My ducks are in a row

I have been bummed since we moved. We no longer have the peaceful view, I no longer have my clothes line, I am in a downstairs apartment now, and it has really began to sink in that I am truely, truely living in an apartment now.

But, we have new friends. Friends we didnt have before. Friends that we love very much!

In our back yard...




Once we started feeding them a nice breakfast of Cheerios...many more came :)


We also have a few other friends that we didnt have before. The nest was here when we moved in, and we got pictures as soon as we noticed that they had hatched!




Now they are starting to look more like a bird and less like a fragglerock :)



I recently added a bird house, a bird feeder, and a humingbird feeder...and now I have a hummingbird that comes daily!

Farmers market love!

My first trip to the farmers market left me with much love for the market. I chose the Clintonville Farmers Market. Most everything that I bought was organic and VERY cheap considering.

A true sanity saver!!!!!

We have fruit flies! And LOTS of fruit flies at that! I was just about to go insane with I found this little trick on line!

It works amazing! All you need is paper, tape, a jar, and some kind of fruit!

The fruit flies (or gnats) go in and cant find their way back out :) When its full, I just take the jar outside, lift the paper out, setthem free and the out the paper back.

A great taste of summer!

I made JAM! Not just any jam, but really great tasting pectin FREE jam! The only ingreds. in my jars are strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice!

And it tastes and looks AMAZING!!!!!!

It is less of a "jam" and more of a fruit spread! It is great!

Yo with no gurt!

I have been attempting to make even more items at home than I already do. I also have been trying to focus on using less plastic, since as well all know there are a ton of chemicals in plastic (yes, even in those "safe" plastics!).

So I have started the journey to homemade yogurt. I found this heating pad method, which may have worked great, accept after I started the process and went to check on my yogurt, I found that my yogurt was cold! No where near the 110 degree that it needed to be!

The reason I soon found was that my heating pad has a safety feature on it and it completely turns off after a certain amount of time, which was no where near the 7ish hours that I need to keep my yogurt-to-be warmed.

It was a bust, but here are pictures any way :)

Oh and I have found that the oven method worked well for me, but I dont like having to use my oven for 6+ hours, not really sure that I am saving any money doing that. So, the next batch I am doing in the crock pot!



Once the milk got to the right temp, I put it in the cup to make it easier to pour!


Jars keeping warm, just waiting for some attention!


My ever present helper!



Let the heat begin!

MMM MMM Good!

I have been on many a journey as of late. A few of which are shared here and a few that are not.

One of my recent "to do's" was to learn to make yogurt at home. In my journey to do so, I came across the most amazing, simple, tastey, healthy granola recipes! My children LOVE it!

I opted to use extra thick steel cut oats and to over toast them just a tad, so that they are crunchy, yet chewy :)

My kiddos love it with just the oats, but I also chose to put some sun dried fruit and toated almonds in some for a more grown up feel.

The next batch I make will have mini chocolate chips and coconut in it :) That should be sometime this week!

Oats fresh from the oven! They were soooooooooo yummy when they were warm!




Phillip was very happy with his loot!

Who needs an "Aqua Globe"?

Not me thats for sure! I saw the ad for an "Aqua Globe" on television and I thought they were very neat. However, there is no way that I would pay that cost and risk having one of my, ever so graceful, children break it within the first month of owning it.

And lets face it, a pretty, shiney, colorful thing such as this in the plant that is sitting on the floor is sure to attract the hand of Mr. Curious himself!

So I made my own and it is soooooooooo simple. I used a water bottle. I opted for the Dasani bottle, simply because it is more sturdy.

I cut the end off, insert, fill with water ,and viola! And you cant really even see it when it is in the pot!

Where does the time go?

Phillip has made the two year mile stone. This is a glorious, yet sad moment for me. It seems like he joined our family only a year ago.

The time does seem to fly these days. I keep meaning to slow down and enjoy things more and I somehow am too busy to do so.

Anyhoo, here's my big boy! (For the privacy of other familys I have only posted pictures of Phillip and none of the actual party where all of the fun happened.)





Kevin and I have decided that we will only buy one gift for each child for their birthday, and we have decided that the one gift should be something that will last for a long time, and be enjoyed for that time.

We have in the past been known to buy a bunch of junk toys that the children play with for only a few days and then we end up putting them in the donate box a few months later, still almost brand new! We have just lost that money, its gone and there is no getting it back. So instead of doing this any longer, one toy. That is all. No more than one.

Phillip recieved a Parents magnadoole. He even now, a month later is still enjoying it on a DAILY basis! I knew this waould be a good, safe investment because Abagael has a magnadoodle and they fight over it often! However, her magnadoodle has a metal tip and Phillip caused it to rust a while back by sucking on he tip of the pen.

I made certain to a magnadoodle that had a covered end :) The one that we purchased was made by Parents and it is actually a VERY well made item! I would HIGHLY recomend it!

And like all good things...

A good portion of my "homestead" has came to an end.

We moved. And although we only moved a very short distance, it cost us a lot in the "homestead".

We have moved to a larger place, and we have had to forefit the clothes lines, and the nice view that we had from our back porch.

We are now on the ground and have a huge yard for the children, but no great peaceful view to relax to.

The bubbles of perfection

Abagael blowing bubbles, when she thought that no one was looking.



I got caught watching her :)

There's a storm a comin' pa!

Abagael is very curious about weather. She takes every opportunity to drag Kevin out and have him explain everything to her.



And what they are watching is this....

Whats that you say? A b.l.e.n.d.e.r?

I have found the blender L-O-V-E! I have wanted a blender for so very long. However, I didnt want just any blender, I wanted a GOOD blender. And I found a nice glass Oster blender with all the bells and whistles at Target for a mere $25! I have put it to VERY good use!

They were able to down the entire thing in less than 15 minutes! Its just a simple berry smoothie with yogurt and soy milk.







And, since no member of our family gets left out...I have started making smoothies for our worms! They LOVE them and down then in only a day or so! This smoothie contains so many items, I dare not list them!

Feelin' the love

The children can't seem to get enough of Thomas!
Just look at this hug!!!!



Abby being the mama that she is, is totally in love!



Say cheesssseeeeeee!!!!!!!

A PRIDEful day

We went to the PRIDE parade in Columbus with some friends. It was an overall excellent experience.



Abagael and Lisa, the two shall never part!






The "Flaggots"


The after crowd, or at least part of it. There is no way I could have pictured the whole thing!