Snowy Spring Break Giveaway

It's March 25th-- first day of spring break-- and we woke up to about 3-4 inches of snow. It's amazing how beautiful and exciting the snow was a few weeks ago, but how insulting it is now that it's spring. And spring break, nonetheless. We were supposed to leave for the North Carolina beach yesterday but put it on hold in part because of the weather. I think we may postpone for another day now...

Anyway, it's a good morning to do a few Playseum giveaways. It looks like spring break this year will be spent primarily indoors. The Playseum is an awesome sponsor of this blog. I'll give away three sets of two passes to the Playseum. Leave a comment below and make sure you've liked my Facebook page to enter. I'll do a drawing around noon or one o'clock today so I can send out the passes in the mail this afternoon and the winners can use their passes this week!

Don't know what the Playseum is? Here's their website. My boys and I love the place. It has two locations- in DC by Eastern Market right by the metro stop, and in Bethesda.

Some readers have been having problems entering a comment here. If you're having a problem, just leave a comment on my Facebook page and I'll enter you.

Thursday Thesicle

Find your inner Founding Father... and let yourself go crazy. *

  

 

*This was at The Playseum the other day...enter the giveaway now for free passes!

Seasons of the Soul Therapeutic Massage

I’m not much of a spa gal. I mean, I’d love to have chances for more massages and pedicures and manicures and facials and such, but I’ve always been more the girl who sometimes forgets to shower and change clothes and who probably has muddy cleats in the corner. My toenail polish is perpetually chipped and I don’t get my hair cut as frequently as you’re “supposed to.” I never have fingernails beyond the end of my fingertips and they are never polished. My massages, when I convince the Huzz to give me them, are on the floor in front of a baseball game with a tumbler of wine that will probably spill on my lap. In short, I’m not very put together, especially in harsh lighting.

But a massage does not need to be at an expensive spa, and there can be tremendous results from therapeutic massage.

Ever since my second car accident when I sprained my back, I’ve had back problems. I’ve seen numerous chiropractors and had numerous massages (ahh) that have helped greatly in some cases, and not at all in others, but I still once in awhile have back pain that makes me want to bite something really hard, and/or hook myself up to a morphine IV.

A couple months ago I got a pamphlet in the mail for Seasonsof the Soul—a massage therapist who has her new business set up close to my house. Since I want expand the local aspect of my blog, I contacted her. We ended up meeting and got along well. Marianne was amazed at the way my body healed so well after all my broken bones. When I stop to think about, I am too. I mean, I've broken eleven bones, had two bone grafts from my hip to my wrist and hip to my leg, worn a bone growth stimulator and was told I'd probably have to have bones in my ankle fused and not run again...but I do run. I'm a patchwork quilt that somehow still provides a good snuggle.

Marianne said she read and really enjoyed my blog, and we talked for a long time. I ended up tutoring her daughter who is getting ready to take the SAT and she said she wanted to give me a free massage (twist my arm, right?) as well as become a blog sponsor here.

Her office is so close to my house that any professional baseball player could throw a ball to her building from my building when the wind is right and if the building in between weren’t there. So getting there is a piece of cake—I don’t have to rely on anyone else. Just leave the Littles with the Huzz and walk over to be surrounded in relaxation for an hour.

Marianne uses heated stones in her massages, which I had never experienced before—they were smooth and warm and calming—absolutely nothing to not like about them. The lovely peaceful, aromatic ambiance of the room made me want to move in slow motion and whisper for the rest of forever. She focused on the painful areas of my back that have bothered me for years. After my hour of bliss, when I completely forgot to worry about what to make for dinner, she recommended some yoga poses that would help some of my stiffness. I floated home and it’s all kind of fuzzy now, but I think we might have ordered pizza for dinner? Or maybe the boys made themselves sandwiches while I hummed in a corner?

Since the massage I’ve been stretching every morning and have noticed that my back feels looser in general. I’m thinking I’ll have to wander over to Seasons of the Soul "accidentally" next time it hurts.

Marianne’s business is off to a great start and she's giving first time customers half off one of her massages! This is remarkably generous and the experience is something I highly recommend for anyone local—especially to relieve back pain. It’s easy to schedule a massage online with her. It’s a great gift—for yourself or a friend, or for a silly mom-writer whose blog you read…

Visit her site and schedule a half-off massage!

Touring Amalthea Ridge and Soap Giveaway

You long-time readers know that I have reservations about goats in general, due to a sordid past with said critters. I’ll admit that the aversion was mostly to the smell, and also that I was a rather dramatic teenager at the time of my exposure, and given to typical adolescent embarrassment. (OMG my mom is making me milk the goat when my friend is over! Curl up and die a thousand deaths.)

Well, after my experience last week at the charming homestead of local Amalthea Ridge, my cold shoulder toward goats became quite a bit warmer, I’m surprised to say. I went with my friend Micaela, otherwise known as SuperNOVAmommy, and her two boys. We drove to Great Falls, only about 15-20 minutes from our house.

The weather was wonderful and we found Sarah’s Amalthea Ridge homestead nestled on a hill full of trees and flowers and flooded in morning sun. Sarah and her three year-old daughter first took us to the goat pen and little barn. I admit I was bracing myself for the smell, and I kid (ha!) you not, there was no goat smell. Quite frankly, I was baffled. In my experience everything goat was always smelly. We met the milk goats and their cute little babies, and gathered some warm eggs from under the hens. Sarah informed us that she had never intended to own goats, but it all just kind of happened. Read her and her husband's full story here. 

Inside, we tried fresh goat milk from earlier in the morning. Again I was surprised at the lack of goatiness in its taste. Cal and Clark drank it up and in fact are still talking about it. I asked Cal if he liked it and he said, “I did. It was a little…snicky.” No idea what that means, but I think it’s good. Sarah made us some yummy frittata from the fresh eggs with her Fromage Blanc goat cheese and chives. Delicious! And none of it tasted goaty to me. She even let the boys try to crack the eggs, which required more patience than I have. All four boys devoured the goat cheese on crackers until we had to tear it from their sticky little hands.

Sarah then showed us her soap room and different molds and oils and scents. I recently have been introduced to the world of handmade soaps thanks to my sponsor Spunky Suds, and I’m a big fan of their soaps and body butters. But this was the first time I remember ever seeing a home soap-making setup and it was impressive. Sarah said her soap has much more oil (she uses sunflower oil) than soaps you buy at stores. She's a biochemist and so her knowledge and curiosity lead her to be constantly developing new varieties. I’ve been rationing her ginger and lime body soufflé that I received when I first met her in February. In my experience, handmade soaps and lotions leave skin feeling so much better and moisturized than store-bought products.

To the lucky winner...

After the soap room, the little ones then got to stamp some soft heart-shaped soaps with letter stamps to take home. Great trip! And we barely had to drive anywhere. I love Northern Virginia!

Sarah has generously donated a gift basket of her artisan soap from goat milk to Whispers & Shouts readers! Just leave a comment below to enter. I’ll end the contest on Friday, when one of the boys will draw a name from a hat and I’ll contact the winner.

SuperNOVAmommy also wrote about Amalthea Ridge on her site this week, so check out her write-up as well.

Clark gets brave enough to try to feed a baby

Four curious heads. They all loved feeding graham crackers to the chickens.

Real eggs!

Just like a baseball!

Which prompted them to pretend to pitch and hit...

Just a glimpse of the landscape

Turkey eggs in an incubator! 

Slurp

Egg cracking 101 (Clark did not pass this class)

Looking at the oil...

...and a mold 

...and a LONG bar of recently-crafted soap

PVC pipe mold

Heart soaps for the kids

Hands on!

Gentle stamping

Cal picked a D "for Daddy?" "no for dog" (we have no dog)

Ready to take home to show Dad (and imaginary dog)

Ingrid Hunsicker Photography

I remember having our family pictures taken at department stores when I was growing up. Since there were four kids in our family it wasn't an easy task for the photographers to get all of us looking in the right direction and smiling when we were little. They usually resorted to methods like swinging a stuffed toy around or acting like we should care if we made them sad. In my memory they smelled of cologne or perfume, chewing gum, and muted cigarette smoke. I’m guessing that’s not entirely accurate, but isn’t scent closely linked to memory? So it’s possible.  I don’t remember it being a pleasant experience overall. The pictures usually came out okay, though I remember some that had those creepy insets where it looked like part of the family was hovering in a cloud above the rest of them. We’d get one big copy and a couple smaller ones for grandparents a couple weeks later and be done with it.

Here's a pretty awesome family picture we had taken, circa 1988. Stellar. I couldn't find the creepy one with our parents in the thought-bubble.

This December we had some family pictures done by a sweet girl, who evidently had little experience in photographing kids. It was not a pleasant hour running around with them and trying to get them to look in the same direction and to get Cal to stop crying. She didn’t have any tricks to try to get their attention. They looked at the camera at the same time for one picture and she only captured the chemistry between them in one or two shots.

A couple weeks ago my very first blog sponsor, Ingrid, of Ingrid Hunsicker Photography, came and did a photo shoot with Cal and Clark. The four of us walked down to our self-named location, Popcorn Pond, and ran around exploring. Ingrid clearly has a lot of experience with kids in general, (she has two of her own) but also with photographing kids. She is extremely patient and has an arsenal of getting-kids-to-look tricks. She truly captured the boys’ personalities and relationship with each other. Because of their personalities, there weren’t a lot of pictures of them both smiling normally and looking at the camera, but plenty of them both smiling and hamming it up for the camera, which is much more in their nature.

The boys were happy through the entire shoot and only on our way home did they start crying, but that was because they were scared by some brazen geese. The next time we went to Popcorn Pond, the boys said, "This is where Miss Ingrid took our pictures! She has a funny tail on her back." (She had her hair in a braid.)

Without further ado, here are my favorite pictures that she took. Enjoy them and visit her site, Ingrid Hunsicker Photography to browse her work, and especially if you're on the prowl for a quality kids' photographer in the DC Metro area. You'll be happy with her and her work.

Let the Cal and Clark show commence. 

Smells Like Happy: A Spunky Suds Giveaway

I’ve never done a giveaway here, but I’m doing one today!

There’s this super cool girl I grew up down the road from in Idaho who hand-makes her own soaps-- and I don’t mean the daytime dramas that unfortunately come on when I’m trying to turn on Sid the Science Kid for the boys. She has five kids she home schools, and is in general a supermom. She (more specifically Spunky Suds) became a Whispers & Shouts sponsor and sent me a package of her handmade soaps. As I opened the box and the scents began to waft around my kitchen, I felt a little like royalty or mostly just like the boy noises faded and I was having a party in my nose. She sent some mini bars and a couple bigger bars and a tub of body butter. (And I can get behind anything that has the word butter in it.) So I’ve been washing and buttering a lot and thinking of  what to do for the giveaway. I thought getting the boys involved would be fun, so I had them inspect the soaps and get their opinions on them. I let the boys describe them in their own special ways. After the "buildings" from their freestyle soap-block building toppled down, they had these things to say about the soaps:

Dark red soap: “Smells like chocolate ice cream.” –Clark “Looks like a cow.”- Cal

White soap: “Smells like a cow.”- Cal (I’d like to throw in here that Cal doesn’t know what a cow smells like.) "Smells like mango juice." --Clark 

Green soap: “Smells like a light.” –Clark “Looks like a guitar.” – Cal, while strumming the soap

Red and white soap: “Smells like a candy cane.”—Cal “Smells like a hot dog.” – Clark

Brown soap: “Looks like Papa’s mustache.” – Clark (wearing the soap on his lip)

Green and blue soap: “Smells like a cucumber.” – Cal “Smells like happy.” – Clark

Purple soap: “Smells like Mommy smells,”—Cal (Aww, so sweet. I definitely rarely smell that good)

Big oatmeal-y soap: “Looks like a big horse.” –Clark “Looks like a drum.” –Cal, while drumming on it  

So, I’ve been washing with the soaps a lot lately and I’ve noticed my hands don’t seem as painfully dry as they had been, and also I smell a lot nicer. Less of the I-just-poured-apple-juice smell and the lovely Essence of Desitin. These soaps would make amazing gifts, too. As a matter of fact, if you get a gift of soap from me soon, you will know where I got it-- and I don't mean that I will give you one that I've already sampled. 

Enough daytime drama. Here’s what you need to do to enter the giveaway, after you read about Ashley and her Spunky Suds soap so you can see the loveliness of what you'll be winning.

1. "Like" the Whispers & Shouts Facebook page if you haven’t already. (you could just click “like” on the Facebook box here on the actual blog.)

2. Then leave a comment here using the world “soap” or any kind of made-up form of the word “soap." (example: soaptacular) I'm not even going to be all English teacher on you and make you use complete sentences. Fragments are fine. (It hurt me to type that)

We’ll see what we get. I'll probably have one of the boys randomly draw a winner, or if one comment stands out as the funniest to me by far, I'll pick that one.

The winner will get two full bars of my favorite two soaps, (I decided that the "smells like happy" and "looks like a cow" are my favorites.) as well as mini sample bars like what I got in my package. The deadline is this Friday the 17th at a random time that only I will decide. (Hint: either naptime or bedtime) Ready, set, go.

My Spunky Suds package

Practicing figurative language with soap. (Clark only put one bar in his mouth.)