The Boots

9/365

 Everyday Things

The theme of the day is Everyday Things. 

Jacob wants to wear these boots Everyday.  

At least, today, there is still snow.  

But the temps are rising, so there won't be snow for much longer.

That may not stop him. 

Light

7/365

The Theme of the Photo of the Day is Light.  

This is my Desert Mist Diffuser. 

It was just released this past summer at Convention.  

And I bought it.  In June.

But I didn't bring it home until the end of October.  

I had sent my Convention articles to Mom, because there was some reason that the Insect Repellant couldn't be sent to Indiana.  So I had it sent to her in Florida, only it missed her leaving, because there were shipping delays.  Very Disappointing.  At least, it was safe with Aunt Teri, until we got back down there.  In October.  

I was so upset by this box, because it represented a summer's worth of failures to me, that I couldn't get it together to open it.  Until Christmas Break.  Sam wasn't feeling well, so I did some rearranging of Diffusers, and decided it was time to unpack this bad boy.  

It is Beautiful. 

The light can be bright and beautiful, or calming with an incandescent flicker, or any color in between.  In this case the light was Bright.  

And it was Good.  

I'd forgotten how nice it was.  This was the only light in the living room, not enough winter daylight to light the room.  So I am planning to use this pretty more often! 

Pile of Yarn

6/365

 I got to be Starting Something.

It's that time of year, when I have to have yarn in my lap. 

I finished a big project, I knit a Hufflepuff Scarf for Emily, and have recently started a Green Slytherin one for Sam. But it doesn't build fast. 

And sometimes I need to mix it up with something that builds fast. 

The Photo of the Day is My Happy Place.  My Happy Place is on my couch with a lap full of yarn. Bonus points for being fireside (not in picture) .  Then it's Really my Happy Place.   And the fire was on in this case.  Shh... it's a surprise.  It's going to be a baby blanket for one of Eric's coworkers, just a simple design of double crochets in a row as long as my arm, using two skeins, and I'll be trimming it in pink.  But on this day, it's thicker than a tie, but not long enough to be a decent scarf.  It's getting there though.  

Stacked

5/365

This is the stack of papers that Christopher didn't do over break for his Kumon homework.  

I found out about it from my friend Kelley who runs the Kumon Center.  She wrote asking if Chris had told me that he lied about getting his stuff done this week. She wanted to know if I wanted him to redo the work, apparently, he'd skipped 1 week of the 2 weeks worth of work.  Ugh.  

So I swung by, and she handed me this giant stack.  

The theme of the day from my photo challenge was Stacked. 

This bunch of Math and Reading work sure is stacked.  

I can't decide who I'm more upset with, Chris? Because he lied.  Or myself, because I didn't babysit him and check that he did all his work.  He's flipping 12. Yeah, I guess this one is mostly on him.  

He got himself grounded for the weekend, at least.  And he's going to be my Beck and Call boy for a long time if we chose to let him out.  So much for earning privileges, and being ungrounded.  That lasted all of 5 days. :(  My heart is sad.  

As my friend said, it makes for a Rough Mama night.  Yes it has.  

Connor Prairie

I have a friend from College I recently hooked up with through Facebook.  She has a son a little younger than Jacob, Austin who acts a lot like Chris.  He's a bit high maintenance too.  He's needed a little help from First Steps, and just recently started Developmental Preschool.  He and Jacob got along swimmingly.  We decided to meet up at Connor Prairie. They had a plus 2 membership and they got us in, to play at their holiday indoor festivities, which were still going on strong. 

The boys got right in staring at their Gingerbread House displays.  

They both wanted desperately to eat all the candies. 

Apparently, me getting a picture of Austin looking at the camera is a super rare thing. 

He went for it, for a brief moment.  

Too bad Jacob didn't do so at the same time.  Goofball. 

They did have a lot of fun with the trains.  

My sweetboy playing House. 

Honestly, the set up and house looked just like a dollhouse version of Little House on the Prairie. 

He found he could be the tallest sweetboy on the playground pretty easily.  

Suddenly, he seems so old.  He's only 4 1/2! 

There was a surprising amount of Science goodies on display to play with, the boys loved building propellers and making the wind blow.  

Science! 

When they left the playground, Austin said he wanted to go "Play Circus".  That sounded like a good time to me, it was how I talked Jacob into leaving that area willingly.  Though as it turned out, Austin meant Circuits, not Circus.  Doh.   They still had a good time.  

But I think Jacob was looking for the Ringling Brothers for the rest of our journey. 

Instead we found a Snowball Fight! 

A Civil War soldier was in charge of the Snowball fight game. 

They were supposed to get hit once, and go down like a good soldier.  

Our boys didn't. 

They were vicious attackers.  

It was Awesome.  

The Soldier went down like a superchamp though. 

Hazelnuts. 

They had a nifty display of local tree  nuts.  

I got to taste a Hickory nut. Now I know why the squirrels are so happy in our yard, they are Tasty! 

And it turns out Indiana hazelnuts are small and grown/harvested in clumps.  But European ones look like Chestnuts.  I wasn't tasting either one, as I'm now allergic.  

My Lunch Date. 

Laura and Austin didn't get to stick around for lunch, so I had a nice date in the cafeteria, which was not crowded at all, there was only one other family.  So I got a nice date with this Sweetboy.  

After he ate, he popped over to the window to look out. 

This photo turned out amazing! 

This was the view we saw from the cafeteria.  Somewhere out in that field is where the ISO -Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra plays in the summer.  That's the last time I was out here. 

I may have to come again when it's not snowy and freezing.  We had a good time.  

Plain - The plain plain is mainly... covered in snow.  

Plain was the theme of the day.  

And I loved this. 

4/365

This is the farm at 900 and 700 in the Burg.  It's a sea of snowy field, and with the sky so blue, it just spoke to me through its Beauty.  

Too bad it has to be so cold to be so Beautiful. 

On the floor

 3/365

Jacob should have gone back to school with his brothers.  

But he didn't.  He wasn't able to go because the heat broke down in their classrooms. 

So it was going to be just Jake and I.  

Jake was being extra sweet looking on the floor for a toy ball that rolled underneath the couch. 

My theme of the day was On the Floor.  

Meanwhile, this sweetboy broke a spring on his braces, and I had to run him in.  

Unfortunately, I always have to put him on the bus before making the appointment.  So I have to snag him later.  This morning after his appoitment, it was so cold, we all needed drinkies.  

Chris has grown, he now drinks an adult size Tall, but still at Kid's Temperature. 

All Jacob needed was a Child's Hot Cocoa.  It hit the spot.  He finished it before I even got home.

On the Floor for GrandmaMusik. 

After sending Chris back to school, we popped down to Mom's for GrandmaMusik class.  Now that she's retired, she teaches Jacob a smidge about music, like dancing, songs, how to play sticks.  This week, we were waving scarves.  A big hit.  

It's a bit of a workout, chasing sweetboys all over the floor. 

So I chose this photo to be our snap of the day.  Seemed good.  Mom's leaving for FL for the rest of winter next week, so it's good for Jake and Grandma to get their fixes in while they can. 

Mom made she and I Ningxia Cocktails after lunch.  

She puts Ningxia Red, Sparkling berry water, Tart Cherry juice, and a splash of Green juice. 

Then we added whatever Oils we wanted before adding ice. I chose Lemon and Frank, but I think it would be great with Orange or Tangerine too.  Can't go wrong with citrus oils! 

Dumbo the Great

 It is our last day of Winter Break, and it was a Pajama day.  

The kids opted for jammie day, and I put a fresh round of jammies on, because my friend Kathy was coming over to work on our Challenge.  We're working our way through the entire list of Disney full length feature film cartoons.  We started with Snow White last fall, knocked out Pinocchio and Fantasia a while back, and on Thursday, we knocked out Dumbo.   

Dumbo isn't a very long movie.  

But that Baby Mine thing gets me every time. 

Did I mention that it's Freaking Freezing?  Still.   

So I broke out the yarn and snuggled up with my Jedi Snuggie.  

I've started a present for one of Eric's coworkers, she's having a baby girl.  I don't get to work girly baby blankets very often anymore. 

It was so cold, even Christopher broke out his yarn.  He's almost finished with his scarf.  I suspect he'll be wearing it sometime this winter. 

 I also warmed up today with my Challenge photo 

2/365

My photo was zoomed in, and focused more on what's in my hand.  It's a squirt of Relaxation Massage Oil, that is Yellow because of the orange and tangerine oils that are in it, and I squirted into a mitful of Epsom Salts.  It makes for a perfectly moisturizing bath.  Nice!