Here are some photos from our routine little nature trail… see the little froggies? As I told you in another post I am fascinated by mushrooms. Here are some cute little ones we saw. We also found some fresh turkey tracks and could hear them all around us in the woods. Speaking of turkey, I will have a post stuffed with turkey soon! just in time for a special podcast by Butterball, stay tuned!

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Be successful anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

If you do good today, people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give the best you have anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It never was between you and them anyway.

———————-
I received this in a handout, I absolutely love it. I’m going to embroider this for each of my kids on a pillow or something. Keeping this motto in mind has helped me with decision making, wether or not to do something for someone. If I do an act of service I do it with God in mind. This way I haven’t lost anything if that friendship doesn’t blossom or something didn’t work out as I thought.

If someone knows the author please let me know, I want to give credit where it is due.

Life Long Learners are curious and engaged. If you agree that creating an environment for life long learning is a worthy goal, consider these 5 steps to achieve the goal.

1. Music is a wonderful way to introduce your kids to tempo and rhythm. Children should listen to all kinds of music and even selections that may be unfamiliar to the rest of the family like cowboy, gospel, opera, etc…

2. Books are very important. Age appropriate reading material is very important to keep at a level the kids can get to it on their own. One point that is often overlooked is to read beyond the child’s own ability. That means you may have to stop more often for vocabulary. Check every so often to be sure they are understanding the story.

3. Dinner time, nuff said, get together at the table.

4. Get outdoors, the best lab is right outside your door. Kids get to use their outside voices (within reason). Let them climb, slide, see all they can see.

5. Art appreciation, have art in your own home, thrift shops are full of gorgeous works for a few dollars. Make your own art, work in different mediums. Showcase the art. While viewing art with a child, talk about the sources of light, the scale, the focus. Visit an art museum, discuss famous artists and their work.

In doing all this, your children will appreciate and imitate beauty and become life long learners.

Teamwork! What’s gonna work? teamwork!

I absolutely love the Wonder Pets. That one line alone is great, I love watching the show with my kids, it is so cute and I love the premise.

When we lived in Japan I really enjoyed watching the considerate way in which team members treated eachother. Young or old people showed eachother respect. I also really like that if someone loses their temper it’s not the person who took the abuse that should be embarassed but instead the one who did the yelling.

I’m trying to teach my kids that, humility and working together as a team. It is so important to know how to get along and work with others. Families are a child’s first team.

I’m sure other moms can relate, why can’t I keep my little girls out of my purse? They are constantly taking my stuff and hiding under the table looking in the mirror or going through my make up bag or taking out my credit cards. It drives me crazy but they are so sweet.

The most annoying thing by far is when they take my cell phone and my husband is not here which means I can’t call myself. I think a great service would call your cell phone via an internet form so that you can hear it and find it.

ok, enough ranting and raving about that!

We started off our day with apple picking which was really nice. The apples are really good this year! I will have pics of that in a few days, they’re on my husbands camera which I can’t stand dealing with.

We also planted our two little red delicious apple trees. I hope they will grow fast, because the kids love picking apples.

We went over to drop off some apples and came across this little patch of mushrooms, I know I’m a country bumpkin taking pics of mushrooms. Mushrooms are really fascinating I think.

The only other thing is we watched the movie, Vacancy, last night. It had some good parts but the ending was terrible. I won’t give it away but I can’t stand the way it ended.

Right now I’m mad at DH, he watched the Bionic Woman and I didn’t realize The War was on and missed it. Oprah recommended it and I always try to watch what she suggest.

I looked out my window and saw these two sweet little dears eating our crab apples. I don’t have much zoom on my camera unfortunately but I think you can still make them out pretty good. I love this time of year because the deer are all over the place. We’ve never seen them in this particular spot before so we were excited!

Aren’t they the sweetest deer?

I came home to a bundle of joy the other day! Pristine and perfect, there it was - MomSpit! I couldn’t wait to try it out, No more sticky little fingers or dirty grins.

Momspit is the ultimate mommy bag necessity! It is a wonderful cleanser that cleans like soap and water - no sink needed so it’s perfect for on the go clean-ups. Remember when your mom would take some of her own spit and “clean” your face? now the same thing can occur but with a wonderful fresh scent. There are two scent options to chose from, Fig & Green Tea and Lemon & White Tea, in addition there is an unscented momspit.

Momspit is the new way to clean dirt, grease, creative messes and so much more. Even if you don’t carry a diaper bag, this is something that is perfect for your purse, make up bag, back pack, gym bag or even a briefcase. Don’t confuse momspit with a sanitizer, momspit is specifically formulated to get the dirt off.

MomSpit is a great gift for moms but it also makes a thoughtfull addition to a nursery school or other place where kids are cared for. MomSpit at Amazon. Find out more about the amazing women of momspit.

momspitkidsbaby

I am so upset with boy2001! I told him to clean up his room on Tuesday… he spent about an hour after that fiddling with stuff but not really cleaning up. I don’t know why he doesn’t keep it clean anyway, I have storage for everything seperated. The problem is I think that he plays with everything together. He also dumps out the entire thing to get to a particular piece.

The Little People attack the lego men and knock over the blocks and the next thing I know his carpet is littered with tiny pieces of what boy2001 calls, ‘this makes that’.

So how do you keep your kids on track? I’m thinking I’d be better off with only one ginormous container.

Here are some other random pictures from Storyland. I love the Story book section of the park, you can find all the nursery rhymes you remember to share with your kids. Mother Goose greets you at the enrance.