creating art on arms and hands.

So yeah, I'm going to post a picture of my son's arm. and then pictures of my arm.

You ask why? What do you mean why? Doesn't everyone post random pictures of arms? Oh.

Well, my daughter likes to draw all over herself. I always have markers all over the place. She draws on herself a whole lot. I learned that I don't mind if she uses sharpies to draw on herself because unlike washable markers, they stay put and don't get all over the rest of her body...and because darling daughter "gets away with it," the other littles want to "get way with it," too.

Not too long ago, one of my little guys wanted me to draw something for him and so I grabbed this book 

and found two pictures that he wanted. I followed the steps and bam! a fishy and a penguin were on his arm and he thought I was the coolest mom ever and that he was the coolest kid ever. 

I mean, check it out!  Pretty cool :)

That same day, I drew a teddy bear on little girl.  We've done flamingos and alligators and little birds, too. sigh. no pictures of those today, but I drew them. promise. Perhaps I'll have to add new pictures to this post when I draw more for them. 

I have found that markers are definitely less messy than face painting. ;)

So yeah, I've been known to write/paint/draw on my own arms and hands, too ;) 

I tend to write words as reminders of what I need for myself in the moment or for a certain day or time.  Or I'll wear bracelets with the words that I need to keep in mind. 

Oh, this bracelet says, "Be Brave.  Practice courage every single day."

Blessings! and Joy!

nicole mArie

blessings.in this mess.

as i sit my my living room filled with toys that we dumped from their bins and never returned, my little girl is spinning on a zebra with sunglasses over her eyes trying her hardest to become dizzy.  dizzy doesn't seem to faze her, she enjoys it. she's the crazy one ;)   my little boys are here chewing their gum like cows in my ears, one in the left, one in the right, and i realized how blessed i am. in this moment. i am sure that in a few moments, someone will do something to cause another to cry -- but i know right now that we are here, and we are mostly not sick (the last 5 days have been rough with a stomach bug. the three of the kids. ughhh), and we are currently enjoy each other's company. and we are blessed. i know that we are blessed always, but my humanity doesn't always let me see the blessings through the tears or in the messy.

today, i do see messy. and i see beautiful. in this moment, we simply are being.messy.beautiful. and it is so good.

blessings! and joy!
nicole mArie

Messy.Painted.Pumpkins

This is a wonky looking post tonight because I'm tired of moving the pictures around.  The gist is that we made a mess today.  We painted our pumpkins.  It was an adventure.  The littles had a tremendous time, and I found out that I really want to be "that-artist-mom-who-laughs-at-messy-little.people-and-allows-them-unhindered-creativity" I am not. I was freaking out because Max mixed blue into yellow paint. And then Grace dropped pink on the floor, and got some on her clothes.  I was laughing at myself struggling with the mess, so I eventually joined in a bit and painted on paper (as I didn't have my own pumpkin), and then we put handprints on the wall ;)  Perhaps I'll rearrange this all tomorrow.

Until then, Blessings and Joy! nIcole mArie

Happy Donut Day!

This past Tuesday was a special day in our house.  We celebrated "Donut Day" -- many others celebrated this same day by a different name -- Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday. All of these are ways that the faithful can celebrate one last day before Lent, the season of penance and fasting which begins on Ash Wednesday.

How did we celebrate this, you might find yourself wondering?  Well, I hope that you are wondering because I'm going to share.  We made donuts for breakfast (and the rest of the day, I suppose)!  Yes!  The little boys were really excited about the idea of making donuts.  I found this recipe via Pintrest and figured that since it was so very simple, I could tackle it with the littles.   We skipped the "dip in butter step" as I thought that they were  bad  good enough as it was ;)

We made cinnamon sugar donuts and powdered sugar donuts.  Do you see the heart shaped centers?  The minis next on the right are baby hearts :)  

 yummy!

The little boys eating donuts and watching a movie. 

See, the problem with finding the yummy donut recipe was that it lead me to this ho ho cake recipe also in the same website, and I instantly felt compeled to  bake it as well.  I mean, it was for a special day.  Thanks goodness we had a Fat Tuesday party to go to! I took donuts and cake to the party/playdate and happily shared most of both sorts of sweets.

Aunt Terri and Michael, the cake is the stand-over-it-with-a-fork yummy kind of cake.  I guess that I shouldn't admit that in public, but oh my gosh, it was so good.


No. No, I did not run on this day.  I probably should have though ;)

Blessings! and Joy!
Nicole

Let's (ALL) go to the gym

On Thursday, when my alarm went off at 5:20 a.m., I looked at it and turned it off. I decided to lay back down and think about if I really wanted to go to spin class at 6. I thought. I made a choice.

I chose to reset my alarm for 6:20 a.m. so that I could make it to the gym to do my run — a run was actually in my training plan for the day. The spin class was an “extra”. When my alarm when off at 6:20 I looked at it and I turned it off. I totally stayed in bed. I didn’t run early. I decided that since the kids were all feeling well that I would simply take them to the gym to play while I ran on the treadmill.

hahahaha read that last sentence. I wrote “simply take them”.

It took me an hour and a half to get us all out of the house — a big part of that was trying to remind Max that yes, he does like to play at the gym. Yes, I am going to exercise while he plays and that I would just be in the next room (sort of). Yes, he can put gas into the cars at the gym, and yes, I would come back as soon as I finish exercising.

When I actually got them into the playroom after saying hello to the buses parked below the parking garage, and after pressing all the wrong elevator buttons, and after greeting the mannequins in the gym lobby, I was bracing myself for an outburst of, “Don’t leave me mom, please stay and play with us!” Guess what? I had to chase all 3 of them down to snag kisses before I went to run. Who would have thought?

The run wasn’t difficult. It was just 30 minutes while concentrating on my cadence and my form. I am trying work on a faster foot strike — It seems that I strike about 80 per minute and it would be beneficial if I can up that to 90 or 100… Let’s see how I progress!

This article helps to explain what I was working on:

Blessings! and Joy!

Nicole