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Showing posts from 2016

Real Food Reboot

Hey All, I've been M.I.A. in more ways than one. Life is incredibly different and very hard these days. I'm reaching out to resources and reading some books to help but truth be told I'm reeling since the loss of my mom and so are my kids. I'm showing many signs of being depressed and have started taking fish oil in hopes that it can help. I will be starting another supplement but that is a story for another post someday. I went back in forth in my mind about writing about this but decided that this time of life is a part of my story and if me being open and honest (when I can be) about this awful time of life and maybe someone stumbles on my blog in a similar situation they can know at the very least that they are not alone with their struggles and that is worth it to me. I may share more in depth about that in another post but at this time I just want to talk about food. I've read recently that sugar and processed foods can contribute to depression. Prior t

Loss

Hey All. You probably haven't wondered where I am because, a. I'm terrible at blogging and b. I'm guessing you're my Facebook friend and you know my mom died. My mom is gone. I've lost my mom. My best friend is no longer on this earth where I can talk to her. I'm at a loss. It hurts so deeply most days it consumes my thoughts. I've been honest with others who have told me what I'm experiencing is normal. I feel like I'm in a fog. I feel like I'm just going through the motions and not truly living life. I'm told that this feeling will pass and someday I'll be able to live this life again instead of just existing. I look forward to that day because though this is necessary and good to grieve it's crazy painful and I fear what being this emotionally "automatic" could do to my sweet children who have been through so much. I hope to get back to blogging, I was doing so well before my mom and moving. I hope to get back to

Blog Thoughts

So, I have this desire to have a blog schedule and while I can do some of the days I set out to do most of them I am unable to do right now. We are moving in 10 days. I am a part time caregiver for my mom. I have a VERY fussy baby and a 4 year old and a 2 year old. I so desire to maintain the schedule but because of my life circumstances I am unable to. I need to be able (in my mind) to blog about things that are more in my daily life instead of something I have to plan and do. Such as read some book then share or put a craft together for the kids and share. I'm busy packing. So for the foreseeable future you may only see blog posts about packing, real food, my sugar journey, my kids and other aspects of my life. So if you have stuck around. Thanks. We'll see what comes around in the coming days. Goodnight.

Faith

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Tonight, I have a heavy post to share and a plea for anyone who reads this to pray. I recently shared that we lost my mother in law. She lost her 4 year battle with ovarian cancer. You are probably aware that my 4 year old daughter is almost done with her treatment of leukemia. What you may not be aware of is my mom. 7 years ago, two months before our wedding my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has continued her fight for the past 7 years. She did have surgery to remove the tumor from her breast but since then has felt convicted to treat her cancer naturally. As far as she knew her cancer was under control naturally for quite some time. Nearly two years ago, she began having awful back pain. Months later and some tests after a hospital admission and her cancer was not only back but it had spread to her bones. We prayed and plunged into Jesus. God has revealed to my mom and to multiple people around her that he will heal her. I've always stood on this and will continue to

Crafty Friday

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Photo courtesy of http://www.smalldreamfactory.com/2011/07/free-pattern-short-sleeve-shirt-size-12.html. This website has a tutorial for making a collared shirt for a little boy. My desire to is give my Lightning McQueen loving little 2 year old a collared church shirt that is of this favorite toy. This is the tutorial I plan to use. I may not be able to work on it until after we move but it is a desire of mine and I will share it on the blog when I begin working on it. If you find these posts boring, feel free to skip it. I think creative Wednesday and Crafty Friday will be future coming plans. Mostly because with moving a baby that continues to be fussy I just haven't gotten back into a groove with my crafts. It is my escape and I will return I just can't quite yet. So I hope you stay tuned for when I will be able to do more with these two days. I'm excited about blogging about this and hope to share about it soon.

Sugar Journey

I thought I would update about my sugar journey. August 1st I had planned to cut out processed sugar out completely. Surprisingly, I did really well...at first. Sadly, with my mother in law passing away and food being brought to us and then my birthday a week later. I did eat some processed sugar but didn't fall completely off the wagon until this past week when I ran out of my homemade cereal and a fussy babe kept me out of the kitchen more so than not.  So while I'm happy with my progress, I've been bad the past week. I am encouraged that I've only had more sugar because that is all there was in the house. If I had my own naturally sweetened snacks and my homemade granola cereal I would have been fine.  So...for next month I will plan way more easy recipes to make so that I don't run out of healthy or naturally sweetened stuff and then I won't just have sugar as an option. When I'm breastfeeding I'm ravenous. It's not an excuse but truly

Positive Parenting Tuesday....no....and others.

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NO! Boy, that one word triggers me on all levels. I feel disrespected. challenged and I fear my kids strong will and that I'm failing as a parent. Hadn't really occurred to me to try to get at whatever is under the No. Again, I have been referring back to Lori Petro of Teach Through Love, and I'm finally getting better at taking her advice and when I feel challenged and frustrated at my kids I just take a breath. Honestly, being consistent with this has helped me a lot the past couple of days. Unfortunately, normally, my impatience leads me to yelling or saying words I fear are shaming my children. Choosing to take a breath and respond instead of just react has helped me immensely. Just today the kids were frustrating me quite a bit and many times instead of saying "why can't you guys just leave each other alone and not fight." I'm finding myself saying, "I saw you hit your brother, you must have been very angry can you tell me more?" There

Creative Play Wednesday

It's creative play Wednesday! Mostly daily and sometimes weekly my kiddos play with play doh or gak. I'm trying to grow in this area but truly, I have a very fussy 2 month old baby so right now it's mostly in the planning phase. Some first thoughts are homemade play dough. I've found a recipe and plan to try it soon and (GULP) let the kids help in the kitchen. I recently liked a page on Facebook called 5 minute crafts and I've been bookmarking some favorites to work with the kids. I'd like to do more crafts with them. I have more plans but for now it's 11:30, Henry is finally sleeping and I need to head that way too.

Working on my Marriage Monday

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It's marriage Monday! I continue reading the Introvert advantage. I have a fussy baby and two other kids that need me so I've only read three chapters since last week but I'm calling that progress. I'm reading this book as an E-book because I needed to get reading it faster than Amazon could get it to us. The above highlights are things that this book has taught me so far. The first one says introverts don't talk for talks sake. When they speak it's important. This was a realization for me because after reading this I'm making a conscious decision to listen when hubby talks because it's important. He doesn't just talk to talk like I do. I was surprised to learn meaty conversation nourishes and energizes an introvert. I will try to implement this in my communication with my hubby. The last thing that stuck out to me was that when external stimulation becomes too much they just shut down. This is helpful for all the times I feel neglected or that

Friday Post on Monday

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Fridays are my crafts or works in progress Fridays. Friday morning my mother in law went up to be with the Lord. She lost her 4 year battle of ovarian cancer. We're deeply saddened and will miss her greatly. Needless to say it's been a really rough week, actually, a rough month. I'm choosing joy that she is no longer in pain and that she is rejoicing with our Savior. Back to my projects. I started this little guy a couple weeks before Henry was born. These pretty colors will be Piglet...someday. My next project that I can't wait to try is this one, isn't it cute?  Goal is to have several of these made. I have a secret desire to be able to make some crochet fun and be able to sell it. Maybe these could be cute little thanksgiving decorations! Any who, that's it for this post. Now for the next, ha.

Work On Me Thursday

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Working on me, boy this could be a loaded entry. I think I've mentioned in previous posts that I have been in counseling for 3 years off and on. What sent me there to begin with was a realization that I had no self worth. Further investigation into my self worth issues revealed that I battle heavily with shame. I essentially function out of shame. I've been working hard in this area and have made major progress. However; thanks to marriage counseling I'm more aware now that I have even more shame to work on. I feel heavy shame in relation to my husband and our marriage. If you've read my gentle parenting post then you know I'm been following Lori Petro of Teach Through Love. I mention her here because she advises working on your triggers as a parent so you don't pass those things on down to your kids. Well, one of the videos on Teach Through Loves YouTube channel mentioned that children that are raised with punitive consequences will either rebel and the p

Creative Play Wednesday

Last month I went to the homeschool convention. I attended 3 workshops that were conducted by the Home Grown Preschooler. In those workshops I learned about all the different types of play that are good for our children. She discussed many categories, sensory play, imaginative play, domestic play and written play. This is so hard for me because my children love to paint and I would love to let them go wild and learn via that kind of play but the mess that they make, oh the mess. Most days I just don't have the umph to let them go crazy with paint and the ensuing clean up. I'm working on it. I'm trying to have something fun for them in that way every day. I can tell my kids are expounding with their imaginative play. They pretend many different times a day with lego people or stuffed animals. Pretending to be the parent and the child and the conversations that go with that. It is beyond cute! One area that I totally cringed at during the workshop was domestic play. My

Tuesday Gentle Parenting Thoughts

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I'm honestly really hopeful about blogging about this subject of gentle parenting. I hope that it will help keep me accountable to my personal goals in this area. As well as bring awareness to someone who comes to this blog via a google search looking for information about positive or gentle parenting. My biggest resource this past week is Lori Petro with Teach Through Love. She has a youtube channel with tips and help on how to implement gentle parenting in every day life. It is really helpful. This is her method for gentle parenting during conflict and something I'm really trying to implement better. I continue to fail daily but I am trying and pray that one day it will be more natural to engage and empathize then it is to yell and threaten. I've read enough articles about the damage of yelling that I know I don't want my kids to experience it from me. I wasn't yelled at growing up so it saddens my heart that I choose yelling in my triggered moments. Lor

Marriage Monday

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Well, as per my new "schedule" it's Monday and I'm focusing on working on my marriage. You may know this you may not but hubby and I are finally in real marriage counseling. Truth be told, we needed this kind of professional help for years but instead went to "mentors" who were free. Not a bad thing but hubby and I need more help than those people can provide. I won't speak for my husband but I know that I was so completely unaware of myself and my feelings and my lack of self worth that I allowed myself to be pushed around and controlled by my husbands strong personality and desires. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how much this was affecting me until around year 3 of our marriage. Since then I've been in counseling and working on myself. It's been a long journey full of peaks and valleys. I've been through major healing through prayer and I've made many improvements. That being said, hubby and I continue to have our issues. Sadl

Life Update and Hopeful Blog Schedule

Well, hey, I'm going to rejoice because I thought I had been close to two months since I last blogged and it's only been three weeks. Ha. Anyhow, life with three kids is very busy. Busy in the morning, afternoon and evening. Especially evening. Our lovely little Henry has for the most part transitioned to a colicky baby instead of fussing all day but frankly, nighttime, is when I get "things" done. So he's put an adorable little crick in my day. Speaking of little Henry, he's 2 months, he's an excellent nurser and not a shabby sleeper when he's not fussing. Out of three kids he's definitely a baby with high needs and it's hard and requires extra grace and God is extending to me that extra grace so I have it to give to Henry. I continue to remind myself that he's only this little once and that I should try  to enjoy him even when he's fussing. Maggie and Eli are well too. Maggie has 4.5 more months of leukemia treatment. Having a chi

Positive Parenting Continued...

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One day during a counseling session, I mentioned my bewilderment from my daughters tantrums and outbursts. He recommended a different way to parent a child based off of their brains development. Being a nurse, I was intrigued. I came home and devoured the book he gave me called The Whole Brain Child  by Daniel Siegel.  The book gives scientific evidence of how a child's brain isn't developed enough to understand anything during a tantrum. It states that the part of the brain responsible for reasonable thought 1. isn't developed and 2. Is in fight or flight during a tantrum and cannot hear or understand anything that is being said. The book recommends affirming a child's feeling or frustration that led to the tantrum. I was skeptical about this but I tried it and what do you know it works.  Something that was helpful for me to understand is that kids are people just like me. They have feelings and they desire to be heard and validated in those feelings. As a p

My Parenting Conviction=Positive Parenting

So, I've been thinking about this post for a few weeks now. Our little Henry is super fussy and I'm amazed at how a fussy babe can just eat up an entire day and before you realize it, it's three weeks since you blogged. This post will be long and detailed and I believe will need to take place in multiple entries,we'll see. My decision to seek a more gentle and grace based parenting style came after my first revelation of grace through books like TrueFaced with John Lynch and  Grace Walk by Steve McVey. I knew I wanted to do something different than what I had experienced in my own life and what I believe is the commonly accepted and promoted Christian style of parenting, my husbands preference, authoritative. I didn't understand how to do this but I knew I wanted to do something different. I started with Loving Our Kids On Purpose by Danny Silk. It helped to understand some of the concrete day to day ways to implement natural consequences and to put your relation

Sugar!

Unfortunately, I'm like the rest of America and I'm addicted to sugar! My body craves it! It's so sad. It's something I desperately want to change. Again, unfortunately, with all of the stress in my life, my daughters cancer, my mothers cancer, my mother in law's cancer and a very challenging season in my marriage. Chocolate has been my coping mechanism and it has been for a very long time. This will not be an easy thing in my life to change but I'm hoping I can. I will be realistic about it though. I do believe that if I try to get rid of all sugar in every form I will fail miserably and rebel. So, my game plan is to wean myself off refined sugar. I hope to substitute my organic cane sugar for coconut palm sugar, dates, figs, honey and maple syrup and hopefully, eventually, stevia(I'm not there yet). Stay tuned for how this goes, should be very interesting!

My Journey to Real Food

Hey! Look! A blog post when I said I would. It's a miracle! Ha! My journey with real food started shortly before our daughters diagnosis. I was interested in it and very curious about monsanto and simply reading the back of boxes to see what the ingredients were. Once I started to learn what monsanto was and how deep they were in most major corporations and I began reading the ingredients, I was appalled at what I found. Then our daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. In no uncertain way, my life was shattered. It took me a while to pick up the pieces and realize that though I didn't cause her cancer, I wasn't helping matters with all the processed foods we were eating. Thus spurred my desire to learn more and to do better now that I understood more. My quest led me to traditional cooking school with Wardee. I learned a ton about soaking and sprouting. I'm not sure why but I glazed over when they would talk about anti-nutrients. Truthfully, in recent months that ha

My Why

So..Drum roll please....I want to reboot this blog. I really have to make it a priority even more so now with three littles. I know that writing is good for me. I know it is a sort of outlet for me that I need ever so badly. I also think if I need to keep up with this blog it will help me be accountable too. I have some goals I'm wanting to achieve and believe that needing to keep up with this little blog will help me do that. The topics that I hope to share with you and thus make me accountable are my real food journey, my sugar addiction and my desire and implementation of positive parenting with my kids. Over the next three days I will make a separate blog post of these three things and why I'd like to blog about it and hopefully make myself accountable. Don't hold your breath but I hope to surprise you! Enough for now, goodnight.

Kids Update

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I realize if you follow this blog you have no idea what's going on with our kiddos so here is a little update.... Kid # 1 Maggie girl Ah, my wonderful and challenging 4 year old. That's right Maggie girl is 4! She just celebrated a birthday in January! Maggie continues her treatment for leukemia. She is doing as well as can be expected. I give her chemo every night with her medications and once a month we go to the clinic and she gets IV chemo as well. Her hair has finally begun to really grow and she's so excited that she can have ponies now!  She continues to like puzzles and games. Coloring is hit or miss. Both the kids love play doh and gak. Though due to the mess Mommy doesn't always allow them to play with them. We had a little scare last weekend, she awoke with a fever of 102.5. So off to the closest hospital for her care her and daddy went. Praise God all her blood cultures came back negative but she was positive for RSV and they believe that is w

Some Truths

Hello all, Ah, yes, I'm still alive and pregnant. My personal life has been emotionally exhausting lately and with being pregnant, nauseous and very busy with our two littles there has been little motivation to update this poor little blog. No excuse, I love blogging I'm just absolutely terrible about being consistent. I have plans and they always fall through so I will not be making any promises this time. But I have something to blog about so here it is.  I've quietly continued my real food journey, it has been hit or miss with being so nauseous and unable to meal plan for the past five months but my research has continued.  In my research I have found some truths and I find myself feeling angry at the lies that are perpetuated about our food and what's done to it before we eat it. Truthfully when I make my family bread, I've started soaking the grains because I knew it was good but had no idea why. I'm baffled by the fact that grains, beans an