Beautiful Butterfly Birthday

My sweet girl turned 4 years old this past week. We celebrated by having a butterfly birthday party at our house for her with all of her friends. We had 10 little girls here plus some siblings and mommies and daddies. It turned out to be quite the party. 

I proposed the idea of a butterfly theme birthday about a month ago. I was trying to find a cost effective way to throw a party. I had this cute butterfly cake pan from her first birthday and thought it would be fun (and inexpensive) to use it again. Here's how the conversation went:

Me - "I thought it would be fun to have a butterfly birthday this year!"

A - "Hmm, I was thinking that I want a princess birthday."

Me - "But, you've had princess parties for the last two years. Wouldn't a butterfly birthday be fun?"

A - " Yeah, I was thinking princess..."

I finally convinced her. ;) You know fairies and butterflies both have wings. She ended up loving it and I got to use the cake pan again!

We played a "cocoon" game where the kids wrapped each other up in toilet paper and then broke free from their cocoon. Here's my oldest being wrapped up by his friend who had his birthday just a few days later.

The girls made coffee filter butterflies...

...and decorated foam butterfly wings.

She blew out her candles (with a little help from one of her brothers.)

And she opened up gifts. She received so many great presents from her friends. There's a lot more princess, fairy, craft and butterfly things in our house now!

And she even got a brand new pair of Crocs from Grandma Rose, complete with light-up Fairy Jibbitz. She loves them! I think she had a great birthday! (And thanks Cindy for taking pictures for me!!!) 

Poor Leo the Lion

This made me laugh really hard today. My daughter came in crying that she couldn't get Leo the Lion down from her closet. I assumed that one of her big brothers had thrown the stuffed animal on the shelf in her closet. Instead, one of them (the oldest) decided to get all "Jack Bauer" on the poor lion. LOL He handcuffed the lion's leg to the closet rod. Thankfully, they were play handcuffs and the situation was easily resolved. The lion is now safe. ;)

Tree Planting in the Bosque

I just love our Roots and Shoots group! Again, the kids and I had an incredible opportunity to do something really good for our community.


Yesterday we participated in planting 100 trees in the Bosque in honor of the 100th year since Aldo Leopold came to New Mexico. Here's a short article in the newspaper about the event.


It was hard work. As I was thinking about it today, I thought that the most inspiring part of the day was that our kids would have been happy to be out there even if there hadn't been news crews and dignitaries.


That's why I love this group so much!


And here's my sweet girlie girl after sliding face first on her belly down this dirt hill just before we were getting ready to leave. While I usually don't mind dirt, that's a lot of dirt!

Heaven Bound Balloon Team

We had the most amazing experience yesterday morning. Some friends asked if we wanted to go help crew for their friend's hot air balloon. Of course, we said, "Yes!" It was a really early morning especially for a Saturday. We had to be out of the house by 6 am. And it was coooold. But still totally worth it!



The kids all had a chance to get involved and help with getting everything ready for lift off.





It was a mini-festival of sorts. It was called the Friends and Lovers Balloon Rally. I think I heard that there were 80 balloons there that day.



The name of the balloon is "Heaven Bound." This is right before the pilot turned on the burners and got the balloon upright.


And here it is off the ground! My good friend Cindy and her son were the lucky ones who got to take a ride that morning.


We chased the balloon in our car until it landed on this open land.



Here everyone is pitching in to get the balloon back in its bag. What a fun and memorable day! Definitely, worth getting up early on a Saturday morning!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We celebrated Valentine's Day yesterday by partying with our playgroup friends. The kids had a blast decorating Valentine sugar cookies. We had an incredible day today, but I'll have to post more on that tomorrow!

I Have an 8 Year Old!

Earlier this week, my oldest had his 8th Birthday! I cannot believe that he is 8 years old. We celebrated his birthday at one of the city's indoor pools. I felt like the cupcakes I made were uninspired this year, but the kids loved them. We tried to stick to a pool/water theme. I just frosted them blue and stuck little gummy sea creatures on them. B invited a bunch of friends from our playgroup, homeschool group and his soccer team. It really is unbelievable how much energy 7 and 8 year old boys have! They got to go down the really cool slide and have squirt gun fights in the pool.


B had received some money from his Colorado grandparents for his birthday gift. He asked if we could stop by Big 5 on the way to the pool to buy some nice goggles. He had some inexpensive ones that he'd been frustrated with during his swim lessons. The new ones are pretty cool! He received so many wonderful gifts from his friends - lots of Lego sets. Although we've been so busy this week that he hasn't had a chance to really sit down and work on them. He was even asking me when we could leave the park today so he could come home. That doesn't happen very often! He also got a new chess set and Star Wars monopoly. I think I know what the family will be doing this weekend!

Finished Baby Mary Janes

Here's my latest finished knitting project. This is the third time I've made these Mary Jane Baby Booties. The pattern is very simple but I've been so happy with the results every time I've made them. This time they were for a fellow homeschooling mom and friend who is expecting her third girl in a little over a month. I snapped a quick photo as I was frantically trying to wrap them up for her baby shower this past Saturday. (I was running a little late.) The baby shower, hosted by another homeschooling mom and friend, was so much fun!

Takin' the Bus

We had a really fun morning today. The kids have been bugging me for awhile to take the bus somewhere, anywhere. But, it just never worked out. Today it finally did! Yay! A friend and I with our kids took the bus down to the university to watch a fantastic performance. I love the shows that the university's theater puts on for kids. The shows are geared towards kids and the audience is filled with kids. It's a great way for me to teach my kids about seeing performances without the pressure of an adult-focused show. Today's show didn't disappoint! The New Shanghai Circus was a show of Chinese acrobatics. The kids loved it although A was getting annoyed with me oohing and ahhing. It was a really fun way to celebrate the Chinese New Year!


After the show, we had to hustle back to the bus stop to catch our ride home. This time the bus was nearly empty. On the way there, the bus had been crowded with people heading to school and work. For $1 each way, it was definitely worth it. I was able to chat with my friend and the kids had their friends too. Even the bus driver came back to find out why we had taken the kids to the university (he thought they were a little too young for college) and tell them the most fun place to sit on the bus - the accordion section in the middle.

Must Clean House

I hate cleaning and quite frankly, I'm really bad at it. It's an area of my life that I have always struggled with. And I'm not happy about it either. It stresses me out to have a messy, dirty house. The house has gotten worse since Brad has been home. I think mostly because when I get stressed, my safety mode is to hide and do nothing. Well, yesterday I finally forced myself to face reality. I need help. Several years ago, I used FlyLady to help get me on track. I think I'm going to use her website for inspiration, but try to create a system that works for our family. All of the websites that I read last night on household cleaning schedules, kept saying over and over again that you have to create a schedule yourself for it to work. Today, I've been working on the kitchen - mopped the floor and finished washing the dishes so we can start fresh tomorrow. I've also been working on our endless piles of laundry. I don't think I've ever actually been caught up on the laundry. Tonight we're going to have a family meeting so we can come up with morning and evening routines for everyone in the family. Simple steps to help us all start out the day on the right foot. Having a consistent routine was one of the things that helped me so much in the past. Then we're going to use Flylady's zones to help us get started. This coming week's zone is the living room. I think it's going to be a great place to start since it's the first place we see when we walk into the house. And the first place anyone else sees if they knock on the door. Right now my plan is to use her zones to get the house under control and then reevaluate to see if I want to come up with something different for our family. I felt like I needed to post this to help keep me accountable. Sometimes I come up with great plans and then never follow through. So, in one month, I'm committing to posting my progress.

Freezing our Backsides

I have not been very consistent with posting. Here's my excuse - it's soooo cold in my house! ;) Normally, I post in the evenings after the kids have gone to bed. But, lately after the kids are in bed, Brad and I crawl under the covers to try to warm up. I turned down the thermostat - waaayyy down. Well, I'm sure it's not as far down as some people chose to go, but it's 10 degrees lower than we kept it last year. We have a pellet stove that we use in the early morning and evening to warm up the family room where we spend most of our time. However, we're running low on pellets so we're trying to ration them out to last another month. The exciting, makes me dance around the house, news is that we've cut our per day usage in half from last year at this time!!!! A good move environmentally and it's cut our utility bill by over $100 per month from last January. Woohoo!

No More TV

I guess it would be more truthful to say no more satellite. We can still turn on the tv, but all we get are our fuzzy local tv channels. The only station that comes in ok is CBS, and there's not anything that we watch on CBS. Instead, there are a few storage boxes parked in front of our tv set right now. Surprisingly, it was a tough decision to cancel our paid channels. We had talked about it before the lay off, but always came up with a reason why we should just keep it. Our biggest reason (excuse maybe) was that we're homebodies. TV was our only real splurge besides eating out. But, since we're faced with trying to make a little last as long as possible, the satellite had to go. At $65 a month, it just wasn't worth it. We had some tears from the kids. B was especially upset because he was going to miss the new Clone Wars episodes. But we told him, we'd find a way to get Clone Wars. The episodes are only $1.99 on iTunes and free with commercials on Cartoon Network. We took the kids to the library and let them each pick out a video to check out. I'm normally a scrooge when it comes to checking out videos. I get irritated that they have to be returned after a week and feel nervous that we're going to scratch them up. But, since it looks like we'll be using the free library a lot in the coming weeks, I decided to ease up a bit. ;) We still have internet, the kids still have the xbox to play video games on, and they can watch dvds. It's not like they're going to be media starved. Even with those other things, our house seems so much more peaceful. It's not the easy fix of just flipping on the tv when we're bored. Now, when the kids watch a video, there is an end to the video - an automatic place to turn it off. When the tv was on, there was always one more thing to watch. I'm really liking the change. I'm guessing that we'll probably turn it back on once we get back on our feet financially. But, I'm not really missing it much and might want to keep it this way for awhile.

Daily Bread

I'm so excited about this recipe!!! I saw a discussion on one of the message boards I frequent about a Mother Earth News article. The authors of the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day shared their basic recipe in this magazine article. The women discussing the recipe were having a lot of success so I thought I'd try it. I've been wanting to try a no-knead bread recipe but just had never gotten around to it. This is so great because it took only a few minutes to mix the dough together and then after the initial rise, you just stick it in your fridge. When you want a fresh loaf of bread, all you do is pull out a pound of dough, let it rest for 40 minutes and bake it. I tried it yesterday in honor of my husband's birthday and everyone loved it. A 1 lb. loaf is really small, but it was the perfect amount for dinner. I have another loaf cooling now, maybe I'll save it for breakfast tomorrow, and I still have enough dough for two more loaves in the fridge. I don't have a baking stone so I used my pizza pan. It seemed to work fine. I can't wait to try the whole wheat recipe, but I have to wait until I use up this dough so I can get my big bowl back.

After checking out the authors website, I think I'm going to try some of the suggestions for high altitude baking next time I try the recipe. I'm on the holds list for the cookbook at our library. New cookbooks aren't really an approved expenditure at the moment. ;) But, if I like it, I'm definitely going to put it on my wish list. I just love the idea of fresh baked bread whenever we want it!

Happy New Year!

I've been reading quite a few blog posts on the New Year - reflections on 2008 and goals or resolutions for 2009. It's been inspiring to read. I feel kind of cemented in place with Brad's unemployment. I'm having a hard time focusing on anything beyond this gigantic challenge we have facing us. It's hard to say that we want to focus on something like "giving" if we don't know for sure where we'll be in a month. But, then I stopped myself. There are things, good things, to reflect on in 2008 and goals I have for 2009.

First my reflections. 2008 was actually a really good year for us. The kids and I deepened friendships, made new friends, experienced new things, read great books. It's just been the last 2 weeks that have tainted the year. I refuse to focus on those last two weeks. Instead I'm going to focus on the rest of the year. Here's a list of a few favorite things in 2008:


Favorite new activity for the kids - We've gotten to do so many wonderful things this year that it makes it hard to choose! I think it was meeting the folks at Galloping Grace Youth Ranch and watching the kids learn to ride horses. This was not something I would have ever sought out on my own. I think that makes it even more special. The kids have learned about hard work, gently communicating with animals many times their size and the exciting self-confidence that comes with accomplishment.

Favorite book I read - Another tough one for me to narrow down. I don't read as much as I used to. Since having kids, I have a much shorter attention span. Plus I don't have the luxury of immersing myself in a book like I like to do, especially with fiction. I mostly have been reading non-fiction lately. Hmmm, I loved The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. We've been trying to be more mindful of our eating choices and how they affect our bodies and the planet, so these were two great reads. The other book that I recently posted about, Jesus for President, was definitely a favorite this year too.



Favorite project completed - I didn't do as much crafting in 2008 as I did in the previous year. Some soap, my Christmas projects, some unfinished sewing projects. But, I think my favorite completed project was my Cari-sized hula hoop. I love it! I haven't used it in the last two months so I'm definitely going to get it back out now! The one A is using is her own that we haven't decorated yet. I can't believe I don't have a picture of mine - mine is white, yellow and orange.

Now on to 2009. Several of my favorite bloggers have chosen a word to focus on for the coming year. I love that idea but have struggled to come up with one as I've thought about it over the last 2 days. Because of our current situation, I keep coming back to things like hope, perseverance, survival. I just don't like those words at all. Then today I thought "sustenance." This seems like a good fit. Here's why. Even without the layoff, my husband and I were hoping to move towards a simpler way of life. With the layoff, instead of a gentle stroll in that direction, we're having a major shove. We have had to reduce our expenses, something we had wanted to do anyway. We've had to cut all the meals out. Again, something we had wanted anyway. And this brings me back to the word "sustenance." Focusing on the simple requirements of living. Whole foods, growing some of my own food, reducing clutter, focusing on more handmade things and depending on God for His provision.

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.

Matthew 6:9-11 (King James Version)

Give us this day our bread. Our sustenance. Focusing on this day, I hope, will automatically reduce our waste. And hopefully, after we figure out our finances, can help us look beyond ourselves to other's daily bread. Maybe we can remember what it feels like to wonder about our daily bread and give in a way we haven't given before. That's my hope for 2009

Christmas at Our House

Merry Christmas! Our day yesterday, Christmas Eve, started with Christmas Eve Service at our church. We went to the early service and then over to friends' house for lunch. She and I ran to do some last minute shopping, while our husbands watched the kids.



I remembered that evening after we got home, that I didn't have ornaments for the kids. Each year, I've gotten a different ornament for each child. In the craziness of the last few weeks, I didn't buy anything. Then I remembered that I had bought some craft supplies last year to make snowflake ornaments with the kids that we never used. (Haven't I said before how I sometimes have a hard time finishing projects?) So, I pulled out the supplies and we had fun creating our own snowflakes. At first I tried to give the kids directions, then my oldest reminded me that all snowflakes are different. I let them have at it, and they came out great. A good memory and an ornament all in one!


They opened a few gifts, money from Grandpa and Grandma, more money and gift cards from Aunts and Uncles and their "secret Santa" gift. Very exciting! We watched The Grinch that Stole Christmas and finally got them to bed.


Here's Christmas morning. It was a tough morning for Brad and I. B was so excited that he woke up at 12:30 am and woke up his brother too. Then I heard him up at 5:00 am. I'm afraid I didn't have much Christmas spirit that early in the morning. I told him he had to be quiet and go back to bed for at least another hour. I remember doing that too as a kid. I remember trying to run up and down the bedroom hallway really early in the morning to try and wake everyone up for Christmas. I used to get so excited too.

Once everyone was up and had a chance to go through their stockings, get their "Santa" gifts and get a cup of hot chocolate, we sat down to do our last reading for our Jesse Tree.


Here's A hanging the last Jesse Tree ornament. A star. We talked about why the ornament was a star - A said it was so everyone could find Jesus.


Then it was time to open the last of the gifts - from my parents, my sister and from us. The kids were excited about all their presents. It was a lot smaller than most years, but they still ended up having a ton of toys and fun stuff to play with. I like it smaller. It seemed less overwhelming. It was tough looking at our tree and not seeing the piles of gifts that are usually there. I'll have to get used to that. But, every gift they got, they love. And really they didn't ask for much. B wanted a digital camera, C wanted a Leapster and a stuffed penguin and A wanted a swim baby doll, a Donald Duck cup and a play camera. Between us and our family (and generous friends), we were able to get them everything they wanted. We even got them a couple of things that they wanted but hadn't asked for.


Of course, it was play time after opening gifts! Here's A with her tea set made from recycled milk jugs (a gift from Mommy although I'm sure no one could guess!) ;)


And last but not least, one of B's first photos on his new camera. This is our neighbor's puppy that we're puppy-sitting this week. She's a super sweet 3 month old, 50 lb. Great Dane. We just love her, and are glad she lives next door!

River of Lights

Tonight we went to River of Lights at our local Botanic Gardens. We went with my awesome photographer friend, Cindy. So, as we were trying to move through the crowd and keep our 6 kids and two husbands all together, she was yelling pointers to me. (Although, I think her husband and my husband would argue that they were trying to keep us with our families and not distracted by photographing the lights.) And, yes, my camera was on manual the whole time. Here are some of my favorites.


C has been anxiously awaiting this outing. He saw the dinosaur during the day a month ago and couldn't wait to go back and see it all lit up.


I love that the kids are all roaring at the dinosaur.


Here's the yellow submarine reflecting in the water. I think this was a one of the new light sculptures this year.



I realize now that I have only one picture of all three of my kids and it's not a very good one. (That's why I didn't post it.) B is giving me the "c'mon mom" look. I was having too much fun trying to figure out the right settings on my camera to take pictures of my kids. ;)

I think that today I'm grateful for Christmas lights. There's nothing like colorful lights to help me get into the spirit of Christmas. Only 2 more days!