Archive for October, 2009
Life Words
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Phillipians 4:8
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
simple. authentic. content. humble. giving. open. approachable. compassionate. uncluttered. peaceful. joyful.
These are my Life Words. Life Words are my motto of sorts. They are words I try to focus on for whatever I’m doing whether it be chores, parenting, housekeeping, or relationships. They help remind me what my goals are in regards to these areas of my life.
I’m starting to see the whole attraction to this living simple thing I keep seeing in the blogosphere.
Living simply. Not simply living.
See the difference? Simply living connotes just getting by. Barely living. Just making do. That’s not how Christians should live.
I want to live simply so I can live abundantly. Visual clutter equals mental clutter. When I’m overwhelmed by all my possessions and things and the work that goes into keeping those things in order I get stressed and it steals my joy. Which is the opposite of peaceful and content.
Am I being authentic and open in my relationships? I don’t like to show my flaws. I hate making mistakes. But, who am I kidding? Everyone else knows I’m not perfect! So why do I keep trying to act as if I am? Admitting ones flaws helps keep you open and humble.( Wow, it hurt my fingers to write that!!)
And guess what? If you decide to spontaneously stop by my house one day you’ll find out I’M NOT THE WORLD’S BEST HOUSEKEEPER! There, it’s out there! My house overwhelms me at times. I lose control of it. If you tell me a date ahead of time that you’ll be visiting I”ll rush around, stressed and in a craze trying to make everything perfect for your visit. But, as hard as I try, a few days after our visit is over we’re back to the real house I live in. I don’t really enjoy making everything from scratch. Although I really wanted to be able to do that. It’ s just not me. I tried it for awhile. And you know what? It caused me stress. I’m not crafty. I can’t whip up my girls costumes, thereby saving us a lot of money. I wish I could say that I sit down every day with my girls and spend a lot of hands on time with them doing all sorts of educational things. I don’t. I would like to but I’ve been too busy trying to manage my house. Sometimes I feel like I’m running in one of those hamster wheels and I’m going in circles, doing the same stuff but nothing is really getting done. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result each time.
Enter living simply. When my life is not cluttered with unnecessary stuff (excessive amount of things, worry, constant rush, stress etc) I can now be more approachable, joyful and open. When I’m stressed and busy, busy I’m less compassionate and less giving of myself.
When I get to Heaven God is not going to accept this from me- ” Lord, I know I didn’t put myself out there as much as I should have. I’m sorry for all the opportunities that passed me by while I was dusting. But hey, I finally found the perfect cleaner for my hard-to-clean tub and it looked fantastic right before You called me home.”
So, I’m changing things around here.
What are your Life Words? Do you have a “motto” that you live by?
Potty Training Has Commenced!
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Here we go. Round 2 of potty training. (Didn’t I just finish doing this with Katelyn?) I just bought a big box of diapers and a big box of pull-ups. I’m determined that Madelyn will be [daytime at least] potty trained by the end of those boxes. I’m using training, padded underwear during the day, diapers at night and pull-ups for long outings and emergencies.
What I do is put underwear on her and then put a pull up on the outside of her underwear so if she has an accident she’ll feel the wetness but her clothing will still stay dry. It also motivates me to take her to the potty while we’re out too and not just think ” Oh, she has a pull-up on. She’ll be fine. We’ll just go potty when we get home”
Sticker chart- check
Princess stickers-check
Timer set on every 30 minutes-check
Extra clothing at the ready- check
Lots of patience-…………check
Round two. Here we go.
Yup, Summer Is Definitely Over
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Definitely. Here’s proof…..
Coats for the chilly air…
A leaf freezing in water overnight(you can barely see the think triangle of ice the leaf is in but it’s there!)
Beautiful colors on the tree in our driveway
My friendly Halloween and Fall decorations in the front of our house…
Raking leaves (or sweeping them as the case appears here)
Playing in the leaves…
Fall in New England is definitely here!
The Carving Of The Pumpkin
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Last week we took one of our poor, unsuspecting pumpkins and decided to carve it up. This was an activity that Katelyn had been begging for since around her birthday. (Which already seems like ages ago). So, finally(roll eyes here) we did it. Apparently I had chosen a really thick pumpkin because this darn thing was super hard to cut through! After about five minutes of messy scooping the girls decided they were done and left me to do the rest of the work. They acted very “girly” about the pumpkin innards. Katelyn even said to me ” Mom, we’ll go play now and you finish the pumpkin and call us when it’s done. Ok?”
Uh…ok. Wimps!
So here is the end result. Not bad if I do say so myself.
And I do.
Ta Da! Meet…Shawn… our pumpkin. Katelyn named it. Can’t even fathom they way her brain works so I don’t try!
Not bad…not bad at all!
I Don’t Know What To Think About This
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
“Mama, who am I going to marry?” asked Katelyn the other day.
“Sweetie, I don’t know. God will give you someone to marry when you get older.”
” Can I marry daddy?”
“No, you can’t marry daddy. I’m married to daddy”
“But when you’re done with daddy can I marry him?”
” Uh.No”
“How about Papa. Can I marry him?”
“Nope. Papa is married to Nana. And… He’s your Papa”
“Can Garrett (her cousin) marry me?”
“Sweetie, no, you have to marry someone who isn’t in your family”
“Ok, how about Eddie?” (He’s a boy in her class and also the son/grandson of longtime friends of ours and Mike’s family”
“Well…. that’s a possibility I guess!”
(These were taken a couple of weeks ago after school had let out. They had both sit (sat?) down to chat and we snapped a few quick photos)
Will we be showing these pictures at her wedding in the future I wonder?
So weird to even ponder…
Wordless Wednesday
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Excited for Awana Cubbies!
Two Year Old Woes
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
I have such a hard time saying “no” to this little girl. Look at this face! Here’s a conversation we had just yesterday.
“I’m three”
No…you’re not three. You’re two.
” No I not. I’m three”
Nooo, you’re TWO.
“I don’t wanna be two!!!”
Okaayyy, you can be three if you want….
Miss Me?
Monday, October 19th, 2009
So, I guess you’ve notice it’s been a few days since I’ve blogged. I was on vacay last week in Texas and am just now able to sit down and write a post. I’ve missed you bloggy world!
Our trip there and back went well.The girls were pretty good on the plane flight. I was impressed! We really enjoyed ourselves. The first few days were hectic with planning Katelyn’s 4th birthday part, the actual party itself and then getting our pictures taken but after that things slowed down a bit. I’ll finish our trip recap with some pictures. So, let’s go..
What We Did On Our Trip To Texas Last Week (In Pictures)
We met, held, hugged and kissed on cousin Brooklyn.
A lot….
Madelyn called Brooklyn her “sister baby”. Is that a hint?
Uhhh….help?
Wait…. how did this picture end up here? She gets to hold Brooklyn all the time! (I thought this was the best shot of them!)
We visited with Geemaw and Geempaw and got spoiled rotten.
We ate out at all my favorite restaurants. Which are many in Texas.
We visited with my grandparents…
My uncle James…(who went with all his nieces,nephews and nephew’s in law to see a movie. He’s cool like that)
My sister and her husband…
My brother….(for the record Maddy was still calling him “uncle Bob”)
Katelyn playing with uncle Bryan and Uncle Waylon.
We sang together…
And here’s a little video of our song…
We celebrated Katelyn’s 4th birthday with a big shindig at my parent’s church. It was a Strawberry Shortcake theme.
The kids played some games…
Katelyn opened a ton of presents…
Madelyn even got some presents of her own!
It was a great trip! It went by way too fast. We look forward to hopefully being able to go to our family reunion next summer.
You can see the rest of the pictures from this trip on my Flickr album
I didn’t have to time to edit and fix these pictures at all so they are there in all their uncropped glory. I don’t usually do that but couldn’t wait to post these pictures.
And as usual, you can also check out this album if you go to my “Pictures” tab at the top of my home page. Click on the “October 09 Trip To Texas” link.
Schoolwork and Videos
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Katelyn has loved going to school so far. Every now and then she gets a little sad at drop off and doesn’t want me to leave but for the most part she is loving it. I think the structure and focus is really good for her. I’ve been impressed with the academic side of her school so far. But, with them being there only two and a half hours I would hope they did academics rather than lots of free play! Every day at pick up I check to see what she’s eaten of her lunch(I only send three items and haven’t sent anything with nuts it by accident again! Yay me) and check her folder for notes and her work. I’ve really enjoyed looking at her work and reading any notes to me. It feels so “grown up” although I’m really in no rush for all the hub bub of elementary school life for Katelyn. It’s still cute. Madelyn seems to enjoy the drop off and pick up too. She will usually plop herself on the floor or one of the tables and start playing with whatever the older kids are playing with at the time. And then she doesn’t want to leave! I feel sorry for her because she doesn’t understand why she doesn’t get to stay. I make a little “lunch” for her in her lunch box since she gets upset if she doesn’t have something to take too. You can tell she feels so big carrying her lunch box to the car. I usually let her eat in the car on the way home. And sometimes that is her lunch if we are running errands and not going back home before I pick Katelyn up. They kids are now focusing on letters and sounds each week and the teachers said that by the end of the year most of the kids will be able to tell us what sound each of the letters make. Great pre-reading skill!
Oh, and in case I didn’t explain the Kindergarten thing well here’s the deal. Since she will technically be too young for Kinder next year she will be doing it for two years. If we stay with this school she will do their Kindergarten program next school year. She’ll be almost five. That seems so weird to me!! And if we decide to stay for another year she would do a more advanced version of their Kinder program the following year. They told us that most of the kids go into first grade already knowing half of the stuff the public school is teaching them at that level. So we have the option of sending her to the Faulkner Kindergarten program for two years OR sending her there one year and then to our public Kinder program when she is almost six. We’ll cross that path when we get there. I”m not sure yet what we will do. It would be easier to send her to our public program in two years since it’s right down the road from us and is longer hours. So, we’ll see!
Here are some pictures of her work…
The front of her letter “C” worksheet
The back. She had to circle all the words that started with “C” and color all the pictures that started with the letter “C”. I thought it was funny that she also colored the hand. They get stickers on their papers when they complete their work. So cute!
The teachers sent home these laminated name strips for the kids to practice writing their names at home. They are expected to know how to write their first name by the end of the school year. Their last name is optional. The laminate works like a dry erase board so the kids trace their names with dry erase markers and then we can wipe it off for repeated use. Apparently, I’ve been teaching the Katelyn the wrong way to write her name. Which, was the right way when I was teaching preschool.
I’ve taught Katelyn how to write her name in all upper case since she hadn’t learning lower case letters yet. We had always been told to teach the younger children this way to write to promote consistency and for them to be exposed to the upper case letters all the time to help in letter recognition. Apparently,these teachers and Kindergarten teachers hate this. Because they have to teach the children to write their names all over again the right way. With only the first letter of their name in upper case. Excuuuse me. I won’t be making that mistake again with Madelyn.
This is some of her art work. She painted, cut this out and glued it all herself. It thought she did pretty good with the cutting!
This was her homework! Apparently, many of the k ids with older siblings were asking for homework so they could do it while their older brothers and sisters were doing theirs. So the teachers made up some homework for the kids to do each week. They said it’s optional and that they barely look at it when it’s brought back to school. They just put a sticker on it and tell the children how wonderful they did and hang it on the wall. Katelyn wanted to do this homework but if there is ever a time when she doesn’t want to do it I won’t make her. Since this was Fire Prevention Week they learned a lot about fire safety. So Katelyn had to draw our family meeting spot if our house were to ever catch fire and we were separated trying to escape from our burning house. I told her it would be our detached garage so that’s what she drew. I guess those lines are our garage door??
I created this little corner in our playroom for showing off her school work and for school, dance and awana calendars and notes. I also have a large children’s school calendar to help the girls learn counting, the days of the week, the months of the year and time concepts like “yesterday was”, today is” and” tomorrow will be”. I also have special squares I put on there so Katelyn can see when special events are coming. As you can see by the date I haven’t done anything on the calendar since September 24th!
We hung this neat plastic chain link organizer to show case art work and school work. I got tired of taping stuff on the wall and my stainless steel fridge.
Here are some more videos I wanted to post. These videos are from the day of Katelyn’s birthday party. She got a microphone stand form her Nana and Papa and the girls were having a blast singing with it. Madelyn even put on a little show!
Here they were being silly with their party blowers. Madelyn was really cracking herself up!
Whatever Happened To GONSH?
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
So, you’re all probably wondering what happened to my GONSH(Green/ Organized/Natural/ Simple/Healthy) journey. I just wanted to assure you I’m still on it! I’ve backed off a bit and slowed things down more. I was getting a little overwhelmed and stressed trying to change everything at once so I decided to take it slower. Here’s what I’ve been doing
The Green Part- I’m passionate about recycling! I recycle anything and everything I can. I’m a member of the Freecycle community (www.freecycle.org) and I feel much better about “freecycling” things rather than just throwing them away. I’m big into reusable shopping bags. Unless I’m taking an unplanned stop at the grocery store I always take my canvas/reusable shopping bags to the store when I shop. I actually prefer this now. They can fit more groceries into one bag and the bag is sturdy enough to where it doesn’t rip while I”m lugging groceries into the house. And I feel like I’m doing my part in helping reduce the amount of plastic that is used. I’m in the process of finding reusable lunch items to send in Mike and Katelyn’s lunch, rather than using plastic baggies all the time. I send Katelyn to school with a real spoon, her juice cup, and many times Tupperware containers. I don’t send juice boxes or plastic spoons (usually).
I still have problems with “green” cleaning products. Especially in my tub and toilet! I haven’t found any yet that I feel clean those two very well. My tub( a large, jacuzzi tub) is a beast to clean! I’ve used all natural products to clean it before and I have to use a lot of physical force to do it. By the time I’m done I need a nap. I loathe cleaning my tub so I have been using bleach products to clean it.
I still wash and reuse my plastic baggies as much as possible! You can go ahead and laugh at me. It’s become a habit now. I have saved some money by doing that as I don’t got through boxes of plastic bags nearly as quickly as I used to. The only time I don’t wash and reuse is when there’s been raw meat in the bag. Then it goes right in to the trash.
The cloth diapers are put away for now, as Madelyn has begun potty training. Once we get back from our trip to TX we’re going right to underwear and training pants. We won’t be using Pull-Ups all that much.
The Organized Part- I’ve actually done really well with this part since the last time I wrote about this. We did a lot of work on our house this past summer that has helped us get organized. Now that we have a playroom our living room has stayed pretty clean and organized for the most part. Our new dining room(that used to be the playroom/office) looks good all the time now. There is very rarely piles of anything on it. I’ve really stayed on top of the girls and their toys. It’s been a chore but I keep track of what they are taking out and am constantly telling them to clean up and put something away that I noticed they aren’t playing with. There has been a lot of moaning and groaning and struggling over this. I had gotten to where I dreaded telling them to clean up their toys because it had gotten to be such a huge, long and drawn out process. They don’t get as overwhelmed now that I keep track of what they are taking out and thus are more willing to clean up.
My biggest struggle right now is coming up with a new, efficient and productive schedule now that we’ve added three days of school for Katelyn, Awana/Bible Study and dance. I’ve finally figured out what I need to do is come up with a daily schedule of events for each day and divvy up the major cleaning chores during those days. Dropping Katelyn off and picking her takes up a huge chunk of the day! I know that sounds like complaining but it’s not. I guess I just wasn’t expecting Katelyn going to school to be as much work as it is on my part. I’ve found that one thing that leads to organization is simplicity. That is starting to become my mantra. I used to think simplicity was boring and lazy. Now I know differently! Simplicity is the key to my sanity.
The Natural Living Part- I’m still working on this part. It’s a struggle. I’m still reading labels, trying to eat food as close to it’s natural state as possible(for our family!) and trying to eat…simply. Eating simply has actually helped in the organization part because I found that cooking dinner was taking a huge chunk of the evening each night and then the clean up was a pain. For four people! Most of who didn’t like or eat most of what I was making! I don’t buy all organic right now. I can’t afford it. Right now I stick with buying organic dairy items. Since we drink a lot of milk I want my girls to drink organic, hormone free milk. Once our food budget allows I’ll most likely move up to organic meat. I have given up on organic produce for right now. It’s sooo expensive and the offerings at my grocery store aren’t that great. I try to wash my fruits and vegetables as best as I can and then enjoy them for what they are.
As far as body products go, I don’t use all natural products with everything. I use Suave shampoo ( because it’s so inexpensive) and bar soap. I’ve found we like olive oil ba soap by Kiss My Face. I use that on the girls too. The bar isn’t cheap but since it’s so big it lasts awhile. I do use goat’s milk shampoo on the girls’ hair right now. Makeup, lotions etc are usually what I can find on sale or what I buy from my sister’s Mary Kay business. Again,as time and budget allows I’ll slowly start looking in to more natural body products but it will be a slow process.
The Simple Part- Like I said above, simplicity is becoming my mantra and motto. What’s the easiest, most stream lined way to do this? What will make this task, this room or this job more streamlined and efficient? I used to love knick knacks and decorations around my house. The more the merrier. Ha! Not anymore. The knick knacks are being freecycled and I”m looking at everything I do with fresh eyes. Including relationships that are draining and past their prime. Yes, some relationships and people can be time and energy wasters.Time to move on.
The Healthy Part- We’ve been doing better at this! Or, should I say, Mike has been doing better at this. We recently got an elliptical and Mike has been using it very consistently! I’m so proud of him. He also gave a me a list of fruits and vegetables he likes and ones he’s willing to try. So far he’s started eating grapes, carrot sticks,spinach and celery with almond butter. I’ve been using the elliptical too but not nearly as much as I’d like to. Once we get back from Texas we won’t have any more huge commitments or upcoming events at our house. I plan on focusing my attention on the elliptical more. We started eating fish about 2 or 3 times a month. I make baked haddock and we all like it. I want to try some other types of fish although Mike isn’t crazy about the idea.I’ve been trying to eat my fruits and veggies consistently and offering them to the girls. Those foods are still not my first choice when I’m looking for something to snack on. I have to make myself eat them. I’ve found that if I cut them up(yes, as if I’m giving them to a child!) I eat them better. I have to prepare the fruit or veggie right along with my food. If I plan on eating it later I won’t get to it. I feel like I do throw a lot of veggies away but I feel like it’s worth it in the long run since the girls are being exposed to these healthy foods. I’ve tried to limit the amount of boxed snacks and desserts we keep in the house. The girls know there are certain foods we don’t eat anymore and they are used to it. It’s hard!
So, there you have it. Any comments or suggestions for me? Are you struggling with the same stuff?
