He's Here! - William Garrett Wright

We welcomed our precious, second son twelve days ago -

William Garrett Wright!

(It's hard to believe that it has already been that long)

He was born at 11:16 a.m.

weighing 7 lbs 4 oz. and was 20 1/2 in. long.

Our family of four!

He was born exactly 3 weeks early.  I'm am so grateful to have such a wonderful husband and amazing family that helped get everything ready for his arrival.  So even though he was quite early, everything was already set up and in order before he was born!  It was such a blessing!  We kinda assumed he might be early.  When we went to the doctor, at the beginning of that week, she said I was already at 2 cm and that it probably wouldn't be much longer.  Jesse worked tirelessly to finish up the plumbing in the house for the shower, toilet, and we have hot water now too!  Soooooo amazing!

 I'm honestly glad we got to live without these simple luxuries for a time, because now we are even more thankful and appreciative than we ever would have been otherwise.

Gavin was so excited throughout the entire pregnancy helping me set things up for baby Garrett. He is such a great big brother!!! He talked every day about wanting to meet the baby in mommy's belly.  When we set up Garrett's baby bed, Gavin ran to get one of his favorite baby blankets to give the baby and put a teddy bear in his bed too saying "he needs it" when he gets here.  Too precious!  He loved hearing Garrett's heartbeat at the doctors appointments and said he sounded like a "choo-choo". :-)

I was very uncomfortable during supper the night before Garrett was born and just couldn't get to sleep when I laid down for the night.  I had random, mild contractions all night long and never did fall asleep.  Finally at about 2 a.m. they started getting consistent and we decided to head on to the hospital just in case.  Chelsey (Jesse's sister; her blog is rosesandliliesblog.wordpress.com) took care of Gavin for us. When we got close to the hospital (which is an hour away from the house) the contractions started getting more intense and closer together.

We had a wonderful experience with all of the nurses and doctors at the hospital.  Everyone was so kind and helpful!  We were very blessed to have a safe and healthy delivery for both mom and baby with no complications!  Praise the Lord!  I was in labor a total of 9 hours, though it felt much faster and seemed to go by very quickly. The contractions weren't really too super painful until the very last hour (just like with Gavin click here to see post about his birth) thankfully.  Thank you so much everyone for your prayers!  We truly appreciate all of y'all!

Our sweet baby.

Little Garrett was quite alert when he was born and took to nursing like a champ.

He is so very precious and I seriously don't know how we ever did without him.

Gavin has seriously been the best help and loves his little brother sooooooo much!

All throughout the day he gives him hugs and kisses, talks about him, loves helping get things for him, and has so much fun watching all the little faces Garrett makes.

Gavin copying Garrett's faces.
So cute!

We love getting to watch our boys grow up together

and adore being the parents of two!

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.  Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate." -Psalm 127:3-5

House Update // Our Timberframe Porch

Hey y'all!  We're so excited to say the TONS of progress has been made on our house in the last two months! YAY!!!  As we are quickly approaching our baby's due date, we wanted to get a good bit finished on the house.  So we decided to take one week off from work each month and dedicate it entirely to working on the house and so far that has worked very well.  During one of those "house weeks" we started and completed our timberframe porch.  The porch has been a huge blessing lately!

Also, we want to say a great big thank you to all of our friends and family who came out to help us put it together!  We seriously appreciate y'all!!! :-)

Below are a few pictures throughout the building process:

Timberframe construction uses mortise and tenon

joints to lock large timbers together without using nails or fasteners.

One of the tenons is pictured below:

It was very exciting seeing all the beams going up

and fitting them together!

The metal roof going on!

 Here are a few up close pictures of

the joints once finished.

 It looks so good all finished!

With fall just around the corner, and it starting to be a bit cooler outside,

we've been eating out here on the porch nearly every meal!

(I just had to include a picture of these lovely, purple Asters

by the porch steps because they're just too pretty and mean that fall isn't very far away!)

And..... this is by far our very favorite spot on the porch! :-)

So there's just a peek into the progress of out little

Home sweet  home!

Wright's Trading Post || GIVEAWAY!!!

Hey y'all, here is just a quick post to let y'all know about a GIVEAWAY that we're having over on our Etsy shop's Instagram this week, @wrightstrading!

Super excited about this: Go check out our "Wright's Trading Post" Instagram for info on how to win one of the rustic, home decor products from our shop!

Also be sure to visit our Esty shop:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WrightsTradingPost

to see the rest of our handmade, rustic items that we offer!

DIY Kitchen Cabinet Curtains For Doors

Hey y'all!  So much exciting progress has been happening around here on the farm, in our businesses, and also on the house!  We took a week off from everything last month to focus completely on finishing up some unfinished parts of our house to make it a bit more functional while we are living it and building the rest.  One project that I also made during that week, were these super cute, easy, durable, and very inexpensive curtains.  One day we will make cabinets, but for now we decided to use curtains instead of doors and they turned out great!

The final goal for the kitchen is to have a southern, rustic, farmhouse-style look to it.  So I made the temporary curtains to fit that style too... and they turned out totally adorable!

They are actually made from a painter's drop cloth from the hardware store!  Making them cost very little and are quite sturdy for daily use in our family kitchen.  They only take 4 supplies:

drop cloth

ribbon (I used this burlap w/ lace that was on clearance)

thread

and some smooth nylon rope to hang them

from so they slide back and forth easily

My sewing machine was down for the day, so I hand sewed the entire project.  It took a little longer, but I enjoyed getting to practice my hand-stitching.  After measuring and cutting the drop cloth into appropriate sized panels for under our counter, I hemmed the unfinished edges.

Then sewed the ribbon on while sewing the fold for the rope to slide through.

Gavin loves helping mommy make things. :-)

Once all the panels were completed, we threaded the rope through them

and Jesse fastened the rope underneath the counter-top with these hooks.

I LOVE the final outcome!

They are very functional and look good too

as substitute cabinet doors while we finish everything else.

I really like how well they ended up blending with the white-washed,

wood walls and our antique farmhouse sink.

Thank y'all so much for stopping by!

What projects have y'all been working on lately?

Scenes of Summer

Hey y'all! Summertime here on the farm so far has consisted of beautiful, misty mornings, tending to the gardens, checking on the honeybee hives, splashing in the pool during the hottest part of the day, eating delicious berries and cold popsicles (see our recipe for healthy, fresh fresh fruit popsicles), and talking on the porch during warm, peaceful, evenings while watching the fireflies!  So blessed to live in the country!  One of the most exciting parts of spring and early summer is to see what's blooming today in the garden, orchard, or just along the paths and in the woods! :-)  This post is mostly just filled with pictures of what our summer has looked like so far.  I hope ya'll enjoy the pictures (there are quite a few of them! ;-)).

Above is a breathtakingly beautiful, squash blossom.

There are going to be sooooooo many wild blackberries this year.  This is the very first ripe one we found this summer.  Gavin LOVES getting to help us pick and eat them! :-)  I'm hoping to make lots of jelly, syrup, and cobblers out of them.  Do y'all have any good recipes for blackberries?

Cutest little gardener ever!

Helping us plant lavender in our new herb garden.

No southern summer is quite complete without

the sight and smell of magnolia blossoms!

 The last of the strawberries.

 Kale all wet with morning dew.

The blueberries are ripe!

Gavin helping water "his" plants (the

ones in pots on the porch).

Bringing mommy flowers

one lovely summer evening.  Too sweet!<3 p="">

I'm not sure what kind of wildflower this is, 

but it is so pretty!

Cooling off during a very hot afternoon!

Cayenne pepper.

Honeysuckle!!!  They smell amazing!

 Our first time to have peaches on our peach tree, but now worms seem to being trying to take them over.  Do y'all have any tips on natural ways to deter them?

One of our happy, healthy tomatoes!

What does summertime look like for y'all?

5 Home Remedies for Honeybee Stings

Hey y'all!  Since Jesse and I became beekeepers, one of our most asked questions is, "Do you get stung a lot?".  Well, not really, but it is gonna happen every now and then.  So for those times of the occasional honeybee sting, here are 5 home remedies to help bring down the swelling and ease the pain a bit.  Always try to remove the stinger as soon as possible.  You can use your fingernail, a nail file, tweezers, etc. to scrape it off.  The sooner it is out the better to reduce the amount of venom being injected.

1. Ice
Place ice pack directly on the affected area.  This one is pretty obvious and does wonders to reduce the swelling.

2. Baking Soda
Shortly after getting married, I had my worst incident with being stung a whole bunch.  We tried lots of different methods and this one really did help ease the pain for me.  Directions: add just enough water to the baking soda to make a paste that is thin enough to spread on the sting, but not so thick as to be clumpy and just fall off.

3. Honey
Apply honey to the affected area, but of course only after you've left the beeyard or you'll pick up a bunch more bees. ;-)

4. Apple Cider Vinegar
This one stings a bit, but eases the pain after a just a second.

5. Mud
And lastly, rinsing the sting with cool water and applying mud or dirt mixed with water also soothes the pain and reduces the swelling.  Be sure to clean and wash it off when your done.

I hope this helps for anyone that is wanting to start beekeeping or

for anybody that gets around a grumpy hive of honeybees. :-)

Thanks for stopping by.