Friday, December 8, 2017

7 Quick Takes about Jello Fails, What Children's Books Have to Say About Biological Clocks, and an Audience Vote on our Wardrobe

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


I don't know what happened, but I felt like I was pretty on top of Christmas gifts... and then I wasn't. I realized we hadn't yet had the kids draw names to do a gift exchange with each other, so we did that this wee but with a twist.

My kids don't really need anything. They don't. So this time when they drew a name, they aren't going to make or buy that person a gift. They're going to do something nice for them every day from now until Christmas, and on December 25th figure out a fun way to reveal their identity to their Secret Sibling.

So far I've seen kids making each others' beds, doing each others' chores, and discretely slipping a cookie in someone else's lunchbox.

Which calls into question where they've been hiding the cookies, because that was the first I'd seen or heard of them.

2


You know that move to escape from a wild animal where you throw food to attract it away from you and then run as fast as you can in the opposite direction?

It also works if your toddler is driving you absolutely crazy during church and you toss a Ziploc bag full of Cheerios to the other end of the pew. Just FYI.

3


My mother-in-law gave us this cute Jello mold when she was here because the grocery store was handing them out for free.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

I'd never done Jello in a mold before and thought, "How cute! My kids would get a kick out of it if I made some of these and sneaked them into their school lunches."

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

Which I never actually did, because I think opening your lunchbox to find this would be pretty horrifying.

4


My 6-year-old has been all about listening to books on CD in the car lately, so we checked out a bunch from the children's room last time we were at the library. Her favorite is The Gingerbread Boy.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

My 11-year-old, however, thinks it's just weird. "So a little old man and a little old woman don't have any children so they decide to make a gingerbread boy and it jumps out of the oven and runs away from everybody until it asks a fox to help it cross the river and the fox eats him??"

I agreed that was a pretty good summary of the plot and asked, "So what do you think is the moral of that story?" (I have no idea, I was just curious what she'd say.)

Cocking her head thoughtfully to one side, she said, "Maybe... if you want a child, have it when you're younger?"

So for anyone putting off starting a family, take The Gingerbread Boy's tale of menopausal caution to heart: don't let this happen to you.

5


Every year for the past several years, I've subjected my family to the joy of family photos. I wanted to do this months ago but things kept coming up and we keep having to reschedule. But it's looking good so I think we're actually doing it next week!

I try to put everybody in coordinating outfits but my rule is that I can't buy anything, which always makes it interesting when you're trying to cobble something together from 8 different wardrobes.

So I need your help! I assembled two different color palettes and I need you you to tell me which one looks better.

Palette A:


It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

Palette B:


It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

Leave your opinions below or on Facebook and we'll wear the results for our Christmas cards this year!

6


Phillip went on a road trip with some friends for a few days (a guy outing? a manventure? I don't even know what to call it.) They did stuff like shooting and probably something that involved fire.

While he was gone, the 18-month-old got in the habit of pulling the bathroom stool up to the back door which has a window facing the driveway, then standing on his tiptoes to peer out and say "Hi, Dad. Hi, Dad."

It's like he's trying to telepathically summon Phillip to come home. Which doesn't work, and I know because I do it every day at 5 o'clock when the kids are all running around screaming and dinner's burning on the stove while I try to finish a blog post.

7


Recently my 9-year-old has been giving me a hard time about being late to everything, although I think he's exaggerating.

Also, I'd like to point out that I was almost on time for storytime at the library this week.

But while I was running around gathering extra outfits, sippy cups, and wipes in case the apocalypse should happen while we were out, my 18-month-old was busy in the bathroom putting on my makeup, and it takes longer than you'd think to wash lip gloss out of someone's hair.

Honestly though, he was only trying to imitate me getting ready in the morning and he did a pretty good job. Most of it was on his face, and considering I've been doing this for 20 years and still smudge mascara on my skin almost every time, that's not bad.

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10 comments:

Katy said...

I vote for Palette A. And, LOL the jello mold!

AnneMarie said...

I love that idea of having your kids do nice things instead of getting each other presents!
So for the outfits, I like both sets, but A definitely speaks to me more if you're doing this for a Christmas card. B is really pretty, but that definitely gives me more of an Advent vibe.

Diana Dye said...

A. Mostly for the gray stripe sweater. Very cute.

Jenny Evans said...

That is my favorite sweater of my 13-year-old!

Jenny Evans said...

Yeah, that was a fail. Anyone need a Jello mold?

Anonymous said...

I vote A.

Rachel said...

We read The Gingerbread Man story and made crafts about it this past week...I always thought that the moral of the story is basically that the gingerbread guy is the most annoying being ever and deserved to be eaten for sheer obnoxiousness, but I like this other alternate moral, too.

Unknown said...

The Jello mold--i discovered that you have to add twice as much gelatin for it to work.

Jenny Evans said...

It said on the back to use 3/4 of the water as normal. I guess cutting it back to half would help.

Kimberly said...

Ok I really like B except that plaid shirt. I have nothing against plaid in general but it’s too busy there or something.
And those jello molds. Ugh. I tried many times. You can use cooking spray in them but still. I’m glad I’m not the only one they failed.