Our First Day of School

Since so many of you who read my blog are my friends, and so many of you are asking how our first day of school went, I thought I’d answer you all here instead of retyping it in 12 different emails.  :)

Ethan's 1st Day of Mother's Day Out

Ethan (my 3yo) did great at Mother’s Day Out at the church around the corner from us - it’s also where Kate went last year and loved it.  He has a huge class of about 12 kiddos his age and 2 teachers.  They said he did great and only got weepy at nap time when they wanted to help him take his shoes off.  He, of course, would have NO one touching his new shoes and got defensive and whiny for mommy at that point.  Too funny what kiddos will get hung up on, huh?  Other than that, he seemed to have had a great day and he said he liked it and had fun.  His favorite?  The kitchen play area.  Hmm.  Do we have a future chef on our hands? Continue reading…

What Do I Do with ALL This Artwork??

When you live with a budding artist, you live with piles and piles of artwork. And ALL of it is special. And NONE of it can be thrown away. At least, that’s what my 5 year old tells me constantly. And as gung-ho as she is about recycling, I still can’t manage to convince her that we can recycle some of her artwork, too.

So, instead of living with the masses of piles everywhere, I started looking for ideas of what to do with it all to help contain it and keep it from taking over my entire house. I came across several great suggestions like these:

Continue reading…

Wordless Wednesday: Batman Karis

Kate Amaris: Artist Extraordinaire

This is a photo that Kate took on Shawn’s iPhone recently.  She obviously blurred whatever she was looking at, but the resulting image was just too pretty to delete.  What’s amazing to me is that Kate’s a better artist on accident than her mommy ever is on purpose!!  :)

Potty Language

(Many thanks to my friends for the below exchange. This is why we ALL need a support group of other moms to rely on!)

Q: Any tips for handling a 3yo boy who likes to call everybody silly names? (pumpkinhead, pottyhead, poopoohead, boogerhead. I could go on… LOL) We’ve spanked, we’ve done timeouts, we’ve taken away toys, we’ve ignored it, we’ve laughed at it, and we’re all out of ideas. We even resorted to calling him the same name he calls us, (that was short lived as he thought it was the funniest thing he ever heard) and nothing seems to work.

A: We’ve set the rule of no name calling at all, just in case you hurt someone’s feelings when you are just trying to be funny.

AND we’re only allowed to use bathroom words IN the bathroom (which has stopped the embarassingly loud announcements of “I have to poo!” in restaurants, but has also spawned numerous toot and tee tee bathtime songs). To me, this was a safe way for them to get to enjoy those funny things about their bodies which all little ones find so hilarious without shaming our family in public.

But you know, since my girls aren’t allowed to say, “I gotta go poo!” in public any more, we’ve had to come up with acceptable alternatives. Wouldn’t Ethan look so sweet and precious with, “Excuse me, I need to go freshen up.” Priceless.

The Baby Whisperer and Learning Your Baby’s Cries

At one of our last Moms’ Night Out gatherings, we were all discussing babies (duh! We ARE a bunch of moms!) and their cries.  Several of us had heard of the ‘baby whisperer’, Priscilla Dunstan, who was on Oprah, but only a couple of us had ever tried it.  My sister-in-law has tried it with her baby, Grayson, and is swearing by it!  She said she’s been able to figure out his cries pretty easily and is having a much easier time with him than with her other 2 kiddos. Just thought I’d pass it on…

You Know You Live in Texas…

This is not my list, but when my friend, Karen, sent this to me, I laughed so hard that I just knew I couldn’t keep it to myself.  Tell me which one had you rolling in the comments section below! :) 

You know you are in TEXAS in AUGUST when:

1. The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.

2. The trees are whistling for the dogs.

3. The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.

4. Hot water now comes out of both taps.

5. You can make sun tea instantly.

6. You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.

7. The temperature drops below 95 and you feel a little chilly.

8. You discover that in August it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.

9. You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.

10. You actually burn your hand opening the car door.

11. You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.

12. Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, ‘What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death.

13. You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

14. The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.

15. Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs.

16. The cows are giving evaporated milk.

John Mayer Concert!!

Our wonderful friends, Jon and Terri, invited us to join them on the lawn at the John Mayer concert at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands recently. And it was A-W-E-S-O-M-E! It was HOT and it was HOT. And if you look at the picture here and see John in the middle, you’ll know what I’m saying about that second HOT…

Yes.  That’s John Mayer.  With a newly shaved head and NO shirt.  (You can click on the pic to see it a little bigger and get a better look.

Did I mention that he had no shirt on?  

Now, granted it was hot as holy Hades (as it always is in Houston in August) and any shirt he may have attempted to wear would have been soaked through with sweat within 30 seconds on stage, but…  All I know is all the women in the SOLD-OUT crowd were fanning themselves (and not just from the temperature heat) and all the men were wondering when he got so buff.  :)  And while I’m sure some of the ladies were upset that he shaved all his hair off, I kind of like it because, well…  it reminds me of another shaved head on a man that I’m totally in love with - yes, that’s you, honey.  So, for John, the shaved head was definitely a plus in my book!  :)

Looks aside, the concert was absolutely phenomenal.  The quality of musicianship from the ENTIRE band was probably one of the best I’ve ever heard at a live concert.  Even from Sting.  And I REALLY like Sting.

John did several solos that were beyond phenomenal, but the long solo during ‘Mercy’ was so incredibly off-the-hook that everyone who was there will be talking about it for years to come.  Not only did he play a great shredding solo to start with, but then he played behind his head.  And then he held the guitar by it’s neck with one hand and played it.  But the real OMG! moment was when he laid the guitar on the floor of the stage and continued to play it while crouched down over it.  That was it.  I was done.  He could have ended the concert then and there and I would have happily oozed to the car and sat in traffic to get out of the parking lot.  Yes, it was THAT spectacular.

But, thank God that was not the end of the concert, because there was so much more great music to enjoy!  He did a great job of playing to all of his different fans, and when he started playing “Crossroads” by Stevie Ray Vaughan (one of his inspirations to start learning guitar, btw), Shawn and our friend, Jon, were both done for the night, too.  (You see, they’re both big SRV fans, and SRV was really big in Texas, so when John Mayer started playing SRV, they were both really happy, and well, I think you probably got the connection by now…) 

But, one of my favorite things about the night was his interaction with the audience.  Always smooth, always humble (wha, wha, what? A superstar like John Mayer, humble?  Yip.  So awesome.), always witty.  At one point I leaned over to Terri and said, ”I think he reads a lot.  I mean, he keeps using those big college-level words like ‘expository’.”  :)  She said, “Yeah.  My personal favorite was ‘cocooning’.  In fact, I’m going to start using that phrase - ‘I wasn’t being cocky, I was just cocooning myself in positivity.’”  Well, whatever you were doing John, it worked, because we all loved it!

So, I suppose I’ve rambled through all of this enough for you to know that I had a great night.  And this is my way of sharing my joy and also my way of saying THANK YOU to Jon and Terri.  What a perfect evening!  :)

I’ll Give You a Cookie If You’ll Just Finish Your Cheetos!

Yes.  You read that title right.  And yes.  That’s an actual statement that’s been used in my house recently.  sigh.

I’m constantly amazed at our children and the things that they choose NOT to eat.  Like finishing their cheetos so that they can be done with lunch and get dessert.  It’s not like I’m asking them to eat asparagus or brussel sprouts or even broccoli (they LIKE brocolli).  But when they choose to wage war at the dinner table, somehow they always wind up the victors.  Because either way it goes, the parentals wind up frustrated and losing their cool.  And then it’s just amazing that a 3 year old can have more persistence than a 35 year old.  So many questions I have for God…

So, if you’ve ever made the mistake of engaging in this war, too, then you’ll LOVE this recent post from one of my favorite bloggers, dooce.  This post made me laugh so hard that I was crying.  And when Kate came in to ask for Fritos an hour before dinner time, it just made me laugh even more.  So enjoy.  And be sure to tell me your favorite part, cuz I’m still laughing at the comment about the iPhone and other first world conversations…

Great Book for Picture Study

At our last visit to the library Kate was disappointed to discover that they didn’t have any ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?’ DVDs on the shelf. (Do you remember that geography-sleuth kids’ gameshow on TV in the late 80s with the catchy intro song by the group, Rockapella? These are the cartoons along the same story lines.) So, I told her that when we got home we would get online and request them via intralibrary loan. While I was online looking for her DVDs, I ran across this book that I thought sounded really promising.  (I’m not really sure why I felt the need to tell you all that, unless I really just wanted to share with the world what a geek I was in the late 80s and still am, apparently, since I can still sing some of that theme song to this day…)

Where in the World? Around the Globe in 13 Works of Art, by Bob Raczka, has turned out to be my newest favorite book for Kate. It’s a collection of 13 works of art from around the world (duh, you probably got all that from the title) with a page describing the geographical location of the piece as well as the artist and the time he/she lived in. It’s written for kids, so the language isn’t a stumbling block but, thankfully, it’s not sing-songy either. Continue reading…