\Kieron

poor kieron has not had his every milestone blogged like his big brother. 

so much on his momma's plate! it's easier to write a quick facebook update.

Anyways, Kieron is 11 months and one week old, getting oh-so-close to being a year old!

And he is walking! he still crawls quite a bit, but he is officially walking now :D 

He is proud of himself, sometimes if we cheer for him, he gets so tickled he falls over :) 

He says bottle, diaper, milk/momma (even though he's weaned, i still can't tell the difference between those words!), Aiden, dadda, Elmo, car, dog, ball, car, thank-you, and 'i'm fine'. That is Aiden's response when someone asks how he is, or what he's doing, where he's going, or what on earth he is planning to do with that.

Kieron loves to pretend talk on the phone much more than Aiden did at this age, and in general likes playing and toys more than aiden did, or even does. A few days ago, Kieron held a toy phone up to his ear and said 'I Kieron, hi dadda!' 

He loves a particular ride-on car - the one with a little door that he can open and close. He will happily sit in it for half an hour or more and open and shut the door, turn the steering wheel, and poke his head out the windows.

Kieron LOVES Aiden, but he also loves playtime without Aiden. Sometimes when Aiden is in bed, but Kieron is not quite ready to sleep yet, because of a nap, I will watch him play by himself, at the happiest he's been all day.

He's in general a happy kid, but sometimes (like tonight) he is very clingy and demanding. Right now he cant' seem to stay asleep, poor kid!

He eats most everything we've tried him on, but he  loves meat and cheese, avocado, and other fatty things the best. Oh, but he doesn't like bananas. I cannot blame him; I don't either.

He has six teeth, and except for when he was teething while nursing, has never (yet) had a biting problem.Whew! Aiden was a biter...

We are planning to have an oscar the grouch themed 'party' for his birthday, because he always laughs at oscar when he is on Sesame Street. 

He's a budding messmaker; two toddlers (!) are keeping me on my toes!

Better go on to bed so i can keep up with them in the morning!

Pepper Beef

A friend of mine (a newlywed) wrote on facebook about tonight's dinner flops (yes, plural, bless her heart), and said that after the second, her husband suggested they just eat toast :)

That reminded me of some of my biggest flops, and Luke's calm reactions. Having a husband with a phlegmatic temperment can be a huge blessing sometimes :)
The most memorable flop was probably the first time i ever attempted to cook Pepper Beef, a delicious, tender, and simple pulled beef meal, usually put on sandwiches. My grandpa used to make it every Christmas. Pepper Beef was a holiday meal and a rare treat when i was growing up.  It would cook all day, and the smell would torture us! by the time it was FINALLY dinner time, we could not wait to eat it :) If mom asked me to 'fork it' (shred it with a fork), i would sneak picks of it.

When Luke and I  were newly wed, we almost never ate beef. In fact, up until this wheat free diet, we have never bought beef more than once a month, on average.
In those early days,  we were gone to Branch all day every sunday. We would arrive home tired; I would be ravenously hungry and frustrated and usually feeling blue, and would have to make dinner. I do not cook well when hungry, i tend to be edgy and freak out easily. I wanted to crockpot meals, but we would be gone at least 12 hours, sometimes more, and most crockpot recipes I knew couldn't be cooked quite so long.
Except pepper beef, which required a roast, which was a big splurge.
 So one weekend we bought the smallest roast we could find and I made pepper beef. It is a simple recipe -  put beef in crockpot on low, add the juice and a few peppers from a jar of pepperoncinis (mezzetta makes the best!) and cook all day. pull apart when tender and let sit in juices for a little while before serving, eat on hoagie rolls or whatever. add some Lays original potato chips and the meal is complete.
So I called mom, i made sure i remembered every step of that simple recipe, and on sunday morning, i started the roast.
What we did not know was that such a small roast would get too hot too fast in my big crockpot, and dry up all the liquid.....
So all day, especially as i sat in youth church in the evening, alone and hungry, i dreamed of the pepper beef waiting for us at home. .... and when we got home, i could smell that something was off.
I didn't smell the delightful aroma of flavorful and tender beef. I just smelled a burnt smell.
Our beautiful roast was charcoal. No delicious tangy juices, no tender beef. just an expensive lump of charcoal and shattered dreams.
I do not remember my exact reaction, but I am sure it was not pretty.
I believe that after ranting for few minutes about what a cruel world I live in,  my fury was exhausted and all i had left was despair.
Our expensive roast, gone, wasted, useless, and i was hungry!
I collapsed in sobs and Luke said he'd eat pb and j for dinner, but he ran - despite my protests of the foolishness of heaping expense upon expense - to the Subway next door for my favorite sandwich.
While he was gone i pulled apart the charred roast and found a little meat inside that was edible (tasty if not tender and moist) and Luke got some pepper beef after all, while i had just a little taste of beef and ate my oven roasted chicken breast on Italian herbs and cheese very happily.
He enjoyed the beef, supplemented with a peanut butter sandwich to fill him up, if my memory serves correctly.  He'd have eaten nothing but peanut butter and jelly for dinner, and been cheerful about it too, while watching me eat my chicken sandwich. He would have eaten just a few bites if i insisted. But he'd have been genuinely cheerful, not martyrly.
He has also eaten several soggy (ruined!) pizzas and a few bowls of strange and gross experimental (inedible, i thought) bean soup, plus various bland meals, salty meals, overcooked beans, burnt rice, and food combinations that just didn't work out. All without complaining, all with a hug and a 'I probably won't eat the leftovers but it's edible' and sometimes with a 'how about i cook  you up a chicken breast'.

Luke's a trooper, I think i'll keep him around awhile.

Of course, in return for his gratitude, patience, and support, he has reaped many benefits in the form of experiments that went very well, a wide variety of delicious meals, and a wife who is confident in being loved despite feeling like a failure. And a confident wife, i do believe, is a very good thing for a man to have.

P.S. I still have flops regularly, but i have never ruined pepper beef  since that time. I always add extra water just to be safe.


Pepper Beef
There are only TWO essential ingredients: a Roast and a jar of pepperoncinis(Mezzetta is my favorite! don't get mild, even if you don't like hot things. the spiciness is pretty much cooked out of the juice and the peppers once it has cooked all day. I think mild pepper juice gives it a funny taste. I like the sliced pepperoncinis, because they're easier for sandwiches, but mom always bought whole).
open beef and rinse (i always rinse the extra blood off the meat. Am i weird?)
brown it or don't brown it, your choice.
place roast in crockpot and pour the juice from a jar of pepperoncinis, go ahead and sprinkle on a few peppers, too.
Sometimes i add a little onion powder and black pepper.
Add some extra water if your roast is smaller than you usualy do in your crockpot, or if you will be gone all day and not able to check on it. say a 5-10 ounces, maybe?
Cook on low all day long. i'd say ten hours, at least, but more is good.
When it is about 30 minutes until dinner time (more or less is okay),pull apart the beef - it should be tender by now - and let it sit in the wonderful juices while you get everything else ready.

Serve with buns, lays potato chips  (if you are wheat free, eat with oven fries and other vegetables, and forget the buns altogether :D it's all good!). You might like some extra peppers (i prefer them when they have NOT been roasted all day!)
A cucumber sour cream salad makes a nice side vegetable.
 I think roasted cabbage would be good too
Luke appreciates a mayonnaised bun, and red onions are nice too. Some people like barbecue sauce, but all I want with my beef are a few crispy pickled peppers!

It's a simple dinner, and nearly foolproof.  But do not ever cook a 2 1/2 lb roast in a large crockpot all day long....

May all your roasts be tender, and even if they are not, may they one day be happy memories.

the life cycle of basketball players

our local homeschool group has a pretty good (well, as homeschoolers in the state go) basketball team. Or rather, TEAMS. it used to be 'jr. high' and 'sr. high'. My husband and brother in law were on the very first Patriot's team. Now we have girls teams, and instead of just jr. and sr. boys, we have 18 under, 16U, etc, all the way to 10U, which began recently.
Youngest BiL, samuel, is ten this year (secondyear playing for the patriots, i believe? or maybe it's the third... i think he was on the first 10U team, at any rate ). Before Patriots, he played upwards basketball, with some of the same boys he's playing with now.
 Not many groups have 10U teams, so Samuel's team hasn't had many games, but they're pretty good anyways. this was our first time to watch him this year  - Samuel hit THREE three-point shots today. Way to go, Sammo!
They've got some big kids on their 10U team, but they're still pretty little, and cute. .... in 6 years, they are going to be huge and pretty good, from playing together for so long (more or less; there's not a ton of moving around, in our little community of friends). And they are gonna all be bigger than me.
Caleb (whom we also got to watch today) is on the 14U team, and they're a good team. Caleb is getting all handsome and grown-up looking. (my brother brandon, who doesn't play basketball, is too. And tall! what is happening to kids these day? all getting bigger!)
In the stands were several former patriots (who were, in general, very loud with helpful advice ;) ).
all in one gym on one saturday, we saw everything from Future Patriot baby siblings, to former patriot college graduates with 'real jobs' and babies.

It was an interesting look at the 'life cycle' of Patriot basketball players :)

It doesn't really seem that long ago that I was 16 and in the stands cheering for my brothers (TJ played his senior year), and my friends (Luke looked pretty dorky-cute in that basketball uniform :D ) and helping with my little brother Jeremiah and my little friend, Samuel. Now Samuel is a Patriot and a glance at all the teams shows me he's rapidly headed towards the senior team and then graduation, and I'm in the stands with handsome Luke and our two boys, who seem rocketing toward basketball age themselves.

Sequined 'Patriot MOM' shirt, here I come!

jezebel

Been reading through the Bible really quickly (hoping to finish in 90 days from the start - i'm almost a 1/3 of the way through it, but a little behind - i should be in Chronicles now).
I noticed a nice little irony in 1 kings 21.
Ahab is skulking because Naboth won't sell Ahab a certain vineyard. Jezebel is Ahab's infamous wife - the first we hear of her is this sentence "Then, as if following the sin of Jeroboam son of Nebat were a trivial matter, [Ahab] married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and then proceeded to serve Baal and worship him." - 1 kings 16:31 
It was Jezebel who led Ahab into being the most evil king Israel had yet seen - she enticed him to follow the Baals. 
So back to the vineyard - Jezebel devises a way to get Naboth, the vineyard owner, killed, so that Ahab can take his vineyard. She sends letters in Ahab's name to nobles in the city where Naboth lives saying:
 “Proclaim a day of fasting and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people. But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them bring charges that he has cursed both God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death.”
That's just an appalling thing, to me. That Jezebel, JEZEBEL, people, would have some guy killed on the grounds of 'he cursed God'. You  know, the God she spent her life defying, YWHW whose prophets she killed, and whose people she led to prostitute themselves to Baal. That God and that Jezebel.
She used His commands and His holiness for her unholy purposes. for murder.
Had she NO fear of the Lord? 


... probably not. 

I'm not sure what lesson there is in that, except that just because people appeal to some aspect of God's holiness, or to His commands - just because they know how to sound holy - doesn't make them Godly leaders.
And just because we think we are judging others based on the law, doesn't make us righteous, either.
There are religious people who have no fear of God. (now that reminds me, for some reason, of the witch of Endor, whom Saul asked to raise the spirit of Samuel, and who was terrified when the spirit actually came).
I am not bashing religion (that seems to be a trend among people my age, especially), but there are people who use religion and spirituality for gain, financial gain, gain of reputation as a good person, or of the ability to feel good about yourself because you're religious (as in, self-righteousness)
I am scared of being around those people, of raising my kids to be those people, of being one of those people myself.

The idea that we could raise kids who know how to' talk christian' and yet don't fear the Lord or love Him, or keep His commands is an idea that makes me feel very sick to my stomach.

'Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.'

The Pasture

I pretty much adore Miss Lichea.  she's snarky and sparkly and lives on a farm, plus she's hilarious. (there's that little thing about her liking snakes, which i find alarming but i can overlook that).

She's only just started blogging, but her facebook statuses have provided daily laughs for me for awhile.
(plus i know her in person, plus she's my MiL's friend, plus she's my SiL's mom, so i'm really not some creepy stalker. just so you know.)

She writes about chickens (mostly dead), blessings from God (mostly live chickens), cows, calves, and friendly snakes. sometimes her statuses are in poem form - she's like a snarky Robert Frost with lipgloss and fluffy blond hair.

Sometimes she makes me think of the sweet, idyllic poem 'The Pasture' ( http://www.bartleby.com/118/1.html) by Robert  Frost.

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.
I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

It reminds me of her because when she writes, i always feel like she's inviting us along to see what she's seeing. 

But really, Frost's views of farm life are probably too idyllic. Too little carnage.

After the story she posted today: http://poultryprincess.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-do-believe-cows-are-trying-to-kill-me.html, I decided i better offer a rewrite:

I'm going out to save the little calf, in peril cuz his mother is so dumb, she birthed him by the creek, in the mud. if I'm not back in ten, you come too. I'll probably have to fight an angry cow She'll think i want to take her calf away but still i must try to save the day if I'm not back in ten, you come too.

secret recipe chef

I come from a family of food-loving cooks. Most of us love to make food and we all love to eat :D
I have seven siblings, six of whom still live 'at home'. up until recently, when they added 'the LEM', my family's house was smaller than ours. Space is still an issue.
So what can you get for a family member who doesn't need 'stuff' and doesn't have room for it anyways?
FOOD!
For Jeremiah's birthday in early december, i made a secret recipe kit and a wrote a few recipes to go along with the ingredients.
If i were getting fancy, i'd have made him an apron, bought nice little containers, and designed little labels to tie it all together. As it was, i scrounged up disposable containers and just gave the food and the 'recipe book'  :)  (someday i hope to be more 'together')
I tried to give him a little of everything Tony and I used when we were younger and made 'secret recipes' in the microwave whenever we were allowed
There were:
marshmallows
chocolate chips
powdered sugar
cocoa powder
coconut
raisins
cheerios
sprinkles

I actually just repackaged ingredients from my bigger bag - i bought most of these in much larger packages than he would need them in :D

(peanut butter and nuts would have been excellent additions to that list).

writing the recipes was an afterthought, but was actually my favorite part of the gift - feel free to borrow from my list if you want to make your own secret recipe book :D

Jeremiah helping mommy make bread, many years ago. interesting side note,  through the window behind Jeremiah, you can see the side of the home of the locally famous painter John Bell Jr.  ... i miss them, and i still miss that big white house we used to live in, it seems like a lifetime ago.

Secret Recipes:

Some ideas to help you get started making your own mystery desserts.

Muddy Creek
It might look muddy, but it’s so much better than mud pies.
Melt chocolate chips and marshmallows in the microwave - add peanut butter if desired (optional)
mix in cheerios and raisins.

Dry Creek
This will look like a creek or riverbed getting dry and dusty in the summer.
toast a slice of bread (not included)
melt chocolate and mix with peanut butter (not included),
spread mixture on toast, sprinkle with cocoa powder (that’s the dry dirt).

Icy Creek
This is the last creek recipe i can think of. can you think of more?
Make Dry Creek toast, and sprinkle with coconut instead of coca powder

Groundhog Day
Didn’t we eat this yesterday?
mix chocolate and marshmallows, microwave, mix in cheerios, top with a light dusting of powdered sugar snow, and place a few tiny groundhogs (raisins) peeking out of the snow.

Power Outage Trail Mix
For when there’s no electricity or when you take a snack on a hike
mix together cheerios, chocolate chips, coconut, and raisins - eat just like that  :D

Fairy S’Mores
These are like S’Mores, only teeny tiny!
poke a chocolate chip inside a marshmallow, place on top of a cheerio, microwave briefly, place another cheerio on top, and enjoy!

Snowy Mountain Range
put a sprinkling of coconut on a plate, top with a few chocolate chips - upright. microwave just a second and then sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Chewbacca Delight
I almost named it Chewy Delight since it’s chewy, but Chewbacca sounds much cooler.
Melt chocolate, mix in marshmallows if desired and melt a little more, add desired ingredients like raisins and coconut,  then place on wax paper to cool.  Dust with cocoa powder if you want to get fancy.





Tips:

• If you want the cereal to stay crunchy, don’t microwave it - add it later.

• Remember: Chocolate chips need to be stirred before they really look melted.

• Be careful not to burn yourself!

• Experiment with amounts, ingredients, and method - see what you can come up with!

• Give funny names to your favorite creations.

• Make small portions so the fun tastiness can last longer :D

• Make anything you want, any way you want.

• Enjoy!

pretty good

I got to talk on the phone with my friend Stephanie tonight :D it's been awhile since last time! We actually had phone time 'on the schedule' - planned since tuesday.
If you don't be deliberate about things, sometimes they don't happen.

Anyways, we were catching up; i talked a good bit about me, about this new diet with lots of fresh veggies and healthy fats, about the boys and their developing skills and Kieron weaning, Aiden obeying better and giving me 'loves' when i appear stressed, Luke liking his job....
and she said something like, 'well, it sounds like you're all doing pretty good'.
And ya know, we are.
We are doing pretty good.

Despite being more crunched, and not building up the savings as quick as i want, due to our new-old Lumina breaking down, we'll be alright financially. It is of course frustrating and stressful, but not devastating and impossible. 6 months ago it would have been devastating.
We are eating plenty of meat and healthy veggies - 6 months ago, we couldn't afford much of those.
Kieron has started sleeping through the night on occasion, Aiden's my helper, Luke's gainfully employed and mostly enjoying his job, I am working with my diet and praying that i am finally on the road to healing - i have a bit of hope, and some money to pad my grocery budget. We even have an 'out to eat' budget*, for a date night, and that is awesome :D
I'm reading and busy and learning and growing and finding balance and trying to find joy in life and some things are still hard - no one ever said life was easy :)
But we do not have the choking feeling of floundering, and barely treading water that we'd had for so long  - that feeling of constantly fighting worry and wondering how much longer we can do this - two babies, too little sleep, too little rest, and barely enough money - and stay sane.

But praise God, life is getting a bit more rhythmic, more peaceful, and more fun :)

I think when life is hard, you have to trust that God is the I AM. that he is good, and that he is The One Who Sees, regardless of how hard your life is and whether the hard part will end soon, or get harder. But I am only human and I gotta say, I certainly do like it when things get easier.

We *are* all doing pretty good.

And that is nice.


*Luke's goal for the year is to take me out at least once a month. and being the good wife that i am, i aim to help him with that resolution :D

random thoughts

* Kieron hasn't nursed in a week - well, in 2 hours or so, it will be a week.
 -  that was not his choice, not at all. but one week later, he can snuggle up to me, and fall asleep with a bottle. without getting mad at me.
- i would have quit weaning after a few hours (would have quit every few hours for the first 5 days) if Luke hadn't encouraged me to keep going (encourage isn't the right word. MADE would be nearer. i'm glad he did.).
- i weighed the decision for awhile, and we finally decided to cut back on nursing. But cutting back was not a good solution for Kieron - he didn't understand that he sometimes had to take a bottle from daddy when other times he'd nurse whenever he wanted, if mommy could possibly manage. So we finally decided to just go cold turkey weaning...
- despite making a measured, careful decision, i feel like a bad mom, weaning before he's ready to quit. mom guilt is powerful. (i weaned Aiden when he WANTED to quit and also felt really guilty about that.)
- but i'm glad we're done, and past the hardest part of weaning. last week went by in a fog of fussy, fussy days and nights. Terrible while it lasted, but much better already.
- now i don't have to worry about Kieron getting toxins through milk, as my body detoxes when i change my diet. I was kinda concerned that going wheat free was putting me through a milk detox that was affecting Kieron.

* speaking of diet and detox, i think i'm gonna do the GAPS diet.
 - i haven't decided whether to do the introductory diet or not
- i haven't decided whether or not to have the whole family do GAPS, or the intro (if i do it)
- if i do the intro diet, i am going to be well-prepared. better than when i jumped into going wheat-free.
- i am trying to ease us into a lifestyle of eating more of the GAPS-friendly foods and less of the forbidden foods.
- that means i need to make some lacto-fermented vegetables. my first batch of sauerkraut is on the counter...


* I have found that the more whole, healthy foods and oils we eat, the more we like those foods and dislike others. (or, i do!)
-velveeta now tastes yuck to me.
-i could eat coconut butter (even coconut oil!) on a spoon, and i never liked olive oil-heavy dressings until last night.
- suddenly, plain yogurt with strawberry preserves is a great treat, and yogurt cheese is 'yummy cream' - says Aiden.(strain yogurt in a clean cloth, let it drip for a few hours, save whey to use in lacto-fermented recipes, and the solid part is the 'cheese'.). Before, yogurt would have been too sour for us to enjoy.
- I hope we like the sauerkraut i am making. Being lactofermented, and not cheap aldi's canned stuff, i'm sure it will be different...

* i wanted to plant a tree this winter, dead of winter is supposed to be the best time for tree-planting. but we haven't had much winter.
- I don't know what type of tree we should plant.
- i don't know if the warm weather will make it harder for the tree to be transplanted safely.
- I love the weather though! it's sunny and warm and feels like April.

*this year, i am going to have a garden again. I have a plot that has been tilled, and is now sitting with newspaper and plastic on it. Hoping for good, rich soil. Gonna take a sample to the extension office and see what minerals, etc, it needs. need to do that soon.

*we had another car emergency (our oldsmobile broke down in november, it was cheaper to replace it than to fix it,  so we bought a lumina, which broke down the first of the month, and needs a new engine) has left us feeling broke again - gotta get a new car! or fix the old one, but we don't have the cash. We have driven in my parent's van more than we drove in our lumina! (thanks so so much for letting us borrow it, Mom and Dad!)

*my new spin dryer has made washing clothes at home in the 'wonderwash' a kajillion times easier. no more hand-wringing! If i'd known our car would break down right after we bought it, i might not have spent the money on it, but i guess i am happy i was ignorant :D i can wash five loads at once, and have no hand pain! awesome :D plus our clothes dry in hours, not days.

* this is what i am reading:
on the food/nutrition/health front: Guts and Psychology Syndrome,  Nourishing Traditions, and Food as Medicine.
the Bible... in 90 days. I should finish in the end of March. reading it all quickly certainly has a different feel than reading a little piece at a time. I think both are good.
Think - by John Piper (Luke's christmas present from me, he says i should read it - i have so much to read, i have barely started it!)
and random stuff about 'systematic theology'. There's a book by Wayne Grudem (called, shockingly enough, Systematic Theology), that we will probably get later. Luke wants us to 'do class' together, and our first subject is going to be systematic theology. I'd just as soon our first class was some sort of nutritional study ;) then i could kill two birds with one stone.


* i will never get rich blogging. oh well :D