Be Mine

Happy Valentines Day! Although it is kind of a silly holiday (shouldn't we celebrate love and friendship every day?) it is an extra special one for our family as we celebrate our annual Happy Heart Day at the end of January and the anniversary of our first date (9 years ago today!).Whatever you do today, I hope it is shared with someone you love (friends count too!).

From our annual Happy Heart Day celebration!

January rewind

January came and went just as quickly as December. It was a whirlwind of packing up the old, ringing in the new, re-acquainting ourselves with familiar routines and throwing in some new ones for good measure. It was a good month! Here are some of the more mundane moments of January - the things that filled our days and the breaths in between the hustle and bustle.

I love how Maryn seeks this spot each morning - she gathers all her things around the heat vent and contentedly sits and draws or reads until it is time to get ready for the day. This time of year we're all a bit leonine as we stalk the heat or occasional spot of sun, then pounce and claim it like predators - eager and grateful for warmth!

The kids learned all about football from Chris and we had "family football" Sundays. They now probably know more about the rules of the game than I do. As you can see, Lucy got pretty into it!

We celebrated my Dad's birthday, complete with German chocolate cake. Happy birthday, Papa!

The kids are now fort-building experts and no fort is complete without twinkle lights! I would love to have a permanent fort like this one, but I guess the magic is in the building and reconstructing just as much as the finished hide-out.

I just really like these photos! The girls put together some awesome outfits (or "ensembles" in Fancy Nancy speak) and I love how colorful they were that day. They pretty much eschew pants for the most part, unless worn under a dress or a skirt. And the more color and pattern, the better! Oh, and Maryn has been talking to me a lot about "taste" lately. As in "mom, I think you would like this - it's your taste," especially when talking about clothes or fashion. Maybe she's caught one too many episodes of Project Runway??

Speaking of funny sayings, the other day Lucy watched a flock of birds take to the sky, then very seriously asked "are they migrating, or your-grating?" We all absorbed that for a minute than burst out in giggles. These kids are too much!

 

I made good on the "eat more healthfully" resolution by adding spinach to our smoothies. The kids generally do not like plain fruit, but will drink pretty much anything in a smoothie. We make ours by throwing in large handfuls of frozen strawberries and blueberries, adding a couple of heaping spoonfuls of plain yogurt, tossing in some washed spinach leaves and covering it all with OJ. Sometimes I add a bit of honey if the berries are at all tart.  Yummy and healthy!

 

The dark winter mornings necessitate something cheery with your caffeinated beverage of choice, and I enjoyed every last sip of coffee from my new rosy mug. I felt guilty buying it in December when I should have been shopping for everyone else, but after using it just about every day this month I consider it money well spent.

So, that's our January rundown, minus one or two things I may (or, let's just be honest, may not) post about later. So far, so good, 2011! 

snow day

I have some more advent activities to share, but my mind is a bit sluggish tonight so I'll have to work on that post tomorrow. In the meantime, here are a few photos of the "snow" day we had back in November.

They canceled school due to fears of icy roads - the snow was only a few inches deep, but the temperature was below freezing for a while. Poor Chris had to walk all the way to work because the bus never came. It will become his "when I was your age, I walked four miles in the snow!" story he can tell the kids when we're old and cantankerous and lamenting the end of the good old days.

The kids had fun using baby spoons to scrape the snow off the car, then had a snow tea party on the back deck while I stayed warm and toasty with my cup of coffee and watched them from the back door. It was a perfect day, and a much appreciated break!

Advent activities days 3-5

Advent DAY 3: make bead necklaces

 One of Maryn's best friends from school came over to play and we made some necklaces and decorated cookies. I love watching the kids form their own friendships at school (the one between Maryn and her friend E is so sweet!) but I hope no matter how many friends they have, the relationship they share as sisters will always come first.

 

 My Aunt once gave my mom a jewelery box with the saying "A sister is a special friend." I loved that idea, and am having so much fun watching these two and the way they love each other!

I just can't get enough of that dimple!

DAY 4: Put up Christmas lights

This is our second Christmas at our house and our first time putting up lights. I think I would have preferred white icicles, but the kids love color so we went with the big bold ones! I ran out of lights about 3 feet from the end of our house, and while the perfectionist in me cringes at the last unlit stretch I don't think I care enough to climb a ladder again. They're "good enough!"

DAY 5: Pick out our Christmas tree

We went to the same family-run tree farm as last year and found a perfect tree. Last year we had to put the camera on a timer and take a picture ourselves, but this year my mom joined us and took a great family photo for us. Thanks, mom!

Along with our daily Advent activity, we also read part of the Christmas story (or another related verse) from the Bible. Tonight it was Luke chapter two which describes Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem and Jesus' birth in the stable. Maryn asked the question "did Jesus save the world when he was a baby?" To which I responded "God sent him to save the world, but he had to grow up first." Maryn thought about it a bit and said "yeah, he was probably one or two at least." By that logic, Maryn is well past her prime at the ripe old age of five!

I hope you had a good, family fun filled weekend as well! Now to think up some more ideas for this week's Advent activities...

Advent days 1 & 2

Here's a picture of our Advent calendar:

 

They're the same paper cups from last year, but hung on a ribbon with mini clothespins instead of hanging from a tree branch (which kept falling over, or dropping the cups on the floor). The ribbon is over the chalkboard so I have to lift the kids up to pull out the paper with the day's activity. Having it placed out of reach also keeps them from taking out all the papers and shuffling them up!

Day 1 - Paper countdown chain

We used the same pack of Christmas scrapbook paper (bought at Target last year) to make our paper chain. Does anyone have a good idea of something to do with the paper strips once they've been pulled off the chain? So far the girls are using them as bracelets.

Day 2 - hot chocolate

In adorable little santa mugs - $.50 each from the Goodwill. We'll get lots of use out of these tiny mugs this month!

Christmasy cranberry muffins

I made these muffins with my girlies yesterday to celebrate the first day of advent. They are the perfect morning muffin - not too sweet, slightly spicy, with a nutty crunch and a bit of a tart bite (not to mention lovely color) from the fresh cranberries. The recipe is originally from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. I cut the recipe in half, used slightly less sugar, omitted the figs (although I bet they'd be great, we didn't have any on hand), substituted pecans for hazelnuts and added a bit of orange zest. I'll post the modified recipe here. Enjoy!

Christmas Cranberry Muffins (adapted from Ina's cranberry harvest muffins)

1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2/3 cup milk
1 large egg
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter melted and cooled
3/4 cup chopped fresh cranberries
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 9 muffin cups with paper liners, or use non-stick spray. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger in a large bowl. Mix wet ingredients (egg, milk and melted butter) in another bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine. Stir in the sugars, then fold the cranberries and nuts into the batter. Fill muffin cups to the top with batter and bake for about 20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

They're also delicious as an afternoon snack with a cup of tea!

* thankful *

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to all those out there in blog-land. We're so thankful to the friends and family who check in here - the fact that you even care enough to want to know what we're up to means so much. I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgiving weekends filled with yummy food and time with family and friends.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and some of their friends. It was a really perfect and relaxed day. And the food was pretty amazing. Just look at the size of the turkey:

I wish I had the foresight to take a picture of the table to document all the work that went into the wonderful food, but my stomach got the better of me and I forgot all about the camera. Luckily my mom had hers and our friends took some fun pictures of the family:

I absolutely LOVE holiday weekends because they mean we get extra family time. We used Friday to reward the kids for filling out their star chart (a make-shift behavior chart where the kids earned stars for good behavior).  Chuck-E-Cheese was surprisingly uncrowded and Chris and I had as much fun as the kids. We were all pretty sad to have dad go back to work on Monday but it helped knowing we made the most of the days he had off.

Here is a picture of our "mantel" decorated for Thanksgiving. We don't really have much in the way of decorations, but the kids bring home lots of fun crafts from school and the end result is pretty festive:

 

And now the Christmas season is here again. Thanksgiving things are put away, Christmas decor is making its way around the house, and the Advent calendar is making its second appearance tomorrow. Hopefully I'll do a better job of documenting things this year. Tomorrow's activity is a paper count-down chain - the kids have been begging for one since we saw it decorating a table of books at Powell's. They'll be so excited to make their own! I just love the simple pleasures of Christmas!