After I read about the health benefits of sprouting, I started to sprout my grains and beans before using them.  It is SO EASY!

Here’s how to sprout dried beans:

* Sort your dried beans, removing all stones and shriveled beans

*Rinse the beans. Put the beans into a bowl and cover with water until the beans are about 3 inches under the water.  Cover and soak overnight or 8-10 hours.

*After soaking, drain the beans in a colander and rinse.  Leave the beans in the colander and rinse at least twice a day. The beans will sprout in about 1-3 days.

*When the beans have a very small sprout you can store them in the fridge for a few days or cook right away.  These cook up faster than un-soaked beans and are much more nutritious.  You can use them for your favorite recipes, our family likes them in chili.

Stephanie at Keeper of the Home has a great post about freezing all those beans you just made!

Check out Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade to see more food tips.

Do you have any good recipes including beans?

I got this recipe for crock pot yogurt at Nourishing Days.  If you are interested in nourishing foods and wondering how they will fit into your life, this is the blog for you!  Shannon makes healthy cooking easy and has great recipes.

Here is how my yogurt turned out:

It was thinner than store bought yogurt because it’s without any extra thickeners.  I usually sweeten it with unsulfered molasses, pure maple syrup and pure vanilla extract.  I also add a little water in it and we drink it like keiffer.  I used these sweeteners because of their high iron and calcium content.

We only use cultured dairy and a little organic cheese.  I just buy organic, lightly pasteurized milk at the store and make our own yogurt.  I’d rather be using raw milk, but the culturing process adds back most of the enzymes and vitamins lost in the pasteurization process.

This is SO easy! You’ll have a lot of fun making this.  I’ve made about 4 batches and it’s turned out great every time!

This is the time schedule that works well for us:

3:30 pm- pour the milk into the crock pot and cook it on low

6:00pm- turn off the heat and let it sit covered with the lid

9:00pm- stir in the 1/2 cup of yogurt and cover with towels

9:00am (the following morning)- take out 1/2 cup of yogurt to use next time, stir and and enjoy!

I also made yogurt cheese with one batch. It was so good that the kids and I dipped our veggies in it. Yum!

I laid a piece of cheesecloth over a mesh colander, put the colander into a large bowl and poured the yogurt over it.  The whey drained out in a few hours and I was left with the yogurt cheese…so easy!

For more yogurt info be sure to stop by Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s blog. She just did a great post on yogurt and the comments people left were very informative and helpful.

If you’d like to learn more healthy recipes go to Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade.

If you try making your own yogurt or have some tips to share, please comment below. I’d really like to hear what works for you!

I don’t want to gross you out, but do you know what’s in an old makeup brush?  If I tell you, it may make you want to stop reading this and go clean your brushes right now.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Old makeup, bacteria, natural oils from your face and dead skin cells build up on your brushes. If you don’t wash your brushes regularly, you’ll irritate your skin and could also cause breakouts.

I’m cleaning my brushes regularly from now on!

Here’s how:

1. Wet the bristles of the makeup brush under warm, running water.  Hold the handle of the brush upright, so the base of the bristles won’t get wet.  The bristles are held in plcae by glue and if the glue gets wet your bristles may fall out.  Not good.

Matthew

Hannah

Saturday we celebrated Matthew’s birthday. He was born on Valentine’s Day 9 years ago. Wow, the time sure does go by quickly! Seeing how quickly he is growing up makes me try to enjoy every moment that I have with my children.

Matthew decided he wanted an undersea theme party. So we went to work and gathered up anything ocean related from the house: wooden ship models, fish glasses, a treasure chest, starfish, coral candle, blue and green streamers and blue and green balloons.

Sea food

We had natural hot dogs cut into octopus shapes with shell mac and cheese and goldfish crackers.

He spends most of his free time and money on Legos, so we had to include those too! I made the cake and we put the Legos on top. I don’t like us to eat food coloring, so after icing the cake I put plastic wrap on top of the regular icing and then put the blue icing on top. Fun, but healthy!

I was able to make this delicious cake without sugar. I sure do wish I knew how to do this a few years ago!

Want to find out how? Come back on Wednesday and I’ll have the recipe and all the info you need to make one too!

As women the task of grocery shopping is usually ours.  Whether you love to get out and shop or just don’t like the thought of starving, we have to buy food! With all the effort that goes into getting meals onto your family’s table, let’s make your hard work count.
No matter how often you shop there are a few things you can do to make shopping easier and more pleasant.

Here are my top 8 tips:

• Have a list!  If you don’t you will probably be wandering about the store buying everything BUT what you need.
• Use coupons. It may seem like a small amount, but over time it will add up. Just don’t succumb to manufactures ads and buy things you won’t use.
• For the healthiest shopping stick to the outside edges of the store, venturing into the interior aisles for pantry staples.
  Cook from scratch as much as possible.  If you use prepared meals you’ll trade the time saved for your hard earned money, in addition to not giving your family the best nutrition possible.
• If having a daily menu plan seems too confining, at least write down about a weeks worth of dinner plans.  Buy the things needed to make the meals and then look at your list and see what sounds good to fix that day.
• Try to eat before you shop and if you have children feed them too.  There are few things as tiring as a whining child. And if you’re not hungry you’ll be less tempted to buy junk food and it will be easier to stick to your list.
• Don’t be brand loyal.  The store brands are usually just as good as the national brands and cost a lot less.
• Are you concerned about the pesticides on fruit and veggies? But, buying organic isn’t in your budget?  Try a fruit and veggie wash product to make your produce healthier.
• When you see hamburger or chicken on sale try to buy extra and freeze it to use later.

Above all pray and ask the Lord to show you the best deals to bless your precious family.

Welcome to my Works For Me Wednesday post!

Since we have switched over to online bill paying we never use the envelopes that come with the paper bills.

I do my best to recycle what we can, so I was curious to see if there was a way to reuse those perfectly good envelopes.  Well, I found one!

When it’s time to go to the grocery I tuck my coupons inside the envelope and write my shopping list on the outside. There’s plenty of room for my list and my coupons don’t get lost in my purse, because they snugly tucked into the envelope!

I’m SO thankful for anything to help me stay organized, because I usually go shopping with my kids.  But, that’s another post in itself!

See you tomorrow for the tutorial on how to make a moss covered ball!

I promised some frugal tips and so here is my find of the month.
Yall!   You’ll be so surprised to see what happened at to me at DSW.

Don’t be mad, you can find great deals too!

(I pray and ask the Lord to help me find great deals to use our money wisely.  He is always so faithful to help me!)

I had a $10 coupon DSW sent me.  (Sign up for a free membership to get coupons and other perks.)

So…time to buy some shoes!

This is what I found on the sale rack:

Do you see the $2.16 ?  That’s what I paid for a NEW pair of heels! I think this is the best deal I’ve ever found on shoes.  They almost paid me to take them home!  Whoo Hoo!  Happy, happy day!

What was your favorite bargain you found lately?  Do tell!

( P.S.  Be sure to stop by on Monday.  I have a great tutorial in the works!)

Setting Goals For The New Year

I’ve broken my life down into the different roles that I fill;  Christian, Woman, Wife, Mother, Daughter, Friend, Homemaker, Teacher, Servant (teaching the preschool class and helping out however I can at church)

Then I wrote down the things I’d like to improve in each role.  My goals are attainable, but will take a lot of work!
But, the things in life worth having are worth working for.

I’d really like to have everything change for the better tomorrow!  But, I’ll have to tackle a few goals at a time.  Sigh…

So….here are the goals I’ll be making into habits during the month of January.  (Nothing like telling you all to make me accountable!  Ha!  No pressure Laryssa, you just told the world what you’re going to do!)

Each month I’ll share what I’m going to be working on.  If you’d like to share some of your goals we could help keep other accountable.

January’s Goals:

Christian:  Read my Bible and pray for at least 30 minutes a day.  Pick a topic to study as well and spend 30 minutes a day studying.

*Y’all, most Americans watch 3 hours of TV a day.  We can carve out one hour to spend with the Lord.  For us Moms with young kids that may mean taking the Bible into the bathroom and reading a few verses at a time!

Woman:  Get fit!  Eat a lower carb diet and exercise 30 minutes a day, six days a week to help regulate blood sugar and loose weight.

*What a tidy little sentence!  Simple right?  Sure.  I’m counting on the self control I’ll be gaining by reading my Bible and praying when I see those steaming  O’Charlie’s rolls.  I’ll also be exercising perseverance while I haul my behind out of bed to exercise my body!

I’m realizing that heaven in the home starts with me.  As a woman I’m the heart of my home. If I’m acting ugly, loosing my temper and letting monster mommy fuss at my kids, we aren’t going to have heaven in our home.   (We’ll be having a day of …..well you know, somewhere hotter.  Yuck!)

So…I’ll be doing my best, with the Lord’s help, to make our home a place of peace and rest.

Heaven in our home is my goal for 2009.  Let’s do it together!

(Be sure to stop by on Monday.  I have a great tutorial in the works!)

Further reading:

20 Questions for Planning New Year’s Goals (by Simple Mom)

Woo Hoo!  I’m on Tip Junkie! I sent the post about keeping ornaments on the tree and Laurie liked it well enough to feature!

So…now I get to put up this awesome button!  Can you tell I’m excited?!

Kimba at A Soft Place To Land is hosting an open house party.  Be sure to enjoy all the Christmas cheer from everyone  joining in.

There were so many sweet comments left from my open house yesterday.  Thanks ya’ll!

For my part I’ll share a tip and link to some other Christmas posts.

So…here’s the tip.  Especially for us Moms with small kids, big dogs or Christmas tree climbing cats!

I have always had glass ornaments even with small kids around.  I heard that gasp….let me tell you how I manage.

(We have a fake tree, just so you know.)

When you’re decorating your tree hang your ornament like normal, but then take the tip of the branch and fold it up and over the hanger.

You won’t even notice and your ornaments shouldn’t  go anywhere!

(This will work for  you if you have a “fake” tree.  I think you could do it with a real tree by wiring the ornament to the tree branch.)

Here are some more Christmas posts, enjoy!

Power Planning

Garland Parade

Recycle Christmas Tags