This is why I'm smitten

My Clive is a darling little peanut.  I'm fully aware of his charms over me.  I'm helpless when he speaks in his sweet little 3 year old voice and *explains* something to me. 

Like yesterday, we were eating lunch which included leftover peas. The conversation went something like this . . .

Chloe: "Mama, I'm your sweet pea, right?" 
Me: "Yes!  You're all my sweet peas." 
Clive: "Not me!  I'm a BIG pea.  See because I'm big and because I'm a pea.  Because I just ate a pea.  Like this, see?" (explained with accompanying gestures)

And when he SINGS he notches up the darling-ness to ridiculous heights.  Here's an example of him singing one of our favorite bedtime songs, If I Were a Butterfly. Lyrics altered by Clive.

Looking for a good foodie blog

I have pared down the blogs in my reading list significantly.  I kept finding myself clicking the "mark all as read" button without even glancing at the myriad of posts that accumulated in my google reader pane. So I drastically slashed the number of blogs I subscribe to.

Now that I'm down to a manageable list of blogs to read I have NO food blogs listed.  None! And I am in desperate need of some culinary inspiration.  I've been in a serious dinner-cooking rut lately and I need help.  Dinner in the Horn household is becoming a rather boring affair.

I'm hoping to find a blog that's healthy-ish, inspirational and family friendly.

What foodie blogs do you read and would recommend?

Bitten by a rabid sewing bug

Ever since a month ago when  friend gave me some super cute fabric, I've been on a wild sewing spree.

Prior to receiving said fabric my sewing machine had laid dormant for many months.  Since I don't have a designated "sewing room" I have to haul the machine and all the necessary accouterments every time I want to sew.  That's no fun.  Oh, and I also have three busy children who like to try and "help" me sew.  And because I abhor giving up the precious golden moments of nap time, I often attempt a sewing project when they're all active.  And that's just pure unadulterated madness. 

For those reasons I have done almost NO sewing in the past year. 

Until now!  The sewing tide has turned!  Something about this funky bright pink material and the hope of spring has revived my love for sewing and repurposing.

I started with several long-sleeved shirts that Chloe has hardly worn this season.  After cutting off the sleeves and bottom band, I set to work on pairing the shirt tops with coordinating fabrics to make them into playdresses for Chloe.

The concept is simple.  Connect a shirt top to a gathered skirt and voila!  Aside from the inevitable sewing mistakes, the most time consuming part of these dress projects for me is the finishing.  I cut the sleeves off too close to the arm hole so I have to recover the arm hold myself.  Ugh.  Wouldn't be so bad if I had a stock of bias tape.  But alas, I do not.  So I've been making my own bias tape out of strips of complementary fabric.  Works well for the most part though it takes FOREVER.

And I tell you what, sewing clothes is so rewarding!  It's such a grand feeling to see something I crafted with my hands and creativity take shape into a practical wearable garment.  Now I get how Ma from Little House on the Prairie must have felt when she chose fabric, envisioned a dress and then sewed it into existence.

The other bonus to making clothing is the huge cost savings.  All of these dresses started out as unused shirts from Chloe's drawer.  The coordinating fabric for the bottoms I had in my sewing stash or spent a few cents on at the thrift store. 

That's what I've been busy at for the month of March!  I only wish I had more concentrated time to commit to fun projects like this.  Instead I've been sneaking upstairs when I have a chance and sewing for 10-15 minutes at a time and slowly seeing a project completed.

When do you find time to sew?  What have you been sewing or crafting lately?

This was my first project.  The shirt ended up being a tad tight on Chloe so I decided not to use it as a dress bodice.  Instead, I made it into a shirt/skirt duo.  That way when Chloe outgrows the shirt we can still get a few more years' wear out of the skirt.

This was project #2.  The puppy dog is too cute to go to waste in the give-away pile!  I paired the puppy dog top with a pink pillowcase I had in my fabric pile.  Yes, I said *pillowcase*.  Didn't you know you could make clothes out of bedding?  Not quite happy with how crooked the band is but she's an active girl.  Hopefully all her jumping and running around will distract the onlooker from seeing all the glaring sewing mistakes!

Another shot of Chloe modeling her new puppy dog dress. 

This was project #4 and it's my favorite!  You can't tell from this weird shot (Chloe was getting impatient with modeling) but it really is a cute dress.  I didn't have any matching fabric to go on the bottom so I scrounged the thrift store for a ladies t-shirt.  It worked beautifully!  The best part was that I didn't have to hem the skirt since it was really the bottom band of the ladies t-shirt.  And even after I had hacked up the t-shirt I still had plenty to make bias tape for the neck and armholes. 

This was my last dress made from Chloe's shirts and I don't like it much.  The spacing is weird.  I should have cut the shirt a bit more and made a fuller skirt.  And it's a tad tight on Chloe.  So, this dress might get a new home with one of Chloe's friends soon!

Obviously, the model is DONE.  Dress #3 uses a pink pin-striped top and the groovy swirly pink fabric that inspired this sewing run.  :)  I love this one.  Plus I love that it still looks little-girlish.  I can't deny that my Chloe is growing up but I still love to see her wear these innocent girly styles.

Serving the sickies

Life has swallowed me whole lately.  And I've been so busy I've forgotten entirely about blogging. 

That's probably as it should be since much of my efforts in the past weeks has been taking care of sickly children.  And a sickly husband too.

The stomach flu finally hit our family and it proceeded to move through each of us (EXCEPT ME!) systematically.  I'm convinced I stayed healthy due to lots of Emergen-C vitamin supplement packets and the fervent prayers of my friends.

Everyone was pretty sad as they struggled through the flu but Clive was the very worst.  Poor little peanut was so whiny and lifeless!  At first, I answered the call to serve my sickies with fervor and adrenaline.  Didn't even mind the first few times I became a living vomit absorber.  In those moments my entire being was focused on helping whoever was ailing.  I had no chance or desire to think of my personal space or cleanliness in those needy moments. 

After a few days of this, I found myself tired.  Tired of serving others and cleaning up puke.  And I allowed thoughts of self-pity and entitlement to enter my weary brain. 

And then, just waiting for me in my google reader pane was this blog post by Ann Voskamp.  The title alone is enough to remind me of the deep lesson God taught me through this tiny ordeal of sickness.  Ann's post, "When the Grind of it all makes it hard to keep going" is not a pity party.  Not at ALL.  She's empathetic to be sure but more about embracing self-sacrifice with JOY.  I won't attempt to sum up her truth-based poetic thoughts but I'll share a few sentences that hit me hard:

While the Deceiver jockeys to dupe us into thinking otherwise, we who are made in the image of God, being formed into Christ’s likeness, our happiness comes, too, not in the having but in the handing over.  Give your life away in exchange for many lives, give away your blessings to multiply blessings, give away so that many might increase, and do it all for the love of God.

Reminds me of a favorite and relevant prayer by Martin Luther:

“O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labour, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight.”

Additionally, while my crew was in the throes of the stomach flu we learned of a 5 year old boy from our church who is going through intense physical difficulty.  He's been in the PICU for more than a month now as surgeons work on his twisted and failing intestines.  The little guy is almost done with surgeries now and is on the long road to recovery.  We've been praying for this little boy and since my own little girl is of the same age, this ordeal has been incredibly poignant for me. 

Vomited on?  Yup.  Whiny and demanding children?  For certain.  No appetites for a week?  Uh-huh.  But I count all those things as JOY when I consider the huge challenges and illnesses other children and families are trudging through. 

And I thank God that our troubles, big or small, are in His hands.  That regardless of the size of the difficulty, HE can be trusted, loved and praised.  And that He promises a proportionate amount of grace for the trouble at hand. 

How has your sickie season gone so far?

Horn Homeschool: Week 24

Toast in the shape of 100 for breakfast.

During week 24 of our homeschool venture, we had a split theme.  On Monday we commemorated our 100th day of school!  Yay!

Felt good to reach this typical kindergarten milestone.  And as is also typical, we did lots of activities centered around the number 100. 

Of course there was lots of counting to 100 involved in our day.  We did 100 jumping jacks (that was hard!), counted and ate 100 pieces of popcorn, make posters using 100 items (paperclips and pennies), and weighed five different groups of 100 things.  The weighing activity was especially engaging because we made a prediction chart before weighing the articles.  We weighed a box of 100 paperclips, 100 pennies, 100 cottonballs, 100 popsicle sticks and 100 stickers.

The rest of our week was devoted to one of my all-time favorite children's authors.  Theodore Geisel's birthday falls on March 2.  He is otherwise known as the legendary Dr. Seuss or by his other pen-name Theo LeSieg ("Geisel" spelled backwards).

To commemorate the special day, we read MANY books by the birthday author beginning appropriately with Happy Birthday to You.  We also had a special Seussical birthday party dinner with chicken in the shape and style of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  One of the absolutely invaluable aspects of homeschooling is getting your children actively involved and excited about learning.  Chloe hopped right into the Seuss party preparations and concocted her own "Pink Ink" drink for dinner inspired by a Seuss book.  She also had the idea to dress up as characters from The Cat in the Hat.  She and Clive became Things 1 and 2 and we crafted a cat-like hat for Matt to wear at dinner.

We never watch tv during the day simply because our television is in a bad spot to pick up digital reception.  For our Seuss marathon however, I pulled the tv out and rigged it up so the kids could watch a few episodes "The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That" on pbs.  What a fabulous show!

And because I'm ridiculous I verbalized an idea about making a Cat-in-the-Hat cake.  Chloe got even MORE excited and promised she'd help me make and decorate the cake.  So, we concocted a cat shaped cake.  That part was fairly simple.  It was the frosting and decorating that proved to be the most time consuming.  Thankfully, a kind neighbor friend of mine gave me some black decorator's icing and I did the best I could with my very limited artistic abilities. 

Dr. Seuss' books are so out of this world fun to read!  Though I gave up on the tongue twister book about 1/3 of the way through. That one is crazy!  Conversely, I also dig how many of his books are so easy for beginning readers to read for themselves.  His reader books aren't the contrived no-plot type of books that you find on the library's "emerging readers" shelves.  His books maintain a silly whimsicality while still using simple beginner words.

Happy happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Counting 100 pieces of popcorn for her and Clive to eat as a snack.  100 pieces of popcorn is surprisingly small!

100 posters in which the kids glued 100 paperclips and pennies.

Thing 2 was a very helpful cake froster!

The cat cake.

Close-up of my attempt at the cat's mischeivous face.

Thing 2 patiently waiting in her red "box" (a pack-n-play covered with red towels and blankets).

Thing 2 waits to jump out and surprise Matt.

Even Solomon joined in on the Dr. Seuss fun by wearing his special bib!

"Pink Ink" for dinner. 

Our "one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" were actually homemade chicken nuggets.

More

Death and pain are all around us aren't they?  The older I get, the more I'm confronted with the truth of life's brevity.

An acquaintance of mine from college just passed away.  She had been recently diagnosed with leukemia, undergone a bone marrow transplant and now she's gone.

I didn't know her much.  In fact I don't remember even having more than a surface conversation with her, if that.  But having been recently reconnected with her on Facebook and following her journey through illness, I kept imagining myself in her shoes.  And I'd click her picture on Facebook and ask God to grant her strength and grace for her trials.

She's got a family with two young girls.  She's my age.  I tear up thinking about the deep sorrow her family must be heavy with in the wake of her sudden departure.

But even in the midst of the mourning, there is much hope.  Hope because this life isn't it.  There is so much more waiting for us on the other side of life! I imagine Jesus welcoming Rachel into His arms and hugging her as she finally rests from her physical troubles. 

This song is ringing through my brain and heart as I remember Rachel's family.  I pray that the truth of God and the certainty that their mom and wife is in heaven will be a resounding comfort.

There is More

This is not the end here at this grave
This is just a hole that someone made
And every hole was made to fill
And every heart can feel it still
How nature hates a vacuum

This is not the hardest part of all
This is just the seed that has to fall
All our lives we till the ground
Until we lay our sorrows down
And watch the sky fall rain

There is more, more than all this pain
More than all the falling down and the getting up again
There is more, more than we can see
From our tiny vantage point in this vast eternity

There is more

A thing resounds when it rings true
Ringing all the bells inside of you
Like a golden sky on a summer's eve
Your heart is tugging at your sleeve
And you can not say why

There must be more

There is more, more than we can stand
Standing in the glory of a love that never ends
There is more, more than we can guess
More and more forever more and not a second less

There is more than what the naked eye can see
Clothing all our days with mystery
Watching over everything and wilder than our wildest dreams could ever dream to be

There is more

Freezing Clive

Lately, I find myself wishing life had a *pause* button.  Especially so I could freeze these adorable moments in my Clive's third year.  Clive's little brain and mouth have been connecting recently to come up with some doozies of super cuteness.

Take for example, tonight as I was singing to him before bed.  Our general pattern is that Matt reads to C & C while I put Solomon to bed.  Then I come in and finish things up by singing to Clive while Matt reads something of a higher level (right now they're reading Nancy Drew) to Chloe.

Tonight, I was singing our usual bedtime ditties and during Fifty Nifty United States Clive started (as he always does) asking me who lives in each state that he recognizes.  This is limited to Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Florida and Wisconsin so this questioning bit doesn't take too long.  Tonight, however, Clive asked who lives in Washington.  The conversation continued like this . . .

Clive: "Mommy, who lives in Washington?"
Me: "I don't know anyone who lives in Washington, son."
Clive: (thinking it over a bit) "Hmm, I know!  George WASHINGTON lives in Washington!"  [That's what we get for homeschooling -- a 3 year old who knows about George Washington.]
Me: "No, Clive.  George Washington doesn't live there because he's not alive anymore. He died a long time ago."
Clive: "Ohh, that's so sad!  I want to see George Washington!"
Me: "Well, George Washington is in heaven now so you can see him when you get to heaven. Then you can talk to him and ask him any questions you want."
Clive: "Oh, good!"
Me: (I attempt to finish singing the song but Clive interrupts me.)
Clive: (looking up to the ceiling and shouting) "Hey, George Washington!  I'll see you soon!  I just have to die first!"

WHAT A NUT!

I usually try to stifle my laughter around Clive because I don't want to ostracize him for his innocent 3 year old observations.  But this time I could NOT contain my giggles.  We laughed together on the bed for a good long while.  Yet another moment in time I'd like to freeze, please.

Another evening this week during our bedtime routine we were snuggling.  Our snuggling consists of us hugging each other with faces close together while Clive says repeatedly, "Snuggle, snuggle, snuggle".  If you can picture that in Clive's adorable voice, your heart is probably melting as mine does every night. 

During one of these snuggle-fests, Clive says to me in a very affectionate voice, "I love you the best, mommy!"  What moms heart doesn't like to hear those words? Well, he didn't stop there.  He thought for a few seconds and then added, "But I really love the money in my money bank the bestest!"  Already he knows how important money is!  After I smirked in reaction to his money-love comment I gave him a quick lesson in NOT loving money since God says we should love God more than anything else.  Clive responded by saying, "But money can buy me trucks . . . and I love trucks!"  Guess he's not quite ready for that lesson yet. 

What moments lately have you been relishing?

Eating help!

Now that I'm a mom of three, I'm learning how true the adage is that "Every child is different".

Overall, our Solomon is an extremely easy baby.  I'm not sure if that's because of his temperament, birth order or gender.  Or maybe it's just because I'm a much more laidback mom now than I was with baby #1.  And even though each child is different, I feel more equipped with tricksy mom tactics up my sleeve now that I've been at this a few years. 

Another adage I'd like to pen when it comes to children is this, "You can make a kid do almost anything -- anything but sleep and eat."

Segue to my one big issue with dear smiley Solomon Asher Horn -- EATING.  He is 10.5 months old now and wants to be independent in all ways possible.  (This tyke is already climbing up our steep staircase, trying to throw balls, and standing up and rocking himself on the pint-sized rocking chair.  Slow down, baby!)

Hence, the feeding struggle.  He wants to feed himself. Fine.  But he only has 5 teeth, some of which aren't even through all the way.  So chewing most foods is a problem.  He wants to hold his own spoon. Great.  But he also likes to play with the spoon and fling food off it catapult-fashion.  That's not so great.

My feeding strategy for Solomon is all about DISTRACTION.  I place Solly-sized chunks of soft foods on his tray and also give him a *distractor* utensil or toy.  That way he usually has two hands occupied so I can sneakily slide a spoonful of something into his mouth.  It's a dangerous and risky business this.  Truly.  I'm constantly looking for the right moment to sneak my spoon in and trying to avoid detection by Solly.  And believe me, it's not pretty when he gets a hold of or knocks away my baby-food-laden spoon.  (The picture above is evidence of our daily feeding mess.)

Because we go through this crazy eating rigamaroll Solomon usually doesn't eat enough solids during the day.  Which means he wakes up at night to be fed.  UGH.  He's been sleeping well through the night since 5 months and I will do anything it takes to keep him (and me!) sleeping well. 

I need your help and advice!  Have any feeding tips or food suggestions for me to try with my messy boy?

Horn Homeschool: Weeks 22-23

In conjunction with President's Day, we launched into a two week unit study on American presidents, American currency, the 50 states, the American flag and general USA history.

Regarding presidents, we mainly covered the two presidents whom we celebrate come February 22.  Namely, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We read biographies of these two men as well as several picture books about them and other presidents.  Additionally, Chloe did a few mini-books on these guys from enchantedlearning.com.  I LOVE THIS SITE!  I know most of the site is workbook-page-heavy but I love the extraordinary variety of activities and topics they cover. 

In line with the presidents, we talked currency a bit and the kids were able to identify Washington and Lincoln on coins and bills.  With Chloe I did some extra work with counting money and categorizing coins.

I'm so glad my frazzled brain somehow still remembers all the words to the classic ditty Fifty Nifty United States!  We sang that tune every day and so often that Chloe can sing it from memory now.  And inadvertently, she now knows all fifty states in the union.  Mission accomplished!  And if you're looking for a light-hearted read, I highly recommend the silly Scrambled States of America books. 

In my quick grabbing of America-themed books we also read about the revolutionary war, the constitution, the star-spangled banner, and the American flag.  During this unit, I led the kids to look for and count American flags when driving in the car.  And Chloe and I crafted an American flag out of crepe paper and construction paper.  (Details for the craft linked here. Though ours didn't turn out nearly as nice as the pictured link!)

Chloe and her friend Kayla had a blast decorating the presidential cupcakes.