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Month: December 2015
DIY Christmas Ornaments
The boy and I got busy over the weekend making cookie cutter Christmas ornaments. Super easy! All you need is:
2 cups of baking soda
1 cup of cornstarch
1 1/2 cups of water
Mix the ingredients in a sauce pan and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. At first it might seem like nothing’s happening, but soon the mixture will thicken up and make a ball of dough. Wait 15-20 minutes or until the clay is cool. Knead the dough until it’s smooth and then roll out and cut your ornaments. Don’t forget to use a toothpick to put a hole in the ornaments so you can hang them later!!!
*Warnings:
- Make sure you lay the ornaments FLAT, I forgot and put ours on a plate and the result was curled ornaments and a lot more cracked and broke then normal.
- Some will crack and break so make a couple extra of your favorite shapes.
It takes a day or two for the ornaments to air dry. Be sure to flip them over ever few hours so both sides dry. Once dry get out your favorite means of decorating and go to town. To help prevent cracking and breaking modge-podge the ornaments before giving as gifts or hanging on the tree.
Quote of the Day
Things we Need to Teach our Children- How to treat our bodies
How to Treat Our Bodies
There are so many things wrong with the way society treats our bodies in general, it is hard to know where to start (In fact that might be a topic for a whole separate blog post or two). But here are a few things I believe we should teach our children about their bodies.
First of all our bodies are amazing pieces of machinery and they should be treated with respect. We need to take care of our body inside and out. We only get one. We need to teach out children to:
Eat Healthy– We should our children not to diet, but to have a healthy diet. Fresh fruits and vegetables, grass fed meats and eggs, fish, raw dairy products (for examples). We should not raise them on packaged, processed or “fast” food with little to no nutritional values. We influence their diet from the beginning. You can train them to eat (and even like) fruits and vegetables. (If you need help French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billion is a great place to start)
To Exercise (our bodies and our brains)- Exercise comes in so many shapes and forms and in our fast paced society where we expect little minds and bodies to sit still for way too long our children desperately need all the movement that can get. Sports and activities are great, but just running, jumping or spinning around the backyard, or the park or in the woods is just as great. And don’t forget to exercise their little minds with books and puzzles and toys that teach them how to take things apart and put them back together. Crafts, blocks, lego’s, our choices these days are endless. Play with them and put the phones and tablets and computers to sleep. You would be amazed at how great you feel afterwards.
To limit exposing our body to unnecessary toxins– The world is filled with toxins, everywhere. In our water, our food, our medicines, our clothes and body care products, and household cleaners, not to mention what’s floating around in the atmosphere. Teach them to be conscious about the toxins they can control. Start reading the labels of everything you use. Look up some of the ingredients, this is an especially great science activity for children a little older. When you figure out what’s in your products decided if you really want to use those chemicals in your home and see if there are more natural alternatives (I guarantee there are.)
We need to teach them to be able to name their bodies. Not with nicknames, but by using the names of their actual body parts. Then we need to teach them what their body parts do and how they work together to make the wonderful sophisticated machine that is us.
We should teach them to love their bodies and not bend to societal standards of what our bodies should look like. Bodies are not one size fits all. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes and there isn’t one perfect body type, except for a healthy body.
In the words of Jim Rohn “Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live in.”
Inspiration for the Day
When you Have a Handy Husband You live in a Construction Zone
When you have a handy husband sometimes your house turns into a miniature construction zone for a period of time. We’ve been working on trying to make our main bathroom a bit nicer for a while. Our first project about a year ago was to tear out the original 1950’s cast iron bathtub and put in a standard size bathtub and redo the tile surround. This project was based around a $20 bathtub we found.
We replaced the toilet with a brand new $40 toilet (that a homeowner just didn’t like. Sometimes working in the construction industry comes in handy.) But we still had a gosh awful vanity that looked like it was the original one that had come with the house, and the tan floor tile no longer matched the shower tiles. The tile we wanted for the floor was on sale over the Thanksgiving weekend so we went for it and my husband found an awesome deal on a beautiful vanity and we found a vanity top for a reasonable price that was exactly what I wanted.
Last week we employed help to rip out the floor and lay the tile. We moved the water heater out of the closet in the bathroom into the laundry room and gained a whole closet for storage. (We live in a 1950’s house. There are a total of 3 closets in the house, all about the size of the closet door. It seemed like poor judgement to put the water heater in one of the only closets and we’ve been talking about moving it for years. If I would have known how easy it was to re-route the plumbing I would have had the hubby do it long ago. Not only did we gain a lot of storage space, but the water heater is more centrally located so we don’t have to wait nearly as long for the hot water to reach the laundry, kitchen sink, dishwasher second bathroom, so it should save money on both water and the electric bill. SCORE!) On Friday night we grouted the tile and then on Sunday the hubby (being a Master Electrician) got to work ripping out the old lighting fixtures and adding cans over the tub and toilet to create the perfect light for what will be a beautiful new bathroom when we are finished. I’m happy to say we are back to two working toilets, but the plumbing for the new vanity still needs to be finished and we need to repair some sheetrock texture the walls and paint, but it is super exciting Here’s a picture of the new tile… I’ll share some more after we get a little more completed.
On Friday night we grouted the tile and then on Sunday the hubby (being a Master Electrician) got to work ripping out the old lighting fixtures and adding cans over the tub and toilet to create the perfect light for what will be a beautiful new bathroom when we are finished. I’m happy to say we are back to two working toilets, but the plumbing for the new vanity still needs to be finished and we need to repair some sheetrock texture the walls and paint, but it is super exciting Here’s a picture of the new tile… I’ll share some more after we get a little more completed.
12 Tips of Christmas
Check out the below 12 Tips of Christmas to help keep your pets safe this holiday season. And as my brother says, “Most of this types can also be applied to small children.”
http://blog.aggielandanimalhealthcenter.com/2015/12/12-tips-of-christmas/
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Hanukkah
Even if you don’t celebrate a particular religious holiday, it never hurts to learn a little about it! Here is a little info about Hanukkah!
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Learning Simple 