Wordless wednesday

The dreaded braces and a night out.

 Just as teenagers hit that time of insecurity and feeling out of sorts with how they look as they go through various growth spurts, many of them then face that great indignity - orthodontic braces. Anna has now hit that spot and lets just say she wasn't too happy about it. It took a lot of talking through but we tried to persuade her that as it's a phase that just has to be got through she's better to try and accept it and not hide her beautiful smile.
A box of chocolates on the day of fitting also helped!

Why are the descriptions of chocolates always on the bottom?.....

Being Anna she of course shared them with her brothers and sisters and they were pretty happy about that too!

 We also decided a while back that once the children became teenagers we would take them out on their own for a special date after each birthday. This is because as our house is so mad busy and chaotic most of the time it would mean we would be able to give one child our undivided attention and have a conversation without the carry on of the younger ones. With teenagers we feel it's so important to keep the channels of communication open and make sure they feel special and cherished. We also want to talk through their hopes and goals for the coming year to see if we're meeting their needs as best we can. As with all things Anna is our 'guinea pig' trying out our ideas on her as we muddle our way through this parenting journey. We are blessed with such an easy going first child to learn on!
The photo are pretty bad, taken on my phone, but they are lovely memories of a special evening.

All things considered she didn't have too bad a week in the end!

Wonderful woodland walks

November isn't the most inspiring month but we've had some wonderful walks these last couple of weeks;

Long hills.....

But with amazing views at the top!

A ruined castle which we only discovered this week....

Complete with hidey holes to explore...

Then a stream to play in...

What more could you want?

Healthy eating!

With keen bakers in the house and girls who like to help with the Tesco ordering we were developing a habit of having treat foods more often than qualified as 'treat'. Also I have been becoming more concerned about other 'bad' things we eat such as pesticides, hormones, sulphites, trans fats etc. I then spent some time one afternoon reading various articles on the effects of all these things and decided it was time to instigate a few changes.
The first thing I did was research where we could avail of an organic box scheme. I found that The Organic Supermarket in Dublin did just that and would deliver to anywhere in the country. We order both the family fruit and vegetable boxes and they send us a mixed box of mainly seasonal produce plus whatever else they have in stock. These are what arrived this week;

This also means we have to be more adventurous and use what comes, like we ended up putting fennel in with the cauliflower cheese and adding pomegranate to a salad Jamie Oliver style. We have also had to google a few things to find out how to prepare them. Last week we had a pattison squash, we definitely had to google that one, and Eoin and beth made a pattison squash and orange cake.

It had a good helping of icing and sprinkles but it still felt a bit more virtuous!

I had also found out from our friendly tesco delivery man that the day fresh bread he was delivering to me warm had actually come in frozen to store and just been reheated, so we are also now getting organic flour and making it here. One of Beth's chores is to make the bread each day and we have had some wonderful creations. This one she decided she would try to make green by adding wheatgrass;























We also got some spirulina powder but haven't figured out what to do with that yet!

We have four vegetarians, Beth, Eoin, Orla and Tiarnan, and I am constantly trying to make sure that they get enough protein and iron. One trick is to add eggs to mashed potato or to hide crushed seeds or nuts into bread or baking. I also think quinoa is valuable but I failed in my attempts to hide it in both the porridge and when cooking rice. One thing they can never refuse though is chocolate brownies so I decided to substitute it for the flour in an attempt to acquaint their palate with it!
First I cooked a little quinoa;























I then made my usual mixture being generous with some buttons taken from the halloween stash;

So far so good...






































A bit paler than usual but that was disguised with a shake of icing sugar;

and everyone ate them despite lots of comments about texture and consistency!

This week I am experimenting with palm sugar, rice syrup, agave syrup and coconut oil. I think the guys are hoping that Mammy will get over this 'phase' but we'll see....