Week 12 of preschool at home was in celebration of Spring - "Beautiful Butterflies"! To talk about all of the wonderful things we could look forward to in the Spring (albeit, no warmer weather where we lived yet) including more animals showing up in our outside environment, warmer weather, and green on the trees!
The letter craft for 'B' was an adorable little bear! Cupcake had a great time putting this one together!
Our Easter parties began this week, so we did have a craft playdate at a friend's house where we did some Easter crafts. The girls also had their pictures taken by our friend and had a great time posing with their stuffed Easter friends!
(Thanks to our favorite crafty mommy for taking these photos for us!)
Be sure to follow me on at the places below, to follow our Pre-School at Home activities and see what inspires me at Pinterest!
Week 11 of preschool at home was all about "Telling Time"! In honor of the "Spring forward" time change that we had this week in the United States, we talked a bit about the clock and what the time change would mean for us.
Our art activity was a "T is for Tree" letter activity:
She was also very into painting this week, so I had her paint the back of a paper plate green... and we made a turtle out of it!
We also had a clock that Cupcake decorated and we practiced moving the hands around. (Since she is still only 2 years old, I focused more on the general concept of telling time... rather than an explicit instruction of it.) We counted up to twelve and talked out our schedule, and how telling time helps us be places... on time!
Here's how our letter wall is shaping up!
Be sure to follow me on at the places below, to follow our Pre-School at Home activities and see what inspires me at Pinterest!
I've been using Sibu Beauty skincare items for some time now and was happy to receive the offer to review a few complimentary items from Sibu that I had never tried before - the exfoliating scrub and age defying eye cream!
I also had the rest of the daily skincare essentials by Sibu Beauty on hand, so I decided to do a full skincare line review!
Balancing Facial Cleanser - I've been using this product the longest, for over a year now, and I consider it to be one of the best cleansers I've ever tried! It has a nice light scent, and just a light bit of beading in the cleanser, so you feel like you are refreshing and doing a daily exfoliation at the same time. The balancing facial cleanser is 100% natural, so it works great for sensitive skin like mine and while I normally cannot use products with any fragrance on my face - the scent comes from natural lemon and orange oils - so they don't aggravate my skin. Retail on the cleanser is $17.95.
Clarifying Toner - This was a item that I recently purchased from Haute Look and had been wanting to try out. I love the spray pump applicator. It is a light toner, that is great for basic daytime toner and feels very fresh on the skin. Retail price on the toner is $24.95.
Exfoliating Scrub - Sibu sent me an exfoliating scrub to try, and I do love my exfoliators! It looks like it is going to be a lot more gritty than it feels like, but once it is on your skin - it provides a nice light exfoliation that I would not hesitant to use weekly. The scent is slightly strongly stronger than with other items from the skincare line, but still isn't overpowering. Retail price is $19.95.
Repair & Protect Facial Cream- The repair & protect facial cream is a light daytime moisturizer that is especially good for warmer months. I've found that my container has lasted for a long amount of time with daily use and made my skin feel especially nice when used in conjuction with other Sibu Beauty skincare items. Retail price on the repair & protect facial cream is $20.95.
Age Defying Eye Cream - The age defying eye cream was another item sent to me by Sibu Beauty, and I have to say... it is a new favorite! I occasionally get dark circles under my eyes when I haven't had enough sleep, and I found it to be effective. It was nice and light, absorbed into my skin nicely, and didn't feel greasy at all. Retail price on the eye cream is $24.95
Final Verdict:
- I love that Sibu Beauty skincare line brightens my skin and makes it feel nice as well. My favorite products from the line up are the balancing facial cleanser and the age defying eye cream. The cleanser has been a favorite for a while, and the eye cream is a new favorite! The eye cream seems to give me nice results, and the retail price is less than comparable eye creams that I've tried that give similar results! So overall, this skincare line has been a great find for me and I really enjoy using it!
Giveaway!
Check out my YouTube video for how to win a full size balancing facial cleanser by Sibu Beauty! Giveaway ends April 4, 2013!
FTC Disclaimer: Items in this blog post were sent complimentary from Sibu Beauty for purposes of review. Those items were noted in the text. All opinions are my own.
Week 10 was another fun week about reading! We'll be focusing more on numbers in week 11 since we've been talking a lot about reading, but since we had so much fun during Dr. Seuss week (see our previous blog post) - we decided to keep the colorful, imaginative reading fun going with "Rainbow of Reading" week!
We focused on reading again this week and had fun reading some of our favorite bright colorful books, like "Rumble in the Jungle" by Giles Andraea.
Our crafts included making a fun circle rainbow, shamrock snake, and "R is Rabbit" art!
The weeks have been flying by and we've been keeping busy with play dates, lessons, and more! It is shaping up to be a busy Spring for us!
We've continued Pre-School at Home, even through our busiest weeks. Here's an update on the last few weeks of preschool at home.
Week 8
Week 8 was the final week in February and all about "Outstanding Opposites"!
We had a lot of additional activities, so we used week 8 as a reinforcement week for a concept that Cupcake had already been introduced to. We talking about opposites, read books about opposites, and also did an adorable "O is for Owl" craft!
Week 9
Week 9 was a celebration of Dr. Seuss! One of our favorite children's authors around our house! Dr. Seuss' birthday was March 2nd. Week 9 was "Incredible Imagination" and also appropriately... Seuss Week!
We had lots of fun reading all kinds of books by Dr. Seuss, making Seuss crafts, and even sharing some of our favorite Seuss quotes!
Some of our favorite Seuss books:
The Truffula Tree craft was one of my favorites!
The "Thing 1 & Thing 2" crafts with pictures of the girls' faces were also quite adorable! (Their hand prints are the hair! Check out our video blog above for details on how to do the crafts!)
And our letter art of the week was "I is for Ice Cream"!
Following the crafts we're completing and more at Pinterest:
It was requested on my YouTube channel 'Being Mommy with Style' to tackle the subject of family budgeting when you are a stay at home mom.
This is such a complex topic, I'm planning on it being a multi-part series and I would love an answer any questions you have about budgeting or how to get started. We've had a family budget since my husband and I were newly married, without children, and both working. Our budget has evolved over the years as our needs changed, we were able to gather more data to figure out what we spent on average in certain categories, and we learned what categories were "trouble" categories for us.
We keep all of our data in an Excel spreadsheet, and while it has a number of formulas linking pages together and the like, the idea is quite simple. Track where we are spending money, make sure we are using it to the most of our advantage, and stay within budget.
I've offered to share a "blank" template of our budget with my YouTube viewers, and I will do so in this post.
I have had people ask me to share our specific budgeting numbers, and my take on this is: budgets are an individual thing. You really have to work within your own parameters, your location, your situation, and honestly not worry about comparing your budget numbers to other people that may be in different financial situations. Some people will need to alocate money towards commutes (tolls, higher amounts of fuel, more vehicle expenses), other people may have short commutes, but have a job that requires going out to lunch more often. If you have two incomes, you may need to account for different things such as daycare and additional doctor visits.
So I have opted to not share specific numbers and instead share a framework. I'm hoping that will be helpful to those that had questions and please let me know any additional questions you have about budgeting, getting started with a family budget, or saving. I would be happy to help give opinions from our perspective since we have budgeted for a number of years. (Keeping in mind I'm not a financial planner, ha!)
Here is the template of the budget that can be used in Excel:
