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Celebrating Valentine’s Day as a Family

Posted by Brande on February 4, 2014
in Crafts, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Fun Stuff, Handmade Items, Holidays, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Recipes, Saving Money, Seasonal Stuff, Uncategorized

Ah! Love is in the air – Valentine’s Day is coming!

I remember the days of being Sweethearts – going out to dinner, flowers, & candy. My…My… can things change once kids enter the picture. Valentine’s Day has changed in our house, we now celebrate as a family. Here’s a few inexpensive ways to make Valentine’s Day a family event!

1.) Make heart pancakes for breakfast – Make your favorite pancake mix, add a few drops of red food coloring. Stir up the batter good and cook them. When they are done cooking, take a heart shaped cookie cutter and cut out your heart pancakes.

2.) Heart shaped sandwiches for lunch – This is a good craft as well as lunch. Build your favorite sandwich and then use the heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out a really cute sandwich.

3.) You need flowers for Valentine’s Day – Material needed: a few sheets of colored tissue paper and a pipe cleaner for each flower. Take the tissue paper and lay them on top of one another and then twist a pipe cleaner in the middle. Fluff out the tissue paper to make tissue flowers.

4.) You can’t have Valentine’s Day without chocolate – My favorite is chocolate covered strawberries. Buy strawberries at your local store and a bag or a few bars of your favorite chocolate. Using a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate in 30 second intervals at first. Stir the chocolate. Once the chocolate starts to melt only microwave about 10 seconds or less, be careful not to burn the chocolate. Use oven mitts to take the chocolate out of the microwave, it will be very hot. Then dip your washed & dried strawberries into the chocolate, I sometimes use a spoon to coat the berry. Place the chocolate strawberry on wax paper to dry.

Enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day as a family!

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React Mobile App

Posted by html404 on February 3, 2014
in Downloads, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Parenting, Products for Dad, Products for Mom, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

This is a sponsored campaign with Mums the Word Network and React Mobile. All opinions are my own.

Have you ever felt like you need to do more to insure your family stays safe? I think we all have. React Mobile is a free safety app for Androids and iPhones that allows you to call out for help with the touch of a button if you encounter any kind of danger or safety issues!

The React Mobile App is very easy to use. All you have to do is download the app to your phone. Here are the specific features of this app:

– SOS Alerts email
– SOS via text
– SOS to Facebook and Twitter
– SOS to dedicated user console
– GPS location tracking
– 911 button/prompt
– Group SMS messages

The app will give you several options right from the get-go.

You can sign up using your email or Facebook account. I choose to register using my email.

At the bottom of the app you have four different choices: Map, Send SOS, Contacts (you can add your own contacts) and Send SMS Message to broadcast to your contact list.

The SOS messaging system allows you to alert authorities, family and friends if you are in trouble or need assistance with the swipe of your finger.

The React Mobil App even has a “Follow Me” feature and your family can follow you in real-time for those non-emergency situations where you may feel unsafe and just want to touch base with those you love. How reassuring is that? I can see this being very useful when you have teens in the house!

There is a “Settings” feature that allows you to post your alert message to Facebook or twitter, as well as a setting to choose which country you are in. The React Mobile App is currently only available in the USA and Canada.

To learn more about the app, check out the video below:

React Mobile Personal Safety App from Robb on Vimeo.

You can also connect with React below:

React Mobile Web site: www.ReactMobile.com
Apple iTunes Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/react-standard-edition/id522851588?mt=8
Google Play Download (available on select smartphones): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.reactmobile.lite

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Week #14 Saturday Top Five Laughs

Posted by html404 on February 1, 2014
in Family Stuff, Humor, Kids Stuff, Saturday Top Five Laughs, Uncategorized

For the 14th week, we are joining Mel over at The Mommyhood Chronicles in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week.

5. The little boys asked to go to “Toyland”. They meant Disneyland! 😉

4. We were talking about school and grades etc. My husband jokingly told our oldest daughter that if she were in public school she would “kiss up”. Amelia Bedelia said, “You guys can kiss people?”

3. This week I found our youngest calls bright yellow cars “bumblebee” cars. So cute!

2. Jr. has been at it again, drawing!

1. Jr. was burping on purpose and my oldest daughter called him out on it by telling me. Then Jr. exclaims, “Purpose rude! Me rude!” (meaning burping on purpose is rude) and continues to burp. Sigh. What am I going to do with that boy? If he’s like this at three, what will he be like when he’s older? I’m kind of getting scared.

Share some of your funnies this week!?

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My-Baby-Book App

Posted by html404 on January 29, 2014
in Apps, Baby Products, Downloads, Family Stuff, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Pregnancy and Birth, Reviews, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

My-Baby-Book app is a cute little app to record all the necessary information from your pregnancy test, pregnancy through to your baby’s first 18 months of life. I think it would be a great tool since so often I would write down milestones on sticky notes to add to our baby book….once I got around to it. Then I would end up losing them or misplacing them. Whereas with the app I always have my phone on me and it would be easy to grab it and make the necessary notes in the My-Baby-Book app for milestones baby reached as they happened. Very handy and convenient. Busy moms, techie moms and moms trying to go digital will appreciate what this app has to offer by way of storing important dates, times, milestones etc.

The home page needs to be swiped to start the app and takes you to the cover of the My-Baby-Book app, which allows you to edit and personalize it with your baby’s name:

The next page is the table of contents. The main menu is a bear with building blocks…cutest menu I’ve seen yet! The main menu is located in the top left corner when not in use.

Here’s what Kim, mom of two, had to say about My-Baby-Book app:

What a useful app! I love that you can store all of your baby’s growth information on your phone or tablet so when you’re at the doctor it’s on hand and easy to update. My favorite is the baby’s firsts section. I’m always writing down on post-it’s when my daughter does something for the first time. The post-it notes have been piling up since I haven’t had time to dig out her baby book to write them in. Great features and super user friendly!

Children’s Art Work – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on January 28, 2014
in Family Stuff, Kids Stuff, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

I love my children’s art work. I use to be so anal about it as I use to save every drawing. When we moved from our townhouse we literally went through bags of children’s art work from our older girls. They were like, “Mom, why did you keep this?” I seriously hated the thought of throwing anything away. Several children later and I was completely over it. Though Jr. has been making it hard lately. Wait ’til you see what he’s made this week in my Saturday Top Five Laughs post!

A few weeks ago B brought me this drawing of her finger. Her first attempt, mind you! She has always loved art, drawing, painting, etc. And with Miss Moo’s arrival she had to put it on the back burner, so she’s been having fun getting back into it again. B says she has so many interests there’s not enough time to do them all! I can completely relate to that! There are so many things I’d love to do but cannot because of time constraints. Maybe we should split our time between all the things we are interested in and see if we can get even a little bit accomplished in each area? Kind of like setting up daily, weekly or monthly activities for ourselves. Hmmm…..something to think about.

Do you have a favorite hobby? Any artists in the family?

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Week #13 Saturday Top Five Laughs

Posted by html404 on January 25, 2014
in Animals, Blog Stuff, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Fun Stuff, Humor, Kids Stuff, Saturday Top Five Laughs, Uncategorized

Can’t believe I have been consistent for 13 weeks for the Saturday Top Five Laughs! Woo hoo! Once more we have joined The Mommyhood Chronicles in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week.

5. Last week I went out to lunch with my “farm” buddies – other women farmers and farmerwannabees – and my friend, who also has cows (beef and a Jersey) shared with me that conventional farmers do not allow their cows to go the bathroom during milking. Now I could be wrong, but I swear the cows at the farm we grew up going to and buying milk from went to the bathroom during milking. Nova Scotia friend Elaine, are you reading? What does the N farm do? Anyhooo…Miss Moo going potty has been an issue for us. So C told me to hold a bucket under Miss Moo’s tail when she went to go. B did this ONCE and Miss Moo has stopped going to the bathroom during milking. Miss Moo knew what she was doing was wrong and was taking advantage of us beginners! I am still shaking my head at that. My pregnancy and sensitivity to smells stopped me from continuing to milk Miss Moo, but so did her bathroom tricks. I think I’ll have to pick up milking again…if Miss Moo will let me. She would not let anyone milk her one evening when B and my husband went to a farmers market. She waited for B to come home! She’s definitely B’s cow.

4. Our three year old ‘s drawing of a snowman from a gift card envelope. 🙂

3. Jr. and my husband – snuggle buddies and partners in mischief – these two definitely love each other!

2. I bought a new garbage can to store animal feed in and this is what the little boys did with it before it got taken down to the barn….why buy toys, right? Then I had to take it from them because they started to do stupid stuff. What my husband likes to blame on the “S” gene (for stupid gene).

1. We still have our Christmas tree up. Yep, we do. I bet it stays up until the end of January.

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Swerve Sweetener 10% Discount Coupon – Thrifty Thursday

Posted by html404 on January 23, 2014
in All Natural Products, Coupons, Deals, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Nutrition, Health and Wellness, Shopping, Thrifty Thursday, Uncategorized

This post contains affiliate links.

I reviewed Swerve Sweetener when I wrote the post about replacement sweeteners and really liked it. It isn’t like other replacement sweeteners, it tastes that good. I used most of it in my tea, but I need to order more. I just missed the sale they had going on where you can purchase four canisters for $20. Completely forgot! Boo hoo! Can’t believe I have to start putting sale end dates on my calendar to remind myself to shop!

You all can save 10% discount on your order placed via Swerve’s website.

The discount code is: FAITH10 and expires 12/31/2014.

Have you ever forgotten a sale you really wanted to participate in? Or forgot coupons you really wanted to use?

Stay sweet!

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Miss Moo Miscarried – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on January 22, 2014
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Miscarriage, Pregnancy Loss, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

Yesterday Dr. M, one of our vets, was out to check Miss Moo to see if she is with calf……she WAS indeed pregnant but she miscarried. 🙁

Warning contains some graphic cow anatomy details! Not so wordless this week, but that’s not really new.

A week ago Friday or Saturday evening a couple of the children came in from the barn saying Miss Moo had a bubble in her butt. By the time I got down to the barn the bubble had popped and she had a clear, mucous like discharge, not bloody, but indicative she could have miscarried. Believe me I googled every known term for “cow miscarriage”, except spontaneous abortion since I hate that term, to learn what I could about miscarriages in cows. Then I prepared B, just in case, because I didn’t want her to be shocked if the vet did announce Miss Moo had miscarried.

Yesterday when Dr. M checked Miss, she only had two thirds the fluid she should have and Dr. M could not feel the calf. We were half expecting it, but it’s still disappointing. Miss Moo should absorb (such an awful way to describe it) the calf in the next 10-14 days and go back into her heat cycle at which time we will try to AI (artificially inseminate her) again. The vet suggested we switch bull semen and instead of trying for a pure bred Guernsey to try for a cross breed. There may be some incompatibilities, though she has been bred to “Grumpy” before. So we are going to try our friend’s Dutch Belted (otherwise known as Oreo cookie cows black with a big white strip in the middle of their bellies) and see if the third time works. It will be interesting to see what the calf looks like, that’s for sure!

These are my friend’s Dutch Belted cows, she sold the heifer, the one in the background, if I remember correctly.

Here’s what my friend said about the Dutch Belted bull semen (like you all want bull semen education, but hey, it’s my blog and I’ll blog if I want to, blog if I want to! 🙂 Extreme tiredness = silliness):

Your straw (or more, if it takes more than one try) will be from “Snappy”. Supposedly, Snappy sires “easy-calving”, vigorous calves, so we’ve used his stuff on two heifers now. Funny, the heifer that just went to C’s friend in North Carolina is carrying a Snappy calf, half-sibling to your eventual calf. 🙂

Dr. M and I thought it would be a good fit, because both of our heifers “took” on the first try with Snappy, and both kept their calves past the time when they could have lost an early pregnancy.

Good luck!

Miss Moo is finally up to her normal body condition after coming to us last April extremely underweight so the vet was impressed again by her weight gain. At his last visit he said she needed another 100-200 lbs, so that she looked good to the vet was good news. We knew she was doing well because none of her ribs are showing anymore, it’s just that confirmation is extra nice, you know? Hopefully her improved body condition will help her conceive this next time. We will be upping her minerals too. He said she isn’t a “fertile Myrtle”. Even if she isn’t we would never get rid of her. She’s a pet, as well as a food source. Besides now that her weight is up she won’t be anything to feed once she’s on pasture and we grow our own hay for winter so it’s not like we have to pay out a bunch of money for hay. I am going to hope and pray this next AI sticks.

Now, here’s to hoping for a fall calf!

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Get Healthy with Insync Probiotic #NaturalProbiotic #shop #cbias

Posted by html404 on January 19, 2014
in All Natural Products, Exercise, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Fitness, Health and Nutrition, Health and Wellness, Products for Dad, Products for Mom, Recipes, Uncategorized

Our family really strives to live a healthy lifestyle, but I want to preface that by saying we don’t do it perfectly and we are still on our journey to better health. Always room for improvement, right? Though I have to say we celebrate our two year anniversary of being cold and flu free next month! One of the ways we live healthy is taking a natural probiotic and a daily multivitamin.

Insync Probiotic

Insync Probiotic is a natural probiotic I have been taking for the past three weeks. It is available at Meijer stores in the “condition specific” section. It contains doctor recommended B. infantis’, which is a healthy probiotic bacteria that has been found to help women with irritable bowel syndrome (Source: National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine). I have found it easy on my digestive system.

Four Things to Stay Healthy

Here are four other things to do to help maintain a healthy digestive system balance in addition to taking a natural probiotic.

1. Eating the right foods. One of my favorite fall and winter time foods is soup, especially Potato Kale Soup. It has lots of yummy veggies that keep your digestive system going.

It looks wonderful in the above photo with all its brightly colored vegetables, and it’s how the children prefer it, but I prefer to blend it together as the recipe calls for, which makes it look not quite so appealing. It is oh-so-yummy though!

2. Getting enough sleep is an important part of staying healthy and giving our body the rest it needs to function properly.

3. Get enough exercise. I struggle with this one because I like to get my exercise naturally rather than go to the gym or get on exercise equipment. One of the reasons I want to live on a farm! The thing is I have so many children that usually what’s left for me is weeding the garden which no one else enjoys. Before my older two boys took it over, one of my favorite things to do in the winter was shovel snow. Exercise aids in regular bowel movements.

4. Laughter. We are all probably familiar with the old proverb “Laughter is good medicine”, but it rings true. Exercise, laughter and having fun gets the endorphines going and reduces stress in our life. Less stress promotes good digestion and promotes good health.

For more information about Insync Probiotic, please visit:
http://www.insyncprobiotic.com
Twitter – @insyncprobiotic
Facebook – insyncprobiotic

Do you and your family take a natural probiotic to stay healthy? Have you ever heard of or tried Insync Probiotic before reading this post?

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Week #12 Saturday Top Five Laughs

Posted by html404 on January 18, 2014
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Fun Stuff, Humor, Kids Stuff, Saturday Top Five Laughs, Uncategorized

Once more we have joined The Mommyhood Chronicles for Week #12 – for us – in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week. And once again our three year old dominates the list!

5. B sat on Miss Moo to ride her. Did not get a photo of it though because by the time someone had come inside to tell me and I thought to take a photo B had already come in.

4. Earlier in the week Jr. (3) came to my husband and said, “Here Daddy, my school work.” He sees the children coming to get their school work corrected and thought he’d join, I guess. I haven’t been consistent in doing his preschool books with him….maybe that’s a hint?!

3. Our three year old son was at it again. He created at least ten “Daddy and Me” pictures and even cut them out! He gave my husband all these teeth because my husband has this grrrrrr sound where he clamps down on with his teeth. There’s even one of my husband with a hat and his brain. Very interesting perspective from our three year old anyways!

2. We had our farrier out this week to do our horse’s hooves and as he’s trimming Blaze’s hooves what does Freckles, one of the kittens, do? She jumped up onto Mr. B’s back! Silly cat.

1. We were watching a movie one night and out of the blue our three year old goes, “Me love her” referring to one of the female animated characters! lol!

What fun things happened at your house this week?

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