Chill OUT (Jar)

Today was one of those days that almost made me want to turn in my mom card and declare, "I'm done." Hehe. I don't often have those days as a mama, but being sick when the husband is at work all day long (and night, too!) can usually push me to the edge. All I wanted to do was sleep or at the very least, lay horizontally and moan pitifully at the world. Lily and Sage were good for a while, but as the day wore on, they got progressively stir crazy. After about the 100th time of Sage swiping every single thing off the table or Lily getting upset because she was told no, she couldn't watch another episode of Cake Boss, this mama had reached the end.

So what do I do when I'm going bonkers and my kids are going bonkers and we're all driving each other insane? Why, we get creative and craft something of course!!! Especially dour moods call for especially sparkly projects. Frustration, you have met your match in this household. I present to you, the "Chill Out Jar."

Some of you may have seen this on pinterest under similar names such as the Time Out Jar. We've actually used this quite a bit over the years for Lily when she gets stressed or upset, but the last one started leaking and it's been about a year and a half since we've had one in the house. 

Basically, it's like this. The jar (plastic bottle in this house because Sage likes to throw) is full of colored water, a bit of glue, and a crap ton of glitter. You shake it, you zone out on the sparkly swirliness and poof! Your mad gets gone real quick. Fun for all ages, too. Sage zoned on it, Lily took a turn, then I got distracted while I was taking pictures. 

Lily helped me pour the glitter and count the food drops. Most important jobs, you know. I came up with the quick little poem for the side and used my trusty label maker. The poem had the added benefit of covering the bits and pieces left over from the bottle wrapper. Creative laziness, no? Sage shook the crap out of it to test it. Success! 

I know in the past this has been a life saver with Lily when she had her tantrum phase. I'm sure it will work with Sage muffin too, but if not, it's still good. After all, it's a  homemade toy that reaches both ends of  the 8 year age gap between my kids. That's a lot of win in my book. Plus, sparkly.

If you would like the instructions to make your own Time Out/Chill Out Jar, you can visit here. There are bunches of recipes on how to do this, but According to L is my favorite because who doesn't want to say something looks like "glitter poop" at least once in their life? Also, she shows pictures of her kid using the jar over time as proof it works. 

Watermelon Cake and Movie in the Yard (Year 2)

To see my first post on movies in the yard and watermelon cake, go here.

For my aunt's annual movie in the yard night, I was asked to make another watermelon cake. My first one was such fun, I was absolutely ready to do another one. Watermelon cakes have exploded in popularity and it's such fun to see how simple fruits turn into beautiful creations.

I ran into a serious setback this year. I cut open my watermelon, which I had spent entirely too long selecting, and found this.

Rotten. Ick. It was nothing but mush inside. When I went to shift it, half the insides went splat on the floor. I'm sure I said a word or two my daughters hopefully didn't hear.

After a quick phone call and a replacement watermelon, I got the rest of the fruit ready since I'd assemble the cake at my auntie's house. 

I can't remember where I got these cookie cutters, but I use them all the time to cut sandwiches and fruit into cute shapes. They're a hard plastic that takes the abuse of thick food. I figured out that if I sliced the cantaloupe from the outside headed inwards, I got slices that were big enough to do several shapes at a time.

As I was putting the cake together people started arriving so it was kind of fun to answer questions. I threw a bit of this and that wherever looked good while I was chatting. For this cake I used a little over half a watermelon and we still had leftover slices.

Sage Muffin was determined to get some of the fruit as I was putting it together. She'd wiggle in between my legs and the counter to push me away and then try to climb up to get to the cake. Lily was off and running as usual and I don't think I got a single picture of that girl the whole night. 

So there you have it. Watermelon cake version 2.0. It was delicious and the younger kids loved the skewers of fruit. Sage ate berries and watermelon and cheetos until I thought she'd be sick. Lily spent the entire movie whispering and eating candy with her cousins. There was tubs of popcorn and pickled cucumbers and fresh garden veggies and.. and...too much food. Too much delicious, tasty food.

Due to nasty weather, the movie was not actually on the yard. Instead we all loaded into the garage. It was kind of cozy. 

It doesn't look like it in this picture, but there was quite a few of us! (You can see my rainbow bag on the floor next to my chair! It fit two blankets, diapers, some yarn, and a couple other things!) We watched Wreck-It-Ralph. There is one line that just makes me snicker every time. "All right ladies! The kitten whispers and tickle fights stop now!" Hee hee hee. If that doesn't make you at least snort, I don't know what to do with you. 

Much fun, much food, and late nights. It was the perfect end to summer. I start school on Monday....

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Watermelon cake and movies in the yard.

When I saw the all fruit cake over at See My Footprints, I fell in love. What an amazing alternative to sugar and frosting. It's been pinned so many times, but I couldn't really find anyone else who had tried it!

When my aunt asked me to bring a treat for her Movie in the Yard night, I knew what I was going to make.

Movie in the Yard night is a winner of an idea for some summer evening fun. It's like the drive-in, only on lawn chairs and blankets. They had a projector and screen set up complete with popcorn, candy, and other yummy snacks. We watched Despicable Me, a movie I will never get tired of.

"It's so fluffy, I'm gonna DIE!!!"

*snicker*

Anyway, so here's my cake made of watermelon and other assorted fruity magic.

The cake done at See My Footprints had the rind removed, but because there was going to be lots of kids and dark, I decided to leave the rind on. I also wanted it all sliced for ease of snacking. So I sliced a whole seedless watermelon and then rearranged the slices in staggered tiers just to make it look pretty. I used strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, and kiwi to decorate my cake.

As you can see, it was a little lopsided. I messed with it forever and just finally gave up. So the advice from me would be to make sure you cut your slices really, really straight. Doing the decorating was seriously the best. I think I ate as much fruit as I put on  the cake because it was all so fresh and tasty.

Lily helped me cut out the cantaloupe shapes. I found some plastic flower and heart cookie cutters in two sizes that I had bought to fancy up her peanut butter sandwiches. (Side note: has anyone else noticed that a simple PB&J with a bag of chips is not a cool enough lunch anymore? I should have never shown Lily the lunches over at Meet the Dubiens.)  As long as the melon wasn't more than about 3/4 inches thick, they handled it just fine and Lily could help. I would love to find some smaller cookie cutters that would work for the kiwis. 

I had absolutely no plan when it came down to a "design" for the cake. I am, and always will be, a woman who works better just winging it. The key here, is lots and lots of toothpicks. Which was handy because people re-used them as they were picking off fruit. I probably went a bit overboard with the toothpicks, but only because I had to transport the cake in the car and I did NOT want anything falling apart. 

It was a total hit. I was told it was adorable, a wonderful option for those on diets, and that I was very talented. Seriously, all the compliments were making my head swell. See My Footprints did her cake for her child's 1st birthday as an alternative to real cake, which I think is so very smart. Although, I do love a good messy toddler playing in cake at a party. There are several other versions of cakes that she has done as well. Check them out!

And there you have it. Watermelon "cake" that tastes delicious. I love finding new recipes and foodie projects for big group get togethers. With a huge family, it's good to have these things in your back pocket! ;) If you ever need a summer party idea, I'm telling you, try the movie outside idea. All you need is a projector and something to use as a screen. Oh, but watch out for ditches. Haha. Some of the boys were catching frogs and I suddenly had a very muddy, very wet Lily on my hands shortly before the movie started.   I was lucky to have an aunt who was nice enough to run home and grab a change of clothes so Lily didn't freeze. It wouldn't be a night out if Lily didn't do something crazy!

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Fun, Family, and Furries.

I am so happy to be back in technology land! I know it's important to unplug and get away from the phones, computers, nooks, and what not once in awhile, but I went cold turkey over the weekend and I missed you all!

Our Fourth was wonderful. The hubster had the whole day off for the first time in 5 years. We did the parade, had a barbeque, went to Brave (again), and played with fireworks. It was fun. Lily went nuts pretending to play in the water. She's a little skittish about sprinklers. Sage couldn't decide if she liked all the sunshine or not. She slept through the whole entire parade. I couldn't believe she didn't wake up from the noise. 50,000 people make a lot of noise.

With all that went on that day, it was just a coming attraction for Thursday through Sunday. It was our yearly Redneck Family Reunion. This is one of the highlights of our summer and this year was even more so! Normally we camp out in the middle of nowhere (so no one can see our silliness!!!) and commence with the Redneck Olympics. Our Olympic games test your seed spitting skills, how well you can toss a toilet lid, and other forms of athletic hilarity. This year, we did things a bit differently. We rented cabins, and yes that's plural on purpose. There was 33 of us! Together we all spent the weekend in Island Park, an area just outside of West Yellowstone, Montana.

The beauty of this was that there was SO MUCH to do. River floating, wandering around town, Yellowstone National Park, Playmill Theater, the list could go on for days. Every time we turned around someone was going on an excursion of some sort. Also, no one knows how to cook like my family. YUM.

I think my favorite part of the trip was going to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center and seeing the bears and wolves. I went once with a big family group, and went back later with Nic because he missed it the first time around. If you're in the area, go. No excuses! :) All of the animals are rescues. It's really amazing what they've done there. I had a special soft spot for the bald eagle, Isis. She was beautiful.

Sage got a kick out of the grizzly hide they had out to touch and feel. Lily was too busy running around like a wild woman to let me get a picture of her.

Lily loved seeing "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Playmill Theater. She was ecstatic when she got to hug the actress who played Annie. She chattered the whole ride back to the cabins about how Annie was a famous person and she got to hug her and "Mom! Did you know that Annie Oakley was a REAL person in the OLDEN days???"

We also went to Old Faithful and saw some buffalo in Yellowstone National Park. It was so overcast, the pictures I took of the geyser melt into the sky. Bummer! I saw a mama elk and her baby, but we were moving too fast for me to get a picture of them.

The weekend flew by too fast! I felt like we were packing up to go home five minutes after I got there!  Hubster and I want to go back and spend some time there on an anniversary trip or something to see what else we could get up to. Lily asked if we could go back next weekend. With the proximity to Yellowstone Park, it would be easy to live there happily for a year! :) With Yellowstone Park practically in our backyard as it is, we really should get over there more often and play.

Hope your Fourth of July weekend was lovely and as full of family and fun as mine was!

ZzZzzzzz....

So. freaking. tired.

Yard sales are absolutely more fun when you're the buyer rather than the seller. Or maybe that's just my grumpy mama bear self talking because I'm running on two and a half hours of sleep and no naps. It was pretty fun haggling and watching my bag fill up with money, but the sheer amount of work is exhausting.

Oh well, it's over and done and we made a couple hundred, which was our goal. Yay for met goals.

Every time I look up, I have to grin. Lily had her first art class last Wednesday. Hanging slightly askew on the wall (because she had to tape it up herself), is her masterpiece.

Her first class was a Mixed Media self portrait. They had several different stations that the kids got to play in. I think my favorite was the scratch art. The kids crayoned a block of the poster and colored over it with black paint and then scratched it off after drying. (The black circles in Lily's picture.) They played with sand, glue, foils, fabrics, paints, and all sorts of fun things. I thought it was a great idea that the art teacher actually took a picture of the kids for their posters. 

It's funny how different Lily and I are about our art. I LOVE LOVE LOVE mixed media, but I still have to have a plan or at least a general outline. Lily just goes to town. It's wild and colorful and unique, just like her. Next class is the Jackson Pollock class I am so jealous about. I'm hoping they need mother helpers again so I can stay and play in the paint spatter. 

Well, my brain, body, and eyes are shutting down. I'm off to have some well deserved catatonia. I feel so bad for poor Husbandy Face. He had to head into work at 1pm and won't be home until after midnight and he got just as little sleep as I did. That man is a trooper. 

Nighty night night!

Lazy Weekends.

This weekend has been lovely.

Friday afternoon, Lily got "the biggest cookie dough blizzard there is Mom!" All year we have been struggling with her behavior in school. My daughter is strong willed, full of scary logic, and entirely too smart for a 1st grader. If she doesn't understand why she has to do it, or doesn't like the reason she's been told, she won't do it. Also, the reason "because I said so" doesn't work. Ha. It's one of the most frustrating and wonderful things about her. No worries about a lack of individuality or confidence with my Lily, she's got it down. So this week was the very first week in the whole school year that she got all stickers and met her HUGS goals for each day. Pretty much that translates to she did AWESOME. Though there's only two weeks of school left, I'll take it. So off we went to grab blizzards as a sweetie treat.

Saturday had us playing with blow pens (do you remember those?? So fun!) and coloring for hours. When that got boring, I broke out construction paper, scissors, and staples to make a paper chain.

A child after my own heart, she headed straight to a rainbow pattern. What was more surprising to me was that she was able to put the colors in the correct order from red to violet all by herself. Remember how I said the girl was smart? Once we went through about a hundred staples, I broke out the tape and we went through nearly a roll of that. She just kept going. I am totally remembering this one for the next time she's bored.

After we spent the day being creative, she went off to a sleep over and I had little miss Sage all to myself. We snuggled and slept only to wake up with the husband came home and then went back to snuggling and sleeping. Is there anything better than curling up and breathing in the happy scent of a baby? I can't believe that little girl is already 4 months old. It feels like I was still pregnant yesterday.

Today has been more laziness with which we'll cap off with dinner at Grandma's. There is no better place to eat in town, trust me. The husband even gets off work early so I won't have to wait up (or pretend to wait up) until 12:30 tonight. Win!

My goal for the next week is to finish a rag quilt. I WILL do it. I read 5 books this week, it's time to do something else. Wish me luck! Also, I've been playing around with the blog, so if you see anything wonky, let me know, ok?