Kelley’s Place

The school room/ toy room is where we end up spending a lot of our time during the week. It is home to all of our school curriculum, books, art supplies, toys, etc. I like to think of it as organized chaos in this room.

On any given day you could walk in and see that it is crazy, it is messy, but it is also where a lot of learning and fun is happening as well. I think it’s a good trade off.

This hot chocolate recipe reminds me of when I was a kid living in Janesville. My Mom would make it for us after school in the winter. My kiddos love it now too!

Hot Chocolate
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c.unsweetened cocoa
dash of salt
(mix together in pot)
1/4 c. hot water
(stir in)
(bring to boil over med. heat, stirring constantly; boil and stir two minutes)
Add 4 c. milk
(stir and heat *do not boil*)
Remove from heat; stir in 3/4t. vanilla (optional, I actually like it w/o the vanilla)
6 servings

We are yet again working on another room makeover project.

I hope I am not boring readers (aka my family, haha) too much with the same thing.

Anyways we are still not finished with our entrance way/mud room redo so I will be sure to post some before and after shots when we get it completed.

Until then, here are a few of what we’ve been doing so far. As you can see it’s been a whole family effort!

Madelynn is not so loving the solid food thing just yet (given we just started!). She is more interested in playing with the spoon than eating with it!

It is interesting having memories of three babies to compare when it comes to sleeping habits. When it comes to napping (really sleeping all together) all three have been different.

Sophia absolutely hated it, both naps and night time sleeping. She seemed like she was worried from day one that if she closed those little eyes she would miss out on something life-changing. It usually took lots of bouncing, swinging, swaying, etc. to get her to doze off anytime, anywhere.

Joshua came along two years later to be the total opposite. He loved to sleep (still does). He stayed on a schedule (like a newborn, lol) of sleep, eat, sleep, eat for like the first year! I remember after he learned to walk, I would be frantic looking for him around the house only to find him asleep somewhere. It was unbelievable to us that a baby could be so content sleeping after having Sophia (I say this about Sophia with love).

Now Madelynn’s here and she seems to be right up the middle. She doesn’t really have a problem sleeping (for her two naps and at night- no more ). I can usually put her down in her crib and close the door and she will fall asleep on her own. But, when we are out places she will often fight sleep to the bitter end (usually collapsing in a mess of tears).

But when Maddie’s at home and knows we are all around, we can sometimes stumble on scenes like this…

I am just now coming to the end of my first batch of homemade laundry soap and dishwashing detergent. I looked back at my original post about making it and noticed that that one batched of each has lasted over six weeks (and I estimate I do 1-2 loads of laundry/loads of dishes a day)!

Also, after using it for this long I can say that I don’t notice any difference in how clean our clothes/dishes are. I would say it is working at least as good as what we were purchasing from the store.

I’m glad I gave homemade cleaners a try.

Last time my friend Sherri visited she was telling me all about how much she enjoyed jewelry making. She has made tons of beautiful jewelry and it looked like so much fun!

We went to Appleton and did some bead shopping. We found the cutest bead store where it was literally floor to ceiling beads, all unique. It was amazing!

Anyways, I did buy some beads and supplies but haven’t had much time to attempt to make much. The only thing I have done so far is this little bird nest necklace.

I hope I can find more time to be creative with jewelery making. You can see more of Sherri’s jewelery on her blog. Her jewelry is amazing!

We have been doing some exciting bird watching around here. We aren’t going to let eight inches of snow keep us down!

I put together a little bird watching basket that includes all the bird stuffed animals I could find (Yes, this even includes Big Bird, Pablo from Backyardigans, and a Bee just because hey, we aren’t too scientific around here.), some books and magazines about birds/eggs, some weird homemade felt bird nests and eggs (really not my finest sewing moment, that’s for sure), and some pairs of binoculars.

We took turns hiding the birds and eggs around the house and then searching for them. It was pretty cute watching Sophia and Joshua looking so serious through their binoculars, and creeping around so quietly (as to not disturb the birds).

When they found some something they would look it up in their bird books to find out what kind of bird it was (although, for some reason we couldn’t find much on Big Bird or Pablo in our books…).

Our little not so little Maddie had her half birthday on the thirteenth! She is growing so fast!

Here are some things about her at this age
- she is getting good at falling asleep at home with noise (a constant with her older brother and sister around)
-she does not like to nap when out and about (too many things to see and hear!)
-she rolls over once and a while but mostly likes to be sitting up playing (just like her big sister was at this age)
-she is great at grasping toys to play with them
-she still loves her baths
-she has out grown all her six month clothing (and I had to get out her 9-12 months clothing from storage over the weekend)
-started practicing eating solids (she’s not loving it, but we are in no hurry)
-she still sleeps in her pack n play in our room (since she still gets up to nurse at night) but I will be moving her into Sophia’s room soon
-she loves playing with her toes
-will “sing” herself to sleep (she always falls asleep with a little sea horse toy that plays music)

My kids love having waffles for breakfast (I don’t know many people who don’t). So I keep trying to tweak my trusty Betty Crocker waffle recipe make it a little “healthier”.

I have had quite a few failed attempts while trying to do this but I think I have finally found a winner. I’m sure there could easily be an even healthier way to make them but we want them to still taste good too.

So, anyways what works for us is simple, I use half whole wheat flour (half white) and sub no-sugar-added, natural applesauce for half the oil. Add honey or real maple syrup for a topping and I can feel okay about serving this to my already-too-hyper five and three year old for breakfast once a week.

My mom sometimes made banana pancakes for us in the mornings. They were really good and she was able to sneak some extra fruit into our meal.

Do you have any sneaky ways to add fruit or veggies into your kid’s meals?