The Importance of MY Marriage

I was browsing Pinterst and I stumbled upon this image.  I had to click.  It sent me to an awesome blog post.  We are THAT family: 100 ways to make your marriage rock.

This was such a great reminder for me.  God created marriage as something sacred.  A gift for humans.  I want to have an awesome marriage and that takes work but it is worth it.  I want my marriage to rock.  I want to be married for 60, 70, even 80 years.  Check it out, there's a ton of great ideas to keep your marriage healthy!

7 Tips for Road-tripping with a crawling baby

We had a blast on our vacation.  It was a great time for us to do things together as a family.  That said, I wouldn't do everything the same if we took another road trip with a crawling baby.  Here are some tips, some that we did and some that I will do on our next trip!

#1  Do most of your driving during nap times.

#2 Don't plan on driving for more than 4 hours a day.  Its hard to keep an awake baby happy in a car seat for long!

#3  Bring lots of toys and pacifiers.

#4  Know places that you can stop if your baby needs to get out of the car.

#5  Bring some sort of large blanket for your baby to crawl on anywhere you stop.  (We brought an old sheet)

#6  If possible, have another child or an extra adult sit in the back seat with your baby.

#7  Be ready when bedtime comes.  Have camp set up before baby starts getting tired.

If you are prepared, you can have a great trip with a baby!

Summer Vacation

Husband and I just took Little on her first vacation!  We visited Husband's family and the Oregon coast.  It was a great time for all of us to be together.

Here are a few snapshots of our trip!

New Diaper Bag!

I take my diaper bag everywhere with me and it has gotten very beat up.  It was waterproof which sounds awesome right?  Except that the plastic lining rips very easily.  Its a mess.

I was shopping with my mom the other day and I found an awesome diaper bag for cheap!  12 dollars?  Sounds good right?  I love it!

Cute and subtle print.  I love it!

It has pockets for everything!  Everything is in there and its smaller than my old bag.

Whole Wheat Peach Cobbler

I love peach cobbler.  I could eat it all day.  Its a dessert and breakfast.  I make and eat a lot of cobbler during the summer so I try to make it as healthy as possible.  This cobbler has a lot of fruit and not a lot of sugar.  The biscuits are made of whole wheat flour.  Yummy, easy, and healthy.  What more could you ask for?  I used a mix or white and yellow peaches this time.  I've used just white, just yellow, even mixed in blackberries before.  Its always great.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
4 cups sliced peaches
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons softened butter
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk

Mix 1/2 cup sugar and cornstarch in a pot.  Mix in half of the peeled and sliced peaches and heat on medium, stirring frequently.  Boil and stir for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.  Stir in remaining peaches and pour into pan.  (I used a 9x13 but many sizes will work)

Meanwhile, mix flour, baking powder, salt, and 1 tablespoon sugar.  Cut butter into flour mixture.  Stir in milk.  Drop large spoonfuls onto the peach mixture.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes until the biscuits are lightly browned.  Serve warm or room temperature.  Its great with vanilla ice cream!

Linked at http://frugallysustainable.com/ and http://www.jillshomeremedies.blogspot.com/ and http://gnowfglins.com/

Chicken Homes

I am planning my flock of chickens.  Only 4 chickens.  Since I have already chose the breeds I would like to get, its time to choose what kind of coop they will live in.  There are many many different kinds of coops available on the market.  I looked around and it looks like I could buy a coop for 4 chickens for close to $300.  The real expense is the shipping.  Since these coops are quite heavy, shipping costs a lot of money.

There are also many different ideas floating around for DIY coops.  I was first considering finding some sort of free structure and modifying it to be a chicken coop.  Although that sounds like a cheap option, as I was looking around, I realized that there are not a plethora of free structures that I could turn into a chicken coop.


I finally decided that I will have to build my own coop (with lots of help from Husband).  I want a chicken coop that won't take too much time or money to build.  The point of chickens is not to spend a lot of money on them but rather to have pets that produce good food for my family.  As I was looking at coops, the idea of a chicken tractor kept catching my eye.  A chicken tractor is a basically a chicken coop and run that can be moved around the yard.

http://ana-white.com/2012/05/plans/frame-chicken-coop

The benefits of moving your chickens around the yard is that they will be able to fertilize a different section of yard every day so they will not kill the grass and they will be able to find bugs and grass rather than living on a piece of bare earth.  I would love for our chickens to be able to free range but for safety, they will probably need to be locked up when we aren't home.

http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/better-homes-gardens/diy/articles/a/-/5829854/chicken-coop/

The coop design that I have found that seems to fit all of our restrictions is an a-frame coop.  This coop has the coop area with nesting boxes and roosts above and an enclosed run below.  It is light weight so that it can be moved around a yard.  Here are two different plans I have found for an a-frame coop!  The unpainted wood coop seems to be a little bit less complex and therefore cheaper.  The green coop is a bit more complex and also, designed in the metric system.  I'll keep you updated on what I end up building.  Any ideas for the color?


Linked at frugallysustainable.com 

Baby Wipe Solution

I made my own baby wipes a few days ago.  Here's a quick solution to wet them.  I like the simplicity of it and the fact that it is easy to modify to use the soap and oil that you like.

1 cup hot water
2 squirts baby soap
1 teaspoon baby oil

Mix well in a wipes box.  Drop your stack of wipes in and shake to wet all of the wipes.  Keep sealed to prevent them from drying out.  Wash with your cloth diapers!

Need to know how to wash cloth diapers or just washing wipes?

Check out How to Cloth Diaper Your Baby #3 Laundry!

Linked at http://frugallysustainable.com/ and http://www.jillshomeremedies.blogspot.com/

A Little Huckleberry Finn

I dressed up Little and realized that she looked like Huckleberry Finn (or Tom Sawyer says grandma).  Either way, she looks super cute.  Everyone keeps guessing that she's a boy.  I love it.

Its tiring being a little scoundrel.  :)

Prunesicles

I keep seeing beautiful popsicles in blog world and on pinterest.  They are beautiful and fun and--my baby is no where near an age where I could hand her a popsicle.

What we are making I'm calling prunesicles.  They are cute.  They are frozen.  They are not fun.

Little has been on a poop strike.  The kind of poop strike where you have to go to the doctor.  We are giving her prune juice every day to try to keep things moving.  The problem is, prune juice comes in quite large cans for an infant.  Enter prunesicles.  I'm freezing teeny cubes of prune juice so we'll have single (baby) portions ready to go.

So those cute popsicles you're making?  I bet they can't beat my prunesicles.  Come try one.  No, really.

Chicken Dreams

So it looks like my chicken dreams are about to become reality.  What chicken dreams?  The dreams I have to raise my own chickens for eggs.

Chickens are pretty cool.  They are pets that also make breakfast for you.  Raising chickens is quite cheap.  Chickens are fun.  I want them!

I would like to raise chickens from day old chicks.  They take a little bit more work that way because chicks require 90 degree heat and frequent care.  They are also more vulnerable to disease when they are teeny.  The reason I would like to get them young is that if chicks are handled frequently, they will grow up to be friendly pets.  I would love it if Little could help to care for the chickens!

I am probably going to be getting our chicks in about a month.  Right now I'm looking into what breeds would be good for us and where we can get them.

Here's the breeds I would like to get.  We can only have four chickens so we would get one of each.

Buff Orpington.  These are large friendly birds.  They lay eggs dependably but occasionally decide to hatch their own (called going broody).  This would be a problem for us since we would not have a rooster.

Australorp.  These are the Australian version of the Orpington.  They are also large friendly birds although they may actually be better layers.

Easter Egger (also called the Ameraucana).  These are sweet birds who lay a whole range of egg colors including blue and green.  I can't wait to get a few weird eggs!  Another bonus of this breed is that they hardly ever go broody.  Awesome.

Barred Plymouth Rock (also called the Barred Rock).  These birds lay prolifically and are known to be extremely sweet birds.  Aren't they pretty too?








Because of the season that I will be getting my chicks, most feed stores won't be selling them so I am looking at buying them online and getting them shipped to me.  Buying chickens through the mail seems so weird but I want them soon so I guess I'll try it!

Do you raise backyard chickens?  What breeds do you like?  Have you bought chickens by mail?

Linked at http://www.iheartnaptime.net/