Easter Toys

I have a new co-worker who is absolutely in love with the fact that I have a toddler. She has taken it upon herself to purchase gifts for Zabba and delights in the videos and pictures I show her of Zabba enjoying the new toy.

However, sometimes this co-worker forgets that Zabba is only 2 and still has a hard time with what is appropriate to put in her mouth. Not only that, she still sometimes forgets she should throughly chew her food before she swallows.

That being said, I couldn't in all honesty keep this toy away from her even though I knew it to be inappropriate.

Meet "Clucky". Clucky walks and lays eggs...bubble gum eggs to be exact. I know your thinking "How on Earth does Clucky lay eggs?"

I shall show you.

First, take Clucky out of the package

***WARNING*** Some of the following pictures may be a little graphic for those with weak stomachs.

Next, violently twist off Clucky's head and place on table

Third, shove bubble gum egg down Clucky's throat

Fourth, find chicken head, try to shove it on and then figure out that you twisted it off so it needs to be twisted back on.

Fifth-forget to take picture of you twisting the little wind up thingy located conveniently on the side of Clucky.

Sixth-laugh at your husband's joy at seeing a blue egg fall out of Clucky's aa...um...er...hind end.

Here is a little video of Clucky in action. Enjoy!

Great books, great message

I know everytime I go to the pediatrician with Zabba, I'm asked if I read to her and what her vocabulary is like, what kinds of food she eats, yadda yadda yadda.

Well, even though I'm able to answer "Yes, I do read to her, but she also reads to herself" I really struggle finding books that I think have a good message without being to overly "teach-y". I really prefer that she read books with messages like 'be nice to others', 'brush your teeth', and say "please" and "thank you", etc.

For Zabba's first Christmas I got these books (we have Sundae Sleepover, Peek-a-boo, and The Long Shortcut) from my mother-in-law and I thought they looked cute, but never really opened them to read them until we moved in to our house and I came across them as I was unpacking.

I have to say I LOVE THEM!!! They are great. They teach things like be nice to others, listen to your elders and also that it's OK to miss Mommy and Daddy when they leave, but they will come back.

They do have references to God in the books, so if this makes you uncomfortable then these may not be the books that you would like to read to your child or have your child read.

All I know is I love the colors, the message and the enjoyment Zabba get's from reading them.

Preschool already?!?!

Where in the world has the past 2 1/2 years gone? I feel like it was yesterday that I brought home this sweet little girl. I can't even believe that I am sitting here thinking about preschool. I always told myself that my kids would go to preschool, but now I'm not so sure. I'm not ready for her to enter this whole new phase and become ***gasp*** a preschooler!

As a former kindergarten teacher I have witnessed the difference between kids who go to preschool (even if it's just one year) and those who didn't. So I know the importance, but still...I just don't know if I am ready for this.

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I went to a preschool fair at the community center. I was shocked that there was about 25 or so different schools there. It was overwhelming to say the least. Thankfully they provided me with a booklet that had information about the schools that were there. Since I live one town over there are still a couple others that I need to call and find out more about. So, now comes the task of figuring out which school is going to be the best for us.

Here's the table that I am using to decide which school will give the best bang for my buck. Well, my table didn't come out quite right, but you get the idea.

Name of Preschool

Days and Times

Tuition

Student/Teacher Ratio

Registration Date and Fee
Extras



Other things to think about:
Do they go on field trips?
Outdoor play area?
Security? When are doors locked and unlocked?
Are background checks done on teachers? How often? Are they First Aid and CPR certified?

Who would have thought?

Who would have thought that a faucet, a sink and some dawn would have created a half an hour of entertainment for my 2.5 year old?

Last night, as I was preparing dinner, my son wanted to help unload the dishwasher. On the bottom shelf, he found himself a tumbler to play with so I let him. He ran and got his stool and then proceeded to fill the glass up with water to drink. Normally I freak out because I don't want water everywhere, but then I realized "Hey, its water, he needs to drink that!". Feeling ballsy, I then asked if he wanted to play with bubbles too. He of course said "YEAH!" So I bubbled up the sink on one side and then just ran the water on the other. He had a blast filling up his cup with water, with soap, washing bubbles off, etc.


Its amazing what a few empty cups and some water can do for a one of those days when you can't play outside!

Valentine's Day

So Valentine's Day is coming up. I have never been one to get hung up on all of the hipe of the holiday, but now that I have kids, any holiday is fun because I get to make them little gifts and goody bags. But, better than giving them something, we like to give the grandparents something. All of our parents (the kids grandparents) do so much for us, that I like to show them the unexpected thanks in little homemade gifts from the kids - well, who are we joking, from me. PooPie likes to help until anything loud is turned on and then she runs and hides until I am done. I never do the same things and I never do them on the same holidays. I don't want it to be an expected thing for them. I want them to always be surprised with a "Wow, look what I got" expression. We are going to see some of Babe's family this weekend so I am going to prepare the Valentine's early. I am in search of the perfect little something, I just wish I knew what it was. I will be Googling up a storm and searching my brain to find something more fun then the heart-shaped rice crispy treats. Even though I will be making those for the girls for their goody bags, I want something with a little more of the "WOW" factor. Once I find the perfect something and have PooPie make them, I will post pictures.



I meant to get on here earlier than this to post pictures of our wonderful crafts, but I have been busy, what can I say. I was so excited that I found the cutest ideas for Valentine's this year and couldn't wait to see every one's reactions when PooPie handed them out, and it ended up being a flop. The in-laws weren't as excited as I thought they would be when their oh-so-cute grand-daughter/grand-niece handed them their presents, but what do you expect from in-laws, right? PooPie had a blast making the gifts and that's all that matters.


So first we started off with painting wooden hearts and when they dried I stuck a magnet on the back and we had a great gift. Simple and easy and lots of fun. PooPie liked this the best because she loves to paint and she didn't want to stop. I actually had to take some of the hearts away because she had painted them too much! While we had the paints out, we decided to decorate some plain paper lunch bags and make them gift bags. I had PooPie make hearts from her thumb prints which was so cute, but it didn't last long because she does not like to have the paints all over her hands (takes after her mom). Then I tried to get Mohawk to had her touch by painting her feet and making hearts out of those, but she wasn't having one bit of it - I don't blame her because it had to tickle:).

After we were done painting, we made Rice Crispy treats and shaped them into Hershey Kisses. This was so easy, but of course PooPie didn't really do much of this except watch and eat:) I loved this idea and will do it again some day. We made small ones since we were giving them to a lot of people. This will be a good treat for when the kids are in school and need to give gifts to all the kids. BUT, it is even cuter if you are making it for 1 person. My cousin stole the idea from me and made her boyfriend one big one and it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. I wish I had a picture to show. Anyway, to make these, you just make the Rice Crispys (I died the marshmallow mixture pink for fun or you can add chocolate to make it more realistic) and when they start to cool, take a greased funnel (any size according to preference) and pack the Rice Crispy in. Pop them back out and let them cool completely on some wax paper. Then cover the Rice Crispy in aluminum foil and had a thin white piece of paper with a love note in the top. Cute as can be:)

Voila! Little Kisses!!! Cute!

Then the best craft/baking we did we the heart cookie cake. PooPie's first Valentine's Day, I made the cake with her for Babe. This was the first time that I included her in baking and decided that I/we would do it every year. Then last year, the second year of it, I didn't do it. To be fair, we weren't hear so it's not like I was just being lazy. But this year we started up our tradition. It was fun having both kids right there while baking. I love to bake and hope that both of my kids enjoy it as much as I do - I just hope they don't enjoy it in their belly's as much as I do:)!

Momcessities: The little things mom shouldn't go without. Mommy Cards!

,
My friend Anelys runs her own graphic arts/printing business and she does amazing work. I plan on ordering both of my kids birthday cards from her this year. You should really check out her website and all her products they are much better than you would find at Snapfish or Kodak.

But one of her products stands out to me, and I really can't wait to place my order when the kids get into preschool. They are the "mommy cards". These little ingenious cards, are perfect for any mom. They have your kids picture and info on them, your phone number, allergies, birthdates and anything else you feel is important to have available in an instant.

Think about it:

You are setting up a play date for your kids and you need to swap numbers, just pull this card out and hand it over.

You are dropping your kids off at daycare, and you need to leave some pertinent info with the staff, drop off your mommy card, so they can match up the allergy or disability with the proper kid by seeing the photo. Its easy to pull this card from out of a file than search through it for the information.

Your kids have wandered off and you can't find them in a park/store/museum, you have your card out so you can have the security guard know exactly what they look like to help you find them.

Its the first day of school, leave one with the teacher so she/he knows exactly how to get in contact with you.

There are just so many uses these little cards have. I think every mom should have some! Plus I just love showing off pics of my little ones, and what better way to brag than by handing over your mommy card to new friends as you set up play dates. You know you will get compliments on 1. having a mommy card and 2. having such cute kids.

When bad things happen to good toys

This Christmas Zabba got a really great gift from Gramm. It's an art desk that has a white board, a clip to hold papers for painting-this flips down to make a desk, compartments galore, bins that fit into the compartments and the best thing about it (well, according to Zabba). It has a stool!!


The other day while I was searching the house high and low for a missing Mr. Potato Head part (which fits nicely into the compartments of the art desk thankyouverymuch) Zabba got ahold of this:




Yep, that's right a permanent marker. So, when I was on my hands and knees under the dining room table I realized that Zabba was very quite-much quieter than any 2 year old should be unless they are sleeping. So I slowly backed out from under the table to see what she was doing and was greeted by this:

Nice-eh? Incase you were wondering it's a baloon.

So, if you ever run into this situation, here's what you do:

1. Use a dry erase marker (the one I used was Expo, but any dry erase will work)

2. Color over the permanent marker with the dry erase marker

3. Wipe off with either an eraser designed for white boards or a wet cloth

4. Hide permanent markers from 2 year old.

In my opinion, the last step is the most important.

Lara's Famous Meatloaf

Ok, so it's really not that famous, but it is definitely liked a lot in this household. Ok, so maybe not really liked a lot by the household, but more just by me. I started out by using my mom's recipe and have slowly started to add some stuff here and add some stuff there to make it my own. Also, Kraft Foods Magazine has helped me out by suggesting making them in cupcake pans and I love doing this.

I start with all the ingredients: Chopped onions and green peppers, bread crumbs, ketchup, hot sauce, worcestershire sauce, 1 egg, garlic (today used garlic powder), chili powder, season salt, salt, pepper, and of course 1 lb of ground beef.

I add it all together and unfortunately it is just a little bit of this and a little bit of that so there is really no recipe. Once it is all in the bowl, you have to mix, mix, mix and doing this with your hands is the best way.

Most people now put it in a bread pan and you can do that, but I have one very picky little eater and I am always trying to find ways of making food fun for her to eat. She loves cupcakes, so when I saw in Kraft's Food and Family Magazine (best magazine for quick, easy recipes) to put meatloaf in cupcake pans, I thought it would be great. They also give ideas to personalize the mini meatloaves. I like mine with ketchup in the middle and cheddar cheese on top. Babe likes his with BBQ sauce and PooPie - well, she really doesn't like it but she does like to choose what to put in it and it's always different. She will act like she is going to eat it, but she is a faker. If it's not fruit, it's a no go in her book!

And Ta-Da! Bake at 375 for 30 min - another part of the cupcake version I like, you cut the bake time in half. Let's get real, who has the time or brain to remember to make the meatloaf and put it in the oven an hour ahead of time.

Kraft's Meatloaves
1lb ground beef
1 pkg Stove Top Stuffing
1 cup water
3/4 cup Kraft shredded cheddar cheese

Mix meat, stuffing mix, water and add-ins (see below). Press in to a greased muffin tin. Make an indention in the center of each and fill with sauce (see below). Bake 30 min. Top with cheese and bake an additional 5 min.

Add-in options:
American Style -- add-in 1 tsp of garlic powder, sauce - BBQ sauce
Italian Style -- add-in 1 tsp Italian seasoning, sauce - spaghetti sauce
Mexican Style -- add-in 2 tsp chili powder, sauce - salsa

Momcessities: The little things mom shouldn't go without. Buttoned Up Pads

Need things in your household Buttoned Up?

Towards the end of summer, I decided that I needed to get my act together again. I had used a planner in college, and felt maybe I could get my household back on track again by reinstating my Franklin Covey Planner. While I was at the Franklin Covey shop, my sis found a section called Buttoned Up. I had only glanced at them initially when we walked in, I was on a mission to get my planner pages, nothing else, but she insisted they were something I should peruse because they looked really handy.

OH MY WORD.

These pads were truly the neatest little pads i have ever seen. The more I thought about my husband, the more I realized these pads would be in our future. Their pads are brilliant and can be incorporated into your whole families daily routine, whether you are needing a pad for directions, or wanting to make a shopping list these pads help you organize your thoughts and keep you on track. The kids can have a homework pad so they can keep track of their assignments at school or a chores pad so they know exactly what is expected of them with their household duties. There is a baby bag pad and a kid pad, so you can have a checklist of things to pack (or in my case, so my husband can finally learn to pack the diaper bag)when you are in a hurry. Their Would you pad looks great for making sure your significant other knows exactly what you need from them and the Not to do pads tell them what to hold off on. The options are endless and so user friendly. I can't believe I had never heard of them before.

Needless to say, when I left Franklin Covey, I left with a buttoned up pad. I chose the diaper bag pad, because the one thing my husband can not do is pack the diaper bag. No matter how many times he packs it with me telling him what goes in it, we are always missing something. So now I just highlight on the pad what we need, and he checks it off as he packs it. Having an infant in the house and a toddler really makes this an essential for our diaper bag.

I'm also a sucker for planning. It was what I did best as a teacher, and what I do best as a mom/housewife. I can plan the dickens out of something ( getting me to implement it is another story) so needless to say, now that I have my Franklin Covey up to date, and a few Buttoned Up pads in my household I feel like I can be a better organized parent. I just can't wait for the kids to get old enough so I can start getting some of those other pads.

To Clean Or Not To Clean

When Babe and I made the decission for me to quit work and stay home to take care of PooPie, I do not remember anything in my job description except "take care of child". That was it, the decision was made for me to stay home and take care of our delicate little baby because we didn't trust anyone else to do it. Somehow, Babe went behind my back and changed my job description so now I am the child care provider, the resident chef (big mistake there buddy), pastry chef, maid, laundry person, and so much more. I guess I should have known that I was going to be doing all that because even working I was doing it, but I don't think I ever realized how much harder it was going to be with a baby hanging around, not to mention 2 babies! However, I embraced all my titles and went with it and have worked for 2 1/2 years to master the best plan that I could to get done all that I need to get done. It is far from perfect and it really does change from day to day and week to week, but I really think that I am almost to the point of perfecting my perfect cleaning plan.



As of right now, I have a chart set up in Word with just a couple chores a day for me to do. I only do 1 or 2 things that way I can usually get them done while PooPie eats breakfast and is watching t.v. and then we have the rest of the day to play and do what ever we want. On Saturday nights, after the kids are asleep, I go in and add in anything that we have for the week such as doctor appointments, Babe's work schedule, and the dreaded meal plan for each day - I really hate deciding what to fix everyday. Everything has a color, chores are one color, meals another, appointments another. Some weeks, I get a little ambitious and try to think of special cleaning things/decluttering for each day such as cleaning out my closet or my bathroom cabinets. I actually haven't had the time to do that since Mohawk was born, but hope to get back to that in the next few months. When I was following Flylady.com, the house seemed to be less cluttered, so hopefully I can develop my own edition of that soon.



Here is my basic cleaning schedule: (my chart won't upload so this isn't exactly how I do it , but you should get the idea)

Sunday:
Off

Monday:
Water Plants
Change my sheets, girl's sheets
Wash sheets and towels
Study
Walk, weights
Dinner
8-4

Tuesday:
Vacuum
Clean master bath
Laundry
Girl's laundry
Study
Walk, weights
Dinner
8-4

Wednesday:
Clean kitchen - counter, stove, fridge
Mop - kitchen, foyer, bathrooms
Study
Walk, weights
Dinner
8-4

Thrusday:
Clean girl's bath
Laundry
Study
Walk, weights
Dinner
8-4

Friday:
Vacuum
Dust
Study
Walk, weights
Dinner
8-4

Saturday:
Off

A Friday Tradition in the B's household... Homemade Pizza (using our bread machine).

We have a meal schedule in our house. Every day of the week has a different theme. Mondays - Mexican, Tuesday - Italian/Indian, Wednesday - traditional, Thursdays - Eat Out, Fridays - Pizza, Saturday - Finger Foods/Left overs, Sunday - Boo cooks. This is the system that helps us plan our meals out and helps us keep a variety going through our diet. Seriously, when we didn't adhere to this routine we either: 1.) ate out every night (eek!), or 2.) ate the same thing every night. Seriously, we would have various meals of the same thing and that can't be good for the budding food enthusiast that was my son. I mention "was," as my son has given up eating at this time. So any help in getting him to eat more than chicken nuggets, french fries and yogurt would be much appreciative.

Friday was finger food Fridays, but we decided that pizza would be more fun. I got the idea from Lara who does Pizza night as well. Hopefully she will show us how she does it. As they get older Mac and Mya would be able to help make it and choose what we should have. However, now its usually just me unless pepperonis are involved. Mac will volunteer to help eat those before putting them on the pizza.

But I digress. Pizza! The worlds most perfect easy meal. I love it. I never thought I would be making my own this frequently but I have been tweaking this recipe for over a month now and just love it. I have fallen in love with my bread machine, and have been a bread making fool these past few weeks as well, but that's a whole other story.

So follow me: Let me walk you through my way of making pizza.

Ingredients:

Dough-
3 cups of flour, 3 tsp of yeast, dash of salt, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of oil and 1 cup hot water.

Toppings-
1 jar/can of pizza sauce, 1-2 bags of Italian/mozzarella cheese, whatever else you like. Today we have sausage, red pepper, and onion.

The bread machine is a masterpiece for bread making. It takes all the time consumption that bread/dough needs and puts it in a machine that does it all. The rising, the kneading and all that
hands on stuff is no longer necessary. So you can throw your ingredients in and leave it to do its job while you do whatever you like, whether its cleaning, watching a movie, playing with the kids, taking a nap, eating some chocolate, or whatever else you would like to do. The possibilities are endless.

Here is my beautiful bread machine:


Now that i have my beauty out and ready to rumble, I need to go gather my ingredients. First I will start by going and getting 3 cups of bread flour. All-purpose flour works nicely, but it just so happens that I have 50 pounds of bread flour in my pantry so I will use that...

What? You think I am kidding? Nope! My neurotic self actually has 50 lbs of bread flour in her pantry. I kid you not. Here it is:
That bag of flour ways more than my two kids combined...seriously. I'm neurotic and it seemed like a great idea at the time to buy it. It only cost me 14 bucks and do you know how much bread I can make with that??? WOOT!

Back to the recipe. While you are getting your flour, turn you faucet on to hot. Let it run for a bit and get good and steamy. You want that hot water to activate your yeast so your bread will rise.

Once you have gotten all your ingredients together, add them to your bread machine with the liquids first. I usually do water, oil, sugar, salt, flour, and then yeast. Most definitely your yeast should be the last thing you put in. Let it nest in a comfy little flour bed so it can relax before we really put it to work.
What I really like about my bread machine, is that it is something my son can help me do. Its so easy, plus he loves pushing the buttons to make it start. He also has to make sure that I put everything in properly and its up to his code. You don't want to cross the Bubbee...he will get ya.
Now, turn your bread machine to the dough setting and go have a little fun!! You have an hour and 10 minutes to do whatever you like until you need to focus on your pizza again!!

.....


Now its time to focus on your meal again. While your dough is wrapping up, its time to prep the toppings for your pizza. Tonight we are having sausage with peppers and onion. Yum. I totally forgot to take any pictures of me using my new frying pan to fry this sausage. But lets just say she worked maaaahhhvously! Hopefully I can introduce you all to her next time. Plus if you don't like cutting veg (I don't), and your husband happens to get home before you have popped this baby in the oven, casually ask him to cut the onion. Tell him you have cried enough today, since your 7 month old started a new way of communication which involves shrieking to her hearts content anytime you are holding her, looking at her, or just being around her. Seriously, its unnerving as she is shrieking like I did in labor with her. It doesn't do my eardrums any good, and it does my nerves even worse. So let your husband do that part while you go sit with your reclining chair and use your back massage pad.

When he is finished you should have a beautiful pile of veg to throw on that pizza when the dough is ready.
No pizza should go without these two wonderful vegetables. Seriously. It would just be wrong.

I also had totally meant to show you how I knead my dough. But alas, I was just so hungry I forgot and threw the pizza together. But here is a walk through.

When your timer for your bread machine goes off, you will notice your bread has risen significantly. Beat that sucker down to a manageable level and pull it out. Its a huge hunk of dough, and if you have a normal size pizza stone like I do, I would rip about a 1/4 of it off to make either a small personal pizza, or make some rolls. The dough will spread while cooking, I noticed that it always overflows my pizza stone, making it hard to cut. So unless you are using a cookie sheet or a larger stone, this may be too much for you. However, I just throw all caution to the wind and pop my hands in flour and spread her on my stone. I never minded a little overhang. Layer those toppings on anyway you like and you will soon come up with a beautiful yummy pizza creation ready for the oven.


Ah yes, my love. Soon you will be toasty and brown with gooey cheese and a sweet delectable crust. My oven (that was preheated to 400 F) awaits this pie and will bake her for 20 minutes.

Which leaves you with a totally indulging could eat the whole pie pizza that will have you coming back each week.
Notice how you no longer see my pizza stone. LOL. She really did expand. YUM.


Better than Fazzoli's Bread Recipe (thanks to my sisters roommate Brenda):
modified by me for the bread machine.

Ingredients:

1 cup of hot water
1/2 cup of oil
1/4 cup of sugar
dash of salt
3 cups of flour
3 tsp of yeast

Place ingredients in the bread machine pan in order given. Make a little divot for the yeast in the flour. Set to dough cycle. Relax and enjoy the 1 and 20 minutes of freedom this wonderful machine gives us!

Jennie B

The Misfit's Guide to Motherhood Welcomes You!

Welcome Everyone to our Humble Blog.

We are a group of online friends who have had the delight of sharing the experience of Motherhood with each other. We started as a thread group on Baby Center but have evolved into a group of close friends who share our life experiences daily.

As we are all from different parts of the country, our friendship is unique as most of our interaction is done online. That is why we started this blog. To share with each other, and whomever stops by: our experiences, recipes, and just every aspect we find important in parenting.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave comments and share your experiences with us. Most of all, bear with us as we are all just normal moms doing the best we can.