Meal Plan Monday

Monday - burritos

Tuesday - grilled chicken balsamic salad. caprese salad

Wednesday - green beany pilaf & tofu

Thursday - rice, veggies, lentils

Friday - Pizza/Last Friday

Friday Fun

There is always something fun going on at the fairgrounds but what's happening this weekend was cooler than I expected. It was the 'Got To Be NC Ag Fest' which also hosted the Carolina Fiber Festival. We're leaving town again this weekend so I didn't think I would be able to make it but I happened to find out at the last minute that it was all going to start Friday so we got to go!

I was eager to go to the Fiber Festival since I had a few friends who I knew would be there. The Fiber Fest part was just amazing, there were so many beautiful and inspiring yarns, fleece, batting, and finished objects galore. It was very inspiring.

The whole festival was great the for the little dude too, lots of animals, farm equipment galore and lots of general people and commotion that he loves to watch. We took our time making the round of the food and wine expo - seeing all the food that comes from North Carolina was so heartwarming - I saw quite a few of my favorite people there and have a number of new favorite products to check out.

Here are some photos from our day

So many tractors

these were much more Q's speed however

and Fiber Fest....

so many gorgeous fibers

and will someone please buy me this drum carder please? I've been looking for a good deal on one

ok, ok, how about this?

or this?

please. pretty pretty please.

We ended the festival with some of our favorite things, live music (at the bluegrass stage), honey sticks and the highlight of Q's day - a balloon!

Think Green

Smoothies!

One of the only reliable ways to get leafy greens into my little boy is in a smoothie.

Our favorite right now is - orange juice, frozen rasberries (and/or peaches), spinach, and a spoonful of plain greek yogurt.

Smoothies make my boy happy. and messy.

I Didn't Forget

my list. my goals. my 101 in 1001. See, I've been checking stuff off. I don't know if I'm making enough progress but I'm still doing it.

I think #49 was my favorite so far. And why didn't anyone point out that I can't do #21 and #101 at the same time. Oy.

WIP Wednesday

My kitchen table has been transformed into a sewing table this week while I work on a rag quilt for Q. It's made of various flannel fabric I had and some old receiving blankets and it's very patchwork-y.

It's also taking over the living room floor and I am going to try my hardest to have this done before the weekend.

Inspiration

For mother's day I bought myself a subscription to Living Crafts magazine. I have bought a few issues before each time I've continued to flip through it for weeks because there are so many projects and photos that inspire me.

I know that being crafty is really important to me, especially being a stay at home mom I need an activity to do something besides run around and clean up after my kid. So in support of craftiness and inspiration I made myself an inspiration board this week.

It has little bits of fabric on it that I love and want to do something with, it has magazine clippings of projects that inspire me. It has a picture of my Q - the best thing I ever created. It's still pretty empty but I think that's good, I don't want to add too much at once.

I'm trying to clean up my craft stuff and get it all organized and as I do that I'm sure I'll add more to the board, and take some more pictures of it.

Home Education Starting Early

We have talked about homeschooling, public school and various private schools in our area and they all have so many pros and cons it's overwhelming every time we talk about it. Thank goodness we still have years before we need to make a decision. For now, I find myself wanting to incorporate more education activities into our stay at home routine. I can see how much Q is learning at story time at the library and in classes we've taken and I want to encourage that learning as much as I can. I'm going to try to start sharing some of the things we're doing and if you have ideas for us of educational activities for a one year old that are appropriate and fun please share!

Here's one of our recent activities that was a big hit. Muffin tins + puffs. For counting, sorting, throwing, eating, making noise, dumping over and lots more.

I put two muffin tins side by side and only put puffs in one, he started putting a couple in the other pan but mostly ignored it, my plan had been to find another item to put in the other pan and let him sort them out and explore. I also put puffs in a small pile on the floor so he could be the one to put them in the pans, that was a big hit too.

Q was entertained for a long time considering a one year olds attention span.

Note To Self

Don't forget this. Q is changing so much these days and I don't want to forget.

He loves water - dog bowls, bathtub, the sink, pool, it doesn't matter.

He says Mama, Dada, Greta ('Deta'), and answers 'yeah'. It's so cute when you ask him if he wants to go outside and he says 'yeah' and goes over to the door all ready to go. He signs 'dog' and 'fan' more than anything else but can also sign 'work' 'more' 'cookie' 'milk'

He loves balloons and ceiling fans almost as much as he loves water. Getting the balloon at the grocery store is one of his favorite things. Turning the ceiling fans on and off can always cure a bad mood.

He points at things all the time and then he will take his hands and turn your face where he wants you to look. Having a 14 month old take your face in his hands and turn it and then point for you to show you something is the sweetest thing ever.

He loves to be in the garden with his bucket and shovel on his dirt pile.

He loves to watch the big kids on the playground or on playdates. He loves dolls, puppets or anything with a face - it always makes him laugh.

He's walking everywhere now and is so cute stomping around with his arms up at his sides, he gets more and more stable everyday but Greta still knocks him over a lot.

He is such a pro at stacking blocks lately, last night he got 6 blocks stacked up carefully before knocking them over. He enjoys the building much more than the knocking them over.

Besides Mama Milk his favorite food is still yogurt, but other recent favorites are oranges, crackers and cheese and eggs and toast. Eating solids are still pretty hit and miss, some days he eats three big meals and some days, nothing but milk.

The biggest heart-melting thing he's doing right now is giving kisses. Mostly to his Mama but he'll sometimes give them to others and sometimes even to his dolls or puppets

Kitchen Maintenance Pt. 1 - Wood

Taking care of the wood items in around the house (and particularly in the kitchen) is something I've been meaning to do for a long long while and I finally got around to it this past week. I gathered as much of my thirsty wood items up from around the house, but of course after I did this I found so many more things to polish that I'm sure I'll be doing this again soon.

I decided to do a little experimenting with different methods for taking care of unfinished wood and used 3 different finishes.

1. plain mineral oil

2. a wood polish that came with a wooden bowl (ingredients are beeswax and natural oils but it doesn't say which ones)

3. I made my own polish. I wanted to try this because not only do I have some lovely beeswax sitting around smelling good and just asking for something to be made with, but also because I want to use something very simple (and preferably homemade) on Q's wooden toys. I also would like to make some wooden toys for him at some point in the future and would love to have a good quantity of wood polish on hand to finish the toys.

After doing some reading online here is how I made my polish

in a wide mouth jar I melted my beeswax on the stovetop.

Added oil (mineral oil is what I had on hand but walnut oil, jojoba oil and/or coconut oil would all be great and what I plan to use next time).

I used a 4 (parts oil) to 1 (part beeswax) ratio and that worked out really well. You could also add some essential oil for scent but I didn't because my beeswax smelled so yummy.

I was impatient for it to cool once it was all mixed together so I used some of the semi-melted polish on these spoons. I also used it on some of Q's wooden cars but once he saw me playing with them he snatched them away from me.

All of the wood looks so beautiful now that it's all polished up - I have to make sure I do this more often. I think I'll stick to the beeswax polishes only next time, the mineral oil by itself seemed to soak right in and not offer much protection.

Qais-Cakes

So simple, healthy, super duper easy to make and most importantly - popular with the kid (and his parents).

Qais Cakes (Pancakes)

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup cottage cheese (don't worry, you won't taste it, I HATE cottage cheese)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

put everything in the blender and blend it up until the oats are broken up and everything is mixed together. fry them up in the pan - add fruit or your favorite toppings.