Amy Beth

  • March in Review

    2014 03 11 1337 Edit

     

    Here’s what I learned in March:

    Turning two is even more fun than turning one! Mainly because two year olds can do more. And they figure out what a party is and will remember it and talk about it for several weeks afterward.

    Not eating sugar is not really very fun. Even if you come up with some fun new snacks, sometimes you still just really want a cookie.

    The bracket was a brilliant invention. I generally loathe all things sports-like, but even I will root for a team that I have randomly picked to go far on my bracket, and be briefly but genuinely disappointed when someone I have randomly picked to go far bites the dust. Without the bracket I would be clueless and indifferent.

    Planning for perfection means I never get anything done. But just jumping in and doing something without a grand plan means I finish some edging for a flower garden and finally get some art on the walls.

    2014 03 31 1581

    My son is a bit of a shutterbug. I recently cleared my phone of about 200 images that he had taken. Here is a small sampling:

    2014 03 19 1356 Edit

    For each of those images there were about 20 more that looked exactly the same.

    Here’s to hoping the end of March takes winter with it. I’m ready for Spring!

     

    As usually I’m linking up at Chatting at the Sky with a bunch of other people who have learned things in March.

  • DIY Deodorant

    REDACTED: A couple weeks after writing this post my all natural DIY deodorant started causing a lot of irritation. It turns out such high levels of baking soda are not good for applying regularly to the skin. There are other deodorant recipes out there that do not use baking soda, but they’re all a bit more work than I am willing to put in, so I’m back to the conventional stuff. So much for being an all-natural hippy!

     

    Sometimes I’m a lot less “all-natural” than I may lead people to believe on this blog. For example, I just ate a copious amount of PuffCorn Delites with my lunch.

    But sometimes I surprise even the people who know me and my crunchy granola tendencies well with some of my “all-natural” experiments.  Take my deodorant, for example. I haven’t worn regular store-bought deodorant for several months, opting instead for a homemade variety. After reading several alarming articles concerning toxic chemicals and aluminum in deodorant, I figured it couldn’t hurt. It also happened to work, which was a relief. Here’s how to do it!

    IMG_6471

    You need some baking soda, coconut oil, and a small container to store your deodorant in. An empty deodorant container from your seedy toxin-ridden past works best.

    (more…)

  • A Cookie-Free Snack

    Creamy Citrus Crackers - a healthy snack

    I’m doing an experiment on myself called “cutting out the sugar!” It’s something I’ve considered doing for quite some time, just to see if my life somehow improves by avoiding sugary substances. You see, I have a pretty significant sweet tooth. I love to finish off lunch with a piece of chocolate. A normal bedtime snack for me involves cookies and milk. Any time sweet foods are shared by someone at the office (which is often!) I can’t help but partake.

     

    I know these things aren’t good for me. But it’s hard to see any direct harm they are causing when it’s just a way of life. So I’ve decided to cut it out and see if it really makes a difference. Do my energy levels improve? Does my skin look healthier? Am I a better person?

    Now, I’m not going out of my way to drive myself crazy. I know there is probably sugar hidden in lots of little things that I eat throughout the day. But I’m just focusing on obviously sugary items. Think cookies, cake, doughnuts, candy, and the like. I’ll also avoid sweeteners like honey or maple syrup, but I’ll keep eating fruit. Sweet potatoes are also ok.

    Almost a week into the experiment I find I’m doing ok. I don’t think I’ve been exceptionally cranky. I still find it hard to skip my piece of chocolate after lunch, but the main area where I’ve found I have to make changes is at snack times. I’ve been trying out some different things and have even dedicated a whole pinterest board to healthy snack ideas. One snack I created  recently are these Creamy Citrus Crackers. At first the thought of pairing oranges with cream cheese seemed like it might be disgusting, but it turned out to be delightful!

    Creamy Citrus Crackers - a healthy snack from littleplacecalledhome.com

    The mandarin orange slices satisfy my sweet tooth, while the cream cheese mellows out the tartness of the citrus and makes it feel fancy. The cracker adds some nice crunch and gives you something to put it all on!

    Directions:

    Spread Ritz cracker with cream cheese. Top with a slice of mandarin orange or clementine. Pop in your mouth and enjoy!

    Creamy Citrus Crackers - top a ritz cracker with cream cheese and a slice of mandarin orange. Delicious!

  • Cars Galore Birthday Party!

    Charlie only says two words clearly and with any regularity. One is “Mama.” The other is “cars.” So when planning for his 2nd birthday party it only seemed fitting that cars should be the theme of the day. I wanted him to be able to tell us what a fun time he was having, after all.

    For the most part we kept things small and simple – much like last year. Some family came. We opened presents. We ate cake. We did a couple car themed activities and then took advantage of a rare warm(ish) day and played outside. It was a lovely day!

    The Cake

    Race car themed birthday cake

    The cake this year was actually brownies. This saved me from having to ice a whole cake. It also kept it to a reasonable size. I baked the brownies in a round cake pan and used some decorating icing to draw a road going around the cake. Green icing was applied to resemble grass and bushes, and matchbox cars were set on the road. I thought using the toy cars gave a really nice effect on the cake while keeping it super simple. And Charlie loved getting to play with the cars once we cut into the cake.

    Birthday cake for a car themed party

    Tire Track Painting

    Our first activity was a painting made with tire tracks. Due to his love of cars Charlie was much more engaged in this activity than the finger painting we did last year. The main skill requirement for the craft was driving toy cars around on the paper, so he was already an expert in how to do it.

    Tire Track Painting

    We started with a long sheet of paper (with a plastic tablecloth underneath to cut down on the mess to clean up) and paper plates for each color of paint. To keep it looking somewhat attractive, I picked out four coordinating colors to work with rather than just giving him every color under the sun.

    Tire Track Painting: use toy cars to create tire track prints on paper.

    Then we ran the wheels of the tires through the paint and drove them around on the paper. I tried to find tires with interesting ridges and textures so the tracks would have some variety.

    Tire Track Painting: make a fun abstract painting using toy cars instead of paintbrushes!

    This craft resulted in a pretty fun abstract painting that I plan to hang on a big empty wall in his room.

    Clean up was pretty simple. We threw away the plastic table cloth and paper plates, wiped up any smudges from the floor (we used washable paint) and moved the paint covered cars to our next activity – a car wash!

     

    Shaving Cream Car Wash

    The car wash kept Charlie busy for much longer than I expected. Everyone else had moved on and were visiting in another room while Charlie kept washing his cars.

    a_20140301_0052

    We started with two large plastic bins. We filled one with shaving cream and one with water. From there Charlie just moved cars back and forth from one bin to the other. He’s get a car all foamy in the shaving cream, then rinse it off with the water, lather, rinse, repeat.

    Shaving cream car wash

     

    Shaving cream car wash

     

    It was so fun to see Charlie actually engage in these activities and enjoy his special day. It’s amazing how much he’s learned and changed in the past year. It makes me think that next year’s party will be even more fun!

    For more party ideas and inspiration, check out my DIY Party pinterest board!

     

  • February in Review

    feb-review

    I stopped reviewing my months for a while there. The break in routine that is the holidays took a while to recover from this year. But now I’m getting back in the swing of things and am back to learning small tidbits during the month. Here’s what I learned in February.

    1. Babies. They grow up SO FAST!
    I remember as a young pregnant lady, people would get all nostalgic when talking to me about their own kids and say things like, “Before you know it they’re all grown up” and, “Having kids will change your life completely.” And I was all like, “yeah, yeah… everybody says that. You’re all just being nostalgic.” But now I know. ALL those people were RIGHT! My baby is about to turn two. How?

    2. Potty training is exhausting, even when it goes surprisingly well.
    OR, maybe it’s going well because we’re exhausted?

    3. Sometimes I like to think that we have an awesome kid because we’re such good parents. But then I realize that we probably seem like such good parents because we have an awesome kid.
    At least the kid is awesome though.

    4. Global warming has undergone a “rebranding” of sorts.
    I was realizing when listening to the news the other day that no one calls it “Global Warming” anymore. Now it’s “Climate Change.” I suspect this is to counteract all those naysayers out there who liked to make such remarks like, “You call this Global Warming? It’s the coldest winter we’ve had in years!” As if the temperature in their own backyard was all the evidence scientists needed to be like, “Oh, yeah. I guess we can go on polluting the earth then since this cold temperature you recorded is proof that our children will not suffer any devastating consequences from a warming globe.”

    5. Speaking of climate change. It affects the jet stream. And that explains all the unfortunate weather we’re having all over the country this winter.
    I found this story on NPR to be very fascinating and informative. Also, I am a nerd.

  • Calendar and To-Do List Printable

    Every now and then I get a little overwhelmed with all the tasks and events in life that I have to keep up with. It’s as if all the “things I have to do” start swirling around in my brain at warp speed and they desperately need to be caught and pinned down so they can actually get done. But whenever I’m really feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount effort all that catching and pinning will take,  I tend to find productive ways to procrastinate. Such as designing my own calendar and to-do list planner sheets. Would it be a better use of time to actually do some of the tasks? Of course. Would my planner be as pretty? Absolutely not.

    planner-printables

    Just in case you’re more productive than me and would like some nice calendar and to-do list printables without taking the time to make them yourself, I thought I’d share mine.

    These sheets are designed to be printed on a full sheet of paper and cut in half. From there you can bind them however it works for you. I use the Levenger Circa System – Junior Size, but you could also use a simple half-sheet size binder or another disk-bound system.

    The calendar is blank so you can fill in the month and dates yourself, with a column on the side for notes.

    calendar-printable-img

     

    The to-do list is pretty basic. Just a nice looking list of blank lines to fill up.

    to-do-printable-img

     

    Just click the links below to download the printables on your own computer!

    Download the two-page spread calendar here.

    Download the half-sheet to-do list here.

  • Rainbow Birthday Party

    About a year ago I was busy planning a 1st Birthday Party for my baby. I couldn’t believe he was already a whole year old and I wanted to make sure his birthday was special. Or at least looked cute in the pictures. Because, really, what baby remembers their first birthday?

    I knew this was probably the one year where I could choose a theme based on what I liked, so I chose rainbow colors! The party itself was kept pretty simple – just family, and cake, and presents. But the colors made it cheerful and fun. I thought I’d just share a few of the things we did.

    The Decor

    The decorations were very simple. Just several different colors of streamers hung around the house. Hanging the streamers straight down across a blank wall made for a really nice photo backdrop.

    Charlie's First Birthday!

    (more…)

  • Why is life so hard?

    A while back I read a post on Steady Mom called “It’s supposed to be hard.” I especially identified when she said, “Instead of accepting this as the natural course of things, each time I noticed a difficult situation, I would push against it. Trying not to let it disturb me, I’d grapple and study and analyze it to death, looking for the “perfect” solution.”

    The post gave me a lot to think about in terms of letting go of the need to make my days run perfectly smoothly and accepting that this way of life called motherhood is a lot more complicated than I’ll ever be able to handle perfectly. There are no quick fixes or magic systems, try as we might to find them.

    But that still left me wondering, “why?” Why does life have to be so full of frustrations and disappointments and people (especially little people) who won’t do just exactly what you want them to do all the time?

    (more…)

  • Snow Day Treasure Basket

    We had a snow day this week. Since I am no longer in school and don’t technically get “snow days” I now define a snow day as a day when the snow is deep enough to play in. These days can be rare in our part of the world. Often any snow we get is just a dusting. But we had a couple inches this week – just enough to play in. So, it was a snow day.

    (more…)

  • Making Messes

    Over the Christmas holiday we made some sugar cookies. As in,I made some cookies that we enjoyed eating. But Charlie helped with the decorating. After I spread some icing on the cookie I would hand it over to him and he would douse it with sprinkles. Needless to say, it made a big mess and the dog got more than her fair share of sugar for the day.

    (more…)