Raising Cubs in a Campground

The alert for a two hour delay came in around 6:30 this morning. I went out to unlock the gate, not really sure i would be able to with all the rain the night before. It was so peaceful with all the park roads still covered in snow....undisturbed and pristine. I came back inside to find another email alert telling me that school was closed for the day. Phew! I really wasn't looking forward to venturing out. As i nursed Elsa in her room i could hear the creaking sound of her door opening. It was PapaBear coming to tell me that the power was out. Great. We have a well so no power means no water and no flushing the toilet. We have radiator heat that has some electrical components so no heat. We have an electric stove so no cooking. We were probably going to need to find a place to go for the night just in case all the down trees kept the power company busy for the whole day. We were outside playing in the snow by 7:20 and sopping wet by 7:40. The three inches of rain we got la...

If you follow me on Pinterest you know that I'm considering using a rainbow theme for Elsa's first birthday. There is a wealth of inspiration to be found related to rainbows and it apparently rubbed off because when Julia was done making construction paper butterflies to decorate her room I used the leftover paper to make this: Packages of construction paper come with ten colors - none of which are purple. I wanted purple in my rainbow so I improvised and used a purple pen to add a line from the song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The lettering took five times as long as it took to cut and glue the entire rainbow but that's neither here no there now is it? :) It wasn't my intention to decorate our home for St. Patrick's Day, but this easy rainbow craft that even young kids could do is going to look so cheery above our fireplace mantel. I only uploaded a small version of the photo to the web, but if you'd like I'd be happy to share the full resolution v...

As soon as I saw this photo that I snapped of my girls this morning I knew that this is the type of moment I don't want to forget and the type I want to document more of here. My life, my view. I read something the other day that struck a cord: "If you are always racing to the next moment, what happens to the one you're in?  Enjoy the ride!"  Along the lines of Alphabitty Moments , The View From Here is a way to document the every day events of life - in my case, motherhood. I recently upgraded my cell phone and downloaded the free app Lightbox and am so happy with it! But here's the thing..... I took 2,600+ photos with my old phone and only a very very small fraction of those made it on my blog where I am compiling our family memories for a future blog book . That's not OK. So once a week I'm going to post at least one photo I've taken from my perspective. They won't always have a filter applied, there may be weeks where I pos...

I usually try to have a nice pretty bow to wrap my posts in but putting that sort of pressure on myself often keeps me from chronicling the day in and day out of our lives. Let's face it, often there isn't a pretty bow to wrap around the days. They blur together, they are sometimes awful, there are days when I fall short on so many levels... The point I'm trying to make is that I'm trying to be better about writing even if there's nothing all that important to write about. Besides, have you ever noticed when you go back and read something you wrote six months or a year or two ago that things get sweeter with age? At least, I feel that way. Something as simple as writing a few sentences about the each day would be so nice to have later on. Once I tried to find a website that would take all my tweets and compile them so I could print them, but I didn't have any luck. One area where I did get lucky was with an app for my new phone. It's called Lightbox and...

To get the full value of joy  you must have someone  to divide it with. - Mark Twain

at least it's an improvement on last year !

It was a busy one that's for sure! The day started out with finding homemade valentines in our little pink mailbox we use for sending each other notes. That was quickly followed by waffles made by Daddy. Then Sam was off to school with valentine's for all his classmates. The removable mustaches were a hit I've been told. I can't wait to see the photo that was taken of all his classmates wearing their mustaches! Thanks to Heidi at the Craft Monkey for the inspiration! I tweaked my version a little so I could see more of Sam's face and put the removable mustache with the text so when it was removed the card still made sense.   Julia had her very last first day of ECFE today so that kept us busy for a good chunk of the morning. I can't believe she was younger than Elsa when she went to her first class! Her preschool party was yesterday but she made similar valentines to give to her classmates at dance this afternoon. In just one sitting she pounded out 18 frie...

We have tried and failed at responsibility/chore charts many many times. Finally we landed on a system that works for us. We've been using a over sized desk calendar to write out the chores that the kids are responsible for every day. (feeding the cats, picking up and putting away 15 things around the house, cleaning their rooms, cleaning the playroom, setting/clearing the table, doing their homework, picking up the hallway/putting shoes away) What makes it successful: Easy access - It hangs by our front door and includes a pen on a string we taped to the wall. Easily adaptable -  When we first started we only wrote out a week at a time so we could tweak the chores the next week as needed.  After the first two months we changed the chore from picking up 10 things around the house to 15 things. They hardly noticed the change because they were so used to 10 things by then. The math is easy -  All chores have to be done for the day or you don't get paid for the day...

Our little cupid found her toes this week. It's the cutest thing! Hopefully I'll be able to get a basket shot of it soon. I think her wings were too distracting while I was taking photos because the second I put her on the changing table she's grabbing for her feet. Her interest in the food other people are eating is increasing - perhaps we are closer to starting solids than I thought. I did buy a high chair finally so she can join us at the table for dinner instead of hanging out in the exersaucer that we pull up next to my chair. She continues to increase the variety of her chattering - dadadada is recognizable now. Her favorite times to 'talk' are in the van when Sam and Julia provide an audience. She had her best night of sleep ever this week - Asleep by 7:00, woke to nurse at 4:10 and was back to sleep by 4:30. I had to wake her at 7:45 to get the kids to school on time. She spent the entire night in her own bed. The memorable part was that I was able...

Julia and I share a love for creating. Yesterday I came home to find our house decorated in construction paper hearts just because she wanted to surprise me. So when I showed her this pin on Pinterest, she was so excited to make some for her preschool class. We don't usually purchase Goldfish and we certainly never ever buy the colored ones, but they were just too perfect for butterfly wings to pass up. There is only 1/4 cup in each bag so it's not the end of the world.   The steps are pretty self explanatory but I thought it might be helpful to share a couple of things we learned along the way as far as quantities of supplies. I have a feeling this is a snack we'll be seeing more of. Maybe with trail mix, carrots, grapes, or Chex mix in???? But this time, it's all about color. 1/2 cup of goldfish per sandwich bag is just about right. It's for a school snack, not a meal after all. The big boxes of goldfish have ten serving (or 55 goldfish if you really ...

Imitate. I have a small folder of oldies but goodies on my laptop from when Sam was really young and thought this was the perfect one for Imitate.  He's got some pretty big shoes to fill if he wants to grow up to be like his daddy! He's on his way though...He already loves to learn, remembers everything, loves to fish (and eat it!), loves to play baseball, camp, & loves us with his whole heart. For more information on Alphabitty Moments click here . Feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments...

My dear sweet Miss Elsa - how is it that we are past the half way mark of your first year? It might have something to do with the fact that I get lost in those blue eyes and all that chub and the days slip right on by! You turned seven months old this week. If I had to guess you have maybe put on a half a pound since your six month visit. The only thing I've had to retire is your kissaluv contour diapers. I've had those diapers since your sister was six months old. But now we're moving on to new territory. Mommy is slowly grabbing hemp and bamboo diapers when I find a good deal on Craigslist. We're even venturing into the world of wool diaper covers and prefolds. I'll tell you all about it when you get older. :) I started to teach you the sign for 'nurse' this week. It will be fun to see how quickly you catch on to it. You made Mama so happy this week when you started reaching for your Daddy. You are a mama's girl but it warmed my heart to see you w...

Contest is now closed Congrats to Susan - Random.org chose you as the winner of a $25 gift card to Hazelaid ! Thanks to everyone who entered! Don't forget that you can receive 10% off your order by using the code 'cubs10' when you click on the pink button for Hazelaid on my right sidebar. Back when Elsa was one month old I was given an amber teething necklace from the nice folks at Hazelaid . She wore it occasionally, but it wasn't until recently that the signs of teething meant it was time to bring the teething necklace out again for a more thorough review and boy am I glad I did! Elsa has not been a very good sleeper from about 4 months on. That means for the past three months I've been getting one 3-4 hour stretch of sleep a night if.I'm.lucky. Much of the time I'm nursing her back to sleep. When the drool and the gnawing on her hands started in earnest I knew she had to be working on some teeth. Within 24 hours of wearing her necklace she was slee...

  * click on the image to make it larger * We are past the half way mark with BabyBear's weekly basket photos so I thought it would be fun to do a collage with some of them. While I took pictures every single Friday from 8 weeks on, I wasn't always consistent with the angle I shot from. I'm glad I was able to find a few from when she was 2 days old, 6 days old, 4 weeks old, 6 weeks old, and then from there on I found my groove. I love that the basket provides some perspective and for the most part, consistency. It was around 14 weeks that I began adding a hat that coordinated with her diaper cover. It is my goal to do something with the photos for her 1st birthday celebration in July. It IS her golden birthday after all! I've already begun work on a Baby in a Basket book when I find a few minutes between making blog books and I bet you can guess what the letter W is going to be for Elsa's first Alphabitty Moment book (which will double as her baby book). D...

Don't hate me but this week we experienced a complete 180. Elsa went from sleeping with me and eating every hour or two to: awake every 45min- 1.5 hours but only fussed for 30 seconds before putting herself back to sleep after jabbering a bit to on January 22nd, sleeping in her crib from 7pm until she woke at 12pm but fell back asleep after a few seconds of making noise. Then she slept until 5am ate then slept with mommy until alarm woke us both right before 7am. This is huge progress and I'm happy to say that so far it isn't a fluke. She's still sleeping this well (and even better ) over a week after I first started to write this update. I'm excited to share what I believe to be the reason later this week. It involves a review of her amber teething necklace so I want to give it its own post. Stay tuned for that and a giveaway! New in her 30th week: * first babysitter - slept for three of the four hours but woke up happy and didn't cry for Wendy. * na...