He's Growing Up!!

A few weeks ago, the little man of this house had a big morning! He was invited to the "big" school for Kindergarten Day.

He was pretty excited. In fact, before 8 in the morning, he was very busy at the table making a picture for his teacher.

Before I dropped him off, I took a few pictures of this handsome-growing-up-too-fast boy of ours:

 

 

Once we got to the school and walked inside, I noticed that I was walking alone down the hall to his classroom. Where did he go?! I looked back and he was waaaay back, frozen to the spot in the middle of the hall, clinging to his picture for his teacher.

With a *lot* of encouraging, he slowly took teeny-tiny steps to his classroom and dared to peek in through the door. His teacher kindly and softly came up to him and he showed her his picture. Once he gave it to her, he then had nothing to cling to - until he found my leg.

We walked in together. So far, from the moment he walked through the school doors to getting into the classroom, he hadn't said a word. He does that often when he is nervous. He won't cry, but he will turn quite red and clench his mouth in a very tight line, just nodding or shaking his head to answer someone's questions.

His teacher pulled out a puzzle for him to work on, which is right up his alley! So he slowly un-clung his little 4.5 year old fingers from my thigh and started to put the puzzle together with her. And I slipped out of the classroom.

So how was *my* heart?! Well, if I didn't think of it too much, I was fine. Actually, having him in preschool two mornings a week also has helped in easing into this transition of sending my baby off to school. It also helps that he LOVES to learn and is very eager.

The other part that is helping with this future step is knowing I will be busy in September! I was hired to teach Gr. 3 part-time! I am pretty pumped for that!!  That also means that some days I'll be at school with both my kids, some days I will be there with Kez, and Lincoln will be with a sitter, some days I will be home with Lincoln, and some days I'll be home by myself.

Catch that all?!

Mondays - teach all day, Lincoln will be at a sitter's

Tuesdays - teach all day, Lincoln and Keziah both at school with me

Wednesdays - teach only the mornings, every other Wednesday Lincoln has school all day so that means I am home alone on those afternoons. The other Wednesday mornings he'll be at a sitter, and then home with me in the afternoons

Thursdays - no school for Lincoln or I!

Fridays - school for Lincoln and Keziah, I am home (what better day to have by myself than a Friday?!)

But that's all for September. We are in June. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Knowing that my time with my boy is going to slowly get smaller and smaller, I shall enjoy his presence as much as I can!

 

Playing Catch-Up

Let's go back a few weeks....to the middle-ish of May, the May Long Weekend to be exact. It was a very hot and sunny one, so we spent most the weekend in the pool. So much fun!!

 

One of Lincoln's favourite things to do in the pool is to stand on the stairs, hang on to the railing and fall back into the water. It's hilarious to watch.....

 

 

What a clown!! Keziah's favourite thing to do is handstands in the shallow end, but I have yet to snap a picture.

Friday night Keziah got a bug bite of some sort, which left her looking like this till Monday. Poor girl didn't know which eye people were talking about when they asked her, "What happened to your eye?", seeing as that is a daily question for her and has been all her life!

 

Monday night we set off some fireworks in the backyard. I know, I know, the idea is to wait until it's dark, but with it getting dark so late now (9:30-10), and with the kids absolutely exhausted from swimming three days straight, we did them right before they went to bed - at 7! They still liked them.....we think :o)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I put the camera away for the night, Keziah gave me a glimpse into what being a teenager may mean for us and her....

 

But doing your best not to smile can only last for so long.... :)

A week later, we took the kids to an event we thought they would LOVE, especially the boy. I mean, this kid lives, eats, breathes and plays anything to do with cars, trucks, tractors etc. So when I saw that there was going to be a Touch-A-Truck (where kids can climb all over trucks, sit in them etc.), we planned to go.

Well, it ended up being an incredibly hot day - not good for the girl as she *despises* heat, and we discovered that the boy despises horns. So while we thought it'd be fun, 20 minutes into it we realized that the kids were not having fun at all. Oops! Although we only stayed for about 30 minutes, we did manage to grab a few pictures....

 

 

Hopefully the first and LAST time she'll ever be in the back of a police prisoner van.....

 

 

So no Touch-A-Trucks again for this guy. Looking at them on paper is a whole lot, um, quieter! This is what my floors look like often, especially after we pick up the mail. Lincoln snags the large equipment papers that are supposed to go to the landscape office and spreads them all out on the floor and spends a long time looking at each one :o)

I have more to update but I'll leave it for next time. This week was busy with spending time at Sick Kids with Keziah (see "Keziah's Journey" tab at the top of this blog if you don't know what I am talking about), and the weeks are passing us by quickly. Two more weeks and school will be done! Yahooooooo!!!!!

Back to Regular Eating, Er, Programming

Our 30 day clean eating was completed at the perfect time, as someone turned 42 2 days later (I won't mention any names as to who *that* would be, but I will say it wasn't me.....:o), and who would want to be dairy/sugar/grain-free when it's your birthday?! 

And it's a good thing we were done so that I could make his favourite cake: ice cream cake!! Oh, and why not enjoy some Cinnamon Roll Cake as well?!

 

Needless to say, the sugar rush was worth it - soooo good!!

But back to the person who turned 42; I won't spell out my love for him......it just is too hard to spell, and I wouldn't want this post make you gag :o), but I will say that my love for him deepens everyday, especially when I see him in his role as a father. Our children are so blessed to have him!! And I am so blessed to watch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lord has blessed us with a God-fearing man, who leads and provides for his family to the best of his ability. We pray that we may enjoy this blessing of a man for many more years.

Whole 30 Review and Results

So I promised to write a review of how our 30 days went of eating

Well, as expected, it was H.A.R.D.

It was hard to say no to so many things and to say it so often.

It was hard to see that despite thinking we ate quite well before we did this, we weren't doing as great as we thought we were.

It was hard to deal with the withdrawals.

It was hard to swallow how much money we spent (no pun intended....)

It was hard to be in the grocery store every 3-4 days.

It was hard to have to cook every.single.day and every.single.meal from scratch.

It was hard on our social life. The past long weekend we weren't very busy at all. Partly because we didn't want to book it up with BBQs and having to face one temptation after another.

It was hard to bake and not have a single lick of the beater...or the spoon...or from the bowl. Do you *know* how yummy cookie dough is?! Do you KNOW how YUMMY a fresh and warm homemade chocolate cookie is?!?!?

 

But, it wasn't all hard. It was also amazing!

It was amazing to come face to face with foods that we could actually have, foods that have been around all this time for us to eat!

It was amazing to fight through each temptation and challenge, succeeding!

It was amazing to see how blessed we were with such an abundance of healthy food at our fingertips.

It was amazing to see the changes in our bodies as the days went by.

It was amazing to see how fast a week goes by.

It was amazing to see how long an evening can feel when you can't eat anything.

It was amazing to work together as a team, tackling each and every day.

So, the review? Yup, it's hard, don't fool yourselves. But it is also amazing!

Now as for the results.

Nathan's results:

• lost 8 pounds
• the whites of his eyes have never been whiter or brighter
• lots of energy
• proud of himself for achieving the goal of eating like this for 30 days
• feels great about himself

My results:

• lost 5 pounds
• face is clearer
• sleep at night is waaaaayyyy better
• more energy
• no bloating (flatulence was at an all-time low......pretty much non-existent)
• proud of myself for actually doing this, the cooking, the shopping etc.

We have been off of this now for 3 days. We are loving the lack of rigidity of it all but are still pretty much eating the same as we have been the last 30 days. Because I did this for 30 days, my instinct is there to pack a lunch, including healthy snacks, as opposed to slapping a sandwich together with peanut butter (that's a "healthy" protein, right?! HA), with a container of greek yogurt (15 grams of sugar, people!!!) and a granola bar......what? It's got dark chocolate on it. That's the "good" chocolate, no?

Actually, what's really been neat is that all that stuff we've been craving for 30 days? Yeah, now that we are allowed to have it, we don't want it!! Murphy's Law, eh?! But seriously, the first thing we ate that was off limits before was that homemade chocolate chip cookie we were drooling over a few days earlier. It was rather a letdown - not nearly as tasty as our minds had made them out to be.

Are we glad we did it? Yup! I am!! It felt good to be given a challenge, meet it head on and successfully complete it.

But if you ask Nathan if he would do it again, his response is: I will never, ever do this in my life again.

We shall see, we shall see.

Me? Well, I would do it again.....but for now I am enjoying not having to live in a grocery store for awhile. And I better wait until my debit card has some time to cool down. :)