Turkey Countdown Recipe #1

I love a good thanksgiving meal and want to share with you some recipes that I have used over the years.  Today I am craving cranberries so we will start with the sauce. 

• 2 (8-ounce) packages cranberries, fresh or frozen
• 1 orange, zest and juiced
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick

Put all the ingredients into a saucepan over medium heat and simmer until the cranberries burst and the sauce thickens, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve at room temperature or cool and refrigerate. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving. ( I prefer room temp when eating it on thanksgiving, but also great refrigerated on a turkey sandwich the next day)

For those that don't know what the zest of an orange is:  Take a cheese grater to the outside of the orange.  All the pretty orange color goes in the pot, so scrape the entire orange until it is white.

Wordless Wednesday 8-10-2011

Bye Bye pumpkins

My children's favorite thing to do after Halloween is to put their pumpkins outside to decay naturally in hopes that the next spring will bring more pumpkins.  Well last Halloween they picked a spot in the back near the porch, which at the time I didn't consider what would happen when we needed to cut the grass that was getting as tall as the plant.  We had a great plan growing for awhile about 10 seeds sprouted, had healthy leaves and flowers with a couple small pumpkins....if only I remembered to put tell my wonderful husband that they were there.  He went out to cut the grass one morning while I had the kids at the YMCA and when I came home all that was left was a few stems :(
Fortunately some of the stems were growing leaves, and to keep another disaster from happening I transplanted them into the front garden beds where my squash had since withered away.  Now we have had 2 months straight of 90+ heat and very little rain, and the pumpkin is still in the same condition I planted it in.  Our hopes of home grown pumpkin by Halloween is looking very slim...now just praying I get a few small ones for pumpkin pie.
If you have any advice on what I can do to help them thrive please tell me!

CC Bums laundry review

I have been in love with EVERYTHING Cami makes for quite some time now.  Mama cloth, family wipes, fitteds...all amazing!  When she decided to sell samples of her laundry detergent I couldn't pass it up.  I was amazed by the ingredients she used, it has everything in it that you would normally put in a homemade powder detergent- Borax, washing soda, and Felsnaptha.  Something I hadn't seen before is Kosher salt, it acts a a natural softener which worked wonders when I put them out on the line.  I usually have to throw my diapers in the dryer with my dryer balls to soften them up, but while testing the detergent I didn't have to!

I picked a nighttime diaper and about 7 daytime diapers (a few fitteds, prefolds and flats) and only used them in the rotation for the biggest test of all, the battle with ammonia stink.  Everyone has it at some point, and we have been through a lot of WAHM detergents trying to find the best routine.  Most ending with the ammonia coming back after the second wash. With CC Bums it stayed away even on the nighttime diapers!

She puts the sample in wonderful reusable plastic containers as well.  I have a couple set aside for our upcoming trip to the beach.  
To check out everything that Cami can do visit her facebook page or check out her store on Hyenacart.

Wordless Wednesday

My son's favorite thing to do.

Flat challenge Day 2

So far it has been a very poopy however uneventful (thankfully) challenge.  I have starting origami folding the diapers as soon as they are dry so they are ready to go onto a very mobile little man.  I am using 2 covers (swaddlebees) and a nighttime wool soaker (made by me) to go over the very trim diapers.
Night time has been my biggest challenge with a very super peer on my hands it is hard to get it to last the whole night.  So last night I folded one of the flats into a square and placed it in the soaker zone inside the flat.  With that and the wool he lasted the whole night, however I am going to add a layer of fleece tonight as he tossed a little last night and I think it was because he is used to fleece touching his skin all night.
Here is a pic of my little man with his flat in on.  He wasn't very cooperative for this picture. :)

 

Washing day  was today during naptime.  The easiest time of the day to do so, since at night I am working on orders for the store.  Luckily the ick factor of handwashing pooper diapers isn't there so I didn't mind getting my hands in and scrubing the diapers.  I feel it works better than using a plunger to get the diaper clean.  My oldest even helped to hang the diapers and wipes on the IKEA rack.  You can see the gorgeous flats donated to me by Diaper Junction, as well as some IKEA ones I picked up to help me get through my trip at the end of the week.  

Learning how to handwash

I decided it was time to tackle this part of the challenge. I want to make sure that I am getting them clean during the challenge and to figure out how much time it would take.
I diapered with flats for a whole day and night to see how many diapers I would be washing at a time. I then used a 5 gallon camping bucket ($6 at Lowes), a clean plunger and a tablespoon of Ruby Moon's Diaper detergent.
Here is a picture of my diapers in the rinse cycle...lol.

I took each diaper individually in the rinse water first and then threw them all in for a good soak for 15 minutes.  I then wrung out the diapers and placed them aside to dump out the dirty water (I wanted to get all the dirty water out of the diapers before I started the wash "cycle" 

I used the hottest water from my tub and added a pot of boiling water and the laundry soap.  As you can see I also washed my mama cloth and family wipes.  I "plunged" the diapers for 5 minutes and then I let them soak for another 15 minutes before I dumped out the water and started rinsing them out.    The rinse step was the same as the first rinse cycle. 

My diapers drying beautifully outside in the sun along with the wipes and mama cloth.  This drying rack is available at IKEA for 9.99!
Hope this helps... I can't wait until May 23 for the challenge to begin.