If you’ve been following the Homemaking for Girls Series, you might have noticed something is a little off. I intended to post daily in May, but I haven’t actually been doing that. Instead, I’ve been getting posts in as I can. We’ll still be having 30+posts on Homemaking for Girls, but they’re not going to be delivered as seamlessly as I’d hoped.

I thought I might just squeak by without anyone noticing, but that doesn’t feel honest. And while I doubt that the majority of you would even notice, I am thinking of the lone one or two that might be wondering, What the heck?

But my regular peeps probably aren’t surprised. (I can hear you now: “Oh honey, we saw this one coming. 30 Days in a row? Puh-lease!”)

The truth if it is, Homegrown Mom is an active, exciting, wonderful part of my life that feeds my creative spirit and is a big part of what I consider my ministry.

However, my first and foremost ministry is my family. I don’t always do the greatest job of balancing the two, and if I’m going to err, I try to err on the side of neglecting the blog as opposed to the other way around. And let me be clear, sometimes it is the other way around. I screw up both ways.

If you know me and love me, then you know I am not one of those supermom bloggers that can rise before dawn, work from home, homeschool my kids, run all the errands, attend all the activities, keep my house sparkling, and plop a loaf of homemade bread on the table at the end of the day, to boot.

And I am fine with this. I gave up that dream ages ago. (Though I still somehow manage to work it out on paper occasionally. What’s up with that?) What I’m not fine with is putting something out there and not following through. So, please buy into it when I say, in my own little flaky way, this is still a 30 day series.

Just not necessarily 30 Days in a row. Wink, wink.

Three things I’ve learned this month:

1. If I ever decide to do a series again, I shall make sure I have all the content written and posted and scheduled to go out before I announce the series. Ahem.

2. Accepting guests posts is a lot more work than I realized. Kudos to those of you who run group blogs. I. could. never. The email, the email… how do you do it?

3. I really, really love my readers. Someday, all of you are going to wake up and realize I am not a professional and I have no business doing this bloggy thing. Until that day comes, I am blissfully happy to have you all here humoring me. And yes, I realize blissfully happy is somewhat redundant. But sometimes the truth is.

Keep up with Homegrown Mom via email

—
This is the next book on my wishlist: Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends
(ad)

Welcome to 30 Days of Homemaking for Girls at Homegrown Mom, Sponsored by Plan to Eat – Simple Meal Planning

Today’s Post is from Kristie

The ability to make yeast breads from scratch is a skill that I learned directly from my mother. I’ve often been thankful that she took the time to teach this art to her daughters.

And now, I have daughters of my own. At the ages of five and three, they love to help in the kitchen! And while it is sometimes more work for Mommy, there are so many great skills and lessons that are passed on while baking together.

Making cinnamon rolls involves a wide variety of cooking skills: stirring, kneading, using a rolling pin, and frosting. It is also an exercise in patience, as you must wait for the dough to rise. And as always, cooking is good practice for counting and measuring.

Even at their young ages, my daughters were able to help with nearly every step of the cinnamon-roll-making-process. We made a bit of a mess, but we had a lot of fun along the way!

Here’s the recipe that we used:

Combine 2 ½ cups flour, ½ cup sugar, 2 teaspoons salt,

2 packages yeast and ½ cup of melted butter. Mix well.

Then pour in 2 cups of hot tap water. Add 1 egg and beat for two minutes.

Add 3 additional cups of flour (in ½ cup increments) and stir well.

Knead in another 1 cup of flour

(or enough flour that the dough is easy to work with and not sticky.)

Place in a greased bowl and let the dough rise for 1 ½ hours.

Punch the dough down, and then let it rest for 15 minutes more.

Roll the dough out into a rectangular shape.

Cover with melted butter (about ½ a stick) and then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Roll up the dough.

Cut the dough every one inch.

(This was Mommy’s job! I find it works easiest to use a steak knife.)

Place in a greased pan.

Let the cinnamon rolls rise until doubled

(approximately 40 minutes.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Now it’s time for frosting!

Mix together:

2 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

½ cup milk, and 2-3 cups powdered sugar

Continue mixing until the frosting is lump-free.

Add more powdered sugar as needed, until the frosting reaches the desired thickness.

Spread the frosting across the warm cinnamon rolls.

Now, it’s time to enjoy!

My daughters love to sample our finished project and were excited to share them with Daddy when he arrived home!

As you can see, it’s never too early to start baking with your daughters. I love knowing that I am passing this skill onto the next generation. Even more, I love the conversations that we have while working together!

Kristie has been married to her fantastic husband for nearly 9 years. Together, they have two delightfully energetic daughters. She is a full-time SAHM and a part-time children’s minister in Minnesota. Kristie records her thoughts on her blog, A Mom By Any Other Name and can be found on Twitter as @mnmommy.

Get blog updates by email!

Welcome to 30 Days of Homemaking for Girls at Homegrown Mom, Sponsored by Plan to Eat – Simple Meal Planning

Today’s Post is from Angie

Technology can often be seen as the very antithesis of traditional homemaking. It can be easy to let technology take over our lives, as we may spend too much time on something like social media and then have to rush around at 6 pm trying to throw together a quick dinner. Not only does this take away from what we can accomplish in our household tasks, but it also teaches our children, through modeling, that this is acceptable.

Now, with all of that said, I will admit that I’m a big fan of technology. Over the past several years, this has become especially apparent to me as I have found that amongst many of my local friends, I am seen as being at the cutting edge of technology. (Mind you, this always amuses me to no end.) Because of my love of technology, I am here today to share the ways that you can use technology to your benefit (not just a “time waster”) while teaching your daughters to learn and improve on their domestic skills.

There’s an App for That

One thing that was surprising to me about having gadgets that use apps (such as the iPhone or iPad) was how many great apps there are to help with household tasks. If your daughter is techie or has her own device that uses apps, some of these can be a great way to show her how to organize a future household or just help with your own household. I also think that it’s a wonderful chance to model this organized behavior if you are using these types of apps yourself.

Some of my favorite apps (for the iPad and iPhone) for organizing household tasks include:

2Do – An electronic version of your to do list. This can, of course, include both home tasks and completely unrelated items.

52 Organizing Missions – An app that includes “52 Organizing Missions,” this app can help your daughter to get an overview of all of the major tasks that can sometimes be forgotten or just things that are normally done but can be streamlined. A great activity may be to tackle one of these tasks each week with your daughter. You will get help in the task, and she’ll learn more about household management.

Motivated Moms – This app is based on the popular Motivated Moms Planner (printable). Using this electronic check list each day with your daughter can be a great training grounds for household management and homemaking skills. You may come across tasks from time to time that you might have never thought to teach your daughter about homemaking. This makes for a perfect teachable moment.

Big Fork Little Fork – I love this free app from Kraft. It’s a perfect teaching tool, as there are lots of kid friendly recipes that are designed for you to prepare alongside your child. There are facts about food, games, and even videos to show how to make many of the recipes. This is a perfect app for working in the kitchen with your daughter. (This app is only for the iPad.)

AllRecipes – Another free app that provides you and your daughter with great recipe ideas. You can search for certain recipes by name, ingredients included, time, method, and so on. This can be a wonderful springboard for training in the kitchen.

Tutorials are Just a Click Away

Technology has revolutionized the way that people learn. It no longer means that your only ways to learn new skills are from books or classes. There are so many great video tutorials on the Internet, especially on You Tube. This can mean that if your daughter wants to learn a skill that you aren’t so sure about yourself, you can look up a tutorial and work through it together, side-by-side, with your daughter.

I will caution, however, that any You Tube video should be watched in its entirety by you (alone) before showing it to your daughter. I may be overly cautious in this, but I don’t think so.

Some great examples of tutorials that can help with homemaking skills (if you are proficient with these skills enough to teach them yourself):

How to a Blanket Stitch

How to Knit – The Basics
This is, of course, just a tiny sampling of the homemaking related tutorial that you can find online. Just do a search, preview the material, and then share it with your daughter.

Move Over Cookbooks, Hello Blogs and Websites

While I have lots of cookbooks, I have found that in the last few years, many of my favorite recipes are ones that I have found on recipe sites and on blogs. A fabulous activity to do with your daughter could be to compile her own cookbook binder with print outs of favorites found online. You can also help her to infuse favorite family recipes into this binder as well.

This kind of binder can be a treasure that she will take with her when she leaves home. I know that although I have a shelf full of cookbooks, the one that I reach for more than 75% of the time is the binder that I have put together myself that includes recipes from online, old family recipes scanned from my Mom’s house, and recipes from places like magazines and newspapers. If I could only keep one recipe “book,” this would definitely be the one.

Print Out Check Lists or Make Your Own

The computer is the perfect training grounds for your daughter to learn about an organized home. You can not only teach her to use resources such as downloadable print outs from online (such as the wonderful variety of forms that Simple Mom has on her site), but you can also guide your daughter in making her own check lists through things like word processing or spreadsheet programs.

Technology: Friend or Foe?

With the influx of more and more technology seeping into our everyday lives, I hope that you might find some ways to show your daughters that technology isn’t just about Angry Birds, Facebook status updates, and rabbit trails leading us all along the information superhighway. Technology can be used to become better and more organized homemakers, both presently and in the future.

This post contains affiliate links.

When Angie isn’t busy playing Words with Friends, she can be found writing about faith, family, and household management (and her love of iGadgets) at Many Little Blessings. She is also the founder of The Homeschool Classroom and Catholic Mothers Online. She tries to let her creative side out at Just a Tiny Owl and Tiny Owl LLC.



Subscribe

Welcome to 30 Days of Homemaking for Girls at Homegrown Mom, Sponsored by Plan to Eat – Simple Meal Planning

Today’s Post is from Jennifer

When I was a young girl, I used to be an avid letter writer. The kind of writer who sits down with pen in hand and decorative designer stationary paper or letterhead on desk ready to write all of the exciting events of my life since I had last seen the recipient of my letter. I also enjoyed drawing little pictures to go with my words that covered several pages about what I had been doing. My envelope was sealed, stamped, and dropped into the mailbox and then my wait for a return letter began. This was always the fun part for me; waiting for the response to come in the mail.

When it came to thank you notes, things were a little different because once I dropped that note into the mailbox, there was never a “promise” of receiving a response for my efforts. At the time, I did not understand that there was something special about that thank you note. Two simple words thank you.

Thank yous come in verbal form as well as in hand written form, but not as often as they should. It is easier to say thank you, than it is to write thank you, so most people opt for the former and call it a day. In some instances a verbal thank you is fine. Most people do not expect to receive a written thank you note for holding the door open for you. Today, most people do not even expect to receive a thank you note because not too many people send them anymore.

If I give a gift to someone, then I do expect a thank you, but I do not expect a thank you note. To clarify, I do not give a gift to receive a thank you, but instead to show my appreciation for that person. When I do receive a thank you note, I am grateful and also impressed because I know somewhere that person learned the importance of thanking someone for their effort; they were “raised right.”

Although I am more concerned with character than impressions, I do want to raise my daughter right and writing thank you notes is one of the many lessons I would like her to learn. Through tired hands and occasionally a few complaints, all of my children have been writing thank you notes for years. I wanted to share a few things we have done to make the “chore” a little less daunting and ways that have stretched their creativity and also improved their writing skills.

Start your children when they are young. Give them crayons, paint, glue, etc. and let them create a picture of choice or if they are able, then have them draw a picture of the present they received or how they were helped.

Depending upon the age of the child, try not to “write the note,” but guide your child so she thinks of and includes a mention of the gift in her note. Receiving dictation from a two year old can be quite entertaining.

If your child is older, then have her address the recipient by name, specifically mention the gift(s), and maybe mention how much she enjoyed the gift or how she plans to use it. There is no need to mention that she “received two of the same thing” or that she “didn’t really like it.” Instead she can say she “plans to share it with her sister or brother, etc.” Remember to always encourage honesty.

If we have quite a few notes to write (ex: birthday thank you notes), then we complete a few notes each day until we are finished with them all and then mail them off together. Seeing the bulk of ones hard work creates a nice sense of accomplishment and often provides the motivation needed to finish all of the notes.

Besides building character, teaching your children to say thank you and also understanding the importance of writing thank you notes (etiquette 101) as well as when to send them, are values that will carry them through to adulthood. Their thank you note may bring needed comfort to someone. Think of how good you feel after receiving a thank you note. They may also be that remembered and later hired candidate after a job interview.

So let your little artist get busy and creative and don’t forget to write your own thank you notes too.

When is the last time you hand wrote a thank you note?

Jennifer is a wife and a homeschool teaching mother of three originally from the big city and now living in small town USA. You can read more from her at Milk & Honey Mommy where she writes incessantly about her accidental love of cooking, shares her take on being green, natural, and crafty, and opens the doors to the head scratching happenings in her house.

Get blog updates by email or RSS feed

Have you thought about joining or starting a homemaking co-op? I shared a post last week on Raising Homemakers about the co-op our group is starting next year.

Last year, my friend Stacy asked me if I wanted to be part of a homemaking co-op she was setting up for a few high school girls in our homeschool group. We aren’t starting the co-op until next school year, so we had a year to think about it.

I couldn’t say yes fast enough!

Click here to read about how we’re running our group, the benefits of having a co-op, and a list of topic ideas.