A New Blog Address

You can now find me here:

i have to say...

See you there!

A Few Links For You...

--If you need a little encouragement in your mothering journey, you must read this post by Elise and this post by Mommy Dearest. Both inspiring!

--Mopsy wrote a sweet post about her daughter and her memories of Love's Baby Soft here.

--This is a lovely, new blog I have been reading lately.

--If you are interested in trading books with fellow book-lovers, click here.

--I came across a tutorial for making fabric boxes here. Very cute!

--Autum has a tutorial for an adorable craft apron. This would be a great way to use up some of those scrap fabrics!

--If you want to learn to crochet, click here.

Have a lovely Thursday!

Homeschooling Discoveries

Recently I realized that I hardly ever post anything about homeschooling. I am not sure why this is so, maybe it is because homeschooling has been a part of my life for 13 years and I don't think about it much anymore. Whether this is good or bad, I am not sure!

For the entire time I have homeschooled my kids, they have done there "alone" work in the morning and we do our "together" work in the afternoon. This gives me time to work with Aubry mano-a-mano before the boys need me. Since we have recenly added some extra activities in the afternoons, I have been very frustrated over the fact that history and science work (our "together" subjects) have been falling by the wayside. And believe me when I say that I dislike falling behind in school subjects!

Last week I was talking to a very wise friend and she suggested that on the days that we have afternoon activities we should do "together" work in the morning and the boys can finish up their own work when we get home. Envisioning me with a glowing light bulb over my head would be appropriate since I feel like I unearthed a treasure when I heard this! So far it has worked wonders and I also find that I nod off less in the morning while reading books to the boys than I did while doing it in the afternoon. (Yes, I really do occasionally fall asleep while I read to my boys!)

I suppose that when you have been doing something for so long it becomes a habit, and the only way to get out of a rut is to get the point-of-view of a friend in order to solve a frustration. The answer was so simple and obvious, yet so hidden from my view. My only wish is that I had thought of it years ago!

Thanks!

Thank you so much for all the kind words over the last few days. It has been a bittersweet, emotional time for me, but it has also been exciting to see Danika launch out on her own. She is so ready for it! I am very happy to report that she emailed me yesterday AND she called me, and she will stopping by today. For some reason, I was afraid she was going to wipe her feet clean of us and never call again. Exaggerated, yes! But this mommy still worries about stuff like that!

Danika's roomates are wonderful girls who made sure that I knew that I could stop anytime. They both hugged me and let me know that Danika would be fine--they would make sure of it. What a blessing to leave my girl in such sweet hands!

On another note, I decided to take the leap and check out Typepad since I have been so frustrated with Blogger lately. They have a 30-day free trial so I signed up and started messing with the templates and such. Yesterday afternoon I tried to log in again and guess what? Typepad was down! What is up with that? I couldn't log into my own account or any Typepad blogs. Maybe they knew I was coming so they added some huge glitches just to celebrate my arrival! Who knows, maybe if I leave Blogger behind, the system will run smoother for all of you! ;)

On Sunday we watched the Superbowl with some friends. I happened to miss this commercial when it aired, but my daughter showed it to me on the internet later that night and I cracked up when I saw it. Check it out:

Have a happy Tuesday!

My baby

My baby moved out today. Her childhood, packed neatly in boxes, stacked in the back of her car while she waited to drive away towards her very own life.

As it should be, of course.

I wonder if she felt like I did, eighteen years ago. Wearing gray sweats, standing next to my husband who was carrying my little blue suitcase. It was time. Turning around before stepping out the door, taking one last look into the house, but really taking one last look at the life I was leaving behind. Just the two of us. Unsure of what changes were coming and knowing that things would never be the same. Bittersweet, fear and excitement, all rolled into one unrecognizable emotion, but I knew deep inside that magical things were just around the corner.

Yes, I know how she was feeling today.

Years. Roller-blades. American Girl dolls. Diapers. Graduation. Pound Puppies. Skinned knees. Riding Lessons. Potty training. Soccer games. The Donut Man. Driving lessons. Biology. Birthday parties. Books. Books. Books. The talk. Snowboarding. Bill Nye the Science Guy. Years.

All of those years rolled up into perfect memories, stashed deep into my pocket, always ready to be remembered.

Who knew the time would slip away so quickly?

Eighteen years...just a whisper of time.

Ch-ch-ch-changes..

Well, the time has come. My oldest daughter is moving out of our house this weekend. I am very happy with the situation she is going into, her roomates are wonderful girls and I know that this will be a growth experience for her.

Let me just say that this is hard for me. My emotions have been like a roller-coaster for the last couple of days and I am having a hard time finding a level place in which to deal with this. Any prayers or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

More on this later...

Dishtowel Apron Tutorial

I decided to break out one of my Martha Stewart dishtowels and make a "Mommy's Little Helper Kitchen Apron". My initial goal was to make it to fit Aubry but it turned out closer to a size to fit an 8-11 year-old girl instead. If you want to make it smaller, you would just need to make it shorter and make the neck hole a bit smaller. If you want to make one, here are the supplies you will need:

1 dishtowel (mine measured 18" x 28")
one package of double fold bias tape--extra wide
thread to match
ribbon or trim (optional)













Lay out the dishtowel with the shorter edge on top and measure 4 inches in from each top edge, and measure 9 inches down each side edge. Draw a line between these two marks and cut on the line using scissors or a rotary cutter. The top of the apron should look like this:













This is when you would add any ribbon or trim. I added mine at the top and the bottom of the apron:
















Now you need to open up your bias tape (Click here for a tutorial on how to use bias tape--see 2-Step Binding) and pin it to the edges of the apron (the picture below this one will clarify this for you):
















You will want to pin the bias tape to the apron so that there is a 15-inch neck hole and 22-inches of bias-tape hanging at each edge for ties. Now you can sew the bias tape to the apron:
















Now fold your bias-tape over to the back of the apron (the neck-hole and tie bias-tape pieces will be sewn to themselves) and sew
















You can finish the tie-ends like this:
















Voila! You are done and ready to bake a batch of cookies with your little baker!