Scarf Organizer

Hi everyone! It's Rebecca. Today's post is a super cute, super easy way to organize your scarves. We all have those cute lightweight scarves but just don't want to store them wadded up, or even folded up due to the lines and creases that creates. So, what's a gal to do? Simple solution! Take plastic shower curtain hooks and a simple hanger to create an organized way of storing your beauties!

Simply gather your scarves and hooks and hanger. Then just hook them up!

 

 
 

 

Now, my scarf collection is not very large. My sister, however, has a bigger collection. Here are hers.

Aren't they so neat looking all hung up? This is just a fun way to help organize your closets with things you already may have around the house. This could work for belts, but they may weigh the hanger down. In that case, a wooden hanger may be more supportive. Just take a look around the house and see what can be used to help organize in another area!

Thanks for reading!! Happy Organizing!

4th of July Door Wreath

Hello Everybody!! Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer heat. It went from the 60's to 90's in the matter of a week where I live. Its been HOT! But, I have a great easy craft for you all today. I was able to take advantage of the warmer weather and do most of this project outside. I enjoyed being out and the paint also dried a lot quicker. Win-win! This is the awesome wreath that we will be making.

 

 

 

What you will need:

Clothespins- about 80-100  (there will be extra, but some clothespins were not pretty straight out of the package so I didn't use them for this)

red, white and blue paints.  I used acrylic paints.

10" embroidery hoop

star stickers

 

 

 

To get started:  You need to paint the clothespins.  I painted about 18 of them blue, then 25 red and 25 white.  I painted the whole pin which got a little bit messy.  You really do not need to paint the backs of them.  Just make sure to definitely give the front a second coat to make it look really good since that is what will be seen. 

(My 5 year old painted one clothespin before he tired of it and ran off to play.  Perhaps you will have better luck getting your kids involved!)

 

After the clothespins have been painted, place the blue ones on the embroidery hoop as close together as possible.  (note: Only use the inner part of the hoop. not the part with the clasp-y thing on it)

This is where the amount of blue is subjective, add more or less as you like. Then add the red and white alternating as you wish.  Just remember to keep the blue on the upper left to resemble the flag.

Then add star stickers to the blue and VOILA!  You are done!!  Now hang this on your wall, door or wherever you wish and show your pride!

Thank you all for reading!  Happy Crafting!

 

Yummy "healthy" fudge

Hi Everyone!  Have you ever been in the mood for chocolate?  Like, I NEED chocolate?  Not a cookie, not ice cream, but fudgy rich chocolate? Well. that was me today.  Since it was naptime for the little one, I was forced to see what I had in the kitchen to help curb this craving.  I remembered seeing a recipe that seemed easy enough so I thought I would try it.  Well, it worked!  These came together SUPER fast and were SUPER yummy!!

Enjoy!!

1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup high quality cocoa powder
1/2 cup smooth almond butter, or natural peanut butter
1/4 cup raw honey or maple syrup (I used honey)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Melt coconut oil.  Blend all ingredients together in a food processor or blender.  Pour into paper-lined muffin tin cups or silicon muffin cups and fill half-inch full.  Makes 10.   Chill for 30 minutes or freeze for 10 minutes.  Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Happy Snacking!!

Tips to Save $$

Hi everyone!

Since I have been able to recently be a stay at home Mommy, I often get asked how we can afford to still maintain a healthy, organic lifestyle.  Here are some of the ways that we save money.

1. Get rid of cable.  We do not have cable anymore.  I have found that since we do not have it, I do not miss it.  We have a subscription to Netflix for about $8.00 a month and one to Hulu for about the same cost.  Between those two services, there is plenty to choose from!  The kids can still watch their shows they enjoyed on PBS such as Arthur, WordGirl and WildKrats.  Hubby and I still have access to The Daily Show and The Walking Dead series.  No cable saves us around $60 a month.

2. Join a CSA.  A CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. Basically there is a local farm who will grow a ton of produce and harvest it and pack it in a box for us weekly from June through October.  For both a produce and fruit share that runs about $500.  We also have to work for 3 hours at the farm one time during the season.  Now, the upfront cost may seem steep, but we go through a lot of fruits and veggies.  Our grocery bill was quickly adding up.  With the CSA share, I will can and freeze the foods as well.
Now, understandably, this is not an option if there are not farms in your area.  I would suggest frequenting farmer's markets and buy in season.  That alone is a huge cost saver.

3. Meal plan and prep.  When I was working outside of the home, my weekends were filled with thinking and planning for the week ahead.  I found that if I did not have a plan for dinner, those were the nights that we would order out.  Chinese take out, pizza.  Whatever would deliver.  Not only is that food usually not healthy, it was expensive!  When my husband pointed out to me the exact cost for one month I was so shocked!  What we were spending on one night of ordering out, would be a weeks worth of organic veggies.  Planning the meals has saved us a lot of money.

4. Hand in hand with planing the meals is going shopping with a list!  And sticking to it!!  This is a definite and it can be difficult to do.  Grocery stores are designed to make customers buy more.  We just have to be smart enough to know that is their aim!

These are just a few of the things that we have done in order to be able to afford to eat organic and more healthy foods.  It is not always easy, but after a few weeks it becomes a habit!

Happy $aving!!

Home made Lotion

Hi Everyone!  I have mentioned before that my family has been making changes with regard to our eating habits.  Well, we have also made changes regarding what goes ON our bodies as well.  With all the information out there about the chemicals that are in lotions and bodywashes and how quickly these are absorbed in to our bodies, I decided to start making lotions.   Making lotion has also saved us money.  I was the Queen of beauty products, but that stuff can get expensive! So, I did some research, found some recipes online and got in the kitchen!

This recipe is adapted from Wellness Mama's home made lotion recipe and is fabulous! I just love the Wellness Mama site.  She has so much information!

Here is the recipe that I use.

Home Made Lotion Recipe:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup of coconut oil
1/4 beeswax pastilles
2 Tablespoons of Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter or Mango Butter
Essential Oils- Peppermint, Sweet Orange, Eucalyptus, Vanilla Extract etc.

I put all ingredients except the oils in to a glass jar.  I use a pickle jar.


Place the jar in a pot of water.  Make sure that the water does not go over the top of the jar.  I fill my pot so the water is about halfway up the jar.  Then turn the heat on and heat up the water.  This will slowly melt the oils.  I pick up the jar and swirl the mixture to ensure even heating.  Once it is all melted, I remove the jar from the pot, add the essential oils (about 10 -15 drops) then pour the lotion into another smaller jar.  You want to use a jar that is short, but that will hold the lotion.  A jar with a wide mouth is good so you can reach in for the lotion. Then let it set up.


I do not let the water ever boil.  Remember, this glass jar can get super hot!  I usually use a pot holder to grip the jar when swirling.

Then let it firm up!

This lotion does have a low melting point.  It needs to be kept in a cooler location.  It is also best used within 6 months.  You can add Vitamin E capsules (just break them open and squeeze the Vitamin E into the other oils) this will add a longer shelf life to the lotion.  

Just scoop out some lotion, it will melt from your touch and use it all over!  

I hope you enjoyed this!

Crock Pot Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

Hi everyone!Thought I would share another super easy (and healthy!) recipe with you all! Now, I know that oatmeal is not a time consuming item to make. But, I will save ANY time I can in the morning. Upon waking, my baby, F., wants to be held by Mommy. ( I think he misses me at night :) ) My oldest son, M., just wants to eat in the morning! And he would like oatmeal. Every. Day. As I have mentioned, we try to avoid grains and refined sugars, so I have been looking for new tricks to entice him. I saw this recipe on Pinterest and decided to tweak it to fit for my family.
 Enjoy!

Crock Pot Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

 First- butter the bottom of the crock pot. This oatmeal will stick to the pot and be a nasty mess! You can use coconut oil or butter.

 Slice up two apples and place them in the bottom of the crock pot.

Add 1/4 cup of brown sugar (I used coconut sugar),
1 tsp of cinnamon
pinch of salt
Pour 2 cups of oatmeal (gluten free if you have them!)
2 cups of milk (I used almond/coconut milk)
2 cups of water.

Do NOT stir the mixture.
Place on LOW for 8 to 9 hours.
In the morning, I added honey and cinnamon and a splash of coconut milk.
It was super delish! The family ate it up!

Hope you enjoy making this!

Plans..

When I was in my 20's, I was a HUGE fan of the series Sex and The City.  I wanted to be Carrie Bradshaw.  I wanted to move to New York City and write and have that wonderful life.  Having your girlfriends around to go to breakfast and lunch and hang out, going to clubs and fashion show.   The fabulous life!

I thought that I could have it all.  I could have the career and also be the perfect wife and mommy.  I envisioned mornings during the week being happy and full of sunshine.  I never thought that it would be me pouring cereal and making M.'s lunch with F. on my hip screaming and drooling on my outfit for work.  I tried to make it work.  I prepped lunches for my husband and M. the night before, I planned dinners for the week, but they still were harried and rushed. I was working 8:30 -4:30, F. was in daycare and M. in all day Kindergarten.   Daycare was a good place for F.  He had fun interacting with other babies, but once he saw me, it was over.  As soon as I walked in the house from work, there was screaming and crying from him.  All he wanted to do was nurse and be held.  M. would be telling me about his day in between me trying to get undressed from work, making dinner and peeling F. off of me. I did this for about 7 months and then hubby and I re-visted our finances and I took the plunge to become a "domestic engineer".

Being a stay at home mommy has been more work than I ever imagined.  The cleaning and laundry and entertainment for the 1 year old "man of the house" during the day is exhausting!  I have only have 2 children and have been staying home for about two months now.  I feel that I am just now getting a rhythm down with my daily routine.  My hat is off to parents of more than 2 children.  Period!  Whether they stay at home or work outside the home, kudos to you!  It is so much work!

So, my dreams of moving to New York City and being fabulous, have been replaced by being the most fabulous Mommy at the bus stop and Parent Teacher Conferences.  I try my hardest to not go out in yoga pants.  I wear make up every day.  I try to not sport the ponytail every day.  :)  It is tough, but it is so worth it.  Being able to be home with my children is wonderful.  Being home when my husband gets home from work is a great feeling.  Ten years ago I never would have imagined that this is what I would be doing.  It is not what I thought my future would look like at all, but I would not change a thing.

Kindergarten

As I write this, my son M., is about 8 weeks shy of completing Kindergarten. I cannot believe how fast time has gone. I also can tell you that every day that he gets on that school bus feels like the first day all over again. There is something about putting your child in the care of someone else that makes my Mommy instincts kick in gear. Every time the bus pulls away I want to run after it, jump on and grab M. and take him home with me. Crazy, right? You think I would be used to this by now. But, I am not.

As a parent you just want to keep your child safe from everything! Safe from being hurt, being picked on or teased. You also can only hope that your child is being appropriate and kind to others. I try and instill this in my boys every day. But in this world, you also want them to be wary and watch for danger. It is a fine line and super tough these days to be a kid. (and a parent!) You do not want your child growing up afraid but you need to teach them how to be safe as well.

M. and I have both done a lot of growing since last September.  School has molded him into a better behaved child who understands about following rules and being polite to your teacher.  Him being in school has allowed me to let go of him a little more.  That is so hard to do.  Especially because he is only 5 years old.  In terms of a lifetime, that is SO young, yet he does quite well without me for those 8 hours that he is gone during the day.  And he really loves school.  He loves learning and reading.  He loves interacting with children his age.  He is making friends and he loves his teachers.  Knowing that makes letting him get on that bus every day a bit easier.  Also knowing that he is so happy to see me at the bus stop every day.  He will tell me that he missed me during the day and as a good mom, I tell him he does not need to miss me.  He should be focusing on his work and having fun at school.  I do want him to enjoy school and all it has to offer.  He has such a great future in front of him.  All I can do is let him go so he can grab opportunities.  But, I always know that he is my little boy.  He still wants me to tuck him in every night.  And I still check on him before I go to bed.  I probably will until he moves out.  That is just how it is.

Gussets, Aplix and Snappis! Oh my!

I cloth diaper my 1 year old son. I stumbled across cloth diapering while on Babycenter.com as I belonged to the Birth Boards throughout my pregnancy. They are fun to read and commiserate with other pregnant mamas. Anyway, someone had posted about cloth diapering. Now, when I think of cloth diapering, I picture this being done on a commune or sister wives being the only one's who do this. I was obviously wrong. The women who cloth diaper are from all different backgrounds yet they all spoke the same language. The language of gussets and compression leaks. They used acronyms like AIO, BGE and CD. ( I got that CD one after a few reads :) ) I had no idea what they were talking about, but I was hooked. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know why people cloth diapered and what the big deal was. Then, I stumbled across the Cloth Diaper Swap page and I quickly saw what the big deal was. The cutest, most adorable prints and colors. Pictures of babies wearing their "fluff". I was hooked.


Look at them!  Aren't they beautiful?

(photo by Mooshinindy on Flickr)

  So, I told my husband that I was going to start cloth diapering our baby. He is used to my outlandish ideas, so he just asked how much this would cost. Of course, I told him to think about all the money that we spend on disposables and how this is so much better for the planet and F.'s bum, as there are no chemicals in cloth diapers... He gave me the go ahead and told me it could be my thing. off to the swap I went! So many choices! Flats? Prefolds? Pockets? All-in-ones? I did a little research and decided to get some prefolds and covers and some pocket diapers. Well, there are so many to choose from! So many brands and so many patterns. It is really a bit overwhelming. A small amount of research went in to my choices and I purchased some used prefolds and two covers and a lot of 4 pocket diapers with inserts.

When the "fluff mail" came, I was ecstatic! Visions of my baby with a fluffy booty and me reducing our family's carbon footprint filled my head! After I figured out how to put the prefold on, thank you You-Tube, I popped the cover on and man! F.'s butt was huge! Like, I couldn't get his pants on over it huge. Thinking this could not be the way it is supposed to be, I put him down to change it. Perhaps I had the fold incorrect. Well, he only had the prefold on for about 10 minutes and when I removed the cover to re-do the diaper, It. Was. Soaked. Like, you could wring it out soaked. Ugh. Well, I put my smile on because this was life when you CD! Ok, let's try the pocket diaper. Got that on him. Oh so cute! Fast forward about an hour and I smell something. Really? We are just "trying" on the diapers and he has to poop in it?? My fantasy world of cloth diapers was slowly fading. It can't be that bad to change. Umm... WRONG!! Cloth and poop. Hmm.. not a good combination. Or perhaps TOO good of a combo as they were attracted to each other so well. (Let me add here that I do not have a diaper sprayer. As F. is our last baby, I wanted as little money invested in CD'ing as possible.) So, off to wash off the poopy diaper in the sink. That was gross. A bit too much for me. So, I began researching diaper liners. Flushable liners that hold the nasties off the diaper. Again, SOLD!

Since I have been a stay at home mom now since last month, I have been trying to CD regularly. Now, if we are going somewhere, I cheat with 'sposies. (disposables). And, I use 'sposies at night. I have also found that CD's must be changed at least every 2 hours. I have settled in with pocket diapers and they seem to be pretty trim on F. I am grateful that the weather is getting warmer, so we can show off the fluff as he can be without pants or shorts on. All in all, my little adventure in cloth diapering has been going pretty well. Cloth diapers can be very addicting to buy! As I have also come to find out. I stalk swaps and oogle the pretty prints and HTF (hard to find) dipes. But, I believe I am done buying.. for now!

Look how cute!

Intentions

With this blog, I hope to be able to write as often as I can based on how my day has gone with my adventures as a Mom. It would be nice to one day be able to glance back and see how far I have come. (Hopefully, there will be progress) :)

Parenting in Real Life

Sometimes I think we as parents get caught up in what we think parenting "should" look like.  You know, like what we have read in books and seen on the big screen in hundred of movies.  Well, it isn't like that.  At least, not in my world.  I have two sons, M. is 5 years old and F. is 1.  And there are very few times times that our days do not involve some sort of melt downs and temper tantrums.  (They are mostly mine) But anyway, we as a society, are lead to believe that being a parent is an experience that involves hugs and kisses and running through fields and lovely trips to the market and sitting down to wonderfully prepared meals where everyone talks about how wonderful their days were.  Well, I am here to tell you, that is a fallacy.  

My days and nights are filled with some demanding little people. As a parent, you need to know where everything of every one else's is.  It is sort of like constantly taking a test. If the answer is wrong, be prepared for some not so happy children.  You also need to anticipate the needs of these little people.  Now, I have worked for some pretty tough supervisors in the work force and I could appease them.  But my 1 year old? There are times, I feel as though I have tried everything with him, but he is still not satisfied with my level of performance!

Parenting is hard, if you are doing it right.  It is draining and exhaustive.  It keeps you up at night wondering if you what you said to your child in a moment of exasperation will emotionally damage them.  It is sad and heart breaking when your child tells you that someone was mean to them on the bus or called them a baby.  It is also rewarding when your child tells you unprompted that you are the best Mommy in the world.  Children can break your heart, make you cry, make you rethink everything you THOUGHT you knew.  They can also allow you to feel a sense of protectiveness more fierce then you ever thought possible.  A feeling of love stronger than you ever felt in your entire life.  One cannot experience these emotional highs and lows until you are a parent.  That makes the sleepness nights worth it.

And as far as running through the fields?  There is very little running in my life.  Unless I am wearing my Depends.