OHNOES! Valentine's Day is Tomorrow?!

Need some quick, easy ideas for Valentine's Day? Here's some great (and easy!) ideas to help make the day special.

From parenthacks.com comes this simple idea: Pancakes with powdered-sugar hearts. Just make your favorite kind of pancakes (it's okay to use a mix or heat up some frozen pancakes, just remember our motto here at Cool Moms Rule: homemade just means made at home!). Put a short stack of pancakes on pretty plate, and use a heart cookie cutter as a heart stencil. Then just shake some powdered sugar inside the heart and Voila! Instant Valentine's Breakfast. You can even serve your honey breakfast in bed for that extra special touch.

Easy-Smeasy homemade Valentines! Gather up all those old magazines collecting dust at your house, and use pinking shears or scissors (Fiskars scissors for the little ones) to cut out red and pink sections. Form into sweet heart shapes, lips or XXXs and OOOs, then glue to white paper doilies (you can even cut those into larger hearts by folding in half and cutting out a tear-drop shape). Fold the doily in half and seal with a red heart sticker.

If you are a little craftier, and have the time, use plain white card stock and leftover red Christmas ribbon or tissue to make your Valentines shine. For kids' Valentines, place a wallet-size pic of your little one on the front surrounded by a tissue-paper heart to hand out at school. Use a hole-punch to snip a small hole in the corner and thread a red ribbon through and tie it into a bow. Make sure your child brings enough for everyone in the class.


Don't forget your furry four-footed friends this Valentine's! As new pet owners, here at our house we are feeling especially loving this Valentine's, especially since our sweet little kitten, Leo, was just fixed today (ouch!). Petcentric.com offers a great solution for sending out sweet Valentines while helping stranded pets at pet shelters around the country. For every dog e-mail or cat e-mail Valentine you send between today and the 15th, Purina will donate .50 to help care for homeless pets!

The World is a Tootsie-Roll Pop Turned Inside-Out

The boys and I were driving home from school talking about lava.

This is not as strange as it seems. According to a recent AskMe thread over at Metafilter, one of my very favorite sites, almost every child has a version of the Lava Game. You know that game, right? Sure you do.

In the Lava Game, you're stuck on a chair, or a bed, and the FLOOR IS MADE OF LAVA, OH NOES!!

And the Owl, whose mind travels along circuitous paths it is best not to attempt to follow, pipes up with, "You know, you really SHOULD be able to dig a hole to China. Wouldn't that be cool?"

So, naturally, the Rhino wants to know why you couldn't. "I get that it would take a long time," he conceded, "but if you had a lot of shovels and friends to help you..couldn't you just dig around the middle?"

So I explained that, in addition to being incredibly hard, and the overwhelming pressure there, the earth's core is surrounded by layers of molten lava (Aha! So that's where the Owl was coming from!).

Which led to us deciding that, in the end? The world is like a tootsie-roll pop, only inside out.

It's soft on the outside, very hard in the middle, and no one knows how long it takes to get to the center!

Weeee're Baaaack!

Missed your Cool Moms Rule! fix? Viv took a couple weeks off to deal with some pesky health problems, but now she's back with all the latest news, including some great new reviews coming your way!

What you'll be seeing here on Cool Moms Rule! soon:

Reviews of great products like:

BabyJamz

and

Yoplait kids yogurt
(stay tuned for special money-saving coupons, too!)

And NEW Contests!

I'm so glad to be back. I missed all of you.
Thanks for keeping up with Cool Moms Rule!
~Viv

2008 is Here!

And did you know that 2008...

• Is a Leap Year? 2008 is divisible by 4 AND is not divisible by 100 or 1000, so we will have February 29th added to the calendar this year.
  

• Is the year the Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing, China? And after February 7th, when China celebrates her new year officially, will be The Year of the Rat?
  

A New Addition to Our Family

We have been debating, on and off, having a pet for a few years now. I say, "debating," but what I really mean that the Rhino and I have been putting forth every argument in favor of a pet that we could find, and the Engineer simply said, "no."

The Rhino, bless his heart, even made up a petition and had the neighbors sign it.

Now, I like to form what we call a United Front with the Engineer when it comes to the kids. We stand firmly as a couple when it comes to important decisions, big purchases, discipline and the like, and that's as it should be. It's important to the kids that we be consistent. I know this.

But I also know that as a devoted animal-lover, one of my best friends growing up was our family cat. I remember being devastated when he disappeared, inexplicably, for several months when we were teens, and that the Engineer, already my boyfriend (yes, we were high-school sweethearts, awwwww) was really supportive. The cat came back, like the famous song, none the worse for wear, and my Mom's opinion was that he'd been adopted by some other family who found him and believed him a stray. Whatever the circumstances, I missed him when he was gone, I loved him from the day we brought him home, as a tiny kitten (we thought he was 'the bravest girl kitten' in the cage; turned out he was the cowardliest tomcat ever), and when he finally passed away at a ripe old age after many good cat years, I mourned him deeply.

And now, here I am, a Mom with two boys who are growing more independent every day, and I realized something about myself.

I miss having someone to nurture. Someone who needs me. I miss the companionship during the day that I had when my boys were little, chattering happily away at them before the were even old enough to answer back, catering to their every need.

Of course, they would probably let me do that now, if I offered. But it wouldn't be good for them. And it's just not the same.

Selfishly, then, I wanted a pet. And, more specifically, I wanted a cat. So much so that I sat down and spoke with the Engineer, asked for specifics on the big "No."

And found out that although there were some very valid reasons for him not to want a cat--a stinky litterbox, clawed-up furniture, and fleas--there were also ways that I could head those very real objections off. Things had changed a lot since my cat was a pet. There are monthly flea treatments that work better than any flea collar ever did, new freshly-scented-odor-absoring-super-clumping cat litter, and even (thanks, Metafilter!) soft paws to keep that new addition from tearing apart the leather couch.

And so I am happy to introduce you to the newest member of our family: our kitten, Leo.

The Engineer gave him his name (we decided it is short for "Leonides", king of the Spartans). He's an adorable little orange kitten born with, for some reason, half a tail, which only seems to add to his cuteness factor. And you'll probably be seeing more of him around the site, because the boys and I adore him, and even the Engineer has fallen under his spell.

~ Viv