Eat THIS, Not THAT #2

So, lets talk about Pasta.

mmmmmmmmm. Its my fav. I could probably eat it everyday. no joke. But I only make it 1x a week and sometimes may eat it over the weekend. My kids LOVE noodles! What kid doesn't??!! So I tend to feed them pasta more often than Brent & I. That makes it pretty important for me to make a good choice!

So what pasta is bad for you?

White Pasta. very bad. I only make it for holidays if then. We have cut it out almost entirely.

So, lets talk about why is white pasta bad?

One of the main reasons why you should avoid white pasta in your diet is because this popular staple is made largely from refined white flour. Refined white flour in itself contains almost no dietary goodness in itself and its consumption can have negative effects on health.

Eating white pasta can be likened to eating cardboard, because although it tastes a little better, cardboard probably contains more goodness! The lack of nutrients in white pasta may not make it such a bad thing to eat on its own, but it’s the bad constituents of white pasta that make it such a bad deal when it comes to your general health and weight.

First of all, just like white bread (which we NEVER eat), white pasta contains a large amount of high GI (glycemic index) carbohydrates. That means that the carbohydrates contained in pasta made from refined white flour will release sugars into the bloodstream quickly. This causes a steep rise in blood sugar and a similarly steep reactive rise in the body’s sugar regulating hormone, insulin in order to counter its effects. So many foods do this and that's why we see such an increase in diabetes. Remember how I said I could eat pasta everyday? Its like a sugar treat - it does the same thing to your body as a chocolate bar and contains nothing good for you. Its a feel good food.

The effect on the body’s metabolism is to slow it down, while inhibiting efficient digestion. The result is more fat storage, with those fat cells generally being deposited around the belly. This, as you have probably already figured out is a leading cause of weight gain in people who eat a lot of refined flour products, not least of those being white pasta.

So this is what you DON'T want to eat. Not any brand. White pasta- NO NO!! Make it once it a while for lasagna or eat once in a while while out but NOT as your regular diet.

DON'T EAT THIS!!

Eat THIS instead:

I LOVE BARILLA PLUS PASTA!!! So do my kids. Its great. Its a Multi grain pasta. Much more fiber and protein and lots of good ingredients. Barilla plus tastes similar to white and doesn't have a strong wheat flavor some do not like. It also mixes better with a variety of toppings.

We also eat Whole wheat pasta. Whole wheat pasta is even better for you than Barilla plus. There are lots of different brands. We like this and other.

We like whole wheat pasta the best with a Red Sauce (always low sugar) or tossed with veggies and olive oil and a bit of Parmesan.

Choose your everyday staples wisely!

my 80's song to God

So, I've been in a strange spot with God.

I don't know if that's the way to put it... but I have been searching big time. We had a lot of transition in our life the last few months but its beyond that. A lot of things have happened around my life that, at times, have caused me to question God. A lot of times I ask "God, who are you?"

Sometimes I think that I haven't even scratched the surface of having a relationship with God. I want more. I see people everyday and break down crying because I want to give the heart of God to them and quite honestly, I don't feel that in sync with heaven like Jesus was. He only knew and did what the father gave him. I can't get his heart fast enough.

I have been thinking about how much God loves us and how much his goodness abounds. You know, God sent his son into the world not to condemn. that's right, not to condemn but to make a way for us to have access to a relationship and become sons of God.  Bill Johnson says, The Son of God became a Son of man so that the son's of men could become son's of God.

I have no idea what it means to act and think like a son of God.

So I was driving in the car with 2 of the kiddos (we were peeping in peoples yards at all their swing sets trying to figure out what we want). God & I were having this conversation and I was sharing how I want to act and think like a son (daughter) of God and how I want to see more fruit. Just like I changed my thinking towards the way I raise my kids and now I see better fruit. That it has to be parallel in my relationship with God. I think he is saying, all along you've been told this is who I am and it made you act and do things like this. But thats not me. It never was. THIS is who I am and THIS is who I created you to be.

And all the sudden I just started singing at the top of my lungs...
"I WANNA KNOW WHAT LOVE IS. I WANT YOU TO SHOW ME!!!"

What?? where on earth did that 80s song pop up from???

Well, here it is. my song to God right now.

outwit vs- power struggle

Today I had enough.

ENOUGH I tell you.

We call him the Jace Meister for a reason. He is very meisterly in his ways. haha.

His recent 2 yr old meisterness is listed below.

1. He likes to make messes. Sometimes he goes into the play room and dumps every toy bin within 2 minutes.
2. He likes to get out of bed. 20x at night and at nap.

Today I had enough. Nothing has been working. Not the talking or the time outs or taking things away.

So I thought this morning. duh. I am not using my brain. I am trying to "win the war". I've pulled out all my guns and my son decided he would pull out all his too. And instead of entering the power struggle with him, I need to outwit him. mwhaha. This is something I have learned from my childhood book reading (see earlier posts).

So, I moved the toys. Now almost all of the bins and tubs and block holders are out of his reach. I told him as soon as he can be a big boy and not dump them we will take them down. Until then he has to ask, only can have one thing and has to pick them up when he's finished.

We also purchased 2 extra night lights and we gave them to him as a prize tonight. He was so excited. Brent & I were silently laughing. We then explained that he could do all his bed time stuff (brush teeth, pee, etc) and then his room was closed and locked for the night. We didn't want to see him until the morning. Now don't freak out, I am going to go unlock it before I go to bed. He has friends in bed with him, his cd player on, his blanket and now 3 night lights on. He has a boundary and now I don't have to run up and down the stairs 25x to remind him about it.

I outwitted the 2 year old. Go me.

the language has changed

Some things have changed at our house over the last year. Ok, well a LOT has changed. Moving to a new house/state would was certainly a big change.

But we also have changed the language at our house.

Here's my conversation with Ethan this last weekend:

Ethan:  Dada's made a bad choice today.
Me: Really? what did he do?
Ethan: He was cutting with his very sharp saw and he didn't wear his gloves. He cut his finger so bad. There was lots of blood.
Me: yeah I saw his cut, it was bleeding a lot.
Ethan: He needs to wear his gloves. That was a bad choice. Next time he will remember.


I sat in the car thinking to myself. "Wow.This kid is a genius. How on earth did he put all that together?" I asked Brent if he talked to him about his injury and he said No.

And while Ethan is a pretty head smart kid, I realized he put that together because of the changes in our home over the last year. I hear my kids say a lot of things like the above example. They are learning that they are responsible for their messes. They have to clean them up or make things right with the person. They have choices to make. We aren't controlling them, they have ownership. We changed our entire language and process with our kids.

I don't want to give you the picture like Brent & I are always calm, cool and collected. Eh. That is NOT true. We mess up. a lot. Sometimes we have to ask our kids for forgiveness. Our kids aren't perfect, they are learning. We aren't perfect, we are learning. But the course our family was taking has changed. The way we handle and discipline our kids has changed. And I can't tell you how much better long term fruit we see in our kids.

You can read more about these changes here (this is a note I wrote up on facebook a while ago, I just copied it for my blog):
http://unorthodoxhousewife.blogspot.com/p/my-process-of-disciplining-my-kids.html

Mama and Recipe's

So, my mom called me 2 days ago and asked me for some recipe's.

I almost cried.


It may not seem like a big deal to you.

But it was to me.

You see, my mom had a stroke over 4 years ago after she had heart surgery. I had no idea the depth that this would affect my family. Everything changed for everyone. I mean, what do you do when the rock of the family now needs all of you? My mom was such a different person.  She had a lot of recovery to go through. I know she felt so lost. Everything was jumbled up for her. She felt like she was learning everything for the 1st time.

I will never forget my 1st visit home after her stroke. My mom was ALWAYS in the kitchen. That's where I remember her as a kid. In the kitchen cooking, baking... doing something. She lived for family get-together's, especially when all her kids were home. She's got 8 of us. It's a small army.

This 1st visit after her stroke, no food was made, there was no plan and no one knew what to do. It was then I realized how much the stroke had affected her. We figured something out and have been doing the same thing since.

So when my mom called and said "So, I am doing something for Josiah's birthday. I was thinking Mexican. Can I have some recipes?" You would see why 4 years later my eyes welled up with tears and I choked them back and replied "Great idea! Sure, I have some recipes."

She's come a long way. I love my mom.

Eat THIS, not THAT.

OK, so before I get into this post I should tell you that I STILL have to force my kids to eat their vegetables many times. sigh. Its frustrating. I have tried pretty hard to land on the healthy side of eating. I would say on a scale of 1-10 we are between a 6-7 most days. I don't do all Organic but I try to make the best choices I can.

Some people misunderstand eating healthy as "you just want to be skinny". Sure. I want to be skinny. But I can honestly say changing our eating habits and the brands we buy has NOTHING to do with me wanting to be skinny.

A few years ago, I was exposed to a few moms that would read every label at events. I'll be honest. It was kind of annoying and made me feel a bit defensive. I put it off thinking, "her kids probably have allergies".

And sure. I found out some of them did. But then someone told me to look up some ingredients on labels.

and so... to Google I went!

and I almost threw up. EWWWW. We really have NO idea what we are eating AND in addition many researchers are convinced that the increase in certain disease's we see is directly linked to the changes in food. scary.

Those of you that know me well, know that I had a sister die of cancer at 11. During my sisters sickness, my mom learned a LOT about food and changed our families eating habits. I was young at the time and didn't really get it. But here I was a few years ago, in my 20's, reading this information and completely understanding the changes my mom made.

Who hasn't watched Food Inc ????

You really have too. You need to at least know WHAT you are eating. Denial is bliss but at what cost?? I would rather choose to be educated about the food I am eating, how its made, what it's made of, how it digests (or doesn't digest is probably more common), etc. Most food isn't even food anymore.

You can watch it on You Tube.

Here wait, I will get the link for you:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpv4BsmDUM8&feature=related

There you go. I made it easy. You have to watch all 9 videos. Let me know if you need the other links, I will get them for you. Don't make excuses just watch it. You can even rent it.

OK, So here's my first post on EAT THIS INSTEAD OF THAT. I am going to do it weekly. Today we will talk about Chicken Nuggets. I know most of us know that the Mcdonalds ones suck. haha. Lets look at the differences in the store frozen brand. I try to make my own often, I will post a recipe for those. But most of us need some fast meals on hand and many moms will feed chicken nuggets to their kids. Kids love them, they are advertised everywhere.

** Disclaimer ** these package stats posted below will constantly change in the store. Food products are constantly changing, This is why you need to always check your labels and understand what certain ingredients are.

Purdue Chicken Nuggets:

They look innocent enough. In fact their website and package proudly displays 0 trans fat!!! Just look up some of the ingredients I highlighted and then compare the the STATS list of the two food products. Notice the difference in Fat, Oils used and sodium. Along with all the additives. Also notice how the flour in the Purdue is enriched with all sorts of good additives. Right. The Earths Best just uses whole wheat flour. Sounds so much easier than adding all those good, fake additives.

Perdue' package:

Ingredients:
Chicken breast with rib meat, water, dried whole eggs, seasoning (salt, onion powder, modified corn starch, natural flavor), and sodium phosphates.
BREADED WITH: Enriched unbleached wheat flour (enriched with niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, dextrose, iodized salt, yellow corn flour, modified corn starch, dried whey, soy flour, sugar, spices, caramel color, garlic powder, methylcellulose, artificial oleoresin paprika, spice extractive. Breading set in vegetable oil.

STATS per serving:

       Calories 260 

       Total Fat 16g

•        Saturated Fat 4g
• Trans Fat 0g
• Polyunsaturated Fat 5g
• Monounsaturated Fat 6g

• Cholesterol 75mg
• Sodium 450mg

Earth's Best Chicken Nuggets

These nuggets taste AWESOME and have whole grain breading along with a much better ingredient list. They are a bit more expensive. Maybe $1-$2 a package depending on your store.

Earths Best package:

Chicken Meat, Water, Contains Less than 2% of the Following: Evaporated Cane Juice, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Rice Starch, Sea Salt, Spice. Battered & Breaded with: Whole Wheat Flour, Water, Wheat Flour, Corn Starch, Evaporated Cane Juice, Sea Salt, Leavening (Baking Soda, Cream of Tartar), Garlic Powder, Yellow Corn Flour, Yeast, Onion Powder, Spice, Sunflower Oil, Extractive of Turmeric. Breading Set in Expeller Pressed Canola Oil and/or Soybean Oil and/or Safflower Oil.

STATS per serving
Calories 120
Total Fat 3g

• Saturated Fat 0g 0%

• Cholesterol 25mg
• Sodium 270mg

Weaver and Banquet brand nuggets are basically the same as Purdue. Banquet is even a bit worse.  Tyson has recently changed their nugget recipe to much better ingredients however their fat stats stay the same because of the bad oil they fry them in.
PS. Don't ever buy chicken that says Mechanically seperated chicken. Just look that up. Try not to throw up.

Read your labels. If you get nothing else from this blog, that would be enough.

Routine or schedule

A regular course of procedure vs. a timetable

Someone has to be the leader and its going to be me or the toddlers. I have to at least try to be in charge. haha.

I am one of 7 kids, had a nanny job from ages 14-17, worked in a day care, worked in children’s ministry, nannied as an adult and then had my Ethan… he’s almost 5 now. Holy moly.

Here he is...

Now look at him...

sigh.


ok, what was I talking about.

schedules. right.

I learned the value of routine and consistency early on as a mom. It’s important for their sakes to learn things, and for my sake to keep sanity. It’s a good thing I discovered this early because I never expected to have 3 under 3! Ah, my sweet feisty baby girl. You were a great surprise. I am beyond blessed to stay at home with my kids. But anyone who tells you its not a job is lying. the end.

Overall, most of my “mom life”, I have had some sort of routine. Sometimes I feel like every time I get in a routine something happens and changes it all up… which forces me to analyze the disruption and switch to a new routine. Sigh. So goes life with babies/toddlers. But it’s important to find one or else your life will be chaotic which brings no good fruit. I like to think of it as... my job is to make sure EVERYONE is thriving. We are a family unit. The kids need to thrive, I need to thrive and my husband needs to thrive. That’s healthy. Unhealthy is putting your kids first.  Now that doesn’t mean most of my days aren’t sacrificial. I’ll be honest. They are. But I make sure that I take care of myself  and that I work on who I am apart from my kids. I make sure I work on my marriage and remember I am a wife too.

Schedule????!!!

As infants, I followed babywise method loosely to get my kids to sleep through the night and establish eating patterns (babywise is a series of books). We have always had set nap and eating times. Sleep and meal times keep things sane around here. When Ava (aka. Princess) was born, I needed to have more than a routine and had to stick to a schedule. This is when I had 3 under 3, my husband was finishing college and I was leading worship at our church. I leaned into a friend who is very scheduled with her kids. In fact she has a mega excel sheet she created and uses! It was great source of information and sparked lots of ideas for me.  I stuck to it for Ava’s 1^st 6 months. My friend does blanket time, room time, basement time, table time, TV time, and book time with her kids throughout her day along with all the eating and sleeping times of course.  

As soon as Ava started getting older.... I think she was about this age....
baby girl. 
agghhhh. so cute.

I began to realize I couldn’t do the schedule anymore. It made me hate my life.  While I needed a routine and order, a schedule made me feel trapped.  I think its so important to know yourself AND be strong enough in who you are that you can take advice from other people. We can all learn things from each other and I can honestly say I am SO thankful for all the wonderful moms and families I have learned and gained wisdom from.

But when you take that wisdom you have to know yourself, your kids, your husband, who you are, what makes you tick, what stresses you out and then you have to be the caretaker of your garden and find what works.  If something is NOT working, you need to know it’s really worth trying to make it better! Reach out to other moms, read, research. Try to fix the problem that’s making life difficult always knowing who you are (your strengths and weakness). It’s worth it for your health, the health of your home, your relationship with your husband and ultimately your children’s future.

Every mom should have a stress list and should try to work on it. I know many of you may have a lot more stressful things in your life than me. I have the utmost respect for moms who have a few little ones and work full time. Especially those who work from home. I call the things on my list mom stress b/c they so minimal compared to some of the problems families face everyday. I understand that. These are everyday little stresses. I believe if you can help their be less stress in small areas it will help keep you and your home/family full of life. It will ultimetly promote life everywhere else

Here’s my "mom" stress list:

1.    Mess outside of the play room (I need a tidy house or I feel stressed. Eh. not always a good mix with 3 little ones. I try.)

What I do about it:

-         My kids know where their coat and shoes go and put them away (well Jace is learning and Ava will- it’s a process but we have a goal!)

-         Toys are always redirected back to the play room throughout the day

-          Play room and house is picked up at the end of the day so we start fresh every day. I have the kids help sometimes, sometimes not. I don’t bug Brent about it. It’s my issue.  I want everything in its place for the morning. So if that takes me 15 min each night before I go to bed, I do it.

-          Dishwasher is unloaded  from the day before at lunch (while kids are eating) then loaded from the morning dishes, after dinner we finish loading and run it. We do this every day

-          I make my bed every day and my room is always clean (I know, I am a freak. I actually probably make the bed b/c I got a demerit in bible school for an "unkempt" bed one year J)

-          Kids clean up their rooms when we are done playing upstairs

2.    Constant list of house chores to do

What I do about it:

-          I have 2 laundry days – I don’t do it any other time. I sort, wash and put away those 2 days

-          I thoroughly clean 1 day a week, only the kitchen is cleaned up and the main area vacuumed daily (ok, sometimes there are a few messes around here that I have to clean up other times)

3.    No down/ uninterrupted time during the day

What I do about it:

-          Everybody has rest/quiet time in the afternoon (unless someone decides to be difficult or wake someone up. This happens 10% of the time)

-          I try to keep up with as much as possible while they are awake so that I can actually have “downtime”- which usually means take a shower & read/spend time with Jesus. It doesn’t always happens but it’s always my goal.

4.    Things are to scheduled

What I do about it

-          I am nuts. Although I like a schedule during the week, if I stick to that on the weekend I would shoot myself. There is no schedule for the weekend. We do fun stuff together; we try to fellowship with people as much as possible and serve when we can. We make sure everyone eats, gets a nap and goes to bed and has as much fun as possible.

5.    Brent & I don’t connect (I am really glad this stresses me out. Haha. Probably a good thing)

What I do about it

-          Try to get at least 15 min to have adult talk on week nights. Yes. this is our reality.

-          I always try to make sure we do something intentional over the weekend.   If we can’t get out alone we eat dinner after the kids have gone to bed. We will order out or do fun appetizers. Watch a movie, listen to a teaching, etc. We try to have some sort of date 1x a month out alone.

If you take the above and throw preschool drop off/ pick up, meal times, nap times, dinner time, bed time in there- that’s my weekday schedule. As we go through the day I use table time, room time, basement time etc. as needed. Most of the time during the day I let them do what they want to. If they are getting bored or into trouble, I suggest “Do you want to do this or this?”

Little cuties. Don't they look like angels???

They make big messes though.



Like this. heres the play room.



I have an errands day, laundry days, cleaning day, and organizing/plan day (I make calls, plans, return emails and I plan 5 meals for a week (but I don’t always stick to them, I know, I am such a rebel). The days I do these things change every week but I look at each week and figure out what works.

Some days I have many things to do and it requires more organization on my part. I mostly schedule myself around their routine. It can get crazy and takes lots of multi tasking but that’s why we women are so amazing, right?????

There's a look inside my life. I am glad it's the weekend. no routine or schedule!! :)