What do you get when you combine great customer service, beautiful weather, some sweet-and-salty deliciousness and a whole heap of corn kernels? A perfect fall day at Hill Ridge Farms.
Click here to read the rest of the post at My Convertible Life and learn more about what made this day so great -- and not at all itchy.
Recipe for Holiday Fun
by Abby
Ingredients
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1 Pajama-clad toddler or preschooler
20-30 of Santa's elves
1 Courtyard of "real" snow
1 Two hour serving of Live holiday music
2 Adult beverages (Fat Tire for the Daddy, wine for Momma)
3 Plates piled high with chicken, mac & cheese, carrots, and cinnamon apples
Cupcakes, cookies, and other yummy desserts (optional)
In a large children's play museum, combine the first 6 ingredients. Add cupcakes and desserts to taste.
Once thoroughly combined, you'll be rewarded with a very merry and entirely jolly Triangle family.
Although very busy with merriment making, Abby does still try to make time to document all the festivities over at her personal blog, My Sweet Babboo. If she finds herself too busy baking or gift wrapping, she may just Tweet about it since 140 characters is much faster than an entire blog post.
I love the Christmas season. I wish it lasted a lot longer. In fact, when Ilina Tweeted the other day, "I am so irritated that one local radio station is Xmas music 24/7 & that our city's Xmas parade is *this* Saturday," my reaction was to find that radio station the very next time I got in my car.
Our family tradition is to go buy our trees (yes, plural) the day after Thanksgiving. That weekend is spent decorating trees, changing out our everyday white dishes to the Portmerian Christmas dishes, and loading the CD player with Christmas music. We watch "A Christmas Story," "Elf," and "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
I typically have at least half of my presents purchased and wrapped by Thanksgiving because what tree wants to sit lonely in the corner with no gifts?
The table linens are changed out to trees and snowmen, and the glasses in the cabinet all have Santa on them. Most every part of the decor that is interchangeable is changed out for Christmas.
I am by no means a Thanksgiving hater. I love Thanksgiving. I love cooking for Thanksgiving and celebrating Thanksgiving. My desire to have Christmas come early this year has nothing to do with a disrespect of Thanksgiving.
I just wanted Christmas to last a little longer.
But I have a confession. As Little Bird and I drove to Chapel Hill yesterday listening to 101.5 and their 24/7 Christmas music, I just couldn't get into it. Some of it had to do with their horrific choices (please, God, why did you let Stevie Nicks record "Silent Night"?), but most of it had to do with the heat, humidity, and the fact that I hadn't made my 20 gallon stock pot of turkey stock yet.
So all of you Twitter friends, I take it back. I'm waiting for Thanksgiving. Impatiently waiting, but waiting nonetheless.
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What about y'all? When does Christmas start at your house? How long does it last? What are your traditions to bring in the holidays with your family?
When Marty isn't holding her breath for Christmas, she also blogs at Don't Take the Repeats. You can argue with her about grits and Christmas music on Twitter.
It was one of those my baby is so cranky we will both explode if we stay inside kind of days. My son, Oscar has been waking up early from his afternoon naps which results in an earlier bedtime. This of course means we all get up at the crack of dawn and the cycle repeats. So, I thought we would go for a nice long stroll at North Hills. We started at Chick-Fil-A, because 1) Ahem, we live in North Carolina, and 2)They were doing a food drive for free sandwiches.
I'll trade my cans of Tuna for a chicken sandwich ALL DAY LONG.
And can I stop right there and talk about how I LOVE that little fake grassy area outside at North Hills? I never understood why they didn't just put real grass there. I mean I guess it is easier to maintain. But it always seemed odd to me that there was astro-turf outside. However, now that I am the mom of a very curious crawler, I thank the Lord for synthetic nature! I can let him crawl and roll around to his heart's content. And crawl he did! It was a beautiful day.
We walked around the plaza for a bit and headed back down to our parking spot, conveniently located next to Target. OK fine, you're twisting my arm, I'll go inside the store! I grabbed a couple super cheap items for myself off the clearance rack (because nothing in my current wardrobe cost more than $3.74) and headed for the Cheerios. At this point Oscar was starting to get cranky and I realized we were almost an hour past nap time. He had been really good and my plan was working, so we walked toward the checkout.
Just then, in the home section I heard the loveliest music-box rendition of Jingle Bells and I had to find it. Lo and Behold there was a snow globe with a reindeer inside and the music was playing. I shook it and thought, I bet Oscar would think this is neat. I leaned down and wound it up and shook the globe and there he sat, absolutely entranced. His eyes lit up and he was tracing each little snow flake with his fingers. We looked at a few more, each with their own Christmas Carol and it occurred to me that even though I have known this is his first Christmas, I hadn't really considered what it would be like for HIM. He is the perfect age to really have fun with it and for the first time, I understood why parents get so into the holidays. It's not about the latest greatest toy. It's about the magic! Watching his eyes get wide and excited was just about the best thing in the world. I can't wait to create that magic for him as the holidays draw near. That day, I found magic at Target. And yes, this December Oscar will be unwrapping his very own snow globe.
An original Triangle Mamas post. When Andrea is not getting all mushy in the home goods aisle, she can be found blogging at Lil-Kid-Things or gabbing away on Twitter.
In no particular order, here are some of the adorable children of the Triangle Mamas.
This is Abigail in her mama's German dirndl from when she was two. NIkki says, "I like to think of this as her dramatic reenactment of Gretl's 'So Long, Farewell' exit in The Sound of Music."
Here are Juni and Pip, Cyndi's little ones. Buzz Lightyear here even had "Andy" written on the bottom of his shoe. Very authentic.
What might have been a dragon on the hanger became a dinosaur on Linus. Abby's little man was rawry scary.
From our newest Triangle Mama, Kelly, whose inaugural post will be live Wednesday, we have Mr. Wyatt.
Little Bird was a Little Bear for the day. Marty and her sewing machine pulled off a handmade Halloween again this year, but only with a couple of hours to spare.
Cindy's little dino was so excited, she had the costume on in Target the day they were picking it out.
Ilina had a handmade Halloween too. Here is Super Deal and Ninja Bird in all their glory.
Welcome to fall, y'all. Bring on the turkeys and the trees!
Even if you aren't heading to the beach for the holiday weekend, there is still plenty of fun happening right here in the Triangle. Here in Durham you even have parade options for the younger set.
Your first option is to participate in a 60 year running parade of children over in the Watts-Hillandale neighborhood. Bring your bikes, wagons, or strollers all decked out in red, white, and blue and join the parading masses as they celebrate the independence of our country, the spirit of children, and the comfort of good neighbors. Festivities begin at 10AM at the neighborhood's park in the 2200 block of West Club Blvd and will continue following the parade in Oval Park.
If your a bit more of a procrastinator, like me, you can opt to join in the less historical but just as fun Central Park Children's Parade. To participate, just bring your wagons and bikes to Central Park. The good folks from The Scrap Exchange will be on hand with plenty of re-purposed supplies for turning your tiny transportation into a spectacular Independence Day float. Central Park and The Scrap Exchange is located in the 500 block of Foster Street. Decorating begins at 9:45AM with the parade scheduled to depart at 10:45AM from the corner of Foster and West Corporation.
Both options are loads of fun and last just long enough to make sure that your baby, toddler, or preschooler is home in time for a quick lunch and afternoon nap. They are definitely gonna need that nap, and you too, if there is any hope of them staying awake to enjoy fireworks.
For other 4th of July activities going on around the Triangle, check out MyNC where they have a round up of the local festivities.
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Abby, an avid pie baker, is hoping for a long enough afternoon nap to throw together a cherry pie. Of course, if she gets too involved in blogging or Twitter, she'll get nothing done. You can read about all of her projects at her personal blog, My Sweet Babboo.
Easter is fast approaching. That means cute (matching, natch) outfits
for Bird and Deal. This was an easy task when the boys were gurgling,
swaddled infants with rolls galore and delectable chubby cheeks. At 45
and 35 pounds and approaching the limits of the height charts, they no
longer look cute in smocked john johns with bunnies and posies embroidered.
The whole one piece outfit is no longer an option with the torsos on my
kids. Despite their extraordinarily long torsos, there is no way in
hell you'd catch me dressing my boys in frou frou garb. They are boys afterall, not babies. And certainly not sissies. ..not that there's anything wrong with that.
There has been a permanent ban on Little Lord Fauntleroy clothing at Chez Dirt & Noise. There comes a time for every mother (I'm not excluding fathers, but let's face it, they would throw the kids in a paper sack with holes cut out for head and arms and call it a day), to come to grips with the fact their boy babies turn into big boys. Rambunctious, rough and tumble, BOYS. Moms need to stop shopping at stores like Mommas Boy Clothing once the kid can feed himself solid food with an utensil of any kind, fingers included. Let's be real, it is highly unlikely that I would ever shop at a store called Mommas Boy Clothing at all. Folks need to quit making this stuff larger than a size 2T, lest those boys get the snot kicked out of them when Momma's watchful eye strays.
Dressing Bird and Deal in traditional Easter attire would just make them look ridiculous, akin to the mother of a high school classmate I recall who wore mini skirts and anklets with spiky heels in 1985 because it was all the rage among teenage girls. She wore such a getup thinking she looked young and hip. In reality, she looked old and dreadful. Costumed, even. I am now as old as she was then, and you wouldn't catch me in any of the crap teenage girls are wearing these days. Another reason I'm glad to have sons! Those of you with daughters have uber fabulous options for Easter attire now, but wait until those girls want bling on their too tight shirts and cutesy words across their bottoms. Will someone please quash this trend?
Now the quandary is how to dress the boys appropriately for Easter photos without knee socks, saddle shoes, and a peter pan collar? Last year was freezing so we made do with madras pants and sweaters...I couldn't wrangle them into the white bucks I bought so those still sit anew in the closet. I'm going to cram their little (or not so little) feet into those shoes for a photo opp this year. At this rate, it might be the only Easter garb they wear.
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