5 Things I Love...

Here is a new idea I got from a blog I frequent often, moneysavingmom.com

5 Things I Love this week...

1) I just heard Audrey say to her brother, "Obey your parents, Andrew." I love hearing Audrey learn to talk. She is articulate, much like her older sister, Melody. I can already teach her to memorize verses from the Bible, such as the one we are learning now- Ephesian 6:1 "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." She tells stories, pretends, "reads" books to herself, sings songs. The skies are the limit to the words and sentences that come out of this two year old's mouth. She amazes me! It is so fun to be her mommy and to see her grow.

2) The Trim Healthy Mama. Wow, I could write a very long post about how this book is so fascinating, detailing how to live a well-balanced and healthy lifestyle. Today I tried the Muffin in a Mug recipe and loved it! I used ground golden flax seed (ground it up in Ethan's coffee grinder) and coconut flour-- no wheat flour at all. This book does not recommend that you eliminate wheat from your diet completely, but encourages you to limit wheat because of how it spikes blood sugar and consequently adds unwanted padding to your body as well as other detrimental health effects. I am slowly patterning my eating habits to fit the details of this book and I am already losing weight in a healthy progression.

3) The Read Aloud Revival Podcast. Within the last few months I have listened to 17 of these episodes. I love them! The podcast is to encourage parents to read aloud to their children, because it has such a proven long-term effect on the academic success of children, as well as builds a parent-child bond. In each podcast, an author or blogger is interviewed and I have gained so many ideas and inspiration from these podcasts. I love it!

4) I love the summer sunshine and taking the babies to the pool. On the days that Ethan is off work, I take the little kids to a shallow swimming pool that our city provides for free admission. The pool allows only children ages 6 and under, which I think is part of the reason that it is so nice to go there-- no loud, wild play from older kids at the pool. It is in a beautiful, quaint neighborhood and something about the atmosphere is just relaxing.

5) Story of the World, written by Susan Wise Bauer and read by Jim Weiss. This summer, we are quickly making a routine of breakfast at the table all together and listening to Story of the World. I can't praise the storytelling of Jim Weiss enough. He is becoming a family favorite. I would love to build a collection of all his CD's. Overall, the kids are really enjoying this at breakfast! We usually have a coloring sheet to work on during the story and sometimes activities like word searches to solidify some of the vocabulary. I think Bauer has written an introductory book about stories from history that is engaging and exciting for children. We love it!