Olivesprouts Mama

Have you heard about Ebates ? This is a quick way to get the most out of your online shopping. It’s basically giving you a percentage back from your spending - so if you’re spending the money anyway, it’s great to get a little bit of it back. Click my affiliate link and give it a try! I have gotten one check already from purchases I've used Ebates with - and I have another one coming soon. They do come in the mail on a schedule - which is a tiny bit frustrating when you see your earnings and can’t access them. This literally only takes ONE CLICK per purchase  once it's set up and you download the browser extension. Or, you can click directly thru to sites from the Ebates website. Let us know in the comments what your experience with Ebates is!

Butterflies are beautiful and ethereal - like real world fairies! What better theme for an imaginative, creative kid's birthday party? Here are some awesome finds I ran across while planning my daughter's butterfly party... DIY & low cost ideas... Coloring sheets are a great activity, decoration, and favor! String some colored versions on ribbon for a quick inexpensive decoration.  This page  has a large selection of both more cartoon style and sophisticated zentangle style butterflies! The Butterfly Site  has some pages of specific types of butterfly as well as a life cycle page. Mom Junction has a page with a lot of different species of butterfly as well as a color by number . DIY butterfly mobile! Amazon finds...  Melissa & Doug Decorate Your Own Wooden Butterfly Magnets Craft kit! Melissa & Doug Simply Crafty Whimsical Wands Kit  Butterfly necklace kit - makes 6! This Dover Butterfly sticker book would make a great favor ...

Amazon links are affiliate links - thanks for supporting my writing with them! 1. These nice but not expensive colored pens . I put them in my Walmart grocery pickup but they're also available from Amazon! 2. Halo Top peanut butter cup ice cream in a 4 pack at Costco. 3. Fresh mango - so good. 4. Traditional Medicinals Lemon Echinacea Throat Coat tea . I'm currently fighting an earache, lingering sore throat and cough, and congestion, and having this soothing tea (which I also love the taste of!) in my Yeti mug to sip is really soothing. 5. Magic in a Bottle arnica menthol lotion. I've been dealing with a sore neck this past week and this is such a lifesaver! Also, it's particularly awful having a sore neck and a cold. Sneezing has been excruciating! So that's my current list! What 5 things - or 1 - are you loving right now?

I wasn't really planning to do a party this year, for this child, but the week before I discovered my kiddo really did want to celebrate with friends this year! I got to work outlining options. I made a list of our favorite local parks that would be good for multiple ages and had bathrooms. We picked a theme and cake design together. And I texted all the moms and asked them which of two dates and times worked better - since it was only 4 days until the big day and he wanted to celebrate as close to his birthday as possible. I then emailed out the finalized plans so there would be no confusion. As the RSVPs came in, I put together my Walmart grocery order. I bought a plastic tablecloth (optional - I actually forgot to use it!), plastic forks, a box of granola bars, a pack of water bottles, a bag of pretzels, an 18 pack of nice colored pens as favors ( also available on Amazon ), and a big box of sidewalk chalk (optional). I set the party time for clearly after lunch, but ...

In theory, I would love to celebrate Easter at the level of Christmas. When you think about it in terms of the story, Christmas is the "enter stage left" of the Messiah, but Easter is when the enemy is vanquished. And isn't the glorious victory worth a big party? Yes. In reality, Easter for us is smack dab in the middle of "birthday season" - 4 kid birthdays in 3 months - so it tends to sneak up on me and get a bit overlooked and hastily slapped together on a small budget. This year may not be much different, but we've progressed over the last 5 years in our celebration, and Lord willing in 5 years we'll be that much better at it. Practice makes perfect, or closer to it, and practice at celebration and rejoicing is no different! Maybe someday we'll have a beautiful sit down Easter dinner, host all the neighbor kids for a glorious egg hunt, roast a lamb on a spit on the front lawn, surprise the kids with big gifts, and generally party it up ...

1. Prioritize rest Yes, you are busy - too busy to crash from exhaustion mid afternoon or halfway through family dinner! Go to bed early, sleep in when you can, and try to listen to your body. Don't assume that what your body needs most is to wake up at 4 am to work out. If you're short on sleep overall, maybe it needs the sleep more. 2. Hydrate Always have water within arms reach when you’re sitting down. A good stainless steel or glass water bottle is a great way to do that, or a lidded mason jar with a straw. Caffeinated beverages - while wonderful - do NOT count for this! The Plant Nanny app is a great way to track and motivate hydration! 3. Routines Pick a healthy breakfast and make it every weekday morning. There’s nothing wrong with sweet potatoes and eggs for a week! You can rotate weekly, but just having a plan and being able to put a healthy choice on autopilot makes life easier. For me, breakfast on weekdays is always a rocket fuel tea latte ...

This week is our spring break from our homeschool co-op. My husband is working, and we’re not leaving town, so we’ll be having a chill, restful break.  I do have some ideas for low cost, low prep fun, though! Library trips  We have some things that need returned, and a whole stack of holds to pick up - including some movies like Ponyo, The Sound of Music, and Hidden Figures! I'm looking forward to curling up with Peter Nimble and his Fantastic Eyes and also reading   Balanced and Barefoot :  How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children Plus, we all love going to the library and enjoying the kid activities they frequently have laid out, and just sitting and reading there. Park days The weather looks lovely today, so hopefully that holds!  I think it would be fun to take a morning or afternoon and head to one we haven't visited in a while. Plus, I wouldn't mind sitting on a park bench for...