Someone Finally Learned to Ride a Bike!

It's hard to teach kids how to do things they don't show any interest in doing.

So much of me wished teaching a kid how to ride a bike was a class at the Y. Classes exist (not at the Y) to teach fifteen year old's how to drive a car. Bikers have to know rode safety to.

We have no sidewalks, Daddy and I have different work schedules and Mica showed little to no interest in learning to ride a bike.

Daddy had been working with him. I went to check out his stuff. Little man can ride. He's a little clumsy at times, but he can ride.

He almost ran over this:

Then he almost ran over Daddy:

He says he knows how to work his brakes, but I never saw those in action today. He stops with his feet. He did go all the way around the track though. One has to start somewhere! I think he was trying to impress me because Daddy said he hasn't gone that far!

Now we have to teach Isaak how to ride. Sigh! He just goes around with his scooter or big wheel/trike thing. He looks too giant for his big wheel/trike!

Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.

Like most of the time, I've rarely heard of this next singer. I like to learn about someone or a group that is new as well. She has a very big following on YouTube. I really think this artist is great to listen to for background music. Her music is pretty and slow. It's not a get up and dance type music. It's certainly relaxing, and has a nice sound though. Her name is Lykke Li. Have you heard of her?

Lykke Li, is a Swedish singer-songwriter. Her music often blends elements of pop, indie rock and electronic; various instruments can also be found in her songs, including violins, synthesizers, tambourines, trumpets, saxophones and cellos.

Source

Possiblity

I Follow Rivers

Tonight

Go check out Lykke Li now!
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Listen to Lykke Li on YouTube.

HomeRight Steam Machine Review and Giveaway!

I am really excited to tell you about the new product I got to review! It's a HomeRight Steam Machine.

The SteamMachine was well packaged. It came double boxed. I seriously felt like it was Birthday or Christmas time for me. Inside the brown box was a white box.

I've been looking for easy ways to clean things. I suffer from allergies and asthma, so keeping things clean is a must! The Steam Cleaner kills 99% of all bacteria and germs! There is no added chemicals needed to clean with this machine.

It can clean many surfaces such as hard wood, tile, vinyl and linoleum surfaces. The steam lifts up the dirt and germs, and the pad wipes the surface clean. It can be used to remove wallpaper. 

I knew it came with extra parts. Never did I expected so many parts though! They really have a tool to clean just about anything. Most of the tools fit within the steamer.

All these smaller tools can be stored in the HomeRight Steam Machine.

The measuring cup and funnel allows you to pour water in the steamer with no mess at all. Within 8 minutes after filling the steamer up, it's ready to go. The cloth is super soft and washes well.

 It is  a Multi-purpose steamer loaded with attachments. Here's just some of the things it can clean:

• stoves and stovetops
• grills
• floors
• tiles
• bathrooms
• window ledges and windows
• wallpaper steamer used to remove wallpaper

The first thing I wanted to clean was the door inside the oven.

Once upon a time Daddy decided to burn out waxes in our oven for a sculpture. I wasn't home. He had a good fire going on in our oven! Well we scrubbed at the oven door and it would not come clean! The Magic Eraser wasn't so magical. We didn't really want to buy a new oven at the time. The door has sadly been like this:

After 15 minutes of using the HomeRight Steam Machine our oven door looked like this:

I used it all over the bathroom to:

Before

After

The squeegee works great on shower doors! 

Before

After

I am so happy with this steamer! Especially with the oven door!

Buy it!

The HomeRight Steam Machine sells here for $99.99.
Like HomeRight on Facebook.
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Subscribe to HomeRight on YouTube.

Win it!  

HomeRight is giving away to one of my readers a HomeRight Steam Machine just like they gave me!
This is open to US and Canada!

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Disclaimer: The opinions on the post are my personal take on the product. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. HomeRight sent me a product to review to help with this giveaway.

Don't Tell the Mayor!

Last year Mica kept tearing old paint off of sign poles when we were in Chicago. Daddy told him that he was going to tell the Chicago mayor. Mica could care less. Things like that do not phase him.

Isaak has been pulling leaves off of trees. Yesterday he pulled green berries off of something and lied about having them in his hands. We've told him not to do it. Tonight we caught him red handed yanking leaves off of trees downtown. Daddy told Isaak sternly that he is going to have to call the mayor and tell her if he does it again.

This happened:

He looked like a pug dog to me. Ok so his wrinkles droop the opposite direction. Isaak's eyes squint more in this photo, but they are usually as wide as a pug dog.

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He was pretty worked up that Daddy was going to call the mayor on him!

Naturally I had to catch this moment on video. I'm still laughing about it! We assured him that we were not going to call the mayor, and that he really just needs to stop picking leaves off trees, flowers off the ground, and berries off bushes.

I Hope Everyone Had a Safe Fourth of July!

We didn't get a lot of firecrackers.

Does anyone else feel like when they buy firecrackers they are just blowing up their money? 

I don't know if you can see it, but there is evidence of a S'more face here.

Daddy questioned getting sparklers. He thinks they are super dangerous. They are, but the kids had fun with them. Isaak moved around so much, that I couldn't get photos of him with a sparkler.

Other firecrackers photos. I'm horrible with nighttime shots, or maybe I should say my camera is horrible with them.

We got a few firecrackers, meaning $50 worth. As far as firecrackers go, that's not a lot. Our neighbors buy a lot, so we mainly just watch theirs. Our boys kept asking to light off more. They are not buying them though. Firecrackers just became legal here not too long ago. Now there are stands at many grocery store parking lots it seems. 

Daddy made a fire, I roasted marshmallows for the boys to make S'mores.

I bought the typical food for the Fourth of July, but since we're getting a new kitchen floor, and it can't be walked on I didn't make much of it. In fact we went out for breakfast this morning to avoid walking on the floor.

Now I feel like one of those old people that puts plastic on their furniture to prevent it from getting dirty; only I want to do this to the floor. By the way I won't. I get the dropsies some days. It just feels like on those days I'm destined to spill things on our floor. *Note to self: Lose the dropsies!

What did you eat on the fourth?

We had brats, corn, and a ton of veggies that were left overs. What I didn't dive into was the watermelon I bought. I thought about making some sort of dessert with red and blue berries, but S'mores were enough.

Valentine, Nebraska

We had two last stops in Nebraska on our way back from South, Dakota. The first was Valentine, Nebraska. That's where we spent the night. We thought about canoeing, but we were all pretty beat. Instead we just went to visit Nebraska's biggest waterfall. It's not that big. It's still pretty.

To me when you've been camping for a week it's worth it to stay in a nicer hotel. I don't even remember where we stayed, but it had a refrigerator, cable, pool, hot tub, internet access, a computer to use, and breakfast. It wasn't much more than the other places we checked out. With the cost of breakfast included, I'm sure it was worth it!

Back to Valentine, Nebraska. In order to get to Nebraska's tallest waterfall we had to hike on a trail.

Some of the view was super pretty!

At first we thought this was the waterfall. It was a total let down. Any waterfall is pretty, but this little thing?!?

We heard more water gushing. Here is Smith Falls.

We caught Isaak trying to throw rocking into the waterfall and Mica getting his shoes off to jump in. There was poison ivy in different spots, so we didn't want them in there. They look so guilty!

Here they are in front of the waterfall.

Daddy did let them roam around a little bit, but within his site. We didn't want them getting poison ivy.

Happy Fourth of July!!! + a Cranberry Scone Recipe

I made a special breakfast. It was challenging because our kitchen is totally torn apart. I'll show what I'm talking about at the end of this post.

Here's our breakfast:

Here's the original recipe for the scones I found. I totally revamped the recipe, so here's what I made:

First heat the oven to 420 degrees. Add the first 1/2 of the ingredients in a large bowl, and mix well. I sometimes add a Tablespoon of Chia Seeds, which are not mentioned in the recipe. Add the wet ingredients in a small bowl, and mix well. Combine the wet and dry ingredients. Pour it out onto a baking stone, or a sprayed pan (it will be sticky). Form it in a flat circle. Cut it into 4 to 6 pieces. It does tend to puff up a bit. The pieces you cut may need to be cut again in 1/2 once it's baked. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes clean.

*Note you can replace the dried cranberries with other dried fruit to give it a different flavor. Seeds, almond slivers, or chopped walnuts can be added. I've used different extracts in this recipe. They've all tasted good.

Cranberry Scones by AlissaSpiehs-Apel on Scribd

The boys asked for seconds. Daddy who doesn't like when I experiment liked it to.

Then Mica got a chance to Skype. I've never Skyped before. One of his best friends moved 2 hours away. Luckily I'm friends with his mom on Facebook, so we made arrangements for them to Skype. It was funny because they kept getting toys from their rooms to show each other.

Hopefully we can get our new floor partly put down today. We tore up one floor before our vacation and two floors after that. We went through 90s, 70s and got down to scraping up paper/glue. One more reason to pause our project is that we had to send in samples to be tested for asbestos. It's something we didn't think of. Anyhow it does have 2% in it. We just proceeded to scrape the glue tape up and left the 50s floor that has the asbestos in it. Scraping has taken FOREVER, and it's hard work. Then there was some type of cement on the sides. Daddy had to get that up to. This project has turned out more than we expected. I guess every home project is like that.

Needless to say I'm so happy this project is moving. My allergies have been so bad, and I imagine that scraping glue/paper up hasn't helped them!

Now we finally have two chalk lines down and the big square tiles are upstairs. I think the boys think this is our new floor. LOL Isaak said, "Mom I liked our floor better before." They think it's pretty interesting that our table is in the living room.

    
Tonight it's firework time. We bought $50 worth, which isn't a lot, but it's some. Our neighbors in the back always have a big show anyhow.

What are you doing today? Anything special?