Happy Birthday William!

Today we celebrated Little William's 3rd birthday! He had a blast and was very lucky that I got to host a Houseparty.com party courtesy of Digiorno Pizza on his special day. The party was in a sports theme and Digiorno provided coupons for the pizzas and also serving items including plates, a pizza cutter, spatula etc.. and a fun basketball game complete with "bam-bams" and scorecards. Our guests all had such fun eating yummy pizza with boneless Wyngz and playing some competitive basketball.

We had 4 varieties of Digiorno pizza including the traditional Four Cheese, Pepperoni, Supreme, and my favorite mushroom, spinach and garlic. Oh they were delicious!

The Boneless Wyngz were the big hit with all the guests. I was skeptical at first thinking they would be more like chicken nuggets but they were in fact the real deal. We had honey barbecue and Buffalo sauces to toss the chicken in. I mixed both sauces and the result was so good!

William was so thrilled about having his birthday cake that he started to sing the Happy Birthday song before the rest of us!
He got some fun gifts!
His grandma bought him a Pillow Pet frog. He doesn't get the concept of it as yet but he sure loves standing on it!

Aww a new magnetic doodler. No mess drawing and writing is good for me!

His favorite gift was his new fishing pole from daddy. He spent hours this afternoon out in the back yard fishing and caught a few crappie and a small bass!

This little boy had a blast with the balloons and he has worn himself out from the day's activities. He should sleep quite well tonight....I know his momma and daddy will :)

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Wordless Wednesday

Check out William's hand shield against licking. He will tell Milo "No licking Miwo!"

HERSHEY®’S Track & Field Games | Giveaway

{Closed}
Winner is #17 John S.

Now that winter is slowly winding down and the weather is warming up this is the perfect time for families to get up and get moving! It's important to encourage your children to be active so you can help them gain an appreciation for a healthy lifestyle at a young age.

Since 1978, The HERSHEY®’S Track & Field Games has helped more than 10 million children get active and learn valuable lessons such as sportsmanship and hard work. Now in its 34th year, HERSHEY’S Track & Field Games hosts thousands of boys and girls, ages 9 to 14, in nearly 4,000 North American communities. They will compete this spring and summer in track and field events ranging from the standing long jump and softball throw to a variety of running and relay races – and all at no cost of entry. All you need is a pair of shoes!

To program culminates each year with the HERSHEY’S Track & Field Games North American Final Meet in Hershey, Pa. Held each year in August, the North American Final Meet hosts 450 outstanding young participants in a fun and exciting, all-expenses paid weekend trip to Hershey. During the weekend, participants tour the world’s largest chocolate factory and visit Hersheypark amusement park, among other exciting activities.

To further encourage physical activity among kids and families, Hershey is teaming up with the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program to collect old, worn-out athletic shoes to be recycled into Nike Grind, a material used in creating athletic and playground surfaces, as well as select Nike products. Program participants will be invited to bring used athletic shoes to state and provincial meets, which will then be recycled into Nike Grind. A HERSHEY’s Track & Field Games playground will be awarded to a participating local community as part of the program’s work with Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program. Since its inception in the early 1990’s, Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program has recycled more than 25 million pairs of athletic shoes into Nike Grind.

To learn more about HERSHEY’S Track & Field Games, and to find a local event in your area, please visit www.hersheystrackandfield.com. I checked out my area and there is one at my daughter's high school!
___________________________________________
To help get you started you can enter to win HERSHEY’S Track & Field Games prize pack, which includes a drawstring backpack, visor, water bottle and rubber band shoelace stoppers.

Mandatory: To enter just leave a comment sharing how you keep your children/family active. Be sure to check out the site to see if there is a track meet in your area.



For additional entries: *Please leave a separate comment per entry method for each entry to count.

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Get active with a HERSHEY®’S Track & Field Games prize pack from @momfiles and #myblogspark http://tinyurl.com/47ofaxg

Giveaway is open to US Residents only and will end on March 31, 2011 at 9:00 pm EST. One winner will be chosen at random and will be contacted via email. Good luck!

The Hershey Company provided me one prize pack to keep and one to give away, as part of the MyBlogSpark program

William + School = HAPPY!

William's favorite thing to do these days besides fishing is going to "school". He loves when it is time to practice his alphabet sounds and words on the computer. You would not believe the squeals and excitement that comes out of this kid over lesson time. I hope this love for learning is here to stay.
**Please pardon his tongue chewing!

Brie's braces

Let me tell you something~ Teenage girls are the WORST beings on earth to photograph. No photo is pleasing to them. Then again I feel the same way about myself. Okay, well here is the updated photo of Brie with her braces. She continues to do well and I am so mesmerized by how quickly her teeth are shifting! I'm not sure if this is all in my mind but it seems as if her confidence has boosted a bit since getting the braces. I am also in such disbelief at how mature my baby girl is getting. She goes to high school next year :( I guess at least she will have straight teeth before junior year. She's so excited!

I'm a simple gal

I am very different from most of the women I know. I don't care for fancy things and get more out of little things (even free things) any day. My sweet husband reached into an envelope he received at his Post Office box and handed me this:

I was trying to remember if I signed up for this freebie. He then reveals that he signed up for it! I was so impressed by this~I told you I was simple! This really brightened my day. I know he is going to get me for this post and also the free advertising!!
HE'S SO SWEET!! <--and still quite the manly man :)

Lately...

I have not been writing much. I have not had a whole lot to say. I have felt like savoring moments with my kids who are growing up way too fast. I am realizing more and more each day that my kids will need me less. I was on the computer several weeks back and William was nagging me to do something (I can't remember what it was exactly). I told him to give me a moment that I was working. A week later he sees me on the computer while I was on Facebook. He asked in that sweet baby voice "Hey Bawbi, you working?" It was that moment that I realized I was spending too much time on the daggone computer. And not just the computer, the smart phone too. Facebook, Twitter, email and text at my fingertips. I felt so much guilt and have vowed to do a whole lot less of that nonsense. After all, why do I need to know who "checked in" where and how many people hate the weather, the world, is in a relationship but it's complicated, etc... All of that does nothing for me and yet I got sucked into it. I have not been posting much on the blog because I have been living life physically. Some days I wonder if I even want to keep the blog. I have noticed so many other bloggers feeling the same way lately. Oh well, I guess I'll just go with the flow and see what happens from here....

And why should kids pay attention?

I took this photo yesterday after seeing an adult ditch their shopping cart next to the cart return area. My guess is that it would have taken an additional 8 seconds to have successfully put it up in the right place. Behavior like this astonishes me. It's lazy and inconsiderate. This person had an older child with her. I guess that child will learn that doing things like this is okay. I know that this is a little thing but children learn from little things. It's our job as adults to be a good example!
These same "parents" are the first ones to try to start a fight with teachers when they hear their child is not listening or following directions in class. Sorry, I just had to vent my frustrations~ Thanks for listening, I feel better now!

WTH? Wednesday

I just had to share one of my latest WTH moments. This happened yesterday as Dwayne and I were walking to the check-out area in Walmart. We see this older Indian couple walking toward us. The wife was looking at something on the aisle but the husband was looking over at us. He was staring with his mouth wide open. I know that look all too well since I have been seeing it for over 20 years. Any time Indian people see me with Dwayne they have a problem with seeing an Indian girl and a black man together. I tell you, I have only felt racism from my own people my whole life. I have always gotten those comments about marrying a black man. How sad!! Oh well, the funny part is just as the man was staring us down Dwayne stared back with that "gangsta" look. How about dude just put his eyes to the ground in shame! Bahahaha!!! I guess he got told!!!!!!!!!!

So what's your WTH moment of the week?

Sushi is NOT for everyone

Yesterday afternoon I took my daughters out for sushi. We had been talking about going for some time and finally went for it. The girls have never tried sushi before so they were very excited. I expected Brie to be interested since she is my junior foodie but not Chardie. She's more like her dad~stick to what you know. Long story short...we ordered 2 varieties each. Our plates were beautiful. I dove in first and enjoyed mine. The girls had really strange looks on their faces. Chardie ordered the salmon roll and yellow tail roll. I tried hers and I thought I was about to hurl! Too fishy for my liking. Brie had the crunchy roll (safer choice) and the Philadelphia roll. She wasn't fond of either. I forced myself to try to eat theirs after I finished mine. I enjoyed it but was not thrilled like most people I know who swear that sushi is the best food on earth. The girls both said, "Next time we will have the sesame chicken!"

Math= FREE time!

We went to Chick-fil-a yesterday and William was not interested in the food. He snatched up all the sauces to line them up so he could count them! He would keep rearranging them and had about 20 minutes of uninterrupted fun. This meant 20 minutes of peace for ME! :) I wonder what it would have been like if he had 10 or more sauce packs?

Random banana story

A couple weekends ago I was in Walmart during the super stupid busy time on a Saturday evening. Of course I know better but the daughter's needed some things so what's a momma to do? We planned to make banana splits that night together as a family. We bought vanilla ice cream, nuts, strawberries, hot fudge sauce, whipped cream... We get through the check-out line only to realize we forgot something. BANANAS. There was no way I was getting back into a 50 foot long line for a few bananas plus I had ice cream in my cart. I ended up driving home to unload my groceries and decided to go to another store for bananas. It dawned on my that at 7:30 pm you might not find any bananas in the produce section. I then came up with a brilliant idea~ Sonic drive-thru. Yeah, they sell bananas. I know I would be spending a buck for each banana but who cares at this point. I just need 2 of them for tonight. My kids made so much fun of me and said that is was so tacky to order bananas from Sonic. So of course I made them ride with me.
I get in the drive-thru and politely ask if they had any fresh bananas. The fella told me that they sure did. I drove up to pay and then was handed my 2 bananas. The freakin things were damn near frozen! There was no turning back at this point. I brought them home and they tasted fine. Will I buy bananas there again? NO. I told you this was a random banana story! BTW, it was DWAYNE that made the big deal about needing bananas. Just thought I would add that in there :)

What William loves

Every single morning when William wakes up he goes into my bedroom and looks through my window. He tells his daddy that he loves to throw rocks in the water and catch a fish. He repeats this at least 6 times.
Since the weather has warmed up, Dwayne takes him out in the backyard to the water to throw a few rocks and to toss the line in (with a live worm). William will swear that he caught a fish. Poor guy, the fish are not biting quite yet. Dwayne can't wait for the day William pulls up his first real fish. I can hear William now saying "FISH ON!" Hopefully we will be able to get a photo or video when that day comes. I have a feeling it will be soon.

Egg obsession?

I think I have some of the oddest teenagers around. Both girls go through their phases of loving certain foods and drinks. Their current food obsession~ eggs. Yep, eggs. Not just any eggs, they have to be the Eggland's Best eggs. No store brand for these young ladies.

Every night they go into my clean kitchen and cook up a couple eggs each. Generally Chardie prefers scrambled or fried. Brie is taking on a more foodie-like taste having hers over easy. That really surprises me since most kids would dare not eat their eggs runny. I just bought this carton of 18 count eggs 2 days ago. I think we run out of eggs faster than we do milk!

Clenching, biting and grinding at night

Some of us clench, bite or grind our teeth at night while we are asleep and are not even aware of it. I have been noticing that for the past few months I have been waking up to having my teeth clenched down tightly. It really has been even worse in the past few weeks. I don't even know why I do it. I found out that I am a clencher from a dental visit last year. The dentist asked me if I grind my teeth and I knew I didn't since my husband would know since he sleeps next to me every night. She told me that I clench since my teeth showed signs of it. Honestly, if she never said anything then I might still be completely oblivious to it. This really concerned me so I thought I would do some research of my own to get some idea of why the heck I am doing it. It turns out that it is very common and can be triggered by stress, anxiety or even restlessness. I don't have any of these problems so it still puzzles me. I was reading on Facebook the other day about a friend who grinds her teeth so badly at night that she fears she will become toothless. My daughter told me that one of her friends bites the insides of her cheeks at night and wakes up to a bloody mouth each morning. So it appears that so many people do it and I am not alone. Last night I purposely kept my mouth open a bit and tried to catch myself in the act of clenching down. I don't know if it will help me to reverse my problem but I am sure am aware of when I do it. There may come a day that I will be forced to sleep with a night guard. I think I will address it with my dentist on my next appointment that is coming up in a couple months.

Question: Do you or someone you know have a problem with clenching, biting or grinding their teeth at night? If so did you have a particular solution that worked to remedy this problem?

Brie's braces update

It has been almost 2 months since Brie got her braces and I am happy to report that things are going very well. It's going way better than we thought. She adjusted really quickly to them and feels like having them is just normal now. She has figured out what she can and can't eat and methods to make eating certain things a bit easier. The only real issue she has had so far is a bit of pain from the pressure of her teeth moving. It is amazing to see just how much her teeth have moved already! Our schedules have not been coinciding for me to snap a photo but I am sure I can pin her down some time soon and sneak one in. Brie has done really well with the extra teeth brushing and longer flossing time. It takes longer but she knows how important it is throughout this process.

On her last orthodontist visit she asked the technician how many colors she could get for her rubber bands. She was told she can get as many as she wanted. Of course she requested rainbow. My girl loves her colors!!

WTH!? Wednesday

There are so many things lately that have me saying WTH!?

I will kick things off with skinny pants. Not all of us are cut out to wear them. I accept that. Why are boys wears them tighter than girls? Also WTH is up with dudes wearing them with a belt but the waist part is around their thighs? Perhaps I am a bit too antique to appreciate that type of fashion.

The other day I went into the gas station to pay for my purchase and there was an interesting character ahead of me in line. The cashier asks him “how can I help you” and he proceeds with “umm umm umm, gimme a, umm umm umm…” He went through that for an entire minute and ends up buying 2 scratch-off lottery tickets for $5 each and then asks for $5 on pump 8 {blank stare} WTH?!! He was driving an old Chevy with 22’s that were worth more than the actual vehicle. I’m sure the $5 in gas bought him enough to get him 2 miles up the street.

My son. Oh what a chip off the old block. Why oh why does the boy child insist that he needs to kiss me on the lips? No matter how much I have taught him to give kisses on the cheek he insists on the lips. He also has some thing for touching boobies. He gets in so much trouble for doing it so he found a new method. He takes his hand in a cup position and holds it about one inch away from the boobies and smiles. Bad behind! WTH!?

So now it's your turn, please share your WTH moments in the comments...

He's old school and not changing one bit

If you have been an active Momfiles reader then you might know that Dwayne and I are very old school. I however know when to get with the times. For example, these are my ear buds. They are cute, small and can fit in my pocket.

Here is Dwayne's version~ the bulky headphones. He has had them since about 1996. It finally came apart a week ago and he was heartbroken.

He went and bought new headphones. They are HUGE. It is like he specifically needed to seek out the biggest ones he could find. Not only is it enormous but it also has a 50 foot cord attached! WTH!?

You can compare the size of the old ones with his new ones. My husband takes old school to his own ridiculous level. Oh and he likes to listen to his cassette tapes from his boom box with these. He has even tried plugging this thing into his BlackBerry! bahahaha!

I did go and buy him some plain ear buds for his phone so he doesn't look like a fool. Bless his heart, what do I do with him? ;)

No naps allowed!

I never thought the day would come that I would be so happy that my little guy stopped taking a nap. This has been going on for about 2 months and it has made my life so much easier. William is not grumpy at all without a daytime nap. He goes to bed at 8:00 pm and I have to wake him up the next morning at about 7:30. I find that if he takes any part of a nap he won't go to bed until after 10:00 and that does not work for me! I really like his new schedule and he seems to like it too.

At what age did your little one stop taking a nap?

CSN Stores $45 Gift Certificate Giveaway

*Closed*

Winner is #121 Tania~ Congratulations!

I tell you what, CSN Stores has been my go-to when I am researching items that we need around the house. They have over 200 online stores and offer everything from wooden swing sets to bakeware. I have used CSN quite a few times and I have been completely satisfied with the ease of use of the website, the vast amount of choices and variety, fair prices and the super fast delivery. Now that I think about it I sure could use some new cookware and bar ware (hint hint to the hubby)

The great folks at CSN Stores has offered a $45 online gift certificate for one lucky Momfiles reader to use on anything from their 200+ online stores.

Here's how to enter~Mandatory: Visit the CSN site and tell us what you would purchase if you win the certificate. Perhaps a new coffee maker or something for your office?

For additional entries:

* "like" Momfiles on Facebook and leave me a message on my wall letting me know you entered this giveaway
* "like" CSN Stores on Facebook
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* Tweet this giveaway (one time per day) Example:

Enter for a chance to win a $45 @CSNStores gift certificate #giveaway from @momfiles http://tinyurl.com/4cbok6b

* Follow Momfiles through Google Friend Connect
* sport the Momfiles button on your blog (please leave blog link)
{Be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry method to count}

This contest will end on February 24, 2011 at 9:00 pm EST and is open to Canada & US Residents only. Winner will be chosen at random and contacted via email. Please be sure to leave an email address in your comment if you do not have a Blogger profile. Good luck to all!

Preschool at home

I take my stay-at-home mom gig quite seriously so I do my best to stay on top of teaching William all I can. I recently started having him sort beans by color and size and then counting them. You would not believe how much enjoyment he gets out of it. He yells out each color and then places it in the correct group. Then he pretends to be me and says "Now count the beans".

Of course I would never leave him unattended for long with the beans~ Not that he would put them in his mouth but he would probably try to throw them all over the place or even at the dog. I think I am going to make a chart of each type of bean by gluing them in groups to help avoid a lot of mess. Of course I am sure he will figure out how to peel them off :)

Wordless Wednesday | Swiper No Swiping!

Can you tell someone just loves his new Swiper the Fox toy?