Food storage.... How? Why?

My whole life I have been taught to have a one year supply of food.  You never know what will happen, a natural disaster, a loss of a job, a great depression again.  We have the means to be prepared and take care of ourselves and we should.  

 My mom was really good at having a good food storage and rotating through it.  So when I got married we had a little bit and I was trying to figure out the best way to do it.   My sweet grandma and grandpa started giving all of her grand kids money specifically to buy food storage.  This has been such a big help.  I was able to really get a good start.  We didn't have a lot of storage in our old house so I stored what I could under the stairs in our semi cold storage.  The rest I put throughout the house but mostly in my daughters closet and our laundry room.

So when we moved and I saw this beautiful storage room with all of these shelves and space, I was in heaven.  I filled up those shelves with my canned food and the bottom two rows are the long term food storage I bought over a 5 year time period.  It took a lot of work and planning.  

I studied the church's page about how much you should have per person and what kinds of foods they suggest. Here is the link. if you want to read more about it and get started or get help on your own food storage.  

I kept it all written down in a notebook and also had it on a spreadsheet on the computer.  Each time I would buy something for our long term food storage I would mark it on the list and after a few years I feel like we have a pretty good amount until we add some more people to our family.   I really liked being able to know exactly what I needed to get when we had the extra money available to buy another order.  It was simple and easy once I had it all worked out.  

 I bought most of it from the LDS church as they had the best prices I found.    Then I bought a few things like dried meat from THRIVE.  I also have some random fruit and veggies from Auguson farms, that I got from a local store.   They also have some soup mixes and tomato sauces to put with all of my rice and noodles we have.   Just to add some variety if we ever really need to use this long term food storage.    These are all good for 20-25 years and I guess I figure by the time we have to rotate it out most of our kids will be out on their own and when we replace it, we will be replacing it for just the two of us. 

I feel a lot more peace about having food if we need it for whatever reason.  There are still some things we need to get to be fully prepared.  Like a way to cook it all we have some fuel for our stove but we would need a lot more so that is next on my list.  We also have some water jugs but I could probably add a few more to our storage.  

I know that when we follow the prophets council we will be blessed.  Just knowing that if anything were to happen we would be ok for a little bit on food anyways, gives me peace.  I am so grateful for my grandparents for helping us out and making this happen a lot sooner than it probably would have happened if they didn't donate this money to us.  

I have also been working on our 72 hour kits and will make a separate post about that.  

Power of positive thinking..... how to have a peaceful mind

The second chapter in this book is so powerful.  I need this information to help me have a peaceful mind.  Some days I just think I will go crazy with my three little kids.  I love them to pieces but if your a parent of any kind you know what I'm talking about then.  Looking forward to just a minute of silence is wonderful.

In this chapter he talks a lot about how to obtain a peaceful mind.  There are a few different ways to achieve and practice this peaceful state.  "The essence of the secret lies in a change of mental attitude"  We have to learn to think and live on different thoughts.  Normal modern life is very negative and sad.  We have to make the switch to positive and work to keep it there.  The more we do it the easier it becomes.  I remember someone saying that when their kids would say something mean about someone they would have them say 3 nice things about that person.   It trains our mind to switch and look for the positive.  There are just as many if not more positive things in life to talk and think about.

He says that everyone should practice this daily by taking 15 minutes a day.  Sometimes 15 minutes is hard to come by for me.  I am going to practice this though.  You turn your mind off, practice the art of silence.  Dont' let your mind think, keep it as empty as you can.  Think relaxing words like Tranquility he says is one of the more beautiful and melodic words in the English language.  Think of something peaceful to you.  I love nature so I think of sitting up in the mountains next to a stream or river.  Just sitting there listening to the sound of rushing water run over the rocks.  It brings peace to my mind and lets me release and relax.

I refer a lot back to my hypnobabies course I did.  I learned so much from it.  I still use those techniques quite frequently.  There is a practice that you say release and you release all of the tension in your muscles and I find that it works as well now to help release that tension and all of the worries and problems I am trying to not worry about.  You can find your own words or images that works for you.   He says taking this 15 minutes every 24 hours will help you teach yourself to be able to have a peaceful mind.  You will learn how to bring your mind back to that peaceful state when you get nervous or worried.   I am a worrier and so this will be very helpful for me.

Cloth Diaper review #5 Thirsties Natural AIO

This diaper is quite amazing.  This is the new Thirsties Natural AIO.   I have  been cloth diapering for just over 2 years and have tried  A LOT of diapering systems.   I decided that I didn't really like AIO because they take forever to dry and they are never absorbent enough for my heavy wetters.

I have been using thirsties covers for quite some time now and love them.  So when they came out with their natural AIO I thought ok I have to give them a try.  I love thirsties hemp/cotton inserts and that is what is the inside layers of this diaper. That was a major selling point to me.  

Here is the outside picture.  They have super cute designs and I love love love their velcro.  Its amazing.  Although my 18 m old won't keep them on if he doesn't have shorts on over them.  

They have two flaps in them that are the hemp/cotton amazing inserts. They are sewn into the front of the diaper.  They have an opening in the back side of these not sure why.  Bumgenious freetimes had this too and it just collected lint and it was harder to get poop out.  So I sewed mine shut.  Easy fix.  I have no idea the purpose of leaving it open is.  

I will sometimes fold one of the flaps up to double it for my boys but even just normal they absorb a ton.  Even with all of the absorption power they are sooo trim, I have had multiple people ask if my son has potty trained because they can't tell if he is in underwear or a diaper.   That is how trim and fitting they are. 

The only downside to this diaper, and it comes with any natural fiber diaper I believe is the clean up.   It seems to stick to it more than other fibers.   It also is a little tricky to spray off the two layers of the inserts and then the elastic casing.  I have been using prefolds and covers though.  They always get clean, and I just prefer to use a liner when I think I can predict the poop.  This is the only downside to the diaper, everything else I LOVE.

I love the snaps on these thirsties aio.   I also love the fit on my 18 m old and my three year old. They fit both skinny legs great.  I have never had a leak problem.  They are great, and seem to be my new favorite.  As you can see I have added quite a few to my rotation.  One of the things I love about cloth diapers is that I can resell my diapers that don't work and then buy new amazing ones that do.  

Minor face lift to our house

Our first house we bought we remodeled and once we were done we both said "lets not do that again"   and we even finished it a week before our first baby was born.     Here we are again 7 years later.... doing it again.  haha.  I guess time heals all wounds.    Or this was just too good of a lot to pass up.  I mostly loved the yard and field that it came with so the house could be fixed now that we know how to do most of it.   We.... meaning Jared and his brothers and dad.


This is a picture of our house when we moved in.   Yes I know green siding..... it must have been the special or something.   I have been working hard to change the stuff I can change.  So the first thing to go were the tall flowers next to the garage.  I put a board down and planted some small hedges.   I then just put down some weed barrier and bark in the other flower beds for the first summer.  It worked and looked much better.

This summer so far I have been hard at work again changing it up.  It was so hard to mow and weed eat around the big rocks around the flower beds so I pulled the rocks out and put bricks in that make it look a whole lot nicer to me.  It makes it super easy to mow as well.  

This picture you can see on the left side the board.  Then those big rocks I took out.  I also used some of the top soil that was in there to fill in some holes in our lawn we had.  It was great. 

I love the look, I think it makes it look so much cleaner and organized. I also planted strawberries there.  A whole bunch so hopefully in a few weeks they will be full of green plants and red strawberries.  

The next front of the house project was to paint the wood around the front door and the door itself.  They had both seen better days and I had taken forever to sand and scrape all the old paint and dirt off that I could.  

I spent nap time today painting.  It took a long long time but it looks a lot better now.  Not perfect but much better.  

Everything looks better with a fresh coat of paint right?  I feel like its so much better now.  The front is almost all done and fixed up as much as we can without giving our house a major face lift.  (hopefully eventually we can replace the green siding with brick) 

I love seeing change and making things look better.  It makes me feel very accomplished.

My second and much better attempt at dying fabric

I was so afraid to try dying any article of fabric again after my last dyeing experience.  So I researched a little bit more about the dyes and how to have a successful experience.  I got a better brand of dye and some soda ash that helps it to set the color so it won't bleed when its washed.  I joined a dying group on facebook and read their instructions and I felt pretty confident I could do it.... and succeed this time.  

I chose fire red....I love red and I was really hoping it would be a dark enough red to not look pink. I already have a bunch of blue so I thought red would look nice and its still pretty gender neutral.  Here is my white blanket before I dyed it.  I washed it before hand so I was all ready to go.  

You mix the dye color up like it says on the dye label and then pour it in the water.  Then you add the article to be dyed.  Your supposed to stir it continuously for 15 minutes.  Then I added the soda ash to set the color, then you can decide how much longer to keep it in the dye depending on how dark you want the color to be.   I chose as dark as I can, so I let it sit for an hour, stirring continuously.  

It turned out perfect, I love how deep red it is.  I couldn't have asked for better.  I washed it after by itself.  The next time I washed it I washed it with some towels to make sure it wouldn't bleed onto good clothes.  It didn't,  So the soda ash really works well.  

Here are a few more I have done as well, can you tell i'm a little obsessed with dying?   This green one I made for Max and he loved it.  Its an electric green and it is bright.  

This turquoise turned out perfect I love the brightness to it.  The yellow one is ok I wish it turned out a little lighter but its still super cute. 

This one was scary.  When I added the soda ash it turned peachy.  I was so sad because I really really wanted this one to turn out.  After I rinsed it it started to look more pink than peachy.  Then after I washed it,  it came out almost exactly the color I wanted and Lexi immediately claimed it even though I didn't make it for her. haha  I'm glad that she likes it.  

I'm glad I figured out the key to dying is the soda ash to help the color stick.  Its pretty cheap too so that is even better   It has been fun to pick out blankets and colors for my kids and personalize them for what they like.  The kids really like them and I love these blankets I use them for everything baby.  

The truth about Cancer

I have talked about my health journey lately and how I have tried to be healthier in a few ways.  Well I saw this series "The truth about Cancer"  and I was immediately drawn to it.    I have had cancer, yes a milder form but it still scared me.  When you hear those words "You have cancer"   your life changes.    I wanted to learn more about it, and this series was a great opportunity.  I remember when I went to my first Green smoothie girl class she talked about how her brother in law had been diagnosed with Leukemia and went to mexico and learned how to eat and take care of his body and he was cured.  It took a while it wasn't an overnight process.  This was such a personal experience for her because it was family. This also drew me to this series because I had heard about this clinic/hospital down in Mexico.

I loved so much about this.  I learned a lot as well.  If you haven't seen it I would suggest finding a way to watch it.  It made me more aware of the things going on in the health care world.  I have seen some of it since I work at a hospital but there is always more going on than can be seen.  They talk about how chemo and radiation actually makes you in a worse health condition.  It kills everything and makes you weak in the process.  Where as if you treat it with the more natural ways and the right foods, you fuel the good cells, and deprive the cancer cells, fighting it that way.   There are alternatives to curing cancer and being healthier about it.  I  was so intrigued by this.  There are so many herbs and plants that can help us. They were put here for a reason and we just need to learn and find out what ones help do what.   The host went around the world interviewing different doctors, researchers, homeopath doctors, and a whole variety of people, including doctors. Some of the drs have tried to treat people with cancer in a more natural way and they get in trouble with the FDA and other associations.   They all talked about how there are so many better ways to prevent and treat cancer.

After watching this whole series I felt overwhelmed and thought well I will for sure die of cancer because I am doing so many bad things or eating the wrong things.  I felt discouraged and thought there is no way to avoid getting it living how I am living.  I almost thought there is no point in even trying, might as well enjoy life and eat the stuff I like.
I really didn't feel good about that plan and so  I began to think of the things that I am doing good.  I am drinking my green smoothies daily.  That is good, I am getting better nutrition because of it.  I can start here and do little things to improve my life.   I had learned from the 12 steps to eating whole foods that I can't change all at once and make those changes habit.  I need to take steps and improve little by little.  As long as I don't fall back into the trap of eating unhealthy all the time.  As long as I am slowly taking two steps forward, since we all have that occasional step back.

I think the best part about this series is that I am aware of more things that I shouldn't be doing or should be doing to be healthier.  Now slowly changing to adapt my life is another thing.  It will take some time.  I love that my kids are young enough to still be willing to try new things.

So while I know that I can't change overnight I at least think more about ways to change and be healthier.  I am more aware of the toxins and looking for ways to replace those things with more natural ways.  I am trying to cut sugar way down, that is what feeds cancer and actually helps it grow.  I have always known that I need to eat more veggies and I am learning new fun ways to eat them.   I even have found that I like veggies that I thought were gross before.  Its all about trying it in a new way and being willing to try new things.

Children's book review #4

My kids love to read and these have been the best books for them.  They have a little reader that helps them and will read it to them if they push the right button.   This set has some of the disney movie books.  First you pick what book you want to read and push that button then you start with the top color and shape.  Green star is first.  

 This is how the first page looks. It has the pictures and then it has the words and above the words is a shape and color so they can relate it to the reader.  Each page has a new shape and color.  They continue to go down and then into the second column on the reader. 

I have loved these type of books we have three other sets and they kids love them as well because they can do it by themselves.  They also learn how to coordinate the right button with the right page.  

It comes with 8 books and one reader.  The batteries last pretty long considering how much my kids use these.  I have been impressed with them and how the buttons haven't broken yet because my kids seriously read these a lot.  

The lesson learned from a bad hair cut....

How many of you cut your hair after you have a baby?

This is when i was 38 weeks pregnant with my third and its right below my shoulder blades or a little longer.

 I do without fail each time I have.  First baby it was about 6-7 months and I chopped it.  Second baby it was 3-4 months and third baby 3-4 months again.  I let it grow out long in between babies but it must be the loosing half of my hair postpartum that makes me want short hair.

Not the best picture but I did not want any pictures taken with my hair this short it was terrible I couldn't do anything with it except this.  I didn't go anywhere for a while haha.    The only pictures that I have of these few months are of my baby in a carrier.  Those are the only pictures that were taken at all.....

This last time I got it cut back to my normal a line cut which I love because my hair just lays pretty well in that style.  Well it just wasn't short enough for the upcoming summer so I wanted to go a little bit shorter.  BOY OH BOY did she go shorter it was terrible.   I showed up to my friends to pick up my kids after getting it cut and she just looked at me like "What happened?!?"   I just wanted to cry.   I mean yes its just hair but when you have nothing left its worth crying over.   So I had to come up with a new way to wear my hair because it was so bad.

I also discovered with my hair being so short that it didn't lay as nice as it once did.  I had some skin cancer removed from my scalp just a few weeks before and they had to do a little repair on my scalp so now my hair lays funny especially when its super short.  Not exactly how I wanted to find that out.  Its like I constantly have an alfalfa spot on the top back part of my head.  Not cool.....

Anyways  this post is to remind myself that no matter how many good times I remember having a short cute a line hair cut.  DON'T DO IT!   You must keep it at least in a longer A line.  It just doesn't work anymore.

You know how it goes when you have short hair you want long hair and when you have long hair you want short hair.  Its a vicious cycle most women have to go through and deal with.  We have hair envy a lot.

The power of positive thinking.... Believe in yourself!

I bought the book "The power of positive thinking" for Christmas for my husband.  We like to read books together.  I didn't even know there was a book called that and one day I just googled it and it came up.

When I took my hypnobabies home study course for the birth of my 3rd child, I learned more about believing in yourself and really began to believe this more.   Part of the course was to listen to a cd everyday at least once a day that just played 56 minutes of positive affirmations.   This lady on the cd would talk about the whole process of pregnancy and preparing for the birth of your baby and everything positive about it.  She never said anything negative at ALL.   I loved this because personally I was struggling with thinking positive about my future birth and being able to do it naturally.  So this really helped me to believe.

But in order for it to really get into my mind and brain I had to take the words and really believe it.  I had to think them all day.  I really believe that when you hear more and more positive things you start to believe them yourself.  Same thing with negative if you hear negative all the time you start to believe all of it.   This is why its so important to choose the people you associate with and choose the people that will lift you up and build that positive attitude in yourself.

The first chapter in this book and also the first step to positive thinking is to Believe in Yourself.  This may be a hard thing for some people.  They have been told by others or themselves that they can't do it. They can't do hard things.   Whenever my kids say I can't do that its too hard.  I say " You can do hard things!"   We have to believe to make it possible.  I really believe this is true.  I think it is paired with faith though, in the part that you have to actually take action to make it work.

The first chapter in this book talks all about believing in yourself.  "They do not believe that they have it in them to be what they want to be, and so they try to make themselves content with something less that that of which they are capable."  I think we all do this to some degree or another.  We need to push ourselves to be our best self.  Its hard, yes but we can do great things.  
"Attitudes are more important than facts" Dr. Karl Menninger a famous Psychiatrist said.   Attitudes are so important, they play such an important part in our happiness.  You can have the worst of luck and have so many things go wrong but if you have the right attitude and stay positive through it all, you will still enjoy life amidst all of the troubles.

" One of the most powerful concepts, one which is a sure cure for a lack of confidence is the thought that God is actually with you and helping you.  This is one of the simplest teachings in religion. "  "No other idea is so powerful in developing self- confidence as this simple belief when practiced.  To practice it simply say "God is with me; God is helping me; God is guiding me."  I love this because I know that this is true and that God is helping me whether is a good or bad day, He is there.  He knows what I struggle with and what my strengths are.  He knows me better than I know myself.  Just myelf I can do somethings but I just need to remember that with him I can do anything.   That is where self confidence can come from.

I sit here trying to think of an experience I have had where I did something that I had previously thought I couldn't.  My sister has always been a big runner and I liked doing triathlons because I love swimming.  We signed up to do a half marathon together, I have never really liked running until I started training for this half marathon.    I was really good at training for this one because I hadn't had any kids yet so I had time.  Jared would run with me sometimes.  I found it calming and relaxing to go running for long runs.  I began to really like it.   A few weeks before the race I began to feel sick during my runs and I thought oh no.  What is wrong with me?   My race is so soon.
Come to find out I was pregnant with my first baby.   I had some pretty good nausea going on.  This made it really hard to run with.  I was determined to run this race and finish.  The day came and I ran the race and enjoyed it I didn't feel sick until I finished and then I proceeded to throw up.   But I had done it! I finished my first half marathon and I was so proud of my self.  I had done something I didn't think I could ever do.  Run 13.1 miles.  It sure empowered me to do more and have more confidence in myself.

STAY POSITIVE AND BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!!