Dandelions In My Vase

Real Food Journey: Goals, part 2: Dietary Dangers

2012-02-02T18:49:00.002-05:00

As I stated in my previous post, there are two lists that I am using to base most of our dietary changes on at the Weston A. Price Foundation Website. I covered the first list, Dietary Guidelines, in my last post so in this post I will share how we are doing on the second list, Dietary Dangers.

1. Don't eat commercially processed foods such as cookies, cakes, crackers, TV dinners, soft drinks, packaged sauce mixes, etc.

*We are doing well on this one with the exception of the occasional pack of cookies. I think we've purchased store bought cookies twice since we started this journey last summer. I'm not counting times when the kids are out at a church event, or at friends or family since it is quite difficult to enforce our dietary standards on others. I make sure that the kids are eating well at home so that these occasional deviations surrounded by whole foods. I'm doing pretty well with my soda addiction as well. I haven't completely given it up but I no longer drink it at home, only when we happen to be out.

2. Avoid all refined sweeteners such as sugar, dextrose, glucose and high fructose corn syrup.
*We are doing quite well with this one as well. I use organic granulated sugar for my fermented beverages, but since the sugar is consumed by the fermentation process, we aren't consuming them. When we need something sweetened, we use maple syrup, honey or stevia or a combination.

3. Avoid white flour, white flour products and white rice.
*We are doing well with this. We do occasionally buy white bread when I have planned poorly and don't have bread ready, but it isn't often since we don't eat bread very often anymore. I have been using wheat flour or a variety of gluten free flours (such as coconut, almond or rice) when I bake.

4. Avoid all hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats and oils.
*We have completely eliminated these oils.

5. Avoid all vegetable oils made from soy, corn, safflower, canola or cottonseed.
*We have eliminated all of these oils.

6. Do not use polyunsaturated oils for cooking, sauteing or baking.
*We do not use any of these types of oils. We only use coconut oil, olive oil, lard, tallow or bacon fat for cooking, sauteing and baking.

7. Avoid fried foods.
*We still occasionally have fried foods, but they are not commercially fried foods - I only fry fresh foods at home with one of the oils I listed above.

8. Do not practice veganism; animal products provide vital nutrients not found in plant foods.
*We could never practice veganism because we love meat, cheese, butter, milk, eggs, etc.

9. Avoid products containing protein powders.
*Since we rarely buy anything processed or with more than 5 ingredients, this is not a concern.

10. Avoid pasteurized milk; do not consume lowfat milk, skim milk, powdered milk or imitation milk products.

*Since last summer, we have only consumed raw, whole fat milk & dairy products.

11. Avoid battery-produced eggs and factory-farmed meats.

*We buy our eggs from a local farm which allows their chickens to roam freely. We have stopped buying meat from the grocery store because it all comes from factory farms and now only purchase locally raised meats.

12. Avoid highly processed luncheon meats and sausage containing MSG and other additives.
*We no longer purchase lunch meats or store bought sausages.

13. Avoid rancid and improperly prepared seeds, nuts and grains found in granolas, quick rise breads and extruded breakfast cereals, as they block mineral absorption and cause intestinal distress.

*We are doing well with this one since we no longer buy processed foods. We do occasionally buy unsweetened, cold cereal - I think we've probably used 2 boxes in the past 3 months. Steve doesn't cook so when he is in charge of breakfast, he usually goes for a box of cereal.

14. Avoid canned, sprayed, waxed, bioengineered or irradiated fruits and vegetables.

*We buy organic, unwaxed produce when possible, especially items on the dirty dozen list.

15. Avoid artificial food additives, especially MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable protein and aspartame, which are neurotoxins. Most soups, sauce and broth mixes and commercial condiments contain MSG, even if not so labeled.

*I am very vigilant about keeping these neurotoxins out of our home. When we are out at family, friends or church, products containing MSG, aspartame or hvp are not allowed at all.

16. Avoid caffeine-containing beverages such as coffee, tea and soft drinks. Avoid chocolate.

*I fail at this one. Completely. I love chocolate and I do drink tea with caffeine. I have drastically reduced soft drinks but still have an occasional soda.

17. Avoid aluminum-containing foods such as commercial salt, baking powder and antacids. Do not use aluminum cookware or aluminum-containing deodorants.

*We are doing well on some of these and not so well on others. I have stopped using aluminum containing foods with the exception of the rest of a can of baking powder with aluminum in it. I have also stopped using my aluminum cookware and have been using a lovely set of stainless steel cookware I was able to snag for an amazing deal a day or two after Christmas. We have not been able to stop using aluminum containing deodorants yet. I hope to find something soon that will take the place of deodorant but for now, I really don't like to go out of my house smelling like BO.

18. Do not drink fluoridated water.
*Our town water supply is not fluoridated. Once we have a little extra money, we plan to purchase a Berkey filter to eliminate anything else that may be lurking on our water.

19. Avoid synthetic vitamins and foods containing them.

*We are doing well with this since most of these would be found in processed foods which we seldom use. We are in the process of switching our supplements over to real, non-synthetic versions but since the cost is much higher for the real thing, this has to be a process since we can't afford to do it all at once.

20. Do not drink distilled liquors.

*Not an issue since we don't drink alcohol.

21. Do not use a microwave oven.

*We got rid of our microwave on January 7th this year. It's been nearly a month without and I haven't missed it much at all.

So those are our major goals as we make our way on this journey. In some areas, we are already where we want to be and in other areas, we have a long way to go. I am just going to continue with my baby steps and we will get there. I do have a bunch of sub-goals that fall under the heading of one of the goals on this or the other list, like obtaining kefir grains and adding that to our diet or eating a fermented food at every meal or getting my children to eat a fermented food at every meal. I am hoping that by the end of this year, we will have met all the goals I have listed. I think my next step is going to be to prioritize the things we haven't yet accomplished and then perhaps set a date to each one to give myself a deadline for making the change. Some parts of this journey are not going to be easy (like giving up chocolate) but with God's help & the reminder that God's food is real food and we glorify Him by eating the food He created for us, we will get there!

Real Food Journey: Goals, part 1: Guidelines

2012-01-31T07:24:00.000-05:00

When I wrote my first post regarding our real food journey, I noted that I would soon be including a list of our goals and changes that we want to make. I have sat down several times to make this list but never finished it. So, I decided that I would take a different approach to it. The Weston A. Price Foundation has two lists that I am basing pretty much all of our dietary changes on, so rather than sit here and try to make up my own lists, I will instead include the Weston A. Price lists here along with a brief explanation of how we are doing or plan to incorporate each one into our lives. I'm breaking this into two posts since the lists are a bit lengthy.

Dietary Guidelines

1. Eat whole, natural foods.
     This is still a work in progress for us. While we do eat mostly whole, natural foods, we do still have a few processed foods that we continue to use (mostly snack items). This is an organizational issue for me. I need to better plan my days to allow for snack food preparations as well as regular meal prep.

2. Eat only foods that will spoil, but eat them before they do.
   This is also a work in progress as there are still a few items we use which are convenience or processed foods.

3. Eat naturally-raised meat including fish, seafood, poultry, beef, lamb, game, organ meats and eggs.
      We haven't been able to fully do this yet because of the cost but we have stopped buying grocery store meats that come from CAFO lots and have started buying locally raised meats and eggs. We also make sure to purchase fish & seafood that is wild caught and not farm raised.

4. Eat whole, naturally-produced milk products from pasture-fed cows, preferably raw and/or fermented, such as whole yogurt, cultured butter, whole cheeses and fresh and sour cream.
   In June last year, we started buying raw milk from a local farm that pasture feeds their cows. Besides drinking the milk, we use the cream to make butter & sour cream, and the milk to make homemade cheese & yogurt. I also use the buttermilk for biscuits & other recipes and whey in recipes and for lacto-fermentation.

5. Use only traditional fats and oils including butter and other animal fats, extra virgin olive oil, expeller expressed sesame and flax oil and the tropical oils—coconut and palm.
   We have completely eliminated industrial oils such as corn, soy & canola and have been using butter, coconut oil, olive oil, lard & tallow.

6. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, preferably organic, in salads and soups, or lightly steamed.
   We have been increasing the amount of produce we eat. Last spring, I planted my first organic garden and we enjoyed fresh produce from it all summer. I also preserved some of the produce we harvested for later use. We plan to plant a garden again this spring. We try to purchase organic produce as often as our budget allows, especially the items on the dirty dozen list.

7. Use whole grains and nuts that have been prepared by soaking, sprouting or sour leavening to neutralize phytic acid and other anti-nutrients.
   This is a work in progress. I try to plan ahead so I can soak my grains & nuts but I frequently forget or end up changing my mind about something last minute and use unsoaked flours, grains, etc. This is also an organizational issue for me. I've also been trying to incorporate sourdough into our diet, but a few days after starting sourdough starter, it seems to die on me so I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong there.

8. Include enzyme-enhanced lacto-fermented vegetables, fruits, beverages and condiments in your diet on a regular basis.
   We are doing pretty well with this - well, I am. I'm having a rough time getting the kids on board. I have started brewing my own kombucha and I've recently made sauerkraut (2 kinds) and lacto-fermented ginger carrots. I've also been making lacto-fermented lemonade punch and raw milk yogurt. Laural will drink the kombucha, eat yogurt and I can usually talk her into eating a little of the other stuff but Micah will have nothing to do with any of it except the yogurt. He will drink the store bought kefir I've brought home a few times but that isn't really all that ideal since it's pasteurized. One of my short term goals is to get some water & dairy kefir grains and start making that as well.

9. Prepare homemade meat stocks from the bones of chicken, beef, lamb or fish and use liberally in soups and sauces.
   We are working on this one too. I have made bone broths on several occasions and we have started to drink it but it has been a little difficult for us to get down. We just aren't accustomed to it yet. We started doing really well with the broth a couple weeks ago and one night I used it to make the rice I was using in a stir fry. It tasted great and went over well. Even my picky Micah ate it! But later that night we all came down with a stomach bug and well, everything came up. After dealing with the undigested rice, the smell of the broth in crock pot made me sick so I made my husband dump it out. I haven't been able to start a new batch yet, but maybe soon.

10. Use herb teas and coffee substitutes in moderation.
   We don't drink coffee and seldom drink tea but when we do it is usually organic & herbal.

11. Use filtered water for cooking and drinking.
   We are hoping to get a Berkey filter later this year but for now we use water from our tap. I know it isn't fluoridated but I do believe there is chlorine added. All of the pitcher or faucet filters remove the chlorine taste & odor but don't appear to remove the actual chlorine. Not sure what that is all about really. I need to look into it more but until we can buy the Berkey, we will have to continue to use our tap.

12. Use unrefined Celtic sea salt and a variety of herbs and spices for food interest and appetite stimulation.
   We currently use Real Salt and Celtic sea salt. I've been experimenting with Bragg seasonings and have always used plenty of herbs & spices.

13. Make your own salad dressing using raw vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and expeller expressed flax oil.
   I've been making my own dressing for a while though I do still crave a particular brand of honey french dressing that is full of high fructose corn syrup & soy oil. I don't buy it but I miss it.

14. Use natural sweeteners in moderation, such as raw honey, maple syrup, dehydrated cane sugar juice and stevia powder.
   We made the switch to local raw honey, local real maple syrup, organic sugar (occasionally) and stevia powder & liquid this past summer. I didn't realize how very yummy real maple syrup was! So much better that the maple flavored corn syrup!

15. Use only unpasteurized wine or beer in strict moderation with meals.
   Not an issue for us as we don't like beer and rarely have wine.

16. Cook only in stainless steel, cast iron, glass or good quality enamel.
   I used Christmas money to buy a new set of stainless steel cookware during the after Christmas sales. I threw away a bunch of my cheap & non-stick bake ware but still haven't decided what to do with my rather large set of aluminum cookware that was rather expensive and still in excellent condition. I hate to throw it away but don't want to give it away for someone else to use either.

17. Use only natural supplements.
   Working on this one too. I am planning to start using fermented cod liver oil and other natural supplements but the cost can be a little prohibitive.

18. Get plenty of sleep, exercise and natural light.
   This is a tough one because I'm just not a day person so I'm up late, don't get enough sleep and really don't start to function until evening. Exercise can be tough due to some physical issues I have. I don't have a game plan for this one yet.

19. Think positive thoughts and minimize stress.
   I don't really have a lot of stress to begin with so that's not a problem. I do tend to be a worrier but I've been praying through that.

20. Practice forgiveness.
   Another work in progress. That old human habit of holding a grudge can be so hard to get past sometimes!

Overall, we are doing pretty well with the guidelines. Some are easy changes, some not so easy and some can cost a bit more that we can afford, but we are taking things slowly and doing what we can with what we have. Even small changes can have a big impact on your health!

Tomorrow, I will post the Weston A. Price Foundation Dietary Dangers and how we are progressing with those. For more information on the Dietary Guidelines and Dangers, go to the Weston A. Price Foundation website.

Muffin Tin Monday: Angry Birds

2012-01-23T13:19:00.000-05:00

So, it's been a while since we've done one of our typical cutie patootie muffin tin meals. I can blame that on our ongoing transition to traditional foods. This food change has been challenging enough without worrying about trying to fit traditional foods into a cute muffin tin theme. I think I finally have enough of a handle on things to allow myself a little fun in the kitchen again.

Since we got a Kindle Fire for a birthday present - our first android device - we have been introduced to the world of Angry Birds. We are really enjoying it! So much so that Laural thinks she wants an Angry Birds themed birthday party this year! I started looking up ideas for a party on Pinterest (such an addiction) last night and in the midst of all that, I started thinking I might do a muffin tin meal for lunch. But what theme? Well, hey, why not Angry Birds since I'm knee deep in birdie searching anyhow? Here is what I came up with.

Top Row (of each tin): Blocks made of PB&J on wheat; Red Bird made from Babybel Cheese, nori features & carrot beak; White Bird made of boiled egg, carrot beak & nori details.

Bottom Row: Boards made of carrot sticks and a piggie about to buy it; Little Pigs made from green grapes with cheese and bits of grape as details; "Grandpa Pig" (that's what we call him, not sure what he is actually called) made from half a kiwi, sliced grape nose, fruit leather mustache& cheese eyes.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I forgot ears for the pigs, the eggs were super fresh so peeling them was messy & I could have toasted the bread to make it stand up a little better. It was still pretty cute and the kids really liked it. Here are a couple close pics of some of the things, just for fun.

Laural & Micah really got a kick out of their tins. Honestly I probably could have just put plain stuff in the tins & they would have been happy just because it's been so long since they've had a muffin tin meal but what fun is that?

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Real Food Journey: There's Something Growing Behind My Slow Cooker

2012-01-15T00:21:00.000-05:00

This sort of sounds like a kitchen nightmare! Yes, there is something growing behind my crock pot that is filled with beef bone broth, but I put it there and started it growing on purpose. Actually, there are several things growing. My ferments! I was a busy bee in the kitchen today and started several foods on their fermenting process today.

From left to right: navy beans (not fermenting but soaking so they can start sprouting tomorrow), regular sauerkraut, sauerkraut with carrots, kombucha, lemonade, ginger carrots & sourdough starter. I cleared out the corner of my counter which was filled with odds & ends that have no permanent home and turned it into my fermentation corner. Since my kitchen stays pretty chilly during winter, I figured that behind the slow cooker would be a nice, cozy and slightly warmer place for my little cultures to grow.

Sauerkraut is amazingly easy to start. Shred the cabbage, salt it, beat it up a little & then pack it in a jar. Since I don't have a proper crock, I just used a couple of wide mouth pint mason jars (I made smaller batches since this is our first and I'm not sure how it will go over). To keep the cabbage under the brine, I used an upside down lid for a regular mouth size mason jar and then weighted it with a jelly jar filled with water. I used the Wild Fermentation website to learn the particulars on how to make my own sauerkraut.

This is my kombucha tea which has already been brewing for about a week. That funky white-ish looking thing on the right side is the scoby which is what does the work of fermenting sweet tea into kombucha. When it is ready, I'll mix in some fruit juices to flavor my kombucha. When it's ready to drink, it will be a fizzy, tart beverage that is full of healthy bacteria. I've been drinking store purchased kombucha and the past few days, I've been sipping wonderful kombucha from Fab Ferments that I got as a prize in the 30 Day Kombucha Challenge contest but I am super excited about making my own and can't wait until it's ready! For more info on kombucha and how to make it, check out Kombucha Kamp.

Next on the counter is lacto-fermented lemonade. This isn't my first time making this but if I don't mess it up, it will be my first time drinking it. While it was finishing in my fridge last time, I barely bumped the jar it was in with another jar which cause a quarter sized chuck of glass to break and my lemonade went pouring out onto the shelves of my fridge. Total bummer! My daughter is especially excited for this one to be ready. She loves lemonade! This is a Nourishing Traditions recipe that I saw on Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Then there is my jar of ginger carrots. This is also a Nourishing Traditions recipe but I wasn't thrilled with the idea of using grated carrots so I cut them into matchsticks instead. I also decided not to grate the ginger and sliced it into tiny matchsticks too. The carrots & ginger are in a salt water brine with a little bit of whey from my homemade raw milk yogurt to aid in the fermentation. I used less ginger than the recipe called for and a little less whey as well.

This one is hard to see but it is a freshly started batch of sourdough starter. The one I started last week up and died on me. I don't know what happened. It was bubbling and doubling every day and then, 2 days ago, when I took the cover off to feed it and noticed it was not bubbly and hadn't increased at all. I went ahead and fed it again but again nothing happened. I was so disappointed. I hope I am more successful with this one.

I've been wanting to start consuming cultured foods & beverages for some time now but I was already overwhelmed with all of the other changes that we were making or wanting to make. Since allowing myself time to make the changes more slowly and taking baby steps instead of trying to do everything all at once, I am finally able to be more successful in implementing new items into our lives. I'm excited to be taking this next little step and can't wait to sample our ferments when they are ready!

For information on fermented foods and why they are beneficial for us, check out this article or this article on the Nourished Kitchen website.

Fried Chocolate Oatmeal with Peanut Butter Molasses Topping & Bananas

2012-01-13T02:20:00.000-05:00

My little boy has a lot of food issues. A good part of this is due to aversions and sensitivities to certain textures and flavors but a part of it can be attributed to him just being picky. He has a definite sweet tooth so sometimes, in order to actually get food into him, I cave in and add a little something to appeal to his tastes. He usually won't eat oatmeal, so I decided to jazz it up for him a little. I made chocolate oatmeal. It was a big hit and for the first time, he ate an entire bowl of oatmeal without having to be prompted constantly. He even had seconds! Success!

I always make a double batch of oatmeal so we can have fried oatmeal the next morning. We usually have regular fried oatmeal with butter & maple syrup, but this was going to be fried chocolate oatmeal so I wanted to kick it up a notch plus I was out of maple syrup. I remembered a recipe from Cooking Traditional Foods for Peanut Butter Molasses Pancake Sauce. I had already been thinking of fitting peanut butter into the plan somewhere to sort of mimic No-Bake Cookies, so this sounded just right. I looked up the recipe and, of course, I was missing ingredients but I didn't let that stop me. I just went with what I had on hand and this is what we ended up with.

This was probably one of the best breakfasts we've had lately. It was almost more like a dessert. The oatmeal had a pudding like texture with a little chewy crispiness on the outside and the topping was kind of thick & fudgy. So good! And I didn't have to keep after the kids to eat - they devoured it! Well, almost. Micah got full quickly ate all but half the oatmeal but he did eat all the bananas & topping. I was left wishing we had more so I could have seconds.

To make Chocolate Oatmeal: Mix about 2 to 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder to 6 servings of cooked oatmeal. Sweeten with stevia powder to your preferred sweetness.

To make Fried Oatmeal: Put your leftover oatmeal into a square pan and spread out to a nice even layer. Put it in the fridge and chill it overnight so it's nice and firm. Cut the firm oatmeal into squares and fry it in coconut oil over medium heat for 3 or 4 minutes or until it starts to get a little browned. Flip It & do the same for the other side. Remove it from the pan to a plate and melt some fresh butter over it.

To make the Peanut Butter Molasses Topping (my way): Melt 2 tablespoons of coconut oil in a small sauce pan. Add 1/2 cup peanut butter, 3 tablespoons of blackstrap molasses and 1 packet of stevia. Stir over low heat until mixed & melty. Spoon over warm fried oatmeal.

Then top it with sliced bananas. Dig in and enjoy!

If you'd like to try the Peanut Butter Molasses Topping the way it appears on the CTF website, go here. Spend some time checking out the Cooking Traditional Foods site - loads of great info & recipes there!

Real Food Journey - Learning As We Go

2012-01-11T16:10:00.000-05:00

I think some of the most important things to realize about making a commitment to making a major lifestyle change, such as switching to a real foods diet, is that you need to be flexible, you need to be open to learning new things and you have to be willing to try new things & then learn from your successes as well as your mistakes. I also think that it's important for other people to realize that whether you are new to the real foods journey or a seasoned pro or anywhere in between, we all seem to have moments where something happens that is not what we hoped for or expected. Sometimes these things are big and costly and sometimes they are just little things that have us slapping our foreheads in a "duh" moment. Today brought one of those moments for me.

I am not new to making butter. I've made it plenty of times, starting out the hard way making small batches using a stick blender and then kneading & rinsing it using spatulas as paddles and now my current method of using my KitchenAid stand mixer - the paddle attachment for beating the cream to butter followed by using the bread dough hook to knead it and wash the buttermilk out. The machine does all the work for me but I need to keep an eye on it because once the butter separates from the buttermilk, that big ball of butter sloshes that buttermilk around and has the potential to make a big mess. So while making butter today, I checked on my mixer and saw that my cream was getting close to that magic moment when suddenly it becomes two distinct products. As I gazed into the bowl, I realized that all my quart jars are in use or in the dishwasher so I need to wash one real fast else my buttermilk will have no vessel to call it's own. So, I made the mistake. I turned my back on my mixer and went to the sink to quickly wash a jar. I was just about finished - turning the water off after rinsing the jar - when I heard a loud splat behind me. I turned around just in time to see a nice big white wave of buttermilk come soaring up over the side of the bowl and onto the counter and floor. I ran across the kitchen, while shouting "No, no, no, no, no!" (as if that would stop it or something), getting a nice splash of fresh buttermilk on the tops of my feet as a reward for my efforts. After turning the mixer off as quick as I could and watching the paddle come to a halt, I surveyed my mess - which I have already dubbed my Buttermilk Fiasco. Yes, I took a picture of it. I want to remember the ups & the downs of this crazy ride. My floor looked even worse. I had splashes of buttermilk nearly 6 feet away from the counter. I didn't take any pictures of my floor because my floors are ugly to begin with and I didn't sweep today (or yesterday, to be honest). The butter was fine and I finished it after sopping up a pint of buttermilk from the counters, floor and a few toys my son had left in the kitchen. I feel a little silly for making a mistake when I knew better but no major damage is done. I have a pound of fresh butter and a quart of buttermilk chilling in my fridge. Everything is back to normal now and kitchen life is moving on.

So why do I share this with the general public? I mean I could try to make myself look like Perfect Mrs. Homemaker on my blog. Super Mom who does nothing wrong and creates only wonderful and flawless dishes making this real food thing looks like a breeze. I could, but in reality, it's far from the truth. While I have done a lot of things well so far, I still sit in my kitchen some days wondering: What the heck can I cook today? How do I even start on making _______? Does this or that count as real food? Am I a complete failure if I am just too tired or busy to make something traditional and just give my kids a pb&j on store bought bread for dinner tonight because I forgot to thaw the meat, bake the bread or soak my beans? Can we still be healthy if we can't find or afford grass-fed meats? What the heck am I doing? Why isn't my scoby floating? Or any of a number of other things that dart through my mind.

Yeah, this journey can be a little overwhelming at first and even after you've been on it for a little while. But that's where you need to realize that this is, after all, a journey. It takes time to get to where you are going. There will be ups and downs and the occasional pitfalls. Sometimes you just need to take a break in the midst of it all. The important thing is to look around, get your bearings and don't give up. Give yourself a minute to take a breath and then move on from there. There is no failure as long as you are willing to keep going forward, learning a little as you go and do the best that you can, cleaning up the spilled buttermilk along the way.

Changes

2012-01-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

My poor little blog has been sitting, abandoned by me for 2 months now. I haven't posted since early November! What has been keeping me from blogging? Good question! The answer is, that besides being busy with the kids, homeschool, holidays and family, we have been spending a lot of time making some changes in our daily lives - changes that have been keeping me busy reading blogs and books, planning and plotting, and cleaning out the old to make room for the new. It has to do primarily with food. For a little over 6 months now, we have been working on changing our eating habits - leaving behind processed, preservative filled, pre-packaged, convenience foods in favor of real, whole, fresh, traditional foods. Thanks to the encouragement of some friends, I've decided to blog about our changes once or twice a week or maybe even more if I feel led.

In my next "real food" post, I will share my personal prioritized list of changes we want to make and are working on implementing as well as why we are making or want to make each of the changes but we have already made a few changes:

We started (slowly) on this journey back in June last year by switching from pasteurized, processed milk products to farm fresh, raw milk from pasture fed cows. Besides just drinking the delicious milk, I use the cream to make butter and buttermilk which I use to make biscuits or pancakes, and some of the milk gets made into cheese or cultured into yogurt. I hope to start making milk kefir in the near future as well.

The next change we made was the meat we buy. Since most of the local grocery stores carry meat that has been shipped from somewhere out west (from meat processing companies that are notorious for tainted meats involved in numerous recalls), we decided that we would seek out a source for local meat. Ideally, we wanted to find an affordable source of grass-fed meat, but it is completely out of our budget at this time, so we decided to go to the next best thing we could get - locally raised meat that is butchered locally. It is grain fed but I find it to be a better choice than meat that has been raised in CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations) conditions. We have very recently been purchasing locally raised grass-fed meats in small amounts on occasion from a local health food store. We also found a source for local, free range eggs.

Our next change was to significantly reduce our intake of grains. At first we were going to completely eliminate wheat but decided that we are not quite ready for that step but we have reduced the amount we do consume. We used to be a bread at every meal family but now we only have bread once or twice a week. We still have waffles & pancakes but we frequently use gluten free flours in place of wheat flours. At the same time, we eliminated soy from our diets with the exception of fermented soy, though it is something we rarely eat anyhow. We also eliminated corn oil, canola oil, soybean oil, and any other highly processed oils. In place of these, I now use coconut oil, lard that I rendered myself, olive oil and butter.

In the midst of these changes, we also began purging the processed foods from our house. Considering I am a recovering coupon addict who had quite the large stockpile of items that I purchased for next to nothing using my crazy coupon skills, this was a nearly monumental task. Even though I don't think these foods are good foods, I could not throw them away when I know there are people all around me who are struggling to put food on their tables every day. I chose to donate the food because I believe that eating something is better than starving. This picture is approximately a quarter of what I ended up giving away.

This was an exceptionally difficult change for me to make. I was totally addicted to the rush I got from walking into a grocery store with a handful of coupons and walking out with a couple cartloads of food for just a few bucks. My coupons saved me an average of 85% every time I went shopping. I also felt very secure having a large stockpile of food I could rely on in case of an emergency. I am working on rebuilding a stockpile but using real foods instead of processed. That is definitely a work in progress.

We have also: started drinking & using bone broth, started drinking & brewing kombucha, stopped using aluminum pots & pans in favor of glass & stainless steel, got rid of our microwave (2 days ago!), reduced refined sugars in favor natural sweeteners like local honey, local maple syrup & stevia, started drinking & cooking with filtered, fluoride free water, started buying organic foods & produce as often as our budget allows, stopped using canned foods, and started soaking and/or sprouting grains, nuts and beans. Plus, last spring we started an organic vegetable garden in our backyard.

This probably seems like a pretty extensive list of things we've already done. The truth is that this is still just the beginning. We have a long way to go to be where we want to be. This coming year is going to be a challenge for us as we make the desired changes. Many of the changes are very recent changes so they aren't habits yet and many of the things we have recently changed are still so new that I am unsure about how to continue to incorporate them into our daily life. For instance, just today I made sourdough starter. I am still a little confused about how often to feed it once it's established and I'm still not sure about how to make bread from it though I did find a few recipes for pancakes, english muffins and pizza dough using the starter.

I have a long way to go, but it is my hope that my blog posts will serve as encouragement for anyone else who might be unsure about starting out on this journey. It's not always easy but it's worth it. I'm learning that I don't have to know it all to make the changes. I just had to be willing to start, even with baby steps. I've started so now I just need to remember why I'm doing it and make sure we continue on this journey and see where it takes us.

Fun Food - Thanksgiving Style

2011-11-10T23:01:00.001-05:00

I love making fun food for the kiddos. I think that's probably pretty obvious if you spend even a few minutes looking around this blog. Sometimes though, I come across ideas that I love but they work better on a larger scale. However, having only two very small children with appetites that make tiny birds look like ravenous beasts, I usually do not bother some of the cute ideas I have bouncing around in my brain. Thanks to a new ~~addiction~~ ~~obsession~~ organizing tool, Pinterest, I have been able to fill my brain up with some neat ideas and thanks to signing up to do snack for our homeschool group meeting, I got to bring some of these fun foods to life.

A cheddar cheese & black grape sunflower with a celery stem.

A veggie turkey made from cucumbers, green, red & yellow peppers and carrots. I used raisins for eyes, bits of pepper for beak & waddle and celery for the legs..

Indian corn marshmallow treats made from Kix cereal, raisins, dried cranberries and dried papaya. I used fruit roll-ups for the husks.

Everything was a big hit with the kids and we ended up only bringing home a couple pieces of veggies. Most of it was devoured rather quickly. I was actually expecting to be bringing home most of the veggies but I was surprised at how many times the kids kept coming back for more. Yay!

The Orphan Experience and Global Marketplace

2011-11-06T20:26:00.000-05:00

Our church, Sandy Lake Wesleyan, had an incredible event today for Global Orphan Sunday - The Orphan Experience and the Global Marketplace. For the Orphan Experience, several rooms were transformed into scenes that are common for orphans living in third world countries.

We first visited the bedroom. There was a cardboard mat on the floor, with some cushions, a sheet and a mosquito net hanging overhead. We talked about where we sleep compared to where orphans in Haiti sleep. We also learned about a 6 year old girl named Anastasia who lives in an orphanage in Russia and shares a room with 19 other girls. When she has a bad dream, she cries herself back to sleep because there is nobody to comfort her.

Next we visited the "bathroom" facilities. There was a large tub filled with cold water and we learned how orphan children often take a bath in cold water with many other children at once and have to share towels which end up being wet and dirty by the time several children get done with them. Laural and Micah got to bathe some little dolls in the cold water. Then we looked at the toilet which was a representation of a squat toilet - a hole in the ground. There isn't any toilet paper, just a cup and some water to clean with.

Next, we went to the Orphan Table where we had dinner much like orphans in Haiti would have. Many of us crowded around a makeshift table, sat on the floor and were served a small bowl of rice and beans. Most orphans only get one meal a day and it is usually rice and beans. Afterward, we had water in a little plastic baggie. Since bottles are rare, they might fill a bag with water and put a little hole in the bottom to suck the water out.

The next room we went to was a little glimpse into daily life in an orphanage in India. The children carried buckets of water like orphans have to. Orphans might use the water to wash clothes in a tub with a washboard. Laural and Micah got to try their hand at laundry this way. they thought it was pretty neat but I'm sure once the novelty of it wore off, they would understand it isn't all that much fun. Then they got to look at the toys on the shelf. Some orphanages have toys for the children but they often don't allow them to play with them because it might lead to fighting among the children.

The next room we saw taught us a little about foster children who live near us. We looked at bowls containing jelly beans and corn kernels to show us how many children are in foster care. They also planted some grass seeds in a cup to make a foster buddy to remind them about how foster families "foster" kids without a good family situation into healthy, growing children.

The last room we visited had piles of trash in it and we learned how many orphans have to dig through garbage to find something they can wear on their feet to give them some protection. Laural found some bags and rubber bands and put those over her feet. She didn't care for it too much.

At the Global Marketplace, we were able to purchase items made by artisans around the world. Many of these artisans are women rescued from trafficking, or people in impoverished areas of the world who deal with the reality of orphans every day. Proceeds benefit global missions projects. Laural chose a flowery headband and a doll made in Haiti.

Micah chose, what else, a scrunchie. It is some sort of silk, I think. I tried to get him to pick something else but he was starting to get tired and grumpy.

We also picked out a few pieces of candy. They both chose a couple items but I didn't see what they were until later. One of them picked up this:

Hot & salted tamarind pulp candy from Mexico. I knew as soon as I saw it that it wouldn't go over well. We all tried a little nibble. It was sour at first. Then the saltiness kicked in which was weird. Right after the saltiness, the chili powder became obvious. Yikes! It was too much for me and I had to spit it out. I think we will be avoiding hot & salted tamarind candy in the future... LOL

Micah picked out some cute Hello Kitty candy from Japan which turned out to be gum. It was much tastier.

For myself, I got something that caught my eye right away. There were lots of pretty things that would have been nice to have, like scarves, decorations, jewelry and hair accessories but I chose a lovely handmade Kenyan journal. I already put one of my little ink drawings into it.

Overall, it was an amazing experience and very enlightening. I hope it has opened the hearts of everyone who attended like it did for us. We will be praying for God's direction as we consider what our role will be in caring for orphans around the world. If you are inclined, I invite you to pray as well. God's blessings to you. ♥

Felt Jack-O-Lanterns

2011-10-26T15:59:00.001-04:00

Since Halloween is just around the corner, we've been playing with all of our fun Halloween stuff to play with. I made these cute felt board style jack-o-lanterns last year but Laural was the only one who used them since Micah wasn't quite ready. This year, both kids have been enjoying them.

I cut two orange circles at about 8 inches diameter and then cut a variety of eyes, ears, mouths, noses, hair, hats, and other items.

Mouths & Eyes

Whiskers, Mustaches & Noses

Hats & Hair

Ears & Horns

The kids had a lot of fun making up lots of different faces.

Laural started with a blue-haired princess.

Micah made an interesting jak-o-lantern face.

I got in on the fun and made a pig-nosed, mustached, blue-haired vampire with a jaunty little hat.

Halloween Sensory Tubs

2011-10-26T14:12:00.000-04:00

Yep, we did two sensory tubs for Halloween this year. I figured I might get a little more peace if I had a tub for each of them to play with.

First up is the Creepy Crawly Tub. It's got black beans, various plastic bugs & spiders, a ghost bell, wicker pumpkin basket, candy corn candle holder with battery operated tealight candle, jack-o-lantern metal bucket, plastic leafy sprigs, a little wooden pumpkin and plastic confetti pumpkins.

Laural started this one off. I just had to post the second picture because of the goofy look on her face.

The second is the Monster Tub and is filled with purple water pearls, googly eyes, green porcupine balls and 2 submersible led lights. The water beads are typically used for fresh flower arrangements. They are slippery and fun to play with!

Micah really enjoyed squishing the pearls in his hands. I like playing with them too.

I have a bunch of other fun Halloween goodies for the kids to play with too. I'll be posting some of that stuff later and try not to let a month go past between posting again!

Alphabet Sensory Tub

2011-09-26T20:10:00.000-04:00

I finally got our Alphabet Sensory Tub put together today! I was held back by not being able to find the alphabet pasta I really wanted. So, we are already on the letter C in our letter of the Week, but since I have planned to do a tub every four weeks that features the letters we will be covering those four weeks, we are still good.

I love how bright and colorful it is!

I started by coloring lots of alphabet macaroni in the same fashion I colored pasta last year. The only difference is that I didn't soak it as long since they aren't very big and I had to keep mixing them up as they dried to prevent them from being a big pasta pancake. I still had to spend a little time breaking them apart after they were dry. Once dry, I put them in lines in the tub.

Next, I sprinkled letter beads & charms over the pasta. The circular beads glow in the dark! Fun!

Then came all the goodies! We are focusing on the letters A, B, C & D. We have various wood & plastic magnetic letters, large foam letters, tiny foam sticker letters, wooden letter blocks, letter cookie cutters, letter beads and charms on chenille stems, a Bb book and finally items beginning with the letters. A: apple, acorn, alligator, and ant; B: bowl, butterfly, button & bell; C: caterpillar, cross, car and coin; and D: dolphin, dragonfly, dice and dinosaur.

I am also including a small pail & scoop on the side for the kids to play with in their tub.

I don't have any action shots yet since I got this done a little late in the day. They've seen it though and are anxiously awaiting their chance to have at it. I also laid down the law in regard to the tubs - they each get to play at one of the tubs and not together. After a certain amount of time (not sure how long yet) we will switch off. I'd like to say that my kiddos are perfect angels and play sweetly side by side, but I cannot tell a lie. When it comes to the "choice" items in the tubs - like plastic jewel acorns - it's just plain hard to share!

Autumn Sensory Tub

2011-09-23T17:13:00.000-04:00

Happy Autumnal Equinox! Or in other words, Happy 1st Day of Fall! It came in with a blah here - cool, rainy & grey. At least a couple of the trees outside my back window have leaves that are starting to change to a lovely deep crimson hue which is quite nice to look at.

To brighten up our day, I put together our Autumn Sensory Tub and introduced the kids to it. It's jam packed full of fun fall finds for fledgling fingers.

I started with the rice that I colored yesterday (here) in four vertical lines. I love the autumn colors!

Then I added: silk fall leaves, leaf buttons, sparkly foam leaves, silk sunflowers, a pine cone, wood mushrooms, wood people, a wooden scoop, a grapevine ball, some sort of nuts, a wooden bowl, wooden bucket, plastic jewel acorns, foam and yarn apples, mini foam pumpkins and squash, yarn pom poms, an apple chalk board with chalk, and bits of green & brown pipe cleaner.

On the side I included an extra yarn apple, a mini basket and the Rubik's cube style fall puzzle cube for extra fun. Laural took to the puzzle cube right away and tried to figure it out. Micah went straight for the acorns as I suspected he would.

It was a winner for both kids, who are still seated behind me on the floor playing with it. I will be putting together a 2nd sensory tub - the alphabet theme I've been planning - this weekend in hopes of eliminating some of the arguments that seem to come along with two kids trying to share one tub.

Have a fabulous first day of fall!

Autumn Colored Rice

2011-09-22T23:53:00.000-04:00

I can hardly believe that today was the last day of summer! It seems like this year is just screaming by at breakneck speed. Although I do enjoy the coming seasons, this has been one of our best summers and I'm really going to miss it. At least the last couple of days have been pretty warm and enjoyable. But, onward and upward, right? So I am trying to get myself into the spirit for autumn by preparing for our autumn sensory tub - which meant making rice in some lovely autumn colors.

I made a apple-ish red, bright leafy yellow, crunchy leaf brown and pumkin-y orange.

The How-to:

Gather ingredients:

cheap white rice

vodka

food colorings

zip top baggies

also:

paper towels

plates (paper or otherwise)

Start by putting 1 to 2 tablespoons of vodka in a bag along with your coloring.

My color "recipes:"

Brown: 10 drops red, 10 drops yellow, 2 drops blue (this gave a lighter brown but doubling the amounts would probably allow more color to get into the rice for a deeper hue)

Yellow: 20 to 25 drops of yellow

Red: 25 drops of red but it turned out to be too light (almost neon pink) so I colored it again with 20 red and 2 blue.

Orange: 10 red and 30 yellow (it was too light with 4 red & 12 yellow so I colored again with 6 red and 18 yellow)

Some people might prefer to use vinegar or rubbing alcohol. I choose to use vodka for two reasons: 1. it doesn't have an odor like vinegar does and 2. rubbing alcohol may leave undesirable residue behind.

Add 2 cups of rice and make sure to tightly seal the bag (or you might have a yellow rice mishap such as mine which called for a break in coloring to pull out my stick vac). Knead & smoosh the bag until the color is evenly distributed through the rice.

Allow the bag to rest 15 to 20 minutes to really let the color penetrate the rice. Using a mesh strainer, give the rice a quick rinse to clear some of the starchiness. Drain it well.

Spread the rice on a paper towel lined plate and allow it to dry. The rice dries fairly fast and should be ready to play with in 2 hours or less.

I can't wait - Laural & Micah are going to be thrilled with their new autumn play rice. I think I'd better keep my stick vac handy though...

First Field Trip Of The Year

2011-09-18T20:53:00.000-04:00

After church today, we decided to go to Munnell Run Farm Day in Mercer, PA. A little about Munnel Run Farm from their webpage:

The Mission:

At Munnell Run Farm we strive to integrate agriculture and ecology education through hands-on programs for students and adults in watershed management, nonpoint source pollution control, stream ecology, wetlands, forestry and agriculture.
Our vision for Munnell Run Farm is to nurture a conservation ethic in our youth, agriculture producers, and community members in order to affect a positive cultural, economic and environmental impact in our rural community. It is further our vision that Munnell Run Farm shall become a destination for school children, educators, civic organizations, agriculture producers, and families to explore and discover the interrelationship between agriculture, the natural and cultural environments and our economy.

The Farm:

Munnell Run Farm contains163 acres of cropland, woodland, pasture and riparian forested wetland owned by the County of Mercer and managed by the Munnell Run Farm Foundation, Inc., which holds a long term lease and a conservation easement on the Farm. The Mercer County Conservation District provides valuable support for the Farm's mission. It is located 1 mile north of Mercer, PA on State Route 58 West. Visitors to MRF have an opportunity to explore the interactions of agriculture and ecology in a real-world setting. Featuring outdoor, hands-on activities designed to meet PA Chapter 4 Academic Standards, Munnell Run Farm Foundation, Inc. received the Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence in Education and Outreach in 2003. MRF depends on grants and donations for its educational programs, maintenance, and infrastructure improvements.

Some cheerful round bale piggies greeted us as we arrived.

We started by checking out some of the vendors. First up was a visit with an alpaca where you could purchase various items made from alpaca yarn. They were gorgeous and so soft but I can't justify spending $75 for a hat or $32 on a stuffed animal. It was fun to pet Thomas the alpaca though.

Micah wasn't sure what to do with the alpaca at first.

Next, we chatted with some folks representing the local 4H and spent a little time with the animals they brought with them.

A sweet bunny that Micah gave a kiss.

A less than thrilled duck.

A friendly goat.

Laural & Micah both tried the peddle tractor pull. Neither got very far. Laural's legs seemed too long for the tractor & Micah's were too short.

They played on a stack of hay bales

They both got their faces painted. Princess Laural & Pirate Micah. I'm really surprised that Micah went along with it. He has been freaked out by it in the past and has only allowed his hand to be painted.

The Civil War reenactors marched across the large yard area at the top of every hour to fire their guns to mark the time.

We took a ride on a horse drawn wagon which was pretty neat. Laural got to sit up with the drivers on the return trip.

There were loads of cows to be see throughout the farm, including two calves who were hanging out with their moms.

We also took a ride on a tractor drawn wagon that took us to the back part of the farm where we saw lots more cows, fields & farm equipment in use.

The mom & her baby weren't sure what I was up to. They kept a watchful eye on me.

We also went into a small trout nursery and looked at the brown trout & golden rainbow trout babies what were being raised there. Outside, both kids got to try their hand at casting a fishing rod & reeling it back in. The both did pretty well with it. I guess they'll be ready to catch their dinner when we go camping next year.

A band called Mandolin Whiskey - kind of bluegrass-ish mixed with some more modern country - played most of the time we were there. There were lots of different types of vendors selling homemade wares, a quilt show, a spinning wheel demo, an archery station where you try to shoot a bow, an ox roast, crafts for kids ( Laural made a farm necklace) and probably more stuff that I just didn't see. It was a wonderful day of fun & learning all for the price of a donated canned good for the Mercer County Community Food Warehouse. I look forward to going back next year!

From (Mayonnaise) Failure, Comes Cake

2011-09-11T17:10:00.001-04:00

So, a few days ago, I decided to try making homemade mayo. We have been attempting to limit/eliminate soy in our diets and since the main ingredient in mayo or that salad dressing with zip is soybean oil, those have been cast out of the house. I started with a fresh, organic, pastured egg yolk, some vinegar, a wee bit of lemon juice, mustard powder and salt. Then, using a stick blender, I added safflower oil, a wee bit at a time. It worked right away, I had a lovely thick and creamy mayo forming. I added a a little more and still, it looked wonderful. A little more, great. Still more, perfect. And then, it happened. I added a little more oil and just like that, suddenly my thick, creamy mayo was a thin & runny mess. Well, bummer.

I looked online for any potential fixes and found a site that suggested taking a new egg yolk and then slowly start adding the failed mixture to it, so I tried that to no avail. I appealed to my facebook friends only to get the bad news that I was likely out of luck. Fortunately, one of my friends (Wendy!) suggested I look up chocolate oil cake online. So I did and after some initial contemplation of whether or not I actually felt like making a cake at that moment, I decided to do my typical Dr. Frankenstein job on a couple of recipes I liked and go for it. Here is what I came up with:

Ta-da! It was a total success! So moist and delicious and no need for icing though I did serve it with strawberries and a dusting of powdered sugar. Part of me is secretly hoping the next batch of mayo I attempt will fail just so I can make this cake again! I was thrilled that I could still use my precious (expensive!) organic eggs and oil for something and not have to throw it all away! Next time I make this, I think I might add a little more cocoa for a little more of a chocolate flavor. I like my chocolate very chocolatey!

Debbie's Chocolate Oil Cake
(I don't like the sound of this name but Debbie's Failed Mayo Chocolate Cake isn't any better...)

Ingredients:
3 C all purpose flour
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 C failed mayo mixture (mine had 2 egg yolks, a little under 1 c of safflower oil, 1 tsp vinegar & 1/2 tsp salt)
2 egg whites (leftover from the 2 eggs used in the mayo)
1 C milk
1 C water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly oil a bundt pan. I used coconut oil. Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and mix well. Pour into bundt pan and bake for about 50 minutes or until pick inserted in center comes out clean. Immediately invert onto a serving plate and allow to cool in the pan. Flip and gently loosen edges with a knife is needed. Flip back onto plate, remove pan & enjoy!

If you want to make this without going to all the trouble of making a failed batch of mayo, use this alternate ingredient list.

3 C all purpose flour
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 C oil
1 C milk (you can sour this with 1 tsp vinegar or buttermilk if you want)
1 C water

PS. This is not gluten free. I don't know enough about gluten free baking yet to try to attempt a conversion. I had my kids tested and, while both of them have fairly low numbers, they are inside the normal range so we are allowing a small amount of gluten-y foods into our diet but we are still trying to eliminate most of the wheat for other health reasons.

Homeschool Group Meeting

2011-09-08T20:53:00.001-04:00

Today was the first homeschool group meeting of the new school year! The kids got to play for a while and then we gathered for a lesson. Barb & Susie did a presentation on coral reefs. The kids started by putting together a notebooking page.

Laural still needs to finish some of the answers & she wants to make it look pretty with some coloring & stickers.

Next the kids did a group project - building a coral reef.

Can you guess what each item of the cake represents? Don't peek, but I'll put the answers below!

Finally, the kids got to make an edible model of a coral polyp.

I only got a couple pics and that was before everything was finished but here we have a banana as the body of the polyp and twizzlers as the tentacles. We added sugar sprinkles as algal growths and a round cracker underneath as the base. I think there were supposed to be oyster crackers as skeletons of dead polyps, but we ran out of time.

A big woohoo to Jeanette who provided snacks - tortillas & salsa, pb crackers & carrots. Yum

Everyone had a great time. The kids got to run around and burn off some energy and the moms got to hang out and chat which is always a good thing when you spend most of your days with only little people to talk with. Before we even got out of the parking lot, both kids were asking when we could do that again. I think they had a good time.

Ok, here are the answers to the coral reef cake question:

Cake: limestone reef base

Pink Frosting: coralline algae that encrusts & holds the reef together

Green Coconut: sea grass bed in the back reef

Stick Pretzels: branching coral

Cauliflower: individual coral polyps

Bite Size Cookies: plate coral

Sprinkles: sand

Corn Chips: sea fans

Mini Marshmallows: barrel sponges

Chocolate Chips: sea urchins

Goldfish Crackers: schools of fish

Doesn't that sound like a yummy cake? Ok, leave off the cauliflower and we have a winner!

Homeschool Today

2011-09-07T16:42:00.000-04:00

We didn't start school last week like we had planned. I made a last minute decision (mostly because I was behind on getting things ready) to wait until after labor day. Laural is going to be doing Heart of Dakota - Little Hearts for His Glory. We actually started this last year but then I got ill at the beginning of October, spent 3 months dealing with that and then another 2 to 3 months recovering. School was put on hold during that time and while I recovered, our school year did not. Even though we didn't follow the curriculum very well, we still managed to squeeze a lot of learning in. So this year, we are picking up where we left off with Heart of Dakota. Since she is already ahead in much of what is covered, we will sort of be rushing through just to make sure there are no gaps. Then we will move directly into Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory.

Micah is doing Letter of the Week from Confessions of a Homeschooler. He gets very excited when I say that it's time for school! Today, when I announced it was time for school, he ran over & jumped into my arms and shouted "Yay! I love this!" I hope he continues this enthusiasm as he gets older.

Here is a little of what we did today.

Micah made an Alligator A for his ABC book and he also colored and traced the letter A and a.

Laural & I reviewed some of her reading and then she did some copy work & drew a picture to go with it.

Later, she did several pages in her miniLUK books.

We did lots of other things but I didn't think to grab the camera until near the end of our school time. Now, it's time for me to go get a little better organized for tomorrow!

Garden Update (Part 2)

2011-09-04T03:25:00.000-04:00

So, like I said in Part 1, there is a happy ending (though it's not really the end of the garden this year yet) to all the garden drama. Most of my plants have made a comeback - even the lettuce and I have been able to get plenty of good produce from most of the plants. I don't think I can really consider it organic anymore, but at least it's kind of close.

If you read some of my early garden posts, you know that I was having some trouble with some of my plants. For some reason that have not been able to figure out, my cucumber stems split from the ground all the way up and all died but one. It was a sad, pathetic looking little thing and I was fully expecting it to die as well. To my surprise, it survived and during the really hot spell last month, it took off and really began to thrive.

We went from this (7/9)

To this (7/29)

To this (8/8)

To this (8/25)

To this (8/31)

To this today! (9/3) It's eaten up now, but it was about 8 inches long and about 2 inches in diameter. It was so good! I am also thrilled that there are at least 3 more coming. Yeah, it's not much, but considering I thought they were all lost, this is a big deal for me!

Then there was my zucchini. It also looked pretty sad at first but it also started to take off during the August hot spell.

We went from sad & spindly to...

thriving...

to producing...

to yummy!

As of tonight, I have 5 or 6 more coming. I am looking forward to having zucchini in my freezer for breads, brownies & casseroles through the coming months.

The rest of the garden is looking pretty good too.

I have 5 or 6 baby watermelons. I hope at least one gets big enough to eat before the weather turns.

The snap peas are just about finished for the year but they sure have been a yummy treat all summer long.

I have at least one more meal coming from the green & purple beans.

It looks like we will be getting another pepper. These are supposed to be a variety of colors so I am looking forward to seeing if this one is something other than green.

And check out the flowers on my purple potato plants. I never knew potato flowers were so pretty. I have 4 purple & 9 white potato plants. I can't wait to pull some of these out of the ground!

After picking through all my lettuce and pulling off & discarding the outer painted leaves, it recovered and is now producing lots of healthy paint-free leaves. All but 4 of my broccoli plants were destroyed by the nefarious stray cat and they are looking pretty iffy. I was considering pulling some of the less successful plants and planting a fall garden, but after all the drama, I honestly don't have it in me this year. I plan to regroup and refresh my spirit over the winter and give my all to a new garden in the spring. Until then, I will enjoy the harvest (though small) the earth has given us this season. I have learned many lessons in this process and will be that much wiser for next year's garden.

Garden Update (Part 1)

2011-09-04T02:04:00.001-04:00

Two weeks ago, my organic garden took a big hit. When house painters arrived to pressure wash the siding and stone work before starting to paint, I wasn't aware that they would be using bleach. I happened to look out the window and see a bottle of bleach sitting in the front yard and heard them spraying the side of the house. By the time I got downstairs I could smell the bleach. When I got outside, I saw that my garden bed against the house was wet with bleach water. My heart sank. The man saw me come outside and I asked if he was spraying bleach and he said yes, but only on the house. Uh... yeah but do you not realize that the water sprays all over the place, bouncing off the house and onto the garden and it runs down the side of the house into the garden bed directly below? So after talking to them a couple minutes, they said they wouldn't use any more bleach on that side. He also tried to tell me that the rain would wash it off. I tried to explain that it was an organic garden and the bleach just changed that fact. We covered the plants for the remainder of their time there and then once we uncovered the garden, we soaked it to try to dilute the bleach as much as possible. Another concern was that a lot of paint chips landed in the garden beds. The house is old, so we were initially worried about lead but my research has shown me that plants don't take up iron unless there is a very high concentration. I think we should be ok in that respect. I won't deny it. I cried over my garden several times that day. I had worked so hard and been so careful and thoughtful in planning and planting that this just crushed me.

So fast forward 2 days. We got sheets to cover the garden bed to protect it from the painting. When Steve went out to cover it, the painters already had our plants covered. Ok, that was good. I worried a little less thinking that they were being a little more conscientious about my garden. We had to leave for a bit but things looked safe when we left. When we got home, they were done and the garden bed was uncovered but I noticed there was paint on a lot of things. And, there were crushed plants and foot prints where they had stepped into my raised bed to get to the wood panels and fence section. Sigh. I started to look around and noticed a lot of things in the yard were coated with a mist of white paint, including my park bench, planters, solar lights, children's garden fountain, and pretty much every plant in every one of my garden beds. At this point, I was just trying not to have extremely angry reactions. So here are the pics. I really can't say anything more about this that isn't angry.

All my lettuce looked like this. Paint mist all over.

This is the pile of lettuce I removed from the garden that was paint misted. The paint wouldn't wash off without crushing/destroying the lettuce.

The garlic chives & parsley in this planter were covered with paint mist.

Potato plants

Watermelon plants

Parsley

Zucchini plants

Beans

It's not just my plants - here's my hose.

My brand new grill cover

My bench on the porch

The birdie in the children's fountain

The raccoon part of the fountain

They forgot to uncover a window.

The ladybug sprinkler

Pepper plants

All the solar lights

The car

Yeah. Not much more to be said about the damages. All in the process of fixing up the place. There is a bit of a happy ending though. But I will share that in Part 2 since Part 1 is getting a little long.

Another Hit to my Garden

2011-09-03T21:50:00.000-04:00

While I have been enjoying the bounty of my 1st organic garden, I have come up against some interesting and frustrating problems as well. First was the stray cat who thought that I constructed several large litter boxes for him as he continually dug up seeds and seedlings while doing his business. Despite his sometimes daily visits to my gardens, most of my plants and seeds managed to survive. Next came the painters who started to pressure wash the house with a bleach solution blasting bleach water & old paint chips all over my garden beds. When they came back to paint, though they covered one bed, it apparently wasn't good enough since all the plants in all my garden beds were misted with white paint. I had to throw away loads of lettuce that was painted. I had to throw out some beans and peas as well, but many plants were flowering and have since produced plenty of paint-free edibles.

Today, I discovered another little surprise in my garden as the kids & I were playing in the sprinkler on this hot & humid day. Many of my pepper plants were leafless! They looked like twigs sticking up out of the ground! I wondered for a few minutes what could be causing that sort of damage. A rabbit? A deer? But why just the pepper plants? Then I noticed a leaf that didn't look quite right. It was curled up kind of odd. I looked a wee bit harder and I saw the leaf moving ever so slightly. Then my eyes focused on it a bit more clearly. It wasn't a leaf at all but a huge, fat, green caterpillar with a red spike on it's end! It was hungrily devouring a pepper leaf at an amazing rate. I looked around for something I could use to get it off my plant. I ran to the house and found the mini pet cage and went back to the garden. I used one of my bamboo garden stakes to try to pop it off the plant, but it put up quite the fight, spitting loads of icky looking green goo out at the bamboo. I'm glad I didn't try to touch it. I finally managed to pull it off the plant and into the cage. He was at least 3 inches long. I couldn't believe the amount of damage he had done to the pepper plants. I started back to playing with the kids and a few minutes later, I noticed another one on another plant! This time, I went inside and grabbed a pair of metal tongs to try to make it a faster removal. This one spit green goo as well, but it ran down the plant. I hope it isn't harmful to the plant. I ended up snapping a small bit of the plant off in the process because the caterpillar just wouldn't let go. After a couple moments in the cage, both caterpillars were clinging to the stem. I don't know what will become of them now but I am quite angry at them for destroying my peppers!

Aren't they ugly? I looked them up online and they are some sort of sphinx moths though I wasn't sure exactly which one.

How quickly they can strip a plant! Several plants actually!

Even with the caterpillars gorging themselves on my plants, a couple of the plants have a wee pepper on them. I am hopeful that we may get 1 or 2 more peppers before growing season is over.

The rest of the garden is doing surprisingly well and I plan to have an update post on that soon. Maybe even later tonight!

Back To School Sensory Tub

2011-09-01T01:11:00.000-04:00

It's back to school time and both kids are chomping at the bit to get started! Today is our 1st day of school so I put together a cute back to school themed sensory tub for the kids to dig around in.

In the tub: Yellow paper shreds, mini composition books for each of the kids, box of crayons, glue, pencils, pencil sharpener, paint brushes, colorful erasers, magnet ABC & 123, compass, pencil grips, round interlocking erasers, plastic letter charms, glow in the dark round letter beads that Micah saw in Walmart and just had to have and green chenille stem spirals. I also put alphabet tape on the sides of the tub. I got it at the dollar store and it has patches that don't really stick so that's why it looks so wavy.

I plan to do sensory tubs a little differently this year. Instead of one theme tub per month, I will do two themes - one on the 1st of the month and then switch to a different theme on about the 15th of the month. I will also have a 2nd tub that will be based on the letter of the week in Micah's curriculum. Both tubs will be available to both kids throughout the day. I hope I can keep up with them because I've been cooking up some really cute theme ideas!

Making Homemade Butter

2011-08-19T03:09:00.003-04:00

Since we made the switch to raw milk, I have also started making homemade butter from the lovely cream that rises to the top of our fresh milk. I admit, I was a bit nervous about making homemade butter - it seemed like it would be a lot of work. But, I figured that it was sort of silly to be drinking raw milk and still be buying pasteurized butter from the grocery store, so I decided to go for it. The first time I made it, I used my stick blender and it worked quite nicely. I only used a pint of cream the first time. It made a nice little ball of very tasty butter. The second time I made it, I also used the stick blender but it seemed that the stick blender wasn't too happy about being used for so long and it got a bit hot. I decided that I needed to find a new method of making my butter for next time. I remember reading someplace that you can use an ice cream maker but the ice cream make is a bit of a pain to drag out and set up. I also read you can use a stand mixer. So that is what I did. It came out perfectly! The big bonus is that I didn't have to stand there the entire time, holding a stick blender! After making butter the first time, I realized that while it does take a wee bit of time - maybe 20 to 30 minutes - it really isn't all that hard to do. Plus, it is so worth it because the butter tastes amazing. And now that I know I can use my KitchenAid mixer, it got even easier.

How to Make Homemade Butter from Raw Milk

1. Collect the cream. I try to skim about half the cream off my jars of milk the morning after we bring them home.The farm fills my half gallon mason jars from their large tank so it's mixed up when we first bring it home. Leaving it sit overnight gives it plenty of time to separate. I get about a quart of cream from 3 gallons of milk. (*Note: Many states don't allow the sales of raw milk but that doesn't mean you can't easily make butter. Just use a carton of heavy cream from the grocery store.)

You can easily see the cream floating atop the milk.

2. Clabber the cream. Clabber? Yeah, I had no idea what this meant the first time I read it. It means to let it sour. To do this, I let my jar of cream sit out on the counter for a good 24 hours. Some places suggest more time, but I will admit it, the very idea makes me nervous. In fact, my first batch of butter was made from fresh, sweet, unclabbered cream. After sitting out for 24 hours (give or take a few hours), I put it in the fridge for a day or two. When I take it out, it is nice and thick and smells a bit sour. At this point, you can use it as sour cream. I haven't done that yet.

My clabbering cream.

3. Beat that clabbered cream! I put the cream into the bowl of my KitchenAid mixer with the flat beater attachment and slowly bring it up to about half speed - 5 or even 6. The cream goes through several stages which are neat to watch. To really get an idea of what each stage looks like, click the picture. Then hit the back button to come back here.

I start mine as soured cream, so it's already thick and creamy. If you start with fresh cream, the first change will be to this sour cream consistency.

Next, it will get a bit thicker. This stage reminds me a little of that non-dairy dessert topping - a thin but smooth textured whipped cream.

A bit thicker still - this is a soft peak stage.

Now it's nice and fluffy! Stiff peaks will form. You need to start scraping down the bowl a little at this point.

A couple minutes more and it starts to break down and look a little lumpy.

Then it gets really wet looking and grainy.

Then, almost suddenly, bam! Butter & buttermilk appear! You will want to turn the mixer down at this point (maybe a little before) or you and everything around the mixer will get a buttermilk shower.

After it separates, I let it go a little longer to allow the butter grains to come together into larger lumps.

I remove the large lumps of butter to a bowl and pour the buttermilk into a jar (through a small strainer to catch any butter grains that didn't stick to the larger ball).

And I am left with a nice lump of fresh butter. But it's not quite done.

4. Wash that butter! Yep, wash it. It still has quite a bit of buttermilk in it and that needs to come out before you are finished because the buttermilk might cause the butter to spoil quicker. I take a couple of rubber spatulas and squeeze smaller amounts of butter between them, rinsing in cold running water or a bowl of ice water as I go. I could go out and buy some nice wooden butter paddles, but they're kind of expensive and my spatulas work just fine. I didn't take any pictures of this step because my hands get kind of buttery and I didn't want to butter up my camera.

Once all the butter is clear of buttermilk, I salt it (just a wee bit) and form it into a round cake and put it into the fridge. That's it! Easy, right?

Fresh butter!

I really can't stress enough how wonderful this tastes. It adds such a lovely flavor when spread on pancakes and toast. I haven't baked with it yet because we use it up so fast on everything else. We stopped using margarine ages ago and have been using "real" butter for everything for a while. I am amazed at how much better this tastes. As an added bonus, I have buttermilk that I can use to make pancakes or biscuits.

Now, if you put the health benefits of drinking & eating raw dairy products aside, the best part about this is the cost. I am most fortunate to be able to buy raw milk for $2.50 per gallon. Each week, I buy 3 gallons at a cost of $7.50. From that 3 gallons, I get about 2 1/2 gallons of milk to drink, a pound of butter, 16 oz of buttermilk and 32 oz of yogurt. If you bought that same amount of organic dairy product in the grocery store, you would probably be spending real close to $30, if not more than that. Sure, making our own dairy products from fresh raw milk takes a little bit of time, but if you figure out the savings over the course of a year, we are looking at almost $1200! I don't know about you, but that's huge for us! I know that not everyone is able to get pasture fed, raw milk for such an awesome price, but that's where you figure in the health benefits of raw dairy and realize that even at a higher cost, it's totally worth it!

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Summer Fun Sensory Tub

2011-08-16T16:55:00.000-04:00

In these final days of summer vacation, I decided to put together a summer fun sensory tub for the kiddos to play with as a last blast of summer. The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler, but summer can live on inside our sensory tub.

I set the tub out on a brightly colored vinyl tablecloth for easy cleanup and as a bonus, it looks pretty. I also put out a cute mini metal bucket, plastic shovel and the flip flop boxes that I painted earlier this summer.

The tub contains: brown rice sand, decorative glass marbles as water, little wooden people, paper umbrellas, chenille stem seaweed, mini koosh balls & magic nuudles as water toys, a wood connector as a boogie board, seashells from our Florida trip last year, grape vine driftwood and a grapevine ball.

Laural and Micah were both instantly in love and wasted no time digging into it.

The only downside to these tubs is that I will need to schedule time for each of them to have a chance to play alone because otherwise, the newness of it makes them each want to have it all to themselves and that leads to unpleasant noises and a grumpy mommy.

Gluten Free Zucchini Brownies

2011-08-12T03:02:00.000-04:00

These are some of the best brownies I've ever had. They are so moist & fudgy & chocolatey! Just writing about them makes me want to go downstairs and grab one (or two!) out of the freezer. I got this recipe from Gluten Free Goddess and made a couple changes to suit our needs and ingredients on hand.

1 cup almond meal*
1 cup organic sugar
3/4 cup brown rice flour**
1/2 cup unsweetened organic cocoa powder
1 teaspoon guar gum (or use xanthan gum)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 organic free-range eggs, beaten
1/4 cup organic coconut oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup packed shredded zucchini, patted dry
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F and line the bottom of a 9x9 pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl bowl, mix together the almond meal, sugar, rice flour, cocoa powder, guar gum, baking powder & salt. Add in the eggs, coconut oil & vanilla. This will be a thick mixture. Add the zucchini & chocolate chips and mix well. Scoop batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 25 minutes in order to get that really fudgy texture. Cool on a rack until cool enough to handle. Use a sharp knife to loosen edges and carefully remove from pan to finish cooling. Cut into 16 squares. These freeze wonderfully.

*Note: I make my own almond meal using this method: Place 4 cups of almonds in a bowl or half gallon mason jar. Add water to cover almonds and then some. They expand while they soak and you don't want them to be out of the water. Add 2 tablespoons of sea salt. Allow to soak 7 hours or overnight. Drain & rinse. Dry nuts 12 to 24 hours in a dehydrator or in your oven at 150°F. Once completely dry, place almonds in a blender (I use a magic bullet) about a cup at a time and pulse them into a fine meal. Do not do this for too long or you will end up with almond butter. Remove any large pieces of almonds and put them in to pulse again with the next batch. It's a bit of a long process but a lot cheaper. This makes about 3 to 3 1/2 cups of almond meal at a cost of around $4. Bob's Red Mill Almond meal is $9.42 at my local Walmart for what looks like less than my batch made.

**Note: I make my own brown rice flour by grinding the rice in an electric grain mill on the finest setting. It works perfectly. Prepackaged brown rice flour isn't super expensive but this way is even cheaper.

These are wonderful with a tall glass of ice cold, farm fresh raw milk. Even my super picky, 3 year old little boy scarfed these right down and didn't even notice the zucchini. My 6 year old daughter knew the zucchini was in there and gave me the "wrinkled up nose look" but once she took a bite, she was sold. I think the biggest problem I will have with these is keeping them around long enough to save some for later.

I Love These Garden Days

2011-08-08T21:42:00.001-04:00

Since my garden is finally starting to give me goodies, I decided to have another salad for dinner tonight.

Tonight's salad was lettuce, snap peas & parsley - all from my garden, organic carrots, cheddar cheese, a slice of bacon leftover from breakfast, leftover roast that I shredded and mushrooms sauteed in bacon fat. SO yummy, though not quite as fantastic as yesterday's chicken salad.

Since I've been talking (typing) so much about my garden lately, I figured it was time to write a quick update on it. Parts of it have done remarkably well and other parts, eh, not so well.

The side bed, against the house has done beautifully. I was certain that the lettuce wasn't going to make it because that darn stray cat kept digging in there and doing it's business. Grr. He managed to move all the seed to a somewhat concentrated area so the lettuce is in a big patch rather than the rows I planted it in. At least it grew. Behind the lettuce is my potato patch. The plants closest to the lettuce are purple potatoes and behind them are yellow potatoes. They are growing like weeds! I'm thinking about digging in there a little to see if I can find any fingerling potatoes. They're my favorites.

The other end of the side bed has a red variety of lettuce which is also doing well despite the cats endeavors to destroy the garden. On the right are watermelon plants. No sign of flowering on them yet, but I'm still hopeful. We should still have a good month of heat left to give them a chance.

The crib rail trellis for the snap peas has been wonderful! The snap peas have been giving us loads of peas which makes me & Laural quite happy. Sadly, one of the vines broke shortly after putting the trellis up. It is the sad looking light green and brown one on the right. I keep hoping it will make a comeback. We shall see.

My peppers never really took off. So far, we've had one pepper and it was a little funky looking.

Laural didn't mind. She was super thrilled to be eating something that she loves and that she got to help plant. I saw a flower on another plant while I was taking pics, so we might just get a second pepper before the season is over.

The purple beans have been doing wonderfully! We have been able to pick bunches of them and there are plenty more coming. The green beans in the front never made a huge comeback from the bean leaf beetles, though we have had a couple dinners worth.

My zucchini plants have finally kicked in! In the past couple days they have more than doubled in size. There are several flowers and baby zucchini on this plant.

See that wee zucchini in there? Yay! There are a couple others in there too but not seen in this particular angle.

I had one lone cucumber plant survive whatever it was causing them to die off. It has a few flowers but no signs of baby cucumbers. I'm hopeful, but not holding my breath.

The broccoli & peppers in this bed are pretty pathetic. The broccoli in the middle was looking better until the cat came back and dug the entire middle area out a few nights ago. What wasn't destroyed by the cat appears to be getting eaten by something. There are a couple plants on the right that might still produce for me, but I'm not getting my hopes up. The peppers seem to be getting stripped by something as well. I think one of the main problems with this bed is just not enough sunlight. I need to find a more shade loving plant for that bed for next year.

So that's what has been happening in my garden. I'm not getting a great deal out of it, but I sure am enjoying what we get. Goodnight garden. Goodnight moon. Goodnight friends.

Chicken Salad Supreme

2011-08-07T20:39:00.001-04:00

Steve and I used to love going to a local diner for their chicken salad supreme.It was a ginormous salad made with iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, cucumbers, mozzarella & cheddar cheese, bacon, curly fries, boiled eggs & chicken. Over the years, the salads got smaller & the price got higher. Once having kids (especially once they were old enough to start wanting their own meals from the kiddie menu), it just got too expensive to go out for chicken salads plus, a pile of iceberg lettuce isn't exactly a nutritional dynamo. So we started making our own salads at home. I usually use spring mix salad in a bag but tonight, I used lettuce picked from my own organic garden that I picked right before dinner. With other fresh veggies from my garden, this was easily the best chicken salad supreme I've ever made!

Starting from the top middle and going clockwise, our chicken salads consisted of: Cucumbers from my parent's garden, organic green & red lettuce from my garden, cheddar cheese (yes, I put a little much on there... lol), grilled chicken breast, sauteed purple potatoes, boiled egg, organic snap peas, green beans & purple beans from my garden with some sauteed white potatoes in the middle. I topped it with my favorite french dressing (store bought this time but I usually make my own and will continue to do so once I use up all the store bought). If I wasn't so full already, I'd have no problem eating more!

Zucchini Rice Casserole

2011-07-28T20:52:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

2 c. zucchini, unpeeled and finely chopped or shredded
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 c. cooked brown rice
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 c sour cream
1/2 to 1 c shredded cheddar cheese (I like to go heavy on the cheese)
1/2 c Parmesan cheese + 2 to 3 Tbsp. for sprinkling
Salt, as desired

How to:

Mix rice & egg in a large bowl. Add zucchini & onion. Mix well. Add sour cream & cheeses & salt, if desired. Mix well. Spread into an 8"x8" pan or 2 quart casserole dish. Sprinkle top with additional Parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered at 350°F for about 1 hour or until top is golden brown and it is set in the middle.

*Notes: If desired, you can break down the zucchini ahead of time by cooking it and the onion with a cup of chicken stock in a pot on a medium flame for about 20 to 30 minutes. This will soften the zucchini & onion a lot making it easier to pass the picky eater test. If you do this, double the amount of zucchini and onion, chop it more coarsely and drain very well before adding to the rest of the ingredients.

Before changing to a gluten free diet, I would add 1/2 c. of Italian flavored bread crumbs to help thicken it up a little but I don't really find it necessary as the eggs hold it together nicely.

This goes great with baked fishes, especially salmon. I usually round out the meal with steamed green beans (smothered in butter!).

Keeping Cool and Odds & Ends

2011-07-21T01:17:00.000-04:00

We don't have air conditioning. It's been over 90°F for the past several days with wicked high humidity. That means there is just one sure way to cool off.

Yep, the hose! Laural & Micah have been having a ball playing in the sprinkler.

I think I might join them tomorrow since it's supposed to be another 90's kind of day.

We've had a lot going on here lately. We finally found a source for raw milk and got 3 gallons on Saturday. Besides drinking the yummy goodness, yesterday, I used some of the cream I skimmed off it to make home made butter. It's different but super yummy. I only used a pint of cream so I didn't get a whole lot of butter but it should be enough for about a week.

We've also begun in the process of eliminating certain things from our diet. The two biggies are gluten & soy. So far it isn't too bad but we are totally bread people so the gluten free bread is going to take some getting used to. So far, I've made a loaf of bread which turned out okay but not great and pancakes. The pancakes were really, really awesome! After the kids and I had eaten our fill, I cooked the rest of the batch to put in the fridge for later. They lost a lot in the texture and flavor after cooling & reheating but butter and syrup kind of covered that over. I think I'll cut the recipe in half next time or maybe I will just keep the batter uncooked in the fridge and see how that works when they are cooked up later.

Finally, my garden has been starting produce a few more yummy goodies for us. My cucumbers, zucchini & broccoli are still pretty questionable, probably thanks to the cat that keeps using it for it's litter box, but the other garden bed is coming along pretty nicely.

Today, I picked this nice handful of purple beans and sugar snap peas. We had more snap peas than that but a bunch got eaten already. Laural and I love them!

We had an uninvited visitor come in with the beans though...

One of the bean leaf beetles that have been chewing on my plants since day one. They nearly killed my green beans but they managed to survive and are still giving me a a few beans. This little guy got to live just long enough to have his picture snapped. I think a little Neem oil is going to find it's way to the garden tomorrow.

This is a little bit of how our week has gone so far. I've got big plans for tomorrow too! Homemade yogurt from raw milk and another try at gluten free bread. Wish me luck!

So what do I do with...

2011-07-13T17:02:00.001-04:00

...something that has been recalled by the company that made it AND has recently been deemed so bad that it the government actually made it illegal to sell one of these. I am, of course, talking about my children's crib. The very crib that I nestled both of my children into every night for years is now pretty much an expensive dust collector because it has a drop side on it. I had hoped to be able to sell the crib at some point so I paid a visit to the company's website, looking for information on the conversion kits that I heard were available. It was then that I found out that our particular crib has been recalled due to the chance of the slats on the side rails breaking too easily. So now, I have an expensive piece of garbage.

Since switching my son over to a "big boy bed," the dismantled crib has been residing in my upstairs hallway. I was thinking of putting it a yard sale until I learned of the recall. For the past couple months, I've been looking at it, with some sadness actually, trying to decide what I should do with it - put it out with the trash? Burn it? Save it and take my chances with a recalled crib if we should ever have another child? Well, I decided that I didn't want to take any chances. Both my kids were pretty mellow and not too rough on the crib, but even so, I did notice a crack along the length of one of the slats. If we did have a kid who happened to be a bruiser, it could be disastrous. I also haven't been able to simply discard it either. There is an emotional attachment but also, it seems like such a waste to just throw it away or burn it. So, I've left it in the hallway, taking up precious space, trying to bring myself to do something with it.

Today, I finally did something with it - well part of it.

I removed two slats on one end of each side rail and then stuck those ends in the ground, leaning them against each other. I tied them together at the top. And there you have it - recycling; reusing; repurposing part of our recalled and illegal crib as a trellis for my very vigorously growing snap peas. I am going to have to train them through some of the slats but I think it will work out quite nicely. I have a neat idea for using the ends of the crib too but that will have to wait for another post!

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My Organic Garden

2011-07-10T03:10:00.001-04:00

I have been wanting to have a garden for ages now. For some reason or another, I just haven't been able to get a garden started over the past several years - until this year! I am quite pleased to have been able to build two 4'x8' raised beds and have repurposed the existing 4'x12' flower bed. I decided that I wanted to have an organic garden this year, so all the seeds are organic and I am using organic fertilizer and organic pest control measures as needed. While most of my plants are doing quite well, I am having a few issues with the plants in one of the garden beds.

Bed 1 - 4'x12' Planted on June 29

I planted this one a little later than I had planned. June became quite a busy month for us, so the garden was put on the back burner for a bit. In this bed I have green head lettuce (something similar to bibb lettuce but I can't recall the variety and I'm too lazy to go downstairs to find the packet right now), purple potatoes, white potatoes, red head lettuce (see parentheses above for green lettuce) and some watermelon plants down n the very end.

These are the purple potatoes - looking good!

White potatoes.

Bed #2 - 4'x8' Planted the week of May 23rd

It has sugar snap peas, bell peppers in a variety of colors, purple beans and green beans. My poor green beans took some serious damage early on from bean leaf beetles. I haven't been sure if they were going to survive but they are really starting to get a lot of new leaf growth and some new flowers. I initially got a tiny harvest of about 20 beans from them so it looks like they aren't giving in to the beetles! The purple beans have tons of flowers on them so I can't wait to get some yummy beans from them. The snap peas have a few beans and a lot more flowers coming out now. I think I need to rethink my support for the pea plants though. I also noticed a few flower buds starting on one of my pepper plants! Laural is most excited about this because peppers are her favorite veggie. The neat thing about these peppers is that the seeds all came mixed together so the color of peppers on each of the plants will be a surprise.

Our budding pepper plant and Laural's head excitedly checking out her future peppers.

Bed #3 - 4'x8' Planted June 9th

This is my sad and pathetic looking garden bed. I'm honestly not sure what is going on with it. It has cucumbers, a couple leftover pepper plants, broccoli, and zucchini. The cucumbers are the worst looking of the bunch. They are barely growing and the stems look like something has stripped it. The plants have flowers on them but they seem to die and fall off before anything happens. I've been doing some reading but I can't figure out what to do to make them better. I guess it's watch and see for now. The pepper plants are healthy looking but staying small. The broccoli seem to be growing well for now. I need to thin them out a little now but I am so paranoid that I will manage to leave behind the worst plants and end up with no broccoli. The zucchini seem to change on a daily basis. One day they are looking great and I am feeling optimistic about them. The next day they look pathetic. For some reason, I thought the zucchini and cucumbers were going to be the no-brainer plants in my garden but they are giving me the hardest time.

My pathetic cucumbers.

An up close pic of the cucumber stems. They are splitting open length-wise and the leaves are yellowing and dying. I can't seem to find any information on what could be causing this. Anyone have any idea? I welcome any thoughts, ideas & suggestions. I expect them to all be pretty much dead within a few days. I am expecting to have to pull them all out. I don't know if I have enough time to plant new seeds and still get a crop by the end of the season.

The zucchini which is looking half decent today. It has some flower buds but I so far, all my zucchini flowers seem to come up missing shortly after opening so I really don't have high hopes for them right now.

Bed #4 - 4'x8' Never planted and currently a weedy, brambly mess.

A large blackberry bush is at the center of this garden bed. There is also a small quaking aspen (I think) that shot up quickly over the past couple years in this bed. This is the bed that the Kids' Enchanted Garden is against. I had planned to clear everything out of this bed except the tree and plant carrots and beets in it but when I saw how many potential berries we were going to have, I let it be. I plant to prune back the bush this fall and relocate it so we can use the bed for veggies. An interesting fact is that this bush magically found it's way to this garden bed. When we moved here, the bed had several different flowers & decorative plants in it. We pretty much neglected the flower bed, letting them become a haven for weeds and grasses. The tree and blackberry bush were not there when we moved in. We are guessing that a bird may have deposited the blackberry seed in the bed. Possibly the same scenario with the tree as well since we don't appear to have any other aspen trees nearby. Not sure if we are going to let the tree continue or not.

Yummy!

Laural holding our daily berry harvest. The kids tend to pick them just a hair early sometimes.

Bed #5 Not really a garden bed, it's a planter. Planted week of May 23.

This is an upside down, elevated tomato planter that we bought a couple years ago. We bought organic tomato plants but they didn't do very well. They grew nice and long but we only ever got one flower and it died without producing fruit. This year, I gave up on the upside down planting and used the top to plant some garlic chives and parsley. I already used some of the garlic chives, from thinning them, on a baked potato last week. Super yummy!

I also have a few plants in pots on my porch steps and a couple things that I am going to try to squeeze into the planting season and hope it's not too late. I'll be getting pics of them in the next few days.

Overall, I am quite happy and excited about my garden. I hope that the sad looking plants will perk up soon and produce for me but even if they don't, I am happy that I have been able to get so much accomplished with it this year. Even if we get just a handful of fruit & veggies, it will be a success to be partially self-reliant and we will save a little by not having to spend money for high priced organic produce from the grocery store. Not only that, but I will know exactly how the food was grown and what went into and onto it!

A Visit to Living Treasures Animal Park

2011-07-09T18:30:00.000-04:00

We decided to go see some animals today at Living Treasures down near Portersville. We had a fabulous time seeing & feeding the animals.

Turtles

Black Swan

Feeding the various deer.

Goats

My favorite: Ring Tailed Lemurs

Otters

Rattle Snakes

African Spurred Tortoise

Peacock

Alligator Hatchling

Wallaby with baby on board

Emu - Doesn't this guy look like the evil villain of the animal world?

Yak

Micah putting feed in the tube for the bears.

Bear receiving feed.

Barbary Lion (and the reflection of my feet)

Baby Ring Tailed Lemur

Pygmy Marmosets

Prairie Dogs

Hyena

Tigers

Flamingos

Donkeys

Very sweet baby Camel

Laural & Micah feeding the Baby Brahma

Goats

Laural feeding the goats.

Llama

Llama with a cheesy grin.

After visiting with the animals, we were starving so we headed toward Grove City and went to Elephant & Castle for an early dinner. Their food is very good but portions are enormous - I have enough leftover for lunch tomorrow!

Laural at Elephant & Castle with her new pet zebra, "Stripey" from Living treasures.

Micah at Elephant & Castle singing his version of "Where's Micah?" (Five Iron Frenzy song)

Flip Flop Boxes

2011-06-17T00:57:00.001-04:00

I decided to do a summer themed sensory tub for the kids for June but I was having a rough time deciding what to put in it. So, I just had to make a trip to Pat Catan's (for those unfamiliar, it's a arts & craft store, something like Michael's). I found a few things of interest including some paper mache flip flop boxes. They were so super cute that I just had to have a pair. Unfortunately, they were all right footed, so I figured I'd buy two anyhow and just make some mismatched flip flops.

Before

After

They're a little sloppy because the entire time I was trying to paint the details, the kids seemed to be taking turns moving, shaking, pushing, leaning on or jiggling the table. Oh well. It's just for the sensory tub, so they are the only ones who will be seeing them regularly.

Rainy Day Summer Fun

2011-06-16T23:07:00.001-04:00

Since the weather was cold, rainy and stormy today, we stayed inside and entertained ourselves with some summer themed activities. First, we watched Lilo & Stitch. While the movie itself isn't summer themed, it takes place in Hawaii which immediately invokes thoughts of summer activities - swimming at the the beach, luaus, surfing, alien monsters grooving to Elvis... ok, so not the last thing, but definitely the others.

Then we did something that was totally new for Micah - we painted. A couple weeks ago, I saw a craft kit for kids that had seashells that you put on sea creature shapes and then decorated. I decided to make my own version since we already have all the stuff we would need. The first thing I did was do an image search for various coloring pages of the various sea creatures I wanted - a fish, sea star, turtle, crab & seahorse. I sized them to about 3.5 inches, printed them and cut them out to use as a template. Actually, I couldn't find a crab that I liked, so I drew my own. Then I traced my creatures onto different colors of craft foam sheets and cut them out. Finally, I gathered everything else: paints, brushes and seashells that we collected on our trip to Florida last year.

Next came the fun part - the painting. Like I said before, this is something Micah has never done before, so I wasn't sure what to expect - a mess for sure, but how bad... LOL

Micah didn't quite get the idea of one color at a time and he mixed a lot of his paints before he got them on the sea creature cut outs.

He really got into it though. Both figuratively and literally. We had a lot of paint to wipe off the boy when he was done. He thought it was hilarious and I thought it was pretty funny too.

Laural put a lot of thought into how she wanted to paint each figure. I would post more pics of Laural but since the kids just stripped down to their underwear to paint, I will just post one of the more modest ones.

Painting is done! Micah's are on the left and Laural's on the right. We decided to wait until tomorrow to glue the shells on since some of the paint was pretty thick (especially on Micah's) to give it lots of time to dry.

Finally, to end our day, we went outside to watch the fireflies. We signed up to be "citizen scientists" at https://www.mos.org/fireflywatch/ to observe fireflies in our backyard. This was our second week of observation. The kids really look forward to it! When I told them we would be going out to watch the fireflies, Micah shouted, "Oh yay! I wuv firefwies!" I love his sweet 3 year old enthusiasm! And the cute way he says his Ls like Ws. So, we broke out some more dollar store glow sticks (blue again because according to the Museum of Science website, fireflies don't see blue light) and headed outside to observe. It was quiet (except for the kids arguing about who got to sit or stand where) and we saw loads of fireflies! Such fun! And I never noticed that there were 3 distinct colors of the little buggers until we started watching them. You learn something new all the time, huh?

Muffin Tin Monday - Flag Day

2011-06-13T13:08:00.000-04:00

Since tomorrow is Flag Day, I made our muffin tin meal themed around Celebrating Old Glory.

We had: Red, White & Blue Berries, Star Bread (with some blue dots), Ham Fireworks, Red Pepper Stripes. Cheese Star (with red & blue accents) & Vanilla Yogurt with Red & Blue Sprinkles. I also added a couple of sparkler candles but they weren't very sparkly. Both kids were still thrilled with their meals.

Laural chooses her next morsel.

Micah goes right for his favorite - yogurt.

Don't forget to check out Muffin Tin Mom for other tins being served up this week!

Can I Go Back to How I Was Before?

2011-06-10T08:00:00.001-04:00

Have you ever stopped for a moment and realized that certain aspects of your life are totally different from how you imagined they would be? Or how you want them to be? I think that certain changes sneak up over time and before you know it, things you loved in your younger days are things you hate in your more seasoned years. And the thing is, that you may not really like the way things have changed. Ok, so maybe this is just something that has happened with me. Regardless, here's my story.

When I was a kid, even a teen and a little beyond high school, I was very much an outdoor person. I spent hours outside - from playing in the creek (or crick as we used to call it) to playing in the pool to just simply sitting in a big chair out near the wood line reading a book or watching the sun set behind the trees across the field. I loved being outside. Maybe it was because we didn't have computers waaaay back then to take up our time cruising around facebook. Maybe it was because we still had an antenna for television and got only 2 channels - on a good day. Maybe it was because I needed some sort of escape from my 3 younger brothers (yes, three younger brothers - c'mon mom & dad - you couldn't give me a sister? On second thought, that would probably have been worse...). Whatever the underlying reason, I spent a lot of time outside.

Now, not so much.

And the more that I think about it, the more I realize that I'm not happy with that. So, I thought for a little while. It didn't take me long, really, to figure out why. First, I got married. No, my husband or getting married weren't the actual reasons I stopped enjoying the out of doors. Where we lived after the wedding was a big factor though.

First, a little more background. I grew up in a fairly rural setting. We had neighbors, but they weren't super close. If you looked over at the neighbor's house, you had to have pretty good eyesight to see what they might be up to. Across the street from our house was a big - BIG - cornfield. Behind our house was "the hill." It wasn't really a hill. That's what we ended up calling it though. It was, in fact, a rather deep and wide ravine carved out by the winding creek (crick) that I mentioned earlier. Whenever we talked about taking the short hike down to the creek (crick) we said we were "going over the hill." On the other side of "the hill" (the ravine) was woods and beyond that was a wide open meadow. Beyond the meadow was more forest that had trails running through it that were actually part of an archery practice course that local bow hunters would use occasionally to hone their shooting skills. I spent a good deal of time "over the hill" and wandering the woods and the trails in the area.

So, back to our first marital home. It was in town. A somewhat busy but not too terribly huge town. We lived rather close to the downtown area. To our left was a house so close that you couldn't really walk between ours and theirs. To the right, another house, this one barely wide enough for a car to park there. Across the street (the street being maybe 10 feet from the front door) was another house and beside that another house that was only a driveway's width away. Our back yard was small - 20 feet by 36 feet approximately - and just beyond the fence at the back of the yard was yet another house with another close to it. When I went out into our back yard - besides feeling like I had no privacy - it was just unpleasant. Traffic noise, people noise, road dust, exhaust fumes, and a complete lack of shade made the yard a bright, hot, annoying place. There was nothing relaxing about it. We had 8 foot privacy fence around it so it often felt as though I was caged in to this little enclosure and since all the homes surrounding and including ours were 2 story, an 8 foot fence really didn't help me feel like we had any real privacy when we went outside. We had a bench on the front covered porch area and there was a small hedge, but when you are sitting just 2 feet away from where people are walking past on the sidewalk, well that's not so very private either. After a while, I quit going outside. Especially once we had central air conditioning installed.

Once we left our first home and came to our current place of residence, my reasons for shunning outside time changed. Where we live now it quite nice. There are a couple of industrial buildings nearby but the noise from them is minimal and they keep 9 to 5 hours. So our evenings are quiet enough. We live on a main road and at the bottom of a hill so we regularly get the sound of tractor trailers cruising past with their jake brake rumbling, but it isn't so bad. What keeps me from venturing outside now is --- bugs! Besides the industrial buildings and the main road, we also have a swamp land and creek fairly close to our home. This means tons of bugs - especially spiders which are my personal nemeses. We also get tons of mosquitoes which apparently have not been let in on the little secret of how insect repellents are supposed to work. Last year, while outside with the children, I got bit on my ring finger by some tiny little insect - pale white and wedge shaped. The pain and swelling I had were horrible and lasted for days - from a teeny, tiny little bug that you almost need a magnifying glass to see! Well, that was enough for me AND I certainly did not want my children to get bitten by one of these things, so inside we stayed!

This year, however, I really, really, really want to change. I want to be an outside mama. I want my kids to play in the dirt, catch fireflies & butterflies and sit on the lawn and make funny whistling sounds with a nice broad blade of fresh green grass. But can I change myself back to the way I was before I became a bit jaded by the unpleasant aspects of being outside? The answer is - I hope so. I don't know. I'm trying! I've done a few things to make it easier for me get myself outside. I built the Enchanted Garden for the kids and I've planted a vegetable garden. I've rearranged a few things in the yard to make them a bit more accessible and in the past week, I've spent at least a couple hours each day this past week either planting or tending to the gardens or sitting in my camp chair watching the kids play in the sand box or their garden or with their ring toss game & glow sticks. I'm making progress. I admit though, I totally freak out at least once every time we are outside when my all boy three year old says "Look Mommy!" while holding up a spider. Oh. Dear. God. Help me. I usually start yelling, "Put it down! Put it down! Put it down!" And he does, but still... My skin is crawling just thinking about it. *Shudder* But the point is, I am doing it. We are doing it. Slowly and with a little stress on my part, but we are slowly becoming a more outdoor oriented family. At least for the summer. We won't even get into how much I hate the cold weather.

Oh, and by the way, one of those stupid little pale bugs bit me again. Just yesterday. On the ankle. It hurts. But we still went outside today.

Night Time Fun in the Enchanted Garden

2011-05-25T03:01:00.002-04:00

What good is having neat color changing solar lights in your garden if you aren't outside at night to see them? Right? So I promised the kids that as long as the weather was good, we would head out to the garden to see the lights once it started to get dark. To add to the fun, we plucked the glow sticks out of their Easter baskets before heading outside. It was a bit of a job keeping them from splashing in the fountain, but they managed to have tons of fun even without getting wet. In fact, I had a very tough time getting them to settle down for bedtime and Micah didn't fall asleep until well after midnight! Lucky for him I'm a night person.

The 1st trick was getting them to stand still long enough for a quick pic of night time in the garden.

Then the fun stuff began.

Figuring out what kinds of things they could do with the glow sticks...

Then lots & lots of jumping!

I took a few moments to enjoy the sight of the dusky sky and treelines but I don't think the kiddos gave it much thought.

The Enchanted Garden

2011-05-24T17:20:00.005-04:00

To give my children a place to call their own and to keep them busy as I work in my own garden beds, I created an Enchanted Garden for them. I sketched it out on Sunday, shopped on Monday and put it together today. I actually started yesterday but decided that some of the work was going to require a little help from the hubby.

We started with a small are just behind an 8 foot wide raised flower beds that I have let go crazy (that will be changing soon).

After removing the sod from the 8x3.5 foot area, I mixed a little mulch into the rather rocky earth.

We got the mulch for free from our own yard. This Saturday, somebody came to grind out the stumps from our yard which provided a LOT of mulch!

Next, we added a small rhododendron bush that Laural picked out and a couple of pavers which will be the seating area. I plan to put a child size bench here when I find one that I like.

Then came my favorite feature - a fountain. After searching the home improvement stores online and seeing that fountains are super expensive, I decided to make my own by buying a mid size flower pot, drilling & sealing as needed, add a pump and nozzle kit for a simple and plain fountain. That changed, however, when I saw this little cutie at Lowe's which I hadn't seen online. Well, I loved it immediately because it was just perfect for a children's garden and it was only $13 more that the parts I needed to make a homemade fountain! It was meant to be!

Next was cedar edging and a couple of stepping stones followed by a thick layer of mulch.

Then came some fun details. Some cute gardening tools, a watering can, pots, flowers to be planted, a pinwheel, solar lights that change color and the kids' chairs. Also placed in the garden were a flower pick, a ladybug pick and some large stones for decorating.

And there we have it! An enchanted garden fit for a little princess and prince!

The only thing left is to bring the kids out to see their new garden!

The fountain was an instant hit!

What fun! I wish I were a kid again so I could play in The Enchanted Garden! It's all good though - it is such a joyful sight to see my two cuties having such fun in their own special little place.

Linked on:

Fun with a Freebie

2011-05-24T01:47:00.000-04:00

I love to get freebies in the mail. I am forever filling in forms and signing up for free samples online. Recently, I signed up to get a free sample of Duck Tape brand duct tape sheets. They are 8x10 (ish) sheets of duct tape that remind me a lot of contact paper. I wasn't sure what I would do with it, so when my zebra print duct tape sheet came last week, I set it aside - until yesterday. While I was updating my coupon binder, I realized it was getting pretty beat up. The plastic edges were coming apart and it was clear that it wouldn't last much longer... until... aha! Duct tape sheet! I cut the sheet into 1 inch strips and applied them to the edges, both inside and out. When I fixed all the splits, I had plenty left over, so I decided to do the bottom edge that wasn't splitting yet, just to make it even all around. Since I still had some of the sheet left, I cut out the word COUPONS in a funky font and put that on the front. The letters got a little lost on the white background, so I inserted a sheet of yellow construction paper in the pocket behind the letters and that really made the letters pop! Perfect! I got plenty of attention in the grocery stores when I pulled out my big binder before, but I think the next time the binder makes an appearance in Giant Eagle or Walmart, it'll really turn some heads!

This pic doesn't really show how vibrant the binder actually looks because I took the pic with my cell phone. I'll try to take a new pic tomorrow with my actual camera to see if I can make it look better.

Well, shucks!

2011-05-20T23:31:00.001-04:00

Color me tickled pink to have had one of my muffin tin meals featured on the ParentMap blog along with 4 other very creative mamas! Thanks so much, ParentMap! I'm honored to be included in your blog post! Click the "Featured in ParentMap" banner in the right column to check it out!

Muffin Tin Monday

2011-05-09T16:36:00.000-04:00

We didn't do a theme today - just yummy, healthy and pretty food.

We had: vanilla yogurt with a little bit of blue sprinkles, carrots, celery & peppers, butterfly cheese shapes for Micah and string cheese for Laural, peanut butter & homemade spearmint jelly on whole wheat sandwich thins, red grapes and blood orange sections and a ham flower.

A very happy Laural.

We didn't have a muffin tin meal last week due to being terribly busy so she was rather upset with me, but I think all is forgiven since we managed a tin this week.

What have we been up to?

2011-05-05T23:14:00.001-04:00

We've had a few busy weeks in our home! We've had Laural's birthday party, Easter, and a whole bunch of other stuff that has been keeping us on the go but in between it all, we've managed to get some school time in. Because of my own insecurities, I decided to change the path we've been on with Laural's kindergarten and try something different. Up until recently, I've been doing my own home grown version of a curriculum, putting together things that I thought fit the requirements. But then, I began to worry. What if the way I'm doing things is making her fall way behind what other kids her age are doing? What if the way I'm teaching her to read and write are setting up bad habits that will be tough to break later? What if our math program isn't up to par? So, because of all my worries and wondering and not really having anything to compare our curriculum to, I caved and bought the Heart of Dakota Kindergarten curriculum. After looking through the book, I realized that I really had to reason to be concerned. We are pretty much way ahead of kindergarten reading, math and science. But that's ok. I thought about it and decided that we are going to continue with Heart of Dakota but on a little faster pace for the things that we are already ahead on - kind of like a review - and take a little extra time on the things that we haven't spent as much time on. I like that it's a little more organized than what we've been doing (I'm not much of an organizer) and it will give a good base for her for certain 1st grade components.

So today, Laural and I continued with Heart of Dakota and I decided that it was time to start Micah on something a little more structured. So we started on Letter of the Week by Confessions of a Homeschooler. I love this curriculum! I started Laural (at age 2) on the Brightly Beaming Letter of the Week and while I really liked that one, I like this one even more. I might try to figure a way of combining the two. I wasn't sure how Micah would do with sit down learning, but he did an awesome job today! We started with a couple of the more hands on and fun things to do (I kind of ignored the suggested order of things so I could get a feel for how Micah would handle it). I think we will remain unstructured for a week or two to let him get accustomed to the idea of sitting and working on school work before I start structuring his school time. I started him with the A magnet sheet.

I gave him pom pom magnets and the A/Apple sheet on a cookie sheet and he put the magnets on the tree and the A.

Next, we tried the poke page. Basically, I gave him a giant pushpin and put the paper on a piece of styrofoam and let him trace the letter Aa by poking homes in the paper!. I admit, I was a little nervous about letting my 3 year old handle a giant pushpin, but I explained to him that the end was sharp and not to touch it and he listened. What really amazed me was the awesome a job he did! He completely traced both A & a with only a few breaks to put a hole in other places on the page. I think I've been underestimating my boy!

We also glued apples to an apple tree, traced Aa with a pencil (he did a great job with this one too) and tried our hand at finishing patterns (not such a great job with this one). I also let Laural do the apple cut & paste and a cutting practice page since she doesn't handle the scissors so well yet. I'm really hoping the weather warms up soon so we can take some of our lessons outside! I miss the outdoors but with all the rain and wind, it's far from enjoyable outside yet. I also want to get some of my plants outside. My peas have gone crazy! I need to get them into one of the garden beds soon.

Steve starts vacation tomorrow and we've decided to just hang out around the house for the week and maybe get a yard sale organized for the end of the week - if the weather cooperates. I have so much stuff I need to get rid of - including piles of Beanie Babies! Yes, I fell into the craze long ago and we have loads of them sitting around in bags, needing a good home. Unfortunately, I don't think they retained any value so several have already become Laural's pets. LOL Oh well. I had fun chasing them all down years ago.

Sprouts!

2011-04-21T16:43:00.000-04:00

Laural is so very excited that our seeds that we planted a week ago are really starting to come up! So far, we have beans, peas, zucchini, and cucumbers visible. Our peppers and sunflowers are holding out on us. The packages said they take 10 to 14 days though, so we aren't worried yet.

Laural is calling them our plant babies.

Here's a little photo fun we were having today.

And a little ear update: She had the stitches out on Tuesday and everything is looking quite good. Still a wee bit swollen and red and tender. Still a bit of healing to do, but it is definitely better than it was last Tuesday! Here's the most recent pic:

Hard to see in this pic, but clicking it will take you to a bigger pic.

Muffin Tin Monday - Easter

2011-04-18T18:15:00.000-04:00

For the first part of the month, we've been enjoying the secular imagery and fun of Easter but during this holy week leading up to Easter, we have changed our focus to the real reason for Easter and this was reflected in our muffin tin meal this week.

Top Row: Red veggie juice representing the blood of Christ, a chocolate raspberry crisp representing the body of Christ, an apple ring crown of thorns

Bottom Row: Carrot sticks to represent the nails, a tortilla cross with peanut butter, onigiri with sesame seed to represent the stone rolled away from an empty tomb

Laural ate her entire lunch and some of Micah's too. I ended up making them each another tortilla cross which Micah called a "Jesus T" which had me trying to figure out what he wanted for a minutes. Too cute. I forgot to take pics of the kids with their meals because I was munching on the leftovers.

To help bridge the changeover in our focus, our book of the day is "My Easter Basket and the true story of Easter" which takes a look through the Easter basket and connects the colorful treats in the basket to a point in the Easter story. It's a sturdy, glittery board book so both kids can enjoy looking at it.

Our Snack Time Survival Kit

2011-04-18T15:59:00.000-04:00

I recently entered a giveaway at Molly Green's Econobusters blog and won! Yay! I love entering blog giveaways but I don't win very often. This is the 3rd time in many, many entries on many, many blogs. Our prize was the Beanstalk Express Snack Time Survival Kit and we got it today! Laural was super excited to see it (and I was too)!

It's a clock, with 3 little positionable clocks underneath it. Each little clock has a hook under it to hang a snack card on. There are 33 different snack card ideas and each day, you let the kiddos pick 3 cards they want to have as a snack that day, hang them on the hooks and set the time that they will be able to have the snack. In our case, Laural has been watching the clock like a hawk so she can tell me when it's time to have the next snack. Unfortunately, she had to watch our regular kitchen clock since the clock on the survival kit isn't working. I think we will have to send it back for a replacement.

As you can see from the above picture, our first snack was apples and peanut butter and here we have it!

Laural wanted them to look just like the picture card - on a red plate, but alas, no red plates in our house, so this was the best I could do for her. Then we had a talk about how we will not be able to make all the snacks look like the ones on the card. Micah just ended up eating the peanut butter straight out of the cup, using an apple as a spoon. Laural and I ate his apples. I wish there was some magic trick I could use to get him to eat fruits and veggies!

Laural's ear is looking pretty good today. She gets the stitches out tomorrow! She's nervous but I think she's looking forward to having them gone. As it's healing and the bruising is settling in more, we have been able to see how a bit more of the damage. While only the top part actually split, you can see the area below that was damaged underneath. She really did a number on her poor ear!

Homeschool = Learning Anywhere at Any Time

2011-04-16T23:28:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite things about homeschooling my kids is that we can take just about any task around the house - or just about anywhere else - and turn it into a learning opportunity. Today, we learned a lot about plants and how they grow as we planted seeds in a starter tray. This simple thing that I needed to do to get ready for my garden turned into school time!

Planting cucumber seeds.

And red sunflower seeds.

We also planted peppers, beans, sugar peas and zucchini. All the rest of our seeds (corn, carrots, beets, lettuce and a few other things) will be sown outside when the weather is a little more agreeable.

While we were planting, we talked about what a seed needs to start growing into a plant. Then we talked about the life cycle of the plant (seed, sprout, adult plant, flowering, creating seeds, death), plant parts (root, stem, leaves, flower and fruit) and what plants need to continue to grow and produce fruit (sun, water, food). We also talked a little about how bees will visit the flowers to gather nectar and end up pollinating the plants. Next week, we will be starting a plants, fruits & veggies theme so this was a good kick-off for that. As we go through the various lessons, we will be able to keep track of our tray and watch our seedlings grow. We're hoping to get to Phipp's Conservatory as a field trip next week as well. I love their spring flower show!

After our hard "farm work" was done, we had to have a little snack. Since we had been talking about bees, we just had to have some local honey on some warm, buttered homemade biscuits. Yum! Well, it was yum for me but for some reason, I haven't been able to get Laural to come around to liking the taste of honey. She ate half of her biscuit and didn't want any more.

Ear Update: It is looking quite a bit better today. The swelling has decreased and it is more of a normal color than it was. It helps that she was finally able to let me do a little better cleaning of it and get most of the dried blood cleaned from around the wound. She wanted me to take a picture of it so she could see it better - it's hard to see the inside curves of the outer ear in the mirror! So here it is.

She gets the stitches out on Tuesday. I just hope she doesn't freak out as much as she did when the ER doc was getting ready to stitch her up! She gets very anxious and upset if she thinks something is going to hurt. She gets near hysterical when we just need to take a band-aid off. Poor kid.

Another One for the Books

2011-04-12T20:21:00.001-04:00

It's time to break out Laural's baby book and add a new "first" to the list - stitches. I'll file it right beside her first chest x-ray. I'm not sure how she managed it, but she tripped in our living room and hit the side of her head on our metal, oil-filled electric heat that I had on because of the chill and dampness we had today. In the process she split her ear open across the upper cartilage. The moment I saw it, I knew it was going to require stitches. Micah was having his nap, so we had to wake him up and Steve must have heard her scream because he woke up and came running. So, off to the ER we went. Fortunately, they weren't busy at all and we went straight to a room where she was checked over. The doctor came in a few minutes later and confirmed my suspicions - she needed stitches. When they got ready to start, she started to freak out - she does not do well with medical procedures, especially when she knows a needle is involved. I had to hold on to her arms and body tightly and the nurse had to hold her head still. I think the doctor started stitching before the lidocaine had a chance to fully take effect. She ended up with 4 stitches in her ear. Poor kid. These childhood years can be rough on a kid - and on mom & dad as well.

If you are squeamish, you might want to skip the pics.

Fun stuff, huh?

My Bunny Bento

2011-04-11T23:41:00.038-04:00

I decided to make myself a bento to go along with the kids' Muffin Tin Monday meal and I also decided to make a separate post for it so when I link up to What's For Lunch Wednesday, it isn't cluttered with all the extra stuff. I went with a bunny theme for lunch and here is what I had:

A tiny clementine with a heart cut to make for easier peeling, apple bunnies, a carrot with a broccoli top, edamame & a few snap peas, a bunny sandwich (cheese inside) with fruit leather facial features and jelly bread ears, a ham flower, and a boiled Easter egg decorated with nori & cheese.

I used the ham flower and some of the lettuce baran on the bunny bread & cheese to make for a yummy sandwich. Tucked under the bunny and out of sight are pieces of scrap bread that i used as mini sandwiches with ham & lettuce. It was a yummy lunch but a bit too big so the clementine was saved to be a tasty treat for later.

I'm linking to What's for Lunch Wednesday so click on the button to what made it's way into bento boxes around the world this week!

Muffin Tin Monday - Bunny Time!

2011-04-11T17:16:00.000-04:00

For this weeks special muffin tin meal, we featured our pal the Easter Bunny since his time is getting closer and closer! Here is what we had in our tin today:

Top: hard boiled Easter egg (peeled) and decorated with nori & cheese, a ham flower, apple bunnies

Bottom: a carrot for the Easter Bunny with a broccoli top with edamame & snap peas, PB&J Easter Bunny pocket sandwich with jelly bread ears and a clementine with a heart cut into it for easier peeling (plus it makes it cute!)

This was a big hit with Laural. Micah missed out because he needed his nap a little earlier today since he woke up early today. He had the same things only not as pretty when he woke up.

I decided to have a cute lunch today too, so I packed mine in a bento. I had basically the same thing except I had just cheese on my bunny sandwich and put the ham flower and some of the lettuce baran on it for a very yummy sandwich.

Since a few people have asked, here is a quick tutorial on how to make the ham flowers.

1. Lay the slice of ham on the table/cutting surface and cut strips across the middle. Do not cut the whole way to the edge - leave about half and inch to an inch on the side edges. This can be a little tricky if you have a very uneven edge like this ham has. I just make sure to stop about half an inch before where the edge happens to be.

2. Fold the ham, matching up the long side edges.

3. Starting at the bottom open edge, roll the ham up, leaving the folded side free.

4. Secure the rolled edge if necessary. I usually just tuck it into the bento or muffin tin in a way that keeps it from unrolling. And now you have a pretty flower! You can use this technique with other meats or with egg sheets or probably other things as well.

Don't forget to check out the Muffin Tin Mom blog for more fun meals in muffin tins!

April 9th

2011-04-09T20:01:00.001-04:00

Today marks the 8 year anniversary of the death of my first child, my first son. We spent the day much like we've spent this day for each of the previous 7 years. It's much different, though, going to the grave site with Laural and Micah. Laural is old enough to understand what is going on now and she talks about her big brother. She says in the future, she will go and see him in heaven. I told her that I hope she means when she is old and a grandma or even a great grandma. She said that yes, that is what she meant. When Micah asked where we were going, I told him to Alexander's grave. He seemed excited and said "Ok, go to Xander's." While at the grave, he asked several times about going to Xander's. I tried to explain that we were at Xander's but, at 3 years old, it's still over his head. We placed flowers on the grave and had some cake - we always have cake - and sang a quiet version of Happy Birthday. Even though he wasn't born to earth alive, he was born into heaven and we celebrate the life he did have, short as it was. The winter has left the grave looking pretty rough, so we will go back in a couple weeks and clean it up and plant some flowers.This year, I might be able to finally get a permanent grave marker for him. I've tried over the past 8 years but it's just been something I haven't been able to bring myself to do yet. Maybe this year.

Happy Birthday, my sweet son - my Alexander. We love you. We miss you. We look forward to the day when we get to hold you again.

Spring Lamb Bento

2011-04-06T16:04:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I've pulled out my bento boxes but I've been itching to use them. We usually use them for picnics in the park but it's been so cold for so long, there is no way we would have been eating in the park! So even though it's cold and rainy today, I made bento just to have inside in the warmth of our kitchen rather than wait any longer for the weather to comply with my wishes.

Big dish: A lamb shaped (kind of) ham & cheese sandwich, a ham flower, cherry tomato flower with corn & pea, macaroni & cheese with cheese stars and snap peas for garnish.

Small dish: Two mushrooms made from mini sweet peppers & carrots for stem, strawberries & snap peas with a little clementine cut in half on purple lettuce.

I wasn't thrilled with how the lamb came out. I wish I had some of the cute little punches for making facial features. I've tried cutting things out of nori in the past for eyes and such but they just never turn out like I want them to. Oh well. Looks like it might be time to hit up some of my favorite ebay bento sellers again. Shh... don't tell Steve. Teehee.

I linked up to What's for Lunch Wednesday over at BentoLunch.net. Check it out for more fun bento!

Muffin Tin Monday - Flowers

2011-04-04T12:03:00.000-04:00

I decided to go with a flower theme for this week's muffin tin meal. We are smack dab in the middle of April showers right now so May flowers are on my mind! It's been warm here today - up to 62°F so this "heat wave" and the rain convinced me to do the flower theme. Here is what we had:

Top: Carrot tulips with snap pea leaves in a lettuce bed, Jelly bread flowers with a tiny cheese center, Ham flowers that remind me of carnations

Bottom: Strawberry & kiwi flowers, Cheese flowers with fruit leather centers, Flower crackers with a fruit leather center

Laural loved the look of the jelly bread flower.

Micah wouldn't leave this position until I took the picture. LOL

I've linked up over at Muffin Tin Mom. Go take a look.

Muffin Tin Monday

2011-03-28T15:03:00.000-04:00

Our tins today really didn't have a theme other than: "We really have a lot of fresh fruits and veggies leftover from the party on Saturday, so let's use those."

Our tins contained: Cucumbers, sweet peppers, snap peas, celery, carrots, apple slices, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, strawberry cream cheese dip, yogurt parfait, cheese stick and mini peanut butter sandwiches on silver dollar rolls left over from the party.

Since today is Micah's birthday, I put a candle in his sandwich and we sang Happy Birthday to him. He sang along and blew out the candle before diving into his tin.

Micah loves drinking out of the "fancy" stemware.

Laural loves having muffin tin meals but she always has the same dilemma: "I don't know which one to eat first!"

Happy 3rd Birthday, Micah!

2011-03-26T22:06:00.003-04:00

Since Micah's birthday falls on a Monday this year, we decided to have his party a couple days early on Saturday. He has been like a little obsessed madman over Super Mario for a few months, so that was the theme we decided to go with. Now, I could have easily gone to an online party supply store and bought the plates and favors and decorations all pre-made for me, but what fun is that? I started the planning in January and here is what we ended up with for Micah's 3rd birthday.

Through the duration of he party, we had the Wii in one room with Super Mario Brothers on it and we pulled out our old Super Nintendo with the old school Super Mario Brothers on it. In a third room, we set up a theater and had the live action Super Mario brothers movie playing. I was too busy to get pics but all three options were popular with our guests.

I wish I could take the credit for all these awesome party elements but I took a lot of inspiration from a couple of blogs I found through the Tip Junkie and some general google searches. I put my own spin and flavor into a lot of them but had a lot of inspiration from some very creative people. I need to look up the blogs again so I can link to them.

The gift table - actually it's the gift piano. I figured I'd save the trouble of putting up an extra table and just use the piano. MICAH are simple paper mache letters painted with Ceramcoat paint. The question block is a glass block that I taped off on both sides and spray painted with yellow Rustoleum.

The goody table! On this table were Mario hats I made for each child, Super Mushroom Marshmallow Pops, gold chocolate coins, colorful gumballs, Twizzlers Pull & Peels, chocolate mustaches and of course, the cake!

I bought pipe fittings at the home improvement store and painted them with green Rustoleum. I stuffed them with paper shreds from the dollar store. The Super Mushroom Pops are marshmallows on a stick, dipped in red candy melts and then sprinkled with white sprinkles. Toad is perched atop a glass ? block.

On the other side of the cake are the chocolate mustaches in another pipe and Yoshi hanging out on another ? block.

In the center was the cake. It was a 2 tier cake - chocolate on the bottom, yellow on the top. I covered it in fondant and made the decorations out of fondant. It is sitting on top of a hat box that I decorated to look like a Super Mushroom. I got this idea from Grey-Grey Productions but made mine a little different. I also got the idea for the glass blocks and the marshmallows, again making the mallows a little differently. On the top were Mario & Luigi figures. I think I looked at about 50 different cakes and cupcakes online to help me decide how I wanted my cake to look. I am quite pleased with the end results.

Each dining table had candy filled Bob-ombs, a mushroom tin, Starman boxes and a brick block. The ticket invitations can be seen on this table. I sent a separate ticket for each kid and we used them at the party for the door prize drawing. Georgia Mario won one of the glass ? blocks to use as a bank. My kids got the other two.

The Birthday Boy's table got a POW block as well. I painted each of the Starman boxes and inside was a packet of Super Mario Brothers gummis.

The food table. I had intended to decorate this a bit more, but we were pushed for time. I wasn't able to get a pic of the table before it was over half empty but we had: Koopa Bites (lil smokies wrapped in crescents), Piranha Plant Pizzas (mini cheese pizzas), Mario's Sliders (mini burgers), fresh veggies with hummus or ranch dip, fresh fruit, macaroni salad, 2 different potato salads, deviled eggs, pretzel sticks and punch.

The food was a big hit.

The obstacle course before it was attacked by the kids.

Before we could do the obstacle course, the kids had to be properly geared up - with their hats and mustaches! You can't go through a Mario game obstacle course without a hat and mustache! I got the hat idea from the Giver's Log. Her fleece hats were so cute and I saw some in an etsy shop but I am far too cheap to buy them, so I decided to make them myself. I need to use my sewing machine every once in a while. I found the mustaches at Party City for about 25 cents each. They were a bigger hit than I thought they'd be.

We had Micah Mario,

Laural Mario,

Georgia Mario,

Rilee Mario,

RJ Mario,

Christian Mario,

Austin Mario,

and Jesse Mario who wasn't so fond of his hat.

First up was the Goomba Stomp. In each of the hoola hoops was a picture of a Goomba with bubble wrap over it. The kids had to jump from hoop to hoop, stomping out the Goombas.

Next up was the puzzle round. They had to work through a maze and once done, they got to open the question block box in front of them. If it had a Starman inside, they got a power up (they got to take home one of the star boxes from the tables and all the boxes had a Starman).

I was too busy helping with the next part to get pics of it, but we had a Yoshi Egg Rescue. They had to carry a boiled egg (decorated with green spots) on a spoon to the other side of the games area. After that, they had to walk the balance beam to the next stop which was...

The Boo Bash. The kids each had to pop a Boo. The problem was that Steve didn't fill them super full, so they didn't want to pop. The grown-ups had to help with this.

Micah did not care much for the noise from the balloons popping.

The last part of the course was to defeat Bowser. I didn't get any pics of this either but, I had a poster of Bowser and the kids had to throw fire and ice balls (bean bag balls) at Bowser and hit him 3 times to defeat him. All the kids really enjoyed the games and everyone did great. After the obstacle course, we played a couple games of Mario Bingo. I used a bingo card generator at ESL to make the cards and we used bright colored M&M's as the markers. It was hard to keep the littlest kids from eating their markers long enough to play two rounds of bingo. After prizes were handed out, it was time to move to opening presents.

Micah Mario and his helpers getting ready to open gifts.

He's starting to look tired, but I love this pic of Micah with his name and presents behind him.

I only managed to get one picture of him opening gifts because I was video taping this part. Unfortunately, something happened to the video so this is all I have for presents.

Finally, we had the cake. There is a reason Micah is covering his ears. You see, in our family, we have a tradition of singing Happy Birthday in the worst possible way we can. Everyone sings off key and at different speeds and it sounds like the most horrible thing you can imagine. Well, as we were getting ready to sing, Micah put his hands over his ears. It was too funny. We even sang it nicely but he left his hands over his ears - just in case.

Blowing out the candle - the votive candle. I forgot to bring the candles so I found some votive candles in the church and we used that in place of birthday candles. Silly mommy. Micah didn't care a bit though.

Finally, a pic of Micah Mario shortly before the party was over. He insisted on leaving the mustache and hat on while eating his cake ice cream and this chocolate mustache. I think he was afraid it would hurt coming off. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he is just about done for the day and was more than ready for a nap but he seemed to have a wonderful day and his excitement over his Mario Party continued after his nap and through the evening. I had a great time planning and putting his party together and it was all worth it to see the excitement on his sweet little face.

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY, MY BABY BOY!

Busy Mama is Busy!

2011-03-18T23:01:00.004-04:00

And because this mama has been so busy, this little blog has gone neglected. Poor blog. There is a good reason though - besides a seemingly unending string of colds and flu that have been worming their way through everyone in the house, I've been doing lots of prep work for two big birthday parties that are coming up real soon! Micah will be THREE (I can't believe it!) in just 10 days and Laural will be SIX (no way!) at the end of April.

So, like I said, I'm getting ready for their parties which is something I actually started doing a few months ago. I decided that I was going to do a slightly more involved party for each of the kids this year since we didn't quite have the parties I had envisioned last year. Now, here I am one week before Micah's party and nearly finished with all the major work for his party. We discovered that Micah absolutely adores Super Mario Brothers. He loves to watch us play Super Mario Bros. on the Wii and, with Laural's help, he discovered the Super Mario Bros. cartoons on Netflix. While we were out at Walmart in Hermitage a few months ago, we walked past a shelf that had a bunch of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi & Toad figures on it. Micah got all excited and named all the characters (except Toad). We decided that moment that his birthday party theme would be Super Mario Brothers. Since then, I've been planning and sketching and putting together an awesome Super Mario Party. Here are a few pics of what I've done so far:

Starman boxes will be a table decoration and take home item for kids.

Glass ? blocks and pipes for decoration on food tables and goodie table.

1-Up Mushroom sans eyes & spots will be the cake stand. I put the cake pans on top for effect.

Chocolate Mustaches because you can't be Mario without the mustache.

Mario Hat without the M - will get to that tomorrow.

Gumballs & Chocolate Coins because you just can't have enough colorful goodies and, well, coins.

Update: Click HERE to see pics from the party and everything completed!

I just can't wait until the party! Micah is going to be wowed by it all. I can't wait to see his little face light up! Laural's party will be a Mermaid/Under the Sea theme. I don't have a lot done beyond lists of stuff to do and I've bought several things for it, but I still have a month before her party, so no big hurry but I am really looking forward to hers too.

Muffin Tin Tuesday

2011-02-15T16:29:00.001-05:00

We had muffin tin meal today rather than yesterday because we went out to lunch yesterday. We have continued our Valentine's Day celebration into today.

We had: heart-shaped strawberries, fancy crinkle cut carrot sticks, vanilla yogurt, chocolate pudding, cheese hearts, bread hearts, and chocolate hearts. The sprinkles on the pudding are supposed to look like and "x" and the on the yogurt is an "o" for hugs and kisses.

We had juice in fancy goblets. The kids both loved drinking from fancy glasses.

We've also spent time today playing with our Valentine's sensory tub - something both kids love to do.

Valentines Sensory Tub

2011-01-26T23:13:00.001-05:00

I was getting tired of looking at the feed corn based sensory tub (even though the kids loved playing with the corn) so I started gathering things for a new tub a few days ago. I decided to jump ahead to Valentine's Day already since we seem to be surrounded by a massive amount of Valentine's merchandise every time we set foot inside any store.

The base is plain white rice. Also in the tub are pink heart picks (cut shorter or removed from the sticks with the sticks included in the tub), a small wooden bowl, wooden hearts, wooden scoop, red porcupine balls, various Valentine's Day erasers, red heart glitter, red rose scented soap roses, and a red plastic gem.

A note about the soap roses: I initially thought that these were paper that was scented like roses to be used as potpourri. A little while after I put the tub together, I read the box and saw that these were glycerin dipped paper soaps. You are supposed to remove a petal and use like you you would soap. I will strongly suggest not doing this! I tried it with one of the roses that I didn't put in the tub and the petal turned to a thick, sticky goo that wouldn't rinse off my hands. I rubbed and rubbed and rinsed and rinsed and still the pink goo wouldn't come off. After several minutes of scrubbing, I used a washcloth to scrub it off my hands and even then, it was difficult to get off.

I haven't been doing a stellar job at keeping up my 2 blogs! Homeschooling has been on the light side still - mostly because I am still recovering and gaining back my normal strength and energy from the lengthy illness I dealt with for all of November and December. I never imagined that I would still be dealing with recovery this long. But it is what it is and we are working around it and doing "good enough." I have a lot of housework to catch up on and I need to do a little re-training with the kids since they were used to things being quite lax while I was ill. There has been much resistance already. The cold and dreary weather aren't the greatest motivators either. These chilly days have me wanting to snuggle under some blankets with my kiddos and some hot tea or cocoa and watch some fun movies on netflix. I'll get there. I'm sure that by the end of spring, something will be accomplished. :)

Muffin Tin Monday

2011-01-24T18:24:00.000-05:00

Short & Tall, Big & Small was today's theme.

Starting at the top left and going clockwise: Big Cheese Hearts, Small Ham Hearts, Big Bread Stars, Small Bread Stars, Small Tangerine Sections, Big Orange Sections, Big Green Pepper Flowers, Small Green Pepper Flowers, Tall Giraffe Pick with Ham (Micah's bottom tin), Short Monkey & Bear Picks with Ham (Laural's top tin) and Kind of Tall (compared to the picks anyhow) Snapea Crisps.

Micah loves Snapea Crisps! I wish he ate real veggies like he does these things.

Laural carefully decides which morsel to devour next!

On a side not, I was thrilled to see that Walmart is now carrying the Snapea Crisps and for only $1.50! Only one other store near us has had these and they were around $3 a bag (and the bags aren't that big). We definitely had to toss a couple bags in the cart. The kids (and Steve) will have these gone in no time!

Muffin Tin Monday

2011-01-17T14:19:00.000-05:00

No theme today, just some tasty food in a tin.The kids don't care if there's a theme or not. They just like lunch in a muffin tin!

Top Row: Chocolate Pudding, Fresh Strawberries, Animal Crackers

Bottom Row: Green Peppers, Chicken Nuggets, Vanilla Yogurt with Blue Sprinkles

I don't usually buy pudding cups but I got a good deal and it is so good to dip fresh strawberries into chocolate pudding. Yum! The animal crackers taste pretty yummy in the pudding too.

School Stuff

2011-01-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

We are easing back into school around here. Partly because it just still feels like it should be winter vacation and partly because I am still working up the energy to get everything done and caught up since I've been ill. This week, we've been doing a variety of new things along with the regular stuff.

Laural has been using a Mini Luk book and controller that she got as a Christmas present.

And we played a Leap Frog spelling bee game. She did great with the spelling. She's really starting to sound things out and be able to figure out how to spell and read lots of words.

Micah has been practicing his drawing skills with his new Crayola Color Me A Song.

And both of them had some fun with their new Do-a-Dot markers. I was really surprised at how well Micah did with filling in the dots with the markers. The only problem was that once he was done with all the dots, he liked to drag the markers across the paper to make nice wide streaks. He also enjoyed holding the daubers down on the paper making a bit of a puddle of ink on the page. At least it's washable ink!

Hair Cut Day

2011-01-04T17:06:00.000-05:00

I wish I understood why it is so very hard for me to give my son a hair cut. Maybe because it's a surefire sign that he is no longer my baby and is turning into a little boy right before my eyes. Maybe it's just because I love those sweet red curls. Whatever it is, I decided that it was time to cut it. The reason? While in Walmart yesterday, three (3!) people mistook him for a little girl. Sigh. He doesn't like me messing with his hair - whether it be brushing, washing or cutting - so Daddy had to help keep him distracted while I cut his curls down to a more boy looking length.

The Before Shot - He and Laural playing with the nesting blocks this morning.

The After Shot: Saying cheese for mommy after the hair cut was over.

Such a big change. I managed to keep back the tears as I cut my big boy's hair, but a little part of me felt so sad to see all his lovely locks in the garbage can. Oh well. I suppose he can't be my baby forever.

Muffin Tin Monday

2011-01-03T21:39:00.000-05:00

It has been over 2 months since we last did a MTM in our house. The big reason for that is that I am still recovering from several illnesses and medical issues I have had back to back to back. I am finally starting to feel better and today, even after going out for a few groceries, I felt like I had enough energy to whip up a quick and easy muffin tin meal. I partly stuck to the theme for the week which was basically foods on a stick (picks, kebabs, etc).

Top: Strawberries and red grapes on picks, Cheese and Sausages on picks, V-Fusion juice

Bottom: Veggie chips, PB&J pocket sandwiches and Vanilla yogurt with blue sprinkles

I took the pics with my cell phone because I didn't quite have the energy to run upstairs for the camera, so the photo quality is a bit questionable. At least I remembered to take a couple pics. Hopefully, I will be getting more and more back to normal so we can resume our regular daily activities. I miss being able to do it all!

Christmas Morning

2010-12-27T04:13:00.000-05:00

This year, Christmas morning was a little different than it has been over the past several years. This year, a little girl's voice gently woke me up by saying,"Mommy, it's Christmas morning! It's morning! It's Christmas!" This was the first time that we were awakened on Christmas morning instead of having to wake the kids up. As I walked down the hall, Micah's little head popped up from the inside of his crib. He had a big, big smile on his little face and said "Merry Christmas, Mommy!" So sweet! Since Laural was behind me and Steve was still in bed, I knew he came up with it on his own. My heart melted. After getting everyone to the bathroom and slippers and robes on, we headed downstairs to see what wonderful surprises Santa had left us. Both kids were extremely excited and both went right for the presents. It was tough to keep them at a slow enough pace so we could see them open everything. Laural and Micah both got the Pillow Pets they had wanted, so that made for happy children. Micah was so excited! He just wanted to keep ripping packages open. Laural was very excited too - she couldn't wait to see what was next. We had quite the fun morning. After opening all the presents, it was time to get ready to go out to relatives. First up was Steve's mom's and in the afternoon it was to my Grandparent's place. All of my brother's and their kids were there so things got completely chaotic for a while. We didn't stay a very long time because I was feeling rather poorly, so we headed home to let the kids play with some of their new loot and then it was bedtime. Micah was very afraid of the new moon light in their room so he freaked a bit. A few minutes later, he asked Steve "Mommy sleep?" He wanted to sleep with me. So, Steve brought him in and Laural came too. I told them they could cuddle for 10 minutes or so but we all fell asleep pretty fast. A little more than an hour later, I woke up and realized we were all zonked. I woke Steve up and he carried the little ones to their own beds. As much as I enjoy having those sweet little munchkins snuggled up against me, it's hard to sleep with 4 in a bed.

It was a long but glorious day that I will always treasure. I love having my children to celebrate with. I had a few moments of sadness when I thought about the little man who is missing from our family. I really miss my Alexander this time of year. I keep reminding myself that he gets to celebrate with the birthday boy himself - Jesus! It brings a little comfort. After 7 years, my arms still ache to hold him. I am so very blessed to have my Laural and Micah though. They bring me such joy. The Father has blessed me more than I deserve.

November

2010-12-03T17:50:00.000-05:00

The month of November has not been kind to me this year. I spent a great deal of last month feeling quite miserable. It started with a tickle in my throat on about November 3rd that turned into a cough and major chest congestion. I'm still not sure whether it was a cold or the flu or something else entirely. Near the end of the month, I started to feel a little better but then my kids both caught a cold which they so thoughtfully shared with me. That was enough to let the 1st illness get a 2nd stab at me. Now that we are 3 days in to December, I am starting once again to feel a little energy return to my worn out body. I can still only breathe though one nostril though. I probably should have gone to the doctor weeks ago but each time I made up my mind to call, I started to feel a little better and ended up not calling. Anyhow, I think I am finally on the mend and will hopefully be back to my homeschooling, muffin tin monday making, blogging self again soon. We might even manage to get our Christmas tree up sometime in the coming week!

Bento Lunch & Hide-n-Seek Jar

2010-10-27T23:06:00.001-04:00

I was in a mood today (industrious maybe? which is rare) and decided to make a quick bento lunch for Laural today. Micah was already in bed because some days he just gets too fussy and refuses to stay up for lunch which bugs me since the boy eats like a bird as it is! Anyhow, I decided to use Laural's princess sandwich box today.

She had a sliced red pepper, cheese stick cut in two, chicken nuggets, apple wedges and different colors of lettuce as baran. She was rather excited to be using her princess lunch box. I also have a small drink jug that matches but I didn't get a pic of that today.

One of our activities today was to use our Halloween hide-n-seek jar. I got the idea from Chasing Cheerios. I have seen similar things in the store for a hefty price and loved the idea but never even considered making something like it ourselves. So, inspired by Chasing Cheerios, I gathered stuff from around our house and I bought a few things too.

I arranged everything on a tray and took a picture which I printed out and laminated. The kids toss a button or small stone on the picture and whatever it lands on, they have to look for in the jar.

I used a Prego Spaghetti sauce jar and filled it with the Halloween theme goodies and black beans. I also threw a couple things in the jar that weren't on the photo as a surprise. Laural enjoyed it more than Micah but I think he was more hungry than anything else at the time I showed it to him. We will try it again tomorrow.

Micah is currently fascinated with pumpkins - how can he not be as they are everywhere this time of year - so the first thing he noticed was the pumpkin in the jar and had to point it out over and over. Then he pointed to the pumpkins I have in the middle of our table as a centerpiece and the big one sitting by the fridge that will be carved sometime tomorrow and made sure that I knew that those were pumpkins too. The boy loves his pumpkins!

Halloween Bento

2010-10-25T22:14:00.000-04:00

I decided to make a quickie Halloween bento for Laural today while Micah was napping. Unfortunately, the battery on my camera died, so I had to use my phone which takes perfectly fine pics if there is plenty of light. It was, however, a very overcast day here in not-so-sunny western PA, so my pic is a little blurry.

She had: slimy worms, mummies with bloody feet, a jack-o-lantern and spider eggs in white goo.

Also known as green beans with butter, hot dogs wrapped in croissant strips with ketchup to dip in, half an orange with fruit roll features and vanilla yogurt with orange and yellow nonpareils. It was a big hit and she ate every last morsel. Mommy just had the leftover bits and pieces.

Slime Time!

2010-10-23T18:43:00.001-04:00

I decided to make some good old fashioned slime to play with today. Ah, it takes me back to the days of my youth when kids would bring in a small tub of the stuff and distract class with it, driving the teacher to confiscate the goo until the end of the year. In our house though, slime is part of school, not something for the teacher to get upset over. It's actually pretty awesome to see what happens when 2 liquids are introduced to each other - a nice and simple science lesson for a 5 year old. It's super easy to make too.

Laural was afraid to touch it at first but then she had a ball with it - especially after she realized she could make "rude sounds" with it. We liked to set it up in various shapes and then watch it melt down and ooze back to a shapeless blob.

Slime is awesome!

One of the last things we did with it before putting it away was roll it into a long snake and then I draped it over my hands and we watched as the ends stretched lower and lower. Each time the ends reached the table, I'f lift the slime higher until we must have had at least a 6 foot long slime snake. At that point it broke and landed on the table in a messy pile. I can't decide whether it looked like a long worm or a pile of intestines. Either way, it looked kinda creepy - perfect for Halloween!

To make slime you need:

1 tsp borax

1 1/2 cups water

4oz of white glue

food coloring

Dissolve the borax into 1 cup of water, set aside. Pour glue into a bowl. Add 1/2 cup water and mix well. Add desired food coloring and mix. Pour the borax water in and watch it become slime. Mix it up with your hands. At first it will be really slimy and gross. Then as you mix it up you will have 2 seperate things - slime and liquid. Remove the slime and discard the liquid. Knead the slime a little and it will become one nice, smooth wad of slime. Then, have some fun!