Oh.....our Monday

Mondays...so much to do but always have some time for 

CRAFT TIME

I love clearanced price craft activities. Walmart had these for 25 cents. The way these girls love owls they loved making their own "glitter heart girl owls"

They must be related with those tongue shots.

Then...

PIZZA TIME

a simple recipe of a baked corn tortilla, tomato sauce, and toppings. Each girl made their own so they thought this was a blast. Way To Go Mom- You're on a roll!

BOX TIME

yes that's right. Box time! Every parent knows that kids love boxes more than their toys so after cleaning out some storage I had these large boxes left over so they became their entertainment for about an hour.

  FIXING TIME


Well this was more Mike and Hailey. He had Hailey help him install an amp into the car. So she was screwing in bolts, handing Mike tools, etc. So Lily seen this so she came inside and did this...

 Cati was handing Lily different crayons while Lily drew bolts in her box. How funny! :-)

SCOUTS

Mason started WEBELOS today. I don't know why he looks like this whenever I take his photo. I guess this is his version of striking a pose.

and then 

FAMILY HOME EVENING

it was my turn to plan an activity so I planned this... a night at the park.

 And an intense game of tag/freeze tag.

 Here's Cati trying to tag Mike.

 I guess we're too slow for Mike since he was able to take a nap on the monkey bars.

 Cati carried Lily's bedtime bear most the night.

 Lily screamed in delight the entire night.

 So not a great shoot but do you see Hailey in the background? Standing on the bar. Then do you see Mike? He's laying on the bars as well. Wonder where she learned this???

This Monday was GOOD!

Temple Date

This Saturday Mike and I were in a much needed "Outside Date" so before planning any dinner, movie, fun activity I felt we needed to attend the temple first. So thanks to our babysitting Co-op we had a volunteer to watch our 2 lovely toddlers.

Anyways the time we spent in the Bountiful Temple was amazing. We walked out of there ready for this crazy life. But what was more amazing was what I didn't do.

While talking to a temple worker Mike and him were talking about one of his ancestors. When he asked Mike if he knew him- my hubby didn't. That's OK since Mike comes from a long line of saints. But this caused Mike to come home and researched and found out that the man that Mike was talking about was a pioneer who came from England after being converted to the church. He and his family started in New York and walked to Chicago. But instead of joining the Willie Martin Handcart Co. he stood in Chicago since his wife just gave birth and needed a few days to rest. But the few days actually turned into a few months where his wife and young child died. They were buried in Chicago..somewhere. But he did make the trek to the Salt Lake Valley and settled in Herriman where he's buried there with his second wife and their children.

I thought this was so interesting. I had dabbled in my genealogy off and on but there's only so much I can find doing regular searches. But this lead me to Ancestry.com  where I signed up for their 2 week free trial. In the past 3 days  I have found over 300 years of my ancestors from Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky who immigrated from Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. But also a few from Austria, Prussia, and Poland. So I immediately called my mom to ask her tons of questions to see if I was on the right trail....which I am!

But the most awesome part was as I was searching and adding names there was a name with a link to a pedigree chart from someone in Germany. So this person had all the family members from 1800's and earlier who were in Germany. But lost track as they traveled over to America. And I had all the names from the US so once I clicked on his link it all connected. His chart and my chart. So I have a relative somehow related to me who's in Germany also doing genealogy. That's so AWESOME!

So now I've officially catch the genealogy bug and I'm loving it.

Lazy Days

Our home can be so busy some days that I sometimes forget to breathe. But for the most part our house has been calm. Besides the activities of everyday living we've been doing pretty well.

Hailey is embracing her gardening. She loves these warm days where she can dig for worms, make an ant house out of a recycled juice container and water our cherry blossom.

Every year we look forward to this. It's like the wake up call that spring is here. 

Mike's still working on the van, his motorcycle and the car.

More like his work car doesn't have a stereo. This drives him crazy. He currently uses his MP3 player and his coach speaker box but that just doesn't cut it. So he found a really good deal for a older version CD player but he's got to fix a few things first. Our van and his motorcycle both have parts being ordered in so whoever calls first with the parts will be the first one fixed (I hope it's the van!)

Cati is growing up so much these past few months. She's become more independent which has lead to her wanting to make her own choices. So if you see my child with a PJ shirt, church shoes, and a pair of leggings- SHE DID! Her new favorite thing is painting her nails. She had a small rash but it only lasted a few hours but she's been really enjoying life now that she's been rash few for a couple of weeks.

Lily- I love my Lily! She's only 3 but looks like a 5 year old, talks like a 9 year old, and acts like a 16 year old. So right now she's learning household chores. About a month ago I made a chore chart for the family. Everyone has a chore that lasts a week and after Family Home Evening we change who gets which chore. It's been a great way to teach the kids the value of work but it's been nice for me to have a lighter load. It's given me a chance to do the chores I always seem to neglect like my ironing. But Miss Lily has loved the chore chart. And as you can see from the photo she loves to vacuum with Dad's big shop vac that blows air. I'm beginning to think that her "messes" are more like "opportunities". 

Mason (no photo) has been grounded still. But over the past couple of weeks I've noticed a change in him. One night while I was doing my chore, dinner dishes, I was thinking to myself...

How can I help Mason to start acting correctly? My first thought" ME FIRST!" 

I know that God answered that for me since I wasn't even thinking that it was my fault. But truth be told- it is. Heavenly Father has promised parents if we have Family Home Evening, family prayer, family scripture study, and the parents attend the temple- our children will come back. 

So when this impression came to my mind I told Mike that I knew a way to fix Mason. Then I explained that if we want him to be better; we need to be better. So last week for FHE Mason gave the lesson about how being honest helps build trust. And things are starting to change with Mason. He received all G's (great's) in class with the exception of one A (average) But hey- not everyone can be perfect. 

But he's noticing a change within himself when he reads his scriptures everyday and when he skips a day. He notices a day when he has more patience than others so on that day he prays more. There's alot more but it's more of a private matter for him. 

So things are really nice....right now. :-)

Milk Shampoo

After some deep thinking after reading more and more about Celiac the thought came to me that what might be causing some of Mike and Cati's skin rashes could be ME!

I love how my hair feels after a nice Deep Dove Conditioning. But when Mike gives me a hug or when I lay by him at night I might be causing a reaction. I'm not sure but after all the precautions I've made from only cooking gluten free. Making our own body wash, house cleaners, and yogurt....I could be it.

I know that after the kids took a shower the shampoo residue stood on the shower so if Cati took a bath then she would get a reaction. I've read where people are so sensitive to gluten that walking down the flour aisle or near a bakery it could cause a small reaction.

So to take this gluten-free lifestyle one step further so I searched for a homemade shampoo recipe. We've used the baking soda and water "No-'poo" method but it just make all our hair feel weird. So thankfully Pinterest had a few ideas so I tried this one last night.

Coconut Milk Shampoo- 2/3 cup of castile soap, half a can of coconut milk, 2 tbs of olive oil, and about 20 drops of essential oils.

I mixes it all together and divided it into 2 empty shampoo bottles. Mike was the first one to try this new shampoo and he loved it. But we're all loving this coconut shampoo. The only CON to this recipe is that it's only good for 1 month. So there's no stockpiling on this mixture. I can stock up on the ingredients instead but I'll have to make it every month. Plus the cost of all ingredients was $15. But figuring the math I can make about 8 bottles of shampoo so about $1.87 a bottle. For me that's pretty expensive since I'm use to getting shampoo free due to coupons. But it's a small price to ensure that it's gluten free.

Talent Show

 Today Mason at his class talent show. He and his friend, Lydia, performed a dinosaur-joke-telling-puppet-show. But before each student showed their talent the class sang and signed Taio Cruz "Dynamite"

Can I just say that hip-hop hasn't been any cuter than this.

After the class song Mason and Lydia were the 1st act. Here's a picture of them behind the piano telling their dino jokes.

 They did such a great job!

Unfortunately Mike had to leave after a few kids performed since he only had 2 hours to excused from work. So as we left we expressed how proud we were of Mason for performing. He was pretty proud of himself as well.

Pick me up

Mike has been so busy with his temp job and trying to fix our van. Plus on top of that family time, our time, helping those who need his help, class, etc. I don't know how he's holding it together but he is. So I thought that he needed a little pick me up. So Lily helped me make Mike a Candy Gram.

Mike really liked this sweet treat after a long day at work. I really appreciate all that he's been doing. Plus c'mon he so totally rocks!

Not a kid

Mason is no longer a kid (so he tells me) Today he turned 10 years old!

I don't feel like I should be having a 10 year old. Anyways due to his poor choice the prior day which sent him to the principals office his birthday party is postponed until he's not grounded which will be in 30 days. So on April 7th we'll have his party.

After a huge pre-teen tantrum of how I am destroying his life (*sigh) he calmed down and we talked. Mason understands that he made some mistakes so we're going to help him learn how to correct them.I'm proud of him for acknowledging his mistakes and taking accountability for his mistakes. He's showing how mature he is so I guess he really is 10 years old now.

4 years

I. Love. This. Man....that's all!

Seriously now today we celebrated our 4 year anniversary. We had a quiet candlelit dinner, watched a movie, and enjoyed eachother's company. With Mike having such a busy schedule we very much enjoyed this must needed down time.

During our meal we talked about our last year together. Things we learned. Things we WISH we didn't learn. But we both had 1 thing in common- we were very grateful for our trials. 1 trial particularly not only broke us down to the core but helped us built back up even stronger together. And we were thankful that Heavenly Father helped us see "What holds us together is far more important than what tears us apart".

I am so grateful to have Mike in my life. I knew from the very second I seen him that I wanted him forever in my life. And I'm so happy that Heavenly Father showed me how I could.

4 years down and only an eternity to go...... M+A 4ever ♥

Homemade

Being on a very tight budget this has really helped me enter into the world of homemade products. Having a family who is on a gluten free lifestyle is really, REALLY, really expensive. Cleaners, lotions, soaps, lotions all have to be gluten free and without fragrance. So I would buy the 7 oz lotion for $11 or the 7oz hand soap for $9. Until I seen the directions on Pinterest on how to make your own hand soap.

So I used a bar of Kiss my Face Olive Oil soap, grated it, boiled it in a pot with 7 cups of water and added 2tbs of glycerin that I ended up ordering from Amazon. So total out of pocket cost around $6. But after about 30 minutes of work I was able to make 2 bottles of hand soap ( I just emptied the Dial down the sink. It's sad that I had to waste it but that's toxic stuff in our home) and I made 2 large mason jars of body wash and 2 small travel size bottles of soap. I really hate taking Cati to the bathroom and not allowing her to use their soap since it's all gluten-fied. But with alittle time I saved us about $50. Now to tackle making lotion.