Upcycle and Map That Birthday

I thought I'd share another fun gift wrap, perfect for those who love to upcycle. I have an old world atlas book I've been pulling pages out of for various projects. Most recently I decided to use a page to wrap a birthday gift. I used a page that had our actual location on it for a little whimsical fun.

A Close Call For The Tooth Fairy

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Recently, the tooth fairy had a really close call that left her frozen in her tracks. The boys had gone to bed, and the tooth fairy wanted to wait a good while to make sure everyone was sound asleep before it was time to do her duties. This multi-tasking tooth fairy got lost somewhere between folding laundry and trying to catch up with some emails, that she almost forgot her most important role. One little boy was sleeping on his tooth that was wrapped up in a vintage hankie waiting for the power of magic, to have that tooth turn into some bounty. So this tooth fairy went to her handy wallet to get her golden dollar coin, recently acquired at a nearby bank, then tip toed into said little boy's bedroom to perform some magic. Tooth fairy reached under the pillow, took hold of the special hankie, replaced the tooth with the golden reward. Just as she was returning the hankie to it's place under the little boy's pillow, little boy's eyes opened wide. Little boy stared at tooth fairy with a glazed stare for what was mere seconds but felt like an eternity, he proceeded to roll over and was back to dreaming about whatever little boys dream about. Tooth fairy quickly scurried out of little boy's room and realized she had been holding her breath for much too long. She let out a giant sigh and counted her lucky stars, that little boy was in REM. Certainly he'll have no recollection of this tooth fairy's visit. phew!

Lock Down Drill

This week was drill practice at Aidan's school. They did fire drills, earthquake drills, and lock down drills. What, you aren't familiar with lock down drills? Yeah, neither was I until Aidan told us all about them during dinner.

A lock down drill in Aidan's words "you have to close the door and stay away from the windows so that the criminal or robber doesn't see you. You can hide under your desk."

There was no discussion about the criminal possibly being a shooter. I was relieved about this, because frankly, I really wasn't prepared to explain to my boys that during a lock down there would possibly be someone with a gun who may shoot someone.

What I do know, is hearing my kids have to practice lock down drills in elementary school makes me truly sad. What has our society become that my kids innocence has to be tainted in such a manner.

Fire Disturbs Our Easter and Spring Break

It was the day before Easter, Max had taken the boys to the Marine Headlands and I was home prepping for our Easter trip to visit family. I had just finished boiling a dozen eggs for the kids to dye when they got home, was getting ready to bake a cake, and was catching up on some laundry. The windows were open, I smelled smoke which I thought was coming from outside. I looked around our house, ran down to our basement, came back in checked the dryer lint trap but no signs of fire. I called my neighbor to tell her I thought she might have a fire when just at that moment, I saw the flames poke themselves out from under our dryer. I hung up, dialed 911. Just as I was pulling the pin off our fire extinguisher Max walked in the door, grabbed it out of my hand and proceeded to spray the dryer, my neighbor was outside with the boys. There was the loud popping of electricity and the crashing of the motor as it dropped behind the dryer and in less than 2 minutes our entire home was engulfed by a black gray smoke..and that was the end of any Spring Break plans we might have had. Fortunately, the damage was minimal but we had to improvise Easter and spring break plans. Dropping off the boys with friends (love those friends) so we could begin the long tedious process of cleaning up. 6 weeks later, I still don't have a new dryer, I like to say we've taken the eco-friendly approach and I'm in the process of perfecting the line-dry technique as long as the weather allows. Why we don't have a dryer, is complicated, it's about timing and needs so we're waiting. Why I haven't blogged in so long, well I think that answer is obvious. Hopefully, soon I'll have more answers.