the fantabulous 7 year old birthday girl Morgan

 The birthday girl's big day started out with a birthday breakfast complete with peanut butter and jelly muffins, that were requested for the occasion.  I got the recipe here.  The kids love them!

 Our new 7 year old has grown into the most helpful big sister, who especially dotes on Gabi.  She is also so fun and is hilariously funny with a quick wit. 

 

 She is simply glowing in this picture. 

When asked what she wanted to do to celebrate her birthday, she came up with all sorts of plans which changed by the minute.  But she finally settled on dinner with family at Red Robin and a game of bowling after!  So that's what we did. 

 

Jeremy and his Dad, who we've enjoyed spending some extra time with these past couple weeks while Anita is out of town and they are waiting for their new house to be completed any day now!  

The Most Adorable Giggle Award goes too....

There is just nothing quite like a baby's whole-hearted giggle!  Levi has the cutest laugh, I think, of any of our babies... it's infectious to say the least. 

Launching Next Month!

Hello blog friends!  I'm super excited to say that a brand new blog is in the works and will hopefully be ready to be launched around the 5th anniversary of Bacon TidBits in October...  a friend of mine is designing it for me, and I love, love, love it so far.  It will be a completely new address (to give our family more privacy) that I will give out when the time comes... stay tuned! 

But tell me, if you will...

1. Is there anything you'd like to see more of?
2. Do you have any great ideas for me?
3. Anything else you'd like to share with me?

Thanks bunches ~ Amanda

Fall, Glorious Fall!

a few of my favorite things

 A couple weekends ago, Jeremy made this amazing shelf complete with a vintage paint job from this plan over at Ana White's website! 

http://ana-white.com/2011/07/numbered-cubbies-wall

 

You see, we had boxes of herbal tea falling out of a tiny shelf in a cupboard in the kitchen and it was time for a new place to store the tea.  I'd been eying this plan for some time and was so happy he offered to build it and had the idea to stash the tea in Mason Jars in it too!  

The only thing I did was paint the numbers on with a paint pen, after I printed out numbers 1-8 in Times New Roman so they were 3" tall, cut them out and traced them on.  Then he sanded the project some more to make the numbers not look so "new."  Love it!!! 

 Another favorite these days is my go-to "sweet" treat!  

When you're eating the way I've had to be eating for the last 12 weeks, you'd be racking the ol' brain for things that mimic that old sweet taste you once loved.  Well, this smoothie fits the bill and I have one nearly every day with new variances.  

Today's smoothie loved me right back!  I set my cup down after gulping a huge amount and noticed that the lone ice cube that was left after blending was in the shape of a heart!!   I love you too, daily smoothie of mine. :)  

Here's how to make a no sugar-added/no dairy smoothie that will love you right back:

Add the following to your blender:

1 banana 

6 or so ice cubes

1 cup of almond milk

1/2 t. vanilla

2 spoonfuls of almond butter

1 T unsweetened cocoa powder

some cinnamon

Blend and love!

Today was the first time I tried it with almond butter... sometimes I add unsweetened coconut flakes too.  YUM!  I discovered these a few weeks back when I was dying for something chocolatey, but couldn't have the chocolate and was experimenting with the blender.  I hope you try it and like it. 

 Wowza.  Since the temperature in the greenhouse has been getting down into the 40's, (brrr) Jeremy harvested the rest of the tomatoes yesterday and brought them in... I'm sure some of them will continue to ripen up... but the rest... Fried Green Tomatoes anyone?  I think they are so beautiful. 

Any my final favorite thing is my sweet sleeping 3 year old Annika Scarlet.  

Tonight she fell asleep before Jeremy and I came down to tuck the big kids in.  She was just too precious to pass up a photo op.  We love you so much, little one! 

reusable unbleached coffee filters!

 Jeremy and I have been wanting to switch over to unbleached coffee filters for a long time now.  Why have coffee with leached in bleach floating around in it?  Blech.  

We hadn't bought any unbleached (brown) filters because we hadn't found a good price on them, and plus, we didn't have coffee all that often.  But when I saw a picture of a homemade/sewn coffee filter (sold for $7) made out of unbleached heavy cotton, I knew I had to try to make some!  

Above is the pattern I made using one of our cone-shaped filters. (our last one!)  I used a plastic sheet protector to cut the pattern out of and laid the filter on the fold just like my paper filter had. 

 

I bought 1/4 yard of the fabric that was in the utility section of the fabric store... and paid a whopping $1.50 for it.  (I think I had an extra coupon for it.)

 It was enough to make 4 filters. 

I sewed them up the best I could and have used them twice and think they're great!  I read that all you have to do is dump the grounds afterwards, then rinse the filter with cold water and air dry.  The coffee will eventually stain the filter a darker brown.  But I have 3 more waiting to go in the cupboard as needed.  Pretty nifty, I'd say!   If I were to do it again, I'd make them a bit taller compared to a paper filter... that way you're sure the fabric won't buckle from the weight of the water and fold down into the coffee grounds since the fabric doesn't stick to the sides of the coffee maker the way paper does. 

 

greenhouse bounty

 

 Each summer, I usually do a few posts about our garden and how much work Jeremy does to make it so amazing - but this year he decided to "rest" the soil as is recommended by the gardening world and even the Bible talks about growing for 6 years then resting on the 7th.  This year was that year!  And thankfully so, because it would have been a hard summer trying to keep up with two babies and have Jeremy out tending the garden each night.  So instead of growing the whole garden, he continued to improve his greenhouse growing skills.  The only plant he continued to grow outside in the garden this year was potatoes.  

green pepper

hungarian yellow peppers

tomatoes

pickling cucumbers

(Though he also grew regular cucumbers... but they were all harvested at this point.)

red and white potatoes

He also grew a yummy assortment of herbs including basil, parsley, and lavendar.  

Until next year when we hope to have the full garden in full swing... 

Keepin' it Real and Simple

Our first two weeks of school have come and gone, and I'm very pleased to say that we are finally doing for school the things I've dreamed about over the last several years.  Our days are simple and not hurried, as we try to keep everyday wonder the forefront of our times together.  Here are a few snapshots of the first two weeks...  mind you, these don't include the time when I cried the first day of school because of a frustration, and this (thank goodness) doesn't include pictures of the massive, I talking MASSIVE pooptastrophy involving a certain baby during naptime also on the first day of school. 

 A day this week I decided that right after breakfast when Levi and Gabi were still in their highchairs, would be a good time to try out the "pat mats" I saw in Family Fun magazine.  Just fill a large plastic Ziploc 3/4 full of water, add some small toys or interesting things, get out as much air as possible, seal, and tape shut. 

This kept their attention for a while, then I had them switch bags...  but the fun ended after a while when they discovered that you could bite the bag and make tiny holes in them adding to the fun by spraying droplets of water all over their trays! 

 One morning on their break time outside, the kids found this cute little frog!  

He was affectionately named

Frisco Freddy Hops-a-lot

and lived on our kitchen counter in the bottom of a jar filled with a bit of water, grass, a fly and a spider just in case he got hungry. 

 Forts seemed to be the "in' thing this week with our kids, and this particular day they worked on some schoolwork inside the biggest tent, then I came in to read the chapter book we're working on and some Shel Silverstein poems and we did our study of Norman Rockwell's art lit by a flashlight.   This is the good life!

Debt-Free Adoptions

The question was asked in the comments by Torie:


"I am wondering if you have advice/information on how to adopt without going into debt?"

That is a great question, Torie, and I'd love to answer it!


Both of our adoptions were/will be debt-free adoptions.  For the sake of privacy and following our state's protocol, I'll not specify in this post, which child goes to which adoption - but one of ours was a private/independent adoption finalized with a lawyer without agency involvement and the other was a foster-adopt situation.

Our independent/private adoption was a word-of-mouth adoption.  We told everyone we could think of across the country that we wanted to adopt -- let's make a long story short and say that 9 months later, we heard about our soon-to-be baby!  Or should I say they heard about us.   In that 9 month wait (which could have been a wait of any amount of time, since we were advertising ourselves and there was no guarantee...) we got our homestudy completed, and that cost under $800, which was due in two payments that we made straight out of savings.  Then we had fingerprinting, background checks, etc... to pay as well.  To save up funds to pay our attorney fees eventually, (we still hadn't heard of our baby, but that all would happen just days later!)  which ended up being under $3,000 - we held a fundraiser garage sale that turned out to be ginormous, with 33 families donating goods to be sold.  We made enough to pay all of our fees - we were incredibly thankful and in awe at how God orchestrated the events in this adoption.

Our foster-adoption was virtually free.  I believe most states are set up this way - - and this was a huge gift as well!  We were not expecting our baby that came through the foster-adoption in the same way we were expecting and preparing our hearts for the private adoption - but this baby came as a surprise baby and completely blew our socks off!  I would love to share more as I'm able about this process...

As you can see, there are ways to adopt without breaking the bank, but I will say this -

I don't believe that a family's sole deciding factor in adoption should be the financial portion.  I know it's easy, especially for men, to be drawn to the least expensive route... but I would urge you to truly search your hearts and most importantly God's heart on the matter.  Where is your future child/children?  Is he/she going to appear in a birthmom's womb here in the U.S.?  Are they waiting in an orphanage across the world?  Is your child in the foster care system right now, longing for a family?  God knows.  Search his heart on the matter.  All God's children need a family, and there are no country borders or race lines drawn in his family.  Our children just happened to be in our state.  My niece was brought home from Korea.  There is no one "right" kind of adoption - one that trumps the rest.  They're all his.  Every one.  As I've seen time and time again within adoption in my own family and the adoptions happening around me, God takes care of the financial portion.  He just does.  When you are joining him in the work that is near and dear to his heart - he provides.

Feel free to ask more questions -  I'll try to answer them - or find someone who can!

First Birthday Party!

I just love first birthday parties...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY little Levi!!!

We had a super sweet and simple party for him,

and he enjoyed every second of it. 

Levi, you are a blessing and a gift directly from our gracious Heavenly Father.  

Thank you, Lord!

For this party, I wanted to spend $0 on decor since Levi wouldn't remember it anyways... but wanted it to look cute and "him" too.  As I was searching the web the day before his birthday for free birthday printables, I came across this sock monkey theme!   It was PERFECT. 

FYI:  I printed the party hats on cardstock and stapled on elastic straps for under the chin.

Big sisters Morgan and Annika did the fabulous streamer decor on the windows... they spent so much time on them!  I love that they love their baby brother and sister, it melts my heart to bits. 

Dig in, little buddy!