Thank you's

Teaching thankfulness by doing. He grumbled and complained at first. But then it caught on and he wanted to do each part on his own completely. One moment learned... one more action that will hopefully embed itself into his heart.

Snow Day

Taking advantage of a rare sight... snow! 7:00 in the morning and the boys were outside.

One usually gets cold before the other and prefers to watch from the inside where it's warm...

next to baby.

Snow piled clothes all across the floor but no one minds on such a special day.

Rosy cheeked boy fresh from the (inches) of snowy tundra.
Pure joy.

The 6 year old

As of Monday, I officially became the mama of a 6 year old! While we are having more moments like this:


And continue to have moments like this:

Rest assured. There is also plenty of this:

and this:

yep:

and definitely some of:

And like the amazing boy he is... after a busy day of that... there's always room for this:

Happy birthday Ian.

Framed magnet board

In need of some type of controlled space for the boys to hang their artwork, I found this tutorial here for a DIY framed magnet board. It's a big metal sheet covered with fabric and framed. Easy. (BTW...I love the colors of that play room and I'm seriously thinking about stealing the wall color for the boy's new learning/play area!) I hung this up in our hallway in between the new learning area, the kitchen, and the living room.

I made this one really big... 3x3 foot. Mostly because I had mistakenly bought an aluminum piece of metal sheeting first thinking it was lightweight and would work great on the wall. I cut the wood with a miter saw and painted it and even sewed the fabric pieces together before I realized that magnets don't stick to aluminum! Oops. So we had to search high and low for a steal metal sheet that same size. Home Depot had ones that were 2x3 which would also be a great size for this project. Anyway.. here's the pictures... I'm so happy with it and the boys just love it!