Life Lately {March}

Is this thing on?

[taps mic]

Testing, testing [SCREEECH]

Um, hello! How are you? I've missed you! There's been... well, life happening. Boring, normal, daily grind stuff, not much to write home about, but I miss blogging! I miss documenting the boring, normal, daily stuff. I miss you!

So I'm going to see how this blogging thing works again. At least for now. Right now this moment is all I can promise.

So. Let's review life lately. Via Instagram, naturally.

And be warned, I'm going to back up. Last time I did this was recapping February, so it's March's turn.

Here we go!

Gary's alter-ego is a pirate! Just kidding. The picture seemed artsy and cool when I took it, now it just  is wonky. Whatever. Gary was presenting our mission plans to the Beginner's class (ages 3-5) at church and showing them where the British Isles are. The little kids caught on so quickly that if other kids don't know that Jesus loves them, who's going to tell them? WE ARE!

My sweet Josiah actually enjoyed drinking this charcoal slurry. We had some awful bugs this winter. I think it was all the babysitting, actually. You know? We didn't get out much, other people were constantly coming over and we seemed to get whatever they had... At least the kids did. Sigh. I'm so glad winter is over!

Along that vein, I ordered the medicine cabinet makeover kit from doTerra. Love it! I've used several of these little bottles up already. I'm going to try to do more posts about essential oils, although a simple google search will turn up more information about oils than I know... But at least I'll have it on record.

One tip: Jared was coughing one night. Just a little tickle that was bugging him. I put honey on a spoon and added a drop or two of essential oil and had him swallow it. I tell you, he didn't cough even once more. Amazing!

Oh man. I didn't grow up in the midwest. I grew up in California, mostly. Usually by March we'd be wearing shorts and working on tans, but here in the midwest, March is just an ugly month! It's still cold but there's not much snow, so it's all brown and muddy and you just ache for spring... So to see these geese flying NORTH was a huge sign that Aslan had returned! I mean, spring was coming!

We ended winter by teaching the kids how to play a couple board games on Saturday nights. Fun times! This is Rummikub, in case you didn't know.

Jellyfish from the aquarium at the Omaha Zoo. Love that place!

My trio. I love them. They mean everything to me, yet drive me nuts at the same time! They look like cherubs here, but I remember having to get after them for running up and down the aisles of Sam's Club just a few minutes later.

I swear, it looks like we're always out and about, but this Sunday was an exception and I needed to prove it! Meaning, we were home so much we HAD to spend a day away from the house or go crazy! So we went out for breakfast, killed some time at Barnes & Noble, then drove around outside city limits.

We found a great place to go camping!

And found a great CSA farm with free range chickens and everything! Haven't signed up yet, but maybe we will.

Here's another great camping spot. We actually camped here once when Jared was a baby. It was October and we borrowed a pop up. It was fun, but Gary got so cold at night he promptly got sick. Not a fun drive back to Iowa! I did a lot of the driving that day. Poor guy! Anyway, on this day we saw a bald eagle and all the sunshine was a promise of green things and warm days ahead!

This tree is in our back yard. The kids have a fun time climbing it. I loved doing that when I was a kid!

Any time it's warm enough and we have time and not too many extra kids with us, we head to the park. This one is just about half a mile away, so it's not too far for short legs.

And it's so nice to have somewhere else for the kids to play for awhile!

Spring cleaning! Temps above freezing, snow, ice, mud, salt... My car was dirty! And as much as they say they like it, these drive-thru car washes freak my kids out!

Mmmm! Mom's granola! This was a double batch and it was gone in less than a week. The recipe is on this blog, if you do a search for "granola" it should pop up.

My sweetheart surprised me with flowers! And I was focusing so much on getting the right light and angle and everything that I didn't smile. I really am pleased with the flowers and completely love my husband, with or without flowers!

Jonathan loves his ants on a log! Celery + peanut butter + raisins = nasty! I mean, I'm glad he likes it.

After their ants-on-a-log, I made the boys "chocklick" smoothies with almond milk, frozen bananas and cocoa powder. They loved the treat and I loved that it was actually quite healthy!

Jared is really catching on to Rummikub!

This was a Sabbath afternoon outing to Pioneers Park. We walked a couple miles, then checked out the animals at the nature center.

Daddy is teaching his boys to fish! I was sitting in the sun thawing out from a long winter! We'd love to come back here and camp!

This was the sweetest thing. Josiah wanted "hewp" walking, so Jared took him by the hand. Love that relationship and when the loving, helpful, selfless side comes out.

Ok, so that was March! Along with lots of babysitting, some great weather and some reminders that Old Man Winter wasn't quite done with us yet.

And, yay! I blogged!

[pats self on back]

More later!

Jared's Birthday

Today is Jared's birthday.

I can't believe he's 5! It was just yesterday when he was born! At home. With a midwife and doula. And a million and 6 hours of hard labor... It was brutal. He was almost 10 lbs too!

Really, this is what happened yesterday. His Sabbath School class celebrated his birthday with a fake cake and real candles. Super cute! (I got his little outfit at Sam's Club for $4! His brothers got similar ones. Score!)

Today we took Jared and the rest of the family out to breakfast. We also shopped for his present, a fish tank, but the lady at PetCo said we shouldn't get fish cuz the tank had to be set up for like a week first. Stink!!! Why didn't we think of that!

We grilled veggies and veggie burgers, the first of the season. It tasted like summer!

We played together. Me thinking of the chubby happy baby who is now the adorable 5-year-old. Seriously, why do I want to cry?

We had planned to take Jared out for dessert, but his big brother didn't feel good, so we got ice cream at the store and brought it home. Candles and birthday songs made it perfectly wonderful for the birthday boy! He sure looks serious though, doesn't he?

I love you Jared, and I'm so glad you're mine, at least for a few more years!

Lately...

Good thing this is a journal/hobby type thing, because my posting is sporadic at best and quite random when it does happen! I want to keep up with life lately with my posts, so I present to you... February. According to Instagram.

If you know us in real life or you've been following this little blog for the last year or so, you know we're missionaries in training. The organization we're with has missionary families raise their own funds in a way of growing a real, integrated support team who will be personally invested in the mission through prayer and monetary donations. Suffice it to say, our mission to the Celtic People of the British Isles has been met with curiosity but not a lot of support! As in, we're still below 10% of our budget needs after 10 months of fundraising! That's a record low. 

Anyway, we met someone last fall who works for the Outlook, a paper for this region of our church that is sent to all members living in the Midwest (approximately 30,000). We were asked to write an article on how we plan to reach out to our new friends in the British Isles and it was published this month! We're super excited to be printed and hope our ideas can be used by others in their sphere of influence too. Here's a link to the online article if you're curious.

While we're on the topic of our mission, Gary was asked to present in the Beginner's class at church. These kiddos are 3-5 years old. Gary did a great job telling them a story about a prayer that was answered and relating how the kids we're going to be living near (showing where on the map, yes, he looks like a pirate!) don't know about Jesus and how He answers prayer, so what should we do? A little boy shouted out, "We need to go tell them!!!" Loved that moment!

We've had a touch of illness lately. I love the empathy my older and youngest son are showing their brother when he didn't feel well! Jared napped on and off and didn't eat anything I can remember, slept really well that night and was back to his rambunctious self by morning!

Jonathan is WAY into space shuttles and rockets. He builds small lego shuttles that are quite accurate looking. These with large legos don't look so much like the real thing, but he likes that the boosters explode when they're detached after launching. What boy wouldn't? Jonathan took these pictures with my cell phone, chose the background color and added the "stickers" on the app too. 

This little goofball calls himself "Jos-iah". His name for me today is "Jos-mommy". Can't get any cuter! Another cute Jos-iah-ism happened at supper:

Daddy to Josiah: I love you!

Josiah to Daddy: I love you too!

Josiah to Mommy: I love Daddy. And I love YOU. And I love chips.

Wow, I'm right up there with chips!

Jonathan loves to volunteer at Sabbath School. Which made me realize he's older and bigger than all the other kids in that class. (We were visitors for a long time, the boys wanted to be together, we compromised on the 3-5-year-old class.) So I promptly promoted him to a more age-appropriate class. After building it up, of course. He's so brave and getting so big! He brings his Bible and does his lesson and memorizes his scripture and just can't wait to see his new friends and do crafts! This picture was from his last week in the younger class.

We were invited to go hiking with friends at Schramm State Rec Area. It's about an hour away and it was quite a little jaunt through the muddy woods, but we all had fun. It was good to get out, good to have new friends, good to get some sunshine and exercise!

There's a long story behind why I was drilling things in my room, and you probably will never hear all of it. But soon I'll actually show you our room and the story might unfold itself. Meanwhile, I'm that mom who lets her 6 year old play with her drill. How else is he gonna learn? :) Jonathan made a cross. And colored it with crayons and markers. And played with it for a couple days before propping it on his headboard where it still lives. 

We're still homeschooling! It's a little touch-and-go, depending on how many kids I'm watching on a given day. And the weather. This day we did a few activities with their little friend. Lately it's been warm enough to let them play outside, so we're making up for all the days trapped inside during the winter!

Speaking of homeschooling, I was invited to be a guest blogger on a friends homeschool blog! I'll let you know more about it when I post my first blog.

This day was hard. Lesson learned. I had seven kids under age 7. Never again.

May I just observe, by the way, that my Instagram use has gone down? Yeah, we're home most days and I'm caring for other people's kids, and when I think about taking pictures it's bad lighting or the moment is gone, or I just want to be IN the moment and not step back and document it all! How about you? How do you find balance in what to document? Cell phones and Instagram/Facebook have made it easier to capture moments, but have they made it better?

I'm gibsongirl726 on Instagram and I'd love to follow you!

Omaha Zoo

We did something fun this weekend! We invested in our family and bought a zoo membership! We're about an hour away from the Omaha Zoo and decided it was worth the $95 to get a year pass for our family. We're so glad we did!

The weather was just beautiful, so we enjoyed our first day that felt like spring in sweatshirts while walking around outside!

The first exhibit we saw was the IMAX.

Gary and I loved the documentary about the Canadian Railroad through the Rockies, but Josiah and Jared spent quite a bit of time with their ears and eyes covered! Poor guys. Jonathan liked it though. I think it was just how loud and big everything was. We're looking forward to seeing the Penguin and Africa movies at the IMAX theater in future visits.

After taking a quick look at our map, we decided to hit the exhibits on the bottom section and save the ones farther out for another time. That's the beauty of getting a pass! (Oh, the IMAX was covered in our pass too.)

We walked through the bear exhibit--there were black bears and a polar bear, but the sun was bright and they were on the other side of some glass windows which made pictures not look great.  I'm not sure any picture of this Sun Bear would be flattering, poor thing!

We also saw the large cats; jaguars, Siberian tigers, lions and lion cubs. But again, they were behind glass lit up by the sun, and we were inside a building, so no pictures!

Then we ate lunch. The plan was to bring sandwiches and "supplement" with something extra bought at the zoo. This area was the one complaint we had! They sold hot dogs, mini pizzas, and popcorn, and that's about it! The mini pizzas were $6! We shared a tub of popcorn and promised next time to pack more goodies from home!

 Next we walked through the gorilla house and the orangutan house.

The primates are always fun to watch! Some of them really were monkey-ing around (ha ha!), others were feeling the need to procreate. Yes, it's true. I'll spare you the details.

Our next stop was the aquarium. This was a big hit with the whole family! My only complaint was that it was crowded, but we enjoyed seeing everything from sharks to penguins to starfish to jellyfish!

Our last stop of the day was a large dome where desert animals lived. We saw wallabies, meerkats, and tapir, along with some birds and snakes.

After that, we called it a day. We're looking forward to our next trip to the zoo. We know there are giraffes, elephants, hippos, the butterfly house and an aviary left to see!

It was so nice to have a day off from babysitting and regular obligations and to be able to go do something fun with our family! Have you had any family outings lately?

I think I've documented a couple other trips to different zoos on this little family blog. It's definitely one of our favorite places to go with little kids!

Homemade Face Cream

 
My youngest is 2 1/2 and likes to reference things as happening "last week". Sometimes he means yesterday, sometimes he means some other time in the past. It's super cute, but I might be biased.

Anyway, I was starting to tell you about my homemade face cream I referenced in my Crunchy post last week. I thought you'd like to see the way I make it.

 

First I gather all the ingredients on a tray and photograph it for posterity.

Just kidding, but these are the three ingredients I use: Olive oil, coconut oil and lavender essential oil. You also need a whisk or spoon or other stirring device and a jar with a lid.

My container is from an adorable little candle I found at the grocery store last fall. It's a mason jar that's probably only 3-4 ounces. I regret only buying two! I knew it was a seasonal item but thought they'd have more for Christmas or Valentine's but I haven't seen them again. Moving on.

I put a big scoop of coconut oil in the jar then microwave it for 30 seconds to soften the oil so it can be mixed with the other oils.

Next I pour in some olive oil.

For the record, I didn't decant the olive oil to be fancy for this post! I buy oil in the giant containers and prefer to keep them out of sight, so I use this green jar all the time. Not sure why I felt it necessary to clear that up, but whew!

I then add a few drops of lavender essential oil. I'm sure there are others you could use, but I like the smell and it's supposed to be quite fantastic for your skin.

Then whip it up! I've heard of some people blending it in the blender which might have really cool results. I imagine it is really smooth and creamy, but I just don't make enough at once to bother.

The last step I take is to stick the jar of newly mixed face cream in the fridge. I find it takes quite some time for the coconut oil to harden again, so I speed it up by chilling it. By the way, the purpose of mixing olive oil into your face cream is for the consistency. I've found that straight coconut oil is hard to work with, and I prefer the smell when olive oil and essential oil are added.

So there you have it! Super easy, super good for you! I use this every morning and sometimes at night. It only takes about the size of a pea to cover your whole face, so even though I slather it on my boys' faces in the winter too, a little container like this lasts a long time!

This recipe works great as a make-up remover as well. Just rub it on and wipe it off with a soft cloth. I sometimes do this but really don't prefer how it lingers around my eyes, although some people swear by it.

Are you going to try it? You probably have all the ingredients on hand already! What crunchy beauty recipes do you use?