Forgot One

I wanted to post this picture from Vera's blessing, There is a little distortion from the lens but I thought this one was super cute. Love them both.

Sweet Grace

Grace invited us to her birthday bash where the kids had tons of fun jumping and playing and eating treats. A special birthday hat was requested so I tried my best to work some felt into a cute hat, not too bad, but I'll have to keep practicing my felt skills.

Happy Birthday Grace! Three is such a fun age.

Family food

I love to read books, not so much novels, but how-to and informational books. Reading makes me miss school a little less. So, lately nutritional books have been my favorite and the new year has got me into finding new ways to feed my family healthy meals. There are so many different books and ideas on nutrition, written by doctors, scientists, researchers, journalists, bloggers, how do you choose? There is just so much info that sometimes I feel so confused, and they all have good points and are so convincing. I decided to go by three main rules when making nutritional decisions that I know are true:

1. The Word of Wisdom
2. Everything in moderation (no extremes here)
3. Personal revelation to me for my family

John and I sat down and read through the Word of Wisdom together and had a great discussion about what we feel is good for our family. It has probably been years since I read it and had forgotten several things. There were a few things I swore were in there that were not mentioned at all ;), oops.

So with that said, here are a few books that I have read that I have really enjoyed and have tried to incorporate:

Food Rules
In Defense of Food
Eat to Live and Disease Proof Your Child by Joel Fuhrman (you have got to read this if you have kids, you will love it)
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day
Jamies Food Revolution




This week we have eaten and tried, salads, soups, whole grains, quinoa, seeds, fish, soy products, healthy muffins, and lots of vegetables. Here are some results:

For dinner Mae and Wes each ate a plate of steamed green beans and then asked for seconds

During lunch Wes ate his bowl of spinach salad and veggies faster than anyone else while complimenting and thanking me for making it for him

Mae said: "leaves are good!"

John: "I could eat this for every meal"

A very skeptical John: "this stuff actually tastes good"

And Wes and Mae have been thanking me at every meal, so cute, and such a great habit :)

Man, if I knew it was going to be this easy I would have done this a long time ago.

Blessed

Does Vera not look like a little baby angel? She is so precious and I am a proud Mama. John gave her a beautiful blessing on Christmas day, and I'm excited to see the role that she will play in our family. She is already getting so big, she will be three months this week! What?

Christmas 2010

Our favorites:

Gingerbread houses
Sledding
Skiing
Bowling
Yummy food
A Santa visit
Pedicures
Bingo
Christmas morning for the kids
Vera's blessing

Kids

I love this picture of all three kids. I love being a mom, and now that we have all settled into a good schedule it is so much more enjoyable. We just need to come up with some good winter activities before the kids die of boredom.

Trouble

It's always fun to find your kids jumping on the bed without their clothes on.

Pre Holiday Pictures

Before we headed off to Idaho we had some fun decorating our tree and making Christmas cookies. Most of our other decorations ended up back in boxes after a few were broken by curious hands. We also ended up taking our tree down a little early when the kids knocked it over twice.

A few things the kids have said lately:

When we asked Wes what he wanted for Christmas he told us: "I want a white shirt like dad has to sleep in."

For about a week Mae kept telling us that her blankie and bunny were "growing a beard" then we figured out that she was only saying it when she was looking for them. Then we figured out that what she really meant was that they had "disappeared"

Dance Party Bowling Style

We had such a fun Christmas. Lot of fun things happened but the bowling party was definitely a favorite. This is our first attempt at editing video from our camera, check it out.