Movies and girls

We went to the movies today with Connor.  There was a new movie out that we couldn't wait to see, Percy Jackson and The Lightening Thief.  It was a really good movie.  As the movie began to play Connor sat up very straight in my lap and started watching.  For the first thirty minutes or so he sat and actually watched what was going on!  I am not sure if it was the colors or the sounds but it appeared as if he were enjoying himself!  He sat through the entire two hour movie and didn't make a sound.  He did fall asleep half way through but even when he woke up he didn't make a peep.  It is so very neat to see what a good baby he still is.  All three of my children have been very well behaved from an early age, I am truly blessed to have such wonderful little ones.

We have only two of our four children this weekend and I actually enjoy those times.  It is stressful sometimes with all the children here and the drama that the girls add to the household.  I can't believe I was that "girly" when I was younger.  I do remember some of the crazy things my sister and I used to do though.  Jumping off the motor home, finding baby kittens and trying to bring them all home, calling mom collect from the pay phone across the street and scaring the stew out of her, and once we stood at the end of our street with our friends late at night listening to our dad snoring!!! Mom and dad had left the window open and we were laughing so hard that I thought we would never stop.  I guess I can see how the girls can be so girly because not so long ago I was seven and giggly and fearless!  When they are driving me nuts I should think back to when I was their age and remember how everything seemed to be the end of the world as we know it! 

Food Food and more Food

When I first moved in with my new husband he had recently been to one of those self help seminars.  You know the big personality guy up on the stage telling how to fix your life so you will be happy!  He came back a different person as far as his food preferences were concerned.  Up until that point we were a struggling family of 6, yes we had 4 children at the time, and one of the cheapest meals we could come up with was a whole roasted chicken.  We had two very hungry boys!  Upon returning from this seminar for some reason my loving husband could not bear to eat chicken, pork, even hamburger!!  What had happened to him?  Several months went by and he stuck his nose up at all the meat I was continuing to cook for the children and I still thought he was nuts; until he directed me to a website showing the living conditions of some of the animals living in "farms".  Well then and there I changed my mind about what I was going to put in my mouth.  How awful!!  Now five years later we are still mostly vegetarian although our kids do eat meat when they want most of the time.  I even have chicken nuggets in my freezer for them! 

You never fully realize that what you eat affects you until you have a health problem that was likely manifested because of what you have put in your body over many years of eating unhealthy.  No, contrary to popular belief, fast food is not healthy no matter what their nutrition guidelines say!  My husband was diagnosed with gout over a year ago and guess what they recommend?  Stop eating meat!! Wow!  What a blow to someone who eats meat several times a day!!  So over the past year or so I have began to experiment with food, recipes and trying to make sure our kids eat as little processed food as possible. Not an easy task when you have teenagers that could exist off of pizza!  A couple of nights ago we had something like a Vegetable Gumbo.  Oh my goodness was it yummy!!  Even the kids liked it and they usually groan and moan about soup.  I am going to include the recipe at the bottom of this post! 

Our family does still eat meat on occasion but we are now very picky about the meat we purchase.  We will only eat beef if it is the free range, antibiotic free, grass fed, yes more expensive but well worth it cuts of beef.  We have made the change to this type of beef recently because my husband has had back to back gout attacks since our youngest was born five months ago and he seems to deal better with the organic beef.  We have also been eating more vegetables; according to my son more than he would require in a lifetime!  The good news is we have not had any flu in our house this year and the colds have been limited to the bigger children except for one so far.  I truly believe this is in part due to our eating habits as well as making the children almost bathe in hand sanitizer, probably not a good thing but better than the alternative!  I will continue to keep you updated with our newest recipes and some of our old favorites as we have them.  We have enough almost to compile a cookbook, something I will be continuing to work on!


Vegetable Gumbo

1/2 onion chopped, 1 tbs sunflower oil, 4 tbs butter, 3 tbs flour, 2 cups veggie broth, 2 14 oz. cans italian chopped tomatoes, 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables, 1 cup frozen corn, 1 cup water, 1 cup macaroni, 2 tsp basil, 2 tsp thyme

Saute onion in hot oil over med to low heat until almost translucent.  Add butter and flour stirring constantly until mixture turns light brown, about 10 minutes.  Pour the broth in slowly whisking after each addition to ensure the roux stays smooth with no lumps.  Add tomatoes, vegetables, macaronit and water.  Raise heat to med-high and simmer for 20 minutes or so, or until vegetables are tender and macaroni is done.  Add basil and thyme.  Serve hot with biscuits. 

Beginning

Well here I am beginning a blog, what an adventure this might turn out to be!! I never thought of my life in print! Right now Connor is 5 months old and already growing so very fast. I know our adventures with him will be interesting. He has already began to change so drastically. He was a perfect little baby when he was born. His skin was perfect and even his little head was perfectly round (C-sections are great for that!!). He has truly been a blessing. He has slept almost through the night since he was 2 months old, except when he got his first cold of course. Every day it seems he does something new. He has recently started putting his mouth on your cheek if you ask for kissses; only when he feels like it mind you! He began eating baby food a week ago or so and loves it. He knows that the word "some" means he needs to open his mouth 'cause I am going to put something yummy in there. He looks like a little bird! Being a stay at home mom is very rewarding most of the time. I remember mom being at home with us girls when we were little and going to the beach on most days then coming home and having root beer in frozen mugs. I think I have some mugs I could freeze!! What a wonderful idea for my kids! I still love the beach and wish we could live closer to it so that my children could grow up loving it the way I do. Something about the way the air smells cleaner there, like salt, makes me feel all warm.

Life has turned into the same old daily grind lately and I think we (Connor and I) need to find a way out of that. Beginning some sort of exercise is going to be essential to being able to keep up with things around here. I have been trying to go on walks with Kyrsten (my 7 year old) on most days. She is a good little motivator, very determined! Also, I am working on following FlyLady (http://www.flylady.com/) in order to help curb some of the chaos in the house. Some days I do well, others....well, others I am still in my sweats and slippers when it is time to get the girls from school. The good thing about that one is that if I need things from the store I can send in Beau, my wonderful teenage son, with a list and a debit card and he gets just what is on the list. No more snap decisions where I feel I NEED candy bars! That won't last for long but he is a wonderful help and an awesome boy, although I should tell him that more!

One more thing I am trying to do is to take pictures and post them on different stock photo websites to maybe earn some extra money. I need to be able to take more and more pictures so I can start a website of my own and start promoting it! Maybe I can start doing that now that I am writing a blog. I think momentum will help there. Once you start doing something and continue with it no matter how you feel it becomes habit. If it can become habit that I write a blog or take some pictures I will really be going somewhere! I know once it warms up some it will be easier. I don't know what has happened but 29 degrees in Florida is just not right! I seem to be doing fairly well taking the photos if I can just find more places to go for subject matter. I was even thinking of going to the beach during Spring Break (pray for me!!) in order to get some really nice pictures of sunsets, water, seagulls......if all goes well there will be some beautiful scenery.