The Kindness Experience

The Assignment
Spend at least one whole day going out of your way to consciously treat other people as well as you possibly can. Assume that everyone has a reason for the things they do, even if they’re rude to you or cut you off in traffic or whatever – assume they’re having a bad day or that someone broke up with them or that they’re late for work. Approach everyone as if you expect to be treated well in return, no matter how silly you feel being so happy and nice. Go out of your way to smile at strangers on the elevator, hold doors for other people, let people out in front of you in traffic, greet cashiers in stores with genuine warmth, and just all around be as courteous, kind, and polite as you possibly can, in spite of how anyone treats you.

This is word for word the paper that I'm suppose to write for my psychology class! I'd love for you to join me in this experiment and let me know what happened!

crafty withdrawl

I have to admit, school is kicking my butt a little bit! There is SOOO much to do, and one of my classes, psychology has SO much reading and the first 3 weeks were all anatomy and I just dont want to read about how your eyeballs see..... I know the basics...But do I REALLY need to know about a fovea? and exactly HOW does that help me understand people with mental health problems???? Is there a disease called fovia-itist that make you crazy??? No... then really peeps your killing me!!! (Yes I have a bit of a bad attitude about it right now!) I'm not proud of it, but it is what it is!!! One of my biggest complaints is that there is not time for crafting! But Luckily
I had volunteered to host our craft club this month. At first I was FREAKING out about what to make. I wanted it to be cute but something that didn't cost a Villon dollars. All I can say is thank goodness for the Internet, because I found the idea for "wrag" wreaths... I'm not exactly sure how it morphed into this from a wire hanger and bits of cloth but it did and I think it's AWESOME. I have it typed up so I can e-mail it to you if your interested! I even feel cocky enough to submit a tutorial for this on one of my favorite crafty sights Ucreate.
If your ever looking for something cute to make, this blog is Awesome! Very well organized and I've been hooked on this sight for about a year (thanks Tara) who knows maybe you'll see my tutorial on there soon!

http://www.u-createcrafts.com

Never too late...

It's never too late to be who you might have been!

~George Elliot

This is my new favorite saying! I'm in my 3rd week back at school.

On the one hand, I've been a student and a Mom at the same time before, but on the other hand I've tripled my kids since I last graduated. I've had one minor melt down and more than one night where I whine that I want to go to bed and sleep, not read Tartuffe( Seriously have you ever read or seen the play Tartuffe? The WHOLE freaking play rhymes, I found it utterly annoying) And my psychology class that I thought I'd love has so far been nothing but an anatomy lesson. Do I really need to know all the names of the parts of the inner ear for a stinking psychology class? It's NOT what I expected!

I am however looking forward to writing my paper about an entire day of being nice! Now I think I'm a pretty nice person naturally so if I end up in jail for freaking people out by being so nice... My professor is gonna have to come bail me out of jail! And I have 2 more speeches to write for my speech class... Informative... I'm thinking the history & health benefits of chocolate??? And then a persuasive speech.... what do I want to persuade people to do??? Shoot me some ideas peeps!

Christmas 2010

I swear I take tons of pictures, and then when I download them onto the computer I think, Geesh I thought I took more than that! This is from the night we put up the tree, before we even decorated it....It was a very Griswald ish night with lights not working and trees falling over. We had a HUGE box of christmas lights and only 2 full strands worked and 1/2 of another one... what the heck???? But I was in no mood by that point so we threw them on, put on the ornaments and called it a tree. I really just want to see from year to year how much bigger the kids are!!! Christmas morning, the unwrapping, the squeals of delight.... Ethan was funny, when he first started looking at the gifts he didnt see his name on any right away and turned around and asked "was I on the naughty list?" I had wrapped our gifts to the kids in different wrapping paper so I didnt have to write their names 100 times, but ofcourse he didnt know that.... But Santa put their names on the gifts from him so here he is with the first one with ETHAN on it!!! Leah's favorite present was a Tutu all the way from Japan! She wore this for 3 days even though it was like 23 degrees outside! She looks so stinkin cute!!! The Sunday after Christmas we went out to my Mom's house and my sister, hubby and 2 kids came down for the day.... Here is Alex with Chloe & Skye ... I swear they are all really cute kids, just going through that phase where they make silly faces everytime they see a camera!
I try to get a picture of us every year at Christmas, but why is it so hard to get a good picture of the 5 of us!?!?! It was a great 2 week break, there was a little drama here and there, but I'm looking forward to getting the kids back to school and Theo to work and our usual routine!

Crafty Christmas

This year I decided to be quite crafty and whip up presents for everyone on my christmas list. I started back at the end of October and thought It'd be NO problem to make something heart felt for all those people on my christmas list. I made an aprons, DS cases, I made kleenex holders that attach to the sun visors, I sewed and sewed and then sewed some more.... Infact I think there should be a new disorder known as sewing neck/shoulder.It was definetly a labor of love.... But I just love some of the things I was able to figure out and make.... I wont post them all, because honestly I didnt even take pictures of them all!!! Here are a few of my favorites...

I made these cute little neck tie's for my adopted nephews.... I can't wait to see Duke McAlisters chubby little cheeks resting ontop of this little bowtie

Tutorial here: http://alemonsqueezyhome.blogspot.com/2010/04/bow-tie-tutorial.html
Leah, Ethan, and I made these adorable snowflakes out of popscicles sticks.... found the idea here http://www.squidoo.com/popsicle-christmas-crafts
I made this rocket pillow for Ethan, found the pattern/idea in the book "1 yard wonders" that I checked out from the library, and lucky for me my sister bought me my very own copy so I'll be able to make the rest of the cute ideas from this book!
I made something for everyone on out list, with only one exception.... I didnt make anything for Theo. I didnt even realize it until someone asked what I'd made for Theo.... opps!!! So to try and remedy that I decided to try and make our bathroom a little less Ugly!!!
I honestly believe that my bathroom belongs on the HGTV show bad bad baths, I decided some cute curtains might help it a bit and found this really simple but adroable tutorial to make curtains. The ribbon for a tab top design is ingenious!
http://7layerstudio.typepad.com/7_layer_studio/2009/05/tutorial-for-fully-lined-tabtop-drapes.html

Still trying to decide if I want to make another panel so there are curtains pulled to the side on both sides of the window.....what do ya think? but for now I just have to fix the toliet paper holder.

I've really loved learning how to sew and am a bit sad that I'm going to have to pack the sewing machine up for a few weeks, I'm suppose to start back to school January 3rd..... AHHHHHH

One Year of "Wedded Bliss"

Well Theo & I have officially survived an ENTIRE year of being married! how many people can say they exchanged vows with their spouse while doing .... 1.....2....3....Wheeeeeeeeee

I don't know if being married has been any different, than the previous 7 years together....but I know that I am more sure now, than I was 10 years ago, that marriage and family can be a good.... and a happy.... and a healthy.... thing. If you had asked me 10 years ago if I'd be married with kids and be happy I might have laughed in your face.... I really didn't think all this was for me....I didn't think that I'd be any "good" at it or that I'd ever find a guy that I'd actually want to spend the next 10 years.... let alone a LIFETIME with.

After I had Alex I was pretty content with the idea of it being me and Alex ... the dynamic duo..... taking the world by storm. When I met Theo, I didn't really think anything would come of it, between school, work and Alex I didn't really have the time for all that dating nonsense.... and I found out later Theo kinda thought the same thing....He was working 2 jobs and thinking about going back to school and all the girls he dated would get upset that he didn't have enough time for them. But somehow we found a night and went out on a date.... and I realized he was kinda funny..... and after a week or two.... we hung out again, and he thought... she's kinda cute..... and then, like a fungus, we kinda grew on each other..... There was no star crossed love... no big romantic moment.... after about a year of dating we were just sitting there one night folding laundry, and telling each other about our day and I realized that I was completely happy!

There's a poem I found when my sister got married that i really like, so if you'll bare with me a moment .... that part that i really like it this

I love you Not only for what you are,

But for what I am When I am with you.

I love you, Not only for what You have made of yourself,

But for what You are making of me.

I love you For the part of me

That you bring out;

I LOVE the Me that I am when I'm with Theo! So to properly enjoy that, Theo and i spent the weekend in a secluded cabin in the woods in Hocking Hills! We stayed at Old Man's haven a cozy little cabin with a huge fire place and Hot tub! We slept alot, cuddled on the couch in front of the fire. We ate cookies for dinner, and went hiking through the snow covered hills. It was beautiful! It was such a quiet weekend away from EVERYTHING... we didn't even have a phone in the cabin. CRAZY! Of course the pictures don't do the place justice....

Top Left working clockwise, A gorgeous fire, the cabin, a frozen Cedar Falls, Theo and I at the top of the never ending stair case, Theo holidng a Big 'ol icicle. and snow covered Old mans cave.

Where's your cape?

Sometimes having a Dad that is a firefighter is hard... Having him gone for 24 hours at a time is kind of a hard concept to wrap your brain around when your a kid. There are days when you don't feel good or when you had a hard day and you just want your Dad. Plus there are times when Daddy has to miss important things like trick or treat night or when the Easter bunny comes. In a perfect world all Daddy's would come home EVERY night and tuck their babes into bed. But there are Daddies all over the world that are out keeping us safe all night, either in a dessert in Afghanistan, or in a firehouse 20 minutes away.
So we try to remind ourselves that having a Dad that's a firefighter does have it's perks. Like having a smoke detector in EVERY room of your house, getting to go "play" on all the fire trucks and ambulances when ever you go to the fire house and being able to get Santa Clause to come a night early on the Christmases that Dad has to work .... and bringing your Daddy to show and tell is kind of cool too!
Theo was asked to come in and talk to Ethan's preschool class about being a firefighter, It was So cute! They watched a music video about fire safety. (And I swear a 7 year old Lindsay Lohan was in it.) Then Theo asked them questions like ...what do you do if you see matches? and stop drop and roll type stuff... they are mostly 3 and 4 year olds... Here Theo is with his assistant, Ethan, (notice the arm on his hips?) He was cracking me up.... every time Theo would ask a question, the other kids would raise their hand and answer and Ethan would say "yeah so you know .... don't hide....yeah so you know, don't play with matches.... I love this picture cause you can see how the kids were just mesmerized by Theo putting on all his gear and Ethan is standing up in the middle of them all with this HUGE smile on his face... he was so proud! Here Theo is in all his gear, Darth Vader sounding, getting the kids to come up and touch him so they wouldn't be afraid if a firefighter had to come in their house. Just out of this shot there is a little girl loosing her SH*T.... she was crying and screaming.... and the crazy part... guess what her Dad does for a living.... he's a firefighter!!! Go figure! Ethan got to give all his friend their own plastic fire helmet and coloring books and was talking about his Dad coming to talk to his class all week long. I sometimes forget that Theo is a real life hero...I usually hear the hilarious stories about the stupid things he sees or the stupid things people say and do! It's easy to forget that he runs INTO burning buildings when everyone else is running out.... he can find a person without a pulse... and bring them back to life.... he's delivered babies and held a dying person's hand and comforted a nervous mother... he really does do amazing things! I'd forgotten that, but luckily through Ethan's eye's I've been reminded he's a REAL life superhero... with a cape and everything!