It talked about how due to the recession parents had wised up about their spending. Things were purchased second hand, clothes included. The baby product industry is HUGE. I mean think about all the baby showers and things that parents feel they need. New babies are expensive when you look at it that way.

Sophia came along and taught me a lesson as a parent and a consumer…

1) Cloth Diapers.

If you can go old school with prefolds you can spend as much for the entire time your child will be in diapers as you would in the fist 6 months using disposables. It’s not as gross as you might think, and frankly it’s awesome not to have an “oh shit” moment (heehee) when you run out of diapers at midnight or wipes when there’s been an explosive episode.

2) Breastfeeding.

Nola was not breastfed (not for a lack of trying) and it was expensive even using the “Parent’s Choice” brand from Wal-Mart. Aside from nursing pads, nursing bras, lanolin, and a Boppy pillow I did not spend a dime for Sophia to eat pretty much the first year of her life (the items were for my comfort and convenience).

3) Co-sleeping.

Yes, I know this one is controversial, but it worked for us. It made night time nursing so much easier. I was not lacking sleep because combined with breastfeeding I didn’t have to get out of bed to feed Sophia. David did spent the first month sleeping on the couch out of fear. Sophia’s now 4.5 and she does still come into our bed just about every night. I’m over it, but since I know she’s my last I’m trying to enjoy the snuggles before they’re gone for good and replaced with a moody “tween” trying to be like her big sister.

4) Thrift store clothes.

Lets be realistic here. Babies grow, and usually at an astonishing pace. Sophia was 8.5 pounds at birth. By my 6 week postpartum checkup she had doubled her weight. All the cute newborn stuff I got her .. yeah, it got less than 6 weeks of use. Yeah buying baby clothes is so much fun, but when your kid goes from newborn to 2T in the first year it’s just plain crazy to dole out money for new stuff in every size – newborn, 3mo, 6mo, 9mo, 12mo, 18mo, 24mo, and 2T (no, I have no clue what the difference is between 24mo and 2T). Heck I STILL buy clothes from second hand stores for the girls AND myself.

5) The Car Seat.

Buy a Britax. Don’t bother with the bucket seat. Yes, it’s easier for moving a sleeping baby. Nola stayed in her bucket seat until she was almost a year old. She was a peanut. As you already know Sophia was a beast. That 6 week checkup she was 16 pounds (perspective – Nola was 18 pounds on her 1st birthday). Yes I’m also aware that Britax is expensive, but when your baby outgrows the bucket seat you’ll be getting a regular car seat anyhow. You might as well “splurge” and get the safest one you can right from the start. Britax seats usually have a starting weight of 5 pounds. Even Nola at 6.5 pounds would have fit in that (rear facing, of course) at birth.

6) Baby Carriers.

No, I’m not talking about one of the Bjorn ones. I’m talking about a nice Beco or a Connecta (oh how I loved my bright pink Solarweave Connecta!). Yes, they too are a little expensive, but they are HANDY. I kept the stroller I had with Nola until Sophia was 3, and I preferred the carriers to the bulky stroller. I certainly couldn’t wrap the stroller up and stuff it in the diaper bag. I would put Sophia in the carrier on my front, Nola in a shopping cart and I would go about my grocery shopping. Most of the time Sophia would be sound asleep and with the little “hood” up her head was supported, and she was warm snuggled up to me. When she got older I got the Beco and would pop her onto my back. It was great for our family trip to San Francisco (me being paranoid I was able to keep her on my back when we were walking and crossing lots of streets). The carrier is my answer to the bucket car seat as well as the stroller.

Now that I look at it … Nola started me on the path to being “crunchy” (I started cloth with her when she was about a year old), and Sophia made the further transformation pretty much inevitable.

Yes, it's really got a green-ish yellow color like that....

The Beeswax Lotion is insanely easy to make.  I managed to do it despite a long day and glasses induced headache!  The recipe was found at A Sonoma Garden.

Ingredients

1 cup Olive Oil

1/2 cup Coconut Oil

1/2 Beeswax (pastilles for easy melting, 2oz of solid wax)

1/2 teaspoon Vitamin E Oil

20 drops (or so) of any essential oil of choice … totally option of course

Put everything in a pint jar except the vitamin E and essential oils.   Then place the jar in a water bath being careful not to get water into the jar.  Let it get all melty over medium heat, stir occasionally,  and then take it out of the water.  As it’s cooling off mix it up with a fork every 10-15 minutes so it turns out creamy.  Once it’s at room temperature add in the vitamin E and essential oil and you’re done.

A little goes a long way so as tempting as it might seem to drop a good teaspoon size blob in your hand be warned that you do not need to, and if you did you’d be lotioning up your hands, arms, and likely legs too. 

Horrible.

okay I downright suck at it. 

Lots has changed since August.  If I thought the middle of the month was fun the 2 weeks that followed included a move and the decision to give up our house.  We’ve since completed a short sale on it, and frankly we were amazed that it sold as fast as it did, and that we didn’t end up in foreclosure. 

Nola is in a public charter school, and struggling.  Homeschooling a strong willed child is not easy for the strong willed mother.  We’re just biding time until we get in to the charter Montessori school (next school year) that both of the girls have fallen in love with. 

I’ve been working more on my photography.  I helped at a wedding and have done a couple large scale model shoots as well as two private shoots.  I’ve also booked my first wedding!  Baby steps, but they are steps. 

With all the changes our focuses have had to change when it comes to money.  Of course this means my once happy little organic lifestyle – when I never took into consideration that I was spending $200 a week easy – has had to come to a screeching halt.  Even the nice organic milk is a treat. My bi-weekly household budget is $250.  I’ve got to get back to making as much as I can at home.

I have slashed the amount of meat we eat so I can still buy organic grass fed meat though.  I can’t give up the organic meat because traditional meat skeeves me out to the point of preferring vegetarianism over meat eating.  I’m hoping to set aside income tax return to put towards a quarter or half cow from a local rancher. 

Tomorrow I have an order coming in from Bramble Berry and I’ll soon be posting my adventures in lip balm and lotion making as well as a second adventure in deodorant making. 

In my downtime I’ve been looking at two different photo hosting type pages. SmugMug and Zenfolio. I’m pretty sure that my “about me” states that I have a love of photography. What I did not mention is that I’m in the process of starting up doing photography on more than just a hobby level.

White Wave Photography

White Wave Photography is the start of what I hope will be enough of a source of income that I can stay with the kids, but still get to do something I have loved for years. I like other arts and crafts, but have found that I enjoy doing them for fun at my own leisure. I will continue to do things like dye yarn, but just for friends, family, and myself. I have yet to find myself bored behind a camera because the focus through the lens is always changing.

My photography site will not be just portraits and candid shots. I love sunsets, storms, structures, lakes, rivers, the ocean, mountains, wildlife, flowers, fires .. anything and everything that can be photographed. I’m forever saying “I wish I had my camera with me” when I see something that I think would be a good picture. David fully expects me to take my camera with me just about everywhere I go, and he knows me well because I do take it with my just about everywhere (obviously not grocery shopping because that’s just boring).

This last week I’ve also been getting started with freezer meals, which I will talk about more in my next post I’m sure.

I’ve not had the proverbial testicular fortitude to try to make it until this tuna casserole. I do not claim that it’s anything similar to what someone who makes cajun dishes would make, but it did made a thickened sauce that I needed for the casserole. I’m actually going to be using the same method tonight for dinner to make another type of casserole.

Mmmm I want more now that I'm looking at the pictures.

Tuna Noodle Casserole adapted from AllRecipes

1/2 cup butter, divided
1 (8 ounce) package uncooked medium egg noodles
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 carrot shredded
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
salt and pepper to taste
2 (6 ounce) cans tuna, drained and flaked
1 cup frozen peas
5 tablespoons panko bread crumbs
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 375

Cook noodles per the directions on the package. Add in frozen peas so they can cook along with the noodles. Drain and return to pan.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a sauce pan and cook the onions and garlic until onions are soft. Add in 4 more tablespoon then add flour and whisk until smooth. Gradually whisk in milk, and continue cooking 5 minutes, until sauce is smooth and slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

Melt the last of the butter and mix panko bread crumbs in.

Add sauce, carrots, and tuna to the drained noodles and peas. Stir. Pour into a baking dish and top with the cup of cheese and panko mixture.

Ingredients ready to go.

Yep, I'm hungry now.

When I was back in Texas I found a page showing how to make homemade butter with pure muscle by shaking the hell out of a container. I admit I used that method up until a few weeks ago. I stumbled upon a much easier method. Yes, Pinterest was involved, how did you know? Since then homemade butter has been a staple.

This is why here Meg, this is why were here.

You only need a few things here.

Food Processor
Heavy Cream
Cheese cloth (or if you’re me and cannot find any you’ll use either a clean cloth with as little fuzzing as possible or paper towels)
Strainer
2 Bowls (or a plate and a cup .. one for the butter, one for the butter milk)
Salt, optional

RIIP Black and Decker Quick and Easy Pro

The best milk comes from Strauss Family Creamery!

Glass milk bottles are love.

In goes the heavy cream.

Start on high or low, your choice. High is faster but louder, and low is slower but less like a jet in your face.

You'll notice it's thickening up.

Then it seems to "fall apart". The milk fat (butter) is separating from the liquid (buttermilk).

Pour out the buttermilk .. but DON'T pour it down the drain!! It's fat free milk for the most part, and tasty.

What’s with the glass of ice water? Pour the cold water into the food processor bowl and give it a whirl again, and then drain. Repeat until there’s no more hazy water coming out. Apparently buttermilk left in will cause the butter to turn faster. Not that it ever lasts long enough around here to find out.

See, there's water still in there that needs to come out and it's still a little milky.

At this point you’ll need to use that cheese cloth and strainer to pour out the butter as not to lose any, and then squish the butter and make sure all the milk and water is out. I pop it in the freezer for a few minutes and then squish it up, pat it off with a paper towel and do that until I’m happy that it’s not loaded with liquid. You can mix in salt if you like, but I never have.

Mmm butter!

What?! That's not butter ... but mmmm it's delicious!

Carbohydrate pr0n!!

Oh yeah!

Here’s where I admit that I tend to hoard things sometimes. Things like broken crayons, because they’re still totally usable just not as nice as unbroken crayons. So I have a ziplock bag I keep on the bookcase of crayons I find that have met their match with one of my kids. Today I decided it was time to use them!

Not exactly like normal crayons .. but much cooler!

The directions are simple. Get a muffin tin and drop in silicone baking cups. Or if you want shapes you can pick up different shapes (like stars and hearts) at Michael’s. I had the baking cups on hand from making wax tarts awhile back so I used them. Take the broken crayons, remove the paper. Break up more if needed and drop into each baking cup as you see fit. Nola used all the pink she could locate. I used blues, greens, and brown. Sophia was all over the deep red/purple, red, and of course orange. Once you have what you want where you want it just pop it in the oven and turn it to 150-200 (you can pre-heat if you like, but it’s not a must). I didn’t time it I just peeked into the oven and they were all melted so I turned it off and let it cool down. Wait until it’s totally cooled off and then pop them out, and then color!

Heading into the oven...

Blue and yellow are my 2 favorite colors.

Melty!

I suppose at this point you could swirl it more with a toothpick, or just leave it.

Be careful not to break them when taking them out of the mold you use.

Yay! New crayons!

You may find you have to warn your 4 year old that they are NOT for eating. Luckily she asked being taking a chomp out of one. O_o

For people who own a grain mill and are looking for an awesome bread recipe look no further. My wonderful friend Stephanie who gave me the South West Chicken recipe also gave me the honey wheat bread recipe!

Stephanie.. without you I’d be lost. I’d never have cloth diapered, purchased a grain mill, found Azure Standard, or have a 2 fresh loaves of bread sitting on my stove right now.

Mmmm .. delicious.

This is directly from Stephanie with no changes made on my part…

bread recipe
I think one of my favorite things about this bread is that it only takes 1 rise, yet is the best whole wheat bread recipe I’ve ever used.

2.5 cups hot water
3.5 cups (white) whole wheat flour
1.25 tablespoons yeast
1 heaping tablespoon gluten
1/3 cup ground flax seed

Mix above ingredients in order for about 2 minutes, then add…

1 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoons lemon juice (or orange, any citrus)
1/3 cup oil (extra virgin olive oil or whatever you like)
1/3 cup honey

Mix, then add between 2.5-3.5 cups of flour. Add enough flour until it
scrapes the bowl clean, but no more. **I find that I often need more flour here due to humidity–or maybe because I grind my own?**

Knead for about 15 min–I let my KitchenAid do it for about 10.

Shape into 2 loaves and place in greased loaf pans.

Cover and let rise until double, which is slightly over the edge of
the pan. (it takes mine about an hour.)

Bake at 350*F for about 35 minutes or until internal temperature is
190-200*F.

First set of ingredients.

Second set of wet ingredients ready to go in...

I didn’t get a picture of the other half of the flour going in. That’s the point in which me and my KitchenAid stop being friends because I’m being a slave driver and pushing it just a tad too far. Crazy machine!

I disturbed the rising for this picture!

The only way to eat this is with homemade butter. Nola demands it... spoiled kids, psh.

Many recipes I saw called for white wine. After some more googling, and consulting with Stacy about red wine versus white wine, I decided to go ahead with red wine as it’s what I had on hand. I’m pretty glad I did too.

Nothing better than sticking your head right over a simmering pot of pasta sauce!

2 – 24oz jars Bionaturae Organic Strained Tomatoes
1 – 7oz jar Bionaturae Organic Tomato Paste
1.5 Tbsps. dried basil
1 Tbsp. dried parsley
1 Tbsp. molasses brown sugar (1 Tbsp. molasses + 1 c. cane sugar)
1/2 c. red wine
1/2 c. onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper as desired
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil

Chop up your onion and garlic and put them both into a large sauce pan with olive oil, basil, and parsley.

Basil is wonderful ... Fresh basil is without a doubt my favorite herb.

Cook until the onions begin to soften and you feel compelled to hover over the stove sniffing the amazing smell wafting out of the pan.

I apparently have a thing for onions and herbs.

Add in the 1/2 cup of red wine and let simmer for a bit.

As the alcohol in the wine burns off the smell is fantastic .. I knew I was on to something at this point!

Add in the tomato sauce and tomato paste and simmer away for as long as you can stand. I think I had this simmering for a good 2 hours before I needed to swipe 2 cups worth for my baked ziti (which is another post!).

Simmering sauce is not unlike a fresh from the oven cast iron pan - hot.

This recipe makes about 6 cups… enough for me to take 2 cups for the ziti and then can another roughly 4 cups worth. I’m still waiting on the verdict from my Italian brother-in-law on how he liked the small jar I took over. If he gives it the thumbs up then I think I’m good!

Now for the real reason for this post…

Cheesy potatoes and onion? YES PLEASE!

Once again Pinterest is the reason I stumbled upon this recipe, shocker right?

Upside Down Potato & Onion Tart ~ Adapted from Hizzoner’s Recipes

12 sprigs thyme, strip the leaves from the stems
1 extra large large onion, sliced thickly
1.5 lbs. red potatoes, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided in half
1/2 cup grated gruyère
1 cup grated mozzarella

Start off by washing/cutting the potatoes, stripping the thyme from the stems, slicing the onion, and grating the cheese. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Hard work is done.

Fresh Thyme <3

Place onions in an oven safe pan – cast iron is perfect.

I love my cast iron pan!

Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the onion

I also love onions!

Add thyme to the onions and cook for a good 5 minutes – or more if you cut the onion obcenely thick like I did.

I think I could eat grilled onions spiced with thyme by itself.

Mix potatoes, remaning olive oil, and both cheeses in a large bowl. Refrain from swiping cheese. Remember the cooking onion and thyme, turn it off if it’s cooked long enough.

Mmm cheese!

“Place” potato mixture into the pan with the onion and thyme. I couldn’t quite figure out how they “placed” it so after attempting to shovel it out with my wooden spoon proved to be useless I resorted to using my hands.

Manhandled potatoes and cheese surely taste just as good and non-manhandled potatoes and cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes or until cooked through and golden.

Do not just start eating right from the pan ... apparently cast iron pan fresh from the oven is hot. Who knew?!

Turn out onto a serving tray … or big plate. Curse a bit when some cheese sticks to the pan and takes an onion as its hostage. Save the onion and place it with the rest of the onions.

A-mazing ... likely not the least bit healthy for me, but delicious none the less.

I omitted the salt since cheese has enough sodium, but I did forget the black pepper. Whoops. Oh well it was still tasty. My youngest refused to eat the onions. Silly kid.