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9.24.2018

the perfect fall salad



It's the most wonderful time of the year... fall! I don't even know what that Christmas song is talking about. Autumn makes me feel the warm fuzzies like nothing else. When September hits, I only last a few days into the month before I start busting out the fall decor, looking up fall recipes on Pinterest, and dreaming about wearing booties and cozy scarves. Yeah, I'm pretty basic and easy to please.

One time my sister told me, "Whitney, you're so funny. You always talk about how much you hate cooking, but then you have so much fun making beautiful meals!"

It's so true! I really do have a love/hate relationship with cooking. I love making delicious, special, unique meals for the people who are most important to me. I hate the cleanup, lack of counter space, and those adorable grumbles from my kids, because once again, they don't like what I've made for dinner. Sigh. Ah well, autumn is the perfect excuse to do just that! Last night I made butternut squash soup and this gorgeous autumn salad with a maple dressing, of which I may have had four helpings (and only one of my kids complained!). It's simple and delicious and contains all the flavors of autumn. The dressing is adapted slightly from a recipe I found on The Yummy Life.

I made the salad by combining the following ingredients. You can use as much of each as you want. Just go with your instinct!

9.22.2018

no more small, cheap toys!





Does anyone else hate tiny, cheap China-made toys like me? I'm pretty sure I just heard a chorus of mothers from around the world shout a resounding YES. Why are my kids always drawn to the dollar section at Target? Oh... probably because I am. (I just can't resist those tiny ceramic pumpkins!)

I'm not going to pretend to live a perfectly sustainable life, or as though we only buy fair trade items... not even close. In a perfect world, I wish! I am totally supportive of that lifestyle, but it's not really one we can afford, so when possible we buy used items. We are huge fans of thrift stores! But you can still have a consumeristic mindset, even at a thrift store. You know what they say; money can't buy happiness... even if that happiness seems to appear in the form of a gorgeous vintage copy of that particular book I've had my eye on, priced at only $2. Happy sigh. My kids love to play in the toy section at thrift stores, but I almost always say no when they ask to bring those toys home. Games, puzzles, and books are things we are always on the lookout for, but toys... not a big fan.

We have a few boundaries surrounding toys in our house. We have to, or things get crazy. Typically, we ask that people don't bring gifts to birthday parties. We have limited room and plenty of play things, and my kids really don't need more stuff. We would rather just invite friends over to have fun and celebrate our little people with us. And my kids know we don't buy toys for them unless it's a birthday, Christmas, or Easter. Ever. We just don't. I feel like it took a good year for my kids to stop asking for little things when we were out of the house, but eventually they did stop... for the most part.

With these boundaries in place, we can avoid the house filling up with useless junk. (And yet, we still tend to have useless junk laying around... how?!) The less toys my kids possess, the more fun they have... ironic, but not really surprising at all.

However, we still have this little problem of when they have pocket change. So far, we don't give our kids an allowance. I know it's a great way to give kids an experience with budgeting and wise spending, but I don't really have the desire to send my kids lose with $10 a month, or whatever. I think I'd rather them come up with creative ways to earn money instead. But I digress. Every once in a while, they might receive $2 from a family member, or find some change on the ground. It adds up, and eventually, they want to spend it.


I inwardly groan as I walk them through the toy section at Target or the aisles of Dollar Tree, which contain just about every disposable, cheap, plastic toy that I try my hardest to avoid bringing into the house! But now, we have a new rule, and everyone is happy.


Only buy activities.


This means no dolls, animal figurines, cheap tiaras, or Matchbox cars. Only things you can actually do. This rule works wonderfully because there's an end. No more tiny toys lying around. Sometimes there's the added bonus of getting my kids to actually work the little gears in their brains, or getting their hands busy.
Here's a list of inexpensive things they are allowed to purchase:

  • Playdough
  • Sparklers
  • Glow sticks
  • Puzzles
  • Coloring books
  • Maze books
  • Sudoku
  • Word searches
  • Crayons, colored pencils, markers, etc.
  • Paint
  • Other craft/art supplies like felt, pipe cleaners, etc.
  • Notebooks, paper
  • Balls (I feel like one can never have enough balls, our always seem to go missing!)
  • Jump ropes
  • Healthy snacks
  • Calculators 
  • Books (only quality books... "twaddle" can be borrowed from the library)
  • Beads
  • Stickers
  • Wooden toy kits
  • Pegs to turn into dolls
  • Seeds
  • Bubbles
  • Gardening tools
  • Chalk
This worked out splendidly for us, and the other day after the first time I implemented this new rule, my kids enjoyed a fun 10 minutes of sparklers outside after the rain stopped yesterday. Austen bought herself a word search book that is helping with her reading, and Chase picked out a coloring book. Wins all around!










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