My Men Eat S.E.R.E. Training for Breakfast

Actually they eat fresh rabbit and minnow stew for dinner.  YUCK! 

S.E.R.E.: Survival Evasion Resistance Escape

My boys have had a healthy obsession with survival and the military lately.  Samuel mostly military and Josiah the survival.  The two converged with the show Survival School that follows 47 airmen as they go through the S.E.R.E training program.

http://www.hulu.com/survival-school
"Dehydration. Exhaustion. Starvation. Welcome to The Air Force S.E.R.E program, one of the toughest training programs the U.S. military has to offer. Out of 500 potential applicants, only 47 Airmen actually get admitted to the program, and almost half of them won’t make the cut. These brave Airmen are about to embark on the toughest challenge they will ever face. They will learn some harsh lessons, push themselves to their limit and use their surroundings, all to help them be better Airmen and become masters of survival."

For Josiah's big 10, we planned a survival camping trip.  Sam, Uncle Mike and the cousins hiked almost 2 hours out in Hobbs State Park.  They built a shelter and a fire, caught minnows, learned to skin and cook a rabbit and came back to tell about it.  Plans are already in the works for survival trip 2010!

Great Passions

It's Your Birth, Know Your Options!

I guess it's been 2 1/2 years since my first days as an apprentice when I met Beth Day. She was completing her childbirth educator training with Lamaze and half way through her second pregnancy. We met at her prenatal and instantly connected. We both love motherhood and birth and chatted effortlessly about our passion for helping women during their childbearing years.

And so it was that while she nurtured her second baby in her womb and I made my way as graciously as possible through my husbands year long deployment to Iraq, we birthed a grassroots effort to bring change in childbirth to NWA. Beth is an advocate at heart and was the one with the vision to start a grassroots organization to help inform and educate the public about options on childbirth and the child bearing years. After doing some research she discovered that this was already being done sucessfully in other communties. So being the witty, intelligent women we are, we thought, why reinvent the wheel, and a new local chapter of BirthNetwork National was born.

The only hang up was that two co-leaders were needed, when no one else stepped up, I came along side and tried to help and encourage Beth the best I could. I think the thing that really helped our co-leadship relationship work was that we both had a big vision for change, that we both feel positive change is possible.

Over the last 2 1/2 years, I believe many positive change has been made and many mothers and

families have benefits from "Knowing Their Options". Join us in making an even bigger impact by joining BirthNetwork of NWA today. Go over to their web site and check out all the exciting events coming up. Currently they are running a Pampers Mother's Contest and they have all kinds of great goodies to give away, including a massage! http://www.birthnetworknwa.org/. Or you can head out to the Living It Green Expo at Pinacle and see the BirthNetwork booth and talk to the great gals there. Tell them I said "Hi!".

More Repurposing

Repurposing, I would best describe as something you have self recycled. Seriously, I put "recycled sewing patterns" in google and got almost nothing. When I put "repurposed sewing patterns", I hit the jackpot. You should try it. Well, actually if you have time to do that just for amusement, you have too much time and you need to head over here and help me school or clean or something.

Two Christmases ago I bought Hannah a small sewing machine and had great plans of incorporating sewing classes into our home school. We started this really cute project of turning a pair of jeans into a purse. Shortly after, pardon the expression, but it all hit the fan. Sam got deployed and I started apprenticing. As many of you home schoolers know, when life starts flying by way to fast, you drop all but the essentials. The sewing machine moved from the cabinet, to under the bed, to a storage bin in the shed. When we were going through the shed getting out home school supplies a couple of weeks ago, I grabbed the tote marker "sewing". It found a new home in the storage under the RV.

Yesterday, just as we finished school and the boys went out to play their Thursday afternoon football game with some of their friends, Hannah asked to watch TV. So I got my exhausted rear end off the couch and dug our purse project out. Hannah was so excited. She absolutely loves sewing. She said she enjoys it more than knitting, that is was more fun than watching TV would have been and "A straight line feels so good", among other things. She was delighted. We finished up the project today and are excitedly searching for a knew project to start.

We lined ours with some super cute fabic and added two pockets to the inside, one of which holds her cell phone, the other her small Bible.

There is definitely more repurposing projects in our future, as those who know me, know this is the kind of thing that appeals to me and they make great beginner projects and as a bonus they are very affordable. Oh and yes, I did stage some of the pictures specifically for the blog! I actually have the blog in mind when I take a lot of pictures, since this may be the closest they come to an album. :)

Squash, Repurposed Socks and Oranges

I passed the NARM!!!! I am now a Certified Professional Midwife!!!! PTL!!! Thank you to everyone who prayered.

Flat Maps, Magellan, and the Cape of Good Hope

Last Monday began our homeschool year. I was soooooo glad to have the kids back home for school this year. We had just gotten back from our travels, so I didn't have much planning time. At 1:00 am on Sunday night my living area still looked like a home school curriculum conventions had exploded. We got up Monday morning and gave it our best shot anyway. I have tweaked the schedule several times since then and we are still working on it, but things are running much smoother. I am so glad we have several weeks of staying put, so I can get the hang of this again. On Thursday we had are lesson on flat maps and did the draw the earth on an orange and try to lay the pealing flat activity. That one is always fun and a great way to start the first week of school.

These People Look Way Too Happy to be Eating Squash and Sweet Potato

Inspired by the fall produce at the Farmer's Market I found a soup recipe for Roasted Squash and Sweet Potato Soup. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but what's new. The recipes instructions were to roast the squash, potato and garlic in the oven. I used the crock pot to keep from heating the house. The solar oven would have done a good job, but it was too cloudy. I also added the fresh beans we bought at the farmers market and we ate the yummy soup with fresh bread, which doubled as home economics class. We had a special treat too, my mom came over to eat with us.

The Roasted Vegetables and the yummy finished product.

Oh! and I used coconut oil (my new miracle cure food) instead of olive oil, which complemented the vegetables wonderfully.


Repurposed

Some time back, I knitted my friend J a pair of socks, which were mostly wool. She promptly washed them and they sunk two sizes and became Hannah's socks. She was delighted and promptly washed them and they sank so small Lena couldn't even get them on her feet. While perusing through the book store I saw a book on using felted sweaters and came up with the idea of repurposing the already felted socks into super cute fingerless gloves and ballet slippers for Adelina's birthday. She loves them!