A Cookie Cutter Diva's Life

Wow I remember when blogging used to be such a big part of my life! A great way to document what I did with the kids and look back on how they have grown! But most importantly to give the family a place to look and follow while being so far away in our journeys as a military family! I can't believe I haven't blogged in over a year! I stayed at home for 11yrs and then I decided to return to work and in that year and a half I worked it just seemed like spare time was very rarely something I had! When I did have free time I didn't think to sit down and blog or update because I was to tired or enjoying a nice glass of wine and recouping from it all! I also didn't feel I had a lot of exciting things to blog about for anyone to really care or follow haha I did lots of fun activities working at the catholic preschool with the little ones daily but I shared those fun crafts on pinterest or facebook for everyone to see and get ideas if they wanted something fun to do with their little ones but not nearly enough interest for a blog! And I didn't have as many pictures to show all the fun since it was of children not of my own haha Returning to work was fun and man was it nice to get out of the house and feel like someone other than just "mom" to feel that I could still do other things and contribute to the house hold income! It started out very very part time no more then 15 hours a week and wasn't to bad when it was during the time the kids were in school or at first in the mornings when my husband would take them to school but after school quickly became very hard to deal with. I give a huge props to my husband for holding it all together and playing not only dad holding down a full time job but being Mr. Mom as well! Not just Mr Mom doing pick ups from school but holding down the fort, playing dance mom and carting two girls to dance, one to football, one to wrestling, baseball, whatever it may be! I could see it starting to really put stress on him and that started putting stress on us. It killed me not being able to help him more. It killed me to miss out on so much and not see my kids in dance class, not see them at practice.. or even worse one of them would leave for practice about 20 min before I got home and be gone til 9pm at night. So I didn't see him longer then to feed him and put him to bed. I know many parents "have" to work and they do what they have to do to provide and that doesn't mean they miss their kids any less then I did and I don't expect a pity party by any means but being the mom that had firmly decided to stay at home with my kids and did for so long it killed me. We had planned for me not to go to work til they were all in school, only during school hours and only party time. But I got stir crazy a the new duty station where I found it hard and felt lost. I was used to a large army family and community where people were searching for things to do, searching for that new army family, searching for playdates and to get out and meet others and stay busy! I think a big reason it's not found here as easy is because a lot of people come here for a year andx then they are gone so they don't have much time to settle before they leave again. And while there are deployments it doesn't seem as ordinary to have so many with deployed spouses here who are looking for people to lean on and the comfort. The few I've met I'm of course not in that situation at the moment so I'm not doing the same type things like getting together for dinners with our kids and keeping each other from being lonely. It's just been all around different. Everyone I seemed to click with all worked. That was something new for me as I was used to having all stay at home mom friends and it was strange to have the friend who worked. Maybe I was going through some type of mid life crisis all of the sudden? I mean I did hit 30 here which is not that old but I just felt lost. Like something wasn't complete. So in effort to hope that my youngest didn't get deprived of the social time they all had I put her I a 2 day preschool against my better judgment. I say this because I didn't do it with my other children so young. Heck I had a hard time sending them to preschool and we homeschooled for a long time too. So I cried that she left me so willingly and I was bored and went to work and made friends for myself lol She thrived off it! She loved it! I wasn't used to that! The other kids didn't adjust so well to leaving me so young. Man that killed me! This is the baby! I'm supposed to have more time! I'm not ready for this! So the last few months I just felt lost in did I make the right choices for our family. My oldest starting middle school and changing so much. Me not being here for him as much as I had hoped and him going through new emotions and changes and just not seeming himself. My youngest no longer a baby. Was it all worth it. My middle two children have autism and my oldest one with it really transformed from all of his therapy. My daughter was diagnosed 2yrs ago and I beat myself up for not going sooner. For not putting my foot down more while arguing that year trying to get her seen to be evaluated and find a place while Tricare continued to mess up our referrals. I beat myself up for not seeing it sooner. She didn't get the opportunities for help that my son did. We finally get her diagnosed but the closest place was an hour away and that was next to impossible to get her seen for therapy as much as we needed her to be by the time we commuted an hour there and an hour back and me working and her in school. I really hated that she was not getting the same opportunities but then the lady who diagnosed her actually left the center and opened a local place here in town! Yay! We finally have a chance to start getting things on track! So she started therapy and it started helping her some while we waited for an ABA therapist to come locally and now there is one! During this time she seems to be doing worse. She's isolating herself, not wanting to go to school, having problems socially, will skip meals, stemming and hurting herself, very emotional and just over all does so much better at home. She's dropped out of so many activities I've tried to put her in. She has however stuck with dance still! She liked that when she did it last year so that has been a win win so far! But a lot of changes were made and I decided to give up trying to work after school then wound up staying at home with some changes at work and we have decided to homeschool her again even though the two oldest will remain in school. It's almost like my life went from one big lump of stress to calm again. Everything feels at ease. Even though some of the reasons the change brought us to the choices were very stressful and I shouldn't be so calm I am now. Maybe it will be my time to return to work in a year or so. Right now apparently this was God's way of saying I needed to be here, I needed to focus on Brooklyn being at home, I needed to focus on what my oldest is going through and feeling and be available to him more, I need to be less stressed for my husband and more available to him for our marriage. Whatever it may be, there's a reason for it all and I don't regret that my life changed for a short time because I think we needed to see that importance of me being at home that was being taken for granted and I needed to financially help while we pulled out of a mess from a bad rental situation and car repairs! But for now my place is at home again! And you will probably see more blogs from me to keep my sanity where I lack getting to talk to other humans face to face haha

More fun today as part of my oldest History lesson about Slavs. He made Kirsov's Pudding which was pretty gross in my opinion lol but it was fun to make for him!
Title: Kirsov's Pudding
Categories: Russian, Ethnic, Vegetable, Desserts, Slavic
Yield: 6 Servings

4 Lg. sweet potatos - peeled & grated
1 c Molasses*
1/2 c Buttermilk
2 Eggs
1/2 c Melted butter
1/2 ts Salt
* Honey may be substituted for molasses. I had this dish made both ways. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 2 qt. baking dish. Beat eggs, add the molasses or honey, melted butter, & salt. Stir in the grated sweet potatos. Pour this mixture into the baking dish. Bake for 2 hours or until the pudding is a dark, caramel color. Be sure to grate the sweet potatos just befor eusing them as they will turn dark and not look as appetizing when cooked.

We only did a few of these since we didn't have everything but here is what we are doing!
Mummy Experiment
Egyptian mummy
The earliest Egyptian mummies date back to around 3200 B.C. Hieroglyphics from tombs describe how the mummification process evolved over time. In the beginning, preparers would simply treat the body by covering it with a natural salt, called natron (baking soda), to help dry it out, and then wrap it in bandages soaked in a type of resin.
Around 1500 B.C., the art of mummification reached its peak. Before treating the body, morticians would remove the brain and many vital organs. Then they would pack the abdominal cavity with natron, sand, or sawdust and immerse the body in more natron for about 40 days. After that, the body was washed, repacked with spices and more natron, and wrapped in bandages. The whole process took about 70 days.
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Mummy Experiment
Have you ever wondered why every time you eat salty foods, you get thirsty? Or why fresh vegetables tend to shrivel up when you sprinkle salt on them? The answer is simple. Salt is a desiccant - it helps remove water from things, including human bodies. Which is why the Ancient Egyptians used salts when they were mummifying bodies.
In this experiment, you can test different salt compounds and to find out which makes the best mummified apple.
Materials

2 fresh apples
large box of table salt
large box of Epsom salts
large box of baking soda
knife
eight 12-oz disposable plastic cups
measuring cup
large mixing bowl
pen
masking tape
sensitive balance or food scale (optional)
paper and pencil
Slice the two apples into quarters so that you have eight slices similar in size. Place a piece of tape on each cup and write the words "starting weight." Select one slice, weigh it, and record the weight on the outside of cup 1. Follow the same procedure with the other seven apple slices until each cup has been labeled with the appropriate starting weight. If you don't have a scale, try to cut all the apple pieces to the same size.
Put 1/2 cup of baking soda into cup 1, making sure to completely cover the apple. Write the words "baking soda only" on the outside label.
Fill cup 2 with 1/2 cup Epsom salts and label.
Fill cup 3 with 1/2 cup table salt and label.
Fill cup 4 with 50:50 mix of Epsom and table salt then label.
Fill cup 5 with 50:50 mix of table salt and baking soda and label.
Fill cup 6 with 50:50 mix of baking soda and Epsom salts and label.
Fill cup 7 with a mixture of 1/3 baking soda, 1/3 Epsom salts, and 1/3 table salt and label.
At this point, seven cups should have an apple piece and 1/2 cup of salt mixture. Cup 8 should have just a piece of apple as control for the experiment.
Place the cups on a shelf out of direct sunlight and let them sit for seven days.
After a week has gone by, take out each apple slice, brush off as much salt as possible, and reweigh. (Do not rinse the apple off because that will rehydrate it.).
Compare the starting and ending weights of each slice and calculate the percentage of weight which is moisture lost for each by dividing the difference in weight by the starting weight.
If you don't have a weigh scale, put the apple pieces in order of size (make sure to keep track of which piece was in which cup!
Questions

Which salt would seem to work best at making an apple mummy?
Would you have achieved the same results if you used a whole, un-peeled apple? Try it and find out.
What was the point of leaving one of the apple slices in a cup without any salt at all?
Where did the moisture in the slices go? How could you confirm this?
jars for holding salt to make a Egyptian mummy Salts and special drying solutions played important roles in preserving mummies, but they also served another purpose. Before refrigerators and freezers, people had to preserve food by pickling, drying, salting, and smoking. Visit a local food store and see how many foods you can find that have been preserved the same way as mummies. Try your hand at drying different fruits. How do the textures and tastes compare?

Today we had fun with learning about King Tut and Pyramids doing lots of fun activities and crafts!!
1) We designed our own Sarcophagus with a print out from here http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/design-a-sarcophagus
2) Wrote our name in Egyptian Letters
3) Made a Fun Egyptian Hat
What You Need
Cut Strips of Construction Paper glued together to make a head piece
Cut Construction paper in half then decorated for the sides
Rolled up Foil to make a Snake for the front

Today we made a recycled dalmatian craft for part of our science lesson where we learned about rescue dogs!

Make a Dalmation:
Clean 8 quart Kool-aid canister (or similar powdered drink container)
Paper
Pen
White, black, and red felt (we used construction paper)
Scissors
Black permanent marker
Two wiggle eyes (2 mm)
Tacky glue
White Sock

As part of our lesson today learning about the Slavs we made pottery clay!
Air Dry or Bake Clay #2
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup hot water
1/8 cup cold water
1/4 cup cornstarch
In a saucepan, boil salt and hot water.
Stir cornstarch and cold water together in a separate bowl. Once the cornstarch dissolves, add this mixture to the boiling water. Whisk constantly
Reduce heat to low and cook until mixture is a stiff dough. Make sure to stir constantly so it doesn't burn.
Drop dough onto table and, once cool, knead for 5 minutes until firm.
Roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters (just like you would cookies).
Store extra in a plastic bag for up to 3 weeks.
You can let air dry for 48 hours (in a dry, breezy location)
OR Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Bake on a foil covered cookie sheet for about 1 hour
Paint with acrylic or tempra paints. (acrylic cover better, but don't wash out of clothes)

Saw this on pinterest and absolutely fell in love with it and had to make it for the kids! This is a fun way to practice spelling for the older kids and letters for the younger kids!
Cut out some construction paper in 4 squares and write a letter on each one
Lay them out over the floor
Cover with clear shower curtain
Tape one side of the shower curtain and pull over the letters and cut to cover only over the letters
Tape all sides down tight with packing tape
Run a few strips of tape over the to of it to hold down securely
Now your kids are ready for some fun!!! My kids couldn't even wait to try it out and it's not even school time and they are jumping around spelling things!