Joy School

Several times per day Kaia will ask me, "Where are we going when we wake up?" It is bad news when I don't have an answer. Today was a Joy School day. We started out with a game Sierra created. A few days ago she cut up a diaper box into small squares and rectangles. She put numbers on each square. We used the rectangles like pancake flippers and flipped each square. Then lined up the numbers in order. It was fun and I was impressed with Sierra's creative skills. Please notice Kaia's face in the picture. She is currently yelling at me, "Is this the number 7?" I didn't answer right away because I was trying to get a blog worthy picture, thus the anger and frustration. Another highlight was our homemade bran muffins. The girls helped me grind up the wheat into flour then each took a turn adding the ingredients into the mixer.

Joy School Bran Muffins
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup wheat bran
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp honey
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cup water (should use milk, but I didn't have any, so I came up with the raisin/water combo)
1/4 cup oil
handful of raisins

turn oven to 350. Put water and raisins together in saucepan, bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Mix all ingredients together, put in muffin tin and cook for 20 min. Don't try to double this recipe unless you have an army to feed. Best when served hot, with honey butter and some sort of sprinkles for the kids to sprinkle on top. We used both pink sprinkles and Halloween sprinkles. They ate them all up. I did warn Raiyn and Josslin's mom that all the bran and whole wheat flour could lead to a tummy ache.

Which brings me to another topic. I'd really like to wean my family from white flour and white sugar as much as possible. Adam was doing really well on the Eat to Live diet for a few weeks. Basically the diet encourages you to eat as many fruits and vegis as humanly possible. It was exciting to have so much fresh produce in the kitchen. So here is my plan. I'm going to create a 12 meal menu and shopping list. I know there are books out there that help you do this. In fact I bought one at Deseret Book, only to return it because the recipes we not what I would call healthful. I would love help and suggestions from fellow bloggers/eaters.