Quick Tip: Change Your Smoke Detector Batteries

It was the middle of the night.  Everyone was soundly sleeping in their beds, and BEEP!  BEEP!  In a sleepy fog, Jesse and I got up and tried to figure out which smoke detector had a dying battery.

Even better, it was one that couldn't decide if it was dying or not, so it didn't beep consistently. 

1:09AM: 2 beeps, about a minute apart.  Maybe it's the one in the hallway?

2:47AM: 5 beeps.  It's not the boys' room, or they would have woken up.

3:07AM: 3 beeps.  I don't think it's one upstairs.  I'm not going downstairs right now.

4:44AM: 2 beeps. Definitely downstairs.  Must be the dining room, since that's the only one with a battery right now! (Also, don't do this.)

Once we woke up for the day, it stopped beeping.  Lovely.  I was amused by the fact that though my children will wake up instantly from the creaking of the floor when we walk on it, they all slept through the beeping.

These are not the type of batteries that our smoke detectors take.  But I had already changed them, and I wasn't going to get them back out for a picture...

According to the National Fire Protection Association, you're supposed to check your smoke detectors at least monthly, if not weekly, and change the battery every six months to a year.  You're also supposed to replace smoke detectors about every 10 years or so, as they may not function as well with age.

When I went around checking all of ours, I discovered one from 2001, and two that were so old they didn't have dates.  Replaced!  I also changed all of the batteries so that we won't be woken up in the middle of the night any more.  Except by kids who wet the bed, crying babies, and a toddler who needs a hug.

Daylight Savings Time starts this weekend, and it might be a good time to check all of your smoke detectors and change the batteries.  That way you get on a schedule of doing it, and you don't have to worry about nighttime beeps.

Once you do, come back and tell me if you had any smoke detectors older than ours!

Why We Want To Do A Whole 30 Challenge

As I mentioned in my Weekly Goals post, we are planning on doing a Whole 30 Challenge for the month of March.  (If you don't know what that is, head here).  But why?

Jesse and I are tired of being overweight and tired.  We do reasonably well with eating mostly real food for our meals.  Snacks are a completely different story, and we tend to splurge on extra food more often than we need to.  By doing a challenge like this with very strict rules, we're hoping to reset some of those habits.

I haven't had so much success with less strict options.  I've been tracking my calorie intake on the My Fitness Pal app for almost 2 years.  I also gained about 20 pounds last year (below is a part of that).  It's really easy to fudge the numbers, or to know that you're making bad choices and make them anyways, because it's "just a little bit" or "I deserve it".

This is my weight tracker from My Fitness Pal.  Ignore the big dip in the middle - our scale went wonky for a day as the batteries died.  But you can see the steady upward trend over the past 6 months.

I use food as a reward all the time.  That's a mindset I'm really fighting against.  When I have to do one of those adult things I hate, like make phone calls or clean the toilets, I tend to make myself feel better by rationalizing that I can have a treat when I'm done.  When I'm stressed, or sad, or bored, I turn to food at those times too.

So why now?  When I'm right in the middle of working on my gluten-free muffins cookbook, which contains many ingredients I can't have during the challenge.  When we have a child's birthday that we still haven't figured out how to work around, other than making cake for the kids and just not eating it.  When I'm not completely sure we can afford to buy the food we need, or the time to make it, or find recipes that the kids can eat too, or...

There are lots of reasons why this isn't a good month.  But really, any month is going to have challenges.  There are going to be things like birthdays, or projects, or picky eaters.  So we may as well jump in and do it.

We tried eating a modified paleo diet at one point.  We still included oats, rice, and beans, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting.  Jesse and I both really liked it, and we developed some good habits then.  I'm hopeful we can do that again.

If you're still reading my rambling, gold star for you!  I'll be sharing more of our meal plans, thoughts, and results as we go through this process.

Our Homemade Chores Charts

Last year, we came up with a list of chores we wanted Jonah and Matthew to do.  Some were daily, some were weekly, but we wanted to have them all in one place.  We recently re-did the charts, so I thought I'd share.

Jonah's Chores (age 6):

• Brush teeth every morning (by himself)
• Brush teeth every evening (Mom helps)
• Set the table
• Take out the recycling 
• Sweep the dining room
• Sweep the kitchen
• Vacuum the living room rugs (we discovered the vacuum is a bit heavy yet, so his job is to get the vacuum out and plugged in for me and then put it away)
• Do his laundry
• Wash dishes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

Matthew's Chores (age 4) are similar:

• Brush teeth every morning (by himself)
• Brush teeth every evening (Mom helps)
• Clear the table
• Take out the compost
• Get the upstairs garbage
• Sweep the dining room
• Sweep the kitchen
• Dust
• Do his laundry
• Wash dishes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday

Once we had our list for each kid, along with a dollar amount assigned to each one, I hopped onto the computer and found clip art to correspond.  A Google search got me pictures of the different coins, and I was able to find pictures that went along with each chore as well.

Some have multiple steps, like laundry.  So I included a picture for each step: wash, dry, fold, put away. (Read a bit more about how I got the boys to do their own laundry here)

Then I added boxes, and printed them out.  I laminated them, and the boys mark off their chores each day as part of their nightly routine.  If they do everything for the week, they've made $0.96, and they can cross off the box at the bottom to get 4 extra pennies.  This also encourages them to keep track so they can get A WHOLE DOLLAR. That's a big deal.

What do you use for keeping track of chores?

Things My One-Year-Old Is Obsessed With

Little people are funny.  And so, for a dose of humor today, I present Things My One-Year-Old Is Obsessed With.

This box of Rice Krispies.

Any family member's dirty socks.

The bath soap and cup we use for rinsing.

This box of envelopes, which must always be dumped out.

Her green bunny, "Bun-Bun".

Any canned food, which should not be on the shelf.  Also, bringing cloth diapers all over the house.  You know, in case we need one.

Also cool:

• Her brother's shoes, but only one at a time
• The tv remote
• Any Lego she can manage to find on the floor or pull off the table
• The kitchen garbage

What about the little people in your house?  What things do they think are the coolest?

Life Lessons From The Kids

"I can't do this, Mom! It's too full.  There's not enough room for everything."  I looked at the magnetic board overflowing with characters.  When Jonah was trying to put every single piece on the board, he was right.  There wasn't enough space.

And it got me thinking.

This is how my life is too.  When I try to do every single thing, there's not enough space.

I explained to Jonah that it might be more fun if he just picked a few of his favorite pieces, and put those on the picture.  They would have enough room to shine in the picture, and he would have more fun.

The same is true for my life.  If I pick just a few of my favorite things, and leave space, those things shine, and I have more fun.

When You Let Go Of Stuff, Except You Don't

As I've posted before, I've become a big fan of the KonMari method of decluttering as outlined in the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.  So far I've gone through clothes, and books, and papers, and I'm on to the miscellaneous.

But here's the problem.  The bins of clothes still sit in our entryway because the money-minded trying-to-pay-off-debt part of me wants to sell them rather than donate them.  We took some books to a used bookstore for credit, but the ones they didn't want are still in a crate in the garage.  We went through the boys' Legos, and weeded out some of the less-played-with packs so they don't have so many, but the unwanted ones are still in a box.

I've gotten rid of things, except I haven't really.

I've tried setting dates.  If I don't sell this by __, I'll take it to the thrift store.  And then I ignore those dates.

The good news is that we're not using any of the stuff I've "gotten rid of".  The bad news is that it's still in the house.

Why can't I let go of this stuff?  Why am I letting it take up space in my house?  Why am I so bent on making pennies off of things instead of just clearing them out and enjoying the space?

I don't have answers for any of this.  I think part of it is I'm hoping that putting it out there will motivate me to actually take care of the stuff, even if that means taking over part of the garage to store things until we can have a garage sale (because January in Iowa is not prime garage sale season).  If nothing else, maybe I'll make someone else feel better about their efforts.

Tell me I'm not alone.  Have you started decluttering and then stalled on the actual getting-rid-of-it part?

Why I Don't Make New Year's Resolutions

You can find the blank printable for the word of the year (or just for a thought bubble chart in general) here, under "Getting Organized for the New Year".

I don't make New Year's resolutions for one very specific reason.  A year is too long.  I do really well for the first couple days, maybe even a few weeks, but then life pushes those ideas and thoughts to the back of my mind and I forget.  I forget that I wanted to write so much or do these projects or lose this weight.  Because life is full of other little things.

I moved on to monthly goals for awhile.  Those kind of worked, except it usually went something like this:

• Write the monthly goals post at the beginning of the month.
• Immediately do the easy thing (I always included one easy thing).
• Forget about the list for 3 weeks.
• Go to write the monthly goals post for the next month and quickly try to do the rest of the things on it.

So that didn't work too well either.  I moved to weekly goals, and I think I've finally found my sweet spot.  A week is short enough.  I can remember things for that amount of time, or they can live in my new planner, or on my marker board, a reminder to get crossed off, but not there for so long that I don't even see them anymore.

So you might wonder why someone who forgets things after a week would choose a word for the year.  For the entire year.  That's like asking for failure, right?  And perhaps it is, although I hope it isn't.  I tried this once before, and it kind of fizzled out.  

The difference is that this time I actually took the time to break it down.  

I chose the word Relationships this year.  I feel like I've let a lot of my relationships take a back burner, and I'd like to fix that.  I went with specific categories of people, and then wrote down some specific ways I could improve my relationship with each one.

• God
• Jesse
• My kids, both generally as a parent, and each child specifically
• My extended family - parents, grandma, siblings and their families
• My friends
• My church family
• My kids' relationships with important people in their lives

Once I separated those categories out, I thought of specific ways to work on building and improving each of those relationships.  Things like writing to my grandma once a month, or having the kids send pictures and notes to their godparents.  Things like actually calling people (I'm an introvert who hates phone calls, so I put them off, but I do actually love talking to family and friends).  

I gave myself time frames and lists of things to do, and while putting aspects of my relationships on checklists might seem really weird to some of you, I think it will help me to make sure I don't put off the important people in my life.  

Do you pick a word for the year?  Set any resolutions or goals?  Make checklists of people to call?  Tell me about it...

Our Four-Gift Christmas

There are a few cool ideas out there for how to give gifts to your children for Christmas.  And by that, I mean if you want to have a certain number, or a meaning behind the gifts.  Not how to wrap them up and hand them over.  Hopefully, you can figure that part out on your own.

In the past years, we've just kind of gone shopping and found things we liked, making sure to get an equal number for the kids that are paying attention to that sort of thing.  This year I mentioned the "something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read" idea, and Jesse liked it, so we (mostly) went with that.

Jonah:

• Want: This Lego pack.  He has spoken of nothing but this Lego pack with his favorite character Skylor in it for the past three months or so.
• Need: Kids need Jesus.  We got him a Bible stories dvd.
• Wear: Captain America shirt.  We like our superheroes, and these shirts were on Target clearance for like $2.
• Read: Wild Kratts Sea Creatures . The boys like the show, and sharks are his favorite animal.

 Matthew:

• Want: We scored the very cool Lego Samurai pack on Ebay for $14.  It's retired, and it was originally about a $50 set, I think.  The Samurai is Matthew's favorite Ninjago character.
• Need: Jesus again.  We got him a Bible Stories dvd also, completing our set (we had 2 of the 4 already).
• Wear: Lego guy shirt, also Target clearance.
• Read: Wild Kratts Snakes and Reptiles .  They didn't have one about kangaroos, which are his favorite.

Hannah:

• Want: Daniel Tiger Trolley .  "Dan Dan" is her favorite favorite.
• Need: Here's where we deviated, because she didn't really need anything, so we went with the Daniel Tiger character 5-pack to go with the trolley.
• Wear: Minnie Mouse socks using a $5 Famous Footwear coupon from my email.
• Read: Dan Dan, of course.  Daniel Tries a New Food , because she's being extra picky about food lately.

Elizabeth got a box of Kleenex.  Really.  She is always pulling out Kleenex or baby wipes, so we gave her a box of her own to do what she wished.  She enjoyed it quite a bit!  One year olds don't need a lot of presents anyways, at least not in my opinion, and the kids all get gifts from relatives and church members as well.

So that's what we got for Christmas.  I really liked having the four things to keep us in check from spending overload, and I enjoyed putting a spin on each category depending on what the kids like.  We ended up opening presents this morning because we'll be at church tonight and all morning tomorrow.  And honestly?  We were excited too.

Check back next week to see all the projects I made to hand out for gifts this year!

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.  Buying through these links doesn't cost you anything, but it adds a little bit to our budget for things like Christmas presents for the kids.  And toilet paper.  

My Monthly Quotation Motivation

We have a large whiteboard hanging in our dining room.  I use this for a variety of things: my grocery list, our family wish list for larger items, my weekly cleaning list, the boys' piggy bank totals (they like to keep track of how much they have).  But a few months ago, I also started writing down a motivational quote for the month.

These are quotations that I've read recently that have struck a chord for me.  So far they've included the two pictured, plus this one: "A year from now you'll wish you had started today."

I try to make these big picture ideas that can help me make smarter decisions in the day to day.  It's easy to say something like, "I should lose weight" or "I want to lose 20 pounds", but to turn that into a reality takes a lot of little decisions and tiny steps.

Jesse likes to read these to me at dinner time, a little bit tongue-in-cheek.  His favorite was to use the "small goals" quote to try to convince me to order pizza during our no spend month, because ordering it once was better than ordering it several times, and that's a good small goal.  But I like to think the words motivate him too.

I see the marker board every day.  And every day, I have to make little decisions.  Eat an orange when I'd rather have a brownie.  Save money.  Exercise instead of watching tv.  You know, adult things.

Thoughts on Little Things and Big Things

I sat down to write our yearly Christmas "brag" letter.  I stared at the cursor blinking on the screen.  I typed a few words, erased, tried again.  I didn't know what to say.

We didn't do anything this year.  Nothing remarkable.

We didn't take any huge trips.  No new babies.  No moves.

I tried to think of a humorous way to say we did nothing.  But that isn't completely true.  We had to have done something.  After all, 365 days have passed.  We certainly didn't spend the whole time asleep.

We did plenty of little things.  We finished our first hodge-podge year of kind of preschool at home, and started our official homeschool with a kindergartner and a preschooler this fall.  I started a monthly church newsletter.  Jonah lost his first tooth. Matthew learned to sweep the floor. Hannah's vocabulary exploded, although please don't ask me to translate two-year-old speak before I've had my coffee.  I have now figured out why her favorite phrase is, "What you say?" (What did you say?)  Elizabeth learned to function, which is a lot of little things over the course of her first year of life.

In a brag letter, these things aren't that impressive.  But in real life, life made up of little ordinary things, these are the big things.  Sometimes I need that reminder.  Maybe you do too.

What We Do To Celebrate Advent and Christmas

I've seen several other bloggers posting their Advent traditions, and I thought I'd share mine as well.  Kind of.  We don't have a ton of traditions for Advent and Christmas yet.  We're still figuring out what we like and don't like, and what works for our family.

For Advent itself, we do a couple things.  We have an Advent wreath on our dining room table, which we light at dinner time.

And we also have this 12 day Advent calendar, which we use as our nightly devotions leading up to Christmas Day.  Each box has a little cutout inside with the person or thing of the day, and the devotions focus on that.  The boxes turn around to make a nativity scene.

The kids like to take turns with that.  Sometimes we have the chocolate calendars, and the past two years we had the Lego Advent calendars, but this year we didn't end up getting anything extra. We have an ornament that plays either a hymn or a part of the Christmas story for 25 days, but we didn't end up getting that out this year.  Once the kids put their ornaments on the tree, I thought it looked nice, so I didn't bother getting out the rest of the ornaments.

We also have church each Wednesday night, which is still difficult for Elizabeth, because she wants to either crawl around or go to bed, neither of which is an option.  Next year will be a different world, I can already tell.

I've been trying to limit the extra activities, because we end up being really busy in December anyways, but there are a few things we are going to try to make time for.

• Making paper chains to countdown to Christmas.
• Decorating the Christmas tree.
• Decorating flat gingerbread houses.
• Driving around to see the Christmas lights.
• Sending out Christmas cards. 
• Making a fun garland to hang over our school room doorway.
• Make a Lego nativity.
• Adding some fun Christmas worksheets and activities to our school day.  I've been saving things like nativity puppets and word searches and color by numbers for days when we want to still do something, but not necessarily anything too hard.

Will we get to all of these? Maybe.  Maybe not.  If not, there's always next year.  What do you do during the Advent and Christmas season?

Quick Tip: Use Up The Last Of The Dish Soap

When the dish soap is just about gone, don't throw the bottle away!  Instead, the next time you do the dishes, run the water through the (nearly) empty dish soap bottle first, and throw the lid in the water too.  There's usually enough soap coating the inside of the bottle and lid to fill your sink with suds for one more load.  Plus, then your dish soap bottle is rinsed out and ready to be recycled!

Teaching Gratitude To Little Kids

Every night before bed, we say a family prayer, and then each of the kids gets a chance to pray for something they're thankful for.  It is sometimes cute, sometimes silly, and sometimes, it's really difficult for them to think of even one thing.

I try to guide them with questions, like "What did you eat today?"  "What did we do today?"  But even then, they can't always put it into words.  I've talked previously about how I try to pray specifically for something I'm thankful for about my husband and each kid before bed at night.  Some days it's hard.  Some days I fall back on things I've already mentioned, which is okay, but it also serves as a reminder to look for different things as well.

So even though we didn't have any actual school time this week (it's one of our pre-scheduled break weeks), I wanted to do a few projects and activities to remind them of how blessed we are, and to have fun with a few turkey themed things as well.

We made turkey hats, tracing their hands and cutting them out.  Jonah did most of his on his own.  Matthew needed help cutting out his hands, and I did pretty much all of Hannah's.  But this was a good project for a wide age range.

Tuesday we made a thankful tree.  I used painters' tape to put this right on the wall next to our calendar.  There were a few repeats, but we had a good variety of things that the boys thought of that they were thankful for.  Again, this took a bit of prodding at first, but eventually they started coming up with their own ideas.

They each chose one of their thankful items to draw a picture.  In case you can't tell, Matthew drew a Lego book with a police car on it (left), and Jonah drew a turkey (right).

Yesterday, we finished off with a few more fun worksheets.  My kids love color-by-number (or letter) sheets and word searches, so I knew they'd enjoy these.

Worksheets can be found here:

• I Am Thankful For... worksheet
• Turkey Color By Letter worksheet
• Pilgrim Lady Color By Number worksheet

Happy Thanksgiving from our family!

On Refugees, And Current Events, And Such

Can I be honest?  I don't keep up on current events very well since having kids.  I used to be so good about reading all the headlines, and really digging into topics that interested me through all sorts of print and online sources.  

And now?  Now I'm lucky if I know what day of the week it is and if it's going to rain or not.  Jesse told me the other day that someone dropped out of the presidential race, and my honest response was that I didn't even know he was running.

So take everything I say with that grain of salt.  

But for some reason, hearing about the attack in Paris and the effects it's having on the displaced Syrian refugees really struck a chord with me.  Maybe it's because I love Paris. Maybe it's because I'm naturally bullheaded, and when the first "close the borders and let no one in" posts started showing up, I immediately wanted to fight for all the innocent people.

And there's where it gets hard.  Are there thousands of people who legitimately need refuge, a safe place to live and be fed?  Absolutely.  Are some of the refugees terrorists in disguise?  Quite possibly.  Unfortunately, sin has made this world full of evil.

So I'm torn.  As a Christian, I want to offer not only physical help to people who need it, in the form of shelter, food, clothing, basic needs, but I also want to offer them Jesus.  This is a foreign mission field landing on our doorsteps, and these people need to hear about their Savior who loves them and who died for them.

But I also fear.  Not only has sin brought evil to this world, it has brought fear and worry and anxiety.  And so as a voting member, my inclination is to side with those who want to keep me and my family safe.  To not let in anyone who might harm us.

These two arguments don't get along.  

And maybe they don't have to.  If the government decides to let the refugees come here, I can show the the love of Jesus, up close, in person.  And if the government decides, for the good of the American people, not to let any Syrians come here, I can support that decision and look for other ways to help.  

I've seen ideas thrown out, that churches could sponsor families with monetary donations to help them resettle somewhere else.  That maybe it would be better for the Syrians to resettle somewhere closer to home, if that's possible.  It would be a way to help while still keeping our distance.  I think it's a smart plan, but I don't know how much it furthers the cause of sharing Jesus.  

All this sounds great now that I've written it down.  And it's easy to say from my living room in rural Iowa, where even if refugees relocated to my country, it's highly doubtful any of them would be anywhere near me.  So maybe I'm not the best person to listen to.  

But my mind goes to Matthew 25:35-40, which my husband just preached on recently. 

"'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'  

Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"

I just feel like there has to be a better answer than accept all or accept none.

For more on this situation from people who express these things far better than I do:

• 3 Tips For A More Civil Conversation About Syrian Refugees from The Federalist.
• Building His Church In A Refugee Crisis from Desiring God.
• For Our Fight Is Not Against Flesh And Blood from The Humbled Homemaker. 

My Last Baby, But.

Today is my baby's first birthday.  She's my last baby, but.  The last one.  But. I'm ninety-nine percent (almost certain, nearly positive) that we're done. But.

I just can't quite bring myself to say it with any finality.

Part of it is physical.  My pregnancy with Elizabeth was hard.  I could barely move by the end of it.

You made me hurt.  I hurt more than I have ever hurt before, and there was no way of moving, no strange contorted position I could take, to make it stop.  There was only partial relief from the drugs when I was finally in labor.  Even at the end, it was one final jab after another.  

And from this, I grew to understand some small part of chronic pain.   I was terrible to deal with as I adjusted to the pain.  At first, I snapped at everyone.  I had no patience.  There was only survival, the next step.  I got better at it, but I was still short tempered and a bit mean.  Pain changes people, and I made it through only because I knew there was an end.  Eventually, you would be born, and I could hobble back to my new normal.

If I had to deal with this long term, for months, years, the rest of my life, I don't know if I would be strong enough.  It was the finish line that kept me going.  You taught me so much before you were even born.

Part of it is mental.  I don't do well when I don't get sleep.  And even though she sleeps okay most nights now, the past year I've come to rely on my coffee more than ever before, just to make sure I don't bite anyone's head off.

You make this sweet little shudder, a small sigh, and I know you're finally falling asleep.  I watch as you suck on your pacifier a few more times, then let it droop from you lips and hang limp like a rag doll, but I can't bear to put you in the crib quite yet.  I'd rather watch you sleep for a few moments of peace.  This is the you I want to remember, not the screaming terror from a few minutes before.

She's been the worst sleeper, the worst eater, and I've been stretched beyond belief with her.  Part of me is scared what a next child might be like.

I sat holding you, rocking you to sleep last week, and I stopped.  There had been many nights when we had been awake together, multiple times in the wee hours of the morning, but they had tapered off, and it hadn't happened lately.  When was the last time?  Last month?  Six weeks ago?  

All of a sudden the realization that you're not so much a baby hit me like a train, full force.

In the quiet moments, it's easy to imagine what another child might be like.  Would he have my nose?  Would she have her daddy's long eyelashes?  But in the moments of chaos, all I can do is hold on until daddy gets home, until naps, until bed.

You love to dance, and sing, and move.  Even without any words, just babbling, you have an exuberant personality.  When you are enjoying life, you show it.  You wear your heart on your sleeve, and I love it.

My last baby turns one today.  But.

Learning About Emotions

We entered the grocery store, and immediately came upon a display of juice for 99 cents.  I don't normally buy juice, but I decided to treat the kids for lunch.  I picked up a bottle of apple kiwi strawberry, put it in the cart, and started to make my way to the produce section.  And then the four year old laid down on the floor and screamed.  After a few minutes of calming him down, I learned he wanted "just apple" juice, not apple with stuff in it.

Later on, we got to nap time.  After listening to the cacophony of sisters talking and jumping in their beds for a little while, I went upstairs to change diapers.  Sister number one: check.  Sister number two: check.  Sister number one then told me that she peed again.  Sister number one again: check.

While trying to listen to a six year old who can't quite master the "ll" sound at the end of "hill" and "bill" get frustrated with reading, I scrambled to find another activity for the four year old that would keep him quiet.  I gave him a workbook page to color.  He fought with his sister over the markers, and then had a meltdown because he wanted to do the things his big brother was doing.

These are fairly everyday scenes for us.  Whether they're tired, or angry, or frustrated, my little people don't have complete control over their emotions.  Which means I'm supposed to have control of mine, so I can teach them.

I'm learning that I'm still far from a pro at most of this parenting stuff.  I practice patience as best as I can, but inside (and occasionally outside) I'm rolling my eyes at the back of the six year old's head as he reads.  I'm hugging the four year old and inwardly shaking my head that he wants things he can't have.  I'm sighing at changing another diaper.  I've perfected the deep sigh to the point that my husband sometimes mimics me, and it's kind of funny from the other side.

And I'm guiltily looking in the mirror realizing that I too get frustrated with things I'm not good at.  I too want things that I can't have and get upset when I can't have them.  I too want someone I love to take care of me, even if it's not the most convenient part of their day.

Even as an adult, I still have a lot to learn.  So I guess the kids and I will learn together.

Plastic Containers vs. Glass Containers

Am I the only one who likes peeking into other bloggers' kitchen cupboards?  It's like an up close and personal look at how you do food.  I also like seeing your house in an organized (or real life) state.  Really I just sound creepy now, but hopefully I'm not the only one who does this!

I've slowly been switching my food storage over from plastic to glass.  There are many posts about why plastic is bad and glass is good from a food safety perspective.  Glass also has other benefits too.

So the picture at the top of this post is where I am today.  I have a lot of glass jars and pyrex containers, but I also still have a fair amount of plastic containers.  The problem for me is that the size of container I use most is the individual portion square type, and most of those are plastic.  See that one with the green lid?  That's my only glass rectangle for leftovers.  Otherwise it's tiny bowls or big bowls.

So over the past week, I challenged myself to only use glass for food storage.  What that meant is that sometimes I had a small portion of leftovers in a large bowl.  It's not the most efficient use of space, but it did help me to see what I need more of.  I also realized that some of my baby glass bowls are currently hijacked in the freezer with chopped jalapenos, and it might be better to dump those all in one jar and use the bowls for other things.

I've already been doing a good job of saving things like homemade broth in jars, and I have a stash of baby food jars that I use when I make my own (although we're almost out of that stage already!).

If something is going to get reheated, that gets first dibs on a glass container.  If it's a bread product, or something that's going to be dumped out into another dish, it's not as big of a deal right now.  For now, for the transition, this works, at least when I'm intentional about it.

My big dilemma is freezer ziplocs.  And I don't know if that's an easy thing I'm willing to give up right now, because I use them a lot.  I use them for my freezer meals, for applesauce, for chopped veggies.  Basically for whatever I want to freeze that I don't have a container for.  And I don't know a good way to do my freezer meals not in a bag.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

What about you?  Do you use plastic, glass, or a mixture of both like me?

My One Tip For Making Cooking From Scratch Easier

I make a lot of food from scratch.  It takes time, and energy, and it's not always the most fun thing to do (although I found a way to make the time more enjoyable!).  But there's one thing that always makes cooking from scratch easier.  

I do the dishes first.  

Here's before:

The counter has remnants of the first half of the day, and there's not a ton of workable space.  But with the dishes done?  Lots of room:

You'll notice there are still a few dirty dishes in the second photo.  That's because cups, bowls, plates, and silverware are done by the boys after dinner.  So I just did my dishes.  Most of theirs stay in one half of the double sink.

I first got the idea of having a completely clear counter from Crystal at Money Saving Mom.  And I loved it!  I'm a big fan of cleared off flat surfaces.  I think they look so much nicer, and they help keep me calm.  That's why I make sure to do all the dishes and have this counter cleared off 99% of the time before I go to bed.

Everything is easier with a clear counter.  You have space for all your ingredients and pans and bowls and a helper or two.  And when you're done, all that's left are a few dirty dishes.