Enjoying Daily Life With Kids

Our oldest turned 17.  Can you believe it??!  17 years old!  Time flies when you don't want it to!

 She wanted a plain white cake with chocolate frosting.  This is what we came up with.  4 layers of cake.  She and her friends loved it.  We had 12 of her friends over for dinner and a sleepover - boy, they had so much fun!!  I truly can't believe that next year at this time, she will be away at college.  She is a bright, thoughtful, well rounded girl and we love her to bits.

 I will still have other little monkeys at home keeping me busy :o)  10 year old daughter wanted me to put her hair in "many" braids.  This is what she wound up with - the best I could do.

 Several braids braided together.  I thought it looked nice.

 Obviously she did too!!  We left it in for a couple of days and her hair was super wavy when we finally took it out. 

 Someone lost a tooth.......

Don't mess with this boy and his dust buster!  He's good with it too!

Sharing over at Mindful Mothering

Hexis and Homemade Candles with Kids

5 puffs this week.  I used the Candy Skein yarn that I purchased last week and love it!!  It's soft and doesn't split and those stripes are the best!

 Sometimes the kids come up with such fun things to do.  One of my kids had made candles on a field trip last year and wanted to make some again at home.

 We started by melting the just plain old white wax and added wax dye.  Blue was the color of the day.

 It was very hard to cut that wax in smaller pieces.  It took my big knife and that meat tenderizer (I used it like a hammer on the handle of the knife) to break off pieces.

 Cut strings for the wicks - they are too long, but the kids didn't seem to mind!

 Then we set up an assembly of sorts - several stops with a can of melted wax and a can of water.

 The kids then walked around the table stopping at each station to dip their wick first in wax and then in the water.  The had so much fun talking and walking!!

 Some of them made big ones and formed them into shapes...

 others just let the wax do whatever it wanted.

 The 7 year old meticulously made different forms.

 The 10 year old trying to get a skinny one to stand up.

 Still trying.  It never did stand up, but she didn't mind.

The candles of our labors :o)  Not perfect, but perfectly fun!  They want to make more as soon as we use these up.

I love these times with the kids where we can just stop all the crazy business and take a breath.  Do something fun together that they have initiated.  These are the times, I hope, that they will look back on and think how fun it was to grow up in our home with all their siblings.

Sharing at:  Carole's, Nicole's, and 5 Minutes for Mom, and Mindful Mothering.

Mothering Monday

Today I was reading a post by Lydia Will that made me sit back and think about things.

 Most of our summer days tend to look like those in this post.  We spend lots of time with family.  My father-in-law, cousins, brother and sister-in-laws. and I feel complete.

 There is no better feeling for me than to be surrounded by family.

I love that my husband and I can have this time right now to enjoy all of it!

However, there are some challenges when we all get together.  My niece and nephew usually come to visit for a good chunk of the summer.  They are fabulous and it is always so fun to see everyone pick up where they left off - no awkwardness - just back to the basics of having fun together.  EXCEPT.....that a couple of my kids argue over my niece.  Age wise she is right in between them so she looks up to my older daughter, but loves to play with the younger one.  My two girls have very different interests and are very strong minded - so when deciding what game to play or what scenario to play out in a pretend game, there is conflict and it usually ends in tears for one of them.  I am totally at a loss on how to handle this.....any ideas?