This is their great new home. We looked all over the internet for an small-ish, affordable coop and stumbled upon a local(ish) guy who builds them.

There is plenty of room for five hens. We started with six but the smallest one didn’t make it. The chicken house has wheels so you can easily move it from place to place in the yard. The ladder can be lifted by pulling the rope from the outside.

The coop has a lamp inside to keep chicks warm while they are small.  It also has a nesting box with a removable panel to collect the eggs.

You can also see the board running down the middle of the coop that they can use to roost on at night. The red in the picture is the light from the lamp.

Pac Man, Princess, Darth Vader, Cheap, and Pigeon love their new home.

Check out the segment the Today Show aired this morning on keeping chicken as pets.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

He is so proud of himself.

He is so smart.

He must have music in his blood.

I am making this for 7 people so if you are making it for less, you will want to scale way back. If you omit the ice you can put leftovers in the fridge to save for later and add a little ice when you are ready to drink it. Because we drink smoothies most every morning, I do this for my late sleeping kid. The one who doesn’t like kale at all *teehee..

Kid Friendly Green Smoothies

1/2 a bunch of kale – stems and all. ( although I think if you take the thicker woodier bits off it tastes better)

1 cup of apple juice

I go ahead and blend it up a little to make room for the other good stuff now.

2 medium bananas

1 pear

a couple of handfuls of green grapes

1/4 of a whole fresh pineapple

1 cup of frozen peaches

1/4 cup coconut – fresh or unsweetened flakes

1-2 cups of ice

Blend again for at least 1 minute, you want to get all the coconut pieces pulverized.

Take a little taste, if it still tastes a little “green” add a little more banana.

ENJOY!

Juliana thinks they are great.

Even my most picky eater loves the green smoothies.

She drank the whole cup and went on to a second one! But she wasn’t about to touch those green beans!!

Because my kids are athletes, I feel like it is even more important that they get high quality, nutrient dense foods. How else will they be able to keep their energy up while their bodies and brains are growing? I have also noticed that they are not as grouchy. Maybe because they are feeling better? Winter is fast approaching and I have been reading a lot about strengthening the immune system. Did you know that sugar is the one most damaging thing to your immune system? It’s a great reason to nix it from our diets. Eating foods that we know we have sensitivities or are allergic to also assaults our immune systems. This article made me realize how important it is to remove the foods that my oldest daughter is allergic to. She has an allergy to corn, which is extremely hard to avoid because it is in everything. She is also allergic to fish, peanuts and dairy to a lesser degree. We gave up on eliminating it because corn is in everything and many times not any any ingredient list. Did you know they use corn in the wash for those pre-washed bagged salads?! She was still having severe reactions so we made the choice to use medications. I would love to get her off of them!

So tell me, what kind of snacks do you keep on hand? Do you let your kids eat “on demand”?

You may not agree but I think the shape of a pregnant belly is beautiful. I am amazed by what God has created our bodies to do.

Our sweet bump finally has a name.

Introducing….Paxton Matteo.  Born July 15, 2010  5:10 p.m. 8 lbs

A word about his name: Pax in Latin means “peace” and Matteo means “gift from God”.

We are so blessed to have this little guy join our family. I am especially thankful that after so many losses that we were able to bring this sweet one home.  If you have been keeping up here, you might remember that I hoped to have a home birth. Unfortunately, I had extremely low iron and at 36 weeks our consulting physician recommended that we return to our OB for the safety of the baby and myself. We followed his advice and I was able to deliver Pax naturally without pain medication and had no complications! Praise God!

Let me not fail to mention Pax is, as of today 10 weeks old. He weighs a hefty 15 pounds. He has each and every one of us wrapped around his beautiful little finger. His feet may never touch the ground.

Incidentally, Payton says quite frequently that he misses my bump.

]]> http://www.suburbangranola.com/2010/09/30/introducing/feed/ 1 http://www.suburbangranola.com/2010/02/07/home-birth/ http://www.suburbangranola.com/2010/02/07/home-birth/#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:03:03 +0000 admin http://www.suburbangranola.com/?p=656 I have been seriously neglecting my blog. And now I don’t even know where to start. Big things have been happening in the Baker home. Most notably our decision to consider having a home birth for our 6th child. I have been searching the internet, asking friends, nurses, pretty much everyone if they know of midwives in the Nashville area. I have found a handful and now we are beginning the process of interviews.
So you might be wondering what in the world would inspire us to make this decision. There are many factors contributing to our wish to home birth. Our first child was born drug-free in a birthing center (not inside of a hospital) and was delivered by a midwife after 26 hours of hard labor. Our second daughter was born in a California hospital after only 3 hours and I had an epidural. The epidural was great, it had cut the pain just enough to give relief but I could still feel what was going on. I was able to get up and walk within an hour of her birth. Our third daughter was born in the same Ca hospital and also with an epidural but this time only half of my body got numb, really numb, and I couldn’t walk for hours after they removed it. They even had to wheel me to the bathroom on a cart. It was humiliating. At that time I figured if we had another child I would do it naturally. I mean why risk the side effects of the epidural if there was a chance that only half of me would be numb? We moved back to Tennessee where our son was born in a hospital, I had wanted that natural birth but was pressured by nurses into getting an epidural. For our fifth child I also wanted to have a natural birth and again was pressured by nurses into getting another epidural. This time I had serious complications from the epidural. My blood pressure plummeted and I had to be given round after round of drugs to keep my heart going. You know things are bad when the anesthesiologist doesn’t leave your side except to call and consult with another anesthesiologist. I was scared, I don’t remember anything about the birth except the feeling of being afraid for my own life. I was in a state of almost blacking out with my heart racing because of the drugs. It was terrifying. I was thinking “I can’t believe I could die and leave 5 kids behind because of a stupid epidural that I didn’t even want!”. I was very worried about what the drugs were doing to my baby. And I was angry. I was angry I was pushed into an epidural, angry no one stood up for me or my wishes for a drug-free birth. Somehow, everything turned out OK. Here is a picture of my big kids meeting their new baby sister for the first time.

Then in 2008, I had a molar pregnancy. It resulted in an emergency D&C. I had to undergo monthly cancer testing for an entire year. We were unable to try for another baby until that year was up. So to be honest, I have become quite phobic of the hospital. It could be post traumatic stress, I don’t know. The thought of going into labor makes me nervous. Not about the labor but about having to go the hospital. I was so nervous at the OBGYN that the last time I was there I forgot to ask some questions and forgot to mention that I have been having contractions already.

My husband had suggested when we first found out that we were expecting that we should “just do it at home”. I kind of laughed at the thought. What if something went wrong? What if the baby was in distress? That was 3 months ago. I have started to think differently.
I had a dream that I had the baby at home, and in the dream I felt very at peace. The dream made me start thinking about our first birth experience. It was very much like being at home. It was calm and peaceful, I wasn’t being forced into anything, no IV, no continuous fetal monitoring keeping me in bed, no beeping monitors, I was able to drink and even eat little bits, no bright blinding lights, I was able to get up and move around as I wished. After she was born she was placed on my chest and she never left my arms reach. We ate, took a short nap and went home within hours of her birth. All of the sudden I found myself longing for that experience again.

So now I am looking for the right midwife. I am not sure what questions I should ask. I am still doing my research.

I would love to hear from any of you who have had home births. What questions did you ask when choosing a midwife? What advice would you give?

One of the best thing about cloth diapers is that I was able to re-use them for the kids born after Adriana. While the up-front cost is quite high, over all I estimate that the initial investment of around $450 on cloth saved me around $ 11, 400 over the course of 4 children!! That’s huge! One of the not-so-nice things is that I had a problem with these particular diapers leaking. Therefore I still had to buy disposables on occasion. I have bought quite a few different types of clothies (coining a new term here, maybe?) but never was 100% satisfied with any of them. After 9 years of usage I felt like my original diapers started to leak all of the time. I was about to give up on them and start using pull-ups because my youngest is now a toddler and mostly potty trained but then I found out about Fuzzi Bunz. These diapers are great. They are an AIO pocket style cloth diaper. I have been using them for months and not had a single leak. They come in perfect fit sizes and also in one size fits all, I especially like the adjustable snap closure. My old ones had velcro and they picked up stuff in the laundry and looked kinda..well, gross. Fuzzi Bunz even come in bright beautiful colors. I mean, how cute is this?

Fuzzi Bunz are also very trim compare to other cloth diapers. Depending on the insert that you insert into the pocket, it can even be as trim as a disposable! (an insert is the most absorbent part of the diaper) Speaking of inserts, there are  many types to choose from out there: hemp, flannel, microterry..my personal favorite is the hemp. Even the thinnest ones make it through the night without leaking even though I tend to have heavy-wetters. Hemp is not only super absorbent but is naturally anti-bacterial often unbleached and without pesticides and also it comes from a renewable resource.

You may be put off thinking that you have to wash these things instead of just tossing them in the trash and being done with it. Let me just tell you that it is really not that bad.  I keep a pail with a lid in the laundry room to keep the soiled ones in (but not before flushing any poop down the toilet) I use a dry-pail method where you just throw the diaper in a pail. I also tried the wet pail method where you soak the diapers in a pail of water while waiting to be washed but this was gross. The water was smelly and then I had to deal with pouring out the nasty water and wringing the diapers before washing. YUCK! You also have to be aware that having a bucket of water is not the safest thing in the world with a curious, mobile baby/toddler in the house. When it comes times to wash I just toss the diaper covers and liners in the same load, and set the washer to a normal cold/cold cycle wash. This helps to make sure that stains and smell does not set in. When that cycle ends I run them through one more sanitizing cycle with an extra rinse. If your washer doesn’t have that cycle you could just run it through the hottest cycle that it has. I only use Charlie’s Soap on my diapers and there is absolutely no smell at all. I have one of those wooden sweater drying racks and dry both the insert and diaper on it in my laundry room. I would prefer to dry them outside on a clothes line in the fresh air and sun but my homeowners association does not permit them.

How many cloth diapers you have and how many your child goes through a day determines how many cloth diapers you will need. For an infant I typically went through 7-9 diapers a day. Newborns can tend to use more but instead of buying more diapers than really needed , I opted to just wash a bit more in the first few weeks. So if I wanted to only wash diapers twice a week I would need about 20- 30 diapers, and for a toddler not yet potty training I would have no less than 20.  For my toddler who is currently potty trained during the day, I only use diapers at nap and bed time so I only have 6 diapers in her size and it works out well.

Not only do we not ever have diaper rash but I can feel good knowing that I am not dumping the 10, 000 diapers my child will use in his/her lifetime into a landfill.  *It is estimated that roughly 5 million tons of untreated waste and a total of 2 billion tons of urine, feces, plastic and paper are added to landfills annually. It takes around 80,000 pounds of plastic and over 200,000 trees a year to manufacture the disposable diapers for American babies alone. Although some disposables are said to be biodegradable; in order for these diapers to decompose, they must be exposed to air (oxygen) and sun. Since this is highly unlikely, it can take several hundred years for the decomposition of disposables to take place, with some of the plastic material never decomposing. The untreated waste placed in landfills by dirty disposable diapers is also a possible danger to contaminating ground water.

Even my husband doesn’t mind using them. Plus its cool to be green!

*http://www.thenewparentsguide.com/diapers.htm

As many of you know yesterday was Earth Day. It got me thinking about the size of our family and the impact we have on the Earth. I am a believer in “every little bit counts”.  I thought up the top things we could do as a family to help preserve the Earth as a heritage to our children and our children’s children. Here is what I came up with:

1. The 3 R’s: reduce, re-use and recycle. I am sure I can think of tons of things we have that I could reduce. Clothing for example. We do reuse most of our clothing though, as hand me downs, much to my children’s chagrin. We still probably have 10 times the amount we need. It sure seems like I was 10 times the amount they should be wearing. I have cloth diapers that have been through 4 of my children. We do recycle but I think we could be more diligent about it. I starting thinking about batteries and about those plastic bags that I get from the grocery store when I forget to take my reusable ones in. I am pretty sure that I use my printer way more than I need to. I will be making a huge listing on freecycle the fist chance I get.

2. Compost our kitchen scraps. I started throwing them all in a garbage can on the back porch. We have an unbelievable 30 pounds in just a few days. And a family of squirrels now camped on our back porch. I would love to do a worm composting homeschool project.

3. Plant a garden. I have this grand idea of creating some of those box beds. I will blog about those as we get them going. I just need to get hubby on board with that. We live on a slab of limestone. When we moved in the builder came to level the back yard but really couldn’t do much since it was a solid slab of rock.  There goes that pool I was dreaming of…And they put in about a 1/2 inch of topsoil. Not much will grow here..Thanks Beazer.

4. Reduce our carbon footprint. Unplug appliances that we are not using. I started wondering about how much electricity things that we leave plugged in use each month. We leave a lot plugged in, our computers, cell phones, t.v’s, cd players, clocks, bread machines. So I did some research. Did you know that your PS3, if left on all year long would produce 10 times its weight in CO2 emessions? Want to know how much the appliances you use will cost you each year? Take a look at the U.S. Department of Energy’s website.

5. Ride our bicycles to our little downtown area instead of driving our car. In our town that really only means cycling to the library and the Dollar General. There is not much else around here. We would like to go further, like to the grocery store but it is about 6 miles on a very dangerous road. Not one I would want my children on. Maybe I can start a petition for Nolensville to put in some bike lanes. Have any of you had any experience with that?

6. Find some great body care products. The only thing I have found that I like is from Little Sprouts, actually I love it. Little Sprouts has none of those dangerous chemicals that Johnson and Johnson’s  products have in them.

7. While potty training Amelia, I vow to use, cloth training pants instead of pull ups. This is going to start next week!! Oh boy!

8. I will finish making the last of the switch to natural cleaners. Honestly, I have not been able to let some things go. I really like Tide. It just works, and smells so good.  I am going to replace it with Charlie’s soap. I have used Charlie’s soap for my cloth diapers and love it. Its cheap, works great, and you shouldn’t need a fabric softener with it. I found an herbal disinfectant that I think is pretty great too.

9. I am slowly getting rid of the plastics in my kitchen. Unless you have been living in a hole you have heard of BPA . Scary stuff, right? And melamine. You know, the polymer all those cute kids plates are made of. The Superman plate is so gone, sorry Payton. Did you know that melamine is made with fermaldahyde? I was absolutely shocked when I found that little nugget of information. I can’t believe I have been feeding my kids off of that. Why don’t we know these things!? I have found a few wooden bowls. I am looking for some aluminum sectioned plates. We have already made the switch to Sigg aluminum water bottles instead of sippy cups. Although I have to say I wish they would come up with a better drinking apparatus on it. And I am looking for a good alternative to sandwich bags. I even found some really cool glass straws.

So there you have it. These are some of things things our family is working toward doing to do our little bit to be green.

Isaiah 45:18 (New International Version)

¹⁸ For this is what the LORD says—
he who created the heavens,
he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited—
he says:
“I am the LORD,
and there is no other.

Generally he is not one of those kids that can fall asleep anywhere. But tonight, he did.

I think I am going to take his cue and hit the hay. My to do list can wait for the morning…again.

After returning home from a week-long journey to a winter wonderland full of friends, ice fishing, skiing and lots of dirty clothes… I DID NOT totally freak out because my washer refused to work.

And to amuse myself with something other than laundry to do, I DID NOT decide to make carrot juice, and carrot cake… My husband did NOT try to put the peels down the garbage disposal only to convince it not to work anymore either.  Husband DID NOT take apart the disposal only to wipe up chunk laden water with bath towels which he stuck in a bowl in the sink of the laundry room to be washed later. With the chunks still in them but hidden in the folds! No not HIM!

When I took a shower this morning my children DID NOT decorate my son’s face with marker. Nope not my kids!

Despite round the clock cleaning, every room in my house DOES NOT look like a bomb (or 5) went off in it. I am NOT losing my mind.

When the repair woman came she DID NOT find the problem with the washer only to be a jammed button… sigh.

I DID NOT decide the first load of laundry that I put in would be the carrot peel chunk laden towels in the bowl in the sink.

And I also did not spend the last 30 minutes vacuuming out my washing machine! Nope NOT ME!!