Toys. They are EVERYWHERE!!

I struggled finding a topic that inspired me today and tossed around ideas with my friend Amanda over at A Sweet Serenity. Can it really be this hard when I am the kind of person who ALWAYS has something to say?

As usual, Amanda and I talked about our girls during the day. We text a lot since children ALWAYS need something when you are on the phone. We talked about how much they are growing, the adorable things they are doing, and the ways that they are testing our parenting skills. *twitchy eye* Doesn't it seem like they are continuously finding new ways to be delightfully devious and test us? Today was no exception at my house. If your kids are anything like mine, it is a constant battle to get them to keep their room clean. I would love if their room would stay clean enough so you could see the floor. I dream at night about rooms that are actually categorizable as "neat and tidy". I'm doubting that will ever happen, especially because my husband and I are rotten housekeepers. (I can't take ALL of the blame, folks!) So today I sent Kirsten to her room to clean up a portion of it. You couldn't even see the floor, so I knew this would be a task to spread out over the next few days to keep from overwhelming her. First, I explained to her that she needs to keep her toys in the proper bins and her clothes in her dresser so we could find them when we need them, as well as not get hurt when we ventured into their room. Second, I sectioned off a small portion of her room like I always do and told her clean up the items in that area. I set the egg timer for thirty minutes and told her that if she did not have it cleaned by the time it went off, she would lose her tv privileges for the rest of the day. I also told her that throwing a fit of any kind or complaining about her task would result in me deducting one minute per complaint. She did quite well and didn't complain once, so I secretly gave her about fifteen minutes more because we all know how slow five year olds are. ;)

It wasn't until I was making supper that I knew what I would write about today. How many times have we wondered as Christians why there seems to be a never ending list of things that God needs to change in us? Why does He not change all of these things at once, say: the day we give our lives to Him?! Because, just like my five year old will cry and moan and scream, "It's too much! I can't do it! It will kill me!" we would be so overwhelmed that we would give up. Give up on God, give up on ourselves. He truly knows that parenting is hard. He parents adults. That must be WORLDS harder than parenting children! So He sets clear boundaries in the areas that we need to work on. He encourages us and lets us know that there will be consequences if we continue to make the choices we have thus far. He knows exactly when to reveal the things we need to fix in our lives to keep us from losing it. I am so grateful for a God who is a better parent than I am. I want to be like Him in every way. ❤

Burn, Baby, Burn.

It's Monday. Yes. Yes, it is. We are currently outside having a picnic and poor Norah is crying herself to sleep because she is just too tired and cranky to eat. Bless her little heart. Let me tell you about an interesting tradition that greatly intrigued the girls last night...

Cord Burning
This is a technique that we heard about quite some time ago and and I quickly declared that we would use it if we ever found ourselves expecting baby #3. Wasn't that lucky? ;) Cord burning began--to my knowledge. I looked for more history, but found none. I would love if anyone has something else to share!--in Thailand after the horrific tsunami that rocked our entire world. Tetanus was rampant and newborns were dying from infections of all kinds. Some midwives had the idea to burn the umbilical cords in lieu of cutting them with surgical scissors. Burning the cord cauterizes an otherwise open wound, virtually eliminating the deadly infections and saving precious lives! Just think about this: for 40-ish weeks, your baby has received 100% of its nutrition from this cord, an open passage between the placenta and its abdomen. When baby is born, this passage becomes an open wound, if you will. This is why many people are now choosing lotus births, which is where you leave the baby completely attached to the placenta until it dries up and falls off on its own. I the case of cord burning, you place some sort of barrier between the baby and the candles. Often, this is as simple as a piece of cardboard large enough to cover all of baby's abdomen with a cord-sized slit cut into it to allow the cord to be in a natural position. When the cord has completely stopped pulsating and is void of that wonderfully nutrient-rich blood, mom will likely have delivered the placenta. After this has taken place, people have different preferences on when to sever the cord, but none are the "correct" way, just personal preference. The barrier is put into position and two taper candles are lit. This can be a very sentimental and symbolic act. Our daughters will help Ryan and our midwife perform this task. ❤ The flames are positioned about six inches away from the baby and will begin to cauterize the cord. This process can take up to fifteen minutes. There should also be a bowl of some kind underneath the burning area, as there are often fluids in the cord and parts of the cord will liquefy. There will be some hissing and popping, along with a mild odor--all things that come with burning of any sort. The baby is typically very alert and calm during this process. When you are finished, the cord will be longer than you would see in the hospital, but you will find that it dries up and falls off VERY quickly! I have heard reports from friends of cords falling off around days three and four. I can deal with pretty much any bulky inconvenience to have a cord that falls off in less than a week! :) I am very excited to experience this (new?) technique and hope to see it become a major trend in birth. It just makes good sense. A great site with more information is www.cordburning.com. This midwife is apparently credited with bringing this technique to the United States. Google also has some great photos if you search "cord burning". Try YouTube, as well! I think many people will be intrigued by this process and I will be sure to thoroughly document our experience and share it!

Now for a Monday Meme I created this morning! I don't have any personal experience with this...
>.>
<.<
(^Those are my shifty eyes.)

Back That Chariot Up!

I just have to say how much I love our church and the wonderful people who go there! They are truly like extended family members--we know that someone always has our back and is praying for us, even if they don't know why we need prayer. They are just that committed to community and we are so blessed to be a part of this fellowship.

In my women's class this morning, many ladies were absent because they were on their way back from an encounter retreat--I AM SO JEALOUS! ;) They had a truly blessed time and I am so excited for them. My experiences on the encounter retreats have been life-changing in fantastic ways. God is so good! But I digress...It was a small group of us this morning, just five. Our topic was "self esteem", but it strayed from what we commonly think of as self esteem and delved deeply into the power of God and how He has equipped us with such power...but are we willing to make the effort to tap into it? I can't even tell you how exciting this class session was! Paul wrote that the same power which raised Jesus from the dead has been placed inside of us. Back the truck up, people. Digest that for a minute. For a long minute. As Christians, we know in our heads that the same power Jesus had on earth lives inside of us, but how much do we *truly* understand that? TRULY?

This morning, we read the definitions of two Greek words that Paul used when he talked about our God-given power. The first of these words is "kratos". Kratos means: "Demonstrated power, eruptive and tangible." Think about a bomb--we all have bombs on our minds after last week, right? Think about how that power is burning and exploding inside of whatever vessel is used to create that particular bomb until the force becomes such that the vessel can no longer contain the power! This is essentially kratos, the power God placed inside of us. The second word we discussed was "ischus", which means "ability, force, strength, might". Our lesson likened it to God's muscles. Want to know what I saw when I started to digest this in my spirit? I saw Jesus in hell battling Satan for those three days (ever wonder what THAT looked like?!) with the explosive and tangible power of kratos, while the ischus dwelled in the tomb with his body. I could just see the ischus power swirling around his body in eager anticipation of the fulfilling of prophesy. Then Jesus is done with His battle and His spirit with the kratos power join His body and the ischus power...BOOM!!! Dynamite explosion and resurrection! Now, I'm not saying that's what happened...but it sounds pretty awesome and we know how mighty our God is, so maybe it is! :) Just chew on that power and those thoughts for a while. It's rocking my world and I hope it does yours, too! Happy Sunday, ya'll! ❤

A Step Back, A Step in the Right Direction

All of the troubles and hatred in this world have inspired me to step back from social media and stop allowing my peace to be taken from me so easily. I'm hoping that I can become dedicated to blogging: an attempt--yet again!

Yesterday afternoon, the delightful and mouthwatering fragrance of banana bread wafted through our house as a loaf baked to perfection in my oven. This morning, my excited family got to cut into it. Our culture has forgotten how pleasing the little things in life are. I am a prime example: The other day I played Monopoly with my daughter. We had a great time and played for over two hours, but I kept sneaking peeks at my phone and social media. What is that about? We are robbing our children, our friends, our families, and ourselves of precious moments and for what? To scroll through our news feed and find out what nasty, grease laden fast food joint someone is eating at? To see yet another meme featuring Sweet Brown? To see a post from that one friend who persistently "vague-books" and whines and moans about people in their lives without implicating them fully by using their names? We are wasting our precious moments...for this? I don't want to waste my moments on that anymore. I am going to take this week and separate myself from my chosen form of social media and challenge myself to spend downtime blogging about the moments that would otherwise be wasted. Who wants to join me?

Push the pause button...

Wouldn't you know it...I logged on yesterday to post about Silly Putty making and we had a power surge, which effectively fried our laptop! I am going to have to postpone the series until my awesome hubby can *hopefully* repair and restore it to working order. :( Typing on this iPod is just too hard for long posts. Oy! Hopefully this series will continue soon!

Summer Kickoff--DIY SLIME!

Here it is, our first entry in the 30 Days of Summer Fun series! Kirsten and I had a blast making this gak/slime/alien snot as a birthday gift for her cousin this past weekend. What four year old boy doesn't love goopy slimey stuff, right? When we made it for ourselves earlier in the week, the girls were enamoured! They played with their gak every. day. all. day. I love it! They get bored and cranky--I bring out the gak! Okay, time to try it for yourself!

Gather your ingredients!

1 1/2 Cups of water, divided
1/2 Cup (4 oz) of school glue, clear or white!
1 Tsp Borax
Food coloring
Your favorite little helpers!

First you want to dissolve the 1 tsp of Borax into ONE cup of the water. It will look foggy.

Next you will put the glue into the 1/2 cup of water and stir until thoroughly mixed. This took a while with the white glue, but a lot less time with the clear. Add your food coloring to the glue/water mixture. Kirsten used three drops here and we loved the end result.

Stir that all together now! Here comes the fun part...Now you will pour the borax mixture into the glue mixture--watch for the INSTANT reaction of the chemicals, it's so cool!

It's hard to see the reaction when using the clear glue, but the white glue is so cool! Now you will let it sit for around 5 minutes--if you can bear it! haha! The water will begin to absorb into a big, gelatinous goober and you can use your little helper's hands to stir it around! The clear glue takes longer to get all nice and smooth/dry than the white, but it is TOTALLY AWESOME as slime! Calling Marc Summers!

Yep...gak is amazing stuff! On tomorrow's agenda...Silly Putty!

30 Days of Summer Fun!

Since I stink at blogging consistently, I am giving myself a goal! I am going to blog for thirty days about fun crafts and activities to do with your kids this summer! We'll turn a hot, sweaty day into a fun-filled adventure. Follow along with us as the girls and I find new ways to entertain ourselves--I am sure our mishaps and antics will entertain and amuse you, as well! First item on our list of fun things? Home made Gak! Do you remember Nickelodeon Gak? Let's refresh your memory...

 Call it what you will--slime, alien snot, flubber, goop--this stuff is fantastic! You can make it any color you like, add glitter and make it opaque or translucent! Trust me...you and your kids are going to want to play with it all day long!

See you on Monday!!

Crocheting a Beanie for the Crochet-Inept

Have you ever looked at something ADORABLE and thought, "I can crochet that!" only to look at the instructions and feel like you are trying to read Japanese, or Russian, or something akin to hieroglyphics? Yep. That's me. I try to follow along and end up with a mess. A MESS, I tell you! I made a super cool beanie with a beard attached for my brother's birthday a couple of weeks ago...but can't get the picture to upload from Facebook. Grr. Trust me, it was cool! Anyway, that super cool and simplistic beanie was a beast to make. It took me three days to complete...because I had to rip it apart and crochet it SIX DIFFERENT TIMES! Yep. You read that right. So, my husband suggested while I was in the middle of a tirade about the stupidity of crochet-crypt that I write a tutorial on my findings. A "Crocheting a Beanie for Morons" if you will. Since I am one. :) Ready? I hope I can help someone.

Gather your supplies!
I am using a 5mm weight yarn because it's what I have on hand. It's pretty generic and easy to find, mine is by Red Heart.
I am also using a J 6mm crochet hook. It's my go-to hook and I pretty much use it on everything. I know that I shouldn't, but I don't really care. ;) It makes me happy because it works on pretty much EVERYTHING. :)

**DISCLAIMER**
I STINK at all of the counting that crocheting entails, so I will be omitting most of the counting and judging everything by eye. I honestly think that I am numerically dyslexic--anything involving numbers usually leaves me in tears wondering where I went wrong, so I just avoid it when at all possible. :) So this tutorial may be of help to people like me.


Okay, first thing you need to do is make an overhand or slipknot. I only recently started using a slipknot, either will work, trust me. Then you will start chain stitching. This is done by pulling the yarn that is attached to the skein around the back of the hook, hooking it and pulling through the loop that is already on your hook. Make any sense?




 

Do this five times and you will have five chain stitches.

Tada! Now, rotate that back around and put your hook through the first chain, then pull the yarn from around back again and pull through. This will make a circle.

Now, you are going to do what is called an increasing stitch. This consists of doing two double crochets inside one stitch. Are you lost yet? lol Wrap your yarn around the hook, then insert your hook into the nearest chain to the left. Wrap the yarn again and pull it through ONE loop of yarn...this would be the chain you just went through. You will now have three loops of yarn on your hook. Like so:

Now You are going to wrap your yarn around again and hook/pull it through the first TWO loops. It will magically leave you with two! See?

Wrap, hook, hook and pull through those two loops (at one time) and your first double crochet stitch is done!

Now, repeat those steps in the same chain and you will get this:

Repeat those steps all the way around the circle and get this:

Start the process again in that next chain (always work to the left) for another full circle, giving you two "rows". You can do three rows of this stitch, if you like. I don't feel like crocheting is an exact science; if it were, why are there SO MANY different tutorials? lol Here is where it starts to get a little confusing. On your next row, you will start a pattern of stitches: One double crochet in a chain, two double crochets in the next chain, one double crochet, two double crochets...Making sense?

Can you see the stitches? Look down there in the chains. Keep stitching away at the crown, this is the top of the hat. Four rows typically makes an infant/child's sized hat. My hubby has a big head and seven rows works well on him. However, this also depends on the size hook/yarn you use, so you will have to keep in mind that it may vary. This is what the crown will start to look like:

When your crown is the size you need, you can start doing just one double crochet in each chain, this will stop increasing the crown and you will see it start to form a tube after a few rows. I made 8 rows on my hubby's, but didn't finish it off because I was a dummy last time and didn't count how many rows fit him properly before I gave the hat away. So he will get a beanie with a skein of yarn attached tomorrow. ;) It looks like this right now:

I don't know why it won't turn the right way. lol Feel free to ask my any questions! I am still new at this process too, so I'm definitely not an expert! Happy hat-making!!

Valentine's Day Massacre

I am working on a new tutorial on crocheting and I apparently need to study it myself. Or invest in a good pair of earplugs. My sweet daughter loves to talk to me. I mean. Loves. To. Talk. Period. She also loves to drag her baby sister around. Sweet feta cheese. Anyway, the tutorial is on crocheting a hat, which works well because my hubby wants one really badly and I thought I would be a sweet wife and make him one for Valentine's Day. <3 I know. I am so wonderful! ;-) I wish I could show you the epic hat that I made my brother for his birthday. It is one of those with a cool beard attached. However...it is on my phone and won't translate to Blogger. Grr. You will just have to use your imagination. Anyway, I began working on this hat around noon today and they are fairly simple, you just have to pay attention to what you are doing pretty closely for the first few rows. Well, I messed the darned hat up really quickly and had to rip out a few rows and start over. Oh well. No big deal, right? Well...I then proceeded to mess something else up and not notice because of my little chattering maniac for another TEN ROWS. Anyway...life has gone downhill from there today--Kirsten is now screaming for her daddy because her ear hurts...I suspect an ear infection. I hope whoever might be reading this is having a better day than we are.

For the love of cheese! (A tutorial)

As most of my friends know, I LOVE food! I also LOVE cooking and LOVE gourmet food! One of my very favorite foods of all time is a lovely snack which I have always referred to as, "Feta Cheese Puffs". Oh my. Just a minute, I am salivating. Okay, back to business. Would you like to see a picture so you can salivate as well?

Beneath the flaky crust made of phyllo dough is a creamy, cheesy center. I can hardly think about it without craving them! What is phyllo dough, you may ask? You may read about it's yumminess here on Wikipedia. Since we are educating ourselves on the food we are making, here is a link to the all-fabulous feta cheese. Yep. Wipe your chin, you are now drooling. Oops...that's me. Sorry! Shall we begin?

Gather your ingredients!
Phyllo Dough (found in the freezer section of your favorite grocer. They don't carry it? Find a new favorite.)
Feta cheese (found in the gourmet cheese section, often near the deli. Don't look where you buy shredded cheddar. It's not there.)
1 egg
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Parsley flakes

Gather your supplies!
A knife or pizza cutter
Pastry brush
Bowl for mixing filling
Fork (for stirring ;) )
Baking sheet (I prefer Pamperd Chef's stoneware, but any old sheet/pan will do)
Preheat your oven to 350*F

First, you will need to crumble your feta cheese if it came in a block. I prefer to buy mine in a solid block, rather than pre-crumbled, because it comes out cheaper per ounce. Crumble half of the block into a bowl, making sure that your crumbles are nice and small. Add some salt, pepper, and parsley flakes, I have no idea how much, I do mine by taste. Stir in your egg. Your filling is done! Doesn't that sound delicious, not to mention healthy?!

Next, you will work on your dough. It is basically edible tissue paper and is very fragile. Make sure you let it defrost completely (but don't put it in the microwave!) before unrolling, or you will get a broken mess like I did.

Yep. I was too impatient/hungry to wait and ended up with a mess this time around. Does it look like I care, though? Nope. They were tooooo tasty! ;)

Put some olive oil in a little dish and whip out your pastry brush. Brush your olive oil onto the dough so it is covered evenly, but don't soak it. You can use melted butter too, but olive oil goes on better since it doesn't need to be hot. PLUS, it is healthier. It honestly tastes the same. Believe me. I would bathe in butter if I could.



You need a total of three sheets of phyllo and you are ready to cut! The rectangle shape will make four strips, as you can see in the above photo. Make sure you cut from the middle and divide into four pieces that way so they are more even. Unlike mine. You can now drop a SMALL forkful of the cheese mixture onto the end of one and get ready to fold. Make sure it is about a teaspoon worth, or your puffs will not get nice and crunchy outside. Begin to fold them like one would fold an American flag...

See? Pretty. :) When they are all folded up, line these little beauties up on your pan and bake for about 8 minutes until they are a golden brown color and the dough is light and flaky like the first photo. Let cool for a few minutes--if you can bear the wait!--and EAT! I was in too raptureous of a state to remember to take a picture of one with a bite out of it. I mean, come on--it's CHEESE!!! So you will just have to find out for yourself. ;)

In conclusion, I hope anyone reading this enjoys this recipe as much as I do! If you do, leave me some love! <3