One More Sleep Til Game Day

Five weeks ago as the Ravens entered the playoffs I painted my nails what I called "playoff purple" (trust me, it's dark purple even though it looks more maroon/brown in the photo). As the Ravens continued to progress through the playoff season knocking out first Houston, then Denver, then [gasp!] New England, I realized that whatever we were doing in Ravens spirit we had to keep doing. It was right before the New England game that I decided this nail polish was staying on as long as the Ravens won. Five weeks later and with the state of Idaho impressively chipped on my left thumbnail, here we are on the night before the Super Bowl. Whatever is left of this nail polish is in it for the long haul. 

We've spent the past 2 weeks since our win over New England planning our party for tomorrow. We're having a small group of close friends over to eat, drink, scream, cry, cheer, whatever the game brings. It's practically like Christmas Eve around here tonight.

We're cleaning, decorating, and food-prepping like crazy. I wish I could say I have the most creative Super Bowl party planned with all kinds of homemade details and decorations, but as you know I've been doing double-duty between getting the house ready for this party and trying to finish up Carsen's bedroom (I'm thisclose!), so we went with what we had for decorations and kept our menu festive but simple. I'll post those photos early next week. Happily, as a light snow falls outside, the house is very clean and smells of lavender, the fridge and pantry are full of yummy game-day foods, and all of our favorite Ravens toys, banners, and decor are turning our everyday living space into a fan cave of Super Bowl proportions. 

Football season is just a few short weeks of every year. If you're lucky your team gives you an extra week or two in the playoffs. But only two teams make it to the Super Bowl, and with so many variables in play there's just no way of knowing if or when your team will go again. It's a big deal. If the extension of the season wasn't fun enough, everyone and everything becomes focused on your team. Stores are decorated, team merchandise is on sale everywhere you look, and perhaps most fun of all, your team gets national recognition. All eyes are on our boys, and for the first time (in what feels like ever) we're finally getting the attention and recognition we deserve for the hard work and impressive numbers we've put up. When most people outside of Baltimore think of the Ravens, they think of Ray Lewis "the murderer." When most people outside of Baltimore think of elite quarterbacks, Joe Flacco is no where on the list. The truth is, not just these two incredible players, but our entire team have overcome a whole lot this season and have been playing their hearts out. We deserve to be in the Super Bowl. We deserve to be nationally recognized as a force to be reckoned with in the NFL. We deserve some long overdue credit for being an incredible team. We've proven everyone wrong. We've been underdogs the whole way. Now it's time to shut some people up and let them hear us roar. This is our game. This is our day. 

"Snow" Playdough

Today we made some homemade playdough inspired by this post over on The Artful Parent. The end result is supposed to look like this:

{Photos copied from The Artful Parent}

I knew that C doesn't really know what candy canes are and would probably mush the two colors together to make it pink anyway (all the better in her mind!) so we decided not to bother with making separate batches or even separate colors. Thus I dubbed ours "snow" playdough (yes, that's white with sparkles. I'm an amazing mom, I know). It was super quick and easy to make and C even got to help me! She thought it was fantastic, which was my only goal anyway.

Here's the recipe: (copied straight from The Artful Parent post linked above)

Ingredients:

• 5 cups of flour
• 5 cups of water
• 2 1/2 cups of salt
• 3 tablespoons of cream of tartar
• 10 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• food coloring

{Side note: We halved this recipe and still had a full mixing bowl of dough. I think they were making a large quantity to give as gifts, so if you're just making some to have at home for a few children to enjoy you can easily halve the recipe and end up with plenty.}

Instructions:
Mix water, salt, cream of tartar and food coloring. Cook on medium-low, stirring regularly until mixture is hot. Add oil. Stir in flour a cup at a time, stirring in between each addition. Mix until playdough pulls away from pan and is no longer sticky (pinch between your fingers to test). Dump dough onto counter, let cool a bit, and knead.

And here we are having fun in the kitchen!

While our dough was cooling she got to work on a little side project in her own kitchen. I mean, if you're already wearing your apron...

Time to add the glitter!

Playing with the final product!

It was very difficult to capture the sparkle effect of the glitter in the photos since we used clear/irridescent glitter vs. a silver or multi-colored glitter, but it is definitely sparkly and shimmery! Since the color of the dough isn't a true white, I thought maybe adding a drop or two of blue food coloring might make it look a little more snowy. It looks equally as snowy, just a little blue. It would be a matter of personal preference is all. Older kids would probably enjoy doing the actual candy-cane version which does make it a little more interesting. But I have to say, at 2-1/2, C found the "snow" playdough absolutely fascinating. Over all I give this craft an "A" for toddler-friendly fun!

Just like our other advent activities we had a lot of fun with this one, tried something new, and did it together. "Snow" playdough isn't necessarily a Christ-centered activity, but doing fun things as a family to celebrate the season definitely is ;]

Fast Forward

I feel like my life has been in fast forward for almost 2 months now. Every time I think about the week ahead of me, it seems to include the start of a new month. It's not a feeling I enjoy in most cases, but for blogging purposes I am also going to opt to "fast forward" through the month of November, at least until Thanksgiving. Suffice it to say it wasn't a great month. In fact it was sad and difficult and no one would enjoy reading about it. I would also not like to write about it, so we'll just pick up at Thanksgiving and move on from there.

This year we spent Thanksgiving as we usually do - doing the tour of our hometown where both of our parents still live. Before heading there though, J and C watched the Macy's parade (C was mesmerized) while I did some cooking and prepping for the two dinners we were about to partake in. We hit the road stopping first for dinner with J's family and then on to my Mom's for dinner there. It's a tough life :)

Homemade cranberry sauce - so easy & so good!

Chillin

Doing some baking of her own

Pushing her 25-year old uncle around the house on a toy car

Uncle J and Eli relaxing with a good book :)

J went out shopping on Thursday night with a friend to pick up a season on DVD. He was home by 1:30. Then he got up and went into work on Friday morning only to get a call from his dad who wanted to go shopping. They had a good time out in the madness while C and I shopped online from the comfort of home! I didn't get any spectacular deals but I also refuse to buy things not on my list just because they're a deal.

Friday night we had "Friendsgiving" with J's college roommates - a tradition they've carried on every year since college. Saturday we put up our tree and then went to J's brother's house for their annual post-Thanksgiving football game. We arrived after the football portion was over though due to C's nap time.

She was excited to help me put "necklace" on the tree

We had a usual quiet Sunday and celebrated my nephew's 5th birthday.

Then I did a little more shopping online today. Christmas shopping to me is one of life's great joys. C has been talking for weeks about wanting two things for Christmas - a "Christmas bicycle" and a "Christmas Barbie." Today the bike was delivered and I can hardly contain my excitement. The anticipation of her reaction when she sees it has my mommy heart just ready to burst. J is equally as excited of course and told me he "waited his whole life" to put together his baby's first bike for Christmas. It's just one of those parenting moments, I guess. We're ecstatic :)

Browsing the ads

Between now and then I'm also really excited to teach C all about Christmas through advent activities. I'm going to make our calendar tomorrow. She has been very excited about Christmas this year so I know she'll get a kick out of a countdown with Christmas activities each day.

While I know our Christmas season will be busy and will likely pass by faster than I'd like it to, I'm really hoping it doesn't go by in fast forward like the past two months have. I'm also hoping (perpetually) that I'll be able to document our fun here on the blog.

Anyone else have fun activities planned for advent or the Christmas season? I'd love to hear :)

Insanity

Insanity is the one word I would use to describe the past week and a half-ish. In fact, it's difficult for me to believe that it was only that long ago that C and I spent the day at my sister's house helping to keep her kids happy and busy while she packed their house up for a weekend move. We went back to do the same thing on moving day (Oct 20). My sister has 5 children, ages 13 years - 11 weeks, so she can use a hand, or 4, keeping the kids occupied when they have a major project going on such as packing up the whole house in boxes to move!

Sadly, the move did not go as smoothly as one would have hoped. Without hashing through the details, there were several injuries- one which took my 7-year old nephew to Johns Hopkins Hospital in a helicopter, and another that required my brother-in-law to see an orthopedic specialist within 48-hours of moving day. While all were at the hospital, J and I stayed at the house (the one they were moving out of) with 3 of the kids- they took the infant and of course the injured one- until about 1am. The great news is that everyone was fine, they just required some specialized treatment. As dire as the situation sounds, my nephew was calm enough to enjoy his first helicopter ride and tell us about it later. He was a champ. Everyone is home now, and after a few more days of frantic work, the move is complete.

That event settled down around Wednesday of last week, just in time for us to start preparations for J's sister's wedding this past Saturday. Family & friends began arriving in town on Thursday from as far away as Detroit, Dallas, and Salt Lake City. Thursday night we had a big family dinner at a local restaurant which just happens to bear the family name (coincidence, no relation), followed by a relaxed "after party" at my in-laws' house where many cousins played and ran and danced until bed time. At said party I was able to capture an adorable video of C doing the cupid shuffle with her aunts, uncles & cousins.

Friday morning we got up early to do some yoga, then spent most of the day at a nearby salon getting manicures & pedicures. We rehearsed for the wedding at 5, and then had a lovely dinner to celebrate and hang out before the big event.

 Playing with her cousin, Collin

The groom serenading the bride :)

Being silly with uncle Frank

Saturday started with hair and make-up being done throughout the morning, and before we knew it we were all in dresses looking stunning. We got to the church right on time and the ceremony went perfectly. Unfortunately since I didn't get to spend very much time with C on Friday or Saturday, she was way out of sorts by Saturday evening. As if I wasn't struggling enough to keep my emotions under control as I walked down the aisle, she was in the 2nd row crying and screaming, "Hold you mommy!" over and over from the time she could see me until J finally left the sanctuary with her when the processional was over. Sadly I was a bit distracted and worried about her through the rest of the ceremony. 

After the ceremony we took C to my mom's house and she was perfectly happy. She happily got down and pulled out her favorite toys and started playing. She kissed us goodbye without a care and went on to have a perfectly fine night. And so did we! The reception was great, held at a lovely mansion not too far from our hometown. Food was delish, dancing was fun, we may have had a little too much fun with the photo-booth... but the bottom line is that we had a good time!

If that didn't make for a crazy enough weekend/week/weekend, we had only Sunday to prepare for hurricane Sandy to hit today. Thanks to the crazy weekend we had last weekend and the busy week in between, we had approximately 0 groceries in the house. I was afraid to buy anything that had to be cooked or refrigerated in case the power went out, so I grabbed what I could at Trader Joe's. I tried to focus on things we could spread peanut butter on like apples, bananas, and crackers. I also picked up some trail mix and protein bars. It has been raining hard and extremely windy all day so far, and we're being told that the next 12 hours will be the most intense. We're lucky and still have power. We've actually never lost power in this house for more than a few minutes at a time and that has been extremely rare, so I'm hopeful that our power might stay on through the night. Of course, if that's the case then I'm kicking myself for not buying any real food to eat. My biggest concern is the big trees behind our house. They're very tall and very skinny which means they always wave around far more than I'm comfortable with whenever it gets stormy outside. Our bedroom is across the back of the house so we'll be sleeping in the guest room in the front of the house tonight. Of course, the front of the house is also the north side which is currently where the winds are coming from. That is supposed to change over night to southern winds. The good news there is that the wind will be blowing against the back of the house instead of the front, but that also means it will be blowing those trees toward the back of our house which is a very rare direction for winds around here. Makes me nervous!

At this point, it's time to have a little snack and snuggle up before we head up to bed for the night. Our lights have been flickering ever so slightly over the past hour or so. Fingers crossed that they stay on. It's going to be cold tonight and tomorrow. I'll update soon!

Birthdays and Other Fun

This past weekend was a big one in our family. We celebrated four family birthdays, one of our siblings moved, and we made a big family trip out to the pumpkin patch. We didn't squish all of this into two days though. The celebrations started on Thursday night with our nephew's 2nd birthday party. J gets a holiday from his company for his birthday (which was officially on Sunday) so he took that on Friday for us to spend the day together. Saturday we celebrated another nephew's first birthday, and Sunday we went to the pumpkin patch with my siblings, my mom, and all 7 cousins. Fortunately, we love being with family so 4 straight days with them made an awesome weekend for us :)

Here it is in photos...

{Colt's 2nd Birthday}

{Baltimore/MD Science Center for J's birthday}

{Eli's First Birthday}

{Pumpkin Patch}