So Unrelated...

When I was at my brother's house, I was able to read a lot of magazines that my SIL had, and they were awesome! I fell in love with "Real Simple ~Life made easier~" It is the coolest magazine ever... easy to read, tons of stuff from recipes to fashion, to homemade decorations etc. Well, I was reading one from November (I told you I read a LOT of magazines) and there was an article about giving back during the holidays. Of course there were people who donated toys, helped serve food at the soup kitchens, and all of the tradition feel good holiday things. BUT there was one thing that really got me motivated... Making cards to be delivered with meals for the elderly during the holidays!!

I mean, it's so simple! Everyone loves to make cards and seriously, it doesn't seem like the holidays without getting at least one card a day, right?! So I started thinking about when my hubby's grandmother would get her meals delivered each day from the local "Meals on Wheels" and how nice it would have been for her to receive a special holiday card from someone. So, I talked with Chef Hubby and asked him to use his connections to find out how many homes these meals get delivered to locally and I'm going to start making cards... now!

I know I won't be able to make them all myself, so I'm going to try to enlist some friends and maybe even ask the neighborhood association to help. So maybe we can help bring that holiday spirit to some of our locals. Maybe you will be inspired to do this in your area, or something else, who knows. Let me know if you have any other ideas that I can use to pull together the community! For now though, I have a LOT of cards to make... lol :o)

I know it's a little early, but "Happy Holidays" just the same

Finally in Kansas...

So my brother and SIL live in Kansas and we decided last year that we needed to bring the kids out here to see them. Chef Hubby and I had made the treck via plane last summer and it was sooo much fun! This time we figured that the airfare would be a bit much and for some reason, thought the drive wouldn't be so bad (did I mention, we live in Massachusetts?) Yeah, that would be almost 1600 miles with 2 children under 5 yrs old. Were we insane?? Oh and it was my brillant idea to "just drive".

We left about 5:30pm and the kids, who had been with my grandparents all day so I could get everything done, were wiped out. 3 mins into our trip and our plans were already gone. The kids were asleep in the back seat and we hit BK instead of the sit down meal we had planned.

I had packed a box full of toys, crayons, coloring books, and all of the kids DVDs. We had the portable DVD players secured to the front seats, Henry's father had gotten the kids fold down travel desks that were dry erase, and we had snacks and drinks on hand... we were ready - I thought.

About an hour into our 25ish hr trip and Phoebe started vomitting... great for the first time in her life, she was car sick. Of course! This happened twice and I'm sure that the people in the hotel we stopped behind to clean her up, and change thought we were insane, but you do what you gotta do, right? I bought her some "sea bands" and she was fine for the rest of the trip. Oh, if you haven't heard of these - they rock!! They are accupressure wrist bands that help with motion sickness and they are incredible.

Anyway, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch and grabbed audio books... they are super cheap and helped get us through more than 5 hrs of the trip. By about 1200 miles I got really frustrated and started complaining... yes, me, not the kids. Although Payton had asked to go home several times. Phoebe was content watching Barbie's Swan Lake the entire trip (ok, not the entire trip... I turned off the tvs while they were sleeping both nights and during the day for a while) but for pretty much the entire time the tv was on. So much for bringing every movie they had, right?

Well, we made it and now we are trying to figure out our plan for the day. We checked into our hotel and then checked out as soon as we woke up because it was disgusting!! Now we're staying at my brother's house. We got to meet my niece and she is absolutely adorable!! Pics to come later.

Chef Hubby made us dinner last night with items he picked up at the local farmer's market...

Grilled Pork Chops with a Peach and Rhubarb sauce
Sauteed Zucchini
Sweet Potato Fries

and for dessert I picked up some Butter Pecan cookies - OMG!! They were amazing! Gonna buy some more on Saturday for our trip home. Anyway, thats our trip so far, but I'll be sure to keep you posted :o)