Halloween Craftiness

Today is Halloween and this past week I had the chance to use my creativity to make some treats for Tiffany's classroom and decorations for my front porch.  

I was so excited that Tiffany's class was having a Halloween party, she was getting to wear her costume at school, and the whole school was having a costume parade.  After living in Arizona for the last six years, where every holiday was either completely ignored by the school (like Halloween) or rendered completely non offensive (like the winter party and winter concert that didn't have any holiday songs or references to the fact that anybody might celebrate anything in the upcoming weeks of December), it was nice to be in a place where the kids can just have fun being kids and enjoy dressing up and eating candy.  I decided that to celebrate, I needed to make awesome treats for her class party.  The fact that I could make awesome treats was special too.  Arizona only allowed store bought treats to be brought to school, BOO.  I decided I really wanted to learn to play with chocolate, so I went to Michael's, bought candy melts, sticks, sprinkles, and lollipop bags, then hit up the store for some marshmallows, and made these.

They came out great.  I was a little surprised by the thickness of the candy melts.  I had envisioned drizzling the orange across the white, but there was no drizzling going on.  I took a break and Google'd chocolate covered marshmallows and Wilton candy melts and found that most people recommended a dip and spin along the edge of the bowl to remove the excess technique.  Realizing that drizzling wasn't going to be an option, I gave up trying that and just did some white with sprinkles, some orange with sprinkles, and some white and then dipped partially in orange.  They came out amazing and her class loved them.  

Then, while surfing in blog land last week I came across a super easy craft using milk jugs, and I forgot where I found it, so unfortunately can't link to it, but since that person mentioned seeing the craft on Family Fun, I know it's not an original.  The whole craft only cost me 29 cents since I had the rest of the materials already in my stash and only had to buy one piece of green felt..  I used 3 milk jugs, one strand of orange lights, three pipe cleaners, a sharpie marker, and one piece of green felt, and this is what I came up with.

Pretty cute huh?

Tiffany made the albino spider while I was busy making these 

so he needed to be in the picture too.

Have a Happy Halloween!!

The cure for what ails you is candy.

I have this thing about taking the kids to the doctor. I pretty much try to avoid doing it as much as possible. Not that I don't believe in modern medicine, but I also believe in my mother's intuition and the knowledge I have gained by the umpteen thousand trips to the doctor I have already made with my children. Sometimes it's better to just wait it out.

My husband however thinks that they need to go every time they sniffle. "That's why we have insurance" he says. He's gone a lot though, so usually I let things ride. If they have a cold, they get tylenol, fluids, and rest. Why should I go pay a $20 co-pay to have the doctor tell me that. And why would I want to risk exposing them to something even yuckier while we are there. Like the time Kimberly thought she had scurvy, and I thought it might be strep. I took her to the doctor to find out it was just a plain old ordinary sore throat and you know what happened? She picked up pink eye from some other kid in the waiting room.

Last week Tiff had a little bump on the underside of her tongue. She showed it to me and I pretty much ignored it. It looked like she had just irritated it, and besides, things in your mouth usually heal pretty quickly. I figured it would go away on it's own in a few days. Then a couple of days later she showed it to her dad. He flipped out. "We need to get her into the doctor today." "what do you mean she showed it to you days ago and you ignored it?" So the next morning I'm sitting with her in the doctor's office. The diagnosis - blocked salivary gland. The prescription - sour candy. Yup. Candy. So like she would have been cured come Sunday anyway, without the trip to the doctor? So we go to CVS buy every kind of sour candy they sell and I take her to school. I write a note to her teacher saying "yes the doctor really did say she needed to eat this candy" and go about the rest of my day.

Then Saturday right after the carnival, my mom notices that the topside of Tiff's tongue is looking odd. Starts saying stuff like Scarlet Fever and my hubby is eating it up. That night he went out to run some errands and while he was gone she starts complaining that her mouth hurts and shows me that she has several canker sore looking things inside her lip. Crap. Urgent care here we come. He comes home, we eat dinner, I tell him about the latest developments in her mouth and he says call the quack doctor back. Because of course this has to be some case of the doctor misdiagnosing her the first time, even though the candy totally made the bump go away. It couldn't possibly be that she caught some other thing while we were there. So after dinner it's off to urgent care.

Now one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my entire life is a Pediatric urgent care that is open every night and all weekend long, because you know your kid never gets sick during regular business hours. It's always at 5 pm on Friday, or 9 pm Saturday like this was. Even all the regular urgent cares were already closed. It was a bit of a drive but way better than the emergency room which would have been the only other option. There wasn't even anyone else in the waiting room when we got there.

We see the doctor and he says it's a virus. Very common in kids but usually seen in ones a little smaller than my 7 year old. Of course she sucks her thumb so I totally get how she's getting things that little kids that can't keep their hands out of their mouths get. Being that it's a virus there is nothing to do but wait it out.

My husband totally doesn't get that antibiotics don't work on viruses. If they have a cold, he thinks they should get a prescription. No matter what is wrong, if you don't have to go to the pharmacy when you are done at the doctor's office, the doctor is a quack. In the car on the way home after trying to explain to him why this doctor did not give her any medicine I thought that I should just start asking the doctors to give me a prescription for something harmless that I could go to the pharmacy and fill because as long as I came home with that amber bottle, my husband would be satisfied and wouldn't even notice if it was filled with vitamins.

This morning he tells me he wants me to her back to the pediatrician. "Why?" I ask. "To get a second opinion" is his reply. Really, how about to waste a third $20co-pay and maybe get yet another nasty germ. No.Thank.You. He wasn't too pleased with my answer and we pretty much didn't talk all morning, but I didn't take her to the doctor either, so I guess I won that one.

Valentine's Day

Like Christmas, Valentine's Day is one of those days that my hubby and I mostly ignore. It falls at a time of the year that we are usually broke, and I'm not so into chocolates, flowers, cards, and especially lingerie.

Chocolate is not my favorite candy. I guess this makes me very un-girl like since chocolate is supposed to be like the best shit on earth for women. The problem with boxes of chocolate is this, I don't like any with creamy centers, or other odd stuff I can't identify. If they are filled with caramel they are good, all the others are nasty. When I was a kid I used to bite into them and if they were filled with yucky stuff, I would spit them out and put the other half, bite marks included, back in the box. My mom convinced me this was nasty and encouraged me to use a knife to cut them open to see what was inside. I would eat the caramel ones and leave the others, all cut in half, in the box. So it's just a giant waste to buy me a box of chocolates unless you like all the yucky ones and don't mind them all being cut in half. But then it's really a gift for you and not me then isn't it?

Flowers are also a giant waste. Sure they are pretty, but if you are going to spend fifty to a hundred bucks on me, well, I'd rather have something that won't be dead in a week. It just seems like an enormous waste of money to me. I would much prefer to have some new clothes or something for the house I can look at every day for years and remember that it was a gift.

Now cards are the ultimate waste of money three to five bucks for a piece of cardboard with some words and a picture. I NEVER buy cards. If I'm going to give someone a gift I'd much rather spend that extra few bucks on a nicer gift. I'm always the person shouting out "That's from me/us" at the party. Either that or the kids make a card. They make better cards than the stores anyway. If I'm getting a gift, I'd rather have a gift that I can enjoy, not a piece of cardboard that is going to end up in the trash with the flowers.

So that leaves lingerie. Lingerie sucks. It's uncomfortable and itchy, ridiculously expensive for what little there is of it, and well, you know I'm not going to be wearing it that long anyway, so really what is the point. I'm not going to enjoy one second of it, so it's really not a gift for me now is it?

The only thing I really like about Valentine's Day is the boxes of candy hearts. I heart those things. So do you think that my hubby thought that even though we are broke, he could maybe spend $1 to buy me a box? If he had, I would have been really surprised, but he didn't. So yesterday I hit up Target and got some for myself 50% off. For a dollar I got 8 packs. I'm happy. I also got some little stuffed animals for the girls. 50% off. They didn't mind getting them a day late. I think from now on, I'm going to celebrate all holidays a day late. Think of how much money I could save.