Easter Treats on Friday

Humoring Momma While
Picking Out Colors

Last year, the day after Easter, I went to Target for 50 percent off Easter baking goods. I got this awesome bunny head pan for $2. I have waited almost an entire year to bust that baby out...and Friday was the day!

Xander has a bit of a cold and is a grabby little monster, so Ainsley and I waited until his nap to make the treats.

Doing the sticks. A keen eye will marvel
at my Roger Waters TShirt

I've become an old pro at making Rice Krispee treats. For my other busy Momma friends, I've found  it's much more manageable for you to make treats that are certain shapes if you break the recipe into thirds. Then Ainsley gets to pick multiple colors for her Rice Krispie treats. This particular time, Ainsley just *could not* decide between blue, green, purple, and brown. Thirds is easier because all of the items easily break that way... 2 cups cereal, 1 T butter, 3.5 oz marshmallow. But I love my kid, so I broke out the calculator.

Testing the Quality of the Purple

Then I got distracted by Draw Something: "Are you done with math, Momma?"

Silly Billies

Ainsley's job was to hand Momma sticks and help put them into the bunny heads. She proved moderately successful at that job...except for the stick we had to discard because she decided to put it between her toes.

Each batch made 6 bunny heads with a little left over. Ainsley, of course, was more than willing to test each batch. She, also of course, found the blue to taste best, as blue and yellow are her favorite colors right now. She was actually allowed to pick any color for the treats and yellow was one of her choices, but I vetoed that as a waste of coloring. I have to say I was pretty surprised at the choice of brown.

1) This is how X sits sometimes.
HILARIOUS.
2) What happened to my BABY?!

After Xander woke up, we decided to let him help decorate. Mostly Ainsley fed him sprinkles and he ate them. When we tried  to get him to put M&Ms on the treats he was all "Fool, why in the world would I put this M&M on a treat if I can just eat it? You are crazy people."

He ate about 4 M&Ms and then punked out to go watch Chuck and Friends on Netflix. Ainsley, on the other hand, was ALL about decorating some Rice Krispie treat bunnies!

Bunny noses and bunny eyes

I told Ainsley to give the bunnies pink noses and eyes that matched (though really I knew I didn't need to tell her that. We're on the same wave length, my lil' one and me). Every treat she decorated got blue eyes. My kid loves blue...she's obsessed. I did have to let go of my Mommy OCD issues in that she absolutely refused to put the M&Ms face side down. When I was telling her for the second time to put the words face down I had that moment of "Why?" in my head... I wasn't selling these. They weren't for show. Who cares? I'm pretty proud it only took me 2 times to come to that. (Plus, I put icing pupils on the bunnies to hide the M&M lettering anyway...my will be done. Buahahahah!)

Cuteness. 

The treats turned out pretty well. I had some green left over so I decided to try making a little Easter basket with M&M eggs. It turned out alright. I have to say, I think the sticks seem unnecessary, but I also think the kids would beg to differ. LOL.

Deliciousness at
the Speed of Light

After dinner, the kids bust into the Bunny Treats. Ms. A attacked her treat. Xander ignored it for a bit, then used it to drum for a while...and then somehow he managed a bite...discovered the deliciousness and It. Was. On. I still haven't tried one, but the wee ones seem to approve.  It took them quite a bit of time to eat their treats...they laughed and chewed and licked and had a generally good time. And then Xander started playing peek-a-boo with his. The cuteness became overwhelming. Video evidence below. Ainsley, of course, felt the need to perform for the camera...so have fun with that.

The Rice Krispies treats of our labor

Please to enjoy: The Stewart Children in Rice Krispie Treat Peek-a-bo

Patience Is Not My Virtue

That's right, people...DOUBLE POST NIGHT!

So, see that castle? It's awesome. I've posted on FB how much Ainsley loves it. See that blue staircase? It's a mother effer and if I could, I'd light it on fire.  Tonight, while I was putting Ainsley to bed, I noticed it was coming apart AGAIN. You see, the staircase is supposed to curve, but it was packed flat, so I'm fighting nature here. And of course, I can't let it go.

So, I'm fiddling with it...and trying very hard not to cuss because it's DESTROYING ME EMOTIONALLY. Ainsley, from her bed, is watching me get more and more frustrated.

Me: I hate this staircase and I want to break it to pieces. (*side note* Don't judge me...I didn't cuss.)

Ainsley: Momma, maybe you should calm down and take some breaths.

Me: Maybe you should go to bed.

Ainsley: Maybe I should.

Both of us: *uncontrollable laughter*

She's here all week, folks.

**UPDATE**


I just related this story to Sean...and my trauma about the staircase. His response: You should take your hair dryer to it.

Of course.

The Gingerbread House: Momma Lets It All Go!

Ainsley at work and Xander
at, well, eating.

Now that the semester is over, I can dedicate some time to serious chilling. Part of that is making some hard core memories with the chilluns.  Tonight's episode: the gingerbread house. 

For those of you unaware of my FB commentary, a friend Karly posted pictures of the gingerbread house she made with her kids. I decided that one of my rewards would be trying this with the kids. I was nervous because of my hard core perfection issues. But I decided to do it. If nothing else, I can use it as a "hey, I'm trying to work through my issues" moment with my therapist.

I had to threaten her to get
her to look at the camera.

I put the house together and made one major mistake: I cut the icing bag hole too large. This began the icing apocalypse...it was everywhere and it was nasty thick. 

I had the candies in a jar (I bought some extra M&Ms and Hershey's Kisses to supplement the nasty candy that came with the kit). In the minutes it took me to get things together, Xander assaulted the candy bowls. After a while, I had to hold him away from the dishes. Candy is awesome--no doy.

Bossing her little brother.
Yes, that's candy in his mouth.

I started just showing her how to put the candies on the icing and let her go. Of course, her first action was to follow my lead and use the same kinds of candies in the same places I had. Then she moved onto dividing the candies into their own piles. Candy segregation is important to Ainsley.

 A was pretty serious about the decorating, but X was more interested in flitting about the living room being all hopped up on sugar.

The mini-tripod Sean got me
for Christmas last year is
coming in handy.

As we worked on the house, I just kept thinking about what a hot mess it was turning out to be. Then out of nowhere, Ainsley says, "This is bad." I said, "No! It's wonderful!" Then we both laughed a while. It was one of those transcendent moments where I felt like when she's an adult A and I will have similar laughs like these. Plus, you have to give credit to A's aesthetic. The girl knows when a gingerbread house looks like a train wreck. If I'd just bought the gingerbread train kit, the metaphor would have been complete.

Deigning to decorate.

I didn't stress out as much as I thought I would. It was sticky and gooey and the candy is likely gross (save the M&Ms and Hershey's Kisses, natch), but we had fun. Sean was downstairs playing Star Wars Old Republic (or whatever the new one is called), and when he came up the first thing that Ainsley said was, "Daddy!! Look at my house!"  

Testing out her handiwork

"It's great!" says Sean.

"It's bad!" says, Ainsley. 

JUST like the one on the box!

Putting up the Christmas Tree

This year while Xander took his nap, Ainsley helped me put up the Christmas tree. She was moderately excited to get going. As Sean brought in the Christmas bins, she was indifferent.

"Licking" the lights. Weirdo.

As I put the tree and lights up and Sean shopped Black Friday, she was moderately more interested, but still pretty indifferent. She'd take moments to help me by getting branches out of the bin...or pretending to eat the lights.

FROSTY BREAK!

Break Time!

Sean made a lunch run and returned with Frostys for Momma and child. We had a yummy time eating our treats and taking the break. However, after the Frosty break, once the ornament bins opened up, it. Was. ON. She couldn't stop digging around.

Special Ornaments

Deciding what to hang up

Last year after Christmas, Sean and I went ornament shopping. I'm all about creating a tree that has ornaments that mean something to us on it. So, Sean has a ton of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Indiana Jones ornaments.

I have ornaments with pictures of the kids on them and a set of golden bulbs that hung on my Grandma McGhee's Christmas tree since I was a little girl (I used to lie under her tree and just touch them...the reminded me of gold coconuts. She gave them to me last year.).

Loving the Yum Yum.

For Ainsley, I grabbed some M&M ornaments, as she has an undying love for Yum Yums. This year, I think she needs a Little Mermaid ornament.

At this point, all of Xander's ornaments are Baby's 1st. Not sure yet what to get for Xander beyond that. Probably Sesame Street. Or grapes maybe.



Lessons The Kids Teach Us

Showing her the ropes
Feel free to covet my Christmas PJs

As I've expressed to many of you, one of the biggest lessons that my daughter is teaching me is to let go of my ideas about control. I spent a lot of time talking to Ainsley about the ornaments we were hanging up, and why we put certain ornaments in certain places. Of course, I have a system for ornament hanging and general tree decorating. I thought it'd be helpful to teach her my way...but she was too excited to listen, of course.

The red icicle branch
OK, I Get. It

So I let her go and do her thing. We have these icicle ornaments red shiny, red glittery, green shiny, and green glittery...about 12 each. Ainsley's "thing" was to put all the red shiny icicles on one branch. It took everything in me to not tell her she was doing it "wrong." Instead, I decorated the rest of the tree and secretly rearranged the branches later.

These are not the princesses
you're looking for...

As I opened the ornaments we purchased last year, we discovered some Disney Princess ornaments that Grandma and Grandpa Stewart picked up for her. I put the hooks on the ornaments, turned my back, and she was GONE.

She'd grabbed all the princesses, climbed into an empty basket, and pretended she had NO idea what I was talking about when I asked her what happened to the princesses. She still hasn't put the princesses on the tree.

And Then Xander Woke Up

WTF?

I was really excited to show Xander our handiwork. He was pretty nervous about the tree at first. He approached it as if it may have jumped out an bit him.

After a while, he became more interested in the sparkly, dangly things that he could pull off the tree. Very exciting indeed.

Bossy McBosserson

Ainsley's reaction to Xander's attempts at helping to hang ornaments was pretty hilarious. She got her serious boss on if he did anything she felt was inappropriate.  Xander, per usual, ignored her bossing. This picture here of her bossing him has to be in my top 10 pictures of Ainsley. So. Funny.

What?! I love this tree.

It took us a while, but we finally got everything put up and started to get a little Christmas tree enjoyment in.

Mostly enjoyment manifested in taking ornaments off the tree, running around, then putting them back on...or making me put them back on. Then the under the tree shenanigans began.

The best way to touch ornaments
is with your feet, natch.

I both love and hate the Christmas tree. I love to see it and I love the mood it sets in the house (which is why it goes up immediately after Thanksgiving). I hate that my hardcore OCD manifests when I put the tree up.

I admit I was better this year...more willing to chill. Maybe in the next year or two, I'll be able to just enjoy it. *fingers crossed*

Happy Holidays!

I'm a Real Mom Now

This week, my second cousin Joey passed away after a very long struggle with Huntington's disease. He was 41. I didn't really know Joey very well. Because he was five years older than me, when we were kids, he was too old for my shennanigans, and when I was older, he was off on his own having his own family. He leaves behind a wife and three children.

However, I did go to school with Joey's brother Mark, and after my grandma moved down to live near my dad, I stayed with her sister, my aunt Sharon, Joey, Mark, and Jimmy's mother, when I went home to Portage.

Sharon was an amazing woman who lived a life much harder than she should have. She watched her husband develop and eventually succumb to Huntington's, then she went through it all again when her youngest son, Jimmy, developed the disease as a teenager and died in his early twenties, much younger than most Huntington's victims. On top of all of that, Aunt Sharon successfully fought breast cancer, only to pass away a few years later from lukemia.

Why do I mention all of this? One because I loved my aunt Sharon and I miss her and thinking about all the difficulties she lived through with actual amazing grace makes me feel lucky to have the friends and family that I do. Two because this post, which is making me reflect a little on grief, is all based around the fact that I felt compelled to go to Joey's funeral for Mark. I know Mark well and have always really enjoyed the company of him and his wife Patti. Joey's death leaves Mark the only remaining member of his immediate family. I felt he needed all the family there he could get.  So, I rearranged a bunch of stuff, threw the kids in the car, and went.

Gram told me that Lafayette was an hour behind us, and I believed her; this was my mistake. I should have double checked before I went to bed, but didn't. So while we left on time, I still felt a bit rushed because I didn't get to have that extra hour to lounge about and slowly wake up.

I kept updating the route on my GoogleMaps and I knew we were going to arrive just in time. When we were about 20 minutes away, Ainsley started to complain, "I don't wanna go! I wanna go home!" I assumed her complaints were related to the fact that we'd just traveled to Muncie the day before and she was sick of the car.

Then her complains got more urgent, " I WANT my daddy! Want to go HOME!"

"We'll visit for a bit and then go home soon, sweetie."

"WANT to go HOME! My tummy hurts." See, a good, seasoned mother would have perked her ears up at this statement. But Ainsley is the boy who cried wolf...lamenting tons of imagined pain. I assumed that this was the case.

I was wrong.

She started coughing and choking. My less seasoned ears perked. Then the vomiting started. I swung the van onto a side street (this is where I'm thankful I was on 25S with all its side streets and not, say, I65).

By the time I got the van stopped and opened her door, she was done puking and merely crying. Then I entered some weird Mom zone. I whipped her out of the van, got her out of her clothes (lamenting that she's puked all over her dress clothes while also THANKING GOD that I'd had the foresight to bring comfy clothes with us for the ride home), got her into her clean clothes, and started cleaning up the puke with what I can only describe as a shit ton of wipes. I must have looked a sight to the people driving by...running around my van back and forth getting wipes or plastic bags to put them (and the puke clothes) into...all while in my heels and funeral dress...trying to keep the puke off of myself, as I didn't have a change of clothes.

"I not spit up!"

By the time I'd finished getting the car seat as clean as I could, Ainsley was fine. She was going into a fresh round of "Momma, I wanna hold you!" And this is where my hindsight is crystal clear. We were already late. I should have held her. But I was frazzled and now running late for Joey's memorial service. So, I gave her a hug and put her in her seat and soldiered on. I kept asking her if her tummy felt ok and she kept saying it was fine. I stopped asking after she responded with a "Why do you keep asking me that?!"

We were a little late. No one cared. The service and lunch afterward were very nice and when my kids turned into little monsters, we went back home. When we got home, she decided to put on her bathing suit over her sweatpants and my shoes. Clearly she was recovered.

I thought about the vomiting incident while driving home. I felt like a soldier who got his first battle scars: I handled traveling puke. I am a real mom now.

Pumpkins!!

Going to Hilger's

It was sunless and spitty last Sunday when we went to get pumpkins for the house. We were supposed to go on Saturday, but Momma got her drink on Friday night and Just. Couldn't. Do. Anything. on Saturday.  Saturday was beautiful and sunny and lovely...but it wasn't happening.  So Sunday morning, we sent a text to Janine and Daelynn and Big Sarah and let them know we were heading out.

We went to Hilger's because we'd heard there was tons of fun there...and there was. The first big hit of the visit was the tire swings. Xander was a bit to small, so Daelynn pulled him in with her and I gave her some pushes.  Ainsley, however, was the perfect size for the tire horse swing. She rode that one for about 10 minutes.  Luckily, since it was cold and rainy, we were practically the only people there.

I overheard the Hilger's lady say that the day before was "a zoo." So, see kids...you got to play with stuff longer and to yourself because Mommy drinks! Aren't you lucky?!

This was some sort of
pumpkin education center that the kids
didn't really pay attention to...

Behind the barn was a fun area for the kids to run around and play with Big Sarah while Daelynn shopped for her pie hole and Janine and I chat. Janine informed me that they'd covered the hay bales with tarp so the hay wouldn't disintegrate in the dampness. One of my favorite things about hanging with Janine is I get to learn interesting little tidbits like that.

There was this plywood maze thing they made for the kids, and Big Sarah, Ainsley, and Xander had a BALL playing in it.

Daelynn returned with popcorn and then, for Ainsley, it *was on*.  Ainsley will cut you for some popcorn. So, of course, I got her a little bag. She had great fun after that eating and protecting her popcorn.

Because it was raining, the hay rides were canceled, had Ainsley been old enough to know what that meant, she'd have been disappointed...remember she has that weird obsession with hay bales.  Traveling out to the pumpkin patch was also canceled, so we picked our pumpkins from the ones they had gathered in front of the barn.  It's not like we're big into pumpkin patches, per se...so we were cool with that.

Because of her big ole hippie status, Big Sarah was showing the kids how to love and respect all the animals, gourds, etc. As this was DAY TWO of my hangover, I let her. Heh.

Ultimately because it was so wet and rainy, we couldn't stay very long...we picked our pumpkins and left. You can really see how wet the kids got in the picture to the left. No, Xander didn't pee himself, he was just playing in the pumpkins!

All the cool kids drive home
pantless with popcorn.

PAINTING Pumpkins

Ainsley: Brush
Xander: Finger

By far, what's much cooler than getting pumpkins is painting pumpkins. This year, I bought a few of those minipumpkin looking gourds for the kids to paint.  This has proven to be one of the wisest Momma moves I've made!

Day One Pumpkins

So far, we've had two pumpkin painting days...mostly I'm just letting her repaint over the same pumpkins because 1) I'm cheap and 2) she's 3 and doesn't care to complain yet. I'm sure next year each pumpkin will be a Work of Art like each piece of paper is right now.

Ainsley painted one pumpkin as her "princess' pumpkin. It's the one with pink, white, and green.  I find this hilarious!

Often when painting, Xander ends up getting bored and painting on the table, his face, the pumpkin, the high chair, and then just plain trying to eat paint. Thank goodness it's washable and non-toxic.  He's still a bit young for painting, so normally he'll paint a bit and then move to the bathtub.

As she is with everything, Ainsley is a very serious artist. She'll move from color to color, and when painting with the brush is very particular about not mixing the colors together. This makes me happy because I think it'd drive the OCD in me INSANE if her colors were all mixed up. I have a hard enough time when she mixes PlayDough colors together.

When we paint, I'll do some painting, but mostly I'm there to manage the mess.  As you can see from these pictures, this time (Day Two of painting), I'm being instructed by Ainsley when, where, and how to paint, and I'm trying to get Xander to actually paint instead of eating the pumpkin. Look closely at that picture (or click on it to enlarge it)...his mouth is covered with paint because he picked it up to chew on it as I was setting the timer on the camera.