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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Learning To Let Go

Photo credit: Anti-Soccer mom

For me, being a parent has really forced me into a lot of self examination. Lately, I feel I am in some kind of transition as a parent and person. I have come to realize that forcing causes resistance. Actually, I knew this already but for some reason some part of me thought it didn't apply to forcing my kids to do things. Forcing is resisting. Resisting is tiring. Forcing kids to go to sleep, to eat, to bath, wash hair, etc. It is energy draining! I only have one life and my kids are only young once, I am going to enjoy it. I know some people probably have their panties in a bunch right now. No, I am not going to have a bunch of chaotic misplaced children that 'rule the roost'. Rather, I am going to allow myself to have a perspective change, respect everyone's needs, go with the flow more. Be in the moment. I am going to find 'other' ways. I know there can be a happy mid ground for everyone's desires to be met. I have been in touch with some 'radical' unscoolers and have been pretty inspired by the connection and togetherness their families have. Inspired by their words of wisdom and inner peace. Happiness. It's inspiring when you see someone doing what feels right and makes them happy, despite the social norm. It is going to take patients and time and lots of letting go to learn to understand what this truly means for our family but I know this is the next step for me and my happiness. Stick around, you might just see what this means for us.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Devil Muffins From Heaven :)


This morning was one of those mornings where I could only get one thing done, start to finish. Its a good thing it was an important one! Its shopping time again and so we are low on food around here until tomorrow. Sooo, I was racking my brain as to what we all could eat after our morning smoothies. Sure we could have had eggs-again but I think the kids are over them. What started out as a healthy morning muffin progressed into the little devil muffin! I'll tell you what, every once in a while I get taken over and have to feed the little devil man that lives on the back of my tongue waiting for sweets. I just have to. The end.

My original idea was a nice carrot muffin with no sugar and instead Stevia. Then I thought, oh hmmmm, well there IS some chocolate & Reese peanut butter chips left over in my pantry. Can't let those go to waste. There really isn't enough to make cookies so why not just toss them in? Its just a little. So there was a little more than I thought or at least convinced myself of! So what, these devil muffins really were a slice of heaven!! :) Recipe coming in a moment! My little Jocelyn had fun helping me measure different ingredients and dumping them in exploring all about cause and effect of these different ingredients that change form so easily. It was a great opportunity to have some little math learning and of course the obvious of refining her small motor skills. I promise I will get to that recipe:) I know your waiting. Just a side note that some people will think these are 'healthy' because there is no added sugar or butter and because there are veggies in it. Don't fool your self (;







Okay okay here they are:


DEVIL MUFFINS FROM HEAVEN
Pre-heat 400
Cook 20-25 min

Makes about 12 muffins-I made about 18 but I made them small for my kids.

Your Powders
1 1/2 c. Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 Scoop Stevia
Sprinkle of Raw Sugar

The Veggies
Chopped Carrots (about 2)
1 Small avacado

The
Nuts

chopped Walnuts
chopped Almonds

Liquids
1/2 c. Raw Milk
1/4 c. Coconut oil
1 egg plus one yolk

Devils Blend
Reeses Peanut Chips
Dark Chocolate Chips
How much? As much as your little heart desires...these are devil muffins you know!

Take your liquids cream them all together, blend in your veggies, toss in nuts and combine with the powders then off course the most important part is to fold in the devils blend and toss in a VERY well buttered muffin tin and sprinkle each one with some raw sugar. Cook 20-25 min or until your tooth pick says its done;) Don't forget to pour your self a icy cold glass of raw milk (I don't condone any other type of milk) and if you want to get even more crazy plop some more butter or coconut oil on the top and enjoy. These are my favorite. A beginning to a glorious day! I think I will have another...




After cooking these bad boys up Jocelyn had a ton of fun splish-splashing, filling and dumping in the sink. It's amazing how much is learned with playing in the sink. When my kids first started sink playing my husband would cringe! He thinks its a mess-making-water-wasting-danger-no no! He has loosened up a little over the years. So for all of you that agree with him, I see your point and I don't like cleaning up the mess or seeing all that water go down the tubes so why not incorporate cleanup time too? I tell you what when I tell them they can play in the sink but part of that is cleaning up when done they don't hesitate for a moment! Oh and guess what? They LIKE cleaning it up! So now, they are getting another good lesson of cause and effect and clean up time. Lots of learning, exploring and fun, no damage done! Oh and I almost forgot, I explain to my kids why it's important to preserve our water and how precious it is. They understand this, it connects them more to nature as well. Water is good for our emotional well being, its relaxing, soothing and connects us to our emotional bodies. I wont get into that in this post, so just trust me.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Morning Smoothies, Bubble Wrap, Singing and Video Games, Does It Get Any Better?

 
On Monday myself and the kids made our usual morning smoothies. The kids really like to be a part of making them. We practice counting out the ice cubes and fruit and throw them in the Vitamix blender. It is an activity that improves their gross and fine motor skills. They learn how to measure and have a little lesson in nutrition! I love how Sheamus asks,
"Am I going to grow bigger and bigger and bigger from drinking this?"
Haha, love it! I love how they take turns and share without a fuss because they love what they are doing. Of course at the end, we cleaned and talked about the importance of sanitation and caring for our blender and home by keeping it clean. The smoothies were good, recipe below:

Strawberry Canary Melon Kefir Smoothie


I don't measure my smoothies much so make it to your taste
Organic Strawberries-about 1 cup
Canary Melon-about 1/4 cup
One Banana
Flax Seeds-Couple tablespoons
Blend up and enjoy!
lots of ice
1 cup Kefir
 

After smoothies I continued on with my packing, one room down the whole house to go... Sheamus and Jocelyn had fun jumping on the bubble wrap having their own cause and effect experience! I remember popping bubble wrap as a kid! That was one of the funnest things in the world back then, Ahhh to enjoy the little things in life. After they burned up all there energy popping bubble wrap we had a little cracker snack and took the opportunity to count the crackers and learn about adding Shea's crackers to Jocelyn's to see how many there were total. They love these little butter crackers and I think they are pretty good myself but I noticed they had refined white salt in them :( so of course I had to give myself a kick in the butt for not reading the label thoroughly! Oh well what do ya do after you have already eaten half the box? While we munched away we had some time together singing our ABC sounds song, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Im a Little Tea Pot and whatever else came to Miss Jocelyn's head. She is getting good, almost knows all the words. Of course this lead us into dancing around the house and then I realized I need to start working out again! Later they took turns sharing Shea's DS Sonic game. Shea is absolutely loving Sonic The Hedgehog. He has given me specific instructions to have a Sonic cake made for his next b-day, his just passed a month ago! He is going to be waiting a long time! It was a fun day :)
What did you do today?

Monday, September 20, 2010

Discovering Mama Havens

Well here we go, first post! Follow along if you are interested in discovering the Havens family as we discover ourselves and the world around us. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Christina Havens and I am the mother of 3 beautiful children. This may not be the best time to start this blog since we have to be moved in oh, 5 days and so far I only have my kitchen packed. One of my main motivators in writing this blog is to keep a record of my kids learning progress since we are choosing to home-school. I am particularly resonating with life-learning, interest based, un-schooling type of teachings. I really disliked school as a child. I actually have no memory of enjoying any part of school. Oh wait, yes there was a time! That time was when I was 16 and chose to home-school myself. I had two or three jobs at the time, paid for it my self and was super excited to finally learn something. I flew through the textbooks the correspondence school sent to me. I did all the work eagerly and felt so in line with what I chose to do. I learned more during that time than my last 3 years of school. I LOVED it! Then I got to my MATH book, yuk! I was horrible at math and still suck pretty bad I might add (no pun intended). I needed some guidance and had none. I had no one I could really go to for help. Sooo yeah, that was the end to that. Eventually I got my GED and I am not ashamed to say it. Graduating from the high school I attended would have really been no achievement in terms of learning. In fact, I probably learned more just taking the GED test. Okay, I'm just joking about that last part BUT I know I learned a heck of a lot NOT being in school. A lot of valuable life learning went on. My experience is to some degree influencing my home-schooling decision for my children, but not much probably about about 10%. I have many more valuable reasons but I wont get too much into that on this post otherwise my blog post will turn into a book and then I would have to charge you ;) So if you want to know more I recommend clicking the follow button.

Just for fun here is a picture of me when I was 16 years old!