earth lover

🍂 Nature 🍄 Journaling 📖

homeschool, Motherhood, Uncategorized

Our friend, Mrs. Mary, invited us out to her beautiful property in Indiana today to go on a Homeschool Nature Hike. They are also into the Charlotte Mason lifestyle.

Her property is that of my actual dreams. She has a beautiful farmhouse filled with all vintage and handmade items. It is so cozy, especially this time of year with her fire burning in their fireplace in the living room. It has the sweetest laundry/mud room with beautiful natural sunlight and  vintage & natural decor that would make doing laundry feel so peaceful and joyous.

Out back is a huge nature trail through the woods, a barn, a pond with a beautifully crafted gazebo, large garden spaces, so much room for kids to run around and play endlessly outside. Best of all, her son’s family lives next door. That’s exactly what we dream of!!!!

Before our hike, she fed us all lunch and shared her personal Nature Journal with us, then gifted us each our own new nature journal to get started with! That was so sweet & thoughtful of her to do for us. We peaked through the book that she uses as inspiration for how to create a Nature Journal.

She has been doing this for many years and has fond memories recorded from trips she’s taken where she was able to experience the wonders that the Creator has freely given us. I love the idea of looking back years from now with special memories brought flooding back by pages recorded in our Nature Journal. She’ll jot down notes or places she made an entry. She adds poems & words of wisdom in her journal. I love that.

Afterwards, we took a lovely hike through the woods, then came back and let the kids play outside for awhile. They have a great fairy garden that the kids loved. I’ll have to  put a lot more work into ours. They have such cool Nature in their own backyard! That is exactly what I long for in our forever home. We left in time to miss the dreaded Friday late afternoon traffic, came home and the girls took time working on their first Nature Journal pages.

All of us really enjoyed finding mushrooms. We spotted several different types while we were out on the trail. I love them so much! There were really big ones & really small ones and the ones we see the most often: Turkey Tails. It’s fascinating how many different varieties there are in just her forest alone!

The mushrooms definitely made it into the Nature Journals. Mrs. Mary told me that she keeps another book of Spore Prints that she makes. I’m really excited to check that out next time we are invited. She also has a Nature Wall like us too!

We tasted Rosehip. It’s very sweet! I liked the way they looked. We learned that Rosehip is often used in tea. I had heard of it before, but had no idea what it looked like or what it was a berry.

Rosehip has a lot of medicinal purposes, which is why it is popular in teas. Rosehip can help with joint pain & inflammation, lower blood pressure & cholesterol, and aid in digestion. They help improve eyesight & skin. They are also used to treat bronchitis, coughs, & colds and have a ton of Vitamin A and E so they help strengthen your immune system. They also protect your vascular system. I’m definitely going to have to start incorporating this into our diets more.

Besides tea, they are also used to make jams & jellies, syrup, soup, or a sauce. I’m interested to try those!

There was also so much moss on the trail! I really, really love moss. I loved the way this shaggy type looked growing off of the trees.

Athena also liked the tress with moss & the whispy, twirly branches hanging from some of them.

This cool stuff is called Fan Clubmoss. It was popping up all over the trail! I had never heard of it before, but when I got home I looked it up and found they also have so many medicinal purposes! They treat rashes & wounds, skin infections & chafing, urinary Tract infections, kidney infections, and bladder infections. It can also be used to naturally dye cloths & fabrics. It is so amazing what all Nature is capable of & I absolutely love the way it looks!

Another fascination was the animal skulls along the trail. This was a raccoon. There was a second decomposing raccoon later down the trail that still had some of its furry meat-suit attached (Athena thought it was a monkey) and a teeny tiny bird skull that was so cute!

It will be really neat to watch as their journals become more detailed the more they get into it. I am so excited to begin working in mine. This is something that we will definitely be doing for the rest of our homeschool journey & I’m sure even longer as we will then pass it on to their children when that season of life comes around.

I really love Nature so much & am so happy to be raising children who also love and appreciate Nature as much as I do. Ella really gets so into it each time we go on a Nature Hike. She loves using the PictureThis App to find out the names of different plants she wants to learn more about. I’m happy they would rather be outside exploring Nature & the world around them than choosing to plop down in front of a screen wasting their lives away. There is such a big, beautiful world out there and now we have a new way to document the wonders we come across. So grateful for Mrs. Mary sharing this with us.

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov

Homeschool Field Trip | Krohn Conservatory

homeschool, Motherhood, Uncategorized

We have been studying Botany this spring, so we took a field trip today to Krohn Conservatory to see all of the really neat plants & the Butterflies in Space exhibit. 🦋

The Butterflies really liked Ella & kept landing all over her. She thinks they were attracted to the other butterflies on her dress. 🦋

Mia did a good job with getting butterflies to land on her card. She had to give most of her butterflies 🦋 to Athena, though.

Sasha was the first to “catch” a butterfly 🦋  & she was very proud of that. I am pretty sure that she also caught the most butterflies out of all of us.

Athena had a bit of difficult time catching the Butterflies, but she was quick to take all of the ones her bigger sisters caught. 🦋

Moses loved chasing the Butterflies as they flew around the greenhouse. He had to keep being reminded not to touch the Butterflies, and to leave them alone while they were on their fruit feeding trays. 🦋 He still had a great time, nonetheless.

Mia wanted to take a photo of me with my butterfly too 🦋.

From now on, I am going to place orange slices that my kids don’t finish into my garden for Butterflies to feed on. I’ll have to come up with some sort of feeding station for them, but I have a few ideas in mind!

I loved the way this butterfly spread its beautiful wings out on this flower. I can only hope that one day our butterfly garden brings us this many different Butterflies to visit us!!

After the butterfly exhibit, the kids colored space themed pictures, made butterfly wand crafts, & took a photo in the “photo booth” in the Krohn Discovery Space.

We went on the Butterfly Scavenger Hunt. The Butterflies were hidden around the Botanical Gardens and we had to find them. We loved walking around and taking photos in the Picture This app of different plants we loved and wanted to add to our gardens while looking for the hidden butterflies.

It was a really great way to get the kids involved in looking at plants and making something kids would usually find “boring” to look at into something really fun & exciting for them.

My father in law got these really great shots of the girls running through the waterfall. It loops around to a cave behind it which was lit up with lights & more space decor. It was the kids favorite spot at the conservatory.

I especially love the photo of Mia. She looks like a beautiful fairy in it.

He also got this great shot of what looks like a mama butterfly with her baby butterfly under her 🦋. I thought that was really cute!! I love how similar the spots are on both butterflies. Moses is currently really into grouping things by mama & baby, so it was a cute little sign from the universe & natural world for us to get to see.

Even though we’ve been there before, we had a really great field trip today! The kids were all really well behaved & engaged. It was short enough where the kids never got to the point of being overdone, but wasn’t short enough that we felt that we wasted our time or money.

I loved that they pointed out things that we have been learning in our botany unit study!! That gives me so much reassurance that they are truly learning & taking in so much information and most importantly, actually applying it in real life! That makes me feel like a successful homeschool mama and I’ll take any win I can right now!!!

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov

Botany 🌱

homeschool, Motherhood, Uncategorized

The weather has been so beautiful lately, we have been trying to do as much of our Botany classes outside as we can! We have put a ton of work into our back yard as a family, so it has been a really peaceful atmosphere to do our classes in.

Sati & Rocco decided that they wanted to take the class with us today as well.

The first thing we did today was learn the parts of a plant, and what each part is meant to do. For example, the stem sucks up the water for the plant and keeps it upright so that it can grow big & strong to support the weight of the plant. Sometimes a little man-made help is needed by using cages or trellises.

Then each girl picked a live plant with roots to examine & draw in their Botany workbooks. Mia worked with a Blueberry Bush that was purchased. Ella worked with a tomato plant that was propagated when a piece fell off of my tomato plants while planting.

When we were finished examining, drawing, & labeling our plants, the girls planted them. Ella added her to our tomato patch (and thought it was funny how small it was compared to the rest of them, *pictured below*) & Mia added hers along the fence next to my root vegetable garden.

Speaking of root vegetables, we also discussed them in our lesson today!

When we were finished we prepared our green bean seeds in a jar of water for next week’s lesson & checked back on our seeds from last week’s lesson in their ziploc bag “greenhouses.” The girls observed what has happened to the seeds over the last week, and what they think will happen over another week. Next week, we can check on our little pots from our Art, Play, Hike day & see how our wildflowers are doing also.

Botany has definitely been our favorite science unit so far!! It’s been so much fun to do as a whole family together & very hands on in every unit. I also love how many beautiful plants that we will get out of this unit! I’m excited to start incorporating some Botanical field trips into our classes also! We have a few fun ones picked out!

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov

What’s Been Going on at Mama Morozov’s Home

home, Motherhood, Uncategorized

Happy Monday!! It started out a sort of overcast morning over here on this day so I’m catching up on housework. I have a sort of “unwritten rule” that dreary/overcast days are for housework and sunny days are for yardwork because I don’t want to miss any time with the sun.

We had a really great Sunday Family Day yesterday. The sun was shining, the kids were playing. We skipped church since the kids have some yucky cold symptoms going on and just hung out at home together.

My gardens have come along so much this week! There’s still tons to be done though! I’d like to get mulch down this week before the crazy amount of weeds return!

I filled my basket planter with these adorable trailing white flowers that will hang down under my Ukrainian flag. I’m really excited to see how far they grow!

I weeded & mulched this small garden bed this week. I used 2 bags and will still need to add at least one more bag here. This space was very low down compared to the grass around it and since it had probably never been mulched before I really want to get a good few layers on so the weeds don’t come back as heavy next year.

We brought our grill back out and bought a few needed grill tools for it.

Niko made hot dogs, vegetarian hot dogs, and the most delicious corn on the cob. I heated up the vegetarian baked beans & brought out watermelon, chips, and potato salad.

I planted this clematis in this planter. I’m so excited for the vines to take on a life of its own on this along the tower’s shapes. It’s going to be so beautiful especially when it has more purple flowers growing up it.

My ranunculus flowers are blooming and they are SO beautiful! One day I will have a much larger container filled with these beauties, but I’m SO happy with my start.

It has been so hot out lately & summer break is coming up so I decided it would be fun to get this inflatable pool for the kids to use this summer. It’s a lot of fun and the kids had a blast playing in it all day long.

Anyone have any tips on how to keep an inflatable pool clean all season? They always seem to get so gross after the first use.

I spoke with my neighbor last night and she gave me the compliment that my back yard is very pleasant to look at. That made me really happy. My hard work is making a difference for not only my own family but for my neighbors as well!!

It is my goal that while we are living in this home in Deer Park, someone nominates us for a Beautification Award. Her compliment made me really hopeful that could actually come true one day! I’ll just have to keep beautifying it for now.

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov

A Mini Garden Project 🍓

home, Sustainable Living, Uncategorized

I went to the Oakley Kroger the other night with Moses. That place is HUGE! As we were walking (aka me walking & wearing all 23+ pounds of him) inside we decided to check out the outside floral section and I ended up buying a cherry tomato starter plant & a strawberry starter plant.

When we got home it was too late to start a gardening project, so I set them aside for the next morning.

When I went to plant them, I came to the conclusion that I really didn’t want to plant food that we plan to eat near our trash cans, even with a fence separating them. So I figured out a new solution!

I moved the raised bed into this space along the fence.

I thought that it looked a little out of place by itself, so I built a little rock pathway with rocks out of the stockpile I already had.

Once I had all the rock placement laid out, I began collecting these mosaic tiles around my back yard. I had originally had them in the gravel patio area, but I think that they will be much more appreciated over here.

I’ve got a pretty good start going, but I definitely need to continue picking more out to make sure the spaces in between are really full.

I also moved this little red bird bath from a different garden space in my yard. It makes more sense over here since the hose can reach here, but not where it was previously.

I planted the cherry tomatoes in the middle container and strawberries to the right. I am going to plant lettuce in the container to the left when it isn’t raining.

To be completed:

• Finish filling in mosaic pieces between rock spaces.

• Plant a creeping flower in the tower growing up the sides.

• Weed and prepare the right side near the fence to sculpt out a garden bed + plant some flowers.

• Trim bush to the left side and sculpt out garden bed + plant some flowers.

• Create fun garden stakes with the kids for each container.

• Find and/or make more garden decor to personalize it more!

Just a small, spur of the moment project I wanted to document on here. I hope you like it and it Inspires you to do some gardening yourself! Gardening can be really, really therapeutic as well as a great work out & way to connect with nature.

Are you big into gardening, or a beginner? Have you tried raised garden beds or container gardens? What kind of things do you like to grow?

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov

Every Day is Earth Day 🌎

Crafts & DIY, Motherhood, Uncategorized

I hope you had a Happy Earth Month!

In our family, we celebrate the Earth every day, but for national Earth Day (& month) we are going to make sure to celebrate a little extra!

We wore our flower headbands to be extra festive on Earth Day on April 22. 

Not Our Trash, but it IS Our Earth

One of our very favorite outdoor family activities is plogging: picking up litter while jogging. Since my kids are pretty little, we mostly just walk briskly rather than jog, but it’s still exercise for our bodies and it’s still cleaning up our Earth.

We tied a trash bag to our stroller. The park is on the other side of the train, so all of the trash collected at this point was from our walk from our home to the park alone.

I want my children to know that it’s up to them to change the world. They cannot wait for someone else to do it for them. It is our duty to leave the Earth a better place than we found it.

By the end of our walk, we had filled our entire bag.

We ended up going back out the next morning with Niko + the older girls as well. We walked back to the park, a different way, and picked up more litter. When we got there, there was actually a Community Park Clean Up going on which was really cool! They were handing out free gloves and trash bags for people to volunteer to clean up the park. I was unaware that our park offered that, but I love it!

Dirt Dessert

We made “Dirt cake” which we decided to rename “Dirt Dessert” instead since it wasn’t exactly a cake.

It was really yummy and everyone gobbled it up! This is definitely a dessert that I will be remaking with different themes throughout the year!

We talked about the Earth & why worms are good for it. In case you didn’t know, worms are decomposers!

Drive Less, Walk More

This month our weather has really started warming up, so we have began walking to the bus stop to pick up Ella & Mia and then walking home. We bring a trash bag with us each time we walk.

Nature Art

Mia drew a face on a piece of cardboard we cut from a box. Then we poked lots of holes where we wanted her hair to be.

We walked around the beautiful flower garden at Ault Park looking for flowers to use as our hair. We tried to use only flowers that had already fallen, or weeds that we thought they wouldn’t mind us picking for them.

Even though the playground distracted the kids & we didn’t end up filling all of our holes, I still think that it turned out really cute.

5 Easy Ways You Can Be More Eco Friendly!

1. Stop using plastic bags. Instead, opt for reusable insulated tote bags & mesh produce bags. It makes carrying groceries in from the car WAY easier too!

2. Use a refillable cleaning solution (like Thieves Household Cleaner). Thieves is non-toxic, plant-based, & can replace literally EVERY single cleaning product you currently own. (You can order Thieves HERE).

3. Shop at a second-hand store first before buying new. Chances are, a second-hand store will have what you are looking for at only a fraction of the price.

4. Utilize your local library. Libraries go WAY beyond just books. There are so many activities and classes that they offer, as well as information on local resources. It is a great place to bring children as well (just kindly remind them to use their inside voices.)

5. Use what you have before buying more. This goes for food, hygiene or household products, decor items, anything & everything. It helps cut down on waste & clutter as well.

🌍 I hope you had a good Earth Month. What did you do to celebrate the Earth this month?

I can’t believe tomorrow it will be May! Mothers Day is coming up as well as Moses FIRST BIRTHDAY!! How the heck has it already been a year?? Then after that it will be SUMMER BREAK ☀️! So many exciting things coming up! Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any of it!

Have a beautiful rest of your weekend 🧡

How to Clean your Upholstery with Thieves Household Cleaner

home, Uncategorized

I’m raising cloth-diapered, hippie kids. Kids who LOVE to run around barefoot with no clothes on every chance they get. Especially my youngest two: Sasha & Athena.

I absolutely love their free spirits. I love that they are learning from a young age that all bodies are beautiful temples; that there is no reason to be ashamed of any part of your body.

Being a victim of religious abuse myself, it’s always been very important to me to teach my children that their bodies are theirs to cherish & what they choose to wear, or not wear, is not and will never be a “sin.” It will never insist that they “are asking” to be raped. It will never land them a place in “hell.” In my eyes, teaching your child to be ashamed of themselves & their bodies in the name of religion is far worse than my kids running around naked, the way they were BORN.

With that being said, naked kids tend to lead to extra accidents sometimes. My sweet Thea climbed up onto a cloth chair with her bare booty & accidentally peed all over it once she endured the climb. I had hoped that it was possibly a slip cover and I would be able to take it off and wash it, but no such luck.

Thats not a problem though because I have Thieves Household Cleaner!

In case you haven’t heard about Thieves yet, it is a “plant-based, ultra-concentrated, versatile solution that gives you a deep clean when scrubbing, de-greasing, spot cleaning, dusting, and more- all without harsh chemicals.” It is safe to use around your entire family including children and pets. It is also safe for all surfaces, including septic systems.

As a mom of many, especially 5 and under, using the safest ingredients around my home is my #1 priority. It is my job as a mother and wife to keep my home & family safe, and I take that job very seriously. With all of the physical & mental health risks of using traditional cleaning products or air freshening methods, I can rest well knowing I am using only the best products and putting my families health first without breaking the bank! Plus by replacing ALL of my other cleaning products with ONE bottle of cleaner, I significantly cut down on our family’s carbon footprint.

Click HERE to order your Thieves Household Cleaner

DIY Upholstery Cleaner

What you will need:

  • 3/4 cup distilled water
  • 1/4 cup white vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap
  • 1/2 cupful of Thieves Household Cleaner

Once you make your mixture, grab a scrub brush, dip it in, and get scrubbing. Minimal effort is all you need, nothing vigorous. Scrub it all up and let it dry!

I planned on just cleaning up the accident, but while I had it off of its stand, I decided to give the whole cushion a good scrub down. It took off pet hair & marker stains beautifully. Plus it smells amazing and is 100% non-toxic.

Click HERE to order your Thieves Household Cleaner.

PS: Check out this scientific experiment seeing how well Thieves cleans compared to other well-known cleaning products! 😱

Click HERE to order your Thieves Household Cleaner!

Don’t forget that Spring Cleaning Season is right around the corner! Get those nasty chemical-riddled cleaning products out of your house and make the switch to Thieves Household Cleaner! Happy Cleaning!

My DIY Dream Nursery | ON A BUDGET

Motherhood, Uncategorized

My youngest baby is already about to turn 1 year old in just a few weeks! It is hard to believe this time last year I was perfecting every last detail of her nursery makeover before she arrived.

I never got to design Kaden’s nursery since we lived with my parents at the time he was born and they made the executive decisions about what was purchased for his nursery.

I never got to design Ella’s nursery, and as we added more and more girls, we just sort of left the dull pink color and mismatched furniture for all of the girls. I finally decided to design the nursery that I wanted and would love, and learned that I really don’t care for pink all that much, especially as a wall color.

My DIY Dream Nursery

This bed has made it through all 5 of my babies. It’s time is certainly coming to an end, but for now, I’m still loving all of its beauty.

This nursing chair has also made it through all 5 of my children, and 2 of my cousins before them. It came with an ottoman, which was well loved, but very large and in a small home, every inch of space counts. So it was freecycled, and hopefully loved.

I have always preferred hand created art over store bought art. I want my home filled with unique items that no one else in the world has. Basic is an insult in my vocabulary, so I prefer to be anything but.

I made this dream catcher to match my fall + earth inspired nursery with hemp and ribbons. I think it pulled the room together with its color palette.

The stars are decals that I found on Etsy. They were very easy to put on and made a huge difference in the room.

I have had this shelving unit since my oldest was a toddler and housed his VHS & DVD collection. I asked my husband to hang them on the wall instead. I love being able to have my cloth diapers on display, easily accessible, yet stylish at the same time. I spent a long time finding the perfect additions to style these shelves and I have to say, as simple as it is, this is probably my favorite wall in the house.

When my husband came to America this was his dresser which we were gifted by his parents. The shelf I have had since Ella was a baby which I picked up at the thrift store.

I chose to omit a changing table this time around and use a Moses changing basket instead which I highly recommend. We didn’t have enough space for a changing table, and quite honestly, over a span of 4 kids, it was only used about 6 months per kid, if that. I decided to convert my changing table into a hutch for my dining room. I love being able to take the Moses basket easily from room to room. And it takes up no extra space.

The Llama toy basket came Target.

This shelf I had a bit of trouble styling, but I love the wood and simplicity of it.

The lamp came from Target. The Adventure sign came from Hobby Lobby.

Small houses require a lot of additional storage anywhere you can add it. This cloth storage unit added some extra storage and fit well in this room’s color palette.

This was an additional step that everyone thought I was silly for adding, especially at around $15 a piece, but I think small details are important in the big picture. Why redo an entire room and leave those ugly plastic ones? Especially when we want to be a plastic-free home! I think they look beautiful in this room, and with the amount of money I saved shopping my home, using mostly what we already had, I figured that I could splurge a little on the cover plates I wanted.

I loved these animal hangers from Hobby Lobby. I got them during a 50% hanging decor sale making them less than $5 a piece. They went so well in here and add even a little bit more extra storage space. Every little bit counts in a small house!

So that’s my DIY Dream Nursery! I loved designing it and I love the feel that it has brought to our home. If you love it as much as I do, I ask that you please share!

Be sure to check back for more home makeovers as I share each room!!

Please subscribe & have a beautiful day 🥰