Happy Memorial Day!

I was trying to find the right words to say thank you to everyone who has made any kind of sacrifice to support our country.

I would like to thank all of the vet's, military spouses, and families of those we have lost who fought to protect our country (my Papa included).

In my typical mindset, a Disney short came to mind. It's from 1943, so it's a WWII reference, and worth watching through the end if you haven't seen it before.

Menu Plan Monday - 5/31

I took the last couple of weeks of from official Menu Plan Monday.  I did plan things out, but we went to go visit my family, and I didn't feel like posting it when we eating away from home more than at home.


This is a Kosher meal plan, with vegetarian meals and meat meal with a veggie equivalent.  As I mentioned before we are part of any awesome organic buying club.  This is our week and we are getting a great selection of goodies.  I'm looking forward to the asparagus, which is coming at a good time.  JGD will be away for some of the week and doesn't like them.  (I won't tell you what he says they look like.)


So here are our plans for this week:  There are some new recipes that I haven't tried before (***).  I will have to let you know how they go after we try them out.


Monday 

• Hamburgers
• Mushroom Burgers *** (Handy that mushrooms were on sale this week!)
• Oven fries or potato salad
• ???

Tuesday

• Buitoni Mushroom Agnolotti w/ a browned butter sauce (apparently, I'm planning a lazy night)
• Salad
• Roasted Asparagus with balsamic butter?

Wednesday

• Quinoa w/ black beans

Thursday

• American Chop Suey with fake meat (again planning a lazy night)
• Broccoli

Friday

• Something with eggplant, maybe moussaka with fake ground beef ***

Saturday

• Maybe some kind of orzo, spinach, feta concoction (something like this.)***

Sunday

• Breakfast for dinner?

To see what other people have planned for this week go to I'm an Organizing Junkie.


Hope you all have a great week!

Night 1 (Aloha Friday)

I was going to wait to post this until I found the cord for the camera, but I just have to share.

I woke up this morning to my little one babbling in her crib (as she does every morning).  But this morning was different.  Soon after I woke up, I heard a "thud" and then crying.

Yup, you guessed it... she escaped.  I knew it was coming, but I was hoping that she was happy enough just hanging out and reading books in her crib, that my little monkey might opt to stay in her crib.  Alas, she did not make this choice.

After her escape, we decided to convert her crib to the toddler bed.  Come to realize we didn't buy the toddler rails because I would love to move her into a double bed (but I'm not buying one right now).  So she is in a daybed, surrounded on 3 sides.

We survived nap, and when I heard her chatting and went to get her I was greeted at the door.  She was clearly ready to go.

Now, I am sitting here trying to pretend that I am not listening obsessively to the monitor to try to figure out if she is getting out of bed.

After seeing a few blogs linked up to Aloha Friday I decided to join in.  So my question to you is, what did you do to help ease this transition for you or your child?

Dear Mama Bird

Dear Mama Bird,

I know that you are just protecting your babies.  I understand that, really I do.  I would do anything to protect mine.

But can we come to a compromise?  We will leave you and your babies alone if you stop attacking us.

I know that nature doesn't understand the laws of man.  Hey, sometimes I don't understand them either, but we need to co-exist.  You and your babies will be safe, if you let me and my family come and go as we please.

Sincerely,

Jolly Green Mommy

Now, does anyone know how to translate this into little black bird???  No, seriously any suggestions on how to take care of this?  By the time I tried calling Audubon today they were closed and they don't open until Tuesday.

Tot School - If you give a Tot a book...

Sprout is 22 months old

This week we focused on Laura Numeroff's books, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Give a Pig a Pancake Big Book.  These are two of my favorite books for little ones.  As we were reading these, I kept thinking about all the activities we will be able to do for these when Sprout gets older.  I love how the same book can be applied to kids of different ages, and they all get something different out of it.  I know that it will be great in the future.

Tot Trays

This Tot Trays we did this week were:

• If You Give a... File Folder Game
• Playdough
• Stickers 

Again, this week there were more activities out, but Sprout wasn't all that interest.  Ironically, she had been trying to get at her Tot Trays whenever we walked past that room, but when it was actually time she decided she would rather be doing other things.

Like...

I guess it's time to actually put this in the garage and not just out of the family room.

But she did play with her new file folder game a little.  I think mommy liked it a lot more than she did.

Of course, she loved playing with stickers again.  This seems to have become a new favorite.

I was shocked when she pulled out the playdough this week and actually wanted to use it.  Usually, this one just sits on the shelf and she ignores it for the week.

She also thought it was fun when I was showing her how to roll the playdough into snakes and balls.  This is what she did with the balls.  I thought it was pretty creative.

Projects

This week I thought we would make pancakes and cookies to go along with our books.  One morning I thought we would make pancakes, and asked Sprout to help.  She decided it was more fun carrying on with her current activity.

But she did enjoy eating them.

I spent the rest of the week trying to find the time to make cookies.  As it turned out we made them one night toward the end of the week after dinner.  I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of the actual process, as I was a little too hands on.  Here is Sprout checking out the cookies in the over making sure everything is okay.

And of course she loved eating these too.  JGD took these pictures, as I was trying to make sure that my couch didn't get smudged.  (I know using her chair at the table would have been a good idea, but for the amount of time it took her to eat the cookie, it would have been more time getting in and out!)

We also made a pig and a mouse to go along with our books this week.  (These should be our stART craft for the week, but so far I haven't gotten around to the separate post).

For the pig, I cut out a red circle (I didn't have any pink construction paper, and Sprout picked red) for the head and a smaller circle for the snout.  Then I cut out a couple ears and gave Sprout the googly eyes.


I was so impressed with where she placed everything.

Until... the ears.  This is when I had the "bad mommy moment" of taking them off and asking her to put them on again.  And sure enough she put them back in the same spot.  "So there, Mommy!"

When we made the mouse, we used a sheet that I had printed off a while ago from First School.  We just did the head.  Somehow, I accidentally printed off two.  So I cut one out myself, and let Sprout work on one.

These scissors are still tough for Sprout to use.  I think I'm going to get her these (Melissa & Doug Educational Toy ChildSafe Scissor Set) instead.


I glued the pink part of the ear on to the grey to make it a little more toddler friendly.  Sprout did the rest.

And even though I didn't get a picture before she dismantled the whole thing, it looked a lot like her pig!

Practical Play

We decided to take a family field trip to a local landscaping place that also have a U-Pick it area.  This was a lot of fun for us.  (Well, so I heard, JGD took Sprout, while I picked some things for dinner.)

We were greeted by:

 

and

 

Then we found

Then it was time to go pick some food.  They had:

Red Chard

Strawberries

Chives

Kohlrabi

Bell peppers

We also picked some spinach, but that's not that interesting to look at.  They had eggplants, blueberries, onions, lettuce, and a whole bunch more.  And this is the end of the season for us!  (Backwards, I know!)


Sprout's Books
I've been meaning to put these in a post for a couple weeks.  These have become Sprout's go to books.


She loves her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Look and Find book.  She is now at the point where she understands what she is supposed to do and will point to the object/character in the box and then find them in the picture!



She also loves her Little Einsteins Animal Alphabet book.  "Eo!"  She loves look at this book.  She is getting really into letters (even though we haven't really worked with them), so she loves looking through this book. 




This week she got a set of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse mini board books in a carrying box, and loves her "Gickey" books.  She carries them all over the house.  I think she likes taking them out and putting them back in more than reading them right now, but she does let us read them every once in a while.

Next Week

Next week is kind of up in the air right now, as I have just realized it is going to be a really crazy week or two.  We'll see what we can get done.

Hope you all had a great week!  To see what other Tots were up to this week go to 1+1+1=1.  

To see what other stART projects people did this week.  Go to A Mommy's Adventure.

Pampers, are you kidding me?

This post is part of the Real Diaper Facts carnival hosted by Real Diaper Events, the official blog of the Real Diaper Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to cloth diaper education. Participants were asked to write about diaper lies and real diaper facts. See the list at the bottom of this post to read the rest of the carnival entries.

Okay, I don't normally get into the political universe that is cloth v disposable diapers, but I can't leave Pampers alone on this one.

Disclaimer:  (If you do choose to use disposable diapers because that is what works for you please do not take offense at the following post.)

When my daughter was born, I was debating how I wanted to diaper her.  I knew that JGD was not keen on the whole diaper concept at all and didn't know how to make the "jump" without his support.  (As it turns out, I trained him very badly as he very rarely changes a diaper, and I decided I didn't care what he thought.) 

Pampers

Myth: Disposable diapers are harmful to the environment.

Fact: All of the component materials in Pampers diapers are gentle to consumers and safe for the environment. Pampers diapers are made of materials that are also frequently used in a wide range of other consumer products. We are committed to continuing to reduce our environmental impact. For example, Pampers has decreased its diaper weight by one-third and packaging weight by two-thirds. And innovative technologies, raw materials, and product design improvements have led to significant reductions in energy, water use, emissions, and waste at our plants. We are working so that our diapers in the future will have less impact on the environment than even today's diapers.

My fact:
The first thing that I changed was that we  I started to flush my daughter's bm's down the toilet and did not throw it out with the diaper because I read that human waste in the landfills is the first of many problems involved in using disposable diapers.  As it is a source for disease growth and infections.  Upon reading this I began flushing.

Secondly, it takes 500 years for a diaper to decompose.  How can this be good for the environment???  In no way shape or form is this good!!!  I'm glad to hear that Pampers is working to make their diapers have less of an impact.  When they can biodegrade in the same time frame that a gDiaper can, I'll consider using them again (50-150 days).

Pampers

Myth: Cloth diapers are better for the environment than disposables.

Fact: In October 2008, the United Kingdom's Environment Agency published an update to its 2005 Life Cycle Assessment study on cloth versus disposable diapers. The update confirmed the earlier study's findings that there is no clear winner in terms of environmental impacts between disposable and cloth diapers in the U.K., once all factors such as water, energy, detergent, and disposal are considered.

My fact:
Well, see above...  
And, are you kidding me?  I know that when I first started using cloth diapers I was using more water to rinse out the soap in the diapers, but after finding the right detergent (Rockin' Green).  I now do maybe 1-2 extra load(s) a week to wash my daughter's diapers.  This is nowhere near the environmental impact that disposable diapers has.  (Oh and just so I am not singling any one diaper vendor out, the president of Seventh Generation made a similar claim a few months ago.)

Pampers

Myth: Cloth diapers are better for my baby.

Fact: Disposable diapers like Pampers were developed to offer babies benefits that cloth diapers could not meet. That goes beyond convenience to helping keep babies' skin dryer and more comfortable by reducing leaks and locking wetness inside the diaper in a way that cloth doesn't. As a result, doctors and parents simply don't see the same level of diaper rash that used to exist before disposable diapers.

My fact:

My daughter has had far less diaper rashes, leaks and blowouts in cloth diapers than she had in disposables.  And I will admit that part of the problem is that I didn't feel the need to change her as often.  This was because you feel that the disposable diapers give a false sense of security as they are able to absorb to much waste.  (I remember trying to figure out exactly how much, and was blown away by how much water 1 diaper took in.)  I reconsidered my view on this when we made the change to cloth, and it was definitely a help.

And let me touch on one more common myth (well I know JGD believes and dispenses this one).

Myth: 

Cloth diapers are more difficult to use than disposables.

Fact:  

No way.  For the most part we use one size pocket diapers.  The actual putting on of the diaper is no more difficult than using a disposable diaper.  It is just as easy to diaper my daughter with cloth as it was with disposable.  I wish I could say easier, but really they are the same.  So fear of difficulty should not hold anyone back.  

And on the positive side using one size cloth diapers has saved us so much money (that JGD does brag about)! 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and (however poorly worded) this one is mine.

This post is part of the Real Diaper Facts carnival hosted by Real Diaper Events, the official blog of the Real Diaper Association. Participants were asked to write about diaper lies and real diaper facts. See the list at the bottom of this post to read the rest of the carnival entries.

My First Blog Award - Yea!!!

 The Rules:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

Okay, so on with the show.

Thank you to Libby from Latte Mama.  I can't believe I have a blog award.  I am so thrilled that someone thought enough of what I write to send me an award.  Thanks!!!

7 things about me???

Really, I'm not sure I'm that interesting that I have 7 things to share.  This has been hard for me to think of.  So, let's see.

1. I am 14 years (minus 1 week) older than my brother.  And coincidentally, he is 14 years older than my daughter.
2. My husband and I went on a cruise of the Greek Isles for our honeymoon (which he won), which coincidentally was the same the thing my parents did for their honeymoon.  (Also, our anniversary is 1 day after theirs, also a coincidence, I think.)
3. We have just started "gardening" and we're learning as we go.  So far I have an herb container garden (my Mother's Day present), and some flowers that we have planted around the house (some of which seem to be dying).  We have high hopes and plans for a butterfly garden in the near future.
4. In "real life" I am often thought to be on the quiet side by people who don't take the chance to get to know me.  I am working on breaking out of my "shell," but it's an ongoing process.
5. I am a Yankee (not the baseball kind) through and through and desperately miss living in the Northeast.  I really don't understand why people like living someplace where there are no seasons (well unless you count hurricane, as one of my students once told me.)  No offense meant for anyone who does love living here, I just miss the leaves in the fall, the snow in the winter, the buds in the spring, and not have 95% humidity all day, everyday during the summer.
6. I would like to be crafty, but not sure if I'm succeeding.  I learned to crochet in high school, and have gotten back into it recently.  I'm hoping to start an Etsy store in the near future.  I have a sewing machine because I would love to sew stuff, but I'm wondering if I'm in over my head.  I think my first project is going to be a quilt from the many extra (and old) t-shirts my husband and I have.
7. I am pretty good with mechanical stuff, plumbing and electrical stuff.  Nothing major.  I'm not planning to rewire my house anytime soon, and I am happy to admit when I think something is beyond me.  I have changed out door knobs and locks, installed all the baby locks, changed out a toilet (with help from JGD, someone had to do the heavy lifting ;-)), fixed the innards of all of our toilets, and stopped the leaks, changed out our thermostat, and all of the light switches and added dimmers for the fans in the house. 

Okay, enough about me.  Now, it's time for the bloggers I have recently discovered and think are fantastic.

Adventures in Mama-Land

Almost Unschoolers

Green Mom Wannabe

Mama to 3 Blessings

Home Grown Families

The Angel Forever

Growing Up Our Style

Lionden Landing

JDaniel4's Mom

Milk and Cuddles

Oh, I just know that I missed someone.  Hopefully, if I did I will be able to pay them kudos in the future.

Thanks again Latte Mama.