Clean Hands

Great tip that Christine found:

Hand sanitizer cleans marker smudges off kids' hands

Greg discovered that hand sanitizer cleans up more than germs:

My 2-year old son was coloring with markers and, as you can imagine, managed to get just as much marker on his hands as he did the paper. After he finished coloring, dinner was ready, so I decided to wait until after we ate to get his hands cleaned up. I thought I would just put some hand sanitizer on his hands and he would be fine to eat. I was pleasantly surprised when I finished rubbing the sanitizer on his hands to see that they were perfectly clean. The marker was gone. I then remembered how alcohol is good at removing pen marks from furniture, among other places one would not want ink (I once had to get ink off of my computer monitor with alcohol). Instead of using rubbing alcohol on a child's hands, hand sanitizer does the trick.

http://www.parenthacks.com/2009/10/hand-sanitizer-cleans-marker-smudges-off-kids-hands.html

Little white shirt

Just got one of these for David. You cannot find a good Sunday shirt in baby boy sizes and these are onsies so they'll stay tucked in. I LOVE it! Thanks for the tip, Becky (such a great sister-in-law).

charmedlifeclothing.com

Quiet Book

Jackie made this and I am totally inspired to make my own. Here is the free pattern.

Suggested Amounts of Basic Foods for Home Storage

Suggested Amounts of Basic Foods for Home Storage
(Per adult for one year.)

Grains (wheat, rice, corn, rolled oats, spaghetti)	400 pounds (181 kg)	72 #10 cans (wheat)
Legumes (dry beans, peas, lentils)	60 pounds (27 kg)	12 #10 cans (beans)
Powdered Milk	16 pounds (7 kg)	4 #10 cans
Sugar or Honey	60 pounds (27 kg)	10 #10 cans
Cooking Oil	10 quarts (9 liters)
Salt	8 pounds (3.6 kg)
Water** (2 weeks)	14 gallons (53 liters)

**It is impractical for most families to store a year's supply of water. Fourteen gallons per person is a suggested minimum reserve.

Source: http://www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,2006-1-1116-1,00.html

Artisan Bread Recipe (5 min. prep)

Annie's Recipe

3 cups warm water
1 1/2 Tbsp yeast (2 packets)
1 1/4 Tbsp (not a typo) salt
5-6 1/2 cups flour

Mix all together with a wooden spoon in a large tupperware bowl that has a lid. Let sit for 2 hours (covered but not sealed). Put in fridge until ready to bake.

Use flour to shape into 4 grapefruit size balls. Place on cookie sheet and let rise for 30 mins. When 30 mins is up turn oven on to 450 degrees and wait for heat up. Sprinkle flour on top of loaf, score with a sharp knife.

Bake for 20-25 mins. Place 1 cup water in a pan in oven on lower rack during cooking.

Dough can stay in fridge for up to 2 weeks. I like to make it then pull out 1 ball at a time to bake when I want it. So easy and so yummy!

In Case of Emergency

Marc and I have done a pretty good job of getting our food storage ready in the event a need may arise so we are now focusing on other items that would be helpful to keep on hand. After brainstorming, we asked ourselves what would be something that if we ran out of it, we would go that day to replenish. The answer quickly came: DIAPERS! Then we tried to think of where we could put all those diapers. The next answer came: CLOTH DIAPERS!

I shopped around and the ones from this website seem to be the best bang for your buck. I know there are much better cloth diapers that exist, but if you're just wanting to get some decent ones "just in case" these with plastic pants (that the site also carries) ought to do the trick. Happy shopping. Oh, we thought about 2 dozen would buy us enough time in between washings if needed.

Snapfish Sale

Snapfish is having a sale on their most popular gifts (40% off). I just went on and made a photo book for David from the day he was born (I made one for Lucy too so I figured I'd better be fair). The code is: POSTLABOR