We have had a couple of people ask how to make my burp rags which we showed a few days ago. I will try to explain but I don’t have the camera for pictures so I hope I can make it clear without them. They are really easy to do but may not sound that way in trying just to describe them. It is pretty much like just adding a binding to something.

Burp Rags Border

Cut a strip of fabric the width of your diaper plus 1/2 in. and 2 1/2 inches* wide.

If you diaper is 12 inches wide your strip will be 12 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches.

Fold each short side of strip under 1/4 in and press.

With right sides together sew strip to diaper using 1/4 in. seam allowance.

Press the raw edge of strip under 1/4 in.

Fold strip in half and over to other side of diaper and stitch edge. I hand stitched it down but you could just top stitch it if you want. This would be a good place to use decorative stitiching too if you wanted too.

Don’t forget to whip stitch the ends too.

* I used 2 1/2 inch strips which gave me a 1 inch border on each side but you could make it as wide as you want 3, 4, 5 inches etc. I just liked that size because I could use some of my smaller scraps.

Jill

1lb fresh sugar snap or snow peas

1 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1/2 cup ham or bacon, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 tsp. dried thyme

salt and pepper

Cook peas until crisp tender, 3-5 mins. Heat oil in a skillet adding rest of the ingredients and saute for about 2 minutes. Drain peas and add to skillet and saute 2 mins more.  Salt and pepper

Here’s another pea salad my mom use to make all of the time. You can use can peas, fresh or frozen they just need to be cooked and cooled.

Mama’s Pea Salad

2 -3 cups peas

1/2 -3/4 cup American or cheddar cheese, small cubes

Add one to two spoons full of Miracle Whip or mayo to coat for a dressing. You can pretty much use as much as you like. You could also only use 1 cup of peas and add chopped lettuce to make the salad too.

This is one of those recipes where you can use as little or as much of the ingredients as you want. If you have a  half of cup of peas left from dinner then mix with lettuce and cheese to use up your leftover peas.

Jill

Well, we decided to put up the pool. The kids have used it 2 days and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!!

If we can just figure out how to do the chemicals then I think we will be fine. We were able to use the well water so that saved us $40 filling it up with the rural water.

So can anyone explain what chemicals we need? I keep hearing baking soda and regular bleach but how do you use it? Do you dump a gallon of bleach in when the chlorine needs a boost?

I’m going to try and ask on poolforum.com and see if they can help but if anyone knows what we should do any info. would be great!

BTW, we have put a bucket of water in front of the ladder so the kids have to rinse their feet before getting in. We also are putting the cover on every night, which is a pain in the rear but has kept the bugs out so far!

Tawra

Here’s what we have now.

ph 8.4

alkalinity 180

hardness 1000

chlorine 1

acid stabilizer 30-50

This is a very versatile dessert. It is great for this time of year when we want lighter and easy desserts but the green and red and ease of it make it great for Christmas too so you might want to file it with your Christmas desserts also.

This recipe calls for frozen strawberries but if you want to use fresh just chop fresh strawberries up and sprinkle with a little sugar. Let set overnight for a few hours and they will produce the juice that you need in the recipe.

The strawberry sauce can be used to make strawberry sauce any time for things like short cake etc. It is much cheaper then buying it in the packets and tastes so much better. You can make any kind of berry sauce you want with the strawberry sauce below.

No baking and quick. Does it get any better?

Jill

Kiwi Lime Strawberry Dessert

1 large angel food cake, cubed (about 12 cups)

2 (6 oz) containers of custard vanilla yogurt

2 tsp. grated lime peel

1/4 cup lime juice

1 (8 oz) container whipped topping

6 kiwi, peeled and sliced (use your egg slicer to cut your kiwi)

Strawberry Sauce

2 (10 oz) pkg. frozen strawberries in juice

2 tsp. cornstarch

Arrange 1/2 of cake cubes in a ungreased 13×9 pan. Mix lime peel, juice and yogurt. Fold in whipped topping. Spread half on cake cubes, pressing down to smooth. Arranged kiwi over it. Repeat cake and yogurt mix pressing down. Lightly cover and chill several hours.

Cut dessert into squares and top with sauce. Store in fridge.

Sauce:

Drain strawberries and place juice in a saucepan. Stir in cornstarch blending well. Bring to boil stirring constantly. Remove from heat and cool. Stir in strawberries.

Well, I went to the doc yesterday and the hospital.

At the docs office everything looked great. My protein is low, blood pressure low and I’m 1 cm dilated. (I was hoping for 3 or 4. :-)  I’m 36 weeks but measuring 40. He also dropped about 5 days ago so there’s a reason I feel like he’s going to fall out any day. :-).

The doc was very surprised because he said he doesn’t often see proteins go down once they are up.  So everything looked great and the prayers must be working. He said he thought another 2 weeks, I told him I thought a week - 10 days so we will see.

Then at 4p.m. I started having contractions. Nothing new for me so I ignored them until 5 when I had to stop and breathe through them.  I started timing them and they were 5 minutes apart.  By 6:30 they were 2 mins. apart and hurting pretty bad so I got in the tub. (This was after drinking a bunch of water and changing positions etc.)

While I was in the tub they still didn’t stop so we called mom to come and we headed to the hospital. Sure enough I was having strong ones 2 mins. apart but I wasn’t dilating.  Well, come to find out I had a urinary tract infection.  They said sometimes that can put you into early labor so it’s a good thing I came in.  Even though I was still having contractions they gave me benadryl, tylenol and a lortab so I decided to go ahead and come home around 10:30.  This morning I’m having a few but not many so they have slowed way down.

It’s funny because I had some antibiotics for a bad cold I’ve had for 2 weeks but I never took them because I thought I was getting better. If I would have taken them  I wouldn’t have had to do all this! Oh well, at least we know where we are going when I do go into labor.

I’m pretty worn out today but hopefully after some sleep and antibiotics I will start feeling better in a day or two.

As for names we have pretty much decided to call him Jack but we don’t have an official name for him yet.

Tawra

Sometimes I think I understand everything,

Then I regain consciousness. : )

Jill

We just needed some burp cloths and we would be all ready for the baby. I really like the look of these but the material is always so rough on their cheeks and gives them a rash. Even the 100% cotton unless it’s really soft it will give them a rash.

I wanted a “pretty” burp cloth since that is one thing you use and see all the time. Most of the store bought “pretty” ones are too rough and there is no way I would pay that much for some anyway. I prefer cloth diapers which seem to work much better and are softer on their skin.

Well I almost succumbed and bought something with my swagbucks gift cards. We have spent less than $100 (around $50 or so) on ALL our baby stuff so I thought I would splurge and get me some new burp “pretty” burp cloths.

Well, a reader (Thanks Gina!) said she had some cloth diapers that she never used and would be happy to send them to me. When they got here mom put a pretty border so now I have my “pretty” but very practical and not scratchy burp cloths!!

So now Baby No-Name K can come any day!! Ok, well, another 1-2 weeks would be better but I’m ready nonetheless!

Tawra

I kept these simple because I was hurrying to do them but you could make them even fancier by adding lace if you are doing them for a girl or using small rick rack.  If you have any little silk roses you could put those on the corners. The sky really is the limit. I did try to be careful because I didn’t want anything to rub on him or make a bump on him.

I did them in those colors because Tawra really doesn’t like “baby” colors so you could make them to match a nursery or to the mom’s color preference.

Jill

This is another one of the interview questions that went along with last weeks.

What are a difference between being cheap and being frugal? Explain.

It has a couple of different definitions. Let me start with being frugal. To me being frugal is just being a wise steward of the money or anything that God gives you. To take those things and stretch them getting the most and best use out of them that you can.

Cheap can be two different things. First it can mean searching and looking out to find the very best buy and price on something which helps you to be a wise steward or frugal. There is nothing wrong with that.

An example of this would be going out to dinner with your family. You maybe found some great coupons and specials you can you use, you all order water to drink and end up having a meal for 4 for $10.

The second can mean being stingy, not generous and at times unfair. None of these I condone. Now using that same example above with you all eating for $10 but you only give the waitress a $1.00 tip. Yes you are giving her 10% of what the meal was but she gave you service of a $50.00 meal. That makes it a case of you being stingy, ungenerous, and unfair.

Jill

With warm weather here my butter always goes beyond soft and usually turns to liquid just sitting on my counter so years ago I started placing my butter in the top of my butter dish, using the bottom for a lid in the summer. Then in the winter I use it the normal way.

If you don’t have soft butter or are like me and store it in the freezer, sometimes I need it right away and it is too hard so I use a potato peeler to shave off thin peels. It softens right away.

If you have unexpected company or need a quick dessert and don’t have a thing on hand, make up some Jello (most everyone has a supply of that). Instead of adding the cup of cold water like the package says add 1-1-1/2 cups of ice cubes and stir for a minute or 2 dissolving the ice. The ice cubes won’t completely dissolve but that is okay just keep stirring until it thickens up a little. Then place in fridge to finish getting thick. It thickens twice as fast and will be ready by the time the meal is over. Serve with whipped topping or cut up fresh fruit on top even a simple cookie would be nice.

Don’t toss the ice cubes pieces that are left. Give them to the kids. My brother and I would fight over who got the ice from the jello because they tasted so good with that little bit of jello coated on it.

Jill

I hope you all have a great Memorial Day. Have a great time barbecuing or camping but at the same time please be sure to take time and remember why we celebrate this day and take a moment to honor all the service men; our own family members, friends and in some cases forefathers who gave so much for us. Please don’t take their sacrifices for granted and lightly. Teach your children what this day means. Without their sacrifices we wouldn’t be having the freedom to have our barbecues and do all the wonderful things we freely get to do each day.

One of our readers (Rose) asked if we would mention that you all might enjoy the PBS Memorial Day concert on Monday night so you might try to watch it.

Have a great day and our hats go off to all of our sevicemen, vets and their families. Saying thank you doesn’t begin to let you know how much we appriciate you.

THANKS TO YOU ALL!!!!!!!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!!

Jill