Recipe, Uncategorized

Started my first Sourdough Starter

I made bread for Christmas Eve like I tend to do and finished the rest of my instant yeast and it made me wonder how people in the past used to make bread. Did they have yeast starters that they would pass around or was there somehow else that they made their bread. If you have read through my blog or Instagram you have seen that I have made quite a bit of bread. I have most of the major tools to make it but until now I have always used the instant yeast that you can buy at the store. So here is my story of falling down the rabbit hole of learning about how bread used to be made.

I started by using dear old google learning a lot of things about natural yeast. I’m not foreign to fermentation. Husband uses to make his own beer, we have made home made wine and I used to also make homemade water kefir, with water kefir crystals, which I love but haven’t been consistent enough in keeping alive and free of other contaminants. I’m bad at keeping it healthy and unlike sourdough it isn’t something you can just throw out and start over with what you have at home.

I learned that sourdough is actually easier on our digestive systems. The wild yeast and lactobacillus in the leaven neutralise the phytic acid as the bread proves through the acidification of the dough. This prevents the effects of the phytic acid and makes the bread easier for us to digest. These phytic acid molecules bind with other minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc, which make these important nutrients unavailable to us. Long slow fermentation of wheat can reduce phytates by up to 90%. This process means that it does take longer to make sourdough bread because the yeast and the bacteria take longer to break down the phylic acid BUT you end up with a bread that doesn’t make your belly wish you had never even looked at that delicious morsel of bread. Great thing is that you can even make a large batch of dough and keep it in your fridge only to cut some off and make fresh bread every morning OR you can make many different loafs at once.

Sourdough is made from the natural yeast that is all around us and in the grain itself. All you need is four and water and use your hands to mix the starter together. If you are in a hurry you can add a whole grain of some sort which will have more strains of yeast in it. I added just a teaspoon of wheat bran to the starter because I didn’t have any whole grain in the house and because I am all about seizing the day and not waiting because then it won’t happen because I have lost interest already I didn’t wait. I just used what I had on hand which was organic unbleached flour and organic wheat bran and water.

Here are the things you need to start your starter

1 glass or plastic container

1 measuring cup

3/4 cup organic unbleached wheat (preferably whole wheat)

2/3 cup water

one small ORGANIC apple grated with the skin but staying clear of the core.

The next day I fed it the exact same measurements BUT only white flour this time and water. Yep, fed it. Yeast is alive and hungry all the time. It needs to be fed and for sourdough you need to feed it white flour and water. It is recommended that you do this every day or two, throwing out half or using it in recipes that call for starter throw outs, until day 5 or 7, depending how warm your house is and if you had whole grains and used your hands or not. You are looking for a good bubble and nice active reaction within 2-3 hours of feeding, but like the instant gratification person I am I could only wait until day 4 to try it out the first time and it wasn’t showing much of a rise because of my cold house. I had nice bubbles going on in the started and all so we will see what happens. Update: the first bread was a dense flop and I threw it out. After 2 days I tried again and had a little better results but it wasn’t great. Both loaves where super heavy. Both the ugliest loaves of bread I have ever made.

We keep our house pretty cool during the winter because we have a pretty big house that is expensive to heat and so that our kids keep clothes on. Our 3 year old thought that pants were optional before winter hit and keeping the house cool makes him want to put pants on. Anyway, this makes for slow fermentation in our house. Because of our cool house my starter was having a really hard time getting going. I would get a few bubbles but no rise. I did some trouble shooting searching and they recommended a seed starting heating mat, which I already had in the garage and boom my starter took off like gangbusters.

When I had finally gotten the nice bubbly rise out of my starter on the mat I tried again and Boom! I got amazing bread with great rise. I am so glad that I stuck with it and kept trying and troubleshooting. Key is to have the starter in a warm place where it stays at least 70F otherwise starting from scratch is a bit difficult. I’m told that mature starters are a little hardier.

If you are not brave enough to make your own starter then here is one that Amazon will deliver to your door with instructions on how to keep it alive.

Anyway, sourdough starters can be used in so many recipes in stead of instant yeast. I look forward to the nutritious things I will be able to make for my family with this fun starter and it is very easy to put these guys to sleep. You can keep your starter in the fridge to slow down their rumbling tummies, but you still need to feed them once a week, OR you can dry some of your starter out and put in a Ziploc baggy and keep them in the freezer for a long while then start them up again by re-hydrating and feeding them. That I can get behind also starting a new one isn’t that hard if you end up sadly killing your first from starvation. Makes for a win-win science experiment in the kitchen.

Stay tuned for my concoctions made with this magic starter. I see a lot of fun in my future.

knitting, Uncategorized

Mine Slippers Review

I purchased the Mine Slipper pattern by Faye Kennington at the end of December of 2018 after I had run across her Instagram where I saw them and I really wanted to make myself a pair. I have made several of these lovelies myself and others so far and I’m sure I will make quite a few more in the future as quick gifts.

The pattern is well written with a lot of explanations and options. Faye also manages to fit the pattern all on just 2 sides of a paper which I appreciate when I print out patterns or purchase them already printed. The pattern is easy to memorize after knitting a pair. I only have to refer to it now when I am making different sizes so I know what to leave out since I have giant feet and made the biggest size for myself. Size 11 USA and 42 in European sizes.

I chose to make the left a mirror of the right but I don’t think that is a must, it would look fine either way. I used Thick and Quick yarn by Lion Brand Yarn, which makes this a very economical project and a US size 6 double pointed needles and each pair only took me about an evening to do. I’m a quick knitter so the average knitter should be able to manage around one in an evening.

On the first pair I made I missed a line in the pattern and forgot to knit 4 rows after the picked up stitches on the sides of the cables. I loved the way they looked. I tried knitting another pair following the pattern exactly and I was not a big fan because I felt they came up too far on the ankle and where just a little too loose. I thought they were more fitted and slipper like without the 4 knit rows. My mess up slippers were so popular with my friends that I had several ask me if I could make them some. Of course there were a few that deserved a pair and since it only takes me an evening, and I still enjoy making them, I obliged.

These were for a mom friend that spends a lot of her time helping out at my kids’ school and leads M’s Bear Den at Cub Scouts. Because of her my kids’ lives are more enriched. The least I could do was knock out a pair for her, especially since she brought her own yarn.

In conclusion, these are a joy to make. I really love a quick project that is also functional. It always makes me feel so accomplished and proud of myself. Especially when I have been working on big projects or I have gotten out of the knitting groove. I wear these every day at the moment, especially when I am getting out of bed or lounging around in my PJs. I think they are just pleasing to the eye too.

What is your go to quick knit for gifts that everyone enjoys?

addiction, ADHD, Adult, Biggest Looser, blender, blueberry, body, bread, celery, children, chocolate, cleaning, coffee, egg, eggs, family, Family night, happiness, Happy, health, healthy eating., holiday, holidays, homemade, Homemaker, house, house keeping, housework, kid, kids, life, living, living in the moment, motherhood, Parenting, Uncategorized

Week 1 of the Elimination Diet

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OK I have decided to share with you my journey in the search to healing my body. 6 months ago I was really sick. I was in so much all over pain that I needed pain medicine to function for my family. I hated it and tried not to take it because I did not want to turn into a narcotics statistic but then my family suffered. My joints hurt so badly that I was having a hard time getting around. Then my body just started hurting all over. I went to the Dr to have blood work done and everything came back normal. He sent me to a rheumatolorgist and even though I had inflammation he couldn’t place it so he just gave me the umbrella diagnosis of Fibromyalgia and sent me home with a medication that I should just take. I read the side effects and was not OK with it.

I had the Mirena IUD placed 4 months post partum because of abnormal bleeding, which ended up only making the bleeding worse, and the Dr still kept talking me out of having it removed again and my symptoms had been getting worse since then so I decided that I was ready to heal my body. Not cover up symptoms. Clearly my abnormal bleeding was a clue that things were not in balance and I needed to have the Mirena removed to know really what was going on. I scheduled an appointment to have it removed and the PA that was removing it for me tried to talk me out of it again and told me that there was no way that it could be the Mirena that was causing me any of my symptoms. A week later My joint pain was almost gone and I had started running again.

I made an appointment with a holistic Dr to help me get rid of some symptoms I had had for years now which included brain fog, dry brittle nails and hair, dry skin, hard time focusing, sugar and processed food cravings,  poor quality of sleep, seasonal allergies, my cycle was short why my periods where long and heavy and excess weight. This lead to blood tests that tested both my genetics for how I process vitamins, blood count, state of my nutrition and so on. I learned that I have genetics that make it hard for me to process B vitamins and folates so I need to be sure to supplement those and that I was low on CoQ10 and Omega 3s. Just starting to take these suppliments changed so much for me. I was functioning again. I quit hurting. My skin got a little better. But I wanted to tackle the rest of my skin issues, the rest of my brain fog, my short attention span, my sugar cravings that were still going strong and my weight.

I was seen by another holistic Dr and she told me that it was probably my gut that was wreaking havoc on my system. So she prescribed an elimination diet with supplements and antifungals. Warning me that I was likely to feel much worse on the diet before I got better so to wait until after the holidays to do it. She believes I have something called Leaky Gut Syndrome. So pieces of my food are actually penetrating my bowl and leaking into my bloodstream causing inflammation and all my issues. The 4 week plan will hopefully help my gut heal and then I can slowly introduce some of these foods again.

An Elimination diet means that I would not be eating eggs, wheat, corn, Soy, sugar, shellfish, beef, pork, alcohol or coffee (when she said this I told her she went too far LOL). She did hand me a long list of things I could eat. Including rice and oats so that was something.

I decided that Jan 1st was a good a day as any to start and it gave me time to wean myself off of coffee and switch to green tea which I could have. The Dr had sent me a meal plan and a grocery list and like the ADD person that I am I waited until the first day of the diet to fill my prescriptions and go grocery shopping. That trip to the grocery store was a $300 trip. A lot of the items I will be able to use a gain nest week because it is a 4 week plan so this weeks trip will be less expensive. I ended up going to 3 pharmacies to fill my prescriptions because the anti fungal that I needed at those places had simple syrup added to them which I couldn’t have. I’m on day 7 now and still haven’t gotten that yet because of pharmacy transfers and other issues but hopefully Monday will be a better day.

I have cooked sooooo much this week and it was all new to me recipes. Most of them were very good and we had fish 2 times this week which was nice. I haven’t been good enough at cooking fish and that is the reason for my Omega 3 efficiency.

Day one I felt good and was doing fine. My older kids were still at their grandparents so I was still getting to sleep in with the 1 year old. Day 2 wasn’t that bad either, the kids came home that day and I went for a run that night. Day 3 I hurt all over and the brain fog hit me to the max. I was always full because the meal plan leaves no availability to go hungry but I was dragging. Day 4 I was dragging even more. Day 5 I was still in a funk but still sticking to it but missing coffee and Day 6 was hard. It was Family night which means pizza and a movie on the couch with the kids. Husband, being the good husband he is, brought home the pizza and handed it to me while he changed out of his work clothes so that I could pass the pizza out to the troops. That was the first time I really wanted to break the diet. Handling and smelling the pepperoni pizza. I didn’t want to cook so I ate leftover beans and rice and made my self a bad smoothie. Day 7 and I am a little bit peppier. Good husband let me sleep in since I was up and down all night with the one year old and have been all week getting around 4 hours of sleep on average a night. This does not help me heal but it is the way things are at the moment.

I’ve been doing my research and apparently the trifecta of getting rid of sugar, gluten and dairy + antifungals (the one I have) and probiotics is causing a storm in my gut flora and the nutrients I am getting from my food.  So my Dr was spot on about things feeling much worse before they get better. I’m just hoping that by the middle of next week I will start to get the ability to think back. I seriously could just stare at a wall and I wouldn’t get bored because I just can’t think at the moment. Writing this post was hard. But I know I am doing this for a reason and hope that since the antifungals have done their job and I no longer crave sweets all the time that I will be able to keep it up after I quit this diet. I will be incorporating some of these meals into our normal meal plan because the fish we had was really good and so was some of the chicken. The smoothies have not been good at all.

I am also happy to announce that 12 lbs have been shed since we purchased this house. 2 during this week. If I lose 2 lbs a week for the next 3 weeks I will be very happy and this will have been worth it. I’m more than tired of my gut and my double chin. If I could just stop being so tired all the time that would help too.

If you read this all the way through then thank you for reading. Have you done the whole 30 or an elimination diet? Is it something that you need to do but have been putting off? Tell me about how it went. Did you have withdraws? Anybody have any recipes they want to share with me?

backyard chickens, Backyard Farming, bee, beekeeping, bees, child, children, Freyja, getting things done, Homemaker, house keeping, New House, Parenting, Personal update, project, projects, Renovations, Stay at home, Uncategorized

So Much Change!

OK since the last time I posted a lot has happened and since I am suffering a bad cold at the moment and stuck on the couch I thought I would update everyone. You know because having a 4th kid wasn’t enough. A) we got a puppy! and B) we bought another house!

I know I’m crazy and my body is completely telling me how crazy I am but that is a whole other blog post. 13217393_10156975132635118_3143750346418388979_o

This is Freyja! She is a mess of a Beagle Pug mix. Shortly after mom died I had a dream. My mother visited me in the dream, held my then 3 boys, and told me “Olof give the boys their puppy and everything will fall into place.” At the time I just took it as a grief dream and I didn’t give it much thought. Almost 3 years later I suddenly needed to get a dog. Husband wanted (and still doesn’t) nothing to do with this dog. She is a mess. She can’t be trusted with the kids but she is now only 8 months and getting better every day.

Shortly after adding a dog to our, already large and busy, family, I suddenly needed to move. It was like an urge that I just had to fill NOW. My children needed a better school and we needed more room. I used to daydream of a beautiful colonial home and drive though a neighborhood here in Tulsa that has these BEAUTIFUL colonial homes. I knew that a house like that was not in the cards. Especially not in that neighborhood. I also was wanting a home in a neighborhood where my kids could go outside and ride their bikes. I had a tall order for a house on a limited budget. We wanted to stay under $200K and at least 2000 sq.ft. We needed at least 4 bedrooms because I was not going to move again before the boys move out unless we are moving out of state or out of the country and then I would just sell everything and not bother with moving all of it.

I started looking at Zillow and texting my awesome Realtor to start looking at houses. We had looked at a colonial in a good school district but the people that owned it wanted more than we were willing to pay for it and the kitchen was small. We looked at so many houses. The only ones I really liked were under contract before I could even make an offer. We were looking for something that we wouldn’t need to do anything to. Yeeeaaah…….. The ones that were within our budget were too small when it came to bedrooms for the boys. I had looked at our current house on Zillow. Loved the exterior, the space, the school, and the neighborhood  BUT the interior was horrendous. It was stuck in the 70’s with original shag carpets, wood paneling and all.There was carpet in the kitchen and the bathrooms! I looked on Zillow but did not want to do all the work so I did not want to go see it in person. Then I started getting really frustrated. I needed to move! It was like I was being pushed and pulled to move by something. I finally went to looked at this house with my realtor and husband and kids. I saw the potential but knew that it was going to be a process. This house is more than double the size of our last house that was 1500 sq. ft. At 3392 sq. ft. 4 bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms and a bonus room over the garage, it is a monster of a house. I still have to pinch myself that we actually have a house this big and in such a great neighborhood. I couldn’t believe that I had squirreled away enough money to pay for a down payment on a house like this without selling our other house. 13346319_10157062611325118_5197928201563293277_o

The closing was a mess of papers and the move was a sweaty mess with 4 kids in tow. We were moving during the hottest time of the year here in Tulsa, Oklahoma but we needed to be moved before the boys started school. We were so lucky that my in laws, my brother, and several friends were an amazing help. Both moving and with renovations.

We have only gotten flooring on a small portion of it. We started by tearing all the carpet, except in 2 rooms, out. Scheduled a large trash pick up by the city and got all of the carpet on the curb. We had to wear masks. It was Soooooo gross. But it got the smell out of the house that was stuck in it.

Then we got all the doors off, even the cabinets. They were all a dark wood. Making the house really dark on the inside. We painted them all white. It was a great face lift for the kitchen. We have managed to put floors in 2 of the bedrooms and 2 of the 3 bathrooms. We have amazing dreams for this house but it will be slow going since we have now used up all of our extra money. All gone! What is left is our emergency fund and that is for emergencies. But slow and steady the paint is getting done and flooring is getting put down. We don’t want any carpet.

Every time one more thing gets done I feel a weight lifted off of my shoulders. Because, you know, taking care of feeding and keeping 4 kids clean and a 11 month old safe from himself leaves me plenty of time to paint and keep working on the house. My health issues have not helped either but I’m hoping that I will start seeing the end of the tunnel soon.

What did we do with our other house, you may ask, since we didn’t sell it? You guessed it, we are now landlords. Friends of ours offered to paint, repair and clean the old house and in return they will be saving $1500 over the next year on rent. I thought it was a great trade and I knew that they would be amazing tenants.

I’ve had to make some changes since moving. HOA laws say that we can’t have chickens so my chickens went to a wonderful home at my amazing in laws. They are treated much better there than I was able to with everything else on my plate and they are about to take my bees too. My plate is more than full at the moment and these beings deserve being taken better care of than I can at the moment. I was so thankful I could get them somewhere they are really cared for and that I can visit. One day I may get back into bee keeping but right now I am going to focus on making this house our home. Less than half of our house is being used at the moment. There is so much left to be done. I will slowly make this house a home my children will hopefully love to come home to and my friends and family will love to come visit. Having plenty of room for visitors. I will get into my plans for this house in a different post. I hope I start blogging more often and share my story again.

What are you up too? Any advice for our renovations?

journaling, Uncategorized

Journaling To Forgiveness.

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Today, I give thanks to all the people that have been in my life so far. Good, or bad, they have all touched my life in some way to shape me into the person I am today. They have all helped in the process of making me me. A mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, professional, homeowner, world traveler, career surfer (did this in my teens and early 20s), crafter, blogger, gardener wannabe, designer, thrifter, and mentor.

I love being in my 30s and having the maturity to be able to look back even on the people that treated me poorly and just be proud of myself for getting out of their way and keep them out of my life. Life is too short to let other people make it difficult but I also learned from these people how not to treat others. Then to be able to step back and forgive them for their trespasses. That is the most freeing of experiences. To just let it go. But I hold fast to the saying “Fool me once shame on you but fool me twice shame on me.” I have gotten very good at letting go most of the time. Sometimes I have to talk my self out of thinking poorly of couple of people. To stop breath and send them a prayer of goodwill and move on.

I’m thankful for every teacher I have had good and bad to show me how to be a good educator and how not to act while teaching. I plan on one day being an educator of some sort when I get older so I´m hoping that these experiences will help me help others learn. To be firm but fair.

Then there are those people that I have met in my lifetime that are amazing and I am really thankful for having gotten to know them and learn new ways of being awesome. Those people that shortly after you meet them you just know that there is something special about them and you just REALLY want to be their friend or just get to know them better. To maybe get to learn just what it is that makes them so great and maybe learn how to wield that for yourself.

These people all make up my world. They all helped me put together the building blocks that make me who I am. I have borrowed things I say or a way to do something from some person or another and by doing so made a unique me. As a life coach I have seen how getting stuck on how someone treated us can have a profound effect on how we move on in life. I’m not saying that it is that easy just to forgive and forget. It all has a process to it. But there is a quote out there somewhere that hate is like a poison you drink yourself and hope that the other person dies.

When have you felt that feeling of just having to get to know a person?

Have a story of learning from a relationship with someone but now being able to look back not with hurt but gratitude?

If you want to dive deeper into how to forgive others or yourself grab a notebook and start writing. Write everything that comes to mind. Even if it is really “nuts”. It is your brain trying to make sense of a situation that is hard to make sense of. When mom died and I had run out of words I sat and scribbled in my journal. I had to regress to a time where I still did not have words because the pain of losing her was so immense that there were no words but there was feeling and energy and it all flowed through the scribbles. So just let it all flow on to the page no matter what it is that comes out. Write until you feel empty and nothing comes out. Keep it up until you no longer feel ill will towards whomever it is that you can not forgive. It will not all happen in one session. It will take time and you will need to do this over and over again. But one day you will realize that you did not have those uncomfortable feeling towards the person.

healthy eating., homemade, Recipe, Uncategorized

How to Make Chia Drinks at Home

IMG_20160320_094156I don’t know about you but I love these drinks but at over $4 a 10 oz bottle that is a little over my budget so I set out to harness the goodness of the chia seed on my own with out that high price tag. Chia seeds are high in OMEGA-3, fiber, antioxidants, minerals, and protein. This seed is really a super food and the antioxidants help keep the oils in the seed from going bad for a long time. What I am most interested in is the study that shows that after taking in chia people had less inflammation in the body and a steadier blood sugar. So I plan on making a chia drink every day for the next 30 days and see if I see a difference at all in my allergies and joint pain.

Let me share my recipe

What you will need:

1 cup water

2.5 table spoons Chia Seed

1 cup of your favorite juice

a 16 oz jar that you don’t mind drinking out of.

Before bed, blend warm filtered water with the Chia Seed in the jar and stir well so that the seeds separate well. Then put the lid on and set in fridge overnight. When you get up the seeds and water should be in a gel state. Add the juice and stir well. If you don’t finish the drink straight away then store it in the fridge. I like juices with pulp in it but you can use whatever juice you really enjoy.

Do you use chia in your diet? How?

Bullet Journal, giveaway, journaling, Uncategorized

My New BulletJournal and Giveaway

Good day!

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Planner

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Gratitude Journal

 

As I have noted in the past I need my Inner Guide Planner and a Ta-Da List/Gratitude journal every work day to keep everything straight with my big family and keep my home and myself from falling into chaos. Or, what the Fly lady calls it, Can’t Have Anybody Over Syndrome (CHAOS).

I’ve sort of been playing with the Bullet Journal lay out in my Gratitude Journal but it was a real mess. I had used it for all kinds of things and let my kids draw in it to keep them good when out and about and I was ready to commit.

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New Bullet Journal

What is a Bullet Journal you ask? It is any notebook that is set up in a certain layout. The first page has your name and contact information so that if it gets lost then it can be returned to you. Then comes the index page where you will be able to write where you can find things in your journal.

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Index Page

Then there is the Key page where you show how you will be using the bullets in your journal.

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Key Page

Then you have the Full year or full month page. I went with month so that you have an overview of what the month will look like. Then your personal and if you have professional goals for the month on the page opposite the monthly overview.

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Month Page

And after that you start your journal.

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Daily Page

I use erasable pens and erasable markers in my journal because I like things neat and tend to make typos or not like the way something looks so I like to be able to erase and redo things. If you are starting out and don’t want to put that much money into it then you can use a pencil or your favorite pen. When starting out be frugal and use what you have so that you know you like the process of Bullet Journaling. Most people have a spare notebook laying around. If you like it then you can start getting fancy with it and get all the bells and whistles.

After looking at all the cool pics on Instagram of bullet journals and how you can adjust it to your own needs I was hooked. I had to get my own. I will be developing my own Bullet Journal style over the next few months and will be updating you on the way. I want to introduce you to the Bullet Journal now and what the basics are and then give some idea of how it can be modified to your needs. Most of the people I follow on Instagram are students that do not have a house to run or kids to take care of. So far I haven’t found a nice Bullet Journaler  that does have kids and ALL the stuff that comes with that. This helps me stay focused on my goals and keep me mindful of how much I do everyday.

I also add that day’s weather forecast so that I know what to expect.

My 3 oldest boys went to their grandparents for spring break and it shows in my activity level logged on FitBit that I have not been running all over town and constantly keeping a 3 year old from putting himself and others in harms way. To keep me mindful of keeping up with my steps I just add a bullet in my journal reminding me to meet my 6K steps that day and as I check in with my journal through the day to see what is left to do I can be reminded to stay on top of my steps.

I will be adding pages to help me with tracking my weigh loss and the prizes I will reward myself with when hitting my milestones and tracking how we are doing in paying down our debt. These will all be in future posts. I will have monthly budget pages which will be directly following my mostly goals and also lists of books I plan on reading. Blog posts I plan on writing and so on and so forth. You guys get my gist.

Now to the fun part. I bought myself a Moleskin bullet journal in a wonderful Teal color. I am going to do a giveaway to a lucky reader of a Bullet Journal of their own. A Moleskine Notebook that I will send you directly from Amazon to your house. This is open to the whole world. You will be able to enter to win your journal from today March 16 2016 until March 31st of 2016 11:59pm I will announce the winner on April 1st.

Just use this Entry-Form to enter the giveaway.

 

Baby, birth, Boy, children, family, mom, mother, motherhood, Parenting, parents, Stay at home, stay at home mom, Uncategorized

Introducing Ragnar Baldur

 

As I have told you in prior posts I was expecting a baby. That baby was born December 7th of last year. His name is Ragnar Baldur and he is the easiest baby I have ever had. He is both easy on the eyes and sleeps really well. He goes for 5-7 hour spurts at night. I am so lucky and thankful for his sleeping so well.

 

Since I have other kids I’m not getting much more than 6 hours at night but most nights it is continuous sleep which I have never had before with a little one like this.

He was less than a week old when I started to need to cart him to school Christmas events. He almost never fusses at being dragged all over creation as long as he is dry and not hungry then he usually just sleeps through it.

This mamma is just so in love with this little human. His brothers are so happily surprised that he doesn’t interrupt their lives too much and they are great helpers.

Pour Ragnar got really bad baby pimples. But they have since cleared up.

I’m sure you are thinking Ragnar Baldur is an interesting name to pick but if you watch the show Vikings (and if you don’t you really should because they are a really good depiction of what the viking culture was really like) then you might have noticed that the main character’s name is Ragnar. It means a warrior sent from the gods.

 

His middle name Baldur is a Nordic god name. The god of poetry and beauty. So now we have our oldest Odinn, the god of gods, our next oldest Magni, the god of strength, our 3rd child Alexander Thor the god of thunder, and now Baldur.

 

Ragnar was 10lbs 3oz at birth. Many of you might be thinking that that is big. It is not small. But Alexander Thor was 11lbs 14oz. I worked so hard this time not to have a giant baby by watching what I ate and going to the gym daily until I got sick and started coughing and didn’t stop. So the 3rd trimester I was not as active but I made sure I didn’t put on more than 29lbs and lost 21 of them giving birth.

 

When I need to get housework done and he is awake usually putting him in his bouncy chair with a toy will keep him busy for long enough to clean up the kitchen and start a load of laundry.

Waking up in the morning to this face never gets old. No matter how tired I am I smile and am thankful for all the love and beauty he brings to this family.

Most of the time when we have appointments for my son’s orthodontist or a Dr’s appointment this is the norm. He sleeps in his car seat and I knit or read something. During swim lessons he just hangs out in his ergo baby.

There have only been a hand full of days since this child was born where he just needed to be held and all else had to wait and during those days I hold him with gratitude for he will only be little once and since this is rare I have an excuse to just sit and snuggle him. My surprise baby that was far from planned.

 

Most of the time he is a happy laundry helper but in that pic you can see it is not ALL the time.

 

 

He found his thumb a couple of days ago. Magni and Alex also did that for a little while at this age but never got into it. But who knows, I might have my one and only thumb sucker.

Love his little baby voice. And that is it. Sorry about flooding you with images and videos. As you can tell I am head over heals about this guy. My surprise 4th. The baby I cried for 2 weeks over when I found out that he was on his way and I thought that I couldn’t handle any more children. But here he is and he is perfect.

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Winner of ANKESTRICK Giveaway and Chevron Pattern Published.

As my heart is breaking for those south of me in Oklahoma lost in yesterday’s tornadoes. I am trying to find beauty to focus on. My children deserve a functioning mamma. So today I am announcing both the winner of my last giveaway and that my Chevron Infinity Scarf is now publish and available to the public.

The winner of the ANKESTRICK Giveaway is Rachelle C which I have already contacted. Congratulations Rachelle!

Here is the pattern that I put up for sale on Ravelry today. Check out my Chevron Infinity Scarf! Can you tell I have eggs on the brain? The color of the yellow is actually called fried egg. I can’t wait for my girls in the backyard to start laying. Anyway, support my knitting habit by buying my pattern for only $1.99.