Real Life Homeschool

This year we have finally gotten into a good, sustainable routine with homeschooling. We don't spend a bunch of time sitting still and cranking out worksheets, but I do sit and work with my two oldest boys for awhile each day.

We have curriculum from My Father's World that I love and we'll come back to, but since most of December was spent unexpectedly at the grandparent's, I bought these mega books at Walmart and we've been working on them ever since. There's no rule you can't switch curriculum mid-year, right?

But what I really wanted to chat about today is where we work. Let's say it just evolved this way. If you recall, we have this adorable classroom/playroom.

As cute as it is, it wasn't meeting our needs. The other kids (including some that I babysit) need somewhere to play and make messes and it was hugely distracting to me to try to do school while that was going on. I also like to get up and do stuff while my pupil is working. Start lunch, write lists, check on stuff... All of which was in the kitchen.

Gradually I started having the boys work on a project at our little table in the kitchen and it just clicked. We have a little more space at the table, there's more room for those NOT studying to play, I can wash dishes or start the next meal, or whatever I need to do.

At first I was a little frustrated that I had this big classroom that we never use, but it is used, just not for school. It's great for all the supplies and for its other purposes-my sewing room, the boys' toys and books, and lots and lots of free play.

I bought two or three of these metal buttons at the dollar spot at Target last fall, and a couple the fall before. I moved out our school/art supplies where I could supervise them (in the kitchen) and ended up storing them on this lazy susan my father-in-law made.

It's perfect for glue and pencils and scissors and markers--and they came with the chalkboard labels! Adorable!

I keep some of our most-used workbooks and supplies like paper in a napkin holder, actually. You can see them and the lazy susan hard at work below.

 So where do they go when we're not using them? On top of the fridge!

No, it's not beautiful and perfect, but it's just what we need right now, so I'm going with it!

I didn't move the calendar and things out to the kitchen for several months. I just didn't want my kitchen to scream HOMESCHOOL, but school has gone better since I did move them. The boys see and talk about the calendar before breakfast. We have holidays and field trips to look forward to, and they've all learned how to properly say the date.

I find it handy that things are magnetic because it's on the side of the fridge right next to our table. Perfect solution!

Behind our bill-paying station is my command central. I'd love to have more storage for things like this, but this works for now. I have my babysitting schedule, doctor reminders and important numbers pinned to the inside of the cabinet door. On the shelves are things we sometimes need on the table for meals (peanut butter, salt shaker, trivets) and everything else non-cooking related, from essential oils to candles to UNO to cookbooks and lunch boxes. The stack of workbooks in the middle is where the others currently on the table are put away when it's meal time. (Finished work and so many more supplies and resources are kept in files in the closet in the playroom. That is a nice thing to have!)

So there you go! Now you know how we're making homeschool work with busy schedules and small spaces. I don't know if we'll always homeschool in the kitchen, but it's working now.

How do you homeschool? Or if your kids go to school, where do they do homework? Desks in their rooms? A homework station in your playroom? At the kitchen table?

Triple Boy Bedroom

You know, I think this post was what caused my unintended blogging vacation in June. Not that it's a big deal--it's not! The pictures just didn't turn out great and I'm too annoyed to go back and retake them, and editing them was so intimidating... I don't really have chunks of time to spend editing bad pictures. So I took 20 minutes today and just did a few things. No watermark, no painstaking editing, just super-easy short cuts.

And you know what? It's just for the record anyway. I'm not trying to make a bunch of beautiful, pin-worthy pictures. That's not my intention. I just want to look back in a few years and be able to see the cute, triple bedroom we created for our boys. So that's what I'm putting here!

You know, now that I waited a good 6 weeks since I took these pictures, things have changed a little. I'll do some updates soon. Hang on to your seats!

It works best right now for us to have all three boys together in one room. I'm usually a divide-and-conquer kind of person, but instead of dividing the boys, we divided the purpose of the rooms.

This is Josiah's bed. He's in the middle because he's most apt to to to sleep! I know it would have been more practical to have my youngest (he just turned three) against the wall, but he's doing really well and it helps the older boys to have him in the middle. Josiah still uses the original transportation quilt my mom got when Jonathan was just transitioning out of a crib. *Grandma just gave Josiah his jean quilt that she made for him, so in the updates you can see that.

This is Jonathan's bed. This room is long and narrow, and I liked the idea of having two of the beds under windows and the third in the middle with two nightstands in between. The dressers are on the opposite wall. You'll see that in a minute.

Jared is on the right. Each boy's quilt has a different color back. Jonathan's is blue, Jared's is red, Josiah's is green. The color of the blanket is the same as that boys' sheets. Just how we made it work for us!

This room is in the basement, right across the hall from the room Gary and I use. That means the windows are up high, but there are four of them and they're a little larger than most basement windows because we're in a raised ranch. I think this is a bonus room, or family room or something. It doesn't have a real door, but the three boys don't care!

Each boy has a special bear from build-a-bear. They don't have many stuffed animals, but they do like their bears!

At each end of the room, I hung a set of hooks and strung twine between them. The boys keep more artwork here, hung with clothes pins.

Towels on a propeller hook, a bin for laundry, church shoes in a row. The boys have bins of out of season clothes and clothes that are in-between sizes under the stairs. There's also a rod in there for hanging church outfits. Other than that, all their clothes are in the dressers and shoes live upstairs in a closet.

You can tell we once had an airplane theme! We have quite a few pieces left, but some have been given away in our downsizing over the last two years. The red dresser and yellow dressers belonged to Gary and his brother when they were little!

So there you go, a quick little tour of our simple solution for our three boys! What do we do with the upstairs bedrooms? Funny, but they're kinda extra! We're just all cozy downstairs! One is our classroom and one is a guest room where the daycare kids nap and where I keep art supplies. Now you know!

Anyway, hope you have a great day!

Simple Solutions: Canning Jar Lids and Straws

Guys, I'm in love.

If you follow me on Instagram you've probably seen a few of my recent posts with some sort of beverage in a canning jar with a straw. Chocolate smoothie, herbal tea with lemon, iced coffee with Truvia and half 'n half... And when we moved out of our home in Iowa, I started using canning jars as our glassware. They're so much harder to break, and quite trendy too!

I've seen adorable lids on Etsy and almost bought myself some, but my husband said he could make some for me. But Target and Ball saved the day!

Sometimes after a busy day of babysitting, I take a 5- or 10-dollar bill and head to Target to unwind. Seriously, my trio is challenging enough, then add in a few more kids that belong to other people? Some days are downright difficult! But this day, the clouds parted and there were rainbows and unicorns when I saw these white jar lids and straws! They are sold in a 4-pack for about $4. I got the wide mouth version and have since gone back for the narrow mouth ones too.

These are great for helping keep liquids inside your jar and bugs and small fingers out. I plopped this big guy in the drink holder on my double jogger when we took a long walk to the park. It was perfect! No spills or splashes and I could rehydrate without stopping to take the lid off of my jar.

On this picnic last week, I filled a jar for each of my boys with iced herbal tea sweetened with honey. They loved having their own jars!

By the way, the Ball lids come with white and green striped straws. I got this set of blue ones also at Target. I like them because they're blue they have a small ring around the bottom which prevents them from getting pulled out of the the lid and getting lost or chewed on or used as digging tools at the park. Not that anyone I know would do that...

So there you go! Run out and get some!

*I wasn't perked or paid to say this, neither Ball nor Target know I exist, but maybe they should!

Simple Solutions: Doing Dishes

I know, I know, enough of the smart phone pictures already, but at least I'm blogging again. It's so nice! And I promise I'll break out the real camera again soon.

For now I wanted to share this little solution with you!

Do you have a dishwasher? Lucky! Not me. Starting about six years ago, we've only had a dishwasher for a few months at one of our temporary houses. I used to hate doing dishes, so I procrastinated until there was a huge pile... I also had tiny kids, so even the 15 minutes it takes to do the dishes after a meal was overwhelming. I had similar issues with the laundry, waiting until everyone was out of underwear or jeans and there were intimidating piles all over. So maybe I've matured a little in my seven years of being a stay-at-home mom.

Anyway, one simple solution to doing dishes (or laundry) is to tackle things as soon as they start adding up. I now wash dishes as I cook, if time allows, and I wash dishes as soon as each meal is over. Nevermind that I'm completely weird about running water constantly and not filling a sink with sudsy water for all of the gunk and funk and germs to collect in. I seriously have issues sticking my hands in dirty sinks of tepid water!

Solution number two is to make it pretty. Why not display your dishwashing supplies on a pretty plate or a cute basket lined with a towel to catch drips? Right now I'm using my cake plate. I also chose a bright turquoise blue with accents of yellow. Blue soap and dispenser, blue bowl to hold the dish brush, a blue jar for flowers. The lotion is kind of yellow, as is the DIY sugar hand scrub, and of course the flowers my son picked.

Also on the tray is bamboo air freshener sticks and another vase that holds a bottle brush for washing inside glasses, a stopper for the sink, and a sponge.

So there you have it, my way of making a daily, annoying chore somewhat more tolerable, and keeping my kitchen looking cute!

What handy solutions have you found? Any procrastinating on your chores? My dishes are done but the laundry is piling up. Gotta run!

Crunchy

It's been gradually creeping up on me, this crunchy thing.

But I have to admit, I'm getting pretty granola.

Do you have a clue what I'm talking about? Here are some hints:

Yesterday I mentioned using some homemade beauty products and a friend asked me to elaborate. Ok! I'd love to share what's working for me. I'm by no means an expert and I continue to adjust and experiment but my skin feels better, acts better and is easier to take care of, plus I'm saving a lot of money on beauty products.

I used to buy name brand products, and though they were "lower end", as in, something you could get at Target or your corner drug store, even my simplistic routine really added up. Olay, Clean & Clear, Secret, Pantene--and Bath & Body Works. Love those smells and still feel pampered when I get some BBW for a gift! I always always used lotion on my skin after a shower, faithfully washed my face every evening and moisturized it again, shampooed and conditioned my hair every day, applied antiperspirant at least once a day, you know, everything you're "supposed" to do.

I've gone through some struggles with my health over the last decade, and completely changed my life-style from yuppy single career woman to married stay-at-home-mommy. While my health is fine, more or less, I realized about two years ago that the cycle of being pregnant, post-partum, nursing, getting pregnant again three times over had really taken a toll on me. I had been diagnosed with hypothyroidism back in my single days and had just taken my synthetic meds being told that there was no cure. With each pregnancy I had different health-care providers and in between was yet another doctor, so it seems my dose was constantly changing and never stable.

To make a long story short because this wasn't supposed to be about all of that, I've finally taken my health into my own hands and have begun the long journey to get me back on track. Actually, this started about 18 months ago. I've had ups and downs and many more changes and moves since then, but I am gradually learning what works. I have two triggers, especially, that make me feel lousy: gluten and sugar.

I'm happy to say that I'm at a point where I'm gluten AND sugar free 90% of the time. And when I give in and have bread at the Macaroni Grill or splurge on a latte at Starbucks or have a couple slices of real pizza, I pay for it the next day or two.

That's my point of the background story. Some of the improvement I've seen in my skin might be because of diet more than skin care products.

Still, there's the money-saving part, and knowing my homemade skin care items aren't slowly killing me (um, aluminum? fluoride?), aren't tested on animals, don't have wasteful by-products, and I could eat them if I had to. I'll take it.

Ok. Finally.

I clean my face with oil. After years of trying to get my skin to be less oily. Yeah, ironic. I read something written by The Wellness Mama about a year ago about an effective oil cleansing method.

please pin from the original website

I'm kinda lazy though, and over the last year, this has turned into a moisturizer for me. Here's what I do: Equal parts extra-virgin olive oil and quality coconut oil with a few drops of lavender essential oil. I put it in a little jar which lasts forever, even though I was slathering it on my boys' chapped cheeks all winter! It's weird at first, so I start with less than I think I'll need and it's usually enough. I try to keep my hair out of the way and just let it soak in while doing something else for a minute or two, and then apply make-up as usual.

I don't wash my face at night. If I feel dry or dirty, I'll apply more oil-moisturizer.

Speaking of oily hair and Wellness Mama, I also use her recipe for dry shampoo. Again, it's kinda weird to get used to it and kinda funny when you catch of whiff of chocolate and realized it's your hair, but it helps me go longer between washes. That whole no-shampoo movement? I just can't get past the "transition" phase they say your scalp goes through where you feel so grody and greasy and before the magical my-hair-and-scalp-have-never-felt-better thing. Who knows, I might try it again on a camp trip or when I find a cute enough hat, but for now I still wash 2-3 times a week with real, commercial shampoo!

please pin from the original source

We're still using our version of DIY toothpaste. I like being able to squeeze it, but it's pretty hard in the winter so we've been scooping with our toothbrushes which thrashes them! I'm thinking of adding a tablespoon or so of olive oil to the ratio of ingredients below to see if it's a better consistency. Here's a link to that original post even though the recipe is on the picture sequence below!

The last item I want to mention is still in a trial phase, but I think I like it! I've been looking for a good, natural deodorant for a long time. I've tried the salt crystal thing, Tom's brand natural stuff, straight coconut oil... Yeah, no. But just last week I tried this recipe from Homemade Mommy.

Only now that I study it, I realize how much I adapted it. So my version is inspired by Homemade Mommy. Whatever works, right?

I used a quarter cup each baking powder and arrowroot powder and mixed it up with a half cup of coconut oil and a few drops of lavender essential oil. While it was soft from mixing, I spooned it into an empty deodorant container and let it harden for a day. You know what? It works! I'm not stinky or particularly sweaty, and you can apply it the same way as always! Win!

Homemade Mommy's recipe includes clay and shae and less baking powder. I'm sure it's wonderful but I didn't have those ingredients. I've heard frankincense is a great essential oil for deodorant. I'd like to try it or sandalwood or something, but that really does sound crunchy so I better stick to what I have!

Well, there you go. I've been reading up on how to make your own mineral make-up, but I'm not sure I can handle any more food items smeared on my face!

What about you? Have you tried any natural beauty product recipes lately? Are you crunchy?