A family night and dates with the kiddos

I mentioned in my previous posting that we are starting weekly family nights and date nights with our kids. I just wanted to share how the nights went. Friday night was our first Gale Family Night of Fun.

We made pizzas! They pounded and pounded their dough. (owen has a black eye if you can't tell...it happened days ago)

flour face!

flour face #2!

we baked them for a few minutes then we added our topppings. Eden loved getting to pick out what she wanted to put on her's.

Owen was really hungry so he tried to eat it before they were finished.

After dinner we decorated cookies! The Gale family night was a success!

The next morning Don took Eden out for breakfast and a little thrift store shopping. They went to Brian's breakfast out on Summer. Don said the place was packed! They didn't find too much thrifting, but Eden did come home with a pair of white little girl "high heels" probably 3 sizes too big. Yes, she has worn them everyday.

Eden enjoying her biscuit with Daddy

Owen and I stayed home and colored and played blocks. And did a lot of hugging and kissing. Seriously, Owen loves to kiss and hug. It's so sweet!



We had a great time with our dates! I am excited about making family nights and dates part of our week. We know that it might not happen every week, but that is our goal.

Planning it Out

One of my goals for the new year is to plan my days better. I have always been a pretty good planner, but lately I have been getting a little lazy with my planning and I have let the days just rush by. One thing I quickly learned about staying home with my babes is that I have to have structure. It keeps everyone a little more sane in the Gale household. So, fridays are my days to plan Eden's schooling, crafts, outings, playdates for the upcoming week, menu for the next week, dates with Eden and Owen and family nights for the next week. Sounds like a lot when I write it down, but it really doesn't take long. Here is a short breakdown of it all

1. Eden's schooling: I bought the preschool curriculum called Character Concepts. It has been ok. I could write a review and maybe I will, but not today. I look over the week's lessons and figure out what we are going to do on what day. The curriculum specifies things, but I have learned what works best for Eden, so I change it up a bit. For instance, they have a writing book, but Eden doesn't like it. It's very repetitive of the same letters over and over, so we will just write letters together on the chalkboard or play a game with flashcards.

2. Crafts: I LOVE crafts! And I love doing them with my kids. This week we made cards for grandma (it was her last treatment!!) and we made masks. I had planned for us to make snowmen, but it just didn't seem appropriate with the warm weather, so we ran and played outside instead. There are craft suggestions in the back of my mom's guide in the preschool curriculum, I also have this book called the The Toddler's Busy Book and it has some ideas. And there is always Pinterest or I just make them up. Eden is easy to please. I do the crafts with Owen too and just prepare myself for a huge mess. On days that we don't do crafts I usually try and have some kind of game planned. Eden got some games for Christmas, so we have been playing those.

3. Outing: this typically includes the Children's Museum, the Zoo or the Botanic Gardens. Those are our go to places because we have memberships thanks to grandma :) Other fun places we enjoy are the play area at Wolfchase, of course the park and storytime at Central Library. Right now I have to be selective with my places because of the age that Owen is at. He is into everything!! And he hates being in a stroller for a long time, so some weeks we may only have 1 or 2 outings.

4. Playdates: pretty easy. I just try and get together with a friend on Fridays. This may not happen every week, but that is my goal. I do accountability with 2 of my sweet friends every week and between the 3 of us there are 6 children all around the same age so my kiddos def. get their playtime in.

5. Dates: We just started doing dates with our kids. Tomorrow Don is taking Eden out for breakfast and whatever else he has planned. So next week I will plan something with her. I will have time with Owen tomorrow morning and I think we are going to some major coloring and building some really tall towers. (all his faves)

6. Family Nights: We hope to make this a weekly thing, some will be bigger nights than others. Tonight was our first official Gale Family Night. We are made individuals pizzas and sugar cookies and some impromptu dance time. Yes, my calm laid back hubs will bust a move, but only for us. It's amazing!

We practiced colors and counting with M&Ms. I had her attention with those


The mask Eden made. She was camera shy that day

Chalkboard fun

Planning is good for me and our family, but I do not plan every minute or hour of our day. It's more that I just make sure we have things to do throughout the day. The kids play on their own at times while I do housework. I like structure, but we also have a lot of flexibility. I believe it is all in balance and there are definitely days that all the plans go out the window. I love my "job" and I want to make the most of educating, playing and training our children.

So, this is the New Year

Unlike Death Cab's song New Year I feel great. I am excited about the new things the Lord has for the Gale family. The hubs and I went out New Year's Eve we did not make it the show that I mentioned in the previous post, but we did have dinner and dessert. The show just started too late and the older I get the more of a homebody I become. We had a great time discussing our answers to the New Year's questions, reviewing our family plan and setting some other goals for the future. And we finished watching Season 1 of Downton Abbey and if you have never heard of it it is the best show I have ever watched. Don and I love it! I wanted to share a few resolutions for myself for 2012. I won't share all of them because there are over 30. I know that seems like a lot, but some of them were not really resolutions more of reflection questions and how to change.

1. Play with these sweet faces more. Don and I both feel like we are to focus even more in on our children. Training, loving, educating and discipling them. We plan to begin weekly dates with Eden. Don is taking her out Saturday for a special breakfast and Owen and I will have some sweet time together. And then next week I will take her out while Don spends time with Owen. Owen gets home dates right now because he is a little "difficult" at times in public. He likes to be free.

2. Plan my days better. This means taking each friday afternoon while the kids sleep and plan the upcoming week. Playdates, what school time will look like, what crafts we will do, what adventures we will go on, what things we will cook together. I have to be structured with my days otherwise I tend to just want to let the kids do "whatever" so that I can "whatever".

3. Blog more. Like to try and do 3 times a week. And redo the ole blog. I am not very technical so the way my blog looks now is because it was a free template that my sweet friend Al showed me how to do. Just like to get something different that fits me a little bit better.

4. Write and mail notes to people this year.

5. Mail birthday cards to my friends and family members

6. Start our family journal. We have had it for a few years, but have never written in it. It will be a journal that just keeps up with the things our kids have done, stages they are at, ways the Lord is growing and teaching our family.

7. Have a morning devotional and prayer time with my kiddos. I want them to begin understanding that we start our day with the Lord.

8. Listening to books on CD with the kids. We have started doing this and they love it! We have listened to Mike Mulligan and the Steam Engine and we got them this collection of proverbs stories that we listen to in the car. And I really enjoy them.

9. I want to be more of an encouragement to my husband. He has a huge job leading our family and he does a wonderful job and I need to tell him that more. He started a blog. And it is so good. He is a fantastic writer. Here is the link if you want to follow him.

10. I want to memorize more Scripture this year. I want God's Word on my heart and on my lips. To be able to speak truth to myself throughout the day.

11. Be on the computer less. I realized a few weeks ago that for no reason during the day I will just be checking my email or looking at facebook or the weather, yes the weather, when I had just checked those things an hour ago. So, I decided to only open the computer when the kids are not awake. That means I can only check it before they get up in the morning, when the nap and after they go to bed. I am excited about doing this. I think it will give a lot of freedom.

Alright, those are a few of them. Again, I am so looking forward to this new year. And I know everyday will not be perfect in these things, but I think it is important to set goals for yourself and when you get off of them one week or day or month just started back on them the next day. The Lord's mercies are new every morning!!

Goodnight.

Thinking on the New Year

I love the New Year! Typically, my sweet mother keeps the kiddos so that Don and I can have the evening together. We usually go out to dinner and talk about the up-coming year, look over our family plan and just talk about things we want to do differently. And I think this year we might go see Don's friend's band play at the P&H, but it doesn't start until 10 and that is so crazy late to me! Anyway, I wanted to share some of the questions that Don and I do together. We have been doing them for a few years and I not sure where Don got them, but they have been really helpful in looking at my spiritual life.

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God
2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year
3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress and what will you so about it
5. What is the single biggest time-waster and what will you do about it
6. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently for
7. What's the most important way you will by God's grace, try to make this year different from last
8. What's the most important need you feel burdened to meet
9. What habit would you most like to establish this year
10. Who is the person you most want to encourage
11. What's one way you could be a blessing to your pastor
12. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly
13. What skill do you most want to learn
14. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better
15. What area do you most need change

Do you have any questions you ask yourself about the new year? Happy New Year!!

Food!!!

This has been a great weekend! My mom came to my rescue and kept my sweet babies friday night and most of Saturday. And I got TONS of stuff done because I was starting to feel overwhelmed with my Christmas list. I finished the super hero capes for my niece and nephews, cooked, did some good cleaning and wrapped presents. I feel so much better! And tonight we just got back from a fun time with our sweet friends the Nelsons. Finally, got to hold their sweet new baby Jonathan, so handsome :) All that to say, my hubby and I went on a date Friday night to Le Chardonnay. And I wanted to share a quick review on it. Those that know my husband and I know that we enjoy food. We love to cook, we love to eat unique and interesting foods and we greatly enjoy the dining out experience. I have heard some people say that food is "just fuel" and I disagree. Food is an experience. Granted every now and then it is just fuel, but more often it should be an enjoyable memorable experience. Even everyday family meals.
We decided on Le Chardonnay because it was one of the places that we had a Groupon for and we had eaten there once before, but only for dessert. At that time it was at a different location and it had a very romantic feel. The new location doesn't have that same feel. While it is still dimly lit and there are candles on the table the T.Vs, open kitchen and the smoking countered the whole romantic atmosphere I remembered. And yes SMOKING! I didn't think you could smoke in restaurants anymore. I would have left if we hadn't already ordered. And typically, I do not mind if the kitchen is open and you can see the chefs cooking, but they were talking loudly and one guy was on break and just leaning on the counter smoking and swearing. It was annoying.
On to the food. It was nothing great. I ordered the grilled mahi mahi sandwich. The piece of fish was very flat and not impressive. However, the remoulade was very tasty, but the sandwich was on a huge sesame bun that completely overwhelmed the fish. I felt like I was eating more bread than anything. But the fries were nice and crispy. We will not be eating there again. My husband wrote a review of the restaurant here if you want to hear his comments.

Here are just a few of our favorite restaurants in Memphis
1. Sweet Grass (we would say it is the best restaurant in Memphis)
2. Elegant Farmer
3. Boscos
4. Trolley Stop
5. 3 Angels Diner
6. It isn't Don fav, but I love Bombay House. He prefers Mayuri
7. Majestic

We both really want to try
1. Andrew Michael
2. Iris
3. Felicia Suzanne's
So, if you have ever eaten at any of those places please let me know what you thought about it.
Goodnight.

My 3 year old and modesty

I didn't think a modesty talk would come so soon between Eden and I. (she is only 3 1/2) I thought that talk would come later on in her little life. Well, it happened when she came in the room with one of her dress up dresses falling off her shoulders. She is a small girl so I just pulled them up like I usually do until she protested and told me no that it was her "Belle dress" and it was suppose to be like that. She then pulls them back off her shoulders and pulls the front down making it lower. It took me off guard for a moment and then I put it together and could see Belle from Beauty and Beast in her flowing, yellow, off-the-shoulder, low-cut dress dancing with the Beast. I didn't know what to say at first. I sat down with her and talked about what is right for girls to wear and how we are to dress modestly. (and attempted to define that word for her) I reminded her that mommy doesn't wear her clothes like that and how some parts of our bodies are not meant for other people to see. Hopefully, it doesn't sound like I am making a bigger deal about this than I should, but I just saw it as a great teaching time for my little girl and myself. I learned a few things from it. 1. For more than just this reason, but it's a big one, I need to watch and be so careful about the clothes that I wear. How much time I spend in the mirror doing my hair and make-up because I have 2 sweet little eyes that are watching me ALL the time. 2. Don't be too busy to stop for teaching moments. 3. What she watches and reads effects her thinking and world-view. Don and I talked briefly if we should continue to let her watch that movie and we concluded that we thought it was still fine for her to watch, but that we needed to be more aware of those type of messages and images in movies. We don't believe in hiding everything from our children, but at the same time we are called to guard them and teach them along the way. Thankfully, after that talk she hasn't tried to make her dresses into "Belle dresses" anymore. That is another post if she does. Oh the joys of raising a little girl!

She loves her accessories!

Not a Christmas entry

So this not going to be anything about Christmas, although I love reading all the Christmas posts lately. My Christmas entry will come later. Today is a sick day for this mommy. I've actually been sick for going on 2 days now. It's nothing horrible just a faucet for a nose, headache, tired, little bit of body aches. I've heard this saying a million times and it's so true about how mom's don't get sick days. Whenever that goes through my head when I am sick I tend to fell sorry for myself. But the hardest thing for me when I am sick is how quickly I get frustrated at my children. I tend to be irritated easily and lose my patience oh so fast! On days like today I try to just take it easy and not be as concerned about housework. I am not as strict about movie time, but at the same time try to have them doing fun things since they are in the house all day. Like today we baked Christmas ornaments and then painted them and I finished my "winter" wreath. (pics will come soon!). (I have no idea how I had the energy to those things.) The biggest thing that struck me today is that even in my sickness I am still called to love and care for my family well. Thankfully there is grace for those frustrating moments, but I am want to try in those moments to not let my sickness and mood cause me to sin against my children. Hopefully, in the morning I will be a millions times better :)