Drea Wood

Love them with Goodness

Written on 12/19/2011 by Dreawood in friends, products

A sweet friend of mine recently decided to launch their own line of natural products. She has had years of experience doing this… and you can imagine with 7 (almost 8!) children, she has tried lots… and had a great crew to test her goods on. ;-)

Nichole and her husband Keith have been working together to launch this line and I am so excited to finally post about it on my blog.

They are still in the process of setting up a more official “store” – for people to shop from, with all the bells and whistles. As for now, they are doing it old school style aka taking orders via email.

Below are some of the items she has for sale.

I will link to her post on her blog, where she goes into more detail about each specific one. All her products are made from her home. They are organic, amazing, well thought and just great items to have in your home.

1st up: Pure Vanilla Extract, Lemon Extract & Spices!

Organic Chocolate Wafers (these are unreal, gone in seconds any time we get them)

All Natural Flavored Popcorns

Organic Lipbalms & Lotion’s

Organic Hot Cocoa (mmm perfect for the Holidays!)

& another one of our Kid’s fav’s – Chocolate Syrup
(perfect for chocolate milk!)

All of these items are ready to ship!
Except for the Wafers and Popcorn.

If Nichole goes into labor tonight (im thinking so, hehe) – then the wafers/popcorn will be delayed in shipping… however everything else is good to go, so if you want to order something before Christmas, get your orders in NOW – and chances are if you are in the USA, it can be there by saturday.

This family is a wonderful family to support.

I encourage all of you to check our her blog – read up on her products…

& E-mail Nichole any questions you may have ;-) or to place an order.

nicholeboggs[at]gmail.com

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Taite’s 5th Birthday

Written on 12/19/2011 by Dreawood in birthdays, recipes, Taite

Yesterday afternoon we celebrated Taite’s 5th birthday.

I debated throwing a party… just because things are so hectic in dec…. but also because money is tight… and I wasn’t sure who to invite, etc..etc… what I kept coming back to though was the fact Caleb had such a huge birthday party this past year. I didn’t want Taite to feel as if we favored Caleb over him… & Since this was his 5th birthday (one that I think is a milestone birthday) – I knew I just needed to do it.

I let Taite plan his party… I let him pick those he wanted to come… I let him pick the food… which btw was not very healthy ;-) – I added in some fruit… but over all we had chips, more chips, candy, cake and ice cream. Oh… and of course Taite had to weasel us into giving him a soda. Since this is something we never do, I don’t mind. Its his special day… and if he wants a soda, by all means, enjoy :) – he was beyond thrilled when he saw everything laid out.

Thank you so much to those who came out.

Taite was so happy.

Also for those who follow me via facebook & were curious what cake recipe I decided on… I ended up cooking a whole grain chocolate cake! (Thank you Stacey for the tip!) I could not of been happier with how it came out. The one thing I did have trouble with was finding an icing recipe Taite approved of… After testing one and it failing… I just decided to go with a more traditional frosting recipe… that had almond oil and lots of sugar hah… which I think was just fine… since it isn’t something we eat often.

Below is the cake recipe:

Ingredients:
2 cups freshly ground white hard wheat
2/3 cups cocoa
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 2/3 cups Sucanat
4 Eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
(I used my friend Nicholes – she sells a home made organic vanilla extra, its amazing!)
1 cup. mayonnaise (healthy kind without added sugar or chemicals)
1 1/3 cups water

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Mix Flour, Cocoa, Baking Soda & Powder together in bowl.

In an additional large bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat sugar, eggs & vanilla for 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy. At low speed, beat in mayonnaise.

Add flour mixture into mixing bowl (with the egg mixture) – slowly… a 1/2 cup at at time or so…. alternating with water, until both water and flour are gone.

Once mixed (it will be very watery btw) – pour into your pan or pans. I used a smaller baking pan… it was glass, and around 7×10 inches. A 9×13 would work or even cupcakes. This cake recipe does not rise as much as most cakes, so take that into consideration.

Bake @ 350 F for 30-35 minutes, or until cake toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in pans 10 minutes and then remove to place on cooling rack.

The cake just so you know was a huge hit. We had 1 piece left after the party… and very few plates with cake left :) – so everyone ate it very well.

Enjoy!!

To those who hate mayo, know this… I HATE MAYO!! hate hate hate it, seriously the sight of it makes me gag… but this cake is amazing. You cannot taste it at all. The mayo has oils in it that make this work… and you would never know it was whole grain. It taste just like the devil food box mixes, only better :)

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5

Written on 12/18/2011 by Dreawood in Taite

Guess who’s 5 today…

Hard to believe…

Seems like yesterday he was a baby…

We love you Taite!!

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Party Weekend

Written on 12/17/2011 by Dreawood in friends

Anyone else having a weekend full of parties?

It seems as if that is the trend this week/weekend.

Wednesday we had one at our Pastors house (so awesome him and his wife Janet open their home up to so many) – and friday we had our Sunday School party. Childcare btw was provided both times! What a blessing.

Then Sunday we will celebrate Taites’ 5th Birthday with a fairly non-elaborated ;-) yet sweet party. He had a few friends he wanted to invited.

I set up a photobooth at our Sunday School Party last night. It wasn’t fancy, only had one flash, and a small wall – but it was a fun way to show off white elephant gifts and sillies.

Tonight I will attend a big Christmas Party with a local photographer, to photograph over 200 couples. I thankfully will be running lightroom, instead of doing the photo side of things ;-) – so I get to kick back and watch someone else work, which I think will be good for me.

Hope everyone else is having a great weekend…

& some normalcy ;-)

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Christmas Card Time

Written on 12/16/2011 by Dreawood in family, friends

Every year we tend to send out 100-200 Christmas Cards. It varied from year to year, but Id say a solid 100 every year. With moving so often, Pastoring at 3 churches in just 7 years… we have run into lots of people :) built lots of friendships… and Christmas cards is just a small way we are able to stay connected to some people we wont see at Christmas.

This year though with the job-loss… we made the decision to cut back on the cards.

Despite our wants :)

So, if you have yet to get a Christmas card… there probably is not one coming in the mail box… it does not mean we love you any less… it just means we have 25 cards… family on both sides… and not enough to send to everyone.

For those who did not get a card though, I thought an easy way for you to get one up on your fridge ;-) – would be via digital file.

So here is our Christmas Card 2011 – it btw is not the same one we shipped out ;-) – so see, those who didn’t get one, get something different. Whoot whoot.

We love you all… and hope that everyone understands and knows we are still thinking of them.

To download full res file go to THIS LINK.

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