OSU/KSU 2017

On Saturday Michael and I went with some friends (Paul and Claudia McGinness) to the Oklahoma State/Kansas State game in Stillwater, OK. Since we have moved back to Kansas and are within driving distance we have tried to go with friends every year to the K-State game and have only missed one so far! This year was windy and cold, but we were able to bundle up and have a good time.

In the car on the way to pick up the McGinness'

Claudia and I waiting on the boys to come back with seat cushions

View from our seats

The four of us!

It is so nice to have a few times a year to get away without my girls and have some adult time. I love being able to just be "Kim" and not "mom" and come back refreshed and ready to jump back into being "mom" again! 

Music Program 2017

Our elementary school always puts on the most amazing music programs that are completely written/arranged by our music teacher. This year, she took our school Disney theme and put together the cutest program ever! She wrote it where characters come out of a magical book and they sang all Disney songs (other than the traditional ending song of Silent Night/Peace Peace). Since our elementary has grades K-4, the 4th graders audition for the speaking and singing parts and then there are community members that fill in some extra parts along the way. 

Since Hannah is in 4th grade this year, she auditioned and got the part of Jasmine from the cartoon Aladdin. She was so excited to get a singing solo and she did an amazing job (in her mom's very biased opinion 😉). I have added the video my mom took from the program for those who want to watch. 

Rachel dressed and ready to go! 

Hannah with some of her friends- Caroline and Cecil
(the main girls in the program) and Elena as Anna from Frozen.

Hannah with Callie who played Gazelle from Zootopia

The girls being silly before we left the house.

Hannah with Emma as Rapunzel from Tangled and Rhianne as Giselle from Enchanted.

Hannah with Brynley as the lava girl from the Disney short film Lava.

#Iamthiskindofmom

I have recently started following Simply on Purpose on Instagram and Facebook and it has been encouraging to hear her approach to parenting and finding a way to raise your kids with purpose. Her current push is on being the kind of mom that God created you to be and finding your strengths and embracing them (and not beating yourself up about the things that you may not enjoy). It has made me take a step back and think about the kind of mom that I am. It is so easy to see the gifts of those around you and to compare and feel like you are not "good enough." It is so much harder to see those things in ourselves.

If I had to list my strengths, is it a list that I am proud to admit and embrace? Is it OK to let go of some of the things that I wish were different? My one mom label that I feel like is a strength would be that I am a "reading mom." I love to read to my kids, encourage them and provide ample opportunity to get new paper books from the library and audio books from the online lending library. It is the one thing that I feel like I have been successful at parenting- teaching them to read fluently and enjoy it! :)

One of my weaknesses would be that I don't enjoy unstructured play and especially hate pretend play. I do not enjoy pretending to be a horse or a Barbie and make up stories. I know that as a kid, I was great at playing dolls, but now I cannot handle more than five minutes of pretend play without wanting to poke my eyes out!

I wish that there were more things that I could confidently add to my strengths list- cooking mom, fun playground mom, birthday party mom, healthy/organic mom, trendy mom, sewing mom, patient/calm mom, the list goes on and on. My goal for the next few weeks is to start letting go of the guilt that I have for the things that I am not and figure out more of the things that I do well and enjoy those things with my kids!

Halloween 2017

This year both girls struggled to come up with a costume idea they were excited about. We went back and forth for over a month and looked at costumes every time we were at Walmart, but couldn’t find anything they loved. Hannah had the idea to be a nerd. We were able to buy some $5 sunglasses and pop the lenses out and some $6 suspenders and use clothes she already had! I think it turned out really cute! Carrying her Dictionary was all her own idea, but after a few houses she decided it was too heavy. The first picture was Halloween night when it was 40 degrees outside and the second was for Trunk-or-Treat on Sunday when it was 70 degrees! We had to add lots more layers on Tuesday!

 Rachel had to be convinced a little on her 80’s costume. We looked on Pinterest and she didn’t like anything! She also is picky about not having an itchy costume so once I found the sliver leggings and oversized sweatshirt I talked her into it! We had the “leg warmers” (aka baby legs from when she was a baby) and a friend with a crimping iron and it was perfect!

This was also the first year I let them design and carve their own pumpkins. Giving them the chance to try things and give up control is really hard for me, but they did a great job!