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Strawberries Bring the Magic
I’ve come to realize in my ripe old age that I am the bringer of magic. It’s my big responsibility as *the aging matriarch* of the family. Do I sprinkle fairy dust on cardboard and it magically turns into castles? Well, sometimes but I’m more referring to the normal things like family dinners, seasonal traditions, candles and decorations and taking the family out and about to events and things that generally make good memories. It’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it.
If it wasn’t for me we would all sit around on a Saturday doing nothing! Yes, sitting around in our pajamas wasting our lives away playing games on our phones until finally at about three in the afternoon when our stomachs would revolt in hunger and we would make easy-mac and then lounge the rest of the day on the couch still playing games on our phones. Pathetic really.
It is now my job to prevent that.
One of my favorite outings that prevents the pickeledge of brain via phone is to visit the farm near our house. We had to boycott the farm during pumpkin season ever since Hello Kitty decided to make an appearance and our neighborhood turned into mayhem and chaos.
It was bad. Traffic for days and we couldn’t even walk to the farm because you had to make a reservation for your parking spot and if you didn’t make a reservation you couldn’t get in. So no fun walks to the farm and no Hello-Kitty-Goes-to-the-Farm swag for us.
But not anymore! The Hello Kitty craze has died down a little and the farm is back open for regular neighborly people like us! It’s not cheap though. They get you coming and going for tour tickets and Hello Kitty t-shirts and bags. I know I should have said no to the kids when they wanted shirts but I was a kid once too and I loooooooooooved Hello Kitty! Hello Kitty was our Pusheen! Remember those days?
Anyway, the kids loved the farm. We ate strawberries until we thought we would burst and we almost forgot about using our phones. But that might be more because we are all on a new data management DIET lately BECAUSE THE KIDS HAVE USED IT ALL UP!!! Yep. Between the two of them they used fifty percent of our plan up in ONE WEEK. So yeah, that’s gotta change. Three cheers for strawberry farms!
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Memories with Mom Wrap-up
We did it! We pulled it off. Maria and I were so happy to have this whole “Memories with Mom” event in the bag. We’ve been working on it for months. Even though it wasn’t very hard and we had a ton of fun doing it, we were super worried that something would go wrong. Our worries mostly stemmed from the fact that we had no idea what we were doing because no one had done it before us to leave some kind of guideline. You mean we could have ordered free stuff from vendors if we had hit them up months earlier? Or how much do you budget for food for 125 people? Will 125 people actually show up? Just a whole lotta guesswork and a few misses here and there but WE DID IT AND IT WAS FABULOUS!
The walls were a huge hit and turned out exactly like I hoped they would. Everyone was posing with their mom and friends in front of them. It was a really sweet event with friends and moms mingling and sharing the Girl Power love.
Of course “The Talk” was a little traumatizing for some but we got through it with a whole lot of humor. The speaker handled everything so well. Nobody came up to me afterwards upset so I’m thinking it all went down okay. Being a girl is tough but we are more than capable of handling whatever life throws at us.
The caterer (who is not pictured, that’s my friend Simone who is awesomely squirting out salad dressing) turned out to be less than exceptional but there was enough food and it was hot so I say it was still a success. Nobody really expected anything that tasty with an event this big. The fact that there was even food at all was a win in my book.
The blocks were very popular too and found themselves going home with everyone who pitched in and helped us clean up (which went smashingly by the way. Put a bunch of moms in a room and stuff gets DONE.) It was really fun to see the girls all walking around looking for their favorite quote.
I had a great time. I flubbed up the video like a newbie (you know how AV equipment can be so complicated when you feel 125 eyeballs on your back) and I was too shy to actually get up in front and speak on a microphone but I would totally do everything again in a minute. I love these girls! I hope we’ve started a big conversation that lasts with them through their lives and they are never embarrassed to be a girl because being a girl is awesome!
