TP Warning

A warning to any visiting family and friends for the month of June:

The monthly cash allotment for toiletries was spent as of June 10th and there are only three rolls of toilet paper left in the cabinet. Use sparingly or you'll have to use the cloth TP I've been threatening about. You can send your note of thanks to Dave Ramsey.

Breakfasts

We've been stuck in a cereal for breakfast rut for about 12 years or so. I grew up on cereal too so really longer. We love cereal though so there haven't been many complaints. However, organic cereal is pricey, plus I've heard many times the benefit of eating a more balanced breakfast. I picked up an ebook called Breakfast for Busy Moms over at The Urban Homemaker and I've loved her ideas.

So far we've tried:
- Puffed Apple Pancake (3 of us finished up a pan made to serve 6!)
- Apple oatmeal
- Scrambled eggs (I had never thought to add Braggs Liquid Amino Acids to this before - yum! It is a non GMO version of soy sauce)
-French breakfast muffins (for Father's Day)

And this morning might be one of my favorites . . . strawberry/blueberry smoothies with scones and raw honey (frozen left overs from Sunday's morning family snack). I'm looking forward to trying her oatmeal pancakes, baked oatmeal, pancake and waffle dry mix, sticky buns, etc! I love breakfast food!

Something I've started making for EH is egg/english muffin sandwiches (since he's been leaving for work pretty early these days). Add some cayenne pepper to the eggs and he's a happy camper. For now I've been making them the evening before and then he pops them into the toaster oven. I found a recipe for making up a batch of these and freezing them - I think I'd like these even for lunches. I might even try my hand at homemade english muffins - no commitment yet.

By the way, The Urban Homemaker has a free ebook at her website called Fast and Healthy Meals for Busy Women and she has her bread, batter mixes and lots more in there.

Summer schooling

Agent H and I started working our way through this wipe-off activity book today. His goal was to make it through 7 pages. I think we did about four and a half cause it was pretty involved. I grabbed my quilting and stitched vines as he chugged his way through the long and short sounds of the vowels.

Potty training take II

I haven't said a whole lot about potty training 'cause there really hasn't been anything to say. The past few days Little E has shown some interest. We haven't been pushing the issue but we do talk about it.

So today he's been especially interested and he was excited to wear the training pants. Wouldn't you know that I forgot to follow up and before we knew it we had a dirty diaper to deal with. Oh dirty training pants are not fun - you know - "it" gets all up and down the legs when you take it off. Ugh! I put him in a diaper for nap time.

Just 5 minutes ago he stood up and declared "potty!" so we raced upstairs to give it a go. We were too late to make the toilet but I'm thrilled that he realized what he was doing. Also when I went to put a diaper back on him he insisted on "Underwear!" So we'll give my other pair of training pants a try . . . I'm hoping the next clean up won't be as messy.

Pita Love

I can't believe it took me months to get up the courage to bake pita bread. I put my hands to it the other day and I was so very impressed with how easy it was to make. I had myself all prepped for the first batch to be a flop - I mean how do you get them to bubble and be "open" on the inside? They baked up into perfect little pillows in the oven and looked just like store bought ones when they were done. Another plus, there are only 4 ingredients in the recipe making them a great money saver. The other day I ate spinach and egg salad inside freshly baked pita for lunch - so delicious! One more plus, the pita bread doesn't crumble like my homemade bread does so it means less clean up under the boys' chairs after they eat.

Per request :) I found my recipe in an e-book called A Beginner's Guide to Baking Bread by Marilyn Moll over at urbanhomemaker.com. The book is $9.95 but if you watch her site or sign up for her newsletter I think she has lots of sales or deals where she'll bundle a bunch of her e-books for sale.

Preschool Graduation

Today we celebrated Agent H's end of preschool with an ABC party. It was very similar to his party last year. His buddy from down the street joined in the fun.


Here they are doing an ABC hunt using the circle letters (it's called circle alphabet file folder game) from childcareland.com - I love the stuff they have available for printing here. Then I used a simple chart that I made for H to bring on grocery shopping trips. I'll post the PDF when EH has a chance to help me figure out how. I give Agent H this chart and pencil and he hunts through the store (always nearby of course) for all the letters on the chart, circling them as we go. He is so motivated and quiet as he works through this - it's been very helpful when shopping with kids.

The boys rolled out pretzel dough and made their initials and whatever else struck them, snails and chunks seemed to be the most popular. We played an AB Seas fishing game, ate lunch, then decorated brownies with frosting and candy letters.




Here they are drawing letters and then just having fun in plates of chocolate syrup.








We finished up the party by making super hero belts with their initials. They love to play super heroes so they really took to it! I found the templates for these at familyfun.com. I didn't have a whole lot for extra belts so we made our belts out duct tape.

School is out!

We finished up the last couple of lessons of preschool - whew! There wasn't much left to do so it kept not getting done. Anyway we wrapped things up last week. Here's Agent H proud of his completed color book.

Yesterday he went to the zoo with a buddy and the buddy's mom said that when they were asked something about what grade the kids were in he told one of the workers that he "made it all the way to 'Z'!" Way to go Agent H!

Maternity ware

Can one adequately express the relief found in finding a maternity shirt that actually covers a swollen belly but doesn't feel like you're wearing a sheet. Or a pair of maternity pants/shorts that actually stay above the lump without being hitched up every 10 minutes? Or having a husband who tells you once you're back from Home Depot that you have your shorts on backwards. I guess he at least told me before we went to the open houses and church.

Financial Peace Weeks 4, 5, and 6

These weeks focused on dumping debt, how to handle your creditors, and how to wise up about your purchases.

Thankfully we only have one debt (besides our mortgage) and we just mailed in the final payments on our credit cards!

I am so grateful that we have not had to deal with creditors. This lesson had a plan for how to prioritize your creditors and how to deal with them if they are harassing you.

The lesson on purchasing was helpful in teaching us what to consider when making big purchases like cars, furniture, etc.

There you have it!

Bug Defense

Our backyard is mosquito infested. I'm not a big fan of bug spray cause once the kids are done outside and come inside I feel like they need a bath so they don't rub it off all over the inside of the house. However for those times when the swing set calls, we've found a great bug spray that actually works and it doesn't contain any DEET. The adult version has some parabens in it but the kids version doesn't. It's this Herbal Armor by All Terrain.

We're going to try out some non-toxic bug spray for the yard in hopes that that will help reduce the mosquito population (it smells very strongly of garlic!). I'll let you know how that goes. One other option that we've seriously considered and that we will probably follow through on is a bat house. Just saying that makes my skin want to crawl but EH insists that they are harmless and they could really help cut down the bug population. Since I really want us to be able to enjoy our backyard I'm willing to give it a shot.

Girl quilt

A work (the girl baby quilt) in process.

Smell that?

Agent H's words every 5 minutes as the bread bakes "Mom, as soon as the bread is ready, I'M READY!" He loves fresh hot bread - who doesn't? I use the recipe here at the Urban Homemaker.

I'm dreaming of someday owning a Bosch and a grain mill so I can make my bread even more nutritious. Did you know that whole wheat has 26 naturally occurring vitamins and minerals in it? The refining process used to make the flour we buy off the shelves or in loaves of bread destroys those. White refined flour has four B-vitamins added back in but they are not even the correct proportion. Making bread sounds like a chore but if you have a mixer, you'd be surprised at how fast it goes together!

Financial Peace Weeks 2 & 3

For week two of our online Dave Ramsey financial class Ga came over to watch the boys and we hit Baker's Square (because they have WI-FI and are open later then the coffee shops, oh yah and there is the pie!). It was a bummer that we couldn't get the video to work (I guess the WI-FI didn't work as we had hoped) so we sat there piled into a booth seat, shared a pair of ear buds and just listened to the session. We had a great time and kept cracking up over the humor. DR spoke a lot about the frequent difference in spouses (the nerd and the free spirit). I wear the nerd hat and EH wears the free spirit hat - but I have to say that neither one of us are die-hard to those descriptions. Our assignment: to create a quickie budget. Done.

Week three we did out at my parent's house. In this session we went over financial forms and how to use them. EH and I paused it a lot to follow our own rabbit trail discussions. This is our first month trying to operate on the budget and as we were advised, it's not balancing out "right". They say it will take 2-3 months. What's one supposed to do when the amount you have budgeted for gifts should work (once it gets beefed up after a couple of months) but it happens to be a big gift month - ack! I guess it will be a good exercise in humility as I won't be able to give as I'd like. EH is the voice of reason reminding me that folks probably don't put as much thought into what we spend on them as I think they do.

This Sunday we plan to do double duty on our lessons as we're a little behind and we'd like to accomplish as much as possible before this babe arrives.

Don't underestimate the lure of $

At dinner the other day EH and I playfully discussed who we could get to pick all the dandelion heads from the backyard. (Getting down on all fours and digging them out is a little difficult when 7 months pregnant and of course I'm anti toxic weed spray). We mentioned that we might be willing to pay a little money for the job - Agent H could barely contain himself to his chair in his anticipation to claim the job. EH and I shared a "we're so good" smile across the table and Agent H was assigned the task.

Bucket in hand and doused in bug spray, Agent H disappeared to tackle the job as soon as he was excused from the table. During the boys' baths EH counted out 500 dandelions. We told Agent H that we would give him 5 cents a flower - ah maybe we should have done the math first. Actually I'm not sure doing the math would have helped cause I seriously thought he'd loose interest in the task after 10 minutes not 60 minutes. Our four year old racked up $25 bucks! The temptation to lean toward the fact that he doesn't understand the monetary difference between a penny and nickel was great for me - EH's integrity broke through and we paid up on the spot (as directed by our Dave Ramsey instruction)!. We explained about the joy of giving 10% to the church and saving 10% and then he could do whatever he wanted with the rest. He readily agreed. Last night I took him out to Target. He gave close study to the Lego isle and then chose a SpyGear spy case. He is so thrilled with his purchase and we are proud of him - even if our "we're so good" look has changed to a "we've been had" look.

Gluecola

Week 28 preggy appointment was a couple weeks ago already but here's a quick recap. I got to chug-a-lug a nice little jug of gluecola for my gestational diabetes test. In case any of you all are interested they are now offering a lovely lemon lime alternative. I stuck with the familiar orange. I was nervous about this test as my sweet tooth has been acting up and I'm not exactly sure what brings on gestational diabetes. All was clear -whew!

Baby Quilting

Nothing like cutting it a bit close but that's not new for me. I'm making (or planning to make) a boy and a girl quilt for our babe in the next 60 days. The idea is that I will bring it to the hospital and have their hospital photo taken on it. Agent H's was all done on time, E's was sewn but not quilted . . . we'll see what happens this time around.

Here is the inspiration for my girl quilt (found at quilttaffy's ebay store):
I love the soft colors and design of the Moda Simplicity fabric. Now if I can get the alignment right it should be easy cheesy.

For a boy quilt I have decided to embroider a blue snoozing bunny and some other sleepy designs from the Doodle Stitches book and boarder them in blue and light green fabric.

I have started the girl quilt first - just because I love the colors and they are so different from my life of boys. Agent H faithfully asks "when are you going to start the boy's quilt?" I wonder if he has some inside information?

A babe is born!

Today a baby BOY was born to my brother and SIL in Idaho! Big hugs to them!

I was shooting the breeze on the phone with my SIL (who was still at home with NO contractions) at 12:30 this afternoon and the baby was born around 3:30! I hope to get more details and maybe a picture soon.

My parents are now the proud grandparents of 9 biological grandsons and 0 granddaughters. Although, if the Lord wills, this same brother and his wife will be adopting 2 little Liberian girls and welcoming them into their home in the next couple of months. Their home could go from two children to 5 in just a couple of months. Whew!

Welcome new little one!

Tipping

I always seem to panic as I tip at restaurants. Did I tip enough, too much? Well no more. I found a nifty printable little tipping card over at itipping.com. It's small enough to fit in a wallet and will solve my problem. Just thought I'd share the resource.