Creativity

Definition: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination:

God has blessed our household with an abundance of creativity and imagination. Within minutes of arriving at our home, one should not be surprised to be greeted with an invitation to come to the playroom for a dramatic performance complete with illustrations (made just for you:), a full tour of our home guided by superman himself, a comedic act with original jokes, or a gift of three-dimensional paper creations. You might also hear some terms around our house that you are unfamiliar with. Here are just a few:

skurches- the marks on the pavement one makes when skidding their bike tires

looks- places in our house where you might find something scary

muspuff- you don't want to be one of these, evidently it's something similar to a goofball

You might also hear about an entire family you never knew existed. An imaginary friend was not enough for Liam, he has had an entire imaginary family for a couple years now. He has a wife named Kate and three kids. Hatch, Pop-up, and Pop-out (because that is how they came out of his tummy when he was pregnant) One of Liam's current aspirations is to create an entire new sport, cloud surfing. He is working through the details of the jet powered cloud board, hopefully a parachute will be mandatory.

The girls are quickly following in their brother's footsteps. They are drawn to art and music and are already trying to be little comedians and story tellers. Klaire makes up her own tunes on the piano and she requires her music book to be open, her special lamp to be on, and an audience. Kallie can sing an original song about anything for a continual 5-10 minutes in the car and I really need to get that on film:)

I would like to conclude this post on creativity with a little writing exercise from Landon. First, let me explain that he writes sentences and scriptures as a consequence to certain behaviors. We started this when he was 5 1/2 and it has proven to be effective:) This past weekend he got very upset over something he accidentally did and then stomped off as I was still speaking to him. So he was assigned:

I will not get angry about accidents. 10x

I will not stomp off when mom is talking. 2x

And this is what he wrote:

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I will not get angry about accidents.

I will not get angry about accidents.

I will not get angry about accidents.

I will not get angry birds for my birthday.

I will not get angry bees to sting you.

I will not get angry elephants to smash you.

I will not get angry at anyone.

I will not get angry at the table.

I will not get angry at...................I don't know. Oh yeah! My cup!

I will not get angry at me and you, and you, and you, and you, and you!

And I will not stomp off when mom is chiter-chattering.

And I will not stomp myself.

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I couldn't help but laugh while reading it and tell him it was quite funny. Next time he knows he is to write his sentences correctly and save his creative writing for later:)

Back to School!!

Our big second grader and brave kindergartener started school two weeks ago and they are both doing great. They got awesome teachers and we are adjusting much more easily than we did when Landon went to Kindergarten!! It helps that the girls are two years older and Liam is willing to let me drop him off in carline;) I just had a memory of me feeding the girls bottles and getting everyone fully dressed and feed and then unloading everyone at 7:30 to walk Landon up the hill and all the way to his door...........ahhh.......I know there were days that God gave me supermom endurance and patience.......

Kallie and Klaire started Mother's Day Out/Preschool last week and they love it! And mommy does too-oo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's two days a week for 5 hours. And EVERYONE asks me, "What are you going to do!?!?!" Ha!! What am I going to do? I will have that 5 hours planned out everyday. Mostly for errands because running errands with kids verses without is like a microwave dinner verses Patrizios (my favortie restaurant)!!!

We spent all day outside on Labor Day because the weather was A.MAZING. We played out back, we played out front, we went to the park, we flew kites, we ate two meals outside, we got sun burns.....not really I just thought it sounded funny... Anyway, had to throw in this picture because it is so stinkin cute. They are at such a fun age right now, we are soaking it up.

Summer in pictures!

Frozen Yogurt and snow cones are the best treats to beat the heat in Texas!!

Liam had his 5th birthday party at every parents favorite place, Chucky Cheese:)

He had a Woody cupcake cake!

This was taken by the Carbondale Fish Hatchery (near the cabin). River fishing is not ideal for little ones, so we took the kids to this lake where kids are allowed to fish for free.

Kevin, Collin, my dad, and I hiked up to Geneva Lake while at the cabin. It was a challenging hike, but as you can see, very rewarding. We caught enough trout for dinner too:)
The boys tried so hard to catch fish in that little lake, but only had one taker. The rest had caught on to the game and ignored all of the bait we dangled in front of them!

We had a wonderful time at the Redstone 4th of July parade again. It never disappoints. We had Kevin and Landon on a four-wheeler, Liam and Lorelai in a wagon, Kallie and Klaire in another wagon, and my dad on his paperboy bike. Most of my mom's side of the family comes into town for the weekend of the fourth and we had a fantastic time with everyone.
This is Hayscreek Falls and it is just a few minutes up the road from the cabin. The water was super high this year due to extra run-off and so the rivers and waterfalls were awesome.

We are eating at our favorite breakfast place, The Smithie, in Carbondale. Kevin's parents were able to join us at the cabin for a few days before my family came in. We miss you Grandma and Grandad!

The girls were happy to go on our off-roading adventure. Kallie had strep throat at the time, but she was a trooper. The boys loved trying to skip rocks across Lake Lizard with Grandad, Uncle Mark, and Dad.
We took two four wheel drive vehicles and two four wheelers up to Crystal (in the winter the only way up is by snow mobile). The Crystal Mill you see was constructed in 1892 for use as a powerhouse for mining operations.

These two are pretty cute huh? Cousin Lincoln came over from Denver and had many adventures with Landon and Liam including a very memorable treasure hunt. Thanks Aunt Nicci!
Cousin Cora is such a sweetie and we enjoyed playing with her and NOT giving her strep!!!!!!!!!!

Kevin and I were able to get to Calgary for a couple days to participate in A Day for Drew and meet our new niece Piper!! What a joyful and beautiful little baby she is!

The girls moved into toddler beds at the beginning of the summer. And WHEW has that been an adventure:) They have way too much fun together instead of sleeping!!

We got to spend extra time with cousin Lorelai this summer:)

We went to several swim parties and enjoyed splashing with all of our friends!! We enjoyed watching Landon and Liam at swim lessons. They did awesome and we are so proud of their progress.

Nanna Janna made this very cool tent! We had some special camp outs with daddy and stayed up late watching movies and eating popcorn.

We were very fortunate to get to see our long time missionary friends while they were on furlow. Matt and Nikki were still foot loose and fancy free last time we saw each other and now look!! They have two adorable little girls!

Well, those were most of the highlights from our summer! We are looking forward to school beginning and cooler weather!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cocoa and Garlic

You never know what things your kids are going to become attached to. You usually hope that it something sweet and cute like a teddy or blankie. Or maybe something that is good sized so that you don't loose it or maybe a new toy that you worked hard to find and bought special just for them. Well, our latest attachment had none of those qualities. Meet Cocoa and Garlic our pet sheep from Noah's Ark that are less than inch in size. These are Kallie's. She named them. Yes, she watches me cook a lot:) And well these tiny pieces of plastic haven't exactly been easy to keep up with, but somehow Cocoa and Garlic remain with us.

Now I would like to tell you about one of our adventures with our beloved sheep. It started off as a typical grocery store trip. Klaire had to have her teddy bear and Kallie had to have her sheep. They of course had to use the bathroom right when it was my turn to order at the deli and they of course had to loudly announce that it was #2 that needed to be done. Immediately. So off to the restroom. Ten minutes later and we are back to the deli. Kallie had a sheep in each hand and Klaire was happy with Teddy. Many people stopped us to talk about the girls and their experiences with twins as we are accustomed to. They were their usual content selves until about halfway through our very long list, when they started to get fidgety.

We were picking out some vinegar right in front of the Starbucks coffee station in our very busy grocery store when I hear a clink clonk and look down to see Garlic fall, hit the wheel of the cart, and fly under the isle shelving unit. Meanwhile Kallie is hysterical. I try to calm her down and then I bend down to see if I can retrieve Garlic. Bending down is not going to work. I get on my hands and knees and see that there is only about one inch of space between the floor and the shelf and still can't see the stupid sheep. And my hand won't fit under it. So I lay down on the floor. My cheek is on the tile. I repeat, my cheek is on the tile. I see Garlic about 8 inches under the shelf. For a split second I think, tell her it went bye bye. But I can't. I find a pen in my purse and get back on the floor. Kallie is standing up in the cart yelling "MY GARLIC!! MOM MY GARLIC!! I NEED MY GARLIC!! GET MY GARLIC!!!!!!!!!!OH NO NOT MY GARLIC" People are staring, but no one is helping me. I'm wishing that they knew it was a toy sheep that my child was freaking out over, but what is one to think when she is yelling for garlic?!?!?!? After what seems like eternity on the grocery store floor I almost give up, but Garlic is meant to be with us and I miraculously reach him with my pen on my last effort. As I hand her that silly sheep I'll I can do is laugh.

What we do for our kids right???

Well, after that Cocoa and Garlic got banned from grocery store trips and for the rest of the day they rode in my purse. The girls put the icing on the cake by dropping a basket full of grape tomatoes all over the floor as we were checking out. I laughed on the way back home and told Kevin my next grocery store trip would be kid-free even if that meant nine o'clock at night:) Little did I know that my next trip wouldn't be any better. Stay tuned for the raw chicken juice disaster.

Drum roll please.....The Playroom

First I must thank my in-laws for helping us SO MUCH with this project! Secondly, thanks to all of you that have given us advice on how to accomplish this. Listening to other people's initial thoughts on design projects helps me make decisions, even if I don't head that direction I at least know of another way to go! I can't believe I put up with white walls upstairs as long as I did, but I guess patience has paid off, we are very pleased with the turn out.


Some of these pictures were taken by my friend Sarah and used on her wonderful blog, http://restorativeliving.blogspot.com/2011/05/home-tour-my-decor-mentor.html, which featured some of my decorating:) You will notice that the wall color changes from picture to picture...I would say that the picture that captures it most accurately is #3 and #4. It is an aqua with a slight turquise tent, it was both Kevin and I's first choice out of the samples we got. So that choice was easy!
The wall vinyl came from etsy, I felt a bit bad for not designing it myself, but we were crunched for time and I was very pleased with the way the artist drew the swirls. The huge foam bags have soft microsuede covers that are machine washable! And when they arrived at our front door they were in the tiniest boxes which worried me, but then we found out they were vaccum sealed and we got to watch them grow which was very cool.

All right the art area is my favorite part of the room. I love how balanced it is:) The pencils were made by my father-in-law and we added the knobs for the hanging art bags that I am in the process of making. The sheet metal for displaying art was my friend Lauren's idea and it is perfect. No tacks to worry about and the kids can hang their pictures all on their own.

Remember the old primary colored table and chairs? Not me, I have blocked that from my memory:) A little paint and some super easy stool covers and waaalaaa.

We talked about built in storage cabinets down the long wall, but decided it would be smarter to put money into something that we can take with us when we leave this house. Also, the padded leather bench is very kid friendly because it doesn't smash fingers. I am in love with that bench and I'm so glad Kevin let me get it:)

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed the tour! I need a big fun rug, but I'm finding them to be so pricey! This rug is made out of gumball size balls and I want one pretty bad but they are charging an arm and leg.........I guess it takes many hours to string one together and the balls are expensive. I looked into making one myself, but still doesn't make sense. Anyway, check it out:

http://www.edelynn.com/panelsandrugs.html

Look at me posting twice this month.........I feel like I just did an extra credit project:)

Blog Slacker.

Here's Texas weather for ya, we were in swimsuits Saturday and on Sunday we had hail that didn't melt off all day because it was so cold.

Klaire looks so grown up in this picture!

Rain Forrest Cafe for Landon's Birthday dinner.

Singing him happy birthday, Liam is wondering if he gets icecream too. Haha

Before we went to Rain Forrest we went to Legoland also for Landon's birthday.

After the ride, he decided he wasn't a big fan!

Legoland had a pink room that the girls enjoyed. They want to be like Landon and Liam so much!

Our big seven year old...........what!!!!!!!!! Oh and everything in this room is made out of legos. Amazing.

Liam showing us his punch move. He told me the other day if he ran into a real bear in the woods he would try to fight it instead of running away. Unfortunately, I believe him!!!!!!

So I made headbands for the girls for Easter that turned well, but got a little lazy on the dresses and as you can see I pinned on some flowers instead of sewing them:) But look at that hair! They let me curl it!

Venture Easter Egg Drop. Our church had eggs dropped from a helicopter which was so awesome I forgot to snap a picture! Oh and I had all four of them by myself which usually plays a factor in how many pictures I take:) But it was a great outreach to the community and the kids had a great time.

A new found love. And let me say that every family needs a set of corn cob holders, your kids will think they are the coolest.

I have to admit it, I am not the blogger I used to be. I posted 62 times in 2008......and I have posted 4 this year. And I heard through the grapevine that my blog is getting boring and well I guess you are right....................................oh and I know who you are;) heheheehee

Well, I guess I am going to have to spice it up to make up for the lack of frequency!! So I am going to try to do better! Ya'll stay tuned for the playroom finished results and my latest embarassing grocery store story.............