Blue Thunder, The Easter Bunny, and Other Unrelated Tidbits

The girlies came running inside yesterday yelling "MOM! Jo Jo is blue! Jo Jo is blue! Somebody painted Jo Jo blue!"

Well, since I haven't seen any Smurfs since the early eighties, I figured that probably the kids had had too much Easter candy and the sugar was messing with their vision. 

I went outside and sure enough, the cat was blue. Immediately when I saw her I thought-shouted What kind of sicko freak would spray paint a cat?!

Then it quickly dawned on me that the dumb butt cat had rolled her gelatinous body all over Stinkerbell's chalk drawn hopscotch on the sidewalk. She was in loooooooove with that sidewalk chalked hopscotch.

And now she is permanently stained, cannot get it off, blueberry blue. Hence, I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances. I took her picture and promptly bestowed her with a regal name of which she so laughably does not fit--Blue Thunder.

It must be said sort of tongue-in-cheek. Like, ha ha, in your dreams Tom Cruise. You are so not all that that you think you are.

Whoops. I just let one of my movie star peeves out in the open.

Anyway, I do not loathe my cat as I loathe Tom Cruise, but I am a little irritated with her. Any normal cat would have tongue-bathed all that blue off by now, but Jo Jo seems to care less.

Changing the subject, our Easter Bunny messed up again. Yet another Easter we have been woken up by our kids, looking at us with their sad eyes, inquiring "Why didn't the Easter Bunny hide our eggs?"

"What?!!! What the?!!! WHAAAAAT?!!! What time is it?! Go back to bed! You're not even awake! It's a dream! It's too early! If you don't go to bed the Easter Bunny WON'T COME!"

Yes, my kids pretty much accept the fact that by all appearances their mother is crazy. We're all pretty comfortable with it.

Yeah, so anyway, Zoe Bug is more gullible than I am, and she so desperately clings to the magic of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. All the while, Stinkerbell, who is almost two years younger than Zoe, stands next to her rolling her eyes and saying "It's not reeeeeeaaaaal. It's Mom and Daaaaaad. Don't you knoooooooo-ow?"

"No it's not, Anni-KA! If you don't believe, he/she/it won't come! You have to believe!"

"What-EV-er."

That Stinker Dink. You can't get anything by her.

The girls left the room as per my freaking out instructions, and they holed up in their room until a more reasonable hour--not 6:30. I calmly called them into our bedroom to straighten the mess out.

"Yeah. So, we talked to the big EB last night, and he asked us if we could hide the eggs for him. He has too much to do and he needs help, so we're going to hide the eggs for you after you get dressed."

Zoe totally bought it. Stinkerbell just looked at us sideways and humphed. I think she's a little suspicious.

Which brings me to my next completely unrelated topic . . . butter. Can you believe what this kid has done to her French Toast?

Here, let me give you a closer look. I think she put a half a stick of butter on that. Before I stopped to take this picture, I had a little freak out fit. Thank goodness I caught this disaster before The Stink had time to eat it. I was very dramatic in my scoldings.

"You cannot eat that much butter. This will go straight to your bloodstream and stop your heart like a freight train. Do you know what that means?!!!! It means it will kill you! I know butter is yummy, but you cannot eat it like this!" Blah, blah, blah. I said a bunch of other stuff, but I've blacked it all out. I think she got the message.

So, did any of your kids eat so much candy yesterday that it caused them to vomit violently? Zoe Bug holds the Easter Candy Purge title in this house. It's not a title anyone is trying to beat though. Just because we're Tough Love Parents, we asked her "Was it as good coming back up as it was going down?"

Ha, ha. I just know we're going to win the Parent of the Year trophy. Bring it.

Crazy Eight

My baby turned eight today. She was so excited for this day, in spite of the fact that I kept begging her to stay little. The little snot doesn't listen to a word I say. There's a reason why we call her Stinkerbell.

I had one of my secretly proud, probably shouldn't be proud, parenting moments yesterday. On the way home from school she told me that a little boy in her class put her in a head lock, and she turned around and punched him in the stomach. I know I should have said "We don't solve our problems with violence, sweetie."

But I didn't.

I said, "I hope no one saw that." As in, I hope you didn't get caught because, You Go Girl! Tell that boy not to mess with you!

My Little Flower, she is not. That's Zoe Bug. She's a Delicate Flower. Stinkerbell . . . is a Scraggly Weed.

The red silky shirt you see The Stink wearing is actually Zoe's shirt. Annika has been coveting it for two years. She begs and begs Zoe to let her wear it. Finally today, for the momentous occasion of her eighth birthday, Stinkerbell was permitted to wear the Coveted Silky Red Shirt.

She was so happy.

We had her birthday party after school at the movie theatre. You know what that means . . . I didn't have to clean my house.  Whoo hoo! I love me a good off-site b-day party.

We saw the movie "Hop" at the theatre, and let me tell you, it was silly. The animated characters were adorable and had cute personalities, but the main human character was a little hard to take at times. Peanut Head and I had to pause for mutual eye rolling and exaggerated pretend vomiting several times.

We were the adults in attendance.

The fun part for me was making the party favors. I found the cutest digital kit, Kate Hadfield's Movie Night, almost a year ago. That's when I decided that Annika's next birthday party was going to be a movie party.

I am quite experienced at creating the Kodak moment around the coordinating scrapbook sticker, and this was just another version of that.

"I have a Potty Training Sticker Sheet and we are going to potty train if it kills me. I don't care if you're only eighteen months old. I own the sticker sheet!"

I may or may not have done that.

I scored the popcorn containers at the Target Dollar Spot, two for $1.

I filled the popcorn containers with Hop-worthy items.

Then I stuffed the whole shebang in a clear goodie bag and tied the digitally created tag on with a piece of ribbon.

I love my digitally created artificial Kodak moments.

You Asked for It . . . Thoughts in Vinyl

So, remember when I did the magnetic menu planning giveway, and then I picked a couple of winners? Well, I decided that since so many people were interested in the vinyl menu planner, I was going to find someone who could cut the vinyl professionally, as in not my make-it-up-as-I go self, and then they could sell it to everyone who is interested.

Well, have I got a deal for you. Janae of  Thoughts in Vinyl  made these beauties for my winners, and you're not going to believe this, but she is selling them for only $9.50 each--and the transfer paper is already on them. What a steal! Trust me on this. Forget buying a $40 Cricut cartridge and wrestling with the transfer paper. This is the way to go.

These are the vinyl menu grids Janae made for my winners, and I have to say, I'm a little jealous because they are way cuter than mine. I love this font and the days of the week are so perfect.

I recently received a desperate e-mail from Mary Ann asking me to please, please, please sell her some Germ-Be-Gone labels, like these, so she could make some ginormous hand sanitizers for Teacher Appreciation Week. In spite of all my whining about my jobsy and my lack of time, people still ask me these things all the time. Instead of replying with a snotty "Did I stutter?" I told Mary Ann that I would work on finding someone whose jobsy it is to cut vinyl professionally.

Enter Janae. She made these super cute labels, which are waaaaaaaay cuter than mine I might add, and she is selling them for  only $4.50 each. How cool is that, Mary Ann? I'm sorry I was so mean. I'll try to be nicer.

These labels are for my classroom, because I never did get around to making them for myself. Before I applied these labels, I cut them into thirds because I find it's just a lot easier to apply a little bit at a time. I don't have the steadiest of hands, and I have that attention deficit thing going on, so this works best for me. I start at the top and work my way down. You might be fine doing it all in one go though. Don't take my word for it.

Before I forget, I want to give you Janae's contact information. She is a pleasure to work with, and she will custom design vinyl to your specifications. I highly recommend her.

Janae Anderson

Thoughts in Vinyl

E-mail: janae@thoughtsinvinyl.com

Website: http://www.thoughtsinvinyl.com/

Phone 208.524.7066

I hope that lots of you will contact Janae and buy so many menu planning grids and hand sanitizer labels, that she will call me and beg me to take the link down. To which I will reply "Nevah! Bwah, ha, ha, ha."

Speaking of hand sanitizer, here's a true funny confession. I was leaning up against the wall at my gym, nonchalantly waiting to get my kids out of the clink, and I leaned right underneath an automatic hand sanitizer dispenser. I got slimed. It was so icky, I can't even tell you. And I did not look cool.

Changing the subject yet again, people e-mail me all the time about this little magnetic pocket that I keep on the side of my fridge (sans ugly sticker, of course). I use this to hold my recipes for the week because it fits my recipe cards perfectly. Well, you'll be happy to know that I was at Staple's the other day, and they had a bazeellion of these babies. I haven't seen them for ages. Anyway, I only bought one so there would be some left for you. Staples is selling them for $7.29. I couldn't find them on the Staple's website, but you can find lots of them by Googling "Oxford DecoPouch."  I even found one on Amazon for $5.99.

And lastly, people have even e-mailed me asking for the 4x6 images that have my menu choices on them. I realize that the vast majority of you have no use for these, but for those that want them, here they are. Personally, if I were you and I wanted to make menu magnets of my own, I would just print my menu choices on some pretty scrapbook paper, cut them into squares mounted on card stock, laminate, and finally, apply magnets. You could even just laminate blank menu squares and write on them with a water-based pen, or with a Sharpie if you want them to be permanent.

If you want to use these, don't forget to click on them first to get the best resolution. Enjoy!

Menu Plan Winners

Now that I'm sure it is well past noon in Russia, I think it's pretty safe to pick a winner for the menu planners.

My first winner is Heather A. She lives in Alaska where it gets down to 45 degrees below zero. I feel sorry for her. While it's sort of spring in Idaho, she is cold right now.

My second winner is Andrea. She lives in Texas where it gets stinking hot. I feel sorry for her too. She has an adorable family and she "never wins anything." Here's to changing that, Andrea.

And just so you know, I didn't just pick people I feel sorry for. I really did use the Random Integer Generator thingie, because I don't want the responsibility of having to choose from all the of the 97 deserving people who entered.

Thank you to everyone who entered. It was fun reading all of your responses. Some of you really need a vacation.

Here's a little heads up for everyone too, I'm in the process of hooking you up with a professional, unlike my let's-see-if-this-works self, to cut some of the vinyl projects you have been begging me to make for you. Watch for that, and have a great week, Peeps.