My Love of Wreaths

If you know me at all, you know I have this thing for wreaths...

 

I love to make them, give them away as gifts, hang them on my front door, I just love them! And I get pretty bored with the same wreath after awhile, so I'm always looking for a new one to make. Thank you, Pinterest!

 

 

 

 

The above are all Pinterest inspired wreaths that I have made for myself and/or others. And below is my latest creation, which can currently be seen hanging on my front door.

 

 

I was surprised by how inexpensive it was to make. I bought the grapevine wreath at Hobby Lobby for only 4.99 and I bought the flowers at Hobby Lobby, too (they were 50% off!). The burlap roll I also bought at Hobby Lobby, and I didn't use much at all to make the bow, which means I get to find something else fun to make out of it! The numbers were a bit harder to find, every craft store has wooden numbers, but most were either too big or too small. I found these at Wal-Mart with the mailboxes. They are lightweight and the perfect size. They are also self-adhesive! (I did add some craft glue, though)

 

All you need to make a wreath like this:

Grapevine wreath

Assorted flowers

Numbers

Ribbon of your choice or burlap

 

Inexpensive, easy, and looks cute on a front door! This would make a great wedding or housewarming gift!

 

Summer Adventures, Part 1

This is the first of our "summer adventure" series, hehe. I know, it wasn't really summer yet when we went camping. But we don't mind...we'll take adventure when we find it!

We took our first camping trip in early May, it was my first time tent camping since childhood. We stayed in Hocking Hills State Park because we love to hike in Hocking Hills, our kiddos think it is awesome!

 

My oldest's favorite place this year (and last fall when we took a day trip) was Ash Cave. A huge cave (he likes everything to be big), a waterfall, and endless sand. What more could a 4 1/2yr old boy want!?! My youngest's favorite was Old Man's Cave, she said. She loved the tunnels we had to walk through!

He left off the waterfall, but I think this looks great for a 4yr old who hates to draw/color. This pic was all his own doing!

 

The kids really enjoyed their time with the grands...

 

 

We had a blast and I'm looking forward to more camping adventures this summer!

This is what you call exhaustion, folks!

 

Canning Season Is Upon Us!

A few weekends ago, I had one of those moments. My husband and I looked down at our breakfast plates and then looked at each other. "You're turning into your Nona," he said. Yep, there we were eating homemade biscuits, bacon, homemade sausage gravy, and some of my canned applesauce that I had heated up on the stove. It was a Nona breakfast for sure. What can I say? I learned from the best!

Where did that strawberry jam come from, you ask? That's more to my "turning into Nona" story. I've been making jam with her since I was young and for the first time, I decided to try it without her help this year to see if I could do it. Much to my surprise...success!

One of my besties and I picked berries in the morning. They have the BEST berries at Fulton Farms! So sweet and delicious, and reasonably priced if you pick them yourself. Then we came back to my house to try our hand at jam making. Did I mention we listened to some good ole Emmy Lou Harris, just like I always have with Nona?

Well, we were far from perfect and it took a loooong time for the canner to get hot enough (novice mistake, lol), but in the end, our jam is seriously delish! If I remember correctly, I think we got roughly 20 pints to a gallon of berries (with a little leftover to eat!), or about 40-45 of the smaller 8oz jars.

 

Pure goodness in a jar! Strawberries (picked and canned the same day), sugar and some pectin.

Homemade Scarf Hanger

We had some wood leftover from the awesome swingset my hubby recently built...

 

 

Can't remember if I put a picture in the post about this massive undertaking, so here it is in case I didn't!

 

And when I was in Cincinnati for my birthday (thanks mom, sis and hubby!) I saw a towel hanger at my sister's that I really liked. Hers was beach themed and oh so cute. So I decided to make something like it for all of my scarves. I stained a leftover section of wood and bought some half-off knobs from Hobby-Lobby. My hubby drilled several holes in the wood once the stain was dry and we screwed in the knobs, then had added a hanger to the back.

 

 

Simple and cheap, but super cute. Just what a thrifty Momma wants, right!?!

 

 

I think you could take this concept and use it in a million different ways, so let's get crafting!

Happenings Around the House

I realized as I was rocking my youngest last night that we have made a big jump from Minnie to Princesses around here. She still likes Minnie, but we are definitely in the Disney Princess era, especially Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (which she's never seen). Anyway, she wants everything princess right now. We found some old disney princess play shoes and an old pink princess tshirt at a garage sale last week and she barely lets me take them off. Literally. She would prefer to sleep in the shoes if I would let her and she wants to wear that one pink princess shirt 24 hours a day. Every. Single. Day. And whenever she puts on a dress now, she always looks down and says she's a princess and seems genuinely convinced that it must be so.

 

 

School is going well with our oldest, seems like we do a lot of unschooling around here. But his writing is improving, he's off the charts in math, and still progressing with his reading. He can also tell you all about our furnace, how it works and why, and he can tell you all the phases of the moon in perfect order and what they look like. He knows all kinds of random things like that because he asks. He likes to figure everything out. Just like his Daddy and my maternal Pappa.

 

 

Our youngest is doing great, too. she still knows her letters and their sounds, she has started coloring more (both my kids hate coloring), and she can now write a number one. She can also now count with meaning. She's been able to count for a long time now, but she's recently understood that when you say 1-2-3 and so on, that correlates to a certain number of items.

 

 

Also, we finally have all of the garden planted - yay! Lots of science can be discovered in the garden and we are all looking forward to the fruits of our labor. This year we have 12 tomato plants, 3 rows of potatoes, 3 rows of green beans, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, zucchini, bell peppers, snap peas, banana and jalapeno peppers. Should be an interesting summer! The kids love going outside every morning to see what has popped up overnight!

 

And the biggest news around here is that we recently found out our big guy has a food allergy to dairy. It was a major blow to us because his favorite food ever is cheese and he chugs milk all day long. But, it answers multiple prayer requests with just one solution, and it is so like God to do that. Wrap it all up in one package for us to be able to get it under control. Our doctor explained that he doesn't digest the milk protein. Instead, his body reacts to it by having an adrenaline rush of sorts, keeping him full of adrenaline all day. This is why he struggles with naps and bedtime even though he's tired, and why he wakes up exhausted at 6:14am everyday. The doctor thinks this is also the cause of his allergies/drainage and ear infections, and even his sometimes ornery behavior.

 

 

He's been off of dairy for over a week now and we have noticed a huge difference. Last week, he took a nap everyday without complaining. No running in and out of his room for hours fighting sleep. Same at bedtime. It was amazing. He was also a little different behaviorally and overall, just more pleasant. He accidentally had dairy twice this weekend and whoa, he's like a different kid again. He hasn't taken a nap since then and he's been waking up at 6ish every morning. He's exhausted and whiny and cranky and ultra hyper.

I'm sad that he has to go without his favorite food. It breaks my heart. I want him to have everything he wants in life, and I understand his love for yummy, gooey cheese immensely. I'm sad that I have to call his teachers at church and tell them no more goldfish. I really hope he doesn't have to be the different one in class, that they can all just have a different snack. I don't want my children to ever go without anything they want, even if it is something trivial like cheese. So we will cut out the dairy around here and we will pray. I am believing that God will restore my oldest's body to new and he will someday be able to enjoy cheese again.

What Am I Waiting For?

It has been a typical weeknight here. The hubby took our oldest to a parent-child sports sampler class at the Y and the little one and I went to the grocery. I got home and was bringing the groceries in the door and honestly felt grumpy. That "here we go again" attitude. Our house had gotten a little messy over the course of the evening, more stuff to do tomorrow, groceries to put away, fridge to clean out, etc. Just felt kind of bleh...not in any way dreading tomorrow, but not really anticipating it like I should either.

Then I was standing there putting away groceries and my oldest started telling me about his class. He had volunteered to be the leader tonight! Surprising for my once-shy little guy. He got to pick the warm-up exercises and how many of each they did. He was demonstrating the jumps for me at home and decided he wanted to do 100. So I stood there smiling, watching him jump and count to 100, and watching our little girl toss her pink blanky over the air vent so she could see it blow up like a balloon. At that moment I realized, these are the days and nights that make up the memories of their childhood. These ordinary, simple days, spending time with Mom and Dad. This is what they'll remember. These are the things I remember about my childhood, too. So while I sometimes feel like I'm just rushing through this to get to the next exciting thing, I need to always be aware that these are the exciting things. I don't want to miss this! These are the evenings that will string together their childhood memories. Why do I feel like I have to wait for "something" to be happy and enjoy the moment? What am I waiting for? I should be enjoying the here and now, even if it seems mundane. So what? It kind of is. And that's what I've always wanted.

I don't usually have moments like this. Most often I really relish my time with my family. But from now on, if I ever catch myself just going through the motions, or losing the anticipation of the next fun day here on the homestead, I want to remind myself of this. The magic that is watching my kids dance around the kitchen floor, make up silly words together and giggle, each slip on a pair of my shoes and proudly make it across the floor in them, watching my oldest read new words with ease, watching my youngest count objects around the house...what an enormous blessing. Even though there will always be laundry to do and dishes that need scrubbed, there can be magic in the everyday if we stop to enjoy it and soak it in.

I don't want to rush through this, my kids will already be three and five later this year. Their childhood is going plenty fast enough. <3

That Darn Binky

Oh my. Rough few days at this house.

Do you have a strong-willed or stubborn child? I do. Two of them, in fact. And although they are very different, they are both fiercely determined.

Determination can be a trait to be admired, it is needed in life and extremely beneficial in most any job. My strong-will and determination did much good when I worked for children services. I am certain that God has equipped my children with these traits so that they can be harnessed in and used by Him for His purposes and glory. But turning a complete stubborn, screaming meltdown into something that can glorify the Lord is going to take a lot of work on our part as parents and a lot of wisdom from God. He is the perfect parent with all the answers. And I need some today, that's for sure!

It sounds trite, I realize, but these past few days we have been really struggling with my youngest child over the binky. Like I said, I realize it sounds insignificant, but if you have a strong-willed child, you know what I'm talking about. My oldest child is certainly my most strong, determined child and always has been. Before we brought him home from the hospital, we knew how to describe him (in addition to perfect!)...intense. He has always been intense; mad, happy, sad, whatever the emotion he always displays it to the fullest. Much like me. But with my youngest, it has caught me by surprise. From the beginning she has been laid back, relaxed and easy-going like her Daddy. But there have always been those few things... For instance, she refused to take any kind of bottle/sippy cup, etc. from birth. No long dates for Mom and Dad because she refused to eat for a sitter. No matter what bottle you used or what was in the cup, she wasn't having it.

I finally decided to wean her from the breast when she was almost a year old. Up until then, she had still refused to drink anything out of anything, so I knew it wasn't going to be easy. But I really had no idea what I was in for. I did know that once I decided to stop nursing, there couldn't be any going back. So I stopped. And guess what? She stopped drinking. She literally refused to drink any liquid from any type of cup or bottle or spoon for 7 days. And believe me, I tried everything. During that time, we made several visits to the doctor, tried to give her liquid through a medicine dropper, and finally just made her more liquidy foods to ensure she didn't become dehydrated. It was one of my hardest weeks ever.

And I feel like that's where we are at today with the binky. For several months now we've only let her have it when she's sleeping, instead of all day long. She managed to get over that surprisingly quickly. But last week she was pretty sick and all she could do was lay around, so I let her have it to make her comfortable. Her 103 fever won me over. Oops. That was a mistake.

Three days ago we told her she could only have it at bedtime/naptime again since she's better. That did not go well. She has spent the better part of these last three days screaming. And I don't mean a little crying. I mean the kind of crying that makes me concerned my neighbors are going to call the police because they must think I am torturing her. Shreiking at the top of her lungs, collapsing on the floor, completely inconsolable. Even with my oldest and all of his tenacity, I never knew a child could scream for so long. I've tried everything I can think of, the ignore approach, the tender approach, holding her and scratching her back. I've tried talking to her calmly, time-outs, etc., etc. I've talked to other Moms and gotten some good ideas, but nothing is working to stop the crying.

So that's where we're at. I'm sure I'll update when we finally have a breakthrough. But for now, I'm going to pray for wisdom and patience. And sanity, lol!