Advent Tick List

So our advent calendar is up - tick.
Our baby Jesus and nativity scene is out - tick.
Our christmas cards are ready for the postbox - tick.
Transfer addresses to address book - to do still.
Our jesse tree crafts and devotions are under way - tick.

For those of you who don't want to give your kids choccies for advent to start the day off with sugar, we have made our own calendar here where I pop in some sugar free lollies from the health shop or a note to look in a secret hiding place for a gift or a special outing.

For our nativitiy scene we have a knitted and a porcelain nativity that the children love, I have seen on se7en that they have made a pipe cleaner people nativity which is a great idea, but with nature baba in my arms it is not possible.

The christmas cards were lots of fun, we made Eric Carle inspired paper with textures and painting. Then when it dried we cut out and posted on the christmas trees. Then we glittered and stuck stickers and addressed and they are ready! Included is a family photo with no writing. I am taking the saying "a picture says a thousand words" to heart as I don't have time right now to write in cards with nature baba in my arms.

Aaaah, now to the jesse tree, what a wonderful idea and I wish I had done this as a child. We have used the jesse tree pics and devotionals from here and here and we were inspired by the jesse tree from here

Decluttering Delux

Well I am so motivated by the 20/20 cure that I have been cleaning and decluttering my house like a mad thing and really enjoying it. It is amazing how a clean and tidy home can make us all feel lighter and more in control of our environment to declutter. If you have not seen this 20 day challenge with a daily 3 or 4 minute video download check it out, it will really inspire you to shape up before christmas.

Jo-i's buckwheat crackers

Recently we went for a raw lunch at good friends, we were served these delicious crackers so I had to have the recipe and share it with all of you...

To get your sprouts ready:
Soak 2 cups of buckwheat for about 20 minutes. Rinse and drain. Sprout for 48 hours.
Then put into dehydrator for 24 hours. You will be left with crunchy sprouts. Store in a glass jar.

Crackers:
2 cups crunchy sprouts
200ml almonds
200ml sunflower seeds
1 TBS salt
1 TBS honey
1 onion
Enough water to make a paste.
1TBS of garlic powder

Take all dry ingredients and grind to a powder in blender. Add other ingredients. Spread onto dehydrator sheets or oven pan if you will dehydrate in oven and smear thin. Dehydrate overnight, turn over and dehydrate for a further 2 hours.

Weekly eating

A good friend has asked me to post a weekly menu plan....well I am not ready to do that yet, but it got me thinking to really expose to you what I plan to eat in a week, what we buy at the shops and hopefully as my thoughts get more organised over these series of posts I will get to an actual menu plan!

So what we plan to eat this week:
I always shop once a week on a thursday. I shop at the health shop, woolworths, pick n pay and the Organic Food Zone in Lakeside.
So this week our menu has and does look like this:

Breakfasts:
1 raw flapjacks with nut cream and maple syrup (takeaways from earthshine)
chocolate superfood smoothies x 3
kale green smoothis x 2
Nut milk x 1

Lunches:
Homemade Jo-i's buckwheat crackers (recipe to come soon) with avo, and sliced tomato
Rice cakes for the children with almond nut butter and marmite, avo mashed or tahini and honey.
Orgran gluten-free bread made in my bread machine
Salad for me, Cucumber and carrot sticks for the kids
Fruit

Supper:
organic meat kebabs with baked butternut and steamed spinach.
raw pizza takeaway from earthshine
Corli's flatbread with tomatoes, guacamole, fruit, and rawilicious chewy mushrooms and tuna with a homemade raw mayo for the boys on a platter. (this was a weekend dish)
Hot chips with salad
raw pasta with a nut cheese sauce
organic cornflakes and rice milk (sunday night supper for kids) with banana sliced in and for me and hubby raw carrot soup.
millet and salad with a nut cheese.

Snacks:
Me - nutmilk, tea with honey, fruit, nuts, crackerbread, raw chocolates
Boys - nutmilk, fruit, raisins, raw chocolates, fruit ice cream from my juicer, popcorn or corn chips.

What we have been up to here....

Busy sewing a mobile for nature baba...

... and some felt spring flowers...

If you want to sew some of your own spring flowers

you can see the you tube tutorial here.

Our nature baba is grateful for the sewing in our house.

She is benefiting from all our needlework.

The end product, a beautiful felt spring flower.

Painting spring pictures.

Candle-dipping with friends.

Forrest Folk that we made with instruction from se7en's pipecleaner people.

The tutorial is here.

Saying goodbye to bestest of friends!

Bon Voyage means.... till we meet again!

Addicted to rawing it!

I must say I am totally addicted to raw food. I have been totally raw for weeks since my baby has been born, I have had days when I eat some cooked food, and I find we don't sleep as well and I have less energy and amazingly I am enjoying cooked food less and less. My body recognizes that it needs these live enzymes and rewards me for the good choices I make.
So the question I am always asked is.... "so... do you just eat salad?" this is not a dumb question as there was a time my husband and I did eat salad for a few months and we were not healthy... so the answer is no, this is what I am eating at the moment

Morning breakfast would consist of :
1) A superfood smoothie - by superfood I mean cacao powder, maca powder, hemp powder, spirulina, banana, brazil nuts, raw honey and organic orange juice
2) A green smoothie - this is a divine recipe for one person take 4 kale leaves, 2 Tbs of tahini, 2 TBS honey, 1 -2 bananas and 1 cup orange juice and half a cup of spring water. Blend. This is delicious - kale is amazingly healthy and available from organic food stores like the Organic Food Zone in Lakeside.
3) Nut milk - blend 1 cup almonds, 1 cup dates , 1 teaspoon or vanilla powder, 5 cups water - strain through a nut bag.
( I then use the nut pulp and mix it with some honey or maple syrup and dehydrate in small flat patties as biscuits - you could do this in the oven too)

Lunch is:
Some raw crackers - I buy mine from Soaring Free Superfoods, with avo and baby tomatoes. Some nut milk mixed with hot water for a warm drink.

Snack: Dried mango, or nut milk, or a raw biscuit or raw chocolate

Supper: Spiralized pasta - will post a recipe soon, or a raw soup and crackers, and salad....now the salad is worthy of mention as I have discovered the most stunning lettuce and herb and prepared salad packs from the Organic food Zone in Lakeside it has transformed my salad eating. My favourite salad dressing at the moment is equal amounts of water, mustard, tahini, lemon juice and a pinch of salt and some dried herbs. I mix this in a bottle and pour over the salad. The raw soup of the day is....(and I live on this... thank you Natasha!)

Natasha's carrot soup:
1 - 2 cups of carrot juice
1/2 a juiced orange
1 - 2 avo's
1 TBs of dried herbs ( I mix basil and oreganum)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp of himalayan rock salt