A Lovely Weekend

Okay, the weather was not very loverly, but D surprised us Saturday night by showing up at home, we made the drive to St Cloud, then took the "scenic route" home. It was a very relaxing evening with the fam.

Sunday we made it to church on time ( surprisingly!), after being up late Sat. night! Spent the afternoon visiting with friends and family.

It was a lovely weekend spent with friends and family. I will miss these weekends when we are gone, but it makes me appreciate them more when we're home!

It was hard saying goodbye for the kids. They love seeing their cousins on weekends. I'm trying to plan one last (surprise)hoorah for the kids before we head out. I am going to see if we can have all the cousins spend the night ( except the youngest 2), on May 9.Brooke and Alexis invited another friend too and I'm sure Michelle will want Robin to spend the night also. We'll make homemade pizzas and I'll have to figure out some snacky type things. All on the weekend that we leave!!!! But it's the only weekend left that will work....

our days in lovely, cold MN are numbered! and I am happily counting them down!!!

lifestyle change

OK, now some may find me getting a little bit over the top about some things, but I have come to the conclusion that eating a lot of processed foods, meat, and sugar is just plain old bad for your health. My children were at the docter's office last week, no one is sick , just wanted to get up-to-date on all those pesky shots before we leave for the year, anyway, our dr. was amazed that our children have never had a cavity.... I guess that is almost unheard of in our world of sugar, sweets, sodas and juices. The reason we have never had to deal with cavities is because we rarely have those types of things in the house.

And now I am on a new mission to cut out all refined sugar, most meats,(no, I'm not going vegetarian), try to buy mostly organic fruits and veggies, and what meat we do eat, I try to make sure it is hormone free, antibiotic free. With 4 young girls in the house I think that it is very important for their health to keep all that added stuff out of their bodies. (The reason I say that about the girls is because there has been some studies done on the affect of added hormones and our preadolencent girls.) So far we have been very fortunate because most of the meat we have eaten up to this point has been venison and wild game that we have shot, butchered and cooked ourselves.

I love it when people ask if my children can have suckers, or gum when we go to the supermarket, or Dr.'s office, my answer is always a resounding "no". They may think I am a mean mother, but they don't have to pay our dentist bills now do they! I have found more and more people are getting more reseptive about it. Today at the supermarket, the cashier asked me ,very quietly, if my children can have a sucker. I smiled and thanked her for offering, but I would rather they didn't. She smiled and told me she didn't think I wouldn let them. When I asked her why she thought that, she said, "look in your cart, you don't have any sweets or goodies or anything with sugar in it in the whole thing!"

The kids were very excited about the treat they did get though---- rasberries!!! yum yum, (and very expensive :}) And Joseph was excited about the lemons too :)

We shall have to see how it all turns out--- I will keep you posted!