TMI.......

After reading Michael's post I feel the need to correct a few things..... We are not vegans.....We have decided to be mostly vegetarian. We will occasionally eat meat but not every day like we used to.
Now on to the liver cleanse. Since I contracted Hepatitis A and ICP during our last pregnancy I decided that a cleaning of my liver was a good idea. I found this method. We followed it and came up with results like this. (warning:not for the weak stomach) So the Epsom salt we had to drink was pretty awful but the grapefruit juice-olive oil mix was not as bad as I thought it would be. I was really pleased with the results, I expelled a bunch of little and not so little gallstones. I feel this will help my overall health and the health of our future babies.
As many of you know I am pretty into the natural method of doing things ie...herbs, home births, natural remedies and all that fun stuff. So I will probably post more of this stuff in the future, hope you enjoy it!

Oh I had to add that I am amazed at what a comic my hubby is. His posts crack me up as I'm sure they do you to!!! Way to go hunny!

Drink What!!!

Michael here:

Had to write about our latest venture in the name of "health"
My wife is wonderful and we are always making improvements in our eating habits. She is the one with all the self-control and discipline. When she decides to do something she does it. I on the other hand am more of a... how can I say it impulsive (that's the nicest word i could come up with). I have great ideas and convince myself that this time is different and that i will really follow through. My wife on the other hand takes a while to decide and then it is like no stopping her. We have currently undertaken the venture of becoming Vegans. It has not been as hard as I thought it would be, because there are some great alternatives out there and I don't miss it. Well until I get a craving for tacos.

Side note here: Tacos in Mexico are nothing like in the states, you have not had a good taco until you have been to a stand on the side of the road that has hours from 8:30pm - 4:00am. they are the best!

The vegan thing is also kind of hard when someone cooks bacon... I mean how can you pass up bacon? I heard somewhere that Seventh Day Adventist live on average 7 years longer because of their diets. They don't eat pork. I told my step-dad this one time and he said "I'll gladly give up 7 years of my life for pork". Don't know if I agree with him but bacon sure is good.

OK about our latest venture. Charlsie has wanted to do a liver cleanse because of the HEP A she contracted a while ago. Just to make sure the liver is running perfectly for the next pregnancy. So thanks to the internet (everything you find on the internet is true, right?) she found a site that gave a liver cleanse that was all natural, although as i am sitting here with my stomach rumbling and due to the fact that i have been to the restroom more times than I can count on my fingers in the last 12 hours, i must conclude that it doesn't feel natural. In short we drank 3 glasses for Epson Saltwater and a half a cup of olive oil after fasting most of the day. What was i thinking? I told Charlsie that this was probably just some made up thing so people could get a laugh.
But it turned out to be a success for Charlsie and that was all I could have hoped for.
I'll let Charlsie tell you the rest, gotta go to the restroom:)
-Michael

Fully Potty Trianed!!!!

Recently I have been thinking about the fact that Micah is 3 and is still not night-time potty trained. I was not too worried about it since I have heard that boys are slower to do this than girls and that sometimes it can take awhile. But I really did not want it to take awhile. So when I discovered the other night that Micah had taken off his diaper to go poo poo in the toilet and was fast asleep with out one on I decided to experiment. I did not put another diaper on but waited till morning to see if my theory was correct, that he would "feel" no diaper and therefor not wee wee.

Ta da! He has been dry for 2 nights in a row. I told him awhile ago that if he went a night with out wee wee in his diaper that we would really celebrate, so the next morning he got 2 cookies for breakfast. This is not a normal thing for us so it was really special for him! I am just glad to have one out of diapers!

And Maddie is not far behind. She only wears diapers when she sleeps!
I have read quite a bit about infant potty training and this whole thing with Micah made me realize that we really do condition our children to make messes in their diapers, I think I will have to give serious consideration to infant potty training when God blesses us with another little one!

Laughter

The laughter of children is one of the most beautiful sounds that exist.

Yesterday morning my children were happily playing together and their beautiful laughter was so joyous! I love hearing them laugh and when they are happy together it is a real bonus. Sure there are many other wonderful sounds but for me in that moment, laughter, was beautiful. And of course as I sat there listening to them laugh I knew I had to blog about that moment and share it with all of you. Hope you enjoyed it!

I'm Baaaaaack Again!

Well as most of you know my sweet hubby let me get away to Oregon for 10 whole days while he took care of the kids. My time up there was so fun and refreshing! I am so gratefull to have such a wonderful husband. I don't think that just anyone would let their wives go away like that. Thanks BABE!

I was able to shop, eat great food, take a Thai cooking class, eat great food, see some wonderful friends (pictured above l-r Tanya, Amy, me, Christa, Vanessa), eat great food, buy some fun foods to bring back that we can't get in Oaxaca, oh and did I mention eat great food. Can ya tell that I like to eat!

I had such a good time and really feel renewed. I feel like I have more patience with my children, and more energy to give my family. I think I really needed this trip and it was a big blessing.
Oh and did ya'll enjoy Michaels post? I know I loved seeing that "mothering" is just as hard for him as it is for me! I had visions of him being "super dad" and putting me to shame, but I think we realize we are both very happy with the roles God gave us!!!!!

Motherhood: It's not for whimps!

To all you ladies out there that are mommies full time, I salute you! I am in my 8^th day of Mr. Mom and well let’s say I would rather be digging ditches for 10 hours a day. I can hardly feed the kids and keep them entertained, LET ALONE clean the house! Laundry… that is for the day that the kids sleep in, not gonna happen. It kind of reminds me of when I was single and had 2 guy roommates, we used the smell test to see if we could wear it again. Needless to say I have employed this method as well as the if they don’t wear it they don’t dirty it method (i.e. they are pretty much naked all day).

I had this great idea that we would all try to sleep together one night in honor of Mommy’s absence(see picture below). Normally Maddie sleeps in her pack n’ play, and bedtime is at 7pm (which I might add is my most coveted hour of the day, second only to 1pm nap time) so I didn’t know how we were going to work it out since I go to bed at 10pm. But for some reason they were both still awake at 9:30pm when I was about to hit the hay, so I thought, this is my chance. I should have known. So at about 11:30 after repeated attempts to get them to settle down and GO TO SLEEP, I finally had to accept defeat and probably a “I told you so” from Charlsie when she gets backJ Maddie returned to her beloved Pack n’ Play and I went to sleep. On a side note, I graduated with a B.S. in math hence I look at things rather logically (except when I want to have a happy marriage, then I must succumb to my feelings). My point is this; the laws of logic lead me to deduce that if my children stay up 4 hours later then they will sleep in 4 hours later… FAT CHANCE! Like and alarm clock without a snooze button Maddie is up at, not 7:30am but a little earlier 7:15 am followed by Micah a little later. The only difference is that we are all cranky and get on each others nerves a lot quicker.

Anyhow, to all you mommies out there… well words can’t express how impressed I am at your ability to not only keep your kids from starving, but to take care of us husbands as well. To any of you Dads that may read this, you have to try the full-time mommy thing for a couple of days. It will humble you and make you appreciate your wife so much more!

Exciting Contest

The Vision Forus is having really wonderful contest. They are offering two $700 prize packages. One is for guessing how many products are going to be in their new catolog and another is for people who link to the contest from their blog, like I am doing. To find out more go here....

We have purchased several things from this store including some great books and toys for the kids. They have quality products and you have the added knowledge that they love the Lord. So go take a guess and browse their website.