Tag: kids

my favorite season

by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, kids, mini-farm

Yes, my favorite season in Fall for its beautiful colors and crisp weather.

However, as I now have a baby and and am growing food and raising chickens I find myself looking more and more forward to the end of fall and the beginning of winter.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I am so lucky to be able to grow food and raise chickens and feed my family good, whole food…..but from spring planting through to fall harvesting there aren’t many days where I don’t give up a minimum of 30 minutes to the yard. 30 minutes doesn’t seem like much but when you have a little one 30 minutes out of your day can be a lot.

That 30 minutes doesn’t include the days that I am actually preparing beds, planting, harvesting and preserving; that is just daily maintenance. That takes up a lot more time.

Again, I love pulling out homemade and homegrown food in the middle of winter and early spring when everything in the grocery store is shipped from who knows where and harvested who knows when; so, I am most definitely not complaining, but the slow season of winter is absolutely calling me.

I love watching the rain fall while I drink a cup of coffee before everyone else wakes up. Make it snowfall and I love it even more.

Reality vs. fantasy: Fantasy (or should I say my pre-baby reality) in the slow winter months I read more, slept in more, relaxed more and sort of hibernated. My new reality: I am guessing winter will also have its challenges such as where do I put the baby when it is raining out and I need to change the chickens food and water? What do I do when the baby is grumpy and its raining and this is when we normally go for a walk to settle him down? We live in the Pacific Northwest so rain is a big factor for us in the winter hahahahaha.

We will see how reality and fantasy hammer out this winter.

A day in the life on an 8 month old

by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, kids

My baby boy turned 8 months yesterday!!! So crazy!

This is how are days generally go currently.

Woke up at 6am, diaper change.

Today is…. we do the month, date, year, day of the week, season and weather…I made this so it is not perfect ahahahah but it gets the job done.

Bottle time!!!!

Play time with some reading basics….and coffee for me

Breakfast!!! Or if you are a hobbit, 2nd breakfast……did i get that reference right? Hahaha

Eggs, avocado and peanut butter toast

Little man hangs out on a blanket while I water the backyard and take care of the chicken coop. During this time he loves watching the dog and the chickens as they waddle all over the yard. It usually takes about 20-25 min to get it all done and he usually lasts that long just watching the dog and chickens but not always.

She is getting more and more used to him

After yard work he runs around in his walker while I try and clean as much as possible. Sometimes he chases the dog, sometimes he chases the robot vacuum hahahahaah how long he lasts varies some days its 15 min and some days its 30+ min.

Once he gets sick of his walker we head into his room to play before his first nap.

Last 30 min before nap is a struggle to keep him happy and entertained hahahah
if he isnt too grumpy we will read a few pages from the chapter book we are reading. currently it is The Hobbit.
I am slowly introducing him to trying to hold writing intraments

Nap time is about 3 hours after he wakes up. We do a diaper change, put him in his sleep sack, drink a bottle and into the crib he goes. Today he was asleep by 8:55ish

During this time I clean or food prep or workout or shower or anything on my list that I need to do that day.

today it was all cleaning and laundry

When he wakes up its another diaper change. Activity for a few minutes then lunch.

It was nice and cool out today so we went for a walk
Lunch was chicken nuggets, broccoli, tomato, pesto pasta and some cheese
Daddy got to say hi during lunch!
Bottle time!
A little independent play time while I hung some pictures
Then more walker time to tire him out before his nap. this kid just wants to be moving around all the time
Afternoon nap on mama.
Another walk because it was sooo nice out
Quesadilla and avocado for dinner
Bath time!

Then daddy does bedtime. He was asleep by 7pm. I relaxed for about 20 min then I head back outside to check the chickens food and water before bed. Currently i do a little bit of homeschool research at night as well and I prep his bottles for the next day before i head to bed. My goal is to be in bed before 10.

To show you the full 24 hours I woke up today at 610 to him chatting to himself. he was content so i got up, warmed his bottle and started my coffee. he was still content so i sat down to enjoy my coffee for a few minutes and he fell back asleep! i will let him sleep until about 730 if he doesn’t wake up on his own. Any later than that and we would have to move his bedtime later.