The Perfect Weekend...

We had the absolute perfect weather this weekend. It was almost 80 degrees and sunny. That is absolutely unheard of in WNY. And I should preface this whole rave about the weather with the fact that on Thursday morning I woke up to two inches of snow, then on Friday it was 76 degrees, and by Sunday I had sunburn. The weekend was made even more awesome by the fact that my husband asked my MIL to watch the girls from Friday to Sunday so we could take the Harley out.

Saturday we took a relaxing Harley ride after doing some work around the farm, and capped it off with an awesome dinner at Red & Trudy's in Portville, NY. They have these totally unique loose meat hamburgers on a buttered and salted roll, can we say yum?

Sunday morning my mom and stepdad came out at about 9am, so Jay could fix their brakes. We had a casual breakfast out at the picnic table with Dodge (the goat) nearby to snag some Timbits. My BIL and SIL showed up, along with my dad and stepmom, my aunt and her fiance, and my MIL and FIL showed up with our girls a little later.
After an impromptu BBQ lunch we headed into the village to enjoy the Maple Festival. While there we did a little shopping and got a look at a very messy baby. See Daddy decided to give Miss Chevelle her own ice cream cone, and Miss Chevelle always thinks she needs to eat the bottom of the cone first allowing the ice cream to melt all over her.

We got back home and Maddy decided to get into her bathing suit to play with the hose. I stripped Ash down to her birthday suit so she could get wet too, and not only did she manage to pee two seconds after her diaper was removed but she proceeded to go ahead and poop (yes I said pooped). My darling 14 month old squatted and had a little poop on the lawn. I have to say that is the first time I have ever had to employ the pooper scooper for a human.

All in all it was a great weekend and by Sunday evening we were all a little knocked out from all the fresh air. I can only hope this will set the precedent for the entire upcoming summer. The only thing missing was my sister and Miss Dee. I do so miss them when we have family get togethers on the weekends.

It's Been a Busy Week

My lovely husband went to another livestock auction last week and was able to secure us this years pigs and as a suprise brought me home some chickens. And the better part of the chickens was out of the five he brought home two were Buff Silkies, or better known as "Poodle Chickens" to my family!!!


All 5 of the big girls together

One of my Silkies, Birdzilla

All in all everyone is doing well, the bad pigs are learning to be a little more friendly and even tried to nibble my toes because they thought the nail polish was edible. Dodge, our goat, does not find them half as amusing as I do. They annoy her to no end. But she will be moved out to her bigger home hopefully this weekend.

What Happens When Mom Is At Work...

I only work 13 hrs a week at my "real" job. Thats only two days, Mondays and Saturday mornings. Well my husband tells me he is going to the local livestock auction to look for some pigs and a few layers to add to our flock. Next thing I know I am receiving this picture on my phone.

Yes that is the farthest thing from a pig or chicken as it could be. That would be a goat. Why my husband felt the need to bring this goat home I'll never know. But this is the newest member of our ever growing family. This is Dodge.

I have to say even though I felt extreme fear when I first realized I knew nothing about goats, I am now quite smitten with her. She is very affectionate and sweet. My girls just love her.

I guess we are now the proud parents of a moo cow colored goat. So I've spent all night on the computer learning everything I could about goats, order things for goats, etc etc. Lucky for us Jay had to run to the farm store for some chick supplies and got some food water dishes and salt lick. My neighbor brought over a few bales of hay, and Jay stopped at the feed mill for the chicks and got some goat grain. I have to say she is quite funny.

Gotta run, time to play with the new baby a little more.

Our Farm Life Has Now Started...

Well our pig pen and chicken coops are finished being built. We originally went to the farm store to get some supplies for the 6 month old layers and piglets we are getting next week. Then Miss Chevelle saw the baby chicks and went nuts. She got so excited she tried climbing in the pen with them. It was way too funny.

Jay, a.k.a. Mr. Softie, decided we had to get some babies right then. We had talked about getting some chicks to try out, but hadn't come up with a decision yet. Well he made the decision for us.

Right now they are in a temporary nursery, that is small making it easier to control the temperature. They are very cute, and man they can make me laugh. They jump up on each others heads peck the weirdest things. I am so excited. This is why I moved to the country so my girls could see all the different stages of growth. They will be helping to raise their own food. How cool is that?
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(This chick was sitting on its chickmates head, about two seconds after I took this picture the chick being sat on beat up the other one)

I'm now a cloth diapering Mama!!!

I finally did it. I switch over to cloth diapers, and now I'm wondering what the hell took me so long to do it in the first place. I guess I let the nay sayers scare me out of it. But now living in the country where we have to burn our garbage, I felt it was the right time. You see 'sposies don't burn completely and you have to bury the jelly stuff that is left over. I guess I just don't feel right doing that so it was time to make the switch.

I got my shipment of prefolds and Imse Vimse soft covers today. I was so excited to see the mailman. The prefolds went right into the wash and a few hours later Miss Chevelle had a nice fluffy butt.

She was really funny, she kept looking down and her diaper and going, "OOOOhhhh" and smiling. I think she really digs them too.

So now we'll just see how the next few days go, but for now we have one happy Mama and a smiling baby!!!

Oh, the Joys of Teething...

This is Ash in the middle of the scariest hour of her young life. She woke up this evening screaming and proceeded to continue screaming for over an hour. Not only was she screaming she would not let me hold her. NEVER in her short life has she not let me hold her. She also would not accept her zombie monkey. She ALWAYS takes zombie.

This is the first real time of problems teething. The most she's ever had was a little bit of a runny nose and not wanting a bottle.


This was just not my happy baby. I cried when I realized she wouldn't let me hold her. She is a Mama's girl and this made me so sad. But after some medicine (including a mothers savior, teething tablets) my girl was back to normal.

Now I know you probably think I'm over reacting about how scary this was, but if you knew my girl you would know how out of character this is. I actually thought she was seizuring at one point. But now all is well she is snoring away in her crib.

**UPDATE**
Following morning she was right as rain. Ate normally, drank from her cup, was as cheerful as normal.

Stupid PCOS Diet

Ok, since I posted an entry on my fab banana bread now its time for a little whining. See I have PCOS this syndrome that effects my endocrine system and causes me to be insulin resistant. It also causes amongst the many symptoms infertility and makes it very hard for you to lose weight (especially in the tummy area). My darling husband and I have been trying to conceive another child pretty much since Ash was born with no luck.

This is where the diet comes in.

See my lovely OB/Gyn told me that if you lose as little as 11% of your body weight it can regulate your cycles and get you to ovulate. After 2 1/2 yrs of TTC last time I lost my 11% and conceived Ash on no fertility meds. So about 3 weeks ago I decided to give it a shot again.

So I use the website www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate to keep track of what I eat and how many calories I should eat to continue to lose weight. I don't follow any of the "fad" diets, I just eat as healthily as possible and keep my carbs and sugar down. I also try and eat as many raw foods as possible with a lot of fiber. Let me tell you I do feel way more energy and feel great when eating good.

It's just so darn hard. Especially with a rail thin husband who eats, and I'm not exaggerating, 5 times the calories I do a day and doesn't gain anything. The man is constantly snacking, barely eats any fruits or veggies, and could polish off an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream a night if our budget allowed. I also have two young children (plus my niece who's over all week), and its very hard not to eat what they don't finish off of their plates.

In comes the banana bread. See I bake this divine smelling bread, but alas it does not fit into my diet. If I ate even the smallest piece my blood sugar would skyrocket. So as fast as its baked it gets divided up into servings and either packed in lunches, frozen, or put out of sight.

But I am doing good. I have lost 12 lbs already and I will not break my diet tonight.

Yum, Banana Bread...

So after grocery shopping last night I was cleaning off the top of my fridge and found 7 very ripe bananas. So I got the bug up my butt to bake banana bread. I found my mom's recipe and decided to do a little tweaking to make it a little more on the healthy side since my husband pretty much devours any banana bread he sees. (I should note I did suffer the misfortune of losing one of the bananas to Miss Chevelle who throws a temper tantrum everytime she sees a banana that is not going into her mouth). So here's my recipe for a healthier banana bread.

Ingredients
1/2 cup margarine
3/4 cup splenda
4 egg whites, beaten
4 bananas, finely crushed
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 tablespoons ground flax meal
3 tablespoons toasted wheat germ

Optional: Use applesauce instead of margarine (I don't do this because it changes the texture of my bread) and 1/2 cup chopped almonds or walnuts

Directions
1 Cream together butter and splenda.
2 Add eggs and crushed bananas.
3 Combine well.
4 Sift together flour, soda and salt. Add to creamed mixture. Add vanilla.
5 Pour into greased and floured loaf pan.
6 Let the batter sit for 10 minutes for the banana flavor to fully permeate.
7 Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.
8 Keeps well, refrigerated.



Here is the picture of the big loaf I made (not really sure why the picture is sideways...) sorry one piece is already gone darn DH. I also halved all the ingredients and made two small mini loave which I will freeze for my girls to have for breakfast next week.


(The mini loaves still baking)

My Baby The Klutz

Ash had a very terrible, horrible, no good very bad day (ah, how do I love Alexander the Great? Let me count the ways...). Actually it was more two days. Since having learned the art of walking at 11 months, my now 13 month old has had her fair share of missteps, tumbles, and outright falls. But starting yesterday it got worse. First she attempted to hold onto the tail of Yoda, the ugly pug, whilst he was spinning trying to catch his tail (dumb dog is 8yrs old and still does that). This resulted in her being spun around and falling head first into the coffee table. That would be bruise number one. Then today she tries to run while clapping her hands and doing her 'Axl Rose' dance. She proceeds to trip over thin air ramming her shin into the rocking chair that happend to be there to catch her fall. Later on today while at my Mom's for dinner, she banged her forehead no less than three times on the dining room table resulting in a nice bruise on the opposite side from the one she got taking on the spinning pug. My poor baby, somebody is going to call child protection on me. I don't know what to do with this kid, sometimes I think I should put her in a bubble like that kid from the wipes commercial. Tell me why my poor kid has the grace of an elephant?