had the chance to play in it . . . yet. That is until Today. We ALL got bundled up and headed for our big backyard. We built a snowman and had a Chillin time :) Teigan could not wait to build it, and then try and knock it down. Skylee didn't want anything to do with the snow. She just wanted to swing in her swing and play in the sandbox. Definetly a Summer Girl!

Wishin and Hopein, Thinkin and Prayin

Nate is wishing he was doing this right now. His buddies left early this morning and he thought he had to work. Instead he's home with me. Thinking about Snowmobiling. :)

Dressed Up

This morning . . . Skylee showed me that she is a BIG GIRL! Getting dressed all be herself!

First her pants.

Then TT's pants

Getting dressed is hard work :)

Then her Hat and her favorite pink bra! I thought this was the funniest picture, I had to post it.

New Years Party!

I hope everyone had a Happy New Year. We certainly did!

Teigan and Skylee helped me "MAKE" brownies before our little New Year Party.
They are definetly Good HELPERS! They get the job done :)
We also made Nate's favorite SUGAR COOKIES, my favorite chicken salad, a veggie tray and Carmel FONDUE! Plus the other food, which we won't even mention because we had so much.
Skylee loves Jim. She wanted to sit right next to him, we had to put her chair up on the couch so she could be right next to him. That girl cracks me up some times.

Here's Don and Nate chilin out on the KIDS CHAIRS, playing the playstation. I do have to say, after this nice little picture . . . the guys had a nice detour down to Kendal's. Kendal came up here and through a fire cracker on our front lawn. So they decided to go over to his house and show him a Real FIRE CRACKER show in his backyard! Needless to say, they weren't here when the New Year started. I told Nate, I made out with myself . . . and it was pretty good! He thought that was pretty funny.

11pm rolled around and the kids were still kickin! They probably had more fun the we did!

Thanks to the Food Fun and Friendship we had a great time! I hope this New Year brings Greatnest to everyone. Happy New Year :)

Trying to be a Snow Bunny!

Nate recently got a new toy. Can you guess what it is?! Well yep its a Snowmobile. SO . . . before I said he could buy it, I told him there would be some terms and conditions. Here are the terms:

1. Every other time that he goes, I get to go.
2. For the same amount of time. (some exceptions.)
3. One time this winter we will go skiing.
4. Three times this summer we will go camping. ( REAL Camping!)

So the day after Christmas, we went night skiiing up at Bogus. First of all we both rented snowboards from Idaho Watersports, BIG Mistake! (Keep in mind that the only time I have been on a ski hill was about 10 years ago and only once.) How was I suppose to know wether I wanted skiis or a snowboard? Since all my sisters and brother all snowboard, and I wakeboard, I thought it wouldn't be bad, and I wanted to try to something different. ( I always gotta try something different) SO we get there and the first thing that I totally forgot about was the chair lift. I am terrifed of heights. Especially the chair lift! Its moving and your not strapped in and your clear up in the air! K well I got over that. But the first run was terrible! It probably took 2 hours to get down the hill 3 times. I couldn't stear, or stop or control the board. And I kept crashing because I would get going so fast that I thought I would fly off the mountain so I would crash instead. It definetly was not what I remembered the first time. After those 3 runs, I had had enough and I rented some skiis. Usually I don't quit that easy, but WOW! After CRASHING so many times, and with freezing weather, I was done. I do have to say. I was a good little ski bunny for only this being the second time. I didn't fall or crash once, once I got some skiis. We even went up the bigger hill on the bigger chair lift. And it was FUN! Until Nate ate it really bad and THOUGHT he BROKE his collar bone. It swelled up pretty bad, but he's ok. He just bruised his Clavical really bad. Thanks honey for following through on one of the terms, And for a wonderful evening. He even said we could go again! Yah! I also forgot my camera, so sorry no pictures this time.

A Merry Christmas

Skylee and her new pajamas.

Terrible picture, but the only one with Teigan and his new pajamas.

Skylee decided to play dress up with Grandpa's shoes and hats.

Our new addition

Skylee's new Baby!

This christmas we did a little something different. Instead of staying at our house, we stayed at Nate's mom and dad's.

Starting christmas eve we had our traditional Lasagna dinner. Then we watched the Nativity movie. And then, all the kids get to open their first present, which is, their christmas pajamas. After everyone left, me and Teigan made special cookies for Santa and put them out on his special plate. He was so excited.

Christmas Day- I think Nate was more excited than anyone. He woke up at 5am and 6am and kept tossing and turning and then I woke up a couple times before Teigan finally got up 730am. We opened our stockings first. And then we waited for Tyson and Mollee. They were keeping our present safe :) Thanks guys. So when they arrived we took the present and put it in a box for the kids to open. If you have guessed, Yep it was a dog. A miniture schnauzer.