Winter Fun!!

We've been home from Kamp Kinship for the 1st Annual Moeller family Winter Fest and I STILL haven't made it to the computer to upload my photos OR chronicle a single happening!!

It truely was a wonderful family weekend!!! You'll hear that about 100 more times... but I think I'll wait with the details until I have the photos ready. Pics speak 1000 words... so I can type a LOT LESS! ha ha !!

I was a little "under the weather" the first few days after the Kamp trip, so I'm still catching up on laundry... and sleep.... I'm starting to feel back to normal now. :)

Just have a quick little story about Liv....
She has decided she doesn't like eating what the rest of us are eating at meals. (thor jr. in the making so far :) ... so we try to take it in stride, not making too big of a deal about it, but only having healthy options around the house.

She said she was hungry as I was working in the kitchen one afternoon. I said, OK... what would you like.
Liv: I want a bicycle
Mom: what? a what?
Liv: a bicycle
Mom: ummm... can you show me
Liv (goes to the freezer and pulls open the door)
Mom: OH... a Popcicle!!! Ok sweetie! :)

This is why I love MOPS!!

Montessori. I thought I knew enough about the philosophies behind the program/school/etc. to pass judgement that it wasn't for us... Boy was I wrong!! Now, I'm not saying I'm pulling my kids out of private school to enroll them in the Montessori program... But I am saying there is a LOT of good to be learned from the method that fits into Christ-centered parenting!! It really was inspirational...

#1: Never do for your child what they can do for themselves... (thought I already knew that, and was doing that.... but it never hurts to see what others are doing... and challenge yourself in a new way!!)

#2: Toy Bins are EVIL (well, not her words exactly... that is my paraphrase) But the idea behind toy bins is not conducive to the way a child works... a FEW toys on shelves provides a much better play area. They learn to be more imaginative with the toys they do have... and easier to teach them that each thing has it's own "spot."

#3: As children learn the responsibility, they can be allowed more freedom... When they can pick up toys after they are done playing, they can play with something else.

So I came home INSPIRED!!

I was ready to tear into the girl's bedroom & toy bin in the family room in the basement!! But I had to get grociers and then hockey.... So this morning I began!! What fun!!

I should have taken "before" and "after" pictures... but who wants to see our big mess??


The new closet, now with toys shelves where Liv can easily reach items. The clothes are OK on the middle row for me because Liv doesn't pick out her own clothes, and Anika can reach the clothes easily with our little step stool. The highest shelf has the girls keepsake boxes, the girls games, and other itmes Liv cannot have access too without mommy supervision. These toys were previoulsy tossed into one of 4 different toy bins (along with many, many others. These were the only ones I ever saw ANY of the kids playing with... so why keep the rest?? I purged out 2 garbage sacks of junk, and 2 garbage sacks of donate-able stuff!! There is still toys in our family room downstairs... and a whole bin of American Girls clothes and accessories under the bed...



These dress up clothes, and small basket full of "accesories" used to be in a huge tub... it was a struggle to have them put away... and real clothes kept dissappearing into the play clothes bin... Now they have a real "Closet" of clothes, much more like real life... with the doll & kitchen right there, it's almsot like a little play "house" in the closet!

This spool & yarn "snake" has been one of Liv's favorite toys... frankly I hadn't seen it in months. Now I know why... The pieces were in 3 different toy bins, in two different rooms!! Now it has a place, "just for it"... I'm hoping this will keep all of us on the road to keeping things where they belong! :) (starts with mom, right?! :)
Now he has a cute little basket to live in...

And his own little spot on the shelf! :)

Last but not least -- the Hair Pretties... With two growing girls, we have a plethora of Hair and misc. accessories !!!

I have found 101 uses for these shoe organizers... this one came from Target for $8.


Each variet of hair do-dads has their own pocket...


Combs, brushes, etc. each have their own place



as well as the detangler spray !

Liv loves her doll, and got busy "taking care of her" while I was cleaning the room... Note the pink bean bag under her head for a "pilllow" :) Now I just have to convince her that baby doesn't need to take a nap in the middle of the hall?!!! She has a perfectly good crib in her room... but will she put her in there.... noooooo....

I keep writing the year as 01, instead of 10!

Good Monday morning Family & friends!

Mondays seem to be our Laundry day! Now, if I just had a little home-helper fairy to come put the clean clothes away the world would be perfect.... What am I saying! I want a home-helper fairy to do ALL the chores!!

I certainly can't complain -- Thor & Anika do very well with their home-chores. They earn good money every week for the chores too. Thor has the system figured out completely... when ever he is trying to save up for something specific (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull DVD this week) he offers to do ANY chore I can think of -- even making MY bed for me!! I discovered this week Anika is a SUPER stairway vacuum-er! I don't mind vacuuming as a whole, but like the stair-vacuuming the LEAST of it all. I had her do the two half-stair sections going from the kitchen to our lowest level, TV room area... and they are spotless!! YEAH!! That is going to become her chore EVERY Thursday afternoon!!

Dirk was home this past weekend, so we really did work some over-time on the household chores. We have learned with our new family schedule, that if all the homework and household (regular) duties are done by the time dad gets home on Friday, he will probably come up with some "fun" free time plans while he is here!! I think he's the biggest kid of us all!

Saturday morning started pretty early - leaving the house by 8 a.m. for Thor's Hockey game. The usual routine for the 4 squads of boys, is for two teams to have an hour of "stick practice" then a "positional scrimmage" (read: GAME) for an hour each.

A Side Note: We have been SO much happier wtih the hockey program this year, I can't stop telling other moms how impressed I am with the skills the boys are building! Not to mention, they are getting 3-4 hrs on the ice each week, compared to 1-2 hrs last year. It has everything to do with the coaching plan! Not to say that they last 2 years were a bad program... but it just shows how much better a good program can be with a little innovation! Because the boys are still playing only "1/2" ice for the games, it leaves the other half of the ice open for the stick-work practice ... so everyone gets 2 hrs on the ice, instead of taking turns using the whole rink for 2 teams to play a "game." 2nd: the coaches focus more on positional training during the "scrimmage" ... even stopping the game mid-play when someone has done something wrong, like "off-sides" and bringing the whole group of boys in for a "huddle" to make sure they understand what "off=sides" means... and what they need to do to prevent it. The also (probably the MOST important element) have 3 or more coaches on the ice all the time... one with the defensive players... one with the offensive players, trying to help them understand what their "job" is while playing the particular position. Thor plays defense a lot -- and is doing a really good job in that position, not that he can't do offensive play. He's bigger than most of the other boys -- not necessarily quicker!! :)

This weekend, however, 70% of the kids were gone to Pierre for a hockey tournament! There were just enough for 2 "squads" of kids left here in RC, which gave the coaches a fun opportunity. They did stick work for about 20 minutes -- then "game/scrimmage" the rest of the 2 hours of ice time!! Thor was POOPED when he got in the car... not to mention dripping with sweat and HUNGRY!!

The next stop after Hockey was going out to eat... not a usual treat, and since we are trying to eat "better" not "quicker" we opted for Olive Garden -- soup, salad, meat and pasta. Everyone was very satisfied -- even Liv who fell alseep in the booth while snuggled up next to me!

A few shopping errands took longer than we expected, even window shopping at Best Buy for a new lap-top for me for work (at church)... trying to stay within my Children's Ministry budget, plus a little extra from the leadership for the purpose of a lap-top. Still a challenge... not sure what is the best option yet? I guess my problem is that I have fallen in love the the Mac/Apple company (again) and have a hard time purchasing anything in the PC world. When you compare "apples" to "lemons" (pun intended!!) the PC's come up short every time. But the "good apples" are always a bit more expensive... so the questions is, how will I use the aforementioned budget to the best of it's ability!? :) I'll let you know what I decide.

Saturday evening we were happy to stay home, watch the Winter X Games and play "Guess Who" (Anika & Dirk) ... and just relax for a couple hours. I don't even remember falling asleep... but apparently I did, before 10 p.m.??

Sunday was a great morning at Dove -- worshiping with our church family, I taught Kids Worship for the Elementary room. It's always a fun time with those kids. They are old enough to really talk about how the Bible stories apply to our lives. This year we are stretching the usual Bible stories into lessons called "Doing What Jesus Did." Our lesson on the life of Sampson then led to a short lesson on How to Listen to the Holy Spirit in our own lives... how does He speak to us? What do we do with "it" when He does...? Sampson didn't do a very good job of following God's directions... He's a good example of what happens when God Blesses us, and we let ourselves do whatever feels good at the moment.

Mom & dad had Sunday dinner ready for us at their house - Campfire Stew (a Moeller family specialty) homemade bread, salad, and ice cream with or without bread pudding on the side. :) There wasn't too much down time afterward -- we all had haircut appointments at Amy's at 3p.m. 5 haircut/trims later -- YEP, every single one of us!! We were on our way to Cabellas for a winter-sale shopping trip. :) Then a quick lunch at Taco Bell... and we surprised the kids with one last "outing" for the evening...

Family Swim Night at the swim center!! As we were driving over, none of the kids had any idea Dirk was even considering it... Thor said "We can't go, we don't have our swim suit along." To which I replied "we don't?" Then they realized we had been planning it all along! :) Surprising them is almost as much fun as planning to go 2 days ahead of time... but you don't have to hear the constant "can we go NOW.... how much longer until we can GO??!"

We always have fun swimming together -- this time even more fun to find friends there unexpectedly. Two families we know from MOPS and Zion school were there. :) Liv found herself VERY comfortable in the water... a bit TOO comfortable for mom... She was walking/running everywhere and would find herself in water over her head. When I tried to "hold/carry" her around she would wiggle out and say "I walk... I go."

Then we tried the little kid's blue slide -- and the rest of the evening was OVER! She LOVED the blue slide! The first two times down she went on my lap... The third time at the top she sat down and went, without any warning or hesitation! I had to yell across the pool for Dirk to get to the bottom QUICK! She was ready for independence... Which means I have to enroll her in swim lessons NOW!!!

That put us home at 8:45p.m. BED TIME!! Just enough time for me to pack a few dinners for Dirk to heat up on the job-site in WY, and get to sleep.

3AM today - Dirk left for WY for work :( We'll be happier when he gets home in 2 weeks. :)