overjoyed

For the Love of Playdough

2012-01-29T12:29:00.003-06:00

Will would sit all day and play with playdough...that is of course if I am sculpting everything he demands me to. :)...

Our family of snowmen. (Dad is the green one because we ran out of white playdough)

My attempt at Buzz Lightyear. :)

Our cupcake creations. Mine is white cake with strawberry frosting and sprinkles. Will said his was a green monster cupcake with lots of blueberries. :)

...My cutie...

I Can't Believe She is 5 Months Old!

2012-01-22T13:25:00.001-06:00

The 4-Minute Microwave Green Breakfast Muffin

2012-01-17T12:55:00.002-06:00

It was surprisingly delicious!! Go check out the recipe over at The Diva Dish. I know that cooking in a microwave is not the best way to get nutrients, but it was quick and yummy and made with clean stuff. :) I changed a few of the ingredients to use up what I had around the house; like kale instead of spinach, and frozen mangoes instead of peaches. It calls for coconut flour, which I was really excited about because I had never baked with it before. It turned out great! Will even liked it! It was a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be, so be sure to use a nice big mug. And next time I plan on adding all the delicious toppings that she did.

Look how big it is!..(I think that thing below his nose is reflection from the fork. Can't get rid of it. I need photoshop! )... :)

cold, not so cold, and cold again

2012-01-14T15:49:00.002-06:00

What a crazy week...It hit 60 degrees mid week and then down to like 10 degrees by the end of the week. In January!! Crazy, but I love it! I am not much of a winter person. If it wasn't for the beautiful fall, I think I could go live at the beach. :)

Last weekend we took Will ice skating for the time. He had a blast! At first I thought it was going to be a disaster for is all he did was play limp legs and Thad was bent over dragging him through the ice. The first lap around took like 10 minutes, then he finally started to catch on. He really liked watching his daddy skate. Thad used to play hockey so he was super speedy. Then we had Will try to skate with a cone, but it wasn't until about 15 minutes before we left that he started to catch on to moving one foot in font of the other and he was able to hold on to Thad's hand and balance with the wall on his other side. Every time he fell he wanted to make snow angels...we don't know why, but it was pretty funny to watch. :) He really liked it, and it really wore him out. I think next time we go he will really start to take off.

Then mid-week it started to warm up so we pushed our winter activities to the side and went to the zoo! I was so excited to make use of our membership one more time. This time of year there are only about half of the animals out, but we still had fun, and it was so refreshing to be outside! Will also got lots of practice on his scooter going around the block.

outside the new sea lion exhibit at the Blank Park Zoo/scooter ride

Then of course reality hit us again and it was winter a day later. Cold. Brrrrr. So with some of his Christmas money we went out and bought his first lego set. I can not tell you how exciting this was! It is pretty much all we have been doing around here lately. He likes to build monkeys and Buzz's, and other people to go in his "town."...and then constantly asks me to build everything he can possibly think of. Good times. :)

kind of blurry...Will and new lego town

...and Karlie was sound asleep in the ergo during all of these things. (just felt funny not including her)... :)

Oh So Pinteresting...

2012-01-09T16:59:00.001-06:00

I know you all have heard me talk so highly about my love for Pinterest, but seriously it is the coolest website out there! Here are a few things I have recently made and a few things I want to make. There are just too many cool things discovered on there it would be a shame to not share. :)

We made this yummy sweet blackberry juice this weekend with our oatmeal. There are a ton of awesome oatmeal ideas I found here. And I knew I could rely on the Pioneer Woman's Chicken Tortilla Soup. It was awesome!...with the perfect amount of spice. I have been admiring these fun mason jar meals and hope to make some of these to stock the fridge with lunch salads. Such a brilliant idea! Speaking of brilliant, for Thanksgiving Day breakfast we made these individualbreakfasts in a muffin tin. These were such a good idea because we were able to customize our own little casseroles with eggs, bacon, green peppers, onions, etc. We made some of these delicious cinnamon maple pecans for Christmas presents. I had quite the sweet tooth this year for the holidays so I am now pinning some extra nutritious superfoods to detox all the sugar. :) I am going to make this powerhouse granola this week. The cool thing about granola is that I can just add in whatever I have on hand. I also made some almond milk in my new.....wait for it....wait for it.............................VITAMIX!! That's right! Only the best Christmas present ever! My smoothies taste amazing, I chopped cabbage in 1 second, and chopped up potatoes for fresh hash browns in 10 seconds. I have yet to grind up my whole wheat berries for some fresh ground whole wheat flour. Oh boy so many possibilities! I can not say enough good things about it. Next up...vanilla bean coconut peanut butter. Doesn't that just sound heavenly?! oh and speaking of peanut butter- we tried these peanut butter granola bars. They were scrumptious!

Ok and food isn't the only thing I have been up to. I have found way to many DIY projects onPinterest that I need to find time for. I made some of these spice rub gift sets for the dads gifts this year. This cute mason jar pin cushion for my quilting mother. And got this cool homemadefabric I-Spy book idea and made something similar for a couple of my nephews. I should have actually taken a picture of the ones I made. It was nice to use up lots of my fun narrative scraps! Next on the list- this homemade laundry detergent. I have already bought the ingredients. I have pinned a few of these and this one seems to be the winner. Does anyone else make their own detergent?

Oh, and one of my favorite websites discovered on Pinterest is theMarathonMom and her"What Mom's Need" series. If you are a mama, or even if your not...you should totally check it out! My head explodes with creativity when I am on this site. I don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing. :)

Happy New Year!...recap and resolutions

2012-01-05T15:21:00.003-06:00

the fam on Christmas Eve

It's 2012! I am the kind of person that on Jan. 1 I like to start fresh. Yes, start eating less junk and jump into a consistent new routine. Setting new goals and trying new things. I am a little behind this year since we have been celebrating Christmas a bit later with family. We really enjoyed the Christmas season this year. We had fun decorating our new home and putting up Christmas lights and starting new traditions. Will is at such a fun age for many crafts and activities. He now understands the Christmas story and enjoys learning about Jesus. We celebrated with family, went to a couple of Christmas Eve services and ate lots of food. :)

On Christmas morning

I got BIG Buzz!! (...and lots of other stuff) :)

Karlie just liked all the lights.

2011 has been a great year! We have lived in Des Moines now for just over a year and have really enjoyed being in familiar territory. It feels like home! Thad graduated in February and started his practice in Clive. We went to Custer State Park in South Dakota for a little summer trip with Thad's family. The most awesomest part of 2011 was the birth of our beautiful daughter Karlie. We were so blessed to have a natural birth in the comfort of our own home. It was awesome! Will turned 3 and we have been learning how to raise two kiddos instead of one. It's been a good and challenging year! :) What I have learned most this year is to check my perspective on a regular basis. While home with the kids I need to remember to ask myself; Do I see my children as the gifts they are? Do I see myself as the instrument that I was created to be? Do I see God as He is?...in control, powerful, loving. There definitely is much peace in that.

Like I said before, I am a goal setter. I am a list maker. I am a planner and always have to be doing. Last year I decided to make small monthly goals throughout the year instead of one big resolution for 2011 and I really enjoyed it. It was much more doable as well. Besides cutting out white sugar from my diet again starting next week, there are a few general ongoing goals I would like to be intentional about this year. I want to make sure my home is a place where creativity can flow. A place of peace, contentment and love. To daily be thankful and gentle. I know that each of these things start with in my own heart so they can then be shared with the rest of the family. That is my prayer for 2012. For a year of peace, contentment, gentleness, thankfulness, and His love. I am hoping to learn how to be this person. :)

What are your New Year's Resolutions?

P.S. Thad and I also may be having some sort of "get your abs in shape" contest, but we have not yet worked out the details. hehe :)

Getting ready for Christmas!

2011-12-12T14:56:00.003-06:00

I know I have not updated on here as often as I used to. I intend to...I really do, but boy I seem to be short on free time lately. :) We decided to make it a tradition and decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving morning. It was a gorgeous Thanksgiving day this year, and we got all the decorations up.

Will topping the tree with our star

...and a picture of our paper snowflakes that we are very proud of. :)

We have been doing a bit of elfing lately as well. Getting creative and trying to make lots of gifts again this year. Will has been busy painting and making ornaments. (I wish I could say that he likes to sit and do this for hours, but this painting was actually done in two 5 minute sittings due to his short attention span with crafts.)...hehe, but he did a really nice job.

I have been wanting to make an advent calendar for the last couple of years and finally got around to it! I wrote an activity to do on a piece of paper for each day leading up to Christmas; fun things to help prepare and celebrate the birth of our Savior! I needle felted the numbers to match our stockings I made last year. (which remind me that I need to finish making Karlie's stocking still.)

...and I supposed I will share the two wreaths I made this year. One I just simply added the fun little rosettes of twisted fabric and the berries, and the second wreath below I made with scraps of old sweaters. It is so fun to make such beautiful things out of scraps and things that are of no use laying around my house. :)

Now I am off to finish Karlie's stocking and some other fun gifts. peace. :)

Will and Karlie

2011-11-27T21:46:00.003-06:00

Thanks to the wonderful and talented Ryan Towe of Ryan Towe Photography who once again has blown my mind with his beautiful work. Aren't these two kiddos just darling. :)

Click here to see a folder of some of my favorites.

My Baby Girl is 3 Months Old!

2011-11-22T20:49:00.002-06:00

DIY Chalkboard

2011-11-15T19:28:00.003-06:00

We have had Lot's of fun this week with our new chalkboard we made and installed in our dining room! I am sure some of you might recognize this large white picture frame that we have had and decorated around in each place we have rented. I got it at a garage sale for $1 about 5 years ago when we were first married. Is all we did was get a large piece of hardboard (same material as pegboard, but without the holes) cut to fit behind the frame, spray on chalkboard paint, and install it with wood connectors on the back. Viola!! We love it!

I'm catching up...

2011-11-02T22:04:00.003-05:00

Hello there. Yes, I am still alive. I have not blogged for a while because in the last couple of months I had a baby, have been adjusting to two children, we moved (just across town), and mostly because we have not had Internet. :) So I have some major catching up to do...

My kids are growing so fast! Karlie is now just over two months old. She is healthy and happy all the time! She has just started reaching toward objects in front of her.

Karlie sleeping at 1 month

IMG_5776">

Smiling at Papa

IMG_5791">

IMG_5813">

And my little boy is now 3!!!

IMG_5751">

More pictures of Will's birthday here.

We have had visitors: my grandparents and friends from the Quad Cities.

Will/Buzz-Hudson-Lincoln

IMG_0536">

We went to Stillwater to visit family for my nephew's birthday party and baptism.

Cousin Jaya pulling Will on a sled through the pile of leaves. :)

IMG_5842">

...and of course carving a pumpkin is an autumn necessity. Will thought that putting the candle in and watching it glow in the dark was the coolest thing ever! (I liked roasting the seeds) :)

IMG_5847">

We also made some yummy Halloween treats! Waffle pretzels+ Hershey's chocolate Hugs (melted for a few min. in the oven)+ candy corn=deliciously addictive.

IMG_5846">

I also had a birthday. It was my GOLDEN birthday this year. I remember thinking when I was little that turning 28 on the 28th seemed like forever away...and my hubby and friends were very thoughtful and threw me a surprise costume party. It was amazing!!! Since it was a surprise I was not prepared with my camera so I don't have any pictures. Thad and I went as Gnomeo and Juliet. :) He is so sneaky...but I did get a picture of the beautiful fall bouquet that he got me. Fresh flowers make me happy. :)

IMG_5850">

And for the night of gathering too much sugar...we have a darling daisy and Buzz Lightyear!!

IMG_0569">

The last two months have been a whirlwind! Thad has been busy at work, and loving it more everyday. We are finally feeling settled in our new place and the kids are growing like crazy. Will surprises me everyday with how smart he is and makes me laugh with the funniest things he says. I need to start writing them down. :) I have also re-opened up my etsy store now that we have Internet. Yay for getting things back to normal again..whatever normal is. :)

The Homebirth of Karlie Joy

2011-08-30T11:59:00.001-05:00

It has been just over a week since the birth of our precious Karlie girl. I look back at her birth-day as one of the greatest "joys" I have ever known. I could never imagined that one incredibly hard day would be so worth it!! The whole day was exhilarating! I would like to take credit for how beautiful she is, but when I look at her there is no question that her Creator is our Heavenly Father. All the glory to Him! I have prayed and prayed and done everything I could to have a smooth, successful VBAC for my child, and I feel abundantly blessed!! The whole day was what I hoped for and more.

The night of Aug. 21st Thad and I were watching a movie and I was realizing that some of my contractions were not feeling so braxton hicksy anymore. I had to actually focus on them a little more. I thought that after that movie I better get to bed in case I wake up with actual labor. Well, I really only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Some contractions waking me up, I would time them, and they seemed about 10 minutes apart, but some of them were really not strong at all. Then about 5:30 I decided to just get up because my mind was going all night, thinking this could be the day! I went down and made some toast with peanut butter and went for a walk outside. The sun was coming up and there was a nice cool breeze. I timed my contractions on a my trusty contraction master app on my phone while listening to Hillsong. They were coming every 6 minutes! I decided that it was time to wake Thad up and start making some plans for the day. Then I don't remember much about the next two hours until my doula got there except the visual of the bathroom rug as I was on my hands and knees trying to relieve some back pain. My mother-in-law came to pick up Will, he actually slept in that morning which was really nice. Then about 8:00 my wonderful doula arrived with amazing feeling back pressure and all sorts of different positions to try to get this baby to turn from the posterior position that it so stubbornly layed in for the last couple months. She really kept me moving while Thad prepared the birthing tub. Once the tub was ready...I was in it! It felt amazing!!! While in the tub I labored leaning over the edge on my knees. Jen(my doula) or Thad would press on my back and I would squeeze their hands real tight while taking deep belly breaths. On the exhale I would concentrate on the word "open," so I would in a deep voice say "OOOOhhhh,"and try to relax every muscle in my body while visualizing my cervix actually opening up. My doula had me get out of the tub once to keep me moving with more positions. About this time I lost my mucous plug and about 15 minutes later I was ready to get back in the tub. While being in the tub my contractions went from like 5 minutes apart to 1 minute apart in less than an hour if I remember right. At this point I think I said out loud that I didn't know if I could do this anymore...although I was thinking it the whole time...also that I don't think I will ever do it again. :) Thad called my midwife and she got there about 12:15. She wanted me to get out so she could check me. I did NOT want to get out of the tub again...and the last thing I wanted to do was lay on my back and have her stick her fingers up me. "...and there is no cervix," she said..."You are at a 10, fully dilated." Wow, I remember being really surprised...then again in the last couple of contractions I remember kind of involuntarily pushing. The urge was definitely there. But compared to my first experience, I was expecting another long labor. I got back in the tub for a bit, until my midwife thought that maybe getting on the bed would be a good idea. I did not like this idea, but went with it. She had me lay back into Thad on the bed and at each contraction grab my legs and pull back as hard as I could and push. I was curled so far back on my shoulders it was like I was upside down. This really helped that baby unlodge her head and turn. Thad said he could actually see the baby turn by watching my belly. Then a couple pushes later SHE was born! At 1:59 p.m. on August 22, 2011. She was 6 lbs. 8 oz. and 19 1/2 inches long. The moment she shot out of me (literally), they placed her on my chest. She was pink and beautiful and gooey. I placed my nipple toward her mouth and she went right for it. It was the coolest thing ever. I don't think she actually latched on at this point since I was awkwardly laying down while being stitched up, but she was trying. It was like she knew exactly what to do. I think in all it was about 7 hours of labor and an hour of pushing...oh yeah and my water broke during one of those pushes too, and may have splashed a little on my midwife if I remember right. :) It really was an amazing experience. I was so much more alert. I felt nourished on watermelon and fluids and did not get sick this time. I keep thinking over and over again that I had the best birth team ever, and I believe that I would not have had this HBAC experience without each of them.(including the tub)... :)

Unfortunately the recovery has been harder than expected with a significant tear and the loss of a bit more blood than usual, but I am gradually gaining strength and healing. My biggest concern is figuring out how to deal with two children now. Especially an almost 3 year old who has been acting up with quite the attitude lately. Will loves his baby sister...almost to an overwhelming amount that he can be in her face a little too much. :) I think once I am healed and we can get back to our normal routine and get outside a little more, my hope is that he will return to his normal self. But for now we are cherishing each little squeak and facial expression from this little girl and trying to get lots of rest. Who could look into the eyes of such a miracle and doubt the reality of God? I never could.

Here are a few pictures of the big day...you can also click here for a few more.

the birthing tub all prepared

must have been between contractions

It's a girl! (sorry skipped a lot of "show-to-much" pictures)

happy ending :)

Isn't she adorable!?

meeting big brother

Will REALLY likes his new sister :)

first family pic

We love you Karlie!

Welcome to the world Karlie Joy!!

2011-08-23T14:36:00.002-05:00

Our beautiful baby girl was born at home yesterday, August 22 @ 1:59 p.m.

6 lbs. 8 oz. 19 1/2 inches long. Mom and baby are both doing well. Praise the Lord for a smooth and amazing VBAC!!! Birth story to come soon. :)

NEW!- in shop...Back to School

2011-08-07T14:26:00.004-05:00

It is just about back to school time and my shop is full of fun colorful accessories to jump start the year. Above is Will's "special new snack bag," as he calls it. :) We carry it everywhere!...and it is so much better, and more fun of course, then going through so many plastic baggies. I have a variety of different patterns to choose from and some fun sandwich wraps as seen below.

...and some felt crayon rolls!

There is nothing more exciting for my 2 year old than to whip this cool roll out while traveling or at a restaurant, etc...to keep him busy. He also just has fun organizing the crayons in the little pouches. :) You can check it all out over at my shop!

Full Term!!!...37 weeks.

2011-08-03T15:52:00.006-05:00

I am feeling:

big.

huge.

beached whale-ish.

more tired.

like I have to pee constantly.

lots of movement way down low.

hungry.

lots of braxton hicks and pressure.

like my belly is running into everything.

excited to see my little babe.

motivated to birth.

but like I want to sleep for a whole day first.

ready.

I am officially full-term: 37 weeks! Wahoo! I made it! Well with Will I went way over due so I am not expecting to much to happen soon, but you never know. :) I feel like we don't have as much stuff to get ready this time. No showers or gifts to organize. I just washed all the little neutral baby stuff that we own and set up the changing table in our room. Other than that I have the birthing supplies we need and the tub is coming next weekend! I am actually in shock that it is August already. This pregnancy has gone by really fast...and I am very thankful that I will not have two kiddos in diapers. Will is potty trained! I am so glad that I just tried it with him, even without him showing any "signs" of being ready. I just told him we were out of diapers and he was going to wear awesome new undies now. After 4 days of some accidents and some "hoorays!", he never had an accident again and just started telling us when he needed to go. That boy can hold it like a champ if he has too. I am so proud of him! :)

...oh yes, and the pregnancy post...

I have started seeing my midwife every week now. On Monday I took the strep B test and since she was already in there she checked my cervix to see if there was any progress yet..."nope, pretty closed still," she said. I was a little bummed, but really I still have three weeks so it's not that big of a deal. However some prayer for me would be great, for this baby is still posterior. I know there is nothing to worry about because that can be common at this time, and a lot of times the baby may not turn until active labor or pushing. I am not super worried about it, but Will was also posterior and it made for a very long, hard back labor. At least this time I am aware of it before hand so I am doing lots of exercises to help it turn before I go into labor. That is the hope. Other than that baby is doing great and I am doing great. Heart rate is good. I have gained 28 lbs. total so far and still having crazy weird dreams from time to time. :) Oh and here is a picture of me 37 weeks with Will to compare...

Market Favs

2011-08-01T13:17:00.003-05:00

Getting to the market this year has been a little bit more of a challenge than it has in past summers while living in Davenport. We would go every weekend to get our food for the week! But now going downtown and fighting the crowds and figuring out all over again which people we like to buy for has been more of a challenge. But we did figure out that you can not waste anytime in the mornings if you want the best produce. We have to get up and go before it gets too crazy. Parking downtown can be a pain, but it is so worth it for all the yumminess. :) A new favorite food that we discovered this year is this beautiful garlic scape. Many of you probably know what it is, but it was new to me. At least I have never cooked with it. It is kind of a cross between a green onion and garlic. We chopped the whole thing up and sauteed it with veggies. It was delicious!!!...and no mess with trying to peel or mince fresh garlic.

...and the inside of the bulb.

oh yes, and I can not forget to mention the ever so famous mango on a stick. Will's absolute favorite!!...me too. :)

NEW!- in shop.

2011-07-28T22:12:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to let you in on a couple new items in the shop! Banners, heart garland, and paper bunting...and there will be many more added soon. :) Hope you all have a splendid weekend!

Sensory Tubs- On the Farm

2011-07-27T15:07:00.003-05:00

This sensory tub was not quite as much of a hit as Dinosaurland was, but he still had fun for a couple of days. I think he enjoyed the digging in the rocks best with the dinos. Perhaps some toddler scissors would have been fun for Will to cut the raffia...but he LOVED the tractor! That was the one thing I bought for this tub. I thought it was definitely needed for a farm scene. :)

Materials I used for On the Farm...

-2 bags of pinto beans in the bottom

-small sheet of fake brown moss/dirt stuff (i took this out after the first time we opened it because it smelled so toxic and Will enjoyed scooping the beans more.)

-cut up raffia

-Popsicle sticks

-wooden egg

-wooden bowl

-wooden scoop

-tiny play tractor

-the letter "f" for farm

-a small barn stuffed full of farm animal figures

The Happy Scrap...NOW OPENNED!

2011-07-23T12:58:00.002-05:00

I have started a new Etsy store!! My goal for this shop is to use up as many of my scraps as possible and see how many beautiful things I can make with them to sell and go toward paying off some debt. I will be using up any and everything that I have including fabric, paper, wool, and really whatever has been hiding in my closets and drawers forever. :) So far I have some festive paper garland, yummy smelling lavender sachets, mini sketchbook sets, confetti, and a few bundles of scrap fabric for those of you who want to be creative yourself. I have also been working on some reusable snack bags, banners, crayon rolls, and other goodies that I will have to keep you posted about. Come check it out! Heart me if your an etsian. :)...and if you want to make a custom order or have any cool scrap ideas for me please let me know. I have been having fun with these little short projects and would also like to keep most of the costs pretty low. So far I don't think I even have anything over $4.00! Definitely worth a look. :)

You are meant to be Extraordinary!

2011-07-21T13:54:00.003-05:00

Just a thought for today...

Throughout Scripture God chooses ordinary, willing people to further his kingdom. Some of them today we may even call an "outcast." He doesn't wait for us to be spotlessly clean in order to use us. He chose a stutterer to speak for him (Moses), a weakling to defend him (Gideon), an infertile woman to be the mother of a nation (Sarah), a forgettable youngest son to be the most unforgettable king of his people (David), an unknown young lady to be the mother of his son (Mary), and a persecutor to take the Gospel to the nations (Paul). He actually promised to use us for the extraordinary and through those experiences to strengthen us. How cool is that? Why would we ever think that anyone, including ourselves is beyond the reach of God's work? We are of worth to Him! I confess my unwillingness to take the risks needed in order to follow Him at times, but am praying that my awe of Him may be increased significantly.

It seems easy to forget about sometimes. After reading about this today I felt the need to share. :) Have a spectacular Thursday!

Muffin Tin Meal- Yellow & Nutritional Yeast Mac

2011-07-18T14:16:00.003-05:00

I feel like lately Will wants to eat the same thing over and over again! I tried to spice it up a bit and make lunch time a bit more exciting! Once again as seen over at Counting Coconuts and a few other places in the blogosphere I decided to try a muffin tin meal. I usually am a fan of making our meals colorful, but it was kind of fun to make a theme out of it this time and I seemed to have a lot of yellow foods on hand. We included: pineapple, corn, nutritional yeast mac and "cheese", yellow summer squash, bananas ( I know the peel is really only yellow, but I ran out of ideas and we had lots of them), and a yellow cup of water.

Will thought this was a really cool idea and got really excited about it when I brought out his "special new lunch."...although he ate all all the fruits and veggies and did not even touch the mac and "cheese". He wouldn't even try it! Argh! It was so good! I think he would have actually liked it if I could get him to just try a bite! :) oh well, I should not complain because he ate and always eats the fresh food. We just had to go with plan #2 and eat leftover rice and beans from the night before. :)

But for those of you who have never made Nutritional Yeast Mac, you totally should! It really is good. If you are unfamiliar with nutritional yeast, you can click here. It is a great source of protein and vitamins. There are so many recipes out there. below is the one that I used, plus I added some freshly ground pepper over the top. So Yummy! I know my sister-in-law adds some ground mustard to it too. I am sure that would taste delish as well! OK, here is the recipe...

Vegan Mac and "Cheese" -serves 2-4

1 lb. macaroni noodles

1 cup water

1 cup unsweetened nondairy milk

3 Tbsp. mild-tasting oil (I actually just used earth balance)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup nutritional yeast

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. onion powder

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

*cook noodles according to package directions. While they are cooking make the special "cheese" sauce...

* In a saucepan combine combine ingredients, whisking over med. heat until thickened...about 2 minutes. The sauce should be nice and thick. Drain noodles and stir in sauce. I then added some freshly ground pepper and ate it up! Yummy!...no seriously it really was! I was surprised.

I love my SERGER!

2011-07-16T17:07:00.003-05:00

Just a few projects I have been working on this week....

fun reusable snack bags for on the go

...and some super soft cloth wipes and prefolds for the new babe. (I used an old sheet for the prefolds)

Oh boy, no one told me that serging rounded corners took some practice. Making wipes was the best thing to practice on. Each one got a little bit better than the last, but I still wouldn't look to close. :)

Sensory Tubs- Dinosaurland

2011-07-14T15:23:00.001-05:00

I have been super inspired by this awesome mama over at Counting Coconuts who home schools her little boy. I am almost overwhelmed by the coolness of learning activities on her blog. I decided that I needed something consistent for Will to look forward to every week or so. Something new to discover and explore in, and something to keep the TV turned off. With mostly materials that I had laying around the house and a couple trips to the dollar store I made my very first sensory tub! I call it Dinosaurland! Will's eyes got big when I opened the tub and he saw all the rocks. Usually I might have an activity to go along with it, but I thought for the first one I would just let him explore it. He enjoyed digging in the rocks and transferring them from the tub to a bowl with the scoop and lining up the dinos as usual. He also liked collecting the gemstones in a pile. He had a lot of fun! It only held his attention for 10-15 minutes before he was ready to move on to doing something more active. I think next time I will bring it out in the afternoon instead. Usually the mornings seem to be his more active time, and the afternoons he likes to sit and do more activities. I plan to do a new tub every other week or so, so that he has plenty of time to enjoy this one first. I think I probably had way to much fun putting it together too. :)

I used a lot of the same materials that I saw over at Counting Coconuts, but changed it a little bit. Materials used for Dinosaurland:

-two bags of dried pinto beans (layered in the bottom for a digging surprise, plus they look like dinosaur eggs)

-decorative rocks-variety of small and big

-a few scattered gemstones

-scattered wooden beads

-fake leaves

-fake reindeer moss

-magnet letter "D"

-3 plastic dinosaur figures

-wooden scoop

-wooden cup

-large wooden egg

-a hidden piece of string(in case he wanted to string the beads)

...and he later in the afternoon had a lot more fun exploring in it on the floor while adding other objects as well. :)

Crazy for CARS

2011-07-11T14:23:00.003-05:00

This past weekend we took Will to see his first movie in the theater. Cars 2! He was so excited and could not stop talking about. :) We got there and I thought he would be really overwhelmed by the large screen, but he wasn't. He just sat there like he did this sort of thing all the time. We watched a ton of previews and after every single one he kept asking when we were going to see cars. He giggled at stuff because others were, not necessarily because he understood what was going on all the time. :) He was so stinkin cute!! Although after a couple snacks he was kind of antsy and kept switching seats to sit on my lap or Thad's lap, and stood up to dance and move around a few times. But he did great! I didn't expect him to sit through the whole thing. Cars 2 was good, he recognized some of the characters from the first movie and enjoyed the racing scenes, but for the most part there was way too much of an action storyline for Will to follow with this sequel. I think I like the cuteness of Cars 1 better, and there is a lot less violence in the first one. But we had a lot of fun, and the last couple of weeks have seemed to be filled with activities Cars related.

cars+stickers+crayons=awesome race track!

...with some extra supplies around the house a made a few fun magnets to surprise Will

A man in Des Moines who restores old cars made a real life replica of Tow Mater. So my Dad took Will to see it. He was able to climb on the back too!

(My brother with Will)

mator">

Our Trip Out West

2011-07-06T21:26:00.005-05:00

For a long holiday weekend we traveled out west 10 hours to Custer State Park. The whole Fever/Shepard clan was together spending time hiking, climbing, pine needle basket weaving, sightseeing all the wild animals and mountains, visiting Mt. Rushmore, playing whiffle ball, and enjoying the great outdoors. Will had a blast! I was so proud of him for all the hiking that he did, but his favorite part of the trip was driving around and seeing all the wild buffalo. :) Below are a couple pictures and a video...I took way too many pictures to post, so you can click here and see them all.

Although we were traveling on the 4th of July and did not experience our usual festivities, we saw a few fireworks on the road...but this trip was so worth it! It was such a beautiful place and so much to see in such a short time. We will definitely go back again. How was your holiday weekend?

...and they are off!

2011-07-05T14:21:00.003-05:00

Coulsons">

As some of you know that my sister and her husband and son have been fundraising to move to Sydney, Australia to spread the Gospel for the next 5-7 years. (You can check out more about it at her blog here.) Praise the Lord they are fully funded and have made the transition down under!! About two weeks ago they got the good news that they could buy their plane tickets and they had about 10 days to get packed up and move. Crazy! There have been tears of joy and sadness. Australia is a long way and the big sister in me kind of had an emotional breakdown. It is hard not knowing when the next time will be that I will get to see them. It all happened so fast! But I am really excited for them and how the Lord will work through them as they are on this journey. They can never have too much prayer and support. Below are some specific prayer requests from Kristin, Josh and Hunter.

Pray that God would grant us and our families peace during this transition.
Pray that the transition on Hunter would go smoothly, and that we would be attentive to his needs.
Pray that Kristin and I would be gracious and patient with one another during this hectic time.
Pray that God would open up doors for ministry!
Above all pray that He would be glorified in all things!!

Home-Grown Bean Sprouts

2011-06-24T22:30:00.004-05:00

All edible grains, seeds, and legumes can be sprouted. Sprouting is easy, inexpensive and the concentration of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes increase like crazy! It is also a lot of fun to watch them grow. We like to eat them as a snack and over salads. Will even liked them! We specifically decided to sprout mung beans. When mung beans are sprouted the protein increases 30%, the calcium 34%, iron 40%, and vitamins A,B, and C have an infinite increase. There are so many other benefits including better digestion and interestingly the calorie content and carbohydrate content decrease by 15% because of the increased water content. Just make sure that you buy the beans fresh, unsprayed, and packaged as a food. Seeds/dried beans that are packaged for planting purposes contain harsh chemicals. Don't they look yummy!!! :)

Here is how we did it...

- Soak 1/2 a cup of mung beans for 8-12 hours.(or overnight)

-Rinse thoroughly and place in a jar. Cover with several inches of water and cover the top with a cheesecloth. Use a rubber band or jar band to secure. (they double in size when sprouted so be sure to choose a large enough jar)

-Place the beans in a dark place at room temperature and let soak another 8-12 hours.

-Drain the beans thoroughly again and rinse. Place back in the fully drained jar and cover with cheesecloth. Return to the dark location.

-Continue to rinse beans twice a day and drain the water completely. This keeps them from getting moldy.

-When the sprouts have reached the desired size (usually takes 2-3 days) then rinse them and eat immediately or store in a dry container in the fridge for up to a week!

Have I mentioned...

2011-06-21T08:45:00.001-05:00

...how much I LOVE Pinterest!! What started out as a place to collect some design and DIY inspiration has turned into a whole bunch of coolness. I have collected lot's of recipes to try as well, and I have not only collected them but actually tried them out. Especially with the farmers markets now open and sunny weather it brings a whole new boost of motivation. I have tried...

Raw Broccoli Raisan Salad from Rawmazing

...super yummy!!

Spiced Sweet Potato and Chickpeas from Sprouted Kitchen

...Yummy and hearty. Fun to make once, but took a lot of ingredients. :)

Hemp Cacao Energy Bites from Choosing Raw

...I have tried many raw snack-type balls. These are great! Plus they have the extra protein in it. And anything with chocolate tastes yummy. Will loved these.

Vegan Tomato Walnut Basil Pasta from Oh She Glows

...I am by no means vegan, but recipes without dairy are always a go to in our house. This was delish...turned a really dark color when done, but at least the nutritional yeast added some boost.

Kale Chips from House Tweaking

...oh yummy!! I was the only one that tried them in our house, although I know that if Will or Thad tried them they would love it. :) I found a dehydrated kale chip recipe that I would like to try too so that I am not cooking the good stuff out of the leaves, but these tasted great right out of the oven!

Frosty No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies from Oh She Glows

...and once again anything with chocolate is amazing!! Will loved these as a little frozen treat during the day. I used dairy-free choc. chips too!

So enough said...Pinterest is awesome! :)

30 weeks preggo!!

2011-06-17T15:25:00.005-05:00

Yep, I have been getting comments like..."due any day now, huh?". HA! People are shocked when I say I still have a couple months to go. :) ...but I am feeling great!! A little more worn out then usual when out in the heat at the park with Will, but really I have nothing to complain about. Since like 20 weeks I have been feeling lots of pressure and braxton hicks that have seemed to be a bit more uncomfortable now, but I am thankful to be able to be up and walking around more in this pregnancy. While pregnant with Will I had a desk job so I didn't get a lot of time in the sun to soak up that vitamin D that I need. I am soo happy to see the sunshine! :)

I have started seeing my midwife every two weeks now and last week everything looked great. The baby's heart rate was high 140's to low 150's, and I honestly don't remember what I weighed. I think I might be up about 18-20 lbs. from my pre-pregnancy weight. The only thing is that the baby's head is not down yet (and it was by this time with Will) so I am praying that soon this will happen. Wow...30 weeks. Suddenly this pregnancy is going so fast. I am just getting so excited to see this new little life! Below is a picture of me at 30 weeks pregnant with Will. I feel like I have carried both of them low, but this one seems even lower! Although in the picture they look pretty similar I think. What do you think? Any guesses yet...boy or girl?

Where have I been?

2011-06-13T16:09:00.002-05:00

The time has got away from me with all the nice weather and the rainy days figuring out what to do to get a 2 year old's energy out. :) We have been super busy, which is a good thing! We have been to the zoo a couple times. I love having a season pass, and dinosaur adventure day was way fun! We have been spending time with my sister and family and doing all things summery to kick off the season right...oh yes and I can't forget we have been doing lots of digging in the sand! Will even had his first sleepover with his friend Lincoln while we visited friends in the Quad Cities. They had so much fun! Here is an array of random pictures over the last couple of weeks...

Will and Hunter digging in the sand

I could not get him to look at the camera for anything :)

three of my brothers and Will climbing on the caterpillar at the Blank Park Zoo

...and more climbing...I should have got a picture of the tiger. That was his absolute favorite!!

Cute Story: We visited our dear friends in the Quad Cities a week or so ago and we tried putting Will and Lincoln in the same room for a little sleepover. We placed a mattress on the floor for Will and tucked them in and said goodnight. (...after a very creative story told by Thaddy Daddy of course) We heard them talking a little bit and eventually they fell asleep. When we peeked in to check on them later they were both sleeping in Lincolns toddler bed on the same pillow. And they slept like that all night! How cute. I really thought we would have to end up splitting them up, but they proved us wrong. :)

Oh!...and look! I actually won something from the May Giveaway Day! This beautiful headband from Crystal over at Crafty Ave. Thank you Crystal! I love it!

and the winner is...

2011-05-27T21:31:00.003-05:00

Random #5- NICOLE!!! My dear friend Nicole, I know you will cherish these old scraps and find something creative to do with them.

...and...

Random #11-LIBBY!!! My other dear friend. :) enjoy the sachets.

Blame my husband if you did not win. :)

May GIVEAWAY Day!

2011-05-24T16:51:00.003-05:00

Wahoo! The May Giveaway Day is back! Thanks to SewMamaSew and all the generous bloggers and crafters out there- there are a TON of possibilities to win something free and beautiful and handmade! I have participated in this giveaway in the past, but I totally missed the deadline to sign up this year...so instead I decided to tell you all about these wonderful opportunities and then do my own special giveaway here. I have been sewing and creating a bit more lately and am in the process of gradually getting some stuff up for sale in my etsy store again. So click over to SewMamaSew and start searching! There are some wonderful crafty blogs that I have come across as well...and here are my giveaways...

#1- A pair of beautiful lavender sachets to store with your linens or in your drawers to keep your clothes smelling fresh all year long. They smell SOoooo good and are made with 100% pure, true organic lavender.

IMG_5453">

#2...and for those crafters out there I have a whole box full of scraps! I am sure you are creative enough to know what to do with scraps, but you could also click here to get some more ideas. I know how exciting it is to peak through someone elses scraps for new fabrics you have never used. :) I am kind of a dork when it comes to collecting and building up my "stash." But there always comes a time when I need to consolidate and simplify my space a little bit. I have used these fabrics many times or I have multiple scraps of them so I would like to share them with you! They come in all different sizes and colors.

IMG_5452">

So please leave me a comment below and let me know what you may be interested in winning and I will announce the winners on Friday morning. For those of you peaking at all the giveaways at SewMamaSew hurry over there because those giveaways end tomorrow night! Oh yes and I will only be shipping with in the U.S. Happy Giveaway Day!

25 weeks and feeling HUGE

2011-05-13T14:30:00.004-05:00

Suddenly I am feeling like I have a lump in my lap all the time! This baby is sooo low! Actually there really is no lap anymore, it just keeps growing straight out. ha! I am loving it and feeling great and actually can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going. Everything seems to be going the exact same as my pregnancy with Will. I feel like I am carrying it the same and just feeling hungry all the time...except my belly photos of 25 weeks I feel like are a bit larger this time around. Although I have not gained quite as much weight this time. I am up about 15 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. The weight seems to be coming much quicker toward the end of this second trimester then it did in the first. No real cravings, but foods that taste really good right now include: baked potato with lots of Earth Balance, buckwheat soba noodles with stir-fried veggies and shoyu, and obviously any fruit because that never changes whether I am pregnant or not. I could eat these foods everyday!...I could also eat ice cream or chocolate anytime as well, but trying to cut out most dairy again as I start to approach the 3rd trimester. :)

I did mention last time that we had an ultrasound and everything looked perfect. So things are pretty uneventful with an exception of lots and lots of kicking and little spasms inside my belly. :) We also found a wonderful doula in town who is also a personal trainer who has taught me some good ab exercises for pregnancy. I never know what to with my abs when I am pregnant...so she has definitely been a blessing! humm..anything else I need to add...nope, just feeling HUGE! Peace.

CF+ the Market + the Hair Salon=busy weekend

2011-05-09T16:10:00.006-05:00

Will and I on Mother's Day :)

What a busy and wonderful Mother's Day weekend! It started on Friday as my Mom, Will, and I traveled up to Cedar Falls to see my sister for her birthday. We enjoyed lunch, playtime at the park with the little boys, and also some good chatting over delicious cupcakes and cakeballs at Scratch Cupcakery downtown. The sun was warm and it was genuinely nice to have some time just the three of us girls while the little boys took good naps.

...silly Kristin and Hunter...

Then saturday morning Thad, Will and I got up to meet all the other thousands of people at the opening day at the downtown farmers market. Oh my what a beautiful day! Downtown was bursting with energy and I feel as if the sunshine is finally warm around here again.

...Willie and Thad watching the performers...

Then came sunday (Mother's Day). I love Mother's Day. :)...and I felt extra special as I woke up to breakfast in bed from my two favorite boys. We also visited our mothers and ate lots of good food...but the big deal of the day was getting Will's summer cut! Yes, it was emotional...and exciting. Will was pretty tired since it was nap time so he didn't really seem to care about anything except the sucker that he got to eat to get him to stay seated for so long. As sad as we are to see his long hair go, he really looks handsome. :)

...back and front BEFORE picture...

...and AFTER!

...ok and one last shot of the long hair again...

You can see the rest of the pictures from our weekend here and here. Chao! :)

Roasted Spiced Chickpeas

2011-05-03T16:18:00.004-05:00

I found this recipe from WholeLiving. We were in need of a new crunchy snack idea. This was simple and cheap and I think we actually had everything on hand. I did use olive oil instead of vegetable oil. It might be yummy mixed in some sort of trail-type mix. Yummy!

One 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground hot paprika
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss chickpeas with oil and spices until evenly coated. Spread on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast, shaking pan occasionally, until chickpeas are golden and crunchy, about 30 minutes. Let cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to 2 weeks.

Easter with the Coulsons

2011-04-25T16:37:00.008-05:00

Celebrating Easter this year we joined my sister Kristin, Josh and Hunter for a couple days of fun and hanging out, going to church, and to the park, and grilling out. We talked a lot, laughed a lot, and really enjoyed being around each other. For those of you who may not know, they are soon moving to Sydney, Australia long term to further the Gospel of Christ!! Wahoo! I am super excited for them and the people down under and for all the experiences ahead. I am also mourning the time that I will miss with them. So who other than the Coulsons would I want to celebrate this holiday with. :) If you would like to check out their journey or if you are maybe interested in helping support them (for they still have some funding to complete before they can go), you can check out my sister's blog here.

Will adores his cousin Hunter. Although I only could get his attention for a couple pictures, Hunter on the other hand LOVES the camera. You can check out the rest of the pictures of our weekend here...oh and one more of the boys.... I am realizing that it is rare that I actually make it in a picture as I am the one behind the camera. oh well. :)

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter Weekend!!

P.S. I went to Good Friday service at my Dad's church and watched a short film called "Most." Have you heard of it? Definitely check it out if you get a chance. Amazing Love.

Happy Earth Day!

2011-04-22T15:38:00.004-05:00

Today is Earth Day! (and Good Friday) :)...and the Botanical Center was free today! We had fun looking at the fish and turtles especially and adventuring around the paths looking at all the beautiful green. Click here to see the rest of our pictures from today.

Have a fabulous Easter weekend!

Oh-Omaha

2011-04-19T07:54:00.008-05:00

On Sunday, Will and I ventured out to Omaha to visit our dear friend Libby while Thad was at a seminar. Libby and I are due with in a week of each other. It is such a blessing to be going through times like this with someone you are close to. It was a quick day trip, but we tried to make the best of it...even with a tired child who did not get a nap. :) We went to McFoster's Natural Kind Cafe for brunch where we had amazing delishiousness, and then shopped a bit and headed to the Omaha Children's Museum! Will loved it! I think he could have stayed there for a whole week. :) It was perfect for his age and actually an overwhelming amount of stuff to do. He would get stuck at one thing for a while and he would not want to leave. He did not realize how much more of the museum there was to explore. We rode on the carousel (a.k.a the ride in Mary Poppins), explored the science and mechanical gadgets with tons and tons of balls, performed (ran around) on stage as a tiger and with whimsical ribbons, hung out in the creative arts room and imagination playground. I was really impressed with the imagination playground...there was a large fire house with a huge climbing structure and slide and a big fire truck to sit on and pretend drive and you could try on the fire hat and boots. There was a play market, and farmhouse that you could climb in with life-sized animals and plants to harvest. But Will's favorite part of all that I think he stayed at for well over an hour was the water table where he got soaked! It was hard to pull him away from there. :) Below are a few pictures to show you just how cool it was...

...and so many more here.

Adventures In Nursing My Little Guy

2011-04-11T15:29:00.007-05:00

Mother and children, a photo by blmurch on Flickr...La Recoleta, located in Argentina.

I am irritated more than I would ever have imagined! Sometimes to the point that I just want to cringe and throw him off of me.(sounds bad, but true...eek.) It does hurt a little bit, but I can get over that. I just seem to be more irritated more than ever since I have been pregnant and nursing my toddler. I always thought that I would let Will self-wean when he as ready. Some days I get really sad at the thought of not nursing him anymore and other days I think it would be nice to prepare emotionally and physically for the next child. I know that some mothers would say," oh just tough it out for your child. He needs you"...and others would say," What?! He is still nursing?"

Well, after nursing Will for 2 1/2 years I can honestly say it has been so worth it!! It has been such a rewarding journey. Of course there have been a few struggles, mainly about what others in our culture say about extended breastfeeding, but I could not have imagined it any other way. Nursing Will has been the absolute best way to comfort him, give him nutrition and nourishment (especially with a dairy intolerance), it has been the best way to get him to sleep and a wonderful way to bond and provide security for him. But when does it end? It has to end sometime right?

There is not a timeline or a book or a person who can put a weaning date on the calendar. I have learned that nursing Will has become about a relationship and is not just something we do on a daily basis. And in relationships it takes two. My feelings matter just like his do, and at this point since I am pregnant I also have a second child to think about. I know many mothers who have successfully breastfed two or more children at a time. It is a beautiful thing!

Personally I have analyzed my situation...

-I sometimes think that my readiness to give it quits out weighs his. I just want to scream really loud, and he is not irritated, in pain, or uncomfortable. He is just doing what he has always done. This irritation is a result of tender nipples and being pregnant- not Will nursing. This is not something that I want to push on him if he may not be ready. Is this feeling just short lived? Will I mother better if I wean him? There would be less irritation and negative feelings.

When I think about it we have already naturally started the weaning process. At 10 months old he started eating a little bit of solid food. That is actually the first step in weaning. And right around when he turned two we made the decision to stop nursing him at night because it was making the bed (where we all slept together) very uncomfortable at night with him moving all over the place and waking up way to much with persistence to nurse when really all he needed at that point was comfort and love and knowing we were still there. That was actually pretty easy. I just told him that I would nurse him to sleep and then if he wakes up in the middle of the night I would cuddle him and not nurse him until the sun came up. After we moved and got settled last fall we also set up his own bed in him own room. We have always welcomed him into our bed when he woke up in the night, but stayed firm about not nursing him until the sun came up. Of course some nights he was more persistent than others, but usually telling him a story and giving him water and sometimes a few crackers would settle him back to sleep. We did this up until about 3 months ago when he randomly just started sleeping all night! wow! I did not think that day would ever come. He was one who would never sleep longer than 3-4 hours ever. Once he started sleeping all night it was kind of scary for me because I realized how big he was getting!

Also for a while now he has accepted other ways of being comforted and has realized that if we were in a place where nursing was not easy, grocery store, etc., he would be able to wait until we were in a convenient place. And then sometimes he would forget about it later and it left nursing for naps and bedtime and sometimes in the morning when he woke up. He really didn't ask to often other than those times...so back to recently while being pregnant and irritated. What we decided to do was to limit nursings. To distract him when he asked or to keep him busy so he would not ask. Thad started putting him to bed almost every night and in the morning we would get out of bed and say how about breakfast?! He is always ready to go down for breakfast and play with his cars and animals. So that really just leaves nap time. With out even realizing it weaning has really come along way. At that point I really had no other plan and the hurt and irritation started to go away! We just took it day by day.

Of course I would do anything for my children no matter what it took out of me, but does my son need a little nudge? As a parent I feel like guiding my child to the next face of life is one of my biggest jobs. Maybe this is time and all he needs is a little encouragement and then maybe then I will know if he is truly ready to wean or not. That was the case with having him sleep in his own bed and with giving him solid food. It brings lots of tears to my eyes thinking about never bonding with Will again in this way. He is growing up so fast! sniff. sniff. My midwife who tandem nursed her children gave me some really good advice. Along with reading "Adventures in Tandem Nursing" by Hilary Flower.- To look at my child's needs, to carefully consider my own needs, get lots of support from others, and just start somewhere. Very simple.

I thought to myself that if he is ready to wean then looking ahead there is a new relationship for him and I to develop. Showing him love and security in new ways. And, well in the last 3 weeks things have been a little different. Will decided to stop nursing correctly. If you know anything about breastfeeding you know that your child must open his mouth wide...Will refused to do this. He was sucking on my nipple like a straw. This hurt soooo bad!!!! I made him stop right away. He instantly left me with sores and cracks. I am assuming that maybe the taste of my milk changed and he didn't want to taste it anymore, he just wanted to suck for comfort. :) This was so disappointing to me! I had to make a decision, but I didn't want it to be my own. Well he is old enough to understand, so I told him that it hurt mommy really bad when he nurses that way and he needed to nurse right or he could not nurse anymore. sad. :( He has not nursed in almost 3 weeks. I am assuming that he may be weaned. This has been an emotionally hard time for us, but also a time to look forward and grow and learn. I am glad I got to nurse him for 2 1/2 wonderful and challenging years. But I now look forward to having a new nursing relationship with the new little one coming at the end of the summer. For now Will and I have lots of cuddle time. :)

20 weeks

2011-04-06T14:46:00.002-05:00

stephanie_fever">

20 weeks, a photo by stephanie_fever on Flickr.

20 weeks today. Half way! Wahoo! Feeling great, loving the fresh warmer air around here and clusters of flowers that have began to bloom. Suddenly feeling like my tummy sticks out a lot larger then a few days ago and definitely feeling some stretching. The heart rate looks great in the high 150's and I am now up 10 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. There really is not much else to say at this point; not a lot happening except that I have an ultrasound tomorrow...and no we are not finding out the sex. :) I had one with Will at 20 weeks to make sure everything was measured ok and in this case since I had a c-section the first time around to make sure that my placenta is in place. So we are praying that everything looks great! We are also meeting with a doula on Friday which I am super excited about!! I think that's about it. peace. :)

a good way to start the day...

2011-04-01T08:45:00.002-05:00

"All my Fountains" by Chris Tomlin is one of my new favorites! It has such a happy tune I can't help but smile a lot and dance around. A perfect way to start the day!! The acoustics are amazing too! :)

You can also listen to it here.

Have a splendid weekend!!

Totally Ridiculous Baby Products

2011-03-23T21:36:00.001-05:00

Ok...I was literally crying because I was laughing so hard! Some of these links I found from parenting.com and some other random places. But the really funny thing is that these products are for real!..ok the really funny thing is that yes they are hilarious, but I am sure some would think of them as super useful. They would make life a lot easier and a lot more weird. Sometimes you just need a good laugh. :)ha.

baby bangs ...wow. really?

thudguard :)

zaky infant pillow creeptastic!

tinkle tube what?!

hanging baby keeper very practical...hum.

the daddle love it!

Happy Spring!!!

2011-03-21T15:17:00.002-05:00

Happy Spring to you! This time has been long awaiting in our household. We have been spending a little more time outside and have enjoyed walking around the neighborhood. Such a refreshing time. :) This is also my 300th post so I thought I would share my favorite new print that I discovered on etsy a while back. whenever the winter was getting long I would look at it and smile. by thewheatfield. Beautiful work. Here is to spring and many more sunshiny days. :)

the seeds are started

2011-03-15T16:14:00.002-05:00

The seeds are started... here we come spring!

{this moment}

2011-03-11T19:49:00.002-06:00

{this moment} - joining Soulemama for a a Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember...those cute little legs caught in the moment with only a diaper and boots. :)

Starting on the Red Raspberry Leaf

2011-03-09T14:39:00.003-06:00

This week I started drinking the ever so delicious red raspberry leaf tea. I went to our local health food store and bought the loose leaf Frontier brand in bulk. I was super surprised with how cheap it was!...and so much better than the tea bags. I actually just enjoyed the plain red raspberry leaf tea with out anything blended with it. Although I can see myself getting tired of it pretty quickly. I will probably add some peppermint or nettle to it and maybe change up between drinking it cold and hot. I also am loving my Teavana perfect tea maker for brewing up a lovely cup of this each afternoon. If you are a tea lover and have not heard of Teavava and their wonderful products you should definitely look into it. The picture above is the perfect tea maker in use. You just pour the loose leaf tea inside the maker and pour boiling water over top. Let it steep for the suggested time and place the maker over top of your mug and it strains out the bottom. Super slick!

...and about the red raspberry leaf tea...It is known as the herb for pregnancy. It helps tone the uterus for labor and helps reduce the pain during and after birth. It also helps give you more effective contractions during labor and can help prevent postpartum hemorrhage. It is rich in vitamins A, B complex, C and E as well as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium. It also is a great treatment for anemia, leg cramps, and works as an anti-inflammatory. Not like this is already the most awesome tea for women, but it also helps with the production of breast milk!

If you are pregnant and wondering when and how you can start drinking it too here are some thoughts...

Some people who have had previous miscarriages or preterm labor should probably not drink it until they are in their 3rd trimester. Obviously consulting your midwife or doctor first would be the best, but I have heard of people sipping a small cup from the time they find out they are pregnant. So I think it just depends on you and what you are most comfortable with. I started a thread on Mothering in my due date club and got a lot of great ideas and stories. You can check that out here. I also read about someone who made a really strong infusion and mixed it with orange juice to freeze into Popsicle to enjoy during and after labor. Yum!

Preggo Update

2011-03-08T06:37:00.003-06:00

ok so I definitely have not done as good of a job this time around taking pictures. I think this is my first one!!...I will be 16 weeks tomorrow. Feeling great! I have been a little more nauseous this time around for whatever reason that may be. We are thinking it could possibly be because my vitamins are much more absorbable than what I took in my first pregnancy and require me to pay more attention to eating lots of high protein foods around the time of taking them.

(Don't be fooled, I took this picture first thing this morning and by the end of the day my belly bulges out a lot more)... :)

Exciting things...I started feeling a little movement in there last week! And I have been sleeping a little better. Still having weird dreams and getting up to pee pretty often, but not as much as I did in the first trimester. That makes for longer stretches of good sleep. :)

Differences from last pregnancy...besides feeling a little more nauseous here and there, my hips have not hurt as much while sleeping on my sides and I have not gained as much weight so far. I think I am up about 7 pounds. That is a good thing because I gained A LOT my first time. :) I have felt much more irritated and emotional in this pregnancy. Some of that could be because I am nursing Will which has created challenges...(pregnant and breastfeeding post soon to come.)Feeling much better since I am still running and lifting weights like normal. Unfortunately I feel like I ate horrible in the first trimester, but in the last few weeks have finally consistently wanted what I know my body needs. I have a new favorite protein packed shake that I like to drink in the morning that really gets me going; my own concoction we will call it the Morning Mama Muscle... :)

1 Tbsp. hemp seeds

2 Tbsp. walnut pieces

1 banana

handful of frozen pineapple

splash of orange juice

1 heaping Tbsp. of Garden of Life raw protein powder

This shake is soo yummy and has approx. 15 g protein in just a small 12 oz. glass!!! I bought the raw protein powder when I first found out I was pregnant to get an extra boost, but I could not figure out how to use it because any smoothie I blended it in just tasted nasty. So i decided to use orange juice instead of water to add extra flavor and I also only use about half or a third of the amount suggested for a serving and added other protein packed foods instead. I could use the suggested amout of protein powder for higher protein content, but this works for me because taste matters. :)

We have decided on a midwife to use for birth and we absolutely love her! She is so knowledgeable and has taken extra time to get to know us. I feel really privileged since most of you know I am planning to have this baby naturally after my first being a c-section. I am not brave enough to do that in the hospital and if possible would like to stay away from the hospital so this midwife was my only chance for she is the only midwife in the area who will do a VBAC at home. I am sooo thankful for her!! I have had a few appointments with her, mainly to hear the heartbeat (high 150's-low 160's), get to know each other and make sure everything is going ok. Everything seems great so far and I look forward to meeting with her this Friday again. humm....seems like that's about it for now. I just want to record everything like I did with Will. Peace.

{this moment}

2011-03-04T14:34:00.002-06:00

{this moment} - Joining Soulemama for a Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

I am loving my new Instagram App! It's so easy to take photos in the moment, choose a fun filter and send it somewhere to share. :) Have a fabulous weekend!

Congrats Dr. Fever!

2011-02-27T12:24:00.003-06:00

This weekend was a big weekend for us. Thad graduated!!!Wahoo! We are so proud of him for not only his accomplishments at Palmer Chiropractic, but also his dedication to his family while being a full time student in a very time consuming and prestigious program...the best chiropractic program in the world. Congratulations Dr. Fever!!!! We love you. :)

For those of you in the Des Moines area, or those willing to travel, there will be a grand opening welcome week for Thad in his new office at Hassel Family Chiropractic this week Feb. 28th-March 4th. For any new patients he is offering an initial consultation, exam, and x-rays ($200 value) for no charge!! Please come in and visit, ask questions, learn about chiropractic, get adjusted, and see the new doc at work. Call 515-270-6222 to make an appointment.

click here to see pictures of our weekend.

Missing the QC...

2011-02-04T16:03:00.003-06:00

Last weekend we had the privilege of visiting some lovely friends in the Quad Cities. I have realized how much I missed them all and I think Will realized how much he missed being around all his little buddies again. Don't get me wrong we do love living in Des Moines again, but of course anytime you leave a place behind there are things that are missed. :( We are so very thankful to have each of these in our lives. Here are my top 10...

10. Leaves and acorns! Living in a really old neighborhood with really large trees makes for lots of leaf and acorn collecting. Will would fill a whole jar and sort them out when we got home.

9. the Family Museum in Bettendorf. Will LOVED this place! So much to do and explore!

8.Vintage Baby; the best consignment store I have found yet. It is huge and has everything from baby clothes to maternity and women's and men's clothes, to toys and home and furniture. We would always bring our unwanted items and always seemed to have a little store credit. love it.

7. Troxel Intern Program- although it made Thad super busy and was not home all the time I do miss all the people involved who made it feel like one big family...and free adjustments by an awesome doc.

6.Watching the seasons in our neighborhood as we walked the block everyday. Seeing and learning which flowers die out at which part of the season and watching the new ones bloom.

5. the local Hy-Vee; we would be greeted by the same faces every time we went and they always had everything we needed. :)

4. My La Leche League gals; sharing common interests, struggles, and joys.

3. Vanderveer Park that we walked to every week at least once to feed the ducks and look at it's beautifulness.

2. Heritage Church and Heartstrings...I can not say enough great things about this place. :)

1. All the cute little guys in that top picture and their parents. (and other friends not pictured.) We are so thankful to have such wonderful friends, going through the same stage of life together, having babies....all you guys are truly missed.

To see more pics of our day visiting click here.

February Resolution: Get Sketching Again!

2011-02-01T20:56:00.007-06:00

photo from the sketchbook project(I think would be fun to join next year!)

Well I did pretty good with my no sugar January resolution....fortunately with being pregnant I have wanted more salty foods so far and not so much sweet which has been so nice!! With an exception of a couple chocolates and some things I am sure was made with white sugar I actually made it through the month! The point was to get out of the mode of feeling like I needed something sweet everyday. I think it was successful! Unless it is my pregnant body just not wanting sugar, I think it helped break the bad habits and cravings. :)...and on the subject of diet I decided that I need to start being more aware of getting enough protein everyday and getting back on track with eating more greens and veggies now that I feel like I handle them. :) But that is a boring Feb. resolution, so I decided to challenge myself to doing a drawing everyday this month. I miss how much I used to use my sketchbook and maybe it would get my creative mind going again. :) oh the days in college when I used to live in that sketchbook. I put everything in there! After taking naps everyday and having no other free time lately I think this is a good way to jump start my second trimester which is quickly approaching in another week. Wahoo!...and so February begins. (one month closer to March, which is when the sunshine comes out more!!!)

Don't put your groceries next to the car seat :)

2011-01-25T13:04:00.001-06:00

It's the Size of a Grape... :)

2011-01-21T20:25:00.003-06:00

photo credit Tomas Sobek

This one inch grape is the size of the growing fetus inside me right now!...yep we are expecting baby #2 in late August sometime, and we are super excited about it! Which has resulted in me napping while Will naps and that may be the reason I have been neglecting to post here very often. :) sorry. and to answer a few questions...yep I have been feeling good. I have been a little nauseous, but really not much to complain about it was really just one hard week. The hard thing is that I have had no interest what-so-ever in eating anything green or vegetable like! eww! french fries taste the best of anything right now and apples and oranges. hummm...BBQ chicken too. :) But I think I am on the upswing! I actually ate a fresh colorful salad tonight and it tasted pretty good. :) I will probably track myself like I did with Will sharing some belly pictures and updates. It has been fun to look back and see how I changed with my first pregnancy. Also, we did have an appointment/interview with a midwife that we really liked a week ago and so far we are planning to stick with her. I am going to try my hardest to have a VBAC this time around so if anyone out there has any advice or thoughts of encouragement I would love to hear from you!

Madagascar

2011-01-15T22:05:00.006-06:00

Sorry this post has been long coming. But here it is nonetheless.

About two months ago (at the end of October) I had the fantastic chance of going to Madagascar for a Clinic Abroad with Palmer College of Chiropractic. We spent two weeks in Madagascar providing care for those who could not afford it--in orphanages, schools, towns and small villages. It was amazing. So here's a brief breakdown for y'all who have been patiently awaiting this post.

Madagascar is quite the trek from good ole Ioway, right here smack dab in the middle of the US. It ain't no hop skip and a jump away. We're talking serious business here. 10 hours in a plane to Paris, France. 7 hour layover in Paris, which by the way, not that impressive. At least judging by the airport. Then 14 hours, across Africa in its entirety, on a plane that seems to have just been refurbished from a junkyard and purchased on eBay, flown by a pilot who just finished his last training flight on Playstation (honestly think we skipped like a rock when we landed). So...after roughly 35 hours of transit (including the 2.5 it took to get to Chicago from D-port) we arrived in Madagascar...and lets not forget that we arrived in Madagascar at 4 in the morning their time...making it 8 hours ahead of Iowa...you do the math because it hurts my head to do it all over again.

By the time we made it to our hotel, we were too excited to sleep. Holy cow we were in Madagascar. I mean...who goes to Madagascar? Our first town was the capital city, Antananarivo. Welcome culture shock. Little island off of Africa, that is a French Colony. Crazy stuff. Very urban town with very European traits. And NO stop signs or traffic signs of any kind...they just honk...and pray that the other car can translate said honk. Anywho...on with the story. Our first two days were spent acclimating to the time and culture. A buddy of mind and I wanted to check out the city from our hotel and didn't even make it two steps outdoors before we were met by hagglers/beggars/street merchants who wanted to sell us anything and everything. Not quite what wer're used to around here. The first day I survived the rookie mistake of brushing my teeth with the tap water...a mistake I did not repeat. However, when someone suggests eating Chinese food...make sure you're not in a third world country...because I GUARANTEE that is NEVER a good idea. Next up, we went to the 'market' in the city. I mean 3 miles of shops that are shacks lined up next to each other. Everyone there is bargaining, even if you merely glance at something they want to offer you 'good price'. Entertaining to say the least...until it almost became a sport. But fun...and some pretty sweet stuff. Next day, tour the city and lemur park. The city of Antananarivo is pretty sweet with lots of history, most history I cannot repeat, not because it is sacred or anything, just because I had absolutely no clue what the translator was saying. So, moving on to lemur park! These guys are pretty fun and cute to see. They seem to enjoy hanging out and eating mangoes and watermelon, and jumping large distances from tree to tree, or running, which is entertaining to watch. If you ever get the chance to watch a lemur run, I suggest you take it. Next day in Antananarivo, clinic day at the orphanage. YES. Finally, what we came for. We drove to an orphanage outside of town (sorry but I cannot remember the name), and it was pretty sweet. We adjusted little kids all day and the employees and teachers at the orphanage. The place didn't even seem like what you would think is an orphanage, it just seemed like a school--all the kids were very happy and excited to see the Americans, and they all seemed really close and loved it there. We were also able to donate $1,500 US dollars, or the equivalent of $100,000+ to them, which depending on how they use it could pay the electric bill for the entire orphanage for the next 4 years. Needless to say they were pretty excited. It is amazing to see where the money is actually going to help.

After our time in the capital city we hopped on the eBay airbus and headed to the very northern tip of Madagascar to the city of Antsiranana. Now this city is what you see when you think of 'Africa'. It was amazing. Very rural, lots of beautiful scenery and mountains. Loved it. After our travel day we jumped right in and had a clinic day in town. Hundreds of people lined up to see the doctors from America. They were pretty excited. Our first two days of clinic in Antsiranana were in the same location, so it was pretty fun to see repeat patients and the amazing changes that they experienced just from the one adjustment. The next day we traveled to a small town about an hour away. We were at a school where mainly adjusted kids 12 and under. Some of the cutest kids I've ever seen were in this town. After this small town we were in a lepor colony for a day. There we saw patients outside underneath a mango tree. I wish we were two days in this town because it would have been amazing to see the changes in the patients from one day to the next, like the 12 year old boy I had who had not been able to hear out of his left ear for a while. From here we were back at our original location in Antsiranana for our last day of clinic. Again, pretty amazing seeing the changes that the patients had from their repeat visits. After our last day of clinic we had our one and only free day of the trip, where we took the time to go swim in the Indian Ocean. Man...beautiful water and sand. Some people had the attitude that its just another ocean...but I'd say how often do you get to swim in the Indian Ocean? Pretty cool stuff. After our free day...travel day. Hooray. I loved Madagascar, don't get me wrong, but was I ever excited to see Stephanie and Will...and eat food...food that I actually knew what it was...and knew for a fact wouldn't kill me, or at least make me wish I died. The good news is my immune system is now a tank, and nothing can bring me down. But what an amazing experience. I don't think this blog post or the random pictures can even describe the trip. Its almost still surreal to me, just thinking, 'wow, I was in Madagascar...how crazy is that???'

Hope this post finds you all well.

Thad

click here to see more pictures.

You are Amazing.

2011-01-11T20:59:00.002-06:00

Your Body is a MIRACLE.

It is nothing short of amazing, but sometimes we forget, are misled, or sometimes we can get caught up in the trials and tribulations of life and lose sight of or even question this.

But if you really stop and think about it, you will be amazed at how everything works so well. Did you know that you pump 2,000 gallons of blood through your body every single day and usually don’t think about a drop? You breathe 20,000 times every day and do not think about it once. We all go through amazing changes in our bodies from birth to adult, everyone goes through puberty at roughly the same time, and all of this happens without any oversight, no meds, nothing - it just happens. And we don’t question it. Our bodies are so smart that even slightly before we start exercising, our blood pressure goes up; and if we get a cut on our finger, it heals. HOW AMAZING IS THAT?! On a normal day, you don’t think about even one of the trillions of chemical reactions that take place in your body every single second of every single minute of every single hour of every single day of every single year of every single lifetime… Just stop and think about that and how incredible your body and this life is.

You see, you are intelligent, you are amazing, you carry inside of you an intelligence that runs your body and all of those trillions of reactions discussed above. Chiropractors call this intelligence “Innate Intelligence.” It is Innate because it is inborn - you don’t have to learn how to use it - it was there from the second the sperm and egg that miraculously created you met, and actually even before that (somehow, the sperm knew to go toward the egg). That intelligence is carried through your nervous system, which in coordination with your endocrine system is the master regulator/communicator in your body. Your brain, spinal cord, nerve roots, and peripheral nerves make up your nervous system, and that is the big cheese, the CEO, the General, el Jefe. All information about what is happening in the body is sent to the brain through the spinal cord, and that information is used to properly run your body.

The spine and skull are designed to support and protect your nervous system, while giving shape to your body. A solid tube of bone would have been the safest way to protect our nerve system, but that wouldn’t have been conducive to movement or life, so we have joints. Made of much softer tissue, these joints are the inherently the weak spots in the skeletal system. So, if a spinal bone gets jarred from its healthy position (through acute or sustained postural trauma), it causes damage to the joints of the spine. Damage to these joints irritates the nerve system, decreasing your body’s ability to communicate within or to itself, which blocks or disrupts Innate Intelligence. Chiropractic is so simple, it is brilliant. Chiropractic understands that the body is brilliant, and works with it through specific chiropractic adjustments on specifically damaged joints to return proper function to the spine, as well as to remove the irritation to the nervous system, unblocking your body’s life force.

This is why chiropractors do not claim to treat any specific disease, but get tremendous results with many. We restore proper communication to the body, helping the body to be healthier, and HEALTHY BODIES HAVE FEWER SYMPTOMS.

Symptoms are signals telling us that there is something wrong that needs our attention. Not alarms to be turned off with medications that dampen alarms. You get hungry and thirsty because you are getting low on fuel and water that is essential to run your body. What if there was a medication you could take when you felt hungry or thirsty, so you wouldn’t have to be bothered with eating or drinking? How long do you think that would work? It is the same thing with other symptoms! A headache, sciatic pain, breathing problems, poor digestion,etc., are not just bothersome symptoms that need to be quieted with medication - they are telling you that something is wrong and needs to be dealt with by finding the cause - not just by eliminating the symptom.

The body is amazing. Wellness Chiropractors have found their profession by continually asking this question: “How can we help people get as healthy as possible?” The science of wellness is one of understanding what makes people healthy; the science of medicine is one of understanding how to treat disease. These are two distinctly different viewpoints, with distinctly different approaches.

Everyone in modern society must have a chiropractor on their health team, if they wish to be truly healthy. Just like everyone requires check ups from a dentist, natural foods, exercise, and positive self-talk and gratitude with a support group or tribe. This is what I do for myself, and it is what I recommend to my family, friends and patients - because this is what all of the research points to when I ask “How to be the healthiest person?” This may change, but for now this is my best recommendation as a health coach.

Thad

www.hasselchiro.com

Goals

2011-01-02T21:34:00.003-06:00

photo by lululemon

Happy New Year!...yes, I am still alive. :) I know. I know. Time has seemed to slip away from me and some of you have emailed me wondering where I am. ha! sorry, life has seemed some what busy, interesting, upbeat, and much much more. We had a fabulous Christmas with our families and a super fun low key new years with a couple of our very bestest friends. It is hard to believe that a whole year has gone by already. It is kind of fun to peak over my post from New Years last year to see what goals I wanted to accomplish. I didn't really set any standards or specific goals, but just a few ideas that I wanted to be better about doing. I did so great in 2009! I set specific goals and checked in with myself through out the year to see how I was doing, but this year I kind of failed. Well not horribly...I did finally figure out a cloth diapering system, I have been lifting weights again, and I really took interest in adding more raw foods to my diet. In fact that was one of the things I was most interested in this year. Not only raw foods, but learning, researching, and spending time in food preparation. It feels so good on my body to eat well-simply stated. :) Although there are a few things I failed horribly on, cutting my cravings for sugar (that kind of came and went), and not eating after 8pm...that maybe happen like twice. oops.

A couple of things I did learn this past year was:

1-I heard a pastor say that what you think about all day is what you will become. I think about this quote quite often now; what am I filling my mind with? what is really important?

2- Parenting is like chasing a moving target. Each child is different and always changing, but that keeping a calm is key.

3-To set a routine and relax my standards. Who really cares if my house is perfect? I do have a 2 year old. :)

4-That I LOVE fresh onions and garlic sauteed with veggies and shoyu topped with sesame and pumpkin seeds. :)

5-That exercise every day is totally needed for thinking, energy, and health. How could I do without it?

6-To never bring Will anywhere if I am not carrying any snacks.

That's all I can think of for now. I am sure there is a whole lot more that will come up as I am reflecting, but now it's time to look forward. What should my goals be for 2011? There are a few main things I want to keep in mind daily that maybe I will write down so I can see everyday; to always be thankful, gentle, and content. Also to do a better job at organizing my life around knowing and loving God. But I was thinking that since I did such a bad job in 2010, that maybe I should set some small more specific short term goals that I am more active at remembering on a daily basis. I thought maybe about setting a new goal for each month and sticking to it. So for the month of January I cut out all white sugar. This is a simple goal for 31 days that I know is doable and will help me get out of holiday treat mode. :) What are your goals for 2011?

Happy New Year!...oh and click here for a few pics of our Christmas.

We had so much fun Libby!

2010-12-14T14:24:00.005-06:00

Will and I had a great week last week. A good friend of mine that I met while living in the Quad Cities (now lives in Albequerque) was staying in Cedar Falls for a couple weeks...actually at my sister's house. :) how nice. So Will and I decided that we wanted to visit her for a couple days. We had a blast! Laughing, preparing food, eating, dancing, shopping, playing trucks, talking a lot, learning to crochet and so much more. You know you have a good friend when you haven't seen each other in over a year and you can just pick back up where you left off. "We miss you already Wibby."-Will...Here are a few pics of our good ol' time.

blending it up...

dip! Chai+balls=chaiballs :)

laughing it up.

doing research.

Libby's beautiful dish rag...almost done.

my beautiful yarn..(only got a couple rows done.) ha! :)

yummy lemon coconut bars (except we made them into balls)- recipe by Ani

...more pictures to be seen here.

Love you Libbs!..and thanks sis for letting us stay at your place while you were away. :)

On Perfection...

2010-12-02T13:10:00.005-06:00

photo credit: jmodus

One of the first things we did after moving to Des Moines was look for a gym to belong to. We thought that it would be nice for the winter since we do not do as much walking around outside and also gives Will a chance to climb and play in the kids area with other kids his age. After working out this morning I went to the locker room to get my coat and keys and as I was getting ready to go I over heard some women talking about life. About how this particular person cooks on thursdays, monday is laundry day, tuesday is cleaning, and so on. I thought to my self how nice it would be to actually be consistent like that. Well I do have things pretty organized and scheduled out, but it always varies from day to day a bit. I can never seem to be perfect with my schedule. Then I look around and see these moms picking up their kids in the kids area and see how together they look. They have got their hair all fixed up, make up on, smiles, holding a child in one hand and their coffee in the other. I thought to myself, wow all these people are so perfect. They have got it all together and the weird thing is that I know a couple of them don't have Christ in their life. For a moment it almost looked like God was unnecessary in their lives. Like they can achieve success with out Him. Then I caught myself...wait! What am I talking about? That could never happen in this world! It just so happened that I read a daily devo by Oswald Chambers this morning (while in the locker room), and he talks about just this. That Christian perfection will never be human perfection. It is not the same thing! Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true. Oswald said, "that I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself." He starts out the devo by saying that it is a trap to think that God wants to make us "perfect specimens" of what He can do, but that God's purpose is to make us one with Him. I realized that thoughts about human perfection were hindering my usefulness to God and my relationship to Him. Not that I am the "perfect" hair, makeup, coffee drinking type of person anyways, but I will remember now that its not all about how humanly perfect they look. I am sure they have their own set of problems, but also how much better life would be for them on the inside if and when they start a relationship with our one true King.

"God's purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants."-Oswald Chambers

"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus made me His own." Philippians 3:12

I'm Still Alive!

2010-11-28T15:32:00.003-06:00

Hello There. I know it has been well over a month and half that I have updated here, but we have been super busy. Yep, we have moved. We are starting to feel more settled now that we are unpacked and Thad is home! Will and I lived at our new townhome in Johnston for a whole month before Thad even came home from being on a clinic abroad trip in Madagascar and then taking his last set of boards back in Davenport. I can not tell you how happy we are to have him home! Will is adjusting much better now with having his Daddy home...and he has his own room now! It is really exciting for him and he loves to sleep and play in there. Oh boy he is growing up so fast! :) I don't have any pictures to share yet of the new place for we are still decorating and what not. But I can tell you that we painting a couple walls in our living room a bright cheerful blue with the hopes of it feeling like blue sunny skies all winter long. :) I may show a few corner shots sometime soon. But we are loving the smaller and more open floor plan, the downstairs is just one little room with a kitchen, dining, living, and laundry room. We are also really enjoying being in Des Moines again. Will absolutely LOVES being so close to his grandparents, and uncles. Although he does miss all of his buddies back in the Quad Cities...we also are missing our church. We have been on the search for a new church home around here. Although we are definitely blessed with so many friends and connections in the area. Thad has absolutely LOVED working since he started last week. He looks forward every morning to getting up and going in to work to better peoples health. He is like on a high when he comes home telling me he has the best job in the world and all the cool stories of the day. Oh and I will make sure he writes a post soon about his trip to Madagascar. He has some really cool stories and pictures that definitely need to be shared....but other than all the moving and settling we have been staying busy with lots of other things. Will and I have really explored the neighborhood. We have a pond across the street that has seemed to attract lots and lots of duck and geese this season so we have enjoyed walking over there to feed them and watch them. Will reminds me to watch out for all the poop. :) We have gone on many walks, found a mud pile outside our house and a park a few blocks away that we have visted quite often while the weather was still warm enough. We also are fortunate enough to live across the street from the public library. We are able to walk there in like 3 minutes, so we go there quite often. We signed up for story time which Will looks forward to each week. We sing lots of songs and dance and use instruments and do crafts. We do felt board activities and of course a story as well. He is so interactive and loves to get involved with the other kids. Doing stuff like that makes me realize how big he is!

Since we have not lived in the Des Moines area in over 8 years now the city has changed so much! We have enjoyed checking it out. Finding our new favorite local shops and learning more about our community. We were super excited that Trader Joe's just opened up in West Des Moines! I am amazed with how much Des Moines has grown over the years...actually a bit overwhelmed, but we will find our rhythm. Anyways.. I am starting to babble. Here are a few pictures to update you and now I am going to go catch up on your blogs! :) Happy Sunday!

Playing at our new favorite park

What's this stuff??

Cousin Hunter came to visit!

My cute little bumble bee all ready to trick-or-treat.

And one sneak peak photo of Thad in Madagascar.

Can you hear me now??

2010-11-15T22:28:00.002-06:00

What is the main communication center that you have?

Well, when it comes to your body, there is only one definitive answer. Read the following exerpt from www.pennhealth.com;

As the most complex system, the nervous system serves as the body control center and communications electrical-chemical wiring network. As a key homeostatic regulatory and coordinating system, it detects, interprets, and responds to changes in internal and external conditions. The nervous system integrates countless bits of information and generates appropriate reactions by sending electrochemical impulses through nerves to effector organs such as muscles and glands. The brain and spinal cord are the central nervous system (CNS); the connecting nerve processes to effectors and receptors serve as the peripheral nervous system (PNS). Special sense receptors provide for taste, smell, sight, hearing, and balance. Nerves carry all messages exchanged between the CNS and the rest of the body.

…

So that gets a little complex but you can see the point it’s getting at. The nervous system is the master controller of the entire body. Everything that happens inside of you as well as the way in which we perceive our environment is dictated by the function of our nervous systems.

That being said, do you think it would be a great idea to make sure that your nervous system is working at its optimum potential?

A lot of people call us back doctors. "Oh my back hurts, I better go to the chiropractor", or if you had a cough "but my back doesn't hurt, why would I go?". If the nervous system was in the thumb...I'd adjust thumbs. But its delicate tissues are protected by the spine...and that is why I adjust the spine. Plain and simple.

I have now completed my graduation requirements at Palmer College of Chiropractic, the fountainhead of Chiropractic. I am participating in an internship and seeing patients at Hassel Family Chiropractic in Clive until I graduate in February. Give us a call at 515-224-1111 and lets get that nervous system functioning at optimal.

Thad

{this moment}

2010-10-08T23:16:00.016-05:00

{this moment} - I am joining Soulemama for a Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

p.s. I may be absent from this blog for a while since we are moving next week. :) Have a fabulous weekend!

more photos of Will's b-day- click here.

Today My Little Man is TWO!!

2010-10-04T11:32:00.003-05:00

Happy Birthday my sweet little Will! I can hardly believe it has been two full years since you came into this world! :) I love everything about you...your spunk, your charm, and your energy. I love how you giggle at everything and take your time doing whatever it is that you do. :)

Today we will most likely be playing dinosaurs, hitting the baseball and walking to the park. Maybe out to dinner tonight.

Happy 2nd Birthday Willie!

What's the Big Idea?!

2010-10-02T12:13:00.002-05:00

So...THAT'S the Big Idea. Des Moines...I'll see you in a month. For those of you outside of the DSM area, check here. Real health is not found in a pill, potion or lotion. So check it out.

Thad

Photo Update...

2010-09-29T13:26:00.004-05:00

There has been lots of stuff going on around here lately since we are moving in a couple of weeks. Lot's of packing and organizing and spending time with friends. Our place is starting to look a little different with boxes starting to pile up and bits of furniture starting to disappear.(sold on craigslist! yes!...less to move. ) Will seems too busy with life to seem to really care too much. For all he knows he has more room to run around. We visited our new nephew a couple weeks ago, went to apple orchards, Will had his first sucker (oh it killed me to see him eat that much sugar) ha!, learned to hit the ball the right way...kind of, made play dough, sidewalk chalk galore!, and spent lots of time with friends. Here are a few photos to share...

the sucker...oh my.

flour+salt+water=play dough

stacking

we make a creative team :)

Will and Lincoln- we will miss you Linc!

I tried to teach him to walk like a chicken. It was pretty hilarious. :)

...and Thad teaching him to hit the ball. Wow, he just seems so big in this video! Almost two!!

Happy Wednesday to you. :)

Rainbow Organization

2010-09-21T14:54:00.001-05:00

Will at Play

2010-09-15T22:08:00.005-05:00

Building houses for all of Will's little people has been the thing around here in the past couple of months. He usually says "Biiig Huse! (house)" and then we drag out all the blocks and I start the foundation. He stacks a few blocks here and there and I usually finish it off. And of course I had to decorate the entrance with plastic trees. :) This is one of our very favorite houses we have built. He had the idea of using some blocks for beds. I am not sure if someone showed that to him before or not, but I thought that was pretty creative. Then I decided to set up a long table for them to eat. Then he decided to start lining up the cars inside too. So I guess it is kind of like one large house community sleeping garage room. :) And we usually end up making quite the mess at the end of the day. Pick up. Rebuild the next morning. Ha! Love it. :)

Why Crawl When I Can Fly

2010-09-07T14:11:00.003-05:00

"For all its caterpillar life, it crawls around a small patch of dirt and up and down a few plants. Then one day it takes a nap. A long nap. And then, what in the world must go through its head when it wakes up to discover it can fly? What happened to its dirty, plump little worm body? What does it think when it sees its tiny new body and gorgeous wings?
As believers, we ought to experience this same kind of astonishment when the Holy Spirit enters our bodies. We should be stunned in disbelief over becoming a "new creation" with the Spirit living in us. As the caterpillar finds its new ability to fly, we should be thrilled over our Spirit-empowered ability to live differently and faithfully. Isn't this what the Scriptures speak of? Isn't this what we've all been longing for?" -Francis Chan

I have been reading Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan. I am only in the beginning chapters, but I have been blown away by some of these simple word pictures. I am a visual person so this analogy of the caterpillar and the butterfly really sunk deep for me. Why is it that so many of us Christians live life exactly the same way as those that do not have the Holy Spirit in them? Sometimes many of those who do not have the Spirit actually seem happier and more at peace with life. How is this even possible? Is it because we can sometimes ignore Him? I think the Holy Spirit wants to intercede in our lives a lot more then we will let Him. In fact when I think about it I have a Counselor who is just like Christ who stands beside me everywhere I go and is giving me flawless direction in my life. How cool is that?! Reading this book makes me want to consistently live each day with an awareness of the Holy Spirit's strength. So, why keep crawling like a caterpillar when I have been given the ability to fly.

When was the last time you saw the Spirit at work in you?

Niabi Zoo

2010-09-03T14:48:00.004-05:00

Today we saw elephants and monkeys and birds and wallaby and ducks and fish and goats and sheep and ponies and cattle and emu and reptiles and giraffe and wolves and bobcats and zebra and camels and elk and panthers and leopards and lions and tigers and bears oh my! HA! And we took a ride on the choo-choo train of course. It was a beautiful sun shiny day and we took advantage of the free day at the zoo. Will loved seeing all the animals, but what surprised me was that he actually seemed a little intimidated by seeing them in real life. He made me hold him the whole time! Not the stroller, not Thad, but only by me. I love cuddle times, but oh my carrying him the through the whole zoo gave me quite the arm workout. I'm buff now. :)

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend! :)

"Biiiiiiiig Tractor!"- Will

2010-08-28T11:59:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we visited the John Deere Pavilion in Moline. Instantly when we walked in the doors Will was off. He ran to every tractor and machine and climbed right up into them. I think he was a little overwhelmed with excitement because he didn't even stay up in one long enough before he saw another tractor he wanted to climb into. :) The same words came out of his mouth over and over..."Biiiiiiiig Tractor! Ride Ride! Big Big Big Tractor! Wow!" He was so cute! They also had a coloring corner for kids and a wooden cow that you could "milk". (it was actually water) He thought it was pretty cool, and actually it was a really neat place. Just getting the best of the Quad Cities before we move.

Click here for the pictures of our visit.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Colorful Scrap Pillows

2010-08-27T12:43:00.004-05:00

A couple weeks ago I decided that I needed to sew something really colorful and fun and bright for our new place...did I mention that we are moving in a couple months? Well, we are!...Thad will be done with classes finally and we will be back in the Des Moines area. So sad to leave our good friends in the QC, but always good to be close to family and old friends! :)

I get so excited about decorating new spaces...and always with lots of color of course! We are renting again before we know for sure the area Thad will be practicing in and with most rental places they don't allow you to paint the walls. Well in this place we can! I am so excited! Contemplating a bright cheerful yellow in the living room and maybe a bright aqua blue in the kitchen...humm. I don't know yet, but I do know it will be colorful! So I decided to make some fun new pillows with scraps I had lying around. Two of the pillows I used material from old sweaters, and the other two are scraps of cotton fabric from the stash. Making it cozy for the winter to come. New pillows are always a good way to change and lighten up a room with out spending a lot of money. In fact I spend $0! Covered old pillows and used left over stuffing from the craft closet. Well enough blab...here are the pillows!

Whip 'Em Out!

2010-08-23T21:10:00.002-05:00

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

2010-08-20T21:15:00.002-05:00

Yep you heard it!...good ol' fashion chocolate peanut butter cups...well kind of. Of course these have no dairy and little sugar(depending on what you use), but they are still the same amazing treat! There really is nothing like the chocolate/peanut butter combo. I think everyone knows that. :) I found this recipe from Alicia Silverstone's book, The Kind Diet. So they are 100% vegan and I can't believe my eyes how good they taste! They are so rich that you really only need to eat one and it satisfies your sugar craving. (if you are anything like me). hehe. :)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups- serves 12

1/2 cup earth balance butter

3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter

3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup maple sugar or granulated sweetener

1 cup grain-sweetened non-dairy chocolate or carob chips

1/4 cup soy, rice or nut milk

1/4 cup chopped peanuts, pecans or almonds

Line 12-cup muffin tin with liners. Melt butter in small saucepan over medium heat and stir in peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs and maple sugar. Mix well. Remove from heat. Evenly divide mixture (about 2 Tbsp.) per cup. Combine chocolate and milk in another pan. Stir over medium heat until melted. Spoon over mixture in each cup and top with chopped nuts. Place in fridge for at least 2 hours before serving.

Yay!!

2010-08-13T19:43:00.002-05:00

This photo brightened my day! Thought I would share it with you. Have a good weekend!

Now reading...

2010-08-08T16:20:00.006-05:00

A new library branch opened in Davenport and it is so awesome! It is bursting with tons of amazing new books that I just could not walk by with out picking up. So naturally I overwhelm myself by checking out a huge stack of books and hope to get them read by the time they are due back. Not to mention I have a few other books I am thumbing through at home as well. Most likely they will have to be renewed at least once. :) Well anyways, here is the list from top to bottom...

The Happiest Toddler on the Block by Harvey Karp

So far this book has had some good advice on eliminated tantrums. I have heard lots of good stuff about this book from a few friends who have read it so I am really looking forward to digging into it more.

Mrs. Meyers Clean Home by Thelma Meyer

Lots of awesome advice on cleaning from the heart of Mrs. Meyer herself. She is a Mom of 9 and now grandma as well and from Des Moines. She is witty and wise explaining in simple detail how and when to clean and organize just about anything in your home...also with what products as well.

Softies Only a Mother Could Love by Jess Redman and Meg Leder

...fun loving little critters to sew.

The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone

I actually read this one first and I am pretty much done with it now. I have had this book on hold for a while now so I was super anxious to dig into it. It was full of awesome recipes some of which I will be sharing with you guys at some point. I also enjoyed reading about her experience with food and trying different diets such as vegan, raw foods, etc. and how she found that macrobiotics and listening to her body was key.

Superfoods for Healthy Kids by Lucy Berney

Has over 250 immune-boosting foods and recipes that are appealing to the kiddos. Lots of colorful pictures and faces. That is my favorite part about food/cookbooks; I am definitely drawn to the pictures first. :)

The Gentle Art of Domesticity by Jane Brocket

Stitching, baking, nature, art and the comforts of home...this book just looked like it was full of coolness so I snatched it.

Sock and Glove by Miyako Kanamori

This book is sooo cute! It shows step for step how to make several little softie friends out of old socks and gloves. I have always wanted to make Will a real homemade sock monkey. Hopefully I get around to it. :)

Apartment Therapy Design Solutions by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan

I most likely will just look at all the pictures in this book rather then really reading it. In fact I have already thumbed through it a couple of times. It is a very large book full of awesome designed apartments. I often go to apartment therapy.com for lots of inspiration so I was super excited to see this book at the library.

The Children's Museum

2010-08-04T21:17:00.004-05:00

Today I took Will to the Bettendorf Children's Museum. He had an absolute blast! He played in the tree house, went through tunnels, stirred up some unique egg, orange juice and cheese soup in the little playhouse kitchen, jumped on the lily pads on the pond and hung shirts on the line. He jumped around on the playground and climbed a lot! Learned about lights and colors, made music, watched himself in silly mirrors and videos, played at the train table, made clouds, met dinosaurs, brushed the horses, pet the sheep, played with tractors, sat in tractors, and firetrucks and cars, found eggs under the hens, played grocery store, watched fish swim, built glowing lego houses, and got totally soaked while playing at the water tables. It was a fun filled morning with absolutely no dull moment. I love being a mommy. :)

check out the rest of the pictures from today by clicking here.

Yes...you've got one.

2010-07-28T22:59:00.003-05:00

Hello Hello-

Its been a while since I've posted, my apologies. I have not purposefully neglected the 2 of you who follow 'my blogging'. I wanted to clear the air a little bit. I know last time I posted it was about the Vertebral Subluxation. Well, lets dive into that a little more. I know some of you were thinking, 'man I hope I don't have one of those', but I have to tell you that there's a pretty good, if not definite chance you have one. I will explain why.

You may be asking, 'but Thad, how can I have one and not feel it?' Well, oh seeker of answers, did you know that there are nine functions of a nerve. And of those nine functions, only THREE of them have to do with sensation. Even deeper, what percentage of a nerve do you think deals with pain? Go ahead, submit a guess. 20%, 34%? Ok, I'll tell ya. NINE percent of a nerve deals with pain. The other 91% keeps your heart beating, your lungs breathing, your muscles firing, your cells communicating. Now, look back and think, is it possible for me to be subluxated and NOT know it?! I think you know the answer.

Now again, only a good chiropractor can find this subluxation. If you think you need a doc, check HERE. At this link you will find some of the best chiropractors in the world. However, if you are in the Des Moines area, I will be back in town in the fall...and we'll talk then :)

That's all I've got for now.

Thad

Weekend Finds

2010-07-24T20:46:00.004-05:00

I am in LOVE with colorful retro looking things! Enough said. :) I have been collecting for a while now, but I was so excited about my garage sale finds this weekend that I had to share with you... I found this beautiful collection of plastic retro dishes that came in a picnic basket. Although the basket was not in good shape I thought the dishes were perfect! They would be great for picnics and grilling out instead of paper plates. And they were only $1.50 for the whole set!! awesome deal huh? Some of the smaller dishes I might tuck away to go with this lovely play kitchen I am thinking about putting together for Will's birthday in the fall.

I also found a couple more vintage Pyrex. I am starting to see a theme with these. I have a lot in this olive green color. I like it. :) For all three of these it was 75 cents.

...and I saved the best for last! This brilliant floral lamp! Yes I know it might seem aged to a lot of you, but its retro right? And I love it! It will fit in with my decor perfectly! I splurged a bit for this one because I just fell in love with it! It was marked at $10, but I talked her down to $ 7.

So all together I spent just under $10 for all of this beautifulness! Love it! Although I was dripping sweat in this horrible humid heat, it was definitely worth it! :)

my garden

2010-07-19T22:13:00.009-05:00

So we have been doing a lot of traveling lately and my poor container garden has not been doing so well. :(...although I have had my first harvest of cherry tomatoes, or maybe I should say tomato. (not plural) Below is a picture of my poor plant dying, but no worries it is on the road to recovery.

Tomato plants are so moody. If you skip a day of watering they look so frail, but can pop right back up to normal with in less then a day! Love it! Along with my yummy tomatoes I planted a few marigolds to keep pests away. In separate containers I have enjoyed chives, basil, rosemary, cilantro and some beautiful pink zenias. Below is a picture of my yummy herbs and sad dying zenias. boo. :( Thank goodness there are farmers markets because this container garden was not all it was hoped to be. :)

On the upside I did happen to take a few pictures of my pink zenias before the dry out. Arn't they cheerful! Sorry I know, I know...I was just a little sad though. This is the fist time I have ever actually grown anything from a seed. So sad to see it die.

...and another thing that makes me smile...the lettuce bowl that was given to me from a good friend who had to move...spinach, kale, something else that sadly was eaten by a bug and yummy edible flowers that taste like the creamsicle soda pop candy things I used to eat when I was a kid. Sorry I have no idea what the name is, but they are surprisingly delicious.

Have a good week!

Vacation Part 3- Cleveland and College Football Hall of Fame

2010-07-12T15:21:00.005-05:00

After the 4th of July we headed out for an 8 hour trip to Cleveland, Ohio. Part of my dad's side of the family was getting together for a small family reunion. It was soooo great to see everyone! It had been many years since we have all been together, and when I say many years I mean like 13 years! It was a blast! We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky, Ohio where they had a fabulous indoor water park with lots of unique slides, basketball hoops, kiddie area, and lazy river all designed to get you soaked! It was so much fun! We swam mostly in the evenings and during the day we went to Cedar Point, the largest rollercoaster park in the world!!! I went there when I was little, but it definitely had changed since then. Oh how I forgot about the thrill and rush you get after a good coaster. It had been a long time since I rode one. I am glad my body could still handle it. :) I regret not taking many pictures while there, but I know others did so I might have to mooch a few copies. :) I was impressed with the kids rides. There was a ton! I think Will rode just about every automobile possible and had a blast at the Snoopy Show. And for the times where I felt he needed to relax a bit and get out of the heat they had first aid stations where you could have your own quiet nursing room for free for as long as you need. That I was really impressed with!

After a great trip seeing family we started heading for home at last. Will was a little over tired and worn out after ongoing excitement for almost two weeks straight. We decided to stop in South Bend on our way home to break up the trip a little. We walked around Notre Dame and toured the College Football Hall of Fame. Will could not handle the excitement of footballs everywhere. He was so darn cute! He danced in the marching band room, pointed at every football he could find, practiced his field goal kick, and ran on the turf outside. It was definitely worth the stop. All in all it was a great trip!..and I think Will now has a new obsession with Snoopy. :)

click here and here for a few more pictures.

Vacation Part 2- The Berry Farm and Backyard Swimming!

2010-07-11T15:36:00.006-05:00

It was sooo hot!...and we had a blast. With the exception of a couple of tantrums this was such a fun day! We started by going out to Berry Fresh berry farm in Adel. We spent the morning picking raspberries, eating raspberries, and petting Maggie the horse. We also met Chewie the alpaca and watched Beulah, the cow escape through the fence. No worries, she stuck around. :) Will loved sitting on Maggie. He kept saying,"riiide. ride." After picking berries we went fishing for a while at the pond by the berry farm owners house where we also saw a flock of 7-8 turkeys. With out question Will ran after them while holding a cracker in each hand. In his excitement his body got moving a little faster than his feet and down he went...face first...on the concrete. It was tragic, and he was crying with a beauty of a scrape on his nose from eating the driveway. The good news out of this, however, was that he did not let go of his crackers. Nope, he went down holding on to them and came up with them. THIS, is why his daddy thinks he will be a great running back. :) After falling asleep in the car on the way home all the cousins enjoyed a nice cool swim in the backyard at Gram and Grampi's. Fun stuff! You can check out the rest of the pictures by clicking here and here.

peace.

Vacation Part 1-Living History Farms

2010-07-10T15:14:00.003-05:00

Hello! We have been out of town vacationing for the last couple of weeks. We were in Des Moines visiting family and friends and then traveled to Cleveland, Ohio for a small family reunion. I took so many pictures!!!...but the funny thing was that after downloading them all and looking at them I realized I was never in a single one! Ha...I guess that's what happens when I am the only one taking pictures. I decided to split up the trip in a few parts to share this week. It was so much fun to spend quality time with friends and family and sunshine and adventure. One of our first days we visited Living History Farms in Des Moines. Seeing and learning about the way Americans lived in the 1700's, 1800's and 1900's. So much simplicity and quietness where everything is handmade. Will enjoyed the tractor rides and the animals the best. You can see the rest of the pictures by clicking here.

Celebration of the Senses Day

2010-06-24T22:16:00.005-05:00

painting available in my store.

Today, June 24 is Celebration of the Senses Day! I know there is pretty much a day to celebrate for every day of the year, but this is a unique blog topic. :) Taste. Touch. Look. Listen. Smell. Taste a fresh strawberry. Give a foot rub. Gaze at a painting. Listen to music with your eyes closed. Smell the flowers. How fun! Today I walked in the grass barefoot and taught Will how to smell our blooming zenias outside. One of Will's favorite books right now is Green Start:The Five Senses. I also came across an interesting article in a Body & Soul Magazine that I checked out from the library about expanding your palette and turning whole foods into a full sensory experience. Amanda Archibald,a dietitian, food educator, and step-daughter of a U.K. wine importer explored and discovered a method of sensory association with food. The average persons diet consists of about 15 foods. What?!?! That is crazy considering how much variety we have been given! According to Archibald there are fruit and veggie flavor families that she has given names for below. She said that eating foods in the same family can help expand your palate of food and help you gradually gain a liking for new foods. That makes sense. For example, she would cut up 3 veggies of the same flavor group into small cubes and toss together. This would be especially helpful for those who are picky eaters. I just thought this was really interesting. Below are the flavor families... I don't think there is a single fruit that I do not like, but the veggies on the other hand I did not have a taste for until the last 4-5 years and are gradually liking more. Adding new veggies in my smoothies with lots of fruit has helps to like new tastes as well. I may start with the tart and bitter families. :)

Fruit Flavor Families

tart-papayas, blueberries, kumquats, grapes, cherries, pineapple, kiwis.

sweet- watermelon, clementines, peaches, dates, oranges, figs, mangoes, honeydew melon.

mild- apricots, strawberries, bananas, cantaloupe, pears, plums, pluots.

crisp-honeydew melons, asian pears, apples, pears.

smooth-mangoes, bananas, dates, figs, apricots.

Veggie Flavor Families

grassy- celery, asparagus, chard, spinach, mizuna, cucumbers, green beans.

sweet-bell peppers, snap peas, beets, carrots, fennel, sweet potatoes, parsnips

spicy- radishes, onions, turnips, watercress, arugula, leeks, chile peppers, basil.

bitter- chicory, dandelion leaves, eggplant, escarole.

earthy/pungent- beets, broccoli, cabbage, collards, kohlrabi, chard, mushrooms, rutabagas.

tart- lemongrass, sorrel, tomatillos.

buttery- artichokes, peas, edamame, mushrooms, asparagus, avocados.

anise- fennel, basil, endive.

I've got one...do you??

2010-06-23T00:58:00.006-05:00

Hello Folks, and welcome to Official Post Numero Uno from me, Thad.

So, lets try a little word association game. When I say Vertebral Subluxation, what comes to your mind? I know what you may be thinking---what the heck did he just say to me? Yes...I said vertebral. and subluxation. What you may not know, is that this small little complex could be affecting your health in a huge way. Lets dive into it a little bit...

A subluxation is a spinal misalignment which causes nerve irritaion or interference. This misalignment is called Vertebral Subluxation. (put it simply vertebra=bone, subluxation=outta whack) Trauma to the spine, either from the accumulative effects of repeated minor episodes or from a single incident, begins a sequence of events which lead to subluxation and disc damage. (We will get to more specific causes at a later post...)

1. Trauma misaligns a spinal vertebra.

2. Picture the intervertbral disc as a jelly donut. The jelly in the middle is the nucleus, and the donutty outside is the annulus. The shifted vertebra compresses the nucleus of the disc forcing it against the annulus (outer rings). The fibers of the annulus become stretched and damaged causing an inflammatory reaction.

3. The inflammed and swollen disc can potentially irritate the nearby spinal cord or nerve roots. To protect the area, surrounding muscles go into spasm to prevent excessive movement and damage.

4. The lack of motion in the subluxated segment inhibits the disc’s normal pumping action causing the disc to dehydrate. The lack of water in the disc causes the annulus fibrosus to crack and fissure (tear). This causes pain because the fibers of the annulus are richly supplied with pain-sensing nerves.

5. The gel-like nucleus begins to seep into the fissures in the annulus. The chemical contents of the nucleus are irritative to the nearby nervous tissues.

6. As more of the nucleus creeps into the annular fissures, the disc bulges, herniates, or even possibly ruptures. This causes direct pressure on the spinal cord or nerve roots.

7. Over time, degeneration occurs in the spinal joint, the irritated nerves and those systems which they supply.

The analysis used by Gonstead Chiropractors enables us to determine specifically how a vertebra has misaligned and how the disc has been affected. We then use this information to determine the best approach to restoring proper position and motion of the subluxated segement. In most cases a specific adjustment is warranted. Our adjustment involves great care to ensure a mechanically correct position and precise thrust to provide the most accurate and painless adjustment possible. By removing the pressure on the disc the nucleus will migrate back to the center of the disc. Then the annular fibers will heal with fibrotic scar tissue taking the pressure of the delicate nerves.

The main goal here is removing nerve pressure allowing the body to function at its most optimal level.

So...NOW what comes to your mind when I say Vertebral Subluxation??? Do you have one?

Thad.

P.S. I apologize for the academic nature of my first post. I know what some of you may be thinking...oh man, I hope that everytime Thad posts it won't be soo mindnumbingly boring. And I will tell you now...I can't make any promises, but it will be gooooood stuff.

A Father's Day Interview

2010-06-20T08:54:00.003-05:00

I decided to do a short interview with Thad on this special day before he starts including some of his posts on the blog so you can get a sense of his interests. He is sometimes sarcastic, always interesting, and full of knowledge and quick wit. :)

We love you Thad. Happy Father's Day!

Love,

Will and Stephanie

What is your full name?

Thad William Fever

What is your favorite color?

green

What were your first thoughts when becoming a father?

holy crap!...What if I raise a punk? Is he going to be like me? Will I be a cool dad? I should probably learn to whistle with my fingers. If he is anything like me he should be ok.

What is your favorite thing to eat?

food from the grill and fresh veggies.

If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?

Australia or Scranton, PA

What topics will you be blogging about?

life. love. and chiropractic. What ever I feel like. Quotes from The Office, and why I think people are stupid.

What is the most embarrasing thing you have ever done?

depends on the situation and the year...1-belly flop off the high dive when I was 13. That one is free. The other ones you have to pay for.

How many kids do you want to have?

4- 2 girls and 2 boys

What is your favorite thing to do in your free time?

relax, hang out, and have a good time.

Quick...what is the first movie quote that comes to mind?

"If you ain't first...your last."- Ricky Bobby

Beach or mountains?

both. I can't choose between those.

What is your ideal everyday outfit?

jeans and a t-shirt. Well, ideally...but what I where everyday is dress pants, dress shirt and a tie.

Otherwise what ever makes my muscles look big. wink. wink. cheesy smile. :)

What is your favorite sport to play? to watch?

football to play and watch. Also Australian football to watch...aka footy. It's freakin' sweet! You can quote me on that.

What is your favorite thing about being a father?

Just watching Will go about his daily business. He is just amazing to watch...that little guy.

Meteor Shower

2010-06-17T22:21:00.002-05:00

This is one of my new favorite songs. Meteor Shower by Owl City. This is a video of them live in Chicago a couple months ago. (No I was not there...I wish.) It is short and simple, but the lyrics are so powerful!! Enjoy. :)

Kiwano Melon

2010-06-15T09:43:00.002-05:00

I was drawn to this spikey looking bright orange fruit at the store last week. I knew nothing about it, but thought I would give it a try. I got home and cut it open...it was green! Not what I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised with its sweet but tangy taste. You actually eat the seeds kind of like a pomegranate, but they look like cucumber seeds...hummm, hard to describe. It tastes like a mix of cucumber and kiwi. I know that may not sound like a good mix, but it really was! You will just have to try it for yourself. I later googled it and found that it is originally from southern Africa and also know as the horned melon, or in the US is also called the blowfish fruit. Putting a little salt or sugar on it after cutting it open is supposed to increase the flavor. Although I thought it tasted great as is.

Finger Painting

2010-06-12T21:44:00.003-05:00

Ok, well it started as finger painting and then it led to full out fist painting. I think he enjoyed being able to just discover the texture of the paint and what he could do. I am glad I took his shirt off, but I think next time I will be doing this outside. It is pretty funny looking over the pictures and seeing the messiness progress. It started with colorful dots and lines and ended in a big blob of brownish every color mixed together black. He now asks to paint all the time...I think he is going to be just like his mommy. :)

Check it out!!!!

2010-06-06T17:45:00.003-05:00

I have been working really hard to finally get my Etsy Store up and running again. I have changed the look...I have changed the items, and it is bursting with colorful energy! As of now I have for sale prints of my most recent paintings. I have only listed about half of them for now, so be sure to keep checking back for what is new in the next week or so. I have just been so anxious to finally get these up for sale! I will eventually be putting up some of the originals as well. If you are interested in buying something, but want a different size, multiples of, or printed on a specific paper or canvas please let me know and I would be happy to get you more information on price and other details. So go check it out here...and tell me what you think. :)

A New Love: Broccolini

2010-06-03T15:03:00.003-05:00

There is something about this vegetable when lightly steamed it turns into such a vibrant green color. It's beautiful! Yep, that's right, I just said it was beautiful. I know I can be kind of a freak about the color of food, but the more color the more nutrition...right? In most cases I believe that to be true. This vegetable, broccolini, caught my attention this spring. It tastes yummy raw, steamed, sauteed, and probably other ways as well. I found out that it is really high in vitamin C, and also contains high amounts of vitamin A, calcium, folate and iron.

How is it different than broccoli? Well besides looking like a cross between broccoli and asparagus it tastes surprisingly sweeter...and the stem is a bit juicier. When cooking broccolini, less is more. Although I heard that it tastes delicious grilled with a little olive oil, sea salt, and fresh lemon juice. yum. yum.

Wordless Wednesday..The Double Swing!

2010-06-02T15:33:00.001-05:00

overjoyed

For the Love of Playdough

I Can't Believe She is 5 Months Old!

The 4-Minute Microwave Green Breakfast Muffin

cold, not so cold, and cold again

Oh So Pinteresting...

Happy New Year!...recap and resolutions

Getting ready for Christmas!

***Will and Karlie***

My Baby Girl is 3 Months Old!

DIY Chalkboard

I'm catching up...

The Homebirth of Karlie Joy

Welcome to the world Karlie Joy!!

NEW!- in shop...Back to School

Full Term!!!...37 weeks.

Market Favs

NEW!- in shop.

Sensory Tubs- On the Farm

The Happy Scrap...NOW OPENNED!

You are meant to be Extraordinary!

Muffin Tin Meal- Yellow & Nutritional Yeast Mac

I love my SERGER!

Sensory Tubs- Dinosaurland

Crazy for CARS

Our Trip Out West

...and they are off!

Home-Grown Bean Sprouts

Have I mentioned...

30 weeks preggo!!

Where have I been?

and the winner is...

May GIVEAWAY Day!

25 weeks and feeling HUGE

CF+ the Market + the Hair Salon=busy weekend

Roasted Spiced Chickpeas

Easter with the Coulsons

Happy Earth Day!

Oh-Omaha

Adventures In Nursing My Little Guy

20 weeks

a good way to start the day...

Totally Ridiculous Baby Products

Happy Spring!!!

the seeds are started

{this moment}

Starting on the Red Raspberry Leaf

Preggo Update

{this moment}

Congrats Dr. Fever!

Missing the QC...

February Resolution: Get Sketching Again!

Don't put your groceries next to the car seat :)

It's the Size of a Grape... :)

Madagascar

You are Amazing.

Goals

We had so much fun Libby!

On Perfection...

I'm Still Alive!

Can you hear me now??

{this moment}

Today My Little Man is TWO!!

What's the Big Idea?!

Photo Update...

Rainbow Organization

Will at Play

Why Crawl When I Can Fly

Niabi Zoo

"Biiiiiiiig Tractor!"- Will

Colorful Scrap Pillows

Whip 'Em Out!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Yay!!

Now reading...

The Children's Museum

Yes...you've got one.

Weekend Finds

my garden

Vacation Part 3- Cleveland and College Football Hall of Fame

Will and Karlie