Spring is Here!!!

With the long winter coming to an end, I'm ready to embrace the warm weather and sunshine of Spring with open arms!  One of my favorite things to do when the weather warms up is to head to the outdoors and enjoy nature!  And when I can't be outdoors all of the time, I like to incorporate little things from the outdoors into our everyday life...through decorating, through crafts or even just opening the windows to let the sunshine and breezes come into our home! 
This craft that I would like to share with you is just one example of bringing the outdoors in!  It's a cute, simple craft for children of all ages to do in just a few easy steps.

I've nicknamed thes cute little guys "Mother Nature's Peeps" :)

Materials

• various printed cardstock
• solid color cardstock of choice
• orange cardstock
• black marker
• small twigs
• small leaves (I used leaves from a Myrtle plant)
• scissors
• glue
• hole punch

Directions

1. Cut bodies of birds in "egg" shapes using a solid colored card stock of choice.
2. Cut beaks of birds using orange card stock
3. Cut tail feathers of birds using printed card stock of choice.  I chose to use "boy" patterns with browns and blues since I have a son, but any patterns will work!
4. Glue beaks, tail feathers and two small leaves for wings and twigs for legs onto the bodies of the birds.
5. Punch hole in the top of each bird and place ribbon through the holes.
6. Tie ribbon off for hanging.

(Additional Note- Instead of making individual birds, you can also make a mobile of birds or even a birdie garland for hanging as Spring decoration as well! )

We used these cute little guys as "Springy gifts" for grandmas, aunts and friends!

Organic Meat

I've tried the whole vegetarian scene and have come up with one conclusion....I LOVE MEAT!!!!   I just can't resist the urge to eat a juicy steak or burger!  BUT...I have a real problem with the way animals are raised and processed in order for us to consume them.  Coming from a family that raised our own livestock for eating, I know that animals have to eventually be butchered in order to eat them (sad, I know, but it's a fact of life).  However, they don't have to be raised in unhealthy, disgusting conditions and taken to giant manufacting plants where they are mass-butchered in dirty facilities.  At this time, my family doesn't have the means or the land to raise our own meat, so I've found a place that is doing it right, and I wanted to share this rare gem with you!   For those of you interested in getting organic meat, raised on a family farm and processed in the best way possible, then this place is for you.  Rus-Men Farms...a family stemming from generations of farmers, set out to provide the best quality meats possible.  It's a farm located on the outskirts of Galion with a variety of meats available at affordable prices. Here is a link to their website, where you can get insight on the history of their farm, the meats that are available and information on prices and ordering meat. 
http://rusmenfarms.com/
I highly recommend them and hope that you check them out!  You won't be disappointed!!!! 

*Note- you can also find a link to their website listed on my blog under "My Favorite Websites!"

Our Favorite Valentine's Day Craft!

I try to do a different craft with my son each day, along with a fun lesson to go with the craft.  To pay tribute to love on Valentine's Day, we did this fun little craft that is sure to be a hit with any child!!  It's a great way to let your child have a hands-on experience with a craft, with the end product being something that you can cherish for years to follow!

Yarn Hearts

Ingredients

• Colored yarn cut into about 1 ft pieces (we used red, pink and white yarn for Valentine's Day)
• Cornstarch
• Water
• parchment paper/wax paper/or baking sheet
• heart shaped cookie cutter

Directions

1. Make cornstarch glue by combining 1/4 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup water into a sauce pan.  Heat over medium heat until mixture thickens into a paste.
2. Let cornstarch glue cool until it's safe for your child to put their hands into it.
3. Place heart shaped cookie cutter onto parchment paper
4. Let your child dip pieces of colored yarn into the cornstarch glue until it is fully covered.
5. Run fingers over glue covered yarn to remove excess glue, and place into cookie cutter.  (placement of the yarn isn't really crucial...I've found that these hearts turn out cute no matter how the yarn is placed into the cutter)
6. Continue dipping the yarn into the glue until you have a filled the cookie cutter about half way.
7. Press yarn firmly into the cookie cutter and then remove the cutter, leaving a heart of yarn.
8. Continue making hearts until you run out of yarn or glue.
9. Let hearts stand overnight to dry.

Once dried, you can add ribbon to these to make an ornament or simply use them as Valentine's Day decorations as is.  They are a cute, inexpensive craft that children have a lot of fun making!! 

**On a side note, these aren't limited to just Valentine's Day.  You can use cookie cutters of various shapes and yarns of many colors to create lots of different yarn things for many different occasions.  We've done pumpkins for Halloween and some things for Christmas too (trees, stars, bells).

A Healthy, New Twist to an Old Favorite!

Rice crispy treats are always a favorite among children!  However, loaded with sugar and fat, they aren't the healthiest snacks to give our little ones.  So I've come up with a healthier, less fattening take on the old favorite.  And not only is it better for your children, but you can make them out of all organic products as well.  Not to mention that the cost of making them at home is much cheaper than buying them in a store!   Hope you thrifty, organic mamas love this recipe as much as I do...and hope your children love it more!!  :)

Healthy Rice Crispy Treats

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
• 6 cups brown rice cereal
• 2/3 cup of your favorite dried fruit
• cooking spray

Directions

1. Combine peanut butter and honey in a pot over medium heat.  Heat until melted (about 2-3 min)
2. Add brown rice and dried fruit and stir until mixture is sticky and rice is fully covered.
3. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
4. Fill the pan with rice mixture and press firmly into pan.
5. Put into refrigerator and let cool for approximately 30 min.
6. Cut into squares when cooled and serve.

These are a yummy, healthy treat that your children are sure to enjoy!!!!

*Note- some fun ways to liven up these treats are to add food coloring to the peanut butter/honey mixture in the pot for a colorful special occasion, substitute different things for the fruit for a different taste, or cut into fun shapes for a more festive look!

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

After many years of growing up making our own homemade salsa, canning tomatoes and other garden veggies, I decided to take a shot at making my own homemade spaghetti sauce.  I will be straight-forward and honest when I say, it isn't easy, it's pretty messy and it's very time consuming!!!  However, it is so worth the hard work...it tastes delicious and fresh, it full of flavor and it's better than anything you can get from a jar or can!  And I also take satisfaction in knowing that all of the products that I use to make it are homegrown and organic!  So not only does it taste good, but it's good for you too!  For all of you organic mamas like me who want to give your families the healthiest, safest foods possible, this is for you!

Ingredients

• at least 2 bushels of tomatoes
• fresh herbs -I used basil, oregano and parsley
• garlic powder to taste
• tomato paste (enough to thicken the amount of tomatoes you use)
• *optional* veggies of your choice (I used zuchini, green beans, and carrots)
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Wash tomatoes.  Boil water in a large pot.  Once water is boiling, add whole tomatoes to fill the pot. (they won't all fit, but just add as many as you can)  Leave tomatoes in for just a few minutes. Remove tomatoes and place into a large bowl or kitchen sink filled with ice water.  This is a step that a lot of people don't do, but it's such a valuable one!  By boiling the tomatoes for just a short time and blanching them in ice water, it loosens the skins, making it a breeze to remove the skin, which you don't want to add into the sauce!  Once the tomatoes are cooled, you can peel the skin right off.  Repeat this for all of your tomatoes.  After all of the tomatoes are peeled, slice the tomatoes in half, and remove the seeds and juices inside.  Something I like to do is to put the insides of the tomatoes through a strainer into a bowl, so that I have tomato juice that I can put into jars and can separately later on!  (it's a good way to get as much as possible out of the tomatoes that you use!)  Next, once you have all of your tomatoes seeded, chop them into about 1 inch cubes.  Add to the large pot you will use for your spaghetti sauce.  Now finely chop and add any herbs you like...I opted for lots of basil, oregano and parsely.  Add enough to flavor your sauce as you like it.  I love basil, so I use a lot of it and just filled with the oregano and parsely. Next, add tomato paste.  This will help thicken your sauce.  Now add garlic powder to taste.  I don't add fresh garlic because I've been told that it tends to get bitter during storage, so I opt for powder.  (but I do add fresh garlic to it when I prepare it for spaghetti) Also add salt and pepper to taste.  I put just a bit of garlic powder in it also for some extra flavor, but that's optional.  And last, finely chop any vegetables that you would like in your sauce.  This is a step that can be skipped, but I've found that it's a good way to get more veggies into our diets by adding them to stuff like this where they blend right in with the sauce!  With a persnickity 2 year old, I sneak veggies into almost anything I can when I can!!! :) 
Cook your sauce on a low heat until thickened.  This normally takes at least 2-3 hours, but I let it go longer than that.  The longer you cook it, the thicker it will be.  So if you don't mind runny sauce, you don't have to cook it long!
Once the sauce reaches a consistency that you are satisfied with, turn off heat and let it cool.  After it cools, simply pour it into freezer bags.  (*Note- I always make sure to label the bags with what it is and the date I made it prior to adding the sauce so I know...I make it multiple times throughout the garden season, so I like to know the dates so I can use the older stuff first)  
You can always can the sauce if you prefer, but I've found that freezing it works just as well.  Not to mention that the bags are easy to stack in a freezer and don't take up much space!  

And there you have it....yummy homemade spaghetti sauce that your family is sure to love!  Whenever you want to make spaghetti, just pop a bag out of the freezer, remove from the bag and put it into a pot frozen and cook it...or thaw it by putting the bag into a pot of boiling water for just a minute or so and then pour it into a pot for cooking. 
Enjoy!!!

Fun, Easy Homemade Crafts and Activities for Children!

Being a stay at home mom to an energetic toddler, I need to be well-prepared with lots of activities and crafts that we can do at home to keep his little hands busy and out of things that he isn't allowed to be in! :)  I've found some things that he loves doing that I want to share with all you moms out there looking for crafts and activities to keep your children entertained.  I realize that a lot of moms don't have the opportunity to stay home every day with your children, but most of these things are very easy and don't take a lot of time, so it can be something done in the evenings or weekends with your kids.  And not only are these fun things for your children, but they are very inexpensive for the "thrifty" mom and also safe, eco-friendly things as well, for all of you earth conscious mommies like myself! :)

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One of the staples of our daily activities is PLAYDOUGH!  What kid doesn't love to play with Playdough??  I have fond memories of my childhood at home with my mom, playing with her ever so special homemade playdough. So, of course, that's the first thing I would like to share.  There are many variations to homemade playdough recipes that can be found online, but the one I use is what I got from my mom.

"Mom's Homemade Playdough" 
Materials

• Bowl
• 1 cup cold water
• 1 cup salt
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• food coloring
• 3 cups flour
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• if you feel like getting really crazy with your playdough, you can even go as far as to add glitter, confetti or other fun additions to it!

Directions

1. In bowl, mix water, salt, oil, and enough food coloring to make a bright color.
2. Gradually add flour and cornstarch until the mixture reaches the consistency of bread dough.
3. Store covered. (I reuse clean plastic peanut butter jars to store it in...but a ziploc bag would work too)

And there you have it...easy as that!  I know it's convenient to just go to the store and buy playdough, but I really love this, because it's something your children can help you make, it's free of chemicals, and it's so much more fun for a child when they have a hands-on experience in making it, then getting to play with it!  And while I don't recommend letting your child eat playdough, it is safe if ingested!















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The next thing I would like to share is a great thing if you have a little explorer like I do who loves the outdoors and all of the creepy crawlies that come with it! I've found that with just a few simple items, we could make a fun "bug jar" to put all of the little insects and bugs into that he finds out and around the yard.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ  Bug Jars Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ 

Materials

• clean jar with lid (I reused an old baby food jar, but any jar would work...peanut butter jars, mason jars, spaghetti sauce jars, etc.)
• colorful bug stickers (I had foam bug stickers on hand, so that's what I used)
• ice pick or screwdriver (for punching holes in the jar lid)

Directions

1. Let your child place stickers onto the jar.
2. Poke holes with ice pick/screwdriver into jar lid as breathe holes for bugs.  (I don't recommend letting your child help with this step for obvious reasons...ice picks are dangerous in little hands!!)

And that's it!  It's a fun, inexpensive item to give to your child for a day of outdoor exploring and bug catching!  (I even made up a little "buggy quote" and put it on a piece of paper and glued it to the front for a little bit more fun!)

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The next thing is a favorite of my little guy!  He has a fascination with animals of all kinds and loves to look through books with pictures of animals.  After searching for and buying numerous animal books for him, I decided to take it upon myself to come up with a way to make a book of his most favorite animals.  So, after just a few easy steps, I managed to make up a fun little book for him that he adores. 

Animal Book

Materials

• small picture album book with plastic insertable pages
• pictures of animals printed from computer

Directions

1. Print pictures of your child's favorite animals from your computer's clip art or from pictures online
2. Cut pictures down to size of pages of the photo album

I let my son pick out the pictures of the animals he wanted, and I then let him help insert them into the pages.  If your child loves animals as much as mine, this will be a huge hit!  My son sits and looks through this book for extended amounts of time!   It was a simple, cheap way to get a book full of the specific animals that he adores and it was a fun way for mommy to give him something that he loves! :)

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The next thing is a fun craft that I shared just recently with the children at our church, after trying it out here at home with my son.  Being a devout Christian family, we instill Christian values in our son's life.  Among these things is saying at blessing at our mealtime.  With my son being such a young age, it's hard for him to say too many blessings, but we have found one that he loves.  In our church, we have taught the children to sing the Johnny Appleseed song before snacks, so that's the song we chose to teach our son for his mealtime blessing.  In an attempt to remind him of his blessing as he grows older and learns to read, but in the meantime, just give him a friendly reminder of singing his blessing, I decided to come up with a craft we could make that included his blessing.  Below is a picture of what he and I made.

Since the song mentions apples, I decided to go with a cute apple design and just put the blessing words in the center.  I keep this hanging in the dining room by the table as a friendly reminder for him to sing his blessings. Although, he loves to sing his blessings and we don't have to remind him very often, it's a cute way of having the words or the reminder available to him as he needs them!  :)  This apple design could be used for many different things...as a card for a teacher or just as a craft to make an apple!  I simply used card stock papers, cut the red into the shape of an apple, cut out a stem and leaf, printed out the blessing and glued everything together.  Simple as that.

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Next, we made a very fun craft at Easter time that was a huge hit with grandmas!  Easter lillies are a favorite flower during Easter and spring, so we came up with a cute way to make them from some simple materials and my son's handprints!

Handprint Easter Lillies

Materials

• white constuction paper
• green and yellow pipe cleaners (I uses a thicker pipecleaner for the yellow to give it more of a "lilly" effect)
• scissors
• ribbons
• pencil or pen
• clear Scotch tape

Directions

1. Trace child's hand on white construction paper and cut out.
2. take pencil or pen and curl fingers of the hand outward.
3. Connect one yellow and one grean pipe cleaner together at ends
4. wrap handprint cut-out around the pipecleaners and the connection point and secure with tape
5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 to make multiple flowers
6. tie a few lillies together with ribbon to make a bouquet

These were a great gift to give to grandmas and aunts for Easter!  And my son loved the hands-on experience in making these!

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Another fun craft we did for summer was a paper plate turtle.  It's a fun way to make a turtle out of things you have around the house! 

Paper Plate Turtles

Materials

• white paper plate
• green construction paper
• glue
• crayons/colored pencils
• googly eyes (these aren't required...you can just as easily draw eyes on the turtle, but I had them from another craft, so we used them)

Directions

1. Cut green construction paper into shape of turtle head and also 5 small pointed pieces for legs and tail.
2. Color any pattern for a turtle shell on the bottom side of the paper plate.  (I chose a flower pattern since my son just made scribble lines for his "coloring")
3. Glue head, legs and tail to the top side of the paper plate (the side you would eat off of).
4. Glue googly eyes to the turtle's head (or color them on).

This was one of Jackson's favorite crafts...he plays with the turtle quite often!

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In addition to these crafts, there are so many fun and exciting crafts that we have made, including handprint turkeys for Thanksgiving, handprint wreaths for Christmas and lots more! But these were just a few I wanted to share at this time.

*Note- Be sure to check back in the future, as I plan on updating my blog with lots more fun, inexpensive craft ideas!

I'm Dreaming of a "Green" Christmas....

With the Christmas season now in full swing, there are a few things that we can all do to be more environmentally friendly!  Here are just a few green tips that you can use:

• Use things other than wrapping paper to wrap your gifts.  There are plenty of things around everyone's home that can be re-used to wrap a gift...old maps, newspaper, brown paper grocery bags and even your children's finger painting or drawings to add an extra special touch to a gift. And while I'm on the subject of wrapping papers...if you receive gifts with wrapping paper on them, do your best to recycle it and use it for your next year's gifts!!
• Use alternatives to gift boxes.  While most gift boxes can be recycled or used for gifts the next year, you can also use things other than boxes to put gifts in that can be used by the receiver for other various things.  For example, use a basket...which can be used for many other purposes, or buy a reuseable grocery bag and put your gift in that (I'm sure the receiver of your gift would be happy to have a handy reuseable bag!). 
• Use alternatives to bows and ribbons.  While we all want our gifts to look special, there are other ways to give the gift a special look without using wasteful bows and ribbons.  I like to use natural things of the season, like sprigs of holly or pine...they give a gift a festive look and are very eco-friendly!
• Make gifts for your friends and family instead of buying them.  While it is much easier to just go to the store and pick up a gift, homemade gifts are often more thoughtful and definitely more eco-friendly!  Some things I suggest are homemade cookies or other baked goods (who doesn't love a good dessert...am I right??!!), or homemade soaps or candles (I've decided to make my homemade laundry soap and dish soap for my girlfriends this year!) or if you're experienced in knitting or crocheting, make a scarf/mittens/hat or even a sweater for the special people in your life.  Another great homemade gift idea that I've done in the past is to make up the dry ingredients to different things like cookies, breads, hot chocolate and even soups...it's a good way to give people a head start on making these things themselves using the stuff you've given them! Also, something that is always a great gift for family is pictures!  Pictures of your children, a family picture or a collage of memorable pictures are just a few ideas.
• Be smart about your Christmas tree!!  When getting a Christmas tree, try to be as eco-friendly as possible.  While re-plantable trees are the best bet for being green, they are not often allowed in housing facilities and are often too big and bulky for a lot of small houses...or if you don't have a yard to plant them in, it doesn't do much good either!  If you like cut trees, then find a place willing to give vouchers for re-plantable trees in the spring.  And artificial trees are another eco-friendly way to have a tree.  You can reuse the same tree year after year! 
• Use energy-efficient lights!  While they may be more costly, they are a great way of cutting down the electric bill and using less energy during a time when we keep them lit day and night....especially if you are a very festive person who loves to light your house on the inside and outside! 
• Give to the less fortunate.  During a season of giving, it's important to remember those who do not have the means to buy things for their families or themselves.  A great way to give to the less fortunate and be "green" while doing it is to give your gently used items to clothing and toy drives. These places provide for families and individuals in great need.  There are many retailers and non-profit organizations collecting all kinds of gently used items this time of year.  So go through your stuff, your kids' stuff and provide the less fortunate people with things like clothing, coats, hats, gloves, scarves, and toys....not only will you be doing a good deed, but you will also be doing something environmentally friendly by putting your old items to good use!

These are just a few tips that I thought I would share with those of you looking for a way to have a greener Christmas this year!  Merry Christmas to you all and God Bless you and your families!