Michael and Kristen's Wedding

This past weekend my little brother got married! 

I'm so happy for Michael and Kristen and they had such a beautiful wedding. 

Here's a few of my favorite photos from their very special day.

  

Seth's special job was to walk down the aisle with this sign right 

before Kristen walked into the room. 

He did a very good job!

 

 

 

 

during the ceremony

  

Don't they just look so happy taking their first dance?

 Father/daughter and Mother/son dance

 Monumental moment: dad and mom dancing...it's never happened before.

 the wedding cake

 

the groom's cake (which I thought was so appropriate)

 

 the only family photo I got the whole day...

We had to head out early because the boys were getting so tired, 

but it was such a lovely wedding and reception. 

Michael and Kristen, we are so happy for you two!

Latte Art Throwdown at Spencer's Coffeehouse

 Thursday evening, while Bryan's parents watched the boys for us, we went to a Latte Art Throwdown and Caffeination Celebration at Spencer's Coffeehouse. Some of the best baristas from Nashville and around the state came to compete for the best looking latte. Lattes were judged by three judges on symmetry, contrast, infusion, and artistic beauty.

 

Cameras were set up for spectators to see the lattes easily.  The lattes were displayed on screens.

 

Here's a look at two of the competing lattes. They are simply amazing!

 We got to bid on lattes made by the baristas. All of the proceeds from bids, along with tickets purchased as part of a raffle, went to the Regional Child Development Clinic.
Here's one of the lattes that we won.

We also won some gift certificates from the raffle!
We drank too much coffee, stayed up way too late because of it, but had such a fun evening!

Paleo: 6 Months Update

We're six months into our Paleo lifestyle. You can read about what the Paleo lifestyle is and why we chose to try it here. It's hard to even describe all the changes that have taken place in the last six months, but I'll give it a shot.

We have completely changed the way we think about food. We eat lots of food that’s good for us. We try not to eat foods that can hurt our bodies because we truly believe the right kind of foods can be healing.

We've lost a lot of weight. Bryan and I have lost about 30 pounds each without even trying. I have gone from a size 12 to a size 2. I've never been this small in my entire adult life.

Buying clothes has continually been a challenge. Just when I buy something that I think looks cute and fits, it becomes too big. I have spent a lot of time in consignment clothing stores. Bryan had to buy all new work pants early on and is needing smaller pants again, too.

Figuring out what we could eat was hard at first. I felt like I was constantly trying to find recipes that could provide a little normalcy to our lives. Once I found a grain-free waffle recipe, a few sweet treats, and mastered some staple dinners, I felt a little better. I still think about food a lot and try lots of new Paleo recipes, but things are starting to feel a bit more normal.

We moved into the local food scene more than we ever had. We buy more locally produced food than food from the grocery store now. This seems to be the most mind boggling thing for people. I am constantly asked "how do you find out about all the local food you eat?" It was really very simple. We went to the Farmers' Market and we talked to the farmers. We found out what they provide and if they don't have something, they are more than willing to point you in the direction of someone that does.

We buy organic products now. I rarely bought organic foods/items before going Paleo.

We do eat raw dairy (although it’s not really Paleo, it’s called Primal if you want to get technical). The boys eat/drink way more than me. We made the switch to raw milk back in May and since that time, we have bought another share from River Cottage Farm. So we get two gallons of raw milk a week. We have made our own ice cream sweetened with maple syrup several times. We also try to buy raw milk cheeses.

Eating out has probably been the most challenging. I get asked all the time where we can eat out. Our choices, although still not the greatest, are Buckhead (burgers without the bun, salad, fruit), Home Cafe (burger night), Mariah's (grilled chicken/pork chops, baked sweet potatoes, and salad), Logan's (grilled chicken, baked sweet potato, and vegetable/salad), Chick-fil-a (grilled nuggets and fruit cup), Griff’s (chicken baked potato) and sometimes we pick up meat from The Smokey Pig. We usually leave a big pile of bread on our plates if we order burgers, but at least we can eat out occasionally. I’m sure there are other options especially the nicer steakhouses, but these are the ones we’ve tried and managed to eat at successfully. When we venture down to Nashville we have found Gabby's and Calypso. Nashville has a lot more Paleo friendly options. Here's a list of other restaurants we would like to try on our occasional visits there.

We started raising chickens because we use a lot of eggs around here. Our chickens are still too young to lay eggs, but we are getting closer to the point of productivity.

We started growing more food. We more than tripled the size of our garden and we are going to try growing foods pretty much year round. We have kale, swiss chard, and spinach that we have already harvested and more ready to be picked.

Because we feel great, we exercise more. We have energy to get out and move. Bryan and I are both running. Bryan ran 8 miles on Sunday!

I am conscious about getting enough Vitamin D each day. We make sure to try to spend at least 30 minutes (most days it's way more) outside every day.

I felt some tingling in my feet when we started Paleo, but after just a few short weeks it went away.  I also had some balance issues when I would squat down. I would squat down to pick up something that fell on the floor or help the boys with something and would fall backwards all the time. It was really embarrassing. I got to the point where I would just get down on my knees and avoid squatting all together. But the balance problems have now stopped. I also rarely need to take a nap anymore. All of my MS symptoms are gone.

Switching to a Paleo lifestyle seeps into the other areas of your life. Once we learned more about how food is processed and produced, we began to dig deeper into the make-up of other things. Eventually, we started to question the impact (on us and the world) of most of the things that enter our home. I'm constantly on the lookout for potential toxins. I don't want to live in fear, but I do want to be conscious of the things I can do to provide a healthier lifestyle for me and my family. So...

We no longer cook with non-stick cookware. We use cast iron, enamel coated pots, or stainless steel pots and pans. I also use wooden spoons more and would like to replace my plastic spatulas and soup spoon with metal ones.

We switched to glass food storage containers or mason jars for storing foods.

All of our hair care products are now from Aveda.

I’ve quit putting nail polish on my toenails.

Speaking of nails, our nails seem to grow really fast, as well as our hair.

We use Tom's deodorant.

We make our own hand soap. It's just half Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap and half water. I kind of miss the nice smelling stuff from Bath and Body Works, but I don't miss all the potential toxins.

We've also switched cleaning products. We primarily use vinegar and baking soda, and we just recently started using some of the Norwex cleaning cloths.

I'm really cautious about candles. I haven't tried them yet, but would really like to switch to beeswax candles in the future.

When I really want to chew gum, I make sure it's aspartame free and gluten free. I now buy my gum at Whole Foods.

I talk to people all the time that think this is just a diet. This isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle for us. It’s not some fad that we are going through. We made a conscious decision to literally change just about everything about the way we eat and do many other things. I’m sure things will change over time, but we know we definitely aren’t going back to our old food lifestyle. We are in this for the long haul.

Food Day 2012

Today is Food Day! Food Day is a nationwide celebration and movement for healthy, affordable, and sustainable food. Events focused around food were taking place all over the country. To celebrate, we attended the Meet Your Farmer and Night Market event at the WKU farm. We saw all of our favorite farmers and got to go on a hayride around the WKU farm.

 

 We saw the vineyards.

 

 We got to see the horses and even pet one of them.

We saw the high tunnels. 

They are out of production now, but when we visited in late spring

 they were full of beautiful food. 

 We got a few fun pictures throughout the night,

  

 

 and after the hayride we made our rounds to buy some things from the farmers. 

Happy Food Day!

Preschool at Home: Week 3

For the last two weeks we learned about the letter "C." We also focused on the number 3, Noah's ark, and Hickory Dickory Dock. Here's a link to my Pinterest board and here's a glimpse at our own bulletin board.

 For our Bible story, we learned about Noah's ark. We made an ark out of craft sticks. 

(The finished ark is in the photo above.)

 We did lots of playing with our Noah's ark and we reenacted the story each day. Our Bible verse for the last two weeks was the first part of Deuteronomy 27:10. We repeated "Obey the Lord your God" each day.

 We did a few "C" themed activities. 

We colored a chicken.

 We played with car stickers.

 

We made a car out of construction paper and a paper plate.

  

We also got to see some cows up close and personal at River Cottage Farm.

 

We even got to watch a couple cows being milked.

 

The nursery rhyme we focused on was Hickory Dickory Dock. 

We repeated it each day and made this craft one day.

 

For our writing time, we focused on Seth's name. One day I wrote Seth's name with a white crayon on a white piece of paper. If you take watercolors and paint all over the piece of paper, it is supposed to reveal the name hidden on the sheet of paper. This did not work. You could kind of see his name, but not really. Seth did like painting anyway.

  

I also introduced a writing journal to Seth (thanks Beth for the idea). Each day Seth writes or draws whatever he wants to. It will be a nice way to see how his writing/drawing develops over time. 

 

For math, we worked with patterns. 

Seth had to match up his blocks to a pattern that was drawn on a piece of paper.

We also worked on number recognition (especially 1, 2, and 3). 

He had to cover the numbers with the corresponding colored sticker.

  

Seth found the bowl of marbles one day in the closet 

and wanted to do his own activity. 

He practiced picking up marbles with tongs...

 and we did lots of counting as he would put marble after marble into an empty bottle.

 We also counted some cars that I hung on the fence outside.

This week we will focus on the letter "D," the number 4, the Tower of Babel, and Hey, Diddle Diddle along with lots of other stuff!