Tree of Life Mothering

I am passing along this information, copied from the July newsletter of the Feingold Association in hopes that it helps my blog readers out there. Please see The Feingold web site to learn from about the organization and to join. The rest of the text is words from the Feingold Association.

A number of studies over the past few years have shown us that organophosphate pesticides (that stuff they spray on wheat and other foods you eat) increase the likelihood of ADHD in your children if you were exposed while pregnant (and we were all exposed, thank you, Monsanto). 

Now it’s your turn!!

The Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute is a nonprofit organization working with Professor Dufault. They are recruiting parents of children with ADHD or autism to participate in a FREE 6-week online nutrition tutorial project. Each parent who completes the tutorial will be given a $200 stipend check to help with any increased grocery costs that may result from dietary changes. To see more information and to enroll in the tutorial, go towww.foodingredient.info/parentnutritioncourse.html 

We have recently acquired this 2006 article by Dr. Sandra Braganza. It is supposed to teach your doctor or counselor what to say to you, the parent, when you come “armed with media reports of a nutritional intervention…” 

While you’re at it, print also the two-page list of studies HEREto share with your doctor so he can’t complain about “media reports.” 

As I mentioned in my last blog post about the movie Cinderella, my widowed mother-in-law is feeling like Cinderella these days. She is getting married, at age 82! So she hosted a family barbecue last week so we could met her boyfriend. Here are some fun pictures from that event.

This is my son with two of his cousins. Yes, my sister-in-law has kids that look exactly alike. It was like she had the same baby four times in a row. They are the cutest babies who my other sis-in-law call “Monchichi babies.” (Can you tell we are children of the ’80s. Big brown eyes and fat cheeks.)

These are my three oldest kids with their cousin.

This is my dear husband with 2 out of his 4 brothers.

If you haven’t yet seen Disney’s remake of its classic animated Cinderella movie into a live action version with star Lily James, go see it! It’s playing at the dollar theaters now, at least where I live, so my dh and I went to see it for a date. He was skeptical that he would like it. But in the end, he loved it. I already knew I would love it. Because we enjoyed it so much, we decided to go back a second time and take Grammi and the three youngest kids while the big kids were off at their different camps a few weeks ago. I give it 4 out of 5 stars, just because of the immodesty of Cinderella’s heaving bosom in her ball gown. That gown was something else! Here’s a video below to show how amazing it was! The whole movie was so lavishly beautiful: the hair, the costumes, the scenery, the ballroom, the fairy godmother’s gown, and carriage, the glass slipper made out of crystal. Oh my, it was all gorgeous. Uncle Walt I’m sure would be very pleased with the movie.

I loved how the gown fit in with the theme song of the movie, “Lavender’s Blue Dilly Dilly.” The gown was lavender blue. Sometimes it looked blue and sometimes it looked lavender, depending on the light, so I guess you would call it lavender blue. Cinderella repeatedly sings the “Lavender Blue” song throughout the story. If you are old like I am, you will recognize the song from an old, sweet Disney movie that some people have overlooked, called So Dear to My Heart, which features Burl Ives singing it. When my older kids were young we watched it a few times, on our VHS tape.

If you listen to the lyrics carefully and think of the song, you will see why Cinderella sings the song. It fits perfectly with the theme of falling in love and becoming a queen with a king. I won’t give the ending and spoil it for you, but the song fits in there.

I love how the movie is about family love. It’s family love that inspires Cinderella. She remembers the words of her dying mother to “Have courage and be kind.” Those words help her to withstand the abuse she gets and not seek revenge. The story has a ton of symbolism about the plan of salvation, as all good fairy tales do. Throughout the whole story, Cinderella’s charity is what sees her through, and that’s how it is for us in real life. I took notes of all the great quotes in the movie. I hope to do a separate blog post featuring them.

After we watched the movie with Grammi, my dh’s mother, before she got out of the car, she sighed and said, “I feel like Cinderella!” She has spent the last few months falling in love with a dear man. At 82, she is engaged to be married for the second time! It has been so fun to see her in love! For a few years she has dreamed of being married again, and now it is happening!

In short, just remember the line in the movie that the fairy godmother says to Cinderella, “You shall go to the ball!” That is like God watching over us, telling us no matter what the mean, cruel elements say to us, we really can and will have our dreams come true, IF we have courage and are kind. ( The evil stepmother had said “Mark my words, you shall not go the ball!”)

Some people may think that because this is a blog for naturally crunchy moms that I am not into makeup. Au contraire, ma soeur! I love how makeup and hairstyle techniques can transform looks! Two of my favorite hair/makeup bloggers just got together to create the above makeup makeover! Kate, from the thesmallthingsblog.com visited Cara, from maskcara.com. How fun!

Cara has so many fun makeover videos! See below her five minute makeup routine for busy moms, then the other videos to show how she applies her makeup magic to make anybody go from looking drab to fab. I love it!

Here’s how to get luscious “twirl curls”! You will learn so many tips and tricks by going to her blog, maskcara.com, so go enjoy!

What are you eating this weekend for Independence Day? For some reason, even though I don’t really like to bake in the summer, I always want brownies for a 4th of July picnic. I found this great sugar-free, grain-free brownie recipe. I’m sad I don’t get to eat them right now because I am on a very restricted diet, but if you aren’t, I hope you enjoy this recipe!

I just discovered another grain-free brownie recipe, using avocados(!). Who would have thought? As soon as I ease into eating a broader range of food, I am going to make these! This video below shows the details on how to make it:

Photo Credit: thehappygal.com

My favorite picnic main dish is this southwest chicken black bean salad, served with corn chips. You can find it here. It’s a flavorful burst of cilantro, lime, jalapeno pepper, and garlic. So yummy!

Photo Credit: thefoodrenegade.com

This recipe looks intriguing if you want a veggie burger: southwest black bean burgers from the foodrenegade.com. If you must have a veggie burger, please hold the soy! It’s hard to find commercial veggie burgers without soy, so here’s how to make your own.

How about some sugar-free lemonade? Just fill a pitcher of water, juice a bunch of lemons, add the lemon juice, maybe some lemon essential oil, and then add some liquid stevia to taste.

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Photo Credit: thefoodrenegade.com

If you want to cool off even more and be super festive, make a watermelon cake! It’s sugar-free and gluten-free! I stumbled upon the great idea which is so simple I feel dumb for not thinking of it on my own. I heard about it from Kristen Michaelis, thefoodrenegade.com. Take a watermelon and cut off the ends and sides to make a cylindrical shape of watermelon flesh. Then frost with stiff, whipped cream. I used this idea as a birthday cake for my two summer birthday boys last year. To make it a true birthday cake for America, make it decoratively patriotic with red, white, and blue using sliced strawberries and blueberries. Here’s the exact recipe.

Photo Credit: mommypotamus.com

If you want more real food, especially grain-free, barbecue and picnic recipes, I can’t recommend mommypotamus.com’s blog post right here highly enough. Those buns in the picture above are grain-free! These recipes are absolutely mouth-watering. (As a practicer of the Word of Wisdom, I can’t recommend the alcoholic recipes, however.)

Do you want something to listen to in the car with the kiddos while you drive to the parade, your barbecue, or the fireworks this Saturday? Here’s a great story called The Summer of Treason by the storyteller Syd Lieberman. Just click on that link I just put in and scroll down the page to find it. Syd is a fabulous storyteller! Btw, he was featured as the keynote speaker at the Roots Tech conference sponsored by the LDS Church a few years ago. Here is the recording below, telling us about why telling family stories is so important. Be sure to tell your children the story of our Founding Fathers fighting for independence this upcoming holiday! Teach them that the day is about more than fireworks, hot dogs, and burgers.

Remember when my baby sister moved to Maine with her dh and adorable six kids? It’s been fun to see all of their grand adventures they are having for their mornings in Maine: forest exploring, frog catching, and moth gatherings. Last week my parents got to go visit them. Grandma got to pick strawberries with the brood. By the time Grandma, sis, and the kids ate a bunch while picking, what was left went to smoothies and the freezer. Not enough for jam, but that got me wondering if I could find some no sugar jam recipes if I ever run into a strawberry harvest. I know it’s kind of late for strawberries in Utah, but if you get some from the store and want to turn them into jam, so you can have some summer during the coming winter, here are some great recipes.

Here’s a recipe for quick, strawberry chia seed jam. 

Here is why you might want to avoid pectin when you make jam, in a blog post by The Healthy Homeeconomist

But according to Heather over at mommypotamus.com, pectin is OK. Here are her posts on how to make jam with pectin and without.

Happy jam-making!

Here are some fun Independence Day hairstyles, I hope you enjoy them!

For more fun ideas from babesinhairland.com, click here.

Here’s more about why you need more sunshine, so you can get Vitamin D. Sunlight alone, does not cause skin cancer, according to the video above.

I have enjoyed reading anything about or by Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, featured in the video above, for a long time. It first started when I heard that he was a medical doctor who did home births and was a leading proponent of home births. He was also a J.D. (This gem of a man passed away recently, sadly.)  Before you think you have to go out and buy some Vitamin D, let me repeat something he says in the video. 10 to 15 minutes of sun exposure in the middle of the day, between 10 AM and 2 PM, with 60% of your skin exposed, will give you 10 to 15 thousand IUs of Vitamin D. And Vitamin D deficiency is linked to many ailments, such as diabetes and cancer. So take advantage of the summer sun and get some of the sunshine and happiness vitamin.

The note accompanying this video says:

Seventy seven percent (77%) of U.S. teens and adults are deficient in vitamin D (less than 30ng/mL), ten years earlier, fifty-five percent (55%) were deficient, in the so-called “sunshine vitamin” whose deficits are increasingly blamed for everything from cancer and heart disease to diabetes. Recent scientific studies have found that the level of Vitamin D in most people, while adequate to protect

Recent scientific studies have found that the level of Vitamin D in most people, while adequate to protect against rickets, is not high enough to lower the probability of other medical conditions that may be caused by insufficient amounts of Vitamin D.

At the same time that doctors are discrediting the value of vitamins, minerals and supplements, more and more scientific studies are coming out about their medical and therapeutic values. No vitamin has had more scientific studies recently published than the rediscovered Sunshine Vitamin – Vitamin D.

Scientific Studies and Statements on Vitamin D

http://www.grassrootshealth.net/iomqu…

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/vitami…

http://www.naturalnews.com/028353_vit…

http://homefirst.com/cms/index.php/he…

So go get some sun, not too much, and eat real food, including natural fats, so you can be happy with more “sunshine vitamin” in you!