Do you smell that?

I feel like I can accomplish anything when I wake up and the house smells pretty. I LOVE for my house to smell good! I don't know what it is about scent that makes me feel so wonderful! Do you feel the same way?

However, I do not feel as good from artificial scents from air fresheners. I love for my home to smell beautiful naturally! Below are some of my favorite ideas on how to help my home smell nice.

1. Nothing smells better than a fresh bunch of roses. Especially if they were a surprise from my hubby. Too bad I hardly ever have these in my home so I have to resort to some of the following to make sure my home makes my nose happy!

2. My new obsession is pretty soap from Etsy. My powder room currently has a new bar that I bought off of Etsy sitting in it's soap dish. Every time I open the door I am greeted with the glorious scent of that soap. It is nice to have something in there that can overpower the scent of dirty diapers.

3. I also love the scent of eucalyptus leaves. I like to hide them in a pretty vintage bowl.

4. Baking can really help to fill your kitchen with lovely scents. I have made peanut butter granola in the morning and had people walk in later that afternoon and ask what smell so nice. Other baked goods I love is bread, pies, and brownies. The crock pot also smells good all day! Especially if you are making taco soup.

5. I like to grind up some lemon slices with ice and baking soda in my garbage disposal to help freshen it up.

Those are my ideas. Do y'all have different ones? I would love more ideas to keep my home smelling fresh!

For more tips, head over to We Are That Family.

Ready to Etsy!

I spent all day today doing my weekly chores so that I could spend the rest of my week with my kids and working on my shop while they nap. The entire house is vacuumed, the bathrooms are scrubbed clean and now smell like my new pretty smelly soap I got off of Etsy, clothes are washed, the dishes that piled up this weekend are sparkly, sheets are changed, and the fridge is cleaned out.

I am not naturally organized and I am terrible at sticking to schedules, so this is a big deal! It would be great if I could do this every Monday so that I could get more done each week. I went out and bought a dry erase board that sticks to my fridge and wrote my daily and weekly chores on it in permanent marker so that I could mark them off and then wipe them off for the next day and week. It is so excited to check off each chore as I do it! If I am behind sometimes I have to write in something just so I will have something to check off. :)

I am very proud of my daughter because she has gotten so much better at her chores! She is three and she picked up everything on the floor downstairs while I cleaned the bathrooms. Then I vacuumed the downstairs and she worked on vacuuming the stairs with my stick vac. We then went upstairs and she picked up everything on the floor up there too and moved all the toys so that I could vacuum under them. She finished up by helping me to make her bed. I was so happy that she did all of this without complaining. I will need to do something super special for her during our fun time this week!

I have also tackled something great in my shop! I experimented with my camera, backgrounds, and props. I finally found something that works for me and I made a banner and avatar that goes along with my new pictures. I am working on taking new pictures of items in my shop and adding new pictures. What do you think?

I am so excited about the direction that my shop and my household are going in. I think I am doing a much better job and I hope that others have the same opinion. My next tackle will have to be waking up with my husband in the morning so that I can take a shower by myself, get dressed, do my daily chores, and make breakfast before the kids wake up. I would love to be able to focus entirely (or mostly) on them while they are awake.

This post is part of Tackle It Tuesday!

The Best Brownies Ever!

It was my turn to take a snack to Awanas this Wednesday. We were learning that God made the moon so I was supposed to bring something moon related. I thought it would be a great idea to take cookies shaped as the moon, however I didn't know where to get a moon shaped cookie cutter so I checked allrecipies.com for moon related desserts. I found a recipe for "moon rocks" which are chocolate cupcakes with marshmallows in them which make them look like rocks.

I had my daughter stay up with me late one night so we could try out the recipe. We had a great time just the two of us which we hardly ever get anymore.

Even thought we had a great time making them, we didn't eating them. I didn't care for them much. I decided to use my brownie recipe instead with marshmallows, but they came out too chewy for 2 year olds. So instead I made brownies. Nothing to do with the moon... but what could I do?

Everyone loved the brownies so I have decided to share the recipe with you all! Let me know what you think after you make them!

2 chocolate squares

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup nuts

Heat butter and chocolate together until melted Mix in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix in everything else. Bake in greased pan on 350 for 25 minutes.

That's it! Very easy and very very good!

A Ballerina and a Dinosaur

Thanks to everyone who continues to visit my blog even when I am not posting often. I am so sorry to be absent so much, however I have started working at my Church, I am getting ready to homeschool my daughter, I try to spend time with my kiddos, keep the house clean, and work on my Etsy shop. I am truly overwhelmed, and am trying to adjust. I plan to continue my blog, however I am learning how to adjust to my new schedule so it may be slow here for a while. I love to write and I am not ready to give it up. If you want to follow me on facebook I just made a new fan page on Facebook. I would also be thrilled if you would go check out my Etsy shop and let me know what you think. I have been working really hard on my banner and photos. I do have many photos that I need to retake to go along with my new background.

I hope you all had a great Halloween! We certainly did. My hubby got home early from work and I was getting ready to make dinner. He decided that it might be an awesome idea for him to cook hamburgers on the grill and I agreed! So he cooked while I helped the kidletts with their pumpkins. No complaining there even with all the ooey gooeyness between my fingers.

Doesn't his sweet smile just melt your heart?!?

My daughter is so funny with her silly face! As she would say, "Yer sooo siwwy!"

Once we finished our pumpkins and most importantly our burgers we headed out for trick-or-treating. My sweet little ballerina was so excited. This was her first Halloween where she really understood what was going on. She enjoyed receiving candy, but she also got a lesson in giving by passing out the candy which included a bunch of her candy that I wouldn't let her have because of it being a chocking hazard when we got home.

Yeah... my camera batteries died when I was trying to get a cute picture of my two little angels. So we promptly took photos when we got home from trick-or-treating and they were exhausted from the long walk. You can see how that turned out!

And here is the proud Dada! An awesome end to a great day! I am just so thankful for my family and the time we have to spend together.

Favorite Online Preschool Resources

I went to dinner last night with a group of homeschooling moms from my church. I had so much fun and I am so grateful for the group of moms God gave me to help lift me up rather than tear me down. Other than my blog friends I thought I was the only homeschooling mom. I am so glad that I was wrong!

We got to talking about our favorite online resources so I thought that would be a great topic for my blog! Of course a blogger is always thinking, "I could soooo blog about that!" So here is my list of favorite places to visit when my kids are screaming, "Moooom! I'm bored!" Well, actually my kids are too little to scream that but you know that is what they are thinking when they are fighting with each other and rolling around on the floor playing with the dust bunnies they found under your couch.

Preschool File Folder Games
The Snail's Trail
More from 1+1+1=1
Homeschool Share
Totally Tots
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers -she has a little bit from preschool on up
ABC & 123
ABC Jesus Loves Me
Lapbook Lessons
First-School Preschool Activities and Crafts
DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Kiddie Records Weekly
Montessori Materials
Shephard Software
Home Experiments on scifun.org
No Time For Flash Cards

Bliss is Found in the Sound of Screaming Children

As I came to the door of my daughter's Awana classroom this evening, she came running out proudly holding her new vest, book, and bag. I scooped her up in my arms and told her how happy I was that she had a good time at Awana today and I am excited that she had finally gotten the vest she has been waiting for.

While I had been playing with the two year old Puggles that day she had been having the time of her life. My daughter absolutely loves going to church, and now that I have started working at our church she gets many more chances to be there with all her little buddies. Nothing makes me happier than knowing that she loves being in church learning about God's word.

They switched me out of my son's classroom today because I just can not deal with being in the same room with him. It isn't that I don't love him. I do. I love him to pieces and I think he is one of the two sweetest and cutest children to ever live! However, I can not deal with him being so jealous of the other kids that he tries to steal my lap from them. And when he is unsuccessful at that he starts to slap whatever is in the child's hand or mouth. One of his other quirks is that he loves to push kiddos over because if he does that then he knows he has to apologize. To apologize he hugs because he doesn't know how to say, "I'm sorry" yet,and he just loves hugs. He can be aggressive, but he has a very sweet heart.

Instead of being in my son's class today, I was put in a Puggles class full of two year olds. Not just any two year olds. The kiddos from my class last year! I was thrilled and loved every minute that we had in that class today. I was greeted with the sound of many small screaming children, however we were able to calm down pretty quickly and get to business. Oh how I missed those kids! I got plenty of hugs. I even got hugs from kids who didn't want to hug before since they hadn't seen me in so long. We colored, had snack, and sang songs. I hope that they had a great day this evening.

Once we left our church this evening we were able to scurry to the warmth and safety of our home. There is nothing more wonderful than being in my dream home with my husband and children. I love being a stay-at-home Christian mommy. I do believe that I have found my bliss.

Come visit Mama Kat to see more from her Writer's Workshop.

Awesome Trip to Washington DC

On the 10th of this month my hubby and I left my kids in the care of family and friends and took our first trip to Washington DC! It was great to be able to have fun for four whole days without stopping to wash clothes or make dinner. I didn't realize how much I would enjoy myself. Washington DC is one of the greatest cities in the world! Or at least in my small world which maybe consists of 10 cities.

When I was planning our trip I decided for us not to rent a car to help save some money. I found out online that there was a bus and a subway train to help us get to our hotel and around town. I was so confused by the route online since I had never been to DC that I decided it would be easier to figure it out when we got there.

That was until I was standing outside of the airport with my cranky hubby wondering where in the world the bus station was! Thank goodness a nice man saw that we looked lost and gave us directions.

We took the bus from Maryland to the subway train in DC. When we got off the train to get onto another bus we found ourselves in the very bad side of town. I was terrified, but luckily we made it safely to our hotel and we hid in our room for the rest of the day afraid to leave. :) And frankly too tired to leave as well. Next time remind me to bring my swimsuit so that I will have something to do at the hotel while we are resting. And now I also know to take the subway train to Union Station and take my hotel shuttle to the hotel so that I do not have to take a trip through the bad side of town.

Bright and early Friday morning we took the hotel shuttle to Union station. At that moment we realized we hadn't planned very well because we were cold and wet! How was I supposed to know? It was still too hot to go outside in Texas!

This is a beautiful fountain right outside of Union Station. The flags are being flown at half staff because it is September 11th.

Here are the beautiful flag poles at Union Station. Everything in the city was beautiful and full of history. I took a picture of the front of the station, however all of my pictures disappeared and we are only left with my hubby's.

So we purchased some expensive umbrellas at a drugstore in the station and went on our way to the capital for our tour.

The capitol is more beautiful in person than you could ever imagine!

Here is the inside of the dome. It is breathtaking.

We had fun on our capitol tour. Our tour guide let us know that we could go pick up tickets from our Senator and sit in on the Senate. When we were rounding a corner in the senator building I literally almost ran right into John McCain. That was pretty fun. Our experience watching the senate was less exciting because there wasn't hardly anyone in there. Next time we go back maybe we will have better luck.

Once we got done in the Capitol building we went back to our hotel to rest for a while. The rest of the day we spent looking around at museums. I love how frugal a trip Washington DC is because all of the attractions are free!

This is the McDonald's in the Air and Space Smithsonian Museum. I had to take a picture of the menu because of how high the prices. It is more economical to eat at the restaurant in the Capitol than to eat at this McDonald's! There is also a McDonald's in Union Station with normal prices.

We ended our day by watching Jason Britton do stunts right outside of the Capitol. It was great and my hubby was very excited.

He even had a chance to get a picture with him! Now I hope that we don't end up on the TV show. I wasn't prepared for TV. I didn't even have any makeup on.

On Saturday morning we of course got up nice and early to make our way over to the White House for the march. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of people who showed up. No matter what the reporters say there had to be at least a million people. There were so many people that they couldn't all fit into the lawn of the Capitol. People were everywhere. There were large crowds far enough away from the Capitol that they couldn't hear the speakers because there wasn't enough room for them. The awesome thing is how nice and peaceful everyone was. There were absolutely no arrests. The majority of people were grandparent types. Not the crazy right wing people that the news portrays. These are people who love our country and want to save it. They don't want to do harm to anyone which was proven by the peacefulness of the event.