Fun and Sun: Family Vacation Tips and Tricks

June 19, 2013 by Joanie Leave a Comment

Today we have a guest post from Kendra!

Before I take my family on vacation, I try to plan ahead. I make a list of things that we want to do, and I also make a list of things that we will take with us. This includes meals that we will eat while on vacation and ways to have a safe and healthy trip. It is always a good thing to do a little pre planning ensure that ideal family vacation!

1. Sleeping Well

When my family goes on a vacation, the amount of money spent on the room does not compare to the sleep that my family gets. If my kids are not in a good mood, then we cannot do anything during the day. They are tired, and they want to sit down all the time. One of the things that I make sure of before we go to a hotel is that the beds have comfortable mattresses and environment is peaceful. This helps when we go to amusement parks and other fun attractions like aquariums and miniature golf courses.

I enjoy using travel sites like Gogobot to sift through reviews to find great little tips and tricks that will be best suited for my family. I found a great list of Orlando hotels that helped me narrow down to where I wanted to stay in Disney World. I found a place that offered free continental breakfast along with a quiet hours policy!

2. Snacks

In order to keep my children nourished while we are out for the day, I pack snacks in small bags the day before. I don’t like packing things that will melt because we usually go on vacation in the summer. Items that I use include crackers, peanuts and pretzels. These last the entire day, and I know that they are healthy. I also pack water bottles to keep everyone hydrated.

3. Wash Hands

One thing that I encourage is washing hands. After we leave any attractions, and while we are there, I always make my children wash their hands with soap and water. If we are not near a bathroom, they use hand sanitizer that I carry on my bag. A survey conducted by the SCA found that four out of ten adults do not wash their hands as much as they should. I do not plan on being in this percentage.

4. Make Room

A vacation is a time to rest and relax. When I book a room, I try to get one that has two separate areas so that my children have the bedroom, and my husband and I have the living room. My children can watch television, color or play with any small toys that they take with them.

5. Stopping Often

While we are on vacation, I like to walk as much as possible. I try to get my family to stop at benches so that we can sit together and take pictures, or we will stop and get a treat to keep us cool before heading to our next destination.

If I plan my vacation before we leave, I know that I have everything we need to have a fun and safe trip. My children enjoy a schedule, even if it gets rearranged while we are there, and they know what is expected on the trip.

Kendra Thornton: Travel advocate, TV spokesperson, PR businesswoman, proud wife and mama of 3. I am a long time travel expert who has been packing my bags and traveling the world since I was 3 months old! I’ve found my utmost desire in life is right here in my own home. I have mixed my excitement for travel by bringing the taste of authentic cuisine to my own home with some of my unique recipes and sharing some of my personal traveling tips. Enjoy!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KendraThornton

Website: http://www.thorntonpr.com/

Filed Under: kids & Natural Parenting Tagged With: tips, vacation

How To Spend Quality Time with Your Kids

June 17, 2013 by Joanie Leave a Comment

We cook, we clean, we may homeschool, take care of babies, and a lot of us run home businesses or work outside of the home. We are busy. When you have more than one child it can be difficult to find the time to spend quality time with each one individually. With a little planning and being intentional, you can spend some quality time with each of your children.
My husband is currently deployed. I am pretty much stretched to my limits when it comes to my time. I have three kids ages four and under and I’m still nursing my youngest. During the course of this deployment, I realized how easy it is for my two older children to feel like they are sort of getting lost in the shuffle. The baby takes so much of my attention, and I know my oldest would love to have some quality time and attention from me. So, I decided I had to make it happen.

I’m guest posting over at My Joy-Filled life today. Click on over to read the rest of this post!

Filed Under: kids & Natural Parenting, Motherhood

Weekend Whatever #73

June 16, 2013 by Joanie Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Weekend Whatever! We are so glad you are here!

A place for sharing your best of Healthy Recipes, Marriage, Parenting, Frugality, Homemaking, Homesteading, Crafting, Christianity or where ever else your heart has taken you.

Hosting are:

Sara at A Joyful Mother

Joanie at Simple Living Mama

Sara of Your Thriving Family

and Justyn from Creative Christian Mama

I love the advice from Taylor Made Ranch. Pay your savings account every month and watch your financial security grow!

Check out the Weekend Whatever Favorites Pinterest board for more!

If you were featured this week you have or will be promoted via many forms of social media by the hostess who chose you!

I enjoyed this post from Like Mama Like Daughter called Four in the Queen Sized Bed. This is what it’s like at my house most nights! Are you a co-sleeper?

THE RULES

While we want to see as many posts from as many bloggers as we can, we would request that all posts adhere to the Weekend Whatever Rules. Any posts that violate rules will be deleted.

We have a delete button, although it makes us very sad to use it. Please read and follow the rules carefully!

1) Please link the specific post URL, not your general blog link.

2) Link back to the Weekend Whatever in every post you link up here!

3) If you are sharing a recipe or foodie post, please only link up real-food posts (i.e. processed foods and recipes using table sugar are not allowed, etc…please keep in the spirit of transitioning to real and whole foods).

4) Please only link up to 3 posts per week.

Some requests:

Please share or tweet this post to spread the word about the link up! Sharing will ensure more posts to read each week, and more views for your linked-up posts!
Visit at least the two blogs next to you, if not more!
Please do not share other link parties to Weekend Whatever. You may however add them to our growing linky list for all to find you.We love comments!
Come follow the Weekend Whatever Favorites Pinterest board! All hostesses pin several of their favorites from the past week.

What the four of us ladies have been up to – other than running around after a total of nine precious children and taking care of our hubbies . . .

Your Thriving Family is pleased to announce that The Veggie Book, How to Pick, Prepare and Plate will finally be coming out! That’s why we’ve been a little dark as of late. We should soon be getting back to our Essential Oils series, as well as Faith Through Loss, my journey through Miscarriage. Though, as usual, I’m writing for the Green in 365 series and The Humbled Homemaker.

In May at Creative Christian Mama we’ve been learning to make buttermilk, homemade “Jello”, drinking chocolate and pain-relief salve. We’ve also taken a look at what a week of groceries in our house looks like, choosing to be joyful and thankful in marriage, how I overcame infertility twice with nothing but changes in my diet and we’ve had some fun giveaways! In June, we’ll be talking a lot about natural mothering. I’ll share some real foods recipes, natural remedies, gardening tips and more! Be sure to subscribe to make sure you don’t miss any of the fun!

Simple Living Mama has been busy showing you how to do a garden theme with your preschoolers and telling you why she chose the “My Father’s World” curriculum for her soon-to-be kindergartener and her toddler. She also wrote a post about how her family is doing halfway through her husband’s deployment. Stay tuned for a post on eight sustainable goals she plans on accomplishing this summer, as well as a series focusing on cultivating habits in our children the Charlotte Mason way! Like her on Facebook to stay updated!

A Joyful Mother has been going through some website renovations…what do you think of the blog’s new designs? Sara has been in “summer-mode” and writing posts about outdoor activities with kids, homemade strawberry ice cream, and spring cleaning. She is also going to be hosting a Giveaway…be sure to “like” her Facebook page to keep updated!

Bloggers, if you would like to sign up for the weekly reminder email click here.

Filed Under: Link Up Tagged With: blog hop, carnival, link up

Friday Favorites #2

June 14, 2013 by Joanie Leave a Comment

Welcome to the second edition of Friday Favorites! I love highlighting some of my favorite things that I have discovered around the blogosphere and introducing you to new blogs! Let’s get started!

how to make an herbal infusion

I’m fascinated with herbs right now, so I love this post from A Joyful Mother on how to make an herbal infusion! I will definitely have to try this out!

I loved reading about homeschooling in a small house from Upside Down Homeschooling! We are stuck in a small house until God opens up another door and I need all the help I can get to organize our materials!

Before Five in a Row {B4FIAR}

Other moms’ homeschool plans are so interesting to me. Leigh Ann from Intentional Homeschool shares her plans to do Before Five in a Row with her son!

I love this post about keeping healthy chickens from The Chicken Chick. My Dad has been taking care of our chickens since the deployment and the birth of our third child happened at about the same time. I really need to get out there and start caring for them myself again! Although, we had a snake in the coop a few weeks ago and I sure don’t want to be the one to find the next one! Ahhh!

compost bin

Oh, remember how I said I want to learn more about composting this summer in my eight sustainable summer goals? I found an awesome resource at Linda’s Lunacy about composting! Woohoo!

So those are a few of my favorite things from around the web this week! What are some of your favorites?

Filed Under: Gardening, Homeschooling, kids & Natural Parenting, Real Food and Health, Simple Living

Eight Sustainable Summer Goals

June 12, 2013 by Joanie 2 Comments

In our quest to be live a more self-sufficient life, I have set eight small sustainable summer goals for myself this summer. I want to learn how to do these things in order to create a healthier environment for our family and to know that I can provide my family with important essentials if I ever had to.

Learn to Make Our Own Skin Salves

My daughter has eczema and almost everything breaks out her sensitive skin. We do have creams that help her, but if I can find a more natural alternative that I can make myself, I will be happy!

This recipe from Camp Wander looks good.

Learn to Make Our Own Lip Balm

Mr. Simple loves Burt’s Bees lip balm. He goes through that stuff like crazy, but it’s not cheap. I would love to learn how to make something similar myself that he loves just as much.

I love Frugally Sustainable for all kinds of DIY sustainable recipes. Here’s a great recipe for lip balm at home!

Source Local Food Products

Finding real, local food is important to me. There is nothing like knowing where your food came from and how it was treated before it makes it to your plate. I am sourcing clean meat for our family, as well as finding locally grown fruits and veggies. I want to take the kids berry picking soon! That will be so much fun! When my hubs gets home from deployment, we are planning to buy a meat share from a local farm. We get our raw honey locally, and I plan to source even more products!

Dry My Own Herbs

I love having a little culinary herb garden. I want to learn how to dry my herbs so I can use them through the winter. I will definitely put this one into practice and try to store them in cute, little glass jars.

Learn to Make Herbal Teas

I’ve been drinking herbal tea for a while, so I think it will be wonderful to learn how to make my own herbal teas.

Learn More About Herbs in General

So this one goes along with the two mentioned above, but I want to learn more about herbs. They are so easy to grow and so useful to us. They make life more flavorful, they make life smell wonderful, and they can be used when we aren’t feeling our best. They are God’s medicine and I want to learn more about them!

The eBook Herbal Nurturing looks like the perfect resource to help me along in my herbal journey.

Plan Next Year’s Container Garden

We will still be renting next year, so there will be no in-ground garden, but I can start planning now what herbs and veggies I want to grow in containers and how I will use them. Having my husband around will be so much more helpful when doing this. He is so much better at caring for plants than I am!

Learn More About Composting

I probably should be doing this all along, but I really haven’t had any inclination to begin composting. I need to read more about it and figure out a system that will allow us to compost.

compost pile sign

I found some tips at HGTV to get me started.

photo credit: Gardening in a Minute via photopin cc

Your turn! What are your summer goals? Tell us in the comments!

Happily linking to:

Encourage One Another, Teach Me Tuesday, Wisdom Wednesdays, Natural Living Link-Up

Filed Under: Gardening, Homemaking, kids & Natural Parenting

Natural Mothering eBook Bundle Sale

June 10, 2013 by Joanie Leave a Comment

~This Sale Is Over!~

*This post does contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through my site I will make a small commission. Thank you for helping support my site and my family!

Have you ever wished motherhood came with a manual?

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For 1 week only, get a downloadable package of 35+ e-books specifically designed to encourage and equip mothers to nurture their families (and themselves!) naturally for just $29.97. Since these books together are worth more than $525, this is nearly a 95% discount!

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These e-books reflect the work of 32 well-known Ph.D.’s, fertility specialists, lactation consultants, natural health professionals, authors, and bloggers who are passionate about motherhood and caring for mothers.

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The eBooks

Want to meet the authors? Click here to read each author’s bio.

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Herbal Nurturing by Michele Augur of Frugal Granola ($8.95)
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Questions to Ask Your Dentist by Will and Susan Revak of OraWellness ($29)
Tips and Tricks to Remineralize and Repair Your Teeth by Ramiel Nagel of CureToothDecay.com ($12.95)
The Thinking Parent’s Guide to Vaccines by Kresha Faber of Nourishing Joy ($2.99)
Finding Balance with Attachment Parenting by Andrea Olson, MA of AndreaOlson.com ($17)
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Rebuild From Depression: A Nutrient Guide, The Digital Abridged Version by Amanda Rose, Ph.D. of Traditional Foods ($12.95)

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Easy Peasy Chores:Homeschool Edition by Alina Joy Dubois of The Good Old Days Farm ($17.99)
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Help for Busy Moms
Real {Fast} Food by Trina Holden of TrinaHolden.com ($6)
Crock On by Stacy Myers of Stacy Makes Cents ($5)
Creative Ways to Make Family Holiday Memories by Kit Singleton of Raising Small Souls ($25)

Non-Toxic and Natural Living
Natural Beauty Recipes by Katie of WellnessMama ($10)
Healthy Homemaking by Stephanie Langford of Keeper of the Home ($12.95)
Restocking the Pantry by Kresha Faber of Nourishing Joy ($9.99)
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******UPDATE THE “BUY NOW” BUTTON CODE
WITH YOUR OWN AFFILIATE CODE*******

A Few FREE eBooks and eCourses – no purchase required!

Because we are SO absolutely passionate about getting excellent natural living resources into the hands of every mother (and want-to-be moms and soon-to-be moms!) we’ve compiled a number of e-books that are FREE just for signing up for updates.

There is no purchase required – just click here to get your freebies!

(And as a gesture of paying-it-forward, please tell your friends about this amazing sale!)

Tell your friends on Pinterest:
Tell your friends on Facebook:

The Fine Print

This Bundle contains digital downloads in ZIP and PDF formats, so there is no shipping involved. You will receive your unique download link immediately after download. Please note that this Bundle is provided as is: no refunds, no exchanges, and no late sales will be provided.

While you must purchase the Bundle by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Monday, June 17, you have until June 30, 2013 to download the books and redeem the bonuses. It is your responsibility to download and back-up your purchase by June 30, 2013. After that date, the books will no longer be available for download.

With proof of purchase, we can renew download links until June 30. After this date we will no longer have access to the books and will not be able to provide any new links to download.

Please read our Frequently Asked Questions page to learn more about the file types, deadlines to redeem your bonuses, and reading the books on your eReader device.

Each bonus offer can be redeemed once only per eBook Bundle purchase. You may purchase multiple bundles in order to redeem a bonus offer more than once.

For each bonus offer, transaction numbers or proof of purchase may be required at the time of redemption.

All bonus offers are the sole responsibility of the bonus sponsors to provide and are subject to availability.

Filed Under: kids & Natural Parenting

Weekend Whatever #72

June 8, 2013 by Joanie Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Weekend Whatever! We are so glad you are here!

A place for sharing your best of Healthy Recipes, Marriage, Parenting, Frugality, Homemaking, Homesteading, Crafting, Christianity or where ever else your heart has taken you.

Hosting are:

Sara at A Joyful Mother

Joanie at Simple Living Mama

Sara of Your Thriving Family

and Justyn from Creative Christian Mama

I love the advice from Taylor Made Ranch. Pay your savings account every month and watch your financial security grow!

Check out the Weekend Whatever Favorites Pinterest board for more!

If you were featured this week you have or will be promoted via many forms of social media by the hostess who chose you!

THE RULES

While we want to see as many posts from as many bloggers as we can, we would request that all posts adhere to the Weekend Whatever Rules. Any posts that violate rules will be deleted.

We have a delete button, although it makes us very sad to use it. Please read and follow the rules carefully!

1) Please link the specific post URL, not your general blog link.

2) Link back to the Weekend Whatever in every post you link up here!

4) Please only link up to 3 posts per week.

Some requests:

Please share or tweet this post to spread the word about the link up! Sharing will ensure more posts to read each week, and more views for your linked-up posts!
Visit at least the two blogs next to you, if not more!
Please do not share other link parties to Weekend Whatever. You may however add them to our growing linky list for all to find you.We love comments!
Come follow the Weekend Whatever Favorites Pinterest board! All hostesses pin several of their favorites from the past week.

What the four of us ladies have been up to – other than running around after a total of nine precious children and taking care of our hubbies . . .

Bloggers, if you would like to sign up for the weekly reminder email click here.

Filed Under: Link Up

Friday Favorites #1

June 7, 2013 by Joanie Leave a Comment

I’m starting a new feature here at Simple Living Mama. Every Friday I want to feature posts from around the web that are inspiring me or teaching me something new. I want to show you things that I’d like to try or outfits that I want to wear. This is just going to be a fun little series of posts to let you get to know my personality a little better. Maybe you’ll find something you like, too!

Favorite Hair Tutorials

I found the Freckled Fox and I am in love with her hair tutorials. When it comes to hair and make-up, I am a complete dunce, but her instructions are so easy! She has great style, too!

Favorite Book Suggestions

I love this list of books for young girls from The Unlikely Homeschool. Sis is only two, but she adores pretending to read books. When the time comes that she is actually reading, I know have a great list to peak her interest!

Favorite Quiet Time Ideas

Quiet time can seem impossible when you have small kids. I love these ideas from Young Wife’s Guide to find some special time with God.

Favorite Homecoming Picture

I love looking at homecoming pictures. I keep dreaming about the sweet day my family is reunited. I can’t wait to share those pictures with you. For now, pics from Veteran’s United will suffice.

Favorite Printables

Aren’t these Jack & the Beanstalk printables from 1+1+1=1 adorable?

Favorite Outfit

Untitled #504 by ugafaninky featuring a bubble statement necklace

I love this little number, but I just can’t pull off dresses while nursing!

Favorite Dish

Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes, Basil, Garlic, Olive Oil, and Parmesan Cheese

MMM. this pasta looks simple and delish!

So, that’s it for this week! Don’t forget the Weekend Whatever link up will return tonight completely revamped and ready for your posts! Come link up with us!

What were your favorite things this week?

Filed Under: Deployment, Homeschooling, Motherhood, Recipes, Series Tagged With: friday favorites

Why We Are Using “My Father’s World” Curriculum

June 3, 2013 by Joanie 8 Comments

A few months ago I opened my mailbox and found a “My Father’s World” Curriculum catalog inside. I was intrigued, so I opened it up and fell in love. If it is possible to fall in love with a curriculum anyway. After talking it over with my husband, I ordered the curriculum and cannot wait to get started this fall.

Are you curious why I’m so excited about a curriculum? Here are just some of the reasons why I really hope My Father’s World will be a perfect fit for our family.

God-Centered

One of the reasons I want to homeschool is to give my children a Christian education. My Father’s World is God-centered. I love that when Bug starts kindergarten this fall he is going to learn all about how God created the world while he learns Kindergarten skills.

The Charlotte Mason Method

“My Father’s World” combines the Charlotte Mason method with classical education and incorporates a biblical worldview. I’m a crazy Charlotte Mason mama. I actually first thought I wanted to homeschool after discovering Charlotte Mason. While I love the Charlotte Mason method, I don’t necessarily want to follow it 100%. I like that “My Father’s World” incorporates unit studies, which is similar to what I have been doing this year while we do preschool. And we will have plenty of opportunites for nature study and fun things!

Daily Lesson Plans

As a new homeschooler, and someone who knows no homeschoolers in real life, I like the idea of having everything laid out for me. I know as I grow as a homeschooling mom, this will probably change. For now, the idea of planning everything is extremely overwhelming. ”My Father’s World” includes a schedule and I love schedules!

Complete Curriculum

The kindergarten curriculum is a complete curriculum. I do think we may add some things here and there and we will use books from our library, but everything is included for our year! Plus, doesn’t it just look like fun?

Multi-Age Curriculum

I currently have three children and may possibly have more in the future. I love that once my kids get to 2^nd grade I can buy one curriculum package and just add in additional language arts and math for each student. We can all do school together!

Supports Missions

My Father’s World supports Bible translation around the world. That’s pretty cool.

We are ordering the kindergarten program and the toddler program. Bug will be 5 in October and Sis will be 3 in September. Bug is an eager learner. He is already learning to write and read, so everything I am reading says we will be ok to start kindergarten this fall. I plan to use the toys in the toddler program during Tot School for Sis. I’m hoping they will keep her busy while I do some more focused work with Bug. Of course all three of my kids will be involved with our science projects and read aloud time. I’m so excited!

I have joined the “My Father’s World” blogroll over at Little Natural Cottage. If you are a My Father’s World user, come join us!

photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video via photopin cc

Happily linking to:
The Better Mom, Raising Arrows, Mama Moments Monday, Teach Me Tuesday, Homemaking Link Up, Encourage One Another, Wisdom Wednesdays, Hearts for Home, Thrive at Home, Thriving Thursdays, Fellowship Fridays

Filed Under: Homeschooling

Gardening Preschool Theme

May 28, 2013 by Joanie 4 Comments

We did a gardening theme in our preschool for the months of April and May. I love doing unit studies and since we were planting our own little container garden, I figured a study focused on gardening would be perfect.

I always start out our unit studies by finding books at the library that fit into the theme. Reading aloud with your preschoolers is critical, and I honestly believe if you do nothing else, read to them! They soak up so much just by listening to you read aloud some wonderful books.

We read our wonderful selection of books over the course of a few days. I always like to read first before we do our activities. My absolute favorite pick out of the above books was “Mortimer’s First Garden.” It is such a cute little Christian children’s book. Mortimer plants a sunflower seed in the book, so I thought we should plant some sunflower seeds, too!

Plant Seeds

Of course, you cannot do a gardening theme with your preschoolers without planting seeds! We planted some sunflower seeds around our yard, and the kids planted some in some empty containers. They adore going outside to check the progress of their seeds and to also water our other container plants.

Another really cool activity is planting seeds in old toilet paper rolls and watching them grow. Once they get big enough you can transplant the entire thing to your garden!

We enjoy just letting the kids soak up our container garden. I let them help me with all the tasks. We water and cut herbs. The strawberries are starting to ripen, so we have been picking those, too!

Garden Themed Preschool Packs

Whenever we do a theme, I like to print out a preschool pack for the kids to do. Bug really likes working with worksheets, so it’s great for him. I printed out this pack from Homeschool Creations. We had a lot of fun with it!

Make Dirt Cups

As a fun treat, the kids and I made dirt cups. Now I realize this treat is not at all healthy, but it was so much fun to make and really tasty! Who doesn’t need a little treat now and again? Here’s the recipe!

3 cups milk

1 pack of instant chocolate pudding mix

1 container of Cool Whip

15 Oreos

Gummy Worms

Crush the Oreos. I used my Kitchen Ninja to pulverize them. Mix up the chocolate pudding mix and the milk following the package directions. Fold in the Cool Whip and 1/4 of the crushed Oreos. Place chocolate mixture into individual cups and top with Oreo crumbs. Add gummy worms on top and enjoy!