Please Help Me Decide!
As I have mentioned, my sweet little Bean will turn one in a couple of weeks. While I am not looking forward to her turning a year old already, I am looking forward to having a special celebration for her birthday. I love throwing a party! But, now I have a bit of a dilemma: I can’t decided what to do! I NEED YOUR HELP!
After having two little boys and doing party themes like football, bowling, motorcycles, Star Wars, and the like, I am ready to do something pink and frilly. All year long I have dreamed of throwing a magical princess party for Bean.
Great, you say, so what’s the problem?
Now that it’s time to send out the invitations to the magical party that has been planned out in my head all these months, I think I may have changed my mind. I’m a woman and I’m entitled to change my mind, right?
See, I love fall of the year. I love everything about it. I have longed to do a fall party for my kids but never have. I have saved numerous magazine articles about throwing a fall-themed party. Now that’s what I’m thinking about doing for Bean’s birthday. But I’m afraid I will regret it.
So, I will outline what plans I have hatched inside my little noggin for each party and I want YOU to tell me which you think is a better idea! There is no right or wrong answer, I only wish to get your opinion. Can you help a mommy out? Great!
Here goes: (By the way, the party will be small with only a few close friends & family invited so there won’t be a ton of kids in attendance)
Princess Party:
Invitations: Printed on pretty paper, they would read something like this:
Hear ye, Hear ye….
Princess {Bean} is turning one year old.
The royal family requests your attendance at
a special celebration given in her honor at
The {Family} Castle
{Our Address}
{Date, Time, Etc}
Cake: I would do a tiara shaped cake, using this Wilton pan.
Food: Here’s where I’m stumped.
-I would likely just do homemade chicken salad sandwiches for the grown-ups and do chicken nuggets or something for the kids. Ideas???
-Fruit and veggie trays.
-Pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate and rolled in colored sugar crystals for wands/scepters
Activities:
-The kids would decorate a crown to wear as their party hat.
Decorations:
-Pink & purple streamers and balloons.
-Tiaras?
Treats for the Kids:
-Treat bags with candy/prizes. Can’t really think of anything special to put in them.
Pumpkin Party:
Invitations:
-Paper with a pumpkin or fall background, or even orange paper cut in the shape of a pumpkin. It would say something like this:
After a year of reaching milestones
and having lots of fun,
Our little pumpkin is turning one!
Please join us to celebrate {Bean’s} first birthday
at {our house}
{date, time, etc}
Cake: Shaped like a pumpkin, perhaps a separate spice cake for the parents?
Food: (I have so many recipes but they are mostly halloween stuff, I’ll have to change it up some)
-Special cheeseball in the shape of a pumpkin w/ a broccoli stem handle and crackers
-Still undecided about the main dish. Maybe pumpkin soup for the grown ups and something more kid-friendly for the kids? Again, your ideas are appreciated!
-Veggies & fruit
-Mini Moonpies decorated with orange icing and sprinkles
-Apple Cider
Activities:
-Pumpkin painting
Decorations:
-Leaves & pumpkins
-Orange balloons & streamers
Treats for the kids:
-Jelly beans in “harvest colors” in a baggie, nestled in a corn husk to look like indian corn
-Caramel apples
There you have it! Those are all of the ideas I have brainstormed for the two party ideas. Now, can you please help me decide? Invitations must be purchased tomorrow so they can go in the mail by Monday.
Please take a moment to comment and let me know what you think!
Thanks so much, dear readers, for your help!
Wordless Wednesday: This Time Last Year
I was a few weeks away from delivering my sweet little Bean.
Transformation: Before & After
In an effort to make our house more sellable more of a home, we have taken up the formerly beige carpet in the kids’ rooms and the hallway and put down laminate flooring. I love it! The boys especially love it because they can roll cars on this floor way better than they could on the kitchen tile.
I think it really opened up their rooms and made them look bigger and cleaner. Okay, maybe the whole “cleaner” part stems from the fact that we had to take everything out and put it back so most of it got put back where it belongs. I’m sure this time next week, their rooms will be little disaster zones again.
Here’s the before and after so you can see how much better it looks:
Bean’s room before….
And after….
The boys’ room before…..
(I forgot to take this shot until after we had moved most of their stuff out, sorry!)
And after…..
So, what do you think? Did we make a smart move? I really wish we could afford to do the whole house in this stuff.
So I Cheated…But It Saved Money
I have been a mother for nearly 10 years. I have always fed my babies Gerber brand baby food. To me, I tend to trust Gerber products above all others so I buy Gerber baby food exclusively. That is, until yesterday…..
Yesterday, I headed out to the grocery store to stock up for two weeks. Since we are broker than broke grocery shopping on a budget, I was trying to be as frugal as possible. I had made my menu, working off of items we already had in the cabinets/fridge/freezer and made a fairly short shopping list. I was trucking through the store, buying sale items and saving money. I was feeling pretty good. Then I came into the baby food aisle…..
Being a Gerber snob, I started picking out all of Bean’s favorite foods (pretty much all of ‘em). I pulled out my handy-dandy coupon organizer to see which lovely Gerber coupons I had filed away recently. To my surprise, the only Gerber coupons I had were for juice and spoons and sippy cups! I was screwed! I continued to pick out enough breakfasts for two weeks, adding up the cost as I was tossing the containers into my cart when something caught my eye. It was all those little red tickets they hang off of the shelf to draw your attention to items on sale, you know the ones? Well, it worked because it had definitely gotten my attention. It was for Beech Nut baby foods, 10 jars for $4.00. I’m no rocket scientist, but I can figure out pretty quickly that two jars of Stage 2 Beech Nut baby food for $.80 is way cheaper than two plastic containers of Stage 2 Gerber baby food for $1.19! And, two jars of Stage 3 Beech Nut baby food for $1.00 is much better than paying $.89 each for a jar of Stage 3 Gerber!
Just like that, I cheated on Gerber! I tossed neatly arranged all those Gerber foods that were in my cart back onto the shelves and filled my cart with Beech Nut baby food. Since I only buy groceries twice a month, I buy a lot of baby food at a time – 66 jars to be exact! I know, that’s insane! I’ll be so glad when Bean finally gets some teeth so she can eat more table foods.
As I filled my cart and headed to the register, I was so proud of the money I had saved by cheating on Gerber. But, on the drive home, guilt began to creep in. How could I have done this? What if Bean was also a Gerber snob and didn’t like the 66 jars of Beech Nut baby food I had just bought? What if Beech Nut was inferior and tasted yucky? What had I done? Maybe I had made a terrible mistake!
I brought in all of the groceries and put everything away, except for the baby food. Instead of putting it in the cabinet right away, I divided it into groups (I always group it in the cabinets) and counted the jars and added up the cost.
16 Stage 3 Beech Nut @ 2/$1.00 = $8.00
50 Stage 2 Beech Nut @ 10/$4.00 = $20.00
Total spent on Beech Nut baby food = $28.00
Then I figured the cost of the same amount of Gerber baby food:
16 Stage 2 Gerber @ $.89 each = $14.24
50 Stage 2 Gerber @ 2/$1.19 = $29.75
Total I would have spent on the same amount of Gerber food = $43.99
I SAVED $15.99!!! This seriously lessened my guilt.
My guilt slipped further away when I thought back on this post and this post by Mrs. Fussypants in which she discusses the dangers of plastics. Gerber baby foods are packaged in polycarbonate plastic containers. Beech Nut foods are packaged in glass jars. Yes, they are harder to stack in my tiny cabinet but they are safer for my Bean.
My guilt was hanging on by a thread. I continued to worry over whether or not Bean would like this new brand of baby food that her frugal mama insisted on buying. Supper time came and I pulled out a jar of Stage 3 Tender Chicken & Stars for dinner. She tasted it…..
And the verdict????
She loved it!!
After seeing her devour Tender Chicken & Stars and Banana Apple Yogurt last night and then Cinnamon Raisin Granola this morning, I am totally guilt free! I’m really glad she likes it, because I would hate to have to take all this back to the store:
So, how about you? What brand of baby food to you use (or did you use) for your little ones? Is there one particular brand that you use? I’d love to hear from you!
No longer a Gerber snob,
Wordless Wednesday: Pig Tails
Bean’s very first teensy weensy pig tails. Cute? I think so!
Dora’s Got Nothin’ On My Explorer
Bean is such a busy little person these days. She has become quite the little explorer. I thought I would share with you just how she spends her day…
At eleven months, she is cruising around the furniture quite nicely. She will go anywhere as long as she has something to hold on to. Mostly she just goes around the coffee table.
She has learned to open the drawers on the coffee table and end tables. She is very nosey curious so she opens them about 15,000 times a day a lot. I try to fuss at her for it but she just laughs at me and goes on her merry way.
I get on her and tell her not to mess with the drawer on the coffee table so she moves on to explore other drawers.
She isn’t allowed to play with those nail clippers. Yes, I know that the drawer on the end table is probably not the best place to store nail clippers but I’m usually in the den when I decide that she needs her nails trimmed and I’m too lazy to walk to the other end of the house to the nursery to retrieve the nail clippers. So, at our house we store nail clippers in the drawer of the end table in the den. Okay? Moving along then…
See, I thought if I cleaned out the drawers so there was nothing for her to mess with, she’d lose interest and leave them alone. I was wrong….
Her new favorite pastime? Watching television while standing in the drawer. She thought I had left the room. She likes to act like she’s not doing anything out of the ordinary when I catch her in the drawer.
“Oh, hey Mommy! What’s up? Nothing to see here, just a well behaved Bean.”
Then it begins. She climbs in the drawer within five seconds of being taken out of it. We do this five or six times and then she moves on…..until I leave the room. When I come back, I find this:
Later, I find this:
Then, while I’m using the computer, I turn around to see this:
The kid is hard-headed, y’all! Lucky for her, she’s so darned cute. I mean, how can you fuss at a little bundle of blue-eyed cuteness like this?
Unfortunately, I have to fuss at her. Then I remove her from the drawer for the umpteenth time today.
My Little Over-Comer
Big Al has been an “active” child all his life. Even in the womb, he was a little maniac. When I went for my ultrasound and asked to know the sex of the baby, the tech told me that he was moving about so much that she could barely get the info she needed much less find out the sex. He walked at nine months and ran at ten months. He hasn’t stopped since.
When he was four, I signed him up with a local soccer club so he would have an outlet for his energy. After an hour-long practice, he was the only child still on his feet saying “Can we run more, Coach? Let’s play some more.” All the other four year olds were lying on the ground, begging to go home because they were tired.
When Big Al started preschool, his teacher commented on his energy. She said he was easier to control if there were lesser kids in the classroom. He feeds off of other children. He managed to make it through the year without killing his teacher. He did, however, manage to run into a wall hard enough to knock himself backwards and cut his head in such a way that required stitches, bringing his teacher to tears. He’s a tough kid and he didn’t learn his lesson.
When he started kindergarten, his teacher commented to me about Big Al’s energy. She assured me that she was not surprised and, being the mother of two boys, she could handle him. And she did. Big Al had his fair share of time out and lost popsicle sticks from his pocket pretty much daily. She was a marvelous teacher, though, and Big Al loved her.
When first grade came around, Big Al was still quite active. His teacher was a real go-getter, a former cheerleader, and she found ways to encourage him to complete his work while sitting in his seat. She figured out that if she challenged him to do his work in a set amount of time, he would always take her up on the challenge. He’s a fierce competitor. He was losing popsicle sticks and getting time out but he was getting his work done and liking the first grade. Then we moved to another state….
Let me just say I will never again move my children from one school to another in the middle of a school year. Big Al has always been a very outgoing child. I’ve always joked that the boy could make friends with a fence post. He hasn’t a shy bone in his body. I figured he would adapt well when we moved, making friends quickly. I had already checked with the new school and found out that the curriculum they were using was the same as the school he was attending and he was up to speed. This was going to be a breeze!
It wasn’t. His new first grade teacher had no tolerance for his “nonsense”. She complained that he was too energetic and after five days of having him in her classroom, she told me I should have him tested for ADHD. I’ve been told that it is illegal for teachers to tell you this about your child but I don’t know that for certain. I really felt like Big Al was just having a little trouble adjusting to the move and told her we wouldn’t be having him tested. Since he was such a menace to her, she moved him to a separate desk, isolating him from the other students who sat at two large tables. Big Al couldn’t make friends. His teacher said it was because the other students thought he was a trouble-maker and they didn’t like him. She encouraged them to stay away from him. It broke my heart. He was miserable. He quit trying and starting making failing grades because he wasn’t doing his work at school.
I gave in and decided to have him tested after a few months. I chose not to have the testing done through the school system and, instead, chose my own doctor. They wanted me to bring Big Al in for a consultation. I did and after a while of one-on-one consultation with their therapist, she determined that he did not need to be tested and that he was acting out due to the circumstances at his dad’s house (that’s a whole other story). After talking to the therapist for a while, Big Al “straightened out” at school and started doing his work and making A’s again! I was so glad he was able to show his teacher what a good student he could be. Then came second grade….
Second grade started out rough for Big Al. I know now what I didn’t know then: he likes to push the teacher’s buttons the first six weeks of school to see what he’s gonna be able to get by with! I know, I could strangle him for it. His second grade teacher was a Godsend! She was perfect for him. She was an older lady, with two grown sons. She was the epitome of “tough love”. She and I worked together to help Big Al survive the second grade. I spent many days sitting in her classroom, pushing him to do his work and sit still, just to let him know that I was on her side. She decided that Big Al needed something to channel his energy into so he didn’t stand up or twirl around in his seat during class so she gave him a stress ball. Ya know what? It worked! He also started wearing a watch to help him see how much time he was spending on each assignment. That really encouraged him to complete his work instead of pretending his pencil was a rocket. He breezed right through the remainder of second grade without many more time outs. Then came third grade…..
Oh my. His third grade teacher was a great gal, really. She was so fun. She adored Big Al and his creativity. She admired the fact that even though he appeared to be off in La-la Land where his pencil was a rocket that shot cap erasers, he was totally in tune to what she was saying and could answer any question she threw at him. Since she determined that he was a wonderful student who didn’t really need to pay attention to get A’s, she didn’t make him pay attention. Big Al figured all of this out and decided that he no longer had to do any classwork in order to pass. This escalated to Big Al no longer doing anything at school, including refusing to take a test on more than one occasion! His teacher said she begged him to do it but he just played with his pencil and twirled around in his chair instead so she didn’t push it. What?!? Needless to say, this wasn’t working for us. Third grade turned out to be the year from hell. Big Al needs tough love, not fun-lovin’.
Then came the news that enabled us to see the light at the end of the tunnel: Second grade teacher was now a fourth grade teacher! She let me know and asked to have Big Al in her class again. I spoke with the principal (with whom I am quite familiar with at this point) and begged to have Big Al in her class. He honored my request! Big Al did a victory dance in the hall at the Back-to-School Bash when he learned the news.
This year has been wonderful! Big Al has matured so much over the summer. His teacher sent me a note saying how much of a change she can see in him from second grade. Oh, he’s still a little ball of energy, but he’s learned to control himself now. He is completing his classwork and getting play time and I’m getting notes from his teacher with smiley faces on them! Yesterday, he got a special prize for being one of only three children in his class who was silent and followed all instructions during the “stranger drill” the school conducted! I cannot tell you how proud I am of my guy – and how proud he is of himself.
You may be reading this and thinking to yourself, “gosh lady, can’t you see your kid has issues? You need to have him tested again.” At least that’s what my mother-in-law thinks most of the time. But, you know what? I don’t want to put my child on medication to control his “energy”. I don’t judge those who do. Some kids really need it. But I choose to help Big Al learn to control himself and to learn habits that will help him throughout his lifetime. And that works for us.
I am so proud of my boy….
Autumn Anticipation
Ah, autumn. Sweet, sweet fall season. How I love this time of year. Or maybe I should say “that” time of year since it really doesn’t feel like fall yet here in Tennessee.
Even though it’s September, it’s still so warm outside during the day. Yesterday it was 91 degrees! I long to feel the crisp, cool air that is so characteristic of autumn in the mountains of Virginia where I grew up. I love when I need to wear jeans and a lightweight jacket in the afternoon. I love when I go outside in the morning and the air is cool and the sun illuminates the beautiful fall foliage.
Most people grumble when the leaves start to fall from the trees in their yard. They hate the thoughts of having to rake them up to keep them from killing the grass. Not me! I have a beautiful red maple in my back yard and I look forward to the days when I can rake all the leaves into a big pile and watch my boys jump in them over and over. Jumping in the leaves is one of my fondest childhood memories.
I love to see the vibrant mums, hay bales, and fodder that adorn the lawns in my neighborhood. I like to drive by and see a happy scarecrow sitting in someone’s lawn. And don’t get me started on the pumpkins and gourds! I am itching to decorate my front lawn already! I will hold off for a few more weeks, though. We have some traveling to do before I get everything set up in my yard. But I seriously cannot wait. I will be dragging my wreaths and baskets of artificial foliage out of the attic soon, though. I don’t have to wait for those, thankfully.
I love the smell of fall. Do you know the smell I’m talking about? The smell of the leaves. The smell of pumpkins and spice. The smell of spiced cider and candy apples. I love it! Last week, I went out and bought a bunch of the Febreeze autumn line of air fresheners – harvest spice, cranberries, autumn leaves and crisp. My house smells so yummy!
After looking back at my menu and grocery list from this past pay period, I couldn’t help but laugh. I bought stuff for chili beans, beef stew, and soups. I’m cooking for cool weather already! I love to make stews and soups and cornbread muffins when the weather gets cool. I’ll have to share some of my favorite recipes with you here soon.
I could seriously go on all day about all the things I love about this season, but I won’t. I’ve gone on long enough. I am just getting so impatient! Waiting patiently is not my forte.
So, how about you? What is your favorite season? What do you like about it so much? I’d love to hear from you.
No Crust Apple Pie
When I was a little girl, I would walk down the road to my great aunt’s house to visit a few times a week. She made this “pie” for me sometimes when I came for a visit. It is especially good with ice cream!
5 cups sliced apples
3 slices bread, cut into strips (about and inch wide)
1 stick margarine or butter, melted
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, beaten
Place apples in a greased baking dish (I use 8×8). Arrange bread on top of the apples, close together. Mix remaining ingredients and spoon over the bread. Bake at 350 degrees until brown and apples are done.
That’s it! Seriously, this is soooo good! Give it a try.
Inspired
First, I have to start this post by telling you that I have had the best sandwich in the world: The Marlboro Man Sandwich by Pioneer Woman. You must eat this ASAP! It is sooo good. If you don’t know who The Pioneer Woman is, you just have to click on over and find out for yourself. Oh, and try her Corn Casserole too. Mmm mmm mmm! Seriously, this woman is my hero!
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I can go on to write about what I intended to write about in the first place. My mother-in-law.
Bean and I spent Labor Day weekend with my mother-in-law while Hubby, the boys, and my father-in-law camped. You hear so many of those mother-in-law jokes where the mother-in-law is portrayed as stupid or bitchy. You hear of so many folks who complain about their mother-in-law and the way she treats them badly. You will never won’t usually hear me complain like that about my mother-in-law.
Why?
Because my mother-in-law (hereby called MIL because I am getting to lazy to keep typing it all out) is a wonderful lady. She is kind to me and treats me like one of her own children. She is almost always willing to lend me a helping hand unless it’s when I’ve called her a few times to come and watch my kids so I can go out with my husband for the evening and she won’t do it and I get really angry about it. She has taught me so much in the eight years that I’ve been married to her son. She taught me to sew and gave me her beloved sewing machine. She taught me to can vegetables. She got me interested in cross stitch and crochet. She tried to teach me to crochet once but I wasn’t interested at the time. Now that I’ve taught myself, she shared some of her crochet patterns with me this weekend. She has taught me to make a number of foods that I would have never tried nor been able to cook correctly if she hadn’t shown me how. Most of all, my MIL inspires me to be a better mother and wife and homemaker.
When I look around her home, it is furnished quite nicely but simply. Many of the things she has in her home have come from estate sales and yard sales and the rest have come from years of hard work to acquire them. The thing is, she doesn’t have to have new stuff. She is just as happy to reupholster an old sofa that she’s had for decades than if she went out and bought a new one. She also has wonderful taste in upholstery fabrics.
She always has a servant’s attitude toward her family. No matter how tired she may be, if her husband asks for her to do something for him (say get him a sandwich while he sits on the porch swing), her response is always “Sure, I’d be happy to do that for you.” Me? I’d say “Huh? Get up off your butt and fix your own sandwich. You’re a big boy and you know how it’s done. I didn’t take you to raise.” But not her, no sir.
When she woke up on Sunday morning and Bean was standing in her bed, waiting for me to come and pick her up, MIL picked her up and changed her diaper and took her downstairs and fed her some breakfast and then took her outside to swing in the porch swing so I could sleep in until 9:36. She was happy to do this for me because she remembers what it was like to have little children who wake up during the night even though she is almost 11 months old and should’ve outgrown this months ago.
She just flat does not complain or grumble about having to do for her family, even after all these years. After nearly 40 years of marriage. After years and years of sewing clothes for her children and driving to scouts and ball games and practice. After years of making sandwiches and lunches and dinners and cookies for bake sales. After years of washing sheets and changing beds and dusting furniture. After moving seventeen times for various job opportunities for her husband. After all the years of working in the garden and canning vegetables for weeks on end each summer so they have veggies for the winter months. After all these years, she is still happy to do it. I just cannot imagine. Seriously.
“Do all things without complaining and disputing…” Philippians 2:14
She does it, folks. And she inspires me to do the same. I hope one day, I can be like her. I hope that one day, I can have the servant’s heart that she portrays in everything she does. See, I often forget that God has given me this privilege to stay at home and nurture my children and my family and my home. I forget that what I do day in and day out is a blessing. I forget that this is an opportunity to serve Him by serving others. But not my MIL, she remembers it always. She is my inspiration today.
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