Half Way to Christmas - The Truth About Santa

So I haven't written in a really long time. There are a lot of personal reasons for that which I am sure I will get into on my next post. But in the meantime, this is the first thing in over a month that has inspired me to take 5 minutes, dry my tears, and post.

Below is a letter written by a mother, to her daughter about Santa's existence after her daughter begged to know the TRUTH.

I LOVE this letter. Love it.

Dear Lucy,

Thank you for your letter. You asked a very good question: “Are you Santa?”

I know you’ve wanted the answer to this question for a long time, and I’ve had to give it careful thought to know just what to say.

The answer is no. I am not Santa. There is no one Santa.

I am the person who fills your stockings with presents, though. I also choose and wrap the presents under the tree, the same way my mom did for me, and the same way her mom did for her. (And yes, Daddy helps, too.)

I imagine you will someday do this for your children, and I know you will love seeing them run down the stairs on Christmas morning. You will love seeing them sit under the tree, their small faces lit with Christmas lights.

This won’t make you Santa, though.

Santa is bigger than any person, and his work has gone on longer than any of us have lived. What he does is simple, but it is powerful. He teaches children how to have belief in something they can’t see or touch.

It’s a big job, and it’s an important one. Throughout your life, you will need this capacity to believe: in yourself, in your friends, in your talents and in your family. You’ll also need to believe in things you can’t measure or even hold in your hand. Here, I am talking about love, that great power that will light your life from the inside out, even during its darkest, coldest moments.

Santa is a teacher, and I have been his student, and now you know the secret of how he gets down all those chimneys on Christmas Eve: he has help from all the people whose hearts he’s filled with joy.

With full hearts, people like Daddy and me take our turns helping Santa do a job that would otherwise be impossible.

So, no. I am not Santa. Santa is love and magic and hope and happiness. I’m on his team, and now you are, too.

I love you and I always will.

Mama

I remember clearly what it felt like to believe. And I remember BEGGING to know the truth at an age when many were years past "knowing".  I hope to share something like this one day for my kids too.

The full blog post is HERE

Win a KitchenAid Food Processor

For my son's first birthday we hired Brian Samuels to photograph a portion of the event. Brian also writes a really great food blog called A Thought for Food that I love to read. I love anyone who is as obsessed with food as I am. But he hit on a memory for me last week when running this great giveaway and asked: "What would you make with this KitchenAid Food processor". 
I immediatley remembered that my husabnd bought me a food processor years ago as a gift. I loved it! And then when we were packing to move last time he accidentily dropped it and it smashed into too many pieces to mend. :-(
Before the accident, what I actually did many times with that food processor was make fresh breadcrumbs for some italian family receipes that had been passed down to me. Stuffed artichokes especially. Yum!

I love that this giveaway got me thinking about my family recipes so I thought that I'd share the link for all of you. What would you do with your winnings?!?!

What we are (all) reading!

Its our new favorite book in the house!!!

What's better for a couple of artsy parents - including a Graphic Designer geek dad - than a color book Pantone: Colors.

The book highlights 9 different colors and 20 shades of each. 

N is totally into any book in general that will make us test his knowledge of anything (colors, shapes, numbers, letters) and A just thinks the different shades, and their different names are fascinating!  She asks us to read them over and over and gets a kick out of thinking & talking about them! 

From other reviews I've read the age span of interest in this book goes for a long time. Some even mentioning their third graders interest!  Love it.  Highly recommend adding it to your collection even if you don't consider yourself "artsy". :-)

Wedding Dress-Up Project

The studio had released the PHOTOS

A little while a go I wrote a post including a photo of A wearing my wedding dress as part of a photo project. She did that photo shoot for Pizzuti Studios and they have released a few of the photos from the session.

My favorite moment from that day was when the photographer asked her if she wanted to marry a handsome prince and A answered "No. I want to marry my mommy."

I thought I'd share their link here so you can see the rest of the cuties! Read the blog post HERE

New on the iPad this week

So our favorite new app this week is Toddler Teasers combo pack app. We previously just had the stand alone Shape app which both of our kids have loved. The shape app has both the quizzing function and the flash card function.  My 19 month old can whip through the quizzes so fast its amazing! I'm pretty sure I never taught him "hexagon" but he knows his hexagons!...(and crescents, rectangles, squares, triangles, ovals and circles)...The new app has only the quizzing function but it includes all 4 categories: Letter, Numbers, Colors and Shapes.  Its slightly easy for my 3 year old and the 19 month old will grow into it for the next few months but overall its a good one! Download it at iTunes HERE

Home Improvement

So I am posting this on a "parenting blog" which I know seems strange at first -but it makes sense to me. You see, I painted every single one of these cabinets. And changed the hardware. All while I was working full time and mommy to a 7 month old.  

This still amazes me when I look at the photos.

This kitchen makeover, at first glance seems drastic, but really all this is is some fresh paint, new hardware, new fixtures and furniture.  Yeah, that's it. But in reality that was a LOT of work.  The time we owned our house overlapped for one month with our rental apartment 45 minutes away. To try to conquer this project, while being a mom, I removed all the cabinet doors and drove them back to our apartment. I spent the month cleaning, sanding, priming and painting each one during nap times and after bedtimes. As the doors were finished, on the few saturdays that we actually had a sitter for a few hours, I would work on the on the cleaning, sanding, priming, and painting of the bases of the cabinets at our house (45 minutes away). I had some help one of the days (shout out to S and E!) but other than that- Holy pajamas that was a big project!!!

So, as we have just started to look around at new houses, in an area that will only allow us to buy a fixer again, I see these kitchens that leave something to be desired, to say the least.  I know it can be done because I've done it before. I'm just not sure I want to again! I have two kids and we are very busy but more importantly I was blind with ignorance the first time. I dove into the project unknowing.  I was excited for what seemed like a simple fix. 

Now I know the dark, dark truth. :-) 

Even simple paint is a lot of TIME and WORK. Do I have it in me again at this stage of the game?

The fixtures were put in over time by my husband and once that was done, and on the occasions that it is actually clean (which is rare with kids), it looks good! And looking at this photo does give me a sense of accomplishment which is irresistible to someone like me.  I'll keep you posted when the home search becomes more real as to whether or not I see hours of painting in my future again.  But in the meantime my mantra must be, "Home improvement IS possible"-- even in the throws of the first few years of parenthood.

At what age can the kids hold a paint brush and a hammer themselves and start earning their keep! ;-)

More Disney Travel Tips

The "Disney talk" came up again today. The "talk" consists of figuring out when we can go again. :-) We took the kids to the Zoo for the first time this season and we had a wonderful time. The kids were happy, and excited and appreciative.  The were being so sweet and responsive and holding our hands when we asked them to which is like a holiday around here.  This made my husband start thinking about Disney World. Not sure why-- I guess just that all over feeling of enjoying family time outside of the normal routine.  Talking about when we are going to go again reminded me I had yet to write my second round of tips that I had promised after my first post. So here we go:

1) Booking character breakfasts early in the morning are a great way to be the first ones in the park. Animal Kingdom is the best, and beautiful early in the morning when its all quiet. You can take the long walk to Donald's character breakfast at the Tusker House in peace and have the ability to take in the scenery. Then right after breakfast you hop on the Safari with no line!

2) Something I learned the second time we went. If I had done even minimal research for the first trip, I would have known but Fast Passes do not need to be used at the time it says on them. If your fast pass says to return between 10 -11 it doesn't matter if you use it in the afternoon. What IS really cool is that once 10:00 hits that day you can actually get ANOTHER fast pass. So if you plan it right you could stock up. We took Fantasy Land by storm that way on our second trip. Grab a fast pass go on a few rides that don't have lines. Grab another fast pass....then hit those fast pass rides all in a row right before lunch.

3) At Epcot the best advice I got (thanks to my sisters who have been to Disney way more than me!) was to go towards the right as soon as you get in early and hit the Living Seas first. Both times we went we basically were the only ones on that Finding Nemo ride and then it spills into the HUGE aquarium that we got to wander around alone. First showing of "Turtle Talk with Crush" is at 9:40 am in that aquarium area.

 

My first post I wrote about was more basic travel tips with kids.  We plan on staying on property when they get older when we will find staying in a traditional hotel room will be easier. I found the condo set-up with the young ones to be invaluable. AND we ordered groceries ahead of time online at gardengrocer.com so that all of our drinks, snacks, and the makings for PB&J's and light dinners were waiting for us when we got there. Even diapers and babyfood! We brought kid snacks and our own bottles of water into the parks every day.

Now, off to research our next trip!