Earth Day 2015

Earth Day has been one of my favorite celebrations for as long as I can remember. I loved making (and eating!) Oreo dirt cake as a child, and now as an adult think it's more important than ever to take a day to reflect on our planet with promise of doing better. I'm not an expert on the matter by any means, but I do believe small actions can equal big change and we should all do our part to protect and improve the environment.

One of the greatest honors in parenting is the chance to teach kids about life -- how to properly function in society; how to treat others with compassion and respect; how to take care of the planet where we live. Earth Day's a great time to talk to kids about recycling, energy conservation and other ways they can contribute. Tory, Aden and I happened to have an empty calendar on Earth Day this year, so I planned a few educational activities for the three of us to do together.

First, I assembled a garden sensory tub including potting soil, rubber bugs, gardening tools and plastic fruits and vegetables from the kids' existing play kitchen. Tory was beside herself with excitement as she pretended to plant seeds and harvest crops of vegetables from the "garden." She's very interested in how plants grow these days, and loved the chance to get her hands into the soil. We had a nice conversation about the life cycle of plants and what types of foods we could expect to see growing in soil. Aden ate a few chunks of dirt (yes, of course he did!) and decided playing ball nearby was more exciting. Oh, well. Can't blame a mom for trying ...

Normally this activity would've been perfect outdoors, but our Minnesota weather wasn't permitting this week. I can't wait to involve Tory in planting flowers in the yard later this spring, but in the meantime this indoor sensory bin worked wonders in exposing her to gardening and opening the door to conversation about planting fruits and vegetables.

The kids and I also made noise makers using plastic bottles from the recycle bin. I pulled together items I already had in the cupboards such as brown rice, dry pasta noodles, M&Ms and jelly beans, and encouraged Tory and Aden to fill the plastic bottles. This turned out to be a little messier than I'd anticipated (maybe rice wasn't such a good idea ... ) but both Tory and Aden loved filling the bottles and shaking them afterwards.

During Aden's nap, Tory and I also made wind chimes using old tin cans. I knew my artistic little girl would love this activity as she begs to break out the paints most afternoons. We used washable paints with Q-tips and cotton balls to decorate the cans, then I had Andi drill a hole in the top of each one. I threaded a piece of twine through each hole and hung the cans on a hook outside our kitchen window. Recycled cans have never looked so adorable! I'm going to love looking at this masterpiece every day while I'm washing dishes.

While most of the Earth Day messaging was lost on Aden, I know Tory took away some meaningful pieces of information about recycling and conservation. She was also really impressed with my level of fun activities and said, "Whoa, Mom, you have lots of good ideas!" Some days, I win at parenting. Chalk one up for the home team.

Planting Daisies

Happy Earth Day!

Back in my working-out-of-the-home days, I dreamt of a time I'd be able to stay home with my kids and do fun crafts and projects with them on the regular. Then, I planned Earth Day events for thousands of college students across the country, but what I really wanted to be doing was teaching my own children what it meant to take care of our planet. And while I now know every single minute of stay-at-home-mom life isn't chocked full of educational experiences, I am truly living my dream by having the opportunity to be with Tory and Aden on a special day like today.

Lately, Tory's shown an interest in learning how plants grow. Her preschool class is covering this topic right now, and it's inspired all kinds of questions and dialogue for us at home. I can't wait to involve her in planting flowers in the yard later this spring, but in the meantime we decided to plant daisies indoors in one of those I Can Grow pots for kids.

The kit came with everything we needed for growing daisies, including potting soil and a packet of seeds. One afternoon last week, Tory and I set to work in planting her flowers. She was so excited!

First, we broke up the potting soil disk into chunks and moistened with water. Tory misunderstood my instruction to sprinkle droplets of water onto the disk and instead plopped the soil straight into the cup of water soaking it completely. Oops! Oh well, we had to do a little straining to recover the soil, but it all worked out in the end.

Once the soil was moistened, we loosely placed it back in the pot and planted the daisy seeds inside.

The instructions directed us to cover the pot with plastic wrap to create a greenhouse effect and help the seeds sprout. It should take about 3 weeks for the flowers to grow.

I have to admit, I'm a little nervous the daisies seeds won't transpire into flowers. Tory will be so heartbroken! It's already a test in patience as we wait for the seeds to sprout. "In three days I'll have daisies," Tory has said on more than one occasion. "In three weeks," I keep reminding her.

There's a neat tutorial I found online about watching seeds grow in a clear glass jar. I think we'll give that a try as well so Tory can watch the progress day by day.

Spring Cleaning

Isn't it amazing how much stuff a person (or, in this case, a family) collects over time? I started my adult life 10+ years ago in a one-bedroom apartment with little more than a bedroom set and faux-leather couch. Andi and I joked when I moved into his town home a few years later that I only brought bath towels, a desk chair and Chloe the dog as my contributions. We moved into a duplex, got married and now reside in the four-bedroom home we share today. Somehow during that time together, we've collected a house full of things. Closets stuffed with clothes, beds reserved for visiting guests, and toys. Oh, the toys! Adding kids to our lives brought us to a whole new level of stuff.

Wintertime feels like a period of nesting, of burrowing in for the cold. The windows and doors are closed up tight, and not much "lightening the load" happens during those months. Add in the holidays with all the new clothing, toys and gifts we collected and suddenly I'm left feeling quite smothered.

I declared this cold-weather week one of mass purging after I learned of the current weather forecast. If the kids and I can't be at the park, we might as well be indoors cleaning up the place. Lord knows, we need it. I made a hit-list of the big things that've been driving me bananas lately and itemized them by day to keep me on track:

Monday
Closets: Well, the kids and I's closets. Andi's on his own as we see differently regarding things to discard, to keep or consign.

Tuesday
Storage room: The mecca of baby-things totes, holiday decor and suitcases. This room is a catch-all for items I need to organize.

• Specifically, baby clothes: I've kept every single piece of baby paraphernalia for both Tory and Aden including outfits I liked (and even those I disliked!), shoes, socks, snow suits, onesies and more. It's possibly worse than you'd imagine because I have a boy and girl, so double the things. Even if we do have another baby someday, some of this stuff has got to go.
• Maternity clothes: And on that note, maternity clothes. I can't imagine I'll wear the same fashions from my 2010 pregnancy in a hypothetical future one, so this stash goes, too.    
• Baby gear: I'll keep some of it, of course, but the Bumbo, the activity mat and the giant exerciser that neither of my kids liked anyway are on their way out.

Wednesday
Refrigerator / Freezer / Deep Freezer: Discard expired food items and clean shelving. Make organized list of items in deep freezer to stay on top of what's in there that needs to be used.

Thursday
Toys: Keep the things Tory and Aden play with, and weed out the items they don't. Discard broken, trinkety junk.

Friday
Night-stand drawer: It's a mess with Tory's barrettes, yogurt tube tops (ew!), cords, chargers, and more.

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Monday's closet raid was a success! It might not look like much, but I collected five bags of clothing and shoes to be donated or consigned.

There were whisker jeans with rhinestones and dresses I wore to my bridal showers that seemed like only yesterday (but wasn't; it was six years ago!). I won't miss the clothes. I've fluctuated sizes so much with pre- and post-pregnancies in the last four years, I'll never be the same shape even if I am the same number. Plus, styles change so it's out with the old and in with the new.  

Stitch Fix #6

Another happy mail day this week as I received my sixth Stitch Fix shipment. This time, I scheduled a box just four weeks after my last one in an attempt to add more comfortable, stylish tops to my wardrobe for spring and summer and to take another crack at obtaining a classic colder-weather-turned-warmer layering piece.

Once again, I have to say how impressed I am with this company. My stylist nails my er, style preferences dead-on nearly every Fix. I either have a vision of a clothing item stuck in my mind (like these ponte pants or, spoiler alert, the cargo jacket I kept below) or pieces I didn't even know I wanted show up and I love them like I'd picked them out myself. Like the floral tank I received this time - it's cute, comfortable and looks so different than anything I've seen in stores and online.

By the way, I sing Stitch Fix's praises because I really do love this service and I'm not paid or rewarded for saying that (although wouldn't that be nice?). There is a referral program so if someone does sign up for a Fix using my code, I get a $25 credit. Several friends lately have asked me about taking the Stitch Fix plunge, and I always encourage them to do it. For the cost of the $20 styling fee, there's not much to lose.

Stitch Fix's clothes do cost a bit more than the t-shirt I occasionally throw in my cart at Target (my typical mom-iform), but every item I've received thus far has been of higher quality. My items have all been $50-$100 which I don't think is too terribly expensive for my clothing budget considering I don't really shop anywhere else. There is another women's clothing boutique in town I like, but I don't have a lot of free time to shop there without the kids in tow and the handful of times I do go there, I'm completely overwhelmed by choices. To me, Stitch Fix takes away all the pressure of picking out clothes by hand-delivering them to my doorstep. When I'm ready to send back any of the clothes I don't want, I just schedule a USPS pick-up with my regular mail delivery and I literally never have to leave the house!

Anyway, enough rambling and onto my shipment this month:

Market & Spruce Chaplin Hooded Anorak Cargo Jacket

Love this jacket. It's simple, neutral and versatile. I thought to myself recently, "I need a new spring jacket" after I saw a cute one my sister-in-law was wearing on Easter. Before, I only had a black trench I bought from Target years ago that has probably seen better days and a light-colored GAP jean jacket that is so old it's gone out and come back into style. So, new spring jacket procured. KEEP

This isn't exactly the "layering piece" I had in mind when I requested one in my Fix notes to my stylist (I was envisioning more of a vest? fitted jacket?), but truthfully this one will probably get more daily wear and last me several years.  

Brixon Ivy Priya Abstract Floral Print Knit Back Tank

I really like this top. It's not something I wouldn't ever been drawn to pull off a shelf myself, but the fit is flattering and comfortable, the fabric is soft and I could easily wear for a day of stay-at-home-mom life or dress it up for date night. Andi wasn't a big fan of this one, but he can't win at everything. KEEP

Liverpool Nik Skinny Jean

These jeans weren't my favorite. I think I'm dropping down a pant size, so the fit was loose. They felt wide in the lap portion of my front legs (does that make sense?) / hung down too far between my legs. My stylist noted light wash jeans are on trend for the season, but that type of thing doesn't whoo me too much one way or another. SENT BACK 

Peppercorn Chaz Henley Knit Top

One of my personal Stitch Fix goals is to add more tops to my wardrobe, and I'm succeeding in doing just that. I like this top; it's comfortable, cute and a bit nautical which I thought was fun. I paired it with dark-wash skinny jeans and my Minnetonka Moccasins, and wore it under the tan cargo jacket during my weekly babysitter time last week and felt perfectly stylish. KEEP 

Tart Edie Wrap Dress

I've got a love/hate relationship with wrap dresses. Sometimes, they look nice on my shape and other times they're too revealing in the bust. In the three minutes I wore this dress while trying it on, I adjusted the fabric over my chest 17 times. It also felt too short in length. I own about five other wrap dresses in various prints so I didn't feel like I was losing out by returning this one. SENT BACK 

Total kept: 3 out of 5 pieces
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My next shipment is scheduled to arrive mid-May, and I've requested capris /or shorts for summer. Excited to see what my stylist finds for me!

15/52 (A Weekly Photo Series)

This week in one word: the PARK!

(Other alternatives: Sunshine! Spring! Fresh air! Many, many firsts!)

The weather this week was beautiful, and the kids and I took full advantage. First, I busted out the pair of roller skates my parents gave Tory for Christmas. They outfitted her with Barbie adjustable skates (think: old-school 1980's Fisher Price skates; I didn't even know they made those anymore!), a helmet, kneepads, elbow pads and protective gloves which were both functional and absolutely adorable. Tory didn't want to take the pads off and even wore them to swimming class. (Not in the pool, of course.)

We took Tory's new skates out for a spin Monday afternoon on our way to the neighborhood park. The skates fit over her tennis shoes and have adjustable training wheels to either keep the wheels locked (stage 1), locked in a forward motion (stage 2) or roll backwards and forwards like regular roller skates (stage 3). I began Tory in the stage 1/locked position and she did awesome! First time on roller skates was a success.

 
It's always fun to see how much the kids have grown / advanced in skill compared to the last season. We've been visiting our neighborhood park since Tory was a baby, and she's gone from crawling around the baby slides to mastering the whole park! On this day in particular, Tory figured out how to navigate across the moving pedestals. She was so proud of herself, and I was too!

When you can't walk on your feet, wood chips collect on your pants wherever you go. #toddlerproblems Aden is going to wear through his pants fast this summer with all this knee-walking business.

Tory, Aden and I visited the new Plymouth Creek Park several afternoons this week. We discovered this park mid-summer last year, and Tory really liked it for its big sandbox. The park was sadly destroyed by vandals last fall, but it's since been completely re-built and now has so many fun and different playground structures for kids of all ages. I'm obsessed with the green Astro-Turf around the toddler equipment because it's soft and easy for Aden to get around. Tory loves the merry-go-round, the swings and still enjoys digging in the sand.

Spring, we love you!

*I didn't lug the big ol' Canon 7D to the park with us this week -- I've already got my hands full watching these two goof-balls! So, these photographs were taken with our Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 point-and-shoot camera.

Weekend Recap: My First Time Shooting Trap

Andi, the kids and I enjoyed a surprisingly fun, relaxing weekend at the lake cabin. I say surprising because it was one of those perfect weekends when we had nothing out of the ordinary planned. The weather was warm and sunny (albeit windy) and vitamin D always feeds the soul, especially in the springtime.

Also? This view:

This scene welcomed us to the lake Friday evening. The ice is officially off the lake! I never, ever grow tired of standing on our dock and seeing the beautiful blues of the sky and the lake, the water gently moving about and those islands looking back at me. My paradise. Ahhh... 

We hopped in the Ranger ATV and went for a short ride before having dinner at The County Line Tavern on Friday night. Our cruise through the countryside was relaxing; dining out with our kids was ... not, mostly thanks to Aden. I ordered the broasted chicken for my meal instead of sticking to my usual cup of soup and baked potato, and it took far too long for our food to arrive at the table. Nothing against the restaurant; it's just Aden only lasts 20-30 minutes tops and then we've got to roll out. Though, Tory's good behavior fills me with hope for a day we'll all enjoy eating dinner in a restaurant again.

Andi wanted to visit a local game farm on Saturday morning to scout for an upcoming photo shoot, so the kids and I tagged along. I stayed back at the lodge with Tory and Aden while Andi hopped in the owner's truck to scout. When Andi returned, we decided to hike around the grounds a bit to enjoy the beautiful spring morning.

Later that afternoon, our cabin neighbors Joe and Lisa invited us over to their hunting land to shoot clay pigeons and have an outdoor BBQ. With no other plans on the docket, we decided to head over. It felt amazing to be outside in the warm sunshine, and to be doing something so different and fun. Everyone took turns target shooting with the trap machine and Joe asked if I wanted a turn. I'd never shot a gun before, but figured now was as good of a time as any to give it a try. Andi instructed me how to hold his 20 gauge, to load a bullet, to lock/unlock the safety, and to aim for the target. "Pull!" I yelled and a disk flew out. I shot and missed the target, but I wasn't too worried about hitting anything anyway. I tried a few more times to no avail. It was fun, and I definitely impressed my husband with my willingness to try something new!

Tory was our pull girl. Each time a shooter was ready for a clay pigeon to fly, he/she would yell "pull" and Tory would pushed a button to release the disk. She took her job very seriously and nonchalantly said "hit" or "miss" after each fire like a little pro.

Later, Aden crawled up on a box and yelled something in baby gibberish. We all could've sworn he said, "Pull!" like he was trying to get in on the action.

Speaking of Aden, he had a blast playing outside. Andi laid a picnic blanket down for him, but hahahahaha - nope - Aden knee-walked all over the place covering himself in dirt and grass stains. (Future self, please note to never dress your son in white when headed to play at the hunting land. He was head-to-toe filthy by the end of the day). It wouldn't have been so bad if Aden hadn't literally been crawling on the ground.
 

 

After shooting, we grilled brats with chips, cookies and beers. It was the perfect spring day at the cabin.

Sunday, we headed back to the Twin Cities early so Tory could attend Rock The Cradle with Andi's sister and her husband. Lindsay asked a while back if she could take Tory for an afternoon outing. While Tory was away, Andi and I took Aden on a long walk through our neighborhood. It's amazing to think we have lots more warm weather weekends ahead of us as spring turns into summer. Hooray for warm weather!

14/52 (A Weekly Photo Series)

A few photos from last week ...

The weather was cold and rainy, so we spent most of our time indoors. It's difficult to take quality photographs inside when there's hardly any light coming through the windows. The gloomy skies didn't inspire me to grab the camera much, unfortunately.

I did capture this heartwarming moment between Tory and Aden. He loves books right now and will belly-up to anyone who'll sit down and read with him. Something about this photo flashes me right to their grown up high school years.

This photo is completely out-of-focus photo, but I love it because it's of Aden walking! I happen to round the corner of the hallway with my camera in hand and caught Aden walking toward me. He walked the entire length of the hallway - probably 10 steps? - before he fell down. Yay Aden!! He's not officially walking yet, but is taking more and more steps every day.  

Aden and I played with this empty Pampers diaper box and a soccer ball for a good 30 minutes one morning. It's safe to say I'm finding my groove as a #boymom. I can fashion anything into a goal.