Friday Senses

Seeing:  Lots of animals at the zoo!  We went to the zoo this week, and the boys loved it.  They had so much fun wandering around and looking at all the animals.  We even got a zoo membership, so we'll be making a lot more zoo trips!

 

Loving:  Watching the boys explore and play outside in our yard everyday.  These guys cannot get enough of nature and I love it!

Smelling:  These tulips that we picked from our yard.  They're so pretty!  And look awesome on our table.

Laughing: At slide hair!!  And also, multi-colored poop due to my kids eating crayons.  Didn't feel the need to take or post a photo.  You're welcome.

Eating:  Homemade pizza.  Soooo easy and delicious.  Fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, home-grown basil, and homemade dough.  

Dating:  Jeremy and I were able to get away last night for a day thanks to our awesome friend, Katrina.  We are HUGE Game of Thrones fans, and the Nashville Adventure Science Center was having a "way late play date",  with a Game of Thrones theme that we went to.  All the exhibits were open for us to play on and drinks were served.  It was awesome.  We played and hung out with other GOT nerds just like us!

Kayaking:  A friend and I went kayaking on the Piney River this week.  It was so cold and the owner kinda thought we were crazy, but it was fun!  I'm looking forward to this summer when it really warms up some and we can take the boys on the river!

Books

I'm really excited that the boys enjoy reading books now.  For a long time, they didn't care.  I know how important reading books is to a kid's language development, so was always trying to incorporate reading books into their bedtime or daily routine, but they seemed to have no interest.  They would just run away or play with something else. 

But now, I feel like reading is what the majority of their time at home with us is spent doing (except for when it's nice out...then we're always outside playing).  And I like it.  Sure it gets annoying, reading the same books over and over again, but it's also very satisfying to know that my kids like listening to us read, connecting pictures with words and learning. 

 I'm fairly confident that if you picked out any random 3 Dr. Suess books, I could probably read the thing by memory, never having to look at the pages.  The boys have learned so much already, and I know they're probably average in where they are right now as far as language and recognition skills, but I'm impressed by every little thing they know.  They know a few colors, the names and sounds of multiple animals, and tons of names of other objects around the house.  It just blows my mind to think of them as once tiny little things in my belly that can now talk to me, name different things and express (some)needs with words.

Love watching my littles grow up, and am enjoying every minute!

Rants & Where I've Been.

So probably nobody has really noticed or even really cares, but I've been gone for a while.  Not gone as in  away from home gone, but gone in the sense of away from Facebook/blogging.  I haven't blogged anything in over a month, and have hardly checked Facebook except for maybe once a day or a few times a week.  I used to be on the computer a lot.  I would spend almost every free minute I had writing blog posts, reading other blogs or perusing Facebook.  I haven't been doing much of any of those things lately.  I've decided that I don't like how much of my time was spent on the computer, and so I've cut back.  And it's been pretty awesome.  I've been reading a lot more.  I've been spending time just talking with Jeremy after the boys go to bed.  I've been working more on the boys' quiet book.  I've just been enjoying actually playing with the boys instead of just watching over them and making sure they're safe.  It feels good to let go of the "duties" that I had placed on myself regarding blogging and Facebook.  I used to feel like I needed to post X amount of blog posts per week, or had to upload all these photos off of my camera and put them on Facebook for friends to see, or just had to check Facebook to see what my friends were up to.  But I'm done with the necessity of those things.  I'll blog when I want to, and I'll check FB/put up pictures when I feel like it.  

Have you heard my soapbox on smartphones?  I'm sure I've rambled about it before, but here I go again.  Neither Jeremy or I have any sort of smartphone.  Neither do either of our families.  We have no desire to have smartphones.  I feel like if I had a smartphone, my time would be spent on it more than it would elsewhere.  Sure there are plenty of times when a smartphone would be helpful and useful to me (say when I get lost...cause we all know I'm terrible with directions), but I can totally live my life without one.  And I think that almost everyone that has one would also claim that.  There are places and things that have once been easy to do without a smartphone, but that have recently been proven more difficult.  This makes me very angry a lot of times.  I saw a cartoon once that was 2 photos of children playing on a playground...one was captioned "this is how kids played in the 90's" and had children playing on  swings and slides, etc., and the next photo was captioned "this is how kids play today", with the photo being of kids sitting around at a park all on their phones.  I know that this is a stereotype and not every family is like this, but it is more true than it used to be.  I don't like that it sometimes seems that phones have replaced face-to-face conversations and personal interactions.
 I would rather my life be not so tech-centered, and if I really don't need something like that, I would rather not have the temptation of that convenience.  

Ok smartphone rant over.     

We are about to make some big changes in the next couple years for our little family, and I've really just been putting more thoughts and effort into what that is all going to look like and what things need to be done to prepare.  I know I'm being vague, and if you're close with me you probably already know what I'm talking about, but for those of you who don't know, I'll expand more on this exciting news very soon.  This all being said, we're probably going to have to learn to live in a not very technology-centered way, so the more we can learn to live without now, and the better we can teach our boys to live this way, the better we will be in the long run.

So what is the point of this post?  There isn't a huge one.  It's just to say that I may not be here as often as I used to be.  

The Nerdiest Valentine's Day.

I'm so excited about our Valentine's day this year.  A couple of weeks ago, we all went to the LEGO store that we have here in town.  It's one of our favorite stores ever.  They have so many awesome and huge sets to put together.  We splurged a little and got ourselves a huge Millennium Falcon to put together and decided that that is what we were going to do on Valentine's day.  

No chocolates.  No flowers.  No jewelry.  GIVE ME LEGOS!

We did go out to dinner, but were just so excited to get home and put together the Millenium Falcon while watching the Star Wars movies.

Check this thing out:

How awesome is that?!  

But wait...

It opens up!

We had sooo much fun putting this all together.  It took us a good couple of hours, and it was awesome.  

Best. (and arguably, nerdiest) Valentines. Ever.

!!

Snow Day

Tennessee got snow.  WHAT?!  It happens maybe once every 2 years.  And if you're lucky, it stays for more than a day.  This year, it stayed for about half a day.  

That half a day was enough for Jeremy to (mildly) wreck his car.  Because people are crazy.  and FREAK out when it snows.  And drive even crazier than they do normally.  

We enjoyed this mini snow day by hanging out at home, and going out in it for a bit in our backyard.  My friend Katrina got the boys these really cute warm onsie outfits, so I put them in them and sent them out to check out the snow.  

Got some cute pictures too!

Little snowflakes on his eyelashes!

The boys enjoyed playing in and looking at the snow...And the picture above immediately precedes screams of panic after realizing that they're heads were stuck!  (they slid out with help no problem).

DIY Dino Hoodie

DINO HOODIE!

You guys.  I made this in like an hour today.  It's super easy and super cute!  The boys were so excited to wear it when I finished.  They kept trying to look back and grab the spikes while wearing it!  I don't think I've done a DIY post on here yet and I'm really trying to be more crafty and make homemade things (like our quiet book, which is still in the making!).  So here we are today with a homemade dinosaur hoodie.  

Supplies:

-A Hoodie

-Felt (about 2-3 pieces, depending on how big and how many "spikes" you want)

-iron

-straight pins

-thread

-needle

-scissors

-sewing machine (optional)

1.  Take the hoodie, and fold it equally in half.

2.  Iron it down flat so that when you unfold it, there is a visible crease down the middle.

3.  Cut felt diamonds.  Easy way to get equal triangles?  Fold the felt page in half.  Cut a triangle with the base being the folded edge of the felt.  Cut out a couple of them, then measure up to your hoodie about how many you want/need and cut out the rest.

4.  Once you have all the felt diamonds cut out, line them up on the crease line of the hoodie, and pin them down.

5.  With a sewing machine, (or by hand),  sew a line down the crease of the hoodie and down the middle of the diamonds.  

6.  Once all of the spikes are sewn down, then fold them each up and sew them together.  I hand sewed the spikes together, since it was easier to hand sew while watching the boys, but you can also do it on the sewing machine.   

And that's it!  You then have yourself a little dinosaur.  My felt was fairly stiff, so I don't really have a problem with the spikes not standing up on their own, but I imagine you could do some interfacing to help with that.  

Super easy to make...I did it while hanging out with these two guys today :)

laughter

"I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us." - Charles Dickens

The sound of your kid laughing is one of the best sounds ever.  I'm sure any parent would agree.  I love hearing Judah & Foxx laugh.  

They usually aren't laughing because they think something is funny.  They don't have much of a sense of humor yet. When we walk through their classroom door at daycare to pick them up, they spot us, and immediately start laughing and running toward us with open arms.  They laugh together while playing cars or cooking in their kitchen, or building towers with blocks.  They laugh when I tell them we're going out somewhere.

They laugh when they are happy or excited.  

When was the last time I laughed just because I was happy?  I am happy and content the majority of the time, yet I don't go around laughing everywhere.  But what if we did?  What if we laughed to show our  gladness and joy?  How awesome would the world sound?!

If seeing my kids so happy that they laugh makes me feel unbelievably overjoyed, think of how God must feel with us.  When was the last time we laughed or sang or smiled really big, just because we are happy that we are God's children?  The love that I have for Judah & Foxx is only a fraction of the love that God has for all of us.  I am trying to embrace this more.

I cried the other night when putting my boys to bed.  As I sat there singing a nightly lullaby to them, with their huge little smiles looking up at me, playing with my hair or each other's hands, I could not believe how blessed I am to have these 2 little guys.

I see God's love through my children every single day, and I am so dang thankful.