A little bit of nesting + the urge to spring clean= a need for E-Cloth!

Nesting is a very real phenomenon in my pregnancies and it usually hits towards the latter half of my second trimester. We are definitely there! Between my nesting instincts kicking in and a little bit of sunshine (finally!) showing up to inspire some spring cleaning, I've been on a bit of a house keeping spree lately. 

When I first got married and starting my homemaking journey, I honestly used all the conventional cleaning products on the grocery store shelf. Febreeze, Lysol, Windex- that's what the magazines and such said clean looked like and I didn't know better. I remember cleaning a bathroom or another such confined space with those cleaners and feeling so light headed I had to step outside for awhile for some fresh air; that's not a great sign of a healthy house. Once I became pregnant with my first son, I knew a clean and healthy house was now my goal and those chemical laden cleaners had to go! I did a bit of shopping around (mostly online since especially then natural products weren't readily available in my rural area) and started to stock my cleaning cabinet with products I felt comfortable exposing myself and my children to. 

With my last couple pregnancies, I felt the urge to take my cleaning habits to a new level and make some of my own cleaning products from natural ingredients I had around the house so I fully knew each and every element in what I was using. I did a lot of online research and a bunch of experimenting- some worked amazingly well and others were a flop. It seemed especially hard to find a product or DIY recipe for an all purpose spray I could feel good about using on all the surfaces that my family came into contact with multiple times a day- the dining room table, the kitchen counters,etc. I really wanted to find a product that wasn't going to leave much of a residue (hard to find in a store bought spray) but also wanted to know that it was going to be killing bacteria (hard to feel confident about in a homemade product). Then I heard about about microfiber cloths, specifically the best brand on the market- E-Cloth. I was instantly impressed with the idea of being able to clean and disinfect my house with just a cloth, no chemicals needed! E-Cloth products do just that- removing dirt, grease and grime and are proven to remove over 99% of bacteria using just water. They do it all without leaving a chemical residue on surfaces or spray in that air! I initially started by trying out a couple of their multipurpose cloths and was really happy with the cleaning power they provided with just water and no lint left behind either. 

A house cleaning dilemma I have never been able to solve is a greasy, streaky stove top surface! I try to keep it clean of food and grime by wiping it down with a natural spray and such but can never get rid of the streaky residue. I was excited when I found out that E-Cloth offered a special cloth designed just for stove top cleaning and even more when they offered to let me give one a try and share my results with all of you! The range & stove top cloth is a double sided cloth offering a smooth, "normal" microfiber surface for general cleaning on one side and the other side has blue scrubbing stripes for tackling those hardened on food messes. 

Here's a before picture of my stove top before I really felt it needed a "spring cleaning" makeover. I keep it fairly clear of really big food messes but it's always got that streaky finish and had some built up gunk around the burners. I took out the burners and their pans and scrubbed the whole range top really well with the scrubbing stripes side of the cloth. It did well at clearing up the hardened grease rings underneath the burner pans edges. I went back over the whole range top and the stove door as well with the regular side of the cloth and removed more grime! I still felt like there was a bit of a streaky film left behind so I got out the glass & polishing cloth that I already happened to have in my cleaning cabinet. I buffed the whole stove with this cloth and it really provided the finishing touch! 

And here's the "after" shots- look at that shine!

All in all, I was very pleased with the range & stove top cloth and will be using it regularly with my kitchen chores. I would recommend this product but also would suggest having the polishing cloth to really finish up the job well. In fact, I think I am going to be picking up a couple more for myself with their current 2 for 1 deal! 

With adding a new baby to our family again in just a couple, short months- I know I will be doing a lot more deep cleaning projects and will be shopping E-cloth's selection for my cleaning needs. I was also excited learn that e-cloth is now available at Ace hardware. You can visit the Store Locator at www.ecloth.com to find your local participating store. 

You can find out more about E-Cloth and find out the latest about what they are up to by checking out their blog or following them on facebook, pinterest, twitter or instagram! 

DIY History "Textbook"- Make Your Own Timeline of World History

Fall keeps marching on and here on the Oregon Coast that means less days of little boys playing out in the sunshine and more rainy days in the house with Mama- I have an affinity for both kinds of days. Today we fell back in day light savings time which looks like it being dark by 5 pm. This is the season for Gathering- gathering together my boys in our cozy home while the rains come down outside. Gathering stories to fill little imaginations with new adventures and heroes to "be" when a clear day comes along. Some of the very best kind of stories I want to share with my boys are the truest ones- History. More and more, I am being convicted that giving a comprehensive and correct view of what has happened in the world before our time and place in it, is one of the most noble goals in an education. I want my boys to see and know both the gravity and the hope of our place in time and history. That there truly is nothing new under the sun and to learn from the mistakes and the victories of those who have gone before us. I want to know these things- I need to know these things.

 While I was fortunate to have an advantage being educated

 with christian history text books, I still don't feel that remembering the bold type names and dates in the book just long enough to take a test really gave me a true picture or love for History. I am really enamored with the idea of introducing history to my boys through living books and am so thankful for the multitude of pre-organized history "spines" to provide a conclusive time frame and book list to delve into. So far, I have used a mixture of Sonlight's Core A- Introduction to the World and Beautiful Feet Books- Early American History. There are two main schools of thought on how to introduce history and the world to children: the first is to start with national history (since that is in a big sense, their "world") and the second is to begin with a brief scope of global reach. I have had a very hard time committing to either philosophy exclusively. I love the idea and have really enjoyed presenting glimpses of other cultures and peoples to my boys but there are also so many amazing books and heroes from our own national history for kids. So, I have done both! Sometimes, I get a little scared that it is too broad and not focused enough of an approach for them to get a clear understanding of any type of a timeline in it all. But I am holding on to the hope of Charlotte Mason's teaching to just set out a broad feast of truth and that the child will make the connections they need to in due time. 

 One very helpful way to keep all of this new found knowledge in line is a history timeline. This is no new idea and there are plenty of versions, both pre-made and bought or DIY and free. I know this is an idea I want to implement on an individual level when my boys are older students. I think it will be very neat for each of them to have their own "version" of world history- a catalog of prominent events and things that stood out to them the most thru their education. I know they are too young to take this project on right now, right now it would be mom doing all the work for them! But I also am aware that we are learning so much great history right now,while they are small, that I want to have a record of. In comes another amazing resource from Thinking Tree Books, Make Your Own Timeline of World History. When I talked with Sarah Janisse Brown, the creator of Thinking Tree Books, about the books she would recommend I try out with my boys this year, I mentioned to her that I was really interested in doing a history timeline but felt it would be a little presumptuous to start with my boys being so young. Sarah was so encouraging in her advice- She reminded me that kids learn best when Mama is learning right alongside of them. She suggested that I go ahead and start a timeline for all of us currently and I am so glad I took her advice! It has been a lot of fun already to not only learn about some amazing individuals and their contributions to World History, but also be able to peg them to a certain period. From there, it is pretty neat to have a evolving grid to hold new discoveries and dates up to and see how everything fits together!

The book itself is a joy to use- It has a vibrantly designed cover with a lush, matte finish. It is impressively thick at 365 pages- plenty of room for recording a whole lot of history! There is a straight forward and simple to use page format of A box for your time period date, a space for drawing or pictures and a lined box for journaling. I'll admit, at first I was a little intimidated by how open ended the format of this book is. It is truly designed to be customized to whatever your family needs it to be! I looked around the internet a bit and did some brainstorming and decided to break the book up into 26 equally portioned time frames. I used page flags to mark off the different time eras and make them quickly accessible. 

Lately, we have been learning about Vikings- particularly reading thru Leif the Lucky and learning about the earliest discovery of North America. My oldest has been loving reading one of these delightful classics from the D'Aulaires! we also use the Usborne Children's Encyclopedia and Living Long Ago quite a lot after being introduced to them by Sonlight. I found a fun viking paper doll printable that my oldest colored. We cut it out and put in our Vikings time period pages and have enjoyed adding information about Leif the explorer as we go!

I am so glad to have come across the idea and started to implement a history timeline so early in my boys' schooling journey. What a treasure it will be to have our ventures thru history mapped out for us in this delightful book. That will be something this Mama will consider a family heirloom! ;) 

 I received this book from the Thinking Tree LLC.

Saying goodbye to Summer and hello to Fun Schooling

The leaves are starting to fall, the evenings have got a chill to them and there's more garden harvest than I know what to do with; I think it's safe to say that fall is upon us. It's a bittersweet fact around this house: we are summer lovin' folks. The season of the sun is fairly short lived in the Pacific Northwest and as much as we don't mind the rain, the sunshine is a gift we hold onto as long as we can. Autumn is slowly winning us over though. With it's mountains of apples, beautiful landscape and piles of fresh books and a new year of school to dive into! 

September was a semi-summer holdover month for us with lots of end of the season trips and plans and so much garden preserving to get done. I think October will be our official buckle down into a structured school pattern month. We have dipped our toes into the academic year and it's been an encouraging intro to the school year. I did put some semblance actual goal setting and lesson planning together in August and I think that's going to be a blessing in the coming weeks! For now, we've jumped into some seasonal and interest led projects- such as apple sauce making and apple sauce inspired poetry writing, constructing "measure for measure" paper skeletons of the boys and of course, a lot of fall nature study. We are warming our way back into Morning Time and Asher is excited to be an "official" preschooler this year. Cole and I picked back up in the "100 easy lessons" reading book were we left off at the end of last year and we are both really encouraged by how much more competent he is with reading now! He's started to pine over being able to just being able to pick up a book and read it. I think his actually really wanting to read and pride in what he's learned so far is really going to take him a long ways this year! 

Another new dimension I'm really excited to add to our school plans this year is not only educational, but also just plain fun! we are going to enjoy some Fun Schooling with Thinking Tree books. I have had my eye on this super creative and open ended series of interactive books for quite some time now (complete with having a pretty full Amazon wishlist of the titles I wanted to try out most on standby ;). Sarah Janisse Brown is a homeschooling Mama of a large brood who has authored and illustrated so many titles in this ever growing and unique collection of homeschool books. They fit nicely into "out of the box" unschooling and as a Charlotte Mason-esque supplement, as I intend to use them.  Sarah was very generous and sent me a hefty box of personally curated books for my boys and I to enjoy and share with all of you. I can't wait to get these bright and engaging books into my boys hands and share in depth looks into new titles with you through out the school year. I really think my boys are going to learn so much copying things into their very own fun schooling journals and I'm going to look for excuses to "learn" things to jot down in my own homeschooling handbook ;) (spoiler alert!) I foresee these books doing a wonderful job of keeping the joy in learning under the guise of just being "for fun"!

The first book I want to share with you is the perfect example of how focused Sarah is in these titles on capturing the interest and heart of a child. The All about Horses Homeschooling Journal is a thick and delightful six week unit study on, you guessed it, Horses! The first page asks students to write down several things they want to specifically learn thru their study time about horses and then instructs them to go to the local library and pick up six books to use as "text books". The book may be all in black and white but it does not lack in beautifully detailed illustrations and all the more opportunity for kids to get creative themselves in coloring it in! 

Each day's study opens with a fun circle the date intro page and place to fill in a daily to do list and daily inspiration. After that, Sarah does a fantastic job of mixing things up each day and including a wide variety of activities and "subjects". One day the student is learning to draw a horse, finding spelling words in their horse "text books" and another they are watching a documentary, writing up a days worth of meal plans and doing a nature study sketch. I just think this is a really great way to engage a maybe hesitant student who would rather be out, say, riding a horse than working in school books.There is an impressive mixture of inspiring, yet open ended project prompts to definitely document education but the learning itself is coming from such pleasurable, real life experiences. 

I would have LOVED this book as a homeschooled farm girl growing up and I have a little animal lover middle child who I think will grow into this fun resource nicely. :)

I received these products in exchange for my honest review.

Cleaning just got a whole lot prettier thanks to Full Circle Home!

The Job title of Mother means many, many things-but one of the most prevalent parts of my job description is house keeper/cleaner. I spend the majority of my time each day cleaning up messes, and usually they are variations of the same messes, over and over again. Honestly, it is a bit of a monotonous job and if I wasn't a bit of a clean freak, it wouldn't offer much in the way of being gratifying. SO, I have come to find ways to make the job a little more fun and therapeutic even. Enter- high quality, naturally derived cleaning products. Over the past 5 years or so, I have fallen in love with "high end" (aka chemically laden sprays from the dollar store) cleaning brands-Mrs. Meyers, Method, Seventh Generation, etc. There are some great brands who not only make some safe for the family, fun to use sprays and cleaners, but are doing some awesome things in reaching out and educating their customers on the benefits and need for natural cleaning products, as well. As many great natural cleaning sprays and solutions as I know of, I haven't found many cleaning tools that I actually love and don't just tolerate. Until, I was introduced to Full Circle Home.

The amazing folks at Tryazon were generous enough to give me the opportunity to try out an overflowing box of goodies from Full Circle- to get to know the products and share my opinion (and a few of the goods) with friends! I have a great group of Mama friends who I am lucky enough to "do life" with and we love any excuse to get together! We had a belated Mother's Day Brunch at my house a couple weeks ago- it was a time of good food, a great play date for the kids and a fun time visiting for the moms. I put together a Mother's Day gift bag for each of my friends consisting of a few of my favorite things- a beautiful art print from Gracelaced, The Mother Letters (which I reviewed here on the blog not long ago!), mt favorite lip balm from the Grove Collaborative, and last but not least- a cheery Full Circle Home kitchen towel! 

They loved all the goodies and were excited to see and hear more about the other products in the full circle line. It was really nice for us to be able to check out the products in person and the sample party was a great way to do that since none of the stores in this area carry the Full Circle products and we have to order online! We all agreed that we would love to start replacing our shabby, plastic cleaning tools with the aesthetically pleasing, high quality coordinating Full Circle ones. we flipped thru the Come Clean kit's booklet of natural cleaner recipes and tips and discussed which we had tried in the past or would like to try in the future. Many of the Mamas in my group have started monthly subscriptions to Grove Collaborative  to keep our cleaning pantries in stock and were excited to find that they offer a selection of Full Circle Home products!

We now own three of the Full Circle Home brooms at our house- the clean sweep, the mighty team and the tiny team! There is a broom for each of my boys and (sometimes) they are Mama's helpers with sweeping up the house. :) I have a whole slew of Full Circle products lined up by my sink to help with dish washing tasks- one of my least favorite tasks made better with the help of some pretty, efficient tools!

 

I have been very impressed with the Full Circle Home Products I've been able to implement in my home so far and am excited to add more to collection as time goes by!

Thanks to Tryazon and Full Circle Home for sending me these products in exchange for an honest review. 

Making drool look cool: Snappy Swagger

3 babies in and I know without a doubt teething is never fun. With teething usually comes large amounts of drool which is never really all that fun (or cute) either. The cutest baby clothes look a little worse for the wear soaked in baby drool. Not to mention having to change outfits multiple times a day to keep up! Small bibs work alright to soak up moisture but then some genius mom (I'm sure of it!) invented the baby bandana. Now, baby gets to sport a stylish, hipster accessory while not having to worry about that pesky teething side effect-multitasking at it's finest!

          

 With my middle boy, I had a little extra time to craft more; so I pulled out the sewing machine and some old plaid, flannel shirts of my husbands and upcycled them into baby bandanas. They turned out pretty darn cute and got a lot of use, but like most heavily used baby items they were pretty much worn out by the time baby boy #3 needed them. So, I jumped when I ran across the adorable Baby Bandana Drool Bibs-5 Pack Unisex Stylish Bibs for Baby  by Snappy Swagger!

              

These drool bibs are very well made with plastic rather then metal snaps and even are adjustable in size with two different snap options. They are super soft, made from fleece and cotton and the patterns are just adorable for baby! The selection is truly unisex as I would put all of them on my boys but would think nothing of having girls wear them as well. My favorite ones are the + and the feathers.

 I am loving dressing my baby boy and am definitely keeping these in mind for the perfect baby shower gift in the future

I received this product at a discount in exchange for my honest opinion.

I finally joined the Cold Brewed Club

I think it's safe to say I am behind the times when I just tried my first cold brew coffee at Starbucks as of a couple weeks ago. I'm not usually an iced coffee fan so it was easy for me to pass this trend by. But on a whirlwind family road trip across state borders to buy a vehicle, a Starbucks stop was a must and it was so hot out- a cold caffeine fix was a very appealing option.

I'm glad I took the chance on the cold brewed trend because it does have it's merits. The coffee is strong and bold with a much smoother taste. It seems the cold brew process is able to extract the coffee flavor while being able to bypass the acidity and bitterness that is usually just a byproduct of a good cup of brew. After my cup of epiphany at Starbucks I knew I was going to want to find a reliable method to be able to make my own at home!

 Thanks to Bzz Agent I had a new bag of coffee to try out and a cold brew experiment seemed like the perfect opportunity! If you guys haven't heard of Bzz Agent before, I strongly encourage you to go get signed up with them! I have been able to try out so many new, fun products thru them, all the while sharing about my favorite discoveries with friends. This time, I received a bag of Seattle's Best Coffee Dark Intense no. 5 blend. I have to admit this was my first time trying Seattle's Best Coffee and I wasn't disappointed!

 Now that I had the coffee, I needed to find the best cold brewing method. After some web browsing research, I found this method from the The Kitchn, using a French press in the fridge over night. I loved that this was a "prep the night before and forget about it" method. I have been really enjoying my French press as my coffee making device of choice lately but it is a little more time and prep work in the morning then, say, my keurig. But it was easy enough to measure out my coffee, mix it with some cold water in my French press and place it in my fridge for the night. My coffee was pre-ground so I was a little concerned it wouldn't be coarse enough for my French press, but I didn't seem to notice any issues with that.

 The next day I finished off the press process and ended up with a smooth, dark coffee concentrate. I  poured it over iced cubes in a mason jar and mixed half and half, chocolate syrup and a sprinkle of sea salt-delicious! I definitely recommend giving cold brewed coffee a go. I am usually a very dark roast kinda girl, but  I actually think a lighter roast would offer a nice option here. I'll have to experiment with that next!

Epantry-My virtual cleaning closet

I am a huge fan of virtual shopping. Of being able to order just about anything I need (or want!) while never having to pack up all 3 of my boys and drive anywhere. Online shops are so nice for finding gifts and items I could never find in local stores. But I'm also finding it's a great option for buying some of the things I could find at the local stores.

 

I've being a regular user of Amazon's Subscribe & Save for some time now; being able to get household necessities at a discounted price and delivered to my  front door for free has been amazing. I regularly order diapers, laundry detergent and even a big enough box of toilet paper to last us about 3 months! This service has been a lifesaver to a Mama of 3 busy boys who lives far enough out of town to make a shopping trip a big event!

 

 Recently though, I have found a site I like even more than Subscribe & Save. Epantry offers the convienence of Subscribe & Save with more style and substainability. Epantry makes me want to buy cleaning supplies! I love Epantry's ever growing selection and their commitment to offer sustainable products and brands. Some of my favorite brands like Mrs. Meyers and Method have a broad offering of products and scents on the site. I also have really come to love Epantry's exclusive brand, Grove Collaborative. I have tried a new item from this line with almost each of my orders. I love their tea towels and usually always have one of them serving as my "pretty" kitchen towel. Another one of my most favorite products that I can only order from Epantry is their 100% pure soy candle. It comes in a few different scents but I love the Eucalyptus and Spearmint so much I haven't talked myself into trying another yet. I love that it is fully and proudly American made and it is the best quality candle I've yet to find. It lasts so long for such a petite size.

 

 Some other fun products I've got to try out from the Epantry brand are their pop up sponges (which are a lot of fun!) and  their generous sized lip balm. 

                     

                              

                                                                                

The lip balm was a free gift that came with my order this month- a perk to being a VIP member! Along with occasional free gifts and samples you also get free shipping, which is always a real plus in my book. 

 

One of the biggest reasons why I will be staying a loyal customer to Epantry is their amazing customer service! Being a small startup company they seem to have a close knit team who really care to know their customers. I have personally contacted their support team several times now and am always impressed with their response. They go above and beyond to meet your needs and solve an issues you may have. I love the feeling that they actually care and enjoy providing people with great products and service! 

 

 Next time your cleaning closet is running low, do yourself a favor and let Epantry stock it back up!