When is your......Back to School?

We start back July 5th and I can't wait! We have been out since May 1st so I am aching for routine and I am super excited about our curriculum this year. We will be doing My Fathers World, Creation to Greeks. We plan to work for 4 weeks and then take 1 off work 4 then 1 off all year with the exception of 2 weeks at Christmas and finish again around the begining of May. How do you ladies do your school years? We enjoy May/June off because its nice weather and I notice by July we become so overheated that we prefer to be indoors anyhow. So back to school is RIGHT around the corner for us. :) yay

On a side note, I am asking for prayers. 4 of our 7 kids have chicken pox(including baby Jaxxon), 5 of us have just finished passing around the stomach virus and now a cold is also going around all at the same time. Some of the kids were puking while covered in chicken pox. Its been a really rough week and yet I am so thankful I was first to get sick because I got better fast and have been able to care for my family, including my poor husband who is now on his second virus in 6 days.

Completely Random

Um I totally had a moment of baby fever today. Totally random I know. Someone slap me. I am def not pregs. I just wished I was......for. a. moment. Okay had to get that off my chest! xoxoxo

My New Love

This is Hank, our newest addition to the horse clan! He is about 9 and his owner, a 76 year old man, passed away on Thanksgiving so we became his proud new family this weekend. He has completely stolen my heart. As huge as he is(about 16.2 or 16.3 hands), he is the biggest lovey baby:) I am so excited for all the riding I will get to do with him!

Virtual Tour of Our New Home

 Foyer area to the front door

 Right inside front door and to the left is the entrance to the homeschool room

 Homeschool room is a work in progress but its coming along really nicely

 Homeschool room

 Got the easel at our homeschools curriulum sale this week for 5 bucks yay

 Nate just hung that fan and I love it

 Now onto the kitchen

 Where all the food is made

 My brother painted those saws!

 From dining

 The blessing of a huge dining area for our big family

 The living/den

 Its hard to get a good pic of this room, but its a wonderful and large yet cozy room

 The barn

 Hallway bath

 Hallway bath

 Girls room

 Boys room, 2 sets of bunks

 My room

 My bathroom

 a double showerhead shower yes I am way excited!

 front of house

 garage and extra house(rental)

Horses in pasture!

God is soooo gracious to make provisions such as our new home. I am so very blessed

To Answer a Few ???s

1. We are all moved in and almost done unpacking. Have a few things to do outside still.
2. While I think skirts and dresses can be(if worn correctly) more modest than anything else, we don't entirely wear dresses and skirts. I am trying to get myself and my girls to wear them as preference over other things, but I do think for horses, trampoline and a few other select things like gardening, bermudas or jeans are more modest/comfy for us.

That's all for today and I am just so greatful to God that we were able to get moved down the mountain safely and smoothly. Its wonderful to be back in our hometown. Getting to see family and old friends means the world. I have missed them all so very much!

Moving!

We made it just shy of a year up here in the mountains. We learned so many valuable lessons and most importantly, that we are not mountain folk! We will be moving tomorrow morning. I will post pics of the new house when we get settled in and for now I will be missing for a bit. Everything is packed and we are "camping" in our house tonight. We will start our move early tomorrow morning. Please pray for us that we will get everybody/thing off the mountain and to our new home safely. Thank you all in advance:)

Words Haven't Been Coming Easily

There's been a lot of stress. I'm not handling it well. I admit it. Moving again(3rd time in 3 years) is almost too overwhelming to think about. I am thrilled to move to our hometown again, yet the work involved and the logisitics of moving with 7 children, 3 horses, 2 dogs and a cat is not a picnic. I've literally worked myself up to the point of having full blown, nasty, panic attacks. I have struggled with anxiety on and off in my teen and adult years. My entire family battles this annoying problem and usually positive self-talk will do the trick but these attacks have been worse than anything I have ever experienced. I mean.....heart thumping, body parts going numb, profuse sweating, complete paranoia, insomnia etc. I have also completely stopped trying to lose weight months ago when I reached my goal weight of 125, WELL I AM NOW 114(way toooooooo bony/skinny) this is what I weighed in highschool. I cannot beleive I weigh this small of an amount as a mother of 7 who eats a lot and I am 5' 5".

I finally caved and went to see my Dr assuming I am under stress and this is just panic, I was admitting defeat and hoping for a medicine I could take just on the ocassion of a bad attack. What I found out instead is my TSH is almost undetectable. I am extremely hyperthyroid so that is why I have had such severe panic/weight loss and then add the stress of moving in there and its been a recipe for disaster. I am asking for prayers for peace and healing of my thyroid. I do not want to do anything radical medically. I just am praying fervently that it will right itself in a short time as I had this issue after my 3rd child as well and it just corrected itself on its own. Panic attacks are not fun and that is certain. I am just trying to medititate, pray and relax as much as possible as I beleive our mind-body connection is strong and I am guessing the stress through my body for a loop so I am working on destressing. Prayers are greatly appreciated though as I beleive strongly in the power of prayer. Thank you in advance.

Moving

           I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall off the map. We have been super busy and are getting ready to move off the mountain back to our old town and I am soooo excited. I miss our homeschool group, family, friends, church.........everything. Its a very busy time for us but I will be updating more once we are in our new place. It has 1.25 acres, the horses have already been moved off the mountain and are loving their new pasture and sunshine! We are working hard to get the house ready for move in. We are praying that we will be in by May 1st but there is a lot to be finished. Oh and for those who are wondering why we are moving, well the mountains have caused us way too many health issues including all of us being severely vitamin D deficient and our horses have had a terrible time keeping weight despite shelter and blankets so its just not for us. We made it 10 months but they were long, VERY long.

Soaking Sprouting and Traditional Food Prep

Soaking and sprouting grains has became a fun new hobby for us. I want to give my family the most nourishing food I can and through much research and a new book called Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, I have decided to drastically change the way we eat and prepare foods. The main emphasis is real food, nutrient dense and real.

Some things include fermenting and/or soaking and sprouting grains, beans, and legumes of all kinds before cooking, drying, grinding or eating them.

•  Eating organic eggs(get these free from my mom who took all our chickens when we moved).
• Eating range fed beef and chicken or hunted and fished game and fish.(easy as my hubby fishes all the time and him and his brother and dad kill wild hogs regularly along with duck)
• Eating raw butter, cheese and milks......not so easy. I go for organic and full fat versions instead. California has very few places you can buy raw and its expensive as heck!
• Eating pesticide free fruits and veggies whenever possible
• Eating raw, soaked and sprouted nuts

 There are anti nutrients(nutrients that rob your body of nutrients) in unsoaked or unsprouted grains. Also as you sprout grains, they use their own carbs to grow the sprout which them turns almost everything very low glycemic index which has completely taken care of my blood sugar issue. Some of my new favorite sites are:
http://www.nourishingdays.com/

http://www.westonaprice.org/book-reviews/thumbs-up/393-nourishing-traditions-the-cookbook-that-challenges-politically-correct-nutrition-and-the-diet-dictocrats.html

http://nourishedkitchen.com/

http://gnowfglins.com/

http://cookingwiththebible.com/results.aspx?option=browse&type=course&q=bread (great traditional recipes, though you must use your own judgement to adapt recipes with soaked, soured or sprouted grains)

http://thenourishingcook.com/


As a side note to nutrition......I have dropped to 118! I am officially down 20 lbs in 3 months. Isnt it odd switching to full fat milks and butters, I have LOST more weight effortlessly this past month.

The Beauty of my Life

Snow

New clothes

My NEW E350 super duty econoline

LOVE

Now we can get preggs again eventually, with no worries....space to spare

Wii with our neighbors

Go Rod, Go baby

Bald eagle at our local lake

Lil eskino MaeMae throwing a tantrum(love her strong lil will)

Barbie laying out while we fish in 40 degrees

The joy barbies bring Kenna and Kayla making them clothing

Our snow filled street

Our street the other way

Kayla enjoying the pouring snow

My heart, my soulmate, my love forever.....in the snow, in the rain, in the happiness and in the pain....you walk with me everyday through everything.

Lets Talk Blood Sugar

I had GD or missed the mark by 1pt (failing one number and missing one more by under 1 point) for the last 3 pregnancies and the size of my babies prove that one point cutoff is ridiculous and I had GD. Unfortunately Drs just say to cut the sugar blah blah blah....real helpful, NOT. Never gave me a glucose monitor or even sent me to a nutritionist??? So I forgot about it and moved on with my life until I recently got the highish A1C reading on my blood work. Im truly praying that when we get off this mountain and get more sun, as vitamin D levels normalize, so will my blood sugar. I am not entirely sure that will happen though as my grandmother died at 54 after being on dialysis for 3 years, having no sight left and 5 massive heart attacks all due to diabetes complications, my dad was diagnosed diabetic in an emergency room with sugars over 500(yes he was VERY sick) and my aunt and one uncle on my moms side are also diabetic. My odds suck. Plain. And. Simple. So I decided to start checking my sugars here and there to see what foods(I mean I eat super healthy) were causing issues. Oddly enough most foods I tolerate very well with blood sugar dropping back into the high 80's or low 90's within 2 hours. My problem seems to be lunch/afternoon snack. My blood sugar is just shooting straight to 140 by one 1 hour and 160 by 2 hours, then 140, 3 hours post parandial. I am trying to stop the afternoon snacking in order to keep my blood sugar more stable. I have learned that snacking is not good for my system. After breakfast I peak about 1 hour post meal around 115-120 and then drop shortly after. I do typically have cinnamon at breakfast on my oats or Quinoa and I read cinnamon lowers sugar so maybe thats why. At dinner I never go over 100 and heres why I think that is. I am practically french at heart, not a lush, definately in moderation......but I drink a glass of red wine with dinner EVERY single night. Its my guilty pleasure and apparently it may be saving me too lol. I can even eat a homemade whole wheat choco chip cookie after dinner and BS never went over 101. ??? Crazy huh. Im half tempted to make my wine at dinner only 3 ounces and have the other 3 ounces with lunch and see what happens. I rarely drink more than 6 ounces of wine a day anyhow so why not split it up? But really I am afraid it may make me a tad lazy midday which I dont want either. hmmmm what to do. I am going to try for almost no carbs midday for a few days and see what happens. I most certainly dont want my BS in the 160s like EVER. Anyone struggling with normalizing blood sugars? This is all new to me so if you have any advice I am all ears and I guess I should say I am not diabetic(YET) but have been diagnosed glucose intolerant since I was 23. Oddly my FBS are usually 88-95 so they arent really all that high. Its my post parandial sugars that are obviously driving up my A1C's. FBS does go up to 119ish when preggo but drop as soon as I deliver. Anyhow I have always just tried and thought I was eating right. This is the first time I ever tried getting a real picture of what was going on and Im now trying to get a handle on these sugars. At least I know now that snacking is a big no no for me. I used to think it was healthy to snack every two hours on nuts, V8, string cheese etc. Not so much.