A is for Adult!

Welcome to the blog challenge for 2014!!

First, a little about me.  I am 30-ish, married, with 3 kids (6 yr boy, 3 yr boy, and 6m girl).  I work full time as a contractor and my hubby is a stay-at-home dad.  I generally blog craft items or parties I've thrown.  Sometimes I venture into really 'deep' topics like how women are evil to each other....I will try to entertain and inspire!  I would love to have you as a follower!

 I wanted to be theme-y this year and with a little help from my friends, decided on "Things I Wish I Had Known Before...."

Tonight, A is for Adult.

I wish I had known.....that turning 18 + graduating + getting a job + getting married + babies....doesn't always = Adult

If anyone can tell me what the magic age is when you will truly feel like and adult, please let me know.  I seem to only feel sorta adult-ish at home when I have to be in charge.  At work, and for those of my generation or younger, you can probably relate to this, I always feel like the kid.  I've been at my current job for 8 years......I was in my early twenties when I started there and I'm pretty sure I'm close, if not, exactly the same age as many of my co-workers' kids.  Most of the time, I have no clue what they are going on about when it comes to music, movies, old sayings, etc.  Here's an example: (sorry, Chris T) I forget what we were talking about, but he said "jump the shark".  I just stared.  What the heck???  He had to painfully explain the whole Happy Days saga to me.  Sigh.

Anyway, I'm getting off track.  My words of wisdom for this starter........

If you are a certain youngish-age:  Pay attention, don't be afraid to ask what the heck they are talking about, and don't be afraid to speak up.  They had to work a lot harder than you to learn that click drag &thing and knew what it was to have to write down everything resulting in a great deal of forced memorization of processes, procedures, and the like.  We sorta have it easy the way we can just find anything on google, save it, re-color it, drop it on a PowerPoint and 'ta-da' genius presentation in minutes!

If you are more mature age and work with younger folk, "Please don't mistake our lack of years, for lack of knowledge"  Many of us were born into a time where we had fisher price laptops and full knowledge of every feature and free app by the age of 6.  We can help you simplify!  Also, when you wander off to the wonderful world of retirement, who's in charge then?

Be nice and wonderful and kind to each other, all you peeps of all certain ages!

Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I break open the REAL world of BABIES!!!!!

Women are Wicked......to Each Other

There's been a few articles circling around that really bother me.  One was by a girl of a certain age who decided to wage a little war on young women entering into marriage.  Then, there was a retort by another girl of a certain age.  Both girls’ articles were not the most well written pieces, but they did highlight a significant problem in our society.  Women are wicked to each other.  Plain and simple, we are.  My sister said as much to me one day while I was on a rant about some other woman and it's been with me ever since.

It starts young, too.  Very rarely do we get through a week where there isn't a news story somewhere about some poor little girl being tortured by some 'cool girls'.  I, as a kid, was teased constantly about being the big kid.  I was always taller and bigger and my voice was always deeper.  Then you get to high school girls.  How many scripts-turned-movies have been written about the 4-year hazing ritual that is high school?  Girls are always in competition with each other.  Do they usually just leave it on the field like our simpler counter parts?  Oh no.  We wage war complete with tactical maneuvers of other girls, traps, torture and very rarely does a POW come out 'ok'.  She's permanently damaged no matter how many psychological Band-Aids we try to apply.  

Maybe it's the presence of all those extra brain connections.  I'm not a scientist so I’m not going to start spilling out a bunch of theories here.  

Let's skip college (if you chose to go) altogether since that's just another battlefield.

Ok, real world.  Time to be an adult.  Time to make those big choices in life.

Go to the big city and make it big on your own?

Stay home and marry your high school sweetheart?

Move out and raise that baby on your own?

Get married, travel the world, and never plan to have kids?

Settle down, have a van full of kids?

Be a stay-at-home mom?

Be a working mom?

Break through the glass ceiling?

Try to have it all?

I know I’ve missed a hundred scenarios, however, it doesn't really matter.  No matter how many choices I list and how many you morph through in your life.........according to the female population as a whole..........you'll be WRONG!  The thing is, I think women always wish we had a different choice to make or question our choices so we turn around and defend our position and put down all the others.  We may tolerate those choices similar to ours, but stand two or more women in a room where each has made a choice on completely different ends of the spectrum and there will be tension.  Then we call our best friends later and talk all about that 'Woman!"   How do I know?  I'm guilty of it, quite guilty actually.  I'm the married young, have three kids, and work full time with a stay-at-home hubby and I’m only 32.  Can you guess which woman are my target of choice?  

We need to stop.  We need to support each other.  It takes all sorts of us to make the world work.  Regardless of your personal maternal choice, we are all part of raising the next generation of kick-ass women.  They are watching us and taking their cues from us.  They clue into it early and thus we end up with a bunch of both pretty little bullies and tortured souls.  

Where is it going to end?  When can we step back and realize that it's us against the world?  It's our fault, in a way, though.  We (females) want to be and do so many things and having been oppressed for so long, finally the world said, "Fine!  Have it your way!  Be Everything, NOW!"  And thus, we struggle just to be who we want to be and do what we want to do without the pressures put on us by family, friends, our teachers, co-workers, spouses, our children.....and finally each other.  We can't do it all and we get mad and we turn and lash out at the women who've done the things we couldn't or won't.  Thing is, those same women are looking right back at you thinking the same thing....but opposite.  

So, hear this.  Ladies, Gals, Girls, Women....Be and do so much regardless of if you are 23 or not!

Be a mom.  Be an aunt.  Be a sister.  Be a daughter.  Be a teacher.  Be a student.  Be a spouse.  Be single.  Be a friend.  Be a traveler.  Be a movie watcher.  Be in the PTO.  Be the CEO.  Be a secretary. Be a go-getter.  Be content.  Be a shopper.  Be crafty.  Be a driver.  Be a rider.  Be in charge.  Be a follower.  Be a note taker.  Be a writer.  Be a fighter.  Be at peace.  Be a lover.  Be alone.  Be a reader.  Be quiet.  Be a screamer.  Be a dancer.  Be wild.  Be tame.  Be religious.  Be a questioner.  Be the answer.  Be a pusher.  Be understanding.  Be behind the scenes.  Be a Star.  Be set in your ways.  Be willing to change.  Be, be, be......Be YOURSELF!!  

...and above all, appreciate the beauty of all the choices we, as women have and respect the right every woman has to choose 1 or a 100 in her lifetime and love her for it!

Thanksgiving Prep! - Turkey Army

So excited about Thanksgiving this year!!!  We're having the whole family over to our house!  18 people!  We're making the Turkeys (yes, plural), the stuffing, the gravy, and the rolls.  I also need to put together some nifty delicious appetizers......but food aside.......I'm totally trying to get into the decorating and crafty stuff.  So.......what else do you start with when you have 18 people for dinner than place cards!  I saw some really cute place cards on in the FamilyFun magazine.  Started making them and then re-engineered them to be 'topple-proof',  go me!  An original idea.  Here they are!

So, i started out with just regular card stock and drew some half circles on them.  Then gave the kids 6 colors in orange, reds, and browns and had them use their finger prints to fill in the half circles.  I forgot about taking a picture of them until it was too late to go back, so here is the page with everything already cut out......sorry.

i used some of my fun scissors to cut them out and add more to the feather look.

Then we wrote the names of each of the people on each one.

Then we made big thumb prints using the same paint on another page.  Once again I almost forgot to take pictures.  We cut the thumbs out to use as the faces.  Each one just needs two dots and a little triangle for the beak.

And then this is where I deviated.  The original craft had me painting and glittering (glitterfying, maybe?) clothespins.  Then you're supposed to glue the body to the feathers and clip it into the clothespin and set that up in front of the place setting.  however, my thought is that while that looks/sounds cute, those things are going to just be laying around on their sides with glitter on everything.  So, what could i do that would use something i had around?  Paper towel/toilet paper tubes!  So, we cut them into about 1/2 inch wide rings.  attached them to the feathers.  

 Then attached the little heads to the front.  be amazed! mu ha ha ha!

Behold my army of turkeys!

Bus Driver Appreciation Week!

Go ahead and roll your eyes now.  I got the email from the PTO that this week was Bus Driver Appreciation Week.  I love that stuff!!  Unfortunately, they didn't send it to me until Wednesday in the middle of said week, so I didn't have the opportunity to do a little something each day or to at least start Ms. Terry's week off right.  Oh well.  Do what you can, right?  So, I hit my favorite site and found something cute and do-able with the boy.  Found something, but unfortunately, the blog it came from is by invitation only, so I guessed at most of it and decided to blog it myself.  I got a large chocolate bar and wrapped it in a piece of yellow card stock.  Then we decorated it to look like a bus with a special message!  To be delivered tomorrow morning!

A Boy Moment

Haven't posted in a while, because I haven't really had anything to say, but i do have some pics to share...just a little amusing.

So tired.......

Another great use for the Moby Wrap!  This was not in the instruction book for possible configurations, but we discovered it and thought we'd share!  This works similar to the "get along" shirt.  Happy wrapping!

Pumpkin Chicken Stew

So, I was in the mood for something seasonal and on a whim I bought 2 cans of pumpkin puree.  What to do?  What to do?  Oh yeah, consult Pintrest.  Accept, everything i found had ingredients I didn't currently have and I'm sick right now, so I'm not going out.  After a little browsing, i figured, what the heck, I'll put a bunch of stuff in the crock pot and see what happens.  Turned out pretty good.  The hubby, of course, needed some salt, but said it was pretty good.

All amounts are subject to whatever you have in your fridge/freezer, so I'll just say what i put in, but do what you want!

3 ears corn - kernels cut off (canned or frozen would probably be just fine, but i had this frozen from the summer)
4 carrots
1 big squash
half a bag of frozen peas
mushrooms
1 onion
1 can pumpkin
1 can diced tomatoes
salt
garlic powder
oregano
chili powder
half a box of turkey stock
cooked rice
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

slice, cut, chop up all the veggies.  Put them in the crock pot.  Place the chicken breasts on top.  pour the tomatoes and pumpkin over the top.  add the spices/seasonings.  Pour the stock over everything.  Turn on high for 4-5 hours.  Turn/stir occasionally.  the chicken will start to fall apart by the time you are ready to serve.  Serve over rice.

Angry Birds Birthday!

My Mikey (wants to be called Michael now, but Mommy just can't seem to remember) turned 6 today!  Last year he chose Angry Birds for his theme, so all year we've been saving boxes and planning towards this big day.  I think it went pretty well and was a perfect excuse for some little boys (and some big boys!) to take out some aggression and expend some energy too!  As usual, I'll explain what I did with the pics.

 Started collecting boxes......a year ago.  This is the only pic that came out, so you are only getting to see a very small pile.......we had 23 boxes, in the end, designated for angry birds

...And i started wrapping.  Now, I've had a bit of time on my hands being on maternity leave, however, it still took me a few days.  Very therapeutic actually, turn on Rachel or The View and just start wrapping.  I wanted them to look like the game pieces somewhat, so we wrapped them in brown packing paper.  I'd suggest going to staples instead of the post office for the paper.  About $5 a roll and i used almost 3 rolls.  The post office has it for much more and a lot less on the roll.

The pigs...what to use? what to use?  Well, how about gallon milk jugs since my family goes through 2-3 a week.

Paint them green.  There has been some discussion as to whether this was the appropriate shade of green, however, it's the color I had leftover from the boys' wall murals.....so camo-yucky green it is.


let dry and then draw on faces.  ta-da!


For the birds, we decided 3 red birds was perfectly fine.  No need to go crazy with all the different types.  We found these balls at Five Below.  They are the kind i remember from gym class.  Plain old smelly rubber balls.  I painted the white part and used a black sharpie for the rest of the face.

PLAY TIME!!

We started out with the idea that an adult would build the first set with 6 boxes.  Then Mikey, birthday boy, would take his turn and throw all 3 balls.  Then he would get to choose any 6 boxes and build for the next kid and so on and so forth.....this worked......for a while...

 

 Then the dads got involved and decided it wasn't challenging enough and we needed to try to use all 23 boxes each time...........I have to admit, this at least allowed for much better pics!!

 

Food:  usually I go all out on food.  However, this time, having just had a baby, we kept it simple.  Decided to go with pizza and snacky food.  Mikey actually had a school math project to plan a party on $45.  he had to go through store adds and figure out what he could get.  he did pretty well, but whoever set that assignment definitely intended for an Aldi shopper! (good thing we are).  So, pizza, BBQ cocktail franks, Doritos, cheese puffs, carrots, and root beer and orange ice cream floats.

The cake was done by my fabulous sister!  It was a green pig and super cute!  Apparently, though, a picture of it was not taken with my camera, so i will need to wait for the pics to be uploaded by someone else.  So, to be posted!