Going Green

Ahhhh, St. Patrick's Day. The day when anyone with a smidgen of Irish blood in them goes all out to show that they are green through and through. And moms who aren't even a bit Irish go all out showing how crafty they can be with green.

Some moms out there woke up early to make a fun Green Eggs and Ham breakfast. Or maybe made green pancakes with green pineapple syrup and green milk.

Me? I let my kids eat Captain Crunch Berries so their poop would turn green.

Some moms made sure to get to Old Navy's the day after Valentine's day to be sure that they got a cute, sparkly, and very fashionable, "Kiss Me I'm Irish," shirt for their kids.

Me? I gave Sweet Terror (the only kid who owns nothing with green on it) one of her white shirts and a bowl of green food coloring. Have at it, kid.


Some moms started baking last week so that they could send yummy green cupcakes to their child's classroom party.

Me? I went a step above that and picked out all the green fishies from a bag of rainbow Goldfish crackers. Now that is faaaaaancy.

Some mom's make sure to read several educational books to their kids all about the history behind this important day.

Me? I made sure to throw some orange into my kids' lunches and told them to make sure the Greens won. I kind of stacked the odds in the green's favor. Only one orange fish against a whole army? That poor little thing doesn't stand a chance.

And my fancy dessert for dinner tonight? Green Peeps. Awwww yeah!

Happy St. Patty's day, everyone. I hope your cabbage is extra delish tonight. ;)

Candy Conundrum

I know for a fact that I could never eat an entire 1 pound brick of almond bark in one sitting. I'm sure my body would reject it after the first 10 bites.

I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to eat a 1 pound bag of party pretzel twists in one sitting either. Or maybe I could (if I had enough water to wash it all down) but I certainly wouldn't want to.

But for some unknown, and quite unsettling, reason I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with eating 2 pounds of almond bark coated party pretzel twists in one sitting.

*shudder*

Happy New Year !!!

My Bark Is Worse Than My Bite

An Ordinary Mom wanted me to post about my peppermint bark. I feel a little silly because I consider almond bark to be a cheater candy. All you do is melt the stuff, stir something in, and then spread it around on wax paper. But even with all that cheating I can still manage to mess it up. I made some this morning so I could photograph it for this post. I'm tired, lazy, and it ended up looking like peppermint poo. Ah well. If you make it when you are tired and don't give a hoot it might look like this, but if you take just a little time and care, artfully drizzling it with dark chocolate, it will look beautiful.

Only 3 ingredients. You can use any brand of white chocolate/vanilla bark.

Smash up some candy canes. A Hammer really is the best for this. I tried using the bottom of a heavy glass and it took FOREVER! The hammer finished the job in less than a minute (and it makes you look cool to your kids).

When peeling candy canes I can't stand peeling the hook part, so I don't. I just leave them on the counter and they magically disappear so I'm not wasting anything with my laziness.

I used too many candy canes so this didn't spread as thin as I like it to. But it will taste great.

I didn't drizzle the chocolate so it just looks like you-know-what. Still tastes great.

Stick in freezer and break into pieces when fully set. Seriously, people, it took me ten times longer to blog about this than it did to make it. And you could really stir anything into this "chocolate" bark. Check out all these variations: Almond Bark Recipes

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Don't forget to make chocolate covered pretzels! You can also dip plastic spoons into the bark then dip them into the crushed candy canes and you have yummy hot chocolate stir spoons.

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Enjoy! I'm off to sit on a heater vent to get warm.

Pipe Cleaner Fun

I love pipe cleaners. Anytime I want a little peace and quiet from the kids I can always toss them a big package of pipe cleaners and escape to my room with the baby and a book.

Last week I spotted this fun craft idea from Bella Dia via the Crafty Crow: Tinsel Trees

Ever since first seeing the Charlie Brown Christmas Special I have been a bit obsessed with the idea of those tacky aluminum/plastic Christmas trees. Now, I get to indulge that obsession by creating millions of tiny tacky tinsel trees just for me.

Nothing says Christmas like gold and pink tinsel!

For that extra special bling at holiday parties you can always loop the stem around for an out of this world ring.

And if you get so caught up making trees that you neglect to decorate the real tree don't worry. The kids will decorate it for you. =)

Turkey Lurkey

Turkey Lurkey, so named because all the calories consumed on Turkey Day have a habit of lurking in my body for years. The only way I can be ok with this is if the calories I consume are worth it. I have to be able to look at that fat pad resting on top of my jeans and smile while thinking, "You were so worth it, baby," as I pat it and remember the luscious pecan pie and delectable turkey leftovers that were its parents.



So, what kind of turkey leftovers are so good that I can caress a love handle? How's about the best turkey salad ever to cross your lips?

4 C. cubed cooked turkey meat

1 1/2 C. dried cranberries

3/4 C. chopped celery

3/4 C. minced green bell pepper (Red works too)

2 green onions sliced

1 C. chopped pecans or cashews halves

1 C. Mayonnaise

1 tsp each of paprika, Lowry's seasoning salt, and onion powder

dash of pepper

Stir all together and eat on left over Thanksgiving rolls, with a side a salad, or straight out of the bowl when no one is looking. I think I've had 4 helpings already. Oh yeah, this year's turkey is going to be doing a LOT of lurking.

Feelings and Bad Photos

I take really bad photos, but that won't stop me from hurting your eyes as I share today's thoughts with you.

Sweet, jeweled colored sweet potatoes (not yams), how I love thee. These makes me smile in culinary anticipation.

These make me feel wicked... wicked and happy.

This makes me want to curse Gary all over again. Stoopid Gary.

These make me almost feel like forgiving Gary. Cheating can be a beautiful thing.

These make my mouth water. Stuffing really is the best part of Thanksgiving dinner (when it's done right, that is.)

This has always and will always make me shudder in fear, nervousness, and hypochondria.

Do they think calling it Young makes it any more appealing? Why don't they just call it Virgin Turkey, or Baby Turkey, or Innocent Turkey? I'm sorry Turkey.


And this.... this just make me nauseous.

What are your feelings this Thanksgiving season?

Works For Me

Halloween Countdown Ghost

After answering the question, "How many more days till Halloween?" like a trazillionmillion times each day I was starting to get a little short tempered with the kids. Rather than bite their heads off I had them help me make this cute ghost counter. Every day they cut a ring off and the next ring tells them how many days are left till Halloween. Haven't heard the question since. Now they just like to report how many days are left to me like a trazillionmillion times each day. We are definitely making one of these for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Hanging Shelves

I think these are one of the greatest organization tools out there. You can install them in a snap, move them around at will, and store them in a small space when not in use. I have one hanging in Mr. Hot's office closet holding my fabric, there is one in my son's closet where we shelve prepicked outfits for him to wear to school each day (saves SO much time in the mornings), and here are the two I have hanging in my mud room. One is for shoes and the other holds hats and gloves. Each kid gets their own assigned shelves and this saves me so many headaches when it is time for us to get ready to head out the door in the mornings. LOVE THEM!

For other great ideas check out Works For Me Wednesday over at Rocks in My Dryer.

Magic Pictures

Poor white crayon. You never did anything to deserve your bad reputation. It isn't your fault you "don't work" and thereby cause many kids to angrily toss you to the floor in sad disgust. So, there you sit in your box, barely used, wondering what your purpose in life could be...

Well, wait no longer, Mr. White. We need you! We will use all of you up making our MAGIC PICTURES.

Have you ever used the white crayon to draw pictures on your hard boiled Easter egg? It's cool because the dye won't stick to the greasy surface so you are left with a clear white drawing on your colored egg. Well, the same technique works with paper and water colors. You have to press down rather hard with the crayon, and I've found this works best on cardstock, but the kids love it. I will draw the younger kids a picture and then they just slop the water color on however they want to find the picture. My older kids love using this technique to write secret messages to their friends. Here is a secret message that we will be sending next week:

At first glance it only looks like a blank piece of paper (we will have a note on it that says: "We were really busy. Please paint your own Father's Day card. Thank you.")

But what is this? There seems to be a message showing through.

TA DA!

P.S. Some daddy's might not have very much patience for water coloring. If so, make sure to use a large paintbrush, like the one I show here, so that the painting can go quickly. =)

F-Day Coupons

Father's day is coming and already women across the globe are looking at the prices on BBQs and weedwhackers. But what if your hubby isn't one of the whacky-grill happy guys out there, what do you do for them?

We have a running joke about Father's Day around here. For Mother's Day what I usually want is for Mr. Hotness to take over my job for the day. Meaning he does what I usually do: get the kids dressed, make all the meals, change all the dirty diapers, and let me take a nap. So, I always tease him that I'm going to give him the same gift for Father's Day. I will take over his job for the day. Meaning that we reenact Mother's Day all over again. Doesn't that sound perfect? =)

Actually, Mr. Hotness helps out a lot around here, especially now that I'm a pretty useless pregnant mess, and I really want him to feel special on his special day. I'm not quite sure, yet, what I will be doing this year but here is something we've done in the past that he seems to really enjoy:

Mr. Hotness doesn't want much out of life other than a black convertible BMW M5 with cinnamon leather interior. This makes him a rather difficult person to shop for. He hates gimmicky, kitchy, or cheap little things. So, I usually get him some nice new clothes for summer and then I give him some very very valuable coupons. You've probably been given, or at least heard of coupon gift books, right? With cute little coupons that say, "This coupon is good for one free breakfast in bed," or something along those lines. They are cute but rarely used. Well, I make my coupons so good that they always get used. Here are some of the coupons I've given in the past (and these are things that I never do unless there is an emergency or a coupon)

1. This coupon is good for 5 ironed shirts. In order to redeem, coupon must be presented at least 10 hours before shirt is needed. Expires: September 5th. (After all don't all coupons expire?)

2. This coupon is good for 4 hours of computer gaming at anytime, free of guilt, backlash, mocking, or kids bugging you while you play. Must be used in hourly increments, and all time is rounded up. Time cannot be extended without presenting an extra gaming coupon. Expires: Sept 5th.

3. This coupon is good for one month of no garbage. This includes moving garbage cans to and from the street on garbage day. This coupon is good for one calendar month and does not carry over into the next month if presented after the first of the month. Expires: Sept 5th.

4. This coupon is active immediately. For the rest of the month Mommy promises not be grumpy when you are home. Expires June 3oth. (I only did this once. It was very hard to do some days, but I did it and it was actually an interesting experiment for me and Mr. Hotness LOVED it)

I've done other coupons, but I think you get the idea. They are all things that he really values and none of them are pleasant for me, he knows this and I think that is why he values them so much. And he really does use them. Now, if you want to go above and beyond the coupon you can do what I did last year. After years of ironing coupons I finally gave Mr. H. something really special. The Magic Ironing Hook (If you knew how much I (and he too, for that matter) detest ironing you would know that this is worth more than gold). I printed this sign on cardstock, laminated it, then affixed it to a nice over-the-door hook so it could hang in our closet. Most mornings I'm rushing to get them ironed before he gets out of the shower, but the magic hook hasn't failed him yet. Actually, the first time I gave it to him it was only good for 3 months (I wanted to see if I could really keep up with it), and then for Christmas I gave him this one without an expiration.

The kids and I make badges that say "I love my dad," and they wear them to church that day.

I make his favorite meal (either chicken cordon bleu or meatball subs), and dessert (lemon cream pie or something sickeningly chocolate).

He gets to sleep in and nap with guaranteed silence from the kids or the phone.

On the Saturday before, I usually kick him out of the house to go do whatever he wants (like test drive cool cars that I will never be able to buy him) and we take him to dinner.

Now, if I can get my computer-camera issues taken care of (yet again), I will post some fun homemade F-day card ideas later this week.

What have been some of your most successful Father's Day gifts?

Loving Mother's Day

Do you love Mother's Day? The first time I heard that a mom might not be ecstatic about this day was from my mom during an honest moment. Since then I have heard it often and from many women. Just the other night I heard a phenomenal mother tell me, "Aw, I HATE Mother's Day. Always have, always will."

This reminded me of the day that I felt the same way. It was Mother's Day 2003, I think. I remember my husband and kids saying "Happy Mother's Day" to me and that was pretty much it. It was a busy, hectic Sunday just like any other. After a few upsetting Mother's Days this was the worst. I was hurt, and very sad. To be fair, my husband was in grad school, very busy, very stressed out, very poor, and our children were very young. But I hated Mother's Day that day. I figured that if it just didn't exist I wouldn't have any reason to be upset. Honestly, though, I didn't hate the day, I hated the unmet expectation. I hated the lack of fanfare, the absence of feeling special, the void of feeling any different from every other day of the year. I suddenly knew why Moms were saying they hated mother's day.

But I didn't want to hate mother's day. It broke my heart when I heard that my mom didn't like it. I never wanted my kids to feel like I didn't feel special on that day, no matter what they didn't do for me. (By the way, mom, I ABSOLUTELY don't blame you for not liking mother's day in the past, or even to this very day as I am one of the worst people at doing anything for you on this day. I'm sorry!!! I love you and you are a fantastic mother.) Having your kids believe that they make you happy on this day is like letting them believe in Santa for as long as they want. It just makes them happy. Even husbands like believing this. But I didn't want it to be a lie, either, I wanted to really enjoy Mother's Day.

Here is what I did:

1. I changed my expectations. If you ask moms what they want on Mother's Day most of them say they want one day free of being a mom. That is what I wanted. I wanted one day of no cooking, cleaning, diaper changing, whiny kids, pleasing my husband, or doing anything that wasn't just for me. I also wanted to be celebrated, treated like royalty, to have one perfect day. And with expectations like that how could I NOT be let down?

But Mother's Day isn't about not being a mom anymore. It is a day to celebrate being a mother. So, I erased all the above expectations and decided that on Mother's Day I was going to find joy in my motherhood and nothing else. Anything else would be a pleasant surprise. Now on this day I laugh more with/at my kids, I refuse to yell, I give up all guilt, smile evily at people who are annoyed by my kids, don't worry about how they are dressed, what they eat, or anything else. It is a fantastic day.

2. I started treating myself. Sometimes we need to show people how to treat us by treating ourselves that way first. I now go to the store the day before Mother's Day and buy strawberries, whipped cream, flowers, whatever I want for meals the next day, and maybe even a new piece of jewelry (but I don't spend more than $15). If my husband wants to beat me to the punch on this, he is more than welcome, but otherwise I do it and I am always happy the next day when I can enjoy my treats.

3. I stopped blaming my husband. It is Mother's Day, not Wife's Day. Sure, a man should honor his wife for being the mother of his children, but he can do that all year long and on other days of the year. Once I gave up the idea that he was in charge of Mother's Day I was able to love him and not be angry with him for "failing me".

4. I allowed myself the same freedom regarding Father's Day. I can encourage the kids to celebrate the day. I can help them carry out their plans. But I don't have to feel pressured to do it all, or to even do anything (though I try to). Now I can't feel bitter because I "did more for him than he did for me". It isn't up to us, but to our kids.

Now comes the good part. I made all these decisions the day after that sad Mother's Day in 2003. The following Father's Day the kids and I picked out a candy bar for my husband (the kids' choice of gift) and we all signed a card. This was very little compared to the previous Father's Day fanfares. My husband was a bit hurt and disappointed. When he mentioned it I nicely, without any malice because there was no malice to be had now, said, "But it is more than I got for Mother's Day." He was sure that wasn't true but when I asked him to tell me what they did for me that day he couldn't think of anything.

Ever since that day I have had marvelous Mother's Days. And I have to thank my husband for all the effort he puts into them now. He really goes out of his way to treat me right. But it is my new outlook on this Holiday that really lets me feel joyful. It no longer matters if things don't go just right, it doesn't hurt if something keeps my husband from getting it put together, and it doesn't even bother me if the kids are grumpy and mean to me that day. I just smile, remember how blessed I am to be a mother, and enjoy the look of my new bracelet. =)

I hope all you mothers have a very enjoyable Mother's Day !!!

How Not To Do Easter My Way

I'm back. Thanks for all the wonderful comments while I was gone, they made me smile. The grounding was very good for me, I got a lot done, I worked very hard, and yet.... And yet my house still has the Monday morning haven't-cleaned-in-weeks-and-has-been-ransacked-by-an-army-of-small-demons look to it. Ah well, at least this time I can say that it wasn't because of me. You may remember my posts on how to have a lovely and a peaceful Easter? Well, great game plans only work if everyone follows the plan. This year we all deviated enough to cause total mayhem. I won't go into too many details but here are some of the main bullet points:

1. Don't allow your daughter to have a friend sleepover Friday night, forgetting that on Saturday you do your egg hunt. This is because said friend will turn your eldest child into a giggling mass of bad decisions, they will stay up and keep you up WAY too late on a pregnant holiday eve and make us all so tired that Mr. Easter Bunny sleeps in the next day, you won't have an Easter basket for the friend and you will have to scrounge around to make one for her, friend will start an egg fight that your kids will fully participate in despite all their upbringing and you won't be left with any eggs for deviled eggs, and in the 7 minutes that you step inside all the candy, playdough, eggs, toys, etc that you purchased, packaged, hid, and were excited about will be torn apart and strewn on the lawn and kids will be crying because they suddenly realize that they have ruined their stuff and are getting hit in the head with eggs, and because the friend won't even say, "Thank you for letting me ruin your holiday" as she heads out your door.

2. Don't schedule events for March 22nd, this coming Saturday, and the day before Easter unless your brain knows that they are all the same day because then you will be WAY over booked during a pregnant holiday.

3. Next Easter I am going to wash underwear, socks, and clothing for church and a nice non church outfit for every kid, then I will wrap them in waterproof plastic and lock them into a safe so that, despite all my hard work and my utter fatigue, I won't be found doing what I was doing Sunday morning. Lets just say that it was the kind of day that makes me say (in a tizzy and ready to cry as I hand my two sons a grey and blue pair and a green and brown pair, "Here, and if anyone asks you why your socks don't match you just tell them that we do this on purpose for Easter."

4. Don't think you are on the freeway heading home at 9:30 at night unless you are SURE you are on the freeway heading home. Loosing a whole hour because you find yourself on some mountainous divided highway in the dark is not a good way to spend an evening and it will suck up the precious hour you were going to spend making food for Easter Sunday. (Thank heavens for cell phones and yahoo maps, and husbands who can guide you back home)

5. Don't spend precious time on Saturday cleaning before you leave for the rest of the day. Instead spend that time cooking. Because you know that if you leave your husband and the three youngest kids at home, on a candy high no less, for 7 hours, that the house will in no way be as clean as you left it.

Luckily, a dear friend had us over for dinner with some other dear friends of ours and the day ended perfectly, with good food, laughing children, and a smiling, tired, pregnant, me.

I hope you all had a Happy Easter!

St. Patrick's Day FHE

Opening Song: The Holy Ghost

Lesson: Read this brief history of St. Patrick. Point out that St. Patrick's life was a hard one but because he never stopped having faith he was able to be guided to do wonderful things. Talk about his using the shamrock as a lesson on the Godhead. Repeat together the first article of faith.

Talk about how the shamrock has three separate leaves but are joined together on the same stem. discuss why Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are different/separate and how they are similar or considered "as one". Here are some articles with ideas or answers to these questions that you can read before you give the lesson:

Articles of Faith: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost

First Presidency Message: In These Three I Believe

You can write these down on a big cutout or drawing of a shamrock. Write the differences on the leaves and the unifying elements on the stem.

Closing Song: I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus

Treat: Green Rice Crispie Treats

Game: St. Patrick's Memory Game (Print out two copies onto thick or color backed paper)

Messy Messy Messy

I am loving Scribbit's Winter Bazaar and all the fun things that people are coming up with.

My contribution for today is "Messy, messy, messy" eggs. Or felt fried eggs. You will need a plastic egg, some white and yellow felt, scissors, thread, a pinch of stuffing, some pins, and something round (hence the bottle of paint).






Fold your white felt and cut out two fried egg shaped blobs. Trace a small circle onto your yellow felt and cut it out.








Blanket stitch (or regular stitch, I just think the blanket stitch is pretty) the yellow circle onto one of the white blobs. Before you come full circle, shove a pinch of stuffing into the yellow circle and then stitch shut. Now place the two white blobs together and blanket stitch around. (I stitched my whites together first and it made sewing the yellow circle on more difficult).




Now your kids can crack eggs on your kitchen floor all day long while repeating the famous line from Frosty The Snowman, "Messy, messy, messy," until you go a bit batty. My daughter got one of these for Christmas and I'm not kidding about going batty.




I'm going to make one of these for every kid and hide them with the rest of the Easter eggs. If I were industrious like Scribbit I would have made a bunch of them and offer to sell them to you but I'm too busy eating my new ice cream to be that cool.

Oh, and if you happen to have, or can get your hands on those thick round magnets you can use them in your yolk so the egg can do double duty as a fridge magnet. The magnet also helps the eggs fall from the egg shell better (more like a real egg).

"Easter" Done My Way

Yesterday I posted about how I've made Easter Egg hunts more peaceful. Today I will give you all my other "Easter" secrets.

1. "Yucky Eggs": Stepping gingerly through the grass, shoulders hunched in concentration, eyes searching high and low, the children comb the lawn with baskets in hand looking for Easter eggs. "WAIT JUST A MINUTE!!! How come you guys aren't picking up the real Easter eggs???"
"Because we only like the ones wif candy in 'em."
"You pick up the real eggs right now or I'm going to take all the candy ones away!"
Oh yeah, I totally know how to ruin a fun time.
It totally bugs me that my kids are so spoiled that they refuse to pick up the real eggs. I'm sorry, but we just spent a big messy evening dying those things, DSSH spent half an hour hiding them, and I really want my deviled eggs with dinner tonight but I'll be darned if I'm gonna go traipsing through the wet cold grass to pick them up. So this is what I do now. I trade egg finding hints for real eggs. Yup, DSSH makes sure to hide the really good plastic eggs in obnoxiously hard spots and the kids can only get hints in return for a hard boiled egg. I sit on the deck (eating my Easter candy) and collect them all. This also helps keep the eggs from being smashed before I can get them. They are always out in plain view too. Other tricks I've seen for this problem are giving a small toy in trade for an egg, having clues written on the eggs, or simply getting rid of any candy eggs whatsoever (YEAH RIGHT!).

2. Just Say, "No," To Grass: Easter basket grass, that is. Can't stand the stuff. It is useless, messy, clogs vacuums, I'm sure it chokes squirrels and birds, and I know for a fact that the landfills don't need it. Why is it even still legal? Instead I do what my mom always did. I go out and buy myself some new kitchen or bathroom towels and use them to pad our Easter baskets. Sure, they get a bit dirty but then that is their purpose anyway, and then I have something useful in the end. I've also done personalized handkerchiefs for each kid that they can use later.

3. Year Round Easter Baskets: We did the cute little Easter Basket thing for several years, we even made our own out of garbage (some on once said this is the stupidest thing you can do because then the item is no longer recycleable). After years of cleaning, storing, finding, mending, and buying a basket that only gets used once a year I finally got wise. Now we use buckets or baskets that we can use every day. I use Easter as the time to buy new beach buckets (if needed), new organizing baskets, new beach bags, etc... Anything with handles that needs to be replaced that year gets bought and used as an Easter basket first. Sometimes we spiffy them up with ribbons or stickers. This year I got the kids new beach buckets with shovels (though not as cute as the ones I have pictures here).

4. Easter Vs. The Bunny: I've often had that common concern about having such an important spiritual holiday commercialized and paganized. I'm mean, honestly, how can you possibly give a 4 year old a basket of candy and then ask them to think about Jesus? I'm sorry, it is just a cruel expectation. I know that many others have done this but it was a totally new idea to me when I first heard of it so I will explain what we do to remedy the situation. We have simply separated our Spring celebrations from our Easter celebration. One family I know does this by celebrating spring (eggs, candy, bunnies, etc) on the first day of Spring, and Easter on Easter Sunday. I would love to do it this way but my husband likes to do it the way we do it now. We celebrate Spring on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. This way we have all day to play on Saturday, no sugar highs in church the next day (or at least no fresh sugar highs), and we can completely focus on the real reason for Easter. We talk about the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the atonement, we watch movies on this subject, and all of our activities have to do with this all important event. Next week I will post some of the ways that we celebrate Easter and not Spring.

Whine-Free Egg Hunt

For great winter and holiday ideas check out the participating posts at Scribbit's Winter Bazaar.

"Mooooom, Cookie is getting all the eggs and she won't give any to me."

"Cookie, you are only supposed to find the ones that aren't on the ground."

"I know mom, but he keeps walking right past them."

"Pablo, that was an easy egg, you are supposed to leave those for Sweet Terror to pick up."

"But, mooooom, she's not even looking. She is just sitting over there eating jelly beans."

Sweet Terror, after eating her jelly beans, screams in an ear splitting shriek as Monster Man snatches an egg right by her foot.

"Monster Man!"

"Sooooory. Here, Sweet Terror."

She grabs the egg and promptly sits down to eat its contents. Then Monster Man start complaining that she didn't say, "Thank you."

My eyes have rolled so many times at this point that they hurt. I need a whistle and referee shirt to play this game. Two years ago, after getting so disgusted with my children and the whole Easter Egg Hunt drama that I almost canceled Easter, I had an idea. This idea has completely changed our egg hunts and have made for a fun, peaceful hunt. What is my miracle trick? Color coded Easter egg hunt. We buy several bags of the colored plastic Easter eggs and fill each color with an equal amount of candy and little things like chapstick, a wind-up toy, etc. Now, each kid gets assigned a color

Cookie=Purple

Pablo=Blue

Monster Man=Green

Sweet Terror=Pink

Mom=Yellow

Dad=Orange (or whatever color is left)

Now, not only does this guarantee that everyone gets an equal amount of eggs, and that no one gets an egg unfairly snatched from them, but it also makes the whole hiding thing a lot easier for the Easter Bunny and more fun for the kids too. Depending on the age of the child, certain colored eggs get hid at different difficulty levels. Sweet Terror's pink eggs are just thrown on the grass in plain site, and not even that far from each other, while Cookie's get hid up in trees and under things and are in every far reaching corner of our lot. I like to put special things in DSSH's eggs and hide them throughout the house, with a difficult clue in each egg to help him find the next one. DSSH loves me and so he just puts my eggs in a basket on the table so that I can eat them while taking pictures of everyone else. =)

I gotta tell ya, this has made Egg Hunts with toddlers SOOOOOO nice. Tune in tomorrow and I will tell you how I get the kids to pick up the hard boiled eggs too (Yes, my kids are so spoiled that they refuse to pick up the real "yucky" eggs so they have more time to find the candy filled ones).