Kombucha... Kom-whatcha??-Kombucha

Don't ask.
You know me. I'm always into something going against the flow. But now, even Jacob says I've gone off the deep end! :)
We have these awesome friends on our street who are very similar to us and the other day they saw me working in the garden and brought a drink down for me to try... and of course i will try most anything labeled as natural or healthy, probiotic, blah blah blah. Basically anything not FDA approved I will eat! :) Give it to me in it's most natural form!
So we loved it. And then a week later he/Mark said he had a scoby ready for us.
A WHAT?? That's right, a Scoby. Too much detail and seriously, i still don't fully know what it is so you can wikipedia it if you care :)
So I brought my Scoby home and made a home for it under my kitchen shelves for it to ferment ( in a brew of black tea and sugar) I've left it for 5 days and it is crazy incredible! Or freaky. I poured the liquid into 2 glass bottles and made another brew to ferment for next week and put the scoby back ontop- or you could call it a sea anemone like jacob :) Also in the glass bottles i put just a smidge of freshly juiced muscadine grapes so that when it ferments for 2 more days it will have a fruit flavor.
Wednesday should be full of Surprises!
We're brewing beer! Scary. :)

Lucy's 3 1/2 B-day celebration

So Lucy had been inviting people to her birthday ever since her 3 yr old party ended... so we decided it is a great excuse to invite friends to hang out for her Half Birthday! Originally we planned to have it outside at our playground but the weather said rain 60% chance all weekend long. So change of plans... We took our sweet kiddos and friends to a very new Cupcake store in the Vista! They loved it! They ate more icing than the actual cupcake but definately enjoyed themselves. Then we got all our sugar energy out by taking them to the nearby park / Finlay park downtown to let them go wild... and go wild they did.... and crashed they did when we got home :) Lots of silliness and laughs. These are our good friends Aria, Isabelle, Liam and Owen (Children of our friends Brandon and Rachel, and Blake and Laura). We are thankful for good families to grow our kids up with!

Last friday I made caramel candies. I know, not the first nor the last thing you would expect me (healthnut) to make. But the autumn in the air for some reason makes me want to have fresh caramels. So, we endeavored and succeeded! Very simple but you gotta be able to stir extremely hot sugar for about 15-20 min. We placed walnuts on top of half the batch- HUGE batch!- and wrapped them individually. Lucy enjoyed helping to wrap them. We took them to a baby shower the following day and made goody bags for her friends for her 3 1/2 b-day celebration as well. It was a hit! Good memories are mostly made in the kitchen :)

Leaf prints

Well Lucy and I love doing crafts so last week we picked ivy from our yard and placed them under paper and then rubbed crayons over the paper to pick up the print of the leaves. They turned out beautifully! Then we of course had to do a photo shoot and got the fun idea to glue them back on the real ivy leaves for a cool effect. The glue stick glue dries fast! We started pulling them off the leaves and they were almost stuck! ;) Lots of fun! Ready to do fall leaf prints...
And of course, had to include the top pictures of the kiddos having a screaming contest at breakfast. "The best part of waking up is Screaming in your Cup"!
I have been forced to become a morning person :)

We had a great labor day weekend with family including going to a parade in chapin. The kids loved the parade- it was a really great one. Lucy loved the candy collecting experience! (later daddy and she sorted out by candy type and she kept one piece from each section and shared the rest with the Ben Lippen kids- thank goodness for BL!) We ran into a little dog who had broken the exact same right arm as Lucy and had a pink cast! So fun- glad I had the camera. Here are also some zoo pics from the weekend and pool time!

*Lucy's Pink Accessory*

Well, sweet girl took a tumble off a pony (name was Bear) at the zoo a week ago. Earned herself a bright neon pink cast! (who would have thunk she'd pick pink! :)
This was quite scary for her but she has coped very well and really never complains about it. Throughout the day she does find little things she can't do like bringing a cup up to her mouth and holding onto the swings with that arm but she is adjusting.
Friends and family are donning her arm with lovely signatures and drawings to keep her happy!

These are also some pics of Landon at the table eating- he's just so funny right now! To get him to put things in his mouth instead of throw them on the floor from his high chair, we have made a big deal about clapping wildly for him when he will put things in his mouth. So here he is exited because he's got an audience ... it's quite the game!

~Camping with Prichard Fam~

A couple weekends ago my family was able to all meet up and go to our beloved Pisgah Mountains to go camping. This is a very special place for me... for all of us kids because this is the place my parents brought us to many times when we were growing up. Other than my house I grew up in, Pisgah holds many of my most special memories!
Now that half of us are married and have busy lives, it is hard to make a point to vacation together. We had a wonderful time.
Saturday we started on the Pisgah trail fully knowing that we would have to turn around shortly, but to our surprise, Lucy hiked the entire trip up and Lando slept on my back! We had a blast! She also climbed a huge rock with daddy spotting her. We were amazed!
And as always, it poured rain saturday night. :) This is nothing new for a Prichard camping trip. Never come camping with us unless you don't mind the rain- or in Jacob's case, floating in a sleeping bag....

Lando's birthday

So I'm backtracking a bit to talk about my sweet man. No, no, not big daddy (though he's sweet too ;)) my other sweet man, Landon. He turned one on August 10th. I was so thrilled to be at his birthday party and not in the capacity I was in one year ago after taking castor oil to birth that big boy out! Landon is so fun... well he's actually pretty boring, i just use the word fun for everything :)

He is crazy stoic. It's near impossible to get a rise out of the boy. But he's my loveyman. He loves to cuddle. At the same point, He loves to walk. His favorite thing to do is walk back and forth repeated amounts of times over our bright yellow speed bump in front of our house! He could do this for hours! Who needs toys when you have speedbumps.
Landon is very observant. He will notice the slightest incline of a floor/doorway/pathway and go straight for it. he loves going up and down steps... even if it's only one or two steps- which makes for a dizzy mommy due to the fact that he still refuses to let go of my hands! :) But we're making progress.

Landon loves balls, doggies and kitties, blueberries, going outside, his pushcart that a fabulous friend is letting me borrow, and last but not least he loves bread! :) Maybe he'll be a marathoner cause he sure is a good carb-loader!

We are so thankful for our little man in our family. Lucy girl loves helping us care for Landonator. She's very good at telling mommy when he has put something in his mouth that he's not supposed to like rocks and acorns and even attempts the finger sweep to assist mommy with her cpr skills. She likes to push him in the swing and stroller and catch him from the slide.

We enjoy our days together with Landon and we are so grateful to God for our first year with him!

So here goes my first blog ever! I am creating this because I have always been terrible and probably will always be terrible at journaling. I have quite a few journals and all have the first 20 pages filled with great dreams and aspirations, honest thoughts and trials, inspired quotes I'm stuck on for the moment, etc. The pages following are blank.... or if that journal is lucky, the leftover pages turn into my shopping lists, or my daughter's coloring canvas!
But I want to keep track of our sweet life. So we'll see how this goes. I'd love my kids to be able to come back to something and see what all we did or what my thoughts were in each instance. So this site is for us as much as it is for you. I hope you are inspired to live each moment being mindful of the life God has given you. If you know me, you know I like to question everything. I like to ask... "Though this is the mainstream way culture may be going, is it the only good way? Does it fit our family's focus? Is there a better way?" There is a quote I think is wise that says "If you want to change something, observe it." -Heinemann
And that is basically what I am passionate about. I enjoy learning more, challenging myself so that in the end, I would have not just survived but thrived! I want to give valuable truths to my children.
Enjoy a window into our lives!