Memorial Day

Let us take a few moments this Memorial Day to reflect on the meaning of the day, to observe the day and be mindful of the sacrifices of others before we go and enjoy the freedoms they bought for us.

Butterfly

This little guy spent most of the day on our blue bush yesterday. That has to be comparable to a year at least for us, butterflies have such short life spans! I was honored to be able to witness his beauty :) This is why I was so supportive of Big Kid planting a butterfly garden a few years ago. I cleared a good sized area for him and helped him order two butterfly bushes (pink and blue), scarlet and magenta bee balm, and some dianthus. The dianthus didn't make it through the year, and never came back. Three years later the blue bush is HUGE, the pink one is doing alright! The bee balm is just lovely, and comes back thicker every year. They attract tons of butterflies, it's so fun to watch!

I have discovered gluten free cookies - that taste GOOD!

I have tried the crap that is offered as gluten free cookies in our area, and it's a joke. Pamela's cookies fall apart in the package before you even get them home, and feel grainy for some reason when eaten. Eating sand is NOT enjoyable. I have tried a few other brands I found around, and they were just ... lacking anything a cookie should be. Vitacost had a coupon out and a great shipping deal, so I ordered some Kinnikinnick oreo type cookies and Schar shortbread cookies. I really miss buttery shortbread cookies, and I seriously have considered the consequences of eating a few oreos, I miss them so! The Kinnikinnick oreo type cookies gave me the worst indigestion I have had in years, but I still find myself eating one every few days... glutton for punishment I guess. The Schar are AMAZING!!! They're buttery, not sandy at all, and taste JUST like those girl scout shortbread cookies I used to devour. FINALLY!!!!

Thank you Schar, for making one of my food dreams come true :) Now I just have to find a place locally to purchase them, since there is no way I'm spending $6 on shipping alone for shortbread cookies. They're amazing, but I'm still somewhat of a cheapskate and don't "need" cookies to survive. Yet.

Octonauts Project

My twins love the Octonauts. They watch the show daily and pour over the books. Yesterday I started our ocean life theme, and read a few books - Fidgety Fish and Commotion in the Ocean. We made octopus as a project, and while Thing Two was finishing putting the "suckers" on his octopus legs, he stated that he wanted to make a Captain Barnacles project. I was totally caught off guard, but managed to cut out enough pieces to make Captain Barnacles, Kwazii Kitten, Peso, and Pinto. Thing Two is a perfectionist to a degree, his eyes had to be straight etc. but Thing One just went at it with the glue bottle and had a blast! I was impressed at their finished results - they look pretty darn great if you ask me!!! Thanks to this show (ok and a few Diego episodes) the boys know all about whale sharks, oar fish, sea stars, it's just amazing how much they retain and enjoy learning from tv shows and books! I'm glad there are so many nice educational shows on tv these days, because while we don't watch a lot of tv it's really nice to know when they do sit down to watch a cartoon they can watch Little Einsteins, Octonauts, Doc McStuffins, Wild Kratts!

Do you make folder games?

We love folder games! We have tons of them, but the boys' favorite has always been the pickle game. It's simply pickle jars with dots on them, and they put the pickle in with the right number on it! They love all the games, and have been playing them for at least two years... I know I should introduce more challenging games, but they so love the ones we use now!

Raid Bug Barrier is AMAZING

Ok I can't say enough good things about this product. I spray around the outside bottom of my house every spring, summer and fall. I rarely see a bug in my house. The few that I do usually are either dead, or a sign that it's time to spray again! This specific wolf spider (the largest I have ever seen by the way) wandered in somehow and died right out in the open on our carpet. I had cleaned that area not fifteen minutes before Big Kid found it, so I know it was a recent visitor!

This morning I found a small trail of ants coming from our front door down the hall to our kitchen, they were happily stealing bits of dry cat food! I have battled ants every year, and knew exactly what to do - got out the raid bug barrier and sprayed outside, and the interior doorstep and jam. No more ants. Before I found the raid spray I tried everything from ant traps to cinnamon to mint. Don't laugh, ants can drive a woman over the edge!

So if anyone is in the market for a good bug barrier, check out raid bug barrier spray. It's cheap, the sprayer is reusable, and you can spray it inside or outside. I have only sprayed inside twice, and simply sprayed the doorstep and jam. I kept my kitties away until it completely dried for safetly.

Thought I would share an email I recently got from Rudi's bakery, for all my Rudi eating readers :) I had no idea May was Celiac Awareness Month!

Did you know May is Celiac Awareness Month? At Rudi’s Gluten-Free Bakery, we want to help you and your readers celebrate through our second annual Spread the Bread campaign—we’re going to give up to $30,000 back to the amazing organizations making a difference in our community and we need you and your readers’ help!

Starting today and through the rest of May, fans of Rudi’s Gluten-Free on Facebook will be able to select one of four celiac organizations (Celiac Disease Foundation, Celiac Sprue Association, Gluten Intolerance Group and National Foundation for Celiac Awareness) to receive a $1 donation from Rudi’s Gluten-Free and will then be able to download a $1 off coupon for any Rudi’s Gluten-Free product. It’s as simple as, “Get a Dollar. Give a Dollar.”

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!