A Whole Lot of Rambling On and On and On.....

Well, I'd planned to do a *weekend recap* post, but now it's Tuesday and, well, the weekend is a distant memory. I really thought things were going to slow down a little when summer came--what was I thinking?!? Those lazy hazy days of summer are so over for me apparently.

I did have a great time this past weekend visiting with my friend Nancy. We've actually gotten to see each other twice this year. Usually its once every few years or so. She was visiting her parents, who live in my state, so we met at a park in a centrally-located city and enjoyed some time visiting and letting our children play together. Our daughters are probably a lot like we were playing together at those ages.

Now...I'm busy planning my son's birthday party for this weekend, getting ready for my parents to come this weekend, getting ready for my sister-in-law and her hubby to come next week, and training my replacement as the nursery director at our church.

I'm really glad to be wrapping up my commitment to the nursery. It has had it's fun and rewarding moments, but it's also been very time-consuming and stressful. I must say that doing this job for just a few months has reminded me of all the reasons that I LOVE being a stay-at-home mom. Even though this job has only been part-time, it has taken so much time from my kiddos. I'm looking forward to having that time back. I've learned a lot though and have gotten to know some great people, so I definitely won't count it as time wasted. Oh--and the paychecks were great, too!:)

Something I've been considering lately is coming up with a daily schedule for my family--you know, one on paper and not just in my head. I do LOVE lists and calendars, so schedules are right up my alley. Not that I want to super-structure our days, but I think it would help me not to waste time doing pointless stuff so that we can have more time to have fun together. Some days I feel like I've wasted so much time doing a whole lot of nothing and then I'm rushed to get the important stuff done--which creates unnecessary stress for my family. Does that ever happen to any of you? Please tell me I'm not the only one. If your family has a daily schedule, please tell me about it and how it helps you!

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

Search This Blog