Some Fall Fun

Yesterday was the first day of Daylight Saving Time, AKA The Bain of Every Parent's Existence.

It starts getting dark so early here now, and will only be getting dark earlier for a while now.  Plus, it is getting to be cold outside in the afternoons. 

Sigh. Gone are the days of long, lingering afternoons and evenings outside, enjoying fresh air and sunshine - and here are the days of me coming up with a few indoor activities each week to keep my girls happy and prevent endless hours and hours of watching Disney Jr. and to keep them from driving me insane.

My girls LOVE playdough. 

I am a mean mom.  I HATE playdough.  It is messy and annoying.  The store bought stuff is especially gross and smelly.  My kids bug me almost every single day to play with some play dough - and like I said, I am mean - I make up some excuse as to why we cannot possibly do playdough today (or tomorrow or for the rest of their lives the week) and hope that they forget that they asked. 

Today I decided that I would just get over myself and let them have dough!  Homemade pumpkiny fally scented dough, no less.  (I got this idea HERE   and the recipe HERE.)
What did we do before Pinterest?!  It is such a never ending well of activities for everyone, especially kids! A mom's best friend!!!)

I ended up taking the idea from the link above and putting my own spin on it. 

I made a double batch of the dough, so that there would be a good sized ball for each girl.  This dough smells super good, too.  Like Pumpkin Pie.  It is even the color of Pumpkin Pie. And it is soft and stretchy and not at all crumbly or messy. Best dough ever. For reals.  :-)

Next I went out in the yard and gathered up a bunch of "fally" items from nature - sticks, leaves, pinecones, pine needles, little nut things - whatever I could find.

I laid all of these things out on cookie sheets and let the girls have at them.

It was love at first sight.  The smell of the dough and the items from nature were immediate hits. 

 

As I type, they have been playing with this project for MORE THAN TWO HOURS. With no fighting!  Anyone with a two and a three year old knows hat that NEVER happens! LOL! 

 

They have made cakes, cookies, a dragon, a turkey, a porcupine, and a million other amazing things!  My dad even dropped by (He brought us some awesome soup that he made and got me off the hook for making dinner! SCORE! Thanks, Dad! My hero!) and got in on the fun by helping make a sweet grasshopper.  Nothing like a pumpkin pie scented grasshopper made by your Papa to make a fun afternoon even better! :-)

 

The only downside of this project is going to be dealing with the fallout here in a little bit when I have them that it is time to clean up! LOL  I think I will give them just a few more minutes.....  I don't have the heart to break up the sister love and the Fall fun just yet. :-) Perhaps I should change my no playdough policy? 

Holy Terrible Twos, Batman!

I came in from working out this morning to this lovely surprise:

(Not pictured:  The couch and ottoman that are as coated in diaper rash cream as the kid that is pictured.)

 

 

When I asked her what she was doing with the diaper rash cream and why it was smeared on everything in the room, she had a fair answer: "Pretending it was yipstick.  And lotion. And paint. And shampoo."

 

I stood there - mostly trying not to laugh out loud.

 

She thought I was going to get mad, so she started to cry.

 

Poor Bug. 

 

Her Terrible Twos were showing.

 

Again.

 

You see, this isn't an uncommon occurrence for my little Bugster. 

 

For every bit of ornery trouble that Hoot gave me when we were in the throws of the dreaded Terrible Twos, her sister multiplies it by ten fold.  This kid is the ultimate benchmark for the Terrible Twos.

 

She gets into EVERYTHING.  She makes EPIC messes.  She wants to do everything "ALL BY MYSELF!" in her own way and her own time.  She picks her own clothes, her own lunch, her own toys, her own everything - and any one else's help or opinion is met with EXTREME opposition.

 

And, HOLY COW - can this child ever throw a temper tantrum.  Loud. Long. Dramatic.  Unlike anything you have ever seen.  She has an IRON WILL.

 

Having patience with her is my biggest struggle most days.

 

But on the other hand, look at that face. 

 

She may be the strongest willed human being alive, and she may have a shriek that could shatter glass (and eardrums) and she may have an uncanny knack for getting into trouble - but she is also adorable.  And snuggly.  And SO funny - my little comedian. 

 

And it's a dang good thing - because her Terrible Twos are shaping up to be LEDENDARY. 

 

 



Little Ladies vs. Zoo Animals: Making a Reward Jar!

We are in desperate need of an attitude adjustment in our house.

My girls have been pretty ornery lately.  

Tantrums, drama, fighting, sassy mouths, arguing, refusal to do as they are asked, eye-rolling.  

Yes, eye-rolling! Complete with huffing and puffing sounds!! What on Earth?! They are two and three - isn't the eye-rolling supposed to come later in life?  Like in the pre-teen years?  And for the record, nothing gets a mother's blood boiling like having a kid roll there eyes at you.  No wonder my mom hated that! LOL Sorry, mom!

I am trying to raise young women with grace and class, good manners, and empathy for others. I want them to tell the truth, know the difference between right and wrong, and be grateful for each other and the things that they have.  I am trying to raise ladies of outstanding character.... But sometimes I wonder if I am raising wild animals instead.  Actually, I think that sometimes a herd of wildebeests or a pack of wolves has more manners than these two cute little girls do.  It is like living in a zoo.

We already have set rules in our house.  I remember years ago before we had kids, I heard a friend of my husband's five sisters discussing discipline for their kids.  One of them (who has a bunch of kids herself) said that they had a certain set of House Rules that she had come up with to make their lives run more smoothly. These rules were so basic - vague enough to encompass all situations, and easy enough for even little ones to understand - but they really reflected the types of values that I want to send my own children out into the world with.  I never forgot them.  So, I did what any smart mom would do and I shamelessly stole them. LOL They have been slightly adjusted over time to suit our needs, but they are fundamentally the same.

 And here they are:

HOUSE RULES

Use kind words and a kind tone.

Tell the truth.

Be respectful to people and things.

Keep hands, feet and teeth to yourself.  

Listen to Mom and Dad.

Clean up after yourself.

Be helpful.  

Choose to have a great day.

There.  Now you can steal them from me. :-)

As for getting my girls to follow these rules, we have had periods of success and periods that were not quite so successful.  

At first, just reminders and talking about the rules with Hayden (and by proxy Carly because she still was/is little) was enough.  They were new and fun and she liked having something to "remind" us about.

Then, the novelty wore off and it was back to the drawing board.

We moved on to a sticker chart - follow the rules all day, get a sticker; not so great behavior, try again tomorrow.  Certain number of stickers, get a prize. This worked okay. Hayden will do anything for the eventual promise of buying some new Legos, so she would work for her sticker at the end of the day - but there was one catch.  No one on earth - even you or me - can be good ALL THE TIME. On the days that we had a hard time and had to tell Hayden that she would have to try again tomorrow, it was just devastating for her.  It ruined many a bedtime because she just wanted a sticker.  It was just too black and white for her little brain and I think that the message was getting lost.

The truth is that even on the days that a kid has a hard time, they surely had at least one shining moment that day.  Even if they spent the day in and out of timeout, even if they broke every single rule and you are ready to drop them off at a church or a firehouse, I am willing to bet that they said please and/or thank you without a reminder at least one time that day, or maybe helped pick up toys or cleaned up their lunch dishes or some other little thing that warranted recognition.  

I love the positive reinforcement of the sticker chart, but I feel like it just wasn't clear enough.  I need to try harder to focus in on and acknowledge all of the good things that my girls are doing - and focus a little less on the negative - even on the hard days. If the good behavior is the focus and the bad is simply met with a time-out and then it's over, the hope is that we (the parents) will be rewarded with more good behavior.  Perhaps if they are more aware of the small things they can do to follow the rules, our days can be a little less of a zoo - and they will feel more inclined to do the things that earn a reward.  And I will feel less inclined to actually drop them off at the zoo.

So, with that in mind, I have come up with a new plan of attack.  

Today we made some Reward Jars.

Here's what I used - you might even have most of these things (or something else that will work) laying around the house, but if you don't they are cheap and reusable.

 -1 clear jar per kid (I am using pint mason jars, but you can use a pickle jar or a plastic cup or bottle, or whatever you have. I like the clear ones because they have a constant visual reminder of how close they are to their goal)

-A whole bunch of plastic beads (I have also seen jars like this where people used Pom-poms or marbles - any small manageable thing that you have a bunch of will work.  I wanted something that my girls would think was fun and these beads were a variety pack that happens to have animals and sparkly beads and other things they thought were fun.  I also wanted something that would fill the jars up at a reasonable rate of speed - as in not taking a year to fill up if I was handing out a lot of beads, but not being filled up in one afternoon. Also, as a bonus, they were only $5 for a big old tub.)

-Stickers for decorating (Totally optional, but it helped my girls get excited to earn some beads for their jars, and the time they spent decorating was a great time to talk about how our new plan was going to work.)

So the plan is that the girls can earn beads by following the House Rules and doing it with a happy heart.  There is no cap on how many beads that they can earn in one day, or even in one sitting, Just every time that Daddy or I feel that they are really being the great kids that we know they are - saying kind things to each other, using good manners, cleaning up a mess without having any drama, being helpful, going to nap without a tantrum, etc. - they get to add a bead to their jar.  When the jar is full to the top, they will get a very special treat.  Knowing my Lego-crazy Hoot and the fact that she has a baby sis who wants to be just like her, they will want Legos of course! :-)

So far, so good.  Even Carly (age 2) is reminding her sister that if they do good things, they will get to pick a bead.  They went to nap today with ZERO drama, woke up happy, put on shoes and are now pretending that they are Trick-or-Treating in the backyard as I type.  They have earned several beads each and are very proud.  I like that it feels like I am trying to catch them being kind and having good behavior and not dreading the end of the day when I have to tell them that they don't get a sticker because they had to sit in time out earlier in the day.  I love that we are all focusing on the positive. 

It is so simple!!  BE GOOD = GET SOMETHING GOOD!  I will keep you updated on how this plan works for us.  Hopefully we are on the right track to acting more like Classy Little Ladies and less like a herd to unruly wildebeests - because Mama can't take it anymore! LOL

What kinds of things do you do in your home to help your kids learn good behavior?  How do you adjust your "program" as they get older?  What kind of incentives do your kids work for? Leave me a comment! :-)

All Aboard the Crazy Train: Toddler Road Trip 101

We haven't been on a family vacation since Hayden was six months old.

The ugly truth is this:  The idea of any period of time longer than it takes to get to WalMart spent in the car with my kids has a tendency to be miserable.  Crying. Whining. Fighting. Sometimes puking.  It is enough to drive the sanest, most patient person to hurl themselves from a moving vehicle. Seeing as I am neither the sanest or the most patient person, I was starting out at a disadvantage. 

So I just avoided it.

Until this summer.  We just returned from facing my fears head-on - The Diegel Family took this circus on the road.

My husband's company sent us all on an incentive trip to Park City, Utah. We stayed The Grand Summit at The Canyons Resort. Let me tell you - it is gorgeous.  I love little mountain towns!!  And ski towns in the summer = PERFECT for kids.

This was the view from our hotel window:

 

Park City is 9ish hours from our house.  My girls were such troopers - and it didn't hurt that I had a bunch of tricks up my sleeve.

 

First of all, I will admit to "doping" my kids with Children's Dramamine.  Carsickness was at the top of my list of fears on this trip.  (Remember me? The sympathetic puker who gave birth to another sympathetic puker?)  Hayden has gotten carsick a few times in the past, though not lately (knock on wood) and even though Carly never has (knock on wood)  but I don't want to find out if she does.  So we drugged our kids. Judge away.

 

Second bit of advice I have was given to me by a friend who had just traveled solo with her 2.5 year old cross country - LEAVE AT 3AM, BE DONE IN THE CAR BY NOON.  Seriously.  We left at three, and our kids were awake for a little bit and then slept until 8am.  We had driven more than half way, no stops, no crying, and they were totally unaware that it had happened.  We didn't do this on the way home.  Take our word for it - DO IT THIS WAY.   Trust me!

 

When they woke up, we stopped to potty.  Another road trip MUST = forced bathroom breaks.  I don't care if Hayden says she has to go or not, she has to sit on the potty and go.  Otherwise, we will end up stopping along side the road or at a shady looking roadside rest two miles out of  town.  And little girls + shady roadside rests = GROSS. 

 

After forced potty breaks, we passed out breakfast - those premade PB&J sammies, chocolate milk in a box, raisins, crackers, all packed into new lunchboxes that we just passed back to them, along with a spill proof cup with ice water. 

 

Soon, (38 seconds later to be exact) they lost interest in breakfast.

 

Now, here's when poop got real, people.  Here is where the roadtrip really began.

 

 

Thankfully, I had planned ahead for this moment.  I had a HUGE stash of surprises. 

 

I had gone to the dollar store and bought a bunch of little crap treasures ($80 worth - ack - that seems insane, I know) to use as bribes surprises- small toys, stickers, lollipops, fruit snacks, band aids, plastic jewelry, coloring books, magnets and cookie sheets to stick them on, pipe cleaners and cereal to make necklaces, paper bag puppet kits, a million new board books, etc. - and I wrapped them all up in tissue paper, like one million tiny presents.  I had a basket for the trip there and a basket for the trip back.  There were two identical packages of everything to prevent fighting, of course.  This worked like a charm.  Every 38 seconds (give or take - haha!)  I had something to pass to them.  They were happy as can be for the next four hours.  No complaining, no fighting - the bribes surprises and one stop at a playground to play before hitting the road again and they were happy campers.

 

 

Because we had left so early, we were in Salt Lake by 12:30.  It was great that we had practically an entire day before we could even check into our hotel at 4, so we took the little troopers to Utah's Hogle Zoo.  We dressed them in the parking lot, fed them a quick lunch from the ice chest (another tip: pack an ice chest full of drinks, snacks, sandwich stuff, waters, beer. It will save you so much money!! More on that in a minute.) and took the monkeys to the zoo.

 

They had never been to a zoo before - and they thought it was MAGIC.

 

 

The only complaint was that it was HOT. 104 degrees to be exact. It felt like the surface of the sun. Between the heat and the fact that we had skipped naps to go to the zoo, that little rental stroller soon became more like an MMA fighting ring.  They were killing eachother in there.

 

Naturally, we shut them up with snow cones as big as their heads.

 

 

They had so much fun, but it soon became clear that we were going to pay the price for skipping an afternoon nap.  But by the time we checked in to our room, it was too late to let them take a nap, so we explored the village at The Canyons on our Strider bikes in an attempt to ride it out. 

 

 

We shot for an early-ish bedtime - one that came only after a very loud, very grouchy experience in a very expensive restaurant that resulted in two grouchy, embarrassed parents.....  We made sure to avoid that mess for the rest of the trip by planning mornings and afternoons as two separate things, with our usual 1pm nap in the middle.   It just wasn't worth the price we paid later.  So yet another tip: DO NOT skip nap. 

 

And set your expectations LOW.

 

An example of setting your expectations low:  The next day we thought that the kids might like to explore downtown.  Shopping, walking around, lunch.  That sounded like fun. We would have fun. The kids would love it!!

 

We were wrong.  They acted like total monsters the whole time.  Crying. Whining. Causing more embarrassing scenes.  We were read to give them away.

 

Don't let this weird little smile fool you.

 

 

She is actually in time-out. For the fourth time that day. Ugh.

 

Another tip: Find a brewery that serves lunch. 

 

 

 

You will be glad you did.

 

Of all of the things downtown, the only thing our kids liked was the free trolley.  This was the only time that they smiled the entire morning.

 



 

Then, when it was time to get off of the glorified bus trolley, they both immediately melted down and cried because we couldn't (well, mostly Garrett and I wouldn't) stay on the damn thing all day.

 

Ugh. Where was that brewery again?? LOL

 

Anyway, we drove two screaming trolley lovers back to the hotel for nap.

 

Now, navigating a hotel stay with kids is just as interesting as the roadtrip part of a vacation.  Kids are loud, antsy, and eat a lot.  None of which is conducive to a hotel room.

 

This is another place besides the car where the ice chest comes into play.  We stocked and restocked our huge ice chest and we took it in the room with us.  We fed them PB&Js for breakfast every morning and usually had snacks and drinks on hand, as well as things for lunch most days.  I swear, this saved us SO MUCH money!!

 

Another lifesaver was a sort of unexpected one.  I bought this bucket of Legos before we left and it kept them (especially Hayden) busy and happy at times we were in the room.

 

 

That afternoon, we enjoyed the village some more on our bikes and enjoyed a really fun picnic/party put on by Garrett's company.

 

 

The next morning we got up early (my kids are early birds anyway) and went for a swim.  Earlier in the summer, Hayden was afraid of the pool for some unknown reason, so I have been careful about taking her when things aren't too rowdy, so early morning was perfect.  We were all alone there - we noticed that in the afternoon it was WAY too crowded for our little swimmers and avoided it.

 

 

We were all having so much fun, and then, after lunch it all came to a screeching halt when for some still unkown reason, Carly puked in he car seat on our way to buy Garrett some flip-flops..... We were pretty well stuck in the room for the rest of that day.

 

 

Thank goodness for those Legos.

 

 

She must have had a little tummy bug because she ran a little fever, slept off and on all day, and woke up the next morning hungry and spunky, if a little bit tired and grumpy. But she was fine so we got the fun rolling again.

 

We decided that we would take them up the hill on the Gondola at the Canyons.  They liked this almost as much as that stupid trolley. 

 

 

In fact, there was a replay of that meltdown when it was time to get off at the top.  They wanted to ride the Gondola like a merry-go-round, up and down and up and down all day long.  And, like the trolly incident, they created quite a scene. 

 

(Why wasn't there a brewery at the top of this mountain?)

 

Once we all got over the gondola trauma, we played swords.

 

 

And hiked a mile (each way) to a lake.

 

 

 

And looked for fairies.

 

 

It was really fun - and the Wasatch mountains are just PERFECT.  I love these precious little adventures with my girls - even the unpleasant parts (ahem, the fit at the gondola) - and my husband.  I hope that the girls are falling in love with nature a little more each time so that the four of us can continue having this kind of simple fun.

 

After nap, we strapped on our helmets and went to check the little downhill mountain bike skills park right behind the hotel.

 

 

They really never cease to amaze me - especially on these bikes.  They are so fearless and brave.  Like I have said before, they didn't get that from me.  I hope they stay that way, though.

 

 

(Doesn't the pink Mohawk helmet just suit Carly Kate perfectly?! I love it!!)

 



 

I think that we have two future badasses hardcore mountain bikers in our brood.  They had a BLAST.  We are planning in adding some of these features to our own little Strider track in the back yard. 

 

And to round out the afternoon, we played a painful fun round of mini-golf.

 

 

The jury is still out on whether or not we have any golfers in our brood - because, well, we stunk.  LOL You can't be good at everything, I guess.

 

Our vacation ended up being so much fun.  A little bit of planning (and a lot of bribery and some VERY low expectations and a few beers) went a long way.  I know that it doesn't seem like we really made any effort to do anything earth-shattering - and it looks that way because that is exactly right.  We just remembered that our kids are still little and tried not to ask too much of them (waiting in line, long drives outside of the trip to and from, skipping naps, walking ridiculously long distances, etc.) and we remember that we have more fun when our plans are small (and there are breweries nearby).  We tried not to sweat the small stuff - like tantrums - or let the big stuff - a random puking kid - get to us either. 

 

And on our never-ending drive home, the dumb VTech Battery Sucker things didn't hurt one bit.

 

 

All in all, my fear of roadtrips is greatly diminished.  In fact, I wish that we had the time and money to take another one right away. 

 

Because, honestly, if I am going to be locked in a car, traveling across the desert, for hours and hours on end with anyone, it is these three weirdoes.

 

 

LOL Aren't I a lucky lady?