Pantry cleanout

This weeks grocery theme is Pantry Cleanout. You know, the week where you eat all of the food you have hoarded away just in case you run out of all of the "good food" yet still need to make a meal. For us, this means all sorts of odds and ends. I am trying to use up the green tomatoes that I canned last summer so we will have a few meals with fried green tomatoes. FGT's are one of my fav foods and I was thrilled when I learned how to can them so we can eat them year around. I found some blueberry muffin mix-I don't even know when I bought it or why-but I added some leftover oatmeal and walnuts to the muffin mix and it is baking now. Let's hope it turns out well because there will be 6 unhappy campers if it is a flop. Oh and rice-lots of rice. I am a terrible rice cooker-I admit it. But, I like rice so I buy rice. Then, I remember that I am not a good rice cooker so I don't cook it. So, I am a rice hoarder. I have been needing to buy a rice cooker for a long time. I want one like my vegan friend, Jamie's. Her rice cooker steams veggies too (or at least I think she told me that-maybe I dreamed it). For some, it might be a waste of money but I genuinely cannot cook rice. I will also be going through the freezer to start the clean out before gardening season gets here. I know there are still lots of bags of peaches and corn (not mixed together, obviously). I used up 2 boxes of couscous last night and I promise here and now, that I will never serve 6 very small children bowls of couscous if we are eating inside. DISASTER! Zillions of couscous grains all over the floor.

Our chickens are laying eggs and more of them should start laying in the next 6 weeks. We thought one of the chickens might be broody (for non chicken people, this means when a hen wants to sit on her eggs til they hatch). I think that watching chicks hatch would be a wonderful experience for the kids.

We have lots going on in the next few months but I will post more about that later. We appreciate everyone who has prayed for Weston and our family. God is so good and we know he has a plan for Weston and our family.

You know you are number 6 when

You know you are baby number 6 when you completely skip pureed food all together and dine on sausage and peppers. Seeing as how she weighs 11 pounds at 6 months-a little more fat in her diet might get a little meat on her bones.

Before our trip, Avery wouldn't take a bottle and hated anything pureed-granted, I had only tried about 3 times a week when I remembered that she is getting older and needed to eat (bad mom, I know). So, off we started on our trip and she was sitting at the table and wanted our food. Since I don't carry a large stash of pureed food with me, we fed her table food. She has done amazing. The only thing she seems to have any trouble with is chicken and a couple of dinner roll type breads. And, yes, tonight, her dinner was sausage and peppers per the nice lady at the RMD house. She is one well fed little lady.

Maybe an animal liker

I am not an animal lover by any means. I feel completely ok without any pets-EVER. Adam, on the other hand, is an animal lover. He got the chickens and then the dog-and we have gotten along quite well. In the last few years, we have been eating more home grown/locally raised fruits, veggies, and meats. Adam wanted to get chickens to raise for eggs and meat and they live in a chicken condo. They are free range all day-until night when we put them up. They roam the field and if you come to the house, expect to be greeted by a few. On our way to Philadelphia, we decided to go to a certified organic farm. I have no idea what the heck I pictured in my mind but WHOA BABY! There were hundreds of "organic" chickens in these greenhouses with tons of rabbits in cages. I am not an animal person by ANY means but even I found this disturbing. I think they were overcrowded (in my super chicken babysitter opinion). The smell and dust was so bad, I could barely stand it. Apparently, there are lots of differences in organic, free range, and cage free birds. Let's not even talk about commercial chicken hatcheries-those are super duper yuck (checkout some Netflix documentaries). I really had no idea-I pictured a certified organic farm to be about like us-chickens runnning around, being carried like babies, pushed in baby carriages, pulled in wagons, etc-but I guess that just happens at our house. It makes me definitely feel better about having our own chickens.

Spring is coming

Well, that is what people keep telling me. I am no expert on weather but it snowed yesterday and it supposed to be 63 today-I believe Mother Nature is bipolar. We have had lots of fun stuff happening. We got 42 baby chicks (well, half were 2 weeks old, and half were 2 days old). Adam and his friend, Andrew, finished building the chicken condo and half of the baby chickens were able to move out of the basement. Half have been growing for a couple of weeks and are ready to go out any day. I was going to send them outside on Wednesday but there was a flood and then snow so we left them in for another couple of days. They should be good to go outside today though (thank goodness). Adam has had tons of seeds arrive for the garden so he is pretty excited. He is going to some kind of tree workshop in April. He is planning on planting pecan and apple trees this year-maybe peach if he can find some. We also got a puppy. Granted, I am not a huge dog fan, but Elvis stays outside so we are getting along quite well.

We are heading to Philadelphia next week for Weston to have a heart cath. We have mixed feelings about putting him through another procedure but we need answers. His episodes are scary. We are always worried about brain damage, heart failure, or even death during them. We know he is in good hands there and hopefully, we will have a plan after this.

We're here

Gosh our weeks are busy. This is the first semester of Adam going to school 2 nights a week and it has taken quite a bit of getting used to. Adam and I just aren't the kind of couple that go do their own thing a lot, so this is all new for me. I should also add that we have never spent a night apart other than for him to work or one of us to stay at the hospital with Weston. Last weekend, we went to The Art of Marriage Conference and it was great. We have known so many couples that have gotten divorced in the past few years-it almost made us paranoid. One of the big things that they talked about was making time for each other away from the kids. That is probably where we fail the biggest. Every year, I say we are going to start leaving the kids more and doing stuff together-then that year comes and goes. We did leave the kids overnight for the first time ever in December to go do something other than go to the hospital and have a baby. That is progress. The church downtown does a Parents Night Out one night a month so we might try to start doing that again. Note that I said might. I am still a little germophobic right now and everyone posting about their kids throwing up constantly, does not help at all.

I have been teaching Creative Writing at the homeschool co-op and I love it. My kids are great. I was a little afraid of them at first but they really are very sweet and hardworking. I hope to teach again next year-possibly even teaching a Health/Nutrition class (yes, I might ACTUALLY use my degree =).

I also recently started selling Scenty Wickless Candles. I have loved them since college and wanted something to do that would make me have to socialize with other adults. Scentsy offers all kinds of really cute warmers that you plug in and then scented wax gets heated up. It never gets more than 1 degree above body temperature so there is no risk of getting burned. There is no open flame and because the wax never evaporates from the warmer, there is no risk of fire. Let me know if you would like to host a party! Basket parties seem to be super popular right now. I send you some testers, catalogs, you take the orders, and then bring everything back to me. You get tons of hostess rewards. I can even mail these and you can mail them back (prepaid of course) Here is the website if you would like more info https://juliekeeton.scentsy.us/Home