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Making your own gifts can be fun for the whole family, save money and be a special treasure for the receiver.  This is a very simple recipe with ingredients most of us have around the house already.

We are going to make these for Valentine’s Day Gifts as I do have all these items on hand so it won’t cost us a dime and will make great gifts for Grandparents and friends.

I have never made these before, so I don’t know how long they will take to dry or when I’ll get a post up with photos of ours and I wanted you guys to have time to make your own and for them to dry by Valentine’s Day.

I’ll go ahead and share the recipe with you then post it again after we make them with photos of the finished project!

Fragrance Stones

1-1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup salt
1/4 tsp. cornstarch
2/3 cup boiling water
1 tbls. fragrance oil
Colorant of your choice

• Mix all dry ingredients.
• Heat water in the microwave or on the stove.
• Add the fragrance oil and the color to the water.
• Stir water mixture into flour mixture.
• Mix as best you can and then knead the dough with your hands. At this point you just want it to look like pie or cookie dough.
• Roll it out about a quarter of an inch thick.
• Cut into shapes or use cookie cutters.
• Stamp the flat shapes with rubber stamps to add markings if you wish.
• Let the dough stones dry.
• Package nicely and make someone smile!

*Vanilla can be used as a scent if you don’t have any fragrance or essential oils on hand. Add a dash of cinnamon for a holiday smell.

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So what is gratitude? Gratitude is defined as ‘a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation’ But I think, from a Christian standpoint it’s much, much, much more, but we’ll get into that later, as I hope to make this a very regular post cause I wanna up my score on that life satisfaction test so I get into a good college…

Things I’m thankful for today:

• My mom picking me up something for dinner while she’s gone to the store
• My mom using her money to do so
• Hubby seems to be feeling better
• We’re not homeless (I’m not being snarky-I really am thankful)
• Sunshine
• Our pond has (a little) water in it again
• My kids are best friends

Now go have an attitude of gratitude! Post it to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, where ever and come back and leave me a link. Spread the Love!

I’ll leave you with Ps 100

shower head

So today, I got in the shower and thought ‘wow, this is nice-maybe I can shower alone and shave!’

See, my 4 year old loves to take a shower. He’ll take one with me, one with Ryan and one alone every day if we’d let him.

We have a seperate shower and tub in the master bath and the shower is plenty big enough for one, but not for two…or even one and a half.

I love to take a shower as much as the 4 year old does. If I had nothing else to do and wasn’t afraid I’d run the well dry, I might take 3 or 4 a day myself. But let’s face it, I’m a homeschool mom and blogger, I’m luck to have time for one a day. So I cherish that time.

Today, he entertained himself while I showered. Alone. The whole shower to myself.

I washed my hair and face. Conditioned my hair. Washed all my bits. Rinsed everything. Enjoyed the warm water hitting my tired muscles fat rolls. It was nice.

Then I thought to myself, as I had the whole shower to myself, I really should shave. I mean, I really need to and there isn’t room to with a munchkin in htere with me. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead I just stood there, draining the well dry. I never get to relax int eh shower anymore. It was nice, relaxing and invigorating at the same time. Heaven.

But now, I still have hairy legs…..I guess I could braid my leg hair tomorrow.

The point of 3 in 30 is to form new habits, if you are a FlyBaby, you’ve already heard it takes round abouts a month to form a new habit.

So I thought-rather than make goals randomly I best lay out a big picture, what my BIG goal is, my long term goal, then make, small monthly goals to get me there.

So, what are my big picture, long term goals?

• To manage my time better
• To get more effective routines in place (I haven’t changed my routines since we began homeschooling-so they need tweaking)
• To get my home in order/organized
• To grow my blog and monetize it
• Have more free/fun/family time with my kids-they grow up so quickly! (see 1st goal)
• Kill the laundry monster
• To be super mom (just kidding!)

What are my goals for this month?

1. Declutter 15 Minutes a Day (FlyLady Monthly Habit)
2. To be in bed before midnight every night (so I can get up before 10am!)
3. Find a daily routine that works and print it out and put it in control journal (household notebook to all you non-flybabies!)

What will I do this week to get closer to meeting my goals?

• Find my timer and declutter for 15 minutes a day
• Turn my computer off at 9:30 pm (if you see me on twitter after 9:30pm eastern yell at me to go to bed)
• Do steps 1-4 for creating a control journal

It’s been a crazy week here in the Lewis house! Ephram and Ryan’s birthdays are only 3 days apart!

I planned on only having school Monday and Tuesday, but Friday the kids decided it was learning time again. I guess after a couple of days of madness they wanted a little routine back.

Ephram’s Birthday was Wednesday. Tuesday Ryan took our nanny goat to the sale barn so we could have money to buy Ephram some birthday gifts. While there he bought a $3, 3 day old baby calf. He died the next evening but we have a whole sack of milk for a calf so the plan is to buy another one soon so the sack of milk doesn’t go to waste

Ephram Feeding His Calf

Wednesday was Ephram’s Birthday. He woke up and we opened gifts.

Ephram let Malachi help him open gifts

I was excited that I got him a ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ playset for 1/2 off!

Opening Dragon Playset

Then I cooked him pancakes and sausage for breakfast,

The kids played all day with his birthday gifts. Inside with his new toys, then outside to play with silly string!

Love this Photo

What a big boy

While I worked in the kitchen all day on his birthday dinner of beans, sausage, homemade macaroni and cheese and corn. And his exploding birthday cake. (don’t ask! LOL) A chocolate dome cake with tons of milk chocolate icing inside, filled with blue vanilla ice cream then finished off with butercream icing with a flames theme.

Ice Cream Filling in Cake

Ephram's Homemade Birthday Cake

My parents and Ephram’s friend had dinner with us, then it was more gifts….

Opening more gifts

and then we all ate exploding cake!

Exploded Cake

Thursday Ryan went to put in some job applications. Someone told him about a place that was hiring. I knew where it was located and he didn’t so we just all hopped into the minivan and we all went! Of course, me and the kids sat in the van while he went in, but it was a nice, real life lesson for Ephram about job hunting.

Friday we had to go get tags so we used it as an opportunity for a mini filed trip. While Ryan waited in line and bought the tags, I took the kids around to each door and explained what each department did. Of course, Most of Ephram’s question had to do with the metal detector.

Then the kids came home and wanted to schoolish things, so we did. Though I’ll be honest-it’s been a crazy, bust week, so I don’t recall exactly what they did. I do know they spent a great deal of time watching our anole as he was shedding his skin, so they had to check on him often.

Saturday was Ryan’s birthday. But Ephram was intent on learning! He spent a good deal of time on the National Geographic Kids website, some time on MightyBookJr.com, watched Beakman’s World (science show) and for art we they made birthday cards for daddy.

The week finished out with a visit from Grand and PawPaw (Ryan’s Parents) where Ephram got MarioKart and a pair of overalls-both things he’s been wanting very, very badly for quite some time. And Malachi got a Police dress-up set. He was so funny, he does a voice for the police man and he talked in that funny voice for the rest of the night and I had to beg him to take the outfit off before going to bed! I have pics-but I haven’t downloaded them yet and I’m to lazy to get up and go get my camera to do so, so just trust me when I tell you they both look adorable in the duds Grand and PawPaw gave them!