So, if you’re like a crazy frazzled woman me, you forget a lot.  This includes things like: Did I turn the stove off from making eggs? or Crap, did I leave my straightening iron on?, or Did I feed the dog?  Yes I did, no I didn’t, maybe I did?!?!  Women have 1001 things on their mind and are always thinking about the next thing to get done and not always about what they are doing that second.  Don’t worry, you’re normal!

My sweet sweet Anna has basically been living on antibiotics due to her tear duct being stopped up and getting infected.  I saw this idea on pinterest and I thought it was a PERFECT way for me to remember if I gave the medicine to her or if I still needed to.  I don’t know about you, but I definitely need helpful reminders and it’s one less thing to stress over or have to think about!  All you need is a sharpie!

So I have a problem… I have a hard time saying no.  I just want to be helpful.  People know this about me and ask me to help with the strangest things.  It is probably because they could not find anyone else to ask that would say yes.  Haha.

So anyway, I was recently asked to babysit a pet tarantula for a month.  Yes, weird request.  I was assured it was really easy.  Apparently they only eat once a week.  All I would need to do is keep the water bowl full with bottled water (something about the tap water containing something harmful to spiders) and toss in a worm once a week.  There was even a grate at the top of the cage so I can just poor the water right through it and not have to open the cage.

Doesn’t seem so bad does it!  And hey, I have three boys so having a tarantula around would make me immensely cool in the little boy world.  So I say yes.  Wow, I am so cool… I have a pet tarantula staying at my house!  Everyone wants to see it and each time I let a neighbor kid or a cousin see it, I am a little more cool in their eyes!  Now I am anxious to show off this freaky looking spider to all my child guests.

One day during this spider babysitting month I have a little girl visitor.  She has just had her second birthday.  She comes to the front door and the first thing I do is ask her if she wants to see my big spider.  She agrees and gets all excited.  My 3 boys and I all run to the cage to show off our prize.  I grab the cage by the handle on the top of the cage to lower it down to the little girls level and pop… the bottom of the cage drops off and I am left standing there holding just the lid.

A mass panic breaks out as this seriously freaky spider starts running all through the kitchen… this normally lethargic looking tarantula is pretty dang fast!  The little girl is now screaming and crying historically as all the grown ups run around trying to catch this spider.  It was an insane few minutes.  If only I could really put into words the screaming panic you feel when this big freaky looking spider is racing around your feet while babies scream in the background!!!  We did catch him, but I am afraid this little girl will never recover!  I was really hoping I didn’t scar her for life!

I kept imagining this little girl waking up in the middle of the night screaming about spiders because I am an idiot and dropped the cage!  Poor girl!  So I took it upon myself to rehabilitate her new fear of spiders I had imposed on her.  We talked about how cool the spider was and how it was safe in its cage now.  After a while I asked if she wanted to see it again.  She would only look at it if I was holding her in my arms (can you blame her!).  We did this many times through the day.  We talked about where spiders live and what it eats.  Finally she was ready to take a real look up close!  By the end of the day this little girl was blowing kisses to my freaky tarantula!  Mission accomplished…   Thank goodness!  Three cheers for not permanently scaring an adorable little two year old!

I might get a lot of bad views by the title of this post, but it’s probably from the moms that haven’t left their kids before.  Of course I HATE saying good-bye to them, but it’s a chance for me to get to spend one on one time with my husband.

Last weekend, we went to Wintergreen Resort skiing (midwest fans don’t laugh) with Brian’s work.  We had the most awesome time.  We slept in and enjoyed each other without interruptions.  It was just us.

Some things I just don’t notice when I’m busy with two kids, here’s one:

We definitely had great food while we were there — a serious shout out to Harris Grant Consulting for everything.  This was our last meal.

We had so much fun, but I was so excited to see my babes!

My whole point of this article is to tell you that it isn’t easy getting away and leaving your kids, but it really is healthy.  It was great spending time with my husband and so awesome to see my kids faces light up when they saw me after the trip.  Ella did have a great time with her grandparents and they had a great time with her.

Seriously, try it.  Go away for even one night.  There is an advice sheet that the doctor gives parents at each well visit and all of them say to take time to spend with your spouse.  So true.  It was amazing.

 

Crazy day today…  isn’t it always though?!?!  We are always on the go making it harder and harder to get in a decent healthy lunch.  I have been trying really hard to eat more raw veggies lately, mostly because they are just so good for you.  I read all the new year resolution on veggies (yeah I know, I know!  You are all sick of hearing about new year resolutions), but the fact that eating large quantities may reduce your risk of cancer is awesome and gave me a raw veggie kick.  The problem is that I don’t really like raw veggies and either do my kids!

We are learning though!  I have found that it is all in the presentation.  For example, try buying carrot chips instead of regular carrots.  I don’t know what it is, but something about calling it a chip and the thinner crinkle cut is more enticing than a thick carrot stick.  My kids will gobble it up!  Throw in some interesting and yummy Hummus and we will all down and tray of raw veggies. 

So I am a little obsessed with Hummus lately since being on my veggie kick.  It is such an easy and healthy lunch.  I have been keeping a different variation of it along with fresh cut veggies in the fridge for the last several weeks.  If is is ready and you just have to pull it out… you will eat it!  It is easy to grab and when you just want a quick snack for you or the kids it is a great healthy way to go.

So here is the latest Hummus variation I have made lately… So good!

AVOCADO HUMMUS
From www.edibleperspective.com

• 1 can garbanzo beans
• 1/4 – 1/3 cup of cooking liquid if you use dry beans or chicken stalk (I actually just used water here)
• 2 medium cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup of tahini
• 1/2 tsp salt
• fresh ground pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 avocado
• 2-3 cups fresh spinach
• I like to garnish with Tomatoes and cilantro

Add the ingredients to a food processor or blender and mix well.  I needed to add more liquid to get the right consistency.  Serve with a variety of raw vegetables (I recommend carrot chips for kiddos).  I am sure this would be great with a yummy pita as well.  Enjoy… I sure did!

This works great!!!  Here is what you need!

Ingredients:

1 cup borax
1 cup baking soda
1/4 cup salt
2 lemonade kool-aid packets (I used store brand, almost half the price as kool-aid brand)
30 drops of lemon juice

Directions:

Mix together in a sealed container and wahlaaaaaaa.

I had to run to Wal-Mart to return something for my daughter, so I decided to pick up the ingredients there.  They had all the ingredients and it cost about $8.00 and I can probably make it 10 times for that total.  I would say it cuts your price to about 1/10th of  the average dishwasher soap.  It is SO easy!  It made me feel great and my dishes turned out just as clean or even cleaner than if I used Cascade or Finish.

Couple of side notes:
Borax is found with the laundry detergent.
I also found the big baking soda in the laundry detergent aisle.
Must use lemonade kook-aid mix, other flavors could stain your dishes.
Use about a tablespoon in each compartment.

Have fun and get happy when you’re saving so much money!!!!!!

Yep, my turn to teach preschool again.  We had a lot of fun learning H!  There are a lot of things you can do with the letter H since Hand print starts with H.  However, I feel like I have done the hand print projects to death lately so I went another direction.

We talked about our Hearts and how to take care of our bodies.  The kids seemed to enjoy it.  We did a couple different projects this week.

Decorating the letter H with hearts

This was really simple, but is great for fine motor development.  The hearts are small so they had to work to pick them up and glue them on.  I used a heart hole puncher sort of like this one to make the hearts.  I got mine at Michaels for a under $5 though.  I scrap book a lot and slowly like to build up my stash of supplies.

The kids are in the process of making their own alphabet book.  Each week we learn a new letter and do a couple crafts to represent that letter.  They all have their own binders full of plastic sleeve protectors to store their projects in alphabetical order.  When we finish all our letters they will have their own little book to review their letters.

Preschool Letter H Activity – Paint A Heart

Here is the other project we did for the alphabet book for letter H.  It is pretty self explanatory.  They kids loved it… really anything involving paint is a big hit with the kids.

It’s only taken me two scares in the past week for me to buckle down and see exactly what I should do if a child is choking.  My daughter is so tiny, we often have to force her to eat.  This week we told her she couldn’t put her nightgown on until she finished her dinner (yes, she’s totally obsessed with her princess nightgowns), so she stuck a huge portion of a cheese stick into her mouth and started gagging and threw up.  Even for that less than a second when I thought she was choking, I was freaking out.  I YouTubed choking right away and I came across this video:

http://youtu.be/lehmZgaFMH8

This sums up the video a little of what you should do:

• If child is sitting, make them stand
• Explain to child that you are going to use the Heimlich Maneuver
• Make a fist and put above pelvic line
• Do an upward thrust rapidly and forcefully trying to release what is stuck and to get air
• If this doesn’t work, lay victim over hand
• Deliver back blows with the other hand
• If this doesn’t work and child becomes unconscious, lower victim to ground and straddle victim and place hands on belly and drive up and place hands on belly upward forcefully towards head

Even if you aren’t a parent, you should watch this. Recently, we had friends
watch our kids that don’t have children yet, therefore it would have been
useful for them too!

Pinterest has caught  my attention again!  I can’t get enough of it!  It has the best of everything!  I saw these cookies and cream cookies floating around on pinterest a lot lately so when we got invited over to a friends for dinner I immediately thought of these cookies as something fun and different to bring along.  They were yummy and fluffy, but I must admit that the dough was just as good as the baked cookie!  So good… I am such a sucker for cookie dough!  It was a great compliment when I had no cookies to take home at the end of the night…  I think that speaks for itself.

Cookies and Cream Cookies
(makes about 30 cookies)
From Ericassweettooth.com

1/2 cup butter, at room temp.
6 Tb sugar
6 Tb. brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
12 Oreos broken into pieces

***Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Cream together sugars and butters.  Add egg and vanilla. Wisk dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, then slowly add to sugar mixture.  Mix slowly until just combined.  Gently stir in oreo bits.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper and bake 8 to 10 minutes.

I have to give credit where it’s due.  I got this amazing recipe here from Pinterest (if you haven’t joined pinterest, do it like NOW).  My in-laws were in town this past weekend and this is a great meal to serve.  It’s easy, quick and delicious.

It’s very easy!!  Here is what you need:

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, I cut them through the middle to make them half the thickness
• seasoning salt
• 6 slices bacon, cut in half
• ¼ cup regular mustard
• ¼ to 1/3 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons dried onion flakes
• 1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2 cups shredded Colby/Jack cheese

This is it, check out the video below.  You DON’T want to miss this!

Okay, I can’t believe this.  Are we living in the future?!?!?!  If I didn’t already have three and I had close to a thousand dollars to spend on a stroller, I would buy this, like NOW.  This is an awesome single stroller.  Check out this video!

http://youtu.be/ERQHRo0fHGE

In case you want the basic info:

4 Moms Origami Stroller
It retails around $850

Info at the bottom of the video:
Strollers are all the same and haven’t changed for decades. That’s why 4moms developed the Origami power-folding stroller. At the touch of a button, it folds itself. It’s also a cell phone-charging, mileage-counting, LCD-sporting stroller, with generators in the rear wheels that charge it as you walk. Plus, the Origami has daytime running lights, pathway lights for low-light conditions, and sensors that detect when a child’s in the seat (so it’ll never fold by accident).
From power folding to cell phone charging, the Origami is what strollers should be.