Peas in a Pod

We got peas in our fresh produce delivery last week. I'm excited about cooking them! Hadley and I spent some time learning about peas by opening them, smelling them, tasting them, and separating the peas from the pod! We will be having them with dinner tomorrow night!

Homemade Goodness

Homemade Bread and Butter!!

This year is the year of homemade at the Jamison house. I have already made my own laundry detergent as well as my own shampoo. And I have often made my own bread. Today I took another step towards self sufficiency by making my own butter. It was surprisingly easy, although I did need my big strong husband to help!
First, I bought some heavy whipping cream at the grocery store. When you're ready to make your butter, you let the cream come up to room temperature and then pour it in a see through container with a lid. Like an old mayonnaise jar. In my case, I used a mason jar. I would suggest only filling it half way or it is too full to shake very well. Then you shake! Hadley liked watching and even participated in the shaking! It will start to clump up and form butter that is floating in the buttermilk. Pour the buttermilk in a separate container and then put your butter in a bowl. You then squish you butter around in the bowl getting out all the excess buttermilk that's still in it. Pour that off into your buttermilk container. It might take a few minutes to get all the buttermilk out of it. Then you have homemade butter! It was that easy! And you have buttermilk on hand to bake biscuits or to make homemade ranch dressing. I am super happy I decided to do this. I just happened to have some fresh baked bread on hand to try my butter out with and it was delicious and creamy!!
Some other things I'd like to make at home this year are mayonnaise and ketchup!
I love homemade goodness!

Memory Verse

The wicked man flees though no one pursues but the righteous are as bold as a lion....proverbs 28:1




Our next memory verse will be Colossions 3:12. But we just started it, so it will be a while before she has it down. I'm learning just as much as she is with our memory verses. I'd also like to work on our books of the bible. We're looking for a song to sing our bible books but I haven't found one I really like yet. Any suggestions would be welcome if you know of a good bible song CD.

Chores

We are trying to teach Hadley to be a good helper and to do things around the house. I don't think we're actually going to call them chores because that makes them sound like they are something bad. I've heard of people calling them duties, or jurisdictions, or other things. I'm sure we'll come up with a word eventually. But, she is going to have certain things she's in charge of on a daily basis. Right now she's excited about helping with everything. (see previous post about mommy's helper). I'm planning on making a master chore list and giving her special jobs of her own. Right now she brings her dishes to the kitchen after a meal. Then she wipes down the table and her chair and her booster seat. She also takes the dirty napkins to the washing machine. Then she pushes in her chair. If I sweep the floor after that meal, then she helps do that too. Her other job is to put away the silverware every time we unload the dishwasher.
She's very helpful in lots of aspects. She likes to help put away laundry as well. I find that if I sit around most of the day and don't do much, we have a whiny day. But if I get up and do a lot of work, I have a helper to do it all, and she stays busy with me all day. Win-win. Get stuff done and keep Hadley busy! I'll be sure to post our chore charts when I get them done!

Baby Led Weaning

We are well into our new adventure with Baby Let Weaning (BLW). I have decided, once again, to do something that isn't mainstream. We aren't giving our baby baby food. What? You think I'm crazy? Well, here's what we are doing!
I am loosely following a book called "Baby Led Weaning" by Tracey Murkett and Gill Rapley. You can visit their website here: http://www.baby-led.com/
I like their no fuss approach to feeding your baby. With Hadley I decided I wasn't going to give her processed baby food bought from a store. I decided to make her baby food myself. Which I am still glad I did. I knew exactly what was going into it, and it saved a bunch of money. But, it was a lot of work! And let's face it, I'm lazy.
Breastfeeding provides everything a baby needs from birth through the first year. I firmly believe that if my baby ate nothing else for the first year of her life she would be just as healthy as the baby whose mother spent hours spooning liquid goo into her mouth. However, food is a social event and babies like to be involved in this time of family gathering. Plus, they use food to explore new tastes and textures. It not only allows them to participate at meal times, the begin learning how to chew, manipulate food with their mouth, and swallow. They learn to pick things up that are slippery. They experiment with different combinations of crunchy, mushy, sour, soft, and slimy. It's really fun to watch a baby chase a peach around their plate or high chair tray. And they have fun doing it.
So, that is what we are doing at our house. And when people as what my baby has eaten so far I can tell them: asparagus, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, tomato, peaches, pears, grapes, plums, pineapple, apple, banana, blackberries, meatloaf, turkey sandwich, soup, chili, chicken fingers, and much more. She's eating a wider variety of foods than Hadley does and I believe it will have nothing but a positive affect on her food choices later in life.