Zipper Pouches

I recently had the need for some kind of container for several books of ours.  The box they came in had been destroyed by Caleb and the plastic bag I was storing them in seemed a slight safety hazard as the kids constantly dumped the books out and played with the bag.  

I was in the mood for an easy and fast sewing project so I did a quick search for zipper pouch tutorials and ended up using this one.  I found several others that I might try but the one I used seemed the easiest.  The only complaint I have about the tutorial is she doesn't mention the zipper foot which I would recommend using when you are sewing on the zipper.

The best part was I had all the fabric and only had to buy the zippers for $2 each.

So, here is my finished product...

I used 2 fabrics to patchwork the bag together to get the
size I wanted so this was a little bit harder but still easy.

Outside of the bag

While I was at it I decided to make 3 more for G and C when we travel

Laundry

Ug...laundry.  Some of the happiest moments of my life have been when there is not a single item of dirty laundry in the house and everything is folded and put away.  But, those happy moments have been few and far between lately. 

It seems like our household generates 4-6 loads of laundry a week and I was under the false impression that having everything clean and put away was equal to pure laundry bliss.  So, I would end up saving laundry and trying to do all of my loads in one day.  4-6 loads washed, dried, hung, folded and put away in one day is a complete headache and daydream.

Next I started not trying to do it all in one day but then I found myself confused about how much laundry I actually had to do or feeling like I never made progress.  Enter in my Type A personality.  A system was born.  After months of thought I followed through and now after a month of implementation I'm LOVING it.  I feel accomplished and unburdened.  I hope the novelty doesn't wear off anytime soon.

Here's the system...

• All of the laundry is collected in one place upstairs and brought downstairs to the laundry room on a regular basis to be sorted (previously laundry was collected in 5 different places upstairs).
• Once the laundry is downstairs it is sorted into sheets and towels, kids, lights or darks.
• Each of those categories has an assigned washing day Monday-Thursday starting with sheets and towels on Monday.

Pros: I am doing one or at most two loads of laundry on any day so I can take two hours to remember to move it to the washer.  Folding is not overwhelming when it's only one drier full.  Matt knows what day things will be washed so he can be responsible for getting his stuff in the laundry without feeling like he's nagging me about getting it done.  I feel organized so I don't feel behind.  I do the towels first thing in the week so I'm motivated to fold them and put them away before I start other laundry (in the past that's what sat around waiting to be folded).

Cons: I have to do laundry 4 days a week (still worth it though).

Rice Pudding

Have you ever had rice pudding? It's a dish made with rice, milk, sugar and raisin.  It's so yummy and perfect for cold rainy fall days like today.  Recently I decided I wanted to try making it so I looked all over the Internet for a recipe and this is the one I found.  It doesn't take much work but it does take time so allow yourself an hour before you want to eat it.  We eat it as a side but it could be a dessert too.

Creamy Rice Pudding

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup uncooked white rice (we always use brown at our house and it works fine too)
• 2 cups milk, divided
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2/3 cup golden raisins (I just useregular raisins)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Cook rice and drain.
2. Add 1 1/2 cups milk, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in remaining 1/2 cup milk, beaten egg, and raisins; cook 2 minutes more, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.
3. Top with cinnamon.

5 Finger Prayer

Recently we have been trying to teach Grace some ideas on how to pray.  She loves to pray at mealtimes and we have always encouraged her to pray however she wants because we don't want to feed prayers to her.  But this is what her prayers were going like...

"Dear God, thank for bingo bong la la bo bo pop.  Amen."

So, we encouraged her to use real words and this was the result...

"Dear God, thank you for the mission and something and something of you.  Amen."

She also loves to pray for my hands because one of them has been very dry and cracked on the palm since Caleb has been born.  And I will say due to some changes in products I use and her prayers it is getting better.  That prayer goes like this...

"Dear God, please make mommy's hands feel better.  Amen."

Anyway a friend told me she had read about the 5 finger prayer so I Interent searched it and found many many many different forms of that prayer.  Basically you use all the fingers of your hand to remind you to pray for someone or something.  Because Grace is young I wanted to keep it simple and I wanted to teach her to pray for others.  So, I use the model below.

So, we go through each finger of the hand and pray for the people listed as follows...

Thumb (point at self) - Someone close to us who lives in our house
Pointer (point away from self) - Someone far away who lives outside of our house (this likely ends up being the friend/person she saw most recently)
Middle Finger (show that it is the tallest) - Someone in leadership (our pastor, Sunday school teachers, Awana leaders, etc..)
Ring Finger (show that it is weak and can't stand on it's own)- Someone weak or sick (we have prayed for kids who don't have parents and friends we know who are sick)
Pinky (say that it is little just like child you're praying with)- The child you're praying with (This is Grace's favorite and I always pray for her with this one and haven't had her pray yet).

I know ultimately that just plain praying with and for Grace will serve as a model for her.  I often fail in this area though so I'm going to work on the hand model with her.  I might even start using it in my own prayer time:)

Grace and Jenna

One thing that is super fun about our family is that Grace has a girl cousin, Jenna, who is only 6 weeks older than her.  It is my prayer that they will be lifelong friends.  They are really getting to the point where the actually play together and it is awesome (minus the fights).

Last weekend Jenna, Yvonne (her mom), and Becca (her little sister) came to spend the whole weekend with us.  The purpose of the visit was to reacquaint Jenna with our house since she will be coming later this month to spend 7 days with us.

We decided that we really wanted the girls to sleep in the same room last weekend and the week Jenna is here so we tried it out and it went stupendously.  Naturally they talked a little.  And mostly Grace just begged Jenna to talk to her.  But, they both went to sleep well and slept well for the whole night.  So it was a success.

We also got to do some fun things like visit the apple orchard, play outside, go to church, and Yvonne and I got some quality time together.  All in all the weekend was a blast and left me feeling good about the week to come with Jenna.

Here's some fun pictures of the girls...

Sitting in the big chair at the orchard

Getting measured?:)

Yvonne and I went to Target to buy
matching dresses for the girls on Sunday morning

Yes they are adorable

Copycat 2

I thought I'd post a couple more pictures of Caleb and Grace in which Caleb is being the copycat. He adores his big sister and she adores him right back.

Grace wants to swing on her tummy so Caleb wants to too

Tutus and hats.  Caleb says me too.

Dandelions

One of Grace's favorite things to do these days is pick dandelions.  She adores them and loves walking to the park and picking them along the way.  We are thankful for the people whose least favorite thing to do is mow (as long as they don't live next door).

As you can see by the picture we are also enjoying the confusing weather.  Hat, jacket, shorts?  And I wanted to note that Grace basically refused to wear shorts all summer (dresses and skirts were top priority) and now has taken to wearing them.