Second Breakfast with Caroline

We had a great visit to our friend's house yesterday. Caroline shared with Ethan some yogurt and fruit.

They enjoyed sitting across from each other while eating their "second" breakfast!

Footsies were played.

I can't get over this little ones eyelashes! Her daddy's going to have a hard time keeping the boys away.

Wordless Wednesday-Playing with the Potty

Scallop Potatoes

It's been awhile since I posted a recipe. Some recipes I make up as I go along, some I get off the Internet and some, like this one, I take 2 or 3 recipes and mix them all together.

Scallop Potatoes

Ingredients

4 or 5 Med white Potatoes sliced 1/4 inch

3 cups chicken broth

1 cup water (or enough to cover your potatoes)

1/2 onion chopped (optional)

fresh or dried rosemary (chopped)

salt and pepper (I add a lot of salt because I make my own chicken broth and don't salt that very much. You need a lot of salt when cooking potatoes!)

1 cup milk

1 cup grated cheese ( I use sharp Cheddar)

3 T Butter

3 T flour

Heat chicken broth, water, onions, salt and pepper and rosemary to a slow boil. Add potatoes and boil till almost done but not quite. They need to be a bit harder because we are going to bake them later. Remove potatoes and put into your baking dish. I like to use my 8x8 glass Pyrex. Reserve liquid.

Put your pan back on the heat and add your butter to melt. When all the butter is melted and the pan is hot, add the flour and whisk for about 2 minutes or until it is a light brown color. This is called a Roux. It's French.

Add 3 cups of your reserved liquid and whisk until all the flour is dissolved. It should be starting to get thick. Add some milk. You may not need the whole cup but you just want to make it a little thinner. Keep whisking until the milk is all heated up then add the cheese. Whisk until cheese is melted. This whole process takes about 5 minutes so have all your ingredients ready before you start. I get mine ready while the potatoes are cooking. I love having everything in little glass bowls as if I were on a cooking show!

Pour your sauce into your Pyrex over your potatoes. You can add more rosemary on top if you like. Cook in a 350-375 oven for about 15 or 20 minutes or until it is golden brown on top. The first time I made these both Eli and I ate 2 servings each and I had the rest for breakfast the next morning!

Bon Appetit

CSN Review

I was finally able to decided what product to get for my CSN review! I have been craving Chinese food and I love to cook so what better then a Wok????

Have you ever shopped for a wok? There are over 100 different woks to choose from on Cookware.com! Everything from round bottom to flat bottom, different materials pulse all the extra utensils you could ever need to cook with. I googled "the best wok to buy" and decided that the best for use would be a round bottom, carbon steel with a helper handle. It was very easy to narrow it down to only 14 woks. I then picked the one with the least amount of extra stuff because I really didn't need any of those things and I was trying to keep it under $40. I ended up going with the Taylor & Ng 4 Piece Round Bottom Wok.

I ordered our Wok on Sunday evening and got an email early Monday morning telling me my order had shipped! It arrived on Thursday. I couldn't be happier with the speed of service.

Now for the Wok, I would buy a different one next time. Have you ever had to "season" a Wok? Well, if you don't have to, DON'T!! It smells terrible! Just buy a pre-seasoned one. They sell them on Cookware.com!! Happy Shopping!

New Blog Name and New Look!

When I started this blog over a year ago I didn't really put much thought into the name. Now that we are adding to our family I figured it was time to change the name to something that included every thing I post about.

I want to thank my super cool bloggy friend Brandy at You Don't Know for my redesign. I think she did a great job and I love my new look!

Hopefully I will get back into the bloggy swing of things and start posting again soon!

Happy Birthday Party- ReannaLily Designs!

Jen of ReannaLily Designs is having a Birthday Party!! Starting today she is having 5 giveaways in 5 days, one each day. The contest will be open until Monday 23. I'm sure she has some great stuff in store for us! Run over there and join the fun!

Baby Girl Licking the Placenta!!

I've heard that babies will do this but I've never seen it happen! Here's our baby girl, who is already hungry!!

We're Having a.........

GIRL!!!!!!

We are so excited that Ethan is going to have a little sister! I'm really excited to get to dress her in PINK. I have a few girl newborn clothes I've been saving over the years I'm going to dig out of a box in the garage.

I am 18 weeks along and feeling her move around. She was very active during the u/s. Everything looked great. I have a  video that I will post later if I can get it to upload to youTube.

Review #1 of Garden Tea and Giveaway!

Our container garden is not doing well. We have gotten several cucumbers, a few okra and 3 hot peppers. That's it. I thought it was time for an intervention or all our hard work was for nothing. I had heard about Authentic Haven Brand Natural Brew Soil Conditioner Tea on a gardening blog and really wanted to try it out. I think our main problem is that we grow our plants in containers, not in the ground. Even though we put manure in with the potting soil, we had not fertilized it at all this year. In past years we did a bit of fertilizing but with nasty chemicals. I really want to do it different this year. The Soil Conditioner Tea helps your plants roots to absorb more nutrients from the soil.

                                  

I contacted Annie at Authentic Haven and she sent me several samples of her "tea"! There are 3 different types of tea: Cow Manure, Horse Manure and Alfalfa. The first two, Cow and Horse, are used for all your plants and gardens. The third, Alfalfa, is for use on your Roses. Haven Livestock has only raised natural grass fed livestock. The livestock is free of antibiotics, growth hormones, and pesticides.

It is very easy to brew your tea. Fill a 5lb bucket with water, place one tea bag inside and cover. Leave it to sit for 1-3 days until it is a dark brown color. Then just water your plants! You can use the tea every time you water or at least 4 times during the growing season.

Please be careful when you have a bucket of water around children because they could fall into it and drown! Ours is kept covered and Ethan is always supervised when outside.

I can't wait till my tea is brewed and I can get to watering my plants! I will treat them with the tea at least once a week for the next 4 weeks and then post on the progress our garden has made.

Now for the best part! Annie sent me several samples of the different types of tea to review on my blog. Among them was a tea bag of the Alfalfa tea for Roses. Unfortunately I don't have any roses :( so I want to give it away to one of you!! Visit Authentic Haven Brand's Blog and tell me why you want to try out the Alfalfa tea on your roses. I'll pick a winner on Augs 17th.

On a side note- I have a new Toad!! Can you see the little guy?

He jumps away pretty fast so it's hard to get a good pic of him. I've seen him twice now near my herbs and "house" plants. I also saw a larger toad near the container garden this morning. They must have heard that our yard was a safe, happy place to live! I hope this little guy sticks around for awhile.

My First Cloth Diapers

Mommie V and Funky Mama Bird are starting "Cloth Tushie Tuesday" and I thought I'd join in on the fun! Today we are talking about our first cloth diaper. My first cloth diapers were bought before Ethan was born and I was still working. Eli and I decided that I should stay home with the baby and we were looking for ways to save money. Cloth diapering was something that could save lots of money! I did a little research online and bought 15 BG 3.0 in white. I thought white would be easier to clean because I could use bleach on them. I don't have those same diapers for various reasons (see this post) but BG's are still my most trusted diapers!

We didn't start using the BG's until Ethan was 2 months old. He was just too small for them and I think I was a bit overwhelmed and wasn't ready to add one more thing to my growing list of responsibilities! I am so glad we started CDing and I can't wait to CD the Little One from the beginning. I've already started my Newborn CD stash!

A Woolie GIveaway

I'm so excited to find this Giveaway (thanks Carly). Beccalynn from Makin' it has an Etsy store- Bunny Tails- where she sells her handmade wool shorties, longies and upcycled cloth diapers! She is giving away a custom made (read: anything you want!) wool soakers!

I would love to win one of these for the new baby! Are these not just the cutest things you have ever seen??

You could win too! Check out Makin' it and enter to win.

Vacation- Part 2

Once we got home from Aunt April's house (Vacation Part 1) and spent a few weeks sitting around on the couch having morning sickness all day, we pack our bags and headed to the farm! We flew to Virginia to visit Eli's side of the family, got to meet Grandmommy (his Mom's Mom) and spent a few days relaxing at his parents farm.

He loved the chickens!

Grandmommy, Eli and Ethan

The cow wasn't too interesting to him.

Ethan had lots of fun playing with his Aunt Mercy and Uncle Joshua!

He bounced on a trampoline for the first time.

He loved walking in the creek!

Naked is the Best!

Then he enjoyed watching Mercy blowing bubbles with his Grandpa Ed.

He took several rides around the farm in the red wagon, held onto by Mercy and pulled by Joshua.

Ed and Vicki have a garden they have been growing for 15 years!! I hope one day Eli and I can have a place just like it. They grow everything from tomatoes to lettuce to all kinds of berries.

Ethan enjoying fresh picked berries.

I couldn't get over the asparagus! I don't think I have ever seen asparagus growing. They have some plants that are 15 years old! It was one of the first vegetables that they started in their garden. We unfortunately missed the harvest but they continue to grow until the spring when they get mowed down and grow up into fresh asparagus.

Thank you to all of the family for opening your homes to us. We had such a great visit and can't wait to see you all again.