From Trash to Treasure!

So, this find wasn't exactly out of a dumpster, but it was for free next to someone's trash bins! Isn't it so cute! I'm not really sure how long the boys will want to play with it, since they've got their bigger bikes. But I thought they might have some fun out of it for awhile. Later on I might sell it.

It just needs one more screw to make it stay together, and it's as good as new!

Garbage Find!

I was on my way to work early this morning, and look what I found!

It was garbage pick-up today, so there were lots of cans out. I always keep my eyes peeled whenever this day comes along. This stereo system was sitting on top of someone's garbage can! The thing that made me stop, was the fact that the remote control was taped to the top. This made me think that it could possibly work!

So, I couldn't wait to get home to see if it worked. I didn't have high hopes, but once I plugged it in, the screen came on! Once I hooked up the speakers, I found out that it's in pretty good shape!

What a great find through "dumpster diving!"

Free Tree on Earth Day!

If you're in need of a tree, head over to Lowe's on Earth Day (Saturday, April 23rd) and they are giving away 1 million trees! What a great idea!

Thanks, Moneysavingmom!

Garden Update

It has been a busy week, let me tell you what. My awesome husband entered a radio contest and won! He won not 1, but 2 truckloads of screened garden compost! (only we could be excited about this, I know...) He won it from WIXY country radio, and the screened compost is from Urbana Landscape and Recycling Center (which is a great place to go!). So we've been busy trying to disperse this huge pile that accumulated in our driveway.

Before I show you what our yard looks like now, I wanted to show you a before picture. This is from last summer, and see how we only have a little garden on the left...this summer it's going to be twice as big as that!

My sister and husband did most of the hard work while I took down some laundry that was drying outside (and watched the kids). They were such troopers shoveling the compost out of the truck and hauling it to where it needed to go.

Here is Z-man with all our veggie plants as they "harden" outside in the sun. The boys love to help water the plants.

Here is a photo of our backyard with the idea that we are going to plant a couple rows of corn along the fence. This is before we put compost on it:

And here is my sister spreading that rich compost over it:

This a view from our deck of the two raised "beds" that we saved from the landfill. Someone was going to throw theses two Captain-type beds away, so we figured that we'd try to reuse them, and here's what it looks like now.

I am so excited to start planting seeds and transplanting the plants that we have indoors. If only the weather would start warming up. Are you growing any vegetables or have started your gardens yet? If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Reusing Water

I have come to decide that my family and I are very much into reusing water. Which is a great thing! I think this is one of our passions, because we know that there is so little fresh water left on this Earth. So here's some of the things that we do to save or even reuse the water that we use.

Take for example this summer and filling up our pool...it takes ALOT of water to fill it up, so when we are done playing in it for a couple of days, what do we do with that water? Reuse it!

Our car has been dirty for awhile now, so the boys were excited to help us peel the bugs off!

Z-man was getting frustrated when we filled up a huge water gun for him...it was too heavy. We used that water gun to rinse the car off.

We have about 10 of these 5 gallon buckets around the house, to catch rain water, to pull weeds, or whatever we need them for. They are also great for watering flowers!

So this is just one way that we try to reuse the water that we use. Do you have any ways that you try to reuse things lately?

No Impact Man

I currently checked out way too many books from our library on my time away this week. Thanks to my husband who took care of Pudge while Z-man was in school, so that I could have some time to myself. And yes, I'm a nerd, I go to the library on my time away.

Anyway, I ended up checking out 5 books from our library:

1. Boys Should Be Boys by Meg Meeker
2. Don't Miss Your Life! by Charlene Ann Baumbich
3. Giving - The Sacred Art by Lauren Tyler Wright
4. The Joy of Parenting by Lisa W. Coyne and Amy R. Murrell
5. No Impact Man by Colin Beavan

I love to visit the new released section of our library, where more than one book always catches my eye. I wanted to talk a little about how much I'm enjoying book #5, No Impact Man. Particularly because my husband and I tried going without using our lights during the weeks leading up to Christmas time. So I feel like in some ways we've tried saving our planet in some small ways. It was so hard to go without that simple pleasure that this book is very engaging to me. Here is a little video to pull you in as well:

May we all be more conscious of what impact we are making on the Earth we are living on.

Snow Globes

We recently got a coupon for some free baby food. So after we ate those up, we tried thinking of some way we could reuse those jars. An idea popped into my head, that since it's almost Christmas, why not try to make snow globes. The boys love to shake those globes whenever we're in Hallmark visiting Grandma, so I figured why not give it a try.

Of course as usual, I looked up online how to make your own snow globe, just to get a better idea how to go about making one.

First I had the boys take the jars into the family room to try to find a toy that would fit inside the jar. Zechariah found a Lego man, and Silas found a small Elmo to put in their snow globes. It was perfect!

Next, we found an extra piece of something to fit in the jar that the toy could stand on. For example, we found some pop lids that we super glued to the baby food jar lid, then we super glued the toy on the lid.

Once those were dry, we filled the jar with water and dumped in about 1 tsp. of glitter and sequences.

Then I put more super glue on the lid and tightened the lid as best I could. Let that dry, and later the boys had their very own snow globes that they made! It turned out great!

The only thing that I would've changed is that Zechariah put too much glitter in his, and we could've put more water in his. Other than that it's a great way to reuse what you have and a great craft for Christmas!

Saving Water

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!!  

My creative husband thought of this idea about a year ago now, where we save the bath water after our kids take a bath.  It's brilliant!  We fill up the bath tub, scrub down the boys, let them play till their hearts content, then afterwards we scoop up the water, store them in jugs, and then reuse the water by filling up the toliet tank whenever we flush.  Wow, that was a long sentence!  

We save money on our water bill by not having our toliet take so long to fill up.  I guess we just speed up the process.  And this way we're teaching our kids how to recycle, reuse, and reduce.  So I challenge you to try to save water in some way or another.