{Playing Catch Up}

I've really fallen behind on my blogging. I made a commitment to blog more frequently this year, and this month I've totally slacked. So to try to make up for my inactivity, I've decided to post some highlights of the past week or so.

1. In less than two weeks Tastefully Simple will unveil its Spring / Summer catalog. I'm SO excited about this new product line! I can hardly wait to share new bucket drinks, sauces, seasonings, and other goodies with my clients. A new season is always an exciting time!

2. Sasha lost her sixth tooth last night AND her top front teeth are finally growing in! She has been without her two front teeth since last summer and has grown very tired of the "toothless" look. Now she looks more like a jack-o-lantern, but at least she's headed in the right direction!

3. I've finally come to total peace with the decision NOT to send Clara to kindergarten next year. If you had asked me a year ago whether or not she would go to kindergarten in 2010 I wouldn't have thought twice about saying yes. But I've thought a LOT about it and I know in my heart that the best thing for Clara is to wait another year. And I feel good about this decision.

4. It's tax time. This is a crappy time of year for us as Cory does nothing but stress about paying Uncle Sam. I can't wait until this ordeal is over!

5. Cory and I enjoyed a wonderful meal at a fantastic German restaurant on Feb. 13th. We went with friends and really enjoyed ourselves. This was the first time we left all three kids with babysitters other than family!

6. Sadly, Dixon is sick again. He has a bad cold and an ear infection. He is just miserable and it's so hard to see him this way. On top of his sickness, he is also not growing. He has not gained any substantial weight since he was four months old, and he'll be ten months old on the 27th. I need to pack some weight on this boy!

7. This weekend Cory and I are packing up the family and heading south for my nephew's 8th birthday party. I can't wait for a fun couple of days with a bunch of family members!

8. I'm SO HAPPY to have achieved a goal of mine recently! I applied to be a creative team member at one of my favorite digital scrapping sites, Scrap Matters. There is SO much competition there because the site is perhaps the most popular digi site in cyberland. I was prepared for disappointment, but lo and behold I made it! If you don't digi scrap you probably don't understand what this means, so trust me when I tell you that it is super exciting. I can't wait to get started!

Those are the main "happenings" in our lives for now. We're still plugging away at dance classes (Sasha got her costumes for her recital tonight and they are SO adorable!), Daisy troop activities, numerous school events, and other things. I'm staying up too late watching the Olympics. We've been trying to enjoy all the snow even though at the same time we are hopeful that spring is right around the corner. Each day brings something new and exciting!

{Star of the Week}

Last week Sasha was Star of the Week in her kindergarten classroom. Every student gets a turn at enjoying this honor, and Sasha could hardly wait until it was her turn. The Star of the Week gets to do something special each day:

Monday: All the kids learn how to spell the Star's name. They do a name cheer and draw a picture of the Star. All the drawings are made into an adorable book that the Star gets to keep. (These drawings are SO cute!)

Tuesday: A big trifold poster display is filled with things all about the Star: favorites, birthday, photos, etc. The Star talks about the photos and all his or her favorites. Some of the photos I've seen when I volunteer are priceless!

Wednesday: Mystery Show & Tell! The Star brings something inside a bag that is stapled shut. Three clues as to what is inside are written on a note attached to the bag and the class tries to guess what it is. Sasha took her Webkins Siamese cat.

Thursday: A visitor comes to the class and has 30 minutes to do an activity with the kids. One of the kids had his dad bring a racecar to school so they could learn about racing, one mother brought a cake to class and taught them how to decorate (and eat!) it, and one mother taught the class how to make origami cranes. There have been other cool activities, too. Cory and I decided to keep the visitor a secret from Sasha. She had no idea who was coming! Cory was the visitor, although of course I was there to take pictures.

I bought chopsticks for all the kids and Cory brought one of his drums to teach the kids rhythm and basic drumming skills. Sasha was SO excited to see him there!
All the kids seemed to be really into the drumming, too. They paid attention and counted out the beats along with Cory.

Then each of the kids had a chance to play with the real sticks on the real drum. It was kind of neat to see how each of the kids responded to the instrument and which ones have natural rhythm.

Cory had fun and of course, so did Sasha. I know this is a day she will always remember.

Friday: The Star can bring a snack to share with the class. I planned to make cake balls, but I bought the wrong kind of icing and couldn't make the recipe. :( Because I don't typically have sweets and snacks in bulk, I had to make a mad dash to Giant Friday morning and buy cupcakes. I brought them to school shortly before lunch and got to see some of the class's 100th Day of School celebration.

Sasha also got to take Mo the Monkey home for the weekend as her last Star of the Week priviledge. She dressed that monkey up in all of her Bitty Baby clothes and played with it all weekend long. On Sunday we wrote about her time with Mo and Mrs. Eckenrode read her "story" to the class on Monday when Mo was returned to school.


I'm so proud of my Star! She's not just a star of one week in our eyes, she's a star every single day. Love you, baby!

{Fat Lip}

I realize that many of you moms out there think you are Mom of the Year, but I'm here to tell you that you are mistaken. Trust me, I have worn that crown since the fall of 2003, and based on my actions yesterday, the title is still mine.

The girls wanted to play in the snow in the worst way, so Cory and I bundled them up and headed outside into the "Snowmaggedon" of 2010. While the snow is a light snow, the kind that doesn't easily form into snowmen, we have sections of snow that are riddled with perfect snowballs. The plow must have compacted it and created these little gems.

So I decided to pick up a few of the snowballs and toss them at the girls. Of course I missed most of the time, but I did manage to hit them a couple times. Then it happened. Sasha was trying to find a snowball to throw at me when I tossed one at her. There must have been a piece of ice in it, because my light toss literally took the girl down.

I wasn't aiming for any particular part of her body. Heck, I'm happy if I even hit my target at all! But sadly, this snowball hit my girl right in the face. The result? A bloody, fat lip. She immediately had to lie down because she felt sick. You know, the "I'm going to pass out and break into a cold sweat from the pain" kind of sick. She literally layed in the snow for at least ten minutes. She tried to get up once but had to lie back down again. I felt sick.

After some time she managed to perk up and enjoy some sledding with Cory. When she came inside, we inspected the damage. Please forgive the bedraggled, fresh from playing in the snow look of this poor, poor child.

Yep, she's got a fat lip all right. But aren't those freckles adorable?

As the day wore on, her lip got bigger and puffier. And redder. She even said she didn't want to go to school on Monday because she didn't look pretty.

Moral of the story: Do not throw snowballs at your children. And if you do, make sure you check them for ice and have better aim than I have. Your children's faces will thank you.