My family and my husband’s family carry ‘string-bean genes’ in our blood. So with 2 thin framed parents it’s no surprise that our 6 1/2 year old girl weighed in at 37lbs in a 43″ tall frame at her most recent doctor’s appointment. According to sites like CincinnatiChildrens.org, and BabyCenter.com she’s somewhere between a 4 […]
Several years ago I began to prioritize buying dry goods in bulk and have thoroughly enjoyed the savings and decreased grocery store trips. Currently we buy nuts, dry beans, rice, rolled oats, oat groats, and wheat berries (for grinding our own flour) in bulk. While I keep the nuts and some of the rice in […]
I still remember the sense of excitement when I was pregnant with my first child. I downloaded a baby-tracking app, I picked out cute maternity clothes, and you bet I had the 4 inch thick “billion baby names” book on my nightstand. I also remember the first “baby checklist” I found in a parenting magazine […]
We get our own spring water, grind our own flour, try to not over-consume sugar, and bought all lead-free USA made dinnerware. Seemed like only a matter of time before we also began to transition away from artificial dyes. That time arrived with my child’s 5th birthday. I agonized over what natural dyes to buy, […]
Nearly 3 years ago I published the post “bumGenius + LG Front Loading HE Washer = Success” sharing my method for washing cloth diapers in our new front loading washer (after not realizing how good I had it with our old top-loading washer). I used this method with continued success until April of 2017 when I […]
Alright Dads listen up! We know we can be difficult to shop for since well, we typically do all the shopping around here so you’re out of general practice, and our attitude and dislikes on Monday may not match those of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday…. Plus, I’ve seen you in a grocery store, something lost, something […]
I feel like everyone has at least one friend or family member that opened the can of worms labeled “environmentally friendly”. That person who starts ranting about how nothing is made to last anymore, how everything is cheap and plastic and it’s piling up in landfills and polluting the oceans at alarming rates. They start […]
My impulse-buy $100 Singer sewing machine finally bit it this past week after four years. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this day because while I learned A LOT on that little machine, it also conjure up an unhealthy number of swear words. After four years, I had a list of likes, dislikes, and dream future project […]
After trying to make the manual WonderMill Junior Deluxe grain mill work for me, I decided to switch to an electric grain mill. After much research I purchased the KoMo Medium Electric Grain Mill from Pleasant Hill Grain. Despite having a ton of questions and speculation after my previous grain mill experience, I’ve been in […]
I purchased the Wonder Junior Deluxe Hand Grain Mill back in early 2014, after extensive research of what type and company mill to buy. I wanted a mill that would allow me to grind my own flour from wheat berries, but also grind my own nut butters. Additional perks would be if I could grind […]
I’ve taken for grated for too long that I can get products from anywhere in the world, without for a moment considering the impact all this excess transportation has on the environment. So I’ve recently embarked on a quest to try and buy local as much as possible. This comes at a time when I am […]
When we decided to move and downsize I wasn’t about to be as drastic as ditching our washer or dryer. In fact, I saw moving as an opportunity to buy new ones! I decided to go from our simple, base model, water guzzling, top-loading washer, to a fancy pair of LG front-loading High Efficiency machines. […]
A year ago we began to phase out all things plastic and replace them with durable glass products. At the top of my list was finding a glass beverage pitcher for mixing all those summer lemonades and my homemade almond milk. In order to say Good-Bye to my plastic pitchers, the new pitchers they had […]
To keep things simple, I chose only one brand of cloth diaper to use for my first daughter: the Grovia Hybrid. I used them starting when she was 1 month old to the present 2 ½ years old. For my second daughter I used hand-me-down bumGenius Stay-Dry, which were used from when she was 2 […]
A few weeks ago I was awoken one morning by a very proud and cheerful 2 ½ year old just inches from my face, “I’M AWAKE MA!!” This would have been really cute, if it wasn’t 3am. Repeat two nights later at 4:30am…another night at 2am…3:45am…you get the picture. When my toddler needed a NAP […]