Photo Book

This is last spring's album. By posting it here, shutterfly is giving me a $10
coupon! :-)

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Happy Birthday Reid!

Reid turned 5 this month too! For his party, we did a pirate theme. I did not make a cake this year. This was the first party I've never baked or had Jeff's mom bake a cake. Since Grammy wasn't going to be here for this party, and I didn't want to try to bake a pirate ship cake, we opted for ice cream sundaes! They were a huge hit! This was a fun party to plan because Reid really got involved in the planning. So did Sydney and Ethan. I couldn't have pulled it off without those 2!

Reid & I made pirate ships out of cardboard boxes. 

We made cannon balls out of crumpled up magazine pages and covered them with tin foil.

It was such a windy day, and taping these boxes together and getting them to stand up was close to impossible. I don't think I could have done it without Ethan's initiative, good ideas and help!

 The kids enjoyed throwing cannon balls at each other!

 Pirates!

 The boys really got into the Pirate Pete book!

 Sydney made a Pin The Key On The Treasure Chest game

 Of course, the trampoline was a big hit. Thanks Grammy & Papa!

 We gave Reid a new bike helmet for his gift.

Dinner at Riverbirch and more ice cream! (Be sure to read my below post on the dangers of sugar :-) )

Happy Birthday Jake!

Jake Martin turned 2 on March 3. We had a little party for him the day before. Jeff's mom made the cake of "Night-Night", which is his special blanket.

 Lunch with siblings and friends Luke and Lizzie

What Jake does when he doesn't get his way about something. 

Why eat one slice when you can just dig into the whole thing? 

 Grammy & Papa showing cars Sydney painted for Jake's birthday present

The "Night-Night" cake!  When he saw it, Jake started crying for the real blanket!

Is Sugar Toxic?

A year ago, I watched a 60 Minutes special by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN. It was entitled “Is Sugar Toxic?” In this 15 minute segment, he shows how sugar consumption is directly linked to obesity, diabetes, cancer, metabolic disorders, and heart disease. You can watch is at: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n. It is well worth your time to watch this!

Artificial sweetener (aspartame, sucralose (Splenda), saccharine, etc.) have their dangers as well. However, stevia is a natural sweetener made from the leaves of the stevia plant. The leaves are sweet and contain no calories, sugar, or carbohydrates.  It may possibly lower blood sugar, has antibacterial properties, and aids in calcium formation according to studies. Thankfully, stevia is readily available at grocery stores, and companies are beginning to make products (even soft drinks and ice cream!) sweetened with stevia instead of sugar.

If you need to use sugar for baking, consider honey or pure maple syrup. I use sucanat in my baking, which is unprocessed sugar. It retains all the molasses (which is removed to make white sugar). The molasses holds all the vitamins and minerals. Sucanat contains far less calories than white sugar. It is to whole grain flours, as white sugar is to white, refined flours.

Completely avoiding sugar is no small task, but we can all take steps to reduce our consumption and hopefully realize health benefits in the process and in the future!

Preschool

I've never done preschool before for my kids (minus a 6 week stint for Sydney and Ethan 4&2 in 2007).  But I knew I needed something for Reid and Jake so I could do my work for our clinic with focused, concentrated time. I toured 3 schools, and was so excited to put them in Reynolda Preschool. They started a few weeks ago and love it! I love it too! I get 2 mornings a week to do my work, and they get 2 mornings to play and enjoy God, His creation, and people! Jake is even beginning to count! I have found that having that time to work frees me up to focus on them when I am not working. Here are some pictures.

 First Day! I couldn't get a photo of the two of them together!

 Walking In...

 Reid's second day started with him writing his name.

 The sign on the door of Reid's classroom. I love this! 

Jake's classroom. His teachers love him!