4 Kids & A Large Coffee: Purim Has Come And Gone.....

Purim is probably the most fun and exhausting day on the calendar. The costumes, the mishloach manot (creative food baskets), the shul (syngogue) dinners and parties, friends and families getting together.... Sharing their favorite and least favorite (for those mean people like me) mishloach manot with their friends and family. Not only was making our MM (for short) exhausting. But delivering them was too. And I only did half of them! Jon and the kids did a bunch in the morning.

I was never able to stay home before. I am usually the one dragging all my kids to shul and then to deliver all the stuff, while Jon is at work. This year I got to be home in the morning while they delivered some, and you know what? I kinda like to be home and chat with my friends who stop by with their MM. It is a lot of fun when you are home to accept them, instead of coming home to a crazy amount of packages by the front door.

I forgot to take a picture of my favorite MM. I usually like to do that. Oh well. But my favorite one was made by my friend Lindsey. It was an under the sea theme. A plastic fish bowl filled with fruity pebbles on the bottom. Some gummy fish "swimming" and a net with a little mermaid cookie, a starfish, and not sure what else.... and a picture of her daughters dressed up as ariel and sleeping beauty. She wrote a poem and stuck that in too. The presentation was great. Even better was that my kids won goldfish at their school carnival last week and now I have a fishbowl to put them in, instead of the glass bowl I was using!

Anyway, there will be a short Not Me Monday section here so I can link up to Mckmama...

I did not stay up all night to do my Mishloach Manot. I did not think they were awesome when I went to bed at 6:05 am. I did not hate them when I woke up. And definitely was not totally upset all day.

Ok. back to normal. So I got most of my stuff together for my MM in advance. But since I have a crazy, 2 year old, tornado mess of a child. Love you, Alyssa. I could not do anything until everyone was asleep saturday night. Because if I had put it all together and left it sitting out it would have been all opened and thrown around and then where would I be??? Anyway, our shul had a Purim party after we read the Megilla, and I did not get all the kids to bed till way after 10 and did not even step foot into my kitchen till after 11. Plus I had to make sixty something cupcakes. And then put all the stuff together. And then wrap it in cellophane...and put a card on. So yes, I am a little obsessive and I need it to look good and all, and I thought it would. But with all my hard work and all my efforts, I just wasn't loving it this year. (Luckily I already thought up next years idea, and it's going to be much easier!)

Anyway, when my kids were little, I was able to do a theme. It was easy... they wanted to be princessy or girly and I just matched up a theme. They always wanted to match each other. Over the years things have drastically changed. They like to dress up with their friends, and definitely not with each other. So, since I like themed MM, I make them dress up for our family picture, and then get another costume that they want. This year I decided on pirates. But on their own, Jessica was dressed for a masquerade ball. Emily was supergirl. Will and Alyssa were supposed to be Mario and Luigi, but at the last minute, literally, Will freaked out about the mustache, and took the old power ranger costume out of his closet. So Alyssa was a care bear that was from Emily when she was 4.

So this year was pirate themed....

Taking the family picture is easier said than done, as all you parents know. Alyssa only lasted for 2 pictures before her melt down. The first pic was great except Will put his sword in front of my face. I wanted to use it anyway, but Jon wouldn't let. Below is the second pic. My camera's self timer gives you 10 seconds till it takes the pic, and with 2 seconds left to go, Alyssa dropped the sword (one of many props she insisted on holding).... I was like, "don't pick it up!" and then the picture was taken, the melt down began, and that was it. Walgreens did a pretty good job helping me crop, and print, and black and white it though!

And this was my MM....

Well, before I wrapped it...

This is what my dining room table looked like at around 4 am..

This was my favorite part. The treasure chest... with chocolate coins and rock candy jewels.

I made cupcakes, chocolate chip cookie bars, and a roll with an X on it in food coloring markers. I thought it would be really cute, but was not thrilled this year. Plus there were a few more people I would have loved to bring MM to, but it was either... be done or be divorced. So I chose to be done :)

Whatever. There's always next year.

Here are some pictures, my camera died so I don't have so many.... These were taken at our shul party.

Emily and her best friend (who bailed on the supergirl costume). We still love her though.