Little J's 3rd Birthday

As most parents or small children probably know there is a cartoon on Nick Jr called Mike The Knight. It is about a little boy in medieval times named Mike who is a knight (technically he is a prince) and his adventures with his horse Galahad, dragon buddies Sparky and Squirt, his sister Evie, and various other characters. Each episode starts with Mike on a "mission" about halfway through Mike realizes his mistakes and proclaims "Time to be a knight and do it right!" at which point he proceeds to handle the mission the way it should be done.

My 3 year old ADORES this show. For his 3rd birthday we had a hard time picking a theme. Thanks to PartyCity.com I found a few things Mike and then was able to round out using Etsy, Ebay, NickJr.com, Oriental Trading, and Amazon. More than half this party had to be crafted.

One of the problems I faced was that living in a small town in Wisconsin there isn't a lot of choices for birthday party venues and typically by mid-November it is too cold and wet/snowy to be outside. So I had to come up with activities to do indoors.

Hubby drew Galahad out for me and then I cut out brown felt "tails" for Pin the Tail on Galahad.

 We also had Decorate Your Own Shield. I took the 11x14 inch sheets of craft foam, cut out a shield shape, placed a pile of markers on the table and told the kids to create. We used the scraps from the sheets of foam to make the handles on the back. I had the hubby attach those while the kids had cake and ice cream.

 Our final activity was the pinata. Since I couldn't find a Mike, horse, or dragon pinata I made a pinata (thank you public elementary art class for those paper mache lessons!) Basically I took a 12 inch balloon and inflated it. Rather than spend money on newspaper I tore up old phone book pages (same kind of paper) covered the balloon and let dry. I tried using tissue paper to do the outside but got aggravated so I ended up painting the pinata and then using Mike the Knight cut outs attached them to the pinata with glue. I had ordered Mike the Knight ribbon to use as the pull strings. The pole the pinata is hanging from I made to look like Evie's wand. I took a wooden dowel rod, painted it to match, wrapped ribbon in a spiral around the pole and then attached a wooden egg shape to one end and a round wooden ball to the other. The ribbons didn't quite work like I thought bu a small hole was produced and then the kids just got to rip into it from there.

I always give the kids a choice of having me make their birthday cakes or ordering one from the store. Jonas wanted his made by me this year. I bought the topped from either Etsy or Ebay, did the basic icing myself and then my awesome neighbor (who knows how to decorate cakes) did the rest.









Because it was so windy the birthday banner had to come inside. Hubby helped with this creation. I bought a wooden closet rod, he cut down to size, stained, attached the wooden balls (left overs from the wand) I printed the banner pieces from Nick Jr, attached them to poster board and then hubby stapled them to the rods. The strings on the sides are two 10 foot sections of braided yarn in red, blue and yellow.

 I had a couple left overs from the banner so I attached them to the posts on the porch.








For goody bags I ordered Mike the Knight bags, in them I put coloring pages I had printed on 3x5 index cards, a box of Rose Art crayons, an inflatable sword and knight craft I ordered from Oriental Trading.

We also had Mike the Knight on DVD playing continuously through the party. The kids had fun and while I enjoyed pulling this off I was so tired by the end of the day.

Blessings,
Amy

Fifty Shades of Grey... A Great Big NOPE

I want to take a moment and apologize for any feelings that I may hurt. However I only bring this topic up because I feel so strongly.

So I have NOT read Fifty Shades of Grey nor do I plan to see the movie that comes out tomorrow. When the books first came out I was tempted until I started hearing other women talk about it and heard some of the excerpts. Originally all I heard was glowing reviews, but then I started paying attention to what was being said and I was horrified. As the mother of a girl I consider it my job to teach her to not fall prey to anyone who will abuse her in anyway, mentally, emotionally, physically. As the mother of a boy I consider it my job to teach him to treat girls and women with nothing but the utmost respect. Control, manipulation, stalking (or "following"), dictating, purposely embarrassing, and guilt trips are all forms of mental and emotional abuse; not to mention extremely annoying forms of passive-aggressive behavior.

I wanted to share two blog posts I read recently to help shed of light on how harmful these books are to women and girls.

1. This one written by a psychiatrist...http://www.megmeekermd.com/2015/02/a-psychiatrists-letter-to-young-people-about-fifty-shades-of-grey/


Ok so by the time I was able to get to this point my other blog I was going to share disappeared. But if you need more proof check out the search results from Bing/Google
http://www.bing.com/search?q=fifty%20shades%20of%20abuse&pc=cosp&ptag=A0E8C88C5FC554BCC84F&form=CONADR&conlogo=CT3210127.

As I was writing I came to a realization as to why so many women are attracted to this series and this type of jack-wagon in general. From our earliest school days we are told "he only teases/hits you because he likes you" and yet we are surprised when women tolerate this type of jerk in their lives.

Ask yourself is the Fifty Shades series the kind of thing you want your daughter to read? Is that the kind of female you want her to emulate? Is that the kind of "man" you want her to be with? Is that the kind of "man" you want your son to become? 

We may not think our kids are listening when we talk to our adult friends, but they are. They are absorbing everything and hearing parents discuss how wonderful books like Fifty Shades are sends confusing messages.

Please reconsider if you are planning to see this movie (or read the books, for those who haven't) don't allow this to garbage too further invade your life and our world.
Blessings,
Amy

Tooth Fairy Pillow

So Little A has been having a fit for over a year because several of her friends at school have lost teeth and yet she didn't even have a loose tooth. I took her to the dentist back in September and she had 2 loose and the dentist said just to wiggle them. I decided to wait and let them get progressively looser on their own as they were barely loose which told me that they weren't ready yet.

Fast forward to early December and one tooth is barely hanging on (bottom left front) we tried several techniques to get her to let us pull it. After several attempts we gave up and decided that maybe the tooth still wasn't quite ready and we would let it go a little longer. Since it seemed the tooth would fall out sooner than later I made a Tooth Fairy Pillow. I had a serious aversion to allowing her to place the tooth under her pillow; my luck I'd wake her up trying to find the tooth or it would fall behind her bed and then when she leaves for college we would find a whole pile of baby teeth in the floor.  And unlike most parents we are not saving her baby teeth; I found mine in my mother's jewelry box and I just want to say EEEWWW.

To make her tooth pillow I looked on line and saw several really cute designs. I sat down with Little A and let her pick out one. She picks out this hot pink crown number and says "Since I am a princess I need a crown for my teeth." After finding the design we wanted I looked up clip art on Google. I allowed her to pick the crown shape she liked best. Then I made my list of supplies and headed to Hobby Lobby.

Supply List
2 pieces of pink felt
1 roll of decorative ribbon
1 pack of shiny "jewel" buttons
1 skein embroidery thread

 I printed and cut out my crown pattern then laid it onto the felt to trace the design.  I used a Sharpie marker inn as close a shade as I had just to make it easier to see the lines to cut out the felt.

Tracing complete and ready to cut out.







So like most little girls, Little A loves all things bling. I used a thin floral themed lavender ribbon and a package of heart jewel buttons. I let her set up the buttons on the crown. I took a picture so that I could remember the pattern she used once I started sewing the buttons on. After the ribbon and about 4 buttons I got tired of sewing and out came the glue gun.



Lastly I took a piece of white felt and cut out a small heart to use as a pocket to hold the tooth and cash. I did a quick whip stitch 3/4 the way around the heart. And since I couldn't find a matching color of embroidery floss I stitched the whole thing together using white embroidery floss.

Finished product. So I didn't quite get my points large enough and was unable to add stuffing to them; I ended up having to use fabric stiffener.








Now it is January 1, 2015 and finally the tooth has come out and waiting on Little A to go to sleep so the Tooth Fairy can come visit.  Thankfully I have a few years before Little J is ready for one; maybe by then I'll be in the mood to make another one. LOL

Thank goodness that is done,
Amy

Snowman Face

It has taken me over a year to complete this post! When we moved to Wisconsin a little over a year ago I was so excited for my kids to experience snow. Sledding, snowmen, snowballs... all that is pretty uncommon in Georgia. What I didn't know then is that there is more than one kind of snow, what we have here is a very dry powdery snow that doesn't really stick together. Also alien to my Steel Magnolia mind is that it can actually be too cold to snow!

Last year I had the genius idea of making a "kit" for our snowman so that I wouldn't be trying to find items for it when we were ready to build. I went digging through my Christmas craft box for supplies & inspiration. And then the hubby added a few touches and VOILA!  Or as we say down back home "That dawg will hunt!"






First I took a Styrofoam ball, about baseball sized. Cut that in half. And then using black acrylic paint (the cheap 59 cent bottle from Michael's works) I covered the ball. I had to rub the paint in by hand as it was quicker and easier than using a paint brush so wear "rubber" gloves just to make your clean up easier.

Set aside to dry

Then taking a Styrofoam cone, we cut it down to about 3 or 4 inches (only because I had a big 20" cone at the time that was damaged beyond other use.) And using orange acrylic paint I covered the "nose" by hand.

Set aside to dry.

For the mouth I took 6 strands of red yarn and braided them together, tying a knot at each end.








My wonderful hubby came up with the idea of metal hooks to help hold the light weight materials in place. He took a metal clothes hanger. Cut the 3 roughly 4' sticks and bent the ends for the eyes & nose. And then 2 sticks roughly 2" to hold the mouth.

Then inserting the bent ends into the Styrofoam he rotated them 90 degrees. And slipped the hooked ends into the knots of the yarn.

Finally after more than a year of waiting the hubby and daughter were able to build a snowman. I bought a cheap scarf at Walmart and the flower came from my kitchen, when you have a little a little girl they have to do these little girly touches.







Eventually I want to add some arms to the kit. But for now I think he is a happy looking snowman.









Thank goodness that is done!
Amy

X Marks The Spot

I love the holidays, but I love to celebrate them one at a time (for the love of all that is holy can we please deal with Christmas AFTER Thanksgiving?!). I love the traditions, I love getting together, I love the fun, the magic and in the case of Easter & Christmas I LOVE the religious side. Really the only thing I don't love is Christmas music, or maybe just the abundance of Christmas music.

I also really love history. So the history of the holidays and holiday traditions fascinates me. 

I was watching a holiday special several years ago and heard a historian say that the X IS NOT replacing the Christ in Christmas. Say what?! Like most people I grew up hearing "Keep Christ in Christmas", "It is never spelled Xmas!".  So I did my research (how did we ever learn anything before Google?). OH HOLY NIGHT! Dude was telling the truth!

Are you ready for this? In the days of the early Church the "X" (or sometimes "XP") actually stands for Christ! I found millions of links on Google explaining this much better than I can. Here is the link to my Google search (I entered the very simple criteria of "the x in Christmas)  http://www.bing.com/search?pc=AMAZ&form=AMAZWB&setmkt=en-US&q=the+x+in+christmas+history. Now I don't feel so bad when I run out of room on Christmas cards and have to write Xmas.

May your holidays be bright!

Amy

Wisconsin

Today, one year ago, we crossed into the great state of Wisconsin.

The journey does not begin there however. We knew about 18 months in advance that we would be coming to the small base of Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. We did a ton of research on the area because all we knew about Wisconsin prior to receiving orders was: Beer, Cheese and the Green Bay Packers.  I was only interested in the "cheese" portion.

We began our trip north on November 1, staying with family in Atlanta and leaving Georgia on November 3. We decided that with 2 small children and an 18 hour drive that we would take it in small stages. We stopped that first night in Tennessee, then Bloomington, IL and finally on a cold wet November 5th we pulled into Tomah, Wisconsin. Ten days later we had located a house on the other side of Fort McCoy in the town of Sparta.

At first I was nervous about moving to such a small area (the surrounding environs are only about 20,000 people) and the house we found was outside of the town amid corn, soybean & cattle fields. And then the snow started. Having lived in Germany I knew snow was wet & cold but it had been 7 years since I had dealt with the stuff so I stuck close to home while I relearned how to deal with it.

Enter Spring and Summer, met our neighbors, who are absolutely AWESOME by the way. Ally took part in a Pre-Kindergarten summer school and we went to Twin Cities, MN and the Mall of America on a short vacation. We hung out with our neighbors and fell a little more in love with life up here.

And now back around to Fall. Watching the leaves change I almost feel like I am back in Georgia. It is so pretty up here. My parents got to come visit and I tried to talk them into moving here. John is excited to do some hunting here. The deer are huge, I am talking like strap a saddle on it and ride it to town huge. Or maybe tame a couple fawns and raise them to pull the kid's sleds. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, to me it is so much fun. This year we got to take the kids (with our neighbors) into town and go to all the hot spots going from door to door Trick or Treating, something that I would not have done back in Georgia. Watching my daughter & friends run across the yards and up to the door ringing the doorbell and shrieking "TRICK OR TREAT" brought back so many fun memories for me.

For 13 years John and I have discussed what we wanted for our life after the Army. He wanted the country but I wanted the city, here even though we live in the country we are 5 miles from the center of town. Our neighbors are fantastic, the school system is wonderful, the health care is top notch. I never thought I would find what I wanted 1100 miles from where I thought it would be.

Happy Anniversary, Wisconsin, thank you for a great first year!

Amy

Chicken and Dumplings

My mom is an awesome cook. Each of us kids, grandkids, and inlaws has our own favorite. My favorite is chicken and dumplings, I have always wanted to learn to make it but there is no recipe, so when Mom & Dad came to visit back in September I asked her to teach me how to make them. Several people have asked me for the recipe so here goes.

Now this recipe feeds 4 adults for at least 3 servings. Spice measurements are approximate

6 boneless & skinless chicken breasts (rinse off)
4 stalks from a large celery
Add water to cover in a stock pot
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cook on high until it boils then bring down to simmer for 45 minutes

Take chicken out of broth with a slotted spoon and allow to cool until you can touch it. Celery can be thrown in trash.

Strain the broth to remove any solids.

Rinse stock pot

Taste broth and season to taste

Cut chicken into bite size pieces and add back to broth. Add 1 quart of half & half. Add 1/2 stick of salted butter. And cook on low stirring often

For dumplings you can use the recipe on the side of the Bisquick box which makes the big yummy thick dumplings. Or you can get frozen dumplings at the grocery store, name on packaging is Mary B's which are a thin dumpling. Cut the Mary B's into 3rds before dropping into pot.

This is best served with Chicken in a Biscuit crackers, which in and of themselves are legalized crack of snack crackers.

Enjoy!