Spring Celebrating 2014

I love that my kids are growing up in an interfaith household where they get to experience so many wonderful traditions, customs, and holidays.  But a couple times of year that means we are super busy! And Spring is one of those times...
Last Monday, we all gathered at my parents house for our annual Seder.  A Seder isn't necessarily a very exciting event (at least compared to egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, etc), but the boys did get to taste matzo ball soup (which they loved), hunt for the afikomen (a hidden piece of matzah), and play with the Passover stickers Nene got them.

Over the course of the week, I tried to teach the boys a little about honoring Passover.  As Jews, we are not supposed to eat anything that has risen (mainly bread, but basically anything with flour/yeast so pasta, baked goods, and some even take it to rice, corn, etc).  So, we substituted matzah sandwiches at lunch time and even tried matzo brei (a delicious scrambled egg and matzah combo that I have always loved and my boys agreed!) one morning for breakfast.  And that was pretty much it for our Passover celebration!

Of course, we also had to fit Easter in.

We dyed and painted eggs.

And we made some chocolate peanut butter eggs to give away as gifts.

And when Easter morning rolled around, the boys were very excited to find that the Easter Bunny had indeed come and left them some goodies behind.

Colton and Levi were super excited to find out that the Easter bunny had even left behind some eggs out front for them to hunt for.

When they were done with that hunt, the boys headed over to their Gammy and Pop's house for another egg hunt (this time with their cousin Gavin who was going to church afterwards hence his spiffy appearance) and some breakfast.

At night we concluded our celebrating with dinner at Josh's parents house.  

It's no secret that I love traditions and celebrating, so I must admit I am a little sad that our celebrating is over...until the next holiday rolls around anyway!

52 Weeks of Romance

If you're a regular reader around here, you've no doubt heard my little spiel about Valentine's Day. In case you've missed it, here's the gist: I like the holiday, but more in the let's do something nice to acknowledge it together way, not in the let's spend lots of money and get each other really extravagant things.  It's always a challenge for me to come up with something thoughtful and useful for Josh.  But this year, I'm thinking I may have come up with a winner.
Like most couples who have young children (or at least the ones I'm friends with), romance often takes a back seat for us.  We're so busy parenting and surviving that by the time the kids are tucked in snugly to bed, we are both ready to check out as well! Josh and I have often talked about ways we could bring some romance back to our relationship, but oftentimes are discussions are a lot more talk and a lot less action.  With Valentine's Day being all about romance, I figured this was the perfect time to attempt to do something real about it.

Enter our 52 weeks of romance jar.  I spent a few days brainstorming romantic gestures...and of course, I turned to Google and Pinterest when I couldn't come up with any more!  Because romance has so many dimensions, I tried to touch on all of them in my list.  In the end, I came up with 52 acts...one for each week of the year.  My thought is that we will  pick one stick a week and then have the week to accomplish the task...this way, there's still a bit of an element of surprise as to when the things happen.
I'm hoping that my jar will cause us to be a little more thoughtful and a bit more connected.  And then Valentines Day will last all year, and not just one short night!

Tradition: Yay or Nay?

As a  Pinterest-loving, DIY enthusiast, creative (if I don't say so myself) mommy, I have had a little dilemma arise when it comes to holidays.
It started with Halloween.  There were all of those adorable, handmade costumes circulating.  I was pretty sure I could craft my kiddos something cute and unique.  But they didn't want cute and unique.  They wanted to be super heroes.  And even though I probably could have DIYed a superhero ensemble, I quickly realized it was a. not worth effort and b. it would never stand up to the very authentic ones sold in stores.  Plus, I remembered how much fun it was each year to go and pick out that perfect Halloween costume, and figured my kids should have the same experience.  So that's what we did!  And they very happily sported their store-bought costumes!  Sure, I cringed a little when we were at Colton's Halloween parade at school and there were those few kids in their mom-made originals, but I quickly got over it.

And now that Valentine's Day is here, I'm faced with another quandary. If you've logged on to Pinterest at all, I'm sure you've been bombarded with the adorable, hand-made Valentine options out there.  The photo cards, the homemade, color-coordinated snack mix, the options for toys instead of candy...the possibilities are endless.  But when we were at Target a couple weeks back, my boys spotted the boxes of Valentines and very quickly got excited about what box they were going to get (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spongebob, various superheroes...again the possibilities were endless, which is really weird cause I honestly can't tell you how they even know who the TMNT or Spongebob are!). So when it came time to sit down this weekend and do their class Valentines, guess what we ended up with?  Yep, the good ole box kind.

And again, they were thrilled!  We spent a few minutes at Target a few days before where they each excitedly made their final selection (Lego Star Wars for Colton and Superman for Levi) and proudly carried them through the rest of our shopping trip.  

So here's the great debate: who is the DIY route really for? I kind of came to the conclusion that it was 100% for me...not to show up the other parents or anything, but because I genuinely enjoy doing it (and blogging about it!). But the kids...well, they're probably just as content, and arguably more so, walking into those stores and handpicking the most perfect Halloween costume/Valentine cards/etc that they can find!  So why are we trying so hard to mess with a good thing? Isn't the joy of picking these things out part of the thrill of childhood? And at the risk of getting way overly philosophical/preachy, by picking for our kids the Halloween costume they are going to wear or the Valentines they will give, are we maybe, just maybe, taking away some of the independence and sense of self we are trying so hard to embed in them? 

So yeah, we took the easy route, but you know what...I'm actually really proud that I did! I love that their choices will serve as a reminder as to where their budding personalities stand at this point!  And I'm glad that they are so proud of the choices they made and so eager to share them with their friends.

Easy Valentine's Grandparents Gift

My boys have gotten really embarrassing about holidays and gifts.  Each and every occasion, including other people's birthdays, is about what they are going to get from it.  When we picked out Valentines to give to their classes, Colton initially threw a fit because he wanted to keep all of them for himself.  On the way to any birthday party, all both boys talk about is the goody bag they will eventually receive.  And don't even get me started on Christmas and how they ripped through present after present, asking for more when they were finished (in fairness, they were fine when they realized there were no more, but still...).
I'm hoping this is purely a developmental thing, but I'm also trying really hard to teach them that occasions are about more than just them, gifts, and candy!  So we're starting with Valentine's Day.  I've repeatedly enforced that the real point of Valentine's Day is to tell and show those you care about just how much you care about them.  We've gone over and over those in their lives that are special, and not surprisingly Nene and Papa are generally near the top of the list.  So we decided to make them a little something special to show them the love.
I picked up some heart frames from Michaels for just $1 each and some red, white, and pink paints.  Once we got everything home, I instructed the boys to just use their fingerprints to dot the wooden part of the frame.

They had a really good time doing it and it was a pretty mess-free, easy, affordable project.  Plus, I love the way their personalities shine through in their frames.  Note: Colton's perfectly filled in, all red frame, while Levi's creation is a total random scattering of all three colors (the third one was a collaboration in case you're curious).

Obviously, we're going to add an adorable photo of the boys in the frame before we gift them.
And I think we may even combine them with a few of these cookie pops (which I'm also thinking we may give to the boys' teachers).
                                       

via

I don't know if this spirit of giving is really working (considering they're still most eager to check their mailboxes each morning), but I'm hoping if we keep at it, they'll start to get the point.  And hopefully, Nene and Papa (and a couple other special people) will love their presents!

A Couple Weeks of Love

Now that February is here, it's time to start thinking about Valentine's Day.  Here's the thing.  I'm not really a big fan of Valentine's Day in the "make it a big deal" sense.  I think it's a nice time to acknowledge all the special people in our lives, to think about why we love them, and to make them feel that love, but I don't need gifts, a fancy dinner, or anything extravagant to do that...just some nice words and quality time with those I love most.  So usually I don't even think about how we are going to celebrate until a couple days ahead of time, leaving me with some pretty slim options!
Luckily, though, I got my s- together plenty in advance.  I decided I wanted to write little love notes to all my special boys (including Josh)...one for each day of February leading up to Valentines Day.  My original idea is that I would just tape a new one to each of their doors each morning, but then I spotted these super adorable mailboxes at Target in the dollar section (their names weren't on there...obviously)

So the new approach is to leave a little heart in the mailbox each morning.  Each heart just has a little reason why I love them jotted on it.  And then we take the heart and tape it to their bedroom door.  And since I had the adorable mailboxes and figured it would be more fun, I also picked up a few surprises to leave in the mailboxes some of the days.
Oh, and have no fear for Josh.  He didn't get a mailbox, but he is getting little heart notes each day!
Just two days into February, the boys are really loving this new Valentine tradition and are eagerly awaiting going to their mailbox each morning.  Truthfully, they don't really seem to care what the notes say (I think mainly because of their ages), but I really enjoyed writing them.  After all, that's the whole point of Valentine's Day (at least to me): to sit down and really think of all the small things that make these wonderful people in our lives just so wonderful!

Ringing In 2014 Right

Ever since we have been parents, our New Years Eves have been pretty lame.  We've gone to dinner...but nowhere too fancy for fear of ruining other diners' meals...and we're usually home by about 10...and asleep before the ball drops!  
Well, this year I decided to do something to change that!  Obviously hiring a babysitter is always an option, but really I like the idea of ringing in the new year with my kiddos (or at least until they go to bed!). We talked about having a party, but then other people would have to drive...and would likely leave before the ball drop for the same reasons we do!
 Luckily, though, we live in a beach town where houses for rent are pretty available!  A few months ago, I contacted a group of our friends and family to see who would be in and then set out to find a house.  At first, I ran up against a brick wall as most places required three nights stay...and we didn't really want to pay for three nights of a "vacation" in our own town!  But I finally hit the jackpot when I found a house for rent by owner that was willing to let us do just two nights...and she discounted the price for each of the two nights so we were really only paying a little bit more for both nights!
And because of that good fortune, we were able to spend New Year's Eve in a pretty nice beach house with 14 our good friends...and 3 other friends for the boys!  It was the most perfect way to ring in the new year.  We all chipped in a contributed a couple dishes to a celebratory cocktail party dinner.  Basically, we just sat around eating, drinking, chatting, and playing with the kiddos.

At 8 PM, we did a little countdown for the kiddos, complete with party glasses (which Levi totally rocked!) and sparkling grape juice in flutes.  They loved it!  They went around cheersing and kissing everyone.

After the kids went to bed, we whipped out the Cards Against Humanity.  Anyone else played that?  I'm not a games person, but this one was actually a blast!  And then we just chatted and hung out some more until the big ball drop and beyond!  Eventually I stopped taking pictures, but you get the idea!

Like I said, it was the perfect way to ring in 2014!  And as an added bonus, we actually got to have a pretty awesome little "staycation."  The house had a game room with foosball, pool, a Wii, and a couple arcade games.  It also had a hot tub (and pool in the summer) and a big jetted tub in our bathroom.  We took full advantage of all of them!

Plus, we got to spend lots of quality time with good friends.  The boys were in absolute heaven having other playmates, young and old, in their very own house and couldn't wait to get downstairs to play with them each day!  

It's probably not surprising that the boys didn't want to leave!  Colton asked us multiple times if we could live in the house forever, so clearly it was a big success...and hopefully something we repeat for many years!