Crafty Tuesday - Kool Aid® Play Dough

>> Tuesday, September 29, 2009

I'm finally back for another addition of Crafty Tuesday!  This project I did with little E a few week ago actually & I'm finally posting it for you all.  I thought for sure I took pictures as we mixed it up but I can't seem to find them.  At least I have a picture of the finished product for you. :)



This was really fun to make and smell!  E is too little to really enjoy the fun of helping make it (have to use boiling water), but he definitely had a great time playing with the play dough for the first time.  I've been making this play dough for about 13-14 yrs now.  It is so much fun!  I love that just by adding the Kool Aid® packets you get great colors and smells.  The kids love it too!  Plus unlike the store bought stuff it doesn't crumble and find a new home in your carpet so easy and it lasts a really long time.  I keep it in Ziploc bags stored in the fridge.

Here is the recipe so you can go make some with your kids this week.

Kool Aid® Play Dough

Ingredients:
  • 2 pkgs. kool-aid®
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup salt
  • 2 Tbsp oil 
  • 2 cups boiling water
Directions:
  1. Combine flour, salt, kool-aid®, and oil and mix until water is ready, then add water (be very careful)
  2. Have an adult pour water and stir with spoon until cool enough for child to touch and mix thoroughly with hands. Then let child have the time of his/her life.
Talk about the way the play dough feels, how it smells, the color, what the child wants to make, ect. Most of all have fun!!


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Menu Plan Monday - September 28 - October 2

>> Monday, September 28, 2009


Can you believe the first of October is Thursday? Where does the time go?  It seems like the kids just started school last week and here we are heading into October.  Wow!  I'm going to make a good effort to get the house decorated for autumn and Thanksgiving this week.  I think the kids would enjoy that.  I think our Harvest Festival downtown will be happening soon.  That's always a fun thing to do.  I must check on that, it seems like that is usually the first weekend in October.  They also unveil the pumpkin people that weekend as well, and that is so much fun.  We try to pick a fairly decent weekend day sometime while they are up and take the kids out to get pictures with them.  I'll post a few when we do go.  So cute!


Yesterday I made some of the best zucchini bread ever!  It was a chocolate zucchini bread & I modified the recipe a bit to make it  a bit healthier.  If you would like to try and make some for your family you can find my recipe here.

This weeks menu is probably going to be different than what you are used to seeing here.  This week and probably for a while I am going to include my toddler menu.  I'm basically off the raw diet.  Just for now. I want to go back to it sometime, it's just so expensive to eat that way.  I do feel better when I eat that way too so I know eventually I'll go back to it, just not right now.  That said, I am still going to be having a green smoothie each day.  I need the iron from the greens and the best way to get it, is from the smoothies.  We tend to not chew as well as we should (ever notice the belly ache you get when you eat a lot of raw veggies?) so having the blender do all the work and slowly sipping on the smoothie really helps the digestion of those veggies and we get better benefits from them that way.

So here is this weeks plan:

Breakfast: {pretty much all the kids & I will have the same breakfast}

Monday: Iron-boosted Oatmeal w/a few frozen mixed berries added, juice
Tuesday: Whole grain waffle, diced fruit and 1/4 cup milk
Wednesday: Cottage Cheese -n- fruit, cinnamon toast squares (whole grain bread lightly toasted)
Thursday: French toast, diced fruit, and 1/4 cup milk
Friday: Cream of Wheat (w/cinnamon & organic sugar), fruit and 1/4 cup milk

Mid-Morning Snack: {I'll be having green smoothie & E will likely want to share that too}

Monday: Orange Slices & 1/4 cup milk
Tuesday: Cereal snack & 1/4 cup milk
Wednesday: Muffin & 1/4 cup milk
Thursday:  No-salt bread sticks & hummus dip
Friday:  Fruit slices & 1/4 cup milk

Lunch: {Evan & I will likely have the same lunch}

Monday: Baked chicken nuggets, baked sweet potato fries, diced peaches & 1/4 cup milk
Tuesday:  Whole Wheat cheese pizza, soft cooked veggie sticks & 1/4 cup milk
Wednesday: Vegetable Soup, cheese dough sticks, diced fruit & 1/4 cup milk
Thursday:  Leftover mac & cheese, 1/4 cup strawberries and 1/4 cup milk
Friday: Chicken quesadillas, diced fruit & 1/4 cup milk

Afternoon Snack: {I will have the rest of my smoothie & likely share w/ E}
Monday: French biscuits & 1/4 cup milk
Tuesday: no-salt bread sticks & hummus dip
Wednesday: Apple bread pudding
Thursday: Orange slice & 1/4 cup milk
Friday: yogurt & graham cracker

Supper: {the same for everyone!}
Monday: Potato Kielbasa Skillet and salad


Tuesday: Shepherd's Pie and Salad









Wednesday: Crock pot macaroni & cheese with ham slices, green beans and rolls









Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Pizza

So that's the plan for this week.  How is your menu plan coming along?  If you need more ideas head over to Laura's at I'm an Organizing Junkie for a couple hundred more places you can check out for ideas :)


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Catchin Up

>> Sunday, September 27, 2009

Finally today after over 2.5 weeks of being away I'm back. Honestly it wasn't an intentional leave of absence. If I had known I would have let you all know I was going to be taking a break. So what have I been up to?

Well...the kids started back to school. That is always really hard on me. I really love having all my kids home with me and I get very used to that during the summer months. Not to mention the lovely mornings of getting up late (usually after 8am, which is nice compared to the 6:30am school schedule)and having fun during the day. So the return of school is always bittersweet for me. For some reason it was even more so this year. Usually by the time the end of August arrives I'm starting to crave a little more routine. Not this year. Summer break seemed unusually short to me and I wasn't ready to jump back in. Since I have very little say in the matter the kids are back into school and so far they are really enjoying it. I'm settling into a routine of sorts, and while I can't say I'm great with them being gone all day; I am however okay with it.

About a week after school started I really started struggling with my health. Some of this has been going on for quite a long time (like since before I became pregnant with E)and it has just gradually been getting worse. Basically my symptoms were extreme fatigue and pain all over my body. It was like having the flu but not having the flu. One day I could feel decent - not great but decent, and the next just being awake would be painful. I'm seeing my dr now and after the first round of tests we found out I am deficient in iron and vitamin B12. So he has me eating more dark green veggies (I've been basically off the raw diet since June) and taking a vitamin B12 supplement for now. I'll go back in a month and we'll draw levels again. Hopefully I will be feeling much better by then but if not we'll also have to look at some other things. I think a lot of this came to a head due to some not so pleasant things I've been having to work through these last few weeks as well. I think it was all just to much and my body couldn't cope the way it was before. Anyhow so far the supplement and greens seem to be helping to a degree. My energy seems to be a bit better now, hopefully the pain will subside too.

With all of this going on, I've decided (sorta-kinda) that I need to work on weaning E a little bit. He is no where near ready to wean completely and I'm okay with that, however I do need him to nurse a little bit less through the day and at night would be even better. To give you an idea of how much he nurses - sometimes I swear he nurses like he's a newborn and not an 18 month old. That's a lot of hours spent nursing and it is exhausting me. So I've spent some time working on a menu for him to try getting him to eat more so that he'll not want to nurse as much. Some days it goes really well and he eats great. Which means less time spent nursing. Other days it's typical toddler-dome - very little eating and he wants to nurse more those days. For my menu plan Monday I am going to start sharing my toddler menus (and possibly recipes) so if you have a toddler or soon will, you might want to check back for that. I've tried to come up with some really healthy yet yummy ideas for him. Hopefully they'll help some of you out as well. One of the biggest reasons I had to sit down and actually make a menu for him was because I would stand at the cupboards wondering what to make him every single day. I'm sure I'm not the only one that does that and the menu really helps me. I also feel like I am feeding him better now and that makes me feel good too.

Oh! I almost forgot! I have a couple of product reviews I will be doing soon. :) One is for Soap Nuts from the Eco Bebe Boutique. The other is a planner from Dotmine. I'm really excited to tell you about these products and I might have a giveaway or two or three up my sleeve. ;)  So you'll definitely come back and see what is going on with that.  Some very exciting things I think :).

I'll be back tomorrow with a brand new Menu Plan Monday - hope to see you then! xx


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Holiday Grand Plan - Week Five

Holiday Baking
Buy at AllPosters.com

Well, here we are on week five already. How are your plans going? I am so far behind on the holiday aspects of this plan. I'm really trying hard not to panic and to not just quit. Just going to pick up this week like I'm not really (that far) behind and try to get done what I can. I keep saying anything done is better than nothing, but the last 3 weeks nothing was really done. That is discouraging but it's not like Christmas is next week so I should just keep plugging along.

This week the focus on the Holiday Grand Plan site is the Master Bathroom. Yeah, I am not doing that this week. I will be doing FlyLady's zone. For me that is the living room, entry and front porch.

My Goals for This Week:

*Holiday Prep*
  1. Make one batch of Holiday Goodies.
  2. Make one extra meal for freezer again labeled HOLIDAY MEAL.
  3. Buy two canned food items from menus (get 2 of each item, one to use and one to donate to food drive).
  4. Buy 1/8th of TO BUY gifts. Save all receipts, note return policy before buying. Ask for gift boxes
  5. Wrap and label packages. If needing to ship, get some shipping boxes now and store packages in them.
  6. Work at least 1 hour a day on homemade gifts.
  7. Take toys and books that are outgrown, clean them up and prepare them for donation to toy drives.
  8. Make list of toys and books that children would enjoy and that would fit in their rooms and that would work with what they have. Keep it hand for telling family what they would like.
  9. Inventory clothing and have another list of clothing items needed. Measure the children and put measurements on this list.
  10. Decorate for Fall & Thanksgiving
  11. Review and revise menus and other plans
  12. Plan table setting
  13. Plan centerpiece
*Chores - FlyLady zone 5. For me that is the living room, entry, and front porch.

      1. Living room
          - Wash Walls
          - Wash Curtains
          - Clean window, windowsill and screens
          - Windex pictures & mirror
          - Dust and/or vacuum furniture
          - Vacuum floor
      2. Entry
          - Wash door in and out
          - Wash blinds
          - Wash walls
          - Dust
          - Straighten closet
          - Sweep and mop
      3. Front Porch
          - Sweep down cobwebs
          - Sweep off porch
          - Shake door mat
          - Paint front door

What are you going to do this week for the holiday prep? Have you started or do you usually wait until closer to Christmas?

To see what others are up to this week, take a look at these blogs:
Candace at Diary of a FlyBaby
Diane at DianeDenmark
Kelly at Life at the Quinn Home
Pippa at A Mother's Ramblings


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Holiday Grand Plan - Week Four

>> Sunday, September 20, 2009

This post was actually written and posted on Septemeber 27,2009. I wanted to keep the information in order for those who are following along with the plan though.

Autumn Road

Autumn Road Art Print Romanello, Diane
Buy at AllPosters.com


Welcome to week four of the Holiday Grand Plan. According to the HGP site the focus this week is on the Master Bedroom.  What do you know, that follows a long with my FlyLady schedule as well.  Although I will also be cleaning in my son's room as well.

My Goals for This Week:

*Holiday Prep*
  1. Make one batch of Holiday Goodies.
  2. Make one extra meal for freezer again labeled HOLIDAY MEAL.
  3. Buy two canned food items from menus (get 2 of each item, one to use and one to donate to food drive).
  4. Buy 1/8th of TO BUY gifts. Save all receipts, note return policy before buying. Ask for gift boxes
  5. Wrap and label packages. If needing to ship, get some shipping boxes now and store packages in them.
  6. Work at least 1 hour a day on homemade gifts.
  7. Make list of any table and bathroom linens that need replacing before the holidays, and pick up a few each week.
  8. Decorate for Fall
  9. Check serving pieces for holiday meals.

*Chores - FlyLady zone 4, for me that is the master bedroom & my son's room*

      1. Master Bedroom
          - Wash walls
          - Clean ceiling fan
          - Wash curtains & blinds
          - Clean windows, windowsills & screens
          - Wash bedding & pillows
          - Vacuum & flip mattress
          - Straighten drawers & closet
          - Dust furniture
          - Sweep & mop

      2. Bub's Room
          - Wash walls         
          - Clean ceiling fan
          - Wash curtains & blinds
          - Clean windows, windowsills & screens
          - Wash bedding & pillows
          - Vacuum & flip mattress
          - Straighten drawers & closet
          - Straighten bookcase
          - Dust furniture
          - Sweep & mop

Again this week nothing much was accomplished.  Although over Labour Day weekend DH & I did pretty much do the zone for the master bedroom.  There was only a few things that we didn't get to, so I'll hopefully get to those next month.

And come to think I did work on stocking the freezer with things. I know it wasn't actual meals but there were some good sales and I have stocked the freezer with meat. I've also been working on a breakfast freezer session, so there are muffins and egg mc mom's in there. So I guess that's something. :)


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Holiday Grand Plan - Week Three

>> Sunday, September 13, 2009

This post was actually written and posted on Septemeber 27,2009. I wanted to keep the information in order for those who are following along with the plan though.

This week is week three of the Holiday Grand Plan.  According to the HGP site the focus is entry/foyer week.  Well, I do my cleaning according to FlyLady zones, so this week for me is the Bathroom & my daughter's room.

My Goals For This Week:

*Holiday Prep*

  1. Make one batch of Holiday Goodies.
  2. Make one extra meal for freezer again labeled HOLIDAY MEAL.
  3. Buy two canned food items from Menus (get 2 of each item, one to use and one to donate to food drive).
  4. Keep 2 boxes in a pantry area or storage place to put these in so that they are not used in everyday cooking - make sure to label them so that when food drives start your holiday supply stays intact and the food drive gets the food purchased for it.
  5. Buy all supplies for homemade gifts. Package each project with directions and other information in zipper food storage bag and place in a basket or box in craft/sewing area.
  6. Buy film, camera batteries, blank videotapes. Hide them; write yourself a note.
  7. Plan Thanksgiving dinner using the holiday menu planner (our Thanksgiving is October 12)
Thanksgiving Smoke Coming out of Fireplace

Thanksgiving Smoke Coming out of Fireplace Art Print
Buy at AllPosters.com

*Chores - FlyLady zone 3, for me that is the bathroom & my daughter's room*

      1. Bathroom
          - Wash rug, linens & shower curtain
          - Wash walls
          - Dust vents & fan
          - Wash light fixtures
          - Clean window, windowsill & screen
          - Scrub tub, toilet, sink & counter
          - Clean & organize cabinets and drawers
          - Empty & wash trash can
          - Sweep & mop floor

      2. Bean's Bedroom
          - Wash walls
          - Wash curtains & blinds
          - Wash light fixtures
          - Clean windows, windowsills & screen
          - Wash bedding & pillows
          - Vacuum & flip mattress
          - Straighten drawers & closet
          - Dust furniture
          - Clean under bed
          - Sweep & mop floor
    So since this is being posted at a later date, I'll tell you not much of this was actually accomplished.  Been dealing with some health issues that basically stopped me in my tracks for a few weeks.  More on that in another post though.  I'm a little stressed about how far behind I am in the holiday prep part of things, but really not worried about the cleaning part.  Since I follow (try to anyhow) FlyLady zones I know those zones will be repeated next month & hopefully I'll be up for getting more done.

    You can check out how well the other girl's are doing on their plan here:
    Candace at Diary of a FlyBaby
    Diane at DianeDenmark
    Kelly at Life at the Quinn Home
    Pippa at A Mother's Ramblings


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    Holiday Grand Plan - Week Two

    >> Sunday, September 6, 2009


     Bean feeding the reindeer on Christmas Eve

    Wow I can't believe how fast week one went.  I did get a fair amount of the work I had listed done,but I'll admit I didn't get many of the lists done.  The week was a bit off with the kids going back to school. I haven't quite settled into a new routine yet but it's getting there.  I'll be carrying over what lists I have to finish to this week, maybe I can get some of them done today.  You can check here to see what my plans were for last week & what I was actually able to get done.  I think I did well. :)

    So here we are in week two of the plan.  This week is question week. If you're following the HGP cleaning plan the focus is on the living room, but for me I'm doing the Flylady zone so I'll be working in the kitchen.

    My goals for the week are:

    *Answer these questions:
    1. Do I see Christmas time primarily as a time for entertaining friends and renewing long lost acquaintances or as a time for family?
    2. How much emphasis do our Christmas activities place on the spiritual side of Christmas?
    3. How involved is my family in the Christmas preparation?
    4. What activities are particularly important to our family at Christmas? To myself?
    5. Why do we observe the traditions we do in our house?
    6. How important is an elaborately decorated house, homemade gifts or food, to my feelings about Christmas?
    7. What would my ideal Christmas be like?
     *Holiday Prep
    1. Buy extra flour, sugar, shortening, etc.
    2. Make one extra meal for the freezer labeled HOLIDAY MEAL. This should be large enough to feed the family plus two people.
    3. Develop ideas for gifts, decorations
    4. Buy Christmas Card envelopes and address
    *Chores - Flylady zone 2, for me that is the Kitchen
    1. Wash walls
    2. Clean knick knacks
    3. Wash light fixtures
    4. Wash blinds
    5. Clean windows & screens
    6. Clean all appliance inside & out - fridge, stove, microwave
    7. Straighten & wash all cabinets and drawers
    8. Clean trash can
    9. Shine sink
    10. Sweep & mop floor
    So that is my plan for this week, we'll see what I am actually able to accomplish.  No matter what anything is better than nothing!
    How did your planning go last week?
    Are you starting to feel more excited about getting ready for Christmas?

    Several others are also blogging about their Christmas preparations. You can find them all here & if you are just joining us please put your name & the link to your blog post about this week's Christmas prep in Mr. Linky.  Then we can all see what you are busy doing & come cheer you on!

    Candace at Diary of a FlyBaby
    Diane at DianeDenmark
    Kelly at Life at the Quinn Home
    Pippa at A Mother's Ramblings


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    Wordless Wednesday - A Day of Firsts

    >> Wednesday, September 2, 2009

    First day of grade 7 (He's 12 - can you tell?)

    First day of grade 4. At least she's happier ;).

    First time playing with play dough. :)


    Wordless Wednesday is sponsored by GeneaBloggers,
    but the main site for WW entries is here.


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