swingin'...

sisters at twilight.

baby wearing...

The professor took this picture of a BIG wolf spider on our side walk this morning. See the dots on her back... look closely...SPIDERLINGS!! Isn't that gross? and sweet in a creepy sorta way... oh... the joys of baby wearing. Thank you wolf spider for your sweet example of motherhood. Just wondering, does it help to have 8 eyes and hands?

No Manners 2009!!

3rd Annual Moss No Manners Dinner!!
Seriously, you have to try this. It's a blast!!

 

I'm a process person so I like all of it...
the Professor is an outcome person, so he likes it best when it's all finished!!
These are not all original ideas...
I've compiled them and inherited them.
Hope this is great inspiration for all of your end of the summer celebrations!!

1. Bread and Condiments...
We played a game where I had a tray of condiments numbered with stickers, a basket of numbers on folded index cards and a loaf of french bread sliced. The kids picked a number and I wiped the corresponding number onto their bread. (They saved their bread so one slice lasted about 2 condiments.) We used the following condiments: mayo, mustard, jam, ketchup, clams, shrimp, tuna, relish, horseradish, soy, worchestire, salad dressings, season salt, caramel, honey, pesto, etc. I didn't buy anything except the bread, I just found things around the house.

2. Spaghetti, Sauce, Green Beans, Milk...
We serve everything with our hands, NO UTENSILS, except for straws and plastic spoons. You need plastic spoons to flick the green beans and straws to blow milk bubbles.

3. Chocolate Pudding..... We make 4 containers of the big Jell-O chocolate Instant pudding. I let it sit at room temperature until it's hardened. (One year I put it in the fridge and it was SO cold their little faces froze.) Right before we eat I put 5 skittles and 5 gummy worms on a paper plate and glop a whole bunch of pudding on it. (A few times I've used individual pie tins, but paper plates is fine.) We have a contest to see who could find the worms and skittles the fastest. No prize, no hands, just faces and fun times. JAKOB won the pie dig!!4. Root beer... Yup, we had a burping contest. We bought a 12 pack of root beer and went to work. ANNA won the burping contest!! Don't forget to shake up your cans so it sprays everywhere when you open it up. So fun!!

5. Whip Cream...
One year we let the kids decorate mom and dad with whip cream and peanut butter. That was fun. This year we just gave each kid their own canister and let them go to it. Even Drew, who hates to eat whip cream, wanted a canister to spray. I guess it's more about fun then food anyway.

6. Ewey, Gooey Face Game...
Similar to the condiment game, I just put lots of gross stuff on paper plates, had the kids stand in a line and one at a time had them stick their face in the plate. Usually they were slow as they brought the plate to their face so I helped them out with a good push. We used honey, syrup, ketchup, salad dressings, mayo, crisco, oil, peanut butter, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, flour (this was really fun!), etc... Be careful-- mustard stings!! Oh, and I had a baggy of cherrios and asked the kids who could get the most cheerios to stick on their face. You could do this with partners if you want to.

Note-- We eat outside or in the garage. No Manners Allowed. We recommend swim suits and hoses for clean-up. And, we also have an annual Fancy Dinner where we talk about fancy manners and take them out to eat, or use china and have our own Fancy Dinner at home. This is a fun, fun dinner and by far the most talked about event of the year at our house.

coming soon...

We just finished our 3rd Annual No Manners Dinner... they just get messier and crazier every year. I'm trying to organize my post with step by step instructions for all the "planners" out there. Check back soon to enjoy lots and lots of messy pictures. Man, what a life. (If you're wondering, Justin is home in Virginia now, i think. I haven't heard from him since takeoff. He was so excited to have No Manners Dinner BEFORE he left... if nothing else, his stay here was definitely MEMORABLE!!)

thinking of alabama...

Corrie, I just want you to know that I think of you every time we eat plums. Love, love you... jen And, for the rest of you, here is a corrie's link... you can bug her for her plum crumble recipe!!

my bags are packed...

See you later. I'm off to Austin with a few of my PTA friends for a weekend seminar. Wish me lots of PTA luck. This is where I learn what on earth I'm supposed to do next year. (Too bad I missed it last year...) Anyway, see ya.

glad i've got your number...

yup. we're on the road again. i've made so many good friends the past few days... friends from India, Tokyo?, Dallas, and California, just to name a few. it's like i took a road trip without leaving my home. my new friends and i, we've spent hours together... just chatting... something happened to my internet. it stopped connecting. our modem broke. well, i learned it's not really a modem, it's a router. If you look on the box and see green light, power; flickering green light, wireless; flashing green light, broadband; no light internet. BEWARE!! we typed in numbers... P(peter)A(alex)89.543.t(tom)H(harry).5467859302-39586793J(juliet- ohh that's a good one) 654.43532256 we learned to love the NO PPP LOGIN FOUND screen. we did a rip and rebuild together- maybe it was a rippin' rebuild. i got to know the sweet lady they sent to my home-- divorced with two kids, wanted five- her x-husband didn't. now, he's remarried, his new wife had three and they had one together. HA HA, he got SIX after all. serves him right for divorcing that nice lady... the nice lady, by the way, doesn't know anything about computers, she had to pass my ticket on to the bleach blond older guy, who visited us this morning. but the nice lady could tell me that all the lights were green. us, big family wanting women have a lot of skills, we both can tell the lights are green... Chii, or Jiiin, or something like that... she was the superstar. my new BFF. we spent about 3 hours chatting. seriously. while todd cooked tater tots, onion rings and fish sticks for dinner, and all the kids watched wipe-out, and, i heard them answering my cell phone saying, "she actually doesn't want to talk to you right now." (sorry aunt mill). i found todd's school lap top... we hooked it up to the wall, we reconfigured stuff on it, it worked. we found another connection cord (did i not say Ching was amazing) the blue one in the laptop case, we hooked the laptop up to our router (it's the thing that looks like a modem, but it's not) we reconfigured stuff and, it didn't work. so, she called a number and got the guy with the bleach hair to bring me something new. he showed up this morning bearing gifts. spent a lot of time walking around my tornado of a house (lots and lots of laundry piles!!) and, now i'm back online. i LOVE a good adventure. Thanks to all my new friends at AT&T. If any of you are LONELY or have a few hours on your hands, give them a call 1-800-246-8464. If you're SINGLE, Glen from California has a cute lisp. He was really, really nice. and helpful. well, he tried to be helpful. but, he wasn't the superstar that Jii was. oh, and... It may be a myth that you can hear gay. If it's not, he might be gay. But, either way he's a really nice guy to spend an hour with, so, give him a try. Thanks again to all of you who helped get my computer back online. I'm sure you'll be checking my blog frequently, just to keep in touch. And, I really hope that you are all as nice as you seemed, because... you know all of my passwords, my social, my birthday, my kids names and ages and special talents... i hardly know what to do with myself without one of you on the other end of my phone. luckily, i've got your number. and, you're there. 24 hours a day. and, by the way, i kinda like my new nickname "MissMoss"... maybe all my friends should call me that. MissMoss are you there? Can you hold, MissMoss? MissMoss? it's got a certain ring doesn't it?

swimmin', swimmin'...

one project done...

i took anna with me to the store... we got flowers at the dollar store... (they even let us have all the loose flowers at the bottom of the bin for free!! score.) gem sparkley brads at Michael's... and, hair clips at Sally's... when we got home, everyone was feeling crafty, so we made like 50 flower clips... even the boys pitched in... overall, this was a fun, cheap, easy project. give it a try!!

yup... we saw harry.

although the books got scarier, i don't think the movies have. i LOVE that this movie was PG. and, my kids had a lot of fun watching it. we met up with our friends, the Robinsons, at the drive-in. we got there pretty early, to be sure we had a spot. and, they had a fun park that the kids played in till dark. (i kept over hearing the professor tell other moms that this was lily's first time in a swing... Nope. i guess i need to send him to the park with her more often. or, i need to be sure he checks the blog. lily, she's a swinging expert.) anyway, fun summer moments.

let's get crafty...

this is a shirt from jcrew... this is a tutorial from echantresses three, where they show you how to flower up a regular tee... don't you want to come over and make some with me? and, i can't have the baggers at wal-mart ask me paper or plastic one more day without feeling like a real tree/plastic earth killer... Here is a great tutorial for making shopping bags out of a 1/2 yard of fabric. I think it would be fun to make my own reusable shopping bags... but, i can buy them for $1 each... even if they aren't as cute... oh, i don't know. I kinda want to go to wal-mart and find red and white polka dot fabric for $1 a yard and buy 10 yards to make 20 cute polka dotted bags to bring with me to the grocery store. But, i have visions of my bags ripping apart or being all wrinkly and i'm not quite sure it's worth the hassle. Oh, i just don't know. What's your vote? And, i really want to make some of these... here is a great tutorial... and, i want to make one of these...this image is from just us... the necklace is from miss ruby sue and cost $120. don't you think we can make one using this tutorial from portabellopixies? so, give me a call, we'll plan a crafty party.