More Krispy Kreme Pictures

I didn't post all the pictures I wanted to from our Krispy Kreme trip (see post below.) 

So here they are!

This is a perfect picture of a lone doughnut gliding under the glorious waterfall of glaze!

Here are some doughnuts that were generated from a hand held vat (barely seen in the upper right hand part of the picture) and are frying in very hot oil.

  Here are the doughnuts in a vat of hot oil.  The machine at the right of the picture flips them over...so they are fried on one side, go through the machine and are flipped over, and then fry on the other side.  Very cool!

Trip to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

I'm into super educational field trips.  So today, we leaped up, got in the van by 7:45 a.m., and were at Krispy Kreme doughnuts by 8:15 a.m.

I know what you are thinking. Not very educational. But it was, it was!  And it almost wasn't.

We've gone once before. Krispy Kreme has this wonderful doughnut making area that has clear panels so that patrons can view the doughnuts being made. There are vats of glaze!  Sizzling tubs of hot oil!  Sprinkles!  Chocolate frosting!  Interesting machines that flip the doughnuts over!  The children enjoyed it, especially our mechanically inclined ones.

When we got in the restaurant at 8:15 a.m., there were a few doughnuts that were just going down the final conveyor belt. I assumed that we had hit a lull and that they would start making doughnuts again soon.  So we went over to buy doughnuts so the kids' could have their thoroughly luscious breakfast.

I casually asked the lady at the counter if there would be more doughnuts made today. She said no!  She said that they were done.  I was surprise and disappointed.  We came at 10 a.m. last time and they were making doughnuts. She explained that they had gotten a new machine that made doughnuts much more quickly.

Well, that was wretched. But doughnuts still has to be eaten, so I bought a dozen and the kids settled down to eat them.

And lo and behold, some doughnuts started moving along some conveyor belts.  Over the course of the next hour, we watched some specialty doughnuts being made with a big hand controlled vat.  We also watched as a dozen of the plain doughnuts (which had been made previously) were placed on a conveyor belt which took the doughnuts through a warming oven, down a slope onto another conveyor belt, then around a corner, down another slope onto another conveyor belt, and finally through a waterfall of sugary glaze.  When the doughnuts were dry, an employee put them in a box and gave them to us.  (Yep, I got a SECOND dozen doughnuts to bring home. We don't have doughnuts often, I promise!)

 So, it was a successful field trip.  And we were home before 10.  Some mommies get more field trips done before 10 a.m. than most homeschooling mommies do all day.

The options, and the dozen we picked out.

Birds and Cat

We've had more than one bird fall to the fierce fangs and claws of our pack of cats.

BUT...the guinea hen is obviously completely safe from our kitten Moonbeam, and indeed from any of the cats.

Because she is bigger than all of them.

I thought this was an amusing picture with Moonbeam eyeing the guinea cautiously, the guinea regally ignoring him.

Teensy Watermelon

It is a little hard to tell, but this was a very small watermelon.  I was surprised that it was good, but it was!



Puzzled Guinea Hen

  Our guinea hen is puzzled.  For 2 years, she had many buddies.  Or at least she a flock to boss around. She was "top poultry" and she knew it.  Our chickens had to keep in line or she would chase them around, peck them and step on them. 

Then, one strange day, all the chickens left and never returned.  They are, of course, in our freezer but she doesn't know that.

  Her behavior has changed significantly.  She used to spend 90% of her time in the chicken yard with the chickens. She does fly enough to get out of the yard, but she rarely wanted to. When she did fly out, she tended to stay very close to the chicken yard.

  Now she is going much further afield.  We find her on the fence outside the pool. This morning she was by the door to the deck.  She is often seen eating bugs in our garden.  All this is a fine thing as we bought her to eat bugs, and previously she wasn't eating bugs. 

  Truthfully, she is so picturesque, so truly ugly in a charming way, that she is earning her keep. But it is nice that she is also gobbling up bugs right now.

 

  We are still trying to decide whether to get chickens soon. 

Tummy time

Nowadays, babies are put on their backs to sleep to reduce the risk of SIDS.  In order for babies to get experience on their tummies, parents are encouraged to put their babies on their tummies for a few minutes a day, starting from birth. 

True confessions, we didn't.  Sarah, like our other babies, was a very tired child and slept a lot as a newborn.  Then she would eat.  Then she would be so full of milk that if she was put on her tummy, she would spit up. It wasn't worth it.

PLUS, the house was very busy.  I didn't want her out on the floor anywhere that a careless sibling might step on her. So she was usually in a bouncer and couldn't be on her tummy.

By the time she was older and able to stay awake and not spit up copiously all the time, she HATED being on her stomach.

End result, she has been on her back most of her life.  Now she sits up beautifully but she doesn't crawl.  She doesn't locomote much.

At 10 months, most babies are crawling or locomoting.

Am I worried?  No.  First, all of her sibs have been late to roll, late to crawl, and late to walk.  She is strong and loves to stand up though needs to hold on to something to stand.  I have given her a lot of tummy time the last few days and after some squawking, she settles down.  She is getting used to it and is moving around a bit.

As a new mom, I was rather obsessed with doing everything "right".  Reality is, what is right for one family doesn't work well for another.  There are things we need to do to make life work when we have a new baby and a bunch of older sibs to care for.

And true confessions, it is SO nice that she stays roughly where she is put.  When she starts crawling in earnest, life will be significantly more complicated.  I'm enjoying these last few days or weeks of Sarah staying mostly where I put her.

Sarah's weight

Sarah had a weight check on Wednesday.  One month ago, she was only 15 lb 11 oz.  That's not necessarily a problem except that she had "fallen off her weight curve".  She was previously about 40th percentile in weight, and had dropped to 5th percentile in weight compared to other babies her age.

I realized at the time that I had a milk supply problem.  I started supplementing with formula, then weaned her entirely as my milk supply dropped.  I started feeding her larger quantities.

And the results were very encouraging.  She was up almost 2 lbs, to 17 lb 7 oz!

So our big girl is getting bigger fast, and is back on her weight curve again.  We are thankful...sometimes weight issues are indicative of an actual problem but in this case it was just that she wasn't eating enough.

  She has always been a happy girl.  Now she is a chubbier, happy girl!

Light Hut for Botany

Naomi is using Apologia's Botany book this year in school.

One of the early experiments involves making a light hut in which to grow plants.

Experiments intimidate me.  That seems odd because I have a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering!  You'd think I would LOVE to do experiments.

I would really enjoy experiments with older kids...the challenge is coping well with little ones who want to get their fingers here, there, and everywhere :-).  I must say that as Naomi and Lydia and Isaac have gotten older, experiments have been much more fun. Because they do do most of the actual work and I can facilitate and help the younger ones enjoy the experience without anyone getting hurt.

Another big issue for me is that many science experiment books claim that "this experiment will only use items found around your house."  Ok, my house must not be like most houses, because I am ALWAYS missing some key ingredient to an experiment!  I usually don't enjoy shopping and making a special run to buy one item drives me crazy.  (It is also expensive, as our 15 passenger van is a gas guzzler.  For those of you worrying about our fuel economy, let me assure you that we use very little gas for a family our size or probably indeed for any family.  Our big van is rarely used more than 2 or 3 times a week and sometimes we'll go weeks without all going somewhere as a family, especially in winter.  But I digress.)

For Apologia Botany, I realized I could purchase a kit which has almost all the items needed to do the Botany experiments. And I jumped on it. Yes, a little expensive.  VERY worth it.  I was so glad not to have to hunt all over for a flourescent light and the proper cords and connectors for the light hut.

So, light hut.  Here are some pics!

Kevin donated a used printer paper box from work.  Naomi lined the inside with aluminum foil.  This reflects the light and also helps to insulate the box to keep the plants warm.

Here is the finished product.  A light bulb is inserted through the top and uses a flourescent bulb (which is very efficient so can be left on all the time.)  The aluminum curtain in front holds the heat in and reflects the light.

Joseph ably assisted Naomi in putting potting soil into our planters.

Naomi planted 4 kinds of seeds. The really funny thing is that we forgot to label the little planters, so we don't know which one is which!

While this is technically Naomi's experiment, she got a lot of attentive help from the others, especially Joseph.  Joseph is a budding scientist.  Well, to one degree or another, they all are budding scientists. They ask very good questions.  But Joseph is a very "hands on" child.

Which reminds me...I really should try to prepare some experiments for him to do as he loves them.  With items from "around the house". Sigh :-).

Piano Lessons

Last week our 2 older children started piano lessons!  They are 11 and 10.

I know many children start earlier. Their piano teacher started at age 7!  But it worked out best for us to wait.

Their teacher is also their favorite babysitter, Miss Sarah.  She is 17 now and very talented.  She knows our big girls well.  She is willing to come to our home for lessons.  So it is working out wonderfully.

Naomi and Lydia are practicing their songs faithfully.  Naomi says the songs are WAY too easy, but as I said...it is important to start at the beginning and then build up from there.  Naomi and Lydia have both spent quite a bit of time playing Piano Wizard, a computer game with a piano keyboard. So they have some familiarity with moving their fingers rapidly on a keyboard.  But they haven't learned from Miss Sarah before, and Miss Sarah has things to teach them that are entirely new.

I'm excited about the girls adding music to their education.



It's Cold

We had a very hot summer but suddenly, the days are cool and the nights positively cold!

We had our last swimming day of the season a few days ago.   The water was 74 degrees. That's not bonechilling, but certainly cold compared to the mid to high 80's.  And the water was that warm most of July and August.  The children went in except for Naomi and Sarah.  I did not.  Most were glad to get out.  We decided we are done with the pool.  Now Kevin has the big job of "putting it to bed" for the winter.

Welcome to the Kingdom, sweet Miriam!

So I haven’t been feeling very well the last few days.   Last night, I just wanted to get the kids into bed.  I gave our two little girls, Miriam (age 5), and Angela (age 4), a quick bath because Miriam has eczema that flares up when she isn’t bathed.

After the bath, Miriam said she had to use the potty.  Ok, sigh...I just wanted them to go to bed!  I got Angela dressed and tucked her into bed.

Miriam was still hanging out on the potty and suddenly started asking me all these DEEP questions about sin and  heaven and salvation!  I sat down on the floor of the bathroom and we talked about how everyone sins and we can only be saved by the blood of Jesus, who died for our sins.  Miriam said, “Well, Naomi is a Christian and Lydia is a Christian and Isaac is a Christian and Joseph is a Christian, but you don’t know about me and Angela and Sarah.”  So I said, “Well, would you like to ask Jesus to be your Savior so you can be a Christian?” She said yes.  So after she got off the potty and brushed her teeth and got dressed, she asked Jesus into her life.  It was her own little prayer...something like “God, I want to follow you and I want you to be my Savior.”

I know this isn’t “it” and we still need to encourage her to walk with the Lord, but it was so sweet and wonderful that she had the desire. I am so thankful that I was right there and available for her to talk about the Lord. 

I feel like this special time was a particular gift because the Lord has been showing me something this week.

I read an article by a homeschooling advocate who said that often older children gets lots of training and instruction in Christianity, but the younger ones sometimes do not as the parents get busier and more tired :-).

I was reminded again that my biggest priority for my children is to teach them about the Lord.    Yes, academics are important.  Food is important.  A house clean enough to live in is important.  It is important to discipline the children and teach them to work hard. Those are all important.

But the MOST important thing of all is teach our children about Jesus and His life and His death on the cross for our sins.  Nothing else comes close.

I think it is easy to believe our kids will "catch the truth" and perhaps they will. But my discussions with my little ones shows they sometimes get some pretty strange ideas.  Kevin and I are here to help them learn what is true.

Miriam in particular is a "budding Pharisee".  She is very rules oriented and part of our discussion last night focused on "being a good person".  She and many children (and adults) tend towards the idea that "good people go to Heaven."

We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  All of us.  Those of us who follow Jesus as Lord and Savior have the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us do what is right.  We strive with our wills to do what is right.  Many of us are "good people".

But many non Christians are "good people" too in the sense that they are caring and compassionate and work hard.  But we all have sinned.  We all are separated by that sin.  We all need Jesus.

In our current culture, that's a counter cultural message.  I am not God and I don't know what He does about those who have not heard.  I do believe that somehow, everyone who is saved must go through Jesus because Jesus said just that, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."

So I am encouraged again to ''be there" for our children as they ask the tough questions, as they need me and Kevin to extend grace and mercy for their failures, and as we hold them accountable for their sins.

We are not the Holy Spirit and I have faith that HE will draw the children to Himself.  But we are part of the equation for our children.  And that is a privilege.

Review: Veggietales Mess Detectives Series

I love the entire Veggietales phenomenon.  The makers of Veggietales are brilliant and funny, but also focus on godly character.  Most of their videos are excellent.

As is common in this day and age, the videos have spawned an entire small industry.  There are Veggietales CD's, Veggietales action figure, even Veggietales bath toys (and yes, we even have the bath toys!).

And there are Veggietales books.  The ones shown above are the "Mess Detectives" series.  They are written for age...3 to 8, probably.  They are picture books where Bob and Larry are detectives trying to solve messes.  The books parady old style detectives, with a particular nod to Dragnet.

I love these books!  They are SO cute and funny, but all have a serious theme. Each book starts with a single verse about which the story revolves. There are stories about lying, about forgiving someone who wronged you, about being diligent, and about taking responsibility.  Larry is always the comic relief but also has good things to say. 

I read 4 of the books to three of our kids this morning.  One was about lying.  Later today, the kids got into trouble for doing something and Joseph piped up immediately, "That was MY idea."  Then he proudly talked about how he wasn't going to lie to stay out of trouble. I was really impressed and encouraged him that speaking truth pleases the Lord (and me).

So I heartily recommend these books to those who have kids in the 3-8 year old age group.  You can buy them used on abebooks.com or on Amazon.  I believe the libray carries some of them as well, though not all.

No really good reason for this post except...

that she is SO cute!

Good-bye Chickens

  It's a box.  And inside the box were 19 chickens.

It was quite the adventure. Yesterday was the day when the chickens were taken off to the butcher.  The night before, Kevin prepared this nice box and nailed it to our trailer so it wouldn't come loose during transport (that's the sort of image to keep you up at night!)  He broke some air holes into, it, and lined it with some wood chips.  Then he backed the whole thing up to the chicken coop door.

We waited until after dark to load them into the box.  They were roosting and initially were calm.  Of course, the calm quickly gave way to chicken hysteria.  Kevin and Lydia have much experience with carrying chickens around, but the interruption to their normal lives, plus being thrown into the box, got them thoroughly wound up.  One chicken escaped but Lydia recaptured it.  After a breathless 10 minutes, the guinea hen was the only bird left on the roost. (And what she thought about it, nobody knows.)

Kevin then backed the cart back into the garage, closed the door, and turned off the lights.  The indignant clucking gave way to calm cooing.  They all happily went to sleep.

Yesterday morning, Kevin was up bright and early. He drove off with the chickens to the butcher.

For the most entertaining aspect of his experience, I will link to Naomi's blog post as she describes it beautifully.

http://onegirlinabigfamily.blogspot.com/2011/09/chickens.html
 
  Another little problem was that the box was too big.  When Kevin reached in to grab a chicken, they all ran to the other end of the box.  He punched a hole in the other end, and they all ran to the first end.  It was shaping up to be an Abbott and Costello routine, but a friendly fellow poultry man helped Kevin catch the chickens so all was well. Kevin stood at one end and bugged them and they ran to the other end and were plucked out by the friendly guy.

  After all those adventures, 18 chickens were killed and processed in a few hours.  We picked them up around 1 p.m.  And now we have a freezer full of fresh, organic chicken.

 
Here are six chickens in vacuum sealed bags.  For those who are local and interested, the butcher charged $3 a bird to process them and seal them in bags.

 
Lost in the tall grass is our forlorn guinea hen.  She is territorial and likes "her flock" so is a little bothered that her underlings have disappeared.  She was very clearly at the top of the pecking order.  However, she hasn't wandered off, and we will make her happy by purchasing a new batch of chickens in the near future.

Coconut Flour Zucchini Bread

Here is my zucchini bread recipe

1 cup shredded zucchini
8 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter (or you can use 1/2 cup olive oil if you prefer)
1 Tablespoon honey
2 Tablespoons Stevia (the kind that is interchangeable with sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sifted coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Prepare a loaf pan 9 inches X 5 inches.  I recommend putting an Al foil sheet over the sides and bottom...cover the entire pan.  This bread sticks badly.  Also spray the Al foil with an oil spray.

Combine all but the last 3 ingredients in a bowl.

Sift the coconut flour and put 3/4 cup in another bowl.  Add the baking powder to the coconut flour and mix together.

Combine the two bowls.  Mix well.  Make sure you don't have lumps and let me tell you, there will be lumps unless you work at it :-).

Stir in the walnuts if you want to add walnuts.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 55 to 60 minutes. You can stick a toothpick in to make sure it is done...if it comes out clean, you are good.

Remove from pan and cool though I like it a little warm. 

Yummy!

These Weeks in Pictures

I've not posted many daily life pictures of our family lately, so here it goes.

We paid a company to repair a concrete sidewalk next to our garage.  They also added dirt next to the house to reduce the amount of water collecting near our walls.  Kevin seeded the new dirt with grass.  And I have spent many happy minutes watering the grass.  It is actually quite a pleasant job, though  making time to go out and spray the grass twice a day has been a bit of a challenge.

Ok, so what?  It's our refrigerator, covered with stuff?  But look inside...

It's clean!  Pristine!  Amazing!

I clean out my refrigerator from top to bottom about every 5 years whether it needs it or not.  It needed it this day, though, as a pop can exploded in the freezer.  As long as everything was shut off, I decided to tackle the refrigerator as well.  What a job!  However, it is done and looks great.

And we found this wonderful watermelon hiding in our garden!  Well, true confessions...Kevin's mother found it.  She was poking around looking for cucumbers and found the watermelons carefully hidden in the sweet potato plant leaves.  It tasted wonderful.  We have a couple more growing out there and should harvest at least one of them soon.  What fun!

My parents visited over the Labor Day weekend. Saturday was incredibly hot -- upper 90's.  My dad doesn't particularly enjoy swimming, but even he jumped happily into our pool.  He and Sarah had a little bonding time watching everyone else when he was done.

Sarah got into the pool for a little while and was cautiously pleased with the experience.

And Sarah got plenty of time with Nana, who loves babies.

On Labor Day itself, we welcomed my great-uncle for lunch. He is in his early 90's, a World War II veteran, and has amazing stories to tell about the war.  Actually, while his war stories are interesting, I can relate better to his farm stories.  He grew up on a farm in Michigan and experienced the introduction of electricity in houses, cars, etc.  He has seen so many changes. 

  Our garden has had a good year considering that we had rains in June that slowed down platning and Kevin has been too busy to spend lots of time on the garden.  In the middle of our produce plants are some flowers that Lydia planted years ago, and which come up loyally every summer.  They are beautiful.

  Satuday, as I said, was in the high 90's.  Sunday was in the high 70's, Monday was in the low 60's!  It has been very cool all week.  Lydia took advantage of cool temperatures and a decent wind to fly a kite for a couple of hours on Tuesday.  The kite did very well.  At the end, she got tired and I went outside to help her reel it back to earth.

  The kittens are outside now.  We acquired black kitten at the pet store earlier this summer.  She was a relatively happy inside cat for a couple of months, but when she got big enough she acquired a very bad habit.  Namely, she would jump up on tables and counters and eat food that she wasn't supposed to. That was a serious issue.  But the next problem was that the food wasn't good for her and she would go somewhere and throw up.  That was worse. So we decided she'd be better off outside.

  Tiger kitten was a stray that showed up on our doorstep (with his mother and brother) in June.  We found homes for Mama and the other kitten, but decided to keep Moonbeam.  He was inside and we enjoyed him, but he decided the outside was more interesting and started dashing out every time the door was opened.  We don't want cats going in and out as we've had problems with bugs biting people, especially ME.  So, now Moonbeam is outside too. The kittens were inside together for many weeks and are best buddies, so are very happy to be together again. Both are fixed so we don't need to worry about new kittens popping up, or at least not homegrown new kittens.  Since we are out in the country, we do get plenty of strays who enjoy our cat food buffet.

Streamlining Story of the World

I've used the history curriculum "Story of the World" for several years.  This delightful curriculum has brought us from the early days of human history through, so far, the early European settlement of North America.

For several years, our older girls and I would sit down down a few days a week and they would listen while I read from the Story of the World book.  I bought the associated activity books and the girls would color while I read, and then we would sometimes do map work.  I really enjoyed these times as I could comment on the history we were reading about, and we often had fascinating discussions.  I am minor history buff and learned a lot with them.

But time has become extremely precious around here, and my times with the girls dwindled down to one or 2 days a week at the end of the last school year.  This year, Kevin and I talked and decided we should buy the Story of the World CD's where the husband of the book author narrates the book. 

Now while I am doing Five in a Row with our boys, our big girls are in another room listening to the SOTW on CD.  Then later, the boys listen to another set of SOTW CD's, as they are starting at the beginning of book 1 and the girls are in the middle of book 3.

So, this works. Well. I am a little sad I don't have infinite time to read the books out loud myself, but I'm having to accept that shortcuts like these are wise.  The kids are learning and I have more time.  Definitely a good decision.

The Baby is Just About Done...

with breastfeeding

I said in my last post that I had dropped dairy because Sarah is allergic to cow's milk.  I will probably be going back on dairy shortly, as I think she's about done with breastfeeding.

I definitely have some peculiar emotions about that.  I am not someone who absolutely loves breastfeeding.  It is a very special time and obviously wonderful nourishment for the baby, MUCH better than formula.  With our first child, I had a hard time breastfeeding but I remember being very determined.  It took 2 weeks for us to really get the hang of it.  If I had been less determined, she might well have ended up on formula.

But it is also a struggle for me, especially past the 6 month mark.  As I've gotten older and busier, I have had milk supply problems starting as early as 6 months.  Miriam, our 5th child, went on formula at 6 months because my milk supply disappeared.

With Sarah, I've had concerns about my milk supply.  But I thought I was doing OK.  Then a week ago, she went in for her 9 month well child checkup and her weight gain was not adequate.  She had dropped from the 40th percentile in weight to the 5th percentile in weight!  Starting that night, I began supplementing with formula after every feeding. And the poor girl was drinking the formula eagerly. She obviously had not been getting enough food.   I feel so badly about that, but the truth is she was "starving happily".  She has been outwardly content and sleeping through the night. I really had no idea!

  I was able to get a weight check on Sarah yesterday as another child had a well child checkup.  She was up 5 oz in a week, which makes me very happy.

 As this week has gone by, I can tell my milk supply is continuing to drop and I think the end is not far off.  Sarah is probably our last child, so it is a strange and somewhat sad thought to think that I'm coming to the end of nursing forever.  But, I don't know for sure.  And all good things come to an end eventually.

  I've always had a fairly pragmatic approach to breastfeeding. Yes, it is wonderful.  But there are times when it doesn't work out from the beginning, and times when it becomes a struggle after many months.  I have a friend with 12 children, and she has had supply issues starting with the 6th child.  She nursed and supplemented with formula for the last 6 children.  She said she was happy that she has access to a safe alternative to breastmilk.

 Now don't get me wrong, I think that moms should try to breastfeed if they can, and that it should be a priority. But I don't think it is the primary priority of life. 

  Life is a balancing act.  I'm guessing that if Sarah was the only child to care for, I could make breastfeeding work longer.  I could eat more, and I could spend more time at it.  But we've been blessed with many children, and we've been called to homeschool.  I am a very very busy wife and mama and that probably affects my milk supply.  My husband and other children obviously need my attention and focus as well.

 

  My goal in the next week is to introduce more solids into Sarah's diet, and to look into goat's milk as a partial liquid supplement to Sarah's diet.  She's in soy formula now, which isn't the greatest thing in the world.  I'm praying for wisdom and direction in helping Sarah grow strong and healthy now that nursing is ending.

Coconut Flour Zucchini Bread

I've been diabetic for more than 7 years now.  I was diagnosed during Joseph's pregnancy, but was assured that it would go away post partum. It did not.  I really didn't get much better after he was born, and during subsequent pregnancies I didn't get much worse again.  Bottom line is that I'm a borderline diabetic.  I have had blood sugars in the 200's, which makes me a member of the diabetes community.  My goal is to have a fasting blood sugar below 100, and a 2 hour post eating blood sugar below 120.  Most of the time, I achieve those goals.

After my diagnosis, I had to change my diet significantly. I used to be a "carb girl".  I LOVED my simple carbs. I liked Cheerios and bread and white rice and potatoes.  My basic diet was centered around carbs.

All that had to change after I realized my blood sugars were going too high.  So I moved to a low carb diet.  I am usually very self controlled with my eating, so was able to make the necessary adjustments. I am also not a "gourmet" and I don't require much variety in my diet, so I found it easiest to just eat the same things over and over again.  As of a month ago, a typical day's diet would be:

Breakfast:  full fat homemade yogurt with berries and Stevia, and eggs
Lunch:  A salad or apples and peanut butter or some leftover stew with high protein.  Mid afternoon I would have another yogurt with berries.
Dinner:  Meat and veggies and salad
Night Snack:  Yogurt with berries.

  About a month ago, I realized our baby is allergic to cow's milk, so I reluctantly dropped dairy from my diet.  Which meant my yogurt had to go away. Which made me sad :-).

I was VERY happy to find something else for  snacks and that is coconut flour bread.  I am not someone who likes messing around in the kitchen. I cook well, but I don't experiment much.  Two friends kept recommending coconut flour but getting to a store to get some was a pain, so I put it off.  Well, I finally bought some from Amazon and found a recipe for coconut flour zucchini bread.  (We have zucchinis -- oh do we have zucchinis!)

Coconut flour is low carb for a flour. It also absorbs moisture so the recipe calls for EIGHT eggs per loaf.  That means there is plenty of protein, and protein is a great thing for a diabetic as it helps achieve more stable blood sugars.

    Ok, here it is and it is SO SO SO good!  The first loaf was pretty bland. Kevin said it tasted like cardboard.  I adapated it (I'm not great at adapting recipes, so I am proud of myself) by adding some Stevia.  It is delicious now!  I don't let other people eat it.  It is MY zucchini bread.  I make zucchini bread for everyone else with normal flour.  They need to leave my zucchini bread alone!

  I feel like I'm entering a whole new world in that I LOVE bready substances and I will experiment with coconut flour to make other things when the zucchinis run out.  For now, I'm a happy mommy with my zucchini bread.