What do you do when the kids aren't home?

Yeah, so it's not a great picture, but you get the point. The kids are headed to their Maw-maw and Granddad's house this weekend (it's over the river and through the woods) and I am afraid to send Norton over there for fear that Sunday night will roll around and we'll realize we left him and someone will have to make the hour trip over to get him.

So, instead Norton made these awesome felt stockings/sleeping bags for each of the Twins. The Twins will be making the trip to the other side of the river and even wrote this note for the kids:

Take us to Maw-maw and Granddad's house when you go,
That way we can make sure that Santa's "in the know."

When you've been good, there's fun to be had,
But Santa will not bring gifts if you are bad.

We're not going to move or do funny things,
We'll just tell Santa when you've been DINGA-LINGS!

Love, The Twins

I think it's pretty darn cute, and the kids will be thrilled when the wake up. They can touch the Twins, since they don't do reporting most of the time and they won't be moving around and doing mischief over there. They'll get a kick out of being able to cuddle them at night, I suspect.

Naughty Norton

The kids have an elf. You know, those creepy little elves that are supposed to hang out in a different spot in your house every day, checking up on the kids before reporting back to Santa each night. Our elf, Norton, is something else though. He isn't satisfied with playing hide and seek throughout the house. He has to create havoc.

Norton started out tame enough. Hanging from a sign, playing around on the mantel, etc. It didn't take long before he got into mischief though. He tried to climb down from the mantle using a slinky and got all stuck and stuff.

After that, it was game on. Norton (who I keep calling Barney because that was the name of last year's elf that's no longer with us, something for another post) has been "ON" almost ever since. Sure, he has nights where he's pretty tame, but a vast majority of the time, he's quite devious. Take, for instance, the night he decided to hang underwear on the mantle instead of stockings. He left a trail of underwear across the house and even The Twins (two other little elves that visit for some fun) got in on the action. As you can see, they're either laughing or covering their noses from the stink of the kids' underwear.
That was pretty funny, I'll admit it.

And some of the things he does are pretty awesome, like when he wrapped the kids' door or when he made snowflake ballerinas and hung them from the living room ceiling fan.

We really love Norton around here (mostly, because I'm sure Daddy could do without some of his little messes, but he tolerates them because the kids get a kick out of him). Most of all, the kids like that every night, he carries their behaviors (both good and bad) back to Santa at the North Pole. Then he comes back home and creates some little bit of mischievousness for them to find. I love it, because it gets them out of bed in the morning without much cajoling at ALL on my part. Pretty awesome.

Whatever happened to Barney?

Last year, Santa sent Barney to keep an eye on the kids. He did more to make a mess than keep an eye on the kids. But he was an awesome elf.

So, when Norton came this year, the kids were curious. Norton had come last year to try to teach Barney how to be a better elf after the incident with the flour on my counter, but ended up learning a trick or two from Barney. They wanted to know, "What happened to Barney?"

Barney wasn't an "authentic" Elf on the Shelf, simply one I had gotten in some vintage ornaments I got from my mom's house, I think. Along with those, I had gotten other elves, including Norton, who actually LOOKS more authentically Elf on the Shelf. And I picked up the Elf on the Shelf book from Goodwill for $1, so I didn't have to spend all that money on the Elf kit.

You see, what actually happened was on Christmas morning last year, I realized that I had forgotten to put Barney away. He was SUPPOSED to ride back to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve. Momma forgot! He was still in his spot from the day before when we were getting ready to get the kids up for morning festivities (aka trash the living room) so I grabbed him and threw him upstairs into the attic. I went up later and put him on a shelf. This year, when I went to get him on Thanksgiving night, I realized I had put him on a shelf right next to a window and the sun had faded our dear Barney!

So Dearly Departed Barney has been relegated to an inner branch of the tree, to keep an eye from afar. The kids don't know he's there, simply that Santa decided he created so much mischief last year, he sent Norton this year. Who is doing a pretty darn good job of creating mischief all on his own.

Well... it's been awhile

New Year's Resolutions - HA, I laugh in the face of New Year's Resolutions. Apparently, I made some resolution to blog regularly. We ALL see how that turned out. I haven't posted since February.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I've THOUGHT about blogging. I've had great ideas for blogging some things. But then I'd psyche myself out and think, "Oh, it's been too long." Then I'd see other people blogging about stuff a month or more older and think, "Oh, maybe not." But by then, I didn't have time, and welllllll... you get the point. Excuses, excuses. Much like that resolution to lose weight. Something always came up (usually my weight!).

Just to get you updated, a TON has happened since I last blogged (besides German Chocolate Brownies which happened a lot).

In March, I got an ACTUAL, real, career-type job. I got back into the career world! Part time, but it works out PERFECTLY for me, since I have Coco and Mabel (who both also celebrated birthdays since I last posted so they're now five and four respectively). I now work at Cooperative Christian Ministry in their Development Department. I handle our donor management and public relations. We do some pretty awesome stuff there including emergency and transitional housing for homeless individuals and families, run NUMEROUS food pantries and mobile food pantries, and offer financial assistance to folks to help them get back on their feet through rent/mortgage, utilities and even medicine.

 

Over the summer, we went to the beach. That was a lot of fun. My mom and a couple of nieces went with us and we got some great pictures and wonderful memories. Plus I got to wear a really cool bathing suit that I was comfortable in, something that doesn't happen too often.

Then, the biggie. COCO STARTED KINDERGARTEN! Seriously. KINDERGARTEN. I cannot say enough how amazingly scary and sad this was. But so exciting at the same time. So weird. How can something be scary and exciting and sad at the same time?! But it was. My baby boy started school! Real school, not preschool. I cried, of course, and took the whole day off. It didn't take long for me to get used to it though, because within the first month, I had already forgotten to pick him up from school and slept late, making him tardy. Alas, I started setting an alarm on my phone to pick him up and making sure I get up the FIRST time my clock goes off in the morning.

When did my baby get so big?

Then there was Halloween:

 

Batman and Cinderella!

 

And Thanksgiving:

 

My whole beautiful family

And now, Christmas:

 

Even though this was the day before Thanksgiving!

 

Like I said, it's been a busy year! Thankfully, I will have more time to blog because I'm giving up my job at Target this year. My last day is TONIGHT! I'm excited to spend more time with the kids, do things on the weekend with my little family and yes, even blog more. So stay tuned!

German chocolate... brownies

Yes, you read that right. I made German chocolate brownies tonight. Much like the German chocolate cake (my absolute favorite birthday cake), these rich brownies are coated with a coconut "frosting" making them nice and rich. I didn't step-by-step photograph what I was doing, but they are super easy to make and this was the end result:

Looks tasty doesn't it? Trust me, it is. Now you want the recipe, don't you? Well, I won't make you wait.

German Chocolate Brownies
For brownie:
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2/3 c. cocoa powder
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

For frosting:
2 c. coconut flakes
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 stick (1/4 c.) butter
1/4 c. evaporated milk

In a large sauce pan, melt butter. Stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla and blend well. Remove from heat and add cocoa, flour, salt and baking soda. Again, blend well until there are no flour-y lumps. Grease a 9-by-13 inch glass pan well and pour batter into the pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until a toothpick insterted comes out with a few yummy crumbs (they'll be fluffy and perfect, trust me).

While the brownies are baking, mix your frosting ingredients well in a small mixing bowl. Remove brownies from oven and "frost" (it's not going to spread that well, use small spoonfuls and try to smoothe them out best you can) the brownies. Turn oven to "broil" and sit frosted brownies about 4 inches below the coil for about 3 minutes. You don't want to burn the frosting, so keep an eye on it!

Let them cool, cut them and you're done.

NOTE: Coco likes his brownies without the frosting, so I actually frosted half of the brownies and left the other half unfrosted. Not a good idea, because the broiler kind of burned the top of the unfrosted side. If you do this, you'd do better separating the brownie batter into two separate pans. I'll do that next time.

Calories: About a million
Makes: Around 12-16, depending on how big you cut them (as you can see, I got about 12 out of my pan of brownies).

Discovering play

The kids like to play. When we woke up this morning, I was dreading what was coming - I had told them I'd take them to Discovery Place Kids in Huntersville. I was looking forward to going to the museum, touted as "an adventure in play," but I was worried that if we went, they'd get sick from that norovirus going around. I REALLY can't deal with that. Yuck.

After giving them a choice - do you want to play Wii all day or go to DPK - Mom was outvoted and we got going. It's not too far and we had gift certificates from Mawmaw Jackie and Pop we had gotten for Christmas, so all I'd really be out was lunch money.

For $8, kids can play all they want in a variety of different areas at DPK, all following the same theme of "I CAN." Kids can be a doctor, vet, go shopping, work on a farm, play on stage, build, play in water and more. And this day, it was also HAT DAY! Had I known, we'd have probably worn one of the million funky hats we have here (I'm sure Coco would have LOVED wearing his Capt'n Hook hat), but it was OK. The kids got to make their own hats there. Don't tell them the feathers I added look like Pimp caps. I thought they were HILARIOUS and some of the looks I got from other parents made me think they thought they were too.

The kids had a blast in all the different zones of the kid friendly museum, but I think their favorite area had to be the water zone. I base this on the wet shirts we walked out with and the huge grins on their faces. Sure, there were waterproof aprons there, but what's the fun in that?! In the car, the were able to take off their shirts and put on their zipper hoodies, so no one was the wiser.

And when we got home, and they insisted on playing Wii, guess who wore their pimp hats the whole time? It was definitely a fun time - one I would have gladly paid for had we not had the gift certificates. When they run out, I'm sure I won't mind paying. The kids didn't even realize they were learning. That's always fun!

Wordless Wednesday - Oh my GAG!

Yes, this is how I found her the other morning - eating butter from the fridge.

Wild about tutus

Lately, everyone has been all about the tutu. They are sooo cute in those newborn little girl pictures, and quite honestly, the big girls like to wear them too (I know I did at Halloween when I dressed up as a La-La-Loopsy).

I've gotten out of the tutu making business, and I still get requests for tutus. Well, how about this? I'll just give my tutorial away. It's much easier to just follow the tutorial I developed rather than me try to explain how to do different things with the techniques. But, I'm not going to make it SUPER easy for you. You're going to have to do something for me too.

To get a copy of my awesome tutorial, you're going to do three things for me. First, follow my blog. Second, follow me on twitter @JoanieReeder (if you hover over my name and click the link, it'll take you there). Lastly, leave a comment on this blog letting me know you've fulfilled those two requirements, along with your Twitter handle so I can follow you as well, and your email address. If you think your friends would like a copy of my tutorial as well, please PLEASE feel free to share my blog with them. I'll give away as many tutorials as I get followers and likes - I am NOT limiting this giveaway to only a select few. EVERYONE will get a tutorial, as long as you do what I asked. :)

TIP: When you leave your email address, write it as username AT domain DOT com. Don't actually use @ and . because then the spambots will find you!

I'll email tutorials out at the end of the next week (Feb. 10, 2012) so you'll have plenty of time to make cute red and white, or red, or pink, or whatever tutus for Valentine's Day! Don't forget to share it with your friends!

Brick fun

Coco has really been getting into LEGO lately. And when I say LEGO, I will make my friend Katie cringe, because I mean pretty much any brick that will fit onto another brick. Sure, a vast majority of our blocks are LEGO, but there are Mega Blocks and K-reo mixed in too (especially with that K-reo deal last week where I got an Optimus Prime building set FREE, wootwoot!).

At almost 5, his creations are pretty much limited to either really short, easy directions for things (like the LEGO Harry Potter mini set we got him after Christmas for $2.50) or his own creations - which usually are blobs, but I love to hear him describe what everything is and what it's used for.

Even Mabel gets in on the action - her daddy bought her the first of what I am sure will be MANY LEGO Friends sets. The child is only 3, so of course Mommy ended up putting that one together for her to pull apart and ask to be put back together. I guess she'll get it eventually.

LEGO is great for the imagination. Kind of like Play Dough but with corners. We are in no way, shape or form LEGO experts (like this guy), but it's still fun to pretend we are. The greatest thing about LEGO (aside from all the other cool stuff about LEGO) is that they do that free LEGO Club magazine. Coco has a subscription. Every month, he sits with his magazine, thumbing through it for ideas, and even asking if we can submit pictures to the My Own Creations section. Usually, the magazine comes with a comic book - another obsession of the kid. And it's all totally free, something you can't say often about LEGOs.

We got his first LEGOs from Goodwill - I spent all of $2 for about 500 random blocks. Then I got another set of around 300 (mostly Mega Blocks, sorry Katie) at a consignment store for around $3. Our initial investment was all of $5. If you are a fan of LEGO, you know that's CHEAP (practically FREE in LEGO terms)
- but have no fear, we've spent plenty of money since then on various sets. Pretty soon, we'll probably take him up to the LEGO store at the mall and let him pick out some stuff. His birthday is coming up after all.

Coco modeling his LEGO Batman PJs in a self-portrait

Wordless Wednesday - I want one PLEASE?!?!?!

I know this is supposed to be WORDLESS, but honestly, the writer in me screams at such a concept. I found this little shack on Pinterest, and the first thought that popped into my head was, "Wouldn't that be perfect with a computer, couch and fire?" I could clearly see myself cuddled up on the couch, reading a book, or writing my book.

This picture inspires me. How does it inspire you?

So... What do you think?

Along with posting more, I thought I'd try to make my blog a little "prettier." I wonder if I've succeeded.

I asked for the wisdom of some very smart people and searched around on the internet for free blog templates - because no matter how much I love my eight followers, I'm not paying someone to design a blog for me. Sorry guys.

I found this one. Doesn't look like one I've seen a lot, or some generic blogger template so I thought I'd take it for a spin. I don't like how the link for where I got it is up in the left corner, so if anyone has suggestions on removing that, I'm all ears. I did have to tweak the font size on the posts, because it was just as big as the blog description (that quote at the top). CRAZY big.

As easy as this was, I wonder why more people don't have pretty blogs, and sit with their boring blogs? Is there something I'm missing there? I just like a more visually appealing site, I guess.

So, back to the main question. What do you think? See something you like? Something you think needs changed (and you want to tell me how to do it)? Comment and let me know!

Welcoming 2012

It's 2012.

Did I seriously write that correctly? I had to go look at a calendar the first time I wrote the date. It is really 2012!

Yes, yes it is. And for your viewing pleasure, a little resolution humor I found on Facebook.

Honestly, looking at that, I found the reason I don't really "do" resolutions. But at the same time, isn't the new year a great place to start over? Do something you haven't done before? Take a chance?

Resolutions are sooooo last year. That doesn't stop me from thinking of things I can do this year, ways to start fresh.

I will be the first to admit, some days I wonder if I should take the Worst Mom/Wife/Person of the Year Award. This year, I think instead of thinking that way, I will think of ways to make myself a better wife. A better mom. A better friend. In some ways, this involves improving myself. The way I eat, how much I exercise. Even how much time I spend on the computer.

I will give the kids childhood memories that are worth remembering - not ones that I hope they forget. All stay at home moms know the stress of raising your kids. That time you yelled at them, then immediately thought, "Shoot. I hope that one doesn't stay in their little memories forever." This year, I'll do my best to remember they are kids. Cut them a little slack. That doesn't mean I'm going to let them run roughshod around the house naked, disrespect people, act like total hooligans at the store or willfully disobey me. I will teach them that they should act in a way that makes not only their parents proud, but makes themselves proud. They SHOULD be proud of themselves. But I'm not raising brats. But I'm not going to be so uptight about things.

Lastly, I will blog. Doesn't everyone say this? Then February rolls around and you go check a blog and it's not been updated. I'm not making set goals for how OFTEN I blog. But I will try to update at least once a week. If I don't, no biggie. But No more of this six months between posts crap. I love my five followers too much for that. So, you'll hear about triumphs, struggles, fun crafts and more this year. I'll try to update, even if it's a short sentence or two. But most of all, you will get substance. It's your time and I'm not wasting it with posts of no value.