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Mom’s Night Out – Review

Got to see a pre-release screening of Mom’s Night Out with some friends Thursday night and I loved it! The first pre-release I’ve ever seen so I didn’t know what to expect. I had three other friends who came as well so we had a nice group going. My husband was a little nervous about feeding the baby and getting him to bed on his own (the movie started at 7:00pm which is right when we start our bedtime routines) but things went pretty well for him. The baby ate 3 pieces of french toast and then didn’t drink very much of his sippy cup, which concerned my husband a little – but I’m sure the little guy was just stuffed from his dinner and wasn’t hungry for milk. Which definitely seemed to be the case because he didn’t wake up any more than usual last night.

Back to the movie…so we get to the theater and walk in and there’s a table set up on the way in to our showing, everyone gets a swag bag. Awesome! I was going to be really disappointed if they didn’t give us something. There was a magnetic notepad, pen, car sticker, resource DVD, two movie posters, nail file, some little cards, keychain, and my favorite “Dad’s Big Book of Tips for Moms’ Night Out”, hilarious tips for Dad’s watching the kids.

So I’m already excited. Then, what I hadn’t realized before, during the introduction, I discover that the movie is created by the same people that made Fireproof, which I haven’t actually watched but it gives me hope that the comedy will be a clean comedy. You know, I invited friends to this, all of our husbands are home with the kids, I’m really hoping for a good movie!

Mom’s Night Out is hilarious and heartwarming at the same time. They did a great job on the movie, me and my friends thoroughly enjoyed it!

The comedy was clean so you could take kids to the movie (though they probably won’t find it as funny as parents do). There were only 3 men in the entire theater last night, which I expected because the marketing for this movie has been primarily to moms. But, I’m sure that men will love it just as much as women do.

It’s a nice, happy, hilarious view of motherhood and parenting and left me, as a mom, re-engergized for the stage of motherhood that I’m in. (or maybe it was the giant piece of New York Style Cheesecake that I ate after the movie…)

I really think any mother would love this movie, regardless of how old her kids are. It comes out May 9th, just in time for Mother’s Day. So if you don’t have plans for your mom yet, try dinner and a movie, and you’ll be glad you did!

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Mom’s Night Out

Looking forward to seeing Mom’s Night Out this evening! Going out with some other Mom friends to see the movie. I’m so excited!

We get to see a pre-release showing at our local theater.I’ve never been to something like this and I’m super excited!

I got the invitation a few weeks ago so I checked my calendar and saw that the date was open, then I txted my husband and asked him if he had heard of the movie and if he had any thoughts. He didn’t really care about the movie, he just thought it was awesome that I get to go to a free pre-release showing of a movie. Basically, he was like “you should go!” even before I gave him the details.

Up until last night I think he was more excited about it for me than I am excited for me. I have a friend who’s a local business owner so she and I each got tickets and we’re each bringing a friend so we’ll have a lot of fun all getting to hang out together!

Of course, last night I think my husband realized that he’s putting all 3 kids to bed on his own. He asked for a list of instructions. I am feeding everyone supper before I leave so really all he has to do is bedtime so it’s not that bad, I think thought that he’s never put the baby to bed since the baby likes to nurse to sleep at night. So I’m not sure how well the bottle will go. I guess we’ll find out!

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Rest

Rest, as a Mother, it’s one of those things I always need but can never seem to get.Really, it wasn’t that bad till my third child came along and now I just can’t seem to get a break. I’m constantly on, constantly alert to what the kids are doing, and constantly just trying to keep up.

This Sunday at Church our class was about resting in God and everyone was talking about how they find their place of rest, or their quiet place. Now for some people, that’s just simply finding time for Bible study. For me, being slightly introverted, it means that sometimes, I just need quiet and alone. Do you know how hard quiet and alone is to get with 3 young children? Yep, really hard!

It’s a constant struggle to find that quiet, with 3 young kids, homeschooling my oldest, freelancing from home, and just keeping up with friends, family, kids activities, and other events. Quiet is hard to come by.

First I had to overcome feeling guilty about giving myself some quiet time away from everyone, and I had to give myself permission to just rest, relax, and unwind every so often (that means no cleaning, no working). Some weeks it just works out, the kids go to bed and I get a few hours to myself, other weeks I’m just desperate for quiet time so I put the baby down for his nap and send the girls to their room to play quietly. They have to play with the door shut until I come and get them. Usually, a little over an hour.

The first time I did this I felt bad about shutting them in their room for an hour, but really, after an hour of quiet I felt so much better and was able to get so much more done and engage with my kids so much better that I no longer hesitate when I need some space. I’ve done it enough times, they know the rules. They don’t have to take a nap, they just have to play quietly and get along for an hour. And, usually, when I come get them, they are so busy playing I just poke my head in, tell them they’re allowed to come out now, they say ok, I close the door, and they appear an hour or so later.

Second, I had to learn to be ok with not getting everything done. It’s ok that the kitchen isn’t always clean, the laundry isn’t always done, and my floor looks like a toy factory.

Third, I’m learning the importance of teaching my kids to do things for themselves. My oldest is 5 so there’s obviously a limit to what I can expect the kids to do but we do require that the girls pick up their room every night, and that they take their plates and put them on the counter after dinner. The 5yr old is responsible for feeding the fish every morning. I’m working on teaching them to consistently put away their pjs when they get dressed in the morning, and hang their coats up when they come in the door. Every little bit helps and it’s important for children to learn to be responsible for helping around the house.

And lastly, I’m learning that when I’m taking my time to rest, I need to actually rest. If I’m tired, I need to nap, if I need to think, I need to sit quietly and process through decisions that need to be made, whatever my goal is for my quiet time, I need to focus on it while I have the chance. And there are those days that it just doesn’t work for me, the baby is cranky, the girls argue, or my phone just won’t quit ringing. Those days, I just know when it’s time to give up and I’ll give rest another try when I get the chance.

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My Disney Side Party

Thanks to Disney Side @Home Celebrations for my awesome box of party supplies for my #Disneyside party! With all these snow days we’ve just been off of our schedule for weeks, so I decided to keep it simple and do a playdate. Actually, I did a playdate and a pre-playdate the night before plus a few other random things throughout the week.

The first evening we had some friends over and the kids played the disney bingo and won prizes from our Disney prize bag – I used the stickers, balloons, bracelets, tatoos, and bumper stickers. A couple of the kids that were going to come ended up not being able to come as planned but we still had a great time! We had spaghetti for dinner and monster cupcakes in our Mickey Mouse cupcake wrappers.

The next morning we had our playdate. There were 6 kids total, we decorated T-shirts, played Disney bingo, colored our race posters, ate more cupcakes, and let the kids play.

I had traced mickey and minnie pictures onto the shirts before the party so all the kids (or moms) had to do was color them in. We all had a blast! I think the moms had more fun than the kids did coloring!

I don’t have a color printer or a photo printer so I gave away all the photo card paper at the party, and it’ll definitely get used. People were pretty excited to get to print their own pictures!

Only a few of the kids wanted posters so I had a few posters left over after the party that I sent to my sisters for Valentines day.

The next day me and the kids made our Mickey Mouse cookies and shared them with some friends we had over. The cookies turned out great and the kids had a great time decorating them! I finally figured out a good sugar cookie icing recipe (water, powdered sugar, and food coloring – when it dries you can stack the cookies without the icing sticking) so now I just need to nail down a good sugar cookie recipe. My recipe was ok but I’ve had better.

We’ve had so much fun showing our #DisneySide with our Disney @Home Celebration box!

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If you Give a Pig a Party

Hopefully everyone is familiar with the children’s book “If you Give a Pig a Party“. If not, you’ve probably heard of  “If you Give a Pig a Pancake“, it’s by the same author and has the same basic story. We acquired it in a Chick-fil-a kid’s meal one day and I can now quote the book (and probably draw you all the pictures) by memory. Basically, the premise is if you give a pig one thing, he wants something else, if you give him something else, he was something else again, and on and on.

There are just some things in life that I do that remind me so much of this book. And it’s frustrating and amusing all at the same time.

For example, my 5yr old had been asking for a pet for ages, and my husband kept talking about getting fish or a bird, so, one day at a yard sale I picked up a 10 gallon fish tank for $5. It had colored pebbles and lots of little rocks and accessories. My husband is all excited, we clean it, and he sets it up. About $100 later we have all the right filters, lights, etc. and my 5 yr old dutifully feeds the fish every morning.

We have 3 guppies, two males and one female. So…the female has babies, at least 30 babies. That’s a LOT of babies for a 10 gallon tank.

So, we get a 55 gallon tank and my husband and his brother build a cabinet (which still doesn’t have doors – so the baby gets into it all the time) for the fishtank. So, we fill up the fishtank and $200 later we have mostly the right lights, filters, bubbles, plants, and fish.

We let the tank sit for a few days then my husband starts moving fish from the small tank to the big one, the small fish tank was supposed to be put away before our Christmas party (which was a week and a half before Christmas). Well…both fish tanks are still up. The larger tank has an algae problem so he can’t move all the fish just in case they start dying. Which, we’ve lost a few fish, but we have over 10 guppies still so I’m really not at all worried about them. They’ll probably be having more babies soon… The moral of a story, don’t buy a fishtank!

Or, once my kids discovered their first barbies and polly pockets it just snowballed from there. They also discovered that said toys can be easily acquired at yard sales and Goodwill. Now, they have a room full of them! To be fair, they do play with them every day so it’s not a huge deal, but I am beginning to think that I should get rid of all the rest of their toys so they have more room for their dolls. Never buy that first barbie for a girl who loves pink, dresses, and lace unless you really want your house to be overrun by them!

Oh! and, my husband has recently discovered the fun of purchasing items on Craigslist. He purchased a copy of Rocksmith and decided he needed a guitar. He purchased 3 guitars on Craigslist (sold one of them so we’re down to two). How does Craigslist work at my house? I sell things and he buys things. I think we come out even in the end. Actually, hopefully, one of these days I’ll get around to trying out the game myself!

None of this stuff is bad, I’m glad the kids have their toys and my husband has his hobbies, just some days, I wish it all took up less space in my house!

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Sleep

So, what is the definition of a good night’s sleep? Seems like it changes every few years. I was reading an old health book the other day and it said 12 hrs a night was needed for an adult. I thought it was 8? And is 8 hours of interrupted sleep enough or does it have to be uninterrupted. As the mother of an infant, I’m definitely getting interrupted. What I considered a good night’s sleep before kids is way different than what I consider a good night now.

Someone posted an article the other day on how nursing a baby at night is so good for your baby. That’s nice, but how about some sleep for me? (actually, I sleep while I nurse at night). I saw this awesome nursing timer for using in the middle of the night, it lets you know when it’s time to switch sides so you know how long the baby’s been eating. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up over an hour after I started nursing and found the baby sound asleep in my lap. (no worries, I know this happens so I make sure my arm is well supported with a pillow and the baby can’t go anywhere when I fall asleep)

The advice to “sleep when your baby sleeps” is great advice, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that with two other little kids as well. I’ve tried it, and the house turns into a disaster zone while I’m snoozing. Or, better yet, they decide to join me in bed. I’m remarkably good at sleeping through things like i-pad games, dvds, and spilled beverages. (in the days before kids I also slept through tornado alarms, fire alarms, alarm clocks, and who knows what else).

So, what is a good night’s sleep? For me these days, it’s getting at least 8 hours and only getting interrupted once. And somehow, my day seems normal after a night like that. Even having to get up twice to take care of kids in the middle of the night isn’t too bad…

I compare this to my days before kids when I was getting 9 to 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep and if something woke me up I was so tired and grumpy the next day.

I remember as a teenager calling my mom in the middle of the night (1 am, 2 am, something like that) and talking for over an hour because I’d just had a really bad day. For some reason, mom never seemed to mind. I never understood, how was she not totally irritated that I’d woken her up?

As a mother with 3 little ones I finally understand, if my kids need me, I’m there for them. It’s ok that it takes me 3 cups of coffee to wake up in the morning. I still prefer my full night sleep, and 1 cup of coffee in the morning. But I know, there’s just those days when I’m needed, and when I need to be there, I’ll be available. And the truth is, I really don’t mind. (like these last couple of nights when the baby is teething, or last week when the girls were up sick, I know they need me and it’s all ok).

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Disney Side

I’m so excited! I received a bunch of free products from Disney Side @Home Celebrations to host my own #Disneyside party!

First of all, people started getting their boxes weeks ago. And these boxes had some awesome stuff in them! So, I was eagerly awaiting mine. Well, it was scheduled to be delivered Tuesday. And guess what happened Tuesday? Snow, enough snow that UPS didn’t deliver. So, I had to wait till Wednesday. Very impatiently wait, I might add.

Here’s a bunch of party supplies, Mickey Mouse themed plates, cups, napkins, cookie cutters, table cloth, bracelets, stickers and tattoos, banners, and craisins. There is also Disney bingo, Disney posters, HP Photo card packs, Disney vacation planning DVD, measuring cups, recipe cards, and Hanes white t-shirts with fabric markers.

And, a very special hostess gift. An American Tourister suitcase and Mickey Mouse luggage tag. I saw pictures of other’s suitcases and some were getting black with red, pink, and green. I’m not a pink or green suitcase person so I was really hoping for the black and red. Which is exactly what I got. WooHoo! I’ve really been needing some new luggage and I’ve honestly never owned a piece of luggage quite this nice before. Now, I just need to plan a trip…

Back to the party, my kids are so excited! I told them we would have a playdate with friends and we can decorate t-shirts and cookies and have disney themed snacks. I haven’t planned out my menu yet but expect pictures of whatever I come up with!

Thanks again to Disney Parks and MomSelect for all this awesome Disney party stuff!

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Walking on Water

Last week I talked about my difficulty with “setting out” and I talked about a song “Oceans” that I loved. The song to me, is a reference to Peter walking on water. So, the other day, I was really excited when my 5yr old’s Bible lesson was about Peter walking on water. I was like, last Sunday we sang a song about walking on water, last Tuesday I wrote a blog post about walking on water (really it was on setting out, but same thing), and today we’re studying Peter walking on water. Pretty cool. Not sure where God’s taking me with this, but you have to step outside the boat sometime, right? (actually hanging my foot out and testing the water with my toe sounds better, but we’ll get to that in a minute)

So, I’m always telling people how similar my daughter’s personality is to my own. And, one of the things I love about teaching my child the Bible is seeing the story from her perspective. So, some things to know before I describe her opinion of Peter walking on water. My daughter asked Jesus in her heart shortly after she turned 5, so months ago. We often discuss what it means to have Jesus in your heart and how she relates to others and circumstances because of that. My husband and I have agreed that her faith is genuine and we will allow her to take communion next time she is present with us for that, and we have begun discussing baptism – she’s terrified of water on her head so we’re not pushing it because this needs to be something she does when she’s ready but we’ve started dialogue to help her understand why we do it, what it is, and what it means.

Anyways…all that to say, I have a lot to work with when we do our Bible lessons. So, I’m excited about Peter walking on water, it’s one of my favorite Bible stories. It’s a story about faith, and trust, and doing the impossible. I start by telling her about this big storm, and all the disciples including Peter are out on the lake on the boat and they’re scared. So they see Jesus walking on the water coming to the boat. At this point, she thinks that’s pretty cool that Jesus can walk on water. He’s Jesus, so he can do anything!

I continue on by telling her that Peter sees Jesus and says “I want to walk on water too!” and Jesus tells him to “come on out!”. At this point my child states that “that’s crazy” (you see where I’m going with this now). I kept on with the story and told her about how Peter walked out on the water, he was actually walking on the water because you see, Jesus can do anything but with Jesus in our hearts we can do anything too. She looks skeptical. So we continue on, Peter looked around at the storm clouds and the big waves and he got scared and when he got scared he started to sink so he cried out and asked Jesus to rescue him. Jesus came over and pulled him out of the water, placing him back on top of the water and they walk to the boat together.

I think I did a pretty good job telling the story and emphasizing that with God all things are possible. However, my 5 year old’s opinion was. “if I was Peter I would have stayed in the boat, I might have sat down and put my foot over the side and put my toe in the water” (thought she seemed doubtful that she would have even ventured this far, the boat was obviously much safer)

I was shocked, what child doesn’t think walking on water would be awesome? Apparently mine.

But then I realized, actually, I agree with her, putting my foot over the side and swishing it in the water while remaining in the safety of the boat sounds like a pretty good idea to me. If I don’t like the water I’ll just pull my foot back into the boat and we’ll be done with the water. When I tell people my child is a lot like me, I’m not kidding. We seem to have the same automatic opinion of “setting out” or “walking on water”. We just like the boat better.

But, you know, when Jesus calls you out on the water, it’s important to go.

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Setting Out

Numbers 9: 23a “At the command of the Lord they camped, and at the command of the Lord they set out…”

Numbers 9 is talking about the Israelites traveling in the wilderness and following the cloud. When it lifted they followed it, when it stopped they camped.

Now, I’m not a big fan of change. And one thing I’ve learned about life, is that there’s always change. Babies are born, children get older, my kitchen is clean one second and dirty the next, children learn to read, children learn to walk, people get married, etc. We’ve had lots of changes this year, and as we just passed our 8 year marriage anniversary I’ve been reflecting on all the changes in the past 8 years. Change is good, you don’t grow without it, but sometimes I just want to sit still, rest, and have no change. (maybe that’s why I like yoga so much)

Some changes are harder than others. Some changes I even welcome. My oldest is learning to read, it’s SO NICE having a child who can almost read in the house! My baby just started crawling, while I rejoice in this next stage in his development, I also mourn that I must now put the baby gate back up in front of our steps – I’ll be climbing over that thing for the next year or so. (actually, I’m really happy he’s crawling, now he can follow his sisters around without requiring my assistance). We’re outgrowing our house actually, really, I think we have outgrown it. We’re looking for a new, larger house. Which is so sad. I love my house. We bough a foreclosure that needed work and things are the way I want them, we re-did the bathrooms, kitchen, flooring, doors, and even the roof. If I wasn’t running out of room, I would be happy to stay here forever. We’ve begun the house hunting process and it’s no fun. My husband doesn’t like the price, I don’t like the layout, it’s in the wrong area of town, it’s ok but not great, and on and on. It’s a good thing we don’t have to move anytime soon as this house hunting may take a year or so at the rate we’re moving. Added to that, we need a new car. I have 3 kids stuffed in the back of an SUV, so far we’ve determined that we need a van, we haven’t agreed on how many seats, how much we can spend, or even when we can purchase one. (if you haven’t figured this out already my husband and I both take a long time to make decisions, he has to research a lot and I have to come around to being ok with the change). I really like my car – actually, I really like my husband’s car but it’s way too small for 3 kids in the back – if only BMW made a 10 passenger van!

With a child in school – I’m homeschooling btw – things are just busier, I’m more tied down to a schedule because we do school every day. I’m loving that she’s learning but it’s changed everything. I’m having to evaluate what activities I have time for and what, if anything I need to drop.

Since the birth of our 3rd child I just feel that things have been constantly in a state of movement. New baby, oldest starting school, need a new house, work is busy (I freelance from home), etc. It’s a bit overwhelming.

As my husband was reading the girl’s devotions the other night he read this verse and it just made me pause. “At the command of the Lord they camped, and at the command of the Lord they set out…” What if they had just decided to stay where they were, there’s water, we already pitched the tent, we’re comfortable here?  Then Sunday we sing this song called “Oceans“. I love the whole song, especially the first line “You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown where feet may fail”. “At the command of the Lord they set out” Even if they didn’t want to set out, they still set out. Just like Peter set out to walk on water when Jesus told him too. I probably would have looked at the water, and at the boat, and said, “nope, I think I’ll stay right here, I know the boat is safe”. But, what if once, I just quit evaluating the circumstances for myself and “set out”? I wonder what would happen?

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Lots of Theories

I commented to my husband the other day that first time parents (and those without children) have a lot of theories but experienced parents have no theories at all, just lots of practical advice. He thought it was funny.

But, really, it’s true. We share all our helpful tips for surviving life with 3 or more little kids and laugh at each other’s stories and no one feels compelled to tell anyone else how they could have done it better, we’ve all been there and we know how it is. We may give practical suggestions if we have them and if we don’t have any practical suggestions we just laugh and share our own funny story.

For example, I was complaining about how hard it is to get the straws clean on those Take N Toss cups with straws because the straws fall through the silverware basket in the dishwasher. She pointed out that she just leaves the straw in the cup lid and sticks them on the top rack in the dishwasher…brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? That just saved me 5 minutes washing dishes every day! Actually, my middle child likes to chew on straws so she ruined all my straws by chewing on them. I just threw them away and started buying the red striped disposable straws. I notice when I was at my friends house the other day that she has also switched to the disposable straws, she must have had the same problem I did. You’ll note though, not once did we discuss our theories for getting our child to stop chewing on all the straws, we just switched to disposable. Very practical.

And the question of how to keep your kids from waking you up at 5 am convinced that it’s morning. I tell my oldest 2 that they can’t get me up until it’s light outside. The’ll play barbies in their room for an hour waiting for it to get light and then come get me and ask for hot chocolate, and a host of snacks for breakfast. There’s no, “you just tell them to stay in their room and punish them when they don’t” talk, we discuss how we explain to our 3 yr old in a way that they can understand when it’s considered “morning” and they are allowed to wake us. One of my friends uses a timer on her kids lamps and when the lamp turns on they can get up. Another mom just sends them back to bed if they get up too early. And someone else just has them join her in her bed until it’s time to get up. But, not one of us is convinced that our way is better than the others, it’s just what works best for us and our kids.

And potty training, we all just smile and nod. So which candy did your child prefer? Did you use a sticker chart? You still using pullups at night? And then we launch into our most embarrassing/funny stories thus far. My kids love public restrooms. If they even think there might be one at a store they instantly have a need to go to the bathroom. The other day, I was shopping with the kids and headed into a dressing room. My girls were ecstatic, I had, without being asked decided to go into a public restroom. I had to leave my two sweaters with the nice ladies running the dressing room and take my kids to the bathroom and then come back to the dressing room and try on my sweaters. Now, I don’t try on a lot of clothing with all three kids along so up until this point the girls had not realized that there was such a thing as a dressing room at a store. According to my kids, next to public restrooms, dressing rooms are the greatest thing ever invented by stores. And our Sam’s has a child sized sink in their bathroom. Thanks a lot guys… I have to plan an extra 20 minutes in Sam’s just so the kids can go play in the sink. (they always have to urgently go to the bathroom the minute we step into Sam’s).

And the number of times our kids have removed their clothing at inappropriate times, and said things we just didn’t want them to say…don’t even get me started…we all just smile, laugh, and know that that’s just how life goes.