Rachel Callahan

Attempts at Capturing The Moment.

January 23, 2010 Rachel Callahan I would NEVER take too many pictures. . ., I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Toddlers: The Experience

We always take Ali to get her portraits made around her birthday (you know, because I don’t take enough pictures of her throughout the year). This year, my sister-in-law Lindsay and I were talking about it, and I had this Wonderfully! Bright! Idea! To combine photos!!

We thought…

We’ll get some of all of the cousins together!
Gramamma will only have to make one trip to the portrait studio to make our kids smile!
We’ll combine our package and save money!

Then, as the time grew closer, I started to get nervous… can you successfully photograph three kids three and under together? It’s hard enough with one.

Is this going to be more chaotic than we’d hoped, trying to get their pictures and our pictures and combined pictures and individual pictures and picking out pictures together….oh my!

It turned out to be not bad at all – with the exception of actually achieving an “all three cousins together” picture as a reward for all of Gramamma (AND Pop’s) hard work in ~~forcing~~ getting the kids to smile.

The process started with rounding them up, which in itself was a challenge (darn Lego tables!!!)….

Take one: Ali’s doubting this whole idea too, Tessa’s wondering why she’s been abandoned and left between such unsafe creatures, and Eli is plotting his escape:

Take Two: Ali realizes she’s supposed to smile so she can be set free, Tessa’s still asking where her Mommy is, and Eli’s starting to move out of the picture.

Take Three: And He’s off!!! Tessa’s making sure to lean far away from him so that she doesn’t get implicated in his crimes. Smart girl – I could have used that tactic as a kid.

Take Four: Eli’s unceremoniously returned, but he’s got a grudge to settle now. Ali’s feeling all “Ha Ha you’re in trouble now” smug.

Take Five: The “This is as good as it’s gonna get, crazy idealistic people” shot.

We DID try again later, after their outfit changes and after they’d “gotten used to the idea”. However, Eli really just was done with all that, so he fled the scene:

When we DID get him back, he refused to sit up. So we thought, let’s just capitalize on that and get them all to lay down.

Of course, when they laid down WITH him, he wanted to get up.

And Tessa wanted to cry.

Ah well, we showed our endurance, at any rate.

Ali’s pictures went fairly well (as did Eli and Tessa’s individual shots, but I’ll let Lindsay show you those). But Ali seemed to have a strange propensity for looking like a bunny in nearly every picture:

And if she wasn’t doing her Bugs Bunny impression, she appeared to be concocting up some evil scheme of which she took GREAT pleasure in:

But somehow amidst the chaos, we managed to get a few keepers:

By the time it was all over, though, I think Ali just wanted some time to be alone and gather her melodramatic thoughts.

As did I.

Zoës New Menu Offerings – and Free Meal Giveaways!!

January 22, 2010April 30, 2012 Rachel Callahan Giveaways and Contests

You have all heard me rave about Zoës Kitchen pretty much continuously over the past couple of years. They are my favorite lunch spot, as well as Ali’s. Her request for her birthday was to “go to Zoës with AJ and Gramamma.”

So that’s what we did.

A few days later, I had the opportunity to go to a tasting for their newly expanded menu (don’t tell Ali – she was at home asleep). It was so much fun!!

The new menu includes one of mine and Chris’ favorite appetizers, Hummus, which can be ordered by itself or on a Hummus Salad Plate:

The Hummus was perfect – very fresh (they make it on site), flavorful, but not at all oily.

They have a couple of new side items as well, one of which is on the above plate, their tomato-cucumber salad. It has Tomatoes, Cucumbers, White Beans, Tomatoes, and Onions tossed in a flavorful dressing, and is a wonderful addition to their already amazing salad choices.

The other new side item are the white beans, braised and warm. They were filling and tasty.

They also introduced a Club Pita, which includes grilled chicken, ham, swiss, lettuce and tomato. I didn’t get to try this, but it sounds awesome!

And, in an effort to offer more of a selection of “Guy Food”, they have added Steak Roll-Ups to the menu:

They were delicious!! The steak was very tender and easy to eat (I never eat fajitas or anything with large pieces of meat in a sandwich because I have a pet peeve about pieces of steak coming out of sandwiches and falling all over my face when I bite into them, but that didn’t happen AT ALL with these wraps, MUCH to my relief!!). They are super juicy from being cooked with swiss cheese and mushrooms, and come with a yogurt dipping sauce, which was a perfect match for the sandwiches.

The last new item on their menu are their House Baked Chocolate Chip Chunk Cookies.

After sampling everything else, I was going to save my cookie for Ali and Chris, but when they brought them out, they were still hot.

And soft.

And gooey.

And chocolatey.

And the size of my hand.

And I ate every bit of it.

If you would like to try their new menu for yourself, they gave me ten free meal cards for the Steak Roll-Ups with your choice of side item!

To enter to win one of these ten prizes, simply comment on this post.

You can earn up to four extra entries by:

Follow Zoës on Twitter or Facebook
Tweet or blog about this giveaway
Subscribe to or Follow this blog
Follow me on Twitter OR my new fan page on Facebook

(be sure to leave separate comments for your extra entries.)

Best of luck! This giveaway is open until Monday, February 1st. The winners will be selected randomly and announced on Tuesday, February 2nd.

To check and see if there is a Zoës near you, click here.

Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this post – my opinions, are, as always, my own.

12 Reasons that I hate 24.

January 21, 2010 Rachel Callahan It's Tough Being a Girl, Weird Strange and True

Chris loves it…

I used to love it…

But after two seasons, I realized that it stressed me out so much that I might need medication if I watched another episode. Just hearing the mere “beep, BEEP, beep, BEEP” of the intro and before and after every stinkin’ commercial break literally makes my heart race with anxiety and dread of WHAT’S GOING TO GO WRONG NEXT.

(Actually, just THINKING the “beep, BEEP, beep, BEEP” makes my heart race. I’m telling you – the continued existence of this show is not good for my mental well-being.)

But, Chris still loves it. And I don’t want to miss out on our night times alone. So, when the dreaded time slot arrives, I sit in the living room, feet entwined with his, but eyes and ears two inches from my laptop, trying my DARNDEST to tune out the carnage happening on his Male Soap Opera.

And so, I present my case.

12 Reasons that I hate 24.

They make it up as they go along – the writers actually admitted a few years ago that they only have a few weeks planned out at a time, and they make the rest up as they come up with “cool” ideas.
For someone who likes continuity and an overarching plan, this is TORTUROUS. Yet not surprising….
For instance, in the last season that I cared about, they wasted three hours (aka THREE WEEKS of episodes) recovering an mp3 that Jack had, but let get taken back. He had it for at least an hour before losing it.
C’mon, people – if he’s really superman, he would have TOTALLY recorded it onto something else or played it over the phone to let someone else record it or SOMETHING. Those three hours were unabashed time fillers that I will never be able to recover.
The show is supposed to be in real time for 24 hours. If that’s the case, why does no one ever pee?? Ever tried holding your bladder for 24 hours? That’s what I thought.
I have a lot of issues with this whole real time thing. For instance: flights across country take 15 minutes.
And driving a car across Los Angeles take 2 minutes.
Also, Jack always happens to be in the exact city that a crisis is about to take place – whether that city is LA, NY, DC, Africa, or Needles, Arizona.
And the most annoying time issue – every the-world-is-about-to-end crisis always resolves in exactly 24 hours.
But if it DOES resolve sooner, then there just HAS to be another crisis. And the two combined will equal … exactly 24 hours.
Chloe O’Brian always looks like she just smelled the worst aroma ever concocted by a human, and she’s covertly looking both ways, trying to find out if it was the person at the console on the left…or on the right.
Everyone in the world, good or bad, is related to Jack. Seriously – how many relatives can one man have that are on one side or the other of every terroristic plot on the face of this good earth??
The ticking is so anxiety-inducing that I fear it will make me tear out a brick wall, Edgar Allen Poe Tell-Tale Heart Style.
The violence. Apparently, there are golden tickets in the television industry, and if you get it, you’re not subject to normal rules of decency. For instance, 24 got the Violence Golden Ticket. Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives split the Sexual Content Golden Ticket. Oh – and Jersey Shore got the “Really??? People Actually LIVE LIKE THAT?!!?!?” Golden Ticket.
There’s NEVER a truly happy ending. Nor will there ever be. Even Chris, deep down in his soul, would trade watching a whole season just to give Jack Bauer 24 hours of peace and happiness. In episode one of this year, he was already saying “C’mon, Jack, get on the plane with your daughter!! Leave it all behind!! Fly, Jack!! Fly!!! Fly far, far away!!!”
Of course, Jack chose to stay and fix the crisis-that-couldn’t-possibly-be-solved-without-Jack. And of course, this season, like all the others, will end up with Jack getting the snot beat out of him – for the TWENTY-FOURTH time of the season.

Face it – It’s not going to happen. Jack will never get a full night’s sleep, will never get to pee, and will NEVER be happy or well-adjusted. And Chloe will never quit smelling loathsome and offensive odors.

It’s Fitting.

January 20, 2010 Rachel Callahan I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Toddlers: The Experience

Remember my opinion about getting “fitted”?

Well, I took note of all of your comments about how I might be missing the melon boat, and I caved.

And wow – y’all were all totally right. Things have been put back in their rightful home that Ali misplaced three years ago, which makes me feel AT LEAST two and a half years younger.

My life will never be the same.

Granted, it wasn’t a very fun process.

(Insert Here: All of the hilariously awkward details that I WOULD write if this blog had 100% female readership. But since it’s only 99.99% female readership, I chose to edit.)

However, it was worth it – I never knew how poor my own size-estimating skills were.

One word of advice if you decide to go down this path?

Do NOT, under ANY circumstances, take your toddler with you to your Underwire Calibration.

For the past week, every time that Ali can find anything long and skinny that resembles a tape measure, regardless of whether we’re out in public, in the middle of church, or at home, she holds it up to me and says,

”I’m measuring you, Mommy. I’m measuring you for a bra. And I’m seeing how much you weigh. WOW you’re a big girl.”

Aaaaaand….now I’m off to register for The Biggest Loser.

Guided Learning Vs. Play Learning

January 19, 2010 Rachel Callahan Homeschooling: Not just for the socially awkward anymore., Toddlers: The Experience

First, the winners of the YooHoo and friends! The winners are: Jackamo, ShelbyRose, and kathy pease. Congratulations!! I will be in touch to get your addresses for your YooHoo friend!

I am participating in Marie’s “Life is Therapy” series this week – it’s a great series full of ideas and tips on how to help children learn through daily life – be sure to check it out!

I have always been a big proponent of keeping any schooling that I do with Ali all about “play” and as unguided as possible since she is so young (she just turned 3).

For instance, I don’t push school – I let Ali guide it. That way, she thinks it’s a game. When I’m busy doing the dishes, she’ll “Play States” or “Play Presidents” by herself. She’s always asking if we can “play school”, which is exactly where I want to keep her excitement level.

However, my casual approach wasn’t working too well in my efforts to teach her how to write letters. She would ask me to write things, and I would. If she wanted to write, I’d cheer her on, but she usually wouldn’t write any letters but the ones in her name.

I knew she COULD do it, but it just didn’t seem like the activity was holding her attention.

After her birthday party, I decided to experiment with a little bit more of a formal, guided task: writing thank you notes.

I didn’t think she’d do too great since she hadn’t really written anything, but I was completely shocked! Having a purpose and knowing WHY she was writing seemed to make all the difference to her.

She happily made letters that I had never seen her write before to make AJ’s Thank you note:

“AJ”, “Game”, “Ali” (and her creative addition, a smiley face.)

(Yes, A’s are still upside-down. And I kinda like them that way.)

On the second one, I started to get a little frustrated with her because she kept writing the letters out of order and all over the page.

Then I realized: duh – she’s never written on lines before because I’ve always just let her “free-style” her writing.

I explained to her how you write on top of the line and showed her how it should look.

Sure enough, we started over and she did great:

“Nathaniel”, “Game”, and a very messy and a bit out-of-order “Ali”

(My patience was not, however, high enough to get her to write ALL of those names, thanks to Greg and Julie and their long-winded kid names. Nathaniel would suffice.)

We’ve made several more, and I was really surprised at how eager she was to do them (and even asking me if we could make some later), considering her former pushback about writing.

“Amanda”, “Shapes”, “Ali”

“Brooks and Claire”, “Fairy Outfit”, “Ali”

Although I still think that casual learning is best for her age, I learned that sometimes having a purpose in learning can excite and motivate a toddler more than just keeping it as a game.

When the Clock Strikes Twelve…

January 18, 2010 Rachel Callahan The Blissfulness of Life, Weird Strange and True

People ask a lot how our small group works. I’ve blogged before about the miracle of our 16 kids, six years old and under, somehow managing to all go to sleep while we meet, then when we get ready to leave at midnight, we wake them all up, take them home, and they go back to sleep.

Seriously cool stuff.

But, in case you wondered what we did between their bedtime and midnight, here’s a typical night – which happens to be last Thursday night.

7pm – arrive, enjoy the chaos of the screaming, playing, running gaggles of kids.

8pm – put the kids to bed, all settle back in the living room, marvel at the sudden quietness, eat desserts and appetizers that we all brought but hid from the kids.

(Which, this week, included my favorite seasonal treat, a King Cake.)

(Yes, the naked baby seemed to be very rudely mooning us. Yes, I might have chosen that particular King cake because of the mooning baby.)

9pm – since it was our first “real” small group of the year (our New Year’s Party and our National Championship Party didn’t exactly count), we all shared our annual prayer requests – what we wanted the whole group to pray for each person individually for the whole year.

(Which, by the way, was how Ali came to be – after two years of trying, we made “get pregnant and have a baby” our 2006 prayer request. Within three months, I was pregnant. She was a week off of actually being born that year, but nonetheless, annual prayer requests are powerful stuff.)

10:30pm – Prayer requests finished and thoroughly discussed; New Topic of Conversation: What our spiritual gifts are / where we feel led to serve.

11:15pm – completely downshifted into laughter and casual conversation, when the hostess, Lydia, says, “Okay, Ladies… and Men… and David…”

(laughter followed as we tried to figure out how David managed to get a category of his own.)

Lydia regains control and asks, “I need to know if any of you have any ideas about how to rearrange this room to make it more functional.”

11:30pm – The whole living room is in shambles as all of the men are moving furniture,

making spur-of-the-moment decisions on what works best,

And the women are telling them whether their decisions are right or wrong.

11:55pm – complete rearrange is complete, so we get our kids, pack up, and head home.

And, depending on how much Lydia liked our design aesthetics, we might or might not get a repeat next week. Because that’s what happens at midnight.

Santa, Noah, and God.

January 16, 2010 Rachel Callahan Toddlers: The Experience

The whole Santa thing this Christmas was just plain weird for me. (Did I talk about this here? It seems like I did, but I don’t think I did. Or maybe I did.) We’ve had many discussions and debates with our friends about whether or not to do Santa Claus, and Chris and I, along with most of our friends, have always been pretty pro-Santa.

My reasoning was because a) the magical feeling of believing in Santa as a kid was just so much fun for me, and b) I didn’t really think that kids confused Santa with reality, God, etc.

However, actually carrying out the sham just felt WEIRD. Especially when my kid wasn’t even all that interested in Santa or even wanted him to come to her house.

The thing was, it really didn’t feel any different than lying to her would feel. And that was weird.

But I still never worried about her confusing the whole thing….until this week.

Ali had a Picture Bible in the backseat. She was giving a running commentary to herself about the characters in it. Then I heard this:

“This is God. He’s kinda like Santa, but he’s God.”

My breath caught in my throat. Did she really just say that??

They were right.

She equates God and Santa.

Right before I was about to blow the whole thing and tell her that Santa was pretend and NOTHING like God, I looked back at the picture she was looking at, and realized that Ali wasn’t thinking nearly as deeply as I had given her credit for:

It was a man with a white beard and red and white outfit.

And, poor thing, it wasn’t even God, it was Noah.

Note to self: “kinda like” may mean “kinda LOOKS like” in toddler speak.

But I still feel weird.

Did anyone else find it more awkward than they thought it would be to do the whole Santa thing?

Giveaway – $70 Value at Toys and Games Online!

January 15, 2010 Rachel Callahan Giveaways and Contests

I was recently introduced to ToysAndGamesOnline.com. I wish I had known about them before Christmas, because my Christmas shopping would have been a lot easier!

They have all sorts of toys for all ages including all of my favorite brands (like Melissa and Doug, Learning Resources, and Fisher-Price), and have really great website interaction to help in your searches.

They have a rating system to the side to help you gauge the quality of the toy you’re looking at – it rates the Construction Quality from economical to premium. I found this very helpful, because a lot of times I can’t determine the quality of an item just from the picture and description.

When you’re searching for an item, they have the most helpful narrowing down system I’ve seen – there are groups of checkboxes on the side so that you can filter your search results by price, brand, options, shipping speed, customer options, and others specific to each search. With this system, it is easy to select multiple options to help you find what you’re looking for.

They also have great sale prices – I compared their prices on Melissa and Doug items with our local toy store, and ToysAndGamesOnline.com had the lower price by about 25% every time!

So next time you’re looking to buy Online Toys, remember ToysAndGamesOnline.com!

And, if you would like to try out ToysAndGamesOnline.com for yourself, I have a giveaway for one item of your choice up to $70 in value!

To enter for this giveaway, visit ToysAndGamesOnline.com and tell me something you’d like (it doesn’t have to be your prize if you win).

You can earn up to three extra entries by:

Subscribe to OR Follow my blog
Follow me on Twitter OR my new fan page on Facebook
Tweet, blog, OR Facebook about the giveaway

(be sure to leave separate comments for your extra entries.)

Best of luck! This giveaway is open until Monday, January 25th. The winner will be selected randomly and announced on Tuesday, January 26th.

Disclosure: I did not receive any review products or any type of compensation to write this post.

The Present.

January 13, 2010 Rachel Callahan Just My Luck, Toddlers: The Experience

Ali has mentioned several times over the last couple of months that she would like a ring. Oftentimes, it is said in an unbelievably endearing and wistful voice, something along the lines of:

“Mommy has a ring…and Daddy has a ring…but I don’t have a ring yet. I sure would like to have a ring too.”

We were thrilled with the idea of gifting her with something that she so very much wanted, and something that could hold a lot of sentimental value to her for the rest of her life (I still have my first “real” ring that my Dad gave me birthday somewhere around age 8 or 9…and I love it!).

However, deciding to get her a ring for her birthday was a much easier decision than implementation.

Public Service Announcement: Children’s Rings are no longer made.

Literally, they are nearly impossible to find.

We tried jewelry stores, department stores, children’s stores, accessories stores, Amazon, online stores… finding a ring in a size 3 is more complicated than convincing a two-year-old that pooping in the potty is a worthwhile endeavor.

But we finally found one.

It was perfect.

It was a pink non-real-but-also-not-a-sticker-like-most-toddler-“gems”-we-found stone set in sterling silver – a perfect compromise in between a “real” ring and a play ring.

We were so excited – we couldn’t wait to see her face of wonder and gratefulness over her dreams-come-true birthday present!

So Friday night, we eagerly got out her birthday presents – her ring, a jewelry box, and, as an afterthought, a refill pack of PEZ for her beloved Ariel PEZ dispenser.

She opened the ring first…
And looked at it like I would if I had just opened up an ugly wooden rooster with kitchen utensils sticking out of its butt.

We tried to recover the moment by hyping it.

“It’s a ring!! Just like you wanted!! And look – a pink stone!! Isn’t it beautiful?!”

Still nothing.

Chris tried to put it on her finger:

And she immediately yanked it off, said “I don’t want it”, and handed it to Chris.
She then proceeded to open her PEZ refill packs with squeals of delight and jumping-up-and-down-and-all-over-the-living-room excitement.

“Thank you for the PEZ refills, Mommy!! Thank you for the PEZ refills, Daddy!!!!!!!”

Note to Ali’s Future Husband: If you want her to say yes, skip the diamonds. Just buy her PEZ.

Post-script: Ali finally decided today, five days later, that she’d like to wear her ring…She was quite proud to have a ring like Mommy…it just took a few days for her to come to that conclusion.

Post-script note to Ali’s Future Husband: If she says no, maybe she’ll change her mind in a day or five.

Eye Shopping

January 12, 2010 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Just My Luck, Toddlers: The Experience

So my eyes have been really annoying lately.

They’ve been dry and burny and extraordinarily sensitive to light and computer monitors (which isn’t very helpful in my overly-geeky lifestyle).

I’ve been seeing an Eye Doctor and she’s been trying things to get them back to normal, which has included some uber-expensive steroid drops that I have the privilege of self-administering four times a day.

Yes, I admit it. I, too, use steroids. Too bad that I’m not breaking any blogging records or winning any accounting championships due to it.

As a part of this whole process, my doc tested my eyesight, and thinks that my slightly-off vision might have something to do with my eye strain.

At first, I was skeptical. I’m used to hearing people’s vision being crazy digits like 20/300 (or maybe I’m just married and related to really blind people), so 20/30 didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.

However, they keep getting more painful despite my ‘roids, so I finally decided that it was time to get myself some glasses. At least to use when I am at the computer.

So I went shopping.

Ashley and AJ met Ali and I at the mall, so I got their help in the final decision making process.

Except that with every decision, Ashley very decisively picked the opposite one from me.

And when I’d give Ali and AJ a “Do you like A, B, C, or D the best?” option, they would both yell, “I like Z the best!!!”

But finally, after wading through the confusion and differing opinions, we all settled on this pair:
I was finally happy with my choice, but then I let Ali and AJ try them on, and I remembered the rule that NOTHING will EVER look as cute on me as they will look on them, including glasses,

and ESPECIALLY Purple-And-Pink-Sparkly-Velour-Leotards.