Crafty Fun

We have been doing a lot of craft over the past week, mainly due to the inclement weather keeping us indoors. We had a great time painting.  We used cut up old credit cards for spreaders and corks, cotton reels and a variety of different shaped lids for printing.  What an amazing picture we created!!

We also did colour mixing by painting each hand a primary colour and then rubbing our hands together to see which new colour was produced.  Fun!!!

One of the things we did was start to make a postbox for playing postmen.  We cut a hole in a cardboard box and covered it in gummed tape.  What amazing stuff!!! It's like papier mache without the hassle.  It means that we'll be able to paint the box easily and without the smeary brush marks you get when painting directly onto glossy cardboard.  I'll post a pic of the completed item at a later date.

Happy Crafting
Jo x

http://thejoyfulkeeper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/we-have-100-time-for-give-away.html?showComment=1340883320568#c3445647435441961502
Caroline has a great giveaway over at The Joyful Keeper.  One Thousand Gifts is a fantastic book.

Edward's Juice Experiment

 Well I could tell you about the baby not gaining weight and how I gave up raw to eat more and put on a stone but that the baby gained weight so it was all worth it.  BUT instead I want to share with you about Ed's juice experiment.  There was recently a post on Facebook about saying yes.  It really challenged me.  My Ed, who is 6, has some really hairbrained plans.  And quite often I find myself saying 'NO'.  In fact it was becoming something of a stumbling block in our relationship.  So I decided to start saying 'YES',... well at least some of the time anyway.
So Ed wanted to open a juice bar.  I did say hairbrained.  Lol.  Well, I thought that if we did some experimenting with juices and milkshakes, we could invent some of our own recipes and have a juice party, where we could give out tokens with the invitations to use as cash.  So it would kind of be a juice bar , if you see what I mean.  So here are the results.  Today we also made some fruit shaped stamps to create invitations, but that is another post. I'll follow up as the adventure unfolds.
Love Jo x

Catch Up

Well I haven't posted for absolutely ages. Sometimes life just seems to take over. Since my last post we have experienced the eventful birth of our lovely Josiah Benjamin, who is now 3 months old. Most of you will know the story, thanks to my husband's very eloquent Facebook posts, so I won't repeat it here. Suffice to say it was a very stressful time and we are extremely grateful to God that that particular season of our life is over.

It's been a busy three months since I've been home. Initially, my recovery was fairly slow. I would say that it wasn't really until mid-February that I started to feel more like myself. Anyway, I am certainly back to full speed now and am busy juggling the demands of a young baby with a VERY active toddler and homeschooling the two older boys. Did I forget to mention the housework? Well perhaps that's best not mentioned. Maybe I will devote a whole post to that sometime soon. I have so much to catch up on.

Perhaps the most exciting thing to happen of late is my foray into the world of raw food. I have been thinking about going raw for a while now. I am normally such a carb addict that I just didn't think I could hack it. Bread bread and more bread is my diet of choice. Anyhow, all that bread and my fifth pregnancy had caused my weight to rocket. I have no idea how much I weighed when I came out of hospital but it was a vast amount. Even when I had fully recovered from the CS and pneumonia I still felt tired and sluggish and was still wearing maternity clothes. Something had to be done. I tried to eat more moderately but my cravings always got the better of me. It was then that I attended the Above Rubies Ladies Retreat in Sussex. I felt terrible. All these lovely mummies with large families and most of them still lovely and slim. Where was I going wrong?

Browsing the book stall I picked up Serene Allison's book, Rejuvinate - Recipes for Energy. I decided it was worth a try. And here I am three weeks later, mostly raw. I do supplement with free range eggs and goats cheese. And I do enjoy the odd jacket potato still. But that's it. Everything else I've eaten for the last three weeks is raw. I am loving it. Today I've eaten:

Breakfast: nothing, got up too late (oops)

Lunch: spinach salad with rejuvination mayo (blended sunflower seeds with lemon, garlic, olive oil), 2 flax seed crackers with rejuvination cream cheese (blended pine nuts/sunflower seeds with garlic/lemon juice etc.)

1 banana, 2 clementines, handful of raisins

Dinner: haven't decided yet

We went on a long walk today but I wasn't hungry at all. I always feel full and am not too tempted by cooked food, even cake. Eek. I am going to blog on here about how I get on so you will hopefully be able to follow my raw journey. I will blog soon with a now piccie and details of my current weight. Then we will all be able to see how raw affects my bodyweight. Signing off for now but hoping to update you soon.

Jo x