Things are Getting Crunchier Around Here...

Just when you thought we were a pretty stinkin' natural-liking, granola crunchy, organic-loving, weird family...


Things just got crunchier.


As of this week, we are officially trying to go vegetarian.
WHAT?
The goal is really to eventually go as vegan as possible, but for now, vegitarian is a start.
I know.  You're full of questions.  And yes, Neil is allowing this.
For those that don't understand just how incredible of a change this is... when Neil and I first got married (like, within the first few weeks), I cooked something without meat for dinner - I think it was Ravioli with zucchini and walnuts or something.  His response:  "Where's the meat?"  Apparently, if something didn't have meat, it was "just a snack."  seriously.  So, we have had meat every night for dinner for the past 6 years.  yes.  every night.  Unless it's Sunday - then we definitely have meat for lunch - and dinner is lighter - but still may have meat on a sandwich.  yeah.  lots of meat.


The truth of the matter is that this switch is for Neil's health.  Yes, he's perfectly healthy right now.
This is the deal:
Both Neil's mom and brother have been diagnosed with (taking a quote from my sis-in-law's blog, Heart Healthy Family)"Prinzmetal's Angina.  This heart condition, which is hereditary, causes the body to lack the nitric oxide needed to dilate the coronary arteries in the heart.  Instead of a plaque build up or blockage, the heart has a "spasm" and clamps shut.  The same releases found during a heart attack are found during one of these "episodes."


Neil's mom had her first episode at around age 30.  His brother Kyle was 27.


The research that is out there shows that the risk of having an episode is drastically reduced by increasing leafy greens (and veggies in general) and by eliminating animal fats as much as possible.
If you haven't seen the documentary, Forks Over Knives, it's a good eye-opening one.  It actually touched on Angina a bit, and it's good for knowledge for anyone as well.


The number one concern that people have about vegetarian, and especially vegan, diets is getting enough protein.  Neil did some research on this by asking the question "can I be a vegetarian and not eat beans?"  That's funny right there. Ha.
He found the website www.nutritiondata.com that breaks down every food that you can think of and gives loads of information on it.  One thing it does is shows the quality of protein (how many of the 9 amino acids it has) and the nutrient balance completeness score.  Search some stuff and you'd be surprised.  For example, everyone seems to be raving about Kale - how it's a super-food.  But compare it to spinach, and you'll see that Spinach is actually better.  But the cool thing is that you take something like kale, and it says it would be more complete if added with something else, then it gives suggestions on what to match it up with to give complete nutrition.  Great resource because it helps us know things like how much protein(and other nutrients) we each (based on gender, height, weight, and activity level) need each day, how much protein and other nutrients are in the foods we eat, if they are lacking in nutritional value and we need to match it up with something better, and even what the rating is as far as fullness factor (just FYI, spinach has a higher fullness rating than chicken).


Anyway, back to protein - it's entirely possible if you have a good combination of fruits, veggies, nuts, bread and pasta, etc.  (did you know that a cup of almonds has like 30g of protein??)


So we're going pretty much meatless for dinners.  I got some crab meat to make crab cakes - other than that, no meat for dinner.  We're hoping to phase out a lot of stuff as time goes on- replacing animal-based things for plant-based things.  We'll see how it all goes.  Just taking it a step at a time...


So far this week:  Minestrone Soup with Salad and yummy bread.  I even got Neil to eat Garbanzo Beans - and he LIKED it!!


Coming up: Crab Cakes with oven-baked Ratatouille, salad, and bread. 
                   7-vegetable medley with couscous, salad, and bread.


Hopefully I'll be able to get more creative as far as sides.  For now, I'm just using what I've got as far as recipes.


Recipes, cookbooks, or other helpful resources would be greatly appreciated!! 

Spring is Here!

Welcome, Spring!!

We are so happy to have you!

I'm One!

Name: Isaiah Ethan Jones
My Birthday: March 10
Height and Weight: We'll find out soon at our Dr.'s visit.

Favorite Foods: Anything Mommy chooses to give me really.  But my favorites are cut up green beans, Ranch Style beans, homemade mac n' cheese, yogurt, Sammy snack bars, puffs, frozen peas, Ritz crackers, Challah bread, and M-I-L-K.  mmmm...

Although Mommy switched me to this cold, less yummy milk.  I don't like it nearly as much as I liked Mommy's milk.  But, I suppose I should have seen it coming.  Mommy kept saying that I was hurting her with all of my teeth, since I officially have 7 of them now.  I wasn't biting her, but I guess my teeth were just rubbing her raw.  I wasn't trying to hurt her, but I didn't know how to change how I ate...Mommy said she didn't want to give it up, but just couldn't handle the pain any more.  She said it was getting as bad as when I had my tongue-tie, only she couldn't do anything about it.
The cold stuff isn't horrible...just isn't the creme de la creme that I had before...
I'm too busy to miss nursing though.  Too much to do to cuddle with Mama.  I think it makes Mommy sad.

Words:  words?  what words?  Just in the past week I've started to let mommy and daddy into my world by babbling a bit more and using inflections.  Sometimes it sounds like I'm saying "please", "that", "Bella", and many other things, but I'm just fooling them, really.  Maybe someday soon I'll say a real word other than "Dada."


What I'm working on: I've decided this week that because I'm one, I'm no longer a baby.  I want to be a big kid, just like my brother and sister.  So I'm working really hard to keep up with them.  I crawl everywhere I'm going, and I'm getting faster than a speeding bullet (and get into things just as quickly).  I pull-up to a stand on everything now, and since my birthday, I've gotten especially brave.  The other day, I was trotting along behind my walker, and I just decided I didn't want to hold on to it anymore.  So I just let go and stood all by myself.  Mommy wasn't prepared AT ALL!  She was too busy taking pictures of my cute pants that Mimi made me to catch me when I fell down, so now I have a bruise on my head...again...I guess I'm gonna have to get used to this.

Getting into the CDs.  Mommy wasn't as excited.

Sportin' my longies that Mimi knitted for me.

Favorite things:  My favorite thing to do is go outside. I don't care what I do outside, I just want to be out there.  There's so much to explore!  Dirt, rocks, grass, sticks, leaves... Bella and Balian's toys... and there's so much room to crawl!  Love it!  I will beg Mommy to take me outside, by leaning and reaching for the back door when she's holding me.  There is really no other place I'd rather be.

Playing with Balian, outside.

I like my Daddy a lot too.  When he comes home from work, I get so excited I just can't contain it.  And he's really the only person that I "go to" willingly.  He's really my favorite, but shh...don't tell Mommy.  Other than that, I'm a big fan of books, my bear and binky for bedtime, and getting piggy-back rides on Mommy's back in my wrap.  Mommy runs around the house with me in there, and I just laugh and laugh...  I really like playing peek-a-boo too.  Especially coming around a corner and being surprised by one of my favorite faces.  And I love being chased (and caught!). So much fun.  I love being ONE!

Made From Scraps

This skort was quite literally made from scraps.

The denim part was originally the bottom of a pair of jeans that I hemmed for a friend.  The front is one leg, the back is the other leg.

The ruffles are strips of fabric that I cut from left over scraps from various things.

The waistband and underskirt were made from the bottom half of an old T-shirt.

I already had the thread and the elastic lying around.  And the button I grabbed out of the kids' craft box.

So this skort honestly cost me a grand total of .... $0.

Of course, I don't think that anything I make is perfect.  My technique wasn't the best, so I ended up doing things the hard way (hence why I don't have instructions - you wouldn't want to follow them...)

But amazingly enough, it still turned out alright.

And most importantly, Bella loves it.  She kept asking when her "pretty skirt" was going to be finished so that she could wear it. :)

Oh, the little things...

Isaiah got his first serving of Ranch Style Beans this week.  

Needless to say, He liked them, just like the other two.

Neil was happy (no kids asking why Daddy isn't eating his beans, if they like them, right?) 

...until I told him that meant he was outnumbered 4 to 1.

Isaiah wasn't settling down for one of his naps (not like him), so I go into his room and this is what I find:

I'm not really sure how he got his arm out all by himself...

There are definitely days that a video baby monitor would come in handy - It would be a new form of entertainment for me, I'm sure, but without the shock value of walking in on something as cute as this :)

Writing Practice

This week Balian all of a sudden decided that he wanted to practice writing his letters.  I have these dry-erase practice sheets that are amazing.  In the past, while Bella was working on her handwriting skills, Balian would scribble all over these things.  Well, this week, he decided that he actually wanted to try to trace the letters, and he really surprised me.

No, his grip on his marker isn't perfect, and we still have scribbles all over the rest of the page...

But he's only 2.5!  I wasn't planning on even introducing this for another 6 months!!  And he WANTS to do it!  So fun :)

He probably wants to do it, because Bella has been practicing her letters so much.  Bella has started asking "Mommy, how do you spell ________?"  Then I would tell her, and she would write it.

Here's some of her handiwork:

Now, mind you, I'm not waiting for her to write one letter before giving her the next.  When she asks how to write PopPop, I say "p-o-p...p-o-p" and leave it at that.  So, sometimes she misses a letter or two, but that's ok.  I'm amazed that she is able to remember 99% of the letters that I dictate.

Here's more writing practice on some of her artwork:

An update almost 2 years later...

I think I can finally update you on some stuff that I gave a teaser on almost 2 years ago, in my post "oh, the possibilities..."

At our church, we have an amazing worship pastor.  Amazing talent, to say the least.  Plays guitar, bass guitar, keys, and I'm sure a ton more... but not just an instrumentalist...and a vocalist...and a songwriter...and has worked in the music industry forever...but he's also a producer.  Oh, yeah...and he's a big black man that's filled with the Holy Spirit.  So, he not only has amazing talent...but also an amazing heart for God.
Our church is extremely Blessed to have Shake Anderson.  Only God could have lead him to where he is.
(If you haven't heard  this CD, written almost entirely by Shake, you should check it out.  The Song "Medicine for Someone Else", sung by Ruben Studdard, has been nominated for a Dove Award.)

This year, starting our third year with Shake, after teaching us and challenging us, and really working hard with us, making us better singers, songwriters, and musicians than we ever thought we could be...
GenPraise (Generations Church Praise Team) is in the process of recording an album.

What's even more amazing to me is that some of the songs that we are using for this project are songs that God gave me.  When I first played some of my songs for Shake, and he said that he liked them, I was speechless.  I think I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.  And that was over a year ago.  Just in the past year, God has opened wide the door in my songwriting.  I've been gleaning so much from His Word, and He's turning what I'm learning into songs to share with others.
Songwriting isn't new to me - but God is stretching me in new, amazing ways.  Ways that I never thought possible.

This week we've been working on recording my newest song, "You've Already Brought the Victory."  It's all God, hands down.  If you never thought a white girl could write a gospel song, think again.  With Christ, all things are possible. ha. :)
I'm excited, and I'm extremely humbled.  The entire process for this song thus far - has been God proving Himself to me over and over and over again - and leaving absolutely NO chance to give glory anywhere but where it belongs - to God himself.  He started giving me this song in the middle of worship last Sunday morning.  That's never happened before.  So I'd write a little - then sing when I was supposed to (yes, I was up on the platform - I was just hoping I wasn't distracting anybody, but the Holy Spirit was moving and I couldn't disobey that!)  Then Monday, I was supposed to meet with Shake and it just kept not working out...Tuesday morning, I open up my Bible, read the passage of Scripture that had stirred up my heart, then read the words that God had given me on Sunday.  I'm praying over these words and meditating on them,  and BAM! All of a sudden, I had the entire tune of the song in my head.  Everything stopped.  The kids were playing by themselves, amazingly enough - without interruption - and the words kept coming, the melody kept coming, and everything just came together so beautifully.  I didn't have time to figure out the entire chord progression - I just had the key it was in, and the tune in my head, and the words on my paper.  I took that with me to my meeting with Shake that afternoon. I told him what I had, and he seemed a bit worried, but told me to go ahead and sing it to him without music.   So, I did.  And his response - "Well, I know what we'll be recording tonight."  Talk about a slap in the face! He apparently got the same vision with it that I did.  It was 5pm, and the team would be back up there at 6:30 for recording.  In that time, Shake took care of figuring out the chord progression, and went ahead and laid down the tracks for electric guitar, keys, and bass so that we could record that night - as well as figuring out an arrangement with all the harmony parts, etc.  seriously.  amazing.
And everything so far is sounding really, really good.
The vision in that man's head is nothing less than the power of the Holy Spirit.
I can't wait for you to hear it all someday soon.

In the meantime, if you could pray for the project - for the CD - that would be great.  We're recording, and Shake is producing - all within our church walls - but we're not really sure what's going to happen after all is said and done - only God does.
There is so much that God is doing in our church right now - it's like this CD is just an overflow of what's going on.  God has so much in store.  He's moving.  The Holy Spirit is at work.  We are just trying to grab hold of everything that He's doing.

oh, and for those of you from Kentucky - We're going to be at Icthus this year :)
and that's another prayer request - figuring out how I can go - and having someone to take care of the kids for about a week...Right now it's looking like Neil will be taking off work to be home with the little ones while I'm gone for a week.  If that's what needs to happen, then wonderful - but I need to feel better and less guilty about it, if that's the case.  Just praying for God's peace.  It's a tough balance to be a stay-at-home mom, and be entirely content in that - and yet going where the Holy Spirit leads, without putting my ministry to my children (or submission to my husband) to the wayside.  Asking my husband to do my job for a week, while taking off of his is a hard pill to swallow, even when Neil is supporting and encouraging me.  It's just a difficult balance that I've only had to deal with on a very small scale up to this point (rehearsals, recording, etc.).  Going from being with my kids every day to being gone for an entire week is a pretty big deal.

I'll keep you posted on everything as there are updates to give.

From Old to New

 Meet my newest project:

This dresser has been at Mom and Dad's house for a long time. 

I needed a dresser for our School Room to store school supplies, art, etc.

A free dresser...that just needed a bit of work...

So I sanded it, re-stained it a pretty Red Oak color, filled in the old hardware holes, made new ones, added new hardware, and stained and added new feet.

And this is what we ended up with:

Isn't it pretty?

Here's a side shot, so you can see the pretty sheen...

Makes me smile...and feel very productive.

Oh, and our School room is SO much more organized now...

which makes me smile even more :)

Definitely ended up not being free...but it was still a heck of a lot less than I would have paid for the same thing...and anything I bought probably wouldn't have been solid wood like this one.  That's why older is better...sometimes it just needs a bit of a "pick-me-up".

Word for Word

(As we are driving by our church)
"Mommy, why are there 2 cars at church?"
"Well, people work at church.  Pastor Allan, Pastor Shake, Mrs. Laura, and Mrs. Laurie..."
"They work there?"
"Yes, Bella.  Just like Daddy goes to work...they go to work at the church."
"But they aren't all boys."
"No, they aren't.  Mrs. Laura and Mrs. Laurie are girls."
(eyes get really wide)
"Girls go to work too?"