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Swerve Sweetener 10% Discount Coupon – Thrifty Thursday

Posted by html404 on January 23, 2014
in All Natural Products, Coupons, Deals, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Nutrition, Health and Wellness, Shopping, Thrifty Thursday, Uncategorized

This post contains affiliate links.

I reviewed Swerve Sweetener when I wrote the post about replacement sweeteners and really liked it. It isn’t like other replacement sweeteners, it tastes that good. I used most of it in my tea, but I need to order more. I just missed the sale they had going on where you can purchase four canisters for $20. Completely forgot! Boo hoo! Can’t believe I have to start putting sale end dates on my calendar to remind myself to shop!

You all can save 10% discount on your order placed via Swerve’s website.

The discount code is: FAITH10 and expires 12/31/2014.

Have you ever forgotten a sale you really wanted to participate in? Or forgot coupons you really wanted to use?

Stay sweet!

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Miss Moo Miscarried – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on January 22, 2014
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Miscarriage, Pregnancy Loss, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

Yesterday Dr. M, one of our vets, was out to check Miss Moo to see if she is with calf……she WAS indeed pregnant but she miscarried.

Warning contains some graphic cow anatomy details! Not so wordless this week, but that’s not really new.

A week ago Friday or Saturday evening a couple of the children came in from the barn saying Miss Moo had a bubble in her butt. By the time I got down to the barn the bubble had popped and she had a clear, mucous like discharge, not bloody, but indicative she could have miscarried. Believe me I googled every known term for “cow miscarriage”, except spontaneous abortion since I hate that term, to learn what I could about miscarriages in cows. Then I prepared B, just in case, because I didn’t want her to be shocked if the vet did announce Miss Moo had miscarried.

Yesterday when Dr. M checked Miss, she only had two thirds the fluid she should have and Dr. M could not feel the calf. We were half expecting it, but it’s still disappointing. Miss Moo should absorb (such an awful way to describe it) the calf in the next 10-14 days and go back into her heat cycle at which time we will try to AI (artificially inseminate her) again. The vet suggested we switch bull semen and instead of trying for a pure bred Guernsey to try for a cross breed. There may be some incompatibilities, though she has been bred to “Grumpy” before. So we are going to try our friend’s Dutch Belted (otherwise known as Oreo cookie cows black with a big white strip in the middle of their bellies) and see if the third time works. It will be interesting to see what the calf looks like, that’s for sure!

These are my friend’s Dutch Belted cows, she sold the heifer, the one in the background, if I remember correctly.

Here’s what my friend said about the Dutch Belted bull semen (like you all want bull semen education, but hey, it’s my blog and I’ll blog if I want to, blog if I want to! Extreme tiredness = silliness):

Your straw (or more, if it takes more than one try) will be from “Snappy”. Supposedly, Snappy sires “easy-calving”, vigorous calves, so we’ve used his stuff on two heifers now. Funny, the heifer that just went to C’s friend in North Carolina is carrying a Snappy calf, half-sibling to your eventual calf.

Dr. M and I thought it would be a good fit, because both of our heifers “took” on the first try with Snappy, and both kept their calves past the time when they could have lost an early pregnancy.

Good luck!

Miss Moo is finally up to her normal body condition after coming to us last April extremely underweight so the vet was impressed again by her weight gain. At his last visit he said she needed another 100-200 lbs, so that she looked good to the vet was good news. We knew she was doing well because none of her ribs are showing anymore, it’s just that confirmation is extra nice, you know? Hopefully her improved body condition will help her conceive this next time. We will be upping her minerals too. He said she isn’t a “fertile Myrtle”. Even if she isn’t we would never get rid of her. She’s a pet, as well as a food source. Besides now that her weight is up she won’t be anything to feed once she’s on pasture and we grow our own hay for winter so it’s not like we have to pay out a bunch of money for hay. I am going to hope and pray this next AI sticks.

Now, here’s to hoping for a fall calf!

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Get Healthy with Insync Probiotic #NaturalProbiotic #shop #cbias

Posted by html404 on January 19, 2014
in All Natural Products, Exercise, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Fitness, Health and Nutrition, Health and Wellness, Products for Dad, Products for Mom, Recipes, Uncategorized

Our family really strives to live a healthy lifestyle, but I want to preface that by saying we don’t do it perfectly and we are still on our journey to better health. Always room for improvement, right? Though I have to say we celebrate our two year anniversary of being cold and flu free next month! One of the ways we live healthy is taking a natural probiotic and a daily multivitamin.

Insync Probiotic

Insync Probiotic is a natural probiotic I have been taking for the past three weeks. It is available at Meijer stores in the “condition specific” section. It contains doctor recommended B. infantis’, which is a healthy probiotic bacteria that has been found to help women with irritable bowel syndrome (Source: National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine). I have found it easy on my digestive system.

Four Things to Stay Healthy

Here are four other things to do to help maintain a healthy digestive system balance in addition to taking a natural probiotic.

1. Eating the right foods. One of my favorite fall and winter time foods is soup, especially Potato Kale Soup. It has lots of yummy veggies that keep your digestive system going.

It looks wonderful in the above photo with all its brightly colored vegetables, and it’s how the children prefer it, but I prefer to blend it together as the recipe calls for, which makes it look not quite so appealing. It is oh-so-yummy though!

2. Getting enough sleep is an important part of staying healthy and giving our body the rest it needs to function properly.

3. Get enough exercise. I struggle with this one because I like to get my exercise naturally rather than go to the gym or get on exercise equipment. One of the reasons I want to live on a farm! The thing is I have so many children that usually what’s left for me is weeding the garden which no one else enjoys. Before my older two boys took it over, one of my favorite things to do in the winter was shovel snow. Exercise aids in regular bowel movements.

4. Laughter. We are all probably familiar with the old proverb “Laughter is good medicine”, but it rings true. Exercise, laughter and having fun gets the endorphines going and reduces stress in our life. Less stress promotes good digestion and promotes good health.

For more information about Insync Probiotic, please visit:
http://www.insyncprobiotic.com
Twitter – @insyncprobiotic
Facebook – insyncprobiotic

Do you and your family take a natural probiotic to stay healthy? Have you ever heard of or tried Insync Probiotic before reading this post?

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Week #12 Saturday Top Five Laughs

Posted by html404 on January 18, 2014
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Fun Stuff, Humor, Kids Stuff, Saturday Top Five Laughs, Uncategorized

Once more we have joined The Mommyhood Chronicles for Week #12 – for us – in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week. And once again our three year old dominates the list!

5. B sat on Miss Moo to ride her. Did not get a photo of it though because by the time someone had come inside to tell me and I thought to take a photo B had already come in.

4. Earlier in the week Jr. (3) came to my husband and said, “Here Daddy, my school work.” He sees the children coming to get their school work corrected and thought he’d join, I guess. I haven’t been consistent in doing his preschool books with him….maybe that’s a hint?!

3. Our three year old son was at it again. He created at least ten “Daddy and Me” pictures and even cut them out! He gave my husband all these teeth because my husband has this grrrrrr sound where he clamps down on with his teeth. There’s even one of my husband with a hat and his brain. Very interesting perspective from our three year old anyways!

2. We had our farrier out this week to do our horse’s hooves and as he’s trimming Blaze’s hooves what does Freckles, one of the kittens, do? She jumped up onto Mr. B’s back! Silly cat.

1. We were watching a movie one night and out of the blue our three year old goes, “Me love her” referring to one of the female animated characters! lol!

What fun things happened at your house this week?

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Winter Fun – Snow Forts – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on January 15, 2014
in Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Kids Stuff, Seasonal Stuff, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

I think the photos speak for themselves! Winter fun is snow forts!

What are your kids’ favorite winter activities?

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Week #11 Saturday Top Five Laughs – Join the Blog Hop!

Posted by html404 on January 11, 2014
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Humor, Kids Stuff, Saturday Top Five Laughs, Uncategorized

Once more we have joined The Mommyhood Chronicles for Week #11 – for us – in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week.

5. Our oldest daughter asked our Amelia Bedilia to quiz her on some of her school work. Well, Amelia Bedilia could not read her sister’s handwriting so she improvised, substituting it with mumbo jumbo. The problem? Her older sister could not understand what she was saying and was of no help in the quizzing process. Oh dear Amelia Bedilia, we love you because you make us laugh!

4. This photo doesn’t do the newspaper justice Amelia Bedilia style of bagging but it gives you an idea of what it should look like and shouldn’t look like. I can’t remember what happened or how but Amelia Bedilia, B and I just cracked up on Wednesday over Amelia’s bagging style. Thankfully she saw the humor in it too.

3. We found “Luigi” a gift from Italy in our big bag of oats and our three year old throwing pennies at him/it.

2. This morning Miss Moo broke out of her stall and plowed down my husband’s wall of hay he built to reduce the cold and wind. Naughty little cow!

1. We had a little girl in our home who claimed she couldn’t find her school work all week. Guess where her brother found it this morning? In the laundry basket. Still not sure how it got there and no one is fessing up to anything!

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Motivation Monday is Back!

Posted by html404 on January 6, 2014
in Cleaning, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Homeschooling, Monday Motivation, Organization, Uncategorized

It has been a long time since I did a Motivation Monday post. Let’s see when was the last time? Wow, back in August! The purpose of Motivation Mondays was originally explained here, which was to help me get motivated and get more done. Since that time I have become more busy but still need motivation to stay on track towards my goals.

I have a lot to do now that the new year is here. It’s easy to get overwhelmed if I think too much about it. I have to take one thing at a time and do things one day at a time.

Here’s what I *think* I am looking at for this week and possibly the rest of the month with slight variations:

– Teaching my five year old to read. Hubby is home so he’s helping.
– Getting the children back on track for their school work. It’s always tough after a break. Gotta shake off the lazies.
– Cleaning
– Organizing and reorganizing my office, again! Getting ready for tax time….again.
– We need to make some farm decisions – how many chicks to buy, will we buy pullets from the hatchery in March, what seeds do we need, how many plug trays will we plant or buy to get our veggies started, will we take on an intern and worker shares this year? Are we raising turkeys, if so, how many? Will we add any other farm ventures? Will we do any farmers markets? How will we meet our goals?
– Apply to more VA jobs. My goal is to take on one client for 10 hours per week or two clients for 5 hours each per week. This will help us in replacing my husband’s income, just in case he cannot find a job.

What about you? Do you have a list of to-dos or goals for the week?

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Week #10 Saturday Top Five Laughs – Join the Blog Hop!

Posted by html404 on January 4, 2014
in Blog Stuff, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Home, Humor, Kids Stuff, Saturday Top Five Laughs, Uncategorized

I took some time off over Christmas so I broke my straight run of posts for the Saturday Top Laughs but I enjoyed the time off! And now it’s time to laugh with the Goulds again! Once more we have joined The Mommyhood Chronicles for Week #10 – for us – in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week.

6. My husband was messing with the garbage cans at the end of the driveway on garbage day, when our three year old saw him from our front window he started calling, “Daddy!” Then it changed to, “Robert!” which came out more like “obert”. I proceeded to ask him what my name was and he goes, “eesa”. It was cute and now he hasn’t called us by our names since. Recently I taught him our real names but it was like one time so I was surprised that he remembered our real names, then again he does hear us calling each other by our real names.

5. Robert celebrated his birthday recently and the girls made him two birthday desserts but only one was ready to eat in time. He said the next morning he had a bad dream (I call it a birthday nightmare) that mice came and ate his chocolate chip cheesecake during the night. He woke up with relief to find out the cheesecakes were just fine.

4. Kittens climbing across Miss Moo’s back.

3. Kittens sitting under Miss Moo’s udder to catch the drips of milk in the morning.

2. Padfoot, our goofy Newfie, jumping to catch snowflakes!

1. Our children started calling my husband “Vader” after watching Star Wars over the Christmas break. Our 14 year old daughter, B, discovered “Vader” is the alternate spelling of the Dutch word “Vater” meaning father. Darth Vader means “dark father”. B and O even decorated their dad’s birthday dessert accordingly. B’s been calling me “Mater”, latin for mother.

That’s as good as it gets this week. How about you, what laughs have you started 2014 with? Or what nicknames do your children come up with for you and your husband?

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GS Preschool Games for Android

Posted by html404 on January 3, 2014
in Apps, Downloads, Education, Entertainment, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Homeschooling, Kids Stuff, Reviews, School, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

Most of you who are regular readers know nearly all the apps on my cell phone are educational. Our children love to go on my phone to play with the apps. They also love it when I change the apps by downloading new ones. GS Preschool Games for Android has a cool little app our children have been enjoying the past couple of days.

GS Preschool Games has ten different activities children can enjoy and learn from:

- Jigsaw puzzles
– Match the Objects
– Solve the Maze
– Memory
– Burst the Balloons, which teaches letters, numbers and colors
– Count the Objects
– Compare the Objects
– Find Odd Items
– Find the Correct Count
– Scratch the Pad to Paint – while doing this activity our three year old son passed me the phone and said, “Scratch Mommy”….it took me a minute to figure out what he meant!

The characters are whimsical and fun. Not to mention attractive to a little one’s eye, as the colors are bright.

GS Preschool Games app is easy to use. Simply choose your activity with a click and then swipe and click to play. The skip button allows children to skip and choose a game based on his or her interest at that moment.

One thing I noticed while doing the balloon activity is when you earn your sticker for clicking the correct balloon, the pop up has this pause and there is barely enough time to catch the rest of the balloons as they float up and off the screen.

Even our five year old and seven year old had fun with this app. The app is recommended for ages 3-6. My daughter who is seven said it was fun and it has rewards. They love earning something for their effort. It’s very motivating for them as they learn and play. However, we could not figure out if the stickers led to more activities or bonus features or if they were just a reward pop up with an encouraging word. We are inclined to think it’s the latter. After a few activities within a game they do get to choose their own animal sticker reward.

Each game contains approximately 16+ individual exercises within that category, providing ample fun and entertainment for children at home or on the go. One thing to be aware of is a parent does have to be involved and read the instructions to a child who does not yet know how to read.

This app is available for yours and your child’s educational pleasure for Android here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greysprings.games

and is also available for iOS as well:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gs-preschool-games/id726944785?mt=8

Enjoy!

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2014 is Here! Happy New Year!

Posted by html404 on January 1, 2014
in Family Stuff, Holidays, Home, Seasonal Stuff, Uncategorized

Another year has come and gone….and I am not sure how I feel about it. I cannot say I am excited about the new year. Excited for spring and summer. Guess I am quietly contemplating what is going to happen when my husband’s unemployment runs out in 2-3 months. It kind of puts a damper on the new year cheer to say the least.

Looking back on 2013, I can honestly say it wasn’t all bad. The good list certainly outweighs the bad.

The Good:
Finally sold our townhouse.
Increased my income….somewhat.
New work at home job as hostess on Moms.com
Saw growth and potential in our wee organic farm venture.
Added a cow to our farm family.
Healthy family.
Not one but TWO visits from my mom.
Birth of my first niece on my side of the family.
Signed a two year lease with our landlords. Hard to believe one year is gone already. Only a year left.

The Bad:
Sixth miscarriage in June 2013.
Husband’s second job loss in five years.
Loss of poultry.
Bad break with a client.

Looking forward to 2014, I really only have one goal in mind and several others stirring. I don’t like to make new year’s resolutions because past experience tells me I won’t succeed. I prefer setting short-term and long-term goals.

What about you did you make any new year’s resolutions?