It may not look like much, but it’s a glimpse into the activities of my kids. Our son created this “newspaper” and demanded I make copies of it for each member of the family. He distributed them this morning.
He’s finding that the newspaper industry can be a tough one. 🙂
Who knew Polly Pocket was so demanding?
What’s your big news of the day?
Friday was our daughter’s 6th birthday. We had planned to have her birthday party at our house, but due to a major storm in our area, we lost
This is our neighbor’s tree. Many more trees in our area look like this.
electricity that evening, along with the majority of our entire county. As best we could tell, most of our surrounding area was without power, as well.
We woke on Saturday morning, still with no power. As usual, I was checking Twitter to get any updates that I could on my phone and saw that someone posted that parts of a nearby town had power.
As my wife and I were trying to figure out what to do about our daughter’s party, and how to make the best of the situation, I remembered the tweet I had seen earlier in the day, and I had an idea…
Special evening for us!
Just one week earlier, my daughter and I attended the Daddy Daughter Date night event held by Chick-Fil-A. We attended the event at the Chick-Fil-A at Market at East Broad in Columbus, OH. The team did a great job that night serving up great food and a great experience, just for the two of us. They had a young man providing some great background music with a guitar and took a picture of us that they later emailed to me that same night. We got to meet Karen Bolumen, Operator of this location and some of her team. One of the team members, Darcie, was one of the servers that night and did a great job making sure we had everything we needed.
As we were trying to decide what to do about our daughter’s party, I realized that this Chick-Fil-A was pretty close to the town that I read had power. Did they? I went back to the email that contained the picture of my daughter and me from the Daddy Daughter Date night, replied to it and asked if the restaurant had power. Karen replied back just a short while later, that they did! A few quick emails and one phone call and we moved her party to Chick-Fil-A.
When we arrived, they had an area set aside for us. As always, the team was very welcoming and hospitable. They even let us put our cupcake cake (the original ice cream cake didn’t survive the power outage) in their cooler until we were ready for it. With every request and refilled drink, we were always met with a “my pleasure” and a smile, in response. They even let my wife and I charge our cell phones, which was much needed. All of our friends and family that attended the party were very impressed with the team’s service.
In addition, guess who just happened to be there that day: Darcie. Remember her? She was one of the servers from our Daddy Daughter Date night. She remembered me and my daughter from the event. While we were there, she brought Reagan a cookies and cream milkshake and a set of red, white, and blue balloons and wished her a happy birthday numerous times.
What could have been a very disappointing day for our daughter, the Chick-Fil-A at Market at East Broad team made very special. Thank you to Karen, Darcie and the entire team at the location for making our daughter’s birthday very memorable.
Thanks for the balloons, Darcie! They fit well with the American Girl themed party.
Happy birthday girl blowing out the candles!
I think I may have mentioned my affinity for the show Man v. Food previously on this blog. The show is about Adam Richman, a man who travels the country in search of the world’s greatest food challenges. We’ve watched Adam devour humongous burgers, eat amazingly hot food (the kind that brings tears to your eyes BEFORE you eat it), and take on some other serious food challenges. I’m impressed with his skills.
So, you’re probably wondering, “how is this going to turn out as a good parenting moment”. Oh, how you doubt my skills. 🙂
As part of our dinner this evening, my wife made asparagus. By a show of hands, how many of you LIKE asparagus (sans tons of ooey gooey cheese sauce). Ah, I see that hand in the back corner! Good for you. 🙂
My wife and I began to eat and the kids weren’t really buying the asparagus. Our son started to eat his stalk and wasn’t thrilled. Same with our daughter. I knew we had to do something. My wife had worked hard to saute the asparagus just right. The mixture of garlic, Parmesan cheese and olive oil was perfect. What to do???
If I know one thing about our kids, they’re always motivated by a challenge, especially our oldest. So, I grabbed the bowl of asparagus, grabbed a stalk and challenged our son. The first one to eat the entire stalk would win the challenge. Ironically, the asparagus that wasn’t so good a few minutes ago, was magically gone in a flash. Round one: Grant!
His younger sister, not to be outdone, had to challenge daddy next! Round two: Reagan!
Next up, Mommy! Round three goes to Mommy!
Grant wanted a second shot at dad (and he won): Round four: Grant
I even did a few of the rounds “double barrel” eating two stalks at a time.
Now, did the taste of the asparagus change? Nope. But, the fact that we made it into a game and it was A) competitive and B) they were winning, made all the difference.
After a few challenges, the entire pound of asparagus my wife cooked was gone. Honestly, if I was a 7 or 5 year old and my parents told me I had to eat asparagus, I’d have gone to bed hungry. The kids had fun eating their veggies for the night. They won the challenges, but we all won because of the healthy benefits of the asparagus.
What are some tricks or challenges that you’ve issued your kids? What were some games or challenges that you’re parents did with you that made something seem like fun. Leave a comment below.
General question: how many of you have kids?
How many of you have more than one child?
Does one or more of your children like to tell on their sibling(s)?
The answer, for us, to all three of these questions is: Yes!
Our kids are great! We love each of them dearly and enjoy watching their individual personalities come out and grow. For some reason, our son has a penchant for for tattling on his younger sister. “MOM! DAD!” You’ve heard it. You’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Moving on.
Last night, my wife and I were  having a discussion on how to nip this in the bud. I made an offhanded suggestion that we could make a “tattling cup”, based loosely upon the principles of the ever so popular “cuss jar”. Some of you may have even used the cuss jar before. Anyway, here’s the premise:
Our son is actually excited about this little experiment, as is our daughter (obviously).
Have you ever tried something like this with your kids? If so, leave a comment below.
Enjoy your Saturday with family!
I promised photos of today’s science fair experience on Facebook and Twitter, so here you go! I’ll admit, I did not anticipate the rush of parental pride and slight nervous rush I got from watching Grant today. It was either that or all of the chocolate from binge day. 🙂 I’m not sure.
If you want to see how we got to this point, click here.
Our young scientist with his display.
Covering his hypothesis with the judges.
'I held the box out like this, and dropped it from my bedroom window!"
Answering questions from the judges.
The judges huddle and make their marks!
Papaw stopped by to see the young scientist!
That's one happy camper! Final result-2nd place!
This will be hanging in his room soon without a doubt.
Upon finishing their breakfast this morning, both of our kids brought me their dishes completely empty! They were both smiling and exclaiming, “Kid wins! Kid wins!”
Obviously, there was a Man vs. Food type challenge going on at our breakfast table that I was unaware of. Both kids polished off the Super Daddy Challenge (nicknamed after the fact) of 2 dippy eggs, 2 pieces of toast, and a glass of orange juice!
I’m not all about our kids pigging out, but at least they finished off a healthy breakfast. Watch the show and try this trick if you’re kids don’t want to eat their meal. It just might work.
Off the top of my head... 