Friday, March 21, 2014

Homemade {easy} Refried Beans

I've been trying to get into more real, unprocessed, non-boxed foods and one thing we love in this family is Mexican food! So I googled a few recipes for refried beans and sort of combined a few and tweaked one to fit our tastes. Plus, one bag of beans is around $2.00 and makes about as much as 6-8 cans of store bought refried beans. 

Ingredients:
1 bag of pinto beans
2 tbsp minced garlic
enough water to cover the beans
lime juice
1/2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp garlic salt
1 tbsp onion powder
taco seasoning

Put the beans and minced garlic in the crockpot. Put enough water in the beans to cover them, plus about an inch, they'll soak it all up.


I let the cook for about 8 hours on low and then sit overnight to cool.


The next morning I dumped them into a big bowl and put the seasonings in and use my mixer to mash it up. I chose this taco seasoning from the refrigerated section in produce because it was the most natural one I could find. It took awhile to mix it all up because there was so much. 


I made enough for like 3 dinners so I separated them and froze them.

I hope you'll try it out! Have a great weekend!



Tuesday, March 18, 2014

My crunchy transition! Part 2


As I type this I have a mouth full of coconut oil and saliva. I'm trying my best to keep it in my mouth and swish it around for 20 minutes. It really is as difficult as it sounds. I'm doing what is called "oil pulling". 
 
 

Oil pulling is supposed to be beneficial for a few different reasons. The first big reason I'm doing it is to whiten my teeth. Since I've started drinking coffee almost daily for the last 2 years my teeth have gotten some yucky looking stains. Another reason I do it is because I have really bad gums and they bleed easily and oil pulling has been known to help with that. And the last reason I do it is because it's been known to pull the nasty toxins out of your mouth, who doesn't need to do that?

Have you ever done it? What do you think?



Monday, March 17, 2014

Giveaway WINNER!

The winner of the Target giftcard is Elena Istomina!! She has been emailed and has 24 hours to reply or a new winner will be chosen! Thank you so much to everyone who entered and shared my giveaway.



Friday, March 14, 2014

Homeschooling

This post might be a jumble because I'm just so confused but feel like I need to write it out and hopefully get some advice. I feel like my heart is pulling me towards homeschooling but my mind is telling me Lyla may flourish and grow more in traditional schooling. 

I'm just so tired of all the germs. I'm tired of all of us being sick. No matter what I do at least one of us has been sick since September and I'm not exaggerating. It's been ridiculous. I'm tired of mean girls and parents who don't teach their kids how to be respectful of other kids and parents that really don't act any better. I try to teach my kids that you won't always like everyone you meet in life but that you really should be nice to everyone. Lyla is in a private preschool that has a board committee and the people on the board think that they are all high and mighty. I have had several issues with the board president. I'm also starting to have issues with the teacher. I swear, today she spent 1/3 of the short amount of the school day gossiping with the board president.

But then I have the feeling in the back of my mind that I don't have the confidence or smarts to do it.. Especially in math and science.

Do you homeschool? Why or why not? What are your thoughts on homeschooling?



Tuesday, March 11, 2014

My crunchy transition! Part 1

When I was pregnant with Buck I discovered a blog that I really liked that featured the more "crunchy" side of living and as I read more and more, I loved it more and more! The first thing I decided I just *had* to do was cloth diaper! Those things are not cheap so I knew I had to start searching and researching them right away! Don't get me wrong though, you can find some great deals and you only really need about 20ish. I bought a variety of them to try also. I think I spent around 150-200$ which definitely beats the average 2000$/year for 2-3years.

For us prefolds/covers don't work well because I need to be able to put them on quickly since my little man has always squirmed a lot for diaper changes. We tried AIO's (all in one) and maybe it was just the brand but they seemed to fit him weird. I also didn't like how long they take to dry either. For us, our favorites are pocket diapers, especially Sunbaby brand. We have tried a few of the more expensive ones like Bumgenious, etc. but I personally don't think they're any better. I also love almost all of Sunbaby's prints!




See! How cute are these!

For more info on each type of diaper and washing, etc check out this site.





Monday, March 10, 2014

Skin troubles



My poor little man has had extreme dry skin practically from birth.. I had thought at first that maybe it was just from having to be underneath those UV lights for so long because of jaundice. But it just kept getting worse and he started developing some patches (some were bad patches) of eczema. When it started itching so much that it would bother him in his sleep I knew it was time to see a dermatologist. We had tried so many OTC lotions, prescription hydrocortisone and another prescription for a steroid cream, that one helped but had to be applied several times a day and went dairy free for awhile.

When we got the appointment for the dermatologist I really figured that they would look at him and write us another prescription. Instead they looked at him and said it was one of the worst cases of extreme dry skin/eczema they had seen on someone that little in a long time. So, they wrote us a prescription, gave us a coupon for a skin renewing lotion, some samples of dove soap and told us to bathe him almost every day and put prescription stuff on the really bad spots and cover him in the lotion. And then told us they want us to see a specialist. I'm so nervous about this! 

Have you dealt with extreme dry skin or ezcema? What have you tried? Did it work?



Friday, March 7, 2014

New look and a GIVEAWAY!!!

I am so excited!! My super awesome friend Lacey from Little Miss Nerd Girl took my blog look dreams and gave it a makeover! I love love love it! It has my favorite colors, favorites pictures (when you click on the kids pics it takes you to all the posts they've been tagged in!!!) and just an all around classy, cleaner look! And to celebrate I want to give one lucky reader a 25$ giftcard to my favorite place on earth... The Red Circle Boutique, a.k.a. Target! I will announce the winner on Monday the 17th!
Good luck and have a great weekend!