Gardening & Hiking

Our garden is finally looking like the real thing! This year we have corn, green beans, peas, about four different kinds of tomatoes, an artichoke, burpless cucumbers, lemon cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, sugar pumpkins, a few carrots, parsley, mint, sage, rosemary, and my personal fav, basil. Whew! I think I am going to try and can my tomatoes for the first time ever and try freezing the rest of the veggies and maybe the herbs. Hubby's mom found us a food saver at the goodwill for $10.00 that works perfectly :) , so we will be using that to vacuum package our veggies. What our garden doesn't provide enough of, I will buy at the local growers markets and pick out some fresh organics. I have just started studying and purchasing organic foods and yes they taste sooooo much better, expensive, but better.

We spent the day yesterday driving up to one of the many lakes we live near and had lunch with my parents and then went on a short hike. Greyson LOVES riding in the backpack on his daddy's shoulders. It was HOT but so worth every drop of sweat. Absolutely gorgeous!

Update on life

Well, our computer is finally fixed and I am now able to post pics :) Yea!!! Also, we just got back from vacation. We spend four days wheelin on the Rubicon Trail down by South Lake Tahoe, which was absolutly gorgeous!!!! This was our first experience camping with Greyson. The first day or so was a little rough. He didn't take well to not being able to sleep in his own crib and his feeding and meal times were thrown off a tad. But by the end of the trip we were all getting the hang of it, wouldn't you know it :) We rested at home for a day and then went up north to visit my sisters family and their new little bundle of absolute gorgeous joy ;) It was fun to chat with my sister and watch Greyson and his cousins play together. All in all it was a wonderful time had by everyone!

Gabe, Greyson and I at the Rubicon Trail!

Greyson LOVES Wheelin'!

SA-WEET!

Yes this is the trail....and Yes I am driving :)

Beautiful!

My Newest Niece, Reese! Isn't she gorgeous?

My two other gorgeous nieces, Eden (in the front) and Ava!

Crazy Summer!

Holy Shnickies! What a crazy, busy summer it has been so far. Gabe and I finally finished planting our garden last weekend. We have been busy with yard work, baby showers, gardening, bbq's, funerals :( , birthdays and just "life" in general. Both Gabe's sister and my sister are due to have babies within three weeks of each other in about two weeks or so! Not to mention Gabe has been busy working on the 4 Runner to make it trail worthy so we can take our vacation down on the Rubicon trail at the end of June. Whew! I actually think I love all the chaos! Greyson gave us quite the scare yesterday as he got into the ant poisoning, Terro!!! I completely flipped out. He had it everywhere....all over his face, mouth, clothes, carpet, even on his eye lashes. Immediately poison control was called and they advised me on what to do. Into the shower we both went and I had to try and flush out his eyes for 15 min and rinse out his mouth. Thank God Terro is more of an irritant then poison to humans. So, with a lot of prayers, tears, and snuggling we were able to get through the day without any trips to the hospital :)

Sniffles & Bread

We are just about over the sniffles. Gabe and I have had a cold for about a week and Greyson has had it for almost two. Poor little guy. We went and got a cold mist humidifier last weekend and I have been running it every night in the nursery for him. I think he is on the mend though.

On a completely different subject, I have finally found a whole wheat bread recipe that hubby and I both love. The only difference is that I have subtracted one cup of whole wheat flour and have replaced it with white flour. If you would like this yummy recipe click here. It is a recipe by Crystal Miller who has a website called The Family Homestead and let me tell you she has some yummy, easy to prepare meals on her site. Hubby has enjoyed every single meal I have made from her site :) I have made the bread in the oven and I have tried it in my new bread machine. We have enjoyed it both ways, but I need to do some more research and tweak it just a little bit for the bread machine. It comes out tasting just fine but when cut it becomes really crumbly. I'm still learning how to use my new kitchen toy.

Good Times

My sister and her two girls came for a visit for the whole week last week. It was soooo nice to be able to spend some time with her and the little ones. It seems funny that I, being the eldest, am constantly asking her, my little sis, for advise on baby stuff. But she is more of an expert than I at this point ;) She has a three year, a one year old and one baking in the oven. We had a nice time visiting and swapping advise and recipes. Now, I have spent the last couple of days trying to catch up around our house. Lots to do! Greyson is still doing an excellent job of going to sleep at 7pm and staying asleep until 5:30-6:30am. Praise the Lord for answered prayers! Yea! Now I feel much better having been able to get some sleep and I have a lot more energy and patients. Well its Greysons breakfast time and I'm off to get him some rice cereal and some sort of fruit. Have a blessed day!

Success!

Yea! We finally have had two successful nights in a row. Greyson has slept all night long the last two nights in his own room, in his own crib! My sister has helped me immensely. She has helped me get Greyson on a really good eating, sleeping, and nap schedule. This is the schedule we have been using or close to it :)

7:00am~ Wake up time and first nursing of the day
7:15am~ Greyson has a breakfast of rice cereal
9:30am or so~Takes a nap
10:30am or so~Nurse
1:30pm~Nurse
Sometime in the afternoon he takes another nap~still working on this part :)
4:30pm~ Nurse
4:45pm~Has dinner--so far he likes squash and green beans (I haven't tried anything else yet)
7:00pm~I have been giving him a little bit of rice cereal, we put on the night time dipe and PJ's and nurse and then somewhere around 7:30pm I put him in his crib and he goes to sleep :) Yea!

Now, typically we probably should be giving him his last nursing at around 10:30pm but he has slept so soundly the last two nights I haven't wanted to wake him up to eat. Maybe he doesn't need this feeding so I will skip it for now unless he protests and needs to eat.
With Greyson going to bed at a descent time, Gabe and I have been able to have a little time to ourselves....I feel like we get to have date night now, HA! It's been really nice to actually be able to sit down and just reconnect with the hubby again. Not to mention I am better rested and have been able to get up and start following my cleaning schedule again. This morning I have already ran a load of laundry, ran a load of dishes, wiped down all kitchen appliances and washer & dryer, and now I am off to make a loaf of bread. Whoooo Hooo. I love being able to get things done around the home :)

Yea Wednesday!

Yes! We are finally over the sickness that had been going around. I think it was a touch of the flu. I came down with it as well as my father and some friends. Now, I can start enjoying the beautiful sunshine that we have here in the valley! Tonight is Wednesday night and Gabe and I listen to Pastor Jon Courson on the radio. We are studying Revelations! If you would like to study with us here is the web site to log onto it http://www.joncourson.com . What an exciting time we live in today. The coming of Christ is near! I just get so excited to read Revelations and study it, I can't wait! Gabe and I would love to go out to church, but Greyson gets very fussy at that time of night if we are out and about. He needs structure and a schedule. :) So, we are blessed to be able to listen to it on the radio and then we go out to church on Sunday mornings. Have a blessed Wednesday!

Monday Morning

This weekend was very fun as hubby's family came in from out of town. We had a nice relaxing visit with his parents and sister and it was nice to have a little break from the little one once in a while so I could get a few things done ;) Yea! We took a little trip out to the Butte Creek Mill where I bought some freshly ground whole wheat flour and some old fashioned oats. I love going out to the mill to look around at all of the yummy items they have to purchase at their store. Now I can continue to look for the perfect homemade whole wheat bread recipe I've been searching for. I think I have tried about five different bread recipes so far and have not found a recipe yet that hubby and I both enjoy enough to make it our basic "go to" bread. So, now on to getting some things done around the house....

~Wash Bedding Laundry
~Wipe down all Kitchen Appliances
~Wipe down Washer & Dryer
~Make monthly dinner menu
~Excercise
~Start Roomba in Living Room

Sunny Friday

What a gorgeous day it is! The sun is shining and the birds are out. I hope spring is on its way! I don't know why but I tend to be more motivated on nice days verses the rainy, cloudy days. There is an extra spring in my step and my smile is bigger. There is lots to be done today as we are having family coming in from out of town to visit this weekend. Oh, by the way, the turkey, stuffing, and gravy all turned out wonderfully last night. Yea! Now there are lots of yummy left overs for the freezer. I also saved the bones to make some healthy homemade turkey noodle soup at a later date. Ok, so on to today's "To Do List"...

~Make Bed
~Tidy Room
~Start the Roomba running in each part of the house (Got to Love the Roomba!!!!)
~Mop Kitchen Floor (After cooking all day yesterday it could use it)
~Quickly dust furniture
~Quick Clean toilets
~Quick Clean Shower
~Wash baby clothes
~Go for a walk ( it is a beautiful day!)
~Baby needs a bath
~Start Turkey Enchiladas later this evening for dinner

That should be enough to start with today. What I don't get done today I will finish tomorrow morning while hubby plays with the baby. :) Have a blessed day!

Thursday Morning

Well, yesterday proved to be quite productive. Greyson and I went grocery shopping and then came home to put them all away. In the process of dividing where all of the food went I was able to clean out and rearrange two different cupboards! Yeah! Spring cleaning early! Today I plan on roasting a turkey with stuffing and make some gravy and mashed taters to go with it. My parents will be coming over to help us eat the dinner. I am going to go get the stuffing ready right now. Blessings!

Slacking!

Yes, I am a major Slacker! I have not been blogging at all due to just being completely too busy and too tired :) So, I am going to attempt to get back into the blogging swing of things. Ha! Last weekend we had beautiful weather, right up until last night. Then it decided to just pore down with rain. But, until then it was just gorgeous! We didn't even need coats to go on our outings. Saturday we went to the Outdoor Sportsman's show out at the Expo. Greyson received his first autographed book on Black tail deer hunting and was completely taking in all of the people and sights. Then Sunday was church, which he nearly makes it through an entire service....usually I see his number flash about the last 15 min of the teaching and we have to go get him. He just gets hungry. We finished off the weekend with one of our friends kids having a B-day party at one of the local pizzeria's last night and today it is time to start another week. It was a big day for Greyson as we started him on rice cereal this morning. He did very well and ate the whole bowlful! We will try a little more this evening when hubby gets home. Well that is all I have time for today as I hear Greyson protesting his nap time. Gotta go!

Sunny Thursday

I have not been able to blog as much as I had hoped lately, but duty calls as I am now a mom :) Greyson is getting better for the most part. He still has occasional problems with the acid reflux but I think we might be on the mend. We are still working on him sleeping in his bassinet by himself and I feel now that I could be going temporarily insane ;)...due to lack of sleep. I actually caved in and took a nap this afternoon while Grey took a nap. Thanks to my mom coming over, I was able to go grocery shopping yesterday and was able to get some laundry done and some bread rising today. This is experiment #3 with the bread baking. We will see how this one turns out. I am really hoping to get the hang of baking my own bread. It will be much more nutritional and probably even cheaper than store bought bread. Well, I've got to go clean the bathrooms before Grey wakes up for the afternoon. Blessings!

Sleep...Ha...Who needs Sleep!

Well, Greyson is almost 5 months already. I can't believe how the time flies by! For over a month now he has been having issues with GERD which is basically acid reflux. So, needless to say he spits up ALOT and cries frequently because the acid comes up in his esophagus and burns :( At around three months old I had been bringing him into bed with us just because he seemed to be more comforted by being close to mommy and daddy but now that he is on meds for the reflux we have been trying to get him to sleep in his own bassinet again. Ooof! What a task this is! Not to mention he got into a bad habit of "snack nursing" throughout the night. I am still waking up just about every two hours to let him "snack" and change the dipe. I feel as though my nerves are wearing thin as 5 months rolls around with a definite lack of sleep and his only source of food (he is not on a bottle yet). I need some relief!!!!! I pray that the Lord will give me strength and patience to be able to make it through till the little one can sleep on his own at least more than 2 hours at a time. I kind of hoped by this time he would be in his own room. Ha! That is not going to be for a while yet. Sleep...its over rated anyways....right? :)

I just can't seem to get back in the swing of things. Christmas time really threw me off track and I've been days trying to get my house and schedule back in order. So today I am concentrating on only a couple off things.

To Do List:

~Grocery shopping
~Clean off Kitchen counters
~Pick up misc. items around the house
~Laundry (bedding, towels, diapers)

Probably doesn't seem like much, but Greyson has not been well lately. We finally are trying some medicine to see if he has acid reflux. Yup, apparently babies can get it too! So, this is the first day of the new meds. Hopefully this will stop all the spitting up, hoarseness and crying. Poor little guy :( Ok well off we go a grocery shopping ! Yea! ;)

Shopping Day

Today Gabe and Greyson are going to be helping me shop today. We have to run out to Costco to stock up on a couple of things that I like to buy in bulk. Olive oil, Vitamin water, and I want to check on some yeast and flour for making my own bread. I tried a whole wheat sourdough starter and made bread from that but I think my starter went bad somehow :(. So I figured maybe, since I am new at bread baking, I would start with an easy recipe. I did a pretty good job if you ask me but the bread was kind of bland. So, back to the recipe books I go to find a bread recipe that hubby and I both like :D Off we go!!!