#Thisis40

#Thisis40 is this year's theme. My friends, my husband, his friends, and I are mostly all turning 40. To be honest, most of the time I am surprised that I am this old. Age has never been a worry for me. I have always loved my birthday and still do. But when I take the time to reflect and consider I am 40, I earnestly have that moment where I think "How the hell did that happen?" I am getting more and more gray hairs, while at times it occurs to me that I should consider how to gray gracefully because I am never going to be any good at getting my hair colored, most of the time I don't care. I feel like I should start moisturizing and stop washing my face with regular soap, but still not motivated enough to decode that aisle at Target. Even though my bestie has been telling me for years that my skin will end up falling off or something. Somethings don't really change.

By far the greatest thing about being 40 is being really okay with exactly who you are. At least that is the way I feel. That doesn't mean that I don't have the occasional self-doubt, afterall, I am human, but rather I am more able to tread through those moments, thankfully. And I am much more comfortable with disagreeing with popular opinion. Like I don't really like mimosas, or pie. I don't care for high heels or closed toed shoes even when it's cold out. I like to read young adult novels because I can read them fast and then I feel accomplished. I can be really lazy, like not get out of your pjs all day and answer the door to a stranger in pjs kind of lazy. I still would sleep until noon if people let me. I floss. I feel pretty superior because I do, since most people don't.

I don't like baths. I don't like the idea of sitting in my dirty bath water. I always feel like I must shower afterwards because I feel the thin layer of soapy murk all over. Most of my life I have had long hair and if I don't condition it, it will be knotty and dipping my whole head in a bath tub of dirty water to potentially rinse the conditioner out is just crazy talk.

I don't want to be in a crowded loud smoky bar. There was a time and place for that in my 20's, but nowadays, if the good Lord has granted me the opportunity to go out to have a drink with friends, I want it to be some where I can hear what they are saying and enjoy connecting with them. I don't want to be squished between the 22 year olds, you know the one with the way too short skirt and way too high platform shoe wearing that is pressing her whole self on the bar to encourage rapid drink fulfillment and the other one wearing a baseball cap, slightly baggy jeans, a polo shirt, sipping on his Bud Light while drooling over the how much he can visually consume of the girl pressed on the bar. I just want to hang out with friends and catch up.

I would rather listen to NPR (or any other talk radio thanks to Sirus XM) than music in the car. There is no longer a need for me to roll down the windows with my sunglasses, hair flying in the wind, bopping my head to the beat (and if you know me, off beat) all along blasting music to feel cool. I am only so cool, and I am okay with that. What I find to be infinitely more interesting is what is happening in the world around me and the only opportunity I have to figure that out, is in the car.

I like food. I work hard to be healthy. I exercise. I am not an overeater. I eat vegetables. I understand the great lessons of the Buddha and Aristotle that most things in moderation; balanced, is the ideal. But sometimes I want to eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's and gosh, I think at 40 I deserve to. I just need not give myself the emotional guilt trip of doing so. Do I do it often? No. Can I remember the last time I ate entire pint of ice cream? Nope. But I want to reserve the right to do so, whenever my heart desires. 

I have opinions about things in the world and I am willing to share them. I don't assume that someone is going to change their minds or their hearts. However, at this point, I don't want anyone thinking they are going to change my mind either. I am who I am. I am always willing to listen and to empathize, but I will only join the crusades that I feel are right. At 40, I am not putting on a facade for anyone. You get whatcha get. You either dig it, or you don't. That's cool. Seriously, it's cool.

I feel lucky to have two amazing parents, an awesome husband, and my beautiful daughters. Plus wonderful friends, sweet in-laws, and I have a job I love with the greatest colleagues. I live in a neighborhood filled with great people in a house that I enjoy. I am #blessed. #Thisis40.

Lean In

Recently, I read an yet another parenting article where the author gave great practical doable advice about reducing your daily parenting stress and keeping up with the daily things like making dinner, getting the kids dressed and doing one daily chore around the house. As I skimmed it, I realized I already do all of those things and still I feel parenting stress. My two year has spent a week eating nothing but pretzels and pickles. Nothing works. No positive reinforcements, no negative reinforcements, and no bribe has been alluring enough to convince her otherwise. She has dug her heals in and pickles and pretzels are it. The parenting stress has peeked and I can chose to handle in two ways:

1. I can follow her around the house with a variety of food choices, fork in hand and pray for the miracle of her giving in and eating something slightly more nutritious.

                                                                                 or

2. I can let it go (you may add the Frozen tune here if you like or let that go too.) Chances are that my two year old will all on her own want to broaden her pallet and try something different.

I opt for #2. I call this Leaning In. My second child has given me the greatest gift of awareness and parenting skill I could ever imagine: learn to pick your battles. Most of us moms have already consider what the tween and teen years may bring and we have heard this idea of picking battles with hair styles or clothing styles with our future 15 year olds but the thought doesn't occur to us when juggling our preschoolers. If they want to wear dirty pajamas, why not? If they want to wear sandals with socks, why not? If they want to wear everything blue and pick out what character on their diaper, I say LEAN IN. These are not the fights.

My parenting goals are that our children grow up to be kind, respectful, hard working members of society. Lean in. Let things go. And do it often.

We are lucky enough to live close to the beach. Beach trips typically take a lot of preparation with kids. You must remember the sand toys, the snacks, the towels, the blanket, the sunscreen, the drinks, etc. Sometimes the idea of packing it all up is exhausting, instead I take them to the park which they love and requires no prep on my part. However, upon recent reflection I considered that perhaps the complications were mine. The kids love the beach. They won't care if I forget something. I threw some sand toys in a bag along with a couple of juice boxes, grabbed the sunscreen and a blanket and away we went. For two solid hours the kids played. They ran up and down the shoreline, hunted for shells, created castles and instantly smashed them. By the end of excursion, they had gotten a little more wet than I expected since the water was still freezing it didn't cross my mind they would want to get in to it. I didn't bring back up clothes. When we were ready to leave. I pulled off their shorts, wiped off their sandy feet with the sandy blanket and we trotted off to 7-11 to get a post beach slurpee.

I didn't worry about the sand in the car. I didn't worry about the pant-less children in the convenience store. I worried about making lasting memories with my kids and appreciating their childhoods as deeply and thoughtfully as I could that day. I say Lean In! Allow some chaos. Allow piles of dirty laundry or heck all piles of freshly folded laundry! Don't let your stress become their memories.

A Collection of Random Ideas and Little Crafts

I was looking for some art for the  girls playroom. I didn't really want to spend any money. Lying around my garage was an old cheesy painting of of a women playing the guitar in a cool old green frame. I had some chalkboard paint lying around. I painted over the guitarist with 2 coats and turned it into a chalkboard. Using colored chalk I wrote on it what you see below. I worked out perfectly. It's placed somewhere the girls can reach it so it will remain like this for awhile. Eventually I can take it down let the girls use it or draw something new. Easy to do, less than $5.
Lydia is loves butterflies so I cut a paper plate up to look like one. I let her use the glitter glue and pom poms we had. It was an easy craft. Quick to do but tough to finish because we had to wait for the glue to dry repeatedly to be able to do the next part of it. So we had to let the head pom dry before we added a face which also had to dry before we added the antlers. It's a tough task for a 3 year old to wait.


Obviously you see what I mean about butterflies. I bought these a while ago at the dollar store. I believe there were 4 in a packet. I let both girls (ages 1 and 3) paint them as they saw fit, but then there was nothing else to do with them. I could have added them to anything really, but I chose to glue them to clothes pins. I use them to close chip bags and to hang kid art on our display line provided by Ikea.

The last completely random mom artsy moment was this set of dice. Eliot brought home a couple of boxes that were almost perfect cubes. I taped them up and spray painted them white. I used sharpies to make them sort of like dice. Instead of the normal dots I made each side with different shapes. So we can throw the dice and count the squares, then the circles and then all the shapes. I found a couple of dice games with fun printables, so Lydia can practice counting and then match the total with the actual number. We play bingo with them. She counts, finds the right correlation and then place a coin on it. We fill the sheet. It's easy. And fun and once we get bored of the giant dice we will recycle them, a nice Earth Day project for sure.

Summer List of Things to DO

 

Summer Bucket List for 2014. 

35 ideas and things to do locally and at home with my girls, one is almost 4 and the other almost 2. Most of these are free and the couple that have admissions costs are less than $30. You can't beat it. 

I am lucky enough to work at an independent school that has great opportunities for the summer. Lydia will attend a fine arts camp for two weeks half days while I am teaching for a couple of weeks. We will take advantage of our church family VBS this year too, which will be just a few days in the evening, since we have already made plans for the traditional VBS times.

We will also go on vacation for a few weeks to Tennessee to be in the mountains and see friends. So we will be on the go, as always but I also love the days that we get to be home, and this is what the bucket list is for. Fun summer days and rainy summer days where you can find something new and special to do. I labeled the ideas that can be done on rainy days since there are plenty of them in Florida. 

1. Roast Marshmallows. We have a fire pit outside. We were thinking we could roast marshmallows with the girls and make s'mores in our backyard.
2. Road trips: Orlando, Chattanooga, Knoxville and Jensen Beach. We are still hoping to get the most out of our Disney Passes so we have on the calendar at least one trip to Orlando. We are going to vacation in Chattanooga and see friends in Knoxville and then spend a couple of days at Jensen Beach, to rest and relax.
3. Library. One of my frustrations is always that the Children's programs at the public library tend to mirror the school calendar so when I am free they are vacationing which is fair, I suppose but I hope to take Vivian at least a couple of times to the library. Free. 
4. Bayside Gymnastics Open Gym Time. This local gymnastics establishment is not only owned by someone I went to high school with but Lydia has taken several classes there. It's a great establishment and even though their summer open gym time can be nutty, I think it's an easy thing to do with the girls when we want to get out of the house. For both girls $10.
5. Pool. Lydia know how to swim and Vivian is taking lessons. I am excited about moving into a pool-tastic summer. Last year the pool thing was still a lot of work. Lydia wasn't a big fan and Vivian you had to hold or put into the floaty device. Lydia can swim well now, so we are hoping that will add more fun less work. 
6. Little pool slide. This is simple. Take a small blow up pool and put it at the bottom of you playset slide. Instant water slide.
7. Mudpies. On the day we do the little pool slide I figure would be the day to make mudpies. Messy and clean all at once. Chances are there will be little clean, but here is hoping.
8. Tea party. I wanted to have a fancy tea party for summer fun. Little muffins, little sandwiches, fancy cups and plates and dress for the occasion. I think it will adorable. rain
9. Make jello aquariums. There are gummy snacks that have fish and we will make blue jello and put them in clear containers as a fun snack and dessert. rain
10. Root beer float. Giant frozen mugs, ice cream and root beer. Also a fun summer treat. rain
11. Paper roll road map. I keep having this thought. We have long hallways at our house. I think I can take paper from the easel roll and roll it down the hallway. I thought I could draw some things on it and have them draw some roads and play with cars. rain
12. Obstacle course. My vision of this is things to jump over, things to crawl under, things to do along the way. I think this will work indoors or outdoors depending on your home and your willingness to make things chaotic. rain
13. Outdoor fort/tents. The new play set has space underneath it where you can clearly tie sheets and create a tent. Recently we cleared out our linen closet so we are very prepared for sheets to hang all over the backyard.
14. Make bird feeders/bird bath. I fear that these projects will bring bird poop into my yard as well but since we have already been spending a lot of time in the backyard I have seen bluebirds, robins and hummingbirds. It would be fun for them to be a little closer. 
    
15. Sprinkler fun. Simple. Old School.
16. Splash park. My girls have never really liked splash parks something about the water in their face but I like to try it at least once a season. 
17. Kite flying. Simple. Old School. Kite are pretty cheap. Dollar Store for sure, we have a couple from Walmart that I think were a couple of dollars. All you need is a field or front yard with some space. 
18. Little Kid Yoga. I love yoga. At one point in my life I practiced every week and it was genuinely fulfilling. Since then it's been hard to fit it in. I think Lydia would enjoy doing some position and so will Vivian so I ordered a book about yoga for kids. Book $12. rain
19. Soccer game or baseball game. The Rowdies are back and so are The Rays, we haven't taken the girls to a professional game and it just may be a ton of fun to do it. Prices vary. 
20. Scavenger Hunt. Hide stuff, make the find it. rain
21. Make pizzas. We would get pre-made dough have the girls make pizza. A little sauce spread around, cheese sprinkled on, maybe mushrooms. rain
22. Get Sea shells. Lydia loves to find sea shells, so I thought it would be fun to go to the beach just to do that. We would take "hunting" gear. We would be on a search for just shells like explorers. 
23. Paint Sea shells. Once we got our shells we would paint them. It would be fun to do. We are about painting just about anything. If I give them small brushes they like the fancy feel of this type of painting. rain
24. Sunset. A lot of the time we catch the sunset on drives from point A to point B. I would like to take the girls to the beach to see the full on experience. 
25. Beach 3x Eliot and I are lazy beach people because we have always lived by the beach and well it takes a lot of effort. The girls on the other hand love the beach. My goal is to make to the beach at least 3 times this season for them. 
26. Ft Desoto Park I have been to the Fort itself in years. I think it would be fun to go check it out. $5 toll to get out there. 
27. Tin foil river Another backyard idea taking a roll of tin foil and making a river through the yard filled with water. Random silly fun. 
    
28. Weaving with paper  Imagine painting paper then cutting them into strips to weave them. I am not sure at all how this will go with Lydia but I think it has the potential of being kind of cool. rain
29. Sewing with yarn and paper plate Another craft as a pre-sewing activity. Punch holes in a paper plate and have her make a design with yarn colors. rain
30. Spaghetti painting. I have been waiting to do this for a couple of years now. Make spaghetti and let the kids dip it in paint and paint with it. It is clearly the messiest thing in the whole world, so I have to gear up but I think it could be really fun. rain
31. Shaving cream designs. Cheap shaving cream and a cookie sheet. Let them have some sensory play. I was thinking of filling up the water table with it too, see what happens. 
32. Tube wall. I have seen this a couple of times now, using tubes from paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls. Using paint tape you position the tubes all over and some what connecting. Then roll marbles or other small balls through them. rain
33. 4th July crafts and World Cup crafts! The World Cup is serious in our house. So there will be more to come for this item, but for now the idea is watch, play, dream soccer and add a few kid crafts to the even rain
34.  Dinosaur World a Florida delight! I think. I want to know. $15 for adults, $12 for 3 and older. 
35. Old Mickey's Farm This is a local farm with farm animals. You can visit there for the day. Milk cows, pet goats, you know your average farm visit activities. $20 for me and Lydia, Vivian is still free.

Totally Awesome Cheap Kid Backyard

Slowly we have been working on our backyard. It is small. We are lucky enough to have a pool but it's actually positioned in the middle of our house. This was a really highlight for me, because I always thought that the girls would be able to play in our backyard without worry of the pool. The swampland of our backyard and drainage issues, have been a significant hurdle. Over the last year, we have been working on that. After two years, we can hang out in our backyard. I have diligently been looking at Pinterest for various ideas on what to do in small spaces that is inexpensive and kid oriented.

First of all, I wanted them to have a play set of some kind. We were looking at many different types, but with a small space it's hard to really  know what to do. I kept my eye on Craigslist. I knew we didn't want to spend a lot of money and the wooden play-sets are expensive. On the low end, they are close to $600. I found a relatively small one for $100. We went and measure it, then Eliot and his dad went took it apart in chunks and put it back together in our yard. We purchased a couple new swings, new screws and bolts and added a coat of wood finish to protect it.

The playhouses were a similar story. These things are crazy expensive brand new, some of them range close to $400, even the second hand stores were selling them for $200 which technically is half price. I just looked on Craigslist for almost 8 weeks. I found one that was terribly beat down, everything faded for $20, I spray painted  it bright solid colors and it looks lovely. We found the other one for $30 in really great condition.

The sand boxes were also second hand and so was the kid picnic table my in-laws got the girls which is great to outdoor mess activities and fun lunches. I placed the old play kitchen outside as a mud pie station for the future, when I am ready to commit to a mud day.

On Pinterest I saw a couple of really easy things that I knew I needed to do. One was spray painting stepping stones. We had a stack that happen to come with the house, so I just used the extra spray paint I had to rainbow it up. The girls love those things, more than I would have guessed. They jump from one to the next over and over. I also saw a chalkboard screwed to the fence which seemed adorable to me. Most of the links lead to really complex and expensive directions for this project. My original plan was to go to Home Depot and purchase chalkboard paint and a piece of wood which roughly would have been about $50, then we found a pre-made chalkboard. It is about 4 feet by 2 feet and it was being sold as an outdoor sign option, it was $9.97. We pre-drilled the holes and attached it to the fence. I added a dollar store bucket with rope next to it, we drilled a couple of holes in that too and poof $11 for the same effect. We figured for this price point, we could replace it in the future if we wanted with very little effort or even add another one.

The piece that I was most excited about was the fairy garden. I was going to wait until the summer, but decided why not now. I planted a couple of herbs which I have been wanting to do for a long while and bought a couple of dollar flowers. I let Lydia pick them out. The bucket was a Walmart find for $5 (meant for a drink container at parties I drilled holes in the bottom) which was a fourth of the price of some of the flower pots that I was looking at. At Walmart I found a Fairy Garden kit which I could pass up for $12. We planted the flowers together, she added all the kit elements, and daddy moved it to the back yard so we could take care of it. I hope for her to make a fairy house this summer to add to it too.

That is basically it. I found $1 buckets and bowls at the dollar store to stick in the cubies of some old shelves that were laying around outside anyway so I put them on their sides. The buckets have shovels, some have rocks, some have other sand toys but they are to be played with as they see fit. The grown up part of the yard at this point is just a couple of chairs and umbrella for the sun and a fire pit for the evenings. Eventually we would like to add a couple more chairs and the hammock we bought on our honeymoon that we have never hung up. Right now this is a great play space and I am so excited to be able to open the backdoor and not worry about them. They can play while I get dinner ready. They can play while I work on the computer right inside. It's ideal. A great fun space for less than $300 including paints and additional accessories.

Playroom Order

We are lucky to have a playroom. It is perfectly located next to the family room. It will likely some day be a guest room (or craft room if I get my way) but for now it is filled with Ikea furniture that holds all the toys. Neither girl has toys in their room at this point, (which will likely change in a couple of weeks) but for now just books.




Since this room has a door I could close it and ignore what's inside. However I don't do that at all. I have organized the bejesus out of it. Everything has a place most things had sticker labels for pictorial reference (until Vivi realized they we removable.) I try to consider what the area would best be used for and place accordingly. For example next to the kitchen is a couple of cubes of storage that have all the kitchen items, food, pots and pans and such. There is a puzzle section, dress up, cars, princesses, etc.




My daughters are very fortunate and have an abundance. The room is well used and thus sometimes there is a need for little people to be in the (play) microwave because they were "hiding" or "hungry." Sometimes Mickey needs to be in the ball box because he wanted to "play soccer." These sort of things just happen.




My problem is that I really enjoy having everything in the "right" place. My compulsion is to put it back. Most of the time I do. Hours of life given to cleaning up this one room. It takes a lot of will power, focus and control not to have the immediate gratification of having a place for everything and all of those things in their place.
The room is well played in. My girls have a vivid and healthy imagination which should be encouraged. My new mom mantra is:
Playroom doesn't have to be in perfect order
Playroom doesn't have to be on perfect order
Playroom doesn't have to be in perfect order
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Vivian's First Birthday

Our little one has turned one! She is the most delightful happy smart baby and I'm so deeply thankful I am her mom. For her for her birthday we decided to have a circus theme!

What I have learned now from being a mom for 3 years is that birthday parties are fun but they are even more fun when you keep it simple stupid. For Lydia's first we invited every person we loved in the world. It was too much. It was too much for her. She did great but it was too busy for a one year old. This time we kept everything significantly smaller.

However, I love throwing kid parties. I love the themes. I love the chance to get people together. The way I see it you only have a handful of years to do it before your little one doesn't want a party anymore or they would rather have a fun activity with specific friends.

I dressed Vivi up like a little clown in the pictures above for the invite. I just bought the tie and used lip stick for the nose. I didn't really over think the outfit itself. I snapped a million pictures and those were two of my favorites.

We kept the food simple. Eliot's mom made a great pasta salad and my dad made empanadas. He ended up making over 80 of them for our small party! I had seen this snack mix on pinterest and it had a great free printable. We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the shape of elephants. The kids loved them! I picked out a 3 Ring Circus cake from Publix and they actually include a smash cake for free decorated in a similar style as the cake selected for $25 why would I make it?

In terms of décor I didn't do too much. I had a Happy Birthday banner and table cloth in the circus theme that I got very discounted at Target. I made signs on the computer in circus colors as well as a flyer for Vivi's stats. I was inspired by a cool new trend I saw on chalk boards that were set up at parties. But I didn't have the chalkboard and I figured I could save it and add it to the scrapbook. I love balloons, so got a few and put them around the house. To me balloons means festive.

For Lydia I made everything by hand from scratch and took months, I wanted to be sure to be as thoughtful but less work, so I ordered a simple paper banner from Amazon, the Martha Stewart collection and glued Vivi's monthly growth pictures. I purchased a make your own banner kit so I could put up her name but I can use it for any event in the future. I had collected circus bags from Michaels for the goodies bags which contained, animal crackers, circus stamps, punchy balloon and bubbles.

Outside we had a handful of games set up. We had a bean bag throw, ring toss, knock the cans, the piñata, fishing games, and the sand & water table. We had a sno cone machine that we brought out because, really why not. To be honest it was nice however it was terribly hot outside. We managed to have everyone popping in and out fairly comfortably.

The games I just put together. The ring toss was a set of water rings with baby cereal containers. We filled the containers with rocks and drew silly faces.
Bean Bag toss, well I had bean bags you can make those too if you like but I didn't. I did just right scores on plates that were weighed down with rocks and it worked like skee ball.

The knock a can I unwrapped 5 cans, wrote what they were on the bottom, so I could use after the party, put them a small table and that was that.

We created a baby toddler friendly "circus" inside. I purchased a circus tent from Ikea, and a floor cushion that looks like an elephant. We had a crawling tube and a riding horse (thanks to Grandpa) that we included and he last "circus" item was a small blow up pool with balls in it. It was a hit! Kids from age 8 to 12 months enjoyed it!

The inspiration for this party was this wooden cut out of a clown. My mom has always loved clowns and she actually dressed up as one and let the kids wear different parts of her outfit. They loved the surprise and the pure silliness. This sign was outside of a neighbors house in the alley of our old house. I asked if I could have it and they gave it to me. I meant to turn it into more of a photo booth but didn't get a chance. It was a great day and Vivian enjoyed her party a lot. It really was a special day.
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