Confessions of a Cookie Addict

1.  If there are chocolate chip or sugar cookies in the house in the morning, I will have at least one for breakfast, dunked in my coffee of course.

2.  I have eaten an entire package of cookies before anyone in the house knows they existed.

3.  If I don't eat them all, I will save my kids and husband a couple.


4.  Daycare toddler's mom brought in potty treats for successful bathroom moments.  They were little frosted animal cookies with sprinkles.  Before you think I ate her cookies, I'll stop you now. I didn't eat her cookies.  Not really anyway.  Let me explain.

In an attempt to get Little Man more excited about the potty chair, I told him he could have a cookie if went pee or poop in the potty chair.  Not long after that he had some success and I ended up giving him 3 or 4 of daycare girl's potty treat cookies, figuring I'd go to the store long before they were gone, she still had several left and wasn't going through them much at all so I knew I'd be ok.

I went to the store and picked up a package of frosted animal cookies to re-stock daycare girl's supply, and keep on hand for Little Man.

I then ate the entire package... before remembering to restock daycare girl's supply.  

So I of course went back to Target yesterday and bought a new box of cookies, and when I found myself snacking on them today, I immediately grabbed a handful of them and put them in daycare girl's potty treat bag before I accidentally eat the whole box again.

Yes I have a problem, but my problem really only hurts myself, and I could totally stop at any time.

Ah, who am I kidding.

Mom Hair?

When I was a young girl, I wished my mom had long hair.  Long hair that I could braid, curl, barret, ponytail, the works.  My mom had a short hair cut though that made these games difficult (though not impossible).  Now that I'm a mom I totally get the short haircut, and have been tempted on a number of occasions to chop my own.

She was smart having that short hair! Not only is it easier to manage, and cooler in the summer... when the kids "do" my hair - ouch!

Sweet Pea did my hair a couple weeks ago, and even though she's nearing nine years old now she doesn't quite have the finess of fixing someone elses hair gently.  I spent much of my livingroom hair appointment cringing and hoping most of my hair would still be connected to my scalp by the end of it!

After plenty of pain, and a whole lot of fun on Sweet Pea's behalf... and  I think 17 barrets later...



Post Storm Fun

We had a pretty big storm come through Tuesday morning at about 5AM.  I woke up to what sounded like a tornado right outside the window.  I woke up Spencer in case we'd have to grab the kids and run to the basement, and went and checked the tv for weather alerts.  The storm was just a severe thunderstorm with crazy winds but no tornados.  It did, however, wake up our girls for the next hour and a half.  It was a rough morning let me tell you.

Thankfully we didn't have any damage other than a large dead tree limb that fell in our driveway (others in our area had actual damage) and a whole lot of little branches and leaves scattered across the yard.

Using preschooler creativity Babydoll and my daycare boy got to work building a nest out of the branches and leaves.

 Babydoll's plan was that a bird in the tree above the "nest" would drop an egg down to their nest and she would sit on it until the baby bird hatched.

I'll let you know when that happens...
   

Battle Play

Like a majority of daycares (I think) I do not allow gun play during daycare, because it makes some kids really uncomfortable and it makes lots of parents even more uncomfortable.  When they inevitably turn any toy into a gun (which every boy I've had has done) and start shooting people I remind them, "no playing guns in daycare".

Off-hours though, I don't care.  I don't think that because my preschool children shoot their lego guns at each other they will grow up and shoot people for real.  Because we have the daycare rule though, my kids don't really play guns anyways, except for squirt guns.

Recently some of the kids wanted to have a water gun day where they could bring their squirt guns from home if they had them and run around the backyard squirting each other.  The rare squirt-gun days are the only times I allow them to play shooting games during daycare hours.

This past Saturday my kids were outside squirting each other with their squirt guns (let me just say... I can't wait until they can all re-fill their own squirt guns!) and having a great time.  Sweet Pea and Babydoll were both still in their pajamas, and Little Man? Well.... this is what he was wearing -

Most kids are still drawn to playing good-guy/bad-guy games though and want to use a weapon of some sort.  Since guns aren't allowed, they would be happy to duel each other with swords - except with toy swords in the hands of determined and uncoordinated preschoolers, someone is most definitely going to get hurt!  Need to stay away from close-range combat! 

Harry Potter has provided a helpful alternative - magic wands!  They have plenty of fun shooting spells at each other!  Just the other day we had a boisterous game of magic-fight going.  We were mostly shooting sleeping spells and wake-up spells at each other and trying to get eachother's wands, it was fun for everyone, and not one imaginary bullet was fired off.

This game was made all the more fun by the fact that Little Man isn't shy about dressing up in his sisters' accessories.  For all he knows it's completely appropriate attire for battle!

No Small Feat

We seem to have hit another milestone in our family.  All three of our children are now old enough to play a cooperative game together.  This is unusual because generally speaking, 2-year-olds do not play games like this with other kids very well.  Typically they would just grab those fish and do what they wanted with them rather than play properly.  We've been working on taking turns a lot around here though, and that helped him be willing to hand off the beloved fishing pole and wait his turn to go fishing.

 This is our Fisher Price Go Fish game.  The object is to use the fishing pole with the suction cup on the end to catch a fish from the pond.  The bottom of the fish is either one of the 4 colors, or an item of litter.  If they catch a fish of their color they get to keep it and put it in their boat. If they catch the wrong color they have to throw it back. First player to fill their boat wins.  There are other ways to play, there are numbers on the bottoms too, but we really only do the color one.

 Babydoll kicked butt at this game that night! 

 Poor Little Man kept finding everyone elses colors, but it didn't phase him at all.  he wasn't discouraged by the fact he was losing, he just had fun playing with his big sisters!

And my oldest just can't help make faces and pose when there's a camera in front of her.

Sitting around the "fish pond" with my 3 little punkinheads and realizing that they were all, even my toddler, playing cooperatively together a game that was not ring-around-the-rosie moved me - I had to capture the moment!

So when they are all in their 20's and talking about the drinking games or whatever they played the weekend before, I'll be able look back on when they all happily played Go Fish together on the living room carpet and smile.

Bloody Knuckles and Making Soap

A while back I made homemade liquid laundry detergent using borax, arm and hammer washing soda, and fels-naptha soap.  It was a bit of a process but SO cheap it was worth it.  It worked well and I liked the smell, but it was almost too messy to handle.  I had decided the next time I make my own I'd try the powder version.

Yesterday we desperately needed to get some laundry done but were out of laundry detergent so after doing my grocery shopping at Target I grabbed a dollar and change and ran into Cub for a bar of Fels-naptha soap.  And yes, you read that right. I bought my food at Target and my soap at Cub... it had to be done.

I already had a big box of Borax and Arm and Hammer so I went to work grating up the bar of Fels-Naptha with the cheese grater, but I made the mistake of using the side that would have grated it up into a fine powder (allowing me to skip the next step) and my hand slipped and I shredded up 2 of my knuckles. 

Bad words were said. I think I said the F-word. And the A-word. And the SH-word. It hurt like H-word.


So after running my mutilated fingers under water and getting my husband to help me with the bandaids, I went back to my project. Because there was no time for being a wimp... laundry needed to be done!

this was right after the bandaids were put on. a few minutes later I had bled through and needed a new one.

I switched to the regular cheese side of my cheese grater and finished shredding up my soap. 

This next step is not needed when you make the liquid stuff.  Use a food processor or a blender to turn your shredded soap into a powder.  Takes like 30 seconds I think.

Mix:
1 Cup of Borax
1 Cup of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (NOT Baking Soda)
1 powdered up bar of Fels Naptha soap

Store in tightly fitting container, like Tupperware.  1 large load in my regular top-loader washing machine only needed 2 Tablespoons of detergent.  When I read this in the directions I was skeptical that it would be enough, but went with it.

Verdict?

It is awesome!  It is easy to make, cheap as dirt, not messy to use, and smells SO good!

My first test load was a mix of things that we've worn recently, dirty socks, and a couple shirts that were at the bottom of the laundry pile in the basement and were a bit smelly from the dampness. 

I smelled every single piece of clothing (yep, even my husband's socks) and it all came out smelling fresh and clean!  I didn't think that just 2T of detergent would be enough, especially since I wash most of our clothes in cold water, but it was! 

I highly recommend making it this way!!

Well, That Explains It

When I pulled my camera out the other day to take a few pics of the kids playing outside, I was surprised to see that my "low battery" symbol was blinking.  I hadn't used it much since my last charge, and my battery usually lasts longer than that.

After uploading my pictures that night I discovered a few surprises.  Apparently, Little Man has been sneaking my camera, has figured out how to work it, and has been having a grand old time taking pictures and videos of himself!

Here's some of his handiwork...

So that explains my low battery.  And the fingerprint smudges on the lense.