The REAL Me

I hate make- up and only wear it for work because it covers up some of my "face lines"
I love being a mommy.
I love my husband-especially when he makes sure I always have diet coke.
I have fed my kids cake for breakfast.
My BFF's have been with me through everything over the last 15 years, which is way cool.
If toys were land mines my house would have blown up 5 minutes ago.
My kids have barn shoes and non barn shoes.  (Occasionally I have to clean cow poop off the non barn shoes.)
I love romance novels but sometimes save them for the weekends so I don't stay up too late during the week.
Happy Friday!

For a few weeks now, I have been linking up with The Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday's.  It is alot of fun to write about a random topic!

Preserving Memories

About 14 years ago, I fell in love with the hobby of scrapbooking.  During that time, I had been in several weddings and had pictures, wedding programs and other memorabilia I didn't  know what to do with.  So, my first scrapbook was born.  I still love scrapbooking today because I can make treasured books for my kids and remember special times in our lives. (Because I am always behind).

The page featured in this post was made with products from Creative Memories, but you can use supplies purchased from any vendor or store as long as the materials are acid free.  You can also look for products marked photo safe.

I am linking this post  up with Southern Wife and Mama and Pieces of Amy

What Every Parent Should Know

Did you know by Kindergarten children from low income families have been read to as little as 25 hours compared to the  1000 hours children from middle income families?  Did you know children that are read aloud to get a head start in language and literacy skills and start school better prepared?  Here are some things to try to help boost children's interest in reading.

1. Read aloud to your children as much as possible.

Sandra Boynton books are a great choice for kids 0-3



2. Let your children see you reading for fun. (This is my favorite one to practice!)

The "If you Give" Series is great for pre-school through 2nd grade



3. Practice the dialogic reading model with your kids.  This model encourages early readers to use the pictures to assist with words they may not be able to read yet.  And stresses that children don't have to know every word on the page. 

Fancy Nancy is wonderful!  Some of the words are very "fancy" so the series works well for several ages

4. Use programs at your local library to encourage your children to read.  We really like the summer reading program.  Also, a wonderful on-line resource is read aloud.org

Goodbye on a Friday

When I was pregnant with my children, I got endless advice on what I should do as a parent.  Now our kids are 6 and 3 and I still get endless advice on being a parent.  I admit some of the parenting tips I get are very helpful others .....not so much.

No matter how much advice I have received over the last 7 years, nothing prepared me for what it is like to drop my babies off at daycare, say good bye  and head off to work. 

I think most mothers feel this way, but I have decided to look at the positives of my kids experiences in day care and school:

1. The teachers at day care have shown our kids love and children ALWAYS benefit from love.
2. Our kids have learned a ton of skills at daycare.  (sharing, cooperation, numbers, letters, etc)
3. I get to pick them up and the end of each day and say hello instead of goodbye.


I am linking this post up with The Gypsy Mama's 5 Minute Fridays.

Pieces of Me

Today, I am linking up with the Just for Fun Fridays Link up Party hosted by Pieces of Amy.  For fun, I wanted to share the best pieces of my week.

1. I decided to start The Hunger Games trilogy. My husband, the "cow man", is reading them with me.  Well....actually he got ahead of me and finished the third book today.  The books are really, really good.

2. For work this week, we had over 700 third grade students participate in Ag. Days, an agricultural awareness program.  I helped with a booth about healthy eating.  (Remember research shows family that eat meals together have better health!)

3. Today, I am doing one of my favorite things with the kids.  Decorating eggs for Easter.

Have a Happy Easter.

Scrapbook Organization

I use part of our dining room table for my scrapbooking area.  This is not ideal for when we need the dining room table for company, but it gives me a place to work while watching the kids play.  I am currently working on 3 projects; so the area is getting really messy.  Today, I reorganized!



Before





Recently, I read a post by On the Banks of Squaw Creek that gave some tips on hiding things in plain site.  So, I used her tips and brought up (or rather my husband brought up) an empty cabinet from the basement ...AND TADA it is my new scrapbooking cabinet and now resides in the corner of our dining room.

After

Welcome to the Bunny Trail

At the Blissdom 12 conference, Hershey's asked bloggers to write about their favorite Easter traditions as part of their 2012 Bunny Trail across the country. 

So I have been thinking about what my favorite Easter traditions are.  I loves Easter mass, Easter chocolate, the spring flowers that we begin to see as Easter approaches, but my favorite tradition is dyeing eggs.  I know this may not seem very unique, but decorating eggs is what I remember most about Easter as a child.  My mom let us decorate eggs on Good Friday, and that tradition remains one of my treasured memories from my childhood.  So, I was so excited when our daughter was old enough to decorate eggs.

Where are the eggs, Mommy?

In addition to decorating eggs, we started a family egg hunt.  (My "cow man" husband plays Easter Bunny and hides the eggs.)

I hope our kids will treasure our Easter traditions as much as I have.  Happy Easter!