Travel

We loaded up the suburban on Friday morning and made an overnight jaunt to the big city to visit a much loved babysitter. We live in upstate NY, any guesses where we went?

Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil Giveaway!

Over the past month and a half, we've been making a lot of changes to our family's meal planning and diet. It started with Sean going gluten free and then for practicality and health reasons I decided to take us all off gluten, now happily passing on to friends my pantry full of Barilla pasta and wheat flour. From my own reading, I believed switching to using coconut oil and olive oil in our diet was a wise choice.

Tropical Traditions offered to send me a sample of their product extra virgin coconut oil to try, which I jumped on because I had just stopped buying "bad" oil for our cooking. You know, the inexpensive yellow kind in a plastic jug...

Here is a link for a video on what makes their coconut oil sooo good. And it is good. I had bought a plastic jar of coconut oil from the grocery store and the two don't compare. Tropical Traditions smells great and tastes great! Tropical Traditions is offering all my readers a free copy of their Virgin Coconut Oil book with your first order when you select, "referred by a friend" and use User ID: 6256154. This also allows me to receive discounts on purchases from Tropical Traditions (woohoo!). The Giveaway! Tropical Traditions is offering a free quart of their coconut oil to one winner. To enter, subscribe to their email sales flyer here. I am a subscriber and I appreciate that my inbox is not bombarded by emails from their company. They just had a buy one, get one free sale and so the email subscription is a good one. Leave a comment letting me know you've subscribed. For a second entry, check out their recipe page here and leave another comment telling me which one you'd like to try. For a third entry, share this giveaway via blog, twitter, or facebook and let me know. Winner will be drawn on Friday. Thanks! Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

Joy

"The joy of the Lord is my strength."

"with joy for the Lord had made them to rejoice..."

"...with joy: for the Lord had made them joyful and turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God..."

"in Thy presence is fullness of joy..."

"make me to hear joy and gladness"

"Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.."

"they that sow in tears shall reap in joy."

"Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy words were unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart for I am called by thy name..."

"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace, in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the holy Ghost."

Now this may sound silly but bear with me as I type out a bit of what God has been working in me, in my search to fill my ordinary days and ordinary life with joy. I've found that joy is found not in putting a smile on my face, not in hardening one's heart against pain or in avoiding conflict, nor in seeking out only pleasurable moments and trying to ride the high of those. For me, joy has been found fully in the Lord. The word fully is key. In fully embracing sorrow, fully embracing pain, fully embracing loss. It is human nature to protect ourselves and so we brace ourselves, turn inward for relief, allow a scab of protection to grow. But do you know, when we steel our hearts against one extreme, like hurts, for instance, we harden our hearts just enough that we can't experience the fullness of joy either. It's true. It's something that over these last months God has been working in my heart and opening my eyes to and a lesson I'm still working on and think I always will be. To know fullness of joy in Him, I've had to embrace the fullness of everything in life, good and bad, seeking to be content in any circumstance, trusting Him to carry the unpleasant parts while keeping my heart wide-eyed open and vulnerable.

It is a beautiful lesson.

Happy Homemaking Lessons

Annaliese has been over there, keeping busy...

A River Runs Through It

Wet doesn't even begin to describe it. Water poured off the field behind us (not ours, I wish), into our yard and waterfalled through the 220 year old stone foundation into our cellar.

Sean came home right away, hooked up the pump, dug a trench away from the house to divert the water, and put in a call to the farmer who owns the field above us.

Our ducks are loving it.

Little Duckie Duddle

went wading in a puddle,
went wading in a puddle quite small.
Said he,
it doesn't matter
How much I splash and splatter
I'm only a duckie after all.

He made me this:

and I am most fond of it. Affection for a bowl? Oh yes, and the hands and the man who carved it. (phone pic, sorry it's dark)

Yesterday was a beautiful family day and one of the sweetest birthdays I remember in a long time.

Sean made me delicious macaroons with almond flour and chocolate and caramel fillings. GF so he could gobble some too. Annaliese made me a coconut lazy daisy cake and my stepmom made a cheesecake with ricotta and marscapone cheeses, blackberries and raspberry sauce.

I ate WAY too much sugar yesterday and am feeling all sleepy and droopy for it today. There is a whole container of homemade chocolate truffles that I haven't even touched yet. They are waiting for a glass of farm milk.

Chase does not give his grandpa a moment's peace while they are together.

Anyway, just a lovely day and the beginning of a lovely thirty something year and I have so much to be greatful and thankful and blessed by that I am overwhelmed. Healthy kiddos, a husband getting healthy, parents who love me, kids who make me laugh and laugh with me and an amazing husband who is so,so much better than me in a thousand ways.

This thing we do...

The kiddos and I each have our *favorite* things to do together.

Annaliese and I sew and craft, Andrew and I animatedly discuss the ins and outs of history, Aiden and I "chef" in the kitchen, Ella and I laugh and goof, Addie and I cuddle and Chase and I... Chase and I sing. Just about every night before he climbs the steep wooden kitchen stairs to the boy's room and counts his blankets as they are layered over him I'll ask him what he'd like to sing. He has a few favorites and as he wiggles room in my lap he'll tell me what we'll sing.
Sean was kind to capture this little video last night... just zip down to the bottom of the page and mute the music...

Been Making

headbands for her cuteness, Miss Addie.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Cornbread

For breakfast this morning we all enjoyed a new recipe. I'll admit, having to cook gluten free, at first sounded like the least fun thing I could imagine doing. We love pastries and pasta and crusty homemade bread! We're only a few days in, but so far, it has been pretty easy to substitute alternative flours and still eat basically the same. If you aren't gluten free, you'll still love this recipe. (funny side note - Sean and I both dreamt about bread last night)

5 eggs
1 stick butter, softened
1/4 cup oil of choice (I chose to use coconut oil)
1 1/2 cups of pureed pumpkin
1 cup sugar or honey (I used cane sugar)
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups cornmeal
1 cup flour (I used barley flour. If you are celiac, you might want to substitute another flour, as barley does contain slight amounts of gluten, albeit a different kind than wheat.)
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp salt

Mix the eggs, butter and oil together, add in the pumpkin and sugar and mix and then add in the remaining ingredients.

Bake at 375 in two greased 10x10 pans or equivalent and check for doneness with a butter knife at 20 minutes. Feel free to halve this recipe for a smaller family.


The cornbread and kefir smoothies were our breakfast.

Banana Kefir Smoothie

two bananas
1 quart kefir
6 ice cubes
1/4 cup honey
drop of vanilla
milk to taste

I mix our smoothies in two batches and add a little raw milk in to make enough to fill the blender twice. Kefir has a sour taste, and if you're not used to it, the honey and milk will help. Our kids are hearty and pretty much would drink it straight but honey banana smoothies, we love.