Cancer Vaccine???

Monkey had his check up at the doctor a couple weeks ago. He's 10! So weird. I still feel like he's my little boy. Anyway, while we were there, the nurse says to me, "Has anyone talked to you about the cancer vaccine?" What?! I wouldn't consider myself medically savvy, but I like to think I would know if there was a vaccine for cancer. So I say "What?" And then she drops the hammer, "the HPV vaccine." Ummmm, Hell no. I've read terrible stories about it. I don't know much else about it, but for me, it's just way too new for you to experiment with it on my kids. As far as I know, my kids don't have any extra familial risk on cancer. We've been blessed that we haven't lost any one to that terrible disease.
Now, my other issue is that, I've always loved my pediatrician's office, but now I'm kind of put off by how the nurse tried to push that on me. I'm grateful that I had actually heard of this vaccine and know that it is risky, but I fear that there are other parents may not know anything about it. I mean, when you call it the cancer vaccine, who wouldn't want to jump on that? Plus, other doctors don't give it until they're 11. When I asked about that, she tells me that they will give it as young as 9. 9! Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't HPV come from/get passed by having multiple sexual partners? Why would a 9 year old need a vaccine for basically an STD?
Like I said though, I don't know much about it and that's why I'm choosing not to give it to my kids. What did you decide? And why?

Wordless Wednesday

That's my boy!⚽

A Reply? Finally!!

      Oh My Gosh! I finally got a reply back from our foster care specialist. Sadly they are extremely busy in the work that they do. But it was good news! I have been emailing her just to let her know not to forget about us. I don't want to be too pushy and risk her putting our paperwork at the bottom of the stack just because I'm annoying the crap out of her. This last email I said, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know we haven't changed our minds." And I got a reply back! She said she plans to have our home study written by the end of next week! Yay! I don't know how long it takes for us to be officially licensed after that, but its a step in the right direction! Woohoo!! I'm so ready! My kids are starting to wonder if it's really happening. It seemed like we had to do a lot really quickly so it was a big thing in our house for a little while, then nothing at all for the last month. But now, finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm so excited to fill our empty room with children who need us. What better way to honor the Lord, than to open our hearts and our homes to His children... Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.
     Thank you all for tuning in to this journey with me. I can't wait till I have more to share with you!
Goodnight!

I have been working on...

     Yesterday, I promised to reveal what else I've been working on. This "project" has been a long time dream of mine. It required training for both my husband and myself, many family discussions, interviews of my family, room redecorating, and modifications to our home. Do you think you know what it is yet? If you guessed Foster Care... You're right!
It has been such an emotional ride. But, we've now completed all of our class work. We are CPR, First Aid and AED trained. Our children have been interviewed, our home has been inspected and our friends and family have submitted reference letters. We are at the bottom of 4 home studies that our Foster Care Specialist is in the process of writing but when she finishes (hopefully soon), we will be licensed foster parents. Then we will just be waiting for placements. I would love to do sibling groups, but Mr.Random is a little more leery. He would prefer to start with one and see what happens. And he's probably right. Because it is an adjustment for our entire family, we may want to start off slowly, ease our way into it. I recently spoke with another foster mom in our area and she told me that when she started foster care, about 4 years ago, several of her couple friends became foster parents too, but have since quit. I always thought it was a lifetime commitment. I certainly intend for it to be for our family. At this point we have decided to accept children who are 4 and under in to our home. As our children get older, we may accept older children. Both Monkey and Banana are excited to have a baby and/or a toddler in our home. God really has blessed me with great children. I know they will big great foster siblings to anyone who comes in to our home. I can't wait to share more of this exciting journey with you all.

I can not wait to have a little person in this room!

Come back soon. I will be sharing details about this room and the decorations I've been working on for this.
Thanks for stopping by!

Medieval Times for 4! Do Not Miss This Deal

      So Medieval Times is having a big sale. Have you ever been there? I went with some ladies once, a couple of years ago. I had won some tickets over at Kingdom of Chaos, so my mom and both of my siter-in-laws and myself went. It was such a great time. I've been itching to go back and take the kids but we hadn't found the time. Now they have such a great deal going on, I'm going to have to make the time. Join me! Click on the picture and pick up your Family Four Pack today.

Seriously, this is what you get in your Four Pack:

• 4 Admission Tickets
• 4 Course Meal Fit For a King or Queen (each person gets this)
• 2 Rounds of select beverages (per person)
• 2 Hour ACTION PACKED SHOW
• Free Parking (Always)

That's only $32 per person! The tickets are good for shows all the way up till 9/30!You can't even get dinner and a movie that cheap anymore, let alone a live show and dinner experience. 

Hurry and get your tickets HERE, before time runs out!

And I almost forgot to mention this fun little gem-
This summer thru July 31^st Medieval Times is hosting Knight Training- where kids can go down into the arena and train with the knights. Sign up when you get your tickets!

Smells Like Summer (Australian Gold Sunscreen Review)

You know there are certain smells that remind you of specific things? I don't mean that smelling pizza reminds you that you're hungry. I mean how pine trees and cinnamon smell like Christmas. Well Australian Gold Sunscreen smells like summer. It doesn't just smell like sunscreen or plain lotion. It smells like summer. Like beaches and boats and swimming and sunshine and barbecues. I've only ever used Australian Gold products to help me get a tan before, never the opposite, until now. This suncreen is gentle enough to wear on your face and tough enough to wear in the pool. It dries clear and not too oily. It's water resistant (for 80 minutes), and sweat proof too. That last part is my personal opinion. Indiana humidity is no joke and with active kids, I need a product that can hold up to my sweat and theirs. This one is it. Sunscreen is a part of our life in the summer, so why not have one that feels and smells great...
I received a sample of this product to try in exchange for my honest opinion.

Baby Wipes? What the H***?!

Preschoolers are so unpredictable. Last week, it was brown day so we painted with chocolate pudding. I was getting baby wipes out to clean their hands and just as I handed one to a little girl, she looks at it and says, "Baby wipes! What the hell?"

Of course, I had a parent in the room that day, too. This parent stood up so straight, and her eyes just about popped out of her head. I have no idea how she or I managed not to laugh. This tot is a teeny, tiny little thing, who generally walks around saying "That's AMAZING!", about everything. Even pooping. Then she just pops open with a cuss word. At least none of the other students heard her. You just never know what is going to happen in a preschool classroom.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.

Wordless Wednesday

Our Kindies are learning to read!

Mommy Fail 345712

I'm sure I'm not the only non-perfect mother out there. We've all said things in front of our kids that we wish we could take back. Sadly, I probably have a list 10 miles long. But I'm working on it.
Anyway in an effort to conceal my true dirty words, I called someone "juice bag" instead of douche bag and that just sort of became his nickname. But tonight while talking about said person I referred to him as JuiceBag. Monkey did not skip a beat and corrected me by saying "Mom, it's douche, not juice" Bahahaha! I started choking and heaven forgive me, I could not stop laughing. So I just stood there with my back turned to him, shaking in silent laughter, trying to compose my self long enough to tell him that he can't say that. All the while this kid can not let it go, so he just keeps trying to correct me and Hubby is doubled over in the fridge, pretending to look for food, but actually laughing hysterically. Thanks a lot Hubs for coming to my rescue. Not. He literally told Monkey to never, EVER repeat anything his mother says. Lol.
Oh well, all's well, that ends well.
Lesson learned.

Minion Birthday Gifts and Cupcakes

This post is long over due. Back in August my nephew Tater turned 7. And he was really into minions, those little cuties from Despicable Me. He said he wanted me to make him minion cupcakes and I thought it would be fun for him and I to make them together. When I asked him what he wanted for a gift, he said a minion jacket. What?! Where am I going to find one of those? He says, "You can make one." Simple as that. Naturally all sorts of alarms went off in my mind. I can't make one, and it actually turn out nice. No way, no how! So I said, "Sure Buddy, if that's what you want, you got it!" Then I freaked out forever. I googled so many pictures trying to find one that I could copy. I found a good one and I set out with my fabric and Heat-n-Bond, on a mission to create a minion jacket for my little pal. For the record, I bought the jacket, a plain black hoodie from Wal-Mart. I basically just made a giant minion iron on patch. And since that actually turned out nice, I got a little cocky and made him a bottle with some vinyl and a Dollar Tree bottle.

This is Tater decorating the cupcakes. As you can see, we thought it would be cool to color our batter to match the minions too.

So here's what we did:

1. We baked our cupcakes.

2. We frosted them with blue icing and set them aside.

3. Tater cut the twinkies in half.

4. I put dots of frosting on for eyes and Tater stuck white Smarties on them. (I'm sure he only ate about a pound of smarties while sorting out the white ones)

5.Tater put long chocolate sprinkles on the top for the hair.

6. I used gray and black frosting to finish the eyes and goggles.

7. Tater placed one Twinkie half minion head on each frosted cupcake.

 

And this is our finished product. Aren't they adorable? No, they don't look like they came from a posh bakery. They look like a 7 year old got to have a blast with his favoite aunt making cupcakes. They were absolutely PERFECT!

 

Turned out pretty good, huh?

 

How to make your own:

What you need: Heat-n-Bond Ultra, yellow fabric,blue fabric (I used old jeans), scraps of black,brown, white and gray fabric, 2 buttons, hot glue gun

1. Prepare fabric according to Heat-n-Bond instructions.

2. Draw complete outline of minion (hands,gloves, shoes included) on paper to make a stencil. (I had to do mine freehand but I would recommend tracing a copy if you can.)

3. Trace the complete outine of minion on yellow fabric and cut out.

4. Trace and cut out the overalls, gloves, boots, each layer of the eyeball, goggles, mouth and the pocket of the overalls.

5. Iron the yellow outline on your jacket.

6. Iron on the pants, gloves, boots, goggles strap and mouth.

7. Iron on the white of the eye and the jeans pocket.

8. Iron on the brown of the eye and the gray ring of the goggles.

9. Iron on the pupil (black dot in the eye).

10. Hot glue 2 little buttons on the minion's overalls.

11. Enjoy your creation!

 

   

I think this last minute idea was absolutely perfect. And he really loved it, too.

 

You can make one too!



Here's what you need:

Cheap yellow bottle or cup, adhesive vinyl (black, white, gray, brown), something to cut with e.g. scissors I cheated and used my Cricut.

1. Cut black strip about 1 inch wide and long enough to wrap around your bottle/cup.

2. Adhere strip to bottle.

3. Cut 2.5 inch white circle, 1 inch brown circle, .75 inch black circle

4. Cut 2.75 inch O ring shape

5. Adhere black circle on to brown circle, then brown circle on white circle. Now you have an eyeball!

6. Adhere eyeball to bottle on top of strap.

7. Adhere the gray ring to the eyeball.

8. Cut a mouth and adhere it under the eye.

9. Fill it with your favorite beverage and Enjoy!

 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed my minion projects. Come back soon.



 

Candy Bouquet for Boys

Yesterday was my sweet little nephew, J's 7th birthday. I don't see him very much. Mostly just at holidays. He's my brother's son and I don't see him much either. I usually go through J's mom to see him. Anyway, J's Mom invited us to his birthday party and I really had no clue what to get him. So I made him a candy bouquet. I was a little worried that bouquets seems so girly, but I think I BOYed it up pretty good. Yes, BOYed is a word, even if I just made it up. Besides, what 7 year old doesn't love a cup full of candy? I just hope he doesn't have any food allergies...

 

Here's how you can make your own candy bouquet.

1. I bought Laffy Taffy, Smarties, M&Ms, and Cookies and Cream Hershey bars. Then I bought a yo-yo, 2 little planes and 2 Hotwheels cars. One of the Hotwheels cars looks almost just like J's dad's car.
2. I taped all of the candy and little toys onto cake pops sticks. Well, Banana and I did.
3. I put a little bit of newspaper in the bottom of one half of the super cute Disney Planes cup. Only half because I wanted the back pieces to stick up higher.
4. I put all the sticks in the cup.

 TA-DA!

The finished product! 

 

This is the car that looks like J's Dads. 

 

Who else likes to give candy gifts? This is my 3rd candy gift this year. I made candy cakes for my bro-in-law and my 14 year old nephew back in April and May. Not sure I blogged about those yet. Maybe I will soon... Leave me a comment and tell me about your candy gifts.

 

Wordless Wednesday: Snaggletooth

My Banana lost her first tooth!!

Who Doesn't Love Catching Bugs?

Catching bugs is a summer staple at my house. between my son and daughter and nieces and nephews probably everybody that has entered our yard has ended up in a jar. Since the kids enjoy catching bugs so much and there was a box full of empty half pint jelly jar sitting on my freezer, I decided to make them on their own bug catching jar.
I used my Cricut Expression and some sheets of adhesive vinyl that I picked up at Joann Fabrics, and created each one a personalized bug jar.  I cut each child's name out using the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge using the end caps feature. I cut a centipede off of the Dinosaur Tracks cartridge.

A Different Perspective...

I would like to say how sorry I am for the victims and the friends and families of the victims involved in the Boston bombings today. Having a 7 year old son, I could not imagine losing him. My heart breaks for the parents of the 8 year old boy who died today. That's not to say that any other people involved are less important, I just can not stop thinking about the young boy's family. Probably because I have a son so close in age to that boy. I know there is nothing in the world that anyone would ever be able to say to console me if my Monkey were so unexpectedly taken from me. So I pray for peace and acceptance for his mother.
This evening we talked about the bombing with the kids. They heard it on tv and saw the tears streaming down my cheeks as I tried not to imagine what the mother must be feeling. So we talked about it. Monkey heard that there was an 8 year old boy who died. He didn't ask any questions but just kept repeating that an 8 year old boy died. At bedtime I suggested that they pray for the people involved in the bombings. And as I listened to Monkey's prayer, my heart melted. He said "God, I am so happy that 8 year old boy gets to go live in the best place ever (heaven)."
Wow! I mean, talk about seeing things from a different perspective. How many of us could see through the tragedy and be happy for this child who gets to meet Jesus? Not me. Not until my 7 year old son enlightened me. I love his pure heart. God surely has blessed us with that boy.
In these awful times, I pray that everyone of us can see something from a different perspective. Let us not judge and be divided, but come together as brothers and sisters in Christ and see through our hurt and anger to be there for each other.

Minus 1! Oh Yea Baby!

     This is an update on Monkey. He is doing FANTABULOUS! The medicine Vyvanse is really working wonders in him. I told you all about the first day that he went to school on it. Well, we've gone a little over a week and I got a detailed report like that every day after school. (Aw, tears of joy!) And now I have even more good news to report. Yesterday he brought home some math tests and quizzes from last week. Two tests had minus 1 on each of them and minus 0 on the quizzes. And on both tests the part that he got wrong was showing the work. He got the answer right on both tests and made the exact same mistake in writing the equation. How cool is that?! Before he averaged about 40-60% on his math tests. Because he just didn't pay attention the whole problems. And now look at my baby go! He even moved up 2 levels in his rocket math (40problems-1minute). I mean don't get me wrong, I don't believe that this is some miracle drug and poof he's all better. No. Other things are showing up more, which we expected. But right now I'm choosing to focus on all the POSITIVE things that are happening.

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.
~Ms.Random

Boys Dresser Makeover

     So Monkey's dresser has been kinda falling apart a little so I had to do some work on it. I
 had bought this "real" camo fabric to make him some curtains out of. He picked it out himself. After I made the curtains I had quite a bit of the fabric left and since I had his dresser drawers down in the craft room already, I though, "What the heck? I'm going to decorate these drawers too. So here is what I did.

 

1. I used my trusty drill and removed the knobs from the drawers.

 

2. I cut 4 pieces of fabric slightly smaller than the front of the dressers drawers.

 

3. Now then fun begins. Lather the front panels with a generous helping of Mod Podge. (pictured below) 

 

 

4. Smooth on the precut fabric.

 

5. Apply another coat of Mod Podge on top of the fabric.

 

6. Allow to dry.

 

 

7. Reattach knobs.

 

8. Put drawers back in.

 

9. Take pictures.

 

10. Blog about it.

 

Thanks for stopping by to check out my project.

~Ms.Random

P.S. Monkey LOVED it!

Wordless Wednesday

Snow Day!

HE KNEW!

     So I told you all about Monkey being diagnosed with ADD. Well, its actually called ADHD, primarily inattentive. Blah, blah. I think you all know what I mean when I say ADD. Anyway, we decided to medicate him. He is taking Vyvanse. Today is only his 4th day but I just have to let you know what happened yesterday...
     Everyday after school, for almost 4 years, I've asked him the same 2 questions. How was your day? What did you do today? And everyday He gives me the same answers, good and I don't know. But not yesterday. Yesterday's conversation went like this:

Me: Hey Bub, how was your day?

Monkey: Good.

Me: Oh yea. What did you do today?

Monkey: I don't kn... No wait. We went to recess. And had lunch. And I had P.E. today.

     It may not seem like much to most people but those few extra sentences meant the world to me. He even started to say I don't know (probably out of habit). But then he corrected himself because he did know. HE KNEW! He knew exactly what specials he had and how his day went. And it did not go by in a blur of activities that his short term memory couldn't process. Thank you GOD, for all the small things!

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.
~Ms.Random

My Monkey and ADD

     I need to get serious for a little bit here. My handsome little Monkey has just been diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder). And while I've always kind of known that he had this disorder, I'm still a little freaked out that he really does. I had asked all of his teachers up until now what they thought and none thought that he did. But that was preschool and kindergarten so he never really had to have much of an attention span until this year. And this year, with new expectations an homework, this disorder has really shown through. His schoolwork is really suffering. And so is his confidence. So I sucked it up and told the doctor that while every body else disagreed with me, I still thought that he had ADD. I think that everyone else was a little confused because he doesn't bounce off the walls like most ADHD kids. But low and behold when Hubby and I and Monkey's teacher did our surveys, they all basically looked the same. So now we know... What's next?

This is my Monkey ;-)

Its actually a picture from Attentionsdeficitdisorder.com 

     Well for us, it's medication. Our doctor prescribed Vyvanse. He said it's in the same category as Adderall. I'm really nervous about it but I'm also very excited to see how my baby will grow once he gets a chance to blossom. Our doctor also said that Monkey has Autistic tendencies. So when we treat the ADD the Autism will be come more prevalent or not and we will be able to find out if he does have Autism or not. We always knew he was special. Now we know he's just Super Special. Either way we are super blessed, because clearly he's highly functioning.

     Now for the pity party part. I like to be very open and honest so I'd be lying if I said that I'm ok with all of this. I know that it could be much worse. And while I am beyond grateful that it isn't, I can't help but wish that it just wasn't at all. I know it's so selfish but dammit, why? Why my baby? Why couldn't it be me? Or better yet, somebody that I don't know? That way I could just live in my bubble and feel sorry for other people. My boy is so timid and loving a sweet, so why him? I just worry what growing up is going to be like? I just want to him to have a life that he loves. To not have to struggle in school. To grow up and get married and maybe have babies. Work a regular job or go to college. Whatever he wants. Just not be trapped in some mental disorder where he's just almost able to do everything normally. I want him to go on dates and have at least one good lifelong friend. There are so many things I want for both of my babies and mental illness does not make the cut. Like I said, I know that I'm being selfish. I have a friend whose Autistic son is 13, completely nonverbal, very aggressive and combative, and I'm sure she would give anything for him to be half as functioning as my son. And I am so beyond grateful that if my son has to have any mental illness that this is as bad as it is but I just don't want him to have to have any at all. So yes, I'm a selfish bitch, but it is what it is. OK. Pity party over.

     I seriously crave advice and information, so anything that anyone would be willing to share with me about ADD or Vyvance, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for stopping by and please come back soon.
~Ms.Random

Wordless Wednesday

We had a first this last Sunday... SKATING!
The pics are kinda blurry since they were moving and I was taking them with my phone but you can see what we were doing and that they were having fun! My cautious little Monkey had to bring his elbow and knee pads and his helmet. But he got too sweaty to keep them on after he got the hang of it.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.

~Ms.Random