What I'm Working On

Since the baby was born, it's like I have this extra little burst of enthusiasm to get stuff done around the house. It kinda started with my clean kitchen obsession and has spread to other areas of the house. I even printed out this fantastic planner set to help keep me on track. At the moment, I'm working on a few little projects, to help spruce things up.

In the past, I never really had any interest in keeping up with our yard. We have flowerbeds around  the entire perimeter of the house, but since we live on post and this house isn't really ours, I never took an interest in maintaining them more than I had to. After starting our little vegetable garden, I realized how easy it is to dig up a few weeds and plant something else, which is exactly what we did over the weekend.

The girls planted sunflower seeds in mason jars a while back. We took the spouts from those and planted them along the back wall of our garage. So far, they're thriving. I'd be super happy if they would grow six feet tall with huge bright flowers.

Another little project that I've been working on is my photo wall. Each time my mom has visited, she's helped with it. It's finally getting to the point where it looks close to complete. I got on Shutterfly yesterday and ordered a bunch of free prints (promo code: laborday101 [or click here for 101 free photos from my referral page]). So far, I love how the wall looks. It'll be a work in progress, and I'm sure huge changes will be made each time we move as well as when the girls get older.

This last project isn't really home related, or even a project really.. Actually, I've been attempting to put together a mini homeschool curriculum for the girls for the days that they're not in school. It's taken a lot of Pinterest searching and some creativity on my part, but it's coming along. I've found some great homeschooling resources and have taken little bits and pieces from everywhere. I even fired up the Cricut for some extra fun little projects. Today will be the first day that we'll be following somewhat of a lesson plan instead of just randomness that I print from the internet. Wish us luck.

Starting Our Vegetable Garden

I am happy to say that my first day of solo-parenting all three girls wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating. Other than several interruptions while the doctor and I were speaking, Juliana's appointment went well. Gymnastics was good, except for the fact that it was close to 300 degrees in the gym and poor Juli heats up so easily.

While at home, the littlest one slept the majority of the time. I used that time to take care of some minor chores. Once the big girls started getting restless, I decided it was finally time to get our little vegetable garden started. While my dad was here, we started some tomato plants which inspired me to plant even more vegetables.

Over the weekend, I bought most of the items needed to get our garden started. I picked up a big  raised garden box, along with five packets of seeds and little pots to get them started in. We already had enough dirt for this little project.

Yesterday, I let each girl choose two packets of seeds to get started. They were responsible for filling their pots with dirt, planting the seeds, and watering their pots. Afterwards, we went inside and drew pictures of what we had planted.

Today, my plan is to spend some time outside checking out our new seedlings along with the tomato plants and some sunflowers that the girls planted a few weeks back. I have a few printables courtesy of Pinterest that they'll be able to color and do a few matching activities with.

My goal now is to do more these little projects where we can incorporate learning opportunities. I'll probably check out the lesson plan for V's class and steal some of the activities that they work on on the days that she doesn't attend. I'm actually pleasantly surprised with how much she's learned in the past few weeks of school. I'm hoping that Adri picks up on some of it from our at home learning and who knows, with Juli sitting close by, maybe she'll be a baby genius too.