Daddy Bird and the babies went to spend the night at his parent's house tonight.
Yep. You read that right.
BOTH baby birds went with their Daddy Bird and left me in the nest ALONE.
Cue the Hallelujah Chorus.
Oh my word, I have such a conflicted desire to get a ton of things done around here, and sit on the couch and do nothing.
I plan on being productive tomorrow, but tonight I have a date with the couch, the TV and the computer.
In other news, did you watch Smash last night? I'm thinking it's going to be worth watching.
I'm reading The Omnivore's Delimma right now, by Michael Pollan. I'll give y'all a review when I'm finished. I'll say this - it's got me thinking A LOT about my food and where it comes from, and what goes into producing it.
I'm going to sleep in tomorrow.
Did anyone else just HAVE to be outside today? I'm enjoying this warm weather immensely.
I'm going to clean my house tomorrow.
We have 2 baby calves on the ground! I need to get some photos for y'all. They are pretty cute.
I was just thinking about this time last year. I was preggers:
With this one:
Oh my word she is almost 10 months old!
Did I mention I'm sleeping in tomorrow?
Hey, y'all.
Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I'm in a bit of a bloggy funk I guess! I've got lots to say, and lots on my mind, but not much time to blog. I'm also short on photos, and posts are more fun with photos.
Enough excuses!
So, I'm a bit of a make-up and hair product junkie. Between Christmas gifts, Christmas money, and a recent trip to Sephora where I let a "fancy" man put make-up all over my face, I've been loving on some new, and not so new beauty products! Let me show you what I'm loving:
First up, High Definition Foundation from Make Up For Ever.
Wow. This stuff is great! My 31 year old skin is starting to look a little not so great these days. I'm not sure if it's just my age, or nursing, or pregnancy or a combo of the afore mentioned, but this foundation does the trick! It has great coverage without feeling or looking heavy, and a little goes a looong way. It's going to run you a bit more than your drug store brand, but it's well worth the extra cash. It looks especially great when applied over:
Mattifying Pomegranate Primer from Korres.
I had never tried a primer before and I was given a sample at Sephora. A very large sample thank goodness! I had never tried a primer before but man oh man I do love it. It all but makes my pores disappear, and that's been a major issue for me lately. I'm going to be pretty sad when this sample runs out and I actually have to spring for a tube of this little baby.
Next,
My new foundation goes on even more smoothly when I use the foundation brush from this set:
Professional Airbrush Set from Sephora.
I went a little wild at Sephora. Christmas money was burning a hole in my pocket.
I had never used a brush to apply foundation and I love it! It really does make my skin look super smooth.
Speaking of smooth, my hair is anything but. Y'all have seen the curly mop that is my hair. My hair is so dry and frizzy, I HAVE to use some sort of product every time I style it. Daddy Bird's Aunt Janie is a beautician and she introduced me to this little combo of moisture for my dry locks:
Farouk Royal Treatment Pure Hydration Shampoo by Chi and,
Chi Silk Infusion leave in treatment.
These are not new products, but they are new to me. I think they've made my hair less dry and more shiny. I really love the Silk Infusion, and it's great whether I'm leaving my hair curly or attempting to straighten it (why do I bother?).
Another hair product I love is:
Aveda Be Curly Curl Enhancer.
I love, love Aveda products, and this one has been great for taming the curls. It's lightweight and not crunchy. Love it.
Here's one my Mom in Law gets all the credit for,
Ultra Balm, baby.
Ok, this one is a splurge. If I was not given this as a gift, I may not buy it for myself, but, a little does go a long way, and it is really, really great stuff. My heels are nasty dry. This stuff, along with a daily rasping with the trusty Ped Egg, is slowly softening the nastiness. Sorry to be so graphic, but it's really bad. As in, the Boy Birdie touched my heel a few months ago and said "ouch! Mommy you cut me with your foot!" Ahhh, from the mouths of babes.
To top off my pedicure, I love
Essie nail polish.
I love that I can pick up Essie at Target and even some Wal Marts now. I love Essie's colors and I feel like the durability of the polish is excellent. I'm really hard on polish, you know, with the cows and all. I actually worked cattle in my last manicure with Essie and didn't get a single chip. Now that's sayin' something.
Here's a little trade out I learned recently. I'm a HUGE fan of Lancome's Hypnose Mascara. Like, I wear it everyday. If I was stranded on a desert island I would take my Hypnose. Well, in December I ran out of the stuff (AAAKKK!) and I thought I was probably getting some for Christmas so I didn't want to buy any. I decided to try this $5 beauty
Maybelline Falsies Flared Mascara
Dang if it's not a good substitute! I'm going to keep buying this stuff. What a steal.
There are my current favorite beauty finds. What are yours?
OH, PS, None of these are paid endorsements, duh! None of these companies could give a crap about how I feel about their products, I just wanted to share with y'all!
This is John.
You'll have to excuse the quality of these photos, as John is kind of an elusive guy. Not the type that's going to cheese for the camera.
John is the wonderful man who happens to own the farm that Daddy Bird and I recently began renting to graze our mama cows and baby calves. They get to live here and have their babies here until the babies are weaned and we take them to the other farm to "finish".
John is in his mid-80s and until this past September, this farm was John's dairy farm. He and his family moved to this land in the mid 1940's and he's been milking ever since. That kind of dedication blows me away, because, y'all, being a dairy farmer is tough business!!
John's "retirement" from dairy farming worked out really well for us because we were able to move our mamas here to this beautiful place.
They love it here, let me tell you!
John is an amazing landlord as well. He checks on our cows every day and feeds them hay when we can't get out to do it.
Maybe at some point I'll get John to smile for the camera but until then, this is what you get
Have a great week!
I have a confession to make. I LOVE hot dogs.
I realize some of you may be throwing up in your mouth at the thought of eating a hot dog, so I'm sorry. But I really do like them.
Bratwurst too. And Knockwurst. And any other type of wurst or sausage or hot dog like thing you can put on a bun.
I'm a bit of a hot dog snob though. I will not eat just any hot dog. I don't like the cheapie ones. I will pay a bit more for the good hot dogs. It's worth it.
I know they are "not very healthy".
I know we "don't really know what's in them".
I know they are probably full of "leftover parts".
(I'm picturing Chris Farley here in all his "Matt Foley Motivational Speaker" glory)
But hot dogs are tasty folks, so go ahead and embrace them.
Here's a recipe I've enjoyed for years, thanks to our family friends Bruce and Karen Dungan. The Dungans make their famous Hot Dog Chowder at group gatherings when the weather gets cool. It's a great, tasty way to feed a crowd, or just your family, and it's really budget friendly. I'm not going to lie and say it's really healthy, because it's not. But it's not too bad either.
If you're lucky, it's a good way to get your kiddos to try some veggies as well. I made this the other night and the boy birdie ate vegetables he normally would not. Probably by accident, but who cares, right?
Here's the recipe, courtesy of Karen and Bruce Dungan:
2 cups diced raw potatoes
1 (10 oz.) pkg. frozen mixed vegetables (I use a little extra)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 Tbs. snipped parsley (can use fresh or dried)
2 chicken bouillon cubes
3/4 tsp. salt
8 oz . hot dogs, thinly sliced (5-6 hot dogs)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp. white pepper (or regular black pepper)
3 cups milk
2 Tbsp butter or margarine
In a saucepan, combine potatoes, vegetables, onion, parsley, bouillon cubes and salt. Add 1 cup water; bring to boiling. Cover and boil gently for 15 to 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add hot dog slices. Blend flour, white pepper and milk. Stir into vegetables; bring to simmer. Cook and stir 2 minutes more. Add butter or margarine (you could leave this out to cut calories, but I usually don't. Come on!). Top servings with paprika and serve.
So how do you feel about hot dogs? Love them? Hate them? Try this soup and you might learn to love them!
Happy New Year...a few days late!
I'm still here, just too busy lazy to upload photos from my camera to my computer and y'all need to see some pictures for my posts to be interesting, right?
I'll be back in the next couple of days, I promise.
In the meantime, here are a few happings from here at the nest:
- We were all sick over Christmas. Like, sick for 3-4 weeks. Merry Christmas to us.
- Our first calf of the year was born! Pictures to come.
- The girlie bird is 9 months old! Can you believe it! She is all. over. the. place.
- The boy birdie got 1.4 million tractors and other farm paraphanalia for Christmas. Tractors are all. over. the. place.
- Winter is upon us. Remember my boot problem from a few months back? It's about to reach an all time high (or low). I dug a chunk of what I am telling myself was dirt (ahem) out of the girlie bird's mouth the other day. I don't have to tell you whose boots that came from. Hint - they weren't mine.
- Daddy Bird did take the kids to his parents' place the other day so I could spend a little quality time cleaning the nest. 6 hours of "me time" later, I can now say my home is presentable.
- I've got some new recipes for you. One involves hot dogs.
- The basement is so close to being finished I can hardly stand it.
Ok, enough updating!
I'll be back soon, promise.
One of my favorite childhood memories of Christmas was setting up the nativity every year. We had one with lots of pieces: shepherds, wise men, lots of animals, and a stable that my dad made (I think) probably before I was born. I loved arranging the figures in the stable.
Until this year, the only nativity we had was a little one my mom gave us when we lived in our trailer in Alabama.
It's so cute, but I'd been thinking that we needed something a little larger, and maybe something with more pieces.
My Aunt Sue and Uncle David (Big D) came over for dinner last week and brought us a wonderful, wonderful Christmas gift! A new nativity set!
I'd had my eye on this nativity from Willow Tree and Aunt Sue read my mind. I love it!
The little sheep are so cute.
And the donkey with his floppy looking ears:
And this is my favorite part:
In so many nativity scenes, the baby Jesus is shown in the manger, but in this scene, Mary is holding him. I love that! You mamas out there know Mary probably spent a great deal of time in those first few days just holding, feeding and loving on her little baby. It just makes this nativity all the more sweet to me.
Do you have a special nativity scene in your house?
Daddy Bird was out checking on our weanling calves last week and snapped a few pictures. It was really interesting to see how much these calves have grown since they were born!
I'm going to do a little comparison for y'all with the pictures taken when they were born in March. Keep in mind these calves were raised on their mothers' milk and grass.
Here's a little Angus Charolais cross steer wading in the creek at about a week old.
Here's the same steer at approximately 9 months and 600 lbs!
Here's a little black and white faced cutie.
Here's the same steer now! Not quite as cute.
This photo was taken the day this little lady was born.
This is her today. Her Mama is always the first cow to greet us when we come out to move them to a new pasture. We're thinking about keeping her to breed next year.
This is my favorite calf of the whole bunch. The red calf in the front.
Here she is today. I'm keeping this one whether Daddy Bird wants to or not.
It's amazing to me how much these calves have grown in almost 9 months. We'll do another comparison at a year.
Next year's calf crop should start arriving in 3 months or so!
