Hurd Orchard, NY

This is where Mark and I got married, 13 years ago. It has been owned by the same family since the 1700's. It was such a treat to visit there again.





We had our wedding right here in front of the threshing barn.











Hmmm, we don't quite look the same! Who knew that day all that would come??






The fruit of our marriage, what blessings we have.


I have more pictures of our trip to NY to come. I do have to say, they are a little bitter sweet. It's hard for me to look at them, now knowing our little Maura was getting sick while we were there. She was going potty a lot and drinking more, being fussy and crabby. I was just attributing it to discipline issues and being on a trip :( But we couldn't know.

Blessings

Too Cute

Ok, this is just a post for an adorable picture. Sibling love, so sweet.

Blessings

Baby Diaper Stash

This is a boring post unless you are into cloth diapers and natural stuff :) I am just posting a picture of the wool diaper covers I have made and the newborn cloth diapers I have been collecting. Oh they are so cute! Cloth diapers have changed a lot over the years. No pins, they snap on, are adorably cute and work better than disposables. Love love love them!

Off today to turn in Kaley's application at the community college and tomorrow we will sign her up for her photography class. I am still trying to figure out what kind of camera to get her for her birthday. I have a week left so I really need to get on it. Recommendations anyone?? She is really interested in photo journalism so I wanted to get something nice, but not too high end to start out with. Then we are going to meet a my friend Amber to get some fresh milk and play for a little, always a treat.

blessings

Work Day at Home

Today we are just working around the house. Mark is using all our extra dirt from digging our new septic to build up some garden beds. He and Curtiss are also getting rocks out of the creek to line the beds and to make a fire pit in the back yard. That'll be fun if the mosquitoes don't eat us alive! I don't know why they love our yard so much. I am hoping with a tree gone and the yard built up so much more it'll be sunnier and drier and discourage them. The poor kids are so bit up!

I canned some tomatoes! We have been getting enough to eat but finally had some extra that we couldn't keep up with. It was only a few jars so far but we have lots of green tomatoes so I hope to do more. I might snitch a few for dinner tho, fried green tomatoes are a taste of summer to us. We try not to indulge too much but every once and awhile we just do it.

Here's Grace with our Strawberry Preserves in the spring. She's my canning buddy.

If you haven't listened to #22 The Best Day it's so great! I don't know much about the singer, Taylor Swift, but as a mom, I adore the song. It's how I want all my kids to feel about their childhood. Kaley has said a lot lately how much she loves our family. Of course we have had our ups and downs and she is the guinea pig! But she loves all the things we do and how we love one another. So it's kind of our unofficial song right now and I can't get through it without tearing up! Of course being so pregnant a lot of things tear me up!! I am so thankful for her, she's becoming my best friend.

blessings

Plugging Along

Thinking about school starting today. Lots to plan for six students this year! While Maura starts Kindergarten, Kaley is finishing her last year of High School. That is really bittersweet. It seems unreal that she and I have worked together at learning and living for almost 13 years. I think I have learned more than her!

I learned to teach someone to read. That was awesome! When I realized I could do that I don't know why it amazed me so much. The thing is I hate that part of schooling, it's stressful for me to teach someone to read but I've done it three times and Ben and David are on the cusp of it. It never ceases to amaze me see a person finally get it and then, not only get it but realize it's magical. I adore seeing my kids with their noses glued in a book, even though it often means distraction from chores etc. Curtiss's current summer fascination is Sherlock Holmes. So now it's a special topic for he and Kaley, as she had read all of the stories and they hash them over as Curtiss reads them.

This year we will study together: Bible, Shakespeare, nature, composer study and picture study. My goal is to get all these things in as a group. Kaley has a pretty heavy load on her own and it looks like she will be duel enrolled at our local community college to take a digital photography class. That's to learn how to use her soon to be birthday present:)

So, I am collecting books, looking at schedules, revamping chore assignments, and ordering a few things for now. I hope to get some schooling in before Baby arrives in September. We usually take a month off for that so we'll be making that up in December. We always work it out. I am looking forward to school starting up. It always helps to have lots of ideas sparking little and big minds. Things always run smoother that way. We will be very sad to see Daddy go off to school, we have gotten quite used to having him around.

Here's the baby bump! She/He is getting really squirmy. We can't wait to meet Baby!

Blessings

Pictures from the Science Center

Here are some pictures from the Hickory Science Center. It was our first outing since Maura had been diagnosed. I had been scared to go anywhere, finding security in our routines and exact meal times, totally unlike me. Luckily, Mark-the usual home body, recognized this is not a good thing and has insisted and pushing me out of that comfort zone. So we first went to church. We have a longer service so had to pack Maura's lunch, it went great. She had no problem having her shot out. So then he decided we should do the science museum. Again, it went well. We picnicked and just had to do extra finger sticks. When Maura runs around and plays her blood sugar is lower and she needs more snacks. It was great for all the kids for us just to be a normal family again.



David and Ben love rock wall climbing. This was a hit at the Strong's Children's Museum while we were up in NY, too.




I don't know how they stood this! Round and round they went and loved it.





Mr. Smiley.





Kaley and Josiah





Starfish starfish, wonder what you are fish?





A starfish in the touch and hold tank. They have a neat aquarium area with two parts. One represents NC's mountain streams and one that represents the coastal area. Guess which one the kids were attracted to?? The stream with the turtles held no romance for them, they do that all the time for real. But ocean animals, that's something we don't see. We are 4-6 hrs from the coast.

Look at that sweet face! (even with red eye!)

Here's the tank that held every ones fascination.

Rays and sharks you can touch!

This one kept coming right up to the edge and sticking it's head out of water to see Maura. She got brave enough to pet it!

I hope to post some pictures of our trip to NY soon, we are waiting on a disk at to be developed from a camera I couldn't get to download to our computer.

blessings

Recipe Success!

I adapted my first recipe to be diabetic friendly and gluten free. I am excited to announce it was quite a success. We had chili last night so how to make the corn bread to go with it??

I would normally use a recipe that contained half wheat flour and a cup of sugar. My parameters for our new way of life are to continue with freshly grinding all our grains and NOT using artificial sweeteners (no offense to anyone who does, I just feel like if God didn't make it, it ain't good for us). We have been focusing on eating a whole foods diet for quite awhile now, all these life changes just make us take it to a higher level. It's a good thing there, right?

So, I did all freshly ground corn meal, replaced the sugar with applesauce, used extra eggs still warm from the chickens :), put in some fresh corn that I was going to blend up but forgot to and then the typical ingredients-butter, salt, baking powder and milk. It was great, not crumbly and pretty, too. I have some stevia on order, next time I might just put a dash of that as we do like our cornbread a little sweet. But we could live without it. We are noticing now that we do not use sugar things taste a lot sweeter on their own.

Now, duplicating could be a problem. I'm afraid I'm a lot like my grandmother and I don't measure and each dish seems to be unique. But I think we could swing it again, no problem.

blessings

South Mountain State Park

Today Daddy had a conference in the big city (Charlotte) and we got pretty mopey. So, our answer is to get out and enjoy nature. We are fortunate enough to have several state parks within 45m drive of home. One of the prettiest is 15m away. It has a gorgeous trout stream full of riffles and big rocks. If you walk the 2mile trail you can see the falls, we didn't do that today, but we did do the small trail and enjoyed the river. It seemed nice to do something normal. We took along Maura's supplies and snacks and it went well.

Growing up in Florida, I really appreciate the beauty of this place, the mountains, hills, boulders and lush green forest.

Now that my belly and Josiah have gotten quite large, this is how he spends a lot of his time out of the pouch. Grace loves taking care of him, they are getting quite tight.

Off they go for adventure, Josiah trying to keep up.

You can see Curtiss is their fearless leader.

Rock hopping, a favorite game at South Mountain, who could resist with all those great rocks? Well, an almost 8 month pregnant mamma could :)

Our stunning big sister, Kaley. (She was catching a stag beetle for me to dry brush, she's so awesome!)

Mommy and Josiah, a self portrait.

My little nature journelers. If you don't keep one, you should. I started it for school, never realizing what a part it would become of our lives and how our family lives. You start to see things you never did before, it changes your mind. And you don't have to be a great artist either. We love it. We don't do it near as often as we should. That's one of my goals for this next school year, more nature journeling.

We left nothing but footprints....

blessings

New Wool

This is what the girls will be helping with later today. I stopped by the yarn store the day we went to the Science Museum and picked up some of my favorite wool yarn. I make wool soakers with it, a cover for cloth diapers. They turn out so nice and wool is wonderfully waterproof so it makes a better cover than plastic. It breathes and can hold an amazing amount of moisture. Then, the wonderful properties of it's lanolin turn urine back into water and salts. It's all I use anymore and now I've started making them for others. I made a few as gifts and am starting to sell them.

Here is the yarn I bought:

The picture doesn't do it justice, it feels so yummy! This is becoming a soaker that I am selling to a friend. I'd love to get back to spinning my own yarn but my spinning wheel is broken right now and with everything going on, it might be awhile before it's fixed:)

I'll have to post a picture of the soakers I've made for the new baby, mostly for my sisters and fellow cloth diaperers to see.

Blessings

Adventures in Food

Well, with our recent development of Maura having Celiac's, we are having quite the adventure with finding diabetic friendly gluten free foods. I just ordered all kinds of neato foods from our co op to try grinding up to make flour blends. She feels so much better, no more tummy aches and we are so relieved to see her not be in so much pain. So we are going to try quinoa (keen-wa), buckwheat, millet, potato flour and xanthum gum. We are all eating so much better, Daddy has lost 10lbs! I feel much better, I lost weight, too, which is not optimal being pregnant but now seem to be just staying the same instead of gaining so my midwife and I are ok with that.

Maura is having less blood sugar fluctuations but more lows. However, she is beginning to recognize them. We had lunch at church today and then she ran around and played a lot. Exercise can lower your blood sugar. When we came home she was carrying in groceries and said, "Mom, we need to check my blood sugar." I asked her if she was feeling low. She said, "When I feel like this (she flopped her head to the side and looked sleepy) then I think I'm low." Sure enough, her blood sugar was 53! We made a smoothie quick. I really praised her for learning her body and how it feels to be low.

Well, better be off for now. It's a beautiful day here and we are out to enjoy it!

blessings,
Cheri

Progress

We have now been tummy pain free for over 48hrs. We took Maura off all gluten products and immediately it ceased. It seems she must also have Celiac's Disease. It is also an autoimmune disease like type 1 diabetes and diabetics tend to have higher rates of it. So, more diet transitions. We really don't care, we are so thrilled she is not in pain anymore. Celiac's can be controlled by diet so it seems so much easier than diabetes. We have slept for 2 nights in a row! Maura has also hit what they call her 'honeymoon' period. Her body has responded to her insulin and what islet cells she has left are functioning so her blood sugars are running lower. Now I am having to watch her before meals, we've had a couple real lows but she still needs insulin to cover her food intake. This could last a few weeks to a few years. Everyone is unique.

Our trip to the science center went great. I'll post some pictures later today or tomorrow. I have a pregnant "friend" stopping by, so I need to run. Life seems so much easier today.

blessings

A Quick Update

Some of you know how awful our nights have been, we had another really bad one Tuesday night. We had thought we had pinpointed Maura's stomach pain to blood sugar or ketone related, but it seems that is not it. So we began to question whether or not her celiacs test was a false negative. I read online that if you have not had gluten for a few days, you can test negative. Looking back, we wondered if she had not had any previous to her hospitalization. So yesterday we went gluten free and last night we had our first complete night of sleep in weeks. Maura was pain free. Perhaps we have found our answer???

Today we try an outing to the Science Center. So we are busy packing food etc. We feel we need to do it and get out in real life and live with diabetes. We had dinner with some friends from church last night, it went really well. And we were rejuvenated spiritually. Church family is a beautiful picture of Christ's hands and feet.

blessings

In Christ Alone

By the way, this is my new favorite hymn. It's actually a modern song but if you don't know it or haven't listened to the words, click on it over to the left. I am listening to it several times a day! It's hard to get through right now without tears but I am so grateful for them. They are tears of thankfulness, I don't have to walk this road alone and neither does Maura. No matter what comes, God is in control.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man
,Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand!

blessings

We Slept/Pictures

We actually got some sleep! Maura's blood sugar spiked after dinner and her stomach pain returned. We talked to the Dr. and agreed she needs more insulin at night. We gave her more and she felt better. She only woke once around 12:30a and we were able to soothe her back to sleep. So it wasn't a complete night of sleep but so much better than what we have been getting.

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of what we've been up to.

Our garden has taken over the front yard, which we are great with. The boys love having less to mow, and really, what good is grass? It's the only sunny spot in the yard but it's being very productive. You can just see to the left how tall our sunflowers have gotten. They are what my grandpa calls volunteers. Seeds from last year that got tilled in and came up everywhere. We also have one random tomato that also was a volunteer.

This is where we spent the 4th of July, at the creek some friends have.

Off for adventures.

Our muffin feeling much better after insulin and hydration.

Ready to go home

Cutting wood, the kids worked hard and were great help.

Curtiss is old enough to help run the splitter.

So that's it. Praying for a great day. Maura is up in good spirits so I think if we can get this insulin dosage tweaked, maybe she'll be feeling better at night. That would be wonderful. Today the plan is to cut down a tree to make way for our new septic system and I will hopefully finally get to making some bread.

blessings

Update

Another hard night. This stomach pain is so perplexing. We talked to the Dr. on the phone, he said it is a common symptom. It's just so hard. We were able to comfort her, we were just up and down all night with it. She would fall back to sleep tho, where as before there was no way. She has had a great day, great attitude about her shots and finger sticks. We are grilling out salmon and worked at stacking all the wood. I'm going to make some brown rice, broccoli and stir fry some zucchini and patty pan squash from our garden. We got our first ripe tomato :) Someday maybe we'll all sleep all night again. Just in time for the new baby to be born and start it all up again, I'm sure.

blessings