Today's gluten-free: Strawberry Pie, Pea Soup and Chick Pea Crackers

Pepper made a Sky-High Strawberry Pie.  And because this is not a foodie blog, I'm going to link you to the recipes.  Lazy.

Sky-High Strawberry Pie, original  (from Taste of Home.)
We've been making this awesome pie since 1994!  We never use the whipped topping or pudding on top.  And we've always made it with a graham cracker crust.  We didn't have any GF graham crackers in the house so we used...

...Gluten-Free Crumb Crust  (also from Taste of Home).
Modified by substituting coconut powder (finely-ground coconut) for the nuts and honey for the juice concentrate.  Nuts, while themselves gluten-free, are often processed in a facility which also processes wheat, so they may be cross-contaminated.  You have to read the label.  We didn't have any uncontaminated nuts in the house.  This crust was easy and tasty. Pepper made it by herself.

After we finished dessert, (kidding) we had pea soup.  Pea soup is naturally GF.

Ham broth (I also often use just water for a vegetarian soup)
Dry split peas
1 large onion, diced
carrots, sliced
potatoes, cut in small cubes
salt and pepper to taste
oregano (dried or fresh)
2 bay leaves
chopped ham, if desired (my family doesn't desire)

Cook peas in broth or water with onion.  When peas start to soften add carrots, salt, pepper, oregano and bay leaves.    When carrots are nearly done, add potatoes and cook until all vegetables are tender and peas are mushy.  Add ham, if desired.

Then I went for uneasy.  I tried these crackers, which were neither easy (although they weren't THAT hard) nor that tasty.  I'd say they were fine.  I don't know if I'll make them again.

The other kids do stuff too!

Kindergarten Spring Sing (it's actually their only sing)

Amazed by all his adoring fans! (he's in the blue-striped shirt)

There's a dog in school, OH NO! What are we going to do? He'll have to learn his alphabet, too!

Kindergarten Farm Field Trip

 Touching the disgusting poop-covered milking machine (get the hand gel!!!)  That's me in the baseball hat.

 Feeding hay to a cow (in case you couldn't tell)

AWANA Awards Night

 Banana Boy got the Sparky Award (finishing the 2nd book), a Book Review Emblem (reviewing all the verses in the book) and and Extra Credit Pin (doing another book full of verses)

Pepper got the Excellence Award (finishing the 4th grade book) and Silver and Gold Awards (completing an extra 32 activities, projects and memorizations) 

We call this the crying award.  Many tears were shed over having to do ALL THOSE projects.  Now that she has the pins, she's glad she did it.  It was the same story last year.

Good job, everybody!

Oh, and if you were wondering about Daisy, she just lays around all day composing music on the piano and then writing lyrics for it, working on her novel, and teaching herself Hindi.  I wish she'd accomplish something, too!

Willing It To Be Spring

Or not...

Spring

It's 50 degrees and the snow is almost all melted!

Time to go barefoot!

Different in India

Pepper had to choose a missionary to learn about for AWANA.  Then she had to learn more about his or her country and write a one page paper about it.  Here is what she came up with.  (I helped with the format for the 5-paragraph essay, but the ideas are hers.)

 

Different in India

Have you ever been to India?  If you have, then you know that many things in India are different than in America.  Some things that are different are the animals that live there, the clothes they wear, and the driving on the roads.

Both familiar and unfamiliar animals live in India.  Dogs in India are very skinny and roam the streets.  Cows are also very skinny because they eat garbage.  Cows are considered holy so the Indians don’t eat beef.  Peacocks are India’s national bird.  Indian elephants are smaller than African elephants and sometimes people ride on them.  Indian cobras are very venomous.  Over 2500 Bengal tigers live in the Indian jungles.

The clothes people wear in India are not like the clothes we wear in America.  A sari is a long piece of colorful cloth that women wrap around themselves.  Mostly women in the north wear saris.  Salwars are like dresses worn over pants and come in many beautiful colors.  Women in the south wear them more than saris.  Men wear kurtas, which are like long shirts and they wear pants underneath.  A lungi is a length of cloth that men fold around their waist.  They can wear it long or short.  They wear it long to show respect and short when they are working.

Driving is much more interesting in India than it is here in America.  The roads in India are very crowded with big trucks, cars, buses, bicycles, and tractors.  You would also see auto rickshaws, cows, dogs, herds of goats, camels and ox carts.  It would seem strange to us that they drive on the left side of the road.

If I went to India, I would like to wear a sari or a salwar instead of my regular clothes and see an elephant in the street.  I think it would be interesting to drive on the Indian roads.  I think it would be fun to compare Indian life to American life.  I hope I can go to India someday.

Pepper with Hiccups

"I HATE when my diaphragm bounces up and down!!!!!"

Pepperism

Pepper walks into the living room to announce:

"I have been chewing and sucking on nature!"

Why am I not surprised?

"I had a grape tendril (2 actually!), lemon sorrel and alfalfa.  Mmm mmm mmm!"  She gives a thumbs up and walks out.

It Was Like a Pillow Fight -- and We Couldn't Find the Liver

Rose Bud got hit in the head by a bird. A Cedar Waxwing, to be exact, although we didn't know it until later.

We were peacefully driving down the street on the outskirts of town with the windows open because it was a beautiful day.

Suddenly, all at the same time there was a thud and Rose Bud ducked and yelled, "OW!" and I saw something white zip through my peripheral vision and then there were feathers everywhere. Little ones. Blowing all around the car.

And Rose Bud said, "A bird! It hit my head!"

And none of us could believe it.

We didn't see anything in the car. Everyone was looking all around them. We all were sure that SOMEthing had gone into the car. We FELT an object had moved through. But no one could see anything.

I found a street to pull over onto. I got out and looked in the back of the van. Pepper thought maybe it had fallen back there. Rose Bud and Daisy got out and looked between their seats and the door.

Nothing.

All the way home I alternated between cracking up and worrying about a bird decomposing in my closed-up-148 degree van once we got home. We kept looking all around.

At home I pulled into the garage and opened Sunshine's door. And SCREAMED. There, sitting under his feet, LOOKING AT ME, was a Cedar Waxwing. I'm sure it was just as upset as I was. More, maybe.

It sat. We all stared. It stared. Pepper got Daisy some gloves and she carefully eased in to pick it up. Just as she was about to grab it, it flew out, bumped the ceiling of the garage and flew to a nearby tree.

Where it stayed for over an hour. (can you see it there on that bottom branch, right next to the trunk?)

Rose Bud is fine.

We're not sure about the Mr. Waxwing.

We began our day with Pepper lying on her bench upside down, peering inside and wailing (do you detect a theme here with Pepper? She has only two voices: Giggle and Wail) "I CAN'T FIND MY LIVER!!!!"

It took about 5 more minutes of searching before we discovered the poor liver, along with her stomach between her binder and an old lapbook.

Did I mention we've been studying the human body? And that we're making a life-size paper body? And that they color and cut out their organs and glue them onto said paper body? Hence the need to find the missing liver.

And here was the excitement in Daisy's day:

 Yes, they are green.  Neon green.  Mr. GT wanted to know how she would know if she had lettuce in her teeth now.

And that was our day.

Weeds

While braiding Pepper's hair:

"Ow, Mom.  You're pulling my hair out by the roots like a weed.  Only my hair is not a weed."