I'm Stealing It #12

My friend Lindsey passed this along to me.  I have not done it yet and neither has she but she will be doing it tomorrow so I will report back on what she thinks.

If you go to this site you can have Mickey Mouse or one of his friends give your child a call!  It is free and you can tell them your child's name and something you want them to mention.

For example I have a little guy who has to be potty trained in exactly 28 days and that might be a great incentive for him. I am going to let Mickey know (HOLY CRAP 28 days!!!!! I'm in trouble!  Sorry for the interruption it just really hit me) that we are potty training and he will let him Z man know how proud he is.

I also have a big girl who is going to Kindergarten next year.  Although she is excited about it, tomorrow is her last day at the school she has been going to for years and she has a great deal of anxiety about that. It might be nice to hear some encouraging words from Mickey Mouse.

I think this is a terrific idea and can't wait to use it!

Summer in my 5 year old's eyes

I completely stole this idea from Yankovich 6 Pack and I am really glad I did.

I asked my daughter to make a list of 30 things she wanted to do this summer and I have shared it below:

1) Go swimming (sweet! we have already done that like 7 times!)

2) Go to the spray park at Uncle Bucky's. (Note: My brother is Uncle Bucky. Bucky is not his name but that is how she said "Uncle Brett" when she was little and it has stuck. Also, Uncle Bucky lives in Washington DC and has a spray park 3 houses down from his house. This one is probably not gonna happen.)

3) Have a little jog

4) Buy special kid jog clothes (what is with her and jogging?)

5) Go to the park (again DONE!)

6) Take a walk in the stroller (We do this all the time. Maybe we have not done it since it was technically "school is out for summer summer time" but we can check this off really easily)

7) Paint

8) Collect leaves

9) Go to the neighborhood park. (There is a tiny little thing I guess you could call a park at 75th and Mission - a major intersection by our house. There is literally a bench there and that is it but since we drive by it 1,435 times a day she really wants to go. I can accommodate that request - maybe we will even walk there in the stroller. Look at me killing lots of birds with very few stones.)

10) Go to the beach. (Hmmm. Oh wait we are going to my parents lake house and we can totally find a beach there. It will be an Oklahoma beach and I don't think that is probably what she is wanting - but it's not my fault she wasn't very specific.)

11) Get the mail (We will do this 5 times a week for the entire summer. She is going to be in hog heaven.)

12) Got to a garden to see pretty things. (Is that a diss on our landscaping?)

13) Have a bike ride (Super simple to accomplish numerous times. This kid is easy!)

14) Buy another snow globe when we go visit Uncle Bucky. (I just visited Uncle Bucky when on my business trip this past weekend. I got her a snow globe and her brother broke within 24 hours of us having it. But yeah, we still aren't going to DC...)

15) Help daddy build a lemonade stand. (Strangely she did not mention actually selling lemonade)

16) Hug and kiss Z. (Seriously how cute is our kid?)

17) Go shopping, like for toys (I knew it had to show up somewhere)

18) Drive to Pump It Up. (Ummm... do we have to go in?)

19) Plant some flowers (again dissing our landscaping)

20) Have a nice, cozy summer. (Oh my gosh. Heart melting. Cute kid)

21) Play the farmer in the dell. And then she said: "Don't worry I will teach you."

22) Get more nail polish. (This kid has like 12 bottles of polish but heck her summer wish list is so easy I think I can accommodate this one.)

23) Buy some sunglasses (Good plan)

24) Cook with mommy (Fortunately she is too young to realize I CANNOT cook.)

25) Do a secret for mommy because you are such a nice mommy. (Aaaah. Probably buttering me up so we can do #17)

26) Make a rainbow. (I mean wow, she is so stinkin' cute)

27) Do the outside exercise. (She loves it when I come home from a jog and I bench press her in our front yard.)

28) Take gymnastics

29) Get my own candle in case my room smells stinky. (Huh??)

30) Play pretend

This has got to be a new tradition. I am going to ask my kids to make this list each summer and see what they say. This was too cute and I am going to to feel like a rock star mom by the end of the summer because we can do just about everything on here!

What do your kids want to do this summer?

I'm Stealing It #11

When I was in 6th grade there was a statewide competition for kids to develop an ad about seatbelts. This must have been about the time it became a law to wear one. It is so crazy to me that people ever got in a car without putting on their seatbelt. I feel naked without one - which leads me to the awesome ad that I developed back then:

"You're never fully dressed without your seatbelt." - Can you tell I was Annie obsessed at that period of my life?

Sadly, I didn't win even though that was fantastic ad copy - just ask my mom, she thought I should have won too!

So with seatbelts in mind, I had to share this. I just saw this seatbelt ad on Facebook and it honestly made me cry. No doubt that I'm a huge sap and cry over everything since I had kids - but I stole this from my friend Pren's Facebook page and wanted to post it here:

click here

I'm Stealing it #10

I have never been much of a coupon person. When I remembered, I would use those Bed Bath and Beyond coupons that I get about 3 times per week, but other than that, couponing wasn't something I understood or took the time to organize. And to be honest I still do not understand about 90% of it. Couponing is a very detailed process that takes a lot of work.

Even though I am about as far as you can be from being serious about it, lately I have sort of gotten into this whole deal. I will never be like those ladies on tv that get their $200 grocery bill down to $11. But I have picked up a few tips and have been saving a lot of money actually.

Before now, the thing I never understood was how people saved money. To me it seemed when I would take a coupon to a store, the store brand of that item would be less expensive than the brand name minus the coupon. I have been in marketing and advertising for like 15 years so I fully understand that in the majority of cases the store brand is just as good as the brand name item and often they are made by the same company but just have different packaging. So I would end up buying that store brand item and leaving with an unused coupon in my hand. Don't get me wrong there are certainly some exceptions to this - i.e. have you ever tried non name brand Saran Wrap? Does not work.

So anyway, I have figured out that the trick to coupons is pairing them with a store sale on that particular item. Like I said, I am not huge into this and I do not sit down with the circulars from my grocery store to see what is on sale each week and build my family menu around that. If I did I would save a boatload on my grocery bill but I am just not that organized - yet - stay tuned maybe one day I will be! But I do cut coupons (well not cut, print them off on my computer) and if there is an item I need or foresee needing and if that item is on sale, I buy it using my coupon. Cha-ching - saving money!

I was at target the other day and my bill was around $90 but with my coupons I got it down to about $70. That is real money I saved! It was kind of exciting.

This post is definitely not a coupon tutorial, I really just wanted to share a few websites that I use because I have gotten some amazing deals. I have REALLY enjoyed using online coupon codes - much more than using in-store ones. By now you probably know to never buy anything online until you have typed that store's name into google with the word "coupon" - the majority of the time you can get at least free shipping.

The coupon code deal that I am most proud of was on a pair of Crocs boots for my daughter. Who even knew Crocs made kids boots? Well they do and they are cute and perfect snow boots. Anyway, the deal was that you could buy one get one free and get free shipping for $13.99 by entering a certain coupon code. The boots are normally around $40 or so. So I bought two pairs for my daughter - in sizes bigger than she wears now. I bought a yellow pair for $13.99 and was getting a pink pair for free. I got an email the next day letting me know that the yellow ones had run out but they were still sending me the pink ones - for free!

Here are my favorite sites to visit:
Wicked Cool Deals

Brads Deals

KC Penny Pinchin Mama

Some of these websites have tutorials on couponing that I have not taken the time to read but I assume they are probably very helpful and will teach you a lot. I know that CVS has some amazing deals with their Extra Care Bucks program. I have not figured it out yet but I need to sometime as it seems people are actually making quite a bit of money off their purchases. Not sure how that works.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. I am totally stealing these great deals from these other people's hard work - but that is what they have developed their websites for. So far it has been sort of fun and I'm proud of some of my purchases. Some of the deals I have gotten were just amazing!

Happy Shopping!

I'm Stealing It #9

I was pretty excited for my kids to start school on Wednesday. After all it had been 16 days since they had been at school soaking up all the amazing things there are out there for them to learn from their wonderful teachers - oh yeah and I needed some peace and quiet.

Wednesday morning I woke up ready to cook them a hearty breakfast and send them on their way. Flipped on the TODAY show and in glaring letters right there, scrolling along the bottom, Shawnee Mission USD CLOSED. WHAT? It hadn't even started snowing yet, how can they close school? Granted there was snow on the ground but only because it had not been warmer than 2 degrees for like 12 days, that snow was old - left over since Christmas Eve. Admittedly it was supposed to dump like 6 inches of snow in like 3 hours but that wasn't going to start until like 3:00 PM - couldn't they just go to school for a few hours???? Apparently not. Laughingly, my husband headed out the door to work leaving me with these crazed banshees to handle on my own.

As I am writing this, it is now Thursday evening and we are about to close out day 17 of not being in school. So far we have survived although my best guess is that they will not have school tomorrow either. Check back with me tomorrow night.

Boy you have to get creative when you have two children under 6 cooped up in a 2,500 square foot house for 4 days straight. We tried all sorts of things.

*Baked about 19 dozen cookies and decorated them
*Played with every single toy Santa and family gave us (thank God for Christmas and new toys appearing recently!)
*Painted toe and finger nails and every other part of our bodies we could think of
*Watched every television show that ever was - twice
*Crawled up and down and down and up and up and down the bunk bed ladder which is not attached to the bed unless an adult is there to supervise
*Cleaned out closets
*Organized bookshelves (it is amazing what you can get your kids to do when they are bored)
*Ran 248 laps through the kitchen/dining room/living room area
*Punched, slapped, tickled and hugged each other to death

and so many more things that I cannot remember. Of course at this point I can barely remember my name.

I saw many other mothers on Facebook who were crazed as well and I was thrilled when people began giving each other suggestions for boredom busters. One stuck out to me as the perfect solution.

I have been feeling terrible that my kids could not go out and play in the snow when it was so fresh and pretty but with the meteorologists telling me that exposed skin would get frostbite within 20 minutes, that was not something I was going to risk!

I took a big empty bucket outside and filled it with snow three different times, dumped the snow in the bathtub, got the kids dressed in warm clothes and let them have at it.

We determined it was not enough snow to build a snowman but it was enough for little people to make snow angels, throw snowballs at one another and have good clean fun. Total, the gathering of the snow by mom as the kids watched in wonderment of what I was doing, the dressing them in their snow gear, playing in the snow and getting out of their snow gear ate up about 2 hours of my day. Not bad!

Costume Contest

Enter your little cuties in this great costume contest from the Kansas City Repertory Theatre and you could win $1,000! That'll buy lots of candy.

Go here for more details.

I'm Stealing It #8

I have not stolen an idea in a long time. Not that there aren't a plethora of amazing ideas out there but because life has been crazy busy and I haven't had time to write about these great things. However, I stumbled across the following and I love the idea and wanted to share. I think it could be so cute for so many things.

Make your own Scratch Off Tickets!

I am going to make these for my daughter's next birthday party. Of course everyone will win something as I don't particularly want a brawl to break out amongst the 5 year old set. But I actually see quite a bit of other uses for this as well.

I am clearly not clever enough to come up with the idea but I am smart enough to steal it from someone else. I don't even know this person, just found her who knows how. Check out her description on how to do it - looks simple enough.

As she said, the trick is mixing metallic paint and liquid soap for the scratch off part. She must be some sort of mad genius scientist to have figured that out because I never would have come up with that!

Scratch off tickets

I'm Stealing It #6 & #7

We recently discovered that the door leading out to our garage from the kids playroom is magnetized. Not sure why it took me 4 1/2 years to figure it out - only thing I can guess is that I'm slow.

This works out great for us since the kids' drawing table, crayons, art supplies etc. are right next to that door and they pump out what they declare masterpieces approximately 1,394 times per day. Don't worry we use both sides of the paper, but I'm still probably going to need to buy a forest in the near future to make up for our carbon footprint.

Anyway, we never have enough magnets to hold everything and it is heartbreaking to my daughter when we have to sort through all of her glorious pictures and make decisions on which ones to keep and which ones to put in the recycling bin.

I found these on "not Martha's blog" and I think they are really cute and could be a fun project with the kiddos.

They are called marble magnets and you can buy all of the supplies at Michael's. Like most of the ideas I steal, I have not made these yet (I need to get on these things, what kind of a resource am I if I always give ideas and never execute them???) but I will report back once I do. I'm trying to do one "major" craft per week with the kids. In my head this is major - most people are probably way craftier than me and look at this project as beginner level.

These cute magnets remind me of these rings my friend Lindsey has and I LOVE them - which lead me to my next item I'm Stealing.

Lindsey has these rings that are called Pop Art Painted Rings. They come with 5 in a pack and you can get them at Beauty Brands. You can also find them online.

Lindsey had her son color hers and seriously the rings are so cool. He is only 2 years old but they are completely abstract and actually remind me a lot of my mom's paintings - but on your hand. You can do whatever you want with them as far as design goes. By the packaging, it seems like something a young girl would wear but Lindsey wears hers all the time and I will too once I have some for myself!

She has given them to people as gifts - which is a great idea because they have a very personal touch since her son made them.

Again, I will report back once I have found them (Beauty Brands has been out the past few times I have gone) and show you how cool they are.

I'm Stealing It #5

This is not a new concept or even a hard one. This is more like an "I'm executing something" than I'm Stealing It. It is something I have heard for years but being the unorganized person I am, I have never gotten around to doing it - until today!

After the umpteenth time my little guy dumped the box of 36,000 crayons on the floor this morning I was very close to throwing all of them into the trash. That is until I realized how many broken crayons we have. I figured if I could get rid of all of the broken ones that would significantly decrease the amount of crayons I would have to pick up in an hour when he dumped them again.

I gathered up all of the broken ones and went online in search of the recipe for melting them. Shows you what a great cook I am - I have to get a recipe to melt things.

I put the little guy down for his nap and my daughter and I began peeling the paper off each broken crayon. This took quite a bit of time and was fun for us to have a chance to do nothing but peel and talk. I learned all sorts of things - like were you aware that chocolate comes from trees? And apparently I was never little; I was always her mommy and never anything else. No photographic evidence to the contrary was going to sway her today. And lastly and most importantly, I should start going to bed when she does and that way I will never be tired again in the mornings.

We only peeled about 1/3 of these neglected crayons because there are so many - but that leaves more for a project on another day. When I was researching how to melt them I found all sorts of fun ideas for broken crayons.

Next we sorted the crayons by like colors, sprayed muffin tins, heated the oven to 200 degrees, loaded the crayons in the tins and put them in to cook.

It took about 10 minutes to melt them and as you can see by the "after" photos, the really thick crayons didn't cook as well. My daughter got impatient so I left them as they are. Next time I do this I'll make sure and cut them all down to smaller pieces.

Some of the colors turned out truly beautiful. Each way you turn the new "crayons" you can see swirls of different shades. This was a fun little craft for us and it was about the easiest thing I've ever done.

Now that they are cooled down, my daughter is happily coloring with her crayons and is "oohing" and "aaahhing" about all the cool colors she is able to make. And I just got a "mom, these crayons are stupendous!" - So I think they were a hit.

I'm Stealing It #4

Oh my Lord, it is literally 375 degrees today. We just turned on our A/C a few days ago because my husband and I were playing a game to see how long we could go without it. Our house has an attic fan and so we can go longer without A/C than most people. Last year we made it until the weekend of the 4th of July. This year, not so much.

My husband came home to find me cleaning a bathroom and dripping sweat. He looked at our thermostat and it was 88 degrees in our house. He admitted defeat and asked me why the heck I was cleaning in such conditions. Because I'm stubborn, duh - I wanted to beat last year's record of July 4th. But that really has absolutely nothing to do with the idea that I'm stealing...

Did you notice that once you had kids your life got stickier? My husband has done some very scientific calculations and from what he can tell our life is 142% stickier than it used to be. I'm not a huge fan of sticky and so I am the mean mom who doesn't let her children have lollipops (although my friend Lindsey turned me on to lollipops that are like sweet tarts, no mess. They rule). One day my father in law took the kids to Sam's and then dropped them off at our house with a bag of 10,000 lollipops or something insane like that. I went on and on about what a nice treat they will be when the kids go to his house and visit him. I'm sure he got suckered into buying them and I think he was trying to pawn them off on me, but I played dumb.

Even though my children can make an extra special kind of mess with them, in this kind of heat nothing beats a Popsicle. Really I can't deny my kids these cold treats even though I have a long list of reasons as to why I should:

1) Too Sticky
2) Too Gooey
3) Too Icky
4) Too Sugary
5) Too Get Everywherey

I could go on and on, but I won't because I heard this idea the other day and think it might be the answer to my problems.

A friend of mine fills up the kiddie pool in the backyard, plops the kiddos in it and then lets them munch on Popsicles until their hearts' content. When they are done, she gives them a good rinse and voila! Happy, mess free children. Love it.

On days like today when you get a 3rd degree burn from just walking to the mailbox, you can always do the same thing in the bathtub.

There you have it, one of those "wow, I'm dumb because it never crossed my mind" ideas I should have thought of on my own, and might have if it weren't for the fact that my brain is melting from the heat.

I'm Stealing it #3

I stumbled across a blog and found this great idea. I think it is so cute as I struggle a lot with end of the year teacher's gifts. Luckily for me, our pre-school/mother's day out recently has started a deal where you just give money. You give what you are able to give, the amount is not disclosed. The money goes into a pool that is divided up by the percentage of hours a teacher works per week. The only issue with just giving money is that it lacks a personal element but for now I'll take it. I've been a much less stressed mom in the final days of each semester since this optional policy was instituted. No longer am I running around looking for a gift during my last few hours of freedom before they let my little maniacs out for break.

I'm sure once my children get into official school they won't have that gloriously easy group money gift option. Most definitely I would have reverted back to that crazed lunatic running around town looking for just the right thing that says "thank you for teaching my child his multiplication tables and oh by the way I'm sorry he put seven live frogs in your desk drawer" - but now I don't have to!

I found this on blogger Andi's site and she found it from another blogger. I'm new to this blogging thing but I think there is an endless world of bloggers out there, if you take some time to look you can find the most amazing stuff - but I'm rambling.

Anyway, I think it is a very personal and thoughtful idea for the person who spends so much of their time with your children. What makes it even easier for me is that my grocery store has an entire rack of gift cards from places all over, so you might be able to do this in one store!

Anyway the gift is a gift card booklet. You purchase a few $5 gift cards - to places like Starbucks, Borders, Bath & Body Works, Ice Cream Place, Movie Theater, or whatever. Then make a booklet with a themed page dedicated to each item. The booklet can be titled "What will ____ do for the summer?" (Insert the teacher's name). Then make a page for each gift card you purchased - i.e. "Go to a movie" and have a picture of some popcorn and candy and insert the gift card and so on.

It is a little difficult to explain, so to see how cute this can turn out you should check out Andi's page. Since I have not made one, I don't have one to show you but two years from now when I have to make one, I'll definitely post a picture. Until them I'm going to enjoy just writing a check and being done with it.

I'm Stealing it #2

I don't remember where I heard this but I think it is such a sweet idea and if I ever get organized enough to do it, I'll be super impressed with myself.

Did you and everyone else you know get the book "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss when you graduated high school? To put a little spin on this idea purchase the book for your child in kindergarten or first grade. At the end of the school year pick a teacher who had a big impact on your child and have them write a note in the jacket of the book. Continue to do this year after year without letting your child know and then present it to them at high school graduation. It will be great for your son or daughter to look back and see what the teachers said over the years. You could take it one step further even and ask all the teachers to write something within the same theme - maybe what they think your child will be when they grow up or their biggest wish for your child, etc.

I think this idea is very sweet and I hope I am with it enough to remember it at the end of each school year. My guess is that I will remember then go on a mad dash throughout my house throwing everything out of closets and searching under couches and on top of the refrigerator for the book. I will eventually find it by mid-July and triumphantly call the teacher only to find out he/she is on a European vacation. But hey, at least I have this blog for my kids to read so they know I did have the best of intentions for them.

I'm Stealing It #1

I have only stolen one thing in my life and I remember it as clear as day. I was 3 years old and we were in the pharmacy adjacent to my doctor's office. I was with my mom and I sneaked off and took a red Tootsie Roll lollipop. I remember sticking it into my pocket, crawling into our station wagon and slowly unwrapping down by my side. The wrapper was very noisy and I kept stopping and starting so my mom wouldn't hear it.

I could tell she was getting suspicious and so I stopped opening it altogether. She finally asked me what I was doing.

"Nothing," I said sheepishly.

"Robin, where did you get that lollipop?" She asked accusingly.

"Nowhere" I answered. I really thought I had her on that one. But she wasn't fooled.

We drove back to the pharmacy, she marched me up to the counter and made me tell the man that I took the lollipop without paying for it and that I was very sorry. He seemed like he was 1,000 feet tall and I spoke to my shoes the whole time. My mom paid for the lollipop (I had already licked it, what else could she do?) and we left. I have not stolen anything since that day because it left that big of an impression on me. (Way to go mom! Good parenting!)

Well today that is all changing. In these economic times, things are rough and we all need to get creative so I am going to start stealing like crazy. Forget the morals my mother tried to instill in me, I'm going to start taking things that are not mine.

Okay, it really isn't as bad as it sounds. Since I started blogging I've been checking out other people's blogs and talking to friends, etc. and I'm realizing how many amazingly creative people are out there. In a quest to be a more creative, efficient, loving, organized, healthy, intelligent, earth friendly, mom, wife, and person, I'm going to start taking ideas from other people and somehow incorporate them into my life. I will then share them with in case you want to steal them as well.

So begins "I'm Stealing It." Disclaimer: I will give credit where credit is due certainly but sometimes I might hear an idea and not know where it came from or I might not have asked the person if it is ok for me to use their name, so in those instances I won't name names.

I'm Stealing It #1:

Yesterday my doorbell rang. There stood 3 little girls dressed up in costumes. They are sisters that live down the street from us. The oldest said "Hi, I'm ___ you might remember me from the ice cream social" - she was so cute, how could I not? She handed me an invitation and they were on their way. The invite explained that the girls are putting on a play in their front yard tomorrow. Blankets and refreshments will be provided. The play is the Wizard of Oz and everyone on the street is invited. In case you can't make tomorrow's showing, there will be another one on Tuesday. This is so adorable that my children and I might have to attend both showings.

So here is what I am stealing from this:

1) The whole having a play in your front yard idea for when my kids get older. What a cute and creative way to occupy your children's time during the summer! It is fun for the kids and teaches them a great deal about speaking in front of an audience, practicing something, organization of an event, meeting new people in your neighborhood and so on.

2) Stealing the manners. I thought that was so mature of her to say "Hi, I"m ___ you might remember me from the ice cream social" - This little girl can't be more than 8 years old. I was so impressed with her maturity. Don't know if that one will stick with my kids but it is something I will work toward.

So there you have it, that is what I am stealing right now. I can't wait to see this play. I'm sure somehow one of my children will go crazy and knock over the "set" and then I'll have to steal someone's idea for an apology letter.