E.T.

So for our family movie night this week, we decided to watch E.T. We found it at the library a few days ago. I seriously hadn't seen that movie since I was 5, but I remember loving it, so se thought it might be fun to try out. Oh my goodness! Rachel got so emotional over it when E.T. was sick an dying. I didn't even remember that part, but she was seriously sobbing. She kept saying "why can't they just send him home on a space ship?" "They need to send him home to his mom!" Then at the part where his heart stops beating and the doctors are all around him trying to revive him, she kep saying, "What are they doing? They should be saying a prayer!" She was extremely distraught over that poor little alien. Oh how I love that sensitive girl of mine!

First Steps

This little cutie took his first steps today!! He can take two steps before he chickens out and sits down. How can he be this big already!?!?

Kent started walking the day before he turned 9 months (which would have been 5 days ago for Elijah) and Rachel started walking at 9 1/2 months. Elijah is right in the middle at 9 months and 4 days old. I love this cute kid of mine!

Cinnamon Rolls

        So yesterday was family night, and we needed a family night treat. Our options are limited because our fridge gave up the ghost and we have been waiting for 2 weeks for our insurance people to get someone out here to fix it. It has been awful! But that is another story. This story is about cinnamon rolls. Yummy, soft, warm, delicious cinnamon rolls with an orange cream cheese glaze. Did I mention that these babies have no refined sugar? Or white flour? I may have eaten three of them for breakfast this morning and didn't feel the least bit guilty. (Okay, maybe I felt a little guilty, but I enjoyed every bite). The rest of the family enjoyed them too. See for your selves.

Here's the recipe adapted from here:

• INGREDIENTS
• 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup warm water 
• 1 cup rolled oats that I ground up first in the food processor
• 1-3/4 to 2-1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons melted butter or oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• FILLING:
• 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons of agave
• 2 teaspoons (or more) ground cinnamon
• GLAZE:
• 4 ounces (1/2 brick) of cream cheese
• 2 Tablespoons orange juice concentrate

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the oats, honey, butter or oil, egg, salt and 1 cup whole wheat flour. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough (dough will be sticky).
2. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a bowl coated with cooking spray, turning once to coat the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
3. Punch dough down. Roll into an 18x12-in. rectangle. Combine agave, butter, and cinnamon; spread over dough to within 1/2 in. of edges.
4. Roll up jelly-roll style, starting with a short side; pinch seams to seal. Cut into 12 slices. Place cut side down in a 13x9-in. baking pan coated with cooking spray. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.
5. Bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. For icing, in a small bowl, mix the cream cheese and orange juice concentrate until smooth. Drizzle over warm rolls. Yield: 1 dozen.

Let me know if you try the recipe and if it turned out for you. The rate they are dissappearing around our house makes me count them as a success. 

Sugar Free

So, while Jacob was away at training at the beginning of the year, he and I decided we would go with out sugar while we were apart. Mostly to help us not comfort eat and go overboard when we got lonely. When we got back together, we went out for ice cream and regretted it instantly. We both felt soooooooo sick from that ice cream. We decided that we weren't going to go back to our old food lifestyle. We were going to do things differently and be more healthy. Why would we want to eat something that makes us all feel so awful and that after you have some, you just crave more and more of it? That being said, we aren't ready to give up all sweets, so I got to work and found some recipes that don't involve sugar, and I am proud to announce that we have not bought a package of sugar in over 7 months. That isn't to say that we don't occasionally cheat and have sugar, because we do. We always regret it afterwards because of how sick it makes us feel though. Another diet change we have made since getting back together is only using 100% whole wheat. Mostly that is in the form of us grinding it ourselves. No white flour for us. In a big part, this is to  help us learn how to use food storage, but the health benefits of whole wheat (especially freshly ground) are enormous, especially over its nutrient void white counterpart. I had it explained this way. Eating white flour is like cooking hamburger and throwing away the meat and just eating the fat left over in the pan. White flour is "the fat" of wheat flour. So we have been making all our own bread (which we go through quickly) (Seriously, I have to make it like twice a week sometimes). We are also trying to give up all processed foods. And in addition to that we are trying to eat meat sparingly with the exception of fish. It has been a huge adjustment doing all of these things at once, but it has been nice doing it as we are moving into our house, because we just haven't bought any of those things that we are doing without, so they aren't around to tempt us.

The kids are doing quite well with this transition actually. Rachel has asked me if I can make sugar free versions of certain deserts. At first we would go to the store and they would ask, "Can we have those cookies? Can we buy those doughnuts?" But now they are asking, "Do you think you could make us some sugar free cup cakes?" I love it!

Anyway, I am going to post a few recipes that we have found that we have adapted to be whole wheat and sugar free just in case there is anyone out there who is looking for help in finding healthy recipes.

9 months!!

This little cutie is 9 months old today! Oh how I love my little Elijah baby!! He is so happy and sweet and makes me so happy!  A few things about Elijah at 9 months.

He is wearing size 5 diapers.

He is wearing both size 18 month clothes and 24 month clothes. 

He does not sleep though the night. Not even close. 

He says mama and dada and a lot of other things just to jabber but he knows who mama and dada are.

He loves to play with Rachel and Kent (aka Superman). He follows them around the house and they love him to pieces and are good about including him in their games. 

He loves mama and ALWAYS has happy smiles to share with her. 

He loves people in general and will smile at anyone who will make eye contact with him. In fact, in church, he looks over my shoulder and smiles at anyone who will look at him. 

He still has no teeth, but eats solid food remarkably well despite the fact. In fact he loves to eat, and if someone else is eating something, he thinks it's only right that they share with him. 

That being said, he mostly likes fruit and bread products. He has a major sweet tooth and doesn't always want to eat if it isn't sweet. I think his favorite thing to eat though is blueberries. 

He is still nursing like a champ and we both love it! (Especially since he doesn't have any teeth.)

He pulls himself up on everything and walks along everything, and he sometimes stays standing up not holding on to anything for about 10 seconds.

 He hold hands to walk around but hasn't tried walking with out holding hands yet. 

His favorite toy is proabaly the wet wipe container. He pushes it all around the house and I can never find it because he hides it everywhere. He also loves to pull all of the wet wipes out of it. Best toy ever! 

He likes to play peek-a-boo.

He likes to eat shoes.

He likes to go outside.

He is super sweet and pretty mild mannered. He's a happy baby and only cries when he's hungry or tired or hurt.

For the most part he is content to just crawl around explore the house and see what he can find to play with. 

Rachel carries him all over the house and occasionally Kent tries to as well and he has absolutely no problem with it, in fact I think he likes that they are just paying attention to him. 

He is getting really good at picking up little things and putting them in his mouth.

He loves to push books all around the house.

He weighs a whopping 24.6 pounds!

He gives hugs and kisses. The hugs are super sweet and the kisses are super slobbery. He also likes to bite my nose.

He can reach up to my tables now and likes to pull things off of them. 

Peaches

So I kept the box of leftover peaches on the floor in my kitchen, and today while folding laundry, Elijah found them. And apparently he was hungry because he ate a whole peach on his own. I found out because he crawled back in the room we were in with a pit in his mouth and covered in peach juice. Then as I was cleaning up the mess he grabbed another peach and ate it all gone too. Then what THAT one was gone, he went after the peach Kent was eating. You would think I never fed the kid! We will be keeping the rest of the peaches on the counter.

Peaches

I must be crazy! This weekend I bought 100 pounds of peaches and 18 pounds of cherries. My thought was that on Saturday when Jacob was home to help we could get them all put up. Well, I opened the boxes of peaches and they aren't ripe enough to bottle. That means we had to do the cherries. Jacob did done yard work and helped with the kiddos and it took me ALL DAY to put those cherries and bottle them. I got 8 quarts of cherries and 3 pints of cherry pit syrup out of it, plus one delicious chery pie. My intentions were to actually freeze the cherries when I ordered them on Tuesday, but by the time we got them on Saturday, our fridge and freezer had stopped working. Not having a working freezer kinda stinks! Just so ya know! We've been furiously working to use everything up before it goes bad. 

Anyway, that left the 100 pounds of peaches for me to bottle on my own come Monday. Okay,not completely on my own. I had a 4 year old, a 2 year old an 8 1/2 month old there to help me. (A 2 year old who dumped out an entire bottle  of baby soap out on the carpet.) (and it was a full bottle too! I just opened it last week.) the two bigger kids were actually pretty good helpers. I gave them jobs in return for peach peels. :) They thought it was a good trade. Well between the four of us we used up about 80 pounds of the peaches and came out with 35 quarts of peaches and 19 jars of peach peel jam.

Lately I've really felt like I need to be getting food storage for my family. With Jacob's job, we move a lot. His work will move us, but they won't move food. That means that when I have had any sort of food storage, we have had to give it away or use the limited space in our van to haul it with us. Even so, I feel like it's an important thing for us to do. I've never done any canning before, except for what we had to do to help out as a kid, but I was never the one in charge. I mostly just had jobs akin to those I gave my kids. Anyway, it's been a new adventure we've embarked on lately. Even though it was a big project and made for a long day, I'm glad I did it. If nothing else, we will have cherries and peaches, and applesauce this coming year.

Hard day

Do you ever have hard days that you can't figure out why it got off on that foot? The kids are whiney and won't eat the breakfast you made for them, you feel grumpy, the baby won't nap and you feel like you can't handle one more thing going wrong? I had a morning like that today. I blame lack of sleep for my part. I was up with Elijah a lot last night and just didn't sleep well. The sleep I did get was on his crib mattress that we currently have on the floor in Kent's room. I felt like I was reacting to my children very well and that the only one in a pleasant mood was Kent. My sweet sunshiny Kent, who when he saw mommy was sad he decided to play me song on the piano and cover me with kisses and hugs. 

Most of our days are good ones, but occasionally a bad one sneaks in there. I didn't want to deal with a bad one today so we did what we could to fix it. My solution? Bubbles and sunshine, chalk and prayer.

I think it all helped, but I'm giving the credit all to Heavenly Father. It was after my prayer that I felt compelled to take action to change the feeling in our home. I felt like I should cancel our other plans and just do something fun together here at home. Something low-key and not stressful and just happy. 

On our way back inside we spotted this little beauty on our marigolds. I feel like seeing this butterfly was a tender mercy from Heavenly Father. Butterflies are a symbol of change. I have the power to change. To change our bad day into a good one. To change from bad habits or attitudes or choices. The power to choose.to choose liberty and eternal life or misery and captivity.  I choose happiness. I choose Heavenly Father. I choose family and love.

Washcloths

So I taught Kent to fold washcloths today. He promptly folded all of the washcloths in the laundry basket I was working on and then when he put them away, he folded the rest of the washcloths that had gotten unfolded in the washcloth drawer, each time bringing the neatly folded washcloth to me to see with a big grin on his face. Oh I love this boy! Why have I not taught him to fold washcloths before now, lol. On a side note, I just upgraded Rachel from folding washcloths to folding all her own clothes, and it is awesome. We start them young at our house!

Closing Day

The day we closed on our house, we decided to have a pizza picnic in the backyard. It was such a crazy day. A day we had been looking forward to for months, but a day we wanted to have as a family. Jacob had to leave for training the week before, meaning I had to go and do it with our three kiddos without him. We were happy to finally close, but sad that we couldn't do it and celebrate it together. We got a power of attorney so I could sign for him. And to top it off, I had fallen and sprained my ankle the night before and during the night that night I could barely even walk. All night long I prayed and prayed that I would at least be able to walk the next day so that I would be able to make it to the closing with the kids. Heavenly Father totally heard and answered my prayers. He sped up the healing on my ankle so that I could do the things I needed to do. My ankle, a month later still isn't all the way healed, but I haven't been help up by it. I've still been able to to everything I needed to do to take care of the kids and the house while Jacob was gone. 

      So with Jacob's job, he is gone a lot. And there is a joke that anytime the husbands leave, either you have car problems or the kids get sick, which we have actually personally experienced. When we moved in here, and Jacob was about to leave, I joked that instead of car troubles or getting sick, we would probably just have something go wrong on the house. (We've never been home owners before and were already dealing with a water heater not working and other issues we've never had to handle before). I should have kept my mouth shut though because he wasn't even gone a week before I fell and sprained my ankle.