Motherhood Moments Archives - Page 3 of 4

Taking Time to Play with This Reading Mama

January 29, 2013 By Deirdre

This Reading Mama is such a wonderful blog! After checking out her amazing post below, I know you are going to want to visit her site. It is filled with wonderful activities and learning ideas.

A clean house is something I’ve always prided myself on. Years ago when I taught preschool, I would take a 2-hour lunch break once a week just to come home and clean my house. Yes, seriously.

Fast forward 7 and a half years and 4 kids later. While I still love it when my house is clean, I’ve learned a few things about messes. Sometimes it’s okay to say “yes” to the mess! My oldest son (currently 7 years old) is a builder. If you have a builder in your home, you know that his medium for play equals thousands of small manipulatives all over your house. LEGOS. Blocks. Lincoln Logs. Hexbug tracks. GeoTrax. Gears. If you can build with it, we’ve got it.

Not too long ago, he approached me with a messy idea. “Mom, can I build a bridge out of DUPLO blocks along the kitchen sink?” What?!?- this was the actual thought that went through my head. But I took the time to watch him play…and I was simply amazed.

Taking Time to Play with This Reading Mama

I put down a few towels and he began construction.

I took photos as he worked. With each step, he explained to me the ins and outs of his bridge. And to think, I would have missed out on this if I had not taken the time to simply play. Life is not about how clean my house is. That would make life about me. And as much as I don’t like to admit it, life is certainly not all about me.

While I don’t always say “yes” to every mess (there has to be a balance), I’m learning to pick my “no’s” carefully. 🙂 I try to ask myself- Am I saying “no” for selfish reasons and making life all about me? If I am, I miss out on the blessing of taking time to play.

Becky Spence is a homeschooling mama to four little blessings. She is passionate about teaching, specifically literacy. She is the author of This Reading Mama, where she shares reading and writing activities as well as free literacy curricula and printables. You can connect with This Reading Mama on Facebook;, Twitter;, Pinterest;, and Google +.

Bringing Home the Cookie Tree

November 28, 2012 By Deirdre

On the last night of our Thanksgiving family reunion last week, our family celebrated Christmas. My mother in law gave each member of the family a gift and then the family participated in a white elephant exchange. Each five children, their spouses and their adult children was to bring gifts. We were to bring gag as well as great gifts for the exchange. I bought a Starbucks coffee gift pack and a Christmas tree cookie kit as our gifts. Both gifts looked like great gifts to me.

Early on in the gift exchange my twenty three year old nephew ended up selecting the Christmas cookie tree kit. He spent most of the game trying to get his female cousins to steal it from him. “It would make a great activity for couple bonding,” he mentioned over and over again. None of his seven female cousins seemed to want to steal it for couple bonding time. Actually only one of the seven are seeing someone right now and one is married. Maybe if more of them were dating or married they would have decided it was a must have gift.There were several other gifts that seemed destined to stay with the person who had unknowingly picked them. One niece had a fleece snowman hat that JDaniel thought I should steal from one of my nieces. He thought it was marvelous. I quickly responded that I wasn’t going to steal the lovely hat. It will most likely return to the white elephant exchange next year along with the plush Christmas duck that says “Aflac!” and the rubber chicken dog toy that has already made several appearances at our family gift exchange.The Starbucks coffee gift pack we brought was stolen several times. After three steals, it was deemed safe with the person who had orchestrated the last steal. One of my brother in laws was thrilled to end up with it.As the game drew to a close, my husband had a different Starbucks gift pack stolen from him. (Yes, there were several Starbucks gifts in the game. I think there were three in total.) He was given the choice of stealing a gift or selecting one of the three packages that were left. My guy did what any wonderful father and uncle would do he stole the Christmas tree cookie kit from his nephew. I wish I had taken a picture of JDaniel with his fists pumping up and down shouting “Yes!” as his dad brought the box over and handed it to him. I thought the kit would be something everyone would want and it turned out to have only one ideal recipient. My nephew ended up stealing potholders from someone. He said he doesn’t have any and that he is tired of using towel to take food out of the oven. Only the pot holders barely fit on his large hands. He may end up having to buy some larger ones and bringing the ones he stole back next year.Oh! What did I end up with? Well, I had a Christmas hand towel and evergreen scented soap up until the second to the last person had a turn. It was stolen and I was left to choose or steal. I ended up stealing three cans of specialty nuts and giving them to my husband. He had been eyeing them all night and he deserved them after getting a hold of the Christmas cookie kit for JDaniel.This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday!What is the most interesting gift you have received at a white elephant exchange?

Taking Time to Play- The Pleasantest Thing

October 16, 2012 By Deirdre

Carolyn of The Pleasantest Thing is an a expert at helping her children find fun and build memories. Please stop by her blog and check out her wonderful ideas. I love her Halloween Gross (Motor) Fun post. I will be using some of them when plan for JDaniel’s preschool Halloween party. I think the children in his class will love them.

My boys and I have had many fun experiences inspired by the Taking Time To Play series, and I am excited to be contributing to it today.

As a recent play date at the playground was winding down, my thoughts had already turned to packing up the diaper bag, the best way to transition to the car, and the dinner preparations waiting at home. Then we looked across the field next to the playground, and saw that the late afternoon sun left an enormous shadow of a big, beautiful tree.

My friend and I knew this was an opportunity not to be missed. She suggested we pretend to be squirrels, scurrying around the branches, looking for nuts and seeds, jumping, chasing each other, playing. Of course, all thoughts of leaving the park were left behind.

Our play date lasted much longer than anticipated, and ended in joyful exhaustion. We all played together in the shadow of the tree. The kids loved that we got into the game with them. It added that extra measure of delight that happens when adults join in on the kids’ game. I don’t recall what I made for dinner that night, but I clearly remember the squeals of laughter from our time in the park.

Carolyn is a mom to two boys, ages 4 1/2 and 1. She believes play is critical to child development. Her blog, The Pleasantest Thing, focuses on learning and developing imagination through adventure, play, reading, and nature. You can also join in the fun by following her blog on Facebook.

Mrs. Mariner’s Homemade Applesauce Recipe

September 20, 2012 By Deirdre

I have been dying to go to Skytop Orchards with JDaniel to get apples and make applesauce. Yesterday I showed you pictures of our trip to the orchard and today I am going to show you how we made applesauce.

Mrs. Mariner's Homemade Applesauce Recipe

I have never made applesauce before or at least I don’t remember having made it before. JDaniel and I checked a book out of the library called Applesauce Season that describes how to make applesauce using a food mill to break up the apples after boiling them.We don’t have a food mill and none of the other mom’s in my playgroup had one either when I checked with them. I turned to the women of my church who have set up a Facebook group to see if any of them had one. Three ladies called me within two hours to say that had one.

The first lady I talked to was Mrs. Mariner. I have never met her before, but she was a joy to talk too. She was so excited that we were going to make homemade applesauce. Not only would she bring her food mill to church to lend to me on Sunday she would take a few minutes on the phone to describe to me each step of the process.

Mrs. Mariner gave us foolproof or should I call it homemade applesauce that is novice proof.

Here is how we made homemade applesauce:

JDaniel and I cut up four pounds of apples. Mrs. Mariner told me to pick Jonathan Gold, Mats, Golden Delicious and Macintosh apples. They would give us a good mix of sweetness and tartness.

Once the apples were cut. I put them in a pot and filled the pot with enough water to cover the top of the apples. Mrs. Mariner told me that too much water would not be good for the apples.

The apples needed to boil for ten minutes and no more than that. They would get to mushy if I let them go too long.

Draining the apples in a colander sitting on top of a bowl was the step. We weren’t going to need all the water drained, but we were going to need some if the applesauce was too dry. (JDaniel loved drinking the apple water after it had cooled.)

Then we took the drained apples over to the food mill sitting on a bowl. The apples were added a little at a time to the mill. JDaniel and I took turns turning the mill and holding the mill onto the bowl.

When all the apples have been milled, you can store the applesauce in the bowl beneath the mill or you can as JDaniel did put the applesauce into plastic applesauce cups we had saved from store bought applesauce. JDaniel said they were supposed to hold applesauce and it didn’t matter what kind.

I think Mrs. Mariner would be thrilled that we did so well at our first attempt at making homemade applesauce. I know that I am.

Memories Captured- Minor League Game

September 13, 2012 By Deirdre

A few weeks ago we went with some of my husband’s co-workers to a minor league baseball game. JDaniel was excited about going for weeks. The little boy next door had been to a game. JDaniel was dying to be able to say he had been to one too.

Just before we headed out the door I asked him if he wanted to wear a baseball cap. I thought it would keep the sun out of his eyes. No he did not I was informed. He wanted to wear his outdoor bucket hat that has bug repellent in it to the minor league game.

Why wear a bucket hat to a minor league game?

I was told that there are nocturnal mosquitoes. They come out a night and he was going to need protection.

So, off we went to the game. JDaniel acted like a backseat driver the whole way there. He and I had driven past the stadium earlier in the summer. We had been trying to hunt down Waldo for the Where is Waldo? Hunt.

When we got to our seats, JDaniel sat focused on the field clutching his ticket. He just had to hold it between his fingers while he watched the teams throwing the ball back and forth and doing warm up stretches.

For about twenty minutes his eyes stayed glued to the field with his thumb periodically rubbing across his ticket.

Once the game started, he was done watching the players. The ticket was given to me to store in my purse to take home. He took hat came off. All he wanted to do was check out the playground. After that he wanted roll down a grassy hill that is by the playground.

Every once in awhile he would roll to the bottom of the hill. Then he looked over the fence to see what was going on. Then he would trudge back up the hill to begin a roll back down again.

This post is linked to Memories Captured.

Quest for Alternative Energy Invitation to Play

September 12, 2012 By Deirdre

There has been a lot of talk about alternative energy lately. JDaniel must have heard some of it, because he decided he needed to create his own type of alternative energy. I decided that is would be a great time to create an invitation to play.In some way my sneakers are the originating power supply. The shoelaces under the table connect to an old plastic applesauce cup filled with treasures. Apparently all that old junk that is in your junk drawers is a great invitation to play. It could be a a vital part of the alternative energy gor traveling better. I really tried to understand how how they helped the process, but I didn’t quite get it. Odd toy pieces and junk may be what is needed to lower gas prices. I am all for sending them to whoever would be in charge of bringing this ideas to life. There is a ton of it all around my house. I may need a refrigerator size box to hold all of it.

A simple piece of string connected to a gyroscope and a croc that is one size too big for JDaniel are the next part of the energy process. In the demonstration I was given the gyroscope wasn’t moving. I was told it is filled with potential energy. Why kinetic wasn’t used I still don’t understand? It would have been fun to see the gyroscope moving.

Yes, JDaniel seems to understand what potential and kinetic energy is. He says he learned it from Ruff Ruffman on the show Fetch! on PBS.

Little pieces of paper taken out of the Bad Kitty alphabet game I made last week were spread all over the floor. I am not sure they are part of the alternative energy. They may just have been part of the creative process of spreading treasures all over the floor.

The bottle of hand sanitizer by the croc doesn’t seem to have a purpose. Maybe creating alternative energy sources is a messy business the creator of this type of energy didn’t seem to know. Once the demonstration was over he needed to use human energy to clean it up. There was no alternative.This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday.

Laundry Room Organization Idea

August 22, 2012 By Deirdre

The shelves above the washer and dryer in our laundry room area have been a catch all. They have housed children’s games, crafts supplies, Muffin Tin Monday Supplies, cleaning supplies, and laundry items.

Last winter I cleared all the children’s games off the laundry room shelves and found a new place for them. They now live on the top two shelves of the linen closet across from this laundry area in our downstairs guest bathroom.

Some of the items left behind were put in fall foliage fabric cubes that I found on clearance for $1. The remaining items were left out where I could see them and quickly grab them. I understood why the laundry area was organized that way, but I thought it looked really really cluttered.

The fabric storage cubes looked wonderful on the shelves. I decided last Saturday to go out and get five more cubes. I knew I wouldn’t be able to find the same fabric of the cubes again so, the search was on for cubes that would be in the same fall color family.

Thankfully I found these rust colored cubes at Walmart for less than $4 each. They aren’t a perfect color match, but I think they are close.

When I got home I pulled all the items off the laundry room shelves and JDaniel helped me sort them into groups. There was a paint supply group, play dough supply group, hands-on manipulative group, a cleaning supply group, and finally a laundry item group.

We then put the items in each group in a bin.

The items looked so much better placed into the fabric bins, but unless I pulled each bin off the shelf I wasn’t sure what was in them.

Saturday afternoon my family headed out to look for tags to hang from the bins that I could put a label in. My initial thought was a luggage tag or clear tag hanging off a key chain. We weren’t able to find those in the stores that we tried.

A sales clerk at a local five and dime suggested that I used name badges as my tags. The badges were really inexpensive and would clip easily to the front of the bins. She was brilliant. The tags look great hanging from the front of the totes.

I still need to slip some paper labels in the fall foliage bins I found on clearance. When that is done, I think the laundry room shelves will look one hundred percent better than they did when I started.

Celebrating Imagination-Teddy Bear’s Picnic Day

July 9, 2012 By Deirdre

Did you know that tomorrow is Teddy Bear’s Picnic Day? July 10th is officially Teddy Bear’s Picnic Day.

What better way to celebrate than to have a picnic with your teddy bear! JDaniel and I took a drive in the country to find a branch of the Little Free Library system. A very long drive to find the tiniest library in South Carolina and we brought teddy along.

I had already planned to create a teddy bear’s picnic lunch for this week’s Muffin Tin Monday post to introduce the MeMeTales Readathon 2012 theme of imagination and to go with Teddy Bear’s Picnic Day. We just grabbed JDaniel’s teddy bear lunch and took it on the road.

Have you heard of the Little Free Libraries? I hadn’t until I read about them on Michelle’s Charmed World on Thursday. Once I read about them, I had to find out if we had one near us and visit it.

The trip took a whole lot longer than I thought it would. We were in the car for almost an hour and a half, but it was totally worth it.

The general store that houses the Little Free Library on its porch was filled with character and lots of tempting snacks. JDaniel was allowed to pick a bag of something to have with his lunch. He ended up selecting a bag of bugle like corn crunchy snacks.

Teddy Bear's Picnic- Visit to a General Store and Little Library

After selecting his snack, we headed out to the porch to put the books we brought in. We ended up not taking any with us from the library. JDaniel noted there weren’t any for kids in there.

How To Find a Little Free Library Near You

The next time we visit a branch of the Little Library system we will bring children’s books.

When the books had been put into the library box, we head out to find a tree to spread our beach towel under for lunch.

JDaniel and his teddy bear seemed to really enjoy their meal. Although I do believe, JDaniel kept the bugle corn snacks for himself.

There was a tiny building just to the right of where we had lunch. JDaniel decided that we had to explore it before we headed home. He was a little disappointed to find that the door was locked.

He wondered as did I as to why the little building was there. We brained stormed some ideas but ended up not being sure. I guess we could have gone back into the general store and asked, but we decided to live it up to our imagination.

Pause Life for a Moment- Faith Filled Food for Moms

June 5, 2012 By Deirdre

Having Shari Lynne here today is a great treat! Her wonderful blog Faithfilled Food for Moms is amazing. She shares everything from how to make your own cheese crackers, to reviews, giveaways and beautifully insightful posts like the one below. After you read her wonderful post, please pause for a moment to leave her a comment and visit her blog.

Proverbs 22:7 says – “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is a servant to the lender.”

So what in the world does that have to do with Time, Masters or Slaves?? I like to manage my time well. Get my chores done, make sure my meals are somewhat planned, calendar updated. Well, you get the picture. However a couple of years ago we moved. In between moving, we stayed at a friends house for 2 and half months until we got into our home. It really threw me for a loop. I have been all discombobulated ever since then.

I normally have a plan for my day. It’s written down and I can pretty much follow it. Lately, however, the day will come to an end and I feel as though it has frittered away in the wind. I look back and feel not so productive. The thing is. That I have accomplished much…BUT..was it what I needed to accomplish? Was I putting out fires? Dealing with the “tyranny of the urgent”. Was I mastering my time with the important things?

Just as the borrower is a servant to the lender so we will become a servant to our time if we do not manage it well. So I have gotten my calendar in order and my meals all planned and my ducks in a row…so why do I still have that nagging feeling that I am still being a Slave to my time rather than the Master?

So this is what I feel the Lord has shown me. It is all good and well to have our calendars and to manage our time well, but we mustn’t think that we can put off some of the most important things for tomorrow that might not be on our calendars. A walk at the park with our husband, kids, grandkids or friends. A puzzle or paint project. A relaxing dinner with our hubby’s. Those quiet reading times all snuggled up with our loved ones.

We mustn’t think as the borrower does. Time cannot be borrowed for we do not know what the future holds. The borrower receives money with the intention of paying back…but anything can happen…a loss of a job..economy goes crazy and before you know it the debt cannot be paid.

And so it is with time. We intend to spend these precious moments with our loved ones and suddenly something changes. People get sick or move away or even die. Or the kids grow up and move away. We really must pause for a moment and ask ourselves “am I the master of my time?” or “am I the slave?”

Does my time have the heart of God, where people come before projects? I have really gotten off kilter with this. I’m back in the saddle with my calendar..but I had fallen back off with my priorities. I had become a slave of my time. Rather than the Master who is in charge of my time and can STOP and take that time for the important. Because I’m the BOSS you see! Well, that is after the Lord!

So do you think you are a Slave or a Master of your time?

Motherhood Moments: Removing Weeds By the Roots

March 21, 2012 By Deirdre

We are limiting our time outside to an hour or two a day due to JDaniel’s allergies. It is so hard. He loves to play outside, he is learning to ride a bike with training wheels and he helps with yard work like a pro but, his body makes him pay for too much time exposed to pollen.

During one of our recent brief excursions outside, JDaniel decided we needed to get rid of the weeds in front of the house. “Weeds do not belong here!” he declared.

We started in on the weeds that make their home amongst the monkey grass on either side of the steps. JDaniel just reached into the grass and pulled the weeds out. He started to grow quite a pile of them which pleased him a lot.

He noticed that my removal of weeds was taking much longer and that my pile was much smaller.

“I am winning!” JDaniel announced. Winning has become very important to him in the last year.

“It just looks like you are winning,” I said quietly to him.

“No, look I am winning,” he said firmly pointing to the pile.

“It isn’t winning if you weeds will grow right back,” I told him.

“When you just yank the weeds out, you leave their roots. With roots still growing underground, the weeds will grow right back up.” I continued.

“Oh!” he replied now pulling the weeds a little more slowly and checking for roots.

Sitting with JDaniel in the sun pulling weeds up by the roots caused me to think about the sin I have been praying will be removed from my heart. I have been challenged about working with God to remove some things that have taken root in my heart just as the weeds have in the monkey grass.

Sins like pride, selfishness, and impatience seem to have become more of a challenge since JDaniel was born or maybe they are just more visible. I can hear them in my voice when I talk with him. I can hear them in his voice as he responds to me.

Sometimes God speaks to you while doing everyday things like weeding your yard. I am so glad I was listening to him this time and was able to start praying for help with the weeds in my heart that have taken root.

The same lesson JDaniel learned about weeds can be applied to sin. Sins can not be pulled out quickly without leaving roots. They are going to take time to work on.

Someday I hope to share this object lesson about sin with him, but for now, I will leave him thinking weeds.

This post is linked to the third in a series of posts focusing on my heart. The first is called Knowing There is Scar Tissue on My Heart and the second is Opening My Heart to Motherhood.

This series is a departure from my regular posts, but it is where God has been working on my heart to help me grow as a mom. Since I write about being a mom, I think sharing how I am growing as a mom fits the mission of my blog.