I would like a place to be transparent. A place to be me and share the ups and downs, successes and failures of my life. In honor of that, I will be completely honest, this is for me. I have no dreams of being a super blogger, but maybe a place I can direct others to when I want to share with them a project, recipe or pictures.
Who am I ? Good question! Mostly, I feel defined by my family even though I know there is so much more to me. I have been married to the love of my life for 17 years. We have 3 vastly different kids, Rocket – 15 years, Captian – 11 years and Princess – 7 years. We have also raised 2 of my nieces since they were 12 &13, who are all grown up now with toddlers of their own. I watch one of them during the day while his parents are working. Monkey is almost 2 and very energetic.
So….How I survived the day…
Today started out with a bang! My two youngest were tired and didn’t want to wake up for school. Princess finally agreed if I made pancakes for breakfast she would get up. (Yes, bribery and bargaining are sometimes what I resort to.) Hence, my first recipe share. I found this pancake mix recipe on Pinterest and it is our go to recipe now! For my family of 5 (or 6 if Monkey is here) it makes more than enough for two breakfast (or dinner as the day might be.) Bonus, it is really easy to take camping because you just add water! *Note Captian is allergic to sugar so for the dry mix I use powdered fructose instead of sugar.
http://cookeatshare.com/recipes/homemade-pancake-mix-1539?servings=0&units=us
Homemade Pancake Mix Recipe
- 6 c. flour
- 1 tablespoon. salt
- 1/3 cup 2 teaspoons. baking pwdr
- 1/3 cup 2 teaspoons. sugar
- 2 c. powdered lowfat milk
Directions
- Mix well and store in airtight container on cupboard shelf.
When I got to the school to drop the kids off, Princess was having a rough time, not wanting to go to school. Some of the kids are picking on her and she is just having a rough time. Sometimes I will give her a special necklace to wear that matches a dragonfly tattoo that i have so we “are connected” through out the day. I had to make something up on the spot today, so I found a pen in the car and drew a heart on her hand, then kissed it sending all my love into it. I then drew a matching one on my hand. She added a smiling face to both and off she ran.
Challenge #1 – Kids up and off to school – Completed!
Now it is time to focus on Monkey’s tot school activities. I am working on colors of the week with him, this week is purple. I am a little bare with the purple toys and activities. But I did find some purple play dough, if I can’t find a color I need I just make it. He is still a little young to really get into play dough, so a lot of times I give him plastic bugs or some such thing to press into it. Today while I went to get he bugs, I saw some glass stones in my drawer! Inspiration struck and we made mosaics. He really liked how the stones felt and he spend quite a while (for a toddler) putting stones on the dough and taking them off. He would hand me stones for mine or I would ask for some making sure to use our manners in order to reinforce “please & thank you” We had a great time.
Then he went off to play with his favorite blocks, Instant Blox.
Then outside to dig in the dirt and chase chickens!
Challenge #2 – Monkey’s Tot School – Completed!
This afternoon after Monkey was picked up and my kids were all home from school round two began. I mentioned the blog to the kids and showed them, Princess immediately wanted to make her own blog. Ah ha! What a great homeschool activity! So we sat down and started now, she can continue over the summer and into next school year. I will not post her blog publicly, but I love that she is interested in writing.
It always amazes me how activities I create for Monkey intrigue the older kids too. When they started arguing this afternoon I mentioned the mosaics Monkey and I created, showed off a few pictures and they were off and running. Captain had a hard time getting his chores done fast enough. They created for about an hour or so, Princess a little shorter.
Challenge #3 – After school activities – Completed!
Next up is dinner and home work. We are supposed to have Boy Scouts with Captain tonight but he has refused to do his homework (oh the wonderful world of ADD & ODD) so we are going to have to miss it to finish up home work.
I hope you ave completed your challenges for today. Tomorrow is another day to thrive!
Amy
How I Survived The Day 