We want happy paintings. Happy paintings. If you want sad things, watch the news.

Isn't that a happy little tree?

Oh Bob Ross how I miss you, but this little gem of a site really makes me happy. The things Baby Girl will never know - you and your happy little trees and mountains are one of them.  The lack of a potentially stoned hippy painting on PBS is no reason for Baby Girl to not enjoy some painting fun though.  With this in mind, I decided to tackle finger painting with a 5 month old. 

I put quite a bit of thought into this project - more than I normally do which is odd because this is a simpler than normal project for me. I wasn't sure if she was too young to do this but at the same time I thought she would enjoy the texture of paint. This is also a clothless activity and if there is one thing the girl loves it is being naked.  But if we were going to paint it needed to be edible because everything she touches goes in her mouth so do I make paint or do I buy paint.  Then if we did paint what were we painting on and what were we making.

Pinterest you amazing little gem you - you helped answer my questions.  Of course you also gave me too many choices leaving me paralized with indecision.  After more internal debate than really neccessary, I decided to make my own fingerpaint and to create Valentine's Day cards to send to the grandparents. Mistakenly, I had a clear vision for these cards including this and this.  We had limited success executing this vision.  But full of optimism and plans we began our painting adventure.

Happy Valentine's Day - a week late : )

It's My First Valentine's Day - I'm Excited, Can't You Tell?

There are certain times my attempts to be Type B fly out the window and Type A mom appears in full force. A variety of events and circumstances can send me into crazy Type A mode.  First memories/events that you can never recreate are one.  Another one is having appropriate interaction with people I only casually know (this will make more sense in a second).

This year Valentine's Day combined in a perfect storm of both of those above events sending me into a frenzy that likley made my poor husband insane.  In addition to it being Baby Girl's first Valentine's Day, baby girl takes a music class once a week and the class fell on V-day. Capturing the first Valentine's Day was easy as pie.  I did a 45 minute photo shoot with baby girl that included multiple backgrounds, outfits, and props. (This is what every person does right?)  This just left me wondering what if anything I was supposed to do for her classmates.

The class is for babies 0-12 months so clearly the other 4 babies in the class were dying to see how many Valentine's they would receive.  So the real question is what are the other moms thinking - are we going to do cute cards (this would be my vote) or are we going to pretend it isn't a holiday.  We have been taking this class since December with the same moms yet I still have no real read on them at all. This started my most recent trip to crazytown. 

I really wanted to celebrate - it is a first holiday and thus every attempt to capture the perfect moment needs to happen. At the same time you really don't want to come off as a crazy person around people you don't know that well.  I mean no one wants to be that annoyingly over the top mom. I am also pretty sure they already think I am the crazy over the top mom since Baby Girl is always dressed in themes with matching hair bows. (This is true even, if like me, you are the crazy over the top mom.  Embrace you are crazy, acknowledge it and keep that crazy in girlfriend until you are with your friends who have known you too long to foresake you for your crazy).

Aside: I am not ashamed of my crazy or I wouldn't be writing this but sometimes it is just easier to hold your crazy back.  This is one of those times where pure laziness makes me want to hold back the crazy.

Doing what any self respecting crazy does, I sent a frantic email to two of my girlfriends who are mommies and spewed out all of the insanity running through my mind.  Being good girlfriends they helped me sift through what was insane and what was rational and come up with a plan. The plan was a good simple reasonable plan. I was going to go to Target and buy a package of simple school kid Valentine's Day cards.  I was going to fill them out, put them in my diaper bag, and go to class.  If it seemed appropriate I would pull them out, hand them out and be fine.  If not I kept them in my bag and didn't seem crazy -a simple, easy, and straight forward plan. 

But we all know what they said about the road to hell, it is paved with good intentions. In my attempt to not be crazy, I ended up being even crazier than normal. It all started when Target had nothing that really excited me.  This lack of excitment was compounded by Pinterest.  I decided that there are only 4 kids in the class and I have Publisher and card stock I am just going to print cards I like to take to class.  With this in mind, I made this:

Now you look at this and think - well this doesn't seem too over the top or crazy.  And you are right, this is not too over the top or crazy.  That is why I was unable to stop myself at this point. And the cards became this:

Of course that is for the boys.  The girls I had to do a girlier one for the only other girl in the class.

Mrs. Beth our teacher couldn't be left out either so I found a pair of women's socks.  All together this is what I ended up:

I got done with these cards and realized that my attempts to hide the crazy had failed miserably. So by attempting to be normal and not over the top I actually ended up more over the top than I had planned. This left me worried about just how everyone else in the class was going to react.  Many times I talked myself out of taking the cards.  The worry was way out of proportion to the importance of this decision. Just when I thought the worry was over - Baby Girl's music teacher was sick and class was cancelled.

So now these cards have been on my dining room table for a week and we are taking them to class this week. Here is to hoping that my crazy doesn't scare away any future friends of Baby Girl.

At Home Vanilla Latte

It is one of life's cruel jokes that just at the time you need the most caffeine it becomes harder and harder to get said caffeine.  Having a baby proves this rule.  You are sleep deprived so you could use the hit but it can be hard to make it work, particularly if you are like me and occasionally crave a speciality coffee drink. For me this drink is a vanilla latte. This leaves you with a few options:

1) Go to a coffee shop and get your drink - Of course this means dressing yourself (because what mother of a new kid actually wears real clothes), dressing the baby (which means multiple outfit changes because what new baby doesn't get "fluid" on the first 2 outfits you put on her), driving to the coffee shop and either praying there is a drive-thru or hauling the 157 pound infant carrier out of the car. Then you pay $5 for a drink that you finish before you get home where you immediately begin to crave a second.

2) Buy an espresso machine and learn to make the drink yourself - This of course involves finding the time to buy one and lets not kid ourselves here you are going to buy it in the middle of the night using your Amazon mom account because you won't make it to Bed Bath and Beyond (please don't pretend you will because you will only disappoint yourself).  Then you have to buy the supplies and figure out how to use it as well as where to put the big machine in your kitchen that has suddenly been overtaken by baby stuff.

3) Figure out how to make it at home without any special equipment - This is the route I took and below is what I figured out.

The initial inspiration was Martha Stewart.  She had a recipe to make an at home latte w/out espresso machine as part of a segment on adding nutrients to your diet. This was how to drink more skim milk.  As a nursing mom, I have a hard time drinking enough milk plus I love vanilla lattes so I perked up. Her directions were for a plain latte and as you can imagine involved kitchen gadgets I don't own so I modified to make the recipe below.

At Home Vanilla Latte

Ingredients (all are approximate - I am not much of a measurer when I cook):
1/2 cup double brewed regular coffee
3/4 cup skim milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2-3 pinches of sugar

Tools:
Coffee pot
Two large coffee mugs (one bigger than the other)
Whisk or fork
Spoon

1) Make a pot of coffee just a little stronger than you normally would.  How big of a pot you make depends on how many lattes you plan to make.
2) Once the pot is done brewing, pour the coffee into the water reservoir of your coffee pot and brew it through the same grounds again to get double brewed coffee.
3) While the coffee is finishing up add the skim milk to the bigger of the two mugs and begin to whisk the milk.  Whisk the milk until it gets stiff white foam on top and increases in volume. I tend to whisk for 45-60 seconds.  This determines what kind of foam top you have on your latte so whisk more for more foam and less for less foam.

4) Place mug of milk in the microwave for 2-2.5 minutes.
5) While milk heats add vanilla and sugar to coffee and stir. I am serious about the pinch here - the more sugar you add the worse this drink becomes for you.

6) While waiting on milk to finish heating begin to do a minute of squats because you notice your butt looked big and you aren't sure if the baby will be pleasant enough to go to the gym today. If you make more than one latte a day switch this step up between squats and lunges.
7) With jello-ish legs from the squats, remove milk from microwave and carry over to your mug of flavored coffee.
8) Use the back of your spoon to pour milk into coffee while holding back the foam (just like the baristas do.)
9) Once you have the milk into the coffee give it a quick stir.
10) Now use your spoon, to spoon the foam onto the top of the drink.

Enjoy your caffeine - no seriously drink it up fast before the baby wakes up from her nap.

Christmas 2011 1

Ho Ho Cheer Christmas

Turn your favorite photos into personalized Christmas cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas 20011 2

Cranberry Snow Winter

Team up: Design your photo Christmas cards with Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas 2011 3

Love Hope Faith Religious

Make a spooky statement with your Halloween cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Mandatory Watching for First Time Mom's to Be

As I sit here over due and thinking about the (hopefully soon) arrival of Baby S, I can't help but feel nervous.  It is only natural of course - we are first time parents so this is all new.  I particularly find myself worried about screwing up my kid in some non-repairable way.  Visions of therapy and stumped emotional growth dance through my head.  Am I capable of being a good parent? 

I am happy to announce that when I have these fears I have found a sure fire way to curb them...................I watch Toddlers and Tiaras.  In fact, I think this little gem of a show on TLC should in fact be required television for all first time parents to be. 

At this point, I am sure many people are wondering if I have lost my mind.  I mean how can a show about children's beauty pageant's where scenes like this one be related to good parenting.  Let me tell you how - it reassures me that no matter what I can't screw my kid up this badly.

Now now don't get me wrong, I don't hate beauty pageants.  In fact, there are occasionally girls and moms on this show that truly seem to enjoy it and are part of a normal functioning family.  To these families I say keep it up - any thing that a family can enjoy and do together is good.  But sadly this doesn't seem the norm.  Instead we see mom's living through their kids and forcing kids into crazy situations. I mean who waxes their 4 year old?  Or gives their toddler fake teeth so you can't tell their teeth aren't pretty.  In one episode, a mom actually said she thought it was cute that her 2 year old hit her and told her she hates her.  Actually this isn't normal - and you might want to listen when your kid cries as you force her onto a stage and she screams I hate you. 

So to my fellow first time parents, the next time you are up late in the middle of the night wandering what kind of emotional damage your bad parenting may cause your kid, I invite you to find Toddlers and Tiaras either on TV or online.  This is should reassure you about your abilities and help you get back to sleep.

P.S. Apparently I should also add shop on JC Penney's online to the list of must do items for first time parents. Who greenlighted this gem?