Sunday, April 29, 2012

Nursing In Public (comic)




 


I had to share this because it made me laugh! I guess these days are behind me for now until the next little one comes along but I still remember the funny looks I got from people when I NIP (nursed in public). I was never told that I couldn't do it somewhere though. 

Friday, April 27, 2012

And the winner for rolemodel of the year is....

I was in that wonderful store that we all love to hate (Wal*Mart) the other day and I heard the most horrific thing come out of someone's mouth and it's been on my mind non-stop since then. I was walking down the toy isle and a little boy who was probably about 4 years old went jogging by me with a big smile on his face. He said hi to K and then kept on sprinting down the isle. Not too far behind him was a woman who I'm guessing was his grandma, but may have been his mom for all I know and she was NOT happy with him. She kept yelling at him "get back here", "get over here", and on and on. Said little boy was not listening of course because it was much much more fun to stare at the wall of toys laid out in front of him. So Grandma/Mom tried one more time "If you don't get over here I'm going to KILL YOU". I am  pretty sure my jaw hit the floor, I could not believe that she said that to the little boy.

How in the world could any parent, grandparent, or caregiver say that to a child?! I was stunned. I know how frustrating kids can be, I know that the can test your patience to the very end, but I just can't wrap my head around telling a child you would kill them for not listening! What's going to happen when that little boy goes to school next year and gets mad because something doesn't go his way and he tells a teacher or another student that he's going to "kill them"? What a horrible thing to teach a child to say!

Okay that's the end of my rant for today! Happy Friday Everyone!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

What's For Dinner Wednesday!

Every Wednesday evening we get together with our neighbor Dee, that lives over the hill and have dinner here on the farm. Sometimes I make the main course and she makes the sides and sometimes it's the other way around. This time it was my turn to make the main dish and I just had to share it with you because it was so yummy! At the request of Dee for something Italian, I made stuffed shells and the recipe is below!


Stuffed Shells

Ingredients:

1 package of jumbo pasta shells
1/2 pound ground hamburger
1 container of ricotta cheese (16 oz)
1 pound of shredded mozzarella (divided)
12 ounces of Parmesan cheese (divided)
2 eggs- beaten
1 teaspoon of salt (optional)
1 tablespoon of dried parsley
1 teaspoon of black pepper
2 teaspoons of garlic (or more if your a garlic person like I am!)
1 teaspoon of onion powder
1 jar of spaghetti sauce (we like mushroom)

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Boil water and cook pasta approx. 10 minutes until they are al dente. Drain and rinse.
2. Brown the meat.
3. Mix together ricotta cheese, half the mozzarella, half the Parmesan, eggs, salt, parsley, pepper, garlic and onion. ***Please see note at the bottom*** Split mixture into two mixing bowls. Leave one bowl as is and in the other bowl mix in the ground burger.
4. Start filling up the shells and lay them into a 9x13 baking dish.
5. Spread remaining mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese over the prepared shells. Then pour the sauce over top.
6. Put in oven and bake on 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

***Note***
We like to have some of our shells be just the cheese mixture and some with the meat and cheese mixture. That is why I divide the mixture. If you want it to be all one flavor you can skip this step!

I promise next time to try to remember to get a picture so you can see what it looks like, I know with recipes it is much more appealing to see the food!!

This is my modified version of a recipe I found, the original recipe can be found here. And I have to say the original version submitted by Renee is excellent too, I just enjoy adding my own flair and tweaked it to fit my families taste!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

DIY Body Wash

Few weeks ago I made another of my DIY concoctions, body wash! I've been dying to tell you about it but wanted the chance to "test" it first. I found my recipe over at One Good Thing by Jillee, if you haven't already discovered her you must go check it out! I am addicted to her Pinterest board! AMAZING!


Here's what you'll need:
6 cups of water
3 bars of soap (I used 2 bars of Dove Sensitive and one of my favorite locally made goat milk soap)
Grater
And a pot to cook it all in!


Grate your soap (the purple and yellow flakes are from the goat milk soap, it's Love Spell scented and smells amazing!)


Next put it all together in a pot on the stove and start cooking. You're not going to want to go too far from the stove and make sure you stir it frequently or it will bubble over and make your freshly cleaned stove-top look like this!!


Once it's all melted down it's going to be pretty runny. Pour it all into a bowl and let it cool for 24 hours.


After it's all cooled down it will thicken up quite a bit and I poured it into an old body wash bottle of my daughters using a funnel.


And VIOLA, now I have my very own body wash! Stupid me, of course, threw away the receipt so I can't do a price breakdown for you but I know it's at least half the cost of buying body wash from the store!

finished product, all thickened up!

Results after 3+ weeks of use:
I'm still in love with this body wash, but there's been a few snafu's along the way. It seems to have thinned right back out. I don't know if it's simply a result of being in the hot steamy bathroom all the time or if it's because instead of used that one bar of goat milk soap in place of the 3rd Dove bar. It's not going to last me as long as I had initially anticipated, but I'm still using it and I plan to make it again after I tweak it. The other thing I thought of was maybe I shouldn't have used as much water because the goat milk soap is naturally a thinner consistency anyways. I promise to do another update when I do my second batch!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Picture Dump and 18 months!

Since my long time absence I haven't really given you an update on what's been going on around here lately. So I thought I would do a big picture dump and fill you in on all the goings on. Which I'm sad to say, isn't much.

My little farm girl in her bib's and boots!
March was so warm here in central PA and we took full advantage of it! We spent lots of afternoons out enjoying this nice summer-like air. Bug and I spent lots of time "helping" daddy with barn chores!

daddy and K in the tractor
All dirty after a hard days work in the barn!

Since we had such nice weather I decided K needed to bust out some of her pretty hand-me-down dresses from my friend Kaity! We particularly love this one!

If you look in the back of the wagon there's lots of clean clothes we took off the clothes line. Nothing says spring like fresh off the line clothes!!

Can you believe this?!? Bug finally has enough hair in the back to get an itty bitty little ponytail back there! Too cute!

Bug showing off her fancy new barn boots! Nope she's not a farm girl at all! LOL


She's recently become my little buddy in the kitchen. It can get a little messy sometimes, but that's half the fun! She's a very good at stirring and loves being able to dump the ingredients in after I measure them!


Can you believe that this little one is a year and a half old tomorrow?! It's insane. I can't believe it! My little baby is going up so fast and is turning into a toddler before my eyes! She no longer walks, she runs every where. She's got a huge vocabulary and is constantly surprising me with the things that she knows. A little bit of the "terrible twos" is peeking out here and there but overall she's a really well behaved kid. People are constantly telling me what a good little girl she is, it makes momma proud!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Dishwasher Detergent = FAIL (sort of)!

After my great success in making my own laundry detergent (click here) and all the money we're saving, I decided I wanted to try and make detergent for the dishwasher. I've been having trouble with lots of spots on my dishes and even after using a store bought dishwasher cleaner I still felt like my dishes weren't getting as clean as they used to. Our dishwasher is just over a year old so I know that's not the problem. So I was hoping that this might be my solution.

After lots of mixing and good smelling rinse aid I was hopeful that it would work. Unfortunately after two tries I had lots of stuck on food and very spotty dishes. The recipe I used called for Washing Soda, Baking Soda, Borax, salt, and this stuff I had never heard of called Lemi Shine. It's supposed to help when you have really hard water, and smells just like lemonade.

Being a good blogger and taking pictures.... too bad it was such a flop!


The only good thing that came out of my little experiment is that I am in love with Lemi Shine! It's amazing with my hard water! My glasses and dishes are spotless! If you have hard water, this is a must! They also make a rinse aid and a dishwasher cleaner.

Another good thing is after some whining on Facebook about my dilemma some friends recommended using vinegar as a rinse aid instead of that super expensive Jet Dry. Let me just say, amazing! I don't think my dishes have ever felt to good. We always were getting what I think was leftover soap residue on our dishes (again I think it was a result of hard water) and now they come out perfect!

Monday, April 9, 2012

He Has Risen!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Easter! We've had a weekend full of festivities! Saturday we went down to Bradford County have dinner with my mom's family and Bug got to spend some time with my cousins kids who are around the same age as her. We had so much good food to eat and I think the little ones had a good time playing together and hunting for eggs.

Bug talking to her littlest cousin
All four of our girls lined up in their pretty Easter outfits

getting ready to find eggs with Grammy
She found her first one!
then another...
and another!
I was surprised how well she did with the egg hunt. I wasn't sure if she would get it yet, but she picked it up quickly.


This morning we went to church services with S's mom and dad and his youngest sister and her husband. After service we all came back here and had lunch with them all plus our neighbor. More ham and lots of other good foods too! After we were done with that we hid eggs in the yard for Bug to hunt, and her uncle too! ;)

I got my basket and I'm ready to go!
Hey look Uncle B I found your special egg for you!
found one!
here's more!
checking out her loot!
look at all the yummy stuff!
putting her money from her eggs in her piggy bank.


Before bedtime tonight K-Bug and I snuggled up in the rocking chair in her room and I read her the story of Easter from her Beginners Bible. She really likes this bible. It has colorful pictures for her to look at while I read the stories and they're not too wordy that she gets bored.

I think it's a great little bible to start out with, and as she get's a bit older I'm sure her interest will grow. I know she doesn't really understand what I'm talking about, but it was still a good way to tie Jesus in with all the "bunny" filled events that seem to surround Easter. I want her to know that while bunnies are a fun part of Easter, that's not what it's ALL about.


I hope you all had a very "Hoppy" Easter! God Bless!

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Eggs with Kool Aid

For Easter this year we decided to try dyeing our eggs with Kool Aid (something I saw on Pinterest of course). I was a little unsure of how it would turn out and bummed that I couldn't find any blue or green Kool Aid at my local grocery store, but it turned out pretty good.


All excited about putting her first egg in!

helping daddy scoop it out

WOW Momma, look what happened!

Bug's pretty eggs

notice her red hands!

She had a pretty good time I think!
Now a few words to the wise about dyeing your eggs with Kool Aid...

#1. If you have a wooden farmhouse table.... don't do it without something to protect your table! Good thing I plan on re-doing that table this summer!
#2. If you plan on doing anything with your child in the next 24hours where it wouldn't be nice for them to by dyed different colors then I recommend waiting. K's hands were dyed red for about a day afterwards despite many hand washings and a tubby!

All in all I think our eggs turned out great! They were very colorful and vibrant. A few did color off in spots when I set them on the paper towel to dry, K didn't mind though!