lego mania

I am not exaggerating when I say that the girls spent the entire weekend playing with legos.  They built, sorted, and made an entire little village on the one side of our playroom.

Two funny/scary things came out of this.

First of all, Olivia obviously walked through one area of the village and wasn't quite as careful as she should have been.  Amelia commented, "I think a tornado came through here!"  Meredith responded, "I think it was a Livi tornado."

Second story:
Did you know that you can download lego plans from their website?  People are pretty rough on their instruction guides around here.  So, when the girls were putting together some of their older sets this weekend, they had the computer sitting down low on a kitchen chair so that they could see the plans from the computer.

Our laptop typically sits on the counter right next to where they have been working this weekend.  At one point this morning, I heard Olivia say to one of her sisters, "I held the computer, and I didn't even drop it."

Cue pride from the child.  Cue panic from the mother.

We then had a very serious discussion about how "you may NOT move Mommy's computer! You may ask Mommy to move it for you, but you may not move it yourself!"  ...followed by prayers of thanksgiving that she didn't drop it. :)  Whew!!

the first post of 2015

January.  The month for New Year's resolutions.  I definitely have a few goals for the year, yet I don't think I'm doing so well thus far.

Per the recommendation of my blogger buddy, Sarah, I started an Instagram account.  This may or may not be contributing to my lack of blogging.  More than likely, it is.  However, I confess that I've been really enjoying not being on the computer much lately.  And I confess: I love Instagram...like, really love it. 

Plus, I have that fancy new smart phone.  And who blogs from a smart phone?  No one.  I Instagram and Facebook from my smart phone.  They're so easy, but they're certainly not my blog.  And I love my blog.  

One of my New Year's resolutions is to blog once a week.  I'm obviously not doing well because it's January 23, and this is my first post of the year.  I'm not even including a picture.  Shameful, I know.  We'll see how I do.  

We've been enjoying a lot of downtime since Christmas, even since school resumed the first full week of the year.  It has been nice.  One of my other New Year's resolutions was to go to bed earlier and get up at a consistent time in the morning.  I'm always all over the board.  My friend, Deanna, is totally keeping me accountable for this one.  And until tonight, I've done extremely well at keeping my curfew.  Tonight? I've blown it already, so why not blog a little more?

Claire and I are spending a weekend together next weekend, Meredith's 10th birthday is just around the corner, and I have weekends out of town for various reasons through May.  I feel like I've been a planning fool over the last couple of weeks, and it seems that there is still a lot to do.  Putting out the hottest fires first.  I know everything will come together, but I've got way more tabs open in my mind than I'd like.  

Did I mention that our Christmas decor hasn't yet left the house?  I didn't, I know.  That's because it should be embarrassing.  Most of it is finally in boxes, but the tree is definitely still standing in our kitchen with lights on it.  This is, BY FAR, the latest it's ever still been standing.  You can call it "festive," but it's definitely because I'm lazy and didn't insist that my husband find the Christmas boxes in the barn until this week.

You know those people that pull their Christmas decor out in October?  Yeah, we're like them only backwards.  We're leaving ours up until February...maybe.

I must admit, though, I haven't minded.  It's made January a bit more festive in our home. :)  Sometimes our trees are literally falling apart if we stare too long at them, but I'm pretty sure we bought the most hearty, glorious tree of the bunch.  As soon as we saw it, we claimed it.  (The Hallelujah Chorus may or may not have played as we looked at it for the first time.)  We definitely got our money's worth this year.

Okay, back to 2015...I'm completely looking forward to this year.  It feels like we're growing up a lot.  The girls' birthday stretch is upon us, and when it's through, we're going to have a 12, 10, 7, and 4 year old.  Boy, those numbers look big.  

Parenting this 9-12 year old stage is an interesting journey.  It has reminded me of my early years of parenting when I had zero clue on what to do.  I read so many parenting books then, and I have felt the need to do the same with this era.  I feel like I am constantly sponging information off other moms who have been there/done that.  They are secretly my mentors, and I am beyond grateful for them.  I have found myself praying for my children more than ever.  Obviously, as a parent, I know that I'm having an impact on my children, yet the weightiness of it all has really been impressed on me recently.  I'm stepping it up.

There is so much more that I could say, but I really do need to get some sleep.  I do have to run my household in the morning.  And Deanna will probably text me first thing in the morning, and I'll have to confess that I didn't get to bed until 2:21.  Hopefully, she'll spare me public humiliation.  Anyway, if I can keep my blogging resolution (and snag the computer from time to time in the evening), I'll have time to say more.  Until then, I pray 2015 is a blessing to you.