25+1 Things I Want My Sons To Know

My Life full of love, joy, thankfulness.....and BOYS!!!

My life is full of everything little boy. Being the mother of three little boys is most definitely the most changing season of my life. Yet I have never been more satisfied with my life either. Those three little boys bring my life so much joy and love. I love motherhood. I am not always great at it and have made many mistakes over the past ten years. I am sure there will be plenty more where that came from. That’s just part of it I suppose. I have been thinking lately and making a list some things I truly want my boys to know as they go though this life. Things that I can potently and deliberately teach them about life, the world, love and everything in between to help them succeed with living life. It’s very easy to get caught up in the day to day life and often times we forget the larger picture. Someday our children will be adults and our actions, responses, and voices will have had a significant impact on molding their character. So, I made the following list to help myself remember to be intentional and purposeful with my sons. The list is composed of 25 + 1 things I want my sons to know. I thought 25 was a good number, and well I went over one….so it’s 25+1!

1. Jesus is love….There is no other way to love or be loved other than through Jesus Christ. Real and true love comes from the source of love. It doesn’t just take knowledge of Christ, but it takes relationship with Him to fully function in the true potential of love. There is a difference between religion and a spirit filled life.

2. Kindness is not overrated. It is not true. Nice guys do not always finish last. Showing kindness, as simple as that is, builds good character.

3. Girls are beautiful yes, but they are also intelligent and strong. They always deserve your respect. At no point are they to be treated as property or less than you.

 True Love is Powerful and Moving

4. Love is not about convenience. Love is about truth, sacrifice, long suffering, and compromise. Love puts others first.

Real People, Real Role Models

5. Choose your role models wisely. Role models are not celebrities. Role models are the people within your circles that are pouring into your lives. Your Uncles, teachers, principles, coaches, pastors, grandparents, father…..etc.

All Ways Be You...it's okay to not fit in....Embrace who God wants you to be!!!

6. Geek, nerd, smart are not bad words. If you are smart, embrace that. If your friends are smart, embrace them. Smart never goes out of style.

Never Stop Learning

7. Knowledge is something you never stop collecting. READ! It is a source of growth.

Be A Friend to have A Friend

8. Friendship is valuable. Be loyal and dependable. Choose wisely your friendships. It is better to have deep friendships with few. Than shallow friendships with many.

9. It’s okay to make mistakes. Walk in grace and forgiveness. No one is perfect.

10. Aim……Always aim no one wants to clean up behind the toilet bowl when you miss.

Enjoy Your Childhood

11. Don’t try to grow up too fast. You really only have one childhood.

12. Be thankful. Thankfulness turns to joy and joy makes love easier and love makes the world go around.

Don't Be Shy....Let Your Voice Be Heard

13. Let your voice be heard. Don’t be afraid to speak. Your opinion matters, your knowledge matters, your voice matters. People who change the world don’t set quietly in the corner.

14. It is okay to get beat by a girl. They are allowed to be competitive and athletic!

15. Sore losing doesn’t look good on anyone. Always be a classy loser shake hands with a smile and say congratulations.

16. Money is not the most important thing in the world. People are!!!

17. All the trends are not stylish and you can choose not to be trendy!

18. Trust yourself…..because I really do believe in you and what you are capable of.

Being a Brother is like Being a Superhero.....Only Better!

19. Brotherhood is not be taken lightly. You are forever intertwined in one anothers lives. So choose to take care of one another equally.

Truly Laugh Out Loud

20. Remember to laugh. Laughter looks great on everyone.

21. Be teachable.

Tears are a part of Life, and that is OKAY!!

22. It really is okay to cry no matter how old you are. Sometimes life hurts and sometimes tears of joy deserve to flow freely.

Learning About Bravery ever so Young

23. Bravery is not about being unafraid. It’s about being scared and still having the courage to go on.

24. Listen! Life is not all about you and the world does have other people in it. So take the time to be a good listener to people around you!

I Will ALWAYS love you...Kool-aid smiles and all!!

25. Remember your roots and that I will always love you!

26. LOVE BIG

Happy Birthday Baby Boy

Happy 4th  Birthday My Sweet Son!

New Born

One Year Old

2 Years Old

3 years Old

4 Years Old TODAY!!!

Today my sweet little man turned four years old. I really can't believe sometimes how time seems to go full speed ahead. Happy Birthday Cooper Monroe....My little superhero! I love you!

Book Inspired Costumes

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
― Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday to You!

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday the boys school is celebrating with READ ME WEEK. On Friday they are ending the celebration of reading with book character day. The boys are going to be dressing up as a  famous book characters. In honor of this creative and fun day I browsed the Internet for a few of my favorite characters brought to life by costume fun. Here are some of my adorable finds from the world wide web. I think the costumes below can easily be tailored to fit  adults or child  so that everyone may take part in a charatcer day at their school!  HAPPY READ ME WEEK!

BOOK CHARACTER COSTUMES

Carmen Sandiego

Carmen Sandiego Book

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Carmen is a media franchise of educational computer games, TV programs, and BOOKS, and I found this Carmen over at What I Wore blog.  I will also note this blog is super great, and has many more super fun costume ideas for when you need to play dress up!

Carmen Sandiego brought to life by Jessica Quirk from What I Wore

Luna Lovegood

Harry Potter Books

Luna Lovegood the adorable and quirky little Blondie from the Harry Potter series was brought to life by a fan's costume I found over at Luna Fans. I must say brilliant use of the bike helmet!

Luna Lovegood Costume

Fancy Nancy

Oh...to be 6 or 7 again I would morph myself into Miss Fancy Nancy. This is one of those books that I am tempted to buy and read even though I have a house packed full of little boys. I mean come on how fun is she!!!  I found this costume over at Blu Moon Design.

Fancy Nancy!

Curious George and The Man in The Yellow Hat

One of my faovirte books series....Curious George

Looking after Curious George is over at Father Apprentice is The Man with the Yellow Hat. I love this idea for a costume for character day. Actually you could probably be either one George or The Man with the Yellow Hat!

Cute cute book inspired costume idea again from Dad Apprentice

How To Train Your Dragon

The Book

This is one of my favorite young readers books.  I know this costume doesn't say that it's Hiccup but it totally could be. I am Momma - Hear Me Roar is a brilliant blog with brilliant ideas, and this costume is no exception. I mean she used rug and toilet bowl covers which made for a super cute Hiccup in my opinion!

Super Cute Viking

Olivia

This little pig has big personality! I found the cutie dressed up below over at YOURS TRULY.  To cute for words!

The sweetest little Olivia

If Give A Mouse A Cookie

Book Mouse

I thought this costume was very original and would work great for child or adult. You could change up the undershirt to a grey t-shirt or turtle neck if you didn't want to go sleeveless. The cookie looks super simple to make, and you could just make a large one out of card board if you didn't have two dressing up. I found this story brought to life on website Instructables complete with instructions.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Costumes

Okay folks I had a ton of fun looking at all the book inspired costumes, and these where some of my very favorite and most original finds. I do have a few links of some honorable mentions below that where just to cute to leave off. So check out that list if you are looking for more inspiration for a book character. I would love to hear from all of you on what characters you would like to bring to life with costumes inspired by favorite books???

Honorable Mention Links

1. American Doll
2. Corduroy
3. Max
4. Madeline  (*This one is Seriously Adorable)
5. Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
6. Book Fairy
7. Cat in the Hat & Green Eggs and Ham
8. Sherlock Holmes
9. Narnia Costumes
10. Arthur

Perfect Valentines Day!

The Top Four Ways To Achieve The Perfect Valentines Day

 

Train your sweetie well....so that he always remembers your favorite flowers! Yellow roses YES please!

Bake a seriously UGLY Valentines cake for the love of your life! He will love it anyways!

Enjoy Valentines dinner around a candle lit table filled with the family that exist all because two kids fell in love!

Find three happy helpers!!! PERFECTION!!!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone....I hope your lives are full of joy, love, and thanksgiving. I know mine sure is!!! I will leave you with a quote about how love changes us! How has loved changed you?

“Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way.”
― Aberjhani

Arts and Education

"An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life." ~Author Unknown

Recently we received a note from our elementary school that the distract had changed the grading scale of the special arts classes grades 2-4. The change included two main things that would change for the elementary student body. The first change is that the grading scale will now be A,B,C,D, F scale instead of the scale of the past which was E,S,N scale. The second change is the grades from all the related Arts classes will be a determining factor on the honor roll system. In the past, these class where not included or grouped with the core classes of Math, Science, Reading, etc.... Plus these changes will open up a whole new expectation of parents, arts teachers and students to communicate on a deeper and more clear level. This change I welcome with open arms. I am big on the partnership between teacher, student, and parent for education. All seems simple enough, right?

Upon further investigation, here's what I've found. Students receive an average of 15 recorded grades from their homeroom teacher in their core classes. Also, the homeroom teacher spends everyday getting to know their students and their learning patterns, struggles and strengths. It is much easier for a homeroom teacher to assess her students on a fair level and give them the assistance needed to achieve goals. The Arts teachers see the students on average once or twice a week and as of the last grading period gave the students an average 6-9 recorded grades. So my question and concern with this is, does the time the Arts teachers have with each student lend enough time to teach a new skill, develop and assist said new skill and then take a fair assessment and adequate data to give the student a fair grade over that new skill? In the core subjects, students are given multiple chances to develop and learn new skills through teaching, homework, projects and testing. Related Arts teachers do not have that same playing field, nor do the students in their once or twice a week classes. I am only concerned that this new policy will do more harm than good, while putting even more pressure on our already under paid and overworked teachers.

Don't get me wrong, I support the related Arts program and think it is a very valuable tool within our public school system. Anyone who knows my family personally knows just how important a role music plays in this family. I just believe that the Arts programs have an entirely different function and purpose than that of the core academic programs. I believe the arts should enrich students lives, build confidence, establish thinking patterns outside of the box, encourage healthy living, and all in all expose a world to children that might not get any other chance to be taught the Arts. The Arts should be enjoyable to students. After all, isn't that what the Arts are to us adults? Enrichment for our lives somehow? Isn't that why we listen to music and line our walls with art to make our lives richer and more beautiful? I think the Arts are a very valuable program to our schools. All in all, I am just saying that rather than good and brilliant teachers struggling to figure out what they can get more recordable grades from and how they can put art and such in paper and pencil form, I would like to see those teachers exploring the arts with my sons. Maybe showing them new instruments, exploring new color patterns to make the world a more beautiful place. Perhaps, learning that healthy bodies are happy bodies through fun life changing exercise habits.

It's very true, life is not fair. As adults, it gets even less fair and I believe we do need to prepare our children for changes, even new policies in their schools and lives. But do we as parents and educators not have the responsibility to new generations to do our very best to make the world a fair and just place? To teach them that 'life is not fair' and the path is not easy, while explaining that to fight for what is right is never a battle to which you surrender, no matter how large or small the cause. And education is no small cause.

I just want to say in closing that the school my children attend is a great school with an amazing, top-notch staff. Despite my concerns with this new district policy, I am very confident that the educators in my children's school will do their very best to help parents and students adjust smoothly to this new policy. I trust their judgment and respect their abilities to prepare my children for the next season of their lives.