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New Year’s Eve…With The Kids?!

Posted in: Just for Fun, More on the Kids, Susan Holiday Solutions
November 21, 2011 with 0 Comments

I love the holidays.  I really think they should just skip Halloween – who needs it?   Magazines should be filled with tantalizing Thanksgiving recipes starting in September and let’s deck the malls with Christmas in October.  Every year, I can’t wait for the holidays.

Until, I get to New Year’s Eve.  It’s kind of an afterthought for me.  I am somewhat of a New Year’s misfit.  After Christmas day all the relatives take that “holiday feeling” home with them and my house seems…very unparty like.  My homey visions of Christmas vaporize and are replaced by glossy visions of New Year’s Eve – a picture I just don’t fit in to.

I am not glamorous.

I am not raucous.

And after Christmas, I do not have the energy to produce anything

sumptuous!

But I do like to celebrate and after holidays and days filled with family, it is fun to reunite with some friends.

So here is my favorite New Year’s fit - a progressive party with the kids, kind of.  Get together with  a few other families.  It doesn’t matter if the kids vary in ages a little.  Hire the older children as sitters for the night. Then plant them all in the most child friendly house with lots of games and goodies.   The adults head to another house for appetizers.  Progress to another house for dinner.  After dinner reunite with the children at the kid house for dessert and to usher in the new year.  If you have really little ones you can pretend to usher in the new year 2-3 hours early.

It is a great non-glamorous, non-raucous, party combination of a little adult time and a little family time with a lot of cheering the New Year in together at the end.

It’s a homey New Year’s Eve.

Nothing Cuter: Boys in Football

Posted in: More on the Kids
September 9, 2011 with 4 Comments

Earlier this week Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman – great blog) posted that there was Nothing Cuter than a bunch of little boys in football uniforms.  She had such precious pictures of her little boys.

Sigh…my Marky was once that little.  I couldn’t resist.  Camera in hand (old, not a Nikon, and totally inadequate to take pictures from afar) I headed up to the practice field to capture my not so baby, baby.  Yes, I am a Ree Drummond wanna be especially in the photography, cooking departments.  She is giving away another camera today.  I already entered.  And I really need it so don’t compare my pictures to hers.

Here is my little boy in his football uniform.  There really is nothing cuter!  Sigh…again.

Of course, at this age he would be mortified to know that I am writing this.

He is a defensive back for the best team in the state (my opinion, of course) – Plant Panthers.

And I love him very much.  Sigh…last one I promise.

 

Adoption

Posted in: More on the Kids, Parenting, Relationships, Susan on TV
August 19, 2011 with 0 Comments

Adoption

The Overactive Child

Posted in: Lessons I Learned, More on the Kids, Parenting
August 15, 2011 with 1 Comment

When we adopted Grant he was already 9 nine years old.  We hadn’t had him for 9 days when I realized I had adopted the only Tasmanian Devil from Siberia.  Grant never went to school, he lived in a village in Siberia and pretty much had always done what he wanted, when he wanted.  This meant that he was used to bouncing around like a ping pong ball at every hour of the day AND night.

The overactive Grant hit the limit at about month three into the adoption.  It was Christmas break.  All the kids were home all day.  In Florida, that means playing outside.  Grant was out of control.  My kids weren’t the only ones complaining.  He was driving the whole neighborhood crazy.  And so the day came when he hit the captain of our high school football team (our neighbor) in the face with a broom (he was 3 times the size of Grant).  When you get a call that your son is being abusive from the mother of a defensive lineman you can’t ignore that you have a serious problem.

Continue Reading…

Discouraging Words We Say to Our Children

Posted in: Lessons I Learned, More on the Kids, Parenting
July 25, 2011 with 9 Comments

I know without a doubt there are defining moments in my life when God is purposely trying to show me my faults.  I know He does this because as a mom my errors have a huge impact on my children.  This example is like a waving red flag in my mind.  It is a living picture that reminds me of how easily I can discourage my children with my off-handed remarks.

I am a busy mom and I tend to think outside my head.  So one day, a package that my girls had anxiously been waiting for came in the mail.  In it were two matching flower girl dresses.  My sister was getting married and my children were in the wedding – big excitement.  My sister had had the girls dresses made and sent to us.  My son’s little velvet suit I had purchased.

We tore open the box and ran upstairs to try them on… Continue Reading…

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