{Kindergarten Perseverance}

Recently, I was cleaning the kitchen and enlisted the help of Will & Olivia to put things that didn't belong away. Olivia had left her "100 days" hat on the kitchen table for several days, and since I had already taken pictures of her wearing it, I asked her to throw it away. It's a pretty obnoxious hat with 10 "tentacles", each representing one of the 10's (10, 20, 30, etc.) coming up and out from the band that goes around her head. At the end of each tentacle is a star and on each tentacle they put 10 stickers. It's a silly and fun hat, but not an easy to store hat, which is why I had taken a picture of it in the first place.

"What?! Why do I have to throw it away? But I worked so hard on this at school!"

"Because Olivia, we don't live in a house big enough to keep every single thing you guys do at school. We have already taken a picture of you wearing it and that's going to have to be good enough."

"Look, Mom. Before I made this hat, I didn't even know how to count to 100 by 10's...10..20..30...40...50...60...70...80...90..100...but I persevered!!!"

After I picked my jaw off the floor for her {correct} usage of the word "persevered", I told her we could keep the hat.

{Health Nut}

In our family, we try and make healthy choices. We're not perfect, and we try not to be ridiculously strict, but on the subject of candy, we try and follow our Virginia Pediatric Dentist's advice to only let the kids have chocolate, if we let them have candy at all.

For the most part, both Will & Olivia are good about following this rule. But that doesn't mean that there aren't times where they will still ask to have a sucker when they get their hair cut, or want to eat a jolly rancher that came in their birthday party goody bag (really parents? Can you please help us out by not giving our kids sugar at every turn????).

So, yesterday, being Valentine's Day, was one of those hard days. Everywhere I turned there was more and more "illegal" candy and I felt bad having to be the broken record of "no".

After school, my friend Angie hosted a Valentine's Day party at her house. She planned tons of fun activities including, Bingo & decorating sugar cookies & cupcakes.  She also had an activity where the kids make flowers using paper petals and a dum-dum sucker.

While outside, my friend Katt, attempted to give her little boy a Butterscotch sucker and Olivia stopped her. "No, no, no. Don't give him that one. Give him this one," she said grabbing an apple-flavored sucker. "It's apple, which means it's a lot healthier for him."

We've got some more work to do.

{Madame Smartie Pants}

It's a sad day when you realize your kids are wising up to your tricks.  A few days ago, Olivia asked me if I could read her mind. I've told the kids before that I can read their mind and usually can guess pretty close each time. I figure it will come in handy when they are teenagers if they think I can read their minds, so I told her yes and she asked me to prove it.

I told her to think of something and I would tell her what she was thinking.

"Okay, Mommy, I'm ready. What am I thinking?

"You tell me and I'll tell you if I was right," I countered.

"No way! You just want me to tell you and then you will say that's what you were thinking even if it wasn't!"

Caught red-handed, I started to laugh and so did she.  "I can read your mind, Mommy!"

{Art Ego}

Today, Will came home from school with artwork he created in his after school Art class. They were both really great pieces and I asked him if he would like to hang them up in his room.

He looked at me, with all seriousness and replied, "Ummm.....mom, these are too good to just hang in my room. I think these need to be hung in our living room."