We’re home now! We’ve even been home long enough to catch up on laundry and for 14 people that is amazing!
We took the tunnels down to Virginia Beach! We loved the tunnels.
Both grandsons LOVED the sand. We picked a gorgeous day to find the water. It was the warmest day of our vacation! This was a fun first!
The horse girls from Iowa loved the horses on the ocean. This might be on the list for next time!
Well we are finally on our way home. My friend tells me we need a a reality series. Our vacation was a series of disasters!
We said goodbye to what was affectionately called the green pickle after we put $400 worth of parts in, when we determined it was going to cost is 2500$ more and we weren’t sure that would fix it!!
Our vacation was held up for many days until we found a replacement but we were at a gorgeous place with good options and nice friends 🙂
We are finally on our way home –
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In meantime, we has troubles with the hitch, ended up taking us 3 days on 2 different states to get done! This was not our plan. Good thing we continue to rest in His plan alone.
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We are on the road! Hitting a little pre-planned vacation. We hit the road for the coast.
Hitting hills lots bigger than Iowa has to offer! 
Finally arriving at our resort ~ this is a MOMYS vacation. MOMYS stands for Moms of Many Young Siblings. We’re here with approx. 20 other families that are all big! What a treat 🙂 I’ve been a member of MOMYS since my 13 year old was born! (having at the time 4 kids in 7 years!) MOMYS has been a huge resource for me in parenting and godly exhortations. If you qualify for MOMYS -check out either the yahoogroup or the boards. We are thrilled to be able to help MOMYS earn money for the Care & Share through Young Living Essential Oils!
Stay tuned for more vacation pictures!
This is a silly post… except it isn’t – it’s been a huge cost saver and an AWESOME help to my DIY compulsion.
Why do you need liquid castille soap? If you make your own dish soap, shampoo or pumping hand soap – you do!
but – it’s expensive.. Hey if you want to buy it – here is my affiliate link. I’ll post some recipes in just a bit.
Castile Liquid Soap-Lavender Dr. Bronner’s 1 Gallon Liquid
or you can do it my way and save LOTS of $$$ for more soap.
Buy this :
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps Pure-Castile Soap, All-One Hemp Citrus Orange, 5-Ounce Bars (Pack of 6)
take that one bar and shred it – you know, on one of these
Cuisinart CTG-00-BG Boxed Grater
and then boil it in a pot of water I do just less than a gallon.. all the shredded soap until it dissolves.
Then I store mine in a pickle jar. 
This is a previously made set of soaps from fancy shower gels meant to replace fancy shower gels. I made these GALLONS of liquid soap for 1.50 each and when I make castille soap, a GALLON costs 3.50-4.50 depending on how much I end up paying for the bar 🙂
Isn’t that awesome?!
add it to a little pumper jar and add some of your favorite essential oils 🙂
You can get Young Living Essential oils here ~ http://www.youngliving.org/mommaplus ~ affiliate links for Amazon enclosed.
I cannot believe how much money this has saved us and I hope you give it a try!
Blessings!
Amanda
Hello ~~~ are you spring cleaning today?! Guess what I found – an awesome recipe for homemade furniture polish!
The Essentially Southern Mom’s Lemon Essential Oil Furniture Polish!
1/3 cup melted coconut oil
10 drops your favorite YL EO
1/2 cup distilled water
Mix well, put into a glass jar and then use a microfiber cloth!
You can get the YLoils at my webpage http://www.youngliving.org/mommaplus
blessings!
Amanda
Last night I was doing an online event when supper was running late so I was running back and forth, by 7:10 they were all sitting at the table and I was back at computer, at 7:15 (central time) my 3 year old looked out the window and our small barn was on fire!! It was a blistering -20 with windchill and our excitement took 7 firetrucks! (2 departments) and 1000 gallons of water! That does explain WHY my garden hose couldn’t put it out Yes all of our heirloom breeding turkeys perished but 1. Sad day 😦
Today a Blizzard hit us. My momentary panic of the fact that we just aren’t ready was preceded by the conversation with my husband.
“Hey Bri, we have an hour free, do you want to talk about being ready in case we don’t have power in this blizzard?”
And life ensued. and we didn’t talk. and then the power flickered shut off. The first time it was off several minutes and we remembered we were going to talk about being ready for no power.
So – where were we, us and the tons of kids at home today (15?) Thankful that we had a prepared mentality and had done some preliminary work! We just needed to dig them out. (and funny thing is, once we did dig them out, we haven’t lost power since even though it shut off 7 times today!)
1) Heat – Well, we have a woodstove, it is not yet installed in this house. We have a wood pellet stove which requires a fan 😦 We have back up kerosene heaters, least prepared area.
2) lights – we have the 3 (always have 3 backup options) 1) lamps 2) candles and 3) flashlights
3) food – we popped the roast in the oven quick for supper and I made a soup I could cover in towels, we have lots of ready to eat. We do have a camp stove 🙂
4) water – this was my panic mode – we filled everybucket in proximity, we need water for drinking, cooking, flushing, washing, and animals… I’ll be working on this a bit more come a thaw!
5) Entertainment – I was a bit more prepared with this one, we have lots to do that doesn’t require electronics. That being said, Mom might have the most withdrawal symptoms!
What are you preparing for? How ready are you? Where are your gaps?
Blessings!
Amanda
Well, it was time. We had taken the last piggy into the locker. We actually butchered 3 ourselves this year but time was short for this last one and when we loaded up one for a customer, we took our last one in also.
(Will we see more on butchering pigs later? Maybe, I have pictures!)
Anyway, my processed pig came back with our lard. At our local butcher, you have to ask for it (and the beef tallow, and bones!) Apparently, some people don’t want their lard! (Can you imagine?) If you can’t raise your pig yourself, try and buy a local one! Get one that is out on some pasture and well loved!
You can see our pigs are well loved 🙂
Your lard will come as a chunk. You need to cut it up yourself into 1″ squares, or run it through a machine like this :
Once you run it through the machine, I put mine in a roaster pan and put it into the oven. I usually do pretty low for a long time 🙂 no chance of scalding.
After 10 hours yesterday, it looked like the pic above. It is not a lovely smell but it wasn’t overpowering, we wouldn’t have had to leave. I like to do it overnight so we don’t have to worry about using the oven.
Then I strain it like the picture above.
This becomes jar after jar of lard goodness!
After I fill a jar, I wipe the rim and cover it with a metal lid and ring. I then flip it over 🙂
and this is your final product 🙂
Why Lard? http://www.weedemandreap.com/2013/02/the-top-3-reasons-why-you-should-be-eating-lard.html
What can you use lard for? I use it for cooking and soap making. We had some this morning as I cooked french toast. I store it in my root cellar 🙂
Blessings
Amanda
affiliate links for Amazon help keep our little farmstead going, we appreciate your clicking!
This is an ongoing list, we are working on getting our Emergency Fund paid for.
We did have an emergency fund, but we had to use it 😦 at one point and we haven’t been able to redo it. Ideas that we are using:
1) Selling stuff. Usually on facebook for sale websites/craigslist/locally. If you haven’t used it in the last 3 months and it isn’t seasonal – or if it is seasonal but you haven’t used it in a year. GET Rid of it! Gives you the added benefit that once it is GONE – you don’t have to clean up after it!
2) Selling homeschool curriculum (web sites I ❤ are homeschoolclassifieds.com and vegsource.com/homeschool but also Facebook pages might do well for you also. With curriculum, look at things that will be updated before the next time you use it. You might not be able to buy consumables for them, etc. (IS there a 10 step program for homeschool book collectors… I will admit that I am a work in progress here.)
3) STOP buying something. For me, it was tea/lemonades (I gave up pop almost 3 years ago!) I bought a glass water jar and I take my water with lemon oil in it everywhere! Whatever it is that you buy, that you give up, put that money in your emergency fund.
4) stick to your food plan, plan ahead and you will be less likely to spend money on food emergencies. Decide now how much you can cut your food budget by. It is temporary… (I’m cooking for so many and I do the garden so I am not a good person to compare to – but if you’re spending 100$ /week on groceries and you can cut it to 75$/week for a month – you can put an extra 100$ in your savings account this month. It all adds up! I plan to share more on my menu planning in the future because I save a ton of money going with a plan!
5) Lay out a budget and stick to it. Anything left over ~ goes into the savings account.
6) Make the savings account hard to access… If you are tight and you have to scrimp, keeping your hands off that money can be pretty tough. Don’t give yourself easy access to temptation.
7) Pick up extra ways to make income. Many of you know that I have chosen to use Young Living Essential Oils as my business. I work around hubby’s hours, at home, with my kids (and they help!) and it is making a huge difference. We have 2 mortgages right now and my YLEO checks are covering my big mortgage! What could you do every month with an extra 500-1000$ or more? Right now, they pay bills but soon they’ll be helping get our debt paydown!
8)- Reward yourself! After you get the 1000$ banked… reward yourself. You can set it right now what you want to do for your reward? Is it something you’ve skimped on for a few months? Make your self a goal poster and put your REWARD at the top of your thermometer and then SAVE for that next. (don’t use your saved money! )
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Our Faith, Our Family, Our Farm 