Friday afternoon we're sitting around the house thinking "what are we going to do this weekend?"  It's a long weekend but we haven't made any plans, other than a play we're going to on Monday.  I had thought how nice it would be to go to Sedona and play in the water, and camp one night, but then realized it was a holiday weekend and that it would be packed.  So, that wouldn't work.  So, we're trying to decide what to do and decide "let's go stay in the "villa" in Tucson!"  (my dad's condo, which is empty when he and his wife aren't here)  We decided we would head down for a couple of nights, to get some outdoor time and maybe some pool time.  We ended up going to the pool twice on Sat, took a walk along the Rillito (a large wash in Tucson) Sat afternoon, had a lovely breakfast with friends Sat morning, dinner out Sat night, and then about 3 hours at Sabino Canyon playing in the water and hiking this morning.  Our trooper of a daughter hiked with us for about all but 20 minutes of the walking time, which I was pretty impressed with.  She also really enjoyed the water.  We were lucky with wonderful weather - rain last night, and cloudy today, so quite cool and much nicer than Phoenix.  I'm uploading some pictures of the hiking... a few here and more in an album.  I'll also post a few in the album that Brie took on Friday...

 

 

If you are into herbals or even just making your own herbal tea,this site is for you. My midwife really likes "Pregnancy Tea," which you can get from a company called Traditional Medicinals, but it's like $6 a box, for I think 12 teabags.  This is quite expensive when you are using 2-3 teabags a day.  So, I asked my midwife if she had her own recipe for pregnancy tea - sure enough.  She also pointed me towards the herbal website mentioned earlier, which is awesome.  They have great bulk herbs, along with herbal vitamins and supplements, and some essential oils and other goodies.  All at very good prices, much cheaper than you would get at a store like Whole Foods or Sprouts.  So, I went ahead and ordered all the herbs for the tea, along with some others I will need for the birth.  I think I misjudged, however, how much 1 lb. of herbs really is.  :() I ended up with A TON of herbs - I already made one bin of pregnancy tea and probably have enough supplies to last me another few years.  :)  Perhaps I need to start my own pregnancy tea business!  I actually have a book called "The Medicinal Herbal," which has been laying around my house for years (can't even remember when or why I got it), so I can look these things up - many have other, healthy, daily uses.  So, I imagine I can just use the herbs after the pregnancy.  And, if anyone needs any pregnancy tea, just let me know... haha.

Josh is so great because he'll usually come home from work on the days I have off and "take over" with Brie for a while.  They do the fun things we haven't done during the day, like playing outside (it's so hot for me!), running around like crazy, sitting in the tent together, and reading some good books.  Here are some good pictures of Brie and dad enjoying a book together.

Brie's friend Logan came over earlier this week for a little play date.  The kids had a blast taking pictures - they switched off with the digital camera and Brie's play camera, running around the house saying "say cheese!".  IT's amazing how fast they are growing up - they can now have conversations with one another (albeit limited) and are finally learning to share (with prompting).  Here are some of the fun pictures:

Josh's friend Skye and his wife Jill recently had their first baby... I'm not sure I'm really ready to have a second child (guess we don't have a choice at this point!), but we got on webcam with Skye and baby Ollie the other night - OMG was he so cute.  It made me more excited to have a little baby again.  Given, it was late at night and he had probably just eaten - he was appearing a bit drugged, after all... but he was so adorable and small.  It made me so excited to share a little life with our family and with Brianna.  I think she's already excited, although just like us, she probably isn't really sure what she's getting into.  What I'm not excited about: long nights without sleep, being a slave to the baby again (the boob), managing TWO children and providing enough attention to both, going back to work and leaving two behind, not having time to cook/hang out with Brie/play on the computer, remembering what it's like to try to keep a newborn from crying!  What I am excited about: a new life in our household bringing us joy along with the stresses and pain!  :)

Here was our dinner tonight - I just realized that we can thank Heidi Swanson for the entire meal.  One recipe was from her book, the other two from her website.  Wow... and amazing that they were all good!

 

- Barley Risotto (from Heidi Swanson's book "Super Natural Cooking")

     (josh did not particularly like this, as the barley stays kind of chewy... I thought it was yummy, though, and particularly liked the fresh orange pieces in it, which  gave it an interesting flavor)

 

- Black Bean Brownies (you can find the recipe at 101 Recipes, just click here)

     (this sounds very strange, it did to me as well, but they were actually very chocolaty and yummy.  I substituted half a cup of brown rice syrup for the agave syrup just because I was running low on agave syrup - they turned out very soft but very good.  You have to try it to believe it, I guess!)

 

- Vanilla frozen yogurt (click here for the recipe)

     (I have to admit, this was a bit of a splurge, as we got Greek yogurt - a bit expensive - and I also bought whole vanilla beans to put in it.. also expensive.  Instead of sugar I used half agave nectar and half honey... for a total of about 3/4 C.  It is very yogurty - you wouldn't suspect it was ice cream - but yummy and very creamy... we had it on top of the brownies!)

I was going to make some chocolate chip cookies with Brie tonight, but I'm trying to be better about less processed sugar and flour... My friend Julie has kind of spurred me to try even better to cook and eat healthier.  I feel like when someone else is better at something than you, it gives you some sort of incentive to push harder.  She is a very healthy eater, much more so than I, and being pregnant, I feel like I should watch myself even more than normal.  As I'm sure you know by now, I try to eat more local food, but I've also tried to watch my high fructose corn syrup (it's in everything!!!) and processed foods.  Shopping at Sprouts makes this a bit easier, because you don't have the cheap, processed options at all - it's healthy or nothing.  Also, Julie suggested I try Agave Nectar, available at Trader Joe's, which is great, because it doesn't have a strong flavor but gives youy a nice sweetness.  So, even though I know I could save money by eating mainstream things, I'm trying to be better about not doing that.  For instance, Brie got some whole wheat, organic mac and cheese this week, we bought some whole wheat, processed sugar and corn syrup free graham crackers for Brie to snack on, and I'm getting Kefir and unsweetened yogurt as well, among other things.  Back to the cookie story... I wanted to do something with oatmeal but no white sugar.  So, I found the following recipe, and added walnuts and some white chocolate chips (okay, that was a stretch).  The batter seemed strange at first, like it was missing some flour, but the cookies ended up quite chewy and good.  Recipe from www.recipezaar.com:

 

Remind you of any company in particular?  Try the Swedish Furniture Name Generator.  Brianna was my favorite one of the three of us...

He appears to be a little camera shy, but I'm omitting the picture of his pee-pee - maybe he's modest!!!  We got some great views during the ultrasound, but the picture isn't the greatest.

Well, today I'm angry at doctors and insurance companies.  My OBGYN office today called to drop me as an OB patient.  They told me that with a home birth, they shouldn't be seeing me as an OB patient.  According to the woman I spoke with, it would be like they are treating me and then I "disappear."  Maybe I should have been more clandestine with my plans, just pretend I was switching providers at the very end.  I understand this in principle - it's like I'm their patient and if anything happened, they could theoretically be liable.  If I were the type to sue.  It just makes me angry because I feel like I can't make a decision about my own childbirth, one that women have been making safely for thousands of years, without sacrificing my health care through a doctor.  It's like it's all or nothing - you can't have some healthcare from a medical professional but limit it when you desire.  Now my concern is that the insurance company is going to come back and try to make me pay for all the visits we have had - even though they also knew what I was doing.  If so, I'll just have to fight it - I'm not willing to pay out of pocket for expenses I would have foregone had the doctor's office been forthcoming with me from the get-go.  Guess my midwife had good reason to be surprised that my doctors were so helpful!  Ho hum.  I don't understand why the US can't reform our healthcare system to make all of this ridiculousness go away.  And maybe, in the meantime, start accepting midwives and home birth as safe, natural, and okay!!!

Clearly not me, while I was drinking it sparingly in Asia, thinking it was fattening....

 

You can buy coconut water here at our healthy food stores - check out all the benefits of coconut water!

 

 

Mesquite flour not only stabilizes blood sugar but it tastes great with a sweet, slightly nutty with a hint of molasses flavor.  Further this food delivers a big hit of nutritional value.  It is high in dietary fiber and protein including lysine.  The ground pods are between 11% and 17% protein.  Mesquite is a good source of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, and zinc.  Mesquite is low carbohydrate, low glycemic and low in fat.

I was motivated to try using mesquite after reading this article in my Edible Phoenix magazine a few months back.  Since we have a big mesquite tree out front that drops tons of pods each summer, why let them go to waste?  I can't be incredibly efficient about collecting them because I don't think my HOA would appreciate a net hanging under my tree, but they dry well outdoors, and it's pretty easy to just walk out and pick them up every few days.  We picked up the ones that had collected during our trip and got a 5-gallon container full.  I'll continue collecting this summer, and I think I'll hold onto them and then get them all ground at this event, as it took ages to just grind up enough for 1/2 cup yesterday.  Anyway, I tried this recipe, the first time I'd had mesquite, that I know of.  It has an interesting flavor, kind of sweet.  They cooked up a bit green inside, don't know if that's because of my pods, or if that's just the nature of the beast.  Anyway, there aren't tons of recipes for mesquite flour online, I think I may need to invest in a special cookbook to find more recipes, but why not, if it's sitting out there anyway, and it's good for me!

I didn't have almonds, so I used 1/2 tsp. almond extract and some pecans instead.  I also just realized that I erroneously omitted the whole wheat flour (totally ignored it!), but the cookies were lovely and soft and chewy, so maybe they're good without it!

MESQUITE ALMOND COOKIES
By Junie Hostetler

1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (Pima club wheat flour)
1/2 cup mesquite meal
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Set aside two baking sheets.

In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugars. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour, mesquite meal, soda and salt. Stir in almonds.

Drop by teaspoonfuls on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in a 400-degree oven. Remove from baking sheet to wire racks, for cooling.

Yield: 3 to 3 1/2 dozen cookies

We're back home, yes, but not so much adjusted to being home.  Brianna has had quite a hard time with jet lag on this return trip.  Funny, we didn't really have the trouble on arriving to Thailand, but it was all new there, so maybe she just adjusted to everything together.  We had friends about a year ago tell us that when they took their 2-year old to Ireland, it took her 1-2 weeks to adjust when they returned.  We're going through the same thing now - maybe worse, because the time difference is so brutal.  That, and the fact that we have a robotron for a daughter, who doesn't seem to need sleep!  The first night back, we all slept (together!) from about 12:30 am until about noon the next day.  That might have been our first mistake - it would have probably been better to set an alarm and get up at a decent time.  You live, and you learn, with kids.  Anyway, the following night, she slept from about 9-12, and that was it.  We fought with her until about 4 am, when I finally gave up.  Josh and I were completely drained, Brie, not so much.  She was fine.  The next night, she slept at grandma and grandpa's (they agreed!!!) from about 12 - 4, and that was all.  Hmm.  Then, the night after that, she slept 8-11, and then up all night until about 7 am, when she went back to sleep.  What a schedule!!!  Last night she was home again, and slept about 9-4.  Not too bad, except we're going to have to deal with the bedroom situation at some point - she went to sleep in our bedroom, but about an hour later, I found her on the floor in our room (curled up, by the door!).  I can't figure out if she is really scared, or just prefers to be with us.  At least I've never heard of any teenagers sleeping with their parents, so there is hope someday that she will sleep through the night, and in her own room.  We went looking at furniture at IKEA today for her new room when the baby comes - maybe that will convince her to sleep in her own room for good.  I really don't want her in our room - but I told Josh, let's get her back on a schedule, even if it's partly in our room, and then let's convince her to sleep in her room again.  Two battles might be a bit much at this point!!!