Young at Art: Jim Henson

Entertaining little ones over the summer is a full time job, so we are hitting up everything and everywhere over the course of the summer. Today I took my little ones (5 yr old and 8 month old) to see the wonderful world of Jim Henson's Art at the Young at Art museum.
MY 5 yr old and my friend's 3 yr old had such a ball running around the different areas of the "world" visiting countries and making art pieces and different crafts in each country. They got to make fish kites in Japan, cloth dolls in Peru and shakers in Africa. Then they got to stamp their "passports"( a little book where they write their names in) after visiting each country.
Next was Jim Henson's art, which included a neon glow room, various textured puppet makings, puppet shows, cartoon drawing and a whole exhibit of paintings by other artists depicting famous works of art, substituted with muppets for the people.
Even my little baby got to play with Sesame Street themed toys on a carpet. At $8 for each person over 2yrs old, I still think this is a good deal.

www.youngatartmuseum.org/

All in all, a great hands-on experience for children to ineract with and make art come alive!

Love and art,
Kerry the Momster

Project Organize: Step 1

As many of us do, I have decided to become more organized this year. Especially with regards to my finances and paperwork.

Today I finally wrestled all my important docs into well-labeled files. If you are interested in sorting through yours, here's some inspiration as to how to do it.

I used 5 separate 3-ring binders:

1. Important:
Sub sections:

•  Identity: Passports and Social security cards
• Certificates: Birth, Marriage and Citizenship Papers
• Work and Education: Degrees, Certifications, Letters of Recommendation, and leave paperwork.

2. Taxes
Sub sections:

• Tax returns filed by years (You need to keep at least 5 years of personal taxes, 7 for business)
• Tax deductible sections- medical, donations, childcare

3. Insurance
Sub Sections:

• Life Insurance
• Car Insurance
• Home/ Content
• Medical (The most stressful area of my life, if you remember from my post yesterday)

4. Finances
Sub Sections:

• Cover Page listing all credit cards and numbers, and a page listing bank accounts and numbers.
• Retirement
• Investments (this is empty, but I plan on investing in SOMEthing other than shoes this year!)

5. Daily

• Quick Reference: This includes pages for important numbers like SS, Drivers license, Doctors, Billers numbers. etc
• To do: Items that need to be addressed immediately, to do lists of things around the house that need fixing/replacement/etc, things to send
• Ideas and Inspiration: Areas for recipes to try, projects to make, general goals, etc

Then of course I have my handy, would-be-lost-without daily planner for setting appointments, dates and it even has a section for to-do lists and shopping lists in the back that can be torn out.

Some other interesting things I encountered regarding finances is that unpaid medical bills DO affect your credit, so don't let anyone tell you they don't. Also be sure to go to the Social security Website and use their calculator to determine how much SS you will get when you retire. It will be a shocking wake up call, as you will probably be unable to even afford a place to live. for instance, if you make $30,000 a year and are  paying in to SS for 30 years, you would be paid out the equivalent of today's $800 a month. Who could survive as a family on that? Especially if you only have one person paying in! It's scary so make sure you have a plan. I'm calling someone NOW to schedule an appointment regarding retirement.

So hopefully all this will help me stay  on track of everything this year...starting with sorting out the insurance  and retirement messes!

Love and colored post-its,
Kerry, the Momster

Don't mince words, just pies.

I had the good fortune of growing up in South Africa, which was a British Colony and thus was raised with many British traditions that I hope to pass down to my children. One of my favorites this time of year is mince pies. No, these are not meat pies, as many wrongly presume- although those are another of my favorite traditions!- but made with canned fruits, mostly of which are heirloom apples.
We eat them on Christmas morning for breakfast as we open presents, but also pretty much throughout the season. They are a tasty, sweet treat, often sprinkled with confectioner's sugar, and as with most baked goods ( but especially these!) the bought ones just are NOT as good as homemade.

So bring some british into your holiday season with this recipe:

This recipe

and the best mince to use is

Love and tastiness,
Kerry the Momster

Feeding Frenzy (Things to do whilst breastfeeding)

If you are a mom who breastfeeds, you know how time consuming this can be. Especially in the beginning when your baby eats every two hours and you are confined to a chair for 20 minutes.(My baby boy is still eating this frequently). During the wee hours of feeding, I realized I could make use of my time in the hot seat for fun things, so that I would look forward to being woken up throughout the night. (Okay, not look forward to, but at least not mind it so much). Yes, you want to use feedings to bond with your baby too, singing to him, stroking his head, etc, but it's okay to put in a little you-time too. Here's my list of things to do whilst breastfeeding:

• Read a novel: you could get through a novel a week!
• Heck, write a novel! : Plan, write, keep your brain alive.
• Shop online: I bought all our Christmas gifts online, at 3 am feeds, and was even able to shop around for the best deals, without lugging a baby to the mall.
• Start a blog ( or add to yours, like I do)
• Download and edit your tons of baby pictures ( this one is more tricky because for photoshop you often need two hands)
• Read Gossip magazines
• Search for awesome new music, and burn cds. ( Nylon mag is always a good place to get musical inspiration, as is Pandora radio online)

If you can make use of your feeding time during the day, you won't end your day saying the mommy motto "I accomplished nothing today!".

Love and accomplishment,
Kerry the Momster