Why I Love/Hate Rainbow Loom

Like many grade school kids my daughter have become obsessed with Rainbow Loom bracelets.  They made some at their recent Indian Princess campout and came home begging for looms of their own.

I like them because they let them be creative (unlike the silly bands of a few years ago), and are relatively inexpensive.  

Why I hate them is the drama they have created in my daughters' classrooms.  About 2 weeks ago Little Reader made a starburst bracelet (like the one on the right) for her friend.  The friend left it on her desk at school and the boy who sits next to her took it.  They asked for it back and he has refused (although admits that he has it). His response was, "What's the big deal, it's just a stupid rainbow loom?"  True.  It didn't cost much for the supplies and she makes them pretty quickly, but it's the principle of the thing.  If he wanted one, he could have asked and she probably would have gladly made him one.  But I think he likes the attention.  He probably has a crush on her or her friend and likes that he has now created a daily conversation - 4th grade boys aren't very good at flirting.

She doesn't want to be a tattle but she wants it back.  My husband told her to tell the boy that if he doesn't give back the bracelet that he stole she's going to tell the teacher. She did that yesterday.  Sure enough he gave it back today.  

Then last night when we were practicing with her how to have the conversation with the teacher, Little Hugger told us that a boy in her class had taken one of hers (when she left it on her bookshelf).  In this case we are friends with the parents so if he doesn't give it back I'll talk to them.  No need to involve the teacher.  

I told my daughters after we get these back to not take them off at school and if someone admires theirs, offer to make them one.  Hopefully it'll work.  

Spring Break Recap

Kids are all happily back in school, and despite the cool weather we had a good spring break. Friday we went to the library and loaded up on books. Over the weekend we sorted through closets and put away anything kids have outgrown.

Monday we went to the Tree House and then a late lunch at California Pizza Kitchen

Tuesday, Little Man had his sports class and Little Reader joined him playing dodgeball

Wednesday we went to the Chicago History Museum. It's a pretty kid friendly museum with lots of hands on stuff. The actual kids area is pretty small, but has a big hot dog to lie in, an old fashioned bicycle you can climb and an area where you can make a postcard to email to friends and family. My kids were fascinated with the artifacts from the Chicago Fire, and enjoyed going into the old L car. Little Reader's next unit in social studies is on the history of Chicago so she was interested in a lot of the different exhibits, and reading a lot of the different descriptions. Little Man got a bit antsy towards the end. Had it been a nicer day I would have let them run in Lincoln Park when we were done, but it was too windy. Still a nice day and they all were eager to tell my husband what they had learned.

Thursday was another stay at home day followed by Green Day. 

Friday we went down to the Art Institute. We took the L down as usual, which Little Man always loves. Both my daughters wanted to see the Thorne Rooms, and Little Hugger specifically asked to see "those paintings of faces where all the parts are in the wrong place". As luck would have it, there was a special exhibit on Picasso and Chicago ; ) She took a ton of pictures as usual. Taking Little Man to art exhibits can be tough and it was pretty crowded as the exhibit just opened a couple of weeks ago, but he did pretty well. The exhibit was a retrospective of Picasso's work, with an emphasis on his Chicago connections. He never actually visited Chicago, but one of our most well known pieces of public art is the Picasso sculpture in front of the Daley Center.

Little Man's favorite part was illustrations of animals that Picasso had done for a book. There were about 12 of them. Little Reader read a bit of the blurbs around the room that put the exhibit into context.

Sunday of course was Easter, and as I've said before we're not religious so it's all about dying eggs, and eating chocolate and jelly beans.

Still since Little Reader has had quite a few questions over the years about the meaning of Easter, I had her pick up a book about it at the library. I should probably read it too as a refresher.

My Thanksgiving Book

I know everyone is gearing up for Christmas now, but my son brought this Thanksgiving book home from school today and it was too cute not to share. They made a different page each day, each one pretty easy although probably needing some help from the teachers since he's only 3.

Each page is really simple but still very cute

Why I love Pinterest

When Pinterest first started I resisted joining.  I was an early Facebook adopter and have since become quite addicted.  I was afraid of a similar time suck from Pinterest.  Friends joined, offered me invites (back when that was still necessary) and I declined.  Finally one day curiosity got the better of me, and I requested an invite from a blogger I followed at the time.  At this point I never admit to my friends I'm on Pinterest.  I use my blogging name and keep it separate.

The first time I went on, I repinned a few things checked out my friends pins (but didn't follow anyone) and followed a few bloggers.  Over time I started using the bookmarklet and actually find that I use that more than repinning.

What it comes down to is that I know myself and my talents and limitations.  There are some beautiful things and delicious recipes on Pinterest that I will never pin because I will never actually attempt them.  It's like Gourmet magazine.  I am intimidated by it, have never bought a copy and would never attempt a recipe from it.  It just seems beyond my abilities and I'm ok with that, because I know there are enough things I am capable of that I don't need to reach for that level.  That's not laziness, that's just knowing myself. 

I like the simple stuff.  I pin recipes from magazines and websites I like, but I don't follow the actual publication.  I don't want to be inundated with ideas, but if I see a recipe that sounds good in my Better Homes and Gardens magazine, instead of ripping it out, I'll find it online and pin it for later.  I also am a little annoyed that corporations are trying to get in on all the social media.  I understand why they do it, they want to make money, but supposedly this was started by some computer geek whose not very techsavvy grandmother wanted to be able to share recipes and knitting patterns with her friends - and don't blame me if that's wrong, I didn't factcheck it, just heard it somewhere and it makes sense.  

When it comes to crafts I stick to easy things I can do with my kids (not for my kids).  If you check out my pins you'll see what I mean.  If I see a cute picture, I'll check out the tutorial.  If I only need to buy one easy inexpensive item to do it, I'll pin it.  If there's a long list of tools I need, forget it.

I have two separate boards for recipes.  One for recipes I want to try and one for recipes that I tried that worked.  When I try something new, I view the recipe on my iPad as I cook.  If it was successful, it gets repinned as a recipe that works and I print it out.  If it didn't work, I delete it. 

The other thing that Pinterest has a ton of is organizing tips.  When I first started reading blogs I found a lot of homemaking sites.  Some had helpful tips once in a while, some made me feel overwhelmed, and some made me feel like a failure.  I no longer follow the blogs but I have pinned a few of the things that I liked and maybe follow that pinner so I can quickly weed through their lastest posts.  As useful as I found one series a blogger did on the multitude of uses of vinegar (and I mean it, I use a bunch of the "recipes" now), it wasn't the type of stuff I wanted to read everyday. 

So to sum up, my Pinterest tips are
1. Follow selectively.  You don't need to follow your friends, if they tried a great new recipe or made a cool new craft they'll probably tell you about it.
2.  If you don't want to follow a blogger constantly but don't want to lose sight of them completely, follow them on Pinterest.  You'll get the highlights and can always check their blog for more stuff if you want. 
3.  Install the bookmarklet on all devices.  Like I said, I get emails from Real Simple and BHG with recipes, if I find one I like I pin it.
4.  Purge your pins on a regular basis. I love that Pinterest tells you when you originally pinned something.  I recently deleted a bunch that I had pinned 8 months ago.  If I haven't it done it by now it's not happening, away you go.  
5.  Have at least one board of things that make you smile.  For me it's cute pictures of animals, pictures of places I have been and have fond memories of, and pictures of places I want to go someday.  Sometimes you just need to go to your happy place, and visuals that I have pinned help me get there. 

And in case you're curious, here are my pins

Purging

I love getting rid of things. I don't know what it is, I'm not into Feng Shui or anything like that, and I don't have an extreme minimalist house, but whenever I can get rid of something we no longer need it just makes me happy. Recently we've gotten rid of a lot of things - changing pad and Diaper Champ now that Little Man only wears diapers at night, the extra toddler mattress - since Little Hugger does not roll out of her bed, and of course the big one - the crib.

Ok, I didn't entirely get rid of it. I kept the springs to use as a pin board (like this one I found on Pinterest from Iheartorganizing.blogspot.com). I kept one of the sides to hang fabric on after I've ironed it in case I have to stop working on a project. I would have loved to have made a crafting desk for the kids like this one (here's the original site) but I don't have the room. A friend of mine cried the entire time she was taking apart an hauling away her sons' crib when they were done with it. I don't get that. I understand it's a symbol of a part of their life that has passed and never to return again, but it's also a sign of the beginning of a new stage of life.

It's not that I'm not sentimental. I do keep things that the kids make for me (but not every one). I keep cards, have a ton of photo albums. Tons of the songs on my iPod bring back
memories of one kind of another. I just don't feel the need to keep a lot of stuff.

Little Reader is like me. She often asks me to help her organize her stuff and she weeds through papers and things on a regular basis. Actually her room is neater than mine was when I was a kid.

Little Hugger definitely is more of a hoarder. She'll keep little scraps of paper for a craft she has in mind, but often never gets to. Whenever I ask her to organize her stuff and throw some away she often ends in tears. We finally came up with a compromise. She has binders with sheet protectors in them that she can store her assorted crafts and drawings in. Anything too big (or something that is slightly less important but she still wants to remember, I take a picture of it and we put it in a photo album she has.

Twice a year I have them go through their stuff (toys, clothes, books) to find things we can sell at Kid's Sale. If they outgrow things at other times we put it in a bin in the basement until the next sale. It's become such a habit now, even Little Man came up to me with a baseball hat yesterday that no longer fits and asked me to put it in the bin for Kids Sale.

I'm not going to lie and say my house is devoid of clutter, but it's in pretty good shape, and unlike a lot of my friends homes, things have a place and even my junk drawers are pretty well organized.

Busy & Fun Weekend

Saturday Little Reader had a birthday party at a friend's house. It was scheduled to be a 2 hour party according to the invite, but when I rang the doorbell at the pick up time, my daughter told me that they hadn't had cake yet do asked if she could stay. The birthday girl told me that they were waiting for her father to get home before they had the cake, and he wasn't supposed to get home for another half hour. So I left and told her to call me when she wanted me to pick her up. 45 minutes later, I still hadn't heard from her, so I went to go get her. Party still didn't seem to be over but a couple of the girls had left so my daughter was ok to leave.

Later that night, my husband went out to see Rock of Ages. We hadn't been to a movie in ages but our main reason for going out was our neighbor's son's CD release party, and since they weren't going to be going on until 1045 we had plenty of time to kill before then.

The movie was a lot of fun. Any fan of 80s hair bands should see it. The plot is pretty thin, just something to tie the songs together and it basically works. The main characters are unknowns (at least to me), but the supporting cast was great. As much as I think Tom Cruise is a wacko, he was great as Stacie Jaxx - an over the top washed up rock star.  Catherine Zeta-Jones was great too as the conservative wife of the LA mayor.

After the movie we cabbed it over to the bar to see the band play. There was another duo playing when we got there, who weren't very good, and we talked to our neighbors until their son went on. They played for about an hour and it was a good set. They have two guitarists, a drummer and a standup bass player. Overall they have a cool sound, old school rock, with a folk influence. We bought their EP after their set and headed home.

Sunday of course was Father's Day. The kids came in around 8 with their present for Dad - a version of this that I found on Pinterest. 
It turned out pretty cute. I had them write their own signs (well except for Little Man since he can't write yet). We also got him this wireless meat thermometer for the grill that one of his friends had told him about.

Once everyone was dressed we headed out for breakfast which we haven't done in a while, then to the pool since it was so hot. The kids had a great time splashing around and despite the heat the pool wasn't that crowded. We left mid afternoon as my husband wanted to watch the end of the US Open.

He wanted to try out his new grill thermometer so we grilled some Greek Chicken. The recipe wasn't that great but the chicken was cooked perfectly. It's a pretty cool gadget.

But the best part of the whole weekend was that Little Man FINALLY pooped on the potty (I think I already mentioned that in a previous post, but obviously I'm excited)

Summer To Dos

School's out and I've been thinking about our summer plans. The kids will be in camp the first half of the summer until lunchtime. The second half we have nothing planned and I did that on purpose. My inlaws will be coming in for a week, but we don't have a trip planned. I'd like to do a short road trip as we haven't really explored the area with the kids yet. Door County Starved Rock, Galena, Indianapolis to check out what is supposedly the country's largest kids museum.

While our schedule of activities during the school year isn't super crazy, I am looking forward to some unscheduled time, and not having to drag the other two with me to the other kid's activity (although for the next 6 weeks my pickup/dropoffs will be a little crazy.

So here's the work in progress summer to do list.  I have the kids adding their options as well, my ideas are below.

Go berry picking - we go apple picking every year but have never gone berry picking

Catch fireflies

Ride the ferris wheel at Navy Pier

Take the train downtown - my son's request

Ride the Water Taxi - 14 years in Chicago and even I've never done this

Go to the Lichtenstein exhibit at the Art Institute

Picnic lunch at the park

Picnic dinner at the park

Go to a baseball game

Go to the zoo

Go to the Arboretum
Watch the Olympics

Watch fireworks
Roast marshmallows

Teach the kids how to play tennis
Teach the kids Danish
Teach them geography in a fun way
Nature Scavenger Hunt
Take them somewhere to sketch


Little Hugger wanted to make a paper chain link to count the days of summer similar to ones the had made at school to count other things. I suggested that she also write on each link one fun thing that happened that day on each link. At the end of summer we'll have a fun chain of memories.

Rather than adding a link each day, she wanted to make a full chain at the beginning and countdown and write the fun things we did each day on a link. Either way works for me although it is a little trickier to write on the links when they are already attached.

It's a little hard to read the "Kindergarten spelling" but I'd rather they write it themselves. In this case the first link was "Fireplace" aka the Fire Department Open House.

While I do have a few outings planned I hope that there will be a bit of the lazy days of summer fun included - Popsicles in the backyard, playing with friends etc.

Our family tree is done!!!

I had each kid pick which color they wanted to use based on the palette I was using, had my oldest do her hands first, then my younger daughter and finally my little guy. I think it came out well, now I just need to pick up a frame.

January Project - Family Tree

I realize it's almost March, but I still haven't finished my January project yet. As I've mentioned before our bedroom walls are still bare a year and a half post construction. I asked my kids to each make me a painting using colors from the Restoration Hardware color palette of the rest of the space. To tie it all together I wanted to paint a tree and have the kids handprints be the leaves. I have the tree done, and I hope to have the kids do their handprints by the end of the week.