Little Okie Homestead

So my nephew had continuation last week from elementary school to middle school. Miah was able to attend and we enjoyed celebrating with him. He has been begging to go to Cinzzetti's since we took him there at Christmas and so we figured that would be the perfect present for him. So we went this week on a Monday (which happened to be Memorial Day) because kid's eat free on Monday and Tuesday. Yes we are that cheap! We all enjoyed eating. They have great food and so many different options. Alex ate pizza and dessert. We told him next time we will just take him to CiCi's Pizza if all he's going to eat is pizza because that would be a lot cheaper. We were just teasing but he had a great come back. He said that Cinzzetti's has better pizza. Grandma smiling with her mouth full.  Miah actually smiling after getting yelled at for not smiling in the first picture. Rex enjoying his 'cake'. He's favorite is Fettuccine Alfredo and cake or really any dessert.

So day 3 of 31 Days to Clean by Sara Mae went well. Since we hired someone to come in and do our spring cleaning and she dusted all of our cabinets and behind our refrigerator and oven I didn't do the dusting part but we have lived here for over 5 years and I don't think that we have ever polished our dark wood cabinets (if we did it was right when we moved in) and I have to say they look awesome. We are suppose to be moving in the near future so I debated about doing this but I figured why not make it look nice while we are here and then they will still be nice for the next person when they move in. I also polished out china hutch and it looks awesome. It belonged to my grandparents and I have had that for almost 10 years and have never polished it. It looks awesome too! So excited to have everything nice and shiny! I also know what my family needs that makes them the happiest about the house. Less clutter and less dust/dog hair. Both Miah and Rex have allergies and if I can...

Yea Us! So it isn't the best of circumstances and not really how we had it planned but somethings happen last night in New Orleans that made him not want to be there anymore and it worked out that he is able to come home. Now he will be here full time and he will work on his resume and get started on the job search right away. He's going to get his motorcycle fixed so he can drive that to and from interviews as well as fix the parts on my van that we purchased last week. We will also be selling his 1974 CJ-5 Jeep if anyone is interested please let me know. I'm so excited to have him home again full time and so grateful that he is safe and ok! Here is a picture of the jeep! Let us know if you are interested!

So I have told you the other day that I'm going to start 31 Days to Clean by Sara Mae. (For that post go to 31 days to clean post). So I'm finally on day 2 after several days in between. This will be the way it is for me because not everyday I will be able to tackle a big task, like day number 2, but I did it today and that is what counts. So what was day 2...clean the refrigerator and freezer (at least the Martha part) so that's what I did. I cleaned the refrigerator not that long ago but I figured I would just do it again and I'm glad. Just after about 2 months (maybe 3) it really needed cleaned again and I'm really happy that it looks really nice and I can find all the stuff that is in there again. I think that I'm going to put this on my To Do list every other month. I think that would be really helpful and that way it stays clean. I'm just going to put it in my day planner and when I have some free time on day I will do it that month. Sounds like a pl...

So we plan on homeschooling Rex and even if we didn't his learning still starts now so I have created a little learning corner for him. This month (well for June) it has music in it. We will be learning ABC's, colors, shapes, numbers and other fun things with music involved. I'm so excited to have this started! It's a super cute corner too. I will be heading to the 'teacher' store soon to get some more fun stuff for him. I normally shop at Banks School Supply or Beyond the Blackboard and I love them both. They have different advantages at each store and I can't wait to get there again. Rex is going to have so much fun learning this month. I think we might even head outdoors and do some music painting! I'm so excited that he is old enough to start doing these fun activities! I'm also planning to go to the Dollar Tree because they normally have really cute and sturdy baskets that I can use for more things. I will post out activities that we do and how ...

So Rex loves his bike. He has several. One at our house and two at my parents house and he rides all the time. We have yet to take the bike to the park because from our house it's easier to walk through the green belt than to ride his bike around on the sidewalk. Today though I decided to take the long way even though we were short on time and I have  a ton of pictures too. So I apologize in the beginning if I chose a bunch of pictures to post. He was just so stinkin' cute! Heading out! His feet are up and I'm pushing because the weather isn't looking so nice but I promised him we would go if he let me take a shower so we are off! Arriving at the park. Feet rest is up and he's ready to ride! He crashed. He was watching other kids and just ran right off the sidewalk. I was to busy getting the camera out to help him. Hey, he has to learn right?!? Getting off his bike to push it back onto the sidewalk. Back on and ready to go after a little help from mom. Turning aroun...

So yes it is a week ago today that we got this wonderful weather over my house. It rained and hailed for close to an hour with tornado warning and sightings right by my house. I was enjoying the weather while doing a workout when I started getting text messages about the tornadoes so I turned off my video and turned on the news. I also call our police department to find out if our city had tornado sirens and we don't. In other words if there is a tornado you will have no warning unless you are looking out your windows or hear it and if you hear it you are probably to late. This was towards the end of the storm but you can see in the picture of my van that that it is still coming down and that all the hail made my bumper have issues. I really enjoyed listening to the rain though and Rex loved looking at the 'ice' and he thought it was pretty cool to play with too.  

So our poor little guy is still sick. He now has a cough that keeps him up most of the night. Sunday night I spent most of the night sleeping in Rex's twin size bed with him. But since Miah was gone last night I decided that I would just move Rex to our bed. I put him in his bed and he kept waking up coughing and crying and he would calm down but only while I was in there. Once I left he would start crying again which would lead to coughing. I figured we would both get better sleep if we were together but I wasn't spending another night on a twin size bed when we have a California King size bed that would be empty all night. So we cuddled up and I slept really good. Rex woke up twice and coughed but I just helped him sit up and get it out and then he would drink some water and go back to sleep. Because the bed was so much bigger than his I didn't spend the night getting kicked! Miah and I had an agreement from the beginning that we would never allow our children to be in be...

31 days to clean Having a Martha House the Mary Way   is a Ebook by Sara Mae that I have seen all over other mom or homemaker blogs and it caught my interest. I'm always trying to figure out ways to keep my house clean and how to keep motivation to clean. I kept reading different post from different mom's that are having the same problem and reading this book to help change this. Joyful Mothering  started a challenge that Homemaker by choice  had accepted. I first heard about it through Homemaker by Choices blog and started to look into it. Today I decided I would buy it and download it to my Ereader and get started on the challenge too. Day 1: Is figuring out the whys! Why do I want my house clean? If I can figure this out then it will help me have motivation to get it done. I can easily list off several reasons...allergies, less stress, not searching for hours trying to find something, living a similar life...but to put it into sentences that mean somethings is a ...

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen I would have to say is a must read. It shows how life was in the 1930's for the circus. It has a great romance story line without the trashy sex scenes of tradition romance novels. There are several sentences throughout the book that do explain some sex scenes but it really isn't bad and can be easily skipped over if it is found offensive. Jacob is the main character and time flips back and forth through each chapter. He starts out trying to remember if he is 90 or 93 years old and stuck in a nursing home then the next chapter he is 23 years and reliving his life. His love on the circus was the main start, Marlena, who performed with the horses and eventually with Rosie the elephant. The problem in this story is that Marlena is married to August, the circus animal trainer and main management. This love triangle has some exciting twists and turns that I will not reveal in this review. After I read the book I went and saw the movie and I loved it...

Our family day at the Butterfly Pavilion...our second try! We first tried to go on Saturday night but they close at 4:15pm and we arrived at 4:20pm. So we chose to go on Sunday morning instead. Rex was fascinated with all the bugs and with Rosie. Mommy is terrified of Rosie and last time we were there I didn't know Rosie was there and when I saw her I ran out of the room (no not screaming, just fast)! So of course I have to have a boy that wants to hold her so I recruited Popa to help out and I mustard all the courage I had to stay there and take pictures.  So here is Rex 'holding' Rosie!  Here's all the kids looking at the other bugs they have and spiders. Yuk! I hate this room! Just some cute pictures of a butterfly and a flower!  Sitting and waiting for the butterfly lady to talk. (Alex and Rex) She was terrified of all the butterflies and cried and freaked out the whole time. I finally was tired of it so I made her sit in the stroller that meant more crying and scre...

So I want to get a really quick post out before I walk out the door. Today I'm thankful for several things. Miah's plane has landed (that's why I'm running out the door). I slept last night with the help of all natural help (Homeopathic report later after I use it for more that one night) My dad is able to help this morning with Rex so I can get Miah My nephew is continuation is today from elementary to middle school Think that's it! Hope you can find some things that you are thankful for today too!

Heading to the Butterfly Pavilion just to find out that they were closed for the day!

Fishing! Popa has been talking to Rex about fishing for months and I have taken Rex to the park and had to drag him away from other people that are fishing because he would just go and sit next to them and watch them fish instead of heading to the playground to play. Finally we were able to head out and fish. Popa went and got worms (because we read a book that said that's what fish eat) and he got his license and we headed to the lake. So here we are finally fishing and you want to know what Rex does...runs away, throws fits, wants to play, feed ducks, anything but fish. Serious kid you have been begging to fish for weeks. So we are down at the far end the area we are at feeding ducks (someone else gave us a piece of bread) when Popa caught a fish. Then he was kind of excited.   We went to see the fish and he did try and pick it up and touch it at first. This is him say "fish". It looks like he is grossed out or something but he was just exc...

So every year my dad has planted a garden as long as I can remember. Last year Rex was a little young to really help but not this year. Popa and Grandma were busy planting a vegetable garden and flowers and Rex was all about helping.   Popa showing Rex how to use his new garden shovel. (Lowe's had this awesome kid size but real shovels, rake and hoe and Rex has them all. He will be a gardener when he gets older).   Shoveling dirt for Grandma so she can plant her flowers.   Carrying the flowers from the porch to Grandma in the garden.   His first worm. I'm so glad he's able to do these things with others because I'm not one to pick up worms or bugs so Thank You to everyone that helps Rex be the boy he needs and wants to be so Mommy doesn't have to! We wanted to get Rex a sandbox or something fun to do outside at Popa's house because he always goes to the far side of the house where there is dirt to dig and of course we can't see him over there. Popa dec...