Monthly Archives: May 2010

art home education my children

J and A’s Art Class

May 25, 2010 – 12:25 pm

Jonny and Aveline took an Art class all year from a lady who lives right around the way from us. They loved it! Here is some of their art, gifts to me for Mother’s day =) Treasures, these!!

If you would like more information about the art classes for your child, email me at bouquetofparentheses@gmail.com and I’ll pass the info along.

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Sid travels

Sid in Rome

May 19, 2010 – 4:19 pm

A couple of pictures that make me really wish I could have shared even a few moments with him there. Sigh.

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food Homestead Hopefuls I made something

I made dried loquats =)

May 11, 2010 – 8:22 am










“Edderdem” is what I used to say when I was little when something was reeeeeaaaaaallllllllyyyyy yummy. Saying it again as I tried my dried loquats I suddenly thought, “Maybe it’s a real word in another language!” So I googled Edderdem. Turns out edd erdem is someone or something in Turkish and it only comes up on Turkish Twilight Saga webpages . . . hmmmmm.

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food I made something mothering my children my thoughts

Aveline Mae

May 8, 2010 – 7:28 pm

How can it be? This little baby . . .

This teeny girly . . .

. . . is now 6!?

This was the special morning’s setup.

There was an applesauce cake to be enjoyed later with our church community.

I got up early to paint the present wrap. She picked out all of her presents, so something had to be a little surprising. One of the present’s paint features part of the lyrics of a song I made up for her and have been singing to her since she was an infant, now that she loves ballet the lyrics are more fitting than ever. (Beautiful Aveline, wonderful girl. Spinning and twirling all over the world . . . to the tune of Beautiful Dreamer.)
She’s still Daddy’s Little Girly.

Unbelievable!

As a 6 year old, ballet is her foremost passion . . .


. . . listening to me read The Tail of Emily Windsnap, drawing, Have A Chips (aka Dadda’s favorite chips), frosting and playing Feeding Frenzy 2 with Jonny on the XBox are pretty high up there, too. She tells me hugs are at the top of the list. I love that girl! Witnessing the unfolding of who God created her to be is the most fascinating, fulfilling and greatest joy I’ve ever known. I love that girl, thoroughly!!

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favorites home education

For the homeschoolers . . .

May 8, 2010 – 5:22 pm

. . . Or any household with multiple people who love to color simultaneously.

I was so happy to see this available from Discount Office Items (not to be confused with discountofficesupplies.com, aka Staples, where it costs over $30 more) . . .

I’ve since found out that you can also get these “Classpacks” from teacher supply stores, but I doubt it will cost less anywhere else, not to mention it was delivered to our home the very day after I placed my online order. The contents of this lovely box are going to save us from perpetual fights over who gets which color when. The box even came with replacements caps. So each child/student gets their own cup containing each color, and when one dries up or gets lost, we go to the box and replace it. I also think it’s cool that there are 16 colors, we would have to collect quite the stash of individual boxes of markers to get that combo, multiplied by 3 (soon enough it’ll be 4), multiplied by the number of years we’ll be using markers in this house, equals: the classpack fits our marker needs very well.

Enjoy!

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favorites home life Homestead Hopefuls I made something

Homemade Laundry Soap!

May 7, 2010 – 7:10 pm

Have you seen the Lehman’s catalog or their website? I love Lehman’s! They started out supplying goods to the Amish in Ohio in 1955 and now they have a huge wonderland of goods available to everyone. They supply many tools for homesteaders. Since I am a Homestead Hopeful, I thought that a great thing I could easily implement into my own sacred routine would be their Homemade Laundry Soap Starter Set. So I ordered it! I am so pleased with it, that of course, I want to share the love with you, dear readers. The Set comes with everything you need to make your soap including great intructions, neatly packaged in the 4 gallon bucket you’ll use to store the soap.

Here are some snaps of the Sets at Lehman’s in Ohio, before mine came to me. What? Don’t you have the new Canon Teleport 2500 lens for your camera? Hee hee =)


And onto the soap making!

Step 1. Grate your soap

Step 2. Melt the soap in boiling water


It smells soooooo good and with all the steam and the wooden spoon and all the stirring, I couldn’t help but sing “Cheer up Charlie,” during this step.

Step 3. Add Borax and Washing Soda and keep stirring till dissolved

The Set even came with the measuring cup pictured, which you later measure the soap with when adding it to your wash water.

Step 4. Pour mixture into your 4 gallon bucket, add water and stir

Step 5. Let it set for about 24 hours and it will congeal into a liquid gel consistency

Step 6. Store and use

Doesn’t it look cozy in our laundry room cabinet? I’ve actually since moved it because I doubled the batch this time to make about 4 gallons. It is heavy! So I put it in a bigger cabinet where I don’t have to lift it out to get the lid off.

Being a Homestead Hopeful means I’m perpetually looking for simple ways to be wise with our money, honor the gift of the wonderful planet we live on and improve the effectivity of my work, sorta working toward self-sufficiency. Making my own laundry soap absolutely fits that bill and this Set provided the ease I needed to get started! I am gratified in every way, to have implemented it in my life.

Find all of the astonishing facts about how much money you save using this set and how well the soap cleans on the Lehman’s site.

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