The Children We Enslave

 Hey there, friends! While it’s not exactly in keeping with the fun times & delicious recipes theme of the rest of this (mostly inactive) blog, I figured this installment of my semi-regular posts on modern slavery was a wee bit long for a Facebook post. 😂

Kudos on making it this far. This year has been a dumpster fire filled with difficult things, so making the effort to tackle another difficult thing right now is pretty amazing of you. 

From our comfortable homes in countries where WiFi & McDonalds are ubiquitous & the biggest concern most of us face is paying the bills for the lifestyle we’ve chosen, it’s easy to believe that we are far removed from the horrors of little children being beaten & starved by callous taskmasters. 

We demand 2-day delivery & rock-bottom prices. Companies, eager for our business & ready to please, deliver both at the click of a button. 

But everything has a price. 

The brands we know & love graciously do their best to shield us from the price of our low-cost convenience, but it is getting harder & harder for them to hide the fact that those luxuries are paid for with the lives of children whose faces we will never see & whose names we will never know. 

The harsh reality is this: while others may wield the whip, we are the callous taskmasters. 

With my Amazon Prime subscription & my seemingly endless trips to Sam’s Club & Costco, I am no less culpable that any of you-& likely more so than many of you. I’m not trying to preach at you. Rather, I want to share my stumbling journey of improvement in the hopes that it might help others on a similar path. 

I know that each of us have different strengths, opportunities, abilities, & needs. Because of that, I’m not going to go into detail on all the ways to change/advocate/etc.; I think you’re best suited to figuring out what your contribution can be right now. 

I also know that getting started can be the greatest hurdle, so I’ve included several links at the end of the post to help you navigate this problem & I’ll sum up a few highlights from them here. 

Like most of the difficult problems in our lives, the solution is simple, it’s just not easy. Here are a few ways you can get started:

1-BUY LOCAL WHEN YOU CAN

      The closer to home the better, but no location is likely to provide all you/your business might need. Wherever you live, buying goods made in your home country from raw materials sourced in your home country goes a long way towards reducing the number of child slaves working for you. Sometimes local can be less expensive, but that’s not always the case. If you can’t transition all your purchases right now, consider making these changes:

• Hold off on upgrading that smartphone or laptop. 

Cobalt is essential in making rechargeable lithium batteries used in millions of products sold by the tech industry. Tesla, Apple, Google, Microsoft & others have knowingly allowed children, some as young as 6 years old, to be maimed and killed to supply them with cheap cobalt.

I frequently refer to my phone as my “brain” & have no idea how I’d keep track of everyone’s crap without it. I try to lessen my impact by keeping the same phone & other tech for as many years as they are serviceable, repairing instead of replacing, & donating items to schools or organizations that will salvage/recycle them responsibly instead of throwing them in the trash. 

• Spend a couple extra bucks when you treat yourself to chocolate. 

About 1.56 million children—many as young as five—are engaged in the back-breaking work of harvesting cocoa for chocolate in the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Those two West African countries together supply about 70% of the world’s cocoa beans. In addition to facing brutal labor practices, these children are also vulnerable to being sold into the global cancer of human trafficking. Hershey’s, Mars, Cadbury & others have all acknowledged their part in this crime against humanity & have pledged to work to eradicate child slave labor in their industry. Despite those pledges, the corporations in this $100 billion industry have not only missed every single target set, but the proportion of child labor on coco farms in Ghana and the Ivory Coast increased by a staggering 14 percentage points in the past decade-up from 31% to 45% of children living in the two countries. 

Sure, you’ll buy less chocolate (because the ones raising the bar are also kind of spendy), but if you’re anything like me that’s not exactly a bad thing health-wise. 😂

Here’s a site that can help you find brands that measure up (yes, I know the beloved Ferrero of Nutella fame doesn’t make the cut.😭) https://www.greenamerica.org/end-child-labor-cocoa/chocolate-scorecard

• Change the way you look at clothes. 

From high fashion to Walmart, the clothing supply chain is rife with child labor. Is that cheap t-shirt or pair of jeans still a great buy if you know that that rock-bottom deal was made possible only because of child slave labor? Yeah, not for me either. 

The Fair Wear Foundation has a list of over 120 brands that have signed up to its code of labour practices, which do not allow for the use of child labour. Accredited brands must ensure with regular audits that all of the suppliers in the cut-make-trim stage of production meet these standards.

Another great option is to help reduce production demand by purchasing clothes from resell shops. Bonus points to this one for also being cheaper!

2-MAKE YOURSELF HEARD

• Petition lawmakers to require greater transparency & accountability (including meaningful penalties) for corporation supply chains.

If you live in the U.S.A., you can find your representatives, how to contact them, bills they’ve introduced, committees they serve on, and political contributions they’ve received at this website: https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/

• Let your favorite stores & brands know that this matters to you. 

Yes, your letter, email, phone call/whatever to those representatives, stores & brands represent a tiny drop in the bucket. However, if enough of us cause enough of them enough trouble we CAN effect change. 

3-TAKE A DEEP BREATH

We’re all at different places in life. While I firmly believe that we all have changes we can & should make (& I know I could be better about not letting myself off the hook for the sake of convenience), stressing about the changes that aren’t realistic for you right now helps no one & will only lead to burnout & a likely abandonment of any progress you do make. 

So make changes for the better, but do it in a way and at a pace that fit where your life is right now with a commitment to yourself to continue that course of positive change as your circumstances allow. 

And here are the promised links...totally unorganized because I have put off voting in this accursed election long enough. 😒 

https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/products-made-by-child-labor-with-alternative-options

https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/496573-could-bringing-manufacturing-home-also-help-eradicate-modern-day-slavery

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mining-children-trfn/tesla-apple-among-firms-accused-of-aiding-child-labor-in-congo-idUSKBN1YK24F

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/business/hershey-nestle-mars-chocolate-child-labor-west-africa/

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/our-work/child-forced-labor-trafficking/child-labor-cocoa

http://www.slavefreechocolate.org

https://fortune.com/2020/10/19/chocolate-child-labor-west-africa-cocoa-farms/

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2018/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf

https://www.careeraddict.com/10-companies-that-still-use-child-labor

https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/apple-and-google-named-in-us-lawsuit-over-congolese-child-cobalt-mining-deaths

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/ListofGoods.pdf

https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/cleaning-electronic-waste-e-waste

King Cake

I almost forgot! For anyone who wanted the winning king cake recipe, here it is. I only did a basic cinnamon filling, but a lot of recipes add a pecan praline to the filling or even fruits. This is really an amalgamation of many recipes and just a good starting point. I didn't have any leftovers to check, but this is a brioche type bread, so I'm not sure that it will stay fresh long (ie, don't make it several days ahead, bc the bread will be quite dry...which is a problem with many store bought king cakes.) If you do have leftovers, I'm sure they'd make a lovely bread pudding or french toast! This recipe makes enough dough for two small (9 inch) king cakes or one large one. If you’re not up for two of them, the other half would make great cinnamon rolls. Again, based on the similarity to brioche, I would think that this would freeze really well. Okay, here's the recipe:
Ingredients
For the dough:
2 tsps yeast
¼ c. luke warm water
½ c. Sour cream
1 c.unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt (or 1tsp table salt)
½ c. sugar
2 egg yolks
2 whole eggs
3.5 c. flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder

For the filling:
8 oz cream cheese
1 egg
2 T. white sugar
2 T. flour
1 T cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla

For Icing
Powdered Sugar
Salt
Almond Extract
Heavy cream


Instructions
Make the Dough:
Mix the yeast with the warm water in your stand mixer. Add 1 tsp. sugar and 1 tsp. flour and stir. Set aside to proof.
Heat the butter and sugar together in the microwave. When the butter has melted, add the sour cream and mix until combined and Luke warm. Add to the stand mixture and mix well with beater attachment adding eggs & egg yolks and mix until combined.
Add 2 cups flour, cinnamon and baking powder and continue to mix, then switch to the dough hook attachment, and add two more cups of flour. Let the dough hook knead the mixture until all the flour is incorporated and the mixture looks smooth and elastic. It should be incredibly sticky but still form a mass (ie., the dough can be mostly formed into a sticky ball — it’s not a batter). Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover with a towel, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about two hours.
When the dough has risen, dump it out onto seran wrap and double wrap it. Put it in the fridge and let it rest 7-8 hours, or overnight.

For the filling:
Combine cream cheese, egg, white sugar, flour, cinnamon and vanilla and beat until thoroughly combined.

To assemble the cake:
While the dough is still cold, divide it in half, and set 1 half aside. With the other half, roll it into a long rectangle. The dough should be fairly thin, like pie crust.
Spread the cream cheese filling down the center of the dough. Using a sharp knife, make cuts down each side of the filling at a downward 45 degree angle. Fold the stops over the center alternating sides to make a braid and arrange on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper into the shape of a ring. Seal the edge of the ring, brush with egg wash, cover with a kitchen towel, and let rest for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Bake at 375 for 35 minutes, and let cool completely before icing.
Ice the Cake
For the icing, mix powdered sugar with a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp of almond extract and then add heavy cream until it’s the consistency of a thick and spreadable paste. Top with sprinkles and enjoy!

Hawaiian Bread Is Here!

For those of you out there who love Kings Hawaiian Rolls but hate how much they cost this post is for you! (For those of you who have never tried Kings Hawaiian Rolls I pity you and your sad sad lives). I tried these out on the family this past Easter Sunday and they went over pretty well. Jon thinks the pineapple is too strong, but he's wrong. I found the recipe somewhere online and-as is my wont-messed around with it a bit. I'll probably change it up a little next time because I'd like it a little more airy, but they're still D-lish!

For the recipe

Chocolate Easter Eggs

Okay, these are super easy. The funnest part is that they're hollow! You could fill them with candy (skittles would be fun), a charm/bracelet, money, or-do what I did-and just put a nice quote or scripture printed in a pretty font and tied with a ribbon.

For directions

Our House-Finally

 

The first fruits of our little garden this year. Christopher wanted to plant radishes. He thinks he likes them, but he never really eats them. It was a fun thing to plant because they come up so quickly, but now we have loads of radishes to get rid of. Oh well. 

I decided I'd post the pictures of our house today for those of you who asked about it when we moved in. I know what you're thinking..."But Mindy, it's only been 6 months. Aren't you a couple of years early?" All I can say is that I'm working on not putting things off any more. Crazy huh. Yesterday I even got out the paints and brushes and did some touch-up work around the house. I dunno. Maybe I'm coming down with something. In the meantime, maybe a few projects will get finished.

So, to see the pics

Eat, or do not eat, there is no try!

A cake for my nephew's birthday. The green stuff around the bottom was me playing around with sugar. It's just 1 1/4 c sugar, 2/3 c water and a few drops of food coloring heated to hard crack stage and poured over a tray full of ice cubes. It hits the ice and freezes in funny shapes. Really easy and works great for swamp weeds, lava, coral etc depending on which colors you use. Yoda's head, hands, and legs are rice crispy treat, the rest is cake. He's covered in marshmallow fondant that I shaped with toothpicks and a few other tools. Didn't take as long as I thought it would and I must say, I'm pretty proud of the little guy.

Bacon Ice Cream and Other Important Things

I know what you're thinking. Bacon ice cream?Mindy's really lost it.  That's exactly what Jon thought. He made that scrunched up 'you are crazy woman' face right up to the moment he actually tried it. Then he ate two bowls. I'm telling you, it's delectable.

The recipe I used is from David Lebovitz blog living the sweet life in Paris. So many fun recipes on there I'm going to try. I really enjoyed the candied bacon all on it's own. I suggest making double what he calls for because I PROMISE you will be snacking on the stuff. If you don't want to go to the trouble of making your own ice cream you could always just mix it into a tub of maple ice cream or even just a good vanilla. David uses all half and half which I find is a bit too much for me. I think the next time I make it I'll use whole milk instead. I've really always preferred it that way anyway.

As for the 'other important things' part of the post.....

I read an article by Geneen Roth recently in Good Housekeeping that I HAD to share. It's about food and body image. While that's important, I also think a lot of what she had to say translates really well into how we interact with others and how that can be improved so I'm posting it here. If you get a chance you should really check out some of her books. The woman makes a lot of sense. Anything I added is red and in parenthesis.

Student Cakes February 2011 and Baby Shower Cupcakes

Yep, it's been forever since I posted anything. I'll try to do better Gram, what can I say. =P

The cake above is by me. It's a one-person mini cake for Chelsea's birthday. The shoe and flower are made of chocolate. Fun huh? It was about 5 inches tall counting the shoe and 4 inches wide at the base. The flash makes the black look a little funny, but it turned out cute. Especially when you consider it was the second one I made since Ethan ate the first one for breakfast that morning before I woke up. He wasn't alone in his sneaking though. His little protege grabbed a measuring cup of sugar off the counter when I went to answer my phone.

His only response to getting caught was: More? More sugar? He's such a cute little monster.

The rest of the cakes are by my latest group of cake class students. They did such a great job!

At the end is a picture of some cupcakes I made for a baby shower. Click on the "read more" link for instructions on how to assemble them.

 

Cake Class

SOOOO much has been happening around here lately what with hospital visits and trying to move in, but I thought I'd do a quick post and put up the pictures from the cake class I taught at the college a couple of weeks ago. One of the pictures got deleted off my camera thanks to my 1 year old, sorry 'bout that. They all did so great especially considering most of them had never worked with fondant or made roses before. One of my students even won 2nd place in a contest with his 'mermaid project' cake. So, here are the pics and I hope you all are doing well.

Ethan's Birthday.....FINALLY

So, Ethan's birthday was August 28th but I went up to Idaho and things were busy and he didn't get his party until yesterday. That's right 17 days after his actual birthday. Poor kid. He's been really patient about the whole thing though. Before I left I did take a batch of cupcakes to his preschool class though.

I just arranged the mini-cupcakes how I wanted and then iced them like they were one whole cake. No knife needed for cutting and it's easy for little hands to get just the piece they want.

This year Ethan asked for Captain Hooks' pirate ship for his cake. I took a few pics during the process, but as you'll see, it was really pretty simple. I used a half-sheet cake pan, but you could easily use a 9x13 to do this cake. The only specialty thing I used was a little imprint that presses into the fondant to make it look like wooded boards nailed together. I got mine at Cake Craft Shoppe in Sugarland for 10 bucks in a pack that had that one, cobblestone, brick, siding, and basketweave imprints. Since we're trying to close on the house and pack and what not I decided to just buy a couple of pirates to put on top and then I printed Peter Pan saying "Happy Birthday Ethan" on a piece of cardstock that I used for the sail. I'll include the pictures etc at the end.

He decided for his birthday dinner that he wanted to make his own pizza. I'll include my focaccia bread recipe at the end since we used that for our pizza dough. 

So, I said before how Jon and I had taken away all their toys and....well, everything and that the end result was that they basically didn't care. We realized from that little experiment that all these toys and things they had were, for the most part, for us. We wanted our kids to have this stuff. They didn't really care. I read this article in some waiting room where this organization expert said (and I paraphrase):

"Look at all your stuff and realize that every thing you own represents some of your time; time to clean it, time to put it away, time to maintain it in some way or other. Think of how much more time you would have in your life for things and people you love if you took back some of that time that's being eaten up by things that are just in the way." 

Profound right? Since we're moving I thought this was pretty much perfect timing and we're getting rid of loads of our crap we've been holding on to for years for Heaven only knows what reasons. We'll donate it and maybe someone who actually needs it can have it. Simple, streamlined, peaceful lives is the plan. So, as part of that we asked the grandparents and cousins (we only did a family party) not to get toys for birthday presents. Yep, you read it right. No toys. Before you think I finally crossed the line just read on.What we asked instead is a gift that means something: time. We want our kids to have strong, happy, meaningful memories of time spent with those they love. A tradition of having a lunch date with just them and Grandma or going fishing with Grandpa will mean so much more to them than another plastic thing that will be broken or have half the pieces lost in a month tops. (Who am I kidding? We all know it's a week tops in this house.) And I don't mean that it will eventually, in the long run, sometime when he's older and wiser be more meaningful to them. I mean now as well. For his birthday present from us Jon and I took Ethan to the Houston Children's Museum for the day (we have an annual pass) and we ate PB & J's in the car on the way home. You never saw a happier kid. Traditions, memories, family. That's what we want our celebrations with them to be about.

For the pics and recipes....

Starting School and Visiting Grandma Stellmon

 Aren't they cute? Christopher walks Ethan to his class everyday and then he goes to his. I'd like to be able to say that I had a hard time watching them go, but the truth is I spent the morning of their first day at school reveling in my new-found freedom and marveling at all that one can accomplish with only two kids in tow. Still, I thought they were adorable and took this picture just after they crossed the crosswalk together. See, not heartless after all.

Some of you friends and family know what's going on with me lately, and some don't so I'm going to do a little 'nutshell' version for you. I went to a neurologist because I've had this annoying twitch thing going on since the last few months of pregnancy with Timothy. They ran a whole battery of tests and didn't find out what's causing the twitch, but it turns out that I've had a (VERY MINOR) stroke at some point in the past, I have a small hole in my heart (a congenital defect, but they're checking it out just the same), high cholesterol, a high anion gap (whatever that is), sleep apnea, and possibly arsenic poisening. You know, if you take a car to a mechanic and he pokes around enough he's bound to find something wrong with it. I'm just sayin'. Anyway, I had a thing this last Sunday and I'm going for another CT scan because my neurologist thinks it was a TIA (like a mini warning stroke without the long term effects) but he wants to make sure it's nothing more serious. I guess I'm in the same boat as Bill "We're toast." Really, I'm fine, no worries.

Now, for some fun stuff.

 Timothy, Ryan and I went up to Lewiston to visit Gram & Gramp Stellmon for a week. It was so great. Timothy still smiles when he hears Gram's voice over the phone and Ryan is such a little monster but he and Gram had so much fun having raspberry wars all week. I took a LOT of pictures and video so I just loaded them onto my picasa album. Here's the link to all the pictures from our trip up there. I'm going to load the video sometime, but you know me.

So-obviously-I'm trying to be even more careful of what I eat lately. Jon's sure that a low-fat, low to no sugar, only whole grains, low sodium diet can NOT include edible food, but I'm going to at least try. I got a leg up from my parents and Jay who gave us a huge amount of fresh caught Alaskan Salmon to add to the menu. Yay Dad. At Jon's parents the other day everyone else had burgers and I had a MorningStar Farms® Chipotle Black Bean Burger. I know what you're thinking:" Bean burger?!?" or "Mindy ate something with chipotle?!?!" Actually, it was pretty good. It had some spice, but with the bun, some lettuce and a tomato it wasn't too spicy. I also have a recipe of sorts that I tried the other night and loved. It's a black bean salsa thing. I'm not going to give exact amounts for the salt and spices, just add them to your liking. Really, all the ingredient amounts are negotiable. I just gave amounts to get you started. I know that the banana sounds like a weird ingredient, but trust me on this one okay. I had it once served over tilapia that I had just broiled with a little olive oil and kosher salt and I had it the next day in a whole wheat tortilla with some leftover grilled chicken. Delish both times. I'm also posting a lovely pork loin roast recipe that Jon made for me all by himself the other day because he's so wonderful. I just copied the recipe from the word file he'd saved it in, so I don't know where he originally got it from. For the recipes....

Playing with Fondant

Life with 4 boys, I love it!

YAY! WE HAVE A HOUSE!!! Well, almost. We've signed papers. I'll post pictures when the current owners move out and I can take pictures without potentially crossing that peeping Tom line. Still, YAY!

So a while ago we all went up to the house formerly known as Lauras' which is now an empty shell because they've abandoned us and moved to Utah. While we were there we played with fondant and made some new friends. I thought I'd do a quickie post on a few of the things we covered for those of you who were there. So, here is a link to the post with the fondant recipe as well as some icing, cake and filling recipes. Also, here is the website for the store in Sugarland that I go to to get anything I can't find at the local Hobby Lobby. Be warned though, their shipping charges are really high, so if you can go there to get what you want you'll be better off. (Besides, if you can go without kids it's fun to browse a bit too). I'm doing a couple of cakes next week. One is a cake for the quinciañera of a girl I teach in Sunday school and one is a pirate ship cake for Ethan's birthday. They'll both be covered in fondant and I'll try to take pictures as I go so I can explain some techniques for you. Hope you're having fun with your fondant and feel free to e-mail me anytime with questions at mindywhipple@gmail.com.

Fun with Friends

 

I'm posting a recipe for a great Spanish chicken salad and an easy Moroccan chicken. I 'm also posting the pictures from playgroup this last week and a few other cute pics  and a video of or the long-distance relatives and friends out there. I don't have any pictures from our little weekend without the kiddos, but it was great. We saw Wicked (FANTASTIC!!) went to the Houston Museum of Fine Art (only because Jon was forced to via his art appreciation prof.) and generally enjoyed ourselves. Thanks to Gramma Whipple and Pam for babysitting for us. Anyway, click the link for the photos.... 

A Coup in the Whipple house....Almost

This is one of the pictures of the cake I made for my nephew Brian's birthday party yesterday. In case you're wondering it's supposed to look wonky like that. It's called a topsy turvey cake. They're really very stable despite their look although not quite stable enough to handle Ethan's curiosity. He knocked the top two tiers off, but it's not too bad off considering; just a few lumps and wrinkles.

We’ve gotten tired of the boys breaking everything they look at, so we’re trying something new now. We emptied their rooms of everything-we even took apart their beds-and put it all in a storage unit. They’re sleeping on the floor with a blanket, pillow and stuffed animal each for the next month. They have no toys or books so they’re going to have to entertain themselves some other way. I did keep a few books out for them to use during ‘quiet time’ each day though. I keep those in my room and get them for them when it’s time. They’re learning to appreciate what they have and that’s good. They play a lot of games using their hands as puppets now and I'm glad it's helping them use their imaginations more. We’ll leave it that way for a month (we paid for the storage unit right?) and slowly phase most of their stuff back in after that, but I think we’ll donate quite a bit too.

Due to this new arrangement, Christopher and Ethan are in one room and Ryan and Timothy are sharing a room. Timothy’s sleeping through the night now, so Ryan is getting way more sleep as his roommate than he did as Ethan's. Timothy doesn’t wake up until about 6:30 usually and that’s so nice because Ethan is up by then normally anyway. This morning Timothy woke up first though and it was hilarious. I went in the nursery to feed Timothy and closed the door so we didn’t wake up Christopher or Ethan. Ethan woke up a little bit after I started nursing Timothy and went into my room as usual to ask for a snack. When he saw that I wasn’t there he freaked out and started screaming and crying and ran in their room to wake up Christopher. The funniest thing is how Christopher reacted. He checked my room and when I wasn’t there he decided that he was in charge now and they were going to watch movies. He wasn’t even concerned. I was in the nursery cracking up but trying to be quiet about it. They only found me because"Grand Czar" Christopher decided Ryan could watch movies with them and he was coming to get him out of his crib. You should have seen their faces when they found me in there. Ethan’s face was pure relief and Christopher looked like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Poor guy; I ruined his little coup.

The recipes this week were: Healthy Country Fried Steak with Mushroom Gravy, Asparagus Primavera with Couscous (47), Spicy Shrimp over Rice, and Crème Brûlée (both vanilla and dark chocolate). The first two are from the Clean Eating magazine I wrote about before and the other two are my own recipes. The dark chocolate Crème Brûlée doesn't have exactly the same mouth feel as the vanilla. Judging by what I've read online at various sites that seems to be the case across the board when chocolate is added to it. Still it was very good if you like dark chocolate (which I do). Even my 3 year old niece liked and and I'm including it in this weeks blog at the behest of my nephew Brian who also loved it. Even if you don't like dark chocolate, the vanilla recipe is really the best one I've used and it's a good base for whatever flavor you want to go with. Don't be afraid to give it a try because-even though it seems intimidating to a lot of people-great Crème Brûlée is almost as easy to make as instant pudding it just tastes SO much better. My evil plan to sabotage Jon is working because he can't resist Crème Brûlée and I made him several for Father's Day. Waahh Haaah Hahhh (<--evil genius laugh). Hey, he REQUESTED for me to make it. So I'm not THAT evil.

For the recipes and a few more pictures...

We tried a blackberry salmon recipe out of the Clean Eating magazine a few nights ago and it was a big hit. The only alteration I made was to cook the fish in the sauce and serve it hot. The magazine has you cook the fish separate with just salt and pepper and then serve it cold over arugala with the sauce poured over it. Since Jon's not a fan of fish or cold foods I thought it might be asking a bit much to do both at once. He really liked it done this way though and even went back for seconds. It was good and super simple.

I'm also posting a delish little dish I discovered on the side of a cookie box yesterday. It's a lemon-ginger dessert and it's loaded with all kinds of unhealthyness, but it's fast, delicious, and cheap which was exactly what I was looking for to feed the 40+ people at The Gathering Place meeting today. It is good and I say it doesn't hurt to have junk food once in a while.

Speaking of The Gathering Place....we had an Elvis impersonator there today and he was great! Everyone LOVED him. We have a load of pictures, but I'll only post a couple of them. I'm also posting some pictures from last weekend when we went to the Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid and a sandcastle competition out in Galveston. The aquarium is cool. There's a tunnel you can walk through with the fish & sharks and turtles swimming all around you. We had a lot of fun that day. There were so many cool sandcastles! I think I posted all the pictures on facebook, but here are a few of my favorites. (The one with the golden bucket in front of it won the competition.)

For the recipes and pictures.....

Turkey Burgers with Mango Salsa

So I'm sitting on the couch nursing Timothy today and listening to and watching the other 3 boys play with each other. They're pretending to be superheros with bow and arrows (this may stem from watching Veggie Tales: Lord of the Beans the other day-it's on netflix if you have that) and saving the animals and princesses. They told me they had 100 million each of cows, goats, horses, pigs and chickens to save. When I said that that was a lot of animals and how were they going to save them Ethan said "With daddy milk." ('Mommy milk' is what Timothy drinks when I nurse him.) Curious as to what that was I asked where daddy milk came from. "From the store" he said as though the answer was obvious. Silly me.

It's amazing what kids can make into a game. Take Ryans' recent diaper rash for instance. Ryan's had this terrible rash so-with not a little apprehension-I let him wander about the apartment yesterday without any diaper as per the pediatricians' recommendation. Christopher and Ethan (who may be the only two boys alive under the age of 7 who don't like running around naked) soon started running away from Ryan any time he got close to them screaming "Gross! He's naked! Run away!" Ryan, of course, thought this was hilarious and started chasing them around the apartment laughing. After about ten minutes my desire not to clean up a pee soaked carpet-or worse-outweighed my desire to help his little tushie so I grabbed him before he headed down the hall to get his brothers and put a diaper on him. Moments later Christopher and Ethan came back out into the livingroom and Christopher says in his most mournful voice "But Mommy, we were playing Gross Boy! Now we can't play." Once again mommy ruins a perfectly good game.=)

Okay now for the recipe. Jon and I have made a bet. We took measurements and weighed in and whoever meets their weightloss/measurement goal first gets $50. We only have 16 weeks to get there so we're both trying to make changes in diet and exercise more. I think Jon has an advantage because he has to take not one but 2 PE classes at the college this summer so he will have 5 hours a week of exercise whether he feels motivated or not. My friend Becca said that maybe it's me that has the advantage because I'm breastfeeding and according to the Institute of Medicine that means I'm burning 650 just sitting on the couch feeding Timothy every day. I guess we'll see.

Anyway, I've been trying some new recipes from a magazine I swiped from my OB's office. It's called Clean Eating and it's all about eating things as close to their natural state as possible. It has loads of information, tips and recipes. If the recipes we test are good I'm subscribing. Anyway, yesterday we tried Turkey burgers with fresh mango salsa. It was REALLY good. Yes, I altered the recipe, but not much. I added an egg and some breadcrumbs to the burger mix to make it hold together better and make it moist and I made my own mango salsa instead of buying some of the brand they recommended in the produce section. Even so, it took less than 30 min start to finish. So for the recipe...

Bread Salad

Like that shiner. Ethan gave it to Jon while we were all wrestling with each other. This picture was taken about five minutes after the fact. You should see it now; it's all yellow and green and purple. Very ugly. Jon's mom asked Ethan on Sunday what happened to his daddy and he said "I smoked him while we were at home." Crazy little runt. But there's no denying that the kid is funny.

So, for FHE this week we did an activity where one of the kids had to come up with a funny "What if...." scenario and then we all worked together writing a poem about it. Christopher said "What if Ryan could fly?" Then I'd ask questions like: where would he go, what would he do, what would happen then...etc and we'd put a sentence down and then the kids would have to think of a word that would rhyme with the last word in the sentence for the next line and Jon and I would have to try to use the word they picked in the poem. It was a lot of fun and helped the kids with their rhyming skills too.

Today I'm posting the recipe for bread salad. I know it sounds a little weird to those of you who've never tried it, but it's cheap, healthy, quick, easy and tastes really good so don't be such a chicken. Give it a try.

For the poems and recipe...

Firsts

Christopher lost his first tooth (the other front one is loose too) and Ryan took his first steps(I'd post the video later in this post except my video posting thing isn't working). Our little family just keeps growing and progressing, it seems so crazy most of the time but mostly it's a good kind of crazy. The photo up top is a picture of the wedding cake I did a couple of weeks ago. I'm posting the recipe for desperation cookies today because I thought it was appropo for me at the moment. It's a great recipe and it never turns out the same way twice. The great thing about it is that you just use whatever you have on hand which is why it never turns out the same but it's always delicious. I first came across it in a book by Joanne Fluke. She writes murder mystery books that have recipes all through them. I think this one was in Peach Cobbler Murder, but I'm really not sure. Anyway...For the recipes

Tinkerbell and Strawberry cake

I did a couple of birthday cakes for a friend so I thought I'd post the pictures. The pictures are from her cell phone, so they're not the best, but I didn't take any pictures because frankly my brain is not fully functional yet. On the up side, despite the constant crying as of late, it appears that Timothy may not have colic after all. We went in to the pediatrician for a follow up appointment for Christopher (more below) and I had him check Timothy's ears while we were there and the poor baby has raging ear infections.

So Christopher come to me crying Thursday afternoon. It took a minute to calm him down, but when he did he finally got out what the problem was. "Mom, Ryan made me swallow a battery!" Fan-freakin-tastic. It turns out the he got the button battery out of his book light and was just messing around with the stupid thing in his mouth and accidentally swallowed it. Poor Ryan just happened to be witness to the incident which means he-of course-had to be at fault as it couldn't be Christophers'.

Apparently my child isn't the only one out there with a penchant for appetizers of the alkaline variety though. There is a special hot-line just for button battery swallowers. We had to drive up to Texas Childrens Hospital and do x-rays and sit around for 5 hours because-shocker-no one at our hospital is qualified to fish the thing out if that's what needed to happen. Luckily we had Timothy with us and the nurses felt he was too young to sit out in the waiting room with the sick people so we got to go to an exam room that had a tv and watch the Discovery Channel while we waited. It seemed to be moving along and, after much debate, it was decided that we would be allowed to go home. On the way up to Houston Thursday Christopher asked me if they would have to cut him open to get it out and I told him that they wouldn't because they have a special tool that could go down his throat and into his tummy to get it. Jon said he'd get to eat lots of ice cream if that happened and then Christopher was hoping that it wouldn't come out after all. Crazy kid.

We're going in today for another x-ray and as long as the thing is still moving we're good to go. If it's stuck somewhere they'll have to go in and get it out so it doesn't start leaking acid. So everyone keep your fingers crossed for us okay. I swear, if you know my kids you'd think it would be Ethan going to the emergency room all the time, but it's always Christopher.

Oh, I'm also posting the recipe for homemade strawberry cake because I told Brandi I would. So, here you go dear....

More of Timothy John

If you think he looks bad you should see me. It is not pretty my friends, not pretty at all. The house is a wreck, the laundry is building up and Jon and I are both sleep deprived. So pretty much average for a newbie in the house. Really, we're doing okay here. Still not getting out anywhere but church though.

Christopher and Ethan are loving being big brothers. I tried to potty train Ethan for 8 months to no avail and Jon was home for one week and like magic the little runt is potty trained. He's doing great and hasn't had any accidents in days. Apparently Daddy just has it and Mommy doesn't. Maybe we should try doing the 'Mr. Mom' thing. Jon could stay home and change diapers and I could start a bakery. Just kiddin hon.=)

Timothy's not even two weeks old and I've already had a raging case of mastitis. I think it's a personal best for me as far as quickest infection time. Let's see how long it takes before Timothy and I get thrush together. Yay! I'm told it's because I produce more milk than any 6 babies could drink so I'm never 'empty' and it leaves me more prone to infection. Laura says these gel things from Target really help to stave off infection and to fight it if you have one so I'm going to try them.

For those of you who don't know, I had some nerve damage that left me unable to use my right leg in some ways the last month of the pregnancy and it didn't get any better after the delivery. Nicole has been helping me with some exercises and I'm trying to be good about it and it's getting much better. I can now get into bed by myself and even put on my own pants without any help. Pathetic, I know, but that's not sarcasm. I really am excited about it. Anyway here are some more pics of the new kid on the block plus some of our little cutie pie Ry-Ry. Also, if you click on read more and give it a sec there's a cute video of Christopher rocking Timothy to sleep at the very top of the post. Too cute!