Spending less?

With the unstable economy and sketchy job market, it seems everyone everywhere is trying to spend less money. I know we are. In fact, that was the inspiration behind having this year's birthday parties at home. So, if you're needing some tips on conserving money be sure to check out the new Go Frugal blog at Freeshipping.org. Then check out freeshipping.org for loads of deals when you do need to spend!

Rain, Sun, Hail

The day started with a rainy nature walk at a birthday party. To 70 degrees and sunny ...
To a sudden torrential downpour of hail.

Of course, Ella, our resident collector, had to gather some hail to store in the freezer.

And because Kyra has to do whatever Ella does, she put Ella's croc's on and ran outside in her pj's to get some hail too.

Always so proud.

It's subtle, but it's there.

They are so different. One is very emotionally controlled. The other has her emotions on her sleeve. One is mellow. The other is high energy. Can you tell which is which?
This is tricky if you don't really know Kyra well. It was her idea to play outside. Her idea to get out "10!" outdoor games, including the table for a picnic - we compromised on a snack. Ella, who wasn't feeling well, is ever the trooper and came out (in winter garb zipped up to the chin) to keep her company. Kyra kept her face buried in a handmade book - essentially scribbling over the cover. At one point, she had an evil interaction with a "bubble monster".

Foreshadowing

The second child has a stamp collection...

Kyra is impulsive. It's frustrating from a mom's perspective, but ...hmm...not sure of the right word from a "woman's" perspective. I'm glad she's her own person. Trying things without consequence. Doing what she wants. But then again.... shouldn't there be a line? She's been on this innocently destructive path lately - marker on the furniture, baby power mixture with water all over her room, cutting her own bangs. Things seem to be normal at school. I've talked to her teacher and, surprisingly, she's not the emotionally immature child I suspected her to be. In fact, she's right in line with the other kids her age. This is normal?

It was Ella's abnormal maturity that I was comparing her too. Lesson learned: never compare your children.

When I saw her playing with the ink and stamps, I reminded her to keep it on the paper. Anything is fair game with Kyra in the room. She apparently did what I am so often accused of doing...acting as if you heard every word and planned to cooperate, when in fact, you were thinking of something completely unrelated and were vaquely aware that someone was speaking to you. Attention Deficit Disorder, anyone?

It's my fault for leaving her alone for 30 minutes to get some work done. Silly me for thinking an almost 5 year old would be responsible with stamps. I need a better technique, or her future is this:
Arrested.

Be in the dark

Tomorrow night, 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, is EARTH HOUR. Turn off your lights for one hour to save energy. It's a worldwide event that started in Australia two years ago. The first year 2.2 million people and businesses participated. The next year, 50 million participants, including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Coke sign in Times Square, all went dark. This year, the goal is 1 billion participants.

So what can you do with yourself or your family for one WHOLE hour in the dark? Here are some ideas:
1. Take a couple blankets outside, lie down and look at the stars.
2. Make sure your flashlights are powered up for shadow animals.
3. Grab some snacks, candles and the Monopoly game and settle in for game night.
4. Cook up some s'mores over a backyard fire pit.
5. Break out the glowsticks!
6. Get reacquainted with your significant other ;-)

The Princess Party

After much mental anquish, I've decided to host Kyra's birthday party at our home. The $300 price tag on the rental space alone was just unacceptable. It wasn't an easy sell. Kyra was dead set on having it out. But once I got my mind around the plan, I was excited about her party. I promised her fancy invitations, a great project and some fun games and good food. She just cares about the goodie bags, of course.

I found a princess invitation on Etsy that I copied, to a degree.

The invitations: Kyra's favorite color is purple. So we headed out to the local craft store and picked up some fun card stock.

I shaped the wording on the invitation to match the shape of the dress. Then, I printed the template on heavy card stock so I would have something to trace. I cut out the wording from regular paper and the dress from the card stock, but I separated the top and skirt.I cut the top and skirt separately, used double stick tape to adhere the invitation back to the dress front and used glitter glue as gems, and ribbons and bows to decorate. These aren't the best ones I made - I had already put those in the envelopes before I remembered to take photos. Each one is different in some way.

The invitation wasn't too difficult to make, just a little time consuming. They turned out so well, I'm really going to have to out-do myself for the party.

And now Ella is planning her Carnival themed party, with multiple projects, tons of games and loaded goodie bags.

The Listmaker

I am a list maker. I love making lists. I love crossing things off my list. It makes me feel productive. And, if it's not on the list, I don't remember it. In fact, very soon I'm going to start keeping lists of conversations with my husband because I can't seem to remember those either.

Now that spring is here, although someone needs to tell the Weather, it's time to start thinking about...Spring Cleaning. Eeek! Here's a great list I'm going to share with my cleaning lady. Ha.

(I can't seem to get it larger.)

Stolen from The Simple Mom.

Monday Blues

I can think of a few situations with my kids that make me so sad it hurts my heart. The one that has left the deepest mark was Ella's first time in daycare when she was 3 years old. Just for a few hours to get some socializing. No big deal, right? The gut-wrenching, blood-curdling screaming that I had to walk away from after they pryed her death grip off my body was so traumatic for me it still brings tears to my eyes.

This morning with Kyra wasn't as traumatic, but it left a vision in my mind that will forever make me feel guilty.

The crying and pleading to not go to school started before she got out of her pajamas. The whining at maximum level. She even threw in the "I don't feel so good." line.

Kyra, sobbingly: "I don't want to go to school. I want to stay home with you.
Me: "I'm not going to be home. I have to go to work."
Kyra, sobbing and whining: "I want to go to work with you. Pleeeeeeaaaaaase."

This is a conversation I'm sure all you working mom's have had more than once. And at this point, I feel guilty for having a career. How could I do this to my child? I should be home with her. This is also coming from a child who, at the end of every school day, exclaims how Gaaaareat! her day was.

But this morning, it got so bad that I started to worry that something wrong must be going on with her friends at school. It reminded me of 6th grade and Holly Budreski (yes, I still remember her name and could pick her out of a crowd. That is, if she still looks like an 11-year-old.) who used to bully and intimidate me. I was "sick" every day of the year.

I get Kyra calmed down enough to get her dressed, in the car and to school. Then, she breaks down yet again because we didn't have her hat, which she didn't originally want. The tears are pouring down her cheeks once again. "We have to go home and get my hat. I want my hat. We have to get my hat."

Still crying at her cubby and clinging to her coat hook, she wouldn't budge. Normally, I would lose my patience and get angry, but I felt so horrible that for a second I considered working from home. Finally, in the classroom, her teacher comes to the rescue with a promise to have Kyra help make Fairy drawings. They walk away, but I forgot to hand her teacher something so when they turned around, there it was...the flushed, wet cheeks, tortured eyes full of big tears and the whimpering, "I want to be with you Mommy." She's killing me.

It's Friday. That means it's time to party and win something because I have a GIVEAWAY!

I joined in on 5 Minutes for Mom's Blog Party last year and it was very enlightening. Not only was it cool to have lots of comments, I noticed something...there are a couple tight knit blogging circles. I followed some for a while, but eventually moved on to other circles. And, now I've found that I've come...full circle!

If you've never been to a Blog Party (personally, that concept is still a little odd to me), then check this out. Essentially, it's a bunch of people who list their blogs on one site hoping new people will find them, like them and become regular followers. I mean, really, it's all about the regular following, right? Some blogs also have giveaways. You can enter them as long as you have at least an email address. In fact, this year, I have a giveway for all UBP participants only! That's right. My first real giveaway. A $10 Macy's giftcard and two mystery giftcards (these come together). Just leave a comment saying which one you'd like to win, and on March 28th, I'll pick two winners.

If you want to know a little bit about me, it's pretty much in a nutshell up top on the right. I am not, however, a little old man. I started this blog a year and a half ago so I could vent about people. Except my husband gave those people the url and I had to delete those posts. Well, I'm off to blog hop. If you're stopping by from the Party, say hi!

The giveaway is closed and the WINNERS selected by Random.org are:

Carma won the Macy's gift card, and Baba won the two mystery cards. Congratulations!

The second child

Your first child sets the bar for the second child. This is not news. If your first child is good, sleeps well, listens, is basically an exemplary child, the second child is expected to act the same way. And when she doesn't, then something is clearly wrong with her. You wonder, were you more stressed out when you were pregnant? Angrier than usual? What could you have done to make her so difficult? But, you know, deep down, she's just acting her age. Nearly 5 years old. She cries when she doesn't get her way. Whines incessantly. Colors with marker on furniture. Picks her nose constantly. And, tonight, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut herself some bangs. Yep. Just acting her age. Help me God.

Not enough happening for one full post, but a couple random things

Just a couple random annoyances and one hooray I'd like to share:

The number of loogies on the city sidewalks are at an all time high. The obstacle course to avoid them has got me knocking over complete strangers. I've become so obsessed with not stepping on someone's phleghm that I can't even look up to see where I'm going.

I ran into H&M on a whim yesterday because they were having a 50% off sale on spring coats. I was with a coworker who has 243 coats. She agreed the coat I was trying on was cute. What size is it, she asked. Then proceeded to get the next size DOWN. Wha? Okay. So, clearly she thinks I'm BIGGER than she is. And, she then proceeded to buy said coat in a different color. Did I mind, she asked. Um, yeah, I do as a matter of fact. But, let's be frank, she's doesn't give a shit if I mind. She was getting that coat regardless.

The girls and I had a stomach bug over the weekend. I won't go into the gorey details, but let's just say I "cleansed" my body of .... hmmm, how shall I put this, well, everything. Two days later I still couldn't quite eat. This is exciting for only one reason...the Starvation Diet! All it takes is just a couple days of no food to shrink that stomach and we're on our way. My scale says I weigh 22.8 lbs. Halleluyah! But certainly that can't be right, can it? I put Kyra on it. 7 lbs. Well, she's bigger than a Yorkshire Terrier so I know it must be wrong. But, I can tell. I've already lost a couple pounds! If I can just keep it going for a full week....

Feeling lucky today?

I have won two things in my life. My honeymoon, and an assortment of toddler feeding utensils, including a cookbook. I'm still holding out for the lottery though.

Stop over at The Secret is in the Sauce. They are having a Spring Fling with loads of giveaways and well over 200 blogs giving stuff away too. Odds are good you might win something fun.

Where to have a birthday party?

I have a bone to pick about kids birthday parties these days.

What ever happened to the simple birthday party? Inviting a handful of close friends to your house, playing a couple rounds of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, opening presents and having cake?

Parties for kids today are typically held everywhere but in the party planners home. I get it. Who wants to subject themselves to the total chaos of entertaining, feeding, organizing 10 to 30 kids? The only other option, though, is to spend a couple hundred dollars at a venue designed for kids.

We have taken the girls to many a birthday party in the last 7 years, and only one! has been at someone's house. And even that was chaotic. The parents went overboard (hehehehehe) planning a pirate-themed party complete with a treasure hunt in- and outside of the house. I give them credit. It was very creative; and they seemed excited about it. But we're creating birthday party monsters! This is where we're headed if we keep up with the pace.

When we moved out of our 12 foot wide rowhome in the city to a normal size home in the 'burbs, I thought, Cool! Now we can have the parties at our house. No more shelling out $300 to rent space. Well, I learned quickly that it doesn't matter where you live. People just don't host kids parties anymore.

So here I am trying to find a place for Kyra's 5th birthday party. My choices range from $100 to $355, not including food. But I am toying with the idea of having it here and hiring a clown to entertain the kids. A compromise of sorts!

Hmmmm

Whadaya think of the new banner? Too flowery? I think I need something with attitude.

Collecting

Ella is a collector of anything and everything. She keeps the dixie cups she's used from the bathroom because at some point in the near future she's going to "make something with them. Really." She used to collect rocks, which was fine, until she came home with petrified dog shit in her pocket.

The other night as she's getting into bed, I found a pretty gift box under her bed. She had written on it, "Ella's Collection of Things." So I asked her if I could look inside...afraid I would essentially find what should be the contents of a trash can. There was just a plastic cup of water holding some dead nature that had fallen from a tree. I suppose she thought putting it in water would bring it back to life. Then immediately, at the same time I notice the wet spot (assuming it was spillage from the cup of water), she says, "Are the icicles still in there?" My sweet, young, innocent Ella.

The Shared Driveway Saga

Yes, it continues. If you haven't been following the saga, read here. As the latest Nor'easter blew in with 6 inches of snow, we wondered...would they shovel this time? By now, we'd be more surprised if they did. But, we all know the answer. This time, however, a neighborhood kid came by looking to make a few bucks. Jeff, always willing to help the youngin's make some money, paid him to shovel. He did a good job clearing the porch, the sidewalk and all the walkways, but apparently even the young kid was perplexed about the shared driveway. So, what did he do? Well, what any logical kid would do. He shoveled our half.

Even a teenager knows...take care of your half of the driveway!

Later in the day, one of their daughters came by, driving her car up and down the driveway to, I don't know, pat down the snow? She told Jeff she knew her parents wouldn't shovel. Even she's lazy! WTF?!

Annoyances

I have new neighbors at work. One of them only knows how to complain. It's an hourly thing. The other breathes through his nose loudly and in spurts. And yet another calls her son daily, "Hey Buddy." in a child-like voice. All annoying. All in the same office as I am. Every single day.

And others who aren't neighbors...one coworker has breath that smells faintly of moth balls. No matter what time of day. Inevitably, I end up near him in meetings, trying to breathe through my turtleneck to filter the stench. I can't decide if my manager has ever washed his hair. He definitely has had it cut only once in my 8 months here.

Fun times.