Party Time

We'll, hot air balloon themed "party things" don't seem to exist. It probably saved us lots of money in the long run. Daddy used some scrap melamine to make a "dry erasable" hot air balloon. It worked perfectly for table decor, and easy to personalize to boot! The left over plates will be easy to use for the next boy birthday, June will be here before I know it and I will be a mama to a TEENAGER. Oh wow!...actually, mommy brain moment...the next birthday will be Daddy, then 9 days later Clayt turns ONE!

We'll after our previous birthday candle fiasco...we made sure to be extra careful and had no mishaps with the fire! It only took Corban a couple of practice "blows" to blow the candles out (he even got both candles at the same time!) He was cheering for himself after each attempt, it was very cute :) But then everything they do is...we'll most things!




I made the traditional Chocolate Mayonnaise Birthday Cake...I did my best to sneak in a little "health" in there but everybody noticed! I think I would have been okay if I hadn't tried to use half whole wheat flour! But for sure, the extra 1½ cups of sugar wasn't missed at all. Live and Learn, and don't mess with the Mayo-cake flour! (I have a few new ideas for the next go around! *snicker*

Having recent practice opening presents at Christmas...Corban was a PRO this year!



He received a nice variety of Things this year: clothes, Arbonne bath-wash, stacking toys, a nice bit of cash-ola and BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS! which we LOVE!!

Grandma Johnson even found a book with Hot air balloons!

He had a couple of helpers... Josie was the tissue paper queen, pulling them out of the sack magician style, it was so cute, she even showed off the "goods" I suspect Clayt was looking for a tag to taste...



We had a great party with our family, so glad everyone was able to make it over!

Birthday Boy!

We'll our baby boy is officially 2 years old! We celebrated his actual birthday with his first "birthday dinner" We selected "to the best of our knowledge" his favorites...milk, meat & potatoes...there's no denying it, he is his father's son! You will notice a little green on his plate, because I insisted we have a veggie to round out the meal.

The Official Menu:
Grilled Chicken Breast
Onion Roasted Potatoes- Daddy style
Green beans with homemade raw butter
Goat milk for Corban, Raw whole Cow's milk for Everyone Else

We sang to Corban and let the birthday boy have a "cup cake" so he could practice blowing out his birthday candles. We nearly had a "AFV" moment; if only we had been video taping...but we weren't. Evidently mommy..or was it daddy? Whoever it was, needs to practice not crumbling apart the cupcake and dumping lighted candles on the boy. Luckily, the candle was quickly extinguished by Daddies fingers and nothing even caught on fire!

Corban did however enjoy his "cup cake" Mommy found a special recipe for Grain-free Brownies. I think they will make a great addition to our breakfast rotation. They are made out of black beans, eggs, coconut oil and honey. For the party, I whipped up some raw cream with a little stevia and "frosted" them.

super fast

Well, the Daniel fast is over! 21 days of no dairy, refined grains, processed foods, meat or desserts and as far as beverages go I only drank water the entire time. And boy do I feel great!

I let my food nazi-ism slide the last week. We ate some wonderfully de-lish tortilla soup...which I had to get the recipe. It ended up being way beyond my personal guidelines....I just couldn't wrap my brain around dry ranch dip being Daniel fast friendly, and ultimately it is so full of preservatives I think I'd rather come up with a wholesome replacement in the future.... so I skipped that ingredient and just turned the other cheek as I poured in the ranch beans with its "less than 2%" banned ingredient content...and oh yes, the whole wheat tortillas with all those preservatives are definitely a no, but we've managed to almost finish off the 3rd package in less than a week. I had migraine headaches every night I ate the stuff though. hmm, chemicals I imagine. Can't wait on working to reinvent this recipe in a nourishing traditions way and add it to our food menu...in the future...the distant future since we've eaten it about 6 times in the past 10 days and still have leftovers in the fridge. I did find out that its pretty good after being put in the blender and used as burrito filling.

Physically speaking we lost weight (those hard to get rid of, last 8 pounds for me and Eric lost 15 pounds....though he says "I didn't loose weight; I gained health" ), we broke food addictions (chemicals and sugar) and we've seemed to encounter a natural portion control in our eating habits IF we choose pay attention to our bodies and not focusing on the food in our mouth....let me tell you it is so much harder with my favorites.

I broke the fast about 15 minutes after PB called it done...I tested a few crumbs from Corban's birthday brownie cupcakes. It is a new recipe that is friendly to Corban's gluten and dairy free diet. I'll share the recipe AFTER everyone has taste-tested them tomorrow. Eric brought home my favorite..Mr. Mambo's cheese enchilada's. Oh it was hard to not just gobble it all down, but I focused on eating it slow and saved half of my enchiladas for another day. After the first few bites I noticed an odd feeling in my gut, but dismissed it. But 2 hours later my tummy had it's own ideas about the food and afforded me some quiet reading time you know where. I checked out my Nourishing Traditions cookbook and reconfirmed in my mind WHY I need to make changes in our dietary lifestyle.

The fast was the easy part. Holding ourselves to our own standard (and finding a new standard) is a whole new ballgame. But I've been preparing for this day and all last week was quite productive in the kitchen, so I feel at least I'm getting a good start!

We tried out soaking pecans, walnuts and pumpkin seeds and making "crispy nuts" that were very good and nutritionally superior to raw nuts and seeds. We also tried soaking brown rice over night and it was much fluffier, the kids didn't even notice that it was brown rice. I bought a sprouting lid for my mason jars so I can try soaking and sprouting our legumes and other whole grains, but it may be a little while before we introduce them back into our diet...we consumed about 10lbs of beans the past 3 weeks!

Tuesday, I made some garlic-lemonade for the boys who haven't been feeling so great. The dragon breath and burps leave little to be desired, but it seems to really help with the symptoms.

We got our Dairy delivery, raw whole milk, raw cream and cheese on Wednesday from a great friend who let us "hitch-hike" in on her co-op order. THANK YOU!!!!

Thursday, Parker and Perry helped me make a 10 day supply of butter. It's been a while since I last made it, so hopefully it won't take an hour and a half on the next go around! We made it in two batches, as I'm not sure how much is too much for the mixer...maybe next go around I"ll whip up the butter in separate batches, then "clean" it all together as that seems to be the most time consuming part. We made 38 ounces of butter and got 24 ounces of buttermilk out of 4 pints of cream...I think those are decent results. I have one pint of cream that I'm saving to make whipped cream for Corban's birthday cupcakes. Next dairy run, I plan to try making cream cheese and whey The whey will be used to make lots of lacto-fermented vegetables and condiments which provide essential nutrients for proper digestion.

Wednesday, we got our first shipment of coconut oil. I couldn't help but grin at the thought of asking Eric to open it for us as I struggled to lug the 5 gallon bucket through the living room and heft it up on the kitchen table. The kids were as excited as me and wanted to test it out by the spoonful....which of course we did as soon as dad got the lid off for us! He detests the stuff, but I sneak it in when I can. It's tricky.

I made a gallon of yogurt on Friday and a half-gallon of Goat Yogurt for Corban on Saturday. It is amazing to me how much switching to goat dairy HELPS him! With in 5 hours of consuming the milk things start changing for the better. I need to get better at regularly making trips to the Goat farm. I really have no excuse considering its just over 1 mile from the house.

We already use vinegar and water for most of our cleaning, and make our own laundry detergent on occasion, so I decided to try my hand at making some body-care products starting with toothpaste and shampoo. I think both recipes will need some adjustments..but they work wonderfully well. I brushed my teeth before bed and they still felt "dentist-clean" this morning (I guess that is actually hygienist clean, huh?)

So, I guess we're still in progress in figuring the new and improved Johnson family diet. Mr and Mrs Johnson seem to have conflicting different ideas about what is important. So, for now we have our raw dairy, introducing lacto-fermentation and soaking grains, legumes, nuts and seeds and acquiring ingredients for making healthy beef stock. My other endeavor is finding true farm fresh eggs with chickens who are able to be truly free range...and seek out some of their own food, rather than walk outside onto a concrete slab for 5 minutes a day....

Perfect Day

Last weekend we were looking for ways to make changes in our life and Eric asked me what my perfect day looked like. I envisioned ....quiet time with God, quality time for my family, being presentable always, keeping the house "company ready", laundry caught up, keeping track of bills, meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, training and educating the children, and don't forget the all important social networking and recording memories of our life, also known as blogging! Yes, I want to be Janelle English.

Well, I know she doesn't homeschool and not sure if she has a blog (it would for sure be a great one if she did)...but you get my drift if you know her! If you don't know her...she's witty and fun, but confronting if necessary, she loves talking about food, she knows how to organize (and keep it that way), but above all else she's living for God and a great teacher of His word. Ultimately I know God made me who I am for a reason, but I'm thankful for the excellent examples of Godly women, wives and mothers He's put into my life.

So, we sat down and wrote out all the things to try to do and put them into a daily schedule. Simple enough huh? It works amazingly perfect on paper!

The first day I woke up on time, got dressed, started laundry and prepared breakfast. Libby's first comment to me that morning...Are we going somewhere Mommy? hmm, I guess she noticed.

Everything went wonderfully well. Breakfast with my hunny, getting in the Word, fixed my hair, fed the babies...even clayt got some breakfast (as in solid food) for the first time in his 8 months existence, quality meals prepared for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as 2 snacks for the children, one on one time playing with the kids, helping with projects, bills paid, schedules updated, emails sent, training and correcting of children in a nice productive manner, baths and showers for everyone...and we only got to bed 30 minutes late!

So today is day2...and we got a little bit of a late start...must have had something to do with the fact that we got to bed "just a little bit" late. I was able to remove myself from my cozy warm bed in exchange for some somewhat comfy jeans an acceptable colored "black" fuzzy-chenille warm "jacket" with pom-pom ties, that ended up being removed this afternoon. My previous attire- Chenille "movie theatre" carpet jammie pants, and a zip up, ruffle edged 3/4 sleeve, multi-pastel striped fuzzy chenille robe (with pockets!) is going to have to wait until the weekend to come out of the closet again, farewell old friend, see you soon!

I went to the sub freezing garage to start a load of laundry, only to find a load of the children's laundry from yesterday still there. I re-ran the load and moved onto breakfast (which took about 2 times as long as I had planned). Although breakfast was served "on time" I spent my quiet time cooking. I left a bit of a mess from all the cooking and preparation of breakfast when I got distracted by babies needing to be changed and put down for their naps which lead me right into "cleaning time" of the day. Which I am happy to report: successfully completed! And just in time to start serving snacks and preparing lunch.... I spent a little bit of time in the word durning naptime, but more time than I should have working on other blog posts...while I helped Libby with her project and explained how I'm still doing it with her because I will STOP what I"m doing the second she needs help. I see where my self control is lacking. But everyone and their brother, mother and sister know that, if they know me. I"m working on it though!

Paul tells us in Philippians 3:12... Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

And that's just what I plan to do, keep working on my Perfect day schedule until it is attained. Strive to be better each day, learn from my mistakes and make changes. Celebrate the victories, no matter how big or small and above all enjoy and pay attention to the life that I'm living.

Now I best start getting ready for bed...I'm not saying how far behind I am already ;) But my hubby is JUST now on his way home...7 hours of overtime will throw-ya off schedule!

Here we go......

Each year as the time for birthday party planning begins to come around (or, well, several months in advance, because that's how my brain seems to work). I start think about the past year and look for things that stand out as favorites for the past year in that Child's life. Last year, there was no thinking about it, hands down, BANANAS took the cake...and quite literally, I might add, since we served banana cake with banana cream frosting! Okay, time to hop off Memory Lane and back to THIS year!

This year there were a couple close contenders...dogs and pigs...better known as "woof, woof" and "oink". He liked to especially bark at his grandmas, since they both have dogs. Then I'd hear him making his pig noise and searching out each one of his books that had a pig in it He knew right where to look! But most definitely hot-air balloons seem to deserve that special place of honor.

2 years have flown right by,
but not before Corban learned to cry....BALLOON!

He is particularly fond of the Hot-Air type,
that float through the sky
and go bye-bye...

Unfortunately, he doesn't understand
we have no control over where they go
But thanks to the internet we can sit down and watch anytime.
As the video starts he says...Here we go!

Here's the background story:

One wintry afternoon sometime in February 2009, we looked out the back-porch window and saw a huge hot air balloon floating by. We showed Corban and it took a minute for him to see it, and when he did he started saying "boon! Boon!" and then it floated away. At just over 1 year old, Corban didn't quite grasp Dada and Mama explaining that it went bye-bye and we couldn't bring it back, he continued to ask over and over and OVER!

So off to the computer Dada went to find some "boons" We found this nice little trailer for a ballooning DVD and I think we've ALL fallen in love with it. Dada has his special times sharing this video with him and I can tell already that the music has been filed in my heart as one of those childhood moments that will bring me back to the time I was able to cuddle up my little one in my lap and watch the balloons together for the few short minutes while it lasts. It's fun pointing out the different balloons and talking about what's about to happen next. The cutest thing of all is that Corban picked up on Dada saying "here we go" just as it was about to begin, so now as soon as he knows the movie is about to begin, he gets all excited and says here we go, here we go!

Here's the short video: