Today was a good day. Corey took a few kids skiing on the kiddie hill at Alta this afternoon (Abi, Sophi, Owen, and Daniel) that's always fun. I'll try to get some of his pics here. Or if you're some future historian doing research here, there should be some skiing pictures and videos on our family cloud drive. That's where most of Corey's pictures are videos are all ending up, unless I ask him to send me some on Whatsapp. We need to figure out what to do with his stuff so they aren't just lost in computer storage. Well, just know that he takes more pictures than I do. And the kids take lots of nonsense videos and hundreds of selfies on his phone too, so yeah, there's stuff there.
The thing I'm most excited about from today is that I think that Daniel is almost potty trained. I forgot to get diapers his size today at Walmart, and I'm almost out of diapers, so instead of running out again I figured let's do this - and I've been buckled down for the day watching him (except for just crossing my fingers while he went skiing). Tonight I could just tell by a look on his face that he was about to go hide and do #2 somewhere in privacy, but I grabbed him and wooshed him away to the toilet and there FINALLY did it! A month into this and he had his first successful #2 in the toilet. I had been trying to bribe him with ice cream for days and weeks: "If you go poop in potty, I will buy you ice cream!" And cookies, and candy, and whatever you want - it was reverse terrorism negotiation "I will meet your demands!" "Just poop in the potty and I will get you whatever you want!" Well, the son of a gun did it, so off we went to the store....
...and to the ice cream isle -
And he picked out drumsticks. (And I got some vegan soy bars for Hyrum and myself)
And we brought them home and shared them.
We have not had ice cream for a long time. We ate ice cream almost daily in Brazil in 2015, it helped us cope. I'm an anti-dairy flexitarian now, a flexible vegan, so I let cow cream slide as a birthday-day only treat. But we haven't had any birthdays since September! Well, we did have Mel's but she was at college so we didn't have cake and ice cream here (Natalie was a bit ticked off) and we didn't have cake and ice cream for Joseph's birthday either, cause he's gone, and we didn't have it for Peter either, cause P doesn't care. So yeah, this really is a special treat now cause it is a rare delicacy.
They did this little "cheers" thing, like they were making a toast "To Daniel!" "To clean underwear!" "To ice cream!"
I'll keep an eye on him for the next few days, but I'm glad we crossed this hurdle and he knows how it's supposed to be done. And we made such a big deal about it, I hope that it works. After him, I've just got one more kid in diapers! After 20+ years of this, that's crazy. I can hardly imagine not having to change a kid's diaper, but I bet it will be nice! Peter, you're next.
My little artists are hard at work. Sophi got his paint by number for Christmas from Corey's parents and showed me her completed work yesterday.
i
Today I got out a paint by number that I got for Christmas 2019 for the kids that I never gave anyone. Daniel and I got to work on it. It was a painting of a little puppy.
Some of those kits don't work very well. Daniel paints very carefully and precisely, just like he draws (fourth picture). Only it's a little harder to control paint... and paintbrushes with paint on them... and the black kept going slightly outside of the designated number 10 area...
Eventually his frustration got to him and we put away the kit and he did some freestyle painting.
He is a good little boy. Painting and creating art is one of the things I want to make as part of my regular life. One thing that Laura Dixon shares in almost every podcast how she likes to imagine a world where women don't worry about their weight anymore, where we are happy with our bodies and how they look, where we are naturally thin and healthy and our brains are not preoccupied with dieting and exercising! Imagine if we all actually spent our time each day doing all the amazing things that we dream of doing. One of those things for me would be creating art. I studied and majored in art when I went to Snow College way back in the day, you know. I want to draw and paint again. I love thinking of that too - not worrying about weight or exercise, and I do the things I want to do! My goal is to figure it out this year and have this year be the last year that I'm working on getting to my ideal weight. (Physical Hunger vs. Emotional Hunger) And so every year after this, a naturally thin person is just who I am, it's just part of me. Wouldn't that be nice? The first step is believing it's possible, and I do have that hope now. Slowly but surely I can gain evidence that it really IS true, and give it some time and I will be there.
Here are a few cute pictures from yesterday of Peter and Wesley playing a shooting game with guns they made from the marble run toy.
The shoot each other wit a "pyew-pyew!", then they die, then they come back to life with a kiss.
Peter is a cutie pie. We love his little face.
Here's his cute little face after having nutella and bread for breakfast.
I do think it's a bit absurd for Nutella to be able to pass itself off as a breakfast food. That is one contributor to the obesity problem we've got on our hands. Corey likes to get the 5lb tubs at Costco. Thankfully we don't over eat it, so it has lasted us a long time, but we are all carrying extra weight around here and I think it would be good to end our relationship with Nutella. We're on the 2nd 5lb tub right now. I'm glad that I'm not tempted by it. There are other foods I need to work on getting over, but Nutella isn't one of them for me. It will be for the kids. Maybe I can talk Corey into not buying it again, although he does like to have it around for when he makes crepes. Nutella did help me cope back in Costa Rica, before I knew that I really needed to process my emotions - but if you read that post, like I'm talking about what I eat and then talking about trying to exercise it off. (Here's what Laura teaches about exercise in episode #49) It's like the obesity and medication cycle we have going on too. One of the Vegan doctors talked about how on television, you see all these ads for processed foods, and then right after them are ads for different medications to help with all our problems. Let food be thy medicine. I'm not so strict about being vegan (I usually have shrimp or salmon on date night) but I'm really glad that I rarely eat meat and that our meat consumption as a family is much reduced as well. I also totally agree with this Dr. Fuhrman's quote from pg. 61 of his book Eat to Live (emphasis mine):
"The diseases of poverty are mostly infections diseases and are found in areas of the world with compromised nutrition. Heart attacks and the most common cancers (breast, colon, prostate) are found in rich societies where nutritional extravagance is the rule. Nowhere in the world today can we find a society that combines economic wealth with a high intake and variety of unrefined plant foods. CAN YOU IMAGINE the HEALTH POTENTIAL of a society that would be able to enjoy excellent sanitation, emergency medical care, refrigeration, clean water, flush toilets, and availability of fresh produce year round and yet avoid nutritional ignorance and nutritional extravagance? WE HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY TODAY! An unprecedented opportunity in human history the opportunity to live a long and healthy life without fear of disease. This opportunity can be yours!"
That's another fun thing to imagine! It's time to just put an end to the insanity. Go listen to Laura Dixon. Here's a good one that was a good shoulder shake - #15 The Pandemic Excuse. Ok, there's my rant/tangent. That's all for tonight.
We're on a health documentary video binge. We watched the Netflix video "What the Health" probably three times over the weekend with the kids. I say probably 3 times cause we'd have to start it over for a kid that came late or watch it again for a kid who wasn't home. So, it's helped us further indoctrinated ourselves to go vegan for our health's sake. Here's the trailer for it.
We also watched "Cowspiracy", so we're going vegan for the earth's sake too. Cowspiracy is done by the same filmmakers, and was made before the one above, so that might be better to watch them in that order cause Cowspiracy kinda leads into the other one. So, we're pretty much sold on the terribleness of the Standard American Diet for our health and for the earth.
We're also convinced as a matter of principle... Corey taught the lesson on the Word of Wisdom yesterday in Sunday School. The Word of Wisdom is the code of health for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I think Joseph's decision last month to give up meat might have prepped us for this lesson and the conclusions we both came to as we studied it. So, Corey did a great job teaching, I think he's a natural. I need to send out a huge thank you to my dear friend Kathy O for taking Daniel out so I could listen and participate. And I think I behaved myself, I didn't go crazy with comments but did accidentally attempt to jump ahead of Corey's outline a few times. It was a great discussion. Overall it was very good and Corey only had one regret, which I'll get to in a second. I was kinda bummed we didn't get very far in reading the section through. I really wanted to go in to what the Lord says about eating meat, so here's what I think would have been discussed if we had time and my 2 cents:
I bet if you ask most members of the LDS church what the Word of Wisdom says about meat, they'd say "Eat meat sparingly." And yes, that the first thing said about it in verse 12 (D&C 89:12). Then we would have asked "Is there anything else?" then someone would have raised their hand to say "Eat it in times of winter." Yes, that is in verse 13. Anything else? We did talk about D&C 49:18 where it says that if anyone says man should not eat meat, that man is not ordained of God. Right, so you can't tell another person they cannot eat meat. Other than that? Yeah, that about covers the meat topic. But then! we would have pointed out the first part of verse 13 "It is pleasing unto me that they NOT be used..." You can eat meat, it's not forbidden, but it pleases God if we don't use/eat meat?! Is that a new thought? It was for me a few weeks ago. Now that might not settle well with most of us, cause I recognize that meat is considered the main course in our culture... everyone uses meat at almost every meal... Honestly, I had never noticed that part before this month... (Any comments about the comma would have seen an answer by quoting one of the early brethren of the church, referenced in this article by Jane Birch) And as to these two points "sparingly" and "in times of winter", there is all sort of wiggle room there. How often is "sparingly" like a little bit at each meal? Once a day? Once a week? Each person could interpret that for themselves. And "in times of winter" ... I've heard it said that the Lord told the pioneers that cause they didn't have refrigeration in summer time to keep the meat from spoiling. So since we have refrigeration, we're okay to have it in summer time now cause it won't get us sick. Besides, in our world today, that is what summer is all about - let's have a BBQ! "Honey, fire up the grill!!" Our family for sure has been there every summer and we just had a bbq with friends on June 2nd that we had scheduled before we started to think about this meat subject. Anyway...
To wrap up the meat discussion, we would have said "Has anyone ever noticed verse 15?" (Cause I never had...) Let's see, it says: And these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.
In the printed copy, the word "these" has a footnote referring the reader back to verse 13, so the Lord is talking about animals and the flesh of beasts. So that there is telling us that God made these for us to use ONLY IN TIME of FAMINE and EXCESS OF HUNGER. My kids get a little cranky when they fast each month, and they might feel they have excess of hunger, but we've never been in a famine. In my whole life, I've never experienced famine. That's the Lord's counsel for when to eat meat. Hmm... there is not a lot of wiggle room with the famine part. Basically, my take away, is that meat is only to be used in emergencies. Kids, when we're so hungry we're ready to go eat your pet guinea pigs, that is when it would be okay to eat animals. One comment was made in class that if it hadn't been for eating meat, many of the pioneers wouldn't have made it across the plains. That was where we could have had this whole meat discussion, but time was short and Corey agreed and we moved on. So his one regret was that he didn't counter that comment with something like "That is true... if you are starving like the pioneers were, the Lord would give his consent that we eat meat to survive. But, none of us look like we're starving... it's rather quite the opposite!"
I never would have thought that I wasn't keeping the Word of Wisdom, but I don't think I have been - atleast not this part of it, not for my whole life! But we didn't realize what it was saying, even though I agree it's as plain as plain can be... why didn't I see it? Did I even study this before? I have been keeping it to the best of my knowledge, but now that I know more (and if you're still reading, I guess you might know more now too, sorry?) ... now that I know more, I'm going to obey it. I'm not buying meat, milk, eggs or cheese anymore. We live in a time of abundance, I have so much fruit and vegetables, wheat, grains, and wholesome herbs available for my family to eat! IT'S AMAZING!! As Joel Fuhrman says in his book "Eat to Live" on page 58 - 61, he talks about how wealthy nations are the ones dying from dietary disease, and poor nations die from hunger or poor sanitation problems. Starting on page 61 (all emphasis mine) -
"The diseases of poverty are mostly infections diseases and are found in areas of the world with compromised nutrition. Heart attacks and the most common cancers (breast, colon, prostate) are found in rich societies where nutritional extravagance is the rule. Nowhere in the world today can we find a society that combines economic wealth with a high intake and variety of unrefined plant foods. CAN YOU IMAGINE the HEALTH POTENTIAL of a society that would be able to enjoy excellent sanitation, emergency medical care, refrigeration, clean water, flush toilets, and availability of fresh produce year round and yet avoid nutritional ignorance and nutritional extravagance? WE HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY TODAY! An unprecedented opportunity in human history the opportunity to live a long and healthy life without fear of disease. This opportunity can be yours!"
I want this opportunity for myself and my children, for my parents and family! I don't need meat or animal products to stay alive, we have so much available to us. I don't need to kill or cause excessive use and abuse of them for my life to continue nor for my health to be well. Not to mention that that eating them causes cancer (watch Forks Over Knives" on Netflix or read the China Study) or to mention the horrible lives the poor animals live which end in their early death and slaughter. (a few sad ones on youtube, viewer discretion advised: Farm to Fridge - don't let your kids watch that one, baby chicks on egg farms male chicks ground up alive, the hens live such sad lives, :(, chickens raised for meat (so sad, try not to cry... poor baby birds), cows raised for meat, dairy farms - I feel so sad that the baby cows are taken from their mothers so we can have their milk, it's just not necessary!) I think the baby birds we had in our back yard has helped with this whole process of thought for me. One baby bird died and I bet the parents didn't cry like I would have if Daniel died, but still, they have instincts to want to live and to take care of their young, to feed their babies, can't we let them? It's just sad on so many levels. We humans need to be better stewards.
So there ya go, that's my new cause. We're going a bit radical here. But we should all be able to avoid early death and heart disease and diabetes! So that should help us keep our heads up. I haven't decided on school year lunches policy. I don't want to support the horrible unhealthy choices my kids have at school (see minute 55 in the video above), so we'll figure that out when we get there. And maybe after eating amazingly all summer the kids will want to keep going with it themselves. I'm not forcing them to not eat any animal foods, they are free to choose to have it at friends houses or social gatherings, but I will not be buying it and bringing it into our home, only very sparingly (I do have plans to buy some ice cream for the birthday's this weekend for Lily and Wesley) so that's where we're at right now! I'm very happy with it and don't have the conflict that I usually have as I prepare foods of "This isn't good for you guys but I guess if you want it and it makes you happy..." but NOW! The milk has been gone for almost a week and we're eating bowls of wheat berries or brown rice with rice milk and fresh cut up fruit for breakfast! Today I made a green smoothie, I don't feel conflicted, I'm preparing food, and it's good food! We're starting our whole food plant based diet for everyone, yay!
Sometimes, to get kids to come a little more quickly for scriptures, Corey will connect his phone to the Bose and start to play a video that he knows will catch their ears and thus their attention. Such was the case tonight. And soon we have a good gathering of most of the kids, sitting on Corey's lap and piled around him... everyone looking at the small phone screen. Family bonding.
Ethan was gone at mission prep. He goes to a class out by Skyline that a lot of his school friends attend. Joseph went to that one too, Joseph was doing double going to the prep class in our Stake as well as the one out by Skyline. I think right now Ethan is just going to the Skyline one. He still has over a year until he'll be getting his papers ready, so he doesn't really need to even attend yet, but I'm glad that he does. He seems to really enjoy it.
I wrote a letter to Joseph today. The house is pretty messy right now and I'm lacking desire. I think I might have used up too much of my energy last night at Kelsey's wedding, cause right now I'm really just wishing in vain that I could hibernate for the next 5 weeks. I don't feel like doing anything but laying down. 5 weeks until the baby comes - seems like it should feel close, but it's not, it's still forever away. I can do this. I'm trying to keep moving each day and have also started to distract myself by watching healthy eating/vegan videos to get myself all revved up and ready to shed these pounds fast and get my body back. I need to finish the HOPE video, but liked what I saw so far. That's it for today's report. Just 5 more Sundays, 5 more weeks.
Corey and I went away for a quite night last night. Corey's parents watched the kids for us. We took them over around 3 yesterday, ate some dinner, and then we left. We went to the Grand America. We didn't have anything planned, cause we're old, so we just enjoyed the quiet room. We didn't go out to dinner, because it was the Sabbath. So we ate the dried fruit and nuts we brought along, plus some of the big chocolate chip cookies that they had out by the check in desk. Our room was 2632. It was a lovely room. I couldn't help but notice the stationary paper and envelope at the desk there, which reminded me of one of the jokes from Ryan Hamilton's Netflix show - Happy Face. I told Corey about it, then we watched it, and sitting still for an hour made Corey tired and so he went to bed at 8:30! He said he had planned to write Joseph and catch up on some church stuff, but he was going to lay down for a bit, and he ended up falling asleep. Good for him though, he needs the rest. He's been working hard the past five weeks as a single father of 10 children as I nurse Peter for what seems like 24/7.
Or if I'm not nursing him, it's because he's asleep. Unfortunately for me, when Peter finally is asleep, and I now have the one time I could actually go be productive and get something done, that is when I'm most tempted to just stare at his loveliness and try in vain to slow down time as I soak up the moment.
(It's just heaven)
So that is what I did most of the time. Well, I did take Peter on a little walk around the hotel in the baby wrap before bedtime. I just did two laps. They have a beautiful display of flowers in the lobby!
Lilys - just like our wedding flowers. How appropriate.
So very pretty ~
After P was asleep, I came back to the room and just kept him snuggled on me while I slept on the couch. He woke up to nurse for the first time around midnight, and then I spent most of the night feeding him on the couch just like I do at home.
Breakfast the next morning - at the hotel continental breakfast bar.
Kinda pricey for oatmeal, muffins, bananas, and oj, but that's just cause we were all pretending to be living in luxury! I will say the oatmeal was very good. It was cold oatmeal but it was very good - with raisins and apples and probably had cream and sugar, it tasted like a dessert, but I want to find a vegan version of cold cinnamon oatmeal now, cause I liked it.
Our hotel "vacation" ended around 12:30 and went to Current Fish and Oyster Bar for lunch. They took us to our table, and notice the top of the menu - nice touch sweetheart!
The boys were drilling Corey yesterday before we left, asking him what he was going to do to make it a romantic event. (They just had a lesson in church the week before about strengthening your marriage though being romantic and how men and women view romance differently) Corey asked "Do you think Hyrum will be impressed that I called ahead to make the reservation and told them that it was our anniversary?" Cause both of those things show that Corey put time and effort into the lunch out, which makes the woman feel it's more romantic. I can't remember what he said, but for Women, romance is a sum of time, effort, and price or something like that (Corey, remind me what it was). As we walked back out to the car, Corey asked again if I think Hyrum will think it was "romantic" that Corey called ahead and said it was our anniversary. "Yes, sweetheart, it was very romantic of you to be so thoughtful". "And what about if I just clicked the "special occassion" button on the Open Table app... does that still count?" That made me laugh. No, Hyrum probably wont' approve of that, but your secret is safe with me.
The kids were disappointed that we returned so quickly. Sorry kids, we'll try to do something again tomorrow to get out of your hair. Boy, these kids put the pressure on. They were reprimanding us this past weekend cause we didn't go out on Friday night (not our fault, there was a snowstorm) AND reminding us about how last year we didn't do ANYTHING on our anniversary. Ok, I admit we didn't have a plan last year, but that was the weather's fault that time too. Sheesh, you guys, get off our case! We're trying! I am planning on doing a celebratory dinner tomorrow, unless I push it back til the weekend cause maybe I'll try to take Corey out tomorrow for something else fun. I have an idea in the works.
While the rest of the crew is up at Park City, I've been taking care of these bugs and the guinea pigs, aka "the pigs". I've made a schedule for our home farm for myself this week. First thing I do in the morning is put the pigs out to pasture, aka on the grass. We need to let them enjoy the grass and the time outside while it's summer time. Other than the pigs, we've got a lot of caterpillars! We have 20 big ones right now and more eggs and small caterpillars growing, this is the most we've ever had!
And it's pretty cool cause I've found all the eggs! We only have a small handful of milkweed plants in the back yard - like 8 small plants. I go check them for eggs in the morning after putting out the pigs, then I'll bring in a few leaves with eggs. My current opinion is that caterpillars might even be better household pets than guinea pigs. Though it's mostly cause of the short term commitment thing (the kids are slacking taking care of the guinea pigs and I'm ready to sell them, but then the girls repent and do better for a week or two...). I know I've been spending a bit too much time watching the caterpillars grow, especially when there is housework to do and the kitchen is a mess, but the monarchs are a fleeting moment in time. The dishes are forever, so they can wait. It's easier to slack on the household chores when everyone's gone. The house is also pretty quiet. I put Owen and Daniel to bed early and then come in here where the caterpillars are to blog. If you really listen, you can hear them all munching the leaves, they are cute little guys.
So, I've been thinking about animals and all of God's creatures on this earth. Monarchs are pretty cool, even if they do only live for about 3 months. Though it does seem like a lot of work for such a short life. What is the point of it all? What is the point of guinea pigs? They are cute, but they don't do much. I've always thought the point of farm animals was to be or make food for us, but since going vegan my opinion of that is changed, but I'm still pondering what their purpose is now. Do they have a right to live just to live and just because? Maybe cows are just supposed to eat grass and be cows. They don't have to be useful to us, do they? We let lots of other animals just be animals. Like this deer that grabbed a bite to eat as he passed through our backyard this morning -
A deer is a deer and that's okay. We should probably let cows be cows, pigs be pigs, and chickens be chickens. Tonight as we settled down for bed, Owen and Daniel played with toys while we had a pbs Nature program called "Touching the Wild" on in the background. Some guy named Joe Hutto who just loved the mule deer. He had this relationship with this mother deer and her fawn and they'd let him come close and then the mother deer died and the baby would run around looking for her all day and calling for her. The little deer survived and he loved her and said "I learned so much from her" - which I found interesting cause the deer never said anything to teach him, right, so no instruction, what kind of things did he learn from her? Just by her being a deer and doing deer things? He spent years with them and became part of the deer society. Interesting... There are so many animals out there, glad people can find what they love. We also recently watched a passport earth episode with a lady who has dedicated her life to rescuing elephants from the streets and putting them back in nature, she founded the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. Anyway, I've just been pondering what the point of animals are and what kind of relationship we humans are supposed to have with them. But I really don't think we're supposed to kill them and eat them as much as we do, making a whole meat and dairy industry out of them. Talk about animal abuse. Poor cows. I caved in and had a little bit of ice cream last week for Owen's birthday, which turned into a lot of ice cream, and I wasn't eating it with thankfulness to God or the cow who provided the milk, I was mad at the ice cream for being so addictive to me and making me lose control. I thus vowed I'm not eating or buying ice cream anymore. I'm ready to move on from ice cream. Listening/watching this Dr. Klapper "Dairy Doubts" video over the weekend helped. I'm moving on, I don't want to be part of the mistreatment of cows anymore. It didn't use to bother me but I didn't really think about it, cause that's what cows were for, right? to give us milk and be meat. But I don't think that is their purpose anymore. I'm going to be come a cows' rights activist! Ha, save the cows. :) We'll see if I can start a movement lol, good luck with that eh!
Well, we've got another "Four and Feisty" kiddo on our hands! Natalie is 4 years old today, Happy Birthday Natalie!
Last night she said she wanted an Elsa cake. Abi had helped her google cake ideas for some images that were gonna give me a bit more cake talent than I have skill for... Cause this was Natalie's request...
Oh great, thanks Abi. I told Natalie I didn't know how to make an Elsa cake. I said "How about a CHOCOLATE cake!" We googled chocolate cakes on my phone, and there was one with MnMs... I was very happy when she quickly said "I want that cake!' Sweet, I can do that! So a chocolate cake and a bag of MnMs were on my 5 am shopping list.
Last night, as I made my birthday plan of attack, I figured I could go by the store after dropping Corey off at the airport (had to leave at 6:45 to take him). But my plans changed when Daniel woke me up at 4:30 a.m. this morning. I fed him a bottle, but it did not cause him to fall back asleep. That little boy was wide awake. And he was being noisy. I didn't want him to wake up Owen, so I quickly took him into the closet, where I could get dressed, cause we're going to the store (Since there aren't many other things to do at 5 a.m. with a baby that's ready to play.
So I went, got all the food goodies and party supplies, and was home in time to get it set up while the kids played the Wii. At 6:15 I called them up.
She's such a cute little birthday girl!
We sang, she opened her birthday bags, and then I took Corey to the airport. All the grandparents came over with more treats and gifts for Natalie. (Yes, for now we let the Vegan thing slide on birthdays..."Who wants more cake and ice cream?!?!")
Opening gifts~
One thing that was so sweet this morning - I gave her a package of Barbie fruit snacks in one of her gifts (cause she already got birthday presents in May, but I did get her one more toy, and Corey will be getting her something when he gets back) But with the fruit snacks, she only had 6 in there and she took one and then shared the rest with anyone who asked for one. It was so sweet. Of course, then there were also moments throughout the day where she did her loud scream and wailed and fought over sharing or not sharing and Lily would come and say "I think Natalie is getting a little spoiled..." The Feisty Fours are soon to be fully upon us, but she did pretty good for a toddler on her birthday. We love you Natalie!
I went to Costco today. I usually go to the nice big Salt Lake Costco on Saturday mornings after I take Wesley to Utah Youth Junior Symphony Orchestra. Today I got the flat bed instead of the cart, which means I'm ready to do some serious food shopping. Here we are headed back out to the van -
Peter is there in his carseat under the blue blanket, and Owen was lucky he still had a little place to sit. He was a good little helper. I really loaded up on food since I missed going last week cause I was with Peter at the hospital. So this will get our large family through the week and then some, with probably a few short runs to the local grocery store during the week for smaller items that I didn't need to buy in bulk. We were short on veggies this past week though so I got a lot of that - which is what is in the tower of boxes there - I am learning more and more and doing better each week at living and cooking a mostly plant based diet for myself and my family. Yesterday we had a chocolate treat though - a big hershey's kiss that I had bought with the intention that we'd use it at our family anniversary dinner. But I forgot, so we had it today after the kids cleaned up the kitchen. The kids had never seen such a big kiss!
Daniel was very excited, we let him open it -
Which made him think that this big chocolate treat belonged to him -
Which was cute, but then the kids didn't want his hands or spit all over their piece of chocolate, so we took it away and let our vegan, who was not going to be eating any of this treat, have the honors of breaking it open -
Which Daniel found personally offensive.
"You broke my chocolate kiss!! And now you're all eating it?!!" He rejected the chocolate scraps for a minute
...but then he joined in having some bites of chocolate. I was surprised but the kids didn't eat all gone right away. It was a hollow kiss so there really wasn't that much there, in my opinion, for what I know to be their junk food eating capabilities from what I've seen in past Halloween nights. But maybe they're slowly becoming less and less addicted to the junk.
Here is another pictures of Daniel sad over junk food today - So I have a wood thing that is hanging on the wall by the stairs. On that wood thing, I have a dozen or so ornaments
You'll notice that there is a little orange ice cream popsicle. Those have been there for as long as Daniel has been alive, I think. But today he might have just seen them for the first time, and he wanted that popsicle. So we gave it to him. And he was sad that it didn't taste very good. So he gave it back to Corey and wanted him to take off the ribbon and hook in it that were making it hang up. So Corey did. And to Daniel's dismay it didn't make it taste any better. He came to me to get me to fix it -
I think the poor kid really just needed a nap, but we were all smiling at his frustration and trying to figure out what the deal was with that sprinkle covered popsicle. Maybe I'll get more fake junk food treats and have them around the house - to kinda visually inoculate them against the sprinkles and shiny wrappers and the call/pull that such multi colored junk food treats have over children. Speaking of that, I've recently started two books - "Mad Cowboy" and "The China Study" - you don't have to get very far in them to realize that we really do live in a toxic food environment (see China Study foreword 2 on page xvii). I'm glad that I'm increasingly becoming more aware of it and that our health habits are improving little by little as we make changes - I'm getting in my "daily dozen" most days and I'm glad that even the kids are eating bananas and oatmeal more instead of "fruit snacks" and cold cereal. Little by little.
One more note - this morning, before I left to take Wes to orchestra, I checked Ethan's phone. At Corey's request, I've been checking his phone now and then this past week (usually while he's taking a shower) to look at his texts. I did on Wednesday when he was home "sick" all day. This morning he was still in his bed but his phone was within reach, hehe, and during my snooping, come to find out he totally lied to us last night! Corey's been telling him to go on dates with lots of girls, and said he'd even help pay for his dates if he would. So Ethan said he got a date with someone named Mailee and he was going with a group to the movies, but from the texts, we learned it was just him and Ella again, and he's already seen her every night this week. She's a great girl, but we just don't want him going steady with anyone right now as a 16 year old (regarding his age, Ethan said recently "...Why do you keep holding that against me?!?!! I'm almost 17!") So I told Corey, and Corey asked Ethan some follow up questions about his outing last night, and Ethan continued in his deception. So Corey called Ella's dad to talk with him (he's a friend of ours from high school) and let him know some of our concerns. Later Corey took his iphone, and it's gone for good. We've taken it away a few times had a conversation at 4pm about what we knew, how Corey had talked to her dad, and what the consequences shall be. E was then very discouraged and upset, said Corey calling her dad has ruined his relationship with her, and he went to bed at 6pm in tears. So, that's where we are right now with raising this teen. As Corey said once, Ethan is the teenage daughter we never had. We'll get through this, I hope.
It has been a good week. Today I am proud to say that I am 5 for 5 with having a sit down meal ready when Corey gets home!
And each meal has had a lot of food, so there is plenty for everyone and lots of healthy options. I am very proud of myself. Tonight we had vegan burgers. IP tore off little pieces of the Beyond Burger for Peter to eat. And some of the potato salad.
He was so cute as he tried to pick up the food with the wrong side of his fork...
Look at the concentration in that little double chin....
We got him a little booster chair recently so that he can sit on his own, cause it was not fun to eat having him on my lap.
Now he has his own seat and it's much better.
I think he just wants to be independent and treated like the rest of the kids!
Here he is eating potatoes and ham yesterday.
I think I could make a live feed daily vlog of him eating and people could enjoy his cuteness.
I know I'd tune in. He's such a cute little guy! Corey mentions in that first video above that Daniel hurt his teeth. Yesterday he was playing at a friends house and fell out of a wagon or toy car face first into the ground. He didn't cut his lip but did loosen his tooth and was bleeding. Luckily the mom there is a pediatric dentist and was able to assess him. She said it might turn dark but that doesn't mean the tooth is dead, it's just how it heals. But if it turns yellow after that, then that's a problem and means there is an infection, so we're going to watch him for a few days. He was able to eat spaghetti last night and had soft french toast today. We're showing him how to chew in the back and not use his front teeth. He will be okay.
Now with school officially over, we are enjoying summer by having late mornings.
No zooms to wake up for. I have a little more time to try and quietly sneak away from Peter.
Uh oh, he's awake!
Corey and I have been doing good at getting up and reading our scriptures. Then he gets in his workout as he bikes to work, and I do a 7 min workout or two. The kids are pretty quiet and busy all day working in the basement, in their happy place: Legos. They are in the summer lego zone once again. The quarantine has gotten their "I'm bored" warm up out of the way, and the lego creativity is already ready to kick in, and we're not even in July yet! All the legos that I tried to organize or atleast put away are back in the house and all over the floor. Abi is creating a beach town, Lily is once again working on making all the Elf dragons, and the boys are making spaceships and cool looking minifigures. I'm trying to sort a little. When we put up the bunk beds, we really just shoved a lot into boxes to get it out of the way, and all those boxes were put it in the basement. I am trying to do a little bit each day. Sometimes Peter won't let me. We were able to get him distracted on Tues by pulling him around in the EZ roller. I loved how he gripped onto the bar with his toes.
