Author: Erin @ Cracker Crumb Life

I try to create a culture of celebration in our home. For life, for the little things, for wonder and for whimsy. I try to find the beauty around us and teach my son Wyatt to find it, and appreciate it and love it as well. We are a homeschool family, and we love it. We love the freedom it gives us to explore a topic or idea more deeply, and I like that I can adjust our schedule around Wyatt’s other needs. Wyatt has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and his week often has therapy, doctor’s appointments, naps peppered throughout which would make a traditional school schedule difficult. He is also an asynchronous learner, and I love that I can tailor learning to where Wyatt is at that moment. We have a house full of animals and will probably add more because we like a zoo. We have one cat, Miso, who is a rescue. She is 14 years old and my little floofy girl. We also have one leopard gecko, Luna, a pictus gecko named Harlow, a pacman frog named Freddy, and two crested geckos, Applejack and Oliver. We love all of our little friends! My husband Billy, Wyatt, and I are all curious, creative, stubborn humans which makes for some fun times around here. We love the outdoors, except we are not made for high temps so we retreat inside when the temps start to soar. We are nature lovers through and through. We are trying to downsize our lives too, to live more simply, to buy things that last and eat real food from small local farmers. (and of course Goldfish crackers) We live seasonally and are always up for adventure. We love books and reading, and can be found at the library at least once a week!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized36 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

So the first week of July is behind us – and summer has arrived to our little corner of the world with high temps, long lazy days, and our garden beginning to bear fruit, literally. Wyatt and I split the very first ripe raspberry from our garden, when it was still warm from the sun, bringing back so many memories of sitting in my uncle’s garden eating peas directly from the garden, peaches straight from the tree. We spent the fourth having a picnic in the park, then heading to my brother’s for a socially distanced get together with my family. Wyatt and my niece saw their first driveway firework and were very impressed.

Read Last Week:

I am almost done with Opium and Absinthe, and so far it is good but I am not enjoying it as much as Kang’s other books. Maybe the end will really bring it all together, we will see. I absolutely loved The Creative Family Manifesto, and am hoping to order some new art supplies today.

Reading This Week:

I have to be honest, I am not sure! I have a bunch of books I was planning on reading but I am not in the mood anymore, I am sort of in a reading slump but I think it is because we have been outside quite a bit and when we are inside I am usually doing stuff with the family. These are some contenders for the week:

Wyatt and I also finished Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne and have started reading The Little Prince as our afternoon read aloud. I have always loved that story and it will be fun to share with him.

Posted Last Week:

Currently…July

Paris In July – Parisienne Farmgirl

We Made Shampoo Bars

Friday Favorites: Hair and Skincare

I didn’t get a chance to post our summer homeschool roundup about birds, which was a great week! I hope to get that up tomorrow or Tuesday.

Watching:

We are still watching Nancy Drew, Rosemary and Thyme, and then Friday night we watched a fantastic movie from the French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet called The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, which is on Amazon. We had not heard of it but the cinematography looked amazing in the trailer and it also had Helena Bonham-Carter in it and I love her, so we gave it a go. This movie is so beautiful visually, rich and vibrant, clever, and quirky, all things I love. The ending was sort of weird but other than that, I loved this movie and thought it was very well-done!

Stay safe everyone!

Friday Favorites: Hair and Skincare

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn beauty13 Comments

I am always fascinated with other people’s skin care and hair routines – is this just me? I just recently asked my tribe of friends what they do to get ready and everyone is so different, I love it. I love too, that my friends Jill and Kelly put on all of their makeup even when they are wearing a mask, and that Kelly has red lip imprints on the inside of her mask after going out. Chrissy has a similar routine to mine, and Mary has an even simpler routine. Our favorite products run the gamut as well, from expensive to my type, which are easily found at your local Target or drug store. Well except my shampoo and soap bars. I love that this is what makes us all up, and that we are all different with our routines; I love these things that make us so individual!

I was also looking to change up my own routine, and I knew that I wanted something easily accessible, especially now in these crazy times, natural, and affordable. I have bought really expensive products before and also very inexpensive and right now, my mindset is affordability. I like quick and easy in the summer so that was important too.

My hair is pretty thick, coarse, and wavy/curly. On humid days, it gets humongous, left to its own devices. I straightened it for years and years but lately have been letting it just go all natural. I seem to have found the magic products finally to keep it sort of in line. Two years ago I switched to shampoo bar/soap bars in an effort to reduce my plastic consumption and I have not looked back. Two of my friends have hopped on the train and like it as well! My SIL so much so that she even makes her own products because she is awesome – and if you saw my post yesterday, she taught me how to do it too! For now though, I am in LOVE with the bars from Soap Cauldron’s Three Sisters Apothecary. Right now I am using their Lavender and Tea Tree Shampoo bar, and it does great things for my hair – plus it smells amazing. It also has a great lather, which is hard to find in a shampoo bar. You can buy their products from their Etsy site, or Amazon. If I am buying a bigger order I usually order from Etsy, but for a bar here or there I order from Amazon. I also use their California Misson Fig and Honey bar soap too, that is delicious smelling as well!

I definitely need detangler for my mass of hair. Which has just gotten longer during COVID. I spritz my hair when it is wet with Orange Vanilla Leave in Condtioner Detangling spray from The Honest Company then comb it through with my wide toothed detangling comb. I also use this detangling spray on Wyatt’s hair, since he has inherited my thick hair.

For skin care, I have been using Burt’s Bees Sensitive Skin Face Wash, and then following it up with either the Burt’s Bees Day Lotion with SPF or the Burt’s Bees Night Cream. The day lotion is light and non-greasy, which is huge in my opinion. I love that it has SPF too. The night cream is a little heavy for me, so I only use that once or twice a week. Both of the lotions are in glass bottles and jars which is nice – but the detangler and face wash are in plastic. And of course I use sunblock, I am super fanatical about using sunblock – and wearing a giant hat and sunglasses outside. My family and friends joke that I am a vampire. This is just my gardening look… lol.

What about you all? Anything you are really loving right now?

We made shampoo bars!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn DIY craft14 Comments

Over the weekend, my sister-in-law Chrissy showed me how she makes shampoo bars. We both are die hard fans of soap bars and shampoo bars, and Chrissy started making them last fall in her kitchen. For my lesson, she moved it outside and we masked up – but only for the lye. We were able to socially distance and hang out and make cool things. I have been wanting to learn how to do this but the lye freaked me out. I had visions of myself falling face first into a vat of boiling lye and emerging as a supervillain. Or something similar. So Chrissy was out to show me how non-scary this whole process really is.

Wasn’t she nice to bring everything outside to show me how to do this? I think so. One thing I learned is to have dedicated bowls and products just for soap making due to the lye. And you can’t use anything aluminum, because that could cause a bad reaction. Chrissy actually bought all of her supplies at the dollar store, including her goggles and long gloves. And then we just wore our masks that are just a normal part of life these days. (My mask is from Love Woolies). I bought my goggles and gloves from Amazon since I am not really shopping these days.

We used a recipe from The Nerdy Farmwife so if you want to make these, make sure to pop over to her site for the full instructions and not just my abbreviated version. She has many recipes as well as a soap making 101 post. That being said, after Chrissy added all the oils and shea butter it was time to add the lye. And it wasn’t as terrifying as I had imagined! You do have to take precautions though – you don’t want to get it on your skin or in your eyes, and you don’t want to inhale the fumes, so avoid breathing those in. If you have breathing issues or sensitive lungs at all, wear a mask. Do this project in a well ventilated room, no matter who you are. Chrissy said that in the winter she keeps the window open in the kitchen and sets the lye solution near it, and when she adds the lye to the water and mixes it, she turns her head away from the mixture. Also, you never want to add water to the lye; you want to add the lye to the water, or you will create a volcanic reaction. But if you follow these rules, you should be ok.

Then we waited for everything to come down in temperature. The lye solution creates a heat all of its own, which is just crazy chemistry! But the oils and things are heated up to melt everything down. So both have to cool before they can be mixed together. While we waited, we just chatted and I checked out the garden and talked to my niece who was running around the yard. A little wren came down and was singing away to us – we later realized it had built a nest in the birdhouse in the tree and was probably mad we were so close! I can’t tell you how just nice it was to be doing something different for a change. Billy had the kiddo, I was chatting with Chrissy, one of my very best friends, and the day was gorgeous.

Once everything was cooled down low enough, Chrissy mixed everything together and used an immersion blender to thicken it. You basically blend it on low until it looks like well, shampoo. You keep doing it until you get trace, which is when you pull the blender out and the drip forms a line on top. Then you carefully pour the mixture into your mold, cover it, and let it sit for 2-3 days. After that time you cut it into bars, then let it cure for however long it takes to cure, a few weeks generally. Then all you have to do is clean up! The lye solution is still active until 24 hours has passed, so you don’t want to get any of this any on your skin. Chrissy carefully washes the smaller items, but bags up the bigger items and stores them in the basement for a day or two before washing, which makes a lot of sense!

I haven’t ordered anything yet to make soap or shampoo bars from scratch – I just placed a huge order for supplies to make melt and pour soap, which basically takes the saponification out of it, but you can still add in scents and other things to personalize the soap. Once I use those supplies up, I am going to put my newfound knowledge to the test!

Thanks so much to Chrissy for taking the time and effort to show me how to do this!

Currently – July

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized28 Comments

Today I am linking up with Anne in Residence’s monthly post, Currently… This month we are sharing what we are cooking, photographing, sharing, trying and wondering.

Cooking: We are not too exciting on this front right now. Mostly summertime foods on the grill, easy stuff like burgers and salmon, and fruit and veggies and cheese. We attempted to make strawberry jam the other night, and I stood over a hot stove full of boiling pots while my hair curled up like crazy, only to not have any of our jars seal! I am not sure what I did wrong; I feel like I did all the things, the only thing I can think of that I didn’t do is give them enough space for air flow while they were cooling. So, back to the drawing board and try try again!

Photographing: We haven’t been venturing too far from home, so I’ve been mostly photgraphing my son, who loves his photo taken and asks for it, my garden, insects, and my cats.

Sharing: This month I will be sharing French-themed posts on my blog for Paris in July, hosted by Thyme for Tea. I also “shared” all of the black swallowtail eggs and caterpillars I found on my carrots and dill with my sister-in-law and niece, who are raising them. I found a few more yesterday though so it looks like we might be raising them too..

Trying: Lots of new projects! My sister-in-law showed me how to make shampoo bars the other day, which was the perfect socially distanced social time, since it was outside and we had to wear PPE anyway. I was very nervous about working with lye and she showed me that it was not as scary as I had imagined. (I’m hoping to post about this tomorrow or the next day) I also have an embroidery kit to try, and I bought my son a kid’s beading/sewing kit. I thought if we did it together it would be neat, plus he likes stringing things together and bonus, fine motor work for my cp warrior! However, my husband has to teach both Wyatt and me..

Wondering: Like everyone else, how to stay sane. How to keep our kids happy and healthy and non-traumatized by these world events. When and if things will return to normal. When I will feel comfortable enough to get ice cream from my favorite ice cream place again.

Stay safe and well everyone!

Paris In July: Parisienne Farmgirl

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn paris in july13 Comments

Last fall I found The Parisienne Farmgirl, or Angela, on Youtube and could not stop watching! I was obviously late to the party since she has over 50 thousand followers on YouTube alone – which should attest to what a great channel she has and what fantastic content she produces. But thankfully that also means she has a huge backlist of videos to watch and blog posts to read – not to mention her cookbooks and now, her podcast with another of my favorites, Shay from The Elliot Homestead, called Homemaker Chic. Angela lives on an island in Wisconsin, homeschools her children, runs basically a farm, and manages to have style and fashion and flair, all the while looking stylish and having a great attitude. She is truly goals. Her lifestyle posts are truly aspirational!

Her home is insanely beautiful – she and her husband have completely renovated it to look like a northern French farmhouse, and it is lovely!

Her food looks amazing too.. it’s no wonder she has written cookbooks!

Billy and I are actually going to attempt to make macarons this month – we will see how we do!

And then, my favorite, her gardens.. and geese!

I always felt like French style had to be so uptight and fussy – and while some of it is definitely stylized, I have learned that it can be easier to achieve that I had previously thought. And Angela’s down-to-earth and funny personality, and yes joie de vivre make watching her videos and listening to her podcast a treat – especially as I am usually watching and listening as I do such fun things as folding laundry or doing dishes. I have not yet embraced red lips – those are my friend Kelly’s signature anyway. However I will drink the red wine and bake the bread and listen and learn and there is always room to dream and change things up!

I am linking this post up with Paris In July, hosted by Thyme for Tea! (And yeah I posted a day early, I have something else scheduled for the first…what can I say I’m a loose cannon)

My Sunday-Monday Post!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized18 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Last week was sort of crazy – I had my virtual conference, where I watched about two hours of workshops a day. I have lifetime access to them so I can just keep going though so that is good. I learned so much! Then Wyatt had a 90 second focal seizure on Wednesday – it was terrifying for us both. It required another call to his neuro and raising of his meds so please keep your fingers crossed and say all the prayers that this dose is the right dose. Needless to say, my reading was not really on par last week. I did finish my book Honey and Venom, and the review should be up this week. It was pretty fascinating!

Reading This Week:

Then this week I am reading the same books I posted as reading last week, since I didn’t get to them.

Posted Last Week:

I did post once or twice last week – I talked about Paris in July here and then about our Homeschooling, Deer Week Summer Edition here.

Watching:

We watched The Order Season 2 this week – start to finish. It was so good! Now we have to wait all over again for a season 3 – if there is one! We also watched Nancy Drew, which I am loving as well. For movie night, we watched The Current War (Amazon Prime) with Michael Shannon and Benedict Cumberbatch. It was really really well done – and highlighted to me how little I know about that part of history, and how much Billy knows. The movie is a little confusing I think if you are not familiar with the whole A/C vs. D/C debate, or Tesla’s contributions, at least in my opinion. Billy had to explain some things to me as we watched which made it easier to follow. I really enjoyed the movie though, despite my lack of knowledge, because, well, now I know more!

Homeschool, Summer Edition: Deer Week!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn homeschooling12 Comments

This week was not originally intended to be deer themed – but when I saw that the Full Moon for July is the Buck Moon, I decided to switch it up. We started this small study with the new moon, and I loved the symmetry of it. I love it when a theme comes together!

We are still schooling over the summer, but taking it a little easier – less table work, more play. Although my boy asks for table work so I had to find more as the week went on. I guess I love a theme, and he loves a routine. We worked on the letter D, pattern recognition, handwriting, counting and number identification, and read a few cute books. We learned simple facts about white-tailed deer, about their white-tails, how they have hooves, about antlers. That a male deer is a buck, a female a doe, and a baby is a fawn. That they live in herds, and eat plants. All in all, it was a pretty easy-going week, with lots of opportunity for whimsy and drama, with his deer mask and antler crown.

Our art projects this week were particularly fun. We had bought sun art paper to play with for the summer solstice, and we had some leftover, so we pulled that back out and made some deer sun art. Then last year, when we were participating fully in the Kid’s Moon Club, we made an antler crown for Wyatt, which he loves to wear still. So this year, we made one for his little toy badger Henry, that he loves to pieces and sleeps with. So now they both have little antler crowns. My cousin said that Wyatt looks like a character from Peter Pan in his crown!

Resource Round Up:

White-Tailed Deer Unit – Stephanie Hathaway Designs

Deer themed books that we read:

(Contains Amazon Affiliate links)

Imogene’s Antlers || The Deer in the Wood

Extras:

(Contains Amazon Affiliate Links)

Sun Art Paper

Deer Figurines

And that is about it for our week of deer! Next week we start birds!

Paris in July

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn paris in july22 Comments

Oo la la, I am so excited for Paris in July this year. Last year was my very first foray into this challenge and though I was a bit of a slow starter I had such a good time. And met some wonderful new people, which was the very best part! It is hosted by Thyme for Tea and she has some great suggestions to get the wheels turning… reading a French themed book, watching a French/French themed movie, listening to French music, cooking French food. And while I won’t be traveling to Paris this year (or probably anytime soon, Paris still remains a dream!) this is a way to celebrate all things French online!

I have begun my planning for it, and I feel like I am ready this year. One thing I enjoy about this challenge is that my husband gets involved. He is a bit of a Francophile as well, so it is always fun to plan with him different things to do. He reminded me that at one point in history Detroit was known as the Paris of the midwest, which is something I might explore this year for the challenge.

Last year I also read French themed picture books to Wyatt, which I am going to try to do again this year, although with the libraries being what they are now, I am not sure at our success. So I might have to get creative with ways to include Wyatt.

One thing different this year, there is no Tour de France in July! Billy and I have watched every day, every year, for years now. We are huge fans (he watches all the other races as well so I guess he is an actual cycling fan) and it will be weird without it kicking off in July this year. However, it is slated for August so fingers crossed it still happens. We dream of taking Wyatt to the Tour when he is ten, and setting up in one of the villages to cheer the cyclists on. We still have five years for that to happen so hopefully things are better by then!

If you are interested in learning more, pop over to Thyme for Tea and check out all the info! It is a great time!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized27 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

This week was a pretty good one, despite everything going on around us. We took the week off of schooling, as I have decided we are going to continue on through the summer, just less formally and with weeks off here and there. Then Billy took a few days off work too, so we just had fun bumming around the crib, as my dad says. Saturday was the summer solstice, so we did some fun sun art, ate summery foods, and then just hung out in the backyard, enjoying the night and letting Wyatt play in the sprinkler. For Father’s Day, I don’t know what we are doing yet honestly- COVID is making things hard. Then this week I have a virtual conference for Charlotte Mason, a homeschooling style I want to learn more about, and of course, we begin our schooling again. It is going to be deer week around here, partially because deer make me think of summers up north, and partially because the new Buck Moon starts today (Sunday the 21st).

Read Last Week:

I loved The Glamourist!!! I loved The Vine Witch last year, and I really enjoyed this return to the world that Smith has created. I still haven’t finished Honey and Venom, but I should finish this week.

Reading This Week:

I probably won’t have a ton of time with the conference workshops, but if I manage to get some reading time in AND I finish Honey and Venom, then I am going to start these.

Our family loves making and creating things, so I am very excited to start The Creative Family Manifesto. And then Opium and Absinthe is one of the Prime Reads free books for the month, and I love Lydia Kang! I was completely sucked in to The Impossible Girl, The November Girl, and a A Beautiful Poison, so I am very much looking forward to reading this one.

Posted Last Week:

Book Review: Summer at Lake Haven by RaeAnne Thayne

Summertime..

Watching:

We are all over the place with our tv and movie watching right now. We are watching The Order (Netflix), Nancy Drew (CW), and Rosemary and Thyme (Britbox). Nancy Drew the reboot is really fun – kind of dark and grown up and weird all at once. I like when they poke fun a little at the less modern ways Nancy would have accomplished things, like in one scene she goes to pick a lock and it is locked with a key card instead. For our movie nights, we are having a hard time finding anything. We watched I Capture the Castle on Friday night, but then last night couldn’t decide on anything, so we are going to try again tonight, since Billy has tomorrow off. It’s like an extra weekend night! Although I finished off the gummy bears so I need to resupply..

Stay safe all!

Summertime..

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn family friendly, mom life16 Comments

This week has been a mix of busy and just simply being and enjoying. I gave us a week off of schooling, and we had some good times playing outside as well as time inside in the A/C. Neither of us enjoy sun or heat that much…

We headed outside in the mornings and evenings, but in the heat of the day we tucked up in the house to craft or read or watch tv or just play and veg. Lots of that happened this week.

I am still catching up on the yard and garden areas – most of it is still wild and crazy but we have some semblance of actual garden areas coming together. I planted lots of lavender, and my lavender from last year is forming a wonderful little hedgerow in front. I love it. I also got some herbs and veggies in the ground, and some flowers, finally. Today we mulch and I am going to plant a few more seeds, which hopefully will grow for me. Fingers crossed all!

I signed up for a virtual conference/workshop for a homeschooling philosophy I wanted to learn more about, and this week there was pre-conference coffee chat every morning. While I did my work, so did Wyatt. I am such a huge researcher of everything . So before I move forward I have to do tons of research – reading, conferences, speaking with homeschool moms (looking at you Lisa!) Wyatt seems to enjoy doing work with me so that is a bonus. Although, he does do the Mom, Mom look thing every 5 seconds. Lol.

Sunday we also made soap together as a family – we did the melt and pour variety so that Wyatt could be involved, and it was so fun and easy! I wanted to show Wyatt some different things that could be made using honey, and I thought soap would be an interesting one. And then we could also use this adorable bee mold too, which was sort of for Wyatt but mostly for me. The soap turned out really well. It has a great lather and smells good too – I added lavender oil to it. If you are interested, I used this DIY recipe. We are hooked now though, and have a cart full of oils and soap making things filled over on Bramble Berry to make more. My sister-in-law makes soap from scratch, using lye, and is going to teach me next weekend, which should be really neat! Since we have to wear PPE anyway, it is almost the perfect activity to do with a friend.

Billy took some much needed vacation time this weekend, Friday and Monday off, so we have a long weekend of family time ahead of us. We have no real plans but I am sure we will have fun!