Snow Day!

Here it comes, as your driving home from work, the wind picks up, and a chill is in the air so thick it takes your breath away. You make sure to serve up some nice warm supper for the family; and as you finish your nightly chores and put the little ones to bed; you check your local news. To confirm what you already knew. Its going to snow; and a little magic happens right when you see your kids' school flash across the bottom of the screen as one of the schools that will be closing, warmth comes over you while your thinking, "Im gunna get the day off!" For me its one of the best feelings in the world, just knowing I get to sleep in on a random week day is pure bliss for me, almost like I'm getting away with something criminal. When you wake up in the morning, the ground is covered in snow, big thick flakes fall from the sky making more layers upon the grass, so beautiful. Snow covers the backyard, almost angelic, like a long lost wilderness that has yet to be touched, not a footprint to be found...that's when IT happens..like a bunch of unruly bandits we swoop in and destroy the peace! We make sure every inch of that backyard has footprints. We throw the snow, we kick it we stomp on it, and then we lay on it. That's right, we PLAY! What else could be better on a snow day that to play in the snow! We have snowball fights, we make snowmen, and snow angels. Last time we made a prison for the dog, which he consistently escaped from. We took a sled and went down the driveway. For me its defiantly a chance to spend a day with my favorite girls, and when we are done, good and cold, we go inside and I make them real hot chocolate, with milk and marshmallows. You just cant beat an excuse to play!

The gift of shopping

I am always trying to take my girls to different places, different states. We are always on the go. Our latest adventures took us to Gatlinburg TN. There, we were able to visit the different Ripley's museums. Our favorite was the Ripley's Aquarium. Doesn't matter how many times you have visited an aquarium, it is ALWAYS fun to go watch fish or animals. In this particular Aquarium, the gift shop is on the way to the exit, literally, you have to walk through the gift shop to exit the building. Now for me and my girls, we looove souvenirs, they get a souvenirs from every place we go whether its at a gift shop or not. To my amazement, doing the souvenir thing is not that common. When we entered the gift shop, my girls knew right away they were going to get something. They didn't even have to ask. We all went our separate ways looking at all the neat gadgets and gizmos. I simply told them to look for something for about five dollars. Now, as my girls shopped and gazed for their trinkets, another mom came in the shop with her kids, "Oooh Mommy can I get a..." the little one started before she was stopped in her tracks with a sharp, "No, we aren't getting anything from in here, just go to the door" this mom was not alone in her distaste for the souvenir shop, another parent walked in with her kids, tugging them by the hands and arms, mumbling, "they did this on purpose, putting this right by the exit!" Ok, ok, I get it..it was kinda expensive to get into this place, but seems so harsh to me that the poor little tykes didn't even get to look. I may have given my kids a $5 limit, but they didn't even want anything that was worth that, I left the shop spending less than $10. These gift shops have magnets, pencils, erasers, plastic cups, all sorts of trinkets well under five dollars. In fact the pencil was probably less than a one dollar. I mean surely the parent got a souvenir, I am pretty sure there were photo opportunities those moms took advantage of , that's nice..unless your a kid.
 Most of the time, in my family; my kids have their own money to spend. They save change they find, money from birthdays, or earn it by doing extra chores; and that way when the opportunity arises to visit a gift shop, we are ready. In Closing, let them shop! half the fun of going to these places is getting a souvenir; one that they can proudly take to show an tell. Bragging rights, you know?

Doing the unSINKable

When I was little, (which wasn't that long ago, just ask my parents) I didn't have many barbie accessories, I had something much better; an over active imagination. The stairs were an enormous waterfall that my barbies triumphantly defeated over and over again. The basement with all its boxes, was an entire fortress built just for me. The cat's podium/scratch post was quite handy, whenever there was a hostage situation and screaming damsels in distress; but my absolute favorite was the bathroom sink. For all the fun you can imagine: the beach ,the pool, the swamp, and so much more. Time and time again I find myself having to help my girls 'learn' to play. The possibilities are endless. When I shared this valuable knowledge about the bathroom sink, my youngest stared at me for a moment, thought about it real hard, and said, "I can do that?" "As long as you clean up ALL the water, have at it!" I replied.
So there you have it, and if your wondering why the bathroom sink, what a mess...your wrong. Why not the bathroom sink. Do you know how big of a water mess it will be? Big enough so that by the time they have wiped up ALL the water, the entire bathroom counter has been cleaned to a nice shine! Hmm, no wonder I was allowed to play in the sink as often as I wanted..those sneaky folks of mine;-)

Sluuuug Buuug!

Picture this, me driving, my eldest daughter in the passenger seat next to me trying to find a suitable radio station, my youngest is in the back behind her looking out the window singing to herself, bouncing her little legs off her car seat in rhythm to her own tune. Sometimes it seems to take forever to get from here to there, so much traffic these days; and then it happened driving right next to my passenger side, a Volkswagen Beetle, shiny bright red, and in plain view of both my kids. We approached the stoplight, not a word, and yet the Bug was still right next to us. It hit me all of a sudden like a slap in the face to saying "get it together man!" my kids had no idea what a Slug Bug or Punch Buggy was or what it meant when you saw one. This is one of those life lessons that had obviously slipped my mind, I had failed my children, failed to teach them the basics of being an American, jeeze. Well, it was defiantly an easy fix! As we sat at the stop light, I pulled back my arm an gave my eldest a little 'lovetap'shouting SLUGBUG!!! Oh my goodness, if looks could kill..."what did you do that for!" she shouted at me. I was all to happy to explain to them both about the whole thing. the crisis of being unaware of the slug bug had been averted. Now we all play, on every outing. We are constantly on the prowl, playing the infamous game of SLUGBUG!

Mommy's Cinema Presents...

There is something that always stirs excitement when I call a movie night. These aren't just great fun for the kids its fun for me too; because on a movie night instead of picking a new movie, I pick a movie from way back when, such as Black Beauty, The Man from Snowy River, Where the Red Fern Grows, Sounder or any of the many Shirley Temple movies. Some choices for our movies are not so old, and should be household favorites anyway, like: Back to The Future I II III, The Goonies, Babes in Toyland, Honey I shrunk the Kids, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead. Lets face it, these movies are classics because people still have the desire to watch them. How will our little ones ever keep movies' classics when they get bigger if they have never seen any? The best part of these movies is that they are super cheap, sometimes you can check them out at the library for free, that's right FREE. To make our movie night extra special I make popcorn, (plain popcorn) and I add 2Tbs of real butter and 1tsp seasoned salt on top for very tasty treat. If you have never popped popcorn on the stove the old fashioned way, give it a try and let them watch you make it, they will be truly amazed and you become not only a master cook but a  magician as well.

Your Invited!

Invited to what? Oh nothing...Just the fanciest, most elegant, bestest tea party in the world!! Sounds expensive right? No way, didn't cost me anything but an afternoon; and I cant think of another way I would have wanted to spend it. The kids were busy playing brat dolls and watching TV when I decided we needed some time together. (plainly said, I was the one who got bored this time) So in my best English accent I invited my girls to my beauty shop. This is where I cut and painted their fingers and toe nails, I even put on designs like the spa (its not that hard, you can even do polka dots they don't mind) I then gave each some very nice hairdo's. Oh, and lets not forget make up; but not just any make up, MOMMY's make up, yes, it makes a difference. And then I let them pick out the prettiest dresses, even if they wanted one out of my closet. So now that we were all dressed up, I gave them a time to attend my fabulous tea party. I made regular tea, and I set out small cut pieces of cheese and plain crackers on my fine china plates. I also had sugar and honey available for us. Finally, for the final touch we listened to Beethoven, very elegant indeed! Yes this one is a little girly, but if I did have a boy..it would have been a great opportunity to teach him some chivalry :)

No ordinary puppet show!

Yes, a puppet show would be nice, but this was no ordinary puppet show. I can always tell when my kids are bored. Its as if they collapse to the floor, conveniently in front of where ever I happen to be, as if the boredom has taken them over and exhausted their ability to stand. My mother use to call this obsurd behavior "woddling".( and if my mother had a name for it my brother and sister must have dont it, not me of course) So as I sat there watching TV one day, another type of show came on. Lets call it the woddling show, and oh my this was quite a long episode. My daughter was putting her feet on me, trying to get attention anyway so I picked up a pen that was close by and drew happy faces on all of her toes. That's it, that was all the effort on my part to create a world within her in which feet were people, and they could talk to her, or me, or to the dog. Her toe people could have funny voices, and say funny things like "hey I smell something funny, do you smell it?" There you have it, this Fun Jar has so many open endings you can take flight on! You can even do it to your own toes and have a toe conversation, make an upside down laundry basket into a stage, take turns laying on your back and putting on silly plays with your feet. I have added a picture for special effect, enjoy!

Airborne!

Recently my daughter went to the dentist, No cavities ( I hear you clapping for me, thank you)so of course the treasure chest awaited her, as she left the chair in anticipation. Do you know what my little prissy princess grabbed for her toy? A tiny plastic soldier with a parachute wrapped neatly to his back. Very unexpected pick for her, but a wise choice indeed. Unfortunately, after about fifty flights off the banister, the soldier made his last jump, yes...for the mighty beast that reigns king of the den, in other words the family dog, decided he had enough; and shredded the parachute. Not to worry! a simple fix was made.
The Fix- a walmart sack cut  in the exact shape of the parachute and some dental floss turned out to be just what the soldier needed to get back to "Jump status" and that's when it occurred to me.
You can use a walmart or any plastic sack as a parachute for just about any toy. Airborne Barbie? Sure why not? And with toys big enough you don't even have to cut the sack; if the toy has arms, slip the handles in the armpit and Geronimo!