Relationship Challenge Part 2

Last week in our challenge I discussed how we can let life get in the way of us remembering why we founder our partners so very special in the first place. If you would like to check out the original post go here.  Have you been trying the steps from week one? Were they hard? This week I wanted to discuss reconnecting with our partners. Often times finding that time to spend with our partners can get lost in our daily lives. I know I get so swallowed up with business stuff,house work and kids that sometimes one on one time with my hubby get lost in the mix. It's not an uncommon problem, many people we counseled had a hard time even remembering the last time they had even just a date night. So that brings me to this weeks Challenge step 1. Sit down with your partner and find something to do together on a regular basis. Now this has to be something neutral that both of you would enjoy. This part can take some experimenting which is part of the fun and will build up some memories. My hubby and I have tried a lot of things some I will never do again but I am glad we tried it once. Others like sitting down to do a put a puzzle together, playing games and reading a book together we do all the time. These last few are ones we can do often with out a lot of expense and around our schedule. What you pick doesn't need to cost a lot or be done everyday but it does need to be done regularly and something that is just for you 2.  Taking the time to do things that are neutral together allows for you to reconnect with new conversations and interests that are shared. Also having the one on one time can become something you will forward to as a goal to get you through the week. Which sometimes when life is at it's craziest you really need a goal. After you pick your thing make sure you plan for it so you don't forget to do it. Make it a priority. At first it will be easy to let life keep doing what it does and run right over your best laid plans. After awhile it will become a set part of your life and schedule.
  Step 2 of this weeks challenge is to take pictures of your times together. Before we got married some advice that was given to me was to surround your life and home with pictures of the memories you create. We tend to forget those good times and focus on the hard times, especially when we are right in the middle of one. So take out your camera and just snap a picture of a family game night or a date night. You can take pictures any day not just on special occasions or holidays. Find that good moment and capture it. Then upload them or print them. Make a picture album for the year. This is anew one for me. I have pictures everywhere and I take them all the time but I don't frequently have an album to document our year. I am actually very excited about the idea of being able to look back and see how we have grown and changed as a family, couple and in general. Having all those pictures around is nice. Not that you will notice them everyday but every now and then one will catch your eye and you will remember what a good time you were having in that moment.Here are some of mine I have taken recently.

Lizard, her boyfriend and Brother Bear. Brother Bear was climbing the tree and they decided to join him so I could get a picture.

Coyote loves making silly faces for the camera. We were waiting on some French Fries so I clicked of some pictures.

Coyote and Boss collecting rocks at the playground.

 As you can see nothing special and no special occasion just life being enjoyed and captured. Well I hope you join in on the Challenge. Thank you for reading.

 

Pinterest I Tired IT 2 and A Link Up Party

Last month I started doing a monthly post of the pins on Pinterest that I have tried. I use Pinterest to find crafts, home remedies, homeschooling ideas,and just for fun. A few nights ago Coyote got gum in her pretty hair. Her daddy and I were upset but fortunately I pinned a pin just for such an occasion.

get this
We used the Peanut Butter method and while a bit of a mess. It worked like a charm. The gum came right out with out any painful pulling or cutting. We did have to wash her hair about 4 times to get the peanut butter out of her hair but still better than what it could have been.  There are other tricks and tips on the site this pin came form and on other pins for those of you who are themselves or have kids who allergic to peanuts. 
  
I have been making new items for a few months now and one of them lace crowns.  Yep I got the idea from Pinterest but I ended up tweaking the method just a little bit to make them more one of a kind and because I am forever tweaking things to see what happens. I was not happy with how the glitter effect was coming out so I tried this wonderful pin.

 get this
I mixed modge podge and glitter together.  Now this take some practice and tweaking to get the right amounts for your project but after using on some of my lace crowns I have also used it on other projects. Simply because one can never have enough glitter :)

finished lace crown with glitter

   Now on to cleaning. I love all of the home made cleaner recipes you can find on Pinterest. Not only do many of them work but they are a lot of the time greener than many of the commercial products. Plus a whole lot cheaper. Honestly who doesn't like cheaper,greener and getting just as good results? Well I decided to try the pin on using peroxide and baking soda method to clean a well used cookie sheet.
get this
 Notice the nice clean spot with all that build up removed. Well I don't know if I did it all wrong but it just did not work for me.  Maybe I needed to give it more time. She gave hours so maybe that is the key but I gave it 30 min and it just did nothing. Then again maybe I just need a new pan. Hmm Mother's Day is coming. 
   Well last but not least I like to leave this post with recipe I tried from Pinterst. Now I always mean to get a picture of my finished result ( especially for all my google+ friends who are foodies) but frankly by the time I finish cooking for the size of family I serve my family is usually in the kitchen whisking away the food because someone is just starving to death. So maybe hopefully one I will get pictures but I am not holding my breath on that.  Now I do like the in depth recipes but more often than not I go for easy so I can get the meal done quickly around my families constant motion. So this month here is my super simple recipe I found on Pinterest recipe.
 get this
 You simply take a 1-2 cans premade of cinnamon rolls( I used the regular small ones for mine) stick them in the waffle maker and let them cook. Then I took the frosting warmed it a bit added syrup . Once the mixture was ready I drizzled it over the waffles. I tired this as a weekend treat and it was an instant favorite. I liked how easy it was to make and the relatively  small mess versus making regular waffles.  Well I hope you enjoyed seeing what I made from Pinterest. Now that I have shared with you why don't you share your posts that are Pin worthy with me and anyone else who visits this post. 

Link up  Anything you feel like (except x rated stuff this is a family friendly blog)because you can find it all on Pinterest so why not share it all!! The only thing I ask is that you share this Link Up Party!





 

Pinterest Inspired Earth Day (Week) Lessons

Earth Day was made into a week of lessons here in our homeschool classroom with fun projects found on Pinterest. We started with a fun lesson that we are still covering on habitats. We looked up and wrote down the meaning of the word habitat. Then we looked up different types of habitats that wild creatures live in. We are going to be doing some more reading on different animals and we are starting our wild about nature journals where my kids will be drawing wild creatures they see or learn about, writing about their natural habitats and more. Thus it will be an on going study.  This led us into our first project Sunday evening. I found this bird house on Pinterest with no back and attached to a window. How perfect for watching a bird build a nest, lay it's eggs and raise it's young.
 get this

I showed this to my DH and he of course drew up some plans to build me some. We are building enough for multiple windows so we can hopefully catch more than one kind of bird to watch.  So we went and got the materials needed during the previous week. I will do a blog later with all of the cuts, materials and time needed but this project cost us less than $10.
Here  are some pictures from the fun 

The finished pictures will come a little later becasue we have had some rain and cold weather so We have had to wait to paint it and hang it out side.

Our Earth Day lesson was conservation. We defined the word conservation.. We discussed and wrote up why we would want to help keep the planet clean and less polluted. We defined pollution and discussed types of pollution. We discussed how making more things at home can be earth friendly. We also discussed the concept of reduce,reuse,recycle. Then we discussed ways we do those things. This led us into another project. We made homemade bubble solution and reused water bottles to blow the bubbles with. I got these ideas from Pinterest.

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I made a smaller amount of the bubble solution for us to try out. I cut the bottles in different ways. We had some with just the bottoms off. Some with just the tops cut just before the lables. Then lastly some with just the middles, no tops and no bottoms. I asked the kids when it came to the bottles if we were reducing,reusing or recycling to help reemphasize our lesson. 
Here are some of pictures from the fun. The older two did not really want to blow bubbles with mom. So they ended up reading,skating and rip sticking instead but that was ok because once the bubbles were made the lesson was on hold and in place laughter and fun were inserted. 
Here are some pictures from the fun we had. 

 The bubble solution was a good one and we will be making it again. The top only and center only bottles worked a little better than just the bottom of the bottle cut off.

Coyote was content to sit to blow bubble. Sunny Bunny had more fun flinging the water bottles through the air to make her bubbles.

We are still working on a few more projects that I will share in another post. I hope your Earth Day was a good one. Thanks for reading.

Relationship Challenge Part 1

I want to start a challenge to all my readers and other bloggers. I want to challenge each other to grow and to lift up those around us. This week I want to start with our spouses. I know we are not all blessed with a marital mate and not all are blessed with one that we feel like raising up and cheering over. There some instances where you should help them by separating from them like Abuse. If you are an abused spouse ( men get abused too) please seek help now. Here is a website that can help  or contact your local church. There are people willing to help you if you let them. That being covered and said let's move forward. Did you know that the bible tells husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands because these things are out of our nature. If you are looking for a good read check out Love and Respect . This book covers that notion and more. Wives we don't realize the power we hold in our marriage and it's quality by simply allowing our husbands to feel respected even if we don't feel he currently deserves it. The thing is many of us don't know how to show that respect/ love our spouses on a daily basis. So this is step 1 of our challenge and it is really easy.......Ready? Ask your spouse to write down 10 simple things that you do or could do to make them feel love/respected ( *note to those making the list you may like gifts but those are not daily things. Think of daily things they can do. We will get to gifts at another time). Now do... pick one or two and do them everyday. That's it! You may be surprised at what makes your spouse feel good.
  Now on to step 2. Remember when you where dating and how you wanted to shout it from the roof tops how special your guy/girl was. After marriage we tend to let life get in the way and forget those special things we love so much about our spouse. They get clouded by those pesky little quirks that drives us Bat Poop Crazy about our spouse. Here is something to remember when it comes to that....What you see as a fault someone else will see as a strength so try to step back and see it from  that point of view before you lose it for the 100th time over the dishes in the sink because your spouse got wrapped in some other activity.  Do you tell your spouse the things that are endearing about them in your eyes? Do you even know what those things are anymore? That brings us to Step 2...  Write a note telling them. Let's shout it from the tops of the World Wide Web. If you have a blog then write this there other wise just write a simple little note on your fave social media site of the things that you adore about your spouse.

Here is mine
Dearest BOS
I love the way you can make me laugh even when I am in my grumpiest mood. I love how much you love to read and grow your mind. I love your deep brown eyes. I love how I can come into the living room and know that you are either watching some sort of typical guy show/movie or a documentary. It is cool that you love to paint and write. I love how excited you get taking pictures of all our family functions and events. I love that you have heart to lead our family down a good and straight path. I love that you have a heart for God. I love how much you care about other people. You have a big heart and become fast friends with people you meet so easily. I know that I can always count on you to be there no matter what. I know that if I'm wrong you will set me straight and not just be a yes man that makes me feel secure in knowing that if you agree that you really do feel I really am right. I love that you take it seriously to honor your parents and how much you want to help take care of them. It is beyond cool that you will let me play games to all hours and then listen intently while I fervently tell you the highs and lows of my most current battle. It also rocks that you made sure my internet speed was fast enough so my gaming would be seem less interrupted . You are the confident straight laced to my awkward laid back off beat. I enjoy how much we play and joke with each other. I love how supportive you are to me with out being a sucker to my whims. Every day with you is the new best day of my life and we should get jersey's cause we make a good team :)  I am grateful to have a fully plugged in partner in raising our children. I like how different you are from me.  I look forward to another 16+ years with you.

See.....Easy! and there are no rules just go with it. The point is it is from you to them about them. Now go write yours and then share it here if you would like to. *note  I know this written with spouses in mind but if you are still only dating you can still join us and build a strong relationship from the get go, while the rest of us give our marriages a little tune up.* Also go visit those who have linked up and say hi.
Thanks For Reading.

Looking Back and Moving Forward

survivor tree

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As this day precedes along it's course I want to take a look back and encourage us all to move forward. This week has been a hard one for our country marked with tragedy and sadness. My prayers go out to those in Boston and in West,TX. This week has been especially marked for those in Oklahoma. Today April 19 at 9:02 am in 1995 is not only the day the Murrah building in downtown Oklahoma City came partially crashing down but also the day our lives came crashing to a stand still.

 I still remember that day. I was in Biology class in highschool when something dropped and rolled across the ceiling of the school or so I assumed. Turned out to be the rumble from the blast miles away. The look on my teachers face as she came back in the room after being called in the hallway still is etched in my memory. I remember one of my friends sobbing because her mom was supposed to be downtown that day and  she not  able to get a hold of her. She turned out not to be near the building and ok. I  remember wandering from TV to TV in the hallway with my friends numb and not able to grasp why anyone would do such a thing. I remember going from class to class only to sit and watch the news because no one was sure hat to do with us students so they kept us at the school even though no one as in any kind of frame of mind to teach or learn. I remember coming home to knowledge that my stepdad was one of the many rescuers( he was a firefighter) down there digging to through the rubble trying to find those lost and those who may still be alive but trapped. I remember how our city and state pulled together immediately to do all we could to help. I remember the news anchors swarming downtown trying to get the story and even a few who thought they deserved to be in places no one but emergency workers were supposed to be in because of who they were. I remember the blur of information the day of  and the days following. I remember the pictures and videos from that day. I remember going back to school that week and the dark cloud that hung over the school. Every time I hear Lighting Crashes by Live I remember that day. I remember the lives lost. I remember the tree planting ceremony at our school in remembrance of those lost lives.  I also remember rebuilding. Watching the rest of the building being brought down and the building of our beautiful memorial in it's place. The museum being built to help remind and educate the generations to come.

Memorial 

 Just like those who lived during the time of JFK's assassination this singular day will be etched into many Oklahoman's memories. Just like the entire nation on 9/11 we came together, regrouped and rebuilt. Every year we remember that moment and this is year no different. Only more marked because of the awful events preceding this day. As the news continues to flow and we learn more of the events in Boston and West,TX let's remember that the darkness of a terrible event can not extinguish the light of love and hope. That through the pain lessons can be learned. Let's remember together we will make it through this and any other events that may come our way. Don't let a day slip away with out telling your friends and family  how much you care for them and those that you may be having a difficulty with that you are sorry or that you forgive them. Remember in your prayers to be thankful of the blessings you do have and not just your worries or fears. 
Thank you for reading

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