Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Our May Day Fun

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Because I grew up making and delivering May Day Baskets, I just assumed everyone knew what May Day was all about. Seems from many of your comments on my Gratituesday post that May Day is new to many of you! Here, let me share the fun with you…

The way we’ve always celebrated the first day of May is to create some sort of basket, fill it with flowers or goodies, then deliver the basket to someone’s porch. Tradition holds that you are to “sneak” the basket up to the house, set it down, ring the doorbell, and run away without the recipient catching you! It’s a fun way to celebrate spring and a great way to bless others. We’ve never been very good at the “sneaking” part, but it sure is fun to try!

I can’t believe how excited our three younger boys were this year as they were working on this project. (Our oldest may have been excited also, if he wasn’t so busy trying to finish his freshman year of high school. That kid has been working SO hard this year on Biology and Algebra!)

I pulled each boy into the kitchen with me separately to make a treat for the baskets. This made for some great one-on-one time, plus made life less hectic in the kitchen. Justus decided to make Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. (He usually wears glasses, but his are broken right now – par for the course when you have an active 12 year old boy. If you look at his right eye there, you can see that not only did his glasses get broken, he has a nice injury to brag about too.)

He did a beautiful job on the cookies…

Malachi helped me make some mini Banana Muffins…while listening to DC Talk. ;)

One recipe made 36 mini muffins, baked at 400° for about 15 minutes (in case you were wondering how to adapt the Banana Muffin recipe).

Elias helped me make a big batch of Trail Mix, then all the boys set to work making cards to include in the baskets.

In the meantime, I packaged up all the treats.

The “baskets” we used were actually just recycled ice cream buckets my dad had given me. This worked perfectly!

And now, we are heading out to deliver the goodies. I believe I am just about to witness my sons launching themselves off of our friends’ porches – which I’m sure they will do in absolute silence so as to keep our May Day delivery a big surprise. ;)

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How To Teach Your Small Child to Put on a Coat

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Today, we get to enjoy a blast from the past. Three years ago, I posted about the “Coat Trick” we’ve always used to teach our little bitty kids how to put their coat on by themselves. My little bitty kids are not so little bitty anymore, therefore, they no longer use the coat trick. (Although, I do think it would be funny to see my lanky 5’10” fourteen year old see if he can still do it.)

Our littlest guy is now seven, which means that he was barely four at the time of this original post. The quality of the video below is not great, but it may give you a better idea of how the coat trick is done. And now…how to teach your small child to put on a coat:

First, lay down the coat with the outside part of the coat touching the floor. The neck of the coat should be facing your child. The child puts his arms into the sleeve holes of his coat…

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And flips the coat over his head.

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He adjusts his sleeves…or you adjust them for him.

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Then he wipes his nose with his sleeve. (This step is optional.)

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Tada! Coat is on.

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Here’s a video, which is a much easier way to see how the Coat Trick works. It takes all of 14 seconds to watch. Please be sure to admire Malachi’s silly face as he prepares to show you the Coat Trick on video. The silly face part of the Coat Trick is also optional. :)

Ever used the coat trick? Is it just me or are my babies all growing up? {sniff}

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Getting to the Root Cause of Eczema: What Worked for Malachi

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Our six year old has struggled with chronic eczema since he was two months old. If you’ve been reading here long, you know the heartache we’ve had watching our boy suffer from this.

The hardest part of this has been that we’ve felt so helpless. We’ve tried so many different remedies in an effort to give him comfort and ultimately, to try to find healing for him. Time after time, try after try, dollar after dollar, nothing took away his miserable skin condition. We’re thankful that through this journey, our family has learned about eating a whole foods diet and about non-toxic cleaning and using non-toxic products on our skin. We’ve also learned quite a bit about overall body health and that simply “fixing Malachi’s skin” or any medical condition is not just a matter of “take this pill or use this cream” – we must get to the root of the problem.

Once we began seeking alternative and more natural sources of healing, we were taught that eczema is not ultimately a skin issue. It appears to be a skin issue because that is where the pain and itching manifest themselves. But skin is an organ. When other organs are not working properly, the organ of the skin can be effected. This was the case for Malachi. Doctors found that his liver and kidneys were not working properly, thus toxins were not being flushed the way they needed to be. Toxins have to go somewhere and in Malachi’s case, they were coming out through his skin. Therefore, he was covered with eczema. (Obviously, this is just my “mommy version” of the diagnosis – I don’t know all of the technical ins and outs of this. Also, not all cases of eczema are the same. This is just Malachi’s story.)

Steroids and cortisone creams had helped clear his skin somewhat when we tried those in the very beginning, but since those were only meant to treat the symptoms, as soon as he stopped using them, his skin broke out again. Once we had an understanding about the toxins trying to rid themselves from his body, it scared us to use the steroids and cortisone creams. Beyond other long term side effects that can result in him using steroids and cortisone creams, the thought of the toxins being suppressed in his little body gave us cause for many other more serious fears.

Over the past six years, we’ve tried a variety of natural methods to cleanse his system. Some of them were effective for a time, but did not clear him up completely. (You can read here about several things we’ve done that did make a difference – at least it kept the eczema from becoming worse!)

You may remember that we tried a gluten free diet last spring. You can read the details here, but long story short, it didn’t help even a little bit. We considered taking him off dairy, off eggs, off night shade veggies, off whatever it took to help him feel better. Thankfully, in the meantime, we heard about a biochemist in Wisconsin who sounded like a promising option. We’d heard great testimonies about how she’d helped others, not only with eczema but with all sorts of health issues.

We decided to make the investment. It wasn’t cheap (although it was very reasonable for the services offered). It was hard work. We had to carefully watch what Malachi ate and be diligent about giving him supplements. One of the simple but most important things – we had to make sure he was drinking plenty of water to flush out his system while the supplements, digestive enzymes and cleansing products went to work.

It was not an easy fix. It was not without frustration. Malachi did not become better overnight.

But after a long summer of dedicated time spent on this, he is now only taking minimal supplements and is back to eating almost all of the regular healthy, whole foods we feed our family. Now that we are at this point, it is very apparent that when he drinks his needed quota of water each day, he feels much better.

Praise be to God, our boy is making his way toward good health! The relief and gratitude we feel can not be put into words.

Look at that sweet, clear baby skin. I can’t help but kiss him frequently. Even during math lessons.
(And in case you’re wondering, he’s eating a vanilla pudding pop.)

I have to say that I’ve been hesitant to share too much about this on my blog. I WANT all of you to know about this amazing treatment option. There is hope and there is healing for eczema, allergies, behavior issues – many health concerns. A big part of me has wanted to shout this from the roof-tops – CALL THIS LADY! SHE CAN HELP YOU!!!! But there are many of you and I don’t want to overwhelm her with emails and phone calls. She has a heart of gold and a desire to help as many as she can, but she is also a human being with limits. So, I share hesitantly. ;)  Except for WOW I’M SO THANKFUL – that part I’m not hesitant about! You’ve all been so supportive and caring while we’ve walked this journey with Malachi. You deserve to have an update on his progress.

Thank you all so much for cheering for us and for caring about our boy. God is always, always, always faithful.

UPDATE:

We were initially helped by a Biochemist, named Su. I don’t know if Su still practices or not as I haven’t been in touch with her in several years and we’ve since found a local natural doctor that helped us even more! But here’s her contact information: [email protected] . Also, you can check out her new website here: http://www.promiseoutreach.org/

Either way, I encourage you to search for a natural doctor in your area who will help you get to the root of the problem. We sure appreciate our doctor who treated our son’s problem instead of his symptoms!

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The Joy of Boys

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The following is an article I wrote for our local paper a couple of years ago, but never actually posted here. I’m often asked if I regret not having daughters. Though my life is void of pink hair bows, sweet dresses, paper dolls and braids (all things I dreamed of enjoying with my little girls before God gave me this passel of boys), I can answer truthfully that I do not for a minute doubt that God knew exactly what he was doing when he continued to bless us with boys. My life is full of joy – The Joy of Boys…

The Joy of Boys

When our first baby was born a boy, I was very happy knowing that any other children we would have in the future would be under the protection of an older brother. When our second baby was born a boy, I was glad our oldest son now had a brother to play with. When our third baby was born a boy, I decided that God must have something special in mind for our family. THREE boys?

When I was pregnant with our fourth baby, you can just guess what everyone around me was saying. “Finally going to have a sister for all those boys?” or “I bet you’re sure hoping for a girl this time!”

When our fourth baby was born a boy, they laid him on my chest, and all my husband and I could do was laugh for joy that God had given us yet another son!

Boys are so sweet. Boys love their Mamas like crazy. Boys think their Daddys are the best. Boys….ah boys. Boys bring such joy.

The Joy of Boys

I love how boys play (now that I’m used to it!). Our house is usually noisy, rough and fast – there’s not a lot of tip-toeing or sitting down quietly to color pictures at the table.

Generally…I find that the male greeting (between my boys and all of their friends who come over to play) has little to do with words and a lot to do with grabbing onto and pulling one another down to the floor into an immediate wrestling match.

I’ve learned to look the other way, smile, and shake my head about so many things that I used to fear would turn into a trip to the Emergency Room. Boys play rough – they can’t help it. They make noise. It oozes out of their pores. Rolls of wrapping paper become swords or light sabers. Toast and grilled cheese sandwiches are chewed into the shape of little guns. Math books become drums. Little pink erasers become race cars.

Everything (everything) becomes a competition:  who can finish their milk first, who can put their jammies on the fastest, who can get from the kitchen to the living room without touching the floor.

It’s one big, loud, ball game at our house all day long – and I wouldn’t trade it for all tea parties in Boston.

I consider it a huge honor to be the mama of boys. Boys who we pray will grow up and be Godly leaders some day. Boys who we pray will be Godly husbands and daddys some day.

Oh, and some day, when my boys grow up and get married…I’ll have daughters. I’ll take them shopping and we’ll cook and do hair together.

Until then, I’ll just continue to feed mountains of mashed potatoes and huge stacks of pancakes to all these boys while they make all the noises with their armpits that they are so good at making and while they laugh at all the things boys can’t help but think are funny.

They are…boys.

Boys who have completely and totally won my heart.

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Kitchen Chore Chart – Free Download!

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Well, I didn’t really know he was going to do this, but I thought it was awfully sweet that while I took the boys on a field trip last week, my husband Matt (did all the breakfast clean up and) wrote a guest post explaining our “Kitchen System“. The system was his idea after all, and it’s been working beautifully. So many of you asked about this system after I wrote about it last week…so here you go! Once it’s springtime again, I think I need Matt to write a guest post about how to build a raised garden bed, what do you think?

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My Heavenly Homemaker had too much of the cleaning responsibility in our kitchen falling on her. And I think she felt like the kitchen was falling on her sometimes. We have children ages 5 (he’ll tell you five and three quarters) through 13 right now. They should be doing more. Rarely will a child just magically hop in and do more. If you are blessed with one of those who jumps in and works hard, it is due to your parenting. BRAVO! If they need some help in this area, then likewise, it is up to your parenting. Laura and I recognized that our boys needed guidance in this area so we came up with a Kitchen Chore Chart aka The System. 

We spend a lot of time in the kitchen, making many messes and monumental masterpieces there, but Mom was usually stuck with the aftermath. Notice I said “was.” We’ve moved from (after)math to music (to her ears). In our effort to conduct our family as an orchestra playing a work of art we are becoming more organized. Below is our plan for kitchen chores plus some other cleaning that we felt was being overlooked or needed to be systematized. Click on the link below to download:

Kitchen Chore Chart

Remake or tweak the chart to fit your context. Then FOLLOW THROUGH. Be the parent. I know this audience is overwhelmingly Moms, but Dads, get on board with the plan. Yes, literally mark your name/initials on the chart and work alongside your family. I have had fun and I have been firm also. You reap what you sow. So sow seeds that will reap dividends better than so-so. (I couldn’t resist.)

A few notes:

1) In the early, training days of implementation it will probably take you and the team longer to complete the tasks than if you just did it yourself, but after proper training, it will pay off.

2) We are rotating the duties every meal and changing the lineup a bit daily in hopes that it won’t get old and because each day is different.

3) Obviously, older kids can do some chores that younger ones aren’t capable of yet, but don’t forget to graduate the younger ones onto higher expectations. Right now our chart separates “Put away leftovers” from “Clear table/buffet” so that our youngest has a couple of different chores he can do or team up with someone else to do. In a year we’ll probably combine the two.

4) Ideally, the chart is updated for the following day at the end of the day so you aren’t scrambling, confused or arguing the next morning. Hmmm, does that sound like we have had that experience?

Field trip this morning that Mom and the boys went on,
so breakfast was a little out of the norm on this chart.

Many hands, even mini-hands, make light work…when trained and organized.
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Laura here…I will state again what Matt said in this post:  Download the Kitchen Chore Chart we’ve come up with to get an idea of what works for us, but be sure to revamp it to meet your needs! And just in case you were wondering, “Mo” stands for Mom and “Ma” stands for Malachi. And “D” stands for Dad because we couldn’t have another “Ma” that stood for Matt. Wow, this system is really complicated, huh? Okay, no, not really.

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Family Vacation, Part 4 (finally!)

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If you’re curious, you can see pics of our Family Vacation Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3!

Did you think I would EVER show you the pictures we took of our kids at the beach? Or did you forget about it all together? I’m just a tad bit behind, that’s all.

In fact, I feel so far behind on all the posts that I want to write and recipes and ideas I want to share I’m not sure I’ll ever catch up. Hopefully you’ll be patient with me and keep coming back each day to see if I’ve posted something new in the Simple Steps Toward Healthy Eating series and the Becoming a Better Help Meet series. Or to see if maybe I’ve finally posted a new High Five Recipe…or maybe a new recipe for Healthy Celebrations. Or to see if I’ve finally answered the questions you’ve sent me via email. Or the questions you’ve left in the comments section. I really haven’t forgotten about all of those things. I just have a very long list. At least I’ll never run out of material!! Thank you all so much for being patient with me!

Anyhoo…here are the final pictures of our trip to Michigan in July. 

Our boys (with the exception of our oldest) had never been to a beach (ah, but they’ve seen their fair share of corn fields, yes they have). We really wanted to be sure and carve out some time to take them to Lake Michigan on our way home. We didn’t have tons of time and since we were traveling, we didn’t put the boys in swim gear. We just found a good (free) beach location and stopped for a little while to play in the water. 

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I can’t even tell you how perfect the weather was that day, or how perfect the water felt, or how much fun our boys had just standing in the water and jumping small waves.

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I don’t think I stopped smiling and laughing at the kids the entire time we were there. The younger boys seriously squealed (in that manly way boys squeal of course) for an entire half hour. I’m sure the folks around us who are used to being around that much water thought we all must be loony. Yeah well…we’re used to corn fields, remember?

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Asa found some really cool rocks. And oh yeah…Malachi insists on wearing jeans almost daily. Even when it’s a hundred and fifty degrees outside. Today was no exception. I rolled his  pant legs up, but…

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I think they started weighing him down a little bit.

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Here we all are taking an awesome boat ride in Lake Michigan. Just kidding. Here someone else is taking an awesome boat ride in Lake Michigan. We just watched and took a picture.

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And here’s a house Matt found for sale along the beach. We’re thinking of buying it. You know, because it’s totally within our budget to buy beach property in Michigan. 

Yeah, just kidding. As nice as it was to be at the beach, I’m afraid if we moved we’d miss the corn fields too much.

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Aa is for Apple Pie

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Malachi, our kindergartner, is working through parts of Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve this year. We began this week with the letter Aa and I couldn’t resist taking pictures to share. 

Monday morning we all sat around the table brainstorming about people we knew whose name began with the letter Aa…then we talked about what we might like to do for the family we chose. I loved that even our older boys were having fun brainstorming with us.

It was decided that we would make an apple pie for the A_________ family. (Yes, we realize the apple pie recipe isn’t mentioned in the kit, but the point of doing these acts of service is brainstorming as a family and figuring out together what you’d like to do!)

And so, this morning while the big boys were working on math and handwriting, Malachi and I worked together to make a big apple pie. He especially loved cutting little tiny apples out of the pie crust and arranging them (throwing them haphazardly) on top of the pie. It’s pretty rare that Malachi gets alone time with Mommy these days now that school is in full force and the bigger boys’ work is more intense. It was a pretty sweet half hour. :)

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I thought his pie turned out SO cute!!

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Tonight after dinner we all loaded up so that Malachi could make his special delivery. 

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It was a sweet moment. Malachi was so proud.

(I was pretty excited that the pie made it all the way to the door without being dropped. Not that I was worried.)

Now we’re already thinking of what we’ll do for Bb week…hmmm…..

(By the way, you can see a sample of what Lesson Bb looks like here.)

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One Pig, One Puppy, One Goat…and a Cowboy?

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I’m not sure if you sensed all my stress with coming up with costumes for my four boys for The Three Little Pigs musical they were in last week. (The people living near me did!)  I felt absolutely confident about planning for all of the refreshment for after the musical…and absolutely NOT confident about creating costumes for a musical. Thankfully, we had an awesome director and I had some awesome friends who helped me out. 

All of the characters were a different kind of animal. All the kids (except for the three little pigs and the very adorable big bad wolf) were able to chose which animal they wanted to be.

Elias decided to be a doggy. My friend Kim enlisted the help of her mom on this one. 

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It seems that she took a fuzzy gray zip up jacket with a hood…cut the arms to fit and created some ears. Then, we just put him in black pants and black gloves. Ooh, and we used some black sticky felt for spots. Ta-da! We have a doggy.

Look out, now he looks hungry! (What’s new?)

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Asa chose to be a goat, which was such a fun choice for an almost 13 year old! He was the fella who sold bricks to the third little pig.

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We put him in old farmer clothes and found some junky suspenders at Goodwill. The director added horns to an old hat and created a goat-ee out of yarn. He was a hoot!

Justus was the third little pig. He was to play the “smart pig” who kept a notebook and pencil in his pocket so that he could stay organized. :)

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In order to look the part of the smart, sophisticated pig…Justus wore dress pants, a dress shirt and suspenders. His director made his ears out of the corners of an old pillowcase. Adorable!

Oh, and take a look at the tail the director made…

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Not to be outdone…even though he decided he just didn’t want to be in the performance this year…Malachi dressed for the occasion in his usual cowboy garb. After all, you never know when it might come in handy to have a cowboy around when a big bad wolf comes to blow down your house.

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You’ve gotta love a cowboy in a soccer shirt.

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And here they are all together. Yep, they’re characters alright!

Once the costumes all came together, I had to wonder why I was so worried. Everything always comes together when people work together!

It’s a concept I would do well to remember…

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What We Did To Help Our Son’s Eczema – Without Drugs

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If you’ve had a child suffer from eczema, even a mild case, it can be incredibly frustrating to helplessly watch them suffer. Today I’m happy to share what we did to help our son’s ezcema. His case was a chronic one. :(

What We Did To Help Our Son's Eczema - Without Drugs

Our youngest son developed severe eczema when he was just two months old. We allowed one round of an oral steroid and half a tube of cortisone cream before learning that his condition was chronic and the drugs, if they were to get rid of the eczema symptoms, would be a permanent part of his life. So would be the terrible side effects of the drugs if we continued to give them to him.

So we chose to stop. We refused to give these life altering drugs to our baby. Eczema has been a part of his life for ten years now. Thankfully, we’ve found some answers and help.

We were learning more about nutrition, drugs, whole body health at that time. Through MUCH trial, error and prayer…we found a few things that helped him. There was NO quick fix because it has been a matter of healing his body from the inside out. Some of the things we did helped immediately (like changing detergents and soaps), but overall healing is STILL taking place five years later. I wish I could tell you otherwise.

I want to share these ideas with you…not because I’m just SURE they’ll help your child. Every child and every eczema case is different. Plus, I’m not a doctor…I’m just a mama.

What We Did To Help Our Son’s Eczema – Without Drugs

Remember, we learned that eczema is not merely a skin issue…there’s much more to it than that. But, here are the best changes we’ve made and the best products we’ve found to help our son Malachi with his eczema symptoms:

  1. We began eating organic, natural and unprocessed whole foods. You’ll read more about all of this (all over my site), specifically in my Journey to Healthy Eating series. We specifically kept Malachi away from grains and sugar for quite a while to help his immune system and to help with his digestion.
  2. We found this fragrance and dye free laundry detergent from Shaklee to be the best and only one that would not make his rash worse. Many people have suggested that we make our own detergent, but I have yet to see a homemade detergent without borax as an ingredient, and I’m not convinced that borax is okay for our skin.
  3. We use only pure coconut soap from Tropical Traditions.
  4. Lotion in general just doesn’t offer much comfort for Malachi’s dry itchy skin. After each bath we rub him down with BeeSilk Lotion Bar from MadeOn. BeeSilk Lotion Bar is made from three completely pure and natural ingredients. We fully trust this product. Straight coconut oil can also be helpful.
  5. We started supplementing him with Black Current Seed Oil that we got from our chiropractor. Malachi takes it orally, plus we open up a tab and rub the oil onto his worst sores. This has been a HUGE help for his overall healing (digestive system healing) and I’ll talk more about it in my Journey to Healthy Eating series.
  6. Speaking of chiropractors, we try to take Malachi in for regular chiropractic adjustments. If his body is in alignment, he does better. Plus, our chiropractor focuses on nutrition, allergies, and needed supplements.
  7. We limit the baths. The water seems to dry his skin more, so once or twice a week is his limit. Faithfully after a bath, we slather him with BeeSilk Lotion Bar. (Edited to note…we’re now experimenting with bathe him daily, let him have a good long soak, then immediately rub BeeSilk Lotion Bar on his skin. This seems to offer him quite a bit of itchy relief.)BeeSilk MadeOn Hard Lotion
  8. He wears mostly 100% cotton clothing so his skin can “breathe” better.
  9. We clean the house either with good old fashioned water and vinegar…or Basic H from Shaklee. We have NO toxic cleaners in our house anymore. Read here about all of the soaps and cleaners we use.
  10. Allergy testing…and desensitizing. Our chiropractor tested Malachi, then one by one he desensitized him for any allergies that he was showing a sign of. We were surprised that as he got older, different allergies showed up that hadn’t when he was tiny. It never hurts to try again. (P.S. The desensitizing process is super simple and painless…just a little different if you’re used to conventional methods of doctoring. Here’s a link my chiropractor directed me to, explaining more about this process. Not that I completely understand it. But it did help Malachi quite a bit.)
  11. I can’t say enough about this one:  SUNSHINE. We completely avoid sunscreen because it makes Malachi break out terribly. However, the sunshine makes his rash SO much better. Summer is our favorite time of the year. He always feels so much better in the summer when he’s in the sun. We just make sure he’s in the sun long enough to grab some good vitamin D…but not long enough to get a sunburn. We call it the “in the sun…out of the sun…in the sun…out of the sun…” method.
  12. Our natural doctor helps keeps his liver and kidneys functioning properly so that toxins will be taken out of his body the way they are supposed to, instead of coming out through his skin. Find a natural doctor close to you who looks at the cause of the problem, not just the symptoms!! We could not have helped solve this chronic condition without professional help.
  13. Prayer, prayer, prayer. God is the ultimate healer and we are so thankful to know that He loves Malachi even more than we do.

Ultimately, we have found that eczema or not…using high quality products in our home for cleaning and eating high quality unprocessed foods is best for all of us! We are so thankful for the changes we’ve made for our family…and for the relief Malachi has found as well!

Now that Malachi is older, his eczema is much better. The worst area is on his legs, and we’re hoping that once the sun starts shining a little more regularly again and he can be out in it…his legs will clear up more. His cheeks are now SO SOFT that I CAN’T stop kissing them. And he just lets me…great little accommodating guy that he is.

If you know of any other great, natural remedies for eczema, please leave a comment letting us know. I’d love for this post and all the comments to be a great resource for parents looking for answers!

P.S. If you’re interested in trying any of the products from Tropical Traditions I mentioned in this post, click here to read about how you can receive a free book from TT about the great benefits of coconut oil. I also highly recommend that you look into  BeeSilk Lotion Bar from MadeOn. It truly is a wonderful product and I am so thankful to have access to it!

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Snuggle Time with Kingdom Parables

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If I can brace myself for the stinky socks hiding under the beds and thirty-second-toot-tag…

(Explanation:  One boy toots and approximately thirty seconds later another one feels as though he’s been “tagged” to toot…and then thirty seconds later…yeah you get it. Four boys, remember? And NO I’m not feeding them sugar free ice cream.  Far from it.)

Anyway, if I can get over the hidden stinky socks and thirty-second-toot-tag…I love getting my boys all snuggled into their blankets at night and reading a chapter of our latest read-aloud book.

They love it. They beg for it. They actually hurry up and get their teeth brushed so that we’ll have time for it.

One of our favorite books…one that they ask for over and over…is this one:

kingdomparables

Kingdom Parables was a gift from a grandparent a few years ago and the boys just LOVE it. The author re-wrote several different parables of Jesus using animals as characters and understandable situations that kids can relate to. Then, the actual Biblical account is written at the end of each “story” so kids and parents can discuss the “real version”…and so that we can talk about how to apply Jesus’ teaching to our lives.

I love this book…and wanted to let you know about it in case you’ve never seen it before. Kingdom Parables…check it out. 

The beauty of this book and it’s stories overshadows the effect of Thirty-Second-Toot-Tag. That’s why I keep going back for more. That and the fact that even though my boys’ room smells like a boys’ room…there’s nothing much better than our nightly snuggle time.

So, what are your favorite read-aloud books?
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This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday.

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