The Big Announcement!

I'm so excited to make this post tonight. The big announcement is... I have opened up an etsy shop! I've been working on it for a little while now and today I opened the doors to Made By Mama Dani. I decided to open Made By Mama Dani to help fund my craft hobby and to supplement my home daycare business income, especially during times like now when I have openings. Currently I have a few hats and some soaps (goats milk and shea butter, both scented with essential oils). I will definitely be adding other knitted products; I'm starting on one tonight! I also have some ideas for other items to make. I can't wait to make them all and then blog about them here!

Here's a look at my current listings:

My hats:
I love making these. They are the perfect craft for when I'm sitting around watching tv.

   

My soaps:

I have recently fallen in love with essential oils so I thought, why not make soap with them! I plan on getting some other molds though. The flower/leaf ones are a hard plastic that makes getting the soap out difficult. I want to get some silicone molds like the one I used for the mini soaps. 

 

So, there you have it! I hope you take a moment to check out Made By Mama Dani, share it with your friends, and maybe find something you like!

© Mama Dani's Musings

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My Etsy Shop: Made By Mama Dani

Suburban Homesteading: January 2014

My last homesteading update was in May so I have a lot to talk about. Both our chicken flock and our rabbitry have grown! In May 2013 Mopsy had a litter of 10 kits. Unfortunately, only 4 survived. Flopsy was suppose to be due at the same time but it turned out that she wasn't pregnant. When she didn't give birth, we bred her again. In July she had a litter of 5, with only 1 surviving. Out of these litters we ended up keeping the only 2 females (Beatrix and Flora) and 1 of the males (Baby....more on him later). The other 2 were processed in the fall. 

We also hatched more some chicks in the summer. We didn't keep any of those but it sure was fun! In August we bought some chicks. All the Silkies went to a friend but we kept the Rhode Island Red and Polish; Penny and Joan Jett.

Of Mopsy's and Flopsy's litters, we were only planning on keeping the females. Well, this little guy was just way too tame to process. His name was changed to Baby and we attempted to keep him as a house rabbit. He's just too big for the house so he went back outside with the others.

We did end up getting a house rabbit. We got this little Lionhead in November. His name is Thumper. He hasn't gotten much bigger than he was in this picture:

Around then, our does were due, or we thought. It seems they hadn't gotten pregnant. So we decided to give a rabbit colony a try and moved the rabbits in with the chickens. The girls did beautifully. The boys however, couldn't get along. The girls now live in the colony and the boys live in separate cages and get special visits to the colony. Hubby also built an awesome new chicken/rabbit run this fall. It's bigger and more sturdy than the other one. I absolutely love it! The chickens and rabbits are getting along just fine....once the chickens realized the rabbits weren't something to be scared of. 

Almost 2 months ago we had the results of the rabbit colony 3 of our 4 does gave birth. The one doe that didn't give birth was just slightly too young to get pregnant. We had a total of 24 kits. We lost a few and are down to 17. They are now weaned and doing great. Some of the current babies will be adopted out as pets, some will be processed and I'm thinking of keeping one female. She's a beautiful solid black. The boys have had visits with the girls so if it all went well, we have 4 does due in the beginning of February. I love having the babies around! 

And lastly, yesterday, the chickens got their first taste of snow. .... They were not impressed!!

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Kiddo Update

The last time I did update posts for the kids was in May of last year. The kids have done a lot of growing since then!

I'll start with Sean. Sean's still in soccer. He loves it! He has out grown soccer shots and will be starting in soccer club this spring. He's technically a kindergartner this year per the city but he's started on first grade level work. He's our reader. He's always amazing me on what he can read and reads anything he can get his hands on. He's also the caring one of the bunch. He's always looking out for others before himself.

Maddy... She's still in dance and absolutely loving it! She tried soccer last summer and winter but has chose to stick with  dance for now. Maddy isn't an official homeschooler yet but is doing preschool work. She loves her art as much as before but she's also really getting into math. Numbers just click with her. Many times on the way to dance she will make up addition problems and figure them out. She's still always at extremes when it comes to emotions but she's getting better about controlling her anger.

Emily... Our littlest munchkin is now 2 years old. At her last check up she was21 lbs 10.5 oz, 32.5in, and right about the 3rd percentile. She may be tiny but her personality is huge! She has a huge vocabulary and talks with such emotion! She's a little sponge too. She has learned about all of the colors and has started on letters now. Her favorite phrase right now is "what is this?" so there's no wonder why she's soaking it all in.

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