Last days of Januray

If a person were going by this blog alone they would believe that life has come to at standstill, nothing is happening we have stopped.  That is not the case at all. In the blog world I think that the opposite happens. The fewer updates that appear means that life has become very busy and the weather is BEAUTIFUL!!!
We are at the end of January and I'm not sure where the days went. Oh yes, they were spent playing with my kids, meal planing, keeping house, teaching preschool, playing outside, laundry, playing the Wii, reading books, helping with homework, etc. etc, etc.

I was surprised when I pulled out the memory card from my camera that there was only one picture that I had taken all week. This is it

I found this sticker at the bottom of the dishwasher.  I have no clue what it came off of and now I will never know.  I found it funny.
I have been meaning to post a little tutorial on how to get your 12 of 12 photos onto one page so it can look like this.  There are 2 things that you can do. If you are savvy with photoshop then you can use this template.  The link is at the very end of the post, just download and use every month. 
The other way you can make one is by using Picasa.  download it free from google.  This is the photo organizer program I use, I like it and it's is easy.  There is a option in the program to create a collage. choose to make an 8x10 and click on your 12 photos and it dose it for you.  Then you can choose the text option to write the day and date of the photos if you like and adjust the white space between your pictures. 
I hope that explanies things.  If not, I'm usualy nice about helping people.

January

2012 is treating us alright so far.  For Christmas we were able to get a new dishwasher that actually gets the dishes clean. The kids can load the dishes because they don't have to be pre-washed now.  Give them a good scrape (the dishes I mean) and they are good to go. It is such a luxury. Thanks to our friend, he was able to install it and save us some money.  Oh and he was able to fix something else under the sink that Kevin and I would have no idea how repair. Thank goodness because I think it was something that would cause water to leak everywhere and pretty much ruin stuff.

We took a little field trip to Barros pizza this past week.  Total success.  The kids were able to make and bake their own pizza. They even got to fold a pizza box and take home their leftovers.   Have a mentioned that I love my job.  It's almost too fun to call a job. 

Luke and I were having PB and J and I got this shot of him.  I love this little boy to pieces. How am I so lucky to be his mom? 

New Year for 12 of 12

Like I have said before. I love this project. I'm excited to complete a full year since last year I started in May I think. I was most excited to find out that my Aunt who feels more like like a super hip cool big sister than an Aunt has decide to join me on this challenge. Here it is, a great day! 1/12/12

1. Morning breakfast SMOOTHIE.  Not a popular one with the spinach in it just a good old use up the fruit smoothie.

2.  Our pet fish Spike and Scarlet (not shown in the picture).  Still alive, we have had them for a month.

3.  Preschool today the letter of the week P.  Today was Pajama day.

4.  Reading with my student.  I'm so excited my kids are reading!!!

5.  Preschool play dough pizza making.  Great center I printed out recipes that they had to follow.  It went   so well.

6.  Email from Deb letting me know that she is starting 12 of 12.

7.  I had to wake up Luke to pick up the kiddos from school. Oh sleepy boy.

8.  Picture taken form the side mirror of the car.  Lilly riding her bike home from school.  

9.  I was a nice mom and let the kids have a ice cream bar for an after school snack.

10. Roses from our rose bush.  They are always to beautiful in January.

11. Max loves the roller racer that we got for Christmas.

12. Lazy dinner, WAFFLES. 

I was disappointed that I didn't take a picture of Amber since I spent a few hours of the day with her chatting at my house.  So other than that the 12 pics are a good refection of my day. 

Remember Today

Today was the last of our Christmas break.  I wanted to enjoy the day and enjoy my children.  So off we went to play with the cousins at Max's request.  We made a quick stop at Sprouts for our weekly produce and then back home.  Lilly had requested that we have a treasure hunt.  I wrote out a dozen clues hid them, and sent them on their way to find the precious treasure of a handfull of M&M's.  When Luke woke up from his nap we headed out for a bike ride in this amazing weather.  We were out for almost 3 hours.  We road to the church parking lot and found some friends there.  Max showed me how he can pop a wheelie.  Then we picked up a friend and went for a ride around the neighborhood and brought him back to his house.  We played there for awhile and then came home to start dinner. 
On the way home my kids said that this was such a fun day.  They got to do somthing that made them so happy and as simple as go on a treasure hunt or ride bikes.  There was no TV or Wii today, it was just us. 
I have been thinking about goals to set for myself this year and I came across someone's blog who said that they wanted to say "YES" to there children more.  Sadly I think I have become a mother that loves to say "NO", because it's past bedtime or I have laundry to fold or it will make a mess.  So today I sad "YES" and everything turned out perfect.

Happy New Year!!!

I'm in my PJs blogging at 12:42.  We have been home form church since 11:15am.  I love 8am church even on New Years day. I just wanted to recap our New years eve festivities.  I wasn't planing on much of anything but then decide that we should celebrate a little.  I got this idea from the source of all my creativity, PINTEREST and did this. Our activities were as follows... dinner, soda and mento rockets, dessert, wii games, board games, photo booth and sparklers. We rang in the new year with New York and called it good. 

None of the children had done sparklers before.  I think it was safe to say that they thought they were pretty cool, and no one got hurt.  I have been wanting to set up a photo booth for some time but I look at all my walls in my house and have never found a good back drop.  Pinterest to the rescue I found this.  I think our new year photos turned out fun.

As I mentioned today was the first day of 8 am church and it was also Luke's first day in nursery.  He walked in ready to have a good time.  I peeked on him during church and he was having a great time and participating like a big boy .  Oh cute, happy, boy how I love you.  I wanted to get a picture of my big boy and he wouldn't stay still but, I got this one instead, all my kids.  I love this bunch.