• Affiliates

    If you're gonna shop anyway, I'd really appreciate it if you'd click through my links to help support the growing needs of ballet slippers, art supplies, and soccer shorts. :)

  • Add to Technorati Favorites
  • Mom Blogs
  • Widget_logo
  • -------------------------------
  • You are visitor number

    • 157,348
  • free counters

Friday’s Fotos: Look What I Made

There’s a SUPER cute pottery place around here calledΒ  Look What I Made. I checked it out myself during a Mom’s Night Out a few weeks ago (and made a purple and green mug. *grin* ) The way it works is you go in, paint the pottery, and then leave it for a week while they fire it up. That means it’s now microwave and dishwasher safe!

Last week, we had a play date there. Nanny Jessica took the kids to pick the pottery up this week (and paint more LOL!)

Burke's Creations

Maggie's Creations

Logan's Creation

And We’re Off…

Hey – that would work for school and Veteran’s day as the kids are off today…but alas, I was talking about the nanny search.

I’ve reached out (so far) to 4 people who look good on paper. I know I’ll be sending a few more inquiries out tonight after the kids go to bed as well. I really hate this process. It’s almost more nerve-racking than dating! I suppose mostly because it’s not just my life I’m messing with…it’s my kids’ lives. You send an email to someone who looks good and hope and pray that they’ll email you back. And then if THAT goes well, you ask them to meet in person and see if THAT goes well. See the parallels here?! (It’s a good thing I met Mike online – and it worked – or this would be even more awful LOL!)

I keep thinking that perhaps I should go through some agency somewhere…but I just can’t justify spending the money on that. I have in my head that the agency would do exactly what I’m doing. . . look through profiles online and then do some background research on people I like. And I suppose having someone do that for me would give me a lot of time back…but this is one of those things where I don’t know who I’ll like – or not like – until I see it.

So…wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed that a.) I’ll find a good one, and b.) it’ll be my LAST nanny!

Way Back When-esday

This is from September 30th of this year. There was an open house at Kindergarten, and Burke’s self-portrait was one of the few displayed by the office πŸ™‚

(His bangs were a wee bit long, so that’s the line down the middle of his forehead.)

The words at the bottom:
Meet Me
My name is Burke.
I like to ride my bike.
My favorite color is rainbow.
I can help Logan color by myself.

Joy Multiplier or Joy Thief?

This month, the topic of discussion with my Fishful Thinking peers is Multiplying Joy. Dr. Reivich states:

“By responding positively to others’ good news and sharing in their joy you are being a Joy Multiplier. On the flip side, when you do not show interest in the joy someone is sharing with you, you become a Joy Thief.”

And while the initial question asked wasΒ  “When are you a Joy Multiplier? What time of day do you respond most positively? What kinds of good news do you celebrate most with your children?” it kicked off some absolutely wonderful conversations!

My answer was:

I’d LIKE to say that I’m always a Joy Multiplier – whenever I hear good news I ask questions and get excited for the other person. And for the most part that’s true…except that whole “I’m *so* not a morning person” thing. Especially before I’ve had coffee…So, afternoons and early evenings are probably the time of day that I respond most positively.

I celebrate ALL good news with my children! Especially if it’s *their* good news. I’m all about celebrating even the “small” stuff – if you wait for the really big stuff, you may not ever celebrate – and that’s no fun. We’re always dancing πŸ™‚

Of course, my fear is that I’m also a Joy Thief because there are definitely times when I’m just unable to celebrate at the exact moment my kids come running in with news. Someone else brought that up in their response and I was quick to point out that it sounded like she celebrates LOTS of stuff, so perhaps she’s just a Joy Postponer and not a Thief.

Do you see how this ties in with last month’s discussion about being your own biggest critic? I was immediately able to let this other wonderful mom off the hook and see how she isn’t a Joy Thief, but when thinking about myself I go right to that.

Anyway…back to Joy. I’ve been thinking about ways to increase being a Joy Multiplier. I’m going to TRY to drop everything when my kids come to me with something to celebrate; but realistically, I know that I’m not always “in the mood” or simply able to drop everything. Plus, I’m not sure what kind of message that sends to them when they’re “allowed” to interrupt each and every time they have something exciting to say (like, if I’m on the phone or talking with another adult).

And I think if we start writing out our Joy List more often … adding to it each and every time there’s something TO celebrate, we’d be multiplying it not only at the time of the initial joy, but each time we reread it.

Oh, and did you know that Happiness is Contagious in Social Networking? If you multiply your joy online, you’re making not only YOUR day, but a whole lot of other people’s days too! Pretty cool, huh?

Makes My Monday: A Sunday Filled With Cards

For Halloween, in addition to candy, we gave out mini decks of cards. There were a few grabbed before the kids left to trick-or-treat, and a few left over after the neighborhood kids were done for the night.

Yesterday was filled with Rummy, High Flyer (like Old Maid), and War.

Burke is *really* into Rummy (and War), and Maggie enjoys High Flyer.

I just love that my kids are “getting” new card games – and that Makes My Monday.

 

More on Conventions

Yesterday’s post was a snapshot of the MMOTA State Convention that I attended. This was my first MMOTA convention and I had a really good time. I’m sure that I would have had even more fun if I had stayed over Friday night, but as this was my first one, I was more comfortable driving down Saturday morning.

Apparently, Friday nights are the fun-get-to-know-people-dance-and-drink-all-night nights. Next year πŸ˜‰

Saturday is the cool-raffles-fun-workshops-luncheon-speaker-shop-at-the-vendors day.

One of the workshops I went to was about cooking. Specifically cooking for kids, and making enough so that you can use it for lunch ideas the next day. Chef Tom used ….wait for it…..a crock pot!! A man after my own heart. Love, love, love my crock pot. He made short ribs (and we each got a taste of those holy cow yummy things). Then he used the “left-overs” to make ribbed grilled cheese sandwiches. Those were really good too! Then he got to his main point; use different liquids in your go-to meals and it’ll taste totally different. As a demonstration, he had muffins. He made them out of a typical cake mix and had one set made with water – as directed. The next set was coffee, then beer, then cranberry juice, then orange juice. Point made! They all tasted totally different. (Oh, and he put Blueberry beer in the short ribs…and I still liked them πŸ˜‰ )

Definitely gonna need to expand my liquids. Wonder what I should try first…

Anyway … I skipped my next workshop (BAD NANCY!!!). But, seriously. I’d signed up for one of the (THREE!!) exercise workshops…hoping for the one that would be the least intense (bye bye baby belly or something like that…billed as strength training). When I showed up to the room they were in, I saw all the hot, sweaty ladies coming out and thought, “ya. I don’t want to stink for the rest of the day, thanks.” …and high-tailed it out of there.

It’s all good though cuz I spent my time browsing through the vendors and came away with some great Christmas presents! (And a cool bracelet for me.)

The lunch was good and the comedienne was mostly funny. (She bombed a few jokes, but I did get in a whole bunch of belly laughs). She has twins who are 5 and a 3 year old…to say that I could relate is an understatement πŸ˜‰

I can’t believe it only took me 5 years to get up the courage to go to one of these…I’m *SO* there next year!!

Saturday Snapshot: MMOTA State Convention

My first Mom’s of Twins Convention!!

It Was Bound To Happen

Just under two weeks ago, I posted about Logan being dry his first overnight in undies.

He made it almost 2 weeks without a single accident!! This morning was the first time he woke up wet…and wonderful Mom that I am, I didn’t even notice at first.

With Burke, I made a habit of “checking” each morning to see if I needed to change the bed. Since Logan’s been so dry, I haven’t been checking. So when he wandered downstairs, I said “Good morning!” to him and continued to help Maggie get dressed while he played for a little bit.

He comes over for a big hug and I notice that his jammies are wet…
Me: “Logan, are your jammies wet?”
Logan: “It’s just from my bed.”

Uhm…okay. Pretty sure he didn’t even realize that he peed! LOL

It’s just from my bed

Totally Melted My Heart

Burke’s homework this week.

 

It says: I like to play with my little brother.

Way Back When-esday

Cheryl over at Twinfatuation hosts this one. Go on over to see who else is playing – and join in too!

This photo comes alllllll the way back from October 14th…the day the Mickey Mouse costume came in. You won’t see the (HUGE!!) hands in any other Halloween pictures though…Logan hated them. Ah well. You can’t win them all. πŸ˜‰

(I know, it’s a little fuzzy. Cell phone picture!)