New Chapters

So good things to come to an end I guess at one time or another. Poo, poo, two of my good friends who also happen to live in my neighborhood are moving. One up the street, one down the street. First we became friends. Than we moved into the same neighborhood (a block away from one another) One moves next week and another TBA but soon. For the latter it's more dependent on the sale of their house in regards to actual timing. Both have great things awaiting them. New life prospects like new jobs, new churches, new adventures all around. I will miss both of them. It's been so sweet to grow up as mothers of small children together. My kids played with their kids and their kids played with my kids. We often helped out with childcare for one another. Nothing beats a good friend and even better if they live down the street and up the road. It's been just knowing you're there.

Each of these friends have such rich qualities about them. Each bring a smile to my face when I think of them and their families. One of these friends was even in my wedding as a bridesmaid, aww. So many memories, so many stories. When it hit me I started to cry. Than I started to laugh with joy at the great adventures they are beginning. I'm happy for them, as a good friend aught to be. Still, my friends and neighbors, things will not be the same once relocation has happened. States away, we'll not be able to walk to one another's houses or take walks together with our strollers. It takes me a while to process change sometimes. This is one of those bitter sweet times. I'm happy for both, yet sad because neither can be replaced. Social networking just won't be the same as our ole' familiar face to face conversations and times well spent. My neighborhood will never be the same again. The park down the street will echo their laughs as memories are recalled. Ah the emotions of saying good bye, I'm struggling with. I could just cry again when I stop and think of their presence being missed. But why cry? I'll opt for a brighter path of thoughts. I'll cheer them on as they start a new chapter. It's clear in each one of my friends who are departing and relocating; God is moving in their midst on their behalf. It's a good thing He is doing. Thank you God for such good friends who've been blessed with great opportunities for a brighter future. Thank you for the times we've shared. I'm not very good at good byes so I guess we'll just have to say, talk to you later ~ ole friend (s).

Thank You ELMO!!

Potty Training....

Let's just say Elmo has helped make it all 'click' for my little potty trainee and now we're really making some headway. I'm proud to report she's in undies all day (except for naps and night time)! Fellow parents I gotta say that there is nothing in life that can completely prepare us for potty training. Changing a cute baby's diaper just isn't the same as sticking your toddler on the potty and cleaning up fecal mater off your floors when 'accidents happen' before the littlest member of your family won't find interest and play in it. Ewww! It's disgusting, frustrating and often seems like it takes forEVER. Until Elmo that is...

One day I hopped on the internet to see if there was a cute potty training video for my daughter to watch while my daughter sat on the potty. It was really a move of desperation on my part. This little clip made a world of difference! I'm not ashamed to say that we watched it something like 14 times in a row the very first time. BUT, than.... I heard pee splashing in her portable potty!!

I was overjoyed and thrilled. No shame, no blame Elmo has won this mother's heart! We've read books, we talked about it, she ran with no clothes, we got her big girl undies, pull-ups and the only thing that seemed to help 'click' with her and bring it all round circle was this little {random} Elmo potty clip.

I was quite humored by it myself. I still laugh when little Elmo makes the poop face. If you are having frustrations potty training with your little one SHOW THEM THIS! No promises here but I'm just sayin...

Oh, and oddly enough my kids don't watch Sesame Street but like all kids in America she knows who Elmo is! Now and than when she's on her potty she says, "Mama I'm doin' it, just like Elmo does!" AND THAT MY FRIENDS IS SWEETNESS TO THIS MOTHER'S EARS :-)

Watch, laugh and lettem' go! {on the potty that is}

''

bugs part two

Well I guess that last post was rather long. Not sure if I even have anymore readers? The last posting was more me venting than anything. I'll try to keep this one more to to point. Lot's have happened and as you can tell I'm a wordy, chatty gal. he he So as it turns out we've been on this "back to basics" kick. I really had no idea a little bug could be used by God is such a profound way. (see last posting) In the old testament I'm reading about the new land that the Israelites were walking into and God was giving them. It's so symbolic to where my family is these past few months. We're treading on new ground. In past if you are familiar with my postings I had been doing a little Green tips. Going green and saving green. Though many of you are no longer regular followers (b/c I'm so infrequent in my blogging these days). I have to say we've gotten a lot greener around here.

Some things that have changed:

No more factory farmed meats / we now buy from a local farm 55 min away. Totally worth it!

No more chemical cleaners / Now I make my cleaners the green way. Great savings

We are excited to see where God is leading us on this new journey. Less is more. Trying to be good stewards of the earth. I always kinda razzed folks who were over the top green in all their silly ways. I didn't totally get it. Have learned it's not for everyone. As I started telling folks about our journey I got strange looks and comments of concern. Rest assured we're not wacky. Our desire is live simpler lives. Our meal planning and shopping habits have drastically changed. I use to stock up on a variety of things when God put his heart on a slight hoarding issue. When I had to throw out all the food due to the bugs it really pinched me and hurt. I came from a poor family on state welfare in a broken home. God has really begun breaking off me a mentality of lack. I didn't see how wrong my thinking was until recent. I am thankful that God is ever changing me for the better. I don't want to pass on my distrust in God's provision and wrong thinking on to my kids.

Now The Mr is still a little skeptical on some things. I think it's mostly that he doesn't like change. I think that when he starts seeing the savings and connects the dots with the other eco/green morals that are interwoven, he'll get it. "Make your own cleaners?!", he said with squinted eyes. We had a little chat about all the other things we do 'green' around here and his main concern was that I was going to be working to hard. I see it as a promotion. The proverbs 31 woman was hard at work not only tending to the affairs of her household but in other areas of life as well. Not just a busy woman but a woman with vision and purpose. I see the little things like taking time to make cleaners rather than spend money on chemical ones as well invested time. "It's a promotion" I exclaimed. God thinks I'm able to do the extra and grace me in it so why not. Anyway I was brimming with a smile from ear to ear as I cleaned my bathroom with my first concotion of 'green' cleaning solution. Found the instructions off the internet. Point being I was proud of myself and rightly so. When was the last time you found a woman smiling with delight as she cleaned her bathroom shower? I don't think that's EVER happened in this house.

I said I'd keep this short so I have to draw the line here. Just know that God is speaking very clearly to us. We are being stretched and growing in areas we never thought needed attention. Ahh the smiles and squeals Princess has when we take the trip to the farm. We're currently waiting to hear back from a local CSA program. I hope we got in!! What a valuable lesson! My kids will actually know where their food comes from; not some package in the supermarket but the animal or plant right in our backyard (well kind of). Gotta dash!

Bugging Out (Part One)

So you'll never guess what I'v been up to...

Traveling? I wish. Sunny beach vacationing with the fam? I wish. Nope more domestication it would seem. That might sound a little boring until you read this post.

My hair has been frizzy! I shiver with disgust. My house turned inside out. Chuck it out, toss it out, groooossed out! Chuck it out, toss it out, groooossed out! Like the little train who thought she couldn't, suprisingly I'm chugging away like a busy worker bee. I'm a part of the senior moth swat team. LOL Ok, Ok I'll get right to it.

It turns out we brought home some infested oatmeal. Yep. Ever hear of meal moths? I never really knew much about them until they started to appear in my kitchen. Nasty but harmless thankfully. It took me four days to dump all our dry foods into the trash, clean out our pantry and cabinets than replace our new food in new airtight containers. I didn't have airtight containers so I went out and purchased two cases of Mason jars and a few hundred dollars worth of cereal sized containers for larger items, like cereal etc. What a mess! My kitchen and life was torn apart. My cabs and pantry were empty, wiped down while canned items and salvageable stuff sat on our dining room table and kitchen counters. I hate counter clutter so this was super stressful like jars of pasta sauce for me. Four days of living like this! I filled our town garbage dumpster that we put curbside full of possible tainted food. (6 garbage bags full) Past few days we're glad to only see a few moths fly around rather than the dozen we were seeing when the infestation outbreak was realized.

I'm a stocker up-per. My grandmother had a pantry and my mother had a pantry. I've long sense had the desire to be a frugal shopper (within reason) We do buy our cereal at the wholesale club b/c we go through so much of it. I pride myself in my savvy assertiveness to check the weekly paper and online coupon outlets to combine and match a coupon with a great sale. I've gotten pretty good at it. I even get things for free on occasion if the deal is right. Soo naturally we have a pantry and some cabs with some stuff in them. I don't buy the store out but I do a great job stocking up. Recently cake mix went on sale for .77 and I picked up two mixes for my hubbys cake in Dec and another pair for myself since my b-day is next month (that he could make for me). We had 4 pkgs of brownies as well. It's easy to have some on hand to whip up a snack or take to a gathering. I think you follow where I'm going with this. Well sad to see it all go, out into the trash went all our dry foods along with the time it took to marry coupons with great sales. It was depressing. Out went our boxes of different types of pasta (6 of them). Out went our cereal, pancake mix and anything else dry even if it wasn't opened. I actually cried. (more on that later)

You should know any dry food (cereal, pancake mix, brownie & cake mix beans, rice, pasta granola etc, bird food or dog food from the market can come with the moth eggs (nearly impossible to see) and the shopper never knows they are there until the moths come out. I found the worm or larva in my cereal - on my spoon with milk dripping, EWWW. It was squirming on my spoon as to say "help I'm drowning". NOT what I wanted to wake up to. You can imagine my screech! I'm a fairly clean person and it's been quite hard living life knowing we have bugs. Being that we are in the northeast we don't tend to see any bugs except the common house spider and a lost black ant or two that's made it's way in. What really got me was within the same week I opened up the twist cap off my son's baby food (rice cereal) and a mealworm larva fell out. Awww! (shiver). I'm suspecting the outbreak was from the container of oatmeal. Who knows they spread from food to food but, I had portioned out individual servings of oatmeal into ziplock packets for easy usage rather than buy the sugary packets of oatmeal for the fam. It's a good way to stretch the dollar too. Around the time I was noticing a lot of moths around my cupboards I went in my cabinet and saw a bug flying inside on of those oatmeal sealed ziplock bags! "what in the world?" was my reaction. I've done a lot of research on these pests on the internet and found them to be quite common. The bugs eggs must have been in the oatmeal and one day, they hatched into moths I guess. LOL I'm able to laugh now, but when I was in the BB and beyond store buying my airtight containers I wanted ones that were good enough to be water proof as well. How can I laugh you ask? I struck up a conversation with another shopper in the isle. Low and behold she too had a case of mealmoths in her home some time ago. I was kind of revealed to know I wasn't alone. She willingly shared her experience with me and we grimmest at the annoyance of the mealmoth (Indian Meal Moth) and laughed together. I also happened to run into a friend of mine who was interested to see that I was quite possibly updating and organizing my pantry. Yes I told her, she was correct. But, than I felt I had to tell her why when she made the comment, "things must be good, that's quite an expensive project". I simply said, "I have bugs & therefore have no choice". So she probably won't want to come for dinner for a while but I'm humbled by this whole experience. And yes I can finally laugh about it. My friend wished me good luck and continued shopping with her hubby.

It's been a few weeks now since stripping everything bear & wiping out cleaning and vacuuming; though the moths still keep showing up. I can say with confidence, I know they will be gone in a matter of time. How long it will take is anyone's guess. I have to kill the cycle. If they have no access to food (hence the airtight containers and constant vacuuming) eventually they'll die. I could use poison but I found an article that suggested bay-leaves. So we have bay-leaves in our naked cabinets. I couldn't put food back where I found the initial outbreak. I even scattered bay-leaves around the inside of my pantry. Wives tale? Who knows but I don't want to put poison around my little kids. Especially since my son is starting to walk & cruise around. I hope the moths and their cycle die off sooner than later. God knows I want them gone yesterday!

Like most bugs they are attracted to lights & are easy to spot and kill. They do leave quite a dusty mess on surfaces when squished. With an almost three year old and an eight month old I have to keep the vacuum handy to collect all the cheerios & crumbs that hit the floor. I'd say I vacuum at least three times a day now. My quick stickvac now lives outside since I don't want it to spread and contaminate. That thing has no bag to empty, just a filter to shake in the garbage. I'm waiting for the cold air. Freezing temps seem to kill the cycle so then I can shake the filter into the outside garbage and return it to the house BUT, who knows I may just end up throwing the stick vac in the trash too. Crazy? Maybe just a little groused out at this point.

There is more to this story... as a christian it's moments like these that God always uses to grow a person. I've been eager to type out the story and share. It's almost midnight and I should be off to bed, my wee little ones will wake me quite early but I just had to start somewhere because I want to share my story. Now you know why I've titled this part one. I have a picture of our new organized pantry with airtight neatly labeled dry food products. It's almost like something out of a M. Stewart magazine. Almost. Oh I could rant and rant some more about these darn moths but I'll save you from all of that & share the good that's come from it in part two. So now that you've had an intro, pray for me regarding the bugs and stay tuned to read part two. I promise I'll try not to keep you waiting.
Best,

Dance!!

Well we've started Princess in her first activity... Tap Dance. I'm shaking my head at the fact that my first born is already old enough for such an activity. She went this past Thursday for the first time and LOVED IT! In this picture she's patiently waiting for a class to end before her class starts up. She did so well being that she's one of the younger gals in her class. At 2 1/2 I expected that she'd be all done with it by 15 min but she was very engaged and had a blast!! Tiny Tappers are so cute! This Mama is so proud of her gal! Way to go Princess!

Is it Fall?

Well the summer is winding down. Kids are doing well. The Mr. is up for a few metals for a job well done. The little guy is getting around via military crawl. My Princess is starting Tap Dance next week! I can't believe we are here already. I didn't want to have to share the bad news but, it helps explain what's been up. A year ago I opened up a business and figured I'd take a leap for it. I have another blog I've been managing for my business but this month is my last month. I've decided to dissolve the LLC and keep my inventory for future crafting. In case you are wondering you can click HERE to see more. I'm really ok with it. I'm part of a MOPS (Mothers of Preshcoolers) Group at my church and have opted to head up crafts. It will keep me focused on something other than the usual go around here at home. Good balance. I purchased memory for my computer and FINALLY intend to install it this weekend. I know!! It's been how many months?! Aside from all that I'm busy in the kitchen making my homemade baby food again. Baby J is an aggressive eater! I've not found a thing he won't eat.

Now that we are headed to the fall and things are winding down inside I hope to have more time to blog because I miss it. I'm still working on organizing the home. The Mr. and I have been having some serious talks about being done with kids, meaning no more babies. When and how does one actually know?? I was so horribly, I mean horribly sick with Hyperemesis with both my kids that I can't really picture doing it again. So the discussions continue. I'm leaning a lot about myself now that I have a boy.... things like how to grow patience overnight. ha ha just kidding. I think he's the cutest little guy! September is proving to be a busy month. We scheduled his baby dedication at the church end of the month. Oh I promised pictures and yes once I install the memory and my computer works faster I'll upload them ~ promise. Probably do a slide-show.
Managing two in diapers is quite the job. I think it's harder to adjust this time than when I had just my darling daughter. They don't nap the same schedules nor do they eat so I'm always feeding, changing, putting down for nap, when the other wakes up etc., at times its chaos!
The Mr. has been training rookies and having fun with it. We've attended a few funerals for a few fallen officers one in his department and another state trooper. I never like having to attend but it's always good to show support. Every-time no matter if I've never even met the person I tear up just the same.
On a lighter note here are some of the things my 2 and a 1/2 year old daughter shares with us...
Princess to her brother: "No, that's mine"
Princess to her father: "I'm ok, I'm fine. How are you daddy? Everything ok here?"
Princess to her mother: "No mama, I have to finish playing with my toys first!"
Princess to her brother: "No buddy you have to wait!"
Princess to her brother: "come buddy, come! as if he's a dog ha ha. And we don't even have a dog.
Princess to Mama, "Oh no Mama, he spit up all ober da floor. Ewww! Not good :-( grimace." ha ha that's my fave. (sarcasm)
At this point I think she's not ready for potty training. The other day before I put her in the bath she was standing on the floor diaper-less and while I turned to check the water I felt wetness coming from outside the tub on to my leg and feet. When I looked up at my daughter she said, " Mama I spit on the floor, what happened?" I told her she didn't spit she went pepe. I put her on the potty to make sure she was done. Nothing happened so into the tub she went. I've not addressed the potty situation since. All totally unscripted. Pleased it was just peee and not poop that I was moping up while she was in her tub. Oh the joys of motherhood!
C-ya around soon.

A Crafty Post Christmas Project

Bitter sweet, the holidays are over. Good news a new year is upon us. Being that it's Sunday, a family day for most I thought I'd blog a fun post Christmas craft project.

OK, you've probably taken down the decorations etc. But do you toss out the cards you got? A fun craft project is to cut out the Merry Holiday Wishes and make either gift tags or, use the cutouts to make your own Christmas cards next year. I cut out some of my Christmas cards and quickly placed them on some crafting card stock for example. These of course are not representing the finished project. You can really go to town with special scissors that cut out shaped borders. With a little glue stick maybe sparkles and ribbon you'll have a great gift tag or card. Simply tuck them away to use next year!

This can be done with both paper and photo cards. Its a good way to re-purpose 2009's holiday cards with your own personal touch. Just make sure to cut out the previous date and personal wishes.

If you really like your friends & family and want to keep some of those photo card pictures here are a few ideas.

Make a paper picture collage by using the top (picture) part of your old December calendar. Simply cut out the top picture part of December's calendar month. Next, cut and trim the pictures from your picture cards. Using a glue stick, glue the backs of them to the top of your old calendar's December picture in random order until finished.

Not so crafty you say? No problem you can still use them. Cut out your pictures and set aside to scan into your computer.
For a digital spin on making the collage with your Christmas card photos you can create fun shapes using FREE picture collage software. You can add all your Christmas pictures to the card pictures you set aside for a wide variety of photos in your collage. The heart above is an example of the digital picture collage. You'll need your pictures in digital format so the photos from your cards will need to be scanned into your computer prior to using them in this manor.

To make or just learn more about a digital Shape Collage click HERE.
Have fun crafting!

You Are My Sunshine

So I found the perfect way to illustrate to my two year old daughter (Princess) that God sings over her. Something I've been sharing with her as I try to emphasize that God loves her oh so much. Ahh life's lessons from Veggie Tales. Thought it was cute so I'm passing along some sunshine :-)