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Leap Day Celebration Ideas

Leap Day is coming up this week!  I’ve never celebrated it with my kiddos before, but now the older two are old enough that I think we can have some fun and learn a little bit about WHY we have Leap Day and Leap Year.

So…next Wednesday, I am going to DIG DEEP, put on my “fun mom” costume (because yo, it is a COSTUME), and do some fun activities with the kids!  Here are some I’m thinking of:

  • “Leap” games inolving jumping – like a race where we have to do different kinds of jumps – long leaps, bunny hops, jumping on one leg, etc.  Since we’ve been having a mild winter, I am hoping it will be warm enough to do outside and do this.
  • Leap play date so we can play a musical-chairs type game where we leap from lily pad to lily pad!  Each child cuts out & decorates their lily pads and then we will stick them to the floor, turn on some music, and get leaping.
  • Since jumping and lily pads might factor into things, you may have guessed that I am thinking of a FROG theme for our Leap Day fun.  Thanks once again to Pinterest, I may attempt these frog cupcakes:

Hmm, but now I’m thinking frog COOKIES might be easier…

One more thing I’m going to do on Leap Day is leap into a NEW RECIPE! I’ve been in a total recipe RUT recently. This one has nothing to do with frogs (thankfully, ’cause I am NOT eating frog legs!), just something I’ve been wanting to try, and Leap Day is as good a time as any! Since I am a Vicks Blogger, I’ve been following Curtis Stone’s Nature’s Kitchen series sponsored by Vicks Nature Fusion.  There’s a recipe he calls a “One-Pot Wonder” – and I’m a one-pot cook!  I’ve not tried one of Curtis’ recipes yet, even though I love watching his videos. But I am going to make this one  – a potato-corn chowder, for our Leap Day meal.

 

(You can check out the rest of Curtis’ videos for the Vicks Nature Fusion Nature’s Kitchen here.)

Are you planning on celebrating Leap Day this year?  If so, give me some more activity ideas!

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I am being compensated for this post as part of the Vicks Blogger program.

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Adventures in Maternal Slackerdom

I was thinking of alternately titling this post, “In which I totally do not have my sh*t together” OR “yet another birthday freak-out”.  Really, it could be called SO many things.

But the gist of it is: I am blowing town two days before my kid’s birthday party.  Now I will only be gone for like 36 hours and I will be back like an entire 15 hours before the party starts, so that’s ok, right??

Uhhhh…

I’d say Joshua’s birthday kind of crept up on me, but that’s just not true. I’ve had all his presents for forever. The problem is, we spent the long holiday weekend on a reunion vacation with my husband’s family in Myrtle Beach.  We left Thursday night, slept in West Virginia, then drove 8  (really 10) hours Friday, had fun, and turned around and drove 12 hours home Monday. So I spent all LAST week preparing for the trip, and I’ve only had Tuesday-Wednesday to prepare for Joshua’s Sunday family party and Monday after-school friends party, and TODAY I should probably actually pack and do laundry because TOMORROW at 10:30 a.m. I am leaving to go tour Lake Erie’s top vacation sites with some other bloggers and journalists. And I said yes even though the timing is poor because I NEED A BREAK.  And I get to take my BFF Lulee.

It’s going to be my first night away from Jonah, ever.  Totes freaking about that.  But I REALLY want to have him weaned by the end of March, and I am hoping this will be a good first step.  Hold me!!

So I’ll get back Saturday night about 8, and Joshua’s family party is a brunch Sunday at 11.  I am stacking up a bunch of donuts to look like a cake. Brilliant, right?

THEN Sunday night I am going to attempt to make these cupcakes I found on Pinterest for Joshua’s Pokemon (don’t get me started) party:

They look pretty easy, but chances are on Monday at 1 a.m. I am going to be calling Cortney and screaming “PLEASE  MAKE ME SOME CUPCAKES BEFORE  I KILL MYSELF!!!!!!!”

So there you have it. I am a total slacker. And I am probably going to ruin Joshua’s 8th birthday, even though I was out running birthday errands til 10 pm so he will have GOODY BAGS like he requested, and you know, FOOD at the brunch.  And a Pokemon TABLE CLOTH for the love. It’s a good thing I got him some cool presents!

Now I must go start my laundry so I have actual clothes to wear on the tour of Lake Erie, so I can look and act like an actual human instead of this frazzled, stressed, mombie (Mom-Zombie, you LOVE IT) that I have been for a few days.

BUT FIRST – I gotta get out the door to the library to get Joshua a book on horses he has to have for Monday so he won’t also fail 2nd grade because of his mother!

 

 

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My biggest parenting deficiency.

My biggest parenting deficiency? Where do I begin. It’s not that, or that, or that, thankyouverymuch.

It’s dental hygiene.

It’s a terrible thing to admit, I know, but I am, uh, less than diligent about making my kids brush their teeth.

I know.

So when our friends at The Motherhood reached out and asked if I’d like to participate in the Listerine Healthy Habits for a Lifetime Oral Care Challenge, I thought that now’s as good a time as any (except, you know, like eight years ago) to start promoting healthy habits in my kids. After all, February is National Children’s Dental Health Month – we might as well celebrate.

The Challenge was kicked off in a webinar with oral care experts, and I learned some interesting things. Here are some tips for your kids from Dr. Kaneta Lott, DDS, a pediatric dentist:
–Make oral care fun (e.g., make it a game; brush, floss and rinse to music; etc).
–Reward their behavior (e.g., give gold stars for good oral care).
–Show, don’t tell – make oral care a family affair.
–Involve them in their own oral care routine by providing products like LISTERINE Smart Rinse, which can make the daily routine more fun, provides 12-hour cavity protection for kids and strengthens teeth 99 percent better than brushing alone.

I do… let’s see… none of those things.

And here’s more – I’m not a flosser. My teeth get flossed when I go to the dentist (which believe it or not, I do regularly), and that’s about it. I need to get on it, though, because according to the folks at Reach:
Many people don’t realize that brushing alone misses 75% of your mouth! And since there can be more germs in our mouth than there are people on earth, it’s more important than ever to make sure to do everything we can to keep our mouths healthy — including brushing, flossing and rinsing every day.

ohmahgah people, more germs in our mouths than people on earth.

Excuse me while I go floss real quick. And also gargle some bleach.

Anyway, to facilitate my participation in the Challenge, I received a box full of Listerine and Reach products – but to tell you the truth, we already had most of them! My kids have Reach toothbrushes and Listerine SmartRinse, and my husband can’t live without his regular Listerine. That stuff is a little much for me, so I was glad to find an alcohol-free version that’s a little less intense!

Of course, there’s also floss included… I am going to have to suck it up and get in the habit of using it.

I’ll report back in a few weeks to let you know how we’ve done with the challenge of basic grooming increasing our dental health, but until then, I’ve gotta know… am I alone here or do some of you struggle with getting your kids to brush their teeth well? If you don’t, any tips you could share with the rest of us?

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Disclosure: I received products and compensation from Johnson & Johnson and The Motherhood
as part of my participation in the Oral Care Challenge. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own, as I’m sure they don’t want to be complicit in my dental negligence.

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