We're still kicking

As you've probably noticed, blogging every day just is not going to happen.  I wish it would work out since I basically keep our little blog going for our own family memories.  But, I'm not going to stress over it and will update it when I can.  So today, I'm going to give update our past three weeks.  And it's been a good one!

Sterling is still dressing in her Christmas attire.  Today she's wearing her chevron holiday dress.  

I organized my office in the middle of January and it's still cleaned and organized.  Majesty (the horse) has her own "stable" in my office too.

Sterling loves to take my makeup brushes after I do my makeup and uses them too.  She also went through a phase of wearing a set of "rainbow" headbands.  

Parents were allowed in the dance room to watch dance practice.  Sterling thought this was a performance and loved every minute of it!

Tall socks are the new pants.

Xander had kindness week at school and he was powered with kindness through superman.

We had a crazy last week.  I won't share every detail because it might scare some people, but here's one incident that was odd.  When Nick took out our garbage, he found this tree knocked down.  How in the world?!  It's been windy, but not that windy where it'd knock down a tree.  So I thought.

Xander went to a birthday party for a friend at Chuck E. Cheese.  He had a blast!

We had snow for the second time.  I loved how it covered our trees!

I took a parenting webinar.  I'm not a perfect parent, never claim to be, and never will be.  But, I'm trying to be better.

Three days after his fun birthday party, he was sick.  He came home from school with a fever and was out on Thursday and Friday.  He still had to tag along to take Sterling to school and speech.  We played superhero I-spy while waiting.

I put the kids' bunk beds back together while Nick was at work.  Their room is huge so now they have a larger space to make a mess.  Haha!  Just keeping it real :)

We've been working on class Valentine's and Sterling's are hilarious.  She hasn't conquered writing small yet, so she's spacing them all out and putting letters where ever they will fit.

It's 74 degrees today so we walked to pick up Bubba and the kids are playing while I write this post.

Have a great day!

Fancy Day

Well, we officially have a new president.  Surprisingly, I watched most of it.  I'm not a political person in the least, but I was interested in this one.  Will America be great again?!

Sterling put on some of her jewelry and loved showing us her fancy self

Of course, he wanted a picture too...notice his foot in Sterling's picture?  He's always wanting in someone's picture!

We made our last meal with Hello Fresh last night and I think it was an all around favorite.  All three meals we tried were good, but this one blew the other's out (for me).  Xander has been helping prep all the veggies this week and as we were making this one, he asked if we were having the meal we made the other night.  I told him no, it's a new meal, and he was slightly disappointed.  Him and Nick really liked that one.  I liked it too, would make it again, but wouldn't take seconds.  But this meal, the flavors were amazing!  Loved everything about it.

We get our new shipment of three more meals on Monday and are excite to try them out too.  If you'd like to try it, get $40 off your first order, use my code BRIDSTEW.  

Have a wonderful day!

No notes!

Good morning!  Today there is no work or school because of the Inauguration.  I still have homework due tonight, but everyone gets to hang out at home.  

Yesterday, Xander came home with no notes of bad behavior.  Woohoo!  

I wanted to get a picture of him as we were watching Peter Pan, but his eyes kept closing.  He says "hey mom, I've got an idea on how to keep them open"  Ha!

With our nice weather, Sterling and I love hanging out outside waiting for Bubba to get out of school.  

We don't have many plans for the weekend.  I'll finish organizing our closet and work on homework.  But, that's probably about it.

Have a great day!

This little light of mine...

She definitely brightens up the gloomiest of days.  We've been getting a lot of rain, and if you know me, I hate rain.  More than snow.  More than the cold.  I just hate it!

(I'm not going to backtrack to catch up.  It was a pretty crappy weekend.)

Have a wonderful day!

Trouble again

Good morning!  Sterling and I spent all of our free time outside yesterday.  It was 70 degrees in January and we were soaking it up.  It will be back in the 30s today and snow tomorrow.  Who's going to get sick first from this big weather change?!

After we picked Xander up from school, we headed to the park.  But first, I check his binder to see if there were any behavior reports.  There was.  Ugh.  When we arrived at the park, I had him head to the bench so we could talk.  This time, he and his friend were wrestling in PE class instead of listening to the instructions of the teacher.  They both were written up.  The problem is Xander says they were doing it because "it was fun."  So, yes, I want him to have a fun time at school, but he needs to comprehend that school is NOT the place to be playing like that.  I tell him every.single.day (before he gets out of the car at drop off) to keep his hands to himself and no playing where your hands touch your friends.  Yet, every day he's come home stating it's been a problem.  I'm losing my mind.  What am I suppose to do?  How do I remedy this situation?  He just wants to have fun.

Hoping your day will be a wonderful one!

Lil' Beauty

I'm so lucky my little girl wants to be like me.  Or am I?  She always mentions how she wants hair like mine, so I straightened it for her.  She loves it, but it's still not like mine.  She wants "golden" hair!  She wants my hair.  I want her hair.  I wish we could just swap for a short time, ha!  Everyone at school and dance raved about how cute her hair is.  I'm just hoping it will stay straight for a few days.

I was in the right place at the right time today. CVS still had some Christmas items and they were discounted for 90% off.  I've never heard of such a thing.  I grabbed the last 4 bags of snow for .39 each!  I have big plans for it next Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day!

Sidekick

I only took one picture today, and it's something I'm very thankful to have.

Having a {much} larger home and trying to keep all rooms well heated is not easy.  I carry this guy wherever I go.  It's been my little sidekick and I get to stay toasty warm.

Have a great day!

Back to School

It was cold yesterday!  But in just a few days, we'll be in shorts.  A few days after that we'll have pneumonia.  This weather is hard to dress for!  Cold in the mornings and hot in the afternoons.

After dropping Bubba off at school, Sterling was excited to play with his jailhouse.  We played pursuit and she was the bad girls and I was the cops.  It was fun.  We love playing with Bubba's toys when he's not around, ha!

I put her hair in two braids for school.  She hates getting her hair done, but she looks so cute when she lets me!

I kept busy washing everyone's bedding.  I also started back to school today.  I'm finally in my LAST class and I'm so excited to be almost done.  I need to focus and stay ahead in this class.  I'm not going to want to procrastinate as this is a do-or-die class.  I have to edit my final paper from last semester, answer 10 questions, and submit it this week.

Nick starts back on Wednesday, but he received an email saying he has a group project due this week already.  He hasn't officially started yet and already has an assignment due.  It must be because we are in our final semester?   Crazy! 

Have a great day!

Legos

Because of the snow on Saturday, Nick and Sterling stayed home.  Going out in the Virginia traffic with all the non-snow drivers wouldn't have been safe, so they went to Nick's cousins' yesterday.  We still decided to keep Xander home and away from the temptations of play fighting with his cousin, so he and I put together his police house from Santa.

He is so sweet and chatty when it's just him around.  While we were eating lunch, I was telling him how I liked how sweet he was being.  He said, "when people are more happy, they are nice.  I just know this because I'm smart.  Right, mommy?"  Yes, buddy.  When people are happy they are nice!

We put the whole thing together throughout the day and by 3 we were done.  

Sterling had a great time with the family.  They are always so kind and generous.  She watched Storks and Frozen, enjoyed a whole bunch of snacks, and came home with a cute hairstyle and some fun loot.

On my blog with my sister, I made this image and talked about having gratitude.  This quote is perfect!

Have a great day!

Sno-much-fun

Happy Sunday!

We woke up to some pretty exciting kids when they saw snow on the ground yesterday.  They immediately wanted to go play, but we waited until after lunch so it wouldn't be so cold.  It was so much fun!  I put on my warm clothes and went sledding with them.  It's good to get a good laugh in every once in a while.

Bubba had the most fun.  He stayed out side for over two hours!  He didn't want to come in, but when we had a boot check because he thought snow was in there, it was time to come in.  There wasn't snow in his boot, his feet were just freezing!  He had a blast.

Sterling was singing and dancing all morning and continued it when she got outside.  It amazes me how she can create a song and dance for everything.  She's our performer!

It's a nice thing that our yard has a hill.  It provided some fun times.

After we came in, we enjoyed some hot cocoa.  

We also had a movie night and watched Insidious.  Sterling fell asleep and Xander was scared.  He's not usually spooked easily and enjoys watching scary movies.

Have a great day!

Play-day

Sterling and I had a productive day yesterday.  I'm pretty lucky to get to spend Fridays with her.  In a few months she'll be in school.  While I'm looking forward to this, I still love our time together.  She knows I start back to school on Monday, so she wanted to get in as much playtime as she could.  We played with her robot kitty, baby dolls, and restaurant. We then went downstairs and made sugar cookies.  Her favorite!

She had speech yesterday and when we got home she wanted to play outside, even though it was only in the mid 20s.

Xander didn't have any negative reviews yesterday .  We decided that along with taking away his electronics, he's also going to miss out on he fun at Nicks cousins house this afternoon.  He loves going there, but is always rough playing there, so it's just best if he doesn't go since he continues to get into trouble for this.  I'll stay home with him while Nick takes Sterling.

Have a great day!

Little Sidekick

Sterling has been my little sidekick in the kitchen and it's so fun watching her learn new things.  Yesterday we made a lemon bundt cake and potato soup.  She was a great assistant!

I fought my closing eyes and finished reading Winter Street.  I started reading Giddy Up, Eunice and have a feeling it's going to be a quick read because it's such a good book already.  I think it's just the type of book I needed right now.  I also started a daily devotional, Jesus Always, and it's perfect too! 

Xander came home with a note yesterday that he's been play fighting.  Again.  He does not understand that he can't play fight at school.  This is the fourth time he's gotten in trouble for this and I just don't know what to do to get him to understand it's not allowed.  Tonight I had him write "I will not touch others" 10 times, took away electronics for a week, and not setting up the Wii (which he's been looking forward to).  Like I said, I don't know what to do.  Have you dealt with this?  How did you handle the situation?  Please help this momma out!

Back to Ballet

Sterling went back to ballet yesterday and she was so excited to get back to the dance floor.  

She also headed back to school since she had been symptom free for over 24 hours.  She kept asking every few minutes if it was time to go to school yet.  She wanted to wear her other fancy dress from her grandma.  Give her all the dresses and she'll be happy!

Xander's been begging for me to set up the Wii.  I might surprise him and have it set up tomorrow when he's done with school.  

Nick started a new job at work yesterday which will require him to work longer hours, but it's good for his career progression, and it's something he's really good at.

I was able to finally get my office organized.  Hopefully I can kept it that way.  It's a lot less stressful when papers aren't everywhere.  I also finished reading Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand.  It was such a good book.  Took me 4 days longer than I wanted, but I also didn't read as much on break as I was hoping.  I can't decide if I should read the next book in the series or start a totally different book. I think I'm going to start A little Salty to Cut the Sweet by Sophie Hudson.  Have you read it?

Have a great day!

Happy New Year

We said goodbye to 2016 and welcomed 2017.  It was a hard last year on our family, but we are ready to make 2017 our best year yet.

The kids and I arrived home from Georgia Saturday morning, and then Nick and the kids got ready to head to his cousins.  I stayed home because I woke up Saturday morning not feeling well, and after we got home from the airport, I took a 3 hour nap.  I never take naps, so I was sick.  I felt a little better after I woke up, but later that night, I wasn't feeling so well again.  I thought Nick and the kids would be home between 10 and 11 to ring in the new year together, but he drank too much and ended up staying the night there.  They didn't get home until Sunday afternoon, which worked out perfectly.  

While they were gone, I was able to clean up the Christmas decorations without worrying about the mess it creates during the process.  It was peaceful and everything was cleaned by the time they got home.

Sterling wore one of her fancy dresses from her grandma to the New Year's party.  She wore another one yesterday.  She's a fancy girl and fancy dresses are her favorite!

(this is the ONLY picture I've taken all year so far...sad!)

Sterling wasn't feeling well either, but Nick took her anyways.  Hopefully no one else ended up getting sick from the party because of her.  She threw up on and off all weekend, and her little belly was upset.  She stayed home from school yesterday because she wasn't 24 hour symptom free.

Xander went back to school yesterday and had a great first day in 2017.  He's doing great with reading and was able to pick from a treasure box because he completed more than 15 days of reading in December.  He gets so excited to pick from the treasure box at school.

As I mentioned last year, I wanted to try to blog everyday.  A little something from everyday.  My sister helped me come up with a great idea since I was feeling down and often let the stressful times take over my mind.  I closed the blog on the first because I really wasn't going to blog anymore.  She gave me the idea to blog about a positive moment from each day (Thanks, Sis!).  So, that's just what I'm going to try to do.  I may not blog everyday, but I want to keep this little blog going for the kids' books.  Even with only one reader.