Happy St. President's day!

Today is the day where we celebrate a holiday with hearts and love isn't it? Oh whoops, it isn't? Don't tell my 5 yo Curly-Sue. Today we made a cake for our neighborhood (everyday at about 4 pm we all gather at our neighborhood park and the kids play play play. When evening colors sounds we usually all head in to eat our dinners and wash up) it was heart shaped with pink icing and most importantly ... SPRINKLES. What joy she had inviting everyone, and being a hostess. How easy this was for me, finding the cake mix and icing post V-Day was a $1 investment, but it was a lesson worth a much larger pricetag.

The big Day!

Every year I tend to spend the last two weeks of February with my feelings hurt. Yes, valentine's day and my birthday do that to me. I have expectations that dh doesn't meet, or perhaps I lower my expectations and then habor ill feelings towards dh because of it.

So this year I'm trying something different. I'm shamelessly stealing an idea that I read in the comment section of Like Merchant Ships and turning our guest room into a bed and breakfast love nest. While it's probably more for me than for my dh, it will certainly be *fun. wish me luck!

OUCH

Today the baby (who is 3!!!) got hurt. It reminded me once again how much I, as a parent, despise it when my children are in pain or suffering and I can't make it go away with a band aid and a kiss.

He fell backwards off a bench onto a concrete floor. The ::THUNK:: was horrific and made me queasy. We're pretty sure he had a mild concussion. The great thing about living in my neighborhood is that we have an EMT and Dr. across the street. Because I couldn't get him into the clinic today, they checked him out and just told us to watch him carefully.

By the end of the day he was playing and just generally being his happy little boyself. But so many many thoughts whipped through my mind as he cried and cried. I've been so blessed in the past 12 years, these situations have been minimal and not *really serious. I'm saying a little prayer tonight for children and the parents who are dealing with long term serious health issues. Bandaids and kisses don't always work.

Question

I'm hosting a card making workshop (no I'm not teaching my friend is!) But I'd like to serve some munchies. It is set for the weekend prior to Valentine's Day so I could incorporate that into my theme. Any ideas?

:::cue dora music now!:::

I did it, I did, I did it, YEAH!

I pared down the kid's book collection. Though some books that I chose to donate were perfectly good stories, we simply had *too many! We donated 2 large boxes of books yesterday, and about 3 garbage bags full of kids clothes. sigh. almost done.

Mired in Mud

That's what I feel like right now. Going through books and deciding what to keep and what to give away must be my kryptonite. Having five children ranging in age from 3-12 pretty much means that we're FULL of books... our shelves are at overflow. How does one decide what books to keep? How can I DO that?

I've got a great storage and display solution for them, but it means that we need to whittle down the collection.

boxes, bangles, and beads

So after much gnashing of teeth, and general sourness I made the kids clean out their rooms. And when I say clean out their rooms , think literally! We had many many empty plastic totes that were remnants of the great storage shed clean out 2008. So they had to clean EVERYTHING out of their rooms and place them in the totes. After a good deep cleaning of the room itself, we sorted, disposed of and placed the keepers back into their bedrooms.

They have never looked so clean and organized. When I figure out how to upload pics I'll add them!

I feel so good , even alpha-girl does. She said that when she woke up this morning to get ready for school she loved knowing where everything was and knowing that everything was where it SHOULD be.