a.simple.mama

Simple burlap wreath

Published on June 3, 2014June 3, 2014 by a.simple.mamaLeave a comment

Wreaths are IN right now, you see them everywhere. Many of them use burlap to give kind of a shabby-chic touch. Here’s another version of a simple wreath using burlap ribbon and some super cute burlap flowers that I found at Hobby Lobby. If you catch them on a 50% off sale, it’s gonna run you less than $20 to do the whole thing.

To start you’ll need one of those foam rings – you can get one in the floral department or one of the white ones with the rest of the hard foam forms. They usually run around $5 each either way.

Then grab a roll of a burlap ribbon of your choice, the chevron stuff looked pretty awesome too, but I went for plain ol’ wire edge burlap ribbon on a 30 yard roll. Which was more than enough to do the wreath, the hanger, and a bunch of big bows from the other spring wreaths craft.

Then I grabbed two shorty burlap flowers (these were actually in the wedding flower section)

Start wrapping the burlap ribbon around the foam ring and overlap as much or as little as you want. I overlapped about 1/2 the width on each wrap, but you could easily do more or less to change up the pattern.

Once you get all the way around, secure with hot glue. If you want you can loop a little extra ribbon around to make a hanging loop too, but that’s up to you. I had just enough leftovers to use it for the loop, so I kept it all attached and used extra hot glue to attach the end and make the loop. Then I twisted the loop so that it was a little more simplified, but you could leave it wide too.

To attach the flowers I poked a hole though the burlap and into the foam with a screwdriver. Then I cut off the stem and added some hot glue to the whole. The tip on the back of the flower fit nicely into the whole and then was nice and flush with the ring.

When that part was done I felt like it was missing something…but then I came across this wrapped letter that I’d made a while back to hang on the door. (a wood letter from Hobby Lobby, some twine, hot glue, and a little bow)

It fit perfectly in the middle of the wreath and adds a little something extra. Now it’s perfect for the front door! Probably more of a fall wreath, or maybe later this summer, or maybe I’ll just hang it above the fireplace…

Water Play

Published on June 3, 2014 by a.simple.mamaLeave a comment

I’m so excited that it’s warm enough outside to break out the water play outdoors! I think J is gonna be a water baby! He loves bath time, fountains, and sprinklers. But water play can be just a bunch of kitchen tools and a tub of water. Easy peasy and keeps the little ones entertained for quite a while. J especially loves the baster brush and kept using it to splash the water or paint the patio.

What a fun simple way to spend an afternoon, and it’s totally FREE too!

Other Kids Parents

Published on June 2, 2014 by a.simple.mamaLeave a comment

Every parent is guilty of judgement of other parents. Whether it be their parenting style, their discipline methods, their hygiene or dietary prerogative, etc. We are also all guilty of judging other people’s kids – but that’s a whole other blog… We all find ourselves at one point or another saying “I love how they did that _____, I want to remember to do that with my kids”, or “eesh I’ll never treat my kids like that.” Guilty as charged. We all do it. But what happens when the words of a parent appear just plain mean? Not when spoken to the child necessarily, but when spoken about that child to another adult or other children.

I was a teacher in childcare for 5 years or so, and now being a parent there have been several “habits” of other adults – not always other parents – that have really started to hit a sore spot for me. Mainly I am finding it very hard to accept anyone speaking ill of a child. Especially when this person should be the one that is supporting and standing up for the child. To be very specific I have two examples that I’ve come across – both recently and as part of my teaching experience.

When I was a teacher there were always those “problem children”. Unfortunately these kiddos seem to struggle in a number of tasks and are forever deemed as “problems” or “pain-in-the-asses”. Even as teachers we fall into the trap of not being able to like every kid that crosses our path. It’s the unwritten rule though that teachers of all people should love all of their students. And we do, each in their own way, but as Kate Hudson puts it in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days – “I love you…but I don’t have to like you right now.” Same goes for teachers. And really for parents too… Anyway, it’s silly to think that every person will get along with everyone right? So why would you expect every child to get along with every adult and visa-versa? Sometimes people just clash. Yet in the teaching profession it is not acceptable to mock, speak ill of, or degrade a child in any way. Not acceptable. Now it obviously happens, but I’ve found it increasingly annoying to hear any of these types of disrespect towards a child coming from an adult who should be someone in a supportive role for that kid. You may not agree with the way that child has been brought up, you may think that child needs to learn how to sit still or how to listen better, and that child may get on your very last nerve. I’ve been there – I know that some kids just drive you crazy, and I’m sure that I’ve been one of the guilty ones who’s talked badly about this child or that child. But there is just something about listening to another adult speak ill of a child that gets to me.

The most specific example I have of this occurred recently and is really probably a better way of explaining why this particular type of talk gets to me. In this instance the parent is a step-parent. Now I know nothing about the relationship between a child and a step-parent. So excuse me if I am totally off base here and over-judging. But as a parent on any level, how can you complain about a child? How can you complain about a child that you are caring for? The role of a parent in this case differs from the role of a teacher, so in my mind it is completely wrong to place judgement on your own child. In most cases, children are doing the best with what they have been given in life. Yet somehow the blame for the child’s actions go punishable onto the child themselves. So why does this parent feel the need to speak ill of this child to me? Or why does any adult/parent/teacher feel that it is OK to speak ill of any child to anyone else?

This is something that I’m really struggling with today. How do you react to a comment made about a child that you know nothing about, but whom probably doesn’t deserve to be degraded in this way? And worse is knowing that I’ve done this myself as a teacher and been fed up with certain children. Do we think that we will get support for feeling this way? I feel like that is really the only explanation for needing to air such dirty laundry to other people. But how do you not almost take it personally when someone speaks badly to you about a child you know nothing about?

Do other parents struggle with this? How do you react without placing further judgement onto the child or the adult themselves? How do you mind your own business while supporting your friend or fellow parent with their struggles?

Routine

Published on May 30, 2014May 30, 2014 by a.simple.mama3 Comments

rou·tine: a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program

Now that I really think about it, I remember hearing a lot about establishing a routine from the time you bring baby home. I also remember that the part that actually stuck with me was to let the baby establish their own routine…Maybe I just imagined that’s what the advice really was. Although I’m pretty sure that at least some of the advice we got from the hospital classes and other moms and the books was that when babies very new they should be able to eat, sleep, etc as often and whenever they need to or want to. I guess somewhere between bringing J home and about 2 weeks ago, we forgot to start establishing an actual routine. All along we’ve pretty much let J eat, sleep, nurse when he wanted to or needed to. I must have missed the memo on when to make the transition from baby-led routine to parent-led routine.

Since J has been with me all day I have let him lead on establishing his own “routine” or whatever you want to call it. However since I have him with me at work and not at home, I have found it more difficult to try to establish a nap routine in particular. I’m in an office all day where I do have a door, but the walls are thin and between the phone’s ringing and needing to work even while he’s sleeping it’s taken until recently for him to be able to sleep long enough and hard enough for those things to not interrupt his sleep pattern. This is one thing I really envy about stay-at-home mammas – the ability to put the kiddo in their own crib in their own space where it can be quiet and dark all at the same time! But I’ve worked with what I’ve got and it’s been good enough.

J used to nurse as often as he wanted. Anytime he was a little fussy, before naps, when he had a boo-boo – he got to nurse. It goes without saying that when he was really tiny he ate every hour or two – as all newborn should. But he’s really always nursed often. He’s just recently weaned down to 4-6 times a day. Mostly before nap times and whenever he wakes at night. So, I guess you could call that a routine. Ok, I guess we managed to figure that one out somewhere along the way!

What about eating? This one was pretty easy to establish a routine since I pretty much feed him at mealtimes and whenever I’m hungry. I figure if I’m hungry then he probably is too. And now that he’s eating pretty much anything, he eats whatever we eat plus snacks when he wakes up from nap.

The hardest one was napping and sleeping. Our struggles with J’s sleep routine, especially at night, have been going on since he was born. We though we started off on the right foot when he would sleep 3-4 hours at a time when we brought him home. But that soon went downhill and he didn’t quickly establish a longer sleep routine. For the first 9 months we struggled with J waking 3-4 times a night in order to nurse or be helped back to sleep. The good news is that for the last two weeks or so, J has been sleeping for 6+ hours before he wakes, and only wakes once during the night. He’s also been sleeping until after 6am. Hooray! Luckily he has (slowly) managed to wean himself down to 1-2 wake-ups a night. He still nurses to get back to sleep, but I can handle that many wake ups at least. With napping, J used to be able to sleep whenever he got a little fussy. For months he would only sleep for 30 minutes but would need a nap almost every hour or two. Only in the last few weeks has he started sleeping for an hour to an hour and a half on a regular basis! He’s also moved to 2-3 naps a day depending on the length of each nap. We’ve kept his bedtime at 7pm since he was about 6 months.

So in the end I guess we did finally end up with a routine! Horray! Now that we’ve been through it all the hard way, we’d certainly do it differently the second time around. I’m glad that we’ve managed to keep a few things solid (bedtime and meals) and I’m now a HUGE believer that more sleep leads to more sleep. It wasn’t until J started sleeping a regular 1 to 1 1/2 hours a few times a day that his nighttime sleeping also smoothed out and increased. I’m also now an advocate for establishing more of a sleep routine (if possible) as early as possible. I know that it’s sometimes easier said than done though…so let’s hope that when it’s time for the second time around that we can figure it out along the way. Either way at least now we seem to be on the right path.

This parenthood thing can be more of a challenge than you think sometimes. But you work your way through it eventually, just like with anything else 🙂

Baby Birds

Published on May 30, 2014 by a.simple.mamaLeave a comment

For 4 weeks we had a Robin family making a home in the tree outside out window. Since I’ve forgotten to post pictures along the way, here they are now, from beginning to end. It was so fun watching them grow! Hopefully we’ll have more someday 🙂

We ended up with 4 eggs, with is the normal number. It took about 10 days for the eggs to hatch.

But there were only 3 babies that hatched. Not sure if the other one was kicked out of the nest or if something got the egg.

Mama bird wasn’t away from the nest often. Maybe for 5 minutes at a time. But Daddy bird helped to feed the babies too and would stand watch while mama was out feeding.

A few days after the eggs hatched it snowed…luckily we got home in time to see the nest at a 45 degree angle in the tree so that we could go out there and prop up the branch with a 2×4. Mama bird was dive-bombing us the whole time, but at least they all didn’t end up on the ground! The rest of the tree almost touched the ground…

Started getting feathers! And their beaks were HUGE! the bottom pic shows how it looked like their beaks were wider than their heads.

A little blurry…but you can tell how much bigger they are and see all their wing feathers coming in.

can see the eyes and the still giant beaks 🙂

It was almost impossible to get all three of them in the picture though!

They stayed in the nest for almost 2 weeks, and then one day they were gone. We hope that they all made it, but we haven’t seen any of them since. Mom and Dad have moved on too, maybe someday we’ll end up with another nest in the tree so we can watch it all over again 🙂

Such a cool way to spend the first few weeks of spring in our new house!