Sunday, April 29, 2012

Sunday Sunshine

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

The last two weeks have been a blur including travel, illness, sunny days and cloudy.  Amid it all - here are a few things I'm thankful for as April comes to an end:

:: Friends who help out, just to help out.
:: Sunny days - and warm days!
:: Rain - our area did need it.
:: Safe travels
:: Quick stomach bugs (as opposed to the long drawn out nasty bugs)
:: Doctors we like and speedy medical treatment.
:: Budgeting and money management skills passed to me from my parents.
:: Extra work
:: Days for uninterrupted projects
:: A Little Helper who is learning to do so many new things around the house.  She particularly likes loading the washer and dryer and unloading the dryer.
:: Play dates
:: California strawberries and Florida tomatoes and the promise of the fresh produce season that's right around the corner.


So many things to be thankful for, and so often I miss them.  I hope we can all seek out the things to be thankful for this week!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Mommy Made It: Binky Leashes & Tags

G-Girl was a binky baby.  She figured out how to get them out of the binky leashes we had pretty early on.  I saw this post last week and got inspired.  I grabbed my fabric store coupons and G-Girl and I went shopping.  G-Girl picked out the ribbon, with much deliberation: there were a few different monkey options. I grabbed the ribbon and the clips, added the brown fabric from my stash and got to work.  The finished product: 



We used the Soothie binkies which G-girl loved, and we were fine with them.   Until she dropped them.  Then they roll and hide under furniture, into corners and all over the place.  Then we would mutter phrases that are not repeatable and join in the crying with the angry infant.  I had forgotten about these ordeals until the Little Guy I babysit came with the same binkies.  And I remembered.  I decided to try to figure out a solution before Itty Bitty gets here.  I made little tags that attach - they're about 3 inches square, and will hopefully prevent the disastrous rolling as well as making the semi-translucent binkies easier to find!


So, here's my stash.  We'll have leashes for the car seats and a couple extras.  When they get grubby, they can go in a lingerie bag in the washer.  What's not to like?









Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Toy Baskets


If you have small children in the house I’m sure you know of the Toy Bunny phenomenon.  You start out with a few toys in a living room, or play room.  You turn the lights out and go to bed and they seem to multiply like, well, bunnies. 

Toys filled a corner of the living room and often threatened to take over the entire room.  When I told my three-year-old to put her toys away, they just got piled back in the corner with minimal organization since they really didn’t have a place where they belonged. Toys were brought out to play at random.  I needed to be able to tell G-girl to put her toys away and have her know where away was.  I also wanted a limit on how many toys came out at once so they had less of a chance to take over a room.  Oh, and I wanted to do it for about $20.

I racked my brain trying to figure out the best way to rectify the Toy Bunny chaos in my living room and started looking around my house.  I landed on some baskets that I had picked up at our local dollar store and an idea started forming.  Then the next time I was in my DollarTree, I picked up ten basic black plastic baskets.

Then I began sorting.  I put toys in categories and started filling the baskets.  G-Girl has some baskets specific for her things that are kept on a higher shelf: toys that are small, or have small parts.  Other toys that don’t pose a hazard to younger children I baby-sit or own Itty Bitty down the road, are on lower shelves for easy access by all. 

Then I took each basket and dumped its contents on the floor (stay with me here – I’m really not nuts).  I arranged the items quickly and shot a picture.  Then out came the cardstock and a stash of scrapbook letters that I’ve had on a shelf, nearly untouched for –oh, about three years!  I got to work.  I set G-Girl to work with scissors, paper and glue-stick to make her own "po-jet" (project).  I printed out my photos, cut the cardstock to fit the fronts of the basket and heated up my laminator.  I laminated the cards, and punched holes in the corner so they would tie easily to the baskets.  The finished product was basket labels that have a photo of what goes in the basket, as well as a word description. 



There are a number of points to this solution that make it work so well.  When the basket is full, if something new comes home, it’s time to pass a toy along to someone else.  There is a picture to show what goes in the basket to make clean up easy and G-Girl can match the toys to the photo.  Now that the toys live in the nearly finished Green Room, a basket of toys can be brought out to be played with, but when play is done, everything gets cleaned up, back in the basket and back on the shelf before the next basket can come off the shelf which limits toy explosions all over the living room!


I am not claiming this as an original idea.  I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before but I finally implemented it and it works for me!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Sunday Sunshine

"Take A Picture of Me?  Cheese!"
Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.  

Last weekend, after morning worship, we had a great Easter celebration with friends:  fantastic food, lots of laughter, card games and of course egg hunts.

This week brought the lab work and doctors appointment that come with  being 30 weeks pregnant.  After every appointment, I'm so thankful to have a doctor I like and that I have access to great medical facilities.

Play dates, lunch with friends, and deals on baby gear, were also highlights of this week.  On Wednesday, I got some kitchen creativity time and made homemade croissants that turned out perfect! Spring break and friends' vacations meant that G-Girl got to go play with friends and I got some breaks this week.  I love that we have friends in our life that G-Girl loves to spend time with and literally runs from the car when we drop her off, or to their cars if they pick her up.  

A routine filling of our car's tires this week caught a damaged tire before we had a blow-out and that the money was in the savings account to get the car fixed!

So many things to be thankful for, and so often I miss them.  I hope we can all seek out the things to be thankful for this week!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Sunday Sunshine

The Easter Egg Inspector
Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.  

This was a relatively peaceful week.  HandyMan was out of town for two nights for work, and I had myself prepared for the craziest, and, thankfully, it didn't happen.  We had play dates, time with friends, and adventures in egg dying.  G-Girl is having a lot of fun checking on and watering her flower seeds we planted on Thursday.    It's so much fun to watch her explore the world around us.

I made some changes this week, and found my missing energy.  Well some of it anyway!  It's been nice to not feel like I'm dragging myself to get anything done.

Now that I'm a grown up, birthday money gets put towards grown up things, like appliances!  On Friday the new dishwasher came and HandyMan worked to do the finish work and get it installed.

Itty Bitty is growing and moving.  Some days my due date (June 20) seems so close, and other days it seem so far away.  Either way, I'm sure Itty Bitty's arrival will be here before we know it!

On this Easter Sunday, I'm thankful for the peace that comes through faith and the joy we have in the hope of Christ.  May you find peace and joy this week.  Take a moment to look at the signs of spring around you and celebrate life!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Dyed Egg-Shell Seed Starters

Last weekend I saw this idea for re-purposing egg shells and containers for seed starters.  G-Girl is three and old enough to get the hang of plants growing and all that jazz.  So I saved our egg shells this week.  Then, because dying eggs is fun, I decided we'd dye the shells for the planters while we were dying our Easter eggs.  I pulled out four packets of flower seeds that have been sitting in my gardening bin for too long and we gave them new homes.

We found that a baby-spoon was the perfect size for little hands to fill the eggs with soil:


Then, the my Favorite Helper/BabySitter would put the seeds in.  When G-Girls attention span waned, I used a teaspoon to fill them up a little faster and then G-Girl topped them off once the seeds were in.  Since watering needed to be done at a slow pace since we were working with such a little space, a sippy-cup without a valve was the perfect tool:



As you can tell, I have a very serious gardener in the making!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Sunday - Rainy Day - Sunshine

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving. 


Sitting at home, on a rainy afternoon, and I am thankful.  Here are just a few things that have highlighted this past week


.: MOPs mornings out 
.: Childrens' play museums
.: Sunday afternoon naps
.: Birthday outings
.: Play-dates with friends
.: Daffodils that make it through frost and ice.
.: Projects finished (did you see the Green Room?)
.: Pandora.  Now that I have easy access to decent speakers and music (aka: TV moved to the Green Room) I've been playing music regularly.  I've realized how much I've missed having music around.
.: Waking rested.


It has been a full, great week.  I hope your week went well and you can look forward to the coming week with anticipation of good things.


Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!