Frankieism of the day

Frankie: "If I don't eat soon my arteries will become disabled and I will die".

Thankfully his mom rescued him from this life-threatening condition.

A sweet little giveaway

Over at the Seven Sisters blog. I love finding little blog gems. Today someone sent me over to check out their mother's blog Never a Dull Moment. What a wonderful blog that is. What a love of the Lord she has and it shines through in her words. Through her blog of course I found her daughters' blog Seven Sisters. My Cassie came over immediately looking at the pictures of these gorgeous modest Christ-centered young ladies with a smile on her face. Then I read through many of their posts and was touched my how sweet and kind and lovely they are.

They are having a sweet, sweet giveaway that I want to win but want you to enter too :) :)

They are giving away this pretty little hand-embroidered journal:

So breeze on by their blog and be amazed at the grace of these young women and enter their contest. Seven Sisters Blog.

In case you didn't know

Michelle Duggar has a blog!

http://blogs.discovery.com/tlc-michelle-duggar-blog/

Fun stuff.

Real Food Wednesday

I think this is my first Real Food Wednesday contribution though I've taken pictures before with the plan of doing it. We all know how that goes around here. I can't seem to find whether there's a theme for this week so I'm winging it. I also can't find the Mr. Linky for it so I'm still just moving forward. If you have never checked out a Real Food Wednesday, it's hosted alternating weeks at http://www.cheeseslave.com/ and http://kellythekitchenkop.com So run over and check out all their Real Food Wednesday posts. Their posts are packed with information and you will find insane amounts of great recipes and info on the blogs that participate each week.

This is an old standby recipe that I LOVE but haven't made in a while. I've already eaten these up from the pictures and am making more today. Yum. They're fantastic, a little different, high in protein and fat and great for pregnant ladies, children and everyone else.

*note I kind of suck at this so I kept forgetting to take pictures of me actually DOING anything lol. Next time I'll have Frankie be my photographer. He'll be thrilled.*

Halvah Balls
What you need:
Sesame Seeds. I prefer the brown ones with the hull still on.
Coconut oil, preferably virgin coconut oil but whatever you have.
Sweetener, whether it's raw honey or stevia or maple syrup. Whatever floats your boat.
Coffee grinder
optional: spirulina

Start by taking your sesame seeds.
In small batches, grind the sesame seeds in the coffee grinder until fine. IF you choose to add spirulina put small amounts in the coffee grinder AS you grind the seeds so it mixes in well and easily. I grind until I have a handful of cups worth. Maybe 4 cups worth a batch or so. As each batch is done in the grinder, pour into a large bowl.

Once done grinding, start throwing in some scoops of coconut oil. I like Wilderness Naturals myself.
Mix well until it seems most of the sesame seed meal is a tiny bit coated. You don't want it wet, just crumbly. Like making pie crust. Here's mine in all it's green glory.
Then you add your sweetener to taste. This batch I used local raw honey. We have a 5 gallon bucket of it. Yum. Don't go too crazy or it will be sticky. They should be sweet but not icky sweet.

Then it's time to roll into balls. Roll them, put onto a plate and freeze. The coconut oil firms up and they're easy to hold for little hands and easy for pregnant moms to eat too many of. YUM.
There you have it. High protein, high fat, spirulina filled, raw goodness.

It's these moments

After a long, hard day, the kind of day where you really start to think you are the worst mother in the world and are more than ill-equipped to raise these children to love and serve the Lord, it's these moments that make it all worthwhile.

Background - early this Spring we had the money to get a beehive and start with bees. Clay's realllly into getting bees. But it turns out that Frankie didn't realize that all the trial month games on our phone that he was ordering cost well.... money. My cell phone was on my mom's plan for next to nothing. But it's not next to nothing when your 9yo runs up a $300 bill in ONE MONTH. Sigh. So bees were out. We paid my mom back and Frankie well... was in debt. Over the course of the Summer he's sloooooowly paid off $50 or so of the debt. (He's not so into paying it off). But now he wants to pay it off so that he can do odd jobs to make a little money to buy some hens for his banty roosters.

More background - Adric (5yo) has this jar lid of money. It's his most prized possession. Every penny, every nickel goes in there. It's something special I tell ya. The lid. God forbid anyone even looks like they're by the lid.

So tonight after my "insane, no-good, horrible mom" day, Adric out of the blue walks up to Clay. He says he wants to pay off Frankie's debt (the $250 debt BTW). He explains how he must have enough in his lid to pay it off. He says that it makes him sad to think that Frankie will be working it off forever and asked if he paid Clay the money if Frankie could be free of the debt. *insert mom tears here*.

So Clay has him go get his money. They count it out. $2.95. Turns out that's just how much was needed from a 5yo little brother to pay off a $250 debt. *insert more tears here*

Maybe I won't ruin these children after all.

Here's the sweetest 5yo in the history of 5yos.