Olympics our way and more

 I felt so bad in 2008 when we pretty much missed the entire Olympics due to us moving to Tennessee right in the middle of it. I never even saw any of the opening ceremonies which is a shame because everyone kept saying how awesome the Beijing ceremony was during this opening ceremony in London. I have some really good memories of several Olympics, summer and winter, mostly starting in 1992, the year I graduated high school. I remember watching the US Hockey team in the middle of my AP Biology class which must have been in the winter of '92 (I think it was after that that the summer/winter Olympic split happened so they were offset?), then that summer, I distinctly remember everyone going so crazy for the men's volleyball team and their bald-headed selves that even a certain brother-in-law managed to get his head shaved in a show of solidarity to the dismay of....ok, maybe it was a good memory for me. :) Good times for sure. And for some reason those bubble dresses at the Lillehammer opening ceremoney still stick in my head. Maybe because dressing up like a snow globe with sparkles floating all around me is a secret dream of mine. But of course, most memorable are always the stories, especially those of amazing courage and quiet strength. Basically I love the Olympics! As Nick and I have been sitting here watching some of it today, I realized the next time I will sit here watching the Olympics with Nick, he will have just returned from his mission. Yet Isaac will only be five. Can time go slow and fast simultaneously?
So to get my kids into the Olympics a little more (so they'll let me watch more of it) I decided to decorate a bit for it. We did a balloon Olympic ring wall around the tv and then above it I posted each event and the days they would be going on. Then on little white circles I wrote the names of the members of our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) around the world that are going to be competing so we can keep our eyes open for them.

 We made the Olympic rings from paper plates too, but I realized we got the color order wrong--oops, I guess my kids ;) should check on that next time!

 And it wouldn't have been complete with an Olympic treat. We did the circles in fruit, but chocolate chips for the black ring of course and then I made a yogurt fruit dip. (And I still got the color order a little wrong!) We also did the edible torches with popcorn and ice cream cones. Pinterest is the best. I couldn't believe how quick all that fruit disappeared. You would have thought my kids were in the Olympics with how they were wolfing all that goodness down. We are now fruitless for the rest of the week. :)

I decided to do something that seemed like a good idea to me at the time (we'll see how it ends up, sigh) and I started a "Kindness Olympics" during the Opening Ceremonies which will end when the real Olympics end on Aug. 12. We are going to have a gold, silver and bronze medal given out too. We have a jar that says "kindness olympics" on it and a bowl with a pen and paper slips next to it. Anytime someone else does something we think is kind, we are each supposed to take the time to write it down and slip a paper in the jar for them. I realized when at one point some of the kids were hurting each other (literally) trying to get a "kindness" slip, I may be the biggest idiot on the planet. But then last night when I told them the early tally--I noticed that after  FHE Rose realized she was winning and Nick wasn't doing very well, so she purposely wrote more kindness slips for him so he could catch up to her. Maybe, just maybe, there is the smallest chance, this will work just a little bit. Our FHE last night was on kindness and when we ended up with one kid crying in their room in the middle of it due to the unkindness of others, I seriously wondered why I am even trying. I feel like a chump as a parent but I am not going to give up! Not yet. :)
The morning after the Olympic opening, Jer and I took Junior through the temple (Nashville since Birmingham was closed) for the first time in preparation for him going on his mission. It was really nice although I still can't believe I have a kid old enough to do all this! A very nice gentlemen took this picture for us which I really appreciated. I wasn't feeling well most of the day except while we were in the temple so I am just really thankful I didn't mess anything up.

 I remembered to take that picture of the poster Rose did the other Sunday. She got the idea from pinterest to trace her hands and feet and draw a picture around that so she did and she says in this picture, she is "the monster attacking Hogwarts". Funny girl.

 I really wanted to get some more church pictures up in my kids' rooms. I haven't done anything at all on the boys' walls and now we've been here over a year, but I really wanted to do something even if it was not fancy. Having no money doesn't help me be able to do what I want either but it definitely helps me think outside the box a little. And so I came up with this with no help from pinterest either. The church sells many 11x17 size pictures for $1 a piece so I bought about 10 or so for their rooms. Then realized finding frames that size for even $5 each isn't in my budget right now and I didn't feel like waiting til it is so I started thinking about what I had already and kept coming back to contact paper. I have silver/metallic and a white/marbled kind. The rolls are really big and might have cost me $3 each. Since I already had them--free-ish. So I used scissors and a paper cutter to trim out frames in vinyl. Spencer opted for the metallic ones which aren't my favorite because they pick up light funny from certain angles but not too bad.

 I LOVED how the marbled contact paper turned out. And then I just stuck the pictures on their walls with thumbtacks. One day I will replace them with real frames, but in the meantime, they'll get to look at these beautiful pictures of things that mean so much to all of us before they grow up and it's too late.