Someone we know is learning to ice skate.  Daddy bought him a pair of hockey skates.  We have since learned that it would be easier if he learned to skate while wearing figure skates because they have the toe pick for stabilization, stopping, and pushing off.  Either way, he's still doing very well.  Below is a portion of a clip that Dear Husband filmed when he and Bro recently went ice skating.    

Note:  I hope this video loads correctly.  If it does not, I will try again and repost later.

One of Bro's classmates (now age 4) had an ice skate birthday party.  It has been my experience, after 13 years of being a parent, that ice skate parties are not successful because there are typically several kids who can't skate and just aren't going to get it.  The party is a real bummer for these kids.  However, in the most recent case, the skating portion of the party was a lesson from the rink instructor.  FABULOUS idea!!!  Bro and his classmates did sooooo well with the instructor.  After seeing how well Bro did with the instructor, Dear Husband decided that maybe Bro would learn better in a class setting. 

We hope to have more ice skating info for you in the months to come.  Bro is eager to learn so that he can be on a hockey team.  Hockey??? Really???

Pumpkin Patch

hmmm...

Our annual family trek to the pumpkin patch had its highs and lows this year.

I like the annual visit to the pumpkin patch because:
1.  this is where I get some of my most favorite pictures of the kids;
2. everyone (little ones, teen, and parents) is guaranteed to have a great time;
3.  it's cheap inexpensive (the only cost is the pumpkins); and
4. it is one of our last opportunities to have fun outside before it really starts to get cold.

Let's recap our 2011 visit.

Goal 1.  Get a great family picture.  FAIL.  See evidence below.

Goal 2.  Pretend to live in a pumpkin house.  FAIL.

Goal 2 has now been changed to:
Plank in the pumpkin house windows.  SUCCESS.

Goal 3.  Pick the perfect pumpkin.  SUCCESS!

Goal 4.  Have fun pushing wagon.  SUCCESS!

 
OK... so they weren't into taking pictures this year.  That's cool too.  Maybe next year.

Fall Activities

Interesting story about my life.  Everyone in the family has decided what they want to be for Halloween.  Most of the costumes are ready.

Lulu = Taylor Swift (complete with blonde wig and guitar)
Bro = Spiderman (Remember:  you must refer to him as Spiderman - not Bro - when he is in costume)
Bri  = a bumble bee

Dear Husband has suggested costumes for us as well.  It goes something like this:

Dear Husband = party... covered with balloons and holding a fun drink
Me = all brown.  Thus, he is the "party" and I am the "party pooper." 

Are you laughing?  I fail to see the humor in this. {{smirk}}

Speaking of Fall, we have been outside enjoying the wonderful weather.

Someone has decided that she can climb up the ladder to the slide all by herself. 

We also utilized Fairy Grandmother's apple slicer.  Bro thoroughly enjoyed using his big boy dull kid knife to cut the apples. 

He even shared some slices with his sister which I just thought was precious.

We are going to a pumpkin patch this weekend. 

How 'bout you?

Pumpkin Martini

More notes from the Pumpkin Pantry!

You KNOW I have a pumpkin passion.  Yum!  Over the weekend, Dear Husband and I took a few days to celebrate our anniversary.  During that time, we went to a great dinner overlooking some very quiet views...

and a little bit of a sunset over the clouds.

When the waitress took our drink order, she mentioned their signature Pumpkin Martini!

WAKE UP!

Did she say Pumpkin Martini???

She did!  It was great! 

Here is their recipe:

     Equal portions of:

     Fulton's Harvest pumpkin liqueur

     Vanilla Vodka

     Bailey's Irish Creme

Tip:  The bartender recommended putting in a splash less vodka and a splash more of the pumpkin liqueur than the recipe calls for.

Are you enjoying

pumpkin recipes this fall?

Fall Festival

I'm a bit of a lover of Fall, but I think I don't like Fall as well.  I don't know what's wrong with me.  You know, I think I like everything about Fall except for the cold weather.  Yes - that's it!  Fall = awesome.  Cold weather = yuck!  mkay?

This past Saturday... and at the very last minute... we found out that Brody's swim lesson was cancelled.  We sprang into full-fledged Operation-Fall-Festival action.  We were out of the house within moments and headed to a Fall Festival at Greenstreet Gardens, a place that we had never visited before.

Yay for being spontaneous!!!!! {{clap, clap, clap}}

At the start of the visit we took a somewhat spooky hayride to the festivities.  This is my only complaint of the whole day and I hate to start of with a complaint but here goes.  To be honest, the staff disclosed that the hayride was spooky, but it also seemed that the hayride was the ONLY way to get to the fall festival from the main parking location.  Without going into all of the logistics about what I saw and didn't see, the conversation with the staff went something like this:

Me:  (holding toddler and standing next to preschooler) I see that your sign says the hayride is spooky.  How spooky is it?

Older-ish Man:  Somewhat.  Aliens and monsters and stuff.

Me:  (willing to skip the hayride)  OK.  Where is the corn maze and moon bounce and stuff that are advertised on the brochure?

Older-ish Man:  Over that hill back there.

Me:  Cool.  How do we get over the hill?

Older-ish Man:  Take the hayride.

I did not want to take the spooky hayride but could not see of any other way to get to the festival nor was the guy offering up an alternative.  So we climbed aboard. In short - the ride was spooky and on the verge of being too scary but we made it through just fine.  Everyone at the festival was either under age 7 or over age 35 (that is, parents and small kids).  The spooky hayride was unecessary and you could tell that the parents on the hayride were not pleased.  A simple well-placed sign like this, would be sufficient and make everyone happy, since they offer a hayride back to the parking lot and it is nonspooky!

Parents - This hayride is spooky.  However, you can walk over the hill to the festival and take a nonspooky hayride back at the end of your visit. Thus, your kids don't have to go through the spooky barn but they still get to enjoy a nice hayride.

There was tons of fun at the festival and it totally delivered.  They had a hay maze for the little ones and Bri totally made it out all on her own, which made me laugh out loud!

Bro's favorite part BY FAR was the corn kernel sandbox.  He would have played in this corn kernel box all day long if I let him.  This was a genius idea and all of the kids just loved, loved, loved it!  I am tempted to fill his Brielle's sand box with corn kernels next summer.  It was that fun. 

Lulu found the perfect mini-pumpkin in the patch...

... and she was such a great mother's helper too.  Let us be real clear here, I would not have gone if I didn't have her with me!   

All in all, it was a great day.  I highly recommend the Greenstreet Garden Fall Festival for small children.  Many fall festivals have games and stuff, but they require waiting in line to get into the action.  Greenstreet Gardens was great because there was plenty for the little kids to run and play and do!  To be honest, it might be my favorite fall festival location for families with young children. 

Be honest, should I put corn kernels in the sand box next year?

Book Review

OK. So, I have been reading but I haven't done a book review in awhile!

Here goes... I'll start with the good stuff first!

Graceling by Kristin Cashore (5 out of 5 stars)

This is a young adult fiction book.  I loved it in the same way that I loved The Hunger Games series.  It did not grab me quite as quickly but I got to the point that I could not put it down.  Amazing!  Fabulous!

From amazon:

If you had the power to kill with your bare hands, what would you do with it?

Graceling takes readers inside the world of Katsa, a warrior-girl in her late teens with one blue eye and one green eye. This gives her haunting beauty, but also marks her as a Graceling. Gracelings are beings with special talents—swimming, storytelling, dancing. Katsa's Grace is considered more useful: her ability to fight (and kill, if she wanted to) is unequaled in the seven kingdoms. Forced to act as a henchman for a manipulative king, Katsa channels her guilt by forming a secret council of like-minded citizens who carry out secret missions to promote justice over cruelty and abuses of power.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (4 out of 5 stars)

Great story, but not a happy story.  It was depressing actually... while captivating at the same time.  There were so many messages in the story.  For me, the message that spoke loudest was a message of seeing what happens when we start to treat people like outsiders just because they are a little bit different than us.

From goodreads.com

Tom Franklin's narrative power and flair for characterization have been compared to the likes of Harper Lee, Flannery O'Connor, Elmore Leonard, and Cormac McCarthy.



Now the Edgar Award-winning author returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far—an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town.


More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.

Throwaway by Heather Huffman (4 out of 5 stars) FREE for nook users.

Throwaway is touted as a modern-day version of the hit movie Pretty Woman and it is. 

It was extremely good... especially because it was free... it's just hard for me to give it a great rating right now because I am just coming off of reading Graceling.  It did evoke all of the same feelings as Pretty Woman and makes for a good beach read.

From goodreads.com:

When society deemed Jessie a throwaway, she didn't let it stop her from finding the sunshine in her world...


But that world is threatened when she finds herself undeniably drawn to the mischievous glint in the eyes of a man unlike any she's ever met before.

What starts as a simple crush will lead them both on a journey they could never have anticipated. From a vibrant St. Louis neighborhood known as Cherokee Street to a cave in the Ozark Mountains with a 120-year-old mystery to hide, Jessie fights organized crime, corruption and her own fears to reclaim her life and leave her mark on this world.

 




In conclusion - if you liked The Hunger Games then you will also like... ahem love... Graceling.  Give it time.  It will not grab you like The Hunger Games did... but it will eventually grab you -- I promise!!
 

What are you reading?

Reading Challenge: Spoiler Point of View

I'm going to be honest here.  I don't like surprises:  good surprises or bad surprises.

If you have a good surprise for me then TELL ME!  Let me get excited too?  The anticipation of a GREAT THING is REALLY FUN!  You are denying me a better experience by keeping something great a secret from me.  I cannot think of any surprise that is best kept as a secret.  It is always better to know ahead of time... and get excited about the upcoming fun!

You should also know that I do not like surprise book endings.  Authors who string you along and feed you bits and crumbs and then slam a surprise ending on me infuriate me!  You wanna know something?  {{you know, since we are being brutally henst here}}  I read the endings to Nancy Drew books before I read the book.  I have been doing this for YEARS!

Alas, there is a new study out that suggests that Spoilers Don’t Ruin A Story, They Make It Even Better. 

University of California, San Diego psychologists Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt say in a study published in Psychological Science that knowing the ending of a book before starting it may enhance the reading experience.

I think this goes for ALL aspects of story telling.  You know when you are telling someone a story and they are like, "get to the point"?  Well, I {{very recently}} started telling the end of the story first... so that the people I am talking to have a frame of reference as I share my experience. 

For example, let's say that I do something and my boss totally blows up at me about it.

I could either say:

"I did all of these things {{enter long story here}} and then guess what -- my boss blew up at me." 

or

"My boss blew up at me because I did {{enter long story here}}." 

See the difference?  For me, there is a clear difference.  Long boring story about your day is just a long boring story.  It is gets interesting because your boss blew up at you.  Give me that part in the beginning... mkay?  "What?  Your boss totally blew up at you today?  What could you possibly have done?  This MUST be a good story!"

How does this apply to books?

Well, now when I read a book I go online and google "{{enter book title here}} spoiler" and read the spoiler.  This makes the books so much better!

I just read Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.  Yes, I read the spoilers ahead of time. 

Do you think that reading spoilers

enhances or ruins a book/movie?

Here is my challenge for you:  Read the spoilers before you start your next book.  Let me know what you think?

Summer Bucket List

Lulu made a summer bucket list.  We completed many of the things on the list, such as make our own frappucchinos, for example.

By the very last day of summer we had crossed everything off of our list except for "go to Alexandria."  Luckily, the stars were aligned and I woke her up on the very last day of summer and asked, "Hey, do you wanna go to Alexandria today?"  She jumped out of bed and raced to get ready!  She confessed to me later that she assumed we weren't going to get to go at all.

I very much want to be my teens best friend.  It is hard for me to see her laughing and giggling with her friends while I play the role of "homework enforcer."  I know that I am not here to be her friend... but to be her parent. I mean, let's face it, parents can be friends too but it's not the same thing.

However, the day we went to Alexandria was a day that we got to hang out and talk and relax... as friends.  It was chicken soup for this mom's soul to be honest.

She had a blast and she loved strolling down the streets of Alexandria.  Most of all, she loved sitting by this fountain with her Starbucks drink. 

Really -- it was a fabulous day!

We just chilled, and strolled, and talked... and hung out.  Can you see how happy she looks?  I will forever cherish this spontaneous trip with Lulu.  Moments like this cannot be planned.  They just happen!   

It was the perfect ending to an almost perfect summer!

I read that parents cannot create bonding moments with teens.

We can only make ourselves available ALL OF THE TIME

and wait for them to come to you. 

Do you agree?

Mr. Fix It

We all know that my Dear Husband and is also known as "helper man."  I love love love that Bro is a helper too.  He calls himself a "helper man" actually.

Our neighbor gave us a hand-me-down pedal tractor for kids.  It didn't work so Bro and Daddy set off to fix it.

I had the best time watching these two guys hard at work.

Play Dough

I'm not one to make cookies. They are way too time consuming in my opinion.

And I certainly do not make cookie cutter cookies.

So, I don't know what possessed me to make some bee, dinosaur, and apple cookies for back-to-school for my kids.  I did.

Bro really got into it.  He begs and begs to make cookies.

Instead of making cookies everyday, I remembered a play dough recipe that I saw online and we made some at home.

It turned out great. 

Since fall is here, I even added cinnamon to bring out the sense of apple pie.  It was such a hit -- it smells so good!

Every time we get out the play dough we have to get out all of the materials to go along with cookies.  Bro always asks for sprinkles and I always say "no" of course. 

Finally, I gave in.  Who cares?  Just let him add sprinkles!

See the large blue water bottle?  It is a "rolling pin," mkay?

Oh-oh.  What's going on here?

Oh - we are eating sprinkles now?  Hmmm... Don't you know that you are supposed to do that when Mommy isn't looking?

Ta-da!

What did we do with the play dough now that it has sprinkles in it?  Well, we balled it back up and put it in it's container. I'll let you know how it turns out when we take it out to play with it again.

Gift Idea:  You know, a play dough bin would be a great gift for a kid that is hard to buy for.  I found a play dough bin example here.  What do you think?

What would you do?

Do you let your kids put sprinkles in the play dough or not?