Free Range on Fairview

The first time I heard about  MOPS  was in my friends’ parent’s basement when the three of us were watching a DVD about how to raise children. Seems simple enough. Except we were all very pregnant teens and our parents were trying to help us to be the best moms’ we could be for our pending children. Fast forward about three or four years later I had my sweet boy, found an amazing man who wanted to marry me and said I could stay home and raise our children. I finally had a chance to see what that MOPS thing was for myself. And I fell in love. With the message behind it, with the concept of getting moms together and benefitting themselves not everyone else for one day a month. It is a support group of moms for moms. Moms who might not know what the love of another Godly woman get a chance to see what that is like. Child care is provided. We get coffee, treats and even make ourselves a craft that doesn’t include handprints or glitter. We get to hear a message about topics that ...

Yes, I ended up being that girl. The one who just keeps grouping her thank yous together since she can’t keep up with the simple task of posting daily, or even weekly at this point… but things have been busy as you can expect. No wonder people pay other people to run their website because learning about it, doing it and keeping up with it is, whew, tiring. But for me it is rewarding I guess. So that brings me to my blessings. Day 22 I am thankful for the internet. For all these cool electronic things and websites and other techie things. I am thankful that I can keep track of my family and friends through facebook, to follow a friend and a cousin’s growing bellies through blogs, and to be able to do so much online shopping it is like Christmas every day here when I open a box to find what random thing has arrived. I am thankful that I finally figured out how to download apps onto Dylan’s tablet (8 months after he got it!) so now he can play Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja with the bes...

So I’m obviously not the fanciest food artist on the planet but I dreamt up  this idea and thought it sounded fun. I’ve heard of chocolate covered frozen bananas so why not craft it up a bit. First grab some bananas and maybe 1/2 cup of chocolate chips in a microwavable bowl. Stir the chips after 30 seconds and microwave for another 30 seconds. Cut the bananas so they have a flat bottom and carefully dip in chocolate until the top and sides have been covered.  Ok so they look a little like Elvis here but stick with me. Attach Reeces pieces as eyes to the still melty chocolate and half of the orange ones as a beak. I also attached two orange ones as feet but they kept falling off because the chocolate got a little too hard and the picture started to look a little suggestive.  Then put the penguins in the freezer for about 20 minutes. I sprayed tin foil with pan spray to make sure they came off easily. The boys ready to chow down. Everyone got a little c...

We have decided that we wanted to have a crafty Christmas this year. I am making a few presents, we are decorating with things we’ve made and baking for the neighbors. Dylan informed me that he would like to have activities to do after school (yeah because he doesn’t learn enough and because I have so much free time), so I came up with a list of crafts or activities to do every week day until Christmas. We will also be making or eating yummy fun Christmasy types of snacks leading up to the holiday. This is nothing fancy but I knew I didn’t want to spend money on mistletoe but they boys think it is so funny to get “trapped” under it until someone kisses you so I printed a coloring page off the internet and hung it in a main hallway type area. Of course the boys thought it would be clever to take a picture of all of them underneath it together.

The other day Lincoln and I were drawing on the white board in the playroom and I tried drawing him and his brothers so he could see a few parts of the body. Unfortunately all he kept saying was “apple baby.” Do you see what he is talking about. Hey, at least he knew what an apple was. Then he got everyone tangled up – or scribbled on… and his own face too. Dylan made a Christmas tree out of flat toothpicks. We glued them on with white glue, let it dry and then painted with green paint. He was going to draw on the ornaments but he thought the star stickers would look cool and be easier. Of course we wanted to start the season with the age old cotton ball beard Santa picture. I printed the template from here  but just used it as a guide rather than a countdown like it was designed to be. I had to help Lincoln squeeze the glue out of the bottle because it was being a pain, but he stuck them all on himself.  Even Daddy got in there to help and Santa ended up with eyeb...

Decorating the Tree Sunday night we decided to get that tree up and decorate. Some fantastic movie was on that the boys could barely tear themselves away from was on (Kung Fu Panda if you must know, and just just watched it on tv last week too) so it took forever to get them in the living room but we finally did and oh let the fun begin. I mean obviously, look at Warner’s face. It was hot in the family room because Shane likes to make raging fires and sweat us all out so two of the three boys weren’t wearing shirts. In December. Oh well. Dylan was very serious about the whole process. He unwrapped all of our ornaments and laid them out on the couch and floor so all we had to do was grab and hang. I didn’t actually tell him he was helping do the boring part for me – wink wink- I’m not sure why this is the only picture I have of the finished product because it is so blurry but there you have it. We threw some rope lights around the bottom because we only had clear ...

Ah ha! I finally figured out how to beat the system and can post pictures again. I'm sure the room will run out again and I will eventually have to upgrade but I think I have a solution for now. I liked some features on the other site but it was difficult for me to get things to be the way I wanted them to be and am comfortable here on blogger. Hopefully I haven't thrown off my groove and can import the few posts I did post there. So for now I will leave you with these festive pictures of Warner wearing a santa hat. Ho ho ho Happy December 4th!