Sunday, December 11, 2011

Exploring

As I am driving the kids around from place to place, I am always looking for good photo spots. I don't consciously try to look for them, but I always catch myself doing it. I saw this lot that was for sale and just had to stop and try it out. The kids enjoyed exploring.







Saturday, December 10, 2011

Ragged Mountain - S'mores





We built a fire each night and roasted marshmallows one night. Estella pretty much goes crazy over sugar as you can see in this picture. Jackson and I are actually quite concerned about this lately. Estella is the first child to show major mood swings and behavior changes in connection to eating sugar and low quality foods. We eat much healthier than the majority of people. We really don't eat very much sugar. We eat whole grains almost 100% of the time, lots of fruits and veggies, and avoid all processed foods. I make most things from scratch including bread, granola, yogurt, and all of our meals. I can count on a difficult afternoon with Estella after church because her primary teachers give out candy almost every week (I love her primary teachers. They are wonderful and I don't blame them!). It isn't just Sundays...it is any day when she has sugar...especially if she has it on an empty stomach. It seems like if she eats a little bit with a good meal or just after a good meal, it doesn't bother her as much. I will probably share more details and discoveries about this soon. We are determined to discover how to best help her stay emotionally level. (even if it means pinning a sign to her back that says "Don't give me sugar!")

We borrowed a telescope from Jackson's parents and brought it with us. It was really cold once it got dark, so our telescope adventures were shorted than we would have liked, but we enjoyed them all the same! We all looked at the moon. It was inspiring to see it so close. We also looked at several different stars. After we got the kids to sleep, Jackson and I went out and looked for constellations. We have a book called The Stars by H.A Rey that is great! It is the best I have seen for helping you find and remember where the constellations are. We really enjoyed doing this.

Ragged Mountain- Jump Rope

We brought two jump ropes with us....one long and one short. It was so much fun to see the kids learning to jump!






Thomas had a hard time keeping his pants up :)