Frizz-Ease Sheer Solution Frizz Control

 As a BzzAgent I was sent Frizz-Ease Sheer Solution Lightweight Frizz Control.  It comes in a purple bottle and you shake it up to "activate it".  You only apply a small amount, 10 drops, and then smooth through your hair.  It not only keeps your hair feeling soft and smooth all day long, it keeps it frizz-free!  Pick up your bottle today!

Private Selection Taste of Summer

Bzz Agent has done it again!  They have sent more scrumptious food to sample and what's awesome about it is that it's Fred Meyer's Private Selection, so the prices are superb.  Kyle and I have sampled a 6" apple pie, a pint of smooth, creamy raspberry chocolate chunk ice cream and a bag of salt and pepper kettle cooked potato chips.  Overall, the food is great!  The chips were a little on the bland side, but that's because when it comes to chips, we like flavor, so we'll give the chips another try if they come in another variety.

I'm a BzzAgent and I'm spreading some Bzzzzz!

Pork : Be inspired

My family loves pork, but it can quickly turn from fab to drab by over cooking.  The FDA has recently released new pork cooking recommendations and they make pork taste amazing!  The internal temperature should be 145 degrees (15 less than before) with 3 minutes of rest time.  Try this out the next time you cook pork and see what you think.  We think it's pretty amazing! 

I should mention that I'm spreading Bzzz about pork because I'm a BzzAgent.  Find out here if you want more information!

Creating a Simple Schedule

I know we're already a few weeks into the New Year, but I wanted to share with you my New Years resolution. It was simple this year.

I want to spend more intentional time with my family & God.

I have found that I can go through an entire day without spending any good, quality, purposeful time with my family. That bothers me. I love my family to bits and I don't want my kids growing up thinking that I never took time to sit and play with them! Don't get me wrong, I interact with my children all day long. They are fed, cleaned and clothed! I just find that I rarely sit on the floor to play with them and that makes me sad.

I read On Becoming Toddler Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam to give me some insight into the brain of my precious daughter, who is almost 2. I feel like I have been lax in my parenting of her and in need of some guidance on how to best parent that independent little soul. I found that the book was very much in line with my New Years Resolution to spend more purposeful time with my kids by talking a lot about the need for a daily schedule. I'm a very routine person around my house, my kids eat at the same times every day, nap at the same times every day, etc. But, when it comes down to the details of my day, it's very loose. Mostly free play. The book talked a lot about the need for lots of structure in our kids lives. They gave an example of a daily schedule of a mom of 2 and I decided to use that as my frame work and go from there. I sat down and spent a good hour developing a daily schedule that I think will work for us. Now, we haven't actually tried it yet since I just put it together yesterday and now we're into the weekend (my husband has most Fridays and Saturdays off), so it will have to wait another week or so. I really think it will be good for all of us!

Here's a sample of what my schedules look like:

I created a schedule for every "normal" day. Most Mondays are the same for me. I usually take the day to recoup from the weekend, get the house back in order and just be with my kids. Every every Thursday morning I have playgroup at our church, so I have a "normal" Thursday schedule as well as a "playgroup" Thursday schedule, so I work off them differently depending up on which Thursday it is. Normally, I grocery shop on Tuesday mornings, so that day runs a bit different for me since we are not home most of the morning.

I will definitely keep you posted as I work through our new schedules and tweek them as I find necessary.

Emily

Simple Living

Living simply does not mean that I scrimp on everything. I don't have bare bones walls (although, I have to admit I'm not fully decorated around here, yet), I don't dress plain, and I'm not "cheap". We live frugally out of necessity, but that doesn't mean that I don't try to create a nice atmosphere to live in and look my best when I'm out and about.

Over the next few months, I'm going to take you on a tour through my life. I'm going to show you what living simply means to me. I'll show you around my house and I'll share with you our menu and things like that.

This is a journey for me, I haven't arrived, yet. I'll get where I want to be some day. In the mean time, come with me on my journey through discovering what it means to live a simply delicious life!

Getting There

Back when it was just my husband and me things were simple. We lived in a one bedroom apartment and it was no problem at all to keep it neat and tidy all the time. Then, we moved into a large 3 bedroom house, got a dog and then had a baby all over the course of 18 months. From there things started digressing quickly. We had hardwood floors through most of the house that were impossible to keep dog hair-free. I went from working to being a stay-at-home-mom when my son was born and somewhere along the way I lost it, the house was always a mess and I was more unorganized than I've ever been in my entire life.

The dog was too much for me and we had to get rid of her. We moved into a smaller house which I love to bits and had a second child. But I never really regained my organized, cleanly sense of being. Chasing my two kids is enough to keep anybody busy without adding on the cleaning, too.

I finally had a melt-down last week. I figured out that it's really hard for me to be the one to create the structure and plan. I do great falling someone else's plan. So, my husband went to work doling out the responsibilities onto a chore chart. It's been liberating!

He knows what he's supposed to do, I know what I'm supposed to do and the house has been clean and tidy at the end of each day which really is a wonderful way to start any day! There are a few things on there that we have our 3 1/2 year old get involved with and he loves it, too. It's all very simple and doesn't take very long. It takes at most 30 minutes a day for us to re-set and clean the house for the next day. Wow! I'm blown away!

It's great to feel like we're all pulling our own weight and I don't have to ask my husband to do anything because he already knows what to do.

SUYL: What I Make

I would love to share my little hat shop with you today! It's called MJ Hat Shop on Etsy. I started this shop almost a year ago and it has been such a fun creative outlet for me. I love fulfilling custom orders, making something exactly like a person wants it!


My children are the inspiration for my shop. Their names are Maddox and Juliette, thus the name MJ for my shop.

I taught myself to crochet and I love it. It's so much fun to do while my husband and I are watching TV in the evenings together. It keeps my fingers busy and my mind sharp and I like that. I have personally designed all of the patterns for my hats, so they are original!

I'm the process of designing some new hats right now, so stay tuned!


Thanks for letting me share a little piece of me with you today!