Halloween party at the Soccer Academy

Here's a cute video I took of Curtis and his best bud Miqdad from the soccer academy at the halloween party today.

T

Talking to myself

I've been thinking about this lately. Not the kind of talking you do out loud when you are doing chores or that kind of thing. I mean the kind of talking to yourself you do inside your head.

I can identify two kinds of talking I do to myself inside my head. The first kind is when I talk directly to myself. I think, after discussing this with my husband, that many of us do this kind of talking. I tend to tell myself how I've screwed up or what I feel is wrong with myself. I have caught myself doing this over and over. I think we should all start talking to ourselves in the way God would. I know from my little knowledge of the Bible that God has lots of loving grace when dealing with the imperfections of us humans. Why can't we give ourselves that graceful unconditional love and forgiveness? I want to make an effort to start talking to myself with love and graceful compassion. I want to start talking to myself as if I do truly believe I am special and worthy of love. Think of how much better life would be if we could each just build ourselves up by reminding ourselves of how special and lovable we truly are.

The second kind of talking I do in my head is directed at other people. I catch myself redoing old conversations or planning out future ones. Sometimes I am defending myself over and over using the same words yet never feeling closure. Sometimes I am just planning what I hope will be witty banter or enchanting conversation with people I plan to spend time with. This kind of talking to myself is the kind that ends up making me feel a little batty. It's like going around and around in my head with conversations that never happen and only keep me from my own peace of mind. I began experimenting with a new method of ending this senseless cycle of non-conversation. Today I have had a lot of luck with replacing these 'head conversations' with affirmations. I think there is a part of my mind that just craves the cycle of churning words, and I have been successful at appeasing this desire with repeated positive affirmations. Today I began at one point saying 'I am healthy and have a strong immune system' over and over in my mind and the words took on a musical rhythm in my head that felt both positive and very zen. My mind was no longer feeling open ended with the words of conversations which never take place. Suddenly I looked up from what I was doing and realized that much time had passed and I had only been concentrating on the task I was doing and the words I was musically repeating in my mind.

I wanted to document these ideas because I am really hoping that these are lessons I have learned in a permanent way. I spend much of my life learning lessons through living and lately I have felt that I am learning the same lessons over and over again. I am hopeful that I can start making this knowledge more permanent and continue to grow as a person.

Halloween picture show

Clark helping plan the jack-o-lantern.



The boys playing with their big pumpkin.



Curtis and his big pumpkin.



Clark with his pumpkin.




This is a picture of Clark in his Cheeta costume.


I'll post more soon.

Tara

Hooded Towel

I received a hooded towel as a baby gift and I could tell it was lovingly hand made. So I copied it. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I'm doing a hand-made Christmas this year and plan to make one of these for each of my Florida nieces.

T

Wind Up Sushi

I recently got a new car. It's used, but new to me. I keep forgetting to take a pic of me with it, but that's not important. What is important is that this new car does not make a ding noise when you leave your lights on like my husbands car does. So, yes you guessed it, today I left my lights on and the battery died. I wish the story ended there but your ding bat of a blogger accidentally left her cell phone at home today too. On top of that I accidentally took the car with the baby seat in it but left the baby home with Daddy. So there I am at school with Curtis with no phone, a dead battery, and my husband can't even come get me because his car has no baby seat. Lucky for me another mom showed up with jumper cables so I didn't have to wait for AAA.

I went to Walmart looking for a new battery and they didn't have any that fit my car. But I did find this wind up sushi on the clearance aisle. What the heck is up with this? I couldn't pass it up!

I sure hope this week is I am less of a ding bat.

T

Beware of Frugal Mommy

That's right we now have a spiderman costume and a little puppy costume for a total of $8. I found both costumes at yardsales. This spidey costume is a little big but it will work and the good thing is maybe he'll even want to wear it again next year.

Watch out bad guys, little spidey Curtis is on the prowl.

A Box

We got a big box the other week and Curtis and I turned it into a car while Clark was napping one day. He had such fun drawing wheels and head lights and such on the box and then pretending to drive. Once Clark woke up we stuck it into the wagon and took it for a "drive".

Clark is learning to walk

Check it out!

Decorating for Halloween

Curt and Curtis have been decorating for halloween. This is Curtis' favorite holiday. He's so excited to dress up and he asked to make some decorations.




I think they turned out pretty good. He's really better at drawing than I expected. Now we need to try to get him to decide on a costume. This year he keeps picking something different each week. One day he wants to be spiderman and the next he wants to be a skeleton and so on and so on....