Geography Lesson

Our friends Ayumi and Taylor are making a brief overnight stop to visit on their way from Santa Fe to DC. Ayumi is originally from Japan so this was a great time to take out the map and do a little geography lesson. After the kids correctly found Nashville on the map we looked at all the other places relating to Taylor and Ayumi's visit. Finally I pointed to Washington DC as their final destination.

"Now do you know what is special about Washington DC??"
"Oh, yes!!!" cried Greyson enthusiastically.

I was about to be impressed that my son knew our nation's capital.

"Mommy, that is where the Caps play!!"

Mom's Geography Lessons - 0
Raif's Hockey Lessons - 1

Child Labor (Part II)

Greyson was SO excited to help mow the lawn....wonder if he will be this enthusiastic about it when he is 16 and gets to do the whole thing by himself.

Child Labor (part I)

Every season has its quintessential symbol - the Christmas tree in winter, the jack-o-lantern in the fall, the blooming flower in the spring, and for me, in the summer, it is lemonade. And not just any lemonade mind you - I mean the real deal - homemade squeezed fresh lemons add the sugar type of lemonade. Even though I love lemonade I don't make it that often because the amount of work you put in far exceeds the sweet reward at the end, until now.

Now I have free labor who will happily squeeze my lemons for me


And whose only payment is to nibble on the leftover rind of the lemons (can't tell you why they like such sour things)

And I get a freshly squeezed pitcher of sweet heaven..... Now this is why you have kids!!

Happy Mother's Day

The sleepless nights
The sleepless mornings
The tantrums
The personal sacrifices
The mind numbing monotony of reading the same book 1,000 times in a row
The sibling bickering
The lack of the pre-kid social life
The fact you will never have your pre-baby figure back

All of these things gripes disappear and you realize that all of it is worth it when your son brings home the handmade mug from school that reads....

"My mommy helps me cook dinner.
I like it when she eats breakfast with us.
My mommy looks pretty when she gets dressed to to go the hockey game.
I like it when my mommy cooks dinner and hugs me.
I love my mommy."

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there (especially mine).

Bouncy Part 100

So I seem to be in a rut of videos of my children bouncing - hopefully this will be the last. Raif took this last week. He was sitting in the chair reading when this happened by and thought it was funny enough to share....

Van Gogh Kind of Day....

A warm, sunny afternoon day. Old packing carboard found in the back of the garage. Finger paints that Mom wants to get rid of. Two precocious children. A recipe for one big giant mess.

Spring Crafts

Springtime has such wonderful crafty things to make but the problem is that no one (including me) wants to stay inside to make them. My kids would much prefer being out among the flowers than making them out of pipe cleaners and tissue paper. But a couple of rainy and cold days over the last couple of weeks have given us at least a little time to use our creative side.


Birdhouses happily adorn our kitchen windows.


I got these little craft pots and butterflies at (where else) Michaels with the grand idea of having the kids fill them with different types of homemade flowers. After the pots were made and butterflies painted we spent a rainy afternoon making flowers. But then the kids decided it would be so much nicer to share their flowers than to put them in a silly old pot so off the flowers went to school to be shared with teachers and my pots and butterflies are pretty lonely. Oh well - their idea was probably better than mine anyway.