One of my favorite things about summer is gardening! I've never been one that has been able to keep a plant or flower alive but vegetables are a different story! I feel like there is some sort of reward for caring for the veggies verses flowers or plants, you know- some sort of pay off. My oldest son loves, and I mean loves, cucumbers. This kid could eat an entire cuke with every single meal and still ask for more. This spring we decided that cucumbers were a must in our veggie garden and the fruits of our labor have been appearing one right after another! Now I saw our massive pile of cucumbers growing by leaps and bounds and I thought this might be a perfect time to make some pickles! Here is what you need: Cucumbers White Vinegar Dill (fresh is best) Sugar Red Onion (or white) Wash and clean your cucumbers well and if you have a food processor be thankful for that because slicing all those cukes by hand wouldn't be fun. Slice your cucumbers to the desired size (we use … [Read more...]
Happy Labor Day!
For many, Labor Day symbolizes the last day of summer. Most children (including ours) will begin school tomorrow, and life will return to the hustle and bustle of the fall and winter months. Just for fun, we've come up with some Labor Day facts for you (in case, like us, you only know Labor Day as the holiday to do nothing or the day before school starts): The Labor Day holiday was created to pay tribute to the contributions and achievements of the American workers. Labor Day stems from the labor movements in the 19th century as workers protested long hours, little pay, and young children being forced to work. The first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882. In 1884, Labor Day was moved to the first Monday in September. Labor Day was made a Federal holiday in 1894. … [Read more...]
One week of summer vacation for us!
Jamie and Lindsi are taking this last week of "summer" to spend 100% with our kids, going back to school shopping, getting Nutty ready for the 1st grade, Lil' King ready for Kindergarten and Lil' Duke + Tottie ready for Pre-School. We will be back next week with our regular schedule of daily posts. We hope you will take the time to enjoy this last wonderful week of summer with your families as well. Starting the first week of September our post schedule will be: Mondays: Activities Tuesdays: Tasty Treats Wednesdays: Crafts Thursdays: Hodge Podge Fridays: Pinned It, Did it (Info to come) … [Read more...]
Alphabet cards
Some of you may remember my post about my aunt being creative and thoughtful. She made my three older kiddos these great song flash cards! Since my youngest is only 18months she knew that those song cards wouldn't really "work for him. She made him a set of alphabet flash cards! Such a fun and creative idea! All you need is: a ring, paper and a little creativity. Here are some suggestions for letters so that you don't have to do much work: A- apple, aardvark, armadillo, astronaut B- banana, bell, blue, bear C- cat, caterpillar, crayon, coin D- dinosaur, dog, dart, dove E- elephant, ear, eye, earth F- frog, frown, fairy, feather G- green, grapes, grass, gopher H- horse, happy, Halloween, I- igloo, ice cream, iguana J- jelly bean, jellyfish, jigsaw, jacks, jacket K- kite, kitten, key, kangaroo, king L- lion, lemon, lizard, leaf M- monkey, medal, mirror, moon N- needle, nail, notebook, nest O- octopus, otter, orange, olive P- panda, penguin, pink, purple, pan Q- quilt, … [Read more...]
Back Yard Camping
Hubby and I are very much into tent camping. Part of the money we received from our wedding was spent on high quality camping gear, and before we had kids, we camped multiple times a summer. It became a lot harder, however, when the girls were little. It took too much effort to pack up a bunch of baby items. Hubby and I decided that we would instead, begin to teach our girls to camp using our back yard. It has been a once-a-summer family tradition every since. Back yard tent camping has most of the same opportunities as real camping without all the hassle and with some of the comforts of home (such as a nice bathroom for my picky girls). Though we still try to go real camping, we make sure to camp in our back yard at least once a summer. We use our fire pit to cook over the fire, roast marshmallows, and keep warm as the rule is you can only go inside to go to the bathroom once we've begun our camping adventure. If you're not really into the hassle of real camping or have … [Read more...]
Be The First To Know- Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal Collection
Hair disaster stories- we've all got one (or in my case several). I could share the horrid details of the time I went to the cheap-o place to get my hair cut and came out looking like a watered down poodle, but that could bring up a few tears. I could also share the time I decided that it would be a good idea to SHAVE off my "whispies" by my ears, you know, those ones that would be called sideburns if you were a guy, but then I'd have to admit it was only 3 years ago that I did that- oops! But in all seriousness, I wanted to share a recent and tragic hair disaster story with you. I have some pretty strong "curl genes" running through my locks and in Minnesota naturally curly hair and humid summer days don't mix well. Enter- hair straightener products! Yup, I thought it would be nice to start the summer off with hair that was more manageable. I won't go into details as to who makes the products I used to straighten my hair but I will tell you this...after carefully and tediously … [Read more...]
