Halloween smores

A friend of mine recently told me about the cutest Halloween favors over at Southern Vogue. I'll be honest with you I am not a Halloween person. At all. I realize Halloween is the nations second most popular 'holiday', but I really, really don't like it. Sure the kids are cute all dressed up, but the tons of candy and the tacky decorations just irritate me. I know, I know I'm a grinch. Whatever. Needless to say when she told me about the 'cutest Halloween favors' ever I was skeptical. Until I took a peek. They are smores in a bag and when I saw them I just knew I needed to make them for the kids to give their friends at school. 

 Special bonus they are super easy to make. All you need are one graham cracker, one peep, one hershey bar (fun size), a bag and a ribbon or twist tie to close off the bag. Easy peasy.

Easter at Bellingrath

On Saturday my husband and I took the girls to Bellingrath Gardens for the annual Easter egg hunt. Even though we go to the gardens for Halloween, Christmas and other random times throughout the year this was our first time attending the Easter egg hunt. Let me tell you this is going to become an annual thing in our family. We all had such a fantastic time!

Sneaking up on the Easter bunny.

 They had three separate hunts which I thought was wonderful. Usually when we go on egg hunts my younger two end up getting upset because all the big kids get to the eggs before they do. Sophie hunted with the 4-6 year olds.

 As you can see she found quite a few eggs.

Audrey and Kylie were with the 7-11 year olds. They did pretty well too.

They take after their father.

They also had lots of fun activities for the kids to do. 

And Kylie has already told me that when she is in high school she is going to be an azalea trail maid. God help me. I need to practice my sewing now.

Hope all of you have had a great weekend and have an even better week ahead!

Mommy's Christmas Wish List

For the past several months weeks I have been shopping, shopping, shopping for my loved ones. I love trying to find that perfect something for them and always get a kick out of their expressions when they finally get to open their gifts on Christmas morning. My poor family on the other hand hates shopping for me. Why? Because whenever they ask me what I want I can never think of anything. My husband has been going nuts trying to figure out what to buy me so I finally decided to take a moment and prepare a list of what I would really like to get this year.

• No Christmas morning meltdowns. Usually my kids are pretty well behaved during the holidays, however this year child one is getting the gift that child two asked for so things may get interesting.
• That Kyrie Irving's big toe will heal quickly so he can get back in the game. 
• That mother in law will not ask me or Kylie what we thought of our gifts. Seriously, when you ask someone what they want and they suggest a gift card just get them a gift card.
• For my little brother to miraculously grow up overnight so he doesn't ruin my parents Christmas like he did their Thanksgiving. One can always dream right?
• That the weather here will not shoot back up again like it did on Wednesday (78 degrees in December?!?!). I know we'll never have a white Christmas here, but I'd rather not have to break out the tank tops and shorts. 
• And if all else fails Cole Haan is always a good fall back. The black suede Denney bag would be a wonderful choice.

Wordless Wednesday

Poor Frosty

Linking up with Angry Julie Monday.

Wordless Wednesday

Holiday photo take 1

 

Linking up with Angry Julie Monday

 

Thank goodness for Granny's!

About two weeks ago Kylie brought home a note from school that struck fear into my heart. It was from her PACE teacher informing us that the class would be having a holiday party. No big deal right? Well...... for some no. You see one of the things the class is studying this year is ancient Greece and Rome. So naturally the teacher thought it would be neat if the kids had an ancient Greek/Rome themed party. See where I'm going here? I tend to go for easy when I bake. If it's not break and bake freezer cookies then it generally comes out of a box. Hence the fear. The note did say that we could just send chips or cupcakes if we wanted to, but of course that wouldn't do for Ms. Kylie. Yes, I even tried to bribe her. I know, I know tsk tsk and all that. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I called my mommy. She and my father are both retired now and tend to get a little bored so she was more than happy to help. Thank goodness.

Yes my mom is wearing a sweater vest. 

 They decided on Baklava and it took hours to make. I haven't tried any because it makes my teeth ache just looking at something that sweet, but I think it looks pretty good.

 

Christmas toys 2009 - hits and misses

Every year when I'm Christmas shopping for my children I try to keep a list on my computer of what I've bought for each of them. With three children I feel that I have to do this to keep from overbuying for some and slighting others. 
A few days ago I was looking in my recycling bin (that I really need to dump, but am kinda scared to) and ran across last years list. I had to laugh when I read over it. Why you may ask? Because probably more than half of what is on that list is no longer in this house anymore. Sad isn't it? So I thought I would share some of the hits and misses of last year with you. Keep in mind that this is all girly stuff so if you have boys you can just read along, laugh and be thankful.

• The doll bed. I bought this for Kylie because I'm too cheap to buy the real thing from American Girl I thought she would like it for her American girl doll. She liked it for about two seconds. I would say it's probably spent most of this past year gathering dust in her closet. It's okay, the canopy kind of droops which bugs me. I started to get rid of it, but then Kylie decided she would use it. For her webkinz. By the way I paid around $40 for this last year and now walmart.com has it for $19. Go figure.

•  THE Fancy Nancy phone. For months Audrey begged and begged for this thing. Got it for Christmas and never even looked at it. Sophie on the other hand enjoyed it a lot. It went to goodwill a few months back.

 

• Perfection game. I thought the girls would really enjoy this game. They do when we remember to get it out and play with it. Just to warn you, those 25 little oddly shaped pieces do not feel good when you walk on them.

• The doll stroller. This has actually been kind of a hit. The only downfall is that it's kind of bulky. I could collapse it and put it away and it probably wouldn't be so bad, but I'm lazy. Also, I kind of wish that I had bought the fancy shmancy double stroller from Pottery Barn since we have this whole army of doll thing going on around here. 

• The doctor kit. In pink naturally. This was Sophie's absolute must have for last year. From her point of view a definite hit, from moms point of view? There's only so many times a day I can handle getting a shot and having my temperature taken. 

• The Best Friends Inc. Doll. One of Kylie's must haves. She currently resides in the toy bin under the bed naked. I would have to say that's a miss. 

 

• The dollhouse. Hands down a hit. I was kind of worried the girls wouldn't care for it since the dolls are kind of funky looking, but they love it. I love it because it's not as big as a piece of living room furniture and doesn't take up a ton of space.

• And of course the webkinz. My kids are crazy about these things. I was worried that they just wanted them for the codes, but that hasn't been the case oddly enough. They sleep with them and take them everywhere. The only problem is so many family members gave them to the girls last year that some of the codes got lost in the chaos which kind of stunk.

 

The girls received a few other toys as well, but I don't want to bore you senseless with everything. I have to admit that I'm slightly freaked out by how small last years haul looks compared to the list that I have for this year. I have a feeling that in a few months I'll probably be making several goodwill trips for drop-off.

Those &*@!* Christmas lists

I have to admit I am extremely lucky when it comes to my kids in that they rarely ask for things. When they do ask for things it's not for much and I try to get them what they ask for within reason. Usually when I ask them what they want for their birthday or Christmas they'll tell me one or two things. Three at the absolute max. For example Kylie has been wanting an American Girl Coconut dog for nearly a year. Everytime I ask her what she wants for Christmas this is the only thing she asks for. I've been asking her if there's anything else she wants and she consistently tells me there isn't. Audrey asked for the American Girl Ginger Cat and a leapster. Consistently these are the only two things she has wanted.
Well apparently at their school the classes are all making wish lists to put up outside their classroom doors. By the way don't even get me started on how their school never, ever does anything for the other holidays celebrated at this time of year because I'll rant for at least an hour. Kylie brought home her list to work on with her homework the other day. She was actually kind of upset about this list because as she told me there was only one thing she wanted, yet there were something like six or eight lines for them to write on. I told her she could leave the other lines blank if she wanted to, but that was inconceivable to her. Yes, sometimes I wonder if this child is really mine. She finally puts down that she would like some clothes for her dolls, the dog and then she pretty much fills up the rest of the form with books. Then Audrey proceeds to tell me that her class did the same assignment at school already. I ask her what she put on her list. And I am floored. She tells me that she first put a new coat on the list. Huh? That's funny since I just bought her a new coat a few weeks ago and it's hanging in the closet with the tags on it still. I tell her this and she says "Oh yeah, I forgot about that." I ask her what else was on her list fully expecting to hear her say Ginger the cat and a Leapster. She tells me that she can't remember everything that was on the list, but she knows that she wrote down that she wants a Baby Alive that bounces and a DS. Nice. First of all those dolls freak me out. We saw some in Target about two weeks ago and they were all going off like jackhammers. Creepy and weird and no way that thing is coming into my house. And a DS? Really? I had no idea she even knew what one was. The bad thing is that I've already bought one for Kylie and I bought Audrey a leapster. You can kind of see how Christmas morning is going to go here can't you? She'll open the leapster and be happy with it and then Kylie will open her ds and she'll got into typical middle child you don't love me mode. I totally expect to have a huge dent in my forehead by the time Christmas arrives from banging it against the wall.

And the craziness begins...........

This weekend seemed to be the kick off of the holiday madness for us. It was a lot of fun, but I'm kind of happy that today is just plain old Monday with nothing scheduled. At the beginning of the December my husband and I have always given the girls matching pajamas for Christmas. We wrap them and put them under the tree so they can open them and then wear them all that month. The funny thing is even though they know pretty much without a doubt that their present will be pj's they still get extremely excited. Since at least one of my girls is asleep in the evenings before her father gets home from work we decided to wait until Friday to have the opening of the pj's. 

 

 Since I was kind of worried that they would open their gifts and start to moan, "great. pajamas again." (which they didn't by the way) I had another little something for them to open. I picked up some of the little webkinz for them thus earning my spot as mom of the year. I know most kids are kind of over the whole webkinz thing, but mine are still crazy over it.

 Then on Saturday I decided to take the girls to a parade in a nearby town. My husband was working so yeah, not a very smart decision on my part. Luckily my mom and dad met us when we got there so it wasn't too bad. Kylie and Sophie had fun, but Audrey did not. As I've said before she tends to be super sensitive to noise, textures, etc. and the noise level was really bothering her. 

 Naturally my family being my family the parade was not without incident. First we parked in a church parking lot. The girls were playing in this little garden area while we were waiting for the parade to start and I was standing a few feet away with my mom and dad talking. Some woman that apparently had no clue as to how to drive an SUV pulled into the parking lot. She swung out to try to park and came within inches of hitting my mom, dad and me. Then she almost mowed down my kids. Needless to say mama bear was pissed. Then when the parade ended I put the kids in the car and Kylie immediately began to cry that she needed to go to the bathroom. I told her I would drive her to a nearby McDonalds. Umm, yeah that didn't happen. I pulled the car out only to find that someone from the sheriffs office had pulled their car in front of the exit and I couldn't get out. So I started to back up, but a line of cars had formed behind me so I was stuck. So I'm sitting on a street stuck in traffic with a crying eight year old. Then the parade doubled back so I had to wait for that to clear. Finally the bands and floats went by and the officer moved his car and pulled out into traffic. A few other officers were bringing up the rear of the parade and one let me out into traffic. No sooner had I pulled out into the street than lights and sirens came on. Naturally since I had done nothing wrong I ignored them. Then the car next to me turned on his siren, flashed his lights and CAME ON THE BULLHORN and told me to get off the road until the parade cleared. Two words. NEVER AGAIN. 
Sunday luckily was much better. We took the girls to the Shriners Christmas party. They had a great time and I almost got a picture of all of them with Santa. 

 

Two out of three's not so bad. Oh, and apparently Santa wears an earring. Weird huh? Then the girls went out in the 40 degree weather with no coats (because their mom totally sucks) and road a train. 

 They felt like popsicles when they got back, but they had fun. Then we left the party and took the girls to see Tangled. If you haven't seen this movie you really need to. It was really cute. Kylie has despised pretty much anything princess-y since she was about six (weird kid, I know) and even she loved it. All in all it was a pretty good weekend I think.

He's back..............

A few years ago I heard some moms talking about something called The Elf on the Shelf. I didn't really know what they were talking about, but I knew it had something to do with looking for an elf at Christmastime. I finally decided to get in on the action last year and I am so glad I did. I ordered an elf on the shelf kit through Borders not really even knowing what I was getting. What arrived was a box that contained a small toy elf and a book explaining the story of the elf. Apparently you're supposed to put the elf away and read the story to your children. Basically the story tells how Santa Claus sends one of his scout elves to the homes of children to watch over them during the day. At night when the children are sleeping the elf reports back to the North Pole to give Santa the low down. Each morning when the children wake up they have to look for the elf because he likes to hide in different spots around the house. The one catch is that they cannot touch him or his magic will disappear. 

 

I have to admit I was very skeptical when I first read the story to my kids, but they seemed to really be into it so I thought I would give it a shot. I mean, hey if it is incentive for them not to kill each other and possibly clean their rooms it can't hurt to try right? So last year the tradition began. The kids loved their little elf and every morning during the month of December they would wake up and the first thing out of their mouth would be "Where's the elf?" Audrey liked our little elf so much that she cried herself to sleep on Christmas eve because she knew she wouldn't see it again until this year. Luckily Santa left a note telling her that if since she was so good that he would let the elf come back a little early next time. So this year the day after Thanksgiving our little friend arrived and the kids have been having a blast. Saturday Audrey and Sophie decided to destroy their bedroom and not clean it up so guess who was hanging out in their room Sunday morning? I'm actually thinking that it might not be such a bad idea to have a Valentines elf, an Easter elf, an independence day elf, a Halloween elf, a Thanksgiving elf............

Embarrassing is..........

Opening your front door to sign for a package from Fed-ex to find this stack (compliments of UPS and USPS) already waiting for you on your front step.

 I am so glad my husband wasn't home, he would probably still be teasing me.

Houston we have a problem

I just realized that next week is Thanksgiving. This is a bit of a problem for me because as a general rule that is the day that we put up our Christmas tree. Why is this a problem you might ask? Well the problem is that I have no where to put the tree. We've pretty much always had a problem with the tree placement because our home is so small. In the past we would move the bookshelf to the utility room and put the tree in the corner. This year we can't do that because I got rid of the bookshelf and entertainment center and had some built ins made in that corner. I love having the built in, but it made situating the furniture kind of hard. 

 Please ignore the ugly television and lack of decorating.

 See the problem? I *think* I would like to put it where that ugly monstrosity chair is, but then what would I do with the chair? I would love to just get rid of it, but then when we have company that would be one less place for them to sit. 

 I thought about putting it where that table is on the back wall, but then it would pretty much be right in your face when walking into the front door and I could just see my kids stepping on presents. So that's out. 

 Then there is this corner to the right of the door when you walk in that I could probably use, but it would require me moving the sofa. Again, where would I put it? 

I told my husband that we needed to suck it up and just buy a bigger house, but then he reminded me that we would have to sell ours first and the likelihood of it selling before Christmas (of this year anyway) would fall somewhere in the slim to none category. So if any of you have suggestions please let me know. 

My kids are so strange

Last night the girls helped me put a few decorations out for Thanksgiving. The kitchen looked especially cute with the placemats and napkin rings they made last year. After we had our little Martha moment we went about our bedtime routine as usual. Or so I thought. This morning I woke up to this:

 Apparently someone in our family is an aspiring comedian.