I made my own yogurt!!

Following the directions found HERE I made my own yogurt last night. It was surprisingly easy.  Put the milk in my 6qt crock pot, turned it on low and walked away for 2 1/2 hours.  Off for 3 hours and then mixed 1/2 cup of store bought yogurt in.  10:45 at night by this time so I covered the pot with towels to keep it insulated and went to bed! Got up in the morning and it was nice and thick on my kitchen counter . . . tasted it, but lukewarm yogurt isn't my favorite so I stuck it in the fridge and we'll have some as a snack today!  I am planning on making "Go-gurts" with some of it and will definitely do this again!

Oh . . . have I mentioned that we've been making our own kefir? It is surprisingly easy to care for and every two days or so we have yummy kefir to drink, mix into smoothies, etc!

The routine wins!

I have my children on a pretty tight routine ... at least when it comes to sleeping ... actually, that may be the ONLY thing that is tight around this house :)  We put them to bed around 9 every night and they are up around 8:30ish in the morning.  We do our thing during the morning and early afternoon and then around 3pm every day I put them down for a rest/nap and then they are up again by 4:30 to make this house of mine a home again!

Yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL Southern California day - in the mid 80's - and both Elizabeth and Josiah were having a blast playing outside in their "fort".  It was getting closer to rest time and I decided to let them stay awake and play.  Tick, tock, tick, tock ... the minutes went by and at 3:30 both children come running inside because they are finished playing!  I changed my plan again and put them down for their rest time.  Usually Elizabeth plays quietly in her room the whole time and Josiah goes to sleep.  I figured that I wouldn't put Josiah to sleep this time, maybe I could get him to bed earlier at night?!  He brought toys in his room and proceeded to play ... aaaah ... I went out to get some filing done for Chris.  30 minutes later Josiah comes out and tells me that he would like his humidifier on, the lights off and for me to tuck him into bed.  Zzzzzzzzzzz ... he slept through his alarm and I had to wake him up at 5ish.  So much for me trying to take away the routine for a day ... he went and took it back!

Bike Bucket Tutorial

I fell in LOVE with this tutorial a few months back when I saw the picture on pinterest (check it out... it's an amazing and fun site) and decided to make one for each child.  So last week, using up scraps of fabric I put it together and here they are!

Our Autumn decorations

     In the middle of October we were driving around seeing all the many decorations up for Halloween.  It made me want to decorate my own house, but with the Harvest/Autumn in mind instead.  We found this tutorial HERE and I proceeded to cut out my tissue paper leaves.  Next time I would make a variety of sizes like she did because I felt like I had made a bunch of colored "football" leaves when I stood back and took it all in!

After gluing them on to the window Elizabeth is painting with black tempura paint

 Josiah's turn, notice the rather "football looking" leaves on the left

 Elle got ahold of my camera

The finished product!

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!!

Fun b-day card to make

Found this  cool card HERE and made it back in October for my Mother-in-law.  It was fun to make and super easy!

Cut out two sets of slightly enlarged hands, traced Elizabeth and Josiah's hands on one side, added the words "We love you"

 

THIS MUCH

This one is definitely a keeper ... don't be surprised if it shows up in your mail box!

Getting my house (LIFE) back in order

My house has been a mess ...

 kitchen

 Dining room/School room

 Other side of dining/school room

I couldn't take it anymore ... I had allowed the mess to rule my life and I couldn't get anything else done!  I found I was avoiding the kitchen and dining rooms but I couldn't any longer!  So yesterday afternoon during the kids naps and while Chris took them to gymnastics I put a good book in my ears (A room with a view) and went to work!

This is how it should look at ALL times ... amazing!!

 No more clutter!!  I think I need to put something on that wall, tho.

What a difference putting the ironing board up makes!

I'm ready to tackle some sewing projects now!

My goal is to keep my house looking this way from now on.  Follow through and self discipline ... which is something I lack and yet it is gift that I wish to give to my children.  How can I  give something to them which I am not myself practicing?  Today is a new day!!

making rags

I saw a cool blog POST about taking the husbands old socks and making rags out of them.  I already use our old socks for dusting but I thought that opening them up could possibly get more use out of them.  I wasn't 100% sold on the idea tho ... seemed like a lot of work for something you were just going to clean with ... UNTIL I remembered the Bridal Shower I was going to this weekend and that I had no present for the bride to be!  I made her a handful of rags that I dyed in blue dye first and then sewed some extra fabric on the back to make them a bit more sturdy.  But you can't just give someone rags for a present .... enter the lavender vinegar that I had just finished making!  I poured some into a bottle and then grabbed the book, "Organic Housekeeping" and put it all together in a basket I had around the house.  It was cute and I felt good about my accomplishments ...

of course today I still had a bunch of old socks lying around that I needed to do something with!  So I grabbed some more old fabric and made over a dozen rags for cleaning around my house.  and I STILL have leftover socks!! 

Here is the pile of old socks

Here are the fabric scraps

Here is my finished product!