Traveling With Kiddos: Popsicle Stick Puzzles

Two days in a row?? There is a pretty decent chance that the world may be coming to an end, but hopefully it’s just a rush of motivation on my part.

I’m back (for the second day in a row—didn’t know if you caught that) to share another little craft idea that I stole from someone and made my own. That’s what Pinterest is for, right?!

 

 

This one wasn’t quite as quick as the Matching Tubes, but it’s one of those things you can do while you’re watching Charlotte’s Web with the kiddos. It gets harder toward the end of the movie and Charlotte dies because everything gets blurry for some reason. But I digress.

For this I had almost everything on hand already and I just printed out the pictures onto cardstock. The only thing I had to buy was the rubber cement, and I’ve been meaning to pick some up for a while anyway.

 

 

Super simple: just find pictures your little munsters will like and print them out onto cardstock. Regular printer paper would probably work too but I make no guarantees. From there I just cut them out and flipped them over so they were right-side down on my TV tray high-tech crafting surface. I brushed the rubber cement on just a little at a time since it tends to dry really fast and just lined up popsicle sticks along the back. Once I had the back of the picture glued and sticked (?), I added a little weight to make sure the sticks…stuck. It sounds like I’m not making sense, but I totally am.

 

 

Once your glue is dry, just take your handy dandy box cutter and slice those sticks apart. I was initially worried that the puzzle might be too hard since I only had the really narrow popsicle sticks, but I gave it the good ol’ college try and was able to put them together with minimal tears. Just to be safe though, I printed out a reference picture for the kids so they know what they're building.

 

 

Wouldn’t it be so cool if I could keep up this momentum and fill you in on a bunch of little projects? Yeah, I don’t think it’s going to happen either. A girl can dream : ) Have fun!

Traveling With Kiddos: Easy Matching Tubes

I know I’ve been gone for a while, but I’m exercising my pop-in rights to share with you a mini project for the munsters.

We’re taking a trip this next week to visit family in Indiana, and rather than play DVDs for the kids the entire 9-10 hour trip I’m trying to find some fun things for them to do in the car. This site has TONS of ideas for fun car activities for kiddos so I’m stealing her ideas. : )

 

 

The one idea of hers that I’m for sure doing is this one. Basically it’s a matching game combined with coercing challenging them to use those fine motor skills. And since all my littles are at different stages in their understanding/abilities, I thought I’d share the three different versions I came up with. Oh, you’re welcome. Leave tips on the table.

 

 

Here is Eden’s Matching Tube. (On her site she calls them Matching Poles but I immediately thought of strippers. Tubes it is!) Since she’s reading and recognizing words, she gets word matching stickers to match with the words on her pole tube.

 

 

Sissy gets numbers on hers. I thought about doing dots on the stickers and having her match them up with the numerals on the tube, but I’m not sure she knows all of her numbers that well and I’d rather she have fun than get frustrated.

 

 

For Judah, I just put a sheet of dots on the tube and attached one sheet. I honestly don’t know if he’s going to be interested or able to do it, but this way he at least has all the same tools as his sisters so he won’t feel like he’s missing out. (P.S. The stickers that I got at the dollar section of Target do not stick to the tubes well at all. If you have extra time you could glue them or maybe pricier stickers would work better. No idea)

 

 

And there you have it. Each one took me no more than 90 seconds, and I may end up making each of the girls another Matching Tube before we leave on Monday. I guess it really depends on how many trips to the loo we take. Isn’t that such a fancy word? : ) Hope you’re enjoying the beginning of your summer!

 

Pretend Like Easter Was Yesterday

I realize that it is ridiculously late to post about Easter, but I wanted to share some pictures of my little munsters in their fancy clothes. We don’t do fancy around here too often. But when we do, we do it up right. ; ) Enjoy!

Here are the kiddos' Easter baskets the night before. Judah got a truck in his that was actually a birthday present from a week earlier that we hadn't opened yet. Yes, we are that lame.

Eden and Adaleine both got Peeps, Reese's eggs, socks and new panties. What, isn't that what everyone puts in their Easter baskets?

In addition to their already stellar basket contents, we had gotten each of the girls a Karen Kingsbury book. Since they didn't fit in the baskets, we sent them on a little hunt for them. I didn't get any pictures of the girls with their books ('cause I'm awesome like that), but we got this one for Eden and this one for Adaleine.

 

All dressed up and ready for church!

Enjoying the Easter Egg Hunt at church! They all got waaaay too much candy! :)

Is this kid a stud or what? Right? Right?!

Check out that form! He's a natural!

Hope your Easter was enjoyable and you got to spend it with those you love. It's better if we prolong the celebration, right? Like even for a few weeks after it's over? I thought so, too.

Mommy-Daughter Date

I took Miss Eden out on a mommy-daughter date this afternoon. We don’t do this very often, but today was special and I’m so glad we did.

Mr. Bug has been working a lot lately, which means he’s been travelling a lot. This is hard on all of us in different ways. He hates it because he misses time with the kiddos and with me. Sissy hates it because she is a Daddy’s girl and misses him like crazy when he’s gone. Judah is still kind of oblivious to the whole thing at this point, but he loves talking to Daddy on the phone at bedtime.

I have a hard time during these stretches for a number of reasons. For one, my husband is my best friend (sickeningly cute, I know) and I miss him when he’s not here. Second, we have three little munsters and it’s hard flying solo 24/7. I have NO IDEA how single parents and military spouses do it. By the end of a busy work week I simply have no conversation or energy left to expend and I stare blankly at friend’s faces when they are silly enough to try to talk to me.

Miss Eden is getting to an age, I think, when she is becoming more and more aware of how I’m really feeling. She can sense when I’m near the breaking point; she knows these past couple of weeks have been looooong and exhausting. Since she’s in school all day long, five days a week we don’t get much time together to just…be.

After the fifth or sixth day sans ‘Paternal Parent Figure,’ Eden just started coming into my room and sleeping with me. She would snuggle up to me/my body pillow and soak up the mommy-ness. On about day eight she just sat down and said she wanted some time alone with me.

My sweet Eden. She gets a bad rap sometimes because she’s so strong and seems so sure of herself, while Adaleine is so charming and easygoing. Eden will sometimes stiffen in a hug and her sister will throw her arms around you. When Eden holds back, Adaleine leaps ahead with bouncing ringlets and 1,000-watt smile.

But Eden has a heart that is so soft and sweet and longing for connection and encouragement. She is beginning to be quite the reader and takes so much pride in her new skill. She will read book after book to her little brother, and only gets frustrated some of the time. : )

So when I knew Landon was going to be home this afternoon, I told my Eden that she and I were going on a special afternoon together, just the two of us. She started bouncing up and down—a very common Eden response to good news—and said she couldn’t wait.

We didn’t do anything fancy. We made a special trip to the mall to get cookies at The Cookie Company. When I told her she could choose whatever flavor she wanted for her very own big cookie, you would think she’d never tasted sugar before she was so excited. (And she’s totally tasted sugar before.)

After our cookie excursion we headed over to the craft store to see if we could find any butterfly goodies for her birthday party coming up in a couple of months. She ooh’d and aahh’d over stickers and key chains and held my hand the entire time. She was a little sponge and she was soaking up our time together.

My Eden is coming up on her sixth birthday. Six!! And as much as I know that she’s still a little girl who needs to be treated with care and gentleness, the knowledge is creeping in that she’s entering a whole new phase of life. There’s so much complexity in this little girl that it amazes and terrifies me at the same time. Some days I don’t know how to be a mommy and I can’t imagine what I possibly have to give, but I’m reminded that so much of being a mommy is simply ‘being.’ Sometimes that is all they need from me and I can always dig down for a little more to dole out.

My Eden. My delight.

Party On! Our Planes, Trains & Automobiles Party

First off, let me say that all the pictures I have of Judah’s birthday party suck. I thought I was being all smart by not using the flash and messing up the colors of the pictures. But what I was really doing was taking 327 blurry pictures. Okay, maybe not 327. But a lot of blurry pictures. So that’s my ‘no you’re not going blind these pictures just suck’ disclaimer.

You might remember that the theme we chose for Judah’s birthday party was ‘Planes, Trains & Automobiles’ and I showed you here what some of my ideas were. These were all stolen fromPinterest original ideas.

 

 

For the invitation, I used my sister’s miracle program to put together an uber-cute invite which I then mounted onto black cardstock for more of a handmade feel.

 

 

 

As for the day of the party, we had a couple cousins spend the night with us the night before, so we had to get a couple shots of all the boys in their Batman pajamas. Don’t they look cute?? Then the girls wanted in there, too. Not technically superheroes, but don’t try and tell Eden that. The train was made by my dad and his wife back in November for use at my younger sister’s twins’ birthday party. (Confused yet?) Dad’s been storing it since then and we got some more use out of it!

 

 

Here’s the man himself just before people started showing up. If you know this little guy at all, you already know that this kid can put food away! Consequently, I have exactly zero pictures of him during the party where his mouth isn’t full of food. But I think he kind of looks like he’s got a little cigar in this picture. Just sittin’ in his rocker, smokin’ a cigar. What up?

 

 

 

 

As soon as our guests walked in, they saw our ‘Baggage Claim’ table. These little favors were just cheap-o paper lunch sacks with red, yellow, and green dots glued to the front. Each bag held a toy car, boat, individual-sized M&M package, car tattoos and a little bottle of bubbles. Yes, that traffic cone is the only transportation-related décor on that buffet. And no, I still haven’t done anything about those cords. : )

 

 

I had set up the wall behind the food table early in the week, and as you can tell it’s a pretty blatant copy of what I saw in my inspiration picture. : ) (Also, I realized when I sat down to write up this post that I hadn’t taken a picture of this on the day of the party. So I just waltzed my tookus out to the living room and snapped a picture. The party was two weeks ago and I haven’t taken it down yet. Procrastination pays off! BOOM!)

 

And here is our Goodie Train. I tried a couple of different things to get this to work, starting out by wrapping cardstock around the plastic containers and gluing it on at the top edge. That did not work. At all. Then I had the genius idea to use wrapping paper! I had just picked up this heavyweight wrapping paper at TJ Maxx in the last few weeks and decided it was perfect. Add on the black wheels and signs and you’ve got yourself a snack train! I used an empty Goldfish box for the engine and added some cotton batting for smoke. (Mr. Bug was dumb kind enough to point out that nobody uses steam engines anymore, which earned him a death stare big kiss.)

 

 

 

 

Blurry picture of the 'Animal Car' for animal crackers and the 'Coal Car' for mini Oreos.

More blurry photography, this time the 'Lumber Car' holding pretzel rods and the 'Refrigerated Car' full of fruit and dip.

 

 

A cake stand loaded high with miniature chocolate donuts served as ‘Spare Tires’ next to the super awesome cake that my sister created using this picture as inspiration. She rocks my socks off : ) I’m going to have to do a post someday of all the different cakes she’s done. She’s amazing.

And it tastes good, too!

One last thing I did that I’m really glad I made time for was this picture collage of The Boy. It was so neat to be able to look at all these snippets of him changing from a tiny infant to the little man I know now. Such a beautiful boy!

And there you have it! Judah’s Planes, Trains & Automobiles Birthday Party Extravaganza! I’ve got to say it was really hard for me to get myself to start working on this one but I had so much fun making this day special for my little boy!

A Little Bit Dark...

I know I need to get my act together and put together a post about Judah’s birthday party, and I’m going to. I just thought I’d sit down and do a little venting/whining/sharing first.

I had a bit of a rough day today. Actually if I’m being completely honest, I’ve had a ‘rough day’ for pretty much the last few weeks straight. I don’t know exactly what’s going on that’s got me so tangled and wound up; I just haven’t been handling my life well lately.

Last week, Adaleine had a potty accident (which is frustrating in itself) and I ran upstairs to get her a clean pair of panties. When I walked into the closet that the kiddos share, I found clothes all over the place. Clean clothes, dirty clothes, clothes that should have been in storage bags that had been outgrown…I lost it. I swore and threw—that’s right, THREW—the chair out of the closet and into their bedroom. Landon came running upstairs to see what had happened. Of course the idea that his wife was throwing a royal hissy fit didn’t immediately occur to him. Once he got up there I proceeded to unload on him, shouting that I was sick and tired of picking up (curse curse curse) and that these stinking kids were driving me absolutely crazy! What can I say? Mom of the Year, right here.

Sadly, that hasn’t been my only incident lately. I’m muttering to myself when the kids aren’t around about being sick of their whining, I’m reaching the end of my daily supply of patience around lunchtime, and I’m snapping at Landon left and right.

This morning I made one of the afore-mentioned ‘quit your whining’ comments under my breath and he said to me, “Be nice.” Not what I needed, dude. My immediate response? “Don’t give me that self-righteous ‘Be nice’ crap.” And I walked out of the bedroom. Less than ten minutes later I yelled at him—in front of the kids—about how he seems to have such a problem remembering to take the salt back into the kitchen from the living room. What a loving and wonderful wife, am I right?

There are a couple of reasons I feel like I’m losing my cool. Or just completely lost it.

The first is that I’m worn out. I’m tired. I’m on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I’m exhausted. I have at least one child coming in to my bedroom every. single. night. I haven’t slept a solid seven hours in…how old are my kids? My husband has absolutely no set schedule, so I can’t have a night out with friends and I haven’t even gotten to have a date with my stinking husband since January.

The other highly probable reason for my absence of awesome is good old anger. I was thinking about this today as I put another load of laundry away in the crazy kid closet. I looked at the mess and chaos and just got mad. And I sat there and thought about it. I was angry. Ugly angry. I was angry at my children for making such a mess. I was angry at my husband for being gone all the time. Angry at myself for being lazy. Then the anger grew; it morphed and it included so much more. I brought up more anger. I was angry that I went to a baby shower last weekend. I was angry that neither my sisters nor my mom ever threw me a baby shower. Six years ago. I’ve been hanging onto that one for a while. I’m angry that my husband is such a better parent than I am. I’m angry that I’ve gained so much weight. I’m angry that I’m at home all the time. Angry that I don’t just DO what I want to do. I don’t write like I want to. I’m angry that we’re stupid with our money. Angry about not having good friends. Angry about other people having good friends when I don’t. Angry, angry, angry.

All of this anger festered in me for a few minutes while I sat there putting away little shirts and little socks. Little undies and little skirts. Little dresses and little PJs. I would like to say that I let it go and felt some resolution, but that would be a lie. After thinking about it for those few minutes I just rounded all that anger back up and shoved it back down. I’m apparently an anger hoarder. I know I need to deal with it all, but I’m not sure how and I’m not sure if I’m ready.

Then the knowledge and truth that I’ve been taught all my life starts to creep in on me. I’m holding onto dark. I’m holding onto bitter, to angry, to jealous, to ugly. I’m holding onto those things with one hand while desperately reaching for beauty with the other. I’ve been in a wonderful Life Group (like a Bible study group) with some beautiful women for a couple of months now. We’ve been connecting and finding truths together. I’ve been learning and reconnecting with my faith, and maybe this is why I’m having such a hard time.

I don’t know if I’m making sense, but I’ve always been told that if our enemy doesn’t see us as a threat, he’ll leave us alone. The past few weeks I’ve been waking up my heart again to all that my Lord wants to teach me. What if, in waking up my heart to God’s truths, I’ve awakened a fear in my enemy? What if I’m finally a threat to him and he’s doing what he can to send darkness my way and throw dirt in my eyes? I love this saying that I found a while ago:

 

 

Am I becoming someone that is to be feared? Feared and therefore—attacked? Let me tell you, I have felt attacked these past few weeks. I’ve felt battle-weary and worn. But it’s also encouraging to think of in this light: if I’m to be feared by the enemy of my God, that means that HE can do dangerous things through me. HE. The warrior and ruler and ultimate victor. Thinking of it that way has lightened my load this afternoon and evening. The truth is if He has something for me to do, then I am unashamedly scared-out-of-my-mind excited to see what that could be.  And I’m hoping that will help me when I feel that dark anger creeping in next time. To see it for what it is: just a fog meant to take away from the sunshine that my Lord has waiting for me to claim.

This is another little something I saw a number of months ago on one of my favorite blogs, The Handmade Home:

Thank you for reading. Thank you for sticking with me through this little rant. I’m hoping as I always am that this post will find someone in the same place. That it will offer encouragement and let you know that you’re not dealing with this crazy life alone.  Good night. : )

Judah Bear is Two!

Today is Judah’s second birthday! I can hardly believe my little man is already two years old! This boy has been such a blessing to me over the past two years that I sincerely cannot imagine our lives without his bright smile and sweet voice.

I am now going to unload a TON of pictures for you to enjoy. This is our boy and we are so blessed.

 

This is during the home stretch with Judah. I was so huge and there were so many crazy aspects to our lives in those final months of pregnancy!

 

Our boy. Born at 5:35 PM on Saturday, March 19 2011. He weighed 6 lbs, 13 oz.

 

All together! When Eden held him for the first time, Landon told her to tell him when she was ready for him to take him back and she said, "I don't think I'll ever need to let go of him." *Sigh*

 

With Great-Grandpa Bauer

 

Sissy was so excited to have a baby brother!

 

Two Months Old!

 

Catching some rays :)

 

With Daddy

 

Halloween 2011

 

"Really, Mom? Another picture?"

 

"I love doing dishes!" Said no one ever.

 

First Birthday!

 

By the hammer of Thor!

 

My handsome men

 

Judah and Sissy: bestest friends

 

Goooooooooo Biiiiiiiiig Reeeeeeeeeeed! GO BIG RED!

 

Just playing in the mud. 'Sup.

 

Using The Force on Daddy

 

Late-night snuggles

 

Halloween 2012

 

Fixing the hinge on the playroom door. He's a busy guy.

 

Me and The Boy

 

The Flash

 

Avengers Assemble!!

 

Cruising through the mall, picking up chicks

 

Someone found the Princess stickers!

 

We love our boy so much! Happy birthday Judah Bear! Can't wait to see what God has in store for you!