Dragon boat races

So as you may have guessed I am completely behind with this blog. I have started another blog that is semi private about my journey on becoming healthy and is sort of by invitation only unless you contact me and beg to be able to read it. It is not really of interest to anybody but those closest to me and is sort of a sensitive topic that I didn't want on display for all the world to criticize. If you are interested let me know and I will give you an invite.

Also both Sunshine and Bug have had end of school year festivities the past couple of weeks that have kept us busy. Then we went camping this past weekend (pictures to come soon) so needless to say I have gotten a bit behind.

But I didn't want to forget about the dragon boat races that we went to a couple of weeks ago. My sister in law was on a team this year and competed in the Rose Festival races. It was a lot of fun. It was down at the water front downtown. Their team came in 2nd and they are racing again soon. We really enjoyed it.

Having trouble getting your kids to eat their veggies?

I may have a solution. The power juicer. Now I know this is not something new. These have been around for a long time.

Actually in all honesty, I don't have a problem getting my kids to eat veggies. They love them. Bug especially. He will take a plate of broccoli to a plate of chips any day. It is very bizarre, but hey, there are worse problems.

We have had this juicer for a couple years and use it on average about once a week. Year round. no exceptions. It really was the best investment.

Anyhow, I thought I would document this claim and back it up with pictures this time.

Behold....a giant bowl of produce. In this bowl is 2 lbs of spinach,about a lb of broccoli, about 5 lbs of carrots, a pineapple, apples and a pint of strawberries.

Then you run it through your handy dandy juicer.


The result....


Two thumbs agree.... green sludge chased with some fruit = AWESOME!!


A green mustache would not lie.

Gobble Gobble!!

So I know I have been sort of letting my blog slide lately. This time of year is just so stinking busy I can barely find the time. But tonight I figured it was well overdue to put up some holiday pictures of our Thanksgiving.

My family always celebrates Thanksgiving on the Saturday before the actual holiday. It started many years ago when my Mom used to work a retail job and just couldn't do both the holiday and get in enough sleep to brace herself for black Friday too. Plus it has always worked nicely so there was no competition with in laws wanting that Holiday too. There has never been an issue of having to make several stops at different Thanksgiving dinners.

We had it over at my Mom's house in Battleground, Wa. The entire family came out and we even celebrated my Grandma's 89th birthday. We all made her something to commemorate the event. My mom and I worked together to make her a scrapbook chronicling her life. She was really tickled with it.

We ate, the kids had a great time playing with their cousins which are pretty close in age to them and we had a great day.

Then came the big day.

We did what we do every year. We all gather around the television in our Pj's and watch the Macy's parade.

Have I mentioned my utter annoyance with my furniture situation. We do not have enough seating in our family room, so everyone just piles on me in the chair.


Then we made up our vegetarian dressing and side dishes and headed over to my in laws in West Linn.


It was another great day. We visited and ate and I planned out my attack plan for black Friday. Also Bug got turned on to guitar hero. We all but had to pry it out of his hands.

This is the worst possible picture ever taken of my husband. Although he assures me he has worse. Here are some of the real pictures of our family Thanksgiving dinners.

And then came the green beans....

So to follow in the obsession......today was dilly bean day. I think I may have a problem here :)

Check these beauties out though I mean c'mon!! It may be too bold to just come right out and say it, but shucks, I am going to do it anyway....I RULE!!!!



Also in other news, but totally related to the above and past couple days.....something I have suspected for quite sometime. It turns out I would make an awesome 1930's housewife. Who knew? See if you can beat me score.

72 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

Necterines!!!!

Tonight we had a treat for dessert. I chopped up some fresh nectarines and added some milk and a sprinkle of sugar. Who needs a spoon?

Just dig right in!

Oh HECK YES!!!!!

There is really nothing quite like homemade jelly that only yesterday was still on the the bush.

I am pretty sure most kids would agree that homemade is way better than some crummy high fructose version of what people try to pass as jelly at the store. Maybe I'm just partial to homemade.

Although I have a sinking suspicion that I may not be the only one :)

It's berry pickin time!!

I love this time of year because all the berries come into season. We went out and picked a flat of raspberries this afternoon. I almost made the fatal error of just buying a flat (mostly because it's just easier) but to buy a flat is $27. To pick your own is $14. Gee I wonder what I ended up doing. I am just that cheap.

Luckily I found a great reason for having a ton of kids. You can get your picking done pretty fast. Between the 5 of us (well, really only 4) we got a whole flat picked in less than an hour. Not too bad. I was a little surprised how eager the kids were to make it a contest to see who could pick the most the fastest. Although I think more eating was going on than picking.

But all in all we had a fun afternoon.

Tomorrow it will all be made up into jam and in jars.

Why don't they teach this in school?

Someone sent this to my, but it's pretty profound. Especially where my family and I are right now in our lives.

Sad that we have to go what is considered extreme in order to live a healthy life. I know my parents think we're crazy for reading labels and not letting our kids eat that junk, but in short...it's bad for you. I'm just saying.

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You know why we're obese? We eat too much! And we eat the wrong things.

For millennia, humans lived agrarian lifestyles. They worked the fields and ate what they grew. That usually included one staple whole grain (rice or wheat), a large number of leafy greens, fruits, berries and nuts. Much of it was eaten raw. Meat was used as a flavoring ingredient in small quantities because raising it was too resource-intensive for all but the very rich. And of course, everything was organic because there was no such thing as non-organic. This is how we evolved. It's how are bodies run best. The human engine knows how to process that mix of fuel.

Compare that to how we live and eat today. We hardly exercise. Whatever grains we eat are stripped of their essential nutrients (i.e. white flour, white rice). The primary part of our meals comes from animal protein. Fruits and vegetables make up the smallest portion of our diet. And everything is heavily processed and/or treated with chemicals that don't exist in nature.

Much of this is a product of wealth and industrialization. There are parts of the world where they still live the agrarian lifestyle of our ancestors. These are the undeveloped, rural areas without access to the modern conveniences. The way they eat has come to be known as the "Poverty Diet", and it is marked by the lowest incidence of disease in all human societies on the planet.

So, if you're over 30 and you eat fast food more than once a month, you're harming yourself. If you're not out walking at least a mile a day, you're sedentary compared to the blood line you evolved from. If the food you buy in the store has ingredients you can't pronounce, think about whether your ancestors ate that stuff, and then imagine why there's a huge increase in cancer rates over the last half a century.

We're killing ourselves, all while we've all been conditioned to believe that our lifestyles are "normal." Sure, "everybody eats at McDonalds," but that's why so many of us are fat and sick. A person who simply eats what the average human diet has consisted of for eons is regarded today as some kind of "health nut," whereas the vast majority of Americans eat like they're from some other planet.

Why being a grown up is cool

Ok this is what I looked foreword to when I was little. I have a weird thing with throwing random foods together and making a meal out of it. Sort of like 2 great tastes taste great together.

Tonight my rock star husband had band practice so it was just me and the kids for dinner. I sort of had a hankering for soft pretzels. Luckily I just happened to have a box of the in the freezer. But I figured it would probably be irresponsible to only feed my kids pretzels for dinner. Enter the broccoli. But we couldn't stop there because I have also had a hankering for hollandaise sauce. You know for dipping......what?

So lets recap....

We've got the bread group,

the veggie group,

the dairy group with the sauce

and the gigantic rock salt group.


Ok somewhere at this very moment, my Mom has her head in her hands shaking it fiercely.


What is funny about this (where do I begin) is while making this I was practically doing a little dance thinking to myself "I'm a grown up and I can eat anything I want for dinner".

Yes I realize this is a "once in a while " meal. We don't normally eat like this. But it's fun every once in a while.

Best mom ever!!!

So my husband is gone tonight recording a CD for his press kit, so I'm alone with the kids tonight. Which isn't really all that unusual as I'm alone with them most of the time. But something about not having another adult around makes me throw responsibility to the wind.

Brittney has nothing on me!!

Tonight the mood struck me to make chex mix. Something I haven't made in years. But tonight I could not rest until I made and consumed some. So Bug and I joined forces and worked together to create THE best batch of chex mix the world has ever known.

Seeing as I had the grand desire to make this up at like 4:30 tonight....I thought," hey there are grains and stuff in here. That's sort of healthy."Let's make a picnic dinner, throw in some raisins...you know for healthy factor...and just eat this for dinner. We ate enough of it really to call it a meal. And to top it off...we ate ice cream for desert.

Didn't Bill Cosby do a stand up routine about chocolate cake? Same thing here.
Mom is great.....

mmmmmmmmmm!

Fall is by far my favorite time of year. But another one of my favorites is the first taste of eggnog of the season. I LOVE eggnog. You would think that after working at Starbucks I would be burned out on the taste or especially the smell. Which by about January I am. But for now I will drink it straight out of the carton and cream my coffee with it. This morning, every sip of my coffee I can't help but say out loud how good it is. Finally Bug (Tactful as he is) says "alright you love it...we get it. Now enough already!!" It totally made me laugh. Not because my kid is speaking to adults like that,(because that is a whole issue unto itself that may receive it's own blog post one day) but it made me laugh because I had already drank 2 full cups of coffee and probably made a comment with each sip. That WOULD be annoying. Duly noted.

"Sorry buddy. I'll lay off the "Bask in the glory of Eggnog!" talk.....But I mean really....have you tried this? I think it's better this year that it was last year. This is soooooo good!!!!"

Ok......I can hear your eyes rolling!!