Weekend Recap- 4/2/17

So this weekend started out as a weekend with no plans, but then it ended up being super busy! My hubby was planning on going out  Friday night with some people from work to celebrate someone's retirement. Well he texted me Friday afternoon saying that if I could find someone to watch the kids, that I could go with. We don't get out much with just him and I, no kids, so I took him up on that! My wonderful sister-in-law/live in babysitter (just kidding on the last part, kinda) said she could watch them so my hubby and I got an impromptu date night! We started out at a local brewery where we had some beers and dinner. Then we walked over to another brewery and ended the night at a place with a bunch of old school arcade games! It was a great night and I'm glad that we got to go out together!

Saturday I planned to go to Zumba but I may have had a bit too much to drink the night before so I didn't feel like going. We ended up going to Walmart in the afternoon for a few things and grabbed a pizza for dinner. Then that night my hubby and I did what we do almost every night: video games! We just got back into World of Warcraft. He used to play it all the time back in the day! And then about 3 months after Big E was born, he got me into the world of computer gaming! We started with Minecraft and then a game called Archeage which is kind of similar to World of Warcraft.

Today was a much busier day. This morning by hubby did some work outside while me and the kiddos played inside. Then I started lunch and naptime a little earlier than usual because we had to leave around 1:20 for me to go to a Perfectly Posh party!! I got a face mask and lip gloss, so excited for them to arrive!! I got dropped off at the party while my other half took the kiddos to a bouncy place! They had a great time and definitely tired themselves out. Then we went home, had dinner, played outside a bit, and then watched Cinderella before it was time for bed. Now I'm getting ready to start playing some video games then I'm off to bed! I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Pinterest Round Up

So I challenged myself last week when I wrote about Pinterest to try out 5 new things to do from my boards and delete 10 pins that I will never get to. Every Thursday I'm going to do a post with those 5 things I've done during the previous week. So here we go...

• Monday I made this edible cookie dough and it was delicious!! I will say though, it is definitely not the healthiest thing in the world! It doesn't make that much, but I wouldn't eat it all in one sitting if I were you. It has a whole stick of butter in it!! I definitely don't want to eat a whole stick of butter all at once! And I'm so thankful for the Young Living essential oil blend DiGize, because even eating a tiny bit of this cookie dough makes my tummy feel a little weird.

• Wednesday night I made layered slow cooker enchiladas. I found this recipe in Family Circle magazine and then found it on Pinterest so I could pin it for later.

Here is what it was supposed to look like...

And here is what mine looked like...

It was a bit more soupy than it should have been, but it still tasted good! I honestly don't know what went wrong here, but it was still edible and that's all that counts!

So this week I kinda slacked a bit and I only did 2 things from Pinterest. But hey, it was a good start. Tonight I'm making a new recipe from Pinterest for dinner so I will include that in my Pinterest Round Up for next week! Have a great night everyone!

Let's Learn

Here are the activities that Big E did this week. We had lots of fun!

Monday- So this past weekend I made my own play-doh. You can read this post here to read all about that. I am so happy with how this turned out and I think Big E enjoyed it as well! She played with the Stress Away green and Lemon yellow! They sure do smell yummy!

We also did a puddle jump activity. This didn't turn out how I thought it would, but I'm going to put this activity away for another time. I don't think she understand what she was supposed to do with it.

Tuesday- Last week I received an order from Amazon and this was one of the things I received. This is a great resource because I will be able to come up with a ton of different activities for Big E. She will be able to practice so many different concepts with this! And she seemed to enjoy playing with it!

Wednesday- Big E absolutely loves this activity! I took toilet paper rolls and painted them different colors. Then she takes pom poms and sorts them into the correct tube. When I first started this activity with her, she used her hands but now she is able to use the tongs (great fine motor practice!!)

The next activity she did on Wednesday was just a old Parmesan cheese container and pipe cleaners. This one also works with fine motor skills but at the same time I can ask her to find a certain color so we can work on that as well.

Thursday- This was a busy day for us. We had to take my sister-in-law to the dentist that morning and then we had a play date in the afternoon so we never got to our activities planned for the day.

Friday- We got back on track the next day with another color sorting activity, this time with cups and buttons. She's doing really good with her colors, so I think I may do less activities with colors and focus more on counting and ABC's.

I also let her play with her tablet for a little bit. We got this for her for Christmas and she used it a lot right after Christmas, but this was actually the first time she used it in a few months. When we got Big E's tablet, it came with a year subscription that gives her access to every single app possible for her tablet. That has been really nice so we are definitely enjoying it while it lasts!

It's awesome because every day a little after I got both kiddos from their nap, Big E would ask for her activities! And how she says "activities" is so cute! The first time she said it though, I had no idea what she was saying! I'm so glad that she enjoys learning! It's more of a game to her right now so I think that's why she enjoys it so much. She's learning and she doesn't even realize it!! But like I said before, now we have to focus more on counting and the ABC's. She can count to 10 (when she wants to) but now I want her to start being able to recognize the numbers. The same with the alphabet. I may have to order some more supplies on Amazon! The teacher side of me is definitely coming out!!!

Have a great Saturday everyone!!!

Oily Wednesday

It's been a while since I've written an Oily Wednesday post (you can find my last one here.) But I decided to bring this back and write just about oils every Wednesday. I love Young Living and my oils and you'll read about them in my posts here and there, but once a week I want to write a post all about oils.

This week I decided to write about Thieves Laundry Soap!

So even way before I got into using essential oils with Young Living, I had dabbled around in making my own laundry detergent. I mostly made the powdered kind because I didn't feel like dealing with making the liquid and having to melt stuff over the stove. I did however have to grate bars of soap which wasn't the easiest thing either.

Right before Young Living came into my life I actually did make a liquid detergent and that was working pretty good. But then I saw the Thieves Laundry Soap. I was already using the Thieves Household Cleaner as my all-purpose spray so I thought, let's give the laundry soap a try so I can ditch another chemical from my home!

So I got the laundry soap and I actually ditched 3 chemicals! I use the Thieves laundry soap, vinegar with oils for my fabric softener, and wool dryer balls sprayed with a mixture of water and oils instead of fabric sheets. Fabric sheets are the most toxic chemical in the American home, so if at first you can only get rid of one of those things, I highly recommend getting rid of those! I bought my wool dryer balls from Amazon. You can find the ones I bought here.

The Thieves Laundry Soap comes in a 32 ounce bottle and will provide about 64 loads! A little definitely goes a long way with essential oils and this product is no different! It can be used in all washers, even high-efficiency (he). I love that my clothes and towels don't have that chemical smell to them anymore!! There was a time since I started using the Thieves laundry soap that I ran out of it and had to go back to Tide. I could immediately tell that I was using detergent with chemicals again! But now I'm back to using my Thieves and I couldn't be happier!! Let me know if you want more information on how you can get your hands on this amazing product and kick those chemicals from your home!

It's Play-Doh time again!

So in my last post, I wrote about how Big E played with Play-Doh on Friday. Well...Saturday I decided to make my own using essential oils and it worked out amazingly! And it was quicker to make it than the instructions said. It said to stir continuously over the heat for 5 minutes and it took about half that time. It turned into a dough super fast. I may have had the heat on a little high, but oh well. It still turned out great! I used food coloring to color it and Young Living essential oils to make them smell wonderful! You can find the recipe I used here.

If you'd like more information about how you can get these wonderful oils for yourself, just comment below or send me a message!

Weekend Recap- 3/26/17

We had a pretty good weekend, so sad that it’s over. Friday night I was going to go out and do some karaoke with my mom but it was a rough afternoon so I decided to stay home. My sister-in-law’s friend (and now my friend) came over and we just hungout in the dining room just talking and drinking. We had a fun time and can’t wait to have another girls night with them soon!
Saturday afternoon we had some friends come over for a playdate. It was actually really nice out on Saturday so we got to enjoy some time outside!

Little E looking out at Dada who was cleaning up the yard a bit.

Big E playing in the sandbox and making a huge mess!

They both love going on wagon rides!!

Then today we went to McDonalds for breakfasts, which was pretty late because we didn’t wake up till 9:15! I can’t believe the kids let us sleep in that late! And I don’t wanna jinx it, but Little E woke up only once a night, two nights in a row now!!
After McDonalds we went to Walmart because my hubby wanted to get a haircut. So while he waited on that, I walked around the store with the kiddos. Big E told me 3 different times that she had to go potty, so 3 different times we went to the bathroom but she didn’t go any of those 3 times. But each time we went, we had to go to the handicapped stall and sit Little E in this seat attached to the wall. I’m pretty thankful it was there because it would have made it a lot more difficult if it wasn’t!

Then this afternoon I started planning out Big E’s learning activities for the week and I decided to go through my construction paper and sort it by color.

This will make it much easier when I go to create little activities for Big E, which is something I’m going to be doing more often now! I’ve got a bunch of activities for her for counting and colors, but now I need to work on alphabet activities!
Be on the lookout for my post on either Friday or Saturday about this weeks’ activities! I’m going to start making that a weekly post so you can see what Big E has been up to!
Well, that’s about it for our weekend. As I write this, Beauty and the Beast is on in the background so I’m going to go watch the rest of it with my hubby, Big E, and Little E before putting the kiddos to bed! Have a great rest of what’s left of your weekend!
Much love,

Nicole

Play-Doh fun!

Friday we went to a friends' house for a play date and Big E and her friend played with Play-doh. We have some Play-doh at home but we hardly ever play with it. And I'm not too sure why we don't because Big E loves playing with it! One thing that does drive me a little nuts though, is that she only plays with the same color for what seems like 30 seconds! I don't like her having more than one color at a time because I don't want her to mix them. It's a great activity for her to do at the kitchen table while I try to get some cleaning or cooking done.

We even turned it into a little learning activity by practicing cutting! I've never given her kid-safe scissors and she never played with the Play-doh ones so she didn't know how to use them. After showing her how to use them and placing them on her hand the right way, she was starting to get it!

She also had me make little snakes with the Play-doh and then I had her practice counting with them. I definitely think that Play-doh time needs to be added to our daily schedule because it can be very educational. Plus it lets her use her imagination and create things! I'm going to look into getting her a Play-doh activity set for her birthday, maybe a Frozen one since she loves that movie!

I also think I'm going to look into making my own Play-doh. I can't remember if it was on Facebook or Pinterest, but I recently found a recipe for Play-doh that uses cream of tarter and having just baked my rainbow cupcakes for the March cupcakes in my A Year of Cupcakes series, I now have that ingredient! I think I may try adding essential oils to my homemade Play-doh to add a lovely scent to them! Be tuned on a post about that in the future!! Have a great weekend!!