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Week #4 Saturday Top Five Laughs – Join the Blog Hop!

Posted by html404 on November 16, 2013
in Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Humor, Kids Stuff, Saturday Top Five Laughs, Uncategorized

I think I did better writing down funny things as they happened this week so it is officially time to laugh with the Goulds again! We have joined The Mommyhood Chronicles for Week #3 – for us – in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week.

5. We were discussing what to do with the eggs from the day and probably throughout the week since the little ones haven’t been good at being thorough in their egg gathering! I suggested we not wash the eggs so they’d last longer and keep them for us. My husband proceeded to tell our daughter to put a “U” on a piece of paper and put the paper on the egg cartons in the fridge. My daughter went, “Huh? A “U”?” My husband and I said at the same time, “Yes, for us/unwashed.” She goes, “Why not WW for us unwashed?” Baffled we said, “WW?” and laughed. Then she clued in, laughed and put her head on the table!

4. I was working on photos for a blog post, the rest of the family was playing RISK and my little guy was in my chair with me singing in my ear and giving me kisses. I have no idea what he was singing but it was cute…until he took my glasses off my face and covered my eyes with his hand!

3. This week my little guy has been asking me, “You my mommy?” I always respond, “Yes, I’m your mommy” then he gives me a hug and kiss. After a few times I started asking him, “Are you my baby boy?” and he responds with, “Yep!” Sweet times! 🙂

2. My second oldest, “B” and I stayed up a couple nights and played with the kittens. We just laughed at their antics as they chased anything that moved. Boy are their nails sharp!

1. I was sitting on the computer writing this blog post eating a bowl of blueberries and my third daughter was sitting next to me. Then she says, “Mommy I think I flicked boogers in your blueberries.” I was like, “What!?” Then she laughed. Mean. Mean. Mean girl. She just read this and laughed again. Evil I tell you!

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Christmas Lights, Etc.

Posted by html404 on November 14, 2013
in Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Holidays, Home, Seasonal Stuff, Shopping

I know we haven’t even celebrated Thanksgiving yet, but Christmas is also on my mind lately. It’s also just around the corner and I am feeling a little unprepared. We like to decorate and get our Christmas tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. What I am realizing is we are probably in need of more things than I can remember and I’m not sure what to do about. That’s why I’m creating a post about it!

Here are the things I know we need to buy:

1. Christmas lightsetc, etc. We bought our Christmas lights the first year we were married and they lasted a good long time. They were just from Sam’s Club. However, the last few years we have discovered more and more strands are no longer working. 🙁

2. Christmas tree. We used an artificial one for many years and once the children were getting older switched to a real tree. We tossed our artificial tree a year or two before we moved here. We have a couple of places to choose a live tree from and thankfully one is just down the road, which should be an easy enough buy if we find the right size.

3. Shopping for Christmas gifts. I don’t even have our extended family’s gifts yet, let alone something for all of our children. Especially since I gave the children the few board games I recently bought. Wrong move, if I wanted to be ahead in gift buying. (Rolling eyes at self!)

4. Christmas baking supplies and trimmings. I know by December we will be in need of more baking supplies to accomplish any Christmas baking we want to do, plus the trimmings for Christmas dinner. We’ll have our turkey and our potatoes, which we grew ourselves, but the rest we’ll have to make or buy. We usually have a traditional Christmas dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, butternut squash, rutabaga, cranberries, stuffing and homemade pie for dessert. Cranberry pie and apple pie are our family favorites.

5. Christmas cards or letters. If I even have time.

What about you? What is on your Christmas list of to-do’s and when do you decorate for Christmas?

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Sick Chickens – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on November 13, 2013
in Animals, Business, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Health, Pet Food, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

This summer our egg business really took off. We could not keep up with the demand for our eggs, even at $5 and $6 a dozen. We allow our poultry to free range as well as feed them certified organic feed making our eggs a “premium” product. To accommodate the growth in our egg business we bought a couple of batches of 6 month old pullets from two other farms. Bad choice. We knew the risks but wanted our egg business to keep growing and not drop off. Our intentions were good but the result was fatal to our egg business, as well as our entire flock of poultry.

Our laying flock was healthy. There was nothing wrong with them. Then we started to notice sick chickens. The ones that were sick stopped laying. They showed signs of being lethargic, sleeping a lot, coughing, wheezing and like they had a cold in the eye. The pullets we bought obviously brought an illness to our healthy flock because this illness showed up within two weeks of bringing home the second flock of pullets. 🙁 We were very concerned for the safety of our customers, our broilers and our turkeys. No vets in the area deal with chickens so we had to go to a university veterinary lab. The closest one to us is the University of Wisconsin. Two hours away – one way. We took the vets two live birds to help them make a diagnosis. Live birds allowed for fresh tissue analysis and a more accurate diagnosis. My husband made the trip on a Friday in September.

Within a few days we had our answer. Upper respiratory infection. Sometimes fatal, especially to broilers who have a smaller trachea (or esophagus) than laying hens. Good news? This infection is not harmful to humans. The eggs and meat could still be sold. Bad news? Even when the birds recover from the infection, they remain carriers of the infection and can spread it to any new birds we brought onto our farm. Results? We have to cull (kill) our whole flock of laying hens and turkeys. Even our breeding turkeys. Our turkeys never exhibited any signs of the infection but since they were exposed, they are carriers too.

We had sick chickens for about a month. The infection went through our flock quickly and usually lasted a few days. It was basically a “chicken cold”. Who would have thought, right? There was nothing we could do for them….other than separate the ones who were getting picked on. The vet told about an antibiotic but didn’t actually recommend it since the birds were now carriers.

This “chicken cold” has been devastating. Our egg business was to the point of buying all the feed for our animals, except our horse, dog and cats. We are hoping all our customers come back in the spring.

Our plan? We plan to start fresh with baby chicks in December and have eggs available in the spring.

We will buy more turkeys in the spring and choose some to keep for breeding purposes.

We will never, ever buy chickens from unknown farms again. And may this be a lesson for anyone considering purchasing chickens from another farm to add to your current flock…DON’T.

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Fall Inspired Recipes with Squash

Posted by html404 on November 11, 2013
in All Natural Products, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Nutrition, Holidays, Home, Organic, Recipes, Shopping, Uncategorized

Thanksgiving is only a little over a couple of weeks away and I have been looking for fall inspired recipes for squash. I found a couple new ones I want to try. To facilitate this post I shopped at Mariano’s for the ingredients for our traditional recipe.

I really enjoy shopping at Mariano’s. I love that they carry a good selection of organic food. The employees make it a pleasant experience. Each time I have gone, one has helped direct me to a faster checkout. It’s very helpful. Mariano’s also has a reward card shoppers can use to earn 1% cash back on every $50 purchased from November 7 thru February 8, 2014. How’s that for a bit of holiday shopping incentive?

For my very simple recipe I purchased four organic squash, but only used two. Organic parsley, organic butter and ground cinnamon.

Those of you who have never cooked a squash, you wash the squash and cut it into halves lengthwise. Then put it face down inside a 9×12 dish.

Once cut, scoop out the seeds and pulp from the ball of the squash.

The squash seeds may be saved, dried and used to plant in your garden next spring (especially if they are organic, non-hybrid seeds!). Or the seeds may be roasted and eaten as a super nutritious snack.

All four halves would not fit in my pan so I wrapped the last half in foil and baked it along side the pan.

After the squash is baked, it is scooped out of it’s skin and put into a bowl.

Then I mash it to make sure all the clumps are pretty much out before adding the butter, cinnamon and parsley. And that’s all there is to it. Very simple, inexpensive and yummy!

Fall Inspired Recipes with Squash

Simple Squash Recipe

Print recipe

Serves	8-10
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 10 minutes
Dietary	Diabetic, Gluten Free, Vegan, Vegetarian
Meal type	Side Dish
Misc	Child Friendly, Serve Hot
Occasion	Barbecue, Casual Party, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving
Region	Canadian

This simple squash recipe is a tasty side dish for the holiday season.

Ingredients

2 Organic Butternut Squash
1 sprig Organic Parsely ((I used curly parsley, there is also flat leaf))
1/2-1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
2 tablespoons Organic Butter

Directions

Step 1
Wash squash of in warm water.
Step 2
Cut squash in half lengthwise.
Step 3
Place face down in a 9x12 baking dish. I had an extra so I wrapped it in foil because it would not fit in my pan.
Step 4
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 -60 minutes or until soft when poked with a fork.
Step 5
Spoon out squash into a bowl.
Step 6
Mash out lumps.
Step 7
Add butter and cinnamon. Cinnamon can be to taste with more or less.
Step 8
Sprinkle a little extra cinnamon on top and add a few leaves of parsley for garnish.
Step 9
Enjoy!

Shopping at Mariano’s

You can learn more about Mariano’s and get new ideas on a weekly basis on Mariano’s website. Consider liking #MyMariano’s on Facebook and following them on Twitter.

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Just in Time for Christmas….RUUM Kids

Posted by html404 on November 10, 2013
in Children's Clothing, Gift Ideas, Holidays, Kids Stuff, Shopping, Things to Do in Chicago, Uncategorized

Christmas is just around the corner and I am still working on my Christmas shopping list. This past week my youngest daughter and I went shopping at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. It’s been a long time since we’ve gone to the mall. We had a lot of fun! We were clothes shopping for Blondie since she needs a few more pants for winter and we had a gift card to RUUM Kids (pronounced “Room” and formerly 77Kids).

RUUM Kids had a 40% off sale going on so we took advantage of those savings.

Blondie is seven and she is a girly-girl, which is amazing since she is smack dab in the middle of four boys! Her taste in clothing steered her towards this sparkly holiday dress:

Gotta love her style! It’s beautiful but I had to tell her no because she has plenty of dresses and this dress though it was 30% off was a bit out of our budget right now. We were shopping for winter pants.

That led us to the 40% off rack. We ended up getting two pairs of sparkly pants. I thought it was a nice compromise for her. She got her sparkle and glitter and I got her warm clothes!

She also found a sparkly butterfly t-shirt and hair gold band that coordinates really well with both colors of pants she choose. Nearly all of RUUM Kids clothing coordinates well with each other.

I also found a couple of things for our younger boys that I put away for their Christmas gifts.

All and all Blondie and I really enjoyed our day out (we went grocery shopping at Mariano’s too!). Blondie loved the VIP treatment she received while shopping at RUUM Kids – choice of a candy treat (RUUM Kids employees asked me first before giving anything to her). When we checked out Blondie was asked if she wanted her own bag, which of course she did, and then employee personalized it by putting her name on it! Blondie loved it!

When we got home Blondie modeled her clothes for me. Everything fit perfectly.

We were very happy with our RUUM Kids purchases.

RUUM Kids has lots of gift ideas including headphone hats ($19.50) and texting gloves ($9.50) for the hard to buy for tweens, and layering pieces with coordinating accessories for all ages. RUUM sizes range from newborn to age 14. Find RUUM Kids on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to day for holiday specials. Right now they have a 25% off code for online just for this weekend only.

Do you buy your children clothes for Christmas?

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Week #3 Saturday Top Five Laughs – Join the Blog Hop!

Posted by html404 on November 9, 2013
in Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Home, Humor, Kids Stuff, Sunday Smiles, Uncategorized

It’s time to laugh with the Goulds again! We have joined The Mommyhood Chronicles for Week #3 – for us – in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week.

5. The image below speaks for itself but by way of an explanation, I was working on my grocery list for a monthly order I place online at Azure Standard – I have forgotten to click submit for the past two months, that’s not the humorous part, that’s the sad part. The funny part is when I asked my daughter to double check to see if we needed anything else so I could check my list she handed me this:

It cracked me up! That’s what I get for asking a child to help with the grocery list, except she’s not so much a child anymore.

4. “The SHIELD helicarrier fell on my back!” (Inside family joke from Spiderman). “The wheel of excuses!”

3. Our 13 year old daughter was laying on the floor throwing a basketball up in the air and it fell on her face. She cracked up laughing.

Yikes, I am struggling this week, even with my children’s help.

2. When we went to dig up asparagus crowns at a local organic farm, the joke was on me. For some reason I was expecting them to be small. Wrong. They are huge! Good thing we didn’t take trowels or else we would have been there all day. Not really because they did have shovels available.

1. My husband made us laugh this week by speaking in a funny accent. 😉

Whew! That was hard. Gotta work harder at keeping track of funny things as they happen or it’s chore to come up with something.

Anything funny happen at your house this week?

{9 comments}

2013 Stocking Stuffer Ideas

Posted by html404 on November 8, 2013
in Gift Ideas, Handmade Items, Holidays, Personal Care Products, Products for Dad, Products for Mom, Reviews, Uncategorized

Christmas Stockings were one of my favorite things to open on Christmas day. We did them for several years with the children and just got out of the habit because stocking stuffers were costly having 8-10 Christmas stockings to fill. My mom use to fill them with batteries, makeup, hand lotion, lip balm, maybe a nightie or something rolled up, socks, ribbon candy, shelled nuts that we had to crack ourselves, a huge apple and orange that our hometown’s grocery store only stocked at Christmas time.

Here are my 2013 Christmas Stocking Ideas, most of them personal care products:

1.800Razors.com, especially for mom and dad. They shave really well. My husband thinks for a disposable razor it shaves the closest he’s ever experienced. I really like mine too. I like that we get to keep the razor and only buy replacement razor blade heads. The razors have lasted quite awhile too. I think we are both still on our first head and it’s been over a month since we received them.

2. Shaving cream to go with those razors!

3. Burt’s Bees lotion. Our oldest daughter has been using this for her dry skin and it helps a lot. When we use goat milk soap we do not even need any moisturizing lotion.

4. Bumble and Bee Organic lip balm. This lip balm has become one of our favorites! Not only do they have lots of flavors but it works!

5. Flash Drive. On my wish list is this Ningxia Red USB thumb drive. I think it’s cool!

6. Toothbrush and toothpaste. I know our children would be very excited to each have their own tube of toothpaste and not share with a sibling! It’s the little stuff, right? Same goes for lip balm too.

7. Our daughter’s handmade goat milk or cow milk soap! It comes scented or unscented and in several different molds. Not all are showing on our sales page.

8. A kitten! An 8 week old kitten would fit perfectly in a stocking and make your child’s day! And no our kittens are not for sale. 😉

What are your top 2013 stocking stuffer ideas?

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Yummy Swap Snack Bars

Posted by html404 on November 7, 2013
in All Natural Products, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Nutrition, Kids Stuff, Reviews, Uncategorized

As much as our family tries and struggles to eat healthy, we all have a sweet tooth. We like our baked goods and chocolate that’s for sure. Enter…Yummy Swap Snack Bars. Yummy Snacks consist of Peanut Butter Blast and Chocolate Blast Yummy Bars. Seriously, they were yummy. These would make great stocking stuffers for Christmas, snacks for school and home, or even family get togethers.

Everyone loved the Peanut Butter Blast Yummy Bar. It was a chocolate bar with a chewy peanut butter center.

Jr. enjoying his Peanut Butter Blast Yummy Bar.

Everyone but my husband loved the Chocolate Blast Yummy Bar. My husband doesn’t like coconut and the Chocolate Blast has a chocolatey coconut center. I find coconut flavored chocolate very addictive, what about you?

As far as ingredients go, Yummy Snack Bars were created to be used to “swap” out junk food for something healthier. Yummy Swap’s motto is “Dump the Junk” to make the transition from junk food to healthier snacks easier on kids.

Chocolate Blast Ingredients:

Peanut Butter Blast Ingredients may be found here.

Yummy Snack Bars are high in fiber, contain 100mg of Omega 3s, real coconut, cocoa, flax seed and almond butter. They are gluten-free, contain no high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, trans fats, artificial flavors, preservatives or food dyes, which all pass our reading label test.

The only problem we found is the price is more than a chocolate bar, but you get so much more for your health so it’s money well spent in the end.

People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food.
― Wendell Berry

So…..Yummy Snacks are here to stay at our house!!

Yummy Snacks may be purchased online as single items or as a subscription – get them shipped to your house on a schedule of your choosing! When you buy a subscription you automatically save 10%. You can find Yummy Swap on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date on new products.

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Kittens, Kittens and More Kittens! – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on November 6, 2013
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Fun Stuff, Home, Photography, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

Ok all you cat and kitty lovers….I couldn’t resist posting an all kitty post after the photo shoot we did for the SHEBA post yesterday. I just kept snapping and snapping hoping to get some good, non-blurry photos of them! They are at such an adorable age. I don’t get to observe them like the children do but I love it when the children come tell me stories of all the antics and things they are up to. Like tonight, my son came to tell me that Badger is sleeping inside one of my husband’s old ratty running shoes! Why wasn’t the old ratty shoe tossed when he got his new ones? Guess they were meant to be here for the kittens! Too bad the garage is so dark or else I would have taken a photo of the kitty in the shoe!

Freckles washing herself.

Sweet little kittens.

Severus is our Tom cat and you can see the resemblance between him and Badger, eh? Oh and Sevy is our only male cat now since all his kittens appear to be females!

Badger licking her lips.

Freckles sitting pretty.

Badger sitting pretty too.

Selene sitting pretty.

Amazing that I got a shot of each one of them sitting so nicely. Full bellies helped! So remember that as a photography tip! These are their six week old photos.

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Keeping Your Cat Healthy – SHEBA

Posted by html404 on November 5, 2013
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Health, Home, Pet Food, Uncategorized

Do you have a cat? We have six. We started with two and now have six! Needless to say we go through a lot of cat food! A huge part in keeping your cat healthy is the diet you feed them. We feed our cats a mostly raw diet of fresh Guernsey milk from Miss Moo, chicken, chicken livers and giblets. They will be getting treated with turkey trimmings on Thanksgiving! With winter weather around the corner we want them to have enough to eat so they can maintain proper body temperature to stay warm; that’s why we usually supplement their diet with cat food.

I don’t think we’ve ever fed our cats canned cat food before, until now. We usually buy dry cat food. This time we bought them SHEBA cat food. They LOVED it and gobbled up their SHEBA entrees. You can see from the photos how much they enjoyed their SHEBA meal!

Selene wouldn’t eat until we served her own portion by herself! Look at her ears…protective of her food…though she did allow her mama to join her. See the video here on Instagram.

Freckles is saying yummy SHEBA!

Princess says yummy with her tongue and Badger thought the meal was so good she had to sit on the plate with her SHEBA entree!

Severus cleaned his plate and is patiently waiting for more.

Pumpkin barely breathes as she devours her portion of SHEBA cat food!

Walmart has a roll-back price on SHEBA right now – just $0.50! Plus SHEBA has a Buy 6, Get 1 FREE coupon on their website: http://www.sheba.com/home

Our cats are barn cats, but not in the traditional sense because they are very people-fied and are our pets, though they do serve a purpose in keeping the rodent population down on the 16 acres of land where we live. Our landlords do not want us keeping any pets in the home we are renting.

After their bellies were full, the kittens were in a very playful mood!

When our female cat, Princess, had kittens over six weeks ago we moved her and her babies to the garage for safety mainly but we also knew they would be extra warm in the garage because our dryer vent releases into the garage. We wanted Princess to feel safe and not be threatened by anything in the barn or by the other cats. This was how we kept Princess and her kittens healthy for the past six weeks. We just started letting her take the kittens outside. She gave a hint by having them all sit at the garage door with begging little faces!

Another part of keeping our cat healthy is worming them. We worm them on a regular basis to keep them free of parasites.

Regular vet visits and vaccinations all play a part in keeping your cat healthy too. Check with your vet on their recommendations. Each vet will be different.

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