Another Girl!

Cody and I are expecting our second daughter mid October. The time has been flying by! In finding out our second child was a girl Cody has asked to adopt a male dog. I have promised him he can have a dog once both his daughters are potty trained. I will only potty one creature at a time! The great thing about another girl is we have most everything we need already. Some newborn clothes and a few new diaper shells and we are ready for round two! After much debate Cody and I decided on the name Etta Rose. Etta because we love it and Rose for Portland (aka the Rose City). I am slowly transitioning our extra bedroom into a bird theme nursery.

Ultrasound of little Etta yawning

This week we move into the third trimester and the hottest part of the year "oh yeah!" I am also chasing around our 18 month old daughter, Lyra, who has learned that if you don't like a poopy diaper just rip off the diaper and run for it! She has also decided she no longer wants to drink out of sippy cups. We had to purchase some small plastic cups so she could drink like a big kid and not slam mom's glass cups on the hardwood. I must say she is getting pretty good at drinking out of a regular cup and dumping a little on the floor and then asking for "more!" Everyday is an adventure and we look forward to more.

Strawberry Fields Forever!

It is that time of year. Strawberries are in full swing followed by raspberries and then blueberries. Picking berries directly from the field is child's dream come true. However, don't expect your child to contribute to the picking bucket as most of them go directly into the mouth. This is the reason I stress the importance of picking in organic fields if at all possible. Strawberries in particular are one of the most heavily sprayed crops. There are as many as 60 know pesticides used on strawberries. Some people will have a bad reaction to strawberries and believe themselves allergic to strawberries when they may be in fact reacting to not the strawberry but what the berry has been sprayed with. These dangers can be avoided by buying organic berries. In the regular grocery store buying organic can be expensive but if you are willing to head to a u-pick field you can save some dollars and have some fun in the process.

If you live in the Portland area Sauvie Island is the place for berries. I recommend Bella Organic Farm with a great price of $1.38 a pound for u-pick organic strawberries.

Lyra getting her fill of dirt and strawberries

With about 15 pounds of strawberries we had company over for strawberry short cake, froze some berries and also canned some strawberry preserves. If you have a dehydrator dried berries and fruit leather are also great options as well.

Strawberry preserve all ready for winter pancakes!

Cloth Diaper Solution for Night Time

If your baby is a heavy wetter at night time it can be difficult to find a cloth diaper that won't leak. Many mom's have turned to pocket diapers where you can stuff them with as many cloth inserts as you can fit. This is what we had resorted to. Our daughter's diapers were getting so big at night it was a wonder she could roll over! After some research I decided to try Kickernappies Super-Do Diaper Inserts, which I purchased from Simple Wonders. These inserts are made with 6 layers of hemp terry and 2 layers of ultra-thirsty microfiber. Hemp is one of the most absorbent diaper materials currently on the market, beating out microfiber and bamboo.  After one month of using the Super-Do we have had only one night of leaks and that was most likely a daddy diaper snap on error.

 On the left is the Kickernappies Super-Do and the right is what we were using: a Softbum super insert and two charcoal inserts all made from microfiber.  

I have been very pleased with the performance of the Super-Do. My only complaint would be the price. They are $12.95 an insert retail which is expensive in the cloth insert world. However, since they are only being used at night you don't need very many. I currently have four Super-Do's and could probably get by with three. If you are running out of room in your night time pocket diaper look into trying out a hemp insert. There are many other hemp inserts on the market today, such as, Happy Heinys Hemp Stuffins and Rumparooz hemp 6hr soaker.

Can't Compete with China

This weekend I decided to make Lyra a rain coat. For about $45 you can buy a nice toddler rain coat, made in China of course. I thought with spring on the way out making one was probably my best bet. I hit the local Fabric Depot for some Memorial Day sales. Here is the break down of what I spent.

Pattern $4.47 after 50% off

Fabric $26.38 after 40% off

Thread $2.12 after 20% off

Buttons $2.85 after 20% off

Total $35.82

Had there not been a sale this would have cost me a total of $59.03 to make! I might also add there was about 10 hours of labor to make this coat as well. Making your own clothes just isn't what it use to be. The only advantage is picking the exact style, colors and fabrics you want. Other than that you just can't compete with China.

Finished product!

Lyra modeling

First Timeout!

Today Lyra is 16 months old and had her first timeout. This morning she walked over to the DVD shelf in the living room and started throwing DVDs across the room. Cody made several attempts to tell her to "stop" and "no" with no affect. So, he scooped her up and dropped her into her pack n play for one minute. She screamed until Cody took her out. Then she ran right back to the shelf and started throwing DVDs. Cody again told her to "stop" and "no" to no avail. Back to the pack n play she went. After her minute was up she ran back to the book shelf, but this time she stopped and looked at Cody. "No, Lyra" Cody warned. She smiled and grabbed a DVD and threw it on the floor. Cody scooped her up for a third time and she smiled and waved to me as Cody carried her to timeout. I distracted her with a ball after her timeout and that seemed to end the DVD throwing. Our little 16 month old is already testing the boundaries and she isn't even in her terrible twos!

Natural Sugar Ant Repellent!

The season of sugar ants has arrived. They march across your counter tops in a line looking for anything you have left behind. They are harmless but annoying! With children in the house the last thing any mother wants to put out is poison. Last night the trail of ants coming out of my wall outlet and across my kitchen sink hit an all time high. Something had to be done. I went online and found recommendations to layout out powdered cinnamon and cloves in the path of the ants. My ant path was coming out of my wall and moving horizontally across the wall above my counters, so laying dry powder was going to be difficult. I had to get creative.

I took powdered cinnamon and clove powder and mixed it with enough water to make a paste. Then, using a paint brush I brushed the paste around the outlet they were coming in and out of with in seconds the ants were flipping out in full panic. My husband flushed the remaining ants down the sink. With in three hours there was not an ant to be found with the exception of a few in the sink that survived the flush. This morning our kitchen was ant free! Who knew that cinnamon and clove could be so effective! My kitchen also smells great with cinnamon and clove smeared on my wall. This is a cheap, non-toxic, and effective solution to kept ants from your home!

Scottish Ale for Spring

For the first beer brewed in our new home we chose a Scottish ale. Scottish ales have always been a personal favorite of mine. They are a smooth malty ale with a settle hop flavor. This particular recipe called for honey malt, caramel malt, pale chocolate malt, black patent and finished with Willamette hops (What's not to love!). In brewing there are three main stages: making the wort, fermentation, and bottling. We had our little hiccups along the way, but the next beer will be that much better because of it.

Making the Wort
This is were is all begins. Your equipment is sterilized and ready to go and you are throwing all your ingredients in a large boiling pot of water and following your recipe very carefully to make your wort (wort will become beer after the fermentation process). At at the end you cool your pot very quickly in an ice bath and then pitch your yeast.

This is where we went wrong. We forgot to activate the yeast! This caused about a two hour delay as we waited for the yeast to activate. Always activate your yeast before you start to brew your wort.

Fermentation
The fermentation process is the easy part. After you pitch your yeast into your wort you seal it up in a 5 gallon bucket and put in the closet for a few weeks.

No problems here!

Bottling
After 3-4 weeks or so you take your beer out of the closet and add a sugar mix (we used honey) and siphon  the beer into sterilized bottles.

We were able to fill 22- 22oz bottles before we had siphon issues. It didn't help that Lyra was screaming with all her might at us from her pack n play in the corner as we bottled as fast as we could. Can't have the baby chewing on sterile bottles! We decided that 22 bottles was enough and we capped them all and away they go in the closet to carbonate in the bottles for another couple of weeks.

Cody capping the beer

 

 Ready to go into the closet for another couple weeks

  We tried some of the beer before bottling and to our relief it tasted exactly like it should!