A virtuous woman who can find?

Photo Credit: Time Warp Wife

3 weeks ago I started a bible study group online with the Good morning girls club, this study covers Proverbs 31, and to be honest I’ve always have an incredulous respect for the proverbs 31 woman, I mean she is an amazing woman but I always saw her as an impossible, it wasn’t until recently that it finally clicked that if it is a scripture it’s very possible and a guide for us to achieve that level of commitment. So after much prayer and thought, I decided I’ve been ignoring my calling as a wife and mother and have been plain LAZY and full of excuses. So I thought it couldn’t hurt to try to be more virtuous and maybe just maybe this is what I need to enjoy my life as a stay at home mom and wife.

So I felt inspired to participate and embrace this study and I have to say that it’s been amazing so far, I have learned so much, changed a lot and I really feel good about it, now that’s not to say that it hasn’t been hard, I’ve had to sacrifice a lot in the process, like 3 hours of sleep by getting up with my husband to send him off with a good start for his day, not to mention all the leisure time I had been taking to read and surf the web, but I can honestly say I have never felt so good, so accomplished and in such a good mood as I have in this past 3 weeks, is it because I’m actually getting things done? or because my house finally looks presentable? maybe, I do think having a house of order invites the spirit and therefore changes the atmosphere of your home, so that’s definitely a plus, but could it be that I’m in a better mood because maybe, just maybe, I’m actually enjoying doing housework and taking care of my family? YES that’s it, after reading the Proverbs 31 Woman: one virtue at a time,  along with the actual scripture, I’ve learned that I’ve been doing things all wrong, my motivations were in the wrong place and instead of doing it out of love and unto the Lord, I was just doing it for praise of men (I wanted to impress my hubby, and friends) how egotistical of me isn’t it? well that’s whats great about starting your day with Heavenly Father first, He shows you why you haven’t succeed in the past and what needs to be changed.

So now instead of complaining about getting up before 4 am to make the hubby some breakfast, I get up eager knowing that after he leaves to work I will have a couple of quiet hours for myself, and I’ve found I can get so much done in that time that it actually clears up more time for my daughter and my self later in the day, so now I don’t see it as me loosing 3 hours of sleep but instead I’m gaining 3 hours of time to spend with Heavenly Father first, and then to do a few chores and spend quality time with the little munchkin. Who would’ve known that it would turn out being a blessing? well I guess my mom did, she always used to say a little saying in Spanish: “Al que madruga Dios lo ayuda”  translation: “He who rises early is helped by God” (it doesn’t rhyme in English) so if only I had listened to my mother all those years I could have been enjoying life more for quite a while.

Goes to show you Mother really knows best!

God’s love Valentine John 3:16 {free printable}

I know this may be coming a little late but hey I figure we still have a week to display it right?

I saw this made on pinterest  somewhere but  it wasn’t a printable, it was a handmade big poster made with what looked like butcher paper, well I love the message but didn’t like the butcher paper look and feel, so since I like all things pretty and girly I created my own girly version.
I know some of you may not like the girlyness of it and I’m sorry but I know somewhere out there might be someone who really wants this, so I’ll share it anyway, I did think of creating one less girly but let’s face it we are running out of time and I I’m just plain lazy :p

 

Here it is for those of you who do want to print it.

Don’t worry the printable file does not have my blog address, just click on the link above and then save it or print it or both.

 

Enjoy and spread  the love around!

The best face cleanser! (and inexpensive too)

Ok I realize I haven’t blogged in a while  but I promise this will be worth the wait.

You know how last time I told you about my pinterest addiction? well this is another tried pin and so far my fave, I hate to admit it publicly but I have awful skin, seriously awful, I started with acne problems in my preteens and always heard it would go away by my twenties, well the twenties came and went and now in my 30′s I still have pretty bad acne (plus scarring) my skin just seemed dull and blah to me, plus my pores are pretty large, I can see them in the rear view mirror when I’m driving, no exaggerating YIKES.

Ok by now you are probably thinking TMI right? but bear with me because what I am about to share with you saved my skin and in just 2  weeks has minimized my pores dramatically, and even though the acne is still there is now only here and there and when a new pimple surfaces it only stays for 2 days or so, and no it didn’t cost me a fortune and it is so simple you won’t believe it. what is it?

 

Behold the Oil Cleansing Method or OCM:

1 part Castor Oil (I used 1tbs)

3 parts Olive Oil

1 wash cloth

HOT water (not boiling)

 

Mix the oils in a jar and you have the best, cheapest and most wonderful feeling cleanser. To use simply pour a quarter size amount of oil into palm then massage into face, leave on for a minute and then soak washcloth with running hot water and place on your face (and fall in love with the spa facial kind of feeling) until is no longer hot, then rinse and remove oil with same washcloth you will actually see the dirt on it and if you have any zits you will most likely see them come out of your skin.

The recipe above is for dry skin, like mine which is extremely dry, I actually used to lather on tons of moisturizer and it would still feel like pulling since it was so dry, but for the past week I haven’t even had to use moisturizer and my skin feels and looks amazing, even the hubby noticed it!

 

My skin is not dry you say? well don’t worry simply play with the mixture until you find what best suits you, simple mom gave the next suggestions:

• For those with normal skin, you could start off with a one-to-one ratio of castor oil and EVOO.

• For those with acne-prone or oily skin, reduce the proportion of EVOO, and try three parts castor oil to one part EVOO.

• For those with drier skin, start off with one part castor oil to three parts EVOO. This is what I use.

 

Why does it work you ask? I could give you lengthy lecture on all the research I did but to save me the typing and you the random talk, I will just direct you to the blogs that inspired me to try it: Here &  Here

 

So go on try it and Enjoy your new skin!  and don’t forget to let me know how it worked for you.

A celebration dance for Abuelo… from my little ballerina

Today is a very happy day in my family, it is my dad’s birthday!

It’s a bittersweet day for me though, since we live 5 hours away and I can’t be there to celebrate with the rest of the family, but I know my dad knows how much I love him and how grateful I am for his love, patience, advice and all the fun he created for me and my siblings growing up, I truly am blessed when it comes to family and I try to show it as often as I can.

So even though we didn’t get to give him a Feliz Cumpleaños hug, my little ballerina made a little celebration dance for Abuelo before going to ballet class. Today was actually her first class and she loved it, she won’t stop talking about it and she is in awe of Teacher Liz. So double celebration time.

Felicidades Abuelo! I hope I get to celebrate (even from a distance) many more birthdays for my dad, he is one of a kind.

Homemade Winter Playdough

Have I told you about my new cyber addiction?  it is called Pinterest and I think it’s the greatest social media invention, I have learned tons of cool stuff by looking at other people’s pins and I’m continually amazed by the creativity of people,

Why am I telling you this? well first so you too can be addicted by enjoy the wisdom of others and second because I am going to share with you a recipe I found and pinned:

Home made play dough with my own winter twist

ok so for our winter theme, I wanted the little munchkin and rapunzel to build a snowman, but I didn’t have any white play dough so off pinning I went and this is the result. To make your own you will need:

1 cup Flour

1/4 cup salt

1 Tbsp cream of tartar

1 Tbsp oil

1 cup boiling water

2 envelopes of Kool Aid or a few drops of food coloring

Essential oil or spices of choice

Measure dry ingredients Mix them well

Add oil and boiling water and mix (carefully to avoid spattering boiling water)

Then mix some more, this is great hand eye coordination plus it helps build the hand muscles needed for handwriting

When it starts pulling apart from sides of bowl add your scent and coloring (I added glitter and peppermint oil)

then knead with hands to form into ball and you are done!

This was a great activity for the girls and they loved it! the whole house smelled like pepper mint and the glitter gave it a nice glistening effect to resemble snow for our snowmen building activity. This will keep for a month or longer in an air tight container or bag.

Our funky looking snow men!

and more wintry fun with cookie cutters (got them on the after christmas sale for less than $1)

 

I can see lots of fun creating the bright and smelly dough with Kool Aid, talk about a full sensory experience!

The recipe was adapted from Jada Roo Can Do blog

Letter N

This week we’ve been working on letter N, and the little munchkin really enjoyed all of the activities, she really amazes me with her desire to “do school” as she begs me for it, this post is from the activities we did on Saturday (we normally don’t do school on Saturday but she was begging me and since we missed Friday I agreed)

She was so happy to be able to find all the “N & n” in this N is for Nephi worksheet from slacker mom

Here’s a better view of it

I love her concentration in this pic! This is another worksheet from the N is for Nephi from Slacker mom

This was so fun for her and it really worked her fine motor skills, the discs are from a bingo wand set and the worksheet is from Erica’s amazing blog (letter N is for Nest)

See she really does have fun! after completing the N and the eggs I gave her the magnetic wand to clear the disks off, can you tell she loved it?

Our sensory bin for letter N was filled with noodles (two different sizes) and magnetic numbers

First she used the magnetic wand to find all the number and as she pulled them out she had to name the number and count up to it

She then had to sort out the different shapes of noodles and place them in the correct container according to size (bigger one in bigger container)

We then played this awesome number game from Confessions of a homeschooler and here she is counting one of the cards

Here she is placing the clothes pin on the correct number for the card

and here are all the card completed.

A few other things we did this week  but forgot to take pics:

As you can see I use a lot of the wonderful creations from Erica’s blog confessions of a homeschooler, go check it out it is awesome!

We also played with our home made winter play dough, but I will show you that in tomorrow’s post along with the recipe, See you then!

Our little Joy School

Today we had a full house!

For the past 8 months, at least once a week, we have a joy school where the little munchkin gets to socialize with her two best friends (all the same age) and we do preschool together with them, we actually used to rotate houses so that the mommies could have some alone time to do errands, clean house or just relax (it was heaven) without kids, but then I started babysitting and that came to an end, so now instead of actually rotating we just get together and we all socialize (mommies included) and since november we’ve had a welcomed addition to our little joy school group, a boy a little younger than the girls comes to play too, although we had never all been together at once, until today and we had a blast.

 The little munchkin suggested to get the blocks out, I thought it was a great idea and they did too!

She was so proud of her BIG tower, and so was I, she really put a lot of effort in it, but I really wanted them all to play together instead of independently, I mean that is the whole point of Joy school, to socialize, so I suggested we all get together and build something, and they all started fuzzing about it, until I said let’s see if we can all help to build a Temple? and they all jumped in on that one

and here they are in action

they were so proud of their Temple

We are actually missing one of the girls in these pics, because she was a little preoccupied playing with “fun” toys (as she called it). But today even the baby brothers got their play date, and lots of attention because they are so darn cute!

So a house full of  joyful kids playing, sharing and learning together, it was a Grrrreat day!

Letter M

We started the new year with letter M and lots of  yummy fun along with it, sorry I didn’t take pictures of all the activities, I get so busy with doing them that I always forget to snap some for you to see.  This month our theme is Winter and the color is White, so what better than Marshmallows to incorporate all three in one (theme, color and letter)

Little Munchkin building her marshmallow structure

This activity was so much fun and the girls were SO into it, I gave them the toothpicks without the points (cut them off) at first, but the marshmallows kept falling off, so finally I decided to leave them on and told them to be very careful (and I kept my eyes on them the whole time) the little munchkin build a really tall structure which required some serious fine motor skills

Rapunzel needed a little more direction to help her visualize her project, but once the second row was started she took it on her self and really enjoyed it.

See that “M m” in the background, that was another activity that day, they had to glue macaroni (noodles because I didn’t have any mac) to form the M, another fine motor development skill and one they also enjoyed, what kid doesn’t like to glue things?

The best reward after such hard work!

when they were done building they got to eat the leftover marshmallows, talk about using all your senses to learn a letter!

This marshmallow graphing was another of our activities this week,  I wrote the numbers on a piece of copy paper and made the graph lines, and then simply told them to count the number of marshmallows that belong on each space, I was surprised at how well they did with this, and to help them when they got stuck I used one of the toys the little munchkin got for Christmas, where it has the numbers with wire and beads (kind of like an abacus) so they could find the number they needed and then count the beads to know how many mini marshmallows they needed, it was a great success!

Other activities from the week that I did not take pictures of were making and M mouse (glued whiskers and eyes and ears to a printed M to form a mouse), Magnet play and discovery, winter sensory bin (added mittens for letter M), Masher painting (used potato masher to paint on paper). And the one activity I really wanted to do but could not find marbles anywhere, was marble painting (dropping marbles on paint and then inside tray lined with paper)

So far they are really liking the winter theme and have had lots of fun learning, I think we are off to a good year start!

December fun continued

Hi there, so yesterday I told you that we were heading to big city for a little more Christmas fun and I think that was an understatement, it was a super busy day but we had a blast!

First we went to BassProShop’s Santa’s wonderland with my hubby’s family and the kids really enjoyed the wildlife displays, our 4 yr. old niece even commented on how the man in the display (mannequin) was once alive too (like all the desiccated animals) Tee he he, don’t you love the way kids look at the world?

They had a wildlife carousel inside the shop and the little munchkin rode it about 3 or 4 times

We had to make time to wait about one hour and half until we could see Santa so we went window shopping  dreaming

They even had crafts for the kids to make, here is the little munchkin making a snowman jingle bell

And of course she had to try a shot or two at the shooting range with daddy (the future hunter in her, and Daddy’s pride and joy)

 

Luckily there is plenty to do inside the huge store and the time flew by and it was finally time to see  Santa

The little Munchkin was super excited that Santa remember to say Ho Ho Ho (see luminarias post) and mommy was amazed at the display and how well organized the whole thing was, did I mention the free picture? (loved Bass Pro’s Santa’s wonderland) and here are a few more pics from our Bass Pro adventure

After about 4 hours there we went to see our niece dance and it was so cute, I loved the uncoordination of the 3 and 4 yr olds

and the beauty and grace of the teens (it was a full dance studio recital) but I was most impressed by the boys hip hop (who knew teen and pre teen boys could be so coordinated and have such rhythm I think they were the best in that studio)

But I think the one that enjoyed the recital the most was my little munchkin, she was so excited about her cousin being a ballerina and she never took her eyes off the dance floor for the whole hour

and now she tells everybody that she will be a ballerina like her cousin and that she needs tap shoes to dance!

After spending some quality time with the family and laughing at the things kids say  it was time to go home, but I convinced the hubby to go see the lights at the Temple gardens and surprisingly he agreed and did not regret it, it was the most beautiful light display I have ever seen in my life, and the pictures don’t give enough credit to how beautiful it was

The little munchkin had been asking me to go to the Temple since the summer every time she saw a picture of it, so to her this was the pinnacle of the day and her expression shows it

I like the Temple she would say over and over, making mommy really proud and Daddy wonder what the big deal was (although he really enjoyed the views)

and I loved the nativity displays they had along the gardens, BEAUTIFUL!

It was an fun and uplifting day!

December Fun

Today we went to the Church at Tubac for their Bethlehem nights, and oh how I regret not having my camera ready, it was awesome, they recreated the Bethlehem market as it was in the times of the Nativity, hay on the floor, chickens and tents everywhere, but instead of selling their goods each tent had a different craft for the kiddos, the little munchkin got a little overwhelmed so she only did two of them, a beading necklace and a wooden box with a hole to insert coins (like an ancient piggy bank) and the young man that helped us told me the name of this box but I can’t remember what it was, anyway he told me that it was how Jewish parents thought the concept of charity to very young children, as they would build the box and then fill it with change through out the year and give It to someone in need later on, I Loved that! plus the little munchkin got to paint it and take it home. Through out the market they had pastors with different color stickers that you had to find (kind of a scavenger hunt) and give them the appropriate color sticker given to us by the Roman soldiers at the tax registration (entrance, they really thought of everything in recreating this) once the munchkin gave the right sticker she would receive a piece of a wooden nativity piece with a scripture on it. She really enjoyed finding them all and getting all the pieces, oh I forgot to mention that after completing a craft she would get paid a golden coin (plastic) that she could exchange for Candy given by a maid that was circulating around the market, but of course when we found the candy maid, the little munchkin said “No it’s my money” and she would not let go of it, not even for candy (mmm, maybe I need to start talking about charity right away) the hubby and I could not help but laugh at such a reaction (the candy maid laughed too, so she was not offended) and to my huge appreciation as we were leaving the market they had treats (baklava) and hot chocolate, and even though we didn’t get to talk to Mary and Joseph (baby Jesus was having a melt down) it was an amazing experience and a perfect way to reinforce why we celebrate Christmas to the little Munchkin, I mean this was so cool that even the hubby liked it and was impressed, so kudos to the Baptist Church at Tubac! We have definitely included this as a yearly tradition from now on.

They did take  a picture of our family in the stable before we entered the market, and they said they would mail it to us, i hope they do because I really want give you a visual of how cool this was. ok off to bed now because tomorrow we go to Big City for more Christmas fun and to see our 4 yr old niece dance at her first recital. Can’t wait!