February Recap

So this is mostly for my own accountability, but read on if you're interested. I'm reviewing how I did with my New Year's resolutions this month.

Daily Bible reading - this month was better than last month, but still not as good as I'd like. I read probably half of the days this month.

Work on 2011 reading list - I finished Professionalizing Motherhood and I read Steady Days. Both good books, but I really loved Steady Days. I do plan to write a summary of them on the blog, soon I hope. I was hoping to get one more book done this month, but I ended up devoting a lot of time to Clara's quiet book instead since I knew we'd be going out of town this past weekend and I wanted her to be able to use it in the car.

Get in the habit of family devotions - we're still struggling to make this happen, though there were a handful of days that we did something really intentional.

No TV between dinnertime and Clara's bedtime - I feel like this one has fallen off our radar a bit this month. I need to talk to Jeremy about this and not be so quick to push that 'on' button. But hopefully before too long it will get nicer outside and we'll naturally want to be out there rather than watching TV.

Work on Kitchen Stewardship's Top 10 Foundational Habits - yep, we're still slowly working on this. Several of them I do already, but I have yet to try making homemade yogurt or bone broth. Someday this year I will. At least the broth for sure. For some reason the yogurt kinda scares me still!

Potty train Clara - we actually made some progress on this in February! She is showing a bit more interest and has actually worn underwear for a small portion of a few days. She's gone potty in the toilet five times in the past week and a half!

Work toward a routine for me and the girls - we've made some progress on this too this month! Steady Days helped give me some ideas and fresh motivation so I did write up a routine and post it on our fridge last week and we're trying it out. It's not drastically different from what our days looked like before, but it's working pretty well I think. And I know it will change once the weather is nice and we start playing outside more too.

Have two Norwex parties each month - totally didn't meet that goal in February. I had no parties, but I do have two on the calendar for March and I'm hoping for more.

Take the girls outside on every nice day - totally didn't do this either. I think we went out for a walk once. They've been sick a lot so we've been indoors a lot. A lot. I'm so longing for health for our family again.

Do more crafts - I did! I worked on Clara's quiet book a lot, plus I made some Valentine's decorations.

Good-bye February, hello March!

Proof of a Quiet Book

Have any of you noticed the button in the sidebar of my blog that says I'm working on a quiet book? It's been there since last Spring I think. We'll here's some proof that I truly am working on a quiet book. It's one of those projects that takes quite a long time so I work on it in spurts. I hadn't worked on it for several months, but then a few weeks ago we took a road trip to Wisconsin and I was wishing I had gotten more of the book done so we could have brought it for Clara to play with in the car. Knowing that we'd be taking another road trip this weekend I resurrected the project and have made some good progress on it in the past few days.

Here's the cover. Obviously I'll be making one for Lola too some day.

A gumball machine that has gumballs that velcro onto matching colored circles that are sewed down.

A place setting with a bag of food. I'm planning to make more food, but for now it's enough to use these pages.

Noah's Ark with finger puppets.

Back cover.

And some pages in progress...

A doll that will have clothes for dress up.

and a tree that will have flowers, summer leaves, and fall leaves that snap onto it. When they're not in use they will be stored in the "grass" pocket.

I'm also working on a mailbox page that she'll be able to put notes into.

I got inspiration and some templates from Serving Pink Lemonade and Homemade by Jill and How to Make a Quiet Book. The great thing about quiet books is that you can really do whatever you want. If you Google "quiet book" you'll find all sorts of examples of different ways people make quiet books. It's all personal preference.

When I first started this book for Clara I was intending to sew it all by hand with cute stitching, but now I've decided it will take FOREVER to do it that way. I'm now doing some by hand, but a lot by machine. I've even used a bit of hot glue in a few spots! So it's totally a project that you can tailor to your skill level, amount of time, and budget. And whatever you make, your kids will love.

Valentine's Day Prep

So this year I've resolved to do more crafting because it's good for me. And I've resolved to use some of that crafting desire to decorate our home. And to top it off, the crafting needs to be very budget-friendly.

So here we go for Valentine's Day...

A heart garland made out of felt, inspired by this lady.

Construction paper hearts taped on the wall. Took me about 15 minutes total and I love how it turned out. Clara loved it too when she woke up in the morning and saw it!

3-D paper hearts inspired by this lady. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though it was definitely more time-consuming than the other projects.

And then a couple days ago I came across this tutorial for these kind of funny-looking heart guys and I just had to make them for the girls for Valentine's Day.

I didn't have to buy a single thing for any of these projects because I just used whatever I had on hand, so I like to think they were free even though at some point in the past I did buy the supplies.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Daddy's Packer Girls

Full disclosure

Lest I ever give the impression that my home is always spotless and perfectly organized, here is my desk at this very moment...

Ugh! I hate it to the core of my being! Sadly what you see here is very normal. Our office is next on my list of rooms to overhaul because it is driving me absolutely crazy. It desperately needs some organizational help. The only thing lacking has been the funding needed to do what I want with it. In the meantime, I need to triage this awful space right away while the girls are napping!