All About Our Urban Homestead

Happy Valentines Day

2012-02-14T18:58:00.002-07:00

Traditional Fondue Dinner.

The Gryff.

Chocolate Mr. Carter.

Mr. Carter making valentines for his class.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Milk n' Rice

2012-02-14T09:53:00.003-07:00

Our new favorite winter activity!!! Milk n' rice. A bucket full of rice, a couple of washed out milk bottles, funnels made from cut off 2-liter bottle tops, measuring spoons & cups, and a few other odds & ends and the kids are happy for HOURS.

We got the idea from Mr. Carter's school. On "Q" week they were learning about quarts (pints, gallons, etc) and Mr. Carter couldn't partake in the festivities because they were using wheat. So I promised him that when he came home I would have something just as fun for him to play with. That was over a month ago. They play with it every day.

Gryff especially loves playing. He used to have sensory issues when he was in Early Intervention and we would have to dry-brush his feet and hands before therapy; so I think the feeling is especially therapeutic for him.

At first I tried adding some Measure-Up Cups from Discovery Toys and mini bulldozers, but the kids really just love filling the containers up, bringing them to me and having me smell them (????) and then dumping them back out in the bucket.

In fact, they are playing it right now. While I blog.

::Our Humble Abode::

2012-02-12T12:16:00.004-07:00

Downstairs kitchen in the MIL apartment

Backyard...Look at all that land!!!

Upstairs bathroom, take one.

Upstairs bathroom, take two (and Gryffy's head).

Bedroom

Our kitchen (yes, that's all of it).

Cool built-in.

Our front room.

Now that we have internet I can update my neglected blog with all the awesome goings-on. SO MUCH has happened. First off, we bought a new 1956 house a few miles from where we were living with my parents. We updated a few things, but it's pretty much the same as when we bought it. The backyard is THREE times bigger than my last backyard...I measured. It's still just a fifth of an acre, but we have big plans for our little dirt patch. More on all that later.

We are so excited to have our own home and have big plans for it as well. My days mostly consist of washing dishes (by hand, no dishwasher here), vacuuming up fluff from our hardwood floors; refereeing fights between the boys, nursing my baby (more on THAT later); and knitting. I feel like a '50s housewife in my cool '50s house. It makes me want to put on an apron, high heels, and pearls and bake a casserole.

The Cutest Backpack in the World!

2011-08-14T16:42:00.002-06:00

On the cutest kid in the world!!!

As promised (not that anyone was holding their breath or anything), here is THE backpack. I'm so in love with it and so is Mr. Carter. I showed him all the backpacks available and each one I showed him he said "I want that one...I want that one." Finally we narrowed it down to the skulls backpack and the spitting whale backpack. Personally, I'm totally psyched that he picked the whale backpack because he watches "Whale Wars" with his dad every Friday night and it's more up his alley than a skull backpack.

First Day of Preschool

2011-08-10T09:41:00.004-06:00

Mr. Carter all ready to take on the world.

Gryff & Mr. Carter at the preschool inspecting the water fountain.

The day that Mr. Carter has long awaited arrived on Monday. For the last 6 months or so Mr. Carter has talked and talked about going to a real 4-year-old school with real kids. This summer I finally realized that it needed to happen. Yes, I can teach him at home still, but he REALLY wants to be with other kids. Regularly. Which doesn't happen often with a loner-mom who would rather stay at home than go out...ever.

The night before was filled with tossing and turning.

I was worrying if I'm doing the right thing. Would my sweet little boy, who loves to talk about fruit bats, racoons, beavers, hiking, digging for fossils out in the backyard and all things nature and outdoors get along with and know how to play with "normal" kids who are obsessed with Transformers, Spiderman, Wii, computer games, etc?

Mr. Carter was so excited he could bust. Seriously, it was as bad as Christmas. He woke up at 4:00 AM all ready to go to school. I promptly sent him back to bed and he slept in until 10:00 am, throwing our schedule for a loop on his first day of preschool.

All in all, it turned out to be pretty good. I'm, of course, still worried about everything. Mr. Carter loves it and asks to go every day. He's learning to write his name all by himself and learning rhyming sounds and all sorts of fun, 4-year-old things.

::I'll have to snap a picture of his "Whale Wars" backpack that he picked out from Etsy . I'm seriously in love with my little boy!

Profile Study

2011-07-21T08:13:00.002-06:00

Mr. Carter

The Gryff

Baby

This morning as my boys were eating their "oats," my mom said that Gryff's shadow on the wall looks so much like the baby. So, of course, we had to take pictures to document and compare. The first pictures turned out fuzzy, so my mom got the kids closer to the wall and had them looking at a bouquet of lavender while I snapped some pictures.

What do you think?

Ultrasound Pictures

2011-07-16T12:52:00.002-06:00

Baby's profile. (It looks just like Mr. Carter & Gryff)

Baby's feet.
This picture totally matches a tattoo I have on my inner wrist. It's fate!

Letting the Butterflies Go -- Twice

2011-07-12T14:34:00.004-06:00

This video is of the first releasing which Gryff did downstairs by himself and documented with the camera. When we went to go check on him to see why he was so quiet, 2 of the butterflies were out - 1 on the drapes and one on the floor by Gryff. He said it tried to eat his leg.

The pictures are of the actual releasing the next night.
The boys had a lot of fun and the chickens enjoyed a butterfly appetizer to their dinner.
(Just one. The rest got away)

Gryff happy with his butterfly...

Gryff concerned about why it won't get off him.

Mr. Carter with his butterfly.

Must Have: Good Schools

2011-07-07T19:20:00.004-06:00

Tonight as I was helping Mr. Carter say his prayers we were asking Heavenly Father to help us find a good house with lots of neighborhood kids to play with and a good backyard and Mr. Carter added: "And a good school for 4-year-olds."

Gryff's Birthday

2011-05-17T10:38:00.006-06:00

This year we decided we have WAY too many toys at our house, and with Gryff being the second boy we pretty much have all the toys he would need at this age...and then some. So we chose to have an outing be his present.

We went to the children's dinosaur museum. The kids have recently started watching Dinosaur Train in the mornings so we thought this would appeal to both of them. Plus, the museum is right by their cousin's house, so we invited them along for an extra dose of fun.

We got to the museum early so we climbed on the rocks "like doll sheep" (according to Mr. Carter).

Mr. Carter comparing his hand to a dinosaur foot print.

Gryff.

Me holding up Gryff so he can see the fish.

Gryff coming out of the cave.

Mr. Carter standing next to a dinosaur leg.

Playing in the dinosaur river. This was BY FAR the favorite part of the museum. We spent hours here and kept going back for more.

B. and Gryff making "water world."

Gryff & Mr. Carter.

Gryff.

Looking into the river for fish.

Gryff being scared by the giant shark. Froggie kept him safe.

Mr. Carter digging for dinosaur bones.

Gryff blowing out his candle.

The boys also got to pick out something from the gift shop before we left. Mr. Carter picked a shark tooth fossil, that he slept with for many nights and kept in his pocket all day. Gryff chose a small stuffed stegosaurus that he now sleeps with. Mommy got 4 geodes because I'm in love with them.

What to do...

2011-05-06T13:39:00.003-06:00

On planting day. When outside looks like this.

And your little plants are all ready to spread their roots and shoots.

And you're sick of trying to find the best sunlight for your plants.

Paint a pot for some inside gardening:

This was Gryff's first time painting a real live thing. He was so excited and mostly just scooped up the paint with his brush and spread it around his plate.

Easter Eve

2011-05-06T13:21:00.003-06:00

Checking out what they got

Gryff very excited about the sugar.

My shovel and my breakfast bar.

New "Dinosaur Train" book.

Gryff playing his slide whistle.

Mr. Carter trying out their wheel barrow.

On the hunt for some eggs.

Devouring his spoils.

I'm done with eggs, let's play in the sand.

Derby Car

2011-05-06T12:54:00.002-06:00

The night before Easter, our neighborhood had an open-to-everyone pinewood derby race. Daddy and Mr. Carter made a really cool fireman race car. We all had fun at the race and Mr. Carter got excited each time his car raced. He ended up racing 4 times and got 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. When it would pass the finish line, he would jump up and down and yell: "We got 4 (or 3,2, or1)!!! We got 4!!!" Obviously he didn't care if he won, he was just excited to participate.

2011-04-26T12:37:00.001-06:00

2011-04-07T21:50:00.000-06:00

21 Suggestions for Success

By: H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.

Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.

Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

Be forgiving of yourself and others.

Be generous.

Have a grateful heart.

Persistence, persistence, persistence.

Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.

Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.

Commit yourself to constant improvement.

Commit yourself to quality.

Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.

Be loyal.

Be honest.

Be a self-starter.

Be decisive even if it means you’ll sometimes be wrong.

Stop blaming others take responsibility for every area of your life.

Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did.

Take good care of those you love.

Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your Mom proud.

Who Said Having Bed Bugs Isn't Fun????

2011-03-01T19:56:00.003-07:00

The boys played on our "contained" mattress and box springs for hours while Daddy and I vacuumed, steam-cleaned, and poison-sprayed all of our rooms. Then we had to let them air out for 2 hours before we could go back in there.

After the boys went to bed in possibly the cleanest room ever, Daddy and I had a hot date at the Laundromat doing 20 loads of laundry until 11:30 that night. I know, you're jealous.

So how was your weekend?

A Child's Garden

2011-02-18T15:05:00.002-07:00

Mr. Carter pouring water on his peat pellets.

The boys watching the water get sucked up and the pellets grow.

Mr. Carter all excited about his garden.

We've been itching to get our hands in some dirt for the last few weeks. Not knowing where our garden is to be this year, I've been putting it off...putting it off...putting it off. Finally after a particularly rowdy day that started with me tweaking my neck so I couldn't move it and ending with me at Lowe's not wanting to come home after my chiropractor appointment, I bought some garden stuff. I bought a little greenhouse filled with 12 peat pellets for Mr. Carter and a bigger version filled with 72 pellets for me.

When I got back home (2 1/2 hours later...) to the rowdiness, I showed Mr. Carter our new gardening stuff. We finally found some time to plant the little garden a few days later. I hauled out my seed stash and sorted out what seed packets Mr. Carter could choose from. He ended up with a 'Big Max' pumpkin, pie pumpkin, 2 sweet peas, 2 Nasturtiums, 2 'Mammoth' sunflowers, alyssum, 'Lemon Gem' marigolds, and 2 Cosmos. Every morning during breakfast he asks me to get his garden down from the window ledge so he can look at the progress and eat breakfast with it. He even includes Gryff in on the fun by showing him what sprouted in the night and what is getting taller.

My big garden greenhouse is STILL on hold until I figure out if we are getting our own garden or planting one here. I'm crossing my fingers that we will find our own little spot in time to put in a garden this year.

Going Gluten-Free :::: What Worked for Us

2011-02-11T13:02:00.007-07:00

This is my basic Gluten-Free how-to guide. I get asked questions all the time about what we eat and how we made the switch. It wasn't too hard for us because my niece has been GF for about 8-9 years. However, we do eat a little different than the other GF people in my family because I'm really trying to work a lot of ancient grains into our diet to make up for the missing nutrients. Okay, here we go!

First off, we got tested at Enterolabs. This test just told us that we are sensitive to gluten not necessarily Celiac, but with our family history I just say we are Celiac. I might eventually do a gluten challenge and get the biopsies for all of us, but I really am against putting my kids under general anesthesia if I don't have to.

The first book I read was The First Year Celiac Disease by Jules Shepard. It really gave a lot of good tips on how to convert your life and your kitchen to being gluten-free (GF). I tried her flour mix and some of her recipes and they were not so good. A little to gummy for my tastes. But this is a great reference book, especially if you know NOTHING about being GF.

Cooking Gluten Free by Karen Robertson is THE BEST GF cookbook I have ever come across. My bread-picky sister is IN LOVE with the bread recipe in this book (it's also online). We use her flour mix exclusively. It works well cup-for-cup in all our regular recipes. I 6x the recipe and it lasts us about 1 month. I also love how Karen tries to use as many ancient grains (teff, quinoa, sorghum, buckwheat, millet) as possible. A lot of GF food (especially store-bought) is just empty calories.

Living Without Magazine is another great resource for GF recipes. My aunt bought us a 2-year subscription when she found out that we had Celiac Disease.

One of the first gadgets I bought for our GF diet was a grain mill. It not only saves us money, but ensures that we get a truly GF flour. Before I got my new mill my mom bought a 25 pound bag of Bob's Red Mill brown rice flour. It cost $30. Now we buy Western Family brown rice in 20 pound bags during the stock up sales for $9. My sister even grinds tapioca pearls to make tapioca flour. So far I've ground teff, quinoa, sweet brown rice, brown rice, buckwheat, millet, and white rice. The very small grains - teff quinoa, and millet need to be poured in a little at a time so the grinder doesn't get clogged. The other grains are about the same size as a kernel of wheat so I just dump those in like I would wheat. I only grind what I would use in a month so my flours don't go rancid.

We try to make all of our own stuff, but at the beginning that was much to overwhelming so here are some of our favorite store brands:

Our favorite store bought bread, bagels, and pizza crust is Udi's.
Our favorite pasta is Ancient Grains Quinoa pasta.
I use Tinyada Brown Rice Lasagna noodles for lasagna.
Glutino is another good brand. Their pretzels and crackers are staples in our house.
Kinnikinnick makes some really good sweets and cookies (that's all we've tried).
Bob's Red Mill has a good GF line made in a dedicated facility. I used their cake mix for Mr. Carter's birthday cake.

We really DO NOT like Ener-G Foods. I tried their hamburger buns and they were the WORST thing I've ever eaten. I'm sure their ingredients are good, but their food products are horrible.

Here is where we get all of our flours and grains (for now):

Brown rice -- we get at our local grocer in 20 lb bags. It's good to call the company and make sure there is no cross-contamination.
Potato STARCH (not flour) -- we get at Azure Standard in the 25 lb bag.
Cornstarch -- we get at our local food storage store in 50 lb bags.
Sorghum grains -- we get at Twin Vally Mills.
Buckwheat groats -- we get on Amazon.com Subscribe & Save grocery.
Teff grain -- we get at Azure Standard in a 25 lb bag.
Millet seed -- we get on Amazon.com Subscribe & Save grocery.
Tapioca starch/flour -- we get on Bob's Red Mill website in a 25 lb bag. (Still looking for a cheaper source.)
Sweet brown rice -- we get at Azure Standard in a 25 lb bag.
Quinoa seed -- we get at Costco.
Quinoa flakes -- we get from Ancient Grains by the case. (We use this instead of rolled oats.)

So there you have it. Once we found some basics - bread, pasta, flour mix, corn tortillas (check ingredients); it was really easy to switch most of our favorite recipes to be GF.

Things that Make Me Want to LOL

2011-02-09T09:04:00.004-07:00

Yesterday I decided to put the boys back together in the same room to practice for our new house. I should have known that it wouldn't go well at night, because nap time for Gryff was a horror.

Well night was even worse. I put a kiddie lock on the inside of the door so Gryff couldn't come out. Mr. Carter knows how to open the door in case he needs to come out and go potty-- which happened twice last night; or to come out and tell us that Gryff is laying on him again, playing with the space heater, or stealing his stuffed animals -- which happened 6 times last night.

By eight o'clock, Mr. Carter was getting very sleepy and Gryff was getting more wired. Mr. Carter kept forgetting to shut the door when he came out to tattle so Gryff escaped a couple of times. I kept telling Mr. Carter to shut the door otherwise Gryff would get out. About nine o'clock we heard the door open again and Daddy went to investigate this time. As it turns out, a sleepy-eyed Mr. Carter was pushing Gryff out the door so he could finally go to sleep.

A Very Belated Christmas Post

2011-02-07T20:43:00.005-07:00

Christmas PJs

Putting Baby Jesus up on our new Nativity Calendar

Gryff on our new play-mat...with his new scissors

Mr. Carter's fireman watch

Gryff playing with his "measure." This was, by far, the most loved present of the year.

Giving hugs after exchanging "brother gifts"

Mr. Carter excited to open something. All our presents were wrapped in our traditional reusable cloth bags.

Mr. Carter VERY excited to open the presents from Grandpa & Grandma L

Mr. Carter using the new easel

Gryff using the new easel

Gryff playing with the Duplo construction set

Mr. Carter shaving with his shaving kit

This (last) Christmas was not our traditional Christmas of homemade goodies and presents. We had more money to throw around this year and all of our "making" tools were packed away. The only homemade things the boys got were matching vests that I knit. We still did the "something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read," but it was more than we usually spend.

We did start a new tradition by having GF breakfast bars and homemade breakfast cookies in the boys' Christmas bags (A.K.A stockings by the Santa-loving crowd), along with the traditional fruit and fruit leathers. This way when the boys wanted to snack on their goodies, I wasn't freaking out about them spoiling their breakfast. We pretty much stayed downstairs all morning playing with our toys, snacking on breakfast, watching Mighty Machines, and listening to our new CD.

For their "something you need," we got them both some really nice shoes that will hopefully last FOREVER for all of our kids and then some! Since Gryff has foot problems that used to require $150 orthotics, we thought buying good shoes that could be passed down would be a good investment in his cute, tiny feet. Here are the shoes we finally settled on after reading review after review. All of the shoes awarded the American Podiatric Medical Association's seal of acceptance weren't hardy enough for our winter climate and the reviewers said they didn't really hold up well.

So that was our Christmas. The measuring tapes have since been broken and the shoes have been through many mud puddles and snow-plow mountains. The easel has had many love letters composed on it. Hope your Christmas (...2 months ago) was wonderful!

Birthday Vest Completed!

2011-02-02T13:20:00.002-07:00

Here is Mr. Carter in his Orange Birthday Vest!

Well, I FINALLY finished the vest. I worked day & night for about 2 weeks before his birthday, trying to get it done. The day before D Day, I realized it wasn't going to happen so I set it aside so I could work on other birthday preparations. And there it sat...Thanksgiving... Christmas... New Years... Daddy's birthday...Mommy's birthday. And then, I finally decided to finish all of my procrastinated projects. I knit the last 8 rows on the sleeve (yes, I only had EIGHT MORE ROWS!). And then the sewing together. Oh my gracious the sewing and the sewing and the sewing. I learned how to do "mattress stitch" and "I-don't-care-let's-just-finish stitch" which is not as pretty, but much faster. The end result is a happy boy. Always a win in my book.

Leaf Raking in December

2011-01-29T16:51:00.001-07:00

Mr. Carter helping Poppa rake leaves

He OF COURSE had to use a shovel of some sort

By the end, MOST of the leaves actually made it into the garbage

The Finer Things Club::It's Very Exclusive

2011-01-29T16:36:00.004-07:00

Mare pouring in the Chianti.

Some friends and I used to have dinner & movie night. We would make a fun or fancy dinner together using either tried-&-true recipes or new-&-exciting recipes and watch a movie together.

The first DAMN night (not my fault, that is the acronym) we made lobster. We were so excited to eat it and then we cut it open and all this green slimy stuff was in there. Well apparently it was a girl lobster and apparently it's a delicacy, but APPARENTLY (meaning, most definitely) it got thrown in the garbage.

Fast forward 12 years later. We are more sophisticated - not in a green-lobster-slime-eating way, just more grown up, have more experience in the kitchen, like FINER things. So we decided to make our own FINER THINGS CLUB.

Since I am living with my parents still it's not as FINE as it will be when I get my own house and can unpack my blue and white Scandinavian dishes. But the food was mighty FINE, even though it was consumed from 1970s Corelle dishes.

For our first adventure we made Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon while we snacked on cheese and crackers. It was a rising success unlike green, slimy lobster.

Christmas Fun

2011-01-29T16:18:00.002-07:00

Mr. Carter gluing pom-poms on his grandma-crocheted Christmas tree

Lex & Mr. Carter making pomanders.

Mr. Carter making paper chains that we strung ALL around the basement living room.

We got all our crafting fun ideas from the above book. I love how the projects are broken down into the appropriate months and most of them are dirt cheap, which of course, I love. I also bought materials to make the doorbell and the tinsel ornaments, but we didn't get around to making them. It really gave Mr. Carter some fun projects to make during his break from preschool.

I REALLY wanted to make the snow globes, but when I went to buy the florist clay it had some pretty toxic ingredients, SO if anyone has any sources for a more kid-friendly product, please let me know.

Tree Decorating

2011-01-29T16:13:00.003-07:00

Mr. Carter

Gryffindor

Double teaming

The kid-friendly finished product

Although at the end of the season when we took the tree down, we did have to throw away all of the candy canes because the kids finally figured out that they are, in fact, candy and are, in fact, delicious.

Preschool Pictures - Fall session

2011-01-28T20:35:00.005-07:00

Making beeswax candles

Admiring his work

Making pumpkin muffins

Stained-glass leaves

So I lost our camera cord when we re-arranged our room. And really what is a blog post without pictures? So now that it's resurfaced I can update everyone on what the heck we've been doing for the last 3 months.

I wanted to remember some of our fun activities that we did for our fall preschool. Mr. Carter's favorite was probably the candles. And then he also loved giving them out as gifts to all their church teachers. After we gave them out, he said we need to make more candles so we can give them away. We also had a candle lit dinner with the candles we kept and the boys thought it was the coolest thing. We ended up having 3 candle dinners that week. We will definitely make candles again!

They LIE!!!

2010-11-20T15:54:00.003-07:00

Mr. Carter was watching Zoboomafoo OnDemand and he wanted me to watch with him.

There is always one commercial before the show starts and lately it's been Johnson & Johnson calming baby lotion. Well the commercial came on and Mr. Carter turned to me and said: "Mom we need to get that because it will help us go to sleep!!!"

I told him that commercials are lies that advertisers use to get us to spend our money on things we don't need and if we spend our money on things we don't need then it will take us longer to get our farm.

He got this disgusted look on his face and said: "And that's called wasting money!"

That's my good little brain-washed boy.

Homeschool Preschool

2010-11-11T16:05:00.003-07:00

Doing weaving project.

Tracks in the mud. He loved this.

Mr. Carter's butter ball.

Painted salt dough veggies.

The last month we've been doing some waldorf-y homeschooling. It doesn't focus so much on letters and numbers, but more on the seasons and crafts using "real" materials like wool, etc.

Mr. Carter has been loving it. Every week we do a journal page about what we've learned, learn a letter and practice writing it, do a craft, (supposedly) go on a field trip, look at art and ask questions about what's going on in the piece.

We got the free curriculum from Wee Folk Art. I bought all the main books, but for the supplementary books I just go to the library and find books on that week's subject.

'Tis the Season...

2010-11-05T19:39:00.003-06:00

...for light therapy. Mr. Carter does light therapy with me in the morning. We really notice if we miss a day. We watch 20 minutes of Gilmore Girls while we wait. We also cuddle to both be in the same beam of light. Fake sunlight, Gilmore, and lovin' -- I'm sure it all helps our mood.

FYI we use a GoLight that we bought at Costco about 6 years ago for $125.

P.S. I'm totally coveting this. I was trying to figure out how to hook my GoLight up to a timer to come on and wake me up in the morning.

Almost There

2010-11-04T20:02:00.003-06:00

Remember when we set this goal back at the beginning of the year? A lot has changed since then...our address, our food budget, etc.

All year we've been slowly plugging along on our goal chart. Some months we were able to save only $250. Some months we were able to save over $1,000. Some months we were able to save NOTHING! But with a little under 2 months to go, we are tantalizingly close--like less than $1,000 left to save.

The money we saved this year is strictly off-limits. It's for our Dave-Ramsey-inspired emergency fund. So next year we hope to save just as much, if not more. Because we still need to buy a van (with cash) and then save for the much-coveted homestead.

A few months ago Mr. Carter let out a wistful sigh and asked: "Mom, are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" I said: "I don't know, what are you thinking?" He sighed again and replied: "Our farm." He then turned to Grandma L and said: "We think about that A LOT!"

Snow is Falling All Around...10.27.2010

2010-11-03T12:48:00.002-06:00

Gryff waiting to go out in the snow for the first time.

Mr. Carter is already a seasoned snow-player, -eater, -roller.

He pretty much just walked around the yard laughing at the crunchy sound the snow made under his feet.

He was wearing a pair of my fleece socks for mittens because we didn't have any gloves for him.

Gryff lasted for about 5 minutes until he fell in the snow. Then he was done. Luckily I put Mr. Carter out an hour before so he was all played out. They came in and drank a quart of tea sweetened with honey to warm up.

I was trying to remember why Gryff has never played in the snow before. He IS almost 2 1/2. Then I remembered that he didn't start walking until he was 23 months and all the snow was pretty much gone. He's grown up so much since going off gluten and dairy. He walks, jumps, runs, and talks our head off.

What Did You Learn in Church?

2010-11-02T13:26:00.002-06:00

Mr. Carter usually forgets what he learns in Primary and yells: "We just learned about Jesus!!!" when I ask him. But this week he was telling me all about it. I had to write it down because it was so cute.

"Sister Neumann walks quiet in the church. We close our eyes and fold our arms. When we close our eyes then our ears open to listen to the prayer. And we be reverent in the church. And we be reverent in the temple."

Mr. Carter's Birthday

2010-11-02T13:04:00.005-06:00

Mr. Carter taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. (BTW the vest he's wearing is a homemade pebble vest 4T...love it.)

Gryff, Daddy, and Mr. Carter hanging out in the kitchen.

Gluten-free cake from Bob's Red Mill. Gryff was being a stinker and blowing out the candles as fast as I could light them.

Present from Gryff to Mr. Carter. It's Zoboomafoo, of course.

Present from Daddy, Duplo firehouse set. I just love his cute face.

Gryff taking a picture of Daddy taking a picture. I sense a theme.

Then that night we we trick or treating around the block.

If you notice the lack of present from Mommy, it's because it's still on the needles. I way underestimated how long it would take and it didn't help that the yarn took a week to get here. But he'll get it someday and then I'll take a picture.

Big Boy Undies = Big Boy Bike

2010-08-26T13:35:00.004-06:00

Mr. Carter on his new super fast horsey-bike.

He's mastered the trike and can go almost warp-speed, but he can't quite keep up with the neighborhood kids. So we decided it's time for him to graduate to a REAL bike. Since we don't like to give our kids presents for no reason, we told him that since he wears big boy undies day and night and keeps them clean he gets to have a real big boy bike. He spent all day yesterday mastering the art of crashing with the bike ending up on top of him. We still need to get him a bell and a basket, but he's pretty excited that he can go really fast now.

To My Love...

2010-08-18T14:11:00.003-06:00

It's been an interesting week, what with all the sickness and visits to the emergency room and doctors. Kind of easy to forget an important occasion. But at one o'clock in the morning, sitting up with our youngest as he was emptying his stomach for the 6th time that night/morning - I looked over at my sweet, sleep-deprived husband and laughingly said: "Happy Anniversary!"

To My Love,

These last 5 years have been better than I could have imagined. Thank you for being so patient, kind, and understanding of my untamed ways. You still make my heart flutter when you walk into the room. I'm so glad you are the father of our children.

Happy 5th Anniversary!

Self Portraits

2010-07-08T23:31:00.006-06:00

The other day Mr. Carter came to tell me Gryff had my camera and was taking pictures of himself. By the time I got out there the camera was off and Gryff was just carrying it around. As soon as he saw me he said: "Mommy's camera. Fmile Gwiff." So of course I had to take a picture of him. I didn't realize that he had, in fact, taken pictures of himself until I downloaded the pictures on to the computer. There were a ton. Daddy and I were laughing so hard.

Can't you just hear him: "Fmile Gwiff!"

Here is the picture I took. Isn't he looking so grown up...and healthy!

Too Hot!

2010-07-08T23:19:00.003-06:00

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Carter and his cousin were playing in the "forest." All of a sudden they were shouting and jumping up and down. My mom called from the window and asked what was going on. They shouted that they found a chicken egg in the forest. They spent the rest of the afternoon combing through the ivy looking for more disgusting treasures.

"The Forest"

We kept watch on the girls and noticed, luckily, that they were all nesting in the same spot in the ivy. Later that day Daddy and I went to go put the chickens away in their coop and I wanted to go check in the forest to see if there was any eggs. Sure enough I found 3 eggs - 2 whole and 1 broken, in their new nest.

A closer shot of the forest. Their new nest is right in the middle.

An even closer shot.

Inside their new nest. (By the way, those are egg shaped rocks, not eggs)

My best guess is that it's too hot in the nesting box to sit in there for an hour or more to lay an egg. Of course Broody, who just started laying again (yay!), still lays in the nesting box since that's what she's used to. She also lays her egg before 10 am so it's still pretty cool in there.

New House Plans - Tentative

2010-05-30T14:34:00.005-06:00

This is my second set of house plans that I thought was "the one." The first set was about $50,000 more to build and didn't have a basement or bedrooms and a bath upstairs. It was a lot bigger but not as cute. This one is more our style and definitely more in our price range. What I didn't like about the Asheville plans was the tiny master with only a toilet and a sink instead of a full bath. So I drew up an extension that I plan to email to the designers and have them make the modifications (if this is the plan we ultimately choose). I also turned the mini bar downstairs into an actual kitchen with a stove, sink, and refrigerator.

Here are the plans with the modifications I made. I hope it won't add too much to the cost. And yes I realize that the "great room" isn't so great and spacious and there is no garage. We are hoping to add a garage with a separate apartment over to rent out and we also plan to add on to the house as our budget allows.

So there it is. Any suggestions would be welcome and appreciated.

Baby Chick Hatching

2010-05-11T08:50:00.004-06:00

This happened yesterday, but I had technical issues so I had to download it on the YouTube and then to blogger. Here are some of our new chickie babies. We now have 8 total (all the eggs hatched). They haven't been off the nest yet.

Awesome

2010-04-29T17:02:00.002-06:00

Last week we went shopping at Costco for some gluten-free food. I was pleasantly surprised to find LaraBars and also Mrs. May's bars - both gluten-free granola bars and both very healthy and yummy. They were about 85 cents a bar, pretty steep in my opinion. So I've been stewing over how to make LaraBars at home. They have simple ingredients and it looks like they've all just been blended up and smashed in to a bar shape.

I'm not one to experiment in the kitchen too much, especially with expensive ingredients. So I was quite giddy when I googled "homemade larabars" to find other people aren't so skiddish in the kitchen. Here is a post I'm very impressed with and plan to try with soaked nuts (to make them more digestible). I don't know if it will be any cheaper...I still have to do my dork-math to figure that out.

Celiac = Celiac = Celiac

2010-04-23T18:36:00.002-06:00

Just got Mr. Carter's and my test results from Enterolab. We are both Celiac. Now I'm wondering if Daddy has it because that's just weird that all of us have it.

A few days ago I made a meatloaf with what I thought was gluten-free oats - I didn't call, I just assumed because my sister said that the Quaker brand is all good. After dinner I was so not feeling good and I've had extreme fatigue for the past couple of days. No more Quaker Oats for us.

Questionaire from Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic

2010-04-23T14:18:00.002-06:00

I. Check each symptom you have had at least once a week during the past 3 months:
-Bloating, gas, and/or stomach cramping
-Diarrhea or runny stools
-Constipation
-Joint pain or numbness or tingling in your extremities
-Itchy skin lesions
-Constant unexplained fatigue
-Frequent headaches or migraines
II. Check if you have had or been diagnosed with any of the following:
-Irritable bowel syndrome
-Eczema or unexplained dermatitis
-Fibromyalgia
-Chronic fatigue syndrome
-Nervous stomach (non-ulcer dyspepsia)
III. Check if you have any of the following:
-Lactose intolerance
-Osteopenia and/or osteoporosis
-Autoimmune disorders (thyroid disease, type I diabetes, Sjogren's syndrome, ......chronic liver disease) or an immediate family member with one.
-Peripheral neuropathy
-Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
-Small intestinal cancer
-Psychiatric disorders or depression
-Anemia (iron deficiency)
-Infertility

If you have checked one or more lines in sections I and II and have any of the illnesses listed in section III, you should consider testing for celiac disease.

--Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic by Peter H.R. Green, MD and Rory Jones

Little Miss Broody

2010-04-20T13:31:00.002-06:00

Our new "brooding area." I closed off part of the run that went under the coop to isolate our broody hen and her eggs that will hopefully hatch in to baby chicks. I just used an old cardboard moving box to partition it off and screwed it in to the coop floor. Then Mr. Carter and I piled rocks at the bottom of the box so the other girls wouldn't dust-bathe their way in. It's all very technical.

Little Miss herself. Sitting on 8 fertilized eggs that we got from my sister last weekend. They will hopefully hatch out on May 8th - the day after Gryff's birthday. We are hoping to get at least 3 new Buff Orpington hens out of this batch and if there is one less annoying rooster...we might keep him but don't tell the neighbors...or my parents...or my husband.

This article has been my main source of info along with my sister (who gave us the eggs). The whole site is pretty cool; eventually I'll have to peruse the rest of it. For now I'm just so thrilled to have a broody hen. Now I don't have to worry about introducing the new babies to the already established "Golden Girls minus Blanche."

Update

2010-04-13T13:21:00.005-06:00

Above: Before starting the gluten-free diet. Purple bags under the eyes. Blue/gray eye color. Kind of dazed and in a trance (didn't notice until we saw the change). Skinny body with a puffy belly. General demeanor = ornery.

Above: After starting the gluten-free diet. Within 2 days his eye color changed from blue/gray to bright blue. Much more eye contact and babbling/copying words. 1 week after - purple bags under eyes completely gone. Getting fatter and stronger every day. Belly puffiness has gone down considerably. General demeanor = happy, giggly, FAST boy.

We have all been on the gluten-free diet - well except for Daddy. I've noticed less fatigue and depression. Mr. Carter is a lot more calm, cries and yells less, and is a more patient big brother.

I've been trying my hand at gluten-free cooking. So far, so good. We love steel cut oats with Craisins, brown sugar, and raw milk. I found the absolute best whole grain gluten-free bread (made with the modifications suggested in the reviews). And we all decided that store-bought brown rice pasta is odious. So my next goal is to master the pasta arena of GF cooking. Well that and to buy all new kitchen stuff - Bosch mixer, new grain grinder, new pasta machine, etc. Good thing we don't have a mortgage anymore. It will be good though.

I've been researching a lot about whole grain all-purpose flour mixes because all the flour mixes have ABSOLUTELY NO NUTRITIONAL VALUE AT ALL!!! Which is kind of frustrating because I was a very whole wheat kind of girl. I've discovered sorghum flour and brown rice flour. On the list to try - amaranth flour, quinoa flour, teff flour, and millet flour. The awesome thing about these grains is that they are so much more nutritious than wheat - more protein, more calcium, more fiber, more iron, etc. This may turn out to be a good thing after all.

Easter

2010-04-10T23:25:00.001-06:00

Mr. Carter's "board".

Happy gluten-free Gryff.

POOP!!!!

2010-03-26T19:42:00.003-06:00

"Poop on that floor!" As Mr. Carter would say.

As you may know, Gryff is the ornery pants of the family. He was really good and happy up until about his first birthday and then he just started to get really ornery and screaming and yelling all the time. We just attributed it to him getting teeth, his personality, etc.

However, celiac disease runs in my family - one niece, an aunt, and an uncle have it for sure. I had both the boys blood tested at their one year check up and both tests came back negative but the blood test has a HIGH false-negative rate, so it's pretty much useless. I came across Enterolab that has a stool test that is 99% accurate and has a bunch of different food allergy tests.

We tested Gryff earlier this month - which meant an exciting week of harvesting poop from diapers and storing it in the provided container in our deep freezer, Mmmmm. I got the test results back and his "Fecal Anti-gliadin IgA" is 92 units. It's supposed to be under 10 units, so he is celiac. I was really hoping for a negative result, because it's a TOTAL change in lifestyle; but luckily my sister has paved the way with her little girl being our first known celiac in the family. Now we get to do some more testing. We are going to test Mr. Carter and me (since I'm pretty sure, I'm the carrier).

Zen Knitting

2010-02-18T21:36:00.004-07:00

I'm thankful that when everything is crazy, and all our crap is everywhere, and most of our furniture is gone, and the kids are fighting over whose turn it is to play with the shop vac because I already packed their toys, and I can't find the salt or the oil or a spoon or my bread pans to make bread, and we're so sick and tired of eating processed stuff from a box...

That I have K2, P2, PSSO, K2Tog, etc. And that even when the hats I knit are big enough for the elephant man's head, I can wash and dry them and they will fit a normal person.

I call it Zen Knitting. And I really feel it when I miss a day.

**Sorry about the not-so-recent pictures...the USB cable to the camera has been packed!

Moving On

2010-02-11T14:45:00.003-07:00

Our house the day of the walk-through in 2007.

After much deliberation about our financial situation (or lack thereof), Daddy and I have decided to move our little family in with my parents. Daddy is to the point where he's lucky if he even gets 10 hours a week and instead of working like dogs to stay in a neighborhood that's questionable at best, we decided to move. We hope to be able to save up enough money to get into a good neighborhood that we feel safe in.

Some happy thoughts:

We can now go on walks, go to parks, and stop sleeping with an AK-47 at night.
"Sling-shot" our savings plan and our future (that's what Daddy keeps saying to keep us going).
Help with the housework, dinner, and kids.
HUGE yard to play and grow stuff in.
Grandma let us bring our little chicken family with us...
...And our baby trees (we spent a whole day digging and re-potting).
Don't have to pay for the loss on the house (since it's a city program, they get to take the loss and we can just walk away - no short sale, no foreclosure, etc.).
I don't "have" to go to work (although I might get a part-time, evening job so the kids won't even know I'm gone).
We won't drain our savings or have to go into debt to stay in a neighborhood we don't even like.
Closer to family and old friends.

Yes, it's hard and we're definitely not taking it lightly. But we are looking forward and trying to focus on the future and what we can do to further our goals. So stay tuned, America!

Takin' A Walk

2010-02-04T18:11:00.004-07:00

Goal Wall -- $10,000 in 2010

2010-01-28T13:17:00.006-07:00

We have a new goal at our house this year. Or I guess I should say we are getting even more extreme with our old goals. It started 2 months ago in December when Daddy's work schedule was cut WAY back. He averaged about 30 hours a week. When we found we could live comfortably on 30 hours a week, we decided to keep it up and save all the rest of our money in to our emergency fund. Now please don't think that we make oodles of money. We don't. We currently live on less than $2,400 a month and that includes paying a full tithe on our GROSS income and $915 on our mortgage. That's right, that leaves us about $1000 for EVERYTHING ELSE.

Our goal wall started as a way to remind us of our ultimate goal - to have rural land to become more self sufficient and raise healthy food for us to eat. But we have a few mini goals along the way - this year we are saving enough money to live for 6 months without a job (8-9 months if we are on unemployment), next year we are saving money to buy a new (to us) van/SUV with cash so we can possibly expand our family. THEN we will finally be able to save for some land, which we will hopefully buy outright with cash or at least make a hefty down-payment on.

The only problem with our goal is that Daddy has only been working 30-hour weeks for the last 2 months. So the good news is we've learned to live on 30-hour weeks. The bad news is Daddy's been only getting 30-hours weeks. But! The good news is we haven't had to dip into our meager savings or go in to debt to keep up our lifestyle because we know how to live on 30 hours a week! So I guess it's a win-win.

Some family members have been wondering how we are going to save so much. Well, really it's easy - live on much less than what you make and you will save a lot.

Here are some specifics about what we do to save money:

Don't eat out (duh!). Eat simple, made-from-scratch meals at home. We only eat meat about 2-4 times a week, the rest of the meals are vegetarian. Meat is more expensive than beans, rice, and flour.
When you need something see if you can get it used first (on KSL/craigslist, at thrift shops, etc.) Mr. Carter needed some waterproof gloves for playing in the snow and we checked out D.I. first and found a pair of Thinsulate kid gloves for $1.
Quit looking out the window and into the T.V. at what everybody else has that you don't have. Be happy with what you have. We use the saying: "Do I need it? Do I need it now? Can I live without it?"
Don't try to keep up with the latest styles. Clothes, shoes, accessories, and home decorations cost money. If an item is still functioning, you don't need to replace it with the latest doodad. There are some people who like to keep up with the latest styles, we, obviously, aren't one of them. (Just look at what we wear.)
The little things matter, but so do the big things. Is your house too expensive? Do you really need cell phones and a landline? Do you really need cable TV? (I'll answer for you, NO! Read a book, take up knitting, play outside, learn a craft.) Do you really need an expensive car or would a less expensive car do? Do you really need 2 cars? Do your kids really need to have 50 bazillion after-school activities? You get my drift.
The little things: wash out your Ziploc bags (we've only bought 2 big boxes of bags in the almost 5 years we've been married), take your lunch, mend your clothes, hang clothes to dry, use cloth diapers, take shorter showers, use window quilts, make your own cleaning products, stay healthy, etc., etc.

So that's how we do it and how we will keep doing it until we reach our goals. And then we can loosen the belt a little. Dave Ramsey always says: "If you'll live like no one else, later you can live like no one else."

Great money books to read:

The Complete Tightwad Gazette
The Total Money Makeover
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
The Millionaire Next Door
Your Money or Your Life

Our Bugeting System for non-fixed expenses (food, misc, etc.)

Underwear Fashion Show

2010-01-22T20:46:00.006-07:00

Mr. Carter has suddenly decided that he wants to wear big boy undies instead of diapers. I noticed that he was keeping his diaper dry between changes (about 3 hours) and so yesterday I asked him if he would like to wear his big boy undies. Usually this suggestion is met with great weeping and gnashing of teeth but instead he said: "Yeah, my do!" He kept them dry all day yesterday and all day today. He still wears a cloth diaper for quiet time and a disposable for bed time but when he's up and about he is in his big boys.

I think this was all brought about by his crappy cloth diapers that leaked down his leg every time he peed. You see, when the waterproofing wore out and I reapplied it, I think I accidentally waterproofed the inside of some of his diapers. Whoops! So he learned really fast how much he hates to have pee running down his leg and would hold his pee for a while. He would also tell us when he was peeing and if it was soaking in to his diaper or if it was leaking. So we knew he could hold it for a couple of hours and we also knew that he knew what was happening with his body.

We have been talking a lot about listening to your body and when the pee-pees and poopies want to come out to run to the bathroom and put them in the potty. Usually it's us reminding him and asking him if he needs to go, but tonight as he was playing he stood up and said: "My need to go potty!" and ran into the bathroom. He has gone in the potty for the last year and a half, usually on a schedule before naps and bedtime, etc. Then he went through an "I hate the potty" phase so we put the potties away and didn't even ask him anymore because then he would scream and throw a fit. Now all of a sudden he is wanting to be a big boy and letting us know when he needs to go. I hope this phase sticks! He also loves how skinny his undies make him and runs around until his pants and undies fall down around his ankles. He thinks that is great fun.

Here is his underwear fashion show we did this morning. As you can see he really likes posing in them. He's such a proud little boy. Also note his long hair. He won't let me cut it. He says he wants long fuzzy hair.

Week One - Post Mirena

2010-01-21T12:37:00.002-07:00

I've received a few concerned calls so I decided to do an update so you all don't think that I died or anything.

This has been the most glorious, headache-free, fuzz-head-free, happy week that I've had in a long time. A few weeks ago I was feeling and looking miserable so I had to step back and think about what I was doing differently in my life that would make me so sick. After going through a list: diet - same; anti-depressants - off; sleeping pills - off; sleep - 8-10 hours a night; etc. The ONLY thing I landed on that could be making me sick was either the Mirena or I had some kind of brain tumor (that was actually daddy's helpful input). After I took it out I just kept getting better and better.

I'm actually able to be in the same room with my kids and be happy! They already notice a difference in mommy and are happier and better brothers to each other. Poor Gryff didn't know what it's like to have a nice, normal mommy, and Mr. Carter was wondering what happened to his nice, normal mommy. Well, I'm back and they are so much happier and content and not worrying if I will blow up at the slightest indiscretion.

I've already lost one pound, probably more but I haven't weighed myself since Saturday (yes, that's right I lost one pound in one day). My stomach is less bloated and my face is less puffy. I'm still not able to do a full workout because I'm still a little fatigued, but at least I can do a little bit. (And yes I worked out AND did a cleanse while I had the Mirena in and I STILL gained weight.)

So to sum it all up. Life is good. I'm feeling much better. The boys are happy to be rid of their Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde mommy. And I decided that chemical birth control is NOT for me since this was my last resort after trying 5 other chemical methods over the years with varying degrees of awfulness. And, no, we are not planning another pregnancy for a long... long... long... time. THE END.

So Long...Sucker!

2010-01-15T13:18:00.005-07:00

Photo Credit

After Gryff was born I decided to get a Mirena IUD since we didn't want to get pregnant for a while. I got it put in by my midwife at 8 weeks postpartum, it really wasn't too bad. Not to mention that it was free! Yep, that's right. My insurance paid for the whole thing.

Well, about 6 months after I got it put in I started to get really nauseated all the time. I also had a constant dull headache and my eyesight was blurry. It got so bad that I went to my eye doctor thinking I needed glasses. He said I didn't and that my vision was fine. Then I started getting really dizzy and fatigued and depressed and ANGRY...oh boy was I angry - all the time and at stuff that usually wouldn't bother me. I couldn't think straight and would forget everything. I would trip as I walked up the stairs because, well...I don't know why. It's like my foot didn't realize it had to move next and I would just fall over. And just as I was about to reach my pre-pregnancy weight, I started gaining. And gaining. And gaining. Then I started getting migraines and acne, etc.

At first I thought it was my Zoloft that I was on for postpartum depression. So I gradually weaned myself off of that. And my symptoms stayed the same. So it became apparent that it was the IUD, since that was the only thing left that I was on.

Finally, I had enough. I talked to Daddy and asked what he thought about getting it removed. He said not to because we didn't want to get pregnant yet. So I kept the little devil in for a few more months. I gradually got more dizzy and started having more headaches and migraines and could barely get out of bed because I was so fatigued. I started yelling at my kids for stupid stuff.

One day it all became too much. So I decided to see how much it cost to get it taken out. I called my midwife and got a quote of $175. Then I called my insurance to see how much of that we would have to pay. I was informed that they didn't pay for the removal. I said: "So you'll pay to have it put in, but not pay to have it taken out? That's stupid!" I called Planned Parenthood and their removal fee was only $100, so I made an appointment for 2 weeks later (that was the earliest appointment they had).

Well, a week went by and I was still researching Mirena side-effects because I'm a researching fiend and I came upon an article about a girl getting so fed up with the side-effects from her IUD that she watched a medical video on YouTube and removed it herself. After a little more research, I decided that I would try to remove it myself and if I felt any resistance at all then I would just wait for my appointment. So I went in to the bathroom and I took a pillow in case I fainted. I found the strings and pulled the sucker out. I literally felt nothing. About an hour after I removed it, I could feel my headache start to lessen and my dizziness subside. And I just keep getting better and better as time goes by. Of course I am doing a cleanse, taking Fulvic minerals, sub-lingual B vitamins, chlorophyll, and I just ordered some natural progesterone cream to balance out my hormones.

So, all my family members and friends who are freaking out right now because you think I'm crazy. Feel free to get on the horn to your insurance company and encourage them to pay for IUD removal - especially if they pay for the insertion!

Walking...Kind of

2010-01-14T12:39:00.001-07:00

Gryff has started taking a few steps away from furniture!!!! Right now it's only about 2 steps and he won't let me record him doing it (little bugger) but I think he might be on his way. We still need to get him his expensive little orthotics, but his occupational therapist thinks that within a week of him getting used to his orthotics, he will be walking. Yay! Just in time for gardening season.

Daddy's Birthday

2010-01-07T19:22:00.003-07:00

Daddy in his Happy Birthday hat.

Blowing out candles.

Enjoying the chocolate pie.

REALLY enjoying the chocolate pie.

Even picky Gryff had some...and liked it.

Very Belated, Anti-Social, Mostly Pictures - Christmas Post

2010-01-06T19:52:00.006-07:00

Sunday Before Christmas

Our Christmas Tree - Christmas Eve.

I felt bad about the sparseness of our presents and it made me second guess our simple Christmas tradition a little bit. But Christmas morning, the boys were VERY happy with what they got and I think more would have been overkill.

Trying to get a picture Christmas morning. I just love Gryff's face: "Uh oh, you're gonna get it."

Most important tradition first. Uncovering Baby Jesus on our nativity calendar. This is a tradition from my family that we have done forever, it seems. (Don't mind my tired look, I was up until 3 am trying desperately to finish Gryff's hat.)

Gryff's Christmas bag loot - stainless steel Safe Sippy and a pounding bench.

Mr. Carter's Christmas bag loot - markers & pads of paper, mittens, fruit leather, and a stainless steel sports bottle.

Gryff with his wooden pounding bench.

Mr. Carter coloring with his markers.

Homemade mittens.

Looking at books.

"Bull-Za-Bozing" the wooden branch blocks.

Gryff checking out the wooden animals, which surprisingly, aren't as loved as they were when I was making them. They are mostly shoveled up with Mr. Carter's bull-za-bozer.

Gryff after a long day of Christmas fun in his hat that I finally finished during their nap time.

Our New Door

2009-12-16T11:16:00.003-07:00

Here it is (Mom). Our new door and actually a new light too. With our old door you could see a big strip of light from the top to the bottom. Daddy put new weather stripping on last year but that produced an embarrassing tug-o-war act every time we wanted to open the door.

We bought this door after haunting the clearance pile at Lowe's for about 3 months. We needed to find a cheap pre-hung door and finally we found this beauty. Of course, I didn't really need the window up top, but since it is mottled glass, I felt safer than having clear glass for the whole world to see in. It's also fiberglass so it's cooler to the touch than our old steel door. It was originally a $322 special order that was returned and they marked it down to $175 and put it in the clearance pile. I told Daddy to ask if they could go any cheaper and he said they didn't do that at big-box stores. I asked anyway and we got it marked down to $125. Hurray!

Daddy and his brother spent half a Saturday installing it and making sure that there was no light around the edges. Thanks again for your help Uncle D!

The light was another good find. We had been looking for a simple, and cheap, light for the exterior of our house. We found these lights in a 2-pack for $16 (so $8/light) at Lowe's. And the expensive yellow bug light (that was almost as much as our fixture) was recommended by our exterminator to not attract the cockroaches (which is another post entirely).

More Scroll Saw Toys

2009-12-15T22:55:00.004-07:00

Piglet, mama giraffe, baby giraffe, baby lion.

As you can see this little piggie had a spot that went wee, wee, wee all the way down his side. I was freaking out, but Daddy said, "Who cares, the kids loved playing with them before they were even painted. They will love whatever we give them." Painting them is not as fun as I thought because I'm too much of a perfectionist, but I'm still very pleased with the results.

Rabbit family and mommy tiger.

Ornery Gryff!

2009-12-15T15:39:00.004-07:00

You'll notice Gryff knocking over the evil offender of this particular tantrum.

On this tortuous day in Gryff's life, his mean mommy was trying to get him to drink breast milk from a sippy cup. Up until this point in his life (He was just over 1 year old), Gryff had been almost exclusively breastfed except for the few times when he allowed food or water. These videos were taken near the end of his half hour long temper tantrum to show his Daddy how productive our day was.

Gryff is 100% better about eating and drinking. He now drinks from a straw cup (to strengthen his mouth muscles) and self-feeds with his fingers and with a spoon. We are still working on actually chewing his food rather than swallowing everything whole. And, yes, he still has that temper during many of his therapy sessions. Which is why there is going to be a L A R G E gap between Gryff and our next child.

Homemade Presents

2009-12-14T16:22:00.006-07:00

Homemade scroll saw chickens.

Homemade scroll saw baby chicks.

I found a forum on Mothering.com talking about how easy it is to make scroll saw toys like the VERY EXPENSIVE Waldorf toys. So of course I had to get a scroll saw with our Christmas money this year. With our $180 saw, $30 Dremel, and $30 worth of wood; I have made almost $1000 dollars worth of toys for our boys this Christmas. Mr. Carter LOVES them. The first time he saw them in the garage (I forgot to clean up from the day before), he said: "OOOOoooh look what my Mom got me!" It was so cute. But of course I told him they weren't for him so hopefully he will be surprised when he opens his present.

I bought an unfinished jewelry box at Jo-Ann's and burned in this design with my new wood burner. It was my first time using a wood burner and it was really fun. This is for my niece for our Christmas exchange.

Homemade baby-legs/legwarmers. They are not for Mr. Carter. I just had him model them so I could get a picture before I gave them to his cousin. It was my first time knitting in the round. I thought I would pull my hair out because it was all so small and squeezed in, but once I got passed the first few rows it got considerably easier and I loved making them.

Knit earflap hat. Of course now Mr. Carter won't wear it because it's made of wool and "it itches."

Some other things I'm making, but don't have pictures for are some basic knit washcloths, mittens for a cold little boy and a some knit scarves. Can you tell I love knitting? It's very cathartic for me. Plus, the more skills I learn the better the presents become, so hopefully I keep learning. We really love making most of our Christmas. This year I hope to actually finish it all before midnight on Christmas Eve. I also really hope that we can get around to making our Christmas candy this year.

On Love and Fear

2009-12-09T15:09:00.001-07:00

This gives rise to an argument: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the opposite. The answer is that one would like to be both, but since it is difficult to combine the two it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to make way. For generally speaking, one can say the following about men: they are ungrateful, inconsistent, feigners and dissimulators, avoiders of danger, eager for gain, and whilst it profits them they are all yours. They will offer you their blood, their property, their life and their offspring when your need for them is remote. But when your needs are pressing, they turn away. The prince who depends entirely on their words perishes when he finds he has not taken any other precautions. This is because friendships purchased with money and not by greatness and nobility of spirit are paid for, but not collected, and when you need them they cannot be used. Men are less worried about harming somebody who makes himself loved than someone who makes himself feared, for love is held by a chain of obligation which, since men are bad, is broken at every opportunity for personal gain. Fear, on the other hand, is maintained by a dread of punishment which will never desert you.

— The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli (translation Stephen J. Milner)

Subject Close to my Heart

2009-11-19T14:01:00.003-07:00

In all fairness, I've included the whole show. You can obviously tell who's side I'm on though.

Vaccine comparison chart. What we used to get, and what our kids get now.

Healing Autism

According to Jenny McCarthy’s website, GenerationRescue.org, here are the four most important things you can do to help heal your child:

1. Bring the toxin load down
2. Help the gut heal
3. Get the nutrients up
4. Get the metals and other toxins out

Among other things, they recommend that parents of autistic children:

Remove casein (dairy) and gluten (wheat) from the diet
Remove other food allergens from the diet
Get rid of bad food and sugar (trans fatty acids, artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial preservatives, nitrates, and aspartame, Nutrasweet)
Use fluoride-free toothpaste
Give cod liver oil
Give probiotics

Read all the recommendations on Jenny’s website here: Autism treatment on GenerationRescue.org

Homemade Chicken Scratch

2009-11-13T12:28:00.002-07:00

Blanche

We started making our own chicken feed a few months ago after Blanche died from being egg-bound. My sister did some research for us and found out that black oil sunflower seeds given every day help prevent chickens from becoming egg-bound. And since our chickens insist on laying big honking eggs (we get a double yoker at least once a week), we feel that our homemade feed keeps them laying smoothly. It can be very expensive, but I've tried to find the cheapest places to buy all the ingredients. The corn is always organic since we don't eat GMOs, but everything else is usually conventionally grown. Everything is whole except for the corn. The first batch we made had whole corn and the girls never ate it. Now we crack it in the blender and they eat it just fine.

Homemade Chicken Feed

6 pounds whole organic corn, cracked (in blender or food processor)
6 pounds white wheat (bought at LDS dry-pack cannery)
6 pounds red wheat (bought at LDS dry-pack cannery)
6 pounds hulled barley
6 pounds oat groats
4 pounds black oil sunflower seeds
2 pounds millet
2 pounds split peas
2 pounds lentils
1 pound flax seed
1 pound kelp granules (you can also get this in a 50 lb bag at Azure)
1 pound brewer's yeast
1 pound diatomaceous earth

Mix all together and store in a air-tight container. (We got our Vittles Vault at Costco for under $30, but I couldn't find a link for that.) It works out to 62 cent per pound. It could be made for less if you get the bigger bag of kelp and non-organic corn, etc. We find that they waste less when we make their feed. Their favorite thing to eat is the black oil sunflower seeds. As soon as we dump some in their cage they scramble around until they get every last sunflower seed.

We also give them all the grit and oyster shells that they want. It took us a while to get some oyster shells because IFA was out of them for a long time. Our girls started laying gelatin eggs (eggs with a VERY soft shell that breaks when it touches the coop floor). We finally got some oyster shell and within a week the problem stopped. So it's very important to have the oyster shell for calcium and the grit for grinding up all those whole grains.

Natural Play

2009-10-24T23:59:00.003-06:00

ANYWAY! I was trying to upload some pictures of my kids playing but unfortunately blogger does not want to cooperate! On to my post!
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I have been looking in to the Waldorf philosophy of teaching lately. I first came across it on a blog I read and this mom had a nature table for her boy. When they would take walks around the neighborhood they would pick up different things that represent the seasons - robin's egg shells, a sprig of apple blossoms, summer wildflowers, fall leaves, nuts, seed pods, etc. When they got home they would arrange it on their nature table and talk about the changing of the seasons. I thought that was a good idea, so we started a nature table at our house and Mr. Carter loves sitting at his table and playing with his acorns, rocks, and leaves.
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We have also been slowly eradicating all (or most) of the plastic toys in our home. We are replacing them with homemade wooden toys, rocks, pine cones, etc. I was reading about Waldorf playrooms on mothering.com's forums and I fell in love with how natural, un-plugged, and un-scripted they all are. They don't have Doras, Elmos, Thomases, etc to play with. Instead they have play silks, rocks, sticks, wooden cars, play kitchens, dolls and all sorts of imaginative things.
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Then today I was reading about outdoor play and they were trying to determine what "Waldorf toys" were good for outdoor play. One mother chimed in and said the great thing about the Waldorf philosophy is that the kids don't need toys for outdoor play. Just as long as they have mud, sticks, bugs, plants, trees, and all sorts of nature things that you don't need to go out and buy. I started thinking about Mr. Carter's outside play. The absolute first thing he says in the morning is "My want to play outside." When he goes outside, the first thing he does is say "Hello" to our animals. Then he is right in the sandbox or in the garden. Of course now our sandbox is only about 1/2 full since he's re-distributed the sand all over the yard with his dump truck, shovels, and buckets. In the garden he likes to rake up the straw that Daddy and I so carefully laid in the walking paths and haul it off in his dump truck. He will spend HOURS out there.
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I really like this site for looking at different outside play areas and what kids are really attracted to. I remember at the family reunion last year at the park, most of the kids ended up in the little trickling creek instead of on the playground. That is just how kids are. You can buy all this expensive equipment with swings and slides, etc. and they most likely will want to dig up your garden looking for worms. That's the thing I love about Waldorf, it's very natural and hands-on. It encourages kids to get out in nature and get messy and take chances. We always said that our kids would play with rocks and sticks and those are Mr. Carter's favorite toys (I know, because when I do the wash his pockets are full of them). And the great thing about it is it's not very expensive. Sure it can be if you buy in to the expensive wooden toys and playstands and woolen clothing. But if you get right down to it, it's about letting your kids be creative and finding things to play with in a new way. Because let's face it, my kids favorite toys are wooden pencils, rocks, dirt, empty cans, and anything else that is not a "real toy."

2009-10-20T11:56:00.001-06:00

Chicken Coop From Salvaged Materials

2009-10-19T21:03:00.004-06:00

Assembling the side panels in the garage.

Putting it all together in the backyard.

The (almost) finished product. 4 feet by 12 feet.

The interior of the coop with the roost. 4 feet by 4 feet.

The openings to the communal nesting box.

The nesting box with a hinged roof to get the eggs out easily. (This picture was taken before Daddy finished staining it.)
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I love many things about my husband. But one of my favorite things about him is that he is an excellent dumpster diver and scrounger. He has no shame in asking his boss to pull over because he saw a particularly interesting looking dumpster, or asking the foreman at his job if he can have the extra wood, roofing, buckets, etc. Not only that, but he uses the stuff he finds in the garbage at work or on the side of the road so we don't have piles of crap all over our house (okay, not too many piles of crap).
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Right now he is working at an old building that is being totally remodeled which gives excellent opportunities for getting free wood and roofing. For the above coop all we had to buy was a box of screws, hinges, locks for the doors, 4 - 12 foot boards for the headers and footers, 1 - 2x4 for the rafters, the wire fencing, and 2 bottles of boiled linseed oil. I think we spent a total of $75 on our coop, which I think is pretty darn good considering others are spending $300-$400 for a smaller, less functional coop. Daddy brought home the corrugated roofing (which saved a bundle right there), all of the framing wood except the few pieces that we had to buy, all the plywood, and even some wire fencing to fill in a few gaps.
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For the black paint we used an old recipe I found on the internet called "The Everlasting Fencepost" which consists of boiled linseed oil mixed with enough pulverized charcoal to make it a paint-like consistency. Instead of buying the charcoal we just had a fire in our fire pit and let it smolder out. Then I pulverized the charcoal in my blender. It worked really well and I hope it makes the wood last a long time.
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We still need to buy a piece of Plexiglas for the window on the front of the coop and some construction sand for the floor of the run and inside the coop (we are doing the "sand method" which is basically like a kitty litter box). Other than that, I think we are done. The girls love it. They especially love their nesting box which we added after they started laying. The coop design is a knock-off of the "Playhouse Coop" found on ebay and Backyard Chickens, but since my husband is a construction genius he was able to figure out how to build it himself. Plus we made ours bigger after reading some of the reviews that said they wished the interior coop was 4'x4' instead of 4'x2'. And the run is 4 feet longer. And the roof is a shed roof instead of a gabled roof. And the nesting box is better. But other than that...exactly the same.

Children's Flatware

2009-10-15T14:35:00.002-06:00

photo: Montessori Services

Daddy and I have been talking about getting Mr. Carter some "grown-up" kid flatware. Mr. Carter is currently using some Elmo forks and spoons that we got at Babies 'R Us. We bought 4 sets and still have all of the spoons but sadly 2 of the forks got sucked up in the disposal. Often we have to tell Mr. Carter that he needs to use a daddy fork because his are usually dirty.

Well, today I decided to just see what was out there for kids. I found an Oneida set (fork, spoon, and knife) for $17. That was a little too steep for me so I kept on looking and I'm glad I did. I found the above set for $11 at Montessori Services and the really great thing is they also have single forks, spoons, and knives for $4 each.

So I bought 2 sets, 2 forks, and 2 spoons (for a total of 2 knives, 4 forks, and 4 spoons). I think he'll enjoy having knives to practice with, but I certainly don't want him to have a knife for every meal - and it was cheaper to get the knives in a set.

I'm pleased. I set out with certain goals - no licensed characters, no plastic, hardy, inexpensive, kid-sized. I think I've met all those goals (although we'll have to see when we get them).

My Letter to Dansko Clogs

2009-10-07T13:05:00.005-06:00

I was just about to buy my 4th pair of Danskos because I absolutely love my clogs that I bought years ago, but no longer fit. Luckily I was reading reviews and found out that when Dansko outsourced to China the quality dropped considerably. Many of the reviewers are now recommending Sanitas instead of Danskos and that's what I'll be buying from now on.

Sorry Dansko, you just lost another customer. But congratulations on all the money you're making off the Chinese worker.

**And yes, I actually did send this to Dansko.

Here is a website that explains what & when (but not the why...hmmm).

Preparing for the APOCALYPSE (or job loss, or money shortage, or food shortage, etc.)

2009-08-20T21:58:00.002-06:00

Year Supply for One Person

14 Gallons Water (this is only 2 weeks worth, not a year)
8 Pounds Salt
300 Pounds Wheat
1 Pounds Yeast
1 Pounds Baking Powder
1 Pounds Baking Soda
20 Pounds Pasta
50 Pounds Oats
50 Pounds Rice
25 Pounds Dried Corn
12 Pounds Black Beans
12 Pounds White Beans
12 Pounds Pinto Beans
12 Pounds Kidney Beans
12 Pounds Lentils
16 Pounds Dried Milk
3 Gallons Cooking Oil
32.5 Pounds Cane Sugar
12.5 Pounds Brown Sugar
6.25 Pounds Powdered Sugar
6.25 Pounds Honey
2.5 Pounds Molasses
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The above is the bare minimum food storage for one person for a whole year. I tweaked it to fit our needs by dividing up the 400 pounds of grains a person need to include wheat, oats, rice, and corn. I also divided up the 60 pounds of beans in to different varieties of beans, since we like all different kinds of beans in our diet. Same with the 60 pounds of sugar. I also didn't include any white flour, because we never eat white flour. We store all our food storage in 5 gallon buckets with Gamma Seal lids for easy access. We go through it too fast to store it in the #10 cans.
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We buy most of our food storage at the LDS cannery. If you just want to buy it by the bag (usually 25 pounds), you can just walk in and buy it anytime they are open. You don't need to be a Mormon or have an appointment or anything like that. If you want to can it in the cans, you need to make an appointment (or I've heard of people even renting the equipment and taking it the their house to can but I don't know if this costs money or not). The prices are dirt cheap. We bought 100 pounds of wheat a few weeks ago for just under $24.
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We buy the rest of our food storage at Costco. 2 pounds of yeast is only $10. 1 pound of double-acting, aluminum-free baking powder is also $10. 1 gallon of extra virgin olive oil is $18. So as you can see, it's really not expensive to build your storage up. But make sure it's stuff you will use. We eat wheat (ground into flour) almost every day; we eat beans a few times a week, etc. Store what you will eat and then you won't have to worry about rotating it, because you will automatically rotate it as you use it up and buy more.

House Tour - Upstairs

2009-08-11T22:48:00.004-06:00

The baby's room

Mr. Carter's room

The hall bathroom

Our master bedroom
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The upstairs is just bedrooms and a bathroom (someday we will add a second bathroom in the master). The master bedroom is obscenely large, which is good because we will need to take some of the space and make a closet out of it when we turn our walk-in closet in to the master bedroom. The boys rooms are very small, like 10 foot by 10 foot, buy all they are used for is sleeping so we don't really notice how small they are.

We really like our little house and hope to have many good years in it before we move to our "forever" house that we are planning.

House Tour - Downstairs

2009-08-11T21:39:00.005-06:00

Kitchen
Kitchen

Dinig Area - just off the kitchen

Family room that we turned into a playroom

Other side of the playroom

Laundy area in the downstairs half bath

Downstairs half bath

Front room that we turned into a family room

View from the top of the stairs

Family room

Here is the main level of our little house. Our house is about 1500 square feet total. Half of that is upstairs and half is downstairs, we don't have a basement. We used to have fancy, all new furniture that we bought when we were first married, but it didn't fit with our lifestyle, so we sold it all and now all our furniture is used - either bought at thrift stores or garage sales, or given to us by people.

Since this is just our starter home, we are trying to keep the updates to a minimum, but I still want to be able to enjoy my house the way I want it, so we will be doing a few projects - laminate floors throughout the house (except the bedrooms and bathrooms), new windows, new pre-hung, exterior doors, island in the kitchen, painting the kitchen cabinets, new laminate countertop in kitchen, and remodel half bath downstairs and put up bi-fold doors to cover laundry area. Of course the time frame on all of this is unknown and we might just up and move as soon as Daddy is out of school, but if we stay longer, I would like to make the house a little bit more useful for our needs.

Gryff is Crawling!!!

2009-08-11T10:46:00.003-06:00

After having 2 therapy sessions with Early Intervention, Gryff has started crawling. He usually only crawls until he gets to whatever he wants and then he plays on his tummy, but it's a start. We are so excited!!!

From My Man...Dave Ramsey

2009-08-09T00:09:00.001-06:00

Privatization of Social Security - Good or Bad?

How bad is Social Security? Let's find out.

Social Security Example:

Joe is your average American. He makes $7 per hour and works a 40-hour week for 52 weeks a year.

$7/hr x 40 hrs x 52 weeks = $14,560/yr.

Currently, all workers are paying approximately 15% of their income into Social Security and Medicare. Social Security gets 12.4%. 6.2% is paid by you. 6.2% is paid by your employer. President Bush is proposing that people be allowed to take 4% of that and invest it to help build their retirement. In our example, 4% is to $48.53 per month.

$14,560/yr. x .04 = $582.40/yr. ($48.53 a month)

Take that $48.53 a month and invest it into a decent growth stock mutual fund at an average of 10.99% interest per year, and you would have $1,253,075 at retirement.

From age 20-70 = 50 yrs. = $1,253,075

At retirement, you could take 8% of the interest per year and live on it. You could leave the other 3% to account for inflation and still be better off than when you were working.

Retirement Income at 8% = $8353 a month

Now if you make more than $7 per hour, you are able to invest more.
In this example, it is easy to see that you could enjoy a higher standard of living after retirement if you were allowed to control a small portion of your money that goes to Social Security from each paycheck.

Listen to the call from The Dave Ramsey Show 1 - mp3 Download
Listen to the call from The Dave Ramsey Show 2 - mp3 Download

Too Cute!!

2009-07-07T10:08:00.002-06:00

This morning I was sitting with Mr. Carter in the bathroom waiting for him to go potty. Gryff scooted in and saw me sitting on the edge of the bathtub and got all excited and started scooting to me so I could pick him up. I picked him up and put him on my lap and he signed "bath" and pointed to the bathtub. It was just too cute, so I gave him a bath.
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Gryff is getting to be quite the little signer. He's not quite 14 months yet, but he already knows milk, food/eat, juice, and now bath.
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Last week we had an Early Intervention evaluation for Gryff and he qualified for therapy in gross motor and they are also going to help us with some of his oral aversions/delays and also feeding himself and putting things in his own mouth. He tested at 5 months in his gross motor skills (large movements like crawling, sitting walking, etc) because he won't sit up. He knows how and he used to do it, but once he started scooting it was all about the movement. He also has some oral aversions to hard solids like cereal and he won't feed himself - in fact he hardly puts anything in his mouth at all.
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We met with his physical therapist yesterday and set some goals and got 4 exercises to do - 2 gross motor exercises and 2 eating/self-feeding exercises.

Hold Gryff in the crawling position on his hands and knees with something fun to play with in front on him. Do that a few times a day gradually increasing the time each day.
Have Gryff sit up with one leg extended out straight and the other tucked in close to his bum so he can easily move in to the crawling position.
Give Gryff some crackers, soft-cooked carrots, etc and some yummy dip and let him dip and lick.
Finger paint on his tray or cookie sheet with pudding or other good smelling spreadable goody.

I'm hoping Gryff will progress as fast as Mr. Carter did in Early Intervention. Mr. Carter was only in it for 2 months before he learned to crawl, cruise and walk -- but he was also older and farther along in his gross motor. We'll see how things go, but I'm excited they are moving so fast with us.

2009-07-06T21:39:00.002-06:00

More Garden Stuff

2009-06-29T20:07:00.004-06:00

Our huge potatoes with straw up to the top of the can.

Scarlett Runner beans.
Radishes/Carrots/Beets/Onions and Lettuce/Spinach

Our pepper bed. We now have one little bell pepper.

Our corn.

Our crazy girls - Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia - all named after the Golden Girls.
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Our garden is growing well, but not producing much yet. We bought all our seeds from Baker Creek seeds so our whole garden is heirloom fruits and veggies. The lettuce is awesome. I read about this cool lettuce in Mother Earth News that is green with red speckles on it and lo and behold that is what we have. We just love it. The spinach is already starting to bolt (go to seed) and so I'm excited to get some seed for next year. We planted 'French Breakfast' radishes and the first time I tasted them I realized why I haven't planted radishes in so long. I don't like them. But my Companion Gardening book says radishes are good to plant around squash and other things to keep the bugs away, so I will be saving seeds from these little guys too.

We also planted some 'Scarlett Runner' beans that were my grandma's. My mom and I were trying to figure out how old they are and I think we figured that they are about 7 or 8 years old, maybe even older and they still came up...every one we planted. We are getting a few teeny, tiny berries from our strawberries and raspberries that we planted this year. We also have 1 apple, that's right, one. Our 2 peaches fell off, or got knocked off, but they are gone. And the biggest most exciting news of all....we have TWO walnuts on our little one year old tree. Supposedly we will get some almonds next year. Nuts are so expensive to it's nice to have our 4 little nut trees. I even found a recipe for homemade Nutella so I filed it away for future use. Can you imagine making your own nut butters from the nuts in your own yard!? I love it!

I had Daddy cut a hole in the side of the chicken tractor and put in a door so I can just open that in the morning and let the girls free-range all day but still let them have access to their water and food. We also moved Winnie's cage (our bunny) over by the chickens and put in a door with little steps so Winnie is out all day now too and she also has access to her food and water. It's funny to see Winnie chase the girls around the yard and out of her favorite hiding places. She'll start taking laps around the yard and then go busting in and scatter the chickens all over. Sometimes there is a stand-off and one of the chickens will puff up her neck feathers and hunker down low and put up a fight, but Winnie usually just goes right for the kneecaps.

Farewell Friend

2009-05-20T13:21:00.007-06:00

I found out that my Rival crock pot has lead in it (in the glaze). I was going to do a whole blog about all the info I found, but a lot of the info from manufacturers is very cryptic and I was going cross-eyed from trying to get a straight answer from anyone. So here is my research. I'm done for now. The crock-pots that are supposedly lead-free (at least the glaze) are from Hamilton Beach, West Bend, Dr. Weil, and Vita Clay. Do what you want with this info, but just remember to vote with your dollar and support companies whose values you value.

Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker

Q: Does the crock contain lead?

A: Hamilton Beach specifications applicable to all slow cookers and their components (including the earthenware crocks) prohibits the product from containing any measurable amounts of lead. Furthermore, the factories that manufacture the earthenware crocks for Hamilton Beach are certified ceramic production facilities whose ceramic ware is deemed to satisfy FDA heavy metal requirements. Hamilton Beach takes all reasonable steps to ensure that the earthenware crocks accompanying our slow cookers provide safe and satisfactory service to our consumers.

Dr. Weil Slow Cooker

The Customer Care Center at Waterford Wedgwood USA is pleased to respond to your inquiry regarding Dr. Weil® Large Slow Cooker.

The insert for the slow cooker is ceramic, therefore, the slow cooker insert is lead free. This includes any glaze used over the ceramic. We hope this information is helpful to you.

Sincerely,
Claire Donovan
Specialist Customer Care Center

Vita Clay Rice & Slow Cooker

The inner Clay Pot is free of added lead, Teflon or non-stick chemical glazes. Natural wholesome cooking.

Another source for Vita Clay

To answer your question, the VitaClay company does say that the VitaClay Rice & Slow cooker is free of added lead, but they do not "certify" the clay is free of lead. Since clay is a natural material, it is *possible* that in the clay itself, it could have traces of lead. This does not mean there is actually lead in the clay, but it is possible. However, Essenergy, Inc. (the manufacturer of VitaClay) does state that in the manufacturing process, the VitaClay does not use any coatings or glazes that would contain lead, and Essenergy, Inc. does say the unit is free from added lead. Meaning, any lead would be in the clay and naturally occurring. "

Other interesting websites about lead in plates and crock pots:

Get Gephardt

Insightful Nana

The first comment on her blog post is actually from Gephardt. I think it's interesting to note in his comment that the amount of lead in the plates that lead-poisoned the breastfed baby was within the government standards.

Gephardt's Lead Plate Testing Results

In the Garden

2009-05-15T15:23:00.002-06:00

Mr. Carter "helping" me plant my Grandma's heirloom Scarlett Runner beans. It's more frustrating when the kids "help," but it makes good memories and teaches them the value of hard work.

Our upside-down tomato plant hanging from the overhang. This is the first year we have planted tomatoes this way, but supposedly it works awesome. Daddy brought home 10 5-gallon buckets from work. We drilled out a small hole in the bottom and carefully threaded the tomato plant through the hole and then Daddy held the bucket off the ground while I filled it almost full with a mixture of dirt and peat moss. Then we hung them from large eye hooks that we screwed into our floor joists with caribiners.

Another gardening first for us - growing potatoes in garbage cans. We ended up with 8 garbage cans of potatoes. Since I'm too cheap to buy dirt to fill up all of them, we just put about 1 foot of dirt in the bottom with the potatoes pieces. Then when they sprouted, instead of piling on more dirt, we are using straw. I read that straw help keep away some of the pests that normally plague potatoes.

An arbor Daddy made out of PVC pipe. We are going to string up some netting on it and have the cucumbers and mini pumpkins grow up on it. In the background you can see the PVC bean poles.

Our cucumbers, inter planted with marigolds, alyssum, and nasturtium. Daddy jackhammered a section out of our concrete slab to make room for them, which gave me the idea to jackhammer only where we want the garden beds and leave the concrete for the walkways. (We were initially going to jackhammer the whole thing and lay paths later.)

Our pepper bed - bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and soon-to-be Anaheim peppers - inter planted with cilantro, Dianthus, and marigolds.

Gryffindor's Birthday Recap

2009-05-15T15:13:00.002-06:00

Gryff with his birthday quilt. We started the tradition with Mr. Carter. On the kids' 1st birthday they get a homemade quilt so they can have their own "blankie." Gryff''s has "I Am A Child of God" fabric for the top.

Gryff checking out his card from Grandpa & Grandma L. He loved the glitter on the front and kept scratching it.

Gryff with his birthday cake. He doesn't like to eat solids so I didn't spend too much time on it. All he did was pull off the ear and then suck his fingers.

Gryff eating his homemade birthday pudding. Since I knew he wouldn't eat his cake I made him some vanilla pudding so he could have a special treat on his birthday. We gave the rest of Gryff's cake to Mr. Carter.

Happy First Birthday Gryff!!!

2009-05-07T12:58:00.005-06:00

Gryff with all his hair. The nurses said they never saw a white baby with so much hair before.

Mr. Carter and Gryff. They are best friends.

Gryff on his blessing day.

Gryff's first haircut at about 3 months. His hair grows so fast.

Sucking his fingers.

Playing in the dirt and exploring are his favorite things.

He loves our animals and will chase after them a catch them if he can.

Our happy Gryff.

I went to my prenatal appointment on Tuesday, May 6 and I was at 3 1/2 cm My midwife stripped my membranes and told us to go shopping on the way home because I would probably have the baby tonight. After the appointment we went grocery shopping and then I went home and cleaned the house and did the laundry. Daddy went to the church to do some work and be there for bishop while he had his interviews.

My contractions started about 9 pm, but they were so mild throughout the night that I thought it was just false labor. I watched TV for most of the night while I bounced on my birth ball (an exercise ball, really) and folded laundry. When I finally went to bed I couldn't fall asleep for a long time, but I finally dozed off about 2 am. I woke up to a contraction at 4 am and had Daddy call my parents to come over and be with Mr. Carter. We were debating whether to call them even, but in the hour it took them to get here, my contractions got considerably more intense, so I'm glad we called them when we did. They got here about 5 am and we left for the hospital. We checked into the hospital at 5:15 am. I asked for a room with a Jacuzzi tub and the lady said they didn't have any (and she was a real big brat about it too - or maybe it's because I was in labor, but I wanted to lunge across the counter and scratch her eyes out). When they checked me I was at 5 1/2 cm, same as what I was when I checked in with Mr. Carter - so I was mentally preparing myself for a long labor.

For this birth I didn't rule out having an epidural. I actually told my midwife and my husband that my last birth was so painful and I felt so out of control and if I asked for an epi- they had better hop to it and get me one. I also read some books recommended to me by my new, lovely, awesome midwife. My favorite was Birthing From Within. It helped me realize that my last birth made me feel like I was out of control and helped me with some new coping techniques. For my last birth I laid in my bed almost the entire labor, I think that was my first big mistake. My second big mistake was thinking it would be a fast labor, so I used up all my coping techniques right away and when it got down to crunch time - I didn't have anything left to use. So my goals for this birth were to stay upright as much as possible, go to the bathroom A LOT so the baby could have space to move down in my pelvis, and to not start using my coping mechanisms until I really needed them.

When we got to our non-Jacuzzi room (RAR!), we gave our birth plan to the nurse and she said I needed to be monitored first thing. I asked if I could be monitored standing up and she said no, I needed to lay down so they could get a good baseline. She said I needed to stay on the monitor for 30 minutes, but I know they conveniently "forgot" about me and I ended up being monitored for about an hour. I labored on my left side in bed while I was being monitored. I listened to my Hypnobirthing and also some classical music on my IPOD. When a contraction would come I would moan "OOOOOOOOpen" and visualize my cervix opening and my baby's head moving down in my pelvis. (I think that was another mistake I made with my last labor. Thinking I had to be quiet - well I sure wasn't quiet this time.) A guy came to take my blood while I was in the middle of a contraction. He waited until it was over and I flopped my arm out on the bed and said: "You have 2 minutes, GO." The whole time I was being monitored, my legs were shaking uncontrollably. I kept thinking if I didn't calm down and get warm I would never relax and let my body do what it needed to do. I told Daddy to turn the thermostat all the way up and had him warm up my rice bags for my back. I was still shaking though, I just couldn't STOP! Meanwhile the stupid nurses came to set up the room with all the supplies - I kept thinking "Why don't they do this BEFORE they put people in the room because it is so distracting." I asked to be taken off the monitors after the mandatory part was done (actually I took off the monitors and the stupid elastic belt thing and then told them about it) and then I went to the bathroom (I actually went to the bathroom about every 20 minutes to help make room in my pelvis for the baby to move down.). Then I labored on the birth ball for a very short while and then I labored standing up for a very short while.

My midwife came in and asked if we wanted to move to a room with a Jacuzzi tub in it. We said yes. She decided to check my progress first and said I was at a 9 so we didn't need to move after all. I couldn't believe I was almost done already. I didn't even need to use my oils that I brought or the combs I was going to squeeze in my hands during contractions. We were so surprised. When I reached 10 they broke my water. Then for about 2 or 3 minutes I just laid on my back on the hospital bed waiting for the pushing contractions to start. I pushed for about 10 minutes and Gryff was born.

It was such an easy labor. After the labor was over and they were cleaning up Gryff, I kept saying "Oh my gosh, that was so easy. That was so easy, I can't believe it." The nurses said they've never heard a woman say it was so easy before, but it was true. This was my ideal birth and it made up for the out of control feeling I had with my last birth. I was a very healing birth.

Gryff had colic for about 2 months and I had pretty bad postpartum depression for about 6 weeks while I was waiting for my meds to kick in. I really couldn't even look at him for those first 6 weeks. But after my meds kicked in and he got through his colic, he was a really good baby. He started sucking his fingers at about 3 months which was a blessing because he could get to sleep by himself. He also loves to sleep on his tummy and scoot everywhere. He hates sitting up and being on his back because he can't scoot and explore. He has a great contagious laugh and is best friends with his brother.

Progress On Our Yard

2009-05-05T19:23:00.002-06:00

Our new gate leading to our side yard. In the garbage cans are our potatoes and planted on the other side of the walk is our berry patch - raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries. We are going to plant rhubarb in the empty spot that is closest.

Here is our garden area that we just fenced off yesterday. I haven't dared plant anything yet because Mr. Carter loves to dig in the dirt. So now with the fence up it will keep the kids, the chickens, and the bunny out.

This was taken on Earth Day. It was so fun sitting out in our backyard with our bunny running around and our chicks in their little enclosure. The bunny would hop up to say "Hello" to the chicks and then come say "Hello" to us and then run off and play. It was a wonderful celebration on our mini-urban homestead.

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For those who are interested about why we planted our potatoes in garbage cans here is the info:

Growing spuds in a garbage can is fun, and it's something you can do to get your kids interested in gardening. Any clean plastic garbage can will work. Drill at least four 1/2-inch holes in the bottom for good drainage and fill the bottom 6 inches deep with houseplant potting soil. Mix in slow-release fertilizer, or feed every two weeks with high-phosphorus, soluble houseplant fertilizer. Buy starter potatoes at a nursery, and plant them whole, 5 inches apart, just under the soil surface and water them in. The vines will soon begin to grow and as soon as they reach 4 inches tall, cover all but 1 inch of the lowest vine with compost, wood chips or potting soil.

Continue to cover the vines in this way until they grow out of the top of the garbage can. Once the vines bloom, you can reach in and pick the biggest spuds you can find. These are new potatoes and they won't store, but they are delicious for that evening's dinner. Wait to do the main harvest until vines die back completely in fall. You never know what you'll get. My champion harvest was 42 softball-size Yukon Golds. Then for some reason, the next year I planted the same variety and got exactly 9,347,012 spuds smaller than pingpong balls.

http://www.seattlepi.com/nwgardens/310303_ciscoe07.html

And for a pictorial go here.

I originally saw this idea on the Heavenly Homemaker blog and I thought it was genius. I'm always looking for ways to grow things vertically to save space in our tiny yard. When we plant our tomatoes I'll do a blog post to show how to grow those vertically as well.

Detoxification Through Chelation Therapy

2009-04-28T16:35:00.001-06:00

Dr. Green is a specialist in clinical ecology and nutritional medicine. A Defeat Autism Now! physician, he committed his full attention to the treatment of autistic children in 1999.

What is chelation therapy? How does it work? How is it performed? Why does chelation therapy in autism have such avid proponents and opponents? What are the risks and benefits of chelation therapy? Why does it receive the highest effectiveness rating from parents of all the current treatments being used for autism?

Chelation works like the body's natural sulfur defense system, wherein sticky molecules bind toxic metals to sequester and eliminate them. The commonly used chelators in autism treatment are DMSA, DMPS, and EDTA. All three of these are effective for removing lead and cadmium, while DMPS and DMSA are also effective for mercury, tin and arsenic. EDTA is also somewhat effective for aluminum. EDTA and DMSA are available over the counter in the U.S., as is DMPS in several western European countries. These three agents can be given orally or rectally, and DMPS and Calcium EDTA can be given intravenously. DMPS is also effective by intramuscular injection. Transdermal forms of all three are available, with proven efficacy for DMPS and DMSA, and uncertain efficacy for EDTA.

The best diagnostic test for toxic metal overload is the chelation challenge test. The chelation drug is administered, followed by a timed urine test to help assess the body's burden of toxic elements. This test is repeated periodically to evaluate treatment progress. In our office we use DMPS, the most potent mercury chelator (which must be prepared by a compounding pharmacy), as it can be injected with glutathione enhancement and avoids the problem of poor oral absorption. Others prefer DMSA, as it does not cross the blood-brain barrier, and is FDA approved for lead. Transdermal challenge tests are not reliable.

The choice of a chelating agent and route of administration should be individualized to the child. After implementing treatment, it is important to evaluate both effectiveness and tolerance. It is not necessary to push the therapy too vigorously; the best rule is to "go low and go slow." Transdermal methods of delivering either DMPS or DMSA are often preferred, as this helps to minimize the exposure of the bowel to the chelator/toxin complex. If there are problems with one method, it is reasonable to change to another method. After the levels of mercury drop to a low level, transdermal alpha lipoic acid is often given along with DMPS or DMSA, to provide additional benefits.

There is strong evidence that autistic children have impairments in their body detoxification systems, causing increased vulnerability to toxic injury. In addition to heavy metals (particularly mercury, lead, arsenic, antimony, and aluminum), we have found elevated blood levels of PCBs and volatile organic solvents in every autistic child tested in our office. These toxins further weaken their detoxification systems, by causing oxidative injury, immune dysfunction, impairment of enzyme and energy functions, disruption of cellular communications, and initiation and aggravation of chronic inflammation. The result of these disturbances is a complex set of self-perpetuating cycles of tissue injury. Detoxification by chelation and attendant supportive treatments helps break these cycles and restore healthy physiology.

Intravenous EDTA chelation has been used safely for decades in thousands of elderly patients and in lead-poisoned children. However, questions about safety have arisen in the past year because two children have died from the improper use of a version of EDTA (disodium-instead of calcium-EDTA). They received the wrong drug (a mistake stemming from the drugs' similar names) by an improper intravenous technique, and died from severe depletion of blood calcium levels. If a child is treated with EDTA, it must be with the calcium EDTA drug, which has been proven safe.

The risks of chelation therapy, properly done, are few. The most common problems seen are yeast or bacterial disturbances in the gut and depletion of trace minerals, especially zinc. These tend to cause behavioral upsets, generally preventable by intestinal supports, mineral supplements, and/or change of chelation system. Rashes may necessitate change in the drug or in the method of delivery. Serious allergic reactions are very rare. Concerns have been expressed about chelation effects on the liver, kidney, and bone marrow, but there has been no evidence of irreversible problems with these organs in children receiving chelation treatment. To the contrary, thorough safety testing and experience with thousands of autistic children have demonstrated the extraordinary safety of these drugs.

In our office, we prefer using DMPS by the transdermal route (with intermittent oral dosing to help clear the gut). We also may vary the chelator and the route of administration to optimize the effects of each and ascertain which is most helpful. For instance, we may use TD DMPS for three days one week, TD DMSA for three days the next week, and oral DMPS for two days the next week. If the child shows more benefit with one, we will continue with that agent. While some doctors use an alternate-day treatment regimen, we find it most effective to use these medications intermittently, such as three days on and four to 11 days off, and a washout of three or more days between different medications is necessary.

Why are there such avid proponents and opponents? The proponents are professionals who use chelation regularly and have seen excellent results in their patients. The opponents are individuals who have not used chelation therapy in practice, and raise theoretical reasons against its use. Why does chelation therapy have the highest effectiveness rating from parents of all the therapies evaluated by the Autism Research Institute? The simple answer is that chelation therapy is extremely helpful for autistic spectrum children, with very few side effects. Chelation helps break many of the self-perpetuating cycles contributing to the tissue damage and symptom complex of autism and opens the way for repair and recovery to take place.

If your child has been diagnosed with autism, and particularly if he/she has regressed or lost skills from an earlier stage in life, it is extremely likely that environmental factors have caused injury. In the Defeat Autism Now! Group, we believe that genetic and probably epigenetic (gene switching due to environmental influences) predispositions, interacting with toxic exposures, cause the syndrome of autism. Detoxification treatment commences when you optimize diet and nutrition, reduce exposure to known environmental toxins, and provide support for optimal digestive and immune function as described in the Defeat Autism Now! diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines. Upon this supportive foundation, chelation therapy will enhance your child's healing. May the day come when your child thanks you for all your efforts in bringing the best of biomedical treatments to facilitate his or her recovery!

Deadly Immunity

2009-04-25T21:24:00.003-06:00

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. investigates the government cover-up of a mercury/autism scandal

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Georgia. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -- only private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly "embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of life and death, the findings were frightening. "You can play with this all you want," Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the group. The results "are statistically significant." Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting's first day, was even more alarmed. "My gut feeling?" he said. "Forgive this personal comment -- I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on."

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line. "We are in a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits," said Dr. Robert Brent, a pediatrician at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware. "This will be a resource to our very busy plaintiff attorneys in this country." Dr. Bob Chen, head of vaccine safety for the CDC, expressed relief that "given the sensitivity of the information, we have been able to keep it out of the hands of, let's say, less responsible hands." Dr. John Clements, vaccines advisor at the World Health Organization, declared that "perhaps this study should not have been done at all." He added that "the research results have to be handled," warning that the study "will be taken by others and will be used in other ways beyond the control of this group."

In fact, the government has proved to be far more adept at handling the damage than at protecting children's health. The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to "rule out" the chemical's link to autism. It withheld Verstraeten's findings, even though they had been slated for immediate publication, and told other scientists that his original data had been "lost" and could not be replicated. And to thwart the Freedom of Information Act, it handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers. By the time Verstraeten finally published his study in 2003, he had gone to work for GlaxoSmithKline and reworked his data to bury the link between thimerosal and autism.

Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to phase thimerosal out of injections given to American infants -- but they continued to sell off their mercury-based supplies of vaccines until last year. The CDC and FDA gave them a hand, buying up the tainted vaccines for export to developing countries and allowing drug companies to continue using the preservative in some American vaccines -- including several pediatric flu shots as well as tetanus boosters routinely given to eleven-year-olds.

The drug companies are also getting help from powerful lawmakers in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the government's vaccine-related documents -- including the Simpsonwood transcripts -- and shield Eli Lilly, the developer of thimerosal, from subpoenas. In 2002, the day after Frist quietly slipped a rider known as the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" into a homeland security bill, the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought 5,000 copies of his book on bioterrorism. The measure was repealed by Congress in 2003 -- but earlier this year, Frist slipped another provision into an anti-terrorism bill that would deny compensation to children suffering from vaccine-related brain disorders. "The lawsuits are of such magnitude that they could put vaccine producers out of business and limit our capacity to deal with a biological attack by terrorists," says Dean Rosen, health policy adviser to Frist.

Even many conservatives are shocked by the government's effort to cover up the dangers of thimerosal. Rep. Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana, oversaw a three-year investigation of thimerosal after his grandson was diagnosed with autism. "Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is directly related to the autism epidemic," his House Government Reform Committee concluded in its final report. "This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding a lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal, a known neurotoxin." The FDA and other public-health agencies failed to act, the committee added, out of "institutional malfeasance for self protection" and "misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry."

The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines. Privately, I was skeptical.

I doubted that autism could be blamed on a single source, and I certainly understood the government's need to reassure parents that vaccinations are safe; the eradication of deadly childhood diseases depends on it. I tended to agree with skeptics like Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, who criticized his colleagues on the House Government Reform Committee for leaping to conclusions about autism and vaccinations. "Why should we scare people about immunization," Waxman pointed out at one hearing, "until we know the facts?"
It was only after reading the Simpsonwood transcripts, studying the leading scientific research and talking with many of the nation's pre-eminent authorities on mercury that I became convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real. Five of my own children are members of the Thimerosal Generation -- those born between 1989 and 2003 -- who received heavy doses of mercury from vaccines. "The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage," Patti White, a school nurse, told the House Government Reform Committee in 1999. "Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children."

More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism, and pediatricians diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year. The disease was unknown until 1943, when it was identified and diagnosed among eleven children born in the months after thimerosal was first added to baby vaccines in 1931.

Some skeptics dispute that the rise in autism is caused by thimerosal-tainted vaccinations. They argue that the increase is a result of better diagnosis -- a theory that seems questionable at best, given that most of the new cases of autism are clustered within a single generation of children. "If the epidemic is truly an artifact of poor diagnosis," scoffs Dr. Boyd Haley, one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity, "then where are all the twenty-year-old autistics?" Other researchers point out that Americans are exposed to a greater cumulative "load" of mercury than ever before, from contaminated fish to dental fillings, and suggest that thimerosal in vaccines may be only part of a much larger problem. It's a concern that certainly deserves far more attention than it has received -- but it overlooks the fact that the mercury concentrations in vaccines dwarf other sources of exposure to our children.

What is most striking is the lengths to which many of the leading detectives have gone to ignore -- and cover up -- the evidence against thimerosal. From the very beginning, the scientific case against the mercury additive has been overwhelming. The preservative, which is used to stem fungi and bacterial growth in vaccines, contains ethylmercury, a potent neurotoxin. Truckloads of studies have shown that mercury tends to accumulate in the brains of primates and other animals after they are injected with vaccines -- and that the developing brains of infants are particularly susceptible. In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to much lower concentrations of ethylmercury than those given to American children still suffered brain damage years later. Russia banned thimerosal from children's vaccines twenty years ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.

"You couldn't even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe," says Haley, who heads the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. "It's just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage."

Internal documents reveal that Eli Lilly, which first developed thimerosal, knew from the start that its product could cause damage -- and even death -- in both animals and humans. In 1930, the company tested thimerosal by administering it to twenty-two patients with terminal meningitis, all of whom died within weeks of being injected -- a fact Lilly didn't bother to report in its study declaring thimerosal safe. In 1935, researchers at another vaccine manufacturer, Pittman-Moore, warned Lilly that its claims about thimerosal's safety "did not check with ours." Half the dogs Pittman injected with thimerosal-based vaccines became sick, leading researchers there to declare the preservative "unsatisfactory as a serum intended for use on dogs."
In the decades that followed, the evidence against thimerosal continued to mount. During the Second World War, when the Department of Defense used the preservative in vaccines on soldiers, it required Lilly to label it "poison." In 1967, a study in Applied Microbiology found that thimerosal killed mice when added to injected vaccines. Four years later, Lilly's own studies discerned that thimerosal was "toxic to tissue cells" in concentrations as low as one part per million -- 100 times weaker than the concentration in a typical vaccine. Even so, the company continued to promote thimerosal as "nontoxic" and also incorporated it into topical disinfectants. In 1977, ten babies at a Toronto hospital died when an antiseptic preserved with thimerosal was dabbed onto their umbilical cords.

In 1982, the FDA proposed a ban on over-the-counter products that contained thimerosal, and in 1991 the agency considered banning it from animal vaccines. But tragically, that same year, the CDC recommended that infants be injected with a series of mercury-laced vaccines. Newborns would be vaccinated for hepatitis B within twenty-four hours of birth, and two-month-old infants would be immunized for haemophilus influenzae B and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis.

The drug industry knew the additional vaccines posed a danger. The same year that the CDC approved the new vaccines, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the fathers of Merck's vaccine programs, warned the company that six-month-olds who were administered the shots would suffer dangerous exposure to mercury. He recommended that thimerosal be discontinued, "especially when used on infants and children," noting that the industry knew of nontoxic alternatives. "The best way to go," he added, "is to switch to dispensing the actual vaccines without adding preservatives."

For Merck and other drug companies, however, the obstacle was money. Thimerosal enables the pharmaceutical industry to package vaccines in vials that contain multiple doses, which require additional protection because they are more easily contaminated by multiple needle entries. The larger vials cost half as much to produce as smaller, single-dose vials, making it cheaper for international agencies to distribute them to impoverished regions at risk of epidemics. Faced with this "cost consideration," Merck ignored Hilleman's warnings, and government officials continued to push more and more thimerosal-based vaccines for children. Before 1989, American preschoolers received eleven vaccinations -- for polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and measles-mumps-rubella. A decade later, thanks to federal recommendations, children were receiving a total of twenty-two immunizations by the time they reached first grade.

As the number of vaccines increased, the rate of autism among children exploded. During the 1990s, 40 million children were injected with thimerosal-based vaccines, receiving unprecedented levels of mercury during a period critical for brain development. Despite the well-documented dangers of thimerosal, it appears that no one bothered to add up the cumulative dose of mercury that children would receive from the mandated vaccines. "What took the FDA so long to do the calculations?" Peter Patriarca, director of viral products for the agency, asked in an e-mail to the CDC in 1999. "Why didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule?"

But by that time, the damage was done. At two months, when the infant brain is still at a critical stage of development, infants routinely received three inoculations that contained a total of 62.5 micrograms of ethylmercury -- a level 99 times greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin. Although the vaccine industry insists that ethylmercury poses little danger because it breaks down rapidly and is removed by the body, several studies -- including one published in April by the National Institutes of Health -- suggest that ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains and stays in the brain longer than methylmercury.

Officials responsible for childhood immunizations insist that the additional vaccines were necessary to protect infants from disease and that thimerosal is still essential in developing nations, which, they often claim, cannot afford the single-dose vials that don't require a preservative. Dr. Paul Offit, one of CDC's top vaccine advisers, told me, "I think if we really have an influenza pandemic -- and certainly we will in the next twenty years, because we always do -- there's no way on God's earth that we immunize 280 million people with single-dose vials. There has to be multidose vials."

But while public-health officials may have been well-intentioned, many of those on the CDC advisory committee who backed the additional vaccines had close ties to the industry. Dr. Sam Katz, the committee's chair, was a paid consultant for most of the major vaccine makers and was part of a team that developed the measles vaccine and brought it to licensure in 1963. Dr. Neal Halsey, another committee member, worked as a researcher for the vaccine companies and received honoraria from Abbott Labs for his research on the hepatitis B vaccine.

Indeed, in the tight circle of scientists who work on vaccines, such conflicts of interest are common. Rep. Burton says that the CDC "routinely allows scientists with blatant conflicts of interest to serve on intellectual advisory committees that make recommendations on new vaccines," even though they have "interests in the products and companies for which they are supposed to be providing unbiased oversight." The House Government Reform Committee discovered that four of the eight CDC advisers who approved guidelines for a rotavirus vaccine "had financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies that were developing different versions of the vaccine."

Offit, who shares a patent on one of the vaccines, acknowledged to me that he "would make money" if his vote eventually leads to a marketable product. But he dismissed my suggestion that a scientist's direct financial stake in CDC approval might bias his judgment. "It provides no conflict for me," he insists. "I have simply been informed by the process, not corrupted by it. When I sat around that table, my sole intent was trying to make recommendations that best benefited the children in this country. It's offensive to say that physicians and public-health people are in the pocket of industry and thus are making decisions that they know are unsafe for children. It's just not the way it works."

Other vaccine scientists and regulators gave me similar assurances. Like Offit, they view themselves as enlightened guardians of children's health, proud of their "partnerships" with pharmaceutical companies, immune to the seductions of personal profit, besieged by irrational activists whose anti-vaccine campaigns are endangering children's health. They are often resentful of questioning. "Science," says Offit, "is best left to scientists."

Still, some government officials were alarmed by the apparent conflicts of interest. In his e-mail to CDC administrators in 1999, Paul Patriarca of the FDA blasted federal regulators for failing to adequately scrutinize the danger posed by the added baby vaccines. "I'm not sure there will be an easy way out of the potential perception that the FDA, CDC and immunization-policy bodies may have been asleep at the switch re: thimerosal until now," Patriarca wrote. The close ties between regulatory officials and the pharmaceutical industry, he added, "will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use" of thimerosal in child vaccines.

If federal regulators and government scientists failed to grasp the potential risks of thimerosal over the years, no one could claim ignorance after the secret meeting at Simpsonwood. But rather than conduct more studies to test the link to autism and other forms of brain damage, the CDC placed politics over science. The agency turned its database on childhood vaccines -- which had been developed largely at taxpayer expense -- over to a private agency, America's Health Insurance Plans, ensuring that it could not be used for additional research. It also instructed the Institute of Medicine, an advisory organization that is part of the National Academy of Sciences, to produce a study debunking the link between thimerosal and brain disorders. The CDC "wants us to declare, well, that these things are pretty safe," Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee, told her fellow researchers when they first met in January 2001. "We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect" of thimerosal exposure. According to transcripts of the meeting, the committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation" between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the result "Walt wants" -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.

For those who had devoted their lives to promoting vaccination, the revelations about thimerosal threatened to undermine everything they had worked for. "We've got a dragon by the tail here," said Dr. Michael Kaback, another committee member. "The more negative that [our] presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization -- and we know what the results of that will be. We are kind of caught in a trap. How we work our way out of the trap, I think is the charge."

Even in public, federal officials made it clear that their primary goal in studying thimerosal was to dispel doubts about vaccines. "Four current studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between autism and thimerosal," Dr. Gordon Douglas, then-director of strategic planning for vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health, assured a Princeton University gathering in May 2001. "In order to undo the harmful effects of research claiming to link the [measles] vaccine to an elevated risk of autism, we need to conduct and publicize additional studies to assure parents of safety." Douglas formerly served as president of vaccinations for Merck, where he ignored warnings about thimerosal's risks.

In May of last year, the Institute of Medicine issued its final report. Its conclusion: There is no proven link between autism and thimerosal in vaccines. Rather than reviewing the large body of literature describing the toxicity of thimerosal, the report relied on four disastrously flawed epidemiological studies examining European countries, where children received much smaller doses of thimerosal than American kids. It also cited a new version of the Verstraeten study, published in the journal Pediatrics, that had been reworked to reduce the link between thimerosal and autism. The new study included children too young to have been diagnosed with autism and overlooked others who showed signs of the disease. The IOM declared the case closed and -- in a startling position for a scientific body -- recommended that no further research be conducted.

The report may have satisfied the CDC, but it convinced no one. Rep. David Weldon, a Republican physician from Florida who serves on the House Government Reform Committee, attacked the Institute of Medicine, saying it relied on a handful of studies that were "fatally flawed" by "poor design" and failed to represent "all the available scientific and medical research." CDC officials are not interested in an honest search for the truth, Weldon told me, because "an association between vaccines and autism would force them to admit that their policies irreparably damaged thousands of children. Who would want to make that conclusion about themselves?"

Under pressure from Congress and parents, the Institute of Medicine convened another panel to address continuing concerns about the Vaccine Safety Datalink Data Sharing program. In February, the new panel, composed of different scientists, criticized the way the VSD had been used in the Verstraeten study, and urged the CDC to make its vaccine database available to the public.

So far, though, only two scientists have managed to gain access. Dr. Mark Geier, president of the Genetics Center of America, and his son, David, spent a year battling to obtain the medical records from the CDC. Since August 2002, when members of Congress pressured the agency to turn over the data, the Geiers have completed six studies that demonstrate a powerful correlation between thimerosal and neurological damage in children. One study, which compares the cumulative dose of mercury received by children born between 1981 and 1985 with those born between 1990 and 1996, found a "very significant relationship" between autism and vaccines. Another study of educational performance found that kids who received higher doses of thimerosal in vaccines were nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with autism and more than three times as likely to suffer from speech disorders and mental retardation. Another soon-to-be published study shows that autism rates are in decline following the recent elimination of thimerosal from most vaccines.

As the federal government worked to prevent scientists from studying vaccines, others have stepped in to study the link to autism. In April, reporter Dan Olmsted of UPI undertook one of the more interesting studies himself. Searching for children who had not been exposed to mercury in vaccines -- the kind of population that scientists typically use as a "control" in experiments -- Olmsted scoured the Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who refuse to immunize their infants. Given the national rate of autism, Olmsted calculated that there should be 130 autistics among the Amish. He found only four. One had been exposed to high levels of mercury from a power plant. The other three -- including one child adopted from outside the Amish community -- had received their vaccines.

At the state level, many officials have also conducted in-depth reviews of thimerosal. While the Institute of Medicine was busy whitewashing the risks, the Iowa legislature was carefully combing through all of the available scientific and biological data. "After three years of review, I became convinced there was sufficient credible research to show a link between mercury and the increased incidences in autism," says state Sen. Ken Veenstra, a Republican who oversaw the investigation. "The fact that Iowa's 700 percent increase in autism began in the 1990s, right after more and more vaccines were added to the children's vaccine schedules, is solid evidence alone." Last year, Iowa became the first state to ban mercury in vaccines, followed by California. Similar bans are now under consideration in thirty-two other states.

But instead of following suit, the FDA continues to allow manufacturers to include thimerosal in scores of over-the-counter medications as well as steroids and injected collagen. Even more alarming, the government continues to ship vaccines preserved with thimerosal to developing countries -- some of which are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates. In China, where the disease was virtually unknown prior to the introduction of thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999, news reports indicate that there are now more than 1.8 million autistics. Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, autistic disorders also appear to be soaring in India, Argentina, Nicaragua and other developing countries that are now using thimerosal-laced vaccines. The World Health Organization continues to insist thimerosal is safe, but it promises to keep the possibility that it is linked to neurological disorders "under review."

I devoted time to study this issue because I believe that this is a moral crisis that must be addressed. If, as the evidence suggests, our public-health authorities knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry to poison an entire generation of American children, their actions arguably constitute one of the biggest scandals in the annals of American medicine. "The CDC is guilty of incompetence and gross negligence," says Mark Blaxill, vice president of Safe Minds, a nonprofit organization concerned about the role of mercury in medicines. "The damage caused by vaccine exposure is massive. It's bigger than asbestos, bigger than tobacco, bigger than anything you've ever seen."

It's hard to calculate the damage to our country -- and to the international efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases -- if Third World nations come to believe that America's most heralded foreign-aid initiative is poisoning their children. It's not difficult to predict how this scenario will be interpreted by America's enemies abroad. The scientists and researchers -- many of them sincere, even idealistic -- who are participating in efforts to hide the science on thimerosal claim that they are trying to advance the lofty goal of protecting children in developing nations from disease pandemics. They are badly misguided. Their failure to come clean on thimerosal will come back horribly to haunt our country and the world's poorest populations.

NOTE: This story has been updated to correct several inaccuracies in the original, published version. As originally reported, American preschoolers received only three vaccinations before 1989, but the article failed to note that they were innoculated a total of eleven times with those vaccines, including boosters. The article also misstated the level of ethylmercury received by infants injected with all their shots by the age of six months. It was 187 micrograms - an amount forty percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury. Finally, because of an editing error, the article misstated the contents of the rotavirus vaccine approved by the CDC. It did not contain thimerosal. Salon and Rolling Stone regret the errors.

An earlier version of this story stated that the Institute of Medicine convened a second panel to review the work of the Immunization Safety Review Committee that had found no evidence of a link between thimerosal and autism. In fact, the IOM convened the second panel to address continuing concerns about the Vaccine Safety Datalink Data Sharing program, including those raised by critics of the IOM's earlier work. But the panel was not charged with reviewing the committee's findings. The story also inadvertently omitted a word and transposed two sentences in a quote by Dr. John Clements, and incorrectly stated that Dr. Sam Katz held a patent with Merck on the measles vaccine. In fact, Dr. Katz was part of a team that developed the vaccine and brought it to licensure, but he never held the patent. Salon and Rolling Stone regret the errors.

CLARIFICATION: After publication of this story, Salon and Rolling Stone corrected an error that misstated the level of ethylmercury received by infants injected with all their shots by the age of six months. It was 187 micrograms ? an amount forty percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury. At the time of the correction, we were aware that the comparison itself was flawed, but as journalists we considered it more appropriate to state the correct figure rather than replace it with another number entirely.

Since that earlier correction, however, it has become clear from responses to the article that the forty-percent number, while accurate, is misleading. It measures the total mercury load an infant received from vaccines during the first six months, calculates the daily average received based on average body weight, and then compares that number to the EPA daily limit. But infants did not receive the vaccines as a ?daily average? ? they received massive doses on a single day, through multiple shots. As the story states, these single-day doses exceeded the EPA limit by as much as 99 times. Based on the misunderstanding, and to avoid further confusion, we have amended the story to eliminate the forty-percent figure.

Correction: The story misattributed a quote to Andy Olson, former legislative counsel to Senator Bill Frist. The comment was made by Dean Rosen, health policy adviser to the senator. Rolling Stone and Salon.com regret the error.

Totally Tubular

2009-04-22T14:06:00.002-06:00

Our solar tube skylight.
I thought about doing a before and after picture, but the before picture would just be a black screen so just use your imagination.
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This weekend Daddy installed our new sun tube in the upstairs bathroom. It only took about 2 hours. We got it from Costco for $150 dollars. It's equivalent to 300 watts of light and lights up our bathroom from about 7 am to 8 pm. Daddy really didn't want to get it because he wanted a traditional square skylight, but after it was installed he LOVED the sun tube.

Time

2009-04-20T20:35:00.004-06:00

Time is an equal opportunity employer.

Each human has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day.

Rich people can't buy more time.

Scientists can't invent new minutes.

And you can't save time to spend on another day.

Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving.

No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.

Success depends upon using it wisely--by planning and setting priorities.

Time is worth more than money, and by killing time , we are killing our own chances of success.

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--Unknown Author

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Lately I've been "not having enough hours in the day." But then I realized that I just need to adjust my priorities. I'm on the computer quite a bit - reading blogs, researching, looking for recipes, facebooking, etc. I have come to the conclusion that I don't want my kids to remember their mom always being on the computer all the time. That's not fun for them and a lot of the time it's not fun for me. It stresses me out. The week our computer was getting rebuilt at my brothers house was like a re-birth - the house was clean, Mr. Carter got his reading time every day, I got to bed early, dinner was ready every night, and so on. I love my computer. If I had to choose my favorite high tech gadget, the computer would definitely be IT. However, I need to get off my butt and start living a life that my kids and I will look back on and say: "Man that was an awesome life! Look at all we accomplished and learned."

Alternatives to A Sugar-Laden Easter

2009-04-14T21:23:00.005-06:00

I know this is too little, too late; but I decided to post it anyway.

We really try (emphasis on TRY!) to stay away from sugar and commercial sweets. So this year I made some homemade candies to go in our Easter eggs (which turned out to be not such a good idea since they were pretty much melted by the time the kids found them). Then, today, I ran across a post on mothering.com's forums talking about alternatives to candy filled eggs.

Here are some of their ideas:

Coins
Stickers
Temporary tattoos
Berries
Small crackers
Mini farm animals
Marbles
Little books
Rings
Erasers
Ribbons
Necklaces
Barrettes
Ponytail holders
Crayon rocks (which I guess is melted crayons in the shape of a rock)
Tiny trucks
Tiny magnifying glass
Whistle
Dried fruit / raisins / Craisins / homemade fruit leather
Mini inked stamps
Chalk
Mini matchbox cars
Seeds (to plant or to eat)
New socks
New undies

One mother was saying that she just does the sugary snacks since it's "just once a year." Then another mother pointed out that, yeah, it is "just once a year," but so is Halloween, Christmas, birthdays for all your family and friends, etc. So even if you only do sugar on "special occasions," your kids are still getting a heck of a lot of sugar. It's nice to have alternatives.

Our Baby Chickies

2009-04-12T20:40:00.003-06:00

Yesterday my sister bought us 4 baby Buff Orpintons from IFA as payment for some framing Daddy plans to do in their salon. Earlier in the year, my sister and her husband also brought down some chicken raising stuff - a chicken tractor, a brooder, and some feeders and waterers.

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We plan to raise these chickens for eggs. I bought 50 pounds of organic chicken crumbles and 5 pound of organic flax seed from Azure Standard. I plan to grind up the flax seed and feed it to the chickens once they start laying so that we can have Omega-3 eggs. I also plan to let them free range as much as possible in the tractor and move it often to vary their bug and fresh greens diet. I've also started adding apple cider vinegar and crushed garlic to their water to help them not get worms or parasites. I'm sure I have a lot to learn and once I get the hang of it we will, hopefully, be getting a few meat birds.

Gardening with Salvaged Materials

2009-04-12T20:16:00.004-06:00

Mr. Carter demonstrating what we've drilled in to his head over the last few weeks - that you walk on the paths in the garden and stay off the fluffy dirt.

Our baby Quinalt (sp?) Strawberry bought at Western Gardens.

Our whole berry garden - raspberries, blackberries, strawberries.
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Last year we salvaged a whole truck full of bricks from a house being torn down. We've been knocking off the mortar and using them around our garden area. We used the little bricks to edge our square-foot-garden and we used the big bricks from the chimney for the pathways in our berry garden. When we finally get the drip irrigation system in, we will be able to lay a brick pathway in the square-foot-garden area and plant creeping herbs between the bricks. For now we are just going to lay cardboard (or 5 layers of newspaper) down and hose it down to keep it from blowing away and then put straw over it.

We also plan to bust up 2/3 of our back patio to make room for some more square-foot garden. Only these beds will be above ground so I can start gardening earlier in the year while the rest of my sunken-in beds dry out. Instead of hauling the pieces of patio away, we plan on using them to make a flagstone-like path around our fruit trees, bunny cage, and compost heap on the north side and then plant creeping herbs between the stones. We may or may not stain the concrete pieces to make them more flagstone-like.

We Thank Thee, O God, For A Prophet

2009-04-12T20:03:00.004-06:00

Mr. Carter watching General Conference. He LOVES our Prophet.

I'm Pissed...And a Little Happy

2009-04-10T15:14:00.002-06:00

I joined Young Living Essential Oils in October 2007 because, at the time, I thought they were the only therapeutic grade essential oil company out there. I was wrong.
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It all started out with me wanting an ultrasonic diffuser. I didn't want to pay the $100 for the diffuser from Young Living, so I started doing a little research in the Internet and came across a site called Diffuser World. They had a page of recommended oils (all therapeutic grade). Well, this week I finally checked out Birch Hill Happenings. Their oils are put through the same tests that Young Living oils are put through to make sure they are pure, unadulterated, therapeutic grade oils. And they even have some of the same blends that Young Living has - Aroma Siez, Thieves, Purification, and more. BUT their oils are less expensive and they come in different sizes. I did a spreadsheet on Excel because I'm a dork that way and their oils are anywhere from 10-70% off the wholesale cost of Young Living's oils. (Their version of Abundance, Juva Flex, M-Grain, and Valor are actually MORE expensive though.)
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So that is why I'm pissed and a little happy all at the same time. I'm pissed that I naively thought that I was getting the best deal with Young Living and I'm happy that I now have a cheaper place to get my oils.

First Dentist Trip

2009-03-30T21:48:00.002-06:00

Mr. Carter talking to the nice hygenist.

Looking a little scared

Showing off his cool ducky.

His "silly bib" and of course his woobie - a must have in any scary situation.

Getting checked out by the dentist.

Mr. Carter went to the dentist for the first time last week. Since I was sick I had Daddy go and take lots of pictures. Mr. Carter let them clean his front teeth, but once they started to do his back teeth he got too scared so they stopped. He also let them count his teeth and make sure that he didn't have any cavities. He is such a brave boy!

Putting in the Square-Foot Garden and Other Stuff

2009-03-30T21:26:00.004-06:00

Our garden...so far.

4'x5' square & edging around apricot tree.

3'x11' square.

Mr. Carter helping Dad rake the newly tilled ground smooth.

Daddy doing some heavy duty tilling.

Gryff doing quality control.

This weekend was a yard weekend. Daddy tilled up half of our backyard for the garden. We will later fence it off to protect our fruit trees and garden area from kids, chickens, and the bunny. We also got our Stark Bros. tree shipment and found a great deal on a tulip tree at Costco, so we had a tree planting party. I'm pleased to announce that the tree-planting phase is complete. I don't think we could squeeze another tree in and have it be successful. Next year we will be moving on to the berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, etc).

On our little 0.12 acre property we have the following trees:

apple
pear
peach
apricot
walnut
almond
2 hazelnuts (because they are not self-pollinating)
Amur Maple (shade tree)
Tulip Tree (shade tree)

This year we also plan to:

Put up a vinyl fence in the back yard for privacy.
Put up a chain-link fence around the front yard to keep people out.
Fence off half of the backyard for the garden area.
Install a drip irrigation system in the flower beds and garden area.
Redo the sprinklers for the lawn area.
Kill our old lawn and put in a more drought tolerant variety of grass
Put in more square foot gardening squares.

Quote Time

2009-03-20T17:28:00.002-06:00

Daddy and I talk about this concept quite a bit. It is from "The Millionaire Next Door" by Stanley & Danko (pg 207-209).

Consider for a moment that you are a typical affluent parent. You noted that your oldest son or daughter even at an early age was extremely independent, achievement-oriented, and well disciplined. Your instinct is to nurture these traits by not trying to control his or her decisions. Instead, you spend more time helping you less resourceful child make decisions, or you actually make decisions for him. With what result? You strengthen the strong child and weaken the weak.
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Suppose you have a ten-year-old child who goes in for a physical checkup. The examining physician tells you that your son or daughter is underweight and underdeveloped. How would you respond to this evaluation? You would find ways to improve your child's physical health. You would likely encourage your child to exercise, take vitamins, lift weights, and perhaps play sports. Most parents would attack such a problem proactively. Wouldn't you find it odd if the parent took the opposite course? How would you respond if the parent encouraged his child to eat less and exercise less?
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All too often this method of weakening the weak is applied to children who show personality-related weaknesses. In one case we know about, parents were told that their son was deficient in writing and related verbal skills. How did the parents respond to this problem? First, they transferred their child to another school. The verbal deficiency problem failed to improve, however, so the father began writing his son's papers. He still writes his son's papers today. His son is a junior in college.
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In another case, an affluent couple had a twelve-year-old daughter who was very shy and rarely spoke to anyone without some prompting. Concerned about her daughter, the mother wrote a note to her daughter's teacher, asking that the child's seat be moved from the front to the back of the room, since her daughter felt more comfortable there. The mother reported that the "kids in front were too often asked questions by their teacher." The day the teacher received this request, she did not make any changes in the seating. The mother called the teacher that afternoon to protest. The teacher was unavailable, but she did return the call the next afternoon. Feeling slighted, the mother immediately transferred her daughter to another school.
[...]
What have all the parents done in these cases? They have contributed to weakening the weak. If your son has a deficiency in his verbal skills, make a commitment to overcome his handicap. In one case, a father recognized that his son had an extremely high aptitude in mathematics but that his verbal skills were poor. His dad attacked the problem. Each night during dinner, Dad would ask his son to define three words taken from the SAT study guide. During hundreds of dinner sessions, Dad tutored his son. He also hired a professional tutor for him. This combination worked. Today his son is a graduate of a top Ivy League school -- the one with the highest entrance requirements.

I GOT WORMS!!!!

2009-03-16T20:26:00.002-06:00

Here is my little wormy (1 of the 1000 that I got).

Here is my quest in to the worming business. Okay, it's not really a business, just a way to get some good fertilizer, feed my chickens, reduce my garbage, and have a little disgusting fun.

Pick out a tray that is a little bigger than worm bin (in my case, a 10 gallon Sterilite storage container with holes drilled in the sides, top and bottom). Put some wooden disks in the corners for the bin to rest on so the worms don't stew in their own juices.

Put the bin on the tray and wooden disks (pre-drill holes in bin if necessary). Put a few layers of newspaper in the bottom of the bin. Next, wet some peat moss until it feels like a wrung-out sponge and spread it on top of the flat newspaper. The peat moss should be about 2-3 inches thick.

Go get a lot of paper from your paper shredder (make sure it's mostly black & white). Wet the paper in a bucket of water until it's as wet as a wrung-out sponge. This layer should be quite thick, about 8 inches.

Put your red wriggler worms in (don't use regular worms, they won't work for this). You can either plop them on top of the bedding and watch them wriggle their way down, or you can move some of the bedding aside and put them in and then cover them up again. Put the lid on and put in a place that is between 45-80 degrees (under the kitchen sink works good). To feed them, pull away some of the bedding in one corner and put the food in and then cover it back up with the bedding to keep the flies out. Change corners every few days so you don't disturb your worms. You can feed them pretty much anything, but it's best to stay far away from citrus, meat, onions, or garlic.

I got my worm bin at Azure Standard so all I really had to do was assemble. If you want more info, YouTube has a lot of videos.

What Daddy Does All Day

2009-03-10T14:52:00.002-06:00

Here are some pictures of conduit that Daddy is doing for his current job (he's an electrician). He took the camera to work (without me knowing) and came home with these pictures. He's really proud of his work and as you can see, he has reason to be proud. His boss said that all the pipe work for this job (and probably future jobs) will be done by Daddy because he is so good.

For those of you who don't know. Electrical conduit is just straight metal pipes that must be bent using different formulas for different angles. You don't use couplings or connectors, you make every bend by hand using hand tools. Knowing that makes it even more impressive to look at.

So True!

2009-03-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

Note to Self

2009-02-23T16:10:00.002-07:00

Note to self: On 5th day of sourdough starter...move to a bigger container.

What Were You Thinking!

2009-02-20T10:43:00.008-07:00

My husband and his brother headed up to Idaho last night to help a friend wire and frame his basement (and also make $1000, woo-hoo). Their friend even flew them up and everything.

Apparently, my husband does not remember proper airport etiquette because he had a little mishap at the security gate. He had to take off his belt for the metal detectors and, I don't know, maybe he had a stroke or something but he decided to take off his PANTS too. At first I thought I heard him wrong and had to clarify.

Me: "What honey? You say your pants FELL OFF at the security gate?"

Him: "No, I took them off."

Me: "You took them off?"

Him: "Yes, I took them off."

Me: "I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you right. You took your pants off and walked through the security gate in your garments in front of everybody at the airport!?"

Him: "Yeah."

Me: "WHY!"

Him: "Well, it just seemed like too much of a hassle to hold my pants up."

So next time you want to save a little time at the airport, take your pants off instead of just taking your belt off. And then you will get to have a nice little discussion with the security guards.

Homemade Tooth Powder

2009-02-17T11:50:00.005-07:00

I have been making my own tooth powder for about 6 months, but I didn't want to post about it until I went to the dentist to see if it works. Well, I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago and I told him about my toothpaste adventures. He said my teeth look just as healthy and clean as ever and that my recipe sounds good, except for the fact that it doesn't have fluoride in it.
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So here is my recipe. I recommend only using therapeutic grade essential oils for this recipe. (My rule of thumb: if the oil is going in or on my body, I use Young Living Oils; if it's being used for cleaning or bug repelling, I use any cheap thing I can find.)
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Kim's Tooth Powder Recipe:

8 Tbsp baking SODA
20 drops YL peppermint oil
10 drops YL Thieves oil
5 drops YL clove oil (I use this because I have sensitive teeth)

Mix above ingredients in a bowl until all the oils are well incorporated in to the baking soda.
(Note: If you want to make this in to a paste add just enough vegetable glycerin to make it paste-y and some liquid stevia to make it sweet. I have not had success with this method, so I just use it as a powder.)
Put in a squeeze-able plastic container with a lid. (I bought mine at Jo-Anns in the cake decorating section...with a 50% off coupon, of course.)
To use the powder, squeeze about a dime size pile in to your left hand (or right if you're left-handed). Wet your toothbrush with water and dip in the powder and start brushing. Keep dipping and brushing until all the powder is gone.

I like my recipe because it doesn't have any petrochemicals in it or crazy ingredients that I can't pronounce. It's healthy. It works great. My teeth get cleaner with this recipe than with regular toothpaste. My teeth are actually WHITER. It's cheap.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-02-04T20:12:00.002-07:00

Just in case you couldn't tell, he's reciting "Hey Diddle Diddle." We learned it in preschool.