I am the mother of 4 young children who are still in the "bedtime routine" mode.
As is typical with most young ones, the dark is not their friend.
But, their parents LOVE the dark.
My husband came up with a solution that I think puts him in the genius category: A Dimmer Switch
Full disclosure: I thought he was weird when he first suggested putting a dimmer switch on the hallway light. Dimmers were for setting the mood, whether it was eating dinner at the dining room table or watching a movie in the family room. But he did it anyway, and I love it!
When the kids are first put to bed, we turn on the hallway light all the way on.
BUT...once they fall asleep, we dim the hallway light down. There's just enough light that if they wake up, they can find their way to the bathroom (or our room). But it's dark enough that the hallway light doesn't bother the adults that aren't scared of the dark.
I've just recently returned from a trip to temporary insanity.
This is what sent me there:
Problem: Oldest daughter can't find her iPod Touch. She swears she left it on her desk in her room. Now it's not there. It's no where!
Suspects:
#1: small little 15 month old. Her latest trick is to reach on top of tables and swipe what's in her grasp. If she took it off the desk, who knows where she could have dropped it.
#2: 3 year old sneak. She loves to go into her sister's room and browse the luxury department, i.e. everything her older sister has told her she's not allowed to touch. (Older sister is not aware that some days while she's at school, I let little sister in her room to play...Oh the things I can get done in the rest of the house while she's visiting heaven)
#3: a little brother. His favorite part of the new Christmas present is the ability it has to beep when lost. As soon as he learned about the "Find Me" function, he decided it's fun to play hide and seek with the iPod. When we send out the Ping signal, it's usually found in the towels, or the game cupboard, or inside the couch. Our problem, the battery had died before we knew it was lost and there was no power in it to beep.
When the Suspects were asked if they took it, not one of them denied doing it.
We seriously spent 5 days looking for this, including President's Day. But I couldn't function until it was found. This wasn't something that could easily be replaced. So towels and linens were folded and refolded. The games were all sorted through, just in case it got placed inside a box. Toy boxes were shuffled through. Couches were vacuumed out. Under the beds were cleaned and organized. Drawers had been opened and organized. The hubs even went through the outside garbage...just in case. Nothing. And then I moved on to closets. First suspect #3s. Then mine. Then to the victim.
That's when I pulled out her laundry basket to go through it and I heard something. It sounded like an angel got her wings...because it was the sound of an iPod sliding down the basket.
{Sound the Heavenly Choirs}
If my detective skills are on, I would point my finger at Suspect #1 because of the hiding spot. I'm guessing she swiped and dropped not too far from the original location. If it were Suspect #2, I probably would have found it in her bed, waiting to be used when the lights went out. And Suspect #3 would have gone much farther to hide it.
So we have now decided the she needs a spot to put her iPod. My husband came across a clever idea. We knew it needed to be something that those Suspects won't know about. So we did this in secret. (Although if truth be told, I did it in front of them, but they never notice me anyway. Seriously...it takes 3 times of asking if they've brushed their teeth before they look at me funny). And we made this:
We went to a used bookstore and bought a book. Funny enough, my oldest is a big reader. And when my husband brought this book home she asked if they had another one at the store because she might want to read this. I'm hoping she feels this same way when she gets to high school!
We also used some mod podge and felt.
My honey then used a razor to cut out a rectangle big enough to house the iPod. (We laughed that the next chapter is titled "Ruined!").
I then placed plastic bags around both sides of the book to keep the mod podge from sticking to those pages. I took my brush and first put mod podge around the pages inside the rectangle. After that had dried, I brushed mod podge around the outside pages of the book.
Once it was all dry, I mod podged the felt to the inside of the rectangle. I then cut the remaining fabric. I chose to try to cut the felt square at the top.
If I were to do it again, I think I would leave a little border of fabric and glue it down. I didn't like how it looked when I was done, so I added some scrapbook paper to pretty it up.
And now it can stay safe hiding inside this book. Shh! It's our secret.
Geesh! It's already December 1st? Do you know the pressure I feel to post something amazing for this Holiday Season? There were so many ideas roaming around my brain (neighbor gifts, teacher gifts, advent calendars, Christmas traditions, etc....) I couldn't really concentrate...remember my craft A.D.D?
Anyway, I thought I'd share a few ideas with you today involving Santa, Halloween candy and felt!!! From the title of the post, you can see that coming up I'll feature the tutorial for this cute decoration that can be for Christmas or just as beautiful decor...here's a sneak peek...
But first, let me tell you a little something I do with my Halloween candy. This year the kids managed to bring home 5- 1 gallon ziploc bags full of candy. I let them have at 3 of them and have saved the other two for our cute advent calendar. Our calendar is a great little house that we bought at Costco a few years ago (at press time, my Christmas decorations are still in the garage and not unpacked...we just moved remember...how long can I use that excuse...so there's no picture of said advent house). This house has 24 little doors and I put a piece of candy for each child in each of the doors along with a family activity. Some top favorites are:
* Make cookies and take them to friends houses.
* Everyone say 3 nice things about _________ (each person gets their own day)
* Do an anonymous act of service and just leave these hearts at the scene of the "crime"
* Sing Christmas Songs together
* Play freeze-dance to Christmas songs
* Each child pick a Christmas book to read or to be read.
* Drive around to look at Christmas lights
* Drink hot chocolate outside
And on and on....the best part is the kids never know that the candy is from Halloween (I don't put Halloween branded things in the advent house).
Idea #2 - Santa Letters
Those of you who are fans of ours on Facebook, might have seen my post yesterday about an idea I had to try to make the kids focus on others rather than themselves. Instead of writing letters to Santa telling him what they want, they had to write letters to Santa telling them what their siblings wanted and why they deserve those presents this year. So, below is a link to download our standardized letters. I also included a place where they could rate their own behavior. Hopefully it helps them think about their actions as well.
I found the idea for this here and on this tutorial she cut out 286 3-inch circles with a scissors one at a time. She says it took her 12-15 hours for this project. Well, I loved the idea, but I didn't love all the cutting. So I did a little research and spent a little money and cut the time of this project. I made this in 2-3 hours with the help of a handy tool that cuts any size circles out of fabric, vinyl, leather, paper. It cost $24.99 at Michael's but I had my trusty 40% off coupon so it only cost me about $15 (plus the astronomical amount of sales tax here in CA, but that's another topic for another day).
It looks complicated, but it isn't. So for this swirly felt wreath, you can click on the link above and get her tutorial, or just sit back and relax and stay here as I take you on a journey through my project.
You will need:
*Afore mentioned fabric circle rotary cutter.
* Self healing mat
*Wreath form. I was too cheap to pay $6.99 for styrofoam, so like in Melissa's post here, I bought a straw form for $2.99
*About 1.5 yards of felt if you use your cutter, about 2 yards if you are going to cut them out by hand.
*About 300 straight pins
* Small piece of scrap ribbon for hanger
* Ribbon or fabric to wrap the form (OPTIONAL)
Start out by cutting out 280 3-inch circles. I cut them out with double layers of felt. It would have probably been easier to cut them out one layer at a time, but it cut my labor time in half....plus after you've cut out about 80 of them, you get into a rhythm and it's pretty easy. This is where I saved all my time. It took me about 30 minutes to cut out 280 of these circles vs. the 12 hours doing it by hand.
So, with the cutter, you need a self-healing mat and it has a sharp pin that anchors the material to the mat and a sharp rotary cutter that moves around. It was so easy and I love this thing! I'm not getting sponsored to endorse this, but if the OLFA people see this...I'm a fan!!!
So, with the straw form, since straw is messy, I left the plastic on and wrapped the thing with leftover ribbon. You can use fabric, too. It's just nice to have a pretty "back" to the wreath.
I just used the straight pins to secure the ribbon to the form. And then at the end, I just tucked the ribbon in and secured them with pins as well like this:
Then with the circles I folded them in half (sorry about the blurry picture) and folded it in half again and pinned it to the form.
Then start filling in the wreath. Space them pretty far from each other, you can always go back and fill in. I made the mistake of putting them too close together and then it was hard to rearrange. You'll be surprised how "forgiving" these little rosettes can be. You might not even need as many circles if you space it more open. I did the edges first and then filled it in...you can do it whichever way you want.
At the end, I just took a scrap piece of ribbon and made a hangy thing on the back!
This is how it turned out. I haven't had time to decorate it with ribbon and ornaments for Christmas, but I think I can keep this up all year long and just decorate it for different Holidays.
So there you have it. Three ideas to kick off the Christmas season! Now time to hear your ideas. What do you think I can do with the felt scraps? I was thinking a cool scarf...any other ideas?
Do you ever feel like all your friends are such incredible moms, but you don’t feel the “incredible-ness” for yourself? All their kids have perfect hair, with their matching outfits, sitting quietly in their uber-clean home. Their kids are either reciting scriptures, poetry or the capitals of all the countries in the world or they are masterfully playing their musical instruments.
Then I look at myself, with my messy house, mac’n’cheese for dinner, kids with wild “caveman” style hair, wearing that ugly shirt I’ve tried to throw away four times and they are reciting lyrics to songs that I pray they don’t understand while making “gassy” noises in their armpits. Yeah – sometimes I feel like kicking my friends.
However, today, I don’t harbor any of that animosity because today, I think I’m a pretty good mom. Why? Because I have found a way to make my child feel extra-special, while keeping the house a little cleaner…let me explain.
I love my children’s artistic tendencies. I love their creativity. I love their exploration of color, textures, and shapes. What I don’t love, is pretending that every single one of their creations is wall worthy. I tried that…all we got was a wall full of tape and torn pictures. They are always drawing me something and sending me off to work with their creations. But they insist that I keep ALL of their artwork somewhere, preferably displayed. TOO…MANY…PAPERS….
Insert the Artwork Display Case. It’s basically a shadow box frame that opens in the front (Michael’s $9.99, less with the 40% coupon). I bought it unfinished and just painted it inside and out.
Each child has his or her own display case. The rule is that each case can display their latest creation. They can fill it up, but when it gets full, they have to throw away some of their earlier pictures.
Of course if some of their artwork is exceptional, I put it in their memory box!
So, we all feel good. They feel like their pictures are getting their proper treatment and I don’t have any more tape on the walls…who am I kidding…I still have tape on my walls...tape and spaghetti (that's another post for another day).
I know not all The Idea Attic readers are religous, so don’t let the title of this post deter you from a great upcycling project. You can use this idea for a whole bunch of stuff…I promise to give you a list at the end.
Last week I wrote about how much of a struggle it is to get my kids ready in the morning. I think I’ve blogged about how hard it is for them to get to bed at night. And if my husband was posting, he would talk about how hard it is for him to get them to do their homework in the afternoon.
But I don’t want you thinking my kids are horrible. Much of the time, they are little angels. And what do little angels like to do besides make mommy A BUNCH of artwork to take to her office? They like to give kisses, laugh a lot and argue about whose turn it is to pray. Isn’t it ironic…don’t you think?
Now, each one of them has their own “argument.” The baby always wants to pray. Her sister always wants to pray. Their brother never wants to say the prayer. And no one wants Mommy or Daddy to pray because "it takes too long."
So, enter our Prayer Dial. And easy way to remember whose turn it is to pray.
You can use an old clock (one that is getting slow, or one you really want to replace). If you don't have a spare clock...Target has cheap ones for $3.99 right now.
First, take the plastic face off. This clock it was easy to slip something in between the plastics to pop it out. Others may be a challenge...just don't hurt yourself.
When you get the plastic off, the hands of the clock should pull right off (maybe some gentle tugging is required).
Then measure your clock diameter and cut out a circle from some pretty paper. Find the exact middle and make an "X" with an exacto knife.
I have a vinyl cutter, so I typed my phrase "Time for Family Prayer" and our names and cut them out. And then I applied it to the paper! You can also use a compass (think school supplies) to draw pencil circles and write whatever you want to write with a sharpie.
After that, you put your hands back on the clock. You need to put all the hands back on in order to keep it stable...so I just cut off the hand part and left the ring snug around the center of the clock.
And there's our Whose-Turn-Is-It-To-Pray Dial. It's working great!
You can also use pictures instead of names for families with non-readers.
So as promised, I'm going to list a couple of other things you can use this for...
- Chores. You can have different clocks for different rooms and different chores.
- Spotlight. You can take turns being extra kind to the Spotlight person in your home.
- Who's Birthday is next.
- Paint the face with chalkboard paint and use the clock for whatever you want like a "what's-for-dinner-dial
- A clean or dirty dial for the dishwasher.
- Feel free to add anymore ideas if you'd like.
As I write this my kids are running around screaming and tying each other up with rope (dad just gave son a lesson on knots for boy scouts). There's a mixture of laughter and tears and more screaming. Looks like Mommy needs a prayer dial with only her name on it!
Okay, school started for us last week. I love that the kids are mentally engaged again. I love not having to write out their summer "to do" lists everyday. I love that during school we're back on a schedule. I, however, DO NOT LOVE the fight to get to bed early, the fight to wake up, the fight to get dressed, teeth brushed, hair done, (let's not even talk about if they need to take a shower in the morning). I DO NOT love having to make their lunches or having to fight with them to eat breakfast.
This year I decided to do something that might make my mornings a little easier. I don't have all the answers, but I'm trying some new things and so far it's working out.
I'm making them make their own lunches. I instructed them that it should include:
1. a main dish - i told them it could be PB&J, last night's dinner, a wrap, cheese and crackers, etc.
2. a fruit or 2 - we have strawberries, grapes, apples, oranges, peaches, etc. to choose from
3. a chip or salty snack - we buy a variety of these
4. a drink - usually their water bottle
5. And a snack for snack time - this can be a string cheese or my son's favorite, korean seaweed!!!
And because I know my kids are always running late, I decided to make homemade granola bars for breakfast on the go. They can literally eat breakfast while walking to school. I searched for a long time for a recipe that I thought was rather healthy. I ended up merging a couple because I liked aspects of like three different recipes.
3 cups old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup sunflower seeds (I like salted because the salty balances the sweet...only okay in this circumstance, click here to see my usual view on sweet and salty mixed)
1 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup peanuts, broken up but not crushed (salty peanuts could work, too)
1/2 cup flax seed (I love finding little flax seeds in my teeth a few minutes after eating)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
4 tbsp butter
2/3 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
Optional: 1/2 cup of either raisins, craisins, other dried fruit or shredded coconut or mini chocolate chips (we like dark chocolate)....or a combination of things (i.e 1/2 cup of raisins and 1/2 cup of butterscotch chips...mmmm)
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or Pam a 9x13 pan.
Mix oatmeal, sunflower seeds, wheat germ, almonds, peanuts and flax seed on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove from oven and pour into mixing bowl.
Reduce oven heat to 300 degrees F.
Put honey, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and salt in a small pot and bring to a boil over medium heat and boil for about a minute. Then pour over oat and nut mixture in mixing bowl. Add optional ingredients now. NOTE: I have not yet figured out how to make sure the chocolate doesn't melt...but I'll have to take a look.
Pour mixture into prepared 9x13. Using wax paper, lightly press the mixture into the pan, evenly. Bake this for 25 to 30 minutes. Make sure that you allow the mixture to completely cool before you cut, or it will be crumbly.
I used two small pans for this batch
I cut them in chunks and wrap them in plastic wrap. I've thrown a couple in the fridge to make them cold.
The kids LOVE them. And it cuts out the breakfast fight. I'm going to experiment with different things inside like cashews, macadamias, cut up dried mango, m&m's, sprinkles, agave instead of honey, canola oil instead of butter.
I'd love to know if you have a favorite granola bar recipe or your tips and tricks to making the morning smoother. I could use any help you have.
Don't you love it when on the way out the door your son says, "Oh, mom, I need a picture of when I was a baby."
"Really, by when?"
"Uh...yesterday!"
ARGHHHHHH - well, that's coming from the kid that got Student of the Month and detention on the same day last year.
