Haflinger Shoes make my feet happy

Yes, these are my feet. I have VERY high arches. I may have mentioned (ok posted a photo and gushed) about my awesome Haflinger wool clogs. They are by far my most comfortable shoes, and my last pair lasted me 14 or 15 years. I take good care of my shoes, they are very expensive! I had the worst time last summer trying to find a comfortable pair of sandals, and eventually gave up and just wore cheap flip flops or sneakers, none of which were comfortable. Wool clogs are not "cool" in the summer, and I don't want nasty summer foot sweat in my clogs. Two days ago I went to two high end shoe stores, and tried on Wolkys, Naots, Finn Comforts, you name it and I had them on. A few were rather comfortable, but were in the $250 to $300 range. Too pricey for me! I went home and ordered my first pair of Haflinger sandals. They came today and oh my gosh are they just heaven on my feet! They support my arches when I walk, and are the perfect fit. It's not easy having "problem feet", but Haflinger makes it pretty painless - literally! My haflingers are right around $100 each pair, and are worth every single penny. Thank you Haflinger!!!!

Freecycle strikes again!

I just love freecycle. I live in an area with a fairly active freecycle group, and man have we used it! We have given away tons (yes, tons) of items and saved thousands picking up what we could use. And the best part is it truly lives up to it's mission - to prevent items from hitting the landfills! We have given away clothing, toys, baby items, furniture, appliances (both broken and working), you name it and we've probably given it away on freecycle at one point! We have received toddler beds (the cool fire truck and car ones!), a mini fridge box packed solid with baby boy clothes that carried us from size 9 months to 3T (clothing twins, it really really helped), a mandolin slicer, preK books, a wonderful train table, bulletin boards, school materials, an ikea toddler table and chair, seriously I could just go on and on.

I love the idea that instead of just throwing something useful away, you can find someone who the items will be useful to! Just today I freecycled a year's worth of our Popular Mechanics magazines. We are done reading them, but someone else who doesn't have a subscription was super excited to get them all for free! Our most recent pick up was this awesome pocket chart and stand. It was missing a screw and end cap, so I emailed the company and they shipped the missing parts to me free of charge, two day shipping no less!

I will say some items we have picked up on freecycle are being given away because they have something wrong with them - for example the train table we picked up was given to us because after minimal use a child stood in the drawer and broke the bottom of the drawer. We took the drawer apart (six screws) and took the broken piece to Home Depot. $4 later they cut a new piece to size for us, and bam - brand new train table. We asked if anyone had any wooden trains their child had outgrown, and we received a Brio bin overflowing with wooden train tracks! I went on craigslist and bought at least ten wooden Thomas trains for a buck or two each, and after a trip to Michael's I painted the chipped areas and clear coated them all - they looked brand new. So in total I probably spent $15, and maybe two hours of my time, and my twins have an awesome train table with more tracks than they really need, with a bunch of Thomas trains to play with!

The best pot roast recipe ever

I created this recipe after hearing my husband's polite comments on how bland my grandmother's pot roast and beef stew recipes are. She was a New Englander, and made pot roast with flour, a bay leaf, some boullion, and potatoes and carrots. Not my husband's first choice for dinner. So I threw half the kitchen into the crockpot with the roast and OMG I couldn't stop eating it. Hubby said it was just as good if not better the second day as leftovers! I highly suggest having some sort of bread on hand to sop up all the amazing goodness! You can use either all purpose flour - gluten free or not, and this will be show stopping :)

2 Tbs. butter

4 Tbs. flour

1/2 a sweet onion, sliced

1 C water

1 Tbs worcestershire sauce

1 clove garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

1 tsp. sugar

1 envelope of Sazon Seasoning (I use Goya, found at any local grocery store)

1/2 C ketchup

small bag baby carrots, sliced

small bag fingerling potatoes, sliced
*this is amazing with some sweet potatoes thrown in, cubed into small pieces!

Put your crockpot on high while you start getting the ingredients together. Put onion slices, butter and flour in the crockpot and stir until the butter melts. Place the roast then the veggies on top of the onions once the butter has melted and the flour is mixed in. Combine the rest of the ingredients in medium bowl and once well stirred, pour over meat and veggies. I'm serious, this is magic in the making. Turn the crockpot to low and cook for 6 hours, covered.

You could make this with other vegetables I'm sure, I just like the reliable vegetables I'm used to. I used fingerling potatoes because I knew they would soften nicely and I happened to have them on hand - most any potato would be fine I'm sure! Mmmm, next time I might try sweet potatoes, oh wouldn't they taste yummy!

Vtech Digital Cameras ROCK!

The picture says it all - these are now the coolest things in our house, other than of course the pile of Mr. Men books. The boys have taken pictures of everything! Thank you Vtech! They did put games on the camera, but my kids don't know that and are very happy just using them as cameras. Excellent Easter present ;)

Bisquick Gluten Free Mix - it's not that bad!

I made the biscuits using the recipe on the back of the box, and was really happily surprised when I tasted them. I browned the bottoms a bit too much, but overall they tasted very much like the biscuits I remember eating before I went gluten free! I imagined chicken and gravy with biscuits drowning in the gravy... chicken and dumplings with biscuits to dip... a recipe using the mix with pot pie ingredients in it... my imagination went wild!

I glutened myself :(

I did something really ... really ... stupid. Two days ago I was making myself gluten free noodles on the stove, and when the doorbell rang I just put the wooden spoon down on the stove, and answered the door. Went back to cooking and just picked the spoon right up and finished cooking my noodles.

Once I started getting really sick I realized what I had done. The stove was not cleaned off from the night before's cooking, and there was gluten on the stove. I NEVER do that - I either clean the stove or just leave the cooking spoon right in the pot. Shame on me! Well I have definitely suffered. After puking almost nonstop for two hours then suffering awful diarrhea until I passed out (you really wanted to know that, didn't you?) I felt like death warmed over. Thank goodness my children just go to sleep when the lights go off, I would not have been able to attend to anyone's needs!

Yesterday I felt like someone had kicked me in my lower back, and all of my muscles felt like I had participated in a triathlon. I know these feelings well, I get them whenever I get more than a crumb of gluten. Well, here we are today and I'm losing my voice. It hurts to even try to whisper at this point. My wonderful husband is bringing me home Whole Fruit popsicles to try to soothe my throat. I can't believe I made myself this sick just from making one stupid move!!! Halls cough drops are doing *ok*, but nothing is making the pain in my throat go away enough to not be completely distracting.

Days (ok weeks) like this I really hate having celiac disease. I can handle not eating all the foods I used to love, I can handle the mediocre bread... Udi's muffins make it all ok. Feeling like this is not ok - it's horrible.

Things like learning about Al Gross make homeschooling AWESOME!

Today opened my eyes to how charmed my children's education really is. Big Kid was watching a National Geographic show about ancient Nubia on netflix, and the twins wandered in and couldn't stop watching. Maybe it was the deserts, or statues, or camels. Whatever it was, the twins were riveted! Big Kid said he liked the show too! The twins finally came in and started playing with their Marble Madness, talking about the paths of the marbles. Much better than any morning I ever had at public school!

I sat at my computer reading an article about Al Gross. I wrote a report for science class years and years ago in high school about some of his technology, and I never connected all of his projects! Al Gross really was an amazing man, up there with Einstein and maybe Steve Jobs. Al Gross invented the Joan-Eleanor radios in WWII, which used a higher frequency so the Germans never even knew the American soldiers had radios. He invented CB Radios, walkie talkies, and the basis for cellular communication. Here's a great article about him if you're ever interested! My grandfather was a great inventor himself, held many patents in the field of instant photography - I just have the utmost respect for inventors!!!

Gluten Free Rice Krispies

Ya, so I was all excited when I first saw these. Grabbed a box for almost five dollars! I assumed they must taste like the "real" Rice Krispies, if they had the same name! No. The similarity ends the moment you taste them. The gluten free version has a grainy texture (it does still pop tho!) and has a rather nasty aftertaste. Nothing about the taste screams YES IT'S AWESOME! I still miss Rice Krispies. My mom (who does not eat gf) tried a bowl and said the same thing - the texture is off and the taste is far below Rice Krispy standards. I even tried making Rice Krispies Treats with them, and even that couldn't hide the funny texture! Anything drowned in marshmallows should taste good, this just didn't pass the test.

Sorry Kellogg, keep looking on that one! I am guessing that a lot of people who have eaten gluten free their entire lives would enjoy the cereal, not knowing what they're missing. I sometimes wish I was one of those people, who had no clue better tasting food was so readily available to non-celiacs... my expectations would be much lower than they are :(

Septic Field Leak.... ew.

We noticed a part of our yard has been wet for a few months, and even last year the clover grew amazingly thick in that area. We're killing the weeds this year, and apparently the clover was covering up the leak in our leach field. We had an inspector come out, he stuck a metal pole into the ground where the wet grass is and black "liquid" came squirting out... less than 8 inches down!!! His advice was to pump our septic tank and wait to see if the wet area dried up. If it doesn't we'll be installing a new leach field in our backyard. The wet area is really really far down our leach field, so it doesn't smell and he said it was not a threat to our neighboring kitties - but who wants a puddle of "effluent" in their yard?!!

I was so proud we were able to afford our new air conditioning unit out of pocket, felt like we were ahead of the game. Not anymore! There's always something when you own a house, isn't there :(

Turbinate Surgery!!

Big Kid has been snoring for about a year now, and I could slap him across the face and he wouldn't even move while asleep (seriously, I did it once and he wouldn't believe me until the pink cheek showed up!). He had a sinus infection that was so awful it gave him ear infections at 12yrs old... and the sinus infection lasted about three months. The ENT immediately said he has a severely deviated septum, and his turbinates were very swollen. He had lost 75% of his breathing capacity in one nostril, 50% in the other. Wow, no wonder he snored! He was at high risk for sleep apnea, which no mom wants to see her child go through.

After trying nasal sprays to make darn sure it wasn't allergies causing the swelling, Big Kid had his turbinates surgically shrunk last week. The first night he was home he slept all night, and breathed through his nose for the first time (while sleeping) in at least a year! SUCCESS!! I wake him up every morning now with just a touch, it's so nice to not have to shake him for ten minutes to get him up. He has had no pain, there was no packing or anything involved, and he's almost completely healed already. The surgery took fifteen minutes, I'm so happy he had it done!!!

We had so many pre-0p appointments, and throw in Thing One getting his cast off (FINALLY!!!) we just gave up and canceled school for the week. It was really nice not having to worry about getting this or that done for school, but I'm honestly ready for the routine again. Feels strange to just be cleaning the house, running errands, and being with the twins. Is that weird?

Chinese Fringeflower Bushes (lorepelatum)

We found these in various places on our property when we bought our house, and two years ago moved them to our foundation planting. I know they'll get big, that's ok! Right now I'm trying to trim them so they will thicken then they can get all "army" and pretty :) I looove these bushes! They bloom like mad in the spring, and then again a few times between now and fall. The leaves turn a deep purple on and off, and never fall off - so I have purple or green bushes out front throughout the winter. They happily bake in the sun all day long, just the perfect low maintenance plant for me :) They look really nice as a backdrop for my daylilies too!!

Mangos and Kiwi

Ok so I love kiwi. The crunch of the seeds with the sweet/sour fruit itself is just divine!!! It's super easy to peel once you get the hang of how to - I took a knife and cut either end off, then slid a spoon just inside the flesh. I went around the kiwi like that with the spoon, just inside the flesh, and bam I had a skinned kiwi without wasting any yummy fruit. I'm hooked!

I like the mango too, but it was a more tropical flavor for me, so I mixed it with strawberries and bananas and ate a fruit salad of sorts with a bit of cool whip. Mmmmmmm!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Our boys love Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Dad reads it like a rap, and they just eat it up. I read it like I learned to do teaching preK, and they love that too. They read it to each other, in sing song voices, and laugh and laugh. I saw a really cool blog that inspired me - both about the Ikea bookshelf and making a tree on the wall! So now we have our own version of a coconut tree on the wall - and it's a big hit! I ordered it online and laminated it with contact paper. I love it!

Bookshelf in the school room!!

I drove all the way to Ikea (ew) and bought the bookshelf I have been drooling over. I had no idea we had so much "school related items" until I had to empty a bookshelf to make room for the new one! This is from just one of our bookshelves...

Who knew three kids could "need" so much for homeschooling? I sure didn't but I promise we use it all or I wouldn't keep it. I have most of Big Kid's curriculum for the next year or two, because I fell across it at a homeschool book store that was closing. That takes up space. I have some K and 1st grade curriculum for the twins, someone gave it to us, and who knows when they will actually start using it, so I keep it handy. Everything else is used on a regular basis - wow!!


I love the new bookshelf - it brightens up the room and stores everything we need in that room! I have a bit of extra space on the shelves, hopefully we can keep it that way. I honestly don't have to buy any curriculum for Big Kid until 9th grade, but I really don't know what I'll need for the twins as they grow because I have never homeschooled a child younger than 6th grade! It's an adventure :)

New Fruits to try

Our family is trying new foods. So far we're taste testing fruits we have never tried, then we'll move on into veggies. I don't like many veggies so this is going to be difficult for me, and I have to set a good example!

Have you ever eaten a pluot? They're really yummy!! A pluot is a mix between a plum and apricot, but is mostly plumlike. It's got a smooth skin and a sweet taste. There are many varieties of pluots, we have tried a few and our favorite so far are the dinosaur eggs and the flavor grenades.

The skin has that bit of tartness to it like plums do, we find these to be a very satisfying treat! We also like to add it to our gluten free chex cereal to jazz up the same old breakfast :)

How about a star fruit? This one didn't go over quite as well as the pluot in our house. It's citrusy, is a bit lemony and doesn't have a burst of flavor like you would expect from fruit. However we all tried it, which is a step in the right direction! To prepare it I washed it, and sliced the brown edges off of the "star points", then sliced it. It has seeds similar to apple seeds, so I flicked them out as you can see in the photo. All in all it wasn't a bad taste, but we probably won't be buying it again... unless we make a citrus salad, then it would be great! Or maybe I'll try it with a little grenadine... I wonder if it has any good vitamins in it?

Easter is coming again!

And here I sit, for the fourth year now with two of my three children hating candy. Big Kid's easter basket is super easy - chocolate, candy, and a few fun gadgets. He's happy. I have a hard time with the twins! Four years old is a little easier than the last few years, but they already have so many toys between Christmas and their birthdays just passing! I just ordered a really fun looking Mickey bowling lane rug from Kohl's on sale, I'll put that in their easter pile, but what else I will want to put in their baskets is a mystery still. They hate candy, have millions of hot wheels (hand me downs!), and have a ton of wooden Thomas Trains (found on craigslist and repainted). They have so many crayons they won't need any until they have children, and have drawers of coloring books. They have three bookshelves bursting with books to read, and have an entire preschool set up in the school room. What the heck can I put in their baskets?? Why is easter all about candy?

*I wanted to update this post. I ended up with the Mickey bowling rug, six of the Mr. Men books they don't have (the boys loooove Mr. Men books), two Vtech digital cameras, and a 3 disc set of children's songs. I think that'll be plenty! Big Kid will still get a pile of candy and a few fun things... maybe a gyroscope? Haven't been to the educational store yet to play with their new offerings!

I got a new car!!!

Ok you saw this coming if you read my blog regularly ;) I just couldn't happily shove the family back into my Pilot once I had a rental van! I traded it in and got a Honda Odyssey. I love it. Surprisingly I even like the looks! The engine is great, powerful, and it feels very much like "home" inside. I was very drawn to the gold color, probably because it has tan leather inside just like my Pilot did. I really liked the light silver exteriors, but the silver leather interior just felt cold. Hard to explain.

I didn't get a brand new one for a few reasons - 1, I feel it's a waste of money to buy brand new. 2, I can't afford a brand spanking new van with all the options I want. 3, the new Odysseys have NOT grown on me. I got exactly what I wanted for a great price, and the kids are beside themselves they are so pleased to have our own "magic car"! I was surprised when I first started looking at used vans, because they all had so many stains all over them! Duh, I'm looking at mommy mobiles and I'm surprised that they are kid ruined? Shame on me - didn't think that one through. Thankfully I found the perfect van - owned by a man working at a dog rescue (left a few items in the trade in!), and he had seat covers on all the seats, Odyssey rubber mats on all the floors, and a "bedliner" of sorts on the back. It looks brand spanking new! No stains, one small scratch on the exterior, otherwise it's perfect. A bird already bombed it, that's not the scratch in the photo! LOL! Absolutely perfect van for me too :)

Curriculum already for 4 year olds?

My twins turned four a month ago. They can read slowly, and have a surprisingly HUGE mental library of sight words they know. Most recently they surprised me when they could both read "interesting" on sight. Huh? They can sound out any word that is basic, without the weird silent letters or the "ought" sounds. Crazy. I have done nothing but read to them and let them "read" to each other. Thank you LeapFrog dvd's! I know I need help teaching them to sound out new sounds and letter combinations, I hope Explode the Code can help with that. I'm going to attempt to keep writing, reading, and spelling separate until they are older - because I don't want one to hold another back.

The twins need direction. They are just DYING to be "at school" like their big brother. I have little workbooks people have given them, with worksheets about colors and counting and such, but they don't follow any real direction and most are just practice for them, they aren't learning anything from them. I have my pre-k curriculum I just love, but it is for the most part direction on "learning through play" and is things they already do daily. I'm still using it for things like ideas on changing their "school room" set up, games to play, songs and crafts, etc.

I decided about two months ago to start looking into kindergarten curriculum for them. I hate the idea of having "organized learning" for such young kids, but they are screaming for it. Weirdos.

Big Kid thrives on Saxon's math program, so I just assumed their elementary program would be amazing. It's not. It's colorless, and not exciting at all. For a 4 yr old it needs to be exciting! After reading reviews again and again and again, then driving to the nearest homeschool book store and touching all sorts of math curriculums I decided to go with BJU Press's Math 1. I know it's for first grade, but they could do every page I showed them in the K book, and I want to teach them not just review! Wow. Most of the reviews I read said BJU is awesome for K-2nd or 3rd grade, then it slows way down and it doesn't include much review. That scares me. So I am going to look at Saxon again whenever we finish with this BJU math book, to see if it looks more appealing by then. I strongly considered Singapore math, but since I couldn't pick it up and look at it anywhere I didn't go with it. I'm not about to buy something this important on the whim of a few reviewers!

I feel like parents are always teaching their children, even if they send them to public school - it's a little scary for me to now be the only official "teacher" in three children's lives... the pressure is ON!

PreK curriculum and a new homeschool room!

I used to teach GA lottery funded preK. My coteacher and friend had purchased some of her curriculum, and when we left teaching she gave it all to me for my boys. I have kept everything up until today. I was online over the weekend and got serious school room envy looking at another homeschooler's blog. It is time to change!

First of all, I realized I love the pathways preK curriculum. It's so in depth and I am used to it and like it. I'm giving away my Scholastic Early Childhood Program. It's hard to let go of! LOL! Second - when we started homeschooling a year and a half ago, I kept thinking we were homeschooling in our dining room (we use our dining room as our school room). For some reason it seemed more important to keep it a dining room... then this weekend I realized we are in there schooling every day, and use it as a dining room three or four times a year. Why the heck isn't it a school room with a table that can be used as a dining table?!! Shouldn't things be geared towards the child that learns in this room every day? Instead of keeping everything tucked away until we need it I'm going to make everything available for more use, and let it all hang out that we are a homeschooling family (in our dining room LOL!).

Today I woke up ready to rearrange the room, hang posters on the wall, get educational items out and visible. The twins have their own "school room", it is set up with centers like a preschool room. They have a chika chika boom boom tree with letters, a reading nook, train table, piano, block area, pretend area (dress up?) and Geotrax set up on the floor. It's awesome. Bulletin boards for daily info and for art projects, posters about reading, just awesome! The dining room looks like a dining room with two stuffed bookshelves in it. Time for change. Big Kid deserves a good schooling classroom!

*Update* I tore a tendon in my right foot while moving furniture and books. It's pain like you can't imagine. I am extremely independent, and stubborn. I had to crawl in tears to my computer to email my husband to please come home and take me to the emergency room :( A word of advice - ask someone for help instead of doing it on your own when you choose to rearrange a room full of heavy furniture! The "new" school room flows so nicely, the apple red walls are an awesome background for our posters and such, and the twins now have a bookshelf and Big Kid has a bookshelf, each dedicated to just school items. I love organization. I know, I'm strange. At least the room looks nice, and I can now walk with an ace bandage and a boot on my foot. With a lot of pain.

Homemade Flowers

The twins really loved making these flowers, they made one for their aunt, one for their nahnah, and one for themselves. It was really easy to do, and look so amazing! To do these yourself, here's the steps:

-layer ten to twelve tissue papers together (we used red, white, and pink shades)

-trace and cut out a four to five inch circle, keeping the layers together

-gently fold the circle in half and punch a hole near the center of the circle, so when you open the circle you will have two holes next to each other in the center of the circles

-loop a green pipe cleaner through the holes and twist onto itself

-one layer at a time wrinkle up the tissue paper, and voila! Beautiful flowers!

We had such a good time making these, I hope you do too :)