This is a post I started about a month ago. Figured I better finish and post it 😛  It’s just a few simple ways I’ve learned to add nutrition to our diet. I especially like that there are many easy ways to nourish a growing child…even a picky eater.

1. Raw egg yolks – This is about the easiest way to bump up nutrition in so many foods. And an especially great way to get picky eaters/non-egg eaters to eat eggs. Egg yolks can be mixed into just about anything without changing the texture or taste. Some of our favorite things to add them to are salad dressings, dips (like hummus), smoothies, yogurt (stir a yolk into plain yogurt and/or kefir and add a little honey…perfect breakfast or snack…one of Rebecca’s favorites…sometimes we mix in peanut butter too) and soup. Or if you’re like me and actually like the taste you can eat them plain. Sprinkle a little sea salt on a yolk…yum! Mix it with diced avocado…even better 🙂  I use these tricks to give Rebecca some egg almost daily.

2. Lemon juice – lemon juice is great for digestion and cleansing. I start every day with warm water mixed with some lemon juice.

3. Raw apple cider vinegar – this is similar to the lemon juice. It aids in digestion and helps with stomach acid. I drink warm water with ac vinegar every day before lunch. This is definitely an acquired taste. You can add a little honey if the vinegar is too strong for your taste.

4. Coconut oil – Coconut oil has so many health benefits. And you can use it in so many ways. I add it to smoothies and yogurt. Or I use in baking in place of butter. I also use it for cooking/frying, especially things like veggies and stir fry. You can mix a little with honey and refrigerate it for a sweet treat (kind of like fudge). Coconut oil is also great to use on your body. I use it as lotion. I also use it in my deodorant and toothpaste.

5. Cold pressed extra virgin olive oil – Olive oil is very healthy. Especially when used in a pure form. I use it liberally in salad dressings and dips (like pesto and hummus). It is not the best option for cooking/high heat.

6. Avocado – the fat in avocados is very healthy. I generally eat a minimum of one avocado a day. I love it plain, with sea salt. But I also add it to just about anything. I almost always add it diced into my soups. It is wonderful on sandwiches and salads. Avocado is especially great in smoothies. It is the key to thick, creamy smoothies or milkshakes. I’ve even used it in ice cream and pureed soups. A favorite breakfast for Rebecca is a milkshake/smoothie made with kefir, milk, egg yolk, honey, blueberries and avocado. Or sometimes for a treat I’ll make her a chocolate “shake” with milk, kefir, honey, cocoa, egg yolk and avocado.

7. Probiotics – probiotics are the good bacteria in your gut that aid in digestion and keep your immune system up. You can get them through food – fermented and cultured foods (kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, sour cream, buttermilk, fermented ketchup, fermented veggies, etc.). And you can take supplements. I do a combo of the two. Rebecca, Abram and I all take a probiotic supplement daily. And we try to eat fermented and cultured foods daily.

8. Fermented cod liver oil – this is a very simple way to make sure you’re getting enough Vitamin A and D. Rebecca and I (and hence Abram 🙂 both take fermented cod liver oil/butter oil daily. Such great brain food, especially for children. Not many people get all of their omega-3, vitamin A and vitamin D through food and sun exposure alone. So taking CLO is a great way to make sure you get enough.

A few simple tricks to make sure your whole family is getting enough fat, vitamins, minerals and good bacteria in their diets. What do you do each day to stay healthy?

This post is linked to Fat Tuesday on Real Food Forager.

We had fun with the letter D this week learning about Dutch, dogs and dinos. Here’s what we did.

The Letter D

Baking – Dutch apple pie, Dutch letter cookies
Crafts/Science/Nature – Dutch windmills, dog puppets, dinosaur fossils, shape-a-saurus
Dancing
Days of the week – Rebecca now knows the days of the week.
Daddy – we made a D for Daddy.
Visit from grandparents
KM assignment – patterns
Memory Verse – Psalm 100: 2 Worship the Lord with gladness
Character – Discernment (making good choices)
Math – division, adding, subtracting, counting, patterns, sorting

We’ve been learning the letter D this week. So we’ve been talking a little bit about dinosaurs. As I was looking for dino crafts I found an easy one for making fossils. You use salt dough. It was great for this craft. And it can be used for many other things. I’m sure I’ll be making it a lot with Rebecca for various projects. I love how simple it is to make…flour, salt, water. Rebecca basically made it herself. I only made a 1/4 of the recipe and it was plenty for our craft. I’ll post my quantities. We made two large fossils and a letter D (for our letter of the week and for Daddy :).

Salt Dough

1 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
3/8 – 1/2 cup water

Mix flour, salt and 3/8 cup water in a bowl. Add more water if too dry. Use dough to make handprints, fossils, beads, etc. Bake on baking sheet lined with parchment paper at 350 for about 1 hour…until dry. Paint when cooled.

To preserve it, you’ll need to spray it with polyurethane or clear varnish spray.

I’ve been making homemade chicken and beef broth for a while now. It’s very easy and so good for you. It’s the foundation of GAPS, so I eat it a lot. But after doing a little reading yesterday I realized that broth and stock are not the same. And they have different functions. I generally make broth, based on the Nourishing Traditions method…lots of bones, etc. and long cooking. You get all the vitamins, minerals and gelatin out of the bones. It is nourishing, healing and easy to digest. But…it’s not how the GAPS book tells you to make broth. Or should I say stock. Turns out there is a difference between bone broth and stock.

I’ll use chicken as an example while explaining. But it’s the same for all meats. To make stock you put a whole chicken in a pot and cover it with water (and add seasoning). Then simmer for a couple hours. That’s all. Strain the stock and take the meat off the bones. This is about as easy as it gets. And it’s the recipe in the GAPS book.

To make broth you don’t need a whole chicken/chicken meat. You mostly need bones. You put bones/scraps in a pot and add water (you can add vinegar as well to pull more nutrients out) (and seasoning). Then cook this for 24 hours. This will pull all of the nutrients out of the bones. Chicken necks and feet work especially well for this.

They are both very nutritious and healing. And are both important. So, after reading about this yesterday I experimented and realized I can really get my money’s worth out of chicken and make both. I cooked our chicken in the crockpot, mostly filled with water. I strained that and got 2 quarts of stock. Then after deboning the chicken I put all the bones/parts back in the pot and made broth…got another 2 quarts. Not bad.

Coincidentally after writing this post I saw a post on The Nourishing Gourmet about using your bones multiple times. So I guess I could have gotten even more out of my one chicken. I’ll have to try that next time.

Here is what the GAPS site says about the broth and stock:

“In the GAPS book I have described how to make meat stock. There is a difference between meat stock and bone broth. Meat stock is made with raw meat on a bone and it needs to be cooked just long enough to cook the meat thoroughly (2-3 hours), so it can be eaten, and so the bone marrow can be taken out of the bone and consumed. The meat stock made this way is usually clear and delicious, with an excellent nutritional value: it is particularly rich in amino acids. Bone broth is made out of bones which can be raw or cooked or a mixture (many people collect cooked bones from their meals, keep them in the freezer and use them for making the broth). In order to leach minerals out of the bones we add vinegar to the water. It is not necessary to add vinegar to the meat stock unless you need it for a particular taste. Bone broth may have quite a different nutritional composition from the meat stock and a different taste. Both are beneficial and should be used in GAPS diet.”

I now try to make and use both. I like to use the broth in addition to the stock since I generally do not eat the marrow out of the bone. That’s why the broth is important. So, what do you usually consume…broth or stock? I think I’ll be trying to do both now.

This week I added on some Bible memory work. We try to do Bible story time every Monday (at a minimum). And now we’re working on memorizing a passage. We are currently working on Psalm 100. This week Rebecca learned the first verse. We also started MOPS. Rebecca will be in a class there and have crafts, stories, etc. and more social time.

The Letter C

Art/Project – Carson’s Caring Card (made a card for her cousin and bought some stickers for him), cutting/decorating/gluing Crowns and Castles, Card for Daddy
Science/Nature – learned about Caterpillars; made one with pom poms, made an accordian caterpillar; Saw Cows on the farm where we get our beef
Character – Caring
Baking project – Cherry Chip Cookies (give some away as a thank you…example of caring)
Number – 4
Left/Right
Bible Memory – Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Cooking – Rebecca helped make her caterpillar lunch (out of hot dogs)
Kindermusik assignment – exploration with balls

The Letter B

Character – Brave
Baking project – peanut butter Brownies
Play time – Building with Blocks
B animals – bear, bunny, baboon, beaver, bug, bee, beetle, bird
Art project – painting pictures of things that start with B (balloons, birds, balls, boxes)
Birthday – she now knows her birthday
Number – 3
Kindermusik assignment – glisando (record Rebecca doing some form of glisando…she did it on her slide whistle)

As part of Rebecca’s homeschool preschool this year we’re working on a new letter each week and basing a lot of our activities on that letter. So I thought I’d start making a post for each letter as a way to remember what we did/look back if we need ideas to review letters. I’ll try to post all the things we learned that week (a few won’t be related to the letter, but most will). Our first week we didn’t do too much since we were just getting started/trying to figure things out. Hopefully as the weeks go on we’ll get more creative and have lots of fun. I try to do a new character trait each week (didn’t start until B week) and focus on how we have in the past and can now live it out. I also try to do some kind of craft/project and often a baking project. Plus other misc. stuff. And we always work on writing our letters, learning what sounds they make and thinking of words that start with the letter. We also do a new number each week and work on counting/math. Sometimes we do outings and scince projects as well. And every Tuesday we have social/music time in Kindermusik. We get an assignment each week that I’ll add to our list. And every other Friday is MOPS. Rebecca has a class there as well for social time, crafts and stories.

The Letter A

Baking project – Apple pear crisp
Name recognition – she can recognize her whole name when she sees it written
Number – 1, 2
Kindermusik assignment – story telling

I want to take a moment to say Happy 8th Anniversary to my wonderful husband, Justin! You are such a blessing to me and our children. My love for you grows daily. Here are some of the things I love about my husband.

He works hard and is great at what he does. I’m so proud of his accomplishments at his job and look forward to what the future holds.
He provides our family with stability (especially when I’m overly anxious).
He is patient…with all of us.
He is slow to anger.
He accepts me the way I am and never makes me feel bad about my weaknesses/faults.
He makes me want to be a better person.
He loves the Lord.
He is a servant.
He loves our children and is a wonderful father.
He makes me feel special.
He desires me.
He is a leader.
He is handsome.
He is smart.
He encourages me to use my gifts/to be the person God made me to be.
He is very skillful around the house (fixing, building, etc.).
He is great with finances.
He is passionate.
He is a great gardener.
He is devoted to our family.
He is a skilled musician.
He is confident.

I could keep going 🙂  There are so many things I love about my husband. I am writing this today becaues it is our anniversary. But I encourage all wives to think about why they love their husbands every single day. Justin, you are a blessing from God, and I am so lucky to be called your wife! I love you! Happy Anniversary! May God bless us with many many more happy years together.

Abram Judah! Just wanted to quick share that our son was born on Monday. He weighs 8lbs. 3 oz. and is 21 1/2 in. long. We’re all doing well and feel so blessed to have this little guy join our family.