Dear Santa

Dear Santa

I am three years old.  Do you remember coming to my birthday party?  That was fun.  I would really like to have a Rose Petal Cottage to play in with my friend, Kate.  If it won't fit in your bag,  I also like Groovy Girls.  The Christmas one or the rockstar would be nice.

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Merry Christmas Santa.

Dear Lydia Claire:

Hi, my name is Pepper Minstix and I am the special elf who helps Santa with all of the email he receives during this busy time of year.

No matter how busy Santa gets at the North Pole, I know he takes time to read all of his letters! You can expect to get an answer from Santa within the next few days.

Thank you for writing to Santa and please write to him again next year!

Happy Holidays
Elf Minstix

Round and Round we go.

Do you ever want to get off the merry-go-round of life?

I only wish that weekends were nice and calm and boring.  Nope.   I've got so much to do between now and Monday that I feel ill just thinking about it.    Tonight we have Kid's Club and Youth Group.  Thursday is judo.   Friday is my birthday but I'll spend it geting ready for Parker's party on Saturday.  I need to find a gift for him.  His birthday is Dec 28 but I agreed to have his party a month early.    There's a craft fair this weekend but I know I won't have time to go to it just like I missed the last one. Saturday will be dh getting groceries while I do laundry, judo, party and then Lydia is going with a friend to see Franklin's Christmas.  Sunday is church with a meeting afterwards, getting homework done and fitting in a family movie night?  Oy.  My head hurts.  When to start the Christmas baking or find a couple of hours to do some shopping?  Do I make myself a cake or not?

Off to tackle Mt Washmore so it's done by Saturday and I just have to put the 20 million loads away.



That's 48 hours worth of laundry.

Advent Conspiracy

 

No matter what your personal or religious beliefs, you've got to admit that Christmas has become over commercialized.  Christmas is no longer what it started out as and it's so easy to forget the true meaning of the season.  I've come across this video lately and thought it was good food for thought.  As I am part way through my Christmas list, it reminds me not to overinduldge.  I'm going to make every effort to refocus on our family this season and not the external forces around us that are saying spend, spend, spend.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqqj1v-ZBU

Need some help on quality gifts from the heart?  Check this out.

http://www.rethinkingchristmas.com/

Little Miss Independant

Growing up my cousins collected the Little Miss and Mr. Men books.  We had a few as well but not nearly as extensive as theirs.  I'm wondering if there is a Little Miss Independant.  I have one that lives at my house.  Last week a friend was coming over in the evening.  I came upstairs from doing laundry.  Lydia was in the kitchen washing dishes.

 

I asked her what she was doing.  "Cara's coming, Mommy, I doin dishes."   When she was done she grabbed a towel from the laundry and finshed drying the floor she had "washed".

Another day, I found her downstairs putting together a doll playpen that I had packed away.  So much for downsizing the toys.



Then there was potty training her baby.



Last night she  finished eating and when I thought she was putting her dishes in the dishwasher, I found her helping herself to more Kraft Dinner.



She still uses water bottles on a daily basis, just to avoid cups getting knocked over because she can fill them and get the cover on herself.

More Green Deals

Yesterday the kids had the day off school for parent teacher conferences.
The kids and I stopped at Value Village. We were looking for a bag of plain Lego. Ds is having a Lego birthday and we wanted to put lego in the treat bags. We found a box of Lego with over 25 people in it and accessories. We also found a large box of K'nex AND an American Girl Doll 2008. The American Girl Dolls retail for $100. I got her for $2.99. She's in mint condition with gorgeous brushable hair.   Lydia is in love with her new "girl" Claire.





Might not look like a lot of Lego but the pieces in it were awesome.

A few days ago I picked up a pair of Ugg boots for Lydia.  $4.  We'd looked everywhere for black boots and had settled on a pair of boys boots.  Well now she has a stylish pair too.

If someone could tell me how ot get the mothball smell out, I'd be more than greatful.

It's a wrap.

That's what they say in the movie business right?

I just came up with a new holiday tradition for our house.  I'm going to gather up the Christmas movies and wrap them.  We'll celebrate the Sundays of Avent by watching a family movie together.  But when I suggest movies, there's always some bickering over who wants to watch what.  Now we'll just pick one without knowing what it is.  It'll be a great way of winding down a busy weekend .  Kids in their jammies, an easy supper and some popcorn.

Here's some of my favourites.

   



The Polar Express

I'll take suggestions if you have a favourite holiday movie.

To Yoga or Not to Yoga

My right shoulder has been messed up for a couple of weeks causing pinched nerves and lots of throbbing.  Today at playgroup I turned to reach something and I feel liek I have a kink under my left shoulder blade.  Tonight is my yoga class and I need to figure out if yoga will help it or agravate it.  Honestly, I don't think I have the energy for it.  I stayed up way too late last night watching City (comedy) council on our local cable station.

Maybe Lydia and I can do some yoga today.

Menu Plan Monday

I'm back on the Meal Plan Wagon now that I have ground beef in the house again.   Every Wednesday it's on sale at On The Vine for $1.99/lb.  I just never seem to be able to get there.  I stocked up last week and cooked and froze enough for 13 meals.  that is if, dh keeps his paws off of it.

 I also have a new to me deep freeze.  Woohoo.    Our deep freeze always seems full so there's no room for freezer meals or baking.  Mil was getting rid of her deep freeze and I was more than happy to take it.  I cleaned it and plugged it in last night.    I'm planning on using one for meats and meals and the other for baking and frozen fruits, jam...

Need help with meal planning?  You can check out my google calendar  http://www.google.com/calendar/render?tab=mc&gsessionid=J9J4lOkmRXb8dMubKyBEcQ  Click on a meal and the recipe should be there.  Although if you need a recipe for tacos or chili, you need more help than I can give.  I also came across this blog if you need more ideas.   http://orgjunkie.com/

Today we're having crockpot ribs.  MMMMMM  can you smell them?

Dear Santa

I love you.

Games for Preschoolers

So with Christmas coming, I thought I'd give some reviews of games that we have.  In the past couple of years, we've accumulated a lot of Cranium games.  One that we recently purchased for Lydia is Cariboo.      http://www.hasbro.com/games/cranium/browse.cfm?page=&product_id=21399

 I could explain how it's played but we don't really play by the rules.  It's an openended game, easily adapteed to what your child's needs are.  It was recomended by Lydia's Speech pathologist.  I ask her to say a word on a card (provided by the speech program) and then she gets to use the magic key to open a box.  If she finds a ball, she takes it out and puts it in the hole and when all the balls are found, the treasure chest pops open.  She loves the game so much, she'll even play it on her own.

I just picked these ones up for Christmas gifts-



Put the puzzle together and use the game cards to search for differnt objects.  Circle the found objects with a dry erase marker.  I picked this up at Winners for $6.99.  I like that it's a prereading game and leads them to read by using cues.  I'm not sure if it's readily available as it's not on the Cranium site but Amazon still carries it.

I also found Talking Tracks Monkey Safari  http://www.hasbro.com/games/cranium/browse.cfm?page=&product_id=21501

Again at Winners for $5.99.

More big hits with preschoolers- Hullaballo dvd game by Cranium.  We have the original one as well but I find it hard to hear so when I found the DVD version for $5 last year at Walmart, I told everyone I knew.  We often use it at church with an extra set.  It's a great moving game.

I used to sell Discovery Toys and Playful Patterns is a great game for so many reasons.  https://www.discoverytoyslink.com/ecommerce/control/product?PURCHASE_STATE=STANDARD&product_id=2930  As well as Games to Grow on and Oh Rats.

http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Toys-Games-Grow-Board/dp/B0011CY82M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=generic&qid=1226721440&sr=1-1

http://www.epinions.com/review/Oh_Rats_Puzzle_Game/kifm-review-202E-ADC80B3-3A36E239-prod1

They're not available from Discovery Toys anymore but if you know a consultant or check Ebay and Amazon, you might luck out.

New to Me- Great Deals and going green with clothing

So if you know me, you know I love a good deal.  I previously worked at a Frenchies store and I accustomed to paying dirt cheap prices for clothing.  It causes me great pain to pay full price for clothes when it's really just a waiting game.  I live 2 minutes from the mall and within 15 minutes of about 6 second hand stores and those are not consignment prices.  Being so close to the mall, I can  stop into The Children's Place on a regular basis to watch for their Monster sale.  I have an Old Navy connection who likes to share Friends and Family discounts or sends out an alert on a good sale.

This summer a new used clothing store opened and it's owned by a guy from dh's hometown.  The Clothesline is much neater and I would say has better quality than most Frenchies stores.  Hannah needed new black pants and so we went tonight on a mission to find some.  It was our plan to go to The Clothesline, Superstore, Super Frenchies and then Old Navy.  I like to pay the cheapest price possible but I'm  not opposed to paying for a specific item.  We struck gold tonight at the Clothesline.  I found her mint condition black cords form the Children's Place.  They fit perfectly and the embellishments on the pockets are stitched on and can easily be removed.  As soon as we walked in the door, I saw a white blouse for her.  A plain white blouse in her size is hard to find so we grabbed it.  I also found black dress pants for Parker, a red Children's Place top for Lydia, A sweater for me, a great quality sheet from IKEA and a sleep sack for a friend.  The grad total was $20 and change.  Sweet.

Next stop was Old Navy.  I used my Friends and Family discount and got 30% off the jeans and dress I found for Hannah on clearance.  I paid $15 and change.  Woohoo.  Although nothing beats the year I hit a .97 sale just before her bithday.  She got 10 pairs of jeans, tops, pajamas....  She's just now hit the end of that pile.

I think that's just about it for holiday clothing for the kids.  Parker could probably use a sweater but it won't be the  end of the world if I don't find one.

Crafting with Cara and Sarah- Countdown to Christmas

Ok, not so much this week.  Cara came and babysat so I could go to a City Ward- Let's Talk Meeting.  Pretty sad that it's the first time in probably a year that we've had a babysitter and we go to a city meeting.    It's amazing how much more interest I have in politics after battling the government over EFI.  Anyway we have a new city council and there are far too many issues that smell bad in this city.  There's the 2 year sick leave policy for city employees that the city is proposing, a decaying water system- we still have wooden pipes in some areas, issues with garbage collection, pension board lawsuit, coziness between the city and developers.  Anyway, thanks to Cara, I was able to go and got to have my voice heard.  It also helped that there were no seats left and I ended up sitting on a bench with the mayor and the city employee who was taking notes.  I got to comment directly to them about my concerns.  Oh and I showed everyone the water that I collected in August  http://blog.canadianparents.com/sarahnb/2008/08/25/smartest-city-vs-dumbest-city/

Christmas is...

Tonight at Kid's Club we started learning this song:

Christmas is a Time to Love.

Christmas is a time
Christmas is a time
Christmas is a time to love

Christmas is a time
Christmas is a time
Christmas is a time to love

We often start to worry and people get upset
When things don’t go all right on Christmas day
What we should remember in all the push and shove
Is Christmas is a time to love.

Maybe things don’t sound right or look the way they should
And maybe they’re not perfectly in tune
It really doesn’t matter, let’s keep our eyes above
‘Cause Christmas is a time to love.

The kids will be singing it at the annual Christmas dinner.  It's such an important message and exactly why  we should be organized in our Christmas prep.  So we can enjoy the fullness of the season and make room for others. 

Funny thing is, this song is from a musical that we did when I was in the 8th grade.

Psalty's Christmas Calamity.

Missing **** Update

Have you seen this baby?  She's missing and was last seen 2-3 weeks ago.  She may be wearing a diaper and her rubber boots.  No raincoat or hat.

Update-  Baby Kate has been found.  I searched this entire house, emptied baskets of laundry.  I finally found her in our closet under some clothes.

When I first saw this doll in the stores, I fell in love with her rubber boots so my mom bought her for Lydia's birthday.  I had to wait months to give it to her.  I have to say that I love the Little Mommy and Sweet as Me line of dolls by Fisher Price.  I grew up with my own Fisher Price dolls, Baby Ann is in another blog post.  I still have them.  Lydia got the FP newborns for her first Christmas and this year I have a couple tucked away.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to find their clothes anywhere but from the FP website.  They are the cutest though.