I have long hair. I have long hair for a reason. I hate styling it. I had short hair for all of year and it just wasn't for me. Too difficult to take care of. I have coarse, thick, wavy, frizzy hair. I also have zero desire to spend time on it. I'm lucky if I get a moment to wash my hair. If I can't just throw it in a ponytail, I'm done for. Yet for some reason, I keep pinning tons of really cute hair ideas on Pinterest. Why do I do this to myself? I know I'll never actually do them. Yet, I keep pinning thinking, maybe. There's this one site in particular that I love, http://www.lovemaegan.com/. Awesome hair and nail ideas. Her hair is the closest to mine that I can find. Still, I'm way too lazy. For those of you who aren't lazy, check out her site. Here are a couple of my favorites from her site. I've also found a lot of cool hairstyles from this other site, http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com/my_weblog/ . Here are some of my favorites that I will never do. So, there you have it. Styles I love that you will never see on my head. Instead, you'll find me in a basic ponytail, usually a low one. And, when I'm not focused, you may also just find a kid clip in my hair that I put there for safe keeping.
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Back in December when we were doing our Advent Acts of Kindness, after dropping decorations off to the birth center at the hospital, Monster decided he wanted to do something like that again. We decided that we would make Mother's Day cards for them. This plan has been in the making for almost 6 months now and I kept getting asked when we were going to do it. Finally, with Mother's Day a week away, we made our cards. I got the general idea from this site, but wanted to change it up just a little. Yesterday, we made 20 cards. They turned out super cute. We'll deliver them at the beginning of next week. I mostly love that my kids were so happy to do something like this for other people.
Lately, uploading pictures has been killing me. That's made me procrastinate posting some fun projects we've been doing. One project we worked on was painting like Michelangelo. I got the idea here, but adapted it. First, I recycled paper by using the backside of the zig zag track we made. I taped it to the bottom of the coffee table. I then rolled up the carpet, which was brilliant insight on my part considering there was paint and marker on the floor. Before the kids began, we talked about Michelangelo and looked at pictures of the Sistine Chapel. Monster came up with some theories on how the painted the ceiling. When we were done talking and looking at pictures, I let the kids go to town. Forseeing some issues, I divided the paper under the table with a red line, half for Monster and half for Sunshine. They did awesome! I was amazed that in such a small area, there was no fighting over anything. A friend got Sunshine the Crayola Paint Brush Pens for her birthday and they were perfect for this project. Only problem was there were only five colors, so we moved onto markers fairly quickly. Kids didn't mind. They had such a great time with this! Another project we worked on were masks. Monster already had a mask that he had made at art class. Sunshine wanted one, too. I wasn't about to make one near as elaborate. I came across a mask that was super simple to make. I used the basic concept, but then tweaked it. Even though it's not near as fancy as her brother's, Sunshine loves it! Last project I worked on was one of my own. I had seen this idea on Pinterest. It took scrap book paper and "remade" clear, plastic drawers. I liked it, but it was too complicated. I want simple. So, I simplified. Here's the original pin. Here's mine. Not quite as nice, but not too bad. The smaller drawers didn't turn out like I hoped, but I do like the larger drawers. Maybe when I get motivated, I'll come up with a simple idea to make the small drawers better. Best part of it though is that the drawers are now perfectly organized and clean!
Today, I had one goal. Stay in yoga pants all day. I accomplished this goal. Funny thing is, my yoga pants days are often my most productive. The day started much earlier than normal. Monster, who I usually wake up at 7:15-7:20 was up at 6:40. This, however, got my butt in gear. By 8:15, both kids were ready to walk out the door for school, even though we had 15 minutes left and Sunshine didn't get up until 7:55. By 8:50, dinner was in the crock pot and Sunshine and I had brownies baking in the oven. The whole time Sunshine was helping, she was also singing, "I bake brownies for Daddy...brownies for Daddy." After that, she and I spent almost 2 full hours in the basement doing laundry and cleaning the basement, which had been a disaster area. I am officially getting rid of all my baby stuff. No more holding on to it "just in case". Luckily, I have a friend who is having twins, so she'd getting the majority of it! Because of the purging though, my basement looked like clothes and baby stuff threw up. Bins upon bins, upon boxes, upon bags. It was worse than bad. Sunshine happily played all by herself, which is rare, so I had time to get everything done! The basement looks awesome and all the stuff that Twin Mama is getting is neatly packed in bags and boxes waiting for me to rent the U-haul to drive it up to her (just kidding...sort of). The things that she doesn't need, I've got in a large moving box for BirthCare. That's not even touching on all the clothes I just went through and sorted to give to several other friends. I also got two boxes aside for Goodwill. It feels wonderful and scary all at the same time. We finished up the basement with just enough time to pick Monster up from school.
During lunch, I cleaned the kitchen and did more laundry. At nap, I cleaned the living room. After nap, we went for a brisk walk to train for the 5K we're doing May 4th. When we got home, the kids and I pretended we were Mars explorers. I also drew a zig zag racetrack for their cars. Sunshine didn't quite get it though. She cheated a lot, which made Monster extremely frustrated. I got dinner on the table as Husband was getting home. After dinner, all four of us cleaned the computer room. We put every toy away where it was supposed to go! I even filed paperwork, which I hate doing, and usually leave for Husband to do. I got the trash out, dog pooped cleaned up, downed branches from yesterday's wind collected, and all the rest of the laundry done and put away before the kids were even in bed (Husband does bedtime here). Husband and I were actually able to sit down at 7:30 and watch an episode of Numb3rs. Now, it's off to work again for Husband and I get to sit here, in my sleepy pants now instead of yoga pants and type, feeling good about all that was accomplished on my Yoga Pants Day. Going to upload some pictures and then relax with Chasing Fire. It was a great day and an excellent break from the normal, go, go, go. Though Monster's birthday isn't until the end of May, I have started working on his favors for his class. There are 26 kids that I need to make these for, so I wanted to get a jump start on it. I found this cute idea on Pinterest. Like most things, I take the general idea and then change it around. I pretty much followed the same steps in making the cones, except I made them smaller by making two triangles instead of one from the paper. It also said to tuck down extra paper. I just cut it off. Much easier that way. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of loose candy and tissue paper, so I made up little treat bags to put in the top to look like a scoop of ice cream. I stuck a red puff ball on top of the handle to look like a cherry. I sealed the cone with a sticker that says, "[Monster's] 6!". I just used address labels for that. Pretty cute. I've got all the bags made up and two cones down. Only 24 more. I figure if I do two a day (and that's the goal because I know that won't actually happen), I can be done in plenty of time for passing out birthday favors!
Pinterest sucks my time. Really. However, it also inspires me. I saw this really cute cookie idea and thought maybe I would give it a try. Then, I got real. I knew I'd never try it. First, I rarely have time to bake cookies that are more complicated than chocolate chip. Second, it was a spiral dough, which meant rolling it in to a log. I can't do that. I can't even roll a decent burrito. Yet, for some reason I kept this recipe pinned. Maybe it's because I'm obsessed with sprinkles on my sweets, I don't know. Whatever the reason, I happened to be browsing my pins and saw this one again. I kept thinking how cute those would be for Sunshine's playgroup birthday "party". Then, I had a brainstorm, which was amazing in itself since I had it when I was down with a migraine. What drew me to the cookies was not the spiral effect, but the sprinkles. I could definitely do that. Growing up, I fully believed that Pillsbury Slice and Bake cookies were how cookies were made from scratch (my mother is not a baker). I'm pretty well schooled in those nice cookie dough logs. Basically, the fancy swirl recipe was just two layers of sugar cookie dough rolled together and then rolled in sprinkles. How nice of Pillsbury to already have a log of sugar cookie dough all ready for me. Here's my easy version of spiral sugar cookies....minus the spiral. Step 1. Go to grocery store and pick up sprinkles (any kind, all sprinkles are created equally). Then, mosey over to the refrigerated section and pick up a log of sugar cookie dough. I highly suggest Pillsbury, but that's because I grew up on them. Please remember to pay for your purchase and then you can take them home. Step 2. This is the most important step in the process. Cut the ends off the roll and then eat the raw cookie dough from the ends of the package. It's worth the risk of getting worms. Just do it, you know you want to. Step 3. This step I had to experiment with. I didn't want to just dump sprinkles on the cutting board and roll. I wanted to contain the sprinkles. I needed to find something large enough the the whole roll would fit in. First, I tried my brownie pan. Didn't work. The sprinkles instantly scattered to both sides of the pan. I then tried a casserole dish. That didn't work either, same thing happened. I ended up dumping the sprinkles on the cutting board. I rolled the dough in the sprinkles until it was pretty well covered. Messy, but it worked. I probably should have waited to clean the house until AFTER I did this because I ended up cleaning twice. Step 4 and 5. Just like the dough says...slice and bake. Step 6. Make sure your family does not eat the cookies before the party. My real plan was for them to have a swirl of colored sugar on top to make them look more like the swirl cookies, but my 3-day migraine didn't allow for that much effort to be put forth. Next time, they will be swirled.
Here are the finished binoculars. Monster thinks his are super cool! (Sunshine's not awake yet)
Well, the day before. The day started out with Almond Cinnamon Color Swirl French Toast. Husband makes awesome breakfasts! Later in the day came some egg dying. This is the first year as an adult I have done this. I used to do this when I was little with my grandma. This year I decided to brave it, mostly because I found this on how to dye eggs with Kool Aid. The kids thought it was really fun. Messy, but fun! The Easter bunny will come hopping down the bunny trail tonight. He may even be able to hide eggs outside!
The sign of a good school holiday? When your almost 6 year old takes a two hour nap after asking to go to bed early the night before. I'm relishing in this because, well, I'm exhausted. Still so much left to do before Easter also, so I will trudge on and tag in Husband for today's round of activity.
Yesterday started with drawing pictures for Mr. H who did the airport tour the day before. Both kids worked very hard on their pictures of planes. After that, we headed to the park to feed the ducks. The kids loved it. In fact, they loved it so much, we went to another park and fed geese also. When we were all out of food, we took a trip to get a desk for Monster's room. 40 minutes later, no desk. The place was closed for Good Friday. So, home we went. We painted toilet paper rolls for binoculars (got the general idea from here, but put a different, and more kid friendly, spin on it) and made some superhero wristbands (again, got the general idea from here, but instead of foam stars, we used felt because they were cheaper. My kids didn't need or want glitter, they used markers and crayons). All this before lunch. At rest time, I went up to tell Monster he could come on down to play and he was sound asleep. I was shocked. In fact, I literally didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't decide if I should work or play. I did both. After two hours, I decided I needed to wake the Monster up before he wouldn't sleep at night. Sunshine was still sleeping, so Monster and I got time to do a science experiment. Monster has Mind Blowing Science and loves to do experiments. We tried Sunset in a test tube. The first part went well. We had to wait for the final results over night. After Sunshine got up, we went grocery shopping, because I don't seem to do enough of that. When we got home, the cat from across the street was out, so Sunshine had to go pet it. Aunt C was out, too, so we chatted while the kids played with the cat. (As a side note, I hate cats. I love animals, but cats, I can't stand. Somehow though, my daughter has a love of cats. She's already rebelling against us.) We got home and I started dinner and boiled eggs for dying while the kids did some art. I can't believe how well they have gotten along all week. Husband actually got home at a decent time. He tagged in and let me sit on a heating pad for my back, which has been horrible since I dug up the garden on Monday. All in all, a great week. Technically, we have three days left, but it's a holiday weekend and Monday it's back to music class for Sunshine and swim lessons for Monster. Both kids love playing with cars. When I saw a DIY parking garage complete with ramps made from file folders on Pinterest, I had to make it. The kids even helped out. Now, I'm all about reusing. It just so happens that Husband and I recently cleaned out the filing cabinet and had a bunch of spare file folders that had things written on the tabs. I gathered 4 of those up. The kids helped me cut the tabs off to form straight lines. Next we taped them together accordion style. Now, the directions used this exact phrase and by the time I made this yesterday, my brain couldn't figure that out, so I just used the steps as a guide and set it up how I wanted and then taped. Sunshine helped with the tape, so we used a lot of it. Since Monster actually saw the nice complicated skyline on the website, he wanted a skyline, too. I'm all about simplicity. I didn't cut stuff out like the person did in the original, I just drew a generic looking skyline and colored it with a crayon. Kids were just as happy as if it looked professionally done. After that was done, I took the other folder and cut it in half on the fold. On the original site, she doesn't tell you to cut the tabs off of this folder, but after messing around with it a bit, I did because it just worked better that way. After that, I cut the half of the folder in half again length wise. I drew a dotted line and arrows. I drew the arrows because I know my kids. They would be fighting for which side to drive their cars on if I didn't give them directions. I then taped on the ramps and drew "parking spaces". Honestly, I didn't use the tutorial after the whole accordion style taping directions. I pretty much just winged it and it turned out fine. I mean, it's not a complicated project, which is what I like. I don't know if it was because I had used folders, but they didn't' stand up well on my steps. I taped the top to the wall and the bottom to the floor. We also have a car mat which we put at the bottom of the steps. The kids loved this. Sunshine added some dinosaurs in later in play to guard the cars on the mat. But of course, right? Fun, simple project. The original poster made hers much nicer, but my kids don't care about fancy, they want fun and I want simple. It took all of 5 minutes. The fighting over who got which cars took longer to sort through than making this. Coolest thing is that I can add on. If I want another level, I'll just add a folder. I also thought about making a second to put higher up the stairs so each child can have their own.
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