My Favorite Things: My Neighbors

Earlier this month, I filmed a segment for Great Day Green Country (if the link goes online, I'll post it here). The segment was about holiday gifts for your neighbors. These are all items that your kids can make or that you can easily whip up and share with those you have to look at your metal flamingo in the front yard. (Brian says sorry; I think it's cute!)

First up, Spicy Nuts. These are so incredibly yummy and easy! We get our fresh pecans each year at  Schaper Pecan Farms in Ramona, OK. 

2 cups of cleaned pecans

2 T butter

1 T Worcestershire sauce

1 T seasoning salt

2 t garlic powder

pinch(es) of salt

Melt the butter and Worcestershire sauce in a microwavable bowl. Stir in the seasoning salt and garlic powder. Add the pecans and stir until they are well coated. Microwave for one minute, then stir. Microwave for another minute, then stir. Microwave for a third minute, then stir and pour onto a paper towel-lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt and let dry for about an hour. If you don't want to microwave, you can bake at 400 for about thirty minutes, stirring every ten minutes.

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Marshmallow Straws. These are so good and easy. The girls eat them for breakfast. No, I'm not kidding. Melt chocolate bark (or almond bark). Stick a straw in one end of the marshmallow (I used the ginormous marshmallows) and then dip the marshmallow into the bark. You can add sprinkles for fun. Then they can stir them into hot chocolate or coffee for a great treat. Or, you can eat them for breakfast. 

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Rice Krispie Tree: Did you know that once you mix the marshmellows into the Rice Krispies, it becomes like play dough? Just butter up your hands. (Really. Add a lot of butter.) And shape and mold the delicious Krispie treats into whatever shape you want. The Daughters made a Christmas tree and decorated it with M & Ms.

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Santa Soup: Layer one third cup of rice, one third cup of red lentils, and one third cup split peas. Add a Knorr Stock packet, one third cup dehydrated onion, 1 T black pepper, 1 T garlic salt. They add six jars of water to the mixture and let it simmer all night (or day). They can also add eight oz of ham or chicken if they wish.

We did get a pic of the Santa Soup, so here's a pic of the Stock Packet.
They are not paying me to say this, but I wish they would. I love these little things!

~

Easy Breezy Candy Bar Treat: If you don't have time to do any of this, I feel your pain. But, that doesnt' mean you should neglect your neighbors, especially, if you live close to me. So, grab a few giant Hershey bars and add this cute little poem that I got from my scrapbooking buddy, Suzanne, several years ago--but it's been around the block a time or two.

Dashing from the mall

With groceries left to buy

Kids, school, work and stuff

Life's so busy, why?

Bells on our phones ring

Voicemail will take the call

We have no time for family or friends

It drives us up the wall

So, how are you?

How's your life?

We really want to know.

Hope your ready for Christmas

Now many it will snow.

A day or two ago, 

we thought we'd make a treat

For all our special friends

A Holiday treat to eat.

Our intentions were top notch

But our schedules wouldn't budge, 

So, we hope that you enjoy this year's

Davis* Family Fudge.

*insert your own name, duh.

~

And finally, a gratuitous picture of my own personal camera man who took the pics while I filmed. Isn't she adorbs?

Counting The Days--Celebrating Advent

Thursday on Great Day Green Country, I shared several ways to help kids count down to Christmas while not driving their parents totally wacko before the big day. Oh, you'll still go wacko, but not totally wacko.


Christmas Books. When The Daughters were younger, I would wrap each book and we'd open it and read it that night before going to bed. Because we designate each day with their initial, that person got to unwrap the book. Once I realized that I didn't have infinite time to wrap books nor did I have infinite resources to purchase wrapping paper for twenty-four books, We just left them unwrapped. The Daughters are now nine (practically ten, if you ask her) and twelve and we still read a Christmas book a night.

Tip: If you don't have twenty-four Christmas books, be sure to check out your local library. You could also form a co-op with a group of mommy friends. 

Advent Jar. I made filled jars with twenty-four pieces of candy each and gave a jar to each of The Daughters as well as our three nieces. Each day, they'll get one piece of candy. When the jar is empty, then it's time for Santa to come. After Christmas, the nieces (and The Daughters) can return the jar to me, and I'll refill it the next year. A way to add some meaning (even though eating candy is pretty darn meaningful in my life) would be to add a sticker on the pieces of candy with an activity to do. You don't have to put an activity on every piece of candy, but one it would be a cool addition about half the time. Some activities include: Watch The Polar Express, call your favorite aunt and sing your favorite Christmas carol, or make hot chocolate and deliver it to your local police station or fire station.

Tip: Buy extra chocolate so you don't have to sneak from the Christmas jar. It would stink to have to celebrate Christmas on December 19 because that Twix was calling your name when you were up wrapping presents. 

Lollipop Tree. This is very similar to the Advent jar, only you're using suckers and a styrofoam tree.  The lollipops will poke right into the styrofoam tree. Each day, the kid(s) get a sucker. When the tree is empty, it's Christmas! Again, you can put an activity on some of the lollipops to add meaning to the season.

Tip: Buy your lollipops on November 1 when the Halloween candy goes on sale, and reuse the tree. Momma is nothing if not cheap and easy.

Advent Wreath. The most wonderful time of the year is also the most busy time of the year. Between sports practices, concerts, recitals, family gatherings, work parties and everything else, many families don't get to have family time every night. The Advent wreath, while it's sacred in its history, can be used by any family to count down to Christmas. Designate a day a week for the four weeks leading to Christmas that you will meet as a family. Each week of Advent is designated as follows: 1) Hope; 2) Love; 3) Joy; and 4)Peace. To make your own Advent wreath, you'll need four candles, one for each week. Typically, the candles are purple except for Joy, which is pink. However, you can make them any color you wish. You'll also need one white candle for Christmas Eve. Each week, meet as a family and talk about your week as you light one, then two, then three candles, counting down to Christmas Eve when you light the white candle.

To make my advent wreath, I tinted canning jars and used my Nativity candle from Keepsake Candles. The "wreath" sits on our dining room table.

Tip: Let your kids help you make these jars--it's fun, easy and they'll end up making extra to give away as gifts. Again, cheap and easy!

How will you count down to Christmas?

I See Where I Rate

For the most part, the government shut down didn't have a direct impact on me and my family except to cause extreme anxiety in my already-anxious child about how the government shut down would directly effect her and her alone. I have close friends whose families wondered where their grocery money for the week (or two or three) would come from; I knew people who weren't being paid because they are employees of the Federal government; and every single person I knew had an opinion, one way or another, about what the real issue was and who was at fault.

As for me, I didn't fully understand it. I listened to the commentary, I read every last shared post on Facebook (and then did some major blocking of ignorance), but I all I really got from it was that our politicians' behavior could be best summarized with two words: Big Babies.

Good news--they came to an agreement before we defaulted (whatever that means) and the government shut down was ended, which really didn't mean too much to me and my family because, as I said before, we weren't directly impacted. Life was still going on as usual. I blogged a little. We did our #ThankfulThursday. We went to school. We came home. We went to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

On Thursday morning, we woke up, got dressed in our costumes and drove to Tulsa to film my segment for Great Day Green Country. Brian and I were dressed as a Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes winner and spokesman. Daughter 1 was dressed as Napoleon Dynamite--Sahweet! And Daughter 2, after a lot of last minute scrambling, was dressed as one of the Duck Dynasty Guys.

We did a segment wherein I discussed how we do our own Halloween costumes and how I try to not spend exorbitant amounts of money on something that we'll only wear for four hours at best and how 90% of our costume can be used in some other capacity and about how I crowd source for the hard to find items--like a Napoleon wig.

The interviewer, KC Lupp, who is always so kind and seems genuinely interested during our segments, asked my family how they felt about my blog and my oversharing, and they all responded that they were the first editors, nothing gets posted without their approval and then we cleared.

All during my interview, I felt my phone in my back pocket vibrating like an adult toy with new batteries. Brian and The Daughters went back to the lobby--they didn't need much changing. I headed back to the changing room and then joined them in the lobby where I checked my phone.

You were preempted!
The president is speaking!
You aren't on! The president is!
Why aren't they showing you?
When will you be on?
What are you doing? Send. Send. Did it send? What are you doing? I don't think this phone is working. (My own momma just learned to text.)

So ... we stayed around to film my next segment ... but I'm not telling you when it will air in case the President reads my blog has plans to wipe me from the air completely. (So there! I will not go down easily, President Obama!)

In the meantime, though, we ran into a few of our Wednesday night friends:

So ... what was my takeaway from Thursday?

1. Apparently The President outranks a mom blogger from Oklahoma--who knew?

2. Modern Family photo opps always make things better.

3. Our costumes look really, really great on and off the air.

Conversation Of The Week

As we were on our way to film a segment for Great Day Green Country

The Daughters: What if they ask us questions?

Me: Answer them.

The Daughters: Will we have a microphone?

Me: Probably not.

The Daughters: How will they hear us?

Me: KC will probably have a hand-held and you should just speak loudly.

Later than morning as we're all--even The Daughters--being mic'd for our segment

Daughter 2: So, if he asks me a question, I can answer him?

Me: Yes, please do.

Daughter 2: Can I use more than one word?

Me: That'd be appropriate.

Daughter 2: Can I also sing a song if the music just comes to me?

On Great Day Green Country

Check me out talking about ways we celebrate the little things in our family. It was a Great Day ...

Five For Friday: School Year Sanity Savers

I love my summer--I really do. I love sleeping in (this love is not reserved for the summer, though); I love staying up late; I love the relaxed pace; I love calling all the shots; I love summer.

But.

I love my routine as well ... maybe even more. And when August rolls around and school starts back up, I'm ready to get my family back into a routine once again. Here are five things I do that really help our school year start off right and same my sanity by bringing routine back to reign in our house once again.

1. H Day and B Day: Our big wall calendar that hangs by the garage door for all to see as we leave the house every single day has, for all intents and purposes, become obsolete. Brian and I have synched our phones with our work calendars and our google calendars, but we leave this calendar up to keep the peace in the house. Every single day is marked with either an H for Daughter 1 or a B for Daughter 2. All it took was a pen (actually a pink pen and a blue pen) and a calendar. Easy.

When The Daughters ask those tough questions--Who sits in the front seat today? Who picks out the Redbox tonight? Who has to do the extra chore? Who gets to lick the cake batter bowl?--we go to the calendar.

Oh! It's an H Day or a B Day. That person gets the honor, for better or worse, and there are no arguments. The calendar always rules.

2. The Chore Chart: The chore chart never changes. If it's your day (see the schedule just above here), you will sweep the kitchen floor tonight. There is no discussion.

It's framed, so there's no, "Whoops! The chore chart got wet; we can't read it." It's hanging in the kitchen, so there's no, "Where'd the chore chart go?" It's unchanging so there's no, "What? That was today? I didn't know."

Sure, it took Momma a while to get ahead of the game with this, but with a print out from the computer and a frame from the dollar store, it's game on now.

3. School/Crap Box: A million and one grey hairs: That's how long it took me to figure this one out. I don't do morning and because (until this school year), Brian was on a much earlier schedule, the morning routine/attitude fell to me. Yes, I know. It was disasterous. We'd barely get ready on time then we'd have to find all the crapola that we needed for school, after school, sports, etc...

We now have two boxes (one for each daughter) that sit on our fireplace mantle. The girls dump all of their crap in there every day when they come home from school. They get homework out and then put it back in the box. Their empty (for the most part) lunch boxes get chunked into the box as well. Then, in the mornings when we're running out the door three minutes after we should be running out the door, they just grab their crap from the box and go. There's no gathering anything because it's all right there.

4. Cutsie Clipboards: Back in the day when I neglected my home and family in order to scrapbook (now I'm negligent in order to write), I modge podged (What? It's a verb.) a couple of cute clipboards for The Daughters. They are marked with their names and they hang just underneath the above-mentioned calendar. When The Daughters bring home notices from school that require mine or Brian's attention--such as Pickles, Popcorn and Candy day, or a need for money--such as Picture Day or yearbook orders, or a signature--such as field trip forms or any of the other 4,261 forms we have to sign the first week of school, they clip those notices on their clipboards. Brian and I deal order, write checks, sign or whatever needs to be done and put the paperwork in their above mentioned school boxes. If it's not on the clipboard, it doesn't get Momma's and Daddy's attention. It's a great system. I wish everyone who needed a piece of me had a clipboard.

5. Today's Chef Plate: The Daughters (and Brian, too!) each have a day a week to be the chef. They plan the meal and cook it all themselves and clean up. This helps them understand that cooking is hard work but fun, and Momma doesn't try to cook crap they won't eat, despite the latest household polls. I'm with them in the kitchen when they do this. It's not like I'm sitting in the recliner, eating Taco-flavored Doritos watching reruns of Friends. Usually, I'm checking Facebook. I kid! I kid! Mostly.

To make it a super big fancy deal, I bought a one dollar plate and dug out some scrapbooking stickers and made a "Today's Chef" plate. With dry erase marker, we announce, on the plate, the day's chef. It's totally for show, but it sure does make it fun for them to be a chef.

And speaking of dry erase markers ... did you know you can write on mirrors and class with those markers and it will just wipe off? This is a fun way to give messages, reminders and draw funky faces for your kids in the mornings. But, since I'm not a morning person, I usually do this after midnight the night before...

Why I Started Blogging--GIVEAWAY!

So, why'd you start blogging? The morning show host at Great Day Green Country asked me during the commercial break before my segment. It was only a two and half minute break, so I didn't have time to tell my whole "Why I Blog" story, so I said, "I needed to know I wasn't alone." Then I promised her the whole story on my blog. I'm a traffic-driver if nothing else.

So ... This is why I started blogging.

There are countless books that paint pretty Norman Rockwell-like pictures of family life.  I’d read them all. I was prepared for anything and everything because I had read all the books. 

Then I woke up and discovered my child had painted a Picasso on her wall during the night using nothing but her hands and her own poopy diaper. 

Do I clean her first or the wall first? Do I call poison control in case she ingested her own waste? Do I take a picture and scrapbook it? Will that scrapbook page be fodder for future therapy? Do I ignore the whole thing and send her daddy in after her and let him deal?

The poop-on-the-wall fiasco was not covered in any of my parenting books that were dog-eared, drooled on, and dropped beside my bed.  I assumed, at that time, that I had been the only mother since Eve spawned Cain and Abel to ever have had this poopy-wall episode as a part of her mothering repertoire. And I hung my head in shame. And exhaustion. More exhaustion than shame to be sure.

At my older child’s dance class that same week, I confessed that my baby had smeared her poop on her wall.  I was looking for confirmation that I wasn’t raising Linda Blair. Today poop; tomorrow pea soup. I was met with silence. 

Then I caught one fellow mom’s eye.  “My baby picked her nose and fed me the booger. I ate it.”  I snickered at her after-nap snack choice.

Another mom confessed next, “When I’m taking a bath, I let my baby play in the toilet so he’ll leave me the hell alone.”  I laughed. Not at her, with her.

Finally, the snootiest of all moms in the waiting room said, as she adjusted her Coach purse in her lap and examined her 83-karat diamond wedding ring, “Ethan dumped his entire lunch from the table and then started eating it off the floor.  I didn’t stop him.” 

We all laughed our fool-heads off.  That kind of parenting is not discussed in a single one of those parenting books.  But it should've been.

Why we choose to not share the funny, punny, quirky, and inappropriate with each other more often is a mystery to me that probably has to be archaic in nature.  I’m sure we don’t talk about our kids catching us having sex (and punching my butt to boot!) for the same reason Lucy and Ricky had separate beds on TV. We like to keep our stories clean.

So, I started to blog to share the insanity that is motherhood. I choose to share the funny, punny, quirky, and inappropriate with my readers so that they will know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it’s gonna be alright even when their child announces to the entire dining room at the neighborhood bar and grill that her momma has hairy armpits.

I do not always keep my stories clean. I tell my stories as they happened, often times leaving in details that make my mother scold me and my mother-in-law ignore me.  I tell my stories with all their gory details. I tell them so that someone else can relate and not feel so alone when her child punches her on her butt during an entirely intimate smooshing.  (C’mon. Don’t tell me it hasn’t happened to you. But if it hasn’t happened to you, what kind of lock is on your bedroom door, if you don’t mind my asking. I’m in the market.)

But I tell my stories, ultimately, to make people laugh.  

And I wish someone had made me laugh when I was a brand new momma.

Today, I hope to make a brand new momma laugh--and giddy with all the bling I'm about to giveaway!

Up for giveaway are the following items:

Color: Red

Baby B'Air - It is a baby/toddler in-flight safety vest that allows parents
to seat their babies and toddlers on their laps comfortably during flight
while safely secured in the Baby B'Air which attaches easily to the parent
with the use of their seat belt.  $34.95, babybair.com

Quantity: 1
Color: Blue

Snack Trap - tip-resistant, handled toddler snack cup with a unique lid with
slits that allows toddlers to see and retrieve food with ease themselves but
automatically closes when the toddlers remove their hand.
$4.99, snacktrap.com

Flexi-Fit - fully size adjustable toilet training seat that can easily be
attached/detached to/from any standard toilet seat, ensuring children feel
secure and comfortable.  $19.95, pourty.com

Quantity: 1
Color: Blue and white striped
Blonde child with mullet, not included

Banda Bib - unique bandana shaped bib that allows it to safely and
comfortably fit closer to the chin than any other bib, ensuring catching all
drool.  Also, less cumbersome than other bibs making it comfortable for baby
to wear all day.  $8.99, bazzlebaby.com

Quantity: 1 set
Will not work on wine bottles ... no matter how much you try

Kids No-Spill Bottle Caps - replace original bottle cap of any leading water
and juice drink with the Kids No-Spill Bottle Cap and the bottle is ready
for no-spill drinking.  Adaptors for all the leading drink bottles included
with each pack of No-Spill Bottle Caps.  $6.99/pack, snacktrap.com

Quantity: 1
Color: Grey--but only one shade of Grey; you have a baby for heaven's sake

Sidekick - World's first and only full function diaper bag and baby carrier
in one  $120, gogobabyz.com

Quantity: 1
Signed by yours truly
Don't try to sell the signed copy on Craiglist.
You won't get more than fifty cents.
Don't ask me how I know.

TMI Mom Oversharing My Life - a funny collection of humorous essays about parenting, wife-ing (What? It's a word!) and living a laughter-filled life by funny mommy blogger, Heather Davis (Yeah, yeah, yeah--it's me!)

Use this Rafflecopter to enter to win this great Baby Swag Bag!

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