Finished!!

We finished our "Downy Quilts for Kids!" This is such a great thing--they send you the fabric already cut and a pattern and directions and you make the quilt and then mail it back to them. The quilt then is given to a child who is in the hospital. The girls and I both had a lot of fun making them and they turned out pretty good. Grace's has a few (well, more than a few) issues but she did the best she could and it's cute. After all, she is only 8 years old and has a very non-perfectionist momma so...
In the picture above, Hannah is holding up my quilt and in the picture below she has her quilt.

Happy Birthday Joe!!

My little guy is 7 years old today!! I can't believe it has been 7 years since he entered our lives. He has been such a blessing. Truly. I didn't say easy, or always pleasant but a blessing nonetheless. He makes me laugh and cry--sometimes daily. When he was born Hannah was 3 and a half, and Grace was almost 2 and I had my hands full. The girls were relatively easy and obedient though. I had it going on in the mom department. If you had a parenting question, you could have asked me, I had read all the books and my girls were proof that I was successful at this mommy thing. Then came Joe...he was a needy baby, he practically lived in the sling. He was happy and sweet as long as things went his way and he was the focus of all of my attention. He moved into the toddler years and the preschool years and I was humbled. I endured many, many embarrassing public displays of his temper and strong will. I cried, I yelled, I listened to people give me advice--lots of advice. I also laughed at this little guy and adored him like you wouldn't believe. He has grown up and matured so much. He still has fits but they are not daily or hourly. Maybe weekly at this point. He is a really great kid. He is loving and respectful and thoughtful. He is friendly and kind and adores his sisters and his friends. He still has a strong will but he has more control over his impulses and his temper and is using that strong will for good. I am proud to be his momma and can say that he is such a blessing to our family. Happy Birthday Joe!!

A Good Day

Since I am quick to complain and gripe and report my bad days I thought I'd take a minute to say that today was a GOOD day. I got up early and had a great prayer time. Then I spent a little while on the computer and saw the video that I posted below which reminded me and inspired me to relax and really work to find that balance. So, we skipped chores and went for a bike ride before starting school. I had intended for the chores to get done later but forgot. Oh well. I think we were all in a better mood after some fresh air and fun. We made it through school with minimal drama--praise God! For today I found the balance and was productive but also relaxed and spent some time alone reading. It is the end of the day and I am not exasperated and exhausted but instead feel relaxed and at peace. Praise God for a good day!

I Love This!

Thanks BeckyJoie for the link!

Stuff and a Book Recommendation

• I just saw some pictures on Facebook of someone's 50th birthday party.  Guess where they were and what they were doing--they were in a gym, exercising!  Seriously!  Doing kickboxing and salsa dancing, etc.  Who thought of that one?  Let's give so and so a birthday party and a big hint at the same time!  We'll teach her to exercise since she's 50 and fat!  Not fun!
• I've been struggling this week with finding the balance between relaxing and being productive--I tend to do either relax all day or be productive all day and neither is good.  I'm trying to learn to do both every day so that I can end my day satisfied for accomplishing something but not completely exhausted and overworked.
• Joe has decided that he wants to be a good King who loves God when he grows up.  
• I finished a great book, "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett.  It was set in Southern Mississippi in the late 50s early 60s and was all about the relationships between the maids and the women they worked for.  It was a great story, I highly recommend it.  
• Now I am reading "Wicked, the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire.  I am enjoying it so far but it is a totally different genre than I usually read.  I do like it though and it has me very curious to see how it will all play out.  
• It's time to start my day--we have a busy school day of course but I think I will surprise the kids and start our day with a bike ride.  I think that would be good for all of us.  

A Long Day and Other Random Thoughts

This picture sums up my day. I had a big ol' long to do list and was feeling overwhelmed--throw in a couple of catty girls, one hyper overstimulated boy, and one Monday and well, the picture above says it all. I recovered tonight by babysitting a sweet newborn and just holding and rocking and watching two episodes of Grey's Anatomy. I feel refreshed and ready for another day....Now for some random...
These are the two books I got the experiments from. We did the 101 one first and did about 75 of the experiments. The other book had a lot of repeats from the first book but had some pretty neat new ones as well. It's hard to say whether I'd recommend them or not--a lot of the experiments didn't actually work which I think is common with elementary science projects. If I were to recommend a book I think I'd recommend the Usborne Science Experiments book. We used that with My Father's World and the experiments were better and used more common household supplies.
I love this picture of Joe--not sure why but I just do.
I spent a good part of Saturday making a crinoline to go under this poodle skirt. "Grease" is coming up in just a couple of weeks and Hannah has about 4 costume changes. I think we've got it all together now. The crinoline was miserable work and it is crappola but it should survive four shows.
This was our breakfast the other day and let me say that it was delicious! For real. This is a homemade Lara bar topped with bananas and cashew cream and flax seeds and chia seeds. The kids and I all had this and we all loved it. To make the cashew cream you just soak about a cup of raw cashews in water for about 20 to 30 minutes. Then you blend them with some of the soaking water, a little bit of lemon juice, honey, and vanilla. It makes a creamy topping for the breakfast "sundae."
I also made another raw bar that is just as good as the Lara bar. It's a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bar. Here's how to make it--
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 1/2 cups oats
1/2 c. raisins or other dried fruit (I left this out)
1/2 c. chocolate chips
1/2 c. maple syrup
1/2 c. nut butter
optional--2 to 4 scoops of protein powder
2 Tbsp. flax seeds
2 Tbsp. chia seeds
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix it all together and press into a cookie sheet and chill or freeze until hard. Cut into bars and keep in the fridge.
We are trying to eat more raw foods. I will not go completely raw but I am trying to eat at least one raw meal a day. The other night for dinner I made a big pot of pinto beans and refried them for the rest of the family and then left some whole and made a salad with spring mix, beans, and then the toppings below. The rest of the family had the toppings with their refried beans. It was a good and filling meal. I am not much of a salad eater but I really liked this.

I got myself two new tie dye t-shirts--I love them! Here's one of them. I also bought Grace one too that matches the one in the picture. She and I have similar taste in clothes--we both like lots of color and we both will trade fashion for comfort. Below is her new "Life is Good," t-shirt. I found it at Goodwill the other day and I just had to get it for her. Now if I could just find one that is my size at Goodwill. I have been wanting a "Life is Good, " t-shirt for years but just can't bring myself to spend $25 on a t-shirt.

Grace and I spent well over an hour today cranking out her quilt. She has one problem after another and so I have to sit with her even though she does all the work. She really wants to enter it in the fair before we send it off so I am insisting that she do all of the work herself. It is taking forever and I can't wait for her to bed done. Hannah only has about 20 to 30 more minutes of work on hers and it will be done. Woohoo!!
Here's to a better day tomorrow--I have already decided that I will be more relaxed if it kills me. :0)

The Promised Bad Picture Post

While Gabi was here he took a bunch of pictures of me. I had told him how unphotogenic I was and how I never like pictures of myself. He took that as a personal challenge and went on to take lots and lots of pictures--almost all of them were terrible. I'm sharing with you the worst ones in this blog post. Most of these just make me laugh, they are so bad it's funny! He did get a few that I liked and I might share those in a future post. I don't usually post pics of myself because I feel weird about it but I don't mind posting pics that are bad. :0) Enjoy and have a good laugh at my expense!

Can I Multiply Myself??

It's 9:15 and I am finally "done" for the day...and I'm exhausted and ready to go to bed myself.  I spent about an hour and a half or more helping Grace build a lego house tonight and that prompted my sweet, terribly jealous older daughter to say in a whiny voice, "will you spend time with me tomorrow night?" 

Last night Grace came in the kitchen and asked why I never have time to spend with her.  She's been asking me for days if I have any free time.  Free time?  What's free time?  When she asked me that last night I wanted to scream and then I wanted to cry.  My day had gone like this--get up early, have a quiet time, make breakfast and oversee chores and getting ready for the day, school the kids (make snack and lunch during this time too), tutor for two hours, make dinner, eat dinner--it was 7 pm and I'd hardly sat down much less "chillaxed" all day.  I had no desire to play a game, or legos, or anything that involved talking or communicating with anyone else.  

There are truly not enough hours in the day to do all I need to do, much less all that I want to do.  I spend a ton of time with my kids but very little one on one having fun time.  Actually, much of my time with them I am not relaxed or having fun, I'm usually on a mission of some sort--finish school, get through the store, etc.  

I have no good answers to this except to take one day at a time and do what  I can do and also to remember that this is just a season of life.  There will be lots of "chillaxin'" in my future and then I'll miss these days.  At least I hear that I will.  :0)

Guess What??

I (well, actually we) finished BOTH books of science experiments!!! It was fun (sometimes), and we learned a lot and I feel a great sense of accomplishment. If I never do another elementary science experiment again I will be a happy girl! :0) I will say that I recommend gathering the supplies for a whole book and keeping them all in one place. It made it so much easier having all supplies on hand.

Awesome, Amazing, and Healthy!!

These are the homemade Lara bars and although they look like bird seed they taste awesome!! Here's the recipe--

2 cups raw cashews
2 cups pitted medjool dates
1 Tbsp. coconut oil
splash of vanilla
optional but recommended--
1 Tbsp. flax seed
1 Tbsp. hemp seed
1 Tbsp. chia seed

Pile it all in a food processor and blend until well chopped. Then press the mixture into a 13 by 9 pan and chill it for a few hours. Then cut into bars and enjoy!

I found this recipe at this blog--Green and Crunchy.

More Pictures and Some Finished Projects

I just found these pictures and realized that I hadn't shared them...above the girls are enjoying an ice cream treat after working hard all morning cleaning the house. Ellie cleans a bathroom better than I do!
We started a few science experiments that later needed checking on--sprouting seeds in water, on a dry paper towel, and on a wet paper towel. And below, growing mold!

Ollie and Gabi (mostly Gabi) built this awesome extra counter thingy for my kitchen. As you can see from above I have a really tiny kitchen and almost no counter space. This cutting board fits snugly over the sink to provide extra flat space. I love it!! The fact that it is a cutting board makes it even better.

We did a few art projects too--above we did a line of row houses by first making textured paper with crayon rubbings, then a watercolor wash, then once it was dry cutting out shapes. Then gluing and decorating. They turned out really good. Below--Hannah did her own art project by making tissue paper masks and even including the little girls.


And of course--some bunny fun pictures!

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a great day, not a super romantic day--that's not our style. Every day's Valentine's day at our house. Hah! But really, neither of us really get into Valentine's Day. We've never bought each other gifts or cards. Sometimes we make cards for each other and we always make some sort of special dinner. Usually Ollie makes the special dinner. Tonight it's Pad Thai! Yum, he makes the best Pad Thai! We spent the day together as a family and had a lot of fun. First we visited a friend's church and heard a good message about loving unconditionally. Then we went looking for a space heater and instead bought shoes. Ollie got some loafer style shoes and I got some Converse! I am soooo excited. I have wanted Converse for years and years but my feet have been in bad condition for years and years and so I have lived in Birkenstocks. Now that my feet are almost completely better I am occasionally wearing other shoes for short periods of time. So, I got myself some blue gingham Converse and I am pretty thrilled. Then we came home for a quick lunch and then went out hunting Gowalla sites. This is an iphone thing similar to letterboxing and geocaching except that you go to sites and "check in" and drop or pick up fictitious items. You have to be in close range of the site to check in so we walked all over town checking in to places. There were about 10 or more in just the downtown area. After that we drove around town checking in to more places and then went looking for a ghost town about 15 miles from where we live. We found it sort of--we found a cemetery with three graves and did some walking through the woods. Joe found a very old piece of wood that might have been part of an old house. On the way home we stopped at a park with a cool climbing wall and the kids climbed and climbed while I sat on a bench and froze. Now we are home and Ollie is cooking and the kids are watching Harry Potter and I am blogging. It was great family time today and I am thankful for it. So many days and weekends go by with us all getting busy with our own thing that we need days like this here and there. I've decided not to go to Animal Kingdom tomorrow--there is a chance for rain and I don't want to risk it. Disney is not so fun in the rain. Especially not Animal Kingdom when you are wanting to see animals outside. Instead we will start our week off right with a full school day. My goal is to finish the science experiment book this week along with getting through our normal academics. I think we can do it. I have about one week a month where I am really, really crazy industrious and I can feel myself heading into that...woohoo for getting a lot done this week!!
Oh, and I am going to have to read Alan Jackson's wife's book--Deana, can I borrow it? He sounds like quite the player in so many of his songs. Maybe he's writing about his younger days.

7 Quick Takes

1.  I spent almost all day in my pjs.  I would have spent the whole day in my pjs but I had to go grocery shopping.  Although I love getting a chance to rest I hate having such an unproductive day.  Especially when there is so much to do.  We had a ridiculously busy week last week so I'm now behind in just the daily stuff.

2.  As I was making a menu and grocery list I got really irritable.  Over the last year I have learned so much about good nutrition and am continuing to learn.  I am thankful for all I now know because it has helped me to significantly reduce my arthritis and foot pain.  However, sometimes I wish I could go back to ignorant eating.  When casseroles and easy one dish meals were common around here.  Now, we are eating mostly vegan because of cutting back on our meat consumption and my dairy allergy.  You can't eat vegan and have casserole too.  Well, you can but it doesn't taste very good.  In the past couple of weeks I've been reading some new food blogs.  Food blogs that talk about eating raw and adding chia seeds to everything and so on.  I started thinking about changing our diet even more and that's where the irritability came in.  I was overwhelmed.  So, I decided to just keep eating the way we have for a few months (some sort of vegetable based soup almost every night) and try to make our snacks and breakfasts healthier.  That seemed much less intimidating.  I will be trying to make my own Lara bars this week and some granola bars as well.  Also, I have been drinking green smoothies for a while now but I am going to start having my kids drink some every day as well.  It's a pretty tasty way to get in some raw veggies and fruits.  It's amazing how much a banana can hide the taste of spinach.  Really.

3.  My life has GOT to slow down or I'm gonna die.  I am going to start having to get serious about choosing to stay home even when there is something amazing going on.  When I am out of the house too much I spend more money (on fast food), I get behind in the housework, I eat horribly, and I feel stressed and grumpy.  

4.  With that said, we are going to Disney again on Monday and we have our regular park day on Tuesday but after that...we are home for the rest of the week!  Don't try to invite me anywhere because I'm not going.  

5.  I wish I was on the Disney cruise that is stuck in the Bahamas.  Our Disney cruise was amazing!!  I hope I can go on another one someday.  

6.  I was listening to Alan Jackson earlier tonight while I made dinner and I was wondering if that man is married.  Everyone of his songs are about women.  If I was his wife I would not be happy.  Just sayin'.  

7.  I am cold and have been cold all day.  That's part of the reason I was so unproductive.  Being cold just paralyzes me.  I don't think I could live up north.

Random Pictures That I Haven't Shared Yet and Think You Should See

The backyard was the place to be the last couple of days. The weather was beautiful!
The girls take some time to display their lanyards full of the pins they collected at Disney. They traded and traded and traded and this is what they ended up with...

Ellie's--she especially loved her Mickey Converse.

Grace collected "bad guys."

And Hannah added to her already full lanyard of pirates.

The big girls made a tea party for the little girls and themselves. It was a unique menu--guacamole and chips, cream cheese and graham crackers, and M and M's.

I love the picture above--perfect cup of coffee.

Here is Joe demonstrating what I looked like when I fell asleep in the chair while reading a book.


Corrie celebrated her 3rd birthday with us. We had a little party at Aunt Harriet and Uncle Billy's with dirt cake and presents.


And finally, a question....why does a family of 5 need 11 toothbrushes and 4 tubes of toothpaste?