Changes

Wow! I can't believe I haven't blogged in about 2 months. We have been on vacation. That's all I can say. We had a great trip to Colorado and New Mexico--I'll try to post some pictures later. I have also been trying to make some changes in my life involving a better diet and more exercise. While in Colorado, I came across this book. It's called Ultra Metabolism. I had been wanting to make some dietary changes this summer and this book seemed interesting. I loved the suggestions he made and how he important a good diet is for your overall health, and not just for your weight. Then, when I got home I found out that I have high blood sugar, so it gave me extra incentive to work on my diet and exercise. Since then I have cut out sugar and wheat products from my diet. I am in the detox phase right now. I can re-introduce small amounts of those things later, but so far it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. I had a few headaches the first few days, but since then I have had good energy, and have felt pretty good.

I also started doing an exercise program called cross-fit with a few girls from church. It has also been good. The workouts are short, but intense and at first I was unable to complete them. After a few weeks, I am able to complete them with no problem. Right now I am also reading Anticancer: A new way of life, which is also a great book. As most of you know, I am a cancer survivor of more than 10 years. This book makes it clear that diet and lifestyle choices do have an effect on cancer in prevention and keeping cancer in remission longer. I had not heard this information clearly stated this way before. Both of these books confirm the choices I have been making this summer and encourage me to keep going.

A typical day's food for me will look like this:
Breakfast: Banana, blueberry and soy milk shake with flax seeds
Snack: Almonds and fruit
Lunch: Cannelini bean salad, fruit
Snack: Veggies with hummus
Dinner: Fish or Chicken with vegetables and wild rice or quinoa

I feel really lucky that we have access to so much cheap, good quality produce in California. There are so many different kinds of fruit that I don't really miss desserts that much.

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, Nate outdid himself and got me some antique glass bottles from a nearby antique store. He tried to find replacements for the 2 glass bottles we got on our honeymoon in PEI, which have broken in a couple of accidents in recent years. It really made my day that he gave me such a thoughtful gift. I made the cinnamon blueberry muffins --a favorite recipe from Epicurious.

Jakey has been really into Birthdays recently so he wanted to sing Happy Birthday and blow out a candle with his muffin. He looks a little tired because he had an ear infection. Both he and I ended up with ear infections that week.

Potato stamping

We had a special project to do for Jacob's preschool class--his first homework assignment. They gave us some paper to trace his body and we were instructed to decorate it. I didn't want to cheat and color it nicely myself, but I also didn't want him to have a bunch of multi-colored scribbles, so I decided to let him decorate with potato stamps. He had a lot of fun. He chose the shapes and got really into the stamping.

RH Quilts 34 &35

Sorry for the bad picture quality. I had to try to photograph these quilts on the windiest day of the year and so decided just to do it inside. I think this one is #34. We managed to use up all of the quilt blocks with none left over and I think our combinations still look nice.

Another crazy thrifted sheet for the back.

A few of our "Thanksgiving" and "Christmas" blocks made it into the quilt. Lovely. =)

I love the pansy thrifted sheet on the back of this quilt. I'm going to miss having an excuse to grab every vintage sheet in sight. I'll have to think of another reason to hoard these great sheets.

Shelley and Abby's quilts

This quilt was made for Shelley. In our haste to put it together, hers didn't get any batting, but since it will probably spend a lot of time in Hawaii, it might not matter. Most of the blocks incorporate the hula cow fabric she got at a yard sale in Hawaii, so it is fitting that this quilt should go to her.

We also made a quilt for Abby, our pastor's wife. Hers was made up of our favorite squares and there is batting in this one.

Descanso Gardens

We haven't been to these gardens in a while, and I have to say--April is probably the BEST time to visit them. Everything was blooming. It was absolutely beautiful. They have areas that are very cultivated and wilder areas filled with native plants. It was a great day to wander and explore the gardens--and the lighting was perfect to capture the vividness of all of the flowers.

Jakey was especially happy to see his cousin Trevor at the gardens.

Having some serious conversation about goldfish.

Jacob and Grandma

Jakey is getting a little more opinionated about clothing choices. He loves wearing his Spiderman pajama shirts. He also loves wearing his cowboy boots and backpack.

He loved having grandma around because she would wear what he wanted and follow him around.

Here they are with their backpacks, sunglasses and hats.