Explaining How Santa Isn't Everywhere to JDaniel

Last year I tried to avoid emphasizing the Santa part of the holidays and really tried to focus on it being Jesus’ birthday. My sister Michelle told me that it would be impossible. “Santa is everywhere!” she said and she was right.

Jdaniel became convinced of Santa after a visit to BiLo. I wrote about it in a post called Grocery Store Made the Santa decision for JDaniel.

This year I have been presented with a new Santa dilemma. It is a dilemma that many parents around the world have probably had to deal with.

Let me share with you a conversation JDaniel and I recently had about Santa while hanging Christmas ornaments.

Me:
“Would you like to go see Santa at the Roper Mountain Christmas Festival?”

JDaniel:
“ Mom, Santa has a house in Arkansas. He can’t be at Roper Mountain.”

Me:
“We did see Santa’s house in Arkansas when we explored the little town at the bottom of Mount Magazine.”

JDaniel:
“It was surrounded by all those decorated tree remember!”

 

Me:
“Yes, I remember. You noticed that Santa had a back door and front door to his house.”

JDaniel:
“Are you saying he can be in both places? Is he like God?”

Me:
“No, Santa isn’t like God. Remember Santa was a man.”

JDaniel:
“Mom, he is like God really. He is everywhere just like God.”

Me:
“God is everywhere but, Santa isn’t able to be. He has to have helpers work for him in places he can’t be.”

JDaniel:
“So where is he? Is he in Arkansas or South Carolina?”

Me:
“It is hard to tell. His helpers looks just like him.”

JDaniel:
“Okay!”

Me:
“So, do you want to go see him?”

JDaniel:
“Well, Nathan ( The four year old that lives next door) is going to write him for me. I guess I don’t need to see him anywhere.”

We may run into Santa while we are out and about but, apparently JDaniel isn’t interested in seeking him out. He seems content to know he is somewhere in this world.

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday on Mrs. Matlock and Mama Kat's Writing Workshop!

Pausing Life for a Moment- My 3 Little Ducks

I loved reading MyLittle  3 Ducks maybe it is because I was one of three little ducks a long time ago. It maybe that Dana takes amazing pictures and write wonderful prose to go with them. I love getting to see glimpse into the wonderful family she is raising with her husband when I stop by. I know you will too.

When the amazing JDaniel4's Mom asked me if I would like to write a post for her Pause life for a moment series of course I said yes! When I sat down to write the post for her I thought…

Do I pause for life?

What if something happens while I’m paused?

That was back in October.

Since then amazing things have happened that have helped me understand myself better.

Understand why I have to always be moving.

Understand why reading a book to myself or to my kiddos has always been so painful.

Understand why my writing never flows and my spelling is always awful.

I now know Dyslexia plays a huge part in all of those things and starting the process of overcoming it has changed my life and my family’s life.

Now I am able to…

Sit.

Sit with my kiddos and read to them.

Sit and listen to them read.

Sit and do crafts with them.

Sit with my husband and enjoy our time together.

Before October I never understood how precious time was.

 JDaniel4's Mom asking me to write this post came at the perfect time. Trying to write this post before I got help was painful and made me realize I never pause.

Did I even want to?

And did that make me a bad mom? (Of course not!)

Sitting down to write this post after I got help made me realize just how far I have come.

Now my answer would YES! Bring on the pause!

Pausing Life for a moment is such a gift and I am so grateful that I can now see that.


I had no idea Dana was working through this when I invited her to guest post, but I know Someone who must have placed her on my heart. I am so happy I listened to His still small voice.

Moments Captured- JDaniel at Age 3 and a Half

Alison of Mama Wants This and Galit of These Little Waves are hosting a wonderful link up called Moments Captured.  This is what they asked us to do capture a moment or a someone you love in words and pictures and share them.

I really loved this idea. When I first read about it last week, I knew exactly which picture I wanted to use. I had just taken it during our family reunion at Mount Magazine.

It was such fun to select the words that describe JDaniel at three and half.

They will have their link up open all week. I would love to see what you come up with.



Reminder: My Giving Others Christmas Challenge link is open and will be open all month. I hope you will think about joining it. All you have to do is find a way to give others Christmas and share what you have done in a post.

Giving Others Christmas Challenge and Muffin Tin Sunday

There are so many in need during this Christmas season. I am hoping you will join me in giving to others in your community or beyond this holiday season.

Each week I will feature a way my family is giving to our community during the month of December. I am hoping each of you will take the time to not only give to your community, but to write a blog post about it. If you do, I would love for you to link it up below and include a link to this post or this badge.

My posts will go on Sundays, but feel free to share your giving post any day of the week that works for you. The link up will be available during the rest of the month of December and will appear on every Giving Others Christmas post.



Week One of Giving at Our House- The Mitten Tree



JDaniel's preschool has a mitten tree set up in the lobby. We took in two pairs of mittens for the tree. At first there weren't many mittens or gloves, but the tree is slowly getting covered.


In honor of giving mittens JDaniel had a crescent apple pie with icing in his muffin tin this week. He also had ham and cheese sandwiches on picks Two Bears Farm sent us, red grapes and green pickles.

I think the picks kind of look like Christmas tree toppers on the sandwich stacks. JDaniel loved have tiny sandwiches on sticks. His only concern was that one sandwich might not have cheese, but we found it tucked in a fold of ham. Whew!

I truly hope you will join me in giving others Christmas!



This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday!

Crayola High Tech Holiday Review and Giveaway

JDaniel is totally into using my iPad and exploring what it can do. He also loves using our workstation to do all kinds of things. When I was approached about review several Crayola technology related products called Story Studio and the new iMarker, I was thrilled.

When the products arrived, we downloaded the ColorStudio app onto our iPad and JDaniel started coloring with the iMarker immediately. He loved it. It was really easy for him to pick up and to use the coloring program and he loved the marker.

JDaniel was so thrilled with it that we took it on the plane with us to Arkansas. It held his attention while we cruised through the air and later when we had downtime at Mount Magazine in  Arkansas.

We didn't explore any of the Story Studio packages until we got home. I read over what to do  for the Adventure Maker: Disney/Pixar Cars and uploaded a picture of JDaniel during his "quiet time". It was really easy to create an account and upload a picture on him.

When it came to having the picture look just like him, the picture that was created didn't look just like him..The online program let me manipulate facial features. I was able to make selections of hair and eyes that resemble him. I am not sure that picture I scanned really had a impact of the figure we created.

Most of the pages in the Adventure Maker: Disney/Pixar Cars are preset. A picture of your child does appear in the bottom corner of the page.

You can't add text to the text boxes on screen. You have to write them in when you have printed out the page.

I still love this concept. JDaniel loved getting to color the pages using the markers that came with the kit. Considering it is less that ten dollars a kit I think it is worth buying and exploring with your children. Hia favorite part of this giveaway package was the the pen.

I have been given the opportunity to giveaway everything I was sent to one of you.  These would make wonderful Christmas presents.

What would you win:

Crayola Story Studio Comic Maker: Spider-Man
Crayola Story Studio Fairy Tale Maker: Disney Princesses

Crayola Story Studio Adventure Maker: Disney/Pixar Cars

Crayola iMarker to use with the ColorStudio HD app for iPad

Free download of the ColorStudio HD app

Here is what each kit comes with:

• For the child who craves action and adventure, Crayola Story Studio: Spider-Man lets kids upload a photo and transform themselves into a superhero that stars with Spider-Man in personalized comic book they create and color. A free access code inside the kit unlocks the Story Studio application at Crayola.com/storystudio. Kids can choose a super power, story-line, and one of six villains to battle alongside Spider-Man in their own web-slinging adventure. When they finish their story, they can save it, share it or print and color it. The kit includes paper, glossy cover sheets for printing comic book-style covers, binding strips and 15 Twistables® colored pencils to create three complete books.
  
• For the child who loves fairytales and wonderment, Story Studio: Disney Princesses lets kids star in a fairytale with a Disney Princess. Crayola Story StudioTM: Disney Princess lets kids create fairytales starring them and a Disney Princess! Kids upload a photo to transform themselves into a character, then create a story with their character and a Disney Princess! Story Studio includes everything kids need to create personalized storybooks and unlimited coloring pages - just print, color and bind the pages. They can choose storylines from Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, Tangled, Sleeping Beauty, and Princess and the Frog. With the free on-line access code that comes inside, Pip-Squeaks® markers and glitter glue, blank sheets and binding strips, kids create three complete story books!
  
• For the child who likes creative adventures, the Story Studio Adventure Maker: Cars 2 lets kids join the pages of a story with Lightning McQueen, Mator and the Cars 2 characters form Disney Pixar. The set includes 10 Pip-Squeak Skinnies markers, 3 Pip Squeak broad line markers, 2 Pip-Squeak glitter glue tubes, 30 story sheets, 6 glossy cover sheets and 3 comic binding strips to make three complete story books.

How to win the Crayola High Tech Holiday Pack:

* Tell me what other Crayola gift you would select from their gift guide. (1 entry)

For additional entries you can do any of the following:

*Leave Crayola a comment on Facebook. (1 entry)

* Follow Crayola on Twitter. (1 entry)

*Visit the Griffin Design Studio and tell me something wonderful they carry. (1 entry)

*Leave a comment for Griffin Technology on Facebook. (1 entry)

*Follow me on Google Friends Connect or RSS Feed or Twitter or Pinterest. ( 2 entries for each)

*Leave a comment  on one of my Facebook messages. ( 1 entry)

*Tweet about this giveaway. ( 5 tweets per day with 1 entry for each tweet.)

*Place my button on your blog or my blog on your blogroll. (3 entries for each)

*Stumble any non-giveaway post. ( 3 entries per Stumble)

That is 13 ways to win. This giveaway is open to people over the age of 18 in the U.S. only, this giveaway will close at 11:59 p.m. on Decemember 13th. The winner will be selected via Random.org. 


Disclosure: The Crayola High Tech Holiday prize pack, product information and prize pack for giveaway have been provided by Crayola through MyBlogSpark.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Joey and Jet in Space

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

• Link your activity below.

• Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.
                                                         
  
  
  

<center><a href="http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/"><img alt="Shibley Smiles" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-wYnCaxCjpQ/TIbl9KccMVI/AAAAAAAAB98/vjalStjjb-I/s1600/ReadExploreLearn.jpg" alt="jdaniel4smom" width="150" height="150" /></a></center>

• Please try to visit at  least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

• If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

JDaniel loves to have me read Joey and Jet in Space by James Yang to him. It doesn't contain many words, but it is filled with amazing pictures.

Joey and Jet start the book floating in space exploring together. Jet sees his bone floating by and chases it. Joey is visiting with a boy in a floating space room and doesn't see him disappear.

Joey spends most of the book asking spacecrafts, robots,and satellites if they have seen his dog. He doesn't seem to be anywhere. 

Finally he hears he squeak of his dog and heads towards it. Hooray! He finds Jet and just in time for Mom to call over a satellite to them to tell them it is lunch time.

When you get to see them with Joey's mom, you find that they have been playing in his room the whole time. The whole story is just in Joey's imagination.

What did we do?

Created a Mosaic 

I bought the My First Sticky Mosaics: Transportation for JDaniel to do on the plane trip we took for Thanksgiving. He wasn't that interested in doing in on the plane, but enjoyed working on the the rocket mosaic when we got home.

Rocket Launching

JDaniel made this plastic cup rocket in science class at preschool. We have spent a lot of time at home launching it over and over again.

Supplies

Paper Rocket

Two Rubber Bands

Two Plastic Cups

Directions:

1. Color picture of a paper rocket.

2. Place Four Slits in one of the plastic cup. Each pair of slits will be across from the other.

3. Tie a not in the end of  a piece of rubber band  thread it through the first slit.

4. Pull the rubber band across the cup and place the the slit on the other side of the cup. 

5. Tie a knot in the band.

6. Repeat steps 3-5 with the remaining band.

7. Place cup with the rocket and rubber band on top of the plain cup and push down.

8. Watch your rocket fly.

Why Deciding to Sleep at the Airport was a Bad Idea!

When flew home from your family reunion on Saturday, we had a layover in Chicago. We had done the same thing when we headed to the reunion last Tuesday. In fact we had to take a shuttle from one terminal to another on Saturday just as we had last Tuesday.
When we boarded the shuttle on Saturday, JDaniel was really upset. He clung to my side and said, "If you get on this bus, you have to sleep at the airport!" I pointed out that it wasn't the shuttle that forced us too sleep there and that everything would be okay.Thank goodness it was.
What had happened on Tuesday?
Last Tuesday we tried to make to our family reunion in Arkansas knowing that our flight in Chicago might leave without us due to a short layover time. The ticket agent in South Carolina where we live said all the flights were booked for Wednesday and if we didn't leave on Tuesday we won't make it to Arkansas for Thanksgiving. We decided to take the risk.
Our flight left South Carolina an hour and a half late. That meant the connecting flight left forty minutes before we landed.
After talking to an airline employee at the help desk, my husband decided we would stay at the airport instead of looking for a hotel. My husband said it couldn’t be that bad and that is what the employee said he would do.
Here are  things that made it bad:
We were sent to a very busy gate area to wait for our flight out the next morning that turned out not to be the right place.
Christmas music was turned on at midnight. It played over all the other airport noises.
The air temperature is set at chilly at night.
We were reminded all night long to remember not to bring in bottles containing more than 3 ounces.
The cleaning lady assigned to our area vacuumed under the benches we were trying to sleep on and then said, “ I’m sorry!”
The television monitors replayed the Republican debate until after midnight.
A flight left for Mexico City from the gate right beside the one our three year old was sleeping in and passengers were be invited to get on the plane by sections.
Bright lights shone down on us.
A security lady decided to  chat with the cleaning lady in Russian.
The rain that delayed your flight continued pound on the windows.
The thin blanket the airline gave us was better than nothing, but I did try steal a corner of my three year olds lovey and he tugged it back. My husband “borrowed” JDaniel’s teddy to use as a pillow and got away with it.
The Starbucks across from your gate opened at 4:00 a.m. to be ready for the red eye flight from San Diego to arrive at 4:30 a.m.

We hope that we never have to stay in an airport overnight again.
Have you ever spent the night at an airport?

This post is linked to Mama Kat's Writing Workshop!