Swimming Fun

I was delighted to have the children try their swimsuits on again and find out that I believe they will be able to last yet another summer!!!

Grandma Reeder gave this swimming pool to the children and they have asked for WEEKS to put it up.  Last night, after talking to a close friend (Meghan) who told me that her two have been swimming, made me think, maybe it's time.  It's warm enough.  I thought the kids could use a little break and a little fun! 

 Well, the kids swimsuits might last another year, I'm not sure the pool will make it through the day!  I know it's not made for this size/age of a crew, but it's still a nice break from the summer heat.

And the kids are having fun... well, except Philip.  

Boys Room

Back in November of 2011, I posted photos of my girl's room transformation.  Then in December, I wrote about our forefathers.

  I then began to make our son's room a manly room.

Here are the before photos of our sons room...

And here is our son's manly bedroom.  The antler's are from deer my Grandfather shot.  And on the shelf, snakes, that my Grandfather preserved, along with two of his turkey calls.  An old tackle box I pick up at a yard sale, houses all my sons knives and his air-soft pistol.  Philip sleeps in a pack and play, 

you can see his bed at the foot of Caleb's bed pictured here.

 Great Grandpa Edmonson and Great Grandpa Victor

 Pappy Mathna and Papa Reeder

 Elijah's Bed

Caleb's Bed

I need to find two more frames to match the four I already had, so that I can hang all the grandfathers. I'm not 100% sure where I will hang them, but for now, this is how our sons room has been.

The boys beds currently house new pillow cases, sent to them by Great Grandma Carnes.  I was going to take new photos before I posted this, but since it took me so long to post this to begin with, I thought I'd better just press publish.


The post showing the girls room.

We're Back...

Our family loves the nutritarian lifestyle.  What is nutritarian?  It means feeding your family the most nutrient dense foods.  A year ago, my husband was laid off from his job.  After a year off, working on our house, and looking for a new job, he is finally back to work.  While he was off, our budget was tight.  And I learned exactly how hard it was to feed your family the tons and tons of fruits and vegetables that I had once fed them.  We ate A LOT of barley, rice, and beans.  Regrettably, my husband's health declined and I began to gain weight.  The stress in our lives didn't help.

A year later, we are pleased to announce that with the help of the Lord, my husband now has a job again!!!  And yesterday, I went to Whole Foods for the first time, in a long time!!!  What a treat!  Some of the things we bought were ingredients for some of my favorite nutritarian recipes.  Things we haven't been able to eat in over a year!  What a blessings!

One of the things that we love are salads.  Lots and lots of salads!!!  One of my favorite dressings is a homemade healthy cream dressing.

Mock Caesar Dressing

1/4 c Sunflower seeds

2 tbs Tahini

3 Tbsp Lemon juice

1 med clove garlic (I use a lot more!)

1/2 tsp sea salt

freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/2-1 tsp raw agave nectar or 4 drops of stevia extact

1/4 c water (or more to thin as desired)

Combine all ingredients in the blender.  

Taste test and add as necessary.

  

You can tell it's not caesar, but it's really pretty good.  And it's way better than just plain lettuce or crazy full of bad fat regular dressings.  No preservatives, but best of all, my kids LOVE it!  It's a great way to get greens, healthy fats, and garlic into my children's diets.  We also toss raw pumpkin seeds on top to make it even more nutrient dense.  You can even toss some nutritional yeast on top as mock parm.

It feels so good to be back to my old ways.  And able to feed my family as healthy as possible.

The Coop

Our family took these.... Free Pallets.

And made this... A Chicken Coop.

And this is how...

Seedlings

More signs of spring in the Reeder house!

All of the children have enjoyed taking their turn watering the plants.

Chicks are Hatching!!!

Spring has sprung in our house!

For the last 21 days we have turned eggs day and night,

as we hatch out our first batch of chicks for the year.

Eggs in the incubators.

Our old incubator.

Pipping... the process of the chick hatching. You can see the first small hole.

Our first arrivals!!!

Poision Ivy

With the 'ok' of my son, Caleb,

I have posted the following photos of his experience with poison ivy.

Here is a photo of my dear son Caleb.

A few weeks ago, he went to a friend's home where he spent some time

in a friends woods playing air soft battles and exposed to poison ivy.

The day after he was exposed to the poison ivy, his face started to pop up in hives.

At the time, we weren't sure what it was, so I took a photo to ask a friend.

I had no idea it would get as bad as it did.

The next day, when we woke up, Caleb could not open his eyes.

His face was extremely swollen. His face was hot to the touch and hard.

Our pastors wife, gave us a recipe to help with poison.

(1 tablespoon ground flax, 1 tablespoon Charcoal, and either water or aloe vera juice)

Heated in a pan and then let cool, we painted his face like this photo.

Warning Charcoal stains!

This is what Caleb looked like the next morning.

We were excited to see the swelling going down!

And happy he could see.

The next day seemed better. You can see it in his eyes!

And he seemed a little more like himself.

This day kind of scared me.

He looked nothing like my dear son, and I was missing him.

He looked miserable.

As the swelling went down, the poison seemed to come out on his face more and more.

In fact, the poison began to display itself all over his body.

This day seemed to look more painful than some of the others.

What a delight I had to wake up to see my son looking so much better!

He was finally looking like my son!

I should have taken photos of his arms and legs too.

The more his face looked better the more itchy his arms and legs began to feel.

Today Caleb looked almost like himself!

I felt like I had my son back!

Almost 100% back to normal!

I am glad I documented Caleb's poison.

I hope it helps other mothers who have highly allergic children see how we made it though. With the Lord's help, Caleb made it through this trial 'without' steroids or other drugs.

100% natural. What a blessing!

I hope this blog post can help others looking for pictures of poison ivy.