{Precious Moments} “All Ready” to Play Outside
Shaking off the Bonds of Stuff :: A 40-Day Plan for Lent
This is the first time in a few years that we are not doing a 40 bags in 40 days challenge during Lent. Our home is slowly becoming more and more organized, and I have gotten so much better about getting rid of all the extra stuff year round. So, this year, my (lenten cleaning) plan was to just focus on the couple challenging areas that I have left and then some spring cleaning just before Easter. However, when I saw this post about Shaking off the Bonds of Stuff I thought this might be the perfect Lenten project… to assign to my older children! 😉
We breezed right through the first week. We are, or rather I am, not going to make any impulse purchases until after Easter, the boys did an amazing job cleaning out the car, all the unpaired socks have been rounded up and put into a plastic bag for later, and we threw out the newspapers.
Day 5 (Monday Feb. 27): Empty your laundry room completely. Wash, fold, mend, iron, and return every item to its proper place or give it to your parish St. Vincent de Paul Society or Goodwill.
I know I’ve posted pictures in the past of our old laundry room, before we remodeled it, but I don’t think I have ever shown you a picture of it completed! (Not that you are even interested, but I took some pictures to post anyways!) To be able to make our kitchen a little wider, we had to make the old laundry room/bathroom longer and narrower, and so we ended up separating the bathroom from the laundry room with a pocket door. This bathroom is the one that my boys use, as well as any guests. What was I thinking having our boys bathroom for guests as well?! Thankfully they are pretty good about keeping it clean.
The cabinets and sink that we had hoped to install in the laundry room were cut from the plans due to our limited remodel budget, but it still is so much nicer than what we had before. Not only am I still able to fit the washer/dryer and the freezer, we were also able to add our old refrigerator as well.
Thankfully I somehow managed to catch up our laundry(!!!) this past weekend, and with the three additional loads we did this morning, we are still caught up! Captain took the old rugs that had been rolled up in the laundry room for months to the car to drop off at St. Vincent’s, took the paint buckets to the garage, and steam mopped the floor. In the meantime Chiquita helped hang up the last load of laundry to dry and then organized the caddy that slides next to the freezer, holding our laundry supplies. We got rid of a few items off of it, but looking at the picture I see a couple more that can go.
I’d like to get one more laundry sorter, but it won’t be until after Lent. I have my eyes on this one, which has a hanging bar attached to it as well (I like to hang dry quite a bit of laundry), but until then, I have still managed to find a way to dry clothes inside using an old shower curtain tension rod hung between the wall and the refrigerator. 🙂
While we are in the laundry room, I think it might be the perfect day for a little Dryer Fire Safety project. The vent outside (covered in lint) is making me just a little bit nervous at the moment!
Believe it or not, my children are really enjoying the extra projects each day, and having one more way to make little sacrifices and to count down the days until Easter!
{this moment}
{pretty, happy, funny, real}
Umm… Yeah… I just had to go and have a small, small piece of the baptism cake and a half a cup of coffee with cream at the reception. I’ve been paying for it ever since, which explains my lack of blogging this week. I just can’t believe how very sensitive this little one is to any dairy and caffeine. My husband has been out of town the last couple days as well, which has made for a challenging start to Lent. I think God might be telling me that He wants me to keep it extra simple this year…
For Sarah…
And… If anyone has any great tips for all the paper clutter, that goes along with home educating, I’d love to hear them. I’m hoping to tackle the disaster that is in our school room this weekend!
Simple Homemade Granola {and Giveaway Winner!}
Recently a friend of mine shared a recipe for her delicious Homemade Granola, made with coconut oil and sweetened with honey. Yesterday I made another batch and took a few pictures to share, along with the recipe. (Oh, and the flowers were my St. Valentine’s Day gift from Hubby, along with a couple new skirts!!! I guess he got tired of hearing me say that “nothing fits!”;) He is such a sweetie!)
- 12 cups oats (I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Whole Grain Rolled Oats)
- 4 cups unsweetened Coconut Flakes (I used one package of these)
- 6 cups of raw nuts and seeds (I used 3 cups of almonds, 1 cup of walnuts, 1 cup of pecans, and 1 cup of sunflower seeds)
- 1 cup coconut oil
- 1 cup honey
- optional: 3 cups of raisins or other dried fruit, add after baking
Directions:
1. Preheat over to 350°F.
2. In a small saucepan over low heat, mix together the coconut oil and honey.
3. In a large bowl combine oats, coconut, nuts and seeds.
4. Pour coconut oil and honey mixture over dry ingredients and stir very well to coat. Divide onto three baking sheets.
5. Bake for 10 minutes; remove from oven and stir. Place back in oven but remove and stir every 5 minutes or so until the oats are golden brown (approx. 30 minutes).
6. Cool; add raisins or other dried fruit.
Our little Bud
Homemade St. Valentine’s Day Cards
Snuggles liked the idea of making this Love Blossom Tree and from Meet the Dubiens. He had so much fun making these, and ended up acting just a little silly in the process!
I thought they turned out so pretty, and I love that he used his arm, hand and thumbprints to create the painting!
Chiquita had her eyes on some scrapbooking paper in my stash and decided to make her own cards, to pair with some more dipped Oreo cookies, like we have made in the past.
She decided to use Golden Oreos this year, though we almost went with the new “Neapolitan” edition. She packaged them up in bags and attached her cute little cards to each.
Twinkle Toes loved the “I Love You” (in sign language) Valentine Cards that I had pinned from Waltzing Matilda. “Thank you Miss Charlotte!!” She traced the her hand in the shape of the “I Love You” sign, cut them out, and then made a pocket with her hand to hold the St. Valentine card. She wrote the little poem on the back, “Love is Patient, Love is Kind, Happy feast of St. Valentine!” and signed her name on the back of each St. Valentine Card.
To go along with her cards, she decided to dip large pretzels into melted pink candy, and then decorate them with valentine sprinkles.
When Rascal saw these Soda Pop Valentines from Daring Doodles, he immediately decided that those were the ones for him. They were so easy too. We just printed out the free printable image for him to cut out and attached them to some small soda bottles and cans that his dad picked up at the grocery store.
Captain liked the idea of these “Don’t Ever Change” Valentine cards from Jac o’lyn Murphy. I even happened to have a few extra bags of Chocolate Coins leftover from Christmas/Epiphany for him! We created little tags to print and tie on to the packages. It looks like I only got a finished picture of his cards (though I “erased” his name from the picture).
St. Valentine’s Day Cocoa with Sprinkles
When I came in from snapping a few pictures of our children playing in the snow, I decided to whip up a batch of Hot Cocoa to help warm them up when they came back inside, since the baby was still sleeping. I remembered a recipe I had pinned to my St. Valentine’s Day board for this Strawberry Sweethearts Cocoa. I didn’t have the required Strawberry Ice Cream, and honestly I think “Hot Strawberry” anything doesn’t sound nearly as yummy as Hot Chocolate (not that I could actually have any, but still), so I decided to improvise. The thing that had caught my attention in the first place was the chocolate around the rim of the glass. I could still do that, without having to make the recipe! PLUS, I could still include pink and reds, with St. Valentine’s Day coming up tomorrow, by then dipping the chocolate in sprinkles!
I pulled out my Irish Coffee Mugs (very similar to these ones, though mine were handpainted by a friend), some white chocolate chips (candy melts would work great too), and some Valentine sprinkles. It only took me about 5 minutes, while the hot cocoa simmered on the stove, to melt the chocolate, dip the rims of the mugs in the melted chocolate, and then dip again into a bowl of sprinkles. (Let set for a minute to harden.)
I happened to have some heavy whipping cream as well, so I pulled out my iSi Easy Whip and had homemade whipped cream (sweetened with some Chocolate Liquid Stevia) in about two minutes. After filling the mugs with cocoa, I topped them with the whipped cream and added a few hearts to the top of each.
As I said, it was so quick and easy, yet my children all LOVED the extra touches! When my oldest son walked into the kitchen he said “WOW!” walked over to me, started rubbing my shoulders, and continued to say, “Mom, you are AMAZING!” I sure love that boy of ours, he definitely made my day!
Snow-oh-oh-oh-oh!
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