Taking Time for the Little Things

Life is CRAZY…at least my life is crazy right now.

Playing makeovers and tea party

Its hard to keep up with everything and I feel like my head is going to explode sometimes…or all the time. There are a million things to do and I am going in a million directions. I am sure many of you can relate to the utter busyness and chaos that back to school and activities and everything else brings.  In the craziness I can't forget that my kids need my attention too - and not to drive them to soccer or dance or preschool, but to sit and listen to them and play with them. So I have made it a point to try to take time out of my day every day to spend with each kid / kids.

I try to walk away from it all and take a family bike ride for 30 minutes or run down to the park in the neighborhood or call a friend for a playdate. Or bake cookies or make dinner with one kid while we chat away about their day. Or sit and use a whole bottle on one sheet of paper, and end up with a "masterpiece." They need mom; not PTO mom or Realtor mom or cub scout leader mom or homeroom Mom…but just MOM! They love (at least right now they do) to have me around and I know someday they may not want to spend this time with me. I am sure I won't be cool anymore someday; so now is the time to spend with them, cherish them and talk with them…and hopefully down the line, even when I'm not cool anymore, they will still come to me to talk.

Carson's "project" we made together 

And I won't lie, sometime its hard to walk away from the million things that I should or could be doing. But I need to…they need me to. And I need to remember that everything else can wait.

Butterfly House

The little two and I met some friends yesterday for a very FUN morning at the Butterfly House at Cox Arboretum! The kids really got into it and were "reading" their books to discover what they were seeing. All the kids kept asking me to take pictures of things; it was very cute. 

 We looked like a school group traipsing through. 

 Vine Caterpillars will turn into Yellow Swallowtails 

 A Yellow Swallowtail

 Monarch

 Another caterpillar.
The kids loves spotting them throughout the garden

 Studying their books

 I think I can catch it!

 Cuties…minus some of the boys who were
having non of the posed picture taking!

 After the butterflies the kids found made a hideout and the
park dog decided to join them for a bit. They followed the dog around for
a long time until it decided to hop into the lake to get to safety. It just stood in the lake while the kids tortured it from the bank.

First Day of School 2013

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Trebein Elementary

1st day of 3rd grade for Logan and 1st grade for Melina

All the kiddos getting into the action…
Meeka can't wait until she can get not he bus too.

Here we go….

No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars…need I say more?

I whipped some of these up last night for the 1st Teacher Appreciation Lunch for their work day today and I thought I'd share the recipe because I realized I hadn't yet. I have made these couple of times…I even won a contest with them…and really can you go wrong when you say peanut better and chocolate in the same sentence?

No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
adapted from: Six Sisters

Ingredients


1 cup butter melted


2 cups biscoff cookie crumbs (or you could use graham cracker crumbs)


2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1 cup + 4 tablespoons peanut butter


1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

Directions


In a medium bowl, mix together the melted butter, biscoff crumbs, confectioners’ sugar, and 1 cup peanut butter until well blended.

Press evenly into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13 inch pan.

In the microwave, melt the chocolate chips with the 1/4 c peanut butter, stirring every 30 seconds until melted until smooth. Spread over the peanut butter layer.

Refrigerate for at least one hour before cutting into squares.

Last day of summer vacation

Yesterday was the last day of summer vacation for my kids…at least with me, since I am working on their real last days of summer vaca. I set aside the whole day to just spend with them and do something FUN! 

Last minute we decide to meet some friends from Cinci at the zoo. What a GREAT day! Its fun to see how the kids can just pick up and be instant friends with those they haven't seen in a long time. Lily and Logan have "known" each other since they were 6 weeks old, but since we moved away when they were 15 months its not like they remember. 

We spent all day at the zoo from 9am until after 4. We saw the animals, caught a show, saw a 4D movie for the first time, rode the train and carousel and of course ate zoo food…the whole experience!

The whole crew. Jill has 4 and another friend had 1…so we had 9 kids! 

We had more than some of the school groups visiting the zoo!

The kids really enjoyed the animals. We had to pry them away from some.

These 2 spitfires are peas is a pod…must by 3rd child syndrome

playing on the spiderweb

My kids LOVED the petting zoo. They would have pet the lions if they could!

Meeka feeding the goats

Melina attracted a while crowd while hula hooping. She had like 30 people watching and clapping and cheering for her. I wish I had a video of this!

She did all kinds of tricks like moving it up and down her body and putting her hands through, etc.

She LOVED being the center of attention!

Kids touching a snake.

 SAY CHEESE!

The monkey kept slamming the window and they thought it was HILARIOUS!

Train ride. 

10 people, 4 train seats.

FANTASTIC day at the zoo!

And 3 out of the 4 were asleep before we even hit the highway home!