Made it Monday

It's been a while since I've done a Made it Monday with Tara at Fourth Grade Frolics. Actually, it's quit possible I did one last month but at this moment my brain is so dead I can't remember. We are still in school. Our last day with the kiddos is Thursday, teachers get out Friday, and I'm off on what I think is the first girls trip since my bachelorette on Saturday. I'm oober excited about that and it will give daddy and princess a full daddy/daughter date day :) It'll be a first for them and a first for me to leave them. Ok, ok, ok, enough with that now on to what I've been up to.

School Made it #1

This is actually from a little while back but I never shared it. We did a unit on The Mexican War. You know the one when the U.S. said hey Mexico let me buy some of your land and Mexico said uhh.. no! And the U.S. said fine we'll just kick your booties until you change your mind. You like my version of Texas history. ha ha  :) Well that and the fact we couldn't agree on the Texas/Mexico boundary. Any who we did a power point stop and jot of sorts covering the unit. After each topic I stopped and we would create one of the mini foldables for the lapboard. This probably took us 3 days. The kids really loved it. I think their favorite part was putting in their own words what caused the problem b/t the countries. The one above wrote, "This ain't yo land! This mine!" Some of my personal favorites were "You mad bro" or "Why y'all beefin" Ha this was hilarious purely b/c my kids are SO... PROPER. They tried really hard to come up with "slang" sayings for whatever reason. It was hilarious.

School Made it #2

This I didn't actually make myself. It actually came from Custom Kids Décor. Don't let the name fool ya! Yes, they make things for teachers too. :) Actually, you can get one too! It only costs a whopping $20. Awesome, I know! I'm moving grades again next year and wanted a sign for outside my door. This year I didn't have anything and it was a little hard for the people in the school. New teacher w/o a label on her door, thought I would make it a little easier this year.

 

Home Made it #1

 

This little dilly is lemon and lavender infused raw and local honey. I've mentioned in previous post about transitioning to a natural life style. This allergy season we've got rid of daily Zyrtec and tried a mix of lemon, lavender, peppermint, and local honey. Your probably wondering why I keep saying local honey. Well.. if you take raw unprocessed local honey daily it can help you become immune to the the pollen in your area. At first we just added a few drops of the oils onto a spoon of honey. Well with an almost 2yr old that can get messy if she's not in the mood for "algee" as she calls it. So, by diffusing it the honey thins out and you can put it in a medicine dropper. I know, I know, pretty genius. You can thank me later. :)

 

 

Home Made it #2

 

Now, this is what has kept me BEYOND busy lately. This also goes along with my transitioning to natural lifestyle too. I've taken steps on moving towards and maintaining natural hair, we are trying to eat clean, I order local meet from a co-op, so what only seemed like the natural next step was getting rid of the extra chemicals we are putting on our body. I figure if I'm already making hair spray and moisturizer surely I can make some lotion and body wash. Well... lotion and body wash turned into a whole line of ideas to share with others. I've got my first round of products out to testers. After a couple of weeks I'll have them fill out a little survey, make changes, and then put it out to the free world. So say a prayer and wish me luck. Here's a little bit of my newest baby:

I know this picture isn't great. We took some shots w/our Rebel but this one is with my phone. But there she is :) My labor of love that's keeping me oober busy and my hubs feeling all neglected and stuff. :/ Just when I got this whole balancing my life thing figured out, I throw something else in the mix...

 

Made with the Hubs #1

 

I just had to add this picture of little princess. I was trying to take her picture, so I squatted to get on her level and she thought that was they way I wanted her to pose. So she squatted to and gave the cutest little cheese. :) Oh how I love this sweet baby. I can't believe she's almost two. Sometimes I get sad b/c I miss my little newborn that was small enough to fit in my lap. But then I realize that I should be grateful to God that we have been blessed with her this far. She is just so amazing and I love her more than my own life.

 

 

Well that's all I've got folks and thanks to Tara for hosting Made it Monday. Although, I'm posting on a Tuesday. :)

 





May's Menu

I know it's been a while since I've posted a monthly menu. Well I've been a little busy trying to figure out this whole clean eating thing. Trust me, some most of the recipes you could live with out. Finally, this month it hit me. Why am I making this so friggin hard! Think about what you would normally cook and search and scour the net for it in a clean version, ya idiot! So that's what I did. I'm really excited to share this clean menu with you. Keep in mind  you have to buy clean ingredients to make the meal clean. So keep the clean eating rules in mind as you shop. I've listed 12 dinners and 4 of breakfast, lunch, and snack. Oh, and how could I forget 2 ice cream recipes. Mr. Spouse has begged for ice cream the last two weeks. Now I will tell ya this, I am a lazy cook. I prep and cook breakfast and lunch for the entire week on Sunday nights. In other words, I eat the same breakfast and lunch all week long. It's not as bad as it sounds, give it a try. It takes a lot of the planning away and it makes the meal about nourishment not mmm what am I going to have today. I hope these recipes help you and perhaps start you on your clean eating journey!

 

I'm sharing these recipes with my fellow cooks at Six Sisters Stuff, I heart Naptime, I should be mopping the floor, and Skip to my lou.

Complete Idiots Guide to Clean Eating

I am the idiot I'm referring to in the title. I posted recently about life changes I wanted to make for my little family. The natural hair is coming along. I haven't put chemicals in my hair since Fall of 2012. Last month I tried to start the transition of moving towards clean eating. Well that was a big flop. Now mind you, I shop for groceries once a month. So even though we weren't loving the recipes I prepared it wasn't like we had much choice but to eat them. I decided that I still wanted our family to eat clean but I had to find a different recipe source. The website I used for April's menu was further over the cliff than I want to take my family. So I went back to researching and then I found this website (which a friend recommended in the first place but I forgot about it) and this website. Both these ladies focus on eating the same food your use to but with quality ingredients. These recipes are easy and tasty! Now, let me explain why we  I want our family to eat clean. It's for our health. I don't understand why we live in a society that makes me the weird one for not wanting to eat foods with ingredients I can't pronounce or have to Google the definition. If I buy a can of diced tomatoes shouldn't the ingredients just say tomato not that and five other things??? It's like we're poisoning our bodies with things that can lead to health problems. Why are we hurting ourselves so willingly? The biggest shocker to me was doughnuts and soda are BOTH in the top five cancer causing foods. I mean seriously, how many of us started getting doughnuts as a breakfast treat at least once a week before we even started Kindergarten. Now with all that said, here is what clean eating will look like for MY family.
Always
eat organic produce
Buy local beef grass fed, grass finished(it means they aren't giving them anything else to fattening them up before the butcher)
Buy local pasture raised chicken
Buy fish caught from the wild NOT raised on a fish farm
We basically want to make sure our meat isn't eating the things we are avoiding.
Get your diary from grass fed cows (princess can't have regular milk so we get almond)
Eat brown over white (whole wheat everything and brown rice) Brown still has all the nutrients you need. The more a food is processed the more nutrients we loose.

Sometimes

enjoy treats with white sugar and white flower(birthdays and other celebrations)
enjoy a meal out and make wise choices, avoid the meal that you know has Cream of Cancer Mushroom
For MY family I believe everything is fine in moderation.

Never

Eat fast food- seriously they make it so the stuff never goes bad, gross! I do want to clarify. I'm not saying that we will never eat another burger, taco, or premade pizza again. We for sure will, but instead of going the fast food route we will eat from a restaurant that actually makes the burgers, pizza, and tacos themselves. A few of my faves are Pailios, Chop House, and Mijos.

Deep fried food

Buy prepackaged food that has an ingredient list of more than 5 things.

So I took my new found recipes and headed to Trader Joe's for the month of April. I don't think they get very many once a month shoppers there. The carts are on the tiny side.You will be glad to know we've only had one meal that we could live without. :)

P.S.
I just want to end with this is what works for my family. And you have to find what works for you. For instance some people eat clean and still drink like a fish. Hey if that's what works for you go for it. Me, I L-O-V-E Laffy Taffy. I often joke that it is my crack and I can't/won't ever give it up. So, even now knowing everything I know I will still indulge in some good 'ol Laffy Taffy.

Teaching Your Toddler to Do Chores

I often have people tell me how smart little princess is, how independent, and her school always says that she is such a good helper and teacher to the other kids. A lot of the time I totally buy into this. I mean it's bad manners to turn down a compliment right??? But, I do get a reality check when we hang out with one particular friend. He is 5wks older than little princess. Man, that little guy is smart as a whip! His mom said she gets the same comments about his intelligence. She also agrees that seeing little princess helps her see it could possibly be normal. Thank goodness we have each other to keep us grounded. ha! :)  That got me thinking. Is princess "smart" or does she just have more experiences? Let's call the little boy prince. Little prince does not watch a lick of TV. His mom doesn't even turn it on until he goes to bed. She also stays off the computer and chances are if you text you won't hear back from her for a while. I know that she is totally devoted to her little family so I don't expect a response right away. Little princess sees some TV. I do turn it on when we get home. However, she does actually watch it and will request Barney in the evenings. I was letting her watch it a lot! We watched it on DVR and Youtube! I thought it was super cute that she asked to watch it and then would sign and ask "again please". But, we are doing a Barney intervention b/c mama can't handle that much Barney. I'm trying to do it only right before bed on weekdays.
I promise all of this has to do with chores. I started thinking she does the things she does and knows the things she knows because of modeling. She's usually right next to me while I work. I don't sit her in front of the tv. She's with me and I talk through what I'm doing using simple vocabulary. After a while she caught on and now she loves to help.

Doing the Dishes
If we are unloading the dishwasher the first I think I do is take out the knives. If we are loading the dishwasher I save the knives for last. She can't really help with loading the dishwasher but she thinks she's helping. Usually, she just rearranges all the utensils and moves them from the center basket to the end basket. In the beginning I had to be clear to watch her. I mean she's a 1yr old. She wanted to lick every utensil. I made a point of saying ooh yucky, that's nasty. That's really helped keep down on the licking. Now, the part that she can help with in loading is added soap and starting the dishwasher. We use the little packets. She gets one out of the pack, puts in the the compartment, closes it, closes the dishwasher, and pushes the green button to start it up. When we are unloading she hands me the dishes to put away. Now, I know what your thinking. You probably wondering if it takes me twice as long to do the dishes. Yes, it takes a little longer but I feel like we are teaching her a life skill and getting her in the habit of contributing to the family. All of this took time. She didn't just start doing it all in one day. We just built on one day at a time until she had all the vocab down and completely understood what we were saying.

Wiping Things Down

This began after Christmas. One of Mr.Spouses clients gave her a little Toy Story table w/two little chairs. I let her eat meals there. I always wiped it down after each meal. Well, one day she had a fit and wanted to wipe too. I handed her a wipe and SHE WENT TO TOWN. I thought alright cool! Now,  I really had to watch her in the beginning. B/c a one year old can't tell the difference b/t a Clorox wipe and a baby wipe. Now she wipes her table, the cabinets, and spills from the floor. She started wiping the cabinets when I discovered after a day home with daddy various parts of my house and her face had a lovely new blue crayon decoration. I will admit, sometimes I think she spills her little coconut milk on the floor on purpose just to clean it up.

Another of her favorite chores is taking out the trash. I use to let her take out the kitchen trash. She would drag it from the kitchen to the garage. Occasionally that would leave streaks and created a mess of it's own. So now she "helps" me carry it out. I do let her take out the bathroom trash all on her own because it's light enough. We also have her put her own put her trash in the trash on her own. Ya know diapers, snack packs, tissue, all that great stuff.

Another chore she helps with that I could not get a picture of is the laundry. She has two jobs with the laundry. She helps move it from the washer to the dryer. She can do this alone except if there are jeans. Those are heavy for her when wet. Once the clothes are dry I let her hand me a hanger as needed. Of course she wants to try and fold the clothes but I'll have to pass on help with that for now. :)

I hope this post can help someone. Remember, it's not about how smart your kiddo is or their ability to do something. I think at this point it's about what you expose them to and the experiences you give.

I'm sharing this with other moms at I Can Teach My Child.

P.S.

Sorry if you are seeing a random pin it button, could not get that to work out :/

Biography Scrapbook Projects



Alright, I think it's time for a crayon post! We just finished the CUTEST project. Just in case you don't remember I teach Texas History. We just finished a unit on the Texas Revolution.  Ya know the Alamo and all that jazz. I kinda found this part of our history ironic. We agreed to move to "Mexico", learn their language and practice their religion. Then we get here and are like nah this whole Spanish Catholic thing isn't really working out for me. Can you please change your laws? No, well ok guess we're gonna fight. If today's immigrants tried that with current Texans how well do you think that would go??? Anywho.. back to the projects. I originally wanted to have the kiddos create a Facebook page. I searched and searched and searched and found nothing to my liking. So then, I kept thinking and thinking and thinking. BAM scrapbook popped in my head. I did a Google search. I found this and used it as my foundation. I work with 4th graders so I made my instructions a bit more detailed. I told them exactly what to put on the cover page and pages 1-4. They came out oober doober cute. I'll go through the page requirements with you.

Cover Page- Texas Hero Name, Student's Name, Social Studies Block, and Homeroom

 

Page 1: Timeline of your hero's life

 

I love how she made out foldable for her timeline.

 

Page 2: Create a written correspondence pretending that you are your hero writing to a loved one during the revolution.

 

 

Page 3: Pretend that you went back in time and interviewed your hero about the Revolution. You have to ask at least 4 questions.

 





I love how he made it like a real newspaper artifact!

 

 

Page 4: Character Traits- create a bubble map with a picture of your hero in the center. You need at least 4 traits to describe your hero.

 

 

I gave the students the option to create extra pages if they wanted. I told them sky is the limit whatever they would like to do. This little girl had twice as many pages as she needed. My favorite was the family tree. It was very creative.

 

I didn't require them to actually buy a real scrapbook. The Sam Houston project used a real book. The Davy Crockett project used scrapbook paper, hole punched it, and added 2 metal rings to bind it all. I was TRUELY amazed with these projects. This was a take home end of unit project. If needed a provided 5 pieces of plain card stock and 2 metal rings. The kids did such a great job. If I had time I could easily show you another 90 books as examples. I hope you enjoy and are inspired to scrapbook!

 

I plan to share this idea with other teachers at Fourth Grade Frolics.

 



 

 



 



It's been a while

Hello sweet friends! I have recipes and cutesy Valentine things I intended to post. But, I logged on and decided I would go a little more into the life side of things. So here what's going on. :)

1. My sweet princess turns 19mos on Tuesday. She is still nursing. We are trying to wean but it's so complicated. She is allergic to dairy milk, soy milk, and almond milk. She didn't have a break out with coconut milk but apparently she doesn't like it much. She likes the almond and soy but it just doesn't like her back. :( It's kinda of hard to wean her from nursing when I don't have an alternative to offer her. So far we only had one day that she did not nurse at all. On average we have it down to once a day. The weekends however are another story. Whenever we are lounging around she's like hey I forgot I could be drinking milk right now. So lesson I learned from this I'm not 100% sure I would ever breastfeed another child. Everyone encourages you to do it for the first 12mos but no one tells you the hell it is weaning if you actually make it that far.

2. I'm having a little trouble balancing all the "jobs" in my life. Ya know wife, mom, teacher, individual, cook, maid. I just can't find a balance and as a result I have pretty much gone bald and have a nice belly to show for it. I decided to try out the Daniel Fast to pray about it more and listen for guidance from the big guy.

3. Mr. Spouse's goal for the new year for himself was to get back into church. So being the supportive wife I am.... I decided to go with him just cause. Well, I'm actually enjoying it and look forward to it. It helps that Pastor Eben is awesome at making self to text connections about the bible. :)

4. All natural... I've also decided to let the relaxer grow out of my hair and go chemical free. We knew from the beginning once we found out we were having a girl that we would not relax her hair ever. Well..I've decided if I'm being the person I want my child to be how would I explain my relaxed hair to her once she's older. I am transitioning to natural hair by wearing a sew in. I would of just chopped off what's left of my own hair but Mr. Spouse begged to go the slower route.

5. More natural... after the fast I also plan to begin to transitioning our family into clean eating. Ya know little to no preservatives, grass fed meat, organic, all that jazz. I just have to get Mr. Spouse on board. This route seems to always be pricey. This was also something we talked about doing as a family when I was preggo.

Well that's all folks. Sorry no recipes, no cute toddler craft projects. Hopefully, I can get some of that up soon after my fast and I see the light on how to balance it all. I hope you enjoyed my totally random post.

P.S.
If you are reading this and you knew me well pre-baby you are probably like WHO THE HECK WRITES THIS BLOG. Well folks it's me....the new me anyway :)

Quick and Easy Chicken and Dumplings

This recipe is pretty easy. I actually came up with it on my own. I guess the term quick is relative. It probably took me about an hour. That's pretty quick considering the way I learned to make them, which was DELICIOUS and completely from scratch took about 4 hours. I'll admit, I'm one lazy sister and a four hour dinner making session is just not on my agenda. I mean it could probably be done in less time once you are confident w/the recipe. But, after I had them I of course wanted more. So, I started browsing the web for a quicker version. I didn't really have any luck.I did find a quick cook method. But, it just didn't taste close enough. Here is what I came up with while trying it out on my own.

Your Ingredients

For the Soup portion
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon Celery Seasoning(The Kroger brand cost $1.00)
10-12 baby carrots sliced
1 cooked chicken
48 oz Chicken Broth
about 1/4 cup of coke

Dumplings
2 1/4 Cup of  Bisquick
2/3 Cup of milk

Directions

Pour the chicken broth and coke into your pot. I have no idea why it needs coke but it does. Not exactly the same without it. I'm sure when I originally learned to make dumplings she told me why it needs coke but I just can't remember.

Add in your salt, pepper, and celery seasoning. Now of course you could actually chop up some celery and just take it out before you eat. But, I'm lazy and this is quicker AND I can get a whole jar of seasoning that will last longer than the actually celery stalks and for less money.

Slice your carrots and toss them in. The amount is really up to you. That's just how many I used for ours. Mr. Spouse doesn't like a bunch of carrots in them. But myself and the little princess love them.

Get your broth going on a low simmer to get the flavors meshing. This is when you start to shred your chicken. I just picked a rotisserie one up from Kroger for like $5. I just pull it all apart and dump it in the pot. I even put the skin in the pot. It has yummy flavor that helps add to your soup flavoring. I just fish it out before serving. Ok, so now that everything is in the pot turn the heat up to medium. It should look something like this..

You need to bring your soup to a boil before the dumplings go in. While your waiting on that to happen we are going to make the dumplings. :)

Dump the 2 1/4 cup of Bisquick and 2/3 cup of milk in a bowl and mix together. It will feel like biscuit dough. I then sprinkle more Bisquick on the dough. I want it a little less sticky so I can roll the dough into dumplings without all the dough getting stuck to my hands. And the extra mix will help thicken your soup so no worries.

Once you have your dumplings and your soup is boiling drop the dumplings into the soup. Just let them sit for 10 minutes. Your dumplings will expand as you cook. (Keep that in mind when you are forming the dough balls.)  After 10 minutes carefully flip your dumplings over so the tops can cook. You are going to let the dumplings continue to cook for another 10 minutes. Now, sprinkle in a couple tablespoons of flour for thickening and stir it all together. All done!

Enjoy :)

Before we go I have to share a picture of the little princess. She heard the camera click on the first snap and automatically said CHEESE. So how could I not take her picture :)

And yes, that is a medicine thingy in her hand. She had just had her allergy medicine before we started cooking. She didn't want to give it up, it was empty so why fight with her. Gotta pick ya battles right?