Dairy Tour

Today Lydia's school was closed for fall break and I decided we needed to take a little field trip.

I often drive past the signs for Mayfield Dairy when I head down to Chattanooga. It's about an hour away from our house, but (more importantly) it is ten minutes past the most AMAZING place to buy discount upholstery fabric. I just happened to have one more upholstery project to finish before my maternity leave ends next week. So we headed out for a day of fabric shopping and dairy touring.

We couldn't take pictures on the actual tour as it was against FDA regulations. Also against FDA regulations, anyone and I mean ANYONE going with out a hair net!

Apparently, having real cows at the dairy must also be against regulations because we never saw one.

We saw tons of fake cows.

But no real cows.... And no ice cream making. Apparently that part of the tour has been shut down for a while.

There was ice cream, for sale, after the tour. In fact they had a few flavors that are not sold in stores, so that was cool.

Mostly it was a pretty day and it was fun to go somewhere out of the ordinary. I'm so lucky that I got to go with two extraordinary traveling companions!

The Annual Iowa Cousins Photo

Every year when we drive to Iowa, we try to get a picture of all of the cousins together. So far everyone has made it to town for at least a short period of time so every cousin has been in every picture. This year we added two new babies!!! (Joshua and Elivia) here is my picture of the group followed by my pictures from the last three trips.

Christening Clothing and Baptism Blankets

On Sunday, we will celebrate baby Joshua's baptism. For both Joshua and Lydia's baptisms I have been blessed with a beautiful hand sewn outfit from my mom and a special blanket crocheted or knitted by my sister.

Above you can see Lydia's baptism portraits taken at JC Penney's. It's the only set of pictures that I had taken there where I was not terribly excited about the results. So, this time around I decided to try taking a few pictures of Joshua myself.

I set him in our yard, in a basket that was cushioned with the beautiful blanket that my sister made. I can't knit or crochet, so I am always amazed that my sister can make these intricate designs. I am also in awe that she will unravel large portions of her work if she discovers a mistake. I would ignore the problem and my knitting would never look right!

Above is a picture of the christening blanket that my sister made for Lydia. I believe it is crochet. Below is a close up of the smocking on Joshua's outfit. My mom took a class in smocking a couple of years ago. Lydia's dress was made before she knew the technique.

I feel so fortunate to have such talented and giving people do so much for my children on these special occasions!

Soccer Saturday was a Success!

Lydia had her first soccer game on Saturday. I wasn't sure how it would go since NO ONE at our house had ever played on a soccer team before!

All I knew was you wore shin guards with long socks. (I did know that the guards go on UNDER the socks!) Lydia apparently knew that THIS is how a soccer girl poses for pre-game pictures. Really? Why the attitude?

She also was convinced that you do "touch downs" in soccer (by LITERALLY touching down to the ground)! I tried to explain that touchdowns were for football (hmmm in other countries isn't soccer called football? Could THAT be the start if the miscommunication?) but she wouldn't hear it from me. I decided to pick my battles and focus on repeating that we don't get points for "knocking people down" in soccer either. GEESH! Where is she getting this stuff?!?

Luckily, she has a coach and thankfully it isn't me! (they were short on coaches and so it almost was me) This woman is a SAINT and (even though she has another little kid and she also didn't know much about soccer) she volunteered and we have a coach! (Go Team Evans! And thank you coach Evans!)

So Lydia got a team jersey and (thankfully) lost the attitude and was ready to do what the coaches told her (but not what her mommy and aunti yelled from the sidelines).

She actually did pretty well! Her team is four brand new four year olds. They played a team of mostly second year five year olds and one four whose whole family had been playing soccer for generations, apparently. The other team towered over Lydia and scored like crazy, but our kids still got some time with the ball.

Regardless of how we knew the game was going, the kids were oblivious. I was very glad that Lydia never got upset that the other team was winning. She was just happy to run after the ball.

The other team even held back as much as they could and let our kids get a few goals. Lydia kept saying "I want to win"... To the other team... While trying to get the ball! The look on her face when she got a goal (they totally let her) was priceless! GOOOOAAALLLLL!

At the end of the game, there was a high five tunnel made up of all the parents.(.... Oh and there were snacks!) she was SO proud of herself for being a REAL soccer girl. I am proud if her for being a team player and a good sport. Way to go #6!!!

The Behavior Chart

Remember my sweet, helpful, Sound of Music obsessed four year old? You know, the one who helps with the baby and lets me dress her up in big hair bows?

Remember that one Sound of Music song "16 going on 17"? Well, these days my darling daughter is often 4 going on 14. I was starting to think that bouncing between sweet child and attitude filled tyrant was solely due to our attentions being diverted to the new baby. However, several friends with four year olds are experiencing a similar testing of boundaries combined with a frustrating desire to be independent even in situations that require help.

For Lydia, these issues come to a boiling point most often when it is critical that something get done in a short defined amount of time. She wants to dress herself, but can't work the closure on the outfit she chose. She gets SO frustrated but does NOT want ANY help! I'm panicking because getting dressed is turning into a tantrum that we don't have time for. She is either headed for complete melt down accompanied by screaming and lashing out or she is about to give up and I will inevitably find her playing (naked) with her toys 20 minutes later.

I realized that all I was doing was threatening, yelling, micromanaging, and taking away privileges. (That's in addition to getting an ulcer, pulling out my own hair, and being late to everything!) I decided that it was time for a behavior chart. I hastily scribbled out a few categories on a piece of paper and started drawing smiley faces for each thing Lydia did RIGHT that morning. It felt so good to focus on the positive AND it was much easier to take away a smiley face for small issues than to constantly come up with appropriate punishments. My kid is sweet and does want to please so it worked pretty well, but it was exhausting to keep up with the chart!

My mom got on board with the smiley face plan by purchasing a pack of four smiley face magnets. When Lydia was at Grammy's house this summer she spent the day earning and loosing smiley faces. I couldn't believe how easy it was. Do the wrong thing and Grammy moves a magnet to the top of the refrigerator. Do the right thing and she moves the magnet back where Lydia can see it. No chart. No counting or tallying. No real rewards. Just the guilt of loosing a smiley face and the pride of gaining one back. I was impressed!

So we got a set of magnets and even a dry erase board for our house, but somehow the idea never really stuck. It worked fine for a while but then Lydia started asking about her old chart and wanted to know how many smiley faces she had TOTAL! She also wanted to know about the rewards beyond just having all four magnets on the board.

Introducing behavior chart version 2.0! I googled "behavior chart" and found several free templates. I opted for a multi-behavior chart that lets us list all the things that are our concerns and then check them off for each day. We ended up with 9 items a day. I decided that 50 good marks would equal a bigger reward. That way, a good (not perfect) week leads to a treat. A rough week will still have some good marks that can carry over to the next week as a running tally. I didn't want it to be all or nothing because no one is perfect and I didn't want her giving up for the week once there was a bad day.

I added small pictures because Lydia can't read yet. We end up catching up every few days and I have given her a few small treats, things we would have done anyways like ice cream for dessert, but told her it was because she had 15 stars on her chart. We have also used it as a counting opportunity. Lydia counts her stars and then writes the number tally for the day. For now it is working, but I have to be the one to do a lot of the work. I do well if I give her a concrete criteria, like having 3 minutes to brush her teeth if she wants a star instead of the judgement call of how much prompting from me to quit dancing and finish is too much and costs her a star. It feels like a lot of work, especially when she IS behaving well, but I know that this is part of WHY she is behaving well. When she isn't behaving, I hope that the chart might help me notice a pattern or a trend. Ultimately, I hope we won't need this, but for now I just hope that I can be diligent. After all, this is as much about my behavior and consistency as it is about hers!

The Summer of The Sound of Music

Last spring, my mom took Lydia to see The Sound of Music at The Cumberland County Playhouse. Since then, she has become a little obsessed with the show.  My mom has it on DVD and so whenever Lydia stays at my mom's place, she usually wants to hear a few of her favorite songs.  This summer, with my parents driving to Tennessee for an extended stay in anticipation of Joshua's arrival, Lydia has gotten to stay with my mom a lot. Consequently, she has been listening to her favorite songs from The Sound of Music a lot.  She can sing large sections of My Favorite Things, The Lonely Goat Herd, and 16 Going on 17, but her all time FAVORITE song so far has been So Long, Farewell.

I will often hear her singing it in the car or while playing in her room. If I ask her to sing it for anyone, though, she clams up and acts shy.  This morning she started singing it before we left for preschool. She was standing near the stairs and so it wasn't long before she started acting out the song and running up them each time one of the kids says good night.  I was caught completely unprepared for the show and ran to get my camera for the last verse.  Lydia decided to start again from the beginning! (OK, she MAY have been stalling on leaving for school) I decided that I didn't care if we were late.  It was so stinking cute and I am so glad I got it on tape.. or phone.. whatever!  There should be a link to the video below, Enjoy!

A Fire Fighter Fifth Birthday Party!

A very close friend is throwing a Fireman Themed Party for her soon to be Five year old daughter (so technically I suppose it is a Fire Girl party?). Anyway, I LOVE party prep and would be happy to dive in and help, but the party is the same weekend as Joshua's baptism. I won't be much help the weekend of the party, so I thought I would gather a few of my favorite ideas AND explain how even a crafting newbie can get great results without much effort.

The first hurdle to any great party is choosing a location. My friend happens to have a GREAT location. Her husband has been a firefighter so she is able to have her party at the local fire station! With a location like that she won't need much decorating. If you aren't so lucky as to have access to a fire house of your own, I recommend sticking to a fiery color scheme and make a focal point of your main food table or activity area. I love the mix of colors and patterns in the image found on Stop, Drop, and Blog.

I recommend covering a wall or two in paper that fits your theme. I love the brick paper used on the buffet shown below from Crazy for Design. A 50ft roll of brick paper used to cover bulletin boards can be found for around $15. Or you can simply buy wrapping paper in your party colors (I would suggest red, orange, yellow, black, or maybe polka dots or stripes in those colors) and use it like I did here.

I like to continue the color scheme as far as I can and the food is often an easy next step, especially at a kid's party where you can get away with lots of candy (which can always be found in specific colors). Any candy (or food) in red, orange, yellow, black, white, or silver will add to the decorations but also fill your guest's little tummies. Walk the candy aisle of your favorite store just looking at packaging and colors, for example Reeses Pieces are the perfect fire colors. I would also play up the theme as much as possible, using food in the color scheme that also have (or can be given) names that fit the theme. For a fire party I would serve Red Hots and Hot Tamales candies in snack sized packages with the original packaging. Red and yellow sweet peppers would be an easy color fit for a veggie tray. Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero all come in cans that fit the fire color scheme. (image below from Amy Atlas)

Hot Dogs would also be a great choice but with a sign emphasizing the word hot with flames or something. (For Lydia's 4 and Fabulous party I did something similar, but wrote "Haute Dogs") Doritos and barbecue potato chips, either in a bowl or in individual size packages, would fit both the colors and the fire theme. Finally, I would make some signs giving foods theme related names. Pretzel sticks can be labled match sticks. Licorice could be firefighter ropes. Squiggly straws to drink out of can be fire hoses. Tootsie rolls could have a sign that says "stop, drop, and roll"! Water bottles can have labels that say "fire extinguishers". You can easily print one sign for each item to place in front of or on the food container. Play up the theme by adding coordinating ribbon like in the image below.

Fire hats and badges are a must for this party. If you aren't up for cooking, I would check into buying a party tray or two of sandwiches from Firehouse Subs and ask them to throw in free hats for all the kids (they give them away at the restaurant). Otherwise, you can order hats for around $1 each and fire badges for less than $1 each. Or you could print this free badge template onto sticker paper and let the kids color their own badges. If you are computer savvy, you could customize your own badge stickers, or order customizable stickers like the one below available here.

If I were to suggest one semi-homemade project it would be adding candy "fire" to cupcakes. The cakes could even be store bought if you aren't feeling up to making a lot of stuff. Then it is really easy to melt hard candies, let them cool, and break them to look like flames. Really, no artistic ability needed! (full set of directions here)

Finally, there are lots of fire themed printables available, both through party websites and fire prevention sites. Check out the Free fire themed maze shown above . Here is a fire truck coloring page with room for the kids to draw themselves in the window. Here is a cute fire truck printable. It was meant to be for a bingo game, but could also be used for name tags if cut apart. If you are feeling a little crafty, check out this free multi page printable to make a 3D paper fire truck!

Activities for a fire themed party are easy if your location is a fire station. Ask if the kids can climb inside the truck, turn on a siren, take a spin on the fire pole, or have a firefighter talk to the kids. Otherwise, you could play a fire themed version of Simon Says where the kids stop, drop, and roll but only if the fire fighter says. If your location has a second story, find or make a net and have a grown up drop stuffed animals for the fire fighters in training to practice catching. Finally, an outdoor water game relay race, where you fill a large bucket of water by running smaller cups of water back and forth would be fun. Tryout a few of these ideas and with minimal effort, you're guaranteed one "hot" party!

Safety City

Growing up, I remember my mom taking us kids to a "safety town" where we learned all about traffic signs by driving pedal cars around kid sized buildings. I was aware that our city had one, but just learned that in the summer there are a few days when it is open to the public.

By the time I felt organized and recovered enough to venture out with Lydia and baby, our Safety City was about to have its LAST public day of the summer. It was crowded, but I am SO glad we made it!

The "town" is full of miniature versions of Knoxville businesses and landmarks, including a small sized Sunspere!

Because we have a gravel driveway at our house, Lydia doesn't get a lot of time to practice on her bike. She also hasn't had many reasons to learn the rules of "driving" on a real road with stop signs, red lights, and intersections.

When we arrived, I had that realization that I might need to follow her and help her. To her credit, Lydia had other plans! She took off and told me "No Grownups!"

No Grownups, that is, until she needed a drink and her shoe tied!

Thanks Safety City for a really fun day! See you next year!