Cool easy crafts

My little brain is about to pop! I have stumbled across such NEAT ideas for making toys etc. for children that I want to do it ALL!!! But, realistically, I can't spend the next two weeks at the sewing machine or in a constant state of creating something. There are chores to do you know... they have been rather neglected lately however.

I just made a CUTE tutu. Yeah, no sewing involved. It took me less than 45 minutes too.

I got my directions at www.makeitandloveit.com This lady has some awesome ideas, many of which I plan to try later.

I'm also in the process of making 5 crayon rolls. What's a crayon roll? Here's a picture from the blog, www.skiptomylou.org


EASY hair barrettes! Here

Baby shoe pattern...




Homemade baby toys


And more to come !

Snapshots of the Wild Weekend

Still working on the house pics/video...but here are some from the weekend.


The hayride to get the tree.



Trying the get the perfect picture in front of the perfect tree. Sarah isn't wanting to cooperate.



She just needed a good tickling.



Better..



Still better...



Great! oh, we're missing some kids...Alexa took this picture! (she's almost 6- wow)


The most popular guest at the Christmas party.



Dessert! That's their friend Shelbi.


Samantha loving Granna's glittery snowman.



Twirling Sunday morning in their fancy dresses.

Pictures

Thanksgiving Day at our house with my family and Matt's parents. See the fatness??

Me working with baby- my sister and brother-in-law were visiting. Major fat pic!

Ouch! Wake up call now...

New baby Samantha pictures...she is about 4 months old now, trying to sit by herself, prefers to stand but also loves her playpen, is eating much better from the bottle and is loving food from the spoon as well. She really resembles my husband in these pictures, but then she looks different too. Hard to tell who she looks like the most.

An Angel sent to Leiah

I mentioned the other day that I was going to write about something special regarding my oldest daughter Leiah.

We moved to this town two weeks before Samantha was born because the previous school district would not allow her to go regular ed kindergarten. They basically tried to make me think that their school was so advanced that Leiah could not possibly keep up, that no one was capable of assisting a child in the bathroom (teachers I mean), that all the children would be mean and pick on her because she was different and that she absolutely would NOT get an aid to help her.

So, it was a challenge to find a house, get a loan, and close on it in two months. But, by the power of God and our faith in action, we got it.

So many things have pointed to us that we did indeed hear from the Lord and we were meant to be here. We have wonderful neighbors, some which we already knew before we moved. The school is absolutely wonderful and they love Leiah and have made it a point to tell me so.

Back in September, on Grandparents' Day my mom went to school to eat lunch with my girls. When she saw Leiah's class coming, Leiah was walking down the hall with a group of girls surrounding her and holding her hand. Leiah's aid pointed out a little girl named Chloe that loved Leiah and was always holding her hand and helping her with everything.

After lunch, the little girl came to my mom and said that Leiah was her very best friend!

We all cried over that one. So the next day was Open House and I met her and her family. The NEXT day, I went to Target way far away and lady asked me if I was Leiah's mom. I said yes, and then I recognized that she was Chloe's mom. We talked and exchanged phone numbers and have been getting to know each other. I told her how much I loved her little girl for proving that Leiah can be in regular society without being ridiculed. Not only that, Chloe broke her arm shortly after that, but she still continuously holds Leiah's hand with that arm, and always has her arm around Leiah.

Last week they went to the Pumpkin Patch farm and I got to see Leiah's class and little Chloe in action. She is an angel. Here are some pictures and I'll point her out when I get there.


The main little 'auditorium' where they did a little skit and talk about the pumpkins.



Part of the farm.

The skit about growing pumpkins. The little blonde girl with flower petals on her head is Chloe.


Pickin' Punkins!



Now are the pictures of Leiah and Chloe. Getting arranged for the picture... (they're on the left)



Give me your hand Leiah...


Isn't so sweet?! Thank you for loving Leiah Chloe! There were other little girls that were quite possessive of Leiah. Yeah, she's a freak no one likes huh?

Kitchen Happenings

So what's been going on in my kitchen lately? I actually took some pictures last night!!

We had homemade chicken noodle soup- super for immune boosting.




And delicious whole milk yogurt topped with this berry sauce- raspberries, blueberries and blackberries sweetened with sucanat and thickened with arrowroot powder.




Here's my brewing cupboard- an every growing kombucha mushroom that I need to pull out of there and make a new batch of! And a jar of kefir, almost ready to refrigerate.



I have 2 cups of steel cut Scottish Oatmeal soaking in water and whey for today's breakfast. Yum. No comparison to regular rolled oats.




Here are my herbal brews! I finally got them going! I have two large jars of immune booster and 1 of sleepy time. I'll give the recipes later.



I also made a large pitcher of herbal tea since the tinctures aren't ready yet. This is a mix of elderberries, echinacea tops and roots, yarrow, mullein and catnip. I HIGHLY recommend buying herbs from www.bulkherbstore.com You get a LOT of herbs for the price. I was absolutely floored when I saw how much I got in each bag!!!


And here is a kitchen tip. When I open a bag that doesn't have resealable thingie, I use clothespins! Works great- much better than the little twist ties and cheaper than buying 'Chip Clips'. I do also save the twisties from bread packages as well.


And I must close the post with a baby picture :)



And maybe another....

Just some pictures

Here is my attempt at taking pictures of myself, 6 months pregnant. I don't look much different than before, except my hair as grown a lot.

My belly seems to have a point to it...weird. I have a mean expression on my face in this one. Just concentrating though...

I love this dress- got it in the ladies section of walmart. They had red, navy, black and a printed one. This is actually an XXL. I haven't looked here to see if there are more, I got this one in Michigan.


***Edited to add: I forgot to mention that tomorrow is my birthday. Do I look like I'm about to be 27? I look younger than that in these pictures....hmmm. I keep thinking I'm 24 or something.

This is a rare and cut sister picture- they never do this!!



Snow day in Michigan.


This almost midnight after a day of driving on our trip to Michigan. Look happy don't they?

Breakfast choices

Conversation at breakfast:

Sarah, the three year old: "Mommy I'm hongry, I want eggs." (yes I put an 'O' in there on purpose, that's how she says it.)

Me: "OK, but I gotta cook them first."

Sarah has donned her bib and gotten a fork and is bouncing up and down beside me while I cook scrambled eggs. She sits at the table while I bring her a plate of eggs.

Sarah: "Mommy, I don't want eggs."

Me: "Yes you do. You asked for eggs. Do you want some ketchup?"

Sarah: "No, I don't want the eggs."

Me: "Well, do want this cereal?" (I had poured some dry cereal in a bowl for her earlier)

Sarah: "No I don't want cereal."

Me, letting out a deep sigh,: "Sarah, what do you want?"

Sarah: " I want cat food."

Some fairies came to visit...

I wanted to share some funny pictures of my girls. Saturday was our church fall cookout. Since we don't celebrate Halloween, we allow the kids to dress up in 'nice' costumes. We went to Goodwill and bought all of these outfits-wings and all.

Sarah, the 'baby', barely fit in her outfit. That's why it is so funny! Poor girl, she is built just like me...




A back view of the fairy wings...

Retraining

Since my post on my heart change towards my children, I've said I'm doing better but I haven't gone into the details of what exactly I am doing. It seems that a lot of us mothers struggle in this area, as it is so easy to let them do what they want and many of us did not have 'mom training'. We are learning by experience, on the job training.

A dear sweet lady has been 'mentoring' me, with some tough love. She is Mrs. Klause from Clothed with Scarlet. Go visit her :) I wrote a simple question how she organizes her day with her three little girls and how I can better train my children, and she began a series of emails that dug down to the core of my problem. God must have put a burden on her heart for me because I was so not expecting all the time and effort she gave to me. Thanks so much again.

So, the main thing I've been doing is keeping all of them with me as much as possible. I am not perfect in this, but I'm learning. So, instead of me running around getting the kitchen spotless after meals, I give them little jobs to do. Such as, Leiah and Alexa, ages 5.5 and 4.5 are able to bring their dishes to the sink and wipe down their 'spot' at the table and their chair. They can put things in the refrigerator, spot clean the floor, use the dust buster, hand wash some dishes etc. Then, we all go to the bedrooms and get dressed, make beds, tidy rooms then we all go to the bathroom and brush teeth and hair and clean up the bathroom, then we all go to my bedroom and make the bed, I finish tidying it up and getting myself ready etc.

For instance, this morning, after everyone got dressed and all that, I put Sarah in the highchair to eat breakfast, Alexa moved all of the videos to our shelves and arranged them by herself and Leiah stayed in the kitchen with me while I cleaned up breakfast. It worked very well- surprise! Then I vacuumed the living room quickly and got them busy with some coloring books while I made a menu and grocery list. Then things got hectic with a phone call, me trying to get a diaper changed and shoes on everyone and trying to get out the door. We went grocery shopping and that was not fun. These girls!!! They always act so terrible when I'm out- at least 80% of the time.

Things went downhill after that- Alexa and Sarah had an attitude, I was tired after all of that, the refrigerator is leaking etc. etc. Now everyone is down for naps, so hopefully we'll get refreshed and be nice again :)

While they are resting I need to finish some laundry, make some tea, make some bread and dessert and work on revamping my schedules. That way I'll be better able to guide them into what I'm doing without feeling behind and rushed. At least that's the plan. I'll do all of that after I rest a few minutes- hopefully I won't totally fall asleep :)

It's a bit harder to include them in everything, but it's getting easier. One day at a time :)

Teaching children

Do children need to be 'taught' how to play?

My little girls baffle me. I know they are still young, but they just don't seem to know how to play. For instance, we have a cute little kitchen set with dishes,appliances, a tea set, play food and a table with chairs. Yet they rarely ever play like they're cooking. Well, maybe 2-3 times a week or less. Or, they have a box of toys in their room, but they don't seem interested in them.

They all love to watch TV and this in part is my fault. I started them all out on baby Einstein movies as babies. They are just glued to them! It was supposed to be educational and it kept them occupied while I cooked dinner etc. Then I learn that children watching a lot of TV isn't the best thing. Well, now I'm not sure what to do to keep them busy, yet be able to do my job too.

I have allowed our house priority over the children the last few years. I am working on changing that. I have issues that go deep about that and I don't to explain it. Basically I was berated for not keeping the house very well and it stung. I've somehow created a complex in myself that I must have a perfect home at all times now. So, I am working on this :)

Still I am not sure how to get all of them happily busy. They do fight a lot amongst each other, so they need to be separated quite a bit, and that is tough. Anyways, it's hard for me to back down and relax on household things and at times the girls get pushed to the side. I don't want to keep doing that. Watching TV is ok as long as there is plenty of learning and interacting time with mom and dad, in my opinion at least. So, that's my post for today. I have my niece and she is being fussy, so I have to go.

Just some pictures

Leiah and Alexa's new passion.

The cake I made for our family Easter gathering. It was a carrot cake with cream cheese icing and toasted coconut on top. I thought a brown bunny would be cute.


I am amazed the stroller is holding up.
Sarah helped herself to the 'crudite' while I was in the bathroom and Daddy was fixing the air conditioner.

Sarah's new passion. Crayons and paper are everywhere- I finally put them in a secret place and get it out for her at a good time.

Alexa's typical look- layered clothes with heels.
Some of our free flowers.


'Talking' to Grandpa on the phone-cute.