You're Doing What?

Knowing How To Cook

2011-11-18T16:28:00.000-06:00

I learned this week that when you think you know how to cook, it really is just a matter of knowing how to use the tools available to you.

We used to use the microwave a lot. Then we quit because we heard it isn't very good for your food. I understand that's considered controversial, but I'm not going to argue that because it's really not what I'm writing about right now. The point is, I had to re-learn how to cook. I had to stop putting frozen veggies into a plastic container and pushing buttons and start putting those same veggies into a pot and steam or boil them. No big deal, but at first I felt rather silly for having to stop and think about what to do with them.

We do a lot of cooking "from scratch." I tend to be a bit prideful about that. So this week I got knocked down a peg or two. One of my children had a friend over who can't eat wheat. So she brought her own dinner. All I had to do was microwave it. Uh huh. Sounded easy enough.

It turns out in the 5 years or so since I stopped using a microwave they started printing the instructions really, really small. (No, it has nothing to do with me getting older and my eyes not seeing that small print.) I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. I finally managed to squint just right to see it says to slit the overwrap. Whoops. I guess that's the plastic package we tried to remove completely. Then microwave on medium for so many minutes and then high for so many more minutes. I have absolutely no idea how to change the power setting! We only have a microwave because it was built in when we moved in. I hope the food came out edible because we just microwaved it on high the whole time. (At least I think that's the default setting.)

So, yes, I know how to cook on a stove or bake in an oven. But microwaves are a whole 'nother story!

Random Things I Love About My Baby

2011-11-03T03:33:00.000-05:00

I'm not asleep. It's 3am and I'm awake. Why? No, I haven't had insomnia in 22 years. I'm up with this adorable little baby beside me.

People always ask if your baby is "good". Well, Max wouldn't qualify as a good baby I think, by most people's standards. He has long (well, they seem long at the time) periods where he cries and I can't seem to soothe him. He doesn't sleep very well either.

But he smiles when he's happy and he gives me these looks like he adores me. I love the little moments. They keep me going.

He'll be sleeping in my arms and begin to wake up. He'll see me, smile, then relax and go back to sleep. It's like he just needed to be sure I was still there. (I think that's why he doesn't sleep well. There are those times I put him down, rare as they may be.)

I love those times when he falls asleep nursing and we seem to just fit perfectly together. Like he just belongs there and we are both so relaxed.

I love when he "talks" to me (like right now) with a series of gurgles and aahs and goos. And his expressions are so serious as if he just wants me to understand. But then suddenly breaks into almost a laugh and we laugh together at his "joke". I love the sound of his voice.

I love kissing baby foreheads. And his cute blond fuzz that will someday need a haircut.

I love those moments when I think I've calmed him.

I love how his siblings love him--each in their own way. Gwen, at 20 mos, can have a dangerous love and I have to watch her closely, but she means well. She bit him last week. Like Max in the storybook Where the Wild Things Are he has to watch out for those who will eat him up they love him so. Speaking of wild things, 11 yr old Clark can turn so calm when he gets a turn to hold Max. I love that.

I really love that when I check if he's breathing, he is. I had a scare with that today and I'm so grateful it was nothing.

And I really, really love that he's almost asleep as I finish this post one-handed.

Typing this helped this late night seem not so bad. I may have to do a post on things I love about my 3 yr old soon (and there are many) the next time he throws a tantrum or I step on one of his cars in the middle of the night.

Shhh. He's asleep! G'night!

Max Isaiah's birth

2011-09-11T08:48:00.000-05:00

Our twelfth child has arrived. It's a boy! That makes 6 boys and 6 girls. How awesome is that? He is absolutely beautiful!

7 lbs, 10 oz. 20 3/4 inches. He was born on Monday, September 5 (Labor Day) at 7:47pm.

His birth story still amazes me. If you don't want the gory details, stop here. I don't know what is gross to others, I just share the story as it happened.

I've had some really intense labors. And obviously, not just one or two births. It's true that after my first I forgot most of the pain. After my second I still didn't think the pain was that big of a deal. My 3rd was like a 2 hour contraction that was so intense I was afraid of labor with my 4th. And that fear has been an issue for me ever since. Some of my labors have been worse than that 3rd one, others about the same. I tend to have my babies come fast and furious and after a while it's just scary knowing it's coming. With this last pregnancy, one of the first thoughts I had when I saw two lines on the pregnancy test was, "Oh, I have to go through labor again!" Seriously folks, I spent time last weekend thinking "I'm stuck. I don't wanna stay pregnant, but there's no way to get this baby out without some pain." So I prayed a lot. And I asked a lot of people to pray for me. I was praying for a pain free labor. You know, you hear about young girls not even realizing they're in labor and then they need to push. I figured why not ask? The book of James tells us we do not have because we do not ask. So I asked. And I asked for prayers about the fear too.

God answered all my prayers with this labor. About 2 weeks before he was born I was noticing I still hadn't even really had any Braxton Hicks contractions. That seemed weird to me. I usually have tons. But I've been drinking red raspberry leaf tea every single day for a long time now and figured maybe my uterus is plenty strong now and didn't need the "practice." Who knows. Then I started "talking" with a fellow momys (from the email list MOMYS--mothers of many young siblings of which I've been a member for about 8 years now) who was due about the same time. She was sharing her similar experiences of fast, intense labor and that God answered her prayers and had given her pain free labor. She did what we tried with Gwen's birth--to focus on God and praise and worship Him through the labor instead of focusing on contractions--and it worked for her. With Gwen's birth the worship time got interrupted and I never could get back to it. But I was determined to make it work this time. I discussed it with my midwife and she was in agreement with me that we could have an awesome birth experience if we worshiped God through it.

So after first praying and asking God for pain free labor, that very night I began to have some light contractions. They didn't feel like Braxton Hicks. They felt like they were actually working, but not very hard and not very fast. My momys friend said she'd had this for about 2 weeks before her pain free deliveries, so I figured cool, I could handle a long, slow labor that let me still function throughout it. I tolerated these contractions quite nicely. Sometimes they'd take my breath away and I would have to stop what I was doing, but they never hurt at all. Just felt like things were happening really really slowly. After about a week and a half of this, I was dilated to 4, but still couldn't say for sure I was in labor. The contractions would come and go and never hurt and were never regular and just fit in with my life as I went about taking care of the kids and house and trying to get projects done before the baby came.

I had a list of things I wanted to get done before the baby came. It was written on the chalkboard we have up on the wall in our dining room. On Labor Day, I got up and began to work on the last two items on my list--get the fan pull done for the baby's room, and bind the last 2 of the 3 quilts Grace, Claire and I had made for the baby's room. I finished one, then cut and pressed strips of fabric to make binding for the very last one. I was ready to go sew it onto the quilt, but went to the bathroom first. Bloody show. In the past that meant we'd have a baby in 12-24 hours so I let Roger and the midwife know, then hurried to the sewing room to finish the quilt. I felt a few contractions as I sewed and figured this was nothing really. It didn't even hurt as much as menstrual cramps. But I also knew that the position I was sitting in trying to hurry and finish this quilt was making me more uncomfortable and I needed to go relax. But I finished the quilt, posted pics on facebook, got the fan pull ready to be hung (and it's still waiting for someone to attach it to the chain for the fan), then went to lay down and rest. I was feeling really sleepy.

I laid down on the bed and slept. I would wake up, realize a contraction was ending and lay there for a while wondering what was going on because I could feel my body changing, but nothing hurt at all. Occasionally I'd feel a big contraction coming on, lots of tightening, but suddenly it was as if I was drugged and I'd fall asleep. Then I'd wake as it ended. My awesome heavenly Father was putting me to sleep for the strong contractions!! I seriously never felt pain with these!

I had some praise and worship music still prepared on my computer from Gwen's birth. I had Roger turn that on for me, and at some point I had to get up so they could prepare the bed. The whole labor is really a bit of a blur for me since I slept through most of it. I know at one point I felt this weird movement in my belly. I have no way to describe it other than it felt the baby just jumped down into position. I glanced at the time and saw it was 7:02 and knew that now it was safe to push. We were past Samuel's birth minute. But for some reason, I just couldn't believe it could possibly be time to push. Nothing had hurt yet, no one was there telling me I could push, I just felt I had to wait until everyone was ready. From that point on, the contractions hurt because I was literally holding back trying to work against them and not push. But I only had a few and the pain of holding back is nothing like the pain I'd experienced in past labors.

I finally asked the midwife to check me. She said I was fully dilated and could push. I didn't believe her. She kept assuring me it was okay. Roger climbed up on the bed to support me, but then we had to wait for him to take off his boots. Then he needed support so Claire climbed behind him. I had these visions of poor Claire getting squished by her dad because I was pushing against him. I remember trying to lean forward more so she wouldn't get squished. I remember looking up once and seeing a wall of kids watching off to the side, then looking up a little later and that wall of kids had moved way closer. And I pushed. I don't know how long, but even that didn't hurt. We were all praying and worshiping as I pushed. Usually I feel stinging as the baby comes out, but not this time. And then he was here. A boy! And so beautiful! And we were done! I am still just in awe over the beauty of it all.

That night as everyone else slept, I just kept going over the birth in my mind and would have to suppress laughter. God answered every single prayer I'd had over this birth. Our daughter Faith was home for the weekend and had to leave by 8 to get back to school before curfew. It had to be hard for her to leave, but at least I wasn't still in labor! She got to see her new brother before she left. And there were so many other little things that were all needing to fall in place and they did. God is so amazingly awesome and loves us so much. He wants to give us good things, but we have to ask and be willing to receive.

I do have to say, I've asked for pain free labor before and didn't receive it. I think the big difference this time was that I focused on HIM through the labor. I asked Him to help me through, but then didn't focus on me this time, I focused on Him. When I stopped listening to Him, I did have pain. He was telling me it was time to push and I wouldn't listen. I wouldn't believe. And it hurt. But when I re-focused on Him, the pain went away again. What a life lesson that is!

It makes me think of this old hymn--Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. It's so true! Jesus, please help me remember that every day!!!

All Things Work Together For Good

2011-07-11T22:57:00.000-05:00

Saturday night just after midnight we got a call that one of our cows had to be put down due to dogs attacking. We didn't know which cow it was. We still had 3 cows left on that property--Esther who is waiting for us to have room in the freezer, Stella who is a mean, nasty jersey, and Flo who is our best milk cow. So Roger got up and went to Coleman (an hour away) to find out what was going on.

It was Stella. It was a relief because of the 3 she was the one least disappointing to lose. But still, no one wants to lose a cow. And then it turns out the dogs belonged to the people renting our house and they didn't care. That's a whole other nightmare we need to deal with.

We were pretty upset about the whole thing. Roger came home and finally got a bit of sleep, but had to leave again first thing in the morning to get our remaining two cows and bring them here. We really don't have enough land here to support 3 cows (those 2 plus Bella--Roger's favorite cow that hates me. If she weren't a cow I'd be jealous. She's the one currently giving us milk though.) but we needed to do something to keep them safe until the dogs are gone.

Flo and Esther both looked pretty bad. They had cuts and scrapes from running through barbed wire to get away from the dogs. And there are bites on them. Flo looked like she was either about to give birth or recently had. Her udders were full. Roger thought she looked ready to give birth, but someone more experienced with animals said no, she had already. So he figured he was wrong and wanted to try milking. She's a mess and he did his best to doctor her up, but said she seemed to have bad mastitis. We prayed for her and figured a visit to the vet was in line as soon as we could get her there.

We've both struggled with anger, but figure it doesn't do any good and we try to let it go. It's hard. But little things happen to brighten our days. For example, this evening I was about to make dinner. I looked out the window and saw a baby deer in our cow pasture "playing" with our rooster. Fighting, playing, what's the difference, right? No one got hurt and it was so cute to watch. So Clark went outside with the binoculars to watch them. Roger got some video of it. Then Clark came in and calmly said, "there's a calf in the pen with Flo." WHAT?!? We'd been convinced she'd had the calf and figured the dogs had got it. So we went out to check and sure enough, there's an adorable brand new baby calf in the pen. And it's a girl!

Before all this, we didn't even realize Flo was pregnant. She carries well and it barely shows. Had we not brought her home because of the dogs, we'd have totally missed out. And chances are, the dogs would have gotten this calf. Our last two or three calves just "mysteriously disappeared" out there. But this one would have been an even greater loss because she's a full blooded jersey and will probably be a great milk cow in a couple years!

So we searched for names that mean "Blessed" because we know we are. Gwen is already taken by our daughter so we went with Trixie.

Meet Trixie, just hours old at most.

Doing It All

2011-06-24T11:15:00.000-05:00

Our cow has been giving us some delicious milk lately and we are feeling so excited to get to drink it! I've been in several conversations with people where they ask if I'm making my own butter with the cream. When I say no, they just look so disappointed in me!

Let me point something out here. There are 12 people living in my house. I don't do all the cooking and cleaning because we work together and that greatly lightens the load, but I am primarily responsible for it all. If no one else feels like cooking, I do it. If someone is gone for the hour/day/week that a job needs to get done, I do it. It's a lot! It's bearable and I'm grateful for the blessings that I have, but it's still a lot of work.

I just can't really do it all. I have my limits. I bake bread occasionally, but too often we just buy it. Claire is 13 now and becoming our expert Artisan Bread baker. (Google Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. I don't have time to do it for you right now. It's worth your time!) and she loves that bread enough she makes time to bake it for dinner. Home made bread is better. It's healthier, less expensive, and way yummier. But we only get 24 hours a day and I am finding that at this stage of pregnancy, sleep is a must. Home made butter is the same. It's healthier, yummier, and less expensive. But it's a LOT of work. First you skim the cream, then you shake it, then you rinse it, then salt it, and only then is it ready to put in some sort of container for storage (and that container will be another thing to wash later). And it's not like we just use a little bit of butter. We're talking more than a pound a week. And did I mention we love our milk? We aren't currently skimming cream off it, so we'd have to give up quantity and quality in our milk to get the cream so we could do all that work to have butter. It's more than an hour's work to get a pound of butter which I could buy at the store for under $3.

So I just kinda wanted to remind everyone that people have to prioritize what they do themselves and what they buy or pay someone to do. Don't try to lay a guilt trip on someone just because they choose different priorities than you do. We all have our own lives to live. Which means also that if you've read something on this blog that I do that leaves you feeling bad because you don't, stop it! I'm not judging anyone for what they do or don't do themselves. I write this blog because I like to write. Sometimes I think things I say might help someone, but it is in no way intended to make you feel like you should work harder (unless you're lazy and just sit around reading blogs ALL day long, then you should get up and do something!) or change your life to fit mine.

Now, if someone wants to come over and make us some butter with our cream from our cow, we might let ya! ;) We might even share.

Adding More to the Mix

2011-06-05T12:16:00.000-05:00

We have added friends and family to our home every day this past week. We kept four girls Sunday through Friday while their parents were out of town, then Saturday friends and family arrived to help us celebrate Faith's graduation from high school.

So every day I made lunch for at least 15 people. You might think that would be no big deal to me since there are so many of us on a regular basis, but it was really different. First, I learned that we don't eat much compared to other people. I think it's because we snack on fruits and veggies and nuts throughout the day, so at meal time we don't need as much. Apparently other people don't eat that way so they need to eat a lot more at each meal. I had to more than double what our family normally eats. Since we eat a lot to start with, that really made a big difference!

The picture is just bread on plates as I began to prepare lunch yesterday. Yep, just plain old peanut butter and honey sandwiches. First we had to clear a huge amount of counter top (and doesn't everyone's counter get covered again as soon as you clean it up? So when you need it there are miscellaneous papers, mail, etc to move? If you don't have that problem, tell me how to solve it!). Then we had to take care of Ezra who gets almond butter due to a peanut allergy. And his sandwich has to be cut and placed just right on his plate so it looks like whatever he is asking for that day--this can only be done after properly interpreting what in the world the 3 yr old boy is saying. Then we have to accommodate special requests such as open face peanut butter with no honey, or peanut butter and butter hold the honey. Of course there are shouts of "I want mine with just honey!" which I ignore. They know me better than that. Or, "can I have 2 sandwiches?" (yes, Samuel, I already know you'll need that 2nd sandwich before I can even sit down.) "How come we don't have jelly anymore?" Can you even begin to comprehend the headache of all the different flavors of jelly they would be requesting and how complicated a simple sandwich could become if I bought jelly? Not to mention it's usually got things in it like sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup that cause me to prefer honey.

While sandwiches are being prepared and handed out, milk is being poured by someone else. There's often craziness in the kitchen as they come in looking for cups or wanting to know how much longer or checking to be sure I'm doing their sandwich the way they want it. And all this for a simple meal of sandwiches.

Bedtime was another thing. Looking back, I'm not sure we did baths the whole week, but we did have them in the pool every day at least. But one evening after I tucked in everyone 8 and under, I came down stairs and one of the girls said, "That sure took a long time!" I felt a bit put down, and defended myself by pointing out that it does take a while to tuck in SEVEN children!

Anyway, my point to this whole thing is that people often ask me how I do it. They have trouble with their 1 or 2 or 3 or even 4 and they can't imagine having 11. I usually respond by explaining I do it one at a time. This week just drove that point home for me. Adding 4 all at once made it hard. And they are good kids! It's a leap from what I'm used to rather than a step. I'm very thankful for my children, and along with that, I'm thankful that I have had them one at a time, not all at once. It's easier to walk up stairs one by one than it is to skip steps.

Inertia

2011-06-01T20:04:00.000-05:00

In high school I had to memorize the definition of inertia. It was something along the lines of: an object in motion will remain in motion and an object at rest will remain at rest until acted on by another force.

This principle applies to so many areas of my life.

I have found that if I get up and get going first thing in the morning, I accomplish a lot that day. I get started and keep moving. But if I get up and I don't get going--like perhaps getting on my computer too early, or sit around talking to kids too long--I just seem to stay at rest. I suspect this is true for most people.

Children can act as a force that changes my current state of motion. If I am at rest and hear certain things, like crying, something breaking, or quite a few other things actually, I will jump up pretty quickly. If I am in motion and a child needs comfort, I will find myself at rest holding that child.

And my will power can change my state of motion too. This is an important principle I have finally figured out. I can be busy and needing rest and tell myself, "Stop!" and then get some rest. When I do this, I find I'm better able to get things done later. Duh. It shouldn't have taken me so long to learn this. And equally important is that when I find myself resting too much and not getting things done, I can tell myself, "Time to get moving." and get up and get going. And I feel good when I'm running around getting things done.

So there's one law of physics I'm finally mastering. If only my children could figure out the one about how no two objects can occupy the same place at the same time (like my lap perhaps) and then if there isn't one already, there should be one about how no one can be in two places at once.

How Can You Afford All Those Kids? part 4--know what you need

2011-05-31T16:05:00.001-05:00

To cut spending it is crucial to know the difference between Wants and Needs. Needs are things you absolutely cannot live without. Wants are everything else.

Food, shelter and clothing are needs. You must have those things to survive. You must provide those things for your children.

We must feed ourselves and our children. But McDonald's food is not at all a need. (And if you stop eating it for a while, you'll find it's not even a Want anymore because it will make you sick to your stomach if you try it again later.) Needs in groceries, in my way of thinking, would include meats and other protein sources, dairy, fruits and veggies, and breads. (I was raised on the Basic 4 Food groups and still think that way. It works for me.) Most of our meat and milk comes from our cows. It costs us time and money to raise them, but it's worth it to us. And we save a LOT of money that way. Our dairy cow costs us less to feed and care for than the milk we would have bought at the store. To get milk from her she has to have a calf. So since we have 2 dairy cows, if we rotate them each year, we get milk and a calf once a year. When that calf is about a year old, we can take it to be processed. The meat we get costs us less than a dollar a pound and feeds us for about a year. It works out really nicely for us if we can keep up with the timing of things.

We eat pretty healthy. We cook most things from scratch mostly because it's just cheaper that way, but we've also seen how much healthier it is and how much better we feel. Recently we've been buying store bought cereal so our grocery costs have climbed quite a bit. But when we are less lazy and actually get up and fix breakfast we save a lot of money. Oatmeal is WAY cheaper and healthier than cold cereal. We make coffee cake with 1/2 the sugar and use whole wheat flour. It's yummy, more filling than cereal, and cheaper. Rather than buying crackers, chips, or other junk food for snacks, we eat fruits, nuts and carrots. I do spend the extra on baby carrots because I've found that overall they are cheaper for us. If I buy regular carrots, they go bad in the fridge because let's face it, when you want a snack you want grab-and-go, not wash and peel and then finally eat. So we get baby carrots and just eat them straight out of the bag. My kids will go through a 2 lb bag in a day, but can you think of a healthier snack? Good for their eyes, skin, teeth, immune systems, and full of fiber. That 2 lb bag costs me um, I think it was $3 last time I paid attention. I could easily pay that much or more for a couple bags of chips (which is what it would take to satisfy 12 of us) or cookies or crackers, without the health benefit. At first it was disappointing to the kids because they were used to junk, but they got used to it and LOVE them now. Also apples, oranges, or whatever fruit is in season can make great snacks. Popcorn is great, but with two in braces it seems cruel to make it and not let them have any. So basically healthy food is a Need, everything else is a Want. Don't buy the Wants if you can't afford them.

Clothing is a need. We need appropriate clothes for each season. Style is a Want. We try to find ways to afford the Wants in this area though. We shop second hand when that works out or we sew when needed. We also make good use of hand-me-downs whenever we can. I really can't understand when some people can sell their kids' clothes second hand because mine seem to wear everything out, but I'm sure glad it happens. I recently visited a local 2nd hand store for kids and spent about $65. I came home with a bag of clothes for my grandson, 3 fancy dresses for 5 yr old Gloria (who was being bribed not to suck her thumb during the day anymore), a wooden puzzle, some swimsuits for the kids, and a bunch of new-to-me maternity clothes. I'm wearing what I consider to be a pretty cute top with a tank top and denim maternity shorts right now. Total cost to me for this outfit: $9. It was all in great shape and fits me well so I'm excited. I looked for brand new shorts the other day and couldn't find any for less than $35. And that's just the shorts! I have THREE TEENAGE GIRLS in the house now. A good chunk of our clothing fund goes to their clothing. Probably a higher percentage of our clothing fund goes to their clothes these days, but I do understand their desire to be in style. Thankfully, they've learned well from me. They aren't all that keen on second hand clothes, but they like to find bargains and have gotten quite good at it.

Shelter is the final need area. For most people you are already living where you are living and moving is a huge expense in and of itself. But if you will be changing where you live, try to keep in mind that the nicest house on the block is not a Need, it's a Want. Same goes for furnishings and decorations. You don't have to have all the nicest stuff filling your house. If you can afford it, great, but know the difference and make your choice accordingly.

We also save money on Wants in many ways. We have a nice TV and have a Netflix account for entertainment. We do not pay for cable or satellite. While occasionally we'll attend a movie at a theatre, for the most part we wait until it's at a dollar theatre or on DVD. That's a sacrifice we've made in order to afford all these kids. We definitely prefer each child over any movie we could go see.

Our kids are not involved in tons of sports and activities. We usually make them wait until they are 10 to sign up for sports because our experience is that before then, they don't really care that much and are more likely to burn out on the sport before they get old enough to really do anything with it. I am not saying it's wrong to take your kids to stuff, just that this is our choice. And then when they are 10, they may choose ONE activity at a time. This is to save both money AND our sanity. All of us. For those kids I've seen who are in a different activity every day of the week, I don't see a lot of joy. When do they get to play? People talk longingly of the old days when kids played in their yard and just hung out and played board games or made up games to play together, etc. Well, this is still a reality at our house. Our kids are happy and creative and get lots of time to play. We have activities we do together, and the older kids have their separate activities that they do. They're still pretty busy and we miss them when they aren't home, but we all feel we've found a good balance between quiet times and busy times. And we don't overspend on activities.

I was discussing this with my teens the other day and one of them commented, "I can't imagine being so selfish that I thought it so important that I be able to do more, that someone else couldn't even have life." They all see their siblings as being Needs, not Wants, and would be happy to give up more stuff, if necessary, to have more siblings. It's called Love. We have it in abundance and it's free. And those little kids provide the older kids with oodles of entertainment.

So we save money by balancing our wants and our needs and this allows us to afford all these kids and still live happy, satisfying lives.

How Can You Afford All Those Kids? part 3--We're debt free

2011-05-30T15:26:00.001-05:00

I posted yesterday about our savings plan and how we set money aside in separate accounts for different expenses that we know will come up. But how do we have extra money to put into savings? We're debt free.

It helped a lot that we moved from an expensive house into a much less expensive house. We had equity built up so when we sold the expensive house we were able to pay off the debt on the expensive house, pay for the new house in full, and pay off the van. Then with the money we saved from not having house and van payments, we were able to pay off the truck and suburban pretty quickly. I cannot tell you how incredibly freeing it is to have no car payments or house payment. (Although we still save each month to be able to pay the taxes and insurance on these things!)

It really changes the way you see your vehicle, too. It used to be that I knew we had to pay a car payment so the way I saw it, I should be driving the nicest car/van I could get for that monthly amount. It didn't bother me to trade in a vehicle after a few years (when we weren't upside down anymore) and get a new vehicle as long as the payment was about the same. I figured I was doing great. I feel so stupid now when I look back on my "logic" from those days. I would never have been done.

So now I've been driving the same 15 passenger van for 8 years. It's got some dents and places where the paint has come off. We've had to have some work done to it over the years, too, to keep it running well. But when we looked it up, the cost of a new van was in the vicinity of $50K!! That's a lot of money! A used van isn't really much better when you consider that ours is used and still runs good. So we looked into what it would cost to fix it up and get the dents out and the paint re-done. When the dents were new we took it to a supposedly Christian place in the metroplex and they wanted nearly $4000 to fix it. Now we have a local guy out here in Clyde who really knows how to fix dents and not just replace the panel. His estimate to do all the work we want done was under $2000. Hmm. Compare that to the cost of payments for the next 5 years and it's a no brainer. We're gonna keep driving our good ol' trusty van. Chances are we'll need to spend money on it again over the next 10 years, but I bet we can keep it running for less than $50K. And it will be as pretty as any 15 passenger van can be.

If the day ever comes that I can drive something smaller, we won't buy new. We'll save until we can afford a new-to-us vehicle and then we'll get something used but in good condition. It's just not worth it to us to pay a huge amount of money for the fanciest car around.

Same thing with credit cards. If we don't have the money in the bank to pay for what we are buying, we don't buy it. We don't assume we can pay the payments and eventually be done. That's debt and it's not fun. Debt is a stressful thing and we have enough stress in our lives already, thank you. Besides, that cute new outfit or that cool cd on sale is not as good of a deal when you add in the interest you'll pay on the credit card if you can't pay it in full.

But I do like having a credit card. I like the Reward Points. And I like the convenience of just swiping it at the cash register when I have a pack of kids with me. We have used a debit card more frequently because it's easier to be sure we don't overspend that way, but recently Roger rented a car to go to his sister's college graduation. He figured out that the cost of the rental that got good gas mileage plus gas was less than the cost of gas in his truck or suburban. So he went to rent the car and they wouldn't take a debit card. So there's another benefit to at least having a credit card. I use it for things like orthodontist payments, too. I've already allotted that amount to be spent each month, so if I put it on the card I can get reward points for it yet know that I can pay it in full when the bill comes.

Being debt free can be hard to achieve, and there are sacrifices you make along the way. But once you get there, it's such a great feeling you'll never want to go back!

How Can You Afford All Those Kids? part 2--spending and saving

2011-05-29T15:02:00.003-05:00

We used to spend our money as we received it and lived paycheck to paycheck. But then things would come up and we hadn't saved for them. We'd have to scramble to come up with the money and pinch hard somewhere to make it work.

But you learn as you grow older. I now have a system set up where we set money aside each month for things that we know we'll need/want money for in the future. (And I think it's really important to pay attention to what is a need and what is a want.) We have our regular amount we know we'll need for food, bills, gas, etc. And then we divide up what we can into separate categories, deciding together how much to allot to each category.

Each family would want to choose their own categories, but here's our list in case you are curious:
taxes, clothing, computers, furniture, vehicles, education, vacations, gifts, medical/dental, date night, kids college, house/farm capital, allowances--for Roger and myself. We haven't really felt convinced the kids should get an allowance so they don't. But they do occasionally do extra jobs that earn them money. I think that's our whole list, but I may have missed something.

Each payday when I pay bills, I take the allotted amount and transfer it to savings. Then I move it from what I call Emergency Savings to all the separate little accounts on Quicken. As far as my bank knows, it's all just one savings account. When we have an expense that fits one of these categories I can reimburse our checking account from that specific savings account. It's so nice when the seasons change and we need new clothing to know that our clothing savings has built up over the last few months when we didn't need to be buying clothes. Or when we hit birthday season (6 of the kids' birthdays are in the first 3 months of the year) and we can afford gifts.

None of this would be possible if we just bought whatever we want whenever we want it. We have a credit card, but we don't buy things we can't afford. We use our credit card because I really like those reward points, but we pay it in full every month. It would cost too much to pay the interest. But that's another post for another day.

This video clip really sums it all up.

How Can You Afford All Those Kids? part 1--Who helps us

2011-05-28T15:02:00.000-05:00

The real question here is often, "Are you getting government assistance?" And while the answer could really be, "It's none of your business." I'll be honest and say, "NO."

There was a time, just prior to beginning this blog in 2005, that we were in the top bracket for income tax. We certainly paid our fair share. At that time I didn't think it fair that the more money you made the higher percentage you paid. I still feel that way. And between then and now when we would have qualified for gov't assistance, but chose not to even apply, I still didn't think it was right that there are different brackets like that. The Bible says, "if anyone does not work, neither should he be fed." I believe that is a good principle. I also think it is good and useful for those who cannot find work or find honest disabilities prevent them from working that they get help when they need it. But none of my opinions matter. It is what it is. I vote and that is the best I can do on these matters. But what I really want to say here is that when we paid a ton of money in taxes, it was none of my business which individuals were receiving assistance. So why anyone would think it their business to know who receives assistance is beyond my understanding. Put yourself in their place. If you were desperate and had to apply for assistance, would you want that to be public knowledge?

Anyway, enough of that. Government help is not how we afford these kids. Common sense in our spending and God's grace allow it.

There have been times where we truly wondered how in the world we could afford to keep going. I once needed money for something and prayed, "God, you're going to have to drop money from the sky to meet this need." Within a few days I was reminded that our credit card was a rewards card and we earned air miles. Those air miles could be turned in for cash. It was just the right amount to cover our need! God is good. I gave Him the credit for allowing me to learn of this application of our miles in perfect timing.

Other times we can't figure out how it worked out, but it did. The money just seems to be there. But we are faithful and tithe at least 10% from our income. We figure 100% of it really is God's money. And He lets us do what we want with 90% of that. It's really a small amount when you think of it that way. It's hard to get started, but He is faithful to supply ALL our needs when we are faithful to Him.

So to sum up part 1 of this answer, no, we don't get help from the government, but yes, we do get help from God.

The State of My Health

2011-05-27T17:13:00.000-05:00

Many of those commenting on the article about us, A Dozen Blessings, seem concerned about my health. That perhaps having all these babies is hard on my health and I might not live until menopause.

Okay, first I had to stop laughing at that one. Now I can go on and write this post.

I guess I can't give an official word from my doctor. I haven't seen a doctor in, oh, something like 10 years and that was a complete waste of time and money. My midwives have not seemed concerned about my health. They don't consider me a high risk pregnancy in spite of my age (43.25 yrs) or number of children I have had.

About the only health concerns I've ever heard from medical professionals regarding myself would be the time when I was about 21 that a doctor told me that I would probably never be able to conceive a baby, and the time after our 7th child was born that the ultrasound showed blockage in one of my fallopian tubes. The diagnosis was 50% reduction in fertility, but the doctor said why worry about that with 7 children already. We agreed. If God wanted us to have more babies, He would make sure it happened. And if not, we're happy with what we have.

I eat a healthier than average diet. I have never been a smoker. I don't eat at fast food restaurants anymore--I think it's been 5 or 6 years now. I haven't had a taste of alcohol since my first pregnancy. You know how when you are pregnant or nursing you are extra careful with your diet and even what medicines you might take? Imagine how healthy you would be if you were that careful for 22 years straight. Yep, that's me. How many women can say that?

The risk of many cancers decreases when you are not ovulating or menstruating. By next week I'll have been pregnant 106 months of my life. In addition to that I have had about 6 mos of suppressed cycles due to nursing after each baby so that's another 66 mos. So there's a total of 172 mos of no cycles. That's good for me. I'm not citing sources of info here because I've read it in so many places now that I consider it common knowledge.

Most people look at me and wonder how I keep so trim and young. Um, maybe it's all the kids? Maybe it's my healthy diet? Maybe it's a blessing from God because He has this plan for me to keep up with all these kids? Maybe it's just genetic. My 92 yr old grandmother had 8 children and is still going strong. She bowls 3 nights a week!

Aside from fertility issues, every doctor or midwife that has ever been my caregiver has agreed. I was built for having babies. My body snaps back and does well with it. I do have an abdominal issue where my muscles are split--called diastasis recti--and can get quite uncomfortable. I've been praying through that this pregnancy and so far the prayer is helping a lot. I have a Great Physician who is the best Healer ever. If you haven't met Him, you ought to give Him a call because there is no one better. It's easy to reach Him. Just bow your head in prayer and He's listening. No long wait in His waiting room and no insurance needed.

If I live long enough to reach menopause, it's because God has given me the blessing to live that long. He has numbered my days and He decides when I will live or die. But meanwhile, as the steward of the body He has given me, I am working to keep it working great. I intend to live a full and happy life and in order to do that, I need to maintain the best possible health. So far I've been successful with that.

I probably could stand to exercise more, but other than that I bet it would be hard to find many forty-something mothers in better health.

Lieutenant Mother

2011-05-26T22:40:00.000-05:00

We were recently featured in the Abilene Reporter News. Somehow they thought it was news for a family in a small town to have a large family. As three-year-old Ezra says, Whatever.

As I read through the comments on the article, I found myself wanting to answer some questions that people have. Some are legitimate questions that I would also wonder if I were trying to look in from the outside. I am a curious person and often wonder how other families and individuals tick. I am also fairly willing to share my life because it continues to amaze me that others might possibly find it interesting.

So I'll be doing a series of blogs about these things. If you have a question--not a criticism--about how our family works, feel free to ask in one of the comments. If I want to answer it and can get around to it, I'll do so.

So the thing I'm starting with is the criticism in the comments about calling Grace the Lieutenant Mother. I'm starting with this one because it really bothers Grace. The term was coined by the journalist, not me. He had asked me to run through each of the kids and give a brief synopsis of their personalities (as if you can truly do anyone justice in a brief synopsis--and if you know me, you know I don't use words in any sort of a brief way.) I was telling him how much she loves to help me and he came up with that phrase. It fits her because she has the glorious gift of loving to serve. I greatly admire that trait in her. I absolutely have not forced it on her. I think if I'd tried she would resent it and not love serving people.

About a year ago, I began to really struggle with my relationship with Grace. I felt she was trying to take over my job as mother. I did NOT want her to have to do so much work with her younger siblings. I am the oldest daughter in my family and I didn't want Grace to struggle with the guilt of growing up and leaving younger siblings "uncared for" (my perception as I grew up, not necessarily reality). I didn't want her to be burned out on cooking before she even had her own household. Yet the more I told her no, the more unhappy she seemed. I finally began to let her help and she loves it. She often asks me if she can go make dinner or lunch for me. In the newspaper article there are pictures of her fixing the fruit salad. Why was she doing that and not me? Because she WANTED to. Letting her help me has restored a great relationship. Sometimes she works alone, other times she comes and works beside me so we can talk. I'm clearly the mom, but there will be a lifelong friendship.

She was in Colorado helping out with her new nephew for the month of February. She had to step back while there and not do the cooking. She was bored. She loved seeing her nephew and sister-in-law (I don't think any of the kids add the in-law part, but I did for clarification) but missed feeling needed and useful. When she came home we were all used to functioning without her and she got a bit depressed, confiding in me that she felt she had lost her place in the family. We didn't seem to need her anymore.

All the kids have chores. So do I and so does Roger. How else do you keep any household functioning? I suppose I could do it all myself, but why? Why is it wrong to let them be a part of the family and know their lives have purpose and meaning and that they are needed in this world? Look around you. So many kids today are pampered and spoiled. And are they happy? What I see is a bunch of kids who have no purpose and just get sullen and withdrawn. I don't want that for my kids. When my older ones were younger and I saw that in some of their peers, I purposed to STOP doing everything for them and allow them to have meaningful lives. (Ask any mom, it's usually easier to do it yourself than to teach a young child to do something right.) Maybe cleaning a toilet doesn't seem meaningful to an adult, but my 5 yr old Gloria (Happy Birthday, Sweety!) lights up when we "let" her clean a toilet!

When we make chore assignments we look at several factors.

What needs to be done?
Who is the youngest person capable of doing this?
Is that person the best choice for this job, or is there another job he/she would enjoy more and therefore do better with?
Is there an older sibling that could train someone to start doing this job so the older one can give it up?
Who WANTS the job?

And yes, most of the jobs get requested by someone.

Grace does a lot of the cooking and she LOVES playing with her younger siblings. She hates cleaning bathrooms. She doesn't get the bathroom job. It goes to whoever requested it.

And just so you all know, after reading the comments on the newspaper article, I joked with Grace that she's no longer allowed to help me in the kitchen or tickle Ezra because I didn't want to take away her childhood. I could hear the catch in her voice as she said, "If you were serious, I think I would cry."

Little Bits of Movement

2011-03-23T23:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning I woke early--before the sun, before most of the kids--and wanted to just go back to sleep. Then I felt it. A little bump against my belly. I placed my hand over my lower abdomen and there it was again. I could even feel it with my hand. Now I KNOW this isn't just gas. :) The little one kicking around in there kept me up and smiling for at least 15 minutes. I am in my 17th week of pregnancy. I've been feeling these little bits of movement for about a month now, but never really sure if it's baby or what. Now I know for sure and it's exciting!

It's kind of funny when you think about it. From everything I've read that little one is anywhere from 4-6 inches long. It swims and moves around all the time. Yet I rarely feel it. How weird is that? Imagine you had a 4-6 inch long gas bubble moving around in your stomach. Think there's any chance you would NOT feel that?

The Bible calls the womb the "secret place." That seems so accurate. This little one has been there hiding. We knew it, but only now can I feel it.

And though this is the 12th time I've been in my 17th week of pregnancy, it is no less exciting, wonderful, or new to feel the movements for sure for the first time. I am still amazed that there is such a tiny little person growing inside of me. And I continue to be more and more amazed that God would choose to bless me with this life. I think the more times I experience it, the more in awe I am of the whole thing.

Long Night

2011-03-22T22:45:00.000-05:00

A new record was set at our house last night. Longest night's sleep for a baby.

I put Gwen to bed at 9pm last night. She had a bit of a fever and sounded hoarse--like maybe a sore throat. I had just changed her diaper, but decided to change her again in case she slept late. Good decision.

5pm this evening she woke up. Thanks to my sister we have a video monitor. (I used to think they were a silly waste of money. Boy have I changed my tune since Julie gave me one!) I was able to see her and check on her all day long. I missed her! Sometimes I just stopped what I was doing and stared!

I did get a lot done today though. But 20 hours is rather excessive!! Then she went right back to bed at 9pm tonight. Poor baby has a fever still though so if anyone wants to pray for quick healing we'd sure appreciate it!

King Ranch Chicken

2011-03-21T17:35:00.001-05:00

I wanted to share this recipe. I made it several years ago for a group of teenagers who claimed they didn't like any vegetables or anything healthy. They loved it. I made it again recently when we had friends over and it was a hit. It had never occurred to me that others might like to see how to make things with OUT using condensed soups in order to avoid MSG in their food.

All you do is make a white sauce and add a little chicken or beef base to it. Finding that without MSG isn't always easy. At times I've just added some salt and onion and garlic powder for flavor.

Here's one recipe that we make that called for condensed soup, but I altered it to leave that out.

King Ranch Chicken

1 lb tortilla chips, crushed
1-2 cups chicken, cooked and cubed
1/2 lb grated cheddar cheese
1 green pepper
1 onion
1/2 T chili powder
1/2 t garlic powder
4 T butter (1/2 stick)
4 T flour
2 t chicken bouillon or chicken base
2 c water
1 can Rotel tomatoes

Layer chips, chicken pieces and cheese in a large greased 9" x 13" pan. Use food processor and puree the green pepper and onion. In a pan, melt the butter. Add flour and stir to form a thick paste. Next stir in pureed veggies, garlic powder, chili powder, chicken base, and water. Cook and stir until you have a thick sauce. This may take a little time, but be patient. Stir in Rotel tomatoes and mix well. Pour this over the chips, cheese and chicken. Sprinkle some extra cheese over the top and bake in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes or until bubbly hot.

New School Year

2011-03-20T17:31:00.003-05:00

Our school year starts and ends at a different time from anyone else I know. This year it ended just in time for a spring break and we will start a new year on Monday.

I've worked at trying to create some excitement with new books. Apparently it's working. Three of my six students for this coming year are already several pages into a couple of their books.

So I'm wondering. Does that mean we get a few extra days off? :)

Purim

2011-03-19T16:32:00.000-05:00

This is a new holiday for us. It's like a gift from God to me so I wanted to share the story.

Some of you have been following us long enough to know we don't celebrate Christmas anymore. You can read about that on our post about why we don't if you are interested. Well, when we stopped celebrating Christmas, Roger and I really wanted to still give our children gifts, so we looked for how we could do that still. We came up with Hanukkah. For 8 nights, we gave our children gifts every night. We read about the Maccabees and love the story. It is so inspiring to read about how devoted they were to God and following His ways. If all Christians were that devoted to God, I believe the world would be very different. Anyway, that's not the point of this post.

So after a few years of celebrating Hanukkah, in 2009 at the end of the feast I woke up feeling God was clearly telling me we had now added Mammon (demon of riches and avarice) to Hanukkah. I knew He was right, but I didn't like it. Roger and I discussed it and agreed we would still do birthday gifts (God hasn't spoken anything to us about this being wrong so if someone has something to say about it, just shhhh. I don't want to hear.) but not Hanukkah gifts. But we love the Holiday so we kept that.

During Hanukkah this last year, we still remembered the Maccabees and celebrated their bravery in a much quieter way (no gifts--which really had nothing to do with Hanukkah anyway). We still enjoyed it. The eighth morning I was thinking to myself how awesome it was that not one child complained or seemed to feel a bit slighted that we didn't do gifts. We talked about it together just before we read the Bible that morning and the kids agreed that they didn't feel they'd missed out on anything.

We'd been reading through Esther. If you've never read it, or haven't in a while, I encourage you to read it. It's a good story. Or watch One Night With A King if you are more into movies. That morning we just happened to be near the end of the book--chapter 9. As we finished our reading we read this:

"But the Jews who were at Shushan assembled together on the thirteenth day, as well as the fourteenth; and on the fifteenth of the month they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness. Therefore the Jews of the villages who dwelt in the unwalled towns celebrated the fourteenth day of the month of Adar with gladness and feasting, as a holiday, and for sending presents to one another." Esther 9:18-19

Did you catch those last few words? We were so excited! It's been there all along, but what an awesome Father to show it to me so clearly right after we obeyed Him and refrained from giving gifts at a time He'd told us not to!

So the 14th of Adar begins at sunset this evening. We will be celebrating with gladness and feasting and giving each other gifts. I'm sure we aren't doing any of the traditional celebrating that the Jews do because we don't even know what they do. But all it says is gladness and feasting and sending presents and we can do that!

Dye Free Shamrock Shakes

2011-03-17T20:58:00.000-05:00

I love mint and I love ice cream. I used to be a huge fan of McDonald's Shamrock shakes. But they have dyes so I've never been able to let my children experience that wonderful taste. Yesterday I came across this link to a recipe for Shamrock Shakes and had to make them--with some substituting.

Here's what I did.

Shamrock Shakes

small handful (12-15 maybe?) baby spinach leaves (for color--you don't taste it at all)
2 cups milk
4 cups vanilla ice cream
1/2 tsp mint extract

In my 6 cup capacity blender, I placed about a handful of frozen spinach leaves. Fresh would work too, but we've found if we take fresh leaves and store them in the freezer, they blend nicely and you notice it less in your smoothies. Worked for our shakes, too. I then added a little bit of the 2 cups of milk I'd measured out. I let the blender run until it was just a green liquid and no little bits of spinach were left. It took a couple minutes on the highest speed. It kinda looked like there were chunks of butter on top, but I'd bet most milk wouldn't work that way. I used whole raw milk so it had lots of cream.

Next I added 1/2 teaspoon mint extract (although I only had 1/4 tsp left for the second batch and it was just as good) and filled it to the 6 cup line with vanilla ice cream. I blended it until it was creamy (Sam made sure because he'd read the recipe and knew it was supposed to be creamy.)

I was going to take a picture. It came out a nice minty green color. But no one wanted to wait to drink theirs. It was gone before cameras could be found. :)

Being Supermom

2011-03-10T11:04:00.000-06:00

It's lonely at the top.

Not that I think I'm supermom, or that I'm a better mom than anyone else (well, honestly I've seen a couple moms that I wondered about, but in general I don't think so), or that I'm at the top in any way. But people seem to perceive me that way.

There's this line of thinking that seems to be automatic. I did it myself back when I just had a few kids. You meet someone with lots of kids and there's this automatic feeling of awe. How can she handle all those kids? She must be Supermom!

But you know what? I'm not. Yes, I have more experience, and yes, I have my hands full. But I mess up just like any other mom--probably more so since I have more opportunity. And I worry about each and every thing about my kids just like any mom. Maybe more so in some areas because I've seen more problems, but less in other areas because I've seen those things are okay. But overall, I worry a lot. And just like any mom, I need fellowship with other moms. I need to be able to talk to people and share my trials and triumphs just like any other mom.

And please don't think I know everything. You know how you can't remember what you had for dinner last week? Neither can I. You know how you forget things and when you had your second child, or babysat your friend's child, you couldn't remember things about that stage you've already been through with your child? I do that too. It doesn't matter that I'm pregnant with my 12th. I still have to look up each stage of pregnancy to try to remember what's going on. And I still can't remember things about what age a newborn should do what. I have to keep my babycare books handy. Not as handy as with my first, but still there. And I still get frustrated when they cry and I can't figure out what's wrong and sometimes end up crying myself because I just don't know what to do or I'm so tired I can't function. I'm still in awe of how smart they can be or how cute they are and laugh at their silliness. It's all new every time.

So when you meet a mom who has a lot of kids and you are in awe, just remember that she's just a mom who does what you do-- just more of it. She needs to talk, just like you do, only maybe more. Don't walk away scared because you think she'll judge your lack of experience. She's too busy to be judging you. Just treat her like you would any other mom--say hi, talk to her, ask questions about her kids, talk about your own, share your trials and triumphs and let her share hers. Offer to help her if she needs help or accept her help if she offers it. Take time to talk to her at church and don't be afraid of her because she's some weirdo. She's as much like you as any other mom, just busy. But never too busy for friends.

Forgot to mention Victor

2011-02-21T17:44:00.001-06:00

Last week, on Gwen's birthday, our cow Bella finally--and I mean finally--had a calf. We named him Victor in honor of Gwen Victoria.

We'd had two other cows calf in October. Looking at Bella it was clear she was bigger than usual so we expected her to have her calf soon as well. We brought her to Clyde so she'd be near us because the plan was to milk her once the calf was born.

So we waited and waited and waited. I watched her out the window several times. She would look like she was pushing, but all she'd have were cow patties. This happened way too many times. I was about convinced that she wasn't really pregnant but just gaining weight.

Then it finally happened. And he's really cute.

Just One Batch

2011-02-21T17:43:00.000-06:00

Cooking around here takes a lot of food. We have a cookbook from the Momys (Mothers of Many Young Siblings) where the recipes are designed to feed about 8 people. We have to double those recipes. When we use a regular recipe that feeds about 4 people, we triple or quadruple it. I am accustomed to this as are my older 3 daughters. It's nothing for us to need 9 cups of flour in a recipe.

Last week I made just one batch of muffins--a dozen. I was amazed when I first saw 1 3/4 c flour. I scanned through the recipe looking for the rest of the flour when I realized that was it and laughed at myself. Again when I got to the eggs and it called for 1 egg I laughed out loud and said, "Only one?"

Today Faith is making cookies. She decided to make oatmeal and reminisced a bit about the time Grammy made oatmeal cookies and forgot the oats and they were good anyway. Faith is making just one batch and substituting xylitol and honey for sugar since several of us are sick right now. So she got started and said, "Where's the rest of the flour? Only 1 cup?" A bit later she exclaims, "Only one?" Sure enough, she was to the point of needing eggs. We both laughed about how weird it is to not need a half dozen eggs when making something.

She had most of the cookies on the baking sheet when she yelled, "Now I know how she did it!" Had it not been for Gloria asking, "aren't you making oatmeal cookies?" Faith would have forgotten the oats. We've long joked that she cooks like her grandmother who has a tendency to forget she's cooking and burn things. Now we know it to be true. I guess sometimes those intelligent people get a bit scatterbrained and forget crucial steps in cooking. It's okay. We love you both anyway! And in Faith's defense, she did have a lot of math to do to substitute the xylitol and honey for the sugars.

Can't wait to taste those cookies! Gotta eat dinner first though!

Grain update

2011-02-13T09:00:00.002-06:00

Yes, we still have grain available. I've been asked a couple of times this week for updates on prices. My prices haven't changed, but neither has my stock. I have the same grain that I've had since last May. I have less of everything, but haven't had a need to re-order. As far as I can tell, it's all still in great shape, although supply is getting low in a few areas.

We do not sell peanuts anymore. Our source closed.

The phone number I listed on the blog should be no longer good after today. We got tired of having a land line that got only calls from charities asking for Roger's parents who passed away several years ago. I don't really want to post my cell phone number, but if you need to reach me you can email me at mommawomma at gmail dot com and I'll give you my number. (Or message me on Facebook)

Here are the prices:
45 lb pails Bronze Chief Wheat $33
45 lb pails Prairie Gold Wheat $35
45 lb pail Long Grain brown rice $65
50 lb bag Prairie Gold Wheat $28
50 lb bag Rolled Oats $42
2 lb jar Honey $10
5 lb bag Prairie Gold Flour $4

We have 4 bottles of honey left and 2 pails of rice. 1 bag of flour, but I could grind some for you if necessary. My main purpose in ordering was to have lots of wheat available and that we have. We may be getting low on oats. I forgot to check when I was out there. I'll add a comment later with how many bags of oats are left.

These prices are what you'll pay. Nothing added later.

I'm learning how to feed a baby

2011-02-12T10:16:00.000-06:00

I have been very blessed. I've had 11 babies with no miscarriages and so far so good with the 12th pregnancy. I've been able to nurse all 11 babies until now without much need to supplement.

My first child got to have formula in a cup once a day starting at 6 mos. I went to classes during the morning and since I've never been able to pump, he got formula. He did fine with it. Just a sippy cup with handles, no special no-spill spout because they didn't make those yet.

None of my kids would ever take a bottle. Ever. Even if I managed to pump and put breastmilk in it. So it wasn't a taste issue. They just didn't know what to do with it I guess. But it's never been a problem. I just make sure I'm always around and they get what they need when they need it. They've all become chubby little things by the age of 6 mos, then begin to stretch into the slender young people they are today.

But now we have Gwen. She grew chubby the first two months. Then everything changed. Her appetite dramatically decreased and she stopped gaining weight. It took a long time to get her to nurse well again, although she continued to want only to nurse. Once she finally began to increase her appetite, it turned out I was pregnant and my supply began to decrease. Now that she wanted more, I produced less. We had no choice but to supplement.

She still did not want anything. We got her to start eating solids. That helped a lot. But she'd get thirsty. Her diapers were staying dry for way too long for my comfort. She got constipated. But she didn't want to drink anything I offered her. She would start to, but then spit it all out. We tried water, juice, goat's milk, cow's milk and formula. Everything got spit out. Finally she started to drink the goat's milk for a couple of days. Then I got her to switch to formula (more calories per serving). But still she'd spit out more than she'd swallow. I had to have a pile of napkins or paper towels every time she wanted a drink. Nothing about feeding this baby has been easy since she was 2 mos old.

We tried different cups with different spouts. She seemed to do best with no lid, but I had to hold the cup so carefully and I just don't have that patience. Then she seemed to like the spouts that would spill, just a spout, no fancy gadgets, but it would come so fast she would spit out a lot. She hated the spill proof spouts which was fine with me since we had a child who had speech delay possibly due to using those spouts for way too long. But as she got used to the whole idea of a cup, she gradually wanted slower and slower spouts. Her favorite cup now has a slow spill-proof spout.

This past week I figured out a solution. I thickened her milk. The old trick they used to use to try to get babies to sleep through the night, the one where you add cereal to the bottle, works for Gwen. It wasn't needed to get her to sleep through the night, but to get her to swallow most of her drink. It seems if it is a little thicker she will drink it.

She has finally begun to gain weight. She began to gain late December or early January. She got up to 14 lb 10 oz a couple of weeks ago (after being 13 pounds from June through November), then we got the flu and she lost her appetite again. It's hard to eat or drink when your nose is too stuffy to breathe. She lost a half pound, but as of this morning is back to 14 lbs 10 oz.

She asks for drinks now. She has this distinctive high-pitched scream she seems to use only when she wants a drink. It's quite annoying and we're working on words and/or sign language to replace it, but so far she just looks at me and screams. It works. I give her a drink to shut her up!

She has a cup with handles and a cup without. It doesn't seem to matter. Her favorite way to drink is to hold her arms way out to the sides while *I* hold the cup for her. This is all so foreign to me. All the other kids were so independent. They nursed until 12-18 mos, then went to a cup that they held themselves. I'm not sure how to deal with this. Do I just hold the cup, or try to encourage her to do it herself? I think I may baby her until she gains another pound or so, then start encouraging independence. If I stay patient that long.

As I said, nothing about feeding this child has been easy. But she's growing and happy. She's been happy and healthy all along, just tiny.

It's made me laugh though to think that here I am a mother of eleven and I still can't figure out how to get my baby to eat. You'd think I would know the basics by now. Just goes to show that you can never know everything.

Just some observations about marriages

2011-01-28T12:41:00.000-06:00

Through the years I have observed many couples. I'm a people watcher and I've always been interested in couples and why some seem so happy and some do not. There are many factors, but this is just one of the things I've observed and was thinking about today.

Each partner in a marriage is a part of a team. As a team, they try to make up for each other's weaknesses and allow the strengths to shine. Sometimes this is done intentionally, but often subconsciously. Let me share some examples.

I've witnessed many couples where one parent is very relaxed about discipline and the other is very strict. I believe that often what happens is that one of the parents thinks the other isn't doing it right, so they try to compensate. Maybe the mom is too relaxed and the dad thinks the kids are getting the run of the place. So he tries to compensate by being very strict. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Mom thinks Dad is too strict so she tries to be "nicer" to the kids to give them a break. I often wonder if one of them would try to support the other rather than swing the pendulum the other direction, if they wouldn't meet in the middle and be happy. In my own marriage I've seen this happen. I will usually get way too relaxed right after I have a baby. Roger does a great job taking care of the kids as I recover, but you can almost see the relief when I start to get back to myself and help more with the discipline. And recently I've been too relaxed just out of laziness. He's had to be the bad guy to compensate. As I step up and take my place as his partner, I can see him relax and have more fun with the kids.

Another example I've witnessed is attention to the kids. Dads have a tendency to get buried in work. Sometimes they just have to because work needs more attention. Mom feels Dad is not giving the kids enough attention and tries to compensate by spending more time with them. Dad feels Mom is spending too much time with the kids and he feels left out. So he either tries to get more time alone with her or buries himself in work even more where he feels needed. Either of these leave Mom feeling MORE of a need to spend more time with the kids. It becomes a cycle that pulls them apart. If Dad were to just join the family in their activities, I wonder if he realizes how attractive that would make him to his wife? Or if Mom would stop and spend some quality time with her husband, I wonder if she realizes he would then want to be with her AND the kids more? As a team, either partner needs to be the one to step up and support the other rather than waiting for the other to take care of you. It's a partnership. It's not all about you getting your own needs met.

These are just a couple of examples, but I see them over and over. People doing the opposite of what their spouse really wants/needs. I think part of why this is on my mind right now is because recently there were a couple of small issues bothering me. You know, we all have times where that person we love the most annoys us--like leaving every door open. ;) Twice recently things have come up where I was annoyed about something stupid like that. I pray a lot. I pretty much just take everything to God. I don't always give Him a chance to answer, but I talk to Him a lot. Sometimes He manages to get a word in edgewise and on these two occasions, He did just that. I complained about a small trivial thing and God asked me, "And why would he do that? What about you causes this reaction?" Ouch. But yes, it was me. When I fixed my bad behavior (complaining too much, for example), my complaint about my husband (him seeing me as grumpy) disappeared. Imagine that.

So I don't know if anyone will find this helpful or if it just gave me a chance to write--something I love to do but don't make enough time for. I'm not sure it has anything to do with our blog, but most of life doesn't anymore. We still have a large and growing family, but we don't live on the farm anymore. We do still have milk cows and hope to get chickens again soon. And we're still different from most people in many ways. But I don't blog often because the point of the blog was originally about leaving the city for the country and well, we're in between now so who knows what yall want to hear about now? So I'll just ramble about my thoughts whenever I feel like it. :)

Meeting the new grandson and how a large family vacations

2011-01-10T09:54:00.000-06:00

I was going to try to skip blogging about our new grandson to give Stephen's little family a bit of privacy from the blogworld, but I just can't. He's too cute! I gotta shout it out to the world!

Gabriel Joseph was born Dec 28, 2010 and he is right up there among the cutest babies ever born. I immediately knew I was going to love this little guy when I heard the love in his daddy's voice when he called to tell me he was born. But oh my goodness, words cannot describe it. What an incredible feeling!

The picture was taken last night as Gabriel snoozed in his Grand Dad's arms.

Roger and I and the 9 kids still living at home left early Friday morning. It's a 12 hour drive so we got up at 4am and were out the door by 5. We made good time and had a time change in our favor so we arrived at about 4:30pm.

A family our size can't just get a single hotel room. And since the max for most hotel rooms is 4 people, we can't even get 2 hotel rooms. I scouted out the area and found that there are some hotel suites. One allows up to 8 people which is great, BUT we still would need 2 suites. That's not very convenient. The suite that sleeps 8 costs over $200 per night and we'd have to double that! Another hotel suite sleeps 6 for $100 per night. So with 2 of those we'd have spent $200 per night with a free breakfast and 2 kitchens. But we still wouldn't all be together. So I searched vrbo.com and found not much available for under $500 per night. Yikes. But then we found and stayed here. It cost a bit more than the smaller suite because of the cleaning fee and we didn't get a free breakfast, but we were all together in one house. There were a couple of problems when we first got there, but they were minor and taken care of quickly. I think we'd be willing to do that again.

We didn't have to eat fast food at all! We evaluated what our cooking options were based on pots, pans, etc, then made a menu and went shopping. Our hope was to cook and freeze some extra food for the new family. We forgot to ask ahead of time if they had room in their freezer though. Oops.

I really, really enjoyed seeing Gabriel, but it was also great to see Stephen and Chonie. She's an excellent mother. I used to worry about how I'd be as a mother-in-law. Would I think they are doing everything wrong as parents? Well, okay, they've only been parents for less than 2 weeks, but so far so good. I think they are doing a great job. Stephen seems to really enjoy being a daddy. It's funny how you think you love a person as much as you possibly could, then you see a new side to them and that love grows.

We even snuck in some time to go explore the area. This was our 3rd trip to Colorado Springs, but the first time we did any sight seeing. We spent some time at Garden of the Gods which is beautiful, but cold. You could tell we were Texans by looking at us. The locals were wearing jackets at best, but here we were all bundled up in our coats and still chilly.

The plan was to leave this morning to come home, but when the weather forecast changed our plans changed. We left at dinnertime and just ate snacks in the van as we drove. Around 9:30 we talked about our day and prayed and then I told everyone to go to sleep--except Roger who did most of the driving. (I drove less than an hour and a half on the whole trip, but Faith got in a couple hours--after we passed the snow.)

So we got home about an hour and 15 minutes earlier than we were even going to leave. Today is a nap day. And after all those snacks, I think I'm ready to just eat fruit all day today!

High Noon

2011-01-01T17:58:00.000-06:00

A New Room

2010-12-14T00:12:00.000-06:00

It's been ages since I've blogged, hasn't it? I've composed a few blogs in my head, but I guess that doesn't count.

For most people, December is a busy month. We don't celebrate Christmas which means in some ways it is very peaceful around here. It also means while everyone else is busy running around shopping (we avoid the stores at this time of year because that spirit of love is really hard to find at the stores right now!!) and partying, we get stuff done around the house.

This year we had a project to work on. We moved into a house where we didn't have to paint or re-do anything and it was such a welcome break. We still have houses to fix and finish in Coleman, so there's always plenty to do, but we could rest at home. The trouble is, after a little more than a year here, it was time to start fixing some of the little problems we saw.

Our living room is too small. We've looked at it from every angle and there was no good solution to make this room bigger. We miss having a room we can all be together in comfortably.
The girls were way over on the other side of the house. It bothered me that if my little Gloria woke with a nightmare, I couldn't hear her. She'd have to cry until a big sister took care of her. They are wonderful sisters, but they aren't Mom.
When we tuck kids in at night we have to go up one flight of stairs to tuck in the boys, then up a separate flight of stairs to tuck in the girls. I'm sure the exercise is good for us, but at the end of the day it's not nice. And if someone forgot their car they sleep with or drink or whatever, it could mean extra trips. Not fun.
The girls were in the Game Room above the garage. It made for a nice big room for them, but there was no bathroom. It couldn't have been nice to have to go downstairs and across the house in the middle of the night.

None of these things are so awful that we ever really complained. We love our house. It's a great house. But one morning I woke up feeling panicked that we needed to move the girls closer. I don't know why. I just couldn't let go of it that day. So I prayed. I wanted God to take away the anxiety or show me how to fix it. I got this little vision of Gwen sleeping in the crib in the corner of the study. Uh, yeah, right. Like that would ever work. How could she sleep without being able to shut her door? The other kids would wake her up all the time. And where would we put all our books? I'm asking these questions of my Great and Wonderful Heavenly Father as if He'd just given me the stupidest idea ever. Not very nice of me, but I'm just telling you the real story here. So being the really smart God that He is, He knew I'd never get it on my own. So He told me to share the idea with Roger. I did.

Roger's response was to say Yes and then expand with how we just add a wall and make it a bedroom. He then went on and knew exactly how to change it all around and make it work. So we did.

Tonight the kids are all sleeping in bedrooms above mine. I can hear them all coughing and snoring right now. It's wonderful to hear them. If the girls wake up and need to go to the bathroom, no problem, it's right there. To tuck them in we went up one flight of stairs and managed to get them all tucked in. I'll still have to make multiple trips (especially if I get a tractor instead of a car for Ezra to sleep with or perhaps a car instead of a tractor--depends on the night) but still, only one staircase. Not one for him and another to get to Joy and Gloria while Ezra gets out of control because I'm now so far away . . . And when I am sleeping, if anyone wakes with nightmares, I should be able to hear it. If I ever get to bed that is. It's approaching midnight as I type.

So the only thing left on the list is the too small living room. We hope to have that fixed by the end of the week. With the girls out of the game room, we now have a Family Room. We've already moved all the books, computers, and desks up there. We plan to move the tv, some seating, and even our popcorn popper up there. As Samuel put it, "Mom, now I'll have a place to go where I can do anything I want." Now, while that SOUNDS like he thinks there are no rules, I am choosing to believe that's not what he means. We can do school, read, watch a movie, and play on the computer all in that room and the important thing is, WE ALL FIT.

So now the house is done, right? Nope. There was one other thing. It's dark. We like a bright house. We had two choices. We could paint the house a brighter color OR we could re-wire everything and add more lights. Yes, we were tempted. But we chose to go the easy route and paint.

Parenting Magazines

2010-11-17T21:55:00.000-06:00

I got a free subscription to a well-known parenting magazine. I enjoy reading magazines so I read it and laugh. No, it's not supposed to be comical, but it is if you've been parenting babies as long as I have.

Twenty-one years ago when I was pregnant with my first baby I was totally completely clueless as to what I needed to do to take care of a baby. So once he was born I began to read these magazines to learn what to do. I picked up on all the new stresses very quickly as I learned what was right and what was wrong. Parents that came before me did it all wrong, but the experts had it figured out and my generation couldn't fail. We had all the answers now.

Fast forward a few years. I'd already gone through infancy with a couple of kids when they came out with the new "back to sleep" campaign. If you paid enough attention you knew that if you ever were to lay a baby to sleep on their tummy, they would die. Ahem. I'd just done that with two kids and they survived. My mother confessed that yes, all five of her children made it through infancy sleeping on their tummies. So I continued. Later they came out with the idea of babies sleeping on their sides. I'm not sure when, but I think it was my 5th baby when I was asked if I had a sleep positioner. A what? No, I lay them on their tummies. I got looks like I was totally clueless. Yep. That's me. Mom of five and completely ignorant as to how to put a baby to sleep. So I laughed pretty hard when I read that sleep positioners are dangerous and should never be used. Then I realized it isn't funny at all that babies died because the "experts" were guessing at things.

Flip through a few more pages and find an article about how to feed your child nuts. What? That's another area where people have told me I am nuts because I feed them to my children. Well, they used to be considered healthy. We all ate them. Peanut butter was a staple in nearly every home. But so many kids are allergic these days. Oh, um, well, the "experts" are currently guessing that maybe by not exposing children to nuts early enough, they are more likely to develop an allergy to them. (I won't even discuss that some believe there could be a connection to vaccinations, too. That would open up a whole new topic of what the "experts" say.)

Then there was the whole smart baby craze. I guess that really never ends, but just changes its face every few years. Remember the videos that were supposed to make all our babies become as smart as Einstein? I recently read that exposure to TV, even educational TV, causes a baby to develop slower.

It's just comical really. The "experts" can never make up their minds what is good and what is bad. It changes with every few years. So new parents, I have a bit of advice. In spite of what all the "experts" say, don't worry too much about all the little things. Trust your instinct, your "mother's intuition" (I'm sure dad's have it too). That's one thing that doesn't fail me as long as I listen to it. Those Mom hunches I get where I just know this is what we should or shouldn't do are usually right. Sometimes I kick myself because I ignored it. Other times I am grateful I paid attention. Try not to stress out about things, but just enjoy your child. Do the best you can.

The nurses in the hospital when I had my first child told me they could tell I was going to be a good mom. I asked how in the world they could see that already. They said, "because it's clear you love him and that is all that matters. The rest will follow." Notice, they didn't tell me to be his best friend and be sure he's always happy. Love your baby and the rest will follow.

And laugh at the magazines. Laughter is the best medicine.

(This post is dedicated to Stephen and Chonie. I'm fairly certain y'all are going to be excellent parents.)

Guard Dogs

2010-10-30T08:40:00.004-05:00

Faith was driving to a baby-sitting gig last Tuesday when a deer ran across the road. She swerved to miss it (she was successful) and ended up stuck in a ditch beside the road (the truck was fine, thanks). When Melissa and I arrived she was standing beside the truck looking upset. There was a man in a one-ton truck parked beside her on the road. My first impression of the scene was that my daughter had a guard dog taking care of her. He had chains and helped pull her truck out of the ditch and drove away. Small towns in rural America remain a blessing to those who live in them. There are things we don't have because we don't have the population to justify the business investment, but we do have each other and that seems to be more than enough.

Homemade Yogurt

2010-10-05T11:56:00.000-05:00

I believe I've posted directions to make yogurt before, but I wanted to update how we do it. It used to take us a long time because first we heated the yogurt to 180, then cooled it to 110. I was always taught to never heat milk at higher than medium heat. So it took a couple hours from start to putting it in containers to begin setting. This caused me to give it up after a while. Life is too busy, right?

But I love yogurt and there are a LOT of us. To go to the store and buy us each a little container of yogurt gets really expensive. And I want to eat it EVERY DAY. Plus there are all these extra ingredients that we don't want when we buy our yogurt.

So we have streamlined our approach to making yogurt. It now takes me about 15 minutes of "work" followed by a few hours where it sits and I forget about it. Yesterday I did this with my almost 8 year old daughter. Soon it will be her job because it is that easy. I taught her while we waited for something to come out of the oven.

If you make less than 2 gallons, you'll probably be done even faster.

Home Made Yogurt

2 gallons milk (we're using store bought because our cow is dry. This is really something anyone can do.)
6 oz plain yogurt with live cultures (just check on the package to be sure it contains live cultures. Next time you make it you can use your own starter from your homemade batch. Freeze it if it will be a while. It works great as a starter after thawing. We didn't have plain though so we used vanilla. It still works. But we flavor ours vanilla before we eat it. If you wanted plain, you probably want to start with plain so there's no subtle vanilla taste in whatever else you use your yogurt for.)
Thermometer (optional)

Pour milk into a pot and heat on high (stirring frequently) until it reaches about 100-120 degrees. The high heat is not a problem--at least it hasn't been for us and I've probably made it this way 20 times now. Maybe if I were heating it to a higher temperature, but I don't know. If you don't have a thermometer, stick a clean finger in there (clean is important!). If it feels cold, it's not hot enough. You want it as hot as hot water coming from the faucet, but not so hot that it burns you. Too hot will kill the cultures. If you accidentally overheat it, wait until it cools a bit before adding your starter.

When it has reached the desired temperature, add your culture (the yogurt) and stir it really well.

Pour it into whatever containers you want to use. You can use individual size containers as I've done before or just pour it into larger containers as we do now. It is faster and we just serve it from there. Drawback is you can't take it somewhere as a snack or fast food. I use 3 large bowls with lids. Lids are important if you want to stack your containers in the next step!

Once it's poured and lidded, put your yogurt/milk mixture somewhere to sit undisturbed for a while. We have used the oven in the past, but it seemed I was always wanting to bake bread that day or the girls would want to make cookies or whatever. I finally tried a cooler as had been suggested to me multiple times. It just happened to be in the kitchen while I was making yogurt. It worked great! I now keep a cooler in the garage just for this purpose. I move my containers out to the cooler, shut the lid, and check back in about 4 hours. Last time it was done and tart (it starts getting more tart the longer it sits after it's ready) already, but it was a hot day so that might have helped. This time it wasn't ready yet at 3 hours, then I forgot about it. I remembered in the middle of the night (12 hours after we started it) and got up and moved it to the fridge. It was fine although slightly tart.

You can then flavor it with whatever you like. We add 1/2 c sugar to each third of our 2 gallon total and a blob of vanilla. We used to flavor it before letting it sit, but I needed 4 cups total. I guess the culture eats all sugar, not just milk sugar so a lot of it got used up. Sugar is not the best choice health wise, but that's what we do. I have a couple of children who won't eat it if I use honey and they aren't otherwise picky eaters so I just deal with it and make one thing everyone will eat.

This morning we ate it with strawberries and homemade granola. I think this must be my absolute favorite breakfast. I think strawberries will be eternally in season in heaven. . .

Samuel's Eyes

2010-09-18T13:23:00.000-05:00

Samuel has been wearing glasses for the past two years because he has lazy eye. (I'm sticking with the non-technical terms here.) The doctor had been very optimistic that he would not need surgery at first. But then 6 mos ago he changed his prescription and made it stronger. He didn't say anything, but there was a look of concern on his face and he firmly told Samuel to be sure he wore his glasses all the time. He wanted to see him again in 3 mos.

We went back for another visit on Friday, June 18, and I could tell there was trouble. When they did the vision screening at the beginning, he had to work to get the 20/40 line with his glasses on. He didn't see any of the 3D images pop out at him. The doctor looked at his eyes and was visibly upset. He said Samuel is going to need surgery. He wanted to see him again in 3 mos.

That Sunday, Roger took him up to the front of our church and had him prayed over. Samuel was told to thank Jesus every day for healing his eyes. I had some doubts. He was still crossing his eyes. How could we call that healed? But I prayed and asked for help with my faith. I then asked God if Samuel should still be wearing glasses. I was leaning toward keeping him in glasses until I could see he was better, but told God that if Sam should not be wearing glasses to please make that clear to me. A couple hours later his glasses broke. Just broke. I was holding them about to straighten out a spot that was slightly off when they just came apart in my hands. I took that as an answer and he hasn't worn glasses since--except once when he ran across a pair and wore them for about an hour "just because." He's 6. That's really all the reason we need.

Today it was time for his check up. I was so nervous. This doctor really cares about the kids and I was sure I was going to get a good long lecture about making him wear his glasses all the time. I kept praying and asking God to lead me in my words and actions so that He could get whatever glory He wanted from this situation.

First came the vision screening. He had no glasses on at all. They asked me and I said they broke. I didn't say they broke 2 days after the last appointment and were under warranty so I could have had them fixed, but didn't think God wanted him to wear them. I just said they broke. A note was made in his chart. They did the screening without them. He flew through the exam and had 20/20 vision and saw the 3D stuff popping off the page at him. I was getting excited.

Then we went in to see the doctor. He looked at his chart and had a confused look on his face. Then he looked at Samuel's eyes. Back to the chart, the computer, his eyes, he seemed a bit flustered. Finally he said, "There is actually some positive change here." He looked some more, gave the assistant a new prescription because the glasses broke, then looked some more. Commented again about the improvement in his eyes and that he could wait a year for another checkup, then I couldn't hold back anymore and blurted, "We had his eyes prayed over." Just as my daughter Faith predicted would happen, suddenly he changed his attitude and commented that he still crosses his eyes up close, we just don't see it. He looked at Samuel and told him to wear those glasses every day, and the appointment was over.

We go back in a year. I think I'm going to keep following God's advice. He seems to be doing a great job! We will continue to pray over his eyes anytime we see crossing (although it's been over a month since I've seen it), thank Jesus for healing Samuel, and get his eyes checked as needed.

God is good all the time and sometimes it's more evident to my narrow view of things than others. This one is pretty obvious and I'm so thankful to SEE it. :)

Fast Food

2010-07-03T12:38:00.000-05:00

It's been about 5 years since we left the Metroplex now. We no longer live on the farm, but we still live in a small town and have kept many of the changes that began when we moved to the farm.

One of the biggest changes was in how we eat. For financial reasons we completely gave up cold cereal for breakfast. Recently I tried going back to cold cereal for convenience. It's not very convenient when you have to fix food twice in the morning instead of just once because everyone is hungry again. A person feels more satisfied after eating if they have eaten foods that are full of nutrients. I remember as a kid reading on the box that my cereal was part of a complete breakfast when eaten with toast, juice and milk. So the only food group missing was meat (this was back in the days of the Basic Four food groups). That always left me wondering why I needed the cereal because it was NOT meat. But anyway, we tried it and I've sat over my cereal each morning looking forward to the day when I don't have so many kids at home so I can find the time to have a decent breakfast again. Yesterday I asked myself what that would be. I LOVE yogurt so my answer was yogurt, granola and fruit. Hmm. Why can't I do that now? So yesterday afternoon Claire and I made 2 gallons of yogurt and a huge batch of granola. We put the yogurt into little 8 oz size containers with lids and put them in the fridge. We did this to try to ration it out otherwise it's all gone fast because we eat as much as we want. It was still warm this morning, but we'll begin eating it tomorrow. This should last 4 days and cost a total of $6.50 for the yogurt and I don't know for the granola, but I know it's all working out to be much less than feeding all of us cold cereal. It was all stuff already in our cabinet--oats, nuts, honey and butter for this particular recipe. I expect the granola to last a bit longer, but we'll see. So I just have to spend some time making breakfast ahead of time twice a week. It didn't take very long, maybe an hour, and we would have spent that much time making breakfast each day if we weren't having cereal. But I have to share this picture. This is a four day supply of yogurt for my family. It's times like this when I realize I have a lot of kids.

The kids share my love of yogurt so I will share another "fast food" thing we do. And this one really is fast. No cooking involved and it's for when we are on the road. Five years ago if we were out running errands and it was time to eat, we'd go to a fast food place and grab a burger, fries, and a soda--not healthy and cost about $30 and up for all of us. But when we moved out to the country, the nearest fast food place was too far away to consider it fast. If we were in town running errands, we still didn't want to get fast food because it just wasn't in the budget.

We found cheaper solutions. Frequently we would buy a loaf of bread, package of sliced cheese, package of lunch meat and bottled water if we hadn't planned ahead and brought our own water from home. This was much cheaper, but also much less tasty really. We've now found something even better! We buy each person a container of yogurt. We bought a package of plastic spoons and napkins the first time and these stay in the van now. Then we also buy fruit. Our current favorite is grapes. It's best if you can wash them. We've used a water fountain at a park or a rest area's bathroom sink. For drinks we buy a gallon of drinking water and pour this into our individual water bottles. You could also pour this water over your fruit to wash it. Once we bought juice and paper cups and amazingly no one spilled.

Yogurt and fruit is surprisingly satisfying. It's yummy and filling. We have spent less than $15 and bought plenty of grapes and enough yogurt for 2 each. That was for myself and 8 children ranging in age from 2-16. So one night recently when I planned a dinner that turned out to still not be ready at 7pm, Roger offered to go get something. I suggested yogurt and fruit. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "I'm really hungry." I told him it was surprisingly satisfying and he said okay. I guess he's learning to trust me after all these years. ;-) So he went and bought a lot of grapes and enough yogurt for everyone to have 2. He agreed. It's much more filling than it sounds.

And there's no Fast Food Guilt to go with it!

A Really Big Surprise

2010-06-07T17:03:00.000-05:00

The kids and I went to Colorado Springs this weekend to see our oldest son, his new house, and his fiancee. We had a fun weekend, then drove all night to get home. I thought this might be easier since the kids would sleep and we wouldn't need to stop as often. That didn't work out well, but we did get home safely.

While we were gone, Roger planned a surprise for us. This is the new view out my kitchen window. I love it!!

While we were in Colorado Springs, I had all 11 children together for the first time ever. I took pics, but I have to say, they aren't that great. No one was especially happy at the time. I had all these people who are used to flat west Texas up in the mountains and they were feeling a bit nervous on the trail (especially me and we know how children pick up Mom's mood!). Then in the midst of this nervousness, I have them pose for a picture on a bridge--which just added to the nervousness of course. Oh well. They are beautiful enough people to make up for it.

The Best Time To Shop

2010-05-06T09:45:00.000-05:00

I haven't been blogging much. I've just been too busy. And then I figure, who really is interested in reading about our lives? We just get through each day with nothing special going on. But I love to write, just like I love to talk. And as Roger will tell you, it doesn't matter if what I have to say is interesting, I'll talk anyway. So I decided to just write anyway, too.

Ever since I became a mom (just over 20 years ago) I've been trying to figure out when the best time of day is to take my little kids shopping. I have learned that I can take the big kids just about anytime, but since I still have little kids, I have to work at WHEN to go. Before homeschooling, it was pretty easy. I would go around 10 so I could get done before they got hungry. After lunch was naps. And if I wasn't busy making dinner after naps, I still didn't want to go shopping because that's when the After School Rush begins. Just after that is the After Work Rush. And then after that we'd be busy eating dinner, giving baths, and getting kids to bed.

It got more complicated when I added in homeschooling. We can't go in the morning or the kids won't do school. We've tried school in the afternoons during naps and occasionally that works. But frankly, I'm too tired to stay on them or help them if they have questions, so often nothing gets done. For years I just went shopping after the kids went to bed because Roger could be home with them. That worked just fine.

Then we moved to the country where everything either closed early or was far away. I started doing more shopping online, but some things you just have to actually go to the store.

Mornings are a nice time to go shopping. It seems most of the other shoppers are older women who love to see my little ones, or other moms of young children who understand occasional tantrums.

Lunchtime is awful. My kids are hungry and cry too much and I can't do any shopping. Just a quick grab and run--no browsing allowed.

Naptime is awful. The little ones are crying or sleeping in the cart. I do have kids old enough to babysit now and so occasionally I will go by myself. But I've found that the more often I go by myself, the worse my children behave in public when they do go with me. I guess they need the practice and training of shopping with Mom. Besides, I like to be home at naptime for the same reason I don't like to do school at naptime. I get tired. I'm up throughout the night. I need at least some downtime, if not a short snooze when I can sneak it in.

So that leaves us with the After School Rush or the After Work Rush. Yesterday found us shopping for clothes during the After School Rush. That wasn't so bad because that rush doesn't really affect the clothes stores. But that put us at Walmart during the After Work Rush. Let me describe what that can be like for a large family.

First of all, it is always crowded when I go shopping. I have all these little people around me who tend to stand right in front of whatever I'm trying to look at. They can't help it because they can't read my mind. So I try to be a little extra patient. I did well with that yesterday. Then there are all these impatient people who want to get their shopping done so they can get home. Most of these are people who either no longer have small children at home, or have chosen to put career first and avoid children. Or maybe just have the obligatory 1 or 2. Now, I'm not saying everyone with no children or just 1 or 2 is rude. Not at all. But it seems that the After Work Rush is usually full of people who just don't like kids. We get the most stares, rude comments, rude looks, etc at this time of day. I think some people think we don't notice them, or maybe their mothers never taught them the well known rules "Don't stare" or "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all." But we notice and we hear.

A couple of my kids have stared back before. They said it doesn't affect the Starers. I can deal with the stares and the people who are visibly counting. The ones that I feel sorry for are the ones who look at us with disgust or say rude things either to us or within our earshot. They just seem so loveless.

So we endured the comments, stares, and rude people who seem to think we have no right to shop, then on to the checkouts. This is usually a 20 minute wait and is a nightmare. I dread it. I'm pretty sure Walmart has it down to a science--if the wait is too long people may not shop there, if it is too short, they are paying too many checkers--and keep it just the right wait that we will all still shop there. We chose our line and turned all the Cosmos backward--and a few other offensive magazines, too, this time--swimsuit season. Then I look up and the woman in front of us was just finishing loading up her purchases. She looks at the kids, looks at me and asks, "Are they all yours?" I inwardly groan, but outwardly smile and say, "Yes they are." I LOVED her reaction. She gave me a big smile and two thumbs up!! Woohoo! I got to spend the next few minutes chatting with a fellow child lover. It was so pleasant the wait didn't seem nearly as long.

If only all Walmart shoppers could be friendly. Life would be so much easier.

Grain Price List

2010-05-02T22:09:00.000-05:00

I've had a request for a price list for wheat which made me realize I haven't posted a final one here yet. It takes me some time to get my head back together after I have a baby. But she's definitely worth it.

Here's what we've got.
45 lb pails Bronze Chief Wheat $33
45 lb pails Prairie Gold Wheat $35
45 lb pail Long Grain brown rice $65
50 lb bag Prairie Gold Wheat $28
50 lb bag Rolled Oats $42
2 lb jar Honey $10
5 lb bag Prairie Gold Flour $4

We are willing to sell wheat that has been ground by us into flour. We will grind it fresh the day you buy it for $4 per 5 lbs. Just please let us know in advance so we have time to get it ground for you. We will do 5 lbs at a time. Right now I have a limited number of bags of flour that are already ground.

We can also sell you some fresh roasted, salted peanuts for $2 per pound. We started buying these in bulk and LOVE them. We'd been buying a name brand, but these are so much tastier! Anyway, we figured we could pass them on if anyone wants to get some while you're here. We use our juicer and grind them into peanut butter. It makes the BEST all natural peanut butter you'll ever taste. And no need to stir it either!

Call before coming to be sure we're here.
325-893-1730

Wheat is here along with a new utility pole!

2010-04-14T09:07:00.002-05:00

Here comes the truck! But wait. Why are the wheels spinning? What's that strange creaking sound? What was that loud crack? It seems a guide wire went too low across our driveway and got caught on the truck. It pulled tight and cracked the utility pole. This all happened in seconds and thankfully no one got hurt.

It all was quite exciting. We had two police cars, a highway patrol car, an eighteen wheeler and utility trucks here. And now we have our grain too. Come and get it!

Writing Books--Year K

2010-03-23T14:31:00.000-05:00

Here is Year K which would be used for 10th grade.

£ÏÑøïÌÑºãÈ †È wöëæàæìæàøçªÜ¸ bé‰éœäÈ

The link to the scribd webpage. I don't know why the title changed. I tried deleting and uploading again and it did the same thing. Weird.

Writing Books--Year M

2010-03-23T14:21:00.000-05:00

For their senior year I have the kids write a research paper. I got this off the internet, but here it is in our book format.

Year M Writing Book

And the link to the Scribd page.

Writing Books--Year L

2010-03-23T14:19:00.001-05:00

We use this in 11th grade. It is a Literature course and really could be done at any time during high school. Two of our kids have done it concurrently with another level. They seem to be in a hurry to graduate and get out of the house around here. Too noisy perhaps?

Level L Literature

And click here to go directly to the Scribd link.

Writing Books

2010-03-23T14:14:00.000-05:00

I stopped uploading the books before I was done because the ones with cursive all look blotchy. I couldn't figure out how to fix this. But I heard from someone who downloaded them and printed them. She said that they looked blotchy until she prints them and then they are fine.

Maybe someone out there has a suggestion how I can get them to not look blotchy? But otherwise, if you want to just see how it looks, you can print a page or two and see if it works out.

I'll try to get the last two books uploaded now if I can still remember how I did it.

Writing Books--Year J

2010-03-02T15:37:00.000-06:00

9th grade

Level J Writing Book

link to level J

Writing Books--Year I

2010-03-02T15:25:00.001-06:00

8th grade

Level I Writing Book

Link to Year I

Writing Books--Year H

2010-03-02T15:22:00.001-06:00

7th grade

Level H Writing Book

Link to year H

Writing Books--Year G

2010-03-02T15:20:00.001-06:00

6th grade

Level G Writing Book

Link to year G

Writing Books--Year F

2010-03-02T15:18:00.001-06:00

5th grade

Level F Writing Book

Here's the link

Writing Books--Year E

2010-03-02T15:16:00.001-06:00

4th grade

Level E Writing Book

The link.

Writing Books--Year D

2010-03-02T11:59:00.000-06:00

Here is Year D (3rd grade)

Year D

And the link.

Writing Books--Year C

2010-03-02T11:42:00.000-06:00

Here is Year C aka 2nd grade. There is a brief description of how this works on the Year B post.

Year C

And here's a link to view it elsewhere if it won't load fast enough.

Writing Books--Year B

2010-03-02T11:34:00.001-06:00

Here is the Year B book. I would consider this 1st grade. If I remember right the font ended up smaller than I intended, but none of my kids have really minded that yet.

They do copywork every day. Also we set a timer and they spend 5 minutes working on their assignment. That's it. At the end of the week they choose one assignment and try to edit it to the best of their ability. Then they bring it to me and we edit it together. This is how they learn spelling, punctuation, etc. Once their writing is edited, they re-copy it and we save that copy. The idea is that at the end of the year we bind all those into a book and save it. But you could also just save them in a notebook.

Year B

If it takes too long to load this, you might prefer to go here to view it.

Writing Books--Year A

2010-03-02T11:26:00.001-06:00

I've put together copywork and writing assignments for my kids so I don't have to do this every year. Each year I just print out their books. These have some typos, but for the most part they are very usable. Occasionally I will share them with friends. I have never heard back from anyone if they like them or use them, but they have worked great for our family. I am attempting to share them here for anyone interested in trying them out. Each book will have it's own post. I've got K-12, but they are labeled as Years A through M so that they can be used whenever I feel it is necessary without having a "grade level" assigned to them. Sometimes kids need a little more time to learn to write before you move them on to reports and such. I don't believe in pushing them too soon. And so far so good. I had one student who absolutely hated writing and cried whenever he had to. I used this method to teach him to write--copywork plus 5 minutes a day of writing on different topics. Then we chose one piece of writing per week to edit and re-copy. He ended up writing several novels just for the fun of it.

So here is Year A. I use this for Kindergarteners or Pre-K--I start them in it when we do the Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons book. The first 100 lessons go with that book.

Year A

Here's a link to view this elsewhere in case it's too slow loading here.

It's a Girl!

2010-02-24T11:34:00.000-06:00

Gwen at 5 days

Roger with Gwen

Gwen 1 day

Gwen just after delivery with Grace

Well, we're late announcing here. We announced on Facebook right away, but neglected the blog.

Gwen Victoria was born at 8:51am, Tuesday, February 16th. She weighed 7 lbs 12 oz. Big sister Grace has wanted to be a midwife since she was 5 or 6. She'll be 14 next month and got to help with this delivery. And she STILL wants to be a midwife!

Everybody adores their beautiful new sister. I've been asked a couple of times if Ezra suddenly got bigger. Gloria overheard me answering, "No, but Gloria's grown a foot." She quickly checked out her feet to see!

Our Latest Adventure--Panivino Grain

2010-01-27T09:22:00.003-06:00

You probably already know that we eat a lot of all-natural kinds of things. One of the things we do is to buy wheat berries, grind them, and make our own bread. To do this, I have to drive 2-3 hours to get our wheat berries. That's a long drive. One way to handle this is to buy a LOT all at once and not have to drive as often. But that means I am gone all day and so the kids go with me. When the kids go with me, we have less space for cargo in the van because we are filling it with children. So I have to go more often because I can't fit as much wheat at once.

So we've decided it would just be easier if we became wheat distributors. There is no one else within a 2-3 hour drive from here. Yeah, I'm probably crazy taking this on right as I am awaiting the birth of our 11th child (I'm 38 weeks today and really getting excited about meeting the new baby soon!!). But our oldest gave me some good advice: wait until the baby is born and then place the order for the first truckload of wheat. It's supposed to take 6-8 weeks to arrive so that gives me some recovery time before we unload the truck and load up our shed.

So if you live anywhere near Clyde, which is 15 miles east of Abilene, you may want to take a look at the price list and see if you are interested. Otherwise, the rest of this post will completely bore you because it's just more details about the wheat and stuff.

The first order will be placed mid-February and should arrive early to mid-April. If you would like to special order or make a request, please contact Melissa Nelson at panivinograin@gmail.com

Prices subject to change
Products that will be stocked:
45# pail Prairie Gold® Wheat Berries $35
2# Pure Montana Honey $10
45# pail Long Grain Brown Rice $65
Also, freshly ground flour will be available if you order it at least 24 hours in advance and get small quantities at a time--like 5-10 lbs. We will grind it for you that day. Price will be $4 per 5 lb bag and will be packaged in a plastic bag closed with a twist tie. You can freeze this to keep it fresh and it will be fresher than anything you can buy in the store.

Products that are under consideration (please email if you would like to purchase these products. I need to know if there's enough interest to stock them.):
45# pail Bronze Chief Wheat Berries $33
50# bag Prairie Gold Wheat Berries $28
25# bag Prairie Gold Wheat Berries $18
50# bag Regular Rolled Oats $42
45# pail Oat Groats $53
45# pail Pinto Beans $63
25# bag Golden Flax Seed $47
45# pail Soft White Wheat $35
25# bag Long Grain Brown Rice $36

Products available through special order if you order by mid-February:
50# bag Bronze Chief Wheat Berries $27
50# bag Red Chief Organic Wheat $29
25# bag Bronze Chief Wheat Berries $16
50# bag Hard Red Winter Wheat $27
45# pail Hard Red Winter Wheat $30
50# bag Bronze Chief Premium flour $28
50# bag Prairie Gold Premium flour $30
50# bag Natural White Premium flour $29
50# bag Oat Groats $48
50# bag Wheat Bran $30
25# bag/45# pail Whole 7-Grain mix $34/$60
50# bag 7-Grain Rolled/Flaked $42
50# bag Cracked 9-grain mix $65
25# bag Pinto Beans $34
25# bag/45# pail 11-bean/pea mix $45/$85
12# pail Pure Montana Honey $50
4/10# case Natural White Flour 40# case $26
4/10# case Prairie Gold Flour 40# case $26
4/10# case Bronze Chief Flour 40# case $26
8/5# case Natural White Flour 40# case $29
8/5# case Prairie Gold Flour 40# case $29
8/5# case Bronze Chief Flour 40# case $29
8/3# case 7-Grain cereal 24# case $28
8/3# case Rolled Oat cereal 24# case $28
50# bag Kamut $59
50# bag Soft White Wheat $30
50# bag Whole Wheat pastry flour $35
50# bag Spelt Flour $47
50# bag Spelt Berries $45
45# pail Spelt Berries $46
8/5# case Bronze Chief Berries 40# case $29
8/5# case Prairie Gold Berries 40# case $29

Pets vs Farm Animals

2010-01-07T17:57:00.003-06:00

Through the years that we lived in Coleman I was able to keep the number of pets we had down. We had lots of animals and my philosophy was that the animals should have a purpose. That was then, this is now.

We have our cow out in the back yard, but that's not enough. The chickens are still in Coleman with a new family. We have a dog, but apparently that's still not enough. We have a cat. We even are "dogsitting" Stephen's dog these days. Still not enough?

Clark, 9 yrs old, has been trying to talk us into all kinds of pets. Chameleon, Peregrine Falcon, snakes of various sorts, anything but the ordinary. We decided he needed something easier to care for as a first pet. So we are getting a pair of guinea pigs. We should be able to get them Saturday. So today Grace and I put together the cage. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, but it wasn't that horrible either. I just wouldn't recommend it to someone who is 35 weeks pregnant. It gets a bit hard to lean over and reach some of the parts you're working on.

Here's a pic of the cage. We got our instructions off the internet at this link.
We still need to add the bedding and stuff, but the little critters aren't gonna be here for a couple more days. And no, we won't be building any fires in our fireplace for a while.

Zoo Day

2009-12-31T13:13:00.003-06:00

We went to the Abilene zoo today and while it was disappointing in many ways (the giraffes weren't out yet so we didn't get to feed them and the monkeys were blocked off so we couldn't see them) it was a visit we will never forget.

One of the benefits of going to the zoo on a chilly day is that the animals are more active. The last couple visits, the lions just slept and that's kind of boring to see. Today they were awake. As we walked up, they just stared at us. There was kind of a grumpy look to the male, but I just figured he always looks like that when he's awake.

So the kids were talking and laughing and trying to get them to eat crackers. The lions were completely uninterested in the crackers. All of a sudden there was a roar and the male lion pounced. He seemed to be after Joy, our 7 year old. If it weren't for the fence between them, she'd have been a mid-morning snack today. It was very scary for her and she wants everyone to stop talking about it. But I think in time she'll be okay and realize what a cool story she has to tell! It was scary for me to see and he wasn't looking at me!

We hope to go back in a few days if it warms up a little. We really wanted to see those giraffes. The Abilene Zoo is small, but what an awesome experience it is to feed the giraffes! They have this walkway that goes up over the giraffes. You can purchase crackers at the gate when you arrive and you can feed most of the animals in the park. They warned us the first time to save some for the giraffes. We were sure glad we did. They come up to the walkway and stick out those long tongues and wrap them around the cracker you hand them. Yes, you get licked by a giraffe! We certainly appreciate the hand sanitizer stations at either end of the walkway!!! Here's a picture from our visit back in October. I didn't bring the camera today or I would be sharing a picture of the lion sulking after he couldn't have his "snack."

Haircut Day

2009-11-02T19:39:00.007-06:00

Today I gave 8 children a haircut. No, I'm not a hair stylist and no, I didn't get paid. However, I DID save a LOT of money by not having to pay for any of the haircuts.

Actually, two of the kids got a trim just so they wouldn't feel left out-- Gloria, in particular. She keeps cutting her own hair and so I trimmed hers a bit to straighten it out a bit more. Then Claire got a trim just so she could be in the picture with all the kids who got a haircut today. She just got a haircut 5 or 6 weeks ago and didn't really need anything done with it yet.

And now, just for your viewing pleasure: my children with new haircuts. Faith, Grace, Claire, Clark, Joy, Sam, Gloria and Ezra

Changing Taste

2009-10-28T15:54:00.002-05:00

I've been studying nutrition as a part of my study on herbs. Our family is learning and discovering we had a long way to go to truly follow a healthy diet. So we're making little changes here and there. For some of us it's hard and others find it easy.

I'm having a hard time because I can't figure out what to fix for dinner! The main change we are making is to add more veggies to our diet. You would think that would be easy, but I don't like most veggies. So I'm having to sneak them in on myself. How do you do that?

We had smoothies for breakfast a few times and added spinach. No one notices a difference. I'm thinking we should add some other veggies and see how that goes. But it's gotten kinda cold and a smoothie isn't the greatest thing on a cold morning.

I discovered a while back that if I put all the veggies for soup through the food processor and just mush them all up before I put it in the soup, it cooks down to just a broth and we all love it. So this last time I made soup I added some extra veggies and no one could tell the difference. I think I just added cauliflower this time, but also there were carrots, celery, onion, and garlic as usual. It used to be the kids would eat the broth, noodles or rice, and chicken, but skip over the carrots and celery. Now they get it all without really noticing and they love it! I don't lie to them. They know it's there. But they don't mind because there are no "chunks."

I'm trying to serve raw veggies as often as possible. It seems to be popular. It helps that we no longer buy any crackers, or other "white flour" products. We've been avoiding msg for quite some time. And we're back to home-made whole wheat bread.

There has been a little resistance from some of the kids. Mostly one in particular who had been getting candy outside the house for a while. She knew better, but figured she was trying to gain weight so it was okay. She missed the little bit of junk she used to eat. But I've shared things I've learned and fed her good healthy food and apparently she's coming around. She told me today that she doesn't even want the Skittles she used to love. I agreed. I recently ate one of my old favorite candies and was very disappointed. It has a processed taste.

Yesterday and today we were out all morning and on the way home stopped at Dollar General for lunch. I got some plastic spoons, applesauce, nuts, crackers, dry cereal, dried fruit, and cookies. That was yesterday. The applesauce, nuts, and dried fruit were the most popular. Today when I stopped for more I was told NO dry cereal since we never even ate the cookies yesterday. And please get lots of fruit and applesauce. So I did. Again, the healthier stuff was scarfed down, the crackers were tolerated and then we moved on to the cookies. We actually threw some away!! I heard comments from my children such as "These aren't as good as I remembered them." and "Anyone want the rest of my cookies?" Same thing with the processed cheese dip with crackers yesterday. We all used to love that and now it's just gross.

Roger made some salsa last week from all raw ingredients. There is some tweaking he wants to do to the recipe, but it was good. He ran out though and hadn't made more yet so he went back to the store bought brand of stuff he loves. He called me to say it went bad. I said no way, it was new. So we checked it again last night and it was fine. But his taste has changed to where the fresh stuff was just so much better he didn't care for the old favorite anymore.

So now my family is mad at me because they are ruined. They no longer like the junk they used to love. All they want is real food that tastes good. Not the fake flavored stuff or overly processed stuff that we used to think was great.

The real shocker to me is that we're spending less. I'm buying a LOT of fresh produce and we're chowing down on that. And it's kind of expensive. But apparently when you fill your body with nutrients, it gets satisfied and you don't feel hungry as often. You actually start to eat less food. You know how you can eat chips or ice cream, or how there's always room for J-E-L-L-O and you just hardly ever feel full from those things? I've learned that our tummies have sensors in them that send messages to the brain alerting the brain to feel full only when we've received a good amount of nutrients and/or fiber. So if you eat something that is useless to your body, that message doesn't get sent. Your tummy just stretches to make room for more food while waiting for those nutrients that it needs to keep your body running right. The calories will add up and register all over you, but the body needs nutrients. You'll feel a lot more satisfied after eating healthy stuff. So while I'm spending more on produce, I don't spend anything on "fillers". We don't even really snack anymore. If someone needs something mid-day I offer carrots or fruit and it works.

Think about it. Which costs more? An apple, or a candy bar? You can buy an apple for 25 cents or so. Need two? That's okay. You can eat as much as you want of fruits and vegetables without feeling guilty. So for the price of a single candy bar (I'm guessing at 75 cents here because I haven't bought a candy bar in a long time. Hope this is close.) you could eat 3 apples!! You would skip the empty calories, fat and caffeine from the sugar and chocolate and instead nourish your body with fiber, vitamins, and minerals--plus all those things in fruit that science hasn't even figured out we need yet. And who wouldn't get full from 3 apples? Most people would stop at 1 or 2 which saves you money. And I'm guessing if you need 3 or more, you'd have bought more than 1 candy bar--or at least the jumbo size.

So beware. If you start to eat healthy food, you'll become a food snob. Your taste buds will wake up to the flavors that God created and you'll only want Real Fruit instead of "real fruit flavor." You'll find that the healthy stuff isn't boring at all and actually your tongue was just numbed by all the chemicals it had been taught to eat as food. And the worst thing of all is that you'll gain energy, health, and actually save money on your grocery bill!!

Now if only I could grow some produce myself. I'm trying again with a grow light this time, but that's another post for another day.

I love Jesus with all my heart

2009-10-27T18:14:00.002-05:00

We all had the flu over the summer. Swine flu? Avian flu? Regular flu? Who knows? I just know we were sick and it wasn't fun. About 2 days later we were fine, but coughed for a couple weeks off and on. Just weird little coughing fits that were awful, then it was gone. No more symptoms--except for one. I found myself breathless all the time and tired--more so than usual. There was a tightness in my chest pretty often. I blew it all off as pregnancy stuff.

A couple weeks ago it occurred to me that it wasn't normal to have been feeling this way so early in pregnancy. It dawned on me that something was wrong and getting worse.

I'm not trying to encourage anyone to avoid doctors the way I do, but I do. I've had more health problems get worse due to doctors than better and just really try to fix things on my own before I go to the doctor. Usually there is a natural solution that works for me better than the drugs and surgery the doctors want to push. Not saying that's always the best way to handle things, just saying. I want you to understand where I'm coming from so you'll get over that part of it and get the rest of the story. If nothing else had helped, I'd have eventually gone to the doctor. I think.

Meanwhile Roger has been praying over me every day. I've been getting instructions from my Physician (God) such as herbs to take and to go to bed earlier. Nothing major. I was beginning to do better, but it was still happening.

Sunday morning I was praying before church and felt that God was telling me to go forward and ask for prayer for my heart. I really didn't want to do that. Then when we were at church, the pastor announced that anyone who was interested could come take the Lord's Supper and that there was prayer opportunity on the sides of the room. I stood there wondering if I should really go and not wanting to. I didn't know anyone. Then Roger prompted me to go ask a certain couple we know to pray for my heart. I went. As they prayed, I felt a burning sensation in my heart. It lasted all through the morning. Then it was gone.

All my symptoms are gone now. No more tightness or shortness of breath. I can carry Ezra up the stairs and not need a long break when I get to the top. And the big test came this morning. I was up late last night, had to get up early this morning. Lately when my alarm goes off and I walk across the room to turn it off my heart pounds hard and I have to lay back down to settle it before I can start my day. This morning it should have been awful because of the short night's sleep. But I was fine. I am sleepy now, but I've been awake for 12 hours on a busy day with no nap and I am 25 weeks pregnant. So sleepy is justifiable. But I was able to get up and do laundry and get going on my day as if nothing had ever been wrong.

I just wanted to share this. Again, I'm not advocating avoiding doctors. I just want to point out that Jesus still heals and He healed me and I am so grateful and feel so great I just wanted to share it. (That run-on sentence would be spoken quickly and excitedly if you could hear me.)

I'm guessing He has big plans for this new little baby and has to keep me around a bit longer to accomplish them.

Have a blessed day!
Melissa

Our Clyde House Garage

2009-09-24T15:45:00.006-05:00

I haven't blogged in almost 2 months and what's the first thing I want to tell you about? My new garage. And no, this isn't Roger, it's Melissa writing.

See, we have a large family and drive large vehicles. So parking in the garage is not an option. But this house has a 2 car attached garage. And it's well insulated--even the garage door. So I decided to use it as house space. I made this decision while we were looking at the house. In my opinion, it was the only way to make the house work for us. We have used a "family closet" system for over 7 years, with a slight interruption at the first house in Coleman, and it wasn't something I wanted to give up. I love it. But this house has a tiny laundry room. Actually, every house we looked at in Clyde has a tiny laundry room. So I noticed the garage was right next to the laundry room and decided to make use of it.

We bought lots of shelves. We had shelves already, but Roger wants them for the workshop out back. I used this as a chance to get "prettier" shelves. He's getting the ugly plastic ones. They were great as they were cheap and strong. But if I'm going to have a room FULL of shelves and spend a lot of time in there, I want nicer shelves if possible. We found ours at Sams Club. I think we ended up buying the entire inventory at our local store. And my brilliant husband pointed out that we could put several sets of shelves together and stretch 2 sets into 3. This is because we needed vertical space in between shelves to fit our boxes of clothes so we wouldn't use all the shelves from each set. But we didn't need to buy a whole new set for the legs because we could use the legs from 2 sets and put the extra shelves in between. Maybe the pictures will help that make sense.

I was going to wait until I had it all cleaned up and organized to write this post, but then I discovered during my "break" today that the MOMYS list has been discussing laundry so I figured I'd share here now rather than wait. Besides, we're still moving so you'll all be forgiving about a little mess, right? And frankly, considering we're in the midst of moving 10 people plus much of the stuff of 2 boys who've moved out, it doesn't look that bad. Might just get worse later. We'll see.

So this first pic is taken from the doorway from the house into the garage. I tried to get as much of the room in the pic as possible. All the way to the left is food, appliances, and paper goods. The middle is toys. To the right is clothing. We just finished assembling the last set of shelves yesterday so they are still fairly empty. But we still have more stuff to put on them so it will be filled eventually I'm sure.
Here's a shot of our clothing shelves. Each member of the family (except me because I have a big closet with shelves and prefer to keep my clothes there.) has a shelf with 2 boxes and a basket--or 3 baskets or some sort of mix of boxes and baskets depending on how many boxes were broken. There is one box for everyday clothes, one for socks, underclothes, and pjs, and one for shoes. They still leave shoes everywhere, but it makes it easier to put them away when they all go in one place. Extra clothes and shoes that don't currently fit anyone go on the other shelves and there are more shelves across from here that can be used for clothes, swimsuits, coats, etc.
This next pic shows the toy area. To the right is the extra shelves I just mentioned for clothes. They can also hold toys and games. We used the playmats on the floor that I bought a while back when Ezra was learning to walk. This gave it a cheerier look and a softer, warmer floor to play on. The left border is where we keep food, appliances and paper goods, along with extra toys.
Next is the food storage area. The shelves on the right in this picture are the same shelves on the left of the play area. Then to the left is more food shelves. The bottom shelves are high enough off the ground that we can put our buckets of grain and stuff under them. Looking at this pic I see that many of the buckets are out in the middle of the aisle. I can't figure out why. I know the kids have been expanding their play area and creating cities and houses all over the place. I told them they had to leave the food alone, but I'm not so sure they did.
I took this pic just to share something I didn't plan but am soooo excited about. I have the food right next to the garage door. So I left enough space that we can open the door and stand in the garage to unload groceries. If it's raining, we're mostly out of the rain this way. Since I normally shop in bulk, we have a lot of stuff to carry in. It won't be much of a walk this way! Then when I need to replace something in the kitchen, I just walk out to the garage and shop from my pantry. I thought that was pretty awesome! Especially great for my kids who are the ones who do all the unloading most of the time. I like little things like this that make life easier.
Here you see the end of the food shelves on the right of the picture. To the left, amid our mess, is our extra refrigerator. Only one fridge fits in the kitchen so the extra stuff goes out here. Not bad since again, this is where we unload our groceries now.
This is currently my staging area where I sort through boxes and baskets of stuff and pile empty boxes and things I still need to sort through. Eventually we'll move the extra refrigerator over to that "empty" wall and put our big freezer where the refrigerator is. The only things I have left to figure out are where to put the rod for hanging clothes and when to find the time to get all this done. We took a month off school to move, but our month is almost up. School starts back up on Monday.

Preparing to Move--Selling the house and acreage

2009-07-30T22:15:00.003-05:00

We have found a new house in Clyde and are looking forward to the new adventure God has in store for us there. Meanwhile, there are some things we have to finish up here in Coleman County.

We have been working for the last, um, I don't even know how long--two and a half years?--on building a house. Now we need to sell it. We haven't finished it yet and will need to come back each weekend and work on the house so that we can finish it and sell it.

I'll be honest. I'm mentioning this here in the hopes that there is someone who would love to come here and finish the work we started. If you are interested in buying our fenced property with 60+ acres (great for hunting as we know we have deer and turkey and dove and quail and have never even had to try to attract them), a pond, a 2200-ish sq ft house that isn't finished, but is certainly fine for living in, a 30x40 ft barn/workshop with electricity and concrete floor--adjacent to a large concrete pad, another barn on the property, a storage building off the driveway, solar panels that help offset the electric bill, and I'm not sure what else to tell you, please contact us. You can comment here or email Roger at mgrbik [at] gmail.com. We would offer a good deal if we don't have to finish the house. Once it's done, all bargains are over. We'll lose our motivation to be generous.

Our Chickens

2009-07-28T08:02:00.004-05:00

I lost interest in our chickens about the time morning sickness set in. I've been more miserable with this pregnancy than any of the others. It didn't help that we all got some stomach virus right in the middle of it. But I'm just having a hard time with getting going each day and getting anything done. Smells bother me a lot. And chickens smell. Some people will try to tell you they don't, but they do. My nose knows.

We free range our chickens. We would lock them up at night, then release them mid-day. This allows them to forage for all the bugs and such that they want, while still allowing us to collect eggs. However, lately I hadn't been doing that. They were just putting themselves up at night and then getting up at dawn, or earlier, and coming up to the house to hang out in the coolness of our porch. I had several excuses. The heat was pretty harsh and this allowed them to find a cooler spot early in the day. And I hated all the spider webs I had to walk through each night to lock them up. But the reality is that I just didn't want to be around them anymore. The smell was too hard to deal with for me and I'm just a lazy slug with this nausea. Plus they had quit laying anyway with the heat. Well, we still were getting some eggs, but not a lot considering how many chickens we had. Overall though, I just didn't want to keep raising chickens.

We were also getting close to the point where it was time to start new chicks and butcher the ones we had for soup and such for the winter. I was dreading that. I have learned living here that I can do whatever I need to do no matter how gross it is. But that doesn't mean I like it. I know it's healthier meat and eggs, but it's also more expensive to raise them ourselves and more work. I've heard from some people that they save money. I don't know how. Maybe they have other feed options? Maybe God is just blessing them more in that area? Whatever it is, we were spending more and working more and I'm ready for a break.

So we gave our chickens away. We have a family renting our blue house--the one we lived in when we first moved here. As a benefit of renting from us, you get free chickens. Roger, Clark and our renter packed them up in a dog kennel, loaded the chicken tractor on the trailer and took them over there. It was so nice to not be woken at 5am by the crowing of the rooster. I didn't have to feel guilty when I didn't walk through spider webs to put them up last night. I didn't have to go collect eggs or feed the chickens when what I really wanted to do was take a nap. Just quiet. And no new chicken crap on our porch!! We always saved our table scraps for the chickens and they would sit on the counter attracting flies each day. No more. I threw away the nasty container we collected them in. I could have washed it and that was a bit wasteful, but it felt so good.

Chickens aren't really that bad to keep. They are easy and fun and a good healthy way to grow your own food. But I was ready to be done. We could have kept them and moved them to our new place probably. We had chickens in Grapevine. But I was ready to be done. I'd been thinking I wanted to quit raising chickens for a while, but it seemed sort of a have to thing living here. As soon as I heard Roger got the job, I decided to quit raising chickens. We'll see if I take it up again some day on a smaller scale. I don't know. But for now, I'm loving that they are gone.

Melissa's Random Thoughts on Moving Again

2009-07-28T07:00:00.002-05:00

I guess I must be part gypsy. Actually, I don't know anything about gypsies. Are they real or some mythical creature? What I've always heard is that they like bright colors, steal/collect children, and move around a lot. Many times I've selected colors and been told, "hmm, that seems a bit gypsy-like". I've never stolen a child, but I do have an awesome collection of them. And there have been times we almost stole one accidentally when some random child just starts following the crowd of kids. It's usually as we're leaving a place and they try to wander out the door with us. Gets me some dirty looks sometimes, but hey, it's really not my fault. I am watching to be sure I have my kids with me. Can't they watch to be sure their ONE kid stays with them? Anyway, by some people's standards, I move a lot too. I don't think so. I love to move though. I love the adventure of finding a new home, meeting new people, and just change in general can be so exciting. I don't mean this when it comes to some of the political changes here lately, but that's another subject altogether which I do not feel like blogging about today. In the last few months I've had several moments of panicky feelings at the idea that we were settled forever here. I can't explain it, but it just didn't sit well with me. When I'm not moving, I'm rearranging furniture or making some other change in our home. It seems to keep me going.

Before we left Grapevine there were some signs that it may be time for us to go but we didn't pick up on them until after God said go. Then we could see that God had really prepared us for the move long before it was time. We were still sad to leave our friends and family, but there was an adventure ahead and we knew we were following God.

This time, I've been seeing we had several things that seemed to be in transition all at once, but I didn't connect that perhaps God would move us again. There were also several issues I was concerned and praying about but didn't know how God would answer these prayers. I believe He was preparing us to move again. Looking back, I can see the signs. And again we'll be sad to leave friends we've made, but there is adventure ahead and we believe we are following God.

I am personally so excited about this that I am losing sleep. The loss of sleep isn't so good, but I love to be this excited about something. I wake up at night and my mind just starts going fast with all the thoughts about a new house, and how to move from 68 acres to, well, we're hoping for 3 right now. So many unknowns and new possibilities and I just can't shut my brain down.

As time allows I will try to blog about some of the steps involved. I wondered aloud on Facebook if we should keep blogging and it seems there is interest still. Several people suggested changing our title and continuing to blog but at least one of my friends pointed out that we're weird enough that pretty much anything we do will cause people to say, "You're doing what?" So we'll keep the title.

Hopefully we'll have news today about what house we're moving to. Just waiting for a phone call. . .

A post in which Roger explains why the family is moving from Coleman to Clyde

2009-07-26T13:39:00.001-05:00

So, here is how our move came about. On July 13th I was in a conference call and one of the folks mentioned that the Mayor of Clyde, Texas was the acting City Administrator and their application process was going poorly. She mentioned to me that I ought to call him to see if any of my contacts in the city management profession might want the job.

Having never been to Clyde I drove up to take a look and it was a nice looking town. I figured I'd just go ahead and apply – the deadline was looming in two days, July 15th. I talked to Melissa and she just looked at me and said “Go for it.”

I found an old resume and updated it, wrote a cover letter and drove up on the afternoon of the 15th. On the morning of the 16th they called and asked me to come to an interview at 8:45 p.m. on Monday, July 20th.

On the 20th I interviewed and drove home. As I was talking to Mitchell and Faith my phone rang and it was the Mayor asking me to come come back the next night at 6 p.m.

On the 21st I went back for a second interview and it turned out I was the only one left in the candidate pool. I met with the Council for about two hours. I drove away from the meeting and about 30 minutes later the Mayor called and offered me the job. I took it. We are moving.

Four years ago I wanted a change. I wanted to know my kids, to break from the rat race in the metroplex and to not have to worry about the daily grind of city management. Now, I still want to be close to my kids and I believe that I will be able to even thought I have a five day a week job. Clyde is a city of about 3500, that is way less than the 45,000 in Grapevine. Clyde is not in the DFW metro area and we are trying to get a house where we can keep our cow. A big difference from being in the metroplex. I will still get stressed out, but I will also get to milk a cow every morning and that seems to be a good way to cut through the stress before it ever gets started.

So, we will need to change some of the blog description, but it will still be a running log of the weirdness that is the Nelson family.

Roger

CNN = slanted load of crap

2009-07-15T19:49:00.004-05:00

This morning I was cruising through some news sites and there in CNN's feed it said "Commentary: Health Care Can't Wait" Turns out it was Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services. I read it, I disagreed and I commented. My comment was that I would trust government health care when my congressman, senator and president all had the same plan they wanted me to have. By the way, congress is exempted from having to follow this law. This is very typical as they are exempt from the almost all the laws they draft, other than raises.

So after I posted I noticed that CNN moderates the posts it allows. I went back three hours later and there were 25 comments under the Sebelius commentary. Mine did not make the cut. Most comments were like this one: "Need to get it done, sooner the better for this country. Only people still resisting are the ones profiting the most from the current system and those that are manipulated by the profiteers' misinformation." This is the comment from Geodin on CNN. At 7:30 p.m. there were about 40 comments, 15 or so more than when I checked at around noon.

At noon the "Commentary" tag on CNN had changed to note it was Sebelius and there was another one right under it "Boustany: Democrats' plans are a prescription for pain" Rep. Charles Boustany is a congressman from Louisiana. At noon there were 75 or so comments to his column. Most were like this one from Rob "Yeah, this guy thinks everyone should be able to pick "quality" healthcare. That is, unless you cant afford it. Then you deserve to die in the streets, right? It's about time the health system was overhauled."

I have yet to see a scientific poll that shows support for health care reform outstripping opposition among the population. Yet it seems there is overwhelming support on CNN. Maybe not, maybe they are so in the tank for BO that they even slant the reader opinion sections on the web page.

No MAYBE about it.

Roger

PS - just wanted to let this be known so that next time you hear about voter outrage on CNN you will know that they can't be trusted to play it straight.

Offend or Be Offended?

2009-07-12T10:26:00.004-05:00

Not a pleasant title, huh? But that's kind of how it seems to have turned out with our latest pregnancy announcement.

I am sorry to those of you who are truly happy for us and would have reacted with excitement, that I did not take the time to call you personally and tell you. I'm sorry you had to learn about our great news through Facebook or our blog. Please understand it is not that you didn't matter to us, but that we have learned we have to protect ourselves.

Have you ever had something really exciting come up in your life and then you tell someone only to be met with negativity? Imagine that nearly everyone you tell is negative about it. Wouldn't that make you not want to share? Yet the news is so happy and exciting you can't imagine anyone would be negative! Well, that's what it's like when a large family announces a new pregnancy. Sadly, we began experiencing it with our 3rd child.

The comments kept getting worse as we added to our family. The 5th was the worst. I guess we'd crossed some sort of line. But then it got a little better after that. I think part of the improvement was we quit telling people in person. We gave them a chance to react on their own before showing us their displeasure. Most people, if given time to think about it, still follow the old rule, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Things that people don't seem to realize are not nice:

"Don't you know what causes that?" Duh. You learn that in grade school these days whether you want to or not. It wasn't funny the first time we heard it and it isn't funny the millionth time either. I don't know a single mother or father who has heard that comment and thought it was funny. You are implying that this pregnancy is something we don't want. That's not nice. Not funny. Shouldn't be said. I am telling you this so that if you ever feel tempted to let those words come out of your mouth, you can know that it will not be well received EVEN if the recipient pretends to laugh. They are just being polite. Trust me.

"How will you ever have the energy for one more?" Let me ask you. Do you think this comment is helpful? Let's say the mother responds with something along the lines of I don't know. Do you have something helpful to say in response? This comments seems to suggest that you think this person is already not handling what she has and won't be able to handle more. If you think this is the case, either offer some practical help, or keep your mouth shut. No one needs discouragement to help them through a pregnancy. I have not yet had a single pregnancy where I didn't wonder, "How am I gonna handle this? Can I really do a good job raising this child? This is such a huge responsibility!" With my first couple of pregnancies, I could talk to friends or family and be encouraged and get back to feeling okay. I can't do that anymore. Everyone seems to think that while I've done a good job so far, this time I will fail.

"Aren't you getting a little old for this?" Um, when is a comment that implies someone is old EVER a polite thing to say?

There are more, but my point is really just please, please think before you speak. It's too late with us. We won't tell you in person because we've been offended far too many times by people we never would have expected to react that way. But I'm sure you know people who will have a third child or more. Please don't be part of the reason that they someday share their news in writing so they don't have to hear rude comments. We have to hear it at the grocery store from total strangers. We shouldn't have to hear it from people we love.

The reality is that if we'd have trusted our own reason, we'd have quit long ago. I think we'd have stopped at four children. But I know without a doubt that we'd have missed out on HUGE blessings. God challenged us to trust Him and we had no reason not to. We still have no reason not to trust Him. Our children are nothing but a blessing. Roger and I often marvel at how stupid we nearly were to try to stop the blessings. The joys we had no idea we would miss out on are too numerous to count. Yes, we've had to make some sacrifices and will continue to do so. But the blessings outweigh the sacrifices.

A new baby is good news to us. We will continue to rejoice in our blessings.

Why don't we celebrate Christmas?

2009-07-11T23:49:00.002-05:00

I get asked this question mostly in December. In 2007, I wrote up a little essay to answer the question. I considered posting it here, but I really didn't want to mess up anyone's holiday. And then I don't really think about it much unless someone asks. Well, today someone asked. I figured why not write about Christmas in July?

So here is the essay I wrote almost 2 years ago. We've learned more since then and realized I left out a few things, but I really don't have the time at this moment to edit this and it gives the basics at least. Feel free to ask questions if you'd like. If you aren't being rude or argumentative, but sincerely curious, we'll be happy to answer them.

I want to make it clear that I am not posting this to try to convince anyone or debate with anyone what YOU should do or not do. I am simply sharing why we made our decision. This is not posted here to persuade anyone, just to answer the question of why. What you celebrate or don't celebrate is between you and our Creator, not you and me.

Why don’t we celebrate Christmas?

I guess it started a long time ago. First we gave up Halloween. Many Christians can easily see that one. It’s pagan in origin and we could find nothing that glorified God in the celebration of it. And we’d stopped celebrating Easter pretty much completely. We had done away with anything about it that we knew was pagan—egg hunts, the Easter bunny, etc. We still celebrated the Resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday though.

Over the years we kept minimizing the materialistic side of Christmas. We phased out Santa when our oldest child learned the truth about him and wanted to know, “why did you lie to me?” I’d never thought of it as a lie, but what else can you call it? We weren’t telling the truth.

As with Easter, we tried to get rid of the pagan aspects of Christmas. We were still doing stockings, but then we tried calling them camel packs—as in the wise men bearing gifts while traveling on a camel. We gave each child one gift plus the “camel pack” stuffers. Then the children drew names and gave each other a gift. That’s not too bad. We were trying to get the focus on Christ, not ourselves or the gifts.

One year we did a birthday cake for Jesus. But it seemed so trivial. Here it was Jesus’ birthday and we were getting presents and eating His cake.

Even our decorations got reviewed. If we couldn’t find some spiritual symbolism to the decoration, it didn’t go up.

Then we noticed that in our daily Bible reading we kept coming across the same idea over and over. We read about how the Israelites kept turning toward pagan ways and mixing worship of God with pagan worship methods. God stated clearly that that was wrong. Exodus 23:24 says, "You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars.” Deuteronomy 6:13-15 "You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you (for the LORD your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the LORD your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth.” Again in Joshua 23:7-8 "and lest you go among these nations, these who remain among you. You shall not make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them; you shall not serve them nor bow down to them, but you shall hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day.”

We were reading this and we knew the origins of Christmas include taking a pagan festival and trying to make it Christian. This was to make it easier for the pagans to convert to Christianity. They wouldn’t have to give up their festivals. That had always seemed perfectly legitimate to me before, but I was starting to question that.

Then we learned that Ishtar (pronounced easter) supposedly laid an egg on Easter Sunday. This egg hatched bringing forth her son—Nimrod resurrected—her dead husband whom she had pronounced to be the Sun god. And when do they celebrate the birth of the Sun god? December 25^th. How convenient that was for Constantine. All I had previously learned about him was that he was the one that stopped persecuting Christians. But now I was learning that while he did accept Christ, it was only as one of the many gods he worshiped. His favorite god was the Sun god. So he was able to set it up so that he could worship his favorite god along with Christ and everyone would be happy. The Christians were okay with this. Wouldn’t anyone be? They got to stay alive.

About the same time that we were learning all this, we were also wondering why we don’t celebrate the Biblical feasts anymore. Jesus did. God said to keep the feasts forever. Did “forever” mean to quit when Jesus was resurrected? Paul continued to keep the feasts after the resurrection. Why don’t we still keep them? We couldn’t find an answer. So we started to try to figure out how to keep the feasts.

We then decided, as a family, that we just didn’t feel right celebrating Christmas anymore. We just can’t do it. We can’t see how it pleases God.

But do we feel like we are sacrificing something? Yes and no. We no longer celebrate a holiday that we celebrated all our lives. But God gave us many celebrations to keep. Hanukkah is not a commanded feast, but Jesus kept it (see John 10:22) and what a cool story that is! And most of the feasts that God gave us (what a great God! He “commands” us to celebrate and have fun!) are long—7 days for Passover, 8 days of Hanukkah, and the weekly Sabbath. We actually gained much more than we gave up.

We are learning so much about God through the keeping of these feasts. Much more than we ever learned singing Christmas carols, eating cookies, or giving and receiving gifts.

Weird Garden or Ignorant Gardener?

2009-07-02T16:43:00.003-05:00

Today was homeschool park day. The topic of gardening often comes up. So today I was sharing about how my garden has nothing growing on one side. I commented that even the potato plants that had gotten so big had completely died. My friend Tracy just smiled. I appreciate that she didn't outwardly laugh at me. Then she explained that that is how you know when it's time to harvest your potatoes. Okay, I knew that, but I expected it to be Fall. I had no idea it would be so soon. So I feel stupid.

So I checked the dirt under those very dead potato plants and I found a potato for everyone still living at home. Sorry, Stephen, none for you! And this is just from a couple of potatoes that had sprouted in the house. I'd never really intended to plant potatoes. I just figured I'd see what happens. I didn't even cut them up like I guess I was supposed to do. I just took the sprouted potatoes and planted them in the ground. I was experimenting. I guess I never really expected anything to come of it.

My Weird Garden

2009-07-01T21:33:00.004-05:00

I've mentioned my garden a time or two I believe. I've had trouble with gardening ever since we moved to Texas in 1994. There is some obstacle every time. There have been normal things like droughts and floods that have wiped out my garden attempts. But there have also been unusual things like getting a new puppy who decides to dig, eat or pee in the garden until there is nothing left of it. This year it was, I thought, the roly polies. Every year I fight it until I decide it just isn't worth it and then I give up. This year pregnancy nausea (it's not right to call it morning sickness when it lasts 24 hours--yes, I have it when I am up at night with kids) convinced me that the garden is not worth the trouble.

So tonight, after something like 4 inches of rain, I went out to take care of the chickens and my "garden tractor" is right there. I figured I should just take the door off it and let the chickens get in there and maybe eat some of the really tall weeds that grew in there. That's when it struck me how odd it is.

I've attempted the square foot garden method this year. So I purchased compost, vermiculite, and peat moss and mixed it together in the garden. I spread it out across the area and made a grid with string. Then I planted. The stuff I planted to the left of the door (my garden was in an old chicken tractor that we weren't using for chickens) grew, but we had a late freeze and most of it died. Then when I replanted, it was spring stuff--carrots, brocolli--and herbs. The herbs are still growing. To the right of the door, everything I planted either didn't grow or died right away. Seeds didn't sprout. Or if they did, they disappeared by the next day. It was strange. Then I discovered roly polies covering the plants and figured that was the problem. But we had them on the other side, too, and they did get a few of the plants over there.

But tonight I noticed that I had tall weeds growing all around the outside of the garden and all through the middle where I had a walkway. To the left I had lots of mint growing everywhere. To the right, nothing. Not even weeds. Not one thing is growing over there. Well, wait, I planted some fennel seeds which sprouted and one little plant is still there but it hasn't progressed beyond seedling in over a month.
What you see when you walk up to the "garden".

The left side of the garden with mint, an empty space where I pulled out the carrots, and tall weeds leaning over it.
The right side of the garden. The cups were traps to try to catch roly polies and I caught plenty. Interestingly, the spiders figured out that was a good place to hang out. But look, nothing growing.
Here you can see the weeds are tall inside and outside the tractor and even in front and behind it. Tall weeds are surrounding the garden, but nothing growing in my supposedly really great dirt.

So what's the deal? Did I buy bad compost or something? I mixed bags of stuff separately for the two sides. I've just never seen anything like this. Anyone have any thoughts?

An Announcement

2009-06-26T12:44:00.003-05:00

We learned on Father's Day that we are now expecting our 11th child. We think the due date is probably mid-February.

Our New Porch

2009-06-26T12:05:00.003-05:00

I've been putting off blogging about the new porch because I wanted to post pictures after it's all done. Well, I wanted to update what's going on and that's been a HUGE project around here.

I believe I posted some pics a while back of the porch. The big project has been putting a roof on that porch. It's not done yet, so I'm not going to go take pics yet. But trust me, it's lookin' good.

This roof allows us to eat breakfast without the sun blinding us in the morning.

It gives us shade to sit in outside where there's nearly always a nice breeze, even though the temps have been over 100 every day for too long now.

It adds to our "living space" by quite a bit.

When it rains, we won't have to close out the cooler air to keep the water out of the house.

It makes the house look a lot more like a house and less like a big box.

Roger's going to have a place to hang fans outside giving us even more of a breeze. And his sister, Ronda, makes these really cool pulls to hang on the end of the chain and she gave us a bunch of them for our fans. I'll be sure to share pics of those once the project is complete. She is very creative and artistic and these are just fantastic looking. I can't wait to hang them up.

Laundry Update

2009-06-26T11:46:00.002-05:00

We've been a little busy lately. I caught up with all that laundry. Bought a new washer and that helped a lot. I think front loaders are just not made for people who do 3 large loads a day of really dirty laundry including diapers. I got one of the last two regular top loaders in Abilene. I wanted one that uses real water and rinses away the dirt. Apparently before long you won't be able to buy one anymore. For most families that may not be an issue. They say these new high efficiency things will save you up to 54% of the energy and up to 46% of the water. So I did the math.

I figured since I do each load 3 times to get it almost clean, then I need to multiply my energy and water use by 3. If I am saving 54%, then I am using 46%. If I am saving 46%, then I am using 54%.

46% x 3 = 138%
54% x 3 = 162%

Since both of those numbers add up to more than 100%, my savings have become actually HIGHER costs, not savings. Plus, our clothes were wearing out faster and still not clean after those 3 washings. So we had added expenses there. With my new "low efficiency" washer, I can even wash diapers without any trouble.

And get this, I got the same size tub as my front loader, but now I have the big post thingy in the middle so it should hold less. But it holds more. Turns out they use different standards of measurement for high efficiency machines. I don't get it enough to explain it, but it's sort of like they get extra credit for size because they are more efficient. Seems like just a lie to convince us all it's a good thing to me. Anyway, what I do know is that I am using the same laundry bags with my new washer as I did for my front loader and when I put a "load" into the new washer, there's still room for me to run around the house and gather up some of the stragglers I find laying around. Pretty cool.

So the rest of you enjoy your high efficiency machines. I'll enjoy my "old-fashioned" top loader that uses water and be glad I didn't have to revert so far back in technology that I'm using that washboard we once bought at an antique store. (I was getting a little worried there.)

Vacation Aftermath

2009-06-05T23:47:00.003-05:00

I was going to blog some details about our vacation. We've just returned from a fantastic trip across country and back again. But the details will have to wait. I'm kinda busy. More laundry was added after this picture was taken. :-(

Our First Farm Baby is Three

2009-05-26T21:39:00.003-05:00

For those of you who have followed our blog long enough, you'll probably be amazed that it's already been three years since Gloria was born. If you'd like to see the story, just click here.

So here it is three years later and she's still such a beautiful girl. It's funny how she thinks the world belongs to her and can get very possessive about things, but today, as she was getting presents, she mostly shared without fussing. I was amazed. For you David Crowder fans out there, you know the song, "Everything Glorious"? Well, she thinks it's "Everything Gloria's" and figures God made everything for her. Maybe now that she's older and wiser she is learning that isn't true. Or maybe it's just that since she had an earache she didn't want to fight. Poor kid was miserable today, but still happy that she got a cake with a horse on it. She's asked for one for almost a year.

Thanks go to Grace for making the cake and ice cream and Flo the cow for providing the cream for the ice cream and the whipped cream.

And now, just because it's a good video and an awesome song, go listen to this: Everything Glorious by the David Crowder Band.

On Growing Up

2009-05-19T17:51:00.002-05:00

I bet you think this is going to be about the kids, right? Nope. It's about me and my realization that I am growing up. I can't call this a mid-life crisis because I'm ONLY 41. I'm not half way yet.

I don't know about the rest of you, but Roger and I have talked about how we have a mental age that doesn't really necessarily match our actual age. When someone asks how old you are, you can give the right answer, but in your mind when you think about yourself, you think about yourself as a different age. When I was around 34 I realized I wasn't 22 anymore and had to make this leap in my mind. Now I'm 41 and my body is letting me know it. I am having to readjust that mental age again so it's been on my mind a lot lately.

I spent some time staring at myself in the mirror. I had to let myself know that it's okay that I am getting a few wrinkles and things are sagging now. I spend my days with young people. I've got a 13 year old and a 15 year old (okay, 31 days still of being 14, but she's close) in the house which seems to make this a little harder for me. There's this constant reminder that I used to wear that size and have that smooth skin, etc. Now there are spots and blotches bumps and rolls and things. It's kind of hard to adjust to.

I'm determined to not feel all the aches and pains that are considered normal as we age. I keep hearing that I have no choice, but I don't believe it. I've had a couple of episodes of arthritic pains in my joints, but I take my grapefruit seed extract or garlic or cut back on my sugar. It amazes me how well the body can heal itself.

I've been asked to share some of what I've learned and am learning about herbs and natural healing. I'll do that as I have time and think of something I want to share. There's actually tons of stuff I'd like to teach everyone about being healthy, but I don't want to sound like I know it all because I don't. But I'm usually willing to experiment with herbs more than I'd be willing to let doctors experiment on me or my children with their drugs. There are fewer side effects.

But back to aging. I got an email yesterday aimed at helping me feel better by showing me all these pictures of the beautiful Hollywood stars and how they are aging too. It didn't help because I realized that if they started out looking better than me and now they look that bad, it's just hopeless for me! But what is helping is realizing that I am 41 and I shouldn't expect to look 15 or 25 or even 35. And it's okay to grow up. And while I still want to take care of myself, I don't have to look like a Hollywood star. Even an old, saggy star. I just have to be healthy enough to continue to do what I need to do and enjoy my children and maybe someday some grandchildren.

I am enjoying the wisdom that comes with age. The reduced stress in realizing that not all of life is drama. The love and joy and memories that come with having lived a life and made lots of friends along the way. And this is a great time to also realize I have so much ahead of me. More memories and love and joy and things to do and people to meet . . .

I imagine this will just keep getting harder every time I have to readjust my mental age, but I thought I'd share in case there's anyone else out there who is feeling old. Maybe there is comfort in knowing you are not alone.

Better Butter

2009-05-15T12:27:00.014-05:00

When we first got a cow, we started making our own butter. We put the cream in jars, about 1/3 full, and shook and shook and shook until we had butter. It takes about 20 minutes per jar. Then I would rinse it, salt it, press the water out, and we'd enjoy it. But no one liked all that work and I noticed our butter consumption dropped drastically. Soon, we were all tired of all the work and I started buying butter again. It just isn't that expensive compared to all that work.

Well, last week the "How to of the day" on my iGoogle page was "How to make butter with your electric mixer" or something like that. I'd tried that and it was just a mess. But I looked at the how to page and there was even a video. PLUS they had directions for how to rinse the butter in your blender.

So we tried it today. We're getting about a quart of cream per day and I need to do something with it. I've made sour cream, cream cheese, ice cream and still there's more cream than we know what to do with. So I figured I'd better try this.

It was great. Following are pictures of "batch 2" from today.

Start with a quart of very cold cream. More than that and you end up with a big mess splashing out of the mixer. So less is more.

Next you dump the cream into the mixer. Notice our cream is very thick and not dumping. I had to use a spatula at first to get the thick cream off the top. Then put the lid on the mixer and turn it on on its highest setting.

Within a couple of minutes I had whipped cream. Now I've tried this before when I wanted whipped cream and couldn't get it to whip this well. I think the fact that we had the cream very well chilled made the difference today.

After a couple more minutes the whipped cream gets kind of lumpy looking. Keep mixing.

It keeps getting lumpier and will begin to splash again as the buttermilk separates out from the butter. Don't quit too soon.

The top picture shows it getting lumpier, the one on the bottom is done. There are big lumps of butter rather than little blobs of it.

Now it's time to rinse the butter. I took the blobs of butter and put them in the blender while Claire prepared some ice water in a pitcher for me. I poured the buttermilk back into the jar I'd had cream in. Between the 2 quarts of cream that we made into butter, I had almost 1 quart of buttermilk. I added a couple spoons of sour cream that I'd made last week (this won't work with store bought sour cream), shook it up, and set it aside on the counter. Tomorrow I should have cultured buttermilk. It takes about 24 hours. This can be used for starter for sour cream or cream cheese, or it can be used in recipes requiring buttermilk. If you like buttermilk, you can drink it straight. I don't care for it though.

This is the butter in the blender on low speed with ice water added. The purpose of this is that the milk will cause the butter to spoil faster. So you wash the milk out of the butter. I did this by hand before and it was exhausting.
You pour off the "dirty water" and add fresh water. Repeat this process until you drain off clear water.

Then we dumped our clean butter onto a cutting board. You have to press that water out now and add salt while you're at it. I had a flat, wooden tool that I used, but today it broke and cut my hand. Grace took over and used a wooden spoon.

And here's the finished butter.

But like I always tell the kids, no job is done in the kitchen until you wash all those dishes. Another thing we were doing by hand when we first made butter.

Thankfully we have a dishwasher now! Those are some greasy dishes! Claire washed the dishes. Faith took the pictures. Thanks for the help, girls! To me, this is the bestest part of making butter nowadays--helpers!!!

Disappointment

2009-05-15T12:11:00.005-05:00

Two disappointing things this week.

1. There's almost nothing left of my garden. I still have potato plants that are growing from potatoes that sprouted in our house. They look great above ground, but no idea down below. Same thing with the carrots. Our broccoli has bolted from the heat now. And the mint is doing fine. Everything else has been devoured by those cute little roly poly bugs. I searched the net and found mostly that they don't eat live plants. That's a lie. If you have garden soil that is about 1/4 roly polies, they will eat your plants. I tried diatomaceous earth and it did nothing. I tried little traps. I caught a lot of them, but it was just a drop in the bucket.

I'm not giving up yet. I also read that they are at the largest numbers in the spring. Maybe I can get something to grow this summer while it's too hot for the roly polies? We'll see. But meanwhile, if there is anyone who can grow good garden fresh veggies and would like to trade for fresh cream or eggs, I'd love to hear from you.

2. Gloria got a hold of a pair of scissors and chopped her hair off. It was bad, but we could hide it a bit with a headband. But then she got a hold of scissors again. So we had to give her a haircut. I cried as I cut off the sparkly blond ringlets that were so beautiful. It was sort of a laugh/cry because I also knew I should just get over it. We saved them. I'm not kidding about sparkly. When the light hit her hair just right it looked like glitter. But no more. Now she is a light brown headed kid. Still beautiful. Just different.

As I finished the hair cut and realized she looked good, I said to her, "your mom is a good haircutter!" She didn't miss a beat and replied, "And I'm not!" We laughed and she promised she'll never cut her own hair again. We shall see.

Hmm. This is the best pic we managed to get of the new haircut. The older girls took pictures for me, but they took this one and then put her hair in pigtails so it's not quite the same. You can see though that she really chopped the side pretty short. I tapered it along the sides to try to make it look better, but in pigtails, you see that some of it is just too short to go back in the ponytail. Oh well. It will grow.

Mother's Day and the lie of it's the thought that counts

2009-05-10T08:02:00.001-05:00

I thought that this Mother's Day might be good to share with you the story of perhaps the worst Mother's Day gift ever. I was around eight or nine years old and Mother's Day was coming up. I got my money and rode my bike to Greenberg's Drug Store and started looking for something for Mom. I didn't have much money, I was eight or nine years old and my allowance was 25¢ a week. So, fancy boxes of chocolate candies were out of the picture. Expensive perfumes and jewelry were also out of my price range. There was a cheap perfume that I could afford and there were some pantie hose that came in an egg. My Mom was kind of skinny and tall and I had no idea what size she was, but I knew enough to not get here hose that were for fat women and get her all upset on Mother's Day because I thought she was fat. I also knew hose that were too small would get her all upset over how she wasn't smaller, so the egg got put back on the shelf and I bought the cheap perfume.

The perfume was wrapped with great care and Sunday came and it was time to give Mom her gifts. I remember my Mom's Mom was there, so Ronda, Dad, Mom, Grandma and me all gathered in the den and gifts were exchanged. Ronda made Mom some art thing since that was her deal and Mom was all gushy over it. It was just some dang rock or painting or some such thing. It was now time for Mom to open my gift and I knew it would be a hit. I knew it because I had to buy it and I didn't just make it. Mom opened it up, quickly shoved it under the cushion she was sitting on, mumbled thank you and started talking about other stuff. I was shocked at the lack of appreciation. The perfume was feminine enough, the can said it was feminine. It was a perfume, isn't deodorant a synonym for perfume? Isn't spraying on perfume the fancy way to put on perfume? Years later I would understand why a can of FDS was not the best of all Mother's Day gifts. But it was that day when I realized that it never really is the thought that counts.

Happy Mother's Day

Roger

20 Pie Crusts for the Freezer

2009-05-05T21:00:00.002-05:00

I can't find this on the net, but it was there once. I've found some recipes that are very close though. Mine uses my Bosch which is way easier than the recipe using the exact same ingredients, but you cut the flour into the shortening by hand. That's fine for a crust or two, but 20? Yikes!

20 Pie Crusts in the Bosch

3 lbs Crisco (I've been using the butter flavor)
5 lbs all purpose flour
2 T salt
3 cups ice water (I fill a 4 cup measuring cup with ice, add water, then when I'm ready for it I scoop out the ice and adjust to get 3 cups)

Put the Crisco in the Bosch and mix on speed 1. Add the salt, then slowly begin adding the flour (too fast and you'll have a mess!). Pour in water as needed to keep it mixing well and alternate water and flour.

When all is mixed, begin dividing it into balls. If you have a scale, you want each ball to be between 7 and 8 ounces. Flatten slightly like a hamburger patty and place on waxed paper on a cookie sheet. Put in freezer. When they are frozen, like several hours later or the next day, move them to a couple of gallon ziploc bags.

When you are ready to use them, take out what you need and allow about 20-30 minutes to thaw. Roll out as usual and enjoy!

Not the healthiest ingredients, but at least there are no dyes!

Pie, Pie and More Pie

2009-05-05T19:53:00.004-05:00

A couple of years ago I searched for and found a recipe to make pie crusts in bulk. Google can find anything. It's great. You can make 20 pie crusts with little more effort than one, put them in the freezer and pie becomes easier the next few times. I was going to post a link, but can't find one now. I'll post it soon.

So for Claire's birthday last week she wanted Chicken Pot Pie for dinner and Peanut Butter Pie for dessert. I figured it was time to make a new supply of pie crusts. It takes 2 to feed our family which still left me 16 crusts for the freezer (2 crusts for each pie--top and bottom. The peanut butter pie uses a graham cracker crust.).

This turned out better than any I've ever made before. I think it was the coconut oil with that very subtle coconut flavor. I used to use cream of chicken soup, but no more. I am putting my recipe here in case I can't remember next time. This makes 2 pies.

Chicken Pot Pie Filling (all measurements are approximate)

8 T coconut oil (butter is what I used to use)
8 T flour (theoretically--I needed quite a bit more to form the paste)
2 c milk
2 c water
4 tsp chicken base or bouillon
3 cans mixed veggies, drained
2 chicken breasts, cut up

Melt oil in a 2 or 3 qt pot. Mix in flour until you have a paste. Over medium heat, stir in milk, water, and chicken base. Cook and stir until thick and bubbly. Mix in veggies and chicken. Pour into two pie crusts, cover and cut slits. Bake at 350 for about an hour.

Well, after I made this, I still had 2 chicken breasts left. I'm sure I could have found something else to do with it, but we love chicken pot pie. So I made more only 5 days later. No one complained! Perhaps it was the power of positive thinking?

And then tonight, yet another pie for dinner: Quiche! The exciting thing about this is that we got the eggs from our farm and the broccoli from our garden! Apparently rolie polies don't like broccoli. It was delicious!

The Porch

2009-05-03T12:01:00.003-05:00

This is a bit late in being posted, but then again, who gave me a deadline? If I had a deadline, I'd have gotten it done on time. No deadline means do it whenever. In this case, a month after the fact.

In early April the concrete was poured for our porch. We had talked about a wood porch, but this is termite country and the cost of concrete went down enough it was worth it. There are several benefits to concrete and we're happy with it. The porch roof will come later. You can see there are places to add the supports for it, but one step at a time. One thing is for sure, when you build a house as you live in it, you learn patience and appreciation for each detail.

When we first chose the paint colors we chose colors from nature. The house was going to be the color of a wheat field, the trim was to be a green that we found on a rock in the lake, and the door was going to be burgundy because we like bright colors and had to have something brightish in there. Well, we started painting and realized we really like bright colors, so we're working on choosing new colors. Anyway, that's most of the reason we never finished painting. It's hard to motivate yourself to do a big job that isn't turning out satisfactorily.

For over a year we used some boards and rocks to create make-shift steps to get up into the house. This wasn't the safest set up but it worked better than the huge step down to the ground from the door. Ezra was never allowed to walk in and out the door although he often tried. He has loved being able to go in and out the door all by himself. The screen just swings, without a latch, so he can just push it open from inside and pull it open from outside. It's pretty much a childproofing nightmare. But we have a hook and eye that we use to lock it and it works to hold him in the house as long as no one wants to come in from outside. We're all learning to just use the other door which is so easy to do when you just walk around the house on a porch instead of around a ditch for earth tubes!!

Accomplishments

2009-04-14T18:03:00.002-05:00

Roger's been busy doing big things. This project isn't done yet, but when it is, I get to start organizing things. And for the first time in nearly 4 years, we'll get to see things we put in storage before we moved. I'm drooling over the chance to organize our stuff--especially getting our books back!

I just did a little thing I never thought I would do. I pierced my daughter's ears. Claire got her ears pierced last year at a jewelry store for her bday and it was horribly done. One of the holes was so low that the earring pointed down at the floor. We took them out and let it grow back with the promise I would let her try again. So today we went to Walmart to see if they pierce ears still. They do, but their gun is broken. We could either buy a DIY kit or wait a week or so. Claire had waited so long I finally agreed and we bought it. I knew I had to do it right away before I lost the nerve. And it's done. I don't recommend it though. It was easy except the backs didn't come out of the cartridge properly. The first one left the gun stuck to her ear and the second one just didn't come out of the cartridge. I had to pull it out and attach it to the back of the earring myself. But this was a better problem than earrings that are in the wrong place.

Licorice Mint

2009-03-28T20:22:00.002-05:00

Mitchell and I spent the day together as we were in Abilene at an auto auction. Mitchell is now the proud owner of a 1998 Oldsmobile Intrigue with 134,000 miles. The car is in good shape and will certainly last him for the next few years. It cost all of $500! We have some minor things to do to make it better, but it was a pretty good purchase for a first car.

But the big deal for the day was that we finally tried out the new taste we knew would sweep the nation - licorice-mint. To get this unique taste you chew up a mint Lifesaver with a piece of licorice twist and you get licorice-mint. In theory, you get licorice-mint. In reality the two tastes are so strong they cancel each other out. We tried different sequencing and different amounts of one and the other, but the elusive and highly anticipated taste just wasn't to be. Instead, we went through a bunch of licorice and mint and never really got to enjoy the licorice or the mint. Perhaps Altoids and licorice twist is the answer.

At least we got a car.

Roger

Garden Pictures and More

2009-03-19T15:32:00.010-05:00

I went and checked on the garden today to see how much it worse it would look in daylight. I was pleasantly surprised. We had little seedlings sprouting up still in spite of the chickens bathing in the dirt. Looks like we may get some carrots and lettuce and beans. Strawberries were completely torn out of the ground, but they didn't look like they were gonna grow anyway. Since this isn't really where I want to have a strawberry patch, I only bought a package of strawberry "bulbs" and tried to plant those. They were just the roots. Nothing seems to be happening with them. And since the chickens tore them out of the ground, I could see that I was right. Nothing was growing at all. But I stuck them back in the ground to try again. We'll see.

Anyway, I took some pictures. And when I went to load them I found some others we never shared.
This first ones are from February. See the ditch along side the house? We've had that for over a year. But in late February, Roger finished the part of the project that needed the ditch to be there. He has filled it in. It went around 3 sides of the house and there were several along the 4th side. It has to do with the earth tube project which is going to be our heating/cooling system. And someday we'll get that blogged about. Anyway, the bridge to get in and out of the house is no longer needed. The pipes have been laid and covered with dirt. And sometime soon we should be getting a porch. This is all very exciting!!
Next is the sugar cube/donut castle. This was a school project with assistance from the preschoolers and toddlers.Here's a pic of the garden tractor.This is a close up of the raspberry bush. Roger's got this cool watering system set up. There's a bucket beside each plant with a tube and some sort of a drip spout so that the plant gets watered.

And finally some pictures of our orchard. I couldn't get all the trees in one picture because even though they are still small, they had to be planted far apart, right? But there's another row that looks much like this one. Then I also wanted to share the peach blossoms and a pic from under the apple tree.

Garden Mishap

2009-03-18T21:05:00.002-05:00

I have a really great helper around here. He does so much for me. If I need a job done outside, I can just mention it and this great kid volunteers to do it.

Today I needed to get out of the house and I still needed to water the chickens and the garden. So I asked my helper and he readily agreed. Then there was a problem with the sprayer on the end of the hose. But he managed to get the job done anyway.

Unfortunately, he forgot to shut the door to the "garden tractor" and the chickens got in. I think he's apologized about 20 times and made no excuses. He just said, "I'm so sorry. I guess I was just careless." So I'm not mad. I'm just very disappointed.

Much of the garden looked like it had been a very enjoyable dirt bath for the chickens. It was quite a mess.

But we have it put back together and there are a few things that, in the dark, appeared to be okay. We'll check it out tomorrow.

On the bright side, it's still so early in the season we should be able to replant and still do lots of gardening this year. And that mistake will not be made by that child again. He's too sarmt for that. :-)

Covering Up

2009-03-13T23:06:00.002-05:00

This title seemed to fit several things on my mind this evening.

I just finished tucking Ezra in. It's 11:00 pm. We didn't have much of a schedule before, but after Daylight Savings we have none. Anyway, he happily laid down in his bed and let me cover him up with his blanket. It's cold enough now that we have to all stay as covered as possible.

And even though I knew the cold was coming, I didn't cover up my new garden. It's planted in a chicken tractor so I could have just covered it up with some clear plastic tarp and had a little greenhouse. But the rain is good for the plants so I took my chances. As far as I know we never got a full freeze, but close--33 or 34 I believe. Not being much of a gardener, I have no idea if that will be a problem or not. But we'll see. Then again, if nothing grows, I won't really know WHAT I did wrong, will I?

It's cold today, but we had temps in the 80's and 90's last week. It got us started talking about summer clothes and swimsuits. I realized that we have very few hand me downs for Gloria for this season and size. Claire has 2 older sisters with very different taste so she usually gets 2 full wardrobes handed down to her. There's usually enough stuff left over after she outgrows it that we can scrounge together a few decent things for Joy. Claire is full of life and the clothes show it. But after Joy, there's pretty much nothing left. So we took little Gloria shopping the other day. First thing I realized is that little girls are supposed to dress in skimpy clothes nowadays. The shorts are all too short and the only other option we could find was mini skirts. Sure, they have shorts sewn in, but do we really want to teach our little girls to dress like this? What will we expect later when they try to dress skimpier than when they were little girls? So we marched on over to the boys department and bought her some denim and khaki shorts. Same price, same size, but much more length. Then we went back to the girls department and picked out some nice girly shirts. I'm thinking about trying this trick for myself if I can find some nice drawstring shorts in the men's department.

And swimsuits! Ugh! It's VERY difficult to shop for swimsuits regardless, but when you have skinny girls who don't want bikinis and don't want headcoverings and swimpants, you're out of luck. There's this attitude that if you are skinny you want to show off your body. Well, that isn't necessarily true. Covering up isn't self conciousness, it's modesty and it's a good thing. But if you search for modest swimwear you find head to toe swimwear and that's not what we want either.

We're considering two options right now. Sewing our own, or buying the most modest tankini tops we can find and then getting boy's swim trunks to match. Why not? Why is it that boys get to just romp and play without thinking about their clothes, while girls have to yank and tug to try to keep their body covered? They make a lot of floral patterns on swim trunks anyway!

Our webpage is gone now

2009-03-08T14:52:00.003-05:00

We've pretty much given up on trying to sell our stuff. We were no longer using our webpage, so I cancelled it. But if you live nearby and need/want something, feel free to contact us. If we have surplus, we'll be glad to sell/barter with you. Like right now we have an egg surplus. I'd love to find someone I could trade with. I'll share my eggs with you, you share your homegrown tomatoes, homemade bread, or babysitting services with me. ;-) I'm sure we could work something out.

But I also wanted to mention Little Clay People. We were letting Faith use space on our website to sell her Little Clay People. That site is gone now. If you are interested, you can just comment here and she'll be glad to get in touch with you I'm sure.

Sorry we haven't blogged much, but we've been busy. Roger's been working hard and is just about done with the earth tube project. I'll have to get him to explain that one. But we're hoping it's gonna be a bit cooler in our house this summer.

I've been trying to get a garden started. I've got it planted and we're just waiting now to see if anything grows. I used one of the chicken tractors that was no longer housing chickens. We put raised bed gardens in the sides of that with an aisle down the middle. I've marked a grid with string and we're experimenting with square foot gardening. Hopefully something will grow for us this year. I pray over the plants and seeds every time I water. I haven't had a successful garden in about 15 years so I need help from the Guy who created the plants in the first place!

Melissa

PS To order Little Clay People or for more information you can contact Faith at LittleClayPeopleByFaith@gmail.com. If you'd like to see her work you can go here to see what our contest winner received.

Eggs

2009-02-08T20:35:00.002-06:00

We got an egg today! Actually we got 8 eggs! The older girls, 7 of them, each laid an egg today! Way to go! And one of the newer chickens who will be 5 months old tomorrow laid an egg today too! Roger came in (it's my job but I was inside with the flu. Figures I'd miss their first egg.) with this little bitty egg. We were excited! There are 19 hens in the newer batch so we'll have lots of eggs soon.

Stephen We Love You

2009-02-05T23:31:00.001-06:00

Our children missed their brother and were so excited he was coming home for a visit that they wrote him a song.

This is the warm welcome he received.

Family Picture Day

2009-02-03T16:29:00.004-06:00

I posted our funny face picture in the sidebar. Here are some of the other pics we took that day. Those of you who are my friends on Facebook probably already saw them, but here they are anyway.

Congratulations Stephen and Elizabeth!We didn't get individual shots of everybody. The sun was bright and some of the pics ended up with really squinty eyes while others had long shadows across faces. We're not professional photographers here! This is Sam, age 4 1/2.
Mitchell, 17
Joy, 6 1/6 yrs old
Gloria, 2 2/3
All the girls: Elizabeth, Faith, Joy, Grace, Claire, and Gloria
All the boys: Ezra, Stephen, Clark, Mitchell, and Sam
I just couldn't resist this shot. Stephen and Elizabeth walking with Gloria who adores them both. Gloria is very excited about the wedding plans. She keeps asking me if Elizabeth is wearing a dress yet. Today she told me that I'm not married because I'm not wearing a wedding dress. Faith laughed and explained that you don't have to wear a wedding dress everyday. It would be good for all girls to learn that there's more to marriage than a wedding. ;-)
The whole family. back row: Stephen, Elizabeth, Melissa, Roger. middle row: Ezra, Grace, Faith, Gloria, Mitchell. front row: Claire, Clark, Joy, Sam
Stephen and Elizabeth, the happy new couple

Roger and Melissa, the happy old couple
Melissa and the girls
Roger and the boys
All the kids

Walkers, Cluckers, and other stuff

2009-02-03T15:46:00.002-06:00

Seems like a lot of changes are taking place around here. I'm not sure I'll remember to mention everything, but here's what I can think of at this moment.

Ezra is now walking. He'll be 11 mos old in a couple of days. He was taking a step or two every now and then last month, but now he's walking all over the place. He stops and starts, falls down and gets up, and even dances and changes direction. I have caught him running a couple steps, but didn't really encourage that much. He'll do it in his own time anyway. This week he seems to be trying to talk. Grace predicted it. Faith was gone last week playing chaperone (I'll get to that in a minute) when Ezra really started to walk well. Grace is gone this week for the same reason and before she left she said, "Ezra will probably start talking this week." Sure enough, he is now saying bye bye or hi while waving. He says night night. He asked for Clark yesterday but left out the l-a-r. In other words he just pointed and made a big strong "CK" that clearly meant Clark. And I've watched him "practice" several other words silently. This boy is so adorable. Watch out little girls, he'll break your heart someday without even meaning to. He's got these eyes that will just melt your heart.

Mitchell turned 17 and graduated from high school last month. This is our second child to graduate and we are very proud of him.

And if all that isn't enough to make a parent feel old, Stephen got engaged. We knew it was coming since we'd heard he asked the young lady's father for permission. He came home for R&R leave time and took Faith with him to go visit. While there, he proposed and Elizabeth said YES. They then came here to spend the weekend and I made everyone get their picture taken together. I'll be updating the family photo with our new "funny face" shot sometime soon. It will be another year and a half probably before they tie the knot.

Farm changes, not much happening with the house. But we are building a barn and sport court outside. The barn will give Roger a place to set up shop and then be able to get some stuff done on the house if he ever finds the time. That man is busy with so many things!

I blogged a couple posts ago about how the chickens weren't laying any eggs. This continued for quite some time. I was about ready to process them and have some more soup, but our freezer is still pretty full so I thought of another idea. I started noticing that there were days when I would see bits of shell laying around. So they were laying, but someone was eating the eggs. I blame the rooster because I caught him doing it once. We have two chicken tractors that the chickens sleep in at night. They free range during the day. I took the doghouse that was laying around unused and separated the top and bottom. I put one section in each tractor, the bottom section upside down. This gave the girls a pretty deep place that was tall enough for them but a little too short for the rooster. And it worked. They lay their eggs in there now. I've gotten 3-5 eggs a day since then. The younger chickens have the bottom half and they should start laying soon. They're about 5 mos old now. One of them turned out to be a rooster and he crows and fights with the other rooster occasionally. Mostly all our chickens are very tame and love to follow me around. There is one that really likes Ezra and the feeling seems to be mutual.

Another change in our future is that our 3rd child, Faith, is about to begin driver's ed. I'm hoping to get through the book learning part with her before her 15th birthday so she can have a whole year to practice her driving. It seems that the longer they practice, the better of a driver they'll be when they are on their own. So we'll have another driver before too long.

I guess I should be feeling old with all the growing up my kids are doing, but in a few weeks I will turn 41. There's something about that "1" part that sounds so young.

Melissa

A warm welcome to Wendell!

2009-01-30T22:18:00.002-06:00

A new reader, Wendell from Lubbock, wanted to know how the reality of a simpler life away from the city was working out. Well, Wendell, I am no longer responsible for 500 employees providing municipal services to 45,000 people while seven politicians are checking my work to make sure it suits their needs. My life here is much simpler than it was there. It is not without its challenges or complications or complexities, but these things are for me to work out and judge if they are successes or failures. If I want to walk the fences, I choose to do so without the need to check with a boss or make sure it fits within job responsibilities. I don't have to talk to reporters wanting to know what I plan to do tomorrow or why I planted Elberta peaches instead of Rangers. I do not have to juggle work and family and faith as I have found that my family and my work here on the property can and do mingle together all of the time. My faith and work are interlaced with each other and the disconnect between personal and professional life that was required in my past work is no longer a factor in my life. Like my old suits and ties, this compartmentalization is an aspect I do not have to worry about.

Last week we went to the Metroplex to pick our son up as he is on leave from his first tour in Iraq. We got to see a bunch of old friends and drove around the city where we used to live and where I was the City Manager. Several friends commented on how much more relaxed I seemed. I hear this all the time from folks who knew me back then. As we drove around and through neighborhoods where folks are packed in tight and on roads that are crowded and where buildings close in on you as you drive I had one of those moments of clarity that city life is no longer for me. I doubt that I will ever be able to provide for my family off of the money we raise on the farm, but we get to be here. To work a few days a week in town in order to have more days out here working on land we own and where we will live out our days - God willing - is worth any loss the old me would have considered too costly.

Shortly after we moved here I was up one morning reading my Bible and 1 Thes 4:10b-12 jumped off the page at me and has been a touchstone ever since. It reads: But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

Roger

Can you lick your elbow?

2009-01-10T12:53:00.004-06:00

Yeah, really important question, huh? Years ago we heard that you can't lick your elbow. So of course, we all tried. None of us could do it EXCEPT for Faith. Somehow it came up over lunch just now and she checked. Sure enough, she's still got it!

The question is, can YOU lick YOUR elbow?

Sorry, we just haven't had anything more important to blog about lately.

Our windmill seems to be working now, but I haven't been receiving updates. I can see that it's spinning, but I'm not sure about how much electricity it's generating.

Ezra is taking a few steps here and there, but not really walking yet. I'm ready to not have to carry him around all the time, but not so ready to chase him down.

We're discussing our options for building a barn near our house. Next to that will be a chicken run for our chickens that are supposed to be giving us eggs. We're not getting any eggs though. And then next to the chicken run will be a garden of some sort. That's all future stuff though.

We're about to graduate our second student from our little home school. Mitchell will be 17 soon and finishes up his course work for me just before his birthday. We're proud of him.

Oh, and one more thing. We are NOT ready to sell or rent out our old house. If anyone asks you, tell them no. When we are ready, we'll put a sign in the yard, but it will be a long ways off yet. We really want to finish the house we're in before we worry about where someone else will live. Selfish? maybe. But that's where our focus is. I'm just bein' honest here. We get asked at least once a week if we will sell or rent out that house and it's just not habitable right now.

So we haven't been blogging because there just isn't really anything to tell you. Everything is coming up, but not here quite yet. That always seems to be the way winter works, isn't it? Full of dreams for later.

And the Winner Is . . .

2008-12-22T00:05:00.001-06:00

We actually had a tie. There were two pictures with captions that got the same number of votes.

Everyone chose their favorite caption for each photo and then chose their favorite over all caption. There were two photos that were each given 4 votes as best caption for that photo and both were also chosen twice as best overall so that didn't break the tie. Since all contestants entered a caption for all 3 photos, we broke the tie by choosing the one of those two who had the most votes for all their captions together.

So the winner is Midwifemama
"Where are my stretchy pants?"
We'll be contacting you about your Little Clay Person!

Second place goes to Lloyd Christmas
What?!?! Can you lick your butt?
There is no prize for second place. You're just Loser #1.

Thanks to all who entered! It was fun and a lot harder to choose a favorite than I expected it to be. The real winner is anyone who laughed at the captions and/or the pictures!!

It's a BOY!

2008-12-21T23:01:00.004-06:00

No no no, we didn't have another baby. But our new cow Flo did! Bruno was born sometime this morning between checks (and Roger was checking frequently so it must have been a quick, easy birth for her). All the other cows were there with her for support. I thought it was kinda cool. Flo was in a small fenced in area and the other "girls" were all hanging out just on the other side of the fence. Everyone wanted to come see the new baby, just like in Bambi. LOL

Here are some pics of Bruno:

New Cow

2008-12-18T19:02:00.002-06:00

This is our new milk cow. She got here this morning and we think that she is going to be dropping a calf tonight. Big thanks to Dale Wilkins and David Godfrey for the cow acquisition work.

Flo is a Jersey and she has a Jersey or Jersey/Ayrshire calf inside her. We are praying for a heifer.

We were going to name her Buttercup, second place was Gertrude (Yo, Gertrude!). But she doesn't look like a Buttercup. So, we were looking at this picture of her and realized that the spot on her forehead looks like an arrow. Thisway, Thatway and Imwithstupid fell out of contention early. So it was time to Google and it turns out that Flo is a Native American girl's name that means arrow. Since she is a milk cow we are also interested in her having a flow of milk, so our new cow is now Flo.

Moo!

Roger

Caption Contest

2008-12-10T14:12:00.004-06:00

We thought it would be fun to have a contest. We've got a few silly pictures below. Write the best caption in the comments section and you win. The prize will be one FREE Little Clay Person compliments of Faith. (You can order more to make it a set if you'd like. This would give you free shipping and $5 off your order!) Winner will be chosen by vote of the Nelson family (those who can talk anyway).

Picture #1

Picture #2

Picture #3

Entering is easy. Click the link below to comment. In the box, type the letter(s) of the picture(s) you want to write a caption for, then type your caption. Enter as many times as you wish. Entrees are due by midnight December 20. We will review the entrees, vote, and post the results sometime December 22. If we have your email, we will contact you, otherwise you will need to check back to see if you won.

Happy Writing!

Edible "Weeds" and Things We Try to Grow

2008-12-07T12:14:00.003-06:00

Occasionally one of the kids will bring something in that they found outside and we'll look it up.

Today it was cattail. Clark wanted to know if something he found was part of a cattail. We're still not sure about it, but we looked up cattail and found it is very edible and very nutritious. But the best time to harvest different parts is in the spring. So IF we remember we'll have to try some.

We'd also learned that mesquite pods can be ground into a flour. The kids tasted some and said it's sweet. They called it mesquite candy. They don't get to eat much candy so their idea of sweet may not be the same as someone else's. I haven't tasted it yet. They collected some for me to grind and use as flour, but I didn't get to it before the bugs did. Maybe next year. It seems like I'm always saying "maybe next year if we don't have another baby" and that day never comes. But we now have some children who are old enough to take on these projects if they desire.

We tried making some juice from prickly pear fruit. We didn't like it. I think we might if we added sugar, but I thought that would ruin any benefit to it. But again, maybe it was an excuse because I had a teething baby who doesn't sleep and I just didn't want that big job. It is supposed to make a good jelly and would probably be better for us than all the cheap grape jelly we buy.

Then the prickly pear cactus leaves are also good for you. Some of the kids tried it and liked it. Aren't you supposed to cook it though? They just ate it outside where they found it. I think they wore gloves and skinned it first. They love their pocket knives.

These are all things we have discovered in plenty on our property. They are all nutritious. We just haven't yet tasted any of them. I'm thinking maybe this next school year I'll make it part of our studies and we can see what God has provided for us right here on our own property. Things that are plentiful and considered in the way, i.e. weeds. I wish I had someone to teach me about all these things.

We have finally gotten around to planting some lettuce and garlic chive seeds in a couple of pots in the house. We haven't had any house plants for a long time. If we're going to start now, they ought to at least be useful. We also have 3 old buckets in south windows now with clippings from a friend's tomato plants (thanks Tracy!) that were rooted in water. We'll see if these do any good. Wouldn't it be great if we can get a salad from our houseplants? We do need to find a way to decorate the buckets. They're pretty ugly right now. I'll probably give that project to the kids.

And the chickens are still working on tilling a garden for us for the spring. They're doing a good job tearing up the plants and maybe the top inch of soil, but I think I may need to buy a tiller or something. I'm not sure what I need, but the ground is pretty hard out here. I know I have a LOT to learn still.

My dream is once we get the porch on the house I want to grow herbs all around the house instead of a useless flower garden. There are plenty of flowers on plants I would use. Herbs I buy and would love to grow myself if I can include peppermint, spearmint, stevia, red clover, hawthorne, lavender, mullein, lemon balm, echinacea, nettle, horsetail, licorice, thyme, and I think there are more, but Claire and I can't think of them right now. So I need to look these all up and see what I can grow and harvest and use without paying someone else to do it for me. Again, so much to learn, but I think it will be fun. I just have to be sure at least one kid is interested in each project so they can help me keep it going IF God decides to bless us with another baby and I need time off from projects.

Just thinking out loud here.

Lockers

2008-11-23T20:04:00.003-06:00

Years ago we bought lockers for our kids. We were going to paint them, but never got around to it. We had plans to paint them before they got moved to this house so the kids have waited very patiently. The big excitement this week is that Roger painted and moved the lockers. Now the kids get to re-load them with junk.

Like Father, Like Son

2008-11-16T15:23:00.004-06:00

Ezra and Roger have similar boo boos on the same finger, just opposite hands. Note this is the same hand Roger had some trouble with earlier. He figures the next one will get hurt in 2 1/2 years. Let's hope not. And I hope Ezra enjoys life every bit as much as his Daddy, but with fewer accidents along the way. He's not off to a good start though if this is any indication.

Homemade Kites

2008-11-16T15:03:00.002-06:00

The kids have become pretty creative with finding things to do around here. One of Faith's new hobbies has been to try to figure out how to fly. But this time, I'm not sure what they were attempting. Being as skinny as she is (she's trying to gain weight so don't pick on her) combined with the strong winds we had made for quite a combination. She did NOT fly.