Mia

Sorry I have been missing in action for the past few days. We have had lots going on around here. We have family in town. Check back in with me on Monday. I should have up a new post by then. I hope you are all doing well!

Until next time my lovelys!

Oops.... It got thrown away!

I don't know about you but, my kids own 1,584,676 toys. Mostly made up of small stupid toys from Mc Donald's, Christmas stocking stuffers, and hand me downs. These kinds of toys are the bane of my existence! I find pieces stuck in couch cushions, between my bed sheet and the mattress (wtf), the sink, my bathtub, and the worst offender..... under my feet while walking in the dark!Walking in the dark around my house is sort of like playing my own game of mine sweeper.

Of course there are some toys that are worse then others. No, I'm not going to say Lego's. I would never put myself through that kind of agony. I am proud to say that I do not own any Lego's. Poor Corbin, I'm sure would love to know the joy of making colorful awesomeness out of Lego's, but I will not knowingly put myself through that sort of pain.

Here is my list of top offenders around my house:

Blocks! I'm talking the big, wood, painted on letters and numbers kind of blocks. These things can bring me to my knees cursing in the dark. The problem with blocks is that they roll under your foot as you step on them, making sure you get each corner good and dug into the soft and tender under skin of your foot. Now, I know every new parent thinks about how adorable it would be to see their little bundle of joy learning to stack blocks. How innocent they look painted in their soft pastel hues. But be warned, at night they have fangs and claws!

Little People. Just so that you know, Little people always travel with their posse! If you step on one then surely their Mother, Sister, Brother, Cousin, Father, Grandpa, and pet dog are waiting in the wings!

Cars..... ANY cars! Matchbox, Hot Wheels, Chuck the truck and his little jerk friends. It doesn't matter what kind.... they all suck in the dark. Not only will they leave you howling in pain but stepped on, on the right surface will give you some added speed to crash into an array of other potentially dangerous objects.

Why don't I own any Lincoln Logs???!!! It would seem that Lincoln Logs would be somewhat pleasurable to step on. At first, a little scary because they are hard but then soothing, like a foot massage rolling gently under your foot. I mean, if I had the choice between Lincoln Logs and a Burger King toy, I would definitely go with Lincoln Logs!

So now I have adopted the "walking stick" technique. This is were I use my foot and leg as a walking stick, slowly batting it about in front of me, swooshing from side to side. Feeling around for whatever may be lurking on the floor. Yes, it takes longer to get a drink of water because you are traveling just inches at a time, but it is much better then the above mentioned pain.

So in the light of day, when my son is not around, I pick up the once again innocent looking toys and put them where they belong. Sometimes while I am picking up the toys, I will see other things on the floor such as, a piece of plastic, wrapper etc. So I pick it all up in one swoop, and make my way to the garbage. After tossing away the trash I sometimes notice that, I have also dropped the toy that I was just about to put away, into the garbage can. Now, here is the point that I am faced with a decision..... Do I reach in and grab it out? Its sitting on top, totally visible. Not under anything gross or messy. It would be simple to just reach in and grab it out. Or do I just ignore it? They have other toys that they care more about!..................  Screw it! Rot in the dump you little jerk! And my kids are none the wiser! :)

Until next time my lovelys

Seriously!?........ Where did you come from?

If there are 365 days in a year, and I vacuum every other day, then I have vacuumed 182 times. Actually it would be more then that because I sometimes vacuum back to back days (two boys= lots of messes). I'm sorry, but that is A LOT of vacuuming! So where in the heck did this come from!?

I see him sitting in his puppy chair intensely picking at his toes. So I drop what I'm doing and grab my camera, thinking I will just get a cute picture of him.

                Then I see what he is in fact trying to get off of his foot. EASTER GRASS!!

This stuff is seriously, the herpes of holiday decorations! Much like glitter is the herpes of the craft world. Try as you might to throw it away, pack it away, vacuum it up, this stuff..... always comes back! Like some sort of strange horror movie. I have fallen victim to it randomly popping up here and there throughout the year. I have not purchased plastic Easter grass this year and like i said before, I have at least vacuumed 182 times, so where does it come from? How does it hide, and then show up in a place that you walk pass over and over like "what, I've been here the whole time?" No you haven't! I would have noticed you!

I swear, when the world ends in some big blast, the only things that will survive are glitter covered cockroaches eating Twinkies atop heep's of Easter grass!

Until next time lovelys

Mischief and Leprechaun Poop

I hope that all of you had a great and safe St. Patricks day.  If you drink, and don't have kids that you have to get up and take care of in the morning....... I bet you had a great time. However, we do not drink, and we also never do anything for this holiday. I mean, other than wearing green. But there had to be more fun things to do on this day then just pinching people and eating stewed cabbage. So, again I spent some time perusing the Internet. I wanted to do something fun, cheap and memorable.

My oldest son is finally at the point that I can explain holidays and introduce the idea of Santa, the Easter Bunny, and apparently Leprechauns to him. We of course have tried to explain all of these things each year but the only one that stuck was Santa. Oh be bosh (something Corbin says instead of "oh my gosh") , he loves Santa! So for a few days prior to St. Patty's Day, I told him about the little green mischievous leprechauns that sneak around on this particular day of the year looking for gold. I also told him that if we could catch him then he would have to give us the gold that he had already collected.

On the night before St. Patty's Day we came up with our plan to catch him. Here are some of the fun things we did that are going to become traditions each year, from here on out.



An over turned Rubbermaid, stick, and ribbon attached to a bowl holing lucky charms was our trap. We dusted the counter top with flour so we could see the leprechauns footprints. Adding charms like a little Hansel and Gretel pathway to the trap.

                                               "Leprechaun Lounge- Free Charms Inside" 

 We attached the ribbon to the bowl (lucky charms inside the bowl) and nestled it on top of a bed of grass. The idea was that the Leprechaun would move the bowl while retrieving charms and the trap would slam shut on him. 

The next morning, we saw footprints leading up to a closed trap. Corbin tapped the box and talked to what he was hoping was a leprechaun inside "did I get you? Are you going to behave and give me your gold?" We slowly opened the trap. The little jerk had escaped! As we looked around we saw what a busy little thing he had been! He had stuck oranges on our candlesticks!

 

 He put our chairs and a topiary on our table!

                                                     
                                                      He turned lamp shades upside down!

             He lined up the kids blocks along the back of the sofa and put a fan on the coffee table.

        He pee'd and poop gold poop in the toilet! (I don't know why this picture looks blue. It was green.)

                                                  He left gold behind (Chuck E Cheese tokens)

                                               Even something for mommy and daddy.............

                                      We had leprechaun mocktails (sprite and colored ice cubes)

                                                Lucky charms and green milk for breakfast.

                                            Rainbow jello for an extra special after lunch treat!

Turns out that St. Patricks Day is actually pretty fun! Trying these things out on the next shamrock day.  Your kids will LOVE it!

Until next time lovelys!

Bright Easter Wreath

We are moving at the end of next month, and with Easter just right around the corner I knew that I couldn't NOT put any decorations up. I am a holiday decoration addict! Seriously..... I have a problem. You had better stand back when Christmas is approaching because, my house looks like a red, green, and glitter bomb went off (a tasteful bomb). But with all of my beloved decorations lovingly wrapped up and carefully packed away, I just couldn't bring myself to venture out to the garage and open up the boxes. So naturally, I just need new decorations to get me through Easter until we get into our new home.

Although I have a sweet and understanding husband, he would be PISSED if I bought a bunch of new decorations, considering that our garage is 3/4 my decorations and 1/4 his tools. I try to justify that the decorations make the house so beautiful and festive, so whats the big deal if there's 40 plus boxes in the garage!? It probably doesn't help that I am completely unwilling to purge and get rid of any of it. There is always the "I still like it, so I had better keep a hold of it and maybe use it next year" excuse that my husband is sick of hearing. But they are like my babies! If you were forced, would you be able to choose which one of your kids to give up? Do I give up the shiny new one that I had been waiting for and wanted desperately? The one I could picture adding to the family and building memories around for years to come? Or the older ones that have been there through new homes, a growing family, each year pulling them out of the boxes, dusting them off and smiling just thinking about all of the memories that we already have made together? Its just not possible to choose. Okay maybe I shouldn't compare inanimate objects to my children. But I love my decorations.... you get the point.

So I decided I would choose one decoration to DIY. I figured that if I couldn't buy a bunch of new stuff to deck out the inside of the house, and I couldn't bring myself to brave the towering packed boxes in the garage, then I could at least keep up appearances with the neighbors who have never seen my door naked before. So a wreath it is! I've never really made a wreath before but I felt confident that I could. I looked around on Pintrest (of course) and found a cute wreath for inspiration. It wasn't an Eater wreath but the color screamed at me. So here is what I did.

Supply List:

Grapevine Wreath- I got mine at Micheal's but I know you can get them at loads of other places, including Hobby Lobby (<------ one of the great loves of my life)

Spray Paint- any color you want.

Easter Grass- I got mine at the Dollar Store. It wasn't the plastic shiny kind. It was more like green raffia.

Styrofoam Easter Eggs- again I got mine at the dollar store. I got 1 pack of the regular size eggs (contained 5) and 1 pack of small eggs (contained 10) All of the eggs came attached to skewers.

Ribbon- any kind you want. This will be used to hang your wreath so you will want a medium to wide width ribbon.

Glue Gun and Glue

Scissors

This project will take about 2 hours if you count the drying time for the paint.

In the future I would probably use the next size wreath down from this one. Its a little bigger than I thought it was in the store. But it was $8 so I got a little greedy! Lay out a drop cloth. Grab your wreath and spray paint. I chose a beautiful powder blue. Obviously for ventilation purposes, you're going to want to do this outside. 

Shake your paint well and begin spraying your wreath, making sure to cover between the twigs and crannies. I did this in the afternoon when it was about 85 degrees with a little bit of a breeze. which was perfect for drying. By the way, why in the hell is it 85 freaking degrees in March!!!!

While your wreath dries, you might as well prep the rest of the project. So grab your balls eggs and lets get to it. These come on skewers from the dollar store. Hold each skewer tight between your fingers and gently turn the egg until it is released from the glue. They should come off fairly easy.

Once your wreath is fully dry bring it on into the house and put it down at your work space. At this point your glue gun should be heated up. Grab your grass (I loved using this raffia grass, I definitely recommend it) and start pulling it apart. You DO NOT want to just grab a big clump of this stuff and start gluing it on all willy nilly!  Choose where you want it to start end end on your wreath. Then little handfuls at a time, pull the grass apart and start gluing it into place. This way you can build up the density of the grass to how you like it. I didn't want mine to be to thick so this is about how much I used.

Now start to arrange the eggs on your wreath, without glue, to decide the placement you like best. When you have got the right configuration start to carefully pick them up, one at a time, and add the glue to one side. place them where you want them and apply a little pressure to keep them in place. You want to make sure you are not just gluing your eggs to the Easter grass, but that the glue attaches to the grass and to the wreath beneath.

Almost done. Loop the ribbon of your choice around the top of your wreath and make a cute bow. Bows are not my expertise, as much as I wish they were. Leave about a foot of space between your wreath and the bow. Take one more minute to retrieve a pair of scissors, so that you can trim off any bits of grass that look wild or out of place. Now.... you are done. Go stick that cutie pie up on your front door!

                             I really like the way it turned out! I hope you try this out and love it!

                                                          Until next time lovelys!

Dollar Store Decor

Okay, so I did this project a couple of months ago. Long before I was every even thinking I might start a blog. Because of that, the pictures don't have very good lighting. Sorry.

Several months ago my darling husband went with my idea to change our bedroom..... again. He is so sweet, and tends to go with whatever ideas I have to decorate, change things, and re-decorate our home. So my new idea was to go all black and white in the master bedroom. It all started with this beautiful black and white damask bedding that I fell in love with!! I gave my husband several hints that I loved it, and talked about how beautiful it would look in our room.  He hated it! Like....... when I showed it to him, his mouth actually puckered up with hate face! He looked at me like he did the first time he changed our oldest sons poopy diaperin the hospital. You know the ones I'm talking about.... the tar poop diapers. "really...." he asked. I just shrugged and said "Deal with it. I love it!" But being the great husband that he is, he got it for me for Mothers Day. I've got a good man. (by the way, the first night he slept in the new bedding, he told me it was the most comfortable and softest bedding we had ever owned.)

Once it was in our room, my head began to swim with different ideas of how to change the room and make it all flow together with this new bedding. I'm a big believer that your bed is the anchor of the room, and whatever bedding you choose to use, should inspire the rest of the room. But that's just me! So anyways, I got an idea. I wanted to make some pictures to hang on the wall. So the next day I ran to the closest Dollar Store (love that place). I made a beeline for the picture frame isle, without even stopping at the teacher section! (Side Note: I love the teacher section at the dollar store! I always check in there for new stuff to use while teaching my kids at home.) Once in the picture frame isle I found some black ones that I thought would be perfect! Then I headed home to take care of the house and those strange little monsters kids that I live with, all the while checking the clock to see how much longer it would be before bed time would finally be here! Oh yes, the only time I can craft in peace, is when the kids and my husband are sleeping. After bath time, pj's, and a bunch of "Mom, I'm thirsty. Mom, I have to go potty. Mom, will you tuck me in again?" they finally passed out. Thank the lord! And it was time to craft!

I don't have a picture of the frames before I started. But just picture a basic black picture frame. I pulled off the backing, threw away the generic paper picture of some women awkwardly holding a daisy against her face, and pulled out the glass. It should just pop right out. Set aside the actual frame. Get out your glue gun and get that sucker heated up. being careful not to burn yourself, use the glue gun to write on the glass. This can be anything you want, a quote, a single word that inspires you, a scripture, name, or even just a monogram. The glue can be a little tricky. You may find that there are little wispy pieces of glue around your words. Just do your best to pick them off. Then I dug out my craft paint, and grabbed the black. Paint black (or any color you want) over the words and glass. Cover the entire front of the glass with paint.

Once you have let the paint dry, you need to grab another color. I used white. carefully go over your lettering with your second color.

            

               Once it is dry, you just pop the glass back into your frame, secure it with the tabs on the back.

                                                                     



                                                                      Another one

                                                                     And another

                                                     

                                                       And here they are up on the wall

 I know this wall is still pretty bare, but we are moving next month. so when we get into our new home, I will continue to work on it.

   There you go. I spent three dollars on this project. So easy and fun. I think it would be cute to do a few of these in White frames and painting the glass some pretty pastel color, and some Easter words. I hope you try this out. I would love to hear what you did!


                                                         Until next time lovelys!

Natural Cleaning

There are days that I'm just in the mood to go above and beyond my normal day to day cleaning. I wake up and say to myself  "today is maid day". I pull out my bucket full of old cleaning rags, dusters, scrub brushes, sponges, and cleaners. Oh, how I love my cleaners! Lysol, Bleach, Mr. Clean, Windex, etc.

Now I want to clarify that I am not a neat freak. The idea of a model home with everything in its place is a lovely idea. But it is not my reality! I believe a home should be lived in. It's okay in my home to make a mess. But it's also important to be responsible for the mess you made and clean it up. That is the rule I try to enforce in my home. There is never a day that goes by and everything is neat and tidy. There is always a room that is a disaster. Toys on the floor, laundry waiting to be folded, etc. It used to drive me crazy!

But when you have kids, there comes a point, where you resolve to the fact, that you are not super woman. It's okay to always strive to do your best as a wife and mother. We should all think that way. But it's not okay to put such high expectations on ourselves. Trust that the "mommy do" list is way longer then the "honey do" list! It's just not realistic to give ourselves more to do in one day, then there are hours in one day. Okay, I have clearly gone off on a tangent. I am going to get back to the point of this post.

On "maid day" I map out my plan of attack, grab my supplies, and get to it. After several hours and a lot of hard work, I stand back, pull off my lovely yellow rubber gloves, and admire my hard work (come on, you do it too!). I think, wow it's so fresh and clean in here!

When my husband comes home from work and opens the door I am always there to greet him (and pass the kids off for a little mommy break). And you know what he says every time!? Not, "oh, it's so  nice and clean in here. Wow, great job darling wife of mine." Nope he says, "wow! It smells like cleaners in here!" With out fail..... EVERY TIME! So what does that tell you folks? It doesn't smell fresh and clean, it smells like chemicals!

So yesterday was one of those "maid days". I was ready to pull out my arsenal of cleaners, but then I stopped myself. I jumped online and did a quick search for homemade cleaners. There I found a great recipe for a gentle non toxic scrub to clean my kitchen. And all it took was peroxide and baking soda.

 Okay, don't judge me

I wipe my stove top down everyday. It's part of my daily choirs. However, this stuff always seems to remain behind, embedded in the stove top. I didn't get the before picture so this has the baking soda already sprinkled over the mess. Once you have that sprinkled on, you add some hydrogen peroxide on top. Not so much that it's really wet. Just enough to get the baking soda moistened. Then you let it sit for about 15 minutes.

Lovely, I know. 

                                

Grab your scrub sponge. In circular motions start cleaning up this stuff. Yes it still takes some elbow grease. It isn't a miracle cleaner that does the work for you. How much can you expect from baking soda and peroxide?

And there you have it. I was pleasantly surprised at how well this work! Like I said, I wipe it down everyday, and I use chemical cleaners. I guess I have always thought that those chemical cleaners are stronger and better equipped, to thoroughly clean any mess, better then the things I could find in my pantry and medical supply kit. Ha, who knew?

A vast improvement! :)

I really recommend that you give this a shot. Use it on your stove, counters, fridge, anything you want. No chemicals, No scratching the surface, No smell (other then a clean smell). Using this makes me feel so much more comfortable about what I'm exposing my kids to. Now you could always go to the store and buy some GreenWorks or other "Natural" cleaner. I think GreenWorks is around $5, or you can use what you already have in your home, and SAVE SOME MONEY! I'm all for that.

Until next time my lovelys!

A little about me

 I'm one of the lucky ones when it comes to love. I am married to my best friend. He makes me laugh everyday, he has been with me through thin and thick (yes I meant to say it that way. This mommy has packed on a few pounds), we have traveled together, we have grown together, and we have started a loving family together. For that I feel very blessed. 

  Together we have two adorable, incredibly intelligent (if I do say so myself), beautiful, messy, crazy, stubborn, loud, little boys. My world revolves around them. The sun literally rises and set with them. I am a stay at home mommy. 

 Gone are the days of sleeping in. Nowadays I am woken up in the middle of the night with crying from my youngest. Most of the time it's because he's hungry, but other times I think it's just because he is bored and wants to know what I'm doing at 2 am. As if I were in the other room having a party and didn't invite him. Or I'm awoken by my 3 year old around 4 am telling me that he had a "bad dweam" and then my husband and I are scooting apart and shifting blankets to make room for him. By the way, why do children sleep like they are running from the police?! My three year old will be sound asleep but then fling his body over mine, or move his legs like he's running, or better yet, when you try to get him to be still he then opens his eyes and yells "no!" While punching you in the face? True story! He then realized it was me and said "sorry mommy, I thought you were a bad guy in my dweam". 

Gone are the days of going anywhere alone...... Including the bathroom. Oh yes. If you haven't experienced this yet, consider yourself lucky. Apparently my kids have enforced an open door policy when it comes to the bathroom. Even if I get in there before my kids see where I have gone, it only takes moments before I hear, "hey, where's mom?". Within a minute one or both of my kids are standing in front of me on the toilet asking "whatcha doin?". Of course I have done what I could to keep them out on previous occasions. Such as, turning the lights off. Thinking, if it looks like nobody is in here then they will pass the bathroom door and look elsewhere. WRONG! And of course I have locked the door, but then I have two sets of hands reaching under the door the whole time I'm in there. Trying to grab my feet while one is yelling "I'm going to get you mom" and the other one is laughing like this is the best part of his day! Now, you might be wondering..... "Why are you in the bathroom so long?" Here's the answer, for a little PEACE AND QUIET! 

Gone are the days of quietly walking through a store, perusing the isles, or looking at ANYTHING breakable. I think the addition of my second son has changed my oldest sons behavior. When Corbin was an only child, I could take him anywhere. We would have a little talk in the parking lot about the store we were going into and what I was expecting him to do and how I was expecting him to behave. He would sweetly put his hands in his pockets and follow closely at my side as we walked through any store. Store employees would say "awe, look at how sweet and well behaved he is. What an angel." And I would look at him beaming with pride! Then I had Dax... He is my wild child! He does what he wants to, when he wants to, and isn't ashamed of it. This has inspired a "well if he can do it, I can do it" attitude in Corbin. Walking through a store these days is job! I find that my personality will morph into several different people. At first I'm "loving mom, willing to brave the store" then I'm the police "keep your hands to yourself! Stop sticking your finger up your brothers nose! Why are you yelling when I'm right here?" Then I'm a deaf librarian, while my children are trying to get my attention and I'm so frustrated that I have to block them out, while my oldest is saying "mom! Mommy! Mom. Mommy? Mooooooooooommmmmmm!" Then, I'm the store manager "Corbin if you break that, you're going to have to find a way to pay for it! And you won't be allowed back here again!" And finally I turn into my grandmother, and walk my oldest son to the nearest corner and firmly plant his nose right into it. 

 Yes, there are a lot of things that you have to change in your life when you have children. These are some of the things that I deal with. Yours may be different. I have my mommy ups and downs. Its not easy, it's not always fun, but like I stated at the beginning of this blog, we have a loving family.... I'm one of the lucky ones. 

Through this blog I am going to share my mommy moments, city crafts, decorating, recipes, and anything else that comes to mind. So keep checking back in with me, and lets navigate this whole "mommy" thing together!