~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Kids~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday, September 26, 2011

Kiwi sandwiches!

Yes you read that right!  Kiwi sandwiches.  All you need is some baby spinach and kiwi. (Remember? We aren't doing grains right now, so no bread for our sandwiches.)








If you are picturing this:



Then you don't quite have it right.  :-P

Seriously though, here's how it got started.......


We were eating our tuna salad on romaine leaves and Todd suggested topping with baby spinach (which was a wonderful, yummy suggestion!). I had cut up some kiwi slices for dessert.  Todd just mentioned how nice it would look as an appetizer to put a kiwi slice on a spinach leaf.

It does look lovely doesn't it?



Then he popped it in his mouth.



OH MY!  Scrumptious!

The spinach was a lovely texture and took some of the sour away from the kiwi. He found that just the right balance was a leaf on top and a leaf on bottom....hence the name "kiwi sandwich". 

Here is the perfected snack.



We all had a few. :)

If this is some sort of common snack somewhere forgive my ignorance, but we were just really excited to make something good for dessert.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Thursday, September 22, 2011

What happens when.....

What happens when a newly turned 3 year old runs into the path of an almost 11 year old? 





The 3 year old gets a broken clavicle.







Yep. Evelyn broke her collarbone last Saturday. Poor thing.

It happened about 8:00 Saturday evening. We debated on seeing if she would sleep through the night and see how she was Sunday morning but she just didn't seem to act right. She would be fine one minute and then move just a certain way and scream out in pain.

Sooooo glad we opted to take her in. 

The sling we got from the E.R. was quite large for her. Her hand was inside about 3 inches. It would not stay put. We really weren't sure what to do with it though. I tried safety pinning it so the strap would stay tightened but the sling still slipped all around. She could also lift her arm up and climb places, which wasn't good.  Lifting her arm resulted in more screams of pain.

We were able to get her a new sling that was closer to her size. Here is Evelyn in her new sling.


It still did not keep her arm across her belly the way we wanted. See how it's sort of freely hanging to the side? 

So we resorted to the good ol' ace bandage.

Thanks Mom!





Evelyn doesn't like the process of putting the bandage on, but she is much more comfortable once it's in place.

We still have to watch her and make sure she is not climbing but at least this keeps her from getting her arm caught and pulled up too high. She is still in some pain, but not enough pain to keep her from building a blanket tent with her big brother and sisters today. She's a trooper.


What have I learned from this experience?

-Always listen to your gut.
-Three year old's don't like to wear a sling.
-Three year old's don't like to wear an ace bandage over their sling.
-Three year old's don't like to ask for help climbing up and down while wearing a sling.
-Right-handed three year old's do pretty well eating and coloring with their left hand.




Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

We started a new menu plan.

I've been thinking of doing it for quite a while. Finally bit the bullet.

We have been free of preservatives and artificial colors/flavors for four years now. That helped our family tremendously!  I still felt some things could be better.

So on top of those eliminations we are also eliminating:

grains
dairy (we can have limited butter and cream cheese)
sugar(!)
beans
pork
corn
beans
sugar(!)
processed meats
white potatoes
green beans
green peppers
bananas
sugar(!)
carbonated beverages
tea
coffee (we don't drink it anyway)
sugar(!)
There are some other things eliminated as well, but these were some major staples in our house.

As you can see, I am really missing the sugar. I knew that it was a problem though, which is part of the reason for this diet. No this is not to loose weight, although I hope it will be a nice side effect. I'm hoping this will clear up some health issues for each of us.

The first couple days I had a major headache. I think that was due to having no caffeine. Yesterday was pretty good, but today......oy!  The headache is back.

We have found some new snacks that we are enjoying. Plums! Who knew?

I have made some new recipes that have taken quite a while to complete but were pretty tasty all the same.
We've had sweet potato pancakes, butternut squash soup and caulitators. Yes, you read that right, caulitators!  It's basically steamed cauliflower blended with cream cheese and butter to make like mashed potatoes. They tasted nothing like mashed potatoes, but they were pretty good. We'll make them again, I'm sure.

We are doing this for 4 to 6 weeks. At that point we may (probably) add some of these things back in.  It all depends on how we are feeling.

If you are interested in the specific plan we are following you can read about it here .

It's fascinating stuff really. There are a couple videos for those who would prefer those. Oh and I know none of us are autistic. ;-)  This plan just seemed to kill several birds with one stone and allowed me to fix the same basic foods for the entire family. Much easier than figuring out 7 different meals.



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Friday, September 16, 2011

Giveaways....

There is a nice giveaway going on over at in a shoe some cute stuff to choose from New Creation Apparel!



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Friday, September 9, 2011

The apple strikes again

You all know how much trouble Adam and Eve got into with the apple right? Well it seems to have caused trouble in our little paradise.  (Yes, I know it wasn't necessarily an apple per se.)

We had our first home school co-op this morning. It was a hectic rush out the door but we made it just fine.

Someone had donated some apples to our group, which was very nice. The way it worked out only my middle three children got an apple. They had a limited number available and had to make a cut off somewhere. Ellie was too old and Sadie - well she obviously isn't old enough. Because of a miscommunication, Ellie thought she was supposed to have gotten an apple. She got embarrassed and frustrated and was crying. After we left I explained the mix-up to her in the van. She seemed to understand.....or so I thought.

We had some unplanned errands to run so I ran through McD's drive through and grabbed two bags of apple slices for me and Ellie. We got home and the kids brought in all their papers, folders, recorder and book, paper bags of left over snacks and apples on the counter. I immediately noticed a not-so-lovely aroma in the air. The plates from breakfast were still on the table but that didn't seem to be the culprit. Before I could deal anymore with that I noticed Ellie was trying to convince Evelyn that she should eat the apple slices from McD's instead of her whole apple. I explained to Evelyn that she had to choose between them and couldn't have both. She chose the whole apple of course.



Tears. Tears. Tears from Ellie. After a long conversation about people making mistakes and showing grace Ellie calmed down. I gave her the bag of apple slices from McD's and then.....


Tears. Tears. Tears from Evelyn.  Those were her apples!!!  So I explained (again) that she had to choose and she had chosen the whole apple. She had eaten the whole apple and that was all she would get. 

Sadie was a bit clingy so I sat down to nurse her before nap. Silas came in from outside and needed a shower. (I won't even go into why - you can use your imagination) So Silas got in the shower, Sadie went to the crib and Evelyn went to the couch for some quiet time.

Now where was that smell coming from......?

The phone! 




No the phone didn't smell. I got a phone call that Todd was in traffic and needed me to meet him for an unplanned appointment with a change of clothes for him.

I grabbed Sadie and put her in the carseat. (Thankfully she fell asleep in there.) Silas quickly got dressed and Evelyn went potty before hitting the road. We were all buckled in within 5 minutes but I suddenly remembered there was a lady coming by at 4:00. ack!  I grabbed the item she needed, wrote her a quick note and put it on the front porch. I just prayed she would be able to find the house.

We ran the clothes to Todd and came back home. As we came in I noticed that smell again. blech!  I started to check the trash cans when Evelyn asked me if she could have her apples. I took another 5 minutes to explain to her (again) that she had eaten her whole apple and she didn't have anymore. I had not eaten my apple slices from McD's yet so I asked her if she wanted some of mine. I would be happy to share with her. Nope. She wanted her own bag. Gotta love 3-year olds. So again we had......


Tears. Tears. Tears from Evelyn. She didn't understand at all why she couldn't have her own bag. Then I hear, "Mom!  There's someone at the door!" Oh that's right. The lady was coming by to switch the stuff. I headed to the front door. "No mom. She's back here."  She was at the back door. Of course it was drizzling rain so I couldn't just have her stand out there. She had to walk all the way through my house to get the box.

My mind was racing: My house literally stinks. There's papers and crayons everywhere and a screaming 3-year old. What is she going to think?  At least I got the dishes done. I am so glad I don't know her. How embarrassing.

Soon she left and Evelyn did eventually stop crying. No, she didn't get any of my apples.

We cleaned up all the co-op stuff and found one lone bag.




What in the world could that be?












An apple?????


Somehow my children grabbed an extra apple by mistake. After all that explaining about how life isn't always fair, people make mistakes, you can't always get what you want..... I wasn't about to give it to Ellie. (Yes, she did ask for it.) I told the kids that Daddy could have it for working so hard for our family.


Oh and in case you were wondering.... I think the smell was coming from the trash. It wasn't full but it went out to the big trash tote anyway. phew!  I was worried we would never find it. Given the fact that we found a potato (Yes. You read that correctly.A potato.) in the middle of our bedroom floor the other day, who knows what it could have been. 

One of these days I'm going to look back on this and laugh. Today is not it.





Have a blessed day! ~Tammy