A glance back

April at a glance...

Ben found a slide and made a swing for the treehouse and now the boys finally seem to enjoy playing outside (instead of inside with legos all-day-long!)

In spite of the fact that this is a two story tree house with a trap door it took having a slide and cheap swing to get them out there!! 

Another event this month was that Eliza started sitting up and is now trying very hard to figure out the whole crawling thing. She's definitely more motivated than the boys were (that's not really saying much)

She is known as the Clover Queen at church. Last week her cousins made her a clover crown, bracelet and a bunch of clovers to be her wand. 

The end of April is full of birthdays. First Ben's dad celebrated his, then the weekend after that my mom and dad came up to visit and celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. On the 30th there was a party for me and my sister-in-law. So many reasons to celebrate!

Eliza loved having Grandpa here!

Part of my parents gift to me....I think this should last about a week or so :-)

Ben also surprised me with this amazing cup cake. It was chocolate espresso with espresso cream filling. Who could ask for more? I took one bite and decided it was ALL MINE!

I also enjoyed a cup of tea in my new ceramic travel mug (thanks for my mother-in-law). 

A Progression of Teeth

A day in the life of Warren-my 7 year old son whose life is very much taken up with his teeth falling out. For quite some time his two front teeth have been loose. We started calling him Tow-Mater because one was sticking out in front of the other. In an amazingly strong moment he pulled out both in a matter of an hour. I was very impressed.

This was the Tow-Mater phase:

After he pulled the first one (as you can see he has a favorite pose):

 After both he yanked both of them out:

And the Winners Are...

Drum roll please.....

The 3 runners up and winners of the Castille soap are:

Jojo
Christy S.
Angie

The winner of the baby balm is:

Sarah Johnson!!

Would the winners please e-mail me privately with their addresses so that I can mail your prizes? You can e-mail me at oilandspice@gmail.com

Thank you all so much for participating. I plan to do many more of these with new products and other wonderful things I just can't help but share.

Happy to Give!

April is one of the best months in the whole year! Partially because the flowers start to bloom, birds start to sing, and the weather is mostly absolutely perfect. The other reason is because my birthday is in April (along with many of my family members birthdays but of course my own is most interesting to me even if I'm not getting any younger).
In order to celebrate this year I felt like giving instead of getting (well, I might be getting too but that's beside the point). The focus right now is giving to my readers and all those out there who love all natural products.

Before Eliza was born I created a baby balm to help with diaper rash, dry skin, and pretty much just about everything a baby and I have to deal with after labor and delivery. I'm not trying to "toot my own horn" but I have to say I absolutely LOVE this stuff!! I have used it on Eliza and myself (for dry skin patches, etc.) since day one. It seems to take care of any diaper rash almost immediately. It also cures dry skin. Every member of my family is inflicted with dry skin and the babies are no exception. Eliza is particularly susceptible to get it under her arm pits, neck, behind her knees and in the creases of her "oh so chubby" legs. So every night after her bath I cover her whole body with it and give her a little massage which makes her and her skin so very happy. The other amazing thing that I love about this baby balm is that it washes right out of cloth diapers. As you might have guessed from that comment I use cloth diapers and some creams and ointments I have used in the past DO NOT wash out! My Happy Baby Balm does, so I love it even more (not the mention that it is completely all natural).

All that buildup brings me to the point--I want to give one of these away! I want you to know just why I love this balm so very much!

Here is the gist:

This giveaway will start now, April 12 and run until next Wednesday, April 18th at midnight. The winner will be announced Thursday, April 19th.

So how do you win?

1.  Comment on this blog. You can say whatever you want to. You can talk about your lovely baby, post pics of your babe, ooh and awe over their tiny toes and fingers or just exclaim how much you love to get free stuff!!

2.  Tweet about it and link to the blog and then comment to let me know you tweeted.

3. Follow this blog. I would LOVE to have more insight from my readers and to get that I would love to add more readers to my blog. So if you follow this blog you get another chance in the running for the  giveaway.

Do all 3 and you get 3 entries!! Bonus!!

So what are you waiting for??!!

Oh, and just so I can spread the love a bit I will be sending a brand new bar of Pure Unscented Castille Soap to the 3 runners up. This soap is not yet for sale on my site yet so it will come wrapped but not labeled. I would love to know what the runners up think once they have used the soap and any suggestions for scents, etc. I plan to add a Castile line to my soap products and would love some scent ideas and feedback.

Better Off?

Imagine a world with little to no technological or electrical assistance. A world free from laptops, ipads, smart phones, cable TV, wash machines, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers and many of the other toys and conveniences that surround us.  Eric Brende, author of Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, not only imagined this world but took the plunge and decided to live in it for over a year.
       I am definitely no stranger to this type of lifestyle. Not because I have lived it myself but because my dad grew up in the Old Order Amish and lived this life until he was 18 when he decided to set out on his own.  I spent much of my growing up years visiting, staying with, and enjoying the times I had with my dad's family. I can't say I ever revelled in the idea of going without electricity during our visits, especially not when I was a vain teenager who had to somehow manage without every single hair appliance on the market. However, because I was familiar with this lifestyle I never really thought of it as a novelty but just the way they are. Just something some people do.
       When I was formulating my book list for this year I was drawn to this book because of all the technological clutter that fills my life. I was not particularly looking for or thinking about life without electricity. I was more thinking that I needed a good reminder of what life was like before I spent my time surfing the web, checking facebook, texting my friends and envying the person sitting beside me using their ipad. You see, I am technologically bi-polar. On one hand, if I could afford it, I would run out and purchase every gadget that is out there. I was drooling over the new Ipad 3 and I have spent many a conversation with my husband on practical reasons why I might NEED a smart phone. On the other hand, I find myself wanting to run away from it all. Wanting to bury my phone in the backyard. Wanting to pack my computer up and leave it in storage for a few months.
          It's just that sometimes my life feels so cluttered. My thoughts feel cluttered with all the information that is streaming through them and surrounding me at every minute. There are the countless amounts of facebook status updates that I somehow feel a need to keep informed about. There are the many texts and e-mails that I feel compelled to read and answer this instant (not later when I actually might have more time).  If I don't answer them more just keep coming and then I have to wrestle with the fact that I never got back to so and so and they really needed an answer.
  There's not only my phone but my husband's, which is ever buzzing, ringing, and chiming with new e-mails, voicemails and texts. I find myself wondering what it was like before our worlds were so full of technological clutter.
      Just recently we were out on a date and my husband excused himself. I found myself sitting alone in the booth and during what was only minutes of him being gone I felt like I should be doing something. So I pick up my phone (which is not even a smart phone) and start texting just because I had a quiet minute. Why couldn't I just sit there quietly and just take a few moments without communication?
       When I picked up the book I found myself "amening" the sentiments the author was expressing, which very much reflected my own. Still it was not exactly that I was looking for. I'm not ready to live without electricity and don't necessarily feel like that is the answer. I am however ready to read about someone who got rid of the internet (in fact that seems more extreme to me right now than getting rid of electricity).  I am not a farmer or a gardner and truth be told I am not drawn to becoming either of those. I try to garden but definitely don't relish it and I absolutely love living in town. I am also not quite ready to go without my cell phone and obviously since I am posting this on my blog which I will then post on facebook and twitter that means I am not ready to go without my computer or internet.
       Still, there is a part of me that sighs at all of this. A part that feels like something is missing when our family gets together and everyone is listening to their ipods, surfing their smart phones, posting pics on facebook and watching youtube on their laptops. Have we lost something? During an age when there is more communication than any other previous age what are we saying? Who are we communicating with? Are we forgetting about the person sitting next to us, the legitimate need we just heard about on Sunday or the neighbor who is struggling to lug his trash to the street in an effort to reach out to the one who lives in California and we only met once at a wedding?
       These are the things I wrestle with and will continue to do so I'm afraid. The worst thing is I would not argue if my husband bought me a smart phone.

Sick day

We've had to take two days off of school due to a mild sickness in our home. My oldest said just the other day, "I wish I could get sick so that I could stay in bed all day and watch movies." Then on the way home from study, when he said he didn't feel well it was hard to take him seriously. How could I after a comment like that? Still you can't make yourself have a fever so I finally agreed that he probably was sick. However, the skeptic inside me won me over when it came to my second oldest who also claimed not to be feeling very well but had no other evidence except his word to back him up. All the sudden he seemed to be magically better when tea time rolled around and he thought of the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen.  I responded to his miraculous healing by saying, "Sick boys don't eat chocolate chip cookies. I think you're going to have to wait until you are really better." So he settled for a banana instead and has not been sick since. My youngest on the other hand devoured his allotment of cookies exclaiming, "I'm not sick Mommy!"

On another note Ben brought home the most amazing present right after Eliza was born. For ages I have been looking for a vintage high chair with a metal tray. High chairs these days are almost entirely made up of plastic. I have a love hate relationship with plastic and have been looking for ages for one of the old ones there were made during a time when plastic didn't reign supreme. When he arrived home with this treasure I was beside myself (it's the little things). I gave it a try for the first time yesterday. Even though Eliza's meal at this point consists of toy rattles she still seemed to enjoy it and I look forward to using this high chair and then passing it down to my kids when they have kids. There are some things that truly were just better "back then".

Cheer

Much of my time lately has been balanced between school and incorporating my new logo onto my labels, business cards, etc. As I was working today on new labels I put Eliza on the bed to play and couldn't resist taking a few shots to help boost my already springtime high. The only thing I'm beginning to realize is that with the arrival of our little girl the boys don't get as much screen time as they used to. I need to change that in the future but for now I'll keep sneaking in some baby shots, all in the name of perfecting my photography skills of course.