Be a blessing to...

Your Child's Teacher!

I can't think of a better way to thank the person that teaches your child(ren) than with things they actually care about.  It does no good to get your child's teacher a Starbucks card if they don't like Starbucks. (Right mom?!) Not to mention, if you will take 5 or 10 minutes to get this typed up and printed it will save you TONS of time when you want to get them something special.  It eliminates most of the standing at the store, trying to figure what someone that you don't know that well, might actually like. For me, it has been so simple and I can usually put together something small very quickly.  In fact, I made Rylee's teacher and teacher's aid both Easter baskets and I was in and out of Target in about 15 minutes with everything I needed.  Here are the questions that I used:

20 Questions!

Teacher________________________

This is a fun little twist.  Instead of asking you 20 questions that you care nothing about, these are 20 questions to help me get to know you better! Please answer honestly. If you don’t it won’t benefit you like I hope it will.  I don’t want to be the reason you need to start a garage sale box!

1.     Where is your favorite place to get a morning drink from?

_______________________________________

2.   What is your favorite fast food restaurant? _______________________________________

3.   What is your favorite candy bar?

_______________________________________

4.   What is your favorite drink?

_______________________________________

5.   What is your favorite sit down restaurant?

_______________________________________

6.   What is your favorite clothing store to shop at?

_______________________________________

7.    What are your favorite flowers?

_______________________________________

8.   What is your favorite brand of pens?

_______________________________________

9.   What is your favorite Bath and Body scent?

_______________________________________

10. What is your favorite home scent?

_______________________________________

11.    What is your favorite dessert?

_______________________________________

12.  What is your favorite way to relax?

_______________________________________

 

13.  What is your favorite color?

_______________________________________

14.  When is your birthday?

_______________________________________

15.  What kind of music do you like?

_______________________________________

16.  Which is your favorite genre of movies?

_______________________________________

17.   Where is your favorite place to shop?

_______________________________________

18.  What is your favorite kind of food?

_______________________________________

19.  What is your favorite snack?

_______________________________________

20.  Are you married?   Yes      No      Children?     Yes       No

(If so, how many?)_______________

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this silly survey.  We are fully aware of how overworked and underpaid teachers are.  We want you to know that we will never take what you are doing in our child’s life for granted.  We know that the way we are able to give back to you is in no way a comparison to what you are doing in ____ life, but we do hope that at times it will help take the everyday stresses away! Please let us know if there is ANYTHING we can do to help!

R&M

Make sure if you have multiple children to inclue the spot for the teacher's name that way you don't get them mixed up.  If you have any other ideas for question, please leave them in a comment.  This can always be adapted.  It really is fun to bless them and I think that it maked a big difference to the teacher to know that the student's parents are in their corner! Like I said, this is just our idea. Take it and run with it and make it your very own!

 

 

My homemade Laundry soap

 I've had a lot of people ask me for this lately and some requests on facebook so I thought I would just add it to my blog! Why not right?! I'm bored and way over due to blog!

 

This is a powder recipe!

 

2 Fels Naptha soap bars (grate these on your box grater or put it through your food processor)
1 3 pound tub of oxi clean
1 box of borax
1 box super washing soda (make sure it's the washing soda NOT baking soda)
1-2 bottles of purex crystal...s (this is a softener but it's also for scent. I like it to smell longer so I usually get one big bottle and one small bottle)

Mix all together. It is low suds so it's HE safe. It is a powder so I recommend putting actually in the washer and not the pull out drawer that's on the HE machines (it tends to get goopy in there!)

You only use 1-2 tablespoons per load (I know it sounds crazy but it works) If you used the purex crystals you can put the finished mixture back into those bottles and the number 1 line of the purex lid is the amount you need to use. Built in measuring!!!

This lasted our family of 5 since last July!

Recently someone who equally shares my love for purex crystals found this lovely bottle of baby scented crystals so for this batch I will actually pull some of the mixture out before adding the crystals so that I can make a baby smell soap for my babies!!!! I'M SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THIS!

 

If you prefer Liquid soap, here's your recipe!

 

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap

(Front or top load machine-best value)

Ingredients:

4 Cups - hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup -Super Soda wash½ Cup Borax

Directions:

-Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)
-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.
-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

The 12 days of Christmas Gifts-Teacher Style!!!

I wanted to do something really fun for both of Rylee's teachers for school this year.  They have both been amazing with her and so caring and understanding with all of her health issues! I wanted something fun and I was thinking about what is something different than most of the other kids would do!!! So I randomly, (with one of my other rAnDoM friends), came up with the 12 days of Christmas! You can see from the pictures I just typed up some cheesy sayings and put them on cute scrapbook paper so I won't bore you with all of the exact wording, I just wanted to give you ideas to grow on and make your own! I would love your feedback on other ideas you could have done for the days listed!

Day 1: Partridge in a Pear Tree-Pear scented soap from Bath and Body Works
Day 2: Two Turtle Doves-Turtles candy
Day 3: Three French Hens- French Vanilla Coffee
Day 4: Four Calling birds- This one was HARD-if you look it up it means black birds. I finally decided to spin off the word calling so I did a cute message board "in case someone called"
Day 5: Five Golden Rings: A bag of funyons
Day 6: Six Geese a Laying-Egg Nog
Day 7: Seven Swans A Swimming- A swan Book
Day 8: Eight Maids A  Milking- Homemade Milk Chocolates ( I did Peanut Butter Balls, Peppermint Bark, Chocolate Covered Pretzels, ect)
Day 9: Nine Ladies Dancing- Home made Lady Fingers
Day 10: Ten Lords a Leaping- Burger King Gift Card
Day 11: Eleven Pipers Piping-Cupcakes with #11 Piped on. 
Day 12: Twelve Drummers Drumming-KFC- the card said "This Drum Stick is on us!"

So as you can see nothing too big, but lots of fun.  Not to Mention Rylee had TONS of fun taking all the gifts.  Just remember, you have to start with 12 SCHOOL days left before Christmas.  We had to start Dec 4th so that we can finish on time!


 

 
 

 

I'm back and with BIG news!

I have actually missed blogging!!!! (No, that's not the big news.) I deserted the blog after Landon was born because I wasn't ready to talk about what happened with his birth.  I'm still not.  I'm just not ready to sit down and see the facts on paper! I didn't know what to write about without talking about him so I just abandoned ship.  Well, now I have news. BIG news.  I'm a little in shock still. 

STARTING IN JANUARY I AM STARTING TO PURSUE MY DEGREE IN NURSING!

Crazy, I know.  It's not the end either.  Ultimately, I am going to work towards being a lactation consultant. My dream job would be to work with NICU babies and moms and those job postings require not only your certification with the IBCLC, but also an RN license.  I'm really excited about this, however, I'm very nervous.  Going to school full time with three kids is no easy task. I know that I can do it, and I have a great support system.  I've been around the medical field for years. Not to mention, I have a husband with his RN licence that's very new and he's very willing to help!

I am super thrilled that even through the raw, chaotic birth of my last born it brought me to the point of finding what I REALLY want to do for the rest of my life!

I'm super thrilled to see where this takes our family!!!

more than 1/2 way done!

If you're asking if we spent, I prefer to call it trading! Sounds better right???? We had a long list of things that needed to be returned and I had a day to do it BY MY SELF!!! If you have kids, that should be enough said! After all the returns were done there might have been two books, some Easter clearance candy, and some boy clearance eggs that came home with me! However, nothing out of the checking account! I still even had left over return money that went for groceries so that hopefully there will be left over grocery money this month!

Then there was Saturday...after all the tornado stuff on Friday afternoon and evening we decided to stay at my parents house just in case something else popped up.  (They have a fradie hole and well I'm fradie!!!! ) So Saturday morning Ryan and I did stop and get breakfast on our way to work. My sweet mom ran lunch up to me and Ryan's work always gets lunch on Saturday for the employees! Overall, I'm thinking I'd rather us spend $10 and know my three sweets are safe than save $10. 

As far as attitudes, no spend has actually become fun!!!! I'm loving the challenge of thinking outside the box for solutions.  I'm also loving new kitchen experiments that have been going on by trying to use mostly things that we already have!

I'm hoping planning to finish strong.  There are several reasons we wanted to do this and reasons why we decided to do it so often. (even though Ryan has declared his dissatisfaction with doing the even months because there are two of them during the summer and that's sno cone season and so forth! He'll be fine. I'm sure of it!) I'm very excited to see what we can accomplish. 

No spend update #1

It's been 10 days and we are going strong!!!
I'm so excited with the progress that we have already made.  However, the world is testing me!!! Not only did the iron break, I forgot about a secret sister gift, and for cryin out loud how do you forget the Easter Egg Hunt?!?!? Well, apparently it's possible.Here's how that situation went down...
-the secret sister gift: I had part of it (I can't say what it was as to not give away the secret), but I did have to spend $4 for the other part.
-the easter egg hunt: I used the left over Valentine's Day candy (that was awesome...may become tradition) and I dug all the nickels, dimes, and quarters out of the change jar! I did have to buy a few eggs but that was it. I only spent $1.56 where I normally would have spent at least $10 and had more candy than I ever wanted.

I am very please to say that none of this money had to come out of the reserve stash.  Remember the returns to buy the iron? There was $6 left from that so after the unexpected things I still have $0.44 to my name!!!

I am a little bummed that I only have $11 of my $20 dollars left, but I'm not working much the rest of the month so I think I got this!!!!

I will have to dip into the stash for a Bible study that we are starting this month. I didn't know it was starting to pre-plan but it's only $12 and what's $12 in comparison with eternity??? PLUS, I think I will have left over grocery money that I can use for it!

For the first two weeks of April we've only spent $80 on groceries.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE TO COUPON?!?! It's not about hoarding food like on that stupid TV show, those people are crazy!!!! It's about being smart with our hard earned money. No spend has been good for us.  The kids aren't asking for icees as much and Ryan and I (mostly me) aren't buying unneeded things!

Stay tuned for the next update. This is starting to be fun instead of hard!

What?!?! I can't spend?

Am I crazy or what?!? I'd like to think I'm not crazy, but rather just being smart!  After being inspired by someone else who did a no spend January, Ryan and I have decided to for the most part, be off limits to our own money! With Ryan finishing up in nursing school and having an infant in the house we decided that it would be best for me to go part time so that I would have the flexibility to pick and choose the days that I work.  Mostly, so that he could study, but also so we could have at least one day a week to eat dinner together as a family. So what are the rules for this "adventure"?
Other than bills, gas, and groceries the rule goal is for NOTHING to come out of the checking accounts.
There are three exceptions:
1. Landon needed a bumbo type chair and there's one that is a bumbo/exersaucer in one. He's ready for it so there is no more putting it off!
2. Proverbs 31 weekend at church! Very excited about this and I can't fathom saying "sorry Lord it's no spend month!" That would be downright dumb.
3. We decided to pay for Starfall this year.  They've added some new features including colors and we are really excited about it.  Hannah is a little bit behind for her age and we really feel that with her schoolwork and using this website we can help her catch up better.

Other than that, Ryan and I allotted $20 each for the entire month as free money. (I mean after all, a girl can't lose all her happy hour drinks!) Ryan is also in clinicals every Sunday except Easter and there is no where for him to leave a packed lunch or heat one up for that matter.

We have some extra money set aside for things that come up unexpectedly, but I'm really hoping to be able to put all that into savings at the end of the month! However, this has already been tested. 

Trial #1 April 2nd
The iron pooped out. If you put water in the steamer it pours out the bottom. While I hate ironing, I LOVE the steam feature!!! Creative solution...I had some things that I needed to return to Wal-mart so the new iron had to be covered by the amount of the returned items.  May not be the fanciest iron, but I bet it will get the wrinkles out!
Crisis avoided!!!

I'm really excited about this and I'm hoping that it goes smooth enough to do every other month for a year! Keep checking back for more updates!!