My Baby

I just love the way Caleb acts when a baby is around. He puts his little hands on his knees, squats down to the level of the baby and says "Hi baby!" (you know the way he says "hi" so animated) It's so sweet.

Caleb has started to enjoy pretending. He'll get his 'baby elmo' and 'softie', bring them to me so I can wrap Elmo up in his softie like baby for Caleb to hold. He'll walk around the room rocking Elmo in his arms saying "baby, baby, baby" in a soft singing voice.

Often during the day Caleb will bring me a blanket and say, "hold you? Baby?" Translation: He wants me to wrap him up in the blanket tight, and hold him like a swaddled baby. He never has to ask me twice! I get to cuddle him while singing a lullaby. It only lasts a few seconds but it's one of those moments when I look down at him and think, "Wow, I am one lucky girl".

I love being healthy

I love being healthy. It just makes me happy.

Those of you who know Paul well, you know he is a very picky eater. He is, however, willing to try new things, but rarely likes them. Nutrition is very complicated, especially with all the ads and claims for "healthy" foods it's hard to really know what your eating, if it's really healthy or if your just being fed lies. Even with the many many nutrition classes, diet planning, research and practice in nutrition I know very little about nutrition.

But I'm still passionate about it, I enjoy trying new healthy foods, and reading about nutrition (from credible sources of course).

Anyways to get to my point, I'm proud to say I've converted Paul (and myself) to some new more healthy food choices in the last 3 years of our marriage (slow but steady). Some of them include; brown rice instead of white, wheat bread instead of white, Quinoa, no sugared cereals, olive oil instead of vegetable oil, and spinach and flax seed in our smoothies.

Although it's been a low process I'm proud of Paul for being willing to try. He grew up on a much different diet than these foods so it can be difficult to change.
Lately there have been two things I have been trying to work on to make our cupboards full of healthier food.
#1 Fewer hydrogenated oils
Hydrogenated oils are SO BAD for you! And they are in so many foods. These go straight to being stored as fat (yuck). They clog your arteries (heart attack!), make your liver work extra hard to digest and make you feel more tired because your body is using so much energy to digest them.

#2 More "healthy fats" (omega 3 fatty acids, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats)
Just off the top of my head I can come up with many health benefits of eating more mono and polyunsaturated fats; they don't clog your arteries, lowers cancer risk, raise HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) and lowers LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol), helps lower blood pressure (if high), decreases inflammation (which adds a huge list of health benefits on it's own) and so much more. Good sources are fish, peanut butter (watch out for hydrogenated oils in the brand you buy), olive oil and Conola oil, coconut oil, flax seed, walnuts, almonds and other nuts and more. So I have tried to purchase more of these foods for cooking, snacks and meals but again watch out for ingredients in things like peanut butter, they are so tricky, some brands such as Skippy have hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in them which are SO BAD for you!

Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, and Happy Snow Day

The last few weeks have been eventful. We enjoyed being lazy during the rest of Paul's Christmas break, then celebrated his birthday, and our 3rd Anniversary! Can you believe that, 3 years have gone by already. Life is just too fast.
Paul and I went to dinner without Caleb on Thursday, then Sunday we tried out our fireplace for the first time. We had a romantic evening by the fire talking about the most memorable times of our marriage.
I won't get too mushy but the last 3 years have been the happiest, but I will admit, the most trying as well. Marriage hasn't really been diffuclt for Paul and I. Most say the first year is the hardest, we didn't feel that way one bit, and it's only gotten better from there, but we have had to rely on the Lord and each other more than ever. We added Caleb to our lives 18 months after we were married and we are more happy than ever.
We don't usually give gifts on our Anniversary but Paul brought be home flowers and I gave him a cheesy candy bar poster.



(if you can't read it too bad, I'm too embarassed to write it all, it's so cheesy!)

Happy Anniversary Paul, I love you!

We FINALLY got snow here in New Hampshire. Here we come sledding hill! Caleb enjoyed it, but not as much as I thought he would. We tried sledding last year with him, he was only 6 months old. We didn't have a sled so we tried going down a hill on a cookie sheet. I'll just say this years sledding was much more successful.






Happy 26th Birthday to Paul! or as Caleb says, "Happy Day daddy"

I gave him a little portable grill and Caleb gave him lighters.



We lit the candles twice because Caleb loved blowing them out.

Interests

I've had two things on my mind lately and I'd like your opinions/knowledge on the subjects.

#1 Herbs

Since I have a minor in Nutrition I know somewhat about herbs, mostly herbal supplements. I'm not one to supplement. I figure if I'm going to get my nutrients I should get it from the best source FRESH FOOD. Supplements are difficult for your body to breakdown, hence taking longer get the nutrient, harder on your liver, more energy and more money.
I've been getting a lot of headaches recently. I've always had migraines at least once a month but now they seem to come at least once a week, often they are just tension headaches but on occasion turn into migraines. No fun. I hate popping the Tylenol and Ibuprofen so much, so I was thinking about herbal treatments. Do they work as well? My goal really is just to get rid of the headache at least in this area...

But also, I have a toddler, I hate giving him medicine when I have no idea what's in it. So herbs interest me in this area as well. When I think about how to be healthier I think to myself, "How did the Nephites do it? What did they do when they had a headache, back pain, a sick baby..." Well the natural way right? They'd probably make some sort of mixture of herbs. Obviously Heavenly Father put us on this Earth with everything we needed to survive, without having factories to make it. Thus, herbs must be the healthiest way to go...but how? I don't know where to start? What will work for what illness? And is drinking tea ok? (Most herbal mixtures seem to be taken as a tea).

#2 Home School

This has just been on my mind because it seems to be I hear about it more often than I used to and maybe that's just because I'm a mom now. I realize I have years before Caleb is school age. But I'm curious on others thoughts about the subject. Pros? Cons? I have my opinion and I'll share it later.