Naptime Blog

If you ever visit my home you will see all the semi-pro art hangings on the walls. That semi-pro photographer is me!!! I love pictures/photography of faces, portraits and I REALLY love black & white photography. I have donated an entire hallway in my house to it. Even though this can be a very pricey hobby, I recently decided to pursue it more seriously. I researched feverously the best digital SLR camera. Boy did that give me a headache.

In my findings it appeared that Nikon ® and Canon ® took the lead in most of the reviews that I found. They are both awesome cameras with tons of awesome features. I decided to go with the Canon ® model. Now all I need is for my family to agree to be my muse so I can get some practice. My husband already refers to me affectionately as the “Mommy Paparazzi”

I have been looking for an outlet outside of work and being a wife & mom. I am so excited to explore a more creative side to see where it leads. I am taking a few photography workshops soon and hope to see the hobby grow into something more.

Wish me luck!

~Shanta

“I got my kid this great toy but she is playing with the box it came in instead of the toy!”  That’s something we hear quite regularly.  When I go out with my children and need to keep them occupied, I often resort to giving them what I find in my purse or whatever is around me to make them happy:  Keys, a box of Tic Tacs, my cell phone, a piece of paper, a paper cup with a straw…  and my kids can stay occupied for hours.  One of my sons absolutely loves brooms and vacuums and loves to push the switch on and off to hear the vacuum run.  It is amazing how the simple things can make little children so fascinated!  But why?

I was offered a pair of tickets to see STOMP on Broadway recently.  My husband had seen the show in Las Vegas years ago and enjoyed it, but I had never seen it.  I agreed to see the show and write about it.  I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy it, but as a mom with four little ones, I am always up for date night!

STOMP opens with a skit with brooms.  I immediately thought of my son Anthony, who would have loved to see the eight actors sweeping and dancing and making music with the bristles and handles of brooms!  I am not a fan of sweeping, especially since I do it so often (our house is full of crumbs after my children eat!), but I must say that brooms do have a ‘fun side’ to them!  I have made the decision that from now on, I am going to sweep my floors with a pep in my step and a beat for making music!

The remainder of the show was filled with the actors taking simple items and making music out of them.  I forgot how much fun clapping in sync and in a pattern was!  Memories of games I used to play with my friends in grammar school…  such as repeating the rhythm of the clap.  My one and a half year old twins’ favorite song is “If You’re Happy and You Know It”.  CLAP! CLAP!  Clapping hands, stomping feet…  can actually be quite fun!  Crumpling and snapping newspaper, shaking a Tic Tac box, pulling a straw in and out of a cup, rubbing a comb across a coffee can, making anything a drum or a cymbal, blowing up a paper or plastic bag and listening to the different sounds each can make.  And while watching the show I was brought back to when I was a child and how simple things fascinated me.  I am always doing “Mommy” things…  cooking, cleaning, laundry, working, trying to keep things to a dull roar in my always noisy house…  trying to keep things neat and clean, and getting frustrated when I remember that the reality is that kids will be kids and my home will never stay clean for too long.  There is always something serious to handle, always something boring to tackle.  I so often forget that the simple things in life, the things that fascinate my kids, are the things that are so easy to give them!  Yes, although my children love all their toys and games, they are just as happy (maybe happier!) with making “music” with everyday items.

We saw STOMP on a Sunday.  Mondays are always days I spend plenty of hours on the phone and answering emails for work, doing laundry from the weekend and getting things in order for the rest of the week.  That Monday, I decided to take out some pots, pans and serving spoons and let my sons go to town.  I think I enjoyed making music with the kitchen items more than they did!  And after lunch, I took the kids outside, blew some bubbles and sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It” in the yard.  Work and laundry will still be there tomorrow.  My four children will be older tomorrow.  I am going to Stomp along with them while they still think it is fascinating!

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (7), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (4 months)www.nevaland.com

Is it wrong to take a child of my son’s age to see Disney on Ice?

Ok “wrong” was not the word I was really looking for but some people have told me that its best for us to wait since he is so young, 18 months, and that he wouldn’t really remember it. Well, I look at it as he’s not going to remember anything we do during this age but it doesn’t stop us from doing things. He just received from his “aunt” (my mom’s best friend) this neat buggy ride that you push around the neighborhood while he sits in it and maneuvers the steering wheel. He LOVES it and sits in it even indoors, so we take him out and walk around with him. He’s not going to remember that but if he enjoys it for the present time being, why not, right?

The tickets were only $15 and I’m sure we didn’t get excellent seats but I figured it would be a nice family outing. If its something he, for some reason, does not enjoy, which is highly unlike him, then who’s going to hear him pitch a fit? It will be loud and full of other toddlers and children, so it will drown him out haha. Well we are going tonight and I’ll let you know how it goes!

Have any of you been to an Ice show like this one? I went when I was 6 and enjoyed it, but have not seen what they have done since!

-Krystle

Well Feb 28, 2010 celebrated two years married to my wonderful husband! The night before, we went down to Dave & Busters to dine and game which was really fun. Of course the picture booth they had there was broken so we could not get one of those silly pictures done but besides that we had a good time. My mom took Shaughn for the night and on Sunday Brent and I just relaxed for a little bit until Shaughn came home. Doesn’t sound like a super fancy anniversary, but it was still wonderful and gave us time to ourselves. Before we had actually married, we would of course talk about it and think of what it would be like.

While in Missouri, during the last 10 months of his 6 year enlistment with the Air Force we had talked about having kids one day. His preference was to be a father before the age of 30, and while in the military our health care would be completely covered. We decided to give it a try and 4 weeks later, a pregnancy test was positive! (Ok, I used 6 different pregnancy tests lol) The marriage process was definitely sped up because of it but would have happened soon anyway! Nine months later, our beautiful boy blessed our lives and it has certainly been an adventure. Every day is a gift that we appreciate and here’s to many more anniversaries to come! What are things that you like to do to celebrate your anniversary with your loved one?

-Krystle

Oh, GOODNESS. At the South Florida Fair, they had a “Beautiful Baby” pageant that my friend told me about. She has a daughter a little bit younger than Shaughn and suggested we go up there and give it a try. What an experience! We got there at 10am, all registered and ready to go. I think we actually walked up on the stage for our age category at like 11:30am. Now sitting in the heat, with at least 100 kids walking around, screaming, becoming restless, it starts to take it’s toll on my friend’s daughter and my son. Let the meltdowns begin. Shaughn & Ava definitely were not like the other kids who were in full out combatant mode, but they weren’t so pleasant either. We think since we are in the last group of 8 contestants to go, that perhaps we will have the lasting impression with the judges. Right, not so much. We go up there and it’s chaos. Other parents are letting their toddlers walk all in front of us, then instead of grabbing their kid and perhaps going to their place, the parents just stop right in front of us completely blocking us and our kids who are standing in the correct position. Needless to say, I don’t think the judges even saw our children. I’m not just saying this because I’m favoring them…. but we have some pretty good looking children! Anyhow, here’s to a future of pageant mom-ing. NOT.

-Krystle

Juliana was my only child until she was six years old.  For so long she was my one and only.  Juliana is the best big sister, and she is so good with her brothers, but I know she also enjoys her time alone with me.  So I was thrilled to receive a pair of reviewer’s tickets to see Pinkalicious, the Musical.  (I received 2 tickets to see Pinkalicious compliments of the show to review the show).  The tickets were for a Sunday afternoon, and I couldn’t wait to take my little girl.

When I told Juliana about the show, she was excited.  I showed her the website, http://pinkaliciousthemusical.com/ , and thought the music and the video clip would get her even more excited.  Instead, my daughter got upset that I would want to take her to a “baby show” and that “only babies see that stupid show”.  I was crushed (and ticked off with her, which I made quite clear).  But after a few days, Juliana said she would love to have a Mommy’s Day Out with me.  So a few Sundays ago, we saw Pinkalicious.

Juliana is STILL singing the tunes from the show!  She LOVED it!  And honestly, so did I.  I must say, I had gotten a little worried myself that my daughter was going to be too old for the show, but after seeing it, I truly feel that she was the PERFECT age for the show, and the moral of the story is the lesson I try to teach my daughter all the time!  Despite Pinkalicious Pinkerton’s parents warning her to stop eating so many pink cupcakes, Pinkalicious does not listen and she turns pink.  The way to treat her condition “pinkititis” is to eat lots of green foods.

My daughter is almost 8 years old, but we still have these battles daily.  Juliana may not eat countless pink cupcakes, but she often thinks she is old enough to disregard our rules and directives to make her own choices.  And I enjoyed seeing part of myself in Pink’s mom.  She’s sitting at the kitchen table, working on the laptop with one hand, mopping the floor with the other, disciplining Pink and her brother all at the same time.  Juliana and I could relate to the show in many ways, and it was nice to see how this mother/daughter battle is not just a battle in our house!  My daughter needs as many reminders as possible to understand that my husband and I DO know what we are talking about!

The show was entertaining for me as a grown up, for my eight year old daughter, and for the MANY smaller children in the audience.  I think we can all relate as parents, and the kids can see similarities between the Pinkerton family and their own family.  Great show, great story, kept both of us interested, and I would recommend it to all!

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (7), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (4 months)
www.nevaland.com

The “Happiest Place on Earth” may be the happiest place on earth, and it may be the most family friendly place you will ever visit, but what if you have multiple babies?  Is it still family friendly?  And are you as a parent “happy” in the Happiest Place on Earth?

My husband and I decided to be spontaneous, something we cannot often do with our children, especially with three children under two years old.  I needed a vacation, and so we decided at the end of January that we would spend my daughter’s winter break in Florida.  We booked rooms with our timeshare in Orlando, and I was thrilled that we were going to get away from the snow and cold for a few days and spend a little time with Mickey Mouse.  We weren’t planning on visiting all the parks, and would play it by ear, but I figured we’d spend two or three days in Walt Disney World and introduce our little ones to this most wonderful family vacationing spot.  The boys adore Mickey Mouse and friends, and my daughter, although this would be her third trip to Disneyworld, was very excited.  As for Paul and I?  No matter how old I get, I still love to go to Disneyworld.  It is my favorite place to be.  So I was totally unprepared for anything less than an amazing vacation.

The only negative with planning something spur of the moment is that we didn’t get the chance to seriously research doing Disney with three babies.  I automatically assumed that we’d have no problems in Disneyworld, as it caters to young families.  This may be true, however, if you are a family like ours, Disney might not be the place to go…  believe it or not!

The first morning we awoke in Orlando, I was more excited than the kids were!  I couldn’t wait to see Mickey Mouse, I could not wait to see that castle in The Magic Kingdom, and I was so looking forward to the mid afternoon parade with all the characters, music and dancing.  We were unlucky enough to arrive in Orlando during the coolest week of the year, but I was determined to enjoy the week in the cooler weather.  After all, we had just left 26 degrees and a foot of snow in NYC.  Fifty-five degrees in Orlando was better than that!  Plus, I had only done the Disney parks in 95 degrees in the past, and waiting on lines in the heat and humidity, walking with the kids would be difficult.  Perfect.  As the park was open until 1 am that day, we decided to wait until 11 am to arrive, to give the sun some time to warm up Orlando.
We had to get through the crowds with my seven year old, a double stroller and a single stroller.  We thought it easier to take the two strollers than our triple.  We walked around a little bit, just letting the kids take it all in, and decided that the first ride we took them on was “It’s a Small World”.  The wait was only 30 minutes, so we went on.  I asked the attendant if I could wait on the line with the kids in the strollers until I got to the ropes, and she said we had to park our strollers.  Of course, having rules the way they are, I understood why they needed us to park our strollers.  I asked if there was any alternative, as we were only two adults with three babies (my seven year old cannot hold a baby in a crowd), and she said no.  I was a bit taken back, but again, rules are rules.  We parked the strollers, took the kids out, and got on the line.
As we expected, due to my boys getting bored and antsy (what toddler doesn’t?), it was a nightmare on the line.  Paul held the twins, and I held Joseph.  The twins wanted to get down, so Paul put them down.  I would hold one of their hands and Paul would hold the other’s hand.  Louis is into diving on the floor yelling “safe” (as in baseball sliding), and Anthony is the neat police, picking up every bit of food or paper that falls on the floor.  And wouldn’t you know it, both of the twins did exactly those two things while waiting in line.  So as one twin was throwing himself on the floor and the other was picking up every bit of Disney litter, Mommy and Daddy were in a sweat.  I need to remind you that we also had our 5 month old Joseph on this line, as we alternated which of us would hold Joseph and which of us would fight with twin toddlers.

We were still determined to enjoy our trip to The Magic Kingdom.  After all, we spent enough money to get in the park!  Tickets were almost $80 for each of us to get in and almost $70 for Juliana to get in.  For $240, we were CERTAINLY determined to get SOME fun in the day.  Don’t let anyone fool you.  You only save a significant amount of money if you go to the parks for multiple days.  And I don’t mean 2 or 3, I mean 7 or 10.  Well, if you buy the four day passes you save about $20 for a day.  But if you are like my family, who can’t possibly do all of these multiple days in the same trip, you have to add on the “no expiration” option, which adds a lot more to your ticket bill.  I often wonder if Walt Disney had those prices in his plan when he designed this amazing world. 
Well, those Disney people are not stupid after all, because the look on the boys’ faces when our boat went through “It’s a Small World” was priceless.  They loved every minute of it, as did Juliana.  And no matter how many times Paul and I sit through it ourselves, it is still amazing.  So off we went to continue on our park journey.

I asked the attendants on the Pooh ride if my husband could wait on the line with one of the little guys, and I would wait with the others in their strollers until he made it to the front of the line, to save us from fighting our kids on the long lines (as the lines were getting thicker at this point).  Once again I was told no.  Another attendant evidently felt sorry for me, and as obviously the senior of the two, he asked what he could do to help us.  I explained our dilemma that we could not possibly wait on one more line with three babies and our daughter with only two adults.  I told him that I was not trying to cut any lines, and that one of us was quite willing to wait on the long line with everyone else.  If they could allow us to do this, it would be very helpful, and I would meet him at the front of the line with the remaining children.  He said that even though it was busy today, he could help us out.  So he asked his colleague to assist me to the front of the line as my husband got up the ramp and was almost ready to board. 
Paul called my cell as he approached the ramp, as surprisingly, the line was moving quickly.  I took the twins out of their carriages, and the attendant helped me get to Paul.  I was thrilled.  And then, the line stood still.  Evidently, the “fast pass” line backed up, so they needed to take them first, having the rest of us wait.  And so once again, Paul and I were on the line for another twenty minutes with Juliana and three babies.  And once again, we were in a sweat, losing our patience and energy, and not very happy in the “happiest place on earth”.

We spent the next day at our resort, debating on whether to try another park or not.  We met other vacationers and resort workers, and asked for tips and pointers, should we decide to try the parks again.  A few people suggested lying, either renting a wheelchair and beating all the lines all together, or going to customer service and telling them one of my children had special needs to get a pass to avoid the lines, and honestly, this was NOT an option.  We were blessed with healthy children, and I won’t take advantage of special accommodations for those families who really need it due to disabilities or illnesses.  Although I do think my family could use special accommodations, we were not eligible for any without lying, so we decided that our first Disneyworld trip as a family of six would be an abridged version, and we didn’t visit any more parks.

Yes, Disneyworld has the “baby swap”, but that doesn’t help our family because we still have to wait on the lines with three babies and only two adults.  Yes, Disney has “fast pass”, but if you utilize this feature and your ticket says to return 3-4 hours later, if you are walking with multiple toddlers, do you really think it is conducive to return to that area of the park later on, when it takes so much effort to get around as it is?  Yes, The Magic Kingdom (and I believe all the other parks as well) has a baby care center, but only one in the park, so if you are on another end of the park and need to feed three babies or change three diapers, you need to use the bathroom (and wait on the baby changing table line) or use your strollers.  And a lot of the other “perks” Disney claims to offer for young families is ONLY an option if you are staying at a Disney resort.  As we utilized our time share, that didn’t help us.  But I DID visit the vacation desk at our resort, which was manned by a Disneyworld employee, and she could offer no other help for us.

Although I feel every child should experience Walt Disneyworld at the various stages in their lives: as toddlers, as preschoolers, as school aged children and as teens, I would certainly re-evaluate taking your toddlers if you have more than one toddler at a time, for Disneyworld is not very family friendly for families with multiple toddlers/babies.

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (7), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (4 months)www.nevaland.com

Since we were up North for Christmas, we celebrated with my family down here afterwards. My mom asked what Shaughn wanted for Christmas and of course, I don’t know what to say. I suggested anything educational that would teach him, until I spotted a $20 drum set for toddlers. I am not forcing music upon my child but he certainly seems interested in anything that makes noise. He has this really nice KidiJamz keyboard that he plays alot, and his Leap Frog Learn & Groove Drum and Maracas keep him very entertained. He likes beating the lids of my pots and pans with spatulas so I figured this would be a gift he would surely enjoy. My mom got it for him and he definitely loves it. My husband set it up for him while still at my parents house and he immediately started banging away with his drum sticks. It’s as if it came naturally to him, I swear. At least one time a day he crawls over to his drums and plays for a few minutes all by himself. When he’s done with that, he gets out of his chair and goes about to the next activity which is usually another musical toy. He’s starting up his own band! So far it’s a band of us three and we had needed a vocalist until today, when Shaughn grabbed the microphone connected to the keyboard and sang into it WHILE pressing the keyboard keys. We have to schedule a tour soon lol!

 

-Krystle

This is one of the coolest websites ever. You can create all types of greeting cards and announcements. It’s a free site with some awesome graphics. It’s really user friendly also. I bumped into this website when I was trying to create an evite. Unfortunately the evite website kept freezing up and locking me out. I became pretty frustrated with that and decided to google search other FREE online programs with some of the same and even BETTER features.

I am almost obsessed with it; I create cards and greetings for no apparent reason. I am going to attempt to insert some of the things I’ve create so you can take a peak. You can even make cute little videos with themed music, it’s so much fun.

Enjoy…

http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d5451324e5459324d54413d0d0a&blogview=true

http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d5451324e5459324d7a493d0d0a&blogview=true

~Shanta

I know my first born son loves trains. His Thomas the Tank never leaves his side (and if it does, I am summoned to immediately fetch it with pleas of, “Tuss, Tuss, Tuss!”). He sits in his chair, in his bed, on the floor, in his car seat and wherever else he is, running his trains over his limbs and head. He spends much time at his beloved train table (if you read my personal blog, you might remember this post, this one that started his love for trains and this one of him admiring the trains). A huge smile pastes itself on his little face when he sees his Thomas book. When I go get him from nap or in the morning, he frantically searches for his Thomas and Percy before he’ll leave his room. He and trains (also known as the aforementioned “Tuss” or “Choochoos”) are BFFs.

So, I shouldn’t have been surprised when hubby found this in the living room recently…

It’s a remote, it’ s a book, it’s a car, it’s a binky…. these are my first thoughts when seeing these items strewn around on the floor. Leave it to a toddler’s imagination to turn them into exactly what HE wants them to be.

“Nooooo, it’s a TRAIN, Mom! Isn’t it obvious?” Well, now it is!

And, I do have to take notice that my youngest son’s binky is bringing up the end of this train as the caboose. Maybe Finley is hauling it off to the dump?

Who knows, but you gotta love kids!

Shannon
Potamus Prefers
http://www.potamusprefers.com/