This year we’re doing the activity envelopes, recycled from last year and adding a book a night to unwrap. I’m sharing both processes with you here right now.

I saved all of our envelopes from last year, minus two that disappeared. I was completely out of Christmas scrapping paper, as I honestly don’t scrap anymore, so I got creative and used a few of the Christmas cards that we saved from last year. I think this adds a nice touch to the calendar seeing as how one of the cards I used was from my Grandma. You can find the template for the envelopes at Andrea’s site.

I stuffed them all this year ahead of time, checking our family calendar, my husband’s fire department work shift calendar and all of the things we have to do. I decided not to put any weather dependent things on our list this year (sled riding, etc) because I didn’t like switching things out and worrying about what the weather was doing. I don’t need more stress during the holidays! And so, our calendar is hanging up in our dining room, ready to go for December 1st!

Here’s what’s on our list this year:

• Watch the Guernsey County Court House Light Show
• Make hot chocolate
• Elf someone
• Bake peppermint cookies
• Make ornaments for Grandmas (I’d share the link, but they read)
• Take toy donation to our local Secret Santa program
• Watch a Christmas movie in jammies
• Stuff, stamp and mail our Christmas cards
• Write our letters to Santa
• Attend the Cambridge Singers Christmas concert
• Go to LittleBrother’s Christmas program
• Visit Santa!
• Celebrate Munchkin’s birthday with cupcakes
• Decorate paper trees with glitter paint (a hit from last year)
• Build a puzzle in front of the tree
• Go to Nina’s for a surprise!
• Donate canned goods to a local pantry
• Make teacher gifts!
• Write a Christmas story as a family
• Winter begins! Make snowflakes!
• Time capsule letters!
• Game night in front of the tree — everyone gets to pick one game!
• Unwrap one present (it’s jammies!)
• Read the birth of Jesus from the Bible before we open presents.

Exhausting — but wonderful. I’m really trying to focus on doing things together this year — everything from making gifts for teachers to all of our normal donations to baking to just hanging out. It’s very important to me for them to recognize the importance of those things, whether during this time of year or not.

Which is why we also decided to implement the Book Advent Calendar as well. It’s all over Pinterest and the blogosphere this year, and I almost didn’t blog it. But I thought, at the very least, adding our extensive Christmas book library to the discussion might be helpful.

I didn’t have trouble filling 24 days with Christmas books. In fact, I couldn’t put all of our Christmas books into the calendar. We have over 30. A few of them are new for this holiday season, purchase via the boys’ November Scholastic book orders from school, but the rest have been purchased over the years. I pulled all the ones we own last month, added in the new ones and sorted through which ones I thought would be best to read this year.

Here’s our book list:

• No Room at the Inn: The Nativity Story
• It’s Christmas, David!
• MOOSELTOE
• Llama Llama Holiday Drama
• A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas
• Froggy’s Best Christmas
• Tonight You Are My Baby: Mary’s Christmas Gift
• The Berenstain Bears and the Joy of Giving
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Ho, Ho, Ho, Tucker!
• Little Porcupine’s Christmas
• Tyrannoclaus
• A Cars Christmas
• God Gave Us Christmas
• The Spirit of Christmas
• The Polar Express
• A Small Christmas
• Mary’s Baby
• Christmas in the Barn
• This Is the Stable
• Who Is Coming to Our House?
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
• The Night Before the Night Before Christmas
• Firefighter’s Night Before Christmas

Books not wrapped include a The Night Before Christmas Look and Find and a Rudolph Look and Find as those don’t work well for my two as bedtime books. I also had a handful of board books that need to be passed on as well as a pop-up nativity. I also chose not to wrap Veggie Tales: The Star of Christmas (because it takes eons to read) or either version of The Night Before Christmas since we’re reading The Firefighter’s Night Before Christmas. Also, the boys love the one that my parents recorded for them last year and would have missed it had I wrapped it!

The idea is to open one wrapped book every night and read it together in front of the tree. The boys are already curious as to what the wrapped, book-looking-like objects in the box under the tree are for, but I haven’t told them yet. I like keeping the holiday mystery for as long as possible.

Last year, we opened our Advent activity envelope at random times during the day, sometimes right before bed. This year, we’re opening it while they eat breakfast before school. Every slip of paper also says, “Don’t forget to open a book tonight!” So we’ll know the activity all day — and be less likely to have to rush to fit it into our schedule — and we’ll remember to open a book at bedtime. Not that I think they’d let me forget the books once they figure out what we’re doing.

I am hopeful that this will be another holiday season to remember for our family. The boys are a year older this year and it strikes me as most important to continue both building tradition and teaching them those core values that we hold so dear. Is it more work for me? For my husband? Yes and yes. Is it worth it. I believe so.

Are you doing any family activities this season?

Our Advent Season Activities and Book List for 2011 is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

And I’m so pleased.

We used the Advent envelope idea I found via Andrea at Quiet Fish. Basically, we have 25 little envelopes hung on a ribbon in our dining room (which was light on Christmas decorations anyway, so this is nice). We’ll open one each day. Instead of chocolates or toys (though I do see LEGO Advent calendars in our future), each slip of paper is filled with a fun (hopefully) family activity. It’s what we did last year, but much more organized. Whew.

The template — available over at Quiet Fish — for the envelopes was easy to cut out. I printed it on card stock so it stood up to 25 tracings. The template makes two envelopes out of small/rectangle scrapbook paper and three out of the bigger/square paper. You have to line them up all sideways and willy-nilly, so trace before you cut to make sure they fit together and you get the most out of your paper.

Speaking of paper, I took the boys to the store with me to help pick out the papers they wanted. (No, I don’t have scrapbooking paper at home anymore. I’m all digital.) Anyway, they had a good time. I picked a few of my choosing and they picked some of their favorites as well.

We obviously had to have birthday paper for the Munchkin‘s birthday.

And I was trying to choose something for Christmas day when LittleBrother informed me that we should get the paper with crosses on it since it’s Jesus’ birthday, after all. Yeah, I got schooled by a three year old on the meaning of Christmas. Nice.

I wish, given our limited space, that I had scaled down the template just a bit and made smaller envelopes. But it works and I’m pleased. The envelopes were easy to make (even for me). The thing that gave me the most problem was the flipping miniature clothes pins (found in the wood section at Hobby Lobby, by the way). FireDad had to put at least ten back together for me as they kept springing apart.

I have our list of ideas all planned out, but as Andrea at Quiet Fish suggests, I won’t stuff the appropriate day’s envelope until the night before or day of just in case some swaps have to be made. That was an issue we had last year with our other version. As an example, pouring down rain won’t make for a good carriage ride.

So what are we doing? In no specific order:

• Write & mail letters to Santa • Visit Santa at the mall • Make paper snowflakes • Read How the Grinch Stole Christmas before bed • Make a list of 10 things you are thankful for and hang them up near the Advent envelopes in the dining room • Make our donation to Secret Santa (local kids’ toy collection program) • Watch It’s Christmas, Charlie Brown on TV • Bake Christmas cookie • Make a Rudolph handprint craft • Take Christmas Angel present to Kmart • Wear Santa hats to the Fire Department and sing Christmas carols for Daddy & the other firefighters • Sing in the Christmas Concert • Have hot chocolate after the preschool Christmas program • Make birthday cupcakes for the Munchkin • Go on a carriage ride & watch the light show afterward • Watch a Christmas movie of the boys’ choosing downstairs • Decorate some crafty Christmas trees • Take a trip to Papau & YiaYia’s house! • Build a gingerbread house • Make peppermint bark • Elf someone • Wrap presents for Daddy & each other • Color pictures for Santa • Read the Christmas story together • Say a thank you prayer for the gift of Jesus and family (obviously the Christmas day one)

Yes, so, some of those are day specific (Munchkin’s birthday, singing in the Christmas concert) while others are kind of specific but still flexible (we can go to the fire department to sing FireDad carols on any day he is working) while others are free to float about as needed (Elf-ing someone, any baking or crafts). I think I’ve allowed enough flexibility in there that I won’t feel overwhelmed or “put upon” for keeping up with our Advent activities.

Because that’s the whole point of this endeavor: To keep the focus more on family and less on the unimportant stuff this season. It involves careful, mindful preparation by me (do we have the proper ingredients? do we have the proper crafting stuff? am I leaving enough family time after I finish my work for the day?) to make sure that we can complete each day. For me, especially, the holidays can be a difficult time of year. My default, knee-jerk reaction is to hole up in my room and ignore the emotions and weight of it all. However, that’s insanely unfair to my boys. That’s why we did a less-organized version of this last year and why I felt so compelled to do it again in a grander fashion this year.

I want to give my boys the Christmas season that they deserve. They deserve a present, focused and joyful Mommy (and Daddy, yo!). So, I’m doing my best to provide that for them. I am thankful that FireDad is on board with the whole concept and gave me a hand with some of the ideas.

Here’s hoping that the next 25 Days of Christmas are ones worth remembering!

Our Advent Calendar, 2010 is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

BigBrother and LittleBrother helped purchase everything, some of which came from Hobby Lobby, some of which came from Kroger. I also learned that you have to be eighteen to purchase spray glue. Yes, I got carded. Yes, I’m proud of that fact. The boys helped cut out the labels, printed on our snazzy Kodak printer. They also helped me glue the paper towel to my thumbnail. Win.

FireDad liked it.

He’s been nomming on some X-Ray Vision Drops (lemon drops) and shooting me suggestive glances for the past half hour. I’m deeply amused.

I attempted to get a good photo of FireDad with TheBrothers but it didn’t quite work.

Then again, I think that’s absolutely hilarious. It’s a keeper.

Happy Father’s Day.

Happy Father’s Day is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

The crafts for BigBrother’s teachers were finished and wrapped in time to be taken to school in the morning. I originally found the craft idea at Living Locurto which linked me to a post at Testosterone Times Three. I got the square shadowbox frames at Walmart ($8) and already had one pack of new crayons so I just grabbed one more pack of 24 count Crayola crayons ($1.31) and a bottle of craft glue ($1.30). I did all of the cutting myself with my big butcher knife. BigBrother helped me with some gluing after I figured out the template. I let them dry overnight. His teachers loved them and they are hanging them in the classroom. I’ll show them again because this Non-Crafty Mom feels pretty darn proud of herself.

When BigBrother got home from school, he got to open his presents. I normally do a puzzle and a book but had been wanting to do a game this year as they’re big into board games and the like this year. They’ve been playing Connect 4 at my mother-in-law’s house for the past few months and so I thought I’d grab it for our house seeing as how they love it. My last minute procrastination paid off as when I stopped to pick it up they had the Toy Story 3 version! Now, two weeks ago, they didn’t have that version in the store as I had price checked the game that week. If we had already owned Connect 4, I wouldn’t be buying a new favorite-movie themed one but seeing as how I was buying it anyway, I couldn’t resist! It was a big, big hit. His favorite game and Toy Story? Mommy win.

The book that he got was also of the Toy Story variety and I’ll have a rant about that tomorrow.

We also had rainbow tie-dye cupcakes to celebrate a year of fantastic learning and growth and a kick off to our Super Summer! Instead of making my normal rainbow cake, I decided to make some rainbow cupcakes. I also decided to go with pre-packaged cake mix again due to the last minute nature of everything. I separated the mix into five bowls and LittleBrother helped me color each bowl a different color: red, blue, yellow, green and violet. I put a spoonful of each color in the cupcake wrapper, leaving them uneven and kind of “messy” for my taste. Topped off with red, we put them in the oven. As per usual, I used Wilton icing dye to get the bright colors. Out of the oven they looked perfect.

And the boys loved them.

And I sacrificed not one but two in the name of art again.

Basically, it was a great day for us. In fact, the boys had such a lovely day, despite the rain, that they went straight to sleep and started off our Super Summer on a fabulous note and slept clear until 7:40 this morning. I think that deserves celebration with another cupcake, don’t you agree?

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Don’t forget to enter my Shirts That Go giveaway! It ends Tuesday!

Starting Off Our Summer Break is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

And here’s our rainbow cake experience.

I followed SweetNick’s advice and went with the Pillsbury cake mix. It took me two trips to The Store That Has Everything from Spray Paint to Food Coloring to find the Wilton’s Icing Coloring. Here’s my tip: It’s not in the “normal” baking aisle. It’s in the “crafting” baking aisle near the wedding stuff. Of course, as they just remodeled our store, it took me awhile to even find this aisle on my second trip after being informed I could most likely find what I was looking for by my fellow tweeple. (Thanks, all!) I also went with premade frosting/icing because I didn’t want to ruin the cake. I switched brands and went with Betty Crocker’s Whipped “Fluffy White” frosting because it is smooth. I used almost all of two jars to ice this six layer monstrosity.

(That’s what the Wilton’s Icing Coloring looks like so you know what you are searching for in the craft baking aisle. I still maintain that baking things should be in the baking aisle in the food section. But apparently this makes too much sense.)

The point of doing this edible craft, after all, was to let the boys help. And they did. They helped do the initial stirring, laughed as I used the mixer and helped put the coloring in each of the bowls. Here’s another tip: when they say that you don’t need a lot of each color, they’re correct. A toothpick dip in each was all I needed for all but the red. The red needed three dips. The boys loved watching the colors appear. I loved watching their faces light up.

As the cakes were cooling, we went outside to play. And my two loving sons, one with purple still on his face, had a loving moment. I live for these moments.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t let them stack or ice the cake with me. I had enough difficulty and I don’t regret this decision. Starting with purple on the bottom (next to my plum Fiestaware), I iced in between each layer. The bad news about my baking is that since I made my red layer last, there was a little extra batter in that baking pan. However, I didn’t check that cake separately when the others were done. As such, the top of the red layer deflated. I figured this would be okay as the red layer was the top layer. After I stacked them all the way to the top, I just added extra icing in the deflated hole. No one was the wiser. Except that I just told the whole Internet. Hmm. Anyway, you saw this picture on Wednesday but it belongs here as well. This was after the stacking just before I started icing around the sides.

The next day, the boys woke to a six layer iced cake sitting in the middle of our kitchen table. And they didn’t touch it. We had friends over for a playdate and cut the cake. It was beautiful.

And BigBrother was happy about it.

I’ve been asked, umpteen billion times, why I made a rainbow cake, why I baked a cake, why why why. Doesn’t anyone just bake a cake for no reason? I mean, I’m honestly not the biggest fan of cake. I prefer pie. But this Pillsbury mix with the pudding in it? That’s some soft, moist, delicious cake. And so, my reason for baking this cake with my sons is that I wanted to do something fun, something different with them. We had a good time.

And I got to have a healthy breakfast of coffee and cake the next morning. The coffee makes it a legitimate breakfast, right?

I’m glad I decided to go ahead and do this edible craft with my kids. Not only did we enjoy making it, we enjoyed sharing it with friends. Even if they did make fun of me for making a cake for “no reason” other than something to do. Sure beats normal crafts for us!

Rainbow Cake: A Craft You Can Eat is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

And so, the Mommy Guilt started to creep in. I started thinking of all the things I could have been doing other than working. I could have been cleaning my house. Or baking cookies with BigBrother. Or doing puzzles with LittleBrother. (Playing outside wasn’t an option as it was nasty all week. At least I had that in my favor.)

And then I started thinking about all the things that Moms should do with their kids. You know, things that I simply have no desire to do. Mainly crafts. I’ve written about crafts before and how BigBrother seems to inherited my lack of a crafting gene. I just don’t really like crafts. I understand their purpose. I do like that they take up time. I do like that children gain tactile skills and learn other things when doing crafts. But I hate them. It figures, then, that while I was lamenting over things that I wanted to be doing with the boys (practicing t-ball, doing puzzles, coloring (which is not the same as crafting), running through fields of flowers), I was also feeling guilty for not doing things that I didn’t even want to do.

I was still feeling guilty when I went to a Dos de Mayo party at my friend Mandy’s house on Saturday evening. (What? You don’t know about Dos de Mayo? It’s what you do when Cinco de Mayo falls on a Tuesday and you know that there’s no way you’re staying up past bedtime on a weeknight.) Mandy had planned a little sombrero craft with a paper cup, a little paper plate, fuzzy crafting balls and glue. After the kids finished drowning their craft in glue, we sat back down at the table and someone let it slip.

“I hate crafts.”

I don’t remember who said it first but it’s like the heavens opened and sun shone down upon that table out in the backyard. Angels sang. Trumpets sounded. And then another friend of ours said, “Me too.” I think my jaw dropped before I admitted the same thing (and admitted that I was planning on blogging about feeling like a bad mom for not enjoying crafts this week). Of course, the husbands among us didn’t understand why we did them if we didn’t like them but, well, I can assure you that FireDad doesn’t enjoy them either. So, someone has to do it. We talked about it for a few minutes; those reasons that we do crafts with our children even though we really don’t enjoy the process.

And I felt like less of a Bad Mom.

This week, thus far, I have done some things that I prefer doing with the boys. We’ve finally made it through our pile of new books. We played some games. We sang and danced to make videos on the webcam. And I don’t think we’ll do any crafts this week. I’m not good at them. I don’t enjoy them. And really, there are other ways to learn. Maybe we’ll start doing young learning science experiments or something with letters. You know, things that I’m good at and things that I enjoy.

But I’m apparently not a Bad Mom for disliking crafts. (I’m also not a Bad Mom because my house is messy!) Hooray!

Maybe I’m Not a Bad Mom is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

We recently received four amazing books that really fit this theme. I’ll group them in twos (though the picture here shows all four).

1. Our Country’s Presidents(the newest version with Obama on the front including a foreword written by him) and Our Country’s First Ladies(not yet including Michelle) are both highly interesting books from National Geographic. Also, because of the book, I have now googled and found the argument over whether or not our state has produced eight Presidents or not. (Argument being over William Henry Harrison.) My favorite part of the book are the quotes included on most President’s pages. Take a look at this one from George Washington:

Many things which appear of little importance in themselves and at the beginning may have great and durable consequences.

How very true. Similarly, the quotes in the First Ladies book were interseting but I loved the little tidbits about these important women. The stuff you didn’t learn in high school history. Like this one:

Mary Todd Lincoln, at five feet, two inches in height, would have been dwarfed by her husband, Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s tallest president at six feet, four inches.

I love learning little things like that one!

2. The other two books are a very interesting read. Dear Mr. Presidentand Dear First Ladyare letters to and from people of importance and everyday citizens alike. I found them to be an amazing little glimpse into the life and times of each era. One of my favorite letters was from the Merrick School Mothers Club in Syracuse, New York to Lady Bird Johnson in March of 1965. I don’t know why but it made me smile, especially seeing the work that Lady Bird Johnson did in her era. One of the harder letters to read was a letter to John F. Kennedy about a brother killed in Viet Nam. All of the letters give us that glimpse into a world which we did not live for even if we were alive at the time, we were not privy to the inner workings and mailbox of our elected officials.

And so, if you have time, run out and grab these books today. They’re likely to be on sale! If you don’t want to leave your house (as it is randomly snowing here), considering helping your child write a letter to our current President. Even the youngest of the verbal clan have something to offer. Perhaps he just wants to tell the President to remember to say please and thank you. Couldn’t we all use a letter that reminds us of the innocence of children? I think so.

(While you’re at it, write your letter to our President and our First Lady. What change do you want to inspire?)

As always, Kaboose offers a number of President’s Day activities for you to do with your children. We’ve already made an Obama plate so I think we’ll go with a “Yes We Can” can or an Abe Lincoln paper hat. Should be fun whatever we decide to do. (We might throw some snowflakes on the hat because if President Lincoln were alive today and wearing his hat outside our house, it would have snow on it!)

We’ll also be reading the books Duck for President and If I Ran for President. While it’s not currently time for an election of such nature, I think today is a good day to talk about such things.

As for some Presidential food ideas, dye some cupcakes red and blue and have a party after supper in honor of our Presidents, past and present. In fact, if you do this, let me know. I’ll be over.

Learn with Your Kids on President’s Day is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

I made Valentine’s Day cookies for the first time yesterday. They’re for BigBrother’s first Valentine’s Day party today. We also spent a large portion of yesterday afternoon making Valentines to give his classmates. As you know, I’m not a crafter. I’m also not a baker. (I burnt three of the cookies.) And, quite obviously, I am not a cookie decorator. (No, BigBrother didn’t help me decorate them. He cut them out but that’s my not-so-handy work on top.)

I’ve had a blast the past day and a half gearing up for today’s party. I don’t really know why. FireDad and I don’t even “do” Valentine’s Day between the two of us, preferring to save our money for our annual weekend getaway for St. Patrick’s Day. But there’s just been something fun about getting ready for this party. Picking out the “stuff” to make his invitations. (Blank cards, love bug foam stickers and alphabet foam stickers so he could “write” his own name.) Picking out the lollipops to go with them. (Swirl heart ones, my favorite as a kid.) Searching all over the state for heart-shaped cookie cutters. (I ended up buying a box of 101 cookie-cutters just to get one heart-shaped one. Seriously.) And then doing all of the preparation work with BigBrother. It was fabulous. For two non-crafters, we sure had a great time crafting.

Now I’m off to get him dressed in his shirt from Children’s Place and take him off to school… where he’ll hand out cards and eat cookies without me. Maybe that’s why I loved the process of doing all of it together with him… knowing I wouldn’t be there to watch the actual fun part? I suppose that’s just part of parenting: missing some of the good stuff.

All the same, I have a very happy BigBrother on my hands today. I’ll take that. I will.

Happy Love Thursday! [For more, visit Chookooloonks.]

Love Thursday: His First Valentine’s Day Party is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

Obama spoke of us today, specifically of the Fire Family. While letting us know that he is a President by and for the people, he reminded us that it is we, the people, who will ultimately change this nation (one should add, for good or not so good). And, then came the mention of our family.

It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t speaking of FireDad, TheBrothers and me, but, well, it sure felt like it. And, let me tell you, it feels good to be recognized. Not only did President Obama tip his hat at the hard work firefighters do to protect our families and towns but he also gave a nod to every parent among us (firefighters included). After a string of hectic parenting days (as LittleBrother is teething and/or sick), I needed a nod. Respect for what I am doing feels good. It gives me all the more respect for what he is doing.

And, so then, what are you doing? What are you doing to make this nation a better place to live? I don’t care about party lines as long as you’re doing something that you believe in. 2008 was a year in which we saw people take an active, physical interest in politics; some who had never voted or cared about such things before. But political action doesn’t end with the election of a President, however historic. What are you doing to help your community? Your city? Your state? Your special interest group? Your children and your children’s children? Don’t think that now that Obama officially wears the title of President that the fight is over. If you really want to see that change take place, you’ve got to do something about it.

Us? Besides continuing the fight for adoptees to gain access to their Original Birth Certificates, we’ll be continuing to volunteer and help out with some other interests of ours. I predict some more involvement this year as I’m no longer battling postpartum depression. We’ll also be raising these boys to be the compassionate souls that we know that they are… most of the time. We’re raising them, actively participating in their learning and character forming. Getting messy in the process, like you should if you’re doing it right. See?

We painted this together (idea found on Kaboose), me and BigBrother, when he got home from school. You can see the mistakes as I let him take control after I showed him where the colors went on the design that I had pre-drawn with pen. The mistakes make it more real, don’t you think? Our new President is going to make mistakes. FireDad and I are going to make mistakes, professionally and as parents. BigBrother and LittleBrother are going to make mistakes. And yet, in doing all of this today with my children, I was filled with a sense of hope.

Hope for my children. Hope for our family. Hope for me. Hope for you. Hope for our nation. I pray that feeling continues, even through the mistakes, and that we come out the other side of this with the ability to recall and rejoice in this feeling we’re floating on right now.

Because hope isn’t a bad thing, folks. It’s just not.

[Once again, this is my shot for Project365 today over on Stop, Drop & Photograph. Apologies for duplicates two days in a row.]

Obama Spoke of Us Today is a post from Stop, Drop and Blog. Want more of Stop, Drop and Blog? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, contact me or hit me up via twitter.

Well, almost.

Today is BigBrother’s first “harvest” party at preschool. They are decorating treat bags for candy and the note said that they were allowed to bring in candy to give to the other kids. Can I tell you how excited I got? His first little party! How fun! I bought some lollipops, some smarties and some bite size chocolate.

And then I bought those little Halloween baggies that you put the candy in and fold over the top. Not because I wanted to be organized. (Though, that happened.) Not because I thought they were cute. (Though, they were.) The real reason? I always wanted to be the kid who took a little baggie of candy for a holiday party to school. And I never was. But now I am! Kind of.

No slight to my Mom. I just never took the little baggie of candy. And I always wanted to. Because I remember receiving those little baggies of candy and thinking that the kid giving it to me was the coolest. kid. EVER! Don’t misconstrue my desire to give baggies of candy as a need for my child to be popular. Most likely, with the rules we’ll have in our house later in life, he really won’t get to be that popular kid. But as the kid who never quite fit in, well, maybe some of that is there. Who knows. He does already have friends in his class, for which I am grateful, even if one did teach him how to spit. (Seriously.) I shouldn’t worry. He’s a likable kid, really, if just a little bit too loud. All the same, I sent him with little baggies of candy.Very simple ones: two suckers, two smarties and one bite-size chocolate with a page of stickers. Win, right?!

I felt like Super Mom! SEE?!

Apparently times have changed since I was in candy-giving-ages school. Because, dang. Not only did almost every kid have a baggie of candy to give but they were overflowing full. No stickers holding the fold over top closed on theirs (and, thus, not very organized!). But one mom even made monster-shaped chocolate-suckers with faces and everything. I wish I was joking. Suddenly my baggies didn’t seem so awesome. They looked kind of plain. And boring. Like the single pieces of candy my Mom used to send me with back in the day.

And I’ve failed again as a preschool mother.

Bummer.

Chances are, at this age, BigBrother isn’t going to notice. Chances are that even next year, I’m not going to get any fancier or put any more candy in the baggies. (Remember? I’m not crafty. Making chocolate-suckers with monster faces is so beyond me that I can’t even comprehend how you would start.) Chances are that someday one or both of my kids will complain that what they took to school was boring. Chances are that they’ll live. Right?

Chances are I’m going to eat a chocolate-sucker with a monster face after BigBrother goes to sleep tonight. Well, to be honest, that’s a definite.

Be safe if you’re trick-or-treating tonight! And/or tomorrow. Just be safe.

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