Swhoo. What a crazy month, two months, three months. From October to January.........it's mostly a blur. Thanks to the many pictures I manage to take, it helps remind me of all that has gone on. You'd think that being a stay-at-home mom is peaceful, relaxing, and boring. But it is none of those, it's hectic!!!! Talking over with another stay-at-home, we both admitted to needing a calendar, just so we could keep track of who was pulling us in which direction for the day or week. My husband's stepmom always comments on how I 'go go go' but it never really affects me, it's life.....and then the holidays hits. And I'm wiped out, and suddenly realizing what my stepmom-in-law is seeing from the outside. Exhausted, hahah that's in the past, I'm now full on living zombie mode. Try to catch up on sleep....that's funny....it's now time to wake up early and hit the gym. Go to bed early....hahaha....not with all the presents Little Miss got for her December birthday and for Christmas, it's now time to re-organize the ENITRE house. We are blessed, to say the least, to be surrounded by 50+ family members. The holidays are always exciting and we are all so happy to have everyone together in one small house. And then it is even better when you get to see distant cousins or even your 97 year old grandma on FaceTime. The holidays are truly a time to reflect on how amazing our lives really are. No matter what gets us down, or stands in our way most days....the holidays remind that we have an army of people to fall back on. Even though most of us are too stubborn to call for help, we at least know it's there. Comfort. True comfort. The holidays also remind me of how Jesus is very much still alive today. He is here on this earth, walking and breathing with us. He is in our house, filling our rooms and keeping us warm. Life continues to go on, as we are reminded when New Years Even creeps in. It's a great reminder that no matter what has happened in our past, we are given a new day and a new year. Although, I'll admit, I have no freaking clue why we wait up til midnight on New Years Eve. Nothing special really happens.....right?!? I mean I'm not struck by a luck stick, or a beam of light promising a better year. Are you? Does anything special happen to you? LOL. All that happens is......the clock keeps ticking. Ok, yes, it is fun to keep the kids up way past their bed time and take yet another opportunity to be with more friends and loved ones. But it's still kinda silly to me. If there was an Ebenezer Scrooge of New Years Eve I guess I would be him, or her. This year my hope is to make healthier choices for my family and I. I also plan to keep up my workout routine, most years I'm great from January-July then I start to slack and on come the holiday pounds. But my sweet, amazing and wonderful husband also wants to lose a few pounds and see some muscle definition....so hopefully he will be my support system. But this is a typical new year goal, I'm sure everyone wants to be more healthy and more attractive-physically. But in this new year I also want to become for mentally attractive. I want to be more patient with Little Miss, I want to remember she is a just a child, I want to love more deeply when it comes to my husband and I want to be less stressed. I want this year to be calm, well as calm as it can be. And this year, I want to learn how to say "No." I want to focus on spending time with my little family and less time on our big/whole family and friends. So bring it on 2015, I've got God on my side and I plan on making Him my 'go-to guy.' I hope this new year brings you great joy and peace. God is always there. He is the only one that will NEVER let you down. Let Him be your inspiration this year, do things differently, do things His way. And be careful out there....just be careful.
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Play Time. In the past, play time was the imagination play that involved all four senses. Today, play time usually looks like a child sitting still and holding a tablet or electronic device. There is something lost when all you do is stare at a screen, don't get me wrong there are many a good apps and programs for children that are educational....but nothing compares to open-ended screen free play. And I completely understand, it's often very hard to be out of the home 6+ hours a day, then come home to cook a full meal, clean the house, bathe the children and somewhere in the mix try to engage meaningfully with your child or spouse. But more time needs to be devoted to it, the house will not fall apart if it's not vacuumed, children can help clean up after dinner and your spouse needs to help out around the house if play time seems like something only families get to do together on TV. Through open-ended play, children develop imagination and creativity. It also helps them develope investigative techniques and explorer traits. Open-ended play allows children to question, explore and imagine....which is what they do best. With that bring said, my wonderful friend and relative Bev gave me a book full of screen free activities......highly recommend you getting a copy!! Since getting this book we have had three awesomely fun and crazy night!! Sometimes just Little Miss and I having fun, other nights included daddy and then some included our besties. The book offers all DIY activities with ingredients and recipes. And each recipe is labeled things such as: gluten free, vegan, lactose free, corn free, dairy free, nut free, etc. Here's pictures from our Borax-free Gak Dough fun and our Ooblek fun night, message me if you the recipes 💚 With each activity I took off shirts, pants and socks. I was unsure of how everything would be on clothes, even though the book thoroughly says it's all cloth friendly. But I was only willing to take chances with our undies. But, the book was right and everything washes out well. And I highly suggest doing as I did, and only doing these messy ones on either a splat mat, towel or straight kitch floor. It's all been so very easy to clean but if I had let them do this on the carpet I know I'd limit their fun as I kept the carpet cleanup in mind! Three days before Thanksgiving I found myself asking my husband if he wanted to start putting up the Christmas stuff. He turns and looks at me as if I have three heads, then says, "It's not even Thanksgiving!?!" I then had to explain to him, that yes, it is not thanksgiving but the world around us is screaming Christmas and has been screaming Christmas since November 1st and I felt as if I were being left behind.
So why is that Thanksgiving is slowly becoming.......forgotten. I'm going to fix that....while there is only 4 minutes left of this Thanksgiving day. :P Thanksgiving Facts::
And did you know that every year, since President Truman, the chairman of the National Turkey Federation presents two turkey to the President. He then chooses, or 'pardons' one turkey, ensuring that it will not die yet it will spend the rest of its life on a farm in Virginia. How awesome of Truman to start such a tradition. See, even the President has a soft side. In the words of the President, "....is a pretty special moment when we give thanks for the people we love, and where we're mindful of the incredible blessings that we have received." So I challenge you, and myself, to tuck yourself into bed tonight and count your blessings. The day is over, all the food that was to be eaten has been eaten and now all that's left is full bellies and praises to be raised. Thanksgiving day can be so....un-mindful. If you're like me you have to wake early, get to the gym to burn calories that you will eat later on, rush home to get you and the little one ready, out the door off to grandma #1, then #2, then #3 and finally ending at grandma #4s house. You find yourself being anything but thankful....maybe in a less thankful mood. You're tired, full, unbuttoning you pants while trying to chase after a 2 year old. So now that all of the chaos has died...it's time to finally be thankful. For life, for love and Christ. <3 I'm at it again. Doing everything myself. I had a hard time with the dish soap and shared my experience with you but now I want to share the good experience I've had with my DIY dishwasher tabs! I have a pinterest account....I mean seriously, what stay-at-home mom doesn't?!? Exactly. So I ran across soooooo many dishwasher tab recipes and pinned them all. But eventually went with a recipe from Kayla Domeyer on the saynotsweetAnne website because I literally had all but one of the ingredients laying around the house. Being a DIY person, you always have washing soda, baking soda and other cleaning products handy. So I was good to go there, and of course I have salt....who doesn't add salt to their food?!? But I didn't have the Kool-Aid mix, I've just never been a fan of that stuff....too much sugar if you ask me. Plus, I've tried to stray away from putting chemicals in our food and especially in our water. Now the recipe calls for kosher salt, which I didn't have, so I used sea salt and everything worked fine. There recipe also calls for 1 cup of water which is NOTTTTTTTTTTTT what you should use. You should maybe use 1/2 cup of water. I used a whole cup and then product was like soup so practically had to double my dry ingredients. The recipe also doesn't say what size the tabs should be and I didn't have a melon ball scooper, so I just grabbed a cereal spoon from my drawer. I first filled my dishwasher to its max....like usual, and put one tab in. Everything came out great, except for the glasses, they were super duper spotty. So the next time I filled the dishwasher less full and again only used one dishwasher tab. Same result, spotty glasses. Then the third time and every time afterwards I filled the dishwasher to the max and added two tabs, one tab in the door container and the second one I threw to the bottom of the washer. This was it, my testing was over.....everything came out squeaky clean and the glasses were spot free! Seriously spot free. AHHH!!! So happy. I'm pretty sure I just made 30+ dishwasher soap loads for under $10. Ya can't beat that. Finally, here is the recipe I used. What You Need: I.5 cups Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 1 cup baking soda 1/2 cup salt 2 packets lemonade mix (without sugar) .5 cup water Wax Paper How To Make Them:
So there ya have it, the perfect recipe for dishwasher tabs. I have tried and perfected them so that all the hard work isn't upon you. I hope I have inspired you to do a little for yourself and your family. Try something new and make your own dishwasher tabs. You'll be amazed by the empowerment you feel once completed and used.
Got questions? Just leave a comment. I'll get back to you. My two, nearly three, week long journey through shapes has officially ended!! In between babies getting sick, family parties and potty training, my homeschool skills have surely lacked. But either way, my child is smarter than she was before and she now knows her shapes. I had been going back and forth trying to figure out what to teach Little Miss after colors...I thought numbers would be too hard, letters would be easier but still not the right time....and then I stumbled upon shapes. Everything went great! First I casually introduced many different shapes with the infamous white board matching game. Little Miss did a great job matching them up properly and trying to repeat the names of the each shape. ::cough cough:: yes, this is a picture taken in the middle of our potty training days. We also did activities like this, where I would tell her to put the circle stickers in the white circles on the paper. Even while out to dinner you can talk about shapes and engage in a learning activity. We drew shapes while waiting for our food and picked out different shapes we saw in the game pad from the restaurant. Nearly everyday we have color time, I think by me drawing out shapes continuously for three weeks has really helped aid in the learning process. To learn triangles, I grabbed some colored popsicle sticks, glued them together, then hid them around the house. She had a great time trying to find the triangles. Most had to come with some sort of clue, and then she'd shriek when excitement once found. We played this game with two of her friends that came over too. I'd have to say this was by far the best way to teach shapes....each time she'd pick up a triangle I'd ask her what shape it was and what color it was. This activity was quite the hit. I took tape and made simple shapes on the carpet; like triangles, squares and circles. I then made it into a shape jumping game, where I'd ask her to jump in the shape I called out. This was too cute. She'd hop over to the shape I called out and then jump all over it, most of the time missing the middle of the shape but at least she was jumping to it. I left the tape on the floor for a few days and we ended up doing other activities with it. Like pulling out beads and moving all the beads from one shape to another. Each time I'd ask her to move the beads to a certain shape. We also had a few play toys around the house that worked great with teaching shapes. Like this egg carton, from her Aunt Shire. This gem has the shapes on the bottom of the eggs that you then match to the bottom of the egg carton and each egg is a different color with its own top. Perfect for shapes, colors, counting, and matching.
Even though our white board matching game had many different shapes, Little Miss only comprehended square, circle, heart, star, triangle and sometimes diamond in the three weeks. I'll continue to work on the rest but with no stress or worry. I had fun teaching her shapes. She is such a bright intelligent girl, she gets all her brain smarts from her daddy. Each day she surprises me when picking out different shapes hidden in the world around us. Even though she thinks I'm the best thing ever, she truly has no idea the amount of love and joy she brings into my life. She is my world. I hope I have inspired you to try new ways to teach your toddler shapes. And I also hope you find inspiration from your child this week. |