Category Archives: kids

A Homemade Non-Spiderman, Spiderman Birthday

. birthdays, boys, kids .

What?

I know, random. But here’s the thing…all of the gaudy branding and marketing of superheros, kind of makes me ill. I think it is the fact that they seem so dark, they just do not give me warm and fuzzies and I don’t really want my kids falling for mainstream marking.

I try my damnedest to keep it out of the house, there is no mention of superheros, I have never brought them up. Ok, so I may have purchased matching Superman t-shirts that were on sale at Old Navy…but that is IT! Because it’s Superman. Ok, so maybe I am a bit hypocritical…whatever.

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IMG_5729I may have bought them matching t shirts…but you will never catch them wearing them at the same time

So, as I booked Grant’s 4th birthday party at the community rec center pool, they asked me “what theme would you like? Dinosaurs, Spiderma….”

They didn’t even get the full word out before Grant started getting all jazzed up.

“Spiderman! I want Spiderman! PLEASE!”

I say “no” to a lot of things when asked by this kid, but how can you turn down a birthday request?

“And how do you know what Spiderman is?!!?!?!?!” I asked.

Pre K….his friends….he learns this stuff when he is OUT OF MY SIGHT! (Good thing we pulled him from school until the fall.)

That being said, I didn’t even hesitate to agree to a Spiderman party (although, inwardly slowly dying.)

So I did what I do best and took to Pinterest to find out what other crafty mom’s have done for their son’s Spiderman party.

You can find my Spiderman board right here: “With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility”

spiderman splash artSource: Kapcer Kiec via Geektyrant

First up: invites!

I searched high and low, Etsy, Google, Pinterst. I wanted something homemade, simple, and inexpensive and so after not finding what I wanted, I decided to take my newly taught Adobe Illustrator skills and create something myself. It is pretty rudimentary, but it worked for me. And 15 invites only cost me $1.95 (I explain how down below.)

Spiderman InvitationSpiderman image illegally lifted online…..yes

I decided to go with the older, more Marvel Comic-y font, you can find it here (from DaFont.com)

To print them out, I saved them as a jpeg, uploaded it to Costco Photo Center and printed off as many as I needed for only $0.13 a piece (in matte finish so it wouldn’t look too photo-y)

Decor was my next focus. Luckily we were having this at an off-site location so I didn’t feel I need to do a lot of decorating. I made a banner, hung some balloons, used the goodie bags to liven things up a bit.

After 4 birthday parties (3 for Grant and 1 for Brody) you kind of learn to keep it simple and easy…ish.

018 (3)the one I took at the party is awful, but you get the idea…..

I used my Cricut, here are the cartridges and sizes that I used.

Background: ‘George and Basic Shapes’, 4 inch octogon and ‘Pumpkin Carving’, 3 1/2 inch spiderwebs

Letters: ‘Designer’s Calendar’ Script Shadow, white; Script, blue

I attached the letters with a little foam craft tape so it would stick out slightly from the background to give it a little depth….Matt’s idea.

My intention was to actually purchase some spiderman mylar balloons from the Dollar Store, but mine was very low on inventory. LUCKILY they did have generic mylar star balloons. I bought red, black, blue and yellow/gold… Spiderman colors. Worked perfectly.

Then I moved on to Goodie Bags. Again, I was going for “least market-y” as possible so forget the crap they sell on Amazon. I was inspired by this:

Spiderman inspiration for goodie bags

I bought red bags at Hobby Lobby, 3 for $1 (which is the best deal I found anywhere.)

I did some work in Illustrator and came up with the eyes, cut them out and glued them on.

IMG_6103again, another really shitty picture from the party, I must have been preoccupied or something….

I filled them with:

  • $1 store Spiderman tatoos

And from Amazon:

  • Spiderman Silly Bands
  • rubber spiders
  • Some of the more girlier girls got these Spiderman cupcake rings in leui of the rubber spiders (they also served their intended purpose and were the decor for the Gluten Free Chocolate cupcakes I made and for the gluten filled cake they provided.)
  • Sticky Spiderwebs
  • and LED finger lights (there were some younger kids there that I didn’t give sticky spiderwebs too, so I made sure to have something cool for them..and as always, these were a hit.)

I kind of get carried away with the goodie bags, I always do.

Although, turns out the balloons were the biggest hit. As always. Why do we even make the effort? It’s like the box that’s cooler than the toy. Whatever, it made me happy.

010 (5)Please ignore the purple balloon back there. Apparently the Rec Center didn’t have the same “vision” I did and muddled up my color scheme with purple…how dare they.

I can’t believe my little Spiderman is four….IMG_6116IMG_6118IMG_6117 Happy Birthday, my little nugget

Gluten Free Kids and The Birthday Party Issue

. birthdays, gluten free, kids, Parenting

To all of you new parents out there…the ones with kids under four. Watch out.

As soon at they start going to preschool, there will be an onslaught of  birthday parties coming your way.

Like every. single. weekend.

And then throw your own kid’s birthday in there…..

Well, let’s just say with a gluten-free child, it can get a bit overwhelming.

Because with a GF child (or children!!! I have TWO OF THEM!) when you go to someone else’s birthday party, it’s a lot of work.

Never will we have the ability to just run out the door and drop our kids off.

There are cake and snacks, and pizza, and candy, and all of the crap that your kid can’t eat and in order for them not to feel like the “odd man out” you do whatever you can to make it normal for them….and that can be time consuming as I have come to find out. But with six birthday parties under our belt since October, I am kind of figuring out how to make it easier on myself.

Up until this past weekend, whenever there was a birthday party I would make a few dozen cupcakes (with Bob’s Red Mill GF Baking flour) and send Grant and/or Brody along with one. Freezing the rest with the intention of pulling them out and using a frozen one whenever the next birthday party came up.

I did this twice and both times the cupcakes were boycotted. Weird texture? Too crumbly? Just kind of gross? Yeah, just not a time or cost effective plan so F that.

So this time I whipped up a batch of gluten free chocolate cupcakes, kind of combining two recipes……..and they were the best gluten free cupcakes I have ever made! I typically stay away from consuming mass quantities of baked goods (the sugar just kills my body) but I ate 6 of them. in one day. They were that good.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakeyum

I kind of used this recipe. But I did not use her flour mix which included xanthan gum so I had to adjust the recipe. I used this flour recipe (because I bulk ordered sorghum flour from Amazon because it tastes the most “normal” of the flours that I have used.)

Gluten Free Sorghum Flour Mix

With that being said, here is the recipe I came up with loosely based on this one from Sarah Bakes Gluten Free Treats

Gluten Free chocolate Cupcake recipelook at me, all fancy blogger and sh*t

So that’s great, but this makes about 18-24 cupcakes and I did not want to bake them all and freeze them like last time. Instead, I found three ways to freeze cupcake batter!

I opted for the “fill up the muffin tins with batter, stick in the freezer” option. After they froze, I popped the frozen batter muffin liners in a Ziploc bag and tossed them in the freezer again. NOW when I need a cupcake for a birthday party or some celebration, I can take one out of the freezer and bake it fresh (in my toaster oven, saves time and energy!) And also, they bake up just as well. You can not even tell they were frozen.

Next up, frosting options:

I have tried Cloud Frosting, a basic vanilla butter cream, and a glaze.

I beat the cloud frosting too long and it ended up falling apart. But it was tasty before it fell.

I made the basic vanilla butter cream (from Wipperberry) and used powdered sugar and it tasted very powered sugary. It was sweet and good and did the job, but I would use granulated or baking sugar next time.

The glaze was just powdered sugar, vanilla, and almond milk mixed until I got it to the consistency I wanted. It was good, but messy.

I have also sent along frosted cupcakes and naked cupcakes with a side of frosting so Grant could do it himself.

He liked doing it himself.

Or, if this sounds like waaaaay too much work, you could always make Rice Krispie treats (with gluten free Rice Krispies.)

Parties always have snacks or pizza too, what do you do?

Make your own pizza (for dinner the night before), bring a slice, heat it up at the party, and enjoy!

I have been making this recipe for pizza for the past month and it is requested at least twice a week now.

025I am that tasty.

And crunchy! I could actually hold it up like a real pizza and it stayed strong! Anyone familar with Gluten Free pizza crust will tell you that it’s kind of like eating soggy bread sometimes.

Gluten Free PizzaStay strong little pizza

And also, it passed the “gluten-eaters” test. My parents came out to visit last week (for a certain 4-year-olds birthday!) and they were willing to dive right into our gluten-hating world. They were impressed, I’m pretty sure they were not lying to me when they said they liked it. In fact, my step dad went back for seconds. And that in my book is a win.

I spend a lot of my spare time cooking or baking these days, you can tell in the fact that I am not posting much anymore. It’s fine, I know it is best for my kids and family. It gets daunting, I won’t lie to you.

But seeing the happiness on my child’s face when I pull out that cupcake (and subsequently, at least 1 other kids saying “Hey, why does Grant get a special cupcake?”)  It ‘s totally worth every hour in the kitchen.

How To Get Your Toddler To…..

. kids, Parenting

I’m sure anyone that is a parent has now heard of the book “Go the F*ck to Sleep” by Adam Mansbach. If not, here is an excerpt:

Go the F to SleepJust my type of book

We have an almost 4 year old and this was very pertinent.  45 minutes of “Please can I have some ice chips” and “Just one more hug and one more smooch, mommy” (who can pass that up?) and “I  have to go potty again.” (x3)

And like most Pre-Schoolers he had also picked up some really nice potty talk at school, with an emphasis on “poop” and any derivative there of.

I think the straw was drawn when he called me a “Stinky Poophead” after one particularly long day. Which at the time was probably an accurate description of me.

But still. I knew something had to be done.

Like I said, I have almost 4 years under my belt with this one and I’m slowly learning about this boy of mine.

He loves a challenge and I used that to my advantage.

Here’s what I did.

Grant is very goal-oriented (wonder where he gets that from?) and so I searched for some reward/incentive charts knowing that if I set some rules on that chart and rewarded him for that good behavior that maybe we would be able to break his habits. (Because taking things away from him and Time Outs were not working.)

I mean hey, we flat out bribed him while potty training and that turned out well. So….

I found a two good sites on Pinterest for behavior/reward/incentive charts. These are the links leading to the two best sources (that I found) that allow you to search by gender, age, grade, type of chart etc. (here, here)

I will admit, I did customize them a little bit in Photoshop because I am sort of Type A. (But my Photoshop skills are beginner at best so it is nothing fancy.)

I set rules and cut and pasted in the rewards he would work towards. (Chosen by both him and me.)

This was important for him because he could now physically see what he was getting, it wasn’t a promise, it was a goal!

space reward-incentive-chart-012That second prize in there, that is a pirate periscope…’cause I know you were wondering

Frog Reward Incentive Chart

Let me tell you, this kid set the table, helped me unpack the groceries, and put things away for me upstairs…without me even asking. He started being very helpful with Brody, the potty talk is all but gone, the whining is at a minimum, and best of all 97% of the time he will not leave his room after we have tucked him in at night.

Boo-F’ing-YA!

It took him about a three weeks to get through each chart; some days earning up to 3 stickers, a few days earning none.

But finally this past Friday Grant’s hard work paid off and he placed his last sticker on his chart which earned us a MOVIE DATE!

{Quickly, about me and movies…we don’t mix. I fall asleep immediately. The last movie I went to in a movie theater was “Marley and Me” on 12/31/08 when I was 6 months pregnant with Grant. I bawled hysterically. And I had already read the book.}

But today I broke that streak and we went to see “Meet The Croods”

Meet The CroodsIn 3D no less! (If you’re going to do something for the first time, do it big folks)

The movie was incredible; really funny, amazing graphics, great story. I recommend it to everyone!

And I didn’t even fall asleep.

Redneck Waterbed

. i want to make this, kids .

It feels really strange writing this as I look outside to a raging snowstorm. But with the official launch of Spring this past week, I felt this would be appropriate.

Last year around this time I found this doozy of a pin (from The Mommies Made Me Do It)  and decided that it was something that we should do when Kel Dos and her family came out to visit over Memorial Day weekend. (Although she was a little more PC with hers calling it a Giant Sensory Bag.) Let’s just call a ‘spade’ and ‘spade’.

Redneck waterbedRedneck Waterbed

Everyone, from the babies (now full-blown, walking, talking toddlers) to the adults had a blast!

Redneck waterbed B

and we even played with it in the morning in our jammies.

redneck waterbed in jammies

And here are a few other things I learned while assembling this atrocity:

  • Do assemble in the same spot you plan on playing with it. Moving this thing is rather difficult. We are talking 100′s of gallons of water, it is heavy. We learned this the hard way.
  • Do not assemble on the grass  if it is dewy, or has been recently watered, or slightly damp, etc. Wetness makes tape un-sticky. Un-sticky tape creates area for leaks. We learned this the hard way.
  • Do not try and assemble if it is windy outside. Or even a slight breeze. We learned this the hard way.
  • When taping, make sure the plastic is stuck on the tape perfectly (which is damn near impossible) but any wrinkles in it will cause leaks. We learned this the hard way.
  • Make sure the ground is level or else the weight of the water bladder will pull it down whatever slope it is near. We learned this the hard way.
  • If your grass is lush and green before this, it probably will, maybe die a little bit in spots if it is wet underneath and it gets to hot outside (ok, so it may or may not have burned some of our lawn. A little re-seeding and some TLC for a few weeks and it was back to new.)
  • A colossal amount of water is used to fill this up so make sure you are not on water restrictions where you live. However, when disassembled, it did water the entire lawn rather nicely, so not a total waste.
  • This also takes a long time to fill up. Really long. Like, hours long. So plan ahead. We learned this the hard way.

HOWEVER a pain in the a$$ this was to put together…Dos and I decided that it was WELL worth the hassle and I would totally do it again in a heartbeat. I think it lasted about 2 days before I used it as a lawn watering device.

However, only in the spring and fall. I would not do this again in the summer. Too much of a grass killer in the summer.

This would be great for those 60-70 degree spring days when it is too chilly for bathing suits…

045

although, not according to this kid

DIY Haircut

. boys, DIY, kids .

It may have been the fact that we were kind of snowed in yesterday. (However, it was the poorest excuse for a “blizzard” I have ever seen.)

Or it could have been that my husband threatened to take buzzers to Brody’s luscious locks.

But I cut his hair last night.

This is what I was expecting:

Unhappy BrodesPigtails & Crewcuts – The only place you pay $17 to make your child cry

That isn’t a pleasant experience for anyone.

I figured I could do it myself, save the $17 (+tip).

I mean, I have experience cutting my guy friend’s hair in college, maybe a boyfriend or two. But I will admit, I never had a clue what I was doing. (Sorry fellas.)

I found this pin, How To Cut Little Boy’s Hair Like A Pro:

How To Cut Little Boy's Hair

The blog that this pin liked to, heavenlyhomemakers.com also offered pictures. Typically, watching a YouTube tutorial would have done it for me, but I found that a lot of the tutorials were either for some over-priced, awful time-saving, hair-butchering product or made by non-professionals that admitted they didn’t have a clue what they were doing.

If I am taking scissors to my child’s head, I kind of want to know the right way to do it so that I don’t have to go back to Pigtails & Crewcuts and spend $17 (+tip) to humbly apologize for butchering my child’s hair and now he is going to spend the next 15 minutes in this Police Car Chair screaming and flailing while they try and fix it.

My process:

Step 1: Strap in chair, with bowl of freeze dried corn (I know, weird right? But the kid goes bonkers for it), and Veggie Straws. Place in front of Disney movie (Mulan was the movie of choice last night.)

Step 2: Spray, cut, comb (frantically), refer to chart occasionally. This does not seem too hard. This is going well.

4 minutes later.

Step 3: Enlist help of Matt to hold Brody’s head which is now bent over so far, it is in his own lap (apparently he doesn’t like me combing his hair anymore and oh my word does this kid has a lot of hair.) This is not easy. This is not going very well.

Step 4: Repeat step 2 for next 5 minutes, while trying not to snip the little fingers that are now trying to swipe my scissors away from his head.

and done.

Here is a before of our moptop:

059 btw, recipe for this delicious dish coming this week. Both kids scarfed it (and it contained kale!)

but seriously, look at those bangs, they were almost down to his eyebrows.

and after:Brodes, after haircut{Post-Snow “storm” sledding}

I will admit, there are probably a few areas that I will trim up as I see necessary in the upcoming days, but I am pretty pleased with my first pass through. I mean, it looks pretty straight, no one lost an ear or got poked in the eye and I saved $17 (+tip). I say, success.

Tricky People Update: Set Your Family PIN!

. kids . ,

I wanted to share an AWESOME, super smart tip that every family should implement. It piggybacks on my “Tricky People, the New Stranger” post I wrote back in August….

**If you haven’t read this post yet, even if you are not a parent yet, or even if you are a grandparent, or if you know someone that has a child, DO IT! Read it now. It could save your/a/that child’s life someday.

But I write this with a heavy heart, as the reason I am bringing this up again is because of a local girl that was recently abducted and murdered as she walked 3 blocks to a park to meet up with friends to walk to school together. Jessica Ridgeway was 10 years old, she never made it those three blocks.

Three blocks. YOU CAN SEE HER HOUSE FROM THE PARK, THAT IS HOW CLOSE IT IS.

Her alleged murder has been arrested and is in custody. He is 17 years old. He can not even VOTE for one of our crappy presidential candidates in a few weeks.

That is terrifying on so many levels. And I don’t want to go there.

But since this post, I heard another tip that I don’t think is on any of those links I provided in the original one. And if it is somewhere in there, I can’t find it so I’m posting it again.

Every family should have a secret code word. Like, your family PIN number. The only people that know the code word are the ones that your kids can “go with.”

Right? DOESN’T THAT MAKE TOTAL SENSE?!?!

Let’s say you are running late at work and need your neighbor to pick up Sophie at school, but she doesn’t know that neighbor Mallory is going to pick her up, little Sophie can say to neighbor Mallory “well then what is the code word?” and Mallory knows the code word because you trust her and you gave it to her and so Sophie hops in and buckles up and off they go.

But, let’s say Uncle Ron shows up at school and little Sophie is confused, “Uncle Ron isn’t supposed to be here to pick me up today, mom didn’t say anything about that.” and Uncle Ron says “Let’s go, mommy and daddy have to work late.” but little Sophie feels weird about it because she hasn’t seen uncle Ron in a while and asks “well, what is the code word?” and Uncle Ron says “Oh, your mommy forgot to tell me that but it’s ok, come on, let’s go.” Hopefully little Sophie knows well enough not to go with Uncle Ron. Because little does she know that Uncle Ron has a drinking problem and hasn’t spoken to her mom or dad in over 9 months…..

See, good talk to have. But it sucks that we have to have these conversations and worry our children and have them learn WAY earlier than we would like, that we live in a pretty f’ed up world. But we can’t turn a blind eye to it. Ignorance, in this case, is not bliss.

Little Finger Eater Stopper

. heloise, kids, pins .

I’m switching it up a little today folks! I typically blog about other peoples pins that I find and do, and very rarely do I ever blog about any of my own pins. Particularly, this next super awesome, wow-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that brilliant idea that came to me out of necessity.

ain’t that the truth…

Now, before we go any further I would like to state that I do not have one childproof cabinet lock on any drawer or cabinet in my house. Mainly because I find them so. extremely. annoying. I would rather teach and show my boys their limits then have to deal with those awful contraptions (how very French of me, huh?) I also don’t have a lot of harsh, harmful chemicals under my sink so I am not as concerned if they were to get under there. But really, they don’t…….I digress….

So anyways, little smashed fingers! Ouch! Nothing worse than hearing your little crawler yowl in pain because he proudly pulled himself up on the drawer, pulled it open and then, uh oh! Someone loses their balance, leans on the same drawer except now his little fingers are gripping the top. He promptly closes it, subsequently smashing those same little fingers in the top of the drawer. Grant’s favorite finger eater was his dresser. Over and over again he would smash his fingers in there. I wish I had done this back then….

Two self-adhesive, felt chair pads…bam

This came about when I was trying to mute my slammy kitchen cabinet doors. The little kitchen cabinet door pads were not cutting it (they were still slammy and loud!) so I busted out the felt chair pads and noticed that, obviously it makes the drawer or cabinet stick out a bit. The light went off in my head…..or maybe it was a screech coming from Brody……but I doubled them up, stuck them on all of my kitchen drawers, and now no more pinchy fingers! (Good for dresser drawers too, those were the culprit of smashed fingers for Grant when he was a little nugg.)

NOW, this is not fail proof because we all know toddler and baby fingers are chubby. It may garner a small howl or whine if there is an actual drawer slam, but no where near the pain. I haven’t had pinched fingers in 5 months.

The first of many, Hints from Heloise  Keloise.