An Experiment in Eating

I've been doing a lot of thinking about diet lately. This summer, when the flood kept Duane from working any overtime, our grocery budget shrank to about $300 per month for our family of 7. I became very creative with rice and beans, followed a strict menu, and made sure that nothing went to waste. It was great experience, and I learned a lot from it. When Silas was born, one of our Mennonite neighbors gave us a copy of Rachel Weaver's Be Your Own "Doctor" as a baby gift. It got me thinking about living a more natural life, not only through the use of herbal medicines, but also in our diet. About two months ago, Duane decided to start following a low-carb diet again. As I searched for recipes that he could eat, and the rest of us would also enjoy, I kept running into whole foods sites, and gluten-free recipes. I've been wondering for some time why so many people are being diagnosed with celiac disease, or gluten sensitivities. Is it caused by changes to wheat that we've engineered in the plant itself, the processing it goes through that removes all nutrition, or have we just finally developed a name for a range of symptoms that always existed but wasn't understood? I have many Facebook friends who strive to maintain a healthy, organic diet, and share articles and experiences. Finally, I began reading a book called Why Christians Get Sick by George H. Malkus. He discusses the extreme processing that most of the food at the grocery store goes through, among other things.

So, with all of these ideas fomenting in my brain, I have decided to try an experiment. For the next two weeks, (excluding Sundays, when it's too difficult to control what we eat at lunch) our family diet will be free from refined sugar and gluten. After that, we will be switching to whole wheat and other grains, and soaking our grains before use. I hope to eventually buy a grain mill to grind our own grains, but the one I have my eye on is about $450, so it may be a while until I can save enough to get it.

Our first meal went well. Normally, we would have waffles with lots of syrup, malt-o-meal with butter and syrup, or oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon sugar for breakfast, but this morning, we made polenta with bananas and honey. The kids didn't love it, but it was "ok," and I think they'll appreciate it more as we have it more often. They are often slow to warm up to new foods. For lunch, we'll have chicken and rice, and meatloaf for supper, both favorites of the kids.

There are times when I begin to question where we are in our school work, and where we are headed. Last year, I gave up on formal spelling lessons. Matthew would work and work at his spelling, and every time he'd miss a word, it threw his whole day into chaos. A single mistake would result in tears of frustration, statements of absolute dejection- "I'm just stupid, I can't do anything right," etc.

So we just stopped. I told myself that it wasn't that important- he could read, after all, and spelling would eventually come too. He really did quite well for his age; he was working ahead of level but just couldn't handle the emotional aspect of making mistakes. Anna was struggling with spelling as well; it seemed that the program they used to teach reading when she was in public school had not prepared her well for sounding out and spelling words. However, I'm a stickler for spelling myself. I find spelling mistakes to be horribly distracting, and "giving up" on spelling felt wrong.

Yet we did. We played on Spellingcity.com. We completed lots of writing activities, read voraciously, and I answered endless "how do you spell...?" questions, but we never cracked open the spelling book. It sat on the shelf, unused and dusty, for the better part of a year.

Yesterday, Matthew pulled the spelling book off the shelf, and said, "We should do this. I love this program, and we haven't done it for a long time." Five minutes later, we were taking the placement test to see where we should start at this time.

It turns out, our "informal" learning worked just fine. Matthew and Anna both tested a full grade level ahead of the grade they would be in were they in public school. It reassured me; restored my confidence in our eclectic/unschooling ever-changing method of learning. Occasionally, you just have to let go.

Random Pictures from the Past Few Weeks

Natural consequences: climb up on the drawer of the stove to stir the waffle batter after being told not to, and you will get a face full of flour and milk, and it will not be fun!



John and Julie on his birthday (hence the goofy hat).
A deep thinker- maybe this is why Anna thinks he looks like an evil genius?


Lots of lovin' going on!

BJ Blazers Take the Championship!

Anna's ball team took first place at their tournament Saturday. She scored a couple runs, had several RBIs, and I only had to yell at her a few times to stop playing with rocks and pay attention to the game! Considering that it's only her second year playing, and most of the kids started at t-ball, I think she's doing great.


Rather than buying individual medals or trophies for the kids, they got one big trophy that will go on display at the school, and then had each kid get a picture holding the trophy. Seemed like an odd way to do it to me, but whatever works, I guess.

The Dance Recital!

The girls both did a wonderful job this year at the recital- remembered their dances, weren't nervous- awesome!


Cora was so not enthused about getting her picture taken! She was just ready for summer break by this point. Plus, she said all those feathers around the bottom of her costume were itchy.

Announcing Jacob Michael!

Jacob Michael Lester was born at 7:05 pm, May 4, 2009. He was 8 lb. 14 oz., 23" long, with a 15" head. Judging by his entrance into the world, he's going to be a little speedster! His older brother and sisters are proud as punch- "It's better than great," Matthew says. "It's awesome!"

Our First Protest- Kansas City Tax Day Tea Party

Anna, Matthew and Cora each chose their own slogan for their signs. Anna made her slogan up herself, while Matthew and Cora chose from a list of suggested sayings for the Tea Party website. I penciled in the letters, which they then outlined and colored in.
There was a large crowd, and the kids all handled it very well. Matthew practiced his reading by reading the signs of people around us.
A family photo- it's hard to tell in this picture, but my shirt said "already owes $36,575" and had an arrow pointing to the baby. Before heading out to the protest, we studied the Boston Tea Party, and discussed the government's responsibilities and limitations as outlined by the Constitution. The kids were excited to see flags that said "Don't Tread on Me," which they remembered studying earlier in the year.

Valentine's Party with the Homeschool Group

Ok, this picture of Reagan is not from the party, but I threw it in because I didn't have anywhere else to put it. Now, on to the party!

We had face painting by Tenna- the girls each got a Tinkerbell, Matthew and Remington got Saturn planets. Reagan hung on me, and got nothing.
Matthew and Remington trying to make heart baskets- they were too complicated for me to figure out!
The boys did enjoy making the candy airplanes.


These last two pictures were actually from the evening of the Lincoln party, but I missed them on that post, and it was easier to put them on here than go back to it and add them.

Happy 200th Birthday, Abraham Lincoln!

To celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, we all dressed up in our red, white, and blue, and attended a birthday bash at the Maryville Public Library. All but Anna, that is, who insisted on wearing pink. But as you can see, the rest of the kids donned their red shirts, and a good time was had by all. A very talented Lincoln impersonator put on a show, and then stuck around for pictures, questions, and cake.
Reagan enjoyed herself, as you can see!
Just like Santa, Abraham Lincoln was too scary for pictures with Cora and Reagan. Matthew and Anna posed for us though.
Reading the Gettysburg Address.

Funny Kids

Degin in his new Easter bonnet.

Reagan in the same hat. Ok, it's not new, it's an old one from mom's, but it is a girl's Easter hat.

This is what kids look like after they've been building dirt castles on a windy day!

Random Stuff

Matthew shooting his new bow and arrows- Cora gets the privilege of being the quiver- carrier.
We were splitting wood- Matthew was really not happy about helping carry and stack firewood, but did force himself to smile for this picture.
Reagan with her "boy baby"- everything is a baby to her. The coloring is odd in the picture because there was so much smoke from a neighbor's fire that the entire town was gray. It made all my pictures that day look strange.

A Knight, a Butterfly Princess, and a Terrible Tornado

Anna, my little writer/director, made up a play called "A Knight, a Butterfly Princess, and a Terrible Tornado." Reagan had no part in the play, but I liked this picture taken of her during the play. Anyway, Matthew, of course, was the knight. Cora was the Butterfly Princess, and Anna was a terrible tornado, set on destroying the princess and stealing her crown. Matthew's line for each version of the play was "Oh no, a terrible tornado! I must save the Butterfly Princess!" He would then fight the tornado with his sword or shoot it with his bow. We taped the play about 10 times- it just kept getting funnier.


These are just some random pictures of Anna and Cora that I liked, and happened to get downloaded at the same time as the play pictures.