Establishing a Bedtime Routine

When Seth was around a month old, he had the hardest time going to sleep in the evenings. He would cry every night for almost two hours straight. We would rock, cradle, bounce, and do everything we possibly could to console him. Night after night we knew the hours between 7 and 9 were not going to be pleasant. By the time Seth was 2 months old he was starting to fall asleep better and we realized that many nights the culprit of crying was gas. I cannot even begin to describe how happy Bryan and I were the first night that the crying didn't happen anymore, but Seth still wouldn't go to sleep easily even though he no longer cried at the top of his lungs for hours on end. When Seth was 3 months old, we were getting better at getting Seth to sleep but we lacked any consistency at getting him to sleep at the same time each night. I started reading some articles about establishing a bedtime routine and most of the advice mentioned doing the same thing every night, but a routine wouldn't be much help until the age of 4 months old (I definitely think that was true for us). As soon as Seth reached the 4 month mark, we started a bedtime routine.
Now, if you are a fan of Modern Family, then you know how hilarious the gay couple is on the show. Well, one episode included the couple using the Ferber method to get their adopted daughter to sleep. Bryan and I decided just a few days before that episode aired that we were going to try letting Seth fall to sleep in his crib with five minute increments passing before we would go back in to soothe him. Everything that I read said that it would take a few days but the results would pay off. It melted my heart to let my baby boy cry. We had to go in every five minutes for almost an hour the first night, maybe 20 minutes the second night. If you have indeed seen the Modern Family episode, I was just like the "motherly" guy wanting to go in and console the baby every few seconds. After about four nights though, the crying began to cease altogether. It's been two weeks now and Seth has done remarkably well. We try to get ready for bed around 7. We don't bathe him every night, but on the nights that we do, we start with a bath. Next, he gets his vitamin and gets into his pajamas. Usually I feed him, then Bryan, Seth, and I all read a Bible (We love this Bible) story. Then the lights go out and I rock him for about a minute and hum or sing him a song. He goes to bed still awake, but he is asleep now within a couple of minutes without crying. I was amazed after the first night that we intentionally tried to put him to bed between 7:30 and 8:00, he slept until about 6 the next morning. He had only done that a few times and had gotten back into the routine of waking up once to eat in the middle of the night. But, after establishing the bedtime routine and helping him self soothe himself to sleep, he has been sleeping through the night. I am not sure, but I think the bedtime routine might be the best thing we have done not only for ourselves but also for Seth since we have become parents.

Local Bounty: Carrots

I am not sure about you, but I just get giddy about local foods. It happens when I go to the farmer's market or lately when I pick up my produce/meat orders from the O'Daniel's farm. This morning, I picked up some bacon, brussel sprouts leaves (I can't wait to give that one a try), arugula, tomatoes, red butterhead lettuce, and simply the prettiest carrots ever. You can't buy carrots like these at any store around here for $2.50. I am not sure you can even buy carrots like these around here, period.
I thought I would start a local bounty post every so often to let you in on some of the wonderful local foods we have around here. For today, very pretty carrots...

Composting: Worms at Work

I have been a fan of gardening for a while, but I never really considered composting until I read about how easy composting could be from a blog called Small Notebook. I learned how to make a very affordable indoor compost bin and how to maintain it. One problem, I needed some worms. Not just any worms, but composting worms, because you see, if you add composting worms to a compost bin, composting happens much faster. (It's actually called vermiculturing.) I put the idea in the back of my mind until I saw the results of Rachel's year of composting. I knew then that I needed to give this whole indoor composting a try.
I finally got around to trying composting at the beginning of December, but the red wriggler worms that I needed to buy were out of stock. A week ago, I was finally able to place my order. A couple days ago, I assembled my compost bin. Today the worms arrived!

Here's how to assemble an indoor compost bin just in case you want to try it too.

1. Take two plastic storage containers and stack one inside the other. I had to put two empty sour cream containers in the bottom of one before adding the other bin so that there would be enough room for liquid to collect. Drill holes along the top and on the bottom of the inside bin. The holes look big, but they apparently stay inside. They tend to not like the light. We'll see.

2. Once your holes are drilled, add shredded newspaper, shredded bills, and cut up cardboard from toilet paper rolls, cereal boxes, etc.

3. Next, add a layer of food scraps. I keep all of my scraps in the refrigerator in a storage container because that was a suggestion from Small Notebook. It was suggested to microwave the scraps right before adding them to the pile so that any fruit flies that are present on the scraps are killed before going into the pile. My scraps included tea bags, coffee grounds, egg shells, brussel sprout leaves, lettuce leaves, apple peels, tomatoes, and carrot peels. (You can add any fruits and vegetables except citrus. Meats and breads are not recommended.)

4. When the worms arrived, I placed a layer of damp newspaper over the food and then poured the worms and the dirt that the worms came in into the bin.

5. Add one more layer of wet newspaper on top of the worms and then leave them alone for several days so that they can get used to their new home and they can get to work.

Oh, and if you want to add that special touch to your bin, you can add a cute picture and phrase to your bin with a black sharpie.

Heart Garland

What can you make with a dollar's worth of red felt, some left over ribbon, and some red thread?

Heart garland, of course! I love decorating the house for seasons and holidays and this is just one of the frugal ways I am decorating for Valentine's Day! It makes the dining room look so festive!

Crocheting Creations

I have been crocheting like crazy. It is getting so much easier and each scarf is looking better and better. I think I am going to try a new type of stitch on my next crocheting project. Here's my latest creations:

Mom's Scarf


My Cilantro (that was the color on the yarn) Scarf

Pride and Excitement

Bryan, Seth, and I went to Jackson again this weekend. We went to say goodbye to Matt, Bryan's brother, because he is headed to boot camp. He will be gone for 13 weeks and will come back a Marine. Even though the next four years we will see very little of him, we are so proud of him. Seth has decided he is going to adopt him and send him lots of letters while he is gone. Along with being proud of Matt, we had a lot of excitement.

We got to meet Matt's girlfriend, Beth, and the entire Tillery family went to Outback for dinner Saturday evening.

Matt sold us his Kindle since he won't be able to use it for a very long time. I have wanted a Kindle for as long as they have been sold, but never wanted to spend the money to buy one. Matt let us have his Kindle for a very, very good price. I know I said I wasn't going to buy any new books until I had read all of the ones I own, but I would like to point out I never said I couldn't buy electronic books. :)

On Sunday, we also got to see Nana, Pop, and Uncle Michael while we were in Jackson.
Seth enjoyed some play time on the floor.

On our way home, Bryan mentioned trying Neely's Barbeque for dinner. I am always up for trying something new, so I was all for it. When we arrived though they were unfortunately closed, but we went a little bit farther down the road and ate a very delicious 2 for $20 meal at Chili's. Did I mention it was very delicious?

When we arrived home last night I almost sprinted to the mailbox. I was expecting some I-Spy squares that I purchased on Etsy and was so happy to see that they had arrived. This will be one of my sewing projects for the next little while.

It was fun-filled exciting weekend with family!

The Egg Taste Test

This is not a food blog by any means, but I have been in the kitchen a lot lately. I love to cook. I love to eat. Therefore, I spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen. Well, this week, Bryan and I watched Food Inc. I have become fascinated with food and how it is produced. Just a few short weeks ago, I mentioned reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Add in some research of gardening, the purchase of seeds, the ordering of composting worms, the hunt for local produce and meats, and I am borderline becoming a hippie, as Bryan likes to call me. I don't care though, because it has been so fun. I am still very skeptical about some things though. So, I thought I would do some taste tests. My primary goal in all this is not necessarily to only eat organic foods or to only buy locally or even eat really healthy. All those things are great, but my primary goal right now is to determine if locally grown or raised produce/meats taste better. The same goes for organic. I am all about the taste. Of course, we have to take into account our food budget, but according to Barbara Kingsolver, if you buy locally grown, in season foods, it is actually cheaper than store bought non-local foods. The key is to stock up on in season foods and either freeze, can, dry, or preserve them for the rest of the year. We'll see how that goes this summer.
Today, Seth and I went to pick up a food order from a local farmer. The O'Daniel family owns a farm just outside of town and while they do offer a delivery service for a small fee on Saturdays, I opted to get out of the house and pick my order up. I got a lb. of ground beef, a lb. of pork sausage, half a pound of brussel sprouts, a pound of roma tomatoes, a head of butterhead lettuce, and a dozen free range eggs. Everything was either raised or hand grown by the O'Daniel family and I thought it was very reasonable in price. I only paid $22.50 for all of that!
As soon as I got home I made the most wonderful salad. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought the lettuce was the best I had ever tasted. My tomato was slightly under ripe, but still tasted delicious. I included a hard boiled egg in my salad and that is what really caught my attention. It was so good!
Luckily, I still had one regular white store bought egg in the refrigerator and I had a few brown eggs that came from free roaming, cage free, nesting hens (not organic). I had just bought a dozen local free range eggs so I decided today was the day for the egg test.

The pictures below have the eggs in this same order.

I love hard boiled eggs, so I boiled the eggs for this taste test. All were boiled for 15 minutes, then cooled under cold water before the shells were removed.


I sliced all of the eggs open to assess the insides.

I was surprised to see that the brown store bought and white store bought eggs had slightly paler yolks than the local egg. I would have thought only the white egg's yolk would have been paler.

I took one bite of each egg. The first egg, which came from the cage free, free roaming, nesting hens tasted slightly salty. Weird huh? The white standard egg was bland. The local egg had a very robust taste. Very eggy, but creamy. It lingered in your mouth for a few seconds after eating it. Then I tried them all again. I thought the first egg might not taste salty my second time around, but it did. The middle white egg seemed even more flavorless. The local egg was even more delicious, so in my opinion it won. While they are the most expensive, they definitely have the best taste.
*If I were to do this test again, I would have done a blind taste test, but I am pretty sure the results would have been the same. :)