Coughs and Colds and Runny Noses - Oh My! My Favorite Ways to Relieve Cold Symptoms Naturally

With all this cold, snowy weather we have been getting lately, I guess it’s only fitting that every person in our house has been sick with one thing or another. Any parent out there can testify that there is nothing worse than having a sick child. It’s utterly heartbreaking. And it tends to make even the biggest super-mom feel a little helpless. Add on top of that, that my littlest honey bee can’t yet take traditional cold medicines (she’s still too young) to help relieve any of her symptoms. *Sigh* What is a mom to do? Well I’m going to let you in on a couple of our family’s favorite and natural ways to combat colds.

 ***This information is not in any way a substitute for professional advice. Please contact a medical professional to discuss these remedies before trying any of them. If you are in need of medical assistance, please contact a medical professional. Please see our disclaimer for more information.***

Cold Combatant #1 – The Humidifier

When cold season strikes at our house, this puppy is rarely turned off. It helps moisturize the air and helps keep air passages from getting that dry, “fiery” feeling.

 

Cold Combatant #2 – Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

 

There’s nothing more soothing than a warm bowl of Chicken Noodle to comfort someone with a cold. Making your own Chicken Noodle is super easy and only has to take a few minutes to prepare. Seriously, this recipe is hard to mess up and using a store bought rotisserie chicken that’s already cooked majorly cuts your cooking time. You can add or take away anything you like, but this is how I make it:

Kellie’s Super Easy Chicken Noodle Soup

 6 cups of organic chicken stock

1 package of egg noodles (I like to make my own egg noodles for this, but if I’m in a hurry, I’ll use packaged. If you are using homemade noodles use about 3 cups.)

1 rotisserie chicken, meat removed and set aside

3 or 4 organic carrots, sliced

2 organic celery stocks, sliced

1 organic yellow onion, diced

In a large soup pot, heat chicken stock on medium high heat until it comes to a boil. Add your noodles and cook for 5 min. Reduce heat to medium and add in carrots, celery, and onion. Let simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add chicken and cook until the noodles are al dente. Serve in mugs or bowls with bread for dipping.

 

Cold Combatant #3 – Honey

Did you know that honey is an effective cough suppressant? I love having a cup of ginger tea with a couple of teaspoons of honey in it to help clear out congestion (plus I like the spiciness of the ginger. Woooh!). And recently I found a wonderful product for my kids, Little Colds by Little Remedies Honey Pops. They’re a natural and tasty way to calm sore throats in children, my kids love them! Find out more about honey and colds here.

***You should never give honey to a child under the age of 1***

 

Cold Combatant #4 – Eucalyptus and Tea Tree Essential Oils

I love eucalyptus! The essential oil of eucalyptus helps clear up congestion and mucus, is anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory! Pretty amazing stuff, I think! You can use it in a steam inhalation or dab a drop or two on your neck or chest. You can also make a rub with it by adding a few drops to a base oil such as almond or coconut oil, and rubbing it on your chest and neck. I personally like to add a few drops to a pot of steaming water and letting it vaporize throughout the house, or I’ll add a few drops to the tank of our humidifier (See Cold Combatant #1).

Tea tree oil has anti-microbial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial qualities. I use it in the same way I use the eucalyptus, by adding it to a steaming pot of water and letting it vaporize. This will help purify and also deodorize your indoor air. It also aids in decongestion. I wouldn’t put tee tree oil directly on your skin due to possible allergic reactions. Like always consult a professional for more info.

***Both Eucalyptus and Tee Tree oils are TOXIC if ingested!!! Keep them out of the reach of children and consult a medical professional before using.***

 

Well I hope that these remedies help you and your family this cold season as much as they have helped us. Cold and flu season can be the hardest time of year for any parent, but as you can see there are safe and effective natural ways to help alleviate the discomfort that comes with being sick. Once again I urge you to contact your healthcare provider or a competent medical professional before trying any new remedy or treatment for any condition. Here’s to your good health!

 

See you again soon!

 

Kellie

Spring Fever

I don’t know about you, but I for one am over this winter. This is what I woke up to this weekend:

 

And yes, that is snow flying in front of my window. Yuck, huh? I say bring on spring! I’m ready for sunshine, pretty flowers, and green grass. And I’m even more ready to begin planting seeds for this year’s gardens! Although it’s still WAY too cold to begin planting anything here, I can reminisce about last year’s gardens and daydream about those to come. I thought I’d share some pics from our gardens and our raised vegetable bed from last year and ask how do you cope with “spring fever”?

 The beginning of our raised veg bed

 

And again a few weeks later

 

One of our potted jalapeno plants

 

                                                                                                                                                                                        Sunflower

 

                                                                                                                

 

                                        Our garden path. This is one of my absolute favorite gardens!

 

 

   

Culver's Root Flower

 

Meadow Sweet flower - "Martha Washington's Plume"



 

  Bee Balm flowers

 

 

Aahh! Don't you feel better already? I know I do! Wishing you and yours a wonderful end to your weekend!
 
See you soon!

 

Kellie

I LOVE Chocolate! A Valentine's Tasting Party

I love Valentine’s Day! It’s such a wonderful day to remind those around you that you care. Now we all know that it’s a day that is primarily focused on love for your significant other, but there are so many more types of love out there than that. Love for your kids, love for your friends, love for your pets, love for your family, and so on. Of course the Hubs and I do the Valentine’s Day romance thing with dinner and flowers and all of that, but this year, I wanted to show my dear friends some love on this special day, so I decided to host a Valentine’s themed chocolate tasting party.

Some of you may be wondering what exactly a tasting party is. A tasting party is a get-together that is focused on one type of food or drink. Ever been to a wine tasting? Well it’s sort of like that. Some other examples might include having all Mediterranean fare, or different types of margaritas, only at a tasting party, you have just a small, appetizer sized amount, just enough to taste the flavors. I really enjoy tasting parties, mostly because I’m such a huge fan of appetizers but give tasting parties a try, I promise you’ll be hooked!

 I started off the planning for my choco-stravaganza by purchasing a few different good quality chocolate bars (I don’t recall the exact brands but there was a milk chocolate bar, a bar that contained 70 % cocoa, a bar that contained 85% cocoa, an organic white chocolate and strawberries bar, and an organic dark chocolate and orange bar, you get the idea, anyway). These were my “tasting” chocolates.   I also put together a menu of a variety of small, bite-sized eats, all containing…you guessed it... chocolate!.. in one form or another.  I chose the following for my pint-sized smorgasbord:

 

 Raspberry Filled Chocolate Crepes

Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse

White Chocolate Crème with Roasted Blueberries

Brownie “Love” Bites

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Shortcake Trifles

Chocolate Cheesecake Bites

Chocolate Éclairs

 

You can find some of these recipes on our Pinterest page. I thought the Brownie “Love” Bites were super cute and they were so easy to make. I simply took a boxed brownie mix and made it according to the instructions in a 13x9 pan. After they were baked and cooled, I took an extra small heart cookie cutter and cut the brownie bites out, then arranged them on my serving platter. They were a big hit with minimal effort!

 **TIP** When doing a party that requires multiple dishes it helps a lot if you can choose recipes that can be made a day ahead or that need long periods of refrigeration time. That way, you won’t be trying to prepare and cook several dishes at the same time, saving you boatloads of stress!

 I also had a chocolate fountain set up with some pineapple, blueberries, strawberries, pretzel rods, and marshmallows for dipping. And for drinks, I kept it simple with a selection of red and white wine, water, and tea, and also offered tastes of Choco Vine’s Whipped Cream Wine.
 

For decoration, I stuck with the traditional hearts and love Valentine’s theme (I made most of my decorations, but store-bought works just as well). I tried to not go too over the top with my decorations, sticking mainly to the areas where food or drinks were displayed. I also looked up a few factoids about chocolate on the good ol’ internets, typed them up in a pretty font and scattered them around the house. As for favors, each of my guests received a wine charm for their glass, that I handmade for them.

 

Once my guests arrived, we enjoyed the fruits of my labor and each other’s company. We sampled the different “tasting” chocolates, and compared the varied flavors from one bar to the next. I know that some people like to have paper available so that their guests can take notes on each bar, but I felt like that would be more for a larger number of samples than what I had.

 

I am so glad that I did this party. The company was awesome, the food turned out great, and it gave me a chance to let my friends know how wonderful they are on the holiday of love.
 

 

See you again soon!

 Kellie
 

Hello!

Okay, here we go…testing, testing, 1,2,3,… is this thing on? Oh, there you are! Hello! Please allow me to introduce myself; my name is Kellie, welcome to my blog! I am a homemaker, a wife, and a mother of two. When I was considering writing a blog, I had to ask myself, “Self,” I said, “what in the world will you blog about?” and that got me thinking about everything that I love and enjoy in my life. I am SO passionate about my family, home, and hobbies that I decided those would be the perfect topics to blog about, and ta-da Blueberries & Bees was born!

Let me tell you a little more about me. First of all, I live in the Rocky Mountains of Idaho. And before you ask, no we are not potato farmers (although we do grow a few in our garden :)). We love to spend a lot of time as a family in the outdoors and most of our summers are spent camping, fishing, and barbequing.  And, being from Idaho, our winters are spent sledding, making snowmen, and shoveling the driveway haha. My husband is my best friend and we have an 8 year old son, and a 2 year old daughter. My kids are my whole world and I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to spend as much time with them as I do! Even on our craziest days I love being a mom, plain and simple!  Rounding out our little family is our beagle, Elvis, and our rescue cat, Shayde.

As for me, I really take joy in creating and crafting and have a very wide variety of crafting hobbies. I could go on for days listing them all, but I will spare you that.  I also love doing DIY and home projects. My most recent project was updating our bathroom (watch for a post on this later).  I like to attend yard sales and finding that perfect item to restore or to create something new and fabulous with!  I’m an avid party planner and regularly host parties and get-togethers for my wonderful friends and family. I am always looking for new things to try and enjoy learning new crafts. Homemaking is my life’s work. I believe that our homes and our families are a big part of what shape us as people, and I strive to create the best home environment for my family as possible.

I hope that you will join me on my journey in all things domestic and possibly learn a thing or two. I look forward to getting to know my readers and followers and can’t wait to see what the future of Blueberries & Bees holds!

Thanks for checking out Blueberries & Bees. If you like what you see, please share the blog with your friends and families!

See you again soon!

Kellie