Bad, bad blogger!!

That is me scolding myself for being so awful about updating my blog :)! Oh my, has it really been that long? With working on the cookbook, homeschooling, and all of Evie's activities, I haven't been on here a whole lot! I'll try not to make this a 50 page blog post. lol.

Evie loves to grab my camera and take random pictures. Sometimes, the pictures are so flattering....like this one....p.s. please note the sarcasm....

This one is actually quite flattering of Sierra though :).

In cookbook news, the cookbook is almost finished! It has taken me longer because I have had to make every recipe! I am one who just throws in ingredients, so I had to measure everything out. So far I have done 83 recipes. I may end up making 90 instead of 100, just so I can get it done faster.

On a hair related note, I found a new way to do curls that I love. They are more like braid waves, but with curls at the end. I got the idea from Rapunzel's Resource blog. Love her blog!! I need to post the link to her blog in my favorites. The curls/waves come from using bandanas. The length really gets shortened by the curls, but I love the look! This is what it looks like before.....

And this is after.....

Evie just finished up her first year of Bible quizzing. It goes for 6 months, and is off for 6 months. It was amazing to see these kids quote the Bible. Her age group memorized  90 verses, along with detailed questions about other verses. They just had their last quiz meet, and they did great! I'm so proud of the kids!

In baby news, we had an amazing thing happen a few weeks ago. I was really struggling with the financial aspect of the adoption. We were hitting a brick wall with the finances, and I started wondering if this was really what God wanted for us. I asked Jeff if he thought we should throw out a fleece. For those of you who don't know what that means, the expression "putting out a fleece" comes to us from the biblical story of Gideon. During a time of invasion by the armies of Midian, God called Gideon and the Israelites to fight the Midians. Before Gideon would commit himself to battle, however, he wanted to be sure that God was going to give Israel the victory. In Judges 6:36-40 Gideon asked God to make a fleece of wool wet with dew on one morning, then totally dry on the next morning. The fleece was to be the sign that God would definitely rescue Israel from the Midianites. God gave Gideon the sign that he asked for, and Gideon then went out and defeated the Midianites. Okay, that was your Bible lesson for today :). Anyways, I felt like I wanted to do a fleece. This is such a life-changing decision, and I wanted our family to know for sure that this was God's plan. Jeff asked me what I wanted to ask for. My words were, "Something huge, like a neon sign that I can't miss." About 2 weeks later, I decided to read the story of Gideon in the Bible, to see if God got angry when Gideon asked for a fleece. God didn't get angry at all, according to the Bible. I read this on a Friday. The following Monday, I started doing the Bible lesson for Evie's homeschool lesson. I hadn't even looked at it beforehand, so I had no clue what it was going to be about. Guess what it was about?? Gideon's fleece. Coincidence? No, I don't think so. The next day, I was having my devotional time, and I read one of my devotionals called The Daily Bread. It is a booklet that comes out every 3 months, and has set devotions for each day of the week. That day, I read the Bible lesson and story, and guess what it was about?????? Gideon's fleece!!! Then, 2 hours later, I get a phone call from Jeff. He said that his boss had called him and told him that they had placed his named several months ago on a list to get in on the profit sharing bonuses. They were so happy with his work, and all that he had done that they picked him from the list, even though there were many others on the list. His boss told him that they had cut him a check for the bonus. I gulped and asked Jeff, "How big of a check???" Jeff told me, "Five thousand dollars!!!" Then he said, "There's your fleece!" I was crying so hard that Evie thought something bad happened! Jeff has never gotten a bonus like that in all of his years of working, and the timing was just too crazy. The money got us to a point where we now only need about $6000, which is so much less overwhelming!! We feel so blessed that God made things so clear! We actually cleared out the room where the baby's room is supposed to be, and we are planning to paint it and get it ready!

So that is what has been happening for the past month or so. I hope you all are doing well!

Birthday, tree and goodies

It has been a busy last few weeks. Evie is doing much better, and got over the chickenpox pretty fast. The problem now is that she is covered with scars :(. She has at least 4 on her face, some on her chest, and some on her back and belly. I kept telling her not to scratch because she could scar, but she would dig at them at night. I'm trying some different scar remedies to see if I can get them to go away. Some of them are pretty good sized craters.

Our yearly tradition is to go cut a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. Because Evie was feeling so terrible, we waited a week before going to get one. The only time we could go was after Jeff got off of work. By the time we got there, they had closed the area where you could go cut your own tree, so we had to pick one from off the lot. We still got a nice tree. We were all bundled up because we thought we would be out in the cold for awhile. It only took us 5 minutes to find our tree! We took SiSi with us, but she couldn't get out and run around like normal. It still worked out though.

My sweet girl turned 10 years old on the 6th. She had 2 parties. One was with her friends, and it was on the Saturday before her birthday. The girls were all homeschooled, so the creative, energetic, and super imaginative juice was really flowing when they were here :). It was really fun!  Here is Evie at her first party...

The Sunday before Evie's birthday, she asked me to do her hair special. I put it in braids, and she slept on them. Her hair turned out so pretty!

Evie also lost a top tooth on the day of her birthday party with the girls. I wanted to show off how cute she looked :).

On the morning of Evie's birthday, she woke up early and asked if she could open up her presents from us. We said that would be fine, since Jeff still hadn't gone to work yet. She had fun playing with her toys all day.

We homeschooled on her birthday, but had a relaxed, fun day and played lots of games. She had to do some computer work, so Daisy kept her company. Don't you just love how Daisy is sitting, with her legs on the computer??

At night, both sets of grandparents came to celebrate Evie's birthday. We had a lot of fun! We ate some great food, had cake, then played a fun game called Apples To Apples Jr. We had never played it before, and it was really fun!

I have been going a little crazy with making stuff lately. I have been on this homemade beauty products kick. I had been using a deodorant that was labeled "natural", but I found out had a lot of really bad chemicals in it. I have read a lot about women and breast cancer, and many naturopaths and even some doctors believe that deodorant/anti-persperant can be a cause of breast cancer because of all the chemicals. I found a recipe online for making my own deodorant. I LOVE it! It does an amazing job, is super cheap to make, and is good for me! I made 2 different scents. Here they are...

I also made some homemade face cream. This is actually a recipe from my friend April's website. It can be used on your face and body. I really like it so far! On my face it can be a little oily, so I need to tweak the oils to figure out how to make it less oily for my face. I'm using it on Evie's face too, along with therapeutic grade essential oils, to get rid of the scarring.

Today I made a homemade toothpaste, from a recipe I found online. It has baking soda, glycerine, salt, xylitol, and essential oils. I like it. I have only used it today, but it makes my teeth feel really clean.

We are slowly trying to start accumulating baby things. We are borrowing a crib from a couple at church, so that was a huge blessing! I also bought some of these....

Okay, I know it is a bottle, but isn't it the cutest thing ever?? I decided I wanted to do glass bottles this time around. I have read so much about plastic leaching into the food, especially when heated. I wish I had known that when Evie was a baby! Next on the list to buy is cloth diapers. Yep, I'm doing cloth. We did cloth with Evie, and it was great. I know people think it is awful, but it is SO great. No having to worry about running out of diapers! You just wash and dry some. Plus there aren't chemicals, and you aren't filling up the landfill. Plus, there is nothing more adorable than seeing a baby in a cloth diaper :).

Sorry this post is so enormous! I told you we have been busy these past few weeks!!

Curly pics

I took a few pics yesterday of my waves. I haven't started using the Rockin' Ringlets yet because it hasn't come in the mail, but I am using the Confident Coils. It is really bringing my waves out. It is a sample packet, and it is almost gone, so I am looking forward to getting the bottles in the mail. For some reason, when my hair is all forward, it looks so much shorter!! It is actually about 3 inches from tailbone, but it looks ways shorter than that with it all pulled forward. Sorry the first pic is a little blurry..

I have been dehydrating herbs a lot, and have quite a bit stored now. I am dehydrating chocolate mint, spearmint and stevia from the garden. Boy does it smell good! I loooooove my Excalibur dehydrator!

Here are some pics of my stuff I already canned.  I just love how it all looks on the shelf :).

Here is my super crammed freezer. I'm not sure if I can put much more in here. Maybe a few packages here and there.

We just bought 1 1/2 bushels of pears. They are ripening pretty quick, so I will probably be making pearsauce on Monday. Pears and apples are a lot of work. It is going to be interesting trying to do that and homeschool too. It is going to be some long days next week!

So much to do.....

We are just all tired out! lol :).

I haven't had much time to blog lately. I finally finished all the paperwork for the adoption, and we are sending it this week!! Yay!! Between that, and canning, it has been a really busy time. I canned 20 pints of salsa, 28 quarts of pickles, 25 quarts of peaches, and 7 quarts of tomato sauce so far, along with drying herbs. See why I am not blogging? lol! The garden has been so good this year. I am so thankful. My tomatoes have been late, but I have been getting some from Jeff's parents. Mine are loaded on the vines, but are just now turning. I am only going to do sauce and chunks. I am done with salsa. I still have applesauce, pearsauce and grape juice to do, so fall is going to be busy!

We start homeschooling tomorrow. I had planned on starting it in August, but I wanted a little bit more vacation time. This time around, we are NOT going to homeschool year round! That did not work well at all. The breaks during the year were great, but once summer hit, it was so hard to get it done! We didn't get our 180 days in until the end of July, but we did finish. This time I am hoping to go Labor Day through Memorial Day, with very few breaks in between. That way we get a long summer.

On a hair related note, I am trying some new products to try and bring out my curls. They are from Jessicurl. Since I am trying to save as much money as I can for the adoption, I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay to get the money for the hair products :). I ordered this stuff called Rockin Ringlets, and Confident Coils. I had a sample of the Confident Coils, and was so happy with the results! My waves really came out, and stayed very nice without frizz. If I worked on it, I could get some nice curls too. I was fighting the wavies before, but decided again to try and embrace them. My hair is just not ever going to be straight unless I straighten it with a flat iron, which takes way too much time and kills the hair. So, I guess I'm a wavy girl!

BRRRRRRR

It has been cold here, and I am trying to get my body used to it. I actually love cold weather. I know, I am weird :). I do miss all the fresh produce from the garden. We are eating the last of the tomatoes and peppers that I picked. Almost all the leaves are off the trees now, so winter is getting closer. I can't believe it is November already!

As we get near Thanksgiving (is that even possible that it is almost that time???), I am brainstorming for gluten free/casein (dairy) free/soy free (gfcfsf) ideas. One thing that we eat every year at Thanksgiving that isn't gfcfsf is green bean casserole. I found a recipe online for gluten free condensed cream of chicken soup, and gluten free condensed cream of celery soup. I decided to try it, and modify it a bit to make it gfcfsf. First I tried the cream of chicken. I made it and OH..MY..WORD...the stuff was insanely good. Like, waaaaay better than Campbells condensed stuff. This past week I decided to give the cream of celery a try. It was better than the cream of chicken! Jeff tried it, and was so bummed that we weren't going to be eating it for supper that night (I ended up freezing it)! He said it tasted even better than Panera Bread's cream of broccoli, which was a huge compliment since I adore Panera's cream of broccoli soup. I also found a recipe online for gf french fried onions, so now I can make green bean casserole!

I started making a hair album, with pictures in it of updos that I can browse through. I did it to try and overcome the latest hair rut I was in, where I was wearing my hair the same way every day. I have 3 new favorites. I had them in my other hair book with hand-drawn sketches, but hadn't really tried them. After trying them, I love them! Here are pictures of the three.

The first one is from a lady on the Long Hair Loom named Harpgal. It is a super easy braided updo, and stays put all day! I really like how it looks too. Dressy, but easy.

This one is called "The Masara", and is from a girl from Youtube named Torrin Paige. She has some wonderful updo videos on Youtube. This one is a bit crooked :(. Oh well.

This last one was from the movie "Ever After" with Drew Barrymore. I found the instructions online somewhere, but never could figure out how to do it. I finally worked on it and figured it out, and loved how it looked!

New updo and hair toy organizing

I tried a new updo that I have had in my updo book (a book of hand sketched hairstyles that I made), and for some reason I have never tried it. It is the Chinese Bun, and it was SO easy! It was also super comfy. I took a picture because I actually really liked how it looked!

















I also organized my hair toys. I bought a jewelry organizer, and used it to organize my stuff. I filled both sides and hung it on the wall. I love that I can see all of my hairsticks and homemade hair pins. Here is one side




















And here is the other....




















I love that I can see all of my things! It has helped me use them more, which is always good. I'm trying to be more creative with my hair. I'm trying to wear it different ways to avoid boredom.

Today was our first day of homeschooling. It went really well! We homeschooled from 8:00 - 12:00, and it was a cram packed time. We are doing Rosetta Stone Spanish this year, and it was actually really fun! Plus I get to learn Spanish too :).

Hair, there and everywhere

It has been an interesting last few days. Dolly has been sick, and yesterday I was giving her homemade Pedialyte every 30 minutes. She is much better today and finally eating and drinking. I am so glad she is better! It is no fun having sick kids or sick animals!

Today was a girly girl salon day for Evie and I. I pretended that we were at the salon, and I did her nails and toes. We did it outside because it was still cooler out. Then we went inside and I put mascara and lipstick on her. She wanted to do her own hair because I was messing with mine. I was shocked at how grown up she looked! It gave me a glimpse of what she will look like at 15 :). Putting mascara on her was way fun. She has eyelashes that just keep on going!


















My bangs have been really bugging me, so I decided to do a bit of a change. At first I trimmed them so that they would lay more normally. I wanted to be able to wear them side swooped, but also all down if I wanted to. This was my first attempt after the trim. I wish I would have put my hair up for the first pic, because my goal was to soften my look with my hair up. The second and third picture are when I wore my bangs all down, but had my hair up. Don't you think that third picture is super flattering??? lol!

After Evie and I checked out the pics, I didn't like the bangs! I couldn't figure out why. I don't like how my hair looks when I wear it up, especially from the front, so that didn't help. I wanted to try and soften the look when my hair is up, since I wear it up so often (especially in the summer). So after I saw these pics, I added a bit more into the bangs, and gave me some more whispy's. When my hair is down, you can't see the whispy's. Here is a pic with a side sweep, and one with my bangs more down.

I haven't figured out if I like it yet or not. I hate how I look in pictures, especially with my hair up. I guess I am ultra picky about myself. Anyways, let me know what you all think!

Busy busy busy!

It has been a very busy last few days. We have not had any rain at all, and it has been really hot. It was in the high 90's all week. I have been trying to weed, which isn't fun when it is 95 degrees outside. I got 2 zucchini's the other day off my plants, and my tomatoes are all green, but growing. My peppers also have little peppers on them. I can't wait until they are big enough to pick. I love summer veggies!

I spent a good part of the day baking today. Since Jeff is gone during the week, I have been making him dinners to take with him so he doesn't have to eat out at night. So I made 3 meals for him, along with veggies and salads. Then I made 2 loaves of gluten free bread, some gluten free muffins, a gluten free peach pie, and some popovers. It was a busy day! I love getting a lot accomplished like that though. Jeff was working in the yard today, and Evie was playing with neighbor kids, so it was a perfect time for me to get stuff done.

With all the heat, and with the weirdness of my life right now, I almost chopped my hair this week. I actually was holding the scissors, but decided against it. I saw this cute layered cut that was bra strap length. I knew I shouldn't make decisions though when my life seems crazy. I am almost back to tailbone length again. My bangs are really long. I'm trying to grow them out enough to where I can sweep them to the side and tuck them behind my one ear. So far they are to my nose, and at times are bugging me big time. But I am trying to stick to it. I'll have to post a picture to see what you all think.

Evie was playing dress up with Si Si the other day. I laughed pretty hard when I saw this.....














She kinda looks like Wonder Woman doesn't she? Lol. She kept it on for about 15 minutes, just walking around the house like that. Then she got annoyed with it and took it off with her paw :).

A trim

I decided to trim my hair this past weekend. The tangles were getting crazy, and I was having trouble wearing my hair down. I am trying to find a good length where I can wear it down without it getting matted. I was at about an inch above my tailbone, and I trimmed about 2 inches off. I also went from having it rounded to having it cut straight across. I think it makes my hair look thicker when it is cut straight across, and updos are easier. So far, at this length, I am still able to do all my updos without any problem. I was amazed though that when I used my Wrap, Snap and Go rollers, my hair was so much shorter! After I took them out, my hair was bra strap length! I kept grabbing at my waist to feel hair that wasn't there! That seemed really short to me. After awhile, the curls stretched to waist length. I would like to grow maybe another inch and stay at that length and see how I like it. I really wish I had hair that did well at tailbone length or longer. If the tangles weren't an issue, then I would probably be a classic length girl. Here is a pic of the new trim. I tried to get a picture from the back, but they all looked hilarious. For some reason I can't seem to take a straight picture of myself from the back! So the side pic will have to do :).

New Hair Toys

I have really fallen in love with Flexi-8 hair barrettes. They are super comfortable, hair-friendly, and so pretty! For Christmas this year, my wonderful hubby got me two different ones. One is a small size for partial updos, and another one is for ponytail type updos. I now have 4 of the Flexi-8's and use them all the time. As I am sitting here typing this, my husband just saw my blog title. He said I should have a picture of some rabbits with some toys around them. Get it? Hare toys? Ha ha :).

Opinions needed

Okay, you may have to click on the pictures to be able to see a close up, but I would like to have your opinions! After seeing our family pictures, I'm not so sure I like the whole side-sweep bang thing on me. I'm toying with the idea of going back to all one length bangs. So here are two pictures. Let me know what you all think!

Another hair post :)

Okay, no laughing! Well, okay, you can laugh. I do look pretty funny. I have been a bit of a YouTube addict when it comes to hair videos the past few days. There is a girl who goes by the name of Torrin who has a ton of instructional hair videos. She had one that I wanted to try, that would help my hair be super wavy. She and I have similar hair texture, and I wanted my hair to look like hers did after she enhanced the waves in her hair. So last night, I put my hair in 6 braids, and I curled the ends with wrap, snap and go rollers. I misted the braids with water so they were a bit damp. The picture below is what I looked like before I took them out this morning. Just so you know, the Disney princess background is not my room, it is Evie's :).













Here are 2 "after" pictures. After Jeff took the first picture, I laughed at how horrible the background was (it is his temporary, messy office), so we changed rooms. Thus the reason for 2 pictures of the back. I think the first pic shows a bit more of the wave.


























I had Jeff take one from the front, just so you could see the waves in the front. I was amazed at how much it shortened my hair. Torrin mentioned that hers shortened about 6 inches or more, and that is what mine did. I love how it turned out though. The only bummer is that after about an hour of being at church, the waves started to fall. It is now almost 4:00 in the afternoon, and the waves are about gone. The curl is still at the end, but the waves are now very slight. I need to figure out a way to keep the waves in for longer. It was fun though because I felt like I had a perm for a day!

Tried a new style

I was on The Long Hair Loom today, and I found a YouTube link to this bun called the Hypno Bun. I loved how it looked, so I decided to give it a try. It was a bit more challenging than it looked on the video, and mine is a little messy. It is SO comfortable though! I think it is one of the most comfortable buns I have ever worn, and I love that I don't need any pins at all. Just that hairstick holds it all. I found several other updos on YouTube that I want to try. I am trying to be a little more creative with my hair. Sometimes

I go through a rut, and end up wearing my hair in the same style for days on end. The hairstick is one I got from my dear online friend Fox. It is one of my favorites. Evie saw Jeff take a hair pictures of me, and she wanted me to take one of her. Her hair is getting really long, and looked beautiful today. She had some major green in it from the copper we put in our hot tub. The white streaks were green! We bought a shampoo to get it out, and it seems to be helping. You can still see just a tinge of it if you look closely, but it is way better than it was before.