Homemade Ice Cream in less than 10 minutes.

I have to say thank you to my good friend, Laura, who posted THIS the other day about making ice cream in a baggie. She found the original recipe HERE.

I made two batches last night. One batch I put Reeces Pieces with whole milk in and the other I made plain vanilla and used a low fat milk. I didn't have any half and half or light cream so I mixed the heavy cream with milk. Also, I'm thinking that next time the candies should be added a little bit later after it starts firming up.

Hope you enjoy this recipe and experiment with different flavors. I want to try making cookies and cream next!

Raising a Homemaker

GUEST POST!

And here are a couple videos we took that I saved just for my readers :)

Finding a Style

See original post HERE.

For my first assignment on finding a style that suits me (pun might be intended) was to find things that I like and store (websites) that tend to carry a lot of what I like.

One place I like to browse is Mod Cloth, I like this dress and this dress and this skirt to show just a few of the things on there that catch my eye.

Another place is Pepperberry. Their things are cute and would actually fit properly over my chest. I particularly like these dresses.

I think that is enough stuff to look through for now. Next time I'll share my favorite store with the most comfortable looking clothes!

What does "crying it out" look like with you?

Before I was married and had kids I knew exactly what "crying it out" meant. I was also 100% sure I was going to do it with my babies. My babies would be ready for nap or bed time, I would lay them down and if they didn't immediately fall asleep then they would cry until they did and eventually learn to just forgo the whole crying thing.

After having my daughter I realized two things. One, newborns are too young to cry it out. And two, it helps when they don't have any issues with falling asleep in the first place. Cosette was a very laid back baby and we had very few problems with getting her to fall asleep. When the time came to try crying it out with her it went something like this:
Day one, cried for about 30 minutes, fell asleep and had a nice full nap.
Day two, cried for about 20 minutes, fell asleep and had a nice full nap.
Day three, cried for about 15 minutes, fell asleep and had a nice full nap.
By the end of the week she was falling asleep with little to no crying at all.

Then came my dear little boy. Crying it out doesn't look like that for him. When he cries it does nothing but make him dig his heels in deeper, get himself into a bigger tizzy and make it take even longer to calm him down. He might be slightly stubborn. :-P And the rare occasion when he did fall asleep he would wake up a few minutes later and start it all over again.

Obviously crying it out in the traditional sense doesn't work with him. So how does it work? When he is clearly tired but too fussy to fall asleep or even nurse I have to let him cry for about 15 minutes then offer him the breast where he nurses for a bit and falls fast asleep. Maybe I'm not doing the text book version of crying it out with him but I am doing what he and I both need.

So, what do you do, Mamma? Do you let your baby cry it out? Do you do something else entirely? Or maybe something in between?

Personal Style

I don't exactly have a personal style, but I'd like to have one. Right now the one term that would best describe my style is probably frumpy, and if it weren't for wonderful and generous friends gifting me with cute hand-me-downs I fear I wouldn't have anything fit to wear out in public. My biggest problem (probably wouldn't be a problem for someone with a natural sense of style) is that I like so many different things that don't exactly go together, therefore limiting my wardrobe since few things go together. I like bohemian, romantic, country, relaxed and the occasional modern piece.

My husband has graciously volunteered to help me figure it out. My first "assignment" is to find things I like in catalogs and images I find online and make a scrapbook.

Do you have a particular style? What is it? Where is your favorite place to shop for clothes?

The story of my son's birth. Part two

HERE the second half of my son's birth story. You can find Part One HERE.

Enjoy!

The Past Two Years: Part nine

On New Years day of this year we were greeted with a lovely  blanket of snow. This was Cosette's first time seeing snow and she wasn't quite sure what to think about it.

She's much more of a "sip hot cocoa while curled up in a blanket" kind of girl. I don't mind though ;)

So Thankful!

22) Going on walks with my husband and children
23) Baby wearing
24) Cotton
25) Breastfeeding
26) Squishy cheeks
27) Interesting books
28) A comfortable bed

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22) Andare a passeggiare con mio marito e figli
23) bambino che indossa
24) di cotone
25) L'allattamento al seno
26) Squishy guance
27) libri interessanti
28) Un comodo letto

The Past Two Years: Part eight

For Cosette's second Christmas I made her a Waldorf doll.

Then I made her a dress to match. Here she's playing with her new tea set.

The Past Two Years: Part seven

Last summer we spent a LOT of time at the beach.

Cosette turned ONE!

And a couple weeks later we found out we were pregnant!

Almost too many blessing to count in one year!

So Thankful!

15) Godly Fellowship
16) Loving Grandparents for my babies
17) Green grass
18) Wooden spoons
19) Fresh dinner rolls
20) Baking with my daughter
21) Homemade blankets

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15) Fellowship Godly
16) I nonni d'amore per i miei bambini
17) L'erba verde
18) cucchiai di legno
19) cena rotoli Fresh
20) di cottura con mia figlia
21) casalinga coperte

The Past Two Years: Part six

I spend some time sewing for a couple wedding we attended last summer. The first was a maxi dress that I totally love. Too bad it doesn't fit me...

Here's a picture from the photo booth that was set up at the reception. Brilliant idea! You can tell we had fun :)

This is the skirt I made for the other wedding.

And the complete outfit I wore.

The Past Two Years: Part five

March, 2010, I got the dreadful mastitis. My daughter was 8 months old. She had four teeth by this time and had apparently bitten me. This coupled with a lazy latch are what I think brought on the mastitis. It really is a terrible thing and if you think there is even the slightest chance you will get then, please, get off your feet and take care of yourself! The pain was so great that I was having to take vicodin just to feed her. For some reason, I don't know why, I ended up with mastitis again two week later. I ate a lot of raw garlic when I had the infection and continued to take a clove a day for about a month.

You can see the redness here. Almost my entire breast was infected.

The story of my son's birth. Part one

I did a guest post at CFPN! The rest of the story will be posted next week :)

So Thankful!

8) Sleeping babies.
9) Working husband.
10) My broom.
11) A quite home.
12) My brother's advice.
13) Comfortable running shoes.
14) Cloudy days.

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8) Sleeping bambini.
9) marito di lavoro.
10) La mia scopa.
11) Una casa abbastanza.
12) consigli di mio fratello.
13) Scarpe comode corsa.
14) giorni nuvoloso.

The Past Two Years: Part four

With this great California weather we got to go hang out the laundry in February!

This is one of my favorite videos. She's such a doll!

Cloth Diaper Blog Hop!!

The Past Two Years: Part three

Most of our free time was spent hanging out with the chickens. Romeo, Donna, Daria and Cienna.

And taking walks. My dear husband wore her most of the time. He's such a great baby wearin' daddy!

10 things never to say to a stay-at-home Mom

‎

I got them from a friend, thought you might enjoy them as well. :)

 

1. When the kids are older, do you think you'll get a real job?

2. How June Cleaver of you!

3. Oh, so you don't work?

4. Since you have extra time on your hands, could you whip up a few dozen brownies for the bake sale tomorrow?

5. All day with your kids? I can't even imagine.

6. I'm jealous. I wish my husband were rich so I wouldn't have to work either.

7. What do you do all day, anyway?

8. I'm sure you're not the only one who's ever wasted money on a college degree.

9. That explains why your son is so clingy!

10. Weird. I assumed your house would be superclean.

The Past Two Years: Part two

In July 2009 Cosette came out of my belly and into our lives. You can find the story of her birth HERE.

This is my favorite breastfeeding picture I have with her.

So Thankful!

To keep a gracious spirit I am listing a few things I am thankful for every Thursday. Want to join me?

1) Jesus, my Lord.
2) My husband.
3) My children.
4) My momma.
5) My family.
6) Encouraging friends.
7) A place to call home.

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Per mantenere uno spirito gentile io sono messa un paio di cose sono grato per ogni Giovedi. Vuoi venire con me?

1) Gesù, mio Signore.
2) Il mio marito.
3) I miei figli.
4) La mia mamma.
5) La mia famiglia.
6) Incoraggiare gli amici.
7) Un luogo da chiamare casa.

The Past Two Years: Part one

Since I have been mostly missing in action (aside from the random post here and there) for the last two years I thought it would be a good idea to do a few update posts. For today I have a few maternity pictures from when I was pregnant with Cosette. The pictures were taken by my friend, Melanie, and edited by my husband.

 

Learning Italian

My daughter (22 months) and I are learning Italian together, if you couldn't tell by the translation on the bottom of my previous post ;) We are using a version of Rosetta Stone that is about 7 years old, so it's not the newest version which I hear is pretty darn cool. It's going well and the words seem to be sticking in my head a lot better than the last time I tried to learn.

Our studying goes like this, we go through the first part of the lesson once or twice. This is the part of the lesson where something is described and you pick the out the picture that matches. Since she can't read or write yet this is all she has to do. We usually do this while we drink our tea in the morning. After the lesson I look up cartoons in Italian on Youtube.

I am also using the words I know mixed in our daily conversions. For example, instead of saying "come sit at the table", I'll say "come sit at le tavelo." I know the grammar isn't correct but I figure I'm just working on the vocabulary right now and as we advance in the lessons I'll get better at randomly saying things that are grammatically correct.

For further study, for me, I continue and finish the lessons on my own while she's napping. Also, I find that it helps to keep me motivated to have blogs in Italian that I follow. I'm really liking Le Frufru and Little Emma English Home. Because I'm following these blogs I am finding Google Translate to be quite helpful.

And for some fun, here is a picture of my daughter's sand covered toes when we went to the beach last year.

How do you choose a baby name?

One of the hardest things for us is choosing the perfect name for our babies. Both of them were at least two days old before we were able to settle on a name. All the names that I had thought I would use before I got married I either don't like any more or my husband doesn't like them, so finding names has proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. But I do have one tip. Choose a theme. By doing this you narrow down your choices so it's not quite as overwhelming. There are countless themes you can choose from. The theme that we settled on is classic literature. Our daughter's name is from Les Miserables (Cosette) and our son's name is from King Arthur (Arthur). So, here are some themes you can choose from:

Literature
Shakespeare
Same first letter (all kids starting with c, etc)
Nationality (Italian, French, German etc)
Family names
Biblical
Historical (my brother's daughters are all named after British royalty and his sons after preachers)
Virtues

There are tons more, but this ought to get you started!

ps. I've done a couple guest posts on the CFPN's blog here and here


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Una delle cose più difficili per noi è scegliere il nome perfetto per i nostri bambini. Entrambi erano almeno due giorni prima siamo stati in grado di risolvere su un nome. Tutti i nomi che avevo pensato che mi sarebbe usare prima mi sono sposato io o non mi piace più o mio marito non le piace, così la ricerca di nomi ha dimostrato di essere molto più difficile di quanto pensassi che fosse. Ma io sono una punta. Scegli un tema. In questo modo a limitare giù le vostre scelte in modo che non è così schiacciante. Ci sono innumerevoli i temi si possono scegliere. Il tema che abbiamo scelto è la letteratura classica. Nome di nostra figlia è da Les Miserables (Cosette) e il nome di nostro figlio è tratto da King Arthur (Arthur). Così, qui sono alcuni temi è possibile scegliere tra:

Letteratura
Shakespeare
Stessa prima lettera (tutti i bambini che iniziano con c, ecc)
Nazionalità (italiano, francese, tedesco etc)
Famiglia nomi
Biblico
Storico (figlie di mio fratello sono tutti nomi reale inglese e ai suoi figli dopo predicatori)
Virtù

Ci sono tonnellate di più, ma questo dovrebbe iniziare!

ps. Ho fatto un paio di guest post sul blog del CFPN qui e qui