Links

Recipes I've tried recently:


Pesto Crusted Salmon - Made the pesto with basil from my garden. Nick and I LOVED it. Kids ate it, reluctantly. Yummy!

Thai "No Peanut" Sauce - We put this on top of stir-fried chicken and veggies. Delicious. Big hit all around.

Peanut butter and jelly cookies - I actually didn't have any jelly that day, so I just used this recipe as the framework for almond butter cookies since we avoid peanuts here. I used the standard peanut butter cookie criss-cross fork pattern on top, and actually I also substituted chia seed gel for the egg. Ha! This recipe wasn't really that much like what she posted. But they came out delicious!

Herb Crackers - these are light, delicate and tasty! Pretty quick to make too.

Health:

How to eat healthy while traveling
Do you or anyone you know suffer from PCOS (or really, any other female problems)? An unconventional approach that I find compelling.
Why Homebirth? We're not stupid, really. I promise. :)

Family:

Child training with grace and love. Love it. Our kids will learn their first ideas about who God is from the way their parents treat them. We MUST honor our kids.
Managers of their homes - On my wish list. Anybody have this/use it? I'm particularly interested in their ideas about making a family schedule work with a baby.

Currently reading:


Honor's Reward
Margin

5 Quick Takes

1. We have been hunkered down around here, figuring things out about how to make a household of six (SIX?!?) people run. The fatigue of early pregnancy really took a toll this time, and things...um...fell apart. In many aspects of life. We are implementing a family schedule, requiring the kids to help around the house a bit more, and working on the overall tone of our family. I am very very encouraged by the progress we've made in the past couple of weeks. We all feel calmer, happier, and better about life.

2. I feel amazing. Really. We have been experimenting with rather dramatic diet changes around here, since the food allergies seemed to keep. getting. worse. Something had to give. The kids weren't sleeping. They were in pain almost all the time. We'd take something out and some new problem would pop up. Starting in February we began the GAPS diet, and right before my pregnancy symptoms kicked in, we made additional changes to the carb/protein/fat proportions in our meals. Now that I'm out of the first trimester stuff, I really don't think I've ever had this much energy or felt this well. Nick lost 30 pounds, and has been working out regularly and I NEVER thought he would look like he does. Audrey's eczema is basically gone. We're all pretty excited about it.

3. The school year is coming. Quickly. Getting our schedule/house under control is coming just in time, because Hannah starts first grade this August. Wow. How is that I have a 1st grader?

4. I've been making all kinds of fun things in the dehydrator. Today I have fresh peaches in there. Who needs scented candles? My whole house smells like peaches. Yummy!

5. The garden is going nuts. I LOVE HAVING A GARDEN AGAIN! The zucchini is just about ready to start harvesting. We've been eating spinach and radishes. I have some gorgeous heads of butterhead lettuce in there, along with some other looseleaf ones. Butternut squash, cucumbers, beans (they didn't come up that well though), peas, beets, onions, peppers, tomatoes... I only wish I had about three times the space! Next year...

Usually this is 7 Quick Takes, but I can't think of any more. :)