My Family Loves It » Our Life

Chickie-Poo is our last chicken :(

Heather — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:58:30 +0000

So much for having free-range chickens! Yesterday morning I heard Hen get killed by what I’m guessing was a hawk. Its so sad since these birds turned out to be so friendly, comical, cute and lovable. Our chickens let us pick them up and pet them and they have the softest feathers. They were really pets that lived outside and gave us the bonus of fresh eggs but apparently letting them live free and happy anywhere they pleased was not the best plan. So poor Chickie-Poo is the last chicken and she is my favorite. I am hoping that John will get some break from his horrible non-stop work schedule to put up a fence around the coop and rig up a roof so that we can keep this last bird alive and maybe get her some little birdy friends. Originally we told the kids we’d get more chicks this spring/summer but when we lost Fuzzworth we changed our minds since we knew they’d get eaten. I’m just not cut out for being a farmer! Here is our lonely birdie:

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I don’t love being grumpy!

Heather — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:22:13 +0000

I am in a funk at the moment! I have lots of great product reviews and other stuff to blog about and I want to get those posts up here ASAP but I can’t seem to get my act together lately. There is no one big HORRIBLE thing going on but I am just feeling overwhelmed by things that I should be able to handle. I feel really guilty for being upset lately when there are so many things to be happy about! So basically I am just in a funk but I will get out of it soon because (even when they are challenging) these 4 kids are too cute and lovable to be grumpy around for long!

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NO PLANS TODAY!

Heather — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:05:31 +0000

I am going to take some time to do nothing for at least today! With the busy end of the school year over, company gone and the big living painting just finished yesterday (well minus the baseboards), I am thinking we need to schedule some days with absolutely nothing. We will have to prep for two upcoming birthday parties at our house in July and some more home improvement projects but I’m planning on lots of lazy summer days too. This morning while the bigger 3 kids held a secret picnic in the boys’ room, I took Jillian outside. She fed the chickens (sadly we only have 2 left), lifted her fallen car, gave me a lovely look, took her very first photo with finger to prove it, got attacked by some little biting flying bugs, played with the gate, found and then lost a rock, and then we came in to check on the how the sneaky snack snatchers were doing.

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Silly Bandz Crayon Rubbing Art

Heather — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:50:59 +0000

Ethan came up with this project all on his own by arranging his silly bandz behind his paper and doing crayon rubbings! He made it a “puzzle” for Jamie, he wanted her to match up the silly bandz to the ones on his paper. I think Silly Bandz art is a great idea since when the kids wear them you can’t see what shapes they are.This would also be a great use for the broken ones if you glue them to a piece of cardboard to use as a rubbing plate (I have been crazy gluing them back together with a piece of wax paper underneath so they don’t stick but gluing them to the cardboard would be easier). Anyway I just wanted to share Ethan’s great idea (and a cute picture of him sleeping on the couch one night when he snuck out of bed):

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Freezer Paper stenciled Lego guy Stormtroopers!

Heather — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:58:20 +0000

Well I have been wanting to do a freezer paper stencil for awhile now but I just got around to buying the freezer paper last week. Then I needed to decide on something to stencil on some of my boys’ shirts…. I did some googling of “lego guys” and found this flickr picture. Thought it was perfect for a shirt since they are also into Star Wars and I printed it out and made my own stencil based on it. Not perfect but this was my first time trying a freezer paper stencil so I was not seeking perfection at any step! What I did set out to do was cut out the stencil carefully enough (with an exacto knife) so that I could use both the positive and negative pieces to make two shirts out of the one stencil. I used an iron to adhere the stencil to each shirt (was a bit more tricky to place all the little pieces on the blue but I just ironed on a few at a time). I wanted to use fabric paint on the red shirt but I went for bleach on the blue hoodie. I used an empty spray hair gel bottle to get a nice mist of bleach on the shirt. I did it in the bathtub and when I saw that it was light enough I quick turned on the shower and rinsed all the bleach off (this was slightly tricky, look at the 2nd picture below and you can see the bleach working on the periphery that was drying but the area close to the stencil was still pretty wet. I turned on the water right after snapping the picture because I heard the bleach will get too light if you’re not careful). I am not sure which I like better because I am pretty happy with them both!

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Snakes and girls

Heather — Sat, 15 May 2010 02:39:06 +0000

At least one of my good friends is super afraid of snakes. I just don’t get it. I don’t madly LOVE snakes (don’t want any inside the house) but I think they are really neat and I am so happy we get a bunch in our backyard. This year we keep seeing a cute little snake on our back deck and Ethan just saw it shed today. The kids touched the snake in this picture and it was pretty tame. It is not as tame as our beloved Spikey but maybe in time. Its almost like having pet snakes without any responsibility! Anyway if you’re a mom that hates snakes PLEASE don’t pass it on to your girls! I love that Jamie and Jillian will play with snakes and worms and other “creepy” stuff just like their brothers. Jamie actually just named a spider in the garage today (I will have to hide that I am not a spider fan, is that hypocritical?)!

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Sesame Place tips from our fun visit!

Heather — Mon, 03 May 2010 16:34:36 +0000

Thanks to Mom Bloggers Club and Sesame Place our family was given tickets to the opening day of Sesame Place’s 30th anniversary season!

We have never been to Sesame Place with the kids (and I’m sure its very different from the one time I went as a little kid) so it was a big adventure for us. The weather was hot and the kids were happy to alternate between the fun water rides and the dry rides and attractions. We hit the roller coaster first (3 times in a row) and the 3 bigger kids LOVED it (even 3 1/2 year old Jamie which surprised me). From there just went where the kids lead us and really didn’t do any planning with the map. I’m not sure that we saw the entire park, we never made it to any of the shows and we only saw a small part of the parade but I have no regrets since the kids didn’t know we missed anything. It was very nice that our Mom Bloggers lunch was the only planned thing on our agenda. We had a great lunch break under a pavilion with fans where we rehydrated and recharged for more fun. The kids really had fun until the last minute at 8pm when Oscar told us to go home! We were there over 9 hours straight and by the time we hit the road to drive home the kids were ready to get some rest. Oh its hard to sum up the trip in one post so I’m just going to end with tips for people who are planning a trip.

Our Sesame Place tips:

bring the kids dressed in their bathing suits and swim shirts, swim shorts like Jamie’s for girls are much better than regular girls bottoms (we packed the kids extra bathing suits in case they wanted to be dry but they ended up wearing the same ones all day)
bring your own stroller for kids 6 and under, they get tired and you want to have them use their energy on the fun stuff not having to keep up with mom and dad (and its great for storing the things)
water shoes or crocs (flip flops fall off too easily and you want something that can get WET)
SUNSCREEN multiple times (little face stick is handy and the spray kind for everywhere else so you can get it over quick and get back to the fun stuff)
your kids will get cranky when they are tired, be patient and ignore some things you wouldn’t normally put up with (can’t stand those parents that take the kids somewhere to have fun and scream at them the whole time!)
if a ride has a wait come back to it later, there were always good things open with short lines and by later in the afternoon some of the ones that were busy earlier were practically empty
plan to stay the whole day, it was long but so worth it and by the time we made our 3 1/2 hour drive home the kids were happy to be in the car sleeping!
try to go to the Counts Splash Castle during the hottest part of the day, it was the best thing for cooling off the whole family (except in our case we discovered 1 1/2 year old Jillian currently has a fear of water!)
John and I split up several times and it was nice to have our cell phones to text each other so we could easily find each other, we should have brought some zip lock bags to put his phone in for the wet rids though (I lost him a little while when I was keeping his phone safe when he took the boys on a wet ride)
if possible I think going during the week would be good so it is not as crowded but considering it was packed on opening day we really didn’t have trouble with that many long lines
HAVE FUN, we definitely did!

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Jillian is 1 1/2!

Heather — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:23:32 +0000

I don’t know how it happened but my baby is 18 months already! In honor of her 1/2 birthday yesterday we ate 1/2 a cake (and then finished the other 1/2 for breakfast today along with some cut up fruit). It may have just been a 1/2 birthday but the kid made a FULL MESS!

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Brothers

John — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:47:47 +0000

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Earth Month

Heather — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:43:58 +0000

I am making a conscious effort to think of ways to be more “GREEN” and in honor of Earth Day I’m planning on incorporating it in the blog this month (reviews of several great eco-products coming soon). When compared to a lot of Americans, I think our family is fairly good but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. Just because we may be a little greener than most doesn’t mean we are any where near green enough! Its tough, I think I’ll make a green list and a needs improvement list to help me with this! Here is what I came up with so far, any suggestions welcome:

Green list:

compared to our neighbors we seem to put out much less trash and missing a week putting out the garbage is no big deal for us
we buy very little cleaning products and with the exception of a rare bottle of bleach I buy all eco- cleaners
I use vinegar and baking soda to clean
I switched to eco-friendly laundry detergent
I use reusable grocery bags (almost every time)
I compost in spring/summer
we don’t eat a lot of meat
I avoid snack sized treats for the kids to save money and waste. I buy regular sized snacks and put them in reusable containers instead of baggies
we recycle and fortunately our area takes a big variety of recyclables
I save all clean plastic bags to recycle at the grocery store in their grocery bag collection bin and I put in my bread bags, frozen vegetable bags and any plastic bag that is clean (I hope I’m not including any that wouldn’t be recyclable but I’m not sure where to find that out)
we haven’t gotten the newspaper in years and read it online instead
I save lots of things to reuse for art projects with the kids (bottle caps, empty food boxes, metal lids, string from packaging, misc plastic, cardboard from frozen pizza boxes, etc…)
we have a garden (with the exception of my failed one last year)
we have chickens to get our own eggs in spring/summer
I don’t buy many clothes for our kids because we are given a lot of hand me down clothes for them (and we also give away their outgrown things)
I have turned down free items to review on the blog that I thought were wasteful
almost all our lights CFL now
I collect other people’s bagged leaves at the curb in the fall to use as mulch on my next years garden (keeps the weeds minimal, is free and totally worth feeling weird when I stop to throw the bags in my car)

Room for improvement:

I have been buying juice pouches recently to use when I am in a rush and haven’t washed or filled metal water bottles.
I should try to compost all year
I get coffee out at places that have disposable cups 1-2 times a week
I try to think about the packaging waste when I buy things and if there is an item that uses less waste I take that into consideration when making decisions. Its a start but I’m putting this in room for improvement so I can work on this more
John drinks lots of little soda bottles lately
We use disposable diapers but we don’t have plans for that to change, some guilt but just can’t handle cloth
I use paper towels more than I should
we do not buy as many environmentally friendly products as we could because of they are often more expensive
we could grow more produce in our garden
the boys are horrible about leaving their bedroom light on
we get too many gadgets?
we don’t unplug enough electronics/appliances when they aren’t being used

I miss the garden we had 2 years ago, hope this year is a good one!

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