Leaving you with my favorite mom sites

Well, obviously I have been unable to keep up this blog.  I don’t know if it started when my youngest started walking or simply the busyness of life has taken over, but I just can’t seem to find much internet time these days.  So, sadly I will not be posting on this blog.  I loved the idea of it and finding great sites and challenges for myself and to share with others, but since I can’t keep it up, I will let it go.  I am leaving you with a list of some of my favorite blogs and sites.  Enjoy and thank you!

To Love Honor & Vacuum

The Mom Blogs

Mom’s Minivan

Flylady

Allrecipes

Family Fun

Lesson Plans Plus

Sand Dough and Stepping Stones

I came across this recipe this summer when searching online for some unique summer craft ideas.  What a fun idea to let your kids help make and decorate fun stepping stones. The instructions have you pouring the dough into a favorite cartoon character cake pan to set/mold.  You can find these at any stores with a cake decorating section, Hobby Lobby and Michael’s to name a couple.

Click on this link at Creative Kids at Home to check out this fun project and be sure to check out some of their other ideas as well.

This Week’s Challenge: Take a Nature Walk

This week find a place to take a walk with your kids.  It might be around your neighborhood, at the park, or somewhere you’ve been wanting to go take a hike and haven’t.  Take a shoebox or paperbag with you and let you kids collect nature items.  When you get back, you can talk about what all you found, maybe look some things up in an encyclopedia or on the web.  Let us know what you find!

This week’s challenge: Take Care of You

I have had a recent realization of how poorly I take care of myself.  I make my boys eat healthy (most of the time), take their vitamins, get plenty of sleep, etc. yet I don’t do these things for myself.  Other than dinner where we try to sit down as a family, I rarely eat healthy.  I tend grab whatever’s in the pantry just to hold me over. 

Sleep is a big issue for me.  I enjoy my alone time in the evenings and most nights end up staying up way too late.  It’s so easy for us moms to concentrate on taking care of everyone else that we often just do what’s needed to survive, but we need to take care of us.  Not only do we need to do it for ourselves, but for our families.  Many days, I don’t have the energy to give my kids what they need or want.  So, I’m making some changes around here and I encourage you to think of something you can do this week as well.  I’d love to hear how you take care of you or what steps you are going to take to do so.  Have a great and healthy week! I’m going to be trying some healthy recipes and will share some with you later this week.

Found an AWESOME meal planning site

I stumbled across a great website when looking for some new healthy recipes for my family.  I know we’ve not been eating very healthy lately and am trying to get us back on track.  Anyway, the site is Meals Matter and I am loving it.  You have to register to use all the tools, but it’s FREE and I cannot recommend it enough. There is a tool for you to make a meal plan, create a shopping list, search recipes, add your own recipes, and lots of good nutritional information.  I haven’t found anything with this much customization before, so check it out when you get a chance.

I’m back finally

Well, my trip was right on schedule but I came home to some busy days and this is the first day I’ve even logged onto my computer for more than a few seconds.  I’m not complaining about all my busyness though, because I got to see lots of family over the last few weeks, my boys had tons of fun with grandparents and friends, and I spent a week with a group of teens and adults from our church at youth camp.  It’s been a good couple of weeks!  Anyway, I just wanted to let you know where I’ve been.  I’d love to hear how your summer is going and I’ll be posting back to normal shortly.

This week’s challenge: Document a Day

I realized I didn’t post my usual Tuesday challenge last night about midnight as I was getting in bed.  I am heading on a road trip with 2 of my boys tomorrow so my brain is a little frazzled as I try to pack and remember everything. 

I have a little bit different challenge for you this week.  I want you to take a day, like the 4th of July or just a nice summer day this week (since I know we have a few readers outside the U.S. ) and document something about it.  Maybe you take pictures throughout the day and put them in a special photo album or scrapbook, but whatever you do, make sure you write about the day.  For me, I’m going to my aunt’s.  She hosts an annual family reunion to whoever can make for my mom’s side of the family.  We have a blast every year, even though it’s pretty much the only time I get to see these family members.  This year since my hubby can’t make it, I’m taking my almost 4 year old and 2 year old on a road trip to be there.  I can’t wait to see everyone.  I’m looking forward to taking pics of everything that day.  My plan is to pick the top ten things from day to record through both picture and word. 

I hope you’ll take me up on this challenge. I know as moms sometimes we get so busy to stop and write stuff down, but that written word is so awesome to read throughout the years.  Be specific as you journal, because you can look at a picture and see who was there and having fun, but what we tend to forgot are the little moments in between or the conversations that took place.  What an awesome thing to have a few years down the road!  I hope you all have a great weekend!

Children’s Crafts

I cleaned out a section of my pantry this weekend where I keep supplies for the kids’ crafts.  It was a crazy mess.  While I was cleaning it out I found these foam visors I had picked up on clearance somewhere.  I let the boys decorate them and my 2 year old loved it.  He even wore his to church this morning.  It was too funny!

But all this got me to thinking how much fun the boys have making anything out of pretty much anything.  They love it so much! I try to do some sort of “art” time if you want to call it that each day, but often it’s just coloring, which they enjoy but not nearly as much as them making something.  I picked up this older book entitled The Little Hands Big Fun Craft Book the other day for pennies since it was published several years ago.  It has the best craft ideas for making things with everyday items. If you have small children (the book is suggested for 2 to 6 year olds), see if you can find a copy of this book, especially if you can get a bargain like me.  Almost every craft in it is made from items we throw out everyday like cups, cardboard tubes, popsicle sticks, boxes, etc.  I think this book will more than pay for itself as I look forward to using many ideas from it!

Tuesday’s Challenge: Have a tea party or picnic this week

How about throwing a fun tea party or indoor picnic this week?  I have 3 boys and my dear hubby thinks tea parties sound girly so you can call it whatever you want, but the point is to have fun planning a little snack/lunch party with your kiddos.  You can let the kids make their placemats, make invitations to invite a friend or send to their daddy or grandparent, and even make flowers for a centerpiece.  Have fun letting them help you plan a menu and make little sandwiches or snacks.  You can let them dress up if you want.  We are going to make some fun things this week, like the placemats and flowers and plan our little party for Friday so we can invite daddy to come.  I think it will be fun and it will keep us busy this week!  I’ll try to remember to take pictures and share them with you.  If you decide to play along, I’d love to hear about your tea party.

Great $1 Finds

Do you have a Dollar Tree near you?  We have a small one and sometimes I find things in there, but often there’s not much of interest. Well, this week I hit the jackpot there.  You have to check it out, especially if you have young children.  I bought these cute little craft aprons for my boys, little bug catchers (which I hope to play with today if it’s nice out), and I got them each a pirate dress up set.  My oldest is really into pirates right now so that was a big hit.  They also had cute little foam craft kits, lots of bubbles, sidewalk chalk, pool toys, and so on.  Lots of goodies there right now!