My Happy Little Rainbow

Ellie has become very concious of her wardrobe in the past year. when she was three, she had to wear skirts and dresses all the time and didn't like pants or jeans at all. Now, at 4, she thinks jeans are cool and likes to wear things with sparkles and rinestones on them or fun belts on the pants etc. she loves the added flair!
I lucked out at Gymboree the other day when I found out that the newest spring line of clothes had several pieces marked at $4.99. I bought Ellie a brand new complete outfit for less than the retail cost of one piece! She was so excited to wear her new outfit to preschool yesterday even though Spring is a long way off yet. The name of this clothing line was called Happy Rainbow, so that's what I called Ellie all day, "My Happy Little Rainbow"!

Chinese New Year

Last night for Family Night, we celebrated the Chinese New Year, which started yesterday. Having done a little research, we did activities that the Chinese typically do to celebrate their holiday.
We decorated in red, the color of luck and good fortune. We had a bowl of oranges, which the chinese have on display in their homes and give as gifts to symbolize prosperity in the year ahead. We also tried to form a pyramid out of our oranges.
I found and printed each of our family's names on the internet and printed them out. We made a scroll or vertical banner, which the Chinese hang in their homes during this time to decorate. On the banner, we each drew our Chinese name and then colored a few other things, like a dragon, flowers, bamboo and butterflies. This was everyone's favorite activity. The children all received lai see, which is money in red envelopes given to all the children and single adults in a Chinese household.
We ordered and ate chinese food for dinner, of course. We had beef and broccoli, orange chicken, pork lo mein,and chicken fried rice, egg rolls and fortune cookies! After everyone read their fortunes, we combined two of the Chinese traditions in our own way. Usually fireworks are let off and there is the big dragon parade. We didn't have fireworks or a dragon, so we used our chopsticks from dinner and some pots and pans and lids to make lots of noise (fireworks) and paraded around the room. The kids alos loved this activity as well. When do we ever encourage them to make lots of noise indoors??
It was a fun family night, doing things we had never done and experiencing a different culture's holiday.
Gung Hay Fat Choy! Wishing you good fortune and happiness!

No Snow Again!

Here in central Virginia, we haven't seen a good snowfall in 3-4 years. As like in past years, the kids keep getting their hopes up with every "winter advisory" weather report, which so far has turned out to be NOTHING! We've definietly had some cold weather this season, but every time it's below freezing, no precipitation. As soon as it's above 35, rain, rain, rain.We were expecting something most recently last night and today, but it's 6:15 am and already 35 degrees with nothing falling from the sky. The kids will be disappointed yet again when they wake up with no excitement about listening to the radio to see if there is a delay or cancellation.
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, back to school they go!

Ellie's Spa Night

Last night all of the older kids were at friends' houses for sleepovers so I spent the evening pampering Ellie. She started off with a warm bubble bath, playing with her toys and laughing so hard when I pretend to sneeze and blow the bubbles all over the bathtub!
After the bath, I painted both her fingernails and toenails as well as rolled soft curlers in her hair. She had to sleep in them and when she woke up this morning, we took them out to find beautiful bouncy blond curls!!!!
We love our little princess!

Dishes and Laundry

The never ending task of dishes and laundry!! Of course now that the kids are older, they help out with some of the household chores, but as they grow they also make the laundry and dishes piles larger!
At our house the kids have daily chores, one child is responsible for one area of the house for one whole month, then they rotate. For example, the bathroom job includes spraying and wiping the bathroom sinks everyday, wiping tubs and toilets once a week and spraying and wiping all the doorknobs (germ collectors!) in the house twice a week. There is a kitchen job and a floor job, so it is a great help for me.
Since there is no designated laundry chore for the kids, we offer $1.00 per load to anyone who wants to fold laundry for us. Yesterday Felicia made two dollars. A typical week of laundry in the house is about 5 extra large loads done twice a week, usually Sundays and Thursdays.
We load the dishwasher and run it everyday.

Pistachios

Lately I've been buying a lot of different nuts to snack on because a little handful can tide me over to a meal and they have a lot of protein so it gives more energy. I bought some pistachios home the other week and I've hardly had any of them because it turns out that Ellie loves them!!! She enjoys the peeling of them as much as the munching on them. I am so proud that she tried something new and she was rewarded when she found out that she liked them!
This also happened to Bethany yesterday with avacado. I was making my own fresh guacamole for a snack and she saw me and asked what it was. She told me that it didn't too attractive but she wanted to try it. She dipped her first chip and she was hooked.

Books books and more books

We love to read at our house. Well, actually the girls love it, the boys just like it.
I belong to a book club that meets once a month and we've read a wide variety of books this past year. One of my favorites has been The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is set in England during World War Two and written in letter form. I normally don't like that in a book, but the story was so interesting that I didn't mind. My favorite type of book is usually historical fiction or biographies. I also enjoy lighthearted "girl" books like this past month's book club selection, Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella. A quick, fun read that makes you feel good at the end. My favorite author is Jodie Picoult.
Steve reads nonfiction, alot of business/sales books. He also liked The Last Lecture a lot, which he received for Father's Day.
Bethany has recently started the Twilight Series, which she is enjoying on the recommendation of her friends.
Sam likes to read true life adventure books, nonfiction, comic books, and his favorite series, Mistmantle Chronicles and Harry Potter series.
Felicia reads ALOT and wants to go to the library every week, coming out with more than she can carry. She likes Ramona books, Cam Jansen, Nancy Drew.. She seems to choose a lot of Mysteries.
Ellie is still in storybooks, of course, and loves to read on her own or be read to.
Since the kids have gotten older and reading to each one was getting difficult at the end of the evening before bed, I started choosing a book that I could read to all 3 of the older ones together. About once or twice a week, we all sit in the living room and I read aloud to them from the book. We have read The Penderwicks, Among the Hidden, The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards, and currently a book about a girl in wartime Iraq. The kids are very intrigued by this one, about how different their lives would be if they lived in this country.
We have a book store close by that gives us credit for our used books, so we take books in every few months and choose new ones.
The only books we don't seem to want to read are our schoolbooks!!!

Is it Monday??

This morning I woke up to the loud alarm at 5:45 (I usually wake up on my own before the alarm goes off), went down to the computer groggily to check something that wasn't there and should have been, heard Ellie come down around 6:45, (too early) and then she told me she had gone in Felicia's room (the one who needs the most sleep and didn't need to get up until 8am)and woken her up. At 7am, I went to wake Bethany, who informed me she was sick and had thrown up (in her bed!!!). I removed all the covers (about 6 layers of sheets of blankets she had on there!) and set out to do laundry I wasn't planning on. Sam comes down and I ask why he has not turned in a school project that was already due and got to lecture him on responsibility and preparedness. All this in an hour and a half, sounds like fun, doesn't it?
I hope the rest of the day goes better than it started out!

I hired a cleaning service!

Wow, after all these years of doing it myself, I hired these two great gals to clean my house every other week. Felicia and her friend Brooke came up with their business idea all on their own, made up their own fliers and delivered them around the neighborhood before the holidays. To jumpstart their success, I hired them to do all those deep cleaning things I hate, like washing the wood and tile floors, baseboards, windowsills,dusting /polishing furniture , cleaning the shower!!!
They each earned $5.00 for the hour they worked. They had to sign a contract and had to check each others work before my inspection.
Now my house is clean and I didn't have to do it!!!!
I knew having kids would pay off one day!

Daddy gets a haircut!

Steve has been cutting his own hair for years. He has a set of clippers he always uses every 3-4 weeks. This time, he let Ellie help cut his hair! she giggled at the prospect of giving him a haircut.

In the Woods

This weekend the weather was pretty mild, in the 50's during the day, so Bethany and Felicia along with 3 of their girlfriends in the neighborhood played out in the woods behind our neighbor's house all day on Saturday. They had divided up between them into two teams and each team built a fort out of logs from fallen trees, any thing else they could find back there. They worked on these all day and Bethany took lots of pictures with her new digital camera she got for Christmas so I saw their handiwork. They were pretty good sized structures! They came home for a snack around 3pm, then went back over for the last hours of daylight and when they got back there was a family waiting for them, taking apart their forts, which they had built on this family's property! The man they encountered , along with his wife and child told them that they had actually built the forts on THEIR property and they had to remove them because they didn't want the kids to get hurt and them be held liable. It sounded like he was very nice about it, but the girls were very put out!! We listened to them vent, then gently told them that the neighbor was right and wasn't it better that he was nice about it instead of yelling at them?
But, boy could I feel their pain after putting in all those hours creating their own "Teribithia".
this didn't deter them, though. On Sunday after lunch, they decided to go back and rebuild, but this time on THEIR side of the creek!
(I have to downlaod Bethany's camera for pictures, maybe can add them later)

Steve is 40!

Steve has entered a new decade! Yesterday, January 9th was his 40th birthday.
He spent most of it returning from Atlanta where he had training all week for his new job with Diversified Sourcing Solutions.
We celebrated at home with just the family, cake and presents and a nice juicy ribeye steak!
I have 6 months left until my 4-0. I'm not looking forward to that number, but I hope to enter my next decade gracefully without any midlife crisis!!!!

Family Night

For the past few years, we try to set aside one night a week to devote to Family Night at our house. It is usually on a Tuesday night because that has been an activity free day for the past year amazingly enough! We don't always do the same thing every week and I usually make the activities after dinner a surprise.
This week Steve is out of town in Atlanta, so we had to carry on without him. Generally I make something the kids really like for dinner, so we had tacos tonight(I had a taco salad). Underneath a plate I placed a penny. Whoever had the penny under their plate got to choose the dinner game. we did that, then spent some time looking at photo/scrapbook albums.(It seems I spend so much time making them sometimes I forget to look at them!)
We each made a New Year's Resolution, even Ellie, who wants to be kind to people.
Then I introduced the kids to a favorite treat I used to have as a kid---waffles with ice cream. did anyone else used to eat these? If you've never had one, you take two frozen waffles, toast them lightly, scoop out your favorite ice cream and sandwich it between two waffles. Soooooo good. this was a big hit, they all loved it and wanted more, of course.
After dessert, we took out our Lukitsch Family Journal ( a Christmas gift from my friend Susan who handmade this for us!!!) and Bethany wrote what we did for Family Night. We plan to journal all of our Family nights for the year.I can't wait until next year to see a whole book filled with all the fun things we did.

Thank you notes!

Who out there sometimes forgets to write their thank you notes?
If I receive someting, i am very quick (usually) to write my notes.
When the kids receive birthday gifts, I am fairly quick to get them to write theirs as well. The glitch comes after they have been written and need to be addressed or sent. If you have given my kids a gift and never received a Thank you , it is more my fault than theirs, since they have more than likely written the note and I have set it aside to mail later, never getting to it and then letting it get buried underneath other papers, etc.
While cleaning out after the holidays, I came across a thank you to her grandparents from Felicia for her birthday gifts (in Sept!). Funny.
So, in the season of new beginnings, I aim to send ALL of the notes out ON TIME this year.Wish me luck!

Post-holiday shopping

Yesterday was the last day of the kids winter break from school and we spent the day going shopping with their Christmas money and gift cards they received. Oh, how much fun they had!!!
What is even better is that they are finding more for their money with all the sales and markdowns that happen after the holidays. Bethany bought an Ipod docking station/clock radio for about 30%off at Target, Ellie bought the Holiday Barbie for 30% off. We went to Target and the mall and everyone had a good time, no complaining or arguing!!!! Sam bought a video game and a skateboarding magazine, Felicia bought books at Barnes and Noble and a few things at Target and Claire's. Ellie bought the barbie and some dollar items at Target, then Polly pocket and mini-barbie doll at K-B toys, which is going out of business and had everything in the store for 50% off.Bethany got a new sketchbook at Barnes and Noble, a new belt and some other things at Claire's.
I didn't buy anything but kept my eye on where the good deals will be in the next few weeks. I love to shop when I find a great deal. By the end of January, Target has a huge toy clearance and I can find gifts for Ellie's birthday at 75% off. I like Bath and Body Works semi-annual sale, which is going on right now and I like to visit Hallmark when they go 75% off. Barnes and Noble will have a big clearance in the next few weeks as well, more than 50% off.

Bingo!

For the past few years, we've developed a new Christmas tradition of playing Bingo with the family when we are together at Christmas. I started this when our whole family was together one Christmas down in Florida for fun and it sort of stuck. We have a lot of laughs, as the prizes are really silly, inexpensive items usually bought from the Dollar store. It's just fun to see what you'll get, as all the prizes are wrapped and once you win a prize, it can be stolen from a future Bingo winner like in a chinese gift exchange. Mixed in with the silly prizes are one or two "good" gifts. It's so funny to see people dead set on winning the grand $5.00 gift card to Walmart prize!!!!

Happy New Year!

My parents were visiting over New Year's so we had a fun family celebration on new Year's Eve. We played some silly games like Dash and Dress where two teams had to search for clues to find items to dress up a teammate in. Grandma and Poppy were the ones who got that privelege!!! We played some other games and did some time capsule quizzes.

Is anyone else full?

Wow, by this time in the season, I just seem to feel full all the time! Just looking at the food is almost enough!!
Here at home last night, we had an appetizer night, making lots of different finger foods to nibble on all night. this is what we made......

Shrimp Cocktail
cheese/crackers
queso dip w/tortilla chips
Olive Tapenade with baguette
chicken skeweres with a special dip
salami pasta salad
oriental salad
chicken wings
carrots/celery
cocktail meatballs


Everything was yummy and I woke up this morning feeling like I won't eat again for a few days, but I'm sure by lunch, I'll be ready for more,( ha ha!).

When do you take it down?

Happy New Year everyone!!1 We had a nice New Year's Eve spent with family and friends and the kids got to stay up (except Ellie) to ring in the New Year.

I got into this discussion at the party I attended last night and it was interesting to hear when people began to take down their Christmas decorations. I have a friend who usually takes everything down the morning after Christmas and has even been known to do it Christmas night! this year, though, it stayed up until the 27th due to company coming. A neighbor across the street was also outside removing garland and lights from his front porch on the 27th. My other neighbor told him, "I leave everything up until January 6th, The Epiphany".
I am a New Year's purist and always feel that the first day of the New Year is the perfect time to be out with the old and in with the new, clean and fresh, so I usually transform our house on that day. This year, however, we have my parents and my brother and his wife visiting, so Christmas will last a bit longer past the New Year. Rest assured, though, that all of my things will be put away before the weekend is over because as well as starting off a New Year on a clean slate, I also like the beginning of my week to start like that as well.