In case you’re asking yourself that question right now, the answer is yes! Snow is falling on my blog thanks to a tiny little button that WordPress has added which makes snowfall as simple as one little click. Too bad it’s not so simple to make it snow in real life – we could order up a white Christmas every year!
Be sure and move your mouse around and see what happens to the snow.
Ahh, such simple pleasures. Brrrr. . . I think I may need a cup of cocoa now!
Blessings,
Nancy
I am writing this blog post as I sit at the ice rink freezing. Tommy and Sarah begin lessons today, and they have a couple of hours of free skate before their lesson starts.
This is our first time at this ice rink. We normally skate at the mall, however this rink just opened up ~ brand new ~ and it is much closer to home, so we opted to do lessons here. The rinks are really comparable – floor made of ice, and me sitting outside the plastic walls watching. Big difference, however, in the air temperature between here and the mall. I normally am perfectly comfortable in a jacket, but here – I think I’d feel better in a heavy winter coat! I tried sewing for awhile, but my fingers were getting numb, so I stopped.
I’ve got a crockpot filled with nice hot soup waiting for us at home, when we are done. I’m trying an experiment – I poured chicken broth into my crockpot, added some chopped carrots and celery, a few spices, and left it to simmer. When we get home, I will toss in a bag of tortellini from the freezer (minus the bag, of course) and let them cook until tender. Then we will try out my experiment and see how it is. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I think I’ll put in some cornbread while the tortellini cooks. I may need to break out the hot chocolate to thaw myself out sufficiently.
Until later ~
Blessings,
Nancy
Today is National Candy Corn Day, so be sure and grab a handful before the day’s over!
While working on our Harvest lapbooks yesterday, we learned that candy corn was invented by the Wunderlee Candy Company in 1880. It was made in the shape of a corn kernel, and thus the name was born. The colors also were chosen to resemble corn. I was surprised to learn that one of the ingredients in candy corn is marshmallow.
My brother held a poll at last week’s family birthday party on which was the most favored candy corn – the yellow or the brown. I, of course, voted for the brown due to it’s close resemblance to chocolate. However, in the end, the yellows won by a narrow margin, with the result really being summed up by my nephew, Dylan, who said he voted for yellow because – “it’s classic”.
Which is your favorite color of candy corn?
Blessings,
Nancy
Today is my 2 year blog anniversary! Two years ago today I wrote this post. I didn’t know how long it would last, but I’ve found that I really enjoy writing about our adventures, sharing recipes and thoughts on life. It is sometimes a challenge to find the time to write about what’s going on, since the going on doesn’t ever stop around here! And the truth is, sometimes I’m just too tired to write about it all! But, I’m always glad when I get a new post done, and it is archived for our family to look back on and remember our days by.
I appreciate all of you who stop by to visit with our family and share your thoughts and encouragement with me! So many of you have inspired me with your own blogs and I am thankful for you!
Blessings,
Nancy
بدلة العريس
Remember last week when I posted this?
Well, I should have known to go straight to the technological expert in the house for my answer. When I showed it to him (Matthew) this morning, he immediately copied it, and headed off to Google for an answer. When he pasted in this – بدلة العريس – he was rewarded with a screen full of pictures of tuxedoes. That was our first clue. Then he went to Google translate and pasted it in. Here was the result -
Translation: Arabic (automatically detected) » English
بدلة العريس The groom’s suit
So, I guess that answers my question.
Google obviously sent someone to my blog as a result of this post. Go ahead and check it out, because I’m a mother and I just can’t help myself!
Another mystery solved.
Blessings,
Nancy
. . . so, this is what someone Googled that led them here -
بدلة العريس
Any ideas what this means? Or even what language it is in? And why in the world did Google send them to my site when I’ve never written anything remotely similar to this?
Ah, the mysterious world of the computer . . .
Blessings,
Nancy
After days and days of cloudy skies and rain, rain, rain the sun is finally shining brightly today. I’m not complaining about the rain – it has been a welcome change from the hot temperatures that preceded it, but after a week of gray, the sun surely is a lovely sight.
We have been learning about the Sun this week, and making weather charts, which were getting a mite repetitious with the clouds, but I think I’ll run outside today and do all of those shadow activities that we were deprived of doing all week.
I think that I am not the only one who will be enjoying the sun today ~ the kitties have been taking turns in the open windows all morning !
Have a wonderful weekend!
Blessings,
Nancy
The other day I sat down on my bed (my favorite quiet spot) to eat lunch. A few seconds later Macey jumped up on the bed ~ her nose had picked up the scent of my chicken sandwich ~ and proceeded to stare at me, licking her chops in anticipation of a feast. I grabbed my camera and snapped a few pictures of her in action, all the while protecting my lunch from the beast.
Please, may I have some of your chicken sandwich?
Yes, I mean that one . . .
I reeeealllly want some . . .
What’s this? Do I hear my girl coming? She’ll give me some.
Yay! My girl is the best!
Yum, yum, yum . . .
But I still want your chicken sandwich . . .
(She never did get any of mine, though ~ I have to share my food with little people, I gave up a long time ago sharing it with the animals!)
Blessings,
Nancy
For about the last month or so, David has been spending most of his days with a crayon or pencil in his hand. He asks us to print out a coloring sheet for him the moment his feet hit the floor in the morning, works on them all throughout the day, and at bedtime, I have to pry him away from the table where he is working on yet another page. When he can’t persuade someone to print one out for him, he will pull out a coloring book, or sometimes he takes to drawing his own creations – usually adorable potato people that he says are Teletubbies. This particular day he was copying numbers that I wrote on his paper -
All of this handwork that he has been doing has had the result of an amazing ability to control his fine motor muscles. We are continually amazed at the detailed coloring he is doing, mostly staying within the lines. Here are a couple of samples of his work this week -
He has also had an increased interest in working puzzles lately, neither of which I can complain about – nice, quiet, brain stimulating and I don’t have to be constantly checking to see what he’s into. I hope this phase lasts a little while – it’s been a welcome break for Mom!
Oh, and by the way, these pictures were taken with my new camera – the kids helped me and we managed to figure out how to get them off of the camera and onto the computer – yay!
Blessings,
Nancy
Beware! This post contains harsh realities and fuzzy findings! Continue reading at your own risk. Really, it’s not that bad – it could have been much worse than this – in which case, I may not have been so willing to share it with you. If you have an aversion to dust, feel free to skip this post entirely.
As I mentioned in my Daybook yesterday, Michael (7) was in a real cleaning mood yesterday. I don’t know if it was the Dr. Pepper he had for lunch (not a normal occurence) or the driving force of earning a dollar, but he kept coming to me asking for more work. To his credit, the paid jobs came after his initial independent decision to clean the entire living room, as well as do his other afternoon chores without being told and before our normal chore time.
Anyway, one of the jobs that he asked to do was to clean out behind our entertainment center, which is a mostly neglected area, not high up on the list of places to clean up regularly, and so generally forgotten . . . until you are hunting for a missing DVD or video game, and then you muster up your courage and dive into the mix of cords, dust and whatever else has found it’s way back there. It doesn’t help that our entertainment center is rather large and therefore, has lots of space behind it for gathering . . . things.
So, what did Michael find while on his expedition to rid our home of this particular black hole? Well, I asked him to tell me, while I jotted down his findings so that I could share it with you (whatever was I thinking?).
Here’s the list he gave me -
-Dvds
-Books
-Videos
-Dust (we won’t even talk about how much)
-Video games
-Uno card
-Toy figures
-Cheeseburger – no, it wasn’t real – a toy from Anna’s play kitchen.
-”Soft, gray thing” – which turned out to be an old tissue covered in dust – he was wary of diagnosing this himself and called me in to investigate. My first thought at his description of it was, “Oh, no, I hope it’s not a dead mouse!” Needless to say, I was quite relieved to find that it was not.
-Pencil
-Duplo block
-Ball
-Cords (LOTS of them)
-MarioKart steering wheel
-Paper
-Dirty socks
So, there you have it. No, I’m not proud of it, but not too disturbed either. In a house with this many people, including small children – you just learn that there are priorities in life, and the floor behind my entertainment center is just not one of them right now – unless, of course, you are seven years old and looking for income anywhere you can find it – even in dusty, uncharted territory.
Hmm. . . maybe he’ll decide to dive under the couches next. But I really might not have the courage to tell that story.
Blessings,
Nancy
