Flogging Molly!

Last Sunday, Craig and I saw Flogging Molly at The Fillmore Charlotte!  We had never been to this particular venue and we were really curious to check it out. 

(picture above found here)

The music hall was simply amazing!  Small.  Cozy. And beautiful! 

The show opened with The Devil Makes Three who we had never before heard, but were certainly impressed with.

“Black Irish”

We were a little underwhelmed by the second act, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears.  They performed a little longer than we would have liked, but it was worth the wait to see the headliners make their way to the stage!

I was beyond excited to see Flogging Molly!  I have been a fan of this Celtic-punk group for many years… and their performances most definitely did not disappoint!

“Drunken Lullabies”

“If I Ever Leave This World Alive”

“Whistles The Wind”

“The Sun Never Shines (On Closed Doors)”

What a fun way to spend a Sunday night!  Wish we could do something like this every weekend!

Valentine’s Day Crayon Hearts

No doubt you’ve seen crayon hearts flying all over the internet in recent weeks (here, here, here, or here just to name a few of the sites).  But nevertheless, I thought they would be a fun alternative to the typical candy given out at Valentine’s Day… especially considering Bailey’s classmates Valentines are all still under 2 1/2 years old.

This was a super cheap and easy project.  The total cost was about $1.  I found a pair of silicone heart-shaped ice trays in the $1 section at Target.  Since they were designed to be ice trays I wasn’t sure if they would work, but I figured for only $1 it was worth a shot.  Then I dug through the crayon box at home and at work and gathered a small bag of old, broken crayons.  And that was it.  No other real supplies needed other than a baking sheet and a small piece of aluminum foil. 

Next I removed the paper from the outside of the crayons and snapped them into small pieces.  I piled a mixture of colors into each heart and then placed the silicone ice tray on a baking sheet.  As an afterthought I added a small piece of aluminum foil under the silicone tray, just in case it wouldn’t hold up to the temperature of the oven. 

I stuck the crayons into the oven at 250 degrees for about 10-12 minutes.  I just kept a close watch on them and took them out once it appeared that all of the crayon pieces had melted.

I set the tray aside for about 10 minutes until the wax was able to “set up” just a bit.  At that point I stuck the entire tray into the freezer to speed up the cooling process.  Once the tray was completely cool I popped the new heart-shaped crayons out and voila!

 

I enlisted the help of Bailey to bag up all of the crayons in treat bags I bought on clearance after Valentine’s Day last year.  She had fun counting the crayons and the bags as we did this!

Next I opened Microsoft Publisher and whipped up an adorable Valentine’s Day card to attach to each bag of crayons.  The card read “Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Crayons Make Me Happy, And So Do You!” on one side and had a cute little elephant coloring page on the other.

I printed the cards out on cardstock and cut them to size.  I punched a hole in one corner and used ribbon to tie one to each bag of crayons.  Wouldn’t you know it… I forgot to snap a picture of the end product. 

Bailey took them into school today for her class’ Valentine swap and I’m pretty sure the kiddos loved them!

Valentine’s Day Lovin’ From the Oven!

I decided to do a little Valentine’s Day baking for Bailey and her pre-school class.  After scouring Google and Pinterest for various treats I decided to try to make these (originally from here):

I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but the basic concept is the same.  First things first, I gathered all of the necessary supplies:

• Wax paper
• Aluminum foil
• Baking sheet
• Rolling Pin
• Heart-shaped cookie cutters in various sizes (I bought the entire pack of 6 cookie cutters at Wal-Mart for under $2)
• Pillsbury sugar cookie dough (I decided to cheat a bit and buy the pre-made dough)
• Hard candies (I had Life Savers lying around, so I decided to work with what I had)

Then I placed the cookie dough between two sheets of wax paper and used a rolling pin to spread the dough to approximately 1/4 inch thick.

Of course, as with any baking job, this step is so much easier if you enlist the aid of an eager, apron-wearing helper.  Thankfully Bailey was more than happy to lend a freshly-washed hand!

Once the dough was rolled out we removed the top layer of waxed paper and began cutting out our hearts.

After cutting out the large hearts I used a spatula to place the cookie dough on a foil-lined baking sheet.  Then I used a smaller cookie cutter to cut out the center heart.  I removed the dough at the center and set it aside to be rolled-out and reused.

The next step involved breaking the Life Saver candies into small pieces and then pouring them into the center of each heart cookie.  I used about 1 1/2 Life Savers per cookie.

After this was done I baked the cookies as the directions on the tube of dough instructed… 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes (or until the edges of the cookies are slightly golden-brown and the candies are melted).  Once the cookies were done I removed the baking sheet and let it cool for about 5 minutes before removing the cookies and placing them on wire racks. 

And in the end we were left with a lovely plate of heart-shaped windowpane cookies!  Talk about yummy!

What a sweet Valentine’s Day treat for the kiddos (and the adults) in Bailey’s classroom!

DIY Roman Shades

Craig and I decided to try our hands at making some Roman shades out of vinyl mini blinds for our kitchen/family room.  I had read a couple of tutorials that made the project seem to be pretty simple (here and here).  Unfortunately, the project turned out to be anything but simple for us thanks to a few different problems.

1. The pattern on the fabric we chose is not perfectly straight (which we didn’t realize until we had completed one shade and realized it was completely crooked when we went to mount it to the wall).
2. The widths of the windows plus the trim are odd sizes (so we couldn’t find vinyl mini blinds in the correct size).
3. Our windows are installed flush with the drywall, which means that there are no window frames to mount the shades inside of. 

So here’s what we did.

After one terribly crooked attempt, I decided to leave the fabric measuring, squaring, and cutting up to my engineer husband.  He was so frustrated after our first attempt ended up crooked that he was determined to fix it and figure out how to make it work for the rest of them.  So I just stepped back and left him to do his thing.

While Craig was engineering the heck out of the fabric I was busy in the other room disassembling the vinyl mini blinds. 

After laying the blinds out on the floor I cut and removed the lateral strings that turn the slats.  I was extra careful not to cut the thick lift cord that goes through the middle of each slat. 

Then I removed the bottom bar and slid off the majority of the vinyl slats.  I left 4 slats for the shade to be used over the sink and 5 slats for all of the other shades.

Once all of the fabric was measured, cut and hemmed we laid the vinyl blinds out on the fabric and marked where we needed to glue each slat.  We decided to glue a slat every 10 inches. (Notice how the bar doesn’t go all the way to the edge of our fabric?  That’s thanks to problem #2 listed above.  I’ll talk about how we addressed that in a minute.)

After making all of our marks we began gluing the top and bottom bars and slats in place using fabric glue.  We placed the glue on the convex side of the vinyl slats

Once all of the slats were glued in place we cut several of the leftover slats into 6 inch pieces.  We then glued these pieces to the ends of the existing slats and bars which basically extended their widths that they ran all the way to the edge of the fabric.

Then after letting the glue set for a while Craig mounted the shades to the wall 6 inches higher than the window trim (to create the illusion of taller windows). 

All in all, I think the finished products turned out great!  What do you think?

Any Guesses…

…as to whether this little one is a boy or a girl?

We don’t know either, but we will find out next week!

Potty Training Recap

Sorry for the lack of posting over the past couple of weeks.  I’ve been more than a little busy lately.  I thought I’d share with you all a little about one of the things that’s been keeping me so busy—potty training Bailey.

Now, before I get started I want to say that I had absolutely no experience potty training a child (other than our furry first child Sydney) and I had absolutely no idea what to expect going into this.  But fortunately, Bailey was ready and she figured it out really quickly!

So here’s the recap…

Back in June (at about 18 months in age) Bailey began showing signs that she was ready to potty train.  She would tell us when she would wet or dirty her diaper and she even used her little potty chair several times.  Unfortunately, at that time she was still in the infant room at the day school which was not equipped for a potty training child.  So, Craig and I decided not to push her to use the potty at home since it would be impossible for her to be successful pottying at school.  Instead, we opted just to let her use her potty when she asked to and wait it out until she was promoted to the toddler class in August.  Once she joined the toddler class we decided to again wait to push the potty training subject so that she could instead focus on adjusting to the new classroom routines (sleeping on a mat, eating in a chair at the table, etc.).  Our plan was to utilize the week between Christmas and New Years (when the day school was closed and I was off of work) to start the serious potty training.

As mentioned before, I had no idea what to do to potty train a child.  So I read a lot of articles online and talked with family, friends and people from work about what did and didn’t work for their kids.  I also consulted Bailey’s pediatrician to see what she would suggest.  I didn’t follow any particular method (at least not to my knowledge).  I just decided to pick-and-choose the bits of advice that I thought would work best for Bailey, Craig and myself.

Our basic plan was to:

1. Do some serious “prep work”.
2. Stop using diapers cold turkey and make a complete shift to cotton underwear (That’s right… no Pull-Ups… not even at nap time or bed time!  We had read and heard from several people that Pull-Ups are too similar to diapers and they can be confusing for a child.)
3. Put Bailey on the potty at regular intervals (every 30 minutes to one hour… depending on her progress) and use a kitchen timer as an auditory reminder.
4. Go pants-less for the week (or at least for the first few days), since pants can be cumbersome and can slow down a mad-dash to the potty.
5. Limit liquids during the first 3-4 days and gradually increase liquids after that (so that the child can learn the feeling of their bladder filling).
6. Use basic rewards like stickers to encourage Bailey and make the process more fun.
7. Place a puppy pad under her on the couch or in her crib to help protect things if accidents occur.
8. Don’t leave home at all during the first 4 days and after that limit trips out to no more than an hour or so.

About 2-3 weeks before Christmas I started the “prep work” with Bailey.  I let her go to the potty with me.  I did the “potty dance” and then rushed into the bathroom and pretended to go (probably looked like an idiot in the process, but who cares).  I tried to work pottying into almost every conversation I had with her.  I would say things like “you’re going to be a big girl soon and big girls get to wear big girl panties”.  While changing diapers I would say things like “shew… what a stinky diaper… big girls don’t wear stinky diapers.”  I even had family and friends talk with her about it.  The poor child was absolutely inundated with potty talk!  I taped a couple of pieces of blank computer paper to the wall outside of the bathroom and told her that they were for the stickers she would get when she was a big girl and started using the potty.  I took her shopping and let her pick out underwear for herself (naturally she chose Dora panties).  I told her that the Dora panties were special and were for big girls.  She was so excited by this that she told everyone at the school about her “special Dora panties”!  I put the Dora panties away in her dresser drawer and pulled them out every couple of days to show them to her and remind her that when she used the potty like a big girl she would get to wear them.  In addition to the regular panties that we bought I also stocked up on cotton training underwear (buying 12 pairs), which are basically thicker, more absorbent versions of regular underwear.  These can be easily found in the infant section at most stores (I bought Bailey’s at Target, Wal-Mart and K-mart). 

Once the Christmas holiday was over and we were back in Tennessee it was time to get down to serious business.  Day one of potty training consisted of Craig and I waking Bailey up, excitedly talking to her about how today she was a big girl, taking her diaper off (and explaining to her that she no longer needed diapers since she was a big girl),  setting her on the potty (which she didn’t use the first few times) and then putting a pair of training underwear on her (minus pants of course).  We set the kitchen timer for 30 minutes and told her that when the timer went off she would have to try to use the potty.  When the timer went off we stopped whatever we were doing and excitedly ran to the potty.  At first she didn’t want to sit on the potty very long, so we used books to keep her attention while she sat.  Sometimes she pottied and other times she didn’t.  But either way we praised her efforts!  Then we’d reset the timer and repeat the process all over again.  If she had an accident (which she had plenty of the first few days) we would just say “uh oh… remember you have to use your potty” or “remember you have to keep your panties dry and clean”.  Don’t get me wrong… it was frustrating!  Especially when she would have an accident 5 minutes after we had just taken her to the potty, but we did our best to remain calm and positive with her.  We didn’t give her anything to drink after dinner time (around 6:00) and we woke her up as we were going to bed (around 11:00) to have her try to potty one last time at night.  We reconnected the baby monitor to listen for her during the night in case she woke up to use the potty (which she didn’t do the first few nights).

Days two and three consisted of the same routine as day one.  Wake up, potty, set timer and so on… but with greater success.  By Day four I felt brave enough to take Bailey out of the house for about an hour to go visit Craig at work.  I had her bag all packed (with extra undies, clothes, wipes and her folding potty seat) and waited to leave until right after she had had a successful potty trip.  I placed a puppy pad in her car seat and we headed out.  Thankfully she had a nice, accident-free visit to Craig’s office (with lots of praise from Daddy and Mommy) before we headed back home.  By the end of the first week she was going about 1 1/2 to 2 hours between pottying.  She would often tell us when she needed to go instead of us having to ask her.  And best of all she was only having maybe 1 accident a day (aside from wetting the bed at night… which was a different issue entirely)  and we were able to make more trips out of the house each day!

The following week she returned to school (after being out for over a week).  She was very excited to tell her teachers and friends about how she was now using the potty.  The first few days the teachers asked her every 30 minutes or so if she needed to go potty (since she’s so easily distracted by her friends and all the fun at school).  She had 1 or 2 accidents a day for the first few days.  By the end of the week she had a couple of days without any accidents at all!  She had even begun to wake up at night to use to potty!  Talk about success!  We decided to stick with the training underwear for the third week as well, even though she was virtually accident free at home and school (only having maybe 2 or 3 accidents the entire third week… including at night!).  I continued talking with her about her special Dora panties that she would get to wear soon.  Week four we took the training underwear off and put the special Dora panties on!  She was so proud of herself and so excited that she tried to pull her pants down to show her teacher and friends when she returned to school this past Monday!  And I’m pleased to say that she has been 100% accident free (during the day and night) ever since!

So, that’s my not-so-short version of about 4 weeks of hard work in the Leonberg house.  I have to admit that I am surprised Bailey took to it as quickly and easily as she did.  I truly didn’t know what to expect and was envisioning the worst!  And even though these steps seemed to work for us, I know they won’t necessarily work for everyone else.  But I think it all boils down to whether or not your child is ready and the amount of prep work you put into it.

Guess What!

Mommy & Daddy told me that I’m going to be a big sister.

I’m not really sure what that means…

…but they were pretty happy about it!

They even showed me these pictures.

But after taking a good look at them I’ve gotta say…

…I’m not really sure what all of the fuss is about.