Switching to a Traditional Diet...WITH KIDS!

Hi there!
So, my family has stomach problems. They get it from their father. :)
Seriously, though, diarrhea is just a part of our life. Stomach pain? We're not even sure what life would be like without it! My number 2 daughter has been complaining about her stomach hurting regularly for...a long time. She keeps asking me to take her to the doctor and I keep saying 'no.' That might sound horrible, but I've been to the doctor for kids' stomach pains multiple times before, and it is just not helpful. They charge me hundreds of dollars to tell me that I will have to use the trial and error method to find out what's causing their pain myself, and then avoid it. 'Wow. Thanks. I never would have thought of that myself.'
For some time I have been learning about the so called Traditional Diet, and I have wanted to try it, but it just...sounded really intimidating. Let's be honest, changing our diet is changing our lifestyle, you know? Besides, I had tried to keep sourdough/natural yeast and it just...well...I haven't mastered it. So that leaves me with only soaking or sprouting my grains, and I didn't think we could make actual loaves of bread, that way. And without any bread...what would we eat on a daily basis?
But I have been actively researching on Pintrest ;) and once I had found enough soaking and sprouting recipes, I decided to dive right in. I spent the first week only making soaked recipes, and in the mean time, I worked on sprouting some wheat to use for the second week of the trial.
Those of you who have kids know that you can't change anything about their diet without them freaking out and thinking you're trying to poison them. This was no different. In the hopes that I can save you some trouble, here is a list of some of recipes I tried, and how my kids took to each of them.

Soaking Method:

Cream of Wheat --My husband and kids have stomach allergies with oats, so this is the only hot cereal we do. My older two girls love cream of wheat, but my younger two kids won't touch it, so I didn't even try to make them. I LOVED how simple this recipe was and I thought it was perfectly tasty! My kids, on the other hand...were weeping and wailing like it was the end of the world! It took number 2 a full HOUR to eat it! (She's the one who I finally decided to do this diet for, after all, and if I let her not eat her food, she would go to school hungry and probably get an "emergency snack" from her teacher which would probably have unsoaked grains, so then we would never be able to tell if the diet was working...so...I just made her finish it).
Waffles --These had a bit of a sourdough taste to them, but without having to master sourdough (score!). My kids were not fans, but number two finished a whole one with minimal complaining. The other three struggled to finish half of one each.
Tortillas --I didn't actually make my other three even try these, since I felt like it was a lot of work for only a few tortillas, and...well, I'm kinda lazy. But number two loved them! Yay!
Pizza Dough --The whole family ate this homemade pizza without ANY complaining! Hooray!
Rice --Uhh, my kids are used to white rice, so...the whole brown rice thing didn't go over very well with a couple of them, although number 2 and number 4 at this just fine! So...50%! Ha!
And finally, the recipe that gave me courage to officially start this diet in the first place: BREAD!--This was not my kids' favorite bread (translation: it can't compare with white bread), but the entire family will eat it without complaining! HALLELUJAH!

Sprouted Method:
Sprouting wheat is not hard, but, in some ways it's kind of annoying. It's annoying that I constantly have multiple jars of moist wheat berries laying sideways by kitchen sink. It's annoying that I have to pull out the dehydrator every couple of days to dry the sprouted wheat out. And then I still have to grind them before I can use them. BUT, although it's annoying to actually  sprout the wheat, it's so easy to make food with, once it's sprouted, dried and ground up.
I made Cream of Wheat, pancakes (with sprouted flour, they tend to be a little flatter, especially when overcooked even a little bit, so watch and make sure to flip and remove before over cooking at all), waffles (with the sprouted flour, the top and bottom of the waffles tend to rip apart when opening the lid, so be careful when opening and removing), and pumpkin bread with all my normal recipes. All I had to do was substitute sprouted wheat flour with the normal wheat flour. And all my kids happily ate all of those things without a word!
I also made this Banana Bread with sprouted flour, which my kids also devoured.
And these Tortillas --which we ALL decided we liked better than the soaked tortillas (plus, I had an easier time rolling these out).
I tried this Pizza Dough --which was a total bust. None of us liked it.

So, I guess the take away is that, other than bread and pizza dough, we prefer sprouted over soaked. But the soaked bread and pizza dough are both great! And I have been able to use sprouted flour in most of my normal recipes, so I can still make a variety of foods without too much trouble.

Check back later for my adventures with sourdough!

Our Fave Books for New Readers

Books for Pre K and Beginning Kindergarten to read TO YOU:
The books I start the kids out with when they are first learning to read simple words are
1) The Bob Books (bought from costco)
2) Family Readers series (picked up from the library)

Both of these books series are good for brand new readers because all of the words are words that follow the rules and can be sounded out. They also have a certain sound theme that goes throughout the book, so that the repetition really teaches them the corresponding rule. But, the kids hate reading these books because the story line is as simple as the words are. Once I have gotten them to read as many of the Bob books and family readers as they will tolerate, we move on to some books with more fun stories:

1) Biscuit books We LOVE these books! They are really cute, and easy to read. And no one is mean (an important criteria for acceptable media at our house).
2) Usborne Phonics Readers Another FAVORITE series! These are really fun and cute stories and -again- they have a certain sound repeated throughout the story, so the kids really get down the sound the -OW makes when they read "Cow takes a bow," etc.

Books I read to my Kindergarteners/ beginning elementary kids:

1) Boxcar children--This is probably my all time favorite book to read to my kids. It is a fun story and everyone is NICE!
2) Minnie and Moo series--These books are really fun, with some really clever writing. Simple stories that the kids enjoy hearing
3) Magic Treehouse Series--The kids travel to different times and places via books and a magic treehouse. My 1st grader loves them, but my Kindergartner finds them a little too intense, sometimes.
4) My Father's Dragon--A boy travels to a magical land to free an enslaved dragon. It's a very fun story.

The Letter V

Violets in a Vase and Vegetables.

I had the kids draw flowers in a "vase" and then glue my cut out Vegetables over a giant V. Then we read Family Vacation.

Then we pretended to drive in a Van...we even sang "The Wheels on the Van"

Our Favorite Toddler/Preshooler Toys

Now, mind you, I have all girls...

Dolls: preferably with plastic hair and no accessories to lose.

Shape blocks. Great for toddlers, and when they get older, they use the box to cart all sorts of stuff around!

I got these stacking blocks for my daughter when she was 18 months old and she loved them instantly.  2.5 years later, she still LOVES them. My girls use them to store things in, as pretend dishes, to make patterns, stack...etc.

By far, the favorite of both my preschoolers: DRESS UPS!

(you can find some fun stuff for boys to dress up like pirates, etc at the dollar store, especially around Halloween time)

Building blocks:

Anything that resembles a phone: I bought this calculator at the dollar store, but my 18 month old will also carry a domino tile around like a phone!

Etcha Sketch? Never gets TOUCHED!

Magna Doodle, on the other hand, is a HUGE hit!

We have barbies and polly pockets, but these little princess figurines are easier to play with and the kids love them just as much if not more! Plastic hair that doesn't get snarled, rubber clothes that they can change easily, and their heads don't pop off! You can find them for $3-$5

Strollers are loved from the time they can walk until...I don't know. All my kids still love them!

Bum Cushions

Found this tutorial via Pinterest:
http://www.livingwithpunks.com/2010/05/tutorial-land-of-nod-inspired-floor.html

And here is my finished product:

The piping really is not very hard to work with, and considering I am a TOTAL rooky at sewing...that is really saying something! It's a really good tutorial. I skipped the handle. The kids love 'em and they go great in the pink and green polka dot room!

Baby Shower: Girl

I combined efforts with some "sister-in-laws" to put together a baby shower for another one of my sisters. I was in charge of the games:

We had a sock sort challenge: How many pairs can you match and fold in 1 minute?

 We had a baby item memory game. Filled a baking sheet with all sorts of regular baby items, showed them to everyone, then hid them....

Then we had everyone write down as many of them as they could think of.

And, lastly, we had a baby bottle chug! This was a big hit. I used newborn size nipples and only gave them 2 oz each. It was pretty difficult and slow!

But there was lots of laughter!

And, of course, I had to picture the "diaper cake" present!

Super Hero Baby Shower

My sister chose a Super Hero theme for her nursery for her little guy. I hopped on to Pinterest, hoping to find some good inspiration for a Super Hero themed Baby Shower and...I was highly disappointed. I only found about 2 or 3 things. I used what I found, and also printed up some Super Hero clip art for various signs. Here is the finished product:

The Arc of Presents (before presents had really arrived). 

Entry Sign: Super Moms Unite!

 Breakfast of Champions:

Game: Using a nerf gun to shoot down bottles/nipples. This was a lot of fun!

I also came across a website where you can make your own crossword puzzle, so we did a super hero crossword puzzle.