Birdie to Birdie

    Today we had a little visitor. He showed up on our patio and made himself comfortable. He was loud. I mean, he was real loud! He followed us where our voices went. He was shooed away and then came back. He let us take pictures of him. He even let Bear pet him (which she promptly afterwards ran inside to wash her hands). He let Jax check him out and say hi. We named him Emilio and Bear insisted that he go put on some shoes. 

    Bear and I had to run to the mall to pick up our updated family pictures and I didn't immediately look for him when we got home but after a while of cleaning up the house I realized it was quiet outside. I checked to see if he had left the area we last left him. Sadly, Emilio the shoeless hatchling passed away in the rain while we were gone. 
   Bear was looking for "Meelo" and of course Big Sis found him before the Hubs could take him from view. I know she couldn't grasp what she saw, a motionless, stiff legged bird but I felt a crumble inside for her and I. 
   We told her that he left and that was that. She looked once more then was ok. Weirdly enough, I felt like the three of us bonded this morning. Poor little guy. Rest in peace Emilio. 

Wordless Wednesday

A little gal and her dog

aka our June Birthday Girls

One will be turning 2, the other 10!

Summer Vacation Newbie

    I admit it. I am a summer vacation newbie. For the first time I will have all three kids home everyday until September. I am a bit scared. Ok, not a bit - a lot! What am I going to do??!!!

    I have been very lucky with my oldest. She was scouted at the high school track by the track coach for the summer recreation running program. (She's only 6.5 years old! Insert proud mama moment here!) We also decided to let her choose an art camp program at a local art store. It's only a week and its only for a few hours a day but she was so over the moon when I took her to sign up. She loves art - just like me! I grew up crafting and sewing and then progressed into painting abstracts and still love doing all of that to this day - that's when I get a free moment to myself that doesn't involve me melting into the couch from extreme tiredness. 

    My little man has not shown any interest in anything that I ask him. No soccer, no art, no track, no karate, nothing. I haven't asked him yet if he wants to do a cooking class at a local grocery store but I have a feeling he'll say no. I can drag him out to the playground and maybe even Geo-caching if I ever decide on which package to purchase but ultimately I think he'd rather be whipping around the yard on the Power Wheels. I did ask him if he was interested in learning to play an instrument.., and he said yes. When I asked him which one he immediately said the drums. Oh joy! So maybe I will have to find someone local or see if the music shop in town does drum lessons.

    As far as my little Bear goes., I dont know what to do. Maybe I can find some play group or toddler gym group so that she can play away from me for a while. I'll have to see what is out there that doesnt involve paying an arm and a leg. I do plan on that whole potty training thing being accomplished - even as I type she's sitting on her plastic potty as we begin the journey. (oh joy)

    Luckily we have a zoo membership and a newly built swing set but there's only so many times I can take them to the zoo while its under construction before we loose interest for a while and I'd prefer not to play outside when the summer noon heat hits. I'd like to do some continuing education but don't really know where to start since I will have a 2yo, PreK and 1st Grader altogether. Perhaps I will start researching now and hope I have some things for rainy days. 

    What do you do with your kiddos during summer vacation? Do you rely on day camps or summer programs?

Homemade hooray!

    When I shop I tend to stock up. With three kids and a Hubs that travels for work - I stock up. I never want to have to drag my kids out to the store because I need something for a meal or chore if I can avoid it. I haven't had to buy laundry soap and dryer sheets in over a year. We are now down to our last few boxes of dryer sheets - and let me just tell you we do at least one load of laundry a day so that's pretty darn good. For a while now I have been interested in dryer balls and how they work without the fragrances and chemicals to soften your laundry. I've had dryer balls in my shopping carts on several online sites and even once at the store but I never have been able to decide if that was what I wanted to "invest" in. 
    The other day I had a set of dryer balls in my virtual cart and I even got as far as "click to confirm your order" screen but I chickened out. My crafty, diy side was screaming "Why cant you make your own? It's gotta be easy peasey!" So I did a web search and found several tutorials on making your own with anything from wool yarn to scrap felt pieces. I even saw a few people suggest using aluminum foil balls - that I just couldn't bring myself to try out. It just sounds wrong but there has been worse things tumbling around in my washer and dryer (thanks to my son and his cargo pockets). 
    So I priced out what it cost to try my hand at making my own. Luckily the wool yarn was on sale AND I used an in-store coupon for another 25% off so scored a few skeins for $2.20 each. 
    I knew from a few tutorials that I could use some of the thousands skeins of acrylic yarn I have sitting around as the core to the balls so that cut down on the amount of wool yarn I would be using. I also read that generally one skein will make about 2 balls - that is assuming that you're making the ball all out of wool yarn. 
    I sat and rolled some acrylic yarn cores and once those were about the size of a golf ball I wrapped the rest with wool yarn to the size of a baseball. I knotted it a ton of times - I lost track because I just kept knotting and knotting after I pulled the yarn through the ball with a crochet hook. I chained them in the leg of some panty hose. By the way I was able to get three ball out of each skein doing the core in acrylic yarn.

(Yes, I worked on these while the kiddos were in bed - hence the pajama pants - haha)

    For the felting process I wanted to shock the dryer balls so I brought a pot to a boil and left them in there for about 20 minutes or so - I might have lost track of the overall time because I did this part while the two younger kiddos were home. I then tossed them in the dryer with a load of towels to start drying them off. That part took the longest but I will admit I tested the whole non-dryer sheets in a few loads while those were drying and they seemed to bounce around enough to prevent static cling. Awesome!!

    Overall I'm pretty happy with being able to get away from dryer sheets and that I was able to make them myself. (Guess what some family members will be getting for Christmas! lol)
    Do you use dryer balls? Have you made them or did you purchase them? Which brand? I think eventually I'd like to pick up a few dryer balls to have on the side - I'm sort of expecting mine to eventually unravel but we shall see. 

Just an observation - sick kids

    I'm not trying to brag but I'm sure it will sound very much like bragging. I'm not trying to boast but I'm sure it will sound like I am doing that. I'm just making a general observation and genuinely wondering if this is a growing a trend and wonder why. 

   Growing up I don't recall being sickly or having to go the doctors a lot. I know that when I went to the school nurse it was rare and when I went I was honest to goodness sick. I know my brother had ear aches and eventually had tubes in but nothing else major. 

    My kids have been on the healthy side since their births. We had a bit of an RSV scare with Bear and TW gave us our very first ear infection but other than those two events we only go to the doctors for yearly wellness checks. We are very, very fortunate to not have any allergies (knocks on wood a bahgillion times).

    I'm chatting about this because I saw on my facebook news feed that my cousin is taking her 1yo in for tubes, this is after last week's post that she was back at the doctors for another ear infection. My other cousin has two children and both have been to the doctors often for sore throats, allergies, ear infections and even for glasses because of allergies. She has even been given a nebulizer for them. I know a few others who have been to the doctors countless times with their children for infections and reactions, etc. 

    Is this the growing trend or am I just more aware now because I'm a mom? 

    I'm not saying that we don't experience stuffy noses or fevers, we just treat them as they come and have been lucky they haven't amounted to anything else (again, with Bear's RSV case set aside). 

    How often do you take your kids to the doctors? Have you had any sicknesses or scares? How do you combat cold and flu season? 

Wordless Wednesday

Lulu's first run of the 2014 season

aka how I spend Mother's Day Morning 

Did you miss me??

    I know it's been a while since I last posted. Honestly, I have been unplugging more lately whether it be to spend more hands on time with one or all kids, or to try out a new project. Last night after a long Mother's Day I whipped up a fun universal tea pot cozy for my Hub's Gram. She mentioned to me at the chicken bbq that her group that gathers to have tea didn't have any cozies - well since I have been honestly blessed being able to learn to sew when I was young and I enjoy a fun yet relatively easy sewing challenge I just had to try it out. 

    I've had the "clean the house" itch like the extreme hoarder's cleaning style itch. I am nearly keeling over in zero patience for a nice string of good weather days to have a yard sale or two for all the kids and baby items I have to just sell. Today before nap time I went through two totes in my younger's closet and created a mountain of clothing items to sell/donate/get rid of. 

    I have been cooking up a storm with the kids in the kitchen, sewing up some fun pieces and trying to enjoy the seasonal weather in between the rain showers. 

    Have you unplugged lately? What's your favorite thing to do when you unplug? 

This galie here loves to create an art piece or two