To Live is to Learn

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.

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...

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.

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...

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...

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.

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...