Happy Canada Day

Library Time Week 4

Lots of reading going on here with school being out. Well let's face it, even when school is on there's lots of reading going on here. :)

 

Myself - I read a Grace Livingston Hill book this week that I downloaded for free on my Kindle...The City of Fire. Grace Livingston Hill started the Christian romance genre. When my grandfather was in a major car accident and had to spend months in the hospital he was so taken with the idea of a Christian romance that he read as many as he could get. This one had a different twist because the main character is a twelve-year-old boy so, of course, the romantic interest wasn't his.

 

14-year-old daughter - Lady Vernon and Her Daughter - a take-off on a little-known work of Jane Austen's

 

13-year-old son - The Endless Steppe (a Jewish girl taken with her family by the Russians and sent to Siberia during World War II) and The Wild Children

 

 

 

 

11-year-old son - The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

9-year-old daughter - She's on a Beverly Cleary kick with Ramona the Pest and Henry and Beezus.

.

7-year-old daughter - She's been reading a lot to her two little brothers. They enjoy the Little Jewel books from the Rod and Staff Publishers and The Golden Books.

 

What has your family enjoyed reading this week?

Vitamin B1 - Thiamine

We have finished looking at the fat-soluble vitamins. You will remember that fat-soluble means they need fat to be present for our bodies to properly absorb them. Now we are going to be looking at water-soluble vitamins. These are more easily absorbed by our bodies because they can dissolve in water. Any excess of these vitamins is eliminated through our urine and not stored by the body so we need to make sure we are replenshing them frequently.

 

There are many different "B" vitamins. They all work as coenzymes which means they help enzymes function properly in our bodies. What are enzymes, you ask? They are special proteins in our bodies that help produce chemcial reactions. For instance, you have probably heard of digestive enzymes. They help us digest our food. There are myriads of enzymes in our bodies all with a specific function, and the B vitamins help them to perform. So you can see that these vitamins are very important to us. Finally, before we move on, since the vitamins B all work together you should look for a B complex supplement.

 

The first B vitamin is Vitamin B1 or Thiamine. This vitamin is important to our mental health. Children need it for growth and learning ability. It is also important for the muscles in our digestive tract and helps in the assimilation of nutrients and stabilization of appetite. A deficiency of Vitamin B1 can lead to the disease beri-beri. Caffeine may destroy thiamine. Pregnant and breast feeding women have increased need for thiamine.

 

Some pretty important functions here, but according to healthaliciousness.com there are some tasty foods containing Vitamin B1. First off is yeast extract spread (Marmite), a popular food in British culture. Then we have sesame butter (tahini) and seeds and sunflower seeds. Next are dried herbs and spices, pork chops, pine nuts, pistachios, macadamia nuts, fish and pecans. All of those nuts! Sounds good to me.

The information about Vitamin B1 comes from the Encyclopedia of Natural Healing, Alive Publishing Group, 1997.

More Free Reading

I guess by now you know that I love books. I can't help myself. I was raised by a book addict - my dad. My dad read to my sisters and I so many books when we were growing up. He didn't just read picture books to us when we were little; he read classics to us when we were older. He instilled in all of us a deep love for reading. My mom taught us the mechanics of reading, but my dad gave us the love of reading.

 

My dad passing the love of books on to the next generation.

 

You can imagine my excitement today when I discovered that there is a website where you can download audio books for free. Yes, you read that correctly - F.R.E.E. Not only can you download audio books for free they also give you different sources for the book such as the Gutenberg Project, a wikipedia link, a cover for a CD case and several audio option for downloading the book. The books are read by volunteers. Some books could have more than one reader. You could even volunteer to do some reading if you so desired.

 

I've only looked up a few books (yes, Eva-Joy, they have Les Mis in French or English) but am excited by what I've seen. I can think of so many applications. You could listen to these while ironing, for a sick child, listen to the literature book they are studying, in the car on a trip, a bedtime story. You could just download them as needed or plan ahead and get several books ready for a trip.

 

So where is this site, you ask. So glad you asked or in my enthusiasm I may have forgotten to tell you. The website is http://librivox.org/. Happy reading or I guess I should say listening.

 

What book will you look for/listen to first?

P.S. While we're talking about reading - look for a small reading-related giveaway to be announced when I hit my 50th post.

Patriotic Baby

• My sister made a blanket for my youngest when he was born - Snoopy at that (my favourite cartoon character). Jonah loves his blanket. The problem is that he loves his blanket so much it's hard to find a time to wash it.

 

So, this project was not on my summer sewing list but it became high priority. When I went to the fabric store I really didn't want camo or cars/trucks. Thankfully it's almost Canada Day so we went with a patriotic pattern. You will need two pieces of flannel - one meter (yard) of each.

This pattern is so easy that even the most novice person on a sewing machine could make one of these blankets. They would make a great baby shower gift. I know that I love to receive handmade gifts no matter how simple they are.

 

The first thing to do is to trim your two pieces so they are exactly the same length. Then you will want to trim the sides. You need to take the selvedge edges off. If you lay one piece on top of the other they will be trimmed to the same width. I use my rotary blade and mat. You could do this with scissors, but let me tell you a rotary blade makes life so much easier. I love mine.

Now lay your two pieces together with the right sides facing each other. Starting in the middle of one side sew a straight seam all around the four edges stopping about three inches from where you started. Before you turn it inside out clip each of the four corners. This will make your corners sharper when you turn the blanket right side out.

Now there are several ways you could close up the hole left from where you turned the blanket inside out. You could hand sew it shut. You could sew a ribbon across the whole side where the hole is - that's what my sister did on the blanket she made. It will give the blanket a nice satiny edge that so many babies seem to enjoy fingering. Or you could do what I did. I didn't have any ribbon so I turned the raw edge to the inside of the blanket, and then I sewed a decorative edge around the four edges of the blanket.

Jonah loves it and so do I. So simple and if you buy the fabric on sale (mine was 75% off) it's an inexpensive gift.

He still wants to be swaddled when he goes to sleep. Here he is enjoying being swaddled in his new blanket - seconds away from falling to sleep.

What do you think? Could/would you make one of these?

Jeremiah 29:11

Library Time Week 3

Sign up for our library's reading club started today so I know that we'll be going sometime next week to do this.

 

I don't have a list of books this week, but I thought I would review a book that my younger girls and I are reading...The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett. You might recognize her as the author of The Little Princess and The Secret Garden. You can buy the book at Amazon or get it free on your Kindle.

This is a story about a 12-year-old boy who along with his father is an exile from Samavia. They spend their lives fleeing from one European country to another always awaiting the day when they can return to Samavia. Then they are given an assignment - prepare the Samavian people to rise up against their current rulers and accept their lawful prince as ruler. Once more they are on the run but this time with a purpose.

 

Who is the prince? Will everyone be ready in time? Will Samavia finally be free as her people long for?

 

I loved this book as a child and read it many times. It's full of the action and mystery which all children love especially when it is a child that is the hero. I'm having fun introducing my children to it.

What is a favourite book from your childhood?

Organizing and Baby

I was thinking about this week and what I have done for my family's health. The beginning of our week was occupied with a lot of moving. We moved our all empty jars (a lot) and the few still with food in them from the basement up to our storage room. My husband and two oldest sons did most of the work. My husband did a great job reorganizing our storage room to accommodate the two extra shelves. I was so thankful he did because I was busy revamping our basement. We took all the pictures and board books from the basement up to our little boys' bedroom. Then I spent two days reorganizing all of the rest of the books (approximately 20) while the children sorted through all the toys, books, games, puzzles and clothes that had taken up occupation on the floor. It was a lot of work, but the results are so great. The children love to play down there now. I even labelled the book shelves so when they take  book off they can put it back where it belongs.

That was all amazing, but then I weighed my baby this morning and I realized the greatest thing I did this week was feeding him. At 5 1/2 months he weighs in at a whopping 21 1/2 pounds. Since he is only nursed my body has done an amazing job nourishing his little (?) body. He has the sweetest smile with a dimple in each cheek, chubby thighs and a soft, squishy tummy. I think very soon we're going to have to start some solids. He is definitely starting to show an interest in what we're eating. It is such a bittersweet time. I love that he's growing up, but even if takes another 20 months to wean him it's still the beginning of the end of a very sweet part of mothering him. August 1-7 is International Breastfeeding Week and I plan to do a series of posts about nursing your baby at that time. 

I've done some sewing this week too and will be posting one or two tutorials next week based on the sewing I'm doing. We're also getting ready for Canada Day celebrations. Our garden is really shooting up and this coming week starts u-pick strawberries which we hope to get to. So we're winding down one busy week and looking to start up another.

I hope you had a good week too.

Vitamin K

This vitamin is fairly straightforward. Basically we need it for blood clotting and to help support our bone structure. Our bodies can manufacture what we need through our intestinal bacteria. It is very rare to be deficient in Vitamin K. Vitamin K2 is produced by our bodies; while Vitamin K1 can be found in the chlorophyll of plants.

So just in case you are worried, here are the top ten foods for Vitamin K according to healthiliciousness.com. First, herbs - basil, sage, thyme - then, dark leafy greens, scallions, brussel sprouts and broccoli. There are spices - chili powder, curry, paprika and cayenne. You can also eat asparagus, cabbage, pickled cucumber and prunes. With foods like this if you do have to supplement it should be delicious.

The information about Vitamin K comes from the Encyclopedia of Natural Healing, Alive Publishing Group, 1997.

English Muffin Bread

Today I made one of our favourite breads. I found this recipe on the internet a few months ago, and it has become my go-to recipe when I need four loaves of bread faster than the traditional yeast bread. You know, those mornings when my brain is in such a fog that I forget to start my yeast dough or I'm so busy with some project that I just don't stop to make regular bread. This batter can be mixed in five minutes and in the oven two hours later which means I can actually start it at 9:30 and still have it for lunch - my regular bread needs to be started by 8.

It's called "English Muffin Bread". It is similar to English muffins in texture and is oh-so-good when you toast and butter it. The recipe comes from here, but I have tweaked it to be a little more healthy.

English Muffin Bread

5 cups warm water

2 1/2 tbsp yeast

2 tbsp honey

11 cups whole wheat flour

2 tbsp salt

Dissolved the yeast in the water. Add the honey and let it stand for five minutes to get the yeast activated. Add the flour and salt and mix well. That's it! Now it has to sit until it reaches the top of your bowl (45 minutes to an hour). Then you spoon it into well-greased pans (do not be stingy with the greasing). Let it rest again until it's near or at the top of your pans (again 45 minutes to an hour). Place the pans in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes. So easy and so good. I dare you to eat just one piece.

You can see that the batter is a little thicker than pancake batter, but not thick  enough to knead.

After an hour my bowl was overflowing - I was distracted and forgot to check it.

Spooning it into the pans - notice how well the pan is greased.

ready to rest again

ready for the oven

Finished - yummy goodness