New Family Names

I'm inspired by Rebecca's quest to rename her family members for her blog (highmaintenanceaspirations). I used to use my kids' real names...then, I changed it to their first initials...makes it easier to type, I guess, but not that, um, interesting!

Therefore,

My son shall henceforth be called Sharkbait, after his obsession, sea creatures, and one of his favorite movie characters, Nemo.

My elder daughter shall be named SweetSong, because she has started singing praise songs with daddy playing on the guitar. I also caught her singing her own melody one day...something like "shine, shine, shine, shine, shine, like Jesus, like God"...very cute. Very goofy, too!

And my younger daughter shall be called Snuggie, because she's snuggly. Incidently, I got a pink Snuggie for Christmas! (Please ignore her 80s looking hair. I have no clue what's up with that.)

Hmmm, I don't think I'll name hubby...but if I did name him, I'd dub him Soundbyte, or something like that, since he's musically inclined...

And me, I'm just *Sunny* :)

Pink and Purple Picnic Party

V turned four this week. I enjoy the fourth year so much more than the second and the third! Here's to hoping it's a great year!

V wanted a pink and purple picnic party, so we invited several little girls over to make it happen :)

We got everything we needed at the dollar store and Walmart!

*Four pieces of fabric, which I hemmed, for the picnic cloths (what are they called?)

*A little heart-shaped basket for each gal, with a heart-shaped PB&J sandwich, cheesestring, dried fruit, and a disposable straw/sippy cup with pink lemonade (of course!)

*Craft: purple and pink chenille stems (aka pipe cleaners), tiny flowers, and ribbon = flower "garland"...the girls loved them!

*My mom is in town and made beautiful roses on the chocolate cupcakes. (V wanted "brown" cupcakes for her cake!)

As you can see, there was concern that H might blow out the birthday girl's candles before the song was done...

All in all, a great pink and purple picnic party :)

Moving Sale!

We are having a huge moving sale tomorrow, as long as the rain falls after 12pm!

For sale items include:

2 TVs
1 VCR
all kiddie VHS
My First Leap Pad
Hubby's beloved Playstation, plus games
J's beloved Gameboy, plus games
all electronic/battery-operated kid toys (except "musical" instruments or vehicles)

We're selling lots of other stuff, too, but this decision to sell most of our electronic entertainment things is HUGE!

I really don't want to give up my free babysitters, but I know it's best for my kids...I've known for a while. Don't get me wrong, we've tried many times to wean ourselves off electronics, but it's just too easy to put a video on when I'm getting dinner ready and the kids are bored! I don't think it's bad to have kids watch one or two educational videos daily, but I can't do just one. Incidently, I also can't eat just one potato chip. Curse my sanguine tendencies!

But the decision to get rid of most electronics (we're keeping our portable DVD player and DVDs for the ridiculous drives we make to see family) was finalized when we took J to the psychologist on Tuesday.

Together Hubby and I decided that TV is bad for all kids, but it's worse for kids who (might) have autism or sensory processing issues.

We're going to replace the electronic toys with a nice play kitchen I hope to purchase with the money made at the sale. I'm also scouring our local yard sale website for cheap, creative play toys.

It's best for our kids. It'll work! We'll make it work...

Please pass the Motrin.

Missed the Boat; Taking the Ferry

Well, I never did get out the Christmas letter/card and traditional family photo! Oops.

So, yesterday morning, I dressed the kids up and took pics of them to get on a Valentine's card. I put the pics on Snapfish and picked up my completed photo cards by 11am at Walgreens! I love online and one-hour photo services!!!

Here are some pics that didn't make the cut:

I thought it'd be cool if the action shot would work out. It didn't. Still cute, though!

For obvious reasons, I did not choose this photo.

Isn't this a darling photo? We borrowed The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight from the library last night, but from this photo, it's hard to imagine why we'd need to read it! If you were here 24/7, though, you'd see why.

:)

And here are the photos that made it on the card:

Christmas in Northern New York

Highlights of Christmas

(I believe they are okay to recount until the end of January; after that, I would've missed the boat.)

1. V called my mom "my mom" or "mom-mom". This is because I told her that grandma is my mom. It was the cutest thing ever!






2. H learned to navigate stairs and it was (of course) very difficult to keep her away from them. (We don't have stairs in our house.) Also, she was intensely interested in the cats and would pursue them even after being swiped by them.







3. J loves to go to Grandma's house because she makes waffles with butter. He also likes her home-made bread with butter. Any complex carb with butter is appreciated, in fact!!!



(No pic, bummer!)


4. We had a visit by my dear friend and her hubby. I call her Master Chef because she directed all us sous-chefs in making a delicious Korean meal. More friends from our time in Korea joined us for the meal.





5. My sis and her boyfriend came to visit, too! He made an absolutely delightful buche de noel. We used it as a birthday cake for Grandma, V, and Grandpa, all with January birthdays!





6. and, of course, there was the playing in snow!!!






7. Then there was the flight back home with the girls...another story completely...ha!!!



Hope your Christmasses were just as bright!!!

the ugly christmas sweater party

We went to our first ever ugly Christmas sweater party this past weekend. (This explains the shoulder pads in my 3rd-grade-elderly-teacher-quality sweater and my poofy, red headband.) It was fun going to Goodwill with a few girlfriends to pick out our families' clothing! But shoot, my kids just looked plain adorable in their "ugly" outfits, so commented everyone. You can't see hubby's sweater well, but it has a Mickey Mouse embroidered on it. Mickey is wearing a scarf; this is why it's Christmas-y/winter-y.

i'm hoping that next year's party's theme is "Christmas sweatshirts with puffy paint, glitter and/or sequins, reindeer preferable".

How we eat lunch

After trying unsuccessfully to get the kids to sit down for a whole meal, I relaxed the standards. We find breakfast and lunch much more peaceful now! (For dinner, we have the kids sit in chairs.)





J prefers to "sit" on the exercise ball.

























V likes to stand on the "big stool". H, of course, is firmly strapped into her booster (no moving around for her yet!)












We're having Velveeta's mac'n'cheese with peas added, in case you're wondering :)