Burt's Bees Mama Bee Nourishing Body Oil

Occasionally I find a product so awesome, I just have to share it with you all.  So today I'm going to give you the low down on this Burt's Bees Mama Bee Nourishing Body Oil. 

I've been using this body oil since I had the Rowsellettes, and it has worked wonders on the stretch marks I got from breast feeding and my c-section scar.  My scar, while still visible, looks really good.  My husband keeps commenting on how you can hardly see it anymore.  I attribute this mainly to the Vitamin E oil in this product.  Vitamin E is traditionally known to help minimize scarring. 

But the really amazing thing is how it has virtually faded away my stretch marks to nothing in the 6 months I've been using it!  As a person who'd never had stretch marks in my life, it was rather disheartening to wake up one morning with a plethora due to my milk coming in for breast feeding.  I vowed not to let it get any worse and started using this oil.  And sure enough, within a couple of months, I could see a vast improvement in the appearance of the stretch marks.  Hallelujah!  I love you, Mama Bee Oil. :)
      

Garden Vegetable Soup

What do you do when your garden looks like this?

You make a delicious vegetable soup!  I actually made a couple rounds of this soup in August, which is when this picture was taken.  Unfortunately we had a super early hard freeze this year, around the second week of September, so now my garden looks like this:

We even covered the whole thing with tarps, but alas, my garden was toast.  The worst part was that I lost all of my mounds of basil. :(  We were able to save everything else by picking it and bringing it indoors, so harvest time came early this year.  Such is life when you live in Montana.  However, I'm sure a lot of you still have gardens burgeoning with vegetables, so here's a great way to use up some of those goodies.

Garden Vegetable Soup

•  2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 small red onion, chopped
• 1/2 small yellow onion, chopped
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, or 22 baby carrots, chopped
• 1/2 large bell pepper (I used a yellow pepper)
• 1/2 large zucchini, chopped
• 1/2 large yellow summer squash, chopped
• 22 green beans, cut into 1/2 in. pieces
• 1 can diced tomatoes (My tomatoes weren't ripe yet, so I used canned)
• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning
• 8 cups chicken broth
• 2 cans V8 juice
• 1 cup farfalinne pasta or other mini pasta

1. Chop all veggies into the chunk size you prefer for your soup.
2. Heat a dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat and add oil.
3. Once pan is heated add onions, garlic, celery, carrots, and bell pepper.  Saute for about 5 min.
4. Add zucchini, summer squash, green beans, and Italian seasoning.  Saute for another 5-10 min.
5. Add diced tomatoes with their juice.  Scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan.
6. Add the chicken broth, V8 juice, and mini pasta.  
7. Bring to a boil, turn down, and simmer for ~20 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

 

Yummmm!  This soup is so delicious!  I made a crusty loaf of bread in my bread machine to go with it for dinner.  It was the perfect light summertime meal.  And such a great way to use up some of that bountiful harvest from your garden. :)


As you can tell, this is a minestrone type soup.  It would be equally delicious made with some white beans, such as cannellini.  And if you want to take it up another notch, throw a Parmesan cheese rind in before you simmer.  The cheese rind melts completely, but doesn't really make the soup cheesy.  It just adds a whole other flavor level that is simply fantastic! 

I'm Back!

It has been a long time since I've posted.  With two bouncing, baby boys in the house things have been a little crazy of late.  If I can get laundry done and put away before it needs to be done again, I count myself accomplished.  I've actually made quite a few recipes I wanted to blog about, but just haven't found the time to write them up until now.

I'm going to make a serious effort to post once a week in the future.  Otherwise my desk will be covered in sticky notes of things I need to blog about. :P

I will be posting on Mondays, and for the time being it will probably be mostly recipes, as that is the crafting I have time for these days.  If I get really caught up, I may post twice a week!  But let's not get crazy just yet.  And now for some shameless AWing of my babies...

The Rowselettes are now 6 months old!  I can hardly believe it.  It feels like far longer than that, and also like time has flown by all at once.  They've hit some major milestones such as sleeping through the night, Archer is talking like crazy and has discovered his feet, Xander is rolling over both ways (and about to crawl any minute, I'm sure), both are teething and Archer has his first tooth.  They're starting to be able to entertain themselves, which has allowed a sense of normalcy to come back to our home.  Well at least as normal as it can be with twin boys now a part of our family.

1 month old

2 months old

3 months old

4 months old

5 months old

6 months old

 

Thank you for sticking around in my absence after the babies were born.  It's been quite the adjustment, but we're all figuring it out together. :) 

Grapefruit Peppermint Hand Scrub

It's that time of year where we want to be outside as much as possible.  And usually that involves yard work and gardening, which can make your hands seriously grimy.  I found this great hand scrub from Kate over at The Gaines Gang.  It really helps get embedded dirt and muck off of your hands after a day of working in the yard.  And it smells amazing!  Make up a batch of this for yourself and your garden loving mom.  She'll think it is an excellent Mother's Day gift. :)

Here are the 3 ingredients you will need:

• Sugar
• Method Pink Grapefruit Dish Soap
• Peppermint Essential Oil

Fill your container 2/3 full with sugar.

Add dish soap to the sugar and mix with a butter knife.  Go easy on the dish soap when you first add it.  I put way too much in and ended up having to split my scrub into two containers.  Which was okay, since I then had one for my mom and one for me. :)

Keep adding sugar or soap until you get to a paste like consistency.  Add 5 drops of essential oil and mix.

I used a decorative candle jar as a container for my scrub.  Since the jar was already so pretty, there was no need to add any extra decoration.  

This scrub worked so great!  I think I may make some for my dad for father's day using regular Dawn dish soap, since it is blue and awesome at cutting grease.  He is a golf course superintendent, so between doing maintenance on machinery and taking care of the golf course, his hands can get really dirty.  I think I will make his a nice lemon orange scent. :)

Scented Bath Salts

While I had good intentions of putting up a post every day this week, you can see that it didn't happen.  So it goes with two little ones demanding my attention.  And that's OK.  Because I only get one chance to enjoy them as tiny little babies.  They change so much every day at this point that I don't want to miss any of it.  The Rowselettes are almost 7 weeks old and one week past their official due date.  They are finally the size of normal new born babies and seem huge to me, although they're still tiny little peanuts.  They're really starting to be awake a lot, and it is so fun to watch them have floor/tummy time.  Here are some photos of them snuggling in bed with me earlier this week.

Now onto another homemade Mother's Day gift.  Bath salts are really easy to make yourself.  Considering how expensive they can be to buy, it makes sense to just make them at home.  And you can make any variety of scent and color you want when you create your own.

Here are the 3 ingredients you need:

• Mineral & Dead Sea Salts (I got mine from Michaels)
• Epsom Salts
• Essential oil(s) of your choice

Fill your container with half Epsom salts and half Mineral & Dead Sea salts.  Pour into a mixing bowl.  Add 10 drops of essential oil and stir to mix well.

 Spoon the mixture back into the container and decorate with a ribbon, label, or piece of fabric.

See how easy that was?  Delicious scented bath salts in 5 minutes for way less than the price of store bought ones.  You can also add pieces of herbs and flowers along with color to make the salts more decorative.  For example, since my scent was rose & neroli, I could have mixed in dried rose petals and used food coloring or soap colorant to make the salts red or pink.

Note:  If you can't find Mineral & Dead Sea salts, you can always use course sea salt found in the grocery store.  Or just use straight Epsom salts, instead of a combination of the two.

Honey Vanilla Bubble Bath

This bubble bath is absolutely luscious!  The honey vanilla scent is wonderful, and the olive oil in it makes your skin feel so soft.  I found the recipe here and decided it would be a great addition to my Mother's Day gift ideas.  It only has four ingredients, all of which you probably have in your cupboard right now.  Combine this bubble bath with the Coconut Vanilla Sugar Scrub and the Coconut Almond Body Wash and you've just created a spa gift basket for your mom.  And who deserves a nice relaxing spa day more than Mom?

Here are the 4 ingredients you will need:

• 1 c. olive oil (the original calls for sweet almond oil, but olive oil is what I had on hand)
• 1/2 c. honey
• 1/2 c. liquid hand soap
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

Place the olive oil in a mixing bowl.

Slowly add in the honey, vanilla, and hand soap while continually whisking to emulsify the ingredients together.

Pour your homemade bubble bath into a pretty bottle (this is actually a small tequila bottle that I reused) and add a decorative ribbon or label.

Note:  Because the bubble bath is made of ingredients that normally wouldn't mix together, it will separate after sitting for a while.  No need to worry, just give the bottle a quick shake before you use it to remix the oil into the other ingredients.

Mother's Day Gifts

Mother's Day is a week away.  If you're still struggling with what to get for Mom, here are some ideas for homemade gifts I'm sure she would love.  Make just one or a combination for a fun gift basket.  These are links to posts I've already done that would make great gifts, and I will also be posting new DIY gift ideas all week.

• Coconut Almond Body Wash
• Citrus Cleaning Spray
• Coconut Vanilla Sugar Scrub
• Homemade Hand Soap

I'm planning on spending Mother's Day with my mom and the Rowselettes at an annual Mother's Day fun run (we will be walking) put on by the Haven organization.  Proceeds from the race go to support victims of domestic violence.  I can't think of a better thing to support while spending some quality time with my Mom.

My mom and I at the last Mother's Day fun run.  Hoping this year will be just as beautiful. :)