Keeper of the Home

New Blog

2008-05-23T20:20:00.000-07:00

I have my new blog ready to post, but it isn't yet customized the way I wanted. Hopefully over the coming weeks I can tweek it.

Good news! I did put in a garden. And it's my biggest one yet :-)

http://homesteadinginthecity.wordpress.com

We're moving!

2008-05-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

We are moving from our 2 bedroom duplex to a 4 bedroom house all to ourselves with a backyard and a small basement! This is a very exciting time for us. We are moving to the South Toledo area in Ohio. I'm going to be looking into the possibility of getting some chickens and see how much it'll cost my husband to build a coop (he's excited about moving into a house beacuse he'll have space to work on projects... I can certainly hook him up with projects!).

The only downer I can see is that I may not have a chance to put my garden in this year. With all of the chaos of looking for a house to rent before our lease expired here, I didnt' have time to tend to my plants. I also over-fertilized my container plants which killed most of them. I restarted them with seeds I had left, but I'm not sure how quickly I can prepare a garden plot at the new house and I don't have any idea what the soil is like! We were going to rent a rototill but I may just do it by hand if my body can handle it - I'm pregnant again with #4 and am somewhere around my second trimester at this point (we've been so busy I can't even keep track of how far along I am!)

I'll be starting a brand new blog about homesteading in the city. Once I have my first post up there, I'll share the link. I'm still trying to tweak it and get the design of the blog to my liking before I share the link!

What an awesome idea: Spa night with the girls

2008-04-15T18:03:00.000-07:00

Inspiration thanks to this article at Mothering: http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/family_time/saturday-night-spa.html

I have been looking for a way that my older daughter and I can connect. She's only 4, but so into girly stuff, lotions, baths, etc. I am going to impliment a special spa night for the two of us, and later her baby sister and I. And give us a chance to bond, talk, and reconnect. I know she'll love this!

Learning Activities for Young, Active Boys

2008-04-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

I've learned that the best way for my son to learn is while he's active. I'm homeschooling my oldest daughter right now in preschool but with as much activity as I have Andrew do, I feel like i'm homeschooling him now too! :-)

We like to bounce, roll or throw balls across the living room or while outside. Each time I throw the ball, he repeats a sound I make (to work on the things his speech therapist has sent home with him). Then when he throws it back to me, he makes a sound that I'm to imitate. When doing this with my older daughter we can repeat sentances, rhymes, silly words, and tongue twisters.

Learning colors, shapes and other basic skills is becoming easier now that I have incorperated his cars! Today we drove the truck around to different colored peices of paper I laid across our living room. I'd call out a color, he'd drive the truck to it. Same thing with shapes and other basic skills. When we work on math, I'll pile up crayons or other small items on each paper and have him drive to a specific color to pick up "x" number of crayons (or whatever) in the truck bed, and drop off "X" number at color "x" and so on. In fact, i may begin doing that with my daughter - she really wanted to have fun driving the truck around today too.

That's only a couple ideas - we create new games and activities each day. You just have to keep those active little boys moving!

Circus fun

2008-04-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

We took the kids to the Shrine circus yesterday. It was so much fun! My husband knew a lot of the clowns, Shriners, and security so I must admit to feeling quite pampered while we were there! We all took an elephant ride and Bret asked a Shriner he knew, who was a professional photographer, to take pictures with our camera. They turned out wonderful, he got a lot of great shots! I loved watching the kids expressions as they watched the circus. I hope this is something they'll remember for a long time!

Updates, First Speech Therapy Appt.

2008-04-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

Ok updates first:
My neice's surgery was a success. I guess it made hospital history because of the complexity (sp) and new techniques used. It lasted 12 hrs, took several hours for my husband to see her in ICU but she was coherent, talking, and in a ton of pain. This poor kid was operated on through her stomach, and her entire back was sliced open again from her neck to her bottom. I had scoliosis surgery when I was about 9 years old, so I remember the experience... I can't imagine having been operated on through my tummy also. Poor kid - please continue sending up prayers for her and the family. She's expected to be in the hospital for about 6 weeks, including inpatient physical therapy.

My committments to laundry and dishes are doing pretty well. This week I've had two LATE nights (getting to bed at 2:30/3AM) due to lots of orders to fill for my business. So to get by without getting totally exhausted, I just tried to do dishes during the day and washed (by hand) one full load of dishes before bed. Laundry has been going excellently - I am using the retractable line in my apartment to dry (to save money on electricity), and soon I'll be hanging clothes outside! But it's very easy to fold clothes and match socks as I'm taking them off the line. I prefer doing it this way than folding right out of the dryer! Unfortuntaly my line doesn't always hold one full load of laundry to dry so occasionally I still have to use the dryer or just be sure to check the laundry on the line and remove whatever is dry and replace it with something wet.

Andrew had his first speech therapy appt. today. To save time with typing, I'll post what I posted on our familys family website (at www.myfamily.com):

"We had our first appointment today and she had this toilet plunger looking contraption with half=circles of different sizes. She went through her binder and showed Andrew a picture, imitated a sound, then had Andrew imitate it. If he couldn't, she made the sound again holding the half circle thing, then handed it to Alexis to say, then ALexis handed the half circle thing to Andrew and then he'd say the sound. Once the word was said, the half circle thing could be put on the plunger. Once it was full, the stick was pushed down and Andrew got to push a button, which made all of the half circles explode into the air! Then she brought out a bag of little toys and she and Andrew played with them, making sounds, saying phrases (she did, he doesn't do much more than small words and sounds), and having a lot of fun. She incorperated body language and sign language into everything also!She made copies of the sound cards, made copies of a list of toys and the sounds they can make so I can start putting together my own bag to play of toys to use to play with him. I noticed the spine of the binder she used said 'apraxia' so I went and googled it online, and found some free resources. I'll try to put together a binder like hers, so all of the stuff we'll use is in one place. We'll work on the sounds and playing several times a day, and of course use sounds, phrases and signs throughout the day. And another highlight is that Andrew remained dry the entire time :-) He's been out and about in underwear, having a few accidents here and there but mostly wanting to be dry and getting really upset if he has an accident. Andrew has begun exploding with imitating sounds lately, so I think now is the perfect time to have him get some help with his speech because right now he wants to learn and it's fun for him!"

Let's see... Nearly all of the 8 teeth Kaitlyn was cutting at once are in. She's making all sorts of noises and rolls around everywhere. She will pick up anything and examine it so closely - I love watching her. She squeezes gently, touches it with both hands, with one hand moves the object around slowly so she can see every surface, checks to see if it tastes good or feels good in her mouth, waves it around, then starts banging it to see the sound effect it has. Then back in her mouth it goes, she has to examine every surface again... So curious.

I have green beans growing on every plant. Peas will be next! Basil is ready to begin using and parsley is almost ready also. Everything else is still growing. I found celery seeds the other day and am SOOO excited to grow celery this year. This year, my garden will produce everything I usually buy. I need to get garlic still. I'd like to get more strawberries, and I'd love ot get some grapes. The problem with grapes is that I wont' get any fruit this year - possibly for another few seasons, and I'm not sure if we'll still be at this apartment when they begin producing fruit. Because of their price, I'm hesistant to buy them. But if we would have bought them the first year we were here, we'd have grapes by now!

Time for prayer

2008-04-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

It seems like life has been so busy the past week again. Doctor appointments for Bret, a couple ER visits due to unexplained nausea, vomiting, and weakness. He's not sick, but he can't eat because he's nauseated or vomiting, and because he can't eat he's getting very weak and "out of it." He's been to the ER twice this past week, his GI doctor is on vacation and there is not currently a doctor available to fill in, and his main doctor has no suggestions for him other than to see his GI doc. Meanwhile, Bret has been suffering from severe pain in his side. He was convinced it was his gallbladder for a while, but he's had a gallbladder function test that came out normal. Then an upper GI. That turned out normal. Then a catscan. That turned out normal. Meanwhile the pain has reduced a little bit, but when it hits, it hurts more than ever. And now we have the nausea and vomiting, liver pain and stomach pain. He continues to get worse, yet all the tests, even blood work, are coming back normal. His next option is to get scoped so the doctor can SEE what's going on. Boy I hope that reveals something so my poor husband can get on the mend. This past week he's just been miserable on the couch. Not feeling well hasn't helped at all with his bipolar disorder because he began slipping into depression again. If you're reading this and don't mind sending up a prayer for him, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

Meanwhile, on the topic of prayer. My husbands niece (does that make her my niece in law? Aw heck, she's more like a sister to me) is undergoing major back surgery tomorrow. It will be her third surgery, surgery is expected to take 15-20 hrs. Prayers for her, the family, the surgeon and the OR staff would be appreciated.

Green beans already

2008-03-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots of baby green beans already!

New rules for my home, indoor gardening all year and more

2008-03-28T20:55:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to impliment some changes around here. If I let things go too long, they pile up too large. Laundry piles turn into mountains on my chaise. Dishes can get stacked up to the window if I'm not careful. So I am making myself fold and put away every load out of the dryer - I wont' let myself keep piles anymore. And I want to have a clean sink every night. Two new changes, shouldn't be too hard, right? My biggest challenge has been the laundry, but I've kept true to the laundry goal. Haven't had a pile of laundry all week :-)

I blogged about veggie gardens year round today on my homesteading blog and in doing so, I learned some new things. Peas, green beans and tomatos are self pollinating, which means they dont' need insects or other intervention for pollination (which brings forth the veggies). This is so cool! I have a bunch of peas and green beans that are flowering right now in my greenhouse in the living room which might mean that before I even start my garden outside, I'll be harvesting vegetables inside. I have a bunch of other things - basil is about ready to start using (I started my garden very early this year - it was either Jan or Feb). So, once I get room inside the greenhouse again, I'll remove a shelf or two and maybe mid-summer sometime start a few tomato plants, and keep green beans and peas as long as I can. I am very excited about this!

Homechurch stuff (homesechool too, I suppose!)

2008-03-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

I found a free songbook online to download: http://www.donelsoncoc.org/homechurch/Song%20Book.pdf with Christian song lyrics. The main site http://www.donelsoncoc.org/ also has many resources available in .pdf I haven't looked them over very well yet - just collecting resources right now - but I'd imagine you can use the .pdf's in your homeschool also.

http://www.sermonindex.net/ another good one.
More to come, I'm sure.

Local Support Groups for Homeschoolers and Homesteaders

2008-03-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

Preschool and Elementary Grade Homeschool Support Group: A support group/meeting for parents homeschooling their children in this age/grade group. A place to learn about homeschooling if you're considering it, discuss questions and concerns if you're already homeschooling, share your favorite resources ('show and tell' I suppose you could call it), and a chance for children of similar ages to play while parents chat.

Bedford Library, May 13th at 10AM in the 'Quilt Room' No need to RSVP, no charge, bring your children (even if they are not in this age range, it's fine!), and if you want bring your favorite homeschooling resource, curriculum or other item to share with the group. Also if you are aware of events and activities happening in our area pertaining to this age range, please bring that information. This will be a monthly event.

Homeschooling & Homemaking Support Group: I am going to set up a final date and time for this. The goal of this group will be for our community to come together and share information and teach new skills that relate to homemaking, homesteading and frugal living. Especially with our cost of living continually rising, we need to learn how to save money and do more things ourselves. This group will focus on what we can do no matter what type of housing we live in - apartment, home, farm - there is something we can all do that falls under the homesteading or homemaking category. I hope our community can teach each other and share ideas together so we can all make the best use of our land, our situation, and our money.

I just need you to tell me what days and times work best if you plan to attend. Right now I'm looking at a Monday or Tuesday evening about 6pm. This will be a monthly event, and further details will be ironed out at our first meeting. If you have any ideas for things you'd like to learn and what you'd like to get out of the group PLEASE share them with me. I can't do this on my own! :-) I will start these meetings out at a library but hope to move somewhere that has a kitchen so we can share lessons on cooking, canning, etc. Maybe we can even plan trips to certain places that will give us some hands on experiences.

Again, no charge, decide if you want to bring your kids (I'll be bringing mine to most of them) they are certainly welcome. Eventually I'll get a web site up for the meetings detailing locations, times, and activities. Some activities or discussions may not be suitable for children (discussing butchering, hunting, or hands on with canning, cooking, soapmaking), so parents will have to decide if they want to bring the kids. Kids are welcome if you feel they'll be safe around whatever we're doing - they're even welcome to help and participate.

I'm very excited about all of this - more details to follow!

Homechurching

2008-03-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

A new change is coming about...
Because of the falling out we had with the pastor of our last church (who denied his duties as pastor, then flat out lied to us), we've been looking for a new church for quite some time. Due to my husbands bipolar disorder and the resulting medication, he usually never wakes up before about noon or 1pm making attending Sunday services near impossible. We could do evening services, but the kids have an early bedtime (they are in bed by 7pm) and need to be kept on a routine otherwise one late night will lead to a chain event of bad nights AND bad days because their sleep schedules will be mixed up.

Well let's face it. We NEED God more in our lives. We homeschool, so, why not homechurch until a different solution comes about? I am exploring this link http://www.homechurchresources.com/ for more information and this Sunday I hope to have something put together where we can worship and be open to the Word of God. I'm not sure it will be a permanent solution, we'll have to see where the Lord leads us. But by doing this, we can also train our children to sit quietly with us during services when we do attend again (my son has the most trouble with this, my oldest daughter does fine). Usually a nursery is available, but we try not to use them especially when we are in a new church and don't know the people who will be tending to and teaching our children.

I wanted to share with you a blog I've found to be a great inspiration: A Wise Woman Builds Her Home
http://proverbs14verse1.blogspot.com/search/label/Glorious%20Homeschooling I pray you will be as blessed by this as I have been.

My artistic daughter

2008-03-22T11:13:00.000-07:00

My oldest daughter (who is 4) had an art period today while her little brother and sister slept. I asked her to make easter cards, and my intention was for her to use coloring pencils and crayons to design the cards. I drew a bunny on each card for her to color in. She colored it in a little bit, then used her cup of water to get her paints wet and she set about painting the cards! We learned what a neat effect the crayons had under the paint, and she had fun mixing colors and making some beautiful artwork.

Then she got a tiny bit messy by dipping her fingertips in the wet paint and putting them on paper. She learned that her fingerprints resemble eggs! So, I drew a basket and she filled it with 'eggs.' The cutest part of the whole experience was the comment about her using her 'bunny tips' instead of 'finger tips.'

The cards have dried, tomorrow she'll write in them before we're off to visit family for the Holy day, that being, of course, Christ's Resurrection.

We celebrated a little this year by getting some gifts instead of candy. I hid the gifts around the home, then we colored eggs today so I'll place those tomorrow morning so the kids can go on an easter egg hunt. Next year I'd like to make "Resurrection Day Cookies" and found some great crafts the whole family can enjoy next year. Once I get the link (they're on my blackberry) I'll try to post them here, so you can get some inspiration for next year.

Some thrifty ideas and an update

2008-03-10T17:42:00.000-07:00

I know i have been neglecting this blog for a while - it's not because I've lost interest, but because the three little ones and my husband sure keep me hopping!

I've been busy doing things around the house! Here is a little list:

I hung a shoe oganizer from Ikea (a Christmas gift from my mom) in my kitchen between my fridge and pantry. I tried it in our bedroom closet, but my husband mainly wears boots and I dont' have nearly enough shoes to fill it up. I tried it in the kids room, but between all of their slippers, boots, and shoes, it was too small. in the kitchen, it holds wash rags and dish towels up top, the main pair of shoes for each child (minus Kaitlyn, who doesn't walk so she doesn't wear shoes), the slippers my husband uses to let the dogs out, and then the main pair of boots each older child wears.
Those mesh bags that hold potatoes make EXCELLENT bath toy holders. The toys get plenty of air to dry and the bags are very easily hung on any hook available. The ones from oranges, with the drawstring top, are awesome also! These bags are also great for general toy storage. I use a few to hold puzzles and their peices.
I use large flower vases to hold commonly used kitchen utensils on the top of my stove. I've always done this, but while we're on the subject of re-using things I thought I'd add it.
Speaking of great kitchen things, this past summer my husband bought me a closet organizer that hooks on the back of a closet or pantry door. It has about 6 long baskets on it and is supposed to have hooks to hang from a door. I was looking for a spice rack (the entire cabinet above my stove held my spices, including a double shelved one that spins... and broke). Any we looked at was way too small (I keep a LOT of spices and seasonings on hand, many are homegrown) so this closet organizer was PERFECT. My husband bolted this to the wall next to my stove - so easy to use and the spices sit in double rows in the baskets.
A hanging fruit basket, with 3 baskets, is currently our wash cloth holder in the bathroom. I may be strange, but I really like the way this looks. The 'adult' sizes wash cloths are in the bottom basket, the kiddie sized ones are in the middle one and the funny 'mitts' the kids have for bathtime are in the top basket. I used to have one of these types of baskets per kid that held onesies or underwear in the bottom basket, socks in the middle, and hats or other misc. accessories on the top. However, the oldest two couldn't reach in their baskets to get their own stuff out so we are using a 3 drawer plastic shelving unit for their 'underthings' now, so they can dress themselves.
My husband recently bought me my own little greenhouse. It sits on my craft table, right next to the window, and has 4 shelves all of which are totally FULL of my seedlings.

Our neice came to stay with us for a week this past week, and it was very enjoyable. She played a lot with the kids (and they adore her!) and even though she didn't have to she helped me a lot. We had some 'girl time' and enjoyed our chai's and had some fun monopoly games with Bret!

I've been trying to work on those books and curriculum I've been writing, but it's been hard in the evenings.... Kaitlyn is cutting 8 teeth at a time right now! She's doing alright - just not sleeping too well. My work time usually starts at the kids bedtime - unless someone is up with a problem :-)

Alexis has been taking a big interest in doing the dishes for me. Andrew likes to play in the sink too, so this is a prime opportunity to let Alexis help me by washing easy things, keep Andrew in my eyesight while he has fun, and have some fun bonding time with the both of them. Andrew will also help by handing me dishes from the counter and rinsing them off! He is a very, very hyperactive boy so any time that we can spend on one single thing that lasts longer than a few minutes is a good thing! I honestly wonder if he's ADHD - he's only 2.5, and I KNOW toddlers are very active and have very short attention spans but I feel he is above and beyond typical - enough so that it DOES interfere with his ability to function sometimes and he can have violent outbursts from frusteration or a quick transition from something. I took out a few books on adhd at the library this past week and the more I read, it seems like the books describe him better than I ever could have tried. I am going to call his ped and get him in to start whatever process there is to investigate this, if they'll even do it on him at such a young age. But I'd rather catch it early than let it interfere with his life and possibly cause problems later on. I do not want to use medication, but am willing to try any diet changes or natural supplementation if necessary.

I printed off some new file folder games, fingerplays, and sequencing cards for the kids for tomorrow. I'm also going to make some flannelboard games on bible stories because I found some free patterns online that I can use to create my own stories based on the bible, and also write out verses for each 'frame' of the story. I printed out a butterfly lapbook for Alexis, I'm not sure if she's really ready for one or not but I guess we'll see!

The Birthday Boy

2008-03-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

My oldest daughter is just turned for and has been wanting to write like mommy, so I've been teaching her how to write her letters. She's having a blast and we write letters (not just the actual letters, but WORD letters... like, I love you so and so...) each day (we're running out of people to write letters to! Once I find the stamps my husband recently bought, I'll be able to mail them out.... I hope the oldest two didn't mistake them for stickers again!). So she wrote "happy birthday daddy, I love you" on a birthday card we made him. She gave that to him very first thing when he got out of bed with a loud "happy birthday!" Then she found her birthday crown and found it fitting that daddy should wear it, because, after all... it is his birthday!

Playing in the dirt

2008-02-25T17:18:00.000-08:00

Praise God!!!! My husband is finally approved for disability - it only took about 6 months! He is bipolar and his psychiatrist feels he cannot work at this time. She has also assigned me as his caretaker and he needs me home with him full time. I've been a stay and work at home mom since before my first was born, so I wasn't working out of the home when his psychiatrist made that decision. He needs help with a lot of every day things, is unable to cook, and needs someone to help keep him thinking clearly or at least make sound decisions when he's unable.

I started many of my seeds this month at the beginning. This is the earliest I've ever started anything but I figured what the heck - I'll try it and see what happens. I want to do several plantings of the same vegetables to get a bigger harvest this season. Our garden is being expanded (by quite a bit) and my entire craft table is covered with green :-) I found that if I go to Gordons (a bulk food company) and buy some 32 oz. containers, they make excellent pots for seeds especially when I start them this early. They're deep enough to get a good root structure growing and big enough to accomodate the plants longer than normal if I would start seeds in the early spring. Poke some holes in the bottom and you're good to go! Everything I'm planting in them is being transferred over from those teeny tiny starter pods, and there is no need to keep them covered at this point but next year I may just start my seeds in these so I don't need to move them until they go outside, and I'll buy lids to lay on the top.

I don't have a final count yet on what is going in the ground. I started a lot of my seeds in one of those 72 pod trays (we have three). 2-3 seeds made it into pod and most sprouted. I discarded the weak ones and am transfering the rest that were ready to the larger containers tonight. Last year I only had 6 tomato plants and 3 cherry tomato plants. This year I think I'm going to have about 24 tomato plants and 12 cherry tomato plants (this was a huge hit last year - i just sent the kids out with a bucket to gather the cherry tomatos and they would fill up on those, and peas and green beans fresh off the vine!) I'm hoping to sell off any excess seedlings that I don't put in the ground, and hoping to make a garden for my mom this year because of a lot of things happening in her life she may not have the time (and I know she was really excited about a garden last year). I'd like to make her happy by putting a garden in and even weeding it for her if she doesn't have the time. It's a great excuse for her to see the grandkids, and an even better one for me to get my hands in the dirt and do something for her after all she has done for me. It's small, really, compared to everything she's done for me but if it's one way that I can help her, I'd love to do it.

I have some things that will be planted directly into the ground including pumpkin, watermelon, corn, onions, carrots (lots of carrots!) and more. We have a selection of flower seeds so my oldest daughter can have a flower garden.

I'm so excited for spring!

We've been busy!

2008-02-20T06:22:00.000-08:00

I had to recreate yet another shopping cart for Motherhood Naturally Publications - the last one I used was not filling all of my needs. I don't think there is anything more time consuming and hair pulling than having to move all of your products between three carts over the course of a few months. I am back where I was originally and was happy there but wanted to 'explore' other options. I'm glad I did - now I have a pretty good idea of what other carts will do, how to install them and use them and maybe I can use that to help someone else someday.

My husband brought home several grocery bags from our local store filled with apples and cherries unsuitable for sale due to bruising, soft spots of wrinkling skin. The owner had just given the apples to him because he couldn't sell them, so my husband took them so we could juice them! We've been enjoying fresh juice each morning now and I know the apples don't have the best nutrition content anymore but they're still better than juice you'd buy in the store. Not only that, the kids and I were starting to come down with a cold, but with our favorite juice recipe we're kicking it in the bum!

My oldest daughter turned four yesterday, but we had her birthday party last weekend with family. She's into pink, princesses and butterflies so guess what she got for her birthday? Pink, princess stuff and butterfly stuff. She's in heaven. My grandma also got her a babydoll that cries, laughes, coo's and whatever else. My daughter, being such a huge help with our youngest, is in heaven being able to play with a baby that SHE is totally responsible for. :-)

My son, the 2.5 year old is going to start speech therapy whenever the therapist calls me to schedule the appointment. last week we took him in for a developmental assessment because he's 2.5 and still has a max of 15 words and doesn't even say them that well (he'll say car, but he won't put the "ar" on the end more like "cah", and that's common for him. he doesn't 'finish' his words). He DOES communicate with us, just not with words. The assessment showed that he was on track developmentally and had no other delays though, thank God.

Kaitlyn is six months old now. She is cutting four teeth - both front upper teeth and the lower. She's really doing well with it, and she cracks me up because she is so curious. She'll play with one toy, her hand might brush another and instantly she turns to see what she touched and rolls over to play with it. Different colors and textures really intrigue her, and she'll stare and touch the color or texture for a few minutes in very deep concentration as if she's memorizing it. I'll put her toys in a circle around her, and she'll 'do her rounds' rolling around to examine each one of them.

We got our seeds and I started some of the early starters. A local freecycler offered her flower pots so we picked them up yesterday so we have extra containers for our early starts before they can go in the ground, because they are going to outgrow their itty bitty plots before long and it's still too cold to put them outside. We are expanding our garden this year and adding many more tomatoes, peas, green beans, carrots and beets. We're adding onion and some different herbs, and are trying lettuce, broccoli and spinach. I have my usual herb garden started already too.

Well I'm going to take the kids the the library - I'll try to write more tonight.

Ramblings and what has been up

2008-01-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

I am writing this in between giggles as I watch my two year old bounce around our home... naked. He won't wear clothes. That might actually be a good thing - he just tried to go potty like daddy and he forgot he has to aim.... Anyway. Naked made for an easy clean up. He was so proud of himself though - what a priceless moment.

My two year old wanted to help me do dishes this morning. So he ever so helpfully gathered dirty dishes from the kitchen and slipped them into the water to soak before I washed them. Then he'd hand them to me to wash one by one from the sink.

Once one load was washed and drying, my four year old wanted to help. So I dried and put away, and she helped me finish the last of them.

Then I started vacuuming and the kids wanted to take over. So I finished the floor and gave them the vacuum to play with. Soon enough my daughter found the broom I had swept with, and she started tickling her brother with the end of it as he vacuumed. I love the sound of shrieking laughter from two young'uns.

As I'm trying to do laundry, I hear my four year old calling me from the kitchen to see what she had done. I left her in there because she was scrubbing down the counter after dishes. I thought she still was. Nope. She found my crockpot bowl, put sink water in it, and poured THE REST OF MY HOME GROWN DRIED PARSLEY INTO IT! I had it sitting in a glass jar with a lid I didn't think she could get off. Darn! Now I'll have to buy parsley from the store to get us through 'till this years garden.

I just peeked in at them and they're both perched on a stool playing with the crockpot and parsely concoction and other measuring devices and spoons pretending to cook dinner. They'll probably make a mess but they're being so good right now and sharing, taking turns, playing and learning. No interruption here!

I am hanging laundry all over the home to dry - the moisture from the clothes as they dry enters the air, making it a little easier to breathe (it was pretty dry!). I made 4 mac and cheese meals yesterday to freeze (home made, of course) and have them freezing on our back porch. It's certainly cold enough to do that, and that way I don't make my freezer work harder by adding something that isn't already frozen!

When we did taxes, I incorperated Motherhood Naturally. I have more plans to grow my business and thought this would be a smart move. I'm also going to implement a new shopping cart (yes, our third in a year) because I think it'll work a little better for me for the Publications branch. I'll post when the cart is up - until then my current cart is still active. My goal is to be able to support our family with this business. My husband is applying for disability and is not currently employed. I am about to release a bunch of new products, and am back to teaching my childbirth and new parenting classes from home. Wish me luck!

Talking makes all the difference

2008-01-25T20:56:00.001-08:00

Talk to your kids! Even when they're young, they listen and are capable of understanding more than I think most of us give them credit for. I have to keep reminding myself about this - if I sit my kids down and talk to them before running errands, they behave much better than if I just 'expect' them to behave and try to train and correct on the spot.

Before leaving the house, I sit my kids down and let them know we're going somewhere. I tell them where we're going and what we'll be doing (and my oldest daughter(she's 4) keeps me on track - when we're done with one store she'llre mind me about the rest of the places we're go to!). I'll remind them about how I want them to act and try to bring up a memory of good behavior so they can relate to it. Whenever they're behaving well, I try to praise them and let them know what they're doing is good and why it's good. Then when it comes time to remind them that I need that good behavior, they can pull up a recent memory of when they were displaying it. I remind them about why it's important to obey and show good behavior. While we're out I'll thank them for being good and let them know I'm happy with how they're behaving.

We got our taxes done (yay for us procrastinators! lol. We're the early birds this year!). Instead of waiting until we got there to correct and teach our children that they can't play with all of the papers, pull the cords and create chaos, I started as soon as we got them up. I let them know where we were going, what they'll find when they get there, how I need them to behave and why. When we're all on the same track, it's time to go. I remind them again when we get there, and they walked in like they knew exactly what to do, and they were proud to demonstrate their good behavior. They beamed when other people made remarks about how well behaved they were. They were having fun being good!

I've started implimenting the bible into our daily lives much more. A while back we bought a book called "For Instruction in Righteousness" by Pam Forster. It's essentially a biblical topical reference for all types of behavior and acts. It helps us find key bible verses and stories that correlate to a specific behavior, gives ideas for its use and punishment. I've been arming myself with this and my KJV Bible so when my children misbehave (either knowingly or not), I can then use the bible to show them why what they did was bad, and tell them what God has to say about it, and what sort of discipline will be implemented. I enjoy it because it not only helps us train our children, but it also helps spawn new conversation about God and what the bible has to say. We talk a lot about the fruits of the spirit and salvation because my daughter is always asking about it. One might weeks ago I was reading Galations to my husband, where the fruits of the spirit are explained, and had a long conversation trying to convert the 'fruits' into kid-friendly terms she might understand. It's been interesting. I'm thankful for the questions and the chance to talk to her about this. Her little heart wants so badly to please the Lord and it is such an amazing thing to see.

Homesteading Site FINALLY up!

2008-01-19T18:32:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm giving birth again!

My 'homesteading' site is finally up. Full of info on homeschooling, homesteading and babies!

www.motherhoodnaturally.com/homestead/home.htm

Gotta go tend to the home, but wanted to share! I hope this will be a blessing for all who read it!

Several successes in the home!

2008-01-11T16:48:00.001-08:00

#1: I finally mastered homemade yogurt!
#2: I made a baby wrap and learned how to make soap
#3: I cooked more meals for the freezer
#4: I finished canning and freezing my stocks

I've been getting busy around the home over the past week. Actually, we've been out of the home for much of this past week with helping my grandma set up her new computer, visiting a friend and learning how to make soap and wrap babies on, grocery shopping and other misc. errands.

I think the more I am out of the home, the more I'm able to complete. I'm not burnt out or overwhelmed by all there is to do all day.

So homemade yogurt... I've tried making yogurt several times and each batch failed. Not liking to add anything that isn't necessary, healthy, or something I know about, I didn't want to add pectin. I don't know what it is or if it's healthy (and if I make something from scratch, I want it to be as healthy as possible!). Finally I found a new recipe here about making yogurt in the crockpot. In the directions it mentions not using ultra-pasturized milk. I had been! I was buying a organic whole milk from the store that turned out to be ultra-pasturized. I used a non ultra pasturized whole milk with an organic whole milk yogurt starer and voila! I had yogurt! I am so thrilled! Just milk and yogurt.

Then earlier this week I learned how to make soap. This looks like it'll be a new hobby for me. I have nearly everything I need to get started - just gotta get the oils. My husband LOVES the soap my friend makes and she shared her recipe with me, so maybe (maybe?) we'll switch from storebought soaps to all homemade soaps. Now I just gotta learn what herbs to grow so I can use them in the soaps and learn how to make my own essential oils from them!

And the baby wrap. Essentially, a wrap is a peice of fabric 5 yards long and about 30 inches wide. You tie your baby to your body through a variety of twists, loops and ties (it's really easy). I was a ring sling lover but now i'm a baby wrap lover. Kaitlyn is so comfortable snug against me, and she doesn't move when I do. I used a lightweight, stretchy material so she's snug as a bug, but comfortable. I am going to start selling them - possibly on the go - and offer free babywearing classes with them. You wouldn't believe how man ypeople asked where they could get a sling when I wore my ring sling (which I am now going to start making also). My friend said the baby wraps get a lot of attention also so I thought what the heck, I'll make a few and keep them in my diaper bag. If someone asks where they can get one, I'll offer it to them and let them know it comes with a free class so they can have some one on one learning time. These are sooo great for keeping your baby on you and still being able to get stuff done around the house. Right now as I write this, Kaitlyn was super tired but didn't want to be rocked. I tied her to me and she is sound asleep. I can sit and type, or i've been up to fold laundry and do dishes. This thing rocks!

I'm preparing our family cookbook as an ebook sometime within the next few months. Including all of my recipes for home made meals, including home-made ingredients that you might normally just buy from the store. Most of these ingredients freeze or can well, so you'll never have to buy canned goods, soups, bases or anything else again :-) You'll be able to take a realistic look into my master cookbook and also see helpful charts, tips, diagrams, lists and all of the helpful stuff I keep in mine!

Poor Alexis and Andrew got sick last night - Lexi had a upset tummy most of the evening and ended up throwing up around 2am. Andrew threw up also, for the first time in his life. Just once though. Thankfully, because he was sleeping on our bed. Lexi has since thrown up a couple of times but was really perked up this evening. I hope that's all done and I'm praying the rest of us don't get sick!

Life back to normal

2008-01-05T15:36:00.001-08:00

The holidays are over. I feel blessed that we made it without any accidents or drama. A few nights ago I was listening to my husbands scanner and heard one accident after another being dispatched. His fire department had a lot of accidents to deal with. Then a few days later unfortunatly our township had its' first fatality at a killer intersection down the road from us. Anyone familiar with the area knows the Sterns x S. Dixie Hwy intersection is almost always deadly. I don't know why. It's very creepy and I usually find myself going out of my way so I don't need to go through it! When my husband worked for a local towing company, they had around four fatal accidents within a week, and two within a day.

I had a runny nose and Andrew did too, so I made us all home made chicken soup for dinner. I'm already feeling better! I also made a huge stockpot of beef stock because I'm running low. It's actually still simmering - I'll let it continue until I go to bed. I'm not sure if I'll can this batch or freeze it. We're nearly out of all of my home grown home canned goods from our pantry so I have plenty of mason jars right now to can with. I guess I'll decide tomorrow after it's had a night to chill.

Kaitlyn is very animated these days. She will 'talk' your ear off if you give her half a second of your time. She's going on 5 months and will coo, squeal, laugh and shriek your ears off. It's adorable.

I am getting ready to upload a new website I've been working on: an informational site on the homesteading things our family does. I'm hoping it can help others who want to get started on self sufficiency and don't really know where to start. I'll let you know when it's live!

An amazing Christmas

2007-12-25T21:16:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it - the Christmas holiday has finally ended. I'm happy to say: we did it! With all of the traveling and visiting this year with three kids so young, it was exhausting.

We've barely been home the past week. We've been home so little that I haven't had time to keep up with my home (it's after midnight the day after Christmas and I'm taking a little break after doing some mad cleaning all evening!). Kaitlyn has started getting very overstimulated with her lack of hometime, and even one of our dogs, Chevy, has been so lonely he's been cuddling with us under the covers at night (usually he sleeps at our feet) and being quite insistant about it. He misses his people! And here I thought he'd appreciate the break from all of the kids!

Christmas morning we woke the kids up at about 7am because we had to be to one of my aunts around 11am. We needed time to open gifts. Once I had the little tree on and got dressed, we told the kids Santa had come. My son (the two year old) shot out of bed like a rocket, rolled across his sister who was in her nest on the floor next to my bed, grabbed her hair, raised her head (to wake her up), groaned at her (still nonverbal), put her head back down and ran out to see what Santa had brought. Once he saw all of the presents, he ran back into the room and pounced on his sister to wake her so they could open presents. Bret and I were laughing hysterically. We sang happy birthday to Jesus and explained why we get to have gifts on Christmas, then gave the gifts to everyone.

The homemade gifts were a hit, but thanks to my sister in law who played santa, the kids got a lot of clothing and educational toys. Because of my husband being out of work so long and struggling with his bipolar disorder, the kids weren't going to have a Christmas with anything storebought from us. My sister in law offered to take care of Christmas, so the kids would be taken care of with items they were in need of, and I think she went a bit overboard. halfway through opening presents Christmas morning, the kids stopped opening - they were sick of it! I thought I'd never see that.

The holidays seemed to depress Bret a lot. He really didn't want to attend the Christmas Eve (Wigilia) party we always went to for my dads side of the family but he did come. Then he wasn't really up for the festivities on Christmas day but again forced himself to pretend to be in the spirit at least. We spent several hours today removing toys from all of the ties, plastic and cardboard, de-tagging and de-stickering clothing, washing/drying/folding clothing and finally finding a place to put everything. Then I spent a few hours cleaning after the kids went to bed, while Bret cleaned the carpets. Now I am going to get the clothes laid out for tomorrow, pack the diaper bag for a morning trip out to Sams Club, then get to bed myself. I'm tired!

The kids were blessed with many items they adore. My daughter got lots of pink clothes (and a lot with butterflies!), dress up clothing, jewelry, a kids digital camera and learning laptop. My son got his fill of trucks and cars, got some airplanes and helicopters to play with and other educational toys. My mom went shopping for them at Ikea and got them some pretty neat stuff, and got me a KitchenAid (doing a happy dance - it's able to hold enough dough for 6 loaves of bread at a time!).

Andrew went all through Wigilia without an accident in his pants - my aunt had been joking about how much time I spent in the bathroom (two kids who were drinkin a lot of water, had to use the bathroom a lot! Andrew needs help, and Alexis likes to explore new bathrooms, so I needed to be with them when they were in there). Christmas day however, Andrew had a lot of accidents. I just think the stress had added up to be too much for him and he had SOOO many new things to play with, I think he just forgot to use the potty. No problem! We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Tomorrow I have to make a run up to Sams club but other than that, I think it'll be a quiet day at home!

What's been up

2007-12-19T18:29:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to post a long time ago - right after Alexis got sick (she was better the next day).

I made chicken broth but in order to get a nutritious and healthy broth, it has to simmer for quite a few hours. I didn't have any on hand when Lexi first started showing signs of being sick, and I'll be darned if I use canned broth from the store, so I figured if nothing else Lexi could have the broth when it was done or we'd just have some on hand for the next time someone got sick... It's in my freezer now. :-)

I tried one of the "copycat" recipes for those Pillsbury crescent rolls. It tasted similar! The only downside to these was that it called for 1/2 cup of sugar! They were a bit on the sweet side to me, so the next time I make them I will likely use much less sugar. My kids and sugar don't mix, so we very rarely give them sweet andy or treats with a lot of sugar. After tonights dinner they got hyperactive and disruptive, typical of how they behave after 'too much ' sugar. In fact, I just now got Roo down to sleep and it's 9:40 - nearly three hours past his usual bedtime. There is an upside to that - Roo no longer eats his crayons. He spent about an hour doodling away with his crayons at the table this evening. I thought he was somewhat funny tonight - after putting the kids in bed, Roo stayed away but in his bed until his sister was asleep, then he came out to see me.

I tried to get him back in bed - at that point I was trying to make freezer bags for my FoodSaver and freeze my chicken stock in little bags. Kaitlyn was up and cranky and I was making my rounds - seal a FoodSaver bag, put Andrew back in bed, tend to Kaitlyn, fill a FoodSaver bag, put Andrew back in bed, tend to Kaitlyn, seal the FoodSaver bag, put Andrew back in bed, tend to Kaitlyn, put the stock in the freezer, put Andrew back in bed, tend to Kaitlyn... Seems at least once a day I have a cycle like that!

My goal for tomorrow is to make up a container of homemade beef stew seasoning and dry french onion soup mix (excellent over roasted potatoes... yummm!), make up a bunch of bread (white and wheat), make some bakable dough with the kids (and later make beads and objects for lacing and bake them), and I am planning on making my favorite honey-almond chicken recipe for tomorrows dinner.

Lexi is sick - on the day of lots of snow!

2007-12-16T17:45:00.001-08:00

We woke up this morning to around 10-12in. of snow. Alexis was looking forward to the snow big time and this morning did not feel sick - so right after breakfast we bundled up and headed out. I had no idea it would take SO LONG to get three kids and myself bundled up. We don't have boots that fit the older two this year (my mom bought a pair for Alexis, and my sister in law bought a pair for Andrew for Christmas, so they'll have boots soon!), so I had to get a little creative with ways of keeping the snow out of their shoes. I figured I'd dress them as usual, put an extra pair of pants on (we don't have snow suits), once their shoes were on I put grocery bags over their shoes up to their knees, then one of my husbands socks over that to keep them in place. I put the bag and extra sock up over the bottom pant, so they still had an extra layer on the outside. It worked, so I was happy. I also realised I needed to buy new gloves because my son had to wear his sisters pink gloves (sorry Roo!). Kaitlyn was in her snow suit, in my sling, under my husbands coat, so she was pretty snug and warm.

We were only out for a few minutes because that wind was blowing and it was still snowing - the kids got cold pretty quick.

We came back inside, did lunch, I got my son down for his nap and Alexis was laying on the couch. That's not normal for my almost-four year old... She never lays down until its bedtime! She said she didn't feel well and she was warm. I took her temp. and she did in deed have a fever so I gave her a pillow and a blanket and put on a Winnie The Pook DVD to watch at her request and sat with her until the baby needed me.

I think Andrew was a little jealous of the attention Alexis was getting... It seemed he was trying to irritate her every chance he got (then again, he may have been upset because she wasn't playing with him...). He kept taking her baby doll, pulling her blanket off, aggrevating her while she was sitting on the potty.... Finally I found him something to do that really took his attention off of his sister and she got to lay in peace for a while.

She's still feeling icky. Andrew was lonely going to bed alone in his room, so we let him stay up and when he's ready for bed (he has a lot of energy tonight) I'll rock him to sleep.

I hope she feels better soon. She rarely gets sick but when she does she's miserable :-( And she has all of this snow to play in!

Christmas tree for the flannel board

2007-12-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

My daughter Alexis will be soooo happy when she wakes up tomorrow. Not only are we decorating for Christmas (a little late this year!) but I made her a Christmas tree in green flannel, with different colored flannel ornament cut-outs so she can decorate Christmas trees to her hearts delight on her flannel board! She is so very excited about decorating tomorrow. Plus we're supposed to have a lot of snow coming in also, which makes things all the more exciting!

We're also going to do a Christmas lapbook to learn more about Christmas. I'm excited and this will be fun for us to look back on for years to come - I'll pack it up with Christmas decorations so it doesn't get ruined over the year.

Doin' Dishes in the Tub

2007-12-12T16:08:00.000-08:00

Ack. Well, the drain pipe to my kitchen sink burst today. Well, it actually fell off at two joints. It's been leaking for a while (I just noticed it the other day though). Today as I'm trying to clear a clog at the drain I hear the drain suddenly clear big-time and see bubbles rise through the water, then I notice water pouring out from the cabinet underneith. Drat!

My husband said he wasn't able to fix this, so in order to do my overflow of dishes I've been cleaning them in the tub. It's been interesting to say the least, but they had to get done! The plumber will be out tomorrow.

On a brighter note, Andrew had a clean diaper while out running errands this morning. He's been super about using the potty and not his training pants. Today was our first trip out of the home for an extended period of time since he'd been potty training and I thought we'd be safe just using diapers. Well, he didn't need to use the potty while we were out, but he had a clean diaper when we came home! He used the potty upon arrival at home. I was so happy for him! He's really catching on to this potty training thing - and he's doing it all himself!

First poop on the potty!

2007-11-29T14:39:00.000-08:00

We've done the happy dance - my 26 month old son went poop on the potty today! Yay! He is sooooo proud of himself, too.

"Say or key in the following numbers for the department you are trying to reach..." NOT KID FRIENDLY!

2007-11-24T05:54:00.000-08:00

I am at my wits end with the automated directories you get to when you call a business number. It's bad enough that you rarely EVER reach a human and have to go through the maze of pressing numbers to find one, but it's even worse when you have to talk to the automated greeter........ and you're home with the kids.

Did you know that some businesses ONLY offer the talking system and don't offer you the option of just using the keypad on your phone?

Do you know how many times I had to go round and round this morning trying to get some business done and every time I had to pick an option over the phone, my kids would sneeze, cough, yell, laugh, cry, talk, pass gas, a toy would make noise, a glass would clink, the dog would bark, what have you.... These systems don't tend to pick up on English very well to begin with (it doesn't seem!) but dog gone it they will certainly jump to "I'm sorry I didn't understand you. Please try again" at the first moment of any noise whatsoever....

These things are not kid friendly, let me tell ya... Funny thing is, the kids are usually great at being quiet when mommy is on the phone. But I wouldn't expect them to be dead quiet but I guess you have to be in a soundproof room in order to get anywhere successfully on the first try...

I don't mind them so long as I'm allowed to use my keypad on the phone. Maybe in the first few questions (does it really matter if there is another option?!? It's just one more!) ask if you want to talk or key in your answers, so that if the peanut gallery happens to make a noise before my finger strikes the keypad I don't have to go through the whole process of the automated person telling me they didn't understand me, could I please try again... and again... and again...

It's been one of those mornings!

A new spin on flannelboard stories

2007-11-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

My industrial inkjet printer recently bit the dust after a few years of faithful and hard service. I have another laser printer I use for most of my business work now, but the inkjet was my faithful companion for the hundreds of printable activities I've printed for the kids. I refilled my own cartridges and it saved soooooo much money.

I was getting ready to teach them about Noah's Ark and have a bunch of printable patterns to make the story on the flannel board... They LOVE flannelboard stories. But everyone I've talked to has said DON'T use the remanufactured toners and don't refill them myself so I've been buying them at my local Staples (though I do find them cheaper on ebay). Either way, toner is not compatible with tons of printing when you can't refill them yourself so I am going to wait to go printing crazy again until I have another inkjet printer whose cartridges I can refill on my own...

ANYWAY, I figured I'd use the many magazines I've been saving for our ABC scrapbook for most of this story. I can create the ark on my own, then cut out pictures of animals and glue them to flannel, and find other important peices from the magazines. In fact, I can probably create a variety of stories on my own by doing this with pictures from magazines!

A 'duh' moment...

2007-11-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

I just figured out how to apply labels and categories to my blog. So now that I know that, I can keep it organized a bit better. I don't have the time to organize all of my past posts into categories - sorry!

Another attempt at organization

2007-11-12T17:55:00.001-08:00

I think I've hit "the bottom." Or perhaps, organization at its finest?

I've inventoried my pantry. The deep freezers and fridge are tonight. I'm going to compile everything into a categorized spread sheet and keep a print out of contents in each spot. I'll then keep note of what I use as I use it, mark it on the paper, then every time I go shopping I'll add the new items and update the spreadsheet and print out new sheets for each area.

I'll take a complete list with what we have at home, when I go shopping so that if I find a sale and have coupons, I can decide if it's a good deal or if our stock is low.

We'll see how this goes! Off to freeze my fingers counting food...

2007-11-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

And they say homeschoolers don't get socialization... That is the first comment that seems to make it's way out of peoples mouths when they find out you're homeschooling. "How will your kids get to socialize with others?" Let me tell you one thing - instead of my children being comfortable talking to kids their own ages, they're becoming comfortable talking with and playing with kids and adults of all ages. A benefit of homeschooling is actually the socialization. Homeschooling isn't all done in the home. In fact, much of it is done outside of the home. Everywhere we go, the kids are communicating with people of all ages and all walks of life.

This past weekend, my husband and I took a trip down to a awareness event for the homeless. Being an EMT, my husband volunteered his time to do blood pressure checks. I was helping him but soon got into a conversation with a young pregnant woman who was homeless and without any resources. I learned of a local shelter that caters to pregnant women and children and am considering volunteering my childbirth classes over there if they need them. Anyway, we brought all of the kids and they got the opportunity to talk with some very interesting people, some who were homeless by choice and others who weren't. This was a great way to bring a variety of learning experiences together in one day!

Alexis noticed fabric piled up on my craft table and my sewing machine out and has been asking me every day to make her pink dresses and skirts. I'm trying to (secretly) make her some for Christmas. I stumbled across enough fabric to make jumpers for myself and both girls - I'm thinking this might be cute for Christmas. I've never sewn a jumper for myself though, so I'll make theirs first so they can at least match, then I'll give it a go for myself.

What a fun day!

2007-10-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

This morning the kids and I went to the library for our weekly story time. I missed last week, and missed the message about kids wearing their costumes for a party at the library and trick or treating in the town hall (where the library is located). Darn! My kids went without their costumes.

It was still fun though, and they started the day off with a sugar high. I think today they ate more sugar than ever - we don't feed sugary stuff too much around here.

Afterwards we went to see daddy in the hospital. I let them wear their costumes up to see him and upon arrival we were whisked into the gift center by a greeter so the kids could pick out a halloween treat. We went to see daddy (and he was happily surprised to see them in their costumes). Once leaving, we were stopped by another lady who said the kids were so adorable, could we please go see her daughter she's been in the hospital for a week and will be in for probably another two weeks and she's making up bags of candy for kids. I said sure! Anything to brighten a patients day. So she took us around the corner and the kids each got another bag of candy and as we left, the woman thanked us and said it really made her day.

If I can remember what room she's in, I want to take her a thank you card tomorrow.

I ended up not going out to moms tonight, but I took the kids trick or treating in a sub down the road from my house. Bret really wanted me to take them out, and they had so much fun trick or treating in the hall this morning, so we did. I stopped in at our local grocier to ask if I could park my van there while the kids went out, he was fine with it. While out, I met up with another friendly lady who offered to carry Roo down the street for me because he was sooo tired and didn't want to walk anymore. I had him on my hip, Kaitlyn in my sling and my free hand holding two bags of candy and Alexis's hand. I was very grateful for a few minutes to get feeling back in my hand. She showed us a brand new and HUGE park they put in the subdivision... We'll be going there tomorrow. How awesome is it to have such a great park right down the road from our house. We had to stop going to our usual park (or at least limit the times we do go) because it was so far away. God is so good! This park is literally a few minutes down the road.

3 years on one costume...

2007-10-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

I am loving how much use we're getting out of a single halloween costume. When my daughter was under a year, my mother in law bought her a unicorn costume. She fit in that the first year. The next year she STILL fit in it (it was a 12 mos. costume). The year after that (last year) her brother fit into it. This year Alexis will still be able to use it, so long as we add a long sleeved white shirt under it (the sleeves are a bit short). Andrew will be a lion this year (another freebie we got last year). Then next year, Kaitlyn can use the unicorn costume (and the year after that, the lion). Is that great or what? To top all of that use off (and still looking like new) the kids dress in them quite frequently to play.

I didn't plan on taking them trick or treating this year. For starters, I'm struggling with if it's really a good idea for a Christian family. Second of all, Alexis developed a fear of the dark after a scary set up last year while we were out. My moms church is putting on a friendly celebration of sorts - trick or treating from car to car in the parking lot, then a puppet show afterwards.

So, while Bret is away for a few days, the girls will play... My mom and I and the kids will have a sleep over at her house that night. Oh yea, with all the dogs. My mom has two, I have three. I haven't yet figured out the logistics of fitting cages, strollers, clothing/diapers and oh yea, the kids, in our van... I was considering bringing my pack and play for Kaitlyn but that's in the attic and I really need some help with that. So we'll all sleep on a queen size blow up bed my mom will have ready for us. kaitlyn will most likely sleep on my chest as she has been the past few weeks and a kid on either side (as we end up each morning, anyway!)

Crockpot duck?

2007-10-27T13:47:00.001-07:00

Anyone have any good crockpot duck recipes? Bret brought home his limit today with duck, so we're going to plan a nice duck dinner for Sunday. Yum! I had no idea what time he was coming home today and I've already started a honey chicken dinner otherwise we would have had roast duck for dinner.

Alexis really took a liking to watching me pick the innards and prepare the ducks for waxing. She and Andrew actually helped Bret wax!

I would have taken pictures but my digital camera is on the fritz now and won't turn on.

What's been up the past few days.

2007-10-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

I am proud of myself - I made a large pot of beef stock overnight. It's chilling now, I'll skim the fat and freeze for stew. The next time I cook another whole chicken I'll have enough bones for chicken stock, which needs to get done soon because I'm out of chicken stock! The dogs are going to LOOOOVVVVEEEEE the bones with the meaty parts still attached...

I'm quickly feeling overwhelmed with the amount of files I have for homeschooling on my storage drive. Thousands of files that are for the most part organized but many which are not. I'm weeding out what I think I'll never use as I go, but man you can accumulate far too many files overtime. It's nice to have a huge library on nearly every topic imaginable though. I'm trying to make a mental list of the different types of activities and printables I have on hand, printing some things I think I'll use soon, and making the most of what we do have considering I have three children right now who will be using the materials. Many of the writing/tracing type sheets are being laminated, and all of the printable activities are being laminated in hopes of them lasting through the children.

In a few days I will make a few different patterns for our flannelboard and start using it more. I'm also going to make a individual flannelboard for each of the kids, and talk to my local store about getting some clean pizza boxes, cover the lid with flannel to be used by each child and use the box to store the pattern peices!

Yay for my hunting hubby :-)

2007-10-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

My honey came home with a couple ducks this morning and is going to go out again tomorrow. So long as the season is open, he'll probably be going every weekend so we can maybe stock our deep freezer for a few months (or at least provide some different meals during the season as we'd prefer to eat duck fresh as opposed to freezing it first). I gave Bret a nice foot massage as a thank you :-)

I rearranged the living room a little. I created a little office space in the living room with my computer desk and work desk (which is actually our old kitchen table that was too big for our kitchen, I use this for the many projects I am working on). I moved all of my computer and office equipment to the kitchen table, then pulled the desk out from the wall and stuck one of the desk ends against the wall instead of the whole back of it. I pushed the desk up against the chaise, and the way the desk is put together allows for the chaise to actually be a chair up to the desk. There is enough legspace under the desk - so with an actual chair on the opposite end both kids can work at the desk and I can sit there with them, or if they're doing well on their own I can work at the computer for a little bit. I think it's a nice arrangement.

My bug for organization is spreading. I really want to organize all of the files I have on my storage disks and drives for homeschooling. I have probably a thousand or better files I've downloaded from various places, all freebie type worksheets and activities for preschool and kindergarten. I'd like to organize them better. Somehow. I don't really know how. As I go through them I find activities I'd like to do with the older two so I print them out and set them aside to laminate if necessary, or I put it into my homeschooling binder to be used later. There is so many cool things online it's unbelievable. I doubt I'll be buying a curriculum for quite a few years as there are so many resources to utilize online (and the library of course). Then again if/when we buy a curriculum, I'll be able to re-use it on the following children if they are able to learn with it. Who knows! all I know is that there are endless options and opportunities.

Pictures of Andrews new 'do!

2007-10-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

Andrew sporting a new mommy-made 'do! Kaitlyn is growing! 2 months old on the 14th!
The kids!

So exciting! He signed!

2007-10-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

While my daughter has picked up on sign language really well (using signs *I've* forgotten about - she reminds me, and she's always right!) my son signed for the FIRST TIME TONIGHT!!!!! He's two, and still non-verbal. He has his own way of communicating, he hears fine, obeys, etc. he's just too busy being a boy to care about talking right now. hehe. I started working on sign language a few months back in an attempt to give him another way to communicate to avoid frusterations. Tonight was the first time! He signed please (for more cheerios) and thank you once he got them. Later on that night upon refilling his cheerio's he signed thank you again! Yay!!!!

I have to stay up until midnight tonight to I can turn the crockpot on and have spaghetti sauce ready in time for crockpot lasagna tomorrow. I have everything ready to go in the pot (and it already smells yummy).

We tried a beef and lentil crockpot recipe today and while the kids and I ate it and were ok with it, my husband didn't like it at all. I guess it's a recipe to take out of the "to try" section of my master cookbook and send it to the paper retriever....

Well it's nearly midnight, so I'm gonna go turn the pot on and hit the hay!

Fun day at the library

2007-10-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

Today was the lap tots reading program I usually try to get the kids to each Wednesday at the library. We missed last week - they had a little birthday package for Andrews birthday! I thought that was really neat. The kids had a lot of fun - Alexis especially - I enjoyed watching them participate. Afterwards, Andrew was busy with a truck book he found and wanted to check out, and Alexis wanted to look at the books she picked out, so they sat at a table while I looked at books nearby. I found another book on crockpot cooking, some craft books for the kids, and another firetruck book for Andrew. I love the library!!! Kaitlyn slept the entire time in the sling.

I'm working on deep-cleaning our bedroom, and changing things around in the kids room a little more. I need to put away the boy-ish hooded baby towels I had out for Kaitlyns birth (not knowing if it was a boy or girl, I had both boxes of newborn girl and boys clothes down, pulled out boy and girl recieving blankets and towels, and just haven't had a chance to get the boy towels and blankets put away just yet). I am going to wash the bedding in all of the bedrooms today, vacuum the floors, and in the kids room I want to move things around from one dresser to another. I have two dressers in their room - a typical 3 drawer dresser I used to use before Bret and I "upgraded" our bedroom set last year, and a dresser that I *think* is supposed to be an entertainment center. :-) It has three drawers, two shelves above it, 4 shelves encased behind a wooden door on the left, and an open-ended 3 shelf end that opens to the right (instead of at the front). I use the shelves behind the wooden door for things that belong in the kids room but I don't want them to get into (I installed a lock on the door to keep them out), the shelves above the drawers for books/toys, and the other shelves for toys. I'm going to move the clothing into the bigger dresser because they are getting too many clothes to fit well in the drawers and now the bottoms are bowing from being stuffed all the time. I'll move the spare blankets and sheets into the shelves behind the door on the other dresser (and move the stuff from there into a tote and move it into the closet shelf), then put the toys that have a lot of excess parts in the drawers (we have a bunch of little people sets that will go in one drawer, a lot of kitchen/food for another, and trucks/cars for the last one). This will clean out the toybox pretty well so we can close the lid and actually use the toybox for it's double purposes - as a sitting place and a toy storage place.

I'm hoping that all works out. Now that I've thought it through, I should actually get started DOING it and get my buns off the computer chair. I've thought out a plan to re-arrange the living room to try and maximize our space but I doubt Bret will go for it. He HATES when I get into these re-arranging moods, so I try to keep it to the areas he won't be hugely affected by - the kids room, closets, rearrange the cupboard contents, etc. The living room will be a stretch, but if he won't let it happen that's alright too. it doesn't NEED to get done, I'd just like to do it! :-)

What a busy day!

2007-10-08T12:25:00.001-07:00

I'm thoroughly exhausted, or at least close to it!

I planned two weeks worth of meals Sunday evening. We are trying a bunch of new recipes that sound good, but they don't use any ingredients we don't normally use, so we aren't spending much more on groceries but we get to have some new tastes in the house!

Sunday evening I checked out all of the sales flyers for the local stores I shop at. They have their circulars online so I made a list of what I need, where it's on sale. I'm slowly creating a price book for our commonly bought items so I know who has the best prices and I can really stretch our dollar. I'd like to get the newspaper on Sundays for the coupons but honestly I'm not sure we'd use enough coupons to pay for the subscription and then some so its not worth it! We don't really buy the type of food or items you can easily find coupons for.

Anyway, we started our day of shopping at 10:30am. We shopped at 5 stores for various items, then got home around 3. Diapers had to be changed, Kaitlyn was hungry and I had to put the food away. Thankfully I have dinner cooking in the crockpot.

Then I rearranged the kids rooms. I don't know why, but I have to rearrange things every few months. I like the change.

Last night I made/froze two apple pies and canned apple butter so my kitchen is a mess from that. I'll be canning more apple butter and applesauce tonight or tomorrow, and freezing more pies.

Kaitlyn has started cooing a little bit, and she tries to immitate what you do with your face. Tonight as I was singing to her, she was watching my mouth intently, then started moving her lips as if to talk, then started cooing a little bit.

Hard time cleaning with kids around?

2007-10-06T21:48:00.001-07:00

Enlist their help!

I feel as soon as a child can make a mess, they're ready to learn how to pick up after themselves. This of course can (and should) be made fun for them. Encouraging them to help you around the house will eventually teach them good houskeeping skills and eventually put you out of a job :-)

For a while I was wondering "how in the world will I keep up with housework when our third is born?" The answer was "include them more during the day!" If they're helping me, they're having fun and learning and best of all - they're NOT making a mess somewhere else. Granted, sometimes when they help me they do make a bigger mess and it does take longer to complete the task but that's alright.

My kids have always helped with my duties around the house, but since Kaitlyn has been born they're both capable and interested in helping out more. Every day they help me clean certain parts. They LOVE to spray things down and rub them down. My chest freezers, fridge, washer and stove have never been as clean as they are now that I have two kids who love to rub them down! If I'm doing something that doesn't really require their help, yet I want to supervise them (in the process of staking my tomatoes) I'll give them a bottle of our non-toxic all purpose spray and let them spray away! The cleaner we use is called Basic-H which comes highly concentrated. Only a few drops of this to a spray bottle of water is all we need for an all purpose cleaner. I also use this non-toxic and organic cleaner for carpet and floor cleaning, window cleaner, cleaning our fruits/veggies, washing dishes, washing the vehicles, cleaning under the stovetop, you name it, it's been used on it! It's great to know it's nontoxic when the kids get into a spraying match...

Anyway, today we all took turns vacuuming and scrubbing the floors (with a mop, and then on our hands and knees getting all the corners and un-mopable places). The kids did a great job rubbing down the cabinets, deep freezers, fridge, washer and stove. We cleaned off the top of the deep freezers and the fridge, the kids took items I'd hand to them and put them where I told them. They thought it was fun being sent to different places in the house - many places I don't allow them unless I specifically tell them they can go. So it's fun when they are trusted enough to go there!

I took inventory of our large chest freezer. We recently bought 6 whole chickens, 40lbs of chicken breast and 70-80 lbs of beef (roasts, ground and steaks). I'm going to keep track of what we have, when we use it, and what dish we made it into, so the next time we buy our meat in bulk I know what we'll make the best use of. We don't normally eat steaks that often but we got a bundle of them with our last purchase but if they aren't eaten quickly enough I will know not to buy them again (maybe only buy when we know we want to cook 'em instead of buying a bunch and storing them) and instead spend our money on ground beef or roasts. I rearranged everything to see how much room we have in there - there should be enough for a deer or two and/or plenty of rabbit and duck. I'm kicking my husband out to do a lot of hunting this year (can you hear him saying "oh, darn!"). I told him to get me a deer for our anniversary on November 19th.

Next year we're still seriously considering starting to raise rabbit for meat. I recently learned we can use a gun to dispatch the rabbits (it seems all of the information I've accumulated have instructions on how to dispatch a rabbit by breaking it's neck or knocking it out - things I just am not comfortable doing incase it's done wrong and I cause the animal pain!). At first, Bret will be doing the butchering but we'll likely have to dispatch the litters we breed maybe 4x a year or more depending on how many does we breed and how many litters we plan. Bret isn't always going to be home for that with his work schedule. Using a gun, where I can restrain the rabbit and know for sure it's not going to be injured/feel pain before it's killed I feel much more comfortable. The actual butchering process after that I can handle... It's just the killing part that I had trouble with. I still will, I'm sure, for a while but it'll be a little easier knowing I dont have to risk hurting the rabbits and having them die a painful death.

We had a fun day today - I cooked a big breakfast and set the crockpot up for a meatloaf and veggie dinner. Then once Bret got back from helping a buddy, he took the kids and I to the Toledo Firefighters Museum. Today was actually fire safety day for the kids so there was a lot of activity and fun things to see. Once we left there, we stopped at the orchard down the road and got two bushels of apples, 30 lbs of potatoes and some acorn and butternut squash. I can't wait to make and freeze some apple pies!

Oh - we had my 6 week appointment with my midwives and Kaitlyn was just under 11lbs. She's gotten so big! I know it happens but it's a surprise every time! :-) She's almost outgrown her newborn outfits. She still fits in 0-3 but it's obvious that won't be for too much longer. She's not really getting too chunky outward but she sure is growing long!

A great review on my book!

2007-10-02T17:26:00.001-07:00

I'm happy to read a review from Natural Birth & Baby Care please do click on the link and see what the writer had to say about my book, The Cloth Diapering Handbook

Today was a really easy day. I think the part that made it so easy was the fact that my oldest daughter, Alexis, was such a huge help. She helped pick things up off the floor, sort them into their correct container, and even cleaned up things without being asked. As I was putting Andrew down for his nap, she took it upon herself to clean up all of the play-doh accessories from the table! Maybe that was what made today so easy... Almost ALL day the kids played with play-doh!

Happy Birthday Roo-Roo!

2007-10-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

Andrew as a newborn Alexis with her new brother
Andrew today!
I didn't have time to make a cake *darn!* but we did find a perfect one for him at the store...

My son turns two today. We celebrated with my father and family yesterday with a corn maze/petting farm/hayride and cake, and today we are celebrating his birthday on our own. I took the kids up to the store and let Andrew pick out a few gifts he'd like and he is happily playing with his new set of little firetrucks, ambulances, 'coptors, police cars, and construction vehicles. I also bought the kids a wooden block playset and a little "activity pack" for playdoh that has a rolling pin, cookie cutters, scissors and other things made just for the play doh.

I made a present for him also - a book about trucks and tractors. A few years back my husband worked for a trucking company that gave out truck cards (think baseball cards, with a truck on the front and owner/truck info on the back). He collected all of them and I was thinking at first i"d make a matching game for the kids out of them because there were a lot of duplicates. Then I decided I'd just laminate 6 to a page (setting out the duplicates, not sure what I'll do with them yet), and use last years firestation calendar (laminted and cut to fit), then I went through the catalogs/magazines we have set aside for our ABC scrapbook and I cut out all the trucks, tractors and other transportation and laminated a sheet of them. Then I comb bound all of the pages. The lamination SHOULD hold up to my sons abuse... He has been in love with this. My family got him a lot of truck/vehicle activity books also, so now he'll have something to "do" while i'm schooling Alexis. He REALLY wants to be a part of schooling and is not happy unless he's at the table doing something with us :-)

I had to stop by Once Upon A Child to get my son some shoes (and I was hoping to find some gifts there also, but didn't see anything he'd like). I made a SUPER find on some shoes for him - FIRETRUCK sneakers that are black and white with firetrucks on the side. They're velcro to boot, so he can put his own shoes on now :-) One thing I didn't realise until after I left the store was that they're the kind that light up when you run around. I'm not a huge fan of them, but I'll deal with it because my son is in love with his shoes that feature his passion. And plus, the light up portion includes tiny lightbulbs where the lights on the firetruck are and it does look kinda cool up close.

As I think any mom does on the birthday of her children, I've been replaying the labor and birth and early postpartum hours when he was born. He was born before 6am, at home. My husband caught him with my midwives here to help. Alexis once again slept through the birth and woke up around 8am or so. I was already in bed with my son when she woke up and the look on her face when she saw her new brother was amazing. She didn't really understand what was going on - she was about 18 months at the time - but she knew there was someone there smaller than her and she liked him. She took to him right away! I thought the early days were kind of rough because of the two being so close in age, my daughter being needy, and my husband having a hard time playing Mr. Mom. I look back on those days and can't imagine how I could think it was so hard, considering now we have three under three and a half - it must have been a bigger adjustment going from one to two, as opposed to two to three.

Time goes so fast. I can't believe my son is already two years old and is such a big boy. I am truley thankful that my husband keeps me home to be with the kids while he works. Not only because I feel that I am becoming the wife and mother God intended for me to be, but because I can be with my children every day and watch them as they grow. I have no regrets about wishing I could spend more time with them. This is time going by that we'll never get back. Each day comes and goes, and all we are left with are the memories. I pray that the memories my children have growing up are good ones, and I pray I can lead them on the right path as they grow up, being able to say no to evil and having the wisdom to know what is good and bad. Most of all I pray they come to know God, truley know Him, as a result of how Bret and I are raising them. I pray we are giving them the knowledge and tools that they need to develop their own relationship with Him - the belief that Jesus is their savior and this world isn't, a love for His word, a desire to talk to Him, knowing that all decisions must first be discussed with Him and ears and hearts must be open to listen for the answer, the strength to say no to things that go against His word and the ability to stay strong in faith when Satan sends non-believers their way. I pray they are a blessing to everyone else as much as they are to me, and that they make a positive difference in this sometimes dark world.

Our adventures

2007-09-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-09-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

...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?!?!

2007-09-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

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

Mommy, can you go like this?

2007-09-25T18:01:00.000-07:00

"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

2007-09-24T17:35:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

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

Butterflies

2007-09-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-17T17:36:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

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

Flannelboard pictures

2007-09-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

My camera is working now!

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

Canning is possible with small children...

2007-09-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-09-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

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!

Getting the hang of it!

2007-08-31T17:26:00.000-07:00

Geez, I leave for an afternoon alone with the kids then all of a sudden I think I'm super woman and I'm running all over town with them for the next few days. It has to be something about being cooped up in the house for so long, I'm enjoying my "newfound" freedom now that I have braved the world alone with the kids. Or maybe I'm just crazy. I enjoy going out with the kids. I even somewhat enjoy the raised eyebrows and "wow! you've got your hands full!" comments as people see me out with the kids.

I experienced a somewhat humerous event today. While at the doctors office waiting to pick up one of my husbands prescriptions, I had a woman ask if she could take my picture with my daughter because she's taking pictures of the employees at work and clients... Probably for a bulletin board or newsletter or something. She said my daughter was beautiful and she thought the sling was so cool, she wanted to capture the image. I said sure! She had me sign a consent form for it. I seem to always be visiting a place that happens to be taking pictures for things like that, because this is not the first time it's happened!

She must not have watched me walk in with the other two...

She came out with a camera and Alexis jumped into the seat next to me and started smiling (she loves her picture being taken...). The woman laughed and said "oh, is she yours too?"

Then I called Andrew over and again "Oh wow, is he yours too?"

She got a ton of pictures of everyone and then Alexis broke the silence with "mommy, I gotta pee!" I gave her a look and she said "oh I'm sorry, mommy I need to use the potty!"

Now, tight bathroom stalls are something I have yet to master... I'm hoping I can figure that one out really, really soon... Because space gets really cramped with a momma and three young'uns!

Kaitlyns Favorites

2007-08-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

Kaitlyn has two distinct favorites thus far:

- She loves her head to be rubbed
- And she LOOOOOVEEEESSS to be sung to. her "theme song" seems to be the chorus from "Goodmorning Beautiful" sung by Tim McGraw. You know "Good morning beautiful how was your night, Mine was wonderful with you by my side, And when I opened my eyes and see your sweet face, Its a good morning beautiful day" I find myself singing this to her throughout the day and she just loves it. She either goes to sleep or stares into my eyes as I sing to her.

I love waking up next to her in the morning. She's so warm and snuggly, it really puts a smile on my face.

Just some ramblings. I have some orders to fill from my business that are keeping my busy tonight - the diapering curriculum I finally finished will release by the weekend and I have a ton of orders waiting on that... I'll be relieved when they're all out and I don't have all of this work hanging over my head!

Then at some point I need to tackle the mountain of laundry collecting on the chaise, finish the rest of the dishes, and maybe get around to cleaning the bathroom tonight...

I did it!

2007-08-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

Well today I finally did what I had been somewhat concerned about since finding out we were pregnant with number 3: I braved the world alone with them :-) I know, no huge feat and yes I knew I'd have to eventually. But I have to admit I'm glad to have the first outing behind us. The kids were pretty good. Kaitlyn was in the sling any time I had everyone out of their carseats (I had to make three stops). Andrew was on my hip any time we had to walk from car to store/appointment and Alexis always walked. With Kaitlyn in the sling, I still feel like I have two kids.

I constantly remind myself that right now isn't going to be the hard part - when Kaitlyn is a little older I imagine life is going to start getting more complicated.

I am going to take another trip to the library tomorrow morning - I want to get some more books on toddler activities to help get more ideas for both kids. Although I am going to be starting Alexis in preschool on Monday, Andrew has shown he is ready for something a bit more. He's not nearly two, so I won't be really "planning" anything for him. I do, however, want to have some ideas as far as learning activities for him that I can use to reinforce shapes, colors, numbers, alphabet and the basics like that (and have something to keep him occupied while Alexis is busy!)

Pictures!

2007-08-25T21:08:00.000-07:00

The big brother!
The big big sister!
And Kaitlyn :-)

Alexis in the garden picking cherry tomatoes Andrew giving my husbands motorcycle kisses....
Our newest addition!

"Boy"

2007-08-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

When my husband and I took a trip to Sam's Club a few weeks ago, I was waiting for him near the bathrooms with the kids. A lady came up and commented on how we have a beautiful family and proceeded to ask my daughter what her name was. She told her, and she asked what her little brothers name was. Her reply made me laugh - she said his name was "boy." You would only understand this if you spent a day in our household, as my husband routinely calls Andrew "boy" when he's getting into things. "Boy, get out of the garbage!" or "You are such a BOY!" as he shakes and tickles Andrew above his head in the air. So then I asked Alexis what her brothers real name was and she replied "Andrew boy" ::sigh:: I thought it was kind of funny though.

Andrew does have a soft side I discovered. If I put Kaitlyn on the floor for tummy time, he warms right up to her. He'll lay right next to her and stare at her face, pat her back if she fusses, give her hugs and lots of kisses. I got some adorable pictures. Now, if only my cameras docking station would cooperate with the computer so I could transfer pictures...

Homeschooling to start soon!

2007-08-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

Before I actually looked at a calendar, I decided Sept. 1st sounded like a good start date... Until I did look and realised it was a Saturday. Oh well, Monday September 3rd sounds good too!

All we are doing is starting my daughter in preschool. We plan to homeschool through the school years but this year will be very laid back. She'll be 4 next February but she is very excited about learning now! So I am trying to plan our "curriculum" utilizing the internet, our library and our local community to make it fun, educational and low cost. Most of her learning will occur through play because that is the best way for her to learn at such a young age. I will try some worksheets and printed activities though if she shows no interest in them, it's ok!

Speaking of worksheets and printed activities, if you are considering homeschooling or supplementing your childs out of home education - have you looked at what the internet has to offer for free?!? I am easily becoming overwhelmed at the amount of free printables, worksheets and activity ideas out there... It's crazy! I have a *bunch* of links on my website - check out www.motherhoodnaturally.com/info.htm I have some documents in there for preschooling and other grades.

I guess we'll be "eclectic" homeschoolers in the sense that I don't plan on purchasing a curriculum for at least a few years. I think we can get through at least 3rd grade without buying a curriculum. I'm a frugal freak (hehe) and like to do as much as I can on my own, and think I'll feel more comfortable creating a curriculum for my children for as long as I can. Our work will consist of findings on the internet, things I've created on my own, library materials and services, community (and not so local) events and field trips. We have a local Christian homeschooling group I would like to get involved with, and there are probably general homeschooling groups I'm not even aware of. But we'll be mixing and matching what fits for our schooling.

I made up a weekly plan last night that i'll likely be using as my "teachers planner". It consists of a table with columns and rows for days of the week and the "subjects" I'll be teaching. I'll list the things I want to cover for a particular week in that, it also has a row for field trips (which will include errands like grocery shopping (lots of math!) and playgroups) and attendance (I'll check off each day that she's attended school). After that, I have a table for projects/to do's and supplies I'll need. That way if I need to buy anything I will know ahead of time instead of starting a project and realising I dont' have everything. Beneath that is a chart of books we've read and a place to record book information if we want to buy the books. On the back of the sheet is my detailed curriculum for the week where I can list objectives,

Our first "timed event" as a family of five

2007-08-20T07:25:00.001-07:00

Sunday was Kaitlyn's dedication. I didn't realise it, but my pastor made a good point (as I was wondering if I was crazy bring a 5 day old infant out of the house) - the first place we brought her was the house of the Lord. I kind of like that.

I was re-considering my decision to leave the house on Saturday because I kept thinking of everything I'd need to get done in order for us to get out of the house on time. I was wondering if I was up for all of it! I started getting us ready at 9am (for 11am services) and we made it to church a minute or two past eleven. As soon as we walked in the doors our pastor started the services. Not too shabby, huh?

The kids sat with us during services and afterwards we had Kaitlyn dedicated. The kids were perfect, and Kaitlyn slept through most of it.

Adjustment has gone surprisingly smooth (so far). I don't really notice much of a difference in extra work (though I'm taking it easy, I am still back to cleaning, cooking and the like), I am enjoying constantly having a little cuddly one in my arms and have been enjoying the heck out of Lexi and Andrew loving on their little sister. I'm pretty confident that things will take a turn for the chaotic as Kaitlyn starts staying up for longer periods and has more demands on our time. Though right now she's perfectly content to soil her diapers, being cuddled and nursed.

Alexis constantly wants to hold her sister, kiss her, hold her hands and play with her. Andrew seems to constantly be puckered-up to give her kisses and hugs. He wants to hold her once in a while, too. In trying to keep myself on the couch to recover more, I've been reading to the kids. It keeps them quiet, out of trouble and within my sight so I'm content to read to them all day! Shortly before going into labor we took a trip to the library and came home with a ton of books for the kids... So, we have plenty of new stuff to read.

I'm off to write up Kaitlyns' birth story, and to write in each of the other kids' journals. I try so hard to keep them updated but rarely remember to write in them when I actually have time... But now i'm making time, there is a lot to catch up on!

Processing the birth...

2007-08-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

I am so in love with my newborn baby girl... I feel completely different and seem to have fallen even more in love with each member of my family. I can't really explain it. I keep thinking about the birth and how different it was from my previous births. My firstborn was a hospital birth with midwives. It wasn't a bad experience by any means, however recovery was tough and the more I learned about birthing after the fact, the more I wish I would have changed. My son was our first homebirth and it was very empowering. There was a single moment during transition that I was ready to give up and go to the hospital out of fear from the pain, but I quickly removed the thought from my mind and proceeded on. The birth was uncomplicated and recovery was better than with my daughter. This birth was incredibly empowering. I believe that having been home with the last one erased the thought of "I can't do this anymore" so I went through labor and birth with full confidence. I knew exactly what I needed to do to get through the pain. I really trusted my body this time (last time I wanted a vag exam during transition to see how far dilated I was, then as my body began pushing I asked my midwives if they should check again, but they told me if my body is already pushing to trust it and go with it). When the urge came to push, I trusted that it was time. I knew the process of labor and birth much better (I'm a childbirth educator and have been certified and teaching since 2004. Not long, but long enough to have a better understanding of birth than the first time around!).

The fun part with this birth was the fact that I hit active labor around 2:30am. I birthed at 5:38. Last time I was in labor (decently active) for about 8 hours. This time it was hard and heavy right off the bat, but much shorter. I believe the Lord was with me through the entire thing and He really was taking away the pain. Some people have focal points during labor. I did this time too, only it was the Lord. And what a wonderful focal point He is!

Our baby is here!

2007-08-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

August 14th at 5:38AM we brought Kaitlyn Rose Kostyu into the world. She is 7lb, 6oz, and 19 3/4in. long. We didn't know if we were having a girl or a boy, and the birthing experience was so different not knowing. As usual, my husband delivered her in our living room and I will never forget the joy in his voice as he called out her name and announced the sex.

My daughter had one request for the past few weeks. She wanted to give the baby it's first blankie. So, when packing my birth supplies I included some girly and boyish recieving blankets. When the time came for the baby to need a blankie, she ran over, grabbed the right color, unfolded it and covered the baby up with it. This was very important to her!

Here is my beautiful daughter, Alexis, with her brand new baby sister. My son, Andrew, enjoys his little sister but is still young and doesn't realise that the baby can't enjoy peanut butter sandwiches nor does she enjoy having her nose pulled off her face. Eeek. I remember this stage - Alexis was about Andrews age when he was born. He does try to be gentle and has been giving the baby tons and tons of big kisses and hugs.

I'm excited to see how much life changes. This fall we'll begin homeschooling Alexis with preschool stuff. It'll mostly be child led and lots of play. I'm waiting until after we get back on some sort of a schedule with the new baby and get past the initial adjustment issues.

More later. Praise the Lord for another safe homebirth and healthy baby. Most of this labor was spent in prayer. One of my midwives and I both were in prayer a lot through labor and it REALLY made a difference. Our Lord is so good.

It's getting bad...

2007-08-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

I'm always a little clumsy during pregnancy. And forgetful. And silly. I've found egg cartons in the freezer, cereal boxes in the fridge, and cheese in my pantry. All put there by me in my absent-mindedness.

These past few days have hit an all time high, however.

I made a special breakfast for the kids yesterday - french toast. I usually sprinkle some powdered sugar on them, but I opened the wrong canister.... And poured on cornstarch. I didn't realise it until I made my plate (which is always last). The funny thing is the kids ate it. Yuck.

Then I managed to wipe out about half of our bowl population and three cups all in one wack. I was attempting to re-stack my bowl stack so it wouldn't fall, and it ended up falling anyway. Crash boom bang! I have room for all of my bowls now, without problem. And I can finally fit every glass we own on the glass shelf in the cabinet. Maybe this was the Lord saying it's time to simplify life... Now!

Oh, there has been more... I just can't think of it now. Of course!

I have a girly-girl as a daughter

2007-07-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

Growing up a tomboy, I never thought I'd "enjoy" raising a girly girl. I just thought my daughter would follow in my footsteps and grow up loving jeans, t-shirts and dirt. I have changed my ways to be more feminine so I guess she caught on to that, but she's just such a girl all on her own.

One of her "rewards" for sleeping out of mommy and daddy's bed the first night was I'd paint her nails and toenails (this really excited her). I only have two things of nailpolish - pink and purple. It HAD to be pink. I haven't painted nails in years, but it was good enough for her and she is STILL proudly showing off her pink nails. She's very careful to keep them clean.

I should mention my daughter also loves dresses, but they have to be pink. This recently carried over onto ALL clothing. If her clothes don't have pink on them, she doesn't want to wear them. Oh, there is one exception: if her clothes have a kitty cat on them, but no pink, it's ok.

Then today we had to take a trip to meijers to get a few things. On my list was new sippy cups. I was trying to decide which ones I'd buy when my daughter caught sight of a pink sippy cup in a package with a green one and decided we HAD to have them. I asked my son if he'd like the green one and he emphatically agreed. It was a sippy that changes color with cold liquid in it - it goes to purple. Imagine my daughters surprise when I filled the sippy up and it was no longer pink! She held it for a while and the warmth of her hands turned small parts pink again and she was sooooo happy - she had to show everyone that there was pink again. She also told us she'd like warm water in her sippy cup so it wouldn't turn it colors.

Pink. That's all my daughter can think about. I think it's adorable. It leads to some wars, because everything in life just can't be pink or her way, but she makes it easy to know how to please her and reward her if we decide to do something special!

Getting the kids out of our bed, Pt 1 - Going To Sleep On Their Own

2007-07-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

My husband has been super accepting since our first was born. My daughter who is about 3.5 has been sleeping with us for at least half the night ever since she was born. My son has also joined our bed, he's about 18 mos but coslept as an infant, slept fine alone in his crib, then once in the toddler bed he started coming into our room. We set up a nest for him on the floor and he slept fine on there 'till a few months ago when he decided he, too needed to be in bed with us.

I love the family bed, but the bed is getting very cramped. With another baby due soon who will be nursing and cosleeping, we have to get the older kids out of the bed. When I'd try to get the kids back in their own bed (which I've tried on and off for the past year or more!) it ends up in a crying, screaming, sobbing ordeal and I am not willing to let them "cry it out" especially when it's been a way of life for them for so long. I am understanding and realise this is a big change, and they need the comfort and security of mom and dad even more so now, because they don't get our comfort and security as they sleep with us anymore.

So I am taking gradual steps and hope to have this complete by the time #3 gets here. My first order of business: Getting the kids to go to sleep on their own. I used to rock them, and I loved it. It was usually the only quiet time we got to really cuddle during the day. However, with my growing belly and their growing bodies, rocking them was no longer possible and was becoming very painful.

For the past week, I've found a successful way for them to fall asleep with no tears, and no rocking. I make it a point to have cuddle time with them during the day, and find that the kids are more receptive to cuddling during the day, but show now "side effects" as a result of loosing the mommy and rocking time in the evenings (they aren't extra clingy or anything... which I did wonder about).

I put the rocking chair in their bedroom. We pray together, the kids lay in their beds and I rock in the corner of their room, alone, while reading. They're usually asleep within 15 minutes. The first night I had trouble with them wanting to play and get out of bed, my daughter wanted "mommy hair" and to be rocked, the second night my son was the one trying to get out of bed for rocking. By the third night, both kids knew what was going on and since then going to bed has been a breeze. No tears, no struggles. And, I've been able to read through two books I've been really wanting to read lately!

I think the reason my daughter is more receptive now than she's ever been is simply because she's at the age where I can hold an actual conversation that she will retain. Before we reached this point, getting her out of our bed, or even going to sleep on her own for that matter, seemed hopeless without a struggle. I know some parents don't have a problem with crying it out, and some think it's good for kids, etc. but I don't and wont go that route when it comes to bedtime. My daughter and I had a really long conversation the day be we began having her go to sleep on her own and talked about sleeping in he bed. She asked questions about the conversation all day, giving me a chance to revisit it. At night, she remembered what was going on and she was prepared.

SO that was the first step... Getting the kids to first fall asleep on their own without needing mommy to rock them. I'd imagine I could probably put the kids in bed and walk out without having to rock in their room, but I really enjoy the time I now have to read. I spend this time reading the stack of Christian books I've been meaning to get to - spending time with God, writing notes in my notebook, praying, etc. I can also picture this time preparing lesson plans for the kids as we begin homeschooling more in depth, or writing the skeleton and notes of future publications, or whatever.

We've had two nights without kids in our bed. They did end up in our room, but on the floor on their nests (and I'll discuss progress with this in my next post). my husband agreed that they can still come into our room, they just cannot come into our bed. So, as we get past this shock I'll gradually start encouraging them back to their own beds. and my goal is to have them sleeping in their beds all night before the baby gets here. They may not sleep through the night for whatever reason, but I want them to feel comfortable enough to go back to their own beds to resume sleep. Or even better, wake in their beds and be able to put themselves back to sleep without getting up. Who knows.

Nope, I haven't forgotten about my blog...

2007-07-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

I've just been uber busy!

Let's see... For the past month or two I have been finishing up "The Cloth Diapering Handbook", I have revised "Diaper Maps," and wrote a new book called "Frugal Cloth Diapering." I am preparing a homebirth book for children which will be available for free on my store's website (www.motherhoodnaturally.com/store) I'll be releasing a cloth diapering curriculum kit hopefully before our third baby arrives mid August. Once I get that and the homebirth book for children done, I'll feel complete and ready to give birth. LOL. The curriculum has kept me busy for over a year and I just keep finding ways to add and perfect it. I gotta get things in line, baby's gonna be here soon!

My garden has been showering us with tons of green beans for a while now. I actually froze what I just picked today - we can't keep up and I'm NOT going to let a single bean go to waste. The Lord has blessed us in so many ways, I am not about to let a blessing go to waste. I picked our first beets yesterday, and the kids and I enjoyed our first carrot last week! The tomatoes are starting to turn color, sunflowers are blooming, jalepeno's are nearly ready, squash and zucchini are growing, and green peppers are doing well. I killed my peas... My husband said I watered them too much. I feel bad - they were my daughters FAVORITE thing to eat. I planted more this week... We'll see if I can get more peas before it gets too cold!

My husband and I are both getting certified to teach CPR classes soon. I think it'll benefit my childbirth classes to be able to teach my students infant/child and adult cpr if requested, and my husband thinks it might be neat for the both of us to pair up and do some cpr classes. We'll have to see how it goes - with the new baby coming, and us beginning Alexis in preschool at home in the fall, my hands are going to be very full. I've already decided after the baby is born I am done teaching 2+ series classes for an undetermined amount of time. Single classes will still happen occasionally. My writing will continue, as that is something I do out of enjoyment when the kids are sleeping (however, getting everyone synchronized to sleep at the same time may be a challenge for a while!) and it is the main way I help supplement my husbands income. With gas prices the way they are, and him having to drive 120 miles to work each day (when he can't take the motorcycle for weather or other reasons) we've noticed a big problem with income. I need to do all I can to help!

Luckily, "all I can do" is mostly at home! When we start harvesting all of the produce the garden will be producing we will be saving a lot on our grocery bill. I am so excited and thankful for that. I've perfected my bread recipes to the point that my husband finally prefers mine over storebought (and it took a while to get there!). I need to clean our our deep freezer to make room for bread, frozen meals for after the baby is born and our garden yummies.

We are getting ready for baby. I've pulled out all of the clothing, I have onesies, socks, diapers and covers all ready to go. Sleepers and outfits are folded and put away. My birth kit arrived (we're planning a homebirth with the same wonderful midwives who delivered my son at home). I am gathering other supplies I'll need for the birth. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl and I am starting to get very anxious to find out! I can imagine what a thrill it will be to find out the sex when the baby is born!

I'll do more later... There has been So much going on here, but now I'm listening to a food preservation conference call taking notes... So... I'll be back later!

Our first professional pictures :-)

2007-05-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

Queen of the Kitchen

2007-05-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

Ironically, I made a crockpot meal (roasted chicken) so I wouldn't have to cook today.

But somehow I ended up making chicken kiev, au gratin potatoes, bread, chocolate chip cookies, apple muffins and oh yea, apple-puff oven pancakes for breakfast. I will also be making some white bread as soon as my bread loaf pans get freed up, sides for dinner and some mint tea for my husband. I really enjoyed my time in the kitchen today too!

Last week we went to Meijers for our first-ever family portraits. We included our third (still in utero) with some great belly shots. We picked up our pictures today and I love them! My husband (an EMT/Firefighter) went in uniform. I went in the only dressy attire I can fit in right now, and the kids went in some casual outfits but nothing too dressy.

My garden is doing well! I put a small in ground garden in and planted my seeds, but for some of the plants I can't tell if they're sprouts or weeds! I'll have to take my seed package out and try to ID them... Or worse case wait until they get big enough to notice a difference.

My potted herbs are doing well, too. I was unsuccessful for growing a few of them (I hear they are quite easy to grow, so I don't know what I did wrong!), but my basil, parsley, chives, dill weed, chervil and sage look to be doing wonderful. I've even taken some basil and parsley for some meals already - i don't know how soon you can start using them but the plants don't show any ill effect from the "early" harvest and they were wonderful in our meals... so.... I think it's ok.

I bought my husband a motorcycle :-)

2007-04-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

Well it was a joint decision, but it's in my name for credit reasons. But the payments are low and we decided it would probably be in our best interest with the amount of driving he does on a daily basis (120 miles a day just to work and back) and with gas prices as high as they've been, what we'll be saving in gas will more than pay the payment and insurance (and luckily, the months he can't ride it the payments won't be that high anyway.. HOPEFULLY we can pay the bike off this summer with the savings - that would be awesome!).

So what is it? I think a 1999 Savage. I think. I let him pick it out... it's his bike and his to ride! He's been having fun with it and has been talking about taking me for a ride, however, being pregnant that is not at the top of my list right now!! He said when we pay it off he might want to get a bigger bike (he has a 600 cc or something like that) and he was going to give this bike to me. We'll see. The only thing I really like to ride are horses and I dont' have to shift gears on them while being responsible for staying upright, but I suppose it could grow on me. We'll have to see. I'm in no hurry!

Alexis did find a little kiddie bike at the dealership today that had training wheels and she loved it (she just sat on it). And a kiddie sized 4 wheeler. They were cute! Andrew preferred to sit on the big bikes with daddy!

Today is freezing day..

2007-04-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

My hubby bought some ground beef for us in bulk a few days ago and we usually split it into 1 pound blocks and freeze them individually. This time I tried to make life a little easier by cooking and seasoning it using one pound chunks I make some taco meat and some of our most commonly seasoned ground beef that we use in everything. I will freeze some blocks plain and uncooked for the occasional times we stray from our typical ground beef seasoning.

I've also made up two loaves of white bread for my husband, but I am freezing the dough. I like making my own bread, however, it's a bit time consuming when I have two toddlers who like to take the 10 minute span of mommy being busy kneading dough to wreak havoc in some way around the house. Honestly, I don't think I ever have 10 minutes where I can complete something in it's entirety! So I am hoping that by making up a few loaves of white and whole wheat bread and freezing them after the first rise, I can save some "hassle" even though it is going to take much longer for the end result with thawing and the second rise. We'll see! It's an experiment! So while the kids napped today, I went about browning and seasoning beef and making some bread dough. I only have two bread pans, so as soon as the bread in the freezer freezes and I can foodsave them (I love my foodsaver!) and have my pans back, I'll make up some wheat dough.

I figured if I have time today, with my daughters help (she's 3, and loves to help mommy in the kitchen even though her idea of help is to playfully make messes, eat whatever we're trying to make and try to get her hands on every kitchen utensil we have out... which is ok, usually!), I can make up some mac and cheese cheese sauce and freeze that so I have it (I make it from scratch and it usually turns a 20 minute mac and cheese dish into an hour long process, so if I can make the cheese sauce and just thaw it as I cook noodles, it'll save time!). The celery is starting to go limp so I am going to make up a couple batches of cream of celery soup after reviving the celery in a cup of water in the fridge for a while.

I had a total duh moment today. While planting my garlic a while ago, I planted the WHOLE BULB. The whole thing of garlic. I thought I read the directions well, but obviously I missed the obvious. I had 4 garlics that i just popped into some soil into a container in my house, and this morning I noticed that some of them seemed to be exploding from the container. It didn't look right. So, I re-read my instructions and realised I need to seperate the bulb into cloves. DUH! Luckily I don't think I injured any of the roots while seperating (they seperated very easily) but now I have an overload of garlic planted (in containers of course) and my house smells very strongly of garlic. LOL. Oh well, at least my husband will like the way the house smells when he gets home from work!!

I am going to attempt, if I have TIME, to put up all of my stuff on a roll (wax paper, foil, the last of the press and seal (we bought it on clearance to try... it's ok, but I'd rather stay away from things like that... wax paper and foil isn't much better, I know!) up on the wall. My idea is to use those cheap cup hooks and a dowel rod. using my husbands level to make sure everything is going up level, I'd put the roll of whatever on the dowel rod and hang it up on the hooks, and have maybe 3 or 4 hanging under the first, then just use scissors or our envelope opener to cut whatever I'd need from the rolls. I'd just have to make sure the rolls have room to actually spin if I use the cup hooks, as I think it might be a bit too close to the wall. Then again, I could also find two peices of wood, put my cup hooks into the wood, line them up on the wall and screw the wood into the wall, putting less holes in the wall and offering the rolls a bit more lee-way in terms of spinning space between the peices of wood but then I'd need to get my husband involved (we have wood out back, but it needs to be cut). Oh wait, today is Friday! He might actually have time to help me with this during the weekend, when he's done putting a new rotor on our van and tweaking his truck!

I'm off to organize my pantry, deep freeze and fridge/freezer and see what other meals, sauces or parts of meals I can make to freeze and just have ready. Have you ever gone to www.cindysporch.net ? I found her site the other day and she has some great printables on her site for organizing your kitchen pantry, fridge, etc. and also great info and ideas for cleaning. I want to try keeping all the contents of my pantry, fridge, etc. on a list so I KNOW what is in there, stop having food go to waste, save us some money by using the food we've already bought, and I am going to start meal planning - hopefully this weekend - because I always stress about dinner (always home made), when I first wake up wondering "what can we do for dinner? should I start preparing some of it now?" I hate, Hate, HATE putting together a home made meal last minute especially when I realise ifI need a soup or something I would have had to make that earlier, then it spoils my dinner plans OR delays dinner a good bit of time.

I'll try to post pictures of the rack idea I have for hanging my "stuff on a roll" if we get it up this weekend, and hopefully someone else can use that idea too. It'll clear out a drawer that I could use for other things, and make the stuff on a roll much easier for me to get to (the drawer they are in is put together like apuzzle, and it can take some work to get stuff out from the back of the drawer!).

My goal right now is to make our home look nice while simplifying. My husband has decided we will most likely sign another lease at this apartment for another year (hey, our apartment is our HOME!) and we have a third baby coming in August. I know we can make it work, but I want to get the apartment as organized as possible before the baby arrives, and make as much use of all the space around us as I can while being practical and keeping the place looking nice. Life runs so much more smoothly when everything is organized.

Seedlings

2007-04-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

My seedlings! This is not all of them either (gulp). Since taking this picture i've added strawberries, garlic and green onions to the mix. I'll be putting carrots, beets, peas, green beans, green peppers and lettuce into large containers or possibly into the ground very soon - once we're out of this freezing cold snap! I love my apartment in that it has it's own private entrance up the back, so my plants can soak in the sun most of the day on the stairs and back porch. It's just a duplex, we're on the upper unit.

Busy day

2007-04-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

What is it with little boys and tools? My husband had to re-organize his tools so we could make a few new toolboxes and assign one to each vehicle. My son was totally into helping - he's 18 months and just had a BLAST with the tools. He was hilarious! My son is completely, totally all boy. My daughter was super helpful running things to the trash and putting tools in the boxes and I kept myself busy trying to put my husbands socket sets back together after they had exploded from their cases (eek!). I managed to squeeze in making a couple loaves of wheat bread, a loaf of white and a few smaller sub-sized loaves for my husbands lunches. They all came out wonderful! Soon we will list the growing pile of things I have been setting aside to freecycle, and then it's back to organizing all the misc. paperwork around the house. Yesterday my husband was going to have me tow him and a car of his up to a nearby junk yard (the car no longer runs... the engine seized) as they were going to buy it from him... And I couldn't find the title! What I thought was the title to the car was actually the title to his truck, and I later found the title while organizing but by then the junk yard was closed. They don't open 'till Monday, so I guess I'll drag the car up there on Monday and we'll just wait 'till then to get paid for it! My husband was really hoping to get the extra money this weekend, so I felt bad that I couldn't find the title. I decided that was the final straw, and I was finally going to organize our home once and for all... And with God's help I'll KEEP it organized!!! I always set aside important paperwork that ends up getting lost - I eventually find it (how hard can it be in a 2 bedroom apartment?) but not until after we need it, and by then my husband is flustered and it could have been prevented if only I would have filed it as soon as it was put in my hands! lol.

One of those days

2007-03-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

I wanted to plan a homemade dinner that was a favorite of my husband: chicken and broccoli potpie. I make everything from scratch, including the cheese soup and dough. To make the soup that goes in the pie, I need chicken broth. I didn't realise I didn't have any (and it was too late to make any) until i needed it. Shoot! I had already begun preparing the pie also, having cut up and cooked the chicken, prepared the broccoli, etc. I put everything in the fridge and will make that tomorrow...

So then I figured I'd make a honey and almond chicken recipe. Got the chicken thawed and prepared to brown it.... And realised I didn't have honey. Shoot again! I decided I'd marinate the chicken in italian dressing and grill it tomorrow for lunch.

I was successful at making more bread, though I wanted to make my whole wheat bread and then white bread for my husband. I only made the whole wheat bread when I realised I'dneed the oven for dinner and can't bake bread all evening. I'd love to have two ovens, for the amount of baking I do!

the one thing I *was* successful at doing was making a home made apple pie. A friend brought us some food a while ago that included pie dough I kept in the fridge. Upon getting it room temperature I realised it had a funky odor, and decided against using it and made my own. I am finding that processed foods all have weird odors compaired to home made, and I can't eat processed stuff much anymore!

So now my husband and I will enjoy some warm apple pie with ice cream.... yummmmm!

Saving Money

2007-03-27T18:08:00.002-07:00

Our lease on our apartment is up in the fall - right after our baby is due. We are planning on moving out because our apartment is so small, we'd like to get into a house. We plan on staying in the country, and are seriously considering a move to Kentucky.

Either way, I've been inspired to save money. Everywhere. Considering when we go shopping, we only buy produce, meat, or things like butter, whole wheat flour, eggs and milk. We spend the most ofour money on produce. Right now I'm working on container gardening and am growing a variety of herbs and vegetables.

Our electric bill is a challenge. Each month I do different things and can't wait to see the results of my experiments. Last month we saved $40 on our electric bill by not running the dryer (I hang dry everything in our apartment), being vigilant about keeping lights off we are not using, starting to move our lightbulbs to the flourescent money saving variety, and turning things off at night that blink, show time (except the alarm clock in our bedroom), or otherwise use energy when they're not in use!

There is a lot more we do that I can't think of - but if you're looking for ideas maybe these will help get you started. :-)

Saving Money

2007-03-27T18:08:00.001-07:00

I planted my herbs!

2007-03-05T09:32:00.000-08:00

I am starting a herb garden consisting of sweet basil, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme, chives, peppermint, spearmint, lavendar, sage, and a few more I can't think of ;-) We have 144 little starter pellets seeded with 2-3 seeds each. When the weather warms up we will put them outside and keep them in containers. We will be buying our veggies and seed some and buy some already sprouted - we have to do container gardening this year because we live in an apartment, but we will make it happen! I am so excited to show my kids how plants grow, and let them experience the pure joy of eating your own home grown produce. I always loved that as akid, and can't wait to pass that on to my own! My daughter (3) helped seed those little starter pellets and they're all sitting in the sun in windows now.

I look forward to using fresh herbs in my food... I've never done that before! I'll also be drying some and storing them, maybe even giving some home grown and dried herbs as presents as special occasions come up!

Excited and Thankful and....

2007-02-20T19:42:00.000-08:00

I am so excited about life. I mean really, about everything. When I think about life now, I get excited. i can't wait to see what God has in store for us! In the fall we plan to begin homeschooling my youngest daughter who will be three and a half. This is tentative of course - our third baby is due sometime mid-August and homeschooling really depends on if she is ready mentally and emotionally at tha tpoint with the adjustment of a new baby. Of course we don't HAVE to start when school typically starts, so it really just depends on Alexis.

I've been finding tons of free printables online and although i dont' plan on making printables a big part of her schooling, there are plenty of fun ideas and activities as well. For the activities, like file folder games, matching, flashcards, etc. I am printing them off on cardstock and laminating them with my laminator so they'll hopefully last through several children. I then save everything on an external storage device so i don't loose it if my computer bites the dust (it's an older computer, and has it's issues, so I'm nursing it a long as long as I can!).

Today was a beautiful day - the weather was in the 40's, all the snow we have is starting to melt. But the nice part is that it was warm enough to take the kids outside to play for longer than 10 minutes! We had fun dragging the kids around in their duck sled, Alexis had fun running around in the snow, pretending to drive her car, and Andrew is still convinced he can't walk in the snow, so he doesn't go very far ;-)

I swear I am starting to feel this baby move around! I am only about 14.5 weeks along. I am so overjoyed to be pregnant again and to be expecting a third beautiful life to train up in the image of God. I'm going to have my hands full, but I am so excited. I give my fertility to the Lord, as children are God's greatest blessing and only He can decide when a baby is to be expected... It would by silly to try and control it! I can't believe we are trusted with two, soon to be three little lives to train up for HIM, what a tremendous responsibility!

2007-02-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

My composting idea didn't work so well. I don't think it's something a beginner should be trying when it's so cold outside because from what i've been reading you have to have a good balance of ingredients to get the heat needed to break everything down, and when you're just starting out it can be really confusing to get the right balance.

I WILL try again when the weather is warmer. Until then, I'm saving all of my veggie scraps to make vegetable stock. I'll find a use for food scraps so I don't have to throw them out! I hate throwing things out - that's why I save everything that is recyclable and take it to the recycling bin down the road when it's here once a month. Yes, my husband often grumbles about the pile of recyclable materials that keep piling up over the month.

I did unload all of the recycleable materials today though. I can't believe the huge amount of stuff I unloaded - I probably filled the bin up at least 1/4 of the way (and this is a big bin!!)

The weather is chilly and the snow is moving in. We're expected to get about 8-10 inches of snow by tomorrow morning. I am still doing the paper route so I was on the roads today and boy were they slick! I got stuck in snowdrifts by the mailboxes at least 5 times (I deliver in the country, so there is PLENTY of blowing and drifting around here!) but got out of them without much trouble.

Now I'm home making a delish homemade potato soup from our family cookbook. I made this once before and it is a PERFECT soup for a day like today. I can't wait until it's done!!

Our clean up song

2007-02-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

"Pick up the food...
Get it off the floor...
Put it in the drawer...
'Till there ain't no more..."

Seems to be our mantra lately. My daughter who is nearly three LOVES her little kitchen and her huge supply of cookware (handed down from the "big" kitchen when we replace cookware or when we simply cannot use it anymore) and her even bigger supply of fake food. I have a three drawer storage unit thing that is filled to the brim with her cook stuff... And when she cooks, it's all over the floor. She'll pick it all up on her own, but it really helps to have mommy sing while she does it. I can't really name the tune, we came up with it on our own :-)

The pregnancy is progressingquite well. I'm just over 12 weeks and had my first midwife appointment a few days ago. We heard the heartbeat and all of the other typical prenatal stuff is fine. I'm at the point of finally believing I'm pregnant and starting to plan. This will be our third and I'm very excited. It's amazing how badly a prior miscarriage shatters your confidence in your next pregnancy!

It's been a while...

2007-01-16T18:19:00.000-08:00

Since my last post - life has been nothing short of chaotic over here.

I told my district manager at the news today that Feb. would be my last month of delivering papers and I am quite excited. My midwife called me today and asked if I would like to join her in teaching childbirth classes at a Toledo location and I am just thrilled! I was wondering how I would be able to pay for our homebirth (in August) without the paper route and it seems the Lord will never let you down! I look forward to having time to devote to my business, Motherhood Naturally. I am also taking a more active role in my Shaklee business, as I took a break after becoming overwhelmed with the many projects I have and it seems that business is going to take off again. Many opportunities are opening up, and I just pray the Lord tells me what I should do loud and clear!

We bought my son a firetruck toddler bed. Seeing as daddy is a firefighter and EMT, and we needed to get Andrew out of the crib anyway, we found a used one at Once Upon A Child (childrens resale shop) for a good price and decided to bring it home that night.

My neice has moved in with us for a while as she is recovering from a troubled past and has found the Lord! She became born again, baptised and all about two weeks ago and has just dived into the Bible and we've been doing Bible studies and having wonderful conversation. She said she thinks of me as her mentor and honestly I have been having so much fun helping her develop a relationship with God, and understanding Christianity that I would love to do this with other people. She's also been incredibly helpful around the house, and would you know I am finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel as I try to organize my house!!! I appreciate her help sooooo much!

Unexpected Holiday

2006-12-27T06:13:00.000-08:00

Well, our Christmas was very much unexpected this year. My daughter came down with the flu at 10pm Christmas Eve and kept vomiting about every 15 minutes or so. My husband, having just had the flu, wanted to take her to the hospital for some IV fluids and stuff to help with the nausea. I'm not a big hospital fan,but he insisted she'd feel better after she got some fluids back into her and the vomiting was slowed down.

Then, I came down with it at about 3:30 Christmas morning! I took a trip to the hospital as well that morning at about 11 because we recently found out we're pregnant again and I did not want to risk dehydration (we had a miscarriage back in June, so I am a bit cautious this time around, till we get past this first trimester).

My husband has a horrible chest cold now, and the only person in our household who has yet to get sick, praise God, is our youngest son who is almost 15 months old. He is still breastfed, so I wonder if that plays a part in him staying healthy, considering he is getting immunities from my breastmilk. Time will tell, I suppose.

Christmas was a hit when we finally got around to opening presents. My son loves his trucks and my daughter loves her gifts as well. I got my husband a small drill that doesn't involve him taking out his huge one for small projects, a dremel and a laser level. He got me some things for the kitchen: a pyrex set that includes cassarole dishes, pie pan, typical baking dishes. he also got me some of those rubber-like pot holders and oven mitt, an apple corer (I've been asking for one of those for a while! LOL)two high-end baking sheets, glass loaf pans and stuff like that. I told him to get me things I can use around the house, and he did very well! I can certainly use all of them!

Christmas is a bit different this year...

2006-12-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

This year we did buy the kids a few new gifts - but the majority of their gifts are going to actually be my husbands toys from his childhood, along with mine, that our children are old enough for. This will be a special Christmas, not only because of Jesus' birth, but because we can hand down a little bit of our history to our children. My son is getting my husbands toy trucks - heavy duty ones the kids can ride on, crash and push around. Semi trucks, fire trucks, trucks and trailer, and a tow truck (that will have to be kept out of their reach unless one of us is right there with them, considering it has a hook on it to tow cars!). my daughter is getting my Polly Pockets that I played with as a child, and the biggest part: all of my baby doll clothing and toys that I had as a child. My daughter LOOOOVES baby dolls, so this should be a lot of fun for her. The presents are wrapped, and I am so excited to see their faces!

Household notebooks and sewing projects

2006-12-23T13:18:00.000-08:00

I completed three projects I had started - two hanging laundry baskets for the kids, and a crib-width pouch that I actually secured to the crib to hold excess stuffed animals. I think I might dress the pouch up with those fabric paints and color it up a little - currently it's just plain white.

Now I am working on cutting up old towels and sewing some cleaning mitts for my daughter. She loves to help me clean, but regular adult sized cleaning rags are too big for her to easily clean with, so mitts are the answer. In fact she gave me the idea one day when she started using her bath mitt to clean up some spilled water on the counter.

My next project is to start a household notebook. I'm sure you've heard of these before - notebooks that you keep all of your contacts, calendars, happenings, household/family records, etc. I've started them several times before but never kept up because I felt I needed one for my business and the home, and it was too hard to keep them both going. But, because I am going to be staying home full time and have already cut back my business, I think a household notebook might actually work. We'll see.

I went Christmas shopping today for my husband with the kids and I got him some things I think he'll really like. He's very hard to shop for, I think, but with the help of the Lord I think he'll have some pretty neat presents to open up.

On to organizing...

2006-12-21T13:47:00.000-08:00

Trying to get my home organized is an ongoing, never ending task. We simply have too much stuff. Every few months I go on a throw away/freecycle binge and try to get rid of a bunch of things. Then, because we don't ever buy enough stuff to clutter the house again, I think I just unpack all the things we've had crammed in our closets, trying to thin them out, too and just end up re-infesting our place.

One problem I have is hanging on to all of my kids toys. I know we are going to be having more children, and probably soon enough to hold on to all of the toys and clothing, so I don't want to part with too much because I don't want to have to buy everything all over again. What's a mom to do?

A Titus 2 Ladies Group?

2006-12-20T20:31:00.000-08:00

When I'm done with my paper route in a few months, i am thinking of starting up a "Titus 2 Women's Group" to help and be helped with motivation, encouragement, and to learn new skills I can apply to my home life.

I downloaded a Titus 2 Meeting Guide that has ideas for meetings... This sounds really cool and I would love to learn from other God-centered women. Check back here in a few months to see if this ends up happening - I envision women of faith coming together once a month or once every few month to learn home making skills like gardening, cleaning, sewing/crafting, canning, natual remedies, if you do it at home, learn it here type of thing. And to help preserve the skills that are being lost today. Each month the meeting would be at a different home, the home of the woman doing most of the teaching so we are in her environment and around the tools she will utilize and show us how to use.

Has anyone done this? I'd love to hear of your experiences. Are you local to me, in Monroe or near Toledo? Interested in this? Drop me a line, let's see what we can get worked out! Kids will most certainly be welcome!

Mmm, the soup smells good!

2006-12-20T14:06:00.000-08:00

I'm currently making a pot of lentil-veggie soup and it smells fantastic. Too bad it's got another hour to simmer!

I'm trying to figure out what we want for dinner as a main course. My husband refuses to make soup a main course - heck I grew up on chicken soup being dinner - but my husband won't hear of it. We're about chickened and beefed out. We have some venison sitting in the deep freeze that I am waiting for my husband to make because I have never tried to cook it and my mom said whenever she cooked it, it smelled horrible. I'm not honestly sure if that is just because of her cooking (sorry mom! some days, I have to wonder... No really, you're a good cook) or because venison just smells bad when it cooks

I'm trying to thin our house out. I have a ton of stuff reserved for freecycle and local thrift shops, now the trick is convincing the people who say they want it, to pick it up in a timely manner. Whatever doesn't get picked up within a week is off to the thrift shops. If I keep it in the house too long, my husband and kids will find reasons that we should hang on to it, afterall.

More later, my daughter wants me to read "The Smallest Stegosaurus" to her and my son is trying to make a slide out of the top of his sisters toybox!

I got the courage...

2006-12-19T13:40:00.001-08:00

To finally tackle the pile of laundry that has been collecting on the chaise. For the past week a mountain of clean laundry has formed. It was so large that the dogs wouldn't even dare to jump up or climb on it... how bad is that? We have a little Maltese who makes herself right at home on the top of the clean laundry pile, and the poor thing didn't have the guts to give it a try.

So, it's all folded. Now the task is to finish washing the rest of the dirty laundry, fold it, and put all the clothes away.

I've heard time and time again that the most time-saving way to do laundry is to fold the clean stuff a s soon as it comes out of the dryer, and put it right away. But that doesn't always work in my house because I never have enough time to fold and put away laundry all at once. I have better luck getting any laundry done at all if I just pile up the clean stuff up so I can continue to wash/dry, until I either get motivated to fold and put it away, or beg my husband to take me up on my invite to a laundry folding party.

What do you do?

It's generating heat!

2006-12-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

From what little I know, a compost pile that gets hot is a good thing... Right? I noticed today in the cold that the pile (within a rubbermaid tote with clear sides) is fogged up and warm. I just started it yesterday... And am cooking like a fool so I can add another veggie scrap layer. :-)

Started a compost pile

2006-12-17T19:52:00.000-08:00

Today we started a compost pile. I'm brand new to this, so I don't know if my first attempts will produce anything but a pile of muck - but we'll see. It'll be fun to put our fruit and veggie scraps into something other than a garbage bag or a field!

The first post

2006-12-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

Is always a boring one, isn't it?

I started this blog to share my experiences of being an at-home mom with my children, enjoying God's great earth and doing our part to help conserve the land to the best of our ability and knowledge. I hope to share with you resources I have found to be helpful, share motivation, and I hope you will share the same in return!