AP Moment of the day.. sharing the love! :D

Due to popular request ( or rather, nagging until I can't stand it anymore... that's YOU Heather..!!) the recipe for Hot Buttered Rum can now be found in the sidebar >>>> !!



Enjoy! A LOT !! :D

AP Moment of the day~ Even when they are "all growed up"

... they are still your babies.

My little girl, Jessie, is 8 going on 13. She is growing up so fast. I see her regarding herself in the mirror, trying poses, putting on makeup and making pouty lips.... !!! Scary. She's still quite innocent, partly I'm sure, due to being homeschooled, but she's picking stuff up from somewhere! She wants her hair cutting really short and stylish, she begs to wear nail polish ( no! ) and wants to put on my make up when we go out now, rather than putting it on for fun at home. I know she wants to be like me and I love that, but NO! ( I let her wear some lip gloss and I may dab on some blush for her, but that's my line!!) She has a mind of her own ( of which I am very proud!! I don't have a mind of my own and it's something I struggle with a lot, so I'm very happy she is making many of her own choices and decisions! ) and she sometimes talks back.. (GASP!!! NEVER!?!? REALLY!?!!?! .. it's true!) so yes, she's growing up. My first born, my tiny baby, my precious (!! "Precious"!!!) is growing up.

Tonight I was putting the kiddoes to bed. Jessie decided she wanted to sleep in with Jack. Apparently he'd asked her to and he is really snuggly in his footy pj's so I can see why she didn't argue much. I read them a sweet story during which Jackster began snoring! I kissed them both goodnight and turned out the light. The humidifier was running and so was the furnace as I was leaving the room, so I didn't quite catch what Jessie had said,

"What?!?! " I asked her.

"...mutter mutter mutter..." she mumbled, even quieter than before.

"What did you say Jessie? I can't hear you..."

"Nothing" she said "It's ok...."

Pah! I know better than that!! I went up to the side of the bed and asked again...

"What was it you said honey? I just couldn't hear you. What was it you needed??"

" I don't suppose you'd sing Golden Slumbers to me,... would you? " she asked.

I almost cried. I almost cried right there. I managed to calm myself before I spoke.

"Of course I will honey. Always."

Many years from now I will still remember her asking me to sing her a lullaby before she went to sleep and the absolute joy it filled in my heart.

My first born, my baby, my big girl.

AP Moment of the day~ a little taste of Christmas!

We had a lovely day today visiting with our friends who are also a delightful homeschooling family. I always love when they visit, they are all so polite and friendly and the children all play so nicely together. At one point today I glanced around to see all the children sitting in a circle reading books!!! They also spend a vast amount of time out playing in the snow whilst their mum and I spent our time in the kitchen as I prepared some of my old and new Christmas favorite treats! My old favorite is the Five Minute Fudge Wreath courtesy of Rachel Ray. Oh BOY that is a treat and it's very large so I can cut it into tiny pieces and send them off with hubby to work. I look like a saint and there's still TONS left for me! :D Ha HAH!! My new favorite is Hot Buttered RUM!! Hooo man. I LOVE it!! Another dear friend gave me the recipe after I refused to leave her house without it having just sampled a mug full the other day. After some grueling hours where she learned I was indeed serious, she caved and shared the recipe.

I visited my local teensy weensy grocery store and picked up the stuff I needed for both recipes..... sugar..... butter...... eggs..... rum flavoring.....chocolate chips.... butterscotch chips etc. and I told the lady at the checkout what I was planning on making! "Oh DO come back and bring us some samples..." she begged!! "Sure! If I don't slip into a diabetic coma first!!" I quipped back!! ;D

It was only when I was at home and most of the way through the recipe that I looked to see just how much rum flavoring I needed to add and realised I was three bottles short. Tha's right... 3 BOTTLES short. I should point out that this recipe makes enough for the neighborhood (but not MY neighborhood!) and the bottles of flavoring are small... but still!! 3 bottles short is significant!! I left my friend in charge of the kids and dashed back out to the store again. ... I checked the prices of the flavoring and realised that 3 bottles were going to add up...... hmmm...

.......

Soooooo here I am standing at the checkout with a large bottle of Bacardi Rum!!! I said to the woman behind the counter " I could either spend $12 for three small bottles of rum flavoring OR I could spend $13 on a BIG ASS BOTTLE OF REAL RUM!!!" ;D Made sense to me!!! :D I carefully drove home and tentatively skated into the house on the ice. I had a horrible feeling I might fall on my backside, or worse, DROP THE RUM!!! :D Happily neither event occurred and I was able to slosh my liquor into the mixture and we were soon sampling away !!!!!



A couple of mugs full later and I'm three sheets to the wind!! 'D



A little taste of Christmas indeed!! HO Ho HO!!!!! ;D

( For the recipe for the Hot Buttered Rum please send $50 in small bills to the address listed below!! ;D For the 5 Minute Wreath just pop it into Google and it should come right up for you! :D Enjoy!!)

AP Moment of the day ~ a quick and easy gift to make!

Don't forget being AP also means taking care of you. When you suddenly remember that you want to take a little something small to the woman who babysits for you now and then or your child wants to make something for Grandma... or some crazy woman on your homeschooling list wants to start an ornament swap three days before Christmas and you think that if you have one, just ONE MORE THING TO DO YOU WILL LITERALLY PULL OUT YOUR HAIR....this is the answer to your prayers! :D

A home made ornament!

First select your photo....

Then cut it into strips and poke small holes in the top and bottom of each strip....

Stack all the strips in order and fasten the top and bottom with fasteners.......

Spread out the strips forming a sphere......

Add a string.......

and hang....!! Simple eh!! :D

This time of year really causes an awful lot of stress for so many people and so many families... don't let the lack of a cute ornament cause you any distress for a moment longer! ;D

Peace on earth, and in the living room.... one homemade gift at a time...!! :D

AP Moment of the day.... Oh, we got photos alright..!

.... have you ever seen Calvin and Hobbes where Calvin's parents want to take a nice photo of Calvin and every one of them are messed up by him pulling faces or closing his eyes etc?! We went to get family portraits taken today and it was a lot like that.... No smiling serenely into the camera for us! Oh no!!! Our session was chaotic to say the least, but you know what? The pictures are the best I have ever seen!! I LOVE the pics we got of the kids!!! They were so REAL!!! Although we were pretty stressed out initially trying to get Jack to do this, stand there, look over here.... well... once we let him just BE we ended up with the most superb pictures of HIM, being him. There's a lesson here.... we look for perfection and try to contort ourselves to fit it's image, when all the time perfection is right here, right in front of our eyes.

Adorable...no? :D

AP Moment of the day .... making lemonade!

Today we worked some more on decorating our Christmas Trees. For years I have decorated everything in one day but it has been getting harder and harder and more and more stressful to do that. Today I read an article from Flylady saying that we shouldn't try and do it all at once and end up frazzled and yelling at our families... Christmas is for the children... it occurred to me that I am so caught up in making it look "perfect" that I forget it's all about the kids. Sure, in years to come I can make it perfect... but who will be here to care?! Now we put some decorations on here, some there... I let the kids do as much of it as they want to do and it shows!!!! But the tree has never looked more innocent!! More loved!! Jessie and I went out and bought an Angel to sit on top of the tree today. She is beautiful and finishes it off so nicely. I have decided to no longer concern myself with Jackster's cavalier attitude to my baubles, so some got broken..... as long as no one gets hurt and he's trying to put them on the tree nicely, then that's just the price I pay to have a loving family who want to help decorate and beautify our Christmas tree. The day I have a perfect tree and an empty house will be a sad one. I see that now.