G opens library bag, pulls out 101 Dalmatians, says “Look! Lady & the Chump!” Where do I turn in my Moms Panel membership card? #epicfail
2010 Halloween decorating tips Part 2
A relatively sane mom would just say that if the outside is decorated, that’s all that matters. That’s all anyone is going to see anyway, right?
Yes, well, you’re not talking to anyone reasonably sane. I have three daughters – it takes a toll on your mental faculties.
Here are a few inexpensive and easy ways to spruce up the inside of your house for Halloween. Look at it this way – the decorations hide the dust and the dirty windows!
Tip #6. Turn the little ones loose with tape!
Notice the couch in front of the bay window, just the right size for little climbers. My beauty girls are always climbing up in this window box anyway, so they might as well have something to do! I picked up a bunch of paper decorations at the party store for under $1 each, and let the kids tape them up. They were excited to contribute to the decorating, and if the sun bleaches them out, I don’t mind tossing them and replacing them. Notice this guy on the floor, trampled and unhung. Well at cheap prices, its bound to happen. Remember to give the kids things they can handle, but if you haven’t spent a fortune on decorations when they handle it too rough (and they will) no one gets yelled at.
Tip #7. Fall broom scented with oils
I love cinnamon brooms, and if you are the creative sort, you can decorate the brooms (available at local craft stores and some supermarkets – I got mine at Wegmans) with ribbon, fall leaves, and pine cones. Or, if you’re too busy to be creative, just place the broom in a corner of the room and let the spicy smell of fall permeate the room. It smells better if the broom gets some sun on it during the day.
Now as wonderful as they make your house smell wonderful from Spetember to January. After Christmas don’t throw them away. At the end of the season, put them in a plastic bag with some cinnamon scented oil and then another plastic bag and seal it up tight. It will be there for you again next fall.
One note, this picture requires you to clean those wonderful hardwood floors. See Tip #1 above for more details on how to make that happen.
Tip #8. Table decorations
Nothing says Halloween like treats. Fill some glass jars with some autumn color wrapped chocolates and candy corn. They look nice clustered on the table with some decorations, and they can help keep the kids (and the husband) out of the candy that you bought for the trick or treaters.
Tip #9 Indian Corn
I only buy this because my dad always bought it. He loved the stuff. And it is a simple, festive way to celebrate the harvest season. You can hang them on a door, use them as a centerpiece (tied with ribbon, which I have but haven’t had time to add), or put them at the end of a banister. That’s probably where mine is going this year.
If you are going to hang the corn outside, use that Tabasco or cayenne pepper on it – the birds will think you’re laying out a buffet!
Tip #10. Save everything.
And I do mean everything including those window clings, left over napkins and plates, and those ghost cookie cutters you used to cut up their sandwhiches every day. Put it all in a giant orange 30 gallon tub and save it for next year. Make a fun game of opening the tubs, and let the kids be suprised all over again at what you have kept from year to year when they are they to open the lids.
Happy Halloween!
2010 Halloween decorating tips
It’s almost Halloween, and as if my house isn’t scary and cobwebby enough on a regular basis, it’s time to deck the place out. But who the heck has the time? Here are some quick and easy Fall 2010 and Halloween decorating tips for Moms like me – you know, the ones whose kids have badgered you that you’re the only house left in creation without decorations up and could you please, pretty please put something scary out so people will come for trick or treat?
Tip #1. Have your husband do all the work. Yeah, that’s not gonna work. Let’s move on, shall we?
Tip #2. Mums
That’s right, have a pack of British women come and do it! No? Okay, then just hit up your garden center, super market, or local WalMart and get pots of mums. You don’t even have to go to the trouble of un-potting them and planting them in the ground. They come in a plethora of gorgeous fall colors, and on their own, they will add a festive autumn look to the front of your house. I saw many nurseries and grocery stores in my area selling them for $3 each – you can make your house pop for under $20!
Tip #3. Pumpkins
Unlike last year, when the weather did some serious damage to the pumpkin crop, driving up the price of these spectacular fall decorations, pumpkins this year are plentiful, which means prices are down! I prefer to leave mine whole, because that way, they do double duty as Thanksgiving decor. If you have a squirrel problem, like we do, you can keep your pumpkins intact by spraying them with a mixture of water and Tabasco sauce, or sprinkle some cayenne pepper on them. Moth balls around them work as well, but they do detract a bit from your fall landscape.
Tip #4. Kids outside with crayons markers and a pumpkin
This is a before shot, I will post the update after they have their ways with these two unsuspecting pumpkins of the torture, creativity and torment that awaits them. Even though I like my pumpkins plain, kids do not. Use paints, markers, or even felt strips and glue to allow your kids to decorate the pumpkins. Enlist the help of an able bodied grown up if you want to go all the way with that spookily carved Jack-O-Lantern. You’ll also find other things you can use to decorate your pumpkins – like these Mr. Potato Head pieces I found at Target last year.
I also do not recommend that you enlist the help of my husband, who tends to be a bit too macabre when carving his pumpkins.
Tip #5. Cob webs
Easy to spread out, and a pain to pick up later. But this is something the kids can do to help out and feel like they’ve decorated, plus it gives the house a spooky but not too scary look. Let the husband who didn’t help you put the decorations up or those British Mums clean up after Halloween is over.
And in Part 2 I give you some very helpful inside decorating tips #6 thru #10 http:www.beautygirlsmom.com/2010-halloween-decorating-tips-part-2
Mom’s guide to the truth behind fashion models
As a mom to three daughters, I work really hard at teaching them that you need to be healthy without worrying about looking like the unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves. I try to teach them what I believe – that while you do have some control over your size and weight, they are genetically born into a family of obese people. I could blame fast food and processed food or an excessive amount of junk food, but truth be told, growing up, we didn’t go to fast food restaurants. My mom always had snack foods in the house, but they weren’t liberally dispensed throughout the day – you had them as a bedtime or after school snack. We didn’t eat a lot of fattening foods, and there were always vegetables and fruit in the house. My grandmother, who produced five children who all ended up obese and diabetic, cooked every meal from scratch, and rarely had anything other than fruit salad or a homemade cake or fruit pie that she portioned out to last at least a few days so she didn’t have to bake again. Again, I’m not saying we couldn’t have exercised and eaten smaller portions to affect our weight, but there is some genetics in whether or not you are going to be fat.
We know Barbie is an unrealistic skinny bitch, but we’re grown ups. Our little girls do not see the irony in the fact that you can buy Barbie kitchens, Barbie food, Barbie couches and TVs so you could have a Barbie couch potato, but you can’t buy a Barbie with a mouth that will open up to enjoy one morsel of the fabulous wedding cake you can purchase for her. Barbie is like the original anorexic. But we don’t tell our little girls that as we buy Barbie pants that you have to lay her on the bed to button. And we should.
Here is an example of a bad photoshop job. The model has thighs. Huge, fat, chunky, my size? Probably not, or she wouldn’t be a model in the first place. But to make the picture look better, they trim down her already super thin thighs. So why do we have to take a photo of what was probably already a far cry from what many of us will ever be able to attain in terms of a thin body and make it appear even thinner and less attainable? What message are we sending our girls? Or even our boys? Do they grow up wanting real women, or do they grow up seeing flaws in every woman who doesn’t need a size 0 taken in at the waist?
Rest assured that all of my pictures are not altered in Photoshop Version 7.0.1.1.1.0.0.1.j to make my butt smaller. My arse is what it is. And my girls have all seen it wandering the house naked. They know that I am not now nor will I ever be a Barbie doll. Or a Heidi Klum. We just haven’t been blessed with the genetics or the modeling plastic that allows us to be that thin. And it’s okay to be what we are and be proud of ourselves.
Show your daughters pictures like the one above. And videos like this one –
We’re not all going to be a super model, and we can’t all have their bodies. But we can be proud of the bodies we have.
Make sure your daughter knows that.
Inside Starbucks coffee talk with Sandi
Inside Starbucks coffee talk w/ worlds greatest barista Sandi & picking up coffee for tonights party. Came out with a bag that turned into this setting for tonight’s party.
Why did I need to buy coffee? Contrary to public opinion, almost every picture ever seen of me, and my husband, I actually don’t drink coffee.
RT storpappa: How can you soun…
RT storpappa: How can you sound mopey when working -#Starbucks window? Caffeine fumes alone should perk you up
