Peg People.

I have seen these peg people all over Pinterest, and knew I wanted to make some for the boys. They're wooden toys that I paint, that is so up my natural play alley. I think the little baby ones painted as children are PRECIOUS but I only bought "grown up" pegs so all my people have to be grown. How sad.

A while back, before Christmas, I made Jude a farm play mat. He has a wooden farm house that he sets on the mat and plays farm with it, it's really cute. So we needed a farmer and his ginger haired wife! First up- the farmer and his ginger haired wife:





Their stomping grounds:



The King and Queen



their townspeople







group shot!



Excuse the backgrounds on the pictures, it's 7 am.

Right now Dylan is very interested in these people. He wants me to make him some people that work on the train tracks and a train driver. I think I could work that out....

Happy Saturday! Peace.

Static.

I have had a frustrating past few days. Everything that's going on is creating a noise in my head, a lot like static. It all just jumbles together into one big overwhelming ridiculousness.

School is back in session after the long luxurious holiday break. I don't like school (still). I don't like it for my children because my children learn differently than I feel mainstream children learn, and my kids aren't mainstream. And they're being shoved into this box to learn a certain way and memorize things to pass tests but they aren't actually learning and now there is confusion with what to memorize and what to learn. I know the solution to this, but not everyone is on board. Static.

I am working on an epic baby blanket and it all came together beautifully until the final step when I realized one of my fabrics was not made of what I thought it was, and now I have to go an entirely different way with it, or scrap it. Static.

Jude was breastfed until he was 15 months old. I nursed him to sleep every time he went to sleep until 4 months ago when I put him on bottles for naps and night time so he could still suck to sleep and "control" the flow of the milk. I took his bottle away and traded him a sippy cup to sleep with and he has.. ahem.. protested. I'm not sleeping. He's not sleeping. And I realized that the only reason I have a "thing" about him having his bottle at night, is because other parents want their babies off of bottles by 1 yr (Dylan and Hayden slept in cribs and took formula and bottles and they got off of bottles completely by 1 yr so this is a contributing factor to my thing) so I suppose I'm trying to be socially acceptable... at the expense of what my child really wants. I'll figure out what is going to work best for us, without societal influence, but until then... static.

Remember that post about moving on a while back? Yea, well. We made the decision to stay here. Take care of and build up what is ours (we literally bought these houses in August) so that when the time to leave is right we don't have a bunch of loose ends. So we are not leaving. We are going to build another bedroom onto our house so we have more space. Dylan, on the other hand, talks about our house burning down and we just get a new house (that's the way Dylan does it, ya'll. Extreme solutions) And with any home improvement project, there is ... you guessed it. Static.

I'm hoping my mind will settle soon. I'm sure once the blanket is fixed it will settle. Nothing like finishing a project and taking pride in it!

Peace ya'll.

Green your routine: Coconut oil

I love coconut oil. Coconut oil is something I recently did a lot of research about and decided I would definitely incorporate it into my beauty routine and I am not disappointed. If you want to learn more about coconut oil but just want your information from one spot, I'll help you out with that. Read Hybrid Rasta Mama's 160 Uses For Coconut Oil post. It truly is great information.

I use coconut oil as lotion. I literally buy a huge jar of coconut oil and slather it all over my body after my shower. You might think it would leave my body oily? No so. Coconut oil is highly absorbent, it will leave your skin oily for maybe 5 minutes and then it is absorbed into your skin- probably before you even get dressed. My skin is super smooth, I used to have really dry skin on my legs and that has completely healed itself. Coconut oil is food grade, so you can find it in the grocery section of your favorite store. I rarely use it in cooking though- isn't that weird?

But you totally can! You can use it in place of any oil.

I also use coconut oil in my homemade tooth paste recipe I use from Clean. I won't share the recipe here, use the link to her blog, she's created that recipe and deserves all the credit. Oh and check out her Organic Body Care business, you won't be sorry.

And yes I use homemade toothpaste! And my chops are clean!

A jar of coconut oil will last me several months, where lotion wouldn't last that long because it would take so much more to moisturize my body. I save a lot of money using coconut oil.

Plus I spare my body from synthetic moisturizers and chemicals such as parabens (they mock estrogen and can disrupt your body's hormones) and petroleums. Please dont put petroleum on your skin, ya'll. Just don't.

Peace! Hope you have learned something today!

Today I am

This morning I am:

Enjoying- my cup of coffee after a night with a little less sleep than I would have liked.

Planning- a beautiful blanket for a baby due this spring ( not mine )

Deciding- how I am going to paint/decorate some peg people for my boys. They're gonna be so cute!

Hope you all have a great productive day today!

Peace.

First Haircut.

Me and Keith have discussed it for a few days now... whether or not we should cut Jude's hair. I couldn't figure out if sacrificing the cuteness of his baby curls and cute surfer dude look was worth losing the headache of taming it and keeping food out of it. It's just so cute, but I can bathe him and one meal later he needs another bath. He has curly hair, but only in the back at the ends, it's straight otherwise, so it's not like it was in cute ringlets. In fact it often looked like this




But on good days it's more like this



So this evening I said "Hey JuJu you wanna hair cut?" and he responded with his usual "Naow!"

Whatever, dude.

This ensued



It was brutal. The kind of brutal where you wonder if it's even worth it anymore, except you have already made a few cuts so you have to follow through. He cried and cried. It wasn't the clippers scaring him as much as it was us holding his chin straight so I did not mess up that was irritating him. I did it quick and dirty. Just ran the clippers down it against the growth of the hair to cut the length off of it and maintain some shape.

I think I did well. I mean, it looks like a long bowl cut or something. I didn't bother with the top of his head or anything, it wasn't a bother. I think he looks so much older now. So sad, but so cute




( keith was warned I was taking blog pics. He cared not.)
And yes, I collected all of the hair and put it in a baggy. Perhaps I'll do the thing where you frame the lock of hair from the first haircut. I don't know I always thought those things were kind of creepy.





He also got his very own twin bed this weekend. Complete with thrifted teddy bear quilt. He had a full sized bed that was great for cosleeping, but now- mommy doesn't fit. And, he doesn't need me to as much.



My boy is growing up. Kinda sad, but fun. <3

Homemade pizza.

I've been making my own pizza for several months now. We eat tons of pizza. I craved it hardcore when I was pregnant with Jude and even after he was born the taste for it has not left me, I could eat it several times a week. But pizza can be expensive and unhealthy so it's probably a good idea to figure out a healthy medium. This recipe happens to be very economical as well.

I use a crust recipe that uses yeast. Most people I talk to about it say that they cannot get yeast recipes to work. It can work! You can make it work! I will walk you through it. It's sooooooo easy.

First, the recipe:

1 cup of very warm water
1 TB of sugar
2 1/4 tsp of active dry yeast
1/2 tsp of salt
3 TB of olive oil
2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour

In a mixing bowl, add your warm water and sugar and stir to dissolve. Once the sugar is dissolved, add the yeast and stir to dissolve. It will look something like this





Then you'll need to wait until it proofs. You see, yeast thrives in warm environments and feeds off of sugar. So when the yeast is in the warm sugar water long enough it will expand, it's gonna take a few minutes so be patient. I like to watch, because when it proofs it bursts to the top in little starbursts. It's pretty neat. It looks foamy on the surface and will smell sort of like beer. Like this





Next you'll add your salt and oil and stir to combine. THen add your flour and mix well until you have a big ball of dough in your bowl. It will be sticky- you don't have to touch it, no kneading necessary



Now set it on your preheated oven (350 degrees) and set a timer for 10 minutes and let it sit. Go check your facebook or your email or make a phone call. It'll be fine, just let it sit there.

Once that 10 minutes is up, it'll be a little bit bigger, puffier- but not too noticably so. Coat your hands in olive oil and pick up the dough out of the bowl and pat it out onto your pan.



Now it's ready to add toppings! You can use canned or jarred pizza sauce, but I make my own using these ingredients


It's very easy and very cheap. I always have Italian seasoning and garlic powder on hand, and a can of Great Value tomato sauce costs 64 cents. I think a can of pizza sauce costs a dollar so not a huge savings, but it saves me the trouble of having to buy specific pizza sauce, plus I make my own spaghetti sauce so if I just buy 4-5 cans of tomato sauce at a time, I use them in random meals throughout the week and if I'm having a blah day and just wanna make pizza for supper instead of actually cook, I don't have to run out for pizza sauce, I can just make it. See, easy.

I spread tomato sauce on the dough and then sprinkle generously with the seasonings. Then I add my mozzarella or whatever cheese I have on hand and pop it in the oven for ... oh probably 15 to 20 minutes. We don't like ours real brown or tough.



mmmmmmmm..... delish.


I keep all of those ingredients on hand all the time so making pizza can be spontaneous and last minute if I need it to be. I have to believe it's not as fattening as store bought or delivery, after all there are no pools of grease on the top. But bear in mind, we're talking white bread and mozzarella and whatever meaty topping you may desire so it can quickly get out of hand.



YUM.. Give it a try, you'll be pleased! And probably never spend money on delivery again!

Peace.

(p.s the recipe as written will only make one pizza, I always double it for my family.)

Progress.

Dylan. In spite of everything, Dylan is my rock. The one thing that can bring me down to this Earth when I get caught up in it. He's the one being in my world that is constant, as strange as that sounds... because Dylan is anything but constant.



Dylan saved me. From what, I don't know. I don't want to know. But he saved me.

If you have ever met Dylan or spent a measurable amount of time with him, you can see that he is not like other kids. He's sensitive, to put it politely, and set in his ways. He prefers to play alone; a leader, not a follower.

Dylan has taken us on a ride, that kid. In August of 2008 we thought we could lose him.

For those of you that don't know, Dylan has recurrent brain inflammation. Caused by: nobody knows. He's been tested and evaluated for everything under the sun, but nothing matches up. He's spent a great deal of the past 3 yrs on steroids and in and out of the hospital. The worst time being the first time. He spent 21 days in the hospital and his entire central nervous system had shut down. He learned to walk, talk, eat, speak- all over again. He's a fighter (quite literally). He has had flare ups 3 times since then, hospitalizations required each time. I always relax once we are at the hospital.. I know he is in good hands. It is quite scary though because you can never know when a flare up can cause brain damage. It's hard to think that a mother could see a silver lining in such a serious situation, but I suppose you have to to survive. When Dylan is sick, it's me and Dylan against the world. I have to fight for him-even though he is so strong, he is strength. But I find peace in it. It brings me back down to Earth. I step back and see Dylan, and he needs me to do that sometimes. To reconnect.

He has been flare up free for 2 yrs this February. 2 Years!!!! He hasn't taken steroids since May '11. The longest he has gone without getting sick on steroids is 6 months and he has pushed past that. I can't say I'm not always observing him -looking for signs of neurological disfunction.

Dylan had to repeat kindergarten this year because he just was not where he needed to be to go to first grade. He has had learning disabilities since before he got sick though, so we have been working with Dylan since early intervention days and then he was put in a DD preschool program, which was a Godsend.

But this year, something is different with Dylan. He's doing so incredibly well. This is the second progress report I have gotten this year that looked exactly like this:






My heart sings when I see this! My boy is going so far, pushing forward every day. His speech is clearer, his comprehension is better and he laughs- oh his laughter is the sound of angels.

I'm so proud of you Dylan, if you ever read this - know that I'm rooting for you all the way. I knew you could do it! <3

Oh, and thanks for saving me.