Alex's Montessori Room

We've had Alex in a Montessori room since just before his first birthday. He's almost two now, and I still love it! The room is simple and clean and allows him to have access and control in his own environment.

You see here the floor bed and some of his stuffed animals.
You can read more about the floor bed here.

Again, the floor bed, and Alex's little chair and toy basket.

I love the little storage basket for small toys.
Alex will even pick-up his toys and put them in the basket when
cleaning up. (They might get promptly tossed out again, but we're learning.)

Our Garden!

I'm so excited to finally have a yard to garden in! I have big plans for our yard. This year we won't be able to have quite as big of a garden as I would like, but we've got a few little plants in the ground and plans to get ready for next spring!

Here is where I plan to build our raised beds.
I'm leaning towards using cinder blocks for the bed. 

Here is our persimmons tree. It had fruit on it pretty
well into the winter. I'm hoping it'll liven up again soon.

Eventually I will clear this out and use this bed as well.
I'd like to try some hardy herbs in this spot.

This bed was cleared out and is home to our
little garden for this year. Next year I'd like to make this the
boys' plot and let them pick what they'd like to grow.

Here's Alex with our little garden!
We've got two tomato plants and four pots of leaf lettuce.
We got the plants from a local nursery: Deep Roots Nursery
which uses heirloom seeds and natural growing methods.

What's going into your garden this year?

7 Goals for 2014

I'm not a big resolution person but here are some of my goals for this year. I share these with you lovely readers so that you can help keep me accountable! We've moved into our lovely new house and soon we will have our second little boy here with us. With all the change and transition, it just feels like a good time to start building up some new, better habits. Without further ado, here are some of my goals for 2014:

• Keep the house clean enough. I'm not shooting for Martha Stewart, picture-perfect every day here. I just want to keep the cleaning manageable and not feel like I need to apologize if someone stops by unexpectedly. I'll be posting a cleaning schedule later. I wrote it out today and will start enforcing it tonight!
• No more medical debt. With all of Alex's health issues from last year and having two babies in two years, we've got more doctor's bills than I would like. We've been paying them off as we can, but I hope to have them all paid off by the end of the year! (Alex's pediatrician was paid off this month!)
• Try new recipes. I'm in a rut. I cook the same 7-10 meals over and over again. Once new baby is here and we get a decent rhythm down, I want to try one new recipe each week. Each recipe will be a whole foods recipe and will hopefully help expand my culinary skills (I'm getting better!) as well as increase our dietary variety.
• Make fitness a priority. This will be hard with two littles and a full time job, but it's very important to me! Yes, I'd like to lose some weight (maybe a lot of weight), but I really want to focus on helping my body to function better.
• Decorate the house. I am not a big decorator. Home decor is one thing that just kinda didn't get downloaded into my programming. However, I want to decorate our little house and have it looking good. I'm giving myself a year here and it's gonna take me some time.
• Build up a garden. I'm so excited to have a yard! Not only will the boys have a place to run and play, which Alex already enjoys, but we can have a garden! I want to grow many of our own fruits and veggies and herbs. Be watching for details as our plan unfolds!
• Make our lifestyle more sustainable. While our lifestyle is already pretty "green" in some respects, I'd really like to make even more improvements. One area I really want to focus on this year is eliminating one-time-use products and extra plastics. I don't think this will be a difficult goal, but it will take some time to build up a stash of reusable items to replace our commonly used disposable stuffs.

Alrighty, that's quite a bit! Check in with me and keep me honest! I'll be posting about each of these goals through out the year and hopefully we can inspire and motivate one another along the way!

What goals do you have for this year?

Check Your Medicine Cabinets!

Hey Everyone! We're getting ready to move and I just cleaned out our medicine cabinet/first aid stash. I just wanted to give you a quick reminder to check your medicines and first aid kits and a few tips to help!

You should check your medicine cabinets and first aid kits regularly!

• Throw out any medications past their expiration dates! The dates are the last day that the manufacture guarantees the product to be effective and safe. Some meds get stronger after the date, others get less effective. Some will become dangerous. Don't decide for yourself. It's better safe than sorry here.
• Throw out any medications with damage to the packaging that could have exposed the medication. Holes in bottles, pill packs that have water stains, anything like that should be tossed.
• Check prescriptions as well. Prescriptions are often dated, but if not, should almost always be tossed after a year past the date they were filled. If you have any questions about the safety of your prescription meds or when they expire, call your doctor or pharmacy.
• Flush any dangerous or street-valuable drugs. Any pain killers or hormonal medications should be flushed instead of tossed in the trash.
• Contact your local pharmacy for instructions on how to handle any medications you are not familiar with. Some medications need to be properly disposed of by a pharmacy, specifically breathing treatments and injections. Always be careful with medication if you are unsure of it's proper handling or disposal.
• Check your first aid kit and toss any bandages that are wet or show signs of water damage. These may not be sterile any longer and a dirty dressing is an infection waiting to happen!
• Check that your first aid kit is stocked. Make sure you have any items that you use on a regular basis and that you replace any necessities that may need to be thrown out.
• Check that you are stocked on the basics. Whatever your family uses often, check what you have and make a plan for when to get it. Important items often include cough drops, allergy meds, pain relievers, and creams for rashes/skin issues.

I hope this comes in handy. Remember: it's important to practice good safety habits with medications at all times. When that splitting headache hits or your little one is up with the stomach bug at 2 am, you won't be checking dates before using those meds and that can be dangerous. If you use natural or herbal treatments: talk with your herbalist about proper storage, expiration, and disposal as herbal treatments vary considerably. 

Wishing you all health, safety, and happiness!

Amie

Thursday Real Estate

So... If you're in the hunt for a new home, this might be at the top of your list!

Found at: http://lovelylisting.icanhascheezburger.com/2011/10/11/wow-they-must-be-a-real-wild-bunch/