An Editorial I Wrote.

Yes I know it's been over a month since I posted. I have pics to put up and things like that. However, here's a quick post with a link.

I wrote an editorial to our local paper. There was a case that had been moved to our county from where it had happened about an hour south of here because the judge felt that it wouldn't get a fair jury in it's home jurisdiction. It involved a very horrific death of a young woman, who was 16, and she was homeschooled. She had special needs, the same diagnosis as James in fact. Her parents were the cause of her death, though they didn't set out to kill her, that was a horrible accident. The parents were found guilty of 1st degree Child Neglect and Abuse as well as Torture. Yeah. The young woman's name is referenced in the editorial. If you search her name through Mlive you'll find the articles regarding the hearing if you want to know more.

Because the young woman was homeschooled many many many people came out and said that there need to be tougher homeschool laws because "look at her". In fact, she had been in Public School for many years and the abuse had been reported, however CPS had dropped the ball. I believe the girl's grandmother is now looking in to a civil suit against that agency, which I completely understand. If they had followed through, the young woman would still be alive. It was stated during the trial that the investigators for the state knew of the methods of restraint (torture) and condoned it.

Needless to say, I was angry. It made my blood boil to read about this trial, that this child should have been treated so cruely, that the state passed her over, that people would assume that because she was homeschooled that was the root of the problem.

I don't know if the editorial will be printed in the local paper, right now it's just online. Our local paper has shrunk considerably, as have many/most in the US, so space is limited and I was told there were many editorials ahead of mine waiting to be printed. Here is the link. Let me know what you think.

I Made Butter

I know, that's make you go "What did she say? Did she REALLY MAKE BUTTER?" Um, yeah, I did. I'm rather proud of it too! I came across a recipe for it via a friend of facebook who directed me to Bella Cantina and this post. I also made the PW Potatoes the other day. And that Apple Dumpling recipe looks so yummy and easy.

Anyway, I made butter. I used the food processor like the directions said. Instead of doing it by hand, I then tossed the butter in to my newly aquired Kitchen Aid Mixer (thank you Income Tax Return!) and worked it that way. After doing all of the washing and letting the mixer work it a bit, I added some honey. It is OH SO GOOD!! Jayden helped with the food processor part.

Considering I have a small processor that only holds 3 cups of solid at a time, I bought it more to help with making puree out of veggies and fruits for baby food, I had to do it three times. Put in the cream, then hold the button for about 5 min until it got to the butter/buttermilk stage. Out of the quart of heavy cream, I'd say I got about a pound of butter (yes a pound!) and close to 2 cups of buttermilk. I have another quart in the fridge so I think that next time I'm going to try the whole thing with the mixer, first with the whisk, and then the mixer beater. I figure if you can use a Kitchen Aid to make merengue you can use it to make butter, and it would save me a few steps considering the bowl is 2 1/2 or 3 quarts, something like that. With the next batch I'm going to do garlic butter.

OK, I know this may seem like a trivial thing to be super geeked about. However, at Thanksgiving, I'm always searching for honey butter and I have such a hard time finding it. So now, I no longer need to search. I can take about 45 minutes and make up some myself! We went through a 9 pack of Thomas' English Muffins this morning enjoying our butter! Next time I do it, I'll take pics to share the process with you all.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and find joy in the trivial things! Prayers and blessings everyone.

Portraits of a Teenager, Part Three

Here is the final installment of the photo shoot with Katy. She wanted some pics that really showed the color in her hair and I think we almost got that. I handed her my MP3 player. She was curious as to what I had on it. It's why the funny face because some of it she just doesn't like. I told her it was for working out and it had a good beat for that. There was some real face making over my choices of Lady GaGa and Beyonce. Oh well. The last pics she is really smiling and laughing. I told her to imagine James falling down the stairs and it got a great laugh. Siblings are so cruel!

I will have some new pics of Jack and Abbey soon. I am waiting on a pair of pants to be washed up first. They are a bit overdue for their 6 month pics considering they are a week shy of 7 months! Where did the time go? This time last year it was still sinking in that we were going to have twins, we didn't even know for sure (well I knew because of the dreams, but Jason didn't) that they were in fact boy and girl.

Prayers and blessings everyone. Enjoy the kids while they are there for you to cuddle and not complain about it!

Portraits of a Teenager, Part Two

Here is the second part of the photo session with Katy. These are all just random faces that I had her make at me. Yes, there are red streaks in her hair. Yes, the back of her hair looks rather purplish.

Katy had been wanting to dye her hair black and then get red streaks and purple tips in it. I was very much agains the black. Her natural color is so dark anyway. And being a teenager, though she vehemently denied she would, I knew she would get bored of the look and want to change it, only to find out that dying it that drastic color had made it so the only way to get it out is to bleach it all, or cut it all off. She, of coarse, took this as opposition and decided it needed to be done all the more.

I talked to Jason the night before I went to pick up Katy because I had a "PLAN". I knew Jenn was OK with the color streaks, but not really with the black, though she understood why she wanted to do it. When I got there, I asked when Katy was going to get her hair done. The answer was an I don't know. So I offered Katy, with Jenn right there to say no, if she felt she needed to (she knew I was going to ask, I had mentioned it to her on chat the night before), that if she agreed to not do anything thing black that I would take her the next morning to get the colors put in how she wanted and that I would pay for it. Jenn looked at her and said "I'd take that deal." As you can see, Katy took it.

So here she is once again in all her goofy teenage glory. I hope that you all enjoy the rest of your week. Prayers and blessings.

Portraits of a Teenager, Part One

While Katy was here for her mid-winter break, I took the advantage of a sunny day and set her up in our "stuido" and got out the camera. I wanted her to be comfortable and not stiffly posed with a half ass fake smile. I pulled out my Game Boy and MP3 player and let her play around with those. I ended up with 36 pics that I REALLY liked. I'm going to seperate them in to 3 different posts of 12 pics a piece. 36 is a lot to scroll through all at once!

We always love having Katy here and it would be great if she could come down more often. I know that as she gets older, the once a month we see her may get even more scarce because of her commitments to other activities. I think that will just have us cherish our time with her even more. Here is the first set of 12 pics. The last pic it looks like she is upset. That's not accurate. I had told her to just start making random faces at me and I am rather certain that she was trying not to laugh at me.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you enjoy the time you have with your children while they are still there to enjoy.

JackMan 2010

Here is almost 6 month old JackMan, he's like Batman, but cooler! We really haven't decided on a nickname for Jack. We often call him either JackMan or JackieBoy. Yep, one word, just like that.

Once Abbey's coordinating onesie is clean, I'll be doing 6 month photos of the two of them together. I'm hoping to get them interacting, which they do all the time now. Jack is a rather possesive little dude. Last night he was sitting in the exersaucer and I had Abbey on my knee so she could play too (we have our 2nd exersaucer on order, we wanted 2 different ones and had to resort to ordering it from Babies R Us to be able to accomplish that). Jack was fine playing with the cow, until Abbey was playing with the pig. Then he HAD to have it and pushed her hands away and took it from her. She grabbed his hand and started chewing on it. It seemed like she was saying "Take my toy? I'll eat your hand!"

These pics were all taken in my room using only all natural light. The only editing that has been done to them is that they were cropped and resized to 300 dpi. Jason told me that I seem to always get good pictures of the babies and that I should be a baby photographer. I don't know about that. I think it's easy to take photos of your own babies, it's getting other people's kids to sit there and look at you and not be scared of the weird lady with the black thingy sticking out of her face that is the hard part. I don't have anyone local that I could try out the theory of being able to photograph other people's babies as it is. We all know that it's even more difficult when older kids are involved. I think I'll just stick to my own kids.

The New Year

Has come and gone and I'm a slacker. Oh wait, I'm NOT a slacker, I've just had a busy "real life" lately. Now that the holidays are gone things might settle down. Though they may not. The twins are 5 1/2 months old which means they are awake more durning the day which means they need and want more during the day which, in turn, means I have less time to do things on the computer.

Anyone have New Year's Resolutions? Have you broken them off yet? I wouldn't say that mine were "resolutions" really. Just goals. I've decided that this is my year to be more actively involved in life. I have 3 Big C's and an E and I think everything stems off of them. Cooking, Cleaning, Crafting, & Exercise. Just to do them more. The Cooking and Exercise makes for a healthier me, and a healthier family. I know that once it gets warmer, I'll drag the family along. As it is, I'm trying to organize a Walking Club with our homeschool group to start up once the temps are more consistently in the 40's, so mid to end of March. I'm also trying to organize a Craft Club, to do twice a month. The big inhibitor in that one is finding a location, though I think we may be able to use a room at one of the library branches.

Jason is being considered for a move to a different department at WalMart. It would be full time and quite possibly 3rd shift. The 3rd shift would be nice simply because it would mean an extra $1 an hour. He keeps getting talked to about it, but it hasn't happened yet. He keeps mentioning it to let "The Powers That Be" know that he is still interested. We are hoping that that takes place soon.

I have pictures from Christmas to post. And some that I did of Abbey. And some of Jack. It just seems like I've been out of it for quite some time now and I'm trying to find the swing of things again.

In my crafting goal, I finished a hat I was knitting for Abbey. It's made out of Pink Fun Fur. It's a little on the big side, and very stretchy, but very cute. So I'll leave you with the pics of her for right now. Enjoy. Prayers and blessings and I hope you all are getting back in to the swing as well.