W4: Welcome Fall!

This week was a short week with Labor Day on Monday, and a field trip on Friday. Monday was spent organizing the house, and working on some long overdue projects. The weather took an autumnal turn this week and it was great to be able to crack the windows and get things aired out. As far as school went this week we finished up a few of our books and started new ones. Pedro's Journal was one of the one's we finished. It was a quick read and insight into how things would've been if you were with Columbus when he sailed to the Americas. Max really has a hard time remembered facts and dates sometimes, and I love that with Sonlight we spend so much time on a subject through so many different forms of information. For example, we have been reading about Columbus in Story of the U.S.A. and doing the questions with that, and if that was all we were doing Max would be lost, but throwing in Pedro's Journal builds on the facts and makes it memorable and plants the story in his head. We also finished up Walk the Worlds Rim this week (as I mentioned in an earlier post) and that led to lots of discussion about slavery, which once again tied into Columbus.

    This year in science we are studying magnets and electricity and this week we finally got our science supply kit so that we could start doing some experiments. Once again, this is where Sonlight soars! Giving Max hands visual opportunities to learn.  I had to smile as Kahli even joined us for a few experiments.

  
   Lastly, the highlight of the week for me was our field trip on Friday. We traveled about 1 1/2 hours away to an apple orchard and then came back home and made apple cider with a borrowed apple press! So much fun, and such a great way to welcome in fall.

The Real Deal

Sometimes you just have to be real. I make lofty goals and plans far to often. Not that goals are a bad thing but to often I can get sidetracked or overwhelmed and sometimes I have to get real. Healthy eating is one of those things. I can get so caught up in something because I know people who are doing something or I read about it on my favorite blog. Then implement it only to realize that it just doesn't work for us and that once again I've reverted back to some good 'ol middle school peer pressure.

Butter was like that for me. Margarine is bad, bad, bad. Right? That's what I read... On a blog, on Facebook, from dear Dr. Mercola. Bad. Bad. Bad. Butter is good. Good. Good. It's real food. Traditional food. Yes, I decide that I would shun all artificial butter. We used real butter for everything. Then there was sugar. For quite a while we had been using Splenda. But once again the internet powers that be that I consulted said that was bad, bad, bad. So we just used sugar. I wanted to use other substitutes, but us was all so confusing and expensive. So we used sugar. Sugar and butter. Well, guess what happened? That's right, we got fat. Fat. Fatter. So, I've decided that being overweight... Okay... OBESE is far worse for ny health right now that margarine and fake sugar.

So, I'm back to Splenda and maple syrup and actually trying to cut sugar out. Taking vitamins and acidophilus to help with some yeast related issues. And water, lots of water. Did you know they say eight MINIMUM? It actually depends in your weight, so there may be a chance you need even more that. Also watching portion sizes and snacking. So there you have it, that's the real deal. I think it's so important to make each decision based on what your needs are. Not just by what someone else says is "the way".

So with a new blog is the desire to start taking more pics and thus just seemed like the perfect one for today. Can you believe the size of this egg? Wouch... Poor girl!