Hi friend!

In case I haven't said it in a while, thanks for being here and reading what I send and replying and just being lovely. I don't take any of it for granted!

Alphabet Soup (word game)

It popped up on my Facebook memories recently from 2 years ago. I had made a word game for Alexander that was 26 words, each with 1 letter missing. The missing letters were the 26 letters in the English alphabet, and he had to figure out what letter went with which word. A few words were really obvious (such as RAIN_OW) but others take some extra time (such as P_T, which could be pat, pet, pit, pot, or put!).

Anyway, I shared this on Instagram stories and several people asked for a copy of it. I decided to make a few extra versions of this activity, tested them out, and added an answer key. Below is what one of the sheets looks like:

Click HERE to download the PDF of the pages I made! ❤️ I had to host it over on one of my blogs. I couldn't figure out how to upload a PDF directly to this email. 😅

A few kid things

1. There were some bird eggs in one of our bird boxes. We checked on them every few days. We saw them when they were freshly hatched. We saw them grow some feathers. Regularly, we'd see the mom or dad bird come to bring food to the babies. I learned that both the mom and dad help to feed the babies. One day, we saw a bird poking its head out of the box. We assumed it was the mom or dad. After 20 minutes, it was still there, popping its head in and out! Finally, it flew off, quite low, right above my head. Then, a minute later, a second bird flew out. Then another, then another! We didn't realize it until the end that we were witnessing those babies leave the nest for the first time!

2. The kids saw an episode of Bluey called Cubbies. Bingo and Bluey built a massive fort (cubby) around the living room. It had a library, alpaca farm, bathroom, and more - lots and lots of rooms, propped up with couch cushions, blankets, chairs, and anything they could find. The very next day (predictably!), my two big kids decided to attempt the same thing. It was much harder than they anticipated, but they've built it 3 separate times, each time a little different.

3. I asked A and AB what they wanted to have for dinner this week. He picked "ramen, the one with the mushrooms" and she said "lasagna! I LOVE lasagna!"

Here are some pictures of the birdies, from egg to the day they flew!

Stannous fluoride

This is a weird one.

But I want to mention it in case you haven't heard of it!

I went to the dentist in mid February this year. Everything looked great. Nice and shiny. Fast forward about 3 weeks, and I noticed that my teeth were terribly stained. Like, all of them had brown around the edges. I hadn't changed my diet or anything. I tried using whitening strips - no help. I started brushing a lot more than usual, flossing more, everything I could think of, and nothing helped.

So I set up another dentist appointment. She got my teeth back to their old selves, just with some polishing. She asked me a bunch of questions, called in another dental assistant for a second opinion, and neither of them could really figure out what was going on.

Long story short, she believes it was the toothpaste. There's something called stannous fluoride in some toothpastes nowadays. On the package, it actually says that stannous fluoride may cause staining for some people. 🙋🏼‍♀️

It's been a month since that cleaning, and everything looks good! I guess it was the toothpaste!

Eclair pie ice cream

Whenever I make eclair pie, here's how I do it:

1. Place a layer of graham crackers on the bottom of a casserole dish.

2. Make vanilla pudding, then mix it with a tub of cool whip.

3. Spread some of that mixture over the graham crackers.

4. Put another layer of crackers, another layer of pudding cool whip, and continue that until you are out of the pudding.

5. Top with chocolate frosting. You can melt it over a little heat so that it spreads very easily. You can get fancy and use a toothpick to swirl the top a bit. Set it up in the fridge for a few hours or - EVEN BETTER - overnight!

Okay I decided to turn that idea into ice cream.

I mixed the pudding packet into my ice cream base. I made the ice cream and at the end, I added some big pieces of graham crackers (homemade for the first time!). Once it was finished, I swirled in some chocolate frosting.

Here's how it turned out!

A few random things

1. We saw the Mario movie. It was delightful. I loved the music and sound effects.

2. We are going to Washington DC so soon. I bought our metro cards ahead of time, and they came in the mail already. Yay!

3. We applied for TSA pre-check, and we are approved. We have to go online and apply our pre-check number to our boarding passes. I've never done this, so I hope it works out smoothly when we get there!

4. There are SO many fun food places in DC that I can not wait to share with you. It will be on IG stories of course, but I'll post a roundup after the trip in a newsletter!

5. Have you seen Pashion footwear? I remember having conversations about these shoes over a decade ago, before they were a thing. "Why isn't there a shoe that has a removable heel?" And now there is! It looks cute as a flat, or a low heel, or high heel, block or stiletto. You buy the base shoe plus whatever heels you want. And you can switch them all out (that's a link to a video showing an example). So fun. I've reached out to them to see if they work with IG creators at all - still waiting to hear back. It would be my first legit sponsorship if they decide to work with me! If they don't, that's okay to It's my only birthday wish this year (they're a little expensive for me). 😇

That's it for this week. Have a good one!❤️ Bethany