I have appreciated several of you commenting that you miss the blog (or at least noticing that it hasn't been updated!).  I really do enjoy blogging for many reasons and look forward to starting back soon! The past few months have been interesting with sickness and tiredness from the pregnancy and just being busy through the holidays.  The girls and I are still in GA and will be going back to NY this weekend.  Next week we look forward to returning to a real schedule! Looking forward to catching up soon!

A few weeks ago we decided to take a quick family vacation.  It was a nice change of pace after 3 weeks of staring at the inside of my kitchen!   Our first stop, the American Museum of Natural History in NYC...aka The Night at the Museum.  We thought it would be a cool thing to do and it is free for military families...unless you want to go to the Imax or similar "extra" shows.  Advice - if you're military, DON'T pay extra!  A free outing quickly turned expensive.   Hopefully this won't offend any of you out there, but we were just not big fans.  It took us about 2 seconds to realize we were basically in an evolution museum.  Don't get me wrong, it has some neat stuff...we would just rather go see live animals.  Maybe that's harsh.  Moving on... Dumb Dumb! After NYC we headed to Shelton, CT.  We had been told there was a Hampton Inn with a great water slide.  To our girls it might as well have bee...

We are certainly taking advantage of Chad's slow schedule and the endless opportunities of things to do around us!  Here are a few of our recent adventures... We couldn't pass up the chance to see the Braves play this season, so we headed to Citi field on Sunday afternoon.  We were thankful to have the chance to stop by the Gallery Church on our way and worship along side the Wyatts and meet Parker.   I've never watched a baseball game outside of Atlanta, and of all places to start...  I felt like I was walking into enemy territory!  Tickets are SIGNIFICANTLY more at Citi field than at Turner field.  Thankfully Chad and the girls were free!  Chad could have gotten any ticket in the park for free!  But since he wanted to sit with us, we by passed the $400 tickets! Beautiful day! Our view from left field The girls' first game!  They did great.  Since it wasn't crowded, we moved a few innings into the game. ...

Well, I did it.  Twenty-two days and counting without peanut butter. :)  Three weeks corn, sugar, gluten, soy (and almost fruit) free.   For the past 2 weeks, I was actually completely grain free too, which I didn't think was even possible for me.   I wish I could say I have had a revolutionary change in the past few weeks.  I know so many people that have cut out grains and have felt a remarkable difference.   People say the cravings should be going away by now and I have found they have gotten worse.  Its a little unfair that I have been battling low iron, weak adrenals, and Ehrlichiosis, so grain-free probably didn't have a chance to revolutionize me the way it has for some people.  Some days I have felt better, but some days I feel about the same as I did before, which is beyond discouraging.  Most days are better though, so that is good enough for now. Here's a few things I learned about myself and this stage of my journey.... ...

As I said in my last post, I have been saved years of research by family and friends helping me learn from their lessons.  Hopefully I can pass on some things to help save you time and effort to if you want to learn! I have tweaked the guidelines for my eating since my first post.  Pretty simple: - no gluten - no corn - no sugar...which means no honey, no agave, no splenda...only stevia or xylitol  - no fruit other than berries and green apples - no soy Other important priorities during this time: grass fed beef, high quality eggs, some raw cheese (I also never eat pork.) The key to making this doable is reading labels, eating at home and cooking a lot.  Everything from hot dogs and bacon to worchestire sauce, salad dressing and dijon mustard has sugar in it.  The thing I have enjoyed about this process is learning to reintroduce healthy versions of food that we haven't eaten for a long time.  With my mom's diagnosis, out went things li...