LAST Week of Summer

And I am sad and excited all at once!

I will for sure miss my littles those hours they are at school but I am excited for fall, getting back together with friends again, since we are all so busy in the summer, having some 1 on 1 time with the baby and all the other fun Fall stuff!

This week is already packed in the evenings but we are spending our last few days of freedom doing as much as we can, so dinner has to be easy and there won't be too many projects this week, and maybe not even any laundry!

Meals

Monday~Chicken and Pasta

Tuesday~Tacos

Wednesday~Turkey Meatballs with rice

Thursday~Whatever hubby decides 

Friday~Pizza

Saturday~Turkey Burgers

Sunday~Pork Tenderloin

Around the House

~usual weekly chores

~Finish tidying garage

~Clean up backyard

Fun Stuff

~Riding Lessons 

~PARTY planning

~PARTY!!!

~Lots of NEW to us Parks

~Back to school haircut and date with my girl

~Back to School Fairy will start to visit too!

Off to enjoy this very Fall like day with the kids!

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Pickles and Ice Cream Shower Inspiration

I am just LOVING this theme for a baby shower! 

It's great for a boy or girl, or unknown.

I am not planning a baby shower anytime soon, but this is for sure my favorite!

Invitations

Zazzle

The next thing I try to put together is usually the fluff, you know, the balloons, poms, and big decorations. Only because I have the worst luck with the DIY versions, I need lots of time to do and then re-do!

I love a wreath or some other door decoration to start things off

I would use a feather wreath like this one, or for less money a DIY Tulle wreath. In whatever color to go with your theme!

And these mini pickle ornaments are available all over the internet, and also at Christmas time in many stores.

And there are similar ice cream cone ones. But in DIY fashion, I would personally just use a few mini sugar cones and some tiny tissue poms or fluffy pompoms and make them for less money.

I love the ice cream balloons in bunches like these

But I like the style below better!

I couldn't find any pickle balloons, but I think 1 style of shaped balloons is plenty. 

I would use tissue poms for the other colors instead.

I would do green, and you could make the ice cream blue if it were for a boy, or white or chocolate for non specified.

For food I am always on the hunt for themed things. Sometimes it is hard to make a full menu with themed stuff and that is ok. Add what you can to your favorites and the themed stuff will still be memorable.

Some ideas for this are

Fried Pickles? Kinda crazy but maybe your guest of honor is a little crazy?

Cookies are ALWAYS good for getting your theme on the food or dessert table. 

How cute are these?!

Love the texture on the pickles!

And with cake pops still being SO popular, it wasn't hard to find some sweet ideas for this theme either.

Bakerella is amazing as usual!

and I guess pickles would be appropriate too.

And a huge pickle cake?! 

via flicker

And for other stuff I tend to just match the shape, or colors too.

I did see a big pickle candy mold, could maybe make a big green ice cube for punch? I'm not sold on that though :)

One of our discount stores has the colored plastic ones, and Dollar Tree usually has these ice cream glasses

which would be perfect for nuts, mints or chocolates!

Favors are one of my favorite things about parties and showers!

I am also a fan of edible favors usually.

If I were personally doing this shower I would have to

 have these seriously cute bags for some pickle shaped cookies!

Or these cute mini ice cream cartons, you could make Thank You stickers for them. Fill with homemade ice cream or other treat.

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Good Morning Basket

Mornings here are about to get crazy again and I am not really a fan of hectic mornings.So I am doing what I can ahead of time to make it easier for everyone in the morning. 

Last year about this time I shared our little breakfast prep

While that works well for us still it's just not enough for the morning. And especially now that Finnley likes to do everything himself! I swear I am cleaning off the pantry floor and doorknob 20 times a day. So I would rather keep him out a few times if I can. I also needed to have more prep done in the morning and make our mornings what we want them to be! A time to talk for a few minutes, plan our day, snuggle and make sure everyone has a good start.

So I did this instead

In it we have this devotional that our biggin reads to his siblings in the morning, yes it says for preschoolers but I think it's alright for all 3 of them.

The kids have their little chore packs in there

The cards are in order of what they should be doing.

And the jars are granola, and brown sugar 2 of the things we use most at breakfast, since we will be going back to my "Breakfast Schedule". I haven't been real with it over the summer, the kids have had yogurt and smoothies with all this fresh fruit available a lot more often.

And my devotional for right now.

So far I love it.

What do you do to make morning smooth running?

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Little Back to School Banner

Well I don't know what happened to the other one :(

I am not quite finished with all the bins in the garage, hope I find it out there cause I really liked that one!

But since I hadn't found it and time was running low anyway, I made a new one!

It's a super simple one but I love the vintage (not THAT vintage though) library cards!

I just hole punched them and used some ribbon to thread them together.

Some die cut letters and it was done.

I will for sure have to use some more of these library cards in my back to school party!

Might have a few sneaks this week.

Happy Monday!

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Getting Back to School Routine

We have 2 weeks until school starts and I feel like we all probably need that

 full 2 weeks to get back to the school day routine!

So starting today we will be using the Kids Chore Cards, 

they are so excited about them to put it off much more anyway.

I am hoping to squeeze in as much fun stuff as we can these last 2 weeks too.

Meals

Monday~Pork Roast and veggies

Tuesday~Tacos

Wednesday~Chicken and Pasta

Thursday~

Friday~White Chicken Enchiladas

Saturday~Leftovers

Sunday~Turkey Burgers

Around the House

~Usual Weekly Chores

~Hang curtains back up 

~Finish Re organizing holiday bins

~Hang some shelves in Finns room

Fun Stuff

~Riding Lessons

~Making Applesauce

~Library

~Park Play Date

Hopefully I will have some time to share a few things we have been doing around here too!

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Kids Chore Cards

I don't know how everyone else does things, but here our kids have chores. 

Their chores are based on my Weekly Cleaning Schedule.

They each do a little to help me with that days chores and then do a few other little things.

But sometimes remembering what they are supposed to do, 

or what to do next is a little tricky for them.

There are lots of charts and ideas for chores, I shared my favorites

HERE along with what we were attempting. Didn't really work out great for us though.

We need something not so stuck in one place or that needs crossing off. I looked online, there are a few options but none that really fit all of our chores and daily tasks so I ended up making ours. It took WAY longer than I really ever wanted to spend, but I am happy with the outcome.

I used MyMemories Suite to make them. If you haven't checked out that program it's great! I have a code to save some money on it too. The code to use at checkout is STMMMS87586.

 They aren't perfect but they should work for us!

Here is 1 of the 6 pages I did.

So I laminated them and cut them out. I got this snazzy, and amazing hole punch, it doesn't hurt my hand AT ALL and punches so much easier than the old style. I got some rings and stuck them on there. Now the kids can take it with them through the day. We started using them this morning and the kids are DOING SO WELL!! Ramsey has very him cards, just like Carsyn has a cupcake on her room card, he has Darth Vader.

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Friendships

Ok, I am back with more heavy, but it's getting lighter so that is a good thing.

Friendships.. especially ones that aren't that great, and dealing with them.

First let me say that I am a total people pleas er and avoid conflict as much as possible, so this makes it kinda hard for me to end things when they should be ended, or to say NO when I should.

I have been reading the YouVersion.com detox plan and it talked about toxic people in our lives. I would never call someone toxic because I think it's just rude but I do know that relationships can be toxic, and relationships can't get hurt feelings so I have no problem saying they are toxic.

My issue is dealing with them! I just don't know how, and partially because I hate to admit it has to happen. It makes me feel like I have done something wrong, or I am just not good enough and that is just not a good feeling. But it's also super hard to make yourself more vulnerable and ASK.

For me and these relationships I am just letting them fizzle out and avoiding all that vulnerableness. Sometimes it's just 1 thing that really makes you see clearly that you are
not nearly as important to someone as they are to you.

It happens in different ways, a hurtful message or comment that they don't see as hurtful, a lack of messages or just a continuing of only being your "friend" when they need something. To know who you use for a babysitter or where you got a sweater. If you can help with a get together or when they are having one of those home parties.  I saw this on facebook and I don't think I could have said it better!

I feel like I am pretty easy to get a long with because I have no problem agreeing to disagree and instead enjoying the things I have in common with friends. But when something is off I stress about it, and over think it and spend FAR too much time worrying and wondering what I have done wrong or why I am not good enough. It will always be a struggle for me but I have a little family and they all need me more than I need to worry about why someone doesn't want to be the type of friend I am. But it is still hard to just things go, for me anyway it's hard. I don't know how other people can just decide to be done one day and really be done.

On the good side though all this also makes me so thankful for those friends I have had for a long time who are always there and the ones that are new but already special.



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It's gonna be a warm week here!

And I am not a fan of being hot, but I won't be complaining because I don't have time to complain!

I WILL be using my crockpot pretty much everyday this week because of this heat though.

Meals

Monday~Crock Pot Enchilada Pork

Tuesday~Leftovers

Wednesday~Crock Pot Pizza Pasta

Thursday~Turkey Chilli

Friday~Turkey Burgers or meatballs

Haven't decided on the weekend yet!

Around the House

Usual Weekly Chores

Work on our Daily/Weekly Schedules for everyone

Work on the porch a little more

Clean in the garage some

Go through our holiday bins

Fun Stuff

Same as last week!

Riding Lessons

Library

Party Prep

Birthday Party this weekend

Reading

Ramsey is starting to read Harry Potter to me and I am sure the little ones will want to hear it too!

I just got a new Devotional today. I think it looks good.

And I still have a stack from the library about homesteading. Hoping to learn even a couple things I can do for less money, less chemicals just less in general.

Hope everyone has a super week! I am hoping to get some Back To School Pictures posted soon!



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4 Mondays left?!

That is all there is, just 4 little Mondays before school starts

Today is going to be a good Monday for us!

Our plan for the week is already starting to get more in line with what it will be like in Sept.

The Gluten Free thing was not easy, but not horrible either. So far so good, I think all these fresh fruits and veggies are making it a little easier to forget what they are missing.

Love this meal plan page!

Meals

Monday~Chicken and Rice

Tuesday~Turkey Nachos or tacos

Wednesday~Pasta and Veggies 

Thursday~Roast 

Friday~Date Night

Saturday~Turkey Burgers

Sunday~Salad with chicken or steak

Around the House

Usual Weekly Chores

Clean off the porch and deck (if it's not crazy hot)

Finish Back to School Decorations

Work on Updating my Home Management Binder 

Fun Stuff

Riding Lessons

Library 

Party Prep

Craft Project

Reading

YouVersion Detox Plan

New Library Book (just finished Do it Gorgeously)

What is everyone else doing this week? All ready for Back to School?

 Squeezing as much out of Summer as you can?

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What I use to clean

This post is inspired by my friend Aleisha at Britches and Boots. She shared her list and it got me thinking how different we all are. And how some people might not even realize you can clean with stuff besides the items sold in the cleaning isle. I do it this way for a few reasons.

1. I am not a fan of toxins or chemically scented products

2. I am CHEAP when it comes to cleaning

3. I don't want a bunch of products so it has to be multi purpose or I probably won't use it

My main 3   
well besides my apron are


1. White vinegar

Yes it smells, but it works very well on just about every surface, it's antibacterial and it's inexpensive plus the kids won't get hurt by it and if the smell that disappears after it dries still bothers you, you can add some essential oil to help.
I use it for
~Making ice cubes to clean the disposal
~Cleaning the dishwasher
~Shining the stainless steel
~Fridge shelf cleaner
~As fabric softener
~Window cleaner (in a pinch)
~Bathroom surfaces

2. Baking Soda

For everything from stove tops to carpet cleaning, or if vinegar just isn't doing it, a little baking soda and water paste and some elbow grease will usually take care of it.
Sinks, tubs and showers get super sparkly with this and #3.


3. Magic Eraser

For pretty much everything else, and I use it with both 1 and 2, not together though.
My favorite is how fast this will make a GROSS grimey fingerprint covered white door look like new in just a few seconds.
I know some people are worried about these and kids, I don't let our kids use them or play with them so it's not a concern for me, but if I am out, plain ol' baby wipes are my next go to. They take more elbow grease but are still pretty effective.

Swiffer Duster

soo wish I had the pink ones!


I love these, they really trap the dust and they aren't overly expensive with a coupon, NOT a fan of the scented ones!

Sprayway Foaming Glass Cleaner 

I love how well this works, but it does have a smell. I will use it if we have it but it's kind of a splurge!

And then obviously a vacuum and mop (shark steam mop for me)

That is pretty much it, although I do keep some toilet cleaner with bleach around (out of reach) just in case there is a sickness going around, then I like to be a little extra careful.
And if Target has the Method brand value packs on clearance when they do their little bulk packaging thing, I will grab the bathroom cleaner, but only cause I like the smell and they are non toxic.

So all this fits in a little Dollar Store basket with a microfiber cloth and a dollar tree toothbrush.
And I take it room to room as I go and keep it on a shelf in the closet with the extra supplies.

It really makes cleaning take less time because there aren't

 5 different bottles to look for just to clean the bathroom and all these are very effective. 

Hope this helps make some space under your sink, or wherever you keep the goods and helps keep a little change in your pocket. 

And I guess I forgot and I did this already, oops! It's been a year and a half and things for sure have changed and gone down in product.
Check that list out here

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