We're tired...

Mostly because of this type of thing day after day...

We may also be tired because Ethan thinks 20 minute naps everyday are good enough, and because Cameron doesn't get naps anymore. It's a rough life for him right now.
And we're all tired from the bug we've been passing around this past week. Luckily I didn't get it (knock on wood).

The end.

The European American Candy

When we moved here, I was astonished to find an Aldi grocery store right in our neighborhood. Then I found out that it apparently is a German company. What a small world. Anyway, we decided to go in yesterday and walk round.

And here's a side note: every grocery store closes by 6:30pm at the very latest. It drives me crazy! And when you go in the grocery store, the entire store is refrigerated. Here they don't really have refrigerated sections, unless it's a frozen item. They have refrigerated stuff all over the store, so it's freezing in the store!

Okay, so where was I? We went in, and started walking around. And we found a dozen eggs for 26.09 euros! Huh? That's about $38.50. I don't get that one. But we continued to walk around, and found a cute pair of shoes for Ethan for 3.99 euros, some Feta (Clint LOVES feta), some batteries, a snack box for Cameron...um whatever. But then we found CANDY! And we must have had a hankering for some American candy and it didn't help that our entire family hadn't had dinner yet, because we sure found some. Well not really, but we were amazed that Europe has their own brands of candy just like American candy. (And some stores do carry real American Candy like Hershey's but this one didn't) Let me show you what I'm talking about.

Starbursts (these weren't quite like Starbursts, but they were still so good)

Snickers (Clint's favorite candy bar is Snickers and he said these were better, but I thought they tasted exactly the same)

KitKat (a tiny bit different, but still very good)

Peanut M&M's (exactly the same!)-they had regular too

Just some chocolate wafers we wanted to try, and they were sooo good!

See? American candy!

Then we hurried ourselves out of the candy isle before we grabbed more stuff.

(Oh, and blogger is really starting to make me mad with their formatting issues, which is a HUGE reason I don't blog a lot. Can someone please tell me how to make this easier?)

Olives.

First Day of School!

So I sent Cameron off to school for the first time today. He has been waiting and waiting for this day for about a year now. So we went outside to the end of our driveway and waited for the bus! Cameron was beyond excited, but I think he might have a been a little skeptical also thinking it might just be like any other day where he stays home with Mom and Ethan.
But to start this day off right, I made some of my mom's cinnamon rolls. For some reason my dough had a super hard time rising/raising? but in the end they turned out great. I think Cameron was a little too excited to get his new school clothes on that he only ate about half of his.

He chose Spiderman over Lightning McQueen. This made Dad happy and Mom wished he would have chosen Lightning McQueen (it was cuter).

Ethan was there to show everyone how cute he is with his little crusty icing face.

The school is all about safety. They even have a separate playground for the preschoolers to use. Well, the schoolbus came by our house and just kept going. They were picking all the kids up on the other side of the road first and then they swing back around and pick the kids up on our side of the road. This devastated Cameron. He thought the school bus wasn't coming back!

But after some explaining, he was good to go again. And of course I made him give me a hug and kiss before the bus came, just in case I didn't get one.

Just playing here, "No mom, don't let 'em take me!"

Here comes the bus.

The door opened and he got right on, sat down, and buckled himself in. They have buckles! I was right, no goodbye.

But I did finally get a wave!

Have a good year Cameron!

Um...yeeeeaaahh...

That's the best title I could think of for this post. It been...a while. And I'm not picking up where I left off. That would be ideal, but I'm lame like that. Maybe one day I'll post pictures of the last, oh 8ish months. Maybe not. But I thought I SHOULD post, and what better thing to post than something totally random.

And the best part is, that you can't really tell how big Ethan has gotten since the last pictures I posted of him. But, he actually is still pretty small. Let me think...at his last few doctor visits, he's been in the 5th percentile for weight, something like 20th for height and 50th for head circumference. So apparently I'm not feeding him. But you'll see in the pictures to come he loves to eat...peanut butter that is.
We were eating lunch, and the awesome mother that I am has been out of bread for oh about a week now. Yes, bad mother. Got it. So we ate peanut butter and jelly on saltine crackers for lunch instead. (I used to do this as a kid all the time, except I had a huge sweet tooth and used honey. I thought jelly was more appropriate). Well, since I was just making them as they ran out, I kept the PB out and when Cameron was done eating he decided to go into the play room. Our high chair (which was given to us) doesn't have a buckle, and when I came back in the room to get Ethan out because he wasn't quite done eating, this is what I found. And unfortunately I decided to leave my SD card in my computer. So when I grabbed my camera really quick, I couldn't get the picture that I wanted. It was the oops-you-caught-me face. Anyway, some pictures of Ethan in the peanut butter. He LOVES LOVES LOVES peanut butter. I can't stress that enough. He asks everyday for butter (and it sounds like butter but remove the tt.) Anyway, he's a cute kid, and is getting into absolutely EVERYTHING now. Hurray, I just love the terrible twos. It makes me feel like I'm in my terrible twos with the way I react to Cameron and Ethan sometimes.

And Cameron. He's four, as of August 15th. He starts dutch preschool on September 1st. I think normally I would be just fine. But this is my crazy Cameron we're talking about going to a school where they speak Dutch, and he doesn't, all day Monday through Friday (with Wednesdays being a half day). Yes I am a bit nervous about this. He will also be riding the school bus. But they've told me that kids that young learn so fast that he'll be speaking Dutch in a few months. Next year when he starts kindergarden, he will go to the American school. Oh did I mention we moved to Belgium? I guess I will have to do some major updates huh? Anyway for now, here he is in all his glory on his birthday, the day we moved into our new house, the day the ruined pineapple upsidedown cake for the first time in my life, and with his baseball cupcakes that I just had to make because I felt horrible for not giving him a proper birthday.
And of course one last picture of what we deal with everyday of the week here. Only kidding, mostly it's just rain, but they call for hail a lot, and then sometimes we get it.

The Good Mom Vs. The Bad Mom

Since I've been raising kids for a whole three years now, I consider myself to be an expert on raising kids the WRONG way. I'll give you an example. Cameron has always been a terrible sleeper. At least I was blessed with one good sleeper...Ethan. Cameron gets up every single night and tries to sneak in bed with me. I got smart and started locking his door. This way I can hear him whining at the door, instead of waking up in the morning with him in my bed. In the last two or so weeks, Ethan's been quite a handful at night too (hopefully just a phase), taking about 45 minutes to get to sleep, and then waking up in the middle of the night too. Being a sleep deprived mother in my current state (well, let's face it, we are ALL sleep deprived ALL the time), I gave Cameron an ultimatum. Actually it was just a montrous load of consequences. So this is pretty much how the night panned out.

1. Put Cameron in bed, and talked to him about staying in bed.

2. Give him the consequences if he gets out of bed: take away his truck that Grandpa made, no playground tomorrow, no Home Depot kids' project tomorrow, and finally a spank.

3. He's up, take away his truck.

4. It's the middle of the night: put him back to bed, and tell him no playground or Home Depot.

5. It's morning and he didn't get up again, so I didn't have to follow through with the last consequence.

Okay, so what's wrong with this situation other than I gave him way too many consequences (remember, sleep deprived)? Maybe it's the fact that I just made the day horrible for me by not having any fun places for Cameron to spend his energy, maybe it's because he didn't seem bummed about losing any of these things, maybe it's because I LOVE going to the Home Depot with Cameron every month to "bond", or maybe it's all of them.

So, here's a tip from a mom who has two active boys, and a measley three years of experience (only 1 1/2 dealing with toddlers).

1. Give a consequence that is gonna make them sad (possibly something tangible...spankings don't really work on Cameron, and I use them as a last resort a lot of the time).

2. Follow through. Even though I told him that we aren't going to the Home Depot as his consequence for not staying in his bed, it's still tempting to forget about it because you just love them so darn much (remember Puss in Boots from Shrek with his big eyes that you just can't resist?)

3. Give them a consequence that you don't care about. So, one that will make him/her sad, but won't bother you in the slightest. I love going to the Home Depot, and it's a chance to spend quality time with Cameron, and I gave it up. Not a good idea.

4. REWARD and PRAISE them when they've done a good job, and haven't required the use of your consequences. I forget about this A LOT! Many times I will tell Cameron if he does a certain thing that he won't be able to play with the toy he currently has in his hands, or that I'll send him to the corner. But when he listens to me, and doesn't do that act or bad behavior, I often forget to reward him or praise him for it. So, do it!

Okay, that's all my insight. What do you have?

Quiet Toys-Crayon Roll

So, I've been in a really crafty mood lately. (Actually I'm in a crafty mood all the time). But I've been looking at A LOT of quiet toys/activities/books for church for my children as well as my brother's children. I'm working on some laminated picture books of The Savior, Temples, Missionaries, Families, etc. I'm also working on activity folders, as well as some soft books. I finished a crayon roll for Cameron, Gabi, and Alex.

I looked for tutorials and such online, but couldn't find one for what I wanted specifically. So, intead of making it at least somewhat easier on myself, I decided to just figure out the entire thing on my own. And since I did, I made three of them, so I was able to figure out a better way to do certain things here and there.

So, here's the question...would you like a tutorial for this? If so, I'd be happy to post one!


Here's a picture of all of them open. I did one for regular sized crayons, and two for the tall twisty ones.

I had a blast making these, and I learned why I made them the way I did. I decided to only make pockets for eight crayons, because if you add too many more, it's just going to get bulky and that's not really what you want in your purse or church bag. I also used a button and stretchy cord for the closure instead of long ribbons. I figured they would get in the way. On the other hand, eventually the loop will lose its elasticity like a hair tie. Overall, I really like these and I like the way I did them.