Archive for December, 2010

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nature vs. nurture

Friday, December 31st, 2010 by by hurricaneranch

I’ve noticed a few things in the days leading up to and immediately following Christmas. Some of them have been a bit surprising.

First, Santa brought Coral (age 3) a really adorable dollhouse for Christmas, complete with a mom, dad, and cute little twin babies. And she got the world’s cutest dress from my dad and stepmom.

So I go in to play house with her, and then we get a knock on the dollhouse door. “Can Ahsoka come visit?” she asks me. Ahsoka is a girl character from Star Wars : The Clone Wars and hubby got Coral this little action figure for Christmas since she’s forever sneaking into her big brother’s room to play with his multitude of Star Wars stuff. Here I am, dancing around the mom and dad dolls, bathing the babies, rocking them to sleep, and Coral walks her Ahsoka up the stairs and into the living room for a visit. (more…)

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Reflections of 2010

Friday, December 31st, 2010 by by Valerie

I still can’t believe that we are in the final week of 2010. The years just seem to be going by faster and faster, but I guess that’s what happens as you get old :) This feels like a big year for me as a mom though. Beginning next year (in Aug. of course), I will have a child in school. I just can’t believe it. I think I am more nervous than he is about it though. Luckily, I have 8 months to prepare– WHEW!
Anyway, onto reflections from this year:
Can anyone say snow? I feel like we were under a constant winter weather watch and we had to deal with horrible but fun snow forever! There was a point in February when I thought that we would be sledding come June.
This picture was the snow in January. We got even more in February and this is VA??? It was a total shock and when Troy says he wants even more this Winter…..AAUUGGHHH

(more…)

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Peanut’s First Christmas

Friday, December 31st, 2010 by by sugarloafbaby

This Christmas was very special, seeing as it was Peanut’s very first one. She even woke up earlier than usual in anticipation, I’m sure, of opening her gifts!

We spent a relaxing morning opening gifts and eating a late breakfast. Peanut received a doll baby from her great-grandparents and a rattle, book and homemade quilt from Daddy C and Mommy C. The week before, she visited our extended family and received tons of gifts then as well- meaning her toy bin is officially overflowing! But this just means more for her to throw, which she is really enjoying right now!

After breakfast, we lounged around and watched It’s a Wonderful Life (afterwards, I discovered this was to be the last video ever played in our VCR, as it had eaten up the tape! Such is the bane of modern technology.). We ended the day with a delicious dinner of homemade noodles, grilled chicken, peas, corn and baked potatoes!

This weekend, we will be visiting more family, but will have to travel by plane to get there. It will be Peanut’s first plane ride! Mommy C doesn’t know whether to be excited, nervous, worried or terrified of the prospect of traveling in air with a 6-month old teething baby, but she guesses she’ll soon find out!

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A Confession

Friday, December 31st, 2010 by by meanboys

So….

remember how I was saying something about having too many stripes in my closet and vowing to not buy anything striped in 2011???

Technically it’s still 2010.

“Don’t blame me.  Sweaters don’t buy people.  People buy sweaters.”

But let’s face it, I’m just a few stripes short of being this guy:
http://www.justmommies.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/194f9_wheres_waldo.jpg

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Resolving

Friday, December 31st, 2010 by by Smacksy

It’s resolution season and I’ve been thinking. Not 4am freak-out thinking, but something a tad more constructive than my usual late night over-thinks. I’ve come up with a few changes I’d like to focus on around here. Most of the changes focus on acceptance:

1. I will accept that my boy is done with trucks unless they are Clone Turbo Tanks from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

2. I will accept that no matter how many adorable Gap Kids outfits the small man has, he will always prefer to wear Star Wars Lego pajamas.

3. I will accept that my days of going barefoot in my own home are over unless I would like to suffer the constant pain of errant Star Wars Legos stabbing into the soft part of my arches.

4. I will accept that I may never remember the correct pronunciation for Coruscant, Kashyyk, Geonosians, and Zunama Sekot but my kid will never forget.

5. I will accept that I will be expected to participate in a minimum of four daily light saber battles on the back patio. I will also accept that I will never win a light saber battle on the back patio.

6. I will accept that Bob’s new (Labrador-sized) Imperial AT-AT: All Terrain Armored Transport is just a toy and stop introducing it as our new dog, “Merv.”

Can I get an Amen?

If you just can’t get enough of me and my resolutions, my new column up over at Main Street this week deals with resolutions of a more financial style.

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The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

Friday, December 31st, 2010 by by JM Guest Blogger

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is offering great deals right now, I’ve subscribed for the majority of this year and found it to be a comforting, interesting resource. I like that it doesn’t come every month, so I’m not cluttered with magazines that come faster than I can sit down and read them. There’s just enough time to savor it with a nice cup of coffee (okay, who are we kidding here, it takes more than one cup of coffee!) but nicely enough, that spreads it out and it gives me reason to make a break for mom–we get a recess, too, right? Check it out!

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

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Fantastic Foto Friday

Friday, December 31st, 2010 by by Jess

Evie is enjoying the Jumparoo she got for Christmas

Jonah is enjoying the Lights Before Christmas at the Toledo Zoo

Jonah’s reindeer hat that he made at the zoo

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quick and easy lunch

Thursday, December 30th, 2010 by by Jess

This time of the year, it is so easy to fall back on fast food for convenience. We’ve all been there: out running errands, standing in lines much longer than we anticipated, traffic worse than we imagined, and all of the sudden a little voice peeps from the backseat. “Hungry. Eat lunch!” Is it lunchtime already? Holy moly, it’s twenty minutes past lunch! Frantically, we look around and find relief. Golden arches are just a traffic light away. And the kids cheer for their chicken nugget kids meal as we drive away from the carry out window.

I’ve lived this scenario both as the child and as the mother, repeatedly. Although we don’t eat fast food terribly often, Daryl and I have decided to cut out as much fast food as we can from our family’s diet. So what can we do to replace Jonah’s beloved “Chickie nuggies” as well as keep convenience and timeliness in the picture?

Golden Nugget Chickie Nuggies:
boneless skinless chicken breast
Cheese Nips
bowl of warm water

Fill a gallon zip top bag about half full of the cheese crackers. Don’t close the top of the bag or it will break. Use a rolling pin to smash the crackers into fine crumbs (I suppose you could use a food processor as well, but it’s more fun to smash stuff, in my opinion!) Cut the chicken into nugget sized pieces. I usually make mine 1 1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch, approximately. Dip each piece of chicken into the water to moisten it, and place them in the bag of cracker crumbs. Don’t over crowd the bag, you can do it in batches if you have a lot of chicken. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 F.

One of the chemicals we are trying to avoid by cutting out fast food, tbhq, is found in most cheese crackers but not cheese nips which is why I list the brand name. I’ve been making these in large batches and freezing them, so we have frozen nuggets that can simply be heated up at lunch time. I buy the chicken when it is on sale and stock up on nuggets that way! They are so much tastier than any commercially frozen or fast food nugget, and they pass the picky toddler test!

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How We Single Handedly Almost Ruined Christmas AND Created A Real Life Grinch

Thursday, December 30th, 2010 by by Nina

For weeks my son has been talking about Christmas, Santa and the party at my Sister’s house. We took him to see Santa at the mall and he got to tell Santa everything he wanted on his list……..the conversation took almost 10 minutes. Then at his school’s Christmas party Santa showed up and Lex was again able to tell him what he wanted. So imagine how excited he was when it was Christmas Eve and we were on our way to my Sister’s house for her annual Christmas Eve party. We ate, we played, we had fun and ate some more. Lex was in high spirits and just could not wait to open his presents. Finally my Sister told him to go find his gifts under the tree and get ready to open them. He was ecstatic!!! He found 3 and looked a bit bewildered. I heard him say “Where are the rest?”, but thought nothing of it. Then he began opening his gifts. The presents he got were not what he wanted, what he had on his list. They we things my Sister had bought for him, little things. A coloring book, a Monchhichi and some SpongeBob bath bubbles. That’s when it happened……Lex had a complete meltdown.

All he kept saying was….’None of this stuff was on my list. Where’s my science kit?” O_O Of course he’s asking for the one thing we didn’t get him. We tried explaining to him that Santa would be at our house soon, after he was asleep and when he woke up there would be presents. He said “All I really want is a science kit! This is a terrible Christmas!!” and he cried. What on Earth were we supposed to do?!?!?! Not only wasn’t he understanding what we were saying, that it wasn’t even Christmas yet, but we didn’t get him a science kit!!!! Kevin and I decided to (more…)

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Christmas, the Recovery

Thursday, December 30th, 2010 by by hurricaneranch

Thank goodness Christmas comes but once a year. I’m still crawling into bed at 10pm in an effort to recover from the mayhem. I feel like I’m a hundred and eighty.

On a different note, I’m entering this Christmasy photo into a Christmas photo contest on a friend of mine’s blog. I have a chance to win some photo actions from My Four Hens Photography- I LOVE me some good photo actions!

Here’s my photo. I should have lots (read : overkill) of Christmas photos up here shortly, but this is one of my all-time favorites. This was our tree a couple of years ago, in our old house. I loved how pretty it looked from our hallway!

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