This Moment: Love My Learning Tower

The Learning Tower we got for Valentine's Day is as awesome as I had hoped and dreamed. No more Penelope standing on a chair with the possibility of her cracking her head open at any moment.

She LOVES to stir and help. I put about a cup of dried lentils in a bowl and she stirred them for a good 15 minutes.

And then she thought it would be a good idea to dump my entire bottle of Paprika onto the floor and counter. Oh well, the mess is so worth it. And yes, that is a Cuisinart food processor circa 1983 that I bought at a garage sale for $10 and works like a charm.

I love having her in the kitchen with me and hope it continues for the rest of her life. I hope that she will never have to go through what I went though/still go through in regards to having to teach myself how to cook. I really believe that part of being a good parent is not only feeding our children healthy foods, but teaching our children how to actually prepare and cook healthy foods for themselves one day.

But that's a topic for another day.  Today just want to say GO GET A LEARNING TOWER!!!

DIY Placemats

I made these place mats the other week from this tutorial for kids place mats for a girly tea party set.  I can't wait to make a tiny version for Penelope.

I had been wanting to buy some new ones for awhile, I have had the same place mats for a long time and was so sick of looking at them night after night, but I didn't want to buy any new ones.

I had enough left over fabric from this project and loved this fabric enough to look at it all the time.  It just says Spring!

I didn't have enough for the backs, so I cut up an old shower curtain, that I had recently used for a table cloth for Penelope's birthday. 

And viola! Super cute place mats! You can follow the same tute to make matching napkins as well.
I will say that this project took a good amount of time, but it's worth it!

Homemade Organic Blonde Highlights

The other week I attempted to highlight my hair at home using all organic materials. In an effort to save money and not put the chemicals into my body from the highlights at the salon.  I whipped up a recipe based on a couple I found online, here and here.

I boiled 5 bags of organic Calendula tea in about 2 cups of water.  Next time I am going to try less water, like half of a cup,  in order to make more of a paste instead of something liquid.

Once the tea was done, I added the juice of 4 organic lemons, about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar.

Then I added another 1/2 cup of local, organic Tupulo honey. 

Penelope kept doing the sign for hat, while she was watching me do the highlights.  She thought I put one some crazy tin foil hat.

Making the recipe was easy-peasy, actually applying it, is when things turned into a sticky mess. I tried, in vein, to put the liquid on like they do at the hair salon. So parted my hair and used a wooden skewer to make little weave sections of my hair. You know what I am talking about? How at the salon they use the pointy end of a comb to section your hair to make the highlights look natural? And then they cover it with a foil.

Yeah, well that shit didn't work for me. So I ended up just dumping the liquid on my head and let it sit for 20 minutes. It made a huge mess in my bathroom sink, but at least it was tasty and no chemicals in my eye or in the air for Penelope.

Then I washed my hair like normal. When my hair was dry, I did in fact see a difference. All my blond highlights I have from getting them done professionally in the past, were much lighter. But it did nothing for my dark roots or for my white hairs, so in my case it was a flop.

But if YOU have dirty blond hair naturally and want some subtle, natural highlights, this is perfect.

I froze the rest of the batch that I didn't use, so next time I will try to go outside and let my hair dry in the sun- the effect is suppossed to be stronger that way.

This post is apart of The Healthy Home Economist's Monday Mania.

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 6, What Holds Us Back?

Here are my favorite quotes from Chapter 6.

"Everything up to this point leads us to one overwhelming question: Why do we do it? If conditional and control-based parenting are really as bad as they say they are-and more important, if they're as bad as scientific research and real-world experience show they are-then why are they so popular? Or to put it differently, what holds so many of us back from being better parents?"

"The reasons we parent as we do might be said to fall roughly into four categories: what we see and hear, what we believe, what we feel and, as a result of all those, what we fear."

"It's the most obvious explanation for why we treat our children as we do: We learned how you're supposed to raise kids from watching how someone raised us."

"The less aware we are of that learning process, the more likely we are to reproduce parenting patterns without bothering to ask whether they make sense.  It takes some effort, some sharp thinking, even some courage to step back and decide which values and rituals ought to find a place in our new families and which ones are pointless and even pernicious."

"Bad discipline is easy.  Very little is asked of us when we respond to children's misbehavior by doing something unpleasant to them. "Doing to" strategies are mostly mindless.  "Working with" strategies, on the other hand, ask a lot more of us."

"Our culture isn't especially supportive of children in general, nor is there a surfeit of fondness for particular children unless they're cute and well behaved."

"If kids are not held in great esteem, it becomes easier for parents, even basically good parents, to treat their own kids disrespectfully."

"A study of more than three hundred parents found that those who held a negative view of human nature were more likely to be very controlling with their kids."

"If we wonder why parent-child relationships are so often adversarial, we have to understand this as one more symptom of a hyper-competitive society.  The moms and dads who are most likely to try to control their children, and who do the most damage to them, are the those who need to win."

"Lots of people believe that when any individual, even a small child, does something bad, then something bad should be done to that individual in return. So many parents see punishment as a moral imperative."

"As a rule, when your basic emotional needs have not been met, those needs don't just vanish when you're older.  Instead, you may continue to try to satisfy them, often in direct and even convoluted ways.  That effort sometimes requires an exhausting, near-constant focus on yourself in order to prove that you really are smart, or attractive or lovable.  What's more, the people who need you to focus on them, notably your children, may find you emotionally unavailable."

"What distinguishes truly great parents is their willingness to confront troubling questions about what they have been doing and what was done to them."

"We're unlikely to meet our long-term goals for our kids unless we're ready to ask the following question: Is it possible that what I just did with them had more to do with my own needs, my fears and my own upbringing than with what's really in their best interest?"


Phew! That was a lot, but it was a very important chapter.  What struck you the deepest?

Crafty Birthday Presents

These are some birthday presents I made recently. I bought two yards of this fabric at Joann's the day after Christmas. I pretty much bought my fabric stash for the year in one day for $60. I refuse to buy anything unless it's on sale.

This sweet pillow case dress was for a birthday girl's 1st Birthday present.

This pot holder was supposed to be entered into Prudent Baby's pot holder contest. The prize was a new sewing machine. Once they started posting pictures of submissions as they were coming in, I quickly realized I had no shot in hell in winning (it was not a random drawing, they were picking the winner based on craftsmanship). But nonetheless, it came out pretty cute. Here is the tute.

I gave the potholder to my friend Tara for her Birthday along with this mason jar pin cushion. She likes to sew too, so I thought it would be cute in her crafting nook. Both were a hit!

Don't you just love giving handmade gifts?!

10 Ways to Add Yoga to Your Daily Life

1.  Start your day off with yoga.  Before you even get out of bed do a simple child's pose or cat/cow.  If you are even more motivated, do a couple of sun saluations and literally greet the sun with yoga!

2.  While in the car driving, you can chant Om or Sat Nam.  This is great to do if you are feeling rushed and scattered.  It's also a double wammy of distracting a fussy baby/toddler.  Penelope loves to chant Om with me.

3.  I usually to a modified down dog in the shower, like I do at the couch sometimes.  I also usually roll my shoulders and stretch my neck, by dropping my ear towards my shoulder on both sides, while the hot water beats down on my muscles.

4. Play a yoga game with your little one.  Penelope likes to help me stretch these days by pressing on my back as I do a forward bend to reach my toes. Or she likes to crawl underneath me and play peek a boo while I do Down Dog.

5.  While I am laying down and nursing her to sleep, I like to roll and stretch my ankles.  I point and flex my feet several times. Often times this is called "pumping" your feet, and it is a great way to increase circulation to your feet and help your lymphatic system work better (which is what helps take out toxins in your body), if you are pregnant or just tired and on your feet all day, read: All Moms.  Sometimes if I can finagle it, I will even bring both my feet into the air and do legs up the wall pose.

6. Before I sit down at the computer to write, I stretch my wrists in all directions.  I also roll my neck and shoulders.

7. If I pass a door way, I try and stop and stretch my shoulders by facing the door way and putting my hand on the wall then slowly turning my body away from the wall.

8. Do yoga with your child.   In order for your child to learn the yoga poses, you have to actually get up and show them how to do it.  Take full advantage of this time and enjoy the stretch for yourself as well as teach your little one.

9. If you are cleaning up a toy box or sorting laundry, try doing it while squatting.  This is a powerful yoga pose for any woman, it aids in digestion, promotes blood flow and circulation to reproductive organs and keeps inner thighs strong and flexible.

10. Take 10 deep breaths while doing the dishes or folding laundry.  Try to breath in through your nose and out through your nose as slow and even as you can. At the same time, try to focus completely on your breath.  Bringing your full awareness to your breath.  If your mind wanders, and trust me it will, just be kind and come right back to your breath and try again.  Remember that in order for stretching to be yoga, all you have to do is breath.  No matter what your pose looks like, as long as you breathing you are doing yoga.

What do you do to incorporate yoga into your daily life?

Protandim Lunch and Learn at Good Friends Fitness

My next informational meeting about Protandim will be at Good Friends Fitness, March 5th from 12:30 to 2p

FREE lunch catered by The Kitchen Goddess and on-site child care by Seminole Sitters will be provided.

Dr. Susan Chase, a Dean at UCF's School of Nursing and a Independent LifeVantage Distributor will be presenting. 

This is going to be an amazing opportunity to learn more about Protandim and how it can change your life. If you have been following along and doing your own research, Dr. Chase will be the perfect person to ask detailed questions.

Please RSVP to the event here.  It will take a second to register on GFF site, but I would really appreciate an RSVP so I can have the correct amount of food.

Please RVSP here for childcare as well.  We need to know exactly how many children will be there to have the correct sitter to child ratio.

If you are looking for information about how to live healthier, come!
If you are looking for a career change or a way to bring added income into your household, come!
If you are a business owner, and looking to diversify and add additional revenue streams to your current business, come!
And p.s. if you think network marketing is a pyramid scheme, watch this short cartoon! It's hilarious!

This blog is obviously catered to moms, but Protandim is for everyone.  If you have family or friends you would like to bring, please do!


Here are some links to more information if you haven't checked them out before:

This is a 9 minute Primetime video that was done on Protandim.

This is a post I wrote about why I started a home business selling Protandim.

This is a post I wrote about what exactly Protandim is.

This is a post I wrote about inflammation and how Protandim can help.

And lastly, this is a post I wrote about Breastfeeding and taking Protandim.

If you are not local, you can look for a meeting in your area by clicking here.

Broccoli Quiche

Broccoli Quiche was one of the first things I really learned how to master.  One of the first recipes I could make without having to study a recipe for 20 minutes while I siked  myself up and mentally prepared to get in the kitchen.

Before I became pregnant with Penelope, I was a hot mess in the kitchen, for some reason I couldn't even follow a simple recipe.

Anything I figured out how to cook, was from someone showing me how.  This is also the first recipe where I started playing and getting creative with the ingredients and experimenting with different things.  I have made this with spinach, arugula, mushrooms, leeks, etc and lots of different cheeses.  I often put a pound of bacon in it too. It's a great way to use up whatever veggies and cheese you have on hand.  Or in my case, what's ready in the garden!

It is such a simple, cheap and nutritious meal. We eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  You just dump everything into a bowl, mix it up, then dump it into the pie crusts and bake.

My recipe calls for more eggs than the average quiche, but when I think about eating a serving of quiche I want to make sure that there are at least two eggs in my serving to meet nutritional needs.

I always make two, one to eat right away and one to freeze for later.

Here is my recipe, it is adapted from a recipe in Willam's and Sonoma breakfast cookbook that Peter's mom got me years ago.

1.5 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
6 whole eggs
5 egg yolks
veggies, sauteed in butter first before adding to the mix.
1 cup of shredded cheese
Salt, pepper, mustard, and tarragon spices.

Cook at 375 for an hour.

Sometimes I make the pie crusts from scratch and use Peter's great, grandmother's recipe or I buy organic whole wheat ready made. You can buy sprouted whole wheat flour from this site if you want to make your own from scratch.

This Moment: Good Mornin!

Took this picture last week after eating her breakfast of egg and blueberries. She woke with her hair all crazy and it stayed like that all day!

Valentine's Day Skirt

I made this skirt for Penelope for her Valentine's Day outfit.  It was so easy! Even easier than a pillow case dress.

It took me about 15 minutes, no joke.  And a half a yard of fabric.  I got a yard of this fabric from Joann Fabric's the day after Christmas for like $4.  I had a little fabric left over and made her a little matching head scarf.

       I made it a little long so she can wear it for awhile.

Isn't she an angel? Oh, I love her so much.

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 5, Pushed to Succeed

Here are some of my favorite quotes from this chapter:

"As the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm once lamented, "Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children's happiness than for their success."

"Obviously, there's nothing wrong with being proud of our kids.  But when the bragging seems excessive-when its too intense, or too frequent, or starts up too quickly-it's possible that the parent's identity is a little too wrapped up in the child's accomplishments."

"There's a huge difference between a student whose objective is to get a good grade and a student whose objective is to solve a problem or understand a story.  What's more, the research suggests that when kids are encouraged to focus on getting better marks in school, three things tend to happen: They lose interest in the learning itself, they try to avoid tasks that are challenging, and they're less likely to think deeply and critically."

"The more we want our children to (1) be lifelong learners, genuinely excited about words and numbers and ideas, (2) avoid sticking with what's easy and safe, and (3) become sophisticated thinkers, the more we should do everything possible to help them forget about grades.  Better yet, we'd want to encourage teachers and principals to minimize (or even eliminate) the use of grades."

"Some parents don't offer money for straight A's; instead, they pay off their kids with affection and approval.  In effect, they're using their love as a lever to get their kids to succeed-to the point that their children may come to feel as though their parents' positive feelings for them rise and fall with grade point average."

"The research overwhelmingly showed that competition holds people back from working or learning their best."

"To the contrary, people who know they're loved irrespective of their accomplishments often end up accomplishing quite a lot.  Being accepted without conditions helps them to develop a healthy confidence in themselves, a sense that it's safe to take risks and try new things.  From deep contentment comes the courage to achieve."

Valentine's Day Mantel Idea's

This is what my Valentine's Day mantel looks like.  It's meh-so, so but it was fun and got my creative juicing going.  I don't have very many Valentine's Day decorations, so this is just something I threw together to have something in the house decorated for sweet Penelope.

 

I mod podged these rocks from our back porch with little heart shaped pieces of scrap fabric.  I saw the idea from this blog.

       Then I dumped some Sweetheart candy in some champagne glasses from my cabinets.

Then I made a heart shaped garland with scrapbook paper I had on hand. I just cut out hearts from a plastic template thingy I have and hole punched two holes on either side of the heart. It's a heart shaped hole punch that I got at Micheal's years ago, they still have them. And strung them together on a piece of ribbon.

Here, here and here are couple of other cute hand made Valentine's Day decoration ideas to check out.

What have you Mama's been up to?

Toddler Smoothie Recipe

I started making fruit smoothies for Penelope when she was about 8 months, maybe even a little younger, I can't remember. Note to self for next baby: write shit like that down!!

My love for smoothies has just gotten deeper over time.  They are a powerhouse and workhorse in my arsenal for making sure Penelope gets all her nutritional needs met in a given day. As she gets pickier and pickier, navigating her way through toddlerhood and loving the realization that she can say NO! To EVERYTHING!  She used to eat anything I put in front of her: pickles, salmon, green peppers, whatever. Now, she still eats well, she just eats only certain foods. And it changes every day. One day she is a freak about bananas and peanut butter and the next she acts like its poison and gives me a look of how DARE I offer such a thing to her.

She gets a full mason jar of smoothie per day.   Sometimes a little more, sometimes less. I give it to her throughout the day. As a snack or apart of her meal, depending on her mood. No mater what I put in it she loves it. She has never turned her smoothie down, Thank You Jesus and Knock On Wood.

As for the recipe, it varies from week to week. I play with the combination of fruit to give her variation, or because something was on sale, but I always have a base of strawberries and blueberries, her all time favorite fruit, and then add whatever else I feel like.

I mix a full frozen bag of organic strawberries, a full bag of blueberries, then like half a bag each of two other types of fruit. Then I add a half bag of veggies, like frozen peas and usually a banana or two. One mom I know adds a bottle or two of pureed green veggie baby food. I have another friend who puts whole kale or spinach in hers and another puts spirulina in hers.  You could probably get away with putting a tablespoon or two of a powder veggies supplement.

When I blend it together, I add a tiny bit of fresh juice that I juice myself. Before I had a juicer, I bought the best organic juice I could get. I put in just enough to help with the blending and to give a little sweetness to the smoothie to make sure she eats it. One of  friends puts raw honey to add sweetness.

Then I pour the big batch of smoothie into individual jam sized mason jars. I label the top with the date and put them in the freezer.  As I go through the week I pull them out and defrost it the fridge.


Now comes the really nutritious part of the smoothie!

Once the mason jar has defrosted, I pour half of the smoothie into another clean mason jar. So I have two mason jars half full of the pure fruit smoothie.

Then I add one raw egg yolk, yes I said raw.  When she is older, I will probably start adding two egg yolks.

Then I add fresh, raw yogurt, that I make myself. When I first started making her smoothies, I added coconut milk keifer and then later I used raw cow milk kiefer. And only in the last month, I have been doing yogurt instead of keifer. I think she prefers the taste of yogurt.

Then I add more fresh juice, usually spinach-apple. This juice has very little apple, and mostly spinach.

By the time I add the egg yolk, the yogurt, and spinach juice the mason jar is filled back up again.

Adding the raw egg yolk and the yogurt add lots of protein to balance out the sugar of the fruit, so her blood sugar doesn't spike after drinking it. With the egg yolk and yogurt and spinach, you couldn't ask for a more perfect snack or accompaniment to a meal.  And by not freezing the egg yolk, yogurt and spinach, she is getting tons of raw, fresh ingredients chock full of important enzymes, good bacteria and nutrients.

Now, go make your tot a smoothie!  Oh, and I drink some too!  This is a perfect snack for any mom, especially a trying-to-conceive, pregnant, nursing mom.

My Craft Space

This is what my little craft nook looks like. It's in a corner of Peter's office, where he spends his time on important things like reading ESPN. And across from Penelope's playroom, our old dining room. Not that I can sit and sew while she plays in there happily by herself, but at least its an option for when she is older.
Peter got the desk for me at IKEA, after we sold our dinning room table on Craigs's List.

As for the top shelf, I tried to come up with a visually pleasing way to organize some of my craft supplies and scrap fabric. It gets a so-so in my book, but I can't think of anything else right now. It's a work in progress. I was thinking of maybe getting some those wooden hoop thingys that people use for embroidering and putting some pretty fabric in them...like this craft room, on the wall behind the desk.

Any other ideas would be appreciated!

No Sew Baby Cowl

This winter Penelope has worn a scarf or cowl pretty much every day.  I am a little nutty when it comes to keeping her warm, but its only for her health's sake.


Your body actually perceives cold as stress.  And when you are cold, your body spends energy keeping your organs warm and functioning and it diverts energy away from your extremities and immune system and other things.  There is also a bit of Traditional Chinese Medicine and even Aruvedic medicine that puts emphasis on keeping your neck warm to stay healthy. In China, they actually have pregnant women wear scarves in the summertime to keep them healthy...or so I have heard, I've never actually been to China.


And then there's the cutest factor.  Penelope always looks so adorable in her little cowls. Another added bonus: Penelope can't rip the cowl off, like a regular scarf, because its looped around twice. 


I have to give credit, where credit is due, I did not come up with this awesome idea.  A woman named Tara did.  You've heard of her before, she came up with this recipe that was a big hit. And I quoted her in yesterday's raw egg yolk post.  She made all of these for Penelope for her birthday and Christmas.

                                                 

I bought the dress I am using to make the cowl from a thrift store for 5 bucks!  I want to use the majority of it to make a pillow case dress, so I took one of Penelope's dresses and used it as a pattern to see how much I needed to save for the dress portion and how much I could use for the cowl portion.

This is so easy, it almost seems silly explaining it! All you do is take a big shirt, or dress in this case, and cut a piece off as wide as you want the cowl. That's it. Really.

Then put it on baby and loop it around twice and Ta Da!  No Sew Baby Cowl!
Don't you just want to eat her?!?


Here she is modeling a few of her favorite outfits and coordinating cowls:

Her ear warmer in the picture above was also made by Tara. She cut off the sleeve of an old sweater dress and sewed it together. Where she sewed it together she gathered it a bit and tied a bow around it for added cuteness.  I can't even describe how much I love this thing. Penelope HATES wearing hats, but she will wear her ear warmer. She never lets me put a bow in her hair anymore, but I can get away with one on her ear warmer!