This Is Kristin

~This guy, is my sunshine. I am not a morning person, but when I pick this one out of his crib, and he starts dancing to my good morning song, I can’t help but be instantly in a good mood.

He’s had one tooth for about a month, just a cute little one on the bottom, but now three more are trying to poke their way through all at once, and he’s not so happy in the middle of the night.

… The other night, when we were all sick, this little one spent nearly two hours straight, crying inconsolably. Finally, I woke up my husband to tell him that I couldn’t get the baby to stop crying, and when Brody sat up and said “hi” to him, my baby stopped mid scream, looked over and smiled, and then started waving.

… “Stinker!”…. was all i could say, handed him over and got back into bed.

~I started thinking about the possibility of giving my son some sort of allowance now that he’s 5. I couldn’t figure out how to do it, because I didn’t want to tie it to his chores because I feel he needs to just grow up knowing he needs to do those things as apart of the household.

So we talked about saving, giving and spending, and what an allowance is. At the end of the conversation, that took a few “rabbit trails,” he informed me that he was going to save his money until he was twenty so he could buy a plane, and then asked if he could have 500 dollars.

I am not sure that my “lesson” went as well as I’d hoped.

~Do you give your kids allowance?

INGREDIENTS:

Salt
1 pound whole wheat spaghetti
1/3 cup peanut butter, softened
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup tamari (dark soy sauce)
Juice of 2 limes
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (eyeball it)
1 clove garlic, grated
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (eyeball it)
2 cups skinned and sliced rotisserie chicken
1 cup packed fresh spinach, thinly sliced
1/3 cup shredded carrots (a generous handful)
4 scallions, thinly sliced on an angle
1/4 cup chopped peanuts
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro or parsley

DIRECTIONS:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain; rinse under cold water and set aside.
2. While the pasta is working, in a large bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, honey and 1/4 cup warm water. Whisk in the tamari, lime juice, hot pepper sauce and garlic. Pour in the oil in a steady stream, whisking to combine. Add the reserved noodles and toss to coat.
3. Place the noodles in 4 shallow bowls and top with the chicken, spinach, carrots, scallions, peanuts and cilantro.

Recipe by Rachael Ray

“I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.”

~Rose Kennedy

~To decide to start greening the things you do in your life, seems to be more costly. In some ways you have to weigh your options in purchasing something, but at times you can save money buy going green, that weigh out for the more costly things.
Some ideas that actually cost less,

~Turning off unnecessary lights, (I have a hard time doing this, because we sleep with a few on…) and turning down your thermostat, can save money on your electricity bill.
~Buy cereal in bulk. You can save around $110 dollars a year! Haven’t done this yet, but am planning on doing it when I can. I like the look of cereals and grains in jars too!
~Make your own cleaning solutions, you can save around $36 dollars a year. (I also like the Seventh Generation products, they are less expensive than some, and work and smell good too!)

…. there are definitely ways to save, so it’s not always a more expensive route.

For more tips on saving, and even downloading your own excel sheet to figure out your personal savings go to The Green Guide

Over at Kat’s blog she’s decided to create a 21 day challenge, where you are committed to do something, (or not do something) every day in hopes that it will become a habit.

She says: “They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, so the idea is that I want to try to develop a new habit each month and I’d love for you all to join me.
How: Each day for the first 21 days of September, I’ll write a brief post about my progress regarding the habit I’m attempting to develop. You pick your own habit that you want to develop and track your progress in the comments of that post.”

The habits of those participating range from spiritual to relational, to excersising goals. She is going to pray for her kids for 20 minutes every day.

My “21 day challenge,” is to have a specific time to pray and place to pray, so that it becomes a habit, and more than a casual prayer when I think of it. I recently heard a pastor compare how people (mostly) shower or bathe every day, and in the same bathroom, and how it feels strange not to be in your own bathroom. He talked about how your prayer time should become a habit, and something you do every day in a certain place, so that it becomes so much of a habit, that you long for it if it is missed, set up with your bible, some journals, or whatever you need, just as your own shower is set up with just what you need.

My kids have their own habit that I am trying to form. I am trying to encourage them to wake up more slowly by leaving books at the end of their bed in the middle of the night. (I am also guarding my prayer time this way!)

If there’s a habit you want to form or break,
Feel free to join in!

~It’s amazing how a little rhyme can change the mood and attitude and make my boys more compliant.

Some we like to use are…

“you get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.”

“brush your teeth/ brush your hair/ put on some clean under ware.”

~When I start to sing “patty cake,” all my kids immediately pay attention. I started to wonder kids loved rhyming, and found this,

“Now researchers have found that song-like rhythmic patterns that make rhyming fun are the very thing that draws attention to the rhythm of language. And when you tap or clap along to the beat of the story, you’re really helping your child develop an awareness of the syllables and sounds that make up words….Nursery rhymes also set the stage for early reading by making children more aware of their own language and how sounds are combined to make words that sound alike – like “clock” and “dock”.

Reciting nursery rhymes teaches the rhythm of speech and intonation as well as the grammatical structure of language. You can change your intonation to emphasize certain words or phrases, such as “climbed up the water spout ” and …”washed the spider out”. This emphasis is present in our everyday language. We raise our voices at the end of a question, and pause between sentences or phrases to emphasize a new thought.” Read all here

….It’s funny to me the things parents naturally do sometimes are actually very beneficial to your kids!

~Have any good rhymes?