A Review of 2016 Resolutions...How did I do?

2016 was an interesting year for me.  There were many, many wonderful things, but the last few months of the year have been all about being sick and tired and sick and tired for me.  I've been very fatigued for a few months, and in the last 2 months had 2 colds, a non-stop cough, and am currently on my second round of antibiotics for bronchitis/pneumonia (and Nicky had an ear infection, 2 colds, and pneumonia as well).  The cough is almost gone, but I struggle doing more than sit on the sofa and make meals right now.  Is it something more?  Mono? Toxic mold in my house?  Just getting old?  I don't know, but it's very frustrating.  I'm afraid that will taint many of the resolutions from last year, but here is an honest review of how I did.

1)  Make gluten, sugar and (mostly) dairy free eating my normal lifestyle.  I did this for the most part until about early October.  In those 9 month, I didn't lose weight, I didn't feel any better, I was hungry all the time, and I was dealing with fatigue so badly that by 3pm I could do nothing but sit on the sofa.  In October we raised the dosage of my thyroid medicine, which helped, and I started eating all the foods again.  I am striving to make all my food from scratch and I still eat healthy, but of course I immediately put on 10 pounds.  

2)  Get ready to homeschool!  We have pretty much made the decision to homeschool for the first few years (it was initially a financial decision, plus God really pulling on my heart).  I was thinking that I would start Laurel at the pre-school level in the fall, but as I've looked into it, I feel like she has already accomplished much of what would be taught at that level!  She knows all of her letters by sight and know what sounds they make.  She can write her name.  She can tell you what letter words start with.  She recognizes numbers by sight.  She is obsessed with volcanoes.  So I am considering starting her with Kindergarten, and see how it goes.  She'll be 4 1/2, so if I need to, I can take more than one school year to finish it!  So my goal for this year is to plan out a full school year of K for Laurel, and "pre-learning" activities for Nicolas for during the school day.  After much prayer and figuring out ages, we decided to do pre-school with both kids.  If I had started Laurel on K already, she would have finished high school turning 17 in April of her senior year, and been 17 for most of her first year of college.  So we did pre-school with both of them.  I chose a curriculum called God's Little Explorers, and it was easy for Laurel, and Nicolas hasn't been all that interested in learning letters until just in the last month.  So we did extra reading lessons and workbooks for Laurel, let Nick do the crafts and have fun, and per request of the kids, learned about a new composer and a famous artist every single week.  We are half-way through our school year, the kids are having fun, and we are all learning.  I have learned how to tweak lessons so that my very strong-willed child is excited to learn.  We took most of December off because we can--a benefit of homeschooling!--and so that I can just rest and hopefully get better.

3)  Read my Bible and write in my prayer journal at least 4 times a week.  This past year I failed miserably at the "read it every day" goal, so I'm making it something more achievable.  And if I over-achieve, that is great!  I'm going to schedule Bible time into our homeschool day.  :)  I did this consistently for about 7 months, then went down to probably 2-3 times a week for a couple months, and the last couple months haven't been consistent at all because I'm just so tired.  

4)  Read at least 7 of our devotional books.  Last year I aimed for one a month and failed at that, so again, I'm making a more achievable goal.  I can honestly say that the only devotionals I read were for small groups, so I think I read a total of 3-4.  But I read a million novels, and my book club is working it's way through all the Newberry Award books.  I just like fiction.  And it is really hard to read non-fiction when I don't have anyone to talk it over with.

5)  Exercise!  When the weather is nice, I want to be out riding the bike once a week (as long as both kids fit into a Burley), and do the entire bike trail most of the time!  Also, go hiking, go on walks, play outside with the kids, play at the park...and work some body weight exercises in when doing so.  Why not do push-ups and squats while watching the kids at the park?  I did this really, really well, until the last couple months--again, I am just too tired.  Last week I did a 10 minute pilates routine, and it about took me out for the day.

6)  Improve my reaction to being ignored.  I HATE BEING IGNORED!!!!  There, I've said it.  When I say something to someone and they do not give a verbal response, my anger level rises quickly and dramatically.  I am tempted to explain the many reasons why not responding is not good, but doing so right now would only serve as an attempt to justify my anger at being ignored.  I'm annoyed just thinking about it! *deep breath*  I live with a 3 1/2 year old and an almost 2 year old.  Guess how often they verbally respond when I tell them something?  Not very often.  I also live with a man of few words who doesn't always respond verbally.  Does my getting angry and immediately annoyed help the situation? NO! I'm not saying that in 2016 I'm going to believe that not responding to someone is ok.  But I am going to work hard to improve my reaction to it.  I will not get angry at my daughter and yell at her when her imagination is stronger than her ability to listen.  I will not mutter under my breath when my husband does not immediately answer a question.  I can only control myself and my own reactions.  I would say that I improved on this, but I'm still not great.  It seems like Wednesday is my awful day, and I scream at the kids way too much.  And I've stopped being angry and bitter at my husband only because I've made myself distant so as not to feel rejected.  Guess what my 2017 resolution will be...

7)  Make money doing crafts.  I made an etsy shop, but didn't sell anything there.  I have sold a few scarfs and crafts to friends, and have a friend who puts some of my stuff in her craft shows and have sold a few things there as well.  As far as crafts go, it is hard to quickly get together enough stuff to do a show when the bulk of your stuff is crochet and knit, because it just takes too long!  My goal is to do a craft show next fall.  Also, this fall I decided to try to seel baked goods for the holiday, and sold a number of rolls at Thanksgiving.  Also, the city/mall/Oskaloosa Wellness Coalition (I'm not sure who is "in charge" but they are all working together) decided to do an indoor farmer's market over the winter in the mall and is not charging vendors for now.  So I have a table, and am selling baked goods and craft stuff there.  I've found that people around here aren't ga-ga for fresh baked, real bread and rolls like I am.  I kneaded a lot of dough that didn't sell.  But I did really well selling pumpkin bread (from pumpkins grown in my yard), cinnamon bread, sweets, and harvest seed bread cooked in a Dutch oven.  So I'm going to do those for the next 3 months, in hopes of making enough money to pay for Nicolas to be in gymnastics for the next year.

Slumber Party and Painting Party

Last weekend my sister had to come out to our house on Saturday to pick up her Bountiful Basket veggies from me.  Since we were planning to go to Pella for lunch on Sunday, I invited a couple of my nieces to spend the night at our house.  We had a great time!  We got out a giant sheet of paper and the drawing instruction books and the kids drew and colored on the kitchen floor.

After supper we made popcorn and watched "Big Hero 6."  We all went to bed, then went to church the next morning and went for lunch at my sister's house.

I had made some Harry Potter shoes for my niece Rhea for Christmas, and my niece Abby was wishing she had a pair as well.  My sister had a few pairs of cheap canvas shoes in the closet, so we had a painting party on Sunday afternoon.  I helped Abby make some cool HP shoes, and Emily decided to do a pair for herself.  Garion painted little wooden shapes, and Olivia painted a small canvas.

Olivia's "Panda on a Beach at Sunset"

I did "Hogwarts at Night" on the right show.  I helped Abby outline  the "HP" and a fox patronus on the left show, and she did most of the painting on that one.  

A Chore Chart for Nicolas

Last year I used a cookie sheet to make a chore chart for Laurel, and it has been a success.  Nicolas has started wanted to help me unload the dishwasher (he hands the dishes to me one by one to put away, and throws all the silverware into a big pile in the silverware drawer...such great help!), so I decided it was time for him to get a chore chart!

I once again bought an 88 cent cookie sheet at Walmart, drilled a couple holes in the top, and spray painted it a dark blue.  I'm starting out with only a few chores for him.  When he completes a chore, he moves the magnet to the "Done" side.  When he gets 2 chores completed, he gets to move Diego one step closer to rescuing the elephant!

When Diego gets to the elephant, Nicolas will get $1.  We'll give it to him in dimes, and he gets to put 9 dimes into his piggy bank, and then he will put the other dime into the collection plate at church.

A friend of mine was giving away some plastic coffee canisters, so while I had the spray paint out I put a couple coats on those as well.  I bought "chalkboard stickers" to put on them, and have them in my craft supply cupboard.

Double Braided Cowl

A friend of mine at church sent a pattern for a double braided cowl to me and asked me to crochet it for her!  I was able to use yard I had in my stash, and whipped this baby up in about 11 hours...which is less than two weeks of crocheting in the evenings while watching NCIS.  I like how it turned out, and I think I'll make a few more.

Balloon Ice Sculptures

Last week one of our neighbors posted a link on facebook for how to make ice globes using balloons.  Then we went to a craft night at our County Conservation Center and they showed the same idea!  We made some of our own balloon ice globes.

My initial plan was to color the water in the pitcher, then pour it into the balloons using the funnel.  Unfortunately, we found that there was not enough water pressure to actually stretch and fill the balloons that way, and I had to fill them from the sink.  My ability to allow toddler participation was greatly reduced!  I ended up putting the balloon on the funnel, pouring in a little water and drops of food coloring, then taking the balloon to the sink and actually filling them from the faucet.

Laurel is telling Nicolas how to do it.  I used about 10-15 drops of food coloring for each balloon, but I think it would have been better with 20-25 drops.

We filled 8 balloons total.  One popped on the ground before it froze, but the others all survived.

We put them outside on a weekend when it was supposed to be below zero for a few days.  We waited 24 hours, and then Laurel could not wait any longer!  Our balloons had not frozen all the way through, so instead of getting ice globes we have ice bowls.

The color isn't very vibrant because I didn't use enough food coloring, but I think they turned out very pretty!

The Volcano

Laurel and Nicolas are currently very interested in volcanoes.  We watched some Diego and Backyardigans episodes about volcanoes, and then they started asking more and more questions about volcanoes.  We watched some documentaries about volcanoes, and if you ask Laurel about them, she will be happy to tell you all the details!

One of the shows we watched had some kids who built a volcano and had it erupt, and Laurel asked if we could do that at home.  She even saved one of Scott's empty pop bottles just for the volcano!  So one afternoon a couple weeks ago I agreed to make a volcano.

It was an interesting experience. First I took the bottle and created a volcano shape around it with aluminum foil.  And then the crying began!

--First Laurel asked if it would be dormant or active.  When I told her it would be an active volcano, she started screaming and crying that she wanted a dormant volcano.  After much screaming I told her if she wanted it dormant then we were done and I would put it away right now.  Then she decided she wanted it to be active after all.

--Next I started to put some of our millions of dinosaurs into the pan with the volcano.  At that point Laurel started screaming and told me she didn't want the dinos to burn up in the lava!

I don't want the dinos to burn in the lava!

--At that point Nicolas started screaming that he wanted crackers.

--I lined up all the dinos outside the pan, and then we poured in some warm water, baking soda, and food coloring.  Then Laurel started screaming and crying and saying that she hates vinegar!  I explained a couple times that the volcano will not erupt without vinegar, and she just kept crying.  So I told her that if she didn't let me pour in the vinegar, we would never do a craft again.  That threat worked, and the kids finally came to the table to watch the volcano erupt. 

The lava is so beautiful!

Cheese!

--I had set up the camera to take a video of the actual eruption, but when I went to check it after we were done, it told me that it had stopped recording.  After all the screaming I was disappointed to say the least!  However, the next time I got the camera out, the video had magically appeared after all.  Here it is!  I love how Laurel spent the whole time covering her eyes with her hands.

Cook Book Organization

I have a ton of cookbooks of all shapes and sizes that live on a rolling cart in my kitchen.  At one point they were neatly piled, but with two toddlers running around the house, they had become just a messy pile and with ripped out pages.  I didn't want to pack them away into the attic, so I decided to use a diaper box (technically, I guess that one is a wipes box) to organize them.  I wanted to cover the box, and had a number of maps downstairs in my craft room to choose from.  My map of the Netherlands was exactly the right size!

First I cut off the top flaps.  I thought about gluing the paper to the box, but discovered that we were almost out of glue, so I went with the next best thing--double sided tape and packing tape!

I drew a 4 inch line coming out from each corner, then cut out the corner squares up to my line, then slit along the line to the edge of the box.  Then I taped on one side at a time.  For the first side I could wrap the map around the edges.  For the other sides I folded the map so that it ended flush with the edge.

I reinforced the top edge and all the corners with clear packing tape.  I also cut out the paper by the handles so I could easily pick up the box.

Here is the (almost) final product!  (the handles are still covered)

The box fits on the bottom shelf of my rolling cart, and all of the small and medium size cookbooks fit into it perfectly!  I have made neater piles of my large cookbooks and binders, so it looks neater.  Now I just need to figure out something for on top to organize our craft and homeschool supplies.

Harry Potter Shoes

My niece Rhea made herself some Star Wars shoes last year and wore them out.  Then she "stole" a pair of Doctor Who shoes my mom had painted and wore those out.  I decided to make her some Harry Potter shoes for Christmas this year, and I'm pretty sure she will wear them until they are worn out as well!

I bought the cheap canvas shoes at Walmart.  You could spend more to buy better quality shoes if you want to, but at the rate she wears out her shoes, I decided these were the best value.  I started out with 3 or 4 different shades of tan on my plate, and then dipped my brush in multiple colors at once and swiped the brown on.  Then I lightly put some of the darker colors around the edges and trimmed it in dark brown to make it look like aged paper.  I did the same background on both shoes.

I went with a Marauder's Map theme on the right shoe.

I need some practice on drawing banners...

On the left shoe I put Gryffindor colors (because Rhea said she is "a Gryffindor through and through") and then painted the HP symbol on top.

Harry's glasses and lightning shaped scar

Deathly Hallows symbol

Winged Keys

I finished both shoes off with a couple coats of clear spray paint to water proof them and keep the paint from bleeding.

Rhea put her shoes on as soon as she opened them and wore them the whole day, so I think they were a success!  In fact, her older sister Abby wanted a pair of her own.  She already has the shoes, so one of these days were are going to have a craft time and I'll help her paint her own shoes.

Christmas Crafts

This year for Christmas I hand made a number of presents to give to nieces.  I taught myself how to crochet earlier this year, so I put my new found skill to work to make these presents!

I crocheted two cowls to give to my nieces Hannah and Emily, who are both in high school, but then I couldn't decide which cowl to give to which niece.  So I put both of them into a box and gave it to both of them to share.

Butterfly Cowl

I made this one using a chunky pinkish yarn I had on hand.  It is a cool pattern and looks nice, but I did decide it would probably work better with a smooth variegated yarn.  Actually, I made another later with the same yarn I used on my star cowl, and it turned out even nicer.

I like this cowl because it is done in the round, so you don't have to go back and forth and weave in a bunch of ends, and it is crocheted with the twist built in.

 Star Cowl  

I made this cowl using a variegated light-weight yarn.  I love it!  It is so pretty and light and soft.  I also used this same yarn to make another of the butterfly cowls.

This cowl was pretty easy to make, but what I didn't like about it was that you crocheted each individual star, hooking the tips together.  Then on each star you had to weave in two ends.  There were 60 stars, which meant I had to weave in 120 ends!  That is possibly the most tedious job associated with knit/crochet.

 Christmas cards

A few of our nieces/nephews requested getting cash for Christmas instead of a present.  We were not able to get together with the Platt side of the family over the Christmas holiday, so I had Laurel paint some cards to send money in through the mail.  I drew an outline of a tree, and Laurel finger painted the trees with ornaments and "shooting stars" on top.

I'm making a shooting star!

French Vanilla Button Cowl 

When I was at World Market with my sisters, Lynn saw a cowl she really liked, and I told her not to buy it because I would crochet one for her!  I had a skein of soft fuzzy off-white yarn on hand, and I quick whipped up this cowl for her.  We did sew a big wooden button on it, but here I am holding it together with a crochet hook.

Mermaid Blanket

I had seen some crocheted mermaid blanket patterns online, but none of them were exactly what I was looking for.  So I decided to make up my own pattern.  The only problem is that I don't have a sewing machine, and really, I don't exactly even know how to sew.  But I won't let that stop me!

I bought some really soft fleece, and originally intended to make the tail using the same fabric but wrapped in sparkly pink tulle.  On Thanksgiving Day I snuck over to my sister's house to use her sewing machine and her sewing know how.  We decided that putting on the tulle would be too hard (and messy with sparkles going everywhere), but Lynn had some nice dark purple fabric that we used instead.

I traced out the shape I wanted for the tail, then cut a double layer of it.  I sewed the two pieces together, leaving the top open.  Then I sewed a few lines up the tail.  I stuffed a little bit of filling into each stripe to give the tail extra shape.  Then I hemmed all the edges of the fleece and sewed the pieces together.

The tail

 Laurel sleeps on top of her comforter at night under a blanket, so I wanted to make the blanket big enough that she would be able to sleep under it.  I also wanted it big enough for her to share.  At the same time, I wanted it to have a pocket down at the bottom for her to slip her feet into.  So the bottom part of the fleece, right above the tail, is sewn together in the back for about 18 inches to make a cylinder.  Then the rest is open and hemmed around the edges.

Here I am modeling the mermaid blanket!

This picture is fuzzy, but it is the only one I took of Laurel with her blanket.  She loved it!  And she has slept under it every night since Christmas.

Princess Rapunzel Crown with hair

I had seen some patterns for Princess Elsa hair, and I decided to adapt it to be a Princess Rapunzel crown for my niece who already has a Repunzel dress.  I linked the title to the pattern I used, but I adapted the colors.  I also looked up a bunch of different patterns for crocheted flowers and attached the flowers and a little braid all over the hair.

Laurel is modeling the Princess Rapunzel hair