A Sugar-Mamma's Thoughts

January 26th, 2011

When I first woke up this morning and looked out the window I knew we would be having at least an hour delay so I went back to bed for a bit. When I woke up the second time and looked outside I saw even more snow. I thought to myself, there is a small chance we will be out of school or at least a two hour delay instead. I hopped on the computer and much to my delight we had another snow day. Now, I know some people might be tired of snow days (I myself wasn’t wishing for one, but I will take it), but I love the snow. We are trying to cherish every "snow" moment this year, because it could be the last one for awhile. Here is a recap of our snow day so far.

We started the day with a yummy breakfast. I made French toast with a homemade blueberry and raspberry sauce. I used a recipe I found on Finding Joy in My Kitchen (a new favorite food blog of mine) and it was delicious. We also made Sugar and Spice Bacon. Some of the best bacon I have ever had!

Then we ventured out into the cold in our "suit" and "boots" for some more snow fun. We pulled Mikayla around in the snow, threw some snow balls and even made a snowman. I need to give credit to Ben for making the snowman, Mikayla and I didn’t really help that much, unless you count watching and gathering/eating accessories! Mikayla really loves snowmen, so she thought this was pretty cool.

After we were good and frosty from the cold we headed inside for a little snowman treat. He looks kind of creepy, but Mikayla loved him. He is made from "marsh" (Marshmallows), bananas, pretzel sticks, sprinkles and fruit leather. If she had been asleep I would have tried these, but he turned out cute for a quick snack.

Love at first sight! (Please ignore my shirtless girl, she has become a fan of eating without a shirt. I am not sure why!)

Digging in!

I think Mikayla has enjoyed her snow day, I know I have. Now to go list some items for the Little Angels Attic Sale before she wakes up and we have some more snow day fun!

Tags: Mikayla, recipes, snow | Posted in Life, Parenting |

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

January 22nd, 2011

This is an important day to our family for many reasons, you can read about some of them here and here. It is important to both Ben and I that we carry on MLK’s legacy and share his visions for the world with her. So, in light of this, we spent the day remembering him in a service here in BG and listening to his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Mikayla loved listening to his speech.

Intent listening by both parties!

Tags: Ben, Mikayla, MLK | Posted in Life, Parenting |

Paint

January 15th, 2011

Mikayla loves creating artwork. She loves stickers, crayons, markers and paint of all varieties. She even likes to use my blush brush in the morning to "paint" her face. This might explain why when painting with real paints the other day she decided to paint her face and hair. Needless to say, we took an early bath that evening!

It took a little scrubbing to get the green paint out of her blond hair!

She had a blast while she was painting herself, but immediately started signing and saying wash when she was done!

Tags: art, Mikayla | Posted in Parenting |

January Sensory Tub – White

January 15th, 2011

I have decided for my next few sensory tubs we are gong to focus on colors. For January, since we typically think snow for this season, I opted to go with the theme of white. I included some of the same items from the December tub because she liked them so much.

In the tub we have small buckets to scoop with, Styrofoam balls of various sizes, soap roses that smell like vanilla, cotton balls, satin ribbon and a duster.

So far Mikayla is most in love with scooping things in the buckets and tearing apart the roses!

For February, we will focus on the color red and also incorporate a few Valentine items.

Tags: Mikayla, sensory tub | Posted in Parenting |

Who Needs Snow?

January 15th, 2011

Who needs snow when you have bubbles! Last week when we got a little snow it was a little too cold for a girl with the sniffles to go outside, so we created our own fun indoors. We made some snow cream, filled up the sink with bubbles and made some "snowmen". Mikayla loved it!

Tags: Mikayla, snow | Posted in Parenting |

Then and Now – The Soup Pot

January 8th, 2011

When Mikayla was about four months old, Ben thought it would be funny to put her in a large soup pot. It actually turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of her from early on.

The other day, he decided to try out the soup pot again. I think she is getting a little too big now!

Tags: Growing up, Mikayla | Posted in Parenting |

Have We Changed?

January 1st, 2011

A Christmas tradition that I wanted to start with our family was getting in our pajamas on Christmas night, making some hot chocolate, setting up the camera on a tripod and snapping away! Here is our family last year:

And then here we were this year:

Have we changed?

Tags: Ben, Growing up, Mikayla | Posted in Life, Parenting |

Accidental Potty Training

January 1st, 2011

Back in October I wrote a post about Mikayla going "poo poo" in the potty for the first time and getting an ice cream cone all of her own. From that point on we never really tried to potty train Mikayla, but at the same time we never discouraged it either. If she wanted to sit on the potty we let her. If we noticed she was looking like she needed to go, we ran to the bathroom. We hadn’t even purchased big girl underwear yet.

Well, last weekend (right before our whirlwind of Christmas traveling began), Mikayla decided she wanted to be potty trained. On Saturday and Sunday she didn’t have an accident in her diaper except when she was sleeping. We were so proud of her, but didn’t think much of it because we assumed when traveling she would have more accidents. She proved us wrong in a big way! Over the course of the next 7-8 she only had a couple of accidents, even on the road. When we finally returned from our traveling we tried her big girl underwear that were in her stocking. She loved her "panties" and even got a little upset when we put a diaper on her at nap and night time. For three days now (cross our fingers and knock on wood) she hasn’t had an accident in her big girl underwear! What a big girl she is! We are still using diapers at nap and night time, but the rest of the day she is is underwear.

This potty training thing is nothing we did, she just woke up one morning and decided she didn’t want to go to the bathroom on herself anymore. Like I said, accidental potty training!

Tags: Growing up, Mikayla | Posted in Parenting |

Mikayla’s Kitchen

December 31st, 2010

When I saw this post about a kitchen made from an old TV stand, I knew Mikayla needed one for Christmas. I looked for months for the perfect stand, but could never find it. Finally, right before Thanksgiving I stumbled upon the perfect one. I immediately purchased and drove home to begin plotting how we were going to transform it for her Christmas gift. By we, I mean how Ben was going to transform it, and I was going to paint it!

I didn’t remember to take a picture before Ben took the first door off, but you can pretty much get the picture of how it looked.

The first step was to drop the top down a bit so it wasn’t so tall. Then Ben made a hole for a sink. We got an old faucet from Habitat Restore and used a metal bowl we already had on hand for the sink basin. Then Ben switched the hardware out so the door on the left opened down like an oven instead of to the side. He also cut a whole out and put some plexi glass in to make it look like an oven door and added in an old oven handle, also from Habitat Restore. The final addition was to add a wall in between the cabinet and the oven.

Cabinet before paint and finishing touches.

My job was to paint the cabinet white and make some knobs for the stove. I got some wooden circles from Hobby Lobby, painted them and added in some numbers. They were perfect. We also found some Contact paper that looked like marble, which we added to the sink side of the kitchen unit. I painted some black circles on the stove side and we were set. Now all we had to do was fill it with kitchen goodies (courtesy of IKEA mostly) and our kitchen was complete. We complimented it with the cutest table and chairs I found at Little Lulu’s, a consignment shop in Bowling Green.

Kitchen before we stocked it with goodies.

We still want to add a shelf in the oven, but just never got around to it.

After we got finished we weren’t sure where we were going to put it all. At first we thought the kitchen, but then we thought it would take up too much space. We found the perfect solution when some friends of ours decided to transform their kids rooms for Christmas. They were gracious enough to hold onto our bedroom suite for a few years while we live in Africa and it was the perfect timing to make the switch. Mikayla loves playing in her room now and there feels like a lot more space!

Mikayla’s new and improved room with her fun kitchen and table!

Tags: Ben, DIY, gift, Mikayla | Posted in Parenting |

A Year in Review Part 2

December 31st, 2010

To help ring in the 2010 New Year I wrote a post reviewing 2009. I thought it would be fun to do this again. You never think your year was very exciting, until you take the time to reflect on all the many things that happened. Here is a quick look at my life for 2010!

January – Like most people we were very intentional when we named our daughter. Her name holds a lot of significance (you can read about it here), but one of her namesakes is Martin Luther King Jr. So when it came time for the big march in BG, we didn’t even hesitate in bundling her up and heading out. Here MLK is "marching" in her first MLK parade.

February – MLK’s got her first real snow experience. This wasn’t the biggest snow of the year, but the first time we had the opportunity to play in it. I also began my obsession with making hair clips. And lastly, we held a Kindergarten Olympics at school. I am not sure who had more fun, the students, the parents or the teachers! It was a blast!

March – In March we made a quick trip to Tallahassee to meet our god daughter Molly. We also got to use our pull behind bike thing for the first time and experience Mikayla taking her first steps.

April – In April we celebrated a very special first birthday with friends and family, took our first family hike in Mammoth cave and hosted our first Easter dinner with friends. It seems that April was a month of "firsts"!

May – We had a lot of spring time fun with Mikayla and harvested our first asparagus from the garden. I also braved a field trip to the Nashville Zoo!

May 2009 014

June – I stole the idea from a friend to take at least one field trip a week with Mikayla this summer. In June we went to the Humane Society, Somerset for Taylor’s birth, local hotel with glass elevator and waterfall, Tallahassee for Molly’s baptism, and Kentucky Down Under. We also took Mikayla to the beach for the first time and I started sewing.

July – In July Ben and I headed to Swaziland, Africa to begin preparation for our move there. It was a fun two weeks, but the hardest two of my parenting so far because we left Mikayla in the states! We all survived, but still hard. Before we left we took a quick trip to Tennessee for a little blackberry picking. Mikayla and I also took an overnight trip with some good buddies to visit the Indianapolis Children’s Museum.

August – In August I started teaching first grade and of course had some last minute summer fun which included celebrating Lylah’s first birthday, a day at the lake, basketball, rain boots and much more!

September – This month we made the decision on working with Cabrini ministries in Swaziland and co-hosted a Labor Day cookout with some great friends!

October – Mikayla took her first plane ride as we traveled to Colorado for a family vacation and then we hosted our last (at least for awhile) Halloween party!

November – Mikayla and I joined my parents and siblings for a weekend getaway in Lexington. Ben also started making kites in November so we flew a lot of them and I made Mikayla her first sensory tub and hosted my first Thanksgiving meal with Ben’s family.

December – We spent December making special gifts (a post in the very near future) and continuing some Christmas traditions! Ben and I also got to spend an evening in Nashville listening to the one and only Garth Brooks in concert!

What a year! I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings for my little family. Happy New Years everyone!

Tags: Ben, Mikayla, year | Posted in Life |

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