We Made It!

My Cookbook

So today we did our first home made projects!  I have been wanting to do some home made items for a while now but it always seems like time and supplies are never fully on hand.  HOWEVER, today I made sure I was fully prepped and ready to go....I had my recipes,

Our Supplies!

and my supplies, 

The Happy Helper

and my happy helper!


First Mckenzee and Spencer had their yummy lunch (which I am proud to say Mckenzee made all by herself) of a ham and cheese sandwich and chips for her, and roasted chicken, mickey mouse cheese faces, and apple juice for him. I myself am also proud of what I have since I am doing my best to eat a lot better.  I had a salad of chicken, cherry tomatoes, greens, Parmesan cheese, and Caesar dressing on the side. I also put a little black pepper on my salad which made me rarely even use the dressing so I was kinda glad of that. I had an ice water and a clementine to round out my lunch which was totally awesome!

Needless to say everyone ate it all up and we were ready in no time to get started!


First we started the finger paints I measured everything out and let Mckenzee add it to our pot on the stove. Here is the recipe I used :

Original Finger paint

Ingredients

1/2 cup cornstarch

3 Tbsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups cold water

food coloring

Directions

In a medium pan, mix all the ingredients together to make the finger paint. Cook over low heat 10 to 15 minutes. Keep stirring the finger paint mixture until it is smooth and thick. After the finger paint has thickened take the pan off the stove and let the mixture cool.

After cooling, divide the finger paint into storage containers depending on how many colors you would like. Add a few drops of food coloring to each container. Stir the coloring in to the paint to determine the shade of color. You're ready to finger paint! Cover tightly when storing.

Find recipe and more at :: http://www.creativekidsathome.com/activities/activity_42.html#Original%20Fingerpaint

Stirring the pot!

 Mckenzee begged me to let her do some mixing so I did, she was very careful and had fun until her hand got too hot.

Mckenzee squeezing the syrup into her hot water int he jar.

While we were waiting for the paint to go from a thin liquid to the think consistency we needed we got started on the calming jars, one for Mckenzee and one for me!  This is the recipe we used to make our Calming Jars::

Mason jar or baby food jar.  Really, any kind of watertight jar will work.

added the food coloring...

Hot water

Food coloring

Glitter

Glitter glue

Karo/Corn Syrup

and glitter!

“Mix 1 Tbsp of pink glitter-glue with about 1 cup of hot water, fill jar the rest of the way with corn syrup,  then add food coloring and a tiny tub of glitter. The glue and corn syrup makes the water so thick and gooey that the glitter just slowly and gently swirls around, it takes about 5 minutes for all the glitter to settle, perfect to gather your thoughts!  - See more at: http://www.dumpyourfrump.com/2011/09/29/use-a-mind-jar-to-calm-yourself/#sthash.kmN3pGIJ.dpuf

Mckenzee had a little trouble making sure to get glitter in JUST the jar but hey she is a "sparkly" girl so why not let her sparkle right?   She also liked the way the layers didn't mix until we shook the jar! Once we glued the lid on (to keep a child from opening it and spilling it I would recommend doing this yourself) she shook the jar and couldn't stop smiling!

I put together my jar while Mckenzee washed up and once we cleaned up everything from our jars it was time to take our paint off the heat and let it cool.

Mckenzee used that time to get started on her Valentine's Day cards for her classmates, since she decided this year she wanted to make them instead of buying them! (I am very proud of her for wanting to make them all special and different) 

After she did some cards and I washed up the dishes and counters the paint mixture had cooled!  We were finally ready to put it in our jars and color it! 

We started with yellow since it was our lightest color and I armed Mckenzee with a disposable baby spoon (which was a perfect size for the baby food jars we were making the paint in) and some food coloring.  She had a blast watching the white paint turn into the colors and before we knew it we had a rainbow of colors in our little jars! 

She even wanted me to line them up as such so we could take a picture of them to show you! WE LOVE RAINBOWS around here! 

All in all we had a fun little crafty day and hope to do something fun again soon.  I have lots of fun ideas I just have to get the supplies to make! 

 These are our finished jars! Blue for her "Like the Ocean" she says, and green for me well because it is my FAVORITE color!!!

Our Finished paints and jars and the happiest little helper! 

More to come.......

Baby Steps (In more ways than one)

So in a few little ways there have been some changes in the house. First and the most exciting of them all is that my little boy Spencer, nine months old, is a walker! At first it was just a few steps here and there, but now as of this morning he is walking everywhere and even in socks, which was hard for him at first on the hard wood floors.

The next baby step taken was with my organization. I have been able to keep track of things a lot easier, I bought a binder (thank you Alicia for the idea), and have started getting rid of unneeded items and old things that make no sense to hold on to. OUT WITH THE OLD IN WITH THE NEW....(that is how it goes right?!)

I have even starting organizing Mckenzee's things, like her homework items and such, as well as her and her brothers' clothing. (I had NO idea just how much clothing they all had)
Mckenzee also gets these lists of words from her teacher for her to practice and make sentences out of most of which are actually too easy for her and others that are at a second grade level. Since I wanted to make it fun for her to practice these words I made her a word box. We take the lists of words, cut them up, and put them in the box. Then she takes to words out here and there and try to make a sentence out of them.  Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, but it is fun!
She is getting to be an excellent little reader!

Things are slowly coming together and I am sure that before I know it life will run a little smoother and be a little easier to manage!

....and we will all rest a little easier!! 

Mermaids, dancing, and Tacos

So this weekend I decided I was going to make sure I took some time to spend with each of the kids individually. I find that having more than one that are so far apart in age makes it difficult to spend time together doing something that pleases us all.  My daughter loves things like beading, bracelet making, Legos, and art.  My son likes to knock down block towers, try to walk, and drool. Beads are too small for him to use, bracelet making is too advanced, and Legos and art supplies instantly enter the mouth looking for the quickest way to his belly! So in order for me to be able to do these things with Mckenzee we usually wait until he takes one of his naps.  We have, during various naps, put together two out of three of her new Lego sets and done some painting and coloring.

Yesterday we did some necklace making using two of her new bead sets that she received for Christmas. She wanted to make one for her Gramma and I made one for her Memere and one for me. (I really loved an elephant charm that came in one of the sets and Mckenzee said I could have it.)
She was so cute putting the beads on and sounding out how to spell Gramma. She was even sure to pick the blue string because "That's Gramma's favorite color!"  She was very proud of her necklace and as soon as she finished it she said "okay now lets mail it to her!" (She is so sweet)

Our finished Necklaces

Today Mckenzee had a whole list of things she wanted to do, but we didn't get a chance to do them all. She wanted to:

1. Paint

2. Play with Play-doh

3. Color her giant princess posters

4. Dance

5. Make Tacos

6. Watch "The Little Mermaid"

Now I know these are all things she wanted to do because she used her new easel to make a list of all these things! A habit I think she picked up from me and my need to make lists on my dry erase board.

We did however get five out of the six items completed, and had a pretty good day doing so.  I may not have gotten my laundry all folded or the bedrooms vacuumed like I planned but I would have missed her dancing with her baby brother and making him a birthday cake out of play-doh if I had so it was completely worth it!

Great day....lots of happy!

Christmas is gone and packed away....

So today was a busy one, DJ and I got a semi-early start on what we wanted to get done.  I had a to-do list but unfortunately was unable to complete it.  However, I did get a big chunk of it done: 

I was able to get the kitchen cleaned up, counters, dishes, and appliances.

 The tree was taken down (FINALLY!) 

I was able to get the kids bedding stuff washed and put back on their beds, as well as three other loads of laundry folded. 

AND....that was pretty much it for today, although I did make some pretty kick-butt quesadillas! 

What I didn't get done was the minor things like the vacuuming and sweeping and organizing my desk.  I also didn't get to wash DJ's and my bedding but that is on the agenda for tomorrow if I get a chance. 

DJ did quite a bit of organizing himself today including going through our makeshift closet and getting that neatened as well as some other places around the house. All in all a pretty productive day! 

Tomorrow I am plan to kinda chill here and there, I have not been feeling 100% and I want to get some fun stuff done with Mckenzee this weekend. I will probably do some more laundry and vacuum as well and if there is time organize some in her room.  But for now, since I am feeling very fatigued I am going to wish you all a goodnight and get my butt to bed! 

Something New

I have found some new ideas to organize and get my life on a track I am happy to be on.  I am going to make things flow more smoothly, I am doing my best to try and be more calm, more relaxed, and more positive.  I recently joined the "Yell-Free Year Challenge" and for me it is about doing my best to realize my triggers, to do my best to yell as little as possible, if at all.  It doesn't change overnight, I grew up in a home where yelling was the go-to, as was spanking, hitting and other things that I would rather forget. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad.  Once my father left for good things were much better, yelling was really the only thing that never went away.  In my years as an adult I have carried on with the yelling and occasionally when someone would get violent with me I was able to stand my ground (for the most part there). The downside to this all is that I have created in myself a quick anger reflex, I am easily annoyed to the point of breaking and striking out either verbally or physically.  I am not physical with my children and I have pretty much stopped that more over the years but the verbal is still quick out my mouth and sometimes even as much as I wish it wouldn't it hurts others (sometimes my children by yelling) and I can't stop it! 

That is why I am going to work hard to become a more positive person and a more organized person. It is going to be a hard journey but I am determined to make it all work for my family as best I can!!!! 

Now I must take some me time and get lost in my book for a little bit before bed....I have recently started one that makes me lose track of time. :) 

So because I was inspired by my cousin and her wonderful blog: 

 http://peacelovelaundryandfood.blogspot.com/ (these helped me make my choices as well as the FACEBOOK "Yell-Free Year Challenge)

A New Year, New Goals

So this is 2014 and I am on my way to becoming exactly whom I hope to be.

1. I am working on moving my creativity to paper (and computer).

2. I am working on on becoming more organized, more systematic with things.

3. I have also been filling out more online applications and putting feelers out at different places I have found for information on other occupational opportunities.

4. I have also started looking into more healthy options for the family, some that may even be accepted by the kids AND DJ lol (This is still a work in process but I am trying and that is all I can do)

5. One thing I am also going to TRY to work on is my anger issues, I did relatively well today. I didn't really yell at all.  If I can keep it up I will start to feel really good I think. 

So that is just what I am working for this year. I am also looking forward to seeing my family in April and my son again in the summertime!  

Has anyone else got a list of things they are working on this year?