I am loathe to takedown the Christmas decorations. Even the cats seems to love them...

Nathan won the raffle basket at his school's winter event and inside were two vouchers for 2 weeks of strength training at Element 5 and one month at Barre 3. Combining those with my new workout at Pro Club has produced some really wonderful changes in strength and muscle tone :)

Putting your little girl in dance class is sort of a parenting staple. But I am about to introduce her to another dance place that offers more genres of dance and the option of an eventual competitive dance team. I wonder just how interested she will be in dance in her young life :)

Over the weekend, Jason took the kids to Panera and got all the way home only to find that they had forgotten Nathan's grilled cheese. It isn't really a big deal but I'm weird about stuff like that. So I followed up with them and they said if I came back up the next day I could get his grilled cheese. I ran up after one of the new workouts I have been doing so I was, of course, starving.  I went to order and pay for a bagel and they wouldn't take my money since the order had been screwed up the day before. It is always worth following up on silly things like this :)

I love watching Ali discover quiet moments where she can look around and appreciate the landscape.

I love Pinterest. It keeps me inspired, gives me ideas, and makes the holidays fun.

Flower for you?

I decided this year I wanted to do something a little more for my mom for mother's day. I thought it would be fun to create a fairy garden :)

My friend is in the middle of losing one dad and the other is in the hospital, terribly ill. Her husband's mom just had surgery, and her husband's dad no longer remembers who she is. I have been trying to help in any way I can by having her son come hang out with us and providing a ride whenever needed. I tend to stress myself out trying to help everyone around me and it overstretches me sometimes. This thank you wine reminded me that sometimes it is worth it to overstretch yourself for friends :)

I was leaning over the kitchen counter trying to sort out which summer camps I still needed to pay for and if there were others I wanted to sign the kids up for when quite suddenly a cat pranced her way onto my back and refused to get off.

The mayhem that leprechauns caused in Nathan's classroom

I have been wanting to see this show for a long time. It was really great!

Ali caught a cold and gave it to the household. Jason's morphed into swine flu. I didn't have swine flu but I was pretty darn ill. I took a moment to remind myself while everyone else rested that karma comes back to those that work hard through tough times :)

I read an article that was in my Facebook feed about parents and yelling. It hit very close to home for me because I tend to be a yeller. I was aware of it and try hard to not be too bad about it but there was something about this that made me want to try harder. Why not be inspired by some of the things we read. Don't just say it was a good article. Take action on it.

 

We went to see Evita and I realized that I dearly love this stripey coat and damn it if that's my version of dressing up for a show then so be it. In the end we were over dressed for the show ;)

We went to get the oil changed for the Prius and both kids sat quietly with their respective Kindles. I find it adorable how happy Ali is as she gets older with her ability to customize things to her liking. And it tells me more about her as a person so we learn together.

I live in a house full of video game addicts. Since I really don't enjoy video games, it's a hard hobby for me to understand. My son loves Minecraft currently and I knew he was about to go spend a few days at my mom and dad's without any video games. So I sent him downstairs with instructions to get some gaming time in before he left. He came over and wrapped around me saying, 'That's my mommy.' Since I was checking my email I managed to grab a picture of his smile :)

Neko and Yuki decided they were cold and joined me for a snuggle in the super soft blanket I got at Thanksgiving. It's one of my favorite times of day when the kids are in bed and I can have hot tea and get some digital work done while lounging on the couch with the furry kids.