Catholic Schools Week

Oh my Friday. Man. I want to go back to my month of short weeks. Except that this Friday feels especially welcome and hallelujahs and all that so, maybe changing the system would detract from the awesomeness that is a regular Friday? It remains to be seen.

It's the end of Catholic Schools week. C wore all the participatory clothing items from the proscribed list. Pajamas. Bright colors. Sports teams. Anti-Bullying Shirt. Blue/Gold/Spirit Wear.

It was overall a good week but my guy who likes schedules and predictability will be happy for some normalcy next week. It definitely stressed him out that they did "fun" things every day instead of reading stories. But they definitely did things that would qualify as fun.

The talent show was yesterday. I didn't go. I didn't think M could sit through it and should probably rest. So Husband went and that was good. C's class was the second act and their three poems take approximately 45 seconds. Husband told me that C "was really cute. Front and center and very animated." He sent me this picture:

And then later, his teacher sent us all this video. (The first poem is cut off a bit.)

And I laugh because, yep. That's our kid. It occurs to me that maybe other parents didn't have their kids practice? In my "I really wasn't trying to be a stage mom" defense, I had no idea these poems he was reciting were for anything until last week. I just thought they were cute and I would have him recite for me so I could marvel at the cuteness. 

In a full shot to my heart, I got a letter about preschool/kindergarten roundup this morning. And it had BOTH my kid's names on it! Huge reality check for me. What will I do with my seven and a half hours of kid-free time come August? I am going to hang out over here with my eyes closed and hands over my ears humming in denial for the next few months. 

And on that lovely mental image I am going to wish you a happy weekend and we'll see you back here after we find out who wins the Super Bowl (I don't really care either way.) and how exactly Jack met his demise. (I am curious.)

Enjoy it! Boring Advent is looming on the horizon. Sing out those Alleluias loud and proud!

School Valentines 2018 Edition

You may remember my love for classroom Valentines. If not, you can look at last year's here. Or the year before's here. Well the TL:DR here is that I take the classroom Valentine cards very seriously and I am always trying to make them as wonderful as possible because when I was younger I was impressed by one dad's Valentines he made for his daughter every year. 

This year I was trying to think of something else that would represent C and his interests since we've done walrus (and other animals) the past two years. AKA the only years in which we've made Valentines. And one night I was sitting in his room and thinking about my kid and how fortunate we were to have created a crayon themed nursery from the get-go. 

Let's go way way back to when we first moved in and I took a picture of his room. We happened to buy a house where the kitchen was already red and the "kid" room was painted reminiscent of crayons. Our baby's nursery was crayon-themed and all our kitchen stuff was red and teal. Talk about God-coincidences. Anyway, here's C's room from when we moved in. 

That is C's toy box. Husband designed the art and then had it large-format printed on what they wrap buildings/cars/etc with and they put it on the toy box for us. Anyway, good planning on our part because our boy loves to draw and color and write books. So obviously where I am going with this is that we should do a crayon valentine! 

So I hit Google and Pinterest. They were pretty helpful. 

But they weren't quite what I was looking for. I love those melted crayon shape things just as much as anyone, but I didn't really want to be on the hook for making them all look good. It's fine to make them for your kids but to give out? I just wasn't convinced they'd look cool. 

And my friends, I could utilize my secret weapon. Husband. So I did. I kind of came up with a little idea and ran with it. We took the phrase that C liked best from the Pinterest ideas "for crayon out loud" and the art work from his toy box and made our own little box of crayons! 

I bought this pack of crayons from Amazon. Because there are 17 kids in his class besides him we ordered two packs. Since I love to use subscribe and save the total cost was $16.91 (Approximately .70 a box) Then we printed the design Husband made on sticker paper to go on top of the boxes. 

Husband took a sample box to work with him just to make sure everything was going to turn out okay. And I got this picture texted to me: 

I just loved it so much. I was jumping out of my skin to see it in person. And they are perfect! Husband showed his co-workers and they glanced at it and didn't even see the name or the message change. Which has me a little nervous that it's too good but whatever I love them too much.

We even made an extra one for his 5th grade prayer buddy so 18 boxes total. I love that the crayons are the treat and there's no food. Not that I have ANYTHING against chocolates and suckers, but I just think crayons are a good thing to mix it up with. C is super excited about passing them out. 

We haven't made the stickers for C to write his name on them yet, but it's going to go on the back. I am just too excited and wanted to share them with you on this first day of February! I can't believe it's February already!! 

Cake and a Bed

There's a scene in Gilmore Girls where Richard has made "Johnny Machete" which is described as a "vile concoction made with cream of mushroom soup." Richard's gran used to make it for him when he was a boy and it makes him sentimental. Emily has no time for such a recipe and says: "I'm sorry, I'm happy you're happy and to prove it I will take exactly three bites out of this before I throw it away."

Well truth talk: that's how I felt about our chocolate cake for National Chocolate Cake Day. Husband got all sentimental about this cake his mom used to make and so that's the kind of cake we made.

In all honesty, I don't love chocolate cake. I like chocolate a lot but chocolate cake has never been my favorite much to the chagrin of my father. I always have white cake for my birthday because it's what I prefer.

So Husband set out to recreate a cake his mom made, it had chocolate chips in it. Then the frosting was a whipped frosting. It was a box of instant chocolate pudding, 1 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of milk whisked together, then a tub a Cool Whip was folded in. Then he added marshmallows to it.

Eh. I should also mention that I am not a fan of whipped icing. Give me buttercream or give me death. I mean not quite as dramatically as all that but I just don't love it. So we named it our Johnny Machete cake. He and the kids loved it. I took my three polite bites. It does look good though right? Looks like a chocolate cake.

In news from this weekend, M officially got her big, big girl bed.

She likes it. It's a twin bed. And she likes to snuggle in so much. The crib/toddler bed is gone. And I am surprisingly less emotional about that than I would have expected. I think because she's been in the toddler bed setting for so long it just hasn't felt like the crib I put my brand new babies in for a while. I don't know.

Husband went to to Slumberland because they are having a big moving sale and he thought maybe he could get a decently priced mattress. We had looked online and saw one that looked okay. But they guy wanted $350 for it when it was $190 online. He was like um... no. The man was also trying to convince him that the mattress would only be good for a year. Also... no. She weighs 32 pounds for goodness sake.

He left. He went to a different local place where they sell factory direct mattresses. And bing bang boom, we had a bed!

So there you have it. The tales of our weekend.

Cheers to the Weekend

This week has been a long one. But it's been our first full week of school since the middle of December so in reality it has actually been long. I am feeling every bit of this five days in a row thing. I am sure next week will be better since we'll be used to it again.

Today is kind of a big deal in this house because it's January 26. Which obviously means that it's the premiere of "Llama Llama" on Netflix.

Oh you mean this hasn't been on your calendar for your five-year-old to remind you of periodically? We try to limit screen time on school days to just an episode of "Super Why" but we were just so excited that we are watching the first episode before school and I will probably let them watch another later. So far it's super cute, Jennifer Garner is the voice of Mama Llama. And I think that Anna Dewdney would 100% approve of the show.

Our plans for this weekend are pretty low-key. It's Catholic Schools Week next week and so we have the book fair after Mass on Sunday. My kids are out of this world excited about it. Our school is under construction so there isn't the normal open house that we would typically have.

Tomorrow is National Chocolate Cake day so we are going to have some.

And the weather is supposed to be pretty terrific all weekend so I anticipate plenty of outdoors time! Which is excellent because fresh air helps everyone.

All in all everyone, have a wonderful weekend!!

Things I'm Thinking About

If you have a fan of Minnie Mouse in your house, then you probably already know she got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday. My house greatly enjoyed the video!!

This week Paw Patrol live is touring here and I know many many people who are super excited about it. I think we've watched that show once. I think there's a dog named Rubble? The roly poly one? Eh, I mean I am sure it's a cute show and all that but I just cannot commit to another fan base right now. From what I know of the merchandise is there's a big car or boat called a Paw Patroller and then lots of individual dogs on cars or something that go inside and you collect them all. So that's just a hard pass from my perspective. Thank you not having cable for letting me control what my kids know or not.

For whatever reason Star Wars is starting to infiltrate C's class and I also don't know anything about that. I *ahem* have never seen them. Not even the original trilogy which is really the middle part I think. My knowledge of Star Wars is a little more in depth than Paw Patrol but not by much. My brothers were properly horrified at Christmas when they went to see the new one which is like number 12 or something. We played a Star Wars trivia game and I guessed C every single time. I got a few right!

There's a discussion on Facebook of someone giving up Amazon for Lent.

While I can see the merit of that idea I genuinely don't understand the logistics. Do you keep your subscribe and save? I mean, only March's order would be affected but things like Pull-Ups (for night) and paper towels would still need to be purchased and does a Target run negate the whole thing anyway especially if it costs more?

What about Amazon music or video? Are those off limits? I mean, can you not talk to Alexa for the full 40 days?! Can you still use your Kindle? Obviously I assume you can't buy books but if you get a library book you still have to go to the Amazon website to check it out which I think would feel a little like cheating.

Clearly this is not a Lenten Sacrifice I could take on. Though it is probably time to start thinking about the plan should actually be. It is coming up so fast! I actually bought a Lenten devotional for the first time so maybe that will be my thing, just to actually focus on God and prayer? That may do more for my spiritual life than a sacrifice where I just get grouchy anyway? I will have to think on this some more.

Okay and last but not least, Chicago West. You have of course heard that is what Kim and Kanye named their baby? I was properly horrified at first too but there is a good point to be made that people are named London, Brooklyn, Savannah, Austin, Paris, Madison, Phoenix... so while I will always mourn the fact that they could have named a baby Wild, or Seattle Grace Mercy, I actually don't think it's as weird as it could be.

Have a lovely Tuesday!

Always Next Year

When I was a little girl, my dad would ask me, "Madeline, what do the Vikings do?" And I would make the choking sign. It is quite unfortunate that remains true. But it should at least end the conspiracy theorists going on and on about last week right?

Ah well. Cheers to another boring* Super Bowl. This one is just a repeat of 2004. I don't even care for Justin Timberlake. (Who is the halftime performer.) We will still have our football helmet fruit bowl that day! So that's something to look forward to.

What we will try to create. 

*I am sure that if you like the Patriots or the Eagles you will not think it's boring. But since it's a bit of a foregone conclusion the Patriots will again win, eh, it takes a bit of the fun out of it.

**Ultimately I am glad we won't have to lose to the Patriots in two weeks because that would be way worse than this!!

7QT

1. I am so glad it's Friday!! It's got me all like:

2. So the super duper high from Sunday's game lasted until about Wednesday and now I am just really stressed out about this Sunday. It's 100% irrational to feel stress based on a team you do not play on or control in any way, but man. If you are not an Eagles fan, the Vikings would love your support this weekend! It would be kind of fun for there to be a hometown Super Bowl am I right?

3. Have you seen the news about the Viking's fans give to Thomas Morestead's foundation? He really was such a wonderful example of sportsmanship. I actually read about this idea on Reddit which is kind of cool that I wasn't the last to know about it. I donated when the total was still around $53,000 on Wednesday and by the time Husband came home it was $90,000. I was just refreshing and watching the total go up. It has slowed down a bit, not gaining $1000 every few minutes any more but still, it's a lot of money. Very cool.

4. Weather and football. That's all I can talk about these days I guess. We played in the snow yesterday. There isn't a ton but it's going to melt this weekend since it will be in the 40s for a few days. It's been a weird winter. We've actually had plenty of snow, but it's either a wind chill warning or melting. There hasn't really been an in between.

5. We I promised the kids we could paint tomorrow. I am not an anti-craft mom, I enjoy them. But paint gets me all nervous. I am sure it will be fun though, right? Right? 

6. What do you serve your kids for lunch? I feel like we have the same thing every day and I want to mix it up. We trypically have PBJ, a string cheese and some fruit. Maybe some veggie straws. And that's swell. We are good with the PBJ. They don't want to give that up for a second. What are good lunch sides that are a little different? 

7. Okay...