Money-Wise Mondays - chicken times 3!

   When you have a big family, saving money is very important. It's also very challenging when you want to feed your family healthy food. I like organic, free-range chickens for their nutrition and what it doesn't have. Organic chickens don't have antibiotics and they are not fed with pesticide-laden feeds. I don't want these things in my food. It is especially important since animals ingest large amounts of feed over their life span and pesticides can accumulate in their bodies. That can mean that we are also eating pesticides through our meat.

* FOOD PORN!*

   Let me be the first one that admits that I am a big time foodie. A foodie, you know someone who is passionate about great food. I love gourmet ingredients put together skillfully into masterpieces to be savored and enjoyed. And looking on the internet and bookstores and gourmet grocery stores makes me believe that I am not the only one. Cookbooks top the charts of national best-sellers and food blogs are so successful that they make their owners into celebrities. Customers pay huge bucks for fancy salt or 2 truffles imported from this country or that. Let's face it, our society is obsessed with food. But on the other hand our society also chastises food obsessions. This creates a conflict where people want to talk and read and post about food, but they don't want to be seen as constantly thinking about food for the fear of having others criticize them. Enter "but it's OK, because it's healthy" trend.

Money-Wise Mondays - Sourdough starter for home made bread.

   Last week I wrote about making home made bread. Home-made bread is so convenient and cheap to make, plus you'll always know what ingredients went into it. Another benefit to making bread the no-knead method is that the flours and grains used in it have time to soak. So what is the big deal with soaking grains? There is some evidence that soaking grains is better for digestion, neutralizes phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors, and improves nutrient bio-availability. Over the years, as people have learned that refined flours are not good for their health, they started switching to whole grains. But many of them found that as they did so they have encountered more digestive issues, and are still not getting the required nutrition they thought that they would from eating whole-grains in their diet. Some, mistakenly infer from that that they must be intolerant to grains all together and start avoiding them in their diets. But many fail to understand that not only what you eat, but also how you prepare it, that has an impact on how that food is utilized by the body. For example, some new research suggests that steaming certain vegetables makes them more beneficial to our health. Milk is also better for you when fermented as the fermentation helps to break down tough milk proteins and provides our guts with beneficial bacteria. Some foods need to be "processed" to be easier on our digestive tracts.

Money-Wise Monday - home baked bread.

   Few years back I became very conscious of reading labels on the food that I bought. The more I read the more I disliked what I was learning. For ages I have been buying store-bought bread (you know, the one packed in plastic bags with words like Healthy, Whole grain, and Nutri-something or other) and never once looked at the ingredients list on the package. When Girly Monkey was born and we found out that she had a dairy allergy, I became very diligent about reading the ingredient lists and seeing for myself what we were eating. To my shock, bread was no longer made with flour, salt, and water (maybe yeast sometimes or butter and eggs for breads like Challah). Now the ingredient list read like something from a science class at the local high school.

Money-Wise Mondays - Birthdays on a Budget

(Scroll down for Organic Lemon Vanilla cupcake recipe)

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  Tomorrow is Girly Monkey's birthday. I really can't believe that she is 6 years old! Birthdays are a very special time in our house, after all, we're celebrating each person's arrival into this world. For our kids, it's also the time when they joined our family.

   We want to celebrate their special day in a special way. We have a tradition of celebrating our Monkeys' birthday in 2 ways. On the day of their birthday we do our private celebration. The birthday child gets to pick a restaurant for dinner that night, and a special outing place they would like to visit. If their birthday happen to land on a weekday then we move the outing to the weekend before or the weekend after their birthday. Most of the time, it's only our family that will attend the dinner and special outing, but sometimes we get a relative or two to join us. After the special dinner out we go home and have a cake or cupcakes (just the 5 of us) and sing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday boy or girl. After the cake, Birthday Monkey gets to open a gift from their siblings and one from us. Every 6 years Daddy and I give the birthday child a family trip as a gift. For Funky Monkey's 6th birthday we went to Drumheller, Alberta, and for Girly Monkey's 6 birthday we visited Victoria, British Columbia. Both trips were very special gift for the special child. So why every 6 years? It's because I think of them as milestones. At 6 years old the child is no longer a baby, at 12, they are entering teenage-hood, and at 18 they are entering adulthood.

Something yummy from Central African Republic.

   Last week we studied Central African Republic as our country of the week. It's not an easy country to study because of the unrest and civil wars that discontinued almost all the tourism. So it's almost impossible to find any videos on a country that is too dangerous for tourists to go to. I didn't feel discourage, though, and use that as a topic of conversation with Monkeys. We read short introduction to Central African Republic and examined their map and flag. We then talked about the troubles the country has been in. The good news is that I did find 2 YouTube movies that showed Monkeys something about Central African Republic other than war. The first video is about one of the indigenous tribes in Africa, the BaAka pygmies, and their songs.

The second video is done by one of the volunteers for MercyCorps and it's about seed distribution to families living in one of the poorest of countries. Monkeys and I had a conversation about seed keeping and farming and feeding families, and why volunteers are doing such a great job helping.

Harvest nostalgia.

Pumpkin patch 2011

Harvest colors

   As days get shorter and weather gets colder and more wet, I look forward to the fall season. I love the colors of autumn, the fresh apples and pears and pumpkins. I look forward to comfort food in my kitchen, like warm root vegetable stew, pumpkin pie, or warm apple crumble. Everyone starts walking around with pumpkin-spiced coffees and hot chocolates. I love that the dreary days make my home feel like a little sanctuary, protecting me from cold and rain. I get sentimental with Thanksgiving approaching, and picking best pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. Monkeys get excited over what costumes they will wear for Trick or Treating this year. I get excited about carving the pumpkins and decorating our house. Most of all I look forward to Girly Monkey's birthday and spending time with family.
   I can understand why this season is almost never one of the favorites with people, but I get a bit nostalgic about it.

Money-Wise Monday! - Cold and flu season tips

Funky Monkey back from hospital

   Having two sick kids this week reminded me that it's cold and flu season again. As soon as the school year has started and all their activities are beginning, they bring nasty bugs home. My kids are not only good at receiving cold and flu germs but are excellent at passing them around too. So, usually by the end of one week most of the family is sick, and sometimes other people like friends and relatives. The question is how to deal with the flu and cold bugs before you need a trip to the doctor's office and before you need to administer any medication?
   I have learned the need to tend to sick kids before it escalates in 2006. Funky Monkey got a nasty bug and became sick out of nowhere. It started when we were driving somewhere and all of a sudden he started throwing up. Fever came soon after and Funky Monkey was really sick. Over the next few days he spent most of his day in a bed feeling miserable. I administered fever reducing medication and little bits of food and drink that he would accept. Unfortunately, on the third day, at night, he became lethargic, his eyes became sunken in and he didn't look good overall. At this point he was refusing any liquids and not urinating at all.

Money-Wise Mondays! - Castile Soap

   Today I would like to review a product that saves our family a lot of money. About 5 years ago I have stumbled, purely by accident, onto castile soap. I have been looking for more natural altarnatives to drugstore soaps for a while and I came upon few websites recommending castile soap. At this point I had no clue as to what castile soap was but I set out on a mission to find out. After searching in our local natural health stores I came upon Dr. Bronner's Organic Pure Castile Liquid Soap . I bought it that day and went home to do more research. It looked like just plain ol' liquid soap, but what was it really? I have long since stopped trusting the word "natural" on the package, because most companies will use it nilly-willy to sell their product, even if it's not really "natural". But after a bit more research I found out that castile soaps are made by mixing organic oils with alkali (potassium hydroxide) which reacts with oil to form soap. There are no waste products of this binding, and soaps are natural and chemical free. I was intrigued! One thing I also found out that castile soap is very concentrated and should be diluted with water for most uses on the body.
   So fast forward to today, and our family uses it for many applications.

This is one crazy schedule!

Girly Monkey ready
to dance

   This week marked the beginning of our crazy fall schedule in almost full force. I knew it was coming and I was trying to get ready for it. I already covered my school schedule, and it's very demanding. It's so demanding that if we fall behind we have to catch up on the weekends. But throw into the mix two dance classes for Girly Monkey, three for Funky Monkey, one soccer practice for each and one game each and you have one full schedule, and that doesn't even include a dance class for little Monkey that will start next week.

Funky Monkey helping with
his sister's soccer game

   Every day of the week there is an activity with the exception of Mondays.Tuesday- Girly Monkey has ballet class and Little Monkey has dance class, Wednesday- Funky Monkey has a Ballet class and soccer practice, Thursday- Girly Monkey has soccer practice, Friday- Funky Monkey has Modern dance class. Saturday is the craziest of all, with Funky Monkey having Ballet practice that ends the same time as his soccer game begins and they are about 45 minutes apart from each other. So he has to miss last 10 minutes of his Ballet and have me rush him to his game (since Daddy is the coach he has to be there for the beginning of the game and can't help me) which he misses half of..