Herbal Beauty LLC

My hubby took the girls on their very first ice fishing trip. Our friend has an ice house on a lake about 1.5 hours away. We didn't know what to expect but the girls loved it! They came home at about 10:30pm and my oldest stayed up until 11 telling me all about it. Then around 3 am, my 4 year old came down, half asleep, and told me about it.
They told me all about the snowman they made, the ice house, the minnows, the fish they caught (3 crappies and 1 walley) the canned foods they cooked on the ice house heater, the hot chocolate, the flag that went up and down when they caught a fish and so much more! Clare, my oldest, asked if fish pee she learned that fish do not urinate. They release ammonia from their body through the gills.
After my hubby filleted the fish, my 4 year old looked in the bowl containing all the unwanted fish parts and wanted to keep them all for a craft project! My hubby said no, but eventually gave in and let her bring home the fish tails. This is so like Becca. She will take anything and turn it into a craft project! So today we baked the tails on a very low setting to dry them out. Then she painted 3 and put one in our nature book. Becca also came home with a dead minnow in her coat pocket! She is not your typical girl! She loves everything that crawls, slithers, and that is slimy. That minnow was sealed with tape and put into our nature book as well. Clare came home with 2 minnows to keep as pets. So far, one already died!
Today their writing assignment was to add a page to our nature book about the ice fishing trip. 
They can't wait to go back!
When I get the picture of the girls holding the fish, I will post it for you all to see!
Have you ever taken your kiddos on a fishing trip? In the summer time or winter time? What did they think?

I will be featuring a Naked Beauty Product every week. If you have a favorite, message me: email, Facebook, or comment on this post and I will feature your faves.
This week, I will talk a bit about our Rosewater Face Lotion. I must admit, this is one of my favorite products that we make. I use it everyday, at least twice a day. Maybe even more during the winter months. All you need is a couple of pumps and you have plenty for your entire face. It does not leave a oily feeling afterwards, it soaks in nicely. I also made sure I kept the scent to a minimum. I personally do not like strong smelling bath and body products, even if it is scented with an essential oil. Our Rosewater Face Lotion is lightly scented with Geranium Rose and Litsea Cubeba essential oils. The light floral, lemony scent is also from the Organic Rosewater and Helichrysum water.
Some ingredients used in our Rosewater Face Lotion:
Litsea Cubeba is known for its mild astringent properties which can help with oily skin and acne.
Geranium Rose is is known for its toning and cleansing properties and is also great for balancing the oil in your skin.
Organic Rosewater is very soothing, moisturizing, and cleansing.
Organic Helichrysum water is very toning, and great for mature skin and/or very dry skin.

Our Rosewater Face Lotion is great if used alone or with our Rosewater Facial Toner and/or Rosewater Facial Cleanser

So try it out today! Since you read this post you will receive $1 off your Rosewater Face Lotion online purchase. Please include $1 off in the comments box or send me an email.

My hubby and I have always enjoyed cooking from scratch. It was no big deal when it was just us, (which didn't last long) and had a lot of free time or even when we just had one kid. Our free time started to disappear, but we still wanted to cook our "from scratch" meals. Our kids know what real food is. They usually will not eat food from a box or even snack foods that are loaded with sugar and artificial flavors. (We definitely do eat kraft mac n cheese and a frozen pizza every now and then) So we decided to turn Monday into our cooking day. We have been doing this for the past 3 years. This is the day we make enough meals, snacks, and breads to last the whole week. Yeah, we make a huge mess in the kitchen this day, all of our silverware and every single mixing bowl ends up dirty, but it makes preparing meals so much easier and we have way less dishes to clean during the week.
What do we usually make? Well, we always make homemade tortillas, a big pot of vegetarian chilli, granola bars, a quick bread, treats, snacks, enchiladas, pizzas, lasagna, soups, hummus, and the list goes on. We usually make enough to freeze for future use. We our always good to our future selves!
Our menu for this week was: homemade tortillas, vegetarian chili, carrot bread, chocolate clusters, and fattiar. (Labanese meat pies) We still have enchiladas, granola bars, and oatmeal cookies in the freezer if we need them. As a nursing momma, I am hungry all the time. So I really love having all these healthy and yummy foods ready to go. Sometimes the kids will say, burritos again!?! But they always gobble them up. I love that we are still able to eat healthy meals, but not spend hours in the kitchen preparing them on a daily basis. I also love that my kids know what "from scratch" means and prefer meals made by us and not from the frozen food isle. I hope they will continue this tradition with their own kids!

My hubby is part Lebanese and I love Lebanese dishes. We make grape leaves, kibby, hummus, and mujaddara on a regular basis. Here is a recipe we use for the meat pies aka: Fattiar. You can also use spinach and other veggies for the filling.
From: Favorite Syrian Recipes Cookbook
Recipe for Fattiar
Dough:
4 cups flour, (we used 1 cup heirloom red fife and 3 cups unbleached white)
1/2 pkg. dry yeast
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1+ cup water
Mix wet ingredients together, add to flour, knead well. Form dough into lemon sized balls. Cover with dish towel. Let raise for about an hour or until double in size.

Meat and potato filling:
3 cups ground beef
3 cups grated raw potatoes
1/2 cup grated onions
1 T. salt
1/3 tsp pepper
2 T. lemon juice

After grating potatoes, rinse well. Mix all filling ingredients together.
When dough is ready, roll out into circles about the size of a corn tortilla on a floured board. Place about 2 TBSP of filling in the center of each circle. Pinch sides to make a triangle. Bake on oiled pan at 375 for about 20 minutes. ENJOY!
Is there something your family does weekly to make life easier? Do you have a favorite food/recipe you can't live without during the week?

We have been celebrating Valentine's Day here for the last couple of days. The kids made their own boxes and had fun making and handing out valentine's to each other. I surprised the kiddos with a heart shaped breakfast: biscuits and eggs. They loved it! They said it was the best Valentine's Day ever! Which is something we here often over here on holidays and birthdays. I am glad it doesn't take lots of candy and gifts to satisfy my kids on holidays. A little bit of handmade gifts and a whole lotta love is all it takes.
I made the biscuits with locally grown wheat flour. My new favorite flour to use in all my recipes. It is so yummy!
This is where you can purchase it and find out more: http://goodearthmill.com/
                         What did you do for Valentine's Day? Does your family of a tradition?

Biscuits
From: Clear Creak Coop Cookbook
Ingredients:
1 c. Good Earth Heirloom Whole Wheat Flour
1 c. all purpose unbleached flour
1 t. sugar
1 T. baking powder
½ t salt
5 T. unsalted butter (cold, in small pieces)
3/4 c. half-and-half

Preheat oven to 450F. Toss together flours, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut butter into flour until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add half-and-half, stir gently. Gather into ball. Transfer dough to lightly floured surface. Knead 30 sec. Pat into 3/4 in. thick rectangle. Using 2 3/4 in cookie cutter, cut out 8 circles, using all the dough. Arrange biscuits about 1 in. apart on baking sheet. Bake until puffed and golden, about 12-14 min. Cool on wire rack.