Obedient Food Choices

I feel like the Lord has been working on the area of food and nutrition with me a lot in the past few months. A lot of it started out of my own complaining and whining about not losing the baby weight after having twins. God started convicting me about my attitudes and thought processes regarding the weight and my body and my health. Was I trying to eat healthier only for the reward of losing weight?

I felt like he told me very clearly to make healthy choices out of obedience to Him, regardless of the results. And that is what I'm trying to do and He is allowing this to be a struggle for me because for 6 months I have had no results. Regardless of what I eat or don't eat or how much I exercise, not one of those remaining 15 pounds has gone away. To say that I am frustrated is an understatement. But I keep pressing on, allowing Him to refine my thoughts and attitudes and trying to make healthy choices out of obedience.

A big part of this for me has been drinking Coke. I really like it. I had gotten to the point where I drank it every day. I became addicted to it. I rationalized it saying that since I don't drink coffee, this was my way of having some caffeine each day. And what mama of 5 kids doesn't need some caffeine???

But I realized that I was using it as more of an escape and coping mechanism, and turning to it when I felt overwhelmed and tired and should turn to God instead. This became very clear when I bought a 1.25 L of coke at the grocery store and drank the entire thing in one afternoon. I then tried to hide the bottle in the recycling so Jay wouldn't see it and know that I had drank that much at once. I found myself planning which errands to drive to based on where I could go through a drive-thru and get a coke. I was having a hard time showing self-control.

At this point, I knew God was asking me to give it up. I've had to do this before. Last year I gave it up from August until October. I know what it means to detox myself from it. I actually do crave it and think about it for days and days, sometimes weeks. I started the process at the beginning of June. I allowed myself one a week for June and then none in July. I have managed to make it through all of July without any at all. Now it is August, and I'm contemplating if I can go back to having one a week?? or should I still completely avoid it?? What if he's asking me to give it up forever?

During all of this process, God also started to convict me about food choices for our family. I buy the groceries, I cook 99% of the meals, I am feeding 6 other people. That's a big responsibility. To encourage me in this area a few months ago, I signed up for an online meal planning site called The Fresh 20 (www.thefresh20.com)  They send you a meal plan each week for 5 meals that are based off of 20 fresh ingredients. It even includes the shopping list and prep work for each meal that you can do ahead of time. This has challenged me to try cooking new dishes, and challenged all of us to eat new foods. Let's just say that I wasn't routinely cooking salmon and lentils very much before. I've been pleasantly surprised at encouraged at how much the kids have eaten of these meals, and Jay loves them. I also really appreciate someone doing the meal planning and making the shopping list for me!

At a class I went to a few weeks ago, the lady teaching it (Sera Johnson, at www.choosinghealthylife.wordpress.com) talked about God convicting her about similar issues of food choices for her family. She discussed Proverbs 22:6 which says "Train up a child in the way He should go..." and challenged me to think about what habits I am teaching and training my children with now that may be hard for them to break later. Am I teaching them to make healthy, wise choices; to choose LIFE in what they eat?

She also discussed Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight." Am I trusting God with my food choices? Am I acknowledging Him as the creator of all good things on earth, including the healthy food He gives us?

Sera has 4 small children and when she started making changes, her kids were very picky eaters. She was scared they would starve if she got rid of the mac n cheese and frozen pizzas. She gave us six tips to help picky eaters love God's good food:

1. Get the junk out of the house. if I don’t bring it in the house, they can’t eat it.
2. Have kids make a list of good foods they do like (especially fruits and veggies).
3. Make sure the kitchen is stocked with what they will eat.
4. Try one new thing at each meal and keep trying them. Change the atmosphere at the meal from pressure  and punishment to praise. Praise them for trying it/licking it/tasting it. They don’t have to love it, just try it and tolerate it.
5. Make healthy versions of their favorite unhealthy foods (pizza, chicken strips, etc)
6. Speak positive affirmation at the dinner table. Speak life. Pray “Lord, thank you for your good food and for helping me to love your good food.” Also have them help you cook and teach them how food affects their bodies.

I thought these were great suggestions, and I have been trying some with Anna. She's currently our pickiest eater and often tells me she doesn't like what I've cooked for dinner before I ever put her plate on the table. Extremely frustrating!! But I've been encouraging her to just try one bite of each new food and telling her that it's okay if she doesn't like it; I just want her to taste it. Most of the time she declares she still doesn't like it, but one night she found that she did like the chicken I cooked and proceeded to eat three pieces! This was huge considering she rarely eats any meat!!

(For any homeschool mamas out there, she has a great homeschool curriculum called Nutrition 101 which teaches anatomy, physiology and how nutrition affects them.)

The verse that God has given me to memorize during this process is 2 Corinthians 6: 16 and 7:1 

"For we are the temple of the living God...Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God."

I am very much still a work in progress in this area, but I'm hoping to make small, sustainable steps in the right direction, out of obedience and reverence for God.

The sock drawer

In a home with 7 people and a dog who likes to take socks out of the laundry to tote around the house, we have quite a few mismatched socks. I would say, on average, that I have 2 or 3 lonely socks in every load of laundry. Multiply that by the 15-20 loads of laundry I do each week, and that's a lot of socks!!

I used to put the individual socks back in each person's drawer and would randomly go through to match them up. Now I have a designated sock drawer in the kids' bathroom. All the kids' single socks are placed there and once a week or so, I go through and match up the pairs. Occasionally a small child can do this as a chore. Today I  I found 11 matching pairs!! Whohoo! 

Who knew that as a mom, socks would occupy this much of a strategic plan???

And if we ever need extra socks to make puppets, we know where to get them. 

Working on chores

We have always expected our kids to help around the house. Sometimes we've referred to them as "chores" but usually we just asked them to help on an as-needed basis. Catherine, our type A first child, has occasionally made herself chore charts and rewarded herself with stickers. I've never been consistent with that so she has done it for herself and her siblings when she felt motivated. Once when I asked her to make her bed, she whined "I could do it so much better if you just made me a chart!"

I started to notice a few months ago though that Catherine and Will do much better if they know ahead of time what is expected of them with chores and if I give them some freedom as to when they get those tasks completed. I tend to just notice what needs to be done right that minute and expect them to immediately cooperate. So I started thinking of a way to make this work best for us at this stage of life, to train and not exasperate them, to encourage their helpfulness.

I came across this idea, or something similar to it, on Pinterest. I got some foam door hangers and wooden clothes pins from The Dollar Tree (total investment of $3 for a 3-pack of door hangers and 2 packs of clothespins). The kids wrote their names at the top and we divided it down the middle with a "to do" section on the left and "done" on the right. Then I wrote various chores on the clothes pins, such as laundry, set table, bathrooms, books, toys, shoes, stairs, and trash. The kids and I have talked about what these mean, so they know that if I put "shoes" on their chart that they need to collect all their shoes from beside the front door and put them away.

This system allows me to pick out 2-4 chores that need to be completed each afternoon for each child. Not every day is the same. I tend to let the folded laundry stack up for a few days and then they all get the laundry chore. I rotate who takes out the trash, sets the table, and clears the extra dishes from dinner (everyone clears their own plates).

I usually assign the chores by 2-3pm and I encourage them to complete them before dinner time if possible. They are very good at encouraging and helping each other and it usually takes about 30 mins to get their chores completed.

Sometimes they even decide to do extra chores on their own. Yesterday Catherine swept out and organized the entire garage without me asking. Anna has become quite proficient at setting the table. Last night she set the table for 7 (Mimi and Poppop were coming over) and even included Easter eggs for decorations at each napkin. I was impressed!

Catherine did still make some kind of chart on the refrigerator and they've been rewarding themselves with tally marks for each chore they complete. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with those tally marks. Maybe she will tell me when they reach a certain goal or something!

Mostly I want them to contribute to the work of our family, cheerfully and responsibly. I'm sure this will be an ongoing and changing process of training over the years, but for right now it's working for us.

a little bit of spring

I love flowers. If I had lots of extra time I would play outside in the yard all day. Maybe in heaven God will let me play with the flowers and gardens.

In the meantime, I do a little bit here and there in our yard. When we first moved in (3 1/2 yrs ago) one or two little clumps of daffodils popped up in late winter/early spring. Every year since then, I've tried to plant more bulbs. I really like having random flowers growing in the woods. We've had such warm winters the past two years that they have actually started blooming in January.

I've also recruited a really cute yard boy. He's a five year old named Will. He loves to help dig holes and plant bulbs and flowers with me. The girls think they want to help, but about 15 mins later they declare they're done. Will will stay out there for an hour or more until we get the job done. He also really likes to trim bushes and trees :) Just give the boy a pair of garden clippers and he's really happy.

When I look at our yellow blooms, I enjoy them even more because I think about planting them with my boy. 

Exciting times in the bathroom

I spent one hour cleaning grout in the bathroom tiles in the kids' upstairs bathroom yesterday. I'm pretty sure it hasn't had a good clean since our house was built in 1986. I'm also pretty sure that no one else who lives in our house will even notice my labor of love, so I felt the need to document it.


I saw on Pinterest a grout cleaning method of using baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, so I tried that and it worked pretty well. It may have worked better if I had a new bottle of hydrogen peroxide. I think mine is really old. I also used some bleach cleaner on really stained places. And a lot of scrubbing with an old toothbrush. Woohoo! One bathroom down, two more to go (another day....)

There are many things like that when you're a mom. Small tasks that no one else will notice or appreciate. That's okay. Do it as unto The Lord. Be faithful in the small things too.

A new veggie favorite

A few months ago a friend kept raving about how great roasted cauliflower is. I have never liked cauliflower but thought we would give it a try. It is so good!! We all like it, even the kids. And it's super easy. Perfect.

Just cut a head of cauliflower into small pieces. Or you can buy a bag already precut. Occasionally publix has those bags on sale for $1 each so getting two of those bags is cheaper than one head.

Then mix about 4-5 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tsp salt and pepper and pour over the cauliflower. Roast at 425 degrees for 45-60 mins, until it turns a nice golden brown. And you're done! Hope you try it and enjoy it as much as we have.

The Stairs

Do you have one area in your home that can make the whole house seem clean if it is clean or dirty if it is dirty? For me, it's our stairs.

Our home has this lovely light colored carpet on the stairs and upstairs. It is pretty--if it's clean. With small children who run in and out of the house and through the woods/leaves/dirt all day and a dog who likes to nap on the stairs, it's rarely clean.

After trying to convince myself and jay that polka-dot carpet is in style (because that's what the stains were starting to look like), I finally broke down and steam cleaned the crazy stairs this morning.

Much better now...and the whole house seems a little bit cleaner.

Laundry from 1986

For a few years now, I've been doing laundry from 1986.

That's when our house was built and that's what year our laundry room still looked like.

I know it's just a laundry room and probably not that noteworthy, but I am in there a lot. 

A whole lot.

After the babies were born and I went through my "postpartum nesting" phase, the laundry room had to change. I really didn't want to spend much money on it. It is just a laundry room, so I tried to think creatively about how to brighten and improve the space.

We were having the exterior trim of the house painted, so while the painter was here I figured I could get him to take down the glorious iridescent wallpaper and repair the hole in the sheetrock a plumber left us a year or so ago. I had a gallon of leftover paint from our bathroom and I had our painter mix a little white into it to lighten it up and create the color for the walls.  We were also having new carpet put into our master bedroom (another postpartum thing that was driving me crazy) so I found an inexpensive linoleum remnant to have installed as well. I  had a shelf installed from wall to wall above the dryer (a simple wood board painted white) and added a few fun baskets for cleaning rags and buttons/safety pins, as well as some artwork. Viola! My laundry mood is much improved.

Here's the before:

Not a huge laundry room, but functional. I'm actually glad it's not a huge room. That forces me to deal with the laundry instead of letting it pile up.

 The wallpaper: blue and purple iridescent design. It shimmered in the light. seriously

 the floor: really stained and old linoleum

 Here's the after:
Much brighter and fresher!

It's nothing overly fancy, but I enjoy it so much more. I am in there multiple times per day, so I wanted to enjoy my time there.

And what is the laundry strategy when you have five small children? You do laundry pretty much every time you walk by the laundry room. Put the next load in the washer or the dryer, fold something, take something to be put away. On average I do 2  loads of laundry a day, and once or twice a week I may have a focused laundry day of 4-5 loads and I make sure I get everything folded and put away.

It's a never-ending job for sure. But I am thankful that we have clothes to wear and people to wear them. (And I'm thankful that the ugly wallpaper is gone. Seriously....it doesn't matter what year it was. That was never attractive.)

Delayed Deep Cleaning

One of the benefits of being pregnant is that I usually go into extreme nesting mode around months 7-9. Our house gets a thorough cleaning, closets are organized, cabinets are rearranged, the garage is even cleaned. It's been convenient to be pregnant every other year to make sure things get a good cleaning around here!

With this pregnancy though, I physically couldn't do. I would sit in my chair and think about how I would like to get up and sort through the toys or the clothes or the kitchen cabinets. Every now and then I would try to do a little something and then I wouldn't be able to move the rest of the day.

But now, I can move again! So I'm in a delayed deep cleaning mode. I have a whole list of target areas in the house that I need to clean and sort and rearrange. I'm hoping to tackle one or two areas each week until I get them done. I probably am crazy, but it makes me feel better to know I vacuumed behind my nightstand or organized the toys in the kids' closets.

Cleaning something is one of the only things I do that gives me an immediate result. I can see the before vs. the after. And even if it only stays that way for approximately 8 minutes before some small child messes it up again, I at least know I tried.

I think I'll go rearrange something now.

Celebrating Easter

Happy Easter! We are so excited to celebrate our Savior and that He is alive! This week we've read the crucifixion and resurrection passages in the Bible. Catherine went with Mimi and me to the Maundy Thursday service. And we've just talked with the kids about what it means that Jesus died and rose again.

We also had a few fun Easter activities. My sister Amanda and her 3 girls came over one day and we all died Easter eggs together.

Their beautiful eggs:
After they took theirs home and the kids ate few of them at dinner that night, we decided we needed to dye some more. So tonight we dyed another 15 eggs. Catherine is very into the "nature-inspired" egg look--she made the ones that look brownish, like real eggs she says.
Mimi also made her famous sugar cookies with the kids today. The really enjoyed helping make the dough, cut out the shapes, make the icing, and decorate them. And they're very yummy!!


Marcy used to make huge batches of these cookies and mailed them to Jay when we were at Furman. It was an exciting day when he got a big tin of these cookies!
We hope you have a great Easter celebration as you rejoice in what our Lord has done for us!

Happy Easter!!

Pioneer Woman Obsession

Okay, so when I first learned about Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) a couple of years ago, I was smitten. I read her blog, bought her book and cookbook, even tried a few recipes. I occasionally still use some of her ideas, but it's not a daily obsession of mine any more.

It is, however, now a daily obsession of Catherine and Will. They love her cooking show. We record it on DVR and they routinely watch it at 6:30 in the morning. Catherine loves to watch her cook and Will really likes to see the cowboys and horses. Catherine has also been inspired and wants to "cook" things. This week she made a graham cracker/honey/chocolate/sprinkles snack (it wasn't too bad) and some kind of chocolate "ice cream" which was mostly green food coloring. Even she wouldn't eat that one; although she did say it would be good for St Patrick's day because it turns your teeth green.

Tonight she begged me to cook one of the recipes from the cookbook. It didn't matter which one. Any of them. Although she didn't ask me this until 6pm as I was pulling leftovers out of the fridge. So I promised her that this week I would. Then she told me that Ree has a new cookbook and could I please buy it and cook her something from it. I told her she could get it for me as a birthday present :) Then she asked if we could look on the computer for some of the recipes. The sweet child has the web address memorized from watching the show and knew exactly which recipes she wanted to look at.

I'm guessing that Catherine hasn't figured out yet that I don't love to cook. I like to eat; therefore I cook. But spending hours in the kitchen every day is not my idea of enjoyment. And I guess if my children keep comparing me to her ("Mom, Ree would have made this from scratch."; "Did you know that Ms. Ree makes her own butter?"; "Everything Ms. Ree makes looks fantastic.") that they may continually be disappointed. Oh well, I promise I won't let them starve :)