RealMilk

Well, as some of you know, jacob and I get our milk from a local farm (i.e., we bring our glass bottles there, leave our money under a rock, and tap into the huge milk holding tank). We have been doing this now for a few years while living here. The farm was recommended by one our doctors who gets her families milk there. Now this farm sells its milk to Oakhurst, who comes and picks it up every other day, takes it and pasteurizes it. We get to it before any damage has been done to the milk, so it is usually referred to as Raw milk, or of late, Real milk (if you click on the title of this post it will take you to a great site telling you all about the difference between milk that has been heated and treated and milk that is just as it came out of the cow).
This is the type of milk Liliana has been drinking since weaning off of me at the age of 13 mts. She is also pretty partial to going to the farm and petting the cows, keeping track of the new babies, feeding them hay, etc....
So many of our friends here ask us about rawmilk, its benefits, etc...They can clearly see that we have not killed over in a fit of bacterial death (sorry for the drama, but most people are pretty dramatic when it comes to their feelings about making sure every 'bad' thing has been killed out of the milk, never realizing that almost all of the good is being killed along with any potential bad) It would be worth reading up on the history of pasteurization, as it started due to many outbreaks from unsanitary farms, as well as refrigeration issues. anyway, I am getting off topic.
So liliana had a friend over today, they were having lunch. Nana told her friend that they could have some milk and she said she did not like milk. Well it has never occurred to liliana that someone would not like her milk, so she said, "but this is milk from the farm!"
although she has never, in our house had store milk, she wanted to let her friend know that this was special farm milk.
Her friend promptly said, "oh, its farm milk, i love farm milk, I remember when i went to the farm (our same one) and the baby cow was sucking my daddy's finger like it was a boobie".
It is so great hearing little kid conversations. And it was also nice to hear my almost 4 yr old defend her real farm milk...I mean who wouldn't love milk if you could get your finger sucked on at the same time...I mean c'mon....

Food, are you hungry?

Many of you who know us know that we are passionate about FOOD....
well we have to consume it several times a day to sustain life and it is at the root of many of our joys (can anyone say chocolate????), and pains (hello, tooth aches, diabetes, those 10 lbs we would just love to lose)
I really do spend my spare 5-10 minutes here and there digging up all I can on the subject.
If you have 40 mins to watch, or watch a little, and come back later. Enjoy the following:
It is time to take control of our own food, just as our Prophets have always encouraged us to do.....

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/12/27/the-food-industry-challenges-that-obama-needs-to-address.aspx

Let it Snow!!

So, we're working on our FOURTH snow storm in a week - yes folks, we woke up this morning with more snow falling (it has since turned to rain).  Our last snow storm, Sunday night, left us with a hefty 12 inches of the light powdery stuff and I had a very interesting experience that I wanted to share.

I went outside after breakfast to face our driveway, which is just big enough to park 4 cars (2 x 2).  Now, I realize that it's not a big driveway by any means.  We have a snow scoop, which makes the job pretty easy.  The difficulty lies with our almost 4 year old.  She loves to help and her method of helping is to wait until I have filled the scoop with snow, then she climbs on.  In the process of climbing into the snow scoop, she knocks half of the snow out.  She then rides to the top of the mound of snow that I am making, then falls out so I can empty the snow, then rides the scoop down.  It makes for a very long process.  In addition to that, every once in awhile she has to get the sled out and take a few runs down the mound of snow - her little "hill" (pronounced "hee-uhl" that would make any southern mother proud).

As we were thus in the process of cleaning out the driveway - we were about an hour into the project and hadn't even cleared enough to park a car, I looked up and saw a guy park his truck out in front of the neighbor's house across the street.  In the back of his truck was a snowblower.  I assumed that he was there to snowblow the neighbor's driveway, so I continued to fill another scoop with Liliana.  The guy unloaded his snowblower and parked it next to our driveway.  He jumps through the 2 feet of snow at the beginning of the driveway and hands me a card.  He told me his name was Michael and that he was from the Kindness Center and was there to clear my driveway for free.  I looked at him and told him that would be appreciated.  Thirty minutes later, the driveway was clean.  He wished me a Merry Christmas and said that he was happy to do my driveway for me so that I could spend more time with my daughter.   

Why he picked me to help, or why he was driving down our road, I don't know.  I do know that it was one of God's Tender Mercies, giving me some help that I needed at the time.  I later looked at his website: www.thekindnesscenter.com .  He goes around to different middle schools in southern Maine and gets the kids to do different activities to promote kindness.  His story is on it, explaining why he does what he does.  I have thought about this whole experience a lot and has helped me to think about how I can help others more.  

christmastime

I love Christmastime. I always have. Jacob, liliana, and my mom our at our Ward Christmas devotional tonight. I stayed home inorder to put mattie to bed. She is still getting over sickness. As for me, I can't wait to get over my '6 week illness'. 4 more weeks to go till Im out of the first trimester!!!!!WAHOOO....It is these weeks (and labor, cant forget that) that make me say the very common, " I am NEVER going to do this again".
Well having number 3 means that I cant be taken for my word when it comes to this..Its not that I forgot how hard it all is nor how painful, its just I am realizing the endless capacity to love and for some strange reason (cant blame it on drugs, didn't have any) I was already thinking about baby #3 in the hospital with Mattie. Please, someone should lock me up, or just put me out in the woods. jacob knows I would never find my way out!
liliana is so very excited for a new sibling. I am so grateful that I have not had to deal with a jealous older sibling. She just loves her little sissie so much and looks out for her very well. My love for them grows as I watch their love blossom together. It never occurred to me that my kids might actually love one another (hmmm...maybe I came from a dysfunctional home....???) She has already informed us what she would like to call the baby, let us know what you think:
Boy-weenie
girl-sybil
(by the way, both of these names are names of animals in some of her recent book finds-she must have been inspired)

We are enjoying jacob being home for vacation. What a difference two full time parents makes! He is still busy working on securing a job (residency) for next year. It is quite the process and we really wont know the final answer of where we go till Feb 9th and yes, we will post the results. In the end it matters little where we would like to go, it all depends on who wants him there, so a few more weeks of knots in our stomachs..seriously, we have to PAY to go through this mess.....

Craziness Abounding

So, with the holidays upon us, we have decided to make our lives as crazy as possible!  Many of you know that Heather's mom is staying with us for a little bit.  Not only do we have that, and all that comes with having an extra person in a 2 bedroom house with an open study area, but my car decided to loose it's engine on the way home from Skowhegan Wednesday afternoon during a snow storm.  On top of that, Heather and Mattie came down with the flu.  If that wasn't enough, Heather's pregnant (if you couldn't tell from the ticker on the left side of the page), and is fairly run down from that.  

Life is great!  Thank goodness for loving friends and family that help us out!

camping

Well, we had a family camping trip this past weekend....
We wouldnt have normally planned one for the winter but, thankfully we were prepared
Due to an Ice storm, our electricity was out for a few days. We brought our Coleman camp stove inside, placed it ontop of our normal stove. We cooked yummy food that we ate by the light of candles and flashlights. We also were very fortunate to have , what used to be considered just a decoration, a wood stove that runs on propane (the kind with the fake wood in it). We turned that sucker on to stay warm and invited many over from the ward so they too could stay warm.
Jacob and I have been feeling for a few months now that we needed to prepare a good 72-hr kit. We have yet to collect everything, but we had collected many things that totally helped us this past weekend. Many in our ward and surrounding towns still do not have power and it appears it will be anther week or so for loads of people. I told jacob that living in the ghetto part of town finally paid off (we live close enough to downtown we are on the top of the list for power restoration)
I still feel like there will be many more upcoming times when we will need to rely on our 72-hr kit and long-term food storage.
There were a few key items we would have been hurting not to have. water goes first at the store (although the beer isle seems just as empty!!!). thankfully we always had running water, because we would not have had enough for 72 hrs worth for cooking, cleaning, and drinking. We also were burning through candles at a faster clip than I realized I would. And note to self...each child wants their OWN flashlight...even if it is a visiting child, over for the sake of getting warm....
also, some children, no longer know what to do if there is nothing 'on' to entertain them....We did not have that problem with liliana, she loves board games and will play as many as you can stand but it would be worthwhile to have 'practice' runs where the family does not have access to electricity, so that all get used to what it is really going to be like.
I am so thankful that this emergency is over for us. I am exhausted from the camping trip.

Obituary

We will miss you!!!!!!!!!

You came so far, from Germany to flavor our homes. When you arrived, you were so tiny, only the same size as 4 pieces of rice. When you left us today, you measured at 1 cup. How you grew! You were so shy when you arrived, but soon found comfort in our yummy raw milk. You thrived and we thrived right along with you. We never knew it would end this way, how could anyone know???
There are so many 'what if' questions that have no answers. Like, what if you had had a different adopted mother, maybe then you wouldn't have died during a fire in the oven. I am sure a different caretaker would never have knowingly put you in the oven and turned it on broil, while draping a dish towel on top of you.
I tried to save you. It was too late.....just too late...the dish towel that protected you blew up into flames,and your special plastic top (made lovingly, by your adopted father) melted just like a camp fire marshmallow right into your bubbling container.
I can hardly stand to look at your charred self.
You can never be replaced (although a new shipment is arriving next week), you will always be our first kefir grains. We learned so much from you....

an army

This is crazy....a batallion has been deployed in our own country...

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/18737/

True Stinson

Liliana is a true Stinson: she has the sense of thrift, knows when she can make a buck or two, and hoards her money.  I think that's why she likes going shopping with Heather or I: she gets us to give her the money and she tries to keep the change.  Smart girl!  She even worked hard to rake leaves to earn money for a Christmas gift for Heather.  But that doesn't compare with what happened tonight.

She found some bells on a plastic strap and then grabbed one of her plastic bowls from her play kitchen set.  After placing the bowl on the floor in front of her, she told Heather's mom, who is staying with us for a little while and who has become Liliana's play-mate, "Okay, now I ring the bells and you give me money!"

It's amazing how they quickly they pick things up!  I had taken the girls shopping recently and we stopped at Walmart to get a few batteries.  Around here, Walmart is the only place that has bell-ringers.  So, as we ran into the store, Liliana noticed a bell ringer and asked what he was doing.  I explained that he was ringing the bell to get money.  Obviously, once is all it took for Liliana to realize that this might be the career for her!

Daddy time

Well I am about to take a very rare thing called a NAP....
So this will be quick. Jacob took the little girls out to the Beach. Yes, it is freezing but he really wanted to do something with just them and liliana has missed even just walking on the beach. Her little life has been crazy with all the various changes. We have been so blessed to have a long weekend with jacob home and look forward to a surprise long weekend next week; At any rate, in three weeks he will have some vacation time and after that, he will be working locally, so we cant wait to have daddy home for good.

life cycle

So I am starting to get the 'hint' that my life its just going to be one crazy thing after another. By 'crazy', I mean anything (or one) that challenges me. Now you would think I would have already known such a fact but sadly I was under the crazy illusion that I could control the level of craziness in my life purely by my own choices...hahahahahaha....
So, there is a season to all things, and I am trying to learn that there is actually good to be found in all seasons (even if some last for longer than they ought too)
Right now my life is full of emotions (did I mention that I don't really like emotions, other than happy of course, I like that emotion very well)
I have random crying fest (where you can locate me in my bathroom (that needs to be cleaned by the way)) some have to do with being mostly a single parent right now. Seriously, I actually know people who choose to be single parents (who have no desire to have a spouse but want a child)...maybe being a single parent right now while jacob has been gone has been harder for me since I know how much better it is with two parents (what a novelty, two parents????---I love having two parents around). or I could be crying over the fact that yesterday I had to sit and watch my mom fail one memory test after another, indicating, mild/moderate dementia leading to Alzheimer's. I mean, she couldn't draw the face of a clock! Think of how easy that would be, we could all do it blind folded and it would look better than hers. And she was really trying (crossing out one after the other trying to get it right). To top it off, I was GLAD she was failing the test in a way. Now it wouldn't just be me saying that something is wrong with mom. but i lay in bed last night pondering on what it is going to mean to me and my children that my mom is losing her self (the self I remember) and her memories.
So every day we work a little bit on calls and applications and appts for her..it is seriously a full-time job trying to get her into a place where she can receive care and I was not in the least prepared to know how to handle all of this (preparation, what is that anyway???).
But for now, till placement happens I am trying to enjoy the mom that is left and enjoying that my kids get loved on by her. She thankfully has not lost her ability to love or care (she, the homeless one, wanted to go buy some canned fruit for hte thanksgiving food drive at church)
I pulled out a wad of grey hairs the other night...I think I could identify the moment each came into existence.
But things are not that bad. It is okay for me to cry, to have a little 'moment' in the bathroom...better then holding it in.
And, while jacob was home this past weekend I got to skip off to the Temple for the first time in over a year! I love that place. I would like to move in there. I felt like I had been renewed and reminded that I can do what is placed infront of me and that I am not as bad off as I thought I was, nor am I (as a person) doing as bad as I thought.
As I looked around and experienced in the temple I realized how amazing it is to be apart of a earthly existence, even with all its craziness. I am apart of something so huge and unbelievable...but i believe...

We are all trying to make it, right? It is just not as easy as I thought it would be. so it is my life
(crazy or not) it is a blessed life.

what happens in your house in 8 minutes flat?

Well Mattie is one year old now (as of a week ago) so it is high time she start carrying her weight around here. She must have thought so as well...
Tonight, while chatting with jacob in the kitchen i heard mattie in her bathroom (the door must have been left open as she is always trying to get in there for 'hobby' activities, mostly having to do with the toilet). I quickly grabbed her (in her hands was her ladybug costume from Halloween), well, after a few minutes I started noticing wet, mop like, water puddles all over the house. I couldn't figure out what it could be. I knew it wasn't pee (she had just let a huge puddle loose (3 minutes previous to the bathroom incident) all over lilianas newly washed clothes that had been folded and put away (and that mattie, took out of the drawers and put on the ground, just in time to catch all her massive pee she holds for hours and hours). I also knew it couldnt be the water left over from jacob cleaning up the floor from when mattie threw up her entire dinner contents (right after coming down from the bath and due to gagging on mucus drainage from her sinus) (this happened, 2 minutes before the pee incident, and 5 minutes before the bathroom incident)...no no....it was neither of those, it was her helping us mop, she dipped her ladybug costume in the toilet water and went about the house to mop....hmmmmm, sometimes it is just easier to not let your kids help with the cleaning :)

Change

Change is a hard thing, sometimes a good thing. I woke up to find out about our new president-elect. Let me start off by saying that no one I was interested in voting for was on my ballot, which I cast Sat morning here in town.
For jacob and I, we are concerned about having Obama as our new president. With him going into medicine we are particularly concerned. We do not want to 'work' for the government in any socialist capacity. We don't want the government to force jacob to see certain patients. I do not want my husband to work tons of hours and then have our 'wealth' distributed' to others who are not working, or who are working, but due to various reasons are not making enough. I despise the ringing in of socialism under the guise of helping our fellow man. What is the quote....the bringing down of democracy will happen with loud applause. It will be that way.
I just re-read this. Maybe i sound negative. Well mostly I am concerned. How thankful I am for a Prophet!

Gratitude

Well. It has been a rough day. I looked on one of my friends blogs and found the following quote I thought was just perfect:

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." -Melodie Beattie

I had to have Jacob take over for me in Primary as I was just going to start crying right there in front of the kids, which I just don't want to do that to them. He stepped in and did wonderful last minute. I am so thankful he was able to come home over the weekend. We still have 7 more weeks of separation (but him home on weekends) and I am trying to find little things about all this mess to be grateful for.
To top it off (why must we top things off anyway????) a few weeks back one of my aunts asked if I could have my mom come visit for a few days so that my other aunt could have a 'break'. I agreed for a few days (wed-sun), well, after many failed attempts to get either of my aunts on the phone I finally spoke to one and pulled out of her that neither of them had any intention of ever getting my mom back after her 'break' with me (i.e., they were dumping her and all her problems on me and were just hoping I would enjoy it as a surprise). So after a very heated conversation with my aunt in the parking lot of church between meetings, a good cry on the phone with my dad, and a somber afternoon, both trying to muster the needed courage for what lays ahead of me, as well as, trying to not be sad about the fact that jacob would be leaving us again. I am also sad because as a family we had been invited up to Bangor (on the hospitals tab no less (in a suite!!!)) for jacobs interview tomorrow. They had some events planned that our whole family could attend so that I could also find out about the program and area. I was really looking forward to this little family getaway (esp. since it was going to be free and it involved a seafood restaurant!). So that went out the window (wait, I need to read the quote up above again)...

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow."

I really like it...it (gratitude) turns chaos into order....the unexpected into perfect timing.....I cannot stop time to become the person I need to be inorder to make it through this (i sure wish i could) but im pretty confident that by getting through it I will become the person I am supposed to be

I am grateful for my husband. He is amazing. Honey, if you are reading this. I love you and miss you. Thank you for being willing to sacrifice so much so that with your hands you can help heal. I know it is not always the most ideal job (most days I am sure there would be something alot more fun to do (ie..build furniture, farm, etc)). I am grateful that you work hard and provide that example to our girls. I am grateful you do laundry when you see it is overflowing. That you hang the diaper covers up to dry instead of throwing them into the dryer. That you care about your health, both physically and spiritually and do things that will strengthen you in both ways. Have a wonderful interview!

I am trying hard to find what I am grateful for in having my mom thrust upon me. She is not completely the mom i remember and I am not quite sure what is wrong (which is why no one has been able to help her thus far). I want to do what is right and have not figured out what that is yet. It would be so much easier if we could just pick the trials that we felt prepared to have (ha..i know.....crazy thinking)...but, with gratitude I am hopeful I can turn this unexpected event into perfect timing. I am grateful that she is here as there is someone who can read liliana books over and over again, while i do boring things like dishes.
We are here to change, right???? I am just going to take it one day at a time.

crazy test.....

sooooooooo. You know when you have gone crazy when....
You are kinda franticly looking around the kitchen for your baby, thinking perhaps she got out the front door or basement door, wondering where she could have gone off to, racking your brain about the last time you had seen her....only to realize that she was in your arms the whole entire time, quietly wondering what her crazy caregiver was up too....!!!!so yeah.....it has been a doozy of a week. Sometimes I am truly amazed that I am left in charge of other peoples lives.

A new baby

yeah, I made it!!!! My first batch of Kefir....I received my Kefir grains in the mail (from germany) last week, nursed them back to health on good ol raw milk, and then last night I stuck the poured off milk in the oven with the light on (keeps things the perfect temp) and woke up to beautiful kefir. It is not much in terms of quantity but I will slowly build that up, my grains are already double in size and quanitity than when I first got them a week ago. i love food that is ALIVE!!!!!!
Anyway, so liliana is in the 'suspect' stage of life..meaning she is suspect of everything (or most everything). So I whip up my kefir with a banana, some raw honey, and a piece of frozen peach (YUMMY!!!). I tell her that mommy has cracked code on how to make her favorite drink (the one she ask for numerous times a day), she is suspect of this 'so-called kefir' that mom made. She tried some, and it was not awful like she must have predicted but still being suspect she decided to 'save' it for later today. But I tried it and I have to say it taste loads better than the store bought stuff. I mean, it is one thing knowing something is good for you and choking it down, it is another thing enjoying the foods that are good for you. I was so hoping I would like this stuff as I have not been able ot drink store bought kefir plain (i usually have to add, all sorts of things to it and whip it up in a smoothie (and that is after buying it already flavored with fruit!).
It was interesting the mind over body thing. For so long now, both my mind and body agreed that I did not like the 'sour' taste of cultered milk products such as kefir and yougurt. So when taking a sip of this I braced myself and lo and behold it was not sour at all, yet my body was still flinching like, any minute now I was not going to like it...It is a process to have both our minds and our bodies 'get' over a previous food dislike. anyway. I just wanted to share the good news, we have a new baby in the house, her name is Kefir :)

another rainy day

Well it has been a wet day here in Southern Maine. First, I got all wet as I tried to jump my cars battery. You see, I have never officially had a dead battery on my hands, or I should say, only in my hands. Normally someone of the male species was around to take charge of such situations, thereby allowing me to stand back and watch...well, ignorance is not always bliss...so I called a friend (her husband is a medical resident, so she is also on her own alot, and I should add, she also had never jumped a car) so...needless to say we screwed up a few times before we figured it out (and YES>>>we had to call a man....she paged her husband at the hospital to set us straight (normally, my ego would not allow such interference in things but well, it was raining(no, I was not worried about my hair, it is 7pm and I have yet to brush it) and cold and I could not handle the thought of staying stuck in my house with my kids all alone for another day). Then around 3 or so when I am usually dragging I, in my mental state, told liliana that she could get a bucket of soapy water and mop my kitchen floor (hmmmmmmm...).
Soooooo, needless to say, anyone who knows her probably could predict what I found when I rounded the corner. Her, all naked and soaped up and trying her darndest to squeeze her big girl body into that tiny lego bucket. I really wanted a pic, but didnt want to show her naked body (that is her sacred self) but i did happen to snap a photo that is more discreet.
Mattie has learned how to climb...yeah, need I say more...and not only that she has learned the concept of pushing items up to things inorder to have something to stand on. Today I found her behind the blinds, yelling out the window, the ones that reside ABOVE the play table. Good thing she was not naked then, displaying herself out the window (yea, she also likes to be nude, (everytime I change her I feel like we are having a wrestling match)
I told jacob tonight that I cant imagine being a single mom all of the time. I am wasted at the end of each day. I know alot of that is due to the age of my children (and lets not forget the fact that I was woken up last night several times...there was the usual for milk, that I can understand, but the massive crying out for socks!!!! comon!!!----then, she 'lost' her socks 45 mins later and started crying out again, believe me, I tried to ignore her, for some reason she is so stubborn..hmm, wonder where she gets that from)
anyway, what day is it??? How old am I??? When is my husband coming home???
I admire all of you moms out there who know what day it is, are happy to have lived that day,and are looking forward to the next (and not just looking forward to rest)....
THanks for being my example.

Fall doings

Alright. So most days I 'think' about updating our blog, but then some wonderful book calls to me and I easily walk away from the computer. Right now I am reading, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", by Barbara Kingslover...and I always look forward to the spare moments here and there to read it.
Jacob told me that the other day at work some of the women residents he works with asked him if he had read a book called, "Twilight". Now he knew of the book, but answered, "no, he doesnt have time". So they rephrased their question and asked if I had read it. He explained to them the following: "My wife likes to read Sociology books and Nurition books". They say, " Oh, we mean for fun", his response, "Yeah, that is what she reads for fun, you see, my wife stays home with our children, so she just loves delving her mind into something that she loves whenever she gets a spare minute". They just got quiet...
I don't blame them...yes, it is true. I do read books like that for fun (have I told any of you that I am currently taking a Kefir course?-----hmm, some of you may be wondering what in the heck that is...)
But I do also like a good Narnia book or Potter book every now and again.
Mostly though there are more books I would like to read and more things that I would like to do then I have time for.
I am too busy cleaning up after an almost 1 year old (2 more weeks till birthday!!) after she plays in her pile of poop and pee on the floor (she was barebummed after a previous diaper change and I was letting her air dry, silly me) and trying to protect my money from being stashed away in the 'wrong' persons piggy bank (my almost 4yr old truly believes that if she finds any money it is hers, and let me tell you, she hoards money--takes after her daddy (who, by the way, just loves this quality in her))...
So we have been enjoying fall down here in Southern Maine. Zarah has been here almost 2 weeks now helping me run the household in Jacobs absence. We have gone apple picking (2 bushles worth), hayrides, LL Beans, lots of raking leaves (and playing in them), many Farmers market visits (we bought 25# potatoes and carrots to store for a 3-month food storage supply (we place a layer of dry leaves on the bottom of a tub (the same kind of tub we put clothing into), then a layer of dry potatoes or apples or carrots, then a layer of leaves and so on till full). We have them in our garage where they will stay cool and dry and last us the next 3 months and still be fresh.
We have been trying to get a well-rounded 3-month food supply. We knew we were lacking in the vegetable/fruit arena so have been trying to rectify that.
Jacob is due home from PA this upcoming weekend. We can't wait for his return, although it will be bittersweet, as he will only be here 24hrs, then he leaves for Bangor, where he will be for a month. We are hoping to go up that way sometime inorder to check out that location for living, etc...
We feel really good about either location and also know that when it comes time to decide we will know which one we should move to.
Well, this is it for now...We miss all of our friends but mostly we miss DADDY>>>>>>>>>>>>love your girls:)

Butter

We've been meaning to post this for awhile, but with starting a new rotation down by Pittsburgh, it got pushed onto the back burner.

In the "Nourishing Traditions" book by Sally Fallon, she gives a recipe for making butter - it's incredibly easy.  We siphoned off the cream from our milk.  That's the nice thing about whole, raw milk - the cream rises to the top and you can skim part of it off to make ice cream, whip cream, or, in this case, butter.  We left the cream out for about 8 hours to sour it a little, added a teaspoon of salt, put it in our food processor, and turned it on.  About 20 minutes later, we were done.  We drained the butter milk, transferred the butter into a metal bowl and patted the butter with a wooden spoon to squeeze out the rest of the butter milk.  

Here are some of the pictures the we took of the butter making process.  As you can see, Liliana was my helper throughout the whole process.  The only downside is that you can't leave the butter out, otherwise it will continue to sour and leaving it in the refrigerator made the butter hard.  The increasing sour taste didn't bother me, but Heather didn't really like it.  

For those of you who are squeemish about leaving raw milk or cream out on the counter, you don't have to sour the cream at all.  We haven't tried that yet.  Maybe when life gets a little less hectic!  

For those of you who are wondering why we left the cream out to sour, souring the milk gives time for the natural bacteria in the milk (the lactobacillus species, which is the bacteria in yogurt and kefir) to start to break down some of the milk sugars and proteins.  This makes the butter easier to digest.

Baptism

Liliana loves going to people's baptisms.  About a year ago, one of her older friends turned eight and Liliana got to watch her get baptized.  Ever since then, whenever someone in Primary gets baptized, Liliana wants to go.  So, naturally, when they announced that there was going to be a baptism this Friday, she got excited.  After playing the organ, I sat down with them to listen to the speakers and she looked up at me, grabbed my head, and whispered excitedly in my ear: "There's going to be a baptism on Friday!"  When I asked her if she wanted to go, she furiously nodded her head up and down.  

The whole experience made me remember an incident that happened in the summer.  She and a friend, Mary, where playing in the kiddie pool at our house while Heather and Mary's mother where visiting inside.  The sliding door was open and so they could hear what was going on outside.  Some time goes by and Heather suddenly hears Mary's voice saying, "I baptize you in the name of the Holy City Jerusalem", followed by a big splash!

Question...

Alright, so I have a question to pose...
I have been debating on if I should pose this on the blog but decided in the end to go for it...
So some of you kinda know (and some REALLY know) that Jacob and I try to eat different then the mainstream (what, we are different???)
it really started when liliana was 6mts old and I was in the midst of having to decide how to nourish her, I bought, "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron. This book was my first eye opener that I did not have to eat what food companies had to offer me. As well, it taught us that we can determine how we are by what we eat...That was 3 years ago now.
We hate going to grocery stores and hardly go anymore as there is hardly anything there one could call, "food".
No, I am not joking. Most everything there is edible (except for detergents and all that, wouldn't recommend eating that, and for the most part I wouldn't even recommend using those to wash your clothes, but that is a different subject)
We shop at a health food store where we are able to buy items in bulk (cheaper for us anyway) and it is "REAL FOOD".
Real food is defined as something your great-great grandmother would have recognized and I have to say there is not much in my supermarket that she would recognize, even yogurt has been defamed and turned into a sugar dessert (under the awful guise of health food-although there are some that are 'better' than others)
Jacob has not even graduated and he is already tired of seeing so many people that have all these chronic issues and it is just diet.
It is even harder in the church to see ill health, where we have the Word of Wisdom. There really are 'conspiring men' out there who make loads of money off our palate.

So my question is this (and the answer really does mean alot to me)
How do we (Jacob and I) share what we have learned about health and food with friends/family without coming across like we are better than another (for we do not feel this way at all)? How do we say we don't want to eat certain food (or don't want our child to eat certain food (at least that often, or as often as others eat it) because we don't see it as food, it is more of a chemical concoction?

You know back in the day (1800's) you had to label food items as 'imitation' if you were trying to get people to buy an item because it looked like the 'real' item, for instance margarine/butter. But the food industry did not like putting the imitation label on as it deterred many from purchasing the item. They took it to court and that my folks was the beginning of the end. And so my generation has grown up on fake food and am just now discovering the 'real' food item it was intending to imitate. We prefer the real. My body was made to process 'real' food, real fats, real food...Our bodies were never made to process/handle food that was created in a lab.
Food is a sensitive topic. It is also a topic we love talking about, because we LOVE to eat good food. I mean, just tonight we grated fresh (raw milk) Parmesan cheese. The scent filled up the room and I said to Jacob that once you have the real stuff there really is no turning back. Many would counter to me that they cannot afford the real so they buy the fake (although no one has ever used those exact words (referring to their food as fake or real). We have been blessed with being able to buy in bulk (thanks to a local health food store) which saves us alot. We also have a local farm to get raw milk (which we are starting to learn how to turn into butter and kefir so that we can cut that out of our supermarket purchase as well, thereby saving us money.) We also make everything from scratch (fake convenience foods eat up alot of ones budget, so by not buying any of that we are able to spend that money on things like real Parmesan cheese or whatever.
I was asked to teach an Enrichment class on Whole Grains the other night. I loved every minute of it. Answering every ones questions. Seeing the variety that Heavenly Father has provided for us. It is very empowering taking control of our food/health back from those who profit off of us being submissive and ignorant. It was ignorance that kept me from eating better until now. I just ate the way i was taught. I was in ignorance. In so many ways I still am but I just love learning and then changing some more.

wisdom passed down and up again

Well tonight we had a most interesting FHE (family home evening). It all came to my mind last minute (usually does).
We started with our 4 songs (our girls love the music part), then I told liliana that daddy and I had a few problems we needed her help with. She said, "sure, she could help us" (oh, wise child you...)...
So I asked her to sit on the couch and daddy and I would show her our problems...I decided last minute that jacob/and I would improve some typical scenes in our house that WE get tired of dealing with (in terms of sibling fights). Thanks to jacobs theater career in highschool, he was ready and willing (did you guys know that he was a theater nerd????)
Anyway, I quickly tell jacob the scene, he doesnt need to much info, as he knows how to impersonate liliana or mattie.
Scene 1:
mom is playing quietly with a toy and having fun
jacob comes over and starts trying to take the toy
mom starts yelling and pushing jacob
jacob starts crying (no, he did not shed real tears, but got the whining right)
We both look to liliana and say, "what can we do, we have a problem?"
Liliana comes over and says,
"(in a soft, almost condescending voice (im sure I dont sound like that normally...)), "well, you can take turns"
Jacob: but I want to play with it now, she has already had a turn...
Liliana: "I know, I know", But maybe you can just be patient."
Jacob: But I want to take a turn first, then I will let mommy have a turn
Liliana: I know it is hard to wait but just be patient and then it will be your turn...

So, we acted out several scenes, like one of my favorites (to act out, not to deal with on a day to day basis) was when I was sitting on the floor playing with rocks and jacob (pretending to be mattie) came over and grabbed one and put it in his mouth. I frantically (acting like liliana) started grabbing for it and trying to dig my fingers into his mouth, knocking him over in the meantime, now he is crying and i am yelling.
Thank goodness, liliana was there to help with all of our problems. Jacob and I were having such a rough time of it. But she just knew all the solutions to everything. Infact every word of every solution sounded awfully familiar...I wonder if she had heard those words before????

anyway, she had a blast. and without an obvious lecture we got a few messages across...
This pic if from last night..she begged to be put in a sling (I carry mattie around all the time in a different one and upon seeing this huge sling she knew it must fit her, jacob threw her in and she grinned the whole time)

Pancake Recipe

Okay, so we tried out a new pancake recipe yesterday and thought that we would pass it along.  It uses whole wheat (always best if freshly ground).  I'll explain the recipe and then it's health benefits afterwards.  This recipe is for 4-6 people, depending upon how hungry they are.

2 Cups whole wheat (or spelt) flour

2 Cups plain whole milk yogurt or kefir

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 tsp salt 

1 tsp baking soda

2 TBSP melted butter

Mix flour and yogurt/kefir together and let it sit in a warm place (~70-85 degrees F) for 12-24 hours.  Add remainder of ingredients and mix together.  Thin to desired consistency with water and pour dollops onto hot, greased griddle.  Flip pancakes when bubble form and break.

So, changes that I made to it.  Instead of butter, I substituted applesauce (same amount).  I also added 1/2 teaspoon of honey to the mixture, just to sweeten it a little.  Next, I thinned it with milk instead of water.  Lastly, I added frozen, wild blueberries (which is a must in our house).

These pancakes where great!  They had a slight tang (probably would have had a little more without the honey), but not as much as a good sourdough bread.  They were light and had a great flavor.

The health benefits to this pancake recipe: soaking the flour in the yogurt/kefir (and please use the whole milk kind and not the low fat stuff - the low fat kind is disgusting and doesn't provide the good saturated fats that your body needs, which is a topic for another time) gives you similar health benefits as having sourdough breads: it allows the bacteria in the yogurt/kefir to break down several compounds in the wheat flour.  The first is phytic acid.  Phytic acid binds to a lot of minerals in food, blocking absorption.  Lactobacillus, the main bacteria in yogurt and kefir, break this compound down, allowing more minerals to be absorbed.  Another advantage is that the bacteria help to break down gluten, which is a common irritant to the gut.  Yet another advantage is that the bacteria help breakdown some of the carbohydrates, lowering the glycemic index.

The only major problem is that you have to plan on having pancakes the day ahead, which is no problem for us, seeing as we eat pancakes a lot.  Anyways,  try out the recipe, let us know what you think, and, for those daring folk, mess around with the recipe and let us know what you like!

rambling

We always have loads of things to post, we just don't ever put them up.
Jacob and I are considering making a website, where we can put recipes and nutritional info and links to products we just love...we will see. My theory is that if we do not have time to write in our old fashion journals then we shouldnt start a new type of journal. Anyway, more on that later.
Here are a few updated pics of the girls. We just love seeing them grow closer. It warms my heart to see how much liliana just loves Mattie and loves sharing her mommy/daddy with a new sibling.
So we are on a food-storage kick like crazy. We are excited to get all of that together.

update

Well, I guess it is time for an update. I keep forgetting that the reason we started this blog was so that we could have a free way to give family/friends update on our life. Mostly our blog has just turned into a place where we put funny happenings.
So as far as funny happenings, I will go ahead and put tonights dinner conversation:
Daddy: so Nana we need to close our eyes when we pray to Heavenly Father...
Nana: Where is Jesus? I can't see him.
Daddy: Well he lives in Heaven with Heavenly Father
Nana: Where is Heaven
Mommy (head down, not participating, don't want to be drawn into answering questions I dont know the answer to)
Daddy: It is far away
Mommy: Alright, I jump in) It is where we will go when we die
Nana: (quiet-thinking)
Mommy: (We chat abit about jacobs little cousin who just passed away and liliana went to her funeral)
Nana: Is Heavenly Father white?
Daddy: (looks over at me)
Mommy: (head is down once again, have decided it is time to not participate again)

Sooooo...you see this leads to a different story...

Yeah, well we livein Maine, not to diverse up yonder
So we check out a book from the library with beautiful illustrations and the title, He's got the whole world in his hands.
I remember the tune to that song from my upbringing and check it out because liliana just loves books that we can sing too.
So the pics are of a black family and are just beautiful
Around the third time of reading this book we have the following conversation:
Nana: That little boy has black skin
Mommy: Yeah he does. You know Heavenly Father makes us all look a little different from one another, but we are all his children.
Nana: why?
Mommy: (trying to deflect a why question), hey, what color is your skin?
Nana: Gray
Mommy: um...alright
Nana: so that little boy has the whole world in his hands?
Mommy: no, Jesus does. He has us all in his hands. We are His.

Fast forward a few days. We are leaving Target and it is tourist season. Two black people are in the parking lot (because it is tourist season) liliana very excited says,
"hey mom look there is black people"!
Mommy: yes sweetheart I see them
Nana: (very knowingly) They have the whole world in their hands..
Mommy: Um....

So now for an update..
Jacob leaves tomorrow for part of his board exams (it is in Philadelphia). He will be gone a few days for that. Most of the rest of the month jacob will be studying to his written test, which is mid-sept and we will be getting things inorder around our home so that we can take off for Washington,PA the last week of Sept. It is one of two places we are trying out for Jacobs residency. We will stay with friends from our Indiana days and can't wait! The girls and I will only stay a week then we will be back here in Maine mostly without jacob around at all until mid-december. yeah, it is gonna be crazy around these parts but Christmas will come regardless of craziness and hopefully by then we will have a better idea of where we will be moving to in June. So this is it for now.

Noses and Trees

so I am making liliana sit on the couch and read a book right now so that I can post this.
So I was feeding mattie to sleep in the girls room and liliana starts in on her usual of coming in and making noise and I do my usual and make a very stern look on my face and motion for her to leave the room and shut the door. she then proceeds to do her usual and SLOWLY leaves. So after I get done I tell her she is in Time out on the couch and that I will talk to her after 5 mins. I then go to the kitchen and try to think about what I am making for dinner (anyone want to be my chef???)
Anyway, after 5 mins I am calm enough to have the following conversation:
Mommie: honey, why do you come into the room when I am putting mattie to bed? (side comment: nana stop picking your nose)
Nana: but I was whispering
Mommie: I know sweetheart, how come you dont leave when mommy ask you? (nana leave your nose alone)
Nana: It is so funny what daddy says about trees growing in your nose.
Mommie: (realizing she is changing the subject), um yes, that is silly what daddy says (he has always said to her that if she puts anything in her nose then she will grow a tree), he is a silly guy.
Nana: and a wierd guy
Mommie: yes, he is weird also.
Mommie: Hey, do you want to go make blueberry muffins with me?
Nana:Yeah
We race to the kitchen..
Nana: but how am I gonna get the raisin out of my nose?
Mommie: what raisin? Nana, do you have a raisin in your nose?
Nana: (as she continues to stuff her finger up her nostril) yeah mommie, it hurts.

Thankfully all it took was a good blow....so um to my wonderful husband who is not home yet, we may not want to entice the children into growing trees in their noses. Afterall this is your daughter who has told us over and over again how she wants her own little tree...

Pass the OJ

So, I was a little grumpy this morning.  The kids woke up at 6am, meaning that we got up at 6am as well.  So much for it being the Day of Rest.  I whipped up a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast and poured a glass of orange juice for Heather, Liliana, and I, which I had bought at the store the day before (we like the fresh squeeze stuff, not the reconstituted, frozen concentrate stuff).  We start eating.  Liliana takes a few bites, then takes a drink of orange juice.

Liliana: This orange juice is spicy.

Me:  (annoyed) No, it's not.  Just drink it.

Liliana:  The orange juice is fuzzy.

Me:  (even more annoyed and grumpy, and not really understanding what could be going on with the orange juice)  Just drink it!

Heather:  (who obviously understands the possibilities)  Have you tried it to tell whether it is "fuzzy" or "spicy"?

Me:  (just starting to understand, but now annoyed that I was slow on the uptake)  Uh, no.

At this point, I take a small sip, but am unable to tell because I put salsa on my eggs.  Nor am I able to smell it because my nose is a little stuffed up.  I slide the glass over to Heather and she confirms that, yes, I was trying to push our daughter into finishing her hard orange juice.  On the upside, the store where we bought it has a double-your-money-back guarantee!  I just hope I don't get into trouble for supplying a minor with alcohol!

Organized

So, I have been in homes that are organized. I have seen it done. It is possible, right? (if you have enough money!!!-opps, did I say that outloud) No seriously, all of the homes I have been in that are organized have cost money. You need appropriate furniture, bins, organizing cubes, laminated labels, etc...seriously that is alot of money...so you poor folk out there, how do you do it??????
I guess there is always the option to pitch everything and save the money I would have spent on organizing items...that would also help with the having to clean up every day as there would be nothing left to clean...

Bubbles

At breakfast a few days ago, I heard a "Hey daddy, watch this".  A few days later, I was able to capture it on camera.  The picture says it all.

Sweet Dreams

Liliana and I had a conversation in the car as we were driving back from a friend's house.

Liliana: Hey dad, do you want to know my dreams?

Me: Sure.

(Small pause)

Liliana: Can you see my dreams?

Me: No, they are in your head.

Liliana: What if I take them out of my head?

Me: I still can't see your dreams.

Liliana: Well, I'm going to take them out and put them in this water bottle.  (Pause) Can you see them now?

Me: (Laughing) Nope, I still can't see them.

Liliana: They are right here in the water.

Me: They are?  I still can't see them.  What do they look like?

Liliana:  What DO they look like?

Me: I don't know.  I can't see them.

Liliana: Here, I'll open the top.

Me: I'm sorry honey, I still can't see them.

Maybe some day I'll be able to see her dreams.

Camping

So, we took our two kiddos camping up to Flagstaff Lake in Maine for a couple of days (two days, one night to be exact - Tuesday and Wednesday).  We arrived after driving in the sprinkling rain and with threatening clouds above us.  We pitched the tent and a tarp just before the rain came down a little harder - hard enough to put out the little fire that I had started.  But, after a while, the rain subsided and the rest of our stay was very nice.  

The nice thing about staying at Flagstaff is that there is a lake to canoe in and it has a mountain right next to it for hiking.  We did a little of both hiking and canoeing, which Liliana loved.  (Just a

side note - we started up the mountain, not with the intent to climb all the way up, but only made it about a half mile after turning back).  

Liliana loved helping Heather make pasta alfredo on the camp-stove and loved making smores on the campfire.  This was Liliana's first time around a campfire and she found it fascinating.  She was very helpful in finding lots of twigs and branches to throw in it.  

Mattie also enjoyed the trip - mostly because of all the new things that she found on the ground to stuff into her mouth: twigs, pine

 needles, leaves, pine cones, and so forth.  She also loved being in the canoe, though she kept on trying to climb over the side to get to the water.  Thankfully, Heather stayed in the middle of the canoe to keep a hold of her. 

We all had a great time, but we are all grateful to be back home.

Life and Death

We just got the news. We knew it was coming. Jacob's cousin has a little daughter who just passed away from the awful disease of our time:Cancer...
We were privileged to spend a few minutes with her this past weekend up in her hospital room.
We went up as a family Sat. morning, she was awake then, but in alot of pain.
I couldnt get her off my mind and went up by myself for a few hours Sunday night and had the chance to lay next to her.
There is something sacred about birth and death. We were not that close to her but this did not stop us from caring for her and her health/well being.
I hugged my own children alot tighter that night and continue to. I have no idea what it is like as a parent to lose a child. We pray for their little family.
A song is running through my mind:
Una familia dios me dio, le amo de verdad, y yo con El yo quiero estar por la eternidad. Eternas pueden ser las familias por el divino plan, yo quiero heredar el celestial hogar por la mia por la eternidad, por todo, la eternidad. (excuse the spelling ,it has been awhile since writing in this beautiful language)

Legacy

Legacies...
We all love the idea of a legacy, something that gets passed down from generation to generation. It could be a family name. Or a 'tradition' we start, or an attribute, like being faithful...Legacies are wonderful and can be a source of strength and comfort. After all, it is through legacies of others faith that we have the restored gospel today. Powerful thing, a legacy is.
So, many of you know, I am, for all intents and purposes, self-educating myself, with regard to nutrition/health. My husband, is being educated (at a high cost$$$) on disease and cures(where applicable). So after I learn something, I pass it on his way. After all, he is NOT being taught how to keep people in health or educate others on nutrition. If anything, almost all I pass on to him goes directly against (en contra) to what he has been taught. We have accepted this and continue to self-educate ourselves, even if it pits us against common thinking.
I have always been known as a little 'out there' (okay, so maybe alot out there)...Jacob knows this (gosh, by now he should!)
We chat alot about health when we are together because of all the sickness (physical/mental, etc) he sees daily. We both want to help others restore health. We cannot go out in public without being surrounded by chronic health problems that we as a country have just learned to live with and accept. IT makes us sad (and mad sometimes) Why is this?
We are a nation that has been given/accepted a false legacy.
We have been told that bodies are for pleasure, instead of the truth, which is that our bodies are a temple, the home of our spirit. our bodies are created in the image of our Father (we look like him!!!). We have been told that we can do unto our body and it will not affect our spirit. I disagree. Our spirit can only grow, in so much as our physical bodies allow growth. For instance, if we are so unwell that we take numerous meds that either knock us out all day, or make us drowsy all day, then how can we possibly grow spiritually. Or even still, if we are so deprived that we have no food/drink for long periods of time, then how can we even grow spiritually when we are barley alive? There is an inseparable connection between our spirits/bodies. Both are alive!
We have been asked by the designer of our bodies to care for them and He purposely invented a body for us that we would need to constantly feed/nourish, in order for life to continue here on earth. Why give us such a responsibility with something so precious? How can we be expected to care for millions of others in eternity if we are unable to care for our body, the house of our own spirt?
This is where legacies come in.
Here is an excerpt from the Word of Wisdom,
"Given for a principle with a promise, adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints...behold...thus saith the Lord unto YOU (all of us); In consequence of evils and designs which DO and WILL exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forwarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation..."

Our bodies have been ravished by faulty traditions/legacies...
We learn how/what/when.etcc...to eat at home and how we learn tends to be what we pass on. So we like to think that diabetes just runs in our blood, rather, we should think about how recipes/life styles get repeated all over again (hence the same result of diabetes)...What are we passing unto our children?
Jacob and I are consumed with this. Do our children know what 'real' food is? Can they escape the well funded propaganda that tells them they 'deserve' some item of industrial food made by those who only care about profit (conspiring men/women). We were given a revelation to keep us on guard. Have we let our guard down and given into comfort? People who make food (industrial food as I call it), either make food that mimics 'real 'food(like margarine instead of butter), or make food that is totally fake ('Twinkies' anyone?) but that is palatable, hence, our body will betray us and say, 'YES! I want that twinkie (insert another food item). This pits our bodies against our spirits in a way that is so darn convientat for the adversary, not to mention profitable for those in the food industry.
As members of the church we tend to see the obvious things that we need to to mindful of, like entertainment, or media, or clothing, etc...we overlook how food drags us down, and can, eternally.
I am not a believer in the idea that our loving Father in heaven gives us, on purpose, health problems (disease's, chronic, like diabetes, cancer, etc, or one timers, like the flu) in order to try us. I believe that it is a result of living on a planet that is alive (with loads of living bacteria/viruses, etc) as well as a result of others choices (like smoking around us, or toxic spills, or selling products that are harmful for our living cells), and then as a result of our choices. Unfortunately, many of us make choices based on what we were taught, sometimes, this is a good thing, and sometimes, as we can see, based on our countries current health status, it is a bad thing.
We (jacob/I) want our children to know about growing/storing/preparing all their food needs. Once you realize that you are growing something that is alive then it becomes easier to know which food to choose to eat. How far removed is the food item from being alive? When we are encouraged to eat whole grains, it does not count when one eats a cracker that has a 'whole grain' stamp on the box. It is no longer a useful, alive, whole grain for your body to use. It is not longer real.
But I do have a few crackers in my house right now. Why.???...legacies...that is why....bad traditions of my growing up, habits my stomach is used to. We are always kicking something out of our 'tradition' habit and starting new ones...We kinda know where we are headed:
a 90/10 diet (where we eat what we know we should 90% of the time (which means everything within the walls of our home/car, is right on) and 10% for when we have no choice but to eat what is before us (other homes, or time of scarcity, or for when we have the occasional treat, for which we have no emotional guilt about). Our diet will flow with the seasons, so that we eat the freshest things, the things most alive at that time. This helps our bodies in many ways. We eat things in their most natural state, cooking lightly (steaming, or lightly sauteing when in need of cooking at all, raw is wonderful, esp in the summer) We use herbs to flavor instead of salt/pepper, which offer no nutrition to our diet (unless using alittle unrefined sea salt, which is nutritional). Drinking loads of water, so that we never mistake a sign of thirst, for that of hunger. We just have loads of nutritional things we are working on here at the homestead, but mostly, we are trying to change some legacies passed down to us. We are engaged in the same kind of work that is required of one when you are changing an attribute of your character (like if you are attempting to become a patient person, or one who bridles his/her body with regard to the opposite sex).
Hard work, changing legacies/traditions....much easier to learn the right way first...

Garden Update

So, here is an update on our garden.  (For a reminder of what our garden looked like a month and a half ago, click here).We have held the slugs at bay for the moment, though with the wet rainy weather, they've started coming back out, and our garden is flourishing.   As you can see from our pictures, the squash and zucchini are doing wonderfully.  We've harvested some small yellow squash and zucchinis (we like them small so they don't have very many seeds).  We've just started to get string beans last week, but we've had sugar snap peas for a few weeks now - they are just about done now.  The girls absolutely love the sugar snaps, especially Liliana.  She would go outside to help Heather pick some for dinner and would eat more than she would pick.  

The cucumbers are just starting to produce and have just gotten tall enough to put the netting up so that they will climb.  The cucumbers and squash just love to climb (as evident in our first picture.  The last picture shows our tomato plants, which have taken off!  We have loads of green tomatoes - we planted 4 different types - cherry, and then two other kinds that I don't remember the names of, but Heather could tell you.  The green peppers, which are just in front of the tomatoes, have little tiny buds that are the beginnings of peppers.  The neat thing is that we started all of these from seeds ourselves.  We do have a couple of seedlings that Heather bought at a farmer's market in town that have a head start on our plants (I didn't include pictures of these).  We've already picked a ripe tomato and there are several small peppers on the pepper plant.  Just a note, one the last picture, the front box is just about empty because we just moved and replanted it with lettuce, carrots, and onions.

Our one failure is our potato patch.  The spot where we put the potatoes is much too shaded and potatoes (as we later read and witnessed ourselves) really need full sunlight.  We'll see if we get any potatoes from them, but we're not holding our breaths and will probably chalk this one up to a learning experience, and thankfully a fairly inexpensive one at that.

So, that's where we are about a month and a half after our first garden post.  The nice thing about our raised beds is that there is very little tending/weeding, mostly because we used fresh compost.  We do have to pull out the occasional maple shoot, thanks to several large maples nearby.  We definitely recommend this type of gardening to others, especially those with limited space.  The only thing that we would do differently is to put mulch around the boxes to help keep the slugs away, which was what one farmer at the farmer's market suggested.

Monkey in the Tree

So, I think I have officially become the worst doctor-parent ever.  My colleagues are appalled by my actions, although they are polite enough to hide most of their shock, but the look in their eyes say it all as I tell them that I let, helped, and encouraged our 3 and a half year old daughter climb a tree.  

Let me explain a little bit.  Liliana has always been our climber.  When she was a year and a half, we put here in the bottom bunk of a bunk-bed.  Even though we put things in front of the ladder (which is at the end of the bed), she would figure out how to climb up things to get to the top bunk.  And then there's the playground near our house, where there is a slide that has a climbing wall (pretty close to vertical) as one of the ways to get up.  Liliana has been using this climbing wall for about a year now.  

Recently, she's been bugging me about planting a little tree for her.  When I asked her why, she told me that she wanted to have a tree to climb, but that it had to be a small one.  So, last Sunday, we were out in the front yard swinging Mattie and, having a small maple there, I placed her on the lowest branch.  She quickly figured out how to stand up and climb up the first few branches, loving every moment.  

loose the stink and save your money...

So we are endorsing a product....(no we are not getting paid) We just know there are others out there who care about health and saving money...http://www.thecrystal.com/crystal_story.cfm

Check it out, we love it...and you only have to put it on after taking your bath or shower. We have learned the hard way not to put it on any other time (by then you have bacteria on your skin and it will get on your stick and make it stink)
Seriously who doesn't want to only have to buy deodorant once a year (if that) and know that no chemicals are getting into their skin. Nor do we have to worry about staining our shirts...
Anyway..we love it

Lovin' It

So, Mattie loves the swing... and Liliana loves pushing her in it.  The clip explains it all.

Carnage

Our house has become a house of carnage.  It's a morning and evening ritual, especially on the cool, wet days and evenings - sometimes as a family, other times as individuals - we stalk our prey and protect our garden boxes from being ransacked by slugs.  I won't provide any pictures of our "kills" as we try to maintain a modest G to PG rating site, not to mention they are pretty disgusting.  Yes, every morning and evening, we go outside with our salt shaker - it's a good thing that we bought a 50 lbs bag (yup, we bought a lifetime supply) and have plenty of salt to put on these suckers.  Even the kids are involved - Liliana loves to spot them out for us and Mattie desperately tries to grab for the salt shaker, trying to get it to her mouth.  

For those of you not familiar with this method of disposing of these creatures, it is a secret carefully guarded and passed down from my older brothers down the chain and now I pass it on.  Good luck to those of you who suffer the same problems as we do!  

willing response

Well Jacob was on call tonight so LIliana and I were doing scriptures just us two. She grabbed the regular book of mormon (as opposed to the picture book of mormon) and I started to read the first verse, "I nephi, having been born of goodly parents..". After I read that one line I (with a smile on my face) turn to liliana and ask, "do you have good parents"?, She did not even have to take a second to breathe her answer was out to quickly, "no, you didn't give me a Popsicle when i asked today, you did not let me wear my black dress when i wanted to today, etc...on and on the list went"
I was just sitting there in total shock. I mean, I was expecting a "yes i love you mommy you are great response (or even her normal response, which is, I love mattie, or i love daddy, she still thinks she can only love one person at a time)..but instead of being a 'goodly' parent i was the one who had all these things worth complaining about...it was just a hilarious moment..to think my 3yr old had just a quick response to my question...what did i do, you may ask...
well, what any 'goodly' parent would...i pretended i didn't hear a word she said and just kept on reading the scriptures...
also another funny thing she said
She bumped her nose on her chair pretty good and was crying. She told me what happened and I said, "you tell that chair not to bump your nose anymore!"...she looked and me with a straight face and said, "I can't, it doesn't have a face".
true, true, you are right there...

Translation, Please!

Liliana is trying to learn a new word: squirt.  It all started yesterday morning while enjoying an orange together.  As she would bite into the orange, the juice would squirt at her.  I was laughing and asked her if the juice was squirting onto her.  She replied that it was and we finished our orange.  

She choose to try her hand at this new word in the middle of the night.  She woke up and was fussing a little.  I went to see what was going on.  When I asked her what the problem was, she replied that she had "air squirting out of her tummy".  Not knowing if I had heard her correctly (I'm not exactly the swiftest of the bunch when awoken at 1:30 AM), I asked her, again, what the problem was.  She repeated her problem "I have air squirting out of her tummy".  Not knowing what to do with this problem, I asked her what she wanted me to about her problem.  She told me that she wanted a blanket on, so I readily complied and went to back to bed.  

The next morning, I asked her if she still had air squirting out of her tummy and she told me "no, not anymore, I'm awake now".  She then explained that when she has air squirting out of her tummy, it means that she is cold at night and wants a blanket on.   So much for thinking we both speak English!

 

Growth

There has been alot of 'growth' around the ol homestead.
Both girls have grown taller and heavier just in the last month.
jacob and i have been growing even closer together as work takes so much time that when we have time, we really relish it.
and then,
there is the garden...our new pride and joy. we inspect it every day, to see the amazing way that it just grows, slowly and surely.
We are doing "Squarefootgardening" this year and love it. Iwould recommend it to anyone, there is a website that goes along with it. It is seriously the easiest way to garden and still get loads of vegetables. We even grew all of our own seedlings this year (a first for us). So we just bean when we look at it.
We have already harvested our first batch of radishes, lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard...
These pics were taken a few days ago and already the garden looks twice as big...

exercise (in patience)

Well tonights plan was to get the children to bed and be a couple...so...after dinner, we get ice cream cones (FHE around these parts)
then we are off on a walk (i.e. " you are getting very sleepy, just relax and close your eyes")
Mattie is out in the first 10 mins of walk and liliana is complaining about everything (her normal for when she is about to fall asleep and is fighting it)...but, she is a fighter, so we keep walking. We walk farther then we have yet to ever walk, and she is still carrying on about how tired she is and when are we going to get to her street with her house on it (she wants to fall asleep in her bed). We of course just want to arrive home with two sleeping children and transfer them, and then go about our QUIET evening...well we arrive home, mattie still asleep (mind you she has been sleeping for 30 minutes now in the carrier on jacobs back), liliana stays in the stroller (plan B, jacob will now go running with her as the method to get her to sleep and his exercise). so we carefully take mattie upstairs and the minute we hit her bed she wakes up, I try giving her the 'sleepy' juice, but to no avail, she is up and ready to play (afterall she just had a powernap). I told jacob not to come home from running this liliana was asleep. Well after being gone an hour i hear the door open...liliana comes bounding in and Mattie starts squeling in delight at the return of her noisy sister..tired jacob comes in a little bit later, he has just run over 6 miles (not just any 6 miles mind you, he had to listen to a 3 year old jabber his ear off with "why" questions all the way home).
So I take my 3yr old and get her into bed. I then try to nurse baby to bed and her way of letting me know what she thought about said plans was to give me three bites in a row (oh, the things one endures!!!), I quickly close shop ("I will show her"!), and place her on the floor in my room..she is a happy playing clam (Its 9pm), jacob enters the room and says that he will take her on a walk (again)...so I am hopeful that the baby will return asleep, although I wonder if this is just the children's way of making sure we get some exercise:)

Surfaced

well it has been awhile since I have gotten on to post. I have surfaced (come up for air) and thought I would put up a brief post myself.
Liliana has spent the last 8 or so months getting together every Tuesday morning with her friends for Craft morning...(the kids would participate in a craft, have snack, and then play-us mommies would have snack, take personality test and die laughing about one anothers results, chat about our changing mommy bodies, etc...)anyway...as I was writing this, well in under 10 minutes i have gone from happy surfacing mommy to, " I have nothing nice to say to any of my children" mommy...I going to get a bowl of Ice cream and go to bed..but before that, here are some quick pics of her end of the year craft morning party...

Memorial Day

Once again, life seems to be racing forward, our lives have become extremely busy, and it has left us postless for about a month.  Wanting to celebrate Memorial Day (one of the holidays that the Hospital recognizes, thus giving me the day off) we went to the beach with some friends and Mikhaela, who came down to spend the afternoon with us.  Here are some pictures of our crazy girls.

Liliana still loves the water and could care less that the actual temperature of the water is a touch about freezing (remember it IS only May in Maine!)

Mattie loves attention and will laugh and "talk" to just about anyone.  She loves being held by anyone who will hold her.

I don't think that there's a baby out there who doesn't love necklaces! 

update, more babies and kids

Well it has been awhile. Things have a little crazy around here, crazier than normal that is.
Jacob is entering his last week of Psychiatry (so, he should be all fixed up by the end of the week :)). He can't wait for it to be over. He would much rather crack your bones than listen to you talk about the voices you hear coming from the chimney (yes, this really happened).
As for me, we have a few more babies and alot more kids around here!
You see, our babies are in the egg shells just about to hatch, and when they sprout they get moved to a cowpot (yes, you can use your imagination on what the cowpot is made out of, sure you can guess) and grow into our kids.
We have become farmers (well minimally) and have grown our own seedlings from little tiny seeds. What a miracle of life. Not to mention, what a savings on the pocketbook.
We have bought most of our seeds from Seeds of Change and a few from Johnny's. We recommend both company's for quality and service. We also recommend Cowpots. And we will be Squarefoot Gardening this year (they have a website, it is sooooooo great) Esp. for those who are not sure about the quality of their own soil. or those to have no 'farming' tools to deal with soil....
Jacob is building our garden tomorrow and we are just excited. We will post pics tomorrow.
The children(this time I am referring to the kids jacob and I made) are growing well. liliana lost her fork tonight at the start of dinner (due to misbehaving with it). She wanted some suggestions as to what she was going to eat with and we started off by saying, "well, you could use your hands (most kids would jump at that, but she didn't), then we said, "or, you could use chopsticks (she has never seen these before). She went with that suggestion. I hope to include a pic tonight. It was fun watching her try to figure it out.
Jacob and I have recently learned that discipline does not always have to be punishment. She can learn correct behavior from consequences and not all consequences are miserable, meaning that it is not the misery that induces someone to change a behavior...
Anyway, enough soapboxing for me.