Hippie kids snacktime

One of the Hippie Kids favorite snacks is homemade kale chips.  No, I know that kale doesn't sound that impressive as a snack, but when you know about all of the nutritional benefits of this wonderfully obscure green you will want to do what you can to have your kiddos eat it too!  Kale is a member of the cabbage family, and it
 is considered to be a highly nutritious vegetable with powerful antioxidant properties; kale is considered to be anti-inflammatory.  Kale is very high in beta carotene,vitamin K, vitamin C , lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium.  Considering that this is what it looks like, one can see how it would be difficult to get children (or husbands) to eat it:


However, if after taking the central stem out you happen to have some olive oil, sea salt, and nutritional yeast on hand, you can make a crunchy,slightly nutty, salty snack that is VERY addicting!

Once the central stem is removed, you just need to toss the kale leaves with the above ingredients until they are all coated with the oil (not dripping) and have a nice sprinkling of salt and nutritional yeast on them.  I pop mine in the dehydrator for about 45 minutes, but you can also put them under a broiler for a few minutes.  Just make sure that you check on them so that they don't burn...burnt kale smells "nasty" as the Seeker had no problem informing me before we had the dehydrator!

The finished result doesn't look much different than what you started with:

But is sure is much more enjoyable!!

Once I start eating these, my body actually craves them and it is hard for me to stop (it's also hard for the Hippie Kids to stop, they ask for them constantly when they're in the house)!  We also like to crunch them up over salads and pasta dishes to boost the nutritional value even more.

Be Well,

Review for Wordtoons

Being a homeschooling mom, I occasionally have the opportunity to receive freebies in exchange for a review. The most recent freebie that I was sent was Wordtoons. This particular product is the brain child of Wayne Logue. Wayne has been a cartoonist/illustrator for almost 2 decades and is now studying for his BA in Linguistics English Language Teaching and Education....ah, a teacher in training creating a tool to teach with, I LOVE it!!!

I was super excited to receive a sample of Wordtoons in my e-mail inbox because The Risk-Taker loves to draw. In fact, I find doodles of all different persuasions in the margins of his schoolwork when I am grading it. Drawing is his form of self-expression, and I was anxious to let him loose with this project.

The concept behind Wordtoons is simple.The program takes words and turns them into that particular object. For instance, DOG becomes:

Can you find the letters in the drawing? AMAZING!!!

There are many other words to explore and a few uppercase letters that turn into objects/animals as well. The review from The Risk-Taker was that: "This is the coolest schoolwork I've done all year!"   I now find doodles of "dog" and "boy" all over my whiteboards...I think these are the easiest and fastest for him to draw.

As an added perk, The Explorer (almost 5) is completely drawn in by the process (pun intended) and is learning more spelling due to this program. His thoughts on it were: "I LOVE this!".

I give Wordtoons two thumbs way up and went to the site to buy the full version. I am very anxious to see what Wayne has on the horizon for us!!

As I sit and contemplate...

As I sit and contemplate the past year (I know that it is a few weeks late, but better late than never, right?) I am coming to some realizations about my life.

1)  I am HORRIBLE at updating this thing.
2)  I love my job of homeschooling our children, providing nourishing food for our family, and managing our home, BUT
3)  I feel guilty and stressed that my Go With the Flow Husband is saddled with the responsibility of providing for us financially, I HATE seeing him stressed out.
4)  I don't spend enough time spiritually on myself with prayer, meditation, journaling, reading, and contemplation.
5).  Physical exertion is an absolute necessity for me in order to feel balanced and not edgy.
6)  If I can carve out time for the above acts in my life, then I feel that I may be able to continue on my balance beam while juggling the many balls (I was going to go for a dramatic image hear and say juggling chainsaws, but I thought they may be overdoing it) that I have accepted as my calling in life.
7)  I believe that I have another calling that has been added to my plate that will remain "mine" for now, to roll around inside my head and become a part of the fabric that is my crazy quilt before being unveiled to you.

I have always been a list-maker, I like a nice organized list.  It is easy to see what needs to be done, and what you have accomplished by those little tick-marks that you can place with satisfaction after completing a task.  That being said, here is my list on (hopefully) how I will remedy the above musings.

1)  Make it a task to update on here at least once a week and make sure that this task gets a tick mark.
2)  Continue with homeschooling (organize the boy's binders, take more time to read out loud), continue feeding my family nourishing, whole foods in ways that make it fun interesting for them, become more adamant in my home managing skills/lists.
3)  Offer encouragement and thanks to my Go With the Flow Husband for his part in allowing our family to be together more. 
4)  Carve out time for myself every day to spend in quiet to grow spiritually.  This may mean waking up well before the boys, or using time after they are in bed (which can be hard because there are many times that I crash right along with them).
5)  Make my running/exercise time a priority, yet again.  When I push this to the back to make room for everyone else I become edgy and my insomnia returns...translation:  wife/mom that can work out = happy wife/mom = happy homelife.
6)  Slightly touched on above:  MAKE TIME!!  If I have to wake up an hour or so before the boys do, so be it.
7)  Continue praying about/exploring this idea.

Whew!!  TWO lists made, and a list awaiting me on the table for today.   It is time to start making those tick marks.

Peace & Namaste (I recognize the Divine in you that is also in me.),