Spirograph Fun

In the good old days, before electronics took over our lives completely, there was the Spirograph.

One of the items my mom gave to me recently, since they have decided to move, was her Spirograph set from her childhood. This thing is from the 60's and it happens to have all of the pieces. I'm not surprised since my mom was (and is still) the type who takes care of her things. I know she still has her Barbies too.

Yesterday, we used the Spirograph and had some fun in the morning while baby hope took her morning nap.
Hope you have a great Thursday!

Read More

Life Is Short, Go Jump On a Bed

I can be so rediculous sometimes.

I can envy another person who has ________
I brag that I have ________
I judge someone based on _______
I can gossip about a person who did ________

Its actually super embarrassing that I can be that way.

The blessings I have are too many to count.
I look at the smiles of my children and hear the words from my husband, and yet I complain because I haven't had my "me time" in a few days.

I say I am embarrassed, but its really not anyone I am embarrassed in front of, its just that Im embarrassed at myself.
Actually, I guess it is that I am embarrassed before God. I clearly hear his voice.

Its sort of an eye opener to read blogs of women dying from cancer or losing babies.
Its a reality check to hear of the horror some people commit on others daily.

I know hardships teach us remarkable things, but some make you question WHY??

If only life could be easily worry-free with a good jump on a bed.

The fact is, we need to cherish what we have and prayerfully be thankful for the people around us.
Today I read this blog post and it just got to me. WOW


I had the pleasure of listening to children laughing and jumping on beds this weekend.
I wouldn't have had it any other way.
We spent 8 hrs driving to spend 1 day with some awesome family (my husband's brother and his wife and kids), and it was totally worth it.
Our kids happen to also be the same ages, and since we only see each other once or twice a year, it was a treat to meet in Palm Desert, CA for a day.

Our older kids (Noel and Malakai) are both 3 and they were instantly excited to have a partner in crime. Our time together was like life- short!

PS...When I was a freshman in high school, I attempted to jump on a hotel bed, and accidentally broke it. The staff wasn't too happy...oops :/

Read More

Kids, Eat Your Veggies

How do you get your kids to eat their veggies?
My kids inhale fruit, but veggies are a little bit more tricky.

Steamed spinach........... they love it

Corn and green beans.........they love those too

My trouble veggies so far are carrots and broccoli. This week we even tried cucumbers!

Noel, my 3 year old,  actually ate all veggies willingly once we renamed them...

Broccoli became "mini trees"
 carrots were "snowman noses"
cucumbers were "pinwheels"

Understandably, this trick may not work for every child, but mix it up and find the way that works well for your child!

Don't give up the first try....if anything, try the 3 bite rule that I learned from a friend:

One bite to see if your mouth likes it

One bite to see if your belly likes it

One more bite to see if you agree!

Also, if your kids don't like raw veggies, try serving them different ways:

on kabobs

cut into shapes

steamed

grilled

whatever you can think of! ;)

Read More

Creative Conversation

One of the most enjoyable things I get to do regularly is hear my 3 year old daughter, Noel,  have conversations with herself and some of her many animal toys she owns. Her conversations are sometimes short and always innocently sweet... often like:

SHEEP 1: "Will you be my best friend?"
SHEEP 2: "Ok!"
SHEEP 1: "Let's go find horse to play with us."

Yesterday, she had quite the story going on as she sat in the car on the ride home from our quick trip to Sedona. Luckily, my kids are very good in the car, and can be easily entertained with a stuffed animal and a few books.

It sometimes catches me off guard when I hear her say something exactly how I say it...with my same tone and pronunciation and everything. It lets me know she listens and a lot of what we talk about really is absorbed.
At what age do we start losing our ability to shut up and just listen?

It seems our lips start to override our ears, and if Ive learned one thing from my husband during his 2 years as a successful Marine Corps recruiter, it's that listening is often the best way to learn who you are talking to and realizing what they need.

How often do you talk with your kids?

I am not meaning talking at your kids, but with your kids.
You know, a mixture of talking AND listening back and forth.

What do you talk about?

My days usually start by asking Noel what her dreams were about. It never fails that she says "dogs and cats". I always ask just to hear if she will say something different.

Kids need someone who care to listen. Heck, even adults need people to listen too.

While in Sedona this week, I CAME across the toy store I love, and found a fun deck of cards called the"Chat Pack for Kids". These packs of cards are packaged by people with disabilities, and meant to spark ideas, learning and conversation.

In this stack, 156 inventive questions are just waiting to be asked.
These would be great as a gift to a teacher who teaches grades where students need creative writing exercises, or just imaginative conversation within the classroom. As a family, use them around the dinner table, or just random chatting on car trips.

Try to put away the IPADS, cell phones and other hand held junk for a minute and talk.

As I flipped through the deck, here are just a few of the questions that I found to be really fun:

"If you could go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow morning older than you are, what age would you want to be when you open your eyes?"

________________

"If you could personally see the highest, longest, or largest of anything in the world, what would you want to see most of all?"

_________________

"If you could permanently eliminate one color from the world, which color would it be?"

__________________

"Which cartoon character do you think would be the most fun to hang out with for an afternoon?"

___________________

Well, I could list many more, but I think someone will just have to see these for themselves. When I decide to do another giveaway, I think this is what I will have to give.

I hope you take the time to pause, put away the distractions you have from talking with your kids- or even your spouse. At every age, people want to know others really listen and care.
 Why do you think bloggers write blogs? They don't do it for typing practice, that's for sure.

Talk WITH your kids today!

And just for fun...I think one of my top picks for a cartoon to spend the day with would have to be SNOOPY! He seems to have the life.
In Sedona we saw Snoopy Rock, so I just had to throw this in here ;)

See the resemblance??

Leave a comment anytime:)

Read More

Our Transition

trans-ition
trans-fer
trans-formation

trans-

prefix meaning "across, beyond, to go beyond," from L. trans-,

from prep. trans "across, over, beyond,"

probably originally prp. of a verb *trare-, meaning "to cross"

Transformations and transitions are hard. Accepting change would come much more naturally for people if it was an easy thing to go through.
Transition and the military life go hand in hand. I have to deal with this sort of thing whether I like it or not, and the Marine Corps is in control. In a few more months that will not be the case anymore, since we are leaving this family we have known for 9 years. This is a bittersweet transition for me. The Marine Corps has given us reasons to celebrate and reasons to cry.

We are getting ready for a transition from the Marine life to civilian life again. So many things are up in the air, and as we get closer to the last day we begin to grow anxiety. An anxiety that we shouldn't really have because we know God is directing our steps.
Where are these steps leading, you may want to know?
Well, I would like to know too.

Having a house on the market for the past 5 months and see it transform our savings account was also not part of our plan at all. Maybe you are feel the pinch of the economy in some way?

Thankfully Proverbs 16:9 promises me:
                    In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

All I can say at this point is we may be relocating to be near family, or we may be called to live somewhere else. We are really in the dark about the situation.
What we do know so far, is that we are keeping our options open. Looking for jobs is a stressful process, especially when we are having to convert all of Levi's qualifications from "military lingo" to what I call "civilian lingo".

He actually has a big opportunity that has popped up in the past week, and he will be flying to NC for a few days of interviewing. (The job wouldn't be in NC..its just where the interviews are)

One of the days of his trip happens to be Noel's third birthday. Its the 2nd birthday he's missed....and hopefully the last. However, these are the types of sacrifices that have to happen when duty calls. Luckily, I don't think she is at an age where she will care too much, and we can celebrate as a family when he gets back.

Just please pray with us this week as we prepare for the questioning he will be going through and his safe travels. If its Gods will we live somewhere other than Northern California, like we had planned, I hope that He makes it clear.

If a job offer comes out of next week, we will have a hard time saying no.
The security, benefits and freedom that would come with that job sure is appealing...and it happens to be the technical job he did for the Marine Corps before we got called to recruiting duty.
Have you been through any transformations lately that just had you stressed?
I find confidence in that verse, and also in the definition of the prefix itself....
  going across/over and beyond whatever it is sounds so freeing and fun. Think of transformation as a positive experience.

Caterpillars transform into butterflies

Seeds the size of a flake of oatmeal can grow to be sequoia trees

Babies crawl and then walk, and then run.

Read More

Dust Scatterer

Just little tid bit for your Friday.........something Ive been feeling for the past week

Dust Scatterer

When you have little ones in your lives

They watch you

They love you

They think you are wise

Please do not forget to think of your words

A "no" and "don't do it that way"

Are not just tiny slurs

That are easily forgotten

By the little dears

Who love to watch-to see-to hear

They think you are important

Someone to trust

They haven't had life

Shower dust

On their dreams, their hopes, their beautiful smile

They try new things and all the while

Hoping you will fuel their willingness to try

Don't let that light wither and die

A light not easily re lit

Their determination and hope has shrunk a tiny bit

Don't be the dust scatterer

Their hearts are so new

Erasing a negative is difficult to do

Our kids need a yes, they can do it their way

Sometimes their way is better

As a parent, that's hard to say

Those little ears are more likely to try

When a parent loves and stays close by

Giving them a shoulder no matter the case

We've all got a gift

Its called grace

written by me in about 10 minutes at 8 am this morning, so please forgive the spelling and punctuation issues...I am not a poet.

My two year old taught me this lesson this week. I am deeply regretting a correction I gave her about a game she was playing. I wasn't mean about it at all...Now she wont play it anymore. She is afraid of doing it the wrong way, and won't even try.
 It breaks my heart that something so dumb has made such an impact on her. I am working daily to erase the negative I showed her last week. Its so hard.

Read More

Hope for the future husbands

Having daughters is such a blessing.
Being married to a man who is such a great father to his daughters is such a blessing too.

The time we found out that our first was going to be a girl, I will never forget the stunned look and feeling we both had. We were CERTAIN it was going to be a boy. I, being the oldest in my family, didnt want my daughter to have a similar experience as me...I wanted her to have a protective older brother.

Looking back, and even within a day or two, we realized this was the BEST plan for us.....God's plan.

Now that we have 2 beauties, almost 3 and 6 months, I find myself aching for memorable experiences with them...already feeling like my time is passing me by.

It is one of my deepest desires for my girls to find THE man for them one day and that he be beyond wonderful.

Every now and then it hits me that, as I am raising my daughters, there is a little boy somewhere in the world being raised with parents who probably hope the same thing for him.
When I sit and play games with my 2 year old and catch myself thinking how beautiful and smart she is... I wish there was a way to keep her this small forever. The endless "momma, cuddle me" moments I get everyday are so priceless and I never want them to end.

I know I may be premature in thinking about all of this, but she turns 3 next month, and I just have a feeling that I am going to blink and there will be a 1 in front of that 3. Then one day, a 2.

Unless my daughter decides to marry a boy quite a bit older/younger than her, I can bet he is somewhere right now....I pray that his parents know that they been blessed with a great gift. We both have. God crafted little hearts and minds, and gave them to us in the form of babies, ready to be loved and molded in accordance to His purpose.

I hope they love on him everyday...that they model healthy love
I hope they pray for him everyday.
I hope they are good listeners to his ideas...and encourage him too.
I hope they remind him that he is special, and wanted......
and so much more...

Read More

Fun can be cheap ;)

Fun doesn't have to break the bank...
here are just 3 ideas we have started to experiment with and use in our house! More posts of more things are to come, of course...afterall, thats what LifeCreated is about ;)

Living in Arizona for the past 2 years, we have figured out a way to have fun at home/indoors when it is so hot outside, or when the budget is tight.

Maybe these 3 ideas can help you when you have an hour to kill or some kiddos to entertain.

1) Sensory box!--I put mine on the porch for us to play with outside...cool evenings or mornings are perfect for this...today alone, it kept Noel for about an hour!!

Find a tote of any size you wish and fill it with different textural items...let your toddler go crazy just exploring everything in the tub. My 2 year old, Noel, has a fascination with pouring, so she could sit and pour beans from one cup to another forever if I let her.
We just put this together today, so I have yet to fill the box up completely the way I like. Even with just a few things in the box, Noel spent quite a while pouring shaking the beans around.

Here are some things you can use:
Box (I used a flat rate shipping box I had laying around= FREE!)
Cups and scoops
 Funnels
 Pinto beans
 Lentils
 Rice (might be more messy)
Different shaped pasta
 Large wooden beads

I plan on hiding little things in the box for discovery also...little trinkets, etc.

Head over to the dollar store and see what you can find for your box!!




2) Painting with water...what couldnt be better on a warm, boredom-filled day.
Give your kids a cup of water and a paint brush and let them go at it, painting away at the ground.
This is a free project that not only gets them outside, but has no mess!!

Practice drawing shapes or letters...my two year old knows all of her letters, but we also practice the sounds of those letters...she knows almost all of those too!

Today, we practiced spelling out her name...

3) Tape on the ground

I couldnt figure out a good way to take a picture of my tape on the ground, but the name should be pretty self-explanatory without one...
all I did was take a roll of blue painters tape.. you could use any tape, but maksing and painters tape do come off of carpet really easily...and taped a long 10 foot line in the middle of my living room.

Noel really loves to practice walking on it with "airplane arms" during the week, so she is ready to go on the real balance beam in her gymanstics class.

Other games you can play with the line are jumping side to side from one end of the line to another, walking backwards on the line, doing forward rolls on the line, and "hopping like a bunny" down the line...Noel loves to do them all.
...this is what Hope did while were having all of the fun...

I hope you try these at your house, with your kids.

Read More