Mom Fails- Things I never thought I'd hear myself say out loud

In reality, I'm still new to this whole Mom thing.  Knowing that, I'm shocked that in his short little life span Grayson has made some of these phrases come out of my mouth. The worst part HAS to be that you have to say these things with a straight face- and sometimes when you look back on the moment you have no idea how you managed to not pee your pants. I know we all have something that our children have made us say that we can't believe, so please feel free to share so that I don't feel like the only one!

 

No! We do not eat the dog's food!

 

Please do no lick the kitchen floor, that's gross.

 

Grayson, where did you find powder?

*as he leads me to the pantry where he has exploded a WHOLE bag of flour onto every imaginable surface*

Buddy, we don't make it snow inside, that makes Mommy mad and we are out of wine.

 

Quit poking the dog in the butt!

 

Hold still- I need to pick your booger!!

 

Please stop shoving cheese in your ear.

 

What did you just flush down the potty???!

 

We don't laugh out loud when we fart, we say excuse me!

 

Whats in your mouth? Why are you eating a penny? Didn't Daddy feed you today?!

 

We do not chase the doggies with our toys, and we do NOT beat the dog over the head with them either!

 

Do you have to pee? No? Well then its not appropriate to grab yourself and dance in public.  Please stop that.

 

We do not drink the dogs water!!

 

Please dont scrub the sink with Daddy's toothbrush, he will not be happy!

 

Oh Motherhood- how you continue to surprise me.  

 

 

 

 

 



Tips and Tricks- Getting Rid of the Bathroom Nasties.

Okay, first rule- no judging. Agree?  Okay, read on.

 

I clean my bathroom fairly religiously, because I'm always leery of Grayson playing in the tub and it being full of germs. However, the one area that I could never get clean no matter how hard I scrubbed is the grout joint between the tub and the tile. The hubs says its because water got behind the tiles and they need replaced.  Now one would think with a husband who does that for a living that it would happen quickly...but since we only have one bathroom in the house it makes it a little tough to give up our only tub for 3-5 days for a remodel.

 

So here it is- the nasty bathroom issue in all its embarrassing glory. (Remember- I said no judgies!)

 

 

Now the best part- I figured out how to fix it.

 

All you need is a bag of the cotton used for perms (you know, the cotton rope), rubber gloves and some Clorox Bleach.

 

 

I took the cotton rope and plunked it into a Solo cup full of bleach and allowed it to get nice and sopping wet. Then, wearing rubber gloves, I took it out of the bleach and smushed the sopping cotton into the grout joint. Really push it so its right up against the grout. Then you can pour the extra bleach over the cotton to re-saturate it.

 

 

I let it set for about 5 hours, but you can leave it on there as long as you need.

When I pulled it off it looked like this-

 

 

No more bathroom nasties!!

(But there is some lovely tub crayon artwork courtesy of the Grayson-Boy!)

 

It really works, and for the $1.59 it cost me for the cotton I believe it was well worth it. I'm not embarrassed to have people shower in my bathroom anymore! Woo hoo!

 

 

 

 

 



Football Food- BBQ Chicken Crescent Rolls

Yes- that deliciousness happened in our house tonight.

 

We love football in this house. Its the one sport that hubs and I can watch together because I understand it enough to not annoy him to bits with my questions. Its not a question of what team we root for here- this gal bleeds Black and Gold. Now while they are good, they obviously don't win every year (and some years we down right crap the bed like we did this season). Usually when my beloved Steelers aren't in the big game, we still watch the Superbowl every year, and pick a team to root for. This is the first time that I don't care who was playing or who really wins. Its tough to root for the Ravens, they're a division rival- and if San Francisco wins they tie the Steelers for the most Superbowl wins....it really is a catch 22. So this year, I've decided that I'm just watching for the commercials. That didn't, however, stop me from wanting some good munchies for the game.

 

My mom had made shredded chicken to use in a pulled chicken dip and had some extra so she tossed it our way. I love me some leftovers, so that was fine by me, but I wanted something different to make with them.

 

So after searching my fridge and asking the hubs what he was in the mood for I came up with this.

 

 

So super easy, so good and they took a whopping 15 minutes.

 

All you need is some shredded chicken, cheese, BBQ sauce and a tube of crescent rolls.

 

Preheat oven according to directions on the rolls.

 

Put chicken in a bowl and add enough BBQ sauce to coat.

 

 

Unroll your crescents and put a good spoonful of chicken on the fat end of each roll. Top with some shredded cheese and then roll up.

 

 

 

I was worried that the cheese would glug out of the side of the crescent as it baked, but it didn't. Everything stayed where it was supposed to, which also made for easy clean up. Perfect for football food- so you can spend more time in front of the tv! I popped them into the hot oven for 10 minutes and they were all gone in less than 5. I may not care much about the game, but at least the food was delish!

 

 



DIY Birth Announcements

Hello, Lovelies! Dropping in today to share with you a post I was lucky enough to share with Kristens readers over at Life With The Ellwoods over a year ago.

Birth Announcements.
 You have to do them.  I mean, come on, you spent 9 months baking the bean you want to show him or her off.  But have you checked the price of them out?

Sorry kiddo, can't send you to college- we spent all our money on birth announcements. 

I spent hours pouring over the Internet looking for the perfect announcement.  The ones I absolutely loved?

These beauties are from Minted.com.  If you click on the picture it will link directly to the listing.

They were perfect, sweet, simple and unique.  Oh, yeah, they were also $2.20 each. We needed 100 to send out to all of our family/all of the people who came to the baby shower.

They had a similar one at Shutterfly.com

They were cheaper, at $1.35 each...but still way too much for my cheap pocket's liking.

Enter Pixlir.com.

I made these little babies for free, then printed 4x6 prints at Ritz camera to the tune of $0.09 each. Yeah, that's right nine cents each.  Oh, and the nice people at Ritz gave us the envelopes for free as well. Score!

If you haven't used pixlr before you need to check it out. You dont need an account, and it works like photoshop but is much easier. They have a few options, either express or avanced- but Express seems to work for most of my needs.

Start by uploading a photo, then have fun playing around with the different effects. You can add text, crop, color splash- tons and tons of different effects.

If you want a 4 x 8 flat card, just click on the collage tab at the beginning. Then you can choose your layout and upload photos from there.

Then choose your style, I like the four boxes side by side.
Drag and drop your pictures where you want them, leaving one block free for text. Once you finish, click finished and then it will bring you to the editing screen where you can add the effects you want.

When you're all done, click save- and thats all there is to it!

Then you just upload it to any photo printing site as a blank 4x8 card, and you're good to go.  We made similar ones for Grayson's baptism, and they cost $0.54 each at Ritz, and that included the envelopes.

And there you have it. DIY birth announcements for super cheap, and they take almost no time to make.
 

Kindness

I saw this today on a blog I stalk read regularly- Love, Fun and Football.  If you've never been introduced to Erin, you must pop over to say hello to her- shes seriously a gem (even if our teams are football rivals!). It couldn't be more fitting that today Erin posted about kindness, because in the past 24 hours you all have been so incredibly kind to me. I dont know if she intended her wave to spread, but Im passing it on tonight.

Yesterday, as you may be aware, someone let loose with a vial rant in the form of a comment aimed at my sweet baby boy.  Now normally I'm pretty laid back, but this hit me hard on many levels. I crafted my response- which to my surprise only contained one four letter word! But even before I could hit publish the comments started pouring in, and they didn't stop all day. Many of you were angry, outraged and disgusted along with me and you shared your sweet words of encouragement through facebook, email, twitter and comments. Some of you, like Rebecca, made me literally laugh out loud and nearly pee my pants. All of you told me that this person was obviously not right, and lifted my spirits when they were down. It was truly one of the greatest acts of kindness I've ever personally received.

 

Bloggers are special people. We let people into our life and we go into peoples lives and we form bonds with people who in "real" life we may never get the chance to meet.  However I know that every day I stop in to check to see how someones baby is doing, what another sweet lovely made for dinner the night before, or what other Mommas wanted to pull their hair out because of something the toddlers did or said (or more likely WOULDN'T do). Now I know my neighbors in real life, but not on the level that I know some bloggy friends and I'm totally okay with that.  In truth I wish we could all live next to each other (can you imagine the laughs/crafting/cooking that would be happening on that block?!) but even though we cant, I'm so very glad that we're all neighbors on our little slices of the Internet.

 

You all are some of the kindest, bravest, sweetest women I've ever had the chance to meet, and I cant thank each of you enough for the kindness you've shown me. I can only hope that someday I can return the favor.  Until then, spread your own kindness wave and know how much you are all appreciated and loved here in my crazy life.

 



Dear Anonymous.

We've all had them- the nasty comments that come from the Internet sissies. The ones that insult our clothes, food, blog styles, parenting choices, word choices or whatever else some coward who is too chicken to leave their real email address feels the need to pick on that day.  However, lovelies, today I was privy to be introduced to the worst of all kind of people when I popped in to check my email and saw this comment waiting in my inbox as a comment under my Say Hello tab.

"your baby is actually really hideous. Should've gotten an abortion xoxo"

 

I'm sorry- but back the hell up. You want to say something about me, that's fine. Take your best shot anonymous. However it is reprehensible, unacceptable and basically abominable that you would dare to leave a comment like this about my child- or ANY child for that matter. Obviously you knew that and that would explain why you are far too cowardly to leave your name or contact info.  You wouldn't want to have to be held accountable for your words, no. You just wanted to get a dig in where you felt you could and move on- and sign off with a little hug and kiss to make yourself feel better about being such a piece of low life scum, I assume.

 

Well let me tell you something, anonymous. My son is not hideous. No baby is "hideous". Some children may be more naturally beautiful than others but no little human being is disgusting to look at or extremely unpleasant. All babies are full of wonder and hope, they are amazing little beings that don't have hate, jealousy or contempt in their hearts.  They love and trust and laugh and teach their parents and anyone who has the privilege to be around them how to truly enjoy life. They don't have a hideous bone in their tiny bodies.

 

What is hideous, anonymous, is a person who would feel that this is okay to say about someones child.  As much as I would love to find you, I know that you were only trying to get attention and feel like you got one "up" on me. Congratulations- you hit me where it really hurt, you insulted my kid. A grown person took aim at a 16 month old who doesn't deserve your hateful spite, I hope that makes you feel like a big deal who has won. But I do have to ask, whats the prize? Its not much of a challenge when you don't leave your name to engage with a person who can respond with something more than a smile and a few simple words. 

 

Would I be lying if I thought about making this blog private? Not at all. Because my kid doesn't deserve to be called names and be subjected to the mere notion that his life is not meaningful and should have just been "fixed" by a simple visit to the abortion clinic.  I didn't start this blog to have people be outwardly cruel- I started it to chronicle Grayson's life so I could look back on the months that fly by way too fast and see how he changed and grew and remember all of the good in his life. However I know that I have met so many amazing people and recieve so many sweet comments from the people who I have come to know as my bloggy friends that this one person's opinion is not significant. Even if it is someone I know in real life, a blog friend that comments regularly, or a "silent" reader who reads and just sits in silence and judges- your opinion simply does not matter to me.

 

You can hide behind your anonymity but I know that the only person who is truly hideous here is you.

DIY Valentine Decor

Hello, Lovelies!! Just stopping by to show you the cute little valentines centerpiece that is now gracing my kitchen table. 

 

So super easy to make- all you need is a scrap of red burlap, some brown burlap, white ribbon and a mason jar. 

 

All I did was cut a rectangle of the red burlap long enough to wrap around the jar. Then I hot glued it onto a clear mason jar. A piece of left over white ribbon went over that, and I free handed a heart out of the brown burlap and attached both with hot glue.  I plunked in some fake hydrangeas I have left over from our wedding centerpieces and there you have it. All total, it took maybe 4 minutes- which is perfect for DIY decor in my book.

 



 

Close up!

 

Another good reason that it only took four minutes to make was that was all the time it took for this guy to destroy the cupcake I gave him as a distraction while Mommy crafted.

 

Hes such a hot mess. I love it.