DIY Iced Coffee

Oh yeah. Coffee with ice in it. Let's do this!

Jono's mom gave me an article entitled "Suck It Starbucks". Therein was a recipe for making your own iced coffee. Here it is:

"No one seems to understand why iced coffee costs so much more than the regular stuff....Well, coffee barons, your days of ripping us off are officially over. Making iced coffee from scratch requires less effort than brewing it hot, and if you do it right, you'll produce a smoother, richer, less bitter concoction than anything you'll find in stores."

"The secret is to steep low and slow: Put your coffee grounds into a stainless-steel pot or a French press and leave them in cold water overnight. The coffee flavor seeps into the cold water, so you get none of the bitterness that often accompanies brewing beans at high temperatures. You end up with a concentrated mixture so dark and potent it's practically opaque. If you make a large batch of the concentrate, you can leave some at home for the mornings and take a pitcher with you to work, where you'll be the envy of co-workers still paying that extra cash for inferior brew. Here's how I do it:"

1. Pour about a third of a pound of freshly ground coffee into a 48-ounce French press

2. Fill the press with cold water and stir to wet the coffee grounds

3. Place the French press lid over the coffee (don't press the plunger) and leave at room temperature for at least 12 hours. The longer you leave it, the stronger the brew.

4. Press down the plunger, pour the concentrated coffee into a pitcher, and place in the refrigerator.

5. Dilute each serving of coffee 1-to-1 with ice-cold water (use more water if the coffee's too strong), pour over ice, and serve with milk and sugar. - Mark Kirby

Ice up kids! (I just noticed it's from those guys at GQ. What a bunch of metros.)

Pic from infusioncoffeeandtea.com

Jude Discovers a Clover

We Bust Out the Family Tent

This past weekend we took Jude on his first camping trip. We found a secluded place next to a small lake with lots of trees. Jude liked it. He loves to be outside. And Mona actually stuck around. We didn't even need to tie her up. Judging by her behavior around Jude at the site, we think it might be because of him. She was very protective and kept checking on him while he was napping, etc.

I rarely (okay, never) plug products on this blog, but KidCo Pea Pod tops my list of baby gear, especially if you like to haul your little one out into the woods and to the beach. We call it his "baby tent", and it comes with a tiny, thin blow-up mattress. Jono's step-mom found it for $5 at a garage sale. We just plopped it under a nearby tree and let him nap in it. Didn't have to worry about mosquitoes or ants, and it provided adequate shade for him without being too stuffy. He even spent half the night in it. (Yes, half. But we'll get to that later.)

Above: Mona is "guarding" Jude while he sleeps in his baby tent.

All was well until night fell. It was still hot as the dickens, so we stripped Jude down to a onesie and tried to put him down alone in the tent. He cried. It was too hot. There were a bunch of bullfrogs around making an ungodly racket. After about ten more tries in various settings, we gave up and I held him in my arms until he fell asleep. Jono said, "Camping isn't as relaxing as it used to be."

Fifteen minutes after we put Jude down again, Mona got up from her spot in the dirt, sidled up to the tent entrance and whined. Apparently she knew her pillow was in there and was begging to go to bed. We joked that we were putting our two kids down in the tent together while we stayed up by the fire. What a dog.

After we turned in, Jude lasted an hour or two longer in his baby tent, but then fussed and had to be put in my sleeping bag with me for the rest of the night since it had now become quite chilly. So we laid there and shivered, then eventually sweated, all the while listening to the frogs croak all night louder than I knew was possible. A restful evening was had by all.

The next morning we woke up and it was Father's Day. Happy first year of being a daddy Jono. You're about as good as it gets :)

Here are the rest of them, plus a video where Jude tells Mona "no":

P.S. If you click on the album, you can see the photos nice and big, with captions.

Typical Day

Playing, playing, getting mad, playing...

Making a Comeback...

Just for this week, Jude in a Hat is making a comeback. This is almost my favorite one so far. Jono's Aunt Kathy found it at a garage sale, and I call it his "old man hat". He is scrumptious in it, don't you think?

Sitting!

Jude is sitting up by himself. He's been practicing for a few weeks and gets better every day, but he's still wobbly so we have to watch him. The perfect place to practice is the crib - it's like one of those inflatable castles where you can throw yourself against the walls or fall on your head. No harm done.

Kids say the darndest things.

Jono was out on the back deck last night with Jude. The neighbor kids were in their backyard jumping on the trampoline with some little friends. One of them peeked over the fence and yelled,

"Your baby looks like a Mexican!"

"What?" Jono said. "He looks like a Mexican?"

"Just kidding," she said, as an afterthought.

"Did that kid just say Jude looks like a Mexican?" I asked through the sliding glass door.

"Yep," Jono said.

We both agreed there's nothing wrong with looking like a Mexican. And we laughed.

Well then, if you MUST clean...

No, that is not crack. It's baking soda. If you have some in your house, you're already halfway to never buying Soft Scrub again.

Today I thought I'd share some of the recipes I use to "clean my house" (I do this occasionally). Kind of fun, pretty easy, and really cheap. Everyone wins.

These cleaners are effective, at least by my standards. If you don't want a single speck of dirt or bacteria around, they might not be for you, but I've always thought it makes sense not to have a sterile house. In Iowa they'll tell you, "farm kids don't get sick". I think it's because they're surrounded by dirt and animal poo, and as a result they have IMMUNE SYSTEMS OF STEEL. I've tried to replicate this situation in my own home - ha.

The main ingredients in most of these recipes are baking soda, Borax, castile soap and vinegar, so make sure you have that stuff on hand first. I wasn't familiar with Borax when I first started making these, but I found it in the same aisle as all of the other cleaning products (go figure). Another tip: many of the recipes call for essential oils to give the cleaners a pleasant smell, but I just buy Dr. Bronner's Lavendar Scented Castile Soap and skip the oils for most of them.

"Soft Scrub" (Hippie Edition)
In medium-sized bowl, mix 1 cup baking soda with 1/4 cup castile soap. Mix thoroughly with a fork. Add 1/2 teaspoon of essential oil of choice. Store in an 8-oz. jar with a tightly fitted lid to prevent the mixture from drying out.

All-Purpose Cleaner
Fill a 16 oz. spray bottle with 1 tsp. Borax and hot water. Shake until the Borax is dissolved. Add 2 Tbsp. of vinegar and shake again. Add 1/4 cup castile soap.

Scouring Powder
1 cup baking soda, 1 cup Borax, 1 cup salt. Mix together thoroughly with a fork. Add 15 - 30 drops of essential oil of choice (rosemary tea tree, lemon, lavendar, etc.). Store in a jar with holes drilled in the top. Cover with plastic wrap to keep the essential oils from evaporating between uses.

Toilet Cleaner
Put 1 cup Borax and 1/4 cup vinegar or lemon juice in the toilet bowl. Let it rest for an hour or two and scrub.

Spot Remover
Make a paste with 4 Tbsp. baking soda or salt and 1/4 cup warm water. Rub the paste on the spot and let it sit for an hour, then wash as usual.

Bleach Alternatives
Free bleach: hang your clothes in the sun! Or put 1/4 cup lemon juice in the wash cycle. Vinegar also acts as a mild bleach and is safe for most fabrics. Use it as a presoak for dingy whites and diapers. Or add 1+ cups of vinegar to the presoak cycle or to the rinse cycle.

You'll keep the baking soda people in business, and put the chemical-happy folks out of it. Rage against the machine.

P.S. If you think I'm weird, check out this chick. She's all Little House on the Prairie and makes her own deoderant, shampoo, the works. Not signing up for that yet, though I am intrigued.

(Pic from sillypenguins.com)

Edible Lotion

No, this post is not about what you think it might be. Ha ha!

I've heard it said, "Don't put anything on your skin that you wouldn't eat." Before Jude was born, I was mildly interested in natural skin care products, but as usual didn't want to pay the comparatively hefty price for them. Some would call this being cheap. I prefer frugal. Or in college, so broke it wasn't an option. I did try natural deodorant once, but it didn't even make a DENT in my teenage/early 20s sweating problem. Not to mention I smelled a bit rank at times - or at best like tea tree oil mixed with rank.

Now that I've given birth to someone, I've gone from interested to a bit obsessed. I've been making my own cleaners since college because it's cheap, easy and enviro-friendly (see this post to learn more about my affinity for easy lifestyle choices, and I'll-do-that-someday attitude toward harder ones). But now there's more to think about than chemical cleaners. Like, what am I putting directly on to Jude's skin?

It occurred to me that skin is porous, and it seems like anything I put on him would eventually be absorbed into his system. This thought made me increasingly paranoid, until finally I broke down and purchased some all-natural Burt's Baby Bee wash and lotion for him. Since he was a few days old, I haven't used anything else. The extra few bucks I spent? Totally worth my peace of mind.

I've been doing my own research and finding out more about the sorts of ingredients big companies use in their products, and it's a bit daunting, especially when we're talking about little bambinos. Companies get away with it because they say the ingredients aren't harmful in "trace amounts". I'm sure this is true. But multiply the exposure by multiple products used a few times a day over a period of years, and we may start seeing some effects in the long-run. I won't go into all of the details because lots of people don't get into this sort of thing. But if you're interested, just Google some of the ingredients in the body products you have lying around (especially baby products) and you'll get more information than you ever needed. It's good to be skeptical of the information on certain websites, but if you poke around awhile you'll find some reputable ones too. The obvious question is: aren't these companies required to test this stuff before it goes on the market? Unfortunately, not always.

I know it will be impossible to keep chemicals off my kids entirely, so that isn't my goal. But I would like to keep it at a minimum. Being someone who likes things to be EASY, I was thrilled to find this well being guide at BurtsBees.com. If you scroll through to the last page of the PDF, you'll find a handy-dandy wallet-sized card you can take to the store with you. Woot!

On a sidenote, my mom is probably stumped by this post after cleaning my house last Wednesday. We don't clean much since Jude was born, and the occasional husky-fur tumbleweed floats across our wooden floors. The other night I went to one of those sales parties for enviro-cleaning products and realized from the questions some of the other people were asking that I am unusually laid-back about dirt and bacteria in my house (this may have to change once Jude is crawling around and trying to put a bug that died two months ago on the windowsill in his mouth - ha ha). The truth is, I can't be bothered about little dirt or dog hair. I'm more concerned with keeping our living space uncluttered... that, and reproductive-problems-cancer-causing chemicals in everyday products (*wink*).

I'm sure I will be mocked for this via a few comments from my dad and brothers in a few minutes here (e.g. Dad: "Mom and I have now thrown out all of our skin-care products and are spreading honey on ourselves as moisturizer")...but I don't care ;)

(Pic from imperfectaction.com)

Jude Discovers Sand

(at Lake Michigan, of course)

Some Serious Face-stuffing

Jude is finally big enough to sit in his high chair to eat, though he tends to slouch.

Tyler pointed out that I hadn't posted any video of him eating yet.

"Hungry buddy? Here ya go:"

Earthy

Things are looking spic and span in our backyard these days. It's shady back there now that the leaves on our big oaks have come in, so we have lots of shade-friendly plants like hostas and ferns sprouting. For the same reason we planted most of our garden plants in pots so that we can move them around for maximum sun exposure if we need to.

If you look closely you can see a marked difference between our yard and the neighbor's on the other side of that chain-link fence. I only point this out because it is not my doing. Yard-puttering runs on the Klooster side.

In the pots we have four tomato plants and four bell pepper plants. In the raised bed we planted green beans, peas, carrots and onions from seed. I also have some herbs in pots on our back deck: thyme, peppermint and basil.

Clockwise from top left: Peas, Onion, Green Beans and the raised bed.

I'm growing the beans, peas and carrots for Jude because I don't feel like shelling out the dough for store-bought organic stuff, and pesticide residue is hard on baby tummies. If we get pests on our plants I'll pulverize them with a lethal mixture of veg oil, garlic and red pepper flakes (booo-ha ha ha haaa!). Recipe to follow if I run into this problem.

With all the food scares we're getting every year now (thanks for your good work FDA), we figure it's best to grow your own grub if you can. If the garden doesn't work out because of all the shade, we'll join a CSA next year. (If you live in our area, here's a good one.)

Speaking of organic and living on the cheap, I came across a list released by the Environmental Working Group of 12 fruits and veggies that are best to buy organic because of high pesticide use ("the dirty dozen"), and 15 fruits and veggies that you can get away with buying conventional without compromising your stomach lining ("the clean 15"). It's on my fridge, and I find it very handy. You can also print out a wallet-sized list from their site.

Best in All the Land...

Posts to this blog have been sparse lately - sorry. I'll make up for it. One of my excuses is that Jude and I were whisked away to Iowa for four days in my mom's white Geo for a Dieken Chick Reunion of sorts. We busied ourselves hanging out with our parents, grandparents, sisters, aunts, nieces and cousins, most of whom had never met Jude. We had *awesome* weather and spent a lot of time sittin' and spittin' on my grandparents' back deck and watching sunsets over the corn fields.

Jude was a gentleman despite being out of his usual eating, napping and night-time routine. You can say you'll keep them on a schedule while traveling, but you just won't, so forget about it. He was up partying with the rest of us until 11 pm most nights.

He also got to spend time with other babies; a novelty for him since he has no siblings or cousins and only occasionally gets to see the neighbor baby. He stared open-mouthed at little Asher and Eden like, "Excuse me, but I'm usually the only small-bodied creature in the area. Can you tell me where you get off?" He had a perplexed look on his face much of the time, which I coined Cheerio Mouth because his tiny lips form an "o" to go along with a knitted brow and flared nostrils. It's unique, or maybe special, that look. We got much amusement out of it.

I guess I could write more, but you can just look at these pictures instead:

I'll leave you with the lyrics of the song my mom insists on singing whenever we cross the Iowa border. (Part of this tradition is to call someone -- the likely victims being Jono or my dad -- so that they can hear us singing it and know where we are.)

We're from I-o-wa... I-O-WA!

Best in all the land

Joy on every hand

We're from I-o-wa...I-O-WA!

That's where the tall corn groooowwws.

Jude Discovers a Kitten

(His name is Tuck.)