Day 6: There's No Paint Like Snow Paint

I was a little more on track today. I woke up on time, the kids weren't late for school, and I got to drink my entire cup of coffee while only having to reheat it twice. 

Yay, me!

The boys' school had an assembly today, and I had heard from the office a few days ago that somehow by coincidence both of my kids had been selected by their teachers for Stars of the Week. So, Brad left work for an hour and we went to their assembly to see them awarded, and then surprised them with new blankets for their new beds and a bag of chips and (*gasp!*), a SODA (root beer and orange soda), which is a very rare treat for them. 

My little Stars of the Week! Also Camden stamped his face with a stamp before the assembly. Because of course he did. 

After that Brad had to go back to work and I had a solid 3 hours before I had to work, so we crammed it full of as much Christmasness as we could. 

First, we tried our hand at a fun looking Pinterest baking recipe. They are tiny little "hot chocolate mugs", made with sugar cookie (the cup) a mini candy cane (the handle) and chocolate pudding (the cocoa). It's supposed to look like this:

And actually ended up looking like this:

Welp. 

Look. I can basically do just about any paper craft that is thrown at me. But when it comes to cooking, especially fancy baking, I just lack talent. It's just not there. 

For the record, they did taste good. 

So once we tossed that Pinterest-strocity aside, we went back to something I'm actually good at, crafts. 

This is actually two crafts that I merged into one day because it requires the same (bizarre) material: homemade puffy snow paint. It's easy and cheap and only a little messy. 

First, to make the snow paint! Instructions here, taken and adapted from a couple different Pinterest posts:

1. Take a full bottle of Elmer's (or whatever brand) white blue. Put it in the fridge for a couple hours or two to make it "cold". Pull it out ten minutes or so before your craft. 

2. Squirt entire bottle of glue into a mixing bowl. Add equal parts cheapo white shaving cream (I used Barbasol).

3. Mix!

4. Add white glitter for extra fun. 

That's it! It's cold and snowy and dries puffy. Super fun and weird texture. 

Now once you have your paint, you can do all sorts of fun stuff with it. The first snow paint craft we did was make a "melted" snow man, complete with construction paper body parts. This is nothing more than slopping some snow glue on paper and smearing it around (not spreading it too much, or it won't be puffy!) The blobby-er, the better. Then, I had them write out why their snowman melted. It was fun to see their little minds go to work on that. Calen said his snowman melted because someone lit a torch on his head (rude). Camden said his snowman melted because he went inside the oven (lol!). 

This craft was almost too quick, so I quickly added the second craft. Let's make a snowman that isn't melted. 

Same concept, blob some snow paint on some paper and shape it like a snowman. Again, more blob the better. The kids took the reins on this one and Calen started cutting out all sorts of construction paper accessories for his snowman to make him "cool", including a boom box strung around his neck, a sideways hat and crooked stick arms to make him look like he's laying down listening to music. Cam gave his a backpack "full of Star Wars guys" he said. 

Cam's snowman on the left (with backpack), Calen's snowman on the right (with boombox)

The cleanup kind of sucks but not enough to deter me from doing this again. Super fun. 

Day 5: Improvising

Today kind of went exactly the opposite of how I planned it. 

I planned a nice, relaxing day off of work, sending the kids off to school in the morning, a couple of errands to take care of, then pulling out some perfectly planned Christmas craft from Pinterest out of my ass. 

But it didn't really work out that way. 

I woke up, and it was too bright. You know that feeling? When you wake up and you don't even have to look at your clock but you know it's TOO BRIGHT which means it's later than it's supposed to be. 

To give you reference, my alarm is supposed to go off at 7am. The kids leave for school on their bikes at 8am sharp. The bell for school to start is 8:25. 

I woke up, and my phone said it was 8:23. 

And suddenly, you're AWAKE. Flying down the hallway with pants in your hands shouting downstairs "WE ARE LATE!!!! GET YOUR SHOOOOOOES!!!" followed by panicked screams of your kids who think that the world will actually physically combust into flames if you're late for school. Luckily, they were already dressed, teeth brushed, and had eaten what might resemble a breakfast (a granola bar and a banana). I literally threw some Lunchables at the kids and we got into the car at 8:27. They ended up only being 10 minutes late for school which, much to their surprise, isn't actually the end of the world. 

Then, I went home to drink a cup of coffee, because my heart wasn't beating fast enough already. And halfway though my cup, I get a phone call from work. Can you come in and work today? Like, right now?

Sure. I haven't had an unplanned enough morning. I'll be there in ten minutes. 

So I worked a full day today. Which is good actually, because post-Disney + Christmas = no money. But I somehow managed to pull something in my back, which I didn't really notice until the end of my work shift. No big deal, just annoying. 

I go to pick up the kids from school, and instantly we drive to Costco to do those errands I needed to do this morning. And by the time we got home, my back was truly hurting, and my head was pounding. Christmas activities were NOT going to happen. 

So, I gave the kids some of those gel window sticker things to make a snowy scene on our big window, and threw in Home Alone on the DVD player. There, it's Christmas. The end. 

The kids were thrilled, so I'm thrilled. Tomorrow is a new day. 

The fruits of our labor today

Day 4: Date Nights With Cam

Today's Christmas activity was slightly different, mostly because we had an emergency repair of our front lawn decorations that were ravaged by the windstorm earlier today, and by a certain 3rd grader in the house that decided that showing off and being the clown in class was cooler than listening in math. So, we divided and conquered. Calen (said 3rd grader) and Dad got to go to the hardware store together to get some supplies to save our pallet trees from crashing down and our Narwhal from flying into the next block. Camden and I took to opportunity to go on a one on one date to Starbucks for hot chocolate and Target so he could pick out a special present from him to his brother. 

This is a tradition I cherish every year with each of the boys. It's fun to just go out with only one of them, chat over a cup of cocoa and let them focus on giving rather than getting (which, let's face it, is really difficult at this age). 

Cam must have sensed that this was a date, because he insisted on carrying my purse and even asked to "pay" for the cocoa at Starbucks, so I allowed him to insert my card into the reader but NOT see my pin number. Because can you imagine the binge he'd go on. 

We sat and talked about school and any other wild randomness that comes through Cam's head (see #ConversationsWithCam on Facebook), and then he announced that "I can drink this while we walk". He had officially been sitting for 5 minutes and his "sitting still" clock had expired. 

So, we walked through Target, laughing at "boobs" as we walked by (the bra section) and checking out all the cool Christmas stuff. Cam found a Santa phone decoration where it rings and you pick it up and Santa talks to you. In true Camden fashion, he announced (loudly), "MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU FILTHY ANIMAL!" on the phone, causing only 3 other families to look over. Whatever. 

Then we found this excellent display

It took a little work to get him focused on his brother but not himself, but Cam finally picked out a cool Star Wars Lego set that Calen had been cooing over. 

Super fun date night with my littlest. I can't wait to take Calen in a few days. 

Day 3: When There's A Fork In The Tree, Paint It

Today certainly wasn't as exciting as yesterday, I had to work and Brad spent all day building new beds for the kids (more on that later). But, we still made sure to take some time to do something Christmasy. 

As I scrolled Facebook when I woke up this morning (this generation's morning paper), I saw a craft someone posted that was stupid easy and required little materials. That's it! The activity of the day. 

So you take some green paint (bonus points for two shades of green), some other colors of paint of your choice, two small paintbrushes, a piece of paper, and a plastic (disposable) fork. Bonus material: white glitter

Dip the entire end of the fork in the green paints, and then "brush" it diagonally from the center and out to make a tree shape. Then use the paintbrushes and other colors (we used red and blue) to make dots on the trees for ornaments. And, if you happen to have some, sprinkle white glitter on the wet paint for "snow". 

Done, done and done. 

These were SO fun turned out pretty and actually took slightly longer than 15 minutes to complete so it kept them busy for a second or two. 

So about those beds. For weeks and weeks and weeks now, the boys have been begging to share a room. Why, I have no idea. But Cam cries every night if he can't sleep on the floor in his brother's room (which we allow on weekends) and even Calen begs for Cam to be with him. There would be no good feasible way to do this without buying a bunk bed, and we didn't really want to buy a bunk bed and be committed to them sharing a room (after all, what if they suddenly decided they hated sharing a room? What if they are turds and keep each other awake all night and CAN'T share a room? So we were stuck kind of wondering what to do. 

Then suddenly on our local swap meet Facebook page, someone posts that they are getting rid of a twin bunk bed that separates into two stand alone twin beds if needed, FOR FREE. 

PICK ME!!!! PICK ME!!! I WANT IT!

We got the bed today, so Brad worked away all day rebuilding them while the boys assumed they were just getting new bed frames for their rooms. We surprised them after I got home from work this evening and they SQUEALED with joy. Of course now they're fighting over the top bunk but you can't have everything in life can you. They now sleep in Camden's room, and Calen's room (the biggest room) is the playroom. More photo updates on that later when I'm done. 

Day 2: Hey Griswold, Where You Going To Put A Tree That Big?

I have a confession to make. It's a big one. 

We got a fake Christmas tree this year. For the first time ever. 

*Gasp!* *Shock!* *Horror!*

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. 

Look, live Christmas trees while living in Washington State is a no brainer. The trees are like, actually alive, and green and lush and full and beautiful and last forever. 

In California, where there's been a drought since, forever, and fir trees aren't actually created to exist in such a geographical part of the world, you struggle to find a tree that isn't short or skimpy, or completely and totally dead on one side. And then once you do find some lame booby prize of a tree and cut it down, it might live 4 or 5 days. Might. Then you spend the rest of the holiday season siting on your sofa staring suspiciously at your Christmas tree waiting for that fateful moment where your tree just spontaneously combusts right in front of your very eyes. 

So, we took the stress away this year and bought a really, really, nice fake tre. And we stuffed it with smelly pine sticks and it looks real enough I actually went to water it the other day. And then we put a motorized Disney World Monorail around it. Because OBVIOUSLY. 

Our totally real tree. Okay fine it's fake, don't tell Olaf. 

Who needs a train around your tree when you can have a MONORAIL

Great fake treeness aside, we were already missing out on our tradition-since-forever of taking the whole family to the tree farm and cutting down a tree. 

SOooooo, since we don't have enough decorations up inside and out, we decided that we'd go to the tree farm this year and cut down a little tree, to put on the landing of our stairs (for no other reason than we legit don't have room anywhere else). The kids get to pick the lights and the ornaments and do whatever they want to do with it. 

Today was tree farm day! We went to one of the farms we visited last year in Sebastapol, a cute little place with a good sized hill full of fir trees. The kids ran up the hill and had no trouble finding lots of good candidates for our stairs. Finding little fir trees that are alive is easy. 

Tree candidate #1 (not selected)

Calen liked the "blue" trees (too fluffy)

I don't think that one will fit on the stairs, Cam

We have a winner! Sonic joined us today too and had to be hipster like the boys

Brad and the boys cut it down and Calen carried the tree by himself down the hill to the car. Then we picked out a live wreath for our front door and called it good. 

Also let it be known that Camden insisted on wearing his suspenders and bow tie to the tree farm. Insisted! Who am I to say no. 

When we got home, I strategically placed the little tree in the back yard for the kids to decorate. For a photo opportunity, of course! The boys decorated the tree exactly how they wanted it, using colored lights (the family tree is white), handmade ornaments and a classic little star on the top. It's now happily sitting on the landing of our stairs welcoming us to the bottom floor, and it smells like tree and is just lovely and adorable. 

Because we didn't get enough Christmasness today, we had an early dinner and headed back into Petaluma to attend the free tree lighting bash in the town square. The boys mailed their letters to Santa in the designated North Pole mailbox at the square and we stopped into the candy store for a treat to enjoy while watching live music play Christmas carols. It "snowed" from the tops of the buildings and then there was a countdown for the lights to turn on, and Santa himself flipped the switch. The boys got to visit Santa, though as a family we all agreed he was most likely a "helper" that the real Santa appointed for the occasion, and the real Santa will be visiting Petaluma in a couple of weeks. 

It started to "snow"! 

Awesome, awesome day. This time of year is the absolute best. 

Day 1: Dear Santa

It's December 1st!! It is now officially, really, acceptable to talk about Christmas. Even though in MY book it was acceptable to talk about such things once you finish digesting Thanksgiving dinner mid-afternoon, but some other Grinches might poo-poo such talk. 

You can ignore the fact that my house has been (mostly) decorated for Christmas since we came back from Disney in mid November, if it offends you so much. 

Anyways. 

I really, really tried to do 31 days of Halloween, and failed gloriously and beautifully. I think we did maybe 7 days of Halloween. Which is still pretty good I guess. But it was also baseball season, and I work, and the kids had homework, and and and. But now it's December 1st and I really, REALLY want to do 25 days of Christmas. I'm prepared! I have Pinterest boards! And glitter glue! And construction paper! I'm ready! Let's do this. 

We'll see. At least there are no sports seasons going on right now. 

Today at least, was easy. Our house is already totally decorated on the inside AND we finished the outside today, while only blowing the fuse twice last night. 

We added a narwhal this year. Because obviously. And our next door neighbor bought an accompanying llama. 

As for our activity today, we started off right by writing letters to Santa Claus. This has double meaning in our house. First of all is the obvious, Santa has to know what they're asking for, right? It's also the point-of-no-return in gift requesting. Once those letters are mailed off, no takebacks, period! Because Santa is usually done Christmas shopping preparing by the second week of December and we can't have little turd faces reading catalogs and doing something absurd like changing their minds last minute, now can we? 

Cam's current obsession with floppy ear hats is hilarious

In our household, the boys are allowed to ask Santa for 3 things each. That does not mean they usually get all 3 things (they rarely do), but usually Santa will bring them one of the things on the list. I already told them that I've already told Santa no "cell phones with games on them" (Camden's request) and he probably won't let you have a real crossbow (in case of zombie attacks), either. 

Their finished letters! I love their handwriting so much. 

Tomorrow we will drop off the letters to a special mailbox in downtown Petaluma. That way it might reach Santa before we visit him in person in a couple of weeks. 

For the record and much to my surprise (and delight), Calen, at 8 and a half, is still a firm believer in Santa this year. He doesn't seem interested in "solving the puzzle" about Santa either, he's just content that Santa exists, period. I wish he could stay a little kid forever. 

Grand Ideas That End In Olives

I have these grand ideas sometimes. 

Sometimes, when I'm over caffeinated and not already exhausted by my day (usually, before like, 9:30am), I pop on Pinterest, get excited, pin 428 pins on paper roll tube crafts and hand rolled pumpkin spice gluten free pasta noodles, and fully intend on doing each and every one of those pins, that month. 

Especially during the holidays. 

I had this great stupid idea that I was going to do 31 days of Halloween in the month of October. You know, because I have all these great (not my original) ideas that I can punch out! And it's Halloween so it's fun! It's pumpkins! It's monsters! It's family time together!

It's stupid. 

No, it really isn't. But it's unrealistic, and whatever Martha Stewart-wannabe that created the idea of 31 days of Halloween (also found on Pinterest) obviously has no job, hires a maid, doesn't involve her kids in any extra curricular activities and even then, probably lied that she was doing an activity every day. 

But dammit, I wanted to try. 

October 1st was easy. We pulled out the Halloween bins and decorated the house. I would consider that an "activity". 

But then, another day passed, and another, and suddenly it's nearing the end of the 3rd, I'm barely coming home from work, and we have baseball games tonight. 

What a stupid grand idea of mine. 

But, I want to make it fun for us, I really do. So, I decided that dinner (if you can call it that, because it was at 3:30 in the afternoon due to impending baseball games) was going to be Halloweenie. 

I took some sourdough rolls, cut them in half. Slapped some ham and salami on it, and then took some provolone cheese and cut some jags on the edges to make it look like teeth, and put the other half of the roll on top, and bake for a bit. Then, I added some sliced olives for the eyes and carrots for the spikes or whatever, and tada! It was some sort of lizard dragon monster thing. I put them on the kids' plates and waited for them to get home from school, grinning victoriously to myself that I successfully managed to squeeze some sort of Halloween out of the day. The kids will be thrilled!

The monster sandwich with cheese teeth and poisonous olive eyeballs. 

The boys came home from school and I was excited! Camden was first, bounced over to the kitchen table, and then stopped abruptly, staring at his sandwich-creatures. I expected a laugh from him, but instead he stared at it suspiciously, stuck out a finger and said: "Are those...olives?" while cringing as if I were trying to poison him. 

"Oh, just pick the olives off. I needed something for eyeballs. But isn't he a cool little dragon guy?"

"Yeah. I'm going to throw those olives away because olives are gross."

Calen came in next. Okay! He's always my easy to please one. He'll see it and giggle and give me a few compliments and fully appreciate it. He always does. 

Calen wandered over to the table and took an extra long look at his sandwich. I eagerly awaited his response. 

"Mom, are those olives...?"

YES OKAY THEY'RE F**KING OLIVES. - I didn't say. 

"Yes, throw them away. They're just for decoration. I just thought it'd be funny."

"Yeah. I just don't like olives."

"I know."

And that was the most I got out of either them. They ate their dragon sandwiches, or whatever they were, sans olives, and that was the end of it. 

Whatever. I tried. 

Later, the boys were giggling about their dragon sandwiches to each other in the car. So they did actually like their sandwiches and the creativity behind it, though they weren't about to let me know about it, because that would mean they'd have to publicly forgive me for putting OLIVES on their sandwiches. 

Adventures in Mining, a Two Part Saga

This actually happened on two separate days, two weeks apart from each other. But they were supposed to all happen on the same day so we are going to pretend they did. 

It's Sunday morning, which means it's Get-Up-At-The-Buttcrack-Of-Dawn-And-Drive-90 Minutes-To-Hockey-Camp day. 

The good news is, there's no traffic at 6am on Sunday morning. 

Since we have to drive so far to get to Camden's hockey camp, which is only an hour by the way, we are going to take advantage and make it a family day complete with a lot of adventures, and (because it's South Bay in a stupidly hot Indian Summer), sweating. 

Hockey camp ends promptly at 9am. 9am! It's the beginning of the day! We have literally ALL DAY in front of us. And luckily, I did my share of Pinteresting and Yelping the day before, so I was prepped for a fun family day. 

First, we went out to breakfast. Because adventures requires fuel! I found a fun place in San Jose called "Scramblz", a breakfast joint that really seems to be into cars, and sports, and super heroes, and basically everything cool. And, if you call ahead (like we did), you can reserve the "bus" table. Which is actually an old actual Volkswagon van, gutted and fitted with an eating booth. 

After all, it's not breakfast if you're not sitting inside a Volkswagon inside a restaurant. 

After breakfast, we headed out to the New Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum. This was a shot in the dark for me, after briefly reading about it being a cool destination in the area that involved mines. Other than that I had no idea what it was about. 

The museum was rad. It was completely empty, so the park ranger gave us an exclusive tour inside, teaching us about how the entire hillsides in this area are lined with hundred of miles of mine tunnels and how it was the largest quicksilver mining operation in North America at the time (1800s). 

Wait, you're telling me Quicksilver is an actual thing, not just a cool brand that my oldest loves to wear??

Get your pencils out and get ready for a lesson. 

So, this area ("this" being the San Jose mountainy area) is actually stupid rich with minerals, especially a mineral called "cinnabar". Cinnabar, after being crushed and lit on super fire (1700 degrees), released a gas, that when cooled, turned into a liquid (mercury, also called quicksilver). Liquid mercury was extremely useful when mining for gold, because when poured over a tray full of dust/rocks/sand/gold, it would attach itself to only the gold, then cool to a solid. Then, they would remove the mercury/gold, remelt it, and only the gold would remain. 

Learned a bit of something, didn't cha?

"minerals" the boys got to pick

Part of the "outdoor museum", Daddy showing how to turn the pipes so the furnace would get hot

So anyways, that's the long and the short of what the ranger told us. The museum was full of artifacts from the two main camps (English Camp and Spanish Camp) and 3D models of the working mines. The kids even got to pick their own bags of "minerals". We spent a good hour or two in there before heading out to see the mines themselves. 

Except, we didn't, because time was up and I had to work that evening, so we put the adventure on pause and saved it for the next hockey camp day, which was two weeks later no thanks to Labor Day. 

Fast forward to yesterday:

We drove straight to a trailhead in the Almaden hills to start what we didn't know (or we did know but didn't want to believe it) was a 3 mile hike up a mountain in 100 degree heat to the actual, real live mines. It was hot and we were sweaty and more than a little crazy, but the views were beautiful, and we kept telling the kids that it was training for walking 10 miles a day in Disney World ("if you can walk 3 miles uphill on dirt trails, then walking on flat paved roads at Disney is going to be a joke"). 

Our first stop was the humongous (I mean really) mining furnace. At the museum, there had been a 3D model showing what it looked like in operation. Now of course the sands of time have swept a lot of it away, but you could easily make out each important segment of the facility. It was fenced off so we couldn't walk into it, but it was fun to look at, and it was a good spot to stop and drink water before we kept going uphill....

Old mining furnace. 

Further into the mountains, we arrived at the San Cristobal Mine, an actual abandoned quicksilver mine entrance from the mid 1800s, which you can walk into (for a hundred feet or so before it's fenced off). 

(Note: normally, the mine is open to walk in a hundred feet inside until it's fenced off. But this time, of course, it was fenced off completely. And after promising the kids if they walked this far they'd get to go in a real mine, and since the fence had clearly been pulled up so people could go in, we decided to break a rule or two and let them walk in to the next barrier. For 5 minutes. Of course after Brad checked the stability of the mine before letting the kids walk in. Judge away baby.)

The crazy thing about this mine is how claustrophobic it suddenly gets, even just 100 feet inside it. The entrance looks further than it is, and the walls feel like they're closing in on you. We shined our phone-flashlight past the 2nd barrier, and the tunnel just keeps going and going into oblivion. Creepy, creepy stuff. And super cool. 

We hung out outside the mine for a while, the kids taking sticks and pretending they were pickaxes and mining quicksilver. Then we packed up and kept heading on down the hill, to the main mining camp, English Camp. 

On the way, on the side of the trail, I noticed a glimmer on a large boulder. There right in front of us was a vein of quartz! You know those rocks you break in half and they're all spiky crystally inside. There were even pieces of the quartz that had broken off, so the kids got to take some home. 

quartz out in wild!

We got to English Camp, which was a solid mile away from the Cristobal mine. English Camp was it's own little town at the time, with a school for children, stables, houses etc. They traded and collaborated with the Spanish Camp which was just down the hill from them. Now, there's only a few foundations left and an old equipment shed from the 1970s (when the mining camp was officially shut down), but it was still neat to sit and talk about how people lived in this time in the middle of the mountains.

English Camp!

We marched a couple miles back to the car and basked in the air conditioning. But it was a really an amazing two-part adventure that we not only got to do together but learned a lot about local history as well.