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Tips for Wedding Crashers Everywhere

We were married in 2006. It was about a year after the movie Wedding Crashers came out, so it was still relatively common for people to be quoting the movie and joking about it, especially because it was a big wedding year among our social group.

It was the year I accidentally showed up at a friend's wedding in the same dress as the bridesmaids.

What was not all that common, however, was to have actual, real-life crashers attend your wedding. But we did. Unfortunately for them, they were pretty much the dumbest wedding crashers of all time. Luckily, we can all learn from their mistakes.

The story goes like this:

We are at Ruth's Chris in the Pier 5 hotel on Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The restaurant is one of a few in the hotel and at any given time there may be several formal events happening. I am the bride, minding my own business, moseying about the reception in my very conspicuous huge white dress. "Great to see you! Thank you for coming. Yes, we leave on Sunday for the honeymoon..." etc.

Two guys I have never seen before come up to me. They are wearing suits and fit in well. They give me big hugs and congratulate me. BUT Eddie and I grew up together, so I know everyone who was invited. I am quite sure they were not on my guest list. 

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"
"We're friends of the groom. Well, we know you have to get back to your family."

And they went back to mingling with our guests. I went over to Eddie and pointed them out. Of course he didn't know them either. We walked back over to them. 

The Dumbest Wedding Crasher of All Time looked at my new husband and asked, "Who are you?" 

"I'm the groom, who the ---- are you? Get out of my wedding." 

Luckily, they left pretty quickly without trying to fight about it. 
We have no idea how long they were there, but if they would have played their cards right, they might have been able to score a free dinner, or at least a few more drinks from the open bar.

So, my advice to any would be future wedding crashers is....

1. Stay away from the bride and groom. This isn't like the movies. They know that they don't know you. 

2. Figure out who the groom is, then refer to rule number 1. 

3. If you get caught, just leave. (That's the one thing our crashers did right.) It will make for a fun story in the future and the bride will be grateful you didn't do anything dumb to ruin her night.  

Cheers!

 
  

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Cold Weather Craft: Bleach Paintings

It's chilly here in PA this week!

Between the extra cool fall weather and getting into the trenches with our homeschooling, it makes me miss being in the classroom.

I wanted to share a super easy 5 minute craft with you. It also doubles as a science project. (Chemical reactions, anyone?)

I learned about this in a college art class for elementary school teachers. This craft is better for older kids, ages 8+, I would say.  (P.S. When I did this in the classroom the kids had to wear safety glasses and gloves. It's always best to be overly cautious when it comes to kids and chemicals.)

You only need 3 supplies:

• a very small amount of bleach
• a q-tip
• dark construction paper

Dip the Q-tip in bleach. (It's probably best to let an adult do this part, just in case)

Draw a winter scene on the paper.

Wait 30 seconds or so and ta-da. Magic.
 

It's more even more fun if you don't tell them about the bleach and make them try to guess what you are using, or if you use a disposable "magic paint brush" and do it as a demonstration for little ones. :)

I've seen Cheri from I Am Momma Hear Me Roar design t-shirts using a bleach pen. It might be fun to have your kids make their own. 

Let me know if you try it.


Linking to Somewhat Simple 
Serenity Now 
A to Z




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My {not so} Lovely Lady Lump

Today I am over at Wendy Nielsen.com in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month telling the story about the lump I found at age 25:

I do know how it feels though, to discover the lump.  

I found mine a few years ago in a most unglamorous way; one day I was scratching my left armpit. It makes me giggle a little, but that really is how I found it. It felt like a tiny, hard little pebble at the top of my breast. I kept picturing the scene in Finding Nemo when they clog the filter with aquarium gravel. 

I was immediately terrified. I was only 25 and had two very small children. I had an appointment two days later for my routine pap smear, so I waited to ask the doctor because I had already lined up a babysitter that day. Waiting for that appointment was horrible. I kept asking my husband to touch it to verify that it wasn’t just my imagination. It was tender to the touch and most definitely there. How could I not have noticed this before?

To read the rest of my story head over to Wendy's site. 

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LINK UP: If Mommy Bloggers Ran Late Night TV

Recently I have been subjected to more late night television than normal.

Between getting this house ready to go on the market and a baby who is kind of a night owl, I've watched my fair share of Conan and Leno monologues, to which I say meh. 

Where are the late night shows that relate to the mommies (and daddies too) up doing 2am feedings? Do you know how many pre-dawn infomercials I had to endure during the first few months of each baby's life? 

C'mon, network execs. We are out here in the trenches losing sleep rocking screaming babies. We need you to be funny and relatable and not trying to sell us something for just $19.99 plus the cost of shipping. Pretty soon the sleep deprivation is going to take a quick left turn and morph into the ugly cry.

If I had my way I would join forces with all of the other fabulous and funny mommies in Blogland to create a brand new kind of sketch comedy show.

I asked around and moms everywhere agree, our show would be epic. I invited some fabulously talented ladies over to help me demonstrate. 

__________________________________________________________

Move over, Robot Chicken, Robyn from Hollow Tree Ventures is showing you up with her fresh new perspective in her hilarious staged photo series As the Dollhouse Turns. 

 

Anna from My Life and Kids says that if asked to write for our new {imaginary} SNL-style show, "I would do a weekly skit on lies my mother told me... the rare gene that doesn't allow our voices to work with microphones, the extra vertebrate that will paralyze us during organized dance..." You can read about those lies and more on Anna's blog. There are some doozies.

Rebecca from Frugalista Blog.com said that she would be willing to offer her hilarious Tutorial on [how to wear] Spanx. Click over to her blog to watch the video. Oh, yes. There is a video.

And me? I think I would go with a character based on a certain little boy I know. I would call it "That's Ridiculous, Nicholas!" It would feature a little boy embarrassing his mother in various ways by doing things like announcing in the department store that she carries cheese in her underwear. True story. (True that he said it, NOT true that I do it.)  

And we want your ideas too! Link up below if you have a blog post, video, skit, or another idea that you think would fit in with our {imaginary for now} show.



(I apologize, but I'm having some technical difficulties with my linky tool. You are more than welcome to link to your favorite posts in the comments if you are having a hard time seeing the links.)

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A Cheese-y Story

Once upon a time I was a very pregnant lady walking through Kohl's with two toddlers squirming in an awkwardly long and hard to manage double stroller, just trying to use my 20% off coupon to stock up on mittens and sweatpants for said toddlers as the winter months loomed ahead.

I pretty much looked like this

Except with a stroller. And I was probably waddling.

As soon as we got there my son announced he had to use the potty, so we hoofed it all the way to the back of the store and I squeezed my giant butt, my two kids, and our over-sized stroller into the handicapped stall, the only one big enough to accommodate all of us.
 
While we were there I decided to use the potty too, because when you are 8 months pregnant and you have the opportunity you take it.

I was also at the point in pregnancy when a woman needs to wear panty liners 24/7, just in case. In case of what? Use your imagination. There are plenty of yucky things that have the potential to start leaking when you get to a certain point. TMI? Sorry. Back to my story.

I took a panty liner out of my purse. It happened to have a yellow wrapper.

I guess my kids thought it resembled the Kraft Singles they are used to seeing me use to make their grilled cheese.

My son started yelling, "Mom! Why are you putting cheese in your undies? Cheese does not go there! Gross!"

I heard muffled giggles from the other stalls.

"This isn't cheese. It's...um..it's like a mommy band-aid, I guess."

"Do your undies have a boo-boo?"

"Well, no, but sometimes ladies start to bleed even if they don't have a boo-boo...." My two-year-old daughter was starting to look horrified. I could see her poor little mind wondering if she was going to turn into a bloody corpse at any second because she is a girl.

"Ok, fine, nevermind. We'll just call it cheese. It's not a big deal."

 We made it out of the bathroom and through our shopping without further incident.

Until we were in line to check out, that is. This was a fairly long line full of plenty of other people within earshot, mind you.

My son started whining because he was hungry.

I told him that I was sorry, but I hadn't brought any snacks in my purse today, to which he replied,

"That's okay mommy, I can just have some of the cheese you keep in your undies!"

And we never went to Kohl's again.
 (Not true, we still go to Kohl's all the time.) 

The end.



Linking to Life On The Funny Farm 
Finding the Funny 
 



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Mom (self) Shaming

You might have heard of dog shaming or the recently controversial baby shaming (and in case you haven't, it's when you take a picture of someone holding a sign that says something potentially embarrassing), but the 35 Most Pinteresting Moms are starting a new trend: Mom (self) Shaming.

Check out our Pinterest board and the Blogging While Mom Facebook page for some serious true confessions.  You will be laughing out loud, for real, and probably able to relate. 



P.S.
 Because I know you are thinking about it now, I did shave my legs last night.



  


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