Words That Bang Around In My Head...

and fight to get out. I am in a writing mood, not bloggish type of writing honestly, but story and poem and just stuff kind of writing.

 Its been building up for several days, the thought of writing each of my children a letter or even letters to be opened on a certain special days has been tugging at me as well. 

Stories for the younger ones, poems for the older girls. An account of my first and only hunting trip with my dad for Bubba. He needs to know that grandpa took me hunting but didnt have the heart to kill anything in front of me so he kept me chattering about anything and everything to scare all the animals away, and then we went home and shot at coffee cans. I was 12 then, same age he is now. 

There are days I want all of them to have letters for, graduations, wedding days, the birth of children and other things as well. I dont know why this is pressing so hard at me but Im going to do it. Maybe they will each end up with a stack of crazy ramblings and memories from their mother and roll their eyes thinking Im sappy and ridiculous but I feel this is something I need to do. 

I have no idea how to wrap this post up so I think I will just leave it with this little quote.

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.
JM Barrie

The Joy of Homemade Toys

So today I made the flock a Sensory Find It game. We had seen one in a learning store a couple of years ago for almost $40 It was so much cheaper to make it myself. I used a 2 liter Dr Pepper bottle, filled it with rice and a bit of glitter and then wandered around the house picking up miscellaneous items. I found, well rather stepped on, a little yellow lego, (Holy sheep dip that hurt!) various buttons, beads, rubber bands, just the typical junk that collects around a house. After my collecting spree I had a total of 67 objects of varying size, shape and weights (don't forget to include a penny) I then made a printout list of each object and laminated it with clear packing tape so the kids could use an Expo (dry erase) marker to mark out each item as they found it. I then attached the list to the bottle with a piece of ribbon and screwed the lid on. I might go back and GLUE the lid on to make sure it doesnt "accidentally" come off lol. The kids sat and played with this for hours this afternoon  taking turns doing it alone or helping each other, even the older kids had a blast with it. I sat and helped Brother Bear by keeping track of the items as he found them. I was super proud as he managed to find all but 9 items by himself. I was truly amazed at how long this held his attention, I finally had to make him put it up for bed time.  With all of his special quirks there isn't much that holds his attention longer than 10 or 15 minutes but this was a real winner! Here is a pic of our game. If you try making one Id love to hear how you did it, what you used, and how your kids enjoyed it!

I sat for the second night in a row watching the princess attempt to climb into her crib. I think Ive mentioned before that she has already managed to escape from it once. She piled her blanket at the end of the bed and reached out and pulled herself up with the bookshelf and then climbed down the shelves. She hasnt been able to do it again since we moved her bed away from the shelves. Last nights attempt to climb in was done from the end of the bed, tonight's was from the side. I swear she is going to grow a little monkey tail any day now lol