Breaking The Dress Code

Taking Back The Childs Birthday Party (or Kids Just Want To Have Fun)

Puddin’s has a poorly timed birthday. It’s in mid October right when we start getting down to serious holiday planning  and I get all kinds of aggrevated forking out hundreds of $$ for birthday when I know Christmas is right around the corner. It’s not her fault of course so I try to never skimp on the presents but this year I did take matters into my own hands a bit with the party… I’m done paying big $$ for kid birthday experience extravaganza party– DONE I tell you.

So you know what we did – we had a Pancake & Pajama Party.

We put together a simple invitation using Word, printed out copies at home inviting her friends to come over on Saturday morning at 8:45 in the pajamas to decorate pancakes and play Wii.

We had 16 kids over from 3 to 10 and they had a freaking blast.

They played Wii and not even the newest game we had but they chose to play good old standard baseball so the most number of people could play even the little ones – our kids are awesome!!

And I corralled a couple of laptops and put together a WebKinz station. The idea of logging into Webkinz right next to your friend. Freakin’ mindblowing…

Then we decorated pancakes with all kinds of fun stuff like fruit and M&Ms

Then headed outside for presents

  

And then they played on the yard… you know like we used to do… for an hour!

It didn’t take $100s of dollars or a donated organ or heck even a decorated cake to create a party that the kids enjoyed. We got them together and let them play with games/activities that we already had – and they had fun just being together in a big group.

And they all thought it was extra fun because they were in their pajamas. Because they are kids!!! They make their own fun. We parents need to try and remember that sometimes I think.

I'm Going to Not-BlogHer

While the rest of the blogging world is traipsing off to San Francisco going to the BlogHer conference. I will be at Not-BlogHer. Not-Blogher looks like this:

and this

 

Highlights of Not-Blogher:

• Absolutely no Internet connection
• Relatively crappy cell phone service
• Trees, dirt, creeks, forests, sunshine, clean mountain air
• Time, nothing but time

There will be no awkward small talk with strangers. Only hours of laughter and harassment with the husband, the clones, and these people who I adore

 

Heaven, pure Heaven.

Wordless Wednesday - Summer Lovin' Happens So Fast..

Time For Them To Fly - Setting Free the Butterflies

Saturday afternoon, 17 days after the arrival of our larvae, the time had come to say good-bye to our butterfly friends. Puddin' did an excellent job of taking care of her charges and we had hatched(?) 10 lovely little butterflies that lived hanging from her ceiling fan for a week.  In butterfly years that's close to a lifetime and we felt it was only right to give them a taste of great outdoors while they could still enjoy it.

The Dr. was in charge of butterfly retrieval. We were very surprised that they did not immediately want to fly away but instead seemed content to hang out with us for a bit longer.

FuzzyHead was extremely content to let them tip-toe around on her fingertips.

Turns out some of them were a little ummm "busy."  Official line we fed the kids. They are just scared and holding hands.  Yeah that's it.

Boo doesn't look nearly as sure of this as Fuzzy Head was.

Eventually one of them got the bright idea to fly away. The butterfly is the little bit of orange in front of the tree.

Reality came home a bit for Pud at that point. It's hard to let go of something you've worked so hard for and loved so much.

But we waved good-bye to those that would leave.

Until it was just these two left. And there were ummm still busy. Please know that the only thing keeping me from making extremely bad jokes here about butterfly love is my better judgment about creating crass google-able remarks on a post that has kids in bathing suits in it. This is difficult, very difficult.

So we decided that perhaps they needed a little quiet time on a nearby flower.

Which suited them just fine.  They stayed there for quite some time. And Puddin' made her peace with letting them go. She did a fabulous job with these guys. Mama is very proud of you my girl.

So I totally screwed up Wordless Wednesday today..

but here's the picture anyway..

Titled : Best Friends

Awesome Purchase!

So I was reading some great blog a few months ago (I so wish I could remember where - If it was you email me) and this mom was giving advice about getting the most out of your digital SLR.

She said an external flash absolutely necessary for good indoor shots. Because bouncing the light off the ceiling made for so much better light. Hmm I thought.

Then out of the blue - an unexpected amazon gift certificate arrived.  Hmm I thought.

And you know what...

She was absolutely freaking right!

This little darling cam yesterday and I took it to the crawfish boil last night and it was fantastic!!

I love it!

No more harsh in your face flash!!

 

 

 

Crepe Murder

A neighborhood who trims together, blooms together.

It's that time of year, the annual trimming of the crepe myrtles. This always makes me a little nervous when the men get together and whack all the trees down to the knots every year. How can that poor tree come back from that... but come back they do. When it's done right. So we all get together and trim at the same time so everything grows and blooms at the same rate. We're just that obsessed.

Freaks

In Florida the only time you can go camping without worry that mosquitos will just take the small children and fly away with them is January and February. So the husbands look forward to the Annual Perfect Neighborhood Goes Camping Weekend every year.

And every damn year we manage to pick the coldest damn weekend of the winter. And for an added bonus this year it rained. This was the only decent picture I got and it's not that great. Cause it was raining! But oh no, we can't not camp! The kids don't mind! We'll clean up the mess honey!

Darn tootin you will!

 

Steal from me because I'm lazy

On lifehacker the other day they had a post about how 85% of people happily admit to glomming onto open wi fi connections but only 15% of people leave their own unsecured. We like to share but only if it's other people's stuff.

I have to admit mine is wide open. Mostly because I feel the pain-in-the-ass factor of encrypting it and re-adjusting all the settings on everything wi-fi in my house (yes it's more than just PCs folks) would be much higher than any risk I'm running in my kind of out of the way neighborhood.

Which reminded me that in the house we lived in before we moved the perfect neighborhood the kid next door used to hook onto my wi fi all the time. Back there  we were the smile and wave type neighbors but I only new their names because it was in the neighborhood phone list. One day I noticed their teenager on my router and I looked at where he was going and it seemed like harmless gaming and chatty teenage stuff so I let it go and never brought it up to them.

Now I realize that if the boy next door suddenly appeared on my router I'd be having a little talk with him. Poor kid, that's what comes from knowing your neighbors so well. At least I'm pretty sure as long as it seemed harmless I'd be having the talk with him and not his parents. But I'd still want to know more about what the deal was than I did back then mostly because we're pretty close and it would worry me because I'd assume he was hiding something from his parents.

And that makes me understand that it's going to be hell on our kids in this neighborhood when they get to be teenagers and realize that every parent on the block considers them "their kids" and no one will look the other way about anything. There will be many eyes on them at all times.

And then I go hug my neighbors and tell them I love them.

Kid Nation - Suburbia

As you know we left 8 husbands in charge of 18 kids while we were gone. Needless to say they banded together to accomplish this goal. Men do things in packs. They believe in tribes.

Here is what we know about the weekend:

Friday: Everyone got home from school okay, no one was left abandoned. Food was grilled on the barbeque. Baseball games were played and coached. Other children were watched

Saturday: Pancake breakfasts were had, Birthday parties were attended, Soccer games were played, Air and Sea Shows at the beach were watched, Chili was consumed, Football was watched, Bonfires were lit, S'mores were eaten.

Sunday: No Church (surprise), Group Lunches, Football, bathes (only one of the weekend evidently) and timely bed.

Monday: Everyone made the bus on time.

Clearly these men rock in a big way. We love them dearly.