Toddler Friendly New Year's Eve :)

I have always enjoyed celebrating New Year's Eve at home. Growing up I loved it when we would watch festivities on TV playing boardgames and counting down as the ball dropped in Central Park. I get caught up in the excitement of the moment. It's just so much fun! Last year I decided that my children were old enough to have some fun with some of the silly things that go along with New Year's Eve so I tried to think of a way to celebrate it with them while still getting them to bed at a reasonable time because you know as well as I do that they will wake up at the same early time regardless of when they go to bed. We've done it again this year and we had so much fun with it I thought I would share :)

While at the store earlier in the week I picked up some sparkling Welch's Grape Juice, noise makers, and fun 2014 cardboard glasses. At our normal time we got into our pajamas and had a party. We talked about what a new year meant on their level and had a little party. I had gone onto youtube and found a clip of the ball dropping in Time Square from last year and we watched it and celebrated the coming new year. The kids had a lot of fun. Juice in our house is usually consumed watered down, so having carbonated juice was a treat for them. D said it was spicy. They had so much fun being silly with the glasses and asked me to play the youtube video of the ball dropping a few times :) All around a good time was had...and we even got to practice counting down from 10! :)

However you have decided to ring in the New Year, I pray that it is filled with many blessings and much happiness! Happy New Year!

"...but MooOOoooom, I want to be very busy!"

This morning as we were driving to school I was going over our planned activities for the day and the weekend. I told them that we would be visiting a lot of people this weekend. L asked "We're visiting a lot of people today?" When I told her that we would be making our visits tomorrow and Sunday she started to whine about wanting to be busy. This made me sad. I know that what she meant by that was she enjoys having fun things to do, but the it coming out that she wants to be very busy made me sad and here's why.

The past few weeks I've learned a lot. I had the opportunity to participate in an amazing retreat weekend called Cursillo through my church. The theme of the weekend was Be Still and it is exactly what I needed. As a busy working mommy still is something that I have looked at as more of a luxury instead of a necessity. We very quickly get more and more hats to wear: Wife, Mommy, Teacher, PTA board member, Volunteer Coordinator, taxi driver to dance, soccer, basketball.... and so on and so forth. All of the extras are very fulfilling, but if you let them they can take away from what is truly important. This doesn't mean that you can't be involved in outside activities it's the way you go about it.--That's what I've been learning this year...and trying to implement in my own life. It sounds like it would be easy to do. I just have to set aside some time right? Other mommies out there are laughing right now, I know :) What I've found the past couple months since going on Cursillo is you have to be creative while scheduling your be still time.

A friend and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. We were trying to figure out how we could make sure we spend more time on a daily basis in prayerful reflection and studying the Bible. Both of us work full time,  have young children, and husbands with demanding work schedules. My friend was telling me how she has even signed up for alerts to help her remember to make time, but she ends up turning off the alert not being able to be still in that moment. Here are some creative solutions we came up with:
-At work, take your phone (if you have a smart phone) with you on a bathroom break and go to your favorite Bible Study site or prayer/reflection site, pull up an online copy of the Bible, etc.
-If you find yourself waking up before your alarm take that time while still lying in bed for prayerful reflection or even reading the Bible out loud to your spouse.
-Keep a family friendly daily reflections at the kitchen or dining room table to read before or after a meal the family gathers for.
-When the kiddos go down for a nap or at bedetime take the first 10 minutes to be still yourself before starting on the to do list

What I've been reminded is that taking the time to be still and have prayerful reflection and spiritual development time for myself is a necessity for a less stress, more optimistic perspective. This ultimately makes me happier and able to more thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the blessings around me.

Twinkie-like fun :)

Last week we had back to school night at work. The tricky part about back to school night is it takes place after the required pick up time for my own kiddos. Some of the teachers I work with have children in middle school--we set them up in a classroom that wasn't being used to watch a few of the younger children and they all had a blast. I wanted to do something to say thank you, so I took Fun da-middles and made them using my mini bread loaf pan. They came out very Twinkie-like and were a hit! And sooo easy to make :) 

I used the directions on the box cooking them just a couple minutes longer than suggested because they were slightly larger than the typical cupcake.

I got the mini bread loaf pan from Amazon. (I noticed it's on sale!)

1 Box of Fun da-middles made 6 cupcake-twinkies and it was a hit. One of my co-workers came to ask me what my recipe because her family had enjoyed them so much!

Hope you're able to give this a try. My next feat is to try and recreate it using cake mix and using different cupcake filling recipes I found online...when I get around to trying it out I'll let you know how it turned out :)

Flashback: Girls just wanna have fun!

I'm a little late on this one. I've finally getting around to writing it.--A few weeks ago my daughter and I had a girls afternoon and it was a blast. She's old enough to appreciate the activities we do on a deeper level which is very cool to see. She also appreciates the one on one time without her brother which is also neat.

So, what do you do on a girls afternoon with a preschooler? After lunch, you need to make sure your nails are pretty

Purple is one of her favorite colors...and we had to match :)

And you can't have a girls afternoon without some ice cream...especially on a day the car thermometer got over 100 degrees

We had a great time, confirmed by the nap she took in the car on the way home :) I need to work more of these "dates" in...and I need to have a few with little man too.

Friday Night Fun

Dinner time can be a challenging time, especially at the end of the week. My kiddos are tired from a busy week of school and Mommy's tired from the weekly juggling routines. Lately my oldest gets particularly cranky at dinner time and just about any "normal" dinner will reduce her to tears for one reason or another...there are red things...it is spicy (not really)...she doesn't like ____(insert name of food she typically loves)_____. Today I decided that I would try something different. I wanted to get through dinner and to bedtime with as little tears and arguing as possible, so we made pancakes! BIG pancakes :)

I used the easy pre-made pancake mix where you add water. I made a lot of batter because I knew I wanted to make a few big pancakes. 3 cups of mix and 2 cups of water is what I used with my store brand mix. We sat at the kitchen table and took turns stirring and counting to 10 (can't pass up a teachable moment!).

Once we were satisfied with our batter, the kiddos went to play while Mommy worked on figuring out exactly how she was going make these pan-sized pancakes...As you can see, the first one wasn't pretty...

 

But I got better each time!

And by the 3rd pancake I was a pro! I knew that I needed to be patient and let it cook really well on the first side before flipping. It was just a matter of learning how cooked it needed to be :)...and the fact that the pan was hotter probably helped a bit too.

  

Then the real fun began! I put wax paper down on the table and got out some cookie cutters (shape recognition). The pancakes weren't easy to cut through but with a little help from Mom we were good to go.

We got out the mini chocolate chips to decorate (fine motor!) and practice counting (the preschool teacher in me couldn't resist).

Any extra pancakes you have can be wrapped up in plastic wrap and put in a ziplock for the freezer. They will make a great, fast, hot breakfast one morning before school. All you'll have to do is take them out of the plastic wrap, wrap them in a paper towel, and microwave for about 1 minute.

All in all a success...we might be doing this more often. Its an easy, fun dinner that is cheaper than ordering a pizza and easier than making one. An added bonus--the kids loved the fact that they were helping me cook dinner.