Post-its: the GG edition

Black Friday
Girls and shopping
Claire's
All afternoon she made sure we knew what time it was

every 2 minutes!!


Justice
Kohl's
Miraculously I talked her out of the snow white boots. Don't get me wrong, they were absolutely adorable, but with my 9 year old, they wouldn't stay snow white for very long!

Her face when we met the final clearance rack was priceless. She could buy more than 1 thing!! And my 15% off coupon only added to her joy!

My face when I saw the bill and what we could have paid? Priceless!

4 super cute v-neck tees and a pair of jeans. The jeans came with a rainbow belt (requirement #1) and had more color on the pants themselves (requirement #2).


Total - just under $23

What we could have paid - $130


Now that is how you shop!



Only Parent Chronicles


Until next time....

A new tradition

What a crazy few days we had! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to jump back into my escape. Between stuffing myself like a turkey, watching too much football, and wearing out my car's horn due to the holiday drivers, I am exhausted!

We made our annual trek to my mom's house for turkey day. I say trek, but she's only 5 minutes away! Other than the 6 hours of listening to my midgets play my mom's electronic keyboard, good times were had.

We continued our turkey day traditions by hitting the mall Friday morning. We don't go out super early, but we do find some good deals. Even though we don't go hog wild and buy everything in sight, again it's good times.

I also think we may have started a new tradition - lights. No, not mine. As much as I would love to have all the Christmas stuff out the weekend after turkey day, it just isn't going to happen. I need to hire a maid in order for that to work.

And a personal organizer, and a chef, and a nanny....


Enough fantasizing. Back to our hopefully new tradition. There's this house around these parts who like to decorate. Nothing to extravagant. Just a few inflatables, some music, and a few lights. Their light count is somewhere in the ball park of 260,000. Can we saw Grizwolds?


Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself...





Just by chance I looked up their website to find out the hours they have the lights on. Saturday was the night they first flipped the switch for the season. I loaded the kids in the car, in their PJs, picked up my mom, and off we went.







Thank you Steel City Christmas for giving us a new tradition!


Until next time....

In some twisted way, I am blessed

I am thankful for so many things. My gratitude spans 365 days, but this is the season to voice that which I am thankful for.


First and foremost I am thankful that I am able to clothe my children.

Build-a-Bear clothes

Even if they still choose to wedge themselves
into clothes meant for a Build-a-Bear!



I am thankful that I am able to provide toys for my children's amusement.



LegosLego amusement park


Even if it means that I have a mess to clean up afterwards.


Boys haircutThis is what used to be on Little Dude's head.
Yes, he was long overdue for a buzz!




Lastly, I am thankful that I am able to put a good meal on all of our plates. Even if I fill the house with smoke, we still eat well.


Pilgrims
My little Pilgrim
at his class tasting party


Not only is it a holiday, but I am also one of those people. You know, those Black Friday shoppers? I'll try to visit and return comments when I can. In the meantime, I hope everyone out there will be surrounded by good food and good people.


What are you thankful for?




5 minutes for mom

A Beautiful Mess

Supermom



Until next time....

Please send help

Sending out an SOS
Technical help
Please help with Feedburner
Here's my dilemma...

I finally jumped on the Feedburner bandwagon. I realize that not everyone reads a blog the same way. Why not give more options, right?

With the help of some Twitter friends, I finally figured out what I was doing. I signed up, I burned my feeds, and I added the little widget thing to my blogs. It's over on the right if you care to subscribe (hint, hint!!).

Just like a good little blogger should do, I subscribed to my own blogs. And that's when I realized I have failed. I don't like to fail, so you need to try and help a girl out here! Please?!


First off, I can't seem to get the timing right on when posts from this blog are delivered. I keep selecting the time I want and saving, but it doesn't want to work.

But that's not my big issue. The big problem is exactly what is delivered. When I open the email from yours truly I see nothing but the title of the post. I subscribe to a few blogs via email. Of those I notice one of two things. There's a snippet of the post with a clickable to link to read more on the blog itself. Or the entire post is in that email.


What the hell are you people doing that I can't seem to figure out?!?


Please help me fix my blogs?!


And subscribe? No pressure, or course!



Only Parent Chronicles



Until next time....

My driving force

I have declared November to be the worst month ever! It's great that we can celebrate the birth of not only my beautiful daughter, but the birth of my sister-from-another-mister's daughter. As fun as it is to celebrate those things, the actual planning of the parties is anything but fun. Top that off with the husband going out of town for a weekend and I'm ready to pull my hair out. Every year I am thankful I make it to the end of the month. I think my driving force is Thanksgiving dinner!

This year I had another driving force. A driving force full of wizards and witchcraft. Yes I am talking about Harry Potter. I bought the tickets 2 weeks ago and I even made a little pre-movie song. You can see it here!

I have read every book and seen every movie. GG has started to read the books, but she, too has seen all the movies. I know she was excited to see the movie, but I may have been a wee more excited than she was. Possible evidence of that may have been my dancing my way into the theater! I was so nervous that something would go wrong and they wouldn't let us in. But they did, and off dancing I went.

The movie? Pure awesomeness! For the most part, is was true to the book. I laughed, I jumped, I cried. Harry Potter is the boy who lived. He was the one who nearly destroyed Voldemort (bad wizard for those unfamiliar with all of this). As the books go on, Voldemort gets stronger and eventually he returns. One cannot survive while the other lives. In other words, it's either Harry or Voldemort.

Any movie involving good versus evil has the potential to be scary and/or gruesome. There was a little of both in this movie. I was worried that GG would be scared. I think she was but it didn't have any lasting effects, as in nightmares. Thank goodness! I know GG won't admit it, but I know she was crying towards the end. One of the characters dies. Now I won't saw who, but I will say I completely forgot this little detail. It's been a few years since I read the book. Trying to wipe the tears from my face I caught GG trying to hide her face.

Other than being the ultimate cliffhanger, the movie was awesome! I was worried at first that GG wasn't really old enough. But seeing a 4 year old in the theater squashed those concerns. Unfortunately we now have to wait until June for the actual end of the movies.

I may have mentioned this in the past... I am NOT patient person!



Until next time....

The final countdown - part 1

I'm going to play a little game.
A little game of pretend.

Let's pretend the time is...


Digital clockWhy do I want to pretend that it's 12:30pm?

So I can sing silly!


Twenty-twenty-twenty-four hours to go
I wanna be seated
Tickets in my hand, goin' to the theater, oh
I wanna be seated

Just get me to the theater, put me in a seat
Hurry Harry hurry, before I go insane
I can't control my fingers, I can't control my brain
Oh no oh oh oh oh

Just put me in my seat, and get this movie goin'
Hurry Harry hurry, before I go insane
I can't control my fingers, I can't control my brain
Oh no oh oh oh oh


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

You guessed it. I am going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I'm taking GG for a belated birthday gift.

Up until this point, I have pre-screened all of the movies before she has seen them. If you know anything about the story, it does have it's scary moments, especially as the story progresses.

But this Harry Potter? It's the last one! I'm so excited that I can't even put it into words! At least not words that I would use on this blog. GG is just as excited as I am. I hope she enjoys it as much as I know I will!


What about you? Are you going to partake in some movies and magic? If not, what are you doing this weekend? I hope it's fun!



Until next time....

He's a Genius

Its just after dinner time in my house. And that means it's homework time. GG is n 3rd grade and that means that she can do it all on her own, with a few exceptions. Like word problems, which are not my forte either!

Little Dude is another story. He knows what to do with the papers for practicing whatever letter they are learning. Every other paper I need to read the directions for him. I would like to point out that some of these directions are rather confusing. For me, not him! That's sad.

As he's practicing writing the letter "I" I am going through the rain forest that is in his folder.

RainforestBa-bye trees

I'm glad his teacher keeps those kids busy, but do they really need to bring home that many papers?!

So as I'm going through this rain forest I come across a particular paper. This paper has sentences on it. 4 to be exact. I think the kids needed to underline their new word in those sentences, which would have been "said". Out of curiosity, I asked Little Dude to read the sentences to me. He did every single one! And the words he wasn't sure of he sounded out. I didn't know whether to jump for joy or cry. I think I did a little of both!


Bad mom moment -I have learned that I do not need to keep every single paper Sadly that paper with the 4 sentences was thrown away. But I did keep this one that he also read to me.

My son the genius
I am one proud mama!!!


Until next time....

Monkeys and birthday girls

This past weekend was GG's birthday weekend 1 of 2. I am happy to report that everyone survived and we are all in one piece. This is especially important because this mama was flying solo over the weekend as the husband was on his annual hiatus to Chicago.

Some of you may remember my complaining over a pair of boots last week. I never did find the exact pair she had her heart set on, but I did find a reasonable substitute. She got them Thursday night and she's only taken them off to sleep (I think?). Since the husband was was leaving Friday morning, GG was privileged enough to get her goodies Thursday night. She also got a "new" laptop (the husband's old one) and a new jersey.

Birthday girl

Friday the kids and I had our own mini celebration. Complete with cupcake monstrosities!

Birthday girl and a huge cupcake
One huge cupcake

Saturday was her bowling party. Even if we did have the room, it's so much easier to have parties somewhere else. I don't have to clean anything and there is usually an employee assigned to help you out.

Birthday girl

Only 1 boy came, but he still had fun. All the girls like him, even though not one of them will admit to it. He also gave Little Dude someone to pal around with for 2 hours.

The girls? My goodness can they shriek! One would bowl and then shut her eyes tight. The others would watch to see how she did. If she bowled well? Let's just say I'm shocked that no glass was broken in the process!

The best part of GG's friend party, in my humble opinion, was her cake. Of course I have to save the best for last. Because I was up til midnight the night before putting the darn thing together!

Monkey cake

And now we will take a week to recoup before party weekend #2. Thank goodness the husband is home to help with this one!



Until next time....

Steelers, shoes, and birthdays

It feels like only yesterday that I was pounding out this post. It's hard to believe that's it's already been a year.

Today my baby girl is celebrating her 9th birthday.

Birthday girl

No, wait. It's tomorrow. Wait. Um... today? Dear god don't let her birthday be yesterday! It is the 12th, right? I hope so!

It's been one hell of a week! And since when does a birthday celebration last 2 weeks?


Wednesday I finally got around to shopping for my chicky. She found a really cute pair of black boots last weekend...

Payless boots

I couldn't very well buy her a present right there in front of her. Although looking back, maybe I should have. I went to my local Payless and they didn't have those boots in her size. The closet store that did have them was at least a half hour away. I didn't have time for that, so I tried the mall. I went to every shoe store, every department store. Nothing! But on the bright side, I did find her a new Steelers jersey at a really good price.


Since the husband is headed out to Chicago for the weekend, we did our little celebrating and gift giving last night. Tomorrow is her bowling party with her friends. Next weekend is her family party. And we have relatives coming in from out of state next weekend. That will make it extra special.

I hope this doesn't mean we have to celebrate for 3 weeks next year!


For now I think I'll just savor the moment. Yes, today is actually GG's birthday. Happy birthday, baby girl.

I'm sure after these 2 weeks I will have plenty of pictures to share!


Until next time....

Mommy Guilt

I had a completely different post for today in mind. One about how crazy the past few days have been preparing for GG's birthday. But I'll save that for tomorrow. The reason is because I came across this post by Kmama.


Her post brought up a lot of emotions for me. Guilt being the main one. For a long time I have questioned if Little Dude has allergies. Many of the signs and symptoms she mentions are too close to how Little Dude was. Unfortunately I didn't suspect anything until he was around 2 years of age.


Since he was born, he has been a master pooper. He was chugging 8oz bottles from a very early age. Early as in only a few weeks old. GG, one of the chunkiest babies I have ever seen, was the same way so I thought nothing of it. I was blessed with good eaters. But here's the thing, an hour after he chugged said bottle he would poop. You could almost time it to the minute and every stinkin time it was a huge, nasty mess. Myself and his daycare teachers chalked it up to him being a good eater.

Finally when he was 2 his daycare teacher suggested making a switch from whole milk to 2% and it made a world of difference! Over the years we have found other culprits. Things such as ice cream, icing, Cool Whip, or too much milk rarely result in an easy clean up. The one birthday of his when my uncle gave him all of his icing and ice cream, after Little Dude already consumed his own, was the worst thing I have ever seen. Little Dude was literally covered from head to toe in shit. I had to undress the poor kid in the bath tub!

I've definitely had suspicions that the poor kid was allergic to milk, or at least had some sort of intolerance to it. Looking back, is that why he pooped so much as a baby? Is that why he had trouble gaining weight? Should I have switched formulas and would it had made a difference?

Even though it wasn't on purpose, could I have done something differently to make his little life easier? Knowing that I could have makes the guilt level shoot through the roof!

We finally got him tested over the summer. The blood test was to look for any food allergies, but the focus was on milk products. The results were egg whites. A very, very slight allergy, but an allergy none the less. Ironically he had eggs for dinner the night before and we didn't notice any kind of adverse reaction. I have passed this information along to his school. God forbid something were to happen, at least they are aware of this.

But now I am stuck at a crossroads. The husband has a friend who, as an adult, had a very severe allergic reaction. Even though it's a slight allergy now, should I worry that something could happen at any given moment? Should I pursue my suspicions of other allergies and have him go through more tests?

No one wants to see their child go through some of these tests resulting in a life having to avoid certain foods, but living with the guilt of knowing you could have made a difference earlier is no fun either.



Until next time....

No matter how hard we try, sometimes we can't escape

Yesterday my friend Shell wrote a post about some things we wish we knew when we first had our babies. There were definitely things on there I wish people had told me, but her post also got me thinking.

When our babies are first born, we may struggle, but we son embrace the role of motherhood. When our babies reach a certain, and this age varies from parent to parent, we desperately seek to escape the role of motherhood.

Sometimes we think we succeed, but then smack! We're hit with a reminder!

I now present to you my own list.


No escape


No escape

No escape

No escape

No escape



What about you? What are your "You know you're a mom when" moments?


*I finally figured out this Feedburner thing and got the email to show how I would like. If you like to get my posts in your inbox, please enter your email address in the subscription box over to the left. Thanks*



Only Parent Chronicles



Until next time....

Muffins, monkeys, and twinkle toed shoes

What a world, what a world!

Actually, it's more like what a weekend, what a weekend!


Every weekend this month is full on my calendar, and I hope they all go as well as this one did. Only without the rude awakening.


Friday started out bright and early in Little Dude's Kindergarten class.

Muffins with Mom

Him and his friends are learning about the letter "M". To involve their lessons more with some outside sources, aka the parents, they had a Muffins with Mom morning.

Each mom, grandma, aunt, etc was invited into the classroom and asked to sit in their respective child's seat. I think I speak for all the women in attendance when I say that those chairs were very hard to get back out of. You do realize how short the typical Kindergartner is, right?

We had a choice of blueberry or banana nut muffins. I choose blueberry. We also had a choice of milk or OJ. Apparently Little Dude didn't think I had a choice because he brought me OJ instead of asking which I prefer. OJ would not have been the answer, but I drank it anyway.

While we were eating with our little people, we helped them make a craft.


Monkey puppet Monkey puppet

Monkey puppets!!


I took the rest of the day for myself as I prepared for our fun filled evening. I signed the kids and I up to see Toy Story 3 at our library.

I must say I am pretty impressed with myself. Usually if it takes this long for me to see a movie, I already know too much about it to want to see it anyway. Not this time! All I knew was Andy goes to college and I will cry.

I know I'm not the only one who waited too long to see the movie so I won't give out any spoilers. But I will say that the movie was absotively posalutely wonderful. And yes, I cried. So did GG!!


Saturday the boys had a day together while us girls went out shopping. I had a coupon for GG to Build-a-Bear burning a hole in my purse, so off we went. Heaven knows this girl does NOT need another stuffed animal! As tempting as it was to let her get the peace sign bear, I held my ground. She found an adorable peace sign outfit with matching Twinkle Toe shoes.


Twinkle Toes


We stopped to buy some cookies for the ride home and it was off to make dinner and prepare for yet another fun filled evening. I told you we were busy! My sister from another mister was having a party for her daughter's birthday. Lots of kids, lots of sugar! In other words, it was a fun night!


After running around like that for 2 days straight, I was really looking forward to spending some time in my bed. I ended up staying up later than I planned because the hockey game was on the West Coast. Since I'm on the East, I knew it would end no earlier than midnight. But never fear, daylight savings time would come to my rescue!


Or so I thought! Stupid me forgot to reset my alarm clock. It did in fact go off at my intended time - 7:45. Unfortunately it was in reality 6:45. Between the lack of sleep and the bitter cold weather, I was not a happy mama at the soccer field Sunday morning.

I will save that story for another day. It was trophy day, and that deserves it's own post!


Until next time....

You never know what tomorrow may bring

Yesterday was a sad day.

My morning started off like it usually does. I explored the interwebs as I finished my coffee and ate my Special K Red Berries.

Between Facebook and a few blogs, I came across quite a few things that absolutely broke my heart. I'm not naming any names, but there's a few people I care about who are going through some pretty tough stuff.

Whether we have met in real life or just know each other through our screens, I care about everyone I meet. I wish I could snap my fingers and make everything peachy keen, but I can't.

As much as these things break my heart, they do make me thankful for what I have. They make me want to hug my kids tighter, let those I love know I love them.

For those going through tough times, my heart is breaking for you. I am hoping the best for whatever your situation may be. No matter what, everyone needs to be grateful for what they have and who is in their lives. Hug your kids tight and let those you love know how you feel. You never know what tomorrow may bring.



Until next time....

High as a kite



We're high as a kite

We just might

Stop to check you out





High as a kite as in a sugar high. This here's the family friendly blog, remember? Stop to check you out? There were quite a few awesome costumes out there. There was the cutest little boy, maybe a year old, dressed as a tiger. Or there was the dad dressed as Darth Steeler. Ok, really he was Darth Vader, but he wore the costume over a Steelers shirt. Halloween means trick-or-treating, but it was also game night here.


If you want to see my crazy kids
you can go here.


We had so much fun trick-or-treating. I will admit it was cold, but the kids seemed to forget that as they saw their bags fill up. Both GG and Little Dude had their own bags the carry. When they were full we would dump it all into a pillow case. I think next year I am taking 2 pillow cases with us. The weight of the one I had was probably close to the combined weight of both kids!

My midgets are by no means big kids, but they are 5 and 8!

I wasn't sure if Little Dude would survive the walk back home, but once he realized we were dumping out the pillow case, he perked right back up. That also may have been the Reese Cup kicking in!

Yet again, we have a Willy Wonka explosion...



I would like to point out
that we only trick-or-treated on 2 streets!



I do believe their favorite treasure were these...




Yes, those are Gummi Pizzas. I think we'll take the divide and conquer approach with those bad boys!


I hope everyone else and their little ones had a great Halloween!


Until next time...
.