Talon's dinner

Tonight was Talon's turn to make dinner. He made ramen noodle stir fry at school in home ec. and wanted to make it for the family. So we went to the store together and got all the ingredients and we made it together. It turned out really good! We literally filled the dutch oven full of food and it was all gone fast. Safia and Jaren tried using straws for chopsticks, those silly kids.

Elody toilet training

Elody, at 16 months old, is in full swing toilet training! She actually started a couple of months ago with just first thing in the morning. I would take her diaper off and set her down on the toilet and she would go. Now I have taught her the sign for toilet and she will do the sign when she needs to go. She will have an accident or two a day if I get too busy to take her every hour or if I am gone for a while; but most of the time, she does go on the toilet. I am little strange, different than most moms, I love toilet training! Mostly I love seeing their success and saving on diapers! (We have to put the toilet paper on the back of the toilet because if it is on the roller, Elody will go in there and unwind the whole roll of toilet paper onto the bathroom floor.)

Update on Me!

Well, I thought I would give a little update on me and my condition. I weaned Elody at 15 months. Three weeks later, I finally recommenced my you-know-what. I experienced some pain, but nothing out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary, was that I think it made my prolapsed uterus descend some more. (I developed the prolapsed uterus after Elody was born.) Since then I am in constant dull pain in my abdomen. So... tomorrow I have an appointment to see my OB/GYN. One of my options, which is what I will probably end up doing, is getting a hysterectomy. I also have a couple of herniated walls in my birth canal which I will also have repaired. I have been preparing myself for it, mentally, for over a year now. So I am kinda looking forward to it. At least I won't have to worry about getting pregnant again!

After my appointment tomorrow, I will come back to this post and give an update.

It is now Monday and I have just returned home from the doctor. My surgery is scheduled for October 20th. It will be a laparoscopically assisted vaginal hysterectomy and he will leave the ovaries. He will also do an anterior and posterior repair of the herniated walls of my birth canal. I will have to stay overnight Wednesday night and go home on Thursday. I am actually really looking forward to having this procedure done and overwith. What I am not looking forward to is the doctor and hospital bill! Yuck!!!

I have a RED Head!

I took Angelique to the Family Dollar store for a different reason, but we ended up buying her a red head wig and a black cape so that she can be Jinny Weasley for Halloween. LOVE HER IN IT! She is so cute!

Update on Chickens

Our chickens are now 5 1/2 months old. Some of them are laying now. We get about a half dozen eggs a day. The kids come home from school and go straight out to the hen house to look of eggs. They have nice bright orange yolks and hard shells and taste yummy!

Saturday morning adventure for Jileigh

Saturday morning Jileigh went with her Dad 4-wheeling at the sand dunes for several hours. She had a ball, but is pretty sore today. The sandstone formation with the arches is completely naturally formed and is known as "The Flintstone House". It is pretty cool. In the picture with Jileigh sitting on top of the flintstone house and looking away from the camera you can see the temple in the middle. The view from the dunes is spectacular in all directions.

Happy 10th Birthday Angelique!

On Monday night, Matt's mom and a few of his siblings families came over for Family Home Evening and for Angelique's birthday party. Matt read a few stories from the Heaton Family History book and made the point that we should be grateful that we already have the gospel in our lives and that we have a temple near by.

I made the no-bake cheesecake. I got it from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook, so I figured it would be good. Everyone loved it. I even had a small piece since I made it and I knew the low sugar ratio. Angelique really loved her presents and enjoyed being with her cousins.

Talon told me later that he said sorry to his cousin for hitting him and his cousin accepted his apology. Talon said that it brought tears to his eyes.

My Elody!

Elody loves to play outside. I can't always watch her the whole time. I try to assign a kid to watch her, but they aren't always the best at it. Well,she loves to play in the mud and, unfortunately, eat it as well. I couldn't pick my favorite of these pictures, so I posted them all in the order I took them. She's just too cute! I had already taken her clothes off because she had covered them with sand just before this.

Matt's mom's birthday party

We met with Matt's mom and most of his siblings at the park for his mom's birthday party and dinner. Dinner was nice and the cake, made by Matt's sister Esther, was beautiful. (Jileigh took 3 pictures of Grandma and this was the better of the 3.) The kids had a nice time playing with their cousins, well, up until the end. Talon has two boy cousin's his age. They both have video games and can enjoy visiting about it. Well, sometimes three doesn't work. Talon was getting upset because the other boys were leaving him out and one of the boys was being particularly condescending and ungracious to him. By the end of the evening Talon was pretty upset. The kids were all playing with the dirt clods. The grass was recently aerated and it leaves all these dirt clods around. Anyways, the cousin in question nailed Talon in the face with a dirt clod. This was his breaking point. Talon ran over to him, tackled him down and punched him in the face a couple of times. I was so ticked. Talon was sent to the car and the party ended. This wasn't the first time Talon has lost his temper with him, but it will be the last if I can help it. We've decided that anytime we are at a family gathering and this other cousin is there, Talon has to stay by Matt or by me.


Jileigh took a picture of the moon and wanted me to post it as well, so here it is!

Butternut Squash soup

One day earlier this week, Matt came home from work and decided that he wanted to try to make butternut squash soup. He had eaten it before and wanted to try to replicate it. We looked up some recipes and Matt came up with this. It was sooooo yummy! Elody was the only kid who ate it well. They other kids pieced at it and pureed it to finally consume it. I didn't blame them, it was something new and different to try for the first time. I loved it and had it for lunch for the next two days.

Butternut squash soup

2 medium butternut squash
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
2 T butter
1 T olive oil
5 C chicken broth
6 C milk
1 C cream
1 stick butter
¾ C flour
Dash thyme
Dash nutmeg
Salt, Pepper, garlic powder to taste

(This was as far as Matt got on typing up the recipe. I will try to set him down to finish it.)

A new home for Afro

The time finally came that we needed to find a new home for Afro, our dear rooster. His crow started out really quiet and wimpy, so we didn't think too much about it. Well, not any more. He was loud and clear. We live around a bunch of other homes, so it isn't quite considerate for us to have a rooster. So I took Afro to my friends house that we get our eggs from. I took Jileigh along to hold him. We were kinda sad to see him go, but we can go visit him anytime we want to and we have!

The incredible, edible eggs

Farm-raised, pasture-fed, cage-free eggs are a big part of our diet. I buy them for now from a friend for $2 a dozen. They have nice dark brilliant orange yolks. I feed my kids eggs and I eat two a day. After we have completed a carton, we put the eggshells back in the carton and put it in the pantry to deal with later, Well, later finally came. I had the kids pull out all the egg cartons and put all the shells in a bin. Then we smashed them down and put them out in the compost pile to be tilled into the garden. The cartons we save for the fireplace and now we will save them for our own eggs. A couple of our chickens actually started laying eggs. We get about 2 a day. They are small, but they have dark yolks and strong shells.

low carb pizza

A big part of my life right now is exercising and dieting. I want to get back into my size 8 jeans and have them fit comfortably. So, 6 mornings a week I either bike about 8-9 miles or jog 3 miles. Yesterday morning I jog/walked 4 1/2 miles. Two nights a week I go over to my friend's house for ZUMBA! I was a bit apprehensive about it at first, but now it's almost addicting. I can hardly wait to go. My friend is a certified aerobics instructor and she holds these classes in her garage that most of my friends go to as do I. It is so much fun! I am also doing an pilates ABS video to get my abs in shape. As of today, since I started exercising in the middle of August, I have lost 10 pounds. It has been a really hard journey, but well worth it. I still have another 15 pounds or so to go, so it's going to continue to be a long hard journey. As far as my diet goes, I eat low carb, low starch, and low sugar and I thoroughly enjoy my healthy fats like butter, nuts,and fish! One night I made pizza for the family, but I didn't want to eat a bread crust. So I ground up some almonds, put in ground flax seed and then a couple of eggs and seasonings. I rolled it out, baked it, put the toppings on it, and baked it again. It turned out pretty good, but I don't think I will put the ground flax seed in it next time.

Anyway, life is pretty tough to keep up with. My life consists of fixing breakfast, getting kids off to school, exercising, doing dishes, checking email, facebook and blogging when needed, getting kindergartners home, feeding little kids lunch, doing laundry, tidying up the rooms, cleaning up after kids, preparing an idea for dinner, feeding kids a healthy snack, making kids do homework and chores, making dinner, cleaning up after dinner, bathing kids, having family scriptures, family prayers, getting kids to bed, exercising, showering, and falling into bed.

Peaches, peaches and more peaches

On the morning of Labor Day, we went to the church orchards and gleaned peaches. I think we got a little over our heads. We spent the whole day canning peaches. Then yesterday we did some more in the freezer and in the dehydrator. The kids were really good to stick with us and also to take a turn holding Elody. We were exhausted by then end of the day.

Sunday news

Today Talon passed the sacrament for the first time. He was a bit nervous. He went to church ten minutes early so they could show him what he was suppose to do. He did a really fine job. I lead the music in sacrament meeting so I am right up there and I can watch the boys. None of the other boys sing during the songs and some of them were talking, but I let Talon know before hand that it was not acceptable behavior. He behaved beautifully. He was the only boy singing the hymns and he and another boy were the only ones being reverent the whole time. Kudos to my boy!

So, Elody and weaning. After my last post, I decided to try to feed her more meals to get a little more use to food. It got to where I was nursing her about 4 times a day. Then it went down to three. I was producing less and less milk. Then last week I nursed her only two times a day and then only once a day. I haven't nursed her since yesterday morning. So.... I think we are done! She eating meals so much better. She likes eggs, cowboy toast, muffins, cottage cheese, soups pureed, pancakes and custard, she even ate my homemade cereal. There are more things, but that will do. Now I can get a little more serious about dieting and exercising. I have been for a couple of weeks now and have lost a few pounds. I really like to bike, but I also have been walking/jogging. I am trying to cut down on carbs and starches and sugars. It's hard but the end results will definitely be worth it!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins

The kids went out and picked all the ripe pumpkins out of the garden. The kids were determined to have pumpkin pie. I told them that I wasn't up to all the work, so they did it. They(mostly Jileigh) cut, cleaned out, baked, skinned and pureed the pumpkin. Matt made the pies. The rest of the pumpkin puree, we put in quart size freezer bags for future use!

Saturday tasks

It was a nice hot day yesterday, Saturday, so we did some things outside. First, in the morning, Matt, Talon, the dog and I went for a walk. I have been more consistent with my exercising lately. Then the kids washed the dog. As much as that dog hates water and getting wet, she stood there very patiently and let the kids bathe her. I guess if she continually craves attention, that's one way to get it. Then I got all the kids a scrub sponge and we scrubbed the bottom of the pool. It had some mineral deposits and dried algae on the bottom that needed cleaned up before we put it away. It was kind of fun. The kids soaked themselves, even Elody.

Talon's birthday

For Talon's birthday we had a couple Matt's brothers' families come over to celebrate with us. They both have sons Talon's age. We had a build your own sandwich dinner and Matt made a peach oatmeal cookie bar dessert and homemade ice cream.

Matt's birthday

August 19th was Matt's birthday. He left at 9 am and didn't get back until 4 pm. He went 4-wheeling and hiking up a stream that he wanted to check out. Then we went to dinner. At work the day before, one of the ladies gave him a pineapple upside down cake. So that was his birthday cake.

Sunday fun building a guinea pig house

Sunday, the 29th of August, while the parents were taking a nice Sunday nap, the kids decided to make a guinea pig house for their g-pigs out of VHS tapes. It kept them entertained for a good long time.