Folsom Christmas Tree Lighting

I don’t know about you, but events such as these often time comes with mixed emotions. So much fun, but so much stress that can be bundled up with them. Am I right? This was our first year here living in Folsom when Cooper has been old enough to appreciate a Christmas Tree Lighting. So, when I heard about it, I was immediately intrigued. Here was what was included in the advertising:

Christmas Tree Lighting

Folsom Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony will take place Friday, December 3 in Histroic Folsom in front of the Chamber of Commerce at 200 Wool Street.  This fun packed holiday event will include a variety of activities for all ages such as horse drawn carriage rides, carolers, and a slight sprinkling of snow will be featured at the event. The ice skating rink will also be open.

Take the Free shuttle from Folsom Wal-Mart parking lot 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm!

- Complimentary horse-drawn wagon rides
- Hundreds of candles illuminating Sutter Street.
- Complimentary face painting
- Meet and greet with Santa Claus in the Sutter Street Theatre, 717 Sutter Street. Bring your camera or purchase pictures at the event.
- Live Entertainment at the Corner of Wool and Sutter streets
- Dusting of real snow on Sutter Street
- Complimentary hot cocoa and cookies compliments of Costco and Mimis Cafe, being served in front of the Folsom Chamber of Commerce
- Christmas shopping with more than 30 stores open late
- Historic Sutter Streets Ice Skating Rink open
- Professional Ice Skating Shows at 6pm and 8 pm.

And…here’s a mom’s interpretation of what i read…

(mom’s thoughts in green)

Take the Free shuttle from Folsom Wal-Mart parking lot 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm! (Do I take the shuttle or attempt parking close?…and is a stroller in order?)

- Complimentary horse-drawn wagon rides (Cooper would love this, but will he wait in line for it?)

- Hundreds of candles illuminating Sutter Street. (Umm, open flames and a 2 year old? Ha!)
- Complimentary face painting (Yeah, can YOU get a 2 year old boy to sit still for this?)
- Meet and greet with Santa Claus in the Sutter Street Theatre, 717 Sutter Street. Bring your camera or purchase pictures at the event. (Because my son would LOVE sitting on some strange man’s lap while waiting patiently to get his picture taken, riiight!)
- Live Entertainment at the Corner of Wool and Sutter streets
- Dusting of real snow on Sutter Street (Okay, Cooper would undoubtedly love this…sold!)
- Complimentary hot cocoa and cookies compliments of Costco and Mimis Cafe, being served in front of the Folsom Chamber of Commerce (For about a half hour, until they run out of hot cocoa and cookies, right?)
- Christmas shopping with more than 30 stores open late
- Historic Sutter Streets Ice Skating Rink open
- Professional Ice Skating Shows at 6pm and 8 pm (Hmm, a possibility)

(Final thought…do I even bother inviting the non-social husband type? Or do I venture out on my own with son in tow?)

And…the experience itself…

Soo much to consider. And THEN…the time frame between nap and said event (i.e. 4-6pm…the arsenic hour) occurs. Perhaps about 10 tantrums ranging from the let down of not being able to hear the Polar Express narrated on CD again (for the 10th time today) to tears resulting from 2 year old child slamming his head on the ground DURING a tantrum. And I’m supposed to get dinner in this boy BEFORE attending said event?      Again, riiight!

A mom has two choices at this point, give up and stay home. Or get creative and make the event fun and memorable. There are many times when my energy level says, give up and stay home.

Tonight however? I chose get creative! We were having winter vegetable pot pie for dinner. So…mom put on an Academy Award winning performance convincing Cooper that he had hungry bugs in his mouth that were dying for bites of carrot, sweet potato, and celery root! He was convinced and happily ate pot pie in hopes that it would satiate the hungry bugs in his mouth. =)

We happily hopped in the car with Christmas music playing in the background. The debate was still on between whether or not to park and take the shuttle or attempt downtown, I attempted downtown and was at first, at risk of entering the grumpy zone. Thankfully, after 5-7 minutes, by the grace of God, we found a fantastic parking spot. No stroller, we’re giving it a go!

Within 50 feet, Cooper spotted a cop riding a horse and shouted out with glee, “HORSEY!!” Sigh of relief from mom, the outing is worth it.

We met up with some friends and our first joy of the evening was the “light dusting of snow”. Cooper literally ran down the street shouting with excitement, arms flailing in the air and all! Here he is taking it all in… Then, we headed down to where the tree lighting was to take place and nabbed some FREE hot cocoa and cookies. Guess what? They still had plenty left. Cooper enjoyed a rather messy green sugar crystal Christmas cookie. I know he looks a bit special here, but couldn’t resist the yumminess of the pic:Next, the countdown to the tree lighting, upon which Cooper burst out with clapping and “Yay!”(s). Seriously, melts a mom’s heart. Here’s the beautiful tree in the background (and the train that Cooper began to throw tantrums about because he could not ride).   Then, we waited in line for the horse drawn carriage ride, which wasn’t too terrible. Cooper was fascinated for the entire 5 minute ride!We were about to head back to the car, but it was now     8 o’clock and the professional ice skating show was just about to start.  And, what do you know? There was a spot for Cooper to squeeze into right at the front! My 2 year old son sat for 45 minutes watching the ice skating show! Which, I must say, wasn’t half bad. A bit long, perhaps, but there were definitely some talented skaters and the presentations were creative. I think Cooper and my favorites were a number done to a Polar Express song:…with all the performers in their pajamas except the conductor in the middle. And, the Grinch performance:  Again, Cooper followed up each act with clapping and enthusiastic shouting. Even the people surrounding us made comments about how adorable he is. Ahh…trip well worth any hassles involved!! So, an encouragement this hectic holiday season, if you can muster the energy and patience, you and your kiddos will most likely have fun. Just do your best to make the most out of the stressful bits in between.                   Merry Christmas!

La Habra Children’s Museum

We went down to LA this year for Thanksgiving and visited the La Habra Children’s Museum for the first time with Cooper. What a hit! I was kind of bummed we didn’t get a year membership even though we don’t live in the area. We would’ve made our money for sure over the course of a year. Oh well.

So…here are the highlights of the children’s museum.

Highlight #1: Dinosaurs What toddler boy doesn’t love dinosaurs? They have fun statues outside the museum, as well as a “digging for bones” exhibit inside. Highlight #2: Gas Pump & Car Educational to boot…each pump explains the different methods of “fueling” a car and how effective they are.

Highlight #3: Mini Carousel They run every half hour. But the kids can sit on them anytime.

Highlight #4: Bus You know, for those of us that don’t live in a place where public transportation is used regularly.

Highlight #5: Shopping Area My poor husband cringes at the thought of Cooper doing anything remotely “emasculating”, but the boy does love a good kitchen area!

Highlight #6: Trains/Caboose Okay, I have to be honest about this one…while trains are some of my son’s favorites right now, the trains on display at this museum can only run for one minute every 10 minutes. Umm..yeah, not so fun for a 2 year old. And you can only enter the full size caboose outside every hour or so when they offer tours. But, still a highlight nonetheless.

Highlight #7: Exploration Encouraged!

They obviously have far more than what I have listed, but this last one lumps some of the last few pictures I have together. The first few pictures are in the “theater” room where there is a stage, a sound booth, and dress up clothes to fulfill your heart’s desires! Cooper LOVED the sound booth and couldn’t resist a *ahem* special helmet? hehe The last pictures are just other fun areas Cooper enjoyed himself. Milking his first cow…I’m sorry, does it get much funnier than this? Hilarious!! Over all, I would recommend a visit. Cooper had a blast!

Thanksgiving Recipe Blog Hop

Welcome to my first Blog Hop! If you’d like to start at the beginning of the “hop”, jump on over to Creative 2x Mom, otherwise, welcome and read on! As per the description of my blog, I didn’t really get into cooking until shortly after I got married, about 7 years ago. I’ve come a LONG way since then. (Have I mentioned that I didn’t even know what a clove of garlic looked like? Yikes!)

Anyhow, I’ve got two of our family’s regular recipes we have at Thanksgiving. I’ve cooked for about 2-3 Thanksgivings since getting married, and enjoy making nearly everything from scratch except for two things: GRAVY and PUMPKIN PIE. Gravy…just too much work it seems, and pumpkin pie, sooo cheap and still delish from Costco, am I right? So, here are the two “must-haves” that our family enjoys:

 Smooth Cranberry Sauce

1 package (12 ounces) fresh cranberries

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Directions: Rinse berries under cold water. Mix sugar and water in a saucepan and stir, put on high heat until it comes to a boil. Add berries, stir, then bring back to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the berries start to pop. You can actually hear them pop!

Here comes the absolutely necessary part in my book! To get it to taste like my Grandma Betty’s cranberry sauce.

Pour the cooked berries into a colander or strainer. Make sure you scrape EVERYTHING out of the saucepan. Press all the berries through the colander. Start with a spatula, but don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty in the end, and DON’T forget to scrape the ooey gooey goodness from the bottom of the colander or strainer!! Let it chill in the fridge for an hour or more so it will set. The consistency is delicious! Sorry I don’t have a picture, perhaps I’ll add one after Thanksgiving. But, here’s a similar looking picture and a Thanksgiving picture of my family and I 2 Thanksgivings ago (see the red stuff on our plates?).

Broccoli Salad

1 large head of broccoli

1/2 red onion

1 lb. bacon

Dressing:

1 1/2 cup mayonnaise

3 tablespoons vinegar

3/4 cup sugar

Direction: Wash and cut broccoli into bite-sized florets (I just buy the broccoli pieces from Costco, you still have to cut them smaller, but it saves time). Cut stems into bite-sized pieces (or discard). Dice red onion. Fry and drain bacon, chop into small pieces (You can also save time on this step by buying the bacon crumbles that come in the bag. No frying necessary!). Combine all ingredients with dressing. Marinate in refrigerator several hours before serving. Toss occasionally and before serving.

Hope you enjoy these recipes and have a fabulous Thanksgiving! Hop on over to Juella Designs for 2 more side dishes!

Turkey Finger Puppets

I found this adorable idea on Frog Prince Paperie. The picture above is the finger puppet I actually made myself. Remember, I want all things I post to be tried and tested. All the instructions are detailed here: Thanksgiving Turkey Finger Puppets, so I won’t bore you with the specifics. All I will say is…I am NOT a seamstress, and these were very simple. And my son adores it! He carried it around with him everywhere for the first few days. It’s all hand stitched and really, honestly, did not take a lot of time. The only thing detailed in the linked blog that I couldn’t quite pull off (remember, I’m NOT a seamstress), was an “invisible stitch” when attaching the yellow to the orange. So, you can see some of the stitches from behind. But, it didn’t bother me in the least, and certainly didn’t bother little Cooper! =) This was the only picture I could get with him holding it…the boy doesn’t stay still, particularly when playing with a new, fun play thing! Happy Thanksgiving! Have fun celebrating.

Halloween!

We carved pumpkins for the first time this year with Cooper. He was excited about pumpkins especially after reading the adorable book Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White. It’s about a little old lady who despises pumpkins, and ends up with an entire field of them growing in her yard. She turns them into all sorts of pumpkin culinary treats, then carves the rest to attract people to her home. When everyone arrives to check out the jack-o-lanterns, she serves the treats and has so much fun she changes her mind about her dislike for pumpkins.

When we go down to it, however, he had a different tune. He was VERY interested….in watching. When we asked him if he wanted to help clean out the pumpkin? This was his facial expression, gotta love it! We bought a pumpkin carving kit that had templates in it this year, so I decided to give one a go (plus, Cooper LOVES owls, how could I not try it?) Here we are marking the template. And here was the final outcome, not bad for my first time venturing out of the old original jack-o-lantern face. Of course, we did a normal jack-o-lantern, too! We met up with some friends and neighbors to go door to door. Boy..did they have a blast!! And…the loot!Double fisting…=)  Happy Halloween! =P

Cooper Turns 2!

Here’s the definition of irony…I had always rolled my eyes upon seeing outlandish birthdays for one year olds, thinking, “Really? The kid doesn’t even know what’s going on!”, and yet last year? For my son’s first birthday? What did I do? Throw an outlandish birthday party with hoards of people! =) This isn’t an excuse for my behavior, but here was my thought. My son’s birthday is November 3rd, VERY close to Halloween. So, I thought, why not throw a Halloween/Birthday party all in one? I do love to throw a party, so it was mostly an excuse for my fun. Everyone had a blast (at least I think they did, and I hope they did!). So, this year, I couldn’t help myself yet again. Last year the them was pirates, this year….

Disney Cars!

I decided on the theme after my son discovered a love for Mater, without ever even having seen the movie! The 99 cent store had all kinds of party favors that were Disney Cars theme, so that got me going.

*Party Favors*

I purchased noise makers, frisbees, kazoos, crayons, and spinning tops that all had the Cars theme to put into the party favors. Then, I purchased little tool boxes to fill with all the goodies, as well as little tupperware containers to house homemade play-doh and created a Cars coloring book to accompany the crayons. Here’s a picture of the goods:And here are all the toolboxes, with cute labels attached ready for the kiddos to take home!

*Invitations*

Normally, I rather enjoy doing my own “digital” work in creating the invitations. However, I found these on ebay and couldn’t resist the fantastic price and speedy time. They were done by Party Sprinkles. I blocked out the address and phone number, that’s why it looks blank. I still couldn’t resist creating PART of the invite, so I included this little insert:

 *Decorations*

After scouring the internet for some fun, cute ideas, here’s what we decided. Drinks for the party:

Courtesy of Les Schwab…I simply called up and asked if I could borrow old, used tires and return them within a few days. They even loaded them into my car for me! Ahh…=) This greeted the guests at the front door. Food and cake table We set up the garage for the party because there was rain in the forecast and we had about 20 kids and 30 adults coming to our *ahem* 3-4 bedroom house? With some plastic backdrop sheets and a little creativity, I thought our garage looked pretty nifty.  Bless my mom…she helped me paint and create cardboard “cars” for each kid in attendance at the party. Again, I utilized free resources in the community. I called my local grocery store and asked if I could have around 20 “kid sized” cardboard boxes. No problem! Again, they even helped me load my car. We simply painted them, cut a hole in the top (many of which already had one because they were fruit boxes), glued black paper plates on for wheels, glued race car numbers on the side, and created shoulder straps using strips from a tablecloth roll. That way, it didn’t hurt the kids hanging on their delicate little shoulders. Not only did the kids have a BLAST with them, but I thought they looked adorable against the race car fan backdrop:My husband thought I was crazy at first for taking on this next “project”, but boy was it worth it! He helped me by cutting out the shape of Lightning Mcqueen from a sheet of plywood. I painted Mcqueen, in addition to using modge podge to affix some details onto the car body, i.e. bumper stickers, the Rust-eze logo, eyes, etc. The goal was for the kids to be able to experience the role of a pit crew. They could change the tires (they sat on screws affixed with nuts the kids could put on and off), gas it up (we installed a gas tank, i.e. a snack protector for plastic bags I found at Michael’s), and wash/wax him using little tools purchased from the Dollar Tree store (stowed away in the black plastic tub). Look at how stunning it is!Lastly, I set up a card table with some of the activities and door prizes.  Above it was a Happy 2nd Birthday poster with Cooper’s picture on it.

 *Activities*

**Door Prizes: The guests were asked to bring the ticket included in their invitation to include in a raffle for a door prize. I had two prizes to hand out for this, a Cars painting book, and a collection of Cars items, including bubbles and a tambourine. We also did a candy jar guess with hot tamales. Here are the jars and wrapped door prizes pictured below: **Make Your Own License Plate:

I purchased fun foam from Michael’s so the kids could assemble their own license plates for the cardboard cars. They glued a white piece onto a colored sticker piece, then glued the bordered California (I printed them on the computer), and stuck sticky foam letters and stickers to the license plate. Then, they got to choose their car and “personalize” it. Here are some of the finalized masterpieces:  **Pit Crew: Performing all the previously mentioned “pit crew” activities with the plywood Lightning McQueen. Here are the children having a ball! It was definitely top two of the activities for the party! **Tire Toss: I used two tires acquired from Les Schwab for a tire toss, using little bean bags. I think because this game was located ‘off the beaten path’ so to speak, it didn’t get a whole lot of attention, but the few that did, enjoyed it. **Piston Cup Race: Last, but definitely not least, this was by far the favorite, perhaps tied with the Pit Crew performance, all the kids lined up outside for a “race” around half the block. We had two adults stand to block any cars coming down the street and the kids did 2-3 laps (depending on their age). We had multiple adults around holding black and white checkered flags. The kids just had a blast running around with their cars. Here are some photos:     

 *Mater Cake*

How could I not include one of the highlight’s of my son’s birthday? My good friend, Kellie Cabral, created a Mater cake for Cooper’s party (If you live in the Folsom/Sacramento area and want a cake, e-mail me and I’ll find out how much she charges for you!). I humbly assisted with all the fun stuff after she baked and created the cake form. All day, Cooper kept walking up, pointing and saying, “Eat Mater cake?” Cooper was more of a risk than our 75 lb. dog was to the cake! Ha! The look on his face when we sang Happy Birthday to him says it all!

Here are pictures of the beautiful cake itself:  

*The After Party*

To top it all off…we invited the kids back for Cooper’s ACTUAL birthday to watch the newly released Mater’s Tall Tales (which are hilarious by the way). The thought was to have a “drive-in” where the kids sat in their cardboard cars to watch. Yeah, kids are a little squirmy, and the cars were a little small. But they still loved the cartoons and cupcakes! Hooray for a successful, outstanding second birthday! Happy Birthday my little lovebug, Cooper. =)