Family Stuff | Faith and Family Reviews

Archive for Family Stuff

You Know You Are a Farmer When……

Posted by html404 on October 12, 2011
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Gardening

I thought it would be funny (to us anyways!) to include a post about “You know you are a farmer when…” or “You know you live in the country when….” because we have had a few things happen that make us chuckle about living in the country/becoming farmers:

1. You buy a pair of overalls – for yourself, not your kids.

2. You are dragging home manure in the back of your van to fertilize your garden – not from the store mind you, freshly shoveled stuff into bags from a local farm!

3. Pet food costs nearly as much as your family’s food bill (not really but if we keep adding animals it could – for real!)

4. When the stars and moon keep you awake at night because they are so bright.

5. Your garbage pile is nearly as big as your neighbor’s manure pile. (Ha! Not really, I was just running out of quick witted things to list! But we do put out more garbage here.)

{No comments}

Review ~ Freschetta Pizza

Posted by Professor on October 10, 2011
in Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Products for Dad, Products for Mom

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

Freschetta Pizza is a wonderful taste sensation! They have several pizza options for the consumer to choose from, including:

Brick oven
Naturally Rising
California Style
Pizzamore
By the slice
Simply inspired
Pizza crust

All of the options are tailored to what the consumer is looking for in a pizza! This is frozen pizza … but the taste is phenomenal! Freschetta only uses all real cheeses, sauces made out of tomatoes picked at the peak of their ripeness, premium meats, and recipes that make any meal fresh-tasting and fun.

OUR REVIEW:

We were pleased to review Freschetta Naturally Rising Pizza. We chose the 4-Cheese Medley option. This pizza was a wonderful taste sensation of CHEESE! In our family we think the cheesier the better! This pizza was a combination of Mozzarella, cheddar, provolone and parmesan. Everyone (including my picking eaters) LOVED this pizza! The crust was nice and thick…it was reminiscent of homemade pizza. I cannot say enough about the pizza. In our house we usually opt for the cheaper thin crust pizza options and I was glad to see that this pizza only retails for 8.99 and in our store it happened to be on sale for 6.39…which in this economy…price does matter! I was glad to see an economical price margin on this spectacular pizza!

Make sure to keep reading our blog as one lucky reader will be able to try his or her own Freschetta Pizza when we sponsor a giveaway!

To find out more about Freschetta Pizza and download a $1.00 off coupon please visit:

http://www.freschetta.com/ or look them up on facebook or twitter!

{No comments}

Fall Canning and Apple Picking Photos

Posted by html404 on October 6, 2011
in Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health and Nutrition

Thrifty Thursday is all about canning and finding ways to provide good food for our families. Canning can be expensive, but if you are going to do it for the long haul then the initial investment is worth it. I bought canning supplies back in 2001 and we have only used them a handful of times until this year. Friends have been good to us providing produce and jars.

Apple picking. Check local orchards, neighbors who do nothing with the apples just falling to the ground in their yards and gleaning programs set up by non-profit organizations and farm partnerships. This applies to other fruits and vegetables too. We do this not only for ourselves but to provide local food pantries with fresh fruits and veggies – the ones that take them anyways.

This is actually fermenting sauerkraut and it is a before photo as I think it was a failed first attempt….maybe….haven’t tasted it yet to know for sure. Kind of scared to and you’ll know why by the next photo. A friend told me it should be fine, but I still have my doubts….

And here is one of the second batch with the first batch….notice the difference in coloring:

This is our stash of some of our canned tomatoes. We also have salsa, jam and applesauce. We are planning to make more applesauce tomorrow with two families. We will have three moms and 24 kids…..thankfully we will have a few over the age of 16! Plus some other young ladies helping equal the number above age 12!

Gleaning often means taking the leftovers that have fallen to the ground and are not perfect. However, they are perfect for canning and dehydrating.

Apple picking/gleaning is also a wonderful way to spend a beautiful day together as a family.

Happy Thrifty Thursday!

{No comments}

What I Hate About Photography

Posted by html404 on October 5, 2011
in Blog Stuff, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff

I love taking pictures of our family, of our outings etc. Photos seem to make memories last longer.

What I hate about photography is is getting the image so it can be used in multiple ways. For example: I changed the theme of Faith and Family Reviews last tonight and discovered that I could customize the header. I thought, “This will be great because then I can use family photos and make it more personal!” Yeah, right.

I went through dozens of photos only to discover that many of our photos are completely useless in regards to being a header. As with the one featured, it is blurry. Bah humbug. So bear with me as I learn the art of taking photos so they make great headers.

Perhaps we will take a vote on this month’s header from the few that are sort of useable. I will try to remember to switch them out over the next week so please let me know what you think.

Just maybe I will get some shots taken that will be useful….either that or I will find out my camera is the problem…..

{No comments}

$2 Tuesdays

Posted by html404 on October 5, 2011
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Food and Treats, Health & Garden Tuesday, Organic

We recently discovered an organic raspberry farm in our area that has $2 Tuesdays. So this morning that is what we did – pick a few pints of raspberries. What fun we had! The children loved it and the farmers were very hospitable. We hope to go again as they will have berries for a while yet as they grow them in high tunnels, which they are doing in conjunction to a research project they are participating in.

This farm also had sheep they raise for wool, chickens that they had for pest control and they also hold different classes throughout the year. They have a couple I am interested in but I am not sure if the timing is right or not….have to wait to see.

We are hoping to put up some more jam if the berries last that long….

Of course, I forgot my camera yesterday and for some reason it is a pain to get photos off my phone, so while I have a few of us I did not get many nor did I get us actually picking berries. I had planned to go back but ran out of space on my phone, of course. The trials and tribulations of a mom trying to capture family memories. Any suggestions on how to be better prepared? Would love to hear them!

{No comments}

Long Awaited Photos – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on October 5, 2011
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Gardening

Guess what I found at the townhouse on Saturday…..yes! The cord for my camera to connect to my computer! Yay! Here are some long awaited photos from the summer through yesterday and a peek into our lives:

Clouds over Mrs. A’s Farm.

This was when we just started planting out in Mrs. A’s field in the spring!

Early morning at Mrs. A’s Farm.

Some of these photos were taken by my 8 year old son.

Hairy little man. These next couple were taken by our oldest.

Thought this one was cool. We think our 9 year old took it.

Lefse making.

Hairy man loved lefse making!

Pretending to fish.

Lefse.

Rolling out lefse.

Happy boy.

{No comments}

Canning and Dehydrating – This Week’s Monday Motivation

Posted by html404 on October 3, 2011
in Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Home

If my camera cord wasn’t lost I could post a real photo of the things we have canned in the last couple of weeks. But alas, it is still MIA (military term for missing in action for those of you that go blank with abbreviations…I know the blankness because I use to experience it ALOT!) so you will have to make do with this photo I found on Microsoft Office in their image gallery. Boo hoo….

Two weeks ago a friend had us over to can 5 bushels of tomatoes. We had a great time spending time with them and have been enjoying the fruits of our labor in spaghetti, chili and pinto beans. We made canned tomatoes and a few jars of salsa.

Since we enjoyed canning so much we came home and made several jars of grape and strawberry jelly and applesauce….yummy!

We are hoping to make more applesauce this week with friends coming to our house if schedules allow for it.

Due to laws changing in Illinois in regards to farmers selling homemade baked and canned goods made in their own kitchens, we are hoping to sell some of our wares next year. Farmers use to have to use commercial kitchens to do this sort of thing. I even looked into using one this summer but it never panned out and I am glad now since we can do it all in our own kitchen. There are stipulations though…of course.

When I get into the whole kitchen thing, my husband likes to call me “Suzy Homemaker”….well that’s what I use to be before 2008 when I started working from home. I love all the so called lost arts. Love to cook, love to bake, love to can, love to sew, love to knit (even though I am not very good at it) and now we are getting into dehydrating since that does not kill all the nutrition in the food. It is very satisfying being able to provide my family with healthy, homemade food and clothes. What can I say? I am from the old school where I believe a woman’s place is in the home taking care of her family and house. It gives me great joy to fulfill my calling as a wife and mother. Not that I don’t enjoy my other “work”, as it helps pay the bills, but my greatest joy is being a wife and mom.

I know you all aren’t going to agree with me, so what is your calling? What gives you joy as a woman?

Disclaimer: This does not mean that I do not enjoy being a small business woman, I do. The thing is it would not be nearly as satisfying doing it on my own. I love the look on my husband’s face when I can say, “Honey, I made XXXX amount of dollars today/this week/this month.” And I love being able to include my children in my work. Just saying…;-)

{No comments}

A New Addition – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on September 28, 2011
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Home

Sorry, this was suppose to go live two weeks ago, but I found it in my drafts folder……

See, I told you he was a new addition! But he is not a human addition, but the pet variety.
……And this went live this morning without a photo because I still have not found my camera cord, so I nabbed a photo of Robert that we emailed to Blaze’s owner. Sorry to those visiting earlier today and saw nothing! Surprise!

More of this story later….;-) Nothing like spiking your interest and curiosity, eh?

{No comments}

End of Summer – Health and Garden Tuesday

Posted by html404 on September 27, 2011
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Health & Garden Tuesday, Health and Garden Tuesday

I don’t know about you, but I am always sad when the end of summer arrives. It is always refreshing to have the cool mornings and nights that comes with this time of year, however, it also means winter is just around the corner….which is my least favorite season.

It was a very busy summer traveling back and forth two days a week to Mrs. A’s farm, but full of learning and memories. By the time we had moved in early August, the children (and me too, admittedly) were tiring of being gone from home, traveling and…..weeding. All of that came to an end on Friday, September 16th. We are officially done at Mrs. A’s. Our last farmers market was the 10th. (Oh and by the way, we were in the Glenview news for a feature for the farmers market over Labor Day weekend. You can view it here: http://glenview.patch.com/articles/bringing-the-garden-to-your-plate Sorry forgot the link earlier!)

Now, it’s time to make plans for our own farm. We have our garlic to plant, our 2 fields to till and manure. We are still deliberating over ordering baby chicks for laying hens. Not sure I want to start a batch in cool weather and over-winter them. That’s the disadvantage. The advantage is that we will get eggs in the spring some time – a huge plus if we want them for our family, farmers markets or a CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture definition here.) My husband had wanted to wait on the animals but he seems to be more open to the chickens now that we are done at Mrs. A’s. We did just get used feeders and a nesting box off of Craigslist – can you say smelly and dirty?! A definite disadvantage to buying used. We will clean them up before using them to safe guard against any possible contamination occurring. We still need fencing and housing for chickens…and time…lots and lots of decisions.

It still seems a bit surreal that we have our own place to farm. I feel like I have to pinch myself sometimes.

We are thoroughly enjoying our extra space and are praying for guidance for our future farming enterprise.

{No comments}

Settling In – Motivation Monday

Posted by html404 on September 26, 2011
in Family Stuff, Home

We have settled into our new home quite nicely. We have even gone back to being hospitable and have had friends and family over at least four times with more to be scheduled. Yes, we are enjoying sharing our new home with others! I use to love having folks over until we really outgrew our townhouse. It is good to be back into playing hostess again.

We had our lefse party with family two weeks ago, which was a great hit. We hope to plan a quarterly lefse party into our family tradition. We are playing around with the idea of inviting a different family over for each one. Just thought that it would be fun to share this Norwegian potato bread and tradition with others.

We had our old neighbors over in August so they could see our new home before school started back up and all the chaos going back to school brings. We had a blast with them.

Another friend dropped over to pick up somethings/drop things off, so we gave her a quick tour.

Then yesterday old friends from our college days came over for the afternoon bringing some of their cast offs, which is like Christmas to the children – new (to them) clothes, toys, games (we did two new puzzles this morning since it was raining 100 piece each) and even some canning jars (we canned tomatoes last week with friends and then did some applesauce and jam on our own, so very satisfying!)

There is something special in having people over, don’t you think? Our children love it and have missed it, thus the reason for planning more get-togethers because they keep asking, “Can we have so and so over?” 😉 Plus we love it too.

How often do you entertain? Are you planning any fall parties at your home? Would love to hear how you all entertain guests in your home! That is this week’s motivation. Being hospitable is actually biblical, what better way to show the love of Christ to strangers and brothers and sisters in the Lord.

{No comments}

« Older Entries Recent Entries »