Thursday, August 7, 2014

N.O.R.A. Tea

This is a great tea for pregnancy, postpartum, and frankly anytime for women especially - though men can drink it too. It tastes great and is FULL of vitamins for you and baby.

N.O.R.A. stands for: (you can click on the links to see some of the benefits from each herb)

Nettles
Oat straw
Red Raspberry Leaf
Alfalfa

I just bought each individual herb from my favorite herbal source, Bulk Herb Store, and mixed the tea myself. It is recommended you mix 2 parts Nettles, 2 parts Red Raspberry Leaf, 1 part Oat straw and 1 part Alfalfa. Bulk Herb actually has a "Mamma's Tea" but it has Peppermint replacing the Oat straw. It tastes great but I cannot use it postpartum because the peppermint reduces my milk supply. Oat straw will actually help build your milk supply plus helps with those emotional ups and downs.

When making the tea, I'm actually making an infusion (a stronger version of tea, which needs to steep longer than a normal cup) so I make it in large batches.



 I use two washed out (very well) empty spaghetti sauce jars and put 4 heaping tablespoons of the premixed NORA tea in each jar.




Then I add hot water to the jars. Make sure you mix the herbs very well so they all get wet. Place the lids on top but be careful the jars are very hot!


Let the jars set on the counter until they cool, then you can place them into the refrigerator. They will need to steep for at least 4 hours. I usually do this in the evening so they can set overnight.



The next morning, I filter out the leaves into a pitcher using my tea strainer. This isn't necessary, you can just filter it with a coffee filter as you pour it into your glass if you prefer.

The pitcher pictured here holds 2 quarts, as you can see, the two jars will make about a quart of  tea. You can add sugar or honey or your preferred sweetener. I personally like it just the way it is. If you're not nursing, feel free to add peppermint to your herbal mix - it tastes great. Also, you can reheat the tea to make it warm but it makes a fantastic ice tea in the summer months!


Monday, April 28, 2014

Springtime

Springtime has arrived and all kinds of new things are occurring around our household.

We are expecting a new addition to our family again! It kind of took us by surprise, but a happy surprise. Come October there will be a new little one in our house.




The boys have started doing Karate and really enjoying it!






We took a quick trip down to Virginia to spend Easter with my sister.









Unfortunately, on our way down south, we got into a pretty nasty accident. Still waiting on the insurance to find out whether we will be shopping for a new car or not. The pictures don't do the damage justice. The blessing is that no one got hurt, that's what really matters!


Here are a few more pictures of us enjoying the beautiful spring weather we have had lately. SOO very happy to be able to go outside, open windows and not having any snow!











Wednesday, February 5, 2014

A Little Before, a Little After, a New Year

Here's our photo "montage" of the last couple months, starting with Christmas since I never got around to posting any of our Christmas pictures this year.

On Christmas eve my sister and her husband came up to have Christmas dinner and exchange presents. We had a lovely time together!!



We went to bed nice and early (or at least the kids did) to wake up at the crack of dawn and make a disaster of the living room! ;)












No sooner did we clean up that mess, then we celebrated Elizabeth's birthday!!











Oh but the excitement doesnt end there! Shortly after that we invited a new member into the family (no, I didnt have another baby). My sister had her sweet baby boy and we got to go down to meet him and visit a little with Nana and PopPop as well!



We've had quite a busy January with all the snow and ice!!


But the kids found ways to stay warm and busy....










The final news to get you all caught up to date, Abby celebrated her 2nd birthday! Since she loves Sesame Street and is our little "cookie monster" we made it a Cookie Monster theme.







Oh! I cant end this without bragging on little Elizabeth. She has started to learn to read. We are so proud of her!!