Encouragement

     Sunday morning I was blessed and encouraged beyond measure.  Going into church Sunday morning we ran into our pastor, Pastor Kevin. We are new members to Spring of Life and we have only meet Pastor Kevin on two other occasions. We were unsure of this church at first because we didn't want to be "just another attendance number" We are FB friends with him and his wife Brenda and get updates into their lives and they see into our lives as well. We DO NOT feel like another number. Its nice to begin forming personal relationships in a church as large as ours. I hope to have them over in the future for dinner :). 
     
     Anyways, Apparently Pastor Kevin has been reading my blogs through my FB posts and he told me Sunday morning that he had been enjoying them. Now at the time I didnt know what to say other than Thank You and I hope I was not rude by not continuing a conversation!!! I was surprised I was recognized in the sea of faces. Again I really hope he didn't find my quick thank you rude!!!  But sitting in church I was thinking about what he said and it encouraged me.  Writing a blog is hard work, throw in 3 kids and its near impossible, but not completely and his comment gave me motivation to try harder.  


     Pastor Kevin, Thank You for being kind to me. Our family greatly enjoys Spring of Life and are very happy to call it Home. 

Homemade Yogurt

Image Source: Rebecca Bent

   In my efforts to provide nutritious foods for my family I have started making a lot of things homemade. I know what ingredients are put into each thing and I can avoid a lot of extra questionable things. One example of nutrition can be found in yogurt.  Most of us know that yogurt is full of 'good bacteria' that aid in digestion and give our immune system a boost. Those 'good bacteria' are also good for people who suffer from a lactose sensitivity, like my youngest. I could write a whole post on the health benefits of yogurt, but I am going to leave a link and you can fill your brains with more yogurt knowledge when you have an extra minute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogurt  

     
     Most of us also know that store bought yogurt can get expensive over time, especially the little 6oz containers. My family eats yogurt in bulk. My youngest daughter is on the 'picky eaters diet' and typically only eats yogurt and bananas, though she has become a little more adventurous here lately, thank goodness. :) So between my three kids a 32oz container of yogurt only last 2-3 days. At $3.00 a container the cost starts to add up. x2 32oz containers a week is $6.00 x4 = $24 a month :/. That's a half a tank of fuel or so and with the price of fuel so outrageous any spare penny can defiantly be used there. Now these price comparisons are for the cheap store brands. More specialty yogurts come with a heavier price tag. When making my yogurt I purchase the store brand milk because its cheapest though I am sure to check to make sure it has not been treated with hormones. As I am able to increase my food budget the first thing is to buy organic milk.

Anyways, Lets break down the cost of homemade yogurt using the cheap milk. I buy milk for $2.57 a gallon. That's potentially 128 oz of yogurt. That would be $12 if I got it at the store! The amount of milk you use is how much yogurt you get. I typically make a gallon of yogurt because I strain the whey from mine to make it thicker and more like Greek yogurt. In doing so it reduces the amount by about half. But that is still 50% cheaper than buying it... plus Greek yogurt is way more expensive to buy. So now that you've seen a little run down on price how about we visit the process. Here are the things you will need to make your own:


Milk- in whatever quantity you want in yogurt 32oz = 32oz un-strained yogurt
Starter at room temp-( 2-3 tablespoons of plain store bought yogurt with live and active cultures( easier to get) OR frozen Yogurt cultures,( I have yet to find this, but others say it does exist.)
Thermometer-( that goes to 185*)
1 pot for direct heating or crock pot and lid with either or-( 2 pots if you prefer the double boiler method)
Whisk
Preferred heating method( some use crock pot, I use my stove)
Heavy towel
Cheese cloth or other very thin cloth( optional ) 
Storing container


Now the steps:


1. Sterilize equipment in boiling water 
    Truth be told, I never do this and I have never had any ill effect. Heating the milk to 185* kills the bad bugs anyways. 


2. Using your preferred heating method, heat the milk low and slow( so not to scorch) to 185*. I just put the milk in the pot and the pot on the stove. For as much yogurt as I make the crock or double boil methods are not big enough. 


3. Now allow the milk to cool to 110*. This can be done sitting on the counter ( takes about 45 mins) or can be done quickly with a sink of icy water. Just submerge about half of the pot into the water and watch the temp closely.( Dont let water get into the milk!)  If it gets too cold just warm it back up to 110*


4. When the milk reaches 110* whisk the starter in.


5. Place the pot in a warm place( I have a warming zone on my stove) and put a lid on it as well as the heavy towel.  A heating pad on low works as well. The temp needs to stay 110-115* for the next 7 hours at least. You can culture longer for a more tart taste. Ive read instances of 24 hour yogurt! Once an hour I set my warming zone on low for 10 mins. I just set a timer to remind me. Take the temp ever so often, but dont disturb it too much. This stage does take a little bit of babysitting, but after a couple batches you'll start to learn how well your pot or whatever insulates. At the end of 7ish hours you will have a very nice yogurt. I would start with 7 hours until you determine your taste. You could eat it warm now, but it will be a bit thinner than you'd expect. Chilling over night will produce a thicker yogurt. Or you could go a step further and strain the whey and make a very thick and yummy Greek style yogurt.


6. Strain the whey ( optional ). Line a colander with the cheese cloth and place the colander over a bowl or pot the will hold it but not let it fall down inside. Pour the yogurt into the cheese cloth lined colander and wait. I do mine about an hour, but you can stain as little or as much as you want to. 


7. Store- From staining, spoon your yogurt into a container of your choice that has a lid. Lots of people use mason jars for example. I use 32oz containers from previously buying yogurt that I happen to have still. If you did not strain your yogurt just give it a final good whisk and pour into your container(s). Place the yogurt in the fridge. I believe other who say it keeps only about a week, however ours never last that long. :) At this point the sky is the limit to what you can add to it!  Jam, honey, granola, fresh fruit... Etc.!!!! 


Now remember to save a couple tablespoons for your next batch.


There ya have it. If any part is unclear just shoot me a message and I will do my best to clear it up. Happy Yogurting :)

Home schooling: Not just at the kitchen table

     When I first started this new adventure a few months ago the vision in my head was to have my little pupils sitting at the kitchen table doing their work enthusiastically. I quickly realized that wasn't a realistic vision. My kids are active, like most kids, and want to be where mom is most of the time. 

     At this current season in our lives we can generally do most lessons during nap time, but lets face it... Mama needs to shower at some point... Oh sure I could shower before they get up, but I would be getting up at 5 am in that case for I have an early riser. Or I could shower at night after they go to bed, but with my long hair dripping wet at bed time means a sloppy wet pillow all night. So a nap time shower works best for me. 

     So what's my new homeschooler to do while I am in the shower... Usually, she showers with me and I am completely fine with that. After a few showers I started to pay attention to her drawings on the shower door in the steam. To my heart warming surprise she was drawing letters in the steam and asking me questions about each letter. Then as her attention went from drawing letters to stick people she would count the people and ask me basic addition problems, which I made her figure it out on her own with her drawings. 

     So I then realized that now I do not feel like she has missed any "school" time when we shower during nap time. I also realized that I could teach just about anything anywhere we are and not be limited to a kitchen table doing worksheets. And so simply drawing in steam has opened the world of home schooling to me and enabled me to see lessons anywhere from the park to the grocery store and everywhere in between. I hope this post will encourage new home schooling families to think outside the box of the kitchen table. 

Topics

     Good morning to my two followers, who happens to be the same person. :) I am new to blogging and I have a lot to learn. Even if I get just a few followers I would be extremely happy. This blog will cover a bunch of topics, including but not limited to natural child birth, breastfeeding, motherhood, home schooling, and modesty. My post will most likely start on home schooling because that is the area I am currently learning on and OH am I learning. So look in a couple days for a new post. Until then may God's grace flow around you. Have a blessed day.

Updates

Hi! I will get better at blogging... Its all about making habits... Well in my last post I continued my update with the birth of our third baby, Bailee, or B for short. Now at this point in our lives my husband, Aaron, was traveling for work a lot and only getting to come home a few days at a time. When Bailee was 2 weeks old he was called out for 6 weeks... only getting to come home Easter weekend... I was struggling to care for my family. I just had a baby and I was an hour away from any family. My house was in a constant disarray and I had a giant lack of care that plagued me. Aaron voiced his displeasure with what was going on at work to his boss only to be spat at and sent on his way... We were getting mad. the original agreement was 25% travel... The turning point came when he got an offer from the very company he was traveling to as his customer... We started to get a sense of what God was doing right away... God wanted better for us. God put us in Tyler so Aaron could get experience on the machine, learning from it intensely. The "customer" that offered the position used the same machine. God also used Tyler to wean me from seeing my family as often because where we would be going was three states away. He took the position and went out here to start as soon as he could. In the mean time the children and I were living at my inlaws home while they summered up north. Aaron search for a home for us and after two months he finally found one. Then we had to wait another month to come out here. That's right... three months with out seeing my husband. Again God used all of Aaron's traveling to prepare us for a long summer apart.  At the end of August, as a family,we finally came to our new state and our new home. Well, there you have it, a three part update to our life. Now that the update is finished I'll get to start blogging about things that pertain to the actual blog topics. I will post a topic in a couple days. Until then, May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Updates

So in the last post I told everyone that I was pregnant. Right away I found a wonderful midwife in Tyler. My pregnancy went about as good as most do. I had the morning sickness, headaches, backaches, etc. which were all elevated because my husband was still traveling more than 50% of the time. But some how I managed. I had a lot of help toward the end from my mother in law. I went to 41 weeks, which was a week better than my last. And I have elevate blood pressure while in labor again... The gender of our baby was a secret to everyone except my Nana, who performed the ultra sound. On March 9th at 6:51 am Bailee Ann was born at 7lbs 9oz and 20 3/4 inches long. She was a spitting image of her big sister with a little added weight. That chapter in our lives came as a surprize, but we wouldnt change it for anything. We wouldnt change the next chapter either... More on that later, but for now enjoy this photo of B the day she was born.

Updates

Sorry for the length since my last post. Life has been rather crazy. Its been a year...and a lot has happened. I will do a short post every day, or every couple days to catch everyone up. Then I'll do weekly posts.

Well if you read my last post you'll see that Hayden and I were not feeling well. I dont remember what Hayden had, but he did get better. I, however, did not get better, I got worse... and I finally got better around September. Through July I got progressively worse. I was extremely tired and had nausea all the time. Aaron suggested that I go get a check up. I was going to the next time he was going to be home a while.( He still traveled a lot) Well shortly after I went walking with a couple friends and I could barely keep up... I was so tired. Well, my friend also suggested something........A pregnancy test...... What?! No way! I just finished nursing Hayden and hadnt gotten my cycle back. I had been looking for signs that my cycle would be returning soon... nothing. I took pregnancy test in July and they were all negative. So I told my friend that I would get one the next time I was at the store. I picked one up and the next morning I took it... Right away, before it had finished its absorbing I could see the two lines... I WAS PREGNANT!!!

Well thats where I will leave off for now. That takes you through about the startish of August. I will continue as soon as I get some more free time.