discover the dinosaurs unleashed

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I had the privilege of attending Discover The Dinosaurs: Unleashed as it made it's way through West Palm Beach. Discover The Dinosaurs is a traveling exhibit that makes it's way across the United States, bringing wonder and amazement -- and dinosaurs! -- to children in every state. In West Palm Beach, the exhibit was being held at the South Florida Fairgrounds which speaks volumes as to how expansive it was.

When you walk into the building, the entire ambiance fits the exhibit perfectly. The lights are dimmed, and all you can see are these magnificent animatronic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs themselves are lifelike, even moving and showing children the types of sounds they may have made. Children are able to learn as they walk through the incredible exhibit which features information about the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. As they begin entering the exhibit, friendly exhibit employees give each child a scavenger hunt booklet to complete as they walk through the exhibit. At the end, they're told they receive a prize -- so naturally, Ethan was into it! It was also a great way to make sure the children are absorbing the facts and educational opportunities in front of them in addition to being amazed by the moving, roaring dinosaurs.

There are booths scattered throughout the exhibit that offer activities (dinosaur etchings and crayon rubbings, temporary tattoos, and so on) as the children walk through and admire the dinosaurs. There are also plenty of opportunities to get up close and personal to dinosaurs!

The exhibit also features some cool artifacts for the children to see up close -- as well as perhaps Ethan's favorite part of the whole day: the chance to ride a real dinosaur! Children use a ladder to climb on top of the dinosaurs (Ethan rode a T-Rex), which move!

In addition to the dinosaur exhibit, there is also an exhibit for crafting, golfing, car racing and filled to the brim with cool inflatables!

Discover the Dinosaurs Unleashed is an amazing traveling exhibit that you just have to catch when it arrives in your town! Follow Discover the Dinosaurs on Facebook and check out their website for where they'll be stopping at next!

carmen's enchanted forest: a woodland fairy first birthday party

I love parties. Love them. Sure, in the weeks leading up to the big day I become frazzled and a total stress case, but I love them. From meticulously planning the little details to watching it all unfold, nothing makes me happier than planning a party. Carmen's first birthday party was a labor of love, for sure. We held the party at my parents home and initially decided we should have woodland animals. This is not such an easy feat in South Florida, so we opted for farm animals (true story: children do not care what kind of animals there are when it comes down to having animals to snuggle with). Then it spawned into unicorn rides. And then it morphed into "she loves the carousel at the zoo, maybe we can rent a carousel." (Hey, your last baby turning one is a milestone for both mother and child.)

Keeping with the woodland fairy theme, I wanted to incorporate natural and wood-textured elements into my set up. I made the donut stands using a $0.50 dowel sawed in half and hot glued onto a wood round from the craft store and found the birch napkins and wood plates from Webstaurant Store. The disposable wood silverware came from Amazon, as did the birch-textured paper straws.

My mom and I do this thing where we panic there won't be enough food. Without fail, there's enough food leftover to last seven families two weeks. We had sandwich and wrap platters catered from the local grocery store, four different quiches, spinach dip, vegetable and fruit platters, macaroni and cheese, popcorn chicken tenders, salads and an assortment of snacks (chips and hummus, etc.). There was plenty of food (for days). I definitely dropped the ball on getting photographs of the finished table, but these pictures from the setting up stages give you some idea. The moss table runners and circle mats are all from Michael's.

Our golden unicorn smash cake topper is from Topper and Twine and our custom Carmen's Enchanted Forest golden glitter cake topper is from Topper That. I worked for weeks hand making the cake stands, the tassels and the backdrops and wall hangings. The high chair birthday skirt was one I purchased from Stuff So Simple.

Inside the house, I had three stations set up: a fairy garden making table (using tiny 2.5 inch ceramic pots), wand decorating and also a rainbow fairy face painting table manned by the incredible daughter of Ethan's art studio owner (thank you, Art Paper Scissors in Parkland!).

Outside, we had the "enchanted woodland" (farm) animals, unicorn rides and a carousel. The carousel was the absolute hit of the party, perhaps even overshadowing the unicorns.

Also outdoors, I set up a photo backdrop with some assorted props from Party Ears and The Gipsy and the Yarn along with some fairy wings from the dollar store. The kids all loved the "photobooth" and everyone got so many cute pictures! Ethan's gym teacher assistant also came to help with the party by dressing as a fairy and taking pictures with all of the kids. Everyone loved the "magical fairy" who came to play with them!

For favors, I made enchanted forest themed word searches and mazes and put them into treat bags with wooden color pencils from World Market online. These pencils were so cool and such a perfect (and affordable) fit for our theme!

It was the perfect day to celebrate my little woodland fairy as she turned one -- cue the emotions, because I'm not sure how this past year has flown by so very quickly.

emo kids having emo kids

"Nobody likes me. No one wants to play with me." When he begins those words with a gradually increasing quiver in his voice, my entire being shatters. Eventually, he moves on to other things and that loud, overpowering laughter and zest for life takes over. For him. I find myself up at all hours of the night, feeling his pain and sorrow over every ounce of my body and wishing I could will it away.

In so many ways, he is so much like me. (I'm wincing as I type that.) Throughout my entire pregnancy, I wished he may wind up a little bit more like his father in terms of resiliency and confidence and the ability to not be ripped to shreds over someone else's bad day. Instead, as it would turn out, he is just like me. ("I don't want to go to a regular college where they do math, like the one daddy went to," he told me the other day. "I want to go to an art college and write stories and poems and paint.")

Today I dropped him off at school and he clutched my hand for the first time in weeks. "Come with me on the playground," he said. "You'll be the only one who likes me and wants to play with me." I resisted the urge to shatter into a million shards of devastation and instead followed him to the playground -- where four children ran up and engulfed him in hugs. "There's my hug monster," one shouted with a giggle in her voice. "Oh boy," he said. "I'm just so much fun to hug," he explained to me with a glimmer in his eyes. "Want to play with me?" asked another girl from another class, grabbing his hand before he could even happily accept. "You can go, mommy," he yelled as he and his new friend ran across the playground. I tried to convince myself to leave without stopping his teacher and pleading with her to assure me that he is as well liked as this morning proved. I have no willpower, but she assured me that he is well loved.

--

If I try hard enough, I can still remember being a kid and hoping with all my might that no one would speak to me for the duration of the school day. Ethan longs to be included but lacks the confidence to ask for inclusion -- and, boy, so I understand his apprehension. (And irrationality, and falling to pieces, and so on.) As we approach this phase in parenthood -- this new, shiny end to infancy and at-all-times protection -- I'm trying to find in myself the confidence that I lacked through every phase of my own life until now. Now it is up to me to find it, confidence, and wear it like an armor to shield my own child from the same struggles and troubles that plagued me when I was in his shoes. And while I may not be able to protect him entirely from those struggles and troubles or prevent them from happening, I can simply remain conscious to not dismiss them and give him the best tools to push on through the fog. We are stronger together, the two of us, and may that bond be one he carries forever as close to his heart as I do.

introducing new thin stix, solid tempera paint sticks by the pencil grip, inc.

Ethan loves to draw and paint. He will literally sit and work on his paintings for hours, and the walls of my entire house are basically lined in his masterpieces. In fact, on our entire cross-country roadtrip last October, he happily drew the entire way (and back). Because neither my husband nor I have any artistic skills or instincts, we've had to do our research to find out how to best nurture Ethan's absolute love for art. This past holiday season, we saw an ad for Kwik Stix -- solid tempera paint twist-up sticks -- and ordered him a set. Much to our surprise, several other friends and relatives also purchased Ethan some Kwik Stix in various shades and finishes (he's partial to the metallic, he wanted me to point that out).

It didn't take him long at all to fall in love with Kwik Stix. They became a perfect independent art opportunity for him without needing to pour paint, rinse the brushes and get his supplies out. They were the perfect opportunity to fit in some painting before school or an errand when time is sparse and we can't really afford to leave the house completely covered head-to-toe in paint. Kwik Stix dry in only 90 seconds, which is an added bonus for little artists who are proud to display their artwork.

I was thrilled when Kwik Stix contacted us about the opportunity to try out their new Thin Stix. Much like the Kwik Stix that came before them, Thin Stix are also solid tempera paint sticks that dry in only 90 seconds. However, they're thinner and help children achieve finer details (and also a perfect pencil grip). With the Thin Stix, Ethan was able to add more detail into his artwork without having to grab a fine point marker to fill in the necessary details.

And, yes, to answer the question we get a lot: they really are paint.

The Thin Stix have become a staple in Ethan's art making, which is pretty much a constant in our every day. We are currently experiencing cabin fever from a bout of strep throat that has taken down our entire family and Ethan has happily spent hours creating art during our newfound downtime.

Ethan is hooked on his Thin Stix (which are AP certified, meaning they're safe and non-toxic for even the littlest artists) and is excited about the opportunity to get to share a set with a lucky winner! Follow the steps below to enter to win a 12-pack set of Thin Stix solid tempera paint sticks for the pint-sized Picassos in your life!

If you can't wait to get your hands on a set of Kwik Stix or Thin Stix (which is totally understandable), I'm excited to say that they're all available on Amazon -- happy shopping!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

home

My husband and I bought our house just about nine years ago now. I was 22 and he was newly 23 when we snatched up "the smallest lot in our sought after neighborhood," which was the house hunting pro-tip everyone sent us out into the real world with. We knew the area we wanted to buy in, knew the schools we wanted our future children to attend -- and we also knew we were fresh out of school with virtually no real life experience or resumes that could be considered remotely impressive (see also: we had no idea how to be adults). But then our there our house was, the fabled smallest lot in our sought after neighborhood. There it was, with it's disastrous roof and foreclosure chic interior. It became ours and each evening we reveled in it's vastness. Our home. A real house in the suburbs, in a neighborhood where the laughter of children permeates through the afternoon air. We decorated our home the only way we knew how: by buying real furniture from real furniture stores that was meant for big, gigantic houses and not the compact apartment spaces we were used to during our college years.

We were married the following year and, two short years after that, brought home Ethan to this very house. It's funny how the addition of an eight pound, four ounce infant shows you a thing or two about perceived home sizes. Our "just big enough" home quickly showed us just, in fact, how small it really was. With small babies come big things, and with toddlers come big messes, and with preschoolers come even bigger things that make even bigger messes. (And with cats who have claws comes the inability to ever have nice things regardless so, you know.) When Wylie died and my will to live plummeted, I put everything I had into a proposed house revamp. I needed something to focus on that wasn't infertility, that wasn't injections into my stomach or physicians scraping my insides out and spewing statistics at me about the chances I have to add another urn to my shelf. I didn't get very far, short of some paint swatches here and there and just slightly taking apart the kitchen. Carmen joined us and my desire to redo and rebuild was replaced by my desire to mother this incredible, radiant addition to our family. With gratitude and fullness and completion comes the desire to nest, and I decided on a whim that now it was time to make this house a home. I trashed our entirely-too-big sectional this weekend and replaced it with small, compact couches. With Ethan in school and Carmen napping, I took everything off the wall and out of the closets and am knee-deep in some purge-and-rearrange obsession (which currently makes it impossible to stand in my dining room) because I totally didn't have enough on my plate already, or something. We are ordering new window treatments and curtains and throw pillows and sell and swap and repeat.

I can remember signing those papers to make this house ours. I can remember coming home from our honeymoon and crashing on the entirely-too-big sectional. I can remember ordering our entirely-too-big dining room table with the bench seating for the four children I just knew we would have, plus room for their friends. But by now, we've gotten a hang of this adult thing, for the most part. We will never have four children and with that mourning comes the acceptance, the feeling of wholeness (or as close to it as possible) of knowing that the dynamic duo I have ransacking my clean floors have completed us in a different way than originally planned -- but completed us nonetheless. Next, I will say goodbye to the entirely-too-big table with the entirely-too-much bench seating and as I watch things make their way to new homes, new hopeful families, new destinations, I am finding solace in my own.

We have the house. We have the family. And now it's simply time to make it a home.