Review and giveaway: HomeGoods holiday gift hunt

I was recently invited to review the HomeGoods store by participating in a $50 gift-shopping challenge. Read more to see how the girls and I spent our money, view the biggest lollipop in the world, and enter our $50 HomeGoods giveaway.

The girls gave Tangled three and a half thumbs up (out of four)

Took Ro and Ree to see the very first showing of Tangled (the new Disney Rapunzel movie) the morning it came out. And they were thrilled! They kept saying “No one else in the whole world has seen this movie yet, mama!!” I didn’t get into time zones and preview showings and all that jazz with them, just agreed and enjoyed their excitement. Hee!

They sat at the end of the row (quite far from me in my opinion) with their BFF and ate popcorn and some kind of Sour Patch candy stuff that I can’t even smell without wincing.

They loved the movie, thought it was fun and funny and also kind of scary. The kidnapper woman was vile (Disney villains are just loathsome, aren’t they?! but I swear she is the worst one I remember), but they were hanging pretty well with the movie as a whole until the hero got stabbed. Poor sweeties thought he was dead and cried big huge tears (oh my babies, oh my heart!). It was totally my fault too. I forgot to give them our standard pre-movie talk about how the good guy always wins in Disney movies and everything always turns out alright even if it gets scary for a little bit. Oh man! Bad mama. I scurried over to their side of the theater as soon as I heard the distress and hugged them tight and told them to just watch for another minute and then he would be A-OK. And magically he was (phew!).

They talk about the movie all the time and can’t wait until it comes out on DVD. And they’ve added a few Rapunzel-related items to their Christmas lists, which is so cute. The best part was when Ro was scribbling away at the art table today and handed me this:

Rapunzel in her tower. Swoon--the adorableness just slays me!

I’d love to hear what your kids thought of the movie. Did they like it, hate it, think it was too scary, or something else entirely?

Nothing says Christmas like some marshmallow crafts

The girls and I planned a light, fluffy day after Thanksgiving, and it involved plenty of marshmallows (which I don’t eat, by the way, because who on earth would eat those things when there are Hershey’s Kisses to be had?!). Anyhow, first we gathered our materials for the crafting:

The stuff: Multicolored toothpicks, big and small marshmallows, orange TicTacs, a tube of white frosting, mini chocolate chips, fruit roll, Hershey’s Kisses (get two bags right off that bat, because if you’re anything like me you’ll eat an entire bag and be ticked off that you have to go back to the store to restock), pretzel sticks, paper towels, and kitchen shears.

Now from that list of stuff, you can just go hog wild with the Christmas crafts and create all manner of festive (and edible) decorations. We chose to make snowman ornaments and star ornaments for our tree.

Snowman Ornament Instructions: To make a snowman, first get a couple of toothpicks and jam them through three marshmallows to hold your snowman body together. Then break a pretzel stick in half and push the halves into the middle of your snowman to form arms.

Poke an eye hole with a toothpick, then put a glob of icing on the pointy end of a mini chocolate chip and push it into the hole to make an eye. Repeat for the other eye. Do the same for the nose, but use an orange TicTac.

Cut a long, thin strip of fruit roll, fringe the ends, then wrap it around the snowman’s neck and twist to make a nifty scarf. I only bought cherry fruitroll, and wish I had picked up a few more colors to add some variety to our snow people. Next time I’ll get a few of those horrid-looking green and blue fruit rolls too.

I tasted the cherry fruit roll, but there’s no way I’ll taste that blue stuff. I know two little folks who will, though... Ree thoroughly enjoyed the fruity delight:

And I don’t even know how many marshmallows Ro ate. Every time I turned around she looked like this:

Use a gob of icing to stick a Hershey’s Kiss hat on the little dude. And make some buttons the same way you did the eyes. Then let them dry. Voila, snow people! I think they came out really cute! Ree’s is on the left, mine is in the middle, and Ro’s is on the right:

We’re going to use a needle and some dental floss to add hanging hoops so we can put them on the tree.

Christmas Star-like Thingamajigs: Next we went all freeform and decided to make, ummmm, for lack of a better descriptor let’s call them Christmas Stars. Yeah that’s it. Heh. Probably don’t even need to say what we did, right?

I sort of went for the minimalist approach:

Ro was kind of in the middle with the amount of marshmallows she used:

And Ree, well Ree clearly went down the “more is better” avenue. That thing is actually heavy.

Lopsided and funny looking for sure, but definitely endearing. And, most importantly, we had oodles of fun and they’ll look really cute on our tree.

Cheers, and happy Christmas prep! (Alrighty, who has the tree up already? Come on, spill it. I’d love to be one of those families who gets the lights on the house as soon as the turkey is cleaned up, but the reality is that we’re kind of late-December decorators by the time we get our act together...)

Black Friday is fun for non-shoppers too!

We have a tradition on Black Friday too, but it’s a little different than the norm.

We all sleep in as late as possible (8:47 this morning – can I get an AMEN?!!), snuggle in the big bed, and avoid getting dressed as long as possible. We play games, eat whatever cereal we can scrounge out of the pantry, and goof around. Then, when we get hungry for some real food, we finally put on some pretty clothes and go to the mall. Yes, the mall! I know, I know, this is starting to sound like your average Joe Black Friday shopping tradition. But it’s not. You see, our tradition is to go to one of the less-popular malls on Black Friday, grab lunch in the oh-so-swanky food court, and then visit Santa for the first time of the season. Woohooo! The jolly guy is always there the day after Thanksgiving, but here’s the thing: no one is visiting him. Everyone else in the mall is battling it out in the endless check-out lines, fighting for bargains in sweater departments that look like they’ve been bombed, and running through electronics stores seeking that elusive 75% off big-screen tv that was advertised.

Ahhhhhhh. We just nimbly avoid it all and keep our eye on the real prize, the dude in red.

Nicely played, little Ro and little Ree. (By the way, it’s not their best Santa picture, and not the worst. Check out all the previous santa pics from 2005 to 2009.)

Then we stop by Macy’s afterwards. Not to shop, oh no, you couldn’t pay me to get in those angry check-out lines that stretch all the way around the store. No, our destination is the Santa mailbox that Macy’s always sets up. Adorable little desk, Santa postcards, and shiny red mailbox. Always fun.

I have to write this down or I’ll forget: Ro wrote that she’d like a life-sized Rapunzel doll (we saw it in Target yesterday), and Ree asked for “the Tangled toys” (which I think were the 9” Rapunzel doll and horse that we also saw in Target). Oh, in all the pics Ro has pink sleeves and Ree has white ones, in case it was hard to tell.

After the Santa Stuff this year, we ran by the x-ray office to get a followup scan of Ree’s arm. God bless the iPAD, that’s all I can say about that. I don’t think the girls even noticed that we were there for an hour. A Frosty movie and part of a Tinkerbelle one and they were in hog heaven.

Upon arriving home, it was time for marshmallow Christmas crafts. We go for easy and edible around here. Whipped up a few marshmallow snowmen and some dubious-looking, um, Christmas stars. Yeah, Christmas stars, that’s what they are. Hey they’ll look cute on the tree, and that’s what counts, right?

The crafts probably deserve their own post, so I’ll jot down a few notes and details and post the rest of the pics tomorrow. Hope your Black Friday was fruitful, and I’d love to hear: Did you score some insane bargains today or avoid the malls like the plague and indulge in some other kind of Black Friday tradition?

Well of course the fairies were in the tree

Why did I even bother looking for them anywhere else?

The girls have had pixie dust on the brains lately. They’ve watched every single fairy movie Disney ever made, have reduced countless sets of wings and wands to sparkly rubble, and constantly “fly” around the house pretending to be Rosetta, or Silvermist, or Iridessa. (If those names don’t ring any bells, I’d venture to guess you haven’t yet been subjected to hours and hours of the magic of Pixie Hollow.)

They’ve been eyeing the big boxed set of six fairies at Target for months now and I keep steering them away from it thinking that they’re going to grow out of this obsession and we don’t need to be cluttering up the house with a bunch of winged dolls. Well today they finally talked me into it. They decided to pool the last of their birthday money (thanks Ma and Pa!) and whooped and hollered when they figured out that together they could get The Big Box. They insisted on carrying it all through the store and out to the car. And once home they chattered and giggled and gave a very loud running fairy commentary for the entire 20 minutes it took me to get that blasted box open and release each sprite from the hidden wires, tape, and thread holding her down. (Side note: the way toys are packaged these days gives me fits! &*^%$!@!@!!!!)

Oh the joy! They grabbed the fairies roughly (but lovingly, I’m sure) and raced outside. I followed a few minutes later with the camera (after sneaking some Pepperidge Farm ginger family cookies), figuring they were in the playhouse or up in the playstructure, or somewhere normal, ya know? But no, the eight of them were wedged up in one of the tall pine trees and the tree was swaying and bobbing as they attempted to get higher. Not even kidding.

Apparently fairies don’t climb in their wings, because they had all been ripped off and haphazardly discarded on the ground (a sight that amused me):

It was also amusing that the fairies were lined up execution style after mean mama told everyone to get down out of the tree:

When I asked why the poor dears were faceplanted on the flagstone, the girls condescendingly brushed me out of the way saying “uh, how else would they get their wings on, mama?”

Oh. Yeah.

I think they’re quite satisfied with their purchase.

Hope that Big Box ‘o Fairies goes on sale for Black Friday, because I think this might be the birthday gift of choice from our little sprites, who have already been invited to three classmate birthday parties.

PS: For those who asked, this is the 6-pack of 9-inch fairies that Target sells for $49.99. They also sell a 6-pack of mini-sized 4.5-inch fairies for somewhere around $25.

The complete luxury of aloneness (*updated)

Ro and Ree are at gymnastics camp today and I have five whole hours to do whatever I want. FIVE! Can’t even remember the last time I had five hours to myself. The possibilities are mind blowing. Heh. Actually I went grocery shopping after dropping them off (had to get supplies for pumpkin pies and marshmallow crafts, among other things), cleaned up the incredible mess made when a brand-new jar of dill pickles rolled off the counter and shattered on the floor (the stench cannot even be described), watched House on tv, and now am going through a few pics on the camera. After posting this, I’m going to unpack the living room and then I think I’ll take a shower and even blow dry my hair (oh the stunning luxury!).

I meant to take a pic of the girls in their brand-new leotards on the way to camp this morning, but it is freezing-ass cold and raining like mad, so here they are in ski jackets. Sigh... Just imagine Ro in her sparkly black and red leotard and Ree in her metallic violet one.

We have a busy week coming up of crafts and fun, interspersed with plenty of unpacking. And of course there’s Thanksgiving. Before Ro and Ree left school last week, we got to watch all of the Kindergarten classes in a sweet, sweet Thanksgiving performance. All those Native Americans and pilgrims were adorable!

Their Kindergarten teacher (adore her!!) is the sweetest lady ever. The girls are so lucky to have her this year and can’t wait to go to school every day.

In this pic, by the way, the girls (Ro left, Ree right) and their teacher are standing next to the huge teepee that’s in their classroom. The first day it was erected, Ree excitedly told me “Ro got to go in the teepee!!!!” And Ro disgustedly replied “Yeah I went in that old tent, but there was no tv in there.” I nearly spit up. Tee-PEE, sweetie, not tee-vee. Hee!!!

One of their classroom decorations is a big ole turkey, whose feathers are signs the kiddos made saying what they’re thankful for. I have to admit that Ro and Ree’s made me tear up a little.

Ro said “I’m thacfole fer my twin sister Ree”:

And Ree said “I’m thancfl for my famly.”

Awwwww. And we’re so dang thankful for Ro and Ree. Little sweeties are the lights of our lives. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

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Updated: Got a shot of the new leotards once we got home and in our warm little house again. Cuties!

Yes, I know, I know, it is completely shocking even to me that I painted the room pink

We told the girls they could finally sleep in their new bedroom and they practically knocked us over in their haste to start moving furniture out of the guest room. Their determined faces just sent me into a fit of the giggles. They were in that old guest room like a shot gathering up all their “important” stuff.

Ooo, don’t mess with this tough little mover. I think she’s union.

They pointed out to us many, many, many times that they really shouldn’t be sleeping in these embarrassingly puny todder beds any longer and were a little miffed that the new beds won’t be delivered for another week or two. Ah well, they made do. We’ve ordered cute white twin beds with built-in trundles so friends (and lots of cousins) can stay over.

Gee, do you think they’re happy?

There was quite animated dancing and celebrating:

And then, the next morning, we all cuddled in the big bed and the girls watched Tinkerbelle while TubaDad and I watched the fun rainstorm out the window.

We’re kinda liking the new house today. Things are starting to fall into place and I don’t feel quite as panicky as I did when we made the insane decision to move into a bigger house that needed some work and put our own lovely house on the market. It’s going to be alright in the end...