Drive-In!

We are lucky enough to live kinda-sorta close to a drive in theater! And this past week, The Dude said we should go. I didn't give him a chance to change his mind, because we were going to the movies!

Going to the movies, as anyone with young children know, is so difficult. I die from guilt over the children being noisy and I feel guilty over hiring a babysitter. But at the drive-in, nobody cares!

So we packed up the car and once The Dude had changed we were out the door. The double feature was Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 and Beauty and the Beast. We wouldn't be able to stay for Beauty and the Beast, but yay! Guardians! We really enjoyed the first and it has a special place in our hearts, because it was one of Bear's first movies. (Seriously, he loved that movie so much.)

(check out those jammies! haha! I let them select the jammies they wanted to wear to the drive-in and this is what I got! Also, I gotta love those mouths full of popcorn.)

Once we got in, we got some dinner there to support the theater and then it was just a matter of waiting. We haven't been to the drive-in since last year and well, the kids have grown, so half of the movie was wiggly little children, but once we figured out better seating arrangements, it was golden. Also the movie was pretty fun too!

I hope you'll get the chance to see it, so I can chat with you about it. Actually, I'm kinda crossing my fingers we can go again next weekend. Why not? Tickets are $7 per adult and the kids get in free. Wheee! Irresponsible Mama on the loose!

For more information about Hull's Drive-In, visit here!

The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

(Cutest Sheep in the World!)

If you didn't know, I'm originally from Maryland, so many of my friends hail from there. Many also enjoy going to and vending at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and I can't ever stand hearing them about all the lovely things to see and do and knit while there, so this year, I decided the children and I would make the hike!

And what a hike! 3 hours on the road, but so worth it! We had so much fun!

(Bear checking out a truly beautiful sheep.)

The drive is a very nice one through Harper's Ferry and some absolutely stunning farm land. The weather was cool and we were able to meet several sheep, bunnies, and watch a sheep dog demonstration.

(Happy ice cream face. I've promised these two an ice cream date for weeks, but we have been too busy or poor or in the car. This was the perfect time to let the ice cream drip!)

The children were mercilessly spoiled by me and my bank account will likely be angry with me (especially since we are trying to prepare for The Dude to be laid off this July), but I think it was excusable to let the children escape the stress for the day. We wandered and looked and laughed. They both had more fun that I expected they would and I think we'll definitely visit again next year.

(Fast asleep on the long ride home. I call that a good trip.)

Although I've been knitting and crocheting for a very long time, I am a bit intimidated by the fiber community. There is so much out there! 

(blatant advertising for a local company!)

I did purchase some yarn from Cestari Sheep and Wool, a company about 20 minutes drive from my home! I purchased one skein of yarn and hope to expand my doll line to include some locally produced dolls! It's been a dream of mine to do this. (Although with my luck in sales lately, it will bomb, haha! Oh well, I'll keep trying.) I'll be sure to post here with what I come up with. :)

Children's Day

Yesterday was Children's Day in Japan.

(found these cute flags here)

It's a holiday to celebrate children and is a time for families to fly beautiful carp kites (koinobori). The carp symbolizes courage and strength, because they have the ability to swim up waterfalls. I'm a little coconuts over the imagery of the beautiful kites and when Bear was little, on a whim, I made 3 carp for our family and... I still haven't made Bun's. I know! I know! She's going to be 3 in July and I'm terrible. Seriously, I don't know how mothers of more than 2 function, because I'm barely hanging on over here with my 2.

Anyway!

Yesterday was horrendous with heavy rains and flooding, so I couldn't put out our flags, because they'd get wet and why don't we put together these cute paper ones! Look! Let's tie them to these disposable chopsticks and now we can swing them around!

Yay! Mama is the hero!

I even superhero-ed it and made them large origami helmets from newspaper ads! Yay! Look at those happy faces!

Whew! Some day, I'm going to plan ahead farther than the day of, so I'm not tearing around trying to make a holiday out of paper, but yeah, that's future Marcy's problem. Today's Marcy is going to relax on the couch and maybe knit a little.

Foamy Day

I've totally bungled my back from too much gardening this past week. Thankfully today is a low-key day. We did a bit of school this morning and after lunch played with some shaving cream.

Did you do this as a child? I remember loving drawing with shaving cream.

We used Barbasol Original Thick and Rich Cream Men Shaving Cream, 10 Ounce (this is an affiliate link just to share what we used, but you can probably find it cheaper at a drug store.)

The children had so much fun, although I probably went a little overboard with their portions and looking back, should have put a smock on them or had them play shirtless. They wrote their letters and made foam mountains and oceans. It was like a bubble bath in the middle of the day!

Bun had shaving cream all over her! She adores anything yucky and messy. Bear on the other hand is a tidy little guy, so I was surprised he took so well to this activity. He hates getting sticky.

As a hint, for easy clean up, sprinkle some rubbing alcohol on the foam. It really makes clean up less foamy. Then a quick rinse with a wet wash cloth and good bye foam! Bonus your table gets a nice cleaning too!

May the Fourth Be With You

Ah! Star Wars!

Yep, I'm one of those. Growing up, we had a bootleg copy of all three movies (at the time) and my sisters would let me watch the entire series. (I'm the youngest of four and I'm sure six hours without little sister was a great break.) For me it was heaven. I made up stories about Star Wars in my head and pretend my stuffed toys were Star Wars characters.

I have a deep love for Star Wars (Although, I pretend episodes I-III were never made. Shh!)

We usually try to keep television watching to a minimum in our house, but I wanted the children to see the characters, so they would understand who they might be seeing at our library's May the Fourth party. Each day, we watched one movie.

Bear is 4, quickly going on 5, and apparently this is the age! Yes! My son has finally understood Star Wars! He asked me valid questions about what was going on and got excited about the action scenes. My little geek heart couldn't be more proud. 

The best part was him deciding the Ewoks were hamster warriors. I nearly died trying not to laugh over that. Why not bears? Oh little boy, you crack me up.

Ok so, I was wanted to prepare the children for people at the library in costumes, which may be scary, but as soon as I mentioned costumes, they both wanted to dress up. Well that was Saturday, so I quick found 2 shirts (thank you Amazon) and crocheted them some hats.

It was a success! Here is a photo of the children wearing their hats. I altered this pattern by Jen Spears.  It was a quick crochet and the kids loved them. The library event ended up being a delight to the children as well. They were both thrilled. Despite their faces in this photo. I swear, I can never get a good picture of my kids anymore.

Well, I hope you had a good day! Tomorrow's Friday.

when life lives up to your blogs name...

 (This shark totally gets me. Most derpy shark award!)

Guys! Guys!

What the heck?! How did it get to be Wednesday already?

Today has been all about me dragging by butt around, because you know what week it is right? Shark Week! (And I'm not talking about the one they show on the Discovery Chanel. Yeah, ladies are you feeling me on this one?)

I don't know about you but I get absolutely exhausted during this time. I could go to sleep right now. Except I need to figure out what to make for dinner still, because I don't want what's on the menu.

Today is one of those days I wish I weren't trying to limit gluten from my diet. I could eat a cake. An entire cake and not feel the least bit guilty. Mmm, cake. Doesn't the shark look like he wants cake too?  Poor little sharky no cake for you.

Gosh, I totally failed at getting things done today. We went to the library and before I knew it, lunch time had arrived! But we needed to go to the grocery for a few things Aldi doesn't carry. So, we had to run through with hungry children. (Luckily they filled up on breakfast, so no grumper-pusses, thank goodness!) And ended up buying them Mc Donalds for lunch. I feel like I'm the worst mother when I let my children eat fast food. Ugh! Guilt!

Our big excitement today is we found coconuts at the grocery!

My children have fallen in love with Moana and they desperately want to try coconuts. Unfortunately the ones we found they can't drink the water from so I bought a coconut water. They are going to probably be disappointed with the coconut water, but they may eat the coconut meat. We will see. Also, if you have a method of opening coconuts, please comment, because I'm a little clueless.

Sorry for the rambly post today! My brain is in a fog. I love you for reading all of this.

The Children's Garden

Gosh it feels so slimy to immediately start a new blog post after the previous one, but sadly life goes on. Do you ever feel people look down on you for grieving the death of a pet? I don't know maybe it's me.

Anyway, enough of all that. The children have finally been able to put in their flower bed. It's an all of us kinda of garden and I fear it will give any of you true gardeners a heart attack looking at the set up, but let me preface this by saying a 4 and 2 year old are not the best assistants when it comes to gardening. They want to help sooooooo bad and yet they don't have the patience to listen to instructions. I'm amazed this garden looks as good as it does.

Although what you may not see are the numerous and assorted flower seeds they tossed/dumped in the flower bed. Goodness knows what will sprout in this thing. haha! Oh well, the kids had fun.

This portion of the garden is mostly my plants with a bit of input from the children. Many of these plants were picked for anti-mosquito properties or tea usage. You see that caged one on the right? That's catnip. I tried growing it last year in this bed and all the neighborhood cats rolled it flat. This year I've learned! Mwahaha! Cage that catnip!

I allowed both Bear and Bun to select 2 annuals and these are what they chose. I have no clue what they are. Aren't I fabulous blogger? That's not entirely true. Bear did pick some purple-y petunias and Bun picked some pretty pink snap dragons, but I have no idea what the other two are as well as half of the herbs. If you're really curious, comment and I'll go out and update with all the plant names.

Today has been a bad back day to top off a bad back week. Ugh! So I'm going to sit on the couch and watch The Empire Strikes Back with the kiddos. We've been watching one Star Wars movie each day in May, so they will be familiar with the characters for May the Fourth. Our library is fantastic and has a May the Fourth Be With You party.