Decorating mommy’s office

The kids create hundreds of pieces of art and keepsakes for me every year. I learned early in my parenting journey that keeping them all would turn my house into an episode of horders. So I have to pick  and choose wisely what to keep, what to throw away and what to put on long term display.

One of the things that I love about my office in the new house is that it is tucked away in a private space and I can decorate it however I want. I have things that are meaningful to me on display. There’s no theme, there’s no interior designing at work. It’s just full of memorabilia. That makes me really happy.

I have started the process where once a year I will trade out a really awesome artwork that I get from my kids and put new stuff on display for the coming year. Today I decided to take down a few of the things that Claire had given me over 2018. Here are a couple keepsake photos. It is hard to throw the stuff away, but I am comforted by the fact that I know keeping it all is a bad idea as well. I hope that my photos and blogs do preservation and justice for all the love the kids put them to the things they have made me. 

I am grateful for their creativity and the way they share it with me to show their love!

Clair figured out 3-D bubble letters at the age of four. 

Her printing was magnificent at the age of five.



I love the positive messages that she created and gave to everybody and placed throughout the house one day.

Max has the best third grade teacher

First semester I’d third grade allowed Max’s need to breeze through things without any effort to come to a head. He got some pretty bad grades. A his conference his teacher and I both agreed this situation was due to lack of effort not lack of abilities. So we put some actions in place to force him to pay attention to details and try harder. Mostly, I have to say this was his teachers doing. She did some extra work and evaluation with him daily. She’s working so hard to establish solid, productive, long term scholastic behavior in him. I’m so grateful! She’s teaching him to slow down and do things right. This is something I haven’t been able to do. 

Max has been working the program and has been successful so far. Today was midterm and Christmas break. I’m most thankful for the kind note from his teacher to him. She’s a superstar! We are so lucky to have her in his life. 

Night time kisses

 Max enjoys me singing him a song and scratching his back after prayers before he falls asleep. I realized that he doesn’t really give me kisses. I always give him kisses good night and he always says oooo mommy.

Recently I started asking him for a kiss on my cheek good night before his back scratch and song. It’s become a bit of a joke in terms of how many different things he does to pass the time before giving me a gentle kiss on the cheek to say good night. He likes to sniff a lot and be silly of course because he’s Max. It’s really cute.

I’m quite thankful for my one kiss a day, good night.

Here he is below with a proud gingerbread cookie that he decorated when we made grandma sugar cookies this weekend.

“My show”

Clair has decided to write her own Christmas song and put on a Christmas dance this year. She’s been working on it for a few days now. She “practices” in the basement alone with most of her spare time. The star of the song is Rudolf and the other raindeers. She loves Rudolf this year. 

This morning she told me she will perform it for Elfie when it’s ready. 

I love the determination in Clair!

Truth

I just saw this on Facebook and it brought tears to my eyes as I read it. Ellie’s starting to really show signs of the teenage years and teenage attitude. My girl who once worshiped and always obeyed now is growing her independence and it’s hard already. 

One day I hope she can see this is true. 

I know my mom struggles with me and my determined self. It’s my turn. 

I love my kiddos and pray for a strong relationship as a family and with God to get us through the years. 

Another success piano recital

Ellie started lessons back up with Mrs Nancy 7 months ago. She has been part of two recitals. Tonight was the Christmas one. 

When Ellie first started recital the song she dreamed of playing was Canon in D. Tonight she made that vision come to life as she performed it for the group in the little community church. 

She had to work hard the past few days to get out some challenging measures. She did a nice job. I think she learned what hard work does in terms of quality over the past few days. 

She’s beautiful too this little 11 year old young lady of mine. 

Gramma came to enjoy the show as well. 

The look of satisfaction after she was done. 

The church was gorgeous all decorated for Christmas. 

Sleeping arrangements

We’ve been working on trying to have Clair stay in her own bed at night since February when she discovered how nice nighttime snuggles are. For about a month after school started we had success. But then she got sick and everything reverted. It’s a daily struggle for Clair to fight the nighttime needs to be close and snuggle. 

Quite often sometime in the middle of the night I will here her door pop open, then gently close behind her, her feet shuffle quickly across the floor as she makes a direct line to my side of the bed where she announces “I need your snuggles” and climbs in beside me, placing her head in my shoulder and putting her arm around me. I cover her, kiss her, tell her I love her and here a sweet sigh of relief as she goes right back to sleep snuggles up against me tight as my pajamas. 

She’s a love bug and she’s definitely my snuggle monster. 

I don’t sleep as well physically when she does this because of my back, but I do appreciate her snuggles and her love of snuggles. 

It’s morning, mom and Dad have gotten up to start the day, she holds down the fort, sound asleep until she’s ready to wake.