A Review and a giveaway!

Blogger and I finally resolved our issues so here, finally, are the details for the giveaway!

Last year, you might remember, I wrote about our Christmas cards from Shutterfly, which were a big hit. This year, not only did they ask me to write about them again, they also gave me 3 sets of 25 cards to give away to my readers!!

This year they have new styles. I am loving this one:

And I adore the simplicity of this one:

Of course they have fun and whimsical styles too:

My favorite addition to their collection this year, are the cards that double as Christmas letters. Some are headline types like this one:

And some are closer to the traditional letters like this:

Visit Shutterfly to check out the entire collection for yourself.

While you are there, check out their selection of Christmas thank you cards. Not only will you have thank you's for your friends and family, but they are personalized with photos of you and your family.

They have a great selection of Photo Gifts: traditional items like mugs, but they also have fun ideas like reusable shopping bags. You can browse all their gift ideas here.

I'd love to hear which card you'd choose!

Now for the giveaway fun!! (I tried to make entering easy, but let me know what you think of the new system when you leave your comment.) The first entry is mandatory, just leave a comment on this post. You can earn additional entries by clicking on the read more link. You can become a follower, subscribe and visit Shutterfly and tell about something you like.

I'll be choosing three winners on November 1, so you'll have plenty of time to enter!!! Make sure to leave me with your email address so I can send you your free code if you win.

Best wishes!!!!

Oh and if you are a blogger, you can register here http://goo.gl/DDw7Q for your chance at 25 free cards!

We regret...

I have been trying for the past hour at least to post the review and details of the giveaway as promised...however, Blogger has decided to lose more than half of the post 4 times so I am calling it quits for tonight. I will try again tomorrow, but I wanted y'all to know I didn't forget, I was thwarted.

Good night all! See you on the morrow!

Giveaway coming soon...

It might be a rumor or it might be true, but some one says there will be a giveaway coming soon here...

Read Monday to find out... :D

Remember those in Bonds

Please take a few minutes to watch this video and "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body". Hebrews 13:3

We are all family and they deserve no less.


International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church from Christian Freedom International on Vimeo.

The Top Six Cleaning List

I have been thinking a lot lately about what things I should focus on as far as house cleaning goes. My daughter is getting to the age when we need to start thinking about preschool time being added to the daily routine but I always feel like I just don't have time for that. However, since I must make time, I have been thinking about what I can do to make sure I do enough but not so much that I leave no time for the other important pieces of my work.

As I prayed about it, I realized that while I may focus too much sometimes on keeping things clean (by clean, I mean in tip-top shape, not simply sanitary), I also can't just let things go, both because it drives me crazy but because it drives my husband crazy too. So I decided what I'm going to do is make a Top Six list of the things that must be cleaned to have a "clean house". That way if nothing else gets done, at least we can both be happy with the state that the house is in.

If you want to do this for yourself, I would encourage you to start by thinking about what things your husband always mentions about your home. For example, it could be something that he always notices when you clean it perhaps it is the floors or the bathrooms. Or it could be something that he doesn't like and makes comments about, for instance, all the toys on the living room floor or the stacks of laundry, waiting to be folded. It may take awhile to think of them but if you listen and watch what he says and does when he comes home, you will probably see pretty quickly what I'm talking about. If you are still unsure of what his pet peeves are, ask him what things he would like to have cleaned when he comes home after a day of work. Once you have his Top Three, your list is half way done.

The next part is much easier. List the Top Three things that you are always drawn to clean, or what frustrates you the most when it is messy or dirty. This is usually easier because these are the task we get upset because no one does or the ones we find ourselves compulsively doing several times a day.

I'll give you some examples of things I thought of as I was making my list. Not all of these things are on my list but they will give you a good idea of what I'm talking about.

For example, I can't stand walking into my daughters' room and seeing every book, toy and stuffed animal they have all over the floor. So I will call a time to pick up and we will whip their room in to shape together. Now my husband on the other hand would find this problem at the very bottom of his list since he does not have to wade through the muck to get in and out of their room. But to me, it's a big deal.

He is more concerned with the basics; a place to sit or dinner being ready when he arrives, things like that.

I have a friend who cleaned off the top of her frig and discovered this was one of her husband's pet peeves. You can read her post here.

Now you have every thing you need to make your own Top Six Cleaning List. So each afternoon, set aside 15-20 minutes and get those things done. The first time you do this, it may take longer to get things actually clean, but once you've done that, it should be a simple tidy of each area. You don't need to deep clean all the areas everyday, just keep them maintained. Save deep cleaning for the days you have assigned to that room or area.

Trust me, this will go a long way to keeping you sane and your hubby happy! 

Frugal Friday-Ah, the virtues of baking soda pt.2

So I told you last week I would explain why I was reading the baking soda box, and here is the fulfillment of that promise.

Confession: I have always had a hard time finding a natural deodorant that works. I have found a few with aluminum in them that work but no natural deodorant works for me even when reapplied half way through the day. So one day, I reasoned to myself that baking soda is a natural deodorizer so why not try it as a deodorant? It couldn't hurt. And to my surprise and joy, it worked! You only use maybe 1/4 to 1/2 of a tsp. for both underarms and no reapplication is necessary! I have been using it for about 3 weeks now and no troubles. If you decide to try it for yourself, let me know if it works for you!

Happy Friday to all of you!

Frugal Friday-Ah, the virtues of baking soda pt.1

Yes...I know...it is in fact Saturday. But just because the tip is a day later than planned, doesn't mean it is not a good tip! :D



So I don't know how many of you have trouble with this but despite the fact that I clean my children's bath tub every week, I still have a nasty soap ring around it. I don't know what causes it, but it is yucky and I can't seem to get rid of it...until last week. I was reading the baking soda box (read here next Friday to see why I was reading the baking soda box) and I saw it said that you can use it to clean bathrooms. "Eureka!" I thought. I will use this to clean the soap scum. So I did and it worked! It took some elbow grease, not a big deal, but it came off in clumps. I'm so thrilled that now my children's bath tub sparkly, shiny clean! I even told a friend about it and she tried it with the same results! Hurray for baking soda and another great, frugal solution!

Contentment

Frugal Friday: Cloth Diapers and Wipes

I have come to the conclusion that I blog better when I have a deadline. I'm sure I am not the only one who feels this way but I love blogging and I just don't find the time unless there is a goal in mind. So with this thought as motivation, I am starting a Frugal Friday post here. Each Friday I will post something that I have found to try to be more frugal and usually more natural too. Some of my posts maybe things I have tried, some will be things I would like to try. But I will have one each Friday, Lord willing!

So, today we are talking diapers and wipes. There has been a lot of talk about how much it costs to use cloth diapers and whether the impact on the environment is any better when you use cloth over disposables. I can't answer all those questions since I am not an expert in statistics or anything like that. I can just tell you what I know from my experience.

Using this calculator, I figured out it cost me about $1.60 a load to wash my diapers once a week. (I wash them twice, once in cold and once in hot. The first time, with cold, I add soap, borax and bac-out. The second round I use just soap and hot water.) If you add that up, it costs about $6.4 a month to wash diapers. Then you have to add the cost of the diapers. Even if I had to buy them every two years (which is crazy...) it would cost me $5 a month. So all together, that's $11.40 to cloth diaper one child every month. When you figure the best price you can find consistently to buy disposables is about $22 on Amazon, cloth diapers sound pretty good. :D (There are situations make cloth diapering difficult or next to impossible, but again that is beyond the scope of my blog today.)

So for me, cloth diapers are the way to go. I wish I could have cloth diapered all three of my little ones but I figure better late than never!

I'm getting ready to start using cloth wipes too for my son. I'll be using the Anti-fungal Baby Wipes recipe from this website to make them. I'll have to let you know how the cost plays out. Right now, I use the Seventh Generation wipes from Amazon. They are only .02 when you use the subscribe and save option, which is pretty good, I think.

Anyway, that's my tip of the day. In the next few weeks, we will be talking about natural shampoos and conditioners, laundry soaps and fabric softeners and others. If you have suggestions, please let me know!

Have a great weekend!

Orderliness

"Let all things be done decently and in order." I Corinthians 14:40


It is sometimes funny how God directs us. I was praying about what to do for school for my 3 year old this year and felt God guiding me to study Character Qualities. You can find the list we are using here.

I thought I would walk y'all through it as we go to give you a picture of what it might look like, that and it will help me keep me on track. :D

Day one we started with a working definition of what Orderliness is: Arranging myself and my surroundings to achieve the greatest efficiency. Then we started memorizing I Corinthians 14:40.

Here's the funny part. When "I" chose orderliness, I wasn't thinking my daughter was particularly disorderly and this would fix it. Nor did I think that I was in need of training in being orderly. And yet, as I teach my daughter, God is showing me just how disorderly I am and how far I have come from His established order. Don't get me wrong. I love to keep things clean but I have always struggled with clutter. Just ask my mom...or on second thought, don't. You don't have that kind of time. Anyway, the point being, that in teaching my daughter these character traits, I am learning things I need to be learning too. I'm so thankful God is big enough to organize all this for me. I am surely not that orderly! :D

Day two we read a few stories that deal with orderliness from Living Like Him (out of print) and worked some more on memorization.

As I am preparing Day three, I found this helpful advice at Lifestyle Homeschool:

We must remember that Orderliness is a character trait - it is not a life’s purpose. Our life’s purpose is to be used by God; bringing our life out of chaos will make us more effective.

~If you think of it – do it
~Create appropriate times for your activities
~Set a timer to keep you on track
~Leave a room better than you found it – this means pick up after yourself and possibly others. See this as blessing others rather than the usual response of “It’s not my mess!”.
~Have a “home” for all your stuff (piles are not homes!)
~Stop a task a few minutes earlier, giving you time to pack away before the next activity.

We have to remember that if we are going to teach things like Character traits, we have to live them first. It is not enough to drill our children in the study of them during the day but not show them by our actions. Honestly, that is the most challenging part of homeschooling; you can't tell your children what should be done and ship them out the door. You have to live it, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day.

So tomorrow in addition to showing my daughter what an orderly home and life look like (or trying at least), I think we will be studying Creation. I can't think of a better example of the importance of orderliness than God's perfect order in creating all things.

Good order is the foundation of all great things.
~Edmund Burke