Experimenting

I just "made" my own lotion!  Sort of...  I took a bottle of Aveeno unscented lotion, dumped it all out in a bowl (easier said than done), added orange and pachouli essential oils, mixed, and put the lotion back in the bottle.  In the process I got rather messy and now I am totally covered from head to toe in my new lotion so as to not waste the bits I couldn't get back into the bottle.  I smell wonderful!  I just put a little of the essential oils in, so it's really just a light fragrance- hopefully not overkill.  Anyhow, yum.  I just wanted to share.  

We made an offer on our 39 acres yesterday... we should hear back within the next 5 days.  I will let you all know what happens!  

I don't remember if I put this picture up before.  I don't think I did.  It's from a month or so ago, but it's just too cute to not share.  :)

Daniel's home!

Yay Daniel is home!  I missed him so much! :) 

Excitement is in the air!

I hope I'm not writing about this prematurely... but I am just so excited I don't want to wait.

I may have mentioned that Daniel took a trip with our friend Terry up to Kentucky this past week.  Well they are still there, and they spent a few days looking around for land because there are 5 families including us that have this crazy dream of living together.  We all have a desire to live simply, on land that will provide our own food, where we can school our children together, and just be cool like that.  ;)  You could sum it up pretty well by saying that we all think the Amish are pretty darn awesome (minus some religion issues, but you get the idea).  

Anyhoo..... after 4 of the 5 husbands (#5 is still down here in TX making sure all the women and children are ok!) looked at quite a few properties in central and eastern KY, they found this one.... and I believe Aimee and Nathan will be making an offer on it in the next few days (you can read about their adventures with this on their blogs)!!  Wooo hoo!!  The asking price is 75,900 but they plan to offer 70k.  Divided up between five families means that each family pays around 12k, maybe a little more if they don't accept our initial offer.  Isn't that awesome?  Land is so expensive if you want to buy it alone, but in a group it's actually affordable!  We could have it payed off in just a couple of years.  Very exciting.  :) :)  Of course I'm trying not to be too excited since we haven't officially made an offer yet... so we will see.  I will keep you all updated.  

This is really amazing to me because we've talked about doing something like this for at least 2 years now.  Daniel is constantly searching the internet for land and ideas.  I never thought we would ever be able to do this, but it has been very clear that this is the direction God is taking not only Daniel and I, but other families as well.    We are so excited!  You can certainly pray for God's direction for us as we start to actually live out this dream.  We would greatly appreciate it! 

Have any of you ever wanted to do something like this??  What are your ideas, plans, insights??  

In other news, Jenny blogged about guerilla gardening yesterday, and I really like this video clip.  It's such a good idea to just take over little neglected plots of land to make them beautiful and productive again.  This video makes me love people, too, because it takes a cool person to go sneak out in the middle of the night to plant a garden!  

Oh and one last thing... Daniel is eating dinner tonight with Joel Salatin!  More on that later.  :)

Per request of Michelle

Here is a video for you all.  I promise Daniel isn't naked!  :)  

We've had a busy and fun week here.  Tuesday a friend came over to knit, Wednesday some friends from Kentucky stopped by to visit since they were in town, Thursday we had a Sater (spelling?) dinner at our church for holy week, and then yesterday we went to a birthday party at the park for our friend (little) Terry.  He turned 6.   Daniel also left with our friend (big) Terry to go to Kentucky to visit family and look for land! :) :) :)  I miss him already.  I know he will have a wonderful time seeing his new niece and nephew!!  

I have a cool story to tell you all.  So we had no crib for Ezekiel, and we've started to need one because he's outgrown his little moses basket.  He's been sleeing on a blanket on the floor for a week or so, which is totally fine with me, but now he's starting to scoot and roll everywhere, so he needs to be contained!  Normally I don't even think to pray for stuff like this, but since we're trying to save money, I prayed that God would provide a crib or a pack n' play, something along those lines.  Well Thursday night our neighbor showed up at our door with a pack n' play!  She gave it to us, and continued to tell me that they had a whole bedroom set of baby furniture they don't need any more and asked if we would like to have it!  A (practically new, matching) crib, changing table, and dresser!  Isn't that amazing?  It's always so cool when God provides for our needs.  And he didn't just send us the bare minimum-- he overabundantly gave us more than I had asked for!  What a vivid reminder that God loves us and wants to bless us!  

Happy 8 month Birthday!

Ezekiel is 8 months old today!  That means he has now been home as long as he was in the hospital.  I am so glad to reach this point-- kind of like we've "undone" some of the hospital experience somehow.  

Oddly enough Ezekiel is extra fussy today.  He must not know what a special day it is.   :)

Edit:  Has anyone noticed it's already APRIL???!  Oh my goodness gracious.  (If I were actually talking I think I would say "holy crap" but somehow it feels wrong to type that.  Goodness gracious is much nicer in print.)  Daniel has LESS THAN one year until he starts terminal leave.  As in we only have LESS THAN ONE YEAR left in Texas.  I can't believe it!!!!  OK anyway I'm headed to bed now.  I love you all!  Goodnight!

My studious little reader

My goodness, what an awful lot of work.  I'm worn out!