embrace the camera - sept 29

i don't know what's gotten into wyatt but he decided to grow up all of a sudden, and all within the course of a week. and it also happens to be his 9-month birthday today! so i'm embracing the camera with my sweet, littlest boy this week as an inevitably failed attempt to clutch onto his baby-ness, as if my life depended on it.

it's hard to believe that this is itty bitty peanut baby is how my now nine-month-old began. 

i can't even remember him being so small, portable and lightweight. he was like an advertisement for a camping tent or something. big fun, small package!

 

i was looking through photos and found this one of isaiah with me and wyatt. isaiah was crying and he said it was because he loved wyatt so much.

this is an example of the beauty of photos. you can't possibly remember every single beautiful moment all the time, but looking at a picture can so easily remind you and bring you right back to that moment...emotions and everything. i hope my boys never outgrow their brotherly love. my hope is that they love, protect and care for each other for all of their lives.

moving on...

somebody tell me who this boy is...drinking from a sippy cup like a big boy.

or this boy....eating table food like we're about to run out. 

or how about this hunk of chunky cuteness?

i really don't know who this boy is and what he's doing in my house. but he thinks he can crawl around like it's his.

i lost him three times yesterday. yes. he was lost. in our house. i ran from room to room in search of this fast-crawling little monkey.

i can't take it anymore, little man! stop growing, would you? just stop it. right this second.

from their garden

i don't have my own garden, though i wish i did. i also wish i could have my own chickens so i don't have to buy eggs again. i dream about one day making our home self-sufficient in as many ways as possible - a garden and trees for produce, chickens for eggs, solar power. i'll do anything besides farming animals for meat because i just don't see myself slaughtering a cow for dinner. one day, friends. one day. 

but, for now, we know plenty of people who have gardens and they are always happy to share their produce. the mister's co-workers always ask him if he wants some lemons, tomatoes, zucchini, etc, and he always says, "yes! my wife will turn it into something." it's true and it goes hand-in-hand with my previous post about ways we save money. i take whatever produce is offered to us and i will make it into something that my family will eat. the following are just a few examples of where i did just that.

tomatoes. we were given tomatoes from multiple gardens - my dad, stepmom and mother-in-law. it was a tomato influx from every which parental direction. 

the first thing i did was make a confit of tomatoes a la david lebovitz. 

i poured enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish, threw in about 1 tablespoon each of chopped garlic, black pepper, salt, herbs de provence, and sugar. i cut the tomatoes in half and placed them open face down into the oil, sprinkled a little more salt and pepper on top, threw in a few bay leaves, then baked it at 325* for about 45 minutes. i store it in a large glass jar in the refrigerator and it lasts for about a week.

i love this recipe because it is extremely versatile. i've found that it's the best way to preserve a ton of tomatoes that would otherwise go bad and still be able to use it in a variety of ways. one way is for bruschetta. who doesn't love bruschetta? give the tomatoes a rough chop and serve with sliced baguette. yum.

another use is to chop the tomatoes and toss them with pasta. the tomatoes are cooked in a tasty oil, so that's all the sauce you need. it makes for a quick and light meal.

we then took what was left of the confit after a few days and turned it into spaghetti sauce, which we canned and will place in the freezer. it keeps forever.

lemons. the mister's co-workers sent him home with this humongous bag of lemons. it had to be at least 25 pounds worth. and these were not ordinary little lemons - they were the size of softballs!

after using 5-6 of them for margaritas over the weekend {if only i had some fresh mint, we would have made some mojitos, too}, i made some lemon bars. these are sooo good and sooo easy. i shared some with a preggo friend of mine and, after eating her first ten pieces, she had to make her husband hide them and ration two pieces for her each day. hysterical.   

zucchini. we also were given zucchini from a few different gardens. and i'm not sure what was up with the zucchini this year, but they were gigantic!!!! here's one pictured with a large steak knife for size reference.  it could double as a baseball bat.

one can only eat so much stir-fried zucchini, so i made a ton of zucchini bread which was a huge hit in this house. wyatt tore this stuff up. i think that boy ate a whole loaf by himself in a day. 

on another note, did you notice my sweet, new button action to the right? the lovely ladies at j&m's eye candy featured my post about ways we save money. they made my week. :) thanks, kristine and britney!

ways we save money

saving money. i believe that as a homemaker, it's a huge part of my job to find all of the possible ways to save money. the mister works hard, day and in and day out, to provide for us, so it's my job to stretch our money as far as i possibly can. these are some of the ways i do it.

1. buy bulk. and i'm not talking about bulk at whole foods, because that is just more expensive then buying packaged. i'm talking about bulk at your discount grocery store. our local discount store is winco. i buy inexpensive and appropriate storage containers for cereal, flour, etc, and just keep refilling them with bulk product. super cheap-o.




2. i make my own dishwasher soap. all it takes is mixing equal parts of borax and baking soda. about tablespoons of this into your dishwasher's soap dispenser and you are good to go. vinegar in the rinse compartment also helps dishes to rinse clean. clean dishes for an itty bitty fraction of what it costs to wash with some fancy soap that has all kinds of nasty things in it that i'm sure could be bad for you and the kids. you eat off of your dishes, people. think about it.


3. i make my own all-purpose cleaner. the recipe? 1/4 cup vinegar in a quart spray bottle and top off with water. i use this to clean bathroom sinks, floors and glass shower door. i also use this to clean windows and mirrors. the best part - it's all-natural! i used to spend so much money buying those "green" brands - seventh generation, method, etc. - which seems so crazy when i look back at it now. make it yourself! and no. it doesn't leave your house smelling like vinegar. once it all dries, the smell is gone, too.


4. i cloth diaper. liam is almost three and has autism so the harsh reality is i have no idea when he will be potty trained. wyatt is not even a year old, so i imagine he has about another two years in diapers. i invested in their cloth diaper "wardrobe" last year and have been using it since. i'm sure i'll have to buy a few replacements here and there...but for the most part, it costs me nothing. maybe a little extra effort because i can't just roll them up and throw them in the trash. but again...this is my job.


5. rags and cloth napkins. there are still some things that we use paper towels for, but we don't use nearly as much as we used to. i have stopped buying paper napkins altogether. i use rags for all of my cleaning. we use cloths napkins at every single meal.


6. i meal plan for two weeks at a time. and i usually plan meals around what meat is on sale. once i know what meat is on sale, i figure out what other "stuff" i need to make meals for the next two weeks. this means i do one "large" grocery trip every other week where i buy bulk meat, freezable items, canned goods, bulk items and other non-perishables. then i go on one "small" grocery trip every other week to replenish perishables like milk, eggs, bread, etc. this means very few trips to the grocery store, which eliminates wasting money on impulse purchases. think about it. every time you go to the grocery store you probably leave with way more than you came for. weekends are pretty hard to plan for because we are always out and about, so meals on the weekends usually consist of leftovers from the week, or sandwiches or whatever we can put together with what's in the fridge and pantry.


7. i budget $200 every two weeks on food. $200 to feed six people breakfast, lunch and dinner for fourteen days. that's $14.28 per day which is $2.38 per day per person. does that sound crazy? i think it does. but it can be done and i've been doing it for a while now. it took some time to tweak the process and finally get it right, but i now have it down to a science. and my kids eat GOOD. they eat fresh, they eat healthy.

8. thrift shop and hand-me-downs. i am the queen of both. i recently bought isaiah some new soccer cleats at a thrift store. i lucked out when i found his size for a whopping $2.98, but they had the previous owner's name written on the heels. they still do. isaiah didn't seem to notice and for a few hours each week, his name is "Eli W." oh, well!

i've come to learn that saving money isn't just something you do here and there, every once in a while. saving money is a lifestyle. i'm learning to let go of convenience for the sake of practicality and frugality. and i think the trade-off is well worth it.

i'd love to hear some ways you help save money!

linking up with the girls at j&m's eye candy....

embrace the camera - 9.22

my hubby recently celebrated his 38th birthday. as his gift, his dad and stepmom had all four boys at their house overnight, so that shawn and i could have an entire night to ourselves. we had grand plans to have dinner in san francisco and go out for drinks afterwards. umm, NOT. as soon as we dropped off the kids, we immediately decided, after acclimating to our new quiet surroundings, that it would be much more worthwhile to spend this glorious quiet time watching reruns and movies on the hotel tv...in peace. and that we did. 

it was wonderful weekend spent as "husband and wife" and not as "dad and mom". in just 24 hours, we scarfed down scrumptious meals at four different restaurants. talk about over-indulging. i especially enjoyed having conversations with my husband. and not just conversations about schedules and kids and the usual things we talk about everyday. we actually talked and listened and responded...about anything and everything.

one of the things i fell in love with about shawn is his wealth of random knowledge. he knows a lot of things. and really random things. he talked about wine and the different kinds of grapes and where they all originated. we watched a movie and it made reference to a name and he knew that name as the prime minister of russia in 1984...or some crazy thing like that. {and, no. i don't think russia really has a prime minister...or do they?} we talked about cars. he told me that, back in the day, cougars were for men and mustangs were for women. and that the door handles on mustangs were made deeper to make room for a woman's nails. rannnndom, i tell you. he's older than me by almost 10 years, which is really not that much in the grand scheme of things, but he has lived a lot more life than i have and i love to hear his stories.

if there is one thing that we can work on with our relationship, it's making time for each other. we often get so absorbed in the hustle of daily life with four kids, that we don't put priority on each other. i'm grateful for the time we had to get reacquainted. and i'm grateful to my in-laws for giving us that opportunity. i always believed we had a pretty strong bond, but it certainly feels like we went home to our boys with a closer relationship and a stronger marriage.

happy 38th birthday, my love! 
here's to many, many, many more. we're going to grow old together, babe, and i love you more than you could ever know.