Refrigerated cookie dough tubes, FTW!
And can I get an Amen to this bit of wisdom from the lovely Mandy from Harper’s Happenings?
Refrigerated cookie dough tubes, FTW!
And can I get an Amen to this bit of wisdom from the lovely Mandy from Harper’s Happenings?
Well, wow. The last 48 hours have been pretty swell. I’ve been slaving for 4 years over posts on this blog about meaningful things like mommy wars and breastfeeding and almost pooping my baby into a toilet, but I post one blog about a cross dressing, drunk elf and I get more traffic in 2 days than my blog, not too long ago, got in a month. Thank you, Jake. Obviously, as Gina pointed out, I now know who my target audience is… parents who want to do bad things with their elves… or something like that.
So, I had this week sort of planned out in my head Sunday night. Today was supposed to be a sort of “off” blogging day so I could do things like clean and grocery shop and tend to my children.
I was just planning on posting this picture of our fireplace mantle, where I hung the Felt Pomp Wreath this year…
I was going to link you back to the wreath tutorial, in case you missed it. We were going to all ooh and ahh at how cute the mantle looks, and how sweet that little collection of framed holiday cards and Santa pics is.
I was also going to ask you guys what to do with our stockings because metal stocking holders with flashy, brightly colored socks hanging from them just scream to small children “PULL ON THE STOCKING SO THIS METAL THING CAN LEAVE A HOLE IN YOUR SKULL!”
But now? Yeah, that is NO way to follow up on yesterday. Frankly, I have no idea how to follow up on that because, while I am immensely sarcastic and could do funny elf pictures for days, that’s not everything I blog about, and man, I don’t want you new folks to be bored to tears by my inane ramblings about crafts and my paranoia about assaults by stocking holders.
So, 2 things.
1. There will be more elf pictures. I’m working on a 2nd part this weekend.
2. I want to see your Inappropriate Elf pictures. (And by “inappropriate” I do not mean an elf raping, beating, being a racist or anything hateful or disgusting like that…. just so we’re clear. I think the elves should strive to be PG-13.)
Okay, and a 3rd… Lets do like an Inappropriate Elf contest? Ideas? Like, should I do a linkup or something? I am so terrible about organizing that kind of coordinated effort blog crap.
Oh, and a 4th… I’m still going to have to blog about things like how my 3.5 year old now sings to the tune of many Christmas songs, but every word is “poop.” And he thinks he’s hilarious. He’s the funniest person he knows. I can not imagine where he got that trait from. <<<See the sarcasm?
In fact, tomorrow it will be back to business around here with a giveaway, maybe a Mommy Truth, too, but I’m going to work on the Inappropriate Elf collab. this weekend and see what I can come up with. Maybe we can get someone to sponsor it and offer a really awesome prize like an iPad or a years supply of prescription medication? I’m open to suggestions.
This Elf On The Shelf thing, have you heard of it? My mom says she had an Elf that watched her and her sisters before Christmas growing up, and apparently it’s made a resurgence because you can now buy your very own Elf, complete with book in commemorative box from Target.
Of course, that’s where I got ours, being the cliche suburbanite that I am.
Okay, so the deal is this Elf is to watch the kids every day (from about Thanksgiving until Christmas) and report back to Santa every night. That’s how he knows if they’re naughty or nice… so the tale goes.
Oh, but it’s not that simple.
Because we all know that “Christmas Magic” doesn’t just happen on it’s own without the help of Elf Mom and Elf Dad. And really awesome Elf Parents don’t just move the Elf every night so that the kids can look for it the next day. Really awesome Elf Parents come up with really creative, cute, funny things for their Elf to “do” every night. There are TONS of ideas out there. Some are quite elaborate and messy.
But what if you want to move beyond simply “creative” into “traumatizing”? What if you want to really give them something to talk to their future therapist about?
I present to you…
5 Highly Inappropriate & Traumatizing Elf On The Shelf Ideas
Elf on a Bender
He’s sick of Santa not believing in his dream of becoming a Vegas Showgirl, so he drowns his sorrows in your mom and dad’s booze and pills and plays hookie from work.
Closet Crossdresser Elf
Oops! You caught him playing in your mom’s lingerie.
Hangover Elf
He woke up in a pile of lacy satin with a raging headache and had to make a mad dash for the john. (Bonus for creativity if you make the puke look like peppermint swirls.)
Crime Scene Elf
Blitzen got word that he was on his way to murder Santa, so he had to gouge his eyes out with his antlers, throw him to the floor and step on him.
Toe Tag Elf
Because nobody from the North Pole is going to claim a cross-dressing elf who drinks too much, has a pill problem, and tries to kill Santa.
Since I am nothing if not a really awesome Elf Mom, I had HUGE plans for all the adorable, creative things Jake (that’s what we named ours) would do every night. Oh yes, I was going to post a picture every day on my Tumblr blog (the one I abandoned 3 months into my 365 project). I was committed to seeing it through… until I 11:35 pm the first night.
Now, every night before I drift off to sleep, I sit straight up in bed in a panic. “Ugh, that fucking elf,” I huff as I throw the covers off of me and go to move him to another boring spot. The good news is my 3.5 year old doesn’t know any better.
It occurred to me last night, that I might have more fun with Jake if I could do things with him that would really make me laugh. It should be obvious to you all by now that I am immensely sarcastic and probably not best suited for motherhood in this respect.
Oh well.
He was supposed to be taking a nap in our room. I put him in our room because I didn’t want him to wake up his baby sister. It was an attempt to get a little peace and quiet around here.
Of course, as soon as he got quiet, Leyna woke up.
Oh well, at least one of them was napping. Finally.
30 minutes later he emerged from our room. Obviously, he’d never gone to sleep, despite being strangely quiet for an extended period of time.
“Momma, Mr. Elephant had lots of boo boos so I had to fix him,” he says.
For your reference, this is Mr. Elephant:
Yes. We have an elephant shaped humidifier in our master bedroom. We also have toys and pacifiers and booger sucker things scattered about. Romantic sanctuary, it is not.
I slowly walked back to our room to inspect the damage (aka “boo boos”). What did he break now?
What I discovered is one of those epic moments in parenthood that you’re pretty sure will happen at some point, but you can’t ever predict it, and when it does come to pass, you sure as heck better take a picture.
And then you run to your blog to share with all your readers the creation your 3.5 year old made out of a bag of maxi pads, and toss a $20 in the future therapy fund.
Kids are hilarious.
It’s the MOST wonderful tiiiimme of the yeeear!
You know, the time of the year when we make our life one million times harder by trying to hide gifts from sneaky kids, bake more in 3 weeks than we have the rest of the year, and put up a tree in our living room covered in things the children should not touch. Then spend our days saying “don’t touch that” and rearranging misplaced ornaments before we finally say F-it and embrace the worlds ugliest Christmas Tree, complete with random assortment of action heros stuck inside the branches.
The commercials would have you believe this is the time of year parents gaze at their twinkle-eyed children and bask in their wonderment. The TRUTH is, this is a time of year we spend a lot of time wondering if all this is worth the hassle.
This first one is inspired by what it was like to put up our Christmas Tree this weekend.
And when I read this as Danielle Elwood’s Facebook status I snorted with laughter.
Merry, Merry! Pass the wine.
I was a busy picture taking elf this weekend.
And this…
And those aren’t even the ones that made the cut for the Christmas cards!
After one year of owning my fancy pants camera (Canon EOS Rebel T2i), I finally feel I have enough of a grasp on how it actually works to start getting creative.
I ordered Lightroom and the Clickin Moms Film Art Presets last week, and as soon as I get LR this week, I’m going to start teaching myself a thing or two about post processing.
Speaking of Clickin Moms, I’m a little obsessed with it lately. They have an iPhone app, so I just spend all the time I’m nursing Leyna browsing the forums. That’s where I got the idea for these pictures and figured out what I needed to do to set it up. It was so simple once I figured it out.
Here’s how I made them happen:
I took these with my 50mm 1.4 lens. My settings were 1.8-2.0F, 200 ISO, 1/160-1/200 SS (I think, I’m doing my best to remember all that, but that’s the general range for everything.) I used auto white balance, and that seemed to be fine.
The Setup: (Let us all laugh at how horrible this looks!)
I set this up on our bed since we have a wall of windows to the right, and then I opened the bathroom door on the left and let in the light from the window there, too. Luckily, I didn’t need a reflector of any sort. All I needed to set this up was 2 white sheets, a white fuzzy blanket (we already had all of that), and 2 strings of icicle lights (on WHITE cords!).
I took the curtains down to let all the light in, but wound up hanging a couple back up when the sun got low enough in the sky that it was causing dappled light on the bed. I hung a couple just so they would block the direct sunlight.
I taped a flat, white sheet to the wall behind the bed, then I taped the lights over the top of it. I wish I would have had more lights!
The fuzzy blanket is at the end of the bed, and the rest of the bed is covered in a white sheet.
Then I just positioned my subjects at the end of the bed, and I shot a few feet away from them. That gave me nice bokeh (fuzzy lights) in the background, and helped blur out most of the cords, though I still need to go in and blur out some of them.
Easy peasy! My focus is a smidge off on most of them, but that’s something I’m still working on mastering. They are good enough for Christmas cards, though.
From what I gathered from reading tutorials and the thread on Clickin Moms, the keys to making this happen is to keep your subject 4 or more feet away from the lights and getting your aperture as wide open as you can. I hope that helps spell it out a little bit. I’m by no means a pro at any of this, but I can try to answer questions you have, so let me know if you’re confused.
“You only had kids so we could DO YOUR DISHES!”
I’m pretty sure I shouted that at my parents at least a few times throughout my childhood. I’m positive I muttered it under my breath every time I bellied up to the sink of food covered dishes after dinner, alongside my little sister.
“When I have kids, I’m not going to always make them do MY disgusting dishes and laundry. This is SO unfair,” I’d whisper to her, and she’d nod in agreement… if she wasn’t whining and fighting with me over who got to load the dirty dishes and who had to rinse them off.
Yes, many moments growing up, I truly thought my parents had it made. Have a few kids and you’ve got a few little housekeepers who can’t tell you they don’t want to put away those 3 loads of clothes because they REALLY want to see a movie Friday night, and you have the power to squash that dream.
What a racket!
Well, I’m here to say that was pretty much the most ridiculous and wrong assumption ever – that my parents HAD KIDS so they could have a clean house.
I know, wrong about life at the age of 8, it’s shocking.
On Saturday, in some sort of divine holiday miracle, both Leyna AND Kendall napped for 3 hours, THE SAME 3 hours. That hasn’t happened in…. ever??
For 3 whole hours, it was like we didn’t have kids other than the obvious clues, like the toy tripping hazards and the cranberry sauce encrusted high chair. But for 3 whole hours, not a single “MaMaMa!” or “MOOOoooommmm!” was heard, not a single “Don’t put that in your mouth!” or “Why are you naked?” was muttered.
For 3 whole hours, we cleaned.
We cleaned everything. We swept AND mopped (a shame how rarely those coincide), we washed windows, we wiped appliances. We even touched up paint in every living area and hall. After, the house sparkled.
I sat down on the couch for 12 minutes and took it in. I only smelled the cinnamon candle behind me, only heard the sound of my fingers typing, only saw the dust free entertainment center, the clutter free floor, and the slobber free couch. Ahhhhh! It was just what I needed.
And then they woke.
Within 15 minutes, we were back to a dirty high chair, Cheerios on the floor, and baseballs in every corner of the house.
So when these children are old enough to dishes and laundry, YOU BET YOUR ASS THEY WILL DO THEM.
They owe me that much.
Folks, if you want a clean house, hell, even just a house free of sticky globs under your dining room table and the scent of urine, do not have kids. Not even if they’ll grow up to do your dishes.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have 5 yards of ribbon strewn about the living room that needs rolled up and another load of peed on sheets from Kendall’s room to wash. It never ends.
Kendall is 3.5 years old and Leyna is 11 months old. So they should be doing the dishes for me any day now, right?
I am thrilled to be one of the very first to help Rockin’ Green Cloth Diaper Detergent help announce this year’s LIMITED EDITION Holiday Scent.
Red Hot Apple Cider
I mean, I know it’s detergent and all, but YUM. If I were pregnant (and craving rocks and soap), whoo boy!
Now, you can go purchase this lovely scent over on RockinGreenSoap.com today, as part of the Jingle Bell Rock Holiday Gift Bundle. So if you really, really want it, you better get there pronto. This stuff (limited edition holiday bundles) typically sells out in just a few days.
If you’re too late to order it before it sells out or you want to try to win a Red Hot Apple Cider Holiday Bundle, then I’m your favorite person right now! Because I’m giving one away.
Here’s the scoop. (Get it? Scoop? Detergent… scoop? Ha! Turkey makes me… amusing to only myself.)
Includes:
One bag Rockin’ Green Soap in the limited-edition Red Hot Apple Cider or Bare Naked Babies (unscented)
One Melody odor neutralizer and air-freshener room spray in Red Hot Apple Cider (not sold separately, only included in bundle)
One limited-edition red laundry detergent scoop
One reusable Rockin’ Green tumbler
One Rockin’ Green ornament
One Rockin’ Green reusable tote bag
One gift tag
Retail Value $44.95
To enter:
Tell me why you want to win a Red Hot Apple Cider Holiday Bundle!
Extra entries if you:
Follow @BabyRabies on Twitter
Like Baby Rabies on Facebook
Like Rockin’ Green on Facebook
Please leave a separate comment for each entry. I’ll use Random.org to draw a winner on Friday, December 2nd. Only open to people with US mailing addresses.
Let the holiday fun begin! Rock on.
** Contest Closed. Congrats to commenter #114, as chosen by Random.org, Jacklyn!***
It’s happened.
Now that Leyna is pulling up and crawling, chasing after her perpetually-in-motion big brother, she is trending more toward looking like a little girl and less like a ball of chub.
I’m not ready to say goodbye to the ball of chub! The girl’s lost AT LEAST 3 rolls from her legs and arms in the last couple months.
TRAGIC.
All we’re left with is this…
Oh, sure. She’s adorable. But she’s also fast and way too close to walking.
We need cheeks that will weigh her down, both on top and on bottom!
Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to pump the chub back into my little meatball. If I can keep her round, I can ignore the fact that she’s turning ONE in a little over a month, right??
Leyna is nearly 11 months old, and I’ve got some serious cooking to do for baby’s first Thanksgiving
Ever heard of green bean bundles? We hadn’t either until my dad met his ex-girlfriend. This was *her* recipe. And while she didn’t last (and has now been replaced with a totally awesome new wife), the bundles have remained, renewing my belief that everything happens for a reason, even dad’s ex-girlfriends.
Here’s how you make perfectly healthy veggies completely unhealthy and AWESOME with bacon and brown sugar.
You need a bag of frozen WHOLE green beans, a package of bacon and some brown sugar. That’s it.
I cut the bacon in half. Then lay it on the cookie sheet and place 5 or so green beans in the middle. Like so…
Wrap the bacon around the beans, place seam side down, then top with brown sugar. Go ahead, be generous.
Then bake at 350 for 45ish minutes, depending on how done you like your bacon. We like our bacon pretty well done around here.
Easy peasy and crowd please-y! These are always the FIRST thing to go at our Thanksgiving Dinner. You should try them out at yours!
Disclaimer: I am not a food blogger. I am actually not even much of a cook. This is a recipe I posted after Thanksgiving last year, and I’ve had a couple people email me looking for it again, so I figured I’d re-post it to be helpful… and because I’m too sick to blog about anything original right now (DAY 12 of whatever wretched sickness this is). I was going to re-take the pictures because, truthfully, the ones I posted last year aren’t all that appealing, but again, the sickness.