Gingerbread Cookie 'Play Doh'

My kids requested gingerbread cookies this year. 

I don't cook. 

So I posted on facebook requesting an easy recipe. Some friends suggested buying the slice and bake cookies. Yes!!  

My Kroger sucks. 

No slice and bake. No packages. Nothing easy. 

So in the baking/sweets/spices/aisle where my kids go crazy section of Kroger, I googled 'easy gingerbread cookie recipe' and found one that didn't require molasses or ground up elf toes. 

I followed the instructions but it turned out to be a very weird texture, like kinetic sand. I assumed it was a fail but I stuck the dough in the fridge anyways. When it was time to use, I covered the kids' table in wax paper and flopped out my sand dough and laughed. I took the roller to it and laughed even more when the dough wadded up on the roller (yes I used flour on it) or stayed in sandy clumps on the wax paper. As I was trying to clean the roller I found that the dough actually felt a bit like play doh. I flopped a wad on the table and smashed it out with my hand, stuck a cookie cutter in it, and it worked! My kids LOVED it. It was like playing with play doh. They were able to squish it with their hands and cut out their shapes (angel, gingerbread person, snowman, neuschwanstein castle, the usual).

The cookies turned out great. So yummy!

Recipe:

Ingredients 

1 six oz package of butterscotch pudding mix (or 2 smaller boxes; that's all I could find, 3.75 oz boxes, I just didn't use entire package to keep it at 6 oz)

3/4 cup butter (about one and half sticks)

3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 egg

2 & 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 & 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 

Instructions

1.  Cream pudding dry mix with butter and sugar, add egg, blend well. 

2.  Combine flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon; blend into pudding/butter/egg mixture. 

3.  Chill dough for one hour in refrigerator or until firm. 

4.  Sprinkle table with floor or use wax paper to spread dough out on, pat out dough with hands, cut or form into shapes. 

5.  Bake at 350 degrees 10-12 minutes. 

6.  Cool and decorate. 

Enjoy!  

Holiday Hexes

*warning:  I do not proofread so read with caution hahaha

With the approaching holidays I hold my breath in anticipation of what plague will rear its ugly head. My kids aren't sick very often, unless it's a holiday and then they are dying. 

Last year was insane. 

Like it's not bad enough having to plan holidays around the husband's crazy work schedule (he works a lot of holidays because people apparently need electricity year round), having to travel 3.5 hours to my family and 2.5 to his, and scheduling around the life we've got going on where we currently live (dance, gymnastics, church, sleep); let's add sickness!!  

The Christmas Contamination:

Christmas last year was crazy. One of my brothers got married a few days before Christmas so we had to travel early. The husband was able to come to the wedding but then we had to get him back north to work Chrismas week.

The wedding was on Sunday. Morgan was running a low fever, but I didn't think anything of it because she randomly runs low fevers for no reason. Monday morning she woke up extra emotional and grouchy and her fever was higher, so I decided to try to find a doctor. I assumed her ears needed checked. I was 4 hours from our family physician so I had to find a local urgent care place. The first place was a two hour wait. Ummmm, bye Felicia. 

The next place had a much shorter wait. The doctor checked Morgan's ears and sinuses but they were clear.  Then she did a flu swab (I had to buy something special later for Morgan to help her get over her trauma of a giant Q-tip jaed up her nose). The doctor burst back into the room with 'congratulations you're the proud host of flu A (or H or some letter). At first Morgan was like 'yay I won!' but I explained that meant she was sick and she burst into tears with 'Santa won't come if I'm sick and Jesus will be so mad!'  (Because Jesus IS the reason for the season after all). 

Sooooo yeah. That changed everything. I had to contact all of the family and warn them that Mimi's House was now under quarantine and left it up to them if they wanted to be exposed or not. I have two brothers. The one that had just gotten married, he and his wife and their almost 11 month old daughter decided it was no big deal (a week later they posted on facebook 'We are so sick. Stay away from anybody with the flu' and I felt pretty bad about it) and my other brother and his wife weren't even sure if they wanted our contaminated gifts because they had a 4 month old son they didn't want sick. So we finally decided to leave our contaminated gifts for them to open a few weeks later, and they brought our gifts and stuck them in the front door and watched us open through the glass door. It was sad and hilarious. 

My 'brave but later sick' brother with my kids opening gifts like this lovely Christmas opposum (because a dead animal wearing overalls is the gift that keeps on giving), and my sister-in-law watching through the door.  My daughter is dressed as Izzy the pirate by the way. 

On Christmas Day I took the kids to my inlaws. We skipped going to both grandmas' big family Christmas get togethers but my inlaws insisted it was okay for us to come to their house. So we took our germs to a different house. The day after Christmas, Jack was burning up with fever and crying like he was dying. Same flu as Morgan, but way worse for him because, well, he's a guy. My mother-in-law rode back to our house with us, very upset over listening to sick boy cry almost the entire trip (I guess I'm used to it). 

Finally. Home. With our germs. There's just no place like home when you're sick or have sick kids. 

By the way, my mother-in-law ended up sick the next week. 

Morgan shared the gift of Christmas flu. 

The Easter Plague:

Easter is another holiday we spent on the road, trying to see everybody and make family memories. The week before last Easter, both kids and I ended up at our doctor with sinus and ear infections because allergy season clogs us up and makes us funky. We drove to my parents house on Thursday I think (these details blur together). Have I mentioned they live in a log home up a holler?  That's were I grew up, up a holler with mud, farm animals, and brothers. A friend actually had a shirt made for me that says 'I was raised up a holler with brothers' because apparently when I have to much to drink I always end up saying that phrase at some point. Well there's a river that runs along the 'main road' that the holler road branches off from. And it floods a LOT. Like seriously, if somebody spills a drink up river, we would end up flooded in for days. Thursday night it monsooned and sure enough, Friday morning the road was flooded. Or maybe it was Saturday. These details blur...

Saturday evening we have a tradition of going to one of the brother's houses for family dinner. In order to get around the flood, we had to use one of these to ride along a swampy road around a hill:

View from the hill. The entire valley filled with water. 

 

The end of the holler road. The stop sign is where the main road should be. 

Husband checking flood levels. Yes I yelled at him to not die. 

So we got around the flood and made it to dinner and egg hunt, then back around the hill to my parents' house. It was time for the evening dose of antibiotics for me and the kids. 

About an hour later, Morgan climbed into bed saying she felt terrible. I took her temperature and it was 106. I panicked.

So I did what I always do when one of my kids is sick, has a rash, eats dirt, et; I posted about it on facebook asking for advice. I wasn't sure if she needed to be taken to the ER. The two main hospitals in that area are so busy that sometimes it takes hours (even all night) to be seen. And it was after dark. And we were flooded in. 

Flooded in up a holler with a very sick child. Doesn't this stuff happen to anybody else?

Well facebook never disappoints. I had one friend message me saying her husband, who works for a local EMT  squad, could get to her by raft and get her to the ER. She basically had him on standby, waiting for my call. Another friend who is an ER doctor messaged me with advice on what they would do for her in the ER; to rotate tylenol and ibuprofen every so many hours, told me to try that and if THAT didn't help then she obviously needed to get to a hospital. So my mom and I sat in my old bedroom, wiping Morgan down with cool washcloths, administering medication, keeping track of the numbers on the forehead thermometer (seriously the best invention ever), one of us at the bed and the other in a rocking chair like two country wise women. 

Her fever broke. 

There is no worse feeling than when your child is sick or hurt and you have no idea what to do. 

The river was down by the next morning and Morgan was back to bouncing around the house. We skipped church (for like the first Easter ever. Sorry Jesus) and drove to the inlaws for a full day of grandmothers' family get togethers. It was warm, perfect weather for the egg hunt, my kids were happy and having fun, everything seemed fine. 

That night, Morgan had a fever of 105 and threw up. 

Seriously child?!

So I did the same as the night before, this time with my mother-in-law as my fellow wise woman. Her fever broke. 

Next morning I told my husband we had to get home. I was so over taking care of a sick kid in somebody else's house. Morgan was fine all day. 

Guess what happened again that night?? 

Yep. High fever. 

She stayed home from school that Tuesday even though she felt perfectly fine.  During her bath that night I noticed she looked really blotchy all over her body, but she went to bed WITH NO FEVER!!! so I assumed it was some virus she was fighting and she was getting over it. 

Nope. 

The next morning she looked like this:

I immediately called her doctor who was getting ready to leave for the day. Morgan had slept in, and the doctor was leaving at 11, but he told us to come in immediately. I rushed her there, he looked her over and said 'she's got a penicillin allergy.'

What?!?  

She was in her 7th day of a high dose of penicillin. I had been poisoning my poor baby and had no idea. 

Of course we stopped the medication immediately and she was better by the next day. I posted about it on Facebook and all of my husband's family commented that they were basically all allergic to penicillin, including Michael's dad. My grandpa also had the allergy. I don't down if it's something that is genetic or not, but I made sure both of my sister-in-laws were aware of a possible allergy. 

So next week is Thanksgiving....please no plagues or rashes or floods or flus or arms falling off, okay?  

Have a blessed holiday!  

One of those days...again.

It's been a day. 

I was going to post about it on facebook but it's just too much for one status. Better to write a blog instead. 

So as parents we've all had 'one of those days' and for me, today was definitely one. It's not the first and won't be the last. 

For starters, Michael left by 7am for a company golf tournament, no big deal, he needs a break from the crazy, but it left me alone with the kids until after 4. 

I set my alarm for 9 (don't judge or hate; it's summertime; and the kids and I will be miserable once school starts) so we could get up and ready for church. Getting myself and both kids ready for church is always epic. I have no idea. Getting them ready for anything else never takes nearly as long and never has as much drama. All I can say is the devil must be workin on my kids on Sunday mornings. 

Church is less than ten minutes from our house thank goodness. Morgan loves going to her class but I literally had to shove Jack into the nursey. He loses his mind. He's fine in childcare at the YMCA, he's excited about going to preschool, he's a social butterfly at birthday parties and on playgrounds, but there's something about the church nursery that turns him into a giant wailing man child. At 3 he's one of the older ones anyways but he's also such a big kid (measuring the same height at 3 as Morgan at 5) and so loud. I almost always have to stay with him. I always rock him for about 10-15 minutes and then he slowly starts to mingle with the other kids. And by mingled mean he tries to play with a toy and then another little one touches it so he starts screaming 'no baby!!!! Bad bad baby!' and wails. Today he was working on a puzzle and another little guy came over, took a piece and slobbered over it. Jack was totally over life after that so he pulled a storage tote over himself to escape reality. 

I had told the kids that after church we would go get some lunch to kill time before dance class registration. Jack wanted McDonald's. Morgan wanted pizza. I tried to talk them both into the same thing but they are really friggin stubborn. I pulled into Pizza Hut and Jack started crying. I told Morgan I could take him in to eat like that. I went to McDonald's and Morgan started crying. I totally snapped and started spewing things like how they are both spoiled brats and I should send them to live in  country where they have to sleep on a dirt floor and have no toys and that I was going to pick a place to eat and if they cried I was going to sell them to gypsies and/or never take them swimming again (they love the pool).  So we ended up at Eat N Park and they were angelic...or angelic for them at least. 

Then I had to take them to register Morgan for her 3rd year of dance classes. Jack was uncooperative and demanded to be held the entire time. I hurt my back yesterday jogging (like how does that even happen? You don't need your back to jog...) so it was awesome having to hold a 44 pound child. 

We went home where both kids stripped to their underwear like they always do at our house. We had a little down time before Michael got home. 

As soon as Michael walked in, Jack starts doing his 'my booty hurts.'  He's been having issues with potty training. He's holding it in, fighting his poop urgent. It's so frustrating.  I made him sit on the toilet and told him to just try, and apparently we forgot to 'tuck the junk' because he peed all over me. So I yelled for help and Michael took care of him while I stripped off my peed on clothes and hopped in the tub to rinse off my legs. 

Some of our neighbors have an awesome pool my kids beg to go to almost daily. I had texted our neighbor to see if we could swim and she invited us up at a certain time.   I told Michael I couldn't take Jack while he was fighting poop so Morgan and I got ready to go swim. After about half hour Michael shows up with Jack and explained that he told Jack if he would just poop he could swim. So he did. Michael walked back home, Jack swam a few minutes, then got out of the pool screaming 'my booty hurts!!' while running in place, turned red, then said 'oh I popped.' 

In his swim trunks. 

So I got out and texted Michael to come get Jack.  He walked back over and I told him to just stay with Morgan while I took care of it. I walked Jack to our yard, took his trunks off, flipped the hidden treasure into the yard, grabbed the hose and told Jack to bed over, sprayed him clean, sprayed the trunks clean, left them on porch to wash later, put clean trunks on Jack, took him back to pool. 

I'm sorry to say this isn't the first time I've had to do this. Which means it's also not the first time Michael has had to bag up poo from our yard. 

The rest of the evening was fairly normal, in terms of 'normal with kids.'  Late dinner, baths, bed. 

These type of days make me crazy. But they also make some of the best memories. 

I'm THAT parent.

This blog was inspired by a Facebook post today. A very lovely kind sweet friend posted about how horrible parents are for bullying their children. I totally agreed until I read 'the mom got up in the child's face and said 'what is WRONG with YOU?!''

I read it a few more times just to be sure I was reading it correctly. And then I sighed. Because I AM that parent. 

I commented along the lines of 'I have both kids 24/7 with very few breaks and sometimes this just happens; I AM that parent and I'm sorry.'

And then my sweet friend deleted the entire post and I felt bad. 

So then I evaluated my own parenting. 

I realized that yes, I lose my cool way more than I should. I'm the parent that hisses 'you kids are driving me insane!!' while in line at Walmart. I'm the parent that says 'lordy I need a drink after all day with these kids.'  I'm the parent who exclaims 'I just need A BREAK!!  Please stop 'momming' me for 5 minutes!! Yes I see you have arm muscles, I complimented you on them 30 seconds ago the 5th time you demanded I look!'

But I'm also the parent that gave up my career 7 year ago so that I could be at every single doctor's appointment, school function, birthday party, practice, game, every single memory of my children's childhood will involve me. I have spent many nights awake with sick little ones. I have planned out and created theme birthday parties. I have volunteered at school. 

Sometimes we have ice cream sundaes for dinner outside on the deck. Sometimes we have dance parties in the living room. Sometimes we read 20 books in a row. Sometimes we go outside to see the stars after bedtime. 

After watching the movie Inside Out (twice...and both times I cried), my children claimed who was who from the movie. Morgan is Disgust. Jack is Fear. Daddy is Anger (lol!!) and when I asked who mommy was, they both smiled and said 'Joy of course!'

So for my sweet slightly hippy friends and readers; there are many of us who might seem like bullies. We might seem very annoyed to have children. But you're just glancing at a fraction of our lives. I promise you, I might sound horrible when I hiss 'ugh, you kids just go over there and play and leave mommy alone for a minute!' but I promise you my children are both well adjusted happy normal brats, and not victims of bullying. The majority of my friends parent pretty much the same way I do, and we all say God bless you parents with more patience than us! 

How to antique your living room

My kids have been crabby today. I needed some peace while I tried to shove some dinner in my mouth so I had the genius idea of dumping small piles of baby powder on the living room carpet and letting the kids jump from one to another. 

Some of you are thinking 'wow that IS brilliant!'

Some of you are thinking 'oh that's a horrible idea.'

Well you're both correct. I had a lovely half hour with my chicken, rice, guacamole, sour cream, and salsa wrap while watching an episode of Glee on my Kindle. I didn't hear 'mooooooom!!' one single time. Kids didn't run to me with urgent imaginary boo boos or legos that 'just won't fit!!'

I cleaned up my dinner mess and went to the living room. 

It was covered in baby powder. Ever watch the show Jackass where they would 'antique' one another by slapping a handful of flour in the face?  That's what I thought of. My living room had been antiqued. 

At that moment my kids were making handprints in the powder that had settled on the coffee table. They both joyfully exclaimed 'oh sorry ma!' then flopped onto the couch. 

I took a deep breath and retrieved my BFF from the closet, my purple Dyson vacuum. I had to vacuum the carpet about five times and the powder is still  deep in the fibers (hey at least it smells good!). I had to use attachments to sweep all baseboards, furniture, wall hangings, curtains. I even vacuumed both kids' hair just for fun and to hear them scream at me. 

Then I walked into the kitchen and slipped and fell because the floor was covered in a fine layer of powder giving it the same surface as a Minnesota pond in January. Both cats also slid across the floor and it was delightful to see the look of horror on their little black faces. 

Moral of the story: I'm not always full of grand ideas. Actually I rarely have grand ideas. So don't ever copy my parenting. 

This message is brought to you by Johnson & Johnson baby powder with aloe, Dyson vacuums, and Not Your Fathers Root Beer. 

The Key Jar: 48 Questions To Ask Your Child

Recently I ran across something on social media; something called 'The Key Jar.'  I opened it and skimmed it.  I would post the link but now I can't find it.  Just google 'the key jar 48 questions' and do your own digging.  I think you're supposed to pull one question out of the jar daily to ask your child/children, but I decided to hit my 6 year old daughter with all of them at once.  Here are the questions with 6 year old answers:

1.  What was your first thought when you woke up today?
A:  I thought I had to go to school and then I remembered it's Saturday.

2.  What are you most afraid of?
A:  falling into lava

3.  What do you want to accomplish by your next birthday?
A:  Mine Craft

4.  If you could be famous for one thing what would it be?
A:  making the world's largest pizza

5.  What's your favorite word right now?
A:  Doink.  That's what daddy calls me.

6.  What do you love about yourself?
A:  my heart

7.  What's something that is hard for you?
A:  Standing on one foot.  Seriously, watch me [gives dramatic demonstration]

8.  Describe your perfect day:
A:  Laying on the couch playing Mine Craft all day.

9.  Who in your class is lonely?
A:  nobody

10.  Who in your class is a leader?
A:  Ruby and Meghan

11.  When is it hard being a friend?
A:  when kids are mean

12.  Who is somebody you'd like to be friends with who isn't yet your friend?
A:  Aurora (as in Sleeping Beauty)

13.  If you could switch places with one friend for a day, who would it be?
A:  Meghan

14.  How were you helper today?
A:  I put makeup on my brother.

15.  What's the smartest thing you heard somebody say today?
A:  Don't hit anybody with a bat.

16.  Who in your class makes you smile?
A:  Anybody funny

17.  What's the best thing about living here?
A:  my friends

18.  How can you change the world?
A  By taking over the world.

19.  What's the biggest challenge facing our world today?
A:  Being a kid in other countries.  I don't think they have pizza.  Or Mine Craft.

20.  If somebody from another planet came to Earth, what would he or she think of our world?
A:  It's dirty [school recently had Earth Day activities]

21.  What is something you use every day that you don't need?
A:  my iPod

22.  What would be the hardest thing about being blind?
A:  Not being able to see!!!  DUH!

23.  If you could give everybody in the world one piece of advice, what would you say?
A:  I would show them the best way to eat pizza.

24.  If you could time travel, where would you go?  What would you change?
A:  I would go back to the dinosaurs and tell them they are all going to die.

25.  What is something you know how to do that you could teach others?
A:  Teach grownups how to play hide and seek; you guys are terrible at it.

26.  What will you be doing in 10 years?
A:  Drinking coffee

27.  What's the most important decision you will have to make in your life?
A:  Where to live; there's so many houses.

28.  If you could only eat one food for an entire year, what would you choose?
A:  pizza

29.  If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A:  flying

30.  What is the best thing that's ever happened to you?  What is the worst?
A:  The best is being a sister.  The worst is having to pee so bad when I get off the bus because I don't pee at school!  The bathrooms are disgusting!  Nobody flushes!

31.  If you had 3 wishes, what would they be?
A:  Having a mine for diamonds and gold, to go to Disney, and that nobody ever gets sick

32.  What are you the most proud of?
A:  being friendly

33.  Who in your class seems sad?
A:  [not sharing her answer]

34.  Who do you admire?  Why?
A:  Meghan, because she's always so good.

35.  What is something you've always wanted to ask me?
A:  about true love

36.  If you could switch places with one family member for a day who would it be?
A:  Jack [2 year old brother]

37.  What are the 3 most important qualities in a friend?
A:  nice, funny, playful

38.  What's the funniest thing somebody did or said today?
A:  A girl at t-ball gave me a rock from her pocket.

39.  Besides your teacher, who is somebody in class you could learn from?
A:  Ruby

40.  Who in your class is special?
A:  Max [her crush]

41.  What is the most important job in the world?
A:  daddy's job

42.  If you could create one law that everybody on Earth had to follow, what would it be?
A:  have more fun

43.  If you could go anywhere in the world to complete a good deed where would you go and what would you do?
A:  everywhere, to clean up the trash

44.  What will the world be like in 10 years?  What would be the same?  What would be different?
A:  I have no idea; I'm just a kid.

45.  Is it possible to help somebody you've never met?
A:  yes, I give my dollars to church

46.  If you could live in another country for 1 years, where would you live?
A:  paradise; somewhere hot with a beach

47.  Is it better to have too much of something or not enough of something?
A:  seriously mom?

48:  Who is the most important person in the world?
A:  my mommy!!

the coughing hex

"I've never known ANYBODY to cough until they puke..." says Michael.
"...until you met me" I finish (because I'm always finishing sentences; I'm impatient).

Apparently Mother Nature is totally ticked off at my family this year (so sorry about all those banana peels I threw out the car window...and for hexing you for all of the snow...and for using too many plastic water bottles...) so she dropped a pollen/mold/animal dander bomb RIGHT ON OUR HOUSE several weeks ago.  Seriously; we've never been so sick from allergies.  Allergies turned into ear and sinus infections...treatment turned into Morgan having a severe penicillin allergy (surprise!)...and now the kids and I have this AMAZINGLY FUN cough.  Michael doesn't have it, because he 'doesn't believe in allergies.'  I tried that method but it appears allergies believe in me.

So we've been to the doctor 4 times in the past 2 weeks, gone through several prescriptions, drained countless bottles of OTC cough syrup, and I take the honor of finishing off a bottle of whiskey alone(what?! the kids can't help, it's apparently illegal to give whiskey to underage children).

We've spent so many sleepless nights trying various methods to get the kids to stop coughing.  Vicks on the feet with socks, Vicks on their chests and backs, sniffing eucalyptus essential oil from the bottle, sucking on ice, using saline nasal spray, and as a last resort; giving cough medicine.  Why is this a last resort?  Because they ALWAYS PUKE IT UP!!!  I don't blame them.  We need a petition going to send to Robitussin about their flavoring.  'Nuclear power plant runoff' doesn't quite cut it. 

Every fall and spring since I was a child I've had this cough.  It's post nasal drip, allergy induced asthma, growing up in chemical valley, somebody has a voodoo doll with my face on it, can't sleep until I'm sitting up with a cough drop in my mouth praying I don't wake with it in my hair after I've had a combo of syrups with dextromethorphan and codeine, WORST COUGH EVER.  I remember sitting up in bed fighting the urge to cough, because I knew just ONE MORE cough would make me throw up.  I remember my mom stomping down the hallway exhausted because she needed her sleep and couldn't rest with me barking like an asthmatic seal all night, hissing at me 'for the LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY is there NOTHING you can do to stop it?!'

Well it appears I've passed the coughing hex on to our children.

My bad. 

Michael has to sleep with 3 asthmatic dying seals in the house.  What's really fun is having to treat my own cough and then try to wake myself up from a codeine dextromethorphan whiskey haze to take care of a coughing child.  I've literally walked into a wall on my way into their bedroom. 

So we've been dealing with a lot of what I call 'coughing fits' where something triggers our lungs to try to escape out our esophagus.  After years of practice I can keep a fit under control and not throw up, but my kids have yet to reach mastery level. 

Let me share the highlights of recent events:

Several nights ago I was trying to pee.  All you moms out there know there's no point in closing a bathroom door.  If you lock them out, something terrible will happen, like they will end up in the car on their way to McDonald's for those 20 nuggets for $5 and then you'll get arrested for letting them drive at age 2 and 6 ('but officer I swear I was trying to pee...yes...I locked the door...I know...bad choice').  So the door was wide open for all children and cats (and several stinkbugs) to run in and out.  Jack ran in, whipped off his diaper, shrieked "bath time!!" and threw all his bath toys into the tub.  Half second after this, Morgan runs in coughing with her hand over her mouth, sees me on the toilet, turns and vomits in the tub.  All over the bath toys.  And then naked Jack tinkles in the floor a little.  All of this happened in a matter of like 2 minutes.  I sank to my knees and cried to the heavens "can I NOT EVEN PEE?!!!'  Actually I didn't because I was too busy trying to clean up vomit and pee.

This evening I bathed both kids and was ready to chill out with a crochet project for the rest of the night (ya know, for the whole extra hour I'm awake after the kids go to sleep).  Michael got Jack out of the tub (because I got distracted by laundry that needed hung up) and during the dry off Jack started a coughing fit.  I shut my eyes and prayed...and then I hurt Michael scream "HE JUST THREW UP EVERYWHERE!!!!"  So I ran to the living room where Michael always dries Jack off and Jack is sitting in the floor with his towel around him, wringing his hands flinging vomit everywhere and Michael has his hands cupped under Jack's mouth filled with brown liquid and chunks of everything Jack has eaten today.  Michael takes off for the kitchen sink to empty his hands (dripping the entire way) and I grabbed Jack and ran back to the bathroom (dripping all the way) and dumped him, towel and all, back into the tub.  I scrubbed him down.  It was in every crack of that boy's body.  I got him out and as I was drying him off I found more vomit so I had to put him back in the tub and scrub some more.  I quarantined the kids in Jack's room (because Morgan said he wasn't allowed in her room while there's a high change of vomiting) and found Michael scrubbing the carpet.  I grabbed some cleaner and started working on all the drippings...which were hard to see since our living room is dark...most of them were found because I stepped in them.  Cold, wet, squishy vomit drippings.  And then I had to clean the sink where Michael emptied his hands.  And then I had to rinse out the bath towel that was covered in vomit and still hanging out in the tub.  And then I had to clean the bath tub.

As one of my friends once posted about being a parent dealing with vomit:  goal achieved; new level unlocked.

That's how it feels in this whole parenting thing; you learn as you go and get better with time.  Michael and I do not enjoy dealing with vomit one little bit, but we CAN deal with it; we KNOW what to do.  Goal achieved indeed. 

And now it's time for my nightcap of cough syrup and whiskey.  I told our doctor I was taking Robitussin DM, half a narcotic I had left over from Jack's C-section, and a shot of whiskey every night to get 4-5 hours of sleep without any cough interruptions.  He howled with laughter, clapped me on the shoulder and said "Can I come to your house?!" 

Valentine's Fun

Now that Morgan is in KG we are enjoying all sorts of new experiences...like the Valentine Box project. I looked on Pinterest and Google for ideas and most were so ornate and fancy I was like 'meh.'  I don't want to put a ton of time and money into something that's going to eventually be destroyed, cried over (me, not Morgan), and thrown away. We found some ideas to make a castle and Morgan like the idea. Family collaboration (Jack mostly was there to annoy us by getting in the way but that still makes him part of the project) resulted in this:

Materials used:

Box taped shut. 

Gold/silver post board (it was gold on one side, silver on the other).

Foam stickers. 

Scissors. 

Glue gun. 

Exacto knife/box cutter. 

Marker. 

We measured and cut poster board to fit and glue to box. I started out with Mod Posge which almost always makes me angry so I busted out the glue gun. For the side towers I cut details then rolled up and glued together, then glued to box. Michael (who is much better with sharp things than me) used an exacto knife to cut door (for cards to go in). I used a marker to draw a few details like windows and write Morgan's name. Morgan decorated with the foam stickers. Done. 

With leftover poster board I made cards to send to family:

We each dipped our thumb in red paint to create a 'heart.'  Cheesy and adorable. I'm shocked and pleased Michael participated. 

Easy DIY party decor

I love going all out for my kiddos' birthdays. My husband has to give me a budget and remind me to keep things under control otherwise I would buy unicorns and kidnap superheroes. 

So I've learned to be creative with party decorations. Most of them I make myself. 

For example:

Pardon my poor photography skills but working with a cranky old iPhone is a challenge. 

The banners add something special and kids love them. I took an index card and made a pattern to trace, traced onto pink and purple computer paper that I had leftover from my days of teaching high school, cut out the banner, hole punched, then used yarn through the holes. So simple. You can also write on them:

I wrote the birthday girl's name on this one. The ends have paper doilies threaded on. 

I also like to use tulle for decorations. And lots of balloons. 

I weaved bright pink, light pink, and purple tulle through the light fixture and added balloons to the top. Morgan thought it was magical. I keep the tulle to use for other projects. 

The best part about this is that you can do any color combo and you're not at the mercy of whatever a party store has to offer.