Change your thoughts about healthy fats.

It is amazing to me how far we have gone from natural and how people think we are doing things healthier. Someone on a message board I belong to posted this link on fats. It explains what we are using most of the time and how bad they are for you. It talks about all those other fats that we think are unhealthy, and how they are not. I am just really excited to learn these things. It definitely changes the way you think a little but it's almost hard to change your thoughts about it; after being raised to think a whole other way. Check it out!

Learn about Fats

Busy Week!

It has been a very busy week around here. We changed over our electricity so that we have peak hours. So I get up and do any dishwasher or washing machine stuff before noon, if I can. If I can't then I wait until after 7pm. On Monday my friend Suzanne invited the kids over (Meghan and her friend Josiah, with her daughter Ellie) to bake apple cinnamon bread. They had a blast. She also read the Little Red Hen story to them. I had forgotten about that story. It's a good one. Suzanne was so sweet to do that with them.

Tuesday we had running around to do. We went to pick up our milk and we did some shopping after Nate was home from work. Seems like we did more but that was it other than school work and cleaning. Fun everyday stuff. I also did a small cake for someone this week.I am working on another one for Saturday too.


Today we went to Sprouts for a few things and then this afternoon Nate came home early so that I could go and pick up our co-op order with out the kids. I had never been before since this was our first time ordering. I got there as they were unloading the semi in front of her house so I got to help with that. Yes it was at about 3 pm and yes it was very hot. I was excited coming home though. I bought raw organic cheese, popcorn to make my own cornmeal, natural soaps and coconut oil that will hopefully last me a little while. I bought one kind that is refined a little more so it doesn't have the flavor or smell of coconut but I bought some that does also. The one that smells like coconut is the one with the most health benefits. So I was hoping we would like that one. I used it tonight to fry our chicken tenders and we like it so YAY. You can read some of the heath benefits here.Tropical Traditions

Tonight after we put Meghan to bed she got back up and told us she pulled her other front tooth out. (ewwww) I made her go rinse again and we put it in for the tooth fairy. :) Of course I had to grab a picture.. haha she has a huge gap! How will she eat! And look how happy she is.. why is it that loosing teeth as a kid makes them happy? LOL Doesn't work that way for adults.



Tomorrow and Friday. Right now I don't know of anything we have to go out and do. Hopefully we just get stuff around the house done and don't need to go out. :)

Picture overload

I have quite a few pictures since I haven't posted in a while.
Here they are playing in the sprinklers, all new for Kaden.





Kaden trying a popcicle. he was not impressed and didn't want any more. hehe Here is another cute picture of him. He is always hanging on me. :)




Here is more of Kaden. he loved the Goulash I made. Yay.. He likes speghetti too. Although I am not holding my breath for it to stick quite yet. I have a picture of Meghan eating speghetti also and now she hates red sauces and any kind of beef. I do think eventually it will change though. I do get really happy when he likes and eats something well. For the longest time he wasn't interested in eating. That will teach me to stock up on baby food too. He never ate any of it except a few snack things.




Kaden climbed up on our chair with his book and blanket and I thought it was so cute I had to get a picture. Then Meghan wanted in on the pictures too.



And finally Kaden playing in my little island. We cleaned it out to put our trash can in. It's the only thing tall enough to fit it, plus under the sink is the garbage disposal and the reverse osmosis, so no room. We need to get a cabinet lock for it but since we haven't done it yet he likes to play in there. (Or maybe he is relaxing with a good book) ha

Is it hot or what?

We have been busy but not with going out much. Plus gas prices aren't helping. I could not find gas less than $4.15 the other day. Anyways, so we have been home getting things done. Yesterday we made bread again and I tried making some into hamburger buns. They came out nice. We also had the a/c unit serviced. Nate went in late to work to handle that. The lady that owns the house is thinking about getting a new a/c unit because this one is so old and using lots of energy, it's from '87. Our electric bill has been crazy so we are hoping the servicing helps and that she will decide to change it out. I am sure that will help. We also changed our electric billing to have peak and off peak hours. So from 12pm-7pm I won't be doing dishes or laundry, haha. Nathan tried to tell me we should turn the air off... yea right. Nice for him since he doesn't have to be here for most of that time.

Our garden is getting big. I need to get updated pictures of that. I am excited for it to start making something. The tomatoes and the bell pepper are both getting flowers. The green beans are vining all over. I bought an heirloom tomato a couple times at the farmers market. They are the best tomatoes I have ever had, I actually just wanted to eat the tomato as is. So the last one I bought pretty much to just get the seeds. I dried them and I plan on starting some in the house and see how they do. We bought corn last week and it was so good. We had it on Tuesday. Nathan says that it tastes like he remembers Papa's corn tasting when he was a kid and that's the last time he remembered it being that good. So he was looking up how to dry some and use the seeds for that. I think we will be getting more on Saturday.

Lost tooth, communication and more...

Monday after I made my post here Meghan came to show me how loose her front tooth was. I told her that she should get a tissue and see if it would come out but do it in the bathroom. (I don't want to see) So she went and a few seconds later she comes back with the tooth in her hand and blood all over in her mouth (gag). I tried to be excited for a minute and promptly sent her back to the bathroom to rinse her mouth out. I can't handle much of that, just looking at it made my tummy hurt and I am really glad I don't have to help her pull them out. She is so excited about it though! She left it in a little box I got for her, for the tooth fairy that night. In the morning she was excited about the money she found in there and she also tried to whistle through the hole. She looks so cute and she talks almost normal. hehe

We also took the kids out to swim that afternoon. It was Kaden's first time in the pool with her. He had fun even if his swimsuit kept falling down. He did get cold pretty quickly though.







Nate and I were talking yesterday about how cute it is that Kaden tells us what he wants. We have never tried to teach sign language or anything like that but he makes sure we know what he wants. He just points to it. I don't remember Meghan doing that at all but he is doing it all the time. If he wants more of something he points to it, if he wants to go somewhere, (like outside) he points, if he wants his bottle he points to them... you get the idea. Very cute.

Monday Menu Planning

Okay so I am going to try to plan ahead like I said. I am mostly worried about weekdays and having it planned out. Thanks Shanna for your comments also! One of my projects this week too will be to see about planning out meals for 6 weeks. I want to try and figure out how much meat I would need for that long and how much it would be. There is a farm, (or ranch, not sure which), south of us that sells organic, grass fed meats. They only come up for deliveries once every 6 weeks. You can see their website here. A bar H Farm

So here is my plan for the week, although things could get switched up a bit.
Monday- Taco's
Tuesday- Enchilada's
Wednesday- Beans, cornbread, potatoes, salad
Thursday- Find a new Chicken dish to try
Friday- Lasagna, salad, homemade french bread

Weekend Update

Well let's see. On Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market, just Meghan and I. Then we had a little time to waste so we went into a store to look around. After that Meghan had a birthday party to go to for her friend Josiah. She had a great time! She wanted to make this for him, for one of his birthday gifts. She was very happy with it.



After the birthday party we came home. Nathan got ready and left to go to a friends house. So it was just me and the kids until Sunday. He came home Sunday afternoon and I went to a Vaccination seminar. It was interesting but mostly things I already knew. The seminar was done by a husband wife team. She was a chiropractor and he was a cardiologist. After that I came home and we went out to do a little shopping and have dinner.

Here are a few pictures of Kaden. He loves carrying that bottle around in his mouth while he plays. And yes we are working on sippy cups, but he is not loving them. I am not stressed about it either way.

Our week

Well I missed about a week. Meghan did have some sort of bug. I am hoping she is getting better now. I think I have had my first experience with the kids passing each other something. Since Kaden was sick before and he was sick about the same amount of time. She didn't have all of the same symptoms he had though.

Let's see, so what did we do this week. Well we didn't go much of anywhere at all. Nate actually took off early on Tuesday so I could go alone to pick up our milk since I didn't want to take Meghan out. I did have our Girl Scout Parent meeting this week on Tuesday evening. We just told the mom's about what they would be doing and learning. They filled out all their paperwork and paid the yearly dues. I still need to fill out mine for the next year. It will be fun for Meghan to have a troop this year, I think. Hopefully I can handle being a co-leader too. :) I think it will be fun. Last night we had dinner and did some shopping.. just a little and I went in by myself. I ran into cvs and bought eye drops, 2 packages of diapers and two packages of wipes and spent 53 cents. Of course I use my extra care bucks to pay for the rest. I may try to go again this evening because they have toilet paper and paper towels on sale.

We pretty much skipped school for the week. We did have our reading time. We are still reading Little House in the Big Woods which Meghan loves. I think we are going to work on a lapbook about it after we finish the one we are doing on Bees. This is the first time we are doing lapbooks but it is going to be our method of learning from now on. It's a lot of fun.

I thought I would post what we had for supper this week. I have been trying to think ahead and plan meals. This weekend I hope to actually plan ahead for the week. I may work on that today since I go to the Farmer's Market tomorrow. Anyways, here is what we did this week.

Sunday- fried chicken tenders, (using coconut oil), potato salad and broccoli
Monday- Spaghetti, (using organic whole wheat pasta), spinach salad
Tuesday- Leftovers
Wednesday- homemade pizza, (we weren't thrilled with the crust, I think it needed salt) It had pepperoni, ground meat, onion, spinach and cheese.
Thursday- we went to Red Robin. I needed to get out of the house and Meghan was feeling better.
Friday- I am not sure what we are doing today yet. I have to make something with the chicken tenders I took out yesterday.

I have been trying to get our left overs eaten also, so we had leftovers from supper at lunch just about every day. I did make grilled cheese and spinach sandwiches one day though.

Relaxing weekend

We have a pretty laid pack weekend. We didn't have a whole lot that we HAD to do. It was nice. I have figured out that I need to plan better for meals. I did OK for a bit and then all of a sudden I had no idea what to make. I think it's just a little learning curve or adjustment to making meals from mostly raw/natural foods. It takes a little more planning. Since I go to the farmers market on Saturday's too, I need a plan so I know what to get. We went yesterday and got most of our veggies and they had peaches. I also bought eggs again. If anyone has any tips for peeling fresh boiled eggs I could use them. I know I have read somewhere something to make it easier but I can't remember now.

Today again we just hung out. Meghan had a headache almost all day so I hope she isn't getting sick. She just laid around and watched TV. I found that Kaden has two more teeth coming in too so I guess that's why he was fussing a little. One is just a tiny bit through and the other side his gums are just swollen.

I thought I would post a few of my latest scrapbook pages. I worked on a few last night and I hadn't scrapped in a while. I am hoping to maybe work on something tonight but we'll see because I am tired already.

I joined

I joined PayPerPost. They practice word of mouth ethics , which just means I disclose each post I make related to PayPerPost.
I am pretty new but it seems really cool. You can blog about topics they have available on their site. You make a post about it in your blog, kind of a review of the item. They will check to see what you said and then they credit your account with what ever dollar amount they had available for the post.
It's very easy to sign up if you have a blog. There were a couple things to add to the html code and then you can get started.

I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. I like to keep up with the blog anyways and maybe I can earn a little extra money, why not. I can use extra money, can't we all? I plan to use the extra money to help pay off bills. Every little bit helps and it might as well be something you enjoy doing.

I found the link to the site on someone else blog one day when I was reading. I like to just wonder from blog to blog that interest me and sometimes you come across something neat like this too. I didn't know there was such a thing before that. So I hope maybe it will help someone else too if they see it on my blog.