The Wonder of Roasting Marshmallows

Our kids' ages are 5 and 4, and they just had their first experience roasting marshmallows this week. I'm trying to decide if they've been deprived or if we're right on schedule with their ages and this milestone. I mean...you can't have infants mixing with fire, but they could have at least tasted a roasted marshmallow before now--you think?

Check out these photos at the fire pit at The Magical Nights of Lights at Lake Lanier:

Here's the whole crew...

Uncle Jeff lending a hand--look at the wonder in this roaster's eyes.More wonder here...Love this picture of the Daddy with the kids...

One of the cousins teaching the art of roasting...

The 4 cousins together...our kids are always so excited when they get to spend time with their cousins!Now...I couldn't let you miss out on this photo. My sister-in-law spotted this prize that we all had to check out--a giant Rice Krispie Treat for $17.95!

Swap Success!

Hooray! I received my 1st ever blog-swap package! Thanks Marty--everything is so fun! Here's a picture of all of my goodies:

hand towels, brownie mix, hot cocoa mix, 2 treat bags of candy for my kids, HoHoHo notepad, fun "A" key chain, cute Letter to Santa stationary, and a mini-Santa-Merry Christmas stocking--LOVE it all!!

If you get a chance to participate in a swap--do it!! Who doesn't like to get a package in the mail??

We were in a 3-way swap. Here's what I bought for my swap buddy:

1. 72 Personalized return address labels--fun, fun! I love stationary and anything fun that makes communication more exciting--especially if it's personalized-love it!! Check out the the fun products on www.LittleArtStudio.com. Kim has great products and is soooo nice too! I found her on www.etsy.com.

2. I also found a tea towel at a local gift shop with a fun Christmas ribbon with the verse..."May the Lord Bless You and Keep You" written on it. My swap buddy happens to be a friend I grew up with in church. In UMYF, we ended each meeting with our closing blessing...
"May the Lord bless you and keep you; May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace." So...I couldn't think of a more perfect gift for a friend from my youth!

Do you have this???

Here's another poduct that I have to promote...If your hands get dry and yucky in the cold weather, you've got to have this cream! My hands sometimes get so dry that they hurt! Do you have some Avenno Intense Relief Hand Cream? If not...get some!

Do you have these???

Bath and Body Works Sweetest, Softest Ever Socks
If you don't have them...get them!

6 trees decorated in 1 day

When I came home on Tuesday of this week, my husband had a Christmas tree in our living room! So today we decorated the family tree along with 5 other small trees for around the house: Boy Tree, Girl Tree, Dog/Dawg Tree, Pig Tree, and the Grinch Tree. I'm posting photos of a favorite ornament from each tree.

The family tree is in our living room. It is a 9 ft. tree we got a Sam's the first year in our first home...if other words before the "pre-lit trees" were available. Our tree has many ornaments from over the years (from the time I was little to now). No theme tree here for us!!! I love looking at each ornament and remembering it's "story." Do you have favorite ornaments with "stories?" Here's an ornament I bought last year-I actually liked it so much that I bought one for me and one for my college roommate. GO DAWGS!

Both of our children have a small tree in their bedrooms. The boy tree is a green tree with colored lights decorated with red and blue ornaments and ornaments boys like: trucks, cars, and this garage. The garage I found last year at Target. It's actually a gift card holder, but it's a favorite ornament for our son.
The girl tree is pink and it is pre-lit!!! Here's a fun tiara ornament and some of her fun, pink ball ornaments. She also has princesses, a purse, and Minnie on her tree.

Here's my favorite from our Dog/Dawg tree. It's a bobble-head dachshund with a wreath on it's neck from Restoration Hardware (I think--or maybe Pottery Barn). Our dog/Dawg tree has dachshunds and GA Bulldog stuff.

This cutie is on my Pig Tree. I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1983. The first insulin I used was made from pig insulin...so I started collecting pigs. I don't collect much anymore--except for pig ornaments. So...I needed a pig tree for them, right?

And finally---the Grinch Tree. I have a wonderful friend that I worked with in another school who has soooooooo many Christmas trees in her home. She is a widow in her 60s, and she doesn't quit. If we drove by her home right now...we might see her up on the ladder hanging Christmas lights along her roof line. No wait...she probably already has it done. In other words, she does it all! Last Christmas we toured her home with the kids, and the kids saw her Grinch tree and had to have one. So...we found a small Grinch-green-colored tree (pre-lit) and bought it on sale last year. Here's the Grinch himself (I couldn't get a very clear pic of him with all that bling!):
Here's hoping you'll be decorating soon too (if you haven't started already!)

Feast 1 and Feast 2

Today were the annual Thanksgiving Feasts at both of the kids schools. It's hard when they're not in the same place! Our boy's was first at 9:30 this morning. Hubby and his parents went there first. After watching the poems/songs and the beginning of the "snack feast" for the kids, they had to hurry off to be at our girl's school by 10:30. Here's our boy and his Daddy...the kids got to pick which costime to wear--so here's our Pilgrim boy.

Our girl performed a few songs in her classroom, made a turkey cupcake project, and then had a big feast for everyone (who paid $5) to eat--my parents joined the rest of the crew here. Check out our girl with her turkey.

Princess Tiger Lily and Nana the Dog

This weekend the kids were invited to a Tinker Bell birthday party with instructions to come dressed as a character from Peter Pan. I'd had it on my mind this week, but the weekend slipped up on us...so Saturday morning we were scrambling around for costumes with a Peter Pan book in hand. The final costumes from around our house were...drum roll please...Princess Tiger Lily and Nana the Dog! The kids had a great time at the party and the pacing was great--lots of planned activities to keep things moving fast. The kids played Mark-the-X on the Map (like pin-the-tail on the donkey), got fairy and pirate tattoos, made personal servings of ice cream in Ziploc bags, painted/decorated treasure boxes, played a beanbag toss game in a pirate ship, ate cake, and watched the birthday girl open her gifts.

Here's Princess Tiger Lily painting her treasure box (wearing her Tinkerbell wings that she won as a prize for a game):Here's Nana the Dog (check out the tail on the belt) and Tiger Lily watching the gift opening:

Not again for a long time

Today we had the great idea to take our kids to see HSM3 at the theater after school. We've been promising our daughter that we'd take her, and things just keep coming up on the weekends. So...we were on the way there last night, but got stuck in traffic. We actually made it to the theater early tonight and things started out great! The movie started around 5 and ended around 7...toward the end we were on a downward spiral. There were too many factors working against us: still not used to time change, big drink=bathroom issues, not many movie-goers=too much room to run around...so based on our later experiences tonight...it may be a long time until we try that kind of after-school outing again! Ending on a more positive note--our daughter did have a blast dancing and taking it all in!

"I don't think Santa is going to stop at our house."

"I don't think Santa is going to stop at our house."--That's exactly what my 4 year old said to me on the way to preschool this morning. We were driving along...having a nice conversation about where Santa lives...where he sits in his sleigh...how the reindeer pull his sleigh...and then she hits me with..."I don't think Santa is going to stop at our house." When I asked her why...she said "because sometimes we're bad." OK...put on the brakes...now I'm thinking my husband and I need to rethink this Christmas-threatening that we've been doing lately--"better be good...Santa's watching." So...we haven't said "you're being bad" to either of our kids, but I guess "you better be good" translates to "you're being bad" in a 4-year-old's mind. To finish the story about this morning...I assured her that Santa would be stopping at our house--now we need to get to writing a letter to Santa so he knows what to bring!

A Christmas Decoration Swap--sounds like fun!

http://www.clemsongirlandthecoach.blogspot.com/

I came across this blog by way of a friend's blog. What could be more fun---a Christmas decoration swap??? Love the idea...can't wait to get started! The deadline to sign up is this Sunday night, November 9--hurry to sign up--you don't have a to have a blog to do it!!

PLEASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSE MOM???????

Today, when I got home from school, the first thing our girl said to me was..."Mama, can I paint my hands and put them on paper?" I asked her if she had done that at school today, and she said she had. So I was thinking..."You've already done that today at school--do we really have to do it again right now?--I just got home!" After a few minutes of "Please mom!!!", I went to get the paint supplies. I'm really glad I did...check out her masterpiece of hand prints and fingerprints. I just helped her squeeze the paint out of the tubes and wash between colors...she did the rest!

Have You Wrangled Any Reptiles Lately?

No really...have you??? We went to Connor's birthday party last weekend. We were entertained by a Reptile Wrangler! He took each animal out one at a time from of a basket--out of a pillowcase tied shut. He had 2 snakes, 1 iguana, 1 alligator, and another reptile (but I forgot it's name)! The kids LOVED it! Our boy is usually the conservative one and our girl is the adventure-seeker, but NOT this time! Our boy loved touching the animals and checking them out up close. Our girl (on the other hand) was right next to me--usually in my lap (I think that was after the Wrangler said the alligator didn't like him as it thrashed around)! After the show, all the kids ran off to play--then that's when the Wrangler proceeds to tell the adults how the 160 lb. python attacked him the week prior! Oh my...I'm glad we weren't on the news!! Happy 6th Birthday to Connor!
Here's that mean 'ol alligator...you can see in his eyes that he's not happy! I guess I wouldn't be too happy with my mouth taped shut either!Here's the mystery reptile...I cannot remember what he's called!Here's a shot of how close we were sitting to the reptiles. Yes...that's the python that attacked the Wrangler last week!
Now this is the kind of reptile I'm talking about--one made of cake and icing!!! Looks like our girl (in the pink bow) likes this "snake" too!

Happy Halloween 2008!

I love Halloween...I think it's because my birthday is close to Halloween--so growing up my birthday treats at school were usually Halloween themed. My mom used to order these sugar cookies from a bakery close to our house. The cookies had a hard-sugar-Halloween decoration on top. My sister always fusses at me because she says I don't remember anything from our childhood...but I do remember those sugar cookies!

So...back to 2008...we all dressed up for trick-or-treating this year. We had our costumes from our Disney trip in Sept. when we went trick-or-treating there...so we pulled them out again! I think it's the first time since Hubby and I have been together that we have dressed up for Halloween. The kids loved it, but our daughter was NOT in favor of my husband's fake-mustache! She kept saying, "Dad...that's disgusting!" Check it out (along with some other pictures):

Darth and Princess Leia heading out to trick-or-treat:Here's one of my favorite things we've done the past few years at Halloween...we have 2 containers---the one on the bottom is labeled "Tricks" and the one on top is labeled "Treats." We give out both!!! The "tricks" are spider rings and other plastic toys-snakes, bugs, etc. The "treats" are all candy! Notice the pumpkin on the bottom-right...that's the one we paid $16 for at the farm. I couldn't bear to carve it!!!I bought this fun orange ribbon this year to use for decoration. I was trying to decide where to put these bows...they ended up on the mantel bringing Halloween cheer!Halloween night ended with me driving to the drug store to pick up antibiotics--oral and a cream. I carved so many pumpkins (at school)...that I got an infection on my finger! When I started having pain run up my arm...my sister insisted I call the doctor. It was feeling much better this morning! No pain...no Halloween fun! I hope you had a safe, fun night!!!