Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Noodle Head

Cecily and I sat doing math from Life of Fred. 

The book tells us that Darlene is helping Joe understand a lesson on doubling by using a dried spaghetti noodle (Joe's snack of choice). She breaks it in half,then again,and again to show that one plus one is two,two plus two is four...and so on.

The book then shows us this:

1--->2--->4--->8--->16...

and tells us to complete the image.

Now,I am trying to help Cecily understand what we are doing here without the help of a dried spaghetti noodle (we are out) and so I draw a line on her paper and use slash marks to represent the breaks in the noodle. 

I make some marks and tell her

We broke it once and got two,twice more and got four,four more times and got eight,eight times more and ended up with sixteen pieces of spaghetti. Now if we break it sixteen times...what do we have?

I put the appropriate slashes on our fake noodle pencil line.

And guys,she loves math and she was listening so attentively and she was concentrating so hard (I really could see the wheels turning) and she was so serious when she answered

c-crumbs?

And yes,it was true. All we had left were fake spaghetti crumbs. The spaces were now so tiny.

And I laugh.

But we had not arrived at the correct answer yet.

So I tried a different tactic and showed her by simply adding the numbers all the way up to 8 plus 8 and then I told her

Okay,we can use this answer of 16 and pretend that Darlene breaks each piece of spaghetti one last time.

So then I ask her

Now what do we need...?

And still so obviously picturing those spaghetti crumbs she uses her fingers to show me and tells me this:

Most likely some really strong fingernails.

(to break those tiny spaghetti crumbs)

I laugh some more and she giggles along but doesn't really know why we are laughing.

Eventually I think we went off on a tangent and learned about addition using borrowing instead.

You can learn a lot from a book but sometimes I think you just need a good real life experience.

Spaghetti is for eating.

 Joe is apparently smarter than us all.





Sunday, February 3, 2013

Meet My Refrigerator

For the last three years or so eating a raw food diet has been on my mind. Our family did try out a raw food lifestyle change just after Camille was born for about nine weeks. So desperate was I to loose the baby weight that when I didn't see any change (ANY change...not even a pound) during the nine week period I got frustrated and kicked it all to the curb. Weight loss was not the only reason for the diet change but as I said I was desperate and I went back to what had in the past worked for me which was a low carb high protein thing. It was how I lost my weight with all three of the other kids but for some reason it didn't work after Camille.

I tried a whole string of diets with her. I even began running almost daily and still didn't loose those pounds. We're talking 25 pounds here. It wasn't until I did an extended juice fast last year that those pounds (most of them) went away. That was two years folks! That is a long time to be patient people. So frustrating. So anyway here I am back to dreaming of a raw food diet. The same friend who inspired me in the first place has been busy posting things on facebook and again my curiosity has been peaked. I watched a few videos,followed some links from there and stumbled upon something I am just bursting at the seams with. I'm so excited about this but am waiting until everything is finalized to blog about it. In the meantime I decided that this urge to transform our diet is not going to simply vanish and so I'm jumping in (again). This time I am not relying on pounds to fall off but rather am looking toward the future. I want my kids to be as healthy as they can be (and myself too) and I believe that this is what will work for our family.

Let's talk about calcium and protein later...cause I know you're curious. 

For now just know that I added up the amount of days I spent juicing in 2012 and they equaled over a month. That means that I ate roughly 11 months last year and am down 14 pounds. Almost to my pre-Camille weight. I still can't believe she is two and a half and I am still working on this. Yeesh. But,since I also continued to run throughout the year I have been able to connect the dots of runs that were hard or runs that were easy and look at what my diet was like during those runs. My easiest,lightest,fastest,and most energetic runs were when I was juicing. Followed by easy and light (but not so energetic) were the times I was being careful to only eat salads and fruits and drink only water. Following those were downright sluggish runs where I was allowing myself to eat breads,sugars,and pastas and drink caffeine.

I can not ignore the evidence nor do I want to. Now this change isn't all about having better runs but I do want those too. I want to run a marathon (and beyond) and I know my body can already do it if my mind lets it but I do want to feel great while I do it. And that is just one great benefit I believe I will see as I begin these new eating habits. I like to think of it as training through the back door. I'm coming at it from behind a lot of people may think but really to me I know it is the very most important factor for being able to accomplish my goals.

Now what in the world does that have to do with my fridge? Well,today I decided to make an idea come to life. I've wanted to build some sort of kids size,kid friendly salad bar for a long time. So that my kids could fix themselves food whenever they get hungry. Today I realized I could simply use our refrigerator. I decided to film the ordeal so you could see how I went about it and also because I wanted to see a before and after. This is a three part series lasting under 15 minutes total. Bon appetit!












Friday, February 1, 2013

{it's not cookie dough}

that's right

it's not cookie dough

we affectionately call it power ball mix

we use it to make power balls

{share}

share?

make your own!

i'll help you.

pulverize some oats in your food processor,add some ground flax seed,and some chopped walnuts or pecans {not pictured}



in another measuring contraption mix together equal parts peanut butter and honey {we like pb with out extra ingredients and raw honey} and microwave for a tiny little bit. Don't make it too hot! You'll melt your chocolate.


mix the two together



{didn't you say chocolate?}

yup!

chocolate

we use dark chocolate so it's a little healthier

these are square shaped but you can use traditionally shaped chips or (even cuter) tiny chips



mix,mix,mix

roll into balls for the kiddos



or flatten for yourself to use on long runs as fuel (freeze those)






call your kids and tell them you made powerballs

make them do a powerball dance before they eat one


they will do it and it's fun so don't skip that step

don't be boring

{boring?}

yes,boring. 

add some dried fruits or chia seeds or coconut. use almond butter instead of peanut butter. sneak in some coconut oil for extra brain nutrition or kale for a serving of greens and remember to save some for the kids.

enjoy!


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