Feeding my babies

I am a bit of a health nut, and that's putting it lightly.  I constantly research and read about food, and it's effects on the body.  My husband loves to hear me quote crazy theories and scientific data.  Unfortunately, knowing all the effects of food on the body is hard for me to ignore, especially when it comes to my children.  I love them, and want the absolute best for them.  To me, the best is giving them the healthiest start in life that I can.  Yes, this means going through 14+ hours of labor with no drugs, making 90% of our food from scratch, and making a lot of scarifies to buy what is healthy for them to eat.  Does any of this do any good?  I have no idea.  All I know is that I am incredibly sensitive to foods I eat and I see the same signs in my kids.   I don't want them to go through all the heartache and struggles I went through as a kid.  


But I can't keep my children in a bubble.  They have friends and hangout at other peoples houses.  They go out to eat.  Everywhere we go there is sugar.  Sad part is, when you give my kids sugar they get tummy aches, they can't sleep, and their bodies start struggling with digestion issues. 

So how do I prepare my kids for going out to eat?  I feed them.  I fill their tummies with healthy food before we go out.  They get to go to dinner with everyone, hang out, eat, and go home happy.  They don't have to sit there hungry, or eat the food that will make them sick, or worse eat the healthy food while everyone else is eating french fries and hamburgers.   They can eat what they want, they aren't as hungry, end up eating less of the bad stuff and don't miss out or feel different from everyone else. 

 My Annie, when not eating healthy.

After 2 weeks of super healthy eating.  If you can't see the difference your blind.  Her eyes are clear and with no dark circles, she is sleeping better and has no tummy aches.

Big blocks

So Texas had to work late today and I really needed to re-block my tomatoes.  So I made due with what I had. It works decently enough.  I got my blocks made.

 They are far from perfect.

 The re-blocked plants.  We'll see if they hold up.  I had to really struggle to pack the dirt tightly.  Towards the end I got a little tired.

I just love the way this leaf is growing so I thought I'd share it.  

Annie wanted to cut it off and use it as a cup. 

Soil blocker mishap

 Texas had his saw out again today, so I rushed to draw up a plan for a larger soil blocker for my plants.  I was hoping to be able to buy a nice one this year, but when I looked at the prices it seemed really stupid to pay over $100 for it.  I could figure this out right?  So I may have miss calculated a bit here and there.  Possibly drew a few not square squares, and maybe left out a few points when explaining how it works to Texas.  We did manage to come out of it with something vaguely resembling a useless box.  We're calling it our rough draft, and are going to try again tomorrow. Texas is going to do the measuring next time.

 My board all marked off, ready for cutting.  I did not know about accounting for the Kerf? I can't even spell it, but my husband said you have to measure for it?   Very confusing.  I did put hearts on all the pieces I wanted to keep.

 Confusion ensued when it was time to apply the peel and stick tile 

(needed to help the soil block slip out).

 So here is the not finished rough draft.  It made a soil block, but not easily, 

which is the point of using soil blocks.   Please note in my design it had a lid and all sorts of moving parts.

The soil block.

 Smaller soil block ready to go into it's new block.

 TA-DA!

So after the colossal block making fail, I had to start the last of our seeds for spring planting (using my internet purchased soil blocker).  Annie got roped in to help.  I think she's starting to outgrow her crazy moms spring chores.   That was until I brought out the water dropper.  Then she was all over it.  I'm telling you kids love dirt and water.

 She takes her jobs very seriously.

 We made two large 4x4 soil blocks with my deformed blocker.

This years set up is a little cramped compared with previous years, but it's on wheels!  Which makes it all better.  With the construction going on the basement we can't have anything set up down there, even if it's only temporary.

Learning

We've been working with Annie on letters and numbers at home for the last few months.  After several weeks of her telling us she hates school we realized she was just bored, so our solution?  Work on learning at home.  She starts Kindergarten in the fall and hopefully then she won't be so bored.  It has really made me realize I am a terrible teacher. Homeschooling is probably not something I could do.  My kids would come out knowing how to grow their own food, clean and gut a chicken, make soap and cleaning supplies, but they would have absolutely no marketable skills.  I can't teach them school stuff.  My only goal with Annie right now its to make sure she learns to LOVE reading.  There isn't anything you can't learn from books.

And weeks later...

 we are still celebrating Elsie's first birthday.  Her doll arrived in the mail from my mom and it couldn't be cuter.  Elsie has toted her around while doing various Elsie things today.  It's not easy catching a picture of this kid.  She never sits still.  So happy first Birthday again Elsie. 

The wind tunnel

Today our neighbors roof blew into our yard.  Yep, it flew off his roof and thankfully just missed the garden by a few feet. Annie thought it was the coolest thing ever.  My husband is now hoping our roof blows off too, so we can get a new one.  I just love that we live in a neighborhood where the neighbors  walk over, gloves in hand, ready to start helping you clean it up within minutes.   Once again I love where we live.

Planting TIME!!!

 Oh how I LOVE March.  So much happens in March, and I love every minute of it.  We all spent the day outside today getting things sorted out.  We moved a few plants that were haphazardly thrown about last year.  Got a few beds turned over and planted Peas, and onion sets.  Annie, had fun planting the onion sets in stripes of red white and yellow.   When I went to pick up the onion sets of course I couldn't resist the purple Asparagus crowns they had.  Purple? all we have is green.  We needed purple.  So my big splurge on the garden was purple crowns.  When Annie helped me plant she was really confused that I kept calling them crowns.  I love her literal mind.   So we are all happy playing in the dirt.  

 Elsie enjoyed lunch outside before getting in the dirt.

 The joys of spaghetti squash (that we actually grew in the yard last year).

 Annie was busy under the play set concocting mud remedies for the garden.
 I remember dirt and water being such a magical combination as a kid.

 

 Helping mom in the garden.