Sickness, Sewing and Sweet

This week has gone by in a blur - a husband recovering from a minor back injury, sick children, sewing projects, etc. It has been hard for me to stay focused with so much sickness in the house so I'm glad I had sewing projects to keep me going.

I promised my youngest daughter a new dress for church this Sunday. I just have the zipper and hem left. It was fun to work on - dark blue plaid with Scottie dogs. I also sewed two "anywhere" chairs. Basically it's something to turn any chair into a high chair for your baby. It rolls up very small for fitting into the diaper bag. I made one last Saturday for my baby. A friend saw it at church on Sunday, and I could tell she really liked it. So I had to make one for her baby. Don't kid yourself - it's kind of selfish when I sew for others because I enjoy it so much. I will look for any excuse I can find to sew. Oh, and I also sewed a curtain for a window at our church. It was a very simple one so only took about an hour start to finish.

I also managed to get some scrapbooking done this week, but I'm so behind. Sometimes I feel like I'll never catch up. My mom is almost all caught up though so I feel hopeful. ☺

I was wanting to get some Pinterest projects done but just never quite got around to them. Oh, yes, I was going to tell you last week that we harvested our stevia so we now have our own liquid stevia. Basically you clean the leaves, put them in a pot of water that's almost at a boil, take it off the heat and let it steep for a couple of hours. I got one and half large glass jars. I have been freezing the liquid in mini-muffin cups so we can thaw as we need it. It's not as sweet as commercially produced liquid stevia so I may do a different water to leaves ratio next year.

our stevia plant - tall, eh?

taking the leaves off

the finished product - it's green :)

That's all for now. Did you feel productive this week or like you were just muddling through somehow?

Mishmash

This will be a little bit of a mishmash of "Fruitful Friday" and "Library Time". Yesterday I was tired and just basically spent the day hanging out with my children watching movie and eating ice cream cones which could explain the higher numbers on the scales this morning. Anyway, we had fun and every once in a while it's fun to just kick back and chill with your children. Some of us also went to the park after supper. I was wishing I had brought the camera because it was the first time we put the baby in a swing and he LOVED it...so cute to watch.

 

We had a good week - I fixed a jumper for my youngest daughter (post to come on that), taught my girls how to cork (another post on that), found some great deals at the local Salvation Army store (including a candlemaking kit! - something I've always wanted to learn how to do), read a good book written by a holocaust survivor, found a store where I could buy Ezekiel 4:9 bread (good for the diet), ate beans from our garden and tidied up the garden which was looking a mess (tomatoes and squash looking good), had a long "skype" with one of my sisters one night (sisters are great), made a birthday gift for a friend (think I'm going to have to do a post on this too because I make this gift all the time - easy and fun). Well, you can see we had a great week.

 

My oldest daughter found a lot of classics - Shakespeare, Dickens, Elliot, Bronte - at the Salvation Army that she happily bought. My nine-year-old daughter found a Beverly Cleary book. My five-year-old son is making great strides in his reading. He said this week, "I can't believe I'm reading!" It makes all the effort worth it. He was "reading" an alphabet book to his baby brother this morning, and I was so happy that he could read all the letters now.

 

They're addicted to corking now.

 

How was your week? Did you read any good books?

Reading and Feeding

This has been an incredibly hot week. Thankfully it rained tonight and things have started to cool down. The noise and busyness of having the children inside all week was starting to get to me this morning. I was so thankful that I had a phonics lesson with my five-year-old son to work on. After a few weeks of truly concentrated time from Mommy he has really taken off with the alphabet - to the point where next week we're going to move on from the alphabet to putting sounds together for three letter words. I know he's going to be so excited. I'm excited for him. Although not my favourite thing to do, it is incredibly rewarding to teach your child to read.

 

My squash has started to take over my garden. I'm going to look for a way to tame it a little. :) Everything else is growing well too. It is fun to watch. Soon we'll be eating beans from our own garden.

 

On Wednesday evening I went to our local La Leche League meeting. If you don't know this is a breastfeeding support group. I was telling them that my baby has enthusiastically started to eat everything I will put in his mouth. I've never had one this young (six months) who wants to eat everything I do. I was so happy to hear that according to new research I can feed it what I/he like, particularly as our family has no food allergies. I have yet to offer a food to Jonah that he refuses. He especially loves the hot brown rice cereal that we sometimes make for a bedtime snack for the family. For $2 I can have a healthy snack for our entire family and now Jonah is sharing this love.

right after trying his first solids - not sure but he came back for more

How was your week? Hot or otherwise?

Weight Loss And Baby Beans

This has been our first week of summer break! Yeah! That has meant more sewing for me. We have also had some warmer and drier weather so the children have been enjoying playing outside. It has also been the week that I have finally lost more than half of what I’m hoping to lose – only 12 more pounds to go.

So let me say a few more words about the Trim Healthy Mama plan of eating. I have mentioned before that this is what I’m using for a diet. Let me just say that I’m absolutely blown away with how I have been able to lose this weight even though I would say that I have only followed the plan about 70-80% of the time. For instance, when my husband takes me out for our weekly date I don’t worry about dieting and even have dessert. However, this diet has taught me how to properly fuel my body so that I’m not giving my body extra fuel that it stores as fat but rather uses fat already stored to fuel my body hence causing weight loss. (That sentence was a bit too long. I hope it at least made sense.) If you are sitting on the fence as to whether or not to buy the book and use the Trim Healthy Mama plan for eating, go for it. Not only  have I lost weight I’ve also lost my headaches, depression and out-of-control sugar cravings. It has been wonderful and overall has been simple. I have not felt starved or deprived except for the few times I’ve eyed my children eating their fresh-out-of-the -oven bread, but then there has always been a chocolate shake, lemon curd tart, fudge or a strawberry whip to fall back on.

On the garden front our beans are up. This morning when I hung up our laundry there were a few poking up. Some were maybe and inch or inch and a half tall. When I went to get our laundry tonight we counted 26 baby bean plants! Several were 3-4 inches tall. It was exciting. The children had to come have a look. I think beans are one of the easiest and most fun plants for children to grow because they are easy and fast.

Checking out the new babies in our family

Baby beans - yeah!

We’ve been having fun travelling around the world. So far we’ve visited New Zealand, Australia, Papau New Guinea, Japan and China. I’m learning my geography better and so are my children. It’s been fun. Did you know that for every person in New Zealand there are seven sheep?

How was your week? If you have a garden, how is it doing?

It's IN!

Yesterday I was all set to do a a post only I couldn’t get into my account. I was upset and tried everything I could think of. I went to bed with the post unwritten and the problem unsolved. A couple of hours after I got up this morning I was mentally giving myself a slap on the back of my head – I had been using the wrong username. Such is life. I’ll have to save that post for another time.

On a happier note we finally planted our garden this week. Since we were late buying our plants this year I had to make some changes but I don’t mind. I just am happy to have plants growing in my backyard. We also saved a little money since the plants were on sale. We ended up with eight tomato plants, 4 zucchinis, 1 honeydew melon, 1 pumpkin. We also planted a mint plant. I wanted to get some parsley but couldn’t find any. While we were looking we saw a stevia plant which we thought might be fun so we bought it. I know nothing about growing or harvesting stevia so I’m going to have to do some research. I’m excited to be trying something new. We also planted some beans and carrot from seed. I still have some marigold and sunflower seeds that I want to get in – hopefully tomorrow.

I had a whole bunch of pictures of us planting our garden, but one of our children mistakenly deleted all the pictures from my camera this morning. So you’ll have to be happy of one picture of everything tidy and in place. The plastic box is my compost box. So far no compost. I’m so anxious to make my own compost – gardening can be great for increasing patience. 

How was your week?  Do you have a garden?

What To Do?

So we’re pretty much finished all of our school work for the year. Just a few more assignments and we’re done. The downside is that I am already hearing rumors of boredom. Why is it that they work so hard all year to get done and then complain three days into their vacation that there is nothing to do? And you know, complaining to your mom about nothing to do is never a good idea because she can always come up with some chores. 

I need to keep my children busy but I want it to be fun too. After all, this is supposed to be their summer vacation, and they did work very hard all year on their school work. They deserve/need some downtime. So what are our plans?

First of all, there is our garden, of course. They’ve been having fun putting scraps in the compost and digging for worms to add to the compost bin. Soon there will be plants to water and weed – although with square foot gardening there aren’t a lot of weeds. The boys also have our lawn to mow and a neighbour’s lawn. They’d like to get more.

I found a programme online called “Around the World in 60 Days” . This is put out by www.thrivingfamily.ca. This takes you to 27 different countries over the summer with simple activities. It is a way to help my children learn their geography in a fun way and also to remind us to pray for others as we “visit” these countries. We will start in New Zealand and end in Canada. I’m looking forward to this. I like geography.

We are also going to do a photo scavenger hunt. Here is June’s list. I’m going to make individual folders on my computer for each child who wants to participate to store their pictures in. I’ve done something a little similiar to this before and enjoyed it. All my children like to take pictures so I think they will like this activity. The beauty of digital cameras – no film to worry about wasting.

We will also participate in our library’s summer reading club. Our children certainly don’t need to be encouraged to read, but they still enjoy joining in with the library’s programme.

Finally, I encourage my children to set 1-3 goals of what they hope to accomplish over the summer. Every day when we gather after breakfast to pray and read a chapter in Proverbs we discuss what their goal(s) for that day is. I want to encourage my children to start making a habit of purposefully striving towards a goal. In the past, we have “scheduled” our goals to help them get used to this. For instance, one day would be a spiritual goal (pray for someone, memorize a verse, etc), another day a physical goal (a certain number of repeats of an exercise or learning something new like jump roping), a mental goal (learn a new skill, write a story, etc), a social goal (write a letter, call a friend or relative, make a gift for someone). It’s always fun to hear what they hope to do. I make sure to include myself so they see me setting an example. Last summer several of them challenged themselves to see how long they could stay outside one day before retreating to the coolness of the house. Most of them made it to mid-afternoon. That was fun to watch.

So yes, I will try to keep them busy and away from boredom, but I will also make sure that they have downtime to unwind from school. When we start up again I want them to be excited about the new school year.

What will your children be doing this summer?

Walking

Today I needed to go to a couple of stores and the library, and I had to do it by myself! {gasp} No help from another adult or an older child with the toddler and baby! So, my husband dug our tandem stroller out of the back of the garage and off we went. Absolutely wonderful! I had totally forgotten how wonderful this set-up is. First of all, it’s a great workout. I’m pushing between 75 and 85 pounds between the children and the stroller. Secondly, with my toddler sitting in the front seat we don’t talk much so I’m just pushing and quietly thinking. Occasionally my little guy would call out “digger” or “truck”, but it doesn’t take much thought to agree with him and go on with my own thoughts. To have that time to just think without interruption was wonderful. I really need to plan on doing this more often.

The shopping wasn’t fun – couldn’t find exactly what I wanted and what I did go with just seemed overpriced (maybe I’m just too picky?). We stopped at the library midway to return something and for a nursing break. The baby was too distracted though so he nursed a little and then quit – at least it was enough to hold him until we got home. I normally don’t shop. My husband does it all – wonderful man that it he is he loves shopping. Today reminded me why I hate shopping so I’m so glad that the walk made up for the disappointment.

If you’re not one for walking you should try my mom’s idea for inspiration (not that she needs motivation herself – I think my love of walking is inherited from my mom). Every time she walks she clocks how far it was. She’s following Google Maps and “walking” to visit my sisters. So far she’s made it to my sister in Illinois. Now she’s on her way to my sister in Wyoming. Check out her blog where she talks about how she does this and how far she is.

On the garden front I still don’t have my veggies in yet.  In my defense it has been cold and rainy quite a bit. However, my oldest son made a compost box for me. We followed this pattern. So I’ve been having fun putting scraps in it. The problem is I want to see it changing now, but this is one of those projects that’s going to take a while. He also made me another garden box which is approximately four feet square. Hopefully this week my plants will go in!

I know it’s been a week since my last post. Hopefully, next week I’ll get back to more posting. I hope you had a fruitful week too.

Starting Our Garden

This has been a cool, overcast and sometimes rainy week for us. It’s been so cool, in fact, that I was glad I hadn’t planted my garden yet. However, today seemed like a good day to get started. We didn’t plant anything today, but we cleared out our garden box and the plants that were overtaking it. I couldn’t believe how many weeds had started to take over. My oldest son chopped out numerous branches of a bush that was trying to take over that particular corner of our yard. We tossed weeds out of our garden box, and two of our middle children took our wagon around to the other side of the fence to gather up all the weeds and toss them in the deep bush in the ravine behind our house.

Then we set up our fence. Every summer we unroll a length of snow fence and attach it to stakes with tie wraps. We initially did this to protect our garden from the labrador we had. If any of you have ever owned a lab you know why our garden needed protecting.  We no longer have our dog, but we do have toddlers and little ones who don’t understand that plants grow best when you don’t dig around them.

Every year I struggle to come up with some way to create a simple “door” in the fence so I can get to the garden and my clothesline. I think I have something workable this year as you will see in the picture. I’ll let you know how it holds up over the summer.

Tomorrow my husband and oldest son are going to build another garden box for me. We’re also hoping to set up a compost pile. I really want to stop giving my compost scraps to the city and use them myself for my garden.

Sometime in the next few days we’ll be putting in our plants – tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, mint, carrots, pumpkin and I really want to try a watermelon again. I love square foot gardening, and I love the excitement our children have in planting, watering, watching and harvesting. Gardening really doesn’t feel like a chore, but that could be because space constraints keep our garden fairly small. We buy from local farmers to get the bulk of the vegetables we need for preserving in the fall.

I hope you had a good week and that if you have a garden it is going well.

A very sad 'before' picture

My hockey stick 'gate'

A close-up of the 'latch'

A much-improved 'after' picture

Square Foot Gardening

It’s that time of year when I really start getting the itch to get out in the garden. Admittedly it wasn’t very strong last year, but that could have been due to being in my first trimester. Anyway, I’m excited this year and thinking about it a lot.

Planting day is always exciting

Our garden isn’t very big, but we hope to expand it a little this year. We have one box that is 8 feet by 4 feet and a spot along our fence that is about 18 inches by 6 feet. This spring my husband has said that he will build me another box.

"Baby" anything is cute - even tomatoes

Our expert bean planter - he does it every year!

Last year I let the children pretty much “have” the garden because I just had no energy for it. That was not necessarily a bad thing. They enjoyed it. We planted four tomatoes plants, zucchini, pumpkin, watermelon, green beans and carrots. The tomatoes and zucchini and beans were so-so which was disappointing because I was really looking forward to having zucchini in the freezer. The watermelon never developed and I forgot about the carrots. I had planted them around the tomatoes and somehow forgot they were there so they probably died from overcrowding, poor things. But the pumpkin was fun. We had three pumpkins. So we’ve had mashed pumpkin in the freezer this winter for making muffins. We also roasted the seeds! Yummy. It was fun watching the pumpkins grow and turn from green to orange.

When we lived in the country I had a huge garden which was actually beyond my scope but I was enthusiastic…until I met tomato worms. It seemed like there were fifty for every plant give or take a couple. I was too squeamish to kill them myself so my oldest so who was about nine at the time would fearlessly hunt the garden spearing worms as he found them. He told me later that he really didn’t like doing it but he wanted to spare his mommy. Awwwww – what a sweetheart.

Anyway, after my huge garden I learned about square foot gardening and haven’t looked back since. It is so easy. I love how organized it makes my garden. I can easily reach into every part of my garden with hardly moving from one spot. And I can do companion planting. You know “Carrots Love Tomatoes“, but you do need to remember that you’ve done this.  Basically you divide your garden into square feet and then plant accordingly. So for instance, I know that I can put one tomato plant into a square foot or sixteen radishes or four beans. This is the definitive book on this way of gardening…

So this year we’re going to do tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkin and green beans again. I’m also thinking about doing potatoes in a container. I tried it before and failed, but I’ve been doing some more studying and think I want to try again. I’ll let you know what we do and give updates over the summer.

Our garden can’t possibly cover our needs for the year, but it gives us enjoyment and helps the children appreciate some of the work that goes into getting our food. And for what we still need there is always the local farmers’ market.

Do you garden? How do you do it? What do you like to grow?

It's Time!

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for Spring.

I love looking at snow, watching my sons count up what they’ve earned from shovelling snow and even occasionally walking in snow. I like snuggling under a blanket and reading a book. I love cuddling wiggly bodies that are wearing fuzzy pajamas. I enjoy making hot chocolate for my children the old-fashioned way with milk, cocoa, honey and a little cream. I like the earlier darkness that makes everything feel warm and cozy in the house.

There’s something about knowing it’s cold outside that makes the smell of fresh-baked bread and cookies sweeter. There’s joy in watching your children play in the first deep snow of the season – the snow that reaches up to your toddler’s knees, and you let him go out even though it takes ten minutes to wrestle all his snow clothes on and you know after two minutes he’s going to hate it and want back in. There’s the fun of building snowmen and snow tunnels.

So I like winter until somewhere around February 1st when I magically want all the white stuff to disappear and the temperature to immediately rise to something you can go barefoot in.

But now it’s time for warmer weather, for an entryway not cluttered up by what seems to be 30 pairs give or take of boots and and coats, hats, mittens, scarves to match. It’s time for starting a garden, running around barefoot in the backyard, needing to remind my sons to mow the lawn. It’s time for eating outside, taking long walks after supper with my husband, planning our family vacation.

I’m ready to hang my laundry outside again. Oh, how I love the smell of air-dried laundry, and the sun makes my baby’s diapers so white again!I’m ready to go strawberry and blueberry picking and come home to gorge on the berries and freeze or dehydrate whatever I can manage to keep away from my children. I’m ready to go to the zoo where we have a membership but never seem to go much in the winter.

           So, yes. Winter you’ve been fun, but now it’s time for SPRING!