Blessings Countdown Calendar - Guest Blog

I just love this Advent Calendar from Jen's Ink Spot!  It has such a personal touch and fits in with the true spirit of Advent. Instead of chocolate or little gifts, it shares blessings that the family has received throughout the year.

Behind each number card is a photograph representing a memory. These cards can then in turn be hung as ornaments on the tree. When Christmas is over, the cards can then be put in a scrapbook to show blessings from the past year. What a great way to share Advent with your children!

I’ve been friends with Jennifer since the fourth grade, and I’m so proud of all of her creative accomplishments. Her blog Jen's Ink Spot has great ideas for how to make cards of all kinds. If you would like to check it out and see how to make this fantastic Advent Calendar, just click on this link:  http://jensinkspot.blogspot.de/2012/11/blessings-countdown-calendar-with-lil.html

Have a wonderful Advent!

Kelley

15 Min Construction Site Birthday Cake Deco

This year Jonas’s third birthday hit right in the middle of family flu season.  Luckily, Jonas was already over the flu.  Unfortunately, my husband wasn’t, I was on antibiotics for strep, and Lukas was in recovery.  

Talk about multi-tasking!  Between bringing my boys to bed and  taking care of my sick husband, I only had a couple of hours to decorate the house, bake and decorate the cake, and get all of the gifts ready for the birthday party.

I originally had big hopes for Jonas’s birthday cake and had planned on spending a lot more time making it really perfect. As a mother, though, I’ve learned that you often have to make compromises, or nothing gets done.  Luckily, my sister-in-law Regina had given me some construction candles (I'm sure Hotwheels would also work) and I was able to rethink the cake and come up with an idea that was extremely quick and still did the trick. I don't know exactly how long I had to decorate this cake, but I'm pretty sure it was under 15 minutes. 

While I was decorating the cake with my hands full of sticky bright frosting (I couldn’t find my decorating tools, so I had to spoon the frosting into a Ziploc bag and cut the corner cut off) I was thinking - Hopefully Lukas will sleep tonight, instead of waking up screaming of an earache like the last few nights.  Hopefully, my husband won’t be out of order more than a day or two.  Hopefully, Jonas won’t wake up either, and I’ll get a good nights sleep, which I desperately needed.  I’d already come to the conclusion that we mothers really don’t have time to get sick and when we do, we have to do our best to just ignore it and keep going. 

  

Somehow, I managed to get it all done and it wasn’t until I had just laid down in bed to sleep that Lukas started crying.  Nonetheless, in the morning, when Jonas woke up, went down the stairs and saw his cake and gifts waiting for him and he smiled that huge it’s my birthday smile, nothing else mattered. 

“Mama, Lukas can have one half of the cake, and I’ll have the other half.” Turning three really is fantastic.   

Rainy Day Driving

The German rainy season has now begun.  Even though my children both have plastic overalls, rain jackets, and rubber boots that they can wear outside when it's muddy or drizzling, some days it just rains too hard.

Lukas is now 16 months old and he loves to ride his bobby cars (see picture of Lightning McQueen car) all around our neighborhood. Unfortunately, since Lukas has been driving his car outside all summer, the tires are all worn and rough. Most homes here have wood floors, not carpet, so those tires would easily leave a bunch of race track scratches all around the house.

Therefore, I decided to make Lukas's car inside-proof! I cut strips of flannel (felt would work, too) and glued them around the tires.  Then I added a strip to the front for a bumper.

This was a very simple project that made my son very happy.  He can now drive his car all around the house, which is good for his health and my wood floors.

The Hairy Bunny

For me the days before sleep training were the worst, worrying about how awful it was going to be.  I was so accustomed to having my little boy next to me, cuddling on my arm and holding my hair tightly gripped in his hand.  How would he react to being all by himself?

Often when I would try to loosen that grip on my hair, he would wake up as if he was startled, cry out and then grab my hair and pull it toward him.  There was no way he was going to sleep without Mama’s hair…and that was a problem.

I tried to wean him off my hair the few days leading up to sleep training, but I was only mildly successful.  I tried giving him his stuffed kitty instead, but he out tricked me.  He held the kitty in one hand and my hair in the other.  I tried giving him a little horse with a mane of hair like a Barbie dolls, but he knew the difference, even at 4 a.m.

Whenever Lukas was hurt or fussy, all he needed was my hair to calm down.  Even while I was still nursing him, my hair was his main source of comfort.  How was I ever going to sleep train this little guy without having to stick my head in the crib?

I finally decided to cut off a fairly long lock of hair.  I tied it in a knot and then while holding the knot taut; I sewed it to a ribbon.  I then tied the ribbon in a knot around the hair knot and then tied this ribbon on to his stuffed lamb.  My hope was that having a little bit of my hair in his crib would give him that little bit of comfort that he needed.  I even sprayed a bit of perfume on the lamb so that it would smell like me. 

Lucky for me, sleep training went really well and wasn’t at all as difficult as I had expected.  Lukas loves his crib now.  Yesterday after his nap I spied on him.  He was sitting in his crib holding his lamb, pulling my lock of hair through his fingers in his own little world.  And, although a part of me still wished that it was connected to my head, I was glad that he was happy without me.