Been a while....

Its been months since I have spent any time with my blog. I think of it often but it seems that time just slips away each day. So here... I am making an attempt. We are heading into my favorite time of the year fall to winter. Baking, cooking, family and friends, nothing better. So here is my challenge to myself, every week I am going to bake something new and I will make sure to post about it, failure or not. I don't know what will be my first baking adventure but Monday is already over, so I guess I better get going. More to come.

In the mean time here are some pictures from our recent trip to the beach.

So God Made A Farmer

Reluctantly I watched the Superbowl. As many of you know I am not a football fan, I watch it because my family does and apparently my almost 2 year old really likes football too. At least with the Superbowl there are interesting commercials or lack there of. This year, I found two rather compelling ones the Budweiser/Clydesdale commercial and out of no where, the dodge commercial. Ironically my grandfather is a Dodge man and a farmer. For as long as I can remember he has always driven a Dodge dually truck and been a farmer. So here are the words to commercial. I love them. 

 

And on the 8th day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker!”. So, God made a farmer!

 

God said I need somebody to get up before dawn and milk cows and work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board. So, God made a farmer!

 

I need somebody with strong arms. Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry and have to wait for lunch until his wife is done feeding and visiting with the ladies and telling them to be sure to come back real soon…and mean it. So, God made a farmer!

 

God said “I need somebody that can shape an ax handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And…who, at planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon. Then, pain’n from “tractor back”, put in another seventy two hours. So, God made a farmer!

 

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop on mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So, God made a farmer!

 

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees, heave bails and yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink combed pullets…and who will stop his mower for an hour to mend the broken leg of a meadow lark. So, God made a farmer!

 

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight…and not cut corners. Somebody to seed and weed, feed and breed…and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody to replenish the self feeder and then finish a hard days work with a five mile drive to church. Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who’d laugh and then sigh…and then respond with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life “doing what dad does”. So, God made a farmer!

There is a deep part of me that so desperately wants to be a farmer. A part of me, that wants to work the land, live off of it, and cherish it. Maybe someday. Until then I can dream about it.  

Confessions

Here goes nothing.....

I LOVE to throw things away!

I LOVE to buy things!


Now I know this seems kinda crazy, but its true, I love to do both. Someone once told me to solve an inner problem, you must first admit it. So there! I did it! I admit it. I love to throw things away as much as I love to shop. I don't necessarily throw away the things I buy right away, but if I haven't used it in 4 months or more it goes in the trash! So now, here is my next confession.

My husband LOVES to keep things.

This creates a problem. A big problem. Normal couples argue about money or how to parent their children, Anthony and I argue about stuff and whether to throw it away or not. Silly, I know, but true. Most wives hide their shopping habit, I hide bags of stuff that I throw away until I can get it to the dump.

I love my husband so as part the new me in 2013, I am going to make a conscience effort to buy less and be a little more organized so it is not always easier to just throw it away, instead maybe find a special place for it.

I think part of my love for throwing things away comes from the fact that we have moved a lot in the last few years. Unfortunately, my throwing away habit didn't really come into play until the last move. As I went through boxes and unpacked I found myself getting really angry. Angry because what I found in some boxes was of no value and didn't really moved in the first place.

So here's the mission. Start small.

Go through one closest or room a week. Organize, throw away and enjoy. I started a couple weeks ago, and I am really beginning to enjoy my progress.

Good Luck

Happy New Year!

As 2012 came to a close, I found myself, wondering where the heck did the year go. So here's a quick recap of what I remember, January was filled with plenty of dog shows, snow days and learning to crawl, February was my birthday and more crawling, March was a biggy, with the celebration of Aiden's FIRST birthday, April, and May are kinda of a blur, the end of June we moved into our new rental house, July and August was full of more dog shows, sun, fun, 4-H, and our 4th wedding Anniversary, September Anthony got promoted and learning to walk, October was the return of pumpkin patches and halloween costumes, November was family Thanksgiving, and for the first time in a VERY long time my grandparents were home for the holiday, December was filled with tons of holiday memories, an amazing trip to South Carolina and of course, Christmas. In amongst all of that Aiden grew like a weed, learned to walk, babbled away and laugh hysterically at us, the dogs and best of all his toots!

The worst part of 2012 was loss of Kirby. He left me on October 4. Most importantly he was with us, and enjoying life. I miss him everyday.

So here comes 2013....I don't know if I am ready! I think I am going to start off the year by being thankful. While I am always thankful, I am going to make a better effort to voice it. Let me start off by saying, I love my husband. I am thankful for him everyday, he puts up with my craziness and is always willing to participate in my adventures. Anthony, I love you, you are everything to me and more. Aiden is the best thing that ever happened to us, and I am so thankful that I share him with you. To my parents, thank you for always babysitting, supporting and loving us. There are not enough words to describe how grateful we are for you. Jason, my dear brother, you have taught Aiden so much, annoying or not, you are truly a great teacher, babysitter and friend to not only Aiden, but to Anthony and I. We wish you the very best in 2013 it is looking awfully bright for you!

Lastly to my friends and extended family, you all play an amazing roll in our lives. I love you, we love you. Thank you for supporting, loving and learning with us. It's been an amazing year and 2013 is looking even better.

So 2013, bring it on.

Starbucks good to drink AND good for the soul

I have worked for Starbucks for 6 years and loved almost every minute of it. While I love the day to day work of interacting with customers, I really enjoy the volunteer work we do. Recently the gig harbor store got together went to help out a wonderful facility right in our back yard. I was amazed to find out such a place even existed in gig harbor. It's name.....'A place called Hope' a foster and adoption office. About 12 of us got together, re-organized and cleaned 2 rooms, one being a classroom the other being a meeting room between a potential new family and child. We were so happy to be helping out our community. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Starbucks Barista's rock! On a sidenote, we had many other family member volunteers, including my wonderful husband!

Trying to sort through and organize thousands of clothes, shoes and other donations.

Trying to set up affective shelving for all of the tubs of clothing.

More organizing.

The tree one of our amazing barista's painted for the meeting room. Each volunteer put their hand prints on the tree, as a reminder that their our people out there that care.

Fellow barista and her son, putting his hand prints up on the tree.

My wonderful husband, making his mark.

Traci, my wonderful boss. It was a great day and we all had a wonderful time. I could not think of a better way to spend a day off. 

Busy Summer

Since February, we have been on the go and it doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. We have celebrated Aiden's first birthday, moved into our own house, shown a lot of dogs, Anthony was promoted and most importantly we have had a lot of fun. My next few posts will be all about catching up. I wont go crazy but I will spend sometime reflecting on things we have done and maybe somethings we will do next year instead. Hope everyone has had a great summer and as we head into fall, there will be plenty of baking, joy and all around excitement!

Baby Food!

When we found out we were having a baby, we immediately started talking about what type of diapers we wanted to use, whether I was going to breast feed or not, and what types of food we were going to expose the baby too. All of these conversations were long, thoughtful, and researched. We initially decided on cloth diapers, which we used for the first 6 months or so. They were fabulous and I have no complaints about them, however, when I went back to work it became very difficult keeping up with the washing, hanging to dry and so on. So onto disposables we went. Ok, enough about diapers onto whats really important FOOD! One thing Anthony and I both agreed on is that I would nurse Aiden as long as I could and then we would feed him the best possible things we could, whether it be formula or when the time came the best possible whole foods. So we set out on our journey and here we are, making huge batches of baby food about once a month. Here is Aiden investigating what I am doing in the kitchen!
Below are some pictures of what our process looks like when we make baby food. Aiden has consistently eaten homemade baby food from the beginning. The only time he has eaten jarred baby food was when we flew to Boston for a week and it was just plain easier when traveling. Other than that he has only ever eaten what we have made. Below is a picture of his food frozen into individual portions ready for use whenever needed! I believe these two bags are Yams (on the left) and Zucchini, Yellow Squash and Onion (on the right).
This is my handy-dandy food processor. My mom bought a magic baby bullet and while I love it for blending up small things, the food processor works better for large batches.
This is a bunch on the food put into containers waiting to be frozen. This food includes, bananas, acorn and butternut squash, eggplant, parsnips, turnips, and peas. I add herbs and spices to different vegetables to help develop his palate even more.
Here are some individual containers that I use to plan out meals for Aiden, these are kept in the fridge and can be used whenever. These are perfect serving sizes and Aiden eats about 2 at every meal.
Here are the freezer containers! I love these!! I wish I had more of these, but unfortunately you can't just order these. So I am stuck freezing food in batches, but I love it. I love knowing that what Aiden is getting is the best possible food I can give him.
I have learned I am very lucky as Aiden will eat and try anything when it comes to food. He loves pretty much everything and always wants to eat what we are eating. We continue to encourage this behavior and I am sure we will have our ups and downs but for now we are enjoying making his food and watching him explore new foods as we introduce them to him.

Happy Eating!