Tails

Gabe found a rabbit. An answer to his prayer after losing a turtle that he found. So we're all kinda likin' the little guy and man he cracks me up when he tries to hop out of his cage....so funny. He chows lettuce and carrots which as we all know is great roughage and well, he, you know, makes a mess. So Gabe cleans out his "home" often...which is for now a rubbermaid, that he can scale the side of and jump out....here's a 3 minute video of last nights entertainment with Tails....

Soooo hankin' busy

I love my life, and can I just say....this is exactly what I prayed for, my husband to quit his well paying job so we could work together and live together as a family. Live simply, eat simply, build simply. I love it. Creativity....I remember praying for this once upon a time and now I just love to marvel at how creative some people are. It seems the more one seeks Jesus, the more the creative juice flows...neat, huh? Serving the Creator makes one innately more creative. Just my theory. So here we are....John made these way swank counters for our new trade show adventure. And I painted our logo on them. Way cute. Diggin it. So that was this morning after I had a yum breakfast cooked for me by my family (it's my birthday today!). Our work....

Pickedy pic pics

"Gabe, uh, you cut my head off." -- "Gabe, I told you to stand here, now the sun's all wrong."-- "Gabe, that's great....we'll use that one!" He was a good sport and I didn't expect expert photography from a 7 year old, and he probably wished he hadn't happened by at that time, but oh well, you're the man. It's beautiful in Texas this time of year, and I was trying to get some more pics of us on the website. We still have a few models to include....dad..Gabe, and hopefully some more family shots....it's just hard to get us all together sometimes. Photo day....













This was supposed to be a hair pic, but he didn't get my hair, but hey, I'm wearing my new Fresh Touch shade of LiP-iX! :) Hey Thatch.

It really is a family affair....

Picture it...seven of us at our not so big table making products for our business. Yes seven of us. That includes all of us except Zev, the baby. WHOA! It started with me making tooth powder, and a bunch of "Can I help??"s and before you know it, we're all there, working together. It was grand. And yes, we all washed our hands. So Quinn and Eli and dad made the tooth powder, while Cherish, Gabe, & mom made the face scrub. Sorry Thatch. He was there, with his spoon ready to help put the scrub in the jar, but....um...no. So it was good, and they're learning. They so want to "bring a stick to the fire" and really that's the whole reason we're doing this. John recently ordered some more cutting tools so the older ones will be able to cut labels. That will ROCK! They already do the shrink wrapping very well. In fact, Cherish put the shrink bands on all my new LiP-iX! She's amazing! She said as I labeled and she did shrink bands, "I'll slow down mom so you can keep up." Thanks, Cher...!

Thatch-a-patch

Cute, chubby, not-to-talkative....what more could you want in a two year old? So I was getting my little T-man dressed after a bath a couple of days ago...hold on, let me rewind....living in a houseful of men, I find that they...um...can't find a hairy thing!!! Being as I'm John's beloved helpmeet, I smile and enjoy the praise he bestows me when I find something he needs or is looking for. However, when my boys ask me, "Mom, where's the _____?" I say, "Look with your eyes not your mouth." And when this doesn't work, I'll lovingly say, "Up your nose." So, "Mom, where's my drill." -- "Up your nose." "Muuuuuuzzzer."(endearing term my little sweet petites have for me.) Back to Thatch...is that a great name or what? When he grows up, we'll tell him our dream of a cob home and fascination with thatched roofing inspired his name. Anyway, bath...getting dressed, and as he lay there in all his splendor, I had a goo moment and tickled and loved on him, smacking his belly, saying, "I love-ah, love, love you, T-hatch. Can you say 'Mama'? "ma-ma"--- "Mama"---"ma-ma"---"Can you say 'Daddy'? Where's daddy?" To which he inserts his index finger in his left nostril and says, "Noz" ---Dagged funny kid he is.

Headless chickens

We have roughly 10 days to do about 2 months worth of things to get ready for some big events coming up. Hold up, I'm getting ahead of myself. Have to tell you the coolness of God....so we prayed for a place to sell our wares...skincare stuff where people would buy it, use it, love it....God provided, Canton....don't know why we didn't think of this before but now we're doing it. Well it's a wee on the $$ side to rent a booth since its THE biggest flea-market-type-trade-show thingie in the world....WHOA...BUT after going there we were confident we could do well. (Thank you Lord for the repeated reminders as to the validity of this thought)....Anyway, no hankin' way could we do it without an RV because I need to nurse my Zev man and so on...oh and it's a 3 day event once a month, did I mention that? So three days without milkies and Zev might get kinda hungry. So we needed an RV...but the kicker is that we didn't want to spend much money. Good luck. I resolved to pray. GOD IS AMAZING!! He provided us with a new, hear me, NEW RV for....hold on to your socks, $1700...what in the??? Yep, is that cool or what? I was so hairy jazzed....it was a getting-married-don't-want-to-pay-300-bucks-a-month-RV-park rent-wanna-get-rid-of-this-trailer deal. WHAMMO! So then John goes to get this trailer and drives home without one of those stabilizer thingies, and it scairt him...bad. "Lots of prayin' and many bathroom stops." he said. So we wanna take it to Ky to the wedding we're going to but John said no way without the thing. But they are like $600 and we just didn't want to shell out any more just yet. So I prayed. And again...God!!! Bonnie Lloyd, groovy gal that she is, is gonna let us use theirs!! Woooheee, three cheers for Bonnie. So that's the short of it and man am I lovin my kids see God answer prayers so faithfully...how fun. So we're doing alot to get ready for Canton, a wedding and a thousand other things...ahhh...keep your head on.

Vines

I think it's gonna be one of those multi post hours...but whatayado? I gotta say it all while I've got the time. Not that this is really a good time, since I should be sleeping, but I got a catnap today and argh...rambling....so anyway, I am so so so very thankful to God for so many things and I wanna say a bit here about why. Step back with me to May '07, I'm about yay pregnant and decide to do a few flower beds, some herbs...it'll be great. Employ my children, dig, dig, dig, we're planting. But soon we all come down with the itchies....I must have missed that 4H lesson on identification of the beloved Poision Ivy vine since I managed to get covered in it....sweet mama, I never ever ever want to do that again ever. I did everything I could think of and then some, salt showers (ouch) and so many other didn't work for me remedies. So jump to the present and we have Eli, our beloved 6 year old, itching on his forehead, hands, eyelids, nose and neck. Guess he was huggin' the ivy. I told him to 'salve up' and it's gone....This is the second case this season and it's happened this way both times...1st day itchies...salve up....2nd day inflammation gone still slight itchies...salve up...3rd day scabs no itchies PRAISE GOD FOR HERBS!!!!!! Last season, we had two cases of next day disappearance. I cannot even tell you how exciting this is....thank you Lord for your blessings.

Color....

I love it. But not tonight. Have you ever worked with iron oxides....don't. See it's like this, my tinted moisturizer was not to my liking....so I'm formulating. Oh man...that can get old. I was asked to make a tinted moisturizer...great idea, I thought, I'd like one too. And I thought, easy schmeasy, just add some color to a lotion...not that easy. You need something to give it cohesion, to make the color come off on your face...well, voila, beeswax! The hmpf 'bee' people do it, why can't I? Uggh, too oily. Less beeswax, no color, still oily...ugh. Next...clay, aha, too dry. Ugh, what's a moisturizer if it's dry. So what's a girl to do? Yep, pray. Now, I pray about every thing and then some. What's the joy in life if you can't talk to your Creator, so I do...often, about every....yep, even tinted moisturizer. So tonight, did it, again...formulated, too thick, too gel-ley, too thin, too dry....AHHHH!!! Dry me crazy, but I think I got it. I won't jump up and do a happy-finally-got-it dance until I've worn it a few days and am happpy with it. But as of tonight the results are good. Good color come off-ed-ness (how else would you say that?), good feel, a little shea butta makes it so softy...ahhh. So I think we're good. Fin a hair a LY.....oh, wait, I said I wouldn't say it's good yet. Okay, give it a week....I'll let you know.

Burgers

So here's my recipe...well sort of.....it's more of a process or procedure, but you get the desired effect...yummy meatless burgers. No, I'm not anti-meat, I just like the lower cost of the beans. 

Spicy Lentil Black Bean Burgers

Okay I cook up both (this would be way better with pictures, but I didn't want to leave you waiting for my life to slow down...so here's to future posts with cute pics) 

Fill my food processor with yay amount of beans and yay amount of lentils...about half and half and maybe a dab more black beans, okay then another spoon of lentils. ...you get the point.

So then we add, chopped onion

4-5 cloves of garlic...now hey, we like garlic 

3 jalapenos....CAUTION...these are hot, mmmkay? Might want to use less if feeding kiddos

3 tsp chili powder....yep I think that's how much I use

salt....shake shake shake

about 1 tsp black pepper

3 beaten eggs 

bread crumbs (I usually add cornmeal and flour here, cuz I never have breadcrumbs) not sure how much...

okay it'll be pretty wet so I cook them on a hot griddle like pancakes. You can make them the perfect size for your burger buns. They are way yum...sorry for the lack of real recipe but I trust you experienced cooks will do well. :) Enjoy your chow.

Hair Schmair

I hope I'm not the only blogger that posts more than once in the same day/hour. It's of a different subject so I thought I'd give it it's own post. I realized what caused my phase 3 drab hair....I'm experimenting with a natural hair gel and I added way too much jojoba oil to the first batch and voila, drab, greasy hair. AHHHH, my shampoo bar rocks!!! So, I'll keep you posted...oh, did I mention before that it never did any of that weird stuff to my daughters hair, hers has grown like wildfire and looks soooooooo cute. Thank you Jesus for creativity. Feels so good. 

Young, old, pimples to behold

Well it's a relief to know I'm not that old yet. So I've been using my Repairing Night Oil on my face and as Cory warned me it would, my face broke out. Bummer. *Rewind*But I have to tell you how jazzed I am about my Gentle Face Scrub.....I put rice bran powder and adzuki bean powder in it, both known for gentle exfoliation and blemish control and a few weeks ago I used it on a little grove of blackheads I had at the corner of my mouth....amazingly this gentle scrub deep cleansed those pores and my face was smooth and soft there. Oh my hank! I had no idea it would work that good......I mean seriously there were NO blackheads. I kept checking the mirror thinking, 'they'll be back' but apparantly, I've got a small miracle on my hands here. :) EEEEHEEE! So fast forward.....it seems my skin is not quite mature enough for the Repairing Night Oil....wheww....so I had a nice speckling of bumps last night, so you guessed it....I whipped out the scrub, oh my sweet molasses if it didn't do it again. I plan to add some info to the site about how great a' job this is doing on my pimplies. So now, I'm formulating a cream and such for younger skin. Glad I still fit in that category. More research....