{2020} Year in review

What a year!

2020 started off like any other: Michael stayed up until midnight with us to ring in the New Year, and we were excited and ready for a big year: adventures, kindergarten, and lots of time with family. (Oh, we had no idea!)

In January we embarked on a Southern adventure, with Brandon and I having work conferences a state and a week apart. We decided to make a trip of it and brought Michael with us.

We flew to Nashville, ate lots of BBQ and Michael and I enjoyed the sights and sounds of Music City while Brandon conferenced.

From there, we rented a car and our next stop was Gatlinburg and a visit to the Great Smoky Mountains. We were there off-season but we still had a great time. We rode the Rowdy Bear Mountain Coaster, we hiked in the rain at the park, and we ate the best sandwiches we’ve ever had at Tennessee Jed’s. (SO GOOD!!)  We stayed at the Park Vista Double Tree right in Gatlinburg, which we honestly chose because of the indoor pool with two water slides. They did not disappoint and to this day, almost a year later, Michael talks about the pool and how much he wants to go back and visit.  

Back in the car and we were off to my work conference in Charlotte. Michael and Brandon explored and I had a great time connecting with my colleagues from around the country.

Our final stop was Charleston, SC. We stopped by Congaree National Park on our way for a boardwalk hike and a stamp for our National Park passport book and a Junior Ranger activity book and badge for Michael.

Exploring Congaree

Congaree National Park

Sunset on the shores of the Atlantic

We stayed at the Mills House as our home base and explored historic Charleston and the Magnolia Plantation, dined at Husk (Michael’s first James Beard award-winning restaurant), visited Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter (dolphins escorted our ferry!), and really enjoyed ourselves.  

Magnolia Plantation

Magnolia Plantation

Rainbow Row in Charleston

Doughnuts at the Pineapple Fountain before our flight back to Buffalo

We returned to a brisk Buffalo winter and dreams of Spring trips to Southern California and Seattle, trying to make the most of Michael not being in kindergarten yet.  

Little did we know, this would be our last air travel for a while. And those plans were cancelled, well, never fully planned.

We’ve been ‘safe at home’ since New York’s first lockdown in March. We’re lucky to have had the flexibility to spend a lot of time at home, teaching Michael while also being able to work.

We finished up hockey, took a hiatus from swim lessons, and we’ve painted, planted, cleaned, crafted, cooked, baked (a lot), cut our own hair, and grown out our hair. We’ve become experts at zoom’ing and FaceTiming, attending virtual birthday parties, holidays, and lots of work meetings and class virtually. We learned math, we became kindergarten teachers and a kindergarten student, and Michael has made great progress in learning how to read. We even took “porch photos” to commemorate our time at home. 

Hockey

Math! Math! Math!

Porch photo by MKhoshnavaz Photography

Nature has played a large role in our time at home — we have gone for countless walks and hikes. We discovered, logged, and tracked frogs and toads at our neighbor pond. We tended to a huge snapping turtle who found their way into our yard. Our front yard was even chosen by a pair of rabbits for their burrow and baby bunnies. We had a great time watching them through the window and checking on them multiple times a day. Hopefully they come back this spring!  

One of the frogs we logged in our daily nature walk/PE/science/math class.

Our backyard visitor. It was 18″ from head to tail!

Our baby bunnies in their burrow.

This year Michael has become an expert computer gamer (coding school/camp is definitely in his future). He started off quarantine riding his bike with training wheels — now he’s in a 7-gear bike flying by me, sans training wheels. We’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together (all while wanting to pull our hair out).

From a former-public-servant standpoint, I’ve been very pleased with Governor Cuomo’s response. I’m able to at least listen to 75 percent of his press conferences and I know that we have a great leader in this unprecedented time.  

We were itching to travel and after watching the infection rates closely, we took for a socially-distant road trip south, visiting Gettysburg and Shenandoah National Park in July. We had a great getaway and enjoyed seeing Pennsylvania, Maryland (briefly), Virginia, and West Virginia.

Visiting Gettysburg

At Shenandoah, we stayed at the Skyland Lodge in the national park and had a great private room with a balcony where we would eat our meals and watch fireflies at dusk. We saw tons of deer, hawks, and raccoons, including one in a recycling bin.

Scoping out the views from the Upper Hawksbill Trail — My favorite of all of the hikes we did at Shenandoah

Adventuring

The easy way to hike a trail

If you’re down that way, definitely plan a visit to the Luray Caverns, the largest caverns in the eastern US. The caverns were discovered in 1878 and are incredible floor-to-ceiling stalactites, stalagmites, and mirrored pools. It’s really cool.

Luray Caverns

Luray Caverns. So cool!

Michael started kindergarten in the fall and it’s been weird. He hates virtual school but loves learning, so we’re figuring it out. We’ve bounced between hybrid and virtual learning this year and look forward to (hopefully) more hybrid learning as the vaccine rolls out.

This fall Michael joined Cub Scouts and Brandon is the Den leader (fulfilling a lifelong goal of his). The kids have mainly met virtually so far. We’re hoping for more in-person gathering as we get into 2021.  

My magazine flourished this year. When you’re stuck at home, what do you have time for? Writing for your community magazine! (That I publish.) My advertising partners generally stuck with me and I even made more sales this year than I did in 2019. I look forward to sharing more resident stories and meeting more business partners in 2021.  

Another year of Delaware Park Living

This year Brandon published his first research paper, MD&A Disclosure of Critical Accounting Policies and Financial Reporting Risk: Evidence from Restatements, and redid his curriculum to transition to teaching virtual and hybrid courses. We all picked up bike riding this year and Brandon often rode to work.

We’re cautiously optimistic for 2021. Of course we’d love to travel, especially to the west coast to see family and friends we’ve missed over the past year. We’d love to get vaccinated for COVID and eventually see a five-day school (& work) week.

Michael lost his very first tooth on December 28 and his second one to ring in the New Year on January 1. He already has three permanent teeth on their way, so we’ll likely see more of the Tooth Fairy this year. (It’s very common, but very weird: Michael’s two bottom middle teeth started coming in a month or so ago and they basically pushed the baby teeth out, causing us to miss the whole “jack-o’-lantern” missing teeth look!) 

The Tooth Fairy visited twice in one week!

We’re skipping hockey this winter but have embraced skiing, joining the Buffalo Ski Center. Michael had his first lesson a few weekends ago and he LOVES skiing. We stayed a few hours after his lesson and two hours after putting skies on for the first time, he can ski as well as I can, cruising up and down the magic carpet hill like an expert. 

Skiing at the Buffalo Ski Center

Megan & Brandon — incognito

We’re looking forward to continuing to enjoy our time together, safe and sound at home. Cheers to 2021! 

Elf on our Shelf {2020}

Train (our elf) is BAAAACK!

We’ve planned and now we’re ready to execute. In fact, we set our Elf in his first pose on Thanksgiving eve.

Normally our Elf comes on December 1, but because this year is this year, Train came early!

This is our third year of elf’ing and we actually enjoy it and miss Train when he has to return to the North Pole.

We found the secret to actually enjoying your elf is to pre-plan the poses, so you don’t have to think on your feet. We do this by creating a calendar. While we deviate from the calendar on occasion, it’s so useful to have an idea ready to go. We’re four days in and have deviated twice, which is fine by us. Michael doesn’t know any different.

Check out our 2018 and 2019 calendars for additional ideas. {Printable 2020 calendar here.}

If you need even more ideas, check out my Elf on our Shelf Pinterest Board.

Follow my Instagram stories for each of the Train’s evening adventures: https://www.instagram.com/mszerwo/.

Here are some our adventures so far:

I’m off to set up tomorrow’s epic elf adventure. Happy elf’ing! I’d love to hear your best elf scenes in the comments!

Halloween Cauldrons {Easy DIY}

Looking for a last minute Halloween craft? Planning on leaving candy outside for trick-or-treaters? Want a fancy way to display all the candy you’re going to eat yourself?

I have the DIY project for you: Oozing Witch Cauldrons!

Oozing witch cauldrons

This idea came from this year’s Better Homes & Garden’s Halloween magazine. We likely won’t put it outside for trick-or-treaters, but you’d better believe it’s filled with all our favorite candies already, awaiting Halloween this weekend. 

This is a super easy craft. Please make your own and tag me or post your projects here! 

Gather your supplies: 

• Cauldron ($6, Walmart) 
• Spray insulation ($3, Home Depot) 
• Acrylic paint for the ooze (had on-hand)
• Stick for sign (We used a painted paint stir stick, optional) 
• Candy (once completed, for filling)

… And get started. This project is so easy a five year old can do it! 

1. Prep spray insulation per package instructions (open, put on nozzle)
2. Set up work space (cauldron on top of working space– we used cardboard box in the garage)
3. Spray! (If you’re adding a sign, make sure you insert your stick/sign post when the ooze is still wet.) 
4. And then wait per package instructions. Warning: the insulation will GROW as it hardens.
5. Once fully dry, paint the ooze, if you’d like. We used a “lime” matte acrylic that we had on-hand. The original instructions suggest spray painting, but that didn’t make sense to me, plus I had time to hand paint it while Michael did his virtual schooling. 
6. Add glow-in-the-dark paint. (We did because glow-in-the-dark puffy paint is amazing. We put it on everything!) 
7. Print and adhere sign. (We printed onto a heavy cardstock and adhered it with 1″ blue painters tape) 
8. Fill with candy and enjoy!

Here are the PDFs for the signs: Witch way to the candy & Boo’s (which I envision filled with little alcohol bottles at a party during non-COVID times)

Gather your supplies

Apply insulation per the instructions. Make sure you drizzle some tendrils down the cauldron

Let dry. Make sure to stick your sign stick in while the insulation is still wet!

Paint, paint, paint. Green paint first. Glow in the dark paint after its dry.

We opted for spooky green ooze, painted while I supervised “at home” school

Added some glow in the dark puffy paint once the green paint was dry.

Fill it and place it and you’re done!

Ready to print signs (8.5″ x 11″) CLICK FOR THE PDF

 

{DIY} Skeleton Flamingos

I think I’ve found the silver lining to our current COVID situation: quality time with Michael.

We are spending a lot of time together: between “Mom School,” “Zoom school,” and the shortened days of “in-person school,” it’s all Megan & Michael time. All. The. Time.

While Michael works on his school work and crafts, I’m trying to not be on my phone all of the time, so I’ve been finishing up some in-process crafting projects. (Our school room is the craft room, after all.)

I found an image of skeleton flamingos on Pinterest and I thought they were fun, decorative, and not too scary.

So, I bought some flamingos from Amazon. Do note: these are “mini” flamingos and much smaller than I had expected. 

We had some leftover matte black spray paint, so I set up a spray paint area and went to town.

Fast forward a few months, and I finally had the time and tools to finish the project!

What do you need? 

• Matte black spray paint (We used Rustoleum’s High Heat spray paint, leftover from painting our fireplace, likely purchased from Home Depot)
• Plastic flamingos
• White oil-based paint pen (I think I got mine from Michaels, medium tipped)

That’s it!

I searched a few images on Pinterest and just started drawing. The paint I used dulled my white pen a bit throughout, so I wiped off the tip and kept going.

It took just a few worksheets, crafts, and PlayDoh sessions and I was done! These actually took less time than I expected.

Our flock!

If you decide to follow our lead on these non-spooky skeleton flamingos, please tag me in your photos or post pictures here!

Happy haunting!

 

 

 

School at home set up {Kindergarten}

It’s hard to believe that it’ll be September next week. And even crazier to believe that the week after that, Michael will start Kindergarten!

With the pandemic still raging across the US, we’re pretty lucky here in New York that our community spread rates are very low and Michael is able to experience some semblance of in-person school this year.

His hybrid schedule will include a few days a week of in-person instruction, a day of virtual instruction, and two days of “independent learning” (which for a kindergartner likely won’t be all that independent).

In an effort to make his learning space a learning space, I cleaned up the playroom and added a learning wall (which was previously blank, and used as a back drop for my Little Britches Bakery diaper cake business).

Here are the resources for the learning wall, so you can make one for your back-to-school’er!

Presenting, our new learning space:

Our new learning space

Target and the Dollar Tree were used for most of the wall coverings:

USA Map, $1 — Target One Spot (or whatever it’s called now)

Alphabet cards, $1 — Target One Spot (or whatever it’s called now)

These were glued to a piece of poster board, $0.69 from Target.

Blank calendar, $1 — Target One Spot (or whatever it’s called now)

Glued to a piece of poster board, $1 from the Dollar Tree. I also printed out numbers, months, and holidays on 100 lb card stock for the calendar. These will be Velcro’d on to the calendar with Velcro from Dollar Tree. The unused holidays will be Velcro’d into the blue space so we don’t lose them. 

The calendar headers came from Teachers Pay Teachers. And the numbers and holidays came from A Little Pinch of Perfect. 

Alphabet border, $1 at the Dollar Tree

Michael’s animal art was created last week at school, and framed in these 9″x 12″ frames from Michael’s.

The table is one of the first pieces of furniture I ever bought, and it’s moved with me four times since 2004. Best $79 I ever spent. The price has gone up, but it’s still very affordable at $129. Available at IKEA.

And the close-up

I’ve spent a lot of time on Pinterest since March, trying to keep Michael engaged, learning, and moving forward since the pandemic hit. Most of my “Homeschooling” board on Pinterest is aimed at Kindergarten through first grade, trying to both meet him where he’s at and challenge him.

The three “reference guides” below the alphabet squares were a free printable from Miniature Masterminds. I printed them on 100 lb card stock and backed them with colored card stock.

The three phonics lessons under the calendar came from Whimsy Teaching Workshop on Teachers Pay Teachers. These were printed and glued to poster board (Target, $0.69) and bordered with accents from the Dollar Tree ($1).

We’ll also add this Season Spinner to the wall, once Michael colors it. (Probably on the first day of school!)

We’ll also add a clock in the room, so we can start learning time. It’s a little early, but Michael has been very eager to learn now.

Our crafting tables

As Michael continues to grow, he’s quickly growing out of “his” crafting table (The Latt, from Ikea, $29) that I painted and topped with a piece of Plexiglas years ago.

On top of the “kids” table, you’ll find a new caddy (Target, $3), new markers, crayons, liquid glue and glue sticks, a bingo dabber, and a book and index cards, from Target.

I bought several other great supplies at the Dollar Tree: a finger pointer (for word and calendar work), a lot of math, reading, and writing work books, and more banners for our work space.

Our playroom / craft room / learning space has it all, including a tent, kitchen, easel, a zoo full of stuffed animals, and lots of diaper cakes.

The tent was a first birthday present made by my parents, the “zoo” was an idea from Pinterest, and the easel, kitchen, and artwork hangers across the window all came from IKEA. The wall shelves are from IKEA. The diaper cakes are creations of mine, available on my Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BritchesBakery.

Some of the ribbons and supplies I use for our epic craft projects and my diaper cake creations.

More IKEA resources here: the shelf and storage containers. The peg board came from Home Depot, and I painted it and hung it. While it looks unruly, it’s a genius way to store all of the materials I use often for crafting and “cake” making. Plus it kept sharp things out of reach for little hands.

Our playroom / craft room / learning space hasn’t been this clean in a long, long time and probably won’t be for awhile, once all the fun starts!

Questions? Drop them below!

Fall bucket list {2020}

It’s almost finally fall: sweatshirts, sun, and a chill in the air!

It’s half-way through August, but the sun is going down earlier and earlier each night and the other day there was a chill in the air. And I already saw Christmas cards at the store, so it’s time to switch seasons.

Because of COVID, no one has any idea what Kindergarten will look like this year, I’m running out of TV shows to watch with no hope of new shows on the horizon, Michael’s birthday plans have been re-tooled over and over again, and our weekends will now be football-free, much to Brandon’s chagrin.

So I’m going to focus on something near and dear to me: the changing of the season and our fall bucket list.

Make our scarecrow. I’ve had the stuff since 2018 and this year we’re finally going to make it!

Decorate for Halloween. Michael is taking after me and loves Halloween too! With COVID what it is now, I don’t think trick-or-treating will happen, but we’ll still buy some candy and indulge. I think Michael is going to be Martin Kratt of the Wild Kratts for Halloween, since he will already have a costume. (He’s having a Wild Kratts-themed birthday in mid-Sept. and will receive a Creature Power Suit)

SPOOKY!

Boo! These cheesecloth ghosts were a new addition last year.

Apple picking! Maybe we’ll have weekdays free. Maybe we’ll visit on a weekend. Who knows. It will be a fun time, regardless. So far this year we’ve picked strawberries and blueberries.

Visit a pumpkin patch. There are so many farms here. We’ve visited Greg’s U-Pick Farm for the past three Falls, so we will be there again to take a photo of Michael in this pumpkin house. Maybe we’ll even go on a socially-distant hayride! I usually go for the imperfect, warty pumpkins. I don’t see that changing this year. After a visit to a really cool corn maze in Ohio last October, Michael is really excited to find more mazes here too.

Three years at the pumpkin house!

I prefer the unique, warty pumpkins.

Carve our pumpkins. Maybe Michael will even help de-gut them this year? We can roast the pumpkin seeds, eat pot pie, all of the things.

PUMPKINS!!

Bonfires! We just bought a Solo Stove and I can’t wait to use it for a toasty fire and s’mores!

My birthday! I don’t have plans yet, but it’ll likely involve some corned beef (my favorite!), one of these big cookie cakes, a great bottle of wine, and some quality time at home.

I’m planning on one of these for my birthday… plus a few years!

It’s only right that I memorialize (mourn?) some of our favorite Fall traditions that aren’t COVID-friendly: 

• School? Who knows. Our school district is such a hot mess.
• A really big birthday party for Michael and a visit from Grandma & Boppa.
• College (& NFL?) football.
• Trick or treating
• Hockey lessons
• A night on the town to celebrate our anniversary (#9 this year!!)

Pumpkin picking at the pumpkin patch

Read our 2018 list here… WARNING: it’s pretty similar.

Construction FOURman

Michael turned four this past September and we celebrated with friends, family, a bounce house, pinata, and an epic cake.

Of course, I spent a considerable amount of time planning the party. (Thanks, Pinterest!)

Our invites were amazing — Michael’s construction hat came from Home Depot and I taped on a few layers of foam I cut out. His shirt was from Old Navy. We were lucky to find a torn up parking lot at our swim school: the perfect photo backdrop.

DUMP EVERYTHING! Michael is turning FOUR!

And I designed some great signage. (Download the set here!)

To feed our guests, we went with really large “party pizzas” from our neighborhood pizzeria and made our own cake out of FOUR boxes of cake mix and FIVE cans of frosting. (And it was delicious!)

Dig in: Party pizzas

The dessert table

The delicious birthday cake

The pinata was great fun. I made a “4” out of card board, tape, and crepe paper. Tutorial coming!

Party pinata

Michael helped me fill it with construction-themed bracelets, temporary tattoos, suckers, tootsie rolls, and construction trucks. We passed out mini bags from Amazon for the kids to collect their pinata droppings and had the kids decorate plastic construction hats. (Hats & bags sold together here.)

My pinata filling helper

So many hats and letters!

The kids whacked and whacked the pinata and it finally broke. I might have built it a little too well. Oops.

Pinata time!

Pinata recovery

We had such a great time celebrating our little FOURman!

We rented the perfect bouncy house– and they let us keep it all weekend!

Hanging the pinata

Inside the bounce house. Michael means business!

Happy Fourth!! {Larger than life number sculpture at Buffalo’s Outer Harbor}

So much delicious cake!

Construction everything! Additional party decor

Such a happy Birthday Boy!

What stinks in here?

Alternative title: why do all of Michael’s favorite things focus on poop?

I’m hoping that it’s normal that a 4+ year old boy is obsessed with farting and poop. They are, right?

Whoopee cushion to computer: everything is flatulent.

Our most recent find comes from Nat Geo Kids: the Dung Beetle Derby game. He’s obsessed. Players have to solve a series of puzzles and games to allow the poop ball to reach the dung beetle who then takes it to the next level. Sounds great, right? We worked together and beat the game in a little more than an hour. The game is fun and tricky.

One of many great NatGeo games

Of course we discovered a great new book: F is for Fart. The alphabet AND animals AND farts? A winner.

It really rounds out our collection of poop books… Everybody Poops, What is Poop, and the classics Toot and Potty.

Our favorite books of late

So what great poop and fart “resources” have you found?

We’re familiar with the What’s inside your butthole? “music video” (thanks, Uncle James), but I’ve opted not to share it here.

Please tell us other books we should be reading and games we should be playing!

Happy Earth Day {2020}

Every day is earth day in our house, but on Wednesday we went a little more intense than normal.

Michael took an Earth Day Pledge and has since failed on his “shorter showers” promise. Otherwise, he’s doing great.

We made some amazing cookies that were SO EASY. We picked a sugar cookie recipe on Pinterest (this one!), separated the dough into two bowls (go a little heavier for one of the bowls), and added food coloring (one bowl green, the bowl with more, blue, since Earth’s surface is 71% water). And mix, mix, mix.

Once you’ve got your colored dough bowls, pinch pieces of each dough color, combine them, (see below) and roll them lightly. If you roll them too much they’ll get marbled. Just a quick roll to combine should suffice.

Bake per the recipe’s instructions…

And, voila! Delicious and festive.

Some of our other fun resources for learning about Mother Nature: (no affiliate links, since I can’t figure out how to do that…)

What did the tree wear to the pool party? — Swimming trunks. This and may more Earth Day jokes.

Nature Activity Book

My Encyclopedia of Very Important Animals (My Very Important Encyclopedias) 

My Encyclopedia of Very Important Dinosaurs: Discover more than 80 Prehistoric Creatures

Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World

Gross as a Snot Otter (The World of Weird Animals) 

What else should we be reading? How did you celebrate Earth Day/Week? Tell me below! 

Halloween recap {2018}

What a Halloween!

We dressed up, paraded, trick-or-treated, and ate and ate and ate.

Most of my creative juices went to Michael’s Mater costume, which was a work of art.

From the front:

And from the back… a working tow hook!

And let’s not forget the working headlamps once dusk hit! (Don’t you just love the pie tin radiator/candy dish!?)

Mater was WAY too big to wear to school for Michael’s class parade, so we pulled this Captain America costume out of the closet. Look at these little super heroes!

Apparently Michael grew a bit… Look at his shoes and fake shoes.

Brandon and I phoned in our outfits, thanks to Target. They were fun and easy– fine by me!

Of course we had some festive eats too… Our many-layer dip was so easy and paired perfectly with orange and black chips from Wegmans:

And some sweet treats, “blood” courtesy of food coloring and corn syrup, applied with an infant medicine dropper, edible axes made by Wilton, bought by me:

We carved pumpkins too. All around, the perfect holiday!