To help me remember

Emptying the dishwasher . . . one of the chores the kids take turns doing.  But do you think we can ever remember whose turn it is?  Not a chance. I think I can remember but they always tell me they've JUST done it!  So I came up with a way for us to keep track.  I printed out labels with each kid's name on it . . . stating that they've emptied the dishwasher.  Each one is laminated and has a magnet stuck on the back.  

So the idea is that every time they empty the dishwasher, they take their label and stick it on the outside of the dishwasher.  And because we go in order of age, we'll always know whose turn it is next.  

And what happens if they forget to put their label on?  Well, I guess they do the job again the next time.  I assume they'll only forget once!  ;)  

Organizing 101 - Manuals and Warranty info

Is it just us or does everyone else also have a thousand brochures and pamphlets and booklets - instructions and warranty information for large appliances, small appliances, electronic devices, tools, computer equipment etc.? Over the years, they've piled up in boxes and drawers and cupboards.  Completely unorganized and taking up space.  When we were packing up our previous house, I realized how many we actually had and decided to organize them and store them all in one place.  There's nothing worse than needing some sort of information about a specific appliance and not being able to find the booklet that came with it.  So as we were unpacking at our current house, I gathered them all together.  I wish I had taken a before picture because the pile was quite something!  The first step was to go through them all and decide which ones were still relevant.  There were quite a few that could be thrown right into the recycling bin as we no longer had the item they went with.  That was a good feeling.  The rest of them were sorted and placed into two of these accordion file boxes we had lying around.  

I thought they would all fit into one but I was wrong.  There were too many of them.  Each section was labelled with it's content so it's easy to find.  No more searching everywhere when we need a booklet or brochure.  So nice to have this all together and organized!  

Book Review: Star Wars Folded Flyers

The boys received this book for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa and what a hit!  The book features six different Starfighters, information on each one and detailed instructions on how to make each one.  The back of the book has the paper to make five of each flyer.  It also comes with a sheet of sticky tape which is so handy.  We always seem to be looking for our roll of tape which is always missing so having it right in the book is so great!  

Austin has enjoyed making these flyers and although Denver is a little too young to make them, he has enjoyed flying them when his big brother makes them.  

Here are a few of the different flyers that Austin made the other day:

And then, when they were all ready, the kids went out to the backyard and had a flying contest with the different flyers.  Denver is the announcer - thus the hand in front of the mouth - to make his voice sound more announcer-like.  :)

Some of them went super far and some of them did dips and turns and twists without going very far.  We measured the distance that the farthest flyer flew (say that three times fast!) and the winner was . . . (drum roll please) . . . the BTL-B Y-Wing ship at a whopping 81.25 feet!  So fun!  

Organizing 101 - Recipes

I'm working on organizing our house . . . one area at a time.  So I started with my recipes.  I had a binder going but it was quite unorganized and not efficient so I brought it up a notch . . . and made it pretty of course!  Here it is:

Here you can see the tabs:

All the recipes are in page protectors so that they can be wiped if (when) spills happen.  I have a shelf full of recipe books which I should use more often but just don't.  This recipe binder is more for recipes I tear out of magazines, print from websites/blogs or recipes I use all the time.  If there's a recipe in one of my recipe books that I find myself going back to all the time, instead of getting the book out for that one recipe, I photocopy it and stick it in this binder.  That way I have easier access to it and that specific recipe can be taken right out of the binder to use.  Love it!  

Pinspiration - Shadows and Chalk

I was showing Victoria some of things I had pinned a while ago and she thought this activity looked like fun.  So as soon as we had some fresh sticks of sidewalk chalk and a sunny day, out she went.  It's a simple activity but kinda fun.  I think it's easier to do it with two people as one can stand still while the other draws the faces and accessories.  But she did most of these on their own and they turned out well.  It was interesting how quickly the sun was moving (this was closer to the end of the day) because when she had drawn some, came in the house to get me to come out and then when she stood there again, she had to maneuver her head to fit the face as the shadow was in a different position.  Just one more thing to add to our list of fun with chalk.  

Visitors

We were honoured to have a visit from Catherine and Hannah last week.  I'm not even sure how long it's been since we've seen them . . . but I do know it had been WAY too long!  It just happened to work out for them to stop by on their way to Disney (LOL . . . doesn't that sound like we live close to Disney??) and when Catherine emailed me, I was so excited!  I guess we both lead busy lives and our visits are few and far between.  Could this seriously be the last time we got together?  Look how little all the kids are!!  

Check out Denver and Hannah!  I hardly remember them being that small!  

Anyway, we picked right up from where we left off.  God sure knew what he was doing when he made our paths cross.  We totally relate to each other we "get" one another. Ya know??  The kids had a lot of fun playing with Hannah too and after she warmed up to them, I think she had fun too.  This is the best picture I could get of all of them.  Not the greatest but it will have to do.  

See how much they've grown?

And this is kind of a cute picture of Hannah and Victoria having a good bye squeeze.  

Thank you for squeezing us into your busy schedule Catherine and Hannah.  We loved it that you thought of us and stopped by on your way through.  Can't wait to see you again and hang out.  Let's not leave it as long this time!  

Pinspiration - Naked Egg

There are so many cool ideas on Pinterest that I want to try.  I don't want to just keep pinning and pinning and never try any of the things I pin (although I assume, realistically, the majority of the pins won't get done).   But I also want to try to post the pins we've tried on my blog.  So here's the first one.  

I saw this quite a while ago and thought it would be so cool to try.  Finally got around to it last month.  Click here to see the pin.  

All you do to make the egg "naked" is soak it in white vinegar.  Here are some pictures of the process.  You can see the chemical reaction happening as the vinegar is bubbling and getting all foamy. 

It took a few days for the shell to completely disintegrate - longer than I thought - but it worked.  And here is a picture of the egg without it's shell.  Crazy!  

If you look at the original pin, you can see that you can do some other cool things with it like dehydrating it and making it a different colour.  I had planned to try that too but just didn't get around to it.  

The egg sat on our counter for a few days and on one of those days, I had fried up an egg and was having it on a sandwich.  Victoria saw what I was eating and said, "Oh, is that the naked egg you're eating?"  Oh my word . . . I almost threw up thinking about eating an egg that had been soaking in vinegar and then sitting on my counter for longer than I care to mention.  LOL! Gross!  

Sleeping Angels

I LOVE pictures of our kids sleeping.  I've posted them numerous times on my old blog . . . maybe a few times on here too.  Can't remember.  Anyway, here are the latest.  Don't they just look so peaceful?  Refueling for another busy day of play.  

Minion cupcakes

Victoria loves to bake.  She is constantly pulling out ingredients and throwing together some sort of treat for us.  I barely ever bake anymore because she does so much . . . and I'm okay with that!  

The other day she got a request from Aunt Christy to make some minion cupcakes.  So we searched out all the different ideas online and set out to get our supplies.  There were a few things that were outside the normal for us.  We don't usually have rockets and twinkies in our house.  In fact, I didn't even know they still made twinkies!  Brings me right back to my childhood!  

Anyway, the cupcakes were baked and the icing was made.  

First step for the minions is to cut the twinkies all in half.  

Each half twinkie then gets rockets for eyes - some got one eye, some got two.  They were stuck on with icing.  

Then a tube of black icing was used to outline the eyes, make an pupil and draw lines down the sides of the twinkies (I think those are the arms of the glasses??)  And last but not least, mouths were drawn on with the same tube of black icing.  The eyes and the mouths really made the minions quirky. Victoria made some of them looking up or sideways and some of the mouths were also half smiles - kind of like smirks.

When they were all ready and each cupcake was iced, a minion was placed on the top of each one.  

Here they are completely done.  They turned out so cute!

Wouldn't it make you smile to open your fridge and see this?  

You did a great job Victoria!  Aunt Christy was so pleased with the results.  

I'm back . . . . I think . . .

Soooo . . . it's been a long, long time since I last posted.  Wow.  My excuse is that we moved and then got sick.  Although I think the move would have been a good enough excuse on it's own.  We're nowhere near settled but our basic necessities are unpacked and we can function.  I have a lot of catching up to do with blog posts and hope to get some of them done in the next few days.  Not much else to say.  And just because I don't want to call this post done . . . especially without any pictures . . . I will leave you with a picture of Frodo.  We often wonder why he's so smart and now we know why.  We caught him reading the other day!

Perhaps we'll have another student in our classroom this fall!  LOL!