Introducing...dum dum DUM... my planner!!!

The wonderful, inspiring bloggers have at likemotherlikedaughter.org have been talking about organization and planner recently. I love this subject and am pretty OCD about organization and planners. So I thought I'd share my planner with you, which is a labor of love. And please do share how you get organized, too.

Last year was the first year I made my own planner on Microsoft Word and this year I think I finally got it right. I modeled it after Mama's Notebooks here. It took forever to make charts for each week and put in all the right holidays and liturgical dates I want to celebrate, but it is so worth it. I also type in our friends' and family's birthdays. This year it was easier to go back and just move things around, since it was done. Last year I made a big A4 size planner, but this year my A5 size is much handier. And I make one for my hubbie too, even though he is not 1/16th as excited about it as I am. I'm not even sure he uses it acually...

Anyway, I printed it all out myself this year and then got the spiral and cover done at a copy center. So worth it. Each week opens up do a chart to write what I have to do according to time of the day and meals (which I don't use much... I have a master calendar in the kichen with meals). Plus a blank page at the bottom for general notes. This is just like in Mama's Notebooks.

I was inspired by friends we visited in California to make a family schedule. And it has changed my life. So I included it as the first page in our planner. I also included a picture of Jennifer Fulwiler's pyramid, which is wonderful.  

And I have a blank page at the beginning of the planner where I keep sticky notes of more general to do lists or ideas. So they don't clog up the weekly spread.  

I just have ONE planner. That is already more than I can handle.

Finally, I just recently got this idea of organizing my "to do" papers with clothespins from this likemotherlikedaughter post here. It really is so much easier to look at papers this way, I love it. I am hoping to convince my hubbie to use this clothespin system, too. It just makes you feel better about yourself, you know? :)  

Baby and toddler Montessori activity idea #2

I almost wasn't going to do this activity, thinking it was to basic, but I'm glad I did. Addie laughed histerically when she saw the clothespin disappear down the tube of paper towels. Baby humor I guess. Idea taken from here.

Pancakes on Sunday



I have been motivated to make pancakes every Sunday morning, just like Almanzo's mother. Addie loves them and makes a huge mess trying to mix the flour and taste the batter. She sometimes cries out for pancakes the next day at breakfast... but once a week is enough for me.



 

"When Almanzo trudged into the kitchen next morning with two brimming milk-pails, Mother was making stacked pancakes because this was Sunday.

The big blue platter on the stove's hearth was full of plump sausage cakes; Eliza Jane was cutting apple pies and Alice was dishing up the oatmeal, as usual. But the little blue platter stood hot on the back of the stove, and ten stacks of pancakes rose in tall towers on it.

Ten pancakes cooked on the smoking griddle, and as fast as they were done Mother added another cake to each stack and buttered it lavishly and covered it with maple sugar. Butter and sugar melted together and soaked the fluffy pancakes and dripped all down their crisp edges.

That was stacked pancakes. Almanzo liked them better than any other kind of pancakes. Mother kept on frying them till the others had eaten their oatmeal. She could never make too many stacked pancakes. They all ate pile after pile of them, and Almanzo was still eating when Mother pushed back her chair and said:

'Mercy on us! Eight o'clock! I must fly!'"

 

 - From the "Sunday" chapter in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy

Peanut butter chocolate cake

Happy (St.) Valentine's Day!

I made this spectacular cake from Pioneer Woman here in a heart shape. It's peanut butter cake with chocolate icing and it's every bit as good as it sounds. Next time I won't make it in a heart pan though, but in a longer sheet pan as she suggests to get a better ratio of chocolate to peanut butter. Every dessert recipe I make of hers... if I can pull it off (some are hard!)... turn out to be the best ___(chocolate cake/pie/etc)___ people have tasted.

I am so thankful to have time and mainly peace of mind to make a heart-shaped cake this year. A year ago I remember I was not only teaching part-time, but I had a private tutoring student at home who asked me "what are all these hearts for?". I was trying to do it all and really stressed out. I still try to do it all, but not so stressed out. And super thankful for our family and home.

Montessori

Ever since we came back from California, we've been doing 30-60 min of a more formal "preschool" everyday. Well, we try for everyday. We were super inspired by our friends we stayed with who have a boy the same age as Addie. It has been incredibly rewarding for both of us.

We sing and dance to a song or two to begin, and then we play with Addie's toys together. We've practiced colors, legos, the shape sorter. We color. Her favorite right now is puzzles. I even went out and bought her more puzzles because she is so obsessed.

Then I decided to look up and do more Montessori activities, too. I think it would be helpful to have pictures and a compilation of simple activities (for me!), so I will post them here.

Here is one she liked. You just find two small balls, but them in a big bowl and give them things to scoop with. And pass from one utensil to another. Idea taken from here.