The Not So Much Room Mother, Room Mother

My oldest daughter started kindergarten this year and one of the things I was so excited about was getting to be a room mother.  At the beginning of the school year her teacher said they would be sending home a volunteer/sign up sheet for room mothers and volunteers, so I have been patiently waiting for months.  Finally at the beginning of December I sent her teacher and email saying how I would love to help with the Christmas party only to find out that two other Mom's who get to drop-off/pick-up their kids everyday had already talked to her and were the "official" room mothers.  Kielyn's teacher let me know who they were and told me to get with them to see if they needed help.  So I immediately texted one of the mom's and asked what I could do to help.  A day later she texted back and asked me if I could be in charge of cups/plates/napkins.  

Cups/Plates/Napkins!?!?!?

How could I get stuck with cups/plates/napkins?  Didn't they know that I had a million ideas on fun things we could do at the Christmas party?  Of course I said yes I would love to bring the supplies and then I pouted.  How am I supposed to measure up to my Mom's amazing school parties she planned every year for us?  Parties so amazing that I have friends who call 20ish years later saying remember when we were in 2nd grade and your Mom made those really cool xxxx's(insert really cool things that Mom always came up with).

And then it hit me I would bring the best cups/plates/napkins that have been to a school party.  Remember the episode of Friends where Phoebe was assigned cups and ice for the party she and Monica were co-hosting?  My Mom told me I was Phoebe.....

I decided that I would make melted snowman cups and reindeer plates.  My dear friend crushed my idea of snowman cups because the kids would probably spill their drinks looking at the bottom of the cups, so I decided I would make regular snowman cups.  I found the cutest snowman cups at Blue Cricket Design and copied her idea.

I love them!  So stinking cute!!!

And my little reindeer plates, they are cuter in person, I promise.

 

The girl reindeer!

And the boy reindeer!

I also bought some super cute napkins and paper straws from Michael's.  I am super excited to go to her first school party!  I also know that next year I will jump the teacher like a spider monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew at back to school night to make sure I get to be an official room mom!

 

Merry Almost Christmas!

Family Pictures!

The weekend after Thanksgiving we braved the cold....seriously it was 32 degrees.....to have family pictures taken.  Luckily for me my little sister's sorority sister has taken up photography.  Her name is Caitlyn and she lives in Oklahoma City.  She has an amazing website and blog!  If you live in or near Oklahoma City please consider her for your photos, she is amazing!

 She posted a few more pics on her blog, I can't wait to get my hands on the DVD!!!!

She also has a slide show with more of our pics on her blog, click hereif you want to see more!

Caitlyn....thank you so much for being you and taking amazing pictures of my family!  You are amazing!

Do the Pee Dance!

Huge accomplishment in the house today!  Taylor finally peed on the potty for the first time!  Yes!!!  I know she just turned 2, but by 2 Kielyn was potty trained.  She was the best, she basically potty trained herself, peed for the first time in the potty at 15 months and we were diaper free during the days by 2.

Taylor is a different story.  I haven't pushed her to potty....maybe gentle persuasion would be a better term.

Me:  "Tay, do you have to go potty?"

Tay:  "No thank you mommy."  {seriously she is adorable when she says this, she is sweet and innocent looking}

Me:  "You can go on the big girl potty."

Tay:  strips off her clothes and diaper and runs to the bathroom.  Sits on the potty for 5 minutes, "Nothing come out mommy."

Me: "Are you done?"

Tay:  "Yes."  and then she runs off naked.

Basically as soon as her feet hit the carpet in the hallway she pees on the floor.  So I kind of gave up and decided not to bug her anymore.  Well tonight we were getting ready for bed and she took off her shorts and diaper and said potty.  I asked her if she wanted to go, she said yes and then she actually did it!  She peed in the potty!!!!

Kielyn and I made a huge deal about her going potty!  We did the potty dance, sang a song and called both Grammas!   Now if she does it again this week I will be ecstatic!  My sister says she's not lazy, she's smart!  Maybe she's right!  We are on our way to being diaper free and I can't wait!

Hi!  I hope everyone has had a great weekend!  Thought I would catch up with what we did this weekend.  My friend Chalea and I took our kids to the Pioneer Days Parade in Florence which is about 15 minutes away from where we live.  It is the cutest town with tons and tons of amazing antique stores!

Ace, Asher, Piper, Taylor and Kielyn....it's impossible to get 4 toddlers to look at the camera at the same time or even at all!

He is so stinking cute!

 We sat in front of one of the amazing antique stores and sitting right outside their front door was an old 12 pane window...looking really lonely.  Luckily Ben decided to show up last minute.  When he sat down, I didn't even say hi, I just told him that "I need the debit card."  He handed me the card and I said "watch the girls, I will be back in 5" and then I ran into the store.  And look at this....

forgot to flip the pic...sorry!

$20 dollars, um hello, wrap that sucker up!!  And what's even better is that it was 25% off.  Hello window for $16.  I think it was a steal!

Decent side

Disgusting :(  Luckily no one will ever see this side!

I spent nap time yesterday and today sanding, painting, sanding, sanding, painting and a little more sanding!  She is ready to hang!  I just don't know how I am going to hang it yet, but hopefully I can show you tomorrow what it looks like finished!

Today I went to Home Depot because I wanted to buy the new Dremel Trio, but when I got there I thought maybe I should just buy a jigsaw instead.  After standing in the same aisle for 30 minutes without being able to make up my mind I put everything up and headed home.  But not before I got some paint samples, because I have seen so many cute projects using paint samples so I thought I would try some of my own.

Normal people would only take 1 of each color right?

Not me, I stocked up.  Thank you Home Depot!

Poor Taylor, Poor Poor Taylor

On Friday my Gramma watched the girls for me because our daycare provider took the afternoon off.  When I got off work and went to pick them up Kielyn entertained me with the best conversation I have had all week!

Kielyn:  "Mom, Gramma said she is going to buy me a princess dress."

Me:  "Don't you think you have enough princess dresses?"

Kielyn:  *rolls eyes* "Mom, this is for my costume."

Me:  "What costume?"

Kielyn:  "Ugh, for Halloween."

Me:  "What are you going to be?"

 Kielyn:  "A princess.  And princesses say "Help me, Help me!"  all the time."

Me:  "They do?"

Kielyn:  "Yeah, all the time."

Me:  "Well, if you are going to be princess what is Taylor going to be."

Kielyn:  "A dragon."

Poor Taylor!  Her sister is going to be a beautiful princess and she is going to be a dragon?!?!  So I asked Taylor "What do you want to be for Halloween?"  Her reply?  "A dragon" and then she roared at me.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway here!

When It's Acceptable to Pick your Nose

When is it acceptable to pick your nose?  Never.....unless you are almost 2.

Here is the scene from 2 hours ago.

Taylor picking nose...

Me:  "Tay, why are you picking your nose?"

Taylor:  "Rock."

Me:  "You mean boogies?"

Taylor: "No, rock."

Normally I would have laughed at her, but since it's Taylor I decided to take a peek.

Um, are you kidding me?!?!

20 minutes later.....

Me:  "Tay, why are you picking your nose again?"
Taylor:  "Rock Mommy."
Me:  "Taylor Lynn are you serious?!?!"

This is what was shoved up her nose!  Not one, but two rocks!

Mechanical Pencil eraser to show how big the rocks were!!!!

 Want to know how to get foreign objects out of your kids nose without having to take them to the Doctor or ER, and the only reason I know this is because my cousin's daughter shoved a BB up her nose and when he took her to the Dr. they showed him how to fix the problem!

1. Lay kiddo on the floor.
2.  Make kiddo open their mouth.
3.  Close the side of their nose that isn't filled with foreign object, i.e. rocks
4.  Cover their mouth with yours and blow!!
5.  Foreign object should be dislodged, if not repeat above steps.

I checked her nose with the ear-looker and it was clear!  Hopefully she learned her lesson!


Happy 9 o'clock Dance of Joy!!!

Bowling

Our local bowling alley offers some great rates during the summer.  $1 games on Sunday.  We decided it would be fun to take the girls bowling for their very first time a few weeks ago!

Don't they look excited?  Kielyn couldn't wait to bowl!

She looks ready to go!  I love her Hello Kitty socks!

She is so excited!  She is such a princess, she bowled in a dress!  She wasn't wild about the shoes at first, she said they were ugly.  I can't argue with her she has a point!

Thank goodness for bumpers!  Um, where is Taylor?

"Umm Mom....who wants to bowl when they can have a huge soda?!?!"  

We had a great time, Kielyn can't wait to go back!

I'm Back

I'm back!  We had a wonderful weekend (if you forget about the 2 hour drive one way where my kids forgot how tired they were and decided to laugh/fight/whine/cry the entire car ride only to fall asleep 10 minutes before we got to the zoo and never fell asleep on the way home, and my husband wasn't with us he had to ride his bike cause he's cool like that).

So my wonderfully grouchy kids are headed to bed early.  We left early Saturday morning and met my Mom at the zoo.  The girls were so excited!

OK, so maybe it doesn't look like it but they were!

There must have been something amazing to our right, seriously we can't take a good picture!

 The giraffes were the hit of the zoo, the girls loved them!

Two of my favorite people, my Mom and hubby!

Lover her polka dot glasses!

 Hopefully Kie forgets about the bear before bed time, she has been scared of bears for a long time.  Isn't he adorable?

 Black rhino, the girls loved his nose!  They said it was pokey!

M

My sweet baby, she is almost 2 and growing up way too fast, not very many days of chubby arms left :(

Love this picture!

This ape was laying right in front of the glass taking a snooze!  He was huge!

Last night Ben and I went to the fights, we had a blast.  Our boys were 4 for 4!  Great group of young fighters, excited to watch them grow up!  We swam this morning and went to Aunt Rossi's for lunch.  We had a great weekend.  I hope everyone else did too!  It is now time for the 9 o'clock Dance of Joy!  Have a great night!