chunky peanut butter, indeed

Do you make your own peanut butter? I used to, but Hub likes Jif better (new research *may* show that they're not so health-conscious, but I'll worry about that later).

I haven't made any in a while, but recently we ran out and I had some peanuts that no one was eating so I figured I'd whip some up.

I've always done it in the blender. Takes a while, but works fine. This time, not so much.

I added honey, as usual. Nope. So I added a little oil (ick). Still crumbly.

Sigh. Throw out the whole batch? Never! Then we still wouldn't have any peanut butter...

Solution: mix chunky peanut butter with jelly first, then spread.

Voila. I feel like a genius.

beans!

If you know me at all, you know I don't eat beans. Green beans, yes. Waxed beans, yes. But kidney, black, garbanzo, etc...not so much. Like ever. And yet...here's the dinner I came up with for tonight.

The chicken was frozen and would've taken forever to thaw. And the hamburger was still in log form. Again, forever. And I watched a documentary recently ("Forks Over Knives" on Netflix) talk king about a plant-based diet.

Not lose-weight-diet, but way-of-eating-diet.

I like steak, and bacon, and sausage... I'm still a carnivore. But my family has been moving in a real-food direction over the last year or so, and you can't get away from the fact that beans, too, have protein.

And they're craaaaazy cheaper than meat. So I pulled up my big girl boots and gave it a shot.

Macaroni noodles, black beans, leftover Walmart pasta sauce (just about the most pathetic pasta sauce I've ever seen, but I was looking for cheap at the time), and leftover frozen peas and carrots.

Obviously there's a lot of room for improvement in that list, but it's a(nother) start.

I'll let you know how it turned out...and more importantly, how the 3-, 6-, and 9-year holds liked it. (Truthfully, it's doubtful they'll eat the beans. C'est la vie.)

Oh, I made cornbread, too. Yum.

prayer for her

Lord, may my child call You her Savior.

prayer for her

lord, give her a heart that loves truth, and seeks to find it.

Oct 17 of 31 Days

I'm making a Friday out of this Wednesday...

...because it's my princess's birthday. Her ninth birthday.

Soon I will have 2 princesses.

There was still school. Can't change that. (However, if Daddy had been able to get the day off from work, I would probably have considered changing that.) But she took little ice cream cups for her class, and her teacher saved her a Happy Birthday pencil and bookmark and a Hershey bar, even though she's in Virginia to help bury her daughter's husband. (Crazy real.)

But then I took a deep breath, and took the extra time after school (that I'd been avoiding) and walked the kids back to their old school across the street to visit their old friends, like they'd been asking since they started at their new school. MEF and her little friend Quinn walked all over the front lawn talking, and then began a sudden game of tag. EB played/ran/tackled/giggled with his friend Jacob. (MG chased EB and Jacob.)

We stayed maybe 45 minutes. They loved it.

There will be a brief amount of studying for the birthday princess (God blessed her with a very light homework load today, but we do just need to go over the vocab list). And there was the call from Grandma and Grandma singing Happy Birthday.

And then back to the Friday-ness of it. Right now they're resting with snacks on the couch, watching Gigi on dvd. Then there will be more craziness, or playing on the Wii, or the computer. (I will not make them clean the living room.) And in an hour and a half or so, we will meet Daddy at Chuck E. Cheezits, as my littles call it. And we will eat pizza and Swiss cake rolls (because my girl doesn't care for birthday cake) and play games. (And I will be exhausted. Crazy real.)

Tomorrow will be Thursday.

But today it's my girl's birthday (and my 9th anniversary of God waking me up to live for real),

so it's Friday.

Oct. 15 of 31 Days

I'm not "crunchy." I'm not hard-core "green." I don't make everything we eat, 'though I do try to make some. (Like peanut butter and spaghetti sauce and bread.) I love Humpty Dumpty All-Dressed potato chips. And Hershey's chocolate syrup tastes better in my coffee than homemade.

But I don't like fake food. Fake ingredients, fake colors, fake flavors. I don't like what it does to my kids attitudes, or to my body shape.

I don't like buying orange cheese (it's not naturally orange, you know). And did you know store-bought applesauce has high-fructose corn syrup in it? Applesauce!!

But. Sometimes you buy the G.I.A.N.T. bag of neon orange cheese balls as a special snack for your kids because you think, "sure, it's fake, but it's just for today and it's two bucks."

Even when you look at the receipt later and realize the shelf was labeled wrong. It was five bucks.

Crazy real.



PS...in honor of my Baby Blueberry, and all the angel babies that left our arms too soon, but somehow in the perfect timing of Jesus, hugs to all the mamas.

Oct. 12 of 31 Days

Okay, here's my Crazy Real post for the day. Warning: Mama Bear has been disturbed from her slumber.

I got a call this afternoon saying EB (the 6yo) had had another accident at school and needed new clothes brought down. (Bear in mind, this is around 2pm. If I'd thought about it, I probably would've just signed him out and taken him home. Better I guess that he stays a bit. Grr.) This call is the 3rd we've gotten this year.

For the average 6yo, this might seem like a lot. But for a boy who had chronic constipation for 3 years because his doctor kept suggesting meds and routines rather than asking about his diet, and then outgrew his bladder because his daddy is naturally 6'4"/350lbs+, it's nothing short of a miracle. I can't tell you how often I've felt like I live in the Land of Pee. The fact that he's only had 3 accidents in a month and a half, never having done full-day school before? They should be making him a freakin' CAKE.

No. I walk down to his room because the secretary says his teacher wants to "talk" to me. There sits my little EB at his desk, doing nothing. It happened during gym, so he had to come back to the class from gym, and sit out the rest.

Okay, truth: I guess he lied about peeing himself. (Or so they think.) So that's probably why he was sitting at his desk. But if you've ever had a child who's had to deal with urinary issues, you understand what this does to them. Even when it doesn't seem to phase them.

Then she goes on to explain that even their pre-K kids aren't having accidents, and basically threatening that if it continues, he can't keep going to school there. They're supposed to be potty trained.

I know his teacher. I went to school with his teacher. She's the cousin of one of my best friends. But I confess to you that in these moments standing there next to her desk -- and I crossed my arms on purpose to make myself feel better -- I wanted to take. her. down.

He IS potty trained, thank you. I explained all of it. His three-year fight with constipation (he didn't poop for weeks on end), his size, his bladder's size, how freaking AWESOME it is that he's only had this many accidents, how sometimes he really does have to go pee every 5 minutes, the fact that we know some of it is obstinance but most of it is still growth.

Nope, no grace for big boys who just grow faster than their parts. I have to get a doctor's note saying it's a medical condition. (Trust me. I will.)

She said it surprises her that it doesn't seem to bother him when he has an accident. I told her we'd treated his previous accidents that way so that he didn't feel awful about himself when it wasn't (entirely) his fault.

So now tell him he can't go to school there, to a class/school/structure that was a HUGE adjustment for him but that he has come to love, because he's a big boy who's actually doing very well at going to the bathroom. See if he's embarrassed then.

Grrrrrrrr.