Sunday, May 06, 2018

Spring!!


Spring has FINALLY sprung! We are enjoying it by heading to the greenhouse to buy plants, planting gardens, riding bikes, and cleaning all the winter Muck out of the car! I’ve never been so excited to vacuum floor mats in my entire life!














Grayson’s Yellow Belt

Just like his sister,  Grayson is a natural at karate! He just loves it so so so much! He was very excited to be able to attend his first belt ceremony and earn his yellow striped belt. The kids intensity and focus is unmatched by almost anyone I’ve ever seen. All of the other students were goofing around waiting for the ceremony to begin while Grayson’s in the corner practicing his kata at least 30 times over and over and over unprompted. Such a sweet kid, I love him so much!











Les Miserables

 I just love musical theater! Way back in October I purchased tickets for josh’s favorite musical, les miserables. To say these actors/ singers have incredible talent is just not even grand enough descriptor. Jean Valjean has such vocal range I found nyself literally breathless!!!

Bonus was the fact that Bellis’ were able to go with us! We had great dinner at Americana and I managed to keep it a secret the whole 7 months as part of Josh’s 40th birthday gift! 









Kenna’s art


As usual, I am so stinking proud of this kid! I have never seen her so engaged in a class as I did with art this year. She would go in early to work on her drawing, bring her art home even though she didn’t have to, and work into the night - just really went above and beyond on every single art project. She was honored in the ankeny spring art show. She definitely has a talent I hope she continues to foster it!








Dietary changes

We are conducting an experiment. We met with an integrative pediatrician for Zach. Through her over 30 years of experience she seems to think that inflammatory foods like dairy and gluten can lead to neurological struggles in kids. So, we are going gluten and dairy free for four months to see what happens. 

With that I created a “tasting“ menu for the kids. One Wednesday they woke up and rated all of these different gluten and dairy free foods to see what I could buy them. It definitely has been very difficult, and we sort of miss bread!

We have been noticing improvements with Zach, and most importantly we have taken him off adderol. My happy, carefree, silly, rested, and well fed boy is back!

If nothing else it has really made me refocus on what we’re putting in our bodies. While most of the “tasting “ menu was processed sugary food, I’m trying to focus more on all of us eating whole foods. Definitely a journey!








Facials

I bought some of this charcoal clay facial mask online. You put it on your face, wait for half an hour, and then peel it off. Not sure it did anything but we had a good time with it!










Bonfire

The winter this year was so incredibly long! I heard on the news that it was the longest in 137 years. We were still getting snow in the middle of April! So the first nice night we had we took full of vantage and grilled and had a bonfire with the neighbors in the backyard.