The Pampered Chef Fundraiser & Giveaway *revised*

***Giveaway Item Revised***

Last month Hurricane Irene battered the East Coast and caused as much as $6.6 billion dollars in damages to homes, businesses, structures, and vehicles.  46 Americans lost their lives, and thousands of American families are left homeless due to the dangerous storm surges and catastrophic flood waters.  Luckily, my family remained safe from the storm, and unharmed (other than the inconvenience of no power for several days).  However, I'd like to remind you all that not everyone in our country has been so lucky.

This week I was contacted by a Maryanne Taylor, a Pampered Chef Consultant who is working hard to raise money to help the families affected by Hurricane Irene.  Over the next 2 weeks, for every purchase through her website, Pampered Chef will donate 10-15% of the proceeds (the more sales = higher percentage) to The American Red Cross to assist those struggling from this devastating storm.  Ya'll might be saying, what's in it for me?  Think of it this way: you will be getting great products, and at no added cost to you make a donation to the thousands of fellow Americans who have lost their loved ones, homes, belongings, and more from Hurricane Irene.  This is an awesome opportunity for us all, as we are able to purchase high-quality kitchen and entertaining products and help others in the at the same time!

Maryanne has been generous enough to offer to sponsor a giveaway on my blog, and everyone has a chance to win this 1-2-3 Dip! Set from Pampered Chef:

This set includes the exclusive Lemon & Rosemary Oil Dipping Seasoning, Parmesan-Garlic Oil Dipping Seasoning, a Small Bamboo Spoon Set, all packaged in a adorable Muslin Gift Bag.  Perfect for treating yourself, or giving as a gift!
There is NO PURCHASE NECESSARY to enter to win this giveaway.  However, people who do make a purchase from Maryanne's personal Pampered Chef Website are invited to enter this giveaway for an awesome Bamboo Block Knife Set, valued at $149! Here is how it'll work:

• 1st entry: Visit Maryanne's personal Pampered Chef Website & leave me a comment on this post to tell me one item that you would LOVE to own. (no purchase necessary, although strongly encouraged!)
• 5 additional entries: Make a purchase from Maryanne's personal Pampered Chef Website (using Thoushallnot Whine as your host).  Leave 5 more comments on this post to count as your entries. -Purchases will be confirmed with Maryanne when the winner is selected, so please do this after you've placed your order.  Also be sure to enter the giveaway on Pampered Chef Hurricane Irene Relief Fundraiser Post. (open to purchasers only)

Please remember that I must have a way to get in touch with you if you win.  All are welcome to enter; please leave your contact info if it's not visible through your profile.  The giveaway starts now and will close on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 11:59pm EST.  The winner will be selected via Random.org, and notified shortly thereafter.

Disclosure:  All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.  No monetary payment was received for this post.  I was provided product and information from The Pampered Chef.

Proud Mom Moment

My proud mom moment of the weekend:

We took the kids to the children's museum on a rainy, humid, Labor Day Monday.  Katelyn is potty trained (wearing underpants), Olivia is working on it (sometimes wearing underpants or free-balling it at home, always wears a diaper out of the house.)  Getting my kids ready to leave the house is a little like a circus act.  Clothes flying everywhere, shoes on wrong feet, last minute potty trips, sippy cups & snacks packed, etc. etc. etc.  Somehow in the midst of all of this neither Ron nor myself remembered to put a diaper on Olivia.  She was wearing the cutest little dress that I made, low cut socks, and sneakers -we sacrifice style for practicality around here... (sneakers are a must for climbing, running around, etc.)  Fast forward 50 minutes later: Olivia & Katelyn are playing with the plastic fruit at the pretend farm stand at the VERY crowded kids' museum.  I'm standing 7-8 feet behind them wondering how much longer I have to endure this kind of heart-palpitating kid watching/losing/finding/watching/losing cycle.  Olivia turns to me, says "pee-pee."  I proudly call out, "do you have to go pee-pee baby?"  I walk over to her, reach down to feel her diaper to see if it's wet and discover that there is no diaper, my daughter is now wearing wet socks & sneakers and standing in a puddle of pee, and my hand is also wet with pee.  Awesome.

I immediately grab each girl by their hand, drag them around the area of the museum that we are in, dump Katelyn with Ron & whisper to him that we forgot one very important thing: Olivia's diaper.  Off we went to the restroom to clean her up, remove wet socks but put back on the wet shoes, (didn't know I had to add extra shoes to my diaper bag), and notify a museum staff member that my daughter had "a, ummmm, ahem, an accident" over near the farm stand of the play area.

Yea, that was definitely my proud mom moment of the weekend.  Maybe of the year.  What's yours?

Imaginary Friends

I think lots of kids have an imaginary friend (or friends) at some point in their childhood.  I've read that it is healthy and normal for children to create a fictional character to "hang out" with.  I know that I had my fair share of imaginary friends growing up.  One in particular that I can remember is the one that I named Katie, my sister's name.  Although I'm pretty sure that my reason for having that imaginary friend was just so I had yet another way to annoy my sister growing up.  I would constantly call out, "hey Katie," and when my sister would reply I was then able to yell at her about the fact that I'm was not talking to her, I'm was talking to my imaginary friend, Katie. (Yes, I truly was a horrid sibling!)

Joey has had two imaginary friends so far.  About a year and a half ago Joey's first imaginary character came into our lives.  It was a cow who lived with us in our Raleigh apartment, and Joey was often found feeding it (imaginary) soup or (real) goldfish crackers.  The cow stayed with us for probably 6 months or so, and was usually hanging out in the hallway.

Recently Joey started talking about his friend Emily.  Emily has red hair (coincidence? um... no.), lives with her mom & dad, does NOT have 2 sisters, and is always on her way to our house.  Emily has never actually come over to our house as of yet, and I'm wondering if she ever will.  Today she went to school, but not the same school as us... a different school.  The funniest thing I've learned about Joey's imaginary friend Emily is when he told me that she has her own room, but she sleeps in her mommy's bed because her bed is "all messed up." 

Lately we've been having an issue with Joey staying in his own bed all night, so the boy is clearly living vicariously through his imaginary friend's privilege of being able to sleep in her mommy's bed.  I'm wondering if he is going to do something to "mess up" his bed in hopes that he'll get a free ticket to sleep in my bed one of these nights.  I sincerely hope not.  I'm not a happy mommy when I get awoken in the night, so this getting out of bed thing has got to come to an end soon.  And his damn friend Emily is not helping the situation with her stupid messed up bed!

Aside from the fact that I don't want my kid picking up any bad habits from his imaginary friend, I have to admit that I think that this is one of those really neat things about childhood.  I love having conversations with Joey about his imaginary friend.  I love the way his little mind is working to think up random stuff about a person (or cow) who doesn't even exist.  It's one of those things that is cute for little kids to do for a certain amount of time, and then it's gone forever.  I mean seriously, I couldn't just come home one day from the store and tell Ron all about some woman that I met & became friends with who has wonderful, well-behaved children, a magic wand to make them disappear whenever she wanted, and a money tree growing in the backyard.  Oh, and she's going to come over tonight and cook for us & do all the dishes and clean up too.  Well I could try to tell him all of that, but he obviously would just know that I've now completely lost my mind & that it is time to begin looking into group home options for me.  So I won't do that.  But I will continue to talk to my kids about their imaginary friends because I think what they have to say is so creative, funny, and innocent all at the same time.

How about you?  Do your kids have any imaginary friends?  Do you?

Class Clown

Lots of little boys are silly.  Potty talk is always funny to them, as is being naked, falling down, and acting generally unruly at any and all given opportunities.  Joey is no exception to this boy stereotype.  In-fact, I think he's the poster child for all things silly.  He's had a great sense of humor and funny little way about him for as long as I can remember, and turning 4 years old has not stopped him from calling everything stinky, skunky, or banana. (each time followed by a loud belly laugh & usually a fall to the ground!)

I've gone back to teaching within the last month, and I've been blessed with not missing a minute with my funny boy.  That's right... I'm his preschool teacher for 4 glorious hours every morning of the week. (Don't worry... he's moving up to the Pre-K in a week, so he'll get to entertain another set of classmates and a different teacher very soon.)

Since Joey's been home with me for the past 4 years, he's been allowed to be silly much of the time.  That means falling down, making up words, adding stinky to every sentence that comes out of his mouth, etc. etc. etc.  However, we've had to have many talks about how we behave differently at school than we do at home, and Joey has quickly learned that being the class clown is far more exciting than following directions from his "mommy/teacher." (his school nick-name for me) 

So while the other children are sitting at tables quietly building, coloring, or manipulating small toys in an organized format, my son is tossing himself off the chair, knocking down block towers, or calling himself "banana-head."  And all the other children laugh of course, just encouraging him to do it more.

Last week we did watercolor paintings during art time.  I showed the children many different pictures to inspire them.  Some chose to paint themselves, their family, a favorite place, or object.  As I went around the room to write a caption on every one's paper I got responses like, "This is me swimming at the beach," or "I painted a mommy bird in a nest."  Joey's response: "Banana-skunky-stink-bread."  The three other children sitting at his table laughed which just encouraged him to say it again.  And again.  And again.  I couldn't actually write that on my son's painting, for fear of what the other parents might think as they viewed our classroom artwork in the hallway, but I also didn't want to squash his enthusiasm, and perhaps he really did paint a picture of banana bread.  So that's what I wrote.  Minus the skunky-stink part.

There are worse things I suppose, than having a child who is too silly for his own good.  I do wonder what Elementary School days will be like for Joey though.  Perhaps he'll chill out by then and save his silliness for at home or outside.  Highly unlikely I suppose.  I'm pretty sure we're going to be having a lot of parent-teacher conferences, and possibly some "Joey had to visit the principal's office today to talk about appropriate behaviors for school."  Yes, I see a lot of "appropriate behavior" talks in my future.  Perhaps I'll be able to win over his teachers with some of my famous banana-skunky-stink-bread...

Kids Say The Darndest Things...

I titled this post after the infamous Bill Cosby show, because I think it to myself at least once a day lately.  I think it's not until you become a parent and spend a good 70% of your time conversing with people less than 3 feet tall that you don't realize how funny their little minds are.

A couple of silly things my kids (and those around them) have said lately:

• While putting Joey to bed I asked him what he wants me to pack in his lunch box for school tomorrow.  His response: A Blueberry Pie.
• A conversation between siblings: Joey: What's your name? Olivia: Sissy. Joey: Who do you love? Olivia: Sissy. Joey: What's your favorite color? Sissy.  This went on for several more questions until Joey and I were laughing so hard he couldn't ask anymore.
• While drumming on the bottom of a flipped over big tin garbage can last week Joey suddenly started chanting my swear word of choice.  That's right... my son was drumming right along saying, "f***, f***, f***, f***" to the beat.  Even better?  His 2 year old cousin quickly chimed in and the two of them were loudly drumming and swearing in unison.  I didn't actually witness this happening, but was later told about it by my mother in-law.  Awesome.  Thanks Joey for ratting out your potty-mouthed mother.
• My sister and I work at the same preschool as of this week, so we carpool the 25 minutes to work with all the kids in the car. (my three, and her one)  As we are driving along my nephew Jack (3.5yrs) declares, "I see a bunny over there!"  Joey quickly responds, "Where?!?!"  Jack answers, "You missed it Joey." Less than 30 seconds later Jack says, "I saw a cow out there!" Hoping for a glimpse Joey excitedly says, "Where?!?!" Jack's response, "You missed it again Joey."  Then it was the bunny again, and so on and so forth.  My sister and I sat in the front seat shaking with silent laughter while Jack continued to point out a myriad of animals that we didn't actually drive by while Joey missed seeing each and every one, never even catching on the fact that Jack didn't see any animals either.  It was probably the highlight of my Kids Say The Darndest Things post...

That's it for now.  What have your kids said lately???  Leave me a comment to tell me to be entered to win a prize.  Just kidding, there is no prize.  But a comment would be nice just to let me know you're out there. ;)