November 26, 2012

HOME


This weekend I took a trip to New Jersey for my first American Thanksgiving in 8 years! This trip had me thinking about the concept of home. I've had a few homes in my life, 5 by the time I was 14, but out of all the places that I've lived in no other place has held me as much as this place does. No matter how long I've been away, I am welcomed back by the comfort that it brings. I feel the comfort every time I crawl back into my old bed. Every time I see the little niknaks I've collected during my childhood. Every time my dad cooks me my favorite meal. This place made me.

 *The star was a Christmas gift my bff gave me in high school. The cow was a gift my mother gave me when I graduated middle school*

My family and I have created our own home that holds us now. I am comforted by every hug and kiss I am given, especially when I need them the most. It holds me when I know that my kids feel the same about this place as I do about that place. We are secure, happy, and comforted all because we are here.

November 20, 2012

what's a girl gotta do to make some friends?

Seriously, what do I have to do in order to make some friends around here!? I ask myself this all the time without any resolution. I would be lying if I said that I had never heard that making new friends as an adult can be tricky but never have I realized that more than I do now. Growing up I was always making new friends, it was so simple for me. I would walk up to a girl that seemed nice enough and I would say something along the lines of "do you want to play?" and boom! a friendship was born. Life is not so simple anymore.

Here's the story, I am not like most girls my age. I'm married and I have two kids and those things take up a huge chunk of my time. Sure, there are always mommy groups but now that I'm working attending those has become impossible. Everything is planned for the afternoon during the weekdays. I then decided to join Meetup groups for regular women of all ages and marital/motherhood statues unfortunately Aaron has a tendency to work odd hours I am barely able to attend those. I have discovered problem #1, I am not very flexible.

 You'd be friends with this girl, wouldn't you?!

As a child where did I make most of my friends? At school of course! That is where I spent most of my time with the same group of people. Now that I work, I have to realize that the best place for me to make friends is here. Fine, I can attempt to make friends at work, this should be simple enough! Well, upon further thought and self reflection I notice that I don't go out of my way to talk to people whom I don't already know. I have met a few people along the way and I stick to them, but they are not people who I would call "friends". Problem #2: I m reserved and possibly appear to be unapproachable.

I could go on about all the detrimental things I do but really, who wants to continue that read? I have however decided to set a challenge for myself and hopefully I will be able to break out of my comfort zone and make some new friends.

I have to attend at least one meetup before the end of the year. I have been to two meetups this past year and both of them have been pleasant experiences so before the year ends I would like to attend at least one more in order to put myself out there again.

At work, I have to make conversation with at least one new person each week. Lets start off small, I don't want to shock the system! This way I can ease into opening myself up without feeling too much pressure. It can be as simple as "So how was your weekend?" or "How long have you been with the company."

Talk with the parents of at least one child from Joshua's class. Joshua and Lucas will have two events coming up in December; their Christmas Concert and a Sunday Brunch. These will be opportune times to meet with fellow parent, at least we already have two things in common, our kids go to the same school and well, we have kids!

Make a friends in the blog community! This blogging world is a tough one and you can't do this alone, you need help and guidance from others. I hope that in making a friends through all of this I can not only grow my blog but meet someone who shares my interests and passions. 

I will of course post updates to let you all know how everything works out. Keep your finger crossed for me!



November 12, 2012

Learning How to Read: Bedtime Stories



Learning how to read is probably the most important skill a person will every learn. Well the time has come, my 5 year old has started his journey in developing his reading skills. Reading has become more critical since he will be entered 1st grade next year and I want to prepare him as best as I can starting now.  

So what do I do to promote good reading habits? and what improves their reading skills?

I constantly read to my boys. From the moment I gave birth to their precious little bodies I have been reading to t hem. Babies they love to hear the sound of their Mama and Papa's voices. They love to look at pictures and grab at the cardboard pages and explore all the things in their world. Reading was something I did with them to encourage bonding and closeness since I didn't breastfeed them for very long. I held their bare skins again mine and read softly to them and let them feel my warmth. Those were great bonding moments. I can not imagine breaking that just yet. I know the day will come where they will not need me or want me to read them to sleep so I enjoy every minute that I can get now.

Now that my boys are older reading to them helps to build their imagination as they picture the story unfolding in their head as well as thinking about what will happen next. I generally read them one or two stories a night at the same time, so when it's time for Lucas to go to bed, the three of us will gather in his room and have story time. I might ask them to point to things in the story, "Where is the big apple?" The objective of this is for books to become a regular part of their life. I want them to have a passion for it, to get excited about story time.

I save all the baby books! Joshua and Lucas no longer hold interest in books with rhymes or incredibly simple sentences. Lucas grew out of the cardboard book stage quicker than Joshua did and I chalk that up to him wanting to be like his big brother. I have continued to keep them in Joshua's room because they are great when it comes to developing reading skills. The repetativeness and the rhynmning together are fantastic for emerging readers. Hop on Pop is one of my favorites for just that reason. This was one of the first books that Joshua learned how to read.

I have Joshua host story time! So now that he has some reading skills, we do two books a night. I read one and Joshua reads the other. During this time we pretend that he's the teacher. He takes command of the room, making sure everyone is quiet and ready for the story. He feels so grown up!  I always stay close to him just in case he needs help sounding out the words...lets face it, the English language is messed! examples: Rough, Through, Bough...make up your mind!

Identify your kids problem areas. In order to overcome a problem you have to know what the problem is right? The only way you can do this is by reading with your child regularly. Joshua's problem is guessing and not taking the time to point to each word and to focus on the letters in front of him. What I mean by guessing is that he looks at the picture and based on what is going on he guesses what the words are. In order to combat this I make sure that he uses his finger as a guide and consistently points to every single word before he says them. 

There are other ways techniques that you can your to assist your child through this processes but I will save those for another post because this one is already way too long!

November 4, 2012

Weekend of Birthdays

Well look at me, having an event-filled weekend! This usually doesn't happen folks. Most of the time I am sitting on the couch watching cartoons, playing school with Joshua...rather Mr. Smith, running around the house tickling the boys and making a nicer dinner (a dinner that takes longer than 30 minutes to cook).  Not this weekend. This weekend I was out and about!

Friday night my cousin celebrated her birthday at Marche, a restaurants where there are no servers, only people to clean your table. They give you a "credit card" so that you can walk around to all the stations to order food and instead of paying for it up front got getting a bill at the end of the meal they simply charge it to your card and when you check out at the end of the night you pay for your dinner at a cash register. This can be dangerous,  in my normal state I would be going from station to station swiping my card like there was no tomorrow. Thankfully I hate a huge lunch prior to that night so I wasn't really hungry. I order a crepe with strawberries, chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream on top...sooo not huge at all.

The party was held in a private room. The atmosphere so calming and the look of it screamed charm. It resembled a little log cabin and I was seriously starting to consider designing my house to look just like it. I am still contemplating this!


 Here is one of the birthday girl with her boyfriend. He planned the party for her. Aren't they cute?


This was what was left of my crepe before I realized that I should have taken a picture of it. oopsies!



As the weekend continued so did my parting ways! Last night my cousin's wife (I have about 24 first cousins, give or take) had an 80's themed birthday party! How fun right? In my last post I discussed the fact that my business unit at work dressed up in an 80's theme so I got to wear my costume again!

http://distilleryimage5.s3.amazonaws.com/4e848472260e11e283b822000a9f124c_7.jpg



Sunday I spent the whole day just unwinding with the boys. There were super sweet and I enjoyed every minute with them. As I am about to head back to work this week I feel so happy that I got to spend all day doing "nothing" with them. Next weekend I am actually looking forward to doing absolutely nothing!

November 1, 2012

HAPPY HALLOWEEN



HAPPY HALLOWEEN
 Yeah yeah I know it was yesterday but this Mama was super busy. Check me out!
Photo: Happy Halloween




Totally 80's of course! The boys were excited to put on their costumes. Joshua was The Hulk and Lucas was a Ninja Turtle. It took some convincing on our part to even get him in a costume but once he saw how cute he was in it, and that his brother was dressed up too, he stopped pouting and put on an adorable smile!




I am so happy that it's over though because now I can concentrate and decorate for my favourite holiday...CHRISTMAS! Don't worry, I wont bust out the tree or the lights or the lawn decorations until December 1st but the planning has begun!