The Crocheting Mom

     Sometimes I forget the innocence of children.  How each and every day is something new for them.  They have only been with us for a short time, so things that we, as adults, take for granted, is a whole new world of wonder for them.      Such as, something as simple as a rainbow in the sky.

    As part of being a BzzAgent  I received this new product for free, to try and review.  I received  Chocolate Mocha, and Vanilla Cappuccino Special K Coffee House Breakfast Shakes.  I was really excited to try these out because I love coffee!  My name is Sarah, and I'm a coffee addict.  Okay, so maybe it's not to that extreme, but there may be only a handful of mornings, in the entire year, that I do not start my day with some caffeine.  Needless to say, the day after I received these in the mail, I tried one out for breakfast.

     I have made many of these cute, cuddly, security blankets.  I just love doing them!  I decided to put out a free pattern for the duck one. The blanket on each is the same, as well as the head for many.  So here it goes.  Let me know if you tried it out and how the pattern worked for you.

     Do you ever get in the mood to clean? No?  Well me neither, usually.  Lately I've been in a cleaning mood.  I don't know what it is, but I'm not going to question it!      I don't like cleaning much, because when I do, the kids, husband, and dog, seem to mess it up the second I finish.  Seriously, why clean when it's not going to look like you've done anything once you've finished.

     This week, during spring break, we were invited to our friends' son's birthday party.  The party was being held at Chuck E. Cheese.  Ashley has only been here once before, and was very excited to be able to go here again.  I mean who can blame her?  What five year old wouldn't love a place with rides, games, prizes, pizza and cake?  

     I saw something online the other day about soaking an egg in a bowl of vinegar, and then it being able to bounce.  So, I thought I would do this experiment with Ashley on Day 1 of spring break.  Ashley recently did a science week in her preschool class, and each day she would come home telling me of all the experiments that they did.  She seemed very excited about them so I figured she would love to do one at home.

     People say they get no sleep at night because of kids.  This is the same for me, but not in the normal sense.      I'm sure people often think that since I am a Stay At Home Mom, I get to sleep in.  I can sleep in till the girls wake up, right?  Not exactly.  My husband wakes up early to get ready for work.  I set my alarm at 5:30 every morning to get up, and help him finish getting ready (lunch, coffee, etc).  He leaves around 5:45 and the girls don't wake up until after 7:30, usually.  That hour and 45 minutes is bliss for me.  Sure, I could go back to bed and get more sleep.  This is my only ME time though.  Jason's off to work, the girls are both sleeping, and it's just me and the dog, sitting in the family room with the fireplace on.

     When Jason and I talked about having children, and how many, one of the big things I always thought about was, "I hope they at least LIKE each other."  I've known many siblings who absolutely hate each other growing up.  Usually, though, once they get older and surpass their teen years, they become best friends.      I want my children to absolutely love being around each other, even while growing up.  I want them to be each others best friends, all through life.

         My 21 month old daughter, Lilly, does not say too many words. She has a total of maybe 10.  Some of her most common words are Mama, Dada, yes, Daisy, Sissy, thank you,  and this.  I am honestly not too worried about it.  She babbles all day, just does not say actual words, so we guess at what she is telling us.  I talked about language development in toddlers in a previous post, here .  I was thinking the other day though, I wonder how much pacifiers do have an affect on this particular developmental milestone.  Lilly gets a paci usually only at sleep times.  When we are playing in her room, though, she often picks them up and uses them, which I don't stop.  Also, we tend to give them to her on car rides as well, to help keep her content.

     This weekend my family and I went to the Indiana ComicCon.  You know what that is, right?  It's when all the nerds join together to take over the world!      Haha, just kidding!      But seriously, lovers of video games, comics, and superheroes  all come to these types of conventions and are free to be themselves.  Or themselves dressed up as their favorite character anyways.

      Next week is spring break, so I'll have my 5 year old home with me for the week.  In order to pass through this week without much of a headache, I figured it would be best if I had at least some sort of a plan.  Now mind you, I'll still have my 1 year old with me, as well as the 1 year old I babysit on a few days.  I have to keep that in mind when planning what to do with Ashley.

     My daughter's school's biggest fundraiser every year is the annual Gala.  They get many people and companies to donate items for the parents to auction on at the end of the year.  All the money goes right back into the school.  This year I decided I would donate a basket of crocheted items for a newborn baby.  I want to include a newborn photo prop and decided on a turtle.  I figured it would be good for either a boy or a girl (with a flower that can be added if it is a girl).  Crochet newborn outfits are adorable in my opinion, and I have made a few before.  Here are the ones that I have made in the past.

     Whether you chose to be a stay at home mom, or it is just a temporary situation, there are ways to make money at home, even with those ankle biters attached to your hip.  It may only be pocket cash, but depending on the amount of time you put into it, some of these ideas can make you pretty profitable.

     Over this weekend, my husband and I finally upgraded our phones.  Our 2 year contract, and therefore eligibility to upgrade, came and passed months ago.  We love all the features that iPhones offer over other phones so, of course, we opted to get the newest version, the iPhone 5s.       Honestly, I first thought there wouldn't be much difference.  I mean, how different can it be from the 4s?  When my phone started getting slow though, because it only had 16 gig on it, I decided I was ready to upgrade.  

     I have started crocheting security blankets, animal buddies, blankets with heads, or whatever you have heard them called before!      I started with one, the frog, and fell in love with it so I kept going.  There are other people out there that crochet these cute little blankets, but there is very little out there for patterns, so I created them all myself.  (Come back later for the finished pattern.)      I would like to display each of these so you can all see, just how cute they are!

     We had another nice day yesterday, so I thought it would be great to take the girls to the playground after I picked Ashley up from school.  Some time for them to run outside and breath in the fresh air of our beautiful little town.  We have many public playgrounds around and we decided to go to the one that was close to our house.  Ashley had cheer that night, but I thought that getting them out in the sun was way too important to/for them to pass it up.  So even if we were only able to stay for 25 minutes, I could tell that they were both really grateful for this time.

As I said the other day, my husband and I are going on a diet for Lent.  We are doing Nutrisystem, which has premade meals for us.

March is National Nutrition Month.  What a great time for this wouldn't you think?  Start being healthy and losing weight now while there's still a few months before summer weather, and therefore, summer clothing.

     At last, here is my final installment of things to consider when looking for a daycare.  You can find part one , and two on my previous blog posts.      I have had quite of bit of experience working with children since I graduated college with my BA in Early Childhood Education, almost 10 years ago (OH MY!).  During this time I have mostly worked at daycares, with a few years subbing in elementary schools.  I have worked at daycares in four states and have seen firsthand what parents should be looking for when making this big decision.  Here is a list of what I feel to be 10 of the biggest things that you should be considering when doing your research.

Here are my pictures of my before and after result with the fantastic Colgate Optic Toothbrush with Built-In Whitening Pen, which I was given for free by Influenster to review.  

Influenster sent me an Optic White Toothbrush with Built-In Whitening pen to try out for free and review.  I was super excited to be part of this review panel, as I am an AVID coffee drinker and my teeth could definitely use a whitening.  I have tried other whitening products before, (mouth trays/inserts, toothpaste, mouthwash) and have not been very impressed.  So, when I received this, I did not expect it to work very well.  Boy was I wrong!