The No Toys Saga Continues!

Well this is day two and my daughter doesn't want to budge on putting her toys away. I asked her a few times if she was ready to clean up or if she was ready to get her toys back and she looks at me thoughtfully and say no not yet mommy. Really I feel so bad about this but at the same time I am telling my self if we go through 1 week with no toys but get 18 years of compliance out of her then that will be great. The one thing though that is so weird is that she has never in her life been so calm and happy as she has the past two days with no toys. It is crazy! I hope you ladies are having a great week if you have ever expierienced this before share your story!

No more Toys!!

I know this is a silly title but that is how I am feeling today. My daughter has decided for almost a week that she doesn't want to clean her room. Which normally I just shrug it off and eventually d it myself. Well not anymore and after her screaming at me for an hour this morning that she didn't want to clean it. She officiall has no toys in her room I took everything that was on her floor and threw it away. (Well put it intrash bags and stuffed it away where she can't find it. We had a little fireside chat and I let her know that she would not get to watch tv all day since she didn't have toys she can either read her books or she can sleep and then of course part of th day we will be learning so that is taken care of. It was probably the hardest thing for me but I know I have to do it for her to know I am serious and I am not going to argue any more I am just going to do it. Well ladies we are getting back to scool now I will have pictures later on my homeschool blog.

I am finally back!

Hello to everyone. I am finally back. I am sorry I have been away so long I was trying to get all of my priorities in the right place before I came back to blogging. Also I am adding a new blog here is the link to it. http://homeschoolingtwolittlemonkeys.blogspot.com/. I only have one post because I am just starting it but it will be going in full force next week since we will officially be starting school here at the courreges home! I hope you can join me and I hope that all of you Ladies have had a very blessed week and you were able to spend some time with the Lord this week! I love all of you ladies who keep trucking along with me and welcome to anyone new who joins in.

Manic Monday!

Well it has been really crazy around here my son had a terrible temp thursday, 104, took us almost 24 hours to get it to break and man I have never been so happy to check on my sleeping little one and to find him in a pool of sweat. I just said praise the Lord he is better. I guess I should start by saying that the kids and I do not have insurance right now so it is stressful when one of them is sick. Well sat my best friend called and she was taking her little ones to the urgent care and yes they both had strep along with two other kids at church so yeah we were exposed 4 times and so I had to take my little one in on sunday morning, and yes we have strep, now I am sick and can hardly swallow, although my friend got me some antibiotics from her vet clinic it is the same thing you take as a human but cheaper. Now my daughter is complaining about her throat and we are out of money and she needs to see the doctor. It deffinantly has been a manic day! week! weekend!

The Book Cover: Best Store Ever

Okay ladies all of you I think will be very interested in this place. Even if you don't homeschool or maybe you just want to homeshool untill kinder or maybe just need some things to do so they don't forget everything over the summer waiting for school to start. I live in Fort Worth, TX but ladies if you don't live here please hang on with me because I have ways you can use and benefit from this store. The name is The Book Cover. It is a homeschool resale shop! Yes I was super excited to find it because I had been chatting with Martianne @ traininghappyhearts.blogspot.com about wanting to start homeschooling but it needed to be affordble for my husband to jump on board because we are on a tight budget. Well here is the answer.

First, let me tell you a little about the store and then I will show you what I got. It is not a huge store but it is a good nice size and they try so much to keep everything as organized as possible so there is plenty of room. Each section is labeled oh but before I get to that let me tell you about the corner of the store that is for the kids, it has a kitchen, a train table with tracks and train, there is a baby bouncer, stroller, books, and many other misc toys. This was the best shopping experience I have ever had, my kids went to play and usually they are so loud and fight over toys and they were the quiet kids and they never raised there voices and they didn't have any disagreements and I spent about 45 miutes to an hour looking around. I have never gone into any store with my two kids and came out so relaxed and not frazzled so thank you book cover for you kids corner. Now back to the shelves everything is really well organized and labeled by subject or topic there are shelves just or manipulatives, games and even craft supplies they had styrofoam balls, pipe cleaners etc, you get my drift. They also have several shelves in the math section for math manipulatives. They have lots of story book as well and I am not sure because I didn't venture over there but looked like maybe a paperback book section for older kids. The staff was so friendly and the Lady that helped me bless her heart I asked her a bazillion questions but she was so patient with me. Also the gentleman that checked me out not sure of his name but this cute little blond girl called him papa so I think that could be his name. Was so kind while checking me out he had even forgot to give me my reciept and a frequent shopper card and can you believe he came out to my car to give it to me. I was so impressed. Over all I would give this star 10 stars. Now I will tell you about how you can use this store no matter where you live.

You can shop online as well as the in store option. Web address is http://www.the-book-cover.com/index.htm so if you live out of state you can even look for things. Also you must read their consignement option you can bring things in or ship them to them, and they have an example of if you were to ship it and thought it wouldn't be worth it that you can still make some money. I think we are going to start doing that because we have way to many books around here and that way we can put it up for a store credit to use on materials.

Now on to the really good stuff after tax today I spent $38 and some change and this is what I got.

These are two 25 piece puzzles and one is short o sounds and one is short e sounds.

This is  super cute little wooden box that has four small wooden puzzles in it. I love this beause it seems all the cardboard puzzles get chewed up.

This is a wooden box with magnetic princess dresses and accessories that are wooden. This I will actually use in the car for madyson to keep her entertained.

These are our manipulaties, which I was so excited to find all these and if you price these new they cost over thirty dollars just for these three sets of things. So I got a huge bargain.

Lastly some learning books and first readers and one stencil book for our friend. They have tons of super cute first readers I got 11 of them packaged in a bag together for $2.

Wasn't that great our new school room is off to a great start and we are just beggining. I am so excited to have foud this and I will add a few printable lessons to this and we will have complete school weeks yeah for that. 

I want to say a super special thanks to The Book Cover for being so awesome and affordable for me to be able to teach my children at home for a while! Thank you.

Everyone please check out there site you can search for anything and if you live close go check out their store.  Have a blessed afternoon!

Our First Fruits!

Well actually this is our second fruits but the first were not very big and I forgot to take a picture. These are actually quite large and so yummy! This is our first year to plant a garden and if you have read through other post we started with planting in pots well now my husband and I have gotten brave and moved to making a small space for a garden. I will share more about that in another post. I wanted to share with you some of the yummy treats we have had because of our garden.

These are our yummy strawberries, we have been so blessed to have fresh strawberries many days this week. The children have loved when I bring them in they stand at the sink while we wash it off and I hand each one a couple of strawberries. Also we are so blessed to have such yummy fruit that is completely pesticide free.

Okay this isn't really food but a couple of weeks ago my aunt was getting rid of some things that she had that were my grandmas that she had never used and she had this amazing gaget, (and oh how I love gagets). If you don't know what it is it is from pampered chef and it is an apple corer, slicer, peeler, it does it all at the same time and my kids love having apple rings now. I love pampered chef so much altough this is the only thing I own, I have used some of my family members things like there stone pans and pizza sheets and they are awesome!

Okay this is not from our garden but will be soon as we have many jalapenos growing. But I made a batch of Chocolate chip scones and a batch of jalapeno cheddar scones. So delicious and you may say how can you let your children have choclate chips for brakfast, but my take is if we can go to the store and buy doughnuts full of sugar, fats and all sorts of yucky stuff with tons of icing, surely my kids can have homeade chocalate chip scones with semisweet chocolates. We got a fraction of the sugar in these as compared to doughnuts.

Well ladies I hope that everone has something to be thankful for in your life right.

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

A little Encouragement!!

Matthew 6:34

So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Well ladies it has been a crazy week, and it is almost over can you bellieve it! My husband is suppose to get home tonight although it is looking as though it will be way after the kids are in bed because he has not even left Houston yet. This has been a good thing in a way though because I really wanted to b able to have the house all in order and spick and span when he got home. I know how it feels when you come home to a perfectly clean home it is so relaxing. So anyway I have been able to get a lot done I was behind on my laundry and I am almost caught up. ( I get behind because it takes my dryer 2 to 3 hours to dry sometimes, we need a new one but that is a large chunk of change that will have to wait for) and then I unloaded, purged and reorganized our master closet, changed the sheets and cleaned up the room in general. Down stairs got pretty well cleaned now all that is left is putting away clothes and cleaning the kids areas up. I say this because I know how cleaning and keeping our house neat is a never ending battle and so I thought w might need a little encouragement today, I know I do! Have a great rest of the day ladies and as my little one says give them snuggles!

Routines and Children

Okay my children have decided they are exhausted and wanted to go to sleep a little early tonight so I am going to get to post now! For those of you who read about my squirts and furs you know I have a 2 year old and a 3 year old. I love them so much but I am really struggling with my daughter who is the oldest.

She is defiant, talks back, argues, screams, yells, anything horrible you name it she does it. Except maybe be physically violent she isn't to bad in those areas. It is bad though I fight with her all day everyday and usually when she goes to bed I am exhausted. This started about a year ago or maybe a little longer but it seemed to follow the pattern of the moon and I always knew when there was a full moon comming because she was absolutely horrible just one of those children you see in the store and say wow my child will never act like that and then when the full moon was over and we were coming down she would sleep so much it was like she was exhausted from acting like that for a week. Well it has progressed and gotten worse and way more frequent now. I know that children her age don't have attention spans and such but when I tell her to look at me she can't even do it for 5 seconds without haveving to look around or when I ask her to stand still she can't for a whole minute. Well anyway we started by being the parents who were not going to spank and that didn't work she used the time outs to plan her next move so after doing that for a few months we resorted to spankings, well she will let you spank her till her bottom is bright red and then look at you and scream in you face or lie or tell you she isn't going to do something, many days it takes me hours to get her to pick up her toys and that is with me saying first pick up all the barbies and put them in this bin and so on, she will just refuse, I don't know how to make her do it. I am so at a loss and my son is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum he does something wrong and all I have to do is look at him and he runs and does right or fixes it or what ever.

Well that being said I had heard about children who have ODD Opositional defiant disorder. I have read up on it and read up on many things about it and if you knew my daughter and read the list of symptoms she fits everyone of them. So anyway, I don't have insurance right now so Ican't take her to the doctor to get fixed and deffinantly believe we would only use medicine as a last resort, if we tried everything else we could do as parents and a family and nothing worked and it was affecting her school work then we might try meds. Anyway one of the big recomendations is having a really good daily routine that children with ODD need to have every minute of their day planned out so they know what is coming next. Well I thought this is great we have a place to start something we can do at home to maybe help us out. Here is the hard part, when I used to work I was so organized and routine and everything had to be perfect but now that I stay home I am just yeah we will get through the day and get things done. So it terrifies me to have to impliment a routine and that is completely oppoisite of my personallity. I pray that the Lord with give me wisdom or send me someone to help me. Ladies if any of you have a routine you would like to share with me and everyone else leave a comment and we will post it up! Have a great day ladies!

So tired and Weary!

Well ladies I am not sure what has happend this week I am so behind I can't seem to breathe or get a gulp of air. My husband is on another business trip and the kids have been in a "lovely" mood this week and I just want to pull my hair out. Well I have gotten a lot done and have many great things to show you. I am starting to really do a good menu plan, I recovered an ottoman, I built a small table and decorated our entry way, and various other odd things! Well I hope you ladies are having a great week and I am sorry I havn't sent more encouraging words your way. Have a blessed day!

Wenovating Wednesday!

Well ladies you proabably don't know this about me but I love to do anything crafty,  I can paint Oil, and acrylic, sew, knit, crochet, scrapbook and just about anything else it is so relaxing. Well I have been reading some DIY blogs and so I got really inspired the other day.

We had a kitchen table but it only had three chairs and we didn't have a dining table so since we all didn't fit around it we always ate in the living room. I really wanted us to be able to sit around the table but wasn't really sure how we were going to make that happen. Well my great aunt called a few weeks ago they are getting quite a bit older and having to downsize there oh so huge amount of stuff to move into an apartment and she wondered if we could use the table and chairs. I was so excited and insantly said yes. Well let me tell you ladies I am so very grateful for the table even though it is kind of 80's looking and deffinantly not our taste. I having been trying to think what I was going to do to fix that. So I have some pictures for you. I recovered the cushions and painted the chairs (well only one is done so far) brown. I am very happy I think they look great! I hope this can inspire you to make something old look new and give it a new home!

This is the original chair it is cream and gold with this fabric which I have no idea how to describe!

Here I am taking the fabric off the bottom this was a chore but now I have a pattern. You can see a sneak peak at my new fabric choice to the right!

Here is my new Chair painted recovered and put back together!

Here they are side by side so you can see the difference. I think it looks pretty good and it deffinantly looks better than before.

I have much to do to be finished with this but this is all for now I have to clean house today!

Clothes out the Ears!!!

How many outfits do you think kids should have?

Well a fellow blogger had written about this and I thought I would tackle it as well today. When do you think your kids have to many clothes? How much is enough? Well for my son we always have enough well more than enough clothes because we are blessed to have a friend who's son is a size bigger and so we get all his outgrown clothes. For my daughter I only buy things on clearence but this can add up. I really hate doing laundry and really I think the worst part is the putting away because I have to lug everything back upstairs, which I don't want to do and so I get lazy and live out of baskets or I get backed up and have to much laundry to do and then it is this horrible vicious cycle.

So a few weeks ago I went through and purged my daugters clothes and my sons, took all the winter stuff out and then pulled out any summer stuff that didn't fit. I realized my daughter needed more shirts and pj's so we have gotten more shirts and I am waiting for jammies to be on sale. Now we have 10 tops, that gives us one for each day of the week, plus three extra in case we get super dirty or have an acident, it is summer and we spend a ton of time outside. We have 7 to 10 pair of shorts and capris combined, she has several pair of leggins or comfy cotton pants she naps in those and we have three pair of jammies. For the kids clothes I only wash once a week because it takes a whole week for them to fill a load except for my daughters jammies. Oh yes and she has 4 dresses and 2 skirts. 

Well this purging helped us so much I can't believe how much it has helped keep things more organized.

Manic Monday!

Okay ladies I am posting late today beause it really has been a manic monday! It all started last night when my husband picked my 2 year old up at the top of the stairs and when he turned around he tripped and to keep our little one from getting hurt he really hurt himself, he ad one leg completely folded under him and now can barely walk. If you knew my husband you would know he never complains about pain but this morning he called in to work and said can your mom watch th kids I need to go to the doctor. Well we spent all morning in urgent care nothing broken but maybe a bad strain on the ligaments. If not better in a week he will have to see the orthopedic doctor. He is in more pain tonight than this morning and so it has been a crazy day!

Also I am waiting to hear from family in Oklahoma they are right amidst the tornados! I pray they are okay! Ladies let me know how your manic mondays went today! See you tomorrow!

Blessings Galore!

Well ladies I have to tell you how blessed I am this week. As you may have read my husband and I had hit a rough patch about a week or two ago. You know ladies we all hit a rough patch now and again. Well even though we know the Lord is always working he was deffinantly showing himself this last time.

My husband is not a christian and has never gone to church. Well through all the things that happend and pain and tears my husband attended church with us last Sunday and not only that he went to Sunday school and the service. Such a huge step for my husband because he has really bad anxiety as well which can be a crutch to not go but also can be really bothersome. Well I was so proud to have him there and the kids couldn't believe that daddy wasn't just helping me get them in the car but also going with us. Also he is on a business trip and today I got a text that said he couldn't wait to get home to see us and couldn't wait to go to church on Sunday since he would know a few people now. I am so excited I wanted to just scream for joy. The Lord is working and he is so good. I just pray that the Lord will prick his heart to want to go and be a Godly Man and Father for his family.

Also I pray that I will show him with my actions what a christian life is and what it looks like. It will be a long road for him to get there and I know there will be stumbling blocks in the way but I pray that the Lord will protect him from satan and all his enemies!

Thank you ladies for letting me share this exciting bit of news with you, also on a lighter note I have killed all of my herbs so if anyone knows a way I can grow them without killing them hit me up! Thanks

Manic Monday!

Well ladies sorry for such a late post today. I have been very busy. My husband left for a business trip this morning at 6:15 and so the kids and I are walking this week out together ourselves. I started a ladies bible study today with two friends and my mom well that makes three friends. We are studying Beth Moore's Daniel. I am very excited and can't wait to delve into it tomorrow during my quiet time. If anyone else happens to be studying it as well that would be super fun to talk about. Also when my husband is out of town I try to get projects and lots of cleaning done mainly because I can stay up really late without him worrying about me to much. I have a lot planned for this week and don't forget to check out the activity swap we are wanting to do together! Have a great week ladies.

Fablously Fun Friday!

Okay ladies I have really been debating on whether or not to do this but I think it will be really fun. I have been working with my three year old on pre-school activities, we don't qualify for pre-school and can't afford it so I am going to have to get her through until school starts for kinder in a year. Yes she will be going to a school outside of my house right now I am hoping to get her into a charter school we have here it is fabulous but we have to be of kinder age first. Anyway, I don't know about you ladies but I am always trying to find activities to do and ones that aren't expensive and so I thought we will start a swap. This will be very fun. We will do an activity swap I am also considering a kind of pen pal swap later as well. I am going to put the requirements down and if you are intersted leave a comment so I can get your info.

All of the activities will be sent to me that way I know exactly who participated, so if you don't send something you won't get anything back. We will all create or put together 5 activites and snd them to me and then when they are all in I will redistribute them and send them back out and you will get five new activities for you and your child to enjoy. This will be so fun we have done this one before and my daughter had a blast with the stuff we got. so put your thinking caps on and get to getting.

Also ladies if you want to share this on your blog to invite more people to join in please do so, just make sure you link back here and make sure that they follow me that way I can know they are a really wanting to do this I want to keep up with everyone! Thanks ladies oh yes also the deadline to sign up by will be the end of next week. Thanks

Fabulous Fridays!

Well today is a good day! Isn't ladies, the sun or clouds came up again today (depending where you are at). The clock is still ticking, our kids are still a little crazy but all fun. Life is good. I am taking a new look on things trying to be more positive and not so down. I have always been a down person, probably because I was told a lot you could do better even though you got an A you could have gotten an A+ and many things like that. I have been realizing that even though we say I am not going to parent my kids this way or that way what ever it may be. I have found I am just like my parents, to harsh, expect way to much (I think we should expect their potiential not have over expectations) and over react.

I have two beautiful children a three and two year old, my older is extremely intelligent, her favorite word to use right now is agitate. She is extrememly over active as well and can't sit still to save anyones life. Sometimes it just drives me nuts but I am working on not getting so nuts. Then there is my little two year old who copies everything his sister does and says everything she says although he has no idea what it means.

My goal for the next couple of months is not only about training my children but training myself to stay calm and to teach them that they will do what they are told when I am talking in a calm voice because that is all they will get out of me I am not going to raise my voice at them to get them to do what is right.

Now ladies on the weightloss front I did very well the week my husband and I had a blowout, I was so distraught about the things that had happened I didn't have much appitite and when I was mad I was running like crazy trying to get rid of my anger and so I lost 10 pounds in like 5 days but we all knw that wasn't reall weight loss so after going ou of town making some bad choices I am back at sqaure one although I have lost 2 pounds from eating healthy and excersising I know I will have more next week!

Have a great weekend ladies and I will see you again Monday!

I think I am back ladies!

Okay so I think I am finally back in motion again. How is everyone? It has been a really rough week or so. I have had many ups and downs with my health and marriage. Things I never in my wildest dreams I would have imagined to happen. I thank all of you ladies who are here to read. I am up and going again and will be posting more regularly now. Also the laundry detergent giveaway will end at the end of the week so lets get to commenting. Thanks so much ladies!

Fabulous Friday's!

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. 2 Corinthians 5:10

 Well sorry ladies for being so MIA for a couple of days it has been crazy here. Well I am back and starting a new segment it is called Fabulous Fridays! This is my weight loss segment for the week or what I will call my getting healthy segment. Before you quit reading know that I am not saying we all need to be super skinny but if we are eating ourself, (or doing any other harmful things) to an early death then I feel like we will have to answer for that. So that being said I would love for you to join me as I go into a new season of life.
 
First, ladies know that I will post some before pictures soon because even though I am extremely embarrassed I need to see it myself to know what I have done to myself. I have always battled staying at a healthy size I usually weighed 120 I am 5'2" so not bad I wore size 8 or 10 and Iwas good until one wonderful day I found out I was having a little pink blessing. I was really sick during my pregnancy so I didn't gain a ton of weight 25 pounds total so not bad and after having the baby and going home I weighed 132 so I thought it wasn't bad my tummy had a little pooch which I hated but I got a beautiful little girl in return what could be better. Well 10 months later we found out we were having a little blue blessing and so I never really quit eating for two, well 19 months after my 1st had my second and we were so happy I did the same thing this go around really sick gained 30 lbs weighed 170 came home and weighed 135 no big deal but I never stopped eating for two. Yes also I am an emotional eater and have gone through many crazy times this past year so I ate a lot so I am here before you at 168lbs and would one day in the near future like to be back to 125 I would be really healthy. Also I am wanting to train to run a Marathon at the end of the year so I got that going for me. So ladies jump right in and join me in the race to get healthy for us and our children.
 
I will post before pictures soon and Every friday I am going to weigh in and let you know how my week went! Have fun doing this ladies put on some praise music and get your body Moving for the Lord.

Tremendous Tuesdays!

Spring Cleaning with Ordinary Inspiraions!

Okay ladys, lets do something tremendous today. That is something huge. Maybe you clean way to much, well lets take an extra hour to play with the kids. Maybe, your house is never tidy lets try to do that before our husband gets home, maybe your huge thing is something fun today a trip to the library or zoo. Be creative and have fun it doesn't have to cost anything to do something tremendous just do it. We are going to the library today. That is always a fun adventure. Leave a comment and let us all know what you are doing today! Have a great day everyone!

This is my upstairs Linen Closet! I only keep Blankets and sheet sets and extra paper towels and tissue. Well it isn't terrible but it could deffinantly be better and it always drives me nuts.

Here is everything Itook out and this will not be going back in. the large stacks are baby blankets. There are two space bags and I will finish filling them and then flatten and they will be sliding under my bed.

The mostly finished closet, I am trying to containerize when possible so  had an empty plastic basket lying around so I labeled it pillowcases and that is the only thing in there. Also on that shelf are sheets for the larger beds. The shelf above has the kids blankets and a couple fleece blankets.Also in the middle are all the sheets for my son toddler bed.The bottom shelf has my toddler bed covers that keep things dry. It seems so empty now but the empty shelf in the middle is going to house our games I have to move them there. I also opted to move tissue and papertowels downstairs.

Manic Monday!

My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. Isaiah 32:18

Manic, well I think we use this word a lot but maybe don't mean it well I do mean it. Manic is defined as frenzied: affected with or marked by frenzy or mania uncontrolled by reason. Well that just sums up my Mondays, usually we are recooping from the weekend and also I am trying to make a plan of what I need to get done for the week. My plan is always to big and I am so ADD when I clean house that I feel like nothing gets done sometimes. I chose the verse above because the Lord has told us to be at peace and our homes should be peaceful and I bet many of you that have one or more children know that is hard to accomplish so on Mondays will be a little time to come here and look at some pictures that make me think and feel peaceful. This week the pictures are some I took of my kids and they just make me feel happy! Have a great Monday everyone!

Blog Party!!

Do you love to party? Well I do, There is a huge party over Here at the ultimate blog party. If you are new to reading my blog, welcome and I will tell you a little about me and why I am blogging.

My name is Amber and I am a SAHM mom of two beautiful children. I have a three year old daughter, and a two year old son. They are so great and I love them so much. I am a christian and trying to raise my children to be christian men and women. My wonderful husband works extremely hard so that I can be a stay at home mom. I am trying to take small steps to living a little greener and more frugal. I make my own laundry detergent. I have a small garden this year. I try to dry our clothes outside in the summer. I am cooking more from scratch now and not from a box. Also I started blogging as sort of an outlet for me but it has become a wonderful time o putting my thoughts out there and trying to post things that maybe would help another mom who struggles with the same things. You will never find me bashing any other blogs or moms who blog I feel like that is so mean and I think as moms we need to stick together and build each other up. I hope you enjoy reading my blog and jump in and participate. Thanks to all of my readers! Amber

The June Clever Series! With Give Away!

Okay I am starting a new series and depending on how my schedule goes this may take a couple of weeks to completely finish  but I will get there. I am calling it the June Cleaver Series. This is why... I always pictured when I got married and had a family that I would be a SAHM and everything would be tidy always, beds made, laundry done, children sweet and respectful all the time. Well I got the stay at home mom thing right but everything else has seemed like a whirlwind since our first was born in July of 2006. It seems like my days are full and there is never enough hours in the day to get everything done. This is where this series was born from I have been reading a lot about organizing ways of organizing and such so I think I have finally found some things that will work for us so over the next couple of weeks I am going to work on getting everything in our house organized from closets to drawers to papers. This is where I will post about it. If you want to join in with me that will be great. All you have to do is post a comment about what you are organizing and a little about how you did it did you have to go buy bins at the store or did you have baskets and such around the house you were able to use What ever works for you and most importantly your budget. Let us know. The Prize is some yummy smelling homemade laundry detergent.

Okay today I am starting in my bedroom and bathroom. They are a crazy mess and since they are upstairs they are the last thing I clean-up I want to make sure the downstairs in clean but I can just close the door to our bedroom. Well not anymore I am going to find a place for everythin.

I am embarrassed to show this but I have to be an honest person with you so you will know the improvement we are having. Here are the pictures.

My bathroom counter and floor sorry I forgot to turn the picture.

The bedroom floor, mostly blakets that need to be washed they take for ever to dry so I always wait till the last minute to wash and dry them.

They giant pile of laundry that needs to be hung in the closet.

Okay  am off for the day to get some stuff done and play with the kids. I will post after pictures once everything has a home. Happy reading and don't forget to post a comment for the giveaway!

Two New Yummy Snacks!!

Firs is Honey Graham Crackers, this one I have to thank Laura at Heavenly Homemakers for. I will have a link at the end of this most delicious rant to her recipe. I love all of her recipe's and so I was searching for an easy snack, our budget it tight right now and I was looking for something I could make with what I had in my pantry. Man did I hit the jackpot with this. I found th recipe saturday afternoon and by that night we had a batch. My kids wanted to eat all of them right away but I told them we had to save some for some of the other days of this week. The picture above is my second batch I am making tonight. Yes I realize it is 11:45 but I am a night owl. Well these are easy and delicious so check out the recipe Here. I give this a 10star rating.

No Peanut Butter Granola Bars or Squares

Okay well while searching the web for granola bar recipes I found tons but most of them had a lot of peanut butter as their glue. I finally came across one or two without so I took a little from here and a little from there and made some sweet treat ones, as soon as I get a chance to get some dried fruit I will make some healthy treat ones as well. This is my first time making them so I am not going to post the recipe until I taste them I would hate t give you an aweful recipe. These have mini chocolate chips an marshmallow in them.

Also I thought I would add why I needed a peanut free one, my littlest squirt has a horrible peanut allergy.

I’m participating in Kitchen Stewardship’s Spring Cleaning Carnival, Get the Antibacterials Out. Also a GiveAway

Look Here: Kitchen Stewadship

Kitchen

Okay  we are in the kitchen, for me my husband is out of town for the week and while I miss him terribly, I do like the fact that I can work on big projects because if I don't finish I can leave it and get up and work on it the next morning. So we are in the kichen and if you have a lot of time then lets tackle all the cabinets and pantry if not then just choose one or two cabinets or maybe just the pantry and lets get to cleaning. Don't take on to much at one time though because you don't want to get overwhelmed. Here is what you should do to get a good cleaning.

Lets say you are working on your pantry you should first make a plan just a simple one of what you want this space to be, does it hold all your food. Does it just hold certain items etc.

Now lets clean it out, I use my kitchen table I pull it into the middle of my kitchen and pull everything out on the table.

Sorry it is sideways I forgot to fix a couple of them so they are sideways, here is my table I have moved.

Here is all of my stuff on my table now my pantry is empty. Now you need to go through everthing make sure there isn't anything that is so out of date you can't eat it. Also if there are a bunch of things in there that you thought you would eat or your kids said they wanted but havn't eaten put it in a box to take to a local food bank.

Now wipe down all of your shelves and you might even want to put some new contact paper down to liven it up. I didn't do that because I am trying to do all this organizing without spending a dime because there are no dimes to spend in this house. So I know you can do it too. Don't stress!

Now you can start organizing and putting things back. I consolidated and I tried to containerized things that were alike. Also I want you to know that I did not spend a dime on this I hunted arount my house for bins or baskets that I was not using. So everything you will see in the following pictures I already had.

Okay ladies I want to see you spring cleaning challenge, maybe it was a closet or pantry or maybe your whole house! Leave a comment with your blog post if you have one, if not just let us kno what you did. The Challenge will be open until the beginning of April I will set a date soon! So start cleaning and posting.

Spring Cleaning Extravaganza with a Give Away!

Well last Saturday was the first day of Spring and what a wonderful day in Texas we had an inch of snow by sunday morning. Trust me I know, extremely crazy. Well in honor of Spring and global warming we are having a spring Cleaning extravaganza with a green give away! The Give away prize is some of my yummy Laundry detergent and Carpet deoderizer. You will have a choice of scented or not if you have bad allergies I can make it unscented.

Okay here is how it will work. Everyday this week starting with Tuesday I will give you a place to declutter and organize. Also I will put up some before pictures and after and what I did to get there. You will need to be sure to post on you blog about your spring cleaning project and post some of your pictures. Make sure to leave a comment with your blog addy, and if you don't have a blog make sure to leave a comment and let us know what you are doing for your project! I will choose the winner over the weekend! So lets have fun ladies.

You want to get a head start tomarrow we will be in the kitchen and I will post more tomarrow about mine! Pick some cabinets or a pantry and get to cleaning!

My Little Green Project Update!!

Okay so I told you I would give you some updates. I have some pictures of my little garden. We are still working on it I need more soil because all we have here in texas when you dig it up is clay so I have to get soil but that will have to wait till my husband gets paid. We still have onions to plant and I have my green bean seeds to plant and if I can find a cheap or used trash can I am going to plant potatos like laura suggested here at heavenly homemakers. You have to scroll down a bit it is called gardening 101 planting potatos in a container.

Here are my plants, that we planted and the yummyness in the jar in the back is a mocha coffee mix I knew all of you would want to know that.

This is from the top and if you look on the left close to the top you can already see a baby strawberry!

Okay the top two are my pots I am planting in I have one long one for Strawberries one long one for onions, two of the large round ones are for tomatos and the other large one is for Jalapenos. I also have a smaller round one that is for the cherry tomatos. Then the bottom picture is the patio the part where the chairs are I cleaned up and the pots went there.

Here are my children they helped plant well they mostly made more of a mess than anything but i was really fun. Also if you notice my fiercly feminine skirt for today. If you don't know what I am talking about read about why I am chooseing to where skirts every day here. This makes a perfect gardening skirt because it is a light weight denim that is darker in color so it won't stain. Also my little squirts are pictured my big squirt Madyson, and my Littl Squirt, Major.

Here are some of the plants that we have planted in the pots. It is very exciting.  

Madyson is running over to one of the tomato pots and she wanted me to come and see because she was telling me that one of them was growing, I made the mistake of telling her one day when she was complaining that it was raining so much that it when it rained it made the plants and flowers grow and she takes eveything literally. So I had just watered and she was sure they were growing already.

The Little Green Project!

All right Laura at Heavenly Homemakers is having a little green project again this year. I was sitting there reading and thinking well what am I really doing that is green right now. I try to do things around the house I like making my own detergent all though right now we are using some from the store that was given to us so I didn't want to post about that so I was thinking and then a light bulb went off. Of course, I am going to be planting my garden this week so I will post about that. We won't have a big garden for two reasons this is my first garden and second we are not so sure about tearing up part of our backyard yet because it is not that large. If things go well this year I may build some raised garden boxes for next year. This year I am planting in some very large planters I have. We will have Tomatos, Onions, Green Beans, Jalapnos, and hot red peppers. I am also going to try potatos Laura talked about planting them in a trashcan so I think w are going to try it. I don't have any pictures yet to post but as we get started on it this week I will post some! This is my green thing for the summer, I will save a little money and eat some healthy veggies! Make sure to Head over to Laura's Heavenly Homemakers page and link up your green project!

Do we always just ask for things?

Sunday Monday!
Sunday Sermon on Monday Morning!
Forsaken? What does this word really mean to you or me or anyone?

Well this is what Webster has to say about is..
1. To quit or leave entirely; to desert; to abandon; to depart or withdraw from; to leave; as, false friends and flatterers forsake us in adversity. [1913 Webster]

But really what does this mean to you when do you use this word? When referring to our children they have forsaken us or when we talk about out cat's that have pooped in the garage 15 times and just don't get that every time I tell them if you d this one more time, I am really serious. Or is this a word you reserve just for God. Our Sermon yesterday was about this. The title where is God when I feel forsaken. Well it got me thinking and yes I think for me I only have used this term in yucky circumstances and more when my walk with the Lord is not where it should be.

I think the pastor hit it right on the head when he said we usually use this term with God in three main instances obviously there are more but the three main are when our health, finances or relationships are in trouble. This is true we don't think well why has God forsaken me when our dishes are piling up and there are a million loads of laundry to do and there is absolutely no more time because you have to run the kids to 50 million different activities.

Why is that? Our pastor said that a lot of times in our life when we feel forsaken we run as far from God as possible when we should be running straight towards him. I know that sometimes when I have all the distractions of things that need to get done in the house or the yard that needs to be tended to that they take priority over sitting down and digging in the word for an hour or so that day. What am I doing I am running away and letting things get in the way when I should be running to his word for guidance in my days.

Back to the big stuff when we have things going wrong in all these major areas of our life or even minor and we do feel forsaken. What do we do if we aren't running away usually we are praying and asking or even begging for the Lord to just fix it. I know this because I know of many occasions I have done this. I have cried in my living room for the Lord to just fix it. I need this Lord and I need that Lord. I know you say well the Lord said to ask me for it and I will do it. Yes it does say that in John 14:14 " You may ask Me for anything in My name and I will do it." And yes it is even in red in the bible I am using today.

Here are a few verses for you to consider:

1 Chronicles 28:20 (New International Version)
20 David also said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished.

Psalm 37:28 (New International Version)
28 For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off;

Hebrews 13:5 (New International Version)
5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."[a]

Deuteronomy 31:6 (New International Version)
6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

What if the attitude we had when we felt forsaken wasn't to ask for all these things to be fixed but to praise him. Praise him for the things he has done. You feel like there is never enough money, instead of asking for him to give you a promotion or a better job why not praise him for the job you have thank him and praise him for blessing you and your family with a job because so many people do not have a job. When you go to the Doctor and find out you have cancer and only have two months to live. Instead of saying where are you God, why have you let this happen just take it away. Why not praise him for the time you have had with your family and the time you have left to spend with them.

Please hear me and know that I am not saying I do this all the time or that you have to do this but we should all sing the Lord's praises and I know I am working and will continue to ask for what I really need but at the same time I will praise him for everything he is doing or has done for me.

Challenge for the week: I challenge you to read Psalm 22 and spend some time meditating on it and get out a journal or what ever you like to write in and write down those things that you worry about or you feel the Lord may have forsaken you in. Now underneath it write God Cares About These Things. Now draw a line underneath and write down some things you can praise God for they don't have to be big things but what ever you feel like you want and need to praise him for. Now I challenge you to spend at least one hour in prayer this week focusing on praising God for all these things and really pour your hear out into this. We will get back to it later this week.

Am I really in Texas?

Well it has been so beautiful here the past few days I just had to praise the Lord for it. We have had a couple of days with no rain some nice cool wind and just enough sunshine you could play outside for hours and not die of heat exhaustion. Also it has been so wonderful to be able to open up the doors and windows and not have to run heat or air in the house. I so praise the Lord for allowing this weather to help all of us here in Texas financially.

I woke up to find toilet paper roll unrolled in my backyard. You have to love living close to teenagers. Also it has been quite cloudy this morning but as I am sitting here writing this I am listening to my dog bark at the wind and see the wonderful sunshine come in through my back door. It is so cool outside 51 degrees this morning. It looks like we are going to get some rain tomorrow so I think we will have to go to the park one more day while it is not wet and have another picnic.

I know it sounds extremely crazy but I just can not get over how beautiful the weather is and also thinking I better get my seeds started today if we are going to be able to grow anything this year.