Next week is Pre-K!!!

We are starting our homeschool Pre-K next week! We are very excited!!!! I keep telling Little Man that we will start soon and he always tells me about his backpack and riding a school bus. I haven't had the heart to tell him that the latter will not be happening. It's taken a lot of planning and organizing. I went shopping for all of his stuff today! I got a laminator and am loving it! I love being able to watch Little Man discover things and learn. I'm finding so many blogs about moms that do this exact thing and although it's important to me that I'm making my own curriculum, I'm learning a lot from reading those blogs. I will definitely get links up for my favorites another time:) Here is a sneak peek at our first week!

I will definitely have an update with pictures at the end of next week! Till next time

Pin 18 of 52

Pin 18 was very yummy. And we have 10 jars of it, hehe. We made blackberry jam. Here are a few photo's:)
                     Crushing the berries:)                                                     Adding some Pectin

            

 We had to use a TON of sugar.  7 Cups!!!!                  

     It's soooo yummy on toast and makes great peanut butter & jelly sandwiches:) When we were driving home one day, along the main road of our house we seen blackberries! A LOT of blackberries! So I knew I needed to find a pin on Pinterest. We went blackberry picking 5 or 6 times. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of picking, but we had sooo much fun! Little Man had such a blast. He ate every one he picked (okay, I ate a lot too, but at least I had a bucket full:). Little Man loves having toast and jelly made from the berries he picked. That's exactly how he asks for it too. Haha. I'm planning on trying a new recipe in a couple days. It contains chicken, rice and cheese in the crockpot:) Till then

Preschool for Little Man.

I know it's really late in the year but I'm working on getting a preschool curriculum together for Little Man. It's taking a lot of research and planning so we are going to be starting October 1st:) It's going to be a 26 week curriculum and I'm very excited. I'm still debating whether to do it for four days a week or 5 for an hour a day. We are going to have weekly themes going through the alphabet. Here are our themes:)

Now that I have an outline planed, I'm going to get started planning the actual plans out! I'm pretty excited! This will be our first year and if it goes well we will be doing it again next year. Because his birthday is in the middle of the school year (March), he has to wait till the next school year to start Kindergarden. So he has to wait till August of 2014. I figure since I stay at home anyways I might as well get some education in him! This is going to be an amazing adventure and I'm pretty excited (have I mentioned that yet). I plan on keeping updated on here:) 

Pin 17 of 52

Pin 17 is cloth wipe solution:)

A couple days ago I posted about the cloth wipes I made. Since we cloth diaper we needed cloth wipes. And for wipes you need a solution. When I found the pin on Pinterest  and I looked through the twenty-something recipes I couldn't find one that I really liked so I combined a couple. Here is what I used.

2 Cups of water

1/4 cup of baby soap ( I honestly just put a couple squirts in) 

2 tbs of honey

couple drops of tea tree oil. 

I boiled the water and  then added the honey and let it boil for another minute. Then I added the soap and oil. It didn't all fit into my spray bottle so I luckily I had two bottles on hand. 

I started off putting the wipes in the container and pouring the solution over it which worked wonderfully for about a day but then the wipes started getting a musky smell and I didn't like that. So then I started just spraying the wipe before I used it and I usually spray it right on her bottom to because she likes it. I still keep them in the wipe container and accordion folded for accessibility. We have been using them for a handful of days and so far we love them. Till later

Pin 16

Pin 16 was kind of two pins in one. So here ya go:)

I have home made wipes and wipe solution:)

Making these wipes were super simple. I seen this pin a while ago on Pinterest and thought since I loved clothing so much I might as well go all in:) I made them yesterday and I've only been using them for today but so far I really like them. I love the fact that I can just throw them in the wet pail and I don't have the extra step of  throwing a sposie wipe away. Although I do keep them around for the really messing dipes. To make them I just took some old flannel blankets from when the kids were itty bitty that we didn't use anymore and used a zig zag stitch on my lovely sewing machine. I double layered them for thickness and durability. The only thing I would do different is make them bigger. I may end up making another batch to have bigger ones:) I ended up making somewhere between 40 and 50 but I only use   about 15-20. I had a reusable wipe container handy and I looked up how to do the accordion fold that way they will come out one after the other. Here is a step-by-step guide on the accordion fold:)

 Step 1: Lay one wipe out flat and lay another wipe on one half of the first wipe. As shown:)

Step 2: Take the half of the bottom wipe that isn't covered by the top wipe and fold it over the top wipe. You should still have half of the second wipe uncovered. 

 Step 3: Take another wipe and lay half of it on top of the half folded side of your pile.

 Step 4: Again fold the half of the bottom wipe over to the top of the pile.   

 TA DA!!! Okay so I know that was really confusing. Especially with my matching wipes. I'm thinking about making a video and maybe that will make it less confusing. 

 For a bonus picture here is our dipe station:) We have this vanity sink in our upstairs bathroom which is right next to the living room. Easy access for anytime of the day and luckily Little Lady doesn't need changed in the middle of the night. So this is our set up. The fabric with LOVE on it is actually a minky wetbag and that's what I lay her on. We also have a dipe drawer underneath which is where we store the extras in. There is a closet across from the counter and in there I have our wet pail:) 

So that's pretty much it. I will have another post about the wipe solution in the next couple days but now it's time to get dinner started and jazz. So till then 

Pin 15 of 52

For pin 15 I made baked string cheese. They didn't look anything like the Pinterest pin I found here! But they were still really yummy! I felt like being awesome and making a step by step picture tutorial so here we go!

Ingredients: milk, string cheese, bread crumbs

 Step 1: Cut cheese into half inch pieces.

 Step 2: Dip in milk

 Step 3:Dip in bread crumbs

 Step 4: Put on a cookie sheet. I'd suggest putting them farther apart then I did because mine stuck together. I was just trying to fit all of them on my one pan thingy.

 Step 5: Bake at 425 for 10 minutes!

 Step 6: Let cool for about 10 minutes then serve with marinara sauce!

These were super yummy even though they didn't look too fantastic! I planning on making some rice krispy's next week! Keep a look out:)

Pin 14 of 52

For pin 14 I did this

Wow, what a difference you get in a week. I had seen the pin here on Pinterest and thought, that in no way possibly would green onions grow with just water. So the next time I got green onions I threw them in a mason jar with some water and waited. I did have them in a window sill but I don't know if that had an affect on them or not. Never to buy green onions again? Yes, please:)

Till next time

Pin 13 of 52

For pin 13 I made 

Rainbow cupcakes!!! Okay so my original pin was a cake but I prefer cupcakes and it would be something fun for Little Man to help with. He had fun mixing the colors and choosing which colors to go first, second and last. I only decided to do three because I wasn't sure how they would turn out. They were super yummy! 

You can find the original pin here on my Pinterest!

Things happen...

I know I had said that I would start getting on the roll in August. But things happen, uncontrollable things happen. And I needed to spend time with my family.

At the end of June, I found out I was pregnant. Before we found out, we were determined to just stick with two kids. We had one of each. It was perfect. I was on birth control, we were planning on getting hubby fixed soon. So when we found out, it was a huge shock! Like, woah. After the shock wore off, we were excited. I didn't know it at the time but after an ultrasound, I was only 3 weeks when I found out. I thought that was too soon to find out, but hey. The life was already there (and who am I to take away that right?!?! but that's for another post:) so we accepted it. Beginning-mid July, I started getting a feeling that something was wrong. That feeling never went away. I went in for an ultrasound when I was 6 weeks 1 day. Cardiac activity was there, everything seemed good. My feeling was still there, as much as I tried, it never went away. I had all the symptoms of being pregnant. The tiredness, the nausea oh the nausea! My morning sickness was bad this time. With Little Man, it wasn't that bad, with Little Lady it was considerably worse. This last time, it was horrible! It was not fun, no anit-nausea anything would work. Pepermints and SeaBands kept me being able to do the basics. I mean with two kids, I couldn't be out for the count! Morning sickness was the main reason I barely touched my computer in July and the first 2 weeks in August. But my bad feeling was still there. Then at the beginning of August, I started bleeding. I knew my bad feeling was coming ture. I tried to prepare myself for the mid-August OBGYN appointment that the nurse had told me to wait for because bleeding is normal in the first trimester. It sucked, but I waited. The day finally came and I went for my appointment with an ultrasound. I was soooo nervous. I had been praying for weeks that this baby would be okay. It wasn't. The Dr, pulled up the ultrasound and said "Do you see what I see? I don't see an 11 week baby." The baby was only measuring 6 weeks 3 days. Only two days older then my initial ultrasound. I had talked to my Dr. (who was fabulous and super supportive) about my bad feelings before my ultrasound, and afterwards she said that the motherly instinct is not something to mess with. As much as I had prepared myself for that, I still lost it as soon as she closed the door. It was hard, really hard. Then I had to go home and break the news to Hubby. After all of that, I felt I needed to take time to focus on my family. My two beautiful children I do have, my husband and working on getting my school done. I signed off of Facebook telling everyone a breif message that I would be taking a break to focus on my family.  Facebook is a great site, but it's also a great distraction! It's only been about 2 weeks and I'm still sad, but I feel better. Being prepared and having been through this before (in 2010 in between Little Man and Little Lady) that helped me deal with it.

So now I'm back on my ball! I will be starting my Creations from Pinsperations so look out for that post tomorrow or the next day! Till then