More Snowy Day Ideas

Dear Ladies,

One mom responded that she was making gingerbread houses from cardboard with her children. You could cut house pieces from cardboard or use graham crackers. The major part of success with gingerbread houses is having the right icing. The icing needs to work like cement. Below is an icing recipe that works well. Here is a quote from the mom who sent the idea, " So we have started a gingerbread house building project. The houses are out of cut up cardboard boxes glued together with a hot glue gun. The frosting is a recipe from online, and we have the extra candy, cereal, pretzels, etc to decorate. They are enjoying the project (and will take some time to complete in phases--just like a real house!)"

This could be a quick one day project or turn it into a big project and create a village.

Here are a few more ideas to try, now that we are on to winter storm number three.
-have a game day and haul out the cards and board games
-look at old photo albums together. Children love to hear stories about when you were young and stories about what they did when they were younger.
-gather together some items from your recycling and since they aren't picking it up we all have extra, together with colored paper, newspaper, glue, crayons etc, create robots.
-create bird feeders. If you have pine cones cover them with peanut butter and roll in bird seed, tie string to the top and hang from a tree branch. A bird feeder can also be made from old milk cartons.
-bundle up and take a walk-don't forget to have everyone use the potty first.
-call some friends and meet at a fast food restaurant with a play area for lunch or just coffee.

I know for some of you the days are getting long and you are ready for a change. When the day is getting you down, take a break. Tell your children, even the older ones need a rest time. Everyone needs a break and your children even need a break from each other. A half hour of reading or a quiet activity separated from everyone else may be just the time everyone needs to feel refreshed.

Blessings to all of you,
Melissa

Icing Recipe
2 Egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons water
Beat together until frothy

Mix in 3 cups of powdered sugar.
Beat until stiff

Snow Day Fun

Ladies,

It looks like you will have the company of your school age children at home this week. After several days at home everyone may ended up going a little stir crazy and your children may begin to have a lot of pent up energy. Now is the time to start planning something to help you keep your sanity.

School children have every minute of their day planned out for them, when given too many days of unstructured times they don't know what to do with all their free time. Here are a few ideas too help fill some of those free hours. -try searching the internet for some simple crafts to do together,
- enjoy coloring together,
-pull out a pile of sheets and blankets to make a tent in the family room,
-bake cookies together
-if you have a fireplace build a fire, roast marshmallows and pretend you are camping
-make sandwiches for dinner, spread a blanket on the family room floor and have a picni
-begin reading a chapter book together, allow your children to color or build with Legos while you read(this use to be one of our favorite things to do together during the day)
-have a movie day or afternoon-wear your pj's and enjoy popcorn
-help your children prepare a play or program with dance and music for when Dad comes home
-plan and prepare a special meal together
-take a walk in the snow and then enjoy hot chocolate together when you get home

If you have some fun ideas that you enjoy doing with your children please email me. I will put them all together and send them to everyone.

Enjoy the special days ahead with your children home,
Melissa

Teaching Children How to Receive Presents

Ladies,

Here is something I did with my children that you might want to try. To teach my children how to respond properly to a gift they received we would have practice sessions. I would wrap up items for the child to open, just old toys or something from around the house. I would then let them open the gift and we would practice what to say. We would talk about instead of saying "I already have one of these", they can say "thank you, this is a nice present". I would wrap up a item that would be a terrible present, so they could practice saying thank you even when they didn't like the present. The children enjoyed this game and it did help them when they were given something and didn't know how to respond. It also helped to prevent them from saying something like "my mom doesn't want me to have this"

Enjoy your Christmas,
Melissa

Christmas Reminder

Dear Ladies,

For those of you not in Va, we are blanketed in snow. Reminds me of my days in Oswego NY way up by Lake Ontario(a few ladies on the list actually live in Oswego). We have about 15-20 inches of snow; we haven't expeienced this amount of snow since 1995. It has been beautiful to see the world covered in a blanket of white.

My boys had plans for a sleep over tonight, so we had to dig the van out. I had planned to drive them myself, but instead took Ethan out for a snow driving lesson. He took it very slow and did a good job. He was born in Oswego, so maybe it is in his blood-it was snowing when we brought him home from the hospital.

Life in the Northern Virginia area is so busy, everyone is always on the go and then it snows. A good snow storm shuts the area down and causes everyone to slow down. One such storm happened during the week and caused most people to have to stay home from work. We went over to the hill to sled and the area was crowded with families enjoying time together. Winter snow storms hve a way of forcing us to slow down and spend down as a family.

Christmas time only adds to our busyness. In addition to our regular schedule we add in shopping for a multitude of gifts, attending parties, baking cookies and traveling. We can lose sight of what is really important during this season. We can easily forget we are celebrating the birth of Christ and we can get so busy preparing for Christmas day that we don't spend time with our children. Christmas is only one day. We spend days and hours getting ready and then it is over so quickly.

I'm sure most of you have a million jobs to do before Christmas morning, but I encourage you to carve out a few minutes each day to spend sometime doing something with your children. Color a picture together, bake cookies, read a Christmas story, wrap gifts, create a memory with your children and enjoy them. We really have very few Christmas' with our children all at home with us.

Blessings to all of you,
Melissa

Mothering Drudgery or Joy

Dear Ladies,

When my kids were little Monday was always a hard day for me. After a weekend of very little housekeeping there was plenty of catching up to do. Monday always meant cleaning and laundry. After a long holiday weekend with husbands and kids home I'm sure some of you had a busy day today catching up with your cleaning and laundry.

Parts of mothering can be just drudgery. The laundry is never ending, the floor is always needing a good mopping, you rarely get everything done, and many days you feel like you get nothing done. The other part of mothering is why we really enjoy being mothers. Its the baby gazing up at you as she nurses, the toddler fresh out of the bath in his new fuzzy pajamas, the delight on a child's face when you surprise them with a gift they have really been wanting, the sense of pride when your child walks across the stage to accept his diploma and the countless smiles, hugs and kisses that are bestowed on you just because you are the mom.

Don't let your days of mothering young children become just the days of drudgery. Aim each day to find the joy in mothering weather it is just a few minutes to read a child a story, scratched a child's back (I have a 16 year old that wants his back scratched at bedtime), color a coloring page together or listen to a teen relate his day to you. These everyday occurrences are what mothering is really about. These are the days when we have the chance to mold a life, to train our children in the love of the Lord through our actions and to love them unconditionally.

Happy Mothering Ladies. Thank you to all of you who responded to my last email, your responses are very encouraging.

Melissa

It's Me-Finally!!

Dear Ladies,
I'm sorry it has been so long since you've heard from me. Just a quick note to let you all know that I am thinking of you.

This morning in church I was standing next to my husband during worship. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him worshiping the Lord. I realized that no matter what he does wrong or does that I'm not real excited about that none of that really matters. What really matters is that my husband loves the Lord and is committed to his walk with Him. I need to keep this is mind when I'm frustrated, feeling unappreciated or overwhelmed. In reality few things are really important, but one of the things that is important is the relationship our family members and friends have with the Lord. In the end all we can take to heaven with us is other people.

I'm taking my three youngest kids and heading to So. Carolina to help Eric's sister who has ALS. ALS is a quickly progressing disease and I want to spend time with her while she is still with us. I will try to write to you from there.

I would love to hear from some of you. It inspires me to write when I hear from you and you ask me questions or share something from your day with me.

Blessings to all of you,
Melissa

Toys, Toys and More Toys Part 2

Dear Ladies,
Now that you have had time to clear the toys from your bedroom room, let’s get started dealing with all the toys that are everywhere else.

One of the best ways to deal with toys is to limit them. So to start you will need a box of trash bags. Before you can organize anything you will need to weed out what you want to keep, what needs to be trashed and which toys can be given away. Anytime you are sorting through toys to get rid of it is best to not have your children around, let them watch a video, nap in your room so you can be in their room or plan a play date. Since this job may take a while you may find it best to accomplish it in short time spans.

Let's get started sorting.
- First we are going to trash any toys that are broken, unsafe, or too worn out to pass on.

-Our second trash bag will be for toys that are still in good condition, but are not played with. Your church nursery maybe interested in them, you can donate them to Goodwill or The Salvation Army for a tax deduction, ask a friend if they are interested in any of the toys for their children or list them on Ebay or Free Cycle. (http://www.freecycle.com/ is a great way to give items away to other local people. Go to the website and select a group in your area, sign up and then all you do is write a short note of what you have you would like to give away. People will email you if they are interested and then pick it up from you. I love free cycle. I will list something and often have multiple people who would like it. I email one of them with my address and leave the item on the front porch. The next thing I know the item is gone. Often the person will email and tell me how glad they are to have the item.)

How do you determine which toys stay and which toys go? Ask yourself when was the last time your child used the toy, if they have not used it in the last six months to a year it is time for the toy to leave your home. Most children have a few toys that they use all the time and even some that they use every day. Toys like blocks, Playmobiles, Legos, dolls, kitchen items, and dress up clothes give children hours of enjoyment, so these are keepers, unless your child shows no interest in them. Our house has tons of Legos; the boys spent countless hours building, rebuilding and imagining with their Legos.
They were well worth the space they occupied. Decide what toys are worth the space in your home.

-Now be sure to make sure the toys in your trash bags leave your house.

You probably still have plenty of toys left in your house. We will talk about some organizing ideas in the next letter, but for now happy sorting. Remember it doesn't have to be done all at once. If you only have 30 minutes to sort through half of the closet that's ok, the job will get done.

Happy Sorting,

Melissa