My Big Boy

For the first two years of my son's life, I did a monthly blog recap as sort of an online scrapbook where I recorded personal mementos, milestones, and pictures of my cutie as he grew.  He's four now and has grown into the sweetest, friendliest, and all-around fun little boy.  I haven't done one of those monthly features in a long time, but had to share some of the shots from this weekend as he was super excited to start T-ball.  My son is one of the smallest kids in his class, and on the team, but is quick to correct me when he hears me refer to him as a "little guy."  "I'm not a little guy, Mom.  I'm a big boy!" 

I guess he's right.  I was quite surprised to see him throw so much like a big boy at our first practice just before the first game.  I stood back on the sidelines, zoomed in and started snapping some pics, but when I saw him wearing his glove like, "yeah, no big deal" I was taken aback.  When did he learn to do this?  I thought he'd be much more awkward with it.  And the hiking his leg up when he throws?  (Dad says they've been practicing. Where have I been?)  

Something about such a small body in those action shots just gets me.  So much cuteness I can't stand it.  

I'm so proud of him and all of his teammates too. They are a fantastic bunch of kids (boys and girls) and I really love getting to enjoy this time in their lives.  Fun stuff!

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DIY // Painted Striped Curtains

There was that time I tried to paint stripes on polyester fabric and just when I thought it was going to be a total disaster, to my surprise, it turned out pretty well.  (Thanks to my Instagram friends for encouraging me on!)  Here are my newly painted striped curtains hanging in my office.  

You might remember that before I painted the drapes, they were originally just black.

I researched how to paint fabric and read that you add Textile Medium
to Acrylic craft paint, but one site said you could use acrylic latex, which is what I already had, so I used that. The directions say use 2:1 Paint to Textile Medium.  I just eyeballed it. 

The textile medium makes your fabric flexible without cracking after it's painted.  You are supposed to wash and dry your fabric before painting, then heat set with an iron.

After the first coat (which I applied with a small foam roller), it barely looked like I had painted at all- almost like grey tie dye. 

By the third coat, I thought it was a lost cause and gave up.  Also, I felt like my tape wasn't sticking very well so I was pretty convinced that the lines were going to be a mess.  

You can see that I folded over the curtain on the right side and just started painting with my son.  After we were finished, I actually looked online to see if I could just buy some striped curtains but I couldn't find any - except expensive ones on Etsy.  I knew if I wanted these bold black and white striped drapes, I would have to make them one way or another, so I gave it another shot.  One more coat of paint.  .  .  

Finally, after two days and four coats of paint, the stripes were  solid and bright white. And, I had very little bleed through the tape, just a couple of spots where I accidentally dripped from the foam roller. I tried to wash the paint out, but it didn't come out completely. I used a black sharpie to cover any white paint mistakes. 

I'm very pleased with the final result.  Makes my office a happier place! 

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On Honey We're Healthy:  My 15-Week Bikini Contest Prep Plan.

Prepping for Weekday Mornings

I am not a morning person.  I love the idea of waking up early, before the rest of the house is awake, sitting quietly with a hot cup of coffee and enjoying the morning, then kicking into high gear, knocking out a bunch of things for the day.  On days when that has happened, I feel like I've done a whole day's worth of work by noon.  But, in actuality, I'm the person who pushes snooze on her alarm clock (probably twice) most mornings.  My son is often my alarm as he jumps out of bed as soon as his eyes open around 6:30 a.m.  We have to leave the house by 7:35 a.m. to get him to school comfortably by 8:00, so every minute counts.  I walk around in a daze in the morning until I've had breakfast and started drinking my coffee.  

Our mornings are made smoother by a few routines I've incorporated into our lives.

1)  I lay out my son's clothes for the week on Sunday night.



I check the weather on my iPhone app and try to plan accordingly (long or short sleeves, shorts or pants, etc.)  He wears a uniform, so it's not too difficult to pick out the outfits- I just have to make sure they are clean (along with his nap blanket).  Which also means I typically do our laundry for the week on Sunday, finishing right before bed on Sunday night.  

When I was working full-time, I also picked out my outfits for the week. 

2)  My son puts his own clothes on in the morning.



This is part of his morning "chore chart" and it saves me the hassle and time of doing it myself.  He just turned 4 and is capable of getting himself dressed.  He sometimes needs assistance putting the shoes on the correct feet or if he gets his socks twisted.  I do give him a timer warning, "In 5 minutes, you have to get dressed" and then set the timer. This helps a bunch in our house.  Also, he watches cartoons in the morning, so when it's time to get dressed, the cartoons are turned off so he can focus.



If he doesn't start getting dressed after the timer goes off, he gets the "1, 2, 3" and time-out on the stairs for one minute.  On average, I'd say he goes to time out once a week in the morning, but it's pretty painless (for me:).  (If you're interested, I read and followed the book 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2–-12 and it has worked very well with my son.) 

3)  I prep my son's school food on the weekend.



He doesn't eat the school lunch, so I prepare his snack and lunch for the week. Fruit is washed, cut up and portioned out into small plastic containers and kept in the fridge.  Dry snacks like goldfish and pretzels are also portioned out and kept in a small kitchen drawer.

I like my son to help where he can and try to think of the ways he can be involved when it comes to family chores. He enjoyed pulling the grapes off the stem and putting them into a container by himself. 

4)  I pack my son's snack and lunch and bags before bed.  



Having everything prepped ahead of time makes assembling the snack and lunch pretty easy.  We have a peanut-free class, so he gets some combination of milk and fruit with yogurt for the morning snack; and juice, cheese, granola bar/goldfish/pretzels for lunch.

I shove the packed bags into the fridge and, in the morning, just have to put the ice-pack in each and load them into his backpack.  

5)  The backpack lives in the mudroom.



I always know where to find it before heading out the door.  Any papers that need to be filled out go into his folder the night before school.

I know that mornings can be really stressful trying to get yourself and everybody else out of the house on time.  I may not always feel like doing the prep work, but I always regret it in the morning if I don't.

Do you have any secrets for making mornings less crazy?

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On Honey We're Healthy:  Bikini Contest Prep (15 Weeks Out) 

Easter & Spring Decor in the Dining Room

A bout of sunshine amidst some very cold and rainy days here prompted me to dig into my one small bin of Easter decor. I'm super excited for Easter this year because my grandma is coming to visit from California! :) My dining room had been bare since the new year, so it's the first room to get new life with the pastel Spring decorations on the console table.

I started with just the two lamps from Homegoods (I had to go to a second store to find the mate, but it was worth it!) and a Homegoods green jug vase with faux purple flowers.  I agree that fresh flowers are preferable, but for something like this, I think the faux variety work fine. 

The bottom of the console needed filling, so I searched the house until I remembered an adorable white wooden wagon I got at Hobby Lobby last year.  It's the perfect vessel for some oversized, colorful eggs.  

The bottom of the wagon is filled with tissue paper so that it would appear fuller.

I strung two egg garlands together (from Hobby Lobby) and hung them with command hooks. 

Two white ceramic pitchers and a plate complete the look with a few more pastel eggs scattered around.  I moved these pitchers out of the kitchen cabinets for this vignette. 

I like how these colors play with the dining room drapes I had sewn a couple years ago. 

I'm really looking forward to having family over for Easter and especially my Grandma.  See you soon! :) 

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On Honey We're Healthy:  Operation "Get Lean" Week 6 Recap.

Toddler Chore Chart

Recently, I've started teaching my just-turned-4-year old that unpacking his backpack after school is his "job."  It is kind of a big job too because it means carrying the bulky bag in from the car, there is a snack bag and a lunch bag to unpack, with freezer bags to put into the freezer, plastic containers that go into the sink and sometimes trash to throw away.  Then, there is the folder that needs to be emptied.  Everything goes back into the backpack for the next day.  He often complains that he's, "too busy" to unpack his backpack, but I tell him it's his job and when he's finished, he's pretty proud that he did it by himself.  I started implementing this because it's difficult for me to carry in his backpack along with all the other things I'm often trying to bring into the house at the same time (my purse, water, groceries/gym bag, whatever).  I realized I actually need his help!  

I'm also having him get himself dressed in the morning before school and put his own pajamas on at night, so I figured now is a good time to set up a chore chart.  He gets a "smiley face" or a number at school each day depending on his behavior, and it's a great incentive because he's always anxious to check his folder to see if he got the smile.  

I figured I'd do something similar at home, so I made a chore chart that he can put a sticker on after he's done his job.  Together we talked about the things he has to do to help out as part of the family.  He was pretty good at naming his responsibilities that should be included in the chart.  Prayers aren't a chore, but I wanted to add it so that we always remember that it's important to pray each night.  

I broke it down into two pages (the first one goes on the fridge downstairs and the second one upstairs in his bedroom).  I grouped some of the chores into one block so that he only gets the star if ALL of the jobs are completed.  

Since my son is learning to read, I put clip art images (that he chose) into the chart under the words. The first chart is a weekly chart so that he can put one star on the chart three times a day after completing each set of chores. The second chart is a monthly chart since he gets just one star for completing the "before bed" tasks. 

My son is super excited about these charts!  I picked out some fun stickers too, so I could change up the stars. 

There are lots of printable charts online, but I like to customize my own: 

TO MAKE YOUR OWN CHART

1)  I use a Mac, so in Pages (Word equivalent), open a blank document and go to "Insert" and then "Table"

2)  The box below will pop up and you can select how many rows (cells across) and columns (cells down) you want in your table.  You can change the cell background color by going to color fill in that box and just selecting another color.

3)  To add the clip art, I googled each chore and did a screen shot of it (Cmd + Shift + 4).  For example, "brush teeth clip art" and then click "images" so you just get the pictures.

4)  Then, I open "Finder" and drag the image into the document.  (On my computer, all my screen shots go directly into my Dropbox, but you can save them directly to your desktop.) 

5)  From there, you can resize it to fit your page.  Then you can print it. 

How do you get your kids to do their chores? 

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On Honey We're Healthy:  Operation "Get Lean" Week 6 Recap.

Creating Graphics in PicMonkey

I'm so excited to share today's post with you!  I don't know how to use Photoshop to make graphics and I'm always admiring those bloggers and graphic artists that create such pretty images for their blogs.  But, I figured out an easy way to make something similar in PicMonkey  (a free! photo editing site).  I'm working on a new blog design and have been playing with making an "About Me" page.  Here's what I came up with for a draft using PicMonkey. 

tea image via The Glitter Guide

1)  I started with hovering over the "design" icon at the top of the page, which then brings up the size options below.  Click the size you want- I used the 5x7 canvas.

2) You will end up at this screen with your selected canvas size showing.  You have the option at the left to change the color of the canvas- I left mine white. 

3)  Click the "Butterfly" icon on the left sidebar, which provides the Overlay options.  To add your own photos to the image, at the top, click "your own" and then click wherever you store your photos- for me I choose "My computer."  (This is the part I didn't realize I could do!) 

4)  After you've selected an image from wherever you store it, it will appear on the canvas. 

You can then move the image to where you want it to be and enlarge it, rotate it, etc.

5)  To add text, you can click the "Tt" icon in PicMonkey and use their fonts, but their selection is limited.  To have access to all of their fonts, you need a subscription ($5 a month, I think).  

I created a document in Pages (Mac), but you can use Word if you have a PC.  Then I did a "screen shot" of the words I wanted and used the process above to bring them onto the canvas.  To capture a screen shot on a Mac, push the following keys simultaneously "command, shift, 4"  Here's a screen shot of my Page document.  (I used St. Marie font for the "Megan loves" and Mahogany Script font for the other words).

6)  To make the dots, I used Geo Sans Light font and periods, then changed the color and size. 

7)  After inserting all of my photos and text, I created a boarder by clicking the Frame image below the Butterfly in PicMonkey.  I chose "Simple Edge" and a pink hue, then you can change the thickness.  My original image is around a 2 thickness.

8)  Then save your image!

To Create A Round Image

1)  Drag the image you want to use onto the PicMonkey "Edit" icon.  Or click "Edit" and select the photo you want to use.

2)  You'll get this screen.

3)  At the top of the main editing page, click "Crop."  In the drop-down menu, click square. (If you don't, when you go to round the corners, you'll end up with an oval).

4)  You can drag the edges of the square to make it larger or smaller.  You'll end up with the shot below.

5)  To make the circle, click the Frame icon that is located below the butterfly.  The first option at the top is "rounded corners".  Click that and slide the "corner radius" all the way to the right.  

6)  Then click save and save to your computer.  The white portion won't show up on a white background, so it will look like your picture is circular.

Is this helpful?  Maybe you already figured this out?!  Since I just started playing with this graphic option, I'm going to see what else I can do.  

Do you use an editing program to make graphics, if so which one? I'd love to know so I can learn too. 

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On Honey We're Healthy:  Operation "Get Lean" Week 6 Recap.