I was going through old photos, deleting extras this morning. This is a keychain I made for my flash drive, but apparently never blogged about.

It was easy to sew and really quick too. My favorite part about it is that it’s so bright that it’s easier to find my flash drive when it’s lying around somewhere.

The keychain tutorial is over at Creative Little Daisy.

Strawberry Lemonade Punch
Serves 18
Punch:
1 12 oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
2 tubs Crystal Light Lemonade mix
3 1-Liter bottles of sparkling water, strawberry flavor

Ice Ring:
1 1-Liter bottle of sparkling water, strawberry flavor
Fresh or frozen strawberries, if desired

To make ice ring, pour one bottle of sparkling water into a tube (or bundt) pan. Add strawberries, if using. Freeze for 12-24 hours.

To make punch, combine lemonade concentrate and Crystal Light in the bottom of a punch bowl. Add the sparkling water to constitute the lemonade. Although the punch will be yellow, the sparkling water gives it the strawberry flavor.

If you use the ice ring, it is easier to put the ice ring in the punch bowl before you add the sparkling water to constitute the punch or else it can make a huge mess while you try to drop a huge chunk of ice into an already full punch bowl.

I’ve served this at my studio recitals and it is always a huge hit.

This is a few days late, but it’s been a really busy week. Tuesday was Caleb’s first birthday. It seems like just yesterday we were driving to the hospital!

You’d think with as many pictures as we take around here, we would have more from his birthday, but we don’t. Here’s one I took of him opening a new pair of pajamas. It was so funny to watch him – he was absolutely thrilled that he had his very own paper to tear.

Stephen and I have been looking for a new vehicle for me. We’ve been doing our research, but haven’t made a final decision yet. We haven’t been in too much of a hurry. Today’s adventures with my van may have just sped things up a bit though.

The boys and I had some running in town to do today. We had just left the house when the van wouldn’t shift easily into higher gear – so I called Stephen just to give him a little bit of notice unless he needed to leave work to come get me. It stopped doing it though, so we kept on running errands.

The boys were surprisingly tolerant when we went into several different stores looking for a couple pieces of clothing for me. Then we headed to church to redo a bulletin board. We were almost there when I noticed the “Service Engine Soon” light had come on. I pulled into the church parking lot and stopped, right as smoke started to from the hood. It was so hot that I didn’t even mess with it. I left it closed and called Stephen again, letting him know what had happened and that he needed to come get me.

There is apparently a leak somewhere, and my radiator had completely run dry while we were driving. I am very thankful we even made it to church!

The van has been a good vehicle. It’s an ’89 Chevy Astro van. We bought it for $1 four years ago (how’s that for God providing???). We moved to Indiana with it, and took several trips back and forth from the Carolinas to IN and MI both in it. That van now has 293,700 miles on it – and still has the original engine in it. It’s a giant blue tank that ROARS when you start it up, but it’s been a good vehicle.

That said, I am certainly looking forward to driving something newer soon!

Yesterday I had a little bit of time before we had to leave for an appointment, so I sat down to sew myself a new makeup bag.

I used this zippered bag tutorial over at craftster and added a small strap to it. It was surprisingly easy and went together a lot quicker than I thought it would.

The outer fabric is a pillowcase I found years ago at a thrift store. The daisy print is so cheerful, and combines my favorite colors. The inside is a yellow gingham. I absolutely love the fabrics in it.

Microfiber in cloth diapers is wonderful. A couple weeks ago, we picked up some microfiber cloths to use as inserts in our cloth diapers. What a difference! It’s trimmer (a HUGE plus!) and seems to hold every bit as much wetness as the cotton inserts did, if not more.

Not only that, apparently one thing we needed to do that we weren’t doing is fold the elastic edges in on the diapers. When I made them, too much of the flannel rolled to the outside edge. It caused a lot of wicking and just as much frustration with wet clothes.

Now we roll the edges in (the next time I sew cloth diapers, if they’re Rita’s Rump Pockets like these were, I’ll be more careful!), and between that and the microfiber, our leaks have been cut down drastically.

I am so much happier with our diaper system – and it was a relatively easy fix!

Years ago, I had a bread machine. Then Stephen bought me a stand mixer for Christmas. I used the mixer so much that I eventually gave away the bread machine.

Then last year, I broke my mixer. For some reason, stand mixers don’t like it when you jam plastic spoons in between the dough hooks.

I went back to mixing bread by hand. I’ve been able to get bread so inexpensively with coupons recently that I haven’t been making it much. But the few times I have, I’ve really missed my mixer.

Then I got together with my friend OldPathsMom. She had found a bread machine at Goodwill for under $4, so she bought it. Since she already had a bread machine, she gave the new one to me.

I tried it tonight. It squeaks a little bit, but that should be easily remedied. I am so thankful for it!

The recipe I tried in it is a multigrain recipe made with our honey and quail eggs, olive oil, oats, oat and wheat flour, but no white flour. It’s got great flavor but it’s always had a rough texture. I’ve been playing with the recipe for over a year, trying to get it absolutely perfect. That’s why I’ve not ever posted it here because it hasn’t been ready to share yet.

Now, with the bread machine, it kneaded it so well that it felt every bit as soft as a loaf of white dough. I wanted to make breadsticks with it, so I took the dough out after the knead cycle. The flavor was fantastic, the texture was great, and the breadsticks turned out wonderfully.

I’m happy to have a bread machine again!

Stephen’s been doing research this morning. We think we figured out the problem with our goats.

Moldy hay.

We had brought some hay home not long ago. We kept it covered, and did our best to keep it dry. Apparently it had gotten wet before we brought it home. It wasn’t moldy then, so we fed it to our goats. I guess in our efforts to keep it dry we must’ve helped damp hay grow mold.

This just makes me sick. It cost us the life of 5 goats this week, even though we TRIED to keep it dry so it wouldn’t mold. We even bought a brand new tarp to keep over it instead of using one that we already had (because they were all old and had holes in them).

Wow. I feel terrible about this. We tried so hard, and they still died. *sigh*

Stephen just came back inside. Our other doe has died. I don’t believe this.

This has not been a good week around here for our animals.

Earlier in the week, both our does kidded, and all three babies died. It happens, we buried them, and didn’t give it a lot more thought.

Today when Stephen got home from work, he noticed that there were no bees flying around our hive Grace. He opened it up, and sure enough, the hive didn’t survive the winter. We had suspected that it might happen – the hive wasn’t that strong – but we fed the bees all winter and tried to help them along. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it.

After that was the worst though. Stephen headed down to feed the animals, and discovered that our goat Sephina had died. She’s the one that had twins the other day. It was a total shock! She seemed to have recovered well from the birth – but apparently something was wrong that we never suspected.

I will miss her. She was such a “people goat.” She was the one that always walked up to people so they’d pet her. She was the one that was born here. Samuel came running in the house crying when he saw her. “Mommy! Fina’s dead! She was a good goat!” We will all miss her.

It’s been a very puzzling week here, that’s for sure. I just hope the rest of our animals stay ok!