Saturday, Sleep & Face Paint

Happy Saturday Mamas! What was that snow dusting we woke up to this morning? Today started out wonderful. Big Daddy was with us in bed last night. For those of you who don't know, he is usually in the guest room due to Indy's constant wakings and night nursings. I know it's not the most romantic thing, but with 4 kids, we happily agree that whatever you can do to maximize sleep in this house is better for everyone. It won't be forever, but right now, in the trenches of babyhood, it works.

Anyway, Big Daddy got to experience first hand what the depths of teething nights are like. Sweet Big Daddy was tired this morning, but took Indy and let me sleep in. What a guy! It was nice. He did go to his buddy's house to watch the Huskers this morning and maybe it was his guilt for leaving us on a Saturday that inspired him to let me sleep, but I'd like to think he experienced what I do go through every night and gave me a break. But nonetheless, I was happy to sleep. He did take the boys with him to watch the game and they had a nice guy's football morning while Princess and I did our nails, watched movies, and folded laundry together. Indy took a long morning nap too, so we got some good Mama-Princess time.

Princess got this idea that she wanted to go to Old Town to have her face painted. I was really into just staying home and chilling out, so we compromised. I dug through the shed for the recently packed away Halloween box and found some face paint. It only had red, green and blue and white, but luckily she wanted a ladybug, so we were in business. I painted a ladybug and stars on her face and she was as happy as could be. Then the excitement wore off and she wanted me to get my face painted. I gave in and let her paint my face! Why not, right? She had such fun and basically painted my entire face while I folded laundry. Then I told her she couldn't go on the couch because I didn't want the face paint to stain the couch. I'm so mean and she had a tantrum. I try.

LEGO Cookies

Today my big boy is in a LEGO Robotics competition and I'm taking this opportunity to make some LEGO treats for his team. A few years ago, he had a lego themed birthday party and I made an awesome Lego cake that looked like a few giant Lego blocks. This time just a little treat will do. The team did awesome and placed 3rd in the competition out of 23 teams! And they won a special award for Strategic and Innovation.

I was kind of pressed for time, so I just used the Betty Crocker pouch sugar cookie mix. To make that mix into rolled cookies to cut out, you just add a little flour to the mix. Have you noticed that you don't see pre-made cookie mix other than Betty Crocker anymore? And you don't see pre-made cookie mix in a box; just the pouches. Just an observation I've made at the food store recently. What happened to the cookie mix that came in the boxes and the other brands? Did Ms. Crocker just buy out the rights to cookie mix or something?

Anyway, I didn't have a rectangle cookie cutter, so I just used a pizza roller and made rectangles. I made my own frosting in 3 small batches using 1 cup of powdered sugar, 1 TBSP of light corn syrup and a splash of milk. I added a lot of food coloring to make the colors pretty bright. I added M&Ms to that, picked to match the frosting using 8 for each cookie. That was a good job for my 5-year-old to pick through the bag to make 3 bowls of red, blue, and yellow M&Ms. I made sure she washed her hands first and didn't eat any until she was all done!

And that's it! East breezy and the kids loved them!

Raising Gentle Men

Raising little boys into peaceful, gentle men is not as easy feat. But I try. Today Uncle Dave took my boys out for their birthday presents. They both had birthdays in October and I am a proud Mama to boys ages 9 and 11. Yup, they are big boys. So Uncle Dave, the cool Uncle that he i,s bought each of my boys, "air soft guns". These are not your Walmart variety of air soft guns either.  In addition to being the "cool" Uncle, Uncle Dave is also a Nebraskan-bred Midwestern style guy and he knows about guns. They went straight to Jax, Fort Collin's local outdoor, camping, hunting gear arena. Jax isn't really like the white bread trendy R.E.I. outdoor store that also has a home here in the Fort. Jax is more..well, I guess you can say carries the top red-neck gear. Not that Uncle Dave is a red-neck, but being from Nebraska and all, he does have some red-neck tendencies.
Actually, I didn't really know what an air soft gun was and I'm not one to shelter my kids from guns. Ahhh, things we'd never say we would do...

As little guys, they learned quickly that they can create a gun out of Legos and blocks and even cooked carrots, so I knew it would be a losing battle. And when you think about, if I was ever completely denied something growing up, I just HAD to have it. When my Mom told me at 16 that I wasn't allowed to have sex and "end of dicussion"( not that there even was a discussion). Well what do you think I did?

So yup, my gentle parenting practices include the use of play guns in my home. Ironic, isn't it? I parent on the philosophy to follow my children's lead and let them be who they are and explore what interests them. The cornerstone of attachment parenting is to listen to our children, let them explore and guide to make good decisions. And it turns out that they like playing with guns and so I teach them safety and remind them that guns hurt people and animals. I hope they are listening too. I learned that I cannot achieve what I want them to be by hardfast rules, like saying, no guns allowed.
So let me just tell you that an air soft gun is nothing like a Nerf gun. These actually look like real guns and I am a bit petrified of an accident.
 I found myself saying "don't shoot your eye out" just a few times knowing full well what I sounded like; a regular mom.