Well, here’s what you’ve been waiting for: Sugar-Free, Healthy Birthday Cake!

When I say sugar-free, I’m not talking about using some nasty artificial sweetener. I’m talking about using natural sweeteners and ditching the white sugar.

I found a wonderful place for desert recipes at Elana’s Pantry where I got the recipe for this carrot cake. I just used what I had (wheat flour instead of almond flour) and adjusted the sweeteners to taste.

Here’s how I made the cream cheese icing: 2 sticks of butter, 3 packages of cream cheese, 2 tablespoons of  natural vanilla extract  &  1/4 cup of pure maple syrup. Soften the butter and cream cheese using the whisk attachment on your mixer, whipping them together. Add in the rest of the ingredients. If it’s too thick, you can add some organic half and half or milk. Spread it on the cake after it’s cooled off. It tastes great!

To make our birthday cake as healthy as possible, I didn’t want to use food coloring. We tried to use natural food coloring last year, but the cake looked awful! So…this year we tried something new. I baked and iced the cake like usual then put a layer of plastic wrap over the top.

Next I put down a layer of blue icing (I saved some of the icing and colored it with food coloring) and then put the Legos on top. When it was time to serve the cake, I just peeled off the plastic and put the Legos in a mesh strainer to wash them off.

So we enjoyed a decorated cake and stayed healthy, too!

I have been learning as much as possible about natural living and cooking. My family feels better, the children act better and we keep from getting sick if we eat natural, healthy foods. It is so worth it!

My son was so excited to have this cake. He said ” Now my stomach won’t hurt after my party!”.  Isn’t that pitiful?! I feel so bad for being ignorant of what was healthy for us to eat for so long. I’m glad to be changing!

Matthew

Hannah

Saturday we celebrated Matthew’s birthday. He was born on Valentine’s Day 9 years ago. Wow, the time sure does go by quickly! Seeing how quickly he is growing up makes me try to enjoy every moment that I have with my children.

Matthew decided he wanted an undersea theme party. So we went to work and gathered up anything ocean related from the house: wooden ship models, fish glasses, a treasure chest, starfish, coral candle, blue and green streamers and blue and green balloons.

Sea food

We had natural hot dogs cut into octopus shapes with shell mac and cheese and goldfish crackers.

He spends most of his free time and money on Legos, so we had to include those too! I made the cake and we put the Legos on top. I don’t like us to eat food coloring, so after icing the cake I put plastic wrap on top of the regular icing and then put the blue icing on top. Fun, but healthy!

I was able to make this delicious cake without sugar. I sure do wish I knew how to do this a few years ago!

Want to find out how? Come back on Wednesday and I’ll have the recipe and all the info you need to make one too!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

We love him, because he first loved us.

1 John 1:9

This is the true story of my sister-in-law’s husband and his miraculous recovery from what should have been a fatal accident. I’ve re-posted part one here. To read the rest of the testimony go to Living To Worship.

A Walking Miracle Part 1

As promised, here is part one of my husband Jeremy’s miracle testimony in his own words.

“My name is Jeremy Peters and this is my personal testimony to the saving, healing gospel of Jesus Christ.

In April of 1996, I was on a vacation sponsored by the company I was working for at the time. The first night we had what you might refer to as a “meet and greet”. There was a lot of eating, socializing, drinking etc. In the time that followed I was really carried away with the party and intoxicated. What I didn’t realize is that I was about to reap consequences for my sin. God’s Word definitely warns against drunkenness (Ephesians 5:18). I’m very thankful today that He is a merciful, forgiving savior.

Later in the evening I was in one of the rooms of this large resort with a friend of mine. We were making plans to do some fishing later in the weekend, but at the time just about to leave and catch some of the nightlife at some local bars and clubs with others in the company.

My friend and I had both wrestled in school and used to share some of our old techniques from time to time. So before leaving we started wrestling around just sort of jokingly. He maneuvered what’s called a double-leg takedown on me, and I went backwards with a great deal of force, stopping suddenly with tremendous impact.

There was a solid oak-type chest set against the wall behind me, and my head and neck were just slammed into it. Needless to say there was no give on the part of the wall.

I was instantly paralyzed and without any ability to breathe. At that moment my spine was fractured and displaced at the second and third vertebrae. (This is referred to as the Hangman’s Fracture and in the majority of cases, results in death. This was the injury suffered by the actor Christopher Reeve.) My spinal cord was completely crushed; all of a sudden I was struggling with the feeling that I was about to die.”

In an all out effort to have Heaven in my OWN home I’m going to change my posting schedule here. I’ll be posting on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Remember you can get new posts via RSS or have them delivered into your email box. I’m looking forward to posting things with more substance than the fluff that’s been showing up lately!

Just a little advice…if you’re feeling stressed (I was), overwhelmed (me again) and wanting to run away from home (not an option)… then take a breather and look at your schedule. What can you cut out? What can you add that would help you remain sane?

Stress can be turned into good evaluation tool to figure out what needs to change in your life.

As Mothers and Wives we all have a lot to do, but don’t forget to take care of yourself too!

(Laryssa are you listening? )

Psalm 34:14

I’m getting caught up here at home. While I’m folding laundry and cleaning the bathrooms you all enjoy part 2 of our going green story….

When we last heard from our heroine homemaker she was on a quest for answers.

After reading and researching she found out that most of the ingredients in her new cleaners were toxic.

After learning to avoid the top ten most toxic, she found some recipes to make her own cleaners.

She started to use them and was surprised at how well they worked and were only a few cents to make!

Our little homemaker was happy and she and her family was safe.  Now she could have a lemon fresh, germ free, sparkling home; just like she had dreamed of.

THE END

If you haven’t already guessed it, our little homemaker is yours truly.

During that time I started to switch out all of our laundry, cleaning and body products as well.

Whenever we would run out of something I’d buy or make the non toxic version.

Here are a few homemade cleaners that have worked great for my family.

* Soft Scrubbing Cleaner

Just take baking soda and mix with water until a soft paste has formed.  Usually I’ll just sprinkle it straight into the sink or onto the counter.  Scrub with a cloth until clean.  This has worked as well as other soft scrubbing cleaners, but without the beach and other nasties.

* Laundry Booster

Have you ever forgotten to take a load of laundry out of the washer, leaving it there overnight?        Yuck!   Talk about stinky!   To solve this problem wash the load again in the warmest water you can, but add a cup of white vinegar when you put in the soap.  The vinegar really helps to get the stink out!

If you’d like to have more recipes for homemade cleaners here are some great links:

Clean and Green: Natural Homemade Cleaners

Antibacterial Bathroom Cleaner Recipe

Homemade Cleaners

Y’all I’ve had my face buried in the computer too long.  My family needs clean clothes and will want to eat tonight (imagine that!)…so enjoy this sweet repeat of how we went green. Part 1 today and part 2 tomorrow. Please excuse me while I go load the dishwasher…

Our story begins a few years ago…

Once upon a time there was a young homemaker that wanted a clean, germ free, lemon fresh, sparkling home.  So, she went to the store and bought the best new cleaner on the market.  You know, the one that the TV ads said would make her home the most beautiful, the cleanest, the best smelling…

Our little homemaker couldn’t wait to try out her new cleaning products!

The first room to clean was the bathroom.  “If these handy dandy products work in here, they will work anywhere!” she said.
She sprayed and scrubbed, from the toilet to the tub.   But by the time she got to the shower a strange thing started happening.

After spraying the shower with some kind of chemical cocktail our heroine started to cough, sneeze and wheeze.  Her hands and eyes felt like they were on fire!  Something must be wrong!!!

When she was finally feeling better, she began to try to understand why those nice people on TV were saying those cleaners were so wonderful.

Why did she feel like she had been poisoned, gassed and burned with acid?  All she wanted was a nice clean, germ free, lemon fresh home!

She stared to read and ask questions.  The things she learned shocked her!

All those chemicals were actually dangerous to her health and the health of her family!

Something had to be done.

Stay tuned tomorrow to find out what happens to our little homemaker!

Happy Valentines Day!

Here is a heart I found in our woods.  Kind of like a valentine from the Lord!

More Valentines fun:

Romantic Strawberries

Valentines At Home

Valentines Craft Links

Updated at 9:30 am Saturday the 14th —-There are no prints left!

Thank you all! Enjoy your paintings!

If you liked the eggs and feathers then you will be excited to know that there are still some 5×7 originals on sale for $15 in my Etsy shop! There are lots of other original watercolors on sale as well, but they are going fast!

*About the paper and printing process:
The paper is 310gsm mould-made, acid free etching paper made by Hahnemuhle. This paper is the utmost in quality made by a manufacturer that has been in business of producing fine art paper for over 420 years. This paper is printed in a giclee process with a professional grade printer using Epson’s UltraChrome K3 inks which are lightfast rated for 108 years. The quality paper, ink, and giclee printing process produce an art print as close to the original watercolor as possible.

I feel like I can’t give you all a good enough description of BlissDom. Add SO much information being presented to getting to meet the bloggers you’ve admired from afar and you have a very exciting and overwhelming experience!

I was looking forward to meeting  Nester the most. We have been emailing back and forth while working on some art projects and it made me feel like I knew her. I got to meet everyone that I wanted to, which is amazing! Here I am with Kimba and Nester. They are so awesome on their blogs and I’m happy to tell you they are even sweeter in person!

In this pic you can see Emily from Chatting At The Sky and Jen from Balancing Beauty and Bedlam. They are great women and I’m thrilled to have gotten to meet them. It’s very odd to meet the women behind the blogs. Even though it feels like you “know” them it still feels kind of stupid saying, “Hi you don’t know me, but I read your blog!”! Oh, well!

When I first got to the conference I was feeling very dorky just standing by the wall alone. I didn’t know anyone there and I was trying to see if I recognized anyone  and trying figure out what I was supposed to be doing!

I ran into Lori from Just Pure Lovely in the hall and she invited me to eat lunch with her and Danielle from Extraordinary Mommy. Wow, I was so grateful! As we were eating Tia from Tia’s Saving Cents walked by and we invited her to sit with us. I’m so glad we did. These gals are so friendly and sweet! It was really great to meet all these extraordinary women!

Are you sad you didn’t get to go? Well, don’t be! You can get all the great tips and tricks of blogging from the conference as MP3’s or as a transcripts.

Remember that Friday is the big reveal day at Nester’s!