Baby proofing Time!

Oh my gosh, I was not planning on baby proofing the house so early….ugh.

Tevye is 5 months and he’s decided that he can move anywhere he wants with the army crawling and rolling around. He definitely is a determined little man and didn’t hesitate getting good at it! He only started figuring out the forward motion two days ago…now look at him!

You can see what I mean, I took a video of it just go to here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXJPxw5Kr2s

I would have put it directly on my blog except it won’t let me upload my videos. I don’t know why.

Sibling love and harmony

Aria is an amazing older sister and Tevye is a captivated little brother and they love each other. Enough said….

Odds’n'Ends of the Last Month

Okay so these last couple of weeks have been busy….can you tell? The update on a small scale are as follows:

1) Tevye is a rolling master! He gets everywhere. I can’t turn my back without him moving at least 3 feet! See video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pJTNPUgY2E (for some reason it won’t let me actually upload it to the blog so I put it in my youtube page.

2) Aria finished up her second set of swimming classes and loved it! She definitely enjoyed swimming, making friends and loved her teacher.

3) Jessie is back to work up in Fort MacMurray. He is doing quite a bit better then he has in the last long while. Jessie has found a diet that works for him and is managing it very well. He will be gone for two months this rotation because the flights are too crazy expensive this round but we should be good after that to have him home for the regular 3 weeks in and one week out. He also just had his 27th birthday on August 30, which we had to celebrate early cause of him leaving but we had a good time and I made my first gluten free carrot cake, twas delicious.

4) I am doing Belly dancing classes that a friend holds for free at her house. They are really awesome! Meeting a lot of other ladies as well and my friend Amy is coming with me so its tons of fun.

5) Going to be doing an informal photo shoot with some friends and their daughters at a park next week. I am trying to get myself in the same mind set as Jessie so we can start on this photography business sooner, cause hey this could be a job I can do at home as well! Here’s a picture of Aria and three of the girls on a walk we did on Monday, I sort of glamoured it up a bit.

I think that sort of sums it up.  Oh and some exciting news! I don’t know if any of you know who Hayao Miyazaki…the writer and director of movies like Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Friend Totoro….well he’s done it again PONYO is his new one…I am sooo pumped! I love LOVE his films. They are so magical! You can see the trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfjww2cA2FE

That was sort of random. Well til next time!

I certainly have missed ‘learning’

I recently have come to be very receptive to holistic ways and have started to do my own research into it. I have not had much energy for reading over the last 3 years and forgot what it was that I liked reading all together. This new found passion of healing ones body through natural means and staying healthy has lead me to read more then just fictional books!  Though I had knowledge of the general good that different foods had, I am beginning to get a better sense of foods that are high in essential nutrients, minerals, iron, protein, vitamins, etc.  I now truly am grasping the need for a shift in what we eat, how we eat it and when.

Along with learning about foods and herbal remedies to help with certain conditions, I am also starting to understand how ones emotions truly effect the functionality of the body. Even just making sure I take time to sit down in a quiet room to collect my thoughts once in a while is very beneficial.

I actually had an amazing experience today, the first time since Tevye was born, I had a FULL two hours to myself. Both Aria and Tevye had corresponding nap times and I almost decided to sit at the computer and do some work but chose otherwise. THANK GOODNESS!! I made myself a cup of vanilla camomile tea, ate some fresh plums off our tree outback and read my “Today’s Health Essentials”….it was WONDERFUL, I felt so revitalized afterward!

I am also having some small plans to do my own sprouting, have a bigger garden next year and become a pro at juicing! I am currently drinking a carrot, tomato, and apple cocktail of sorts, very delicious. Its amazing what a few short hours of thoughts can come to….

Stick around for juicing recipes and other healthy and allergy friendly alternatives!

Dr. appointments, hair cuts and belated b-day presents

Well I think we have been very patient, some people think maybe too patient, trying to figure out what is wrong with Jessie’s stomach area…the news so far is we haven’t gotten anywhere too fast, even with all that has been going on.

Let me elaborate, he finally had the ultrasound at the beginning of July having his doctors appointment on July 24th…can you guess what the ultrasound revealed? Yup you got it, nothing.  We are sadly convinced that our doctor thinks there is nothing wrong with jessie. On the other hand we went to a naturalpath who gave jessie a digestive pill and saw first hand the pain he goes through on a regular basis and she was extremely eager to try and resolve the pain, which was a wonderful change! She put Jessie on a strict diet of salads(chewed til they were basically water in his mouth), fruit smoothies (also being very aware of getting some protein), aloe vera juice and slippery elm tea. This Wednesday he would have been on it for 2 weeks and it seemed to have had an effect for the first little while but now he is back in pain. He is continuing the diet to finish his two weeks because he feels even though it is not healing the problem it is probably doing some very much good for him in the process.

On the good side of things we heard back from the andoscopy specialist and jessie has his initial consultation with the specialist on Aug 5th… *crosses my fingers this one brings results*

In the mean time we went to the zellers discount store and picked up some hair dye adding some FUNK to his life .

Since jessie has so little hair to do and some much dye left over our room mate Ian decided to use up the rest of the dye. Also I took half an hour and cut his hair, unfortunately I didn’t get a picture but two heads of hair and both dyed for under 10 bucks….I think I did pretty good.

Oh as for the belated b-day present….

Yes it is exactly what it looks like….a juicer. I was looking at buying one at liquidation world for only 25 dollars but I held off thanks to Jessie’s advice because low and behold the boys found one at zellers that was originally closer to 200 dollars that they got for 33….yeah Ian had to tell me otherwise i would have given him heck.  So yeah i now own a really awesome juicer!

Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Chocolate-Free Cupcakes

Okay so I was given a gluten free recipe book a couple years back and its only now starting to get some use but boy does this woman know what she’s talking about!

The book I got this from is called The Best-Ever Wheat- and Gluten-Free Baking Book, it is on page 215 and  has the delectable title Sour Cream Fudge Cupcakes. Now due to the fact that my husband is celiac and it runs deep on his side of the family the kids are on the celiac diet as well, not to mention my eldest daughter Aria can’t have Chocolate and the whole family seems to have their own personal intolerancess to dairy SO with all that said I took a chance and made these gluten free cupcakes dairy-free and chocolate free with fantastic results at Aria’s 3rd B-day.

Here it is (I will give the original recipe with my variations included):

Wet Ingredients:

4 Tbl (55 g) butter (I substituted with margarine)

1/2 cup (120 ml) water

2 eggs, separated and beaten

1/2 tsp vanilla flavoring or extract

1/2 cup (60 g) GF sour cream (I used Tofutti Sour Supreme instead)

Dry Ingredients:

1/2 cup (25 g) pure GF cocoa powder (I used Carob powder)

1 cup (200 g) sugar (or 1 1/2 tsp stevia)

1 1/2 cup (150 g) quinoa flour (I used Celimix rice flour)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp xanthan gum

GREASE your heaviest muffin tin and line with paper cups. Spray paper muffin cups with oil for easy release. Place butter and water in saucepan, heat until butter is melted. REMOVE from heat. WHISK in cocoa powder. SIFT together the sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cream of tartar and xanthan gum  in a bowl. ADD the egg whites until stiff but not dry. FOLD egg whites into batter. SPOON batter into prepared muffin tin. MAKE at 375 degrees Fahrenheit  for 20 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.

3 year old Birthday Fun

YUP YUP, Aria is 3 years old as of yesterday, oh my goodness! It was a successfully sunny and HOT day so everything worked out beautifully. As you can see in the pictures below. We figured this year we would encourage our friends not to buy Aria any gifts…and I know that can sound a little barbaric cause its her birthday but since the birth of Tevye everyone has always kept her in mind when it came to giving presents, so she has been well received over the last 3 months with presents and really didn’t need any more. She did receive a few things but we did not put too much emphasis on the presents since we want her to think of it more of a day to be with friends and family and celebrate life, not expecting to get gifts but being grateful if she does receive some.

The pool you see was a birthday gift for Aria from our very good friends (kind of like the local grandparents) Pam and Guy, I tell ya she LOVES it. Everyone else really enjoyed it as well, it was perfect especially with the heat (33 degrees). The kids ranged from 10 months old to almost 6 years old, I think ten of them in total. Fortunately my backyard is nice and BIG and sat all the parents comfortably and we were all in good proximity of the kids. I decided for this birthday I wouldn’t have any planned activities but what I did have, which the kids enjoyed immensely, were cupcakes that they could decorate themselves. I will also add that the cupcakes I made came from a recipe called “Gluten Free Sour Cream Fudge Cupcakes” but I made a few changes that made them dairy free, and chocolate free. I almost made them sugar free but I wasn’t sure how they would turn out to begin with so I decided against it, maybe next time. Everyone REALLY enjoyed the cupcakes (parents included), I will post the recipe up on my next post because they were DELICIOUS!

I made 4 different colors of icing, bought some sprinkles and gummy bears. NICE AND EASY

The day was great, and Aria really enjoyed her birthday. I can’t believe she is 3 sometimes and wonder where the time went and I know it will never cease to amaze me! Thanks for reading! Til next time!

Praying for results

Okay today starts a week of possibilities!

Today Jessie finally had an ultrasound which they checked his gall bladder, stomach and other things. I guess the doctor only asked for his gall bladder to get checked but the ultrasound technician decided to check everything so jessie wouldn’t have to go back..YAY! But of course they can’t say anything to him about the results so now we have to wait until next doctors appointment because the one that he has tomorrow won’t even have the results from the ultrasound…PHEWY!

But that is kind of okay cause I also booked an appointment with a naturalpath Lorene Benoit, who i was referred to by my sister-in-law Erika, and whom gave us an amazing family discount which helped make it affordable. We are really excited for that appointment because if there was any way of going to getting better, the natural way is the preferred way for Jess (and myself), he is not huge into taking drugs etc.

So a few prayers will be said and an update will follow.

Drinking tea and thinking Chelsea-Lyne

I am sitting here drinking cranberry apple zinger tea with a cinnamon stick and a hint of honey thinking about my little sister’s amazing adventure. She is off in Toronto making an album with some friends who are all very talented in the music production industry. She works from 7pm til 6:30am, working night and sleeping during the day, which if you knew or know Chelsea-Lyne is not really her thing…she loves the sun!

You can check out some of her music covers she had done at her youtube site www.youtube.com/chelsealynemusic . Actually I will give you a direct link to the most recent collaboration she did with a guy who lives in Holland, REALLY beautiful duet!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG7qDK4-cXI

Anyways just really proud of her and had to express that..:)

Tips for the New Gardener

Okay so this is the first year I have had the opportunity to have a REAL vegetable garden of my own and boy has it been a learning experience. I have always wanted the green thumb and I think is creeping slowly with a slight yellowish green color just on the tip of my thumb but at least I am not jinxed with a black index finger that kills anything I touch! lol

For one, as a newb to the gardening hobby, I thought having a few different plants to experiment with would be good….and yes it was good but here are some very KEY things I have learned thus far:

1) My mom was right, tomato plants grow HUGE!  Make sure you leave at least a foot and a half in between each tomato plant

2) Strawberry plants not only grow shoots but their shoots grow roots and then grow their own shoots so it gets really spread out and can take over a lot of the garden if your not careful. Lets just say I never knew the complex inner workings of this plant and never realized how dynamic of a grower it is

3) For your peas make sure you have a lattice style structure in place BEFORE your pea plants get to be half a foot long otherwise it makes it difficult to retrain them to grow straight

4) this tip is specifically for those who move to a climate that grows the beautiful vined ivy, or if you are growing a garden for the first time…they are a weed…beautiful but really overcompassing of other plants.

A lot of this was figured out today after a two week vacation, and then on top of that, a week of REALLY hot weather that was not very inviting to go and weed the MASSIVE jungle that had grown in my garden.  Oh and tip number 5) don’t leave your garden for 3 weeks unweeded it makes for A LOT more time spent on your knees weeding. I also found out that BC has some slugs on steroids! Wow they were big!!

Here is a picture of my garden thus far:

My garden

Just to give you an idea as to what I am growing, in case you can’t tell…don’t worry I don’t blame you if its hard to figure out, this is AFTER it was weeded…lol

Alright to start off in the bottom left (of picture) is cucmber, its coming along slowly. Then above it is Zucchini, it is already growing blossoms. To the right of the Zucchini is my two tomato plants, from my more inexperienced side it looks like 4 or 5 plants to me. Next to the tomato plant is cilantro and next to it is celery, the cilantro is kind of overwhelmed by being surrounded by the tomato plant and celery that you can’t really see it. My peas are almost completely invisible because they are not currently growing up they are growing OUT and so are quite hidden. And then last but not least you can see my two strawberry plants. Where there is a big empty space I tried to grow pumpkin but I guess none of the three seeds rooted at all, but I think I am feeling a little overwhelmed with what I have got I think it was kind of a good thing!

Oh and you know what I never planted but will have to harvest as well? A huge raspberry bush, a pear tree, two plum trees and the unknown fruit tree….so I will be having LOTS of fun this summer!

raspberry bush

[caption id="attachment_176" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="One of the plum trees"][/caption]

Pear Tree