I Spy with My Little Eye . . .

Yesterday at lunch, I was playing "I Spy With My Little Eye" with the kids. 

It was Luke's turn.

He looked straight at me and said, "I spy with my little eye something that I love."

I (hopefully) said, "Me???"

"Yup. You guessed it."

Swoon.

My Word for 2011

The other day on K-LOVE (my favorite Christian radio station ~ "positive and encouraging") they were urging everyone to find a key word or phrase for the year 2011.

I decided right away that I needed to find MY WORD!

I have been really thinking about what word I should focus on in 2011.

I asked for suggestions on facebook (I will have to say that I love facebook for times such as these). . . here are some of the suggestions:

"gratitude"
"contentment"
"be there"
"courage"
"intentional" (because so often we just randomly go through the day or go through it on auto-pilot.....It applies to how we treat each other, how we do our work/homework, what we say, what we eat....)
"clear" (as in transparent, free, pure, defined, without distraction)
"simplify"
"declutter"
"trust"
"perspective"
"peace"
"recover"(...not in the sense of RECOVERY..like with an addiction, but rather like the idea that Grace for our mistakes and shortcomings gives us the ability to RECOVER quickly.. acknowledge the mistake, learn and MOVE FORWARD... no wallowing allowed (that is prideful and self-absorbed).. as to RESET, and to shake perfectionistic thinking out of the mind...that is a trap.)

Wow . . . some really good ideas, right??  I really like all of them, but I think the one I will probably choose is "intentional".  This word means "characterized by conscious design or purpose".  I want to really put a lot of thought into everything I do.  (no more flying by the seat of my pants!!)

I want to be intentional in:

• the words I say
• the time I spend with my kids and my husband
• what I read
• how I (we) raise our children 
• the work I do at home and when I'm tutoring
• my friendships  
• my thoughts
• my relationship with my husband
• what I eat
• how I decorate and organize our home
• the time I spend with the Lord
• my plans 
• the money I spend
• how I use my time
• what I cook for my family
• what I sign my kids up for (sports, music, etc)
• everything I do!

I have also chosen a word for our FAMILY for the year 2011, but that will have to wait for another post.  I am intentionally ending this post now so I can go get some much needed sleep. :)


By the way . . . what is YOUR word for 2011??

Meet my Family

I post a ton of pictures of my kids on this blog . . . but I want to introduce you to the rest of my family . . .
My mom, my dad, my sister, Diane, and my brother, Steve.

They are my number one support system.  They are my friends. They are who I call first when I have a problem.  They are the ones who have made me who I am today.  They are my prayer warriors. They are my advice-givers.  They know me, truly know me, but love me anyway.  They are my family . . . and I love them and appreciate them so very much.

 We all got together this New Years and we had a great time.  Steve's wife, Rebecca, and Diane's husband, Colin, and of course, John, are a great addition to our family and also love and appreciate them so very much!

“The love of a family is life's greatest blessing”

Chicago Sports Day

My Chicago sports fans are happy campers today.
One of John's students gave him tickets to the rematch of the Stanley Cup today. . . and he loaned them some jerseys for the day . . . how nice!! 
(If I had money, I would love to do things like that . . . give things to people. Wouldn't that be fun??)

Go Hawks!!

And, of course, the Bears will be playing the Packers this afternoon.

My boys are Bears fans even though I grew up in the Green Bay area.  People ask me why we don't root for the Packers.  I guess it is because I was never a big football fan.  (I can't even remember ever watching a Packers game)  When Jake came along, he was invited to a few Bears games (thanks Diane!!) and he naturally became a Bears fan . . . I guess I will be happy with either team winning.  :)  They are both great teams.

Three Sickos

I had three sick kids at home today.
:(


It wasn't so bad . . .
We watched a lot of this,

. . .  and these. (Have you watched any of these DVDs yet?? If not, do!! They are FAN-TAST-IC!) 

We played with a lot of these. . . I was getting way too involved with these, actually.  I knew it was time to move on to something else when I found myself yelling at telling Luke to not touch what I was making because it might fall apart.  Hello!!

Oh, and we drank some of this.  Usually, you would not find pop (they call it soda around here) in our house, but I was so excited when I saw this kind at the store . . . NO High Fructose Corn Syrup!! Finally!  If they can do it, all pop companies can.

Muffin Tops and Clementines

Well . . . I just got finished doing the Shred and I feel great!! Day 7 complete! 23 to go?!

I've just got to get rid of my muffin tops . . .

 . . . and my saddle bags! ;)

I will!!

Now, to totally change the subject . . .

I wanted to tell you about a book series that Caroline and I have been reading. 

They are the Clementine books written by Sara Pennypacker.

We LOVE them!

Clementine is an imaginative, creative, observant, and playful 3rd grader. She pays attention to every detail of daily life. Her teachers keep telling her to "pay attention" in class! (She keeps thinking "I am paying attention.") She's  a challenge for her parents (she refers to herself as "the hard one" as opposed to her "easy" brother). She doesn't always make the right decisions, but her lessons are great ones and they are funny!!
Clementine is a great friend.  In the chapter that we read tonight, her friend, Margaret, got glue stuck in her hair and was trying to cut it out with scissors.  Her hair looked awful after she was finished with it.  Clementine decided to try to help and even it out, which meant cutting ALL of Margaret's hair off (with plastic art scissors).  Margaret's parents were furious at Clementine. She felt bad for Margaret, so that night she cut off all of her own hair to make Margaret feel like she was not alone.  Yikes!   

We love Clementine!!

New Year - New Me

Like everyone else, I have made a couple of New Years Resolutions for 2011.
This year, I only made a few and I have realized that the best way to keep them is by getting people to hold me accountable to keep them.


Accountability is KEY.

My first resolution is to exercise regularly. 

I don't have a goal of how much weight to lose or how fast I should run a mile.  I just want to exercise because I know I should.

I have been doing the 30 Day Shred with Jillian Michaels and I really love it. 

It is challenging, but doable and the results are AMAZING.  I have more energy and I feel strong and toned.  A few close friends have been checking up on me and I have been checking up on them.  It really motivates me to actually do it when I know someone will be asking me if I did!

Another resolution I have is to spend more time in God's Word. 

Again, accountability plays a major role. 

I have signed up to be in a Bible Study called There is a Season: Experiencing Contentment In Every season of Life. (by Laurie Cole)  It is SO GOOD. 

This is just the first week of the study, but I have gotten so much out of it already.  I will post about what I am learning real soon.

I have always had a hard time making time to study God's Word.  Why??  It should be the most important thing to me!!

When someone is holding me accountable (my small group) it motivates me to sit down and do my lesson.  I know I should be motivated to on my own, but I am just not.

I have a few more resolutions, like cooking better and healthier dinners for my family , getting more organized, finishing projects in our house, really spending "quality time" with the kids, working on building a stronger marriage, etc . . . but I just wanted to focus on the two big ones for me this year.

A Snowy Day and a Meatloaf Recipe

Today, the kids woke up to a wintry wonderland outside.
It's a good thing it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Snow Days never happen around here (because we get a lot of snow and the plows are just way too efficient . . . don't get the kids started on that one!) so we pretended it was a Snow Day!! 

John and Jake had fun shoveling.

Anyone want to hire him?? He's good.

Luke had fun doing this.

Caroline had fun building me a snowman with her buddy.

I had fun making this for supper. YUM.

Best Ever Meatloaf

2 Tablespoons butter

1 cup chopped onion

3 cloves garlic

1 lb. ground turkey

1/2 cup bread crumbs (I use a slice of whole wheat bread all crumbled up)

1 egg

1/4 cup ketchup

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

3/4 teaspoon salt

Saute the onions and garlic in the butter.

Mix all of the ingredients together and put in loaf pan. (I put it on a cookie sheet so it is flatter for some reason)

Squirt more ketchup all over the top and bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes. 

MIA and Bird "Cakes"

I have definitely been missing in action for the past couple of months.

There are several reasons for that:

1.  I had a bad headache that just wouldn't leave me alone,

2.  Christmas (need I say more??),

3.  I just needed more time to get some important things done around my house,

4.   and I just needed to focus on my family.

Now, I am ready to have fun blogging again . . .

I decided to start with a repost from last January because Caroline and I made these fun bird cakes again today.

Enjoy! and I will see you again real soon!!

Caroline has so much fun watching this squirrel eat from her bird feeder. She wanted me to take this picture because she just loves how he hangs on with his little feet.

Since Caroline likes watching her new bird feeder so closely (thanks Uncle Steve, Auntie Becca, and family!) we checked a book out at the library called Birds in Your Backyard by Barbara Herkert. I think it was written especially for Caroline. :) It gives so many cool ideas about how to attract and identify birds and the illustrations are beautiful. Today, we made a recipe for little "cakes" to feed the birds.

First, you hollow out oranges. We hollowed out 2 to make 4 cakes. (we used a grapefruit spoon to do this)

Then, we mixed the following in a bowl:

1 cup of bird seed

1/2 cup melted vegetable shortening

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter (Caroline insisted on making homemade peanut butter . . .nothing but the best for the birds!)

Last, we scooped it into the hollowed out oranges and . . . voila!!

Don't they look yummy?

We put one outside and waited and waited for the birds to come, but they must have seen us. After a while, we looked and . . . the whole thing was gone! That pesky squirrel. :) That'll feed him for the rest of the winter.

Oh, I tried to get Luke involved in the project, but he was perfectly happy playing Jake's Nintendo DS. :)