It Finally Happened!

Savannah has some exciting news! But first, I need to post these pics....I've been meaning to for a month now, and I know some people who are dying to see them. Our wonderfully talented photographer friend, Jennifer Tibbetts, visited this spring and took some awesome photos! I'm not patient enough to wait for ALL of them to upload, though, so I'm going to just post my absolute favorite ones.



Ok, now for the big news. Savannah lost her first tooth!





Actually, TWO teeth. She has waited and waited and WAITED to lose a tooth. We checked fairly often, but never found any loose teeth. I noticed one night that her two bottom adult teeth were just starting to come in behind her baby teeth. Since they were coming in behind and not from below, the baby teeth weren't loose at all. So she had to go to the dentist and have them pulled. She was so brave and didn't cry at all.

Since Savannah waited SO LONG (she's 7 1/2!) AND had to have them pulled, the Tooth Fairy gave her something extra special for losing her first two teeth.



Here's a shot of the new and improved fairy door. Scarlett broke the door off the old one, so Tooth Fairy got a new door in a new location that's out of Scarlett's reach.



I snapped this pic of the girls playing the other day. We're going to Rosemary Beach again this summer (YAY!). The girls can't wait to go, so they were playing "beach." The tan blanket is the sand, and the pink is the water (we don't have a blue one). Savannah is rubbing sunblock on Scarlett...always the concerned big sister.



Notice Ariel is sunbathing topless...it must be a European beach....

New Additions

Time to play catch-up again. We brought these little girls home a few weeks ago.



Rosetta, Zuba, Sweetie, and Daisy. They are quite a bit bigger now. We actually have one more now that's not in the photo...we got her a few days after these chicks.

As soon as the days were warm enough, they started getting outside playtime in their coop.



Savannah has been playing spring soccer. This year she is in Arlington Rec Soccer on an all girls team.



And here's something new I did in Scarlett's room. Granny Ruth gave us this huge mirror. I put it in Scarlett's room because she loves to "primp."





A bucket for crowns, jewelry, shoes, etc.



Hooks for her favorite dress-up outfits.




She loves it.

Simply Put...

This is a rant post, so if you don't want to hear me venting, move along. Most of my friends know that, after I was diagnosed with MS over 2 years ago, I adopted a traditional, whole foods, paleo-style diet. And most of my friends understand WHY I now eat this way. For those of you who don't know (and who actually care), this means I stay away from processed foods and food additives. I also avoid eating breads and most grains. When I first started researching treatments for MS (other than medications), I learned that eating food additives and also grains/breads can worsen all kinds of autoimmune diseases. I'm not going to go into the "how does it make it worse" or cite research here...if you want sources, just google it.

It was pretty obvious from everything I read that diet has a MAJOR impact on autoimmune diseases. Obviously, there's no single way of eating that is perfect for everyone, but certain "diets" seem to be better for different people. I've spent the last 2 1/2 years paying very close attention to how I feel when I eat certain foods and take certain supplements. I've also continued to research diet and nutrition - REAL nutrition, not the "low fat, sugar-free, drink 8 glasses of water a day" junk you hear from most health professionals.

So, does 2 1/2 years of researching on my own and experimenting with my diet make me an expert on nutrition? No, it doesn't. What it DOES make me an expert on is what is best for ME! I've gone into detail about my diet in other blog posts, so I won't repeat myself here. But I do want to give one example. I've learned that when I eat grains (bread, pizza crust, breading on fried stuff, etc), I feel like crap for days after. If I cheat and eat that delicious rosemary bread at Old Venice or a bunch of tortilla chips at El Nopal, for the next couple of days I have headaches and my joints hurt. I also experience fatigue when I eat bread...I find that I can't finish a two mile run that I might have previously had no problem finishing.

I know a lot of people think I'm crazy or weird or a "food snob"...whatever. I buy grass-fed beef, pastured pork/poultry, and pastured eggs because the nutritional quality of animals that have been raised that way is so much better than factory farmed animals. Why does it make a difference if it lived outside or in cage inside a factory? Well, here's a simple example. Pork is supposed to be a great source of vitamin D. A pig makes vitamin D (just as humans do) from sunlight on its skin. So a pig that is spending all day outside and getting lots of sunshine is going to have high levels of vitamin D. A pig kept in a cage inside a building is going to have low levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D levels play a HUGE role in treating multiple sclerosis, and I just happen to have multiple sclerosis. So which pig should I get my bacon from?

See, IT MAKES SENSE! There is a REASON I eat certain things and don't eat certain things. I'm not saying I never splurge...I do allow myself to have treats sometimes. But when I do splurge, I know I'm going to feel bad the next day. So I save my splurges for something I reeaally love...like blueberry scones from Starbucks on date night. What upsets me is the folks who think I'm a food nazi or who make fun of me because of the way I eat. I'm tired of the people who give me the "eye-roll" when I politely decline a donut or slice of pizza when everyone else is having one. The ones who look at me like I'm nuts and say, "It's just a cupcake...so spend an extra hour at the gym." Would you say the same thing to a diabetic? Would you suggest someone who has heart disease eat a plate of chicken fried in Crisco and tell them to just walk and extra mile this week to "cancel it out"? There is NO DIFFERENCE! Why is it ok for a person with heart disease to eat a "heart healthy" diet, but someone with an autoimmune disease who eats a traditional, whole foods diet must have an eating disorder?

Ok, I'm done. I'm truly thankful for my friends and family who are so understanding and supportive. I just had to get that off my chest :)

Savy's Birthday and Other Stuff

The time between my posts seems to get longer and longer. Facebook makes it too easy to neglect the blog! Let's see...I think we left off just before Savannah's 7th birthday. She picked out the cake herself from Walmart...shocking, yes, I know. We always get our cakes from Costco, but Savannah wanted a Barbie cake. Since Costco doesn't do the licensed character cakes, Wally World it was. I won't do it again, though. I went to pick up the cake the morning before the party at 10am just like was on the order form, and the bakery staff couldn't find it. They finally found the cake....in the freezer and UNDECORATED. So I had to wait around for nearly an hour for them to decorate it. I could have really used that time to do other stuff on that morning before the party! So no more Walmart cakes for us; we're sticking with Costco from now on.



I can't believe my baby girl is SEVEN!

Instead of a big themed party, we invited just a few friends for the party this year. Then Savy got to pick one friend to stay after the party for a movie and sleepover. She chose Taylor, and we all saw "Wreck-It Ralph".



With Mimi and Papi and the Furby she got for her birthday.



With Nanny and Lee Otis



Our wedding dress project photos are also due around Savannah's birthday. For those of you who don't know, around the same time every year, I take photos of the girls wearing my wedding dress. One day when they're all grown up, I'll give them a collage of the photos wearing my dress at each age. If you want to see the previous years, just click on the Wedding Dress Project label over to the right. I took a ton...here are just a few.







Scarlett was not at all cooperative this year, but I did get a couple of decent ones.





Christmas morning!







Santa didn't forget Malice...she loved the piece of reindeer antler he brought her.



This is the playhouse I built for the girls. I cut it pretty close this year...I had a hard time working on it since Jon was out of town for two weeks right before Christmas. I'll post pics of it decorated later.



I'll slip in a little video of the girls dancing to their favorite Christmas tune.



After we opened presents here at home, we left for Mimi's house. I took a ton of pics there, but I'm just too lazy to post them all. I thought this one was really sweet though...Scarlett and Lee Otis.




After Mimi's house, we were off to the Delta to see Granny Ruth and Aunt Lesa. We spent several days there visiting family. Savannah was dying to go hunting while we were there, but her daddy doesn't have a hunting license. John Robert was nice enough to take her out for a while. Isn't she just darling in camo?



Once we were home, it was time to put presents together - joy. The Barbie vacation house wasn't too hard.



But this sucker was! Mine Shaft...400 million pieces and it took me HOURS to put it together.





So there's what we've been up to for the last few months. Til next time :)