Summer Expedition -- Searching for Og Creatures

Here's my kids back in the day...  Elijah did look cute when his hair was swooped to the side, but this is MID-adventure -- the kind of summer adventure where you have no chance to swoop your hair handsomely to one side.

2009 -- Desiree (5 1/2)  Elijah (3)

We were looking for Og creatures on this particular adventure since we had just finished reading The Secret World of Og.  The novel is written by Canadian, Pierre Berton.  It promotes positive sibling relationships and has themes such as: working together, discovering each person's strengths and not pre-judging others.

It's full of suspense with a dash of danger.  I have to admit to editing it slightly since my kids are on the sensitive side.  This summer I'm hoping to read it to them again...  And then of course we will have to go on another summer expedition in search of Og creatures!

~❀~ Chelsey ~❀~

Cutting Down Fake Christmas Trees and Other Traditions

Traditions create memories and a sense of belonging in a family.  Here are some of our Christmas traditions -- many I'm sure you've heard of before, but some are unique to our family.  

~ The kids get pajamas each Christmas Eve and an ornament each Christmas.  

~ On Christmas Day we read the story of Jesus's birth and re-enact it with our nativity set.  We have the Little People nativity set by Fisher Price that the kids can play with (and there's no chance of it breaking!).  

~ At some point during the Christmas season we drive around and look at Christmas lights in our community.  Our newspaper has a list so we can spend a night driving around and looking at the most impressive ones.  Last year we found one that was timed to music on a radio station!

~ We set our fake Christmas tree up in the backyard and then we go search for a Christmas tree to "cut down".  This year we walked all over the neighbourhood admiring the Christmas lights before we found the perfect tree right there in our own backyard.  Next year I might "plant" the tree somewhere else to add to the excitement.

Christmas 2008

~ We have a family sleepover on Christmas Eve where we all camp out in the family room after watching a Christmas movie.  Some of our favourite Christmas movies are:

  

  * How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated!)

  * The Toy that Saved Christmas (Veggie Tales)

  * Small One (Disney short)

  * Elf (Will Ferrell)

  * It's a Wonderful Life (Jimmy Stewart)

  * The Family Man (Nicholas Cage)

One thing we don't do is wake up early.  My kids are both night owls (like me!) and would rather lay awake at night buzzing with excitement about what's to come than go to sleep early and wake up early.  This could be in part because at our house no present is opened without Mom and Dad watching so waking up excessively early just means you  have to wait longer...  

~ I take the kids stocking stuffer shopping at the dollar store where they can each buy a couple presents for each family member's stocking. The kids are able to practice the art of giving by thinking of what each person would like (and because we're at the dollar store it doesn't cost too much of our money!).

Two years ago, Elijah (then 2 1/2 years old) bought me a red train for my stocking.  Once Desiree bought Daddy a set of water paints so that he could paint with her and a pair of work gloves.  It's so neat to see what they come up with.

I love that the kids have the opportunity to give.  By having them do the choosing, wrapping and sneaking around, I hope they're learning that "It's more blessed to give than to receive".  They sure have a lot of fun, that's for sure!

What Christmas traditions do you have in your family?  

~❀~ Chelsey ~❀~

Spending Time with Oma -- Thankfulness

The continuation of thankfulness...

27. Desiree "reminding" us that it was the birthday of her stuffed cat, Meows. We went to an event at a farmer's market with face painting, hot dogs, corn on the cob and watermelon (all free!). We called this event Meows' "birthday party". Maybe your family doesn't celebrate the birthdays of stuffed animals, but we do and we have great fun doing it!

28. Desiree's reaction to finding rhubarb at the produce store: "Mom!!!! Come and see!!!! They have rhubarb!!!" She was ecstatic! We also grow it in our backyard, but mostly pencil sized. Desiree, Elijah and I made a rhubarb meringue when my parents were here for a one night stop over on their way home. My dad loves rhubarb, but his reaction was quite subdued compared with Desiree's.

29. Being given a baby butterfly to take home from school. The class had hatched butterflies and when it was time to let them go this one wouldn't fly away. I carefully carried it all the way home and protected it from the wind. We took pictures with it and then let it free on a snapdragon plant in our backyard -- never to be seen again...

30. Time with "the cousins" -- my cousin, her husband and their kids who came from Alberta to visit for a couple days. My kids have never met their first cousins so these third cousins are quite a big deal! They had water fights, played Wii and we all had a trip to the water park together.

31. Going to the school's Beach day -- it was dreary and windy, but good fun still. Elijah crying as if his heart were broken when he saw a dead crab with no legs... Elijah yelling excitedly when he saw a live crab in the wild for the first time (that's his expression in the collage). Me convincing the kids that it was okay to catch them!

32. The little girl in the center of this photo from Ernie's 36km run. We asked her dad to take a photo for us so we wouldn't have a person missing from the picture and she automatically ran into the picture. How cute is that? She figured if her dad was taking the picture she should be in it!

33. Ernie's mom, Oma, coming from Ontario for a long-awaited visit and to see Ernie's run. It had been two years since we'd seen her last so the kids (now 4 and 6) were super excited. While she was here she gave me a tutorial on my sewing machine, baked all sorts of goodies for us, learned how to play Wii, gardened with Ernie and went for a hike at the river with the family. We all miss her now that she's back in Ontario...

~❀~ Chelsey ~❀~

Scheduling Family Fun.

Life is challenging for us because of my husband's stroke symptoms. So... I decided we needed some structure in our chaotic life -- a bit of predictability and things to look forward to. Here's the schedule I've come up with:


Tuesday -- crafts
Wii Wednesday
Thursday -- Awana (or theater class)
Friday -- Family sleepover and movie
Saturday -- board games
Sunday -- church & Little House on the Prairie





Monday has ended up being a day where we do whatever we may have missed throughout the prior week. ie: if we go out Saturday night we can do board games on Monday instead. We're flexible, but it's nice to have a schedule to work around.

The kids most look forward to Wii Wednesday and Family sleepovers (which technically only include the kids and I for the sleepover portion). My husband watches the movie with us, but he tried staying for a sleepover once and got annoyed that Desiree and I were whispering. I told him: "Whispering is what sleepovers are all about!"

Even though life may be unpredictable for us, having a weekly schedule (essentially a weekly set of traditions) has given us something to look forward to -- a lot of quality time together.

~❀~ Chelsey ~❀~

Joy in Jesus' Return -- from a Kid's Point of View

This Good Friday I gave Desiree and Elijah a toy Jesus and a children's book about some of the miracles of Jesus. After we acted out some of the miracles, we acted out his death. Then we wrapped Jesus up in cloth (toilet paper), buried him in a "tomb" in our front yard and covered it with a rock. The plan was to check the tomb on Sunday and (spoiler) Jesus wouldn't be there!

But, a few hours later at bedtime here is the conversation Elijah (newly 4), Desiree (6) and I had.

Elijah: "Can we go get Jesus now?"

Me: "Remember Jesus was in the tomb for three days?"

Elijah: "But, I want to take Jesus to bed with me..."

Desiree: "You know that Jesus is always with us, right?"

Elijah: "But I want the toy Jesus."

Me: "You don't want to wait three days?"

Elijah: "It's time -- I counted -- 1, 2, 3!"

Me: "Oh... but three days is longer than just counting to three."

Elijah: "1, 2, 3 ... 4, 5... Let's go get Jesus!"

What could I do? I couldn't withhold Jesus from my son for the sake of an object lesson. So we went back outside in the dark and dug in the tomb. Thankfully I'd had the foresight to remove Jesus as soon as he was buried just in case something like this happened. There in the dirt was the "cloth", but no Jesus. Elijah said "Maybe we need to dig deeper?" All of a sudden Jesus appeared out of no where (as if from my pocket).

I don't know if Elijah completely understood the object lesson, but he sure was glad to get his Jesus toy back. And isn't joy in Jesus' return what Easter is all about?


~❀~ Chelsey ~❀~

Other Peoples Shopping Lists

The kids and I went to the grocery store last week with our shopping list in hand. But, when we got our shopping cart we discovered there was another shopping list in it which had been forgotten by a prior shopper! It was written on the cutest frog note paper.

I showed the kids and suggested we should buy some items off of the other person's list just for fun. We were already getting apples and milk and didn't need socks or shampoo, but decided to buy Oreos because they were on the found list! lol... The kids thought it was great shopping from someone else's list and we ended up with a treat we don't normally buy. (Oh and we left the frog list in the cart where we found it for the next shopper to find!)

Keep a look out for other people's shopping lists if you want to make grocery shopping more interesting!

~❀~ Chelsey ~❀~

Must Haves for Back to School

My daughter starts grade 1 on Tuesday. She'll be in school full time (as opposed to afternoon kindergarten). I'm nervous about us having to wake up early and concerned that I'll miss her when she's gone all day... She's convinced she won't have time to do anything fun anymore, but I know she'll love school all over again once she's back.


Here are my top five must haves for back to school (in no particular order)

1. Sigg bottles

Not just any ole aluminum bottle, but a thick Swiss-made original. Sigg bottles come in super cute designs and are easy to distinguish from all the plastic water bottles out there. Sigg bottles are leak proof and work well for car trips and night time too. Make sure that your Sigg bottle has a new "yellow" liner as opposed to the gold coloured liner made prior to 2008.

This bottle is one of my favourites from their current collection. You can check out many others at Sigg!


2. A radio alarm clock for the kitchen

Yes, the kitchen. I set my kitchen radio alarm clock so that it lets me know when we need to head down stairs. It gives us just enough time to put on coats and shoes and walk to school. This ensures we arrive on time -- unless there's an unforseen mishap of course -- like a missing shoe or kiddos who just won't walk at their usual pace.


3. Cute stationary for writing notes to the scholar or to the teacher.

I have some cute note pads that I use to write love notes to my daughter. I don't know when that stops being cool, but she's 5 and thinks it's great to get a message from mom -- especially since she can read them too. For older kiddos sending a joke will keep them laughing (and thinking of you) throughout the day.

I also use my fancy notepads to send messages to the teacher -- not love notes or jokes, but messages none the less.

4. Labels -- the dishwasher safe kind

I ordered great labels off an e-bay seller a couple years ago (who I searched for, but they're no longer in business it seems). The ones I have are small with cute Disney characters on them (Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story, Mickey Mouse...) I stick them to the Sigg bottles and the little glass containers I use for my daughter's lunch. They also work for toys that get taken out of the house for show and tell or car trips. I bought some with our last name and stuck them to our cell phone, cameras etc... too!

5. Cloth snack bags that can be reused

Check out Etsy and search for "snack bags" or "sandwich bags" for some great patterns and characters that will make lunch extra fun!

My daughter has Strawberry Shortcake and Winnie the Pooh cloth bags for her lunches. In a pinch I've even sent my son's Superman and Cars snack bags along with her too! She hasn't minded (yet!). These bags help make her lunches as litterless as possible.


Comment here with your top five must haves for back to school!