Hey yal! I meant to get this post up on Monday but.....life happens...lol. honestly, I spent all day Monday doing yard work, my puppy giant fur baby thought it would be a nice gift to dig up the entire drip system in the backyard. Its such a sad sight back there. Now that it's getting cooler ( no more 3 digit temps! whoohoo!) I can finally go out and do some damage control.

Anyway,  since its Respect Week here in Las Vegas, I just wanted to share my point of view on the subject.



RESPECT YOUR FRIENDS 

This week came at the perfect time because Jordyn has recently been dealing with some less than respectful activities from her 'friend' at school..
Is it just me or are "mean girls" getting younger and younger?

I mean, Jordyn had her first run in with a mean girl in pre-k then last year in kinder there was a girl who bullied everyone and now....she is dealing with a "frenemy". I mean for goodness sakes she's in the first grade. Has this generation of parents failed so miserably that our first graders are now having to deal with the mean girl antics that would normally not present themselves until they were at least preteens?  Really, how hard is it to teach our children a little respect? 

Just a few examples of this "frenemy"

EXAMPLE 1: The little girl in Jordyns class claims to be her friend, but turns around and gets really mad if Jordyn does well in class. Jordyn gets an award, her "friend" starts to pout exclaim "WHAT?..JORDYN, REALLY? she gets an attitude and says it should have been her.  Then tells Jordyn she is mad at her for getting the award.

EXAMPLE 2: Jordyn doesn't want to play what she wants to play, her "friend" in turn tells Jordyn she doesn't want to sit with her at lunch then proceeds to tell other kids secrets while rolling her eyes at Jordyn.

EXAMPLE 3: Jordyn wears a bow tie to school, the vice principle tells her how much she loves it, her 'friend' then tells her to take it off and let her wear it. ( she doesn't of course.)

I could go on and on but these are just a few examples of how NOT to be a friend. I'm not raising this child so I cannot comment on what goes on in her household that causes her to act this way. I can however, use this situation to teach my child the importance of respecting your friends.

See, after each situation took place, Jordyn would tell me all about it. She would tell me how she felt. I then would ask her " How do you think friends are supposed to make you feel?' and she would reply " friends shouldn't make you feel bad, they should make you feel good." I would then ask " does this make you feel good?" and her answer would be "no"

We would have long in depth conversations about how important it is that to respect your friends and how your friends are supposed to respect, appreciate and encourage you. I think a lot of parents think our children don't have the mental capacity to understand deep conversations when in all reality, they do. They enjoy them and they thrive on them.

One day, I asked her what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to give her another chance to be a real friend. Finally, when the girls behavior didn't change, Jordyn decided to give up on the friendship.

When the girl would ask her to play, Jordyn would say " no thank you." Over and over again until the girl finally asked " why aren't you talking to me?" Jordyn finally said to her " well, you were being mean to me and friends aren't mean to each other."

RESPECTING OTHERS.

I feel like there is an epidemic of disrespectful children running around. Did I miss something? OH! parents are utilizing iPads and television sets as make shift baby sitters. I forgot......

The thing is, theres a lot of 'activities' online about teaching your child to respect others when in all actuality, respect is something that is learned through imitation....children learn to respect others by watching the people in their lives respect others. Children learn to disrespect others by watching shows on tv where being a snotty brat is glamorized.

I get it, its easy to be rude and forget to say please and thank you, but as a parent, we don't have the luxury of "forgetting" Each time you don't say please or thank you....you can bet your child notices, and while you've been trying to cram it into their brain to use these words, once they notice that you, the person they love most in the world, doesn't use their manners.......they won't.....no matter how many times that app on their iPad sing the 'manners' song.

Practice a little kindness, say thank you to everyone, don't overspeak people, wait your turn, don't rip the Starbucks barista a new one because your Venti soy chai had too much foam, and I guarantee your kid will eagerly follow in your footsteps.


RESPECT YOURSELF

This is a conversation that needs to be had early on.
I think mothers are failing to teach their daughters that they if they don't have respect for themselves, no one else will. Little girls are twerking online, these children know the lyrics to songs they shouldn't even be listening to, posting videos of themselves fighting, cursing, calling themselves "bitches"...the list goes on...this generation is failing at parenting because they think its so 'cute' that their young children are behaving this way.

convenience has taken place of motherhood.

The most important thing we can do for our daughters is teach them to love and respect themselves. There really is no secret other than sit down and have a conversation, have multiple conversations. Jam it into their brain, SHOW THEM that you value and respect them for simply being them and they will in turn, value and respect themselves and not settle for anyone disrespecting them.
Even as children, they need to know that anyone disrespecting them is not to be tolerated and they can and should speak up.


Ultimately, teaching your child respect is as simple as having conversations and leading by example. There is no activity on paper that will take the place of this.


Happy respect week!

Xo, Jeanice.

Room tour.

It was requested that I do a tour of Jordyns room. 

Now, before I get into the pictures I have to say this....this is Jordyns room. ALL THE WAY. She is very particular about how things look and where things go. I don't decorate her room for her, she decides what she likes and we decorate it together. I also rarely clean her room. SHE is in charge of cleaning her room and putting her things away. Her room is a reflection of her and her personality so it may not be HGTV worthy, but her personality is felt in everything in there.
So, here we go.

CLOSET

DESK

BED

Xo, Jeanice :)

Apple cider donuts.

Can someone tell Las Vegas that it's not summer anymore? 

I mean really, it's 99 degrees outside still. Ridiculous. Since it seems like we are destined to live in Summer forever,

Jordyn and I decided to celebrate the first day of Fall with apple cider donuts. These donuts are very cakey and moist. A little bit of Fall in each bite. 

You can use store bought or home made apple cider. I made apple cider at home with my Keurig. 

I found this recipe on pinterest but there was no link for me to give credit to the owner.

What you need:

1 cup apple cider.

2 cups all purpose flour.

3/4 teaspoon baking powder.

1 teaspoon baking soda.

1 teaspoon cinnamon.

1/4 teaspoon salt.

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg.

1/4 cup cinnamon apple sauce.

2 tablespoons butter, unsalted. Melted.

1/2 cup brown sugar.

1/2 cup granulated sugar.

1/2 cup buttermilk. 

1 teaspoon vanilla.

2 apples, diced.

Donut pan. but you could use a regular muffin pan as well.

Since there was no directions I kind of just winged it.

What you do:

preheat your oven to 350.

spray your donut pan with nonstick spray and set aside.

Simmer down your apple cider for about 10 mins.

You want to reduce your apple cider for a stronger flavor.

Once reduced, you should end up with about 1/2 cup of cider. As delicious as it smells don't drink it or you'll have to make more. 

set your cider aside.

Mix together in one bowl your flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. 

In another bowl mix together your brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, buttermilk, apple sauce, and apple cider.

add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients and mix until just combined. over mixing will cause your donuts to come out dry. 

spoon your mixture into a ziploc baggie and cut a whole in the corner. Pipe into your donut pan. Filling about 2/3 full. Don't over fill or your donuts will rise to high and will lose the hole in the middle.

Once piped into the pan, add your apple chunks to each donut. 

Bake for 10 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean once inserted. 

Once done,

take 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cinnamon and create a cinnamon sugar mixture. 

Melt 1/2 cup butter.

Dip your donuts in the butter and then toss them in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Eat!

Xo, Jeanice

Boho babe.

Happy Tuesday!

I'm in love with this outfit because the top was actually an old top of mine that I cut and sewed to turn into a top for Jordyn.

I absolutely adore how well it came out. I can't wait to go through my closet and find other pieces to reinvent for her. 

I made this last minute so I don't have a tutorial for it. 

I will work on a tutorial for another piece.

The top is originally an adult top from Forever 21

Shorts are from walmart

boots are Minnetonka moccasins

Xo, Jeanice

Making learning fun.

Hey Yal!.

How was everyones weekend?...good I hope! 

Our weekend was pretty chill. Jordyn had a gymnastics bbq event to go to on Saturday to kick off the start of competition season. 

This bow alone with others is for sale on instagram @theconfidentkidcloset a portion of each purchase goes to funding the purchase of products to be donated to our local women and children's shelter, The Shade Tree Las Vegas. Help me make a difference! :)

Sunday we just hung out at home. The morning started with rainbow pancakes.

These are pretty simple to make, but if you guys would like a step by step tutorial, let me know.

I then spent the morning rearranging Jordyns desk while Jordyn and Zeke hung out in the living room watching football.

My family came over and hung out all day as well. We made beef and chicken tacos and just chilled. 

It was a good day :)

I also spent this weekend working on some fun ways to keep Jordyn excited about learning at home. She's a very active child so things like work sheets and flash cards really don't keep her interested.

These are silly sentence books. There just dollar store photo albums with words inside. Jordyn picks a who, did what, and a where and makes sentences out of them and then draw a picture about the sentence. Its fun and she loves doing it because the sentences end up being really silly.

The shark farted in the shower.

The next game we came up with was sight word memory match. 

I just took an old memory match game and wrote sight words on the pieces. Instead of matching by picture she has to match by word. 

We then turned her Monopoly junior game into sight-opoly

Instead of landing on and purchasing party spaces, you land on and purchase word spaces. Super fun.

The last game we created was sight word twister.

"right foot on LITTLE."

This is Jordyns fave. She gets so excited to play and practice her sight words.

These little tweaks to games we already had at home make all the difference. First grade isn't proving to be to challenging for her so I make sure she does a lot of learning at home.  Making learning fun at home is my top priority. It helps grow her love of learning and quenches her thirst for knowledge.

This is something so easy and simple you could all do. I'm sure we all have a bunch of board games that can be transformed. 

How do you all help your children learn at home? I would love to know!

Xo, Jeanice