Want to learn how to crochet?

Well today is your lucky day! Dana, over at Craftyminx is starting "Crochet school"!

I have yet to read through everything but I do know that everything Dana does is amazing and she is always doing wonderful things to help other learn how to be more crafty!

I've been crocheting for awhile now, but I'm jumping on board and so should you!

Click on the pink link above to find your way to her website and she will explain the rest!

Happy Crocheting, Melissa

Crocheted Garbage Can!

A little friend of ours loves anything to do with garbage! Last summer at Kade's birthday party he spend half the party sorting through my outdoor recycling bins and making sure everything was in the right place. Alex and I say that this little guy is going to revolutionize how we deal with our garbage!

So when you get invited to a  garbage loving little dudes birthday party, what do you make him? I racked my brain....I didn't want to make him a hat because that's lame, exceptionally  in the summer time. I did a quick google search and came up with this fun pattern.

I wiped it up the morning of and he loved it....I thought it is about time I  show it off!

Happy garbage collecting,
Melissa

PS...this is the first time I'm posting with the new blogger and I love it!

Child led parenting....

I am by no means a parenting expert. I have one often amazing, mostly crazy, spirited child who challenges daily, not just to be a better parent but a better person. Mostly I feel I fail as a parent except for those beautiful moments when things fall into place. Sometimes it's a little body holding open a door or a well placed thank you but sometimes it's something big.

We are in one of those big moments right now. My 5 year has decided he is ready to go over night without a diaper! When I potty trained him 2.5 years ago to prepare him for school he decided he wasn't ready to go over night without a diaper. I practice many different kinds of parenting but I try my best to allow my son to lead me in the right direction. I feel that it is really important for him to feel comfortable in our home and in himself and try my best to listen to his instincts as well as my own.  So when he proclaimed he wasn't ready, I let it slide.

Many have told me this was a big mistake! When you potty train you must get it all over with! Letting him keep a diaper at night would mean I would be buying him diapers to take away with him to collage! Codswallop, if you ask me. I knew a day would come when he would develop the same instincts we all have to hold it until morning and that day has finally come.

It started about a month ago when, for several nights in a row, he hadn't peed in his pull up! We were all very excited but we still had half a pack of pull ups left and we had several nights away from home, so we decided to wait until the end of the summer to go diaperless over night. Well, in my part of the world, it is the end of summer and last night we used the last of our pull up supply, which means....tonights the night!

As you can probably tell, I'm very excited! But mostly I'm proud. Proud of my little boy who is brave enough to stand up to me and tell me how he feels. And proud of myself for actually listening! It is so easy to brush our children aside and not listen to what they are telling us, we are all busy and they talk so much! But sometimes, things work out and our little people grow before our eyes!

 Much love,
melissa

Ps. I promise to post pictures tomorrow of this weekends projects and yarn finds!