January Treat Plan Update

pears here

While we ate our cookies and ice cream on January 31st, I asked everyone what they thought were the best and hardest parts of our January treat plan --

Jordan:
-  I liked not having treats be rewards, and finding other things that were better rewards than treats.
-  I liked just making things together
-  I liked saving money when we didn't buy desserts or treats or junk food
- I liked our pineapple snack treat and how it felt like even more of a treat since we weren't eating so many other sweet things.

Landon:
- I really liked how we got to make a lot of homemade desserts
- It was hard to not get cookies or doughnuts at Lee's
- I disliked not buying any treats
- (What was hard to go without?) Life Cinnamon

Ellie:
- I like that you (Debbie) let me be in charge of making a dessert!
- I liked having the desserts on some days
- It was kind of hard for me to not eat my birthday treats

Owen: (very focused on his cookie eating :)
-  I liked Ellie to make cookies and ice cream
- I liked the cookies
- I like to smash the cookies

Debbie:
- I loved most that I felt like we were doing this great healthy thing for our family, and something I never thought I was even capable of doing.  (Which sounds so silly since now it seems like such a no-big-deal thing, but it sure felt like a big deal before! :)
- I liked that dessert days were extra special and we got to take time to plan out and make an extra special treat for our family.
- I loved that we were all working together as a family. That was such a great motivation to me and so fun.
- It was super cool to see that my tastes really changed. The second time we had chocolate chip cookies in the month, I couldn't believe how crazy sweet they tasted!
- At first it was hard to have all the Christmas treats hidden away and not want to munch on them, but it pretty quickly became no big deal.
- I liked that I didn't have to be tempted at all the treats on display at the grocery store - having a set rule made it super easy to ignore all that.
- And now I'm excited to keep up with a good February treat plan!

Valentines

'Happy Valentine's day' from here

Ellie has been working hard for the last week on making her class Valentines. 100% Ellie designed and made cards, attached to some cute notebooks (that were on their way from my craft room to a donation box, but were found just in time to become Valentine gifts). This holiday has brought such fun crafting/making time.

Owen and Porter Play Time: Part II

I'd been checking on the happily playing boys every 15 minutes or so. They raced cars down the table slide for a long time, then I saw Owen getting out a box of activities I have set aside to do with the kids. He seemed to be interested in just a fun letters game so I didn't worry about it and kept enjoying this surprise morning of getting-things-done. After almost 2 hours, I started to hear a little Porter sadness and headed downstairs to get the boys. Imagine my surprise to see a very purple and pink Porter climbing up the stairs to meet me! Owen was right behind with suspiciously colored hands, arms and legs... A few more steps and I saw the very purple and pink carpet, and the empty tie-die box nearby, with several dripping bottles.  A few more steps along the colorful path and then a very pink bathroom (with super cute little purple footprints all over the 3 rugs.)

My 2 hours of get-things-done were well paid for the rest of the day with a few hours of bathroom cleaning (and still tie-dyed grout/cabinet spots/etc. ) and a few more hours of carpet cleaning (and quite possibly permanent pink carpet).

Porter was quite upset about the whole ordeal (or maybe just that he didn't get to play in the colorful toilet anymore). But Owen didn't seem too worried. Mom was taking pictures, he got to practice his color mixing we've been learning about ("I tried all the colors together and guess what! It made brown!!") He and Porter got to have matching purple hands and feet all day (any ideas? more bath time?) Not too bad! (He's a tough one to get mad at anyway because he's full of such happiness, but I did try to remind him throughout the day that this was not something to be repeated!)

I've been trying out a cleaning trick tonight where you put a solution on ("Juice Out"), let it sit, then put a hot iron on it (with a  wet towel between) for 5 minutes, then scrub and repeat. So far it's helping, but there are a lot of spots to work through and scrub (and I just finished up the bottle)... But it looks like with a few more evenings of cleaning, we can get at least from a hot pink to a lovely light pink :)

Owen and Porter Play Time: Part I

I got the kids ready and off to school this morning then came home to start on my morning jobs. Happily, Porter and Owen were just being great buddies and went downstairs to play all by themselves - hooray! Then, they just kept playing and playing and playing. I got all my morning jobs done, some great planning, a shower (!) and more. They played happily for almost 2 hours, with just some very quick checks from me every once in a while - amazing! Hooray for these two little brothers who had such a fun time playing together today!

Another January Plan

A favorite Porter spot, inside our kitchen cupboards

Besides our new January treat plan, we've been trying out a new menu planning system for January. I've tried or thought about trying lots of different menu planning-plans to try to help with the 5:00 what's for dinner problem, without much success. But so far I've really loved our new plan, so here it is:
We picked out 7 meals that we like to eat, and we assigned each one a day of the week. And that has been our menu plan for the month - easy peasy!  We realized that we pretty much eat the same things all the time any way, so why not make it official and make life easier for ourselves.

We haven't been super 100% strict about sticking to our plan (like car trouble on a Monday night = Chick-fil-a instead of beans and rice, or sometimes we're super rebellious and switch places with beans & rice and spaghetti...)  I think we're going to keep up our plan in February and maybe just swap out a couple of the meals, but so far this has been a great success!

Little boy!

Little boy Porter on Ellie's Birthday

All of a sudden my baby Porter has turned into a little boy. I'm not sure what happened but somehow just about a week ago, poof! he transformed into a definite little boy.  We've just switched to a 1-nap schedule too and with that change along with his sudden growing up, suddenly life just feels a little different.

Some super things:

-- I hadn't taken the time to anticipate this, but with the nap switch to the same time as the big kids' quiet time, suddenly I get to have my own quiet time. Such a fun surprise!

-- We've figured out a few things that Porter loves to do and it's opened up some great new possibilities for us. The best has been kitchen sink bath time. It is the magic solution I've been searching for to the 2:30 after school craziness. :)  Suddenly we've been able to not just survive homework/after school snack time, but even do some fun happy projects during that time too. Also, today he sat and played play dough (yay for another discovery!) while Ellie and Owen and I played a color mixing game she had created and then did a painting project for more color mixing fun.

-- This morning for the first time that I can remember, Porter slept until 6:20! Still a couple of wake-ups through the night, but that morning sleep was so, so super!

-- The past few nights, Porter has suddenly started to really love his night time prayers. I fold his little arms for him and say a prayer for him just before bed, and the last few nights as soon as I open my eyes, he has looked up to me with a "more??"

-- I sure love this little boy Porter, who is still my little baby too. :)

A happy surprise

Our front yard swing is still getting use these days with such warm January weather - most of that snow from a few weeks ago is long since melted. We're loving the warmth - we even spent time at the park today!

Thanks to a crazy snowstorm set to hit New York this evening, Jordan gets to spend the week at home with us instead of out in NYC. He was on his way to the airport this morning when we started to look more into the New York weather warnings,  and we soon found out that his (and nearly every) flight had been cancelled. He'll still be heading out soon, but it was still a fun surprise to get to welcome him home after just an hour or so instead of a week!