June 2014

Month

Fri
27 ^th

Countdown to 40 – Bucket List For The Second Half Of My Life

Posted by Pinparent — 9 Comments

I talk often about how quickly time has flown by since the birth of my daughter. In 1 1/2 weeks she will be turning 2 1/2. It seems almost impossible. Almost stranger than that is on that very same day, I will be kissing my 30’s goodbye & turning 40. Ouch! This has been a hard realization for me. For me entering my 40’s finally signifies to me the end of my youth.
I look in the mirror & the face looking back is different than the one I remember. There are more lines. The grays from my head seemed to have spread & set up new residency in my eyebrows. My skin is now much looser and things that once were higher… well are not quite so high or perky anymore. It makes me sad, but is reality.

We all grow older. Our faces & bodies age, our looks fade, things begin to ache for no reason & you wake up in the morning feeling hung over even when you don’t drink. You become more forgetful. You become more forgetful. Oh & you tend to repeat yourself. I am certain I have told the same stories to my husband about 101 times. Sex symbols from your youth begin to grace the covers of AARP & even worse than that people now call you ma’am.

My first 40 years on this planet have had their ups & downs. In my life I have made a lot of mistakes. I have been good and been bad. I have had my heart broken and also broken a few hearts. I learned that soul mates are real & married mine. I have seen people I love die & I have brought life into this world. I have laughed, cried & felt utter joy.

I’ve been lucky enough to have seen many places & have done many things…

But there is still so much left I want to do. What things do I still want to accomplish, see or learn? It seems as if there is so much. My bucket list is a long one. Here are a few highlights of an otherwise long list…

1. Be there for my daughter’s wedding

2. Go to Cambodia

3. Learn another language

4. Hike Macchu Picchu

5.Write a children’s book

6. Hold my grandchild

7. Learn how to fence

8. Visit all the U.S states

9. Grow old with my husband

10. Go to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan

11. Run a marathon with my husband

12. Go to a masquerade ball

13. Learn to belly dance

14. Pay off our home

15. Get a tattoo that represents my mother

I have not lived a perfect life, but I have lived a pretty good one. I can’t wait to see what the next half will bring.

What’s on your bucket list? I would love to hear.

Thu
26 ^th

My Picky Toddler Woes & Baked Corn Dog Bites

Posted by Pinparent — 12 Comments

I hate to sound like a broken record… I know you have heard me complain about this many times…BUT I have to say it again, my daughter is a picky eater. I can’t even imagine the amount of time & food I have wasted trying to get my child to eat a good meal. I have many sneaky ways & tricks that I use to help with the process, but that only works if she likes what she is eating.

She has a long list of gripes about her food:

“It’s too spicy.”
“It’s too cheesy”
“Not warm”
“Too hot”
“Noodles are disgusting”

You get the idea. Planning meals just plain stresses me out. At 2 1/2 years old our little girl still only weighs 25 pounds, so I will pretty much feed her anything that will get her to eat. Here lies the challenge. It is not uncommon for me to have several different meal options out at one time.

After rejecting meal 1 & meal 2, we try for a 3rd option. It is very frustrating. People tell you, they will eat when they are hungry, but yet I have seen my girl goes days without barely taking a bite.

I try to make food as fun & easy to eat as possible. She has recently taken a liking to hot dogs, just the hot dog, no bun. Tonight’s menu, corn dog bites. These are fun & super easy.

Ingredients:

2 boxes of Jiffy corn muffin mix (2/3 cup of milk & 2 eggs)

1 package of hot dogs

1/4 cup of parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp ground mustard

pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400. Slice hot dogs into chunks about 1 1/2″ long about 1/5 of the hotdog. Prepare the corn muffin mix according to directions. Mix in the parmesan cheese, ground mustard & pepper. Dunk the hot dog chunks in the mixture one at a time coating them well. Place on two greased baking sheet. Do not worry about them being covered perfectly. You can top off any bare spots my spooning mixture over the chunks once on the sheet. Leave plenty of space on the baking sheet between corn dog bites. Bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool & serve with ketchup or mustard.

It was a dinner time victory tonight. It even warranted a thumbs up from my finicky little girl. A sigh of relief & one more meal down. Until tomorrow….

Wed
25 ^th

Surviving My First 5K

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The day finally came. It was only a matter of time that I would finally break down and run my first race. With a marathon runner for a husband it was inevitable. Even my daughter has already completed her first race. Should I be embarrassed that my two year old received her first race medal before me? I started training a couple of months ago. I did not realize just how bad of shape I was in. My first couple of weeks started off great, but then work, baby & scheduling conflicts made it virtually impossible to get to the gym or run outside. I was very worried about how ill prepared I was. I became even more worried when I saw that the course was all uphill. Luckily, my first 5K was an obstacle course race. With 16 foamy & muddy obstacles there were many breaks in the uphill running (and by running, I mean mostly walking). The obstacles consisted of climbing walls, a giant foam slip & slide, mud crawls & a massive bouncy slide as the finale. Between all the huffs & puffs, some muddy water in the mouth & foam in the eyes, I had the time of my life. I am disappointed in myself for not training harder for it, but I did accomplish what I set out to do, I finished my first race & had a great time doing it. It was a nice break for us mommies. I am ready for round 2. Bring on the next race & this time I will train harder.

Sun
22 ^nd

You Can’t Outsmart a Smarty

Posted by Pinparent — 12 Comments

One of Mai’s favorite new games is removing the contents of our Lazy Susan & placing them up on our kitchen island. I will ask he Mai what are you doing? “I go shopping” “I buy food”. She will name off all the items as she places them up on the island. “Ranch dressing, hot chocolate, barbecue sauce.” I do not love this, but it does keep her occupied while I am cooking or doing dishes. She loves playing this so much that I thought it would be a fun idea to make her her own little grocery store on the shelves of our kitchen island. My hopes of course, were that this would distract her from emptying the contents of my Lazy Susan.

I used old food boxes & rinsed out jars and lined them up in a row on the shelves.

Mai has a little toy shopping cart, so I thought we could make a fun & educational game out of it. My idea was that she could pick out the items that she wants just as she did with the Lazy Susan & that we could use some of her coins in her piggy bank and make it a lesson in counting and money as well.
Unfortunately Mai was not so easy fooled by mommy’s make shift shopping center. She picked up each container & exclaimed “Oh! It’s empty. I throw in the trash.” And in the trash she threw them. Oh Well! Better luck next time, Mommy.

Mon
16 ^th

Father’s Day Tie For Daddy

Posted by Pinparent — 3 Comments

*This post contains affiliate links for convenience.*

My daughter is very much her father’s little girl. Not only does she adore him, she looks like him & she acts like him too. There are traces of me in there too, but for the most part she is daddy’s girl. From those beautiful blue eyes & dimples to the way she has to arrange her Fruit Loops by color she is her father through & through.
Yesterday was Father’s Day & Mai had made a special gift for her #1 guy.

This was a cute & easy project for my little one. All you need is a inexpensive white tie, fabric markers, duct tape or masking tape & a pair of scissors.

With a marker draw out your letters one at a time on a piece of the masking or duct tape.

Place the letters on the tie. Make sure they are flat & pressed firmly.

Using fabric markers, let your little Picasso go to work coloring the tie.

Watch her demonstrate why she is just like her father by lining up all the marker caps in a row.

Remove the letters slowly. If as you are removing them you see that the letter isn’t properly formed, replace it & give it a little bit of an outline.

After it is complete, put in the dryer on high heat for about 5 minutes for the marker to set.

Give Daddy your present & a kiss.

Mai was very proud of her homemade gift & daddy loved it. I hope all the Father’s out there had a wonderful Father’s Day.

Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.

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Sun
08 ^th

How Toddlers Make Friends

Posted by Pinparent — 8 Comments

It is utterly fascinating to watch my child & not just mine, any child really. The way a child sees and approaches life is so different than how we do it as we get older. Today was another great example of this.
After a fun day playing outside with my daughter, we went to an ice cream parlor in town for a little summertime treat. While we waited in line to place our order a little girl a few months younger than Mai approached her. At first Mai was uncharacteristically quiet and standoffish. Her mother came over and introduced herself and collected her daughter. A moment later the little girl whose name was Lily returned. My girl became her usual self and began to talk with Lily.
As she was speaking I noticed her bending her knees slightly and moving into a squat.
“We walk outside and Dukey took a biiiig poop. He poop on the ground” She gestured to her bottom as she continued to squat and tell her story.
Several tables of patrons broke out in laughter as they overheard this exchange.

Lily’s response was to break out in song with an adorable version of ‘Ring around the Rosies’ This was all that it took to strike up a new friendship.

Quickly the two were chasing each other around the tables as my daughter exclaimed “Chase me! You can’t catch me. I gingerbread man!” They chased each other, hid behind the chairs & hugged each other. It was as if they had played together a million times and not just strangers that had just met moments before.

How wonderful it is that children have the ability to do this, to meet someone new without judgment or suspicion and welcome them without hesitation.

How beautiful it would be if we could all approach new relationships like this.

It got several of us tables to joking if only we could all make friends so easily. Perhaps on my next encounter with a new person, I will break into a discussion about my dog’s bowel movements and then offer them a hug. I will let you know how that goes.

Tue
03 ^rd

Paper Mache Rocket Ship

Posted by Pinparent — 3 Comments

Do you know the old saying about giving a child a new toy & all they want to do is play with the box? This is mostly true. My daughter usually likes what is in the box too, but she has been amused by a box for days on more than one occasion.