Closer to chook ownership....

Well here is the progress on the Chick Inn. As you can see it is now in the ground and has a coat of paint (done on Monday by Jemma and I) and the screen door is on (this will allow me to be able to get into the run easily. Greg still needs to do the floor, nesting boxes and a ramp and we neet to put up the wire & surrounds for the run. Then I will need to give it another coat of paint and put in all the equipment (straw, wood shavings, food containers etc). I am going up to Newcastle on Sunday to get some x breed chooks from a man up there - CAN'T WAIT!!! I will drop into mum and dads on the way to see them. I will let Jemma pick her own chook too - she will love that.

SAVING MONEY

BABY FOOD

Michael will be six months old on Friday - WOW where does the time go? I have started him on solids and he is going great!!! It is now time to move on from just rice cereal and start adding some vegetables. Firstly we are going to try PUMPKIN.

Don't let anyone tell you that bought food is better than home made because its not - its probably the same, but at least with home made you know the quality of the produce and exactly what goes into it.

I have made home made food for all my children - even when I was a 17 year old mum I did it. I have my wonderful mum to thank for this. Mum showed me how to make my own food for bubs - it is so easy and so cheap AND so nutritious everyone should do it.

I walked up to the shop and at my Coles they had marked down pumpkin for $1 per piece (about 800g). I bought 2 pieces.

Take the seeds out and peel the skin off and chop it up. Put the chopped pieces into a steamer (a metal steamer in a pot with some water in the bottom of the pot boiling), pop the lid on and cook for about 15mins.

When it is soft, scoop it out and blend it up. Put into icecube maker (or whatever containers) and put in freezer.

And that's it!!! How easy is that!! It took about 30mins to make up HEAPS of pumpkin.

What I will do is try Michael on this for about 3 days and then try something else eg potato with the pumpkin mixed in, then try something else eg sweet potato/kumera and so on. The reason I do this is to make sure he is not allergic - it makes it easier to find out if you only add one thing at a time.

If you put them in ice cube containers or the like then you only need to press out a square of each vegetable or meat you want. You then microwave it and breakfast/lunch/dinner for bubs in a flash!!

I think baby food is about $1.?? per jar/tin. That is at least $3 per day X 7 days a week = $21 + MINIMUM PER WEEEK.

I have just made about 3 weeks worth for $2. SAVING AT LEAST $19 (for 30mins work).