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A Day In My Life | Homeschooling, Cookies, Chili, and Chalk

Hi everyone! Today I am doing a day in the life blog. I thought it would be fun to show you what we do everyday! I previously did a Homeschool Routine and Schedule post, but since then, our routine has changed! The school has been sending assignments, and they also have to video chat with their teacher every morning.

So, a little bit about my family – I have two girls, Allie, 8, and Ashley, 5. My husband is still going to work these days, so it’s just me and the girls everyday.

Let’s get on with our day!

7:30 Wake up and COFFEE!

This particular day I was up before the girls, so I had a bit of quiet time while I enjoyed my coffee. I use the Starbucks Blonde Roast and their Caramel Macchiato creamer.

8:00 The girls woke up around 8, so I made them cinnamon toast, and they had some berries and yogurt to go with it.

While they were eating, I made my bed, cleaned up a little bit, and threw a load of laundry in the washer.

I make my bed, and all of the beds, every morning. I like to keep a clean and tidy house.

After breakfast, the girls brushed their teeth, got dressed, and brushed their hair.

9:00

At 9:00, Ashley has to get on Google Meet with her Kindergarten class for their morning meeting to go over the assignments.

While she was doing that, I gave our dog Mollie a bath. She is a 10 year old maltese. She lives inside the house, so a bath every week is a must! I also brush her.

She doesn’t like it, though.

After I bathed and brushed her, it was back to her chair to look out the window at the cows!

9:30

By this time, Ashley was done with her morning meeting with her class. Now it is Allie’s turn for her meeting at 9:30 with her third grade class.

While she was on her chat, I took a quick shower and got ready for the day.

10:00

I planned on making chili for dinner that night, so I had to get that going in the crockpot. Here is the recipe if you want to make it!

At 10:00, the girls start doing their assignments for the day. They both have Reading/Writing, Math, Science, Social Studies, and GT assignments.

We turned our table in the dining room into a school table, since the one in the playroom wasn’t big enough. Who uses a formal dining room anyway?

12:00

School usually takes a few hours, so we have lunch right after they’re done.

My girls LOVE avocado toast, so we had that.

I spread some avocado on toasted bread, and topped it with a little garlic salt and some turkey. They also had some cherry tomatoes and carrots to go with it.

I also had avocado toast and veggies, but I like mine with the Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel Seasoning. So good.

1:00

It was such a pretty day outside, so the girls rode their scooters, jumped on the trampoline, and we did a little activity using painters tape and sidewalk chalk.

These came out really cool and kept them busy for awhile!

2:30

We came back inside around 2:30 and wanted to make some frosted sugar cookies, so we made them into Easter shapes and decorated them. Delish. I posted the recipe for these last week, so check it out here if you want to make them!

3:30

They usually have an afternoon snack at this time, so I made them a smoothie and they had some goldfish crackers to go with it.

I used frozen bananas, strawberries, blueberries, yogurt, and milk to make the smoothie. They love it.

For me, an iced coffee. I’m dragging at this point!

Recipe for my Starbucks Vanilla Latte here!

4:00

This is free time for the girls. They usually play board games, barbies, LOL dolls, or color during this time.

I usually use this time for chores, so I folded the laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, and cleaned the toilets and bathrooms. If I don’t have any chores to do, I will work on my blog, read, or play with the girls.

5:30

I start making dinner at this time, so since the crockpot was making the chili, all I had to do was make some cornbread to go with it!

The girls love to help me make dinner and set the table.

6:15

Dinner is ready! Can’t wait to eat it!

After dinner we usually have family movie or game night, and the girls love to have a “sleepover” in their playroom.

So that is it for our day! It isn’t extremely eventful because we can’t go anywhere, but we try to keep busy.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoyed this day in the life blog!

thanks for reading!

Top 5 | Home Products From Amazon

Hello! I’m gonna bet that you love Amazon. Pretty much everyone I know uses Amazon and loves it! I like to find things on Amazon that are cheaper than I’d find in store, but still good quality. Today I am sharing my TOP 5 favorite home purchases from the website.

1. PILLOW COVERS

Pillows are one of those things that are like, weirdly expensive (like pistachios and beef jerky). Instead of replacing some old gray pillows that I had, I purchased these fluffy and soft ivory pillow covers, and they are so nice, and go perfect with my decor. They come in a 2 pack for $12.99.

2. THROW BLANKETS

These blankets are my fave! I have two pink, a cream color, and a gray color. I drape a cream and a pink over our couch in the living room, a gray over our bed, and then a pink one on my Mollie’s chair. How cute was she on her 10th bday? 🙂 The blankets wash and dry nicely, are so soft, and cheap! I think they’re pretty. They are around $15, depending on the size you want.

3. WALL SCONCES

Next are some mason jar wall sconces that I purchased for our bedroom. These are just what I was looking for, and they were WAY cheaper on Amazon. They are wooden on the back and the jar is glass. They have faux little flowers and also twinkle lights inside the jars so they can light up. We live in the country, so I was going for a sort-of rustic glam for our house, and these fit the bill! They were around $20 for the pair.

4. SOAP DISPENSER

Yes, I just love mason jars as decor, and this bronze soap dispenser matched perfectly in my little half bath. It is really nice quality, and I like to keep Mrs. Meyers Lilac hand soap inside. It was 13.99.

5. FLORAL ESSENTIAL OILS

I love floral scents for my house, and I have a few diffusers that I like to use. This pack of essential oils comes with six floral scents that are SO GOOD. I already used up the jasmine scent. They smell up my whole house, and my favorites are the rose and lilac. They are only $15.95 for the set!

Ok, so that is all for my favorite home products from Amazon! Have you read my Top 5 Kitchen Products From Amazon yet? Go and check it out!

Thanks for reading!

*this post was NOT sponsored by Amazon*

Top 5 | Kitchen Products From Amazon

We all love Amazon, right? It’s just so easy, so fast, and so cheap! I love to use Amazon for things that either I can’t find in store, or for things that are cheaper than in-store. Today I am sharing my 5 favorite kitchen products.

So first off, microfiber cloths. These are perfect for cleaning all kitchen surfaces.

Drawer goals.

I am trying to cut way down on the amount of paper towels I use, so I try to use these microfiber cloths for everything. These are the perfect size to clean with, and they are pink! Love them.

Next, a life changing contraption – this little clip-on strainer.

Now, if you cook a lot, you know that every-time you cook pasta, you have to lug out a big ol strainer to separate out the water after the pasta is done. And then you have to wash said strainer. Not anymore with this little strainer that attaches to ANY size pan. You clip it on and you can dump all of the water out. LIFE CHANGING.

Ok, next thing are reusable straws.

Buying plastic straws is extremely wasteful and bad for the environment, so I buy the metal reusable ones. They come in lots of fun colors, and you can just pop them in the dishwasher.

Also, using parchment paper for baking used to be a must for me until I discovered these oven safe baking mats.

Use them just like parchment paper, and throw them in the dishwasher to clean. Nothing sticks to these!

Lastly is this adorable little strawberry gadget.

You just pop this into a strawberry, give it a little twist, and it takes out all of the stem, no knife required! My girls love this.

Ok, so that’s it for my 5 fave kitchen gadgets from Amazon!

Do you use any of these or have any product recommendations for me? Leave them in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

New Blog Name | Back to School Lunch and Snack Ideas!

Hello! Welcome to my new (ish) blog! I recently changed the name from Amy’s Beauty Diary to its new name, The Hustlin’ Homemaker. I did this because I want to create content that is not just exclusive to beauty. While I love doing beauty posts, I want to be able to post about anything, whether it be kids, home, books – things that I think you guys would be interested in! So, thanks for sticking w me 🙂 I also created a new Instagram page, so give me a follow at @thehustlinhomemaker! I’ll be posting on there a lot. 🙂

Alright, so let’s get on with today’s post.

My two girls just went back to school- today, just as I type this. My older daughter, Allie, has started 3rd grade, and my baby, Ashley, has just started kindergarten. While I am sad and will miss them, I am so proud of them and will always cherish these past years of them being with me. I haven’t been without a kid for about 8 years, so it’s a big change for me as well.

Anyway, this post is about school lunch! My girls love to bring their lunch, and also like to buy their lunch at school. I have a lot of ideas that I am excited to share with you all!

First off, their lunchboxes. These came with their backpacks as matching sets. I like the shape of these because they can fit the lunch containers perfectly.

I have two types of lunch containers, these bigger ones with 3 compartments and then the smaller ones with four compartments that look like the containers Lunchables come in. I love to use these because they save money and reduce waste- and I can actually see how much of their lunch they eat.

Here are some examples of what I pack in them.

A Lunchables type meal with pepperoni, cheese and crackers, blueberry skewers, celery, some goldfish crackers, and an Oreo for dessert.

A unicorn shaped pb&j, some strawberries, carrots, some vanilla yogurt that i put a few sprinkles on, and a rice krispy treat.

A turkey and cheese sandwich on a Hawaiian roll, some cherry tomatoes, strawberry applesauce, wheat thins, and a pink sugar cookie.

Here I have a ham and cheese sandwich on a crescent roll, some pineapple, pretzel sticks, an oatmeal raisin granola bar, and some Barbie fruit snacks. 🙂

The little containers are what I use for Ashley, as she can’t eat as much as Allie.

Some string cheese and crackers, a hard boiled egg, carrots, and some blueberries.

And lastly, we have some turkey and cheese roll ups, strawberries, a granola bar, and some goldfish crackers.

The biggest tip for lunch making is just to do it the night before so you don’t have to rush in the morning. It really doesn’t take long at all.

Some other things I like to use for their lunches are these little Thermos Jars.

You can pretty much pack anything in these, mac and cheese, soup, spaghetti, chicken and rice…any leftovers, and it keeps it hot in the lunchbox, even if there’s an ice pack inside.

Also, the Thermos cups. These are so durable and keep their water cold all day. We have a bunch of these.

These silicone baking cups and toothpicks add a little bit of a colorful touch and just something extra that I know makes the girls happy to eat their lunch. Also, cutting a sandwich out with a cookie cutter is really fun for them- we’ve got a drawer just for cookie cutters.

I got these super cute Lunch Notes for them just to put inside their lunch. These are thick cardstock and have cute little sayings and pictures on them, and there is space to write something. They will love these.

Lastly, just a few snack ideas. I made these cinnamon roll apples for them for the first day of school- they were super easy!

Make up some cinnamon rolls, and wait until they’re completely cooled.

Add some red food coloring to your icing. Count out 8 pretzel sticks for the stems, and cut up some sour candy belts to make the leaves. It’s ok if they’re not perfect; all leaves are different!

I leveled the cinnamon rolls to make them flat, and then iced them and stuck the pretzel and the leaf into the top.

How cute are these?!

Super quick and easy! I made them the night before the first day of school.

The next idea is a little pencil wafer cookie. Just cut the top of some sugar wafers into a point.

Add icing to the top and bottom, and add a mini chocolate chip to the top.

These are such a cute afternoon snack! I gave these to the girls when they got home from school, and they loved them.

I hope you liked these ideas and will try them! Thanks for reading!

xx amy

Feb FAVES

Hello! I am back with a favorites post, and I really love making these posts. I rediscovered an old face wash and palette, and have been trying out some new things as well. Let’s get into it!

So first off, I don’t know what made me try this mascara, but I’m kinda regretting it because of the price. This is the YSL Faux Cils Babydoll Mascara. I LOVE this mascara so much. It makes my lashes SO VOLUMINOUS. It holds the curl all day, doesn’t flake, and when I’m applying it, it never clumps no matter how many coats I pack on. I hate that I like this because it’s freakin $32.

Next for makeup, this palette that I was obsessed with back in the day (last year, lol).

This is the Marc Jacobs Style Eye Palette in Lolita. This particular palette is d/c, but there are other colors that look beautiful. I love the packaging of this and how small and compact it is. The shadows are amazing and last really well. I’ve been wearing this every day.

I used to use this face wash ERRDAY and I’m not really sure why I stopped. This is Philosophy’s Purity Cleanser. I dug this out from my cabinet and have started using it again, and my skin looks so good! It is a very gentle cleanser and works really well with my Clarisonic. It doesn’t dry out my skin or leave it feeling tight.

Next, a teeeny tiny little sample I got when I placed an order awhile ago, and it is the Living Proof Restore Smooth Blowout Concentrate. I don’t know how this is still half full, cause I’ve used it pretty much every time I’ve blowdried this month. Since it’s a concentrate, I use two pumps (don’t use any more than that), which seems like a tiny amount for my long and thick hair. It’s like a slippery concentrated oil that not only softens the hair, but helps it dry quicker! It gives me a nice and straight blow dry. I’m definitely going to be purchasing this when I run out.

After seeing so many commercials about this, I had to pick it up a few weeks ago at target. This is a new hairspray from TRESemme, it’s the Compressed Micro Mist. There are four different hold levels, but I went for the strongest, because it’s who I am, and I like some stiff hair. Haha, it actually doesn’t leave my hair stiff at all, and I really love it! The smell is really nice, and it’s a super fine mist, so no big clumps of hairspray.

Lastly, and also from Target, the new Mrs. Meyers Multi Surface Spray spring scents are out! I LOVE these, and use them everyday. I use them to clean anything and everything, and this particular one, Peony, leaves my house smelling so good. It smells like a fresh field of flowers, and makes my countertops sparkle. I actually look forward to cleaning because I love this so much.

That’s it for the faves! Hope you enjoyed them.

xx amy