Highly Addictive (Linky Parties)

I love to look at linky parties. The crafty ones are my most addicted ones. I should be crafting instead of checking these out but people in blogland are just so darned creative that my list of "to make" is usually longer than my completed. Does anyone else out there have this problem?

Homework and the Kindergartener

My daughter is in junior kindergarten. She just turned 5 this month. She has full-day school Tuesday and Thursdays with the occasional Fridays. The teacher has assigned homework since this schedule is consistently inconsistent. I don't know how the other parents fare but it is a struggle for us to get it done with her on a weekly basis. It seems a little much also as it is 3 full pages of the letter of the week and colouring. Don't tell anyone but sometimes I agree to colour one picture while she colours in the other six. It's so boring sitting there doing nothing but watching her colour! (She doesn't want me distracted at all, you see). This is only the beginning - heaven help me!

How do you get through homework with your children? I need as many tips as I can get!!

Mind/Body Relationship and Weight Loss

It's a lot easier to maintain weight than it is to lose. When I decide to try for 5 lbs I try to focus on more water and vegetables but with this raised consciousness to food I find I crave things I don't normally crave because all of a sudden I'm trying to cut them out of my diet. Why does our mind/body relationship do this to us? If you have or are trying to focus on healthier living or weight loss, how do you manage your mind/body duality?

Parenting When Tragedy Strikes

My relationship with my children is very important to me. The SITS ladies asked a tough parenting question as to how to parent when tragedy strikes. Do you talk to them about it or let them be kids?

Personally, I think it all depends on what the issue is. Is it about an ill or deceased loved one or a world event? In either event I believe we should be honest. Age-appropriate is definitely important. I generally state the facts as succinctly and truthfully as possible and then ask if there are questions. For example, last week my grandmother (79 years old) “drowned”. She was revived but was in Intensive Care. I visited her and explained to my 3 and 5 year olds that she “stopped breathing while she was swimming and is now in the hospital so the doctors can help her get better”. This seemed to be enough truthful information without scaring them.

As for world events, our world is preschool television and often I don’t even see the news for a few days. I limit television time and I’m not sure they are at an age where discussing such things would be beneficial. As we start to explore the world through books and they start to hear things at school or become interested in the news I will most definitely find out the facts (if I don’t already know them) and answer their questions again, as succinctly and truthfully as their curiosity demands. I hope that such honesty will build a trusting relationship with the children and myself and hopefully this will let them feel they can ask or talk to me about anything and know I will treat them with respect in the way I answer or help them through things.

What is your parenting stance on discussing tragedies with your children?

Happy 5th Birthday, Ava

Happy birthday to my dear little girl. Today we took you on our first adventure to Chuck E Cheeses. It was endearing to watch you and your little brother race from game to game to ride. I love how you learned (too quickly) the hand motion for us to give you another token so you could start your own ride ("I can do it myself!).

When asked what you wanted for your birthday, you requested "a new bed, a new skirt, and pyjamas - from the store, not made by mommy". Let me tell you, kiddo, you are never too old to get pyjamas made by your mother!

Birthday Dress and Cloche Hat

Here are the knit birthday dress and crochet hat I made for Ava's 5th birthday next week. It's a cotton summer outfit but she has a March birthday so we added tights and a long-sleeved shirt to make it season-appropriate. I'm so pleased with how it turned out, especially after the mishaps of the original attempts (read about it here).

Parties I'm joining ...

Craft Updates

I've had a bit of personal drama this week. My parents and maternal grandparents are on a cruise. It sailed out on Sunday and on Monday at the first port my 79 year old grandmother (Nonna) "drowned" but was successfully revived. With my father and grandfather stuck on the ship for a few days and communication being limited, it was all very terrifying. She is doing well as if the last report.
Nonna had given me all of her knitting and crochet and tons of yarn because she can't see well and she knows I would appreciate the supplies. I thought I'd make her a lap blanket out of chunky yarn (soft and warm!) for her bed. They never have nice blankets in hospitals. That said I'm working like mad to get it done before I visit her which will likely be this weekend. I should be able to, right? Crochet is so fast.

For the blanket, tonight I went to Wal-Mart for a black to tie in all the "stash buster" plans I have to use up the colours with 2 rows of each colour. I think I'll do every 5th row black to make it look like somewhat of a pattern. The price I was charged and the price at the product were different so I got the yarn for free. Score! This project wont cost me anything but time now. lol

My daughter's 5th birthday is next week. I just finished knitting her a nice cotton dress and crocheting her a hat in matching yarn. I need to finish the flower (she wants to wear it to school tomorrow so I better get cracking!). It turned out absolutely adorable. I want to sew her pjs for her birthday too but the blanket is definitely a priority.

Our Kitchen

I am always in the kitchen and, especially, at the sink. I fill the sink with hot soapy water at least 4 times a day (after each snack and meal) to clean dishes, wipe tables and counters and clean dirty hands a faces of multiple children (thank you to my home daycare). I love our kitchen's maple cabinets and the layout is spacious with enough counter and storage space for our needs.

The point of this story is our sink. It is white porcelain. I have never enjoyed it and the first weekend we owned the house I saw a big dent that had been covered in caulking. It has been an eyesore (to me) ever since. The sink is very difficult to keep white as well. It stains and scratches easily. The enamel is starting to wear so you can't get it to shine on the bottom either, no matter the amount of elbow grease or variety of products I've tried. I would rather a stainless steel one.

This past week while trying to move the faucet it "crunched" and was difficult to move. I could hear pieces falling beneath the sink. I asked hubby to look at it and he said that we would need a new faucet because (something) broke and he didn't think it was repairable (see how well I listen to what was wrong?). What I also heard was "we might as well get a new sink (and counters if we want) when we replace it. Hmmm .... tempting. I don't mind the counters but they ARE low-end compared to the rest of the kitchen. I honestly could do with just a new sink and a fancy faucet. However, since he planted the seed about the possibility of new counters it's starting to grow. This could be an expensive suggestion on his part but wouldn't it make my day nicer with so much time spent in the kitchen?

What would you do?

Here are some quick counters that I like with cabinets the same colour as ours. So. Tempting.

Capturing Family Memories

This past Friday night my friend and I had made plans to meet to scrapbook and organize family photos. I have about 500 photos that I printed in 2006 when my daughter was born. The prints were inexpensive as I printed them between Christmas and New Years (did you know it's about $0.05 cheaper to print during that week at most photo centers?).

Originally we were going to meet at my place but after my husband's plans changed and he decided to stay in, we moved our plans to include a coffee shop that had wireless Internet. It was a little frustrating as our connections got cut off and as I am not a scrapbooker in general, never mind an e-scrapbooker, I was like a deer in headlights as to where to start. I finally decided to go through 2009 photos (I still have some December 2010 ones to get from my sister-in-law and a friend). I created a 2009 to scrapbook file and dropped copies of my favourite ones so that I could create a digi-book from those.

I am planning to use Shutterfly so that I can add captions and make the pages the size that I want. I also understand that you can use custom or automated templates that drag and drop your photos in chronological order. That is my idea of scrapbooking!

So Friday night, I enjoyed a yogurt fruit smoothie, had some fun chatting and also had a blast going down memory lane "only 2 years back but it seemed like forever ago".

How do you organize your family memories? Any tips or ideas you have would be greatly appreciated.

SITS Cocktail Comment Party ... The Hangover

I have really been excited to participate in last night's SITS (Secret In The Sauce) Cocktail Comment Party. It was the first one ever.

I wrote a special post to welcome the ladies and stayed up "late" to participate and was not disappointed. There were a few hiccups at the beginning as we ended up moving from our original chat forum. There were so many of us I think we jammed the poor thing up! We got on Twitter and I got to learn how to use TweetChat in super fast time. Everyone had such great comments and I didn't want to miss my chance at reading all the blogs that were posted so I opted for this suggested chat platform. So glad I did!

Although my blog didn't get officially called I can't wait until the next party with my SITStas. They are all so positive and supportive - such a wonderful community to be a part of. Thank you, ladies.

SITS Comment Cocktail Party ~ WELCOME!!!

I am so excited about the SITS Comment Cocktail Party tonight! Welcome to all my SITStas!!
I flipped through my past blogs to see how best to introduce myself. I actually didn't realise I have been writing my blog since April 2008. Wow has time gone by quickly! My first blog post was relatively boring as I jumped right in and started to write. I was too excited to have a blog to really consider the content - I just wanted to type and get it all started! These past few years I've just "gone with it" and the trends have emerged as a result. By the way, to answer the question of "I wonder how long it will be until it gets painted" is that it is still only primed! Was your blog post "all that" in retrospect? Does it still hold the theme you originally intended when you started your blog?

The first few months of the blog were mainly about interesting tidbits I passed on to other moms (Neti Pot, Listerine as mosquito spray, tea tree oil to name a few). I have evolved, however, to sharing sweet stories of the children, reviewing novels and sharing reviews of movies and more recently crafts.

This blog and my blogland friends have helped me through good and harder times and for that I am grateful. I am very glad to meet you and I cannot wait to get to know you better as our blog lives meet and our journey through motherhood, crafting and all the other good stuff we like to do in our life continues! I am truly blessed and, as you will read, definitely more than a mom.

Elizabeth @ More Than A Mom

SITS Comment Cocktail Hour

I am SO excited about the SITS newest party. It's a Comment Cocktail Hour. Brilliant, really. I've signed up and am patiently waiting until 10 p.m. EST for it to begin. I already have it planned - I'll be all snug in my bed with my laptop when I am reading all the fabulous friends and making comments galore. I'm even going to have a "welcome to my blog" post with some of my favourite posts from the last few years. It's going to be the best party I've gone to in a long time ... won't you join me tonight at 7 p.m. PST/10 p.m. EST?

Here are some details on the event ...

HOW IT WORKS

The fun will start at 7:00 pm PST/10:00 pm EST. Joining in couldn’t be easier. After everyone has roll called, the hostess of the live chat will post a link to the first blog.  Your job is to race over to that site and comment on a post. The link will be posted a couple times in the live chat and then the group will move onto the next link on the list. You simply need to visit each site as it comes up in the chat and comment on each post.

THE BENEFITS

So what do you get in return for joining us for the Comment Cocktail Hour?

• Lots of Comments
• New Followers and Readers
• New Blogs to Read
• Input on your blog and how it handles lots of visitors at once
• A special hour to make new blogging friends!

SOME TIPS

The chat will be limited to about an hour.  It may go over a bit if we have a large group of bloggers participating.
It’s also possible that you’ll come upon a post that will take you a little longer to read.  In this case, leave that tab open on your computer and continue to open links in new tabs as the hostess posts them.  Once the chat ends, you can return to that site and spend the time you need reading and commenting.

SIGNING UP

The sign-up post is now open in the forum. Just leave a comment on this discussion string with your name and URL. You’re welcome to link to a particular post, if you’re looking for more comments somewhere specific, or simply use your blog URL.
In order to ensure a manageable number of blogs to visit and comment on, participation for this week’s cocktail hour will be limited.  However, even if we receive a big response, be sure to sign up.  Not only will this help us to plan for next week, but if someone drops out or does not respond to roll call at the beginning of the chat, you may be added to the participant list!  And, as we mentioned, if lots of people are interested, then next week we will likely schedule multiple groups.

ROLL CALL

On Wednesday, March 2nd, 5 minutes before 7:00 pm PST, you will need to sign into the live chat using the name you signed up with in the forum. We will do a roll call and make sure everyone is present and accounted for.  If you are not able to make it, don’t worry.  We simply will skip over your blog and not send our comment tribe your way.
In order to find the links to the blogs we are visiting quickly, the hostess of the chat will be typing in red.  If you’re participating, stay away from this signature color so that everyone can scan the live chat and find the all-important blog URLs quickly!

"Cheap"

I tried a new website called One Word. The idea is that you press a button and when you do a word appears at the top of the screen. You then have 60 seconds to write whatever comes to the top of your mind about the word. This exercise was done with the word "cheap". Here is what I came up with. Go try out a word and let me know what your word is and what you came up with in my comments!


Things that break easily are cheap. People that don’t have value in themselves are cheap. Birds make a sound such as this “cheap cheap”. The sound of plastic squeaking on new boots is cheap. People who never want to spend money are often called cheap but are they really just frugal and waiting for something better to purchase?