Baby Gifts

I'm making a trade, my handcrafted baby gift items for a beautiful handcrafted personalized painted sign by my oh so talented friend Dayna & I have hit a creative mind block. So far I have 3 burpcloths, 1 hooded towl (the 1st I've ever made & it was a bit of a challenge since I wasn't following a tutorial) & 1 taggie blanket. I don't feel like this is sufficient so I'm looking for other ideas, I'm trying to only use what I have on hand since I have already put so much money into my supplies & I even sacrificed some of my favorite Oregon fabrics b/c D loved them, but my creative well has run a bit dry. I'm thinking of trying to whip up a couple of wash mits to coordinate & I would love to do a jingling taggie ball but my tote full of stuffing has disappeared into the abyss that is my garage & has yet to be found. I'll probably whip up a bib since it seems you go through so many & never have any clean ones, but I'm yearning for some creative ideas. It seems like everywhere you look people are all making the same things, it's time to think outside the box, any ideas? Let's see if we can get those wheels moving & brainstorm!

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Sugar Free Day 3

So last fall I realized that I am tragically addicted to sugar so I thought, it takes 21 days to make or break a habit so if I can go 21 days with out sugar than I'll be able to break that habit and start leading a healthier life. The 1st several days were torture but after the 10th day I noticed that my face was looking strange in the mirror & then I put on a pair of jeans & noticed that they were a little loose. So I proceded to pull out the much neglected & dusty bathroom scales & got on, to my surprise I had lost about 6 pounds & so we're off! I started weighing in every day & for the 1st 2-3 weeks I was loosing 1/2 to 1 pound per day. In 3 months with out sugar I lost a grand total of 28 pounds & then I became complacent with my weight loss &  became less vigilant about my sugar intake. Granted, I still eat far less than I did in my previous life & I haven't gained more than about 3 pounds but the other benefits were so great that I've decided to try to take the plunge again. Well actually I've tried unsuccessfully several times & I'm determined to do it this time. Without my daily intake of sugar I wake up so much more easily & are significantly more clear headed & less sluggish throughout the day, it's amazing really how much better I felt! Not to mention that now when I have sugar I realize immediately the adverse affects it's having on my body, but sometimes that chocolate is just far too tempting! The last couple of weeks I have eaten so much sugar it's amazing to me that I haven't gained back at least 10 pounds so before I go off the deep end I'm cutting myself off. It's SOOO hard! Chocolate calls my name  & the call is only rivaled by that of home baked cookies & you all know how much I LOVE to bake! One of my biggest weaknesses are holiday baked goods made with pumpkin, not pumpkin pie but everything else. I love pumpkin rolls & my dark chocolate chip pumpkin cookies, although any cookie lights my fire & between the holidays & all the school parties  & events there are baked goods everywhere! I can turn down the store bought goods & the sugary candies, granola bars, ect but oh my goodness the thought of our local bakery's home made carrot cake literally makes me drool! I put off my latest attempt at being sugar free until after my recent trip to NYC because there is no way I was going to limit myself in such a wonderful city & since I HATE flying I figured I would need a good dose of chocolate to make it through all my flights. I treated myself to a bag of almond joy bites & surprisingly they lasted through 3 of my 4 flights & the last one called for a bag of jelly bellies, yum! The only thing better than dark chocolate & pumpkin is dark chocolate & coconut! I really had no idea how many daily items have sugar in them, the granola bars I kept in my purse, the rice mixes I made with dinner, literally almost everything in the pantry. So here I am in day 3, praying to make it through the holidays without gaining back everything I lost last year! so maybe I'll allow myself 1 special treat at Thanksgiving but I have realized I have to go cold turkey, there's no weekend treats, ect for me. So tune in next time & I hope you are all rooting for me!! Anyone is free to join this looney bandwagon I'm driving, I'd be glad of the company!

What is it about being a mom that gives you superhuman powers & the ability to take care of everyone & everything else but when it comes to yourself it's a no go?  How often do we tuck our little ones or our significant other into bed with a box of tissues, medicine and a cool drink only to trudge through another day of housework, mom-work & obligations while being miserably sick ourselves. We admonish those who feel all better and want to get out of bed to play but can't seem to put ourselves to rest without a serious trip to guilty town. We know, don't we, since we tell everyone else, that if you will only rest for a day or two you will get better much more quickly & be able to resume normal activities, but why does this not apply to us? I'll tell you, because when we are sick our dear husbands still have to go to work & our precious children still have to go to school, do homework, be fed & run around town to thier multiple activites. Why hasn't someone invented a back up wife? No matter the cost it would be well worth it, then again I guess nannies have been around for a while. Maybe if I start my own Nanny Service I might be able to stay in bed when I'm sick, but I guess we all know that's not going to happen. No matter how miserable you are or how many boxes of tissue or bottles of cold medicine you go through, the kids still need to be fed, the laundry still needs to be done & the spilled milk still needs to be mopped up. Here's to motherhood, the most exhausting yet rewarding thing a woman will ever do, or keep doing since it never ends! But we wouldn't have it any other way would we?

Because I'm The Coolest Mom EVER!

Last night I did something that may put me in the slacker mom catagory for some but definitely elevates me to coolest mom ever status with my kids. Instead of hitting the sack early in preperation for the 1st day of school we stayed up late & rocked it at a back to school concert event. Taking center stage for the evening were 1st (some good friends of ours! of course) Shatter Me w/ their new lead singer, The Letter Black & Decyfer Down. I have been looking forward to hearing the SM boys w/ the new lead guy for almost a yr now so it was a pretty exciting night for me too. I have to say it was the first event that I have done (& I have done a lot in the past 2 yrs!) where I didn't feel pressured, stressed or anything of the kind. Everything went very smoothly, I got the chance to visit w/ my friend Jana, the SM mom & work their merch table which was a fun change as I'm usually running around trying to keep everything running smoothly. I have always listened to DD but haven't been what you would call an avid fan but after last night I have jumped on the wagon. These guys are amazing & I have so much respect for them as they haven't let the rock star status get to their heads. They are still all about the message & reaching the people & that isn't always the case w/ these bands even though you would think that would be top priority in the Christian music world. Decyfer Down put on such an amazing, energy filled show & the guys from Shatter Me really pulled out all the stops to show that they are still an amazing band even though Brad has stepped down as lead to move more behind the scenes. It was a pretty awesome night! Unfortunetly I didn't get any pics of the SM boys because I left my camera at home & had to wait on Steven to get a moment free where he could bring it to me. But it was a God thing because when he left from giving it to me he spotted my friend's debit card laying in the parking lot & was able to return it to her ASAP. Needless to say she was thrilled I had forgotten my camera, tells you there's a plan in everything doesn't it. We did get home late but the kids had an amazing evening, something they won't soon forget & still managed to get up on time this morning & get ready w/ no rushing!!! AMAZInG!! Of course that's what we prayed for last night, have to cover all the bases, last thing you need is your 6 yr old dragging in sleepy eyed to the 1st day of 1st grade & telling her teach that she's SO tired cuz she went to a concert last night!! This is going to be a great year for the kids & we started it off right! Stone me if you wish but these are memories that will make them smile when I'm no longer here.

School Supply Overload

It's that time of year where I start to feel a bit more like a crazy person than usual, BACK TO SCHOOL... I dread it with a passion, not only because of the amount of money that goes into preparing for it but the fact that it brings with it endless hours in the car rushing from one point to the next, less family time than we would all like and a sense of anxiety that can not be matched.
For once I would love for the retailers to actually look at the school supply lists & stock their shelves with the actual items on the list. I know that the Alice In Wonderland stickers, notebooks, pencil bags ect. are cute, but they are NOT on anyone's list! Even the notebooks are not the right paper count. L's list in particular this year has caused me no end of frustration, something as simple as a spiral notebook has sent me all over town because they are very specific about it being a 180 ct w/ NO perforations! Yes they make 180 ct. notebooks, but other than the composition notebooks, there are NO spirals with out perforations. So this is where you have to ask yourself how important those all caps specifications are. So I have the Crayola paint instead of the Prang, I know Prang is the best but when I can pick up the Crayola brand on clearance for .49 & the Prang are $5 which one is any sane mother going to snag I ask you! There are certain things I just won't do, I am not sending 40 pencils to school with my 6 year old, WHY? I am not going to pay 4 times as much for the brand name colors when the store brand are .25. These things make sense to me when you are buying supplies for 3 children. I once worked in the school system & let me tell you, we were 4th grade & we still had lockers full of construction paper & kleenex from kids who were in high school. The only colors that ever ran out were the green & red since everyone does Christmas crafts. These pics are just a sample of the items that we have so far, rest assured, each of the binders are filled to the brim, A actually had to have 3 pencil bags in hers just to hold her supplies, YIKES! And we aren't even done yet! L's list has a very specific Mead tablet that she has to have 4 of, 6 weeks ago I started looking for them & our local WM has had the same empty peg since I started. I actually found a couple at a local office supply chain but they were nearly $5 a piece, CRAZY! No way am I spending $20 on paper, lets just call me a tree hugger & be done w/ it. I remember going to school with a few #2 pencils, glue, scissors, crayons & a pack of paper. I know they do so much more now & obviously need more supplies but right now I just need to rant a bit. Even being the frugal shopper I am, picking up clearanced supplies all year it still adds up to a fortune & you know most families in our country are living paycheck to paycheck these days. I can't imagine how single parents or people w/ more kids than I do it.
When all is said & done the following is apparantly what it takes to ensure a decent education these days for 3 children ages 6, 10 & 12..

1. 3 back packs, no biggie, the girls just reuse theirs until they can't anymore
2. 80 pencils (Yea)
3 7 spiral notebooks
4.3 boxes of crayons & 2 of which are just for L, they can only use 1 box at a time right?
5. 3 pair of scissors (Fiskars only!)
6. 6 dry erase markers
7. 2 boxes of map pencils
8. 3 Pearl only erasers
9. 2 pkgs manilla paper in 2 different sizes (we have always had the hardest time finding the lg pkgs so if I ever see them I snatch one up)
10. 2 pkgs specific sized construction paper ( I still haven't found the lg size pkg & there were @ least 12 of us @ WM this a.m. looking again!)
11. 7 boxes of 200 ct tissue, 1 school wants only Kleenex, the other only Puffs & the other didin't specify?!
12. 1 box Gallon Slide Lock ONLY bags
13. 2 boxes Quart Slide Lock Only bags
14. 4 MEAD ONLY 1st grade Handwriting tablets which I still don't have
15. 1 blue plastic folder
16. 1 plastic school supply box
17. Prang only watercolors, sorry!
18. 2 red grading pens
19. 2 non plastic zipper binder pencil bags (or in our case, 5)
20. 5 black pens
21. 2 rulers
22. 1 lg pkg colored copy paper for the computer lab? now we get to supply the copy paper too?
23. 6 highlighters
24. 1 pkg of markers
25. 3 glue sticks
26. 2 pencil sharpeners w/ lids
27. 2 2 1/2 in 3 ring binders
28. 3 pkg notebook paper
29. 1 notebook w/ dividers & folders
30. Elmer's black label 4oz only glue
31. 2 pocket folders w/ holes, no brads!
32. 8 pocket folders w/ brad, 2 green, 2 red, 2 blue & 2 yellow (we went EVERYWHERE looking for these & finally found them @ TArget, not w/ the school supplies)
33. 1 composition book

When we lived in Sequim Washington, I kid you not, I spent less than $20 on my 2 kiddos who were in school at the time for ALL their supplies & I had not a thing put back for them since we came to WA w/ only what would fit in my sport sized mini van. They did have back packs as thats what they brought their toys in across country, but the supplies were so basic it was amazing. It makes you wonder what really gets done with all those supplies. I am more than happy to refresh supplies as they run out during the year & I know there are parents who don't send anything, but I really feel that this whole thing has gotten wildly out of hand. I know last year the first week of school my kids kept coming home w/ notes for additional supplies that were not listed online & also requests for money for everything under the sun from the PTA fees to class tees that they simply must have before they go on a field trip. For those of us with more than one child & not a bottomless bank account this kind of thing is extremely draining. I'm not so sure that private schools are that more expensive than public ones. It's enough to make you seriously consider homeschooling where most of the work can be done on your home computer & gained from reading.
On another note, you know all of those school appropriate clothes from last year simply do not fit anymore. It's amazing how fast kiddos grow through the summer. I think all of mine skipped an entire size in the last 6 weeks. We have been scrambling to find shorts long enough for school, which raises another point. What exactly is it about boy's knees that they have to be covered up to enter the school? That's a hard task for tall, skinny kids! Clothes shopping is such a mess, by the time school rolls around all the retailers are putting out fall/winter items & in Texas we still wear shorts through Oct. Even if you can find shorts they never comform to the school dress code. Yes, this is just a rant post, I know it, but as a woman we all know that the best way to deal with things is to get them out in the open, it's like therapy, write it down & let it go......
I could write a book on back to school woes as I'm sure many others moms could too & as my dear friend Amy would remind me, there is a way to deal with that, it's called homeschooling, Yes Amy, I know! I seriously considered it, especially w/ L this past week as I had to battle the school to have her moved into an appropriate classroom. I know most people don't seem to think twice about their child's teachers & call me anal, but I simple have to be comfortable & be able to trust the person that will be in charge of my child for 8 hrs & when I'm presented w/ a situation where that is not the case, I have to do something about it. I owe it to my kiddos to stand up for them. It boggles the mind how some people keep their jobs in the school system, especially with so many going to school for education. I guess it's kind of like cops, military or any other service job w/ bad press, just because you're in the business of serving & protecting doesn't mean you're a good person but 1 bad apple shouldn't spoil the entire bushel, right?

OK, done, back to my usual sweet, smiling self, hahahaha. Off to bake cookies, YUM!

A Hair Raising, Skin Scraping Sunday

Late Sunday afternoon our "good" friends Mike & Carrie called & invited us to go out on the boat with them for a little while (you'll understand later why they have playfully been relegated to "good" friends, I still love them I'm just now questioning whether they think they are named in my will). My initial reaction was to say no because that's what I do when something is outside my comfort zone. I have only been out on a boat once in my life & it was a party barge that my sedate, completely non-outdoorsy dad was in charge of & incidental it was his 1st time on the lake w/ a boat so we barely puttered. I'm fine with water, I just want to be able to see what's at the bottom(that means pool play only). Blame it on B rated 80's movies if you like but scary things exist where there is water you can't see through. So still I'm envisioning sitting on a boat in the middle of the lake doing nothing, how much fun can that be w/o a book right? NO we get out there & right off the bat they want me to put my kids in the lake, WHAT! So maybe I'm a bit uptight, who knew. After much prodding I actually lowered my body into the brackish water of Pat Mayse Lake, ick! I thought I had done good, but even after these past few years of friendship I still have yet to grasp the fact that Miss Carrie's new mission in life is to jar me out of my comfort zone, it seems to have become some sort of game. I will admit we were collectively quite proud of me for jumping that hurdle, but the best is yet to come. My dear children start begging to ride the tube, so J goes 1st as he has the most experience, which I didn't even know about (this is just the 1st of my parental shortcomings in this story). He looks like he is having a blast, so really how bad can it be? Next all 3 kids get on the tube & go for a ride which I was of course very nervous about, this was L's 1st tube ride & I just kept seeing her fly through the air w/o the greatest of ease if you know what I mean.

Regrettably I didn't get a pic of this because nervous nelly here couldn't take her eyes off the tube long enough to grab the camera.

Then it was A's turn & she had a blast, evidently they are quite the daredevils, who knew? Both my olders wanted wild rides &hung on for dear life, until J flipped the tube up in the air & went flying. Quite a site to see.

Then of course Miss L decided that she needed a solo ride which immediately send my poor Mama's heart into overdrive, but you have to remember at this point I myself had yet to experience this & had no idea what to expect. We took it really slow (she kept giving the slow down signal, even though we were at the slowest speed,good girl!), but still seemed to be having a blast. At least until the tube took off all the skin on her knees & elbows & reopened her scootering wounds from the weekend before. This girl is battle scarred, let me tell you!

So then comes my turn. How do you say no when all the kids have done it right? I'm actually trying to overcome fears & do new things so this seemed, for a moment, to be a great opportunity to do just that & the kids had so much fun. NO, within 5 short seconds I knew I had made the mistake of a lifetime, I was about to leave my children motherless. I did not know it at the time, but all of a sudden the lake was whitecapping, I had the roughest ride of everyone, great! Since going to the lake was last minute I had failed to take my mascara off before we left, 1st big mistake. Immediately I have black fire running from my eyes & I'm too terrified to let go & wipe it away. It was like being thrown onto a bull having never been taught how to bull ride, I kid you not. My body was flying off that tube like a fish on land & my second thought, after Dear God what have I gotten myself into, was do people with implants really do this?! I know, random right? I'm immediately screaming like a banshee (think Darby O'Gill & the Little People) but in staccato, eyy,eyy,eyy,eyy,eyy, broken each time my generous body slammed back down onto the tube. I'm sure the other lake goers all scrambled for their video cameras at this point. I fully expect to be the next big thing on youtube. Maybe a movie deal will come of this, stranger things have happened. Anywho..there were several minutes that had I not been too afraid to let go I would have simply jumped off & waited to be rescued. There is a signal that lets the driver, who I truly believe was reveling in my predicament, know that you've had enough, but that would necessitate letting go of the handles which I knew would leave me air born & take me straight to Jesus w/o passing go or collecting $200 so I just hung on for dear life & prayed! At the end of my harrowing ordeal, which goes through many other phases but would take a novella to describe I promptly asked "do you really do this for fun?!" Which of course elicited gales of laughter from the boat riders who had not just risked their neck I might add. My fingers had to be pried from the handles & my legs would not work so of course I fell into the lake, which further amused my fellow lakers. So I consider myself a survivor of a near death experience, I came away from this with a renewed relationship with Christ (no kidding, I know he brought me back from the brink of death on this day ), a renewed commitment to my kids (what kind of mother lets her kids do something for the 1st time w/o trying it out herself 1st?!) & a strong conviction that my "good friends" are truly unaware that they are NOT named in my will. We will rectify that immediately, I have no desire to be almost killed anytime in the near future. Thankfully no one from our boat picked up a camera, that's one thing I would NOT want captured on camera for all posterity!