Signs of Spring

The snow is falling outside and all I can do is long for the Spring-like weather of last week. The weather was so mild that I donned my new shoes and went hunting for the signs of Spring in my garden.

My New Shoes!

It is so fun to see what is coming up in my garden this year.  We moved to our new house last Fall when most everything had died back for the year. I'm finding all kinds of little surprises coming up. 

Besides the tulips beginning to peek out, I'm finding lots of pretty early flowers that I don't recognize.

Some surprises that I do recognize and am happy to discover that I didn't kill when I cut it to the ground last Fall.

Glad to see I didn't kill you, Russian Sage!

Maybe I should have cut you back more, Vinca.

I even took a little time and began to Spring-up my new porch. Which seems a little silly right now with snow on the ground.

There's my front porch looking slightly Springy.

I also bought a little backyard friend. Meet my new solar powered owl from Target.

Hi, little owl!

It's time to say goodbye, Snow.  Go away and let us enjoy a little more of that Spring weather!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Embrace The Camera: New Glasses!

In an effort to use up our flexible spending money from last year, D and I decided to get new glasses.  For whatever reason, I was pretty darn excited to get some new frames. I guess it's just fun to have something new and different.

I slipped on the new frames and began to reminisce about my very first pair of glasses.  I was in 4th grade and picked those mauve and gold frames all by myself.  We purchased them in a mall and I still remember looking across to the other stores with total wonder at how clear everything had become. Such a vivid memory after all of these years.  It shows what an impact clear vision can have on one's life.  I could probably come up with some pretty great analogies with that last statement, but I'll leave that to you.
I went through my old photo album in search of a good picture of me, when I was 10, sporting my new glasses.  I found one that made me so happy.  My grandfather, cousin and me (all wearing glasses. Yes!) on the back patio of my grandparents' home. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Pre-braces and rocking my purple Oshkosh overalls.  Very nice!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ 

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Wordless Wednesday: Peek-a-boo

Shhh...I think I see her hiding in the coats...

BOO!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Watch Out for Bunnies!

Just noodling around with a Martha Stewart template and creating some holiday appropriate road signs.
Enjoy!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Moment by Moment

What follows is some serious soul-searching interspersed with cute pictures of my kids. Bear with me.

I feel ashamed to admit how often I lose my cool around my children.  In all honesty, not losing my cool at least once during the day is a rare exception. Not only do these kids know a great deal about how to push my buttons, but they are also extremely irrational. The combo of the two is a sure fire way to bring out what I call "Mean Mommy."

Holy cow!

I've been mulling this over a lot lately.  Some days are just bad.  One day in recent memory was particularly bad. It started off with an incident at Hobby Lobby that culminated in my screaming at my kids in the car.  It was not a proud moment.  There is nothing that makes me feel worse than raising my voice to my children.

Did you say something, Mama?

There are days when I feel like every moment (literally every moment) I am making a conscious choice to be the parent I want to be and not the alternative: that red faced, screaming, growling, mean mommy that I don't even recognize myself in.  I don't want my children to remember that person.

We're too busy watching TV to look at the camera.

So, I've been working on strategies to help keep Mean Mommy at bay.  One such strategy is anticipation: remembering what is going to set them off (or myself) before it happens. That is way easier said than done.  Another is recognizing that I'm not dealing with rational human beings. I'm dealing with people who are emotionally volatile, underdeveloped and short. People who have no idea from one second to the next what they really want or need.

I need your camera, Mama.

My last thing: Attitude and a huge dose of perspective.  There is so much that happens during the day, so many things that irk me that really aren't that important when I keep the proper perspective.
I was privileged to teach a lesson to a group of women and young girls at church on Sunday entitled "What matters most." During the lesson I asked a question that I'm not even sure I was prepared to answer for myself:
What excuses do you cling to that keep you from being the kind of daughter, sister, friend, wife or mother you know you should be? 
It's so easy to come up with excuses for why I lost my cool.  I'm tired, I'm hungry, they won't listen, I have too much that needs to get done today, they won't cooperate, there's pee on the floor, they made a huge mess, she has to touch everything, I can't take the whining, etc...

I'm buttering you up.

Why do I cling to my excuses for having a bad attitude when there is so much joy to be had in each moment?  

Joy is a Star Wars ABC book.

I need to remember that my time with these little ones is short. It won't be long before they are out of my arms and into the world where I can't protect them. There will come a time when I don't get to see their sweet little faces every day; a time when they don't want Eskimo kisses or to be picked up and just held. There will be a time when they don't think I'm hilarious anymore and when they won't seek me out for comfort. A time when the Spider Man costume gets put into storage along with the baby dolls and loveys. A time when they simply grow-up.

So what am I teaching them now?  What do they learn when they see me throwing temper tantrums over things that just don't matter? They are watching me every second and learning how to respond to the situations they'll encounter as they make their way in the world. I'm responsible for that.  It's my job to make the decision every moment to be the mom I want to be.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Spring Cleaning: The Pantry

When we moved to our new home, we were so anxious to just be in that I left a lot of the organizing tasks on the back burner. I don't even want to think about what my basement looks like...
Anyway, Spring is coming and I thought I'd start my organizing off with FINALLY bringing some order to our kitchen pantry. 
Here's the before:

It's hard to tell, but the shelves are fairly deep and it was in total chaos.
(I realize as I post this picture that I am broadcasting to the world our eating habits, *gulp*)
 I have been putting off clearing out this pantry because it makes me tired to look at it, but I finally got up the courage and found a really cute little helper.

Here we are.

Ready to clean?

After clearing off the shelves (she cleared anything she could reach)
I put her to work dusting the floor and shelves.

All done!

I threw away an unbelievable amount and then put the majority of it back in bins.  It is far easier to see what is in there now and not have things get lost in the back.  I still need to figure out a good can storing solution.

Well, it's not as cute as the pantries of Pinterest. Oh well, I just don't see myself painting, stenciling or wall papering it. I'm also not planning on investing in cute canisters. That said, it works for us and now I know what's in there. Success!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Wordless Wednesday: My Black Days

"Then come my black days. Mad. And loud. I howl. I growl at every cloud."

Dr. Seuss







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Experimenting with Brooches

 I've had a couple of cross-stitch pieces sitting around that I haven't been able to decide what to do with.  I first thought that I could applique them to something, but my second thought was that I'd love to be able to use them for more than one piece.  I want to be able to move them around as an accessory. So, I decided to experiment and create a couple of brooches.

Cross-Stitch Brooches

 Materials:

Cross-Stitch Sample

Craft Spray Adhesive (or adhesive of choice)

Felt

Bar Pins

Scissors

 Glue bar pin to the back of cross stitch piece

Cut slit in felt for bar pin. Glue felt to back of cross-stitch

 

 Trim excess cross-stitch material

  Model it on your cute vintage cardigan

 Two brooches, ready to accessorize.

Jellybean actually giggled when she saw these and then tried to figure out how to pin both of them on.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Asparagus is not "yucky"

I was in the grocery store a couple of weeks ago and I over heard a conversation between a mother and her (maybe) 5 year old son.  They were standing next to a large display of asparagus in the middle of the produce section.  Here's what I heard:

Boy: Mom, what's that?
Mom: It's Asparagus.
Boy: Can we get some?
Mom: No, Asparagus is yucky.

This small interchange really stuck in my craw.  It took all my will power to keep myself from rushing the asparagus stand and saying very loudly, "Asparagus?!  I love asparagus! And what a good price for this time of year! I can't wait to get this home!"  Unfortunately, though I do like asparagus, it just wasn't on my list that day.

I've been thinking a lot about why this bothered me so much. It occurred to me that it irritates me because I have such a hard time getting my kids to eat their vegetables. If my child asked if we could purchase something green from the produce section (even brussel sprouts, "yuck". tee hee) I'd be all for it.  If I didn't know how to prepare it, I'd go straight home and find a recipe online for it.  I'd do this because I am invested in my child exploring new tastes and experiences with food and not limiting his palette based on my own preferences.  He's already limited enough by my cooking skills;  I certainly shouldn't be denying him a healthy option or even turning him against it by calling it "yucky."

I'm no expert, but this line of thought got me thinking about ways I've discovered to get my kids to eat foods they claim to dislike on first sight. Aside from bribing, here are some tricks that have worked in this house.

Carrots give you super powers:

I just finished a great article entitled, "Raising Boys: A dad's parenting advice for moms." In the article, the author discusses the affinity that little boys have with superheros. He states, "Boys, even at a young age, realize the importance of super powers."  I've discovered this first hand with my oldest.  He is in a very serious Spiderman stage and is very interested in superheros.  One evening, during dinner, he decided that he was not going to eat his carrots, claiming, "I don't like them."  I leaned over and said, "Do you want to know a secret? Carrots give you super powers. They'll help you see in the dark."  Well, that did the trick, I've never seen him eat anything as fast as he downed those carrots.

There's a party in my tummy:
Occasionally,  we'll have a meal where the kids will eat almost everything and then not touch one or two items.  This is when an enthusiastic rendition of the Yo Gabba Gabba favorite comes in. "There's a party in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy."  In the song, the character Brobee neglects to eat the carrots and green beans on his plate. He discovers that the veggies are heart-broken that they haven't been invited to the party in his tummy.  This reasoning scores big with the toddler set. 

Don't underestimate the power of a favorite cartoon character:
I have tried and failed to get my kids to eat scrambled eggs several times over the years.  They wouldn't even touch them.  Enter one of their favorite characters: Caillou.  After watching a single episode, Buddy was begging me to make scrambled eggs.  In the show, Caillou gets to visit a farm and finds out where eggs come from.  Then he brings home some "chicken fresh eggs" and his mother scrambles them for him.   Well, I made the eggs and both Jellybean and Buddy gobbled them down.  Amazing.  Why can't I have that kind of influence all of the time? 

Choosing and Naming:
Unlike the "yucky asparagus parent," I've had pretty good success getting my kids to eat foods that they have had the opportunity to choose for themselves.  I got a great idea from a post on Make and Takes a while ago.  They purchased the book Eating the Alphabet and then made a goal to purchase some of the fruits and vegetables in the book to try.  I tried this experiment with kumquats.  It was fun letting them pick something new to try. Though, I will say that neither myself or my children were all that impressed by the taste of kumquat.  Still, it was a new experience and a fun one as well.

Allowing your child to re-name a food will make them more likely to eat it.  I'm sure you've heard the idea of calling broccoli "little trees." From the time we introduced milk to Buddy, we had to call it "moo-juice."  He was a fan of juice and not milk.  Funny how changing the name made all of the difference. Last night we ate "alien pasta." (pasta shells in white cheddar sauce with peas and tuna). It's weird how fast that pasta disappeared once I stated that it was from outerspace.

Asking the Opposite:
Are my toddlers the only kids out there that enjoy doing the exact opposite of what I tell them to do? When I get fed up, I will sometimes say, "Fine, I don't want you to eat your broccoli. You'd better not eat it."  This comment will be met with a giggle and then at least one bite of the offending vegetable. That sure showed me. 

Fine, I guess I'll eat it:
In our house, Buddy and Jellybean are extremely possessive about their food, even if they claim to dislike it.  If I take away the offending plate and throw it away? No problem.  If I *gasp* threaten to eat their food myself?  Major problem.  For some reason the statement, "fine, if you're not going to eat it, then I will," is intolerable. How dare I eat their food? This will usually cause them to eat at least some of their food just to prevent me from eating it.

Nothing is foolproof and obviously I'm blessed with kids that are "pretty good" eaters.  That said, any strategy I've employed has met with failure at least at some point.  What strategies have you come up with for getting your kids to eat their veggies and other healthy foods?? 

Just for your viewing pleasure:  8 Super Health Benefits of Asparagus