More more more!

No really...

Matthan has to wear the boot cast for a week longer and then he needs to wear an air cast (which is really a type of splint) for another 4-6 weeks. We go back to Dr. Otis at the end of December and we shall see if the break in his ankle bone looks or feels any better.

Weekend Fun Fun Fun

Um, how many people does it take to bathe Matthan?
No, seriously... Westley had to "help" Daddy... apparently the boys make too much noise and he cannot sleep during his brother's bath. Matthan just thought it was too funny to have him standing at the edge of the tub.

Licking the spatula...

Licking the beaters from the mixer.

Again with the mixer beaters. :)

We baked cookies on Thursday YUM!! Nothing like homemade chocolate chip cookies... you can see what Matthan's second favorite job is... licking the utensils.

We had a mellow weekend. Saturday was a run around day... then we watched Kung Fu Panda with the kids, very hilarious! Sunday was church, Caitlyn got her hairs cut and then we had a marvelous pot roast dinner. Tomorrow we have potato pancakes for breakfast with a side of fresh pumpkin bread! I love the fall/winter baking season!

Are you crabby or is that a new tooth I see?!

Well... Westley has been a bit of a crab these past few days plus the whole sleep for 1.5 hours at a time thing. Today I was giving him a bite to eat and he bit me... gently but with a tooth on top too! I never expected to find his left front tooth broken through and pushing in... it is as far in as one of his bottom two! He also has another couple of top teeth coming in. All four top front teeth are on their way in at the same time, poor little guy is hurting in his mouth right now! With a constant dose of tylenol in his system, he seems to be okay... but I can't let it wear off or I get 30 minutes of misery (his) to contend with. Excited to see his choppers coming in, it means all those chunks of veggies he has been gumming will soon be chewed.

Officially Crawling Now!

Westley is really crawling now. He is consistantly on hands and knees as of today! He really only uses the army crawl when the terrain is uncertain, like ceramic tile. Too FUN!!!

And now for the Fruit Report!

I have finally finished "ripening" the last of the pears. Meaning I have left them in a brown paper sack in the bottom of my pantry until they are nice and yellow and juicy and sweet! I pureed all but 5 of them and put the puree into the freezer for baby food! I did dice a few... he is eating chunky fruits now! Done putting up the gleaned fruit!

Tracie came over on Thursday afternoon and hung out for awhile. This is just a cute shot of her with Westley!

Matthan playing with his food. He is quite the artist no matter the medium.

CHEEZEITS

Matthan was singing this at the table at lunch today...

Halleluia, Cheezits, Cheezits,
Animal cookies
Halleluia, Cheezits, Cheezits

(the song really goes: Halleluia, Jesus, Jesus!)

We are so teaching the boys right!

Then we find out that he was singing this at church today in sunday school to get the laugh!

At home after realization hits that everybody thinks this is hilarious...
He begins to sing Mommy's tune

Halleluia, Cheesecake, Cheesecake
Halleluia, Cheesecake, Cheesecake

Gotta love this boy!

Out of the Mouths

Today we are trying to read a short story (Matthan has one for class every day of the week). It is called Fun Rides and he is trying to tell by the title and the picture what the story is about. I ask him where he thinks they are. He reads the title and is looking at the cover. There is a picture of a mom, daughter and a small ferris wheel in the background. I am looking for him to say they are at a carnival or fair. He says "I think they are at sixteen flags". Too cute. We have never taken him to six flags, but we did point it out once when we drove past. We don't really do amusement parks, cost is a factor yes, but I cannot ride most rides due to my back and up to now, Matthan has not shown anything other than fear for riding stuff. He refused any rides at Silver Dollar City two years ago. As he "runs" around the house in yet another cast... can you blame him. How many kids do you know that have broken as many bones in as many years as he has.

Just hanging out tonight...

Just hanging around with the boys tonight. Reading a story or two before bed. Everybody is doing well. Matthan has "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and Westley has "Flying Butter".

Gimpy!

Matthan was limping severely this morning and told us his foot hurt... so after a little examining... we figured we better call Dr. O. We were right on to do so.

Matthan has done it again... He is sporting a boot cast on his right foot. He has a "microfracture" in his right ankle. His growth plate in that ankle looks terrible as well. Dr. O is going to check it again in 3 weeks when the boot comes off. Whether or not the growth plate is still "sick" will determine what happens next with that ankle. The inside part of his ankle bones look to have a constant stress fracture. I wonder if that is what they see inside mine?

They took the standard x-rays plus the full standing hip/leg shot. In 4-6 weeks they will do another full hip/leg shot because it appears that the pins in his left hip are migrating. Normally they would migrate their way out, but in Matthan's case they are migrating the wrong way... into his hip joint. Not where they should be and it could be quite a problem if they actually move past the cartilidge into the joint. Dr. O said we would know by the pain he incurs. Other than that... his hips look great. Both Growth plates are well and staying in place.

Next visit (3 weeks) they will also fit him for a lift... an orthotic lift for inside the shoe to help compensate for the difference in leg length... 5/8 of an inch now. It appears to be getting bigger (the gap) and it is definitely affecting the way he walks.

What a fun afternoon.

Toothies!! and other Westley milestones!

The second bottom tooth has finally broken ground through those tough gums! Westley has two bottom teethers ... well they still have to come up all the way... but they are both visible now!

He loves to eat... anything. He likes to have what we are having at the table, either served to him in highchair or sitting on Paige's lap. He self feeds bite size everything if possible. honey nut cheerios are a big hit. He still loves baby oatmeal with fruit... typically applesauce or pearsauce (homemade of course). He drinks from a cup, water for fun really. He still nurses full time.

He is such a cute little guy. He can get to sitting from lying down and vice versa with ease now, just this week. He is army crawling all over... he gets up on hands and knees and rocks for a couple of days now, but he prefers to drop to his belly and pull his body along for a ways to get something he wants. He prefers of all things to be held, by Mommy. But anyone will do when he doesn't want to be set down. He gets excited for all of us and does a power crunch... too cute. He babbles all the time... very vocal.

He loves other babies and simply wants to put them in his mouth! We visited with cousin Gideon last week and he wanted to climb on him and pull his hair and try to eat him. Verrry cute. Gideon is 3 months younger... but only an inch or two shorter! Westley totally outweighs him though. He also played with a baby at church on Sunday... who outcrawled Westley all over the place (being that he was months older!)... all Westley wanted to do was grab him and put him in his mouth... and smile a lot at him.

We installed the new car seat, it still has to be backward until a year but he had outgrown by weight, not height the infant car seat. Still... eight months is pretty good for a carrier seat.

He is keeping us both very busy. We did joke this morning that it will be busier once he really crawls on hands and knees. What a fun interactive stage he is in right now. We love to hear him talking to us in the mornings... peering at us from standing position in the crib at the foot of the bed.

Lite the Nite costumes

Mommy, Westley-Skunk, Fire-Matthan, Princess-Caitlyn

Lucy & Matthan

Little Stinker(s)!

Westley

Westley is in a borrowed costume (the next door neighbors Jill and Aaron had it for last year!) ... he looks completely precious. So of course, brother and sister had to get in on the cuteness action. Looks like we have an entire family of skunks!

Let' s hear it for homeschool!

Chris: "What did you learn today?"

Matthan: " I learned that yankee doodle song."

Chris: "I'm a yankee doodle dandy?"

Matthan: "No, it goes Yankee doodle get it up."

Chris: "Oh, Yankee doodle keep it up."

Matthan: "yeah" ... breaks out into song...

"yankee doodle keep it up, yankee doodle keep it up,
yankee doodle keep it up and let the girls be handy!"

~ It literally took an hour to be serious enough to type this up! ~ Paige

Born to be Loud

Born to be Loud below a drum set!

Really... Tracie bought him this onesie for his baby shower and he is just now fitting into it!

Hilariously enough, right about the same day I caught him drumming. He crawled over to Matthan's hand drum (during music class, but Matthan had stopped drumming for this song)... then he began to drum on it. (yes well, he chews on everything!)

GO RAMS!!

Just an adorable Daddy/Baby Son moment!

Farmer In Chief

I found this today... I think it pertains to all Americans... it is worth the read...


The Food Issue
by Michael Pollan

Dear Mr. President Elect:

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.

Please click the link to read the rest!


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=5&ref=magazine&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Entertaining ourselves...

This is what we do for fun on a Saturday afternoon. Really. Chris was playing guitar and the kids were getting a big kick our of the new apple peeler/slicer/corer thingy I picked up yesterday. Plus I was finishing up the canning of the second 19 gallons of apples!

Westley Moving ...

MILESTONE !!!

Bottom Left Front Tooth !!!

Westley has cut his first tooth! It is officially through the gums. No wonder he has not been his perfect self for the last day or two. We are so proud of him... what a trooper he was getting this tooth in! and it looks like the front right tooth is not far behind !!!

Fruit is an ever beautiful thing...

My artistic photo of one bowl full of fresh fruit

and another bowl

This was the clean bounty after cleaning out all webs, worms, spiders and raisins!

... The following are backward... sorry!

Finished grape juice! ~ 8 Cups

Straining the juice
(after food milling the hot grapes to separate seeds & skins)

Cooking the grapes down

Food Processor - before cooking them down (it helps bring out more juice)

We were GIVEN a cooler full of freshly picked "Norton" grapes yesterday. Our neighbor went out to Elsberry and picked them with her kids at an uncle's vineyard. Apparently the local vineyards had such great crops this year with all the rain that they are not purchasing from this vineyard. My neighbor tells me they have approximately 1 ton of Norton grapes that will be wasted. WHAT?! How can this be? Norton makes a lovely vintage. sigh. Oh bother, I won't be taking on the expense and time consuming pursuit of making homemade wine just yet. (what with a move in the near future!) But boy was I tempted... :)

Instead, I took the whole lot and cooked it down and made fresh Grape Juice for Chris and I... a perfect breakfast companion! AND a lovely way to have communion in the mornings at home!

It is very surprising to spend time cleaning and cooking all those lovely grapes and then hand mill them and strain them and end up with less than 3 quarts of juice for my efforts!! It does taste incredible though... in an organic way it is worth every second of time spent.

Plus our gleaned fruit just keeps multiplying. hmm multiplying fruit... fruitful multiplication.

The kids are all great! Everybody has been eating apples like crazy... they love them... but they really love them peeled and curlyQ'd. The neighbor loaned me her peeler/corer/slicer thingy and it is fabulous. Going to be looking for one at garage sales... or resale shops. I got a great bargain last saturday after we picked all those apples... somebody had a brand new flat bottom Stainless steel 16 quart soup/stockpot that I got for $5! BARGAIN! I had been looking for a nice sturdy one to handle large batches of soup for church functions, but the good ones are all too expensive and the cheap ones are all too thin and poorly made. This one is thicker than some and perfect for what I need! Yes, that is it above holding the cooking grapes!

We still don't have a signed contract for the purchase of this home... we expect to get that from our buyer any day. He has a financial detail holding him up... it affects the letter of the contract, so we patiently (huh, well, Chris is anyway!) wait. We know God safely has the details.


Incredibly God showed up and impressed a few things to me today... I love the sounds of His voice...

"The fruitfulness of the winter season is now apparent in her life."

The Season of Preparation before the Harvest. ... the vines with tender grapes give a good smell. - Song of Songs 2:13

... for our vines have tender grapes. Song of Songs 2:15

"Sustain me with cakes of raisins, refresh me with apples, For I am lovesick." Song of Songs 2:5

and of course ... the word play...
The fun part about the last scripture is that I don't eat raisins YUK. (um, yeah... I always picked them out of the sweet potatoes and now I just don't put them in!) Yet, I do love grapes any kind of grapes!

anyway.. we have had an abundance of apples around here... I just made applesauce cake Saturday YUM! So I have been sustained with cakes of apples, had raisins delivered attached to fresh sweet grapes, and been refreshed with apples (we just picked our 2nd batch!)

Isn't God fun! He sends us kisses right when our heart needs them the mostest. oh and let me just say again...

I am Lovesick!

Fruity Fruit Fruit Fruit

Pears - Baby food style!

From next door into our freezer - this fits the 100 foot challenge!

Another 19 Gallons of Golden Delicious Apples
Compliments of a friendly neighbor!

Ripe Tomatoes (Neighbor with apple trees!)

Ripening tomatoes (same neighbor guy)

Green, but ripening tomatoes (neighbor with apple trees)

Gleaned Fruit! Today Caitlyn and I took the ladder over to that neighbors house and picked some of the tops of his trees (well not exactly the tops, way too high for that, - these are old trees) I wish I knew how and was able to trim the apple trees for him. So many of the branches are splitting from the weight and they are too dense in some spots to reach through well for apples (well, standing on a ladder anyway!) He needs a good tree guy to simply donate a trimming for him so the trees will do better next year. We dropped off some apple butter and were thanking him for more apples when he mentioned we should take a bunch of tomatoes too! YUMMY. I will run by some applesauce and tomato sauce for him next week as a bigger thank you.

The pears I picked off the next door neighbors tree were fully ripe yesterday... so today I pureed them for Westley for baby food. He loved them! I froze the remainder in those containers. I will be bagging and ripening these over the next week or so... until the first frost hits. I can keep pureed baby fruit frozen for a bit.

Anyway... not much around here... a quiet weekend. Football, chili and applesauce making!

Debate

Yes... I know you think I am now going to BORE you with my political beliefs. WRONG ANSWER!
If you know me and are reading my blog... you get my beliefs and it won't be hard to figure out how we will be covering this November election... with much prayer and a dependable turn out at the polls. Now... on to my post...

The debate in this house tonight is all about CHOOKS. Really...

That's Chickens for those of you that don't follow anything I have been talking about with the 100 foot Food challenge. Specifically laying hens as DH dislikes eating chicken in any recognizable chicken form. (I really only get to cook boneless skinless breasts) I have been getting my mind around my upcoming Freedom Garden... by reading books and a lot of blogs about this same gardening phenom that is hitting the US. This is a lifestyle change we are headed toward in the Clausen Haus. I mean it. I love to cook, I love to grow things... I inherited genes that help things grow well ... that all merges nicely in the Garden! I plan to put in raised beds at the new house (nope, not sure yet where that will be, but God knows!) and we will be growing our food next summer and putting that same food up for the following winter. This year we have gleaned our food for canning (and yes, we bought some from local farms, it supports the local economy and most excellent farms we have close to us) But the important point is that we will be eating some of this yummy organic food over this coming winter instead of buying it from the store at a better (yes FRUGAL) cost overall. CAN YOU SMELL THE APPLE BUTTER CURRENTLY COOKING?!

Now back to the chooks. I think I want a laying hen or two... not really any more than that because I cannot possibly use all those eggies... but hey who knows. Anyway... we have had more than one discussion on how yukky taking care of chickens is blah blah blah. But the more I hear about people raising these birds is how wonderful it is to have fresh free eggs all the time... it gets me thinking... LUCY ... oops. anyway... during the debate... I simply wondered out loud (duh, isn't that how you think?) if one of the suburbs we are looking at for our new haus allowed chooks... and darling husband simply said "no". (Come on, what did you expect?... something about farmers from Iowa I know...) But then he followed it with... "there may be room, but no." So that leads to haus debate! :)

No, I don't really want chickens... I like eggs, but I don't relish ever dealing with chicken poop! (After all, I do have three chilrens...and a cat who yaks on the carpet at will.)

POP POP POP

If you are reading this blog you probably know me well enough to know I enjoy cooking... whether for family or friends... I just enjoy it. Tonight I got the biggest thrill when I took the jars out of the canning bath and the lids popped (creating the seal) It makes the sweetest little POP, POP POP as they each go after you set them on the kitchen counter. Okay... truth be told I dig it every time! What a simple thing... the sound of the jar of food you just prepped, cooked and completed actually sealing.

Okay... so I have had a total blast making applesauce. Tonight Caitlyn and I finished off the barrel of apples. Making 5 more quarts of homemade applesauce... How funny is it that I am wondering if 14 quarts is enough? It really isn't. My kids eat the stuff like crazy. Plus... Caitlyn is wanting more apple butter put up... what a goose. Plus... I want it to last until the end of next summer... so it looks like I may be packing up the ladder and heading back over to the neighbors place to pick the tops of his trees plum clean... okay Apple Clean! We will see how far I get with that desire... considering Tami called today (my friend) and their crabapples are ready... meaning I need to head over and get all the crabby apples I can to bring home and make our very own apple jelly! (this way I don't have to keep paying the grocery for theirs!)

I will be doing a little more research before I head over and put out a bunch of time picking crabapples! They are awful tiny and you need a whole bunch to cook down for 6 cups of juice. There is an apple tree by our local theatre that is just about ready for picking too! I am really enjoying gleaning some of our food.

To date I have:
14 Quarts of Applesauce (Gleaned the fruit!) (yup... 14 QUARTS!)
6 Half pints of Apple Butter (Gleaned the fruit!)
6 Pints of Spaghetti Sauce
3 Pints of Peaches (plus I put up peaches in the freezer!)
4 Quarts of Tomato Soup (homemade mmm) (there is a pint down there too!)
5 Half pints of Peach Butter (picked this with the kids)

There is also some homemade tomato juice in the freezer.

How cool is that! I wish I had done more tomatoes. I would have liked to can diced tomatoes as that is one of my frequent ingredients where I have to depend on canned. We use them all the time in chili, veggie soup, tomato rice and of course spaghetti sauce. I also really wish I had a garden this year and was able to say I put up green beans and other things we eat all the time around here. ... Next year that's my plan. (besides, I found a great "recipe" for dilly beans... makes your mouth water doesn't it!) Let's hear it for the Freedom Garden!

I may actually still have time to do more tomatoes... but I don't know... it wasn't really a money saver or ultra cost effective, just a healthier option for my family.

Aunt Janet Visits St. Louis Clausens !!!

Aunt Janet - Caitlyn - Paige - Frances
Matthan and Hey... Westley look up!

OW where are the tops of our heads?
Still... what a handsome happy family!

Darling Husband Chris

Silly Family!

Aunt Janet with Westley this morning!

Somebody said did something funny! Look at them laughing!

Caitlyn's full! Too funny. See Video Below!

Westley is making faces at Matthan...

Matthan is hamming it up for the camera!

Matthan is also playing with the tortilla chip dough... mmm.

That is some yummy beans Daddy!

Paige and Aunt Janet

Aunt Janet and Frances

So yesterday Aunt Janet called to tell us she was driving in with her friend Frances and she would love to stop by! So we arranged to meet them at Chevy's (YUM) for dinner when they got in. Then they came to the house and stayed with us (let's hear it for air mattresses in the loft!) You know... that leaves my mind to wonder where the cat slept last night? on Caitlyn's head? on one of the air mattresses with Frances or Aunt Janet? or on the purple couch?!
but I digress...
Everyone got a good nights sleep. Except maybe Paige (who got up with Sir Westley like 4 times last night!) and after a lovely breakfast of blueberry muffins and coffee (let's hear a cheer for Java G's!) we visited for a bit and then Aunt Janet and Frances set off for the St. Louis Zoo, Missouri Botanical Gardens and the splendiferous Gateway Arch! After a day of sightseeing they were headed up highway 79 to Hannibal for the night. We pray they had a wonderful and safe trip.

and because you all love the way we post things on this blog... here is our humor for the day! Caitlyn was actually full last night after dinner... she ate steak fajitas, two baskets of chips... oh, just watch her hilarious video. WE COULD HARDLY BELIEVE SHE WAS FULL (she actually left food on the plate!)... SHE NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER CLAIMS TO BE FULL!

Peek a boo Blocks

This is the blue round block.

This is about how far he had to reach for the block when I took it and stacked it.

I am playing on the floor with Westley. With the peekaboo shape blocks.

He has the round blue one. I take it and put it on the stack and hand him the square red one instead. He gets loud at me and reaches over several other stacked blocks to get that blue round one back. Hilarious.

He is showing preferences and remembering a toy! So cute, so big!

Quick Easy Fun...

Today was a beautiful day to visit Grant's Farm. Here are the people pics we took... we got some great animal shots today... probably because the weather was so nice. I may post animal pics later... for now here are Clausen People!