Dilemma

I am trying to find just the right baby doll for Ailey for Christmas. I know I don't want any plastic/vinyl parts. I want it to look as close to a real baby/toddler as possible and I want her to LOVE it! Ailey is pretty girly and is very attracted to pink and purple already. For example, last night I went to Wal-Mart (oh, if I could've avoided it!!!) and I got my niece and nephew their presents for Christmas. My mom is getting Ailey a doll stroller for Christmas and I thought that would be perfect for my niece, so that's what I brought home. Ailey saw it sticking up out of the bag and immediately zoned in on it. She didn't know what it was exactly, but it was pink and she knew it was a toy. 'Nuff said. :) Anyway, I looked at Wal-mart for a baby and I did find a couple of little dolls that were plush and very cute, but I was wanting something bigger and they didn't have that. So, I decided to google it. So far, here is what I've found:

Manhattan Toy Baby Stella Doll In Beige

by Manhattan Toy

North American Bear Company Rosy Cheeks Baby Brunette

by North American Bear

BABY STELLA (BLACK HAIR)

North American Bear Company Rosy Cheeks Big Sister Brunette

by North American Bear

Heart Felts by Secelie on Etsy Here

They are all between $18-$24, so not unreasonable in my opinion. The first four are all on Amazon.com and the fifth is on Etsy. I DON'T KNOW WHICH ONE TO CHOOSE!!! I had Ailey look at all the pictures of them, but she seems to like them all! The thing I like about the first four is there are all kinds of accessories available like a baby carrying back pack and clothing, especially this one for the big sister doll:

How stinkin' cute is that?! (I'm thinkin' it would fit on the baby doll,too...;)

I don't know whether to get her the baby doll or the big sister doll. She's going to be a big sister soon, but she's still a baby herself! What to choose, what to choose?!

What do you think? I need opinions, here, people! I am seriously at a loss.

Oh, btw, the boys are getting the complete new set of Bible Man dvds that I was super blessed to receive from a great giveaway off of Octamom's blog!!! She has a really great one going on right now for the new Kari Jobe cd. How cool is that?! I am also sorta kinda thinkin' about making each of the kids their very own personalized bean bag chairs. (I've wanted to get some for YEARS now.) I don't know, yet, its a lot of work. I'm going to try and make the pattern first and if that's successful, I will carry on. If not, those might be birthday presents.;p

Quick update on the milk

We went on Saturday and got our first load of raw milk. We all really enjoyed meeting their family and the kids went off to play like they've known each other forever. I love their farm! Its so very much like what we would like to do someday. I do believe she and I are kindred spirits. :)

We brought the milk home (she gave us extra, too!) and I got started on how to separate the cream. I found some conflicting info, so I tried it two ways. I think the best way for me is going to be to just put it in my big crock and put it in the fridge over night and then skim. It takes a bit of time, but I am determined! I've also found yet another reason I need a thermometer for reading things in pots. I've also decided that we need to finally take the plunge and buy a big stock pot. :) Anyway, I have some heavy cream (I think) collection started in the fridge and hopefully, I will have enough to make some icecream soon. Yummy! Next, I want to try to make butter, though I don't know if that will be viable. I use a LOT of butter and I don't think I could make enough. I'll try it though! I also made some yogurt and it turned out just fine. I think it will be even better than the usual because of the richness of the milk. :) Anyway, that's what we've done so far with the milk, other than just drink it. The kids love it and Sam says its liquid gold. I think we're sold!

MMMmmmmmm.... and a gift

So, remember that link to the chocolatey-covered-peanutbuttery-goodness, otherwise known as buckeyes, that I put in a couple of posts back? Well, I made them.... WOW! I MEAN WOW!!! Reeses Peanut Butter Cups ain't got nuthin' on these bad boys! I didn't use 70% cacao, I used semi-sweet choco-chips instead because that is what I had on hand. I did make about half of them with the center empty of chocolate, but then I had chocolate left over so I gave the other half the bon-bon treatment. There is no need for senseless waste of chocolate around here! Now, I can sit on the couch, watch my "stories" (do Monk re-runs count as "stories"?) and eat my buckeye bon bons. :) I sent Sam to work with about a third of them and the tin came home empty. We have been eating the other 2/3 and here is what is left out of 64 of them:

Actually, this minus one more is what is left because after I took that first picture, I really needed to consume 2 more. Really, I promise, it was a real NEED:

Here is what the inside looks like right before I ate it:

Now, here is what I ended up with for a friend's baby, cuz I promised this baby's Gram I would and so there you have it. It would have been a bunny set, but these are for a boy and we don't want to start the scarring process too early. ;) They turned out better than I had hoped and I am now in the process of making another set with opposite colors for another friend's baby on the way. Ailey kept stealing them from me and carrying them around hugging them and giving them kisses:

And this is another gratuitous pic of the kids. They had been making stuff out of the couch and cushions all morning and were all three like this in what I was informed was a rocket ship:

Got Milk?

I was looking into a source for goat's milk around these here parts and was having NO success. I buy organic milk from the grocery store and wanted to see if I could get larger quantities of milk for a bit cheaper from a local source. My kids are inhaling the stuff and I can barely keep up! Right now, I am using a sneaky technique from the guru I will mention more about in a few lines by pouring half the gallon of milk into another clean empty milk jug and mixing it with reconstituted powdered milk. You can then freeze one or more gallons, though learn from my mistake and put it in the fridge until the froth has settled so it doesn't erupt like a volcano in the deep freeze...Yeah.

I was notified, however, that there is a source of raw cow milk and it is available to us via trade. Since all members of the previous generations of both Sam's and my families swear by it and how much better it is for you and oh-the-things-you-can-make-from-it, we are gonna give it a go. I'm even more excited by the prospect of being able to make the following from said milk: yogurt, cream cheese, butter, sour cream, heavy cream and buttermilk. You get buttermilk through the butter making process and cream cheese from draining yogurt and sour cream by letting heavy cream sit for a day or two and don't forget about the whipped cream from the heavy cream, too. Oh, and let's not forget about cheese! We go through cheese like it is going out of style! (There is a multipurpose trend in this domicile...one stop shopping, folks!)...I mean, hello!, what has taken me so long to get into all this?! Seriously, my grocery bill has the potential to drop drastically! Anyway, I'm just excited and I will try and document the occurrences as they take place.

Another thing I hope to be doing soon is dehydrating a bunch of stuff. I have had a dehydrator for a LONG time. I asked for it for Christmas once when I was a teenager. I know, I'm weird, but I wanted to make my own fruit roll-ups and dried apples and such. Anyway, it has hardly gotten any use and I intend to change that. I spoke to a lady in our homeschool group who is a grocery shopping, canning, dehyrating and bulk food storage guru. I'm still blown away by her ingenuity. I doubt I will ever reach her level, but I can incorporate so much more than what I am doing without much more fuss than I already make! Can't beat that.:) I'll keep you posted.

Glory to my God in heaven who makes it all possible!! You know God loves multipurpose, too. He did create the cow, after all!;p

Victorian Farm

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this series from BBC. I didn't even know it existed until a blogger I check on occasionally mentioned it. You can watch the entire thing on youtube. The kids were mesmerized by it as well and its soooo educational for the whole family. I watched them from youtube poster germanicfolc and just put all of the episodes in a playlist. Here is the link for the first installment: Victorian Farm - uploaded by germanicfolc. If you look underneath the viewer window, you will see the + sign and "add to". Just add to a playlist and then look above the viewer window by germanicfolc's name and click on the arrow next to the number of videos. It will bring up each installment in order. Put your cursor over each video and you will see a + sign show up. Just click on each one and you will see a queue show up at the bottom of your screen. When you get to the last one, go down to the queue and click on the first one in there and then click on the arrows pointing out in four directions under the viewer window and sit back and relax. It will play all the videos in succession in your queue! Nice, huh? (If you already knew how to do all that, hooray for you! I just recently learned you could do all that on youtube.;)

Trying some new stuff out

After coming to the conclusion that my favorite shampoo is just way too stinkin' expensive for me to continue to use,TM Shampoo" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "> I decided to do a bit of research to see how difficult making my own would be. Not so much as it turns out! This particular site is the one I found the most helpful. Step by step instructions are provided and different shampoo combos for different types of needs. I bought a small bottle of Doctor Bronner's Unscented Castile Soap (which has all kinds of applications!), orange essential oil and jojoba oil off of Amazon.com. That's basically all there is to it! Nice, huh?

I also am going to try this out: The Oil Cleansing Method - which I found on yonderwayfarm.com . Basically, you stop washing your face with soap or cleansing products and you use oil. Yep, you heard right...oil! So, I bought some sunflower oil and castor oil and I have jojoba on the way. I will also be putting the orange essential oil in this mixture. I want to get some tea tree, lemon and peppermint essential oils eventually, but all in good time.

I have plans to make my own conditioner, lotion and chapstick, too, but I need to order some beeswax, which I will also get off of amazon.com. :) Oh and I will be making my own cleaners soon, too. After I looked into couponing and couldn't find ANY for the "green" products with which I use to clean, I decided that I can make my own much more cost effectively and I KNOW what is in them! Plus, I'll get to use my castile soap and essential oils in addition to ingredients I already have anyway. See? MULTIPURPOSE! That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it! Plus, if you take the time to add up how much money you spend on cleaners and such, then take a look at what you would spend on the ingredients to make your own, its pretty astounding!

Oh, and did you know you can make your own "mineral" foundation out of corn starch and cinnamon? I might try it out to see if it truly works, though I never wear foundation. Oh, the things you run across in research!

A New Frontier

I made these vanilla wafers because I've been meaning to test out the recipe and also I was in the mood for banana pudding and didn't want to buy any. Here is where I got the recipe. Oh, my goodness these are addictive! Braden said that I need to make these homemade ones all the time and Zekey and Ailey had mouths too full of cookies to make much comment.



I had a hard time not grabbing still another one, myself. I would've continued in the cookie munching process, but I made these things for the pudding! Remember? The PUDDING!!! Okay, I just need to walk away...maybe just one more....:) Anyway, I do believe you are understanding the yumminess factor of these things. So, I'm sure you'll understand that I highly recommend making up a batch and then making up another one because the first one disappeared. I'm just warnin' ya.

The pudding did get made in the end AND I have leftover cookies!!! Betcha can't eat just one... :)

More adventures with Poo!

Last night we had home group and Zekey decided he would poo his britches....again. He did the same at Juan and Donna's Sunday, right before we were headed to church. Jeff, whose home Zekey decided to desecrate, is the one who noticed something smelled amiss. After asking Zekey if he had poo-poo in his pants, Zekey decided to give him a look-see and show him, thankfully in the bathroom. As he pulled his pants down for show and tell, the offensive poo-ball made its escape and rolled right out onto the floor. Jeff reacted in a much different manner than either Sam or I do....he started laughing so hard he couldn't breathe! Then, he came in to try and explain what was going on and it got all the rest of us laughing, too. Because I'm such a prepared and together mom, I had absolutely nothing in the diaper bag to put on Zekey's bum. No, extra undies or spare pull-up and no spare pants. I'm cool like that, yo. We ran into the same issue with Ailey a few days ago, so she now has spare clothes. I guess I better do the same for Zekey now. :) My jacket covered the area sufficiently to get him out to the van where we had a couple of beach towels waiting to be used as togas 'til we could get him home and into more appropriately sized and aged clothing. :)

Okay, fast forward to this morning. I changed Ailey's diaper and decided I would let her air dry for a couple of minutes before I put a new one on her. Normally, this proceeds as planned and no major catastrophe occurs. This morning was apparently special and I didn't get the memo. I went into the kitchen to get something and before I could turn around and come back into the living room, Ailey started crying in an alarmed manner and the boys started yelling at me that Ailey poo-pooed on the floor. AAAAaaaahhhhh! I managed to get to her before she stepped in it...again and got her cleaned up. I think the experience really disturbed her because she didn't stop crying until she was all clean again and then she stayed clear of the poo, but in line of sight for viewing purposes. So, I set to work getting the disturbing items off the floor and into the proper flushing receptacle and just as I came back for trip #2 (no pun intened:), Ailey left me an additional liquid present. Yay! I immediately got a diaper on that girl! I didn't need anymore surprises for the time being and finished cleaning and disinfecting. So much for all the benefits of air drying.....

After all of that, all I have to say is: Thank You, Lord, for giving me a sense of humor and reminding me last night how to use it. Thank You, too, for being my peace and calm in the midst of a very icky storm. Most of all, thank You for creating and giving ideas to the person who developed Green Works disinfecting wipes! Amen!

Death to Tastebuds and other tidbits

The culinary happenings have been ramped up around here lately. Sam started it a few weeks ago by making his own salsa. He doesn't really like jalapenos, so he opted for habaneros and cayenne peppers. He got it all blended up (he doesn't like chunky) and then offered it to me. I ate some and it had a good flavor, heavy on the cilantro, then the fiery inferno hit. Now, I'm all for spicy. I love spicy. I do NOT love so-hot-your-taste-buds-were-brutally-murdered-in-the-process spicy! Milk was not even an option to tame the heat. This was a case of having to keep eating it 'til your mouth is numb. Yeah. So, anyway, he rather enjoyed that batch.

Then I began a slow journey of getting back into baking and made up a loaf of banana-pumpkin bread and a cobbler, then a box cake or two. After a couple of weeks of slow, I now have cookie dough balls from two batches of dough in the freezer awaiting being made into bouquets, eaten straight out of the freezer or in actual baked form. I also made up a couple of loaves of pumpkin bread, an apple pie, a German Chocolate Pie, made a double batch of fruit bars (which have vanished completely) and I made up a new batch of Amish Friendship Bread starter. Let the good times roll!!!! I was going to make up some brownies, but then I remembered that the chocolate-chocolate chip version of the friendship bread has brownies beat, hands down. Seriously! So, that is why I had to begin the starter again....4 more days til I can make some! Woo-hoo.

In dinner world, I've been making as many things in the crock pot as possible. I made pasta sauce from scratch for the first time ever in the crock pot and it turned out really good! Wanna know a secret that I learned from someone else? Put a can of rotel in it. It gives it a bit of a kick and its soooo goood! Don't think I'm going to be buying jarred sauce anymore....well, as long as I can get my act together and get the sauce into the crock pot in time! I also made chicken spaghetti in the crock pot and took it to our church pot luck and was asked for the recipe. Now, if only I can remember what all I put in it! Haha! Pot roast and chili followed, all successful. What was not successful and needs to be revamped and reconsidered was my not-at-all-yummy attempt at homemade hamburger helper. :( I will try it again, but will do things a bit differently next time. BTW - I cannot even begin to praise our amazing God enough for how well I feel now!!!! Thank you, dear, precious Lord!

I also have a few recipes waiting in the wings and will direct you to them here (Kristina, I know you will "thank" me for this later, mmwwaahahahaha!;):

Buckeyes - found over at SmittenKitchen (her photo, too;)

That's a whole lot of peanutbuttery-choclate-y goodness going on there. Must. Make. Some. ...and then probably some more.:)

Death by German Chocolate Brownie Cookie

Yeah.

Coffee Bites - over at Chickens in the Road

Sam's interest was piqued when he spied these, so you know I have to make some for him!

Oh and probably within the next day or two, I'm going to make some banana pudding from scratch. Got some ripe bananas in the kitchen calling my name. I might even make my own vanilla wafers. Been meaning to do that for a while now, anyway....

THEN....Sam made some more salsa. He put even more habaneros in it. MORE! He brought some in and was eating it and was saying that it was definitely hotter than the last batch and how his mouth was on FIRE! He was having a hard time describing it to me between gasps of breath. Then, he asked me if I would like to try it. Um NO! Nopers! Definitely UH-UH! He was all like why not? And I was all like because I don't want my mouth to burn completely off of my face. So, I didn't try it. The next day he came home and got the salsa and chips out and came in and said in what sounded like a boy's voice when he hits puberty starting out with a low tone and ending with a high, "I think this stuff got hotter since yesterday!!!!!!!!" I told him before he was even able to ask, "Well, I'm certainly not going to try it now!!!"

He still has some in the fridge he works on a session at a time every day.....and I still stay away from it. The end...for now.:)

Test Run

We went down to San Antonio this past weekend to visit our compadres, the kids' godparents. It was a bit of a test to see if I could handle a road trip and visit. Going down there was fine and we always LOVE spending time with Juan and Donna. We ended up only being able to spend one night, but it was really for the best. Ailey apparently didn't want to go to sleep and so I ended up having to get up and take care of that situation. Then, we had the time change which the kids don't ever get the memo about until around three days after said event. SO, basically everyone woke up extra early Sunday. We visited the church we used to be a part of when we lived there and visited with friends we haven't seen for a while. Then, we all went home and naps ensued. Well, I never did actually go to sleep, but I did lay down for a bit. Donna took the boys to the park and Juan, Sam and Ailey took the naps. :) Anyway, in late afternoon, I persuaded Sam to go with me to the La Cantera mall to go to the Apple store so we could get a new mouse. We came to the entrance and "WOW!" is all I was able to come up with. Sam was equally in shock. I have never seen a store soooooo busy. Think Best Buy on a Saturday times 5. Yeah, it was packed! We were able to get an appointment, though, because unlike Best Buy, there were about a million employees working there that day to handle business. It was a very interesting experience to say the least. I was really hoping that since I was pretty sure the mouse was going to have to be replaced and it was covered under the warranty that we could upgrade to the new magic mouse and we just pay the difference in price:

No scroll ball to get messed up! (that is the issue with ours) Well, the guy at the store dashed my hope to smithereens. He said that was a no-can-do. Bummer! We had to wait about 10 minutes for our appointment, so we perused the gadgets on display. After we got to play with this,

we changed our minds about the mouse. Its just like their track pad on their laptops, only its wireless for a desk top. Its very neat! It clicks like a mouse instead of you having to tap it, which is something I really don't like about track pads on pc laptops in general. (the mac notebooks' track pads click, too.) You don't have to move it around like a mouse. Niiiiiice. BUT, its $70. Maybe for a birthday? I think we'll just stick to getting our current mouse replaced. ;p

Anyway, after a long wait trying to find the one in stock that the computer said they had, it turned out that the computer was lying. So, he said what they could do was place an order and in a couple of days when the replacement mouse got there, all we had to do was walk in and trade in our mouse. I just laughed. I told him there was no way that was going to happen since we lived a few hours elsewhere and all and asked if we could make the exchange in Austin. That was doable, but now we are supposed to be there within 5 days to get it done. I don't think its going to happen. Yeah. So, I guess I'll be calling the Austin store to rearrange it all. Let me just say, that I am a HUGE fan of apple products, but trying to get replacement stuff or things fixed is a bit of a hassle because you have to take it to one of their stores and they are all a good drive away. I think I'll be making a suggestion they put a store in here or Temple. I'm thinking they would get more than enough business to warrant it....;)

Okay, so after that interesting string of events, we headed back so that we could get packed up and on the road home. I started not feeling so well and just wanted to go home and so did Sam. We said our goodbyes and got in the van and headed out. Then we found out we forgot one of the noise machines and had to go part of the way back down the road to get it. We hadn't gotten very far, thank you Lord! Finally, we were headed back in the right direction.

Now, I stated earlier that this was a test run to see if going on an extended visit involving a road trip was a possibility or not. We were thinking of maybe going for Thanksgiving. Here's what happened on the drive home: Ailey and Zekey took turns and occasionally chimed in together screaming as loud as they could nearly the whole almost 3 hours it took us to get home. Braden, poor kiddo, was NOT loving the duet Ailey and Zekey were serenading us with. Sam drove, bless him! I was trying very hard and failing miserably at trying to keep my eyes open. (We still hadn't adjusted to daylight savings...as a matter of fact, including this morning, we are still working up to it...) The kids had had icecream and cake before we left San Antonio and got hungry on the way, so they got to snack on animal crackers. (I'm putting in my nomination for Mom of the Year....I think I have a good chance in the nutrition category, don't you?;) We thought about stopping at Freddy's, but we'd stopped there the day before on our way down. Gotta talk to them about putting one of those in here, too! Anyway, obviously, not wanting to stop and the large supply of animal crackers won out.

So, the moral of the story is that, although we made it home semi-conscious and I didn't throw up, even though the urge was lurking below the surface, I don't think I will be going on any more trips soon. The aftermath of the trip alone, i.e. grouchy kids today, sleep schedule all messed up, me in exhausted mode, make me want to stay comfy and cozy here in my own home for now.

Thank you, Lord, for a comfy home!!! Yay!