I'm one of the SISTERS!!

When I was growing up my cousins (on my dad's side) all lived on my street. Though a few of them moved away, most of us stayed put in Hooper and became the best of friends. (I did a post about Rindi a long time ago here...) One of the families has SEVEN girls and one boy. Those seven sisters are like my very own... oh, how I LOVE them all!!

They recently started a blog called "The Saga of Seven Sisters". It's funny and sweet and real and I love it because their lives are like my life! Today they are letting me do a guest post and I am so thrilled! Go check it out HERE and make sure to leave me a comment so I know you were there!!

Two Heads…

One of my favorite things about having twins is how they play together and love each other. They entertain each other a lot of the time and do almost everything together. Which can also be sort of a bad thing sometimes…

 

Me (rubbing Zack’s head): Uhmmmm… buddy, did you cut your hair?

Zack: Yeah, me AND Abby did it (as if that makes it better).

Me: Guys, what did you do with the hair?

Them (at the exact same time): Put it under the couch.

Zack: Would you not be so mad at us if you didn’t find it?

Sometimes the ideas combined from two little heads are NOT better than one!

You’re a mom like me if…

Back when I was only an aspiring blogger I worked up a post on paper. I was sure that it was going to be my very first post and it was going to be BRILLIANT! I would think of things as I was doing dishes and add them to a list magneted to my fridge. I was cleaning through and old stack of papers today and found that old rough draft blog post and I decided to finally post it. I’ve included some of my favorite random pictures from those crazy days.

When I made this little list FOUR YEARS ago Lila was about 2 ½ and Abby and Zack were about 6 months old… life at my house was chaos. Literally.

“You’re a mom like me if…”

- Every time you pick up the house your child asks you who’s coming over!

- You use a sippy cup (the last clean one) to get a drink because there are no more clean dishes. Or you forget the cup all together and just drink out of the sink.

- You throw things away (bibs, casserole dishes, Tupperware) rather than deal with washing them (generally after an extended stay on the dirty counter)

- Each load of your laundry gets washed four times because you never remember to switch it to the dryer.

- Your kids aren’t hungry because “lunch” off of the floor around the high chairs fills them up.

- A bath is considered cleaning the tub.

- You measure whether a shirt is ok to wear by asking yourself if someone could believe this food, snot, spit up, etc. (or all of the above) got on you after you left the house.

- Your kids look at you weird when you do your hair or makeup.

- Your kid says “mommy, what’s that” when she sees your hair dryer!!

- Laundry NEVER makes it to the drawers.

- You rewash laundry because it is so wrinkled from sitting in the basket that you might as well just start over!

- You get to the grocery store parking lot and turn around and go home because the thought of going in with 3 little kids makes you want to cry. You do this more than once.

- The next person to tell you you’ve got your hands full might get an ear full.

- Your kid spits something out and you would rather eat it than go find a garbage.

- You are so tired that you only realize after eating half of your PBJ that the bread is moldy and you seriously consider whether or not to keep eating…

- Blogging is your reward.

- You just leave holiday decorations (like Easter) up all year because by the time you go to take them down it is almost time to put them up again.

- Milk on sale gets you really excited.

- Half of your wardrobe came from Costco (and the other half came from Walmart/Target).

- Every time you get your kids dressed out of their jammies they ask “mommy, where are we going”. Your babies look at you funny and try to grab your hair when it is not in a ponytail.

- On the day you actually do get ready your daughter insists “no Mommy, it HAS to be in a pony!” as if that is your standard uniform!

- Your hair dryer breaks and you don’t miss it.

- You get your hair cut and no one notices for months because it is always pulled back.

- Your standard answer of “I’m fine…” is only true 1% of the time… you’re right on the edge of sanity.

- The toilet/bathroom will be called “the potty” forever.

- You can’t afford to get sick.

- You love your kids like crazy.

- While doing dishes you think, “when did we have spaghetti?” Answer… A LONG TIME AGO!!!

- One of your very best friends is 3 feet tall and you never knew you could laugh so hard at such a little person.

- The smile of a baby makes all the stress ok.

- Your favorite sound in the whole word is your child’s laugh.

Dandelions

With the awesome explosion of Spring lately, my kids have renewed their fascination with dandelions.

A few years ago my mom took the kids shopping right before Mothers Day and let them pick out anything they wanted for me. Lila picked out these cute little vases and these days they are constantly filled with the little (wilting) yellow treasures.

I’ve been thinking about these little yellow “weeds” a bit lately.

I can’t help but remember a poem I wrote in 1995, back when I used to fancy myself a poet. I dug my old poetry scrapbook out today. It’s a simple little poem, but I thought I’d share my little treasure with you.

DANDELION
those little yellow tokens of love
are just weeds,
to the ignorant.
but in the eyes of a child,
they are priceless,
gifts from God
for a loving mother.

-by Emily Haws
April 30, 1995

From our Bunnies

Happy Easter!

From our bunnies to yours!

Love, Us

p.s. click here to see a great video about what Easter is REALLY about!
It gives me chills and I know it is true!!

Bird Cookies

One more for Corduroy Dreams...

Yesterday our “eggtivity” was to whip up a little love for the birds in our lives. We live in the North East and I am amazed at the things that live in our backyard. We have woodpeckers, red birds, yellow birds, blue ones… (I’m ashamed to admit that I actually DID take a bird watching Zoology class in college and I used to know the difference between a finch and a swallow. Not so much anymore.) Anyway, the point is we’ve got company out our windows so I have been plotting some kind of bird activity for a while. I didn’t really want to do the pine cone birdseed thing so when I saw this idea I wanted to give it a try.

Alex (19 months) kept walking around calling these “cookies” so we named them “bird cookies”. We got 10 out of this recipe.

“Bird Cookies” (recipe from intimateweddings.com)

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup water

1 envelope unflavored gelatin (2.5 teaspoons)

3 tablespoons corn syrup

4 cups birdseed

Mix everything BUT the birdseed. Add the birdseed and stir well.

(I accidentally just poured it all into the bowl and mixed it up at once. I think it worked fine, but I think it might be best if the gelatin dissolves in the water first… just an idea.)

Pick out your favorite cookie cutters. We used an egg, a bunny, a tulip, and a star. Spray the inside with cooking spray and place on parchment paper. Fill your cookie cutter with the gooey birdseed mixture. Spray your hands with cooking spray (this is really important because that birdseed sticks like crazy.)

Use those little fingers at your disposal to really smash that birdseed in.

These are the cubby fingers of my 19 month old little man.

Make a hole using a straw or a chopstick or a skewer or stick or pencil… anything, really…

Abby is demonstrating here before the birdseed is in, but really you have to do it after you’ve got all the seed in.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can sample the birdseed like my Zack (who won’t even taste spaghetti or alfredo but he WANTS try birdseed… go figure!)

He thought it was about as nasty as spaghetti…

Let the bird cookies dry overnight.

Then add jute or ribbon or string and hang.

As we were making these, Zack said “HEY! We’re being nice to the BIRDS!!!”

This isn’t Mickey Mouse… it’s an upside down bunny head…

And you may have to be creative to get them into the trees…

One tip, put the hole as close to the middle as you can. Though most of them withstood being carried around by my baby, they will break off of the ribbon if the hole is too close to the edge!

Now I just need to go research those birds that will be coming to visit!!

Don’t Eat Pete Update

We played Don’t Eat Pete again today and I had a genius idea I had to share. I was getting annoyed that the eggs kept rolling away but the kids were having so much fun with the eggs they didn’t want to play it without them. We were also having a hard time figuring out which squares had been eaten because they were putting the egg back on it’s square.

So, I tore the eggs in half (or if your eggs aren’t hooked together you could just use the one half) and we hid the treat underneath. Then when they had eaten that treat they just set it to the side. Perfection!

I took this with my cell phone in case my description didn’t make sense…

“Don’t Eat Pete" Easter Style!

another one for Natalie...

Have you ever played “Don’t Eat Pete”… it is so simple but the kids absolutely LOVE it. LOVE. This morning I was trying to come up with an “eggtivity” and I realized I could capitalize on the love of “Pete” for this holiday.

The directions are simple. Here’s the adapted directions for my Easter purposes.

Take a piece of poster board or paper. You can do it on a regular piece of paper but I happened to have this poster board lying around. There is a regular “Don’t Eat Pete” game on the back that we used for a birthday party. If you wanted to decorate each square with cute eggs or bunnies you totally could. I don’t have that much energy today! Really, the size of the board doesn’t matter. (Here is a cute variation that you could use as well.)

Draw lines to make nine squares. Put an egg on each square. Each egg should have one piece of candy or cereal inside. (For “normal” Pete you just put the candy or cereal right on the square.)

Have one child leave the room. The other kids then decide which square will be “Easter” or “Pete”. (Really, you could call it whatever you want. If you think of something more clever, send me a note so I can copy you!)

Bring the first child back into the room. They choose one square at a time and eat the candy from that square. For this Easter version they will have to open the eggs to get to the candy. As soon as the child (or adult!!) opens the chosen egg everyone else yells “DON’T EAT EASTER”!!! If you are doing this without the eggs you just scream as soon as they touch “Pete”.)

Their turn is then over and the next person leaves the room and the fun just starts all over again!

For some reason, the kids think this is hilarious. Especially if Daddy is playing!

(this picture is from Lila’s birthday party. You can see that the regular Pete board just has random animal pictures. Really, you could adapt it to any theme… princesses, pirates… the possibilities are endless!)

Now hop to it and make your own Easter Pete game. You won’t be sorry (well… you might be sorry after you have had to play a thousand times, but your kids definitely won’t be sorry.)

edit: check out the update I posted here!

You’ve Been Egged…

This is another post I did for Corduroy Dreams.

One of our big activities for the Easter Countdown was to “Egg” our friends. I got the idea from eighteen25 (again). I actually had this be two countdown days worth of activities. The first day we bought treats, tiny toys, and eggs and got everything ready. I imagined having to fill up most of the eggs by myself, but the kids were totally able to do it.

I had some non candy things (bubbles, tattoos, toy rings, bouncy balls, etc.) that I separated into Ziploc bags once they were inside the eggs. We were “egging” multiple families and I wanted to make sure that everyone got a little something.

The second day (when daddy was home to assist in our getaway) we did the actual egging.

It was like a reverse Easter egg hunt. I put the eggs in their buckets and then they “hid” them around the yard.

We left the cutest sign (found here on eighteen25) on their door to let them know that they had been “egged” and then we hopped in our getaway car and drove off.

I explained to the kids how some people “egg” houses with real eggs and it is mean. Zack could not stop talking about how people throw ROTTEN (he added that part) eggs at people’s houses. The kids thought that when our friends saw our sign they would think we had thrown eggs all over their house and they would be soooo mad… of course, this idea was hilarious to them!

The goal was to be super sneaky but we were discovered on 4 of our 5 deliveries!! The kids had a BLAST and couldn’t stop talking about how “eggcited” their friends would be when they found the eggs.

This is definitely becoming an Easter tradition around here!! Now go find someone YOU can egg!!