Why not to keep stamp pads available

The other day after the kids had "gone to bed," Jeff and I were playing WoW with some friends and were busy running through a dungeon, when I heard kids playing. I excused myself for a second and come upstairs to this sight

So..... The boys had discovered the door between their room and the schoolroom was unlocked. They had gone in there, found the blue "washable" stamp pad, and the letter stamps. They looked around and didn't have anything to stamp on, so they decided to stamp themselves. By the time we figured out what they were up to, they were completely blue. I'd show you the head to toe photos, but by the time I'd found my camera they'd already stripped down to nothing..... so I've opted not to post that.
I yelled for Jeff to come upstairs and help me.

Well, we try to wash their hands, and it does not come off. It also did not come off of the marble sink, or the tile, and the bath tub when we put them in. It faded slightly after much washing. I sat there and scrubbed each of them for five minutes or so, and it faded slightly. That's the picture you see above. I think that's Batman's legs as he sits in the bathtub. The water turned blue, but nothing really made it any less noticable.

About two weeks later it has faded to mostly not noticable, and they've had a lot of baths in between then, but man I've learned a couple of things from this: 1. Don't keep stamp pads where kids can reach them. 2. Washable is not. 3. Always have your camera handy, because by the time you find it, the shot is gone. Oh well, now I have a very amusing picture to show their future wife after they've married.

Embellishing a Valentine shirt

I found a red shirt with ruffled edges and these cute little pants, that I thought would make such a perfect Valentine's outfit for my little Princess, with only a little extra help from me. I figured for a $5 investment, that wasn't that bad a deal.

So, I embroidered little heart balloons on the shirt and the pants. The only problem is the pants are about 4 inches too long, so you can't see the cute little balloons I embroidered on them. Oh well.

And, yes she desperately needs a hair cut, but it's hard to cut her hair when she doesn't stay still long. I get nervous about cutting it. I have now discovered that it works really well to cut it when she's buckled in her car seat. Less wiggling then.

First ever Chuck E Cheese party

Our kids went to Chuck E Cheese for the first time ever for a Valentine's Day party


The key to this game when your kids can't reach the pedals: You stand in front, and you pedal it with your hands. The more you pedal the higher you go, and the longer you stay up. All three of my kids had to try it.
They discovered the wonders of getting lots of tokens and being able to stuff them into slots and play games. I learned never to let a toddler have more than one token at a time. Princess seemed to think the most fun part was stuffing the tokens in, so she kept stuffing them in and then stuffing in more tokens, needless to say, I tried to discourage that..... I was not always successful.



I also learned that sitting next to the stage is a very loud area and will give you a headache, or it will if you are sensitive to noise. The pizza is surprisingly good for the price and the environment.
As always with my kids, things you can ride are very popular, but they've also discovered the joy of skee ball. Which they think is played by lobbing the ball as hard as they can.

Notice Superman in the background all set to lob the ball as hard as he can. Eventually after watching me play a little they figured out how to throw it underhanded.
They had a blast and really enjoyed exchanging Valentine's with their friends. Now, some of their friends may have gotten about 10 copies of the Valentine's they were handing out, but they had so much fun putting it in their friend's bag, and seeing what their friends gave them.




So, all in all I'd say this was a win, and gave us a new place we can go to for special occasions/times we want to get out of the house. That, and I had fun making Princess sit with me for the illustrator booth.

Hickory Dickory Dock

To continue our nursery rhyme craft for this week, we completed Hickory Dickory Dock

First we cut the rhyme apart and glued it on the paper

Next the kids got to color and glue on the clock while I ran to the sewing room and made a very quick mouse.

Finally to make the page more sturdy and to let them have more fun with glueing, I let them glue lots of random pieces all over.

And now we get to play it, as they say.

I just have to figure out what other Nursery Rhymes we're going to do now.

The funniness of little kids

So today I'm sitting at Taco Bell with the kids listening to them talk. Batman announces, "I have Superman on this hand, and Princess on the other." He was using this to describe who was sitting next to whom. Now they continue on and Superman is talking about how this is Superman's hand, but Batman keeps telling him, "No I Batman." This continues on for a while with Princess piping in every now and then with "I Princess, I got Princess."

Fast forward to driving home, Batman graciously let Princess sit in his seat. He had a hidden motive, he really wanted to sit in the middle seat, and not in his car seat. So as a special treat I let him sit there, with lots of warnings because I knew we were driving a very short distance, and he's almost big enough to not need a car seat. I eagerly look forward to those days of only one car seat. Continuing on, so all three of them are sitting on the same row, and they are having a blast and talking to each other all the time. They are sitting there being silly and screaming occasionally, then telling each other to stop screaming, until the next one starts the whole rounds again. It's really quite funny to listen to.

My kids seem to believe that when you are sneaking or hiding, to make sure people know what you are doing you need to say this. So, this morning as I'm taking my shower, I hear Superman, tip-toeing across the bathroom saying, "sneak, sneak, sneak," and then he gets into the closet, and quite proudly announces, "I hiding!" To get a proper picture of this you should really imagine it like a cartoon mouse sneaking and hiding from the cat, it really was that exagerated. At this point, if Jeff were here, he would be pointing out, that they learned this from me. Now, I maintain that I am completely innocent. Really and for truly. I have no clue where they picked this up.