Green Day

So it's been ages since my last post, our whole family was struck with some sort of sickness for about 6 weeks, one right after another, strange coughs, the flu, allergic reactions to who knows what, then the boy decided to do a number on my tata's, I won't go into detail but recovery is slow and painful! Ugh! There are times where holistic, all natural ways of healing are best (which is how we handled our colds and flu's) and then there are times where nature can just move over and make way for the drugs! Thank God for great Dr.'s and Pediatricians! Needless to say, the past few months have been solely about day to day survival. No fun.
I decided to make St. Patrick's Day our motivation for returning to the land of the living. I planned some fun themed things to do throughout the day (broken up by a trip to the Dr) and the day ended well and everyone was even willing to do chores this morning! What a reward for me!

We started the day by having Green Monster smoothies for breakfast, I found the recipe here. Z and FB love all smoothies, PP won't drink them so I just put a drop of food coloring in her milk to make it green and she was just as happy.

Then we all got dressed in something green, obviously. How beautiful are these guys?!?! And you know I can't post just one!

Next we all got comfortable in front of the computer and watched the Veggie Tales short story about St. Patrick. We actually own the episode that's on VHS but have no working VCR's. Go figure. This is where we watched the story, you can also find it on YouTube here. I'm pretty sure by the time the day was over it had been watched a good 8 times.


After that we had a rainbow scavenger hunt. I let the girls use the little point and shoot digital camera and find something of that color in the house to take a picture of. They took turns finding and photographing the items nicely! Until I left the room. We actually skipped indigo, it was tricky, we just stuck to the easier colors. Here's what they found.


Little Red Riding Hood cape

Orange (extremely loved) fairy wings

Yellow clock

Green pieces to the stacking toy



Blue tissue box



Purple crayon bucket

  

 At the end we took a picture of our bowling pins that make a perfect rainbow!

Lunch Time! We ate spinach quesadillas and guacamole. You can't be a part of this family and not love guacamole. It really deserves to be its own food group! One of the best parts is the baby being able to eat it with us!

This is where our day was interrupted by a trip to mommy's Dr. At least the girls were able to go enjoy the park with their Grammy until I was done. We stopped at the store on the way home for some yummy stuff to make the greatest. cookies. ever! Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies! If you know me at all you know that I'm a sucker for mint. Thin Mints, Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream, Mint Oreos, York Peppermint Patty's, Blue Bell even makes mint choc chip ice cream, covered in chocolate, on a stick now! THIS is the way to my heart! So back to the cookies, YUM! They will now forever be in our rotation of goodies! This was the part of the day I looked forward to most! I found the recipe here.

We wrapped up the day with a green bubble bath. This is the part of the day the girls looked forward to most! I was a little worried about Z's hair turning green if, scratch that... WHEN she got it wet, but all is well, it's still blonde! They splashed around and squealed until the water got cold, then we bathed in clear water, got PJ's on, prayed, did our girl devotional, and everyone fell asleep pretty quickly! Nothing like putting your kids to bed happy!

I hope your green day was a great one!



LENS Photo Challenge - RED

The LENS photo challenge this time is RED. This picture came to mind pretty quickly. It was taken a few years ago by one of my girls. The Man and I got new phones and gave our old ones to the girls to play with, they immediately went to work taking pictures of everything around them. I LOVED seeing the world through their eyes, and seeing what things they considered important enough to photograph. The pictures ranged anywhere from self portraits, to My Little Pony toys, to items at the store they wanted to buy! This particular picture was taken during a trip to Target, from inside the basket.

Here are a few more of my favorite pictures taken by the girls...





L.E.N.S. Photo Challenge- Physical Education

This post is for a Photo Challenge, but it's also a great topic for homeschooling families. Making sure the kids stay moving is important! We have our share of running around the house, and our share of backyard fun, and if the girls aren't dancing from room to room then something is terribly wrong. But in addition to our at home "P.E.", we also like to put the kids in different sports. Our goal is to help them find the one they like best (if any) and stick with it! They did gymnastics last spring, T-ball in the fall, and will do soccer this spring. Out of all the great shots of them participating, I still think my favorite is of PP not participating in T-ball. In her defense, it can get pretty boring in outfield, especially in T-ball! This pose she has here screams "Prissy Pants", and she doesn't think the title fits her!

Here are some other T-ball pics. Their absolute favorite was hitting the ball and running. Z would be happy running all day. That's why I think they'll enjoy soccer! I'm so excited to start next month!







It was impossible to get good pictures of the girls in gymnastics because of the gym lighting, I tried and tried for weeks, and since parents had to stay in the bleachers I just couldn't get any good shots. Sadness. Here are the girls getting their medals at the end of the semester!

I can't wait until FB is old enough to join in, she hates having to sit on the side with me and watch the big girls have all the fun!

So what do you homeschoolers do for "P.E."? Head over to Home is Where You Start From and see what others are doing!



Death by Chocolate and a Half Birthday

If we had a choice in the way we left this world behind, mine would definitely be death by chocolate - if there were such a thing. Yesterday evening the girls helped me make the greatest chocolate cupcakes in the history of cupcakes (at least at our house). We added chocolate pudding to the mix to make them extra moist, sprinkled mini chocolate chips on top, then iced them in chocolate icing! Mmmmmm! You can't see the chocolate chips in the picture, but they are most definitely there! When Intelligent Man took his first bite I think he choked on the richness. He said it was chocolate overload. PULEEEEASE! Men just can't hang when it comes to chocolate.

A bit before that, while icing them, The Man walked up behind me and asked what the occasion was. "Ummmm..." I replied. I was quickly scanning my brain for an appropriate answer, I never stopped to think that I needed a reason for indulging myself, but to justify the baking I searched for an answer. I blurted out, "It's the boy's half birthday tomorrow!" and then smiled. And it's ok that he can't enjoy the sweets, because this celebration is actually mine! I'm the one who (completely naturally) hiked a 10 1/2 lb mass of chunky little boy from my gut, so I deserve all the celebration I can handle! I'll have my cupcake and eat it too! I may even inhale one while no one is looking so I can eat another one later, without getting the "Are you seriously having another one?" look, piercing my face. Mwahahaha! So all you health nuts go ahead and scoff - meanwhile I'll be sitting on a cloud in sweet tooth heaven! Mmm, chocolate bliss!

Oh, yes, and happy HALF birthday to my son! I can't believe it's already that time, the girls first 6 months didn't go by nearly this quickly! Here's a yummy treat for you - feast your eyes on this hunk of a beautiful male, all 19lbs 10.5oz of him!



A week away

I decided to take a week away from Facebook last week and direct my attention elsewhere. I have some big plans in the works involving our home life and needed to give myself a big kick in the right direction. First off, organization (or RE-organization in some cases). There are way too many "hot spots" in this house, you know, the places where all the junk without a home ends up. Those places needed to be cleared of clutter and the inhabitants relocated to a real place of their own. I made plans to join in the 21 day organizing challenge over at A Bowl Full of Lemons, and I did - I just didn't do it in the same way. I am by no means finished with this quest, I have more boxes, bins, baskets, and shelves to buy to finish up the other half of this mountain of a project. And some of the things on the challenge list didn't exactly apply to me so I varied slightly. I also have a lot of things already in some sort of order and just needed to give it a facelift. So, just to show you what I have done so far, here is the first half of what I've accomplished! I think I'll list them by rooms instead of in the order they were done.


KITCHEN:

First up, the junk drawer (or the one in the kitchen anyway). This drawer is barely big enough for all that we need in it so I could only organize it so much, but you gotta admit, it looks way better than it did before!

Then, under the kitchen sink. I have no idea why, but there were empty cleaning bottles under here. Can you say lazy? Ugh!

The pantry! In all of these places, the rules were to take EVERYTHING out, clean the space then refill in a more organized manner. And obviously when it comes to food, throw away what's expired!

The refrigerator - I think I was looking forward to this one the LEAST, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Yay!

 

The freezer. This was easier than the fridge, perhaps because it's only a fraction of the space!

The spice cabinet. Embarrassingly there was a lot to throw away in here too. I really had to fight with that shelf to get it in there, but I was determined and I won! Much better, right?

SCHOOL ROOM:

The computer desk is in our school room. Most of what is piled here is school stuff (which I have yet to get to, I need another shelf first), so I cleared off all the school related things and will try to keep this desk just for computer related things. It won't be easy to do since it shares a room with our school, but I WILL try! Hopefully I can get that shelf and get to the school stuff very, very soon!!

MASTER STUFF:

Heading into my bedroom we come to the dresser and chest of drawers. On the challenge she cleaned and organized the clothes inside, my clothes are already separated and folded so I tackled the craziness on top!

And the last thing on the list for today is the laundry room, which is right next to our bedroom. This space just needed a good wipe down, and it got it! Now everything looks white again!

So like I said before, I need more bins, and boxes to finish up the other things on my list, and it will be coming soon! Here are a few of the spaces I plan on conquering this week: under our bathroom sink, the master closet (scary!), the mail, the medicine cabinet, and my pots, pans, mixing bowls etc. Here is the list of things I will get to after that, as long as I can get the tools I need: keepsakes, pictures, the play room, the school room, and my sewing closet. There, so now that you all know what's coming you can keep me accountable!