A free printable with 40 lunch box jokes (plus a blank page for special notes!) to help you get ready for back-to-school madness and bring a smile to your kids’ faces.

I’m not good at lying, so I’m not going to pretend here. I am not prepared for the school year to start. I know that a lot of the country is already back in the swing of things, but my girls have another few weeks before the big yellow bus comes rolling down our street. And I’m not so good with the whole preparedness thing (although sometimes I really do try).

That’s sort of my problem: a lack of preparation. I always have good intentions, but my complete and utter lack of preparation sidelines my big plans more often than not. I’m really good at making lists of things to do. But the getting started part? Not so much.

So I’m going to try to be better this year. And I’m going to start with Ellie’s lunchbox.

My oldest turned eleven a week ago and we had the most awesome Cupcake Wars birthday party to celebrate. My kids love watching Cupcake Wars on Food Network and, apparently, their friends do too—which is the perfect recipe for a really fun party (see what I did there? #momjokes).

Samantha has actually been throwing the idea of a Cupcake Wars party around for at least a year now. For me, it always seemed like a big challenge. How would we do it? Where would we put all of the kids? Would my kitchen ever recover?

After surviving a wildly successful party of our own, I’m ready to give out some solid tips that will make your life a thousand times easier if you’re looking to host your own Cupcake Wars party for tweens.

My kids love making blanket forts. The bigger, more elaborate, and more difficult to live your life around, the better. Once they start building one, you can bet that all chairs, stools, tables and blankets that aren’t nailed down will be used. They always build these fortresses in high traffic areas, of course. And they have also taken to duct taping the pieces together to make them near impossible to disassemble.

While I’m all for wild feats of engineering, sometimes it’s a huge pain in the ass. Like if I need to leave the room. Or if we don’t have three hours to take the whole thing down and get everything put away. Or if I really want to sit down.

To give the girls the magic of a secret hideout without the necessity of tearing the whole house apart every time, I had been considering one of those incredibly cute little teepees that are popping up everywhere. I always drool over them on Pinterest, but then wonder how logical they would be in my house. Namely: where the hell would I fit one?

When Teepee Joy offered to send us one to try out, I jumped at the chance.

My littlest has some very specific ideas about her hair.

1. It must be long and Rapunzel-like. Cutting is not an option, although she will tolerate a teeny trim every so often.
2. It must be braided every night to guarantee she’ll have some curls in the morning. The number of braids she requires changes on a whim.
3. She’s very opinionated on styles and generally chooses one that she’ll wear indefinitely.
4. Brushing is a dirty word.

This poses a little bit of a problem for momma. Long hair that she prefers to have flowing freely does not mesh well with a super messy wildling who emits ear-piercing shrieks when I try to brush through her tangles.

Luckily, we stumbled across what she calls “fancy piggies.”

Oriental Trading Company provided me with product for review but all opinions (and drama) are my own.

My girls get their love of crafting from me. They also get their inability to finish projects before flitting off to another creative venture from me, but you can talk to my husband about that. I prefer to concentrate on the positive. Like making pretty ornaments for our tree and to gift to friends and family.

We got a few inches of snow dumped on us on Saturday and it was the perfect time to hunker down in front of the Christmas tree and get our craft on.