Earth Day

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, 

we borrow it from our children." 

- Native American quote

Holiday Decorating

I may have mentioned this before, but when I was growing up, no one in my house put much effort into decorating for the holidays. For Christmas, we had a macramé Santa face that my dad had made hanging on the front door, a Christmas needlepoint on the wall (again, made by Dad!), a wreath over the fireplace and a tree in the family room -- that was it for the holiday decor... With the birth of my first child, came the birth of a holiday-decorating fiend!! I started out small at first and I have been growing and growing ever since! I absolutely love decorating for the holidays – ALL of them! I have tubs in the basement with Easter, St. Pat’s, 4^th of July (which I actually leave up from Memorial Day in May until Sept 11^th), Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations. After Christmas I take down my Santa-related Christmas decorations and my nativity scene (and the trees - we put up two) and I switch over to snowmen for the rest of January. I have a few things for Valentine’s Day, but I really need to put a little more effort into that holiday! Since having my daughters, I really enjoy making a cozy home for my family and I love to make each holiday special with decorations. I was never sure if anyone appreciated the effort (although I don’t mind – I would do it now, regardless!) until my 12-year-old told me several times that she loved how I had decorated the house for Easter. 

And my 6-year-old has obviously developed an appreciation too!  The week before Easter, I was tucking her into bed and she told me that she felt bad because she didn’t have a lot of things to decorate her room for Easter. I looked around as she said, “I only have my bunny books, my bunny rabbits, and my Easter bonnet!” And sure enough, she had pulled out any books that had bunnies on them, she had pulled out all of her stuffed rabbits, and she had put a big hat on her big, stuffed Tigger! She had placed the books and the bunnies around the room – carefully decorating for Easter! I was so tickled – she obviously got that from Mommy! Children are such little sponges – they absorb everything around them! Holiday decorating may not seem like the most important thing to do with how busy we all get, but I think it’s so important to do what you can to make your house a home for your family – to show them that they are worth the effort, and to give your children positive, happy energy to absorb!

We finally took the Easter stuff down this week and I immediately tried to think of the next holiday that I should be decorating for...  I think Memorial Day!  I'll have to put a few Spring decorations up to bridge until I bring the patriotic decorations out...

Happy Easter!

This year we had a quieter holiday than usual – our usual plans changed and we decided to do something a little low-key for a change of pace! We tend to run from place to place trying to make the rounds to visit all of the family, and while we are blessed to have so much family to get together with, this year for Easter, we thought it would be nice to do something on a smaller scale. On Friday, the girls and I had our weekly visit with Great Gram at the nursing home – we brought her some sugar-free candy, a calla lily, and a couple of bunnies to decorate her room. We had a nice visit with her – my 6-year-old read two books to us and Gram was so pleased to hear her read. 

Saturday we did some house-cleaning (my 12-year-old even voluntarily cleaned her room!) and Saturday night I did some last minute prep for Easter – I made a cute “Peeps” candle that I saw on Pinterest (where else?) and I filled eggs for my husband to hide for an Easter morning egg hunt. The girls got up early and searched for their baskets and eggs, and we went to church, had a little brunch, and spent a quiet afternoon coloring our Easter eggs and watching Easter videos. We normally try to do both of those things before Easter, but we had a lot on our plates this past week and it was actually quite fun and very festive to do it on Easter! My mom is coming up from Florida this week – we can’t wait to see her!! – and I’m planning to make a ham for a belated Easter dinner with Nana!

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Our little 6-year-old just constantly keeps us in stitches...  Tonight's classic was "I'm buying lunch tomorrow!"  And my husband and I looked at her and said, "Oh really?"  And she said, "Yes, because it's Friday, and I always buy lunch on Friday!"  (Which is actually true, she does not like homemade pizza or most pizzeria pizza, but school pizza on Friday is apparently fabulous to her!)  So I said to my husband, "I have no cash on me."  And he said, "I have no cash."  And our daughter (who was sitting there holding Mabel, our dog) said, in a very dry tone, "Don't look at me!  I have lots of money in my piggy bank but I'm saving up for a CAT!" 

Good to know, apparently we're getting a cat!  And we need to run to the ATM...

Family Tree Scrapbook

This past weekend we went out of town to visit my husband's family.  On our way to dinner at his uncle's house, he took us on a little tour of the area that his parents grew up in.  He drove us by his mother's schools, the church his parents were married in, and both of his parents' childhood homes.  My mother-in-law was with us, and she definitely enjoyed the drive down memory lane, and the girls -- particularly our 12-year-old -- enjoyed seeing where Grandma grew up.  I have always tried to instill an interest of our family history in my girls.  They love visiting relatives, they love seeing old pictures, they love hearing old stories.  On the way home from dinner that night, I had an idea for a new project that I'd like to work on.  We have various family trees from different "branches" of our families, and while those are wonderful treasures, to my kids they are just names and dates on paper.  I have been wanting to create more of a family tree scrapbook with pictures and stories about our family members.  Before we left my mother-in-law's house yesterday, I went out into the street and took a picture of the house -- this is the house that my husband grew up in -- I'd like to add that into the book for future generations to see.  The next time we go to visit, we are going to take the same little tour and stop and take photos of all of the places that we saw the other day.  We'll also stop by my husband's high school which is in that area and take a photo of that.  We plan to do the same thing here in town, where I grew up, and when we go to visit my mom's family in New England -- hopefully this spring or summer. 

My daughter (12) is so excited about this project, that she went through two drawers worth of pictures today on her school vacation to pull out pictures of our family for our scrapbooks.  In her estimation, we're going to need 7 scrapbooks...  She will definitely carry on the role of family historian -- I have no worries there!