Dear Daxton

Dear Daxton,

Last Friday was the saddest day of your little life, one of the saddest of my life, and will remain in history as one of the saddest days for this country.

20 sweet babies, only 4-5 years older than you, the same age as your best friend/cousin Zain, became angels in a horrible, horrible tragedy.

Luckily you're little enough that it didn't phase you. While mommy listened to live coverage streaming online, you watched Rudolph with all of your 2 year old innocence.

Mommy cried.... and you watched Rudolph.

I first pictured myself being the parents waiting at the fire station to be reunited with their little ones.... only for that to never happen.

I then pictured you being one of the babies in that school hearing the things they heard and seeing the things they saw.

I then pictured mommy as a teacher in that school. Most people don't realize how much teachers love their students.  We love each and every one of those kids like they're our own. I never called the kids in my class my students, they were always my "babies". And this year, as I got a Christmas card from a little girl I first taught 5 years ago I told your daddy that it was a picture of one of my "babies". The kids in our classes are our babies for the rest of our lives. And I couldn't imagine that happening to my babies.

This weekend, I appreciated all the small things. I watched you play in your toy car and smiled. I watched you lay on the couch and watch movies and smiled. I watched you throw your body down on the ground in a fit, and still smiled.

On Saturday night you were up every hour. And each time I walked into your room half asleep, I was thankful. 20 families don't get to wake up during the night with their little ones because of bad dreams or not feeling well. I sat in the dark in your room and cried tears of thankfulness that I still have you, and tears of sorrow for heavens new 20 angels.

Mommy is still having a hard time dealing with the emotions. I worried about your cousins as they went to school today, I worried about my teacher friends as they returned to work, I worried about all of my past babies that are now elementary schools. I picture you as a 6 year old each time they show the faces of the sweet angels on tv. I worry about the future and your safety.

But for now I'm going to be thankful. Daddy and I left today to go out of town for interviews and it was hard.  I asked Melissa what to do, daddy what to do, and mawmaw what to do. You're not feeling well so that made the decision hard, but I think deep down it came down to me not wanting to be separated from you.... because 20 families are now separated from their families forever. We left and as we pulled out of the neighborhood I cried. But we can't live in fear.

I've called mawmaw about a million times already and I get to hear you in the background each time. I can still hear your voice and smile. 20 other families can't.

Daxton, mommy loves you very much. From loss, great things can come. For me, it's a better appreciation for the small moments in my life with you. Appreciating your fits, your tantrums, your cries in the night, your hugs, your smiles, and your "I love you"s.

Love you forever,
Mommy


Sleep in heavenly peace sweet angels. We will never forget.

Work in progress....

I'm changing the page up a little.... so things will look a little nuts-o until I finish :)

Winter Projects

With Daniel traveling so much and the weather being nice and cold we have filled our days with lots of Christmas time projects!  This post is going to be pretty picture heavy but I wanted to share some of our projects... and maybe give you some ideas of things to do too :)
Oh and best part about these projects..... between all of them I think I only spent a total of less than $5!  My projects are all pretty spur of the moment so I make use with the things I already have at home :)

Nutcracker
This little guy has been my favorite project. It was a mommy/son project so we both worked on it together. I found the wooden nutcracker at hobby lobby for 50% off, had acrylic paint, and then got a glaze to put over it to make it nice and shiny. I'm pretty sure painting a little figurine like this will be a new tradition for me and Dax.

Salt Dough Ornaments
Salt dough is so much fun and you can do so much with it. I found this recipe on pinterest and just cut it in half (it was set to make 12).
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cups water
I let Dax help me do all the measuring and pouring and rolling the dough out on the cookie sheet. It was a pretty messy project but lots of fun! After you get all your shapes cut out don't forget to poke holes in the ornament to help air to go out.... or they'll puff up and you have to try to fix the damage later. Trust me... learned that one the hard way. Then you just put them in the oven for 20-25 at 300. And let them cool. I used acrylic paint because it tends to last longer and then covered them with a glaze again to make them nice and shiny.

We made all the cute hand print ones (and even a footprint one.... but my precious dog decided to eat it.... don't get me started) and then I let Dax have his way. He was really into a tiny toy dinosaur that day so we pushed that into a round piece of dough (top left on the picture about) and then he "walked" the dino around on the donut looking one (top right) and made footprint in it. He loved this!

(the left over salt dough made for great pretend "pancakes" )

Nature Paintings

If you've read the blog at all you know me and Dax both love nature. So we used a little acrylic paint and glitter to make a few ornaments and pictures for the walls.

The next day we painted glue on all of the final projects and used our fingers to sprinkle glitter on all of them! They all turned out really pretty and look great as Christmas decorations!

Glass Ball Ornament

I have a ton of extra ball ornaments that we didn't use on our tree so we decided to paint one with acrylic paint and at a cute bow on the top to hang on our tree. Dax was really proud of this project

 Gift Wrapping

In every class I've ever taught the kids have loved getting to wrap presents. So the other day I let Dax wrap a gift for his daddy. He thought he was so big and had so much fun! I let him do it all, the cutting, taping, folding, put a bow on, and even sign the tag. 

If you have any fun winter projects I would love to hear them!!!

Balancing Christmas

This is one of my new purchases this Christmas season... and I absolutely adore it. To me it is so thought provoking and really embodies the Christmas season.
Over the last month or so I've been really thinking about Christmas and what I want it to be for our family. I'm a big Santa person and tradition person, so I didn't want to completely drop those.... but I also don't want Christmas to be so commercial in our home as it is. And even more importantly.... I wanted to put a stronger emphasis on Jesus and the true meaning for the season than I feel most people do these days.
Also while browsing over the last month (because I start thinking about Christmas the first cool day in fall... it's sad... I know) I found Elf on a Shelf and thought it would be a super fun tradition to start in our family. I mostly just liked the idea of how mischievous the Elf becomes at night and waking up to a new surprise each morning (I mean how fun is that?!).

So how in the world was I going to incorporate Santa, Elf on a Shelf, and most importantly religion?

Here's what Daniel and I decided Christmas was going to be for us and our family....
There is a Santa, and there are Elves, toys, reindeer, North Pole... the whole nine yards. But there is also God.... and he and Santa think a lot alike. Santa believes in all the things God believes in... and hopes that all the boys and girls around the world believe those things too. That's why our Santa doesn't watch to see if you're "naughty or nice". We won't be using (and will encourage our family not to use it with Dax) the old, "Santa's watching and if you're not good he won't bring you any presents". Because really.... who's not going to give their kid presents? Instead, our Santa watches to see if you have a kind heart. If you love others, show compassion and kindness and grace. He watches throughout the year to see if you're trying your absolute hardest to be the best person you can be. Elf on a shelf shows this perfectly. He can be pretty ornery and mischievous each night, but he loves others and has a kind heart so that's all that really matters. And we're all going to slip and make a mistake every now and then... we're not perfect, Elf isn't perfect, and Santa isn't either... he just wants to see you learn from your mistake. He wants you to have a heart like God. And that's what our Elf will be watching for.... not to see if you're being good or bad, but to watch and see if your actions and words are matching a heart of kindness and love. And on Christmas Day, Santa shows his love to you by sharing gifts with you, rewarding all of your hard work all year to be the very best person you can be. Santa can't give us a gift as precious as the one God gave us, so special presents just for you are his way of saying "Good job, keep up the good work. Keep learning, growing, and loving."

So in our house there won't be your typical "naughty or nice" and your typical list of all the toys you're wishing for each year. There will be acts of kindness, words of compassion and love.... and through those things, Santa will give you just the perfect special gift that he knows you'll love.


After writing this post a found a couple others on pinterest that have thoughts similar to mine.... check them out and maybe you can start a new tradition of belief in your home too.
Jesus, Santa, and the Elf on the Shelf
It's Beginning to Look A Lot....

Hands On Learning

Dax is at probably my absolute favorite stage of development. He is really using his imagination and taking initiative to learn all he can. You can just see the connections constantly being made in every activity he does.
I try to plan something for us at least every other day. Nothing big, but just a general idea of something for us to spend some time doing. Most of the time I know that I plan on doing an activity that day, but I don't actually know what I'm going to do until about 5 minutes before it happens. I try to watch Dax and see what he's interested in and engaged in that day and then go from there with our activity.
Here's an activity that we did a couple weeks ago that he just ran with and took it in directions I didn't expect him to.

 So the day before, we went on a nature walk in our back yard.... collecting leaves, bark, nuts... whatever we could find. I also had some great books on fall that I hadn't read yet with Dax. I picked through the leaves and found ones that I thought best showed the color changing process and put them in this little basket. We read the books and looked at the leaves that we had found. I fully expected him to just touch the leaves and feel them.... but to my surprise he decided to do this 110% on his own....

 My little stinker took the leaves and matched them to their picture in his book! I didn't touch these leaves at all, or even talk to him about it, and yet they are perfectly matched to the book (under each leaf is the picture that matches it!)

 After he was finished with the book and touching and feeling the leaves I spread glue out all over paper and let him make a nature collage with them. He loved it and was very proud of his work (which is now hanging up in our living room).

Here are a few other shots of things we've done this past week...

His block building is getting so creative and intricate. Up until the past week or two his block play consisted of stacking blocks as high as he could get it and then knocking it down. But now he is building "houses" that he works really hard on for several minutes at a time. And most of the time he tops his buildings with a triangle (just like a roof... precious huh?) Kids learn SO much through block play that this makes me really, really excited. I always stressed block play in my classes so I'm very satisfied that he's a fan too :)

Today we pulled out what was left from our nature walk. He learned so many new words and names and got to feel such new, different textures. He also collected all the rocks and lined them up and counted them without my involvement at all.

We were playing with his beads today and I was talking about the shapes. He then went on to classify each block by it's shape and made piles for each (again, completely on his own).

I'll be posting more often on things we're doing during our day. I know I love great, simple, and cheap ways to learn so hopefully you do too. And if you have any fun simple ideas I would love to hear them!