Mom, Is Santa Real?

Two weeks ago completely out of the blue....that dreaded question came up.
Yes, the one I've been dreading.
Mom, is Santa real?

I heard every one's opinions on the topic whether I wanted to or not.
We had 3 older brothers growing up who didn't let us believe a stitch in magic.
They knew all the best hiding places for presents and were masters of unwrapping and rewrapping.
After a few years of this mischief our parents just hid them at my Dad's office.  No visions of sugar plum fairies ever danced in our heads.

I promised myself as a kid that when I had a kid of my own that it would be pure magic
in every sense of the word.
We love Santa and the Tooth Fairy at our house.  They really are the only ones that seem even remotely real right?  Here is one of her notes to the tooth fairy, embarrassed of the cavity she had.

 I would never lie and I never have, I'm a master of asking round about questions.  "Is Santa real?", "Well do you think he's real?"  "Do you believe in Santa?" "Well do you believe in Santa, do you want to believe in Santa?"  The only time I've walked the line was while we've been in stores shopping with Candace and our kids and I tell them Santa is watching them through all the store security cameras so they'll behave.

Or maybe when I printed out those awesome Christmas pictures secretly snapped when Santa was caught eating cookies.  I hadn't even cleaned off the counter and that sneaky Santa was too impatient to eat those cookies!   If you haven't seen this website Capture The Magic you have to go~it made me giddy creating the pictures!
             

photo from Graphics Fairy

I've never been more grateful for this cute little letter, a love letter of sorts from a Mother to her Daughter explaining Santa Claus.

It is found here from Cozi.com written by Martha Brockenbrough 

 I think it's one of the very first things I ever pinned and it saved my life.  I didn't know how to even respond at first.  Some people want to believe in Santa, some people don't.  He's the magic of Christmas that loves the children and brings joy through his kindness and generosity towards others.

"You lied to me?"  So how do you explain that you didn't really lie....
My daughter isn't confrontational~she expresses herself through drawings and books.  Her "book" response to me was titled "Santa is a phony, my parents lied to me."  She has since destroyed the book probably because I told her she misspelled some words and she might want to fix that because I intended to keep the book to show to her kids one day.

I quickly printed out this wonderful letter, adapting it to fit her and I and gave it to her.  My hubby and I drove down to get a soda, this was a pain only Dr. Pepper could fix.  My husband's quick fix-it-hat response was "Are you more upset that she's calling you a liar or that her innocence is lost?"

Upon arriving back home her reaction to me was completely different, soft, pleading for answers.  It was a therapist dream session, explaining all my "issues" from my youth and my promise to my child I hoped I'd have someday.  After tears hugs, tears and more hugs everything seemed okay.  I felt so emotionally drained but so grateful for that letter.

Later that afternoon I found her busy hunting down her wish list off of eBay.  I guess as a parent I'm okay...and I've survived to parent another day.

Have a wonderful weekend friends!:)

For The Birds Birthday Party

My little girl turned 10 a few weeks ago and we had such a fun little party for her.
She is growing up fast and wanted nothing super cutesy so I stuck her on Pinterest and told her to pin her favorite things she found.

The result was an Owl/bird themed party.
We took bits and pieces of all the things she found that she liked and put them all together.
We were inspired by these cute invitations from Olive and Star found here.
The invitations were made from Vellum and paper found at Hobby Lobby.
I found these cute little owl and party hat stickers from Stickabilities.
Yes, they were super cutesy, but hey sometimes I can't help it!

After finding the stickers it was easy to pick out cute matching paper.

The party hat stickers just made everything soooo cute!

We even had to put them on the outside envelope.

And...we had to make cupcake toppers with them too!  These are so easy, I stuck them onto white card stock first because they are translucent.  Then I cut out around them and then cut out a larger outline of them on the coordinating chevron paper.  Using my glue gun I glued lollipop sticks onto the chevron and then glued the little owls on top of the lollipop stick.  Easy and matched everything perfect!

We had to make goodie bags too!

We couldn't decide between our two favorites so we morphed them into one.

Inspirations came from here at Kerry's Paper Crafts and the other is a source unknown.

We found some easy to make Thank You Twwwwweeeeats to make for our guests,

found here from Hello, Good Gravy!

At first we didn't think we would have time to play games and then I double checked the time that the bird flight show started and realized I had some extra time on my hands I hadn't planned for since they changed the time from last year.  Yes, you'd think I would have checked that out "before" making the invitations....

We found a Candy Themed Punch game over at Mom Filter found here.

So at the last moment I found a big card board box and put this together the night before around midnight.

Did I mention I am a procrastinator?

                      

My lighting wasn't very good that morning but it turned out great!

My daughter helped me put all the prizes together that I picked up at a local party store.

Most popular were the hillbilly fake teeth from Walmart and the party poppers.  I should have gotten way more of those!

The kids had to answer "bird" related questions, ranging from "what kind of bird do most Americans eat at Thanksgiving" to "What is our National Bird"?  It was a total blast and totally worth making!

I'm not a fancy table setter but we did have some fun with the goodies for the kids!

We had all sorts of stuff that birds would eat and funny descriptions to go along with them.

I found some mini Idaho Spud Bar bites that reminded me of Owl Pellets.  Needless to say they weren't really touched.  I guess they looked too realistic.  Too bad, more for me.:)     

My daughter wanted blue frosting to match all things blue with the party.

                   

We made white cupcakes and filled them with vanilla pudding colored with yellow food coloring.

We thought it was fun to bite into one and have it mimic an egg.:)

We used The Idea Room's whipping cream frosting which is soooo yummy found here.

The stuff melts easily so be careful piping it in.  My hands heated up the bag and we almost had a cupcake failure on our hands.  Thanks goodness for cold refrigerators!

Finally we finished our day out at the Idaho Center for Birds of Prey.

In October and the first part of November they bring out about 5 of their birds and do outdoor flight shows for the public.

It's not only fascinating but so much fun!

They have an outside theater for visitors to be seated in and the birds fly right over your head.

This is Trish Nixon, a Raptor Specialist at the World Center.  She's A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!  

She is holding Wally our favorite bird, a Eurasian Eagle Owl.

After the crazy day we returned home to this.

Yes, this is what happens when boys are invited to the party.

She looks like a zombie in there....

I can't believe that's it's been 10 years already with this sweet girl.  She was so worth the wait!

WYLTC November Turkey

Come join us today over at Wood You Like To Craft
with November's Thanksgiving/Turkey theme!

I've had this turkey mostly cut out for over 4 years begging me to get around to making him.
Another thing checked off my long list "for me" that I've been working on.
Come see what the other gals have done too!

No school tomorrow~I think I'm about as excited as my daughter is!  Happy Thursday!

Halloween Day After Sugar Coma

Yes, Medusa is in the house!
Wow where did this month go?
Halloween was here before we knew it and today we are both
exhausted from all the preparations and parties on Halloween!

But before I crash from what feels like a sugar high~when really I only had like 2 pieces of candy yesterday, I swear,  I just had to post some pictures of my daughters Medusa costume.
 Every year my Mom, my daughter and I gather together to sew "the costume".
I realized that this is really the only serious tradition we have that we always celebrate each year.
The costume was easy to make but it's the talking that happens during the sewing that makes a pattern that should take maybe 5 hours at the very most to put together.....3 days.:)
 She is trying to look evil here, so hard not to smile.
I contemplated making a homemade wig....and then I figured out how much it was going to cost + how much time is was going to take + the gamble of whether it would work out all right.......EBay had me for $19 + free shipping.  It wasn't a hard choice.
Here is my girl with our Dear Sweet Mother.  Oh how I love them!  Last night was quite bitter sweet to me.  My not so little little girl is turning 10 this weekend!  How did this happen?  I realized I'm lucky if I get a year or maybe 2 more of this tradition, of these festivities on Halloween, of staying up late with her counting and organizing all that precious candy.  I cried through my shower this morning just thinking about it.  This thing called "being a Mother" is hard.

Candace's boys wouldn't sit still for pictures again this year~too anxious to run out and get some candy.  She did catch a snap shot of her youngest who is Jake The Pirate.  He refused to wear the wig~it's okay because he's so stinkin' cute!

I survived the class Halloween party and the Church Trunk or Treat I was in charge of feeding 500 hot dogs and bratwursts to.  Candace made 80 sugar cookies for her kid's classes!  I realized I didn't share my pretty wreath I finally made after buying stuff to make it 3 years ago and I didn't get the haunted house painted that I finally got cut out.  November is looking a lot like Halloween craft catch up for me and I intend to paint that haunted house this week!  We hope your Halloween was wonderful!!!  Happy 1st day of November friends!