kirstencan

Sib Gifts

The last few years we've opened up what we call the Sib Shop for our kids to 'shop' for each other from.  Basically, I buy a few small gifts (really small - like dollar spot at Target or found it on clearance) appropriate for each child, and then have one kid come up at a time to choose a gift for each of their siblings.  They only look at the ones for their siblings, not ones that would be choices for themselves - does that make sense?  Then they would wrap their gifts and giggling, set them under the tree. 

This year I wanted to do something different (and not buy a bunch of cheap crap).  Growing up as the oldest of 6, we always drew names and had a price limit.  With three kids, though, it's not really enough to draw names.  I thought of taking them shopping this year, with a price limit, to pick something out for their siblings, but I just wasn't all gung-ho about it.

And then Design Mom started posting her amazing handmade sibling gifts (follow the links for more ideas).  Wow!  Handmade kid-made gifts that aren't junk!  I was inspired.  And I used all things that I had in my craft closet, so I didn't spend any money!  Woo!

We got them all made on Christmas Eve-Eve.

Monkey made initial paintings.

I cut out contact paper initials and stuck them on little 5x7 canvases.  Then he picked out his siblings' favorite colors and painted over top.

 

They turned out pretty well, even if my contact paper wasn't the best kind.

And then Thomas made one for Monkey - not knowing that one was coming to him as well. 

For his sister, Thomas painted a little wooden bird (from when I made these bird ornaments) and put fuzzy stickers on it.  Dad helped drill the hole, and we had a pretty bird ornament for her!

Princess has been loving the knifty knitter lately, and made all her friends doll hats with it for their gifts.  When Monkey told her that his teddy needed a blue hat, that made deciding what to make him really easy!

And then for Thomas, Princess gave a watch she'd gotten in a kid's meal at Wendy's.  Not handmade, but she had set it aside for him last month, and we called it good.  And he loved it.

We also like to have them exchange their sib gifts on Christmas Eve - mostly so that they will be really excited and appreciate them more than if they opened them in the morning with the rest of their loot. 

And it's so sweet.  Lots of hugs all around.

So what do you do about your kids' gifts to each other?  Have you found something that works really well for you?

Tulle and then more tulle

Sorry It's been a little slow over here - we've been busy!  I'm trying hard to keep up daily posts over at Pip and Ollie, though!

I spent my Friday making 22 tulle hair poofs for my daughter's dance class.

 

And my Friday night with my daughter, mom, and sisters downtown for opening night of The Nutcracker!

The theater is old and amazing.

If there's anything more fun to do as a little girl than putting on your Christmas dress and going to a fancy theater, I don't know what it is.

So very glad we went.

I spent my Saturday running errands.  And wondering (once again) why my Costco parking lot is uphill.  You have to push your cart UPHILL to get back to your car.  Your Costco-sized, usually quite heavy cart.  And then you have to somehow load your car without letting your cart roll back down the hill.  It's not easy.  I really cursed Costco when I was pregnant, having back or knee problems, or hauling fat babies in the cart.  Or any combination of the above.

No photo of the parking lot.  I was too busy sweating and keeping both hands on the handle.

...

So anyway, how's your weekend going?

Sicky

Sick this week.  Ugh.

Trying to lay still on the couch.  Drinking giner ale and slathering myself with Vicks Vapo Rub (Ahh).  The kids have been great.  I had great plans for if we got really sick this year - plans for isolating the sick one.  But when the mom gets sick first what are you supposed to do?

I can't be isolated when I need to make sandwiches and be referee.

The boys may have been in the same clothes for several days straight.  They have been really good though - and have been playing ds for entirely too long.  But they also have been playing with this cardboard playmobil pyramid that Aaron made them - cool.

Yesterday was the worst day - and I just kept thinking:  Mom's coming up. Mom's coming up.

My supplies:  kleenex (not shown, kleenex garbage bag), carmex, hand sanitizer, library book, moleskine, pen, juice glass.

Thanks, Mom!  You saved the day (again).  Even though right after you left the boys dragged all the Star Wars toys back up to the living room and pulled all the quilts off of the quilt rack (again!) to make mountains for them - it made me feel a little better to not be living in a total disaster area.

 

My view.

I've read several books this week - can't complain about that.  And I've been reviewing/changing our Christmas lists hidden in my trusty moleskine notebook.  Yikes, I have a lot to do.  We have a slot system for the kids' gifts.  One from Santa, 2 from us, 1 handmade from me, and 1 book.  It's so much easier this way.  But it still feels like a little much this year. On the other hand, we don't buy our kids toys for no reason throughout the year - so this is our chance to get them that little something special.  I've had to juggle a few things around - so that list is getting messy - but I think it'll be good.

Now those mama-made gifts... plus the other handmade holiday projects I'd like to make... add up to one long crafty to-do list.  Yikes. I'd better get moving on that one!  How is it that when you're feeling lousy and can't do anything, that's when the pressure is on to work on your giant to-do list?

How about you?  How are your Christmas gifts coming?  Does your to-do list look like mine?

And now to disinfect the computer and go lie back down...

What's for dinner?

I don't know about you, but deciding what is on the menu is harder than making it.   Why is that?  I seem to get mind-blocks about deciding what's for dinner.  Even though we write out a menu every Saturday (actually we usually lose said menu).

Well, my daughter decided to help me out.  She is all about making lists lately and I found this posted on the fridge:

 

That girl hates chili in a major way. 

Okay, let's see.... cake, cookies, ice cream or take out would be acceptable dinners while... liver, chicken, or any fish is out.  Got it.  For the record, we've never made liver or fish for her, but I think she's just being cautious...

So I'm way glad that we got to make her have a brussel sprout when we had dinner at Kirk and Eva's last weekend!  Ha!

Alright, well, I think tonight we'll have chicken, with salad and green beans.  Done and done and thanks for the help, Princess!

Lego Maniacs

So, I think that Legos are THE coolest toy.  Period. 

I loved playing with Legos growing up (my brothers'), and it's fun now that all of my kids play with Lego bricks as well.  We have boxes of them - regular and Duplo, and they all get used often.

Lately, though, Thomas has been even more into them (which is saying a lot, quite frankly) it's turning into a kind of fixation -  kind of the way he used to be fixated on Thomas trains.  The new train table has been in constant Lego use.  Constant.  And the Lego catalogs and magazines are all over the house.

He has always taken his Lego models apart.  And I have no problem with that. He makes his own things up and they're cool.  That's what Legos are for.  After painstakingly putting together a helicopter, he immediately took some pieces off, and customized it - including adding wheels.  See, that's cool.

It is annoying when asked to help put one back together, and then he immediately takes it apart, but whatever.

 

But suddenly, he's leaving his models together.  It started with this police car he bought with his own money.  It's still together, a month later.

So Aaron thought it would be fun to put all of his Lego models back together before his birthday on Friday (7!).  So we've been spending hours sorting through the bricks, finding the ones that go to specific Star Wars ships, etc.  The kid is SO happy as he's seeing them come back together.  We're about half way there, I think.

 

I am not made for this type of meticulous work, though, I tell ya.  It's driving me crazy digging through the boxes for the tiniest of pieces.  But Aaron's right, it's the perfect thing to do for Thomas' birthday (well, besides another Lego Star Wars ship!).

One evening we were both sitting sorting through the Lego boxes and I chuckled and thought "Ten years ago we wouldn't have thought we'd be spending a Friday night doing this!" 

Except, yeah, we probably could have called it.  Heh - geeks.

....

*Oh, and thanks for the nice comments about my playroom!  Also thanks to Ohdeedoh for giving my playroom a shout out last week!

Rain + Music

A nice moment the other day:  I was putting on some tunes to listen to while I straightened up in the afternoon - towards the end of Quiet Time.  I randomly picked Weezer.  My daughter said, "Huh, I'm surprised you didn't pick Belle & Sebastian - I have one of their lines stuck in my head."

*If they follow you

don't look back

like Dylan in the movies

on your own *

So that's what I put on.  And it was the perfect choice, she was right.  Especially as a really cool thunderstorm rolled in soon after.  We hadn't had rain in a while, and this was a gorgeous storm.

 

The kids loved watching the downpours and we listened to B & S for a couple of hours.  Perfect. 

Lovely.

Yes, I will choose that moment to remember this week. 

.

We won't be talking about yesterday morning - when I was still in my bathrobe, having a semi-frustrating phone conversation about Thomas + church (it's always something) and Thomas put his shoes on and ran down the block.  Luckily I didn't have to chase him down - Princess was outside in her roller skates. 

Roller skates, people.

And no, I got no pictures of that one (still on the phone) but it was a spectacle.

.

Yeah, let's not talk about that morning.... how about stripy socks?

I love me some stripy socks - and after seeing this photo, had my mom on the lookout for the knee socks at Costco - thanks, Mom!

.

Stripy.

Socks.

Much better.

Hello, freckle knees!

Lunch to go

**Thanks for the anniversary congrats - and Angie, I posted a wedding photo a few years back at the big 1-0.  You can see it here if you want!**

We recently spent a day at the zoo with friends and took lunches to eat there.  It was the first time most of our bento boxes got used - which was fun.

I took photos before I finished packing them up, wanna see?

Here are Princess and Thomas' bentos all ready to go:

Princess: homemade macaroni and cheese, hard-boiled egg (we tried to use an egg-mold to make it a heart shape but next time we need to try with bigger eggs), raisins, and animal crackers.

Thomas: hummus (with tortilla chips packed separately), raisins and graham crackers

And here's mine and Monkey's:

 

I had multi-grain crackers with laughing cow cheese, blackberries from our garden and graham crackers.  Monkey had plain pasta, a fresh orange tomato, blackberries and animal crackers.

Not perfect nutrition-wise, but probably better than if I'd just packed PB&J sandwiches.  I think I make more nutritious lunches bento/muffin-tin style.  Also definitely not very traditional bentos at all - but I'm okay with that, I just think the containers are so very cool.

I loved filling these.  Probably because I don't have to pack my kids lunch every day (another benefit of homeschool).  Bentos make you think differently about lunch.  If any of you have done the muffin-tin lunch thing, it's a similar kind of planning, really.  My kids LOVE lunches like this.

Bentos look small, but you can fit more than enough food in there and they're so great for non-sandwich meals and for using up leftovers.  I love that they're reusable, so they are way less wasteful than other ways to take your lunch (individually packaged snacks, etc.).

Not to mention how cute they are.

But the cutest thing (though not as cute as the baby giraffe - holy cow that little guy was adorable) was when my kids + their friends all broke out their bentos at the zoo.  Gotta love that!

So, I thought with school starting some of you moms might like some lunchboxinspiration for kiddos.  Check these out:

bento flickr group - there are several bento flickr groups - so cool!

laptop lunchbox flickr group - Laptop lunchboxes are similar to bentos, but are an Americanized way of doing it. 

Laeroport - A's first day of school lunchbox looked so yummy.

Amber's laptop lunch set - her kids lunches are always so carefully prepared

laptop lunch website

muffin tin meals

Now one of these days I'll whip up some little cloth napkins to keep with the bentos... then we'll really be all set!

A good evening.

Yesterday we picked a half gallon of blackberries and these:

Even without the zucchini this year (boo to the slugs!) we are enjoying the fresh garden goodies.  We may have to make orange salsa today.

After dinner I pushed the boys on the swing for... a long time.

The weather was delightful.  Not too hot, not too cool.  The weekends have been a little chilly lately - which is so odd for August - we're a little worried about our peaches ripening in time - but it was perfect for being outside.

One boy would climb up the slide while the other swung.  The red head would get to the top, say 'Uh-oh!  Oh no!  Oh bother!' and slide back down backwards on his knees.

His feet got so dirty that I called them 'Hobbit feet' so the little brother had to make his feet dirty, too.  On purpose.  And then pick grass to add to them to make them hairy.  Note to self:  double-check the boys' feet before they go to bed from now on.

After the kids went to bed Aaron and I sat down to a piece of absolutely perfect rustic blackberry pie (a la mode, if you were curious).  Aaron made it with our fresh blackberries. 

Delish.

And a great start to one of the last weeks of our summer. 

Swimming

Remember last year when we tried Thomas at a group swimming lesson?  He wasn't quite ready for that.  This year I wanted to get him in a semi-private or private lesson.  The place where Princess goes wouldn't do that, but luckily, my mom has a friend who will do private lessons.  More expensive, but it's really what the boys needed.

It's been great, actually.  The boys have each made progress.  Thomas has some coordination trouble so in some ways Monkey surpassed him, but each progressed - that's what we were hoping for.

One of the reasons I wanted semi-private was so that both boys could be in the water at once.  I couldn't imagine the struggle it would be to keep one boy out while the other boy swam.  Torture, right?

But this particular school lets the other kids get in the pool while they're waiting!  And it's been great practice for them, too!

So, at one end you'll find a little monkey hanging out on the steps.

And the bigger girl (who isn't even taking lessons right now -she finished her session with the other school last month) plays with dive toys (over and over and over) in the deep end.

That's a great setup.

At first I wasn't sure if it would be worth the money, but we really wanted the boys to try swimming lessons this year.  You know what?  I think it's been absolutely worth it.

 

Yesterday, Thomas even let his sister try and help him with his floats when he was done with his lesson - now that's progress right there!

 

All three have absolutely loved these lessons. 

Well, mostly.

Long week...

...but we're almost done with it.

It's just been a tiring week.  Really slow and mellow, but tiring.  It always surprises me how much more quiet and calm it is when Thomas is sick.  I can definitely tell he's almost better today - if you know what I mean. :)

This week we've watched the rain.  Lots and lots of rain.  I think that maybe there's been one day in the past 2 weeks that didn't have a thunderstorm.  I think it even still rained that day, though.

We've picked (and eaten!) lots and lots of strawberries. From our garden.  I don't usually blog about our garden, but Aaron has such a green thumb, and we're lucky to get a lot of food out of it. 

We've eaten a lot of popsicles.

It's been the kind of week where the poor sick boy conks out sound asleep on the floor before 7:00pm - in the mis-matched pajamas he hadn't taken off since the night before. 

Heck, we've all been in our pajamas half the day anyway.

We've been woken up in the night - by both of the boys.  One because he's sick, and one just because.  Those kind of nights - they show up here and there, don't they?

All week Thomas has woken up before 6:00am, too - those mornings show up here and there, too.  Not my favorites.

We're tired.

Lots of vitamin C and hand washing to make sure no one else gets sick - it's worked so far!

To keep one kid still, we've all watched lots of movies - including introducing the kids to Castle in the Sky and Pokemon from the library.  I think I'm going to regret that last one, but it was slim pickin's at the library that day...

We got an awesome package from my pal Lori.  She made me this super cute bag!  I love it and have already used it - thanks, Lori!

Among the included goodies is this awesome hand-quilted coaster.  I love hand-quilting - it looks so cool.

She even made this doll quilt (!) and pillow for Princess' dolls.  Princess was thrilled, she says they 'needed' (ha!) a new quilt and especially a pillow. 
I just love the ticking stripes.  So pretty!

And here's a shot of Molly all snuggled up- for Aidin!

Thanks so much!

And now I'm going to get moving and make some pigs-in-a-blanket for dinner.  I haven't made that for years - but it's been that kind of week.

I might make cookies, too...