Blog Revival!

I'm baaacck!! I'm so excited to revive this blog and document our family life here again! I feel like I need to do another introduction as things have changed quite a bit for us since my last real blog post..

First of all-- this is us! ⇡⇡ Tom and I have been married for about 15 years and now we have 3 beautiful children that the Lord has graciously allowed us to parent. Jack is 7, Caroline is 5 and June is almost 2.  I'm still a stay at home momma even though my two big kids are off at school for a good chunk of the day. In addition to caring for our kids and managing our home and finances I also work from the home wearing multiple "hats" throughout the day. I had been doing work a few years ago as the social media and website admin for a small non-profit and found that it was fun for me to problem solve and interact with other adults during the day ;) I began working for a few real estate agents doing the same type of work - managing their websites and blogs, upkeep of listing info on social media and helping out in other techie ways necessary. I've continued to do that on the side, but have scaled back because with 3 kids in the home it was a lot to juggle. Last year in May 2017 I found another love of mine that I've begun to devote more and more time to as I've grown in passion and knowledge. I hosted a party for a friend selling Norwex and after my party and trying the products for myself I decided I had no choice but to sign up as a consultant and build a company of my own. Norwex began in Norway 23 years ago and has been in North America since 1999. We sell high-quality microfiber cloths that clean so thoroughly, you can use just the cloth with water to clean almost everything in your home! That means ⭐ no toxic chemicals⭐! 

I'll be doing another post soon with a bit more info about Norwex, but for now if you have any questions please feel free to contact me here!

Updates

So it's been almost 2 years since my last post and A LOT has changed! We now have 2 kids! We added a sweet little girl to our family in November of 2013. Our little Caroline turned one 4 months ago and here are some pictures of her at her party.

20 Free Things to Do As A Family

At the LA Zoo with my little monkey

Happy Sunday and happy Daylight Savings! I thought this would be a fitting blogpost for such a lovely Sunday afternoon. I was reading an article about how to stay within your household budget and one of the tips they suggested was to write up a list of things you enjoy doing that are free. I guess it makes sense because oftentimes when we get bored we go out and shop or spend money unnecessarily. I wrote up a list of the top 20 free things we enjoy doing as a family in or around Burbank and the Los Angeles area. Now, these are free to us, but may require somebody else to spend some money, I'll explain each point if it does.

On a family hike

1.  Play at the park
2. Have a picnic
3. Griffith Observatory (parking and admission are free!!)
4. Travel Town 
5. Play Tennis at the local park
6. Go to the LA Zoo (for us this is "free" because we were given a year-long membership as a Christmas gift)
7. Blow bubbles
8. Draw/Color
9. Go to the library
10. Surprise visit Grandma and Grandpa
11. Go on a hike
12. Read books
13. Walk around Magnolia Park Shops
14. Watch a movie (at home)
15. Go on a walk
16. Have a family dance party
17. Bike ride
18. Descanso Gardens (Tom's grandparents work there, so for us it's free)
19. Build an indoor fort/tent
20. Play instruments/ jam session ☺

A rainy day fort set up in our living room

Here's a bonus list of 5 things we enjoy doing, but do require us to spend a little bit of money.

My favorite picture from our visit at the CA Science Center

1. Getty Museum (admission is free but parking is $15 per car)
2. California Science Center (admission is free but parking is $10)
3. Go get some frozen yogurt (a favorite of ours, but costs a little bit of $)
4. Free day at LACMA (on the second Tuesday of the month admission is free, you just have to pay for parking which is $10 or $15 depending on where you park)
5. Fly a Kite! (we don't currently own one so we'd have to buy one, but that's a great family activity on a spring afternoon) ☺

I hope I gave you some ideas! What other things does your family like to do that are free when you have some time on your hands? Please share!

Happy Birthday Dr Seuss!

So today is Dr. Seuss' birthday and if he was still here with us he would be 108! In his honor I have to share a great tradition that I saw on Pinterest a few months back. It was originally tagged from lisasworkshop.blogspot.com where she explained this tradition she "stole" from her friend. Below is how she summarized it.

When her son was young my friend purchased a copy of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” by Dr. Seuss.  Throughout the years she secretly gave her son’s teachers the book to sign at the end of the school year.  They left notes, poems  and some just signed their name.  When her son graduated from high school she presented the book to her son at his party.  With the party going on all around him he poured over it, going over each page, each signature, each note.  

Believe it or not I don't think I had ever read Oh The Places You'll Go! until last night! Jack and I borrowed it from the library a few days ago and he wanted me to read it to him last night. Even though he's a wild 20 month old, he'll sit still for the longer Dr. Seuss books with no problem. (Just a testament to the skill and genius of Dr Seuss) ☺ As I read it to him I fought back some major tears, I couldn't believe how good it was! I just savored the moment;  snuggling on my lap was an amazing little toddler, sitting there quietly in his bedroom, reading to him. As I read it, I couldn't help look to the future and think of all of the things he has in store for him, both good and bad. As a Mommy I just want to protect him from all of the bad and help him to see his potential. I want him to be happy and successful, but most importantly I want him to know and love God. I want him to know how much God loves him and recognize and be thankful for that. I want him to love people as Christ loves us and be willing to stand up for what's right. I pray that he can look to me and Tom as an example, and that he sees our love for each other and for him. Being a parent is a scary job and it seems as though as they get older it gets scarier. Scary, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's definitely worth it, and luckily I know that I can trust that God has everything in His control, even my sweet little boy.

On and on you will hike.
And I know you'll hike far
And face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with great care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot from your left.

DIY Owl Clock Design

 A few months ago I picked up this ugly clock from the thrift shop for $3.99. I took the gamble that with a fresh battery in it, it would be in working order. Sure enough as soon as I got home, I popped one in and it started ticking away. I've been wanting to make a clock for Jack's room, so I decided to make an owl since he has a "woodland theme" room.  I found this pattern for a felt owl Christmas ornament and was able to use the shapes from that to make mine out of paper. I resized her pdf pattern and decided to just draw the individual shapes on some white cardstock and color them with Prismacolor pencils. I used a gluestick to put the owl together. Then, I used some denim fabric I had to make the background and used double-sided tape to attach the owl to the denim. I used a light blue fabric paint to make the dots for the hours. I'm pleased with how it turned out, and I especially love how Jack says "whoo whoo" when he walks in his room and it catches his eye. ☺

Sitting on Jack's bookshelf, waiting to be hung up. 

Hanging on the wall.

We also hung up Jack's craft from Storytime this week. He loves trains (or anything "transportation" for that matter) so I thought we should showcase his glue-ing handiwork ☺

A New Addition to our Family

Now don't get too excited! It's just a fish ☺ Another baby will come, but not quite yet.

Over the weekend we showed Jack Finding Nemo for the first time and now he's OBSESSED with that movie as well as all fish. This morning Jack and I headed over to Peggy Wood's Pet Emporium up the street from our house. As you may see from their website, they have reptiles as well but I figured I'd brave the risk of seeing a snake for my boy's happiness. You may not know this about me yet, but I am terrified of snakes. So much so that if I watch Aladdin I have such a hard time when Jafar turns into a snake I have to look down. I can't even look at a  picture of a snake in a book without getting the chills. When I parked in the back I met a man that worked there (possibly the owner?) and he assured me that I would only see a snake if I went to a specific part of the store, not where the fish are luckily. Jack and I walked around looking at all of the pretty fish and then a dog caught his eye in a room beyond the fish. The gentleman told me that that's also the room where the snakes are, but if I didn't look to the right I wouldn't see them. He was even so nice to block my view walking into the room so that I wouldn't accidentally get a peek. We looked at the dogs for 2 minutes before I couldn't handle it. I was sweating and felt like I couldn't breathe, just knowing that there was a snake (or possibly more than one) in the same room as me. Ughh, just thinking about it freaks me out right now.

We picked out this beautiful and very lively blue beta fish and brought him home. Jack was fascinated watching me put him into his new bowl and kept saying "fii fii" and "waa waa" (fish and water... he doubles every word he says) ☺ I put the fish on the kitchen table so Jack could get a good look at him and he tried to put his hand in the water to touch him! What a stinker! Luckily he didn't get his hand in the water more than this picture captured and he won't have an opportunity to do that again since the fish will kept be out of his reach. We still need to name him. Any suggestions?

Happy Valentine's Day! ♥

Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day with those you love! We're going to have a quiet night at home that I'm actually really looking forward to. I'm making seared ahi tuna, cold soba noodles and some asparagus for dinner. Jack and I colored cards for Tom earlier, and I have a little Valentine and some Bob the Builder stickers for Jack which I know he'll love :) By the way, I found this adorable vintage Valentine over at vintageholidaycrafts and they have this as well as some other really cute ones for free download! Below is the one that Jack colored for Tom ♥