Our adventures

Today we attended the wedding of one of my husbands coworkers. We had quite the adventure getting out there!

We left late. The tractors in the field behind us were getting the last of the potatoes, another one was fertilizing, and another was turning the soil over. To say the least, my son was incredibly excited because there were tons of tractors in our backyard and he was entranced. Bret stood with the kids on the back porch watching the activity while I did a final feeding/diaper change with Kaitlyn.

At this point we were late. As I was getting ready to load Kaitlyn into the van and opened the sliding door, Bret asked me if I needed anything from the apartment. With my head turned to answer him, I didn't realise my son falling out of the van until I felt a thump at my feet. Bret had put him in the van, but didn't strap him inot his seat in the back row so he had been walking around in the van and had been leaning up against the door as I slid it open. I saw my son holding his mouth - upon inspection he had bitten his tongue in the fall and had 4 teeth marks on it. Ouch. Once he found a hot wheels truck the tears stopped and he seemed fine.

So we get the kids loaded and I realised I had forgotten to eat breakfast. I gave myself an hour and a half and managed to remember to feed the kids, get them ready and dressed in play clothes, bring along their dressy outfits, packed enough diapers, full sippy cups, books, spare clothes for Kaitlyn, bonnets for her as well, my mini makeup kit to touch up when I got there, etc, etc. Could I remember to feed myself? Apparently not.

The plan was to leave by 8am, arrive by 9am and help with setup for a wedding at noon. Once we got into the town the wedding was at, Alexis had to go potty. We WERE en route to find breakfast for me, but once we got off the exit and tried to find food there was none to find. So, we decided we'd go find his friend (and use the restrooms at the park) ,make sure we knew where she'd be getting married (in a beautiful park!) but thought we should call her and let her know we were in the area. But Bret forgot his cell phone - he didn't know her number off hand and she didn't have my phone number. Ack! So bret pulled a U-turn, tried to slowly go over a curb to complete the turn and wouldn't you know we get a flat tire. A tire change is called for. We pulled into a parking lot, changed the tire, and continued on our way.

Once we got to the park, we couldn't find her and Bret couldn't remember the name of the pavillion she was supposed to be at. He was pretty convinced it was the first one we stopped at, however there was no one there. So he called his work to try and get her cell phone number, but they don't store cell phone numbers. So he tried to see if he could get the phone number to his previous supervisor, who was also the pastor for the wedding. Well apparently they only have the number they can hit him with on the nextell, not an actual phone number. SO Bret asked them to pass along the message to give him a call on my cell phone, because we can't find anyone.

We finally stopped to let Alexis use the bathroom when she reminded us she really, really had to use the potty please. She's such a good sport. :) After that we went to go find food and the pastor finally called Bret back. As it turns out, the place we stopped at WAS the right pavillion, the bride was just running really behind. Of course! It brings back memories of when Bret and I got married. As I'm dressing my daughter to go to the church I realised her dress shoes were too small (with 20 minutes to spare). So my husband, well dressed and all, speeding like a demon, made it to the closest store that sells shoes and back to the church in time for the wedding. He pulled the "I'm getting married in 10 minutes, my daughters shoes are too small, can I please please go in front of you" and got the "sure, it's your funeral!" remark...

Anyway, so like I mentioned before we were supposed to start setting up at 9am. By now it's 10:30! Nothing has been set up. We made it back and started getting things going. The wedding was beautiful and the best part is that there was a great park right next to the pavillion for the kids to play on. My kids spent 5 hours running and playing with the other kids. Alexis made a new friend (Brets friends daughter), and she grew up a ton today... Using the 'big kid' swing like a pro, even riding some crazy rides on the tire swing. Andrew even rode on the 'big kid' swing and did really well. I spent most of the time watching the kids (and rescuing Andrew from his attempts at the other 'big kid' stuff that he wasn't quite ready for yet...) but was surprised at how little I had to follow them around today.

Once we got home we had 40 lb. of chicken breast to trim and package, and 6 whole chickens to wrap and freeze. Our order came in today from our local butcher and we had some beautiful, fresh chicken breasts that should last us quite some time. I brought home about 70 lb of beef on Friday and get all of that freezing. We'll be set on meat for a while! I can't wait for hunting season though. Bret is going out to hunt rabbit, duck and deer that we know of for sure. Let's pray he 'gets lucky' so we can stock our deep freezer some more. We're seriously considering breeding rabbits as a meat source for our family. I'll let you know how that develops. Rabbit is pretty healthy - good in protein, low in fat/cholesterol and tastes like chicken. Even living in an apartment I know we can have a few hutches alongside our stairs (under our back porch essentially). The rabbit poo will be nice in the garden too.

Tomorrow will be another big day. Andrew turns two on the 1st of October, but we're celebrating it tomorrow with my dad and grandparents. So we're going to visit a corn maze out by my dads house, visit the old barn I used to keep my horse at to say hi, and head over to my dads to visit for the afternoon.

I discovered the secret...

...of keeping fresh, homemade bread in the home at all times.

Spend one night a week making dough for the next weeks bread (or maybe even one night a week making a months worth of dough... But I doubt I can get all of that kneading done at once). I like the idea of it being one night - get it all done at once!

Then freeze it.

When I'm due for another loaf, I pull it out of the freezer, let it rise over night then bake the next morning.

I've found when I freeze already baked loaves, they thaw stale. Maybe it's the way I store them? But I have a couple loaves of bread just for french toast sitting in our chest freezer, I'll pull them out when we decide on french toast for breakfast.

We just bought a bunch of meat in bulk so I am excited to start planning roasts, stews and steaks into the meal plan. Mmmmm.

I'm going to take the kids for a walk so they can watch the farmers harvesting potatoes from the field behind our home... Andrew is sure to go crazy watching the big machines! Alexis, while excited also, will be able to contain it a bit better :-) Kaitlyn I'm sure will just sleep in the sling.

Is this normal?!?!

My older kids are fighting over who gets to take their little sisters dirty diaper to the pail...

Mommy, can you go like this?

"Mommy, can you go like this?" my three year old asked me tonight. I looked up to see her folding her hands. "Sure hun, why?" I asked. "I want to pray" she replied.

Praise God! Of Course!! She proceeded to say "Dear Lord, thank you for a beautiful day, and playing outside, and mommy, and daddy, and Kaitlyn, and Andrew, and animals and duckies and fishies and horsies, and snoopy. i pray that I stay in bed all night and don't get scared, and pray for another baby in mommys belly, and for daddy to drive home safe and for Kaitlyn to grow up strong and for when Kaitlyn cries mommy says one minute and she feeds her so she won't cry..." Alexis went on and on, but those first few run on sentances are ingrained into my head. How beautiful it was to hear my daughter praying on her own. I usually lead them into prayer, but Alexis decided after we were done, that she wasn't!

My Master Cookbook

Aside from making a household notebook (click that link and explore that site, along with MANY other sites that give you a glimpse into their own household notebooks on the left column) I am creating a "Master Cookbook" holding all of the recipes my family has tried and liked, and getting rid of actual cookbooks we rarely use to free up more space for cooking supplies (like additional bread loaf pans, pie pans and misc. things I'm finding useful for cooking larger meals). I have several reasons for a master cookbook:

• My well loved cookbook is nearly unreadable from years of heavy use, spills and messes
• Meal planning will be easier to plan meals and a shopping list from one book, as opposed to a shelf full.
• If I'm not well prepared and need a quick snack or meal idea, I can choose from a book that contains only things we like. No reading through recipes to decide if something sounds good!

My master cookbook will go like this:

• A large 3 ring binder with a see-through plastic cover
• A titlepage to fit into my binders cover. I found free country/cooking-related clipart online, found a bible verse that inspirational to me for cooking and providing wholesome food for my family (because I cook every meal here at home) which happens to be Proverbs 31:27 because I "looketh well to the ways of her household..." and certainly "eatheth not the bread of idleness" with three young ones!
• Create a spine label so I can grab this off my shelf and know what it is
• Dividers for sections: breakfast, lunch, dinner, desserts, snacks, home-made ingredients (for things I like to make at home as opposed to buying them already made - yogurt, cream-of soups, broths, etc.), misc. (for items that are more pantry items that I make- crackers, grahm crackers, pasta, dough recipes, etc.) recipes we'd like to try. I might include a section just for casseroles and crockpot meals (and use different colored paper for the different meat dishes to make them easy to find). I may
• When making recipe pages, I'll probably have one side of a page per recipe to allow room for future notes - if I added or substitute an ingredient and it's good, double/triple recipe conversions, good side dishes and beverages, who in the family likes this meal the most, etc.
• Pages will be kept in a page protector to protect against spills

If you have young children in the house who are eating babyfood, I highly suggest buying the Wholesome Baby Food book from Wholesome Babyfood, which is the entire website put into book form. It's very cheap, it's an electronic book so you get it right away and it's perfect to print out and add to your recipe collection. I printed it and put it into a 1/2 in. binder and keep that on my shelf on it's own, but you could print it and othe rfavorite recipes you like and add an index divider in your master cookbook just for baby/toddler foods.

I need simplicity

Things have been a'changing over here during the past week or two. I've decided I need simplicity. Decluttering is a current project. The kids have too many toys and it's getting hard to wade through all of them to get from one part of the room to the other. We have three children, two adults and three dogs living in a two bedroom apartment. There is simply no room for the "stuff" we have, and it's mostly "stuff." Most of it we haven't used or looked at since we moved in here, so it's got to go! I have to do better meal planning so I'm not left wondering what's for dinner in the morning (yes, one of the first things I think about is dinner - if I don't have a dinner planned, my day does not go well). I have let my meal planning slide for the past few weeks because I've used up the food I had planned to, but I still have a freezer and pantry full of food I hadn't yet had a use for - so I'm trying to plan meals from my freezer and pantry on a daily basis to use what we have up, then I'll plan a huge shopping extravaganza to re-stock everything with fresher items.



So I have decluttered the kids room in a major way. I have a mountain of toys, clothes and baby stuff that we don't use, the kids don't play with, or whatever the case may be. It's being freecycled and Goodwill'd. I'm working on my office space and kitchen now. I'm renovating my household notebook - I realised one of the main reasons I hate using it these days is because it's too big for it's binder and I have far too many loose peices of paper in it. So, I have large binders here and everything is moving into a new binder.



We were blessed with a free chest freezer from freecycle. It works, but it needs a seal. I'll be pricing those this weekend. The freezer is bigger than our current deep freezer and will be great for hunting season and when we buy a side of beef soon. I'll also be making more freezer meals. These days, crockpots, casseroles and home made frozen meals are my friends!

Breakfast is another area I am simplifying. I figure on weekday mornings we'll have oatmeal and scrambled eggs. I'll soak the oats overnight with some lemon juice and cook the next morning. I'll make it a bit different each day - add in season fruits from local farms, raisins, sometimes add some sugar, etc. But I think this will make life a little simpler not having to decide what's for breakfast each morning. The kids love oatmeal and eggs, and it's a healthy and frugal option. Weekends I'll cook when hubby's home to eat, and I'll make breakfasts to look forward to!

I look forward to continuing my decluttering festivities this weekend and hope to make our home one that is well organized, put away and easy to manuever in :-) I've gotten into the habit of leaving diaper pails and our dirty laundry hampers by the washing machine all at once and it seems to throw a kink in your household travels no matter where you go, so I'll also try to keep all the hampers in their place and only bring one out at a time to empty when washing and hanging laundry.

I'm also shaving one of the dogs again. This time it's diesels turn. Lilly got shaved over the summer, Diesel is getting shaved now (I just don't have time to brush Maltese hair every day!) and Chevy (the Vizsla) doesn't need a shave, but he DOES need a bath. Maybe i'll assign the kids to have fun washing the dog tomorrow.... I see my bathroom getting destroyed! Bad idea.

More pics

Lexi Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn again - look how she lifts her head!
Andrew, Lexi, Lexi's Baby & Kaitlyn
Just some new pics :-)

Butterflies

We took a walk today by the field and had no rhyme or reason until we saw butterflies fluttering around. That led us on a butterfly hunt. The kids would chase the butterflies and get so excited when they'd spot a new one.

When we got home my son took a nap and my daughter had some uninterrupted time to color, paint, sort colors (it's a big hit!), play with play-doh and just have some time to express herself without having to defend her art supplies from her brother. LOL.

I printed out some matching games with a car and lady bug theme, and some tracing number cards and laminated everything. I'll cut them out at some point today and let the kids play with them tomorrow or later today.

I found two recipes for a clay-type dough that can be dried. One goes in the oven and one just air dries. I will get some paints and make some beads and threading items for the kids.

We then spent a better part of the afternoon outside chasing bugs, picking cherry tomatoes from the garden, riding tricycles, playing with chalk on the sidewalk and playing in the sandbox. I hung a load of diapers out to dry, and made two batches of bread dough - one will bake in to two loaves and I'll freeze the other batch. I might even make a few more to throw in the freezer tonight.

As I was kneeding dough, I realised that many of the homesteading/housekeeping things us moms do could probably double as exercise. So now i'm off to see if there have been any guesstimates as far as how many calories we burn for simple things. I know when I'm kneeding batch after batch of bread dough, I'm winded!

Upcoming homeschooling projects

I thought I'd share some of the upcoming projects we're working on.

A muffin tin is being turned into a color sorter. I've put construction paper circles at the bottom of each muffin holder and I've cut up squares of colored construction paper for my kids to match colors.

I am creating an "ABC" Scrapbook for my daughter using a binder and an A-Z index. I've been collecting catalogs, free magazine trials, etc. for the past few months that come to our home and together my daughter and I will cut out pictures from these and glue them onto paper which will fit behind the corresponding letter. This can get as big as we want it to!

My son is obsessed with all things that "go" especially trucks and tractors. Tis the harvesting season! The farmers are harvesting from the fields that surround our home so we've been learning about what is in the field, how it's harvested and how we use it. We are also visiting orchards and next month we'll start visiting a local pumpkin patch that also has a petting farm. I'm also going to start a transportation binder for my son, so he can have fun picking out pictures of cars, trucks and other forms of transportation that he likes. I'll put the pages in page protectors and tape the top closed for now because he'll likely pull the pictures off the pages if they're not contained. Then later we can use this binder as we learn about all the types of transportation we use, how it works, where it travels (land, water, air?) and other interesting facts!

My daughter wanted her own computer, so I created one for her out of a file folder :-) I drew a keyboard on one half, and drew our family, flowers and a butterfly on the other half to act like a "screen" She loves it. She carries her "laptop" around everywhere pretending to type and do business on it.

My son turns two Oct. 1st... I have got to think of birthday plans fast! We'll likely just have a day at the park or a backyard get together. Not much sense having a big party he wont' remember!

Kaitlyn is ONE MONTH today

I can't believe Kaitlyn is already a month old. Emotionally, I still feel like I just gave birth. I am still on a natural high, like nothing can get me down. Physically, I feel like I've never given birth at all. Mentally I've found my balance with raising three wee ones. We've got a system (I refuse to admit to a schedule because as much as I try, it's impossible to stick to one!). But, my mental to-do list is checked off through the day as I get the "must do's" taken care of in order. Usually things do get side tracked on a regular basis, but by the end of the day I have accomplished what needs to get done, and that is satisfying.

So back, to Kaitlyn. Most of her 0-3 clothes are still pretty baggy, but she is finally starting to fit into her onesies. It's kind of weird - she was an ounce bigger than her brother yet she feels and seems like such a tiny baby. It must be that she's not getting as plump as he did - he got chubby right away. Alexis was also very petite as a baby and stayed that way. Must be a girl thing :-) Her hair is starting to grow a bit longer and she has the brightest eyes! And, still the longest fingers on the tiniest hands - so adorable.

Andrew has this new "thing." Somtimes, instead of shaking his head to answer yes, he'll wiggle his eyebrows up and down. I discovered this a few nights ago when I was rocking him, I asked him a question and felt his eyebrows wiggle up and down on my chest. LOL!

Alexis is in heaven. Today we stopped by "Once Upon A Child" and got Alexis a new pair of sneakers. Not only do they have pink on them, but they have BUTTERFLIES too! And - they match the pink had that she has, which also has a butterfly on it. The girl loves pink and butterflies.

Ramblings

I'm really enjoying canning. I've done my potatoes tonight. I'm out of quart jars, so tomorrow I guess I'll process my apples into applesauce and can as much sauce as I can get out of them. I wanted to do pie filling and apple butter, but I don't have the right size jars I need (unless I go out and buy them - I'm trying craigslist and freecycle first). I think apples will be pretty fun tomorrow - I'll have Alexis and Andrew help (and eat them!)

Kaitlyn is cranky tonight - gassy! I didn't think her body could hold so much gas and it's coming out of both ends. hehehe.

I've been decluttering the kids room and have a pile of stuff I am going to take to Once Upon A Child. Maybe tomorrow. I still have a dresser and toybox to go through. I also have a small pile of stuff for ebay, and an even bigger pile of non-kids related stuff for freecycle.

I've discovered a secret about Andrew and drawing. Coloring pencils are the answer instead of crayons. He'll eat crayons all day, but discovered colored pencils aren't that tasty. He will actually draw with them now!

Pictures of the kids

Sleeping princess! Still sleeping...
And yet, still sleeping...
Here we are! Minus hubby :-(

Flannelboard pictures

My camera is working now!


The back... Sky & grass (later trimmed better to fit the board!)

Canning is possible with small children...

I've had a desire to do some canning, but have been told by several people it's going to be hard with kids in the house. Having three children under 3.5 years old (including a newborn who is hungry quite often) and trying my hand at canning for the first time was somewhat intimidating. But I decided it's now or never because I'm running out of time. My garden did not yeild enough produce all at once to put by all my own, so I went to a local orchard down the road and got a bushel of apples, I think 2 pecks of tomatoes (should have gotten a bushel!) and we have some potatoes from the field behind us.

Today I just did tomato sauce. I'll probably go back on Monday and get a bushel so I can do some diced tomatoes, spaghetti sauce and more tomato sauce. Tomorrow I'll probably get rid of those apples in applesauce, apple butter, applebread, apple chips and pie filling and make some pies to freeze also. I'm not sure how long a bushel will take me, so I might be buying another one on Monday! I'll can those potatoes, too. Actually I might can those potatos tonight. I wasn't sure if my pressure canner would be really loud (I remember how noisy a pressure cooker can be!) so I didn't do my canning last night like I had thought I would. But the canner is quiet, so canning at night can be done! Oh well, it'll depend on Kaitlyn. If she's awake I want to play with my baby!

Then next weekend I'll take a trip to the farmers market and grab up anything that I can can - probably carrots, green beans, beats, things of that nature so long as they're locally grown. I'm not honestly sure what's already out of season, so I will just have to wait and see. I was hoping to have enough of my own produce to put up enough to get us through next year but that failed miserably. Considering this is my first year gardening on my own, I had no idea how much to plant of each... However I took careful notes and will try again next year, and also plan in succession planting so I can harvest through the season instead of all around one time! I've already been going through seed catalogs and figuring out how to map the garden for next year - I'm so excited!

My goal for the rest of this weekend: clean and organize the deep freezer, freeze more homemade bread dough (whole wheat and unbleached white), cut out some more patterns for the kids' flannelboard, find a clay recipe and make the kids some threading objects and beads! I'm fed up with the China recalls and have decided I am going to make as many toys for my kids as I can - there are some incredible websites out there. For some I'll have to get my husband involved (doll house!!) but for others I can put them together on my own with minimal effort.

Productive day today!

I finally did it: created a flannelboard for the kids. It's pretty much the same thing as a felt board - you can cut out shapes, animals, people, etc. out of flannel and stick it to the flannel board. I think felt has a little more sticking power, but I have no felt and plenty of flannel... So a flannelboard it is. Unfortunately I cant post pictures because my camera isn't transferring any new pictures but I can try to explain it. I have a plain white flannel sheet that I folded in half, and then wrapped it around a large peice of cardboard. The cardboard is maybe 3x4ft. or thereabouts. I used safety pins to pin the excess fabric on the back and keep it tight and flat.

Then, I cut out a large peice of blue and green flannel to act as sky/grass when we do stories. Otherwise I am going to cut out a face and face parts (eyes, nose, etc.) and different expressions, shapes, colors and then make use of the MANY board stories and patterns I have and start doing a story with it each day. And pay attention to the kids interests and cut out the things they like, so they can play with the flannelboard and make their own stories on their own. I'll probably put together a second board (I have a lot of the big cardboard laying around!) so each kid can play on their own board and not fight over one! I found a great paper doll resource online and I think I will make some "flannel dolls" for my daughter focusing on lots of dresses and PINK! And then trucks, tractors and big machines for my son.

Later in the evening I caught a brief moment of each child sleeping soundly, so I finished off a diaper sling I had started when I first found out I was pregnant. We only use cloth diapers , and those diaper hangers work nicely for infant sized prefolds but the next size up quickly outgrows the diaper hanger. To make up for this, I created a "diaper sling" that I used to sell... But they take so much time to put together I no longer have the time to make them. Anyway, it's essentially a peice of fabric (long and about as wide as a toddler sized prefold folded in half). The fabric hangs down and is gathered at the top so it kind of makes a loop, or a "U" shape. I hang it from a hanger and put my diapers in it and the sides of the sling hug the diapers securely. I put pockets, velcro strips (for velcro diapers/covers and Snappis), D rings (for snap covers/diapers) and some snap-on loops (for pull-up style diapers, loop through the leg to hold them on the sling). The sling grows with the diapers, so you could start out with preemie or infant prefolds and never have to worry about outgrowing your storage system with bigger diapers. If I can ever get my camera to work, I'll post a picture.

Kaitlyn update: last week she was 8lb 5 oz. She's almost outgrown my favorite newborn girl sleeper- a baby baggie with pink stars/clouds on it. She's staying up for longer periods now and my daughter gets so excited when she's awake - she brings books over to "read" and show pictures to. My son has picked up on that too, and brings his truck books over to show her :-) My son thinks she is always cold, so if she is ever without a blanket over her, he will find one and cover her up! He is becoming very helpful... Almost too helpful at times (he will try to stick one of his fingers in his mouth if she's fussy - he's seen mommy and daddy use a pinkie as a pacifier... we don't use actual pacifiers but use a pinkie when in a pinch. Otherwise mommy nourishes and pacifies all at once!)

Homeschooling Began

And honestly our days haven't been much different than any other typical day. Dare I say we've been "homeschooling" without realising it?

Every day we read, have bible time, work math and sign language into the day, Alexis helps me around the house a lot, she colors or plays with play doh or any number of things, we'll go for a walk or visit a park, etc.. I dont' have a set schedule per say, and some days we don't accomplish everything. Now that we're "homeschooling" I make it a point to hit each subject on my self-created curriculum (that is still in the works - right now I'm just planning one week at a time until I get the hang of this). My poor daughter was sooooo excited about starting school on Monday (even though it was a holiday) and we "started" our day of school and there wasn't really much different - other than more quality time being spent together with a focus on her learning and having fun while doing it.

My son, who is almost 2, requires involvement. and if he's not involved he will find a way to be. So I need to find interesting things to keep him occupied. Lately he just does whatever his sister does and he can participate in just about everything we do. He's expressed interest in "higher education" other than the typical day-to-day happenings around here. So, happily we'll start working and signing more colors, shapes, letters and numbers, etc.

My plans for the coming week include making a flannel board for story times (and make a bunch of themed cutouts)and a variety of matching/memory card games. I've printed out a variety of activities and puzzles and laminated the parts so I'll pull them out also.

I'll post more later - trying to get caught up with laundry!