A few of our favorite things...

I have definitely been a little behind in posting lately!  With a Christmas Market behind, a little boy who crawls faster every day, I sent off my last Etsy order yesterday, trying to get Christmas together for our little family, I haven't had much time to do things like blog posts, or if I do have the time, I just want to sit still for a few minutes!  Last week was a crazy one too!  I realized that within one week, N and I had 6 performances, 4 rehearsals, 6 church services, and I'm sure a few other things - which is very normal for us at holiday time, but this is the first time we have gone through all of that with a baby!

So, here are some of our favorite things:

Chewing on celery with Daddy

Discovering ornaments for the first time!

This is one of Mama's favorites:

That little sliver of light that comes through in the mornings.

Mama's favorite 'green' cleaner:

Hehe!  I couldn't resist!  This is a recipe for my favorite all purpose cleaner...

(all measurements are approximate - I don't measure mine, and it works fine every time!)

1/4 cup vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 Tablespoon borax (optional)

a dash of dish soap

2 cups of hot water

A few drops of tea tree oil (optional)

(this just smells nice, and has disinfectant properties - we had it for the diaper wipe solution that we use for H's cloth wipes)

Put all ingredients in a spray bottle, and happy cleaning! (I just pour everything in a squirt bottle - unmeasured - and fill the rest with hot water)

I love using this as it is - 'green,' I don't have to worry about chemicals if I use it around H, and it does a much better job than other cleaners!  I use this to clean the counter tops, tables, and even mop the floor with it!  There were some spots on our OLD kitchen floor that never would come up, and I put a little of this on it, and the spots came right off!

Because cooking/doing the dishes/etc has become difficult due to a baby who likes to try to get into the dishwasher, pull things out of cabinets, and use drawer nobs as teethers, I wanted something in the kitchen that he could play with.  I eventually want to make a set of alphabet letters for the fridge, but for now, we have a jungle!

My mama (H's SweetHart) drew these little monkeys for H as a little artwork for his room, but I took them and scanned them, printed them on some fabric paper, and sewed them together with a little batting and felt, and voila!  A jungle!  The tree and leaves are made out of felt and two layers of batting, the critters (5 monkeys, two owls, a mama opossum and her babies, and two snails) all have one layer of batting and felt on the backs.  They all have between one and four magnets (depending on their size) sewn into them (no parts to come off and become a choking hazard).

 

H likes to take them off, bring them to Leonard, chew on them, and look at them.  For now, this is enough, but I hope that one day he will actually play with them and create stories.  Mama also sent me some sheep, deer, and a camel that I think will be used in a forest in the future....

Other things Mama loves:

 

squeezable baby cheeks, arms and legs, N, seeing Leonard sleeping on the bed 23 hours of the day, having home-made bread (I'm going to make a sour-dough starter today), egg-nog ice cream with our ice cream maker, Christmas trees, making things, tutorials on the internet, the fact that N will be off work for two whole weeks!!!