Hello from Bama!!

We arrived safely (but very tired) Saturday evening. The kids have really enjoyed visiting with PaPa, Grandma, Nana, and all their aunts, cousins, and even an uncle. :)

We were able to visit Nana and Ma Loop tonight but after about an hour, she told the kids it was time to get their shoes on and head back to PaPa's house. They'll get to see them again tomorrow before they go home to TN.

Jared has done very well while we've been here. The last time we were here, he was still a bit on the reserved side, but has been very vocal and chatty to everyone.

I'll have to post some pictures later on. I'm feeling really tired still and even though I've been napping in the afternoons, I'm still feeling as though I need to get to bed early. :)

Joys of Scheduling and Natural Home Care

Two of my favorite sites for scheduling are:
Titus2.com
and
FlyLady

I am a stickler for structure and I absolutely adore schedules. It can turn into a hobby for me--on any given day, one will find an assortment of schedules floating around the house.

Because I'm often asked, "How do you keep everything going?" or "How do you fit in everything?" I decided to give a summary of what happens on Mondays.

Monday is my big organization day. For this reason, we don't usually book appointments on Mondays and Jared has a late therapy (1:30 to 2:30).

My "weekly home blessing," is scheduled for Mondays. This includes vacuuming and dusting the house, mopping the kitchen floor, cleaning the bathrooms, emptying the refrigerator, paying bills, changing all of the bed sheets, returning phone calls, attempting to catch up on e-mails, etc. Believe it or not, this only takes me an hour--one of the joys of living in a small home and having little helpers who would rather shadow Mama than spend time in the play room. The idea of losing the play room is becoming easier as I discovered they really would rather be around me throughout the day.

After all is done, we visit the grocery store.

Since my kiddos like to help me clean, I use an organic, botanical based cleaner from Amazon Herb Company. I also use the Lluvia skin care line from the same company and absolutely adore it! The household cleaner can be adjusted to different strengths and can be used as a general all purpose cleaner, window cleaner, carpet cleaner, a fruit cleaner, and a lot more! I have a whole booklet of practical ways to use it.

I buy several of the little bottles, which are in concentrated form, and have about 4 or 5 spray bottles. I mix up a variety of different strengths and then label each bottle. I like that my kids can help out as much as they like and I don't have to worry about their getting into toxic chemicals and poisons.

A few months ago, I was given my own Amazon Herb website because I'd purchased so much of it, but I'm sure it's been taken down since. Their products are very concentrated, so it was difficult to keep up with the required sales/buying amount.

I've used their products for nearly a year and can't recommend them enough!

What a pretty breakfast!

A friend e-mailed me saying that fixing fresh fruit in the morning sounded too daunting. So, here's a picture and a few ideas of quick fruit salads--making these takes me about 3-4 minutes and I make enough for 5 people. Also if I make a lot, there's leftovers for Andrew, who gets up anytime between 1:30 and 4:30 in the morning. It also means that you can make it the night before and have it ready for serving dishes the next morning.

First off, every Monday I buy a ton of fresh fruit. A huge variety of fresh fruit. If you can find a Farmer's Market, that's even better!

I buy pineapples, apples, peaches, nectarines, plums, grapes, blackberries, raspberries, bananas, blueberries, pears, cantaloupe, honeydew, nectarines, strawberries, etc.

Because strawberries tend to spoil first, I use them in the beginning of the week.

I also have a nice, handy dandy melon slicer which works with pineapples, too. But when it comes to pineapples, this little gadget works even better. It cuts slicing time dramatically!

So I basically just start grabbing a variety of fruits from the fridge, chop them up, and toss it all into one big bowl.

This morning, our fruit bowls consisted of nectarines, grapes, pears, blueberries (I toss in lots of blueberries, because I love the color they add), and topped with bananas. I always add bananas last because their appearance doesn't fare well after a bit.

While I'm slicing and dicing, I toast a couple of pieces of bread and spread on some almond butter or organic peanut butter.

Here are some pics from earlier this week:
A pic of the fruit bowl, before serving and before bananas placed on top.



A picture of the three servings, topped with bananas.....Jared said, "Mama! You have to put nanas on there now!" That boy is obsessed with routine and was a little concerned since there were no strawberries in there, but as I mentioned above, those are used in the beginning of the week.


Jared finally sitting down to his long awaited fruit bowl!


And the girls:

Over the Hill!

Today I'm half there! Twenty weeks along and glad I made it.

I'm very tired and I hope I only have twenty more weeks to go!

See? I'm just like everyone else.

This has been a very odd morning.

I receive e-mails from folks saying they find the blog inspirational. You're very sweet, but here's evidence that I am definitely just like everyone else.

The morning started out OK--I even got in a workout!

I made a big breakfast too!

Then I walked into the livingroom and saw guinea pig shavings all over my floor rug, the play room was a disaster--the kids know they're supposed to clean up the toys after playing, and we looked for over a half hour trying to find Jared's shoes--we have a shoe basket in the closet and the kids know that their shoes go in there.

We've been off our schedule and the sitter who watched them while I was gone is fantastic, plays a lot with them, etc, but they've been off their routine of chores, responsibilities, etc.

After I decided Jared would just wear his tennis shoes (I don't know why I didn't just do that before instead of looking for his "sandal shoes") I realized we were already 5 minutes late for therapy--meaning that therapy had started 5 minutes ago. I tried to call but no one answered.

I finally got him in, sat down in the waiting room, and started crying. Then I started laughing. Then I was laughing and crying at the same time. His therapist hugged me but it was really embarassing. It can be hard being hormonal. I'm becoming more and more convinced that this is a girl I'm growing. I've been extra emotional this time around.

The guinea pig is really cute, BTW, but it was just his bedding was all over the living room floor, the playroom was a mess, and the kid's closet (which is organized and labeled) was in total disarray with socks in the PJ basket and PJ's in the underwear basket, and well, you get the point.

Now I feel silly for getting all emotional. I've heard that there are women who don't get emotional while pregnant--where are they and how do they do it?

Have Daughters?

After seeing this book in many places, I finally got my hands on it!

I have heard mixed reviews on it--mostly just folks complaining about the "old fashioned" language or that it's written for the wrong century. I absolutely loved the language, as well as the quaint pictures. And I definitely think the ideas and thoughts provided are more than suitable for today's girls. After all, it was written specifically for today's young ladies.

If you're raising daughters, I highly recommend this book. It's written as a study for Mothers and Daughters to do together. My girls aren't old enough quite yet to discuss some of the things mentioned, but soon Morgan will be.

Reading the book now, while my girls are still young has a great benefit in that I'll be able to keep some of these topics in the back of my head until the time comes for discussion.

And if you don't have daughters, you just may glean something for yourself. Even though I have daughters and read this for them, it certainly challenged me personally.

Raising Maidens of Virtue By Stacy McDonald / Grace & Truth Books Encourage your daughter to cherish her purity and honor God with the way she presents herself! Offering stories, conversations, illustrations, memory-making projects, and more, McDonald's engaging book helps you train young women to think biblically about guarding the tongue, idleness, sibling relationships, honoring parents, modesty, and more. Includes updated content and new chapters. 256 pages, hardcover from Grace & Truth.

My kids are so sweet!

I was very sick last night.

This morning I woke up around 7:45 and was surprised that I was still in bed. I thought maybe Andrew had stayed home so had been entertaining the kids.

But then I heard Morgan giving out little orders. "Jared, you clean and I'll sweep." Then she knocked on my door, holding a broom and asked, "Mama, we're cleaning up the living room for you and then we're going to clean the kitchen and our bathroom. Me and Jared already made up our beds. But can we go ahead and get Elena out of bed so we can clean the play room?" (Her crib is in the play room)

I called Andrew, thinking maybe he put them up to this. He'll sometimes tell the kids that when I'm not feeling well, they need to help out. But he says he had nothing to do with it.

My children are just soooo sweet. Jared just asked if we could have McDonalds for breakfast and I think I can totally work that out. I know McDonalds isn't the healthiest of places, but they've done a ton of work and love those yogurt and fruit parfaits.

What do you mean by 50% raw?

I've received many e-mails asking about eating 50% raw/living foods. One guy had the idea of a chicken running around the house while the family took a bite off the little critter when we felt hungry.

It's really not as hard as it may sound, and no animals are harmed while eating raw. :)

Here's a raw/whole foods sample for a day.

For Breakfast, keep it simple with lots of fruit. Fruit is probably the best thing to eat in the morning. If you have low blood sugar, eat some nuts/seeds (preferably raw/unroasted) with your fruit (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, ground flax, etc.)

For lunch, try a gigantic salad--we made one the other night which was very filling and didn't leave us feeling stuffed or lethargic. Andrew and I both commented on how energetic we felt. The salad was made with:
Tons of greens--spinach, romaine lettuce, etc.
One diced red pepper
A handful of pumpkin seeds
Two cut up zuchini squash
One large cucumber (sliced and diced)
One or two tomatoes (diced)
A handful of ground sesame seeds
Fresh Mint
Two Crushed Garlic Cloves
Chopped Green Onions
A sprinkling of organic onion powder and some garlic powder too
About two tablespoons of Bragg's Liquid Amino's
About two tablespoons of Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar (I use Bragg's because it also contains "the mother," which isn't often found in typical supermarket apple cider vinegar.)
About two tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
On top of all of that I cracked a few black peppers (which tasted great)
And lastly poured on 1 to 2 tablespoons of organic, raw maple syrup, just to add some sweetness.

It was very good and suprisingly filling.

Now for dinner, we tried another raw recipe in which I made fettucini out of sqaush and made a nut sauce to top it, but let's say you don't want to do that. From what I understand, a person will reap health benefits from just 50% raw, are considered raw foodists at 75% raw, but there are some out there who live 100% raw.

But if you want to stick with the 50%.... for dinner, plan a menu which uses "whole foods,". I've already shared a few of my favorite cookbooks, but will often use the Whole Foods for Kids to Cook because the recipes are simple (I'm very busy), the kids get to feel as though they're helping out, and they're pretty good. BTW a "whole food" meal can include meat, so please don't think you have to go vegetarian or vegan.

Another recipe book I forgot to mention is also fantastic. They even have a DVD teaching all sorts of kitchen tips. I like this especially because the sisters who created it are from a large family, so that's what they're used to catering to. In other words, the kitchen tips include things regarding working with little ones in the kitchen, which is extremely helpful for me as my little shadow, Elena, is normally attatched to the back of my skirt. I often joke with people and say I had to resign to wearing long, flowing, broomstick skirts, so that I wouldn't lose Elena--she just can't hold on very well to those A-lines.

OK, so that's off topic. You can find the info on From the Kitchen of Two Sisters by clicking on the link. I very much enjoy their materials and don't know why I haven't yet included it on here.

Here's a meal idea from their cookbook, which would be a great dinner:
Garden Spaghetti
Italian Bread Topping
Lotus Flower Salad

And for dessert, how about some pudding? But one that is far healthier than one you'll find in a box. Scrape the fruit of a papaya into your blender, throw in a banana or two, and blend. You'll have "instant" papaya banana pudding but without any added sugars, sweeteners of any kind, and way more nutrients than if you made it from a powder. I sometimes wonder about adding in some carob to make it chocolate.

I understand that the concept of living foods or raw foods can be intimidating--I really do. Being brought up in the Deep South of Alabama, I'm extremely accustomed to fried foods and lots of Barbecue (BTW Barbecue in the Deep South isn't the same as Barbecue in the north or here in the Southwest, for that matter). And honestly, the first thing I buy when I get back to Bama is a barbecue sandwich (even the husband demands that it's on the top of the list for first stops).

One final note: please don't stress out over following a raw diet 50% of the time--if all you're doing is adding in more fruits and vegetables, while cutting out junk/fast food, you're taking a step forward. Baby steps :)