Homework Helpers

My excuse for posting today is brief and to the point. Sometimes my kids forget to bring home a blank page that has 30 numbered boxes on it for their math homework. A couple times I have looked online and found people trying to SELL math practice pages but that is NOT what I am looking for. I just need an visually organized page for my kids to do their math homework the way their school wants it. Voila!

Playtime Check In for kids on the Spectrum

 Hello!  How are you?  What's new in your life?

I have been learning about Autism, ADHD and Anxiety since... oh wow, 2019.  Let me explain-No- there is too much.  Let me sum up.  In the last 3 years I have gotten 4 out of my 5 children diagnosed with Autism, ADHD and Anxiety.  (I stubborn resisted my mother's efforts to get my oldest diagnosed for too long, but live and learn.)  They are all different in their needs so I am getting various forms of treatment curated specifically for each one.  I have been humbled and grateful for God's grace in my life as I have become increasingly aware of what changes I can make to our environment, routines and procedures.  In addition to this I was hired as a paraeducator to work in a special education classroom for preschool part-time and started child development classes as well to get a teaching certificate as well.  To me this can only be God blessing me.  It is too providential as it all works to benefit me in my goals to parent my children successfully.  

So now with that amazingly concise and barely adequate summary I present to you a gift that hopefully can be used with your own children.  I made it myself after one my recent ABA caregiver training sessions.  I have to thank the book Atomic Habits for helping me see the value of 1% changes and my job for helping me practice on a daily basis and observe how environment, procedures and routines work together and my class for helping my brain pay attention to those details.

My success story that compels me to share this with you is that after years of my kids constantly trying to play together and never gaining the skills of how to resolve conflicts before they escalate into physical fighting this simple tool WORKED this morning. 

I set it up by teaching each brother how to use it on Sunday and we practiced while they played on a video game with each other.  Every 5 minutes I entered the room and showed the card and by the 4th time I didn't even have to speak.  They paused and followed the procedure.  By that time it was perfect because someone was getting bored and it was communicated effectively instead of leading to aggravation and escalating to acting out behaviors.

The pay off this morning was when they were supposed to be preparing to leave for school and there was back and forth antics that was getting less friendly and more onery.  I tried to intervene verbally and was ignored.  I thought of the pause button and ran to my room to grab it.  I presented it quickly and immediately one brother asked "Are you having fun?" the other answered "no."  I turned to the next and he asked the same and got the same answer.  I turned to the oldest sibling who walks them to school and prompted the last question by pointing at it with my finger (gestural prompt) and he asked "What do you want to do next?" to which the answer redirected all the energy in the room to a positive proactive goal.  Such a simple small victory was elating for a mom of 4 diagnosed kids on the spectrum. 

Use ABA behavior skills training to set up using this tool.  Here is how I typed up my plan to use it below:  

Behavior Skills Training: How to use this visual aid

1. Prime for teaching	In a couple minutes we are going to...
2. Preference Assessment	After this do you want to...
3. Buy in	This is something that will help you play with friends and have more fun, would you like that?
4. Explain procedure	While you are playing I am going to pause the game and ask you to check in with your partner using one of these questions
5. Model	We are going to practice together first. Model the desired behavior before asking the learner to practice with the teacher.
6. Feedback	Reinforce with praise for desired behavior first (Good try!/Good asking.) then correct any mistakes (Next time can you...?)
7. Practice with peer	Now we are going to practice it with...
8. Feedback	Praise and reminders for what the goal is (Good job! This will help when...)
9. Reward	Great work! Now you can... (give the reward that was decided in the preference assessment after they succeeded in the task)

For my boys getting to play on a screen together was motivation for practicing the skill.  I only took a minute to explain the procedure and then they started playing and we implemented it.  It probably helped that we had already practiced BST with other social skills so it felt pretty seamless and natural to apply it here.  I am making more today to have around the house at my finger tips where we play games at the kitchen table or living room.  I plan to practice using it when they play outside and play board games as well in hopes of generalizing the skill.

Tracing Pages for Older Kids

I got a new job as a paraeducator during pandemic schooling.  It was a stressful and fun year.  As I have been working in the classroom I get to see some of things I wish I had done with my kids when they were in preschool.  But it is never too late to start doing better.  So I will share with my tracing pages for kids who like Mario and Zelda.  As I make more I may share them here.

Slip these in a clear plastic sleeve and give your kids a dry erase marker or a few colors.  My son actually colored the turtle shells too.  So I also slipped in the printed coloring pages I used to trace these and he went to town coloring those too.

I also printed a coloring page of Link and made a simple line tracing version of that for helping them practice tracing.

Work in progress

So in the last few months I have been pretty busy.  When we first moved into our our house 10 years ago I chose colors for the kid's bedrooms with nary a clue for lighting and primer and such.  I let my son pick the color for his room and I chose yellow for the second room which I hoped would become a girls room.  

As time passed I realized that the green room was always going to be darker because of the storage room in the backyard shading it from direct light and the yellow room was always going to be very bright because it got full sun first thing in the morning and in the evening the light reflects off the house behind us pretty well.  At first it was no big deal.  We had our second baby, a girl, and she shared the green room with our oldest for a while and it worked great.  When it was nap time it was nice and dark in there.  And we used the bright room as computer/library room for a while which was great for reading and playing.  Then we had another girl and another boy and we had to start shifting things around.  I learned babies sleep better in darker rooms than brighter rooms.  We dealt with it the best we could but the yellow room was always soooo much brighter than the green room.  And now that we had girls for sure I really wished I could paint the rooms again so it matched our kids interests and styles and managed the different lighting better.  

So a couple months ago my husband and I were discussing the bed situation in the boys room.  Our second boy was outgrowing his little toddler bed and we eventually would need to fit 3 full size beds in the room.  We decided on building bunkbeds for them.  But I really wanted to paint before we did it since it was really the last chance I had to change the color for probably another 10 years.  I wanted to pick a much brighter color this time to help what light that does come in make the room brighter.  And while we were pulling out all the stuff why not do the girls room too?  I wanted to pick a bolder darker color so when they closed their curtains the room would actually get dark enough to take a nap once in a while.  

 

We had so much fun redesigning their rooms.  The light pink became the accent color for the girls room and the green became the accent color for the boy's room.

We also had some scrap wood that I wanted to use to make a shelf that would fit behind the bathroom door.  I had seen the idea once and loved it.  My bathroom is pretty small so this was a real space saver:

We figured out the spacing by testing what products would go on which shelf.

We decided to add a back to it for more stability.  I had fun being creative with the paint design.  We used polyurethane to finish it.

 

We had some plastic available so we added it to make sure nothing falls off the shelf.  Even if we have an earthquake. 

 

 

Feelings...Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

In the last year I have become aware of a problem in our language as a society that is troubling.  I want to air my thoughts here because it is too long for a Facebook post and I want to get straight to the point.
It began with this useful chart a friend shared with me:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/fb/d0/07fbd0bf2e2b9cb1be0f15a20b4f6adb.jpg

I don't own the rights to this image.  Fortunately, I don't earn money from this blog so I think I am following their rules for duplication.  This wheel is excellent.  It has helped me better identify my emotions and helped my kids to identify theirs.  I like the fact that it identifies emotions as feelings that are opposite from each other.  Notice the colors are the same to help identify the opposite of what you are feeling to be the opposite instead of calling emotions good or bad.  I appreciate that they identified what used to be called "negative emotions" and are now being called "big emotions" as "needs not being met" and the opposite as "needs being met".  I was amazed when I read the information on the bottom of the page.  I did not create it but it is available for free online so I am going to zoom in on the bottom of page to talk more specifically about that.

The first time I read this section carefully I noticed a problem with language that is being used to share thoughts, evaluations and judgments under the cloak of feelings.  Why is this a problem?  Feelings are sacred space.  Emotions are not facts but they are information about how I am processing facts and my experience of the world.  When I state my emotional experience it is not negotiable.  When I say I am feeling angry, or sad, or happy, or scared there is no arguing with that.  No one can say my feelings are not real or different from what I say they are because no one else is me or can feel my emotions for me.

Becoming aware of my emotions and the value of the information they provide has been a process of learning for me for the last 6 years of my life.  I learned that anger is not a bad emotion but informs me when my personal boundaries have been crossed.  I learned that sadness is information about how I process disappointment and grieve the loss of my expectations being met.  I learned that fear helps me recognize when my life is in danger and also when my understanding of reality is being changed.  I learned that happy is not necessarily the state of being that I will experience endlessly but that I can enjoy it while it lasts.  I have also learned that contentment is a more stable emotion that I can enjoy even when I experience a range of different emotions.  The strength that I have experienced from becoming aware of my emotions is akin to the strength I have gained from practicing yoga and becoming aware of my body and my muscles.  When I practice awareness of my feet and actively notice my muscles flexing I gain stability and balance in difficult poses and postures.  The same things happen in my life experience when I practice awareness of my emotions.

When I feel anger and recognize it quickly, I can better manage the difficult experience that triggered my anger.  I more quickly identify the boundary that has been crossed and ascertain what consequence needs to be applied and follow through without exploding into a rage. The best example I can think of to share is a few weeks ago when my kids were being kids and bringing all their wants needs and expectations to me, the mom, while I was busy trying to meet the wants needs and expectations that were important.  I was making breakfast and busy and when this happened I felt frustrated and overwhelmed. I recognized my anger and realized the boundary was, "I am limited, I can't meet every request immediately".  I made a public announcement to my children.  "If you see I am busy and you can help with a request that is being made to me while I am busy please help."  That was the gist of it and I didn't yell it but I said it loud and clear and my amazing, intelligent children responded well!  Since that day there have been several times when they followed through while I was busy and it has been amazing and I was so glad I didn't have a tantrum in that moment and could speak my need.

So what is the problem again?  I am hearing the words "I feel like" used in media and conversations more and more regularly when the meaning they are really conveying is "I think."  This is a problem because it is using the word "FEEL" as protection cloak for opinions.  If no one can argue with feelings and I state my opinion as a feeling, then no one can argue with my opinion.  This is dangerous to our language.  It is like hiding a military base in a civilian area and saying the enemy can't attack because they would kill innocent people.  It also undermines emotions.  If I state my opinion as a feeling to avoid the discomfort of someone disagreeing with me I will undermine my own ability to separate feelings from facts.  I will also undermine my ability to discern truth from opinion coming from other people.  Eventually people will argue with thoughts expressed as feelings and believe that all feelings including actual internal emotions can be argued because the word loses it's meaning when we allow it to used this way.  It invalidates emotions as a sacred space.

Over the last week I have been catching myself when I say the words "I feel" and found that I had to pause to express the actual emotion.  Then I said "I think" and I had to work to connect that emotion with the thought.  I realized that I was afraid of offending other people with my thought and using feelings as a mask to avoid confrontation or disagreements.  Just now my daughter came in to tell me that her brother won a game and he was mad that she and her sister were saying they won too.  I caught myself again.  "I think he feels like... I think he feels mad, because he thinks that you are saying he didn't really win the game or that he is not allowed to enjoy winning."

I ask you to consider your language.  Are you using the phrase "I feel like" to disguise your opinion to avoid confrontation?  Can you challenge yourself for one week to say the words "I feel" with only an emotion and to say the words "I think" when you have an opinion to share?  It might feel a little scary but it might also be expanding or changing your understanding of reality.  If you have tried it I would love to hear about your experience in the comments.

Body Recovery Record

As most people have noticed I have lost weight in 2019.  I have had a lot of quiet congratulations from people.  I know why it is given to me in side conversations and gentle whispers.  Because our culture has grown ashamed of our bodies.  Some of the nicer comments have said, "You look great!  I mean, you looked great before too!"  Which leaves a hanging unspoken, uncomfortable comment in the air:  But now that I lost weight I look better?  More acceptable?  More worthy?  No!  I look like a skinnier version of my fat body.  I have a smaller waistline and I fit into a smaller pant size, but I also have a lot of loose skin, and a lot of stretch marks.  Fortunately, I didn't lose weight with the intention to become more beautiful, acceptable or worthy.  I didn't even have a goal to try to lose weight!  

I was just trying to love my body.  Like I have been for the last few years.  And I really do love my body now.  I loved it last year and I love it this year.  As I was working my recovery 12 step program I was taught the process of surrendering things beyond my control.  One of the the big things that I have struggled with for many years was control over my eating and my weight.  I had success losing weight on the 6 week body makeover back when my first child was 3 years old and I spent the next several years fighting for control over my body.  I was fighting cravings and fighting the desire to eat foods that I was addicted to and fighting to make my body look a certain way through exercise.  Surrendering was about letting go of that struggle and trusting God to take care of me regardless of what happened next.  I was done fighting.  I surrendered my body, the way I viewed it and my desires to change it to God.

The next couple years I realized slowly as a result of that surrender how unhealthy my relationship was with my own body.  My spirit lives inside this body.  God gave this body to me as a gift.  The goal was not to force my body to look a certain way by the world's standard.  The plan God has for me is gain experience in this body.  A lot of spiritual religions talk about transcending the body, leaving it behind to gain enlightenment, but Christianity teaches that God will reunite our spirits with our bodies.  I believe that part of our goal in this life is to learn how to harmonize our spirit and body.  That the enlightenment will come from our recognition of the gift we have received from God in this one precious body and we start treating it as a divine gift.

With that approach I chose to start a Body Recovery Journal.  I wanted to try again to diet but with a mindful, loving approach.  I wanted to eat food and exercise with love in mind.  When I chose to eat something it was not to punish or control my body but to tend and take care of and enjoy my body.  When I chose to exercise it was not to force a result, but to enjoy my body's strength and ability to move and to challenge it appropriately.  I made no weight loss goals.

I used SMART Goals.  
Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Relevant
Time-bound

I also found it helpful to reference VAPID goals to make sure I was avoiding those:
Vague
Amorphous
Pie-in-Sky
Irrelevant
Delayed

For example, my first goal was to chart my progress every 2 weeks through a weigh in and measuring.  My second goal was to keep a food journal to help track my eating and macro nutrients.  I actually began with the 6 week body makeover food plan in mind and I worked really hard to make it work in my schedule.  Then my body started having health problems that really surprised me.  First I got gout in my right big toe.  I never had experienced it before and it was extremely painful.  I immediately researched what I could do and started eating celery.  There was no decent explanation for what caused it and I have not experience another flare up since then.  I have learned that when I set out with a plan and get blocked enough that it might be God's way of steering me a different direction.  My encounter with gout was not enough of a deterrent so the next thing that happened was my period stopped.  For 3 months.  As part of my religion I fast monthly from food and water for 2 meals but I decided to try a longer fast for healing.  It seemed like it worked because my period began again in January of 2019 and it followed my normal pattern.  I thought everything was fine until February when I had the heaviest longest period of my life.  After 3 weeks I called my doctor and got medicine to stop it.  The next period was worse and I went to the hospital.  I had several visits with my doctor and my sister recommended I try the Keto Diet.  So I did some more research and in April I pulled out my Body Recovery Book to try again with the Keto Diet.  The food journal was very helpful in the beginning when I was trying to calculate my carb and protein intake.  

Another SMART goal I made was a check-in at the 8 week mark.  In my calendar for tracking progress I made sure that every 8 weeks I would write answers to the following questions:  

How do I feel... spiritually? emotionally? physically?

I also decided to take a picture at the 16 week mark.  I used a  regular daily planner, but I divided it in half so I could keep the daily food journal log and the bi-weekly progress tracking.  Once I got the hang of my menu, I didn't worry about writing my food down every day.  I focused on daily goals like exercising in the morning before breakfast and making sure I ate enough protein.  I also noticed I could have goals of finding foods I enjoyed to replace the foods I was avoiding.  

Eventually, I had to use my recovery tool of surrender again.  This time I needed to surrender my desire to eat popcorn, rice, beans and potatoes.  I missed them a lot but the Keto was successfully solving the problem that led me to it in the first place--namely the dysfunctional bleeding.  I didn't have control over my desire to eat those things but I could choose not to eat them anyway.  So I surrendered my desire to eat them.  I didn't know if God would take the desire to eat carbs from me or if I would have to struggle with it forever.  I did have an interesting experience.  The last time I gave in and ate popcorn, I was angry.  I was angry that Keto was the answer and that I didn't want it to be the answer.   I was angry that I couldn't just eat what I wanted when I wanted.  I was angry that I felt stuck in other areas in my life.  I got no pleasure or satisfaction from eating the popcorn and that added to my anger as well.  It has been months since I have eaten popcorn and I was at the movie theater last week and remembered the desire to eat popcorn.  I became aware of the smell of popcorn wafting from the seat next to me and it smelled...distasteful, slightly burnt and unappetizing.  Maybe, I will eventually feel no desire to eat popcorn.  I have never drunk coffee and never desired to taste it and the smell of coffee to me was similar to what I experienced when I smelled the popcorn.

Why does this matter?  What difference does it make if I still lost weight on Keto?  I think before when I tried to lose weight it was because I rejected my fat body and I wanted to have a specific outcome.  I did a lot of damage to my body over the years with that attitude.  I believe that attitude is prevalent in our mainstream society as well.  I think that is the reason the weight loss industry is getting so wealthy off our rejection attitude.  Because when that magic weight loss goal number is achieved without loving a previously fat body all that is discovered is a disappointment that the skinny body has not changed in it's value or worth.  Because now it is a skinny body with saggy skin and stretch marks and not the magical airbrushed magazine cover body imagined from the beginning.  I began my journey with love.  Part of my anger over the popcorn was because I loved my fat body and I was happy with it and happy eating popcorn!  I needed to mourn the loss of popcorn and mourn the change in my diet that I was resisting.  I have learned that mourning is a part of my process of change and that is part of my human experience.  I wasn't dieting because I hated my body and wanted it to change, I was changing my diet because I loved my body and wanted to give it what it needed.  I love my skinny body too.  My skinny body has equal worth and value to my fat body.  I will continue to love it and keep treating it like the gift it is.  You can congratulate me on my weight loss, and I will thank you politely.  But I am not celebrating weight loss.  I am celebrating my love found for my body.

Keto Journey

About one year ago I started having medical problems.  After a few months my sister suggested I try the Keto Diet to see if it would help with regulating my hormones.  I tried it and it did help.  The good results my husband saw led him to try it a couple months later.  After 6 months I have gotten a lot of attention from people about my weight loss and I get a lot of questions about Keto.

I am going to give you a review and some tips and you can do your own research if you want to know more or try this out for yourself.  Also I will be doing another post on what I used to track my progress.  I called it my Body Recovery Record.  A big part of my success came through the mindful approach to changes in how I treated and thought about my body.

#1  Is it hard?  Yes and No.

Every diet with restrictions is hard.  Before Keto I had done low carb before and it was hard.  I had done Mommy without Pounds and it was hard too.  Any time where you are going to be vigilant about what and when you eat is difficult.  Any lifestyle change where you establish new habits and veer away from what is considered normal is hard at first.  But when you find a groove that works for you it gets easier too.  When you focus on the benefits of the new habit you find enjoyment.  When you decide to get creative and innovative you find new ways to make it work for you instead of against you.

It WAS hard doing it alone.  The timing was a blessing though.  In the 2 years previous to this one I have been teaching my older kids how to cook simple meals and my husband supported me immediately by getting some freezer foods the kids could prepare for themselves as well.  So instead of cooking 2 meals for dinner everyday I was just cooking a family meal a couple times a week and my personal meals were either single servings or something I made in a batch and could reheat easily.

It was hard giving up some of my favorite carbs like french fries, rice, beans and especially popcorn.  If I wasn't motivated by my health issues I might have given up after a few months.  But then my husband joined me too.

He has been the innovator and creative thinker.  When you try to get creative and have to eat your failure literally, by yourself, for a week it can be discouraging.  When you have another person to help you it makes it so much easier.  I was timid.  I was only trying recipes I found online and I ate it and decided I would make it a staple or never eat it again.  With my husband at the helm, we started experimenting with the sugar substitutes because each of them leave a slight aftertaste on the tongue.  But in Utah I got to try Virgil's sugar free soda which used a "proprietary blend of erithitol, stevia, and monk fruit."  It made me believe we could do better.  Eventually we found a blend that we love and use in our sweet treats.  It was a lot of work pulling from each source so I did the math and now we measure it in cups and blend them together to use as our sugar substitute.  After making a few treats with this sugar blend I had the fortitude to look sugar in the face and say "I don't miss you, you don't treat my body right.  I don't need you anymore because I have a better option."  That was when Keto got a lot easier.

Day 1 picture

 246.5 lbs 43 inches waist

#2  What do you eat/what is a typical meal?

This is tough to answer.  Keto confuses people because it is a HIGH fat LOW carb diet.  Really low carb.  Really, REALLY low carb.  It cuts out a lot of typical foods so it is easier to tell you what I can eat instead of naming what I cut out.  I CAN eat nuts, seeds, a small portion of berries, proteins like meat and fish and the greenest most cruciferous veggies plus avocados, also coconut milk and almond milk and heavy cream are good too.  I have to be careful of tomatoes, onions, garlic and peanut butter etc. but I can have them in small amounts.  So my goal for each meal is to have 70% of my calories from fat, 23% from protein and only 7% from carbohydrates and this is based on a calculator I use from Keto Karma.  I began with looking up keto meals and read from websites and picked stuff that looked good to try.  I started shopping for ingredients at the stores and built up my pantry with my new diet staples.
One of my favorite breakfasts is a waffle made from eggs and almond flour topped with fresh berries and whipped cream.  Another one is a cereal I made from toasted nuts and seeds with homemade coconut yogurt.  I like eating leftovers for lunch so for dinner we make a variety of things and eat them throughout the week. This week is cheesy, bacon wrapped chicken tenders and coleslaw made with an apple cider vinegar dressing.  I also got some asparagus spears from Costco and cook them with coconut oil as an alternate side.  Lucas adapted my favorite mug cake recipe to make donuts last night in the microwave with silicone baking mats.  That was my dessert after lunch today.  We have some taco meat with all the favorite toppings in a bowl or cook some Italian seasoned meat and add fennel for the sausage flavor and Rao's marinara sauce and eat it on spiralized zucchini noodles (zoodles, or zuddles?) for our keto spaghetti.  Cream cheese is another staple for us because we make creamed spinach, alfredo sauce and my favorite, keto cream cheese danishes (where we perfected our sweetner blend the first time).

14 weeks later

220.5 lbs 38.5 inches waist

#3  Is it healthy?

This is also tough to answer.  The long time Keto eaters have been keto for 10 plus years and look fit and healthy so I want to say yes.  But you can do this diet in an unhealthy way too.  I have had to pay a lot of attention to my body and how it is affected.  I take supplements, I take probiotics.  I look for ways to include veggies with my meal in reasonable portions.  I know I am doing it right when I don't have cravings between meals.  Typically, I feel full after a satisfying meal and don't need to eat for hours.  I like that a lot about this diet.  I have had to watch carefully to make sure I was getting the macro nutrients my body needs and not letting the sweet treats take the center stage.  I also use intermittent fasting which is another aspect of keto dieting.
The biggest indicator of the benefit to my health besides the weight loss of course, is my hormones have improved drastically.  I don't experience PMS to the level I used to and my periods cramps are barely discernible and I saw a big reduction in bleeding (which was the major problem that came up in the last year).  I have hope that when I achieve a healthy BMI I will see a big improvement in that area.

18 weeks later

190 lbs 35 inches waist

#4  How much weight have you lost?

So far I have lost 50 pounds.  It is very noticeable.  I have also been doing exercise, mostly Yoga and a some cardio like walking and Zumba.  I also started a Body Recovery Journal.  I measure and weigh myself 2 weeks apart and every 8 weeks I check in with myself on how I feel mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  I made a goal to take a picture every 16 weeks.  An interesting thing I noticed was that I did lose the same number of inches in my bust, waist and hips in the first 20 pounds lost.  I thought my waist and bust were going down faster than my hips but they all shrunk pretty evenly.  Measuring was helpful because some weeks I weighed in and lost 1 or 2 pounds but had shrunk half an inch.  My 2nd picture day I had gained 1.5 pounds but I was an inch smaller in the waist!
Lastly, I made sure my goals were not outcome focused but SMART focused.  Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Timebound.  For example, I will drink 64 oz of water a day.  I will do one yoga video when I get up before breakfast.  I will use veggies as my main carb for lunch and dinner.  I will go to bed by 10:30 pm.

2 weeks later:  Time for a new Day 1 outfit since the old one is too loose!
This was taken 3 days after Thanksgiving ;)

187.4 lbs  35 inches waist

I will be sharing our Ultimate Keto Sweetner Blend recipe on a new tab called Creative Keto Recipes.  When we come up with something new that we don't see posted by long time Keto Bloggers I will post it in that tab.  By the way the biggest complaint I have about recipe blogging is the huge story I have to scroll through before I can see the recipe.  No need for that since my blog is and will remain ad free.  If you want to support me financially go buy a printable in my etsy shop *wink, wink.  My husband created his own pancake recipe that isn't cream cheese based and we may be close to a hot chocolate recipe as well.  My sister is trying our sweetener blend in some regular recipes to see how it does with regular baking as well. 

My biggest encouragement is for you to do your own research and decide what you can reasonably do for yourself.

Tooth Fairy Letter

The Tooth Fairy has a tough job.  I know Santa has to work a lot and produce a lot of toys.  Sure he waits until the kids go to sleep but trying to sneak into the bedroom and put the present UNDER THE SLEEPING HEAD OF A CHILD!  Who came up with that crazy idea?  Why isn't the tooth left out on the kitchen table?  Like it could be left on the dinner plate.  Or in the bathroom next to the toothbrushes.  But no.

I have 5 kids so I have seen my fair share of Tooth Fairy fouls.  She forgets to visit because she fell asleep before the kids did or she couldn't get through the mess in their bedroom to deliver their present.  Anyway, here is a free printable to help your local Tooth Fairy out:

Print out a few of them for your local Tooth Fairy so she can more efficiently do her job.  :D

Ready... Set... Summer?

Oh what do you do in the summertime... when your house is full of kids?

In the past, my summers were pretty hard to manage.  I was either pregnant or nursing for six years straight.  Focusing on growing babies and keeping them alive past one year did not leave me a lot of time to think about doing anything else.  I struggled to get out of the house and to not rely on screens to keep my toddlers occupied without giant messes that stressed me out.  I was really grateful to my brother for rescuing my oldest child from my toddler/baby world by taking him on outings with his family during that time.  The main event every summer was going to visit our family in Utah and other than that I was pretty lazy.  Sometimes I would buy one of those big books of school worksheets with the intention of having my kids work in it everyday.  I paid around $8 for them to work about 4 pages out of it maybe 2 or 3 times PER CHILD.  That means I paid $24 for 3 different grade levels and used about 12-16 pages total.  What a waste.

To help get us out of the house more, I made a goal last year to write down activities to do on a schedule for the week every week.  I committed to myself that I only needed to spend 2 hours doing the outing and that made it easier to stick to our plan.  We had purchased passes to the Safari Park Zoo for the year (with parking) so I wanted to go at least once a week.  Plus the beach was on the list.  For several years I went to the beach only once a year or sometimes not at all.  This was mostly because my little ones could not swim--1 mom and 3 potentials for drowning are not a good combination.  Fortunately, I got my kids swimming lessons so I wouldn't be afraid to take them once a week finally.  We were also lucky to have someone at church pass a sign up around to all the pool owners willing to have people come over on Tuesday each week.  Only a couple people took a turn twice and we could visit the pool once a week too.  It was an awesome summer last year.

Instead of buying an expensive worksheet book I pulled out a blank composition notebook and wrote "Family Journal" on it.  I thought, "If I get them to write a journal entry, maybe a few sentences about what we did on our outings and draw a picture, then they are getting something educational out of it right?"  Boy, was that difficult.  My oldest ones agonized over what to write and my younger ones dictated long things to me that barely talked about what we did and then drew a picture of what they talked about.  Well, I did get them to write a couple times so that is something.  We filled about 10 pages of the notebook.  So yeah.  Pretty much the same amount of effort and consistency.  But I did get them out of the house more and we loved it.  I am definitely planning to do a similar goal of scheduling outings this year.  But I have been wondering, "How will I help them to keep up on their math and writing skills?"

Out of the blue...a couple weeks ago I got an email from someone asking if I would consider doing guest content on my blog.  I was actually extremely flattered.  I feel like a very, very small fish in this ginormous internet pond even if I have been trying to swim around a little more in Pinterest, and Etsy.  So I am pleased to introduce the few of you who read this to Education.com.  I looked through their website and it is very easy to navigate and filled with plenty of great content.  They have free printable worksheets, learning games, and even simple lesson explanations of the skills.

Warmer weather is right around the corner. Why not celebrate with some summery reading practice? For little ones, read this with them to promote early word and shape recognition. Visit Education.com for more learning games, resources, and activities.

If you have had similar experiences to mine then you probably know what I am talking about.  So how am I going to make sure they actually do some of these worksheets?  Well fortunately, I got back into my chore chart habit a few months ago.  Remember my post about teaching my kids to do chores?  My youngest is 4 so it was time to get back to the original way of doing it.  That first version with the "Have To" and the "Can Do" lists really works well for the younger kids.  And I really had to make 2 separate ones because the 6 year old needed to work on his chore skills too.  My 10 year old enjoyed helping me make a couple "wallets" out of card stock to hold their dollars and we taped them to the wall of their bedroom.

As you can see, I personalized them.  I let them pick their favorite colors for the highlights and then I let them pick a bathroom chore to learn.  When I had one child I was ambitious enough to teach him to clean the whole bathroom but now I have 5 kids... so they can share the bathroom chores.  Here is a generic version I made in case you would like to use this for yourself

I learned from the theory of motivation that we are not just motivated by pleasure or pain but also by what we know to be true and by having choices.  I use this knowledge to focus on helping them know that they CAN do their chores and that they have CONTROL over their choice to do them.  When my youngest says it is hard I say "I know it is hard and you can do it!"  When he cries that he doesn't want to do it I reply, "You don't have to do it.  You just don't get screens until you do."  Then I walk away and let him decide if he wants to do it and get screens.  About 90% of the time he decides to do it about 10 minutes later.  The other 10% he ends up taking a nap and then doing it when he wakes up.  I don't make my standards impossibly high either.  For the first month I did help them with each chore and focused on how they could get it done on their own but I could be available to help them for a minute or two.
This is how the 4 year old made his bed completely on his own this morning:

4 year old bed making skill

It is a sheet because he didn't want the big blanket.  He likes his baby blankets still (which are piled up on his pillow) and he is warm enough at night so I can let it be that way until he is ready to trade for a bigger blanket.
Here is how the 6 year old made his bed entirely on his own this morning:

6 year old bed making skill

I love that he lines his dolls up on his pillow there and his precious 10 color pen that he purchased yesterday is sitting in a place of honor where he can access it when he is ready to draw.

I also added in a couple ways to earn dollars for "non-chore" skills that my young kids need to work on as well.  Playing nicely together outside for 30 minutes and playing a board game or card game nicely (no tantrums or fighting) for 30 minutes.  The learning curve has taken a month but my young boys finally don't whine that making their bed is hard work or brushing their teeth is hard work--at least not every day.  As a side note, for me, some days making dinner feels as difficult as lifting a mountain. while others I can put together a 3 course meal with ease, so I can relate and have some compassion for their perspective.

I also found that for my older kids, who don't need the dollar system, it still helps for them to have a visible checklist to know what I need them to get done.  So I created a morning and evening checklist for them and put some ambiguous things like "Put away 10 things" for the bedroom and "Put away 15 items" for the general house and "1 Kitchen chore."  They get to control a lot about those directions like which items they put away and which kitchen chore they do (which can include preparing a meal for the family).  They are old enough to have that kind of freedom.  Plus, I could put more personal reminders on there for acne care and flouride application.

I have a separate one for the middle child too which is like a combination of the Responsible kid checklist and the younger kid checklist.  She is young enough to still need the dollar system but old enough to have more chores for morning and evening so that is all the explanation I want to give right now.

I realized the need to make a homework slot on the younger kid's "have to" list because next year they will be doing homework and I want to start the learning curve on that NOW when I have 6 more hours to help them come to terms with it.  The best thing I have learned about teaching young kids work is to keep it simple and focus on one thing at a time.  That is why I am excited about  Education.com.  This website has free printable worksheets from pre-k up to 5th grade.  No need to shell out $30 for 4 different grade levels.  You can print a worksheet as needed.  This is the perfect answer for me and my family.

In the past when I tried putting a big book in front of my child and asked him to work on a page, it was intimidating.  If he didn't like the page he would want to flip through the book and then we spent 10 minutes just trying to find one that looked good to him.  Instead I can print a couple pages or just 5 for the week like the teachers do for homework packets and tell him we will work on one a day.  Plus their website has games and explanations for the skills.  Even my older kids can keep up on their math and reading comprehension skills and be better prepared for next year.  A lot of you probably know about Starfall and PBS kids websites and I love those too.  It is always nice to have some variety and choices.  I love free content.  Let me know what you do to get out of the house and keep up on your kid's learning during the summer in the comments.  I hope you have a great summer!

New Free Printable

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I get lots of opportunities to use my creative talents to serve others.  Currently, I am serving in the Young Women leadership in my area  and the church as a whole has a new scripture theme each calendar year.  For 2019 the theme is:

John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments."  

I was asked to look at it and consider making a lettering design for it.  I pondered on it for a while and decided that message I wanted most to portray is that when we keep the commandments we are protected and that God gave us commandments because He loves us and wants us to be able to return to Him.  Inversely, when we keep the commandments, we show God that we love Him and want to be with Him too.  So here is my contribution to the many other choices available to use for displaying this scripture:

I could go into the details of how hard I worked all this week to create the design and how many sheets of paper I had to doodle on and practice the layout and the details inside the letters...(yawn) but, I would really rather go lie down now.  Maybe I will upload pics of the process later.  Just be glad I finished it.  ;)

Space Saver Shelf

During the summer I expressed a desire to my husband that I have had for years and finally got to make it!  Forever ago I saw some cool space saving ideas and one was a narrow shelf that fit behind a bathroom door. Just the right size to hold make up and knick-knacks and tools for getting ready in the morning.  Our tiny bathroom has no room to hold my curling iron or blow dryer or make-up so I have been storing them in my closet...that's right...my Bedroom Closet.  Imagine wanting to blow dry and curl your hair and put on make-up and then having to walk from the bathroom around your bed and open your closet door to get out your stuff and carry it all back to the bathroom with no counter space.  Bleh...  I usually only did that on Sunday when I had time for such foolishness.  

I did have my handy makeup travel bag from Mary Kay hanging on the towel rack, but sometimes it would get knocked down from  someone grabbing the towel and ruin my blush, or eye shadow, or foundation powder... :'( *sniff.

So I saw a post on facebook years ago--one of those links that say "20 storage ideas to save space" or some thing like that and one of them was a shelf behind the bathroom door and then I dreamed of a day when I could store my makeup and hairdryer and curling iron on a shelf... behind the bathroom door.  

*Cue singing*  

"I've been dreaming of a shelf right there, where I can easily curl my hair..."

Huh?  You don't hear the Disney orchestra playing in my head?  Oh, ok...

Anyway, I got some leftover pallet wood from a craft night and told my husband I wanted to build a shelf to go behind the bathroom door.  He was a little skeptical at first but I explained that it didn't have to be ultra fancy.  I could sand it and paint it and I just wanted him to help me put it together.  I got a couple more pallets too but we learned that he didn't really have the right tools for taking them apart without splintering a lot of wood.  He got a couple decent long pieces though and we got to work.

Here is a picture the sanded wood before we put it all together.  We laid it on the table and I put items on it to give us an idea of how to space the shelves:

He decided to drill guide holes before putting the screws in to prevent cracking and it worked great.  I also made sure we used a leveler for each shelf as we assembled it.  I started painting with plain old acrylic paint we had on hand.  I love creating :D  To make the clouds I used a white and dabbed the brush on board like I was stippling with a pencil.  Once it a while I would dip in the blue and then the white and stipple and then I dip in the white and then the blue.  I love how it created layers to look like fluffy clouds:

We decided to add a back to it for aesthetic appeal.  We had some masonite board that my husband had kept.  (He likes to save random things like that and it comes in handy sometimes)  So I painted that too.  So much fun!
I used a fine tipped paint brush for the stars and just varied outlines and dots to make it look like they were glowing and sparkling.  Finished masterpiece before we put it in place.  Ignore the pile of clothes on the floor I was excited to get it installed and filled up with my stuff:

I found some polyurethane to give it protective finish since we have no window in the bathroom.  It gets pretty moist in there.

Wah-Lah!!  Here it is in all its glory!  Loaded and ready to use.  I LOVE having it.  And when the bathroom door is open you can't even tell it is there.

Oh it may be hard to see but the shine is because my husband had some plastic (Yay for random useful things again!) he cut and sanded to make it spill proof.  All the shelves have a transparent guardrail thanks to his handywork.

Have a great day and feel free to comment or share your space saving ideas that you use.  Maybe I can find something new to dream about!

Ahem...Ahem...I have an announcement

It's HERE!  I started my own Etsy Shop to sell my creations.  For the last 3 months I have been studying and learning about how Etsy works and preparing my first 10 items for sell.  I was pushing to get things up and running quickly so I am beginning with digital downloads first but I hope to expand to selling printed items and mailing them out.  Here is a link to my shop:
Creative Cache Shop

I also hope to get requests for more designs.  And I have an email just for my business:  michellecreativecache@gmail.com

My husband helped me get some things to streamline my work.  Check out my fancy work station with a glass tabletop desk.  When I get a pencil sketch close to the way I like it, I find it much more efficient to trace with the ink.

The chair was an amazing find at the local thrift shop.  Totally a blessing from the Lord.  I just felt like going on a particular afternoon and was led to check the furniture section and there it was for $15.  It curves well to support my back and it is a major bonus that it matches the wood tones in my bedroom so well!

My husband I had just painted the kids rooms and built new bunk beds for our growing boys.  The old beds were both toddlers and on their last legs.  Rather than throw them away he made a quick shelf to go above my desk so I could have my art supplies easily accessible.  He offered to trim it down more but I decided to go with it for now and decide later if we want to make any changes.  For now it fills my needs just fine.

Also I wanted to get better scans and be able to scan full sizes for the larger work.  So we shopped around and found a brand new laser printer/scanner/copier that can scan up to 1200 dpi and size 11X17.  It can even print size 11X17.  So I am now looking for quality ledger paper so I can print the Believe in God and Trust in the Lord pieces in all their beautiful glory at full size.

I found that 1200 DPI is a huge file size for the artwork I am doing so it makes more sense to follow the standard of most Etsy shop sellers and use 600 DPI.  I saw a big difference in the quality of the scans compared to my old printer.  So I started with making COLOR versions of some of the pieces from my free printables page.  These are all posted in my CreativeCacheShop on Etsy.  And I would love to take requests for new work so please email me with your desires for new designs.  I have some ideas that I have been working on so I will be updating frequently with new work.  And I also will be making a black and white bundle of some of the new art work and the old artwork with my better quality scanner in case people want to print and color it themselves.  Thank you for reading and please share my post!

PS.  Here is the link again since my friend suggested I add it to the end of the post:  Creative Cache Shop

Sewing Machine Miracle

Good news.  My husband fixed my sewing machine.  He found a quarter jammed in there somehow and now it works.  Huzzah, Magic Powers!

So I got in the mood to sew a couple things to add to my Christmas decor.  One was a runner to cover the top of my beautiful piano and protect it from the fun Christmas items I like to display on there.  In years past I took this piece of remnant fabric and folded the weird shapes leftover from making a vest into a rectangle and carefully arrange it on top.

I also made a cover for the media entertainment shelf.  We have our modem, Blu-ray player, Wii, and often the laptop up there for a few years now.  The shelf was originally purchased 10 years ago so I could teach our oldest how to hang clothes up when he was 4 years old.  Now the hooks for holding a rod are just an eyesore to me.  We do put the rod there and hang the stockings up on Christmas eve but the rest of the year they are not in use.

I am so pleased with it I may leave there after Christmas too.

Responsibility Training Update

About a year ago I posted this to explain how I manage chores at my house.  It worked well for a while and I was happy with it for the most part but it was tricky to manage 3 kids on one chart.  I switched to having separate checklists for a while and my kids really like having their own individual checklist instead of sharing.  So I remade my chart for the kids.  Here is what my new one looks like:


I printed one for each of the younger kids ages 8, 6, and 4.  The 4 year old has one that says go potty instead of brush hair.  I explained to the older 2 that I wanted wiggle room.  If they only get the first 3 things done before school that is good enough.  If they have time to accomplish more then that is great but we have time after school as well.  The ones with plus signs next to them are on the following chart.  Since we all have different initials I can choose to mark what chores are done by mom, dad and older brother and they can see that we are also contributing to the family as well as see what chores are available for them to do.  Because of how this printed out I had room to tape a snack sized baggie to each of their charts and I set it up in a space where I had more room to spread out in the hallway.

 Here is a picture of my set up:

You may notice I changed a couple things.  On the kitchen chores I thought I wanted to check it off everyday for breakfast lunch and dinner but we actually have room to write multiple initials when we do a second or third load of laundry so I am switching to a weekly check off like I did for the others.
My favorite thing about using plastic sheet protectors is that I can observe and make adjustments to my system as I see fit.
The other change is the dollars.  I thought I wanted different dollars for each child until I saw that I could attach the snack bags to their paper directly.  But I like this printable money because it was smaller design and it was easy for me to save and use paint to copy the $1 and make a page of just ones.  As you can see they fit in the sandwich bags easily.

The only other barrier I have run into is the shared screens like the tv and computers.  It is hard to police them when one child has done the work to earn their screen time and the others can mooch off of it by sneaking behind and watching.  That is hard to manage.  We fortunately have alternate options like smaller hand held screens that they can use.  I just have to be willing to enforce that lack of screen time when it hasn't been earned consistently and they will eventually choose to do their work.  Also I am willing to exchange the family dollars for quarters which comes in handy when they get book order forms from school.  I found that I need versatility to manage multiple children at various stages of capability.  To be honest it can get tiresome to maintain this level of organization over a long period so don't be hard on yourself if you take a break from it.  The novelty wears off for everyone and when you start fresh the novelty is also renewed.

I tried for a month just doing my original dollar system one on one with my oldest daughter and she liked the extra attention and privileges.  The six year old was saying "I wish I could do the dollar system." in her mopey voice.  It got me thinking maybe I can do this with the 4 year old too.  They attacked their chores with renewed vigor when I brought this out and made it so I could focus on teaching the 4 year old to "earn some dollars."  I have days where I slip and let the TV turn on and they watch without paying.  There are consequences on me because I have to pay for not enforcing my own rules.

It is hard work being a parent.  Good luck!