This is one of my all time favorite songs and this rendition of it is amazing. Click the link below to listen to the tune and hear Jars of Clay perform.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tub Time!
An ongoing battle Robb has with the girls while they are in the tub is to not splash. We don't mind them playing in the tub, but the tidal wave splashing is a little much. There is no missunderstanding this rule either. They are aware of it, know it and know the consequences of breaking it.
That said, the rule is always broken. Tonight is an example. We hear them in their in the tub talking away and then we hear "splash, thud". I gently say to them "Bottoms in the tub please." Then another splash and Robb steps in "No splashing girls." From the bathroom comes Olyvia's voice "What was that?"
I believe that she didn't hear us about as much as I believe that money trees exist. In other words - I don't believe it AT ALL! There is a distance of about twenty feet between where Robb and I are sitting and where the girls are at in the bath. They definitely heard us and are playing dumb.
What is it about selective hearing? It isn't a learned behavior, I am sure of it. I am convinced that it is an ingrained behavior that each and every person is born with. My girls at the age of 5 and 3 have fine tuned it to a wonderful perfection.
That said, the rule is always broken. Tonight is an example. We hear them in their in the tub talking away and then we hear "splash, thud". I gently say to them "Bottoms in the tub please." Then another splash and Robb steps in "No splashing girls." From the bathroom comes Olyvia's voice "What was that?"
I believe that she didn't hear us about as much as I believe that money trees exist. In other words - I don't believe it AT ALL! There is a distance of about twenty feet between where Robb and I are sitting and where the girls are at in the bath. They definitely heard us and are playing dumb.
What is it about selective hearing? It isn't a learned behavior, I am sure of it. I am convinced that it is an ingrained behavior that each and every person is born with. My girls at the age of 5 and 3 have fine tuned it to a wonderful perfection.
Pumkin Patch pictures
I am a little slow I realize but I have finally downloaded the pictures of Ellie's trip to the pumpkin patch and the pictures of Olyvia's first day of school so I thought I would put a couple up here so you can see how our little ones are not quite so little.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sugar Cookies - Olyvia & Ellie Style!
My hopes were high and came crashing down as the sprinkles flew through the air and the dough became ground into the clothing of my sweet innocent children.
I think my first mistake was waiting to make the dough. I should have made it the night before so I wouldn't have to go through the bombardment of "is the dough ready?" questions while the eagerly waited to cut and sprinkle. Also, the recipe said it only had to be in the fridge for 1 hour when in reality it took a couple hours for it to reach a firm enough texture to survive rolling. So, we suffer through the wait and I call the girls to let them know that it is time to roll. As I am getting the rolling pin, Olyvia has climbed up onto the counter on her arms and has both of her arms resting in the pile of flour I have on our island. Not just hands mind you, but flour all the way up to her elbows and as I turn around I can't control what comes out of my mouth and I shriek "Olyvia - what are you doing? " She flings her arms out of the flour and the kitchen (along with her sister sitting next to her) become white. Maybe I should have spoken slower and not so high pitched to allow for a slower retraction of the arms from the flour. Oh well. I have a slight heart attach but realize it is most likely only going to get worse. I push the flour to the side making sure to leave an adequate amount on the area I put the dough and I begin rolling and cutting out our orange and white halloween sugar cookies.
They both had little ramekins for them to put their sprinkles in. They decided that the best course of action was to dump as much of every color of sprinkles that we have into their "little sprinkle bowls" and then dump their entire bowl onto the cookie sitting on the cookie sheet. My mistake was not watching them more closely. Oh well. So I would cut the cookies out, place them on the sheet and then hand the sheet over. They would then dump their "little sprinkle bowls" out onto the cookies. I would then take the cookie sheet which now looked like it had a series of sprinkle pyramids on it, give it a little shake over the kitchen sink and place it in the oven.
This procedure was repeated over and over until all the dough was cut out and cooked up. There was one point where I finally had to put a halt to them taking the dough I was still cutting cookies out of because they had grabbed ahold of the same piece and then proceeded to play tug of war with it until there was no longer any cookie dough in their hands to hold onto because it had all squished out onto their laps and into their clothing.
Now, if you can get over what they look like and like the taste of baked sugar coated sugar cookies, they actually didn't taste too bad. Yum! Yum!
Did they have fun? I hope so. I had to keep reminding myself that it doesn't matter what the cookies look like and the kitchen can be cleaned up. While I was reminding myself of this however, I had not yet traveled around the other side of the island to see what the floor looked like below them. All I can say is WOW!
I think next time I will stick to something that doesn't involve decoration for at least another year.
I think my first mistake was waiting to make the dough. I should have made it the night before so I wouldn't have to go through the bombardment of "is the dough ready?" questions while the eagerly waited to cut and sprinkle. Also, the recipe said it only had to be in the fridge for 1 hour when in reality it took a couple hours for it to reach a firm enough texture to survive rolling. So, we suffer through the wait and I call the girls to let them know that it is time to roll. As I am getting the rolling pin, Olyvia has climbed up onto the counter on her arms and has both of her arms resting in the pile of flour I have on our island. Not just hands mind you, but flour all the way up to her elbows and as I turn around I can't control what comes out of my mouth and I shriek "Olyvia - what are you doing? " She flings her arms out of the flour and the kitchen (along with her sister sitting next to her) become white. Maybe I should have spoken slower and not so high pitched to allow for a slower retraction of the arms from the flour. Oh well. I have a slight heart attach but realize it is most likely only going to get worse. I push the flour to the side making sure to leave an adequate amount on the area I put the dough and I begin rolling and cutting out our orange and white halloween sugar cookies.
They both had little ramekins for them to put their sprinkles in. They decided that the best course of action was to dump as much of every color of sprinkles that we have into their "little sprinkle bowls" and then dump their entire bowl onto the cookie sitting on the cookie sheet. My mistake was not watching them more closely. Oh well. So I would cut the cookies out, place them on the sheet and then hand the sheet over. They would then dump their "little sprinkle bowls" out onto the cookies. I would then take the cookie sheet which now looked like it had a series of sprinkle pyramids on it, give it a little shake over the kitchen sink and place it in the oven.
This procedure was repeated over and over until all the dough was cut out and cooked up. There was one point where I finally had to put a halt to them taking the dough I was still cutting cookies out of because they had grabbed ahold of the same piece and then proceeded to play tug of war with it until there was no longer any cookie dough in their hands to hold onto because it had all squished out onto their laps and into their clothing.
Now, if you can get over what they look like and like the taste of baked sugar coated sugar cookies, they actually didn't taste too bad. Yum! Yum!
Did they have fun? I hope so. I had to keep reminding myself that it doesn't matter what the cookies look like and the kitchen can be cleaned up. While I was reminding myself of this however, I had not yet traveled around the other side of the island to see what the floor looked like below them. All I can say is WOW!
I think next time I will stick to something that doesn't involve decoration for at least another year.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Baking for the holidays.
I am so excited for the holidays to be just around the corner. This year we are going to do a bunch of baking. We haven't baked really since before our girls were born. When it was just Robb and I we would make Almond Roca every year and send it to friends. We loved doing it and I am looking forward to getting back into the spirit of baking. The girls and I sat down tonight and picked out all the recipies we are going to make. We decided to start tomorrow with a warm up to make sure we aren't too rusty. We are going to make some halloween sugar cookies. We bought some cookie cutters earlier today. I will have to share with you all how the baking with a 5 and 3 year old goes. It should be a wonderful experience.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Camera
I am pretty excited. One of the cameras on my top 3 list is at costco right now. The Nikon D90. It isn't my number one, but it is still pretty exciting because it is such a great deal . They don't have the flash and extra battery pack that I also want, but those could come with time. And even though it is not my number one doesn't mean that I can't still keep my number one option up there and get it eventually, right? Anway, just wanted to share. I am very excited about getting to start shooting more and more. I miss it actually. We will be out somewhere with the girls or just Robb and I and I will see a moment that I want to capture but don't have my camera yet. Soon . . . very soon.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Where is my faith in myself?
Right now in my life I am in a stage of searching. Have you ever found yourself there? Looking for something but not sure what it is that you are looking for? I am not unhappy really, but I feel blank or empty like something is missing or I am not fullfilling something that I should be. I have a great husband, wonderful children. But when it comes to me, to who I am as a person I feel like something isn't there that should be. Or maybe that I am not fullfilling the person that I am supposed to be. Maybe I am holding back the real me.
What do I do with that? I can continue to search out and try to find what I think is missing or I can let it find me. I can let my life fall into place as it is ment to. Either sound like plausible options, both having equal problems. If I choose the first option I may end up neglecting the very thing I am searching for and if I choose the later of the two, I may end up missing out on it as well.
Funny really. I find myself trying to find ballance. I read a quote recently that said that we are never in ballance, that ballance is something we "swing through on our way to the other extreme." I wonder if that is true. Sure sounds true. I think in my life I have never felt fully in ballance. I was either working too much, not working enough, trying too hard or not enough. Being a working mother is a perfect example of this pendelum that seems to swing from one extreme to the other zipping past ballance every once in awhile. I can see ballance coming in my life but before I know it I am looking back at it.
In my life a lot of the decisions I make are made because I think that will be the easiest choice to make. I will do what I perceive to be the least hurtful to another or the safest. It isn't that I don't have faith in God as much as it is that I don't have faith in myself. I wonder, if just once I stepped outside the comfort zone and trusted that I can do it as much as God trusts that I can do it, what would happen.
If I walk the walk, will He provide the path. Of course He will. He already has. He is just waiting for me to get on it.
What do I do with that? I can continue to search out and try to find what I think is missing or I can let it find me. I can let my life fall into place as it is ment to. Either sound like plausible options, both having equal problems. If I choose the first option I may end up neglecting the very thing I am searching for and if I choose the later of the two, I may end up missing out on it as well.
Funny really. I find myself trying to find ballance. I read a quote recently that said that we are never in ballance, that ballance is something we "swing through on our way to the other extreme." I wonder if that is true. Sure sounds true. I think in my life I have never felt fully in ballance. I was either working too much, not working enough, trying too hard or not enough. Being a working mother is a perfect example of this pendelum that seems to swing from one extreme to the other zipping past ballance every once in awhile. I can see ballance coming in my life but before I know it I am looking back at it.
In my life a lot of the decisions I make are made because I think that will be the easiest choice to make. I will do what I perceive to be the least hurtful to another or the safest. It isn't that I don't have faith in God as much as it is that I don't have faith in myself. I wonder, if just once I stepped outside the comfort zone and trusted that I can do it as much as God trusts that I can do it, what would happen.
If I walk the walk, will He provide the path. Of course He will. He already has. He is just waiting for me to get on it.
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