Super-Snow Day

We are in the middle of the biggest snow storm we have had all season! We have about 10 inches in our yard, and it is still dumping. After delivering our mishloach manot, Izzy and I did a little baking to fight off the cabin fever. We used a great new banana bread recipe from one of my favorite cooking Web sites, Once-a-Month Mom. Yummy!

There was a Jolly Holiday, and Purim was its Name-O

Tomorrow night, La Casa Leffler will celebrate the uber-fun, carnivalesque holiday of Purim. Truly an example of the Jewish-holiday-paradigm: "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat," Purim commemorates the miraculous story of the Jews of Persia escaping annhilation at the hand of the wicked Haman. In addition to hearing the story of Mordechai and Queen Esther (Megillah Esther), Jews celebrate with a costumed, festive meal (often in a communal setting), charitable giving, and by sending gifts of food to friends, neighbors, and the needy (mishloach manot).
I am a girl who loves themes: we eat themed meals at La Casa, have themed birthday parties, and--for Purim--we do themed costumes and similarly themed mishloach manot.
This year's theme: robots.

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We got the idea for our robot creations from Pinterest (have I mentioned how much I LOVE Pinterest?), and will go out to our friends and neighbors tomorrow. (A big "domo arigato" to Cathy Weaver for the cute idea!)

Clean Up! Clean Up! Everybody Do Your Share...

 

This week has been so busy at La Casa!  Having President's Day off on Monday allowed me to get a few items checked off of my to-do list.  In fact, "Making a To Do List for Izzy" was one of the items that I checked off of my own.  

A few weeks ago, I saw the best idea for a kid's chore chart on Pinterest, using magnetic chore "buttons" and a few items from the Dollar Store.  Even though he's only four, Izzy loves to keep track of his accomplishments, and enjoys monitoring his own progress (this IS my child).  He also loves magnets.  What a great afternoon craft for us, and a meaningful, visual way for him to remember his routines.

Blogging Successes...You Know it Don't Come Easy

I am, essentially, an idea-kind of girl who (if I am going to be really honest) has a little trouble with the follow-through.  Despite my efforts, I often find my best ideas thwarted by my inability to "hop to it;" as a result, I frequently find myself behind the curve, or simply paralyzed by the fear that I will fall behind and so I never get started.
In this vein, Blogging Success #1.
I found some monthly and weekly blog planning printables at InfarrantlyCreative.net, and printed them a couple of weeks ago, but had yet to actually DO anything with them, other than shuffle them from pile to pile on my desk(s...home and work).  But today--TODAY!--I sat down with my breakfast and my printables and actually mapped out the next two weeks of blogging.  As you may know, I love a good plan, be it for menus, what to wear, what to do with my kids--and now for my sweet home on the Web.  I even got an empty binder from my crazy binder cubby, and started a "Bloggin'" binder, which will house my blog plans as well as other resources I may employ here.  I guess that saying "You don't have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great" may be my new mantra.
Blogging Success #2: I LOVE Pinterest (check my boards out at pinterest.com/vvdenver79).  Earlier this week, I was checking my e-mail--read: deleting a bunch of junk that is delivered to me daily, and trying to cull out the good stuff--and almost deleted one of those Pinterest e-mails: "so-and-so is now following your board blah-blah-blah."  ALMOST.  But this one was different.  My new followers were none other than Susan and Janice from 5MinutesForMom.com!  This is a major Mom-site, and these fabulous ladies are real players in the Mom-Blogosphere.  I was so excited and honored that they found one of my boards and chose to follow it; it gave me a boost of motivation about my own little blog.

Elli is proud of his mommy for getting started!

I have the ideas, now I just need to stay with it, and keep bloggin'...