George Ezra…Listen to the Man

My kids and I are really loving George Ezra’s music right now. Afternoon dance parties! Such a deep voice from a young guy of 22. To listen to his whole album go here. To watch his funny video with Ian McKellen and quite possibly my favorite Ezra song “Listen to the Man” right now, watch below (go ahead and click on the you tbe link when it asks).

And if you really loved him he’s coming to Dallas on Oct 4th and New Orleans on Oct 7th! Go see him and tell him I said hi!

Moms…Just Exercise At Home

I was watching TV the other day when a segment came on about how moms could easily exercise at home. Now, before you get onto me about watching the segment, I was doing what most moms do, I was multi-tasking – watching the segment, folding laundry, and monitoring my youngest in the shower.

What the host said about exercising went something like this, “Moms, it’s so easy to exercise at home. You just have to make the time.”

Yep. I agree. You just have to make the time.

But the “it’s so easy part?” Nope.

Every single time I try and exercise at home while my kids are there something like this happens:

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Now a few things are happening in this picture:

1. I am being real with you and showing you that when I attempt to exercise at home I do it in my pajamas. I feel no shame.

2. Our play room is a mess.

3. Little people always seem to gather around once that rocking jazzercise type music comes on. I feel like the Pied Piper.

In this case, I was attempting to exercise with a you tube video on the computer.  Little person hears the drums and synthesizers and join me. The exercise I am supposed to be performing is to swing my leg back and forth then up and down. Therefore, my little partner is trying  the same thing but she sticks to mainly just kicking forward and laughing hysterically as she rams her foot into my rear end.

Moving on from that exercise we attempt to strengthen our backs by rolling over and laying down on our tummies. This naturally leads to the “Mommy is a horsey” exercise. It is neither productive nor comfortable for Mommy horse.

Trying to do crunches?

That of course leads to little one leaning on your legs trying to start the well known parent exercise of “flying airplane kid.”

So it is usually at this point that I just give up. It’s just not worth it TV ladies.

For now I will just stick to biking with my kids to school and my swim workouts which are away from home. I’ll still watch the TV exercise segments of course but I will probably just work on building those folding t-shirt muscles.

Mom Fail…Number 8,745…the School Supplies Edition

After returning from vacation in the middle of July my soon to be 4th grader asked, “Are we ever going to buy school supplies?”

“Well son, seeing as we still have five weeks before you start school I think we are okay.”  My reply didn’t really satisfy him or his sister who also had a case of school supply mania.

Three weeks before school started I caved and took them shopping. We bought everything required except for the folders my son needed. Somehow I missed seeing those on the list.

My 4th grader needed blue, red, and yellow folders with brads for school.

First off, why in the world do they even sell folders without the brads in the middle?

No one buys them and they are quite useless.

Moving on.

Fast forward to two days before school starts.

While out shopping I found the blue folder that was needed and scooped that up but could not find a yellow or red folder.

All together, my husband and I went to about 6 different stores looking for these folders.

School started and by the 3rd day of school my son said that he really needed the folders.

I suddenly remembered that I had a stash of school supplies saved in case any of the kids that I teach need something. Old folders, binders, erasers when they go on sale. You name it, I probably have it in my box.

Searching through the box I found a yellow folder with brads but it had someone else’s name on it. I crossed that name out and handed the folder to my son. He was less than thrilled when I showed him the folder. I promised that this was just temporary and that I would still look for new folders.

Cut to the next day and another store folder failure.

So desperate times come for desperate measures.

I asked my husband where the electrical tape was. Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to recall us having red electrical tape. He found the tape and we were in business “making a red folder.”

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I proclaimed the folder perfect.

My husband said, “really?”

“When Andrew looks into his desk he will know which one his red folder is, it’s great.”

Great is probably not how my 10 year old saw it the next morning but he took the folder and put it into his backpack without a fuss.

A few days later I was cleaning out a drawer and happened to find an old plastic red folder with brads that was already labeled with Andrew’s name.

Thank you to hoarding school supplies from kindergarten!

Andrew was happy to take that red folder to school and bring back the green and red folder.

I thought all was good on the school supply front until yesterday when Andrew brought home a note saying he needed an extra blue folder with brads for a different class.

I shouted to be husband, “Honey, have you seen the blue electrical tape?”

Mission Accomplished…Saving Money with a Chart

Look who accomplished her mission of saving for a stuffed animal!

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Last time we left off my six year old was busy working odd jobs like folding towels around the house in order to save enough money to purchase a Build-a-Bear stuffed animal. She was keeping track of her savings using the chart I made for her.

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Caroline had saved about $23.00 when I received an email from Build-a-Bear announcing a 40% off sale on the stuffed animals. This meant that the stuffed animal Caroline wanted that originally cost $28 would now be on sale for $16.80! This would be a big savings for her.

When we started this money saving process I told Caroline that if she bought the stuffed animal I would buy an outfit for the animal. Any other accessories she wanted to buy would be her responsibility. Once we knew about the sale I told Caroline to kick her saving into overdrive because we needed to get to the store in a few days in order to use the 40% coupon. The sale would give her an opportunity to buy the animal and an accessory.

The day of the big purchase came. Caroline laid out all of her money and counted it. We made piles 100 (when counting the coins we counted to 100 and she knew that meant she had one dollar).

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Just a quick note about how I taught my daughter to count nickels and dimes. We worked on knowing that 2 nickels has the same value of 1 dime. So when we lined up the coins we lined them up into ten cent amounts. Looking at the coins in vertical groups you see 10 cents, 10 cents, 10 cents, and 5 cents. By having her line up the 2 nickels on top of each other she knew they were the same value as the dime. Putting her fingers on these coins she would count: 10, 20, 30, 35.

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After all the money was counted, Caroline had saved $27.93. Not quite the $30 goal but I knew with only 1 day left in the 40% off sale we needed to go to the store now.

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Caroline walked right to the stuffed animal she wanted – Risa the Rock Star Rabbit. With each rock girl you  get to choose a star that goes inside of her. Caroline chose the word, “fearless.”

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I turned down every opportunity the Build-a-Bear workers tried to extort get more money from Caroline. Don’t you want a talking heart inside for $5? Don’t you want a bubblegum smelly in your animal for $4? No we don’t. It’s not in the budget.

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After getting her bear stuffed , choosing an outfit and pair of shoes for the newly named “Blueberry,” we made our way to the check out. Caroline gave the animal and pair of shoes to the clerk who totaled up everything. In what I can only call fate or a small miracle from the money gods the total came out to $27.93! The exact amount Caroline had.

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I had Caroline count out her money and give it to the clerk. Yes, I am that mom who will make everyone else behind me wait. It was a big moment for her and I wanted her to be able to see it through to the end. After all, since we had exchanged all of the 100’s into dollar bills at home she only had to count out $27 in bills and the 93 cents in coins.

Here’s the end result!

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Caroline really loves “Blueberry” and is proud of the fact that she worked hard to get her. I am sure she’s going to request another money saving chart at some point and that will be fine. What I am most excited about it when she gets to the money counting lesson at school and she kicks some serious coin counting butt.

Well, that and when she starts folding my towels again.