By popular demand, I decided to run the second part of this post right away. The suggestions are so valuable, and having gardened myself for 3 years now, I can definitely attest to the wisdom in these tips. I know that I’ve been encouraged and reminded of areas where I could improve my own gardening …
A Tale of Two Gardens
I’m excited to introduce this two-part guest post to you! Amber had so many wonderful things to say about her (and her family’s) experience of gardening and such helpful suggestions that I decided to turn it into a series. I hope that you’re as inspired as I was and encouraged in your own gardening efforts. …
How to Nurture Generosity in Your Children
What a great topic! I love it, so I’ll hand it straight over to Jamie without further ado… ******* Guest Post by Jamie Martin of Steady Mom Photo by Milena Mihaylova One Sunday afternoon our family of five headed out to visit a friend. As we drove, my husband was telling the children about his …
Adjusting to Life with 3 Little Ones
Well, I'd say we're an incredibly thankful, mostly happy and pleasant, though generally overtired (and occasionally, overly emotional) bunch around here lately! I'd have to say it's mostly the mama who fits into the overtired and overly emotional category (okay, and maybe the 2 year old as well). But, sleepless nights and crazy hormones aside, …
Making Cooking Easier: Using Your Slow Cooker
I would agree that slow cookers can be a busy mama’s best friend some days. I get a lot of use out of mine, especially in the winter when we enjoy a lot of hot, hearty stews, soups, chili, etc. One of my favorite sites for recipes is A Year of Slowcooking. Check it out, …
Motherhood, Moses and the Beauty of Broken Vessels
**My sincere apologies for not having the bio and links up earlier for this post! I’m feeling a little a lot tired and scattered around here, and didn’t realize I had actually set this to auto-post without having it ready to go. My bad. Make sure you go and visit Kelly’s wonderful blog!** Seeing as …
Waldorf-Inspired Real Play
While we don’t specifically use Waldorf methods in our home (simply because I’ve never studied about it myself), I think that there are a lot of similarities in our philosophy of how we would like our children to learn and play, especially as home educators. I’ve really enjoyed learning more about the Waldorf method from …
Organization for the Disorganized
Today’s guest post is by my real life friend, Melanie. When she asked me about writing this topic, I didn’t completely get the concept, but I trust Mel and knew that it would be good. It is! I relate to this more than I thought I would, and the suggestions make so much sense! I …
7 IndispensableThings
**Yes, this is baby Johanna in the kid's little doll carriage, lovingly wrapped up and given a little piggy to keep her company. 🙂 I think one of the most wonderful things about having a 3rd baby is that the actual work of caring for a newborn becomes so much more natural. I remember …
Making Your Own Convenience Food Mixes
As a stay-at-home mama to a highly active 2 year-old daughter, and our “coming into his own” and very mobile 9 month-old son, Jonathan, I know how tempting it can be to reach for the convenience foods while grocery shopping. However, I’ve found that with a little planning I can make many convenience foods from …
Making Mothering Babies Easier: Babywearing
I thought this would be a great guest post to start things off with, seeing as I have just entered back into the world of frequent babywearing myself! I love wearing my new little sweetheart in my Hotsling, and especially love the convenience and free hands that it offers me. The author of this post, …
Johanna’s Birth Story
Johanna Providence 7 lbs 10 oz, 21 inches long Wednesday, August 12 at 5:22pm Johanna means “God is gracious”, which we have just been feeling in abundance lately, as we marvel over His goodness in our lives. We also felt that this gentle, feminine name really suited her, with her very delicate and sweet demeanor. …
Meet Johanna!
Johanna Providence 7 lbs 10 oz, 21 inches long Wednesday, August 12 at 5:22pm Johanna means "God is gracious", which we have just been feeling in abundance lately, as we marvel over His goodness in our lives. We also felt that this gentle, feminine name really suited her, with her very delicate and sweet demeanor. …
It’s a girl!
Thought you all might like to know that Baby #3 has arrived! We had a beautiful little girl late in the afternoon, at about 5:20 pm. The birth went wonderfully and I will share the details with you, including some pictures, in the next day or so. A name is being decided on and hopefully …
Where Food Comes From 101
**Abbie holding fresh carrots, straight from our garden** What kind of food education are our children getting? While my husband and I were berry picking a few weekends ago, we got into a discussion about whether kids actually have an idea of where food comes from and how grateful we are that ours have …
You Tell Me: Finding the Time to Cook From Scratch
I think that one of the biggest struggles that many of us have as we seek to eat and cook only whole foods, while keeping our grocery budgets reasonable and affordable, is that it requires more time to prepare these wholesome foods. I've heard many people argue that it doesn't really take any more time than cooking …
Preserving Summer’s Bounty: Freezing Garlic
Remember all of my garlic galore? Well, I've just finished preserving it all for this fall and winter! I've now dried all of the bulbs out completely. Just recently I did some sorting into piles: gorgeous and intended for planting this fall, good for storage, and not so good for storage. I set aside any …
Composting With Worms
As I've had a few extra days waiting for baby that I didn't anticipate having, I've been getting just a few last minute projects out of the way. One of them was to create a small worm composting box (also known as vermiculture or vermicomposting). This is a great way to do composting on a …
No News
Nope, no baby yet. 🙂 Today is my due date. Most of your Baby Poll guesses have come and gone (as have my own guesses). Seems that this baby just wants to keep us all guessing! LOL! I just don't have anything that I really felt like posting for this morning, but I knew that …
Preserving Summer’s Bounty: Drying and Grinding Herbs
As you may have noticed, I've begun a new series called Preserving Summer's Bounty, where I am creating photo tutorials of some of the different foods that I am preserving this summer, along with a variety of preserving methods. If you missed the first two, they are: Beautiful Blueberries (freezing) Blanching and Freezing Vegetables Also …
Preserving Summer’s Bounty: Drying and Grinding HerbsRead More
Grocery Budget Discussion: Expense or Investment?
I ran across this last week at Beauty That Moves (hat tip to Small Notebook), which is part of an excellent discussion of the grocery costs for buying healthful, whole foods: I wonder how much other families spend on groceries each week. Is that too bold of a thing to ask? I've been wanting to pose …
Limeade Popsicles: Easy and Refreshing!
Who doesn’t love limeade or lemonade in the middle of a hot, sunny day? The other week, I picked up a bag of discounted limes from the produce market, and had sort of forgotten about them. In the midst of “one of those mornings”, I decided that the kids and I just need to just …