The Hunger Games

Have you read The Hunger Games Trilogy ? Can I just say AMAZING! From the very first page of book 1, I was captivated. And I might have possibly let my baby swing a little too long in the swing and the other kiddo make a giant mess with play dough just so I could finish the next chapter!
Going into this book I had no expectations, no idea what the book was even about. It was chosen as a read for my book club, and until that point, I had not even heard of this trilogy. I am so glad it was chosen however. It is a great read.

Can not wait until the movie comes out next March!!! I just hope it is as good as the book.

Christmas Wrapping

Evil Princess Pork Chop vs. Christmas

Yes?

Is my Hat on straight?

This is what we do while Big Sis DIVA is at school!

Christmas Overkill

I am the Griswald of Christmas. Not with the lights and such because I do not particularly love being outside on a ladder hanging stuff, but with the Christmas spirit. My family and my house are beginning to drown in tinsel. Oh well, get over it. NEW TRADITION!

I blame Pinterest!

On top of The Elf on the Shelf, the daily activity advent calendar sponsored by Elf, watching Christmas themed movies and shows at least once a day, wearing Christmas theme clothes every day, and taking red and green baths, I have decided to add in yet one more "tradition".

I wrapped up 12 new books. The first book is the Polar Express, since you know, We became Train people this year. And starting on December 12 we will do our own version of 12 days of Christmas by opening 1 book every night until Christmas EVE (and rest assured all while participating in the 50 other "traditions" I have assigned to our family this year). On Christmas Eve I have chosen a simple board book that ends with the simple phrase, "Now it is Christmas time". I am really excited about this adventure.

Our wrapping paper this year is simple. Brown bag paper decorated with a pretty cutout letter of the first name of the recipient. Following in this theme, I cut out the numbers 1 -12 and wrapped each book to coordinate. Now they are laid under the tree just waiting for little hands to tear them open and stimulate some minds.

We saw Santa

We saw Santa and it went down like one might expect a 6 month old and a 3 year old to entertain. Princess Pork Chop was oblivious and could have cared less. Big Sis DIVA was all about Santa until Santa was actually there. She clung to me with a death grip, so I joined in for the 2011 Santa pic. Have a look.

Check out those "HAPPY" babies! :)

It makes me laugh how kids despise Santa in the flesh but adore him throughout the whole season. Our Elf, Desmond, brought us special paper from the North Pole one morning to write Santa our letters on. Big Sis DIVA was very happy to participate in this activity and "helped" Princess Pork Chop write out her list.

Every where we go Big Sis DIVA looks for and talks about Santa and her Elf Desmond. She loves it all, but put an old bearded man in front of her and watch her run!

Have a "Colorful" Holiday

Thanks to our fabulous Elf advent Calendar , Big Sis DIVA and I riddled our way into making gifts for her classmates today, to give them at the holiday party. We found some super snazzy silicone pans in shapes of snowflakes and Christmas tree's in our Elf supply bucket after nap. Big Sis DIVA helped me prepare crayons we snagged at the dollar store for cooking under the Elf's instruction.

I think they came out splendid. I just hope Big Sis DIVA's fellow 3 year old classmates will be dazzled!

Now you might be thinking, "why didn't you use Christmas colors?". Well, what preschooler only wants to color with red and green?

Using my Elf for naps

I REALLY, REALLY, do enjoy it when my kids nap. Really. So I came up with a brilliant idea to get us through the holidays WITH naps.

Enter Desmond, our Elf. Our little critter is quite the character. Stealing candy, making messes by dumping out laundry baskets full of clean clothes. You know, mischievous, like my 3 year old. Well, he got crafty this week. Desmond grabbed a whole bunch of toilet paper rolls, and YES, we do have them just laying around. He covered them in scrapbook paper and strung them together with some twine. Inside each roll he placed a little riddle. A riddle that describes a special assignment for us to do. Perhaps he might have shared one with me. "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" indicating it is a day to make rice krispie treats.

25 little riddles inside a fun little advent calendar crafted by our special Elf Desmond. But, just as we have been told the rules of our elf, we must not touch him and he must not speak to us, SANTA's ORDERS, this assignment advent comes with rules too. We may open the calendar every morning and read the riddle. However, we must continue to be good all day long and only AFTER our nap will the tools and supplies we need to complete our assignments appear with Christmas magic from the north pole.

Will it work? I don't know. But it sure is going to be fun!!

Desmond the Elf

Have you heard of The Elf on the Shelf ? Well, until last year I hadn't. But I thought is was so fabulous and couldn't wait until this year to get it going with Big Sis DIVA.

If you are not familiar with this tradition here it is in a nut shell. A little doll elf that sits on the shelf. Comes with a fantastic little story book about Christmas magic and how said elf reports to Santa each night. Elf lets Santa know if the members of the house are naughty or nice. So basically this crazy little doll keeps your kids in check all season long.

Our family Elf is named Desmond, and he arrived last Monday night, just in time for pre Thanksgiving meltdowns. "Desmond is watching for naughty little children!", but I would NEVER say that to my kids. Nope! HA!! I do not like doing Christmas anything before Turkey day, but Big Sis DIVA found Desmond's "Elf Mobile" aka his box and book and desperately wanted to know what it was. So his arrival was early. In the case of a 3 year old who is naughty a lot this is a good thing!

We have been having a blast. Big Sis DIVA eagerly hunts Desmond down every morning to see what mischief he has found himself in. Throughout the day if she knows she is up to no good, she will stop and point to his perch on the hanging light above our kitchen table and tell me, "Desm and wating". Her speak for Desmond is watching. LOVE IT!!!

Here are a few snapshots of Desmond's recent mischief.

Good ol' Desmond pulled all Big Sis DIVA's baby photo albums off the shelf for a look!


Desmond stole a cookie and even ate some!

Before Big Sis DIVA's Birthday party, Desmond swiped the candles!

Gobble Gobble

Happy Turkey Day my fellow Americans! May you survive the day without punching some relative in the face. Be safe! Don't eat too much in case you need a fast getaway.



We are taking the easy route and using my husbands CRAZY work schedule to allow ourselves to be safe and eat in true American style at the Chinese Buffet up the street, alone without the thickness of family hovering about! Yum Yum! And just the usual bicker amongst us. Awesome.


But just to keep in the spirit, I did force my little family of 4 to participate in fun little crafts of the season. For your enjoyment:

Feather Hats out of scrap construction paper


Family Handprint turkey!

And as usual, thank you Pinterest for your fabulous ideas!

What happened to the magic?

I love Christmas. Really! I love it. And now through the eyes of my kids, I really am giddy with anticipation. I can not wait for the holiday season. However, I am furious with the constant barrage of Christmas decor starting back before Halloween. I do not find it acceptable to walk into the grocery store and find Rudolph sitting atop pumpkins that have yet to be chosen for jack-o-lanterns. I hate having to explain to my daughter that Santa does not come to dinner on Thanksgiving. I am already sick and tired of hearing Christmas music and we have not even sat down to stuff ourselves full of fowl.

What is the problem? Why must we do this? We ALL know Christmas comes in the month of December. Perhaps marketing teams feel that consumers will not spend money if Santa is not thrust in their faces for months leading up to the big day. On the contrary. I find myself REFUSING to spend any of my money at any store that floods my vision with Christmas decor way before its time. I strongly feel that those people who will be spending money year round for Christmas (myself included) are going to do so whether or not the twinkle lights and bells are going. However, push me to see stockings hung in October and you can be assured I will take my money elsewhere.

STOP IT! Stop forcing Christmas to come along 3 months before it should. Allow Halloween to have its own time. Allow this country to enjoy Thanksgiving and all that encompasses this holiday without the stressful rush to hurry it up and move on to Christmas. Allow our Children to experience was THANKSGIVING involves without the commercialized necessity to make sure they jump start Christmas wants. Allow our kids to be thankful for what they have, family, friends, and food and of course their toys.

Let us go back to the magic of the season. Allow for total transformation into the wonderful world of the holidays AFTER Thanksgiving. Let us give our younger generations and our children something wonderful and special to look forward to. Do we all recall that awesome feeling we have after we decorate the house for the holidays and put the last box away, walk into the room and see the magic. and feel the holiday warmth within our soul? Imagine if we could give that feeling to our children, with the world.

Think about it. Consumers make the difference. We can make it happen. I personally have not set anything Christmas out in view in my home. My daughter will be spending the night with her grandma Friday night and will come home to Christmas wonderland on Saturday. It really is that simple!

YeeHaw! Jessie Party

Big Sis DIVA turns 3 years old this week, the 25th to be exact. So we had her birthday bash this last weekend. Big Sis DIVA LOVES Toy Story. However, Toy Story is just not marketed at all to little girls, so we improvised. We had a country Jessie Theme party and it was a blast. Big Sis DIVA loved it. And H4L had a swell time too!

I used my favorite new toy, the Cricut, and made a fun birthday banner using all "Jessie" colors.

We have a local park that has a great pavilion surrounded by a beautiful park. We enjoy many hours at this park, so I just knew this was the perfect location for Big Sis DIVA's Jessie party. Finding "Jessie" theme items was quite a task so we ended up making our own decorations. Here are smores pops. ummm yum. Thank you Pinterest for this idea. Marshmallow dipped in chocolate rolled in graham crackers.

It was very difficult to find a Jessie theme Pinata, so we took a cute boot and decorated it with Jessie cutouts we printed right at home.

And my fabulous MIL made Big Sis DIVA's cake again this year. A gorgeous and delicious Jessie hat.

Did you know you can run cheapy brown paper lunch bags through your printer and make fun goody bags? I didn't. Thanks to my fantastic husband, I now know AND we had these little cuties to give everyone, young and old alike.

We had a superb time celebrating Big Sis DIVA's 3rd birthday. Thank you to all that joined us in making it special.


*please note that this is a test post from my new tablet. please forgive any format errors as i figure out how to blog from this toy.

4 months? Really???

Has it really been 4 months since I last posted? Wow!

Well I am sure you can guess lots of happenings have gone down at the Pink Haired Momma pad. Princess Pork Chop is now a fatty 6 month old character. Big Sis DIVA started SCHOOL, yes! School. Well, at least that is what I tell her Mother's Day Out (MDO) is. H4L has officially passed all of his training and is a real live TRAIN CONDUCTOR!!! CHOO CHOO! And I am still fluffin along with pink hair.

I have missed blogging. So many things that I have to share from the last few months, lots of tot fun and mommy fun since I now have 2 days a week of NO TODDLER!! My plan is to share some of our fun over the last 4 months and get to chatting again about our day to day craziness here in Pink Haired Land. But we will see. I do have a WILD (almost) 3 year old and a 6 month old Pork Chop, so time will allow what it will. I do, however, look very forward to connecting with all my bloggy buds again!

And did I mention Big Sis DIVA turns 3 YEARS OLD this Friday? How did this happen?

Hearts and Marbles

Pinterest is monopolizing all my time. I love it. It inspires me so much. Big Sis DIVA and I got busy in the kitchen with one of the inspirations I discovered on pinterest. WE made simple cupcakes SNAZZY with a simple marble.

Check it out. Lemon cake batter. Placed in cupcake liners. And a single marble placed just so, to make a lovely little welcome home dessert for Train Main H4L from his daughters! Easy Peasy and adorable.

Thank you Pinterest. Now I am off for more inspiration!

Pinterest

Pinterest.

I am in love.

That is all.

Cupcake Ice Flowers

Really! It is so hot. Too hot. My poor kid hasn't seen a park in weeks. I can not handle even opening the door after 8am. I melt. Pink puddles of me line the sidewalk. So we stay in. But I want my kiddo to have fresh air, so we head outdoors early early in the morning and do a fun little craft, swing a few swings on the backyard swing set and then its back into our Pink Haired Cave for the day.

This was a fun little activity we did. It was actually a two parter. On the first day we braved the heat and waltzed through our family garden at Gha's (grandma) ranch. We studied leaves and bugs and most important, Flws, or Flowers.

Big Sis DIVA loves flowers these days. She examines them with a keen eye. Smells them and carries around her pretty flws. She loves them. So we picked a variety of flowers as we named off what color they were and a few leaves and brought them home. I decided to take these fabulous find and freeze them in water in a muffin tin. So day 2, before the heat set in outside, found us in the backyard exploring "Cupcake" flowers.

Quite enjoyable. Cool. Easy and educational.