We Be Jammin'

My husband's grandparents live a few blocks away. They have a beautifully, well planned yard with many healthy fruit trees on their small lot. Grandpa Great is reaching 90 now and not keeping up with his yard like he used to. While our 2 year old slept, I stayed home with our two littles while the "big kids" and my husband went over and picked nectarines. We had bags and bags and bags. I called a friend and plans began.


My dear friend had taught our young girls to make jam as part of a Keepers at Home project. This is actually a GREAT story and I need to blog about the club some too. We had made strawberry jam which proved to be quicker and easier than nectarine. This weekend fell together for us. My husband was off of work, hers and her three older boys were off on a Boy Scout event. It would be just us girls (and Gabriel who as of yesterday, is a month old)

I stayed up until 2am sewing buttons on my daughter's apron in preperation.

How silly is that? I would have been up anyway :( I have trouble getting to sleep at night.

We spent ALL DAY making jam. ALL DAY. It went quickly though. We talked and visited. Our girls ran in and out giggling. I felt very cool because this isnt something that I could or would do alone. We talked about Amish living and working together (I spent a good part of the day nursing or rocking my baby.)

We planned a Bible study for our families. We talked about ways to save money on food.


We also fed the scraps to my dear friend's chickens:

and quail.


Felt very good to waste nothing, and spend a day with a friend.

10 years Old

My little man had a birthday! I want soo badly to make birthdays special. This year was hard for me. NO money. New baby, very tired.

Our paycheck does not stretch far enough. And we spend all of out time beating ourselves up over it, not helpful I know. I had bought a nursing cover up with baby shower money and it was missing it's buckle (it was $30.00 and I felt guilty about it anyway) my husband took it back to Babies R US and got our son some Star Wars Legos at Toys R Us. I bought two Veggie Tales DVDs on veg Source. One is a spoof on Lord of the Rings and they were a big hit with him. The lady I bought them from is great and I am now holding a Tupperware catalog party in Texas! I also got a video game system from a lady on Freecycle. Somehow, it came up that had a newborn, and she had some of the most encourging words and now SHE IS PREGNANT.

I wanted to make a cake, got the kids to bed house cleaned up, went into our refridgerator..totally empty. Seriously, no eggs. I woke up my 12 yo to go to the store with me, and we tried to scrounge enough money for 6 eggs and lunch for the next day. SO frustrating. Now, I have good friends who would have given me eggs. Without question. I even have a close friend with chickens who is soo generous and kind to me. If I had told our church they would also help. It's just that they have soo many times.

OK...so, back to our point.

I made a cake

and there were great presents:

and for a day I let our big kid play video games. (this took a lot from me:)

our son is so special to us and it was so good to honor him for a day.

August Give Aways & Pay it Forward

I would love to go to craft fairs and buy EVERYTHING my eyes fall on; or go on Etsy with an unlimited credit card and buy crayon totes and matching mother-daughter aprons and baby carriers and baby blankets and.....

For now, lets enter some contests of fellow bloggers and make some friends, shall we.

This is for a neat reusable grocery bag called a flip and tumble bag:
http://mammaofmany.blogspot.com/2008/08/flip-and-tumble-giveaway-1.html

and for when one is feeling crafty on their own:

The Apron Book: Making, Wearing, and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort
by
EllynAnne Geisel

http://mountainmorning.blogspot.com/2008/08/apron-book-giveaway.html




here is another great apron site--a vintage apron given away each week:
http://mercedesrules.wordpress.com

and at Bloggy Giveaway (http://www.donttryit.com/bloggy_giveaways/advertising.html)you can find

Current Giveaways:
That Baby DVD
Superhero Designs
Made Digital
Sisters of Saving

BTW: I do want to learn to include cool graphics and links that say go "HERE" but I DO NOT want to hold my breath and not have fun or join in UNTIL...there is always an until. Let's do what we CAN now!!!

Sarah over at www.enchantinglysimple.blogspot.com started something really neat. Pay It Forward-the first three people that respond to her blog get a little something in the mail then the first three to respond to theirs and on....I was #2, so here we go....

Advie for Laundry Woes?

I think this may be an ongoing battle and dont know why I am thinking of this now....At one time I had three in cloth diapers and it worked just fine. Now I have two in diapers and am wondering if cloth would be a good way to cut back financially but I need to get some order here first.

My obstacles are:

Our washer and dryer are in our garage. There is no door to the garage, so you go out the front door, down the walkway and up the driveway to the back of the garage. We live on a busy street with no fence and I dont feel comfortable with my children out there. SOOO I am one person doing the laundry for 7. Since being pregnant and having my last little one I ahve been having my 12 yo son go out with me and carry. I tried having the younger ones but it ws such a production and they couldnt carry much. I used to do all the laundry one day and then stay up late sorting and folding. I have since developed a laundry schedule and Each peron has a day then there is no sorting :)

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We have a very small narrow hallow that holds all of our laundry baskets. They fill up quickly and are unsightly to trip over. I also have no where to hang things to dry--as of now, they hang in our "office" doorway and drive my husband bonkers:

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I have thought about sorting them outside but how would I do that? I pictured trash cans. (atleast one for towels, sheets, etc.) I have a front loading machine on the ground. SO would I dump out the heavy trash can., then sit on the ground and put it all in? Just trying to picture.

Any nuggets of wisdom?