Frontier Logs

 We've always enjoyed Lincoln Logs. I don't even remember when we Owen got his first set that he shared, naturally. Up in Minnesota, we had a huge tub full of the newer Lincoln Logs... they, however, didn't make the cut for moving.

 Daddy and Momma have mentioned that there used to be Lincoln Logs sets that were all wood. I never saw any till we moved to Georgia. One of our neighbors, Grandma Dean, has some old Lincoln Logs that her sons used to play with. James really likes going over to Grandma Dean's and playing with the Lincoln Logs.

I looked for all wood Lincoln Logs sets, but didn't see any till I looked on CSN Stores. They have a whole bunch of Lincoln Log or Frontier Log sets. For Christmas, we got a set. It was a 160 piece set for $21 plus shipping. Total was $25. Which wasn't a bad price considering some other sets I had, by then, come across.

Owen, Becca, Carrie and James have really tested it out. James in particular. It has stood up very well to being catapulted, tossed, dropped, stepped on (ouch!) and so on. That is, except for the cardboard sign "Cavalry-US". It looks like James has bent it! 

Most mornings, James will pull out the tub of Frontier Logs, dump them out on the floor and ask for help in building a house. "Nahhhhnieeee, haowshhh.  Meessss" translated to "Hannah, house. Please". So we build a house and he knocks it down and asks for another one.

I really like these Frontier Logs and hope to slowly build up our Frontier Logs to build the mansions Katie, Owen and I used too. From the use love these Frontier Logs have received, I think they will last a good long time. When we buy more sets, we'll get them from CSN Stores because the shipping is quick and the price is reasonable.

We might even get this set. It's only $36.24 plus shipping. I don't know that I like that it also has 20 plastic figures (More to keep track of, IMO). But I'd bet James would. Because they're 'western', Becca would too.

Did you play with Lincoln Logs/Frontier Logs when you were growing up?

***sponsored by CSN Stores. This is my honest opinion of CSN Stores and Frontier Logs... all words are 100% my own. Pictures taken by Becca or Carrie or from CSN Stores website.

Yummy Chocolate Cake!!!

 

Who says one can't have chocolate cake or cupcakes on a gluten, dairy,  and processed sugar free diet. We think these taste just like their gluten containing counterparts! :*)

Happy times

I think the hardest part for me this surgery (besides praying and wondering about pain management) was the fact that James was doing so great before surgery. It is not so difficult to hand your baby over to the surgeon when you know his life depends on it... and he looks like he is depending on you to help him.

It's a little different when he looks the best he has in five years... and you're sending him anyway.

I believe it won't be long until James is back up to full speed and, since pain management has not been the nightmare this time that it has been in the past, I really have no regrets. Already his little belly looks more like that of a little boy and less like that of a war-torn veteran. That is certainly something to be grateful for... and I am!

I am also grateful for some sweet time yesterday. Just about the time I was wondering if this was our day of trouble since James had gone so long without food or drink, the Big Apple Circus clowns that are permanently assigned here showed up. They occupied James for about 45 minutes and I think they had just as much fun as we did!




If you want to see MORE pictures you can go here!

Sunday Treats: Blooming Onions

When I suggested we stop buying potato chips a while back, I got the 'hairy eyeball' look. It's not like we even bought them very often, but nobody wanted to give up the option. Especially for birthdays.

Potato chips have absolutely no nutritional bang for the buck (unless you are horribly underweight and desperate for all the extra calories you can get--even then, the oil and salt used in most brands are bad for us).

So, I had to come up with some good substitutes, enjoyed often enough, to sway the crowd. First I had to find some recipes. Then I needed time to try them. Our weeks are already full, so I thought I would try Sundays. We had been having popcorn in the evening, but not as regularly as we did in winter.

We actually started out with potato chips and then tested a simple onion ring recipe. Then we resurrected this recipe, and adapted it to some of the diet changes we've been making. They really aren't hard, just a little time consuming. Don't worry if it isn't perfect. That's part of the charm!

I should have taken a picture of cutting the onion, but I ran out of hands! This time, I used unbleached white flour. Next time, I will try it with fresh ground spelt.

So, first melt and heat your good, healthy fat in a deep pan (I used coconut oil in a 3-quart pot) Then, you cut the onion. Dip it in an egg and milk wash (I used 2 small eggs and one cup of milk for two blooming onions.)

Then roll and gently toss it in the flour mixture (1 cup flour, 1-1/2 teaspoons sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper--1/3 of what the original recipe recommends, 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano--I was out, so used Italian seasoning), 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/4 teaspoon cumin).

Dip in milk/egg mixture again and cover a second time with flour mixture to coat fully.

Test the oil temperature by putting a very small piece of onion in the fat. If it bubbles nicely, it's ready for the onion. Gently lower the onion into the fat with a slotted spoon. Fry for about 10 minutes.

Serve with dipping sauce on the side. I doubled the sauce recipe since we were doing two onions for 8 of us. (1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1 Tablespoon tomato sauce, 2-3 Tablespoons taratoor sauce from this recipe, because I didn't have horseradish sauce on hand, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, 1/8 teaspoon dried oregano (or Italian seasoning), dash ground black pepper, dash cayenne.)

Mmmmm.

What kinds of special foods do you like to make to replace old favorite snack foods?

Our mother's day

My mom and dad drove down for mothers' day this year. We had a really nice visit and absolutely gorgeous weather. Vern and the children planned the meal and prepared it and cleaned it up. Delicious food, relaxing holiday with family and perfect weather. We even got to sit around on the front porch!

What else could a girl ask for?

Vern picked a delicious BarbecuedGarlic Chicken recipe from a Lebanese cookbook we were given. It included a dipping sauce (called Tratoor bi Sade) with *45* cloves of garlic in 1/2 cup of olive oil and the juice of one lemon.

He also made and Afghani bread, called Nan or Nani, to go with it.

My mom brought a Nona salad. And the children made herbal mint tea to drink. Mmmmm.

Incredible People

The people you meet when your child has cancer are really a rare and incredible breed. The variety is great. The people are nothing short of wonderful.

Three years ago, when we moved our cancer journey from Minnesota to Georgia, we met Bill Ruck and his son Pierce. Bill and Pierce introduced us to Love and Learning, a reading program designed for children with Down syndrome. But I digress.

We followed Pierce through his Care Page, diligently kept by his mom, Elena. We were devastated when Pierce relapsed about a year ago. We rejoiced when he made it through a Bone Marrow Transplant last August and we felt like the world had been pulled out from underneath us when Pierce relapsed again shortly after his BMT. Pierce left this world just before Christmas last year. We had hoped to be at his service the day after Christmas, but we all woke sick with res and knew we didn't need to go sharing.

Since then, Bill has been rallying his energies to reach out to other kids with cancer and he's started a new organization. It is called 'From Thin Air' since Bill is so good with 'magic' tricks (the sleight of hand kind) and he is working to make memorable evenings for children will cancer to give them a break from the grind of treatment.

Check out Bill's website: www.fromthinair.org and follow from thin air on Facebook. You can probably friend Bill Ruck too.

If you have connections that might help Bill make special memories (like limos and restaurants and tickets to various events) or you know of a child in the Atlanta with health issues that could use a break from the grind of treatment, contact Bill and let him know.

He's the kind of guy that really wants to do all he can to help!

What country children do when they don't have a swingset

Earlier this year, Vern got a nice hoist so we can pull up our own hogs and cows when we process them. We had, at Christmas time, done our first hog all ourselves and found it nearly impossible to lift it up to scrape and gut. So now we are ready for the next time.

Vern and Owen like to think ahead (or so they say :*), I think they just like to play with their new toys!) so they hung the hoist in the carport to practice with.

And our country children put the hoist to work, giving carnival-like rides to anyone in the family that wanted one!

Brothers

James had just gotten a bath and Owen offered to get him dressed. Owen surprised us by dressing James to look like a miniature version of himself!

Brothers who match!

Smiling for the camera!

The wall, part 1

Since we moved into our house--just about 2 years and 2 months ago--we have had one big wall that is still studs. Our hope, when we built, was to cover the wall with some sort of stained wood and build bookshelves on most of it.

Thanks to a very generous Christmas gift, we finally started! Vern wanted to put insulation in the wall between the living room and bedroom to dampen the sound.

Pictures below show the first steps. (I'll put up more once we get them downloaded from the camera.) I really enjoyed watching and listening to Vern and Owen work together. My heart longs for the day when they can work together all the time!

Wordless Wednesday

Those birthday photos...

James had a great birthday. He has a couple of little travel pillows that his Nona, my mom, made custom cases for. We tote them EVERYwhere. They go in the car, to appointments, and for diaper changes/bag emptyings. They make his life much more comfy.

So this year, he graduated to the next up size pillow... not quite full size, but still very portable.

And with PIGS... and farm stuff on the new custom cases!

For a long time during treatment, chocolate ice cream was a mainstay for James. Then we tried to cut back on sugar and sweetners because he was having trouble with yeast overgrowth. It had actually been a good while since he had had or asked for ice cream when we asked James what he wanted for his birthday dessert.

And James signed, "ice cream." Loud and clear.

So, Hannah made ice cream towers.

We pretty sure he liked them.

Quick, Cheap, Nutritious Salmon Patties

Hands down, Salmon Patties are my favorite 'save' meal when I don't have a plan and need something nutritious, relatively quick for a scratch meal and inexpensive. Everyone in the family likes them... most love them!

Since we are feeding eight hungry people in our house, we multiply the recipe. In the summer, we can get by with a double batch (which makes 12-1/3 cup patties). We serve it with potatoes or brown rice and LOTS of garden veggies with butter! In the winter, when fewer veggies are available, we triple the recipe (which make 19 - 1/3 cup patties).

Don't panic! The above photo shows all the ingredients for a triple batch! (Except for the frying oil.)

First we'll figure out the cost:

3 cans wild caught salmon, undrained (I buy 4 packs from Sam's for $7.48; $1.87 for one can)
3 eggs from hens on pasture (We raise our own hens for eggs, but figuring $4/dozen, one egg is 33 cents)
3 rye crisp-type crackers (I buy packs of 32 Wasa light rye crackers from Big Lots for $1.80, one cracker is 5.6 cents)
3 handfuls of parsley, rinsed and drained (This is a great time of year for parsley in Georgia. I bought 3 plants for $9 last Spring and have harvested at least 30 handfuls, so one handful costs me 30 cents or less)
1 cup, approximately, coconut oil (organic virgin), for frying (I buy my coconut oil in bulk at an international market in Atlanta. My cost is $2.26 per pound, 1/3 cup costs me 38 cents)

Ingredients for my triple batch cost me $8.81....divided by 8 servings is just about $1.10 per serving.

Making the salmon patties is the easy part:

Dump the salmon into a bowl, add eggs, crumble in crackers and mix.

Pick the parsley apart into small pieces. Stir in.

Measure 1/3 cup servings....

And fry in coconut oil.

When I am in a hurry (and thinking), I will use my electric skillet instead of a frying pan.

This post is a part of Kimi Harris' Pennywise Platter. Click over to Kimi's blog, The Nourshing Gourmet, to find more low cost, nutritious and yummy ideas for your family!

Five

Five years ago we arrived in Holland. At first, there was a lot to learn. We had to find our way around Holland. Now, we mostly feel like we live on the outskirts of Holland. It is a nice place to be.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Jamesie!

Nuts and leaves

Last year, we raked up a good bit of leaves from a friends place. They have pecan trees and leaves are plentiful. We thought we had nearly gathered a lifetime supply of leaves, but it turns out we could have used four or five times as many as we collected.

A cousin in Minnesota has the richest garden soil we have ever seen. She attributes her fine soil to the addition of large amounts of leaf and leaf mold over the winter. The leaves degrade and become great soil and the leaves on top are mulch, keeping in moisture and keeping out weeds.

Since our goal is ultimately for our garden to be like Cousin Marian's, we started implementing the leaf plan. We noticed a difference in our soil this year and bugs were not near the problem they were last year!

So, we set out this fall to collecting as many leaves as we could. We were filling lawn and leaf bags, but decided it was more efficient to use a friend's trailer. We've raked hauled and spread more than 40 leaf bags and six trailer loads of leaves!

We also found nuts (heart nuts and acorns) which we shared with our hogs.

The flower bed is in need of pine straw. So I guess we'll be looking to rake up a trailer load of that soon, too!

Glorious eggs!

Eggs have been in really short supply around here. In the fall, as the daylight time gets shorter, the hens slow down their egg production. We didn't even talk about supplementing them with light this year. We completely forgot about it.

In addition to shorter daylight, the hens go into a moult--they shed their feathers and grow new ones. Feathers are made of protein, so when the hens are growing more feathers, there isn't enough protein to make many eggs on top of new feathers.

This year egg production dropped a lot more than I was anticipating and we have only been getting one or two eggs a day! For a while, a dozen eggs was costing about $7 in feed!!! Recently, egg-laying got better (we think they are finished growing out their new feathers) and we are getting three to four eggs a day. We were able to save up enough eggs to have them for dinner. What a wonderful treat!

Katie made several batches of Mexican Roasted Potatoes (these have become a real family favorite) and we cooked up a big batch of homemade bacon from our homegrown pork. Most of us had poached eggs. Vern prefers his fried and I got this photo of these wonderful looking egg yolks!

We're already talking about what kind of egg meal we'd like to have when we've saved up enough eggs for another one!

Pizza night!

Pizza night has been almost every Friday. This last week, we had pizza on Thursday. This time, almost all of the pizza ingredients were homemade. I made the mozzarella and ricotta earlier that day, the pesto, I made earlier this year and froze and I followed and adapted a pizza dough recipe, so everyone could eat it. And the most important part of all, this time I didn't burn the crust... I think I'm finally learning how NOT to burn the crust!

Building a doggy house, part 2

Finally the rest of the doggy house pictures. Owen decided the girls and James needed his experience and helped them finish building it!

Edited: I just checked the blog tonight (11/25) and realized that the pictures didn't show up. Hopefully this will work now! If it doesn't, please leave a comment to let us know.

Building a doggy house, part 1

I was trying to upload all the pictures from building the doggy house into one post, but Picasa isn't letting me upload more than three pictures at a time :(...