Saturday, September 14, 2013

Lava Kitty

Me: "Isaak what did you play at recess?"

Isaak: "Lava Kitty."

Me: "What's Lava Kitty? How do you play?"

Isaak: "Well I play it with Maddie sometimes. Maddie is the Queen Kitty and rules over me. Lava Kitties come out of my hands, heart and every body part really."

Me: Non stop laughter. *I hope he doesn't have a crazy ruling girlfriend someday.

Isaak: Eye rolls at my laughter.


I never thought that playing kitty at recess would be so hard on shoes. He's broken 2 pair of sandals on the playground. I really don't want to buy more. Before you know it, it will be cold enough to wear tennis shoes all the time.

To wake Isaak up in the morning I find myself purring like a kitty. He cuddles me up, smiles and pats my head. He says, "I love you kitty." It's so crazy ridiculous, but wakes him up in a good mood. Last year I barked like a puppy. So silly, but it works to get him up!

Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.

Have you every heard of Bad Books? I saw that one of my friends on Spotify was listening to them. I decided to check them out. They are an American Indie Rock band that started in 2010. Kevin Devine and members of another band called Manchester Orchestra along with a drummer Benjamin Homola got together to form the band.

Source
Friendly Advice


42
I couldn't find a video on the next song, but I love it, so I had to share.


Check out their blog.
Like Bad Books on Facebook.
Follow Bad Books on Twitter.
Visit Bad Books on myspace.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

When You Take All Their Weapons Away...

They just make new ones.

Isaak made this gun out of a water bottle, a plastic ring and the handle is a wad of paper that is rolled up like an empty toilet paper roll.



A+ for creativity. Do/did you let your kids play with toy weapons?

It seems like many boy toys come with them. The Melissa and Doug Pirate dress-up suit even came with a foam sword. I've taken that thing away so many times! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff is down right dangerous (the dress up stuff).

When it comes down to it, I've taken things away...Then they build new things. Hangers have been swords and Captain Hook's, hook.

6 Random Tid Bits

  1. I have my voice back for the most part. Every once in awhile I sound like a teenage boy in puberty. I don't know if I'm better from the antibiotics, or the extra sleep. I could have sworn it was viral, which antibiotics do not touch. Daddy got over this thing just fine before me. Earlier in my cold I couldn't sleep because I could breathe. The last 3 nights I've went to bed at 9, 9:30 and 10. Anytime before 11 is great for me.
  2. We have a busy night tonight: Eat, some family event at school, and swimming lessons and swim team. The boys started swim team last week. Well Isaak couldn't hang. I was worried about that. He's a great swimmer for his age. That doesn't mean that they've taught him every stroke yet, and worked on speed. I talked to someone last night, and we agreed that he would go in an upper swimming lesson at the same time. That's what I wanted the whole time. Gee whiz people! Too easy, too hard, let's get it right!
  3. Isaak got two checks at school. Daddy said, "Ask Isaak what happened at school." I did. He said, "I got had a sex at school today and a sex at school the other day." I nearly died laughing. I asked him to repeat himself. The same thing came out. I knew it was supposed to be, "Checks". What did the little man do? He shoved someone because they wouldn't stop following him; even after he asked them to stop following him. He hit someone because hit him. I don't know the whole stories. He got checks anyhow. We had a talk. Daddy had a talk with him to.  Isaak won't put up with stuff. He's been picked on since he was itty bitty. When people give him crap, he shoves it right back in their face.
  4. We went through a ton of toys and got rid of a lot. My cousin took some. The rest I'm bringing to work for my co-worker to take to his daughter who has a toddler. Now that the Goodwill doesn't take toys, it's harder getting rid of them. What do you do with old toys? Do you keep any? We've kept Thomas and Fisher Price Little people. 
  5. Mica got his next stripe in Ju-Jitsu. I'll post on that later. I like his Sensei. I know we'll miss him when he's away. He had to go to Africa for his Grandma's funeral. I don't know how his helper Tyler will do without Sensei there. The only things that annoy me there are: Kids that do not listen; one kid is really bad. It's one thing to not be able to do what they are asking; and another to just flat out not listen. This is silly, but they tell the kids to face the white wall, but it's clearly grey. Being a Color and Design Theory teacher, I want to stand up and say, "That's a 20% grey wall. It's not white." LOL
  6. I have a new book for one of my classes. I think I'm the only one that reads it. That stinks. I give reading assignments, but art students never seem to want to read. This is why I went with free PodCasts and worksheets for their Illustration class. Their books are not cheap. I want to shake them and say, "Read!" I do go over the material in a PowerPoint. I have to be honest I only skimmed when I was their age to. Maybe if I would have read I would have gotten better grades in my English, Art History and Philosophy courses. When I did read it only sunk in some. Philosophy is sometimes brain racking.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Aksarben Village

I took the kids to Aksarben Village. I so wanted to stop in and see my parents, since they've been out of town and live right by there.

But with me being all stuffed up, I want to stay away from people if I can.

In Aksarben Village they have a movie theater, Jones Bros. Cupcakes (which was on Cupcake Wars, other stores, a playground and a splash park.

The boys opted to go to the playground first. Then they wouldn't get all sandy.


For some odd reason both of them went to the swings almost right away. My boys have never been into swinging.


Mica: "Mom don't push Isaak! He needs to learn how to pump his legs like I do!"
Me: "Mica you just learned how to pump your legs last year." 
*Ya nether of my boys were into swinging or riding bikes anytime soon in their childhood.



As far as the splash park went, both boys were like, "That's it? Really we went all the way here for this?" 

It has splash fountains that go in a circle. They soon understood that it is in fact fun.

It was the most fun watching Isaak. Mica moved around too much for me to take his picture.

I asked Isaak if he was playing Twister in the water? He knows the game.



They both ended up having fun. They played tag around the wall that was covered by these sprayers. I stayed back a bit and just enjoyed snapping photos.



Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Monday, September 9, 2013

Stuck On You Review + a #Giveaway


I've been really excited to share this review and giveaway with you! Stuck on You is a company that specializes in personalized name labels, back to school items and gifts.

I had trouble deciding on what to get. Everything is so cute! There is so many things I love on their site.

The first thing I picked were Homework Pencils with Mica and Isaak's names on them. The set comes with a ruler pencil box, pencils, an eraser, a pencil sharpener and labels for the pencils. Each box is $24.95.


Each set is going in the boy's stocking for Christmas! I just know they will be as excited as I am to get them!

The next thing I picked out was a robot Classic Personalized Bag Tag for Isaak. It's $6.95. It is water resistant and super durable.



I looped the tag through to see if it could come apart too easily. Isaak tends to play with things a lot. It holds very well. I had trouble getting it back apart. I got it though. It's certainly durable! Stuck on You has 14 other designs to choose from. You can get tags that are not personalized for $3.95, if you just want something to separate one bag from another.

I picked out Basic Homework Pencils for Mica and Isaak's teachers. They to will be getting them for the winter holiday time. I forgot that they came with a sharpener and eraser. It does say they do on the site, but I just forgot. That was a nice surprise to see in the boxes. They come with little name labels. I picked out blue labels, but they have red and pink as options to. Each set is $14.95.



The last, but not least thing I picked out was a personalised Embroidered Facewasher. Also known as a washcloth. I went ahead and treated our family with this now. I wanted to see how it held up in the wash. It's still very soft! Facewashers are 100%, and embroidered with your choice of font and color. I went with Classic font face, but they have 7 fonts to choose from and 10 colors to choose from for the embroidery color.

My total came to $96.70. I thought that was a really good deal considering that they are all personalized things!

Remember in the beginning of my post that I said I had a hard time choosing what to get? They also have placemats, bags, lunch boxes, robes, many different kinds of labels and much more!

Now it's giveaway time! One of my readers is going to win a $25 GC to Stuck on You!


a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclaimer: The opinions on the post are my personal take on the product. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review. You need to be over the age of 18 to enter. This giveaway is for the US and Canada only. I did get products to help with the review. The winner will need to respond back within 48 hours, or I will pick a new winner. 
 
The Apel's The Apel's The Apel's The Apel's The Apel'sThe Apel'sThe Apel's

It's Just Another Manic Monday

Thursday night I mostly lost my voice. It's not all the way gone. I sound like a bullfrog. I caught Daddy's cold + had allergies = my voice loss.

It's happened before. I called my doctor's office first thing. I told the nurse, "I really don't know if you can do anything for me. I think it's viral. I just need advice on getting through this. I have really bad allergies; when I get a cold on top of them poof my voice sometimes goes." She thought I should come in. I'm going in at 11. Luckily my doctor's office is 5 minutes from here.

Mica woke up with a stomach ache. He said he didn't sleep well all night. He would barely touch his breakfast. I said, "Mica do you need to stay home?" He said, "Yes." Daddy stayed home with him. Daddy's not busy at work right now. He likes just about any excuse to stay home. If it were up to him he'd go part time to work on artwork.

To top it all off I had to go in to one of my high level classes to have a little talk. I mustered up the very little voice I have to get out that it's not ok to write notes saying, "Plagiarism", and sticking it up on someone's work in the hallway. If they have a problem with artwork being plagiarized they need to come see their teacher, the education director, or the director of the school. In this case they had an assignment to change a logo. The logo was changed, not a ton, but it was changed. In the real world sometimes logos are not revised a massive way. More times than not they are changed slightly.

I took the president's wife over to look at it to see if she thought it was plagiarized? She didn't think so. This next part I didn't say to them, but thought it: Often times in cases where they don't change something as much as they could, it is reflected in their grading, which is no one's business.

Trust me in the past I have had problems with plagiarism. This is not one of those cases. It seems more to me like someone that is a really good, talented student, has their head a little high up in the sky. They scoffed at the fact that it wasn't totally new, and wrote what they did not once, but twice to stick it up on the wall.

It ended with the Education Director saying that they could be expelled by defacing property.

There you have it, I already played good cop/bad cop today.


Disclaimer

The opinions on this blog are my personal take on products and topics relating to motherhood. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me.

I am not compensated to provide opinions on a variety of topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are my own. If I claim to show knowledge of certain topic or product I will only endorse products or services that I feel, based on my expertise, are worthy of such endorsement.

If you have any questions about this blog, or want to get in contact with me please email me at: anapeladay@gmail.com