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Frugalissa’s crafty Christmas gift making party

I don’t know about you but Christmas is already on the brain at our house. I’m thinking about what to make for teacher gifts and my oldest daughter, gasp, already mailed a letter to Santa Clause yesterday!

Melissa from Frugalissa Finds is ahead of the game on making teacher gifts. Her and her friends got together to have a Homemade Gift Party where eight women shared a craft and brought enough supplies for each guest to make one too. So each person left with eight different homemade gifts on hand. And each person only spent a total of $40 on all their supplies for the eight crafts they brought to the table.

Melissa admits on her blog that she is not the craftiest gal when it comes to using a glue gun. We’ve all glued our fingers together at one point right? The point is, the ideas these friends shared were doable, fun and fast.

I love the idea of making magnetic boards from old stovetop burner covers. The glass marble magnets idea to go along with them were cute too. And the etched glass mugs they made, inspired by these etched glass storage jars by Martha Stewart – well that’s just genius.

To read more about the crafty party Melissa was so lucky to attend, click on over to her Homemade Gift Party  post where she’ got everything you need to know spelled out on how to host one yourself.

Now go get crafty. Because apparently Santa Clause is already checking his lists!

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Stroller brigade to support the Safe Chemicals Act

This morning I went out to join other local moms in a stroller brigade asking Sen. Alexander to support the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011. It was chilly and I wish the turnout would have been bigger. But the event did garnish the attention of media, which will help in the awareness of this cause that is spearheaded by the national organization Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.

Children put on capes, drew on signs and posters, and parents wrote letters. Then the small clan of 10 people walked to Sen. Alexander’s office to deliver the letters and signs asking him to support the Safe Chemicals Act.

I previewed the event yesterday on this site, with loads of information and ways to help. So even if you were not able to make it today, or you live far away – please take the time to read about the Safer Chemicals Act. And write letters to your senators asking for their support!

To read more about today’s stroller brigade visit Flour Sack Mama, and the News Sentinal.

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Help advocate for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

Local blogger Anne Brock, of Flour Sack Mama, is worried about how the chemicals in today’s world are affecting our children, and she’s taking action.

Anne has taken up the cause talking about toxins on her blog. And now she has linked up with the national organization Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families to bring awareness and advocacy about toxic chemicals in our homes, work and products used around us every day. To read what Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families has posted on their website about Anne’s work, visit this link.

As part of Anne’s action, she is hosting a Stroller Brigade in Knoxville tomorrow, November 10 at 10 am. Parents will meet at Market Square by Union Street, downtown. She will pass out free superhero capes for the first 10 children while parents write hand-written letters to Senator Alexander in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, make signs and learn how to protect our families from toxic chemicals. Then at 10:30, the group will walk to Senator Alexander’s office to deliver the letters at 800 Market Street.

Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families hosts local Stroller Brigades across the county, seeking support and awareness for the Safe Chemicals Act (Senate Bill 847) that was introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) on April 14, 2011. Signaling a clear intention to protect families from toxic chemicals linked to serious health problems, the Safe Chemicals Act is an effort to upgrade America’s outdated system for managing chemical safety – says the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families website.

There will be 10 more Stroller Brigades happening at the same time tomorrow, across the country. You can RSVP for our local event, or find one near you, at this link.

Can’t make it tomorrow but still want to write a letter to Senator Alexander? No problem. Anne has a post about that, making it very simply for you to do so, here. If you live in another state, here is a link to find your Senators.

Thanks for supporting a healthier world for our children.

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5 Reasons I will not get a flu shot

When I walked into my veterinarian’s waiting room and saw the sign on the wall announcing that dogs boarding there are now required to get a canine flu shot I laughed out loud, really loud.

“Are you serious?” I asked the receptionist standing in front of me. I don’t board my dogs there. But I just thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard of. But apparently, according to the vet, most boarders are now requiring dogs get a flu shot. There have been no confirmed cases in my town yet of a dog getting the flu, but there have been in other cities within the state of Tennessee. And my vet says, “Its coming. And dogs have no immunity to it so they really need the shot.”

I personally believe everyone goes a little wacky headed about getting a flu shot this time of year, standing in line, marking their calendars, creating events, administering them in schools and writing news stories about when and where to get your flu shot.

For the record, my girls and I will not be getting flu shots. And neither will my two dogs, nor my two cats for that matter. If they even make them for cats that is. But I’m sure if some company figures out a way to do it and make money off of it, I’ll soon see a sign making flu shots mandatory for cats boarding with my vet too.

I want to be clear that I really, really like my vet’s office and the staff that works there. Lately they have been wonderful at helping us, and our old dog, cope through his painful final days. I’m just not buying into the flu shot for dogs, or for people either.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the flu shot for “everyone 6 months and older.” That would include all five members of my family. But we won’t be doing that!

 

Here are the reasons I say no thanks to the flu shot.

1.   Getting the flu shot does not guarantee you will not get the flu. According to a study released Oct. 26 in an online journal by The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the flu shot is only 59 percent effective for adults ages 18-65 years old. No studies were available for children. Plainly put, the vaccine is just not good enough for me to justify injecting it into my body, or my children. I like how this USA Today article explains this, comparing it’s effectiveness to the polio vaccination which has nearly eradicated the disease.

2.   Every year the flu shot gets changed and the recipe gets rewritten, without long-term findings on what the affects are of ingesting yourself with that particular shot. Here are the three strains the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chose to put into the vaccine this year. If you catch a different strain, your effectiveness of getting a flu shot is zero.

3.   I don’t want the ingredients of the flu shot in my body or my daughters’ bodies. Aside from the formaldehyde, aluminum and chicken egg protein (because the vaccine is cultivated inside of a chicken egg) going into the vaccinations which the CDC details on their website, there could still be thimerosal (also known as mercury) in them too. Out of the 163-173 million doses of influenza vaccine available this season, according to the CDC, only 79 million of those are thimerosal-free. So, I say no thanks to mercury too. And if you do take your kids to get vaccinated, REALLY insist on getting a thimerosal-free shot even if it means the hassle of going somewhere else. Even though thimerosal exposure has been debunked as a cause of autism, by the CDC, I still say mercury can’t be good in my kid’s bloodstream. This Live Strong site is a good one to read more about the ingredients of the flu shot, and the flu in general.

4.   With that said, I’d rather take my chances of getting the flu than the vaccine that has a 59 percent chance of being effective for me, and maybe even less for my children. Yes being sick is no fun and sometimes miserable with children. But I’d much rather take my chance with getting the flu rather than the unknown, untested long-term affects of a vaccine that is still relatively new to the market, and changed year after year.

5.   The numbers that commonly get reported by the CDC saying influenza causes more than 200,000 people in the U.S. to be hospitalized every year. And about 36,000 die from flu-related causes – are bloated and misrepresented. Even the CDC says this area is fuzzy, explaining the complicated method used to document cause of deaths reports pertaining to influenza, which are hard to differentiate between influenza and the respiratory deceases such as bacterial pneumonia that influenza can lead to. In one CDC study, Estimating Seasonal Influenza-Associated Deaths in the United States: CDC Study Confirms Variability of Flu, they even say, “CDC believes that the range of deaths over the past 31 years (~3,000 to ~49,000) is a more accurate representation of the unpredictability and variability of flu-associated deaths.”

 

So with all that said, its pretty simple for me to say no thanks to the flu shot. I’ll take my chances at getting the flu. And if we do get it, we’ll snuggle our way through it with extra books, movies, shared nap times and more soups.

I will disclose that my husband, however, did get a flu shot at this office this year. He sees this as his small way to “take one for the team,” if he can help prevent from bringing the virus into our house. We don’t always see eye-to-eye on immunizations. But I try and understand where he’s coming from and he does the same for me. This helps me see both sides of the story as well.

But for today, I think the pro-vaccine story is so prevalent with media bombarding everyone with lists of every pharmacy, office and school building offering a flu shot, I’m not here to tell you why people should get the flu shot – there is plenty of that going around. I’m here to tell you, people have a reason to say no thanks to the flu shot. It’s that simple.

 

For more resources about the flu shot and vaccine’s in general, from an opposing viewpoint, I encourage you to browse the following sites:

Dr. Tenpenny

Ask Dr. Sears

Vaccination Risk Awareness Network

Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute

Vaccination Liberation

 

For books on vaccinations and children, these are a good place to start:

Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible, Decisions about the Risks, Benefits and Alternatives  by Aviva Jill Romm

What your Doctor May Not Tell you about Children’s Vaccinations by Stephanie Cave

The Vaccine Book by Robert W. Sears

Make an Informed Vaccine Decision for the Health of your Child by Mayer Eisenstein

Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children by Louise Habakus and Mary Holland

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It’s a pumpkin, squash baking, soupapalooza here

Those organic pumpkins from Farmer Megan, our CSA farmer, were nice as decorations for Halloween on our porch. But I was not going to let them go to waste! Friday we baked them up, made cookies and portioned the rest off to be frozen and used later for pumpkin breads and more goodies for Thanksgiving and beyond.

I had been meaning to make some yummy Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies I posted about in Fall is Cooking in my Kitchen, and Friday was the ripe time to do so. Plus my four-year old (My husband, by the way, chimed in recently saying, “Hello – she’ll be five next month!” But for now she’s still four – I’m sure you know what I mean, sniff sniff.) stayed home from school Friday for a fun mommy day. So baking cookies was a must. It had been too long, so we broke out the wheat, made fresh whole-wheat flour and did it up right.

While the pumpkins were still cooking in the oven I was moving on to soups. First up was the butternut squash soup you see up top, also made from Farmer Megan’s squashes. I used a copycat recipe from Whole Foods, for their Classic Butternut Squash Soup found here. I followed it to a tee and it turned out yummy, a seasonal classic soup indeed.

Our refrigerator is in abundance of lovely things from Farmer Megan and I’m on a kick to cook them up before it’s too late. She hands out a wonderful cookbook to each member, organized by the vegetables she grows. Under cabbage I found the following soup, which is a hearty mix of potatoes, beans, and cabbage. It is an unlikely combination, at least not something you see in places like Whole Foods or even most restaurants. But it might be one of our new favorites. It’s not easy finding good, hearty, vegetarian soups to fill up the belly of my non-vegetarian husband. This one was a winner.

 Rustic Farm-Fresh Cabbage Soup

In a large stock pot put in a tablespoon of olive oil and cook 1/2 pound of cubed potatoes with the skin on, for about five minutes or until potatoes are a bit tender. Add a dash of salt while cooking. Stir in 4 chopped garlic cloves and 1/2 large yellow onion, thinly sliced. After about two minutes add  4-5 cups of stock (veggie or chicken) and 1 1/2 cups of white beans (canned or cooked). Bring the pot to a simmer and add 1/2 of a cabbage head sliced into 1/4 inch ribbons. Add salt to taste depending the saltiness of the stock you use. Serve with a generous dusting of fresh grated parmesan cheese.

Served along side we had a spinach feta quiche, steamed broccoli and cheese quesadillas for the kids.

Next up in soupapalooza came Cream of Spinach Soup, also from Farmer Megan’s recipe book, and using up more of that spinach – there are bags and bags of it in my fridge, since it’s the fall season of greens! But by no way a I complaining. This vegetarian salad lover is in fall heaven with this selection of greens made warm, during these days of falling temperatures.

Cream of Spinach Soup

Combine 1 pound of fresh spinach with stems removed, 1 chopped onion and 3 cups of stock (chicken or veggie) and cook until spinach is soft. Then either transfer to a blender or use an immersion blender (mine is my best friend in the kitchen this time of year) to puree. Then add 1 cup of 1/2 and 1/2, heavy cream or milk, season with nutmeg, salt and pepper and serve hot.

We are already warming ourselves up inside our 90-year-old house with wool socks on our feet and a fire going in our living room. Oh and the girls, are already talking about decorating for Christmas and counting down the days till Eddie the Elf makes his return. So yes, soup season seems more than appropriate. And having it topped off by a homemade cookie is nice too.

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Behind These Old Windows :: Art frames for kids

Behind These Old Windows is a series I do here, from time-to-time, to share repurposed and handmade ideas while decorating around the house. We live in a 90 year-old house with huge windows and the original wavy glass. They fill every room with character and inspiration.

My girls are notorious for taping their artwork all over the walls, all over the house, in just about every room. And it’s usually not just artwork. It’s special cards, magazine clippings and cut out drawings from special friends. Even after painting the walls in their room a year ago, they looked like they needed it again. And I needed a solution we could all agree on.

I started by shopping around for vintage frames big enough for artwork and to hide all the dirt on the walls from the taping, and more taping, and the smudging oh my! I want them to be able to display their individual styles in their room, which they share. My solution was this – painted vintage frames with a neutral painted grey board attached to the inside of them to highlight their work. I placed them on the walls of their separate sides of the room they share. The oldest girl chose blue frames and the middle girl chose pink.

The oldest girl has the wall with no windows, more space, more scuffs and more stuff to hang. Therefore she got the most frames. To balance that out on the opposite side, the middle girl got the biggest frame plus two old mirrors painted pink that got hung up on her side as well. She uses them when she gets herself ready in the morning, fixing her hair and such. We are a bunch of girls after all! 

The boards within the frames were designed to be magnetic boards. I went to great trouble to paint four coats of magnetic paint, covering it with two coats of satin grey paint. After many frustrating attempts to find magnets strong enough and lightweight enough to hold up heavy art paper, nothing could be found. So we went back to the old trusty tape, where this idea came from to begin with.

In the end they worked out nicely. They serve a good purpose, are practical, repurposed, pretty and most definitely functional.

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My rainy, poop filled, milk spilled day went like this

Last Friday it rained all day. My toddler didn’t take a nap. I had been in the house most of the week with sick kids and I still needed to get a birthday present for a best friend’s party, for my oldest daughter.

It was one of the those days we all have once in a while. But sometimes it’s nice to know such things happen to other people that usually seem so normal. Believe me, I’m far from normal or always perfectly put together. So I’m going to tell you about this afternoon where I got stuck carrying a stinky cloth diaper through the bookstore along with a wet purse with milk and smooched crackers in the bottom of it.

Feeling optimistic as I pulled out of the school parking lot with my three daughters, I brought up the idea of an outing to go get a birthday gift. Then came, “But noooooooo. I have to get her two boxes of Squinkies because that’s what she wants and that’s what I told her I would get,” said my loyal daughter about  her friend whom she’s been “BFF” with since she was two.

Me, also knowing her mother since the girls were two, knows how much the mom can’t stand these little Squinkies running a mock in the house and the drama that follows when the micro sized toys quickly become lost into the depths sofa land. We had one experience with this, before Squinkies were forever banned at our house. So naturally, I couldn’t bear to do that to this mama friend of mine and bring dozens of the little creatures into her house. The girls without a doubt were teaming up on this one.

Since it was raining this was going to be a one-stop shopping endeavor, therefore lessening my bargaining power with my daughter as to where to go and what to get.

I have a philosophy that if it’s raining hard enough to need an umbrella, I stay put and I wait for it to pass. On most days I just don’t have an extra hand to maneuver an umbrella. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. Friday it probably would have been worth the trouble.

My idea of hitting up the art supply store for a gift was nixed. Even the fancy toy store they never pass up was nixed. But oh, the bookstore, that, my daughter decided was the perfect place to get a gift – from one best friend nerd to the next. Coffee for me, milk for them, cookies and all will be happy at the bookstore. The peace will be restored. I even splurged for a pumpkin cheesecake seeing I hadn’t been out of the house in a week. I got two bites before we had to grab everything and make our first run to the potty.

It was mostly a peaceful trip, between the poop and the milk cup that spilled in my purse mushing up the cracker crumbs that had been living in the bottom of it. And having to reorganize the whole section of fairy books in order to put them in the right order with the right series so my daughter could properly ponder over the perfect choice of books. Because heaven for bid, you don’t read a book without reading the series starting with the one that starts with the 1! But we handled it all calmly.

Then came our second trip to the potty when the last of my toddler girl’s stomach bug, mushy muck poop came out of her and into her cloth diaper. I had no wet bag, no wipes and no diaper. Because it was raining I didn’t plan on going anywhere.

So I took my cheesecake out of its paper bag, rinsed out the diaper, wrapped it in paper towels and stuck it in the bag. The cheesecake stayed in my hand. And I did, just to have you know, still eat that cheesecake – because it’s my favorite desert ever and I wasn’t going to be denied of it that day.

My toddler is now wearing no diaper under her pants that barely stay up without a bulky cloth diaper filing the rear.

Finally everyone makes their selections of books and we head to the checkout line. That’s where my toddler shakes her milk (what was left of it) all over the tile floor. Then the paper towels (still dry) wrapped around the poopy diaper, get used to wipe up the spilled milk.

We run to the car with no umbrella. Then I take the books out of the bag (the only thing keeping them dry from the rain) in order to use the plastic bag to put under my diaper-less daughter’s bottom to save her car seat from an accident and having to wash the whole thing. Luckily she is a potty training wonder child (when I want her to be) and she didn’t go the whole way home.

In the car my oldest daughter asked very politely to please get some ink for my printer because she had a story she wanted to type out and print for school. Office Depot was on the way home so I stopped. It was like a three ring circus while all three girls played hide and seek circling the isle where I was standing, studying the photos of all the 800 printers and 10,000 kinds of ink trying to remember which one mine takes.

I have a thing against printers and I went years without owning one as an effort to be paperless and save ink cartridges, to be greener. Needless to say, I had no idea what kind of ink to buy for my very seldom-used printer. But for a story typed by a seven year old titled “The day the earth stopped spinning,” yes I’ll buy it.

Lucky there was no peeing on the floor in the store from my diaper-less toddler.

We made it home, to pile out of Betty the Bus (our van) along with our coats, bags, poopy diaper, school bags, empty snack containers, empty milk cups, banana peels, my dirty wet purse and no umbrella.

What a day! We survived.

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Tips for baking with children

Preschool age children have a lot of fun baking, helping, measuring, mixing, rolling and enjoying the tastes of their work. And sometimes it’s fun getting messy too.

When I was a child I was no different. In fact, when I was about five years old I “ran away” with my easy bake oven. I thought I was set for life. By the time I got to the end of the driveway I realized I had to plug it in and my plan was not going to work. As I got older my love for baking never stopped and I remember thinking I wanted to have a bakery when I grew up.

I’m all grown up now and one of my favorite things to do with my kids is baking. Through my years of mothering I’ve learned some tricks that help out in the process, letting young children get the most of the experience, and minimizing the mess for mom too.

Our baking process starts by grinding our own wheat to make fresh flour. It’s sometimes messy but always yummy.

Tip number one is to prepare ahead of time in order to involve children in all steps of the process. They will lose interest, or accidentally dump the bag of flour on the floor, if you have your head in the pantry rummaging in a fury to find the vanilla.

Have all the ingredients set out ahead of time, separated by things that get mixed in different bowls. Once something gets used, put it away so you eliminate possible mistakes like doubling the baking powder and forgetting the baking soda.

When baking with one, two or even three little ones it really helps to keep things organized and simple.

Tip number two is to have different steps for different children to do. For example, one child gets to use the teaspoons to measure and one gets to do the flour and the sugar with the cups. This also helps teach the measurements and what they mean. It gives the chance to see the comparison differences of a teaspoon, a half a teaspoon and so on. Everyone gets to mix!

Tip number three is to make things easy for children to help. Either put things down on a child size table for them or have sturdy, safe footstools/chairs available in the kitchen for standing on at counter heights. Having small size spoons, cutting boards, utensils, spatulas and cookie sheets can be fun for children too.

Sometimes these things can be found within children’s cooking kits. Sometimes real versions of these things can be found in stores for adult purposes – like mini silicon spatulas and spoons. These little odds and ends can sometimes be found in the discount isles of Homegoods. The Montessori catalog For Small Hands is great for ideas and endless options that children love.

Tip number four is to involve the children in the clean up. Make this fun by having small brooms and dustpans handy or even a real dust buster style vacuum small enough for children to use. When cleaning up is made part of the routine, with child size materials easily available to them, and parents who make a pleasant example of cleaning up – it becomes a fun process.

Tip number five is to keep basic supplies and ingredients for your much loved recipes on hand. Living with children can be very unpredictable and you never know when the mood to bake will strike. Plus when your child asks, “Mom can we make cookies?” And then you answer YES and immediately start getting the ingredients ready. Their excitement is priceless.

Lastly, cook, clean and enjoy!

Rain boots, naked legs and Christmas PJs just after Halloween are optional. But they sure do add to the fun.

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CSA Wednesdays bring the best goodies

There’s lots of hustling and tiding about my house right now as we pack up from Halloween. And start cleaning out and getting ready for crafting and the wonderful making of the holiday season. One thing is still certain though, my favorite day of the week is Wednesday when our CSA farmer delivers farm fresh goodies right to our door. And oh my, the fall greens are glorious. Carrot picking is coming soon. That’s always a great time for the girls.

While there’s only a few weeks left of our fall deliveries, I’m thrilled that Farmer Megan’s farm is doing well enough to offer a winter CSA this year. So the goodness will continue and the warm fresh made soups will fill our home all winter long. Below is what was delivered to our door last Wednesday.

Farmer Megan is from Care of the Earth Farms, a small farm run by her and her husband. I think she has an incredible story. She went to college to study public health and ended up deciding she would rather grow the food to feed people than get bogged down in the world of policy. So she got her degree and went to go work on a farm in New York. She met her husband there and after a few years they came back to Knoxville, where she grew up, bought seven acres and made a farming lifestyle for themselves. She designed and built her own irrigation system pumping water from the stream on the farm – all by herself before her husband had relocated with her. It is 100 percent organic. They even squash the bugs off the cabbage leaves by hand!

Two years ago a person in my neighborhood sent an email out about this former student of the private high school where he is a teacher, saying she was starting a CSA and asked if anyone wanted to sign up. I jumped at the chance, and organized enough people in my neighborhood to do it so that we are a weekly drop point for her lovely grey bins of veggies, or as it is right now, lovely grey bins of greens.

Now I’m going to go get busy in the kitchen. I’ll be back to tell you what I cooked up.

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The candy fairy comes tonight

After Halloween I dread, for days, the explanations, whining and persistent asking of “Pleeeeeeeassssse can I have a piece of my Halloween candy?”

As a whole, we have discussions about moderation and that sweets are okay as long as we eat them here and there, balanced with other healthy things throughout the day. They might get a sweetened organic milk box after school or an organic “chocolate” snack bar that is made for kids and really carob, not even chocolate. I know what there are eating for lunch and they come home and snack on apples, carrots, bananas, popcorn, cheese and such. So I say what’s the big deal, go for it.

But when it comes to the artificial, bad tasting stuff that lands in trick-or-treat buckets. I say it’s really not worth my efforts based on how we discuss sweets. I have a philosophy if I’m going to eat something fattening, sugary and treat-like, it better be darn good and worth the calories.

In the past we have made homemade cookies the day after Halloween and they are good with that, as a treat instead of candy. Then eventually I just tell them the candy “has gone bad” and it disappears.

Today was piano lesson day for my oldest daughter and Panera for dinner always follows. While eating I threw out the offer to take them next door for ice cream if they agreed to give me their bags of candy when we got home. That didn’t go over so well, to put it mildly.

However it turns out the cool thing at their school is to give the candy over to the “candy fairy,” who in return leaves them presents. Then they started bargaining.

In the end, the deal they worked out was ice cream, three of their favorite pieces of candy saved for later and a visit from the candy fairy. It was a done deal.

I’ve tried the candy fairy offer before and no one took me up on it. So this caught me off guard and unprepared. Making something was really out of the question since they would have recognized that the materials came from home. The pressure is on to leave something good, so they’ll want the candy fairy to come back next year.

I asked if the candy fairy ever brings money and they said no way! So after they were asleep I scrambled off to Walgreens.

Each of the girls are getting new headbands, hair clips, organic lip gloss/chap stick, toothbrushes with fun suction bottoms, plus a new collective stash of colored pencils, crayons and markers.

I sure hope the candy fairy is invited back!

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