Rice Cooker Oatmeal Sundaes

I won't lie to you. Breakfast is a tough meal at our house. A box of cereal doesn't last very long; we run out of bread; I can't fix scrambled eggs anymore (egg allergy in the house now); I can never make pancakes as quickly as I think I can. Then I found an oatmeal recipe that has saved breakfast for me.

My kids like oatmeal but try as I might in making real oatmeal (from steel-cut oats which I love), they prefer the little packets. Yuck. We finally ran out of them about a month ago and the girls wanted oatmeal for breakfast. So I was looking through my cookbooks (I only have one or two.....hundred) for a quick, tasty recipe. And I found one!

Rice Cooker Oatmeal. Brilliant idea.
4 cups water & 2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal in the rice cooker.
Turn it on. Walk away.
(Those are my instructions not necessarily what the recipe in the book says.)

When it's done, put in a little butter (about 1 Tbsp), some brown sugar (maybe 1/4 cup) and 2 tsp or so of maple syrup. Stir it around. Scoop it up into bowls.

But you're not done!

What do you usually put on oatmeal? Cream and sugar, right? Why not vanilla ice cream? It's just cream and sugar. (Thank you Mary Ostyn for this fabulous idea!) So I top the oatmeal with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of maple syrup over the top.

My girls L.O.V.E this oatmeal. They never want any other kind again. And who wouldn't love it? It's creamy and sweet and you get to have ice cream for breakfast!

I took a picture of it but, as you can see, the camera was in a fightin' mood this morning and flat out refused to be in focus no matter what. ARG! I hate it when things get a mind of their own.

Since the picture's not very clear, just imagine a bowl of light-brown creamy oatmeal with a little vanilla bean ice cream sitting in the middle, slowly melting, and a little stream of rich maple syrup around the edge. Yum!

Mason Jars

I love Mason Jars and I don't care who knows it. When I started making apple butter a few years ago, I think the best part of it for me wasn't the apple butter itself (though it was really yummy); it was the jars that I got to buy and use. They are sitting in my cabinet now. Waiting. Waiting to be used for something. Every time I look there, I sigh with delight that I have them. But I need to use them.

Thanks to Pinterest *sigh* I now have about...oh...3,642 ideas for using them.

Your basic candle holder:

Source: candlesphotos.com via Yen on Pinterest

Chandelier:

Source: etsy.com via Tina on Pinterest

Or this one:

Source: etsy.com via Liz on Pinterest

Soap dispenser:

Source: lizmarieblog.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Drinking glasses:

Source: rebekahgough.blogspot.com via Summer on Pinterest

Herb Garden:

Source: decorate.tipjunkie.com via Cassie on Pinterest

Bathroom Storage:

Source: lizmarieblog.com via Robin on Pinterest

Centerpieces:

Source: lovelylittledetails.com via Brittany on Pinterest

Cakes:

Source: thenovicechefblog.com via Jaclyn on Pinterest

Meals:

Source: bigredkitchen.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Sewing:

Source: realphotography.com via EvieandMallow on Pinterest

I could probably go on but I will stop now. So I can go out and buy more jars!

Expect to see ALL of these happening in and around my house in the near future.

Being Thankful

This is a hard one. And it keeps hitting me in the forehead lately trying to remind me. I need to be thankful for everything that I have.

As I sit here and listen to my kids in the kitchen, who are supposed to be eating breakfast but instead are yelling and fighting, it's hard to be thankful that I get to be here with them all the time. If I think about it, of course, I AM thankful but in the midst of the day-to-day grind, it's difficult to remember.

I've talked with friends lately who are struggling with various problems and it makes me pause to think of all the things I ought be to thanking God for. So here goes a short list for today (in no particular order).

I am thankful for healthy children. I have a dear friend who just found out her two-month old baby (her first and only right now) has a degenerative muscle disease which has no cure. Her life expectancy is very short. I don't know how I could face something like that and am very fortunate that I have not had to.

I am thankful that only one of my children has food allergies and hers aren't as bad as they could be. So many people I know have multiple children with multiple allergies - soy, dairy, wheat, egg, peanut, etc. I wonder how these poor children eat anything. I am lucky that my child has only egg and peanut which are not extremely easy to avoid but easier than so many others. Aside from allergies and eczema, she is a happy healthy little girl.

I am thankful that, though we had a rough start, I never had any real problems with pregnancies. I have never suffered miscarriages as so many friends have or had unhealthy/difficult pregnancies.

I am thankful that I have a husband who supports me and the girls. It's not easy living on only one income. But we make it work because it's important to us for me to be home with them.

I am thankful that God pushed me into homeschooling. And He did push me. I didn't want to do it. And there are still days that I don't want to do it but they are fewer and farther between. There is nothing like watching the light come on in your child's head when they understand a concept (like addition or reading). Schooling is something I can't see handing over to anyone else. As much as they drive me crazy, I love spending each day with my kids and learning with them.

I am thankful that my parents are close by and are relatively healthy. And thankful for a wonderful sister and brother-in-law who I desperately wish lived closer to me.

I am thankful for my wonderful friends - both near-by and far away. I get in my weird funks from time to time and feel like no one wants to hear from me and has no interest in me. But if I truly think about it, it's not true. My friends care about me even if they are busy. It's just those stupid insecurities creeping up and taking over my head.

(I have to keep rereading the "thankful for my children" line as I sit here and listen to my oldest screaming, the baby whining about being in her highchair and the middle one knocking the bedroom door. It's one of those times that I wish I wasn't home with them.....but "this too shall pass.")

I am thankful for my home. I don't take care of it like I should but I do love it. Someday, house, I will be better at making time for you.

After talking with a friend last night, I realize that I ought be thankful for my body even though it's imperfect. That one.....well, that will take some time. But that's for another post another day.

A few months ago our pastor preached on this verse and it impacted me greatly. I have it on the wall in our home and have been trying to live by it.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  - I Thessalonians 5:16-18

I better stop hiding and go get my day started with the kiddos. Take a minute to count your blessings today. You'd be surprised how blessed you are when you really think about it.

How Do I Love Thee

Unless you have not had internet access for the last several months, you've probably at least heard of Pinterest. You may not know what it is....I didn't for a long time. Then a few weeks ago, my interest was piqued by the sheer number of my friends and acquaintances who were "pinning." I figured I better check it out.

After receiving my invitation to join, I was super excited to get on "pin." But once I got in there, I had no idea what to do. It took a couple of days to really understand this virtual bulletin board. Now I am in love. How did I live without this?

I have found:

• delicious recipes
• useful recipes for things like homemade laundry detergent and lotion
• craft ideas for me to make
• activities for kids to do
• tips for our homeschool
• new websites and blogs to explore

I have tested out so many things from Pinterest that I thought maybe I should share some.

First up, the little item I made today. Whipped Coconut Oil Body Butter. I actually made it for my one year old. I have been using coconut oil on her skin with moderate success. This "recipe" has you whip coconut oil in a stand mixer with a teaspoon of Vitamin E liquid (great healing for her skin too) and a few drops of essential oil, if you want. I threw in my two ingredients (no essential oil for fragrance), turned on the KitchenAid mixer, and went back to fixing breakfast. Seven minutes or so later, it was done!

It is so much easier to smooth on her skin and did doesn't feel as slimy. I may have to refrigerate it as it's starting to get a bit runny in her room. But so far I am pleased. I might make another batch to keep in my bathroom (it's a cold as a refrigerator in there anyway).

Here's the official link (taken from pinterest) to the blog. (No I haven't taken a picture of it....I forgot to do it when everything was mixing and I just have it in a plastic container so it's not very pretty right now.)

I will post about more Pinterest finds soon. If you have any great pins to share, let me know!

Cookies With Apparently Nothing

A couple of days ago, I was looking for gluten-free products to try as I'm embarking on this new adventure trying to figure out how to help my youngest. I don't know if gluten is a problem or not but thinking it might be worth a try. I was in the baking aisle and found this.



Peanut-free, dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, wheat-free, gluten-free chocolate chip cookies.

What the heck, I figured. I know she needs to be peanut-free and egg-free....and possibly gluten-free. I made the cookies this morning and I'm here to report.

The cookies, first of all, were difficult to mix. The directions said to stir and the little picture showed a spoon. Butter, water, vanilla and the powdered mix were all I needed. But it stir well at all - even with really soft butter. I ended up creaming, which seemed to work fine. They baked up nicely. Very light and airy.

My little girl, who has never had a chocolate chip cookie before, seemed to like them. My husband declared they were light and he could stand eating them. I think they are a bit grainy and gritty. But overall the flavor isn't too bad.

The good news is that the baby's face didn't go all red when she ate the cookie. Though with chocolate chips smooshed all over her face, I can't be 100% sure.

A dear friend from my homeschool group is going to share some family approved recipes that are gluten-free. All five of her children are sensitive to gluten, and she is too. So she has had to experiment over the last several years. I'm hoping that I can benefit from her trials and errors. Then we'll can see if going gluten-free helps my little one.

Food and Frustration

My kids have gone through spurts of being picky eaters and then spurts where they aren't. Currently my six year old is ready and willing to try anything (she loves sushi - particularly eel). My four year old will try something new if I force the issue but generally she'd rather have goldfish, chicken nuggets and chocolate milk. My one year old....well she doesn't get to consciously choose to be a picky eater. Her body is doing it for her. So far we've had two semi-scary allergic reactions of egg and one fairly scary allergic reaction to peanut (her one and only exposure). I have an epi-pen with me at all times.

When we went to the allergist when she was 10 months old, the skin test showed egg (which we knew), peanut (which she had never had), and wheat (which she was already eating). The allergist suggested that maybe it was a wheat allergy that was triggering her eczema. So we took away all wheat from her for three weeks. At that time, it wasn't too difficult. She just went back to eating mostly baby food. She didn't love it but she didn't know too much else. The eczema didn't improve so we went back to eating wheat.

Now the eczema won't improve - we've got prescription steroid creams, lotions, oils, etc. Nothing helps for more than a week. In addition, she has been having difficulties with her bowels. So we're back to thinking gluten might be a problem after all.

I've learned that going off one food for one family member is really difficult. As a result, my family is pretty much living peanut-free and egg-free (as much as possible). Eating out is really difficult unless I bring food for the baby. And doesn't that defeat the purpose of eating out in the first place? Besides which she's old enough to see what everyone else is eating. That's what she wants. She won't eat something different.

So now how to go gluten-free for my whole family when my older kids don't have to and probably don't want to do without their bread and goldfish. I make all our bread anyway but I'm finding that many gluten-free bread recipes need more stabilization so they call for, you guessed it, eggs. And egg substitution is hit and miss. There are several things you can try but there is no one solution. Things like Egg Beaters are made from eggs so those are out. I've seen flax-seed with water, egg replacer (ore egg remover as my oldest calls it) with water, applesauce, baking soda with vinegar...but it's all trial and error.

There's my frustration for today. I like to cook and I love to bake and this has been difficult for me. For all of us.

Looking for egg-free recipes that are actually good. And possibly gluten-free (or at least smaller amounts of gluten) recipes as well. I'll be talking the doctor about all this again when we go in a few weeks.

The recipe search is on!

LurNiNG to SpeL is Hard

Since my oldest is in first grade this year (I'm trying to use grade levels with her to give her an ability to talk to people about what grade she's in instead of staring at them going, I don't know....but I'm six years old), I thought we probably ought to start on spelling. I'm finding that a lot of homeschool spelling curriculum doesn't really start until grade 3 but I found one that I really liked for first grade.

Horizons Spelling and Vocabulary is really like most spelling programs.
Monday - you go over the new rule(s) for the week and give the child a sort of pre-test to see what they already know and how they put the rule into practice. Then they rewrite the words they misspelled and have a short one-page worksheet.
Tuesday - review the rule(s) again and another one-page worksheet
Wednesday - review the rule(s) again and another one-page worksheet
Thursday - review the rule(s) again then they usually write a short story or letter to a friend using as many of the week's spelling words as they can. Frequently the writing is about a Bible story which is an aspect that I really like.
Friday - a spelling test

Pretty standard. This is the kind of program that you might do in regular school (minus the Bible part of course). This is the kind of program that I loved. Worksheets! I loved doing worksheets as a kid. I could do them as quickly as I wanted, could go back and double-check my work to make sure I was happy with it all, and then I usually had some free reading time because I finished before the other kids.

My child is NOT like that. Perhaps it's because she's not in a regular classroom with the peer pressure to get it done as quickly as possible or as correctly as possible (that was probably my imagined peer pressure as well since I can remember that lots of kids goofed off when they were supposed to be doing worksheets). Perhaps it's just her personality/learning style that she doesn't do well sitting and writing on worksheets. Perhaps first grade is too young to start formal spelling.

One of the homeschool programs I really like (though I don't use formally) is Sonlight. Their recommendation is to wait on spelling until third grade. Let the constant reading (and I do mean constant reading - both child-read and parent-read and audiobooks) teach the child how to spell. They will be familiar with the phonics rules and sight words from their constant reading and will be better prepared to be good spellers when they reach third grade.

I definitely remember doing spelling in third grade. It's when I started at a new (good) school and learned phonics. I already knew how to read before I started Kindergarten but learning phonics opened my whole world. I became an excellent reader and speller. I don't remember doing spelling before third grade but it could be my poor memory or the fact that I wasn't in the best school with the best teachers or  it could be that we really didn't do it.

So now I wonder if I should continue doing spelling with my daughter or not. I have already given up the Horizons Phonics and Reading program which I also loved. But my child would NOT do the blasted worksheets. It wasn't worth the headache so I dropped it in favor of more book reading. And I felt she wasn't losing out on the phonics because she was still getting the exact same rules in the spelling curriculum. (I do still use the reader from the Horizons read program since each story employs a certain phonics rule and there are reading comprehension questions at the end. But no more reading/phonics worksheets.) I just don't know. She is a very good reader. She tested at a fourth-grade reading level (based on a couple of quick reading assessment tests I found online) and she has excellent reading comprehension.

If I drop spelling too and wait another year and a half until she is third grade, am I letting my child make the decision (which doesn't really fly with me) or am I doing what's best for her current education and sanity (and my own sanity)?

It's Only 10AM?!?!

My day so far has consisted of screaming children, fighting children, blood and tears (both mine, sadly), threats, torn pants (again, mine, sadly), whining....and not a lick of school work!!

I really very strongly dislike Mondays (trying to stop using the word "hate" even when it might be appropriate as the girls are using it). Please can my day be over now?

Why Must I Have A Title?

Oh the pressure of coming up with a clever title to go with my post's topic. Once in a while I'm inspired. But this is not one of those times. Nor is this one of those times that I have a good topic. I come up with lots of ideas in the middle of the night when I'm trying desperately to get my one year old back to sleep. But in the harsh light of day (yes, 7am feels harsh to me when I've been up half the night with one or more of my kids), I can't remember either a) why I thought the topic would be remotely interesting or b) what exactly it was that I wanted to say about the topic or c) even what the topic might be. Guess I need to start making a list.

Till then, I'm off to make something else. Breakfast for my kids. Have a good day.

(Not Hot) Pockets

No, I'm not here to talk about Hot Pockets (gross) or Jim Gaffigan (love him). I just discovered History Pockets and Literature Pockets. Awesome idea for homeschool or even "regular" school reinforcement.

I ordered Life in Plymouth Colony and Native Americans for my oldest. I also ordered Folktales and Fairy Tales Literature Pockets for the two oldest (6 and 4) girls. I can't wait to get started! The idea is to make booklet on the topic. Each "page" is a pocket for a different topic, like sailing on Mayflower, or a colonial home, or the Sioux tribe. Each pocket has a lesson to read to the child and specific crafts for them to do to reinforce the learning. Plus it's fun. The first one we'll do is sailing on the Mayflower. There are vocabulary words to learn in addition to making the Mayflower and a trunk where the child will decide which four things they would take to the New World. So fun! I can't wait to get started on these. I'll let you know how they work out!