One to Crazy

Happy Easter

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Romans 10:9-10

9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Life, love and death

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:25:00 +0000

Today I lost a friend. She had breast cancer that eventually spread through out her body. I'm still pretty emotional about it since I only learned of it a few hours ago.

This woman was one of the strongest women I knew. I never heard her say a bad word about anyone, she was always kind and she always showed me a great patience. She was strong in her faith and still thanked God for what she had. I could only hope to have a tenth of the grace and beauty she carried through her ordeal.

Although she is gone from this earth, I know I will see her again.

Take a moment to let your family and loved ones know how much you love them.

I am a Christian woman, I am not ashamed of this or afraid to admit it. I ask you to pray for her family to get through these trying times.

This post is for her, not me. Please do not leave comments.

The merits of patience

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:22:00 +0000

Over the weekend, my niece turned 12. She celebrated with a party at a local laser tag facility. It was pouring rain (like flood causing rain) so some the party guests did not show up. This made for the need of a few adults to fill in on the game floor. My husband and I were happy to oblige. It was a good thing we were on the same team or it would have been a war just between he and I. As it stood, at the end of the game, I came in second out of 17 players (my brother in law came in first). My husband came in eighth. My accuracy was a bit over 16% while his was around 4%. The difference? I guess I was only taking the shots I thought I could get and he was just shooting at everything. I fired just under 275 shots. He fired almost 700. My six year old beat him too.

Rediscovering salad

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:28:00 +0000

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I do not like salads made from lettuce. Any kind of lettuce. Today I actually made myself a salad for lunch and ate the entire thing. Today I used spinach. I figured out I really love raw spinach.

Rainbow Tutu Instructions

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:48:00 +0000

A friend asked if I would post how I made the tutu for the cake.

I had looked at all the instructions from various websites for how to make one, but I didn't want to have to use hot glue. I had already bought my tulle off a bolt from Hobby Lobby when it was on sale, so I needed to find something to attach it to and a good way to attach it. Then I saw the perfect thing. A styrofoam disc. I picked a 12 inch disc as it was the same size as the cake board I was using.

I got this one at Hobby Lobby. I cut my tulle into strips slightly longer in length than I needed. I cut across the width of the bolt, giving me a strip 45 inches long and about 9 inches wide. I then cut the length in half so they were only about 22 inches long (sorry I don't have pictures of this). I counted the number of tulle strips I had (I cut four of each color) and then divided the circle evenly. I marked it with a permanent marker so each strip of tulle would be even.

See those little dots? That was the width I had to fit the strip of tulle into (the 22 inch length). To hold the tulle on to the foam, I used simple U pins. I got these at Walmart and they were called upholstery pins. I used roughly three pins per section of tulle.

I was left with a row of pins showing.

Yes, that is frosting on the tulle. I took these pictures as I was deconstructing the skirt. I knew I needed to hide this row of pins, so I wrapped a white ribbon around it, using the pins to secure it down. I tied a bow and used a pin through the not to hide the ends of the ribbons.

I trimmed the top edge of the tulle to be just long enough to hide my cake board, and cut the lower edge to be even all the way around. Because the cake ended up being so heavy, I just let the skirt stick straight out.

Although I ended up tossing the tulle and ribbon because it was covered in icing, I saved my foam disc and pins. I might be able to use this again.

Rainbows and sunshine

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:25:00 +0000

On January 14, my baby turned five. She was absolutely determined that she wanted to have a rainbow birthday party, so I tried my hardest to see her vision. Six months ago, I started looking for cake inspiration. I found it on Marthastewart.com.

I knew this would be the perfect cake. With the cake decided, I pushed the party to the back of my mind, but not for long. When I discovered Pinterest, I discovered a very easy way to find inspiration that would have taken me much longer just searching the internet. Off I went in search of inspiration. Here are a few things I found:

( source)

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With some rough ideas, I planned what I would need. Normally, I would have started buying things for her party in the two weeks before Christmas. Lucky us, the entire family ended up with a tummy bug during that time so no shopping for me. I was forced to wait until after New Year's so my options were a bit limited when I went out for some things.

Now, Boo knows what colors are in a rainbow and that they total seven, not six. I had to be careful in picking things so it would have all of the correct colors. For the items I couldn't, I explained it really was the best I could do and she seemed to except it. Mostly. After some

grumbling.

Since I did not originally plan to post this on the blog, I did not take pictures as I went. I apologize now and I will from now on.

The day of the party came much more quickly than I had expected. Living in the south means our weather can be anything in the winter. The Saturday before we had a sunny day with temperatures above 70. Luckily, the day of her party it was sunny and in the upper 50's. That meant the kids were able to burn off that energy outside for a while. It was much better that the day of her first birthday party when it snowed! Like I said, crazy winter weather.

Lets start with the cake. I had only looked at the inspiration picture and did not follow any special instructions. I am bad about just going with instinct. Sometimes it turns out beautiful, sometimes I look at it and think I should really have followed some directions. Well, the cake kind of falls in to both of those categories. I chose to do my cake with my ten inch pans to ensure I had enough cake for all the kids and the parents. I bought seven cake mixes (well eight if you count that I always get an extra in case I mess up) and went to work. I mixed in the color for each layer and over the next six hours ended up with seven different color cakes. I realized right away that I didn't need a whole mix for each color, but I kept going. knowing that I had intended to level the layers down anyway. The extra would give me a second cake to go to in case something happened to a layer. I leveled my layers down to be one inch high. Plenty small enough, right? We will get to that later. I started making my icing. I went with my go to buttercream. I use all butter in it, delicious. After I made 18 cups of icing, I started in on the cake. This had to be the easiest cake I have ever iced. I did not have to tint any of it since the cake was the color. Each layer went on the next easily with a layer of buttercream between. I already knew that I wasn't going to be doing the completely smooth cake Martha had, my cake was going to look like a cloud (I used a Wilton #8 tip). When I finished, the cake was almost nine inches tall. That was not my intention. I realized then that my layers could have gone as small as half inch and I made a mental note of this for the future. I took a picture of the cake at this stage.

This is when I went to move the cake to the cake stand I had made. I could barely lift the thing it was so heavy. Again, smaller layers are better. With my husband's help, we moved it to the cake stand I had made. It promptly broke the stand, which was a 12 inch round piece of styrofoam that I had turned into a tutu (see inspiration photo above) and duct taped to the bottom of one of my glass cakestands (I was using the large portion of the stand as the base thinking it would give more stability, silly me). Luckily our hands were still under the cake and we were able to rescue it from damage (whew). After trying to readjust the foam back on to the plate, we gave up and set the foam right on the table with the tutu fanning out around it. In the end, it looked like that was how it was intended all along.

Doesn't it look like I intended it to be like this? During the party I just didn't mention that it was supposed to be standing. Notice the tablecloth? It is supposed to mimic the sky. I bought some white placemats to be clouds and bought cups, plates and utensils in all the rainbow colors.

My husband believes that I have OCD and bought these things to be in this particular order on purpose. Nope, my OCD had me buy them like this completely without my knowledge. I didn't even realize I had done it until I set them out. See those Hershey Kisses? Have a closer look.

Aren't they cute? They match the invitations I made for her. I just made small images, printed them on to sticker paper and punched them out with a 3/4 inch round punch. These turned out to be a big hit and I have a lot of requests to make some for their occasions.

I also made some sky to go along with the cake.

I did not follow the directions posted in my source above. I made up six batches of blue jello and let it set in the refrigerator. After it was set, I stirred it up to break it into small pieces. My husband piped Cool Whip onto the sides of the cups and I just spooned the jello in. Very easy. For the piping, I just used a disposable piping bag, but I am sure a baggie would work just as well.

The thank you bags were also very simple to make. I just used brown lunch bags (I couldn't find my stash of white, bad organization skills) and cut the tops with craft scissors to give a cloud-like appearance. I then used yarn I had leftover from making Boo a rainbow scarf (see it there in the picture) to tie each bag in holes I punched with a standard hole punch.

I wish you could see the ends of the scarf, there are little clouds on the ends. These bags were stored under the table until the end of the party and this table was used for gifts.

The craft I had the kids do during the party was that lovely ring with the ribbons hanging from it. I chose not to get bells, and I had a hard time trying to find the same type ribbon in each color. Finally I found a sheer ribbon at Hobby Lobby in all the right colors. This is the example I made for the kids to see. I wish I could have found a wider ribbon to fill the ring a bit more. I had already bought those rings at an earlier date from Hobby Lobby. I try to buy when things are on sale.

My daughter wanted a rainbow skirt tow ear dring the party. I found this fabric at Hancock and with the help of a friend, made a simple little skirt. The t-shirt came from Walmart and I sewed on the buttons tat I had found at Hobby Lobby. It turned out cute. Doesn't she look happy?

I will spare you the rest of the party photos. Oh wait! did you see the cake as it was cut? Maybe just two more shots then. Here is Boo blowing out her candles with Daddy's help.

And here is the cut cake!

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:57:00 +0000

I discovered a site a few months ago called Pinterest. If you haven't already checked it out, you should. I found a picture of a treat bag that I thought would be really cute for Boo to give to her classmates. The original version is found here. This was my take on it.

I didn't have enough buttons on hand and my eyes were a bit small, but I still think they turned out pretty cute.

I am now determined that I am going to make more things I see on Pinterest. Maybe I will post my results. It doesn't matter if they turn out well, as long as I try.

Cutting back

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 01:33:00 +0000

I've been running so much lately that I realized I didn't have any time to breath. I cut my hours back at work so I could do something I really wanted to do, spend time with my family. I have been able to volunteer at the preschool my youngest attends, and the primary school my older daughter attends. I am loving it. Starting next month, I will have two evenings free I previously hadn't had. Hopefully this will also give me a bit more time to write in the blog.

Books Books Books

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 03:41:00 +0000

So, between being a full time mom and having a part time job I realized there isn't much time for anything else, which is mostly my blog. The plus side of having a part time job at a library is that I have unlimited access to books. Lots of books. The best part about that is I no longer have a compulsion to finish reading a book if I don't like. Since I didn't pay for it, I just return it and get another one. For a while the library had a link to tell you how much money you had saved by using their services, and mine came to somewhere around $8000. That seems high, right? Not when you consider that I can check out movies for free, books for my children for free (have you priced children's books lately? They must be printing them on gold.), books on cd, and then my books. It really adds up.

Boy crazy

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:11:00 +0000

It all started when the baby went to preschool last year in the two year old class. There were six kids in her class, four boys and two girls. She and the other girl bonded and began a battle with the boys who were said to be "big meanies." After that, the baby no longer liked boys, violently sometimes. I spent the remainder of the school year wondering if she will have a note in her backpack when I picked her stating she had attacked one of her classmates (always a boy).

This year in the weeks leading up to three year old preschool, I stressed the importance of being nice to everyone in her class. She told me she would be nice to the girls so I tried a different tactic. I asked her to not hit anyone to which responded, "I won't hit anybody Mommy, just boys." My last plea was the morning of school. I dropped her off and hoped for the best.

I was thrilled when I picked her up and the first thing she said to me was "I didn't hit any of my friends today!" I let out a sigh of relief and though "one day down." She did inform me that the big boy had pushed her down and she hurt her knee. Sure enough, her knee was scraped and she was lightly limping on it. I asked her if he had pushed her or if it had been an accident. She said she didn't know. I began formulating my speech for the trip to school the next morning explaining that she should not take revenge on this boy and if he hurt her on purpose she should ask him to stop and not hurt back.

I gave her my speech in the car and she just said "Okay Mommy" and got out of the car. It was the best I could do. When I picked her up she was very quiet. I kept asking her questions and she merely grunted or gave me a short answer. Finally asked her what happened. She was silent a moment and then dropped her head and said "I played with a boy." Not what I expected her to say at all. I asked her who and she just said the big boy. I asked her why and she said he was nice to her. I told her it was okay to play with kids who were nice to her, even if they were boys.

After two weeks of preschool this Big Boy is her new best friend. The thing I find humorous is the boys father is someone I graduated with twenty years ago. At least she didn't beat the boy up because I suspect now that it was an accident that he pushed her down.

To finish it all off I asked her if she was a boy or a girl. For nearly the entire year of preschool last year she would say a boy, even though she knew she was a girl. I asked her yesterday if she was a boy or a girl and she just smiled and replied "I'm a princess" and skipped off down the hall.

Monkey farts

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 03:31:00 +0000

I was invited to a party tonight. No, not one of those "mingle with your friends and have fun" kind of parties. One of the "come over to my house and by something from this lady" kind of parties. I generally avoid these types of parties at any cost, but I was needing a little time away from the house so I decided to go. I'm kind of glad I did. Although I was intending on having some grown-up time, I took my oldest with me. I really want her to learn to sit quietly when she needs to. She did very well and actually won some prizes. She came home with a lip butter that smells of strawberries and a hand lotion that smells of Monkey Farts. What do Monkey Farts smell like? Well, in this case it seems to be coconut and banana. I'm going to have fun at work tomorrow telling people I smell like monkey farts.

A year gone

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:17:00 +0000

More than a year. I haven't been keeping up with this as I should. Hard to keep up with something if you think no one reads it.

My oldest started kindergarten this year. She has been attending for over a month and still loves going. She excitedly tells me about her day every time I pick her up. I hope she never stops being this excited about school.

The youngest started preschool yesterday. On the way we had a long discussion about not hitting anyone (a problem from last year) to which she replied she would only hit the boys. I reminded her gently that she shouldn't hit anyone. She said okay, and only boys. I bit more firmly that she shouldn't hit ANYONE. She said okay but just kind of looked at me, the look that says "whatever". When I picked her up, the first thing she said to me in the car was "Mommy, I didn't hurt any of my friends." I'm so proud.

Sigh

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:30:00 +0000

In the last two weeks, my 4 year old has decided that she is going to get married. I only learned of this when she asked me to buy her a new wedding dress because her old one was dirty. First I was thinking, where did you get an old wedding dress, then I asked her who she was marrying. She told me Prince Elmo. I asked her where they would live and she told me the castle at Disney World. I didn't even know she knew there was a castle at Disney World. Meanwhile, I look over at her dad to see if he was listening to the exchange and he had a look of horror on his face. I guess he didn't expect to hear her talk about marriage this soon.

The 2 year old is becomming more and more energetic. A few times I have even peeked under her bed to see if she has some energy drinks hidden in there. Hopefully, preschool will help curb her energy a bit. Only a week to go before I get two glorious hours a day, three days a week, all to myself.

Today I have been wishing that I had a little tape recorder with all the things I seem to have to repeat myself on at hand to save my voice. Handy things like "Stop hitting your sister," "Get that out of your mouth", "Don't throw that in the house," and "Stop eating things you find in the yard." That last one is for the dogs, not the kids.

My pet tongue

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:53:00 +0000

I've got more than two children living at home. I also have two dogs. One is a rat terrier mix we picked up at the pound five years ago named Beryl. She was already a year old and had most of her personality when we got her. She is very sweet, but was intensely mistreated before we got her. She wants to please us so bad, but even after five years with us she doesn't let her guard completely down. She develops all kinds of fun little obsessions that we have to work getting her to break. Her most current is sitting at the base of a tree and watching for our yard's resident squirrel. That alone seems like normal dog behavior, but she will sit there for hours doing it.

Since we had one dog, a month later we though she needed a playmate so we picked up another dog. He is a "miniature" dachshund. That miniature is in quotes because he grew quite a bit larger than a miniature is supposed to be. He isn't fat, he has a nice body shape, just much longer than he should be. We bought him from a "breeder" for $35. That isn't a typo, just $35. The people just never bothered to get their dog fixed, so we ended up with a puppy. Little did we know we were actually buying a tongue with a dog attached to it. We have chosen to call the dog portion Turbo and the tongue portion Lickey. We have yet to figure out which portion of the pair controls the whole, but I will say EVERYTHING in our house has a fine layer of dog spit on it. That would be from the Lickey portion. Either way, both portions are extremely attached to me. We are talking separation anxiety attachment. On top of that, Beryl ended up just tolerating Turbo, so he really is not her playmate as we intended, and I now have a dog that sits right next to me constantly and another dog that sits on the floor and stares at me and the other dog. Sometimes I can get her to join us, but mostly she just stares.

I almost understand Beryl's world. We got her and she loved us from the start. She played with us and followed us around, then we got Turbo. She was a little standoffish after that. Less than a month after we got Turbo, I found out I was pregnant with my oldest. Within a period of 3 years I got two dogs and two children. No wonder I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes. Maybe I should be out there with Beryl at the tree.

Scarlett O'Hara

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:35:00 +0000

Since I posted about my four year old being Scarlett O'Hara, I am learning every day that I live with more than one. The four year old has fantastic little fits. The only thing missing is her arm thrown up to her head as she collapses to the floor saying "I just can't do it." Even better, her little sister is training to be her understudy. Preschool starts in September. I don't know who is more excited, me or the girls.

Self changing baby

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:26:00 +0000

The potty training was going well at first. Now she has just figured out how to change herself. She is sneaky about doing it, too. She dissapears for a bit and then comes back with a new pull-up on. I'm a bit torn. I was tired of changing diapers and didn't want to change them anymore, tat has been acccomplished. I want my child to sit on the potty and go, still working on this bit.

Those who play with knives

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:25:00 +0000

I haven't made a post in while, but I have a good excuse. I cut my finger nearly in half, so wasn't much for wanting to be typing. Of course I was not doing anything stupid with the knife in the first place. The thought that I was about to cut myself never even went through my head, especially mere seconds before the cut happened. Yes, that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Rainy days and Mondays...

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Yesterday was Memorial Day and my husband had the day off of work. It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't rained all day. The girls were both feeling better and wanted to go outside, but the constant downpour prevented it. This fed right in to the situation where they push each other's buttons. I had no idea that kind of stuff started at such a young age, but here I stand corrected. Today looks a bit brighter outside, still with forecast to rain. Already the girls are fighting over some dolls, or at least one is upset because the other one's doll is touching her.

The highlight of yesterday was running out of diapers. This forced the little one to sit on the potty. After much screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth, we had a small success. She used the potty and realized it was not the end of the world.

My sister leaves for Hawaii on Saturday. I'm seriously thinking about hiding in her luggage.

What a weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Sun, 24 May 2009 19:43:00 +0000

I got up early yesterday and made buffaloes for my kids. I was pretty sure that the box said waffles, but my 4yo insisted the box was wrong. After breakfast I headed out on a few errands. I wasn't gone long, but when I got home the 4yo had a 101 degree fever. Great. She slept most of the day away, which was actually pretty nice.

Today is my birthday, and other than the kids being sick (little one had a fever this morning) it hasn't been a bad day.

Drama queen already

noreply@blogger.com (Renonda) — Fri, 22 May 2009 21:54:00 +0000

My oldest daughter turned four last week and the younger turned two in January. It took me awhile to get used to staying at home with the girls at first, and I'm not sure I'm used to it yet. All I can say is they keep me entertained. Today for instance I was exposed to two new things.

I asked my four year old to get her cup so I could fill it for her. She turned, took one step and dropped to the floor reminiscent of Scarlett O'Hara. "I can't find it" she wailed, "it is lost forever." I asked her calmly if she looked for it. That only brought on tears. I was just about to roll my eyes when I noticed the cup sitting innocently on the counter. I showed it to her and she immediately got up, grabbed it and skipped to her seat. I have NO idea where she gets it.

I am trying to potty train the two year old. She has already figured out that this is indeed the one thing she truly has control over in her little life. I am constantly asking her if she needs to sit on the potty and she is constantly telling me no. Two weeks ago I decided when the mega jumbo pack of diapers we had were gone I just wasn't going to buy more so for now I am just changing her diaper when she needs it and biding my time. Today I smelled poop and asked her if she needed a diaper. She stretched out the front of her diaper and took a good long look inside. I was just about to ask again when she let go, took a sumo stance and shook her butt at me. Then she shouted "Yep, there's poop in there, see?" I almost wet my pants. There are eight diapers left in the box.