A day in the life...

.. of an overachieving Mama!  If you follow me on Instagram my theme this month as been how to do it ALL.  It seems like December is always the month that can make or break me.  I want so badly to be deeply involved in everything my children do, work full-time and do my job well, support my husband and family as a wife and mother and keep up with my friends and their lives.  But, man it's a tough gig!  I have so many friends that juggle things much better than I do - they are my inspiration.  So every once in a while I decide that I too can pull up my bootstraps and give ole "overachieving" a run for it's money.  Thank you Pinterest for being the wind beneath my wings!

Catherine Ellis's class had a sign-up for parents to come during the holidays and do something fun with the class.  I, being the new kid of the block that I am, decided to sign up and do a wonderful little craft I'd seen on Pinterest.  You know, really show these 3 year olds what a rock star I am.  I bought all my supplies, printed instructions and showed up promptly at 9:00 a.m. for "Reindeer crafting with Ms. Cain" (read: no one was nearly as impressed with me as I was with myself!).

So here's the sweet little reindeer we were attempting to make:

And here we are as we're getting started - dipping marsh mellows into steaming hot chocolate - anybody have any guesses to what that might make? Hint: a hot mess that does not even begin to resemble a reindeer. 

 

This is Dylan's - his was perfect from the start!  I was SO

proud of myself for how hard I was rocking this project!

 Then Clark's happened - he was next and well, let's just say his reindeer is the one on the left and his downfall started early .... he lost his nose, he slid down the stick and his poor antlers wouldn't stand up either

 Up close of reindeer #2 - my smugness didn't last long

 Bless his heart 

 We had a good run with Reindeer #3 - that would be CE's - naturally

she's a tad overachieving herself  

Since Catherine Ellis's reindeer was so fab she decided to be my photographer for my kick-off campaign of Pinterest Mom of the Year - I'm glad she was there to document it:

 Sweet Dylan

 Miss Ebony and Clark reconstructing parts for a new reindeer

 Jeremiah admiring my handy work?  Probably not ...

 Me in the background; John Michael working hard on his reindeer

 CE loves close shots (that's sweet Anne Carter in the middle)

 Clark was in good spirits despite his first reindeer mishap

  Jeremiah cheesing it up for Cat Cat - 

she's got a future in photography I think!

 Miss Erika's table hard at work

 Let me just say these are round two for Miss Erika's table ...

her first round couldn't take the heat

 The final product - I'm not gonna lie y'all - I'm BEAMING at this point.

  I have schooled this reindeer craft.  So I promptly took a picture and posted it on Instagram AND Facebook - I wanted everyone to know what just went down.

CE is in shock herself - she can't believe how crafty her non-crafty mother can be!  

Seriously - we had a blast.  I loved getting to spend two hours with Catherine Ellis's class and do something out of the norm for me.  While I appreciate Pinterest and it's ability to spark overachieving daily - I think I'll stick to plain ole boring me.  It's fun to whip out the "I can do it ALL" card from time to time, but believe me, its much harder work to pretend like I'm Super Woman/Mama than it is to be the flawed woman/mama that I am meant to be (my talents will just shine through in other ways).  Thank goodness for unconditional love.  May the force be with all you rock star Mamas!