winter to spring

Goodbye basketball...

Hello t-ball!

Although, the freezing rain has started and we're supposed to accumulate snow tonight. Hopefully we'll see our awesome spring weather again soon!

new routine

Grace and Molly are finally settling into the afternoons with me working at home. For awhile there, I thought I was going to have to send Grace back to aftercare and lock Molly in her kennel all day with the constant whining and barking going on around here. But, they have finally found a few past times to keep them occupied on the days I need to get work finished up during the couple of hours between lunch and Sam pickup. Molly's favorite thing to do is pass out right next to the chair I happen to be sitting in. Here she is in the dining room:

And Grace, amongst other things like art, playing with Barbies, reading or watching Cake Boss, likes to spend an hour "working" on the computer each week. Here she is digitally coloring a picture of strawberries at sproutonline.com at Daddy's desk:

I'm pretty sure that's the same thing Daddy does here, too. :)

St. Pat's!

A few days late...the kids were thrilled to head to school in green instead of uniforms! Grace's class visited one of the 2nd grade classes to help them clean up their room after a sneaky little leprechaun had messed up their room. And Sam's class had a leprechaun visit and leave them each a gold chocolate coin on their desks, making sure to leave Sam a pile of rainbow Skittles instead because leprechauns are pretty smart and know not to leave chocolate that was manufactured on shared equipment with peanuts and tree nuts for the kid who is allergic to such items. :)

custom wedding invitations + a little organization

I'm the guest blogger over at the Kuzak's Closet blog today, as part of Wedding Week! Click here to go over and check out my post on custom wedding invitations.

In honor of being featured on the blog of my super-organized organizer friend, I decided to clean out the medicine cabinet in our kitchen this past weekend. Check out my before and afters below!

before / after

Mandy is going to be so proud of me! I used some tips I've picked up from her blog, as I was figuring out the best way to create a useful space out of the original unorganized mess. If you are in the San Francisco Bay area and in need of a little help weeding through your clutter, be sure to contact Kuzak's Closet.

the big news

There have been big changes around here over the past few weeks. I'm just going to skip the long story and say that I'm now working independently, from the comfort of my own house...and LOVING it! I'm slowly starting to grow my business and have a long list of plans to continue that growth, which includes expanding my Etsy shop. As I post new items, I will be updating here, so watch for them. Also, a Facebook business page will be in my future, and I will also post a link to that here. For now, click here for a link to a brief online portfolio of my work. If you are in need of design work, please contact me, and if you know anyone looking for a designer, please feel free to pass the link along to them. Thanks!

new addition!

Once upon a time, a little boy turning 6 received some birthday cards with money tucked inside. He thought long and hard about what he wanted to do with this money. He had been eyeing a ninja Lego set for some time, but on a visit to Meijer for groceries, one day, he asked his mom if he could check out the fish there. As they watched the fish swimming, he decided that he may want to use his birthday money for a new pet of his very own. The grocery shopping was finished, and the boy returned home to ponder his decision.

That Saturday, he declared to his mom that he did, indeed, want to spend his money on a fish. So, the two headed to the pet store with his birthday money and he methodically picked out a tank, some items to build a little fish home inside, fish food, water conditioner, and, of course, he new blue and red betta. He also consulted with the fish specialists on duty at the store to be sure he knew how to care for his new pet. He also seemed slightly relieved by the fact that the store would take the fish back within two weeks and replace it should he happen to get ill or die.

So, he marched alongside his full cart over to the checkout and paid with his very own birthday money. On the way out of the store, he was thrilled to run into a classmate and be able to show him his fish before even getting the little guy home.

Meet Jack.

He brings the boy much happiness, especially since he's already been trained to swim to the upper corner of his tank for his food as soon as the lid opens.

And the boy, who attends Catholic school and has been talking about the Holy Spirit in class, was sure to let his parents know that the Holy Spirit gave him the courage to make a choice between a ninja Lego set and a fish.

His parents are certain he's happy with his choice.

Miss Mouse

I'm aware, that, even though the name of my blog is "Back in St. Olaf...", I've been pretty bad at writing as Rose would. I think maybe this post will make up for that.

When I first went part-time at work, I was pet-obsessed. We had yet to adopt Molly and I was starting to get annoyed with my ungrateful furball of a giant cat who likes to bite me in the middle of the night for no apparent reason and who will have nothing to do with the kids. I REALLY wanted to add a dog to the family. So, the kids and I regularly stopped in to PetSmart while running errands to check out who was there that week. We'd visit with the dogs, check out the fish and lizards, laugh at the mice and see how many cats we could make purr.

On one trip there, Sam fell in love with a full-grown gray and white short-haired cat named Miss Mouse. She was the sweetest thing...loved the attention she was getting from us even though two of us were under 3-1/2 feet tall. Sam wanted her so bad, but I knew another cat would not be the best decision...I was afraid our ornery old man, Gordon, would add peeing in inappropriate places to his short list of annoying habits, if we were to invade his space with another cat. So, we left Miss Mouse to be adopted by another family. The next week, when we stopped into PetSmart, her cage had a new occupant and Sam was happy to see that she had been taken home to live with another loving family. For some reason, though, that six short minutes of interaction with that cat has stuck with my boy and, every once in awhile, he reminds me of that great cat we met that day.

This post has nothing to do with that cat. But it does have to do with Grace, who is my little miss, and the day she dressed as a mouse for her school nursery rhyme performance, so naturally, Miss Mouse came to mind. So here is my little Miss Mouse, on the day she performed Hickory Dickory Dock for all the preK parents to see, in her costume that I busted out the night before she needed it! She did a great job and it was a lot of fun to watch all the kids perform the nursery rhyme they had chosen.

And, we ended up with a Miss Mouse in our lives afterall!

holding him back...

Sam's imagination is all over the place...I really think movie writers should be consulting with him. It's just a shame that his horrible parents are hindering his creative aspirations. Like this day, when I gave him a box that just wasn't big enough to serve as the base for the rocket ship he was building so he could jet off to defeat some aliens from some unknown planet with his laser guns that were waiting to be loaded onto the ship:

I'm pretty sure I'll be left out of the acceptance speech for the future Academy Award because of this very day.

toy review -- Legos!

Legos might, quite possibly, be the best toy ever. Can I get an "amen", moms? Some might not believe this statement, but you have to understand that the conditions must be right...the Legos must be contained to a Lego table up and out of the major foot traffic of the house (because those little plastic corners have been known to yield a four-letter word or two in this house as they were jamming up into the bottom of a foot) and, if building a specific set, the kid must be old enough to follow the directions on their own with little help. Because, then, and only then, can a mother retreat to the basement to camp out in front of an HGTV marathon of House Hunters, knowing that several episodes later she will find her 6-year-old still enthralled with the nine separate Lego scenes he's been working on. These days we see a lot of this around the house:

The Lego games don't rank as high on my list...a little complicated when you actually play the game by the directions. But, the boy still gets a ton of imaginary play out of the particular game he requested from Santa, even if we don't actually play the game all that often. He had to build a pyramid with a bunch of mummies and treasures before we could actually play and now I see him playing with it several times a week. And really, how can I knock a game that includes a king that my kids claim is wearing "the french fry crown"?

the next generation

My little artists never cease to amaze me.

Big changes around here over the last few weeks...will elaborate soon!