Nica's Fifth Birthday!

Nica was awakened this morning by her sisters singing:

Today it is your birthday
and we sing to let you know
that you will be queen for the day
whatever you say goes!

The girls were ALL excited for Nica's birthday! Pancakes for breakfast, as is Dad's Saturday tradition. Then the girls watched music videos until their mean mom made them do Saturday chores. Then it was outside to play with friends!

Lunch was fruit and cake. Long story made short? Nica's cake fell apart, so I cut it in half and the girls at the part I cut away.

Then, the neighbors were out swimming in their pool and invited the girls to join them. Hip Hooray! Nica, Miranda and Megan swam with the neighbor girls until the wind picked up and the sky looked ominous and Nica's lips were blue (even though the water was 80-degrees!).

Then, more playing with friends until Dad brought home the requested birthday dinner: Burger King.

Skype with Grandma and Grandpa while opening presents. Opened all the new toys (with all her sister's help). Then back outside to play with friends while Travis and I set up the hammock Nana got us this summer.

Birthday cake with sparking candles. Nica picked the colors and was happy with all the swirls, but she was most excited to have little bunnies on top of her cake.

 The girls dashed outside to play in the fading light with friends again. Miranda helped Travis pick tomatoes and cucumbers, and swung on the hammock until she heard her sisters and friends were playing in the front. She dashed to meet them, but the all congregated back at the hammock and started playing on it, with squeals of delight.

 The sun is going down earlier and earlier. I love the sound of the kids squealing and laughing, the sounds of feet running, and happy shouts calling out to each other. Summer is awesome.

Another beautiful sunset seen from the backyard.

Nica planted these seeds in the spring when the outside was still covered in a foot of snow. Then we transplanted them to these pots in May, and finally, on her birthday, her first boutonniere button flower bloomed!

Remember this from a year ago?

Yep, I think they have grown!

Little stinkers!

They sure can be cute!

Preserving

We spent Tuesday morning picking raspberries (YUM!) and cherries (Tara is still laughing at my joyful dance of finding a ladder to reach those yummy bursts of flavor; I'm still trying to get cherry juice stains out of 'Nica's shirt). We spent that same afternoon at the beach with our kids, picnicking, playing in the sand, and having a great time.

Wednesday we took those 30 pounds of cherries and 3 pounds of raspberries and made:

strawberry jam
strawberry fruit leather

Huh? Oh, yeah. Well, we also bout a couple flats of strawberries ($1/lb). We also made

raspberry mango jam
cherry jam
dried mango
dried cherries

I still have some cherries ready to puree and turn into cherry fruit leather, but after making strawberry fruit leather, baking 2 loaves of bread, laundry, and gathering swim things and food for lunch and dinner, I didn't have enough time to do more than pit the cherries for the leather.

Yes, today we spent EIGHT HOURS outdoors, seven-and-a-half of which were spent at the pool. Travis was able to take the afternoon off (he was waiting for some chemicals he ordered to arrive so he could continue with his experiment; he went in for half the day to get some things done, but then decided that since he couldn't do much else and he was going to work on Saturday, he might as well take this afternoon off). So, we ate lunch and dinner at our friend's pool, played and splashed. I think my daughters look more brown than they ever have in their lives. I think Miranda got a little sunburned, but over a tan (so she's REALLY dark). All of them were beyond exhausted when we got home at 7:30 tonight. Whew!

And, what's on the agenda for tomorrow? Well, since I can't go to the beach (which is my first pick, but it's the Venetian Festival in St. Joseph, MI and there's a carnival set up in my parking spot and it'd be waaaayyyy too crowded) we are going berry picking and will bring home our yummy organic blueberries to freeze, jam, and turn into fruit leather. Mmmm, I love blueberries.

I love summer!!!

Oh, yeah, and I'm also supposed to be getting ready for my trip to visit family. Yeah, I've got a bit on my plate...

(Sorry, no pics of today. Need up upload them from some of the other activities we did with Nana while she was here. Maybe if I can create a time-warp to add a few hours to my day... anyone got any ideas how to do that? Even better, how about something that would allow instantaneous travel. That would save me SO much time!)

On the Farm

Last May we went to a local farm to visit some baby animals and go for a pony ride. Zoë and Miranda had a BLAST! Megan was sick and stayed in the van the entire duration of the outing (poor girl!)

We went back to this same farm yesterday. Not for the same reason, although there were two six-week-old kids, a one-year-old milking cow, lots of chickens, sheep, horses, etc. The reason for this visit was to determine if I really wanted to garden.

Some friends of mine have been involved in a co-op gardening thing where they go to a farm, work to plant and cultivate and harvest crops. Then, they get to enjoy the fruits, vegetables, greens of their labors. I've been interested because I LOVE fresh produce, hate paying astronomical prices for good food, have a brown thumb and no good place at our current place to grow anything (OK, I could put some pots down in front of my house, but I have a very difficult time remembering to water!!!)

The lady who runs the farm we visited yesterday said that she was interested in getting a few more families to help with the gardening. She runs the farm not only to provide organic food (she sells eggs and last year pork in addition to some of the produce from her garden), but also for day camps and youth groups to come participate in various means (from working the farm to just petting the animals).

While we were there, the girls got to hold a chicken,

Zoë was the first to take Chicklet.
It took her a minute to figure out
how to hold the little bird, who was most patient,
but she was pretty excited about the whole thing.

Tara and I had our babies, Xena and Veronica,
in our wraps, tucked and covered
as much as we could from the cold air
(it was about 48 F and cloudy and the air was wet. Brrr!)

Alexandra not even squeamish at first,

became more comfortable with the chicken.

Miranda loved holding the little chicken.
She even did pretty well keeping the bird in her arms.

pet and brush a cow,

see (and feel) where the goat milk comes from,
watch a chicken lay an egg and gather that and others up ("EW! It's slimy!") Feed some chickens sitting on eggs, pet a rabbit, give hay to some horses, and walk around the natural prairie fields and pond.


As I wrote to my mother-in-law:

Miranda was tickled pink about all the animals. Megan was more in her element with the nature walks (where she gathered items along her way: a corn husk, a couple of branches, some pod shells, sticks. etc). Zoë had fun with friends and was happy to volunteer to do things first (hold the chicken, open the cage, feed the horse/chicken, brush the cow).

I've considered getting involved in this very carefully. I know that it's going to be a huge time commitment. What garden isn't? Even if you are sharing it with five or six other families. But, it's once a week, the lady in charge seems somewhat flexible about what gets planted, etc. The best part? I can bring all four of my daughters- to help or just play. The other co-op I heard about allows only ONE child, and that one must be able to help. That just won't work for me!

Bijoux's turn to hold Chicklet

Miranda gave the chicken a kiss.
Sweet or Yuck?
Maybe both.

So, I believe that this experience will be a learning one for all of us. A great opportunity to see where food comes from, how much work goes into growing it, and how yummy the home-made stuff can be. Mmm, the thought of those tomatoes are already making my mouth water.

Oh, and the fact that I get to let my kids play with farm animals, roam the fields, and play with friends as well? That's unbeatable. Yup, it's actually my good friend who found this program and asked if I were interested. It's always more fun to have a companion to do thing with- especially a person you enjoy hanging out with, and with whom your kids get along!

Veronica played with Xena's toys
as her sisters were eating our picnic lunch at our friends' house.

Xena was sweet about sharing,
and had fun "talking" with her buddy, Veronica.

So, it seems that Wednesday mornings will now be my Gardening mornings. Let's hope the weather cooperates.

Budget- update

I have to post a link about some of the AMAZING things a friend of mine does to not only eat inexpensively, but HEALTHY. For her family of five, she only spends $18/week per person. That's rather impressive to me, especially when I think about how she eats whole grains, organic produce, and free-range meat. Wow.

Anyway, check out her post on grocery shopping.

Also, I will have to make another poll about where one grocery shops, just because I realized I did not make it possible to select more than one store. I know that I have to shop at two stores each week (Aldi for most of my stuff, and WalMart has the milk and soy butter I can't get elsewhere and are staples in my diet).

I hope these posts have you thinking more about the money you're eating.

Blueberry Picking

About the size of a pearl, the color of a dark blue crayon with a dusty cover, and a taste that pops with sweetness in your mouth when your teeth apply just enough pressure, blueberries are awesome.

While living in Texas we never took advantage of picking our own blueberries. Apparently they are really good there. We had friends who went and said it was great.

Yet, here we live next to Michigan, where it is known for its blueberries. I wasn't going to let another opportunity to gather fresh "homegrown" fruit pass me by. I found out about the Blueberry Ranch that is just a 20-minute drive from our house that grows organic blueberries. Nana and I loaded up the girls and headed for this farm to, as Zoë said, harvest some blueberries.
We tried to encourage other friends to join us, but either we picked a bad day for them, or they just weren't as excited about fresh-picked blueberries.

At any rate, after waiting a bit for people to join us we decided to head on out to the field and get some blue in our white buckets.


Each little girl had her own bucket and carried it with gusto as we followed directions to get to the un-picked blueberry bushes. We waited to be shown exactly where to start picking. After we were given our row of bushes, many of which were taller than my head (but well under six feet).

It was fun finding just the right plump almost-purple-they-were-so-blue berries and dropping them with a dull thud into the white buckets. Zoë was a champion picker, and was never far behind in how full her bucket was compared to Nana and her mom. Megan started eating as many as she got in her bucket and proclaimed that the "red" ones were sour, but tasted just as good.

Now, what about Miranda? She picked about 5 berries and dropped them in the bucket. She handed the bucket to her mom, and proceeded to pick out the berries and eat them. She then realized that dropping them in the bucket was not a way to be efficient, so she started picking the berries off the bush and popping them in her mouth. YUM! It made me doubly glad that these were organic berries!



She was quite full of blueberries by the time we were finished picking about 45 minutes later. Finished more because Zoë and Megan were restless than Nana and I felt like we had enough berries!


Before we left, we were joined by some good friends of ours that we've had fun playing with this summer- the Arick's. Tara is due only 10 days before I am, and she and I have had fun being pregnant together. Nana took a "belly shot" of us before we headed off to weigh our bellies, I mean berries!

Back at the barn, we loaded our bags of blueberries on the scale. Although the printout read about six pounds, I'm sure that with Miranda's and Megan's help (i.e. the ones that they ate), we had close to seven or eight pounds. At any rate, we were glad to be able to dine on blueberries for lunch and dinner that night!



And maybe have blueberry pie, or blueberry crepes, and blueberry pancakes, and blueberry. . .

Is Our Food Safe?

There's been a lot of hype about organic food, about pesticides and toxicities in commercially grown and harvested produce, or what's really in the hamburger or fries you bought at your favorite fast food place (don't ask, it's too horrifying!)

The more I've read, the more my scientific spin on things has come through, and the more I come back to the ol' adage from the Word of Wisdom "All things in Moderation"!

An article forwarded to me from my hubby contains a menu with natural pesticides and carcinogens listed beneath each dish. The summary at the end talks about how these completely natural compounds can cause cancers in rats, and can be harmful, and are found sometimes in a 10,000 times greater quantity in food than synthetic (man-made) pesticides are found! Yeah, you get a bigger dose of "toxins" from the food itself than from anything somebody sprayed on the food to protect it from one thing or another. The catch is, the studies performed to determine if something is "toxic" were performed in such exponentially high doses (and in rats), it was ridiculous to compare that to a real-life information. You can read the article's example, but my favorite comparison is:

Water is absolutely essential to life. You can fast without food for quite some time, but you can survive only a few days without water. However, if you drink too much, and I'm talking about GALLONS of water in a day, you can actually kill yourself. Not drown, just screw up your body's salt content so much that you will die (and not just from peeing all the time). So, yes, even something as vitally important as water, taken in a ridiculously excessive dose, will kill you.

As in all things, one finds the information that supports one's position in a debate, right? And so this article supports my view that one can eat non-organic food and not worry about the "carcinogens" so long as one is eating a balanced, calorie-appropriate diet with all things eaten in moderation. Yet, the scare tactics work in that I am still freaked out what to feed my infant and will spend 10x what I would normally on baby food just so I "know" it's "safe"... Hmmmm.