I think I’ll try moving them out of her windowsill and placing them on her dresser where it is cooler. Hopefully this helps the little plants and we can save them. Lady Bug will be crushed if they wither and die.

If anyone has any suggestions to save these plants please leave your comments and we’ll try them out an let you know how it goes. We really appreciate your help.

She was soo excited that I took her to the toy store and bought her some little kid gardening tools. We found more than I thought we would. I got her a mini hoe, shovel, rake, watering can, and even a cute set of gloves with a matching apron.

I’m not sure that we’re going to have a “super big” garden like she asked for, but at least now she can have fun playing in the dirt in the backyard. Maybe we can turn a kiddie pool into a garden for her. I bet she would live that!

Place a few spoonfuls of the seeds at the bottom of the jar.  Fill the jar with water about a quart of the way full.  Cover the opening of the jar with cheese cloth and then put on the ring lid to the jar. Let the seeds soak overnight.  In the morning, drain the seeds and rinse them thoroughly two times.  Make sure to drain them well to prevent mold. Shake the seeds around in the jar so they evenly disperse as you lay it on it’s side.

Repeat the rinsing process about every 8 hours. The sprouts should be ready to eat in a few days wen they have grown long enough to eat.  When you see the tail sprout out of the seed they are ready.  To clean off the hulls soak the sprouts in a bowl of water and swirl them around with your hand.  Push the sprouts down and the hulls should float to the top to easily be ladled off. Drain the sprouts and enjoy!

I mix up 1/3 cup liquid fabric softener, 1/3 cup white vinegar, and 1/3 cup water and stick it in a spray bottle.  Then when ever I need to wear something that is a little wrinkly I just spray a coating of this on it and let it set for a few or even toss it into the dryer and like magic the wrinkles are gone.  I love this stuff!

Now, I know it’s not a substitute for real, good old-fashioned ironing with creases, but it works for the every day stuff.  I’m sure my grandmother would rather have me walk around in wrinkle-released clothes than ones that I left wrinkly.  I can’t help it, I’m a busy mom and I use my extra time to play with my daughter and not iron.

Lady Bug has started to keep a journal or log about the flower pots in her room. She is drawing what the flower pots look like each day. after a while she will have a nice little flip book to look through to see the progress of her plants.

I finally got our taxes done this week! Whew, was that a pain in the butt! I used my clearinternet to submit them electronically, which was nice. Being able to submit them electronically was just about the only nice thing that went along with our taxes this year. My husband and I recently relocated for his job and I couldn’t believe how much money that we spent moving! It made me sick. After I added up all of the totals, it turns out that we spent well over five thousands dollars! We thought that we were saving money, but we actually lost a lot of money. We rented a UHaul rather than get a mover. The truck cost sixteen hundred dollars to rent. We totaled up the entire amount of money that we spent on gas for the UHaul and to drive our two cars here, the grand total was eighteen hundred dollars!! Gas prices are killing me! I also calculated how much money we spent staying in hotel rooms. I just wish that I had all of that money back. It made me so sad! I wish that moving and life wasn’t so expensive!

Another chore that I’m working with her on is emptying the bathroom trash cans.  The one in the kitchen is a little too big for her so we are starting with the smaller one .  Right now they are the size of a grocery bag so she can handle them with ease.  They need to be emptied every couple of days. In addition to the bathroom trash, she also wipes off the bathroom counters at the end of the night after we brush our teeth with a paper towel and then every other day with a disinfecting wipe.  She is always supervised when using the wipes.

We are keeping track of the household chores she does with a sticker chart.  She’s really excited about cleaning and helping around the house.  If you have any ideas about what she can do please feel free to comment below.

The website for this company has information about solar energy, solar panels, and solar heating.  It states that solar energy is an environmentally friendly way to heat your home.  That sounds like exactly what I’m trying to teach my daughter about. I’m looking for ways we can change our life to positively impact the Earth.  The website made a lot of sense in how it explains that sun rays are available to everyone for free.  This totally made me think that I could even save money by not having to pay for a big utility bill.  It also made me think I could consume less natural resources by using the practically unlimited supply of sun rays and not using things like gas.

I’m really excited to find out about possibly getting some solar panels installed on our home.  It seems like there are endless possibilities for which we can use solar energy.  It almost seems mind boggling to not want to have a reliable source of renewable energy that is also cost effective.  I don’t know why I haven’t looked into solar energy sooner.

So far I’ve come up with starting a compost pile in the backyard, for the garden, to help recycle and reduce some of the waste we would normally throw away.  I was also thinking it would be fun to have her sort the trash with me into the appropriate bins when we do recycling.  I’m trying to think of some fun ideas for reusing items that she would get excited about.  I can’t seem to think of any off the top of my head.  I’d love any suggestions any of you migth have that  I could do with my daughter.