Lucy's friends... and their moms

(Sorry for no pictures.  This computer doesn't want to upload them tonight.)

Lucy is getting really good with peoples' names.  Last week I asked her who her friends are and she listed of names for a long time like this, "Emy, Yogan, Heidi, Beya, Yuke, Halle, Amalia, Rhonda..."  and on and on.  I don't know all of the kids in her room at Lighthouse Early Learning Academy, so some of the names she might be saying but sound like goblety gook to me. 

Lucy is also really good at recognizing kids and their moms.  Last week I was strapping Lucy into the car at Lighthouse when another woman parked and got out of her car.  Right away Lucy started yelling "Amalia!  Amalia!"  As I walked to my side of the car, I said to Amalia's mom (sorry, I don't know her name!) "Lucy was just saying 'Hi' to you!"  She said "Isn't it amazing how they know everyone and their parents?"  I completely agree with her! 

The kids get so excited when someone's mom comes.  There are days when I get there and all the kids jump up and down and cheer for Lucy.  So CUTE!

Yesterday, we were walking out of the gym, and we met a woman with 3 kids and Lucy yelled "Emy!"  The woman said, "Is that Lucy?"  That's when I realized she was holding Emily who is also in her room at daycare.  She's SO observant!

Okay... one more...  Lucy is getting good at her name and age (since she will be 2 next week).  She calls herself "Yucy" and she is almost "Two!"  One week from today and she will be two!

Dear Kitchen,

You have been good to me for the 5 and a half years we've lived here, but it's time for a make-over!  I can't believe some of the things you have been hiding.  Say good-bye to the old espresso maker and the spices I bought when we moved in.  3 weeks until you're looking new!  Yay!

Love,
Erin

Homemade Baby Wipes

Last week, I made a new container of homemade wipes, so I thought I'd put the recipe online.  I LOVE these wipes.  They are really absorbant and super easy to make.  They are also cheap!  I probably wouldn't have concidered doing this, but we received the makings for wipes for a gift.  I've been making them for almost 2 years now.

Ingredients:

1 roll Bounty Select-A-Size paper towels

1 1/2 tablespoons baby bath

1 tablespoon baby oil

2 cups water

Start with 1 roll of Bounty Select-A-Size paper towels.  They really need to be Bounty.  I use off brand paper towels for general use, but I tried them once as wipes and they fall apart and don't clean baby bottoms nearly as well as Bounty. 

 Pull the wrapper off and place on a cutting board.

 Using a sharp non-serated knife, cut the roll in half.

They will look like this.  Keep one and put the other one away for next time. 

You need a container to place the wipes in that is big enough to fit the paper towels.  The cover also needs to seal well so they don't dry out.  I found this one at Target.  It's a ClickClack 2.9 quart. 

Measure out 1 1/2 tablespoons of baby wash.

Then 1 Tablespoon of baby oil.  Add both to the container

Add 2 cups of water to the container.

Mix together

Place the roll of paper towl in the container.  I place the cut side down.

Place the cover on the container and turn the container upside down.  Keep it upside down until the paper towels are soaked through.

Open the container.  Pull the cardboard center out of the paper towels.

This is how they look!  We love them!

Filming a Youtube Video

I figured out how to get these pictures on quick, so I thought I would quick post while eating lunch!  I got pictures of my video shoot from one of the people who came.  Here they are!

The primary purpose of the video was to inform consumers about sow housing.  The secondary purpose was to talk about the We Care initiative that pork producers follow.  It is six ethical principles that we as an industry and we at Dykhuis Farms live out.  They are:

• We care about food safety and producing safe food
• We care about the well-being of our animals
• We care about and for the environment
• We care about public health and our management practices help protect this
• We care about our employees and the safety of the people who work on our farms
• We care about the communities that we are a part of

If you want more about pork and pork producers, you can check out the pork.org website or the We Care website.

Here we go with pictures of the day!  This is me and Teresa.  Teresa was the one who works for National Pork Board and put together the video.  She asked the questions that I had to answer.  Here we were reviewing the questions while the video crew set up.

This is Bill, the videographer, and me before the shoot.  See that black thing?  It's the Diva Light 400!  Shining light on the diva of the day!  Haha!

 We did a bunch of filming with me in the pen with the sows.  Bill and Teresa were on the left.  The woman in the middle with her back to us also works at National Pork Board, the guy knealing down is one of the guys who owns the video production company.  Mary from Michigan Pork Producers took this picture.  That was the group that followed me around and helped me sound compitent as a pork producer.

Everything that I said had to be filmed multiple times so it felt a lot like reciting lines.  It was somewhat discouraging at first because I felt like I was sucking, but Bill was really good about telling me I was doing great. 

Bill got in the pen with the camera for a while too. 

 They took some still pictures too for their stock picture file. 

 I lulled them to sleep with my monotonous talking!

 Jeff, the unit manager at this site, joined me for some footage that will be in the background while I do voice over about training or something like that.  Doesn't it look real?  Like we are really talking about work?

 After being in the rooms with pens, we moved to the room with stalls to talk about this type of housing.  Mary must have gotten sick of taking pictures because I have very few of the rest of the shoot.

We also did some video outside.  It was really windy and the cars by the office were quite loud.  

Overall it was a lot of fun.  I told them I would do it again, but not right away.  They told me they probably would ask me again... yay...  I'll post the link to the video once it's edited.  Teresa thought it would be the end of November.

***

Check out the completed videos here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQf6YOZVeUA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HachwkjOUJA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij3QyIP-xZ4

Swinging

Tuesday, I came home a little late from work and found Lucy and Matt in the backyard swinging. Lucy's doll was the first in the swing that I saw.

Then Lucy wanted to swing some more.

Then Lucy thought it would be good for Mommy to try it out. That swing is NOT made for adult bottoms!

Daddy got to try too!

Then Daddy and Lucy (and Dilbert) ran around the yard.

Normally at this time of the evening, Lucy is super hungry and crabby because it's almost dinner time. Tuesday, though, Matt picked Lucy up at 5pm to find her eating a bowl of marshmellows and having just woken up from a three & a half hour nap. She actually did eat dinner and went to bed normally, so we were happy about that.

On a different note, it has been a really busy week! Wednesday and Thursday I was video taped by a real camera crew for promotional videos for National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council. It was super cool. I tried to take some pictures, but the camera battery died. The people who were at the shoot said they would email me pictures (they took pictures too). Hopefully I get those soon, and then I'll post them.

Counting Book

I've been reading other people's blogs and can't believe how creative some people are! It am a complete nut job because I keep looking at them and thinking "I could totally sew that tent" or "I could totally build that kitchen set out of wood." Then I think "Erin, you're crazy! You don't know how to sew and you don't want to learn! You don't know how to saw either. If you ever did learn to sew you would sew one thing and then you would move on to the next thing."

I did, however, attempt minor craftiness by making Lucy a counting book. I go the idea from the crafty chic mommy blog. She has some really cute stuff on there.

Here is how it turned out:

I took the pictures and put them into by StoryBook Creator 3 software (by Creative Memories) so that I could add the words. I made the cover and the last page on here too. Then I printed them on 4 x 6 photo paper.

Then I glued the photos onto paper that is made to fit photos on nicely. (Glue sticks work great!) Then I laminated them. I borrowed the laminator from work.

Lucy is really funny when she looks at the book because she needs to go and find all of the items in the book, or at least the dolls/stuffed animals. Yesterday she was digging through her stuffed animals to find all the pigs. I've found two more stuffed pigs in the house since I made this. You would think we lived on a pig farm or something. ;)

I've thought of a bunch of other ideas: a family book to show family members far away, ABCs, colors, shapes, words, etc. I've gotten distracted by other crafts though, so I don't know when I will get to making another one. Let me know if you have any good ideas for a book like this.

Lucy being silly

Lucy is such a ham right now. We got this basket out of the basement where it was holding our guitar hero equipment because I thought it would be fun for holding babies. I didn't realize it could hold toddlers so well too. It's especially good for watching Elmo...

...and playing with babies.

Lucy is also trying out her construction skills. We had just had a fireplace guy out measuring where and how big we want our new fireplace. Lucy thought it looked like fun and measured too.

Then she thought she'd check her waist size while she's at it.

She has also been learning the words beard, rough and smooth. Almost every night she feels Matt's face and mine saying "Beard?" It's super cute.

Matt is teaching her to pray at dinner. Here are two example prayers of how things have been going:

Tuesday night:

Matt: God is great

Lucy: God great

Matt: God is good

Lucy: God good

Matt:Thank you

Lucy: Kank you

Matt: For

Lucy: Five

Matt: (chuckling) our food

Lucy: foo

Matt: Amen

Lucy: Amen

Tonight after doing the first one and wanting to pray more:

Matt: Dear God

Lucy: Dear God

Matt: Thank you

Lucy: kank you

Matt: for our food

Lucy: for foo

Matt: I love you

Lucy: I love you too

Matt: (chuckling again) amen

Lucy: A MEN!

The Combine!

Yesterday, my dad was across the road from our house combining soy beans. We didn't ride with him, but had fun watching from our yard and taking pictures. Lucy was a little nervous.

She watched from inside the house too.

Today, Aunt Rachel, Lucy and I all piled into the combine with Grandpa too! It was fun! I love fall.