Really funny

Gluten free Thanksgiving and other stuff

I have been doing the gluten free, casein free, soy free diet for Evie for several months now, and it is working wonderfully. Each day is a different grain day. Yesterday was garbanzo day, today is quinoa day, tomorrow is millet day, and the day after next is rice day. I made both muffins and breads with the separate flours to go with the days. That way I don't have to worry about her eating the same thing every day. I have already noticed a difference in her coloring..she has rosy cheeks and her eyes are bright blue without the dark circles (dark circles tend to indicate allergies). I'm also eating gluten free, and it is getting easier as time goes on. I'm getting the hang of it :). Today we made gluten free playdough. All playdough from the store has wheat in it, so I made playdough with rice flour and colored it with food coloring. It turned out really well! It is still cooling, so it is a bit sticky, but we still had fun playing with it.

Thanksgiving is going to have gluten free items as well. I'm going to have traditional stuffing made with wheat for Jeff and my parents, but for Evie and I, I am going to make the yummy crock pot gluten free stuffing I made last year. I'm also making a gluten free pumpkin pie for Evie and I (my Mom is bringing the pies that have gluten). I can't believe that Thanksgiving is only 8 days away!!

By the way, for some reason Blogger really doesn't like me lately. It isn't showing on any of the blogger lists that I have updated my blog. So please check back, even if it still shows that I haven't updated!

Babies

A friend of mine had a baby boy this week, and he is such a beautiful baby. We went to the hospital to see him, and he was just a little guy. I haven't held a baby that small in many years. Amazing. Simply amazing. Those tiny ears. Those long, delicate, perfect fingers with teeny tiny fingernails. That tiny, perfect nose. I just marveled at him. I marveled that a week before I was able to feel him moving around in my friends tummy, and then here he was! I honestly have no idea how people in this world can say that he was not a life in the womb, but now that he is born he is now a life. That tiny, perfect little baby was just as tiny and perfect a week before he was born, and a month before he was born, and 2 months, and 3 months before, and all through his life in the womb. Children are such a blessing. Such a wonderful gift from the Lord. I am seeing that more and more each day.

"All I want for Christmas is..."

my two front teeth.."

Wow, two blog posts for me in one day! I think that is a first! Evie just lost her tooth about 5 minutes ago as I was blogging. Doesn't she look adorable :)??

Opinions needed

Okay, you may have to click on the pictures to be able to see a close up, but I would like to have your opinions! After seeing our family pictures, I'm not so sure I like the whole side-sweep bang thing on me. I'm toying with the idea of going back to all one length bangs. So here are two pictures. Let me know what you all think!

Funny pet pictures

Evie has been dressing up the pets, and for the past month we have gotten a good laugh out of some of the funny pictures. So here are a few for you to enjoy :).


Here is Madame Daisy:













And here is Sierra, aka Rebecca Lapp, the scary looking amish woman:



















And here we all seem to be laughing, even the dog:















And last, but not least, the oh so thrilled Princess Dolly:














Hope you all had a good chuckle for the day :).

Long time no blog!

Wow, it has been awhile hasn't it. I guess I went through a bit of bloggers fatigue. I missed my blogging friends though, so I wanted to come back! Not much has changed since I last blogged. Jeff is still looking for a job. He has sent out almost 300 resumes now, and has had 2 phone interviews. He has another phone interview on Wednesday. We are just believing that God has a perfect job for him! Evie lost her first top tooth, and I have to say she looks adorable. I have to giggle every time I see that gap-toothed grin :). Her other front tooth is now quite wiggly, so she may have two missing front teeth here in a few days!

We had some family pictures taken a few days ago. It was supposed to be a gorgeous, 70 degree day. It ended up being 50 degrees and gloomy. We about froze taking the pictures, but we were able to do it quickly. We got some nice ones. We took about 30 pictures with just our tripod. We didn't include the dog this year. It was too muddy, and we were too freezing to mess with it! Hope you all are doing well. I have missed you!

Blogging

I have decided to stop blogging for awhile. I am taking a major hiatus from my computer altogether. I pray that all of you who read my blog will be blessed! I will miss you, but I really feel led to stop blogging for now. Take care and God bless.

Homeschooling is in full swing!

It has been a very busy last few weeks. Way more than I can blog about. We started homeschooling 3 weeks ago, and we are loving it! The new curriculum is so fun, and I am loving it as much as Evie! The picture to the left is of Evie and the ships she made. They were the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and she put them in our pond. One side was Spain, and the other was America, and she had to use only wind power to get the boats from Spain to America. It was pretty fun :).

We went on a recent homeschool field trip that was really fun. A family that lives in the area has a huge farm with all kinds of exotic animals. They have fallow deer, turkeys, an ibex goat, a baby zebra, antelope, and a bunch of other animals. We got to feed a lot of them, which was great fun for the kids. There was a huge turnout, with probably 30 kids or so plus adults.

Here is Evie feeding some of the animals...

Waiting to see the baby zebra..

Here he is. Isn't he sweet??

Lots and lots of antelope. It was a fun time. I will have to update on what else has been going on with our lives later. Too much to write in one blog post!

The good life

Yep, our new kitty has the good life. I walked into Evie's room this afternoon and found this...

I went and got Jeff, and we were laughing so hard. We tried to wake her up, but she was really out! Wow, what a priviledged kitty to have her own bed :).

This is where I found Daisy the other night. Evie was crashed out asleep, and Daisy was right there with her. I think she now thinks Evie's room is her room!

Sensory fun

I bought a book awhile back called, "The Out of Sync Child Has Fun". It is a book that gives fun ideas to help Sensory Processing Disorder kids. Many of the ideas are, well, messy! The activities are actually good for me because I tend to be a person who likes things nice and clean. I need this kind of stuff to stretch me :). I tried a new activity yesterday. It involved shaving cream and a cookie sheet. Basically, I put a mountain of shaving cream on the cookie sheet and let Evie play in it. It gives her a lot of tactile sensory imput. She loved it. She literally was up to her eyeballs in it. She put it all over her face, arms, and legs. We did it all outside, and then she just washed off by jumping in the sprinkler :). She got soaked, but she loved it. I'm thinking about trying a new activity every day during her school year.

Speaking of school year, I bought Evie's curriculum online yesterday. I am doing a curriculum called My Father's World. I used it for 1st grade too, and I liked that it was so hands on for Evie. My Father's World uses more of what is called the Charlotte Mason approach, or classical homeschooling. This 2nd grade curriculum is packed full of so much. We are officially starting homeschooling in another few weeks. The kids in this area go back to school really early this year. Most start around the 2nd week of August. I can't believe how fast summer has gone by!

Can you say, "Awww"

Daisy is fitting in really well. She is such a loving kitty. She is really calm. This morning was the first time I really saw her super lively, and she was hilarious. She has slept a lot today.

She is getting along really well with Sierra. Si Si will lick her head, and Daisy will nuzzle on her. It is funny to see, especially since Daisy is about the size of Si Si's head! I wish I could say Dolly was taking well to her. Dolly keeps hissing at her, and is hissing at all of us! She keeps looking at me like, "How could you!" I hope she gets used to Daisy soon. When Dolly hisses at her, she just sits down and doesn't get close to her. She seems like a smart little kitty.














This is how I found her sleeping on the couch. So sweet!!

New family member

This so was not planned, but we have a new furry family member! We went down yesterday afternoon to the town we used to live in. We hadn't been there since we moved 3 years ago, and some friends invited us for a visit. We got there about 4 hours early because we wanted to go by our old house, and also because we wanted to surprise some close friends, Dee Dee and Steve, that had adopted us into their family when we lived in the area. We got to their house in the country, and there sitting beside the door was a kitten. I picked it up, and it just purred and purred. Dee Dee and Steve were gone, and they came about 20 minutes after we got there. Evie held this kitten (who she instantly named Daisy) for 2 whole hours. This kitten purred nonstop the whole time, and didn't struggle once to get away from her. I was in complete shock. Evie kept asking, "Can we keep her?" My response was no at first, but I was in awe of this cat! Jeff and I asked Dee Dee if she would be willing to give us the kitten, and she was all for it. There were 3 others from the litter, and they were all unfriendly and hissed at us. This one had been tamed by Steve and Dee Dee's 3 year old granddaughter, and loved to be held. Both Dee Dee and Steve said they were afraid that the cat was going to get trampled by their horses, because she kept following both Dee Dee and Steve to the barn, and she would walk right under the horses. I have heard of many barn kittens getting killed this way. So Dee Dee wanted me to take her. We decided that we would, so went and picked her up today on our way home. This is Daisy and Evie on the 2 hour car ride home. She sat in Evie's lap like this almost the entire time, except for when I held her. Evie is watching a dvd, and it seems like Daisy is too!





















Here is Daisy when we got home today. Evie put her in a bed with some soft baby clothes. She fell right to sleep. She also fell asleep on Evie. Her markings are so interesting. She is a calico kitty, but has some sections of orange tabby cat in her. If you click on the picture of Evie holding her on the couch, you can see the orange tabby markings on her arm. She isn't litter box trained yet, so we are keeping her in our bathroom tonight with a litter box, her bed, food and water. We read that was what to do. She sure is cute!

4H Fair

Our local 4H fair started this weekend. They had free admission today, so we went this afternoon. Every year that we go to the fair, it is always about 100 degrees. I am not kidding either! Today was a first...it was so cold that we were wearing sweatshirts! It has been extremely cool here all month. It hasn't gotten even into the 80's most days, which has been a huge blessing because we haven't had to run our air conditioning! So we are saving money! The first thing we did was go to the sea lion show. It was outside, and we got seats and waited for about 1/2 hour before the show started. Here is our family photo I tried to take. I didn't know Evie was making such a crazy face!














Here are the adorable sea lions. We watched the show for about 15 minutes, and then it started pouring down rain. We missed the last part of the show because the rain was coming down in buckets. Everyone ran for the nearest building!















We headed for the goat barn, and so we took a few pictures of us with the goats. We were wet, but not soaked like some other people that weren't able to get out of the rain quick enough. It was so cold, so I was glad we got out of the rain quickly.


























The rain let up a bit, so we went across the street to the rabbit building. I love the rabbits, and Evie does too. They have an area where the kids can pet the rabbits. Evie loved this black one. She was a sweet bunny.













We went to the Holstein barn, and we got to see the cows. Evie was petting one of the cows, and the cow's owner (a little girl) let her brush him.

It was a fun day, despite the rain. The rain let up after awhile, and we were able to walk around and see all that we wanted to see. We usually eat at the fair, but we didn't do that this year to save money. The fair food smelled SO good, so it sure was tempting!

Blueberries

We went blueberry picking today at a local patch. Jeff's mom went with us, and it was gorgeous weather to pick. Normally when I have picked blueberries in the past, it has been about 90 degrees outside. Today was in the 70's and gorgeous.













This was Evie's first time picking blueberries, and she did amazing! We were in the patch for almost 3 hours, and she picked the whole time. She got bored near the end, and started complaining, but I thought she did so well. She ate about half the patch though :). I kept teasing her that they were going to weigh her afterwards and then charge us for the berries she ate. The patch we picked at had certified organic blueberry bushes, so we didn't think a thing about eating them off the bush. Normally when we have picked in the past, the berries have had a lot of pesticides on them, so I haven't wanted to eat too many without washing them.













The berries were beautiful this year. The berries were really big, and were slightly tarty. I had wanted to pick 40 pounds, and when we got done and had them weighed, I found out we picked exactly that! We got home around 1:30, and I started washing and freezing the blueberries. I kept out several pounds for us to eat fresh. Here are 3 of the 4 bags of blueberries we picked.













When I got done, I put 23 packages in the freezer. I still had 22 packages in the freezer from last year. Last year I bought 80 pounds, which was way more than I needed. This is a picture of my packed freezer, with the new blueberries on the top shelf.

Another hair post :)

Okay, no laughing! Well, okay, you can laugh. I do look pretty funny. I have been a bit of a YouTube addict when it comes to hair videos the past few days. There is a girl who goes by the name of Torrin who has a ton of instructional hair videos. She had one that I wanted to try, that would help my hair be super wavy. She and I have similar hair texture, and I wanted my hair to look like hers did after she enhanced the waves in her hair. So last night, I put my hair in 6 braids, and I curled the ends with wrap, snap and go rollers. I misted the braids with water so they were a bit damp. The picture below is what I looked like before I took them out this morning. Just so you know, the Disney princess background is not my room, it is Evie's :).













Here are 2 "after" pictures. After Jeff took the first picture, I laughed at how horrible the background was (it is his temporary, messy office), so we changed rooms. Thus the reason for 2 pictures of the back. I think the first pic shows a bit more of the wave.


























I had Jeff take one from the front, just so you could see the waves in the front. I was amazed at how much it shortened my hair. Torrin mentioned that hers shortened about 6 inches or more, and that is what mine did. I love how it turned out though. The only bummer is that after about an hour of being at church, the waves started to fall. It is now almost 4:00 in the afternoon, and the waves are about gone. The curl is still at the end, but the waves are now very slight. I need to figure out a way to keep the waves in for longer. It was fun though because I felt like I had a perm for a day!

Tried a new style

I was on The Long Hair Loom today, and I found a YouTube link to this bun called the Hypno Bun. I loved how it looked, so I decided to give it a try. It was a bit more challenging than it looked on the video, and mine is a little messy. It is SO comfortable though! I think it is one of the most comfortable buns I have ever worn, and I love that I don't need any pins at all. Just that hairstick holds it all. I found several other updos on YouTube that I want to try. I am trying to be a little more creative with my hair. Sometimes

I go through a rut, and end up wearing my hair in the same style for days on end. The hairstick is one I got from my dear online friend Fox. It is one of my favorites. Evie saw Jeff take a hair pictures of me, and she wanted me to take one of her. Her hair is getting really long, and looked beautiful today. She had some major green in it from the copper we put in our hot tub. The white streaks were green! We bought a shampoo to get it out, and it seems to be helping. You can still see just a tinge of it if you look closely, but it is way better than it was before.

The past coming back to bite me

I was browsing the internet yesterday, and about fell out of my chair. I was on YouTube, just surfing, and looking at some long hair videos. Jeff was sitting in the room with me, and I came across a video and about freaked. I said to Jeff, "OH....MY.....WORD!! That's ME!!" I just sat there in complete shock staring at a video of me brushing my hair. About 9 years ago, way before Facebook and YouTube, and long before I knew about creepy things like long hair fetishes, I was a long hair model. I did a few photo shoots, and a few videos with me brushing my hair. I didn't really think about who would see these pictures or videos, and at that time, YouTube didn't even exist. I was young and naive. If I had known about YouTube back then, and about the fact that millions of people could view a video of me, I would never have done it. I signed something that gave permission for the person who took the videos and pictures to sell them, so there is nothing I can do about my video being put on YouTube. Thankfully you can barely see my face. The worst part though is the comments! Yikes!!! My hair at that time was not super healthy. I hadn't found The Long Hair Loom at that point, so I wasn't taking very good care of my hair. It had lots of splits, and was pretty raggedy at the ends. Still, even knowing that, the comments really burned. I read things like, "Eww, that is just gross" and "Cut that nasty hair" and "She needs a pony tail holder with a blade attached to the end of it" and "It looks like a dog is caught in her hair". Then there were the ultra creepy comments that were made, that just made me want to throw up. So it was a really great day for the self esteem (not!), and a day where I really wanted to kick myself for ever doing the long hair modeling thing.

Shocked

I'm in quite a bit of shock today. Last night we were over at Jeff's parents for a cookout, and I was outside grilling. Jeff came over from work, and told me that he lost his job due to cutbacks. So as of yesterday, my husband is now unemployed. We were both completely blown away with shock. He didn't see it coming at all. He is updating his resume today. We are just trusting that God is going to help him find a really good job soon. I'm trying to stay calm and not freak out. I had been praying that he would be able to work from home (because his job was looking like it was going to take that direction), but this isn't exactly what I had in mind! It is really nice having him home, I will say that. God has always taken care of us, and I know He will continue to do so.

Exercise

We bought a new exercise machine for the abs. I'm not sure if it is gimic or not, but my hubby got a great deal on it. It is called the Ab Circle Pro. It is one of those machines that claims to get rid of those love handles that no one loves :). It is actually quite fun to use, but I'm not sure I will look like I have washboard abs after using it. I guess only time will tell.

It is supposed to be a nice weekend here, and not so hot. Hopefully we will get to go in the kayaks some. Jeff's parents have borrowed them recently, and they have been through a bit of a war. Jeff's dad took someone who had never been in a kayak before on a really fast river. He borrowed our yellow kayak, and spent the majority of the time upside down in the river! Then they borrowed the red kayak to go kayaking on the river with some friends, and again tipped over a bunch of times. They had to drag the kayak to shore, and it was filled to overflowing with mud and river water. I haven't tipped in our kayak, and I have no desire to tip! For some reason, the whole idea of it just freaks me out. Not that I don't wear a life jacket, but it is just the idea of it. Jeff thinks I should just purposefully tip so I will get over my fear of tipping over. I'm not really thrilled about that idea.

Top Ten

One of my favorite blogs that I read is having quite an interesting discussion about a controversial book that a lot of Christian's are reading. In these discussions, the subject of grief came up. I commented to Elizabeth, the blog owner, that after I had my miscarriages, I wanted to write a book called "101 Things Not To Say To A Grieving Person". She told me I should at least do a blog post on the subject. So here you go Elizabeth :). I obviously won't write 101 things, as this would be the longest blog post in history, but I will name the top ten. I have talked with many people who have gone through times of grief, and amazingly we seemed to always talk about comments that people have made that were supposed to be words of comfort, but instead came across as downright awful. These top ten were ones that were always mentioned as being the comments that were the most painful. So here they are...

1. "It was God's will"
This is probably the number one thing we heard from people when we were going through our losses. It was one of the most painful too because it automatically makes a person start questioning God. Even if you believe this way, don't say that to someone who is grieving!

2. "God had a reason for this"
Again, even if that is how you believe, it is no comfort to the person. All it does is make the person more likely to blame God.

3. "All things work together for good..."
This is from Romans 8:28. The Bible can be a wonderful tool of comfort. Just not verses like this. The person is not seeing any good at that time, they just see their pain.

4. "To everything there is a season. A time to weep, a time to mourn, a time to die..."
Taken from Ecclesiastes 3. Again, another Bible passage that just isn't a comfort to someone who just lost a loved one. If you want to use scripture to bring comfort, use comforting scriptures! Scriptures like Psalm 147:3 "He will heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds". Or Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit".

5. "God just needed your loved one in heaven".
I heard this one for the first time at a funeral for a baby who died of SIDS. I wasn't even married yet, and I was horrified by this. It didn't seem comforting at all.

6. "It was better this way"
I have heard this one a number of times. I remember overhearing it after finding out a woman I knew had given birth to twins when she was only 5 along. They were born too early, and died shortly after birth. Someone at church said that it was better that they died, because had they lived, they could have had multiple health problems. I also heard this after one of my friends lost one of her twins in the womb. Several commented that her financial state wasn't very good, so it was better this way. I had a lot of people tell me this with the miscarriages. They said that God was saving me from heartbreak because the babies could have been born with health problems. Even if that were true, which probably was not the case, that was not comforting at all.

7. "God had a plan in your loved one dying"
Again, even if you believe that way, don't say it!

8. This is a common thing said to those who have miscarried..."At least it happened early on, and not when you were farther along." To that person who lost that child, that child was still a huge part of them, no matter what the age.

9. I never heard this one because I didn't have any other born children at the time, but I have heard a lot of other mothers complain about this statement made to them after they lost a child.."You can be thankful for the children that you do have." Again, a true statement, but no comfort whatsoever in that person's time of pain.

10. "God will never give you more than you can handle"
This is also from scripture, and probably one of the most frequently used "words of comfort". It is also one of the worst! At that time, a person going through grief really feels like it IS more than they can handle!

Grief is unfortunately a part of life. If you know someone who has lost a loved one, your best way to comfort them is to say as little as possible. Saying something like, "I am so sorry for your loss" or "I will be praying for you and your family" or "If you need anything at all, please don't hesistate to call" is way more of a comfort. You can't take away that person's pain, but you can help by not adding to it.

Bunnies

I think bunnies are so adorable, and cute. I love to see them hopping around, and when they are babies, they are heartbreakingly precious. I just don't love bunnies when they do this to my broccoli plants...













One of them somehow got into our back yard, even though it is fenced. This is the first time this has happened since we lived here. My broccoli plants were looking so beautiful, then one day I came out and they were chewed all up. Most of the plants are barely even there now. GRRRRRR! So far they haven't touched anything else, which is good. My lilies are looking beautiful in my garden. They are loaded with blooms.











It was a busy day yesterday. We went to two different weddings. My cousin got married, so we went to that wedding first. It was a gorgeous day, and the wedding was beautiful. Afterwards we went out to dinner with my parents, then headed to the next wedding! One of Jeff's co-workers got married, so that is the other wedding we went to. Both weddings were at a Lutheran church, and Jeff and I were laughing at how they were both almost exactly the same. Evie had never been to a wedding before, and she was super excited about the first one. I think she was bored to tears at the second one :). She did great though. Today, we went to church and had a wonderful Father's Day message. We ate lunch at Jeff's parents. It has been a great weekend!

The Duggar Family

I am completely fascinated with the Duggar family. Are you all familiar with them? They have a program on The Learning Channel (TLC) called "18 Kids and Counting". I'm telling you, this family just seems amazing to me. Jim Bob and Michelle have 18 children, and they homeschool them all. They are completely debt free, and they run their house in a Godly, loving way. I recently bought their new book, because I wanted to get some encouragement about Godly parenting, and I figure they were the perfect parents to learn from! I always wanted to have a big family, but circumstances haven't worked out that way yet. Techically, I do have a big family. It's just that 6 of my kids are not with me on this earth. I would like to have some more earthly kids :). Jeff keeps joking that we had better hurry up if we want to catch up with the Duggar's :). He figures I would have to have 6 sets of triplets to catch up. Lol! I know that a lot of people think the Duggar's are completely nuts for having so many kids, but to me, it is awesome. According to the Bible, children are a blessing from the Lord. Also children teach us HUGE things about ourselves and areas we need to work on. I never realized how selfish I was until Evie was born. It was a big wake up call for me, and I have had to do a lot of changing. I have had to rely on the Lord so much more to help me be a better wife and mom. The thing I love about the Duggar's is that they incorporate God into everything they do. They truly are "training their kids up in the way they should go". I want so much to do that with Evie, and I know Jeff does too.