Yes, I am one of THOSE mamas

I confess! I'm a bragger. But of course I've never met a mom that didn't brag about her kids. 

For some time now B has been showing potty training readiness. But with Bitty Baby just being born, we wanted to wait until the summer. At least the newness of the baby has somewhat worn off. Well, we have now completed our first 6 days of potty training, and everyone is still alive. We started on Monday with no training potty........I really suggest a training potty. We sat her repeatedly on the toilet all day, and put cloth diapers (with the insert removed) on her. No pee pees. This went on until Thursday. All 3 days, no pee pees. Thursday was pay day. Yippee! We got her a super cool Disney Princess Potty. She loves it. Thursday, she did a few drops. Yesterday and today, she has let the flood gates open. Ha Ha! I'm so proud of her!

She loves her potty chair. She carries it around, stands on it, stands in it. And has even told us that she wants to sit on it. We have been sure to reward her with lots of praises, even give her treats like a few raisins or a brownie that I cut up into tiny squares. She loves chocolate, so I might even try some chocolate chips. 

My husband suggested pull-ups, but B will probably be my 10th something child to potty train. And in my opinion, pull-ups only prolong training. They're the same thing as a diaper, only more expensive. So until I can afford some rubber covered training pants, she'll either be in cloth or disposable diapers.......that is when she's not running around the living room naked.

Summertime is the best time to potty train. You can let them run around outside without any clothes on without fear of getting too cold, only here the skeeters will eat you alive. I haven't tried it yet, but it worked on my oldest daughter. 

I'm hoping that we continue to do good on the potty training. But it's one of those things. Sometimes it's like 2 steps forward then one step back. I hope I'm not writing about my frustration next week. 

But anyway, here's a pic of B loving her new potty.

Wish us luck! And ya'll have a great weekend!

God and my blog

This post has been deleted. With all due respect, I ask the forgiveness of those who read the post. I will also be asking for forgiveness in person. God Bless.



Matthew 18:15
If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.

And it keeps piling on....

I know I always write about how I have so much going on around here, but it's true. These last 2 weeks I have felt like I've ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off. 

This weekend my husband's half brother is getting married, and I was asked to make his groom's cake. I am honored, but in addition to that my husband is a groomsman and the wedding is an hour away from here. I would be a little more relaxed about it if I could get the chocolate to cooperate with me. I am supposed to make and AR-15 out of chocolate and have it standing on the cake, like it's on its tripod. Now I'm ok with the sculpting part, but my structure is needing help. Plus the heat is not helping firm up the chocolate. Lord help me! So, I've put a request in to let me sculpt it on its side, laying across the cake. I hope he complies. Meanwhile, I will beef up my construction skills. 

I had to take a break from the chocolate, before I got frustrated. So here we go. Some pics and video from this last week. Enjoy!

B walking in Daddy's shoes. She did have her other foot in, but took it out right before I snapped the shot.

Farm eggs that I bought from our local Community Market. I LOVE the green egg. It's so special.

Bitty Baby trying out the jumper for the first time. She liked it for about 3 minutes and then hated it.

B got bit by a mosquito and her eye almost swelled shut. Right there was about as open as she could get it. Poor baby looked so bad, but she felt fine.

Bitty Baby started "Army Crawling" 2 days ago, and crawled right off her quilt.

Yesterday, she found her feet. Yay! Built in toys!

Me, playing around with more vintage hairstyles. This one needs more practice, but definitely fun!

Tried Bitty Baby out in the highchair. She like it for a bit, but she's too small for it. they need to make baby stuff for "my sized" babies. Everything seems too big.

Bitty Baby is talking away at first. Sorry I held it on her so long. I thought she'd do more. But she is really into watching Baby Einstein.

This is my talkative one. She went from "Mama" to meowing like a cat. She's always up to something.

I hope you all have a great weekend! God Bless!

I have an hour to sit down

Today has been exhausting. 

The morning started with me getting up at 6:50 am. And by 7:30 am I had already had my shower, watered the garden, and baked 3 loaves of bread. I could have called it a day right there. 

But No.

My oldest daughter had Cheer Practice at 9:30. I had to go to the bank before I dropped her off. Then get gas, while trying to avoid certain parts of town now that the music festival is here. Drive 40 minutes away to get cake supplies. They didn't have one thing that I needed, so we went 2 more places. No luck. We drove back to town, picked up big sissy, and scarfed our lunch down. I would have loved for my toddler to have a nap, but there was no time. It would have made her more mad to have to wake her up 45 minutes later. We loaded back up in the Big Black Beast and headed to our local library. My 2 oldest had a teen meeting. Today's event was line dancing. 

I had the 2 youngest with me in the stroller, but B can only behave "so" long, until she has a meltdown. She screamed and through a tantrum, so I decided to take her outside. Now there is one thing that I cannot stand. I cannot stand when someone bribes their kid with candy. I know this old lady was trying to be nice, but still! She said, as we were walking to the parking lot, "I have a red sucker in my car. Do you think that will make her happy?". I politely told her, "No thank you. I'm not going to reward her for bad behavior.". What she really needed was swift swat on the rear. But when we got in the heat of outside, she calmed down and sucked her paci. Finally she chilled out. We were able to go back inside without disturbing the public. Mommy wins!

No I'm here typing, patiently awaiting our next adventure. B is in her bed..........yeh.........she's not been asleep ALL DAY! She broke the clip to her paci. One more thing to add to the list.

Here in 10 minutes we go to gymnastics. And then back out again to pick up big sister. Meanwhile, I have BBQ chicken in the oven. It's a quick meal for tonight, but yummy.

I need a vacation. One of those all by myself kind of vacations.

Maybe we'll just all go to bed early tonight...........

Sunny Day

Today has been an ordinary day. B and I picked strawberries and blueberries, while Bitty Baby napped. I do wish that I had an extra hand because my boxes all need some serious weeding, but I was able to snap the suckers off the tomatoes before coming back inside. 

B is fascinated with farm animals these days. I was able to get some cleaning done on the kitchen while she watched Baby MacDonald and part of Milo and Otis. Her love for Farm things already has me planning her theme for her 2nd Birthday Party. We have the perfect set up in our back yard, now that the dogs have been moved to their own dog run. 

Yesterday, I caught Bitty Baby with her thumb again.

She now has a favorite Blankie. It's not a fancy one like all my others had, but just a plain Pink Receiving Blanket. She pulls it close to her face, and when she's not chewing or sucking on the blanket, she's sucking her thumb. There's no stopping her now. No matter how many times I stick the paci back in her mouth, she spits out her paci and sticks in her thumb. I give up. This is not a battle that I want to fight this go around. She wins.

Now that Bitty Baby has been rolling over, she wants to become mobile. If only she could get her upper half to cooperate. Those little legs scoot her around in a complete circle, with her head still in the same place. Oh boy! It won't be long until I'll be chasing her around the house too!

Not a blue eyed baby anymore. Their halfway to brown.

As soon as the girls went down for their naps, I sneaked outside and hung the diapers on the line. The sun is out. It's quite humid, but I think they will dry. They need the sun anyway. The best thing for getting baby poop stains out of diaper or clothes is the sun. Last week she had one of those poopies that went straight up her back. I washed her onsie like 2 times and the stain was still there. It took 3 days of hanging in the sunshine, but now the stain is completely gone. The sun works great on spit-up stains too. 

Hopefully, tomorrow the grass will get mowed and trimmed. 

But while, I'm on the subject of laundry, I want to tell you about the new way I'm making my detergent. Over 2 years ago I started making my own laundry detergent. I had several requests for the recipe and instructions. But since then I have made the same recipe 2 more different ways. The first way, you add a lot of water, and it make 3 gallons. The second way, you only add 1/2 gal of water, and then put it in the blender after it's cooled. The third way is now my favorite, and the easiest!

 It is:

 1 cup of Borax

 1 cup of Washing Soda

1 bar of Ivory Soap, grated

Place everything in the blender, blend until the soap shavings are small. And I added a few drops of lavender oil, while it was running. And then just store it in a sealed container. So Easy! It is a dry version, but it still works just the same as the wet version. I doubled the recipe. I may triple it next time. It's my favorite, because there's no water to separate after it sits for a while. And it's super cheap!

Give it a try. You will never spend money on other laundry detergent again. 

God Bless! And have a great weekend.

Our Morning in the Garden

Bitty Baby was taking her morning nap, so B and I decided to go outside. She loves the garden and so do I. It was the perfect morning for some pictures. 

She ran right up to the box and said "strawberry" just as plain as you please.

Next it was on to the blueberries.

She ate all the ones we picked.

Our huge patch of Romaine Lettuce. May need to give some away soon.

Mesclun Mix Lettuce

She picked me some flowers.

Strawberry juice and dirt stuck to her face.

She was having a blast!

I love her smile.

We'll soon have a large amount of Blackberries. Our bushes are loaded.

Blackberry jam and cobbler here we come!

The leeks are blooming.

My huge ball of mint. B loves to pick it and eat it. And I'm about to make peppermint extract.

I love spending time with her while the little one is napping. We had a great morning.

Three Months Old

Our little Bitty Baby is 3 months old already. How time flies. She's so alert now. And she's pushing up and rolling over. Just this week she started sleeping mostly through the night. Finally! I feel like I haven't slept through the night in over 2 years. 

She's changing oh so subtly. And we love seeing her whole face light up when she smiles. She's really starting to laugh too, but it's still trapped up inside of her, waiting to come out. 

And there she is 3 months old. I can't wait to see how she changes each month.