Hillside Farm

Friday, April 29, 2016

Congratulations to the farm! We are now Homegrown By Heroes certified...

Monday, April 25, 2016

MCM A man, his overalls and a baby.

MyLove!

Young Living Love

I love essential oils, really love them. I have conducted a lot of research, reading reviews and blogs and have decided to stay with Young Living Essential Oils.

When we moved home from Germany, I lost the cords to my YL diffusers. So, for now I thought I would just try to find something that would work. With three girls that love lavender diffusing when they go to bed I needed a less expensive route than the YL ones. I know right, how could I go with anything other than Young Living, well finances will only allow for so much and it was more important to have the oils diffusing that not at all. On that note I might try another brand diffuse but I will NOT buy any other essential oils than Young Living. I am beyond happy that the URPOWER Essential Oil Diffuser 2nd Edition held up to the the Amazon reviews.

I will soon share with you what mists, cleaners, roller ball and cleaning recipes I have tried.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Naming?? Chickens.

We have 13 chickens on our farm. 9 chickens that are a little over 12 weeks old and 4 that are around 8 weeks old. We have been slowly coming up with names for them. We named 4 pretty quickly, each of the older three girls named one and I named one, we have Mags, Red, Stripes and Ducklawn (thank you Paige Poo for a fun name). Recently a friend of mine sent me a link to a post on Pinterest of a painted wooden sign listing all her chicken's names, let's just say super cute. I think this friend offered to make it for me... RIGHT?? So, needless to say it started a naming discussion with the family. I think we managed to name all the older 9 chickens... then I talked to this same friend and she suggested I have two named after two of my closest friends, YES, one after her. When I thought about it, really thought about it, it made sense. See, I have these two chickens, one a silver laced wyandotte and the other a barred rock. Both black and white and always seem to stick together, likes sisters from a different egg. They seem to get into a lot of trouble together, they want to party in the goat pen and not come back out. They don't want to go to bed at night. The don't like to share treats. I am always chasing them while fussing at them. Here is the best part.. I get to laugh with them, lots of silly laughs. I introduce you to, Kim and Katrina.

Kim for a close up.

Katrina on the run.

For those of you that know Kim or Katrina, what do you think?

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Phoebe Jane turns 1

It is impossible that a year has passed. I still can so vividly remember walking to the local Krankenhaus (hospital) in Frankfurt for my +2 day observation. A routine check of contractions and fluid levels every two days post 40 weeks. The midwives in the kresssaal (yes, three S's I can't make my keyboard do the funny looking B, the "eszett" in the German alphabet) were amazing. The process was long and slow in the beginning but in the end she came hard and fast. My fluids were low and they decided to induce me so it just took awhile to get things going. "Goose" Phoebe Jane's nickname comes from the little honking noises she made in her first few months of life when she got excited, she sounded like a goose. Not even a month old and she flew across the ocean to her new world for her, the good ole' USA. After a summer in VA waiting on her parents to decide what retiring from the USMC would be like she was able to settle here in SC.. in her new home. Crazy to think that this little girl will most likely live in this one house until college. Reese, her big sister has lived in 7 houses and 3 temporary apartments in her 11 years of life. She is one sweet little girl. She loves her sisters. She can say Mama, Dada, Nan (Khan, our puppy), baby, not nice, goat, cracker, snack, chicken, puppy... now granted the words come out more like GOA for goat and nack for snack but I think even a stranger would get what she was saying. She can sign please, all done, book, bath, thank you, more, wash. She waves bye bye and blows kisses. She is a little bitty thing, the smallest of the 4 girls by 50 percentiles. We love you Jane so very much. Happy Birthday Blog post.

Friday, October 30, 2015

Fall Family Photo Shoot

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Wordless Wednesday - A Girl, her rain boots, rain coat and umbrella.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Appel Happel - Good Fall Fun

It is FALL here in Frankfurt and that means it is time to begin all the FUN FALL ACTIVITIES our family loves to do. Two weeks ago a Department of State friend posted pictures of her family picking apples and roasting marshmallow's at a local Apple Farm and I immediately began to get all the information I could on the place. So on Saturday, September 15th we went to Appel Happel, it was so much fun for the girls. We picked over 14 kg of apples that cost us less than 20 Euros. For us it was well worth it for an hour of good healthy family fun. We came home and made a paleo apple pie, apple sauce and ate tons of apples for days... I even took a bag of apples to the school and a bag over to a new family here in the siedlung as a welcome gift.

We are still eating the apples.

So so YUMMY!

Appel Happel, we will see you again next fall.

Oh and I will make sure I charge my camera battery before going... :(

Monday, September 24, 2012

Heidelberg Castle - Saturday

On Saturday the family went for a road trip to:

Heidelberg Castle, in German Heidelberger Schloss, is a famous ruin in Germany and landmark of Heidelberg.

We spent all day touring the grounds, gardens and nooks and crannies of this amazing Schloss.

Sadly, we didn't even make into the actual town of Heidelberg down below the castle. Next time.

That is a SERIOUS amount of wine storage.

There are so many castles in Germany. I can't wait til the next one.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Thursday Three - GUEST post from The Lily Pad

You know you have a friend that you can go days and weeks with out talking to them and then when you do it's like you haven't missed a minute. Well Katrina is one of my few friends that I can do that with. Lately we send each other random, awkward but super silly VOXER messages and carry out a long never finished conversation through google and ichat. We used to play the Wii while everyone else went skiing. We used to go crazy in Joanne's together and take crazy pictures of bolts of fabric. Take silly drag or super cute photos for other friends blogs... stay up late sewing and drinking wine while the hubs were deployed. Stay up late looking at owls. Stay up late watching the olympics together while google chatting across town while the hubs were playing MARINES. Shenanigans are ENDLESS when we get together. I MISS HER so so much. I can't wait til she can get her hiney hiney hiney over here to Deutchland so we can have some crazy EUROPEAN sillinesses together

Katrina's Three Favorite pictures from the summer:

1. During a 24 power outage on 100+ degree day, we had a water fight. It looks like I lost, but I assure you, cold water my head meant I was winning.

2. A girl and her Grandaddy getting ready to go canoeing. Enough said.

3. This summer has been one of accomplishments and the one I'm most proud of for Madelyn is learning to swim and for her to be confident in her skills.

Katrina is a witty silly craft crazy amazing FRIEND... go check her out.