Messy Face? Clean It Up!

Who can relate to the following scenario??

Spaghetti is prepared for dinner; spaghetti is served to members of the household (including small children); spaghetti mostly makes it into the mouths of most members of the household, however, for the few whose faces  and hands are smeared with orangey-red residue, a seemingly insurmountable feat is about to take place, one only to be attempted by an experienced veteran...

OK, ok! That was a bit dramatic, but you get the idea.  At the end of every meal there are faces that need cleaning, and over my years of experience (ha!)  I have come to learn a few things:

1) solely using a wipe as your method of cleansing leaves those sweet cheeks red and dry...ouch! 
2) using a wet paper towel minimizes irritation, but can be wasteful and expensive
3) finding a clean washcloth can be challenging and...

AH HA! That's it! How can I make it easy to find a clean washcloth every time my kids' faces need cleaning while also avoiding getting a new one every single time?? Well folks, I have come up with a solution to this problem...

  
hooks that suction to the tile next to our kitchen sink...simple, yet brilliant!  A washcloth for Selah, and a washcloth for Owen, perfect.  I can't tell you how much this has alleviated those post-mealtime demands...why didn't I come up with this sooner?!    

Homemade Play-Doh

I got this recipe, entitled "Best Ever Playdough", from my ma-in-law.  And it's true, it is the best playdough I have ever made...although, my aunt used to make this edible peanut butter playdough when we were kids, and I've yet to make that, soooo that might be comparable...I'll let ya know!   

For now though, the recipe for this soft, squishy, googy goodness is:

Mix together 2 cups flour, 2 Tbsp cooking oil, and 4 tsp cream of tartar.

Bring 2 cups water, 1 cup salt, and a few drops of food coloring to a boil.

Pour water combo into flour combo and knead together until smooth. Store in a plastic bag. 

This stuff can last forever and it makes a ton! 

Here's some fun being had with this tried and true, kid-approved substance:

 

Selah's creative creature,
I love kids' imaginations,
you never know what they'll come up with!

Not only kid-approved,
this stuff is also adult-approved!!
 

By far, my favorite!!!
See the little tongue sticking out?? So cute!!!

Now, go make yourself some "Best Ever Playdough" and channel your inner kid...you know you want to! ;)  

Smoked Sausage Stew

I found this recipe from:

It was a great find 1) because it has sausage in it and Selah looooves her some sausage (sausage breakfast tacos, sausage pizza, just plain sausage...she loves it!) and 2) because it is a form of a stew, which Daniel loves!! Double win! Here's the recipe:

Put these three cans
(2 bean and bacon soup, 1 diced tomatoes;undrained)
in a saucepan with 2 cups water.

Then add,

2 medium potatoes, 1 cup carrots and 1 cup celery
(well, I may have done a bit more than 1 cup...
but you can never have too many veggies!!)

You can also add 1 teaspoon chili powder, but I left that out since I was planning on giving this to Owen and I didn't want it that spicy, especially since he has acid reflux.

Then you bring all those ingredients to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Next comes the meat!! 

Add 12 ounces fully cooked smoked sausage (thinly sliced) and cover and simmer for 40 minutes.  

Wa-la! Smoked sausage stew is served!! 

**Daniel's tip: Add Tabasco!!! 

First Steps

I'm writing two posts tonight because...

 Owen took his first steps!!!

That deserves its own separate post!  Don't ya think?!

Unfortunately, I don't have any documentation to prove this...but he did! And I'm proud.  Go Owen!  

And, so Selah isn't feeling left out, I'll tell you a little something interesting about her day today...

she slept for THREE HOURS today.  

I don't remember the last time she took a 3 hour nap...whoa! I can't think of what we did during the weekend to make her so tired, nothing out of the ordinary I don't think?? Maybe a growth spurt?? I don't know, but I refuse to let go of that nap, especially after today!! Let the naps continue!!!  

Back to Owen though...who has never napped 3 hours in his life (and I feel lucky if we make it past an hour!!) because he is too busy learning to WALK!

This is going in the Blessings Jar! (see previous post) My boy has legs that allow him to move from place to place, something I could easily overlook and take for granted, but not today, today I'm grateful, and feeling very blessed! 

Our Mantel

In all honesty, our mantel needs quite a bit of help.

See...

it's a bit bare.  

I envision a large, beautiful piece of art on the brick area, and some sort of long candle holder type piece to take up that middle part... one day, one day.  

For now though, there are two pieces on the ends that are pretty special to me, both made by yours truly.  

The frame on the left looks like this: 

 

This is a frame that originally held newborn pictures of Selah, but once Owen joined our family I wanted to use this frame for a new purpose.  (P.S. We still don't have ANY pictures of Owen up in this house...so very sad...I'm working on it.)  It is a little hard to see, but the words are from the verse: 

"As for me and my house, 

we, [the Treibers], 

will serve the Lord." --Joshua 24:15  

This verse sums up our vision and purpose for our family.  We want to serve God in whatever way that may look like for us, depending on His plan.  Plus, whenever I see this, I get to bust out the "God Is In The House" song by Hillsong.  Oh yeah.  

If you're curious, I just used scrapbook paper and letter stickers to make this.  I found both items at JoAnns.  I bought several different packs of stickers, but each pack was only a $1!! I was pretty excited! 

On the right side of our mantel is this: 

   

I got this idea from my stepdad when him and my mom were down for Christmas.  It is a "Blessings Jar" that starts out empty and gradually gets filled with slips of paper throughout the year. 

Here are my slips of paper:

Just scrapbook paper, construction paper, and foam sticker.

On these pieces of paper we write the big and little blessings that occur throughout the year (prayers that have been answered, people who God has brought into our lives, activities we have been able to participate in, issues that have been resolved, etc.), we date it and stick it into the jar. Then, on New Year's Eve, we plan to dump out all the slips of paper and read through all the ways God has blessed us this year.  It will help us start the year off right and put life into perspective!  

Here is our jar getting fuller and fuller:

 

 So thankful tonight to have so many reasons to pick up a pen and fill out a slip of paper, God is so good!! 

One Less Bin

This is an odd leap from my last post, but let me reassure you, I'm still praying for God's direction in helping me shine that little light of mine (did I mention I am around babies and toddlers and young children most hours of everyday, so be prepared for all sorts of kid-related references!).  He has answered in a few different ways, mainly giving me lots of inspiration and renewed excitement about plans for the future, which is great, but I'm hoping and praying for more opportunities for the present, the today...I'll keep you updated.  

Aaaaanyway, today's post is about how I managed to free an unsuspecting bin being held hostage by a random assortment of art supplies.  This bin's home (along with numerous other bins) was underneath this long table in our kitchen, pushed against a window, with a large tablecloth on top of it.  For whatever reason, this table tends to collect...stuff! All kinds of STUFF, both on top of it and under it.  Oy vey!  One of the tasks on my ever increasing to-do list is to figure out how to organize this whole area.  I am one bin closer to this goal!! That's something to be proud of! 

So, as I mentioned, this bin was filled with art supplies.  It worked well for awhile, but then I got tired of pulling up the tablecloth, pulling out the bin (which, of course, was always underneath other bins I had previous rummaged through!) and then putting it...uhhhh, on some type of flat surface, that wasn't already cluttered with something else... and then open it up to dig through and find the ONE specific thing I needed for that particular art project.  

What a pain!!

I sound like such a complainer... 

But it was, it was a pain!

So this is what I did about it!!   

This is one of those holders meant for shoes,
that I actually got from our closet...
Goodbye shoes!! Hello paint, glue, and googly eyes!!
(Well, actually, the shoes didn't really go anywhere, just into a new shoe holder!) 

This is the top half, where we keep all our paint (and, holy smokers, as my Grandpa Pete says, and Selah repeats :), we have a lot of paint!!)

We also have the glue, bubbles, stamps and ink pads, and pencils in this section. 

This is the bottom half, where we keep markers, crayons, glitter, paintbrushes, magnets, more stamps, pipe cleaners, craft sticks, and other odds and ends.














I did this sometime in February, and I'm SOOO stinkin' glad I finally got around to doing it!  It makes me more willing to do a spontaneous craft with my girl! Everything is so easy to see and retrieve...and clean up!  Good stuff!    




**The place where I found the inspiration for this solution is no longer available, or I would gladly share it with you all!

Let Your Light Outshine the Darkness

I find it ironic that the very same week I decide to start a blog focusing on optimism and hope I come across this…

And this…

And THIS…

WHAT?!?!

Awful things happen all the time, so maybe it is just my unreliable perception that it seems like there is more awfulness this week…but man, my radar has seemed to be picking up a whole lot of extra negativity!!

For me, the emotions that surface the most during these tragedies are fear, doubt, sadness, and helplessness.  No one wants to be reminded that life is fragile and that it can be gone in an instant, it causes uneasiness and rattles our confidence in humanity and our beliefs of how this world works.  I was pleasantly surprised, especially after the events in Boston, to see that my Facebook was flooded with encouraging words and reminders of where to shift our focus. Here is what stuck out to me the most from a few of the uplifting posts I came across…

  

"May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live." – Galatians 1:3-4

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.'" --Fred Rogers

(Here is a website that draws attention to those helpers!)

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Patton Oswalt’s reminder that the vast majority of humanity fights against darkness, and that the good outnumber the evil. 

“Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” –Isaiah 41:10

I let my amazing friends on Facebook uplift my spirit and prevent my mind from taking me to dark places.  We can’t ignore evil, we can’t hide from evil, we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, but we can fight against it, in fact, we have to fight against it.  We have to let our light outshine the darkness. 

This is where I start to feel the helplessness again though…because how does that look, practically speaking.  It sounds great, but how does this look in the everyday??  I’m far from Boston, I have no idea where to even start righting the wrongs with Dr. Kermit, and I can’t bring back a little boy from the dead…monetary contributions are great and I truly believe in the power of prayer, but…what else?! I haven’t come up with some fantastic solution yet (but I intend to! someday, somehow! with God’s help!) but I suppose it starts with the small stuff and just being aware.  There are people needing a bright light in their day all around me, I just have to be willing to seek it out and then respond.  That’s where it gets tough.  Knowing myself, I’ll be all gung-ho about this simple objective of keeping my eyes peeled and acting on what I find, but weeks/months from now, it will be pushed further and further from my consciousness.  I want it to be my constant prayer that God opens up my eyes to the darkness around me and gives me the strength and wisdom to know what to DO about it.  So easy for me to say and write, right now; in this moment…but you have to start somewhere and I won’t let my own prediction of my dedication months from now deter me from doing something today…tomorrow…the next day… 

How will God use me (and you) to shine some sunny rays through someone’s cloudy day today? 

The More You Read, The More You Know

Books, books, books...we have ALOT of books!! We really love books around here! Well, at least, Selah and I do anyway.  Owen is not too crazy about books...yet! He'd rather eat them, throw them, and rip them as of now, but one day he will grow to love reading, I'm sure of it, I'll keep trying till he does! And Daniel, he loves reading too, but he often jokes about the absurdity of how many books we actually have.  He claims that if a library were ever in a crisis (a fire or tornado or what have you) they would be able use our supply to restock.  He's partially right, we would make a pretty good sized children's section, but the adult section...not so much.  I love reading books from my nook and Daniel uses his iPad to find reading materials, so we don't have a lot of "old-fashioned" adult books.  I sure do love a good old, page-turning book though!!

So, I think you get the idea, we love books and we have a lot of them.  When we moved we had about 5-6 big boxes filled with just books!! The task, ever since moving, has been trying to figure out where to put all these books!! At our old place there was this large closet with big, deep shelves that was perfect for placing all the children's books we had, but didn't necessarily need out yet (books specifically for certain seasons, topical books, higher level books and novels, etc.), but we didn't have a similar storage option here at our new place.  It has been a work in progress ever since, and, although I am pretty satisfied with our current setup, there's other ways I'd like to improve it in the future...stay tuned ;)

For now though, I'll show you what we have come up with, starting with Selah's room:

This is next to Selah's bed...
the books here are rarely kept this neat,
so I think we need a new plan eventually

This is also next to her bed and I LOVE it,
my favorite book storage piece!
This also happens to be my very first sewing project!
I found out how to do it here

This is just a small selection of her bigger books
that don't fit anywhere else
and stand up nicely on their own.

 Now for the living room:

This is in one of the corners of our living room
(well, playroom is more like it I guess)

This is a bookcase we bought when I was still pregnant with Selah.
The day care I worked at had similar ones in their classrooms,
and I knew I just had to have this for our home!
(I kinna wish we had like...five!)

We had originally bought this for toys,
 but we found other/better ways of storing those as well,
and when this became available, I knew exactly what I wanted to use it for!
We try to keep Selah's more easily-destroyed-by-Owen books in the top bins.

And this is our beloved library bag,
always bulging with new finds at our public library...
LOVE that place!!!  

And this, my friends, is where we keep all those extra books
that are inappropriate to have out
 (seasonal books, higher level books, etc.)
These two bookcases are in a corner in our bedroom.

I don't have pictures of Owen's books, but he has a bin in his room next to the glider with board books and bedtime books, but like I mentioned before, he's a bit of a squirmy worm and we don't get a whole lot of reading done in that space.

Since we are on the topic of books, I'd like to share with you an unexpected find that turned into one of my favorite books... 

This book came in a pack of 8 or so books,
all from Little Tiger Press,
that we found a Costco one day

I was reading this to Selah before bed one night for the first time, and just fell in love with its message.  This little mouse is trying to get back home, and along the way various misfortunes keep happening to him (falling into a hole, falling into a lake, sliding down a hill, etc.), but little does he know, these misfortunes are actually saving his life.  For instance,

in this picture there is a bird after this poor little guy,

but since he falls down into this hole he is able to escape with his life.

By the end of the book this bumped and bruised mouse is super discouraged from all the obstacles he had to hurdle before getting home, and as he is complaining to his mom she reminds him that he is now safe at home, and it could have been worse.

The message I take from this book is that I need to remember to be grateful, even during the difficult times, because those difficult times are serving a purpose that I am unaware of at that time, and may never become aware of until the end of my life.  This reminder helps me put tough circumstances into perspective, because I never know what I'm being saved from! I rest in believing God's plan is better than mine! 

What are yall's favorite books?? How do you store your books at your place of residence??   

       

The Name

I’ve wanted to start a blog for quite some time now, but, oddly, the main reason holding me back was my lack of good ideas for a name.  Kinna silly, I know, but the name was just so important to me.  It had to be catchy, meaningful, fun, unique, and, how Goldilocks would describe it, juuuust right. 

I would even tell God things like:

“If you want me to have a blog then you’ll have to put a really good name in my head.”

Or, “Man, I would really love to write about my day today in a blog, that sounds like fun, but geez, I still can’t think of a good name, God, help me out!”

As you can see, God and I talk about a lot of things, even seemingly insignificant topics like blog names… 

Then, as I was taking Owen on a walk around our neighborhood on a cloudy, windy day I started to silently complain about the weather.  We had had several cloudy, dreary days in a row and I was really starting to miss the sunshine with its glorious warmth and light!  Then, I thought about how ridiculous it was for me to be so glum when I have so many, many reasons to be thankful.  So I started thanking God for all that I’m so grateful for; my amazing, loving husband who makes me laugh daily, my two healthy and sweet growing babies, my encouraging and wonderful family and friends, the beauty of flowers and plants and nature, the food I was going to be able to prepare for my family for dinner that night, and the list goes on and on… it perked my spirit right up!! Also going on in my mind (there’s always approximately 3-5 stems of thought going on simultaneously in my brain **not scientifically accurate, I’m sure, but that’s how I feel**) anyway, as I was going on this walk I was also trying to come up with blog names.  When the two thoughts of thankfulness and blogging collided, I knew what I wanted my blog’s purpose to be…I wanted it to be a place where I could write about ideas, people, activities, things that make me happy, I wanted it to be an uplifting place, a place where I could document what I am grateful about, and a place where I can remember (even on the hard days, especially on the hard days) why I love this life!!  After discovering it’s purpose the name came quite easily, and, ta da!! Sunny Side Up was birthed.

However, this is NOT, I repeat NOT, a blog with posts about rainbows, bunnies, and lollipops with no real, authentic substance to it.  You better believe I’ll be talking about it all, not just the happy, pleasant moments…I’ll tell you all about the moments I stay in PJ’s all day long, my living room looks like a toy store threw up, laundry baskets are overflowing, the counters are cluttered with piles and piles of who knows what, food is growing mold in the refrigerator, my kids whine, cry, throw fits/spit up/fall and get boo boos/spill milk/drop all variants of food items on the freshly mopped floor/write on the walls/eat poo (this has really happened, this morning in fact, GROSS!!!), and all the mundane, simple moments in between.  I refuse to let my life seem perfect when it is far from it, it won’t do anyone any good. No sir-ee.  I love reading other’s blogs that are honest and real, and I haven’t come across too many that aren’t that way, so this one will be no different.

What’s important, though, is not dwelling on these tough, messy moments but rather handling these times with a joyful approach.  Having a glass-half-full attitude, if you will.  I want to choose to look at this world with optimism and hope.  So hard to do… and I often times fail (just ask my husband whose ears are often the ones my complaints fall upon). There are so many things in this world that are dark, sad, broken, and we are reminded of this practically everywhere we turn, it’s easy to be sucked into.  I’m constantly trying to return my focus to what brings life into perspective for me… starting first by looking to Him and renewing my mind with His word (also hard to do, and not something I have mastered yet but continue to work on), then spending time participating in the hobbies He has given me to enjoy (i.e. baking, sewing, watching a good movie or TV show, creating, organizing, cooking, teaching, mothering, reading, writing, connecting with my husband, playing card games/board games/any games really, listening to music, picnicking, dancing, conversing with family and friends, travelling…just to name a few)!  Life is just too short to stay glum…    

All that being said, a question that often pops in my head is this: What right do I have to encourage people to view the world with hope and positivity??

 I have never lost a child (or any close loved one for that matter), I have never experienced extreme poverty or want, or had any major medical issues, I have never been involved in sex trafficking or slavery or abuse, I haven’t had to deal first-hand with the effects of war and hate, I have never known the loneliness of being an orphan, I’ve never lost my home to a natural disaster, <insert other awful issue/s the world is faced with, that I forgot, here>. 

So who am I to tell people (assuming there are “people” out there reading this ;) ) who have suffered one or more of the above to keep their head up and be joyful through it all?!

I don’t have a good answer to that question, but I do know I can’t make matters worse.  I think I’d like to err on the side of being too encouraging and too hopeful…

I also need to make it clear that I’m not saying we should ignore all the above issues by putting ourselves in this happy, fake little bubble, or avoid doing our part in relieving these problems, I’m also not saying it’s wrong to be sad or to express one’s true emotions, in fact, it’s healthy to do so, but what I am saying is that we should strive to find beacons of light and hope, even amongst the worst of circumstances so that we can pull ourselves up from whatever is keeping us down so we can live and experience life to the fullest, the way God intended it.  This may take days/weeks/months/years/on going, but I think it is worth giving it a shot...

So that’s what I hope this blog does for you (and for me!), I hope it helps us view life from the sunny side, even on the cloudiest of days.

And now I leave you with this quote I've been marinating on lately:

“Every day may not be good…but there is something good in every day.” – Author Unknown