Pictures with captions...no time for a real post

Some weeds right outstid our door.

I really want to try to get the hang of sun flares.  This is my second attempt.  I'm not really sure how other people do it.  I'll have to look into it...you know...in my spare time :-)

Just practicing trying to take pics of different objects at different angles.

Probably some photography no-no, but I really liked how the sun was streaming down right no her face.

Saoirse is usually very willing to get her photo taken.

Our rooster.

The past few days were beautiful!  In the upper 70's.

I made sure we got some outside play time in.

Lots of digging going on around here.

What is this goat up to?

Very silly indeed.  Face masks are not for eating.

When I came over to her, she was acting all innocent.

A new friend we made as we were making our way inside.

Some new digs for me :-)  The last time I bought a pair of everyday shoes was 8 years ago.  I find it very hard to get a pair of shoes that look decent and are comfortable.

Clog style shoes.  Dansko.  Wonderful.  But expensive!

Yesterday was going to be the last 'warm' day of the season (so it seems).  So we made for the park with our lunch.

Children all abuzz over the food.  They weren't the only ones.  After about 10 minutes the bees were buzzing!  So we finished our lunch in the van.

Chicken salad.  A great way for us to use up left over chicken that isn't enough for another meal (by itself).

A sprinkle of parmesan cheese is a must.

After we ate the kids ran for the playground.  I held back and had a photo shoot with my yarn.

My new work in progress. Saw this wonderful pattern on the Attic 24 site.  I needed to get the colors out in the sun.  I'm having a hard time seeing if the colors are working.

I'm not too fond of the yellow.  I really wanted the darker yellow, but they don't sell it at the store.  After using it I am getting used to it.  However, I really wanted a couple extra colors in there.  I'm not sure if they are going to work.

These are the original colors I was going with.  On the left is the beginning of the blanket.  After the red would be the blue you see on the left.      

On the right, you can sort of make out the dark purple I started to add in.  It seems to go with all the colors, but the yellow.  After the purple would be the blue, then white, and then start over from the beginning.  Just as I lined up the balls of yarn above.  But it seems the purple just kind of doesn't belong.  What do you all think?

While I was doing my yarn photo shoot, this is what the baby was doing.  He was sitting right next to me playing with my camera bag.

All the kids enjoyed the new area of the playground.

Climbing the 'rock'.

Jonah up next.

Isabella had a bit of a problem with this part of the the playground :-)

Jonah giving Moira a spin.

Flannery showing off.

Jed having a fun time navigating things.

I attempted to get a group shot of all the kids.  I'm looking to re-do my blog header. No such luck. It was *very* sunny out.  So I could only find shade or full sun.  Not the best.  Here was one attempt.

I really liked the location, but way too sunny. On top of it I over exposed the picture.  Alrighty, how about a third time?

No, too many shadows on the faces.  But I thought it would look cute with them on the "pods".  Oh, well, I'll have to try again later.

Isabella brought her journal along.  It seems to be her constant companion.

Flannery begged me to take a picture of them on the swings.

Pirate Jonah.

Big sis with little bro.

Aubrey loves the swing.

Sweet, sweet, footy goodness :-) I love baby feet.

Today was totally different!  This was what it looked like out back.

Sweaters, jackets, socks and blankets!  (Oh, my)

Now that's the way to warm up!

A new look

This was something I was thinking about doing for a while now, changing up my Blogger template.  I got the nudge when I received a comment about my pictures being all squished.  On my computer they look blurry.  To me, this was rather annoying :-)  So this morning I tried to change things up.  I'm not sure if Blogger is having issues, or they limited their editing possibilities.  Either way, things are not as I would want them to be, still.  Sooner or later (probably later :-)) it will get there.  Until then, please excuse the mess, that I call "my blog".  My goal is to get more of the look of my photography blog.

In other news....I've sat down with the girls a few days in a row now to talk about how things need to work around here.  Lets just say things have been a bit chaotic.  My plan is to totally go through each room, getting rid of all non-essential stuff.  For example in their bedroom there will only be their beds, and they will each get a book, journal and pen.  That's it.  This is going to take a lot of work, but it is necessary to save my sanity.  Basically the straw that broke the camels back was the fact that we got the house all cleaned.  Then for a few days I made sure each dish was done, and all the little things got picked up throughout the day.  Then I had a bad day, was too tired, and in the waking hours of that one day our house was trashed.  I'm not talking about a bit messy, I mean TRASHED.  As in, I would be totally embarrassed if someone came by unexpectedly.  Oy.  So we are going to try to cut down on all the things that need taken care of.  Then we will be reassigning room chores.  The girls have been having the same room chores for the past two years or so.  Time to change things up.

In Saoirse news....That same day of her adjustment she had a lot more dizziness and headache.  Yesterday (day2) she was complaining more about her head and dizziness than normal. Today, she said her headache was better, but she's still really dizzy.  I'm concerned a bit since her headache, which was once bouncing around to different spots, has been static in her forehead.  She goes back on Friday for us to see if she retained her adjustment.  We will go from there as to what to do next. 

Flannery woke up this morning with a sore throat and headache.  Really?  At this point I may give everyone daily doses of Motrin just so I can pretend no one is sick :-)  Never mind we still have our "bug" problem, and I have not been able to keep on top of everyone putting on the cream and changing sheets daily.  I am hoping to do what I can to keep them at bay, and then hit it hard when we come up for air.  Right now I feel we are drowning.  Too much work, and not enough time to get it done.  One major problem is laziness, my children's laziness.  Must. Be. Stopped.  Ha!  No, seriously, I've been really angry about all the issues going on around here.  Yes, I know anger isn't going to help.  I've been in prayer for direction.  I don't have answers yet.  I am proceeding with just clearing out things and am hoping an answer will be given soon.  I'm thinking some radical stuff needs to happen to change our ship around.  I may just keep my laptop out to check email, and the other computers be put up for now.  There are so many excuses we make for them being here, but they are a big hindrance in our family for right now.  We really, really need to focus on doing things as a family.  Learning skills, doing projects, NOT surfing, or playing games.  Please note, I'm just as much guilty as anyone else is in the house.  We have the computers locked, but I think it's a lot like food....if it's there we will eat it.  If it's not, we won't eat it.  So the computers need to go, they are only here due to our own addiction to them.  Don't get me wrong, I've learned a lot from reading blogs and what not, but for  a season I think the surfing needs to go.  I may only allow us to blog on the weekend and block all other sites.  In the meantime we purge.  Although all that purging will go in our attic! Right now I do not have time to go through it all to see if we really need to keep it.  I think if it's up there and we forget about it, then we can get rid of it.  If we keep saying, "gosh, I wish we had that item down here...", then we can think about bringing it down after a few months. 

Alrighty, everyone is done eating breakfast, so off to do school, and purge :-)

The fair, and other stuff

First my update on Saoirse.  Her issue?  She was the first to come down with the croup. 

Along with the hacking cough also came a headache and dizziness.  No biggie, she's sick, it's to be expected.  However, three weeks later, the cough gone, she is still feeling dizzy and has been having daily headaches (unknown to me).  She's not dizzy all the time, nor are the headaches there all the time, but certainly to be having them for three weeks is a bit much.  We were thinking it was an inner ear problem.  I was thinking that up until last night when she told me she had a headache.  Then she said she's been having headaches ever since the dizziness started.  Well, that pretty much threw me for a loop.  Now what?  So we decided to first take her to the chiropractor.  Since this came on at the same time as her illness I was assuming it may have been related to it.  However, we've had too many 'coincidences' of late and I wanted to make sure we covered our bases.  But no need for anything more invasive or extensive if she just needed an adjustment. 

We were able to get an appointment for this morning.  Turns out her head wasn't screwed on right :-)  In other words, she was waaaayyy out of alignment.  With the adjustment the chiropractor said she immediately felt her head get warm (a sign that blood was flowing in) and the swollen lymph node on the back of her head was almost gone after a few minutes.  We think at this time that it was being out of alignment that contributed to her dizziness and headaches.  We are to take her back at the end of the week to have her adjusted one more time.  We are to keep track of her dizziness and headaches to make sure they are getting better.  If not, then we take a different step.  Until then, we wait and see.

I finally was able to upload some of the photos from the state fair we went to last week.  It was very windy and cold!  By the time we were leaving the wind died down.  Figures.  But we all had fun.  We were all worn out by the time we got home.

After looking at all the animals we took a lunch break.  I wish I could say that I packed us a GAPS lunch.  Not so.  I wish I did, as Moira got very ill later that night!  This is the one time we have all cheated.  Not bad for being on the diet for two months. 

Besides food and ride tickets we made one other purchase, an iron triangle.  Let's just say that yelling (screaming) out back to get everyone inside was growing old.  We plan on hanging this up at our back door.  This should also  take care of the, "I didn't hear you." claim :-)

Aubrey was quite fascinated with the thing.

He confirms that it is indeed loud!

Jed was waiting for the rest of us to get done eating.

Food on the go.

There was LOTS to see for this little guy.

Flannery and Saoirse were blessed with a free sample.  It's a clay frog.

Pretty cute.

Flannery counting out her change to see if she has enough money for a trinket.

Moira up on the Farris wheel.  I can assure you I did NOT take this picture.  Jeremiah and the older three girls went up.  You couldn't pay me to get on that  thing.  They were all scared at some point as it was so windy the whole thing was shaking.

Flannery on the death, er I mean, farris wheel.

Isabella on said wheel.

The rest of us, who were not on the wheel :-)  I was trying to get Jed to follow my finger up to see everyone on the farris wheel.  He still has a hard time with directions (spacial).  He finally got it, but it took quite a while.

Isabella just hanging out.  We were waiting for Jeremiah to get back with the ride tickets.

See, everyone was tired by the end of the day :-)  Isabella walked around with him like this a long time.

A little outside time

I was able to get outside for a bit. It's been a while since we've had a but if reprieve from people being sick. Although Saoirse has been a bit 'off'. I won't go into it right now. I'm not sure I can deal with any more issues. Hopefully in a day or so we will see where she stands. Don't worry, she's not feverish, or sick. She's just been dealing with some odd issues lately. Please do pray for her though. And for me for that matter. This mommy's heart can only take so much. I'm going to see if we can get her into the chiropractor to see if she can help us out. I'll write later about it. For now I am just plain tired out. I was able to get outside with some of the the kiddos. The goats had gotten in our garden area. To get them out we lured them out with some pepper plants. The funny thing is that there were peppers still growing on them! Here are a few pictures below that I took today. I have a bunch of others that I want to share, but they will have to wait as I am having trouble with Blogger.

Three green peppers picked today from our garden.

They were small ones.  Small or not, they will taste good in my egg omelet :-)

This little cutie had a blast in the swing.  Its really hard to pin point, but Aubrey seems to act older than he is.

His smile can really melt my heart.

This is Amazing!

Well, I think it is amazing :-)  As most of you know Jedidiah is a bit behind in many ways.  Mostly with physical growth, but also in social aspects.  I don't think we will have issues with learning, except possibly reading due to his apraxia.  There have been many things that we take for granted that our children do that Jed just has not done in a normal time frame.  The one I am about to show you may seem small, but when compared to the other small things that he's been doing lately, I think it really adds up.  I want to say that I have no idea if this is a coincidence or not, but I've definitely noticed small changes in Jed's social behavior in the past two weeks.  It could be the diet, or just a coincidence.  But I do find it odd that we were not seeing a change in these areas for months, and now we are.  Again, I can't say for sure.  What I do know for sure is that Jed is getting a plentiful supply of healthy fats, which are very necessary for his brain development.  We also know for sure that most of Jed's issues begin in his brain.  So, again, maybe coincidence, or maybe the diet.  Either way I'm pretty happy about it.  So just what is so amazing with Jed these days?

One thing I have really noticed lately is his interaction with his siblings.  He is seeking them out to play.  He is really being involved with the baby.  He will be concerned about things on the floor that Aubrey may put into his mouth.  He will play with the baby, trying to make him laugh.  He's also doing a lot more talking with his siblings (and us), and they are understanding him more, so there is more of a 2 way communication going on.  This is all amazing.  We have been concerned about Jedidiah's tendency to be want to be alone.  We would have to coax him to be involved in what we were doing.  This has gotten much better, but with some room for improvement.  He started to do some pretend play a while awhile ago, but it has really blossomed these past few weeks.  And today I saw another milestone of sorts (at least for our family), Jed drew his first recognizable picture!  I'm not really sure at what ages that children start drawing certain things, but I know that Jonah, who is 3 has already started to draw people (with a body and appendages sticking out of the body, no head).  Jed has done his share of coloring pictures from a coloring book, or coloring a blank piece of paper with a lot of different colors and strokes.  But today, he came up to me to show me his picture he drew and I was blown away.  Here it is, not very good quality, so I took separate pictures of the different things he drew:

At the top right is a banana, in the middle (in red)  is a snake, and the bottom right (in green) is a turtle.  I'm really impressed!

Here is his banana, with the brown at the top and bottom, plus a brown line along the contour. 

I really love his turtle.  It is hard to see from this picture, but he has one big eye on its head :-)

Thinking ahead

For quite some time I've felt the need to gather up some supplies.  Mostly of the food type :-)  With the uncertain times we live in, it only seems prudent.  Of course there was so much to be done around here that it has only been a thought.  As I've looked into it I've been a bit overwhelmed by the how, and what.  How to do it and what to use.  I've been reading, and watching some videos.  I love the idea of canning.  I really love the idea of canning meats. Goodness knows how long it takes to defrost meat to be able to use at dinner time.  Plus there are veggies and fruits to consider as well.  But when I factored in the veggies and fruits I had to start think of *where* I would put all of this.  Then I came across the idea of dehydrating foods.  I was going to just skim over it as I really didn't think you could do much in the way of dehydrating.  Boy was I wrong!!  It looks like this would be the best way to preserve our fruits and veggies.  They would take up a lot less space, and they retain most of their nutrients.  With canning, the veggies and fruits loose up to 60-80% of their nutrients.  With dehydrating they only loose 3-5% of their nutrients.  There is a blog and a whole bunch of videos about dehydrating that I would love to pass on as they have so much information and inspiration.  I'm pretty excited to have found a solution for being able to store more food without taking up a lot of space. 

The blog (which has a lot of info in the "helpful hints" section):
http://www.dehydrate2store.com/

There are videos on the blog above, and different videos (by the same person) on their youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Dehydrate2store#p/u/14/DfQg0hzFihM

I hope you find the videos as informative as I have.  We have a five tray dehydrator that we've had for a few years now.  I never thought of using it for all the various foods and herbs.  I also was given a food saver that I haven't utilized yet, but now I can't wait to pull it out and see how this all works.  I don't have the best of these things, but I will use what I have to see if it will be what will work best for us.  I'll let you know how it goes.  On my most recent shopping trip I bought an extra bag of frozen blueberries and strawberries to give it a whirl.

Back to work I go :-)  I don't have to do as much work for our "bug" problem as before.  That will let us work our way back into our regularly scheduled program. 

Our Anniversary Getaway

Jeremiah and I had our wee little getaway on Thursday and Friday.  And like everything else in our lives all this year, it wasn't without a major bump in the road.  Some of our kiddos were sick and I was worried we would have to cancel as some of the people who were going to watch the kids are immune compromised. But our small group insisted that we were to go, and they would take care of the details!  Jeremiah got sick the day before we were to leave, but felt much better the following day.  So with a bit of trepidation we set out to the coast.  We took Aubrey with us, as he's still nursing.  About 20 minutes into the ride he started to cry.  Oh boy, I thought, this may be one long ride, with more than 2 hours left to go.  I thought his cry sounded a bit 'off'.  More of an "I don't feel good" type of cry as opposed to the "I want out of my car seat" cry.  I was hoping that I was wrong.  He soon fell asleep and stayed asleep the *whole* way!  Jeremiah got out to register for the hotel room, and the baby started to stir.  So I thought I would get out to stretch my legs and pick up the baby.  I had only one foot out of the truck when the baby starts this hacking cough!  Oh. My. Goodness. You. HAVE. To. Be. Kidding!!!!!!! NO, no, no.  No kidding going on.  Let me give you a little sneak peak to what was to come:

From that moment on he sounded all raspy while breathing.  After we settled into our room we figured we would make a game plan for our day and a half stay.  The baby started to feel a little warm, and I saw my future evening being spent in the bathroom with a hot shower running to produce steam for the baby to breathe.  So we looked for a health food store so we could get something for him.  While we were there it was evident he was getting worse by the minute.  He soon started coughing and choking.  That was not fun.  So we decided we should head for an urgent care office.  Thankfully there was one right across the street.  Unthankfully, they do not take children under one years old.  Right there in the office he had another choking session and the nurse just stood there and said, "Sorry".  Yeah, that's going to help a lot.  So we had to get directions for the ER.  There were a LOT of people in the ER.  Seriously I've never been in a nosier ER in my life!  It took almost three hours before we were called up.  There was no type of triage that I could see going on.  They called us up and got a band on Aubrey and took his oxygen levels and temp.  Thankfully, even though he was having a hard time breathing, his O2 was 100%, his temp (by ear) was 103.3.  They took him back to a room. 

From there it was a long evening.  Unfortunately we had a doc who was not too understanding of our non vaccination decision.  I can't count the number of times he said, "Well, since he's not vaccinated we have NO idea what could be going on with him."  Really?  Well, maybe you can try the idea that three of his sibling have the same goop and they are fine?  They decided they wanted a rectal temp to get a more accurate reading.  Well, that really did things in, as it was 105.  Then they were really freaked out.  A bunch of tests, and blood draw later, they determined he probably (although, ya know, they can't be certain since he's not vaccinated) that he probably just had croup.  He got some Motrin and Tyenol, a liquid steroid and a breathing treatment.  It took a couple of hours, but his fever went down to normal and he was able to breathe easily while resting.  He still sounded all yucky if he was moving about or crying.  We didn't get out of there till almost midnight. Which I was glad for, as they were talking about admitting him.  And that was our first day of our getaway!!!!  Oh, I thought it was pretty funny that when Jeremiah asked for a blanket for the baby, this was when we were in the waiting room and I didn't have a diaper bag with me, the nurse said she would get him a quilt.  Jeremiah came back to our seat and told me what she said.  I thought, we only need one of those white hospital blankets.  But she came out with a Project Linus quilt for him.  So I made a joke with Jeremiah that we were building our blanket collection by collecting Project Linus blankets from various hospitals :-) 

Thankfully the baby was back to himself (well, with a cough) the next day and we went to the aquarium, did some shopping and went out to dinner.  By dinner the baby was worn out and it wasn't exactly a romantic dinner :-)  We headed back home and picked up the kiddos from our friends.  I think we pulled in around 10:30 PM or so.  What a long few days.  I am grateful that we were able to redeem the later half of our trip. I would put up some more pictures but I am really worn out.  Today was shopping day and the shopping HAD to be done.  So off I went with Moira and the boys.  We hit the health food store, BJ's and Walmart.  We still have to get some produce from another store, AND I forgot to get frozen veggies at BJ's.  I got home, the girls put things away and I was confronted with the ever present question that comes up around the 5 PM hour....."What's for dinner?"  Jeremiah said we could go out to dinner, but something tells me that with our trip and the added ER trip (which we were not counting on) we are going to be a wee bit tight come the last few days of the month.  So that means I need to think of something.  We are all getting really sick of the same four meals that I've been cooking for the past 6 weeks or so.  I might try some turkey sausages.  They are supposed to be made with ground chicken, but that was a lot more expensive than the ground turkey.  I think it will be an egg and sausage night :-)  Off to cook din din.

Still alive

Still here, just been very, very busy.  If all the work I am doing is successful, then I will be back to share what I'm doing.  If it's not successful, I'll still be back to tell you what I was doing :-)  But all this "doing" is seriously taking up all my time.  As if I had a bunch of free time on my hands to begin with.  We had to put schooling aside this week as the workload increased by ten.  We are still having to do all this work, but now there is a bit more rhythm to it, so I will be adding schooling back in.  On top of what I have going on a new sickness has hit the house.  People I am seriously going to rip up my bathroom floor all by myself if we don't get rid of this mold soon.  The mold is the culprit to all our illnesses.  The non stop illnesses were what happened back in our last house, which was mold ridden.  When we moved here all of that stopped!  At least until we developed a mold problem in this house.  Of course when we moved in here Jed was a  newborn, and all the energy that went into dealing with multiple sick children was just redirected to all of Jed's issues.  Non stop.  Of course there is a bit of a catch 22 involved with this mold problem.  We were already immune compromised from our poor diet, which would leave a person more prone to being affected by the mold.  The mold however is further weakening our immune system, making us even sicker as the months go on.  Saoirse stared with a sore throat yesterday.  I thought it odd that the sore throat was further down in her neck.  Today she has a bit of a hacking cough.  Oy!  Our new diet will *eventually* help us, but we are still having to battle the mold at the same time.  I'm on antibiotics now for a wicked sinus infection, and I can pretty much assure you that 2 or 3 weeks after my antibiotics run out I'll have another sinus infection.  I'm ready to move into a tent :-)

I was able to actually get the boys outside the other day and took a couple of pictures.  Nothing too exciting, but I'll post some when I get a chance.  Take care!

Really?

Ok, I am really, really trying to tell myself over and over again that a Christian can not be cursed (disciplined, or put through trials, yes), but it's getting really hard to believe.  On a good note I feel much better than I did two days ago.  On a bad note, after two days of no throat or ear pain, it's back....and that's with me on an antibiotic.  So we have a couple of possibilities.  One is that the antibiotic is not working, two, I now have a viral infection on top of the bacterial infection (assuming it was bacterial, and I am since I had it for 6 weeks), OR third this is fungal in nature, which just means that the antibiotics will not only not work, but they will make things worse.  Ya gotta love that last option.  NOT!  It appears that my rash is the worse case scenario, and that will mean a LOT of work...a LOT.  I want to cry.  This rash is contagious and to ensure no one else succumbs I have to do all sorts of vacuuming....daily...and laundry (as if I don't have enough of that on a daily basis).  Since I was so ill I've started to at least treat it with some natural products, but will probably go get a prescription, because I really can't afford to go buy some more natural stuff, for it not to work, and head to the docs any ways.  Although it is said that this rash is resistant to the prescription stuff, so I may have to do all natural things.  Either way this will be a long battle, one I most certainly did not sign up for.  It's one of those situations of what do you do :first.  Oh, I know...cry :-)  Well things got even better today.  Oh, yes they did.  Don't believe me?  This is what went on:

Today is soccer day.  Not only soccer day, but also picture day.  I hate picture day.  It's when all the players have to get individual and team shots.  I have to say it was less stressful this time around as the timing worked out better, but I still hate the back and forth and trying to find everyone.  So we are about to dig into some really yummy food as we are watching Flannery's game.  Up walk the older two girls with a couple of their friends and a cat.  A stray cat.  It was thin, but otherwise looked in decent shape.  I told them to get rid of it.  Instead they decided to feed it.  From their hands.  Anyone want to guess what happened?  Hmmm, yeah, one of them got bit.  Not a scratch, but a puncture.  Now, some may know, as it isn't a secret on the blog that we do not vaccinate. However there are two vaccinations/shots that I would consider.  Tetanus, and rabies treatments.  If something happens here, on our 'farm' I don't worry about it too much as I know our animals and our land.  We just make sure we do lots of washing and keeping things clean.  But here we have a totally unknown animal, in unknown surroundings.  Ugh.  So I took this cat bitten child to urgent care, where she got a tetanus shot and a prescription for some antibiotics.  We should be receiving a call from animal control to talk about the cat.  We doubt very much that there is a scare for rabies, but it needs to be reported. 

People, this isn't even remotely funny anymore.  Someone stop the ride because I WANT OFF!!!!  I know a lot of these things, in the grand scheme of things are trivial.  They are.  But when you're in the middle of it all, it really doesn't seem that way. 

With all that is going on we have amazingly kept on track with schooling.  And we've managed to work our way into the last stages of the GAPS diet.  So there is progress.  But when I look around me, and realize I'm going to have to vacuum every square inch of the rugs and furniture, every day for like one or two weeks.  Well, if you saw the state of my house, you'd know why I feel like crying.  What do I do with all of the stuff?  Do I take care of that first, but risk others catching this?  Do I push it all aside, but worry that we can be reinfested?  Do I put it all in plastic bags (which will work, to kill things off, if they stay in the bag for 3 to 7 days....but what do we do if I end up needing some of it?).  The list goes on.  See?  I cry. 

On a positive note we've moved into the last stages of the GAPS diet.  We probably moved a bit too quickly, but my sickness kind of prompted that.  But I am going to say that our homemade salsa on our revised chicken salad tastes divine!!!  The boys gobble it up, onions/peppers/tomatoes and all.  They love it!  Well off to try to regain something of our evening.  The baby hasn't had a proper nap all day, so that is going to prove difficult.  Thankfully dinner is in the crockpot. 

OH WAIT!!!  Duh! One more blessing to share (see it's been a long day!), Jeremiah and I celebrate 17 years of marriage today.  Seventeen!  Wow!  The girls wanted to make us the key lime pie in the GAPS cookbook.  However I didn't manage to get the ingredients for it.  Bummer. 

A post script:  How entirely sad that when I went to do spell check that they flagged "marriage".