Another year older this week! Poor Scott suffered appendicitis on his 32nd birthday. I would definitely say I faired much better on mine.
My birthday tradition the past few years has been taking advantage of all my favorite freebies you get for your special day. I started with getting my favorite smoothie from Tropical Smoothie…Island Green. It wasn’t exactly free but close enough with your birthday discount of $3. I always take advantage of Ulta’s free birthday gift and this year it was Too Faced mascara.
And of course I also always take advantage of my free birthday coffee from Starbucks. My new fave is a Mocha latte made with coconut milk. Any chance I get for Tacos 4 Life, I take it. On your birthday they give you a free ultimate trio or chips and dip with your choice of 3 different dips. Yum-O.
It was a great day! I got to hang with these cool kids and get some time away from these cool kids. They decorated the tiny house for me and called me to tell me all about their surprise.
Since Saturday was super cold, we had a makeover morning. Shep has definitely been needing a haircut and Ava is always asking for one, so we took care of both.
This Week’s Books
The kiddos like to practice their reading and their favorite student to educate is Abby. The puppies get the lullabies and Abby gets the book reading around here.
“Big Fat Hen” was a big fat book. It was very cute and the kids enjoyed it since the pictures were very large.
We have done quite a few Bright and Early books this week. Ava’s favorite for the week was “The Berenstain Bears and the Bully”. I remember reading this one when I was a kid too. I guess it spoke to her as well.
Our author of the week was Keith Baker. His books are great for both Ava and Shep’s age group. We especially like his alphabet peas books.
Gluten Free & Dairy Free Menu
- Instant Pot Chicken Pot Pie Soup
- Lentil pasta with chicken, broccoli, and a lemon tahini pasta sauce.
The chicken pot pie soup was good, but I made a boo boo. I didn’t have fresh thyme leaves, so I used dried leaves instead. You can probably guess what I did. Ya, I didn’t compensate the amount for dried versus fresh. So, I used to too much thyme and to make matters worse it was in the instant pot, which always seems to enhance the flavors of anything you put in there. So…it was a little too thymey. On a bright note, I did find a new pasta sauce that turned out to be delicious and that was the lemon tahini sauce.
- My version of Shepherd’s Pie….Sweet potatoes topped with beef, bacon, green beans, and guacamole.
- Zuppa Toscana soup.
My version of Shepherd’s pie is kinda backwards and upside down. First, I prefer mashed sweet potatoes over regular mashed potatoes. And secondly, I put the potatoes at the bottom instead of the top. Plus, I top it off with guacamole which is probably pretty random for a normal Shepherd’s pie. Zuppa Toscana made another showing this week. It is so yummy and it seems to be the kids favorite soup that I make.
Farm Animals
Can you spot Silly Sammy? He is such a hoot! I really worried about him not having a goat buddy, but he really seems to be doing just fine with chickens, ducks, puppies, and a cat for friends. At least for right now he seems to be happy with the situation.
The Quackers are getting much more comfortable with us these days. They now eat snacks out of our hands and “willingly” let us pet them. It took some time but I am happy we have some trust now in that relationship…haha.
I have exciting egg news! We did donate 60 eggs in the blessing boxes this week and that we are happy about, but even more so about finding our very first duck egg! As first time farmers, we are always super excited about seeing the fruits of our labor. It took about 6 months of raising the chicks, keeping them healthy and safe before we got to see our very first egg. We have been raising the ducks for almost 6 months. I love sharing these experiences with the kids. They too get so excited and get to see firsthand how we take care of these animals and assist with that.
Bo Baby is outnumbered by the females. Abby has politely let it be known who Queen B is around here.
Bonnie and Ellie have become play buddies. She too doesn’t seem phased by the puppy size and holds her own.
Fitness
Scott and I both decided…..or maybe just me since I turned a year older this week….anyway I feel I am officially too old for outdoor cleanup with the old school pruners. With that being said, this beast pruner weighs 17lbs. I think I did about an hour and half worth of work with it. I had to take a few breaks because my hands were cramping. Later, my rhomboids and biceps were talking to me. Thus, I consider this to be a double whammy…getting work done while working out at the same time.
I will stick with the shorter branches while Scott goes after anything 15 feet plus. It’s nice because we can work while working out together. We just hand it back and forth when we need breaks.
On Another Note…
I found these really cute and age appropriate bible lessons for the kiddos. This is our Sunday morning routine. Each lesson has a memory verse and crafts to help portray the meaning behind the lesson. One of my favorite pieces is that each lesson includes a few questions to ask the kids after the lesson, which I like because it helps me to know if they were listening to the lesson or not. It is also just a fun way to carry on conversation with them and talk about things on their level. I found these at christianbook.com
This Week in the Shop..
I have some super cute flats for sale in my Poshmark closet! You can check them out here.
I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe week! God Bless!
