A Cold Winter Day

Aiden was "so cold" one morning so ran in and jumped under the covers in the living room while I made breakfast. He just looked so cute so I ran in and snapped a picture.

Free Hug Campaign

I just had to share this.



Check out his website at http://www.freehugscampaign.org/

What a great idea. Sending hugs to all of my friends today!

"One, Two..." Teaching Through Love Insterad of Fear by Pam Leo

I read a really amazing article today. There was this really great statement about counting when disciplining our kids...but it is the same for any threating type of discipline.

Counting at a child communicates, "I am bigger and more powerful than you and you 'd better do as I say or I'm going to (in some way) hurt you." When a big kid says to a smaller one, "Do what I say or I'm going to hurt you," we call it bullying. When an adult communicates the same thing to a child by counting, we call it discipline. When we treat children in ways that take away their dignity we teach them how to take away other's dignity. If we want kids to stop bullying, we have to stop bullying kids. The power of fear is easy and quick but short-lived. The power of love requires more work and takes longer but children never outgrow its influence. Children count on us to teach them the way, so let's stop counting at them.

What a great way to explain it. I'm not perfect. I use threats on occassion also...but I am trying to change that and this definitely helped me see why I want to do that.

Here is a link to the entire article:

http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/pam_leo2.html

Pledge to BUY HANDMADE!

I took the pledge...will you!



The only gifts we will be giving in 2008 will be handmade by Erik & I (or we will buy handmade from local crafters).

BUY HADNMADE IN 2008!

Christmas Pictures

I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this but LOVED so much how it came out that I just couldn't wait. So...I wasn'tsupposed to be in the photo's...just Aiden & Bennett...but Bennett wasn't really interested in doing it on his own so I helped. We tried to keep me out of the photo's but when he started grabbing & ripping the letters I had to keep them further away. Aren't they just the cutest!

And Abbey had a matching shirt also. PJ's for the boys and Abbey came from Hannah Anderson's clearance sale last winter. Bennett & Aiden are wearing the same size as that was the only size they had left once these went on clearance. They are too cute those. Abbey was not thrilled by hers but she looked OH so cute.

And the boys just love her & she loves them. What a good little girl!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Tree Decorating & Visiting Santa

The base hosted a Christmas party yesterday afternoon. It was really nice actually! They gave out lots of little door prizes. Aiden got his very own flashlight and some playdough that I will probably replace with some homemade stuff (this stuff was made in china and while it is certfied non-toxic...I don't like to take that chance as playdough often goes in the mouth). We also got a few ornaments with the Maineiacs Logo on them...which are really cool! And Santa came!

This is the only photo we have of either of the boys even near Santa. We have two polaroids also but those were not much better. Aiden just didn't want to stop moving for a second to say hi to Santa and well...Bennett had your typical 18 month old child reaction. He cried! And sat there saying "No,No,No" the whole time. As you can tell from the Paci in his mouth he was VERY tired.

Other than that the party was enjoyed by them both.

And here is the only tree decorating photo we have. Aiden is just too busy. He put 1-2 ornaments on the tree and then went on to something else. So...not many pics of the decorating process as Erik and I were doing it all. LOL.

And here is a picture of the tree all decorated with the presents under it waiting for the boys to wake in the morning.

Our Christmas Tree Excursion

Here are a few photo's of us getting our tree this year. We for some strange reason decided to wait until AFTER the storm that dropped an additiona 12-18 inches on top of the almost 2 ft of snow we already had. So...only Erik and Abbey trudged through the snow to find our tree. Aiden has become entralled with picture taking. Every time the camera comes out he has to take a few pictures. This first photo was taken by Aiden. Not bad!

Here's Erik cutting down the selected tree. Next year we are hoping to start buying a living tree and planting it on our property. We are thinking about setting this one up in the yard and putting bird food, etc on it so that it gets used all winter before we put it in the compost pile (or we may also use to make fire starters).

Here are the boys and Abbey heading out of the tree lot.

And here is Aiden helping Erik drag the tree down to the barn to have it bagged and paid for!

And last but not least here are the Dow boys being silly as always!

Then we got to go inside and enjoy cider and donuts! What a way to end the day.