Creatures

While the rest of the crew is up at Park City, I've been taking care of these bugs and the guinea pigs, aka "the pigs". I've made a schedule for our home farm for myself this week. First thing I do in the morning is put the pigs out to pasture, aka on the grass. We need to let them enjoy the grass and the time outside while it's summer time. Other than the pigs, we've got a lot of caterpillars! We have 20 big ones right now and more eggs and small caterpillars growing, this is the most we've ever had!

And it's pretty cool cause I've found all the eggs! We only have a small handful of milkweed plants in the back yard - like 8 small plants. I go check them for eggs in the morning after putting out the pigs, then I'll bring in a few leaves with eggs. My current opinion is that caterpillars might even be better household pets than guinea pigs. Though it's mostly cause of the short term commitment thing (the kids are slacking taking care of the guinea pigs and I'm ready to sell them, but then the girls repent and do better for a week or two...). I know I've been spending a bit too much time watching the caterpillars grow, especially when there is housework to do and the kitchen is a mess, but the monarchs are a fleeting moment in time. The dishes are forever, so they can wait. It's easier to slack on the household chores when everyone's gone. The house is also pretty quiet. I put Owen and Daniel to bed early and then come in here where the caterpillars are to blog. If you really listen, you can hear them all munching the leaves, they are cute little guys.

So, I've been thinking about animals and all of God's creatures on this earth. Monarchs are pretty cool, even if they do only live for about 3 months. Though it does seem like a lot of work for such a short life. What is the point of it all? What is the point of guinea pigs? They are cute, but they don't do much. I've always thought the point of farm animals was to be or make food for us, but since going vegan my opinion of that is changed, but I'm still pondering what their purpose is now. Do they have a right to live just to live and just because? Maybe cows are just supposed to eat grass and be cows. They don't have to be useful to us, do they? We let lots of other animals just be animals. Like this deer that grabbed a bite to eat as he passed through our backyard this morning -

A deer is a deer and that's okay. We should probably let cows be cows, pigs be pigs, and chickens be chickens. Tonight as we settled down for bed, Owen and Daniel played with toys while we had a pbs Nature program called "Touching the Wild" on in the background. Some guy named Joe Hutto who just loved the mule deer. He had this relationship with this mother deer and her fawn and they'd let him come close and then the mother deer died and the baby would run around looking for her all day and calling for her. The little deer survived and he loved her and said "I learned so much from her" - which I found interesting cause the deer never said anything to teach him, right, so no instruction, what kind of things did he learn from her? Just by her being a deer and doing deer things? He spent years with them and became part of the deer society. Interesting... There are so many animals out there, glad people can find what they love. We also recently watched a passport earth episode with a lady who has dedicated her life to rescuing elephants from the streets and putting them back in nature, she founded the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. Anyway, I've just been pondering what the point of animals are and what kind of relationship we humans are supposed to have with them. But I really don't think we're supposed to kill them and eat them as much as we do, making a whole meat and dairy industry out of them. Talk about animal abuse. Poor cows. I caved in and had a little bit of ice cream last week for Owen's birthday, which turned into a lot of ice cream, and I wasn't eating it with thankfulness to God or the cow who provided the milk, I was mad at the ice cream for being so addictive to me and making me lose control. I thus vowed I'm not eating or buying ice cream anymore. I'm ready to move on from ice cream. Listening/watching this Dr. Klapper "Dairy Doubts" video over the weekend helped. I'm moving on, I don't want to be part of the mistreatment of cows anymore. It didn't use to bother me but I didn't really think about it, cause that's what cows were for, right? to give us milk and be meat. But I don't think that is their purpose anymore. I'm going to be come a cows' rights activist! Ha, save the cows. :) We'll see if I can start a movement lol, good luck with that eh!

4 Years Old!

Well, we've got another "Four and Feisty" kiddo on our hands! Natalie is 4 years old today, Happy Birthday Natalie!

Last night she said she wanted an Elsa cake. Abi had helped her google cake ideas for some images that were gonna give me a bit more cake talent than I have skill for... Cause this was Natalie's request...

Oh great, thanks Abi. I told Natalie I didn't know how to make an Elsa cake. I said "How about a CHOCOLATE cake!" We googled chocolate cakes on my phone, and there was one with MnMs... I was very happy when she quickly said "I want that cake!' Sweet, I can do that! So a chocolate cake and a bag of MnMs were on my 5 am shopping list.

Last night, as I made my birthday plan of attack, I figured I could go by the store after dropping Corey off at the airport (had to leave at 6:45 to take him). But my plans changed when Daniel woke me up at 4:30 a.m. this morning. I fed him a bottle, but it did not cause him to fall back asleep. That little boy was wide awake. And he was being noisy. I didn't want him to wake up Owen, so I quickly took him into the closet, where I could get dressed, cause we're going to the store (Since there aren't many other things to do at 5 a.m. with a baby that's ready to play.

So I went, got all the food goodies and party supplies, and was home in time to get it set up while the kids played the Wii. At 6:15 I called them up.

She's such a cute little birthday girl!

We sang, she opened her birthday bags, and then I took Corey to the airport. All the grandparents came over with more treats and gifts for Natalie. (Yes, for now we let the Vegan thing slide on birthdays..."Who wants more cake and ice cream?!?!")

Opening gifts~

One thing that was so sweet this morning - I gave her a package of Barbie fruit snacks in one of her gifts (cause she already got birthday presents in May, but I did get her one more toy, and Corey will be getting her something when he gets back) But with the fruit snacks, she only had 6 in there and she took one and then shared the rest with anyone who asked for one. It was so sweet. Of course, then there were also moments throughout the day where she did her loud scream and wailed and fought over sharing or not sharing and Lily would come and say "I think Natalie is getting a little spoiled..." The Feisty Fours are soon to be fully upon us, but she did pretty good for a toddler on her birthday. We love you Natalie!

Plant Based Breakfast

So, just a little bit about our family's new diet. It's basically vegan I guess. I didn't know the different between vegetarian and vegan until this past week. So we're newbies here. So it's pretty much vegan, but we could also call it "Nutritatiran" via Dr. Fuhrman, or whole food plant based, which is what it's called by most all other doctors in the field of nutritian.

When I used to go to Costco, I'd load up on milk and make sure we had about 7-8 gallons for the week. The last time I did that was on May 29th. Cause I didn't buy any on the 5th, and then we watched Forks Over Knives on the 8th, and that sealed the deal. So the last of that was used on the 14th. The kids really stretched out that last gallon, I kept saying "Better enjoy it cause that's the last of it!" The little kids and Ethan still used it, most of the other kids switched to rice milk and almond milk. Before our whole food switch, in May on one day following a "normal" grocery trip (for orange chicken and cold cereal and such), we had a discussion where I was jokingly accused of being at fault for the junk we eat, cause I'm the one that is always buying the garbage/junk food around here (cold cereal). "I never buy that stuff!" Corey said. Yes, I agree that I do the shopping, but I'm trying to keep the kids happy. (I've always been so conflicted with food around here!!) And hey, you did buy junk cereal! You and Ethan just went to the store and YOU bought Fruit Loops! "Oh, just once, but not like you!" Ok, fine. I'm not buying it anymore! Ethan scoffed "You've said that before!" Yes, that is true, but so help me, this time I really mean it. And I haven't bought the bags of cereal since.

This is our new breakfast: The kids may have their grain of choice topped with the daily selection of fruit. Here we have my breakfast from June 6 - oats and peaches, strawberries, blueberries~

June 16 - wheat berries and raspberries which made for a very sweet pink milk (and I got the star spoon!)

 Wheat berries and brown rice with raspberries and blue berries.

So that is our new standard breakfast, cause "all grain is ordained for the use of man... to be the staff of life" and "wheat is for man" D&C 89:14-17)

For lunch, the kids are still using up some of the bad stuff we had on hand, aka corn dogs and top ramen. We're slowly working that out of the house, cause we still don't want to waste food, cause pigs did die to make those corn dogs. But we're having lots of cut up veggies and melons and fruit and I'm almost ready to get a new recipe book in order.

Dinners... I'm still working on that. I did a good meal one time, made a sweet and sour tofu coconut veggie soup and a barley veggie soup. I need to get a stack of recipes for things that I buy. I am doing an eggplant marinara tomorrow. And roasted veggies are on the menu for this weekend. I need to get organized though. Working on it! A few websites for my personal reference to check out:

- Health 4 Life Cooking
- Fitfully Mormon
- Green Juice and Smoothies at Reboot with Joe (we started watching Fat Sick and Nearly Dead last week but we need to finish it to see what happened with Phil!)
- I ordered The China Study Cookbook - got here yesterday, but need to go through it and make a plan!

I think I'd also like to learn how to make bread, but that's probably still a year out, one step at a time.

Going Vegan

We're on a health documentary video binge. We watched the Netflix video "What the Health" probably three times over the weekend with the kids. I say probably 3 times cause we'd have to start it over for a kid that came late or watch it again for a kid who wasn't home. So, it's helped us further indoctrinated ourselves to go vegan for our health's sake. Here's the trailer for it.

We also watched "Cowspiracy", so we're going vegan for the earth's sake too. Cowspiracy is done by the same filmmakers, and was made before the one above, so that might be better to watch them in that order cause Cowspiracy kinda leads into the other one. So, we're pretty much sold on the terribleness of the Standard American Diet for our health and for the earth.

We're also convinced as a matter of principle... Corey taught the lesson on the Word of Wisdom yesterday in Sunday School. The Word of Wisdom is the code of health for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I think Joseph's decision last month to give up meat might have prepped us for this lesson and the conclusions we both came to as we studied it. So, Corey did a great job teaching, I think he's a natural. I need to send out a huge thank you to my dear friend Kathy O for taking Daniel out so I could listen and participate. And I think I behaved myself, I didn't go crazy with comments but did accidentally attempt to jump ahead of Corey's outline a few times. It was a great discussion. Overall it was very good and Corey only had one regret, which I'll get to in a second. I was kinda bummed we didn't get very far in reading the section through. I really wanted to go in to what the Lord says about eating meat, so here's what I think would have been discussed if we had time and my 2 cents:

I bet if you ask most members of the LDS church what the Word of Wisdom says about meat, they'd say "Eat meat sparingly." And yes, that the first thing said about it in verse 12 (D&C 89:12). Then we would have asked "Is there anything else?" then someone would have raised their hand to say "Eat it in times of winter." Yes, that is in verse 13. Anything else? We did talk about D&C 49:18 where it says that if anyone says man should not eat meat, that man is not ordained of God. Right, so you can't tell another person they cannot eat meat. Other than that? Yeah, that about covers the meat topic. But then! we would have pointed out the first part of verse 13 "It is pleasing unto me that they NOT be used..." You can eat meat, it's not forbidden, but it pleases God if we don't use/eat meat?! Is that a new thought? It was for me a few weeks ago. Now that might not settle well with most of us, cause I recognize that meat is considered the main course in our culture... everyone uses meat at almost every meal... Honestly, I had never noticed that part before this month... (Any comments about the comma would have seen an answer by quoting one of the early brethren of the church, referenced in this article by Jane Birch) And as to these two points "sparingly" and "in times of winter", there is all sort of wiggle room there. How often is "sparingly" like a little bit at each meal? Once a day? Once a week? Each person could interpret that for themselves. And "in times of winter" ... I've heard it said that the Lord told the pioneers that cause they didn't have refrigeration in summer time to keep the meat from spoiling. So since we have refrigeration, we're okay to have it in summer time now cause it won't get us sick. Besides, in our world today, that is what summer is all about - let's have a BBQ! "Honey, fire up the grill!!" Our family for sure has been there every summer and we just had a bbq with friends on June 2nd that we had scheduled before we started to think about this meat subject. Anyway...

To wrap up the meat discussion, we would have said "Has anyone ever noticed verse 15?" (Cause I never had...) Let's see, it says: And these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.

In the printed copy, the word "these" has a footnote referring the reader back to verse 13, so the Lord is talking about animals and the flesh of beasts. So that there is telling us that God made these for us to use ONLY IN TIME of FAMINE and EXCESS OF HUNGER. My kids get a little cranky when they fast each month, and they might feel they have excess of hunger, but we've never been in a famine. In my whole life, I've never experienced famine. That's the Lord's counsel for when to eat meat. Hmm... there is not a lot of wiggle room with the famine part. Basically, my take away, is that meat is only to be used in emergencies. Kids, when we're so hungry we're ready to go eat your pet guinea pigs, that is when it would be okay to eat animals. One comment was made in class that if it hadn't been for eating meat, many of the pioneers wouldn't have made it across the plains. That was where we could have had this whole meat discussion, but time was short and Corey agreed and we moved on. So his one regret was that he didn't counter that comment with something like "That is true... if you are starving like the pioneers were, the Lord would give his consent that we eat meat to survive. But, none of us look like we're starving... it's rather quite the opposite!"

I never would have thought that I wasn't keeping the Word of Wisdom, but I don't think I have been - atleast not this part of it, not for my whole life! But we didn't realize what it was saying, even though I agree it's as plain as plain can be... why didn't I see it? Did I even study this before? I have been keeping it to the best of my knowledge, but now that I know more (and if you're still reading, I guess you might know more now too, sorry?) ... now that I know more, I'm going to obey it. I'm not buying meat, milk, eggs or cheese anymore. We live in a time of abundance, I have so much fruit and vegetables, wheat, grains, and wholesome herbs available for my family to eat! IT'S AMAZING!! As Joel Fuhrman says in his book "Eat to Live" on page 58 - 61, he talks about how wealthy nations are the ones dying from dietary disease, and poor nations die from hunger or poor sanitation problems. Starting on page 61 (all emphasis mine) -

"The diseases of poverty are mostly infections diseases and are found in areas of the world with compromised nutrition. Heart attacks and the most common cancers (breast, colon, prostate) are found in rich societies where nutritional extravagance is the rule. Nowhere in the world today can we find a society that combines economic wealth with a high intake and variety of unrefined plant foods. CAN YOU IMAGINE the HEALTH POTENTIAL of a society that would be able to enjoy excellent sanitation, emergency medical care, refrigeration, clean water, flush toilets, and availability of fresh produce year round and yet avoid nutritional ignorance and nutritional extravagance? WE HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY TODAY! An unprecedented opportunity in human history the opportunity to live a long and healthy life without fear of disease. This opportunity can be yours!"

I want this opportunity for myself and my children, for my parents and family! I don't need meat or animal products to stay alive, we have so much available to us. I don't need to kill or cause excessive use and abuse of them for my life to continue nor for my health to be well. Not to mention that that eating them causes cancer (watch Forks Over Knives" on Netflix or read the China Study) or to mention the horrible lives the poor animals live which end in their early death and slaughter. (a few sad ones on youtube, viewer discretion advised: Farm to Fridge - don't let your kids watch that one, baby chicks on egg farms male chicks ground up alive, the hens live such sad lives, :(, chickens raised for meat (so sad, try not to cry... poor baby birds), cows raised for meat, dairy farms - I feel so sad that the baby cows are taken from their mothers so we can have their milk, it's just not necessary!) I think the baby birds we had in our back yard has helped with this whole process of thought for me. One baby bird died and I bet the parents didn't cry like I would have if Daniel died, but still, they have instincts to want to live and to take care of their young, to feed their babies, can't we let them? It's just sad on so many levels. We humans need to be better stewards.

So there ya go, that's my new cause. We're going a bit radical here. But we should all be able to avoid early death and heart disease and diabetes! So that should help us keep our heads up. I haven't decided on school year lunches policy. I don't want to support the horrible unhealthy choices my kids have at school (see minute 55 in the video above), so we'll figure that out when we get there. And maybe after eating amazingly all summer the kids will want to keep going with it themselves. I'm not forcing them to not eat any animal foods, they are free to choose to have it at friends houses or social gatherings, but I will not be buying it and bringing it into our home, only very sparingly (I do have plans to buy some ice cream for the birthday's this weekend for Lily and Wesley) so that's where we're at right now! I'm very happy with it and don't have the conflict that I usually have as I prepare foods of "This isn't good for you guys but I guess if you want it and it makes you happy..." but NOW! The milk has been gone for almost a week and we're eating bowls of wheat berries or brown rice with rice milk and fresh cut up fruit for breakfast! Today I made a green smoothie, I don't feel conflicted, I'm preparing food, and it's good food! We're starting our whole food plant based diet for everyone, yay!

Boondocks With Dad

The older kids (JoeMelEthanHyrumWesley) have been gone at our church's "youth conference" this weekend. Corey left for Seattle on Wed, JMEHW left for youth conf on Thursday, Corey came home late last night, and so we still had a day with just the younger half of the kids. So, Corey took them all out for a fun day with Dad. Really easy when it's just half of them, right? I stayed home with my little Daniel and Corey took Abi, Lily, Sophi, Natalie, and Owen. They left not knowing where their father would feel like going. But the car led them out to Draper for an afternoon of fun at Boondocks. (I keep typing that as "Bookdons")

I don't really know what went on, but we'll see what information we can gather from the pictures that Corey emailed me...

Everyone had fun playing miniature golf. That's always a kid pleaser...

Here's Abi having fun in the playground? Or is she too hot? Or is this a kiddie area and she's waiting for her little sibs to be done?

Doh, looks like Owen's done....

 Natalie did her oun hair. Hmm, she doesn't seem to be tall enough for this particular attraction. But perhaps making a cute face will soften the heart of the ride supervisor?

Oh dear, looks like it's Sophi that is too small for this one. She can't ride on the go carts....

Abi and Lily can though.

Lily, don't rub it in! No smiling or having fun, we've got a sad Sophi over here.

And now it's Natalie's turn to be sad. Looks like that is a roller skating carpet in the back ground. She wanted to skate more? Or have Corey carry her while he skated?

Owen's ready for a nap. Lucky Dad, his hand gets to be Owen's pillow.

And fun! Pizza for lunch! I guess they don't know that cheese is off the family menu if we're gonna avoid health problems. Just say no to animal products. But when I'm not there to enforce it, there might be a few slips.... Corey hasn't watched Forks Over Knives yet, I'll indoctrinate them over the weekend. ;) I guess we'll start being Vegan next week

Forks Over Knives

So... Corey has been in Seattle this week. During his lunch break with other consultants, they shared a little bit about diet, and one of the guys there is a vegetarian. Corey asked him for some resources and he was told about the Netflix movie "Forks Over Knives". That was already on my list to watch because it was recommended in the Word of Wisdom Book. So I decided to watch it today and we did and I'm sold.

I really really liked it. We are going Vegan all the way. Well, I am. And I think this video can/will persuade the rest of my household. I'm sold on it though. So no more milk for us, no more eggs, butter, or cheese! Ethan's gonna struggle with that last one. I'm excited for my next Costco trip, it's gonna be a whole new experience! No 8 gallons of milk! What are we going to eat? Well I'm sure we are about to start an adventure of discovering food that we didn't even know existed before. I'm going to go down isles of Costco and buy things that have never caught my attention before! And I'll be totally avoiding other regular corners of the store - no daily section, no cheeses, no frozen dinner entrees. I'm sure they'll kinda miss the orange chicken, cause that was a staple, but this will be fun to discover new staples. And the bonus with feeding my kids this way: It's food that I like too! We're all going to enjoy these meals together and there is no guilt that comes with any of it. It's all good food. I'm looking forward to having a healthy relationship with cooking, food, and our family's diet! It's about time.

My Daily & Weekly Schedule

Been one of those mornings...

Lily's so meek, ya just can't get upset with her, I mean just look at that little face.  Besides, getting upset doesn't make the clean-up go any faster.  So just turn on some Brandon Flowers and then "whistle while you work" ~

Speaking of work, I've had these ideas for a daily schedule floating around in my head for months, and last night I finally put it all together for myself, so here is my plan of attack, from one busy mom (trying to lose the last 10-15 lbs) to another:

FOOD - 
My friend Nicole sent me this video (Chocolate, Cheese, Meat, Sugar chemically addictive? Who knew! ps: i want cheesecake) it gave me some motivation to try and listen to my body more, to figure out what it responds well to and what foods make me bloated, constipated, and moody.  So going to experiment for 3 weeks and eat like this vegan video guy says combined with a little Marilu - fruit in the morning at 7, veggies and no chocolate, cheese, meat, or sugar for the rest of the meals during the day. 

7:00 - Fruit - I've got apples and kiwi for my breakfasts (how simple is that!)
KIDS - cereal/oatmeal/cinnamon, raisins, slices of apple - fiber!!!

10:00 - going to do protein spinach shake at 10:00 (cocoa powder, but no sugar, so not really chocolate, but I'm wondering about the protein powder's effects on the body, shall do more research)
KIDS - spinach protein shakes

1:00 - serving of nuts and raisins if I'm out running errands or salad at home
KIDS - PB&J and fruit & carrots

4:00 - big egg and salsa salad or egg and mustard salad
KIDS - a treat (we gotta try and create a perfect world for these kids!)

6 or 7:00 - healthy version of what I'm feeding the kids or vegetable bean soup

SCHEDULE: 
This will for now and after the kids are out of school.

7:00 - 10:00: ME TIME (before and after meal 1) exercise, shower and dress, email, blog plus quick clean up of kitchen

10:00 - 1:00: HOME TIME  (after meal 2) clean, blog, plan errands, decorate

1. Monday - Mop, Master, Main floor
2. Tuesday - Toys (in basement & Lego room), Toilets/Bathrooms
3. Wednesday - Wash (laundry), Windows/mirrors, wals
4. Thursday - Thoroughly organize a zone
5. Friday - Floors (vacuum/mop/stairs) Front Room
   
6. Saturday - South of the house (Yardwork), Side room, Study
7. Sunday - rest

1:00 - 4:00: SPIRIT TIME (after meal 3) - kids take a nap, read, scriptures, study General Conference

4:00 - 7:00: COOK TIME (after meal 4) get dinner ready, plan menues, print recipes

7:00 - 9:00: KID TIME (after meal 5) get kids to help clean up, brush teeth, scriptures, FHE,

9:00 - 10:00 ME TIME 2 - plan tomorrow, email, calendar/schedule, coordinate with dear husband

10:00 - Get ready for bed, read a little more, be asleep by 11

So there's my plan, we'll see how it goes!  :)  Off to mop the floor, (whistle ~ whistle)

daily schedule busy mom schedule daily routines kid calendar plan schedule school out