On drinking more water
One of my new year's resolutions was to drink more water. I've really seen a difference in how much less dry my face is, how some bathroom issues have gone away (just keepin' it real :) ), and how it helps me not mindlessly snack. Plus, I'm sure it's just good for my overall health and I need lots of liquids when I'm nursing.
I found that just having a large water bottle filled up was not working for me. I'd forget to bring it up or down stairs and there was no reward in feeling like I was making any progress in finishing that large amount.
What I found has worked best of all, consistently over the past few weeks is to have a clear glass (mine is about 12-14 ounces or so) with a straw in it sitting on the kitchen island with the Brita water pitcher sitting next to it all day long. I fill it up in the morning and each time I finish a glass (which I try to do all in one sitting), I fill it right back up. That gives me a visual reminder that I need to drink another glass at some point. For me, with nursing, I tried to drink a glass around each time that I nursed Maggie.
What works with me also works pretty well with the girls. I filled up two more identical (to mine) glasses about halfway with water and put in a straw each. When theirs are empty, I fill them up halfway again. They drink a small, diluted cup of oj at breakfast and a glass of milk at lunch and dinner, but with the water right there, they have also started drinking it at any meal we eat at the island (most breakfasts and lunches).
I know what works for us won't necessarily work for others, but just thought I'd share it. If anyone is still reading this blog, let me know how you make sure you are drinking enough water everyday.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Our newly painted room
Before:
After:
Thanks to Nate's mom for coming up just to paint our room before Half Pint is born. Then she also let us go on a breakfast date, took us all out for a belated birthday dinner for me, weeded and weed-whacked our front area, and spent time playing with the girls so we could put our room back together. She's a wonderful MIL!
Before:
After:
Thanks to Nate's mom for coming up just to paint our room before Half Pint is born. Then she also let us go on a breakfast date, took us all out for a belated birthday dinner for me, weeded and weed-whacked our front area, and spent time playing with the girls so we could put our room back together. She's a wonderful MIL!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Revisiting goals
I thought I'd check in on which goals I've kept (or dropped) from the beginning of this year:
I thought I'd check in on which goals I've kept (or dropped) from the beginning of this year:
2010 goals
1. Get to bed by 11pm. (kept off and on... more off than on!--mostly I get to bed by midnight or 12:30 am)
2. Get up by 6am. (lately I've been up around 7ish)
3. Date night with Nate once a week (at home or out). (we do rarely go out, but have had a few dates when visiting family or having family visit us. A couple of times a week we watch our "shows" together.)
4. Pick a homeschool curriculum to use (when Becca is 6). (decided to do a curriculum earlier--picked Sonlight and are using it now)
5. Teach Becca to read. (this is on hold until she is more interested)
6. Memorize one new Bible passage with the girls a month. (we dropped worship times for a while, but are now doing them at breakfast with Nathan too. Right now we're finishing up memorizing Psalm 100)
7. Read one book each month. (If I add up the books I've read this year, I think I've read at least 8, so I'm on track)
8. Physical activity with girls each day. (so bad at this right now... but I'm pregnant and it's been HOT, so I'm not worrying about it)
9. Finish Ally's scrapbook. (YES! I can officially say this is done!!!)
10. Learn to knit socks. (I'm doing this very soon! I have a book requested at the library and have to go buy the yarn, but I'm excited to learn. I've been on a knitting kick.)
11. Catch up on photo albums. (713 photos are on the way from Snapfish (they had free shipping and I was WAY behind) and that will have me caught up to about a year ago. Still many photos to get, but I'm getting closer. Now just need to find a good deal on albums I like)
12. Call grandmothers 2-4 times a month. (One of my grandmothers died a few months ago, so I just have one left to make sure I call. I've probably talked or emailed with her once or twice each month.)
13. Email with brothers and sister-in-law once a month. (Getting better, but not great)
14. Learn to make sourdough bread and starters and such. (This is on hold until a different season, but I did just get an ice cream maker and want to learn to do ice cream, so I'm switching goals for now. :D)
15. Take one day (Saturday, most likely) a month to go hiking as a family. (Totally not doing this, but maybe when kids are a bit older or I'm not pregnant)
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Homeschool update
We've been doing school for almost two months now. Not always consistently three mornings a week, we did take time off to go on a couple of trips or because we were recovering from said trips or to go to the state fair, but I feel pretty good about how much we've done so far. It's one of the things we like about homeschooling, right? The flexibility to take time off when we need it, or even to do school in the car on the way to Texas (which we did and it was a good way to pass some of the long days on the road).
Our Mondays are supposed to be nature walk mornings. We've actually only been to three parks because it's been so hot. One to have a real nature walk, another to visit the nature center and then play on the playground, and the last to play in the creek and then at the spray park and playground there too. On the other Mondays we went to the Children's museum a few times, had a play date with a friend, and were traveling.
We've been not so consistent on our morning walks because we don't often get up on time. And the past couple days we've tried to take walks this week have ended in tantrums from one of us. :) So I'm hesitant to go again this week. We were having a worship time (which includes a short Bible story, a few Catechism questions we're working on, a Bible passage we're memorizing, prayer and sometimes some songs) right before we started our school "work", but the past few days we've gotten up early enough to do a worship time at breakfast and have Nate join us, which has been very nice. I'm hoping we can continue doing that until Half Pint is born.
We start school time with a preschool activity, as I call it, which works on preschool skills**. The favorites have been:
1. Using tweezers to sort craft puff balls or beans.
2. Playing follow the leader to work on gross motor skills--walking backwards, hopping, running, skipping, marching, etc.
3. Playing Go Fish with cards that have alphabet letters on them.
4. Using a dropper to transfer colored water (red, blue, and yellow) to an egg carton--talked about mixing two colors to make a new color too.
5. Playing memory--regular memory game or have used number cards (from deck of cards), cards with colors, shapes, etc.
6. Hammering tees into styrofoam
7. Memorizing address and phone number to the tune of "London Bridge" and then playing London Bridge while we practiced it
8. Using small pitchers to pour water into containers--I took old plastic containers and drew lines on them to practice pouring up to the line. Ally didn't really pay attention to the lines, but Becca did. I recommend doing this outside.
9. Drawing in salt--poured salt into a shallow box, drawer, or baking pan and use fingers or toothpicks or other tools to draw in it. We did this outside today.
10. Bean bag toss and catch--tossed to each other and also tossed into a container from different distances
Next is supposed to be reading lessons with Becca, but we've set them aside yet again. I'm trying to be patient and let her choose when to do the reading lessons. To force her to do it or set up some reward system would be frustrating and not worth it, I think. The reward for learning to read is knowing how to do it and enjoying the books you can read on your own. And I know she loves books. We read plenty and she listens to many books on CD. I think Nate and I both expected her to read much earlier because we do read so many books and it's hard having some friends with kids who have started reading at 4 or even 3-years-old. But I have to just stop looking at other kids and let Becca do it at her own pace. She can read some Bob books and short vowel sound words. So anyway, all that is to say, reading lessons are on hold.
Then we do a math activity. Favorites have been:
1. Sorting and counting M&Ms--then recording our numbers and deciding which is least, most, and equal--and eating them!!
2. Playing with pattern blocks to make our own designs and also using printouts from prekinders.com/pattern-blocks/.
3. Counting and sorting colored pasta or types of pasta.
4. Using rulers to measure different size straws and then measuring other things around the room--we measure to the nearest inch.
5. Practicing counting by 5s and 10s--we did this while sorting coins and by counting nickels from their bed time nickel jars.
6. Playing Uno with just the number cards.
7. Playing War with the number cards from a deck of cards.
8. Playing Go Fish with number cards from a deck of cards.
Lastly we do our read-alouds from the Sonlight P4/5 curriculum. We crunch 5 days of reading into 3, usually. Though this sounds like a lot, it really isn't that much at this level. Becca does a narration from one of our readings and Ally does one every once in a while, and I copy them down into their notebooks. Becca has gotten much more thorough in her narrations as we've gone along. We just read and enjoy the other stories. Then both girls do a few pages from their workbooks. Ally is doing the Kumon First book of Tracing. Becca is doing the readiness workbooks that come with the Sonlight curriculum. Both like doing them a lot.
I've found some of the readings from the P4/5 level to be good. I like the Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book and Uncle Wiggly's Storybook the best.
That's it. It sounds like a lot when I type it all out, but at the most it takes us 2 hours to get through it all.
**So this part is confusing to me. Ally is preschool age, but Becca could really be considered kindergarten age. She has friends in both grades and I'm not sure what to group her in. The curriculum we're using is a pre-k curriculum, but in some ways I'd consider her in K. I guess it doesn't really matter, but it is something that's bothered me.
We've been doing school for almost two months now. Not always consistently three mornings a week, we did take time off to go on a couple of trips or because we were recovering from said trips or to go to the state fair, but I feel pretty good about how much we've done so far. It's one of the things we like about homeschooling, right? The flexibility to take time off when we need it, or even to do school in the car on the way to Texas (which we did and it was a good way to pass some of the long days on the road).
Our Mondays are supposed to be nature walk mornings. We've actually only been to three parks because it's been so hot. One to have a real nature walk, another to visit the nature center and then play on the playground, and the last to play in the creek and then at the spray park and playground there too. On the other Mondays we went to the Children's museum a few times, had a play date with a friend, and were traveling.
We've been not so consistent on our morning walks because we don't often get up on time. And the past couple days we've tried to take walks this week have ended in tantrums from one of us. :) So I'm hesitant to go again this week. We were having a worship time (which includes a short Bible story, a few Catechism questions we're working on, a Bible passage we're memorizing, prayer and sometimes some songs) right before we started our school "work", but the past few days we've gotten up early enough to do a worship time at breakfast and have Nate join us, which has been very nice. I'm hoping we can continue doing that until Half Pint is born.
We start school time with a preschool activity, as I call it, which works on preschool skills**. The favorites have been:
1. Using tweezers to sort craft puff balls or beans.
2. Playing follow the leader to work on gross motor skills--walking backwards, hopping, running, skipping, marching, etc.
3. Playing Go Fish with cards that have alphabet letters on them.
4. Using a dropper to transfer colored water (red, blue, and yellow) to an egg carton--talked about mixing two colors to make a new color too.
5. Playing memory--regular memory game or have used number cards (from deck of cards), cards with colors, shapes, etc.
6. Hammering tees into styrofoam
7. Memorizing address and phone number to the tune of "London Bridge" and then playing London Bridge while we practiced it
8. Using small pitchers to pour water into containers--I took old plastic containers and drew lines on them to practice pouring up to the line. Ally didn't really pay attention to the lines, but Becca did. I recommend doing this outside.
9. Drawing in salt--poured salt into a shallow box, drawer, or baking pan and use fingers or toothpicks or other tools to draw in it. We did this outside today.
10. Bean bag toss and catch--tossed to each other and also tossed into a container from different distances
Next is supposed to be reading lessons with Becca, but we've set them aside yet again. I'm trying to be patient and let her choose when to do the reading lessons. To force her to do it or set up some reward system would be frustrating and not worth it, I think. The reward for learning to read is knowing how to do it and enjoying the books you can read on your own. And I know she loves books. We read plenty and she listens to many books on CD. I think Nate and I both expected her to read much earlier because we do read so many books and it's hard having some friends with kids who have started reading at 4 or even 3-years-old. But I have to just stop looking at other kids and let Becca do it at her own pace. She can read some Bob books and short vowel sound words. So anyway, all that is to say, reading lessons are on hold.
Then we do a math activity. Favorites have been:
1. Sorting and counting M&Ms--then recording our numbers and deciding which is least, most, and equal--and eating them!!
2. Playing with pattern blocks to make our own designs and also using printouts from prekinders.com/pattern-blocks/.
3. Counting and sorting colored pasta or types of pasta.
4. Using rulers to measure different size straws and then measuring other things around the room--we measure to the nearest inch.
5. Practicing counting by 5s and 10s--we did this while sorting coins and by counting nickels from their bed time nickel jars.
6. Playing Uno with just the number cards.
7. Playing War with the number cards from a deck of cards.
8. Playing Go Fish with number cards from a deck of cards.
Lastly we do our read-alouds from the Sonlight P4/5 curriculum. We crunch 5 days of reading into 3, usually. Though this sounds like a lot, it really isn't that much at this level. Becca does a narration from one of our readings and Ally does one every once in a while, and I copy them down into their notebooks. Becca has gotten much more thorough in her narrations as we've gone along. We just read and enjoy the other stories. Then both girls do a few pages from their workbooks. Ally is doing the Kumon First book of Tracing. Becca is doing the readiness workbooks that come with the Sonlight curriculum. Both like doing them a lot.
I've found some of the readings from the P4/5 level to be good. I like the Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book and Uncle Wiggly's Storybook the best.
That's it. It sounds like a lot when I type it all out, but at the most it takes us 2 hours to get through it all.
**So this part is confusing to me. Ally is preschool age, but Becca could really be considered kindergarten age. She has friends in both grades and I'm not sure what to group her in. The curriculum we're using is a pre-k curriculum, but in some ways I'd consider her in K. I guess it doesn't really matter, but it is something that's bothered me.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tomato sadness and growing basil
Our basil did fairly well in our Earthbox this summer, though we had some yellowing and something is eating some of it. I've gotten quite a big of pesto, dried some basil in our dehydrator, used some in tomato basil soup, and put some on our pizza, so I'm pretty happy that I've gotten my money's worth. I'm feeling pretty good about how much I've used considering this is the summer of neglect when it comes to gardening (due to being pregnant). You don't even want to see my regular garden, but Nate took a picture of it the other day, so here it is:
Pretty sad, I know. No edible plants left in there, just crab grass and vines and such. It will be quite a job to unearth it and next summer I'll definitely be mulching with something. Not sure what the best thing to mulch with is.
The tomatoes are not doing so well this year. I'm not sure if it is blossom end rot or blight, but we are not getting much. It's sad. I'm going to give it a try again next year and see if we can do better. I need someone to tell me whether it's blight or not, though, so I know if I should start over with new dirt next year. I hate to do that, since I already haven't gotten anywhere near my money's worth for what I paid for the box. Oh, and many of our tomatoes have been splitting too. Sigh.
Our basil did fairly well in our Earthbox this summer, though we had some yellowing and something is eating some of it. I've gotten quite a big of pesto, dried some basil in our dehydrator, used some in tomato basil soup, and put some on our pizza, so I'm pretty happy that I've gotten my money's worth. I'm feeling pretty good about how much I've used considering this is the summer of neglect when it comes to gardening (due to being pregnant). You don't even want to see my regular garden, but Nate took a picture of it the other day, so here it is:
Pretty sad, I know. No edible plants left in there, just crab grass and vines and such. It will be quite a job to unearth it and next summer I'll definitely be mulching with something. Not sure what the best thing to mulch with is.
The tomatoes are not doing so well this year. I'm not sure if it is blossom end rot or blight, but we are not getting much. It's sad. I'm going to give it a try again next year and see if we can do better. I need someone to tell me whether it's blight or not, though, so I know if I should start over with new dirt next year. I hate to do that, since I already haven't gotten anywhere near my money's worth for what I paid for the box. Oh, and many of our tomatoes have been splitting too. Sigh.
Feeding a large group
I'm trying to keep track of what I've been making for dinners since we started a community group with our church. We meet once a week and provide the main dish. Others bring side dishes, drinks, and sometimes dessert.
In no particular order:
Texas Chicken Enchiladas
Pasta with classic pesto (love the classic pesto recipe in The New Best Recipe... I use walnuts instead of pine nuts)
Pasta with homemade spaghetti sauce (tomato-meat sauce)
Breakfast for dinner (my favorite!--we do it once a month)--I mostly make egg casseroles, but I want to do french toast casserole too
Ham and potato soup
Appetizers for dinner (I made two appetizers--deviled eggs and spinach-artichoke dip--and every else brought one)
We have yet to try:
Chili
Lasagna
Lentil and sausage soup/stew
I'm trying to keep track of what I've been making for dinners since we started a community group with our church. We meet once a week and provide the main dish. Others bring side dishes, drinks, and sometimes dessert.
In no particular order:
Texas Chicken Enchiladas
Pasta with classic pesto (love the classic pesto recipe in The New Best Recipe... I use walnuts instead of pine nuts)
Pasta with homemade spaghetti sauce (tomato-meat sauce)
Breakfast for dinner (my favorite!--we do it once a month)--I mostly make egg casseroles, but I want to do french toast casserole too
Ham and potato soup
Appetizers for dinner (I made two appetizers--deviled eggs and spinach-artichoke dip--and every else brought one)
We have yet to try:
Chili
Lasagna
Lentil and sausage soup/stew
Protein Bars and Doughnuts
Two recipes to share:
First, the protein bars. I tweak them a little bit.
I don't have a Blendtec blender (yet!) or a powerful food processor, so I skip the dried fruit and make them in the stand mixer.
I also used almond meal (ground up almonds) from Trader Joe's.
I used flax meal, Bob's Red Mill brand, which I keep in our fridge.
I use salted peanut butter (I've used the Smucker's Natural brand the past two times) and omit the sea salt.
I also used the honey and the chocolate chips.
They are yummy and the girls like them too. Nate is not a huge fan, but that means more for us. :)
Second, the baked doughnuts.
I had to cut this recipe in half because it would have made way too many for us to consume in one sitting. Even cut in half, we saved a couple for later. They were still pretty good. I think we'll do these for Christmas instead of cinnamon rolls.
The girls had fun cutting the dough into shapes and, of course, eating them!
Just a note, these are messy to eat. Mostly because of the sugar on the outside. We had sugar all over the floor. Just a warning. :)
Two recipes to share:
First, the protein bars. I tweak them a little bit.
I don't have a Blendtec blender (yet!) or a powerful food processor, so I skip the dried fruit and make them in the stand mixer.
I also used almond meal (ground up almonds) from Trader Joe's.
I used flax meal, Bob's Red Mill brand, which I keep in our fridge.
I use salted peanut butter (I've used the Smucker's Natural brand the past two times) and omit the sea salt.
I also used the honey and the chocolate chips.
They are yummy and the girls like them too. Nate is not a huge fan, but that means more for us. :)
Second, the baked doughnuts.
I had to cut this recipe in half because it would have made way too many for us to consume in one sitting. Even cut in half, we saved a couple for later. They were still pretty good. I think we'll do these for Christmas instead of cinnamon rolls.
The girls had fun cutting the dough into shapes and, of course, eating them!
Just a note, these are messy to eat. Mostly because of the sugar on the outside. We had sugar all over the floor. Just a warning. :)
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Homeschool stuff
This is our basic schedule and what we are doing this year, starting last week. It's very flexible. Tomorrow we are taking a day off because we have other plans. Next Tuesday we have to take off because I have to take the three-hour glucose test. But we'll get through it.
Our basic weekly schedule is this:
Monday:
Breakfast
Worship time (consists of 2 songs that they choose and they can dance and play instruments while we all sing, Bible story that we all sit still for, beginning catechism questions we're working on, memorization--Apostles' Creed right now, and then one of us says a short prayer)
Nature walk and play at a park (BRP, HAP, HP, etc)
Lunch
Rest time
Art/Handicraft (embroidery, collages, painting, weaving)
Etc.
After dinner this day we try to look up leaves that we found on our nature walk
Tuesday-Thursday:
Morning walk
Breakfast
Worship time
Preschool activity (something to work on some preschool skill or fine or gross motor skill)
Phonics/Learning to read (Becca does this--Ally usually sits with us)
Math activity (to work on counting, sorting, calendar, telling time, money, adding, recognizing numbers, patterns, comparing, measuring, etc)
Sonlight curriculum (Read alouds from Sonlight. Also, Becca does a readiness workbook and Ally has My First Book of Tracing by Kumon. Both Ally and Becca narrate to me after I read them a nursery rhyme or a paragraph or two from our readings, and I write what they say in their narration notebooks. Then they get to draw a picture. They are not really getting it yet, and are probably too young to start, but I just wanted to get in the habit of doing it.)
Play
Lunch
Rest time
Play/Computer time (one of the days)
Etc.
Friday:
Morning walk
Breakfast
Worship time
Get together with friends or run errands or clean or bake or just relax
Lunch
Rest time
Play
Library after Nathan gets done with work
Dinner
Etc.
This is our basic schedule and what we are doing this year, starting last week. It's very flexible. Tomorrow we are taking a day off because we have other plans. Next Tuesday we have to take off because I have to take the three-hour glucose test. But we'll get through it.
Our basic weekly schedule is this:
Monday:
Breakfast
Worship time (consists of 2 songs that they choose and they can dance and play instruments while we all sing, Bible story that we all sit still for, beginning catechism questions we're working on, memorization--Apostles' Creed right now, and then one of us says a short prayer)
Nature walk and play at a park (BRP, HAP, HP, etc)
Lunch
Rest time
Art/Handicraft (embroidery, collages, painting, weaving)
Etc.
After dinner this day we try to look up leaves that we found on our nature walk
Tuesday-Thursday:
Morning walk
Breakfast
Worship time
Preschool activity (something to work on some preschool skill or fine or gross motor skill)
Phonics/Learning to read (Becca does this--Ally usually sits with us)
Math activity (to work on counting, sorting, calendar, telling time, money, adding, recognizing numbers, patterns, comparing, measuring, etc)
Sonlight curriculum (Read alouds from Sonlight. Also, Becca does a readiness workbook and Ally has My First Book of Tracing by Kumon. Both Ally and Becca narrate to me after I read them a nursery rhyme or a paragraph or two from our readings, and I write what they say in their narration notebooks. Then they get to draw a picture. They are not really getting it yet, and are probably too young to start, but I just wanted to get in the habit of doing it.)
Play
Lunch
Rest time
Play/Computer time (one of the days)
Etc.
Friday:
Morning walk
Breakfast
Worship time
Get together with friends or run errands or clean or bake or just relax
Lunch
Rest time
Play
Library after Nathan gets done with work
Dinner
Etc.
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