Easy DIY Halloween Lanterns

This isn't just for kids! 

We had so much fun making these EASY Halloween lanterns. My boys are 10 and 7 and this was just as fun for them as it was for me!

  They look cool during the day and even COOLER at night!

WHAT YOU NEED:

Any size glass jar.  

You can use cleaned out spaghetti sauce jars, canning jars or even old candle jars! If you use plastic containers do not use candles inside the lanterns. I would purchase the battery operated candle lights instead. Unless you want to burn your house down, then be my guest.

 -Plastic cups for paint

- Paper Bag or Newspaper to paint on

-Paintbrushes
(unless you went to go primal and use your fingers)

 -Acrylic Paint

- Tea light candles
(I purchased those bad boys at the dollar tree.. for a $1.00!) 
-A cup of water and a paper towel

Make sure your jar is completely clean and dry before painting. When you're ready go to town! 

I got my paintbrush wet and started wiping away the paint where I wanted his angry eyes to be so that they would glow better. You can be smarter than me and map out the face first so you don't have to remove paint.

 I gave him a sad face to match how I feel on the inside.

Then when you sit back in your chair make sure you knock over your Frankenstein art onto the floor and pee your pants just a little bit.

I added white to the eyes, some highlights on the the face. I ended up making his mouth open because I jacked up the mouth. You have to be flexible when you do art. Leave your expectations at the door so you can enjoy yourself.

Why not give him a tongue?

Since I didnt have my long lighter anymore, I used a wooden skewer to light the tea candle in the jar.  Clearly I am concerned.

If you have scrap pieces of wood, you can paint "Spooky" faces on them using the same technique. Except they wont glow, but they are still SUPER adorable! I have this guy out front.

Another scrap piece of wood, turned into a pumpkin! Recycled art is the BEST art. And its free. So you should free art it up at home guys!

HES GLOWING!!! (notice the zombie on the left? That's a spaghetti squash that I painted!)

LETS MAKE A MUMMY!!! Cute!

Wiping some of the paint off with a paper towel, because I never map anything out and just wing it, I made space for the eyes to peek through. Any space that you leave unpainted will glow the BEST!

Even if you do a sloppy crap job like I did, you can always say your real or imaginary 2 year old niece painted it! CUTE!

More fire!!!! I actually did burn myself lighting this mummy. You can watch that in action HERE if you need a laugh.

Holy crap!! They are so freakin cute!!! Guys make these. NOW!

If you want to watch the video of me making these check it out on my Youtube channel by clicking HERE! Make sure you tag me on Instagram (LLindsayP) or Twitter @ mamaLindz with your creations!! 

Happy Halloween you creeps!!!!

WHAT IS THAT?!?!

Have you ever been woken up from your sleep to a strange sound you don't recognize?

That totally happened to me yesterday!

I am sleeping soundly in my bed, with pillows surrounding me. My room is darkened by the blue curtains, and I am oblivious to the world around me.

Until....

A song starts playing in my dream.  The sound doesn't stop and it sort of interrupts everything. I realize that its happening for real and I start to come to consciousness, but still half asleep. I immediately sit up like a prairie dog in danger.  My brain is trying to compute what is happening. I can't think in full sentences yet.

Sound. Where?

I stare at the radio expecting it to make sense. I realize its definitely not the radio.

Wait, I recognize this.

I grab my phone that is next to my bed. Are you making the sound? No, its not lit up.

It sounds like a phone from 2001. Those 8 bit ringtones that you thought were SO cool?

The song is happy birthday! Wait huh? We don't have anything that plays happy birthday.  Am I losing it?

WHAT THE HECK?!
Is this what the end of the world is like? 8 bit hell on earth?

I am a little more awake now, and can actually see now that I've rubbed my face a billion times in the confusion.

 Where is it coming from?
ITS NOT MY BIRTHDAY! 

Okay, time to figure this out. As I stand up it stops.
I start to hear little giggles from in the hallway.

I open my door and I find two very awake boys looking suspect.

Keegan gives himself away instantly


Keegan:  "Did you hear my song?"

Me :"You were doing that? Was it happy birthday? It freaked me out! What was it?"

Keegan: "It was my circuits. Cool huh?"

Me: "Pretty cool dude."

Now that I know I'm perfectly sane I want to go back to bed.

Keegan got this really cool snap circuit set a couple years ago from his grandma.  I like it a lot more when its not creeping me out in the morning.  I should have known though. It has a kid on the back of the box that looks like he could probably murder his family in their sleep.  Thanks grandma. :)

17 Movie Titles that Describe My MOM Body

Kids change your life. In SO many ways. The way you think, the way you feel about things, your body. Today I got thinking.

You guys remember all of those buzzfeed topics going around the internet and facebook like "Describe your sex life with a movie title" or "Describe your ex with a movie title" or the less popular "Describe your poop with a movie title"?

What if I took that concept to describe my current MOM body. 

Well, it's summer time,

and if you are anything like me you've had to get yourself into your swimsuit at least once this summer. I don't know about you, but every time I have to squeeze, pull, jump, wiggle, grunt, yell, stretch and shimmy into a bathing suit, by the time I am actually in it, I am never feeling "GORGEOUS." I'm not ashamed of how I look, I think i just might need a personal assistant to get into this stupid thing!

 My hair is all messed up, I am sweaty from all the strange movements I even had to do to get the fricken one piece on.  Battle wounds from it snapping back onto my skin trying to manipulate this thing up to my shoulders.
 
All the while trying to convince myself,
"Yes, this is how everyone looks in a swimsuit. Chubby babies are so cute, so I must be ADORABLE in this skin tight piece of offensive material. "


So now that I am officially ready to swim according to pool Nazis who make these rules, what better time than now to start describing my body with movie titles?

Jingle All The Way 
Gravity
Apocalypse Now
Mama-Mia
Despicable Me
Lost in Translation
How to lose a guy in 10 days
Where the wild things are
The Grudge
The Blind Side
The Great Escape
The Awful Truth
Blazing Saddles
Downfall
The Thing
Mission Impossible
Flubber

Do you feel the same? Which ones would you add to your own list?
I am ready for winter now!

I am not for body shaming,  but why not laugh at the things we cant change at the moment! Love the skin you're in!
Maybe one day Ill have that tight body again, but until then, I hope they keep making movies with good titles!

Kids Interview

I interviewed the kids about myself, so I thought, lets switch it around! With these two you never know what you're going to get. I was surprised about some of their answers!!!

Keegan typed in his own answers, so there WILL be typos.
I love that they enjoy doing things like this. Maybe we can do this EVERY year before school starts, to see how much their answers have changed. In the meantime....

About ME - kids point of view

So I was reading  Amber Dusick's crappy pictures blog today,  and she got an idea from Jenn Rose's blog post.

If you have never read a humor mom blog, you need to go check her out now.  Click HERE to go to Amber's blog. So many times I have laughed so hard I was crying and trying not to pee myself.

These were posted like 2 years ago, but when you find new blogs you love, you binge read. Its like time travel. 

ANYWAYS, Jenn Rose interviewed her kiddo, about herself to see what HIS answers were. Pretty stinking good.  Read her post HERE.

I figure this could be good, or scary, or maybe even so bad I wont want to post it.  I loved her questions so I just asked the boys the same ones.

How Game of Thrones changed my life

1. Happy endings do not exist

I assume every main character in every show and movie will die. George R.R. Martin has scarred me for life in this area.  He must survive off of our tears and broken hearts. I can no longer trust anyone.

Look with your eyes, not your mouth!!

Brian told me a couple days ago about a stand up comedian he heard on the radio.  The comedian was talking about how he never asked his mom again where something is because she told him that he looks with mouth, not his eyes. 

She responds with, "Ask me where my keys are."

"Ok. Mom, where are your keys?"

Do you need help out?

 I found this post from an old blog YEARS AGO and it was fun to reread so I thought I would re post it here.

So today i had to make a grocery store run. You may think, oh harmless and easy right?

Most of the time the grocery shopping is the easy part. Its getting myself and both kids ready, in the car. Then its unloading them into the cart. Deciding what is best for keegan to do, walk or mandatory sit in the cart. Then its unloading etc etc.
Today i had quite the experience.

10 ways to keep your man - A Stay at home mom's guide to love

Trust me. It will work.

1. BOOBS

Boobs will fix 99% of any problem that comes your way. Is it wrong? Maybe, but you'll get results. ESPECIALLY utilize this tactic when you look like you haven't slept in a week or the kids have sucked any ability to look like a human being out of you. When I feel like I look close to death, I like to smile and say, "Hey babe,  want to see my boobs?" Suddenly you will be come INSTANTLY beautiful. Make sure you arch your back and pull back your shoulders so they look a little higher than your belly button.

Pillow thoughts

Oh can't sleep? Ill just blog on my phone in the dark.

Currently cats are using our bed and various body parts for ramps and trampolines. I'm pretty sure little Emma has reached a speed of 90 mph while speeding over us. Might of caught an up draft and glided a bit sprinkling left over litter pebbles through air. No that didn't happen but my imagination went to sprinkling poop pebbles for some reason.

Is being a mom to boys different?

I sometimes wonder if I'm making this up, or being overly dramatic. But HONESTLY, I feel like parenting boys is like being on a whole different universe bubble  on this planet. And at any minute if i don't control their constantly jumping, climbing and caveman like attitudes, its going to cave in.

Maybe this is just how my kids are. Doesn't matter what sex they are. Maybe if they were both girls, it would be exactly the same thing.

THE LOUDER THE GROSSER THE BETTER.

Boys constantly have their hands in their pants. I find myself asking them all the time "Hey guys is it still there?" Its almost as if they are checking 40 times a day to make sure their junk hasn't disappeared.  As I am putting dinner ON THE TABLE , what do I see? Two boys fondling their crotch. We all know you aren't going to use that fork. Please get your hands out of your pants and wash your hands. Unless you enjoy pee pee pork chops. That's up to you.

What the boys learned this year

You know you're doing well in life when your kids grow and mature (that may be the wrong word, I'll think of it later) into less caveman-like creatures.

The most interesting and wonderful thing about these boys is they absorb a ton of information. So much that you have no idea where it came from. 

(Lies: it's all mostly from me but I won't admit that yet. )

20 things that will make your 5 year old cry

If you are having a hard time making your 5 year old cry, you might want to try these things! Good luck!

Christmas, Poision, and a Bad Dream

Every year since having kids, our Christmas gets longer and longer. 

It is no longer having one night anticipating Santa showing up, going to sleep late, and being excited about tomorrow.  Those days are LONG gone. Its a hectic mess of who goes where, when, and trying to spend equal amounts of time with everyone so no one gets their feelings hurt.

 Don't get me wrong, we LOVE seeing family and spending time together, but oh LAWDY this is crazy talk.

My birthday is ON Christmas

 (yes doctors offices, ER staff, Person IDing me for my gallon of rum, I AM a Christmas Baby, no it doesn't bother me anymore, yes it used to suck as kid. I'm sorry your child was born 3 months before Christmas. No I am not baby Jesus. No really go on, I didn't want to go home today, please keep telling me about your life, while you're at it ring me up for a double)

and I  swear the universe is trying to destroy any hope of me celebrating my birthday and actually enjoying it. (I did get a TON of gift cards and things that I can use for dates with hubby!! WOOO! Its just a matter of WHEN to make the dates and find a sitter.)  Its December 30th and we just had another "Christmas" at the husband's grandparents house yesterday.  

(By Christmas I mean, watching them give us and our kids gifts and feeling extremely guilty that we didn't have enough in the spending envelope to get them anything in return).

eye contact and hugs, the things that cause me anxiety... STTAAAAHHHP!

Eye contact.

Oh they are talking to me?

oh Crap... Look them at them.

 LINDSAY!

 LOOK AT THEM!




Does this look normal? I hope this looks normal. AM I blinking? How long do I have to look at their eyes?? If I look away will they think I'm rude?  I think I'm sweating. I can feel my face turning red. Please make this stop.  You're looking out the window, look at them in the eyes you weakling! Should I smile? I feel like my smile looks fake. Why are they looking at my chin. Do I have food on my face? A ZIT! They must see my zit. Please PLEASE PLEASE don't look at my stomach. This shirt is too tight and I know it shows my lumps. I should've worn a different shirt. NOW they are looking at my mouth. why?????

13 Things to know before you become parents

Sweet beautiful parenthood!!

 New baby smell, sweet smiles and coos. Little fingers and toes. You meet this little person who steals your heart and it's true bliss and love for..... about an hour.

Lets cut the crap. Parenthood is not cute.
It's not pretty ,it's CHAOS, it's not easy, and you are gonna cry.  A LOT! 

But don't let that scare you away! I mean, they are fun (sometimes) and they are funny (mostly due to sleep deprivation and mental health slipping away) and they absolutely love to help you!  
(Okay that last one was just a straight up lie.) 
 They are selfish needy little creatures and they could care less about your needs.

Here are the 13 things you should probably know before you become a parent.

 (Don't say i didn't warn you)

IM DYING!!!!! oh.. nevermind.

Oh hello!

So you thought that I was totally right on my first post. DIDNT YOU? That it would be my one and only and you'd never hear another peep from me. Actually.. i thought that..
 BUT LOOK! HERE I AM!
 (and enjoy my crappy punctuation and capitalization. its going to bug you and it'll make the experience more real to how i felt. you're welcome.)


Barely.

INTRO TO THIS... THING. So Maybe this will be ok?

Oh hi.

 I really don't have many expectations for this blog. But let me tell you what my plan is.