My Latest Craving {healthy chocolate chip cookies}

Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies? Now how about ones that have no added sugar, are allergy friendly, and are actually hearty and satisfying. It doesn't leave you with that gross feeling that most desserts do. While these chocolate chip cookies of course aren't technically a superfood, they should be with some of the things in them! Maybe I'll lobby the superfood committee. If there is such a committee, they're probably living in a hippie commune somewhere, drinking green tea by the gallons and surviving until 126 years old.

I got this yummy recipe from my friend Bethanie's helpful blog Green & Grateful. I've made one minor change that I think makes them even more moist. They've been scarfed down whenever we bring them to an event, so here goes...

Gluten, Sugar, & Dairy Free Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies 
(how's that for a long name!?)

3 large, ripe bananas, well mashed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup coconut oil, barely warm

1 3/4 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup chia seeds (if you don't have chia seeds, just make this more rolled oats)

2/3 cup almond meal

1/3 cup coconut, finely shredded & unsweetened

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

6 – 7 ounces chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, racks in the top third. In a large bowl combine the bananas, vanilla extract, and coconut oil. Set aside.

In another bowl whisk together the oats, almond meal, shredded coconut, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips. 

Put parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and spoon the batter into about 1 Tbsp. sized mounds on the sheet. (I form them into balls and then press them down to make a cookie shape.) Bake for 15 minutes.

I've actually eaten these with my breakfast. That feels like it should be a true confession, but with these ingredients it doesn't have to be!

Celebrating Two

The theme for the birthday party was "colorful" which, as my husband pointed out, fit Ava perfectly.


Before you think I cleared out the local paint store, the decor was made simply from one wide set of paint samples cut up at my whim. It was like having fun doing a childhood craft...minus eating the glue.




You have no idea how well this photo sums my girl up...

Two Years Ago

What we were doing two years ago tonight...





She came into our lives bringing sunshine and spunk.





Happy birthday, Ava Lu!

The Littlest Nephew

As the oldest of seven kids, I was the first to do almost everything. First one married, first one to have a child and then another child and then another child. Finally, I put my foot down and demanded that someone else help me with this producing grandchildren thing.

So I was the last one to experience the euphoria of being an aunt. It was beyond what I had hoped, maybe a taste of what grandparenting will be like one day. "Oh, you want ice cream? Sure. Want to top that with some candy and a late bedtime?"

I now have two nieces and three nephews. My youngest nephew is almost a year old and is a tiny little thing. Tiny but spunky. I was wishing for a cuddle with him today. And since I won't be able to, you all will have to be subjected to photos of him instead.

My Latest Craving {juicing}

Alright. If I'm being really honest, I'm not craving this so much right now.  I was, way back when it was a fun Tuesday morning breakfast. But after doing a juice detox last week (only freshly made juice to eat), "craving" might not be the word to use right now.

So let me channel my happy Tuesday morning feelings that I possessed just a short time ago to write this post.

Juicing is a great opportunity to get all the benefits from the enzymes of a bunch of fruits and veggies into one power-packed drink that your body can quickly absorb and use. My kids will actually drink it (hint: I give it to them in colored cups so that they aren't turned off by the shade of the beverage), and I have happy mommy feelings as I watch them drink kale, beets, and much more. (hint 2: If we're heavy on the veggies that morning, I sweeten it with a little honey.)

I stole borrowed the juicer my poor mom hardly wants to look at after months of juicing post-jaw surgery last year. I start with this:


And end up with about 6 or 7 full glasses of this:


Hating to waste the pulp, I juice the fruit and veggies separately. I keep the fruit pulp to mix with yogurt and chia seeds. Next is the vegetable pulp:


I might mix it in as I cook a big batch quinoa and combine that with Kalmata olives and feta. (Presto! Healthy lunch!) Or I might make it into crackers using this RECIPE. (hint 3: Adding a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar gives the crackers a yummy kick.)


Some of my favorite things to add to the juice are:
kale or collard greens
carrots
celery
beets
cucumbers
apples

And, never, ever forget the pineapple. It makes everything all better and even collard greens can be hidden behind it's flavor.




Oh, and one lesson learned from last week. Don't juice radishes. Seriously. Just take my word for it.

Laugh With Me

I was in a coffee shop, sitting across the table from a dear friend as she told me that she was now doing editing for a wonderful magazine. Immediately, I had two different reactions well up:

"Fabulous! What an amazing opportunity!! I'm so, so happy for you!"

And as much as I genuinely felt this way and was so happy, another thought crept into my head, Why, oh, why do I always seem to make friends with so many wonderful writers and editors?!? Is this some sort of curse my mother wished upon me?!

One of my closest friends has written two books and edited many other books and articles. Another close friend used to edit papers for a living. My childhood best friend could carefully edit the pants off of any paper and went to college for journalism. My brother, also a journalism graduate, has a job writing and editing proposals. And my mom can spot a typo from across the room.

And then there's me.

I approach writing with the same haphazard, free spirit that I approach everything else. And when you do that with writing, it's not pretty. I used to drive my mother crazy with the book reports I would have her check over before we sent them in. The paper would be full of the dreaded red pen markings as I was sent back to re-write and re-write those nightmares. I cannot for the life of me, spot mistakes in my writing. When I blog, I usually have my hot hubby edit for me; and while he's a lot better than I am, it's amazing the typos I find in posts a month after I've written them.

Then with my self-conscience attitude, I can just cringe at the amount of perfect writers that just read me recommending "coconut old" in my post covering good oil options.

So when you who knowest thy grammar so well spot a typo in my post, please feel free to laugh.

I try.

And since it's Friday, if you feel like laughing some more, watch one of my YouTube videos. Steven and I came across it again after we hadn't seen it in awhile, and we laughed so hard. Maybe the fact that we used to lived 30 miles from the Canadian border has something to do with our love of it. So have fun watching this while I read my post 26 times over trying to find those elusive typos...

Canadian Border Patrol:

My Latest Craving {young coconuts}

It seems appropriate to follow up my post on coconut oil with another part of the coconut that I've fallen for. Young coconuts have many of the same health benefits as coconut oil. But I'll break the two main parts of young coconuts down separately with different ways to use them.

Let's start at the very beginning ("a very good place to start" says Julie Andrews in my head) which is simply getting this bad boy open. I buy my young coconuts at our local Asian market because you can't beat the price of less than $2. It comes looking like this...



Then I take a butcher's knife and carefully (which is always a hard concept for a klutz like me) but firmly slice a circle at the pointed top part of the coconut. I don't slice all the way through the outside. At this point, I'm just trying to score it through to the hard shell...



Then even more carefully, I forcefully hack away at one side of the circle until it comes open and looks like this...



As soon as it is open you'll want to quickly set it upright so as not to lose the coconut water that fills the inside. You can buy the coconut water itself, but I love to get something from the source if possible. Also, if you both use the meat and water, it is much more cost effective. If you want, you can grab a straw and drink the water right out of the coconut. Coconut water has the highest amount of natural electrolytes known to man. (Sugar and dye filled Gatorade, eat your heart out...) Oddly enough it is also identical to human blood plasma. It was actually used as an emergency transfusion in World War I and in third world countries.

Here's is our current favorite way to use it...

Coconut Water Pina Colada Smoothie
sugar free, vegan, and raw

• the coconut water from one young coconut (about 1 1/2 c.)
• 2 bananas (ripe ones make it sweeter)
• 3 cups of frozen, fresh pineapple chunks
• 1/4 c. unsweetened coconut
• 2 Tbsp. chia seeds (optional)

Put all the ingredients in your blender and blend very thoroughly. Notice that the frozen pineapple takes away the need for ice. Put it in a pretty cup, close your eyes, and imagine yourself in the tropics getting a delicious blood transfusion....okay, maybe skip that last part.



Now it's time to pull out the meat (or jelly) of the young coconut. The meat is the white soft part surrounding the water, so be sure not to get any of the bitter, brown shell of the coconut. You can use your finger to peel the meat away from the coconut. The meat contains potassium, magnesium, and manganese. It also has plant nutrients that help fight free radicals in your body.

You can use it to make coconut milk, but what I'm thrilled about is the yogurt I made with it. I use the term yogurt for the consistency, however it is not cultured. (And I don't mean uncultured like me, I mean uncultured as in not fermented.) When we found out that Ava had to go dairy free, I didn't want her to go without one of her favorite lunch options- yogurt. But I about choked the first time I went to buy some non-dairy yogurt. The prices were exorbitant! In enters young coconut to rescue my wallet. Remember how I said that it cost me less than $2? Well, after I've already enjoyed the water from it, I can scoop out the meat and make the following, super easy recipe. I will say that I got a Blendtec professional grade blender for my birthday (thank you, my wonderful family!), but hopefully this would work with any blender. It might just take longer to blend.

Young Coconut "Yogurt"

Take the meat from one young coconut (it should be about 1 cup) and put it in your blender. Pour in enough water to just cover the meat. Add in a pinch of pure Stevia. Blend for two minutes on high. Eat plain or with your favorite fruit.

The Cupcake Kids

My heart is too full not to blog this tonight.

Over this time of unemployment for my husband, the Lord has worked on both of our hearts to think more eternally and to really take the commands in his word literally. When the Bible says to make disciples, it's talking to me. When it says to love others the way I love myself, it's specifically talking to me. When it says to care for the hurting, widowed, and orphans, it's directly talking to me. This is slowly taking shape and affecting different parts of our lives.

And then I started praying that God would provide ways for us to involve our children in thinking outside of ourselves and obeying God's word. This prayer has been answered in many wonderful ways lately. But one of the answers to this prayer was The Cupcake Kids. 

It all started when I was reading a favorite blog. The post was about a ministry that was started to help imprisoned children in Uganda. If you're asking yourself how children end up in prison, you can read more about the ministry HERE. The kids of families who started this ministry decided that they wanted to help raise money doing a cupcake sale. Two years later, they now do a national cupcake sale. If I'm being honest with you, when I read about this I had conflicting feelings. Part of me felt that this was answer to my prayer for my kids to get involved, but part of me had thoughts of how busy I am and how much time it would take. Thankfully, the Spirit almost immediately convicted my heart. Too busy for what? Obedience to my Maker? Care for children in a near hopeless situation?

We brought it up to our church small group, and they were more than happy to go for it and involve their kids as well. The result was an incredibly joy filled day. And because of a faithful God, a sale that was much more successful that I had imagined. This is what has been blowing my mind as of late: the Lord doesn't need us to accomplishes His good purposes. He's God; He doesn't need anyone. But the fact that He allows us to be part of it and the ensuing joy is why I am so overwhelmed.

Isaiah, Elijah, and Adriana had no problem grasping the reason behind doing this fundraiser. They were ecstatic about the whole idea. I wanted them and their little friends to really "own" the sale. And they did. They went above and beyond and did such a wonderful job.

You should have seen my kids skipping home afterward with their wad of money which "is going to help feed a lot of kids...right, Mom!"

It was all like an early Mother's Day gift.

It was such a delight to hug them and encourage them, "God loves orphans so much. Isn't it neat that He would use you to help care for them."

So here are some photos from the day.

Our sign...

A sign Adriana made that morning to explain what we were doing...

...for those of you who don't read five-year-old, I'll interpret. It says, "To help kids in Uganda." *major mommy heart-melt*

Some of our creations:

A big thank you to the Clifton Starbucks that enthusiastically allowed us to do this outside their store...

Some of the sweet kids who did this with us:

Gotta love the fact that someone usually has to pick their nose in a kid group photo...

Elijah ran the cash register. Perfect fit for my future accountant...

The Yin and Yang of Homeschooling

Since my eldest began kindergarten, we have been homeschooling. We now do a combo of homeschool and co-op school. It seems that most people who choose other schooling methods feel the immediate need to explain to me why they don't homeschool. So let me say from the outset that I don't believe there is only one right way to school your children. It's a child by child, parent by parent decision. I really mean that. I have no sort of superiority complex (if anything it's a frequent fight against an inferiority complex!). Lord knows that for us it's a year by year decision my husband and I make. When people ask if I plan to homeschool right through high school I tell them that I only have faith for this year, and I'll worry about the next when we get to it.

Okay, now that that uncomfortable first paragraph is over, on with the post...

Ahhh, homeschooling.

Some days are like this...


...only maybe add in a toddler throwing a fit and some whining (Mom included).

And some days are like this...


As I heard one mom say, "Homeschooling involves lots of tears. Either I'm crying because it's so beautiful or because it's so hard."

Today was mostly beautiful.