What do you do when your Play-Doh dries out?

You make it your damn self! The Monkey Man was really wanting to show his baby sister what Play-Doh was all about. Unfortunately, all of our Play-Doh was dried out and sad. Thank goodness for the internet! I got online, found a do-able recipe and poof, half an hour later we have home-made, non-toxic, non-smelling play dough! We made five different colors and the materials I used probably cost less than $1, what a deal! For any of you interested in trying this, here is the recipe:

Play Dough

2 c. flour
2 c. warm water
1 c. salt
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. cream of tartar
food coloring

I heated the water in a pan until it was warm, not boiling, then I added the oil. I mixed all the dry ingredients then added them to the water. It immediately started thickening and I stirred and stirred until it got very doughy (past the point of looking liked mashed potatoes, where the dough was starting to peel off the edges and stick to itself). I turned the dough out on a cutting board and let it cool for a few minutes until I was able to handle it. I kneaded it until I got my desired consistency and separated it into 5 tennis ball sized balls. To add the color, I poked a hole in the middle and poured in the coloring and kneaded the dough until dispersed. If there is anything you learn from me, take the time to actually go get some gloves on or you'll have blue hands! Once the dye is incorporated into the dough, it no longer stains, it's just when it is still liquidy. After you have desired colors (granted, these are nowhere near as vibrant as commercial dough, but why do kids need neon colors to be happy?) then it's playtime! Enjoy and then store in airtight containers. If it starts to dry out, you can wrap the individual balls in a damp paper towel overnight to rehydrate, but at some point, they will get too hard and you will just start over! Luckily this is so stinkin' easy!

One woodland fairy, one screamin' cheetah weelie!

Well folks here they are, dressed up in all their glory! Finally, all that hard work comes to fruition! We had a great night, the Monkey Man is of course old hat at this trick-or-treating stuff, and he taught his baby sister well. After a few houses she was yelling "trick-or-treat" with the best of them! And now they have enough candy to last us until next Halloween!

My monkey becomes a cheetah!


Tail end of a cheetah


Fairy kisses for Mommy!


Mommy's little woodland fairy


Winged wonder!

It's Halloween!

Finally the day has come to dress up my little goblins and take them out to beg for goodies from complete strangers then bring them home to stuff themselves silly with candy until they finally fall over into sugar comas and wake up puking from all the sweets in the middle of the night! OK, just kidding about the puking thing, I don't let them stuff themselves that bad. We will be heading down to the Hyde Park neighborhood with some friends. It is a wonderful old neighborhood with big, spooky houses and they decorate for Halloween like other neighborhoods decorate for XMAS! It's rad! It is supposed to be a beautiful night and I can't wait to see all the little ghouls and goblins dressed up!

I finally finished up everything for my little beasties. This morning I spent 2 hours spotting spats, adding more flowers to a tutu and onesie, decorating a woodland fairy's treat basket and putting the finishing touches on her shoes. I will dress them up early so I can take some pics before we actually head out to trick-or-treat, hopefully I'll get some good ones!

For the rest of you, have a fun and SPOOKY night and don't get all bloated on Snickers and candy corn! And just as a note, if you are the person handing out candy... NOBODY wants those damn mints you get with your meals at Sonic, you cheap bastard! If that's all you have to offer, just do us all a favor and keep your porch light off and don't answer the door!

The making of a cheetah and a woodland fairy!

I have been working diligently for almost a month straight on the kids' costumes. It has been alot of work, but I think it has paid off, they are really turning out cute! Today is the big test, Halloween Party with our homeschool group. We get a chance to show them off and see where I need to do some work before the BIG night. Monkey Man's costume was pretty straight-forward, I used a pattern this year and it definitely has a more "finished" look to it. It was the damn spots that killed me. They don't make cheetah fabric, they make leopard and zebra and tiger and giraffe, but NOT cheetah. So I bought yellow polar fleece and ended up hand-painting probably 1000 spots on the damn thing! UGH! So worth it though, it's cute! The Piggle's woodland fairy costume has been a little more intense, dying onesies, sewing flowers on the onesie, finding wings and spray painting them (they were lime green to begin with), making and attaching flowers and ribbons to a tutu, decorating the wings with glitter and jewels then doing the back piece for the wings. I ended up having to re-do the harness system for the wings as well since she was a bit small for them. All in all, I think they will be stunning come Halloween night! So much work, but so worth it! Here are some pics!

Mama workin' hard!


Halfway done with spots!


Finished cheetah, yea!

Thanks to my mom-in-law, we had a great start to a flower fairy tutu for the Piggle!


Wings... Take One


I may add a few more flowers before Halloween but you get the idea.


Finished wings! And yes, you may stand in stunned silence of my SERIOUSLY mad skills! I so ROCK sometimes!

Testing, testing...

I have been trying to post some photos on my other blog for the past two days and not having any luck. So I thought I would try this blog and see if it works. If it does, you will be seeing the lovely mammoth that I painted while my children and I explored our inner cave-people last week. Now that we have finished with the death of the dinosaurs, it is off to the Ice Ages and the Stone Age and the dawn of mankind. FUN!

Mama's mammoth



OK, it worked... weird!

Amazing end to my day!

So if you read the previous post, you know most of my day yesterday involved cutting away that freakin' vine! I promise, I won't get started again! But after that whole fiasco, my day just got better and better! Hubby came home with a small chain saw, a new weed eater (ours died about a month ago) and lo and behold... a NEW garbage disposal! Ours pooped out after a thunderstorm knocked our power out! I think the stupid thing would still work, but the power surge did something to blow the GFC? Either way, it's not working and it costs less to buy a new one than it is to have someone come out to look at it and then tell me I need a new one! (I hate this by the way, how disposable everything in this world is, we really should strive to fix things and use them as long as possible, but it's unfortunately it's not financially feasible... alas, another post, another time!) Then, as if this wasn't all good enough, Big Daddy and the kiddos took me out for burgers so I wouldn't have to cook after slaving over evil vines! Nothing like a good burger to make a girl feel better!

After dinner I came home and was overcome with a need for some "Trina-time"! I went out to the garage, set up my easel, found an appropriate canvas, cracked open the paints for the first time in MONTHS, dug out my boom-box, plugged in my iPOD and set about painting something for over my fireplace. I opted to open the garage door to hopefully get a cool breeze and much to my delight a storm started rolling in! It was a good, hard rain with little wind, so I was able to keep the door open. Ironically, I went in to get a drink and when I came back out, it was raining like hell and "Riders On the Storm" was cranking out of the iPOD, that was so cool! So there I stayed for hours, listening to the storm and some great tunes, smelling the clean fresh air, enjoying the breeze and actually exploring one of my favorite hobbies! The painting, of course, isn't done yet, but when it is, I'll post a pic. But for now, I am just happy I had the opportunity. Sometimes I forget what it's like to be in my own space, alone in my own mind, especially when I have the constant chatter of children in my head all the time. Just what I needed and I REALLY need to make time for this kind of stuff more often!

Hella Hogwarts cont...

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble! Or as one of the little party-goers said, "Bubble, bubble, toilet trouble???" Kids and toilet talk! Anyway, this was our "magic powder" with the "enchanted water" and the subsequent reaction. Needless to say, the kids LOVED this!

The Hella Hogwarts Party

The Monkey Man is turning 6 this week, so we had a big 'ol birthday bash last Saturday! My mom was able to come out that weekend so we decided to do the party early so she could participate. I think I might have gone a little ballistic! I am such a nerd about this shit! I researched Hogwarts parties and science experiments and all sorts of stuff. I will be honest, alot of what I did, I found online. I am very creative in certain aspects of life, but party-planning ain't one of those areas! I am learning though and I am inspired by all the crazy parents out there who come up with some SERIOUSLY mind-blowing crap!

It all started with the invitations. I bought this great translucent paper and went through about a million different fonts to find the perfect one. I used all the best Hogwarts language that I could. I then rolled up the paper like a scroll and tied it off and we delivered them all by hand. The next week I made up directions to our home that resembled The Marauder's Map (that took a chunk of time out of my day!) but they were cool to look at! All the moms were VERY impressed!

The day of the party we hung up this huge black, plastic tablecloth that we had shredded and painted to say "Platform 9 3/4" in front of our door. Once the children arrived and gave the proper password they were given student robes (which I made out of LARGE black t-shirts that I decorated with a glue and glitter Hogwarts emblem). I looked for the stupid gold, sparkly "puffy paint" at Hobby Lobby as that stuff is washable, but I didn't find any, that sucked. They were each allowed to pick a wand (dowels that we cut into 12" pieces, sanded down and painted with metallic colors and dusted with glitter). Each child was also allowed to pick out their own "Sorcerer's Stone" (smooth rocks that I painted with all sorts of wild stuff and dusted with glitter of course). Are you getting the picture that my house was FILLED with glitter?

Once the children were robed and given wands, we went outside for potions class. Each child was given a little plastic goblet. I provided them with loads of "magic powder" aka baking soda and they also were given "enchanted water" aka vinegar. They put a couple of spoonfuls of powder into their goblets then were asked to pour in the vinegar. The reaction was a great, bubbling, foaming mess and they all had to do it again and again! Now I actually had planned on doing invisible ink, but in all honesty, it was such an unexpectedly beautiful day that I sent them all off to the trampoline for "flying lessons". This of course was a huge hit! While they were "flying" my hubby and brother-in-law decided that foaming vinegar and baking soda was not at all good enough, so they bowed out and ran to Walgreens to get Mentos and Diet Coke. Now THAT is a volatile reaction! And of course anything that involves liquids spewing at high speeds out of coke bottles is BIG FUN! After all the potions and flying, we opted to come in for cupcakes, which I decorated with sugar cones that I dipped in chocolate and decorated with white icing. Once massive amounts of cupcakes were consumed it was back outside for more games. We played "Dementors and Werewolves" a game where I allowed the older children (and the adults on occasion) to chase the littles around the yard. They had to "defend" themselves by casting charms such as "Immobulus" or "Expecto patronum" which rendered the werewolf or dementor motionless for a count of five or so. It was fun, although a couple of us got accidentally whacked by the wands and they smart! Sadly, the Sorcerer's Stones ended up just being party favors. The intent was to hide the stones and allow the children to seek them out, but it got just too late and the kids were fading fast after 2 hours of potions and charms and flying! It was a brilliant success! I took a "class photo" of the kids in their robes and included the photo with the thank you notes I had the MM hand make. One more party down and one stressed out Mama who has no clue how I'll top this next year!
Invitation and Marauder's Map
Marauder's Map First Opening
Marauder's Map Second Opening
The "Great Hall"

From the mouths of babes... (cont.)

Here are some photos of art my son painted today. He is very much into the solar system and the planets lately. Well, for some reason he decided to merge his love of planets with his love of fruit. So here is his collection. Picture number one, Mars With A Red Bell Pepper. Picture number two, Earth With A Green Apple Falling Onto Mars. And picture number three, (you're gonna love this, and I shit you not, this is what he said) "This is a picture of a banana falling out of Uranus!" Yeah, try to keep a straight face with that one!

And yet another novel idea...

So I told my hubby last night that I was thinking of starting to write a novel today for that Nano Wrimo thing. He seemed deeply concerned, wanting to know where I would get the time, obviously seeing how spread thin I am already. I had a somewhat sleepless night debating, should I or shouldn't I do this. And although I'm tired as shit today, I did wake up with a clear idea about things. He is absolutely right, I am spread so thin right now it's ridiculous. I don't have enough time to be writing this blog, much less a freakin' novel, YET I still have that urge to prove to myself I can accomplish something important. So, in lieu of writing the next great American novel in the next month, I am going to shoot for a goal that would actually benefit me. I started a cute little children's book about 2 years ago, nothing fancy, just cute and fun. I had a good start, then life kicked in and I never got back to it and that's a shame, I think it has potential to be really good. So... instead of writing a novel about nothing, my goal is to finish that book and start looking for an illustrator. THAT would truly make a difference in my life, accomplishing something that has real meaning and significance to ME. I will hopefully have plenty of time to write that novel years from now when children have left for college. Right now, anything that takes me away from teaching, playing and spending time with my kids had better be something I have vested interest in! Because these days of Spiderman and dinosaurs and invisibility cloaks and giggles and kisses and peek-a-boo are days that I will cherish for the rest of my life and missing even a moment just so I can say I wrote a stinkin' novel in a month, well, that's just crazy. But that little children's book, that is worth a little of my time, especially since it is being written for them! I will let do an update on the book situation on Nov. 30th to see if I reached my goal!

The Novel

So I came across this site: www.nanowrimo.com It is a site where they challenge you in the month of November to write a 50,000 word novel. Now, the novels are not actually judged on content, but by word count, no one actually ever reads them. But I guess the whole point is to prove that you can accomplish anything if you set a deadline for yourself. I really would like to do it, but I just can't imagine being able to put in the 2-3 hours a day that I would probably need, mostly since it is the month before XMAS and I have 50 things looming in the home remodeling department before XMAS arrives. It may be fun to try though, and if nothing else, whether I made the 50K words or not, I would have at least gotten a pretty good start on something! Who knows, I may buck up and do it, just to prove I can! As the site says, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

From the mouths of babes, take 2.

I don't know what the deal is this week, but my son has been on a roll! It starts with us playing the rhyming game in the car, good, mellow car game, right? Well let's just say that duck rhymes with something that isn't necessarily something I prefer to hear coming from the mouth of my 5 y.o.! So I had to explain that "fuck" is actually not an appropriate word to be used, that it is a "grown-up" word and not a nice "grown-up" word at that. He seemed to understand and has refrained from using the word further, but as far as I know, he is up in his room saying, "fuck, fuck, fuck" as I type. Before this week, I just ignored the word and never made a big deal out of it, knowing that it would just bring unwanted attention to the word, but I figure he is old enough to maybe understand that yes it is a word, but one that is not used in pleasant society. We'll see.

Then today, he was drawing pictures and would come over and tell me what they were. One picture was what he described an "octopus submarine", then he showed me a picture of a "stocking knocker" (what the hell is a stocking knocker?), then he drew a "worm pellet". He explained "worm pellets" were to feed worms and make them change colors. I'm glad to see him finally embracing the world of imagination! But I do wonder where he comes up with these things!

And not more than two minutes ago, he was laying on the floor and informed me that his entire body was asleep, except for his head. OMG, that kid makes me laugh! I think "from the mouths of babes" will have to be a recurring post because this kid is just too damn funny! And who knows what kind of good stuff will come from his sister once she starts mastering language?!?

Question for the ladies...

My neighbor's daughter is turning 10 years old next month. She is compiling a book for her that is to contain bits of wisdom to help her through her teenage years. She is asking each woman that is participating to share an experience or some information that we think is important for her to know as she becomes a young woman. I have a few ideas, of course, but was curious what some of the rest of you might think is an important thing for a girl to know. Here are a couple of my ideas:

1. Never believe you have to define yourself by a man. Too many young women that I see are so caught up in making sure they have a man, many get pregnant to keep their man, many put up with abuse and others just cling all because society or culture says that a woman HAS to have a man. I'm not saying she shouldn't strive to find love and happiness, but she needs to know that a woman is a powerful and important entity all on her own!

2. Don't get caught up on physical appearance. As long as you are a good and beautiful person on the inside, it will emanate and reflect on the outside. Women of all sizes, shapes, and colors are BEAUTIFUL!

One that I would love to address is never be fooled that lust is really love. Many boys will say they love you just to get in your pants! Don't believe them! If they truly love you, they'll respect your boundaries and allow you to explore your sexuality in your own time. However, I'm not sure my neighbor would be too keen on me talking sex with her 10 year-old!

And 3. Believe you can do anything! There are no limits, be who and what makes you happy! Although, financially it may be alot smarter to get a degree in accounting or engineering, if this isn't something that truly makes you happy, it will only fill your pocketbook and not your heart!

OK ladies... what are your thoughts?!?!