Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Oh Baby!

Thanking God for answered Prayers! As many may know we suffered what is considered a chemical pregnancy in Oct/Nov. Which where your body thinks its pregnant, but you really are not. We made a decision to wait and try again after the holiday so there wouldn't be another heart break. And on November 20th 2013, I didn't think I was pregnant, considering we weren't going to try again til after the new year. But thought "oh what the hey! Lets test"... And i was completely shocked when this appeared on the stick. I think I just starred for a while in complete disbelief. This time we kept it a complete secret from the kids, because last time we told them early and had to shatter their hearts.
Our appointment was set for the day before Christmas Eve, and I couldn't wait to see our sweet bean, and to confirm everything was ok. And it was! Everything was perfect, little heartbeat and everything. It was amazing! We told the kids that evening once we got home. They seemed a little shy about reacting til I showed them the Ultrasound, and pointed out there was a heart beat, a head and body. After that moment, they have been excited and amazed about all things.
The most amazing moment about the pregnancy was when my son asked me about what the baby is doing. And I googled a video that is Christian based, that explains a baby's development (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APkV40vUhWs ). And he started to tear up once he saw what a miracle life truly is! He can't wait to meet the baby and feel the baby move. I look forward to what our life will be with 3 beautiful blessings!



Monday, January 6, 2014

Happy OFFICIAL 1yr to NATURAL LIVING

So I have been officially working towards my goal of Natural living with food for 1yr, and completely living naturally for 2 years come May 2014. And I was asked about my story, and I thought I would update on my blog and do a little story telling. I have been slowly adapting to the natural living, because I knew I couldn't do a giant leap with me being a mother of 2 (almost 3) and a wife. I would need to slowly make the changes and change to menu as well. So here is my story, I hope you enjoy!

Back in 2012, I was looking into becoming a little more natural. Less chemical, less dyes, less wasting money. I started googling things about how to save on making items, and the first thing I came up with was detergent. I realized adding another member to our family I was washing A LOT more clothes and going through detergent like it was water. And I also noticed HALF the ingredients I could not pronounce! So I started reading up on different things, and I started to realize that it was the easiest thing ever to make. I went to the store and made my first batch of laundry detergent! And I can say  I make it every 6mths, for the amount of laundry I do, that's amazing.

I started to look into other things through our household, I have a whole binder full of DIY cleaning products. I finally made the transition over to our food, with just making my own bread started a whole new life for our family. I started making cookies, pizza crust, and then Chinese food. Everything I started to make from scratch, or some-what from scratch. I got so involved with natural living that I was OVERLY excited about a class our church started, Treasures of Healthy Living.

The class, Treasures of Healthy Living is what really started my journey to Natural, Clean Living!  It opened my eyes to so many things, so my things that was in our home, in our food, and unfortunately in our bodies at this point. At this point of my journey the words "What are we passing down to our kids" just completely rang through out my mind. I am the person that teaches my children, I am the cook for my kids, and what I buy them, for the most part, they eat. And I successfully finished my first PERIMETER SHOPPING this past weekend (Jan, 4th 2014). And I couldn't be happier. My kids have for the most part enjoyed it, the cooking, tasting new things, making cleaning supplies, and picking out new soaps from our favorite natural living company - Lavame Clean  .

I have successfully started a new journey again, trying new clean eating things. I found a wonderful book that went a long with Treasure Healthy Living concept, called Trim Healthy Mama. It is based on eating smarter and clean! And I loved reading it, and getting started we had a major surprise come up. This past November 2013, we found out we where pregnant with baby #3. And I started looking into Baby Natural Living! I look forward to the new journey, and the more learning to go around it. Since the whole transition, I have enjoyed every moment of the change. I lost about 12lbs since starting the natural living and the gym, and holding at only 8lbs gained so far at 11wks pregnant.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my story, my journey and the wonderful journey that God had laid out in front of me so far.  

The few, the proud, the way to teach

Wow! What a morning with schooling! For the past month I have been praying to God "Lord please help me teach my son! He is struggling to learn how to read and I feel like I can't win! HELP ME!". I felt like all he ever did was cry and refuse to read. I felt completely defeated because I felt like I was failing at home school.
Today we started home school after the long Christmas break, and the same thing started. The melt down! So I finally got real with this child, I looked him dead in the face and said the most meaningful words I could come up with.
"If you don't learn to read, you don't graduate. If you don't graduate you can not join the military! (his eyes got really big) You don't graduate you can't be a police officer because you can't read them their rights."
At that moment, he got real about learning to read. He read not only 15 words, he also done it without crying, whining, and in 12mins!! That is amazing, because it took one day an hour to read 3 words.

I thank God for our major break through!

Blessings
Tina