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Thankful

I’m thankful for many things all year, but I thought I’d take today to express what some of those things are.
In no particular order…

* My family. All of it! Immediate, extended, and everything in between. I’m so blessed to have such a close-knit family. I love you guys πŸ™‚
* Mike. I know he’s a part of my family – but he so deserves to have a line of his own. He totally gets me, and understands my quirks and still loves me anyway. In a nutshell, he speaks “Nancy” πŸ™‚
* My job. I may not always love it, but I do enjoy it. And I’m fully aware of how lucky I am to have such a great position in this economy. I’m also aware of how incredibly lucky I am to be working from home full-time and that they’re super flexible with me. All things that make it possible to be there when my kids need me.
* My community. This includes our town, our church, my twins club, and my online support system In short – my sanity keepers πŸ™‚

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m so glad that you’re all in my life. πŸ™‚

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 one was taken on Thanksgiving in 2004. Mike and I were visiting his Pop and Step-mom in Arizona. I was 5 months pregnant with the twins…

Which Tummy?

Prolos!

The PTO ladies brought snacks to the session last week. One of the treats that disappeared quite quickly (with good reason!) was called “Prolos” – A Rolo sandwiched between two pretzels. HOLY COW, Yu-um. And easy enough to make with your kids!

I lined 3 cookie sheets (mine are stoneware) with parchment paper and put one in front of each kid. Then I put a pile of “heart pretzels” (as Burke calls them) by the cookie sheets and told the kids to spread them out over the cookie sheets.

Placing Pretzels

Once Logan realized he wasn’t supposed to just eat the pretzels, he got in on the fun too.

Then came the Rolos. We unwrapped them and placed one on each pretzel. (Again, Logan had a hard time with the “Don’t eat them yet!” heh)

Rolos on Top

Rolos on Top

Maggie liked putting them on up-side-down. Not sure why… πŸ™‚ After a few tries, Logan would chant “No eat.” each time I handed him an unwrapped Rolo.

Put them in the oven (at 350) for about 2 minutes. Just enough to get them squishy.

Making the Rolos Squishy

2 Minutes is STILL a Long Time to Wait

Be careful when you take the cookie sheet out – squishy Rolos tend to slide a bit…

Sliding Rolos

While the Rolos are still warm, place another pretzel on top and press down slightly. (I did this while the kids watched … Hot stoneware plus 3 kids makes me nervous!)

Pressed Pretzels

Put in the refrigerator to harden the chocolate. After an hour or so, you can transfer them to an air-tight container.

Store in the Fridge so the chocolate doesn’t melt too much, but be sure to take them out a little while before you want to serve them. (Otherwise the caramel is a tooth hazard…)

Makes My Monday: Trains!

Daddy set up a cool train track for the kids to play with. πŸ™‚

The fact that Daddy has time (and patience) to put together such a cool track, and seeing the pure joy on the kids’ faces Makes My Monday!

Cheryl over at Twinfatuation hosts this one. Head on over to see what else makes people’s Mondays (there are always some really good ones!)

I Did It!!

On Wednesday, I presented a Parent Enrichment “class” about Fishful Thinking to Burke and Maggie’s preschool. There were about 30 people there…probably about 1/2 parents and 1/2 teachers. The teachers received credit toward their teaching certification for attending. (How cool is that?? πŸ™‚ )

.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I’m SO NOT a public speaker. In high school, I was always the stage manager … never on stage. So this is actually a huge deal for me. It’s not something that I’d like to do all the time – but it was a great bunch, and I actually had a lot of fun!

Before going in, I kept telling myself that the message is so great … even if I completely mess things up and all they get out of it is “Fishful Thinking is a great tool to help you raise optimistic kids…go see the website,” I’ve done my job. LOL!

I prepared a folder with a CD pocket in the front. In the CD pocket, I placed the FT brochure and the cute little booklet. I put 6 articles I printed out (double-sided – save a tree!) in the big pocket: 1 for each of the 5 ingredients and an extra one that just resonated with me. I had business cards printed out and used double-sided tape to attach it to the front of the folder. And I had some left-over pens from the summer’s kit to attach to the side. And, of course, I had Goldfish to hand out as well. πŸ™‚

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Once there, I introduced myself, gave a little bit of background about me, Pepperidge Farm, Dr. Reivich, and Fishful Thinking. Then I went into my schpeal.

For each of the 5 ingredients, I explained what they were and then broke the crowd up into smaller groups of 4 or 5. I handed out the questions that came with the Ambassador kit and got the groups really thinking about things for about 5 minutes or so…and then brought them back together and asked a group or two to share what they came up with. It was neat to overhear the discussions – these questions really got everyone thinking! We chatted a little bit more about the ingredient and I’d give a fact or two that I found on the Fishful Thinking website.

I then introduced a “kid” activity that went along with the ingredient. I had done a few of them with my kids, so I brought along “samples.” (The treasures box went over REALLY well – especially since it can be used in families with kids of all ages).

At the end I told them about my absolute favorite thing that’s come out of Fishful Thinking so far: The Shake Off the Frustrations Dance πŸ™‚ And then answered questions.

I presented a sign-up sheet for a Yahoo Group I created for anyone interested in knowing when a new article or activity is introduced…and the night was done!

I had a few people come up and just gush about how great the program sounds and how they can’t wait to hear more. One of my kids’ teachers came up and mentioned that they were thinking about how they do things, and were really happy to know that they DO do things that were mentioned when I was talking (for example, setting small – attainable – goals that kids can master like picking up all of the green blocks).

All-in-all, it was a really great experience.

Saturday Snapshot: The Zoo!

Nope, not home…the local Zoo πŸ™‚

It was such a gorgeous day out, I decided to take the kids to the Zoo while Mike was working. Yep – just me with all 3 kids! I put the Monkey leash on Logan (because I knew he wouldn’t want to stay in his stroller, and there was no way I’d be keeping up with three kids while pushing a(n empty) stroller.)

At the Wolf Exibit

The wolves got really close!

Logan at the Wolf Cave

Maggie at the Wolf Cave

At the Monkey Exibit

"Look at that one!!"

"What's that?!"

"Nice kitty"

"She rolled over!"

Seems a little close to me...

They were *really* good. We even played at the Zoo playground for a while.

Cheryl over at Twinfatuation hosts this one. Go over and have a look at what others are doing on this dreary Saturday.

Fx4: Random Stuff

I have a whole bunch of random, unrelated pictures from the past week.

For some reason, the past few nights have cracked me up when I went in to check on Logan.

Zebra Pillow

Zonked

I talk a lot about Burke’s drawing skills, so I thought I’d post something Maggie did that impressed me. She’s made millions of these over the past week πŸ™‚

Maggie's Turkey Hand

Maggie’s Speech class homework this week as to blow a cotton ball across the table with a straw. (It’s supposed to teach her to speak through her mouth rather than through her nose.) All 3 kids had a blast with it.

Speech Homework

We finally figured out that the twins should probably get out of their car seats and into booster seats. The push? I couldn’t snap the belts over their winter coats. . . otherwise, they’d probably still be in the old ones.Β  (Bad mommy!) I don’t think any of us realized how much more comfortable they would be in these…mostly because none of us (including the kids) really realized that they were uncomfortable in the first place.

Booster Seats!

Candid Carrie sponsors Friday’s Foto Finish Fiesta – head over to her blog and find LOTS of links for bloggers who’ve joined in! (You can join in too!)

Something’s Gotta Give

It’s official. I do too much and it’s starting to feel like plates are crashing down on my head.Β  Sure…some of it is (hopefully) just a one time thing – like last night’s Fishful Thinking presentation at Burke and Maggie’s school. But some of it – like teaching Sunday School – isn’t. I need to start prioritizing and I need to learn how to say “no, I just can’t do it.”

Obviously, my job isn’t negotiable. And frankly, I actually enjoy doing it – when I have the motivation πŸ˜‰

My blog is non-negotiable as well. It’s my one outlet to get thoughts down to help work through things…and the only place that I journal about the kids!

My second job is so tiny and infrequent that I think it’s okay to keep that one going. It can get stressful when my boss says “Hey, can you look this over and have it edited by noon tomorrow?” …but he doesn’t do that too often.

I *LOVE* being a part of my twins club, so I highly doubt that will be dropped at any point in the near future. The membership position looks like it might be shifting slightly due to our move from Yahoo Groups to BigTent, so that may lighten that load anyway. (Plus, I’ll be changing positions next year. More about that one later though.) I haven’t been able to go to many of the recent COPE meetings for the club – and I really miss those. It’s fun to go out and chat with other ladies who totally get what you’re going through. Or to give some advice here and there since I’ve already been through a lot of it… The General meetings/Board meetings have stopped being monthly, so there are only 4 months out of the year where I feel like I have at least one thing going on each week.

The Fishful Thinking stuff isn’t really all THAT time-consuming. Since I had the presentation last night, it was consuming things for the past week, but that’s pretty unusual. Plus, I *REALLY* like the message that Fishful Thinking brings to the table. I do most of that “sharing” online, or while waiting for Burke and/or Maggie, so it’s time that would have been “wasted” anyway. πŸ™‚

Sunday School? *sigh.* It terrifies me. πŸ˜› I’m not a teacher. I don’t know WHAT I was thinking when I said “sure! I’ll help out!” when Pastor L. asked…I think I was thinking “I’m new…might be a good way to meet more people.” And … it has been. But it still terrifies me. Those poor kids are learning about the bible from ME?? Yikes. At least they’re only 4 and most of what we’re doing is coloring pictures to go along with the stories. . .One of the teachers has already backed out (with good reason), so that leaves only 3 of us (we rotate months of being teacher/helper/off). I’ll fulfill my obligation, but I really don’t think I’ll sign up for it again next year. I AM afraid it might be one of those “hey, we’ve already gotcha” things, and it’ll be tough to get out of next year though.

I also committed to a women’s circle at church. It’s just starting up, so I thought perhaps it would be another good way to meet more ladies around town without feeling like I’m crashing an established “club”. They meet monthly – and on a weekend! – so I think that’ll be pretty good. We’ve had one meeting so far and it’s a fun bunch.

I did just say “I just can’t do it” to another women’s group at church…it’s one that meets in the middle of the week and my heart sped up just thinking about trying to attend it each month. I felt terrible saying “no” … and it was hard!! But I did it.

It’s a start…and I KNOW I have a hard time saying “no, thanks” when people ask me to do things…and apparently, knowing is half the battle πŸ˜‰

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 one was taken in November of 2005. Burke and Maggie were about 2 months shy of turning one. This is one of the first times we were able to capture Burke on film standing on his own!

"Look, Ma! No Hands!"

A Twin Story

My friend Debi let me know that Nov. 17th is the day assigned to raising national awareness for the preemie crisis (through the March of Dimes). Join lots of other bloggers sharing their stories here: http://www.bloggersunite.org/event/fight-for-preemies

Debi also hosts Two for Tuesdays. I’m supporting both by posting a new page!

Read the story of how Burke and Maggie arrived. It’ll also be housed up at the top for a while before I tuck it up under “The Story of Us” πŸ™‚

Enjoy!