Honor the Queen

My creativity guru is my sister, Mandy, the Queen of Craft. Her magic wand is her sewing machine, although her repertoire is hardly limited. So I made this "scrapbook in a day" for her at my favorite scrapbook store, Recollections in Sterling. The store was bought and closed, fodder for another post.

So here we go... Christmas sweaters from Grandma Gladys and Girl Scouts circa 1984. Note the French braids that I swore I would never curse my children with. I lied. At least they don't get screamin' red yarn bows longer than the braids.Left: Making a sisterly totem pole with other sis, Julia.

Right: Julia's high school graduation party including our brother, Matt. Somehow we have very few pictures of the four of us.

Dinosaurland before it took a turn for the worse and softball uniforms. Wearing the hat to the side was my Salt-n-Peppa look. I also had an eyes half closed pouty Madonna look.

Believe it or not, my mom refuses to let go of the scarf-neck 70s look. And I'm still a bit bitter about the East bonnet flying saucer hats. We look like the preacher in Poltergeist II.

Gotta love kilts! Another Grandma Gladys special. I included this pic to honor Mandy's favorite movie line from Dances With Wolves, "There ain't no one here, Lieutenant. They done all run off and got themselves KILT!" Beginning my love affair with the ocean and doing our Charlie's Angels thing.


Skate World (left) in Lynchburg is probably my Happy Place- so many memories took place there...birthday parties, being the first of my friends to learn to skate backwards and my first kiss.

Mandy was always cuter than me. I'm good with that. On the right is one of my favorite pictures of us ever- dandelion hunting on the Evans farm. (Again with the Easter bonnets!)

And finally, playing pirate dress-up with mom. That's her on the left. "Mom, make a gnarly pirate face!" This is what we got...because she knew there was a camera present.

Tip #1

Tip #1: When car fresheners start to die, put them in your purse!

I was convinced that my daughter's recent asthma flair-up had to do with my Yankee candle burning and car air-freshener. I didn't have anywhere to put the freshener, so I stuck it in my purse until we got home. Of course I forgot about it, so now every time I'm rooting for something, I get a fresh burst of coconut-y paradise. Ahh!

Princess Dragon-Slayer

Who needs a knight when the princess is perfectly capable? For Savannah's 3rd birthday, she wanted a Princess party. We went over-the-top, of course, and her favorite part was slaying the dragon. And she didn't just slay it, she severed its head in two. You may be thinking this a bit macabre, but if you really knew my family...To this day, whenever we go to a birthday party, she always asks if there's going to be a dragon cake.

We practiced this cake (that we stole out of Family Fun, seriously, I haven't had an original idea since 1991), but then Savannah decided she wanted a girl dragon like Shrek. We made it pink with pretty toenails and eyelashes.

...And every princess needs a throne...glitter glue is the best thing ever. Especially Stickles. I look around my house sometimes wondering what I can stickle next....

Guests arrived in full princess attire where there were greeted by big sister Lexi and given a quick "pedicure." (Don't know why the pic is vertical.) Then they decorated pink sparkly wands.

I read the girls the book The Princess and the Pea which ends with everyone realizing she's a REAL princess because she felt the pea under all those mattresses. We played a game to decide if each of the girls was a real princess. They took turns sitting on 2 different pillows too see if they could feel which one had the green golf ball under it. (And we just made sure they were all real princesses.) I continued the story after the game with Savannah as the main character who slays the dragon (the cake) and defeats an evil witch. Thank goodness another big girl sibling was willing to dress as a witch, run around the yard, and let all the princesses chuck tie-dyed water balloons (swirling magic juice) at her. It was a lot of fun, and I had one very grateful Tinkerbell, fairy, magic, mermaid, princess.

Family Literacy

There are really only 3 things I feel I've done right as a mom:
1. Convinced my kids to like veggies,
2. Enforced "please" and "thank you" so they do it on their own
3. Created bookworms

My girls love books (and thank God! As a librarian it would be pretty embarrassing if they didn't.) Now that Lexi can read, it's like adding another team member to the bedtime routine, even if it is the Daisy Girl Scout Handbook, whatever! Lexi enjoys reading to her sisters, it makes her feel like the big girl. She's tolerates Madeline's enthusiastic "page-turning" and Savannah's 101 questions per page.

What I think is cool about the scrapbook page is the voice recorder at the bottom. CTMH carries it, and I recorded Lexi's voice reading Pooh's Halloween, the first "real" book she could read.

So here are a few of our favorite family reads:

• The Prince Won't Go to Bed (#1 hands down, Savannah memorized all 32 pages.)
• The Tale of Despereaux
• Pinkalicious
• Everyone Poops
• Alice the Fairy
• Henry and the Buccaneer Bunnies
• Knuffle Bunny (I had to hide this one)
• That's Not My __________ (We have fairy, robot, puppy, mermaid, princess, and snowman)
• Any of the Berenstain Bears
• The Water Hole

Chloe's Cake

...Okay, so cakes aren't my thing. That's okay, I still had fun making this sleepover cake for my 4YO niece, Chloe. The Denton Crew is coming to spend the weekend with us and my kids are fogging up the windows waiting for them to arrive. I thought I would distract them with a little culinary creativity.

The cake is inspired (okay, copied) from Family Fun magazine, but I added my own flair with Cricut letters. Have I mentioned how much I L.O.V.E. my Cricut? I even used it to decorate my husband's 9th grade World History classroom. I digress...

We used marshmallows for the pillows, nilla wafers for the heads, 1/2 twinkies for the bodies, and fruit by the foot for the bed decor. The whole process was a little surreal because my sister does this for a living. I kept asking myself, 'Why am I bothering?' The answer: because the 4YO will love it! (And it's been a long time since I've had cake.)

Mmm...Solids

My sweet baby Madeline is 18 mos. old now, but this is one of the few pages I've managed to eek out of her since we became a family of five. (Soccer practice, baby gym classes, dance, etc. leave little time for creating.) I love taking pictures of their teeny little body parts like these little monkey hands with a deathgrip on a slippery peeled peach.
I won't lie, the layout is a straight up scraplift from CTMH's idea book Imagine (pg. 24-25). Why re-invent the wheel, knowwhatImean? And the paper is one of my faves, Emporium. Very versatile for boys and girls.
Shameless plug time! If you're into paper crafts, you have to check out one of the best blogs there is Pickled Paper Designs. My friend Amy will absolutely blow. your. mind. It's not fair that a real person/mom/desperate housewife is that talented. She IS her own design team.
And my friend Marti started her own craft business online. Checkout Pez-a-doodle Design Studios. For someone who has been scrapbooking/cardmaking for less than two years- she REALLY caught the bug. She even has her own stampline. Craziness!
That's all from me...gotta get busy on my brother's graduation project.

It Could've Been Worse...I guess.

The following is an email I sent to some friends who would understand on April 11, 2008 titled “Welcome to Hell…”

Do you ever have one of those days when you just have to celebrate your failure as a parent or you'd lose it? My kids are driving me to drink. I'm totally back on the sauce. Real Coke that is, in all its sugary glory.

Their behavior is at an all-time unacceptable low. I had all three in a bathroom stall at Friday's yesterday, when Mother Nature decided to show up. "Mommy, what's that?" So add to that hormones. I guess this is a good thing, though, because being 3 1/2 weeks late, I was about to start some research on vasectomies I didn't really want to.

This morning I actually said, "Wait 'til your father gets home!" for the first time ever. Lexi had something behind her back and a guilty look on her face. She handed me a handful of rubble, and I didn't even know what I was looking at. I felt like I needed one of those little jeweler scopes to figure it out. As I was pushing around the little pieces, I could just make out a hoof. OH, GOOD LORD!! Here comes Savannah with the rest of the wilted porcelain carousel music box family heirloom. First of all who makes such a fragile detailed thing for kids, and secondly who actually gives them one?? (A: in-laws) ((Just in case anyone in our family is reading this, it's my fault. I should have taken better care of it.))

After that I needed to breathe, so I went down to put wet clothes in the dryer and stayed down there a couple minutes longer than I should have. As long as the girls weren't spoon-feeding the baby Ranch with a Barbie leg, I didn't care.

Not long after, I was changing the 1024th pull-up (which I am SO over) when the baby puked and 2 wasps flew into the enclosed porch at the same time. I didn't have enough arms! Then I realized Savannah escaped bare-assed and she was on the run down to the play set. The definition of risk management- the baby getting stung is more of a priority than Savannah getting splinters in her ass.

I put on such a great show for the kids trying to kill the wasps that they came back up by themselves. By the way, we have too many #&*^%@ toys on the porch. I just started chucking them out into the yard. It was raining Little Tykes. Lexi must have figured I was on the brink because she went to take her nap without me telling her to. Savannah, not so lucky.

I'm changing my name to Beyonce' Cleopatra Winfrey. Right now, anything but "mommy" because Savannah has been in her room screaming it for the past 40 minutes. After about 20 min. she kicked it up to the "You-Don't-Think'-I'm-Serious?" cry, which sounds like a wounded rabid raccoon.

I guess I'm writing this as evidence for my insanity plea when I have to off a few. My husband is on his way to Winchester to pick up my Godson who is spending the weekend with us. Lucky for him he’s a good kid. If things get any worse, don't be surprised if I show up on your doorstep just to hide. Thanks for listening!