I Posted on INFO for Families (yesterday)

If you have never read Info for Families blog please go and look around. Barrett has some extremely helpful and relevant information on there. I had the opportunity to guest post with an article called Parenting with Grace. Barrett has been the young marrieds minister at our church for the past five years. It has been such a blessing getting to know Barrett and his amazing family. They have such a heart for Jesus and to spread the love of Jesus to everyone. I am honored to take part in a guest post on his blog. I hope you enjoy it!

In Jesus Name, Bye!

Our kids have come to love praying. Something that used to be new and a little awkward for our family has recently become like second nature and we are all pretty comfortable with it. I try to have prayer time with the kids once a day in the mornings. I also try to pray with them throughout the day as situations come up. Then, of course, there is mealtime and bedtime prayers. I thank God that we have started to have so much prayer in our house because we didn't used to. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of prayer and am so glad that it has become a larger part of our lives.
Braedon recently wanted to add his little twist on his prayers and of course Kaley followed suit. They have started saying, "In Jesus name, Bye" at the end of a prayer instead of the usual "In Jesus name, amen." I am quite confident that this little detail doesn't really concern God and that He loves to hear children pray no matter how they end it as long as they are praying in Jesus name. I think it is pretty cute that they wanted to make their prayer's unique

Family Time Training

My husband and I had been wanting to implement some type of formal biblical education in our home for quite some time. However, devotions and/or family worship were not modeled for us growing up and we had no idea what it was supposed to look like. We had tried a few different things but nothing felt quite right and engaged the kids at the right level. Then, we had the opportunity to attend a wonderful parenting conference at our church where we learned of Family Time Training. Their mission is to provide families with tools and resources to have family worship time in the home. The worship lessons are designed to engage and impact the children in a fun way so they will learn and retain the knowledge. At the conference, we got to see Kirk Weaver (founder) stand on stage and literally explain step by step how his family does family worship time. He also explained some of the intricacies, such as child's personality/learning style and dos/don'ts for expectations from children. He even showed a video of a family having Family Time. Even though every one's worship time doesn't have to look the same it was such a blessing to see how someone does it and then adapt it to our family's style. We purchased a couple of the preschool workbooks and began right away!

Now, I want to share what our Family Time looks like:
I am responsible for picking out the lessons and gathering everything needed. I also ensure that my husband knows which lesson we are doing that week so he can familiarize himself before the day of. I also plan a simple dinner for the evening of so we can focus on Family Time instead of letting dinner and cleaning bog us down.

The day of, I hype it up to the kids (hey, guess what? we are having family time tonight). When we first started I explained to them exactly what we were going to do. After just a couple of weeks the older two became very familiar with the routine. (Our kids are 4, 2.5, and 9 mos)

We eat dinner and remind the kids it is Family Time night and we all eagerly clean the kitchen and dining room

We play our family's theme song (Brandon Heath, Give Me Your Eyes), which the kids love to dance to. No matter where they are in the house they come running...

After the song we all go sit at the dining room table (we mix it up sometimes too but mostly we are at the dining room table)
***Daddy leads everything from here on out and I just help if I need to***
Daddy prays and sometimes the kids will want to pray too
We talk about what we learned last week
Daddy discusses the lesson and asks questions to engage the kids
Daddy leads the activity allowing the kids to be as hands on as possible
We wrap it up pretty quickly because attention span times are fairly short...

I really believe that the "trick" to this is that in addition to the Family Time sessions, we have to apply those lessons in everyday life. As the week goes on and a situation arises where a lesson can be applied we can say, "hey, remember what we learned at Family Time?" and that immediately opens the door in a positive way and makes the information really come alive.

In a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to make vital connections with our kids, I am so thankful that this is another avenue to make those bonds. We are getting started while they are young but even if your kids are older and you have not started having worship time inside your home, I would encourage you to start. It is never too late and it really doesn't matter what it looks like. I just hope that a glimpse into our worship time gives you some inspiration to start your own!

Glory to God, Forever!

Real Food - Learning and Making Changes

A few weeks ago I had no clue what real food was. I heard and read a lot of buzz about it but really didn't know what to expect when I saw that there were two real food meal plans available for free download. I jumped on it because I had been looking for meal plans and also had heard that real food was healthy. In all honesty when I downloaded the meal plans, I had no clue what to expect. In reviewing them my first thought was, "We already eat a lot of this stuff. So, what is real food?" In further reading, reviewing, and researching I realized that real food can be pretty much any meal. It just means as minimally processed as possible and preferably organic. It involves lots of cooking from scratch or making sure store bought items contain very few ingredients.

I spent some time researching the 100 Days of Real Food website and found so much great information. I like how the rules are spelled out very clearly, even though I did not officially sign up for the 10 day challenge. I also find the 5 ingredient rule to be extrememly helpful when making purchasing choices. Lisa warns against judging the food product based on the front of the package, which is a rule of thumb I already live by on some things. But, she urges you to check the ingredient list on everything. Just in case you didn't know, the first item on the ingredient list is what there is the most of and so on. I didn't know that until about two or three years ago.

As much as I would love to, there is no way we can go 100% real food. I had a friend tell me that she knows someone who is 100% real food and budgets $250/week. That is more than double our ideal grocery store budget for the week. We can increase it a little and I think it is worth it for the benefits of eating healthier. All that being said, we have to be choosy at this point.

Below are the changes or lack of changes we will be making now and why:

1. We will continue to buy conventional milk (at least for now). Organic milk is more than 2 times more expensive. As much milk as we go through we are just not going to be able to swing buying organic milk at this time. Although, I did recently try some farm fresh milk and it was yummy. It didn't taste a whole lot different just definitely more fresh. I read an article that outlined the requirements for each type of farm. It seems that milk production is heavily regulated and this makes me feel a bit more safe about the milk options. I did find that the cheese blocks are not much more expensive so I will buy organic cheeses.
2. We will begin purchasing organic fruits and vegetables unless they are just rediculously more expensive, which I have not found to be the case yet. Since this is the bulk of what we are going to be eating I would like for it to be as healthy as possible. Also, I think they taste much better.
3. If it can be made from scratch (reasonably) I want to learn how and start doing it. This will give me more time in the kitchen with the kids and feed my family meals that are fresh and that we hand prepare.
4. We have already cut all HFCS over a year or so ago. I am going to research other sweeteners and sugars and cut as much as possible.
5. We will start using the 5 ingredient rule and not purchase items with more than 5 ingredients. This is difficult...vegetable chips, triscuits, and homemade granola are the only snack items we are eating now.
6. I want to research what all preservative names are, learn to recognize them in ingredient lists, and avoid as much as possible.
7. We will buy only "whole" type flours, bread, grains etc...
8. If I am torn between buying organic v/s non-organic and the price is not much different I will go ahead and buy organic. If the price difference is substantial I probably will not buy organic until I research it further...
9. So far I have bought organic chicken twice, sausage that had 7 ingredients in it...we just don't eat much meat. I haven't figured out what we are going to do on meat yet...but I do know that we can't afford to buy local meats...at least I don't think so because I haven't looked into it much.

There are a lot more things to think about changing to get closer to a real food lifestyle but honestly I haven't even had time to digest all of the information I have floating around in my head. This is just the beginning of getting it all out.

Disclaimer:
I am not a nutritionist or any other food expert. The information I share here is based solely on my personal research, experience, and opinions. You are the only one who can decide what is healthy or not healthy for you and your family.

Real Food - Series Introduction

Our family has been in need of a major overhaul in our eating habits for quite some time now. I am convicted that I have been using the excuse of not having the time to plan and prepare healthy meals for my family. I do have three small children (4 and under) but time is never the problem...It is always priorities. When I started to think about it, I asked myself why in the world I wouldn't prioritize feeding my family healthy foods. I realized that I have been in "shut down" mode when it comes to meals for a couple of different reasons.

1. How in the world do I really plan healthy meals. It is very difficult to even tell what healthy is these days.
2. The cooking role in our home has been confused because my husband is a chef and he handles all of the food prep.

Right about now most of you are thinking of how blessed and lucky I am because of number 2. I am very blessed and extremely grateful to have a chef for a husband. But, as a wife, mother, and a maker of my home, I feel convicted that I need to handle the meals at home. For so long, I thought I was blessing my husband by not really asking him to cook but just asking him to put whatever together for us for dinner. After being in the kitchen at work all day, there isn't much creative energy left. So, the "whatever" really is sometimes "whatever" and a lot of times fast food. I have so enjoyed not having to worry about dinner for so long but now is the time I need to start worrying about it. And, the bigger blessing to my husband is for him to not have to worry about dinner (at least not at home)!

I considered several different meal plan subscriptions. They just didn't appeal to me very much. Then, I ran across 100 Days of Real Food. I wondered what all the buzz about real food was...then I found out. Here begins our adventure with real food.

This is an introduction to a real food series I will be posting in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for:
-What I have learned about real food and changes I am preparing to or have made
-Theories I have about my family's eating patterns and how I think they will change
-Shopping at a whole foods store
-First week of trying a 100 Days of Real Food meal plan
-My take on Jamabalaya
and quite possibly more...

Disclaimer:
I am not a nutritionist. The information I provide in this series is strictly my personal research, experience, and opinion. You are the best judge of what is or isn't healthy for your family.

Rainbow Rice Party

My neices were over this weekend and we added more colored rice to the easter sensory bin. All of the kids loved playing with it and they took turns pouring rice on each other. At one point, I completely lost control of the situation and all four of them poured rice over my head. We had the silliest time but hopefully made some fun, playful memories for my children and my neices.

Butterfly Release

We purchased caterpillars this year. It was so fun watching them grow and eventually become butterflies. We kept the butterflies inside for a couple of weeks because it was not warm enough outside to let them go. The butterflies mated and then we ended up with more caterpillars. Well actually, we ended up with just one more caterpillar.

We also made a caterpillar craft and colored a picture of a butterfly.



As soon as it was warm enough we were eager to let the butterflies go but then found out my neices were coming over the next day. So, we held it off for one more day because I knew they would really enjoy it too. I am so glad the timing worked out and we got to share it with them.


The butterflies sort of hopped out of the habitat before they actually flew away. It looks like Braedon was trying to grab one of them.

Touch a Truck

This was such a neat (free) event. They had all sorts of trucks:
firetruck
ambulance
excavators
moving trucks
truck shaped like a roller skate
race car
and a lot more that we didn't even get to see

They are setup so the kids can just climb all around on them. It was a beautiful day to be outside and super fun climbing on the trucks.

They also had a bouncy and a blow up slide. I went down with Kaley and Braedon and burned my elbow...ouch! It was worth it even with a ‘boo boo’.



I do have to admit that I thought the kids would be much more excited about seeing excavators up close. They became familiar with them while I was in the hospital and they watched out the window. Ever since then when we drive down the road and see one they yell "excavator" and get all excited. When we saw them up close and personal though they didn't seem too impressed. But, then I thought they would be impressed at the air show too and they weren't. It is weird how they are sometimes so easily impressed and other times so hard to impress.

(Un)Forgetful Friday

-Braedon and I were reading a book called Hurray for Heroes. I asked Braedon if he knew what a hero was and we discussed that a little bit. Then I asked him who the best hero of all is to which he replied, "Jesus." YAY :-)
-We were watching Super Why the other day and Kaley was standing next to the TV. Wyatt asked which word was the word "less" out of three words that were displayed on the screen. Kaley points to the word less and turns to me and says "less."
-I wanted to take our family picture for our Christmas card the other day. I have learned that if I talk about something all day with the kids they will respond better when the event comes up. So, all day I was saying, "When daddy comes home we are going to go stand by the Christmas tree and take pictures." So, when daddy came home, Braedon ran to get his toy camera. He went and stood next to the Christmas tree and started *taking* pictures of us (not standing next to the Christmas tree). I guess I should have rephrased it since kids are so literal. :-) It was pretty funny!
-Braedon and I had the neatest conversation about God the other day. We talked about how God is everywhere. Braedon asked if he was hiding. I got to explain that no he is not hiding. We can't see him but we know he is always there and that is called faith. Thank you God for the sweet opprotunity to share you with my kids!
-Braedon grabs Garrett's hand and shakes it while saying, "nice to meet you Garrett."
-Braedon says, "Garrett's a sweet baby" in a high pitched, super-sweet voice. It is almost the cutest thing ever.

(Un)Forgetful Friday

-The way Kaley looks at her baby brother:


-The way Braedon looks at his baby brother:

-How proud I am of hubby for getting up early enough for a 6 a.m. meeting every Friday morning.
-Braedon wanted to pick up about a dozen crayons and put each one in between his toes to use his feet and put them in the bag.
-Kaley saying "uh huh boo boo" with a spiderman bandaid on her hand...translation "I have a boo boo" in a voice like she really does have a boo boo. Except it is her brother's bandaid that fell off of his boo boo.
-When Braedon's evening preschool teacher at church said to me, "Braedon has quite the imagination. He was trying to use the teeter totter as a catipult."
-Braedon saying "wadgi ga bee dat" unrecognizably fast. At first I thought he was saying "why did you call me that" but then we realized that he was saying "what's it gonna be that" obviously not knowing anything about sentence structure yet.
-Not being able to wait until Sunday to get some Land of a Thousand Hills coffee at the new cafe at our church.
-Kaley saying "mommy" at her bedroom door after she crawled out of her crib for the first time and the shocked look that hubby and I traded.
-When Garrett locks eyes with me and smiles.

Look Who Turned 2

Our precious baby girl turns two today. We celebrated this past Sunday with just our little family and grandparents via phone and webcam. Kaley got a Dora backpack to replace her diaper bag that we have been carrying to church and other activities. She also got a Care Bear (Share) that is bigger than her. If you haven't seen the video of her trying to put a diaper on it you can see it here. I baked a cake (out of the box) and the kids helped me put sprinkles on it. We sang Happy Birthday, ate cake, and opened presents. Then, Kaley wore her backpack around for the rest of the evening.




It was time change Sunday so she was extremely tired and we had a bit of It's My Party and I Will Cry If I Want To.

Love that face...silly girl!

The next day a card from Grandma and Grandpa Snow came and it had stickers in it. Here she is sticking the stickers in her card.

Thank God for Grandparents

We were so blessed to have all three biological grandparents in town during the first month of Garrett's life.
First, my mom was here for three weeks (dad was here for a week of that).

Then, Andrew's mom (aka Mom2) was here for a week.


Then, Andrew's dad was here for almost a week.



The kids were blessed to be able to spend special time with their grandparents and we were tremendously blessed to have extra hands. Grandparents, Thank you for your visit and all your help. We love you!

The Fair

We visited our local state fair a couple of weeks ago. Braedon did not wish to ride any of the rides. Here we are waiting on one to start so he could watch.
So, the highlight of the trip was the blow up slide,



feeding the elephants,


and eating snow cones (wish I would have gotten a pic of that).

Construction

I have a great view of the mountains out my hospital room window (in the distance). See this post of the sunrise to get an idea. But, if you look out only a little all you can see is dirt, gravel and large construction equipment. One would think that this view wouldn't be so nice but it is actually pretty cool, especially for the kids. We have been able to see the big crane moving some things around. Today we watched a backhoe loader load a dump truck with dirt. The other day we watched as a track loader was driven up onto a truck. It had to be driven up the ramp and then the bed of the truck dipped down a little so the equipment would just fit into this lower section of the bed. The edge of the tracks were right on the edge of the bed on both sides so the equipment had to be perfectly driven to be loaded on the truck straight. That was pretty neat to watch. If I could have opened up the window and clapped for the driver I would have because it looked like it took some skills. The construction activity out the window has led to some of the calmer times with the kids in my room since they will be still and watch out the window.

Random & Goofiness at the Hospital

This is a picture of the sun reflecting off of one of the buildings downtown:

Braedon was being totally goofy sitting on daddy's lap the other day. We don't really know what he was doing but he sure was having fun.



Here is Kaley carrying around mommy's purse.

Making the Most of It

I love, love, love the beach and want so badly to go whenever we have the chance. Around this time last year, we took a trip to the beach and besides getting some cute photos and sparse moments of relaxation it was pretty much a horrible experience. I can't even remember too many specifics but I know we ended up arguing and then just packed up and left mad. Apparently, two kids, sunscreen, sand, and two stressed out parents doesn't make a lovely combination for the beach. I was truly disappointed that our trip to the beach wasn't all beautiful and fun and I kept asking myself it's the beach, why can't we just make the most of it instead of getting all stressed out. God revealed to me one word...immaturity. The more I prayed about it the more convinced I was that we were a really immature couple who just was not able to respond well under stressful circumstances. After a few more stressful situations where we responded in a less than desirable manner, I started really asking God to mature us and give us the strength to respond well no matter what the situation is. I want so bad for us to be able to make the most of our time and see the blessing in everything...even a less than desirable situation. Now, from a hospital room where I have spent the last 3 1/2 weeks and will spend the next week awaiting the c-section birth of our 3rd child I can proudly celebrate what God has done in maturing us as a couple through the experiences leading up to this hospital stay and the hospital stay itself. We are making the most of it despite it being a less than desirable situation. We certainly have not "arrived" by any means because we still need plenty of work. But, God has moved us from a place where we were unable to make the most of a beach trip to a place where we are making the most of a month long hospital stay. I am so grateful and celebrate the wonderful work God is doing in our lives. I was talking to a minister from our church the other day and he was encouraging me and telling me that God can use this and we will be a stronger couple on the other side of this experience. That prompted my memory that I had been praying for us to become a more mature couple. It never ceases to amaze me how creatively God answers prayers.

Skyline Chili

If you are from the South you may never have heard of it before...it's a mid-west thing. The way I like my skyline chili is a bed of spaghetti noodles topped with skyline chili then topped with lots and lots of shredded cheddar cheese. Of course, we can't forget the oyster crackers on the side. In the restaurant, this is called a 3-way. There are not any Skyline Chili restaurants in the South but they sell it in a can. So, you can just boil some spaghetti, heat up the sauce, get out the cheese and crackers, and voila! Andrew tells me a few days ago that he has a surprise dinner for me and it is one of my favorites. I don't like to spoil surprises so I intentionally try not to think about what it is. In the back of my mind though I am thinking how in the world is he going to prepare a seafood meal for me and bring it to the hospital (seafood is my absolute favorite). I know he doesn't have time for that. I was pleasantly surprised when he showed up with my second favorite (and much, much easier) meal of Skyline Chili. It was so sweet and thoughtful. Thanks, Honey!

Family Pictures

Check out our family photos we had taken in a garden at the hospital. We wanted to capture the belly in the photos and since I will be in the hospital up until baby Garrett's birthday we had to do them here. It turned out great because this beautiful garden made a great setting. Click here to see the pictures.
It is so neat to see the change from year to year. Click here to see a few Feb 09 photos.

Butterfly

This is the most beautiful butterfly that I have ever seen. Andrew surprised me early Saturday morning with a visit from the kids. After breakfast, we went for a wheelchair ride. On the way back to the room we took a little detour where you could walk outside on the sidewalk by some flowers and bushes. We saw this amazing butterfly flying around. I felt so blessed as if God had put it there just for us to enjoy! I told Braedon this was such a blessing because we don't see butterflies that big before. Truth is I have never seen one that big. It was two to three times bigger than butterflies I am used to seeing. I wish soooo bad that I would have had my real camera. I had my phone so I got some pictures but they completely don't do it justice since they are cell phone camera pictures. (hint: click on the middle picture to enlarge it if you can't see the butterfly). I was trying to get a picture with all of the surroundings to show how big it was. It landed for a long time just like it was posing for pictures. It was so neat!

Garden at the Hospital

I am able to go for wheelchair rides at the hospital, which our family has been taking full advantage of. I love it because I get to get out of the room and spend some time outside. Even though the heat is a bit uncomfortable, being outside is my absolute favorite place to be most of the time. Of course, the kids love it too (being outside and the wheelchair rides). There is a garden that we have visited a couple of times and actually took the camera today so we could get some pictures. It was so neat to watch Braedon and Kaley completely carefree, running and jumping, putting their hands in the fountains, and laughing. It made me wonder how many other moms have been sitting there in a wheelchair with a much more grim condition than me, watching their kids playing. I was completely overwhelmed with gratitude for every moment God gives me with my family. I am so thankful that the scare didn't turn into an emergency and that my condition is not something altogether worse than it is. I spent some time thanking God and praying for all of the families who have visited the garden while being in the hospital for various reasons.

There they go:

Here they come:

Daddy and his babies:

Braedon was fascinated by the bell:


Mama and her babies:


This one is kind of goofy cause I am coaxing Kaley to come over and sit down for a picture. I wanted to share it because it perfectly shows all of my bling bling. I am wearing four different bracelets that cover about half of my forearm on one side. On the other arm I have an IV line started in case of an emergency. I sure will be glad to have my forearms free of these things!