Starting Traditions: Our New Thankful Journal

It's November 1st...already!  I can't believe it.  This year I am trying to slow down during the Holiday Season and focus on what really matters most as well as starting family traditions with our girls that will help instill a spirit of giving and thankfulness during these busy months ahead.  

One of the first new traditions we are starting this year is our Family Thankful Journal.  A few weeks ago Andy Lopez (coach of the U of A baseball team) spoke at our church about how the Israelites in the Old Testament would collect stones and pile them in certain places to remember what the Lord had done there.  They would do this so that future generations wouldn't forget. 

“We will not hide them from our descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done.” - Psalm 78:4 

He told us about how his family had started a Thankful Journal years ago as a way to remember God's answer to prayer in their lives.  That same day I saw a promotion on InkGarden.com for a free custom journal so I snatched it up!  

I added some cute pics of the girls to the front to make it the cutest journal EVER ;-)

We added Psalm 78:4 to the inside cover, too.

We're about 11 months behind in this year's journal, but there have been so many answers to prayer this year that I don't think I'll have a hard time remembering...so I look forward to sitting down as a family this month and jotting down each one of them as reminder of God's hand in our lives.  In fact, I'll probably start with this one:

February 28, 2011:  We are thankful that daddy is still alive after a horrible car accident that doctors and rescue workers all agree should have taken his life.

Do you have a family tradition that you would like to share with other busy mamas? Simply send the idea with your bio to: thebusymomboutique{at}gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

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Wallet Friendly Ways to Beat Year Round Boredom - Guest Post

Submitted on behalf of Primrose Schools: Preschool services and early childhood education by Emily Patterson (@epatt1062)

Children have powerful imaginations that can create whole new worlds to play in. But there are days where despite all that creativity and imagination they just sit around the house complaining that there is absolutely nothing for them to do. So how do you as a parent find a way to harness all that imagination and keep everyone entertained without spending too much money?

Here are ten ideas to help get you through boredom year round:

1. Go For a Scenic Drive: Pack everyone up in the car and take a sightseeing trip in your own area. This is great during the fall when the leaves are changing colors, or around holidays when people decorate their houses. If you live near an area with farms or stables go take a drive to see the horses and cows as they spend time in the pastures.

Natty overlooking Tucson on our most recent scenic drive

2. Wildlife Hunt: Find a website that talks about the wildlife that is found in your area and print out a list of some of the more commonly found ones and head out to a local park and see how many you can find. If you are looking for birds a pair of binoculars will help you identify birds that might fly off before you get close enough to see their markings.

3. Take a Craft Class: Check at a local craft supplies store to see if they hold workshops for children. These are usually free or have a small fee for supplies as the stores want to attract new customers to their stores. This is a great way for a child to try out a new craft that might otherwise need a large investment in supplies to start out.

4. Satellite Search: The Internet now lets us view any spot in the world by just searching for it. It's fun to look up your house and see the satellite image of it. You can turn this into a scavenger hunt by bringing up a town or city and seeing if you can find landmarks that are important to your children.

5. Superfluid Science: A superfluid is a substance that changes thickness under different situations, and there is one you can make out of stuff you probably have in the kitchen. All you need is a bowl to mix it in, corn flour, water and food coloring if you want it. Mix water into the corn flour until it forms a thick paste and add the food coloring if you wish. That's it, you have a superfluid! To show off the changes have your child stir it slowly at first and then fast, then have your child slap the surface of the superfluid. It should be easy to stir slowly, but when you stir fast it will thicken up and be more resistant. When you slap it, it should react like it were a solid.

6. Picnic Walks: Walking is a good way to stay healthy and a great way to enjoy beautiful locations. And with just a few sandwiches, snacks and something to drink, you can turn your walk into a picnic.

7. Fort Box: If you or someone you know is getting a new appliance, save the box! A large box can be any number of things to a playing child: fortress, cave, skyscraper, spaceship or whatever your child's imagination wants it to be. For an added bonus cover it with contact paper to help strengthen the box. When buying contact paper you can buy a patterned paper, or there are varieties that work like a dry erase board, allowing your children to decorate the box however they want and change it when they need to.

8. Inside the Story: Reading to your younger children is a great way to encourage good reading habits. And a great way to keep a child interested in the stories they love is to encourage them to think about what they'd do in the story. There are a number of ways to do this, putting on plays about the stories, making scenes from the story in building blocks or writing their own stories about the characters and situations they enjoy the most.

9. Share a Recipe: Many families have certain recipes that are passed down from generation to generation and now is a great time to share one with your children. If you don't have a family recipe already, there's no reason not to start a new family tradition. This is not the time to go for a perfect looking dish, this is the time share the joy that you get from making a tasty dish to share with loved ones. Let your child do as much as they safely can when they help you so that they learn as much as they can about cooking.

10. That's How They Do It: There are a lot of places where you watch things being made before you buy them. Many pizza places make their pies near the register, next pizza night take your kids along and watch them make your food while you wait.

What are some successful boredom busters YOU have used with your children lately?

Do you have a guest post or article that you would like to submit to The Busy Mom Blog? Simply send the article with your bio to: thebusymomboutique{at}gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

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Like Ice-Cream Only Healthier

Last Christmas the girls and I received that book "The Sneaky Chef" from my sister Jess (also the owner of Petexpertise.com - check it out if you need pet supplies, wink wink).

The book lists tons of recipes for kid-friendly type food but with added healthy ingredients that they won't detect!  It's awfully fun to read through the book and see how this mom had used cauliflower in her home-made Mac n' Cheese without her kids ever knowing!  Hence the name "Sneaky Chef".

I've been excited to try some of the lunch and dinner recipes but this week I let my oldest pick and she decided to go with some "breakfast ice-cream".  It's so super simple and only requires some fruit, honey and yogurt!

We chose strawberries and raspberries since those are Natty's favorite and they were on sale (haha).  You just throw about 1.5 cups of fruit into the food processor...

Then add 2 tablespoons of yogurt and 1 tablespoon of honey:

Then simply blend it up until it's nice and smooth and place in a glass dish and then into the freezer.  Natty was super excited to help and even more excited to eat it!

It definitely doesn't get as thick as ice-cream (or maybe I did it wrong) so you may want to have a few SmartSeat Chair Covers on hand when you go to serve the kiddos.  However, it tastes sweet and fresh and both girls loved it.  

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Grab an Undercover Mama and Ditch the Big Expensive Nursing Wardrobe

I am so excited to be adding a Nursing Wear category to the boutique!  One of the first products that I knew we had to offer was the mom-invented "Undercover Mama" nursing tank.  In my opinion, it is one of the coolest inventions EVER.

This strapless tank top attaches to the nursing bras that you already own and love to essentially turn your ordinary nursing bra into an full undershirt!  Wear it underneath cardigans, shirts, sweaters, shawls or vests as a cute undershirt...and now when you go to flip down your bra to nurse, your belly and back are completely covered.

Skip the pile of expensive nursing shirts and simply buy one or two of these undercovers to make ANY top a nursing top!  Just look at how cute they are one of our mom reviewers & photographers, Jennie:

We have them in lots of available colors and sizes so the possibilities are endless mamas!  Now you can wear any of your favorite non-nursing shirts with an undercover mama tank underneath and still be ready to nurse while you're on-the-go.  

"If you love a particular nursing bra, it's perfect because you can layer it with the tank without having a bunch of straps everywhere. Because the less straps going on, the chic-er, ya know?"  -Maryam, MilkFriendly.com

We recently had the Undercover Mama reviewed by Maryam over at MilkFriendly.com, a style guide for hip nursing moms and moms-to-be.  Check out her awesomely awesome video review below:

Don't forget, you can use the code "MilkMama" when checking out to receive 10% off of our Undercover Mama Nursing tanks.

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Ostriches might be mean, but their eggs are sure yummy!

Ok, so that statement might be a little misleading since I myself did not eat ANY of the ostrich egg written about in this post.  I hate eggs.  All eggs.  However, my girlies love them and so the "ostrich eggs are yummy" comment came from the mouths of babes...not me!

I promised I would share the story about our weekend fun at The Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch and so here it is!

The family was in town and we were running out of things to do so we thought, "Hey what could be more fun than heading down to the Ostrich Ranch and hanging out with some really giant, mean birds for the day?!"

I think they wanted to eat Ellie...but she has the last laugh later...keep reading.

So the ostrich's were evil, but the rest of the animals at the ranch were so cute and the girls LOVED feeding the deer and the donkeys so it was a really fun time!  

On our way out we saw that they had real ostrich eggs for sale and since Uncle Jim has always wanted to try one, he bought one for us to cook for breakfast the next day...for the super low price of $20.00.  Ha! They're not cheap but apparently 1 ostrich egg is equal to 24 chicken eggs so, needless to say, we had a lot of leftovers.  

Natty helping Uncle Jim make an ostrich egg breakfast

Ellie and the Egg

Ellie wanting to "eat" the egg whole

Aha! Take that evil Ostrich!

What's the best part about an Ostrich Egg?  Ellie is able to eat them!  She's allergic to chicken eggs so typically can't enjoy eggs for breakfast like everyone else.  But ostrich eggs are often an alternative for people with egg allergies.  So cool!

Have any of you had an ostrich egg before?  The rest of our family seemed to like it.  Apparently they are better for you than chicken eggs too...and for $20 bucks, they'd better be! 

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Baby Undersocks are the Baby Socks that Stay On

Baby Undersocks are new to the boutique and they totally rock! My 18-month-old has had a vendetta against socks for as far back as I can remember. I would normally give in and just let her run around without socks on (especially in the summer) but because of the eczema on her feet, I'd rather keep them covered if at all possible.

Baby Undersocks are the baby socks that actually stay on! After having my little one use them for the past week, here are my 3 favorite things about them:

• They can't take them off! They are attached to soft thermal pants that can be worn by themselves or as a warming layer under clothing.

• The socks have a non-slip grip on the bottom to help prevent little walkers from slipping (which happens often with toddlers wearing socks on tile or wood floor...as you know).

• They are made from super comfy & breathable bamboo thermal fabric that is snuggly and warm, but not too thick and cumbersome.

Here's my munchkin wearing her Baby Undersocks in Pastel Pink (the socks are colored, not the thermal pants):

We have them in pastel pink (shown above), lake blue and natural white.  The sizes range from 0-18 months...and if you buy one, you'll get the second pair half off so you can stock up for the Fall and Winter months ahead!  

And...since it took me forever to get Ellie to sit still for these pics, here's another!

And here's what they look like without a baby attached:

Have questions about Baby Undersocks? Ask away!  And don't forget to "Meet the Mom Inventor" behind this product by reading her story on the product page.  :-)

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