Making Baby Food

It's easy!  Who knew??

First I should apologize to my friends that I laughed at (behind their backs, of course) in the past when they said they were going to make their own baby food.  Seriously, I thought there was no way that making food for the baby on top of all the other baby duties and taking care of the rest of the family was easy. I was wrong.

I fell into making baby food.  A few weeks ago, my baby was approaching 6 months, my husband was out of town, and I wanted to start solids.  I had some frozen peas and one of those stick hand puree thingy bobbers.  I steamed the peas, pureed them, and voila!  Baby's first food.

Now I can't stop.  I found this great website: http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/ and I've been pureeing anything I can get my hands on! His favorite is Parsnips.  Last I checked, Gerber doesn't make that.  :-)

In the interest of full disclosure, I still buy the Gerber stuff for easy travel, but I try to use as much home made food as I can.

Sometimes I Hate My Self Esteem.

UGHhh!  I have a confession to make.  I'm only strong on the outside.  If you get close to my inside, you would see that I'm mushy.  I guess I'm like a banana.  Yeah, a banana.  Strong peel, but mushy inside.  (Just go with it)

So I pride myself on being strong.  I don't let myself get hurt by other's decisions to be my friend or not.  I take pride in not playing emotional games with my friends or husband.  In other words, I avoid drama.  But sometimes, if I'm real honest, I get hurt.  I see friends make a decision to hang out and not ask me along (facebook is fun isn't it) and I start to hear voices in my head tell me it's because I'm not good enough.  OR maybe they know me too well and just aren't comfortable with my mushy inside.  My true self esteem starts creeping up on me.  I have a good cry.  Then I'm tough again.

If I'm being really honest with myself, it's not all about me anyway.  :-)

She Hates School.

My 7 1/2 year old likes to tell people she hates school. I'm not going to lie, it hurts to hear her say that. But I'm a big girl and know not to take it personally. It's hard to hear her say it when people ask her if she likes home school. I immediately feel like I have to prove to the person that home school is still the right choice for her.
Something strange has been happening this week though. The child who hates school assigned herself a written and presented book report. She decided she wanted to do it. I guided her a little, but she did it all on her own. Then, this morning (Saturday and the first day of our Spring break) she decided to work on a math assignment. Again, she did this all on her own.
Could she be learning the fun of deciding you want to learn something, then setting out to do it? I hope so.

I'm All In Now!

I've only dabbled with consignment shopping in the past.
It started with a visit to a local shop back when I was expecting my 3rd girl. I walked in, looked around, walked out. I was overwhelmed and really didn't have a plan.
Last Spring, I went to a Just Between Friends event at the fairgrounds.  I was in a bit of a daze.  Again, I had no plan, I just really wanted to check it out.  I was pregnant at the time and about a week away from finding out the gender so I only bought a couple of maternity dresses.  I felt like I got a good deal, 2 dresses, one of them with tags for 15$.  One of those dresses became a staple in my maternity wardrobe.  I was a little late to the party though.  The toys were pretty much picked over.  Shoes were all but gone, and I stood in line FOREVER.
Then we found out we were having a BOY.  WOW, didn't know I can make those.  And since this fourth child would be our last, I had a TON of clothes to get rid of.
Unfortunately, the next event closest to where we live was a week before his due date, and he actually ended up being born then.  But I signed up for the one by my parents 3 weeks later.  Crazy?  A little.  I had just had a baby, but I was feeling good.  I dropped off my stuff, marked it all for donation.  And let it go.  Because of the baby I didn't have time to do any shopping.  I got my check for 120$ a couple of weeks later.  Now I was hooked.  My only regret is that a few things didn't sell that were in great condition, and went to donation.
This week is the Spring sale near our home.  I spent all winter gathering all of the clothes and items I could.  I signed up to volunteer this time, getting a bigger percentage and a pass to go early to the presale.  Volunteering during the drop off gave me a great perspective of what other consignors were bringing in and pricing their items at.  I also knew exactly where I was going to head when I got to the presale the next day.  I wish I could have changed some of my prices, but I just didn't have the time.  I did take one thing out of the sale that I had severely under priced. The next day at the presale, not only was it not crowded, it was down right blissful to shop, even with 4 kids with me.  I got some great things for our little boy, Easter dresses for the older girls and a bike for my 3 1/2 year old.  I spent $90, and feel like it was well spent.  I promptly came home and started pulling out things for the next sale in the area.  Nothing is safe.  Toys, shoes, clothes.  If the kids aren't using it, it may be sold.  I've got the consignment bug.  I don't yet know what I will make from this sale.  After one day of sales, I'm about even with what I spent.  There are 2 days left still.  I can't wait to see what sold today!  Whatever the difference is will go toward paying off the hospital bill from our latest addition.  :-)

If you haven't already, check out Just Between Friends, they are all over the country.

Any tips from seasoned consigners?  Sales or buying tips?

A homeschool struggle

The struggle between playtime and school time is a constant tension in our house. On the one hand, the benefit of homeschool is that my kids get a ton of imaginative playtime. I certainly want to encourage this time while they are still interested in playing imaginatively. But as the teacher/task master/killjoy of the house I feel like I am having to constantly pull the girls away from their fun play. It's the least fun for me too. If I could just get them to understand that if they get their work done at one time instead of stopping all the time I wouldn't have to nag them all the time and they would get more uninterrupted play time.

Any suggestions? What do other homeschool families do to keep kids on task?