Surrogacy

If you followed my blogs at all before, you know that I carried twin girls for a couple in Italy. They stayed in the US for 6 weeks after they were born and then went back to Italy. They are now almost four months old and they are getting big! Their mom just e-mailed me a photo of them and I am going to share it here with all of you!

Aren't they just the sweetest babies?

A Dinner Success!

I'll admit, when we first started eating whole foods, I wasn't sure that my husband would really like it. I even wondered if my kids would ever get used to it. I actually had to make a rule that if you complain about a meal, you leave the table. I decided to give it a fair amount of time and then decide whether or not to keep doing it. We started out slowly, but eventually cut out most meat and dairy - the kids hated almond milk and rice milk. Not having ever been a huge fan of soy milk myself, I doubted whether or not they would like it, but I tried it - SUCCESS! They love it. They will now also use almond milk if I buy the original instead of the unsweetened. I don't like to do that because of the sugar content, but I think I could slowly wean them off of the sugary one to the unsweetened, especially for oatmeal. We've had this kind of success time and time again and the kids have learned to love SO many different foods.

Last night for dinner, I made BBQ tofu on brown basmati rice with grilled corn and zucchini. The corn tasted a little smoky from the grill, which is why I like to cook it on there and the zucchini had black marks on it from where it had been touching the grill. I thought for sure I would get a complaint, but I was surprised! I heard lots of "mmmm's" and "yum's" about all of the food! Even my husband enjoyed it. It always makes me feel so good to provide a healthy, delicious meal for my family!

Sabbath Activities

Our family believes that we should set aside one day each week to rest. We choose to set aside the same day each week and to call it "Sabbath," as Jesus did. On this day, we refrain from working. We refrain from making purchases. We try to stay away from wordly things that may even manage to pull us in on other days of the week, such as television and secular radio programming. We try to keep our focus on God and all of the things He has given to us.

That being said, sometimes Sabbath can be hard for children. I have tried many things in the past to keep them occupied, but haven't always had the best of luck. Our eldest daughter gets heat rash if she is exposed to heat. Our youngest daughter just plain doesn't tolerate the heat well. So, down here in Tennessee, which may be a little too close to the equator for our family's comfort, we have to find indoor activities that honor God during the hot summer months. I put together a box of Sabbath coloring books, games, puzzles and books that they only take out on Sabbath. I always have an assortment of crafts to take out to occupy their time. We have the entire set of Your Story Hour CDs, which we listen to throughout the week, but the Bible story ones are especially nice for Sabbath. Sometimes we will even resort to a Veggie Tales DVD, though I don't really like to go that route. That is about the extent of our Sabbath-keeping ideas for indoors during summer. I decided that I really needed to step it up in order to make Sabbath an enjoyable time for my kids, not something to dread like I used to when I was a kid.

The first thought I had was that I needed to re-stock the Sabbath box. It is #1: too small - it is stuffed full, making it tough to find particular items; #2: too boring - the same stuff has been in it for a long time; and #3: too young - most of the toys have been in there since Abbie was 4.

After that first thought, I started to have bunches of great ideas. I ordered I Spy bags (from here). The bags look different on the outside, but they have exactly the same items inside, which can be seen through a plastic window in the front and are hidden in little plastic pellets. I also ordered a quiet book (from here) which can be brought to church or just played with quietly inside the house. The quiet book is totally personalized to fit whatever you want for your child. I bought a Noah's Ark game, some Bible painting activities and some cool temporary tattoos that have a bible verse on them. You tattoo one to the back of each family member's hand (they come with four of each verse) and you all learn the same Bible verse that week! I am having fun coming up with more and more ideas to fill up our Sabbath box with! Anyone have any great ideas for fun indoor Sabbath activities? I'd love to hear them!