Why you might be getting sick...

If you have been following our family's road to healthy eating, then you know we have cut out all bleached or white sugars. We have completely switched to raw honey and on occasion I might use a small amount of raw sugar. It has been a nice transition and one we don't even notice anymore... Even my husband has adapted to the taste of honey and the different textures. Over the time that we have switched our diets and made a commitment to eating better, we haven't gotten sick. There was a small time when I ought my daughter MIT have picked up pink eye at the state far, show, but it didn't spread beyond her and we used no antibiotics to cure her. We just gave her some clear eye drops and rest and lots of cleaning (sometimes with a little lemon juice) and she was fine. And again, it didn't spread at all and if you know pink eye, that's what it does best. So, why do I think we were so healthy this past year? Was it because we had the flu shot? Nope. I was the only one who had to get as a pregnant diabetic is at risk to catch everything under the sun and if I got sick, it could mean hospital stays instead of couch time. So much to our dismay. We felt like given the two extreme situations, any extra protection for mom would be best. But, we were we healthier because we homeschooled? I don't think so. We know lots of homeschooling gap families who got sick this past year... Especially large families... When one gets it, the whole gang takes a hit and then sometimes it makes it's way through twice. Is it because we are hermits? We kind of are, but even with belonging to our community YMCA for two months where I'm sure the germs were rampant and I fully expected us to pick something up during this time period, we still went unscathed and continued on our healthy course. I believe that the reason we didn't get sick was because we eliminated all white sugars and dyes from our diet. Even my husband who works in retail and comes in contact with an abundance of sick people and co-workers had his healthiest year ever as well. It is a scientific fact that sugar will feed the virus. http://www.examiner.com/article/the-know-how-s-of-sugar it suppresses the body's natural ability to store and use vitamin c and literally welcomes colds and flus with open arms. How much could we as a society cut back on flus without using a flu shot, but by saying no to sugar and dyed food. And if you are eating anything that is not homemade from a burger at a fast food place to a loaf of bread to pizza sauce to fruit snacks.... You're consuming more sugar then you would even realize. Making things homemade might take more time and it is a life adjustment, but the benefits of knowing exactly what you are eating and how much sugar or sodium is in your food has such wonderful health benefits that it is worth it. You really will get into a groove of making something every day or even every other day and I highly suggest doubling the batch. Freeze extra bread or rolls or muffins and then you have them on hand for those nights or lunches when you need a quick meal. We are so thankful for Gods provision in a healthy winter.... It was such a huge blessing. And believe me, I'm not naive enough to think we won't pick anything up ever again, but I can say there are no sugars in our system that have made a welcoming environment for bacteria and viruses to flourish.

When in Rome Dinner Theme Night

For our third dinner theme night we went with a Roman theme for a few reasons: 1. we have just finished sturdying roman history in the Mystery of History and 2. Pasta was already on the menu for some time that week, so we bumped it up and made our them around a dinner already planned for. I have to say, my husband and kids really enjoy these nights so much. I'm not going crazy over the top with planning or decorating or costumes-- we just use things we have on hand already or can print off and decorate ourselves. But its amazing how a few extra touches can transform a normal family dinner into a memorable event. I think some other great ideas would be a dinner based around a color, a book, a time period, a country, a missionary, a favorite toy collection (lego dinner night anyone?), and so much more! We loved pirate night and tea party night and this was yet another success! For our meal, we had homemade pasta and tomato sauce, homemade bread (which mommy let rise a little too long, hence the extreme width), and baked broccoli. For dessert, I did torture myself a bit here, but we made snickerdoodle brownie bars. They smelled amazing and from what I heard, they tasted pretty darn good too. I followed the recipe from http://frugalanticsrecipes.com/2010/11/snickerdoodle-cookie-bars/ and just substituted honey in for the sugar in the bars and used whole wheat instead of white flour. And then to decorate a bit that night we colored in some pictures. The kids had fun talking about how they dined back in Roman days (if you're feeling really brave to recline around a low table or blanket, be my guest, but we stuck with our table) and how they dressed (turns out, eating in a toga sheet can be a little tricky). Hope you and your family can enjoy dinner them nights as well! ~ Becky

My baby Sister Hopey

My youngest, very yougest little sister is getting married in just two and a half months. She gets married on May 31 and our due date is May 29th-- we just are close like that (although in all reality, we wont go anywhere near that date and I even bought the baby an outfit to match his big brothers for the wedding). Growing up my mom always called her and I the bookends-- two people cut from the same cloth. Hope and I are still different in many ways, but we are also so similar and like minded that when she needed to fill some class time in her school photography class and I have always desired some great maternity pictures but am just too controlling to let just anyone take them, this seemed like the perfect solution for both of us. It was great because we are so like minded and I could bluntly say no, I dont like that or she could say I think you should do this-- and it all worked out and was a lot of fun. Plus, bonus, seeing where she goes to college at and meeting her professors and hearing what wonderful things they had to say about my baby sister was very special too. Also, one of them asked me if I was a student there and when you're pushing 30 and 7 months pregnant, well, that does inflate ones vanity just a tad. ;) Those are some of my favorites....and now some of the silly moments taht most people wouldn't show but remind me of what a good time we had that day: And this is what it kind of looked like behind the scenes: And what some picassa and editing can do for a picture. Before: And then after some editing, cropping, and text you get this: And honestly, Hope did such a wonderful job that these were the only two I played with even though she gave me full reign because she knows I am a ,ahem, control freak. This is all 3 of us girls from a few years back. If my dad saw this he'd start singing sisters from White Christmas :) I really and truly do love my sisters who are now my friends-- for real this time (not like when your little and you have to be friends). "A friend is for all seasons." Proverbs 17:17

Homemade Foaming Hand Soap

Previously I shared how we make our own laundry detergent-- all dry ingredients to better help the function of your washer and we still love it and I am hoping to get a nice big batch made again before baby #4 arrives :)http://bsharks26.blogspot.com/2013/01/homemade-laundry-detergent.html Today I made some homemade hand soap after finding a similar recipe on pinterest and then tweaking it a bit and making it more refined I guess you could say. All you need is one bar of natural soap (I went with Toms of Maine as they're pretty easy to find), 1 tbs of glycerin (this is also great to have on hand to make big batches of bubbles for the summer), and 8 cups ow water. Grate the bar soap right into a pot, add water and glycerin, and then cook on medium heat stirring slowly until soap pieces are broken down. It will be watery. Thats okay. Allow to cool and pour into a container. Since I knew we would be making some soap at some point, I saved our orange juice container from aldis and all of the soap fit in there perfectly! 59 fl oz. of hand soap that is natural and gentle on the skin for about 3 dollars (which is less than the big refills bottles of softsoap which I find to be very abrasive on our skin-- especially inthe winter!). Im also glad I went with the Lavendar Toms as it smelled so nice and well, relaxing, as it cooked up. Happy Soap making friends!

The Day

I'm talking about the day most people probably think of when I say we homeschool and they say, "Oh, I dont think I could ever homeschool my child!" Well, homeschoolers do have those days.. I feel like we have had several in a row as a matter of fact. But, honestly, they dont happen all of the time, but I don't think it would be fair if I only talked about the highs of homeschooling. Every single thing in this world has its highs and lows-- sports, buisnesses, regular schools and teachers, and also homeschoolers. If you think my children are perfect or I am perfect, then you need to see the bigger picture. At this moment while I sit typing this, frozen pizza (nope, not even homemade because yes, we have those days too!) is heating in the oven and the kids are watching bob the builder. I'm tired and it was a long day and this is my white flag of surrender-- This is obviously a different day-- a better day! But each type of day is good-- if we didnt have the bad, how could we fully appreciate the absolutely amazing ones? Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials- James 1:2. I think we need days like today to work on our attitude of joy. To focus on what is good, and pure and lovely-- not on whats getting us down. Isnt he precious? Today I was thinking of my mom who had 3 girls and would occassionally spend time cleaning out all of our barbies and giving them a much needed brushing and dressing because I was organizing and cleaning out a big tote of legos and then one of playmobils-- thats life with 2 soon to be 3 boys ;) This little munchkin though thought it funny when mommy was sitting on the floor trying to go through everything and bending over around a bowling ball of a stomache to keep coming up and poking me in the hiney. Never a dull moment.... except when frozen pizza is cooking and sprout is one... ahhhh... I love you dull moment!

Pirate Theme Dinner and Aunt Rose's Cheesecake

Last week we had our impromptu tea party themed dinner, but tonight we planned this one out a bit more. We actually began thinking and talking about it during school and then even got a book out from the library on pirate food this morning as well. I like that we knew it was coming all day and had fun "planning" our special dinner. It really is what we would have normally had but we added some pirate planks (aka breadsticks) and made a dessert as well. Well, not just any dessert, my great aunt Rose's Cheesecake. Only we made it with clean foods and healthier ingredients and I can't even lie, the kids were literally licking their plates clean at the end (which is a little embarrassing to admit). I also have to confess that I havent been making desserts for my husband and the kids that I dont care for, but this cheesecake had me weak with desire! First things first, put your bowl and beaters in the freezer. Set out 2 blocks of cream cheese to soften and bring to room temperature. Now, move onto the crust. For the crust: In your food processor combine 3/4 cup of pretzels, 1/2 cup of flour, and 3-4 tbs of butter. Pulse until its a nice blended powder. Press crumb mixture into the bottom of a pan and bake at 350 degree for 10 minutes. Allow to cool before adding filling. For the filling, you will need the 2 cream cheeses. Start whipping them in your bowl fresh from the freezer. Add in 1 cup of heavy whipping cream or we actually used organic 2% milk. Whip until it becomes fluffy and foamy. Add 4 1/2 tbs of sugar and 1 tsp. of vanilla. Mix until blended, but do not over mix. Pour mixture into shell and freeze until set. At least 2 hours. On a side note, make sure you take it out to be soft and yummy-- I was afraid mine hadn't set and left it in the freezer till the last possible minute and they had like an ice cream cheesecake but they still licked their plates and said it was super yummy! For decorations, we kept it simple and fun. We had some red streamers on hand from someones birthday party and hung a few. Then we looked on BING for some free pirate printables and got these http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=free+pirate+printables&qpvt=free+pirate+printables&FORM=IGRE. We also printed out some pirate coloring pages and the kids colored those nand we hung those up in preparation. Really simple, but it def. added a special touch of fun. For dinner, we had our Greek stuffed peppers and fish (because that seemed like something pirates would eat and toothpicks stuck into everything really easily!). For those recipes, you can check them out at http://bsharks26.blogspot.com/2013/02/greek-stuffed-peppers.html. Our library book suggested breadsticks for Pirate walk the planks and so we whipped up some yummy homemade ones and they were awesome! We got the recipe from http://straightupgoodfood.blogspot.com/2011/10/honey-whole-wheat-breadsticks-with.html. Instead of the honey glaze on top, I drizzled some olive oil and sprinkled some parmesean cheese on top-- very yummy! Now, are you ready to see how our special dessert turned out? It was divine! We added some fresh berries to the top and voila! A perfect ending to our Pirate themed dinner! Heres our happy Band of Pirates! It was a fun night and we look forward to our next family themed dinner night!

How Great is Our God!

The other night my husband picked the kids up from awanas and when he came home he reported that our van had begun smoking and the check engine light was flashing which meant a serious problem. Now, we are a happy one vehicle family. Honestly, my husband works a mile from home and it is just unneccessary for us to own two cars at this time. On times when we do need a second car for work trips for my husband, we have found its actually more cost affective to rent one for that day then to pay car insurance on a second car for an entire year, not to mention maintenance fees and inspection fees as well. Not to mention, the only true back up vehicle for a soon to be family of 6 would be another van. So, if our van is out of commission, it means we stay at home (the kids and I) and make do. My husband did some research and estimated that repairs would cost us 600 dollars minimum. We have set aside money for repairs and would be fine. But..... We began talking and discussed the fact that just because we had the resources to cover the vans repairs we kind of felt like we weren't relying on God. We were relying on the fact that we had prepared for this and just kind of accepting it as meant to be. But, we really felt that just because we could handle it (and I am by no way saying you shouldn't prepare for these things) didnt mean we shouldn't still give the van over to the lord and trust him to take care of things. We just really felt like we needed to bring the matter before the lord and spent some time praying over our van. It didn't feel necessary in the workday sense, but in the spiritual sense, it was a great reminder that we should always take everything to the lord in prayer. Yesterday I called about our van and it wasn't ready. Today I called and still not done. We were preparing ourselves to rent a car for a homes how I needed to do, but we have canceled all our credit cards, so we couldn't do that either. We just kept praying and trusting God. We took a walk to the bank and other errands within walking distance and then came home. We got a call from the mechanic at about 3 in the afternoon. He began by saying the light had been blinking the first day, but it was closing time. So today, he went to test the light again and nothing came on. He tried to run it through the machine to see if he could find the problem and nothing came up. He did some other tests and nothing. He looked under the hood and everywhere else mechanics look and again nothing. He drove the car to a neighboring town some distance away and back and then tested it again and nothing. He said it was the strangest thing he had ever seen, but nothing was wrong with our van now. The total cost: 36 dollars (and that was just to cover his time checking). I had been laying down when he called and went down to share with my husband that the van was done. He asked the total and when I told him the whole story, well, it's just a big God thing! A really cool, really awesome, just totally amazing God thing. He works in mysterious ways and we are just praising him at the "health" of our van and Him showing us how much we need him in every single aspect of our lives!