The Cottage on the Hill

(The picture didn't seem blurry when I first took it!) Mr. Moose arrived in our lives adorning a cute pair of infant pajamas that even had antlers on its feet. Once my babies grew out of the moose pajamas, I removed the moose patch and put it on a size 3T t-shirt for my 3rd child.  It was his favorite shirt.  Unfortunately, as children do, he grew out of it and it was set aside. Recently, his favorite pair of jeans developed a hole in the knee. Lo and Behold! Mr. Moose fit over the hole perfectly! Hopefully he'll survive the jeans until my boy grows out of the jeans and Mr. Moose can be moved to another garment.

My children, husband, and I have over the past decade sort of developed of hobby of finding different kinds of children's programming for our kiddos to enjoy.  Put off by Barney reruns and SpongeBob, we found TV shows from north of the border and over the pond.  Here are a list of TV shows you might not be familiar with, and some you may know about: Boo! A cute hide n seek show for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, Kipper Kipper has fun, calmly depicted adventures with his friends Tiger, Pig, and little Arnold. Charlie and Lola Charlie is the big brother everyone wants in their family, especially if they have their own little Lola. Theodore Tugboat Done in the model, stop-motion style of early Thomas the Tank Engine shows. Gofrette Great for the little bit older kiddos.  Colorful, fun antics, great theme song. Puffin Rock Our newest find.  Such a cute show! Postman Pat There are 3 of these.  I like the original Postman Pat, though ...

All 3 of my kiddos wear some form of diapering at night. My 5 year old still has accidents. He is the heaviest sleeper I know!! Thankfully, he's starting to grow out of it, so I've replaced his disposable pull ups with Antsy Pants. The Antsy Pants didn't work before. Even with the nighttime doubler for heavy wetters, he'd soak right through it all. He also complained that they hurt him. Now that he's older and wakes upon wetting them, it's not so bad, other than being summoned from bed and having to help him change. My 3 year old still wets at night, too. She's also a heavy wetter and I have yet to find a cloth solution for her, so she's in disposable pull ups. My 1 year old is also in disposable diapers at night. He, too is a heavy wetter, and sometimes soaks through his sposies. I have two problems with cloth diapering at night: 1. Not enough absorption for my heavy wetters. 2. They sleep for 12 hours. That's a long time to have urine-so...

I've mentioned before that my daughter is a VERY picky eater. She refuses fruits and vegetables 99% of the time to the point of rather going hungry than being subjected to eat them. It boggles my mind because when she was an older infant, she ate it all! I have a chart made for her hanging in the kitchen where she gets a sticker every time she eats something listed on it. It's a slow process. I also sneak fruits and veg in where I can, though she can usually tell. On top of it, I limit her intake of junk foods since she isn't getting the good foods. I'm trying to get her to ingest more vitamin-rich plant-based foods. She also needs to drink more water. She prefers milk and will refuse water. She'll drink juice, but commercial juices aren't exactly healthful. (I'm looking into a juicer.) My next idea is herbal teas. Of course, I'll make sure she only drinks teas that are suitable for children. She has recently become fond of tea parties, and...

You can download patterns for these aprons HERE. It felt good to get back into routine after the holidays. Thankful for the burst of 2nd trimester energy, I was able to get plenty done today. As I worked, I thought about my 3 year old daughter: She loves to help me in the kitchen. I wish she helped more around the house. Even with asking/telling/leading/instructing she is very reluctant to do her tasks. She is upset that Daddy spends so much time with big brother. Big brother is at that perfect little boy age where he just HAS to pal around with Daddy. She is emotional and prone to break downs. She craves one on one attention. While thinking these things over, a thought popped into my head: APRON THERAPY! When she's reluctant to help, When she's upset that she can't go with big brother and Daddy, When she's over emotional and breaking down, When she obviously needs some one on one attention, I will do my best to set aside time for apron therapy. We'll don our a...

When I was a little girl, my cousin and I were spending the day at Grandma's house. Grandma didn't keep toys at her house for the grandchildren, but that didn't stop us from having enormous amounts of creative fun. One game we liked in particular involved simply a broken phone, a calculator, a pen and mail order fliers from the weekly coupon inserts. For hours we'd pretend to take calls from customers, filling out the order forms and filing them carefully. Oddly enough, I was praised for my phone skills when I entered the working world. Today, I introduced the game to my oldest after we finished homeschooling for the day. He loved it! And then there's the accidental bad mothering turned good that happened last week. My 3 year old needed occupation, so I gave her the only sheet of paper I had on hand to draw on. I was busy with one thing or another when my 5 year asked for paper. Not wanting to be interrupted again searching for a piece of paper, I handed him...

I was preparing to go to bed when I hear some fussing on the other side of the children's bedroom door. Upon investigation, I see two books poking out from underneath the door. When I opened the door, my daughter was on the floor in tears. I asked what was wrong and she said, "They're stuck!" I bent down and picked up the books and asked if she'd like me to read them to her. She smiled and said that she did. So, we sat down on the floor together just outside the bedroom door and I smiled as I discovered what books she had chosen: As I read to her, she chimed in with comments and discoveries. She loved seeing what the little mommy did and ogled the little girl's illustrated bedroom. Hopefully next week my daughter will have a space to call her own, too. She loved that the baby in Baby Looks has a big sister. When I finished Baby Looks and closed the book, my daughter carefully took the books from me, tucked them under her arm and went straight to bed ...

As of today, my baby boy has officially given up crawling for walking! It's so strange seeing him upright, walking around the house. I am so used to seeing him crawl! Just yesterday, he was still crawling most of the time, only taking a few staggering steps. Today, he's walking all over the house!

Thanks to The Healthy Home Economist , I was encouraged to start making homemade formula for my baby boy after my milk waned too much to sustain him anymore. The recipe listed on her site is actually pretty easy, even though the ingredients can sound daunting. She even lists links to where you can buy the ingredients, making it easy to get started. Baby boy is almost a year old. He stopped breast milk at 9 months at which point he went on commercial organic formula until all the ingredients came in the mail for the homemade formula. Recently, he's been back on commercial formula due to busyness in our lives. I noticed a few things: When he's on commercial formula: 1. He's up at night, needing more formula. 2. He's fussy-hungry more. 3. He eats more table food. 4. He either looks slender or bloated. When he's on homemade formula: 1. He sleeps through the night. 2. He's got an appetite, but isn't fussy about it. 3. He eats a more balanced meal and smalle...

I was sitting in my living room while the evening sun poured in through the picture window. I glanced out at the beauty and noticed that it started to rain. "A sun shower," I exclaimed to my kiddos. My 5 year old pouted that we couldn't go for our promised walk now. I told him we can do something better. "Get your boots on, kids and grab your umbrellas! There's probably going to be a rainbow!" Sure enough, there it was! One of the biggest, brightest rainbows I've ever seen! It visually stretched about 1/4 of a mile. My kiddos were fascinated not only with the rainbow, but with being able to be outside, in their pajamas, with wellies on their feet and umbrellas overhead. They were upset when the rainbow started fading and imploring it to stay. We had a little science and Bible lesson during this time, and then I ushered them back indoors and into bed before they saw the rainbow "die."

My mommy heart is breaking and filled with joy all at the same time! Last night, my 5 year old and infant couldn't sleep, so I let them join me in the living room while we went through the box of clothing I had stashed away for 5 year old. Not only is it a new season, but he's a new size. Later, while he watched a video about monster trucks, I went through the closet and folded and put away his outgrown clothing. I actually started to cry. Once again, another page turns and my oldest gets older. He's learning how to read. His matchbox dump truck witnesses to his other vehicles (and not just cute Jesus loves you stuff, real meat and potatoes scripture is going on here! I'm in awe!). My infant, who will officially be a toddler next month, decided that he does not want Mommy to spoon feed him anymore. He's much more content to feed himself. I begrudgingly allow him, not out of fear of messes, but because I simply don't want to give up babying my baby! H...

Baby Boy has officially started crawling. Before, he just sort of pulled himself along his tummy, but didn't travel too far. Now that he's crawling, he's all over the house! That means I'm becoming crazy about keeping the floors clean. I think it also means moving all my older kiddos' toys down to the play room. His crawling is so cute and I love that he's exploring, but I admit I'm not a fan of the crawling stage. I much prefer them walking. He's also clapping now and sitting himself up. And, praise the Lord, he's sleeping better at night! He was only up once last night!!!

He's 5 years old today! My first-born. My preemie. My amazing little man. So much like his Daddy. Little guy with a big personality. A hard-worker. My snuggle bug.

My oldest has taken it upon himself to remove the large snowbank on the side of our property. He believes this is a job a man would normally do, so he just has to do it. So, every day that it is nice enough to venture out, he gets himself dressed in his too-small snowsuit (he insists on wearing it, though he has another that fits) grabs his kid-sized snow shovel and attacks that snowbank!

Do a Mother Garden google search or check out THIS ebay Australia store! Isn't this such a beautiful line of toys for our little girls? I hope this line comes state side SOON! I won't buy from China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, or Hong Kong over the internet. I've had my credit card stolen in the past when I tried buying a book from Australia and it was used to buy over $3,000 worth of hotel rooms in China.

Oh, could make it easy on myself and just buy the cheap, plastic one at Target. The problem is, plastic toys don't last in my house and wood is so much more charming. Here's what I found that I liked: http://www.playstoretoys.com/wooden-toy-cash-register-p-82.html Simple, old-fashioned look and there's a bell that rings, but it's $69.95! http://www.blueberryforest.com/kitchen_grocery_play/selecta_cash_register.htm This one comes with a lot, but the play money looks really small and it's a whopping $89.95! http://www.peapods.com/browse.cfm/4,1349.html This has the scanner and credit card pad so popular with the kids because the cheap plastic ones feature them, too. And it's only $29.99! I'm leaning towards the last one. If you know of any others, please share.

I've noticed lately that there seems to always be books on my daughter's bed. She likes to look at books before falling asleep. I hope this is the start of a beautiful relationship with books.

Occasionally, my mind wanders back to when hubby and I got married. It really takes some reminiscing to go all the way back to before we had children; back to when we lived in a single-wide mobile home for 3 years. Yesterday evening, I thought of those two weeks before we said our vows. After our realtor failed us miserably by lying to us about the house we bid on in order to try to make a higher commission, we found ourselves facing homelessness unless we found something fast. We both hated the idea of apartment dwelling, hubby being a farm boy and me dying for at least a little yard to putter in. So, I went on a search for a mobile home in one of the local parks. I found this quaint park tucked away in a pine forest. It seemed quiet. The lots were decent sized. And there was this trailer for sale with a big shed, two decks and cabin-like wood siding. A phone call said it had 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. That sounded good, and the price was right. Financing could be do...