Practicing Patience

If anything in my life, patience has been the hardest to learn.   Unfortunately it's one characteristic that doesn't come naturally.  
I have found that having children has been the master class to learning, practicing and testing my patience.
Lord knows I've failed tests over the last nearly 9 years....I am however proud of my accomplishments in this  subject.
One would think that the hardest lessons in patience would be when my kids fight, yell, refuse to help.
Yes.  yes those are the hardest.  But it's the letting the little people help that requires the utmost patience.   My slowing down to teach.  and then staying silent when things aren't going as I had planned or are causing more of a mess.
I try to remember that these moments are significant in that my kids love to help and they think that I love it when they do. :)
They are also learning the how to's of a household (your welcome future in laws) which will certainly be important.
And one day.  one day the peelings won't fly all over my walls and floors.   One day supervising will be a thing of the past and my patience will have bought me a nice dinner to which I only had to ask for.
Hey.  I can dream.

Spencer, Syd and Nate making stew

Game Night !

Game Night is one of our favorite nights at our house.   I hope our kids remember how much fun we had.  
Right now our favorites are :

Hide and seek in the dark - the person that's it gets the flashlight and counts to 20 or 30.   We can only hide upstairs and once found you are supposed to go sit on the couch and not run around telling the seeker where everyone is help the seeker find anyone.   We pull names out of a hat to determine who goes first and  Nathan and Ryan are old enough to count and seek by themselves.   They don't always like to hide by themselves with makes it really hard for an already larger than life body to squeeze another person albeit smaller, into a space in which to hide and not be seen.

Colored Eggs - 1 person is it (the fox).   the rest (the eggs) pick a color.   The person (the fox) picks a color and if the color is chosen that person jumps up and runs around whatever was chosen to run around and if the fox catches the egg that person is out.   If not, the person picks a new color to be and the game continues.

Freeze dance - Music on, dance.  Music off, freeze.   We found out that the better the dancer....the easier it is to get them out. :)

Freeze tag -  1 person is it.   The rest of us run from one side of the room to the other without the person in the middle touching them.   If the person in the middle touches you, you are frozen.   Someone can un freeze you by touching you.  

Our latest game which seems to be a new house favorite is : 
Silly string fight- Everyone is armed with a can of silly string.   Everyone shoots the entire contents of silly string over anyone and it seemed anything.

I can't wait to play more games as they get older.    When they can be set free with a flashlight in the neighborhood. :)

I haven't posted anything about Syd's lunches for a while.    Probably because being cute and super creative only lasted through 1st grade and now just trickles in here and there.
I do try to put little notes or jokes in her lunch box during the week.    There are a ton of great and more importantly free printable notes and jokes online.

Today being Valentines day I wanted to put something special in her lunch.    and then I had no time.   SO.  as good intentions always are....I found this instead.    Cute and FREE and fast !
I love this site....they have the best recipes.   I have made several and even have their minestrone soup in my fridge left over from dinner last night.  SO yummy.  super easy.

Any ways.   Here are a couple of pictures of my lame attempts at being creative without embarrassing a 3rd grader who is "too old for all of that cutesy stuff mom"  :)
Lunch including drink = 5 minutes.

so cute right ?

and of course the Valentines box.    

Baby it's Cold Outside

    I really can't stay.
Baby it's cold outside.
     I gotta get away
Baby it's cold outside.
     The littles have been
Been hoping to say hi
     so very sick.
but I can't type as my hands are ice
     9 degrees had me a little worried
I really need to hurry.
    This should only last 1 month more.
Everyone is starting to roar.
     I need Spring to hurry.
My head is feeling blurry.
     Where's my pink pills I need some more
You'll need a drink here let me pour.

I suppose if you don't know the tune this just seems like a mess of words.  :)

It's been so cold that the kids can't/don't want to go outside.
Kids can't go outside = more fighting.   more messes.   more likely chance to spread disease.
Needless to say I never thought that I'd be LOVING and I mean LOVING this 30 degree weather we've been having.   I'm hoping Puxutawney Phil knows what he's talking about.   We could certainly use an early spring.

To pass the time my boys have been practicing their drumming skills.   They saw this video

and have since been doing this... 
 The percussionists in the first video are from Utah. The main drummer is friends with the drum :) What a good sport. The difference between the professional drummers and my little drummers is that the Samoan got paid for his abuse. Cam didn't :)