Cold All Around

It has been down right cold the past few days, in and out of the house! Little one has started working on her first teeth, so it is a constant race to keep cool toys and frozen paci's on hand.

Here she is enjoying one of her frozen paci's.

While she did this I decided to whip up a batch of Grandma Sheryl's Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies.

 

 

 

Unfortunately it is a "Super Top Secret Recipe" so I can't post how to make it. Just imagine how heavenly cookies can taste and multiply that by 1000. Then you are in the range  of how great these are! Perfectly soft and chewy.

 

Now the day is a little warmer.

 

 

The Most Joyful.....and most Stressful Time of Year

Thanksgiving is over now, and Christmas cheer has set in around the country.....except for this house!

 

The countdown is 2 weeks from today we move.... YIKES! I am ready to move, and yet, so completely unprepared.

 

This past weekend hubby and I did a lot of projects around the house. I painted our closet, and he built the organization unit.

 

 

 

He did such a good job! We have maximized the space!! WooHoo!

 

I also painted little one's room.

 

 

She has one pink wall, and the other 3 are cream. Daddy doesn't like pink, so we toned it down just for his comfort :) While I was doing this, little one was watching Ice Age and being so good!

 

 

She liked the movie a lot, at least she liked to talk to all the characters!

 

Still on the list to be done:

1. Finsih back porch

2. Install carpet

3. Don't lose sanity

 

I think the third is the hardest. But with the jolly time of year aproaching time with family will help to balance it all out. Began ordering Christmas presents today so a few things have been checked off the to do list.

 

Have a happy day, and enjoy the time together with the ones you love. It is the best gift of all.

 

 

Moving and Milestones

The countdown begins, just 3 short weeks until hubby graduates, and we move! It is finally here. I am so ready to be in our home, to live in one place rather than 2. I am very thankful that we do have a home to move to.

 

This past weekend one of my best friends helped me pack up most of the house, for now we are living on necessity only. Which I don't mind, but there is still so much to do. The garage is half full with boxes already. We will be home all next week, working to get the house all ready for total move in. I can hardly believe the time is here.

 

Next week to do:

1. Cabinet guys come to give a quote on new kitchen cabinets

2. Carpet measurements and possibly installation.

3. MAJOR cleaning.

4. Possible delivery of new refrigerator, stove and freezer.

5. Putting tile on back porch.

6. Finish the trim in the bathroom.

 

I can think of about 50 more things, but I figure that being realistic would be better than dreaming that we could get all of that done.

 

Having explained the moving, I suppose it is time to address the milestones:

 

Little one had her first tastes of rice cereal! Growing up so fast, at times too fast for Mommy's comfort. But I love to see her glee at discovering something new. However, there was not much glee with tasting cereal, but she is getting the hang of it. We are mainly giving through the bottle, to help her sleep  through the night and prevent crabby baby syndrome through out the day. So far one full  night of sleep, last night didn't go as well. But soon we will develop our new rhythm and sleep will come! (YAY)

 

 

Call me selfish, but a full nights sleep trumps the fact that we started cereal a mere 2 weeks earlier than recommended. Good news is, allergies basically don't exist in our family, so I have high hopes!

Sure doesn't look like it but she has caught on to using the spoon pretty quick!

For the love of Lemon

It is barely November and winter boredom has struck in this house! Little one and I had grocery shopping done well before 10:30 this morning. That leaves a long afternoon ahead, BUT while grocery shopping we picked up a bag of lemons because I have been dying to try out One Good Thing By Jillee's lemon vinegar recipe.

While trying to not only be self sufficient and frugal with our food supply, I have been trying to use less chemical cleaners as appropriate. Vinegar is and amazing cleanser  but the smell can be overpowering in our small bathroom. I am hoping that this lemon vinegar will remedy that! This will be a LONG two weeks.

Of course little one is helping! She loves to be in the kitchen with Mama.

Here is my "would have been way easier with a juicer" method, Cut up the lemons, and hand squeezed into the measuring cup ( I had originally planned to make lemonade, but it takes 2 cups and my hands got tired after one!)

Here the peels are in my 1 gallon jar filled with vinegar.

I strained the larger pulp and seeds from the juice and decided to go ahead and freeze for later. Each Willie the Wildcat head holds about 1/2 Tblsp of Juice.

Gotta love the k-state ice cube trays courtesy of my sis-in-law Fancy Farm Chic!

And on a side note today it sounds like the end of the world, how wonderful to live so close to Ft. Riley!

A loss on earth is a gain above....

Every time that a loved one suffers it is hard to deal with. It is even worse when the selfishness of another causes the suffering. My husband's grandmother passed away this weekend. Praise the Lord that her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren were able to see her. Grandma loved her little great grand babies  it was such a blessing to see her light up when they came in the room. We know she is in a better place, and are so thankful for that. But we always wish that there was more time. 

I had said I would post the success of the applesauce, and I don't want to over shadow the seriousness of Grandma's passing. I know she would be thrilled to continue on the tradition of doing for yourself and being self sufficient. She worked hard her whole life to raise four children, married to a struggling farmer. She and her husband survived the dirty thirties, and many trials associated with farming through the years. I didn't have the pleasure of knowing Grandpa, but Grandma was a sweet, kind, loving woman and will be so missed.

The applesauce turned out wonderful!  I did a lot of research of different recipes, and took most inspiration from this recipe. 

It took me about a half hour to peel and core a 3lb bag of red delicious apples all by myself. Well not really, hubby helped by entertaining the little one!

After that I chunked the apples up and threw them in the crock pot.

And sprinkled a good amount of cinnamon on top. It took about 3 hours for the apples to get soft enough to mash. And smelled heavenly through out that time!

I mashed the apples right in the crock pot, and added sugar to suite hubby's taste buds.

After completion we ate some warm chunky applesauce over ice cream. Almost as good as warm apple crisp!! 

I stored the leftover in an empty peanut butter jar in the fridge. 

I would make only one change and decrease the amount of cinnamon, as I thought there was a little too much! 

I made this applesauce for the price of the apples: $2.38, since I already had cinnamon and sugar on hand. So that makes this applesauce 10 cents cheaper than Great Value applesauce jars and does NOT have the extra preservatives and yucky ingredients that are not needed AND tastes SOO much better!!

I don't think I will ever need to buy applesauce pre made again!!

Goulash and Applesauce

Today is the dreaded Thursday that occurs every week. Hubby only has one class on these days and it is complete torture for him to be left in the house with nothing to do. Unfortunately until he graduates in December we are stuck in the big city that is 3 hours from the farm. This is his torture, he can't go work on the tractor or build fence, drill the wheat and about a million other things. In turn my torture is the fact that he mopes about the house all day, being bored out of his mind. 

To help fill the day, I saved grocery shopping for today instead of Tuesday, that equals and hour and a half of mopey husband free time! Little one and I have shopping down to an art now, she gurgles and laughs as I recited items from the list to her in that goofy-vowed-I'd-never-use-mom-voice. Of course to a 3 month old, I'm just AWESOME, not goofy.....right?!

I am a huge fan of easy throw 'em all in the same pot types of dishes, so today we tried one of Paula Dean's recipes Bobby's Goulash. It turned out pretty good. I ended up tweaking it a little bit, for one divided everything in half since there is just the two of us. Also used crushed tomatoes vs. diced as the hubby doesn't like chunks of tomatoes in anything, and replaced Paula's seasoned salt with our favorite all purpose seasoning Misty's, which is only sold in Nebraska. Even half a recipe made more than enough for us, so I froze half for an easy pull out meal later! 

Off to tackle homemade applesauce for a tasty treat for tonight. Plan to post some pictures and recipe tomorrow if all goes well!

Just Getting Started....

Just getting started applies to a lot of things in our life right now. Not just the blog, but getting started as a new mother, a wife and the amazing job of stay-at-home mom and housewife. 

Let me start by saying that a year ago, I never would have told you that I wanted to stay at home all day cleaning up spit up, slobber and toys galore or spend my time baking, cleaning and making healthy, affordable and yummy meals...but now I can say its the best decision my husband and I have ever made, for me to stay home and take care of our sweet baby girl. This decision was not made lightly or quickly. But for us it just didn't make sense to spend half a months pay on daycare, and the other half on fuel getting to and from work. 

The scariest part of it all, hubby is still in school, graduating this December  With no monthly paycheck and living off savings until we can get the fall crop in from the fields was challenging and stressful. I think more so for my husband than me. He is the main bread winner now and a lot rides on his shoulders. However, we have survived these past 3 months well, and now the Lord has blessed us by providing a full time agronomist job for him that will more than cover our household expenses. 

Through these first 3 months, I have done hours of research on ways to be self sufficient to save us money on groceries and other staples. It has been a wonderful adventure and I have found that I enjoy doing it. Currently we buy no pre-prepped food( ie: hamburger helper, Au gratin potatoes, etc.). I bake our own wheat bread, make our laundry soap, use home made cleaners ( it is amazing what white vinegar, lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide can do....not all together of course) At one time I was spending (way to much) money on natural, chemical free "safer" cleaners. Completely silly when a few simple ingredients like vinegar  or lemon juice can do just as good a job. I will admit some things still need a good dose of bleach (like a shower covered in dirt and grime and oil from a hard working farmer, or when little one forgets that the bath is NOT the place to use the restroom....) 

These are only a few things, but the laundry soap alone will save us $67 a year, and it will take 4 years of making the soap to use all the ingredients completely up. 

I hope to use this blog to encourage myself to continue to strive for more self sufficiency, and to share my journey with others. I realize that there are already hundreds of blogs that do this, so this is more for me than anyone else. But I do hope to possibly connect with other stay at home moms or wives and farmer's wives that have discovered their own way, and are willing to encourage a "newbie" in her journey to healthier, safer, more self sufficient living!