A Good Secret

 Can you read his necklace? It says AFRICA.

And in a few short months the boys and I will be heading over there.

To Nigeria.

 

I still can't believe it is happening.

My grandparents are missionaries there - and have been for a long, long time. 

My mum lived there until she left for college and has only been back a few times in the past 30 years.

I spent the year after I completed highschool living in Nigeria with my grandparents. 

It was life changing.

My mum is going over this November and when I told Paul in a wishful thinking sort of way how fun I thought it would be to be in Nigieria with my mum he said we'd make it happen. 

And, after much prayer, it is happening. 

This past week I have gotten all of my vaccines needed for travel.

My anti malaria pills are currently sitting on our kitchen counter. 

The boys have appointments with the international travel doctor the middle of July.

Passport forms are filled out and ready to go in.

 

I have talked with a travel agent - who has not only given me invaluable information about direct flights from Atlanta to Nigeria (who knew!?!) but he also found prices cheaper than I could find myself. 

I am looking at being there for 5 weeks. 

5 short weeks in my beloved third home with my grandparents.

5 long weeks away from my love.

While Paul will be greatly missed I am thankful he has encouraged this adventure.

 

I am so excited to travel with the boys and to introduce them to a new culture of beautiful people.

 

And I am excited to finally be sharing this with everyone.

Good secrets are meant to be shared.

You in the Pictures

I don't have a lot of pictures of me just being with the boys, and over the past week Paul has been changing that and these pictures mean more to me than I would have imagined.

We played Ring Around the Rosy - until the boys, who were wearing white, dramatically fell down at the end of the little chorus onto the red brick. That game ended and we moved on to London Bridges.

We giggled and played and Paul captured the precious moments.

This picture so beautifully captures one of my favorite things about Judah as a 3 year old. Throughout each day he frequently says to me; 

"Mommy, hold my hand."

Take some time this week to pass your camera to your spouse or a friend and ask them to take pictures of you just being with your children. Nothing fancy, staged or perfect.

Just the every day.

They will be cherished pictures.

I promise. 

Sharing on Chatting at the Sky.

Summer Plans

Summer is my favorite season and I just love living in the south as we get so many hot summer months down here. I thought I would share some of our summer plans and share links of those who have summer plans that have inspired me. We are planning on keeping things low key and simple, and most activities revolve around being at home.

1. Read. Both boys love being read to, listening to audio books or looking at picture books themselves and so we are going to be doing more of that this summer. We are currently working on reading Dr. Doolittle and recently finished reading The Little Prince. It takes us awhile to read through chapter books, but both those books have been a lot of fun to read out loud to the boys. We read a lot of picture books too - Bill Peet and Where's Waldo books being current favorites. I was inspired by Jennifer's plan to spend 2 hours a day 3 days a week reading - how fun!

2. Play at home. At the end of last summer I picked up a small kiddie pool for a ridiculously cheap price (somewhere in the 95% off range) and we have been enjoying the fun it has provided. The boys have been out in it almost daily. I picked up some water guns for them and given them smaller containers to use out there too and I don't think I could pay money for them to have more fun! Emily has a great list of frugal summer fun to do at home, complete with really cute pictures.

 

3. Head to the beach. We are 3 hours from the ocean which is a reasonable distance for a day trip and the boys are such a fun age for this! We have made it out there 2 or 3 times each summer for the last couple years, so hopefully we'll be able to do a couple trips this summer. 

4. Have grown up friends over a bit more often. For dinner or just desserts. And games. Always for games.  I would like to spend a bit more time investing in the lives of others and building friendships. And I dearly love the interaction between our friends and our boys.

5. Inspire the imagination. I love toys like this marble run where you can create to your hearts content - legos and building blocks are also favorites here as they all inspire creativity. On top of playing I want to encourage the imagination with experiences and letter writing. We made a recent trip to the Fire station and Judah talks about it all the time and uses facts he learned there in his imaginative play. I love that! 

The boys also sit with me and "write" a letter with me once a week - I hope to do this more frequently with them through the summer.

6. Go camping. Our recent planned camping trip got rained out and the boys are as excited as anything to go camping. Depending on Paul's work schedule we may do this a couple times this summer. We recently found all the camping supplies we could imagine needing at a yard sale for an excellent deal and so are all set and ready to go as soon as he gets some time off!

Kinderkitchen Products for Budding Chefs

Knowing that a lot of my readers have young children (or grandchildren!) I am so very excited to share these products with you. We really like all of the Kuhn Rikon Kinderkitchen products that we have tried and I think you will too!! These are great kitchen utensils for children to safely use to do real food prep.

I was first introduced to these several weeks ago when a friend sent a couple items to us. I was charmed by their quirkiness and impressed with the quality and set out to learn more about the company.
Kuhn Rikon kindly sent us three additional items and their usefulness and charm has won all our hearts. Even Paul likes the children kitchen tools, which is rare for him to like anything designed for children.

I want to clearly state that these items would not be in our home, let alone featured on my blog, if I didn't think they were an excellent, quality item that offer a useful function.

Both of my boys love helping in the kitchen and Paul and I both strongly encourage them to assist us, using our real kitchen tools.
They also love to pretend cook in their own little kitchen and hate play kid utensils and prefer to use "the real thing." And because they are accustomed to helping us in the kitchen they are well aware of all the kitchen utensils and feel free to help themselves to items from the drawer. I have always struggled with this balance - I don't like my utensils traveling all over the house, some of them are too dangerous to be played with unsupervised, yet I want to encourage imaginative play mixed with reality.

This product has solved that problem - the kitchen items are real tools that can be used to prepare real dishes, but they are also safe for children to play with. They are recommended for ages 4 and up but of the 5 we have only 1 is not appropriate for them to use unsupervised at their ages of 23 months and 3 years.

I don't have a picture of each Kinderkitchen product that we own so I have included an Amazon link so you can see the item. While Amazon is fairly competitive on their prices I would encourage you to shop around for the best price if you want to purchase these for your family.

Crocodile Jaws - These are sturdy tongs and while the intended use is to transfer items from a serving dish to ones plate my boys prefer to use it to transfer food from their plate to their mouth. I need to buy a second one of these as it's one of the most popular item! This is well made, appealing to kids and easy to use

Mouse Measuring Cups - These are just darling and I love having them on display. They are also now my favorite measuring cups for dry stuff.
I didn't find them very easy for the boys to use with wet ingredients in them, but it was just fine with dry ingredients. I also love that each size is a different color as it makes it easier for Judah to grab the correct scoop.

Duck Snippers - This is the only tool we don't leave in the boys play kitchen for them to play with at will. They aren't sharp scissors but they have the ability to cut things that I may not want cut. The beak of the duck is a sheath for the scissors.

Cockatiel Whisk - The Cockatiel whisk is cute, but to me it is just a whisk. I neither love it nor hate it. It hangs in their Pottery Barn kitchen and I like the look of it hanging there but if I had to pick my least favorite item this would be it.

Dog Knife - The dog knife is every ones favorite. If you only pick one item to buy, this is it! This is a child safe knife, in a super fun design. The ears of the dog serve as a guard to keep your fingers from slipping down the knife. Both boys can use this safely without supervision - with no risk of them cutting themselves and yet fully able to cut softer items, such as the strawberries as pictured above. Judah sat and cut .5 lb of strawberries for me the other day - it was truly a huge help!

If you're looking for cooking utensils for your children or a cool birthday or Christmas gift for someone elses child I would highly recommend these products!!

Learning from Failures at Home

 "Your home should be a place where your children can fail and learn from their failures."

-from Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours by Dr. Kevin Leman

I am reading through Dr. Leman's book right now and am really enjoying it. I read the above quote a couple of days ago and have had it on my mind ever since.
I have been thinking about what it means as a parent for my home to be a place where my children can fail and have so far come up with three things that I think are important in order for my home to be a place where the children can fail and learn from their failures.

1. My children need to see when I fail. Human beings are flawed, sinful beings. I make mistakes, fail to accomplish things, fail to have the right attitude. I certainly don't think parents need to tell their children all the ways they fail all the time but I also don't think parents should put on a persona of having it all right all the time either. My children need to know that I fail so that they can know it's ok that they fail too. They also need to see me exemplify how I learn from my failures so that they, too, can use their failures as a means to grow.

2. My children need to know what failure is. In order for a child to know he has failed he needs to know what is expected. There needs to be a standard. An absolute. And if it's not met - if they fail - the standard cannot be lowered to spare their feelings of failure. (Obviously if you set the standards unrealistically high then you would lower them, but that, I believe, is a different matter.)
I don't think any parent wants to see their child not do well at something, let alone have the child feel like they didn't do well at something, but if the standards we set out for our children continually get lowered because we don't want them to fail they will never learn from their failures. They will never get better.

3. My children need to know that they are loved when they fail. My love for my children is not based on their performance. I want them to do well. I want them to grow and to learn. But when they fail at something my love for them does not change. I do not expect them to fail, but I know that they will.

What do you think of the quote?
And what are your thoughts on creating a home where children can fail and learn from their failures?

Words That Rhyme With Orange

I received the Words That Rhyme With Orange cd by Ross King  in the mail a couple of weeks ago and it has been playing nearly every day since. This upbeat and energetic kids cd has quickly found its way into our lives - with catchy tunes and quirky lyrics it is exactly the style of kids music we enjoy - which is saying a lot as there isn't a lot of kids music Paul and I like.

The music is danceable and the lyrics are clever, witty and fun. 

Take song 7 entitled "Lionmonkeybacondonkey" - while messing around on Paul's phone one day I discovered that he actually texted some of the lyrics from this song to a friend - the same lyrics I had used in a Facebook status earlier that day;

"I wish I had a monkey on a donkey who knew karate, then no would be mean to me."
How does Ross King think of these things?! 

The songs have become entwined in our daily life - I find myself singing (It's time for bed) "Sleepyhead" each evening to the boys as I get them ready for bed, "Juicebox" at snack time and "Happy to be Me" throughout the day. The song "Don't Do It", which tells children not to eat their boogers, is referred to many times a day now - I think the song might have originally inspired Judah's interest in his boogers, but my sister and I both jump on him when we see where his finger is headed and ask"Now what does the song tell you?" And he stops. I have also caught myself humming his alphabet song as I drift off to sleep. The new tune he gave the alphabet is pretty cool - but it is pretty annoying to have any song stuck in your head when you're trying to sleep! :)

Ross King's Words That Rhyme With Orange cd delivers wholesome, fun musical entertainment the entire family will appreciate and if I could I would buy everyone a copy of this cd because I truly love it.

  His style reminds me of Laurie Berkner (which oddly enough Mel thought too!) and his songs, while fun, all contain a message about respect, love or other values too.

As a side note I want to mention my sisters thoughts on this too - she has worked in daycare and/or as a nanny for the past 5 years. When I asked her opinion she said "I really enjoyed it. It was original. It's not corny or obnoxious like other kids music. He has a very pleasant voice to listen to."

You can listen to samples of the music on Ross Kings website. The music can be purchased either through his website or from Amazon or iTunes. Another side note - it's cheapest to buy the MP3s from Amazon! 

If you purchase his entire cd or just buy some of his songs let me know what you think of it and if it becomes a family favorite like it is now in our home!

This is a Mama Buzz Review and the product was provided by Ross King for review. The thoughts expressed are entirely my own.

Tips for Traveling with Littles

Having recently done a rather lengthy drive with the boys (6 months and 23 months) I thought I would share some of the tips that made our trip easier.
The trip up to my parents took 18 hours, and the one back south took us 28 hours. The extra 10 hours were taken up with stopping for a last minute visit with a couple friends, sleeping in the car and getting lost.

We started both trips with a prayer for safety and harmony. God was gracious in answering - on the trip home we came within a couple of inches of hitting a deer (and then saw about 8 more walking on the side of the road!) and there was another stretch of highway where there were about 8 serious looking car accidents in the span of 5 miles. We also all got along and liked each other at the end of both driving times ;)

Preparing for the Trip
In preparation for the trip I bought/made some 'special' non-sugary treats for Judah. This included crackers, cheese, sausage mini quiches, fruit leathers and apple juice. I cut the sausage and cheese into little cubes, perfect for his little fingers. I had a special little dish for his food to go into and I would put small servings into the dish and then pass it back to him. He was always free to ask for more, but I tried to not put too much in it to avoid having too much food fall on the seat/floor.

Since we were leaving on Christmas day we decided that we wouldn't give him a stocking that morning, and would instead give him little presents -one at a time- in the car. Most of the 'little presents' I used were items he already owned. Things like sunglasses, little cars, books, binoculars and a toy phone.
I think the only thing I actually bought for him for the trip was a set of mini glow sticks (from the Dollar Store.) Since we were driving through the night I thought he would have such fun with it, and he really did! He was fascinated with the 'light' and occupied himself for almost two hours straight with them. At the two hour mark he got oddly silent and I turned around to look at him and he had somehow managed to bite through the stick and had the green glowing stuff all over himself and the seat and door. The Glow Sticks are non toxic, but I think we'll wait til he's a bit older to give him those again.

On top of those items I had a few "Emergency" tools too - items that I knew would instantly cheer Judah up and pull him out of an oncoming bad attitude. These items included hand lotion (Judah adores having lotion rubbed on his hands!), gummy Dinosaur candy and lip gloss (shh! Don't tell Paul I am telling the world that his son loves lip gloss.) These items were used only a handful of times to retain their 'specialness' and they really did do their job!

As far as preparing and packing stuff for Wesley there really wasn't anything to do for him (6 months) I had a couple of car seat toys hanging for him and a pacifier, which he doesn't really use. He was rather simple to plan for in the car.

Including the Boys in Conversation and Songs.
We spent a lot of time talking with the boys and singing them songs. On the way up we drove through the night and it had been our hope that Judah would sleep through the night but that was not to be. Our social child slept for an hour or two max for the entire car ride. During the 4 hour stretch that I drove going up there Judah chattered with me almost nonstop while Paul slept.
We mooed and counted and worked on his letters and sang and were just goofy together. I think that making him feel included and important helped keep him cheerful and good natured when it came to sitting for so long.

Burning Some Energy.
We stopped every 3-4 hours for Wesley to nurse. While I sat in the (nice, warm) car with the baby Paul took Judah out and walked and ran and jumped with him in the parking lot of wherever we were stopped. Having that little bit of freedom, and the opportunity to use up some energy, was really good for Judah.

Keeping up with Judah's normal eating time and serving him hot meals.
To help keep things normal we stopped around meal times to eat - I know it would have been much cheaper to have just packed everything in the car that we wanted to eat, but to us, it was worthwhile to buy. Most places were closed on both days of our trip (Christmas and New Years Day) but to be totally honest our favorite place to buy food while on the road is Sheetz Gas Station. The food is fresh, hot and delicious.
We made one stop at a Japanese place and got sushi to go, but otherwise the rest of our meals came from Sheetz.

Diaper Changes and Dirty Clothes.
Keeping on top of clean diapers isn't so fun while in the car! There isn't ever a doubt when a diaper has been dirtied, but actually changing the diaper is a rather large task. I cannot bring myself to change the boys on the handy changing 'tables' located in most gas station and fast food bathrooms. It makes me cringe to think of it, and it is just not an option.
A friend gave me a fold up changing mat that holds diapers, wipes and anti bacterial hand gel. It folds up to the size of a large pocket book. I kept in the car door and when the boys needed to be changed we would do it on the passenger seat. We kept bags close by to put the diapers in and disposed of it as soon as we were able. The colder it got the more difficult it was to stand outside the car and change a dirty diaper, but that is how we did it for all the diapers we encountered.

We didn't do it this trip, however in the past we have 'lined' the car seats with a towel to catch any explosions that might leak through the clothes. I would highly recommend this!


A Few Other Things.
Once or twice we had to change an outfit because of a diaper mess or food mess. This was anticipated and an extra change of clothes was within easy reach for each boy.

We had a few other things for the boys that we kept within easy reach from the front seat. The snacks, toys and diapers were all kept close by, as well as Childrens Tylenol, Ora gel, bags for trash and diapers, winter clothes and extra blankets. We didn't bother with layering clothes for Judah while he was in his car seat. We dressed him in a long sleeved t-shirt and put blankets on him. When we took him out of the car we had his winter clothes right near by. It worked well for us.

I think the biggest thing about traveling with babies and/or toddlers is anticipating the various situations that could arise (exploding diapers, boredom, etc.) and preparing for those situations. Also, try to maintain as normal of a diet as possible while traveling