Ultimate Blog Party '11

If you are visiting from the Ultimate Blog Party, WELCOME!! I'm Dawn aka cookfromscratch on most websites that I visit. 

I have been blogging since before blogging was blogging. :) I started my first webpage back in 2001 when we moved from north GA to south FL to keep our friends and family up-to-date on the goings on with our firstborn, Music Man. I wrote my all code back then since blogging was not born yet but eventually landed on Blogger in '07. My archives are still on my hard drive and may eventually be reformatted to my blog but I haven't gotten around to do it yet. :) 

Now I blog about simple living, special needs, chemical free eating and traditional foods cooking, and homeschooling. I was blessed this year to be on the 2010-2011 Homeschool Review Crew for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

I am a Christian homeschooling mom from Georgia. Married to my college sweetheart since 1997. I LOVE to cook. I LOVE photography and you will often find me hiding behind a camera. I LOVE my family and I LOVE living in the country.

Let me introduce you to my boys. They keep me busy! Music Man is my oldest. He always has a smile on his face (as long as he isn't hungry or tired!) and loves anything to do with music and dancing. Music Man has what is called FG Syndrome, a rare chromosomal disorder characterized by heart defects, low muscle tone and developmental delay. He also has ADHD which we combat with diet. We started on the Feingold Program in 2006 and never looked back. Now we stay away from almost all processed foods and eat even healthier! You may have heard about the recent FDA hearings on artificial flavors and colors in foods. It is a huge passion of mine to get the word out on the junk in the foods we eat. But I digress. :) 

Our middle son, Samuel, died at birth due to multiple congenial abnormalities including FG Syndrome and possibly ARPKD (Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease). I created a non-profit organization, Remembering Your Baby, in his memory to help other parents who lose a baby at birth. Remembering Your Baby has taken a backseat lately due to homeschooling. The mission is to provide support to other bereaved parents and give them something tangible to remember their babies by. But the organization has to be put on hold so I may focus on my boys for now. I would love to find some volunteers who have a heart for it and the time to put into developing the organization further.

Our youngest, Farm Boy, is totally typical and all boy! He loves living in the country, all living creatures -especially those that live outside and brings a great deal of energy to our family. He began taekwondo last January at the Athens Taekwondo Center and just earned his Purple Belt.

We live in the country in a farmhouse that belongs to my husband's grandparents. Years ago it was a dairy farm but now houses beef cattle. There are goats on the other side of us (currently with four sets of twins!!) They are so much fun to watch!

My husband is currently in grad school finishing his MDiv in Military Chaplaincy. He has about two more years and then plans to GO NAVY! We have been in ministry since before we were married and look forward to this new chapter in our lives! 

In my spare time (ha ha) I have been working on a new blog template - teaching myself the ins and outs of web design again, this time on a blog. It's a whole new ballgame than it was when I started on Geocities with HTML so many years ago. 

So that's enough about me. Take a look around. I'm so glad you stopped by!

New Look for the Blog

I found a cool site for free Blogger Templates, and have been playing around with this particular one. Let me know what you think.