Winter project

This winter i worked on making a soup cookbook. It took a couple months of cooking the soups, picture taking, and designing the pages. I like shutterfly's new photo book format for this. But they didn't offer spiral binding. So i did that seperately at Copy max. That adds a nice touch.

It's a 5x7... I took these shots at night, they are a little dark.

Here's are a few favorites. I think there are 19 different soups in all:
i thought maybe you'd be able to see the recipe itself if you wanted to try one. sorry if it's not big or clear enough.

Summer-like day!

(These were taken today, not last July!)

The boys have been asking for the sprinkler for 3 days now and today i let them. They seemed to get used to it, after gasping for air for the first little while.

Clay had no problems getting used to it. We also got some mushroom mulch today for the garden. We've heard good things about this stuff. I'm ready for my peppers to be bigger then a clemetine!

Not excatly sure what all is in mushroom mulch, but we certainly took baths after they coated themselves in it :)

A fabulous day spent outside! i do need to work up my endurance though for full time outdoor work and playtime.

These two...

The boys just love playing w/ our neighbor. She's been coming over now for around 4 years and has developed good relationships with the boys, especially Adam. They play so well together and have a bond. it's nice for Adam to have someone older then him around. He says he going to marry her :) They can get to fighting too. Recently after one of their tifs, Adam says to me- "Mom, i don't like having a sister!" Um, Adam, you don't have sister. It just feels that way sometimes! She comes over quite often, and we include her in our everyday life. If it's time to do some chores, she does them too. If we feel like hopping in the car and going somewhere, she'll come along. She raids the fridge and asks what's for dinner just like everyone else. I have her soccer games on my calendar, and Rod fixes her bike. It's been good all around for many different reasons. We're thankful for this time with her. We know it won't be long until she's out of the house, they grow up so fast. I do sound like she's ours, don't I??

Ben

Back in the summer, Ben was diagnosed with Lyme Disease. He had a suspicious looking bite along w/ terrible flu like symptoms. After 10 days of antibiotics he was fine and we were told that meant the lyme was gone.

This winter i got us all tested for Lyme, since i know deer ticks are on the loose around here. I didn't want it to be in anyone's system w/out us knowing (which is typical for Lyme disease), so i needed peace of mind that none of the other kids had it. We all got tested (except Clay) and here Ben's came back "very positive". That threw us for a loop, as we thought we'd taken care of that over the summer. Now we are treating it again and he'll need to get tested again in a couple months.

We are learning a lot about this disease and the way the doctors handle it. Ben needs to be treated for months now because it's been in his system so long, but he'll likely be able to get rid of it. I have a good friend who's had Lyme for 20 years and she's been coaching me through this. Doctors are NOT allowed to treat Lyme as a long term disease which is why Ben wasn't given longer treatment back in the summer, even though he needed longer treatment to get rid of it. We are now going to a Lyme Literate Doctor, who treats Lyme the way it should be. They don't take insurance, so they have the freedom to do more for this disease and not get in trouble for it!

I'm just so grateful that God prompted me to get this bloodwork done. It's not characteristic of me to do this, we don't go to the Dr. much and we let most things take care of themselves. So the fact that i was proactive in getting this test, tells me that God was looking out for our Benny boy. We are believing Ben will be healed.

Please don't be afraid to come to our house now! And if you are, just hold off coming in June and July, the worst tick months.

I see a unique family tradition in our future. Once a year getting pricked for bloodwork, then hitting the McDonalds across the street to make it all better :)

Must watch

I just got done watching a video. I just might never think about myself ever again....Take the time to watch this, (without your young children), it's 29 minutes long, raising awareness for Invisible Children.
Here is the link

I'll be following this story.

Science project: "naked egg"

as usual, i found this idea online and thought it looked interesting enough to try....

Place an egg in a glass and cover with apple cider vinegar...(it's ok if a floats to the top and a little of the egg is exposed).

Let it set there for 18-24 hours. The shell may already have started to come off, or at this point you could run it under water and basically carefully rub off the shell. you are left with this!

how strange!

Happy 40th Anniversary Mom and Dad!!