Favorite photo of the week:

Today we took all five of the children into the dr's for a check up. I had realized that they hadn't been to the dr's at all since long before we moved here. So since we've lived here for 15 months now, I figured they were well overdue for check ups! lol

I really like our dr. He's pretty down to earth and I like how he doesn't seem to feel the need to push stuff on us like vacinations, meds, antibiotics etc.. We have had our children vacinated, but it was at our discretion, at on our schedule, not theirs. We don't believe there's anything wrong with meds when one is sick, but we just feel there's no need to go overboard with them either and that sometimes they do more harm then good.

We've actually been learning a lot about some things. We did some research after a discussion hubby had with someone he did some work for. They discussed how some feel that a large part of the problem with obesity in our society is because of the hormones in the meats we eat. I can't clearly explain it all right now, but once I understand it all better I may.

I told hubby it could be true. Over the last few months I've been slowly loosing weight without really changing a whole lot in our diet besides eating all organic meats. If you read my blog regularly, you know we raised our own meat chickens, and pork this past summer. We also have our own hens for eggs. We found a small farm to sell us organic beef as well. So we've only been eating organic meats for the past few months now. That is the only thing that has changed in my diet.

Now one might think it's not a big deal to only have lost a few pounds over the last little while, but before then, I was always slowly gaining. Not pounds a week, but probably an average of a pound a month. Now I'm loosing about 3 pounds a month. To me, that says something.

Also, while visiting with our dr today (when you take five children in for a checkup, you get time in there to 'visit' lol), he commended us for how well our children are doing. I mentioned to him that some have said our children are 'skinny'. He told us that society is becoming so accustomed to seeing heavier children, that 'chubby' is becoming what they expect to be normal. He said our children are exactly as they should be.

He also shared about a study that had been done in the US recently. The compared average Amish teen boys, with extremely athletic teen boys in organized sports. They did all sorts of physical tests, endurance, fitness etc.. In all the tests, the Amish teen boys were MUCH more fit then the teen athletes!

I think we all 'know' that a truly healthy "Lifestyle" is going to cause us to be truly fit, yet I have struggled at times with worrying that my children may not be active enough. lol How silly!

My husband and I dicussed this on the way home and realised that there are a lot of teen boys out there who may be truly awesome in sports, but what are they doing the rest of the day? So often you see these same boys sitting around, slouched in a chair playing on a computer or laying on the couch watching tv. Sure, they may spend a couple of hours a day on a sport, but the rest of the time you can often find them simply 'hanging around'. Just because a boy is in organized sports, does not neccesarily mean that he will be truly fit.

Our dr also talked to us about supplements. We've often wondered about supplements, vitamins etc.. We've wondered if they were actually any good at all, or of any true benefit. Our dr explained to us another study that had been done with Vitamin E for example. They have found that persons who take more then 200 IU of Vitamin E per day have a higher risk of heart disease. Yikes! I have Vitamin E here and each one is 400 IU!

He went on to explain that vitamin E in it's true form is actually quite easy to obtain daily. Then he explained what happens with the vit E that is bottled. He went on to explain how true vit E looks under a microscope. There are 8 perfect components (can't remember the scientific name lol) when you immediately remove it from say, a potato. If you were to bottle that for even one day, those components start to die off, and the molecules are no longer perfect anymore.

So, he went on to explain that when we take a vit E capsule, and eat a potato, our body isn't picky about which vit E it absorbs and it may very well absorb the not perfect vit E over the perfect vit E in the food we eat.

Well, that certainly made sense!

Hopefully I explained it here well enough to make sense also. lol

He also shared that men who take too much calcium have been found to have prostate problems. Hmmm...not good.

So we learned a lot at our dr's visit today.

I have no problem accepting that the children are getting enough vitamins in the foods they eat. All our children eat very well. They all love fruits and veggies, dairy products and meats. I know all of them get a good balance. I do need to work on my own diet though. Lately my daily intake has consisted of 2 pieces of toast mid morning, possibly a piece of fruit sometime during the day, dinner, and then two pieces of toast later in the evening. I've been eating like this for years now. Probably not the healthiest diet! I need to up my fruits, veggies and dairy intake. I'm not big on milk and cheese, but I do like yogurt and I should be eating it with some all bran or something.

But, enough rambling about all that. Monday I get to go in for a complete check up. Oh joy, oh joy. My what fun.

In other news...

We are considering building our next home!

We have our eye on a piece of property that is 72.5 acres in the area we are moving to.

The property is completely affordable for us too. We just have to work out details about where we would live for a year or so while we build. We may be able to swing though and we are trying to work out some of the details. If some things get ironed out, I'll share more when I can.

We've always wanted to build, but never thought it could possibly be an achievable dream for us. The funny thing is, years ago hubby and I were looking at some building plans. There was one in particular that we both REALLY liked. We're quite picky when it comes to the lay out of a house. I HATE wasted space in a house. I've always said I would LOVe to build my own home, and be able to choose the lay out so there would be NO wasted space. Well this plan we found years ago had no wasted space. We found this plan when Alesia was only about 3, and Joshua was just a baby, yet the plan has four bedrooms! Exactly what we want! There's an open kitchen with a breakfast area and the whole thing is open to the family room. I have ALWAYS loved this concept. We love having a nice dinning room and living room for when we have company, but I've also loved having a really homey area for the family to hang out in.

The only problem with the plans we've been hanging onto for all these years, is it's 2600 square feet. We want to keep the home we build to under 2000 square feet. So I will be on the lookout for a home that is JUST like this one, but with each room just a bit smaller. I may have to show the plans to my dad as he knows what he's doing when it comes to drafting. Maybe he could come up with some suggestions.

So, that's the biggest excitement for us right now. When Graydon first brought up the idea to me, I was a little hesitant because I've been dreaming of a nice big old home. Yet, when I really started to think about it, I realised we could build our home and add the special little things we love about an old home. It really would be something else to build a home just the way we want it! To have a hobby room just how we want it, big enough for the 'mens' train hobby AND the 'ladies' sewing hobby. To be able to put in special things like built in bookshelves for my (our) book addiction(s). We could even put in a special cabinet in our breakfast nook for school books! That way when we do school in the kitchen at the table (which we usually end up doing), we can hide things away once we are done.

Yes, I think building our own home could really be a lot of fun. I think it could be a WONDERFUL learning opportunity for all the kids as well.  We'll just have to see how everything works out, and keep praying about it all.